Boracic Lint

by Martin Bryce

presence, was everywhere in firm control. He marched up and down barking instructions to all who needed them, the look in his eyes suggesting he thought himself back on his beloved parade ground, or once more taking charge of rehearsals on Horse Guards’ for the Trooping of the Colour.

  The police and Bomb Disposal squads arrived and began their search while we waited in the cold. I really could have done with the old trout’s arctic sweater. I searched the crowd for Rowena and eventually spotted her outside the Rainbow Café five doors away. I could see she was reading a book as I made my way through the crowds towards her. As I got closer I recognised it as the script for the malodorous Scent.

  ‘Exciting, isn’t it,’ I said as I reached her. She said it was probably the worst thing she’d ever read. I agreed and told her that I was actually talking about the bomb scare.

  ‘Probably a hoax,’ she replied dismissively.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘but you can’t be too careful. And I wouldn’t want to be in the hoaxer’s shoes when the Bull gets him.’

  She said I looked cold and we went into the café for hot chocolate. We discussed the play and she made some helpful suggestions, the best of which was to ditch the bloody thing and find something else. But with only three weeks and a bit for rehearsal, set design and construction and all the other things that go into a successful production, we were stuck with it.

  I asked her about the lunch arrangements. She told me that Doreen, her colleague, couldn’t do it because Troy, her boyfriend, was a trainee taxidermist and couldn’t get away until one; it was a long-standing arrangement. I could see only the very vaguest connection between lunch and stuffing things, but had to accept the situation. I invited her for a drink after work and she said she would have loved to, but she had some important business of daddy’s again. There was always tomorrow, after rehearsal. I said I didn’t like the wallpaper. It was her turn to be confused. I was beginning to think that she didn’t feel about me the way I felt about her when, joy of joys, she invited me to her flat on Sunday for lunch.

  A Bomb Disposal Officer appeared at the toy department window and ordered the surrounding area cleared as the sniffer dogs had found something. He then ordered the robot to be sent up to investigate the thing remotely, as the dogs wouldn’t go near whatever it was.‘Where is it?’ the Bull bellowed.

  ‘It’s under the big red and gold chair,’ the soldier replied through a megaphone. I felt the hair on my head rise.

  ‘Santa’s throne?’ the Bull enquired, loud, but slow as he looked slowly around the crowd outside the cafe.

  ‘S’pose so,’ came the reply. ‘We may need to detonate it remotely; it’s in a very awkward place.

  With horror, no, rising terror, I realised he was talking about my shoes. The soldiers and the dogs couldn’t see them because of the red valance around the legs of the throne. I dashed out of the café.

  ‘Oi!’ The proprietor shouted, ‘What about paying for the chocolate?’

  ‘It’s the bomb,’ I shouted back at him.

  The Bull, hands clasped behind his back and rocking menacingly on the balls of his feet, was waiting for me in the middle of the street in front of the store.

  ‘I can explain everything,’ I said breathlessly, fearfully.

  Ten minutes later the store was back to normal, but now it was the Rainbow Café’s turn to enjoy the attentions of the bomb squad after the proprietor had reported a warning issued by a man with no shoes, but wearing a Santa suit. I won’t go into details, but after a briefish interview with the Anti-Terrorist Branch in front of the tableau of elves manically hacking at trees, I was released.

  I arrived back at Mafeking Avenue that evening to find the electricity now fully restored. But, the floorboards in the kitchen, dining room and part of the hallway had all been ripped up. All the walls in the kitchen and those in the hallway had also been stripped of their plaster. I picked my way carefully through the debris to the front room where Mrs H and the whippet were cowering behind a grim-faced, no, grimmer-faced Mr H.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked with genuine concern.

  ‘None of your business, but since you asked, dry rot.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘T’builder found it this morning; t’house is riddled with it.’

  ‘Oh well,’ I said brightly, ‘at least you know about it now.’ There followed an uneasy silence. ‘Tree looks nice,’ I commented trying to raise the atmosphere from the benthic level to which it had plummeted.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ H demanded defiantly.

  ‘Well, it would be a shame if that got dry rot, too,’ I jested. Another appalling silence.

  ‘Live trees do not get dry rot,’ H stated slowly and deliberately. He picked up a late edition of the Standard from the sofa and hurled it at me.

  ‘Don’t, Albert,’ Mrs H whispered in terror as she tugged at his sleeve.

  ‘’Ave you seen that?’ H insisted. The headline read, Mad Santa Bomber Terrorises Shoppers.

  ‘Oh that!’ I laughed. ‘Yes, it’s probably all about me.’ Mrs H whimpered, clutched her hanky tightly and bit her lip. ‘Yes, I’ve had quite an afternoon, I can tell you,’ I continued. ‘Does it mention my name?’

  ‘Read it,’ H commanded.

  I read.

  ‘This afternoon staff and customers at the Rainbow Café near Harridges were threatened by a mad bomber in a Santa suit. The man, that’s me,’ I added, smiling for them, ‘escaped barefoot into crowds of Christmas shoppers. Police later interviewed a member of Harridges casual staff and decided not to press charges. There you are, it was just a mistake, nothing to worry about.’ I grinned broadly.

  ‘Aye, well,’ H began woodenly, ‘I were just about to call t’police.’

  I gave him a look. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ I said quietly.

  Mrs H whimpered again, a rising note that then trailed away. My feet, which had been in the damp socks now for about four hours were beginning to itch badly again. I told the Hs that I had to go and treat them.

  ‘What’s wrong with them?’ Higginbottom the Clueless demanded as I climbed the stairs.

  ‘Dry rot,’ I shouted back.

  SCENE 5

  Friday came in holding hands with Siberia. It was my first payday and I woke up very excited by the prospect of imminent wealth and, of course, the possibility of Mr Jobsworth’s boots. It was beyond hideously cold and there was no hot water, again. I tried shaving with my battery powered razor, but the batteries were weak and the rash that had developed on my face only added to the discomfort. I took the plunge into the icy depths and braved a wet shave. The benefit of arctic water is that it anaesthetises. Then I put a clean Bandaid on the tank wound and went downstairs.

  The kitchen was non-existent, again, and I met Mr H in the hall where he was boiling a pan of water over a Camping Gaz stove. The frost-covered mounds of builder’s rubble had turned the inside of his house into a close approximation of a First World War battlefield. I manoeuvred around him, he nervously protective of his extemporised kitchen in his shellhole - his one man version of the Somme. I slid open the temporary bolts on the front door and went out, as did the Camping Gaz stove due to the arctic gust which instantly and without mercy cut through the house like a razor wire.

  Sr Corsini’s was very quiet and as it was payday I ordered a large breakfast – bacon, sausage, eggs, beans, grilled tomato – in short, the works, all washed down with a mug of hot, sweet rosie.

  I arrived at Harridges safely on time. Harry wasn’t around, but as I didn’t need any replacement stock for the Gifte Shoppe it was no matter. I also ignored the broom left prominently displayed under the obscene graffiti about Santa that someone had spray painted on the wall behind his desk.

  With plenty of time on my hands I decided to go and see Rowena, but I arrived in toiletries to find it very busy and Rowena in full flow, so took myself to the book department and quickly fou
nd myself engrossed in one of those lavish family medical guides. I was studying the entry on psoriasis, a very unpleasant skin condition that no one seems to be able to cure.

  ‘‘Ere, this isn’t a library, you know,’ she said, ‘you gonna buy that, or what?’ I recognised her from the canteen the day before.

  ‘Sorry, Sandra,’ I said, ‘just browsing before curtain-up.’

  ‘You what?’ Then she recognised me. ‘Oh, it’s you. Sorry, didn’t recognise you wivout all yer clobber. No, you carry on, luv. ‘Ere, that costs forty quid that book.’

  ‘I’ll have to wait for the wages to come round, then.’

  ‘D’you reckon it’s worth it? Cos I don’t and I wouldn’t hold your breath, not on what they pays you ‘ere. Oh bloody hell, she’s ‘ere again.’

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  ‘’Er over there, see.’ She pointed out an old lady wearing an engineer’s cap and a boiler suit that was far too large for her. ‘She’s ‘ere every year, she is. Bonkers, she is. Always tryin’ to nick books on weldin’. Been arrested three times this year already. They never charge her or noffink. Better go and keep an eye on ‘er.’ As she left she glanced at the vivid photograph of a psoriasis victim that I’d been studying. ‘’Ere, that looks a bit like what you’ve got on yer face. You should go and see a doctor, luv, before it’s too late.’ With that, she was gone.

  I changed into my costume and made my way to the toy department where I was greeted by Mrs Jones.

  ‘Bore da,’ she lilted in her vile mother tongue as she disappeared beneath the ticket window of the toadstool. ‘See, Brian the Security has left you some boots.’ Her words were slightly muffled until she rose again clutching a large plastic bag from Boots.

  ‘How appropriate,’ I said, smiling at the thought of a more comfortable day ahead of me. I took the bag and looked inside eagerly. There were two green boots. ‘Thought Fireman wore black boots.’ I said disappointedly.

  ‘Oh no, that’ll be the mould, see. ‘E said to tell you they’ve been in his shed a while and ‘e would’ve cleaned them up, only he had to go and help out at Sea Cadets last night so ‘e didn’t ‘ave time. ‘E said ‘e put a tin of polish and a couple of brushes in with them.’ She looked encouragingly from me to the bag. I looked in the bag again.

  ‘Ah, yes. Thank you, Mrs Jones.’ I smiled back at her.

  ‘Nice man, isn’t ‘e?’ she said as I wandered off to my throne.

  With the boots safely lodged under the throne, the Grotto opened at ten o’clock precisely. At ten o’clock and thirty seconds the first visitor arrived. A small girl with tousled red hair and freckles. She was wearing sky blue dungarees a lime green T shirt and a bright yellow anorak. On her feet were signal red shoes.

  ‘What lovely shoes!’ I said.

  ‘They’re tap shoes,’ her mother replied as the child blew a large bubble of gum. ‘Won’t wear anything else,’ she added, ‘don’t know why.’

  I found out why a fraction of a second later when, completely without provocation, or warning, the little innocent delivered a mighty kick to my ankle. Yes, the same ankle. I fell off the throne and onto my knees, clutching my ankle and simpering. She stood there, quite unmoved, blowing a bigger bubble than the first.

  ‘That wasn’t very nice, now, was it, Emma?’ Mummy said. Fruit of her womb just kept staring at me as mummy apologised repeatedly for her daughter. She’ll probably be doing it for the rest of her life, I thought as I struggled back onto the throne.

  ‘Everything alright here?’ Mr Jobsworth, who’d spotted the trouble from the Lego shelves, asked. I merely nodded my head in reply.

  ‘If she could just have her present now,’ mummy said. ‘Then I’ve promised to take her for an ice cream.’ She was actually wringing her hands.

  I handed over a water pistol to Red Shoes. ‘Why don’t you go and play Russian roulette with it?’ I said quietly, under a forced smile.

  She skipped off towards the lift on the way knocking over a vast display of teddies that had taken the best part of three days to arrange. Mummy tried desperately to rebuild it, but the teddies were being no more cooperative than the child. The lift arrived and the young maid skipped inside, pressed several buttons and disappeared from view blowing another huge bubble and leaving mummy panicking about whether she would ever see her little bambino again.

  ‘Thank you for the boots, Brian,’ I said, massaging my ankle which was bleeding again and turning a mottled blue-black.

  ‘Pity you weren’t wearing them,’ he observed and wandered off with his hands behind his back.

  The rest of the children that morning were much better behaved and I wondered if it might have had anything to do with the fact that I scowled at each of them as they approached. The worst moment came when the Bull, doing his rounds, stopped, glared at me and then ordered me to lift the valance around the base of my throne. He gave a look not of mere disgust, but utter repugnance as he caught sight of my battered desert boots, mouldy Fireman’s boots, my blood-soaked sock and my left ankle which looked like it had just been mauled by Grendl.

  The wages were distributed in the canteen at lunchtime. I eagerly tore open the envelope and found that I’d earned sixty-eight pounds. This was the reward for working from eight-thirty in the morning until five-thirty at night for two days at four pounds twenty-five pee an hour. Of course lunchtime was a pay-free zone. I’d also lost an hour’s pay for being late the first two days, neither time being my fault. Tax and National Insurance came to twenty-two pounds and ten pee and there was a ‘processing charge’ of three quid. Processing charge? All in all, my pay packet contained forty-two pounds and ninety pee.

  I bought a lettuce sandwich for lunch and a cup of black tea (five pee cheaper than one containing milk). Total cost two pounds, fifty pee. Should not have been so extravagant at Sr Corsini’s.

  Mrs J came over carrying two Tupperware boxes. The first was for tea money which at forty pee a day came to one pound twenty.

  ‘And I’m collecting for flowers for Elsie,’ she said as she put the top back on the first Tupperware box and opened the second. ‘Everyone else has given a pound.’

  ‘Who’s Elsie?’ I enquired, scalding my mouth on the hot tea.

  ‘Nice girl, but you wouldn’t know her,’ I was told.

  I gave her a pound and asked how Elsie was. Still unconscious, apparently. Perhaps the spirit of Christmas was beginning to wear a bit thin, but I wondered why she needed flowers if she was still senseless. I instantly reproached myself for this uncharitable thought.

  I now had thirty-eight pounds, twenty in my pocket. How to spend it all? A deposit, perhaps, on a book of Christmas postage stamps, or tea and a biscuit to celebrate at Sr Corsini’s this evening. A night out at the city morgue had possibilities as did a visit to entertain patients in the isolation hospital. My mind was spinning with the endless opportunities before me. But first, I went and squandered the five pee on a small serving of that revolting UHT milk to try and make the tea more drinkable.

  It was quite a long afternoon with the box for the hospital beginning to fill nicely. The first child after lunch was the only real black spot.

  She had obviously been waiting for some time for the Grotto to reopen. I noticed her mother fussing over her as I walked past the toadstool.

  ‘There he is now!’ she hissed. ‘Stand up straight, girl! And be polite, or I’ll get your father onto you when I get you home!’ All the while she was fiddling with the little girl’s spotless dress to make sure it was straight. ‘Look at your shoes! I only cleaned them this morning and how did your hair get into such a mess?’ It continued all the way through the Grotto. ‘Remember what your father said! Don’t touch! Oh, I’m so ashamed.’ And so it went on.

  When the child reached me she stood with her head bowed and was shaking slightly. The mother urged her forward, goading and threatening.

  ‘Leave this to me,�
�� I said eventually.

  The mother stood back, folded her arms and looked as if she felt entirely vindicated. ‘There,’ she said, ‘what did I tell you? You’re making him cross now. Just wait ‘til…’

  I held up my hand to silence her. I knelt on the floor in front of the girl and held out my arms. ‘Come on,’ I said gently, ‘there’s nothing to be afraid of. What’s your name?’

  Slowly she raised her head, but it was some moments before she could look me in the eye and when she did I could see that she was terrified. I smiled and encouraged her forward. Slowly and uncertainly she started towards me. I had never seen such timidity in a child before. But there was also a vast courage and a longing for something she knew must exist somewhere. Eventually I was holding her trembling hands in mine.

  She was sick straight into my beard.

  The mother flew into a tongue-lashing rage. I told her to shut up and then said quietly to the girl, ‘Never mind,’ and took the beard off. ‘It’s a magic beard,’ I explained as the look of surprise replaced that of fear. ‘I have to take it off at night otherwise it gets caught in the bedsprings when I turn over.’ I feigned a little wince. The girl broke into tears and threw her arms around my neck. She was sobbing mightily. I hugged her close and said that I was not in the least bit upset and that it was not her fault. I gave the mother a withering look; she glowered at the child. The child didn’t want to let go. She wasn’t just clinging with her arms, but with her whole being. A tear rose in my eye for her.

  ‘Come along,’ the mother nagged. ‘We’re here to buy a present for your sister, not so you can enjoy yourself!’

  I gave the girl a doll and a set of coloured pens. She smiled the sweetest smile I have ever seen. The mother grabbed the presents off her.

  ‘You’ll get those at Christmas. IF you behave yourself!’

  That was it. I stood up and faced the woman. ‘Give them back to her,’ I ordered quietly and calmly.

  ‘But…’

  ‘Give them back. Now. I gave them to her. I, Father Christmas and they’re not for anybody else to take away from her.’ By now a small crowd had gathered nearby. The woman glared at me and looked round at the crowd. She had no choice and ungraciously returned the child’s presents to her. It was a small victory, but, I suspected, a Pyrrhic one because the look on her face as she did so made me realise that I had done the wrong thing and the little girl would be the one to suffer for it.

  There were low murmurs from the crowd as the scene broke up. Several members of the public gave me short, but approving nods as they left. I picked up my beard and asked Mrs Jones to close the Grotto for five minutes.

  ‘I blame the parents,’ I said to Brian as I passed him to go and wash the beard. We listened to the haranguing going on again across the other side of the store.

  ‘I’d like to see her with that kid who kicked you this morning,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Do them both a bit of good I should think.’

  Every cloud has a silver lining, of course and one of life’s great mysteries had been solved at last. I now knew how the porridge-like substance I had discovered earlier had come to be in the beard originally.

  The itching on my face began again as soon as I put the damp beard back on.

  I was walking through the warehouse on my way to clock off when Harry rolled up with a spring in his step.

  ‘Lend us a tenner,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I replied.

  ‘That’s okay,’ said he, jauntily, ‘just lend us the ten.’

  ‘But we’ve just been paid!’ I protested.

  ‘Ah, no, see that’s where you’re wrong,’ he corrected me as he stepped in front of me to explain further. ‘You’ve been paid, I ‘aven’t. I’m bracic.’

  ‘Bracic?’

  ‘Yeah, you know, bracic lint.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ We started walking again.

  ‘Wages. They forgot me. Typical it is. They’re always doin’ it. I reckon they’ve got it in for me.’ I noticed an open pay packet on his desk.

  ‘What’s that, then?’ I asked, pointing to the small brown envelope.

  ‘That’s Chalky’s,’ he replied lightly.

  ‘Chalky’s?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied, ‘I told wages that I’d take it to Chalky’s old lady seein’ as ‘ow Chalky was down the slammer. Only I didn’t tell them that because they don’t know yet and I always reckon it’s best to let sleepin’ dogs lie, don’t you?’ I was deeply confused. ‘Told ‘em ‘e ‘ad a cold.’

  ‘Harry, when you spoke to wages, didn’t you remind them that you hadn’t been paid?’ I thought it a valid question.

  ‘Nah, no point, mate. Not their fault. It’s fuckin’ Harridges. Don’t give a fuck ‘bout the workers. Why make the tarts in wages unhappy?’

  At last all became clear and I began to see Harry in a new light. I was deeply impressed by the magnanimity that Harry was showing towards someone who only the day before had tried to drop him right in it. As I stood there admiring this act of selflessness I was reminded of that line from the Three Bears …for they were good bears, a little rough as the manner of bears is, but for all that very good natured and hospitable.

  ‘’Ere, watchu lookin’ at me like that for?’ Harry asked, retreating a couple of steps.

  ‘I’ve just realised what a terribly nice chap you are, Harry.’ It didn’t alter the fact that I was just about ‘bracic’ again myself.

  ‘Oi! Leave it out,’ he said pointing at me. ‘I’m not doin’ noffink for the tenner!’

  ‘Look, can’t you borrow some of Chalky’s?’ I suggested, having estimated there to have been something in the region of four hundred and fifty quid in the ripped packet.

  ‘You can’t go opening anuvver geezer’s pay packet!’ He protested.

  ‘But you just have,’ I observed.

  ‘Yeah, well, I had to check it, didn’ I?’ He argued. ‘Can’t ‘ave Chalky’s missus being messed about, can I? Fuckin’ wages wouldn’ know their arse from their elbow.’ I was re-entering a world of confusion. ‘You’ll get it back,’ he added.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jeez! The bleedin’ ten sovs you’re goin’ to give me. You bleedin’ stupid, or what?’

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ I replied mechanically as I reached into my pay packet, drew out a crisp new note and handed it over.

  ‘That’s the way, old son,’ he said pocketing it and Chalky’s wages in one deft movement. ‘You won’t regret it,’ and he strutted off whistling.

  I couldn’t help noticing as I stood behind him with my time-card that he clocked out Chalky’s card as well as his own.

  ‘Well,’ he explained, ‘they ‘aven’t actually sacked him yet, ‘ave they? They think he’s got a cold and Chalky’s missus is goin’ to need the money.’

  Harry really is a brick.

  I was now down to twenty-eight pounds fifteen pee and considered walking home, but the end of the Central Line is a long way from Oxford Circus and I had to be on time for rehearsals. Rehearsals! On the one hand the horrors of the script and most of the Company, on the other, figuratively speaking, Rowena!

  True hope is swift and flies with swallow’s wings;

  Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.

  Mr and Mrs H were not at home when I arrived at the lodgings. There were more floorboards up and a strong smell of industrial fungicide pervaded the house. A letter addressed to me in my stage-name was lying on the umbrella stand. It had been marked not known by one of them. I put it in my pocket. Then I discovered another of Cloudesley’s hiding places, but decided not to say anything on the basis of the Old