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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Alexis Hall
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November 3 - November 9, 2022
Every parent, she suspected, thought their kid was clever, but she liked to think that Amelie actually was, at least a bit.
Quick, Rosaline, be charming. “What do you mean? I woke up this morning and I thought, You know what I want? An evening at a train station with a mildly suggestive name.” “Ah, then you should have gone to Much-Tupping-in-the-Weir.” He offered an easy smile, brackets forming at the corners of his generous mouth. “It’s even milder.” “I hear Lower Bumgrope is nice this time of year.” “Which is ironic, because Upper Bumgrope is an absolute dump.”
“Do you have a bottle of Diet Coke?” he asked. “Damn. I left it in the hot-air balloon.”
This, as it turned out, took longer than they’d anticipated because fields were like the Tardis: much bigger once you got into them.
“So, you’re telling me I rate better than nobody, some arsehole at a wedding, and a farting teenager? You really know how to make a girl feel special.”
One minute, you were having a nice, normal, maybe slightly flirty conversation, and the next you were having to explain how you’d gone from medicine at Cambridge to a temp job and the school run, and from there it was either “Poor you, what a disaster” or “Gosh, I didn’t think you were the type.” And you knew that the person you were talking to had stopped thinking Hey, she seems all right; maybe I should ask her out and started thinking Hey, she seems like she’s got a lot of baggage; I hope she doesn’t ask me to babysit.
I’m a landscape architect.”
“Is that an architect lying on his side?”
“How do you architect a landscape?” she asked. “It’s not like you can be all, Hey, put another mountain over there or Can we take the sky down a couple of inches?” “You might be surprised. I had a lake moved once.” “How?” “No idea. That’s for the hydrological engineers to sort out. I just pointed at it, and said, ‘I think this is blocking access to the deer park.’” “I can’t tell if that makes you cool and powerful or…a bit of a middle manager?” “Honestly,” he told her with a ruefulness she found endearing, “neither can I.”
I mean, there’s no point putting a path in a park that isn’t wide enough for two people to walk their dogs past each other.” “Well, you could be setting up meet-cutes?” “I’m sorry. You’ve lost me.” “Okay, stop me if this getting too technical for you, but it’s when two people meet in a cute way.”
“Are you suggesting”—it was the sort of half-playful, half-dry tone that needed an eyebrow raise—“I deliberately design spaces to be more difficult for women to navigate?” “Well, how else are we supposed to meet people?”
Rosaline laughed. “Okay, I think I’ll get all the way to week six by being consistently mediocre and then people will finally remember I’m there and I’ll have to leave.”
“Oh, that’s the good age.” Anvita seemed to have at least a vague idea where she was going, leading Rosaline confidently out of the Lodge and towards the main house. “Old enough they’re fun to talk to, but young enough they’re not a complete prick. I’ve got a nephew who’s seven. He’s the best.”
“So, there’s Ricky. He’s a student at Southampton—something something material science something. Bit young, but tall, locs, good cheekbones, great smile. He plays football or whatever and you can tell. He’ll look great when he’s whisking.” “I feel like I know him already.”
“Then there’s Harry. I haven’t been able to get much out of him, but I think he fixes things. With his hands. His strong, manly hands. I hope he makes it to bread week.”
Harry danced his fingers clear of the splash zone. “So any news on that permanent solution?” “I’ve got an idea. We make a run for it and pretend it wasn’t us.” “I don’t think I’m going to make it.” He slid a fifth mug into place. “But you go. Save yourself. Tell my mum and dad I went down fighting.”
but if her aim was to avoid another embarrassing situation, then fleeing like an alarmed squirrel probably wasn’t going to help her cause.
She risked a smile. “You’re not planning on pushing me in, are you?” “I’m annoyed, Rosaline. I’m not fucking twelve.”
It felt natural for her to be constantly paralysed by the possibility of other people’s disapproval.
“Trouble is, I’m not brilliant at lots of people all at once.”
“What are you doing now?” asked a random production assistant. Being about to cry was what she was doing now. “Um,” she said. “I…just…I’m stirring this…it’s meant to…but it’s…” To her horror, she was actually crying. And the next thing she knew, Grace Forsythe was gently removing the spoon from her hands. “Fuck shit piss wank bollocks drink Coca-Cola buy Smeg ovens legalise cannabis abolish the monarchy. Oh sorry, did I ruin the segment? What a shame. Maybe go film someone else for a bit.” The producer and camera operator dutifully departed. Rosaline drew in a shaky breath and wiped her eyes.
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“Ignoring the fact that you just Godwin’s Lawed my love life, what about Carolyn? I hooked up with her at your wedding, and you can’t get more casual than that.” “Didn’t you also nearly buy a dog together?” “Very casually.”
“Darling,” said Lauren, “you’ve never been satisfied with a B-plus in your life.” “It was a first kiss. Some things take a while to build.” “It’s sex. Not Lego.”
“Well,” Ricky was telling Colin Thrimp, “having no clue came through for me last time so here we are again. The one thing I know about bread is that you can’t be afraid to get your hands in it. So I’m giving it a good hard pounding and hoping for the best.” Grace Forsythe patted him on the shoulder. “Man after my own heart.”
But based on the assumption that nobody here would be having an affair on live TV, it could only be Ricky, Harry, Alain, or Claudia. And you think Ricky’s too young, and I’ve never seen you speak to Claudia once—” “Hey, who said I needed her to talk.” Anvita gasped. “That’s…is that sexist? That would be sexist if you were a man.”
“They both blatantly fancy you, and Harry keeps giving you those big soulful eyes. You have noticed the big soulful eyes, right?”
“If I said you had a beautiful body,” drawled out Alain, resting his elbows on the bar beside her, “would you file a restraining order?” Despite her profound case of the existential floops, this drew a laugh from her. “You must be tired. Because you were running round a ballroom all day.” “It’s handy I have my library card because I’m a big supporter of state-sponsored literacy programmes.” “For the record,” she said, “I can do this all night.”
“Oh…poo to it,” cried Ricky from across the ballroom, which caused producers, presenters, and cameras to zoom towards his workstation like drama-seeking missiles.
“What’s it supposed to look like?” asked Grace Forsythe, stroking her chin and staring at a tall, proud baked column that definitely resembled something but not the sort of thing you would expect somebody to deliberately make on a family-friendly television show. Anvita was staring at her creation much as Dr. Frankenstein may once have stared at his. “It’s Big Ben, isn’t it?” “Darling, technically, Big Ben is the bell. And technically, that is a bell end.”
“Oh f—fu—fellatio.” Anvita hung her head. “You’re not allowed to say that on camera either, pumpkin.” “I know. My mind went blank.” Turning to Rosaline, Anvita flung her arms in the air. “It’s me. I’ve done it. I’ve made a penis. I’ve made an enormous bread penis. Someone always makes a penis. And this year it’s me who made the penis. My nan is going to watch me lovingly mould a penis with my bare hands on TV, probably with all her friends.” Grace Forsythe collapsed into unbroadcastable laughter. “It is one of the better ones I’ve seen. I mean, in the ballroom. Outside, I’m no judge. And,
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“Then,” said Grace Forsythe, “you’ll have to do what we do every year when someone makes something that looks like a penis.” The light of hope flared in Anvita’s eyes. “What? What can I do?” “Pretend very hard that the thing which obviously looks like a penis does not, in fact, look like a penis.” “But then everyone will think I don’t know what a penis looks like.”
From Ricky’s side of the ballroom, there came an ominous crash. “Welp,” said Ricky. He was standing with his hands on his hips, surveying the shrapnel of what must once have been a large, fan-shaped crispbread. “There goes one of the wings. But it’s fine. He’s got two. I’ll show him in profile.” Anvita put down her crusty phallus. “What are you even making?” she called out. “Great Dragon Smaug. You?” “Big Dick.” “Nice.”
“I guess for me,” she offered, “sexuality is about what you feel more than what you do. Especially when you’re bi or pan or something, because people are always going to make assumptions about you based on who you’re with.”
“Look, there’ll be LGBTQ people who don’t agree with me on this, but my feeling is that, on some level, how you identify is informed by, well, circumstance. I honestly believe that there are people out there who pretty much define as straight who might have gone a different way if they’d met a different person at a different time in their lives. But as long as you’re happy, it doesn’t really matter.”
So he took a look at the circuit breakers, while Rosaline hovered somewhat uselessly. One of the many, many bits of etiquette she’d never worked out for having somebody fix your house was whether you were supposed to hang around to show interest, and risk making it look like you were worried they were going to steal the furniture. Or else leave them to it to signal trust, and risk looking like you didn’t give a shit. And this was about a billion times worse when it was someone you knew.
“Um,” she heard herself say out of nowhere, “sorry I was such a dick to you that first week.” He gave one of his slow blinks. “Didn’t think you were, mate. But now I know you was, I’m a bit offended.”
“And anyway,” Harry went on, “I never said you was just a pretty posh bird. I mean, you are still posh. And you look the way you look. But I also know you’re not scared to have a go at someone what could kick you off a show, and you brung up a daughter who’s well into ugly fish, which means she probably knows you’ll love her whatever she does, and that’s really important. And when everybody else is pantsing about making flowers out of bread you make an actual heart what bleeds because you’re a fucking weirdo. And I also know you’re with another bloke so I should probably shut up.”
And if what you do makes you happy and makes other people happy, that should be enough of a difference for anybody.”
The Greek billionaire has just offered the virgin cellist a very saucy proposal, so I think we’re about to get to the good bits.”
While Rosaline was still processing this, Harry asked, “How many of them books you read, anyway?” “About one a week for the last fifty years.” Rosaline couldn’t quite help doing the maths. “That’s two and a half thousand books.” “Yes, my husband’s forever making bookshelves. I should probably give them to charity, but it’s a collection now.” “Well”—Harry gave an easygoing shrug—“don’t let us keep you from your billionaire.” Nora grinned. “Wild horses couldn’t. You certainly can’t.”
Is it Magic Mike–themed? Are you going to be baking with your shirt off?” “What? On the BBC? At eight o’clock on a Tuesday. Not bloody likely.” “You mean”—Anvita’s eyes were sparkling—“you would bake with your shirt off after the watershed? Are you aiming for a spin-off called Dobson After Dark?”
Nora, still waiting for her giant macaron to dry, was perched on her stool, slyly reading a book that appeared to be called The Playboy Prince’s Secret Baby.
“It’s all right,” said Anvita. “I’m prepared. Let her die.” “Anvita’s cake.” Grace Forsythe gazed solemnly at what was left of it. “In the short time we knew you, we loved a lifetime’s worth.”
there’s always someone worse off than you, but you’re not helping ’em by ignoring your own problems.”
It’s not selfish to work on your problems. It’s selfish not to. Even if hearing you’ve got a problem makes you yell at a nice girl what’s trying to help you.”
“Fuck me with a rusty egg whisk.” She bore down on Alain. “If you’ve come to me with a sob story because you got smacked in the teeth for being a dirty sex pest, then I might actually have to lose my temper with you.”
“That isn’t what happened,” protested Alain, wilting a little. “I invited Rosaline to stay with me, and I invited a friend to stay with us. We had some drinks and one thing led to another. I’m sorry if she misread the situation.” A silence, mostly occupied by Jennifer staring at Alain through narrowed eyes. “If you think I believe that for the length of a weasel’s cumshot, you smug little prick, you really don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
“Like, a knobhead usually don’t mean nothing by it. But a dick just don’t care.” “And a ballsack?” “Kinda…hangs there, not doing much good to anyone.”
“Espuma?” said Grace Forsythe, whose innuendar had, once again, called her to Rosaline’s side. “Hardly knew ’er.”
She probably shouldn’t have taken her eyes off any of the things she was cooking, but Rosaline couldn’t help but ask, “Are you allowed to espuma before the watershed?” “If she’s up for it.”
