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Chapter 6 - Aftermath
When England awoke, the first thought that went through his head was 'why does my head hurt?' and then 'why am I holding a rose?'
He wondered briefly if he had perhaps died. Can Nations die from too much drink? If that was the case then surely Denmark, Prussia and Russia should all have died centuries ago, they were far heavier drinkers than he. The reason he thought he had died was, not so much the fact there appeared to be a series of small explosions going off in his head, but the fact that he could still hear those imbeciles Prussia and Denmark singing that infernal song.
At least he was fully clothed, that was some small consolation. He wondered briefly who had put him to bed. Clearly someone had. He couldn't remember anything.
He rolled off the bed and instantly his eyes hurt.
"Tea," he managed to croak, like a man who had been in the desert for years.
He heard his trusty old kettle downstairs whistling happily - the best noise in the whole world.
Either he had gotten suddenly very good at magic (doubtful) and could now 'do' telekinesis or there was a burglar. A burglar who made tea.
Somehow he stumbled downstairs and weaved his way into the kitchen.
"Ah! Bonjour Angleterre!"
"What in the name of cricket are you doing here?"
"I went through your cupboards and you did not have any croissants!" France said this as if it were a cardinal sin.
England squinted at him, sitting down heavily at the table, "Croissants? Why would I have croissants? And turn that bloody light off."
"Zat bloody light is the sun!" France said. "Anyway," he continued, "I took ze liberty of going to ze boulangerie to buy some croissants for petit dejeuner."
"Why are you here?"
"Driving lesson!" France said cheerily.
"Not today, absolutely not, non, nyet, nein… got that? And will please turn that bloody light off!"
France leaned down to look at him, "Eet was a good night, mon ami?"
"No, it bloody was not!" England almost yelled, but this hurt his head and so he took a big slurp from a mug of tea France had placed in front of him (at least he had some uses).
"Ah… I see… but you are still in ze clothes you wore yesterday!"
England sighed. He remembered shadowy figures running, one running away from him, one - a smaller one - running with him, birds - possibly ravens or some such, stone angels that may or may not have moved, and then… here England had to take another big gulp of tea, the worst of all. Those two imbecile taxi drivers, Prussia and Denmark and their infernal song.
"Is this the way to Amarillo?" England inadvertently began to sing.
"I hope not," France said, actually looking concerned.
"Oh God," England put his head in his hands.
France handed him a glass of fizzing alka seltzer and sunglasses.
"Merci," England muttered.
"What can I do for you, old friend?" France said, actually sounding sympathetic.
"Bacon… I need bacon. Only bacon can rid me of this hangover."
France looked appalled at this and merely placed a croissant in front of him. "I zink you need more zan bacon, mon ami. You need to sort out those tattoos for one thing."
"Tattoos?"
"I know you were in ze navy and all zat. Ah I love a sailor…" France went off into a reverie.
England looked at him and then down at his forearms, his sleeves riding up, revealing inky sigils and runes of some fiendish design.
"What the bloody hell?" he stood up, threw off his jacket and then his rolled up his sleeves. There were sigils and runes up and down his arms, swirling designs, stars and pentagrams, eerie numbers and letters in some unknown alphabet. "Can you read this, Francis?" he asked, feeling a little faint and very worried.
"It says that you need work out with some weights. Get down to ze gym."
"You fool! I mean the bloody tattoos…" England stuck his head inside his shirt to see if there were any tattoos on his chest - alarmingly there were.
Taking his mug of tea, he hurried or staggered was more accurate, up the stairs to his bathroom, locked the door, placed several obstacles against the door as protection against a French invasion force and stripped off his clothes.
As feared, his front, his back (he craned his head to look at himself in the mirror, standing on the loo so he could see his upper back), his legs and his arms were covered with tattoos. His 'other parts' thankfully, were clear. Whoever had done this had stripped him down to his Union Jack boxers, inked him and then re-dressed him. He must have been drunker than he'd ever been in his 1000 plus years.
"Are you alright, mon ami?" France asked, trying the door and then tapping on it lightly.
"Fine…" England said and filled the bath with hot water.
Four hours later, England entered his kitchen, now wearing a clean suit and tie, his hair combed, having taken several painkillers and cups of tea and also having scrubbed his body with all manner of lotions and potions. He'd even tried turpentine. Nothing had shifted the strange inky patterns. They hadn't even faded.
France was on his hands and knees, wearing a pink apron, cleaning out England's cupboards. "I found jam that is older than Feliciano in here," he told Arthur.
"Why are you still here?"
"I like it. I like to mess with your head. I already vacuumed your lounge, tidied away ze porn magazines and watered your plants."
"Porn magazines? They were my gardening magazines!"
France shrugged, "Eet eez all ze same to me," he said incomprehensibly.
England shook his head (it still hurt, but it no longer felt quite as if there was a drunken Viking rampaging through there) and took a deep breath, "I need your help, France."
France looked him up and down, "Yes, you do. You dress so boringly. You have no idea about style. Your house is a mess and your cupboards! Ooh lala! I have never seen such abysmal foodstuffs. Well, I have, but they were in Allemagne's kitchen. Terrible…" France finally stopped and seemed to be remembering, with a glint in his eye, the day that he rummaged through Germany's cupboards.
As much as England would have liked to hear what Germany had in his cupboards, he really had problems that needed sorting.
"No, I mean my arms, these bloody things won't come off, and they're everywhere!"
"Everywhere?" France looked up, blowing his hair out of his eyes and suddenly looking interested. He looked England up and down in a way that made England feel very dirty.
England squirmed, "Well almost."
"Let me see."
"No! Bloody pervert!"
"You are such a spoilsport."
"Why? Because I won't let you perv at my body?"
"I do not believe you zen."
"Well, what do I do?"
"Have you had a bath?"
"Of course, I've had a bloody bath. What do you zink, I mean think, I've been doing?"
France shrugged, "I do not know. Not teaching me to drive?"
"I have better zings, I mean er… things to worry about."
France tied his hair back in a pony tail and began on another cupboard, "Ah I see that you have a strange obsession with tupperware of all kinds. You know…" but France barely got his words out before England had opened the door, shovelled him out and into the Mini.
"…you and Allemagne are very much alike," France managed to finish. He was still wearing a pink apron.
England's right eyebrow twitched, "Just drive," he told France.
"You are very grumpy. Ze last teacher I had was not very grumpy, but he drank a lot."
England nodded and said sarcastically, "I can't imagine why! I mean really? Wow!" He felt like a drink himself.
"I know!" France agreed, crunching through the gears until he found the right one and then flung the car into reverse, almost slamming into England's prized Bentley, stopping within millimetres of the front bumper. (England shuddered)
They took off down the road. "Where are we going, mon ami? Another cricket match? It was such fun, yesterday."
England did not think being stuck in a queue with America and Germany, trying to explain the rules of cricket to both of them and then bailing out France and Italy from jail was 'fun'.
"You can't go to a cricket match. The court has an injunction out on you. You're not allowed within 500 yards of any cricket match."
France pouted as they drove down the road. "I am too sexy for cricket."
England ruminated on how to get an injunction so France couldn't get within 500 yards of him. Was that possible? He went off into a little reverie.
"Tell me how to get rid of these bloody tattoos," England said after just five minutes of silence.
"I zink my friend, that you need to get zem covered up with more tattoos."
"That's not appropriate. I have an image to uphold!"
"Your image of an uptight middle-aged Englishman? You could get a tattoo of me on your back! Zat would be ze best zing, I zink."
"Oh shut up…"
There was silence - for a while. France drove round and round the block, waving cheerily at people (he was still wearing yellow marigold gloves) and occasionally wolf-whistling at the workmen at the end of the road. It is not clear what big workmen in high-viz gear and hard hats thought about being wolf-whistled by a very camp learner driver.
"Can you bloody hear a radio somewhere?" England asked suddenly.
France shook his head.
"I can still hear that bloody song," England added. He fiddled with the radio. "Oh God…" England sighed and then said, "Perhaps we could just go to a DIY shop and…"
"Oui! You need to sort out your house. A full redecoration. We will buy paint and get some new curtains. You also need new bed linen."
"No! I was wondering if I could get something that removes ink!"
France looked disappointed and then brightened, "Oui! Zen you can just get a tattoo of my face on your chest!"
England shuddered, "I would prefer to nail my genitals to a rocket."
France looked honestly surprised at this.
"I can still hear that damned bloody song…" England switched the radio on and off.
"What damned bloody song, mon ami?" France feigned a mixture of indifference and concern, a devilish grin on his face.
England didn't answer as they sat in a long queue of traffic, instead his usual highly irritable behaviour came to the fore. "What in the name of all that's holy is going on here?"
France shrugged, switched off the engine and began filing his nails.
England got out of the car. His hangover was bubbling away in the background and he was dosed up on a combination of alka seltzer, paracetomol and tea, although he'd not had enough tea. He was not having a good day. It was about to get worse.
He heard before he even saw, who was causing the chaos.
"Show me the way to Amarillo, I've been waiting like a willow…" came the dreadful singing.
That infernal song, would he ever be free of it? He'd heard it all day in his head, going round and round like some hellish earworm. He shook his head and tried to backtrack before they saw him.
Too late…
"Hey! Old man England!" it was Prussia, sitting on the pavement, looking very much like a vagrant (although a vagrant would feel affronted by this comparison), waving a beer in the air.
England quickly pulled his jacket over his head and hurried back to the car.
But the other one shouted, "Yo! England, who do we ring to fix this?" the loudest voice in Christendom addressed him.
England used to think America had the loudest voice, but Denmark, when in full flow could make Alfred F Jones sound like he was whispering.
"Damn," England cursed and headed towards them.
"We broke down," one of them said. Quite unnecessarily as it turned out as the hood, there was smoke coming from within and there was a steady drip of oil.
"Who do we ring?" Prussia asked England.
"Ghostbusters!" Denmark yelled and grinned happily.
England ignored the big dopey Dane. "You need to ring the AA."
England walked away, trying to block out the next verse they began singing.
"Well, mon ami? Eez eet some big buff workmen like ze last ones?" France asked, looking up from polishing his nails, "Are zay digging up ze roads?"
"No, it was somezing far worse." (Clearly, England appeared to be picking up a French accent..)
France raised an eyebrow and then he grinned devilishly, wriggling provocatively in his seat. "Oh lalala, my phone is on vibrate. Eet eez delicious."
"Jesus."
"Non. Eet eez not him."
"Just bloody answer it!"
"Eet eez leetle Gilbert! 'E says zat he wants to talk with you."
England took hold of the phone between thumb and forefinger, swearing to wash his hands as soon as he could afterwards.
"England!" came the German voice from the other end. (England wondered why he bothered ringing, he could hear him anyway.) "You told us to the ring the AA but they were no good."
England sighed, "Why not?"
"They just said some rubbish about cutting down on my drinking!" Prussia said, sounding utterly appalled.
England pressed the button to hang up.
"We should help zem, mon ami." France said sadly.
It took France, England, Prussia, three big workmen (one had his bottom pinched by the 'creepy Frenchman'), to get the cab to the side of the road so that the traffic flow could resume. Denmark's steering impeded the operation drastically.
"Right, let's have a look at this bloody thing," England said.
"Ah mon ami, do not get yourself dirty," France cried.
"Why not?"
"You have another wonderful date tonight!"
"Tonight? But I haven't heard anything… I can't possibly…"
"But you can possibly…"
"I'm covered in bloody tattoos!" England said, but leaned over the car's open hood anyway and peered at the engine.
"Ah oui… eet eez true," France told Prussia and Denmark, who both stood, open-mouthed.
England stood up, his hands oily and wiped them on Denmark's already filthy t-shirt (he wasn't going to sully his own outfit), "So, what did you do to this car?"
"It wasn't our fault!"
"Nah, it was okay 'til you got in with your weird girlfriend."
"Ah she is gorgeous, but deadly," France purred.
"Girlfriend! She's not my girlfriend!"
"Whatever…" Prussia said, but then handed Denmark a ten-pound note, shrugging.
"Ha, told you!" Denmark punched the air.
"You had a bet on me?!" England yelled.
"Ja!"
But England was distracted and took out his phone.
"Are you ringing those AA people? Because they were no help when we rang them."
England ignored them, "Ah hello? Miss Belarus? No, it's me, Arthur… Kirkland… England… from last night. Yes…" he tried to ignore them and even turned his back on his fellow Nations.
"Ha! She doesn't remember him!"
"Then that's a bit of luck!"
"Ah l'amour!"
"Well, yes I did have a nice time… I think… did you? Oh, I see…" England's face fell.
"Kesese! England's too boring for Princess Crazy!" Prussia shouted deliriously. England elbowed him in the gut.
"Well, I'm sorry about that," England said, feeling the most 'unsorry' he had ever been in his long life. Surely, it wasn't his fault that Belarus hadn't 'caught' her brother? He hadn't even been aware she was hunting him last night. Suddenly, it all came together. England absent-mindedly slapped his head (leaving a large black oily handprint on his forehead) and then said, "Well anyway, even if it was my fault that you didn't catch Russia, which I really don't think it was actually…" he broke off listening.
(France, Prussia and Denmark inched away from him as if Belarus was going to reach down the phone and strangle them all.)
"I wonder if you could shed some light on my tattoos…" England continued.
He stood listening intently, so did Prussia and Denmark. France looked bored.
England listened and then almost yelled before he realised who he was speaking to, so quietened his voice, "It's your shopping list? Really?"
France tugged England's sleeve up and showed Denmark and Prussia the tattoos. Both stepped back looking very very worried. In fact, they both jumped in the car and attempted to leave, all singing ceased. They forgot, however, that the car was broken down.
"This is unacceptable!" England yelled, he then added much quieter, "Sorry… you'll do what? Oh…" he then hung up.
"She will remove your tattoos?" France asked looking a little concerned (but only a little).
"No, she'll remove my head if I bother her again," England said gloomily. He spotted Denmark and Prussia locked in their car.
He tapped on the window.
One of them opened it a crack and said, "Thanks, but we don't want to buy anything today."
"Insolent little buggers," England said. "I thought you needed help?"
"Not from you…" Prussia said, winding the window back up.
England tapped on the glass again, "Why?" he asked eventually when one of them opened the window.
"You're a marked man, dude," Denmark said sadly.
"Yeah. You're cursed," Prussia agreed.
"Poppycock!" England said. He turned to France who shrugged.
"I can be your bodyguard!" France told him as they walked back to the Mini.
"Baloney! I don't need a bloody bodyguard. Now, telephone my date and tell them I'm not going tonight.
"I cannot."
"Why?"
"I cannot remember who it was."
"You complete and utter nobtard," England said.
Because it was such a new insult, France had no idea what that meant. So he shrugged again in that annoying French way.
They arrived back at England's house, England trying to work out how to get rid of the tattoos, when there was a knock on the door.
"Tell them to go away!" England yelled.
However, it was the postman with a parcel. For some reason, the poor man was trembling.
France blithely signed for it and England warily opened it.
Inside a box was a human skull with a message: "Fill this with the regretful tears of a thousand-year-old Nation, shake it vigorously under the light of a full moon and I will come…" it was signed Belarus. Clearly, she'd sent this before their one-sided, 'quiet' argument that afternoon.
He dropped the thing and wiped his hands.
France switched on the kettle and then opened a bottle of wine.
But neither had the chance to refresh themselves when there was the unmistakable sound of horse's hooves on the garden path…
Author's Notes:
Obviously, Prussia had mistaken the AA (Automobile Association that England was talking about and who deal with vehicle breakdowns) and the AA (Alcoholics Anonymous, who don't).