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Montezuma and Me
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I spent a year in the throes of a cub name Monty. Out of the multitude, when so nearly it was me (and for so long I was convinced that I should be ) came Montgomery. Who died last week in a car crash. He never married. Monty was much too clever for that. He was a cad, as I remember him. I figure the easiest way to embarrass a serial womaniser would be to call him a cad. It just wouldn't sit well with that moody, debonair character he loved to play. Calling him a cad made him look as old-hat as the word itself. It was obvious Monty never liked it.
Monty could be an real idiot, most of the time. Not even I could defend him from that. Monty made his fortune in puzzle books. It seems like every millionaire makes their money unglamorously. Because money is not healthy. Only the process of spending without guilt or aftermath is fabulous. He would take me out shopping with him. Monty loathed the West End, he was a serial marketeer. He'd spend hundreds on clothes, furniture and cars. I never saw him barter for anything. I followed Monty for breadcrumbs, wore him out until he was starving hungry, and then he'd insist on a taxi and a full meal for lunch, followed by afters - drinks instead of possessions. Once when we were both drunk, I convinced Monty to run without paying. To my surprise he did. But for all his talk of going back the next day to pay the bill (after I'd teased him so hard, Monty you'll never eat in this town again) he never went back.
Riches are to be spent, enjoyed but most of all, guarded.
Monty has a million sayings like that. They're his way of sussing people out. When Monty first met up with me he said the same thing. For whatever reason, when I replied - so are you planning to end the evening spent? Monty was pleased.
Nowadays Monty is more fascinated by my bullshit detector than myself. Ever since I explained to him that everyone must have one, tucked behind their eyeballs, and that no amount of money could guarantee their durability. Monty was shocked. He'd never even considered the idea. I was as shocked as he was, since I thought that all his funny phrases were more than such a thing. I thought that Monty knew all about bullshit.
Monty how did you ever get where you are without it?
Trust, Annabel. And a little luck.
Now what will you do? Monty I feel that I've corrupted you. Poor innocent Monty. You'll never trust a human again.
Monty bought a 4-bar heater for the kitchen. God only knows why, when we're cooking the oven is enough to fill the house with heat. But there it will stay. Forever switched off. Monty spent the rest of the evening in the light rain and the darkness pacing around furniture shops for Christmas presents. Whilst I watched the shopkeepers drag in tables and cabinets from the pavement and the rain to the lock up indoors, Monty watched the furniture for bargains or my reaction, sometimes. Some of those gifts were grotesque. Monty I don't even know where we're going to hide these, let alone for the people they're meant for. He hired a van the next morning, and I saw Monty arrive standing in my dressing
gown on the steps to our house. He'd sat in the cab of a white rental truck, in a long black overcoat and his pompous weekday morning face against the stubble and white of the driver. Behind them the wood and varnish of hundreds of pounds worth of nasty furniture. Whilst Monty extracted himself from the truck he must have read the look on my face as he said, to himself as much as the people who stood to watch Money' s typically auspicious arrival, I don't care what they look like Annabel, they're outrageously overpriced and that is all that matters. And while the driver unloaded and began to move the furniture, Monty looked as if he would gift-wrap each of them to prove his point. He even looked at me and said 'perhaps I'll place a banner over each of them', he spread his hands, 'Money in another Form'.
It's funny how Money attracts Women to Monty. Th power is everything just as Monty is so overbearing. Annabelle and Monty were a different combination, however. And not through demure inhostility either, Annabelle often got Monty as blood red a send petty criminal, parking ticket or doorstep salesman. She'd even stand in her dressing gown until Monty chose her clothes for that day, just as Monty wanted to be able to do. But of course, to have her act so defiantly mind-less, made Monty mad. I'd seen Annabelle spend an entire day in and out of the bath, in and out of her dressing gown, until Monty arrived home and handed her a dress fort that evening ( so Annabelle took a shower ) and pointed her to the car door. From where they'd go on to parties with Monty's friends ( what Annabelle didn't know, Monty couldn't stand them either ) Sometimes money isn't enough to buy freedom of speech - Monty was silent, that blood red face acts like a device, first , for when he is mad and must look it, and second, for when Monty has to look important. Then to a dinner-date and afters, until Monty sent Annabelle home in a limousine. From where Annabelle would direct the car out to the seaside, fall asleep in her dress on the back seat until she's woken up by that permanent, half-hearted tapping of the rain so close to the beach. Who's fooling who? said Annabelle to the chauffeur.
Pardon me, replied the driver. Annabelle repeated herself.
No, pardon me, said the driver, and he got out of the limousine and relived himself behind a tree.
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