NGLND XPX

by Ian Hutson

  That occasion, had it in fact happened, had had quite a deleterious effect on Mr Cadwallader’s cat, Tiddler on the roof, who had been peacefully sleeping on what he had previously thought was a warm car bonnet but discovered subsequently was, in fact, just three feet in the air over some pot-holed tarmac. That cats always land on their feet in no way compensated for the fact that Tiddler’s feet landed on the tarmac without so much as a please do excuse me.

  PC Bobbydazzler had decided to not press charges of cruelty to a possible cat because, try as he might, he couldn’t get his well-licked HB pencil to spell out ‘brief unauthorised feline levitation in a built-up area contrary to general public belief’. Several members of Herr Majesty’s General Public were as surprised as Tiddler on the roof had been to witness his Hillman-aided failure to remain three feet in the air, especially since the installation, artistic though it was, had no planning permission or obvious means of support (other than its Official Fan Club). Even the Tate Modern were unlikely to be interested in such abstractions. Mr Bobbydazzler, although very official, was not a member of the Official Fan Club. He was a policeman and, as such, not a fan of very much at all, since enthusiasm usually just resulted in more paperwork.

  In no time at all after Mr C had stuck the sign advertising astral driving lessons in his window several people with very different agendas were jostling for sub-atomic elbow, knee and spleen room in his shop, all holding out what they believed to be five pound notes (although in reality they might have weighed anything at all), and demanding that he multi-task immediately, or at least in the very near future. Obligingly, several coincident Mr Cadwalladers did just that.

  The first student with astral aspirations in the ramshackle queue forming at the ramshackle till turned out to be a figment of everyone’s imagination, much to everyone’s delight as they all shuffled forwards one place. Being English they all shuffled very well indeed. It was rather like watching a brief glimpse of the River Dance by pressing play-pause-play-pause as quickly as one could. If Dougal, Dylan, Brian, Ermintrude and Florence had all ever been ordered to take one polite and orderly pace forward then that is precisely what Mr Cadwallader’s queue would have looked like. Most splendid. Quite ticketty-boo in fact, once you knew the facts of the matter. As with the Magic Roundabout the matter was well lit and wasn’t dark matter at all.

  The second prospective student in the queue, a clever little gobshite from the local sixth form college, decided that she was bound to pass her test in the near future and had come simply to collect her certificate. They all decided that she was simply unbearable and they henceforth ceased to bear her in the queue. Lots of people breathed a sigh of relief at that one, Zebedee included (although in his case this was mainly due to the easing of his spring caused by reduced crowd pressure as she was removed from polite existence – boing, boing semi-colon; rectal relief).

  The third student forgot what she’d come in for and just smiled and left the shop leaving only two further students (in the shop, not in Universal total of course, as far as I know, and I know at least as far as Edinburgh or Birmingham by motorway, and sometimes further still by train during maintenance works).

  The first of these remainders was a veterinarian called Mr Soapandwater who had actually just called to re-tickle Tiddler on the Roof’s ears, and the second was a woman known as Mrs Offertrollies who was in rather a hurry to get to the grocer in the High Street and had seen the sign and thought that this might be the quickest way to get there, or at least to get to somewhere that sold gooseberries. This was splendid, since Mr Cadwallader’s Hillman Avenger DL had four comfortable seats (and no uncomfortable ones) so with himself and two students they were amply provisioned in terms of automotive buttock-lodgings. Whoever sat in the back might sit in either seat, making it more difficult to find them but much more fun.

  Mr Cadwallader was fairly certain that he’d led them both out to the car simultaneously although the vet appeared to want to wave to everyone while all Mrs Offertrollies did was point, singularly, and reject all attempts at interference with her plans. Still, as Mr C settled into the front passenger seat there was evidence that both students had arrived safely in the vehicle, and he hoped that this was a pattern forming. Mindfulness was next to Motoringlyness and it is usually best to be present and living deliberately in the moment – it aided reaction times (although he planned to do little chemistry during their first lesson, so reaction times were moot).

  Both students, upon fastening their seatbelts, enquired whether they would need an Mechanism Diabolique for the lesson, just to be safe, and were perplexed to find that “I believe probably not” was the answer. The first lesson was in fact limited to just “Mirror, signal, manoeuvre” because Mr Cadwallader believed observation to be the key to everything. He insisted that they both check their mirrors themselves and signal appropriately before manoeuvring, first-hand being the key to observation which was itself the key to the car and, specifically, to its ignition. The “ignition” was a very understated and terribly English affair indeed, involving simply an advanced magneto and some leaded petrol rather than a column of fire, five astronuts (sic) and a mission control staffed by folk mouthing “gosh - we have lift-off” and “the egret has landed”.

  ‘May I have the key to the car please?’ asked Mrs Offertrollies, anxious to get moving.

  ‘I thought that you already had it’ was Mr Cadwallader’s only reply.

  ‘Oh, so I did but I’d forgotten. Apologies both. I have it again now.’ Mrs Offertrollies checked that everything she was wearing was in neutral and then started the car and carefully checked that her counterpart in the rear-view mirror was also checking her rear-view mirror, in reverse. That is to say that Mrs O checked right way around that her counterpart was also checking, not that her counterpart was necessarily doing things in reverse. She was of course and, in a rather disturbing way, she also wasn’t. They both stopped, fortunately still in neutral apart from a splash of cerise in their headscarves, and then one of them looked at the road behind the road ahead and then the road in front of the road behind, while the other glanced at the road ahead of the road behind and then stared, terrified, at the road behind the road ahead.

  ‘How shall we begin?’ asked the Mrs Offertrollies who was sitting the right way around, outside of the mirror in question and not yet in reverse.

  ‘More worrying is how we shall end’ warned Mr Cadwallader, out of sight of his counterpart, due only to the angle of the mirror. There was always some angle involved with a mirror, things were never straightforward.

  ‘Indeed, but I believe that there’s a nice vacant parking space for us on the road outside the grocer’s on the High Street – what do you think?’ proffered Mrs O, thereby letting on that she knew more than they had previously known she knew, even about the sourcing of fresh gooseberries.

  Both gentlemen enthusiastically and faithfully agreed. Their collective and apparently subsequent appearance in the parking space coincided with a small cascade of oranges from the shop-front display and with a large hike in the price of mackerel in the Fishmonger’s - although in the Fishmonger’s what we shall not say since this is a family show and the fishmonger really shouldn’t have had a mackerel in there at all, morally and legally speaking. A Fishmonger’s What is no place at all for piscine life-forms at any price, especially with local oranges in cascade season. Still, that’s probably the reason why greengrocers use plastic grass in their displays.

  ‘Oh dear’, said the vet. ‘I hope that we didn’t cause that.’

  ‘I’m afraid that we must have since we observed not only all of the rules of the road in getting here but also the fact that we are here and that the oranges are cascading while trouser-warmed fresh mackerel moves, fiscally speaking, into a different socio-economic class altogether.’

  ‘Such a shame. We must be more careful in future’ agreed Mrs Offertrollies. ‘I do so like oranges too.’

  ‘Do you like all Pantone shades or just the standar
d? I am rather fond of a faded tangerine myself’ said Mr Soapandwater in fluent but, given his predilections, rather surprisingly bold burnt Mandarin.

  Mrs Offertrollies turned to Mr Cadwallader. ‘Have I passed?’ she said.

  ‘My dear, you haven’t even approached yet, let alone passed’ rejoined Mr Cadwallader. ‘I’m not even sure that I am the examiner in the matter.’

  ‘Doubtless you will pass next time, Mrs Offertrollies’ offered the Vet, wriggling a little (back in English) as he tried to remove some astral surprise from his own trollies.

  ‘Doubtless it will have to be’ reminded Mr Cadwallader.

  ‘I did so want to pass on the previous occasion too.’

  ‘Good gracious me, no – you may only pass once, not too. It’s still possible for you to pass on the next occasion though.’ said Mr Cadwallader both encouragingly and discouragingly, having no idea whether the next occasion would actually be motoring-related. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I very rarely think, it makes my head ache so.’

  Suddenly Mrs Offertrollies was no longer there, then, indicating that she had indeed stopped thinking, and totally so this time.

  Mr Cadwallader mourned the passing of another student and indicated that Mr Soapandwater, the Vet, should take the controls.

  Mr Soapandwater looked very nervous, especially for a large-animal vet who was known to be more fearless than was actually professionally acceptable when wearing a pair of long rubber gloves and a cow’s bottom (plus other clothing too, usually). ‘Oh, I don’t think I could take the controls, not now. Won’t you need them?’

  ‘Not especially, no. Still, if you don’t want to then you shan’t, Mr Soapandwater, you shan’t. Do you mind if we call at the shop before I drop you at your home? I should like to offer you an Diabolical Marketing Mechanism gratis or possibly even cheaper as a token of my business acumen.’

  ‘That would be splendid, thank you. Why are we here?’ asked Mr Soapandwater, losing the plot in a moment of existential doubt of his own.

  ‘Why are any of us ever anywhere, or indeed, when you think about it, are we at all?’ replied Mr Cadwallader.

  ‘Oh. Yes – I see what you mean.’ The High Street flickered, worryingly. ‘I used to only think that I thought and therefore wasn’t certain that I was or did but we do have to be quite certain, don’t we?’

  ‘We do indeed, Mr Soapandwater, we do indeed.’ Oh look – we’re back at base. Do come in from the outside.’

  ‘Is there any other way? Must we always come in from the outside or out from the inside? It seems so limiting and unimaginative.’

  ‘Well, it is the accepted manner of the deed, so I suppose that we must, at least in deed.’

  ‘We must indeed what?’

  ‘Oh, everything. Now, would you prefer the pocket sized Mechanism Diabolique or something larger, for the home?’

  ‘What home?’

  ‘There are several, surely you mean which home?’

  ‘Choice is an illusion though, surely? We do what we must.’

  ‘Indeed, if you must you must. Look, my car’s probably parked outside again, or maybe parked there still – may I give you a lift?’

  ‘Where would I put a lift? I don’t have a home.’

  ‘Sorry, I hadn’t thought.’

  ‘Well you ought to be more careful, it’s doubtless very confusing.’

  ‘Quite. Lifts have always confused me too – I’ve never understood why floors must be built in strict numerical progression, it too seems to be so limiting.’ Mr Cadwallader popped his hat on one of his coincident heads and opened the door for Mr Soapandwater. ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘Certainly. We shall have to, if we wish to leave. I thought that it was only the buttons in lifts that were in strict numerical progression rather than necessarily the floors one might visit at their pushing?’

  ‘Possibly so, yes, but I have never felt quite at home in lifts – I keep all of my furniture elsewhere you see.’

  ‘Very wise, very wise. If one’s goods and chattels are elsewhere then they don’t get nearly so dusty as they might do if they were with one all of the time, and lifts are known to be dust-traps.’

  ‘I was given a lift on the A1 once when I was a student hitchhiker. I had to leave it in the lay-by, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally. Did you pass?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Hitchhiker course, you said you were a student hitchhiker.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Thumbs up on that one.’

  ‘Splendid. Never sure what to pay for a lift.’

  ‘As a hitchhiker?’

  ‘In a building.’

  ‘They do go up and down rather a lot, it’s in their nature, rather like the stock market.’

  ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  Confidently, they both went.

  ‘I could give you a complimentary driving lesson on the way’ said Mr. Cadwallader.

  ‘Splendid!’ replied Mr Soapandwater, letting his mind drift. ‘Do you drive an Astra? I do so love astral travelling. Timothy Leary says that it’s the only way to travel.’

  With that Mr Soapandwater inadvertently went on a trip.

  Mr Cadwallader of course mourned the immediate neighbourhood’s loss – it was a sad day for cow’s bottoms and for visions of long-gloved professional manly loveliness sashaying across farm yards to Beethoven’s Fifth playing on a portable gramophone with small inflatable white dog, head held askance.

  Mrs Offertrollies, however, was quite unexpectedly alongside Mr Cadwallader’s car again.

  ‘Coo-ee! Mr C! I suddenly remembered that I’d been having an astral driving lesson and wondered if we might continue? I have gooseberries, if that helps.’

  ‘It does, Mrs Offertrollies, it does indeed, and if we keep our minds on the job and watch what we are doing, we might very well continue.’

  ‘Very well, Shall we?’

  Do you know, I believe firmly that they did, and although we can never be sure, since with each pivotal decision we transpose ourselves to a fresh multiverse populated by mere facsimile copies of our loved ones, I like to think that all was well that was started with the intention of creating a well.

  ‘Well, well, well’ muttered Constable Bobbydazzler, bending his knees and looking at the space where he had hoped the Hillman Avenger might be, not realising that had he looked with more conviction he may have been more successful in finally securing a conviction. Tiddler on the Roof wound himself around the constable’s ankles – while the constable was still on top of them of course and in the usual manner of things, the constable hadn’t just left his feet at the curb or anything. Tiddler spotted some of the staff from The Passage of Thyme arriving for work, and he ceased thinking about anything other than being elsewhere, which is what finally caused Constable Bobbydazzler’s ankles to disappear.

  This was also how Mr Cadwallader thought that he had lost his parrot. He theorised that he had accidentally placed the parrot’s cage so that the mirror over the fireplace (the fireplace in the room, there was no fireplace in the cage, obviously) had been parallel to the little mirror in the cage, next to the cuttlefish. Poor Parrot must have gone to check his feathers, leaned in a little too closely, become dizzy, lost his footings and fallen into a progression of reflections, probably thinking only about how his head felt as though it were about to explode and thinking about each new and smaller reflection in turn, in some horrific chain-reaction. All that Mr C knew was that when Mr C had pulled the lavatory chain, washed his hands and returned to the room all that had been left of Poor Parrot (for that was his given name) was his feet – the lost footings in question. Mr C had reflected long and hard on his incidental error and could brook no other explanation.

  Mr Cadwallader’s cat though knew better than to lean in close to anything reflective whether it was near a cuttlefish or not. Having once found an instance of the multiverse that contained both a can-opener and a human prepared to wield it, no feline worth his tuna would risk falling o
ut of step by leaning in. Besides, given the copious amounts of tuna made available to him, lean was a medical term that did not appear in Tiddler on the Roof’s lexicon, or in his medical notes, and so he rarely leaned at all except up against the most dependable of surfaces, such as his basket.

  Tiddler was also very careful to remain “in the moment”, and very wary indeed of diabolical mechanisms and atomic decay triggers and flasks of poison such as those he had secreted into the parrot’s cage while Mr C had been in the lavatory, observing other matters.

  Tiddler washed his paws with his little rough pink tongue, and wondered how long tea would be.

  (So as to not leave you wondering cruelly, there was a fifty-fifty chance that tea would be about three inches, and it would be rather jauntily garnished with a couple of fresh parrot-claws.)

  * * * * *

  Diary of a National Service Chap

  [back to table of contents]

  15th June 2027, the Army Reception Office, Cleethorpes.

  Reporting as per my rather forceful official call-up summons, for duty.

  National ruddy Service eh?

  As I watched from my seat in the marching-formation rows of wipe-clean blue plastic high-back Parker Knoll recliners, the queue shuffled forward at a snail’s pace. Tickets number two hundred and four and three hundred and two looked as though they were keen to enlist but the holder of ticket number three nine three suffered some sort of arthritically acted out but nonetheless quite theatrical myocardial infarction and then expired under the rib-cracking thump of the paramedics’ fists. As the waiting recruits played awfully polite unidirectional musical chairs towards the hot-seat I noted that everyone left the late Mr Three-Nine-Three’s seat well alone, and skipped straight into seat three-nine-two instead.

  Ms Reception-Desk took no notice at all, she’d seen it all before. It was just possible that it had been her sparkling personality, scintillating social skills and purple verbosity that had seen her promoted out of the Office of the Voice of the Speaking Clock and into army recruitment. Or it might just have been that she looked as though she spent more time snoozing than answering the telephone and telling callers the correct time of their third stroke in Greenwich.