Day 2

11.03 After an Elevenses bereft of food


Subject: You Bloody Git

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


According to your email, you recently “foggert a blasset bevel.” I have a feeling our attempts at communicating with each other are about to become tiresome. Might I suggest you consult your computer manual or if you don’t know how to read, ask your about-to-be-born to help you?

How are you feeling? Has your water broken yet?

PS. Please send a pair of bulky woollen socks and some clean underwear. I normally prefer boxers, however, due to the lack of space, bikinis or even thongs would be more practical. Also, a washing line would be appreciated. There should be room even in a computer if I make the extra effort, and one must be clean, mustn’t one? No good smelling like a farmer.
***
14:03 (directly after lunch, again bereft of food

Subject: Lady Bountiful

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


So the tadpole is to be Marjorie Benzedrine (or at least that is what you wrote). With her DNA, she’ll never be a beauty, but at least she’ll always have you to blame when she’s mistaken for a horse. Perhaps I shall have a chance after all, unless she grows up all bluestocking and considers me de trop. Oh well, she’ll probably have a nose like yours, and with the same appalling taste in clothing. Has your husband seen her yet? Did he run out of the room? Did you do it under water? Was she like a torpedo?

Anyway, since I’m unable - for obvious reasons - to meet her in person, may I propose that she might live “forever in beauty” (preferably Chanel)? I shall send her a copy of Professor Zilbar’s Patented Gefilte Fish and Macaroon Diet: From the Cradle to the Grave, from Purée to Purée. Long shall she be svelte, exceedingly tall, and with perfectly straight, heavy hair.

PS. Do me a favour and order a copy from that big bookstore you hate so much, the one where the employees were banned from learning the alphabet. I’m extremely agitated, what with my predicament, and I can’t for the life of me remember my credit card number. Fuck. And I do so love ordering online. Fuck. If only the computer had wheels, I could roll myself out to Librairie Gourmande and pay cash, but what can I do?

I hear you asking why I couldn’t send you to Librairie Gourmande, instead of the place you loathe and whinge about? The answer, my dear Forsythia, is quite simple. I feel it is necessary for you to shop in a vast emporium where one is unable to find even the simplest item. You have done far too much sitting around as of late, and the challenge – to say nothing of the exercise – might do wonders for your baggy uterus.
***

16.20 Without Tea but waiting for the water to boil

Subject: Please!!!
Dearest Darling Forsythia,


I am exhausted. Simply exhausted! Not only is my body wracked with pain, but there is unspeakable cramping in places heretofore unknown to me. On top of that, I have been forced to spend the better part of a day trying – in vain, I might add – to decipher your ‘important’ message (by ‘important’, I mean anything you - with your utterly important and untrivial life – manage to squeeze into your calendar). What, did you devote all of 15 nanoseconds to me? I’m flattered, or would be if your effort hadn’t been such a colossal waste of time. Since you obviously had not the time to re-read the contents before sending it to me, I shall share it with you.

“Splarge is too fe—le fy moths. Ha—g trou—l—s- s-ttin. S-ent---uff you---, love, f---m – II, ‘Cythia.”

This simply will not do. However, being ever generous and willing to make allowances, I shall pretend you are illiterate. It is obvious to me that motherhood has infected your brain and other functions. Hormones are what you need. Lots and lots of hormones.

By the way, what was this about having something or other removed? Or was it sharpened? Either way it doesn’t make any sense.

During one of my many recent naps, I dreamt I saw your ever-bountiful Mumsy on television. Ballroom dancing. Some competition or other. With her thighs it was a most unwelcome sight, and did nothing for world peace. Still, she looked radiantly happy, in a bizarre sort of way – though obviously sedated. Since, in my cauchemar, she got through to the next round (what is happening to our western culture?), I can look forward to seeing her again tonight, possibly stomping through Jalousie. That is, if someone brings me food (hint hint) and I’m not completely delirious.

Have you warned dearest, sweet Marjorie Benzedrine about Mumsy? Have you also explained to her about the medical impossibility of re-entry?

Send a toothbrush, please. I got something odd on mine. - Laurent
***
20.04 After Dinner (empty plates are so very sad )

Subject: Your letter

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


Regards your latest ramblings. I am sorry if I offending you, but you needn’t get so worked up. We cannot all be perfect. And for your information, I keep shredding my clothes and increasingly unmoisturised skin on various sharp objects, and no longer feel the need to be either patient or tolerant. Kindly resume your therapy. I am, as you may have gathered by now, unable to continue mine, and we all might be better off if at least one of us can sail through life on the wings of anti-psychotics.

Yes, I agree that the perfect mousse au chocolat is perhaps life’s most vital necessity. One should feel duty-bound to perfect the making of same. Hence, the obligation to practice obsessively and on a daily basis. Inform your sweet (or possibly soured and crabbed) Marjorie Benzedrine that there will be hope for this poor, bedraggled world, if you, or she, or both, will undertake this quest. I would, but I neglected to furnish my computer with the requisite whisk and copper bowl.

Speaking of matters of a chocolaty nature, please be candid with me. You were always able to insert vast portions of torte in your mouth without gagging or looking incommoded. Is your late model daughter able to do the same? As a test, you might ascertain how much breast she is able to gnaw on at a go.

I’m not sure how important this is, but your delightful Mumsy, who shares simply everything with me, spent an entire day recently trying to “exit windows”, and felt I would be proud of her. And you thought she led a boring life!

Ah, I forgot to tell you something. You remember your parents discussing their holiday with me the last time we all dined together? Well, I’ve come to a decision. Rather than allow your Mumsy and Sudsy to inflict themselves on Capri for two weeks and upset the natives, I’ve taken the initiative and booked them into an English holiday camp. Mumsy, Sudsy, Butlin’s. A marriage made in Heaven, but best not witnessed, at least by me. Would you and your husband, old Whatsisname, care to join them?

The travel agents have been instructed to send the tickets and relevant information directly to their apartment. Don’t tell them, please. I want it to be a surprise.



N.B. There is a very large camel market in western India. I’m only telling you this because of concerned about little Marjorie Benzadrine’s dowry. I love you passionately and apologise if I’ve been tedious and bombarded you with trivia. I’ve looked into my entrails, and tomorrow looks altogether more interesting.