A Surrey State of Affairs by Ceri Radford

Or it might have been the other way around—I cannot for the life of me tell which is which.
    In any case, I took the flowers from him, and said thank you very much in a firm voice so that he took the hint and walked off, turning his head for a last grin at the matching Lithuanians. He may well have a ravishing smile but he has taken unwarranted liberties with my spring flowers. Seeing as the damage was already done, I found two slim vases for the pilfered tulips, and handed them to the twins. Sophie walked out, almost knocking her chair over and leaving her breakfast things scattered behind her. Zac followed, with an apologetic look on his face. He seems a nice boy; it’s just a shame he is too short and freckled to be considered a romantic prospect.
    Natalia—it must have been Natalia because she knew where the dishwasher tablets were kept—tidied the breakfast things away, while Lydia stared out the window, twirling the tie of her pale-pink polyester bathrobe between her fingers. I hope she stays away from the stove, as it looks like it would go up in flames in a flash.
    I should have liked to go after Sophie to comfort her, to tell her that one grubby American is not enough to waste half a bowl of chocolate hoops over, but the front door clicked. She had leftwith Zac. I suppose it is for the best: I have a Sunday dinner to shop for, and as Mother is coming around tomorrow, I have to find the most tender joint of lamb or her dentures will stick.
       SUNDAY, MARCH 23
    Sunday lunch was not the harmonious gathering of guests and family that I had hoped for. From the start, Mother seemed totally adrift. She could not understand how Natalia, the housekeeper, and Lydia, the sister of the housekeeper, could be sitting down with us at the dining room table, wineglasses shining in front of them, napkins on their laps, looking to all purposes like part of the family (had it not been for their matching “Eurovision Song Contest 2006” cropped T-shirts). In her day, there was a separate door for the servants, a separate table for them to eat on, separate dishes; their separate lives would intersect with the family only in carefully stipulated ways. I remember as a little girl her telling me off for playing hopscotch with the cleaning lady’s daughter—as an only child I always craved company. Even then I suppose she was old-fashioned, clinging to her world as the fifties gave way to the alarming currents and hemlines of the sixties.
    I confess I am a little like her in that respect; I believe there is a right way of doing things and a wrong way, that traditions should be respected, that you should put lemon in a gin and tonic, not lime. And yet I am also aware that we are in the twenty-first century now. Natalia is, despite occasional evidence suggesting the contrary, a human being in her own right, and as Sophie frequently says, I have to “get real.” Not that I explained any of this to Mother, of course. It is simply too late in the day. She refused to understand any of Natalia’s polite, if thickly accented, questions, and instead talked exclusively to Jeffrey. Zac was another source of bemusement to her. After meeting him she presumed he was Rupert’s friend; I explained that, no, he was Sophie’s friend,and she asked me if his intentions were honorable. We were in the kitchen at this point and Rupert patiently explained that they were “platonic friends,” as was quite normal for lots of boys and girls now, but she merely harrumphed and said she would be watching what he did with his hands under the table.
    As if dinner were not strained enough, no sooner had I started clearing up than I spotted Randolph through the kitchen window, shirtless and besmirched, scattering seed. Sunday was supposed to be his day off. Soon enough he sauntered over, knocked on the door, and, still bare-chested for Mother, Natalia, Lydia, Sophie, and me to see, asked if he could come in to “take a slash.” I asked him what he was