Burley Cross Postbox Theft

by Nicola Barker

  With the fourth try I have some success – detaching the tail section (if such it were), then gradually peeling the rest of the body away (careful not to leave any mark or tear on the pale flesh beneath). Once the vile parasite has been removed, I toss it over my shoulder (grunting, in disgust), and blow me if I don’t see my puce-faced assassin taking a quick break from his savage campaign to dart off and gobble the damn thing up!

  By this stage the worst of Miss Brooks’s fit seems over with. Eager to preserve what remains of her modesty, I commence to start readjusting her costume. As I do so, however, two unrelated events takes place in what I can only call a ‘startling conjunction’.

  The first is that the duck delivers me a hefty nip on the other buttock (the left). The second is that I am addressed by a voice from directly behind me which says, ‘Hello? Mr Tooth? Can I possibly be of any assistance here?’

  I am naturally jolted by both eventualities (the nip and the voice, Mr Brogan), so much so, that I lurch forward, unexpectedly, and (being obliged to reach out my hand for support) am forced to rest my weight for a second on Miss Brooks’s still naked and rapidly purpling orb!

  As soon as it is done, it is undone (you can be sure of that!), and then I turn, in shock, to apprehend no less a person than PC Roger Topping (out on call after receiving a tip-off about a missing dog – which turns out to have been naught but a patch of rust-coloured bracken).

  ‘Ah, Constable Topping,’ says I, ‘how timely! Miss Brooks seems to have been subject to some kind of an attack – I mean a fit…’ I quickly corrects myself, and then moves back a-way to let him fully apprehend her where she lies.

  Well, the look on PC Topping’s face was quite something to behold, Mr Brogan! Not the kind of look – I can assure you – that is generally to be seen on the face of a professional officer of Her Majesty’s Constabulary! (If I didn’t know better, I might as almost think the giant nit-wit had a distinct preference for the shabby little baggage!) In two seconds flat he’s down on his knees beside Miss Brooks, cupping her wan face in his two giant mitts.

  ‘Tilly!’ he cries. ‘Tilly! Are you all right?’

  ‘She was standing there, right as rain, one minute,’ says I, ‘and the next she’s gone for a Burton!’

  Constable Topping now observes (with an expression of blatant disquiet – nay consternation) that one half of Miss Brooks’s bosom is currently on display, and that there is a large, suspicious-looking hand-print spanning its neat circumference.

  ‘Have you been administering CPR, Mr Tooth?’ he asks, darting me an accusing look (before promptly rearranging the garment). ‘Don’t you know she’s epileptic?’

  ‘T’weren’t CPR,’ says I, ‘I wouldn’t know as where to start with all that… She had a leech stuck on her brisket, as it happens – a giant one, Constable Topping, two inches at least – and I felt as I was obliged to pull the damn thing off.’

  ‘A leech? he echoes, checking her airwaves for any impediments. ‘A freshwater leech? And of such improbably huge proportions? Where did it get to, then? What happened to it?’

  ‘I tossed it aside,’ says I, ‘then that dratted duck went an’ hoovered it up.’

  ‘She’s freezing cold,’ he murmurs, barely acknowledging my testimony (nor congratulating me for my prompt action, neither). ‘Fetch me her towel, Mr Tooth.’ He begins taking off his jacket so as to wrap her up in it.

  ‘I hope as you don’t think there was anything untoward,’ says I.

  ‘She’s freezing cold!’ he yells. ‘I said fetch me her towel, you bloody idiot!’

  (I was not over-impressed by the ‘bloody idiot’ part, Mr Brogan, but I nevertheless obliged the gormless clod and went off to retrieve the thing.)

  ‘I’m glad as you’re here, Constable Topping,’ says I, on my return, ‘because Miss Brooks has been caught trespassing in my Private Fishing Lake – worse still, she has been apprehended in the act of submerging a dead badger in it!’

  ‘Damn you and your Private Fishing Lake, Mr Tooth!’ says Constable Topping, snatching the towel from me, then scooping up Miss Brooks in his arms (like she’s naught but a piece of thistledown) and promptly carrying her off with him.

  I watch his swift departure with a sense of some astonishment, Mr Brogan. Damn you and your Private Fishing Lake?!

  The duck tarries behind a few moments longer, holding me, once again, in its fierce, blue-eyed gaze (blow me if that duck isn’t a double for my old grandmother – Flora Tooth! A legendary local Tartar, she were!).

  ‘Don’t know as what you’re staring at,’ says I, kicking out at the beast with my boot. It side-steps my assault, delivers me a final, hoarse hiss, then waddles off in hot pursuit.

  I’ll tell you this for nothing, Mr Brogan: there is something seriously amiss with that piece of poultry, and make no mistake about it! It’s a reprobate, Mr Brogan, a scoundrel! A villain!

  I’ve since been told that Muscovies are the only breed of duck not to be furnished with a quack, and I thank the Lord for it! If it quacked even half as bad as it looked, I can’t as begin to conceive of the foul disturbance it might produce!

  Damn that bird, Mr Brogan! And damn Miss Brooks, an’ all! And damn the moronic constable, into the bargain!

  I’ve since wrote the man a stiff letter about the submerging of the badger. I said as I’d be contacting my lawyer over the issue (and here I am – a man of my word – doing exactly that). Do you think there is a legal case to be answered here at all?

  If not, then perhaps we should seek ourselves a more subtle form of retribution (in the form of another ‘supportive’ letter to our dear gullible ‘friend’ Mr Donovan Lefferts)?

  Revenge is a dish best served cold, eh, Mr Brogan? The way turkey (or duck) is oft best enjoyed on Boxing Day, alongside a good, rich dollop of fruity pickle…

  Yours etc.,

  Eliot Tooth

  [letter 26]

  Coombes Cottage

  Lower Field

  Sharp Crag Farm

  Nr Burley Cross

  December, 2006

  Dear__COUSIN SALLY__,

  Welcome – be you friend, relative, old neighbour, ex-workmate, former sexual partner or all of the above! – to this year’s bonzer Coombes Family Christmas Round-up!!!!!

  Surely it can’t be a whole twelve months since I sat down to write the last one, out of my mind on prescription painkillers (after an agonizing kidney infection), utterly broke and freezing cold, huddled up in front of a malfunctioning bar-fire, from our tiny bedsit in Hull?!

  Of course we were all still struggling to come to terms with Ramsay’s sudden death at that point (when you marry a partner so much older than you are, you’re naturally resigned to the prospect of losing them prematurely, but under such awful circumstances? I still – to this day – can’t pick up a steam iron without shuddering…).

  Then there was the loss of Thornton Manor (our beautiful, ancient, family home), poor Hayden and Dylan were taken into temporary care (although the problem wasn’t scurvy, after all!), Jared was facing those trumped-up shoplifting charges, Madeline was still coming to terms with her recent diagnosis and little Poppy was screaming the rafters down because I’d run out of teething drops!

  Definitely not the best of circumstances in which to be composing a Christmas message – so please forgive me if my spelling was dodgy (or even more dodgy than it normally is!) and my tone was slightly hyper!

  There’s been a hell of a lot more water under the bridge since then (many miles on the – currently broken – speedometer of our old camper van, countless Happy Meals devoured, numerous games of Ker-plunk lost and won, endless idle – and not so idle – threats issued from irate debtors, hundreds of GREAT, GREAT ADVENTURES in other words) and I really can’t wait to tell you all about it!

  We miss Hull like crazy: those long, bracing walks collecting scraps of firewood on the muddy Humber beach in the pouring rain; ‘illegal’ chocolate fondues held on the roof of my flat (so as not to wake the
baby!) dressed in gloves and balaclavas with my kind ‘comrades’ from the slaughterhouse; that mouthwatering aroma of curry and chips from the rowdy Balti Hut downstairs; the Coombes Family Band, Exoskeleton, performing outside M&S (me on accordion, Madeline on fiddle, Hayden on bongos, Poppy on tambourine, Dylan passing the hat around); my brief but intensely erotic relationship with Mr Nolan, our bailiff, which, while it ended quite badly (he was just manipulating my feelings to gain full access to our home, and when he managed it he took virtually everything, including the kids’ instruments) taught me the very, very valuable lesson that one day – yes, one day – I might finally be ready to open my heart and find ‘true love’ again…

  What life-affirming times they were! And things have only got better, since…

  You will have seen (from the new address) that we’ve moved back to West Yorkshire. It seemed the only sensible thing to do (once the boys were released from care) since Jared was on remand in Leeds and the journey from Hull wasn’t the easiest to manage with limited resources and a large family in tow.

  We initially stayed for a few weeks at a B&B in Haworth – Brontë Country! (until it was closed down by Health and Safety) – then, after a chance meeting with an incredibly charming and ‘centred’ individual called Brother Julius (a shaman with the Church of the Broken Lyre – they’re amazing!

  Really screwy – really kinky! Look them up on the internet!) and his gorgeous wife, Iona (named after the windswept Scottish island), who were running a stall at a New Age Fayre selling dream catchers (exquisite ones, which Iona makes herself out of local hides and crystals), we ended up moving into a fabulous teepee, just outside Timble near the Washburn Valley.

  We stayed there, rent-free (brilliant!!!), for several months and the entire family got involved in the manufacture of wire cranial massagers (a spider-like metal implement which you push on to the top of the head and it stimulates various, crucial pressure points), but unfortunately the locals weren’t too keen on the encampment (there was a problem with our sewage pit – which was located just behind their tea shop).

  That, coupled with unpredictable weather (May was very wet, so much so that two of the children developed trench foot), and a terrible flash-flood (which took literally all of our remaining possessions – bar Ramsay’s mother’s favourite blue glass decanter, which I never really liked in the first place!) meant that we were obliged to move into more ‘traditional’ quarters for a spell.

  After a month in an abandoned warehouse (amazing parties! – incredible acoustics!) we actually ended up getting our own little council house after Jared’s case-worker, a beautiful, passionate man called Vito (the Spanish for ‘vital’ – read into that what you will!) pulled a few strings on our behalf.

  Unfortunately, much of the equipment for the manufacture of the cranial massagers had been lost in the flood (soldering irons and the like) so we initially struggled to make ends meet. Then Iona moved in with us, temporarily (along with her two daughters Pearl and Lunar – Vito had gone back to his wife by this stage), and taught me the ancient method of hair removal – ‘threading’ – which originated in India but is widespread all over the Middle East.

  It’s a rather fiddly and complicated process which is strictly non-invasive and simply involves holding a piece of (clean – well, cleanish!) cotton between your two hands and your teeth, forming a tiny loop, trapping a single hair (or a line of hairs) in it, then extracting it/them with a sharp, rapid movement.

  I like to think that I could have become very proficient in this amazing beauty treatment (and might easily have made an excellent living at it) if it weren’t for my two false front teeth (one or other of them kept flying out at critical moments, causing a certain amount of confusion and distress amongst my clients).

  It was at around about this time that Jared’s case finally came to court (Yay!!!). We were all very apprehensive about it, but given that he’s only eighteen, and it was only his seventh offence, the judge went easy on him (double yay!!!). His closing summary was a little severe, however. He referred to Jared as ‘a persistent thief’.

  Of course Iona – who was with me, offering moral support, and is very forthright by nature – said she couldn’t just sit by and allow him to say such awful things about a young man of such obviously great potential. She leapt to her feet in the public gallery: ‘Persistence is a wonderful quality in a young man,’ she shouted, ‘in an age of pikers and quitters, persistence is a virtue that we should be actively encouraging in our youth, not using it as a stick to beat them with!’

  I couldn’t have put it better myself! Unfortunately Iona’s outburst ended up in us both being evicted from the building. Jared’s lawyer even went so far as to say that the sentence was made considerably harsher as a consequence (although I think he was probably just caught up in the drama of the moment – much the same as we were!).

  Jared was eventually saddled with over 200 hours of community service (poor soul, and that’s on top of his lengthy period in remand!). Yet, strange to say, this cruel-seeming punishment (given that he only ‘borrowed’ the collection box in order to study the design and use it as a starting point to make me a jewellery box for my birthday) was to turn out to be the making of us!

  Some problems had developed with the council house. Brother Julius had (understandably) become very bitter about my ‘setting up home’ with his former wife and daughters (although he wasn’t officially married to Iona, and the two girls weren’t actually related to him by blood). He expressed his bitterness by spreading a series of malicious rumours against me and the children: that I had formerly lived in a castle (ludicrous! It was just a stately home with a couple of turrets!) and had acquired the council house not through right but by cunning; that I was a wife-stealer and notorious lesbian (Iona and I were actually ‘together’ for a brief span, but it didn’t really work out in the end, since neither of us is remotely bisexual); that Jared was a persistent thief etc. etc.; and this, coupled with a number of small fires (very small fires – Poppy was merely going through that whole ‘fascinated by flames’ phase) and some ill-thought-out DIY (Iona knocked down a supporting wall on the ground floor to try and make the place feel a little more ‘open plan’, then one of the upstairs bedroom floors collapsed!) meant that we were evicted from the house and obliged to move on again (Iona had already left at this point, to pursue her dream of attending Clown School in Orpington, near London).

  As luck would have it, Jared was working out his community service in the beautiful, picturesque village of Burley Cross where he was employed collecting litter from moorland paths. During this time he was operating under the guidance of local councilman Baxter Thorndyke, who gradually began using him to do small jobs about the place, e.g. washing his 4×4, raking his path, gathering leaves in his garden etc. I turned a blind eye to it, initially (thinking that Jared might even benefit from a positive, male role model and mentor), but after he came home one day, deeply traumatized and covered – almost from head to foot – in filth (the councillor had made him clean out his septic tank!), I decided that enough was enough and made an official complaint.

  Thorndyke then responded by making counter-complaints (I won’t go into them here, but given that the bathroom was on the second floor and Jared is uncircumcised, his wife really didn’t have a leg to stand on).

  During his time spent in the village, Jared had made the acquaintance of a lovely boy called Lawrie, the son of a local farmer, who, when he heard of Jared’s predicament, stepped in on his behalf (there was apparently already a feud between this Thorndyke character and the farmer, based on the farmer’s support of a local publican in a minor planning dispute). He offered Jared a job on his farm (which satisfied the probation people), and then, later on, when he discovered that Jared and his family (that’s us!) were currently living out of their trusty VW, took pity on them and gave Jared free accommodation in an old prefab.

  Coombes Cottage (Madeline renamed it!) is where I currently sit – and writ
e to you from – today. It’s a tiny, scruffy old place, but it’s home and we all LOVE IT!!!!

  Since coming here we have been blessed in so many ways! The people of Burley Cross have been enormously kind and generous to us! Last week we had a slap-up meal in the local pub (all of us, for only £10!). It was a truly wonderful occasion and honestly made me feel as though we were turning a corner and entering a new phase in our fascinating journey together (the only thing that soured it was that Hayden – who’s very technical by nature – got a little too ‘involved’ in the interior workings of a large grandfather clock that sits in the snug and managed to destroy the working mechanism. The bill to fix it will be over £100!).

  In an attempt to scratch some money together (Wincey, the landlady, has been very good about it, but the clock was a twentieth anniversary present from her late husband, Duke, and I felt I really should try and contribute something towards the repairs) I decided to take Ramsay’s mother’s blue glass decanter to a local antique shop to see if I could raise any funds on it.

  That very morning, Poppy had come down with the measles (a particularly vicious strain, caught from Hayden, who’d caught it from Dylan, who’d caught it from Jared, who’d caught it from Lawrie) and had vomited all over me (I was in my customary pair of frayed denim hotpants, teamed with some stripy woollen tights – the only clothes I currently own!!). The prefab is unheated, and it would’ve taken hours for them to dry properly, so I threw on a skirt (generously donated by Helen, the farmer’s wife, although the last time I wore a skirt was circa 1989!!!) and jumped into the van.

  Well, I hadn’t been driving for much more than ten minutes, tops, when, completely out of the blue, a bee flew in through my window (which was propped open to stop the windscreen from getting too steamy) and flew straight up my skirt!!! Nooooooo!

  I didn’t even realize bees were still around so late in the season (Global Warming Alert!!!). In fact I was so shocked that I took my hands off the steering wheel for a second (to protect my Lady Garden – I wasn’t wearing any knickers), the van swerved, and I crashed straight into an oncoming car.