by Sue Townsend
So far, hardtopleeze.co.uk have not been able to find me a prospective wife, but I live in hope!
At least I have a video which, I think, gives a fair representation of what Graham Cracknall is all about!
Best wishes from your son
Graham
Please Note: I had my hair cut shortly before the filming of the video. The barber wilfully ignored my instructions for a trim and proceeded to shave my scalp, leaving only stubble! My hair has since grown back!
Charles read the letter with a sinking heart. It was not only Graham’s prolific use of exclamation marks that depressed him; there was a slight air of desperation between the lines. Could it be that Graham was a social misfit? The Hardtopleeze agency had been the subject of a critical documentary on Radio Four’s You and Yours. The presenter Peter White had accused the owner, a Mrs Greyling, of ‘preying on the weak, the vulnerable, the physically and emotionally challenged’. Mrs Greyling had defended her agency rigorously, claiming that she ‘gave hope to those who, in earlier days, would have been condemned to spend most of their life living at home with their mum and dad’. Charles said nothing to Camilla about his worries. The poor darling has enough on her plate at the moment, he thought.
When Camilla had finished reading the letter, she said, with a mother’s determination to see the best in her child, ‘It’s splendid that he has a life plan, isn’t it?’ Camilla had never planned anything in her own life; she merely reacted to people and events.
Charles said, scanning the letter again, ‘He certainly understands how to paragraph.’
Having no video or television, Charles went next door and asked Vince Threadgold if he could borrow their portable set. Vince said, on the doorstep, ‘I’m halfway through recording the afternoon porn show. Come in an’ watch if you like.’
Charles was flummoxed by Vince’s insouciance. In Charles’s opinion, sex was a serious and sacred business, and conversation about it should be confined to one’s sexual partner.
Later that evening, Vince set up the television and video. He explained how everything worked by putting Graham’s video into the slot, waiting until the film began. When Graham’s face came up on the screen, Vince laughed. ‘Christ, ’e’s an ugly bugger! Who is it?’
Charles turned the volume down and said, ‘Er… he’s a distant relation.’
Vince laughed again at Graham and said, ‘That’s what years of inbreeding does to a man’s looks.’
After Vince had gone, Charles rewound the video and turned the volume up. Camilla seated herself on the sofa and prepared herself to see and hear her elder son for the very first time.
Charles sat down next to Camilla and took her hand; he switched on the video. Graham was sitting in what looked like a cubicle under very bright lights. On the wall behind him was the hardtopleeze.co.uk logo: a stick man and a stick woman embracing inside a clumsily drawn heart.
As she watched the forty-year-old Graham on the video, Camilla thought back to the day-old baby she had called Rory. How had that little bawling scrap turned into Graham, who appeared to have the dress sense of an Albanian swineherd and the manner of an especially wooden ventriloquist’s dummy?
Hello, my name is Graham. Graham Cracknall. I’m forty, my star sign is Leo or Cancer, depending on which newspaper you read. I’m on the cusp, not only astrologically, but also, in life.
As you can see, I am of medium height, a bit taller than Tom Cruise, but a smidgen smaller than John Travolta. Incidentally, both of these men, chosen by me completely at random, are eminent Scientologists, disciples of the late Ron Hubbard. I once flirted with Scientology myself and sent for the literature, but my mother, bless her, who is in the habit of reading my correspondence while I’m at work, was so upset by Mr Hubbard’s mind-mapping philosophy that she notified Cult Watch and they arranged for me to meet a counsellor, who warned me about the dangers of joining any quasi-religious organization headed by a billionaire with a private island and a fleet of expensive limousines. So, phew! I had a close shave there!
I live with my mum and dad in Ruislip, famous for lovely Jordan, who graced us with her presence for a year. Other alumni include the famous spies, the Krogers, Linford Christie and Mantovani, and one day I hope Graham Cracknall will be a name on everybody’s lips.
Anyway, time is running out, so enough about me. I am looking for a petite, nonsmoking heterosexual woman with a GSOH, bubbly personality and an interest in board games. Looks are not important but I would prefer her not to have any obvious disabilities, ergo children. She will need to be computer literate and financially secure and preferably have at least one foot on the property ladder.
Ideally, she will chill out to easy-listening music. James Blunt is a particular favourite of mine; I saw him a year ago at the Hexagon in Reading. If she enjoys The Two Ronnies, Only Fools and Horses and Inspector Morse, we will get on like a house on fire. I have the complete, director’s cut, boxed set of Morse on DVD.
So if you like what you see, get in touch with me at:
[email protected]
After the video had finished, Camilla said weakly, ‘I expect he looks better with hair.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ said Charles, ‘but I think, darling, that Graham has not been blessed with good looks.’
Camilla searched and found within herself a tiny ember of maternal love; perhaps if she fanned it a little, the ember would burst into flames. She had always, as a child, loved the story about the ugly duckling. Perhaps one day Graham would come out from behind the metaphorical bulrushes and glide gracefully down the river.
*
Later that night, Charles and Camilla were brushing their teeth side by side in the cramped bathroom, each allowing the other to rinse and spit in turn into the cracked washbasin stained with limescale. Charles would not allow Camilla to keep the tap running due to his concerns about the worldwide water shortage, so a certain amount of orchestration was necessary.
Camilla examined her reflection in the harsh light of the mirror and sighed, ‘Oh, darling, I do look a hag tonight.’
‘You’re mad,’ said Charles. ‘You look more beautiful to me every day.’
They heard the sound of breaking glass and went downstairs to find a half brick had been thrown through the living-room window. Shards of glass lay on the carpet. A note was fastened to the brick with an elastic band. It read: ‘Yourl never be queen.’ Charles quickly scrunched the note up and put it in his pocket before Camilla could see it. The poor darling has suffered enough, he thought. He ran out into the darkness of the close, where few of the streetlights were working. There was a light on at William and Harry’s house.
Charles walked to the barrier with the half brick and showed it to the security policeman on duty there, saying, ‘If my wife had been lying on the floor under the window, it could have killed her.’
The policeman said, ‘But why would your wife be lying on the floor? Ain’t you got chairs to sit on?’
Charles said, testily, ‘Look, aren’t you going to investigate the crime?’
‘No. I’ll give you a crime number for the insurance, if you like,’ said the policeman.
Charles said, ‘I have no insurance; the premiums are far beyond my pocket. Can’t you take fingerprints or something?’
The policeman laughed and said, ‘You’re thinking about the olden days, sir.’
‘Can’t you look at the CCTV?’ asked Charles.
‘I’m not qualified to interpret those images, sir. And anyway, one hoody looks very much like another,’ said the policeman. ‘So, if you’d make your way home now. You’re breaking the curfew.’
Charles was tempted to show the policeman the scrunched-up note that he had in his pocket, but something stopped him. There was a tiny voice in his head telling him that he had seen the handwriting before. When he got home he found that Camilla had made no attempt to clear up the shards of glass. She was sitting in the kitchen with the dogs. After vacuuming the living-room carpet, and tap
ing a plastic bag over the jagged hole in the window, he suggested to Camilla that she should go up to bed. When he judged that she was asleep, he went to the writing desk and opened the locked drawer where he kept souvenirs and mementos. He sifted through them for the last birthday card he had received from Harry. He took out the scrunched-up note and smoothed it flat, and compared the handwriting. It wasn’t just the dismal spelling that angered him.
Harold Bunion had been pressing the call button on his bedside table for over twenty minutes. His bladder was bursting, but he needed assistance to get out of bed and into his wheelchair; his legs were two leaden lumps since his last stroke. Down the corridor he could hear Edna Hart pleading, ‘Help me, help me!’ and further away somebody was groaning, as though in pain. Harold strained his ears, listening for footsteps approaching his room, but there were none to be heard.
He shouted, ‘Is anybody there?’ Prince Philip stirred in his sleep and Harold shouted again, ‘Is anybody there?’
Prince Philip struggled up from his pillows and yelled, ‘Britannia is sinking.’
Harold visualized the royal yacht capsizing and being swallowed up by a huge dark sea, and wondered why the Queen had not been to see her husband for a few days. He could tell that Philip had not been eating or drinking from the untouched trays that were dumped on his bed trolley. He fumbled on his bedside table in the dim light for a receptacle of some kind. His hand touched the little plastic pot which held his dentures, but when he tried to grasp the pot he only succeeded in pushing it further away. He pressed the call button and this time heard footsteps in the corridor. A care worker he had never seen before put her head around the door and said, ‘Is it you making all that noise?’
Harold said brusquely, ‘I need the toilet. Help me into my wheelchair.’
The woman said, ‘A wheelchair transfer takes two people. It’s Sunday, and me and the other nurse is running the place on our two owns, and she’s on her break, so you’ll have to wait.’
Harold said, savagely, ‘I can’t wait. Just help me into the chair, will you?’
The woman said, ‘I can’t, it’s health and safety. I’m not going to do my back in for five pounds twenty-eight an hour. I’ll fetch you a bottle.’
Philip shouted, ‘We’re drowning! The water’s over my head.’
There was a commotion from one of the rooms at the end of the corridor, and Harold deduced from the raised voices that Mrs Hart had fallen out of bed. He began to weep; he had lost control of everything in his life, and now he was losing control of his bladder. The urine flooded out of him, warm at first, but it quickly cooled down, and soon he was shivering in his saturated bed.
Prince Philip said, ‘I’m hungry and thirsty. I want Elizabeth.’
Harold said, ‘She’ll be here in the morning. Go to sleep now.’
Harold was comforted by the thought that the Queen might visit them in the morning. He was a Republican and had denounced the monarchy on many public platforms, but he liked and trusted Mrs Windsor. He lay awake for a few moments, listening to the rise and fall of Prince Philip’s breathing.
33
Princess Michael was sitting at her dining table, writing in an A4-size spiral-bound notebook using a Bic pen. She was working on the manuscript of a novel she intended to call A Princess in Exile. The heroine, Cristina von Kronenbourg, was not unlike herself, Marie-Christine thought: statuesque and hauntingly beautiful with hair like spun gold and a smile that captivated men’s hearts and kept them prisoners for eternity. Her fictional husband, Prince Michael of Kronenbourg, had been tragically lost in an avalanche, though his body had never been found. Finding herself cast out by his cruel family, who had ruled the small country of Kronenbourg for centuries, she wandered from country to country finding nothing but unkindness from the common people. After many adventures, she found her husband, who was disguised as a sea captain. Reunited, they returned to their previous positions. But the prince had learned a valuable lesson – that poor, uneducated people were absolutely horrid and that the best people with the warmest hearts were the rich and the powerful ones. They were the best friends to have.
Princess Michael had shown the manuscript to only one person, Chanel Toby, who cleaned for her once a week. Chanel had been forced to read the manuscript under the intense gaze of Princess Michael, who scrutinized every gesture that Chanel made, saying, ‘Your mouth moved, are you amused?’ or, ‘You raised an eyebrow, you are surprised by the story, huh?’
Chanel had blurted out at the end of the ordeal that she thought, ‘The book were brilliant; much better than anything anybody has ever writ before.’
Princess Michael said, ‘Please be honest with me, child. I know the book is good, but brilliant, I’m not so sure.’
Chanel, desperate to get out of the house, said, ‘It’s better than the Bible and Shakespeare and Harry Potter.’
Princess Michael had smiled. It was as she thought, she was a genius. Her book would explode on to the literary world like a shooting star. She would be acclaimed by Hello! and Cosmopolitan, fêted by other authors. Her financial worries would be over. The only regret she had was that she hadn’t started to write novels years ago. She heard a noise outside. Voices were raised and dogs were barking. She looked up from the manuscript and saw a rowdy crowd of Hell Close residents milling around one of Grice’s delivery vans.
She finished the paragraph she had been writing: ‘Princess Cristina was invited into the torture chamber to watch the torturers practising their black arts. She greatly enjoyed hearing the peasants who had wronged her begging for mercy. Such entreaties she answered with a merry tinkling laugh that sounded like fairies shaking a cowslip.’ Inspired, she carried on: ‘ “Ask me not for mercy, peasants, lest thee displease me further, in which circumstance thy tribulations will increase fourfold.” ’
As she crossed the green with Zsa-Zsa in her arms, she heard inside her head the Whitbread Prize judge saying, ‘And the first prize goes to Princess Michael of Kent for A Princess in Exile.’
After six days without another grocery delivery, there was a serious shortage of dog food. The humans were also feeling the pinch. Mr Anwar and his wife were suffering the worst; they were used to eating vast amounts of food and were living in Hell Close precisely because he was morbidly obese and had been put on the Morbidly Obese Register. Mr Anwar had said at the time, ‘I wish the doctors would make up their minds. Ten years ago they tell me I am fat, five years ago they tell me I am obese, and now they have changed their minds again and tell me I am morbidly obese! What next?’
He had signed many National Health Service contracts, promising to keep his calorific consumption down to two thousand five hundred a day, but had failed to keep to any of them for more than forty-eight hours before cracking and waddling into Grice’s Chinese Chip Shop. Mr Anwar had begged his obesity counsellor to recommend him for gastric reduction surgery, a procedure that involved reducing the stomach to the size of a baby’s fist. But the counsellor had explained that Mr Anwar was much too fat for the operation, and had told him that he would need to lose at least five stone before he could be safely anaesthetized. Mr Anwar had protested in his reedy voice, ‘But I can’t lose five stone until I have the operation.’ This circular argument had been going on for many years.
Mr Anwar’s dog, Raj, was also obese. He rarely left the house; he felt safe only in the back garden. He communicated with other dogs occasionally by barking loudly and listening to their barked replies, but he was too fat to run and play with them on the green and so missed the subtleties of their interaction.
Everybody was hungry. A deputation of dogs went up to the police barrier and spoke to Judge and Emperor who were on duty.
Harris barked, ‘We’ve been living on slops and human leftovers for almost a week; we’re actually starving to death. Can you nae do something for us?’
Leo whimpered, ‘I’m a growing dog, I need my food.’
Judge barked, ‘Piss off! We work for our food. You’re
nothing but lapdogs and parasites.’
Harris snapped, ‘I’d cut my tail off for a job. Can I join the police force?’
‘No,’ laughed Emperor. ‘You ain’t got the height, shortarse.’
When Arthur Grice’s Rolls-Royce drew up at the barrier, the dogs stood aside to let him drive through. Rocky was snarling on the back seat, ‘Hello, losers. Feeling a bit peckish?’
Grice drew up outside Charles and Camilla’s and opened the car boot. He took out a large carton full of dog food and ordered Rocky to guard the car. The Hell Close dogs, nineteen in all, surrounded Arthur, baying, barking, howling, yelping, whimpering and growling. They followed him up the path to the front door. Hunger had stirred a primeval memory of when dogs were wild creatures who hunted and killed to fill their empty bellies. Grice kicked out at the dogs and banged on the door. When Camilla opened it, he pushed past her and stumbled into the hall. Leo, Freddie and Tosca stood shoulder to shoulder and pushed the other dogs back over the doorstep, and Camilla slammed the door.
Grice said, ‘I’ve brung you a present. There’s twenty-four tins of Pedigree Chum in ’ere. Where do you want it?’
Camilla said, ‘How very kind. In the kitchen, please.’
Grice followed Camilla through to the kitchen, and dropped the box on to the table.
Freddie barked to Tosca, ‘Grice does nothing out of the goodness of his heart. What does he want?’
Tosca growled, ‘I don’t care. I’m hungry.’
Leo barked, ‘Camilla, get the box open. Find the tin opener. Feed me!’
Grice said, ‘Your ’usband not in?’
‘No,’ said Camilla. ‘He’s with his mother.’
Grice smiled. ‘Family is everythink,’ he said.
‘Do you have any children?’ asked Camilla.
‘No,’ said Grice. ‘We’ve got Rocky. He’s a Dobermann, and they don’t like kiddies.’
‘Enough of the small talk,’ barked Tosca, jumping up at the box.