(Vegetables) Chapter Thirty Three (Again): Fame, However Fleeting, Is Best Avoided

Everyone got home. Despite Sissy’s best efforts to search for Mrs K on the internet, nothing interesting happened for three days and seven hours⁸⁸, except for a brief interlude down the supermarket, and a short conversation between Morwen and Rosa.

“Why are there cabbages in the bath?”

“It stops them rolling off the kitchen counter.”

“Oh.”

The supermarket incident happened when Morwen had popped into the local supermarket for bread, milk and breakfast cereal. She’d just walked down the fruit and veg aisle, when she heard a whirr of wings, and a pigeon flew a mission straight through the supermarket automatic doors, did a circle of the fruit and veg shelves and flew out of the building again.

This caused a bit of commotion amoung the shoppers. The supermarket staff however were surprisingly blasé.

“The pigeon?” said the checkout assistant, when Morwen mentioned it. “Yeah, we’ve had that sort of behaviour going on all week now. A couple of times a day we’ll get a pigeon flying in and doing exactly the same pattern, flying over the fruit and veg and then flying out again.”

“I wonder why,” said Morwen.

“Dunno,” said the assistant. “What’s even weirder is the rabbits that have been seen sneaking around the loading bays out back. My mate swears they’re carrying something and working like a team.”

“Sounds weird.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t put too much stock in what he says, to be honest. Bit too much of a stoner, if you ask me. Also swears he’s seen rabbits who are bright green. Have you a loyalty card?”




Morwen was making a cheese omelette and a salad for dinner when the doorbell rang. She wasn’t expecting Richard and Rosa was upstairs in the bath.

She opened the front door to come face-to-lens with a large television camera. A fluffy microphone swung down to just over her head. Right in front of her and smiling at her with blindingly white teeth was a vaguely familiar elderly man. His skin was an interesting shade of orange.

“What the…” she started.

“Hello, and welcome to Feasts with Friends,” announced the orange-skinned man in a classic tv announcer’s voice. “ I’m Horace von Twaddle, and I’d like to congratulate you on being chosen to participate on our new series. Congratulations!”

Morwen shut the front door. The doorbell rang again immediately and repeatedly. She ignored it and stormed up to the closed bathroom door.

“Rosa!” she yelled through the closed door. “Did you sign us up for Feasts with Friends even after I told you not to?”

“What?” yelled Rosa back. “No, I didn’t.”

“Are you sure? Really, really sure?”

“Yes,” called Rosa, sounding a bit puzzled. “I didn’t want to live on takeout for a month. Why? And who keeps ringing the doorbell?”

“That’s Horace van Twaddle and a camera crew from Feasts with Friends,” said Morwen, a bit more calmly now.

Rosa shrieked, and there was the sound of a lot of splashing from inside the bathroom. The door opened, and a very wet Rosa with a towel wrapped around herself peered out.

“Did you say,” she asked carefully, “that Horace van Twaddle and a Feasts with Friends camera crew are busy ringing our doorbell?”

Morwen nodded. Rosa shrieked again in excitement, and ran down the stairs.

“Don’t open the door!” Morwen yelled, as Rosa reached for the door handle. Rosa froze with her hand scant millimetres from the handle.

“But Morwen…” she whined. “I want to find out what’s going on!”

“At least put some clothes on!” said Morwen.

Rosa looked down at herself, clad in only a towel and with her wet hair dripping on the floor.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Back in a moment.”

She skipped up the stairs again.

Morwen took a deep breath and opened the door again.

“Turn the camera off,” she ordered. “Or I close the door again.”

“Ok, take five,” Horace van Tweedle told his crew. The camera operator and microphone holder lowered their respective pieces of equipment and wandered a few paces away. The camera operator lit up a cigarette, while the microphone holder cracked open a bottle of fizzy drink.

The sound guy looked like he really didn’t want to be there. He stood with his back to Morwen and Horace. By contrast the cameraman watched intently. He was a big man, very bald, and would have been perfectly cast as any self-respecting evil genius’ chief henchman.

“Look you,” said Morwen. “There’s been some kind of mistake here. We never applied to go on Feasts with Friends.”

“This is 27 Hyde Street?”

“Yes.”

“Are you Rosa Gibson?”

“No.”

Rosa appeared from behind Morwen, her hair still dripping wet and her t-shirt inside out.

“I am!” she said. “And let me say I’m so pleased to meet you!”

Morwen glared at her, but Rosa was oblivious.

“Ah, jolly good,” said Horace, and he pulled a large folder out of a briefcase at his feet. Flicking through the pages he located a piece of paper in a plastic sheet, pulled it out and held it up so the two friends could see it.

“Miss Gibson, is this your signature?” he asked.

Rosa squinted at it, as did Morwen.

“Yes, it is,” said Rosa, “but what’s that got to do with anything?”

“It means,” said Horace triumphantly, “that you applied to be on ‘Feasts with Friends’, and as part of the application process signed a contract saying that you’d take part in the filming without reservation should you be chosen to take part. There’s lots of legal mumbo jumbo, but that’s the gist of it. Now, let’s get started.”

Rosa quailed at the look of pure fury that Morwen was giving her.

“Gimme that,” she said, making a grab for the contract.

“Ah ah!” said Horace, holding it out of her grasp. “It’s all signed and sealed. Lads, time to get rolling!”

“Wait one minute,” said Morwen, through gritted teeth. “Let me have a look at that contract. So I know if I need to be looking for a new housemate…”

Horace handed it over to her. As her knuckles tightened on it, he said:

“We do have copies back at the office, you know. So shredding this one might make you feel better, but won’t actually change anything.”

Rosa hung over Morwen’s shoulder, staring at the contract.

“Look, look!” she squeaked, pointing at something written on the page. “Look at the date! I sent that application form in four years ago! And it’s from my old address! See Mor, I didn’t apply when you told me not too – I didn’t!”

Morwen visibly relaxed.

“Well then,” she said, “Mr van Tweedle…”

“van Twaddle”, said Horace.

“Yeah, whatever. It looks like you don’t have quite an airtight contract as you thought you did. Have a good day.”

And she went to close the door. Quick as a flash, Horace stuck his briefcase in the door, stopping it from shutting.

“I didn’t want to do this,” he said sadly, “but you’ve left me no choice. If you don’t let us in and consent to filming one episode of Feats with Friends, I will personally ensure you get chosen for every single reality tv show from now until you drop dead of over-exposure to the media.”

Rosa gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

“Every single one,” reiterated Horace. “The Great English Cake Off, So You Think You’ve Got Talent, Star Idol, Strictly Come Sewing, Big Bother, Total Wine Out, everything⁸⁹. And even if you manage to wriggle out of them, or get eliminated the very first time out, you’ll be the laughing stock of the country and haunted by the paparazzi. Trust me, you’ll be pictured falling drunk out of a limo on the front page of the Daily Stellar within a week, dating a footballer within a month, and checked into rehab within two. It won’t be pretty.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“One episode of filming,” said Morwen slowly.

“One day, that’s all it’ll take,” said Horace. “And we’ll probably never broadcast the footage anyway.”

“Damn you,” said Morwen in a sigh. She opened the door again. “You’d better come in.”

Horace beamed his trademark, slightly too wide, smile⁹⁰.

“Lads,” he said, “we’re on. Let’s get set up.”

Morwen and Rosa stood aside as the two members of the tv crew stomped through to the kitchen. Escorted by Horace, they followed.

“It’ll be alright,” whispered Rosa to Morwen as the crew were setting up. “We’ll just do a couple of recipes and that’ll be the end of it. With your skills we’ll be fine.”

Morwen shot her a dirty look, which turned into an exasperated one.

“You might want to go and put some trousers on before they start filming.”

Rosa squeaked, turned red, and disappeared upstairs.

Morwen turned her glare onto Horace van Twaddle, and his crew. None of them cared.




“I’ve had some ideas for what we could make,” Rosa announced as she appeared in the kitchen again, this time wearing trousers and with her t-shirt the right way around. She’s even squeezed the water out of her hair and put on some lipstick⁹¹.

“What?” she said, catching Morwen’s glare. “So what if I want to look good for the camera?”

“Ladies, you look absolutely divine,” said Horace, in full on tv presenter oily mode.

“I thought we could start with a nice home grown vegetable soup, followed by your famous savoury crumble, Mor, and with a nice apple cake from the garden to finish.”

There was an inquisitive cluck from the back door.

Morwen whirled and yelled, straight at the hapless sound man, who threw himself to the floor.

“No chickens in the house!”

There was a scratching sound as the offending chicken, Kimberley, calmly turned around, hopped off the doorstep and wandered off into the garden again.

The poor sound man picked himself up off the floor and dusted himself down, looking sheepish. He had a very large moustache and beard, a wooly hat on his head, and refused to meet Morwen’s eyes⁹².

“Don’t mind him,” said Horace smoothly. “Ex-war correspondant – gets a bit jumpy.”

“I’ll start chopping,” said Rosa excitedly, and started rattling around the kitchen, opening drawers and cupboards and pulling out saucepans and bowls and putting them on the counter.

“Just a moment,” said Horace, forestalling her. “I’ve taken the liberty of choosing a menu for you.”

“Really?” said Morwen, still glaring, with her arms folded tightly across her chest.

“Oh yes, standard practice, don’t you know,” replied Horace. He bent down and hunted through his briefcase again, coming up with a book, and handed it to her.

“The recipes we’ve chosen are marked,” he said.

Morwen turned the book over to look at the spine. It was “The Art and Science of Fruit and Vegetable’s”.

Rosa saw the title too. “Hey, that’s our book!”

“Then I’m very pleased to be able to return it to you, dear ladies,” said Horace, in a voice as smooth as Morwen’s white sauce. “Now, to work! Open up the book to page ninety one and start making the three potato chilli if you please.”

He looked at the two women expectantly. Rosa looked really nervous. Morwen slowly opened the book and paged through to the specified recipe, reading it slowly.

“We don’t have all the ingredients for this,” she said.

Horace clicked his fingers, and the sound guy put the plastic bag he’d been carrying on the counter.

“We took the liberty of picking up some shopping for you, just in case. Everything you’ll need is in there,” he said.

Morwen looked in the bag, then looked at the recipe again. Then, very calmly, she picked up a saucepan, grabbed an onion, and started chopping.

“Start filming, lads,” commanded Horace.

“Mor!” hissed Rosa, “what are you doing?! We can’t possibly make that! I don’t want to be responsible for what might happen.”

Morwen looked unconcerned.

“Can you start peeling the potatoes for me?” she asked her friend.

“But… but…” stuttered Rosa.

Morwen shot her a look.

“It’s just you and me,” she said, pointedly. “And the sooner we get these recipes done, the sooner the filming will be over and we can go back to our life.”

Rosa didn’t get it.

“What do you mean, just you and me? Of course it’s just you and me! What’s that got to do with anything!”

“I mean,” said Morwen in the tone of voice that suggested the owner was only calm due to a supreme feat of willpower, “that it’s just the two of us. So let’s get cracking.”

Comprehension finally dawned on Rosa.

“Of course!” she said. “Fel’s not here, so we don’t have our fou…”

“Shhh!!” Morwen shushed her quickly. “Now get peeling those potatoes for me please.”
___
⁸⁸ Except for the regular delivery of pieces of paper with addresses written on.
⁸⁹ He forgot “I’m a Hand-Jiver, Get Me Out of Here!”, and “The Choice”
⁹⁰ It made him look like a short-sighted shark.
⁹¹ Somehow, Rosa always looks fabulous.
⁹² In other words, he looked dodgy as hell.