The Summer We Said Goodbye [Installment 10]

Toad In the Hole

The Windy Arms offered three meals a day: morning tea for overnight guests, a pub lunch for the general public, and dinner in the main dining room. 

Dinner had a set course and required advanced reservations. But lunch was an open menu affair on a first-come, first-served basis, and a queue was already forming at the pub door.

Micky laid out a selection of some of the more savory fare for Aris and me to try. And we huddled at the bar to give it a go as the others looked on. 

Bangers and Mash was a straightforward dish of mashed potatoes and sausages, otherwise known as "bangers." Pasties were pastry tarts filled with minced mutton and sliced turnips. And Toad In The Hole was baked Yorkshire pudding slathered in onion gravy with bangers peeking out from the crust like toads from holes, though none of the Brits would confirm that part of the origin story.

Toad in the Hole

Aris was partial to the pasty's minced mutton.

"Do I detect a pinch of cinnamon?"

"Bang on! Dead impressive," Micky beamed.

"Dead delicious!"

Bite-sized chunks of Windy Hollow's namesake ewe's milk cheese rounded it out. It had a stench akin to ovine flatulence and a name to match: Stinky Wind.

It was delicious. It all was. And, as I scraped up the last of the morsels, I found I could no longer stave off the pangs that had been gripping my gut for days.

Aris had been out of school for a month already. But I'd been sitting for finals the past two weeks, surviving on pizza, coffee, and Peanut M&Ms. I was spent, as Vic would say.

But there would be no reprieve for me, not yet anyway. Matty, Vic's right hand, marched into the pub, snapping everyone to attention.

"Tammy, in. Dizzy, in. Cosmo, out. Aris, out. Owie, on tap."

Out?

"I'm sorry, Matty —" Aris interrupted.

"Out front. You and Cosmo are out front. Owie, would ya' get the door, luv?"

That was the extent of our run-through.

Owie, pronounced "Oh-wee," had introduced himself as Owain the day before after saving my butt. He'd been very particular about the Welsh spelling of his name, making sure I understood it was O-w-A-I-n, not e-n, as in the Anglicized "Owen" version.

But that was as far as we'd gotten in the getting-to-know-you department. He was a sullen guy but with a keen eye. And sensing our bewilderment, he paused on his way to the door.

"Bevvys and grub all come through the bar. So, just keep an eye out front here: cutlery, serviettes, dirty plates." He pointed to a small workstation in the corner.

"Serviettes?" I wondered aloud.

"Napkins," Aris answered.

"Cutlery?"

"Silverware."

"Owie?"

"Sooner stick with Owain if it's all the same."

“Owie it is, then,” I winked.

And with that, Oh-Wayne swung open the door, and lunch was on!

Within seconds, every suitable seating surface was occupied. The lunchers, primarily tourists, waited expectantly. They were as confused as Aris and I about next steps.

Clang, clang, clang!

Matty yanked the clapper of a firehouse bell, drawing everyone's attention to a chalkboard menu above the bar.

"Order up!"

The crowd quickly caught on, mobbing a till where Matty rang up orders while Owie dispensed beverages from the taps.

If Matty thought we'd flounder or fold, she was in the wrong story. Aris and I were at our best when left to our own devices, and we had our uniquely different upbringings to thank for it.

If my default is getting along, Aris' is taking charge. And she did, shuttling serviettes and cutlery to the guests while ordering me to pull together whatever tables and chairs were necessary to seat the oversized groupings of tourists.

"Hi, I'm Aris, welcome to the Windy Arms. Are you enjoying Windy Hollow? Do you have everything you need? Be sure to let Cosmo and me know if we can get you anything."

She was a born hostess, and crowds were my natural habitat. Plus, I was used to getting bossed around courtesy of my four older sisters.

Despite the range in their ages, they had all experienced the same cultural coming-of-age. Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" was their anthem, and Gloria Steinem, their patron saint, which made for some rollicking times with my father and brothers over everything from equal pay to reproductive rights.

No such cultural growing pains ever afflicted Aris' house. There was no need. Aris' mother had always had a career, one that was of equal status to her father's. She was the higher wage earner, too, having made equity partner at her firm before her father had at his. So, gender played no discernible role in shaping the expectations that guided Aris' life.

As far as she was concerned, we were on equal footing with nothing to prove or defend. It's amazing how much time that can free up.

It didn't just free up time, though. It shifted it in ways that expanded the very physics of my life.

By the time I showed up, my family's trajectory had been firmly fixed with a speed and inertia that made divergence impossible.

As an only child, Aris was unchecked by such forces. And she beckoned, enticing me to shift my line of sight and take notice.

It happened gradually.

The momentum governing my family’s functionality was considerable, propelled by biases that, while innocuous on their own, fueled the more sweeping constraints of my family’s conditioning. And I was no more than four when first schooled in their ways.

It was Christmastime, and my mother and sisters were deep into preparations for a big holiday meal when key ingredients were discovered missing.

When the requisite Sturm und Drang that underpinned most family enterprises eventually subsided, it was determined my father would make the necessary trip to the grocery store to sort out the last-minute items.

“And take Cosmo with you,” my mother called after him.

“Yeah, take Cosmo!”

“He’s in the way.”

---

You can find an archive of all previously published installments here.