Miss Foot in the Garden

Miss Foot, in the garden, avoided his bemused half-gaze.

He removed his glasses and rubbed his eye, jabbing at it insensitively with his red knuckles.

"My God! You'll rub it right out of its socket! So rough, Colonel!" He ignored her and continued rubbing and jabbing until it seemed the eye would indeed come loose and land, perhaps with a small splash, into the red watering can which I inadvertently left near his chair. The other eye, a sparkling blue gem, stared dumbly at the dog, Warnie.

He put his glasses back on and rested his chins in the palm of one hand as he lapsed into a pleasant daydream. This annoyed Miss Foot, who looked beyond him to the garden and sneered at the white statue planted among the roses. He hummed. How she loathed that grotesque creature with its pointed breasts! He tapped his fingers to an indiscernible tune, while her eyes rolled in her head. He coughed. She turned. Their three eyes met, and he smiled at her in that peculiar way some people have of turning the corners of their lips down rather than up. He winked. She quickly turned her head to avoid his gaze and fixed hers on a chink in the high brick wall. They were, in fact, hemmed in on three sides by the high brick wall which was "at least a century old," a fact even I can confirm, and an historical point which Bloom delighted in mentioning when the neighbors--or whomever--came to call. Ostensibly, the roses, which were very fine by the local garden club's standards, were the objects of neighborly--or whomeverly--admiration. But it was the statue, his marble goddess in the garden, and his incredible (some said "unnatural") devotion to it that attracted most visitors. And of course, the extensive butterfly collection for which, I believe, he was rather well known among academic fanciers of lepidoptera, were inside the house, which brings us to the fourth side of the enclosed garden, the back of the aged house and the screen door which required endless mending and was at that very moment crying in pain. In fact, the entire house was dying, weak and moaning, but clung tenaciously to life, too sick and stubborn to die. And it was from within the house that the tea kettle could now be heard shrilly calling.

"Tea!" he called back, pressing his tie to his belly and rising form the rusty wrought iron chair. He winked at her again and passed hurriedly into the house. She forced a conciliatory smile, but then, you know, I always thought her an unpleasant spinster. I even felt sorry for poor Warnie for having such a wretched mistress.

An invisible hand slamming a window shut on the second floor stunned her and, with her own nervous hand, she searched for Warnie's warm head, but he was lying on the ground, his big belly sticking out from beneath him on both sides. His eyes rolled, scanning the wall for a fly. Or was it a butterfly?

Then she heard him, humming gleefully from within, and saw his porcine figure through the screen door. His hands were full with the tray, and he nudged and coaxed the door with his sneakered foot. It was here that he encountered difficulty as she (triumphantly) knew he would, but he kept at it. Owing to an ingenious--but timely--local locksmith's invention which had long since gone bad, the door tended to lock itself on warm, moist days. Today, for example. Still, Bloom continued nudging and coaxing, but it would not oblige. Clearly, it required a loving foot from the outside (for it swung both in and out), rather than an indifferent one from the inside. She might have helped him with the door, with the tray, with his half-sightedness (to add insult to injury--we shall presume it is owing to a ghastly injury--the real eye was plagued with both near and farsightedness), but she resolutely decided that she would not, unless he specifically requested her assistance. And he did not. And the door burst open, slamming itself violently against the back of the house.

"The ghosts," he mumbled, shaking his big head as he set the tray on the table.

"Now then, Miss Foot." He winked at her and poured the tea.

This house. These ghosts. It was all too much for her. But, as he was the only neighbor willing to receive her for tea, she endured his more bizarre aspects and became, after all those years, rather accustomed to his company. Still, I think she rather fancied him, but she never made a declaration of love. Perhaps she was embarrassed. Or shy.

He poured his own tea then, humming all the while, and she looked enviously at Warnie, whose eyes were shut tightly, his big tail nervously fanning the air. She concluded that he, too, must be dreaming. And he was.