Burley Cross Postbox Theft

by Nicola Barker

  Fact of the matter is: she’s old enough (and ugly enough) to know better.

  I put up the extra signs (like you suggested – at considerable cost!). Hasn’t made so much as a scrap of difference! The gate is locked. The fence is secure. But she still persists in…

  Heedless!

  That’s the one!

  She’s heedless! Worse than heedless! She’s cocky! Indifferent! Like I’m just some pesky little fly as she can’t be bothered going to the trouble of swatting off her shoulder! Does the woman think I’m down here all the hours policing this Private Fishing Lake because I want to be? Eh? Does she think I’m doing this simply for the benefits of my bloody health?!

  Jesus wept!

  Like I says to her the other week (during that incident I reported to you involving Miss Sissy Logan), ‘I’m not petty enough to want to hinder a couple of harebrained, local women from swimming in this Private Fishing Lake just for the sheer hell of it! The implications are wider – much wider! The implications start when tourists and local youth observe you at it and then get to thinking it’s fine and dandy to do the same thing theyselves! The net result is chaos. Chaos!’

  It’s a Private Fishing Lake, now, Mr Brogan, not a public swimming baths, and their heedless behaviour is completely unacceptable. It’s out of line! Intolerable! I don’t care as how long they’ve been swimming in it or what their nutty reverend instructed them to do! There’s a new reverend now, anyways – I can’t see the likes of him encouraging a troop of saggy, middle-aged females to set about ‘purging’ theyselves (or whatever it is they think they’re about) in a freezing, bloody Private Fishing Lake at all hours!

  Like I says to Sissy Logan: ‘What happens if one of you idiotic women has an accident? Eh?! What happens if one of yous gets into trouble and drowns? Am I expected to take the rap for that?’

  ‘But I’ve read all the signs, Mr Tooth,’ she answers (quick as a flash), ‘so I’m perfectly capable of taking responsibility for myself!’

  At which point Ms Brooks interrupts our discourse: ‘Signs?’ she says, peering around her, all vague like. ‘Are there signs…?’

  ‘Of course there are signs!’ I yells (she was standing directly in front of one!). ‘Of course there are bloody signs! What the hell do you think that is? Eh?’ I points to the sign.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, turning to look at the thing, blinking with surprise, ‘That’s a sign, is it?’

  That’s a sign, is it?!?

  I don’t know as which is worse, Mr Brogan: her stupidity, her lawlessness, or her sarcasm (the lowest form of wit, they say – and quite rightly so)!

  Of course she thinks she’s a cut above – she thinks she’s a damn sight better than all the rest of us lot put together, that one! Heedless, she is. Uppity. Quiet-spoken, but a real smart mouth on her (if you actually stop and listen to the drivel what’s coming out of it). Always very polite, though.

  Is it any wonder she’s been stuck a spinster all these long years? Living in that tiny cottage with that giant, galumphing sister of hers?

  Never bothers making anything of herself. Have you noticed? Dresses like a refugee – like one of them Vietnamese Boat People! Hair like a bird’s nest. Not so much as a scrap of make-up on her! People say as it’s ‘bohemian’ or ‘artistic’ (or some similar kind of clap-trap). I say as it’s peculiar! It’s unnatural! I’ve never come across a woman so unattractive! Never! You might as well make love to a boy as to that! Can’t abide the thing! Can’t abide her!

  And I know people think as she wouldn’t say boo to a goose (Oh yes – that’s how she likes to put it about the place), but I’ve seen her dark side, Mr Brogan. I’ve seen her pushy side. Because not only is she persisting in trespassing on my lake – a Private Fishing Lake – but she then has the barefaced gall to tell me as how I ought to be running the damn thing!

  I sees her yesterday and she’s floundering around in the middle of the water, pulling something along behind her on a rope! I’m squinting over the lake for upwards of half an hour, trying to see what the hell she’s up to now. I’m standing there, absolutely fuming – mad as a bull – waiting for her to come back to shore again so’s I can give her a piece of my mind! Freezing my blooming b****cks off (if you don’t mind my saying so)! God only knows how she didn’t get struck down with hypothermia – and if she did it’d be my fault, I shouldn’t wonder!

  (Would it be my fault? Will you get back to me on that?)

  By the time the ignorant creature is pulling her scraggy personage out of the water (although I won’t deny as she has a fine pair of legs on her – a very fine pair), I’m at my wits’ end, Mr Brogan!

  I’ve gone and rammed the tip of my rifle into the soil so deep (with pure frustration!) that I’ve clogged the damn thing up! Compacted, it is! It took a full ten minutes to dig it all out with a corkscrew when I finally got back to the workshop (an’ it’s still not back to as how it should be, neither!).

  ‘Look as what you’ve made me do to my rifle, you ignorant besom!’ I says, furious, pointing the rifle at her (just to show the woman what I’ve done, mind).

  ‘Oh dear,’ she pants (still short of breath from all her exertions). ‘You’ll need to be more careful next time, won’t you?’

  Need to be more careful!!

  I says, ‘I wouldn’t need to be anything at all if you wasn’t trespassing on my Private Fishing Lake, Miss Brooks!’

  She directs me one of them vague looks of hers. ‘But you should always try to be careful with expensive pieces of equipment, Mr Tooth,’ she says.

  ‘I wouldn’t need to be careful if you wasn’t trespassing on my Private Fishing Lake, Miss Brooks!’ I repeats.

  ‘Oh, but I think you would,’ she chides me, pulling off her swimming cap. ‘A sensible person should always do their best to try and preserve the useful life of functional objects, Mr Tooth.’

  I was stunned by this, Mr Brogan – dumbstruck! Was the impudent chit of a woman calling me unsensible, now?!

  ‘Are you calling me unsensible, Miss Brooks?’ I yells. ‘Good heavens, no!’ she says, shocked. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it, Mr Tooth!’

  ‘Because if you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Brooks,’ says I, ‘the only unsensible person as I can see around here right now is the one who’s splashing around, for upwards of half an hour – not a week afore Christmas – in the middle of my Private Fishing Lake!’

  (Ho! Had her bang to rights, there, Mr Brogan!)

  ‘Yes, I did stay in the water for a little longer than I might ideally have liked,’ she acknowledges, then begins unwinding this length of rope from around her waist.

  ‘Where’d you get that rope?’ I demand.

  ‘Why?’ she asks, struggling with the knot (on account of her fingers being half-froze, I suppose).

  ‘Are you in need of some, Mr Tooth?’

  Am I in need of some?!

  ‘I think as I already had some exactly like it,’ says I, ‘which was stole off my rowing boat on Friday last!’ (I already sent you a letter about this incident, Mr Brogan – dated 12/12/06. My rowing boat had its rope stole and was left floating in the middle of the lake, remember? Took me all of three days to retrieve the damn thing.)

  ‘How utterly maddening for you!’ she says, then adds, ‘Would you mind awfully just giving me a moment’s privacy so that I can fetch my towel and dry myself off properly?’ Give her a moment’s privacy?!

  ‘I’ll grant you exactly as much privacy,’ says I, ‘as you have accorded my Private Fishing Lake, Miss Brooks!’

  (Ha! None, in other words, Mr Brogan!)

  She stands there for a second or two, frowning slightly, as if calculating something: ‘That would be approximately twenty-three and a half hours per day,’ she says, ‘which will do me very nicely, thank you, Mr Tooth.’

  Eh?!

  She then stares at me, all expectant like.

  ‘Confound your cock-eyed logic, woman!’ I explodes, at which point that pesky duck of hers comes waddling i
ts way out of the water (a giant wretch, it is – size of a swan, ugly as the back end of a chimp) and commences acting in such a manner as I’d call ‘intimidatory’ (hissing, flapping its wings and suchlike).

  In an act of pure self-defence, I points the gun at the little blighter.

  ‘Calm down, Eliot!’ Miss Brooks snaps.

  ‘Don’t you be telling the likes of me to calm down!’ I yells (incensed). ‘Try having a word with your demented fowl!’

  ‘I am speaking to the duck,’ she says, then repeats her instruction for a second time:

  ‘Eliot! Calm down!’

  On this occasion, the duck responds to her order (promptly desisting from its hissing and a-flapping), but it still continues glaring at me, sullenly, through its evil eye.

  ‘I suppose as you thought it was a real hoot to name that ugly broiler of yourn after a man of my complexion,’ says I, severely affronted (my high colour has oft been remarked upon by men of a medical stamp – although I think as they make too much of it, myself).

  ‘After you, Mr Tooth?’ says she, batting her lashes, like butter wouldn’t melt.

  ‘Don’t come the innocent with me!’ I yell.

  ‘The thought had honestly never crossed my mind!’ she insists. ‘If you must know, we actually named him after T.S.’

  ‘T.S.?’

  ‘T.S. Eliot – the famous poet.’

  I stares at her, blankly.

  ‘Macavity: the Mystery Cat!’ she cajoles me.

  I stares at her blankly.

  ‘Macavity’s a Mystery Cat,’ she declaims, ‘he’s called the Hidden Paw –

  For he’s the master criminal who can defy the law!’

  I stares at her, blankly.

  She stares back at me, brows raised a-way, as if she can’t quite believe any person of passing intelligence might not be instantly familiar with this so-called ‘poet’ of hers. Then she quickly qualifies, ‘Although if I were you, Mr Tooth, and the duck was named in my honour, then I think I should probably take it as an enormous compliment. Eliot is very highly bred, after all. You can see it in the pride of his bearing, in his magnificent plumage, and in the wonderfully refined, pale blue of his eye.’

  She gazes at the duck for a moment, full of admiration. ‘A marvellous, forget-me-not blue,’ she sighs, before adding, ‘I believe you have eyes of exactly that fine shade yourself, Mr Tooth…’ Her intense gaze turns to me, now. ‘What a startling coincidence!’ she exclaims, with a small laugh.

  ‘You have yet to explain to me,’ says I (determined not to let the woman sweet-talk me off the subject), ‘what kind of questionable enterprise you was just lately engaged in – employing a ten-yard piece of rope, of uncertain origin – in the middle of my Private Fishing Lake, Miss Brooks.’

  ‘Oh, that…’ She shrugs. ‘It was nothing. I was just submerging a dead badger.’

  ‘Sorry?’ says I.

  ‘I was just submerging a dead badger,’ she repeats, ‘the one I told you about the other day, in fact…’

  ‘Do I hear you a’right?’ says I. ‘You was submerging a dead badger in the middle of my Private Fishing Lake?!’ ‘Indeed, Mr Tooth,’ she says, cool as a cucumber.

  ‘Well then,’ says I (mad as a bull again), ‘might I suggest as you go and retrieve the blasted thing, Miss Brooks?!’

  ‘Retrieve it?!’ says she, appalled. ‘But I couldn’t possibly do that!’

  ‘Why not?’ says I (stamping my foot).

  ‘Because I’m not permitted to swim in the lake, Mr Tooth!’ she trots out.

  Not permitted to swim in the lake!

  Not permitted …!

  ‘Perhaps you might like to inform me,’ says I, removing a notebook from my pocket (white with rage, now, Mr Brogan), ‘as to why you felt the need to submerge a dead badger in that particular hard-to-reach – not to say out-of-bounds – location, Miss Brooks?’

  ‘Why?’ she repeats, plainly astonished by this question (and intimidated by the notebook, too, I shouldn’t wonder).

  ‘Yes, why, Miss Brooks,’ I enunciates sharply, priming my pencil with a small dab on my tongue.

  ‘Well, because after poor Gracie died from swallowing all that carelessly abandoned fishing twine…’

  ‘Gracie?’ says I.

  ‘The dear swan,’ says she, with a baleful look, ‘and you neglected to remove the corpse in time.’ ‘Neglected?’ says I (insulted).

  ‘Absolutely,’ she confirms, then seeing as how I am pausing a’fore writing down this detail, she kindly spells out the word for me: ‘n-e-g-l-e-c-t-e-d,’ she says.

  ‘I KNOWS AS HOW TO SPELL NEGLECTED, MISS BROOKS!’ I yells.

  ‘Oh… Good,’ she says. ‘Well, anyway,’ she promptly continues, ‘this young badger happened across dear Gracie at some point, decided to have a little nibble on her, and then before you could say “Bob’s Your Uncle”, he’d dropped dead, too! I looked for any evidence of twine lodged in his throat, but couldn’t find any. It was at this point that I asked if you might consider disposing of the poor soul, because I wasn’t sure of the cause of death, and felt his continuing presence on the shore line wasn’t entirely conducive to—’

  ‘You asked me to dispose of it,’ I quickly interrupts (having turned to the relevant page in my notes), ‘because you said as how several local dogs was “worrying away” at the corpse.’ ‘Exactly!’ she says, beaming. ‘Spot-on, Mr Tooth!’

  ‘And if I remember a’right, Miss Brooks,’ I calmly venture, ‘I then responded by telling you that so far as I was aware, all the “local” canines involved in this unfortunate scenario was in the company of your confounded “swimming ladies” who, for the record, was TRESPASSING ON MY BLOOMING LAND!’

  She completely ignores this, Mr Brogan, and instead says, ‘Obviously the ideal thing to do would’ve been to bury the corpse, and I initially pursued that approach, Mr Tooth, but the ground around here was much too cold and hard for me to hack out a hole of any real depth. The dogs and foxes simply dug it straight back up again. It was then I decided that it might be an idea to submerge the corpse in the lake itself.’

  ‘Submerge a corpse?!’ I scoffs. ‘And how does a person go about submerging a corpse, Miss Brooks, when the very nature of a corpse is to float?’

  ‘Well, there you have my dilemma in one, Mr Tooth,’ she says. ‘At first I thought I might just weigh the feet down with rocks, but then logic told me that it would be impossible to transport the badger out there, manually, with the rocks – and obviously I don’t have access to a boat…’

  As she speaks, she rubs away at her arms with her hands (so as to try and generate herself a bit of heat, I suppose).

  ‘Then my sister, Rhona, came up with the wonderfully innovative idea of attaching deflated, biodegradable plastic bags to each of the four paws, swimming to the middle of the lake and then inflating the bags and allowing the weight of the water itself to sink the animal.’

  ‘Deflated, biodegradable plastic bags?’ I echo, gaping at the notion.

  ‘It’s apparently the technique they use when sinking wind turbines in the ocean,’ she explains. ‘They pin them to the ocean bed by filling these huge, empty containers with the surrounding water – it’s actually extremely clever when you come to think about it.’ ‘Sweet Lord have mercy!’ says I.

  ‘I reasoned that the bags would soon biodegrade,’ she continues, ‘and that while this process was under way, the bigger fish in the lake might feed on the badger and thereby gradually dispose of it.’

  ‘Which is ideal for me, Miss Brooks,’ says I, smiling (almost beatific), ‘to have a large, potentially toxic, dead badger in the middle of my Private Fishing Lake for all the fish to gorge theyselves upon.’

  ‘Precisely!’

  She beams.

  ‘I’M BEING SARCASTIC, MISS BROOKS!’ I bellows – at which point the duck commences its big old performance again (the hissing and the posturing and the wings all a-flap).

  I points the rifle at it, Mr Brogan. �
�Call the damn thing off!’ I cry. The duck takes not the blindest bit of notice of the firearm (sensing as it was temporarily jammed up with mud, perhaps). It approaches (at high speed) and delivers my shin a savage nip. I turn the rifle around and try to beat it away with the butt.

  ‘Call the damn thing off!’ I cries again. ‘Or so help me, God, I’ll shoot the wretch!’

  I glance over towards Miss Brooks and see as how she is swaying, gently, on her feet. She’s looking very queer, Mr Brogan! Her eyes is all a-flutter, her arms and shoulders commence to convulse, and then she topples over, backwards, into a dead faint.

  (I say a dead faint, but t’was more of a fit than a faint, in point of fact.)

  ‘Damn you, Miss Brooks!’ yells I. ‘Get thee up, now, woman, get thee up!’

  (She shows no sign of obliging me, Mr Brogan.)

  Of course the duck now thinks I am to be blamed for its mistress’s sudden collapse and continues its attacks on me with a redoubled ferocity. When I approach the body and kneel over it (to tend to it in some manner), the damn thing delivers me a violent nip on my right thigh, then another, hard upon it, on my right buttock!

  It is at this precise moment (midst all the fray) as I discover something most untoward, Mr Brogan: the strap of Miss Brooks’s swimming costume (a copious, dark blue garment of questionable age and construction) has worked its way loose from one shoulder (fine shoulders she has, Mr Brogan – I won’t bother denying it!) and has fallen down, almost to her waist, revealing a single, pristine breast (this is not yet the untoward part), and lying on that breast (the breast is small as a poached egg, purple from the cold, but a breast, nonetheless), giving suck on the tender, pale flesh thereof, is a leech – fat, black and not less than two and a half inches long, one inch across (around six centimetres by two in the metric – but don’t quote me on that).

  Hell’s bells! I shy back for a second, horror-struck (being no great fan of leeches), and then, struggling to keep my wits about me (and my gorge from rising), I reach forward a tentative hand to try to pluck the leech from its delicate mount. It takes several attempts (the thing is stuck on quite firm).