Speaking of Uncle Bert

SPEAKING OF UNCLE BERT ©

A Glorious Sunday morning.
Half-Half lay still in bed. He knew he had to get up. “It can wait!” He dug still deeper into his bed. He did not want to sleep. But just the same.
Half-Half was a toad. Same as his wife Half-Half. On Sunday mornings he loved to lay in bed just as every other.
On that morning he was alone. Buried in the midst of clothes untidily thrown about everywhere. Plates on the dining table lay piled up. Just as the girls had left the supper the night before. He remembered hazily his missus was the President of Service with a Smile Club. Under her direction much wine flowed the night before. How girls poured and he downed the glasses. Well they had left him alone, on that glorious Sunday morning, to clean up. ‘It wasn’t fair,’ he thought.
A glorious Sunday morning. He scanned the room and found nothing to worry about. “A bed is made up only when I have no need for it.” But on a Sunday morning it was different. “I shall think of nothing.”Half-Half was decidedly for it. “Nothing! On a Nothing- day as today I shall think of nothing!”
RiiiinGGGGGGGG!
The front bell rang. After a pause the door bell went as if an imp was hell bent for some attention. “Oh my ears!” he sat up with a start. The door bell went off again.
“Coming!”he shrieked as he searched for his slippers. Having put them on he peeped.
There stood his aunt and the end of her parasol was poised to jab at the bell. He just went limp.
“Coming coming!”he shouted from the crack of his window. Aunt Tipple obviously was intent on being immediately attended to.
Half-Half was unusual even by standards of a toad. He dressed himself up while his aunt grunted down below. It sounded nasty. Meanwhile he arranged his house in some order without turning a hair; he had his breakfast fixed even as he checked himself especially behind his ears and his nails. Clean,clean clean!
He dusted the plates with his sleeve while his teeth pulled the curtains to let the light in; while he searched for matching socks under the bed he had balanced himself on his free hand to set the edge of valance straight. Before he landed on his feet he had cleared a cobweb which had somehow escaped his eye for long. All that he did in a wink of moment under extreme provocation.
His Aunt Tipple stood outside grimacing and her bony hands gripping the parasol handle harder. She did not like her nephew wasting her time.
One would say Half-Half was dexterous but he did not think so. He was all speed and efficiency while he bounded in a few steps to open the front door. He thought he had failed that exacting standard. “Uncle Bert would be turning in his grave!” Toad Bertie could do hundred things while shooting his cuff; in comparison he was a slowpoke. He did as best as he could but it was not what Uncle Bert could have considered as passable. ‘What Aunt Tipple shall think of me now? She shall judge me by the measure of Uncle Bert’. He knew he had fallen short already in her eyes.
“Uncle, I did my best!” Half-Half murmured as he faced her. “You took your sweet time,”his aunt remarked while she let him kiss her and take her baggage. He wanted to say something pleasant but the look of her face shut him up. “This is going to be most trying,”he sighed. He wished his wife Half-Half was back home.
As he led to show her to her room he was particular to let her know how welcome she was under his roof. She announced she came down especially to visit the grave of his uncle.”I must place some roses on his grave. Poor Bertie!”she sniffled,”Roses were his passion.” Hastily he led her to her room.
He put the kettle to boil and while he served tea she had taken her place and said,”Your wife must indeed be clever.”
Half-Half gave a start and asked,”What makes you say that Aunt Tipple?” “That color scheme. So lighthearted unlike what Bert insisted on! You must come up and see our manor. Brown, brown, Brown!”she said with some vehemence.
Half-Half exclaimed,”That cannot be!” He was all in a lather,” This color-scheme was suggested by none other than Uncle Bertie! We did the colors he was very particular about. Remember the time you were laid up with congested lungs?”
“Yes?”
“It was he who taught us to lay out colors with abandon; He was especially fond of red, yellow and orange. It reminded him as ever of a magical fireplace.” “Oh he said that!” said Aunt Tipple, ”Did he?”
“He said, around such a fireplace my wife and I could weave dreams and they would come true.” He added, “Don’t you have a magical fireplace?”
“No!,”the aunt was emphatic,”he was afraid of accident by fire. So never the fireplace was lit as long as I can remember.”
After she had drunk her second cup of tea her attention was drawn to the sketch hanging on the wall. “Who did that sketch?”she asked,”obviously not a view from your place?”
“Uncle Bert,” replied Half-Half truthfully,” I am good at drawing. Whatever I know I learnt from him. Didn’t you know he could draw?”
“Speaking of Bert I did not know he could even drawn the blinds.”Aunt Tipple was becoming angrier,”I did the drawing for him. I drew blinds for him every morning and drew his chestnuts from fire because he loved roasted chestnuts hugely. I drew his bath every week and speaking of your Uncle Bert he made me even draw money for him.”
“You are speaking of some one else I think,” Half-Half did not like his uncle being spoken so ill. He added, “As far as I know he was a fun person. Really! Didn’t you know? Speaking of Bert..”
“Said enough, nephew,”Aunt Tipple looked menacing,”on second thoughts instead of roses get me some nettles, real stinging sort.” She got up and went to her room, ”I have had a trying day!”and she shut her door.
benny