Chapter 7
Five days in the Highlands with children who had no volume control was a form of hell Crystal had never endured before. Decibels went off the scale as, it seemed to Crystal, they screeched and screamed for no apparent reason. It went on and on. It seemed they couldn't speak, they could only shout at the top of their voices. Crystal stuck her iPod into her ears and waited for the day to be over. Tomorrow she could go home.
Until today she'd survived because they went out each morning and walked uphill and back again. The exercise and fresh air tired everyone out so the kids dropped like flies straight after dinner. Peace reigned after about eight o'clock. But on this the last day there was no escape. The snow was considered too deep to take the children out. The noise in the old lodge was unbearable.
'I'd take them out,' Crystal said to herself, 'and lose them somewhere.'
Archie for one despaired. Noise was one thing but he and Terri hadn't been out of the pack at all, lost and ignored in the bottom with smelly socks, muddy jeans, yesterday's and the day before's underwear, all relating to them their stories of Crystal's failure to get on with the kids.
It seemed Crystal was silent and resentful, not joining in with the kids who found her 'uppity' and aloof which was just asking for trouble. Now known as her royal uppittiness, she wore a target on her back. It was only a matter of time until the kids extracted a generous measure of revenge.
The truth was Crystal was suffering withdrawal from the grass and had a bad case of irritability, a persistent headache and wasn't sleeping well. When she had a chance to speak to Jeff, who had been away all morning, she asked him to help. He understood straight away and told her to pack up her stuff: they were going home.
'Why?' she asked.
'Because the withdrawal symptoms will only get worse here. You're better off at home.'
Crystal thought about how it would look for her to leave before the trek was over. She didn't particularly like the kids, but she'd come here to do something and needed, for her grandmother's sake, to see it through. She asked Jeff,
'I think I need to finish this. Could we go out for a while and just get some air?'
When they'd arrived Jeff didn't think a few days could make a difference but they had. She was growing up a little.
He spoke to the other two protection officers on duty and the four of them went out into the falling snow without the tribe of hyperactive children. It was glorious. The wind had dropped and the snow flakes fell slowly to the ground in a steady stream. They started to walk, not uphill this time, but across the valley. There were ruins in the distance and Jeff made for them.
The walk was easy as the snow was hard under their boots. No-one spoke but there was a lightening of everyone's mood and a silent camaraderie born of their escape.
The ruins were a castle, monument to some old lord's aspirations to dominance of the land. They explored it and the fallen walls around. They ate the same ham and crackers as usual and drank icy water but the taste was different: fresh and clean.
On the way home Crystal was happy, feeling something that had eluded her until then, contentment. She was returning home in the morning and was looking forward to it but when she returned to the lodge she joined a card game. She didn't win but she had fun. It was a first for the trip. When she shared out her supply of chocolate among the kids they suddenly looked guilty.
'What's up?' she asked. One of the smaller ones reached into his pocket and pulled out the rubber plugs he'd removed from her air mattress.
'You might need these tonight,' he said. The others smiled with innocent lips and guilty eyes.
When she was getting ready for bed she felt in the bottom of her pack and found Archie and Terri. She pulled them out.
'Ah, there you are. What did she say, 'so comforting on a cold night?' Now I need some hot water. I'm going to sleep tonight.'
Archie and Terri grinned, Archie more so. He so loved hot water.
On her return home Crystal dragged off her hiking boots, shed her stale clothes and sank into a deep hot bath as Jessie dealt with the contents of the pack.
Inside everything was jostling to get out of the stuffy, smelly interior. Archie and Terri were close to the top, thrown in by Crystal at the lodge as she rolled up her sleeping bag.
Jessie pulled everything out, piling the boots in one basket and washing in another.
'God, this lot smells,' she said. 'You'll need a wash,' she said to Terri as she turned them over and undid her buttons.
'Oh Archie, what's going on? What's she doing?' Terri struggled as Jessie took her off Archie, wrenching her arms from his neck and dropped her into a wicker basket.
'You,' she said to Archie, 'I'll wash separately.' She dropped Archie onto Crystal's bed where he lay, naked, embarrassed and forlorn.
'Terri,' Archie called, 'Terri...' His cries were in vain. Jessie took the basket containing Terri and the washing and went out the door, leaving him alone on the bed.
Terri was taken downstairs, along a cold stone corridor into the laundry where great machines stood with their metal mouths gaping. Some were rumbling with loads of items, turning to and fro, their contents falling from top to bottom with a thud.
She hadn't seen anything like it before. The open machines looked like sharks ready to eat her alive.
Terri was terrified, looking through the glass door of one machine as it filled with water and then started to turn in slow circles. Its contents opened their mouths and started to scream. Terri closed her eyes,
'I'm going to die,' she said.
Jessie put the basket onto a wide bench and sorted its contents into piles. When she lifted Terri out she put her to one side, alone. Terri didn't know what to think, 'was she to be singled out for some kind of individual, exquisite torture?' Her horror grew as a pile of dark clothes, jeans and t-shirts, went into a machine. Terri could see their arms and legs trying to grab the edges of the machine as Jessie pushed them in and slammed the door. Wide, terrified eyes stared out as the water level rose to their armpits, necks and then, Terri couldn't look. She closed her eyes and waited for the end.
Water began to run out of a tap next to Terri, into a deep, square porcelain sink. Steam rose from the water's surface as Jessie poured in a pale green perfumed liquid and swirled the water with her hand. Terri watched and waited. When the sink was half full Jessie turned off the tap and Terri saw her left hand coming for her.
'Oh God,' she said. Gently, and Terri was surprised at the kindness she felt in Jessie's hands, she was lowered into the water. It was warm, its surface covered in a sweet smelling foam. It was....wonderful. Terri couldn't believe it. She felt her body sink into warm soft bubbles that went pop as Jessie began to wash her all over.
Terri sank into pleasure.
Upstairs Archie continued to suffer, with the loss of Terri and with embarrassment at his own nakedness. Crystal stayed in the bath, music playing on her iPod, oblivious to anything else. Archie was glad, at least she wasn't looking at him, but the contents of the room were. Shocked, Archie realised that a number of the room's objects were staring at him. As he looked around their eyes turned away quickly. The lamp on the bedside table spoke to him with its eyes averted,
'Sorry,' it said 'I didn't mean to stare but when you starting calling out for her you sounded so...well, desperate.'
'I was...I am. I can't do anything. What if she doesn't come back?' The lamp sensed hopelessness in Archie's voice. It said,
'Don't worry, they always come back. She, the maid Jessie, brings them back all soft and fluffy, apparently it's lovely, except for the spin cycle and the dizziness. Is your friend machine washable?'
Archie was terrified,
'Spin cycle?'
It wasn't long before Archie's sufferings increased. He heard Crystal's bath begin to empty, a great gurgling rush of water through massive Victorian plumbing. Too soon she came into the room wrapped in a towel, humming.
Archie was mortified at hi
s nakedness. He was lying prone on the bed, exposed to Crystal and everything else in the room. He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else, something pleasant, but the only other thing that occupied him was Terri, and that was a nightmare: the idea of her subjected to the mangling of machines and her small soft body being spun, whatever that was.
'Why would anyone spin Terri about?' he wondered, his overwrought imagination going into overdrive,
'She'll ...'
'Ah, hot water bottle,' Crystal said picking him up, 'Well done last night, you saved me. I feel so much better today, no headache at all.'
Archie couldn't believe his ears. He said a quiet,
'You're welcome,' but Crystal didn't respond, she just put him down again and began to dress. Archie looked away. It was the lamp that spoke,
'She can't hear you, none of them can.' To itself it said, 'Well, that's not quite right, they can if they want to.'
'Of course, silly of me. I knew that already but she surprised me.'
'She's never done it before, said thank you I mean,' the lamp said.
Archie didn't have time to reply as Jessie came into the room, without Terri, Archie noticed, and took him into the bathroom. She ran the tap in the basin all over Archie and her hands. Archie was in ecstasy at the feel of the warm water on his outside, it had never happened before.
Then she lathered her hands with soap that smelled of roses and washed Archie's now relaxed body. By the time she rinsed him off and ran warm water inside him and emptied it he was near fainting with pleasure. She dried him with a large soft towel and then hung him upside down from a hook beside the basin.
He hung there, feeling like a salami in a delicatessen, ashamed of the way he'd surrendered to pleasure at a time when heaven knows what was happening to Terri. The rest of the morning and early afternoon were uneventful except for the packing. Jessie packed Crystal's luggage which then stood by the door.
'Was he to be left behind? What about Terri?' Archie worried. The day wore on until at last, in the afternoon, Terri came back! Archie watched Jessie carry her in and then after he'd been unhooked he felt Terri's arms around him as Jessie returned her to him.
They lay on the marble slab and after a time Terri told him what had happened, trying to allay his fears of her being mistreated.
'No,' she said, 'It's wonderful. Everyone enjoys it. The sheets and towels told me the ride in the big washing machines is like being in a rollercoaster, so exciting. Most of them love it, some though have that empty nauseous feeling in the stomach, you know as though you've left it at the top of the hill as you topple over.' Archie was feeling a bit queasy himself but Terri was involved with her story, unaware. She went on,
'I didn't go into the dryer. That's apparently wonderful, everything comes out fluffed up and dry but it does make everything a bit dizzy.' Archie could only imagine.
'I had the best time, I went into the warming cupboard. After she washed me, it was wonderful Archie, such soft warm water,' Archie could only agree with some guilt about the effect of warm water on the outside of one's person,
'She, Jessie, you know, that's her name, put a little metal frame under my shoulders, made just for drying little things like myself...and hung it up in this warm, dark place with Crystal's smalls and I dried. It was like sunbathing but without the light. I came out quite dry. No trouble at all.'
She settled down on his shoulder, content and slightly drowzy,
'I feel so sleepy.' She went to sleep. Exhausted by the day, Archie did too but he was soon woken up as they were picked up and put into an overnight bag which was zipped and carried downstairs and placed in the back of the Range Rover. Sounds were muffled but Archie heard Jeff's voice,
'Ready Miss?'
'Yes,' Crystal said, 'Back home to that great dinner of grandmother's, tiaras and fluffy hair, I can hardly wait.'
Doors closed, the engine started and they drove away.