There weren't many things that worried Vanilla Bordello - with a name like hers, it was hardly surprising - she'd learned to cope with ridicule at a very early age. Now, at thirty-six, she believed her name had given her the best start in life, preparing her for the rigors of the business world. Financially, she was a huge success and a formidable one at that. So why was she sitting in bed crying, clutching a bottle of tablets and tumbler of water?
'I'm gorgeous, wealthy and unattached,' she sniffed. 'Envied by just about... everybody. But they don't know what I'm going through night after night, week in, week out. I can't cope any more.'
She swallowed a pill with a gulp of water, quickly followed by another. Lying corpse-like beneath the duvet, her hopes of a lasting a peaceful sleep vortexed numbly within.
But at five-thirty, she stirred. Body trembling, legs and arms thrashing and words erupting in a desperate, strangulated falsetto.
'HELP! HELP! Get off, get off. GET OFF! TAke that! And that!' Her head joined in the scrum. But even in the depths of panic, Vanilla heard the soft click of the bedroom door and caught the strong scent of roses that wafted into the room followed by Fran's firm voice, northern and loud, 'S'all right, s'all right.'
Stuck somewhere between the sub and fully of the conscious states, Vanilla wailed, 'No, no, NO!' and blinked, lashes a-flutter, squinting focus through bleary, weary eyes.
All she could see was the shadowy outline of a giant anchovy with a wodge of steel wool stuck on its head. It was getting nearer. It was bending over her. It had a nose. No it didn't. Yes it did.
Was she still dreaming? With a fingertip of courage, she forced herself to touch the mass of silver tight curls.
They were reassuringly soft and bubbly: it had to be Fran. She was awake now.
It was Fran.
The digital clock showed 5.34 and Vanilla's face crumpled. 'He promised I wouldn't stir before seven. He said I'd sleep so deeply that when I did wake, I wouldn't remember a thing. He lied on both counts. I remember it all vividly. Every single Technicolor sodding instant.' Her hand groped for the lamp switch and in the suddenness of light, she yanked Fran closer for an inquisitional stare. A pair of wise, grey eyes sparkled magically back, for Fran was a magical woman.
Originally employed as housekeeper, she'd been pitched into the role of nanny when Vanilla was only four and her mother died tragically. The years that followed were a tangle of peaks and troughs and childhood dilemmas. Then, just before Vanilla's sixteenth birthday something happened. Something so dreadful that it was never talked about. And she still didn't know what it was. Yet it resulted in Fran packing her belongings and vanishing.
Absent for almost twenty years, Fran returned after the death of Vanilla's father. Just appeared at his funeral dressed all in white like an angel and stared and stared at his coffin, like she was trying to reach him through the layers of teak. Trying to forgive him so his soul could go up, not down.
When Vanilla and Fran's eyes met across the grave, they knew in an instant that their lives would pick up where they left off. The years simply shrivelled away like a piece of polythene caught in the warmth of a flame and Fran returned to the luxurious house in Guildford as a live-in companion - an elderly companion, for Fran was indeed very old. How old, nobody knew.
'You're all of a tizzy, s'morning,' she soothed, sitting on the bed with a thump sending shock waves through the mattress. Vanilla braced herself. Fran wasn't the most refined of women, particularly in the early morning when her teeth were out and her eyes, despite their thaumaturgical properties, looked like they were embedded in a pair of crinkly puffballs. She was also dressed in a garish, mustard and green, horizontally striped silk dressing gown, which even in the dismal light did nothing for her thick waistline.
'Franny, darling, help me,' Vanilla wailed, wanting sympathy.
Preoccupied with her dentures, Fran merely grunted, ''Ang on, 'ang on. I'll get me teeth in. That's more like it. Now. Where was I? Bad dreams is bad dreams. We all get 'em now and again.'
'Now and again?' Vanilla despaired. 'I get this one all the time. Anchovies. Bloody recurring anchovies. I close my eyes and... look! There goes another one.'
Apart from a surprised blink as a finger skimmed the top of her nose, Fran's interest was confined to smoothing her gown. It infuriated Vanilla. Yes, it was early, but surely more concern was warranted. After all, this wasn't the first time a dream had brought Fran rushing to the bedside before dawn.
'Six months ago the only anchovies I recognized were the little brown salty ones that come in a tin. Then it all started and it's getting worse. I'll never forget that first dream - it was the very night you moved in.'
Galvanised into action, Fran got off the bed regurgitating a familiar sentence, 'So you say, but we've talked this over and they seem perfectly harmless dreams, quite likely associated with the death of your father.' She tripped on the hem of her gown, but recovered quickly and added, 'Why anchovies, I don't know.'
'But, but... they were your suggestion,' Vanilla accused, sucking in a deep breath and noticing the deft way Fran hitched her gown at the waist in an act of self-preservation. 'You were adamant...'
'It was the gape,' Fran defended, tying her belt in a determined fashion. 'You described little fish like sardines with whopping great mouths.'
'Gigantic,' Vanilla nodded, never ceasing to be amazed at her companion's vast knowledge of almost every subject. 'I've never seen mouths like it before.'
'Hmm,' Fran diverted her attention to the dent in the duvet where her bottom had been. 'Seems like I'm spreading. What do you think?'
Side-tracked by germs, Vanilla glared at the flattened spot and demanded, 'Spreading what?'
Fran gathered her gown just below hip level and wiggled her bottom, 'Me behind. It's bigger than normal.'
It looked enormous and Vanilla was about to say that horizontal stripes never did anyone any favours when an anchovy flashed through her mind. 'You can't talk to me about normal,' she said, swiping a hand across her face. 'Nothing's normal any more.
'Tonight, they were wriggling in a thick, slimy fluid, swarming at me over a playing field and I ran as fast as I could. My feet were pounding on the grass. I was sure I could get away, then this... this... terrible thing happened.' She paused for dramatic effect.
It worked.
'What terrible thing?' Fran looked scared.
I hope you have enjoyed the first half of the opening chapter of
The Anchovy Tree.
Chapter 1 will be continued in my next blog post
