Lucy slipped between two overloaded dustbins and narrowly missed a bag of rotten tomatoes, which fell out of one of them. She alarmed a family of stray cats, some of which she recognised from her last visit with her uncle, paranoid Frank. Lucy was slightly apprehensive, her main reason being would Aunt Minnie be glad to see her.
She glanced up at the billboard and quickly took stock of the performers. Marcel Montez, with his black and white daubed face, and chessboard style harlequin costume. Plank and Board, the burlesque comedy duo, with their straw hats and canes and yes, the Marvellous Minnie Bird, in top hat and tails.
Lucy gingerly pushed the bar on the rear exit door and the door sprang open. The smell of toilet cleaner was so strong that it stung Lucy’s eyes and nose. She passed the dressing room of Marcel, who was propped up against a wall in a headstand position. As she stepped over a large cardboard box she almost stumbled headfirst into Minnie’s brightly lit dressing room. The first thing Lucy saw as her eyes adjusted to the bright light was the back of Aunt Minnie’s large rump, which was almost enveloping the stool, which it was perched on. Aunt Minnie who had been applying a deep red lipstick to her lips noticed Lucy in the mirror and beamed, before bursting into laughter.
“Lucy darling. What a pleasant surprise? I am honoured to have such a guest.”
Lucy became slightly embarrassed and suddenly felt a need to justify her visit.
“Hello Aunt Minnie…. Mum and Dad are at a business meeting in Lime Street. I thought I would pay you a visit, if you don’t mind and you’re not busy.”
“Mind dear! Of course I don’t mind… Business meeting, so that’s what they call it?”
There was a slight pause as Minnie scanned Lucy via her reflection in the mirror.
“My word darling, how very beautiful you are? I see you didn’t bring poor old paranoid Frank today, as they’ve labelled the poor old bugger.”
“No. Mum says Frank is too unstable to reason with when he forgets his medication. The paranoia gets the better of him and he loses it.”
Minnie quietly digested Lucy’s remark and said casually,
“Loses it aye, loses it. So that’s what they call it? Well, I suppose being swindled out of a small fortune is probably an adequate term for losing it.”
Lucy felt inclined to defend her Mother and Father and decided to state their case.
“Well, Mum and Dad have taken charge of Frank’s money to stop him from drinking himself to death and they give him an allowance to cover his needs.”
“Oh Lucy dear, how well groomed and trained you’re becoming to their self justifications. First of all your Uncle Frank is not paranoid. He is simply tormented by rage, fury and indignation about being fleeced out of his own money. I dare say they’ve told you all about me, or rather their lofty opinions about me.”
Lucy visibly cringed because her parent’s opinions of Aunt Minnie were all bad and Lucy had become well versed about them over the breakfast table. Minnie sensed Lucy’s awkward demeanour and smiled wryly to herself as Lucy began to speak.
“Dad says that you’re the Bird that flew the nest and Mum says there’s always a place for you at our house whenever you want to return to the roost.”
“So Abigail thinks it’s okay for me to return to my own roost, does she? And my dear brother John with his canny way with words. Never knew he was so sentimental. I can tell you Lucy dear, I would never return to live in that mansion to be treated like a caged Bird by sweet Abigail, so she can show me to her false, pretentious friends.”
Minnie had been far more guarded about her opinions when Lucy had visited with paranoid Frank, and Lucy’s young mind wanted to know more.
“So you don’t really like Mum and Dad then Aunt Minnie?” she said quietly.
Minnie let a beaming smile cross her face and the red lipstick stretched across her lips.
Lucy waited patiently for Minnie to reply, but Minnie said nothing. She simply adjusted her lipstick and bared her gleaming white teeth.
“Oh Aunt Minnie, what big teeth you have?” said Lucy anxiously.
“They’re not real teeth dear, they’re dentures. As you can see, there are no gaps. False teeth with no gaps, so no falsehoods and lies can slip through them.”
“Well how do any falsehoods and lies escape? Everybody tells some lies Aunt Minnie, I do… Especially when it comes to doing my homework,” said Lucy.
“Well I don’t know where the lies escape. Out of my backside probably. Who cares?”
“How did you lose your teal teeth Aunt Minnie?”
“Well about twenty years ago I was doing my act on stage and kicking my legs higher than my head, when the heel broke on my shoe. I fell headfirst into the orchestra pit and flattened the baritone opera singer. I knocked my teeth out in the process and left the baritone stuck in A Flat Minor, with squashed testimonials.”
Lucy giggled, and Minnie realising that Lucy was of no threat became more friendly.
“Well how are my good brother John and his charming wife Abigail then?”
“Not too bad, although they’ve been arguing a lot lately,” said Lucy.
“What are they arguing about dear. Do you know?”
“I don’t know, but the name Susan is being mentioned a lot.”
“Who’s Susan?” asked Minnie cautiously.
“She’s a friend of Mums that comes to their cocktail parties, all of them.”
“”Really, tell me darling, has Susan got big, I mean really big bosoms dear?”
“Big what? Aunt Minnie.”
“Big bozooms dear, big bozooms!”
“Well, yes she has Aunt Minnie. How did you know that?”
“I didn’t darling, but I know my brother John very well. I can just picture it at their dreadful cocktail parties. Abigail in her low cut evening dress, with the even lower cut back, which barely covers her bum cleavage. Bet she needs even higher heels now, which would make her well over six feet. That would put her up on a higher vantage point, or watch tower to watch John’s antics with all of the female revellers.”
“How did you know that Aunt Minnie, you never go to their parties?”
“I didn’t dear, but I know sweet Abigail all too well. And I dare say that brother John rolls out the same old repertoire about his humble beginnings to a self made man to anybody who will listen. Self-made man indeed, more like a self made fraud and embezzler. Pity that brothers Lionel, paranoid Frank and sisters Beryl and Iris, didn’t see him coming. The same deadly charm never fails to seduce ‘em, just ask Abigail.”
Lucy now realised the real reason she wanted to speak with Minnie, she wanted to know the truth. She had gauged that Aunt Minnie was not entirely enamoured by the Bird family, judging by her exchanges with paranoid Frank. Lucy had been harbouring some pent up frustration of her own.
Both her mother and father had been giving her hell about slipping behind in her schoolwork, even though her reports were not entirely bad. To make matters worse they let her brother Mark get away with absolute murder and their favouritism towards him had got to the point of being nigh on embarrassing. She had suspected that something had been going on between her father and Susan, but she had convinced herself that it was only her imagination. She had also begun to grow disturbed by her mothers flirting with different men at the now dreaded cocktail parties. Abigail appeared to be particularly fond of Susan’s husband and other party attendees had begun to notice it. The only person who appeared to be unaware of her mother’s flirting was the target, Susan’s husband. This was because he was usually so drunk he did not even know where he was, or his wife for that matter.
Minnie twisted her lipstick holder open further to apply yet another layer of lipstick. Lucy took stock of all of the makeup, brushes and other articles that lined Minnie’s dressing table before her eyes settled on a faded black and white photograph jammed up in a corner of the dressing tables mirror. The photograph was of a mixed bunch of young men and women. Lucy instantly recognised a far younger and slimmer Minnie standing next to a remarkably handsome man. Several people down the line with only her head showing and peering over the shoulder of another man, looking directly at Minnie was a rather nondescript woman with a dark red ring drawn around her head.
“Why do you put so much lipstick on Aunt Minnie?” asked Lucy.
“Well, to cover all the chaps and cracks dear.”
“I can’t see any chaps, or cracks.”
“Oh, there are a lot of chaps and cracks darling. Some of the chaps I would rather not talk about, because most of them were superficial and a mere passing of lonely ships in the night. But some of the cracks dear, some of the cracks open at the lips and go right down to the heart and live in an abyss of pain so vast that the spoken word could never express that feeling. I sincerely hope that you never know, or suffer that feeling dear.”
Lucy became suddenly overwhelmed by the pain in Aunt Minnie’s voice. She had spoken to her on a level far higher than her young mind could comprehend, but she had communicated a grief so deep, so profound that Lucy felt as though she was in an emotional storm.
Lucy glanced up towards the photo and realised that it possibly held the key to Aunt Minnie’s pain and suffering. Speaking almost apologetically she said, “What a wonderful picture of you Aunt Minnie. Who are the other people in it?”
Minnie peered at Lucy through the mirror as if she had been waiting to be asked that very question for years and her answer was as magnificent as she was.
“The man standing close to me was the love of my life. He made me see my true self and enabled me to rise above everything that had confounded and confused me. It was like being born again under blinding light. A light so bright that it lit up everything around me. My spirit soared high into the air on its own mighty wings, like a young bird on its first flight from the nest. But! Oh Lucy darling, even a bird that thinks and feels that it is finally free can still be quarry to a bird of prey.”
Lucy sensed that she could feel the direction of their conversation and cautiously and with reservations contemplated her next question. And that question was irresistible.
“Who is the lady with the red ring drawn around her head Aunt Minnie?”
Minnie looked as if she was relieved that somebody at long last had finally asked her.
“That lady dear, that lady is the bird of prey that robbed me of everything. Bird of prey, viper in my bosom, infernal Judas that creeps and crawls lower than every dastardly deed your innocent young heart could ever imagine darling. A demon in angel’s robes, a wolf in sheep’s clothing that I cared for, nurtured and fed. Never thinking that it would grow into a beast that would devour me, heart, soul and spirit.”
Lucy felt as though she wanted to put her arms around Minnie’s mighty midriff. But she had one final question and Minnie’s answer was strange and enigmatic.
“Why do you keep the photo in the mirror Aunt Minnie, when it causes so much pain?”
“Do you really want to know the answer dear? Do you really want to know?”
“Yes I do. I need to know you Aunt Minnie. I want to know who you really are?”
For the first time Minnie turned around to face Lucy and took her hands into her own bloated and gnarled hands. Her legs made Lucy’s look like matchsticks against them and her swollen feet were almost bursting out of her black stiletto shoes.
She then gently cupped Lucy’s face in her hands and looked deep into her eyes.
“I need to be reminded dear. I need to know that I was once beautiful like you. I keep the photo in the mirror to be reminded about the hole dug deep into my heart. A hole that was never filled. Like the gaping, oblong hole in a cemetery plot, waiting for a discarded, lifeless body. As long as I am alive, then I can dodge that oblong hole. But staying alive is an art unto itself and a difficult act to interpret. I need to keep my questions floating in the ether, so I never forget that those questions have never been answered. I keep the exact words, written on a paper, in my drawer that dear brother John said to us Birds when they lowered our father’s coffin into the ground. He would provide for us all from the entire estate, which he grabbed with lightening hand speed. They all think I am mad to stay on stage after all of these years, but I’m not mad at all. When my audience applaud, shout and even laugh and deride me dear, I know that I’m communicating something. Something which is difficult to explain and far too complicated to put into perspective. For a brief moment in time I feel loved and in a peculiar way I can love in return. Like the sun turning the faces of a field of sunflowers towards it. I have learned to catch the applause and discard the derision.”
She gestured towards a withered aspidistra perched on a corner of her dressing table.
“You see that flower dear. It is beginning to fade and die, but it’s hanging onto life, it’s still alive. I am like that flower, because I am still alive. I still have Marcel, Plank and Board and paranoid Frank to remind me who I am. Unlike sweet Abigail, who is like a plastic flower stuck in a narrow vase, devoid of light and air. Her only audience being vile, plastic characters, which she deems to be friends. Friends for the price of a few cocktails and free dinners. Friends that she has to watch like a hawk from her ivory tower. I am the Marvellous Minnie Bird and I am about to take the stage, once again.”
Just then Marcel’s black and white painted face popped around the door and said,
“You’re on Minnie. They’re waiting for you.”
Minnie kissed Lucy on the forehead and rose from her stool. She then gracefully turned her mighty frame towards her dressing room door.
Looking over her shoulder she cheekily grinned at Lucy, winked at her, and Lucy’s jaw dropped as she said,
“Oh Aunt Minnie…. How big you are!”
Minnie burst our laughing and Lucy could feel the sheer joy and indefinable love radiate from Minnie’s countenance and fill the room. Then in a voice that sounded like a crescendo of music in Lucy’s ears she said,
“Please come to visit me again dear, I have really enjoyed your company. And thanks for reminding me that I was once beautiful, like you.”
Lucy thought to herself, you are beautiful Aunt Minnie…. You are absolutely magnificent. She followed Minnie into the corridor and watched in awe and wonder as Minnie strutted out onto the stage, with her top hat perched lazily on her head and her cane in hand. The curtain rose and the presenter announced her over the loud speaker.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN…THE MARVELLOUS MINNIE BIRD!”
The roar of approval was deafening.