For Spacedmonkey IV...
== Wednesday ==
He had apparently had enough of my swearing at my own drawing. “If you like, I’m certain I could send word to Vincent...”
I winced. “Don’t you bloody dare.”
He raised an eyebrow in lazy inquiry.
“I am very fond of Vincent, but I do NOT want him here whilst I try to draw Aubrey Beardsley in the 25th century!” I couldn’t actually imagine what the Painter might have to say on the subject and I would actually pay good money not to find out. I want a genius artist watching me draw about as much as I want to strip off on Catford high street.
Holmes tutted at me. “I would have thought you’d welcome the knowledge and instruction.”
“Oh, yeah, because you always love it when your brother holds the world in his all-seeing-eye, doesn’t bother you at all, no arguments there.”
“Mycroft and I don’t argue, we get along perfectly well…”
“Not argue, but there’s that...” I waved my hand, trying to find the right phrase that wasn’t ‘dick waving’ as that was a little too crude. “That... one-upmanship you have. All those see-how-clever-I-am games you play with each other.”
There was a hrrmph noise from the man beside me and I knew I was about to be told at some length quite how incorrect I was in my summations.
“All I mean,” I said hurriedly, “is that whilst Vincent’s instruction might well be of help, it would come at far too high a cost to my sanity and blood pressure.”
He shrugged.
======
“Holmes,” I announced as I strode into the room, “you’re an utter marvel.”
He looked slightly wary. “And why is that, dear girl?”
“Because,” I said as I put my laptop on the bed, “you’re the first male in the history of humanity to have mastered the skill of finding things. It drives me mental,” I muttered. “I’ve just had to help my brother find a free copy of an archive tool. For godsake, typing in ‘stuffit expander mac leopard’ gets it on the first hit. And making sure you don’t click the biggest button that says ‘download!’ but the corresponding button, downloads it. How hard is that? If something isn’t on the expected shelf in a cupboard those with a Y-chromosome are rendered inexplicably blind. And as for putting anything in a pile with something else on top of it - it’s lost forever - might as well set off on an expedition to Lemuria...”
I’ve no idea how much ‘Lemuria’, chromosomes and zip-file tools meant to SH, but he recognized a tirade on the inadequacies of the male of the species when he heard it and knew far better than to comment. “Tea?” he suggested mildly.
I glared, then sighed, unable to take offense. “Tea,” I agreed plaintively.
He bore my sighing and swearing well enough during the afternoon but had had enough by 4pm. He went off to the shed to tinker with phosphor (or explosives or cat pee or belt sanders I didn’t bother to ask the specifics).
He didn’t reappear that evening.
At twelve thirty when I’d just gone to bed, there was a rattle at the window: it was heavier than rain but not as sharp as a handful of gravel. It was an incongruous tone; I looked up and wondered if someone had been playing with bicarbonate of soda or popcorn. Silence. Then it came again. I gave up my warm spot in bed, scampered to the window and opened it. It was raining, and there was a figure standing on the flowerbed wall beneath me.
“Lock picks."
I opened my mouth...
"Bag," he added. "Would you?” he was being rained on quite significantly.
Despite his slightly woebegone look I hesitated. "Which pocket?" I didn’t want to have to trawl through his bag, there was a decent chance I’d encounter toxins or bones, blades or Sumatran rats or something.
"Left hand side, far end. Next to the tobacco."
His bag was at the foot of the bed. I opened it gingerly, retrieved them without contracting tetanus, and threw them down to him.
My throw was a little off, but he twisted and caught the picks none the less. "Were you aware," he inquired as he turned back to blink at me through the rain, "that you’re..."
"Not wearing much and getting cold?" I cut in. "Yes thanks. Don’t come into bed soggy,” I instructed before closing the window.
He’s currently in the sitting room, drying out by the fire; I can hear him pacing and smell the woodsmoke from the chimney as it rises past my room.
== Thursday ==
I gripped my pencil tighter, glaring at the page with an intensity which by rights should have rendered it ash. I had reached the end of my tether with the picture I was attempting. “Argh - fucking phallic spaceships whoremongering pricks in space! Bastard cocking rockets!”
“Should I inform Watson to add Coprolalia to your list of mental frailties?”
I picked up the large William Morris coffee-table book I’d been leaning on.
SH fled before I could throw it.
========
He appeared at my side quite unexpectedly and stood almost to attention, catching my eye. It was very clear he required my full attention. I gave it.
He took my hand as if about to ask me to dance. "You have my deepest sympathies," he said quietly. He held my hand and bowed over it, formal, but not so formal as to make it insincere.
I looked puzzled, wondering what had happened or what I'd just done to merit me an Ophelia award from himself.
"Your mother was an extremely accomplished woman."
Ah. My father had brought her home for tea and she was currently in the kitchen.
"Whilst her fate is unjust, I regret it is not an injustice I have the power to champion." He let go of my hand and his air of solemnity. "Since I’m surplussed to requirement I shall be off to see Lukey down yon field." His voice had grown not so much a Sussex bur as an entire briar patch. "'E was set to scrump as could from that S’vage toff."
"Salvage?" That meant Blackstock Farm - bain to the local community. "Poach away."
"An we’s set for a mug o’ donkey jack when’s done, so don’t set a candle by it.”
With that he was off and I was left to replay the conversation in my head until I’d worked out he meant he’d be out all night drinking.
== Friday ==
He came in at 4am, slurred something about 'Cole twanky dillo, roaring bagpipes made of green willow', dropped a small dufflebag on the floor, managed not to brain himself whilst removing his boots, and crashed out on the bed.
In the morning I woke at nine and discovered there was half a pork pie wrapped in newspaper on the bed. Then I got up and nearly had a heart attack as I perceived something the size of a kitten but infinitely rounder trundle out of the dufflebag. It was a hedgehog.
=====
At noon he rouse enough to demand blearily, "Where's the pie?"
"The hedgehog ate it," I lied, not looking up from my computer.
A pause. "Where's the hedgehog?"
"I let it out."
There was a pained growl of despair.
I can only surmise that a pork pie is SH's answer to a hangover. I'm still mystified as to the hedgehog. I was not entirely without sympathy to his predicament. "Men are devious; women are worse," I told the world in general. "Never trust a woman."
There was a mumble of agreement. This was followed some minutes later by the assertion, "Bacchus was a woman."
"Read your Classics!"
"They were mistaken."
"Huh. Is this because liquor is sultry and intoxicating in the dark of night and then skillets your skull in the morning?"
"Supremely female trait."
"Ahh! Sekhmet. A lioness will purr for as long as she’s happy - after that she’ll claw your face off." I prodded him. "You ought to be well acquainted with the lady. Either that or Delirium of the Endless..."
"You’re being Pagan again," he complained.
"Yep," I confirmed happily, wondering how it was he always managed to capitalize the 'p' each time he said it. Before I could ask I was pounced on by a minor coughing fit bequeathed to me by the cold incubating in my lungs.
"Brandy. Cigar,” he advised absently; turned over and went back to sleep.