Looking for Mrs Dextrose

by Nick Griffiths

  Then he slumped back into his seat and broke down in tears.

  The final precious molecules of alcohol must have been soaked up into his system while he slept, and he had entered withdrawal. Whatever, we had no booze, with zero chance of procuring any, and that was an end to it. He would just have to push through, and I could only imagine the practice would do him some good.

  There was nothing I could do to help him and, anyway, I was pretty keen to get going on the sightseeing.

  With Dad blocking the door my side, hunched and juddering, Charlie had to let me out of his side. I stretched my limbs and exhaled noisily, wondering why they had built the car park a good 100 yards from Call-That-A-Hill?

  I could understand the name, at least. It wasn’t much of a hill, more an exaggerated mound, flattened on top. It was the only noticeable bump for perhaps hundreds of miles around, which presumably afforded it the celebrity. Under the rising sun it assumed an alluring red blush colour, of an embarrassed lady’s cheeks, or a smacked bottom.

  I didn’t have any dollars so I pushed a tenner sterling of Quench’s money through the slot in the pay-box. Why did I pay? Call it decency, call it what you will; I also had a fear that in this land anything was possible, and that a parking inspector might have been lying in wait nearby, disguised under camouflaged sheeting.

  Close up, the rock was bulkier than I had expected. Call-That-A-Hill? was at least three times my height and perhaps 50-feet wide, roughly square-shaped in cross-section. Its surface consisted of wide, shallow grooves, running vertically from top to bottom. How it had become flattened off, I had no idea.

  It felt like sandpaper to the touch and when I scraped at it with my fingernail a few grains came away. Sandstone. Had I had the time and inclination, I reckoned I could have whittled it down to a nub within a decade.

  I tried doing the proper tourist thing of wondering how long it had been there, and what had formed it, but was clueless. Instead I decided to circumnavigate the block, stroking my chin thoughtfully.

  I was amazed to discover, on the far side, a door. A wooden door made from a single sheet of hardboard, attached to the face of the rock with hinges, cracked and bleached. It was short for a door and above it someone had scratched into the sandstone:

  Next to that was a small bell on a curved strip of metal, employed as a crude spring, and attached to that was a length of string.

  How bizarre! Were there actually people inside Call-That-A-Hill??

  I had to find out. But did I dare ring the bell? Did I? What if someone irate appeared, armed or otherwise? Old me, the Glibley version, would have baulked at the idea, would have sneaked quietly away and dismissed the notion of regret, that I had never satisfied my curiosity.

  I pulled hard on the string a few times. The bell rang, tinny and hollow.

  The door did not open and there came not a sound from within.

  I rang again.

  Nothing.

  I was debating whether to try the door myself, when it suddenly opened just a touch. Then a touch further and a head poked out, blinking in the daylight.

  It was a disturbing little head, white and smooth, so thin-faced it might have been a skull on a stick, someone’s idea of a prank. I had to double-check for eyeballs to be sure that it wasn’t.

  “What do you want?” went the head, snuffling and grouchy. The sort of voice an actor might use to portray one of the meaner characters in The Wind in the Willows.

  “I. Er, I,” I stammered.

  A wizened grey arm appeared and pointed upwards. “Can’t you read?”

  Having regained composure I said, “Yes.”

  The arm disappeared inside. “Don’t you know what a Hermitage is?”

  Actually, I didn’t. I knew there was a Hermitage museum, though I didn’t know where, and imagined this might be something like that, offering a pictorial history of the rock, perhaps with the odd diorama. “Is it a museum?” I guessed.

  He screwed up his face, and I think I heard a foot stamp petulantly. “No! No it’s not! It’s where a hermit lives. Do you at least know what a hermit is?”

  “Yes, I do” I said. “It’s someone who lives on their own.”

  “So shit off!”

  The door slammed.

  I was rather lost for words.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” I said, clambering into the cab.

  My father was trying to sulk while in the grip of delirium tremens. Although I felt sorry for him, it seemed best to remain stoical on his behalf.

  I went on: “There’s a hermit living in the rock. And he has a bell over his door! Why would a hermit have a doorbell?” The thought had struck me on the way back to the truck. It was most curious.

  Dad perked up. “There’s some mink out there?”

  “Yes, a hermit.”

  He began clawing at the door handle.

  “I wouldn’t go there if I were you,” I warned. “He’s not very friendly.”

  “Minks!” went Dad. “Anyone that lonely must have minking crates of booze!”

  He flung himself out of the cab and began staggering towards Call-That-A-Hill?

  Charlie spoke. “Can we leave without him? He gives me the creeps.”

  We watched my father’s return. He didn’t seem to have been at the Hermitage for very long and he wasn’t carrying any crates.

  When he returned to his seat I noticed he had a black eye, to add to his litany of facial wounds.

  “What did he say?” I enquired politely.

  He didn’t reply.

  It wasn’t long after we left Call-That-A-Hill? that a dot appeared on the horizon and grew and grew. Too large to be a single structure, it had to be an actual settlement. At last.

  Charlie pointed at it. “That, boys, is Flattened Hat. Last stop on the line, where I make me fortune.” He flicked his hat brim.

  Dad stirred from his slump. “They got bars there?”

  “Sure,” said Charlie.

  That cheered him up no end, and filled me with dread.

  I shifted the subject off alcohol. “So you’ve been there before, Charlie? To Flattened Hat?”

  “Plenty of times. Used to ride the Nameless Highway selling me combs. Back and forth, back and forth. Know Flattened Hat well.”

  “What about Pretanike?”

  He looked at me as if I’d just propositioned a moorhen. “No way!”

  “Why not?”

  “Cos it’s rubbish. Nothing to do there.”

  “But it’s vast. A city?”

  “So they say.”

  “You mean you’ve never been?”

  “Wouldn’t go.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you, cos it’s rubbish.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Cos everyone says so.”

  “Who’s everyone?”

  He was becoming exasperated. “My folks. My friends.”

  “Small town, is it, where you live?”

  “How’d’you guess? You must’ve pass Socks ‘N’ Sandals, right?”

  “Mmm.” I didn’t elaborate.

  “That’s me local. There’s a dirt track behind that leads to me hometown. Glow Coma, it’s called. Nice place – small, but nice. You should come visit.”

  “I’ll do that,” I lied.

  “Me Pa, Kai…” – I nearly choked on my epiglottis – “he runs a farm there. Used to work with him, till I went out to seek me fortune.”

  Jesus. “Hence the combs and the bagpipe tuning?”

  “Hence the combs and the bagpipe tuning.”

  He took a hand off the steering wheel and held it up for a high five. Tinged with self-loathing, I obliged.

  Pedestrians – actual other people – a grocery, street-lighting, residential housing, a school (if pokey, at least serving education), burger joint, trees (with green leaves), roads with kerbs… All of these we passed as Charlie turned off the Nameless Highway into Flattened Hat. Not that we had spent ages apart from what might be
termed ‘normality’, just that the events of the previous 36 hours or so had taken quite a toll on my psyche. The familiar sights were such a blessed relief. It felt as if I had escaped.

  For starters, I couldn’t wait to lie down on a bed with a mattress, linen and pillows, the sort of thing I once took for granted. I was knackered. My eyelids kept closing; I would dream something bizarre for a split second, then a movement of the vehicle would jolt me alert. My limbs felt heavy, I was filthy and dishevelled, and my mouth tasted of drains.

  As we drove down the main street, Charlie pointed out the theatre where he planned to ply his trade. It was the size of a church hall, wood-built and painted light green, with an art deco arch over its front door and two signs: one depicting the name of the joint (‘Flattened Hat Theatre’) and the other advertising the current act (‘TONIGHT: THE SUICIDE POETS’). The Suicide Poets sounded like an indie band so I made a mental note to consider checking them out. I had missed hearing decent music. Might be just the tonic: a soupçon of culture.

  Frankly, I was looking forward to some time off, though hilariously I was supposed to now be on holiday. Pretanike, I estimated, was barely a couple of hundred miles away: a few hours drive. Yes, I had earned a break.

  “I’ll drop you at a B&B I know, OK?” said Charlie.

  “Will you be staying there?” I asked.

  I needn’t have worried. “No, ’fraid not, boys. I know some people, they let me kip on the sofa for free.” He added hastily, “I’d ask if you could stay too, only they’re, er, their spare room caught fire.”

  Dad, who had become increasingly antsy as we neared the town, drumming his fingers and staring intently forwards, mouth open, butted in, “Mink the minking B&B! Where’s the minking bar?”

  It was what I had dreaded but had figured inevitable. Could I talk him round? Charlie stopped the truck.

  “Dad. Look at me.”

  Though the sweating had stopped, the liquid had undermined various of his scabs, which were now peeling off, and his few patches of proper flesh had become wrinkly. His hair was flat and unkempt, hideously greasy with terrible loose ends, and his beard looked like something the North Pole plumber had pulled from Santa’s plughole.

  He glared.

  What could I say to him that had not already been said? He had got this far without me, still breathing, if hardly unscathed.

  “Nothing? Right then.” He stuck two fingers up to me then Charlie. “Mink you. And mink you.”

  As he was about to close the door, I blurted out, “You’re only hurting yourself.”

  He turned. “You think I don’t know?” And walked away.

  Had I misheard him?

  “Wait…” I called after him, but he did not stop.

  Charlie nudged me in the back and pointed. “That’s your B&B,” he said.

  Unfortunately, next door to the B&B was an establishment with this lettering beneath its eaves:

  JIMMY ’S TOPLESS BAR

  Dextrose was making for it like the parched heading for an oasis. At nine in the morning.

  Back to square one. I shook my head and felt like weeping.

  Charlie had a parting joke – “Two elephants walk off a cliff. Boom boom!” – which it took me a while to get.

  I shook his hand. “Thanks,” I said. “You saved our lives.”

  “True,” he said, polishing fingernails.

  And it probably was. We had not passed a single vehicle since he had picked us up and nothing had overtaken us, least of all Hilda in her wheelchair. Had Charlie not spotted us at the roadside in the dark, our tongues might now have been doubling as sandpaper and we’d have been all out of Sheep Shavings. A complete stranger – Kai’s son, to boot – he had put himself out to help us.

  I felt for my wallet. “Could I pay you something? For the petrol? Gas?”

  He shook his head. “I was going this way anyway.”

  “Well, just in case you…”

  “Got the business, remember? Keep your money, mate. Maybe one day you’ll get me to tune your bagpipes?”

  “Sure,” I replied.

  The Desert Rose Guest House was a two-storey, pink-washed, detached house, with white window frames and red roses growing around the door. I sniffed a bloom as I stood on the doorstep and realised it was plastic.

  Once inside I was faced with a staircase and, running beside that, a corridor. To my left was a window in the wall, with a shelf and a bell. ‘Ring for service’, said a sign, so I did.

  Ping! It was the sort of sound holidaymakers were accustomed to hearing. The sound of imminent service.

  The carpets were crimson and black, floral designed, heavy on the eye. Behind the window was a small office featuring desk and chair, obsolete-looking PC and paperwork along the opposite wall. On the desk were plastic roses and framed prints of further roses nestled among the paperwork.

  The office door opened and a middle-aged woman walked in. She wore a pleated grey skirt, white shirt with pearls at the neck, and thin red cardigan. Her hair was brown and loosely permed. She pulled the window across and sat down. I could see the powder on her cheeks.

  Then she smiled and I noticed her teeth were stumpy, blackened and rotten, like a mouthful of mixed raisins and peanuts.

  “Welcome to the Desert Rose Guest House,” she said. “My name is Rose. How may I help you?”

  I couldn’t get past the teeth.

  She repeated herself, with emphasis. “How may I help you?”

  “I’d like a room, please!” I over-trilled.

  “What’s the name?” she asked, picking up a pen.

  Could she not afford dentures? “Dextrose,” I said. “Pilsbury Dextrose.”

  When the forms had been completed, monies paid in advance – Quench had been indecently generous, so there were pots still to spare – and I had been informed of meal times and the key and shower situation, she rang the bell herself.

  Ping! It made me want to press it again.

  “My daughter will show you to your room,” said Rose.

  A young woman appeared as if from nowhere. A vision. She was not conventionally beautiful. But she did something to me.

  “I’m Clemmie,” said the vision. “Can I take your bags?”

  In her mid-20s, she wore denim dungarees over a white T-shirt and her brown hair was tied in bunches. Her cheeks were flushed, she was quite stocky and wore horn-rimmed tortoise-shell specs, popular in the Fifties. Her thin smile and the way she’d leaned her head to one side when she’d asked about my bags – so coy. I was entranced.

  I realised I hadn’t spoken. “Oh, yes, uh, sure! Thank you so much!”

  She brought her head up to vertical and raised her eyebrows. “So?”

  “So, er, what?”

  “So where are your bags?”

  “Oh. Sorry! Hahaha! I don’t have any.”

  “You’re a funny guy,” said Clemmie.

  It was then that I spotted something awry among her teeth. No, please. No.

  “Do you…” I stopped.

  “Sorry?” she said.

  Braces! She was wearing chunky metal dental braces!

  “You’re wearing braces!” (I narrowly avoided adding, “Phew!”)

  “Yuh. Er, sure.”

  “Cos your mother…” Erk.

  “Yeah, she has bad teeth. You’re not the first to point it out. It’s OK. You should see my Dad’s mouth.”

  “No thanks! …I mean, er, sure, why not? I mean…”

  “Follow me,” she cut in, saving my blushes. “I’ll show you to your room.”

  “This is the Rose Room,” said Clemmie, unlocking the door at the top of the stairs and ushering me inside. As I entered I heard a subtle hiss beside my right ear and felt a fine spray envelop my head. It smelled of fake flowers, went right up my nostrils and I choked violently.

  “Sorry about that,” said Clemmie. “Motion sensor. It sprays rose-scented air freshener when you enter the room. Mum’s idea. I hate it. That’s why I let you
go in first.”

  The tease.

  I sat on the bed and bounced a few times. Boy, did it feel good. Actual comfort.

  The room was terribly rose-themed. Rose wallpaper, a white wardrobe with painted pink roses climbing up its sides, pink ceiling, and walls covered with rose prints.

  “How many rooms do you have?” I asked.

  “Two,” she said.

  “What’s the other one called?”

  “Also the Rose Room.”

  “Then I shall take this one!” I declared, all jaunty.

  “I know,” said Clemmie. “You’d already booked it.”

  I smiled at her and she smiled back.

  “So…” I said.

  “Well, if you need anything, just ring the bell downstairs.” She turned to go.

  “No, wait!” What to say? “Er. I was planning to take the day off.”

  “Oh right, so you’re working here?”

  “No, no,” I chortled. “I’m on holiday.”

  She wrinkled her nose; her glasses slipped down and she pushed them back up with a finger. “So you’re taking a day off – on holiday?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “OK,” she said, once again turning to leave.

  I had to keep her talking. “So I was wondering. What’s worth doing in Flattened Hat? Entertainment-wise?”

  Clemmie shrugged. “Not much.”

  “There must be something!”

  “Well, I’m going to see the Suicide Poets tonight…”

  My in! “Great!” I said, too quickly. “That sounds great. I’d love to see them too.”

  She looked at me askance. “You like poetry?”

  The Suicide Poets weren’t an indie band? “Sure. I love poetry! I wandered lonely as a cloud and all that.”

  “OK,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you in there.” And she was gone.

  I had a date!

  I gazed out of the window, set on the rear of the property and facing out over a newish-looking red-brick housing estate. People were heading to work, or out shopping, on foot, by car; it all looked so… normal. This was precisely what the doctor had ordered: everyday relaxation, untroubled by psychotics.