The Mare's Nest

In situations such as these, Helen knew that it was much better to use one's head.

"You've grown much too accustomed to poverty," said Frank, wagging his head blearily through the long fronds of willow that had hitherto entombed her harmony.

"Silence is the closest thing to God," he announced, taking a presumptuous seat next to her on the swinging love seat.

Helen opened a book.

"All this rustic hovelry," Frank said, casting a flurried wave.

At three thousand pounds a week, Helen could hardly have agreed that the pleasant cottage they'd been occupying for the past two days was an impoverished throwback to her very un-impoverished middle class childhood.

"What say you, my darling?" he said, rummaging through her skirts for her married hand. "Shall we to market and blow a wad?"

Helen watched herself in the sideview mirror of the mini as it sped through the charming country at the speed of a band aid being ripped off to mitigate unnecessary suffering. Both she and the rest of the surroundings were at the mercy of Frank's inebriation.

"Look, it's the wallace-trotty!" Frank cried, and veered the car toward a horse that was standing with its front half sticking out of a lane up ahead.

At the inevitable moment of collision, the horse stepped all the way forward. Frank rammed on the brakes. The car halted squarely beneath the horse's undercarriage, and one of its teats touched the windscreen. The mare was, like Helen, motionless with uncertainty.

"Great big oaf," Frank bawled, as he honked the horn and caught sight of a nasty abrasion on his forehead in the mirror after its meeting with the steering wheel.

"What'll Mr. Jory have to say about you, eh? Wally? The mare, you-!" he said to the animal as it swung its muzzle in the passenger window next to Helen's face and brought his attention to Helen's nose.

"- glorious wally," Frank said, referring to Wally, after dabbing Helen's nose with the hanky, which had begun to bleed.

This happened to her around Frank occasionally without apparent cause, and presently also had nothing to do with the near-collision. Wally was about to attempt an exit but Frank reversed, clonking her chin against the window frame, and shot forth toward town.

"I say," said Frank, with Helen on his arm. "What a ferocious spectacle of cat rectums."

The present assortment of local personages at the market did nothing to arouse his sensibilities to the affable as he sashayed toward Mrs. Pealy's jam stand.

"Jam I must have jam at once," he declared, striding forth and practically standing on the table.

"Oh yes," Mrs. Pealy trilled, "So nice to see you again, Mr. Chafe. What flavour did you have in mind?"

"All of them," Frank said, curtly.

"But of course," Mrs. Pealy beamed. "I'll give you a special discount. One of each?"

"No!" Frank squeaked. "The whole shebang. Have it loaded into the back of my car instantly, for we must away today and would have enough until next summer."

"But I can make jam anytime of the year and have it sent-" Mrs. Pealy began, but Frank's hand shot up.

"Irrelevant," he said, giving Helen a knowing look.

A good deal of the townsfolk and a sprinkling of tourists were now observing them. Helen slipped out of Frank's arm and started for the pond.

"Helen!" Frank gasped, and then turned to Mrs. Pealy.

"Fie and kidney pie!" he said, casting a shower of bills at the table.

Helen had already stepped into a small rowboat and was pushing it away from the shore with one oar.

"I grasp it not!" cried Frank, as he waded toward her, half cursing, half sobbing.

Helen had already made considerable distance between them. She was fond of rowing and performed it very gracefully.

"Helen!" Frank cried, with the pond up to his chin. "You know I can't swim, Helen!"

The boat drifted to the centre of the pond and Helen stowed the oars. She reached into her bag and retrieved the book she had been reading earlier. She looked at Frank who was now floundering toward her with his arms raised above his head, treading the air contrary to forward aquatic motion. Helen raised a vertical forefinger at him. He paused and watched it. She placed the tip of the finger to her tongue and flicked to the page where she had been interrupted on the love seat.

A man, Mr. Greaves, whom Mrs. Pealy had just requested to help her load the jams into the trunk of the mini, caught sight of the commotion and hastened toward it. Surveying the drama, he leaped into the water and crashed toward Frank who had just disappeared beneath the surface.

That evening, at Mr. and Mrs. Chafe's cottage, Mr. Greaves asked Frank why he had tried to swim after his wife if he couldn't swim, and when there were also two other rowboats nearby?

Frank was swooning noiselessly under the shade of an umbrella in the back garden, balancing a bowl of pistachio sorbet on his belly. When he divined the questions, he made a helpless sound, soliciting even more compassion from the delicate elect of local ladies who had just chaperoned the couple home. Helen was indoors weeping.

"She- my..." Frank faltered. "I don't know how to row either."

Mrs. Lively took his hand.

"It's alright, deary," she cooed. "Don't make him talk now, Mr. Greaves."

"No," Frank said, toiling to rise higher in his recliner.

A hand touched his forehead to ascertain the presence of a fever.

"Please excuse me," Frank exhaled, abandoning his rallying campaign and slumping back down to his original position. "She, my wife, often does these things and it scares me utterly to death. She was angry with me since breakfast because all I had done was just tell her the ending of the book she is reading."

Wally gazed at the small gathering from the adjacent field. It was 4:30pm, the time Frank approached her after tea with a slice of chocolate cake. Unfortunately, however, Wally would go without this evening.