Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

leave,” she said.
“Who?”
“Them. Those others.”
“They aren’t your friends?”
“I never do this,” she said, without answering his question. “I loathe people who sneak the stuff. But they’ll never leave if I offer them some. I know how they are.”
“Yeah.”
She grabbed his hand suddenly. “Did I show you Bix’s panties?”
It wounded him slightly to see that she had forgotten. “Yeah. Last time. During the auction.”
“Oh. Right.” She smiled penitently. “Brain damage.”
“That’s O.K.”
“I don’t show them to just anybody. Only the real people.” He nodded.
“You’re a good guy, Brian.”
“Thanks, Theresa.”
“Terry,” she said.
“Terry,” he echoed.
    Phantom of the Manor
T HERE WERE ELEVEN PASSENGERS IN ALL, SIX OK WHOM were Americans, The driver doubled as guide, providing commentary as the bus left the village behind and plunged into the engulfing green of the countryside.
“Today, ladies and gentlemen, we shall be visiting Easley House, the focal point of the village of Easley-on-Hill. Easley House is an outstanding example of an English Jacobethan manor house.” He chuckled mechanically in the manner of every bad tour guide on earth. “That’s right. You heard me correctly. Jacobethan. That’s a cross, don’t you see, between Jacobean and Elizabethan. The house was built between fifteen eighty-seven and sixteen thirty-five by the Ashendens of Easley-on-Hill, a Gloucestershire gentry family which had owned properly in the county since before the Conquest.”
Wilfred made a not-so-subtle yawning gesture.
Michael smiled at him. “It was your idea,” he whispered.
“She’s your friend,” said the kid.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” answered Michael, gazing out the window at a meadow full of sheep. “I’m not counting on anything.”
The bus slowed down as it entered Easley-on-Hill, a picture-perfect village built entirely of crumbling umber limestone. They bounced along a sunken lane for a minute or two, then crossed another sheep-dotted meadow until the manor house came into view.
Wilfred’s voice assumed a near-reverential softness. “Look at that, mate.”
“I’m looking.” Michael murmured. “Jesus.”
Easley House shone with the same burnished glow as the village, a looming conglomerate of gables and chimneys and tall mullioned windows winking in the sunshine. It was bigger than he had pictured, much bigger.
“She’s running drugs,” said Wilfred.
The guide pulled into a parking lot the called it a car park) several hundred yards from the house. Michael and Wilfred shuffled out with the other passengers, reassembling in a passive clump like raw recruits awaiting orders. The guide, in fact, made a passable drill sergeant, with his blustery delivery and time-worn anecdotes and his disconcerting Roquefort cheese smile.
“We shall proceed from this point on foot. Easley House is the private residence of Lord Edward Roughton, son of Clarence Pirwin, fourteenth earl of Alma, so I trust we shall all remember that and conduct ourselves accordingly at all times.”
Wilfred made a farting noise.
“Now,” continued the guide, oblivious of Wilfred’s punctuation, “the first building you will notice on our left is the tennis pavilion, a thatched structure erected in the nineteen twenties. The building across the road there is the tithe barn of the village, built in the late fourteenth century by the abbots of Easley to store the produce tithed to them by their parishioners. The slit windows in the gables were put there to admit fresh air and … what else?” He looked around, flashing more Roquefort cheese, and waited for an answer; none came. “No guesses? Well … that’s a private entrance for the owls. They needed them, don’t you see, to control the vermin.”
Four or five of the other passengers made sounds of recognition. “See, Walter,” piped one of the Americans, tugging on her husband’s arm, “see the little slits for the owls?” Her spouse nodded dully. “I see it, Phyllis. I have eves. I see the slits.”
Michael and Wilfred brought up the rear as the group was led through an ornate gatehouse built of the ubiquitous golden limestone. A small church lay to their left, encrusted with moss and whittled away at the edges by five hundred Gloucestershire winters. Its tombstones bore an uncanny resemblance to the guide’s teeth.
“Now,” he was saying, “we are passing the brewhouse, which was last used before the Great War