by Simon Brett
As they sat in the Lagonda a few streets away from the Chapstick Manufacturing Plant and pondered these matters, Blotto told his sister briefly about his encounter with Sophocles Katzenjammer.
‘Well, that’s jollissimo, Blotters,’ she cried. ‘He still loves Mary, does he?’
‘Toad-in-the-hole, yes! He thinks she’s the absolute crystallized ginger.’
‘So all we have to do is to arrange for them to meet up again and elope. Then we’re out of the undergrowth and we’ll be rolling on camomile lawns!’
‘But where’s going to be safe for us to meet him?’ asked Blotto.
His sister looked at her blood- and offal-stained eau de nil dress. ‘And, more important, at least as far as I’m concerned, where are we going to get a change of clothes?’
Blotto looked at his watch. It was still the small hours of the morning. ‘None of the big stores’ll be open yet.’
‘Great whiffling water rats, Blotto! We can’t just walk into Marshall Field’s on State Street looking like scrapings from a butcher’s floor. Spagsy Chiaparelli’d know about it in no time. Hmm . . . Do we have any friends in this murdey city?’
‘Wasn’t there some incorruptible private investigator you said you’d had dealings with?’
Twinks grimaced. ‘Forget him. He turned out to be as corrupt as a five-year-old Stilton.’
Blotto began cautiously, ‘Well, I think Sophocles Katzenjammer is now on my side . . . even though he tried to kill me.’
‘Might be risky. We know the Katzenjammers are at daggers drawn with the Chapsticks, but they may still be in the pockets of Spagsy Chiaparelli.’ Twinks’s fine forehead wrinkled as she brought her brain to bear on the problem. In a matter of seconds it cleared and she cried out, ‘Choxy Mulligan!’
‘But contacting her was the trigger for all the fumacious stuff that’s happened since,’ her brother objected.
‘Yes, but I’ve talked to Choxy woman to woman.’
Blotto was silent. Having been brought up – or rather neglected – throughout his childhood by the Dowager Duchess, he knew how powerful a woman could be. And when you’d got two of the creatures together – ‘woman to woman’ – well, it was clearly time for chaps to stay mum on the sidelines.
Following Twinks’s instruction, he drove the Lagonda until they found an outdoor payphone booth. Needless to say, his sister did the talking.
He looked up hopefully as she emerged from the booth. ‘Choxy’s got a safe place. I knew she would have. Gloria’s Hairdressing and Manicure Salon on Dicker Street. She says it’s one venue she knows Spagsy Chiaparelli would never go to. Apparently he likes dames to look purty, but how they get to look purty he doesn’t want to know. We’re to be there at seven thirty.’ She looked at her tiny silver wristwatch. ‘Less than two hours.’
Blotto drove the Lagonda to Dicker Street and, following the instructions given by Choxy, parked out of sight in a garage round the back of the hairdresser’s. There they waited till the black of the sky was cracked by slivers of dawn light.
Then, on the dot of half past seven, again as instructed by Choxy, they tapped on the metal door at the back of the garage. They were expected. One of Gloria’s stylists, dressed in a crisp white tunic, let them in and led them to a small room at the back of the salon. She passed no comment on their offal-stained clothes, but offered them coffee, which they gratefully accepted.
Within minutes, Choxy Mulligan was with them. Blotto was amazed, given that the two women had spent only a very brief time together – and not in the most tranquil of circumstances – how relaxed they seemed together.
The chanteuse had a suitcase with her. She opened it to reveal a tweed suit and accoutrements for Blotto; and for Twinks, a choice of six dresses. ‘I know we girls can get picky about what we wear.’
Twinks selected a creation in deep maroon. Different from her usual pale colours, but she knew she could carry it off.
Choxy Mulligan showed them the way to the salon’s bathrooms, where they showered and changed into the clothes provided. Both felt considerably more themselves when they no longer smelt of cows’ entrails.
Then they rejoined Choxy. Quickly they outlined their plans to get Mary Chapstick and Sophocles Katzenjammer back together and asked for any advice on how that could be achieved. The singer proved as resourceful as Twinks. She said that, though for safety reasons he hid it from Spagsy Chiaparelli, Luther P. Chapstick III secretly had the hots for her. He’d do anything that might ingratiate him with her.
So she called Chapstick Towers and announced to the owner that she knew the perfect hairdressing salon to send a stylist to do his daughter’s hair ‘on the big day’. Predictably enough, Luther P. Chapstick III thought this was a dandy idea, and arranged an eleven o’clock appointment that morning for Mary to discuss her requirements.
Then it was Blotto’s turn to ring Sophocles Katzenjammer, who had been eagerly awaiting his call. The young man promised to be with them in as little time as it took.
Then Twinks and Choxy Mulligan started busying themselves with wedding plans. Blotto, blissfully secure in the knowledge that it wasn’t his wedding they were planning, sat and read the newspaper’s sports pages. He didn’t understand a word, but there was a kind of perverse enjoyment in seeing how excited these Yanks could get about rounders.
Sophocles Katzenjammer arrived in paroxysms of excitement. His chubby cheeks wobbled, his poppy eyes bobbled behind their thick glasses. He couldn’t believe that soon he would be in the company of the beloved one whom he had so often despaired of ever seeing again.
The two women joined the men for a council of strategy. ‘It’s important, Sophocles,’ said Twinks, ‘that you and Mary get married as soon as possible, before either of your parents get wind of what’s going on.’
‘Before Spagsy gets to hear about it too,’ interposed Choxy. ‘He likes playing Chapstick off against the Katzenjammers. He ain’t gonna like anything that might lead to a reconciliation between the two families.’
‘I don’t think that’s a very likely prospect,’ said Sophocles Katzenjammer. ‘The vendetta between them is as bad as ever – and I think it’s about to get worse.’
‘Oh?’ asked Twinks.
‘Let’s just say that some information came to my father about a devious plot Chapstick was hatching to ruin our business. Goodness knows where it came from.’
Twinks smiled serenely. She knew where it came from.
‘Anyway,’ the young man went on, ‘that gave my father the idea of getting ahead of the game and playing the same dirty trick on Chapstick. I don’t think relations between the two families will improve when the offal from that little scheme hits the fan.’
‘All the more reason to get you married off as soon as possible,’ advised Choxy Mulligan.
‘Tickey-tockey,’ Twinks agreed.
Sophocles Katzenjammer looked a little shamefaced. ‘It’s a great idea, but I wish I could feel certain that Mary still loves me . . .’
‘Of course she does!’ said Blotto rather forcibly. Everything was going so well. He didn’t want to see the project derailed by the fickle emotions of a mere girl.
‘But she’s been engaged to you, Blotto, and Mary is a creature of honour. That’s one of the reasons why I love her so much. She might not want to break her engagement to you.’
‘Oh, don’t talk such toffee. Of course she will.’
‘But there’s you, tall, strong, incredibly handsome – and an English aristocrat, to boot. And there’s me – small, ineffectual, short-sighted – and son of her father’s mortal enemy. Why on earth should she choose me?’
‘She should choose you,’ Blotto replied with some force, ‘because, by Denzil, I do not want to spend the rest of my life driving on the wrong side of the road, saying “gotten” when it should be “got” and watching rounders!’
It was agreed – much to Blotto’s dismay – that when Mary Chapstick arrived at eleven, the engaged couple should have a brief tê
te-à-tête before Sophocles Katzenjammer was introduced into the equation.
Miserably, Blotto returned to the rounders scores, while Twinks and Choxy – with occasional interruptions from Sophocles Katzenjammer – continued their wedding planning.
One of the Chapstick Towers limousines deposited Mary Chapstick at the door of Gloria’s Hairdressing and Manicure Salon on the dot of eleven o’clock. To her surprise the stylist with whom she had the appointment led her to a back room. Surprise turned to elation when she discovered that its only occupant was Blotto.
As soon as they were alone, she threw her arms around his neck with a cry of ‘My love! Seeing you makes my life complete!’
Broken biscuits, thought Blotto. This isn’t getting off to a very good start.
But he had to persevere. Relying on the very hasty training that Twinks and Choxy had just given him, he said, ‘How I wish that were true.’
His fiancée was taken aback. ‘What can you mean, Blotto?’
‘I mean that sadly I cannot make your life complete.’
‘Yes, you can,’ she assured him, with the certainty of a child who had always got her own way.
‘No. You may think you love me, but there will always be one whom you love more than me.’
‘What garbage you’re talking, Blotto.’
‘Listen to me, you poor pineapple. I am not the first man whom you’ve thought you wanted to marry.’
‘That was a long time ago. Besides, he did something unforgivable. He stood me up!’
‘Ah, but there was a reason why he stood you up!’
‘No reason is sufficient to explain standing a woman up at Chicago Union Station!’ announced Mary Chapstick, once again sounding unnervingly like her father. ‘The sense of humiliation can never be completely eradicated.’
‘Not even,’ suggested Blotto, ‘if the young man you were meant to meet had been locked in a cellar that day by his scheming father . . . ?’
‘Surely that didn’t . . .’ Blotto’s words had struck home, but she still wasn’t totally convinced. ‘Where do you get this information from?’
‘From the boddo himself – none other than Sophocles Katzenjammer.’
Her face went pale. ‘You have seen Sophocles Katzenjammer?’
‘Very recently. I was in a chophouse in New York with him only a couple of days ago . . .’
‘Oh . . .’
‘And, Mary, he still loves you as much as ever.’
Another ‘Oh . . .’ Then a tear glinted in her dark eye. ‘But even if he does, our love cannot be!’
‘Why not, for the love of strawberries?’
‘Because I am betrothed to another!’
‘Only me, though.’
‘Blotto, in the time we have known each other, my respect for you has increased on a daily basis. You are a fine, honourable man – and who cares if you are as dim as a one-dime candle?’
‘Oh, thank you,’ said Blotto.
‘But I could not compromise the respect I have for you by abandoning you. You love me. We are engaged to be married. I am not such an unprincipled woman as to betray such an agreement. I will go through with the marriage!’
In his briefing session with Twinks and Choxy, Blotto had been dissuaded from his intention to say at this point, ‘Hoopee-doopee! Then we need never clap our peepers on each other again!’ The two women suggested kindly that in such circumstances people of their gender preferred to be let down a little more gently.
So, using the words that they had taught him, Blotto instead said, ‘You are very honourable, Mary. And losing you will leave an icy void at the centre of my heart for ever. But marriage can only work if there’s equal love on both sides. If I twiddle the reef-knot with you, Mary, I’ll be condemning you to a life of unhappiness.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘Because it is true,’ asserted Blotto. ‘You would do the honourable thing and marry me, because that is the kind of fine, upstanding girl you are. But throughout your life you would know that the person you were really still in love with was Sophocles Katzenjammer.’ The girl was silent. ‘Come on, you cannot deny that is true. Can you, Mary?’
Tears ran down her cheeks as a very small ‘No’ emerged from her full lips.
‘Then let’s light the fireworks of fun!’ cried Blotto. ‘I can now reveal to you that Sophocles Katzenjammer is actually in this building as we speak.’
‘What?’ A rich glow suffused the beautiful cheeks of Mary Chapstick.
‘And it will be a matter of moments for me to introduce him to you.’
‘Oh, Blotto,’ said Mary, as he rushed to the door. ‘There’s just one thing I want to say . . .’
‘Well, shift your shimmy. Young love can’t wait, you know.’
‘I just want to say, Blotto, that you are the most selfless and honourable man I have ever met.’
He blushed boyishly and mumbled, ‘Oh, don’t talk such toffee.’
The rest of the morning was busy, but extremely satisfactory. As soon as Sophocles Katzenjammer and Mary Chapstick met, they fell into each other’s arms. No one witnessing their reunion could be in any doubt that what they shared was The Real Thing.
Twinks and Choxy’s wedding planning had paid off in spades. They had the special licence by eleven thirty. By twelve the young couple were in a little chapel Choxy Mulligan knew. By twelve thirty they had been married by a partially unfrocked minister who, as Choxy reminded him, owed a favour to Spagsy Chiaparelli. The service was witnessed by Choxy Mulligan and the stylist from Gloria’s. Twinks acted as bridesmaid and Blotto was the best man.
By one fifteen Mr and Mrs Sophocles Katzenjammer were on a train puffing out of Chicago Union Station on the way to start their married life in Florida.
Blotto and Twinks said fond farewells to Choxy Mulligan and returned in high glee to Gloria’s Hairdressing and Manicure Salon. All they wanted to do was leap into the Lagonda, drive down to New York and catch the first available liner back to England and Tawcester Towers.
But the day did hold one more surprise for them. Because they’d left some of their belongings inside, they went through the front entrance to the salon. And there they saw, being expensively primped and powdered, the Dowager Duchess of Framlington, a.k.a. Harvey the Tawcester Towers housemaid.
Their polite enquiries after her welfare produced a torrent of misery. Though generous, Luther P. Chapstick III, it appeared, was not someone who improved on acquaintance. He kept her as a virtual prisoner in the Chainey Hotel and she was sick of masquerading as a dowager duchess. She was feeling very homesick for Tawcester Towers – and she was even sicker of being in a country where everyone drove on the wrong side of the road.
It was a matter of moments for Blotto and Twinks to agree to take her back in the Lagonda with them. But they did point out that on the liner she’d have to stop this Dowager Duchess of Framlington nonsense and travel steerage.
28
The Fall of an Empire
The news of his daughter’s eloping and his mistress’s absconding did not improve the already sour mood of Luther P. Chapstick III. And the fact that his precious Mary-Bob was now the wife of a Katzenjammer only rubbed salt in the wound.
He was getting grief on other fronts too. Threatening calls from Harry ‘Three Bananas’ Pennoni asserting that he’d never received the promised bullion payment made Chapstick suspicious. Was the New York capo dei capi trying to swindle him? Or was he part of a conspiracy with Spagsy Chiaparelli? The Chicago Boss denied that he’d appropriated the bullion, but Luther P. Chapstick III found himself trusting the man less and less. He felt like a dupe and it was not a role that he relished.
Mind you, Spagsy Chiaparelli wasn’t very cheerful either. Not only had he somehow lost two of his most reliable operatives, Vic ‘Rat Teeth’ Papardelle and Michael ‘Two Legs’ Conchiglioni, Choxy Mulligan was starting to get antsy with him. Confident that he wanted her too much actually to have her iced, the chanteuse had moved out of the apart
ment he paid for and bought her own place, to which she allowed him diminishing access. She had also got herself a manager who promised to lift her singing career out of the speakeasies and on to Broadway and Hollywood.
In another development Spagsy Chiaparelli could not understand, Choxy Mulligan also announced that at some point she wanted to do a college degree course. Since, so far as she could ascertain, an academic discipline called ‘Women’s Studies’ did not yet exist, Choxy was determined to start one.
(She subsequently published a book, From Speakeasy to Self-Respect, which made little impact at the time, but was later reissued and revered as a seminal text by 1960s feminists.)
Then to add to Spagsy’s woes, there were strong rumours around that the US government was shortly to end Prohibition.
Increasingly, he spent his time drinking, eating pasta with curiously nicknamed henchmen, fingering his scar and regretting the good old days.
What caused the final comeuppance of Luther P. Chapstick III was being hoist with his own petard. Copies of the documents from his desk that Twinks had photographed she had had sent to the Katzenjammer family. Sophocles’ father, recognizing a good idea when he saw one, immediately set in motion Luther’s plan in reverse, infiltrating workers into the Chapstick Manufacturing Plant. After a few months, at a given signal, they started mixing poison into the entire range of Chapstick products.
The results were predictably catastrophic. The national distribution of Chapstick’s Canned Beef, Chapstick’s Corned Beef, Chapstick’s Dressed Beef, Chapstick’s Beef Sausages – not to mention Chapstick’s specially flavoured Beef Extract – was such that no state escaped the mass poisoning.
Luther P. Chapstick III responded by paying millions of dollars to professionals in the developing field of public relations. But no amount of money can erase the memories of that much vomiting and diarrhoea. Chapstick beef products never regained their reputation or their hold on the market. People who still wanted to buy Beef Extract went for the Katzenjammer version. Chapstick Towers was sold and its owner declared bankrupt.