Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks

by Alan Coren

I searched for the true meaning hidden in this cryptogram, knowing by now that strange, like disturbed, confused, upset, and so forth, betokened some anagrammatic interference. But what could I make from tapping? Was gnippat some rare Sumatran weevil, pantpig a Jacobean pervert, I gnappt the early working-title of something by that drunk Robert Louis Stevenson who lived in our small back room? It was while I was pondering this that I became aware of a noise beyond the window, as of a stick banging rhythmically against the wall.

  I glanced at my companion, who had begun to gasp horribly.

  ‘We see nothing on this church bench! (5,3),’ he managed, finally, to sob.

  I swivelled as the inn door burst open; and caught my breath. At first, I saw naught but the white stick that had thrust it wide: but soon thereafter, a squat, malign figure entered the room, a dreadful leer playing beneath the sightless eyes. He tapped his way to our table, and, reaching out a clammy hand, touched my face.

  ‘Pew,’ he said. ‘I am confused.’

  Wep? I thought, ewp?

  ‘I had been expecting an old friend but – ah!’ he cried, as his hand groped on and suddenly found my companion, cringing in his chair, ‘I was not wrong.’

  Whereupon he removed a folded scrap of paper from his smock, placed it carefully on the table between us, turned, and made his echoing way out again.

  Since my companion seemed too stricken to move, I took the liberty of picking up the scrap and unfolding it. The eyes in the rigid face opposite now flickered in resigned enquiry.

  ‘Negro Topsy upside down? Don’t say why! (5,4),’ I read.

  He groaned horribly. A further, deeper shudder racked his ancient frame. His eyes rolled to white. As a drowning man throws up one sinking hand, he beckoned me close.

  ‘Skin –’ he wheezed, but the rest of the sentence ebbed.

  ‘Go on!’ I urged. ‘I could not hear!’

  He made a supreme and dreadful effort.

  ‘Skin game – for Cricket Cup?’ he gasped, finally. ‘(4,3).’

  I racked such brain as I could muster. The ruin opposite, tongue lolling noiselessly behind cracked lips, could be no help.

  And then, clouds parted, light burst through.

  ‘Hide box!’ I shouted.

  He nodded, just perceptibly.

  I snatched up Flint’s precious bequest, wrapped it quickly in a tablecloth, rose, and would have left forthwith to seek a spot of suitable impenetrability, had not the dying unfortunate clutched at my urgent sleeve in one last desperate bid.

  He pulled, with terminal strength, my ear towards his lip.

  ‘Beware!’

  His voice was like an on-shore breeze against the dry grass of the dunes.

  ‘Beware of what?’ I said.

  The tongue laid a last bead of moisture on the lip.

  ‘Of a seafaring man with one backward gel!’ he gasped.

  And died.

  Next Week’s Episode. Hallmarked underwear? (4,4,6) Why not, if the parrot’s good as gold! (6,2,5)

  47

  One is One and All Alone

  The last-minute cancellation of the Canadian visit does of course leave a large gap in the diary which probably cannot be filled at this late date. The Queen will be at something of a loose end.

  Palace spokesman

  MONDAY

  Got up, finally.

  Sat at escritoire. Filled in all o’s on front page of one’s Telegraph. Put paperclips in long line. Pushed paperclips into little pile. Straightened paperclip and cleaned old bits of soap out of engagement ring. Bent paperclip back to original shape. Put paperclip back in little pile and tried to identify it with eyes shut.

  Noticed tiny flap of wallpaper curled back from skirting just behind escritoire. Took one’s Bostik out of escritoire drawer, put little smear on wall, little smear on wallpaper, pressed down wallpaper.

  Picked old dried crusty bits off one’s Bostik nozzle.

  Read Bostik label. It is good for glass, wood, ceramics, light metal, leather, and plastic, whatever that is. If one gets it in one’s eyes, one should wash it out immediately.

  Saw fly go past.

  Saw fly come back.

  Watched wallpaper curl off wall again.

  Turned on Play School. Noticed flat head on presenter. Summoned Lady Carinthia Noles-Fitzgibbon, who confirmed head not normally flat. She enquired if she should summon Master of the Queen’s Ferguson. One told her no, one was perfectly capable of fiddling with one’s apparatus oneself.

  One was in fact quite grateful.

  Took lift to West Loft. Keeper of the Queen’s Smaller Gifts (West Loft Division) most helpful. One had, according to his inventory, been given a zircon-encrusted ratchet screwdriver by King Idris of Libya, following 1954 reciprocal trade agreement on depilatory soup. During Keeper’s search for this item, put on alligator’s head presented by Friends of Mbingele National Park on the occasion of one’s Silver Wedding. A snug fit, but some tarnish on the molars.

  Keeper rather taken aback upon return to find one in alligator’s head and Mary Queen of Scots’ execution frock, but recovered admirably. Having to suppress his distress at poor Professor Blunt’s departure has matured him considerably; one may soon allow him to fondle the odd corgi.

  Returned to one’s apartment. Play School now finished, so put on one’s husband’s video recording of yesterday’s Postman Pat. It is now Mrs Goggins the Postmistress who has a flat head.

  Applied screwdriver to hole in back of one’s apparatus. Blue flash. Zircons all blown off. One’s husband burst in, ranting: apparently, one’s husband’s Hornby Dublo layout had fused itself to nursery floor.

  One’s husband now at worse loose end than ever, stormed off in foul mood to put up shelf in garage. Has been talking about putting up shelf in garage since Suez.

  Lunch. First lunch alone since October, 1949.

  Moulded mashed potatoes into Grampians, poured gravy in to stimulate Loch Rannoch, cut pea in half to make two ferries. Had ferry race by blowing down one’s straw. Left-hand pea won.

  Knighted it with fork.

  After lunch, one’s husband stormed in again, carrying gold claw-hammer (Ghana, 1962), diamanté pliers (Melbourne, 1968), set of inlaid mother-of-pearl ring-spanners (Tongan gift on occasion of PoW’s first tooth), and shouting Where one’s bloody zircon-encrusted screwdriver?

  Stormed out again with rather nice Louis XV rosewood side-table, muttering Soon chop up this tarty frog rubbish, make bloody good plank, this, rip a couple of brackets off that poncey Tompian clock upstairs, shelf up in two shakes of a CPO’s whatsit.

  Fusebox Poursuivant arrived to repair apparatus. Commanded to remain and play I-Spy. One won.

  Bed at 8.15, with ocelot-bound Fifty Things To Do On A Wet Day (New Zealand, 1978). Made flute out of old sceptre.

  Played God Save One.

  TUESDAY

  Woke early, made hat from Telegraph.

  Drew up list of all one’s acquaintances with spectacles. Compared it with list of all one’s acquaintances with flat feet.

  Watched one’s husband rush in clutching bloodstained thumb, shouting Where bloody Dettol, where bloody Elastoplast? Watched him rush out again.

  Sudden brilliant thought. Decided to make one’s own breakfast. Cheered to find nursery kitchen empty. Recognised frying-pan. Put egg in frying-pan. Oddly, egg did not go yellow and white, egg just rolled around in frying-pan, went hot, then exploded.

  Had bath.

  Rang TIM, Weather, Cricket Scores, Puffin Storyline. Listened to Mrs Goggins story. Rang Starline: good day for throwing out old clothes, will meet interesting short man with financial proposition, a loved one will have exciting news in evening.

  Threw out old clothes and waited for interesting short man. Did not come, so got old clothes back. Put them into symmetrical heaps.

  In evening, loved one stomped in with exciting news: Louis XV garage shelf had fallen on Rolls, dented bonnet, knocked off wing-mirror.

  Bed at 9, with inter
esting book. There are 3,786 Patels in it.

  WEDNESDAY

  Got up, put Telegraph in bucket of water. Added flour, as recommended by Fifty Things To Do On A Wet Day, made papier-maché head of Mrs Goggins.

  Removed old glove from pile waiting for interesting short man, put it on, poked forefinger into Mrs Goggins, did puppet-show for corgi.

  Corgi passed out.

  Rang 246 8000 again, but no further news of interesting short man or his financial proposition. Nothing about one’s dog falling ever, either. However, it is a good day to go shopping. One leapt at this! Why had one not thought of it sooner?

  One has never been shopping.

  It being a fine day, one decided to slip out quietly in sensible shoes and headscarf, and walk up Constitution Hill to Knightsbridge. Most interesting. Sixty-two street lamps.

  Several Japanese persons stared at one strangely. At Hyde Park Corner, a taxi-cab driver slowed, pushed down his window, and shouted ‘I bet you wish you had her money!’

  Quite incomprehensible.

  One recognised Harrods at once, from their Christmas card.

  One went inside. Most impressive. One selected a jar of Beluga caviare, a rather splendid musical beefeater cigarette-box with a calculator in its hat, a pair of moleskin slippers, a Webley air-pistol, and a number of other items one might never have thought of to help one while away the remainder of one’s spare fortnight, and one was quite looking forward to strolling back to the Palace, putting one’s mole-shod feet up, treating oneself to a spoonful or two of the old Royal fish roe while potting starlings through the window and totting up the toll on one’s loyal Yeoman calculator to the stirring accompaniment of Land of Hope and Glory, when one suddenly felt one’s elbow grasped with an uncustomarily disrespectful firmness.

  ‘Excuse me, madam, but I wonder if you would mind accompanying me to the Assistant Manager’s office?’

  One was aware of a grey-suited person.

  ‘Normally,’ one replied, ‘one allows it to be known that one is prepared to entertain a formal introduction. One then initiates the topic of conversation oneself. It is normally about saddles. However, one is prepared to overlook the protocol occasionally. One assumes the senior staff wishes to be presented?’

  FRIDAY

  Got up, slopped out.

  One might, of course, have made a fuss. One might, for example, have pointed out to one’s Assistant Manager – the entire place is, after all, By Appointment – that not only does one never carry money, but that money actually carries one, and would therefore serve as a convenient identification.

  One chose, however, to retain one’s headscarf, one’s glasses, and one’s silence; since something had suddenly dawned on one.

  Thus, yesterday in Bow Street, being without visible means of support, one was not even given the option of seven days. One now has a rather engaging view of Holloway Road, albeit only from the upper bunk, a most engaging companion with a fund of excellent stories, and a mouse, and one is already through to the South Block ping-pong semi-finals.

  Tonight, there is bingo, rug-making, cribbage, aerobics, bookbinding, squash, pottery, chiropody, raffia work, community singing, petit-point, judo, darts, and do-it-oneself. One can hardly wait to see what tomorrow may bring!

  One is, in short, amused.

  48

  £10.66 And All That

  A Dorset wood which was valued at £9 in the Domesday Book is now on the market at £120,000.

  Daily Telegraph

  Gloomily, the Shaftesbury branch-manager of William & Bastards rubbed a clear patch in the little mullioned window with his smocked elbow, and stared out.

  ‘Cats and dogs,’ he muttered.

  ‘What?’ said his assistant.

  ‘The rain is coming down,’ replied the manager, ‘cats and dogs.’

  ‘Bloody portent, that is,’ said the assistant. ‘There’ll be bishops dead all over by tea-time.’

  ‘Not real cats and dogs,’ said the manager, irritably. ‘It is just an expression.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ said his assistant.

  The manager rolled his eyes, rooted in his hirsute ear, cracked a hidden nit.

  ‘You cannot expect to know what everything means, these days,’ he said. ‘The language is in a state of flux. Cats and dogs is probably from the Norman.’

  ‘Why not?’ grumbled the assistant. ‘Everything else bloody is. I never eat out any more. Time was, you found a maggot on your plate, you stuck an axe in the cook. These days it’s 305 more than likely simmered in a cream sauce with a bloody peppercorn on its head.’

  The manager sighed.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘estate agency is nothing if not adaptable to change. We are at the forefront, Egwyne. We have got to be perceived to be red-hot. Hence smart fashionable expressions, e.g. cats and dogs.’

  ‘What is e.g. when it’s at home?’ enquired the assistant.

  ‘It’s another one,’ replied the manager. ‘You hear it everywhere.’ He peered out again. ‘Funny thing about this glass stuff,’ he said, ‘it makes people’s legs go little. That woman from Number Four just went past, her feet were coming out of her knees. Her dog looked more like a bloody lizard.’

  ‘If she finds out it’s the glass what’s doing it,’ said the assistant, ‘she could very likely sue us. I reckon we ought to have it took out again. God knows what it’s doing to our eyes, they could start going little any minute, why did we have it put in in the first place?’

  ‘It is what is called chic,’ said the manager.

  His assistant stared at him.

  ‘Do not blame me, Egwyne,’ said the manager, looking away, ‘this stuff is coming straight down from head office. I am getting memos headed From the Stool Of The Senior Bastard informing me they are determined to drag estate agency into the eleventh century. You do not know the half of it, Egwyne. It is a whole new, er, ball game. It is where it’s at.’

  His assistant sniffed.

  ‘I wouldn’t care,’ he said, ‘we’ve hardly shifted nothing since we were set up. It may well be estate agency is not a British thing.’

  ‘Concept.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind. Since you raise the point, Egwyne, the plain fact is it is all a matter of marketing.’

  ‘What is marketing?’

  ‘It is the name of the game. The old days of if you want somewhere to live you go round to the bloke with three chickens and if he doesn’t reckon it’s a fair price you knock him about a bit are over, Egwyne.’

  The shop-bell tinkled. A young couple, entering, shrieked and ran out again. The manager hurried to the open doorway.

  ‘What is it?’ cried the young man, backing off. ‘Leprosy? Boils? Ague?’

  ‘Do not be alarmed!’ replied the manager. ‘It is only a concept. It rings when you open the door.’

  His assistant appeared at his shoulder.

  ‘Yes,’ he said reassuringly, ‘it is a ball game where it’s at. Come on in out of the cats and dogs, it’s bloody chic in here, e.g.’

  Hesitantly, the young couple re-entered.

  ‘We’re after a hut,’ said the man.

  The manager beamed, drew up a pair of stools, flicked an unidentified dropping from one, and motioned his clients seated.

  ‘And what sort of price range are we talking about?’ he said.

  ‘About eight bob,’ said the husband, ‘tops.’

  The manager sucked his teeth.

  ‘What have we got in the way of eight-bob huts, Egwyne?’ he said.

  ‘There’s that rat-riddled old drum we’ve been trying to shift down by Aelfthryth’s Swamp,’ said his assistant, ‘or possibly in it, by now; you know what it’s like with bogs.’

  ‘Rats?’ enquired the young woman.

  ‘Not large ones,’ said the manager. ‘Some of ’em are virtually mice. It’s got a lot of roof.’

  ‘It would have to have,’ said the young man, ‘for eight bob.’


  ‘I’m not saying eight bob,’ said the manager, quickly. ‘We could certainly knock one-and-threepence off for cash. It’s got a door up one end with a brand new string on it,’ he added, ‘it’s got a ladder for climbing up to repair some of the roof it hasn’t got, and a nice window without any of that glass what makes your legs shrink.’

  ‘Has it got a floor?’ enquired the young man.

  ‘All right, six bob,’ said the manager.

  ‘Any land?’ said the young man.

  ‘Ah,’ said the manager. ‘It has got land, hasn’t it, Egwyne?’

  ‘No point denying it,’ said his assistant. ‘They’d notice it straight away, anyhow. You cannot miss it, bloody great forest out back, could be anything in there, goblins, bogeys, trolls, you name it, well, it wouldn’t be five bob otherwise, would it?’

  ‘Four and sevenpence,’ said the manager. ‘It’s got a relatively scum-free well, mind.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the young woman, ‘we were rather set on . . .’

  ‘Tell you what,’ said the manager quickly, ‘you could chop the trees down, anything nasty’d soon run out, call it four bob and I’ll chuck in Egwyne to come round with his axe, he’ll have that lot down in next to no—’

  But the shop bell had tinkled again. Egwyne watched them go, from the window.

  ‘She’ll never fancy him now his legs have gone little,’ he said. He grinned. ‘Serve ’em right, it was a steal at four bob, some people don’t know when they’re lucky.’

  The manager might well have responded, had not the door opened again.

  It was a slim young man in a neatly tailored smock, flared, patch pockets, and polychrome embroidery at the scalloped neck. He was clean-shaven, save for a thread of ginger moustache, astonishingly symmetrical for the period, and his hair glinted with polished lard. He had at least four teeth.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Edward the Smart, from head office.’

  The manager and his assistant cringed expertly backwards.

  ‘Sir,’ they murmured, ‘sir.’

  Edward the Smart waved the deference away with one heavily ringed hand, while the other raised a large leather-bound book it had been holding and laid it on their table.