Natural Soap

I’ve often wondered at the fact that the happiest weekend of my life was also the most horrific. It seems a mean kind of trick to play but, well, that’s the Universe for you.

Tristan and I had been married all of two hours when we pulled up outside The Eyrie in Port Alberni. The B&B looked like the perfect spot for a laid-back Honeymoon: a three-storied wooden villa, freshly painted and with a newly built patio and white-picket fence. The garden was pretty and meticulously clipped and pruned, the only sign of ‘disorder’ being the circle of petals carpeting the lawn underneath an apple tree. Just inside the gate to the right of the path there was a koi pond inhabited by two massive red-gold specimens.

As we walked up the drive I saw a man come out onto the patio. He was tall, wiry and seemed to be in his mid-seventies. He wore thick glasses and had a mouth-smile, where the eyes didn’t join in. I guessed that this was our host.

“You must be the newlyweds,” he said.

“How can you tell?” Tristan asked, wryly nodding at our Honda, which was decorated with white ribbons, flowers and a ‘Just Married’ sign.

On reaching the patio, we both shook the man’s hand.

“Glad to meet you. I’m Alisdair, as you probably guessed. For the weekend I want you to feel completely at home.”

“Thank you sir, I appreciate that,” said Tristan.

The man’s eyes settled on me and he looked me up and down.

“Congratulations young man,” he said, “You got yourself a lovely one here. Plump as a partridge,” he licked his lips.

“Excuse me?” said Tristan.

“Oh, I don’t mean any offence, on the contrary. I’m of an age,” said Alisdair, “Where we liked women to have some shape, if you know what I mean. Girls these days are much too scrawny as a rule.”

Tristan tensed up but I elbowed him—the last think I wanted on our wedding day was an altercation with an elderly inn owner.

“Thank you,” I laughed lightly. “I’m glad my husband agrees with you!”

“I prepared something special for you. Please, come in,” he ushered us in.

We found ourselves in what was clearly his own living room. There was a writing desk in one corner, two overstuffed armchairs and a matching sofa. An old black lab lay snoring on a rug in front of a woodfire, which had been lit against the cool spring day. On a coffee table covered with white lace there was a crystal flask full of a ruby-red liquid, two champagne flutes and a small vase containing a spray of apple blossom.

It occurred to me that, despite its homey appearance, it was not a comfortable room. Of course, part of this sense of discomfort was because our host was staring at us with those oyster-like eyes, clearly expecting an appropriate reaction.

“Oh, how sweet!” I exclaimed.

“If you wouldn’t mind taking off your shoes…” he stared at our feet with those big eyes. “I will make you a toast.”

Hurriedly, we did as he requested, all the while making noises of appreciation.

Alisdair carefully poured the ruby liquid into the flutes. Not a single drop fell on the white linen.

“Beet wine. I made it myself. A toast—to your new life!”

We sipped the concoction. I didn’t like it very much but smiled and said it was refreshing. To be honest, I was really tired from the wedding and all I wanted to do was to get up to our bedroom, lie down and relax.

“Sit down, sit down!” he said, pointing to the overstuffed sofa. Reluctantly, we obeyed.

“What are your plans while you are here?”

Tristan and I looked at each other, a little bewildered.

“Well, we—uh, were thinking of going to see Englishman River Falls tomorrow.”

“Good idea. Do you know how to get there?”

“Well, we have GPS in our car.”

“I have a paper map you can use. Another thing, what do you like to eat? Do you have any preferences?”

“We aren’t picky,” I said. “We’ll eat anything really.”

“What time do you have breakfast?”

“Well, we thought we would skip breakfast tomorrow, you know, have a lie in.”

“I can make it later if you like. What time are you thinking of getting up?”

“About ten-thirty.”

“No, that won’t work for me. The latest I can do is nine-thirty, how’s that?”

“No, really!” I protested. “We don’t want you to go to any trouble.” (I also did not want to get up at nine-thirty).

“It’s no trouble. My wife Penny will tell you that I get up early every morning to make fresh bread, from scratch. I grind the coffee freshly too. Nine-thirty it is then. Good!” he rubbed his hands together. “I have some other guests who are leaving tomorrow at ten o’clock so you’ll be able to see the ceremony.”

“Ceremony?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” he said solemnly.

“So you have other guests here?” Tristan asked.

“Yes, yes. We have four suites and they’re usually all full.”

At that moment a woman came into the room. In many ways she looked like Alisdair’s double: tall, thin and elderly. However she did not wear spectacles and had a nervous air.

“This is my wife Penny,” said Alisdair. “I’m the cook and she’s in charge of the linens—sheets, towels, laundry and so on. If you need any laundry done, she’s your woman.”

Penny said, “Yes, I’ve learned to stay out of the kitchen. Who knows when the last time I cooked a meal is! Alisdair’s a wonderful chef, you see.”

Her husband made a self-deprecating gesture.

“Oh yes, you are. And he’s so good with guests too. I’m sure he’s told you everything already. A born host, I’d say. I like to stay behind the scenes. Don’t want to scare the customers away!” she laughed with an odd, wild-eyed look.

“Well,” said Tristan, standing up, “Thank you both for your warm welcome. Miranda and I will be heading up to our bedroom now.” He started to wheel the suitcase along but Alisdair swooped to grab it by the handle.

“We’ve just had the floors done,” our host explained. “I don’t want to mark the wood.”

He sprang up a set of creaking stairs like a spry faun. I was amazed because it was really a very heavy suitcase and he carried it in one hand almost as if it were empty. Tristan followed him but before taking the first step I turned to say goodbye to Penny. Seeing her expression, I was momentarily taken aback. She wore a sort of fixed grimace, but it clearly masked some other emotion—fear?

“Well, see you later,” I smiled.

“Yes,” she said faintly. “Let me know if you need more towels.”

As I reached the landing on the first floor, one of the bedroom doors swung open with a draft. I believe it must have happened because Alisdair had opened the door to our room on the floor above.  In any case, I caught sight of a man lying on his bed. He was terrifically fat, covered with a dressing gown and was lying on his back sort of stiffly in a pose that didn’t seem to me to be particularly comfortable. His skin was a kind of mottled blue and I wondered at the time if he was unwell.

“Excuse me,” I murmured and pulled the door to softly. As far as I know, the man did not stir a hair.

Our room upstairs was in a converted attic. It was quite lovely: a big bed, deep-piled carpet, a view of the inlet that took my breath away. Alisdair pointed out a list of local restaurants and a pile of about 20 towels on the bed.

“Well,” said Roger, “I’ll love you and leave you. If you need anything at all, just ask. Penny and I are usually downstairs. One last thing. When you go out, be sure to lock the door behind you. You can get back in by using a keypad at the back door. The code is 3334.”

I wrote the number on a little notepad next to the bed.

“And I’ll see you downstairs tomorrow morning at nine-thirty,” he said before turning around and going down the stairs.

Exploring the room, I saw a basket full of colorful soaps, some of which had dried flowers imprinted in them. There was a gold sticker with hand-writing saying ‘Gloria’.

“Handmade soap!” I said. “Roger and Penny sure work hard to make this place welcoming,” I said, examining the pile.

“Funny couple,” Tristan said. “Especially him. But you’re right, they work hard.”

“Do you think we’ll end up like them?” I asked.

“What? Running a B&B on Vancouver Island?”

“Maybe. You doing the cooking and me the laundry, entertaining a bunch of tourists.”

I put my arms around him and looked up at him with a pleading expression.

“If that’s what you want…?” he said doubtfully, looking into my eyes to see if I was serious.

I burst out laughing.

“You should know by now that I’d be the worst hostess in the world. I can’t cook a lick, I despise ironing and the thought of being responsible for a housefull of guests makes me feel physically ill!”

Tristan breathed a sigh of relief and hugged me tight.

“Thank God. I was thinking for a second there that I might have made a mistake marrying you this morning.”

I tried to kick him but he lifted me into the air and planted me on the bed.

Suddenly, I remembered the blue guy downstairs and told Tristan about him.

“He didn’t look well,” I said. “I thought maybe I should mention it to Alisdair.”

“What? No way! It’s none of our business.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Today we should only be thinking about each other. OK?”

“OK,” I nodded.

***

The next morning we came down to the breakfast table at nine-thirty-five to find two women, apparently mother and daughter. The daughter introduced herself to us as Lily and explained that her mother, Grace, was quite deaf. We smiled and nodded awkwardly at each other.

Alisdair emerged from the back door with a handful of spring onions, presumably from his garden.

“You’re late,” he said to us, frowning.

“Sorry,” I said, “I had a tiring day yesterday and the bed was so comfortable.”

Slightly mollified, he put the chives on the bench and proceeded to wash his hands.

“Well. Lily and Grace here are going to leave today so I would like to present them with a special gift courtesy of The Eyrie.”

From a cupboard he took two parcels, each one wrapped in cellophane. One was green, the other yellow.

“It’s homemade soap. This,” he said handing the green one over to Lily, “Is peppermint. And this,” giving the yellow one to Grace, “Is lemon-rosemary. And we grow all the herbals ourselves.”

We all oohed and aahed politely.

Lily and Grace then excused themselves and Alisdair went to work making our breakfast, carefully measuring the ground coffee into the machine.

“How do you make soap?” I asked, more to fill the silence than anything else.

“Well, it’s funny you should ask that,” said our host. “Because we had a friend named Gloria who’d been trying to make her own soap for about ten years. And she, whenever she visited us, she’d say, ‘I don’t know how you do it! My soap never coalesces properly.’ And every single time I’d tell her, ‘Gloria, it’s simple. You need to follow the recipe (I gave it to her) and to make absolutely sure that the ratio of tallow to lye is perfect.”

“What’s tallow?” I asked.

“Well, it’s rendered animal fat, usually beef but I also use bear fat sometimes.”

“Oh,” said.

“I render it myself. It’s important to use the best ingredients, you know. But, as I was saying, Gloria wouldn’t listen. She said, “Oh it’s too much fuss to measure things exactly. I prefer to eyeball it.’ I mean, what could I say at that point? Obviously the soap continued to just melt away because she was getting the ratio wrong.”

He looked angry, his face was becoming red.

“Huh,” I said, trying not to seem to desperate for the coffee that he was preparing ever so slowly.

“Another thing,” said Alisdair, “Is the quality of the tallow really matters. Some people just get suet from the supermarket. But no, you have to make sure it’s of good quality. Here’s your granola. I toasted all the seeds and cereals last night. You’ll notice a hint of cinnamon there.”

I was just about to dig in when he held up a warning hand.

“Wait,” he said, “I have three kinds of fruit compote, all homemade.”

“Wow, homemade!” said Tristan. As Alisdair turned his back to get the compotes, Tristan rolled his eyes at me.

“This is blueberry,” said Alisdair, putting a little glass dish of purple mess in front of me. “And this is strawberry and this is cherry. We have a cherry tree. I have to confess that the strawberries are not our own. This year the birds got them.”

So breakfast continued painfully.

We discussed our plans and said we would be away until about 5 o’clock that evening. He nodded and said that he’d have dinner ready for us, he was keen to show us his special vegetarian curry.

Both Tristan and I were relieved to leave the house. It just felt as if Alisdair was very wound up and the tense atmosphere was a little tiring. Unfortunately, after driving away from town and through roads surrounded by forest, I realized I’d forgotten my purse.

“Oh, what?” Tristan said.

“I have to go back, sorry hon.”

So about forty minutes after leaving, we arrived back at the house. I hurried up around the back of the house but try as I might I couldn’t find a keypad for the code. I realized there was a door downstairs—Alisdair had come from the basement that morning, when he was carrying the green onions. I realized that that lower door must have been what he’d meant by ‘the back door’.

Sure enough, there was a keypad next to the lower door. When I typed in the numbers it opened. I realized I was in a basement that was in the process of being renovated. There was a door slightly ajar and I heard music going in there—“A Little Bit of Soap” by the Jarmels.

I couldn’t help myself, I peeked in through the gap above the door hinge. What I saw there…I will never forget it. A cleaver, a bowl of grisly pinkish-white fat, the lifeless face of the man I’d seen in the bedroom.

For a moment I was frozen in place. I walked backwards to the door I’d come through.

At the sound of the door opening, Alisdair shot out of his grisly laboratory, still holding his cleaver. I ran as fast as I could to the car. At the sight of the crazed soap-maker, Tristan started the car and we got out of there as fast as we could, leaving my purse and all other worldly possessions.

Since then Tristan and I have never slept at a B&B again. There is something about them that we just don’t like.