Heather Moulson

Meanwhile, Lavinia did not take Alistair’s ill-timed flight very well….

 “Goodbye, Cruel World!”, she sobs

Fortunately, Mary made a timely entry:

 “Oh Miss Lav!  Please don’t!  Get up at once!  He’s not worth it!  Besides, that thing hasn’t been connected for years!”

Lavinia, despite her sleepy state, acknowledged that that was why the maid’s cakes were so dodgy!  

   The two young women took solace in each other’s loss, and wept:

“What about his promise to me, Miss Lav?!”

Then Mary realised there never was one, bringing fresh tears.

As a goodwill gesture, Alistair and the young maid had Mary’s kids as bridesmaids and guests included Mrs Slagg and myself.  The remaining women of the house staying tactfully away.  

 
Then it was back to their charming, if somewhat bijou, studio in Lord Posh’s grounds.  We sort of couldn’t fit in for drinkies, so we toasted them as Alistair carried his beautiful young virginal (but not for long) bride over the threshold.  He was eager to get to bed anyway.  

 Mary, now fully recovered and lost of an evening, did a bit of moonlighting at Lord Posh’s gaff one night a week.  

 
 Inevitably, once the last guest had been shown out, Mary ended up on the long dining table with the host himself.  

 “Oooh, your honour, Sir!”, Mary would giggle with delight.

“Hang it all, Mary!”, Lord Posh would command, “I told you, when no-one else is present, you can merely address me as “Sir“!”
And Mary sighed contentedly.  
Lord Posh didn’t care how many children Mary bore him.  Half of Berkshire was full of his brats born the other side of the duvet.

  She planned her next pregnancy accordingly 
   

On a non-Mary night, Lord Posh and I would spend many an evening together, us becoming chums of sorts.  And one night, I took him along to a gig I was doing in Weighbridge.

 My!  They were a rough crowd!

After the show, I introduced old Posh to my agent (and his twin brother)

 
Both of them signing him up immediately!

 They’ve started him off in small gigs, but he’s got a long way to go yet….

They told him to just be himself – like they did Me actually!

 “Oooh, I say!  Just look at that bouncer!!”

“No, I’m not gay.  I’m really 
not!!!”

Will Paul continue to live a lie?  Will he carry on in his sham of a marriage?  Will he ever get on “Mock The Week”?

Tune in, same time, same channel for the concluding episode Eight (of Series Two)

Don’t touch that dial!! 

That night, while our household slept fitfully, there was a menacing shadow across our happy home.  

 Mary, aroused from her sick bed, began to fear the worst. Cold and alone, (Alistair tactfully moving out),  she bravely crept up to our sleeping chamber:

  
“Master Paul!  I beg you to wake!”

“Now Mary”, I said groggily, “We don’t really do that sort of thing anymore.  I mean, I’m sorry about Alistair tearing off with that blonde girl but…”

“No!  Sir!  I fear there is an intruder!”

“Oh Thank God for that!  I thought that me and you….”

“Please Sir!  I urge you to do something…”

     I sent Mary out to the Police station while I worked on my new act.  

Marjorie had gone to the bathroom when suddenly….

  
the intruder enters (Ken from next door):
“He’s mine, you know!  He’s not yours!”

Marjorie screams

 

“You can have him!  Now just 
Fuck off!”

“But you tried to take him away
from me – Bitch!”

 

Marjorie quaked with terror.  There was no reasoning with this madman.

He raised his spatula 
menacingly.  Marjorie
truly thought her number was up.

Only it wasn’t:

I burst in just at the right time, and managed to overpower the tiresome bugger!  (You didn’t really think I’d be working on my act, did you?).  

Soon he was led away by a law-abiding caped crusader :

“Bah!”, Ken spat menacingly, “I would have got away with it too!  If it hadn’t been for that pesky Paul!”

 Once the nightmare was over, I said to my wife: 
“You see, Marjorie, things could be so much worse.”

“Yes, Paul”, she sighed.  

We wouldn’t be getting any more sleep that night.

Does Marjorie really think things could be so much worse?  Or is she just keeping up appearances?  

Don’t miss Episode Seven, same time, same channel
  

 
 Sadly, Mary’s worst fears were 
 confirmed, and she was confined to bed

 And so, not only did Alistair have to diagnose Mary and break the sad news to her, 

he also had to explain about his hasty engagement with the fresh, young, one-armed milkmaiden downstairs in Mary’s kitchen! 

One that he didn’t even have to marry!  That part Mary found hardest to understand.  But she lay there, listless and dry-eyed.

 Mrs Slagg (Mary’s true mother), took a much dimmer view of the situation:
“You’ve got six kids!  What did you want another one for?  It’s time you stopped trying to force men’s hands!  Your true love will come along soon enough!”
“Bollocks, you old bag!”, thought Mary, but said nothing.  

So that was two bloody women bedridden in this house.  But Marjorie’s self-inflicted confinment had to end.  Half term was drawing to a close and there would be paying students at the door for piano lessons. 

The trouble with Marjorie is that she still hankers for the bright lights:

And her former smart friends:

  
 But if Marjorie really used her head, she could acknowledge that those days were behind her, and she could rule this town:

 Twickenham could be Her‘s, if she wanted it.

 Especially with the Chair of the PTA being run out of town.

Sadly, although I share the marital bed these days, our physical relationship is as frigid as ever.
Sometimes, at dawn, I long for Ken.

However, that night, there is an intruder:

   
   Are the Amanda Ann Family in real danger this time?  What will their fate be?

Tune in same time, same channel for the gripping Episode Six!  Don’t touch that dial!  

Needless to say, Lavinia turned up her nose at Lord Posh’s proposal.  She had no desire to go childrearing in some draughty estate in the middle of nowhere.  

The old boy took it right on the chin, being a decent sort and that.  But despite his gusto, I could see his loneliness, so I invited him to drop round anytime.  Quite liked him in a way.  His principles stopping him dead at taking another man’s wife.
 

  Something Marjorie found hard to take.  Hence her staying in bed for three days.

But I had bigger fish to fry:

I had the very unpleasant task of terminating my illicit relationship with Gay Ken next door:

 There were tears and pleadings but I kept to my guns that I wanted to make my marriage work.  The truth was he was becoming too intense. And my agent advised me to give Ken the old “heave-ho”

The meeting did not end well.  
“If you won’t be mine, you won’t be anyone’s!”
He flounced out menacingly. 

Well, sod him. 

 Meanwhile, below stairs, Alastair was having a busy time at the surgery, when Lord Posh entered the room.  (Him being accustomed to wander round other people’s homes at will).

 “Bally hell!” Lord Posh exclaimed, “You look a damn fine vet!  I need someone over at my estate, bloody sheep dropping like flies!  Fancy a couple of days a week in Berkshire?  Rolls pick you up and all that sort of thing!”

 Alastair agreed readily.

 “And by the way, wondered if you wanted to take on this young filly I brought with me as a wedding present.  Damned girl turned me down, what!”
He laughed, despite himself.  

Alastair looked at the lovely young girl, and was struck dumb.  Never had a thunderbolt hit him so hard.  It made his infactuation with Marjorie, his opportunism with Lavinia, and his sordid hasty union with Mary pale into significance.  This was real love.  Love at first sight, he had only ever heard about this phenonemon.  

   
   “Damn girl lost her arm in a tragic milking accident!  Made her blasted barren too!”

“Will send the car round tomorrow!  Bright and early!”

 With that, he flounced out to Soho, nursing his broken heart.

Intense and hungry, and emotions flying everywhere, he grabbed this pretty maid, desperate to touch her, kiss her, love her.
But she pulled away from his grasp:

 “Now, Master Alastair, sir, you are too fast!”, the young girl chided him.  “I am not that sort of girl.  Why do you think Lord Posh gave me the old chuck?  The man that takes me to bed is the man who puts a ring on my finger!”

 “Oh yes, my sweet maid, yes!  I will be that man!  Marry me, please!”

“You do know, Sir, that I am unable to give you a child.  The milking incident robbed me of this natural function”

“Thank God for that!” Alastair exclaimed.  He had had enough of Mary’s kids to last him a lifetime, and puppies and kittens were so much cuter.  
He couldn’t believe his luck.  

Meanwhile, Mary feels faint and unwell in the bathroom:

   Could this be nature being such a cruel mistress?  Will the two things that mean so much to her be snatched away so brutally? 

Or will Mary keep her (seventh) child?

Tune in same time, same channel for Episode Five.  Don’t touch that dial! 

Please excuse me talking to you from my dressing-room.  Playing at some wretched venue in Greenwich.  Nothing but bookings at the moment.  The 02 beckons, what!

 
Excuse Fang, my new dog by the way, he’s just there in case some of those fans get a bit close!

 Meanwhile, Marjorie did not know whether to be amused or embarassed at Lord Posh’s abysmal piano skills:
 

 Often, he would bang the lid down:
“Oh dash it all!  Let’s have some tea!”

 

And they would share a delightful afternoon over some Earl Grey tea and aWagon Wheel

 

 Occasionally Lavinia would join them when she got home after school, but she was impervious to his charms.  Unlike my wife.

Lord Posh, unusual for an English Toff, opened up a lot, and told them about his last wife.  A showgirl from Las Vegas, who got one of his stately homes in the divorce settlement:
“Never liked the damn place anyway!”
  

 Mary, clocking up the importance of their new guest, bitchily let it slip one afternoon:
“Begging your pardon, Sir, but Miss Lavinia has been in a detention centre, and several gang fights, your honour!”

 “Mary!  You Mare!  Get out of here at once!  One day I’ll throw you and those brats of yours out on the streets!”
 

 Lord Posh, who had barely been listening, simply imagining Mary on all fours after she’d served dinner, merely said he admired a girl with pluck!  And did these fillies all get undressed together in the dorm?  What about the baths?

Lavinia did not answer him, and Marjorie breathed a sigh of relief that Mary did not reveal her grandchild down in the kitchen.
 

Then when Marjorie entered the room, unwittingly blowing her hopes apart, I told her what Lord Posh had come to say:
“My dear.  Lord Posh has asked permission to marry Lavinia when she is 16 (and after her GCSE’s).  I don’t think she’ll be too keen though.”
  

 Marjorie‘s expression became stony-faced.  Had she hoped LP was asking me to release her from our sham of a marriage?  Did she really think anyone would do that?  Ask a husband like that?
I think she did.  

“Damned fine filly”, Lord Posh exclaimed to my wife, “Ripe for childrearing, eh?  Tried to bring it up at dinner, m’dear.  But felt the old man should know first, eh?”

“Ratscocks!”

  

 Will Marjorie ever recover from this bitter blow?
Will Lavinia actually do her GCSE’s?  
And will Paul get to West Dulwich?

Tune in same time, same channel for Episode Four!   

Meanwhile, Lavinia, now tag-free, watches “her” Alastiar from under her long lashes:

And She pounces on him one day, when he goes to wash his hands after a kitten delivery.  Mary being out at the post office, and Mrs Slag bathing the children
 

 “Alastair!”, she cried, “You belong to me!  Why did you go off with that slag, Mary?”

 It was a question that Alastair could not answer himself.  Their union had been so urgent and hurried – and their “marriage” cermony rough and sordid: 

Alastair can still recall the coldness of the place (behind that fence).

 “But whatever and whyever, Miss Lav, I cannot wed you.  You’re far too young!”
“Oh no!, ” she cried, “I cannot be denied again!  When I am 16, we will go to my father for permission to marry!”
“erm… Make it 18”, he suggested nervously.

  When Lavinia had fled back upstairs, Alastair seriously thought about the girl’s proposal.  It could be possible for the two of them to have a future.  It could be a way for him to get back Upstairs, and treat Mary like a servant again. 
 

 However, Mary (back unexpectedly) heard every word.  She was not having any of this!
Alastair was hers!!
Not that spoilt blueblooded Brat’s.
She devised an evil plan immediately!

Calling Alastair upstairs, she seduced him brutally and without mercy.
    

 “No Mary!  I beg you!”, he cried, but it was too late!

 That night in bed, Alastair bruised and sore, Mary announced that he had made her pregnant that afternoon, and they would have to be married after all.  Properly this time.  With a Vicar and everything.

Alastair ran back upstairs (even though he wasn’t really allowed up there) in tears.  However would he get away from Mary now?  He could never be with Lavinia.  He would never be Upstairs – ever again!

Meanwhile, back at the piano, Marjorie is tinkling absent-mindedly, dreaming of what might have been.  Or what will never be.

Or would it????

 

“Hello there!  My name is Lord Posh!  
 Jolly well let myself in, bally desperate to learn the piano, m’dear!  Here’s a load of money!”

To say Marjorie was hit by a thunderbolt was an understatement.  
  

 And it seemed Alistair
wasn’t the only one who could
see a way out of here!  

Our First Christmas in our new reduced circumstances was pretty grim

Despite Mary’s tempting
Christmas cake!

My wife Marjorie and I are struggling to make the best of a fragile marriage, but something (or someone) always seems to come between us…..

Can’t think why…..

 Meanwhile, Lavinia seems to have got on her feet a bit more (well, once the tag’s removed).
She went to a place in Ashford for a while with lots of other larky young girls!  Think she learnt a lot.  
The Board decided she could come back home, provided she didn’t go near sharp objects: 

“Ratscocks!”

I have to say, Marjorie really has turned a new leaf with these piano lessons.  However, I try not to hear her heavy sighs of discontent

 I also try not to notice her 
comfort eating 

 However, Marjorie is now making a big effort with her grandchild (I think)

 Which is more than can be said for that sap Alastair.  Making a new life with Mary, he truly is repenting in leisure.

 And it’s no good making cow‘s eyes at my wife, like he did all over Christmas, she won’t go near him now he’s known a servant!
(husband’s don’t count!)

 And he no longer practises medicene, he has turned to vetinary surgery.  Relatively successful, he operates from our basement, while Mary tends to his six stepchildren.

 As for me, I’ve stopped watching the old box, and have become a stand-up comedian – well, a sit-down one really (guffaw!)

There is one thing my agent doesn’t approve of – with good reason actually – and this is my “business manager”.  (Gay Ken from next door)
Hardly any business gets done, and we end up in bed. 

 “We can never have a future,” I constantly tell him, “my life is with Marjorie and Lavinia”

“They will be welcome in our new lives, Paul.  We have to stop living a lie!”
My answer is always the same:  No.

“One day, you will be mine all mine!  Cackle, Cackle!”

 Bit worried about him, actually.

End of Part One (series two)
Next week:  Marjorie encounters a thunderbolt, and Lavinia propositions Alastair.  

Same time, same channel …..  
 

There is much tension in the Amanda Ann drawing room tonight.  

 Paul began to yearn for the E! Channel

However, the next day, when Paul went out for a kebab, there came an unannounced visitor:

 “Marjorie, my love ” Alistair choked “I can no longer wait.  I have packed your bag, as I cannot live without you!”
Marjorie sighed, and pondered on her failure to seduce her enstranged husband:
“Oh, I suppose you’re right.  What am I doing just sitting around on this plastic chair?  And, by the way, I need a bigger suitcase than that!”

Lavinia (who had heard every word) tore in and threw herself at Alistair’s feet:
“No!  No!  Alistair is mine!  You cannot take him away from me, Mother! (I hate you)”

Alistair and Marjorie are horrified:
“Lavinia, please!  Tell your mother there was never anything between us!”
But she rushes away tearfully

“Marjorie, my love, please believe me, I have never laid a hand on that sweet girl.”
Marjorie knows Alistair to be telling the truth, and agrees to meet him that night outside Superdrug.  
She will tell Paul and Lavinia after supper, perhaps they would both be better off without her, if she was causing that much misery.

So later that evening, Marjorie tearfully drops her bombshell to Paul (and the dog).  Lav being out at a gangfight.

“No”, says Paul firmly.
“What?”, Marjorie splutters
This was not her ineffectual husband speaking!

“You’re not going off with that Quack!”
“How dare you!”, Marjorie spluttered.  No-one, but no-one told her what to do – (until now)

“Marjorie”, Paul said patiently, “Alistair was a bloody useless country doctor.  I’ve lost count of how many servants we lost through him!  Two minutes round here, and he’ll be struck off faster than you can say Malpractice!  Then what will you do?”

“True love will find a way,” she protested sniffily.

“I quite agree, but that love should be used here – in your home, Marjorie.  Where it’s needed the most.   You’ve returned to the nest, don’t fly away again.  Stop chasing some dream, Marjorie, make the most of your new home.”

“What’s more.  We can give love and support to our daughter.  Get her away from those dreadful girls and keep her on the straight and narrow.  With the two of us here for her, she’ll come round.”

 “And what am I  supposed to do in this dreadful little house?”
“Piano lessons”, Paul said, “I’ve been thinking about this for a while.  You’re a bloody awful player, but you know your stuff.”  

“Oh, alright.”, Marjorie groaned, “but what about poor Alistair?”
“Oh him!  I’ve sent Mary up to Superdrug to tell him to fuck off!”

“Little did Marjorie know, Lavinia wasn’t the only one who had their eyes set on Alistair.  
With his heartbreak, and love of cake, it was inevitable that he and Mary would walk off into the sunset.
She already planning her next pregnancy.
I give it a week.”

“And that, as they say, was that.  Or was it?”

That very same night, Mrs Slag announced a visitor:

“So now you know all about us.  Tune in for our Christmas Special coming shortly!”

“Goodnight and God Bless”

The End (or is it?)  

I didn’t want to tangle with Mary at all.  But I got lonely after Marjorie went off to Italy, and with Lavinia being so young, I would often talk to Mary in the late hours:

I told her things I’d never told anyone
“Yawn!” she’d reply

Then one night, she interupted me:

 “Sir, can we not just go up to your bedchamber?”

“You silly goose, Mary, ” I replied, “Whyever would you want to clean up there this time of night?”

Then Mary broke down:
“Oh Master Paul!  The other servants in town have been laughing at me!”
“But why?”
“Because all their masters have taken them to their bed.  I’m the only one who hasn’t known her employer!”, she sobbed

“Well, Mary, if you ask me, they sound a pretty rum crowd.  I’d join the local church group if I were you.”

Then Mary pulled her trump card:
“And they’re saying – you’re gay!”
“What?”, I replied, “Get across that table now!”
“Tee-Hee”, said Mary

 It was a truly awful experience.  Mercifully it was over very quickly.  

I hoped that would be the end of the matter.  But no, night after night, she’d be there in my bed, waiting for me, cake and all.  

It was a joyless experience, Mary would never have the elegance and lithness of Marjorie.  It simply made me miss her more.  

I finally nipped it in the bud when Mary started wearing my wife’s things

And the multiple births didn’t help….

And Mrs Slag, laying claim to be Mary’s birth mother, cooled things down a lot:

 
She demanded Mary went on the Pill, and not to take advantage of “Grand Folk” again.  I assume she meant me.

I think Mary has mixed feelings about being reunited with her mother.  I for one, am overjoyed.  

   Next installment:  Paul’s elation won’t last for long, Lavinia is still a cow and Marjorie – well, is just Marjorie.

Tune in same time, same channel 

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Mary’s father disapproves of his daughter’s childrearing.  Regardless of their parentage.  Their family were simple serving folk, not decadent like them “Upstairs”

However, they were his grandchildren, and he decided to talk with that high-and-mighty Paul upstairs.

 Paul, always pleased to see retired servants from his old father’s old estate, was polite but breezy:
“Nice to see you, old man.  Well, Question of Sport awaits me!”

 “Right!  That’s it!  I’m going to tell him some home truths!”

 “Oh, still here, old man?  Shall I get Mary to fix you up with a bit of cake?”
“No, Master Paul.  That won’t be necessary.”  

“You see, I am your father!”

Paul is shocked at the news:
“My God!  How?  When?”

 “Your mother was such a beautiful woman”, the old man recalled wistfully.
“And one day, I found her sobbing in the old manor house.  Your brute of a (step) father had treated her badly once again”
I tried to comfort her and the next thing I knew:

We were rolling around in mutual ecstacy!
“Oof, you’re heavy!”, I think her words were.

We avoided each other studiously for the next nine months, until one day…..

 There you were, lying in your crib, your mother flushed with labour.  I knew instantly you were my child.”

“This is our secret, old man,” she breathed, “No-one must ever know.”
I had no choice but to agree.  I didn’t mind, as I didn’t really fancy her that much anyway.  
The next day, she was dead, and you were the next in line to the country estate.  

“Oh Lordy!”, Paul exclaims, “Does that mean I’ve slept with my sister?  (Mary)”
“No, Master Paul.  Mary was the daughter I would have had, if I could”

 “Do you remember those two lesbians who ran your – hah! – Father’s farm?”
“Yes”, croaked Paul

 “Well, Mary’s mother was a beautiful gypsy girl who lived wild on the land”

 “Then, one day, she came out of the haystack having given birth to a beautiful baby…”

” After being seduced by an evil farmhand!”

“I agreed to take her in.  My heart beat wildly for her, but by then I was married.”

“However, you may remember my wife was a bit of a battleaxe, and she turned the young girl away, agreeing to keep the child (Mary)”

“So Father!”, said Mary (who had heard every word) “Where is my true Mama?”

“Here, Mary.  It is I who was that beautiful young girl who was turned out of your father’s house”

“Mrs Slag!  Who comes in to do the “Rough” (twice a week)!”, the three of them exclaimed.
 

“Oh.  erm…Right.”, coughs Mary’s father.
 

Mother and daughter embrace:
“Isn’t it wonderful, Father?  Now you are widowed, you and Mrs Slag can be reunited!”

“Er – right, erm…I’ll be off then.  ‘Bye”
And Mary’s father quickened his step….

“Father!” Paul cries after him.


Next installment: Marjorie reveals her intentions, Paul regrets his entanglement with Mary, and Lavinia is just awful

Tune in same time, same channel