Spot and Smudge - Book One Read online

  Spot and Smudge

  Book 1

  Robert Udulutch

  You may also enjoy the rest of the Spot and Smudge series

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  the real spot and Smudge,

  and the author, please click or visit:

  Rudulutch.com

  Copyright © 2016, Robert Udulutch

  Cover Art and Design © 2016, Robert Udulutch

  All rights reserved

  This novel is a work of fiction, except for the parts that are somewhat based on truth

  It contains a couple of bad words and mature themes that not all readers will appreciate.

  For Mimi, ‘till we all meet again.

  “What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight,

  it's the size of the fight in the dog.”

  -Clemens, Eisenhower, or Anonymous, depending on which source you trust

  Chapter 1

  “Your bum’s out the window, dear daughter,” Mimi said quietly as she carefully slid the iron skillet into the oven and removed a tray of hot rolls. The petite grandmother straightened and said, “Losing his Papa is a lot for a wee lad, especially for a boy like him.”

  “I know mum, really I do,” Aila said patiently as she held the napkin-lined bowl her mother was coaxing the rolls into, “We’re doing the best we can, but this ridiculous fighting has got to stop and he needs to be punished. His sister jumping into the fray certainly isn’t helping matters…and you making excuses for them isn’t overly productive either.”

  “I suspect he’s not the one who walloped first, and you can’t fault Kels for finishing it,” Mimi said as she wiped her hands on the dishtowel slung over her shoulder. “They don’t need their backsides skelped, they just need to spend some time away from all that business in town.”

  The corners of Mimi’s mouth turned up a little as she held her daughters eyes and said, “And I just can’t fathom where your two hellions’ horrible habit of dolling out justice would have come from…need I remind you of a certain lass who broke a field hockey stick over—”

  “You’re right mum,” Aila said as she wiped her hands on Mimi’s dish towel. Drawing a breath she said, “Which is why we’ve decided to move here.”

  Mimi turned to the sink to rinse the empty pan, and to hide her ear to ear grin.

  Aila smiled as she took the towel from her mother’s shoulder. She brushed at a tenacious bit of mashed potato stuck to the hip of her jeans as she said, “We’re going to tell the kids tonight…they know they’re in hot water so we’ll have a captive audience for once. The Morgan’s place is still empty and Dottie said us renting it was actually doing her a favor.”

  “Well if you think that’s best, dear,” Mimi said to the sink, “I know your hubby loves that house.”

  Aila smiled, and then leaned back to shout down the hallway, “Dinner! One of you run out and grab your father before the coyotes get him, please.”

  “Don’t make light of those clever beasties,” Mimi said as she looked out at the pen, “They got two more of my chicklets last week.”

  A blur shot down the hallway and raced through the kitchen. She flew through the back door and called out, “I got him,” as she passed. The flash had been fifteen year old Kelcy.

  Mimi watched her granddaughter tear across the turn-around and disappear into the barn. She turned to her daughter and said, “So you’re really flitting from the brownstone then?...You lot going to keep me company until I’m deed?”

  “Aye mum,” Aila replied as she pulled her mother in close for a big hug, and momentarily swapped her slight Boston accent for her own musical Scottish brogue, “we’ll just hang out with you ‘til your away for sawdust, you big numpty.”

  Mimi squeezed her back. The hug lingered for a long time, and Aila planted a firm kiss on her mother’s oven-warmed cheek. There had been many of these hugs in the few weeks since Papa died, but then there were always lots of hugs in the Mimi Walker family. In Aila’s arms her mum felt as she always did. She was a bright and shiny wisp of a woman who was somehow also sturdy and firmly planted, like one of those trick coins that can’t be picked up.

  Aila scanned the table. Something was missing she couldn’t put her finger on but she was otherwise pleased with the spread. Her son Ben’s favorite mince and mashed totties were steaming in their bowls. Two roasted chickens were resting under tin foil. There was also salad with cranberries and walnuts, asparagus, and they had mixed some of the mashed totties in with mashed turnip and boiled cabbage to make Kelcy’s favorite rumbledethumps.

  Aila remembered what she had forgotten and pulled three bottles of ale from the fridge. The beer wasn’t what she or Dan would have chosen but Mimi always kept some in the fridge. It had been Papa’s favorite and the packy kept it in stock just for her. It certainly didn’t mix well with wine but had become sort of a tradition when they got together for dinner.

  Aila slipped an arm around her mom. She could smell Mimi’s famous apple crumble bubbling away in the oven and realized how much she missed being in the kitchen with her.

  Cooking with her mother was a treat, and often a flat-out hoot. The wine always started flowing early, and the next few hours would be filled with knocking into each other and laughing out loud together. Within those hours of carrying-on something was bound to get burnt or dropped, or more likely burnt and then dropped, and then cursed at. Still, some of Mimi’s dishes were legendary and Aila was an excellent cook herself. She had greatly expanded her menu and skillset while living in Boston, and Aila’s collection of exotic cooking equipment was frequently the target of her mom’s ribbing. She had once asked Aila if her knobby chrome citrus juicer belonged in a kitchen drawer, or in her nightstand drawer.

  Even though they were frequently doubled-over or swearing at each other, Mimi and Aila had produced some epic meals. Holidays spent together in the kitchen were often a symphony that could rival the pace, teamwork, and ultimately the output, of any of Boston’s finest North End restaurants.

  There had also been some epic failures, including a few good grease fires and forgotten items found in the oven a few days later. There were several experiments that yielded questionable results…and one now infamous hangover-fueled Thanksgiving had even resulted in the brined turkey going into the oven without having been rinsed.

  In the combined Walker-Hogan family the response to the smoke detector going off was automatic. Dan got the broom to fan the detector while the kids opened the front and back doors, and Aila and Mimi sang out, “Dinner’s ready!”

  As Aila hugged her mom, and smelled the cinnamon in her hair, she realized she had done far too little cooking for her family lately. She and Dan had gotten busy and the kids drifted more at dinner time. Dan was a good cook as well and great about sharing the load, but they had fallen into a groove of just picking up something on the way home.

  She was still keenly aware of what the kids ate and freely admitted to being a bit of a food snob. She held firm on her rules regarding the right foods and no garbage in the house, even when they were just doing takeout. Still, she missed the sensations of cooking. Certainly the noises, smells, and sounds of the kitchen but mostly she missed the feel of it all. The yielding firmness of good raw meat. The squish of fresh chicken. The slip of the oils. The heat of the stove, the cold of the fridge, and the grit of the spices. The weight of the knife moving at blinding speeds a fraction of an inch from her fingers. She realized that beyond cooking and sex there were few opportunities to get her hands really dirty in their far too clean Boston city life. Another reason for all of them to move home and spend time here on the farm.

  Ben Hogan raced down the stairs and cleared the las
t few steps in one leap. He solidly barked his elbow on the newel post before taking the corner into the kitchen at full speed.

  “Son of a nutcracker!” he yelled, rubbing it as he dove into his chair. “Dummy number two reporting for dinner, and fingernail pulling out, sir!” he said with a salute.

  Mimi thought Ben could have just come in from a well-spirited rugby match. He was sporting a black eye, butterfly band-aide on his chin, and shabby clothes. The clothes were the kids’ whatevers that they wore around the farm, but the black eye and cut were fresh and looked a fright. Still, he was quickly becoming a handsome combination of his dad and grandfather. Mimi also figured a few scars never hurt when you were that good looking.

  A pretty face suits the dish-cloot, Mimi thought, God help the lasses.

  She had no issue with a man roughing it up from time to time. In his day her newly-gone husband Duncan could certainly throw and take a punch when a punch was called for…and in the pubs along the Clyde back home it was called for often.

  She leaned in and kissed the top of the boy’s head. “How are you feeling, love?” she asked.

  “Okay,” Ben said, “You should see the other guy.”

  “That’s enough young man,” Aila said as she bit back a smile. She avoided Mimi’s look while nestling a pitcher of water between the plates on the table.

  When Mimi’s granddaughter strolled in through the back door trying to slide in behind her father Mimi’s radar immediately went off. Kelcy Hogan was a near-professional makeup artist at fifteen years old, as most girls who grow up in Boston are, however her attempt to cover the slight bruise on her cheek and the small cut on her ear held up for less than a second under Mimi’s scrutiny.

  Mimi didn’t mind Ben looking a bit like a meat pie, but her beautiful granddaughter was a different matter entirely.

  “Here now you daft ass, what were you thinking?” Mimi said, holding Kelcy’s hands while she inspected her raw knuckles. As Mimi scanned the cut on her ear, and the rest of her, she marveled at Kelcy’s recent transition into a near-exact copy of Aila. Her granddaughter had developed the same razor-quick wit and extreme sense of justice as her mother, as well as a touch of the famous Walker temper. Both of her girls were also extremely attractive, and Mimi always said they had gotten the best of her and Papa’s mixture. They received his muscles and thick hair, and her high cheeks and utterly huge brown eyes. Mimi was suitably comfortable with her own looks, and recalled being rather highly regarded in that department. Well put together, as her husband would often say. She was also sure that Aila, and now Kelcy, would have given her a real run for the money. Kelcy shared her mother’s tiger-strong legs and shapely arms, and was starting to get those killer hips and a quickly maturing chest. Both of her fit Hogan girls may have been called sporty back in Scotland, but brick shipyard would likely have been used just as often by the blokes. Mimi suspected Kelcy was throwing more than a few boys into premature adolescence, probably even more than her or Aila had at that age. The grandmother had also noticed Dan Hogan perfecting his Don’t even think about it, pal, glare when they were in public.

  Kelcy said, “Give me a break Meem, those guys were ass…um, jerks to Ben all year and the teachers did next to nothing. Now that summer’s almost here those idiots are just itching to get in their last licks.”

  Kelcy scanned both Mimi and her mother as she reached for the water pitcher. She checked with Ben, who gave her an almost imperceptible shrug. They agreed it was too soon to get a read on the adults, and the level of their impending discipline. Her grandmother was smiling but her mom’s arms were folded in front of her chest, and Kelcy wasn’t sure how to play it yet.

  “They had it coming, like all day long and into the evening,” Kelcy said. To her frowning father she said, “Ben jacked that big Juice Carter idiot hard enough to make him shart. They’ll think twice before they dive into the deep end of the Hogan pool again.”

  “True-dat,” added Ben, scooping himself a fist sized pile of mince over his equally big mound of mashed potatoes. The steaming mixture of ground meat, gravy, and carrot chunks dripped off the side of his plate.

  “Aye, well then I say good on you both,” Mimi said with a nod. As she pointed for Ben to use his napkin she whispered to him, “What’s a shart?”

  “Well that went better than I had hoped,” Dan said.

  He was at the sink washing dishes while Mimi and Aila sat at the kitchen table. They were nursing their second cups of tea and picking over the local newspaper, and remaining dessert crumbs.

  He said, “Looks like were moving to Pembury.”

  Dan had insisted on taking over dish duty. He typically shooed Aila and Mimi away from the sink if they cooked, but he also just loved the westerly sunset view from Mimi’s kitchen window. He helped Papa swap out the original smaller one for this huge garden box window as a recent anniversary surprise for Mimi. The panoramic view from the window was now a mixed blessing as everything reminded Dan of his father-in-law. Through the thickening late spring woods he picked up slivers of view around the farm. In the distance he could see across the road to Papa’s old printing factory, and the nearby creek where they fished together with the kids. He could even see part of the cemetery hill where Papa now lay.

  Damn you Papa, Dan thought as he rinsed a baking pan, It’s been more than a month and it still feels like you’re going to stomp through that back door, kick of your heavy boots and toss your tam on the hook. I want you to sit down with a grumble and a humpf so we can share a few cold ones and take turns poking fun at our damn women-folk.

  Dan exchanged a long look with Mimi as she read his face. Earlier she had brought out one too many dessert bowls and placed it on the sturdy wooden kitchen table. The table Papa had made by hand from their old barn’s beams.

  Losing Papa had been hard on them, especially Ben. He was a sensitive kid who had been deeply connected to his grandfather, and he was obviously struggling. Still, Dan was pleasantly surprised by the evening. The kids had actually seemed okay with moving to Pembury, especially as the topic had replaced any discussion about punishment. Maybe it was simply being back at Mimi’s with none of the funeral happenings going on. Or maybe it was the first few warm days in a row that had helped to lift their moods, but everyone had been silly for the first time in a long while. The wine and beer may have helped the adults, but it seemed like tonight was officially the start of the start of moving on.

  Ben had kicked it off by doing his best Mimi-isms and impersonations. He ran through his full repertoire, from ‘Mimi Doubtfire’ to ‘I’m as happy as a dog with two tails’.

  The capper had been Kelcy’s version of Aila’s ranting about a barrage of coupons scattered throughout the paper for the same Chinese food restaurant pushing their SPECIAL SPECIAL dish. Kelcy had nailed her mother’s slightly tipsy eye rolls, falsetto, and hand gestures. “You just don’t know what they put into that stuff,” she mimicked. She pretended to hold up a newspaper, and while poking at it shouted with each poke, “Three, four, five! Five bloody coupons for the same horrible food on as many pages. What in the freakin’ bloody blazes is going on with this world?”

  Ben had laughed uncontrollably and fell out of his chair while Aila protested, “I don’t sound at all like that!” It was clear by the look on her face Aila realized she did indeed sound exactly like Kelcy, even as she looked unsuccessfully to Dan and Mimi for help.

  By the end of the night Dan was laughing through wet eyes and Mimi was wearing Ben’s ball cap and announced that she had quite possibly single fished, or peed, just a little.

  The kids had tackled the table clearing with a better than typical effort, and they had even helped with trash and linens before heading off to bed.

  As Dan grabbed the last of the dishes he made sure to drip a substantial amount of soapy water onto Aila’s newspaper, arms, and neck, earning him a swat on the bum.

  “They’re a mite sharper than you two give them due,” Mimi said. She was feeling no pai
n but still only slightly slurry after having a very uncharacteristic two glasses of zinfandel with dinner. She was usually good for at least four glasses. She didn’t drink often, but when it was a family occasion she could be counted on for more than her share of imbibing, and she had not partaken since the funeral.

  The family loved when Mimi swilled a bit. Her accent would thicken, and their favorite stories would start to fly. She had lived in the states for almost thirty years and still had a very full and charming brogue that doubled with enough wine. She could easily be goaded into retelling her rollicking tales of, ‘Falling off the ferry on the Clyde,’ or, ‘Lost on the way to Glasgow’. If she was really toasted she’d treat them to the rare, ‘Surviving the Blitz’. The kids didn’t care that they had heard these stories a hundred times. They were captivated by her descriptions of hiking the highlands, or swimming in Loch Lomond. They knew the reason Mimi’s closet always held at least twenty packages of toilet paper and three cases of soap was those staples were hard to come by during the Battle of Britain.

  Aila was also a few glasses of wine into the night and not feeling much pain. She said, “I was sure Kels would put up a stink. She has friends, not that Ben doesn’t but you know…” Aila stared into the paper and drifted off a little, and it was one of her looks Dan knew all too well. He easily read it as, I don’t know if my son really has something as significant as autism, or Asperger’s, but he’s always been a different kind of a kid.

  Mimi knew that look too, and she noticed Ben had even withdrawn a little further, and fought more often, since his Papa’s passing.

  She took Aila’s hand and said, “Kels can make friends in a balloon factory selling needles. She’s a keen girl with an eye on her future, and she knows this is the best thing for her brother. Ben will be just fine, dear, and he’ll make friends here. He is a smart, smart boy and is bored with school and other barras his age. He hangs around Kels and her buds more than he does kids in his grade.” Turning to Dan she said, “He just needs something to keep his hands occupied.”