IV.

“Okay. Eyes peels. Ears peeled. On your bottoms. Young man, reveal yourself… Chestle?” Stewart implores the crowd. Large bottoms do spread over the assembly seats and they refer to this group of people’s bottoms too much, too regularly.

From the back right side of the hall we hear Serena talking.

“Digestive chocolate side down. No. Stop talking to me… …. It’s like you don’t even appreciate taste… No- stop speaking to me… … and… you eat it for your stomach, right? It’s a-”

The crowd begins to collectively hush each other.

“-it’s a… it’s a fucking biscuit. Eat the thing. Janine. Pardon my French, love.” Serena rounds off her point in a gradual caring whisper and slightly presses Janine’s elbow. It is a hoarse voice. She smokes more than she cares to admit but that train has been chugging since her first cigarette from Cindy Thomas outside the Royal Oak pub at fourteen years old. She keeps her Grandson’s “lost” Triple Mango Ice disposable vape as a last resort somewhere within her wilted auburn leather crossbody bag. The earned gravel in her voice gives it just the right amount of bass to be heard in every quiet moment. And speak she does.

As it goes, her hard-nut constitution has been playing well with the committee this year for reasons she is not exactly sure of. She never holds back from saying as she pleases and understands this to be allowed precisely because she always does it. She treats it like trapped gas: you never let gas get trapped because it’ll work its way backward and come out of your mouth. Then you’re talking shit. She thinks people don’t find her hidden meanings too unbearable or insulting hidden because there are definitely hidden meanings in what she says that people respond but apparently not loud enough to be hated. All of this considered, talking is barred half the time anyway. Prissy people.

Prissy people get her talking for sport. She can get Stewart to turn around on cue if she grumbles any word of her choosing to her seat partner, Janine. She can get to him turn around with a nonsense word thrown out into the air. She nudges Janine and grunts a noise so ugly into the open. On cue: Stewart spins and glares.

Janine isn’t going to say anything about it. Serena is too good at dishing it back out to receive petty criticism and Janine is a sore target at any given time. It is only when absolutely necessary should she actually be brought up on charges. It has happened before and, hands in the air, fair enough, she was going a bit too hard on Ferris but hopefully she’ll come back to the committee soon because it’s probably better if I apologise face-to-face. Besides, that was so bleeding passive of her. She is so passive like everyone in the committee is. Mustering the courage to shush doesn’t count if you start at the same time as at least two other people. 1. 2. 3 and you all roughly time your shushes. Shushing or staring and staring and staring Serena down; hoping they will, this time, effect their will on her open air grunts and general rebelliousness. They probably thinks it’s because they’re English. This is how the English do it, they think. However you justify being passive; makes no odds to me. She draws from her vape and holds the smoke inside her until there is nothing to breathe out.

Back on Ferris. Ferris used to sit in front of her. She was always embarrassed about what her neighbours would think, something like a coward, for listening to Serena without protest. Serena thinks her words are good when she’s in the company of others but hates to hear them when she’s alone. Terry would agree that he liked them and it was his thoughts mattered over other’s. She and he alike think that politeness is really desperately fickle in most cases but Janine and Serena receive comfort Terry was to her right and Janine is still situated to her left. I don’t want to talk about Terry. She has a sour cinching sensation when she considers Terry but she responds to herself that: times a charm and it is better if I see him face to face. Terry has shown himself through the foyer doors too many to have forgotten how to. She wants to grunt into the air again but the pleasure of it is stifled and so she doesn’t do it. Really now, only Janine has survived and she is left to whimper and make for the toilet with her floundering and pivoting that really should get her further than it does. So, most meetings now, she is alone to look at the speaker. Said speaker is currently working his way up toward the stage but Serena hasn’t finished thinking.

She used to get on with Terry. That is a good kid. As a trio, Janine being in the loo, Terry balancing her out. There was no recourse for Terry when he made fun of her. Something about the way he said things or where he came from when he said it, it softened the landing. When Terry spoke too loudly, Stewart would turn around and only chastise Serena’s general direction because Terry had a face for getting away with things. Away from these thoughts, she is hit by a sweeping breeze that feels colder than the last one and she sharply inhales, leaning to the forward set of seats.

“Derry. Might you grab the pole, my love? You do it so well. I’m freezing my tits off.”

Derry gets up too quickly to get the bastarding pole and goes flush from her low iron. She sits. Her role as the pole spinner, as window closer, is exactly what brings her to the committee. She doesn’t follow what Chestle is saying most of the time and he makes nice background noise for her to pleasantly think to while she runs a keen sense of temperature. Serena thinks she is shallow and even if she can’t get the bloody pole to spin herself, it doesn’t justify making it your personality. It was Serena that gave the pole the name. Everyone loves a little naughtiness.

“Ok, everyone. Big issues to get sorted. Same as last time, we are bringing one issue to the front. Thanks, Stewart for the diversion. Still waiting on any news about Terry. We are going to, in fact, do the Tuesday and Thursday committees. We have a location sorted. Come if you can find time.”

Here we go. Give me your best Chestle. Handsome man.