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Listeners' Fantasies |
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Izzy's trip to Brookfield
by Litchick
 Pip and Izzy's friendship has inspired contributors to the Fantasy Archers topic of The Archers message board. After last week's by Vicky S, we now see things from Izzy's point of view.
"Mum, she's here!" called Pip from her position at the front window. Having no other friends and loathing the company of her brother Ben who, despite being five, said very little, Pip had been at watch for the last two hours waiting for her knightess in white lycra top to arrive.
In the yard Izzy strode through the mud until, suddenly, she stopped dead. She glanced at her Diesel jeans in fear. On her first meeting with Pip's mum she had been stripped of her clothing after the discovery of some dried muck on her white tracksuit and left with only Mr Archer's oversize pullover for warmth and modesty. She was not going to make the same mistake twice. Creeping carefully between a tractor and a pile of old yogurt cartons from the village shop, which looked to contain vast quantities of rubber bands, Izzy made her way to the old entrance of Brookfield. She raised a hand to grasp the Gothic knocker but before her fingers reached the iron the door flew open.
"Don't tell me you've walked here from Meadow Rise?!" the voice was harsh and accusatory as Izzy blinked rapidly in the stream of light from the open door, struggling to make out the diminutive but powerful looking figure before her. As her eyes adjusted and she was led into the kitchen, Izzy couldn't believe what lay before her.
"Er, no I didn't walk Mrs Archer. My Mum's boyfriend was on the way to the library so he said he'd drop me over here." As she raised her eyes to her interlocutor, Izzy could not help but take a sharp involuntary breath. Pip's mother was terrifying. Her thick hair was scraped back into the most severe ponytail Izzy had ever seen, she was wearing what could only be described as a uniform, cord and khaki coloured trousers and jacket were close fitting and a perfect match, vaguely reminiscent of something Izzy thought she had seen in the history book she had read last week. Yet most disconcerting of all was the item in Ruth Archer's hand.
"MUM! Why are you holding one of Auntie Shula's riding whips?" Pip screeched as she entered the kitchen to greet her friend and caught sight of her mother repetitively tapping the flexible stick with subtle menace against her muscled thigh. Ruth glared with irritation at her first born. "Shush now pet, I only want a word wi’ Izzy ta see if she's suitable to be yer friend. Yer very precious ta us Pip and ah dunna want ta see you mixin’ wi’ any sorts."
Despite understanding very little of what Mrs Archer had attempted to articulate, Izzy gauged from Pip's horrified stare and sharp exit "to get Dad from the milking" that things were not all as they should be. She was also not wholly enamoured of the idea that Mr Archer was to be her saviour from this predicament; what she remembered of Pip's dad was a kindly if slightly slow man who made terrible jokes and allowed his wife the freedom literally to take the clothes from other people's backs if the mood took her.
With a jolt, Izzy found herself pushed suddenly into a great old chair. The riding whip she felt pressed to her chin and the looming form of Ruth Archer began to swim into focus a few inches from her nose. She was suddenly aware of Mr Archer at the door, his face a sea of mixed emotions as he took in the picture of his wife dressed in an outfit which, judging from the slight smile, he had seen before and the small Kookai-clad girl silently pleading for mercy.
"Now come on love, you promised." Mr Archer's voice was slightly strained and for a wild moment Izzy wondered what the promise related to; was Pip's dad about to join in? Mr Archer stepped into the kitchen and laid a muddy hand on the raised arm in front of Izzy's eyes. She'll have that scrubbed, thought Izzy despite her predicament. "Aye, oookay, weeeel have are tea before." Again Izzy struggled to understand the strangulated vowels but she cared little as the riding whip was withdrawn and, with surprising alacrity, Mrs Archer moved off towards the black Aga range in the corner. Pip, still wearing a horrified expression that Izzy had last seen when Miss Franks, their Year 7 English teacher, had asked them to write a descriptive paragraph on badgers, crept into the seat beside her friend.
"What the ..." Izzy's urgent questioning was interrupted by Mrs Archer flying once again to the door. As with her own admission, there had been no knock, yet behind the old oak stood a tall, aging, thin man and a woman of about the same age who looked exactly like Pip's dad. Both were smiling in the same slightly stupid way that Mr Archer seemed to permanently engage in. The older woman let herself into the room as if she owned the place and glanced around, her eyes briefly resting on Ruth Archer's clothes.
"Ooo what a lovely outfit, dear," she murmured in a lilting sing-song voice. Izzy could not help her double-take as she looked between the two women, and her action attracted the attention of the new guest. "Oooh look at you, you must be Izzy, did you get your clothes clean?" Nodding vaguely, Izzy wondered if there was a kind of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in the family. "Ooh look Phil she's wearing a lovely white top, how unsuitable for eating my lovely lemon drizzle cake with the secret recipe icing." Pip groaned quietly beside her as Izzy gave a weak smile to her friend's paternal grandmother.
Sat around the huge table with Pip's family, Izzy felt decidedly uncomfortable, her usual friendly confidence evaporated. On every side sat men, women and children who all looked disarmingly similar. At the appearance of ham and eggs for the meal, Pip's dad had clearly felt on safe ground and made exactly the same appalling jokes she had giggled at politely the previous weekend. His father, who had genially invited her to "Call me Phil" in the style of a weak teacher, continued to wink at her throughout the meal and kept asking what music she liked and whether she wanted to learn the piano. Thankfully Pip's mother had seemingly forgotten her as she engaged in an increasingly vehement debate about the best way to sieve flour with Phil's wife, who Izzy rather liked, despite her insistence that everything was "lovely." At the end of the table, being looked after by Pip's other gran, were two young boys who Izzy suspected might have had their tongues removed, probably by means of the riding whip.
"You're really lucky Pip, it's like really cool that you have your family round you, we never have family meals," said Izzy, trying to steer the conversation away from music lessons. It was a mistake. Ruth Archer was out of her seat brandishing the largest torch Izzy had ever seen.
"Come on love, put the lamp down, I need it to check on the barn, Bert's still out there taking pictures of the hay." Mr Archer's soft appeal was lost on Izzy's tormentor who, she noted as her pupils shrank in the face of the beam, had gained a wild look as she advanced.
"Oh noooooooo. Did yer hear tha’ Dayveeed. She ha’ no famaaily. Dragged up, dragged up, I bet she's neeever e’en seen a milk spread sheet ..." Ruth's voice reached a high pitched squeal as she trailed off in frustration. Izzy gazed up in amazement. NO wonder Pip had few friends. She had ignored the rumours about the shooting of small mammals, the whispers about Pip's being subjected to bullying during music practice, the murmers about the silent siblings. However, her musings were interrupted by a sudden scraping of chair on the cold stone floor. The torch went out and all eyes were on the small defiant figure in the centre of the kitchen.
"Pipsqueak, what's up?" Mr Archer's voice was wary as he noted the thunderous look on his daughter's face. "Eeee pet sit doon you don't look too clever," interjected the older woman in the corner who spoke in the same unintelligible burr as her daughter. Izzy, fascinated by the unfolding events, still had time to wonder if all members of the Archer clan, immediate and extended, began their sentences with various vowel sounds. Pip suddenly, loudly, confirmed her suspicions.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhh. I'VE HAD ENOUGH! That's it! Izzy ..." Izzy turned to meet her friend's gaze and saw that she was holding out her hand. With a quick and wary dart under Ruth Archer's still outstretched, uniformed arm, Izzy grasped her friend's fingers and the two instinctively headed for the door. As the April breeze hit their faces, a distant cry could be heard behind them.
"Oooooooohhhh nooooooooooooooooo."
Izzy's trip continues in
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