One of your specials by Helen Carr
Day 1
Invited to the Isle of Skye. Load up with food and drink as advised by George. Arrive at chilly cottage where our friends have failed to locate the heating controls. Survey the supplies they’ve brought – two squashes and a crate of small, mysterious root vegetables. I suggest a quick pasta meal for this evening.
My, that would be wonderful, says George, wouldn’t it honey?
As I assemble ingredients, Tina edges towards the door.
If you don’t mind, she says, I need a little nap before dinner.
You go ahead, sweetheart, says George. He surveys the onions and chopping board uneasily.
You know, he says, I think I’ll just go up and check on Tina.
We next see them when they are called for dinner.
Day 2
Lovely lanes, golden bracken, Highland cattle. Picnic lunch for self and spouse. George and Tina say they can manage with nuts. Wait in vain for dinner initiative from George and Tina. My suggestion of roast chicken greeted rapturously.
I commend you for bringing all this wonderful food, say George. How about some of these…?
He gestures vaguely towards the roots.
I think they’re Tibetan, says Tina. You know, I just have to have a short nap, my energy is right down…
Yes, says George, this island air makes you… he follows Tina upstairs.
Day 3
Geologically themed day. Husband lectures us on basalt and lewisian gneiss.
Packed lunch for us, George and Tina manage with nuts. Not sure how long I can.
Time to prepare dinner; atmosphere tense.
I was hoping to see some bats while I’m here, says George, exiting into the night.
I just have a couple of calls to make, says Tina as she slips away.
Dinner made by husband and self.
Day 4
Ancient hall adorned with shields and swords, sheepskin factory and driving rain. Lunch as above.
Wild surmise as George says, Honey, why don’t you do one of your specials tonight?
You’ll love it, he assures us.
Tina takes knobbly green squash and stabs it repeatedly with bread knife. Shades of Bannockburn. She places it in the oven, makes her excuses and heads for the stairs. George follows. Husband and I make shepherd’s pie.
Sweetheart, says George, through the squash steam, I commend you; this special is just…
He’s lost for words and so are we. No commendation for the shepherd’s pie
Day 5
Sparkling day. George drives us through tangled, green valley where, he believes, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, famous 60s band, has a house. Nostalgia floods car as George plays his JT CD.
All manage with nuts for lunch today. George says he was hoping for one of my delicious picnics.
You know, says Tina, I think George and I will cook tonight…we’ll just go and get some…
Off they drive, leaving us to start the clearing up of the cottage; for tomorrow we leave.
Finish clearing and cleaning.
Dinner time and still no sign of our friends.
Husband and I make dinner and are about to eat it when they return.
Hey, says George, hope you made enough for us…the shops were all closed.
Day 5
Last minute packing. No mention of our previous day’s highland clearances.
You know, says Tina, I’m going to find a home for these sweet little vegetables.
She exits bearing the crate of roots.
Tina thinks of everything, says George.
She returns, empty handed.
I just walked up the road, she says, and guess what, there was a house with Tibetan prayer flags in the garden. I knew they’d love those little…the guy who opened the door was ecstatic…
Tina is such a great provider, says George. It’s her speciality.
I liked this, although I had to read it twice to get the full horror of the relationship. I was too busy wondering why they kept scampering upstairs, and thought there might be a denouement about that. But then I realised it was about root veggies. I think this is half an elephant, because an EITR is where everyone knows about the issue and doesn’t speak about it, and I think two of the protagonists were blissfully unaware of their awfulness. But then I only had two half elephants myself, so can’t talk.
This is a reminder of how useful the diary form is – particularly for humour. You can vary the length of the entries, you can plant running jokes and, as in this case, build up cumulative jokes. An invitation to a holiday on Skye for the inside of a week, sharing a cottage with another couple, sounds like bliss. But, of course, it depends who the other couple are. George and Tina turn out not to be ideal, but the revelation of their awfulness is skilfully drip-fed to the reader. Basically, they are spongers, quite happy for the narrator and her husband not only to provide the food, but also to cook it. As the week progresses, the mystery of the ‘small, mysterious root vegetables’ increases and there are lots of other exact incidental details… the fact that the roots may be ‘Tibetan’… the ‘sheepskin factory and driving rain’… ‘the Jethro Tull CD’. All of this is helped by the wry, long-suffering tone of the narrator. The fact that her husband is not given a name is also telling. And his lecturing them on ‘basalt and lewisian gneiss’ suggests that time spent with him may not be undiluted pleasure. The irony of George’s final line, ‘Tina is such a great provider’ is exquisite. The demonstrates that the best weapon in the humourist’s armoury is subtlety. Small brushstrokes work.