Nicola Barker - Burley Cross Postbox Theft

I was astonished! I was horrified! I was like — Oh, my God, my bottom’s all wet! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!?!

Tilly — the younger sister (she’s just so, so gorgeous , Ivo — you’d go perfectly wild for her if she was ten years younger. I’m quite in love with her myself, as a matter of fact. She’s got this wild mass of black curls highlighted with tiny wisps of silver. She’s thin as a pole with dark, dark blue eyes. Skin stretched over her cheekbones like strips of pale brown cow-hide. Dresses like some kind of crazed, pre-Maoist peasant refugee, or a young boy from a lost tribe of ancient Mongolian camel herdsmen; completely unintentional, mind — totally unpremeditated — clothes just look that way when she throws them on her. It’s effortless! Doesn’t have the first clue about how gorgeous she is. Product, make-up etc. an absolute anathema! Barely glances in a mirror… well, she told me… hang on… am I still…?) Hello! — well, she just gazes at my wet bottom, perfectly calmly (she’s so unstintingly practical) and says, ‘That’ll be your bike seat. There’s probably a small hole in it. It was raining earlier. Don’t worry. It happens to me all the time. Just tie a plastic bag over it… the bike seat, not… No. It’s fine. It’s an old cushion anyway. In fact it’s the special cushion we always used to try and give Glenys whenever she popped round, unannounced…’

At this point I leap into the air again, horrified (I’ve only just sat down) because Glenys was their revolting, senile old neighbour who died earlier this year. The fat, angry one — incontinent. Pelted Simpson with rotten apples from her garden when he barked at her cat that time. (The cat! Oh, my God! The cat — Chester, her old cat which they’ve adopted — is still HUUUUGE! He’s on a diet, but he’s still massive. The sisters call him ‘Puffen-bomf’ [?!]. It’s like this little joke they have going on between them — most odd — and when I asked if either of them spoke German they just exchanged amused glances and shook their heads.

He has this weird, fatty deposit near his back-end, to the right of his tail, but kind of tucked underneath it, so his bottom puffs out on one side. Apparently it’s perfectly harmless, but once you’ve noticed it, it’s impossible to stop staring at it. It’s hypnotic! You would be obsessed by it, I swear! It’s like this lopsided bustle. Most humiliating for a feline, I’d have thought. Although he doesn’t seem to realize. I mean he’s so fat it’d be a miracle if he could even see that far back.)

Anyhow, it transpires I’ve been cheerfully sitting on the cushion they always used to put out for their incontinent neighbour! I’m appalled (I’m wearing my favourite pair of beige cargo pants from Joseph)! But then Tilly notices my expression (hard to miss it, quite frankly) and says, ‘Oh no! No! Please don’t be offended! It was covered in plastic! We’d covered all the cushions in plastic by the end, because you could never predict… I mean we were always very careful to protect her feelings — we just pretended it was one of my little idiosyncrasies, because I make all the cushions myself, by hand… And I’ve washed it since, anyway. About a dozen times…’

So I sit back down again, nervously. Then she starts going on about the duck — Eliot. She loves that duck. It follows her around the place, wherever she goes, getting into all manner of mischief. Do you remember the duck? Did I tell you about it at the time? I must have! He was like my little in on the whole Threadbare situation…

Well, I was cycling past the cottage — literally the first week after all the renovations on The Winter Barn had been completed — when Simpson suddenly disappeared from view and I realized — all too late — that the little shit had somehow managed to force his way into their garden (as it transpired, through a new badger hole running under their hedge. I must’ve told you?!).

So I bang on my brakes — stop — listen — hear barking — leap off the bike (dry bum) and charge into the property through the gate.

Simpson is nowhere to be seen (but is still producing an unholy racket). I run around the cottage into the back garden and there I see Rhona kicking Simpson away from her (booting him, savagely — not very Christian behaviour!) while holding a bloodied hen in the air above her head (a white hen. Drenched in blood. Like something from a voodoo ritual). Total, total nightmare!!

I charge into the fray, grab Simpson’s collar and somehow manage to wrangle the little sod.

‘I hate Highland Terriers!’ Rhona announces (face like thunder, but still icy calm). ‘They’re such an awful, noisy, stupid, pointless, aggressive little breed.’ (Pointless?!)

Meanwhile — as Simpson barks on — she’s trying to determine how a bad a state the poor hen is in (or was it a chicken? Are chickens and hens the same thing? I don’t know! I’m just a foolish city girl! she wails). At this point Tilly emerges from the cottage, unfastened housecoat flying out behind her (Yes! She wears a housecoat! Isn’t that adorable?!).

‘Is it Gretel?’ she pants. ‘Oh please, please don’t let it be…’ Rhona doesn’t respond, just yanks at the hen’s neck (cue: horrible clicking, cracking sound) and the poor creature is kaput . No discussion. No real ceremony, to speak of (and by the fierce look in her eyes I suspect she’s more than ready to perform exactly the same ‘mercy’ on Simpson and myself).

Tilly bursts into tears. She loves Gretel (I’m glancing around, furtively, trying to locate a gingerbread henhouse. For the record: there isn’t one).

Oh balls! I’m thinking. Another potential dinner invite goes up in smoke…

And that was that, pretty much. I beat a hasty retreat.

But I felt so bad about it, Ivo! I mean that look on poor Tilly’s face!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I bought them a replacement hen (another white one. I thought it was the least I could do). I picked it up at a local farm and took it over to the cottage, two days later, in a small cardboard box (sans Simpson, this time).

Well, I knock on the door and Rhona answers it. ‘Now what?’ she demands (Not ‘hello’ or ‘so how are you?’ She’s absolutely terrifying. About seven foot tall. Face like a bucket). ‘I’ve bought you a replacement hen,’ I say.

She stares at the box, scowling. ‘That really wasn’t necessary,’ she says, and makes a tiny gesture with her hands as if to encourage me to take it away again.

Thankfully, Tilly then appears at her shoulder, all smiles. ‘A new hen?’ she coos. ‘But that’s so incredibly kind of you! Come in! Come in!’

This is the moment (or soon to be the moment) when I see Threadbare, inside, for the first time (and that, I know for sure, is something I have told you about. In excruciating detail).

We go through to the kitchen and I place the box down on to the kitchen table, which is covered with the most amazing, lightly waxed 1940s-style tablecloth, decorated with all these tiny little ears of wheat (sample piece enclosed. I cut off a corner this afternoon when Tilly disappeared into the pantry to fetch me a dozen eggs).

Tilly opens the box and peeks inside. A short pause follows, and then, ‘Oh my goodness!’

Rhona promptly elbows Tilly out of the way and peers inside the box herself. There’s an audible intake of breath. She glares up at me as if I’ve committed the world’s most heinous, criminal act (I hadn’t even stolen one of their saucers yet! I can’t wait to show it to you when I come back into town. It’s darling! Pale yellow, decorated with jagged fronds of blossoming mimosa. I’m convinced we can manufacture something along similar lines, dead cheap, at that pottery in Croatia I told you about).