Week 22 - Laura - perfection

A piece to follow this one and this one.

“Perfection (5, 8, 6),” the clue we’d found in Noni’s precious sewing kit in the top drawer of the antique desk she kept her sewing machine on said.

I had to admit, I was a bit flummoxed. As long as I’d known her, Noni had championed imperfection and had made a dedicated effort to avoid perfection in everything she did. I remember her laughingly telling me that often that required almost no effort at all on her part. She used to defend any particularly shoddy results hilariously. Even though she wasn't sure she even believed in God, when a project turned out exceptionally badly she’d say God was the only one who created perfect things and that as a mark of respect humans shouldn't try to do the same. “Nobody argues with God,” she used to giggle. Other times she’d loosely paraphrase Aristotle, saying whatever she’d created had "attained its purpose" and was therefore perfect even though it didn't look it.

“I think I might know,” a strangely nervous-sounding Gina said quietly from the corner of the room. No longer brash, Noni’s sister seemed a little lost in a world of long-buried memories.

“Go on,” I encouraged. “I'm stumped, so any suggestions are welcome.”

“When we were girls, we both learned the basics of cooking and baking from our own mother,” Gina began, still looking off into the middle distance, like she was trying to focus on something just out of reach. “Noni was brilliant with the savoury recipes. She used to make the best quiche. And the brown bread she used to make to go with it, oh, it was bread the rest of us could only dream of making.

“I took more to the sweet stuff,” she continued. “You probably could have guessed that from looking at my figure though. I think I went up about two dress sizes once I discovered my love for baking, and I've kept them and added a few more since.

“Anyway, from when Noni was about 13 and I was about 11, we had this tradition. Any time there was a birthday in the house, Noni would make a special quiche for tea and I would make a Victoria sponge birthday cake for after. I can still hear her. ‘Gina, your Victoria sponge is perfection itself,’ she used to always say.

“I can’t believe I even remembered that,” Gina said, coming out of her world of memories somewhat. “It’s been so long since I even thought of when we were young, and I haven’t made a Victoria sponge or any other kind of cake in years.”

“'Gina’s Victoria Sponge' fits,” Birdie said, “and I’d bet my bingo book on you being right.”

“Just tell me if it’s a waste of time, but I’d like to try my hand at making a sponge right now,” Gina said, looking around the group for approval. “It really doesn't take long, and if you like I could tell you what Noni was like growing up while I'm doing it.”

“More Noni stories and cake besides,” Faye cackled. “I think the way forward is clear.”

Week 20 - Laura - Twist in the tale

A follow-on from this piece.

Three hours later, everyone from this morning’s meeting except Mr Kennedy was in Noni’s front hall. Sure enough, buoyed up by a hearty lunch in Fagan’s, the rest of the O’Haras had asked for my help with dear old Noni’s posthumous crossword. Or “this ridiculous farce” as they chose to describe it.

Gina, Noni’s only living sister; Gina’s children Bertie, Martha and John; Noni’s late brother Alfred’s children Peg and Suzanne and her long-dead twin Patrick’s own twins Maggie and Sean all jostled for space around the Muckross House painting I’d already told them I suspected as the crossword’s first solution and the holder of the next clue.

Birdie and Faye were more relaxed, having elected to sit in the adjoining sitting room in the familiar chairs they claimed as their own on Monday evening visits for as long as I can remember.

Determined for the O’Haras to get to know Noni better, even now, I recounted all I could remember of her Killarney escapades before looking for the next clue. “She was always a flibbertigibbert,” Gina, who I’m convinced was never in love in her life despite having clocked up 44 years of marriage before her husband Bert cashed in his chips, tutted.

“Oh but she was a ticket,” Birdie exclaimed. “She’d have done the same in her later years too,” Faye added, knowing full well Noni’s fuddy-duddy relatives were all but physically covering their ears to stop them having to hear more of Noni’s youthful escapades. “She used to say there’d be no stopping her if it wasn’t for her dodgy hips.”

Resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going to warm the ‘good will hunters’ to Noni with this particular tale, I carefully took her treasured painting down and set it against the wall she’d had painted bright red last year, in one of her last acts of rebellion. Sure enough, scribbled in chalk on the wall behind the painting was the next clue: “Twist in the tale (8)”.

“That could be said of lots of Noni’s stories,” Faye cackled. With no real memories of her to go on, Gina, Bertie, Martha, John, Peg, Suzanne, Maggie and Sean looked at least as puzzled as they had when Mr Kennedy had read out this morning’s inaugural clue.

Unsure myself, I decided to think logically - “the best way to approach crosswords, but often a boring way to lead life”, Noni used to say. “Twist in the tale,” I mused. “That usually means an unexpected ending, but that’s far too many letters to be the solution. ‘Curveball’ doesn’t work either, and ‘unanticipated’ is far too long.”

“It’s ‘surprise’,” Birdie, a fellow crossword fiend, called in. “It has to be, and I think I know just the story Noni was thinking of too.”

Curious now, everyone piled into the front room.

“Did Noni ever tell you about the time she met Princess Diana?,” Birdie asked the room. “She never did!,” a green with envy Gina burst out. “No way!,” Peg added, admiration already melting her aloofness.

“Well she did,” Birdie continued, casually pretending not to notice what her question had done to the atmosphere in the room.

“It was back years ago now, when she lived over in London. She was doing a line with that Duke at the time - I forget his name, but it doesn’t matter. Anyway, he brought her to that Royal Ascot race and they were hanging out with all the fancy folk. Of course Noni was at least their equal. She was never affected by people’s station in life. She looked sensational. She often showed me pictures of the day, and oh, her outfit - I can’t describe how gorgeous it was. She’d made her own headpiece to go with it, naturally, having become known for that over there.

"Anyway, it was late in the afternoon when she was in the toilet no less that she bumped into Princess Di herself. In a right state, Noni said the princess was. You’d never think it’d happen to a royal, but hadn’t her hem come undone and she was mortified. What did Noni do but take a needle and thread out of her handbag and fix it there and then for her! Noni said she’d have done it for the waitress that served their drinks on the day just the same - and you know she would have done too - but that the princess was as grateful or more than anyone would have been. ‘Forever in her debt,’ she told me the princess said. Being the ticket she was Noni told her not to say that, just in case she looked for something outrageous in return as thanks.

“Anyway, Noni forgot about it, well as much as you can forget about doing a bit of stitching for someone like that, but about a month later she got this darling little sewing set in the post. All jewels it was on the outside, and on the inside it was engraved with Forever in your debt, your friend in need, D. I think she ordered a couple of headpieces from her after too.”

“You are having a laugh,” an incredulous Martha said.

“She’s not,” I replied. “And what’s more, I know where that sewing kit is and I bet it’s where our next clue is too.”

“I swear there’s about twice as much enthusiasm knocking around than there was at the start of this game,” I heard Birdie whisper to Faye as we all decamped to the room Noni called her workroom right up to her death.

“She’s right too,” I thought, pleased that the O'Haras might finally be starting to enjoy getting to know Noni properly.