Mr Monty Pays for Dinner

By Ella Ambla

Everybody has an agenda.

Nobody has a clue.  

Somewhere deep in the bleeding cultural heart of Melbourne, the vain and squabbling Borg family prepare for dinner with old friend Mr Monty. 

Rambling through university galas and secondhand bazaars, inner-city cafes and chic pied-à-terre, this biting satirical comedy from new author Ella Ambla, you'll fall in love with the city of Melbourne (and out of love with everyone in it). 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ella Ambla
• Release date: Feb 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393215837

Ella Ambla

Ella Ambla is a young author from Melbourne, Australia.  Unable to drive, she wanders around a lot; and unable to stop, she watches people while she does it. Sometimes the people watch her back, and she finds this very uncomfortable. Mr Monty Pays for Dinner is her first published novella. She wrote it for everyone who's ever been to an excruciating family dinner, or felt out of place, or wanted something they couldn't quite describe. She wrote it because she loves Melbourne. She hopes that you'll love Melbourne too. 

Book preview

Chapter 1

When Jonathan Borg looked in the mirror there were things he didn't see.

In his 72 years, his dirty blonde hair had darkened and then paled strand by tortured strand, but he hadn’t noticed at the time or since. Instead, he simply saw a full head of the stuff, and assumed the colour was as it always had been. His eyes were still wide and bright; too bright for anyone to notice the swollen marbled folds surrounding them. He trimmed his inches of beard, considered a shave, but didn’t do it. He twirled the edges of his moustache away from his crusted mouth corners. When he reached for his navy sports jacket, he didn't see the threadbare lapels and gravy-stained cuffs. 

Joy, his wife, slept on wheezily as he passed the door. A muffled creak of the floorboards made her frown in her sleep, her severe bob a tumour on the soft flesh of her pillows. Jonathan stepped on the board again and smiled to see her head slipping beneath the covers. He stepped into his scuffed brogues and clomped over to the European kitchen to contemplate the hulking mess of copper pipes that in the hands of his son produced magical espresso, but in his own remained sadly mundane.

Jonathan didn't actually think Joy's head was a cancer. He didn't think about it at all. What he thought about was the bouncing arse of the redhead in the café downstairs, and whether she and the blonde behind the machine liked older men. Distinguished ones. With credentials. As he slunk past the bedroom door into the living room he stole a glance at Joy, now entirely sunk beneath her Sheridan sheets in the bed they designed together.

He sipped his cup of coffee and gazed down into the narrow sliver of alleyway visible from the wide sliding doors of the balcony. He recalled how lovingly they'd fussed and bonded over this bespoke bed - a real couple’s project: meeting with craftsmen on Chapel Street, sourcing the wood and laminate, the mechanism, the rails, the lever. When all was ready, the bed had been brought in piece by piece and constructed in the snug fit of their renovated apartment.

Made to measure, there was just enough space to initiate the transformation without guests asking why their bedside tables were so far from the bed. When Joy got up she would push it back into place and smooth-out the crevice with fresh sheets, ensuring all appearances were of a red-blooded set of aging bohemian lovebirds. Not that Monty was due at their place this evening  - they were all headed to some terribly fashionable South American restaurant picked out by one or other of the children (he hoped it was Dylan, but it was probably Cerys). But no doubt Joy had her reasons for pretending nubility.

For himself, Jonathan didn't much care for Monty to think he bothered with his wife, but it was important to Joy, and therefore a cross to be born mutely. He suspected her of wanting to impress old Monty, which would have inflamed him when they were younger but now just made him feel sorry for her. Didn’t she understand how haggard she’d become? Even an old sausage like Monty should have better standards, however polite he was to (what was left of) her once-pretty face. 

Jonathan realised he'd been gazing down at the alleyway for over fifteen minutes with gritted teeth. His jaw ached slightly. He left his coffee cup on the table for someone else to deal with, patted his pockets and walked out the door, closing it with a careless crash and jangling the keys in the lock. Joy mumbled in her sleep and somehow sunk even further beneath the blankets, submerged in expensive egyptian cotton.

Chapter 2

Dylan woke up some time around 11, his mouth gummed shut with Jagermeister and cigar ash. A few nudes lay scattered around the divan, the settee, the chaise, and the various other stylish cousins of the humble chair.

He didn’t think anyone else present would know the Ottoman cradling Ahmed's finely curved buttocks was custom-upholstered in Moire silk, styled after the wallpaper in the Hampton Court royal bedchamber.

And if they did Dylan would have thought they were a massive dickhole.

He scratched his thick mane of gingery curls and pulled out three stubby inches of gnawed Montecristo. He shrugged, and lit the stub, squinting through the thick purple smoke at the grandfather clock. What date was it? The fifteenth?

‘Ahmed had better not leave a stain on that ottoman...’ He dragged a sheet from the couch, throwing it over his shoulder as he stumbled down the parquet hallway. He discarded the sheet but kept the cigar when he reached the bathroom. He slipped into the shower and twisted the hot tap all the way round.

The steam melded with the smoke of his cigar, and Dylan leaned against the shower wall and winced as scalding water pummelled his side. The cigar spluttered and finally died in the swirling mist.

Chapter 3

Cerys filled her single -serve french press to the line, waited three minutes, and plunged.

She poured the result into a white porcelain latte mug and topped up with soy milk. Her fingers knit around the cup and she absorbed the heat like a lizard, gazing into the middle-distance. Housemates stirred around her: making toast, pouring cereal, murmuring morning conversations and darting furtively across the room. She widened her eyes and responded as best she could on the few occasions any words were directly specifically at her. She mostly read from a reserve library compilation of post-graduate economics papers. Her body was as rigid as the stool she sat on.

Her coffee cooled in its cup, and she drank it. She wiped her mouth after each sip with a pressed linen napkin.

She kept her things in a drawer the other housemates did not touch, methodically wiped with Dettol daily. The latte mug, a matching cereal bowl and side plate. One large