Sweet revenge

Chapter 4

I make it to the red door and I am greeted by dear grandmother. I am greeted with enough wrinkles to fit a dirty pile of laundry. She gives me a look of disgust, not much different from the ones I receive daily, and I know that Cindy called. Just like I expected her to.
"You damn ingrate" muttered dear grandmother under her breathe "Is this how you repay my mercy?
"Whatever do you mean?" I said giving her flashes of the proper English breeding she subjected me to.
She raised her hand and it graced my left -cheek giving me a natural pink flush, and I turned the other putting my manners into practice.
"Is this how you treat your guest?" I said "How uncivilized"
"I give guest tea, rodents like yourself are given poison" said the hypocrite
"Is that what you gave mother?" I said "No wonder she died young". My calm tone was replaced with harsh lines or abhorrence. Glaring eyes in her very soul for whatever truth she had left in her.
She paused and did not say a word and her wrinkled face became more wrinkled and sagged.
"Whoever did it, did the world a favor," said my dear grandmother "I should invite him to brunch".
"Lock your door, dear" I said, meaning the words as I did every loving word I said to mother before she passed.
She walked away and went back to her lair. The house was dark and I went upstairs to see my children. I found them on the stairs listening on the conversation between dear grandmother and I. It wasn't difficult to see the hatred in our eyes for each other but is was to understand why.
"Melly, why does grandmother hate you?" asked Nelly
"Don't ask stupid questions Nelly" said Julianne
Nelly doesn't understand and the boys pretend not to see. They care too much to ask and are troubled because they know the answer. I send them off to bed and make myself a cup of Cindy's favorite Earl Grey. I make my way up the same stairs that lead to dear grandmother's room. I check the door and it's open. I enter dear grandmother's room. She's asleep swaddled in layers of sheets, possibly afraid of what I might do. She doesn't move and her peaceful sleeping face with a body cuddled in cloth reminds me of a cocoon. She resembles a psych patient in a strait-jacket that was calmed with a tub of morphine, yet she gave me the gift? The hypocrisy! I look back once more and see flashing images of mother buddled in layers of cloth as a tall man said "She's gone dear". I leave her room and walked down the stairs to be with my colony of rats and there sat step-mother choking down a bottle of Perry. She was a good drinker and could hold her wine as much as her husband but tonight she looked flush. I looked at the side and it was her third bottle.
We didn't exchange words. The room was cold and lacked circulation and the bed was unfit for humanity. It didn't bother me though. I liked it, it reminded me of where I was.I just sat there and we both fell asleep as people who share the same grudge against this house and its people.  I closed my eyes seeing only the dangling of the Chandelier and step mothers last bout of alcohol before her hand collapses on the table.
I woke up early in the morning to get ready for work. I had no school today but I was working as a waitress at Between 2 Evils and my shifts started at five thirty.
I walked to the bus terminal and got on. The morning was still dark and the air felt even colder. As I looked out the window I saw people, smoking cigars from the British American Tobacco company. Polluting the air as if it was their call to duty. As the bus drove further out of London the whore count grew and faithful followers of B.A.Tobacco were carrying cigarette packs like they were holy scriptures. My workplace was between a liquor store and an adult playroom called Right Up Yer' Breeches. The conductor tried to cheat me out of two extra pounds so I gave him a few colorful words and he dropped the price instead. All things aside he was historically handsome, and if the times were different I'd be calling him King Edward VII, the man with affairs that could have shaped history.
    The store smelt like bad perfume and an alcoholics bedroom. The store itself was charming and reminded me often of an ugly big busted brunette. Not much to look at but enough to share. The employees are required to wear a uniform. The men wore tight fitted trousers and the women wore pleated skorts. The cafe, to reiterate was called "Between 2 Evils".
    It was fairly popular considering the location and I was in charge of doing anything, no one else was doing. Our cafe is known for adding booze to our coffee. So it's usual packed with sophisticated drunks who drink rum with their pinky curved. We have rum from each british colony with a wide selection of second rate beans. We sell scones and clotted cream, crumpets with strawberry jam and flapjacks.
    "Melanie could you serve table five, please?" asked Betsy, the owner of Between 2 Evils. She was a good woman with a strong Northern accent. Just shy away from ugly but enough to be called decent. Her husband Robert was a ex-criminal who departed from his criminal ways after he met a homeless priest in jail. The guy was a french priest that left the church in search of himself that wounded up in jail for touching little girls at a local school gathering. He said that the man brought him a message from God saying he should be a chef. That was the last time he saw the priest, but to this day Robert is very devout and bloody Irish. He claims he's Irish because a British man would never be Catholic. I admire him, for keeping a faith so strong enough to renounce the Queen. Brave man.