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Driving Lessons
Chapter 11 - Breaking Glass
England could tell straight away that Hamish, his elder brother, had been at his house. There were two empty Scotch Whisky bottles on the doorstep. There was also a Scotland flag hoisted on the chimney. The kitchen was a riot of tartan.
"Where is he?" England demanded as soon as he walked in.
"Who, mon ami?" Francis asked, nonchalantly. Too nonchalantly. He was putting the kettle on and wiping his hands on his apron. He looked England up and down and raised an eyebrow. "You are covered in sauce."
"I know that!" England said. The flight over had been an embarrassment. But at least no-one had sat next to him. "Where is my damned brother?" England asked.
"Your brother? You mean your delightful Scotland? Hamish MacWhisky?"
"That's not his bloody name!"
"He is my best friend."
"Good, then you can move in with him in bloody Glasgow."
Francis looked horrified at the thought. "I cannot! It is too cold pour moi, there is no wine and he said I could not move in wiz him."
"So you asked?" England couldn't decide if he was hurt or relieved or angry.
"Mais oui. I thought that you did not want me living here?"
"Well yes, of course I bloody don't…"
"Well zen," France said. "Anyway, as I am living here…"
"You're not bloody living here."
"But I thought you said I could stay here…"
"Only until you've paid your debts to the French Government for that damned car you destroyed."
"Ah oui… I calculated how long it would take me to pay it off."
"Good, so you are paying it off," England nodded, "Bloody good and..?"
"10 euros a month…" here France took out his phone and began tapping in numbers. "I will be leaving in the year 4010…"
England almost fell over, "You what? Are you bloody kidding me?"
"Non, I am not kidding you."
"10 euros a month?"
"I have to live and buy my wine and beautiful clothes! I cannot live like you!"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
France looked him up and down, "You look like a tramp, mon ami. I am very sorry but the clothes that you wear are abysmal."
"I got into a disagreement with Spain. And another thing - that bloody date you arranged for me…"
"Avec Lily? Ah oui…" France smiled.
"Her bloody nutty brother turned up with his rifle. But you knew that didn't you?"
"Ah yes! Miss Belgium told Poland who told Hungary who rang me."
Still reeling from the revelation that he could be stuck with France for the next 2000 years, England staggered upstairs. "Get yourself a bloody job and pay people back you lazy idle…" he slammed the door and so France could no longer hear him.
When England had stuffed his tweed suit into a bag for the dry-cleaners and pulled on the pair of jeans he'd bought and wished he hadn't, together with a very old 'Led Zeppelin 1971 tour' t-shirt, he slouched back downstairs.
"Sacre bleu!" France said. "What are you wearing?"
"Seeing as all my clothes are either covered in tomato, bolognese sauce or blood and in the laundry basket, I had no choice," England told him.
"Laundry… ah oui… Laundry…" France hopped from foot to foot as if he were about to run for it.
"What do you mean?" England narrowed his eyes at France's shiftiness.
"Now before you start to get angry, I have to tell you that in Le France, zere is delivery service for laundry," France said, trying to placate him.
England stared at him and then outside at the bin-bags at the foot of his driveway, now being hauled out by two men in high-vis jackets who flung them into a van with 'Clothes donations' on the side.
France yelped, even before he was hit.
"You utter bastard!" England yelled and chased him with a large wooden spoon.
However, they were halted in their tracks when the doorbell rang.
"Yes?" England answered, holding a spoon, his hair wild.
"We have a delivery for a…" here the delivery man squinted at the clipboard, "Mr Bonnefoy?"
England's left eyebrow twitched, "Really?" he asked and then turned, yelling, "Francis! What did you order?"
Francis appeared suddenly and without warning behind him. "Ah! Merci beaucoup!" he told the delivery man.
"What did you order?" England repeated.
"Nothing, mon ami," France said as the delivery man disappeared telling them he'll 'bring it round'.
"You will replace all my clothes, Francis."
"Oui! I will. You have ze credit card, non? You can order whatever you like. Your old clothes were a problem, non?"
England shrugged. He had a point, they were bloody awful.
France tossed him a clothing catalogue and handed him a mug of tea, "Zere, knock yourself out."
"Why are the lingerie pages marked?" England called from the lounge, sipping his tea, momentarily mollified and determined to spend a lot of France's money on decent clothes.
But France did not answer. "You are so strong," he told the delivery men as they plonked a huge wooden crate at the door.
The men hurried off, leaving the crate in the doorway...
"What in God's name?" England spluttered.
"Have you ordered ze clothes, mon ami? You need to hurry before my Government realises I still have ze credit card."
"Never mind all that, what is that?" England said, quite reasonably he thought, as the crate blocked doorway.
"Eet eez wonderful, non? Eet eez my Louis XIV bureau."
"What?"
"A desk."
"I know what a bloody bureau is, you mad Frenchman. Are you pissing me about?"
France didn't answer this but opened the crate. "Ah, look. Eet eez wonderful. Très belle."
"Where are you going to put it?" England asked and then wished he hadn't as France looked him up and down lingeringly. "It's not bloody staying here."
"Eet eez very valuable, priceless in fact. Eet eez worth more than all your rubbish antiques."
"It can't be worth more than my grandfather clock. Queen Vic gave me that."
"Thousands and thousands."
"Zen sell eet," England said in a fake French accent, "But just get it out of my bloody doorway."
The bureau was finally out of the 'bloody doorway', it was now halfway up the stairs with France at the upper end of it and England at the other or 'downhill' as England thought it.
England had to help move it in the end, it was either that or as the bloody thing was blocking the doorway, he would be stuck in the house with France forever.
"To my left, mon ami."
"It won't bloody go any further bloody left, mon ami," England said through gritted teeth. "Are you actually holding up your end, anyway?" he added as he felt as if his arms were going to drop off. He realised that they really didn't make furniture this solid or heavy any more as, for the thousandth time, he muttered, "Damn bloody blasted sodding thing…" at the sheer weight of the thing.
"Gauche!" France all but shouted.
"Don't you bloody gauche me, you tart!" England yelled back.
"Droite!"
England shook his head, "It won't droite or gauche, you idiot!"
England was right, it wouldn't. The desk was well and truly stuck between the first and second landing, at the turn of the stairs.
France rubbed his hair with one hand and then stuck his hand in his trouser pocket, pulled out his phone and looked as if he were texting someone.
"Are you bloody holding this damned thing up at all?" England shouted.
France nodded.
"Bloody liar, I can see both your bloody hands!"
England's own phone beeped and he ignored it. He'd had several of those annoying German text messages that morning and he was still none the wiser. He'd also got a phone call from a breathy woman who had laughed hilariously at him without saying who she was and then hanging up and then a very teary Italian first singing down the phone and then, when he had shouted back, they had started crying. He had hung up then. It was all very perplexing.
"Put your bloody hands back on this," England shouted at him.
France was 'gabbering' into the phone and then said in English, "I know, he cannot get enough of me. Listen to him…"
England would have hit him if there wasn't a 300-year-old bureau between them.
France hung up. "I have called for aidez, non?"
"This bloody thing is stuck. I say we just light a match and burn the damned thing," England told him simply.
France shook his head, "Non, we will try again. You will go to your left and I will pull it zis way."
England wasn't really listening, which is probably the reason for what happened next.
"Hey! Why is there a blue hair ribbon on my bannister?" England asked and then disaster befell them.
England's grip had lessened and the bureau, that had been immovable for the past twenty minutes, slipped down the stairs towards him.
England did not have time to think, he just jumped down the stairs as the 300-year-old, priceless antique desk sped towards him and then smashed through the picture window.
There was a stunned silence.
France went very pale.
England was about to laugh at the absurdity of it when he heard his neighbour shout, "Oh my God! Your poor car!"
Arthur convulsed and went through the five stages of grief in the longest five minutes of his life.
"My… beloved… Bentley…" England spluttered, clutching his chest. That damned desk, that French abomination had crushed his beautiful car.
France, for once, was utterly speechless. He knew that even a cup of tea couldn't fix this. He was wondering what platitudes he could utter that would save him from having his precious genitalia crushed by a vengeful England when he heard something that gave him hope.
A German voice yelled, "Mein Auto! Mein Auto!"
"Allemagne!" France said with some relief, which was actually going to be short-lived.
England sagged to his knees.
"A desk has just landed on my car! What is wrong with you people?" Germany yelled.
France stuck his head out of the now open window and looked out. "Eet was Germany's car, mon ami," he said quietly and needlessly. He seemed to think this was okay and patted England on the shoulder and slunk off.
England stood up, took some deep breaths and headed downstairs. France was right. England's prized vintage Bentley was unmarked. Germany's one-year-old top of the range Mercedes-Benz was not. A desk on which the 'Sun King' had once composed his letters to his many lovers was embedded in its roof.
"Who is responsible for this?" Germany yelled.
"Well as to responsibility, that could be pretty much anyone I suppose."
"What? Are you high?" Germany asked him. The German's face was red, his hair ruffled and he looked the angriest England had seen him for a long time.
"Why are you here anyway?" England asked, genuinely interested. Germany never visited him. Their mutual dislike of each other - although slightly less than the dislike they felt for many of their fellow Nations and amplified after the two World Wars - together with a similar social ineptitude for dealing with visitors unless such visitors had given minimum two weeks' notice, meant that they rarely saw each other outside of the World meetings.
"Your lodger, Francis, rang me for help," Germany growled and glared at his car.
"He's not my bloody lodger!"
France suddenly appeared, "Oh Allemagne! You are here! I'm so glad you could come and…" here Francis affected outrage, "Your beautiful car! But oh! My beloved bureau!"
Germany glared at him.
France had obviously been thinking this up. England narrowed his eyes.
"Ze bureau was insured for over a quarter of a million euros! Eet was owned by ze great King Louis!"
"You're such a bloody dickhead, France," England told him, his arms folded.
Germany was looking from one to the other. "You are both degenerates. You ring me and then when I turn up to help you, you drop an antique desk on my beautiful car."
England could sympathise with the German but really didn't like being cobbled in with France and called a 'degenerate'. Even if it was true.
"I say old chap! I think that's a bit much! Do you honestly think that we deliberately dropped an antique priceless desk on your car just for fun?"
"For the insurance!" Germany yelled. "We all heard what France did to that Ferrari." Germany said this as if France had committed some indescribable act with the aforesaid vehicle.
"Zat bureau is my most prized possession!" France said. "My heart is broken!" his phone rang and he quickly glanced at it and then said, "Ah I have a prior engagement…" and then to Germany and England's astonishment, he flung on a jacket with that French gay abandon that was completely absent in both Germany and England, lit a cigarette, winked at the two aghast Nations, and strolled off whistling.
"You bloody get back bloody here, you bloody tart!" England yelled. He then hurriedly shut up as he saw there was quite a crowd of neighbours gathering around.
But France had already jumped into an Uber taxi (not Denmark and Prussia's) and was being whisked away to some 'assignation'.
"You will be getting a bill for this damage, Großbritannien." Germany said.
"Why don't you bloody claim on your insurance?" England asked.
"Because I will lose my no claims bonus! This is your fault!"
"How on earth do you come to that bloody conclusion?" England said. They were still stood on the driveway and England refused, absolutely and utterly refused to even think about inviting the German inside his house for a cup of tea. It went against all his sensibilities but there was no way he was going to switch the kettle on for this man.
"You and France threw a desk through that window just as I pulled up! France rang me asking me for help… I should have known it was a trap."
"Are you bloody high? Why on earth would we trap you? Get a bloody grip."
"The other Nations have all said that you're losing your grip. You've become a ladies' man, you keep splitting up Miss Belgium and Spain and you forced Switzerland to escort Miss Lily on that date with you. He thinks you're not right in the head. And lastly, they're all saying you spurned Miss Belarus and she has put a curse on you." Germany listed all England's predicaments and failed dates with some satisfaction and distaste. He was about to say something about England's current attire, believing that England was having some kind of mid-life crisis.
"It's all lies! And Switzerland is a nutjob. You know that better than anyone!" England protested. "But the curse is probably true…" he added sadly.
Germany looked as if he were about to expand on England's dating problems, which seemed to be the gossip of the other Nations but England interrupted him, "By the way, why have you been harassing me? You've been texting me and ringing me. It's a bloody nuisance, is what it is," England said.
"Was?" Germany asked (meaning 'what' in German).
"Vas?"
"What?"
"What?"
England shook himself, "Well?"
"Ringing you? What do you mean?" Germany asked finally.
England pulled out his phone and with great difficulty, pulled up the German text messages and triumphantly showed them to Germany.
Germany read them and glared, his red face getting redder, "Why have you got Austria's phone?"
"What?"
"I suppose you think this is funny?" Germany said, looking ready to explode. He honestly thought his fellow Nations were playing pranks on him - it wouldn't be the first time.
England frowned. This was just weird.
"It's typical of Austria to get out of his responsibilities. The German economy isn't going to support him forever," Germany told him.
England stared at him. "What in God's name are you talking about?"
Germany just came out with a rant in German that sounded very much like a declaration of war. It was actually: 'Austria was little more than a lazy aristocrat who did nothing but play Mozart and ponce around the garden sniffing flowers and passing his phone to England just to get out of his responsibilities'. Clearly, Germany could not believe that he had been ringing the wrong number…
Before England could declare war first and thus precipitating a third World War, Armageddon was halted by a very unlikely person.
A chill descended. So much so that both Nations shivered. The sky darkened, and sleet began to fall.
A sense of creeping dread pervaded the air. All the neighbours disappeared into their homes. And then a tall figure emerged from a blizzard of hail, sleet and snow. "Privet!" it called.
"Oh no….."
Next Chapter:
An evening at home with Arthur…