Butter Side Up
© Suzanne Bosworth 
Published by Books Ireland


It was the guilt which made breakfasts so horrible.
  All Martin wanted was to push food into his mouth and have the day edge slowly into focus. But instead he had to sit like a large, hopeful dog at table with Joe, Frank and Hamish, the other lodgers, slouched in submissive silence, as Mrs Jericho the landlady fluffed up her flounces, flapped her pudgy hands at everyone to get their attention, and said grace.
  'For what we are about to recearve,' Mrs Jericho would say to the ceiling with her eyes closed, 'may the Lord make us truly thairnkful.'
  He'd had it up to there with being thankful. Take the marmalade. Martin would help himself to the regulation knifeful of the cheapest stuff she could buy and she'd say, in that way she had, that money was taight and she had none to spare for luxury brands. And that they should be grateful for the saircrifice of those who made the eating of marmalade possible. All those South Airfricans she'd say. Or Mexicans. She wasn't quite sure which.
  But what was sure was that you couldn't just shove some on a bit of toast and eat it and mind your own business. You had practically to be on your knees being grateful, and licking it off the carpet.
  Martin had tried lightening the mood once. 'Well you know what they say.'
  'What do they say, Mr Watkins?'
  'Marmalade is the sun grinning over the horizon of breakfast.'
  Mrs Jericho had cleared her throat and dusted imaginary crumbs from the spotless cereal table. 'Doubtless 'they' are unaware of the implications of such a statement, Mr Watkins. Oranges, as we knair, are traditionally grown and farmed at the expense of the hard working labourers who tend the grairves. It is nothing to grin about.'
  He wanted to raise a belly laugh, to wipe that self-satisfied, holier-than-the-entire-bloody-universe smile off her face. He wanted to swear, loudly. He wanted to dredge up dreadful words and gloop them in tomato ketchup all over her horrible pink posy-sprigged walls.
  He also needed more for his breakfast than the tiny bowl of cornflakes and one bit of toast and marmalade they were allowed. If the place weren't so cheap he'd find somewhere else but it was all he could afford on what he earned.


  'Who'dlaike a little marmalade?' said Mrs Jericho on Wednesday morning. ‘Something else, perhaps. A little jairm ?’
  'No, nothing thanks,' said everyone, miserably.
  Mrs Jericho refolded and sellotaped the top of the cornflakes box. 'Sadly I have toforgair the pleasure as I suffer with my glairnds and cannot eat a thing. Are you sure you don't want some?' She offered the pot to Martin, hopefully.
  'Not at the expense of the poor bloody labourers.'
  Mrs Jericho placed the pot back in its saucer. Red blotches appeared on her throat. 'Thairnk you, Mr Watkins.'
  She sailed from the room to fetch the post and the lodgers became quietly rebellious and mutinous in her absence.
  'Barking,' Frank said. 'Who does she think she is? Bleedin' Mother Teresa or wot?'
  Martin went to work and sat in his security hut with hatred in his heart, a roaring emptiness in his stomach and the beginnings of a headache.
  Maybe he could at least ask for a slight increase in helpings. Two pieces of toast, rather than one. She couldn't argue with that, surely, although there was always the risk she'd put the rent up.
 

  That evening he tapped on her living room door.
  'Who is it?'
  ‘Mr Watkins. Can I have a word?'
  'Just a mairment.' He heard what sounded like paper or cellophane being screwed up, and muted clashings of crockery and spoons. She appeared at the door, letting out wafts of coffee and perfume. Clouds of cerise net swathed her marshmallow shoulders. 'What is it, Mr Watkins?'
  'I was thinking, would it be alright if I had an extra piece of toast in the mornings? Give me a bit more oomph. Sort of.' He smiled helpfully.
  Mrs Jericho's face was as pink as her frills behind a wary look and a ghastly smile. 'Instead of your cornflakes, you mean? Certainly! I don't see any problem with thairt. See you in the morning at eight o'clock sharp as usual. Goodnaight, Mr Watkins.'
  She waggled her fingers at him and shut the door.
  Martin shifted his weight from one foot to the other and stared at his helpless reflection in the hall mirror. Not instead of cornflakes. As well as.
  He tapped again. When there was no answer, he tapped and opened the door a little. 'Mrs Jericho?'
  Not a sound.
  'Mrs Jericho?'
  Nothing.
  He pushed the door open a little more and peered round it, keeping his body just outside.
  The french windows were open and he could see her cerise billows surging into the greenhouse.
  Still keeping his body outside the door and craning his neck he stared at an open cupboard. It was stuffed with boxes and cartons of chocolate and filter coffee, jars of luxury jams and marmalades and rich cakes from Grimbles' Delicatessen. The kinds of biscuits where you only get eight to a packet. By the fireplace on a small table was a tray littered with the debris of supper for one, with a heavy accent on chocolate fudge cake and something with cream. Martin's eyes narrowed. Glairnds. Ha!
  A pink flutter in the garden startled him; he withdrew his head, shut the door quietly and thoughtfully, and went upstairs to knock first on Frank's door.


  Next morning a heightened air of fun had seeped into the breakfast room.
  'A little marmalade, Mr Watkins?' Mrs Jericho was proffering the pot as though it were the last to be had in the northern hemisphere.
  Martin cleared his throat. The lodgers curled their toes in anticipation.
  'Um, Mrs Jericho. You've convinced me. Maybe I shouldn't eat marmalade any more.'
  Mrs Jericho shot him a look.
  Joe coughed on a cornflake and went quite red with the effort of dislodging it, while Frank shook silently behind his Daily Mirror.
  'I also think,' Martin ploughed on, 'that people should be told about your sacrifices for a fairer world. We should help you. I'm going to have a word with Charlie at the paper and see if he can't do a little piece on you for the community slot. He could take a couple of snaps.' Martin graciously acknowledged the sudden rush of violent colour to her face and neck. 'Mrs Jericho?'
  'May I see you for a mairment, Mr Watkins?' said Mrs Jericho in a strangled voice, 'for just a little word. In the hall.'
  Mrs Jericho found it necessary to have quite a few little words with Martin in the hall.
  After which, as Martin said to Joe, Frank and Hamish later over a pint in the Four Feathers, it seemed fair, after managing to notch breakfast up to three kinds of cereal and as much toast as they could eat, to agree not to invite the local press round for a community profile slot on Mrs Jericho.
  That could keep until she tried putting the rent up.