Arthur's Special Ladies

 

Arthur's Special Ladies

Part 1: The New Excavation (Saturday Afternoon)

The bank holiday weekend had descended like a fever. Heat shimmered over the lawn in glassy waves, the air thick and still, trapping the drone of a distant mower.

"Another one, Dad? Seriously?" Mark gestured with his beer bottle towards a newly dug, tarp-lined crater at the far end of the garden. "Didn't you just finish the one by the shed?"

Arthur, whose hands always looked more at home holding a trowel than a G&T, chuckled. His eyes twinkled. "This one's different, son. Special. She's got layers, Mark. Depth you wouldn't believe."

Mark raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Layers? What about Mum? She's fuming. Says you spend more time with your 'special ladies' than with her these days."

"Ah, Maria knows where my heart lies." A mischievous glint entered his eye as he gazed into the gaping hole. "Though I admit, this one… she's got a certain allure. A real siren." Arthur’s gaze went distant, his focus seeming to drift right through the raw earth and into some other time. For a full ten seconds, he was utterly still, a stranger in his own garden. Just as Mark was about to ask if he was okay, Arthur blinked and clapped him on the shoulder, the moment gone. "The triple-tiered waterfall, son! This one's a showstopper. Think of the koi!"

Mark let out a huff of laughter, a mix of relief and lingering unease. "Oh. Right. The waterfall. Honestly, Dad. You had me worried."

---

On the patio, the clinking of ice against glass was a small act of defiance against the heat. Maria sat bolt upright in her chair, a queen surveying a crumbling kingdom.

"He's worse than ever," she sighed to her daughter, Sarah.

"Now, Mum, it's his passion," Sarah offered.

"Passion? It's an affliction. A chronic, debilitating... pond-a-holism." Maria leaned towards Mark's wife, Chloe, and their son Tom's fiancée, Emily. "He calls them his 'special ladies.' And the late nights! I'm practically a widow. A well-hydrated widow, mind you, but a widow nonetheless." Her gaze drifted to the far end of the garden, where Arthur’s silhouette moved against the dying sun. The sharp edge of her wit momentarily softened, her expression becoming unguarded, lost in a memory. Then, she blinked, took a large, fortifying gulp of her G&T, and the mask was back in place. "He bought this land for the stone underneath, you know. Everyone else gets a swimming pool. We got a bloody great hole."

Sarah snorted. "Driving the dumper truck was brilliant, though."

Maria aimed a withering look at her daughter. "For little hooligans, perhaps."

"It is fascinating," Chloe offered gently. "A whole ecosystem."

"And so tranquil!" added Emily.

"Tranquillity," Maria repeated, the word tasting like ash. "It's a constant drain. On everything."

Back by the new pond, Arthur's eyes had a predatory gleam as he looked from the hole towards the house. "Mum's been dropping hints about the Amalfi Coast," Mark ventured.

Arthur’s smile was slow and wide. "Amalfi, eh? Bit far to dig, isn't it?" His gaze locked onto the conservatory. "Unless, of course, she fancies a weekend by the new indoor grotto. A little touch of Capri, right here in the West Midlands..."

Mark stared at his father's dreaming face and imagined, for one horrifying moment, a chlorinated bath interrupting Christmas dinner. Maria's patience, he realised, was about to be tested beyond all known limits.

Part 2: The Kitchen Confession (Sunday Morning)

By Sunday, the oppressive heat had pressed the air from the lungs. The kitchen felt airless when Tom walked in, his face pale and tight with a controlled fury that was far more unnerving than shouting.

"Dad took the Preston fountain," he said, his voice dangerously quiet.

Mark stopped pouring his beer. "What do you mean, 'took it'?"

"I mean he put it on his pickup with a forklift yesterday and drove off. Jimmy went to load it this morning. It's gone." Tom’s hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists. "I've been re-cutting a three-tonne block of sandstone all day."

Sarah, drawn by the tense silence, appeared in the doorway. "What's wrong?"

"Dad stole the Preston commission," Tom said flatly.

Sarah’s eyes widened. She shifted her weight, suddenly unable to meet their gaze. "Oh," she said, her voice small. "He did pop in yesterday. Said he was just after some old stock. From the… you know. The graveyard."

The word hung in the stifling air. The graveyard. The scrap heap. A stunned, horrified silence descended between the siblings. This wasn't a quirky theft or a crossed wire. This was a profound and terrifying misrecognition. The implications settled in their stomachs like cold, heavy stones.

---

The argument that followed between Tom and Emily in the hall was inevitable, a brutal aftershock. It was a clash of his frayed reality against her perception of charming family eccentricity, ending only when Maria appeared at the door.

"Oh, dear," she said, her voice perfectly neutral as she surveyed their flushed faces. "Are we having a moment?" She took a slow, elegant sip of her drink, her eyes fixed on Emily. "You know, dear, Arthur was just saying that the bedrock under the conservatory looks particularly promising." She offered a small, tight smile that was not a smile at all.

Part 3: The Unscheduled Interruption (Bank Holiday Monday)

The siege of heat continued. In the drawing-room, Chloe and Emily were making listless conversation when the door creaked open.

Arthur stood there in his shirt sleeves, holding an impeccably clean toilet brush in one hand and a tarnished silver serving tray in the other. He looked like a man given a perplexing instruction at a charades party.

Chloe and Emily exchanged a look of synchronized bewilderment.

"Hello, Arthur," Chloe managed.

He blinked slowly, then extended the toilet brush. "Does anyone require this? I appear to have a spare."

The absurdity was overwhelming. "No, thank you, Arthur," Chloe replied, her voice remarkably even.

His brow furrowed. He glanced from the brush to the tray, his gaze then passing through Chloe before it settled, with unnerving clarity, on Emily. His lips moved, forming a single, unexpected word.

"I'm sorry, my lady. Melora."

The name hung in the air. The women froze. Their strained amusement evaporated, replaced by a sudden, cold knot of alarm. Arthur, clutching his inexplicable implements, shuffled from the room.

"Melora?" Emily whispered. "Who on earth is Melora?"

Chloe rose abruptly. "Excuse me. I need to find Mark."

---

She found him by the bay windows, nursing a beer. She told him everything, quickly and quietly. The toilet brush. The name.

Mark’s jaw dropped. "Who?" he mumbled as she explained.

"Melora," Chloe finished softly. "As in... a forgotten daughter of King Arthur. From the legends. Camelot."

Mark stared at her, then back out at his father's magnificent, illogical kingdom. The "special ladies," the fountain, the confusion over scrap and art—it all coalesced into a chilling, undeniable pattern.

"King Arthur's daughter," Mark repeated, his voice flat. "Bloody hell."

"His 'special ladies' aren't just ponds anymore, are they?" Chloe said gently. "They're his Camelot. And Maria's a 'well-hydrated widow' because he's off on some internal quest."

Mark finally turned to her, his face pale with a new, sharper fear. "The fountain," he murmured. "He thought a finished commission was scrap." His eyes met hers, the dawning dread absolute. "He's not just getting old, is he? He's losing it."

He looked back out at the newest raw excavation, the sound of a distant shovel no longer eccentric, but the heartbeat of something profoundly amiss.

He turned slowly back to Chloe, his earlier exasperation gone, replaced by a stark clarity. "The fountain. The toilet brush. 'Melora'." He articulated each piece as if testing its impossible weight. "It's not just a hobby anymore." His voice was a whisper. "What do we do?"

"We stop being politely bewildered," Chloe said, her tone low and firm. "We talk to Maria. Properly. And we get him to a doctor, Mark. Immediately."

"She won't want to hear it," he said grimly.

"She has to," Chloe insisted. "This isn't just about him misplacing things anymore. He can't tell the difference between a toilet brush and a serving tray. He's confusing Emily with a princess. What happens when he gets behind the wheel of his truck? Or tries to rewire a water pump at night?" She placed a hand on his arm, her grip tight. "He isn't safe, Mark. We can't pretend he is."

Her words landed with the finality of a spade striking stone. The polite fictions that sustained their family were about to be shattered.