Read Online Johnson-Johnson 06 – Dolly and the Nanny Bird by Dorothy Dunnett - Free Book Online
Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
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‘I’m a little teapot, short and stout
Here’s my handle, here’s my spout
When the kettle boils, hear me shout
Pick me up and pour me out.’
‘So you are,’ said Grandfather. He leaned forward, picked Grover up and pouring him out, proceeded to tickle him under the arms as he lay, shrieking with joy on the bed. Over Grover’s back he said, ‘If something needs doing, I’ll keep him now.’
Grandfather Eisenkopp was nobody’s fool. I nodded and backed to the door, ‘What’s your name?’ he added, still tickling.
I said, ‘Joanna Emerson. I work for the Booker-Readmans next door. You’ll make him sick after the butter.’
‘Go to hell,’ said Grandfather Eisenkopp amiably. I shut the door and went back, with reluctance, to the sitting-room.
Beverley Eisenkopp was lying back on Bunty’s sofa while Bunty, still green as the Frog Prince in coffee striped nylon massaged her sprained ankle and Comer Eisenkopp held both her hands as if they were money.
I looked round for Sukey, on the carpet, in the pram, inside an armchair: even, if the worst had come to the worst, in the waste paper basket. Then, leaving the tableau to look after itself, I tracked her down to the curtained confection in the night nursery where she lay fast asleep with her hat off and her fingers sticking through the same fancy shawl Charlotte and I had already deplored.
I didn’t propose to wake her yelling this time in order to unbend her fingers. A silent withdrawal was on my immediate programme, before any of the Eisenkopps started shouting again, or Grover was sick. As a last gesture of goodwill to the profession I bent down to the litter round the cot and picking up a soaked nappy and a noisome Harrington square, carted them into the bathroom where the nappy pail was, and the loo.
The gentle art of loo-pan nappy-sluicing requires a stomach of iron and fingers sufficiently strong to retain hold of said nappy in the left hand while keeping your right for the flushing apparatus. According to the book a couple of gallons of pressurised water will then cleanse the nappy and allow you to return it scoured and dripping to the nappy pail, ready for washing. At Maggie Bee’s you paid for every nappy you lost down the bend, and if the plumber had to call, then you paid for that, too.
I would have backed Bunty to lose the two kids down the S bend, never mind Harrington’s best. I held the square in the loo pan and flushed, and the loo rose, brimmed and stayed brimming without showing a hint of retiring. The square relieved itself of its burden. I lifted it into the pail and finding a loo brush returned to the pan for some undesirable baling and excavating.
It wasn’t a Harrington square but a whole nappy, presumably Grover’s which reluctantly swam from the recess. It brought with it an assortment of unappetising debris, including a headache powder wrapper, some bits of wood and a couple of assorted sepia scrolls I identified, after a moment’s brief speculation, as portions of a burst rubber dummy.
Not to let Bunty down, I wrapped the dummy remains and concealed them. The bits of wood and the paper I set aside while I dabbled the nappy. More wood floated up.
There really wasn’t enough water left in the loo pan to rinse with and I wasn’t going to flush it a second time. I was bringing out Graver’s potty when I noticed that most of the splinters were coloured. I put down the potty, fished the rest of the wood from the loo and put all the bits side by side on the vinyl. They were only fragments, but you could guess, fitted together, they might have made the whole of a very small painting. A painting on wood. A painting of eyes, nose, feet, fingers and something which could have been also a halo.
I returned, deep in thought to the potty and held it under the bath tap, my mind still on the picture. A very old picture. One I felt I had seen before. Perhaps because Simon Booker-Readman had some very like it stored in
‘I’m a little teapot, short and stout
Here’s my handle, here’s my spout
When the kettle boils, hear me shout
Pick me up and pour me out.’
‘So you are,’ said Grandfather. He leaned forward, picked Grover up and pouring him out, proceeded to tickle him under the arms as he lay, shrieking with joy on the bed. Over Grover’s back he said, ‘If something needs doing, I’ll keep him now.’
Grandfather Eisenkopp was nobody’s fool. I nodded and backed to the door, ‘What’s your name?’ he added, still tickling.
I said, ‘Joanna Emerson. I work for the Booker-Readmans next door. You’ll make him sick after the butter.’
‘Go to hell,’ said Grandfather Eisenkopp amiably. I shut the door and went back, with reluctance, to the sitting-room.
Beverley Eisenkopp was lying back on Bunty’s sofa while Bunty, still green as the Frog Prince in coffee striped nylon massaged her sprained ankle and Comer Eisenkopp held both her hands as if they were money.
I looked round for Sukey, on the carpet, in the pram, inside an armchair: even, if the worst had come to the worst, in the waste paper basket. Then, leaving the tableau to look after itself, I tracked her down to the curtained confection in the night nursery where she lay fast asleep with her hat off and her fingers sticking through the same fancy shawl Charlotte and I had already deplored.
I didn’t propose to wake her yelling this time in order to unbend her fingers. A silent withdrawal was on my immediate programme, before any of the Eisenkopps started shouting again, or Grover was sick. As a last gesture of goodwill to the profession I bent down to the litter round the cot and picking up a soaked nappy and a noisome Harrington square, carted them into the bathroom where the nappy pail was, and the loo.
The gentle art of loo-pan nappy-sluicing requires a stomach of iron and fingers sufficiently strong to retain hold of said nappy in the left hand while keeping your right for the flushing apparatus. According to the book a couple of gallons of pressurised water will then cleanse the nappy and allow you to return it scoured and dripping to the nappy pail, ready for washing. At Maggie Bee’s you paid for every nappy you lost down the bend, and if the plumber had to call, then you paid for that, too.
I would have backed Bunty to lose the two kids down the S bend, never mind Harrington’s best. I held the square in the loo pan and flushed, and the loo rose, brimmed and stayed brimming without showing a hint of retiring. The square relieved itself of its burden. I lifted it into the pail and finding a loo brush returned to the pan for some undesirable baling and excavating.
It wasn’t a Harrington square but a whole nappy, presumably Grover’s which reluctantly swam from the recess. It brought with it an assortment of unappetising debris, including a headache powder wrapper, some bits of wood and a couple of assorted sepia scrolls I identified, after a moment’s brief speculation, as portions of a burst rubber dummy.
Not to let Bunty down, I wrapped the dummy remains and concealed them. The bits of wood and the paper I set aside while I dabbled the nappy. More wood floated up.
There really wasn’t enough water left in the loo pan to rinse with and I wasn’t going to flush it a second time. I was bringing out Graver’s potty when I noticed that most of the splinters were coloured. I put down the potty, fished the rest of the wood from the loo and put all the bits side by side on the vinyl. They were only fragments, but you could guess, fitted together, they might have made the whole of a very small painting. A painting on wood. A painting of eyes, nose, feet, fingers and something which could have been also a halo.
I returned, deep in thought to the potty and held it under the bath tap, my mind still on the picture. A very old picture. One I felt I had seen before. Perhaps because Simon Booker-Readman had some very like it stored in
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