An Articulate Tale

A sheen of oily, and certainly self-afflicted, success glistens on Millicent Parvenu’s forty-five-year old, fat and frowning forehead.  A grey tendril escapes the perfectly quaffed parfait of blonde frivolity atop her head, as she smoothes, virginally, the hem of her risqué mini-skirt and does a tiny tattoo with her stilettos on the faux fur carpeting.  She tugs ineffectually at her sequin-bedecked mid-riff vest, which, failing to meet the mini, exposes a pierced belly button, ensconced in a flaccid firestone between the hem of her vest and the hip-hugging rim of her skirt. 

‘At last, everything has come together.  Perfection is in place.  My guests are glorying in anticipation of the most envied meal in the Peninsula.  And doesn’t Felicia sparkle with success?  She positively drips diamonds.  So elegantly set off against the casual chic of her camisole.  She is a gift to me, of note, is my golden girl, Felicia.  What would I do without her?  But then again, where would she be without me’, smirks Millicent.  There is no slip of the tongue in reducing Millicent  to Milly.  Millicent is adamant about that.

It had been a long haul.  Tonight is the summit, the pinnacle of Millicent’s manipulation.  Millicent is Events Co-ordinator and Manager of her own company, Parvenu’s Impeccable Parties, never commonly reduced to PIP.  There is nothing common about Millicent Parvenu, except herself.  Millicent had worked exceedingly hard to bring about this evening; this phantasmagoria; this triumph:  the most talked-of event of the decade. 

The feted and celebrated of Cape Town, much traveled; internationally; however unseemly; upon the hard-earned earnings of dismal, middle class South African retail shoppers, along with their esteemed spouses, are here; right here; not anywhere else; but here, in the presence of Millicent’s intimate circle of wealthy and influential friends.  The gushing, and the compliments, and the occasional tart dart, drip from every lip, sidling scurrilously past each carefully guarded tongue around the table.  It is the occasional tart dart that catches Millicent’s acute attention.  Who knows what might come of it? 

Millicent could call amongst her dearest friends, the Chairman of the largest IT Consultancy in South Africa, the Chief Executive Officer of a highly successful Insurance Comany [although never, but never at the same event, for glory’s sake], reputable factory owners, heads of leading retail chains, up and coming stars and starlets, and, her most recent protégé, the award-winning play-wright of the show ‘Plumb the Depths of your Wife’, Edward Oglesby [*blush*].  How fortunate for Millicent that she could, however distractedly, call up blushes, sometimes tears, and when strictly necessary, a plausible, if inelegant, faint, at whim, laid on especially, and only, for the gullible.

Millicent Parvenu, through never-ending networking, unbridled bribery and bare-faced back-stabbing has achieved the ultimate.  Here, in her daughter, Felicia’s, renowned restaurant, ‘La Chat’, Millicent, yes, Millicent Parvenu herself; herself, and no one else; has brought together the most quaffed; the envy of every Jones; names on everyone’s lips; celebrities of the City of Cape Town.  No toast, no word of gratitude, no pay-off would ever surpass this orgasmic moment.  Until, of course, the next one.

But in the midst of this unqualified success is a querulous blot.  There, at the far end of the table, sits Millicent’s husband, Felix.  His skeletal frame crouches fearfully inside his baggy grey suit, couched in the faux fur of the stool upon which he is perched   His bony fingers tremble timorously through the spotless cutlery, seeking purchase within an environment so alien; so foreign, and so frightening to him.  A tiny damp drip collects painfully on the end of his Romanesque beak.

‘Ugh, whatever did I see in that apology for a man?’, dismisses Millicent. ‘His chicken neck; his scrawny frame; his meaningless twitter; and that ceaseless drip from the end of his nose.  Why can’t he just vaporise?  And in more ways than one.  There’s not much left of his physique anyway.  At least he has a degree, a profession and status in the community.  Perhaps marrying a Veterinary surgeon had its moments, back then: that is, fiscal ones.  Although how he hopes to keep his clients, Heaven only knows.  He only wants the ones who actually care about their pets, particularly cats.  Who knows what he sees in them?  And I’m not just thinking of the cats.  And who cares anyway, these days.  Really!   But then, one must count one’s blessings, however small.  I have Felicia, born of our tactless and tasteless union.  I have moulded her to my own image, and she is, without a doubt, a gem.’

Through the haze of thrust and parry, Millicent allows herself a further moment of recollection, a moment in which she grudgingly admits that her husband might just have had other uses.  ‘It’s also true that Felicia loves cats.  Doubtless she learnt at least something from her father.  She has so many of the little darlings and breeds so successfully with them.  And never seems to have a shortage of happy families eager to receive them onto the hearthrug of their homes.  Why, each litter is snapped up within, and sometimes much earlier than, the recommended six weeks.  So perhaps, Felix, that peculiarity that I married, did make some vague contribution.  I must remind him to be grateful to Felicia for ensuring that he has an on-going community of feline clients.’

And so the meal commences.  Melville Nabob, Felicia’s current lover, fulfills the front of house role, wining and wooing Millicent’s wealthy, influential and intimate friends and guests, in a way to which Millicent would have liked to have been accustomed.  ‘Such a pity’, though Millicent in another on-going moment of matriarchal jealousy, ‘that he isn’t mine.  I would have made something of him.  But never mind, I have Felicia, and through Felicia, I have Melville.  Given time, this restaurant, La Chat, has endless potential.’ A distant vision of a sumptuous country estate, framed in rosy hue, tentatively titivates the concealed corners of Millicent’s clutching mind.  ‘As long as I ensure that the events that I organise include La Chat on my itinerary, and as long as Felicia and Melville serve the quality of cuisine that they currently do, all will be well, I have no doubt.  I can relax and enjoy myself now.’

Millicent returns her attention to the table.  Her guests are expounding the wonderful Pollo Florentine – an exquisite main course of chicken breast, boned and skinned, and mixed with the delicate foliage and flavour of spinach; parmesan; sweet butter and whipped cream.  ‘Ah, yes’, boasts Millicent, to herself, the only one to whom Millicent really listens.  ‘I have brought so many friends here.  So often they choose the recommendation of the house, being Pollo Florentine’.

‘Enjoy, my friends, enjoy,’ minces Millicent.  ‘And don’t forget that this wonderful restaurant, so firmly listed as The Place to be Seen belongs to none other than my darling daughter, Felicia, and her magnificent mentor, Melville Nabob.  Feel free to bring friends in future.  I have no doubt that my daughter will honour both you and your guests with a complimentary glass of the finest wine that Cape Town has to offer.  Here’s to the subtlety of the delicate and complimentary flavour of cat pee in the gooseberry bush that you may detect emerging delicately in the wine – that is, if you have a discerning nose and particular palette.’  Millicent giggles girlishly as she raises her glass in a toast.

As everyone raises their glasses, Millicent’s eyes swivel to the end of the table, defiantly drawn to the pathetic spectre of her husband.  He does not raise his glass, but continues silently, and without emotion, to fiddle with his food, dragging it this way and that way around his plate, without heed to the wonder; the splendour; the crowning achievement, of his wife’s eminent success.

Another small drip gathers at the tip of Felix’s nose.  He continues to fiddle with the food on his plate.  The drip gathers both size and momentum.  As Millicent focuses with horror on the drip, each guest slowly but surely turns to see what has claimed Millicent’s undivided attention: the ultimate humiliation of Felix and his drip.  Those closest to him avert their eyes, as the drip agonisingly separates from the hair that escapes impudently from Felix’s nostrils, and plops into the centre of Felix’s plate.

The party breaks up.  Everyone is in a hurry to be somewhere else, away from Felix and his failure; his failure, amongst others, to be part of the festive occasion; away from the draining effect of his distracted silence, and the Chinese torture of the drip.  Millicent squirms in her humiliation and cannot wait to leave.  There will be another time, but never, not ever, another place.  Under no circumstances will she ever bring Felix again.  In fact, if she had any sense at all, and if divorce wasn’t still something of a stigma, she would leave him. 

As they wait for their car, Millicent flays into Felix.  ‘How could you.  How could you ruin this evening.  My business and that of my child, and yours, if you cared, depend on acceptance by all who are rich and famous around us.  You belittled us in your introversion, and made it aversion.  How can we possibly ask that people perceive this evening to be a repeatable experience, when there is Felix the Drip as a memory?  You disgust me.’

Felix is silent until the Mercedes arrives.  With every nuance of a gentleman, his fragile frame carefully hands the meaty Millicent into their car.  He bids the chauffeur drive on as he settles back comfortably, and picks in a pernickety way at his teeth with a titular toothpick, dislodging the last offending morsel from his incisors, although where it can have come from no one knows.  After all, Felix ate nothing at dinner.  For a long moment Felix ruminates.

‘I realise you don’t love me, my dear.  In fact you despise me.  This is no news to me.’  Felix makes another lengthy and thoughtful foray into his mouth.  ‘This is going to make quite a splash in our local newspaper.’  ‘Yes’, says Millicent.  ‘Well it would have, if you had only, and for once, given a thought to me, your wife, and your loving daughter, Felicia’.  

‘I’m not talking about the party, Millicent’, animates Felix.  ‘I’m talking about exposure by the Veterinary Council that you and your fond Felicia will have to live down.’ 

‘Oh, come on Felix.  You can’t brush this social gaffe off onto Felicia and me.  It’s unthinkable and absurd.  You have no social skills at all.  And what can it possibly have to do with your vapid Veterinary Council?’ 

A glint appears fleetingly in Felix’s eyes.  ‘Was a time when I was the light of your life, your knight in shining armour, your protector, provider and friend.  Well, my dear, those days are irretrievably gone.’  Felix delves into his pocket and produces a small tissue-wrapped parcel.  He carefully unfolds the delicate fabric to reveal a fragment of what resembles a fragile ivory chain.  ‘Do you know what this is?’  Felix whistles through yet another drip gathering momentum on his nose.  ‘I’m not interested,’ dismisses Millicent.  ‘After the way that you humiliated me this evening, how could I be?’  ‘Well, my dear, I think you should know,’ intimates Felix, as the glint congeals into a disconcertingly maniacal gleam.  ‘It’s the end of an articulated tail.’

‘Stop being irrelevant and obscure, Felix.  I tire of your meaningless prattle.’  Although a little taken aback, Millicent is incapable of readjusting her eternal, if not maternal, engineering of Felix into servile subservience.

‘This is just desserts for me.’  Felix languorously plucks a perfectly folded handkerchief from his breast pocket, and wipes, for the very last time, the very last drip from the end of his Romanesque nose.  ‘A cat has an articulated tail.  I fished this out of my food.  Are you aware that those faux fur furnishings aren’t faux?  Your precious daughter, and her grabbing gigolo, are serving cat, disguised as Pollo Florentine, and decorating their den of iniquity with cat fur.’

Felix, for the first time in a long time, fully fleshes out his suit.  He has just had his authority and influence re-instated within the bosom of his family.