Love and Carnage (Part 2)

There comes a point. during an omelette on a plate's flight, that the omelette parts company with the plate and they both go in different directions. The omelette, being lighter than the plate, rapidly loses trajectory and begins to fragment. Some of the component pieces will generally hit a wall, while others, depending on the filling in the omelette and the moisture contained therein, will fragment further, dropping onto the floor or sticking to other surfaces, such as clothing. The plate, on the other hand, will continue gaining momentum --especially if the person at whom it has been hurled, takes evasive action to avoid injury. If this happens, the plate, if it is of a heavy white china type, will hit a door lintel, shattering on impact as the shards and chips go all over floor nearest to the collision point..

She had only been back for about twenty minutes. "You've lost weight. Let me cook you an omelette." she suggested. I stood there in our kitchen, in a happy pre-Christmas haze of cheap port, home-made beer and smoke.She had come back, though. That was the main thing,  "Oh, I forgot to mention," I began, as brightly as I could." Peppercorn and the German visitors will be back pretty soon, to pick up the German girl."

"German girl?" she asked. " Yeah," I said. I explained that they were all doing a bit of pre-Christmas shopping. That they'd left some stuff here. That the young German girl was drunk, as she had been upon arrival here...and technically, you know, that means, because she's under 18 or something, that one of the German guys was responsible for her welfare. So they'd asked if they could leave her here. Of course, I said, yeah. So I'd just been sitting around listening to music, cleaning up,  putting the odd Christmas decoration up and waiting for them to come back while... "A drunk teenage German girl? Here?" she said." I didn't see her in the living room."

"Well no, you didn't let me explain that bit, I thought it was better, since I was hoovering up and stuff, to put her in the bedroom.." I smiled.  "You've put a drunk, teenage German girl in our bedroom??"  "Well...darling" I said. "It's not like you've been here for weeks and weeks and there's nothing going on. I mean, I only put her in there to sleep. Until they pick her up. Which should be any minute now."

"Where exactly did you put her?" She asked me. "In the bed of course." I replied.. As if I'd considered maybe the wardrobe or the garden shed but then, flipped a coin and opted for the bed.  She looked at me, all the time, carefully moving the omelette out of the pan and onto the plate.What could possibly go wrong? 

Thus, round about 4.30 on the afternoon of December 23rd 1978,  began the inaugural and indeed, only flight of the omelette. The plate skimmed my ribcage before hitting the door lintel and breaking up. Some of the omelette hit me in the chest. Two minutes later, after a number of swearwords, I was watching her walking past the kitchen window and down the street in the winter darkness. In her hands were the two bags which she'd set down upon her arrival, in the living room and hadn't even bothered to unzip.  I was busy picking up pieces of broken plate shards, and wiping omelette of the wall -- and myself -- with a wet dishcloth.. The two cats were helping with the stuff on the floor.  Three minutes after that, Peppercorn and the Germans arrived, woke the German girl up, and gave her some tea. The whole incident had happened in their absence. The girl hadn't even woken up during the row. A while after that, they all went back to Ipswich, leaving me, the cats and my memories. I poured myself another port, lit a roll-up, put David Bowie's Low on the record player and said to myself. " Merry Christmas, Martin." 

Here, for interested readers are the salient points learned from this incident.

1) Never assume, even if your girlfriend left you almost two months earlier, that she won't suddenly decide to come back, without any kind of clue or announcement.

2) Never deposit a drunk teenage German girl in your bed. Not even if it's a favour to friends who have promised to pick her up within a couple of hours.

3) Never think that just because, you have done a good deed, and that you are absolutely innocent of any kind of impropriety, that a woman won't think the worst of you.

4) Never assume that a woman you are in a relationship with, will necessarily have a passing acquaintanceship with any notion of fairness or reason, or that she will even hear let alone understand any of the things you are saying, while you attempt to provide your own defence in a court of her devising, where she is judge, jury and cross-examining attorney for the prosecution.

5) Never try and second guess a flying omelette

Merry Christmas. And may all your Christmases be white ( or sometimes, yellow, with a few bits of chopped mushroom, garnished with parsley)