May 11, 2020
May 11, 2020: Review, edit and update ~ When I review these early episodes, I expect to find typos and sentence structure issues. I also expect to find timeline issues. What I don’t expect is that I have, unknowingly, created a bigamist! Giles, the chauffeur apparently has two wives! How do I resolve this? Is he a bigamist, did he and Martha’s daughter divorce? Do I simply change his character for this piece? Or….and this seems to work…..Giles has a brother Marc! Will this affect later posts? Before attempting any change, I did consider all the different relationships over what is now up to 47 episodes. How might each possibility affect this rather meandering story line? A story line that was only beginning to emerge.
Colouring
Dez and Emmie were down on the floor. Dez sat cross legged. Emmie leaned up against her end of the long kitchen table. Each had coloured markers, pads of paper and pencil crayons. Still trying to divide them up, Dez insisted that they wipe them down with the disinfectant she had found. There were a few colours that didn’t have a twin so there was a bit of fuss over who got which odd-man-out pencil.
It had been several days since Emmie’s late night trip into town to pick up Dez on a street corner after being let out of jail. Emelina had been deserted by all of the estate’s staff. They left abruptly because of what Digby, Emmie’s butler, called the Invisible Menace. Emelina, or Emmie as Dez knew her, was left feeling completely helpless and very lost. That middle of the night call to rescue her sister, not seen in many years, shook her out of those feelings of loss.
Emelina woke earlier than usual, still somewhat disoriented when she looked around Digby’s room. Very masculine, it was a combined office and sleeping room. Sitting on the side of the little bed, Emelina looked around her. She stretched and yawned discretely. Exercises. If what Dez has said is true, I won’t be going to the gym. At least I can exercise here. Emelina, dressed in silver grey skin tight leggings and matching sport top, stretched, twisted and touched her toes. Missing the thumping music from the gym, Dez helped her find a Youtube video on their computer. Today, she reflected on all that had happened in the days while in the midst of it all. She had learned quite a bit more about the pandemic that gripped the world. She learned how to make her own morning tea ~ Dez, never up that early, had told her big sister in no uncertain terms that she was not one of the servants.
Dez had told her they were to maintain a greater distance from each other for fourteen days because they ‘didn’t know each other’. She explained it in much greater detail to her, trying to remember all of Dr. Bonnie Henry’s nuanced cautions on CBC. So, together but apart, they completely reorganized Cook’s kitchen to keep their distance and at the same time, live comfortably. Each had their side of the cupboard counter top, sanitized with Lysol each day several times ~ Dez was a bit stricter than Emelina, but Emmie was still learning. She smiled at all the directions her sister Desperanza had given her. ‘Go into Digby’s bathroom and see if you can find a thermometer, and any gloves. I’ve already checked Martha’s bathroom. She had them both ~ a child’s thermometer topped with to rubber ducky head and white cotton gloves. Emelina could only find a regular thermometer and Digby’s leather driving gloves. When Dez took food from the refrigerator, she wore the white gloves. When Emelina took the food from her, she wore the driving gloves. The biggest rule ~ Stay Home ~ was the first of many details to keep safe in this time of a pandemic.
One day, after her You-tube exercise video was over, automatically the next video came up. It was a demonstration by a nurse of sterile technique. Emelina recognized some of it from listening to her surgeon friend expounding on what was needed, and why it was all necessary.
“Desperanza! Come here! Watch this young woman tell us how to handle food from the store!”
Dez came out of her room, which was the Housekeeper, Martha’s room. A big towel wrapped around her head, wearing wrinkled orange and brown plaid pyjamas, toothbrush in her mouth, she mumbled something unintelligible. Dez toiletries were in short supply, but she still had a few things stuffed into her oversized bag from a pre-pandemic overnight trip. Emmie had brought all of her things Downstairs from her room Upstairs. Unhappily she realized she would probably have to stay in the servant's quarters. Desperanza had little with her, so would be doing a lot of laundry.
Dez ducked back into her room to the ensuite bathroom. She re-emerged into the kitchen minus toothpaste and toothbrush, wiping her hands on a hand towel. “I’ve seen that girl ~ she must barely be out of nursing school! That’s where I got the idea to put tape on the floor. I figured that if it was good enough for groceries it would be good enough to keep the two of us separate. Remember that argument we had when we were kids? You didn’t want me on your side of the room so I wouldn’t contaminate your precious and way too neat things. I really couldn't care less but it was ok with me if we kept away from each other. You really were kind of mean sometimes.”
“I’m sorry Dez. That was such a long time ago. But let’s make it a game instead of an argument, and it will only be for a couple of weeks. So, what else did you find in Martha’s room? I know you went through all her cupboards.”
“I left her dresser alone. The one with her private things. But those cupboards were another thing. Does she have kids over sometime?”
“Martha has grandchildren. Her husband, the chauffeur before Giles, was quite unhappy here and left her a number of years ago. They had one daughter who, as it happens, married Giles’ only brother Marc. Joanie and Marc have two very lovely children ~ a boy and a girl. They do come over sometimes for sleepovers when I need Martha to stay overnight. She has collected quite an assortment of toys and colouring things. Why? What did you find?”
“I found treasure! Pencil crayons, watercolour crayons, colouring books, paints and paintbrushes! Paper for water colour and just plain paper. Are you busy today?”
“Why, no I’m not. My calendar has been cleared for me so what do you suggest?”
“Well. We have to sort through all the colours and paper. You get half and I get half. But there’s only one rule: no fighting over the best colours. We’ll use that ‘sterile technique’ from the video to sort them. There’s not a lot of doubles so there may be some picky fights. ”
Emelina laughed and said “I’ll try to play nice. What about you?”
“We can let circumstances rule us, or we can
take charge and rule our lives from within.”
~ Earl Nightingale
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