about their duties Mother reclined on the sofa and started unwrapping a wafer-thin chocolate mint. She allowed herself one chocolate mint a day. She nibbled so infuriatingly slowly she made each one last an hour.
“One of my Bendicks luxury chocolate mints has gone walkies again!” she called out.
Annabelle shot Chloe an accusing look before returning to the dining room to collect some more plates. “I bet it was you, fatty!” she hissed.
“Be nice, Annabelle,” chided Dad.
Chloe felt guilty, even though it wasn’t her who had been scoffing her mother’s chocolates. She and Dad assumed their familiar positions at the sink.
“Chloe, why were you trying to hide one of your sausages?” he asked. “If you didn’t like it, you could have just said.”
“I wasn’t trying to hide it, Dad.”
“Then what were you doing with it?”
Suddenly Annabelle appeared with another stack of dirty plates and the pair fell silent. They waited a moment until she had gone.
“Well, Dad, you know that tramp who always sits on the same bench every—”
“Mr Stink?”
“Yes. Well, I thought his dog looked hungry and I wanted to bring her a sausage or two.”
It was a lie, but not a big one.
“Well, I suppose there isn’t any harm in giving his poor dog a bit of food,” said Dad. “Just this once though, you understand?”
“But—”
“Just this once, Chloe. Or Mr Stink will expect you to feed his dog every day. Now, I hid another packet of sausages behind the crème fraîche, whatever that is. I’ll cook them up for you before your mother gets up tomorrow morning and you can give them—”
“WHAT ARE YOU TWO CONSPIRING ABOUT?” demanded Mother from the sitting room.
“Oh, erm, we were just debating which of the Queen’s four children we most admire,” said Dad. “I am putting forward Anne for her equestrian skills, though Chloe is making a strong case for Prince Charles and his unrivalled range of organic biscuits.”
“Very good. Carry on!” boomed the voice from next door.
Dad smiled at Chloe cheekily.
Mr Stink ate the sausages in an unexpectedly elegant manner. First he took out a little linen napkin and tucked it under his chin. Next he took an antique silver knife and fork out of his breast pocket. Finally he produced a dirty gold-rimmed china plate, which he gave to the Duchess to lick clean before he set down the sausages neatly upon it.
Chloe stared at his cutlery and plate. This seemed like another clue to his past. Had he perhaps been a gentleman thief who crept into country houses at midnight and made off with the family silver?
“Do you have any more sausages?” asked Mr Stink, his mouth still full of sausage.
“No, just those eight I’m afraid,” replied Chloe.
She stood at a safe distance from the tramp, so that her eyes wouldn’t start weeping at the smell. The Duchess looked up at Mr Stink as he ate the sausages, with a heartbreaking longing that suggested that all love and all beauty was contained in those tubes of meat.
“There you go, Duchess,” said Mr Stink, slowly lowering half a sausage into his dog’s mouth. The Duchess was so hungry she didn’t even chew; instead she swallowed it in half a millisecond before returning to her expression of sausage-longing. Had any man or beast ever eaten a sausage so quickly? Chloe was half-expecting a gentleman in a blazer and slacks with a clipboard and stopwatch to appear and declare that the little black dog had set a new sausage-eating international world record!
“So, young Chloe, is everything fine at home?” asked Mr Stink, as he let the Duchess lick his fingers clean of any remnants of sausage juice.
“I’m sorry?” replied a befuddled Chloe.
“I asked if everything was fine at home. If things were tickety-boo I am not sure you would be spending your Saturday talking to an old vagabond like me.”
“Vagabond?”
“I don’t like the word ‘tramp’. It makes you think of someone who smells.”
Chloe tried to conceal her surprise. Even the Duchess looked puzzled and she didn’t speak English, only Dog.
“I prefer vagabond, or wanderer,” continued Mr Stink.
The way he put it, thought Chloe, it sounded almost poetic. Especially ‘wanderer’. She would love to be a wanderer. She would wander all around the world if she could. Not stay in this boring little town where nothing happened that hadn’t happened the day before.
“There’s nothing wrong at home. Everything is fine,” said Chloe adamantly.
“Are you sure?” enquired Mr Stink, with the wisdom some people have that cuts right through you like a knife through butter.
Things were, in fact, not at all fine at home for Chloe. She was often ignored. Her mother doted on Annabelle—probably because her youngest daughter was like a miniature version of her. Every inch of every wall in the house was covered with celebrations of Annabelle’s infinite achievements.
Photographs of her standing smugly on winner’s podiums, certificates bearing her name emblazoned in italic gold, trophies and statuettes and medals engraved with ‘winner’, ‘first place’ or ‘little creep’. (I made up that last one.)
The more Annabelle achieved, the more Chloe felt like a failure. Her parents spent most of their lives providing a chauffeur service for Annabelle’s out of school activities. Her schedule was exhausting even to look at.
Monday
5am Swimming training
6am Clarinet lesson
7am Dance lesson, tap and contemporary jazz
8am Dance lesson, ballet
9am to 4pm School
4pm Drama lesson, improvisation and movement
5pm Piano lesson
6pm Brownies
7pm Girls’ Brigade
8pm Javelin practice
Tuesday
4am Violin lesson
5am
