Mr Trumper smiled good-naturedly at his wife.
In the interest of apparent fairness, Mrs Trumper vigorously jumbled up the pieces of paper like balls in the National Lottery Draw.
“There, let’s draw the next one.”
By which, Mrs Trumper meant let me draw the next one: she didn’t want any more unexpected accidents.
“Good luck everyone,” said Mr Trumper, looking at his feet.
She pulled out the piece of paper and noticed the distinctive curly stem of her capital letter B, confirming that another one of her suggestions had been drawn out: that would wipe the smirk off his face, that’s for sure. She had liked the name Braxton so much that she had written it on seven different pieces of paper, purely in the interests of her child’s well-being, of course, who she knew would just love being called Braxton: well, who wouldn’t? Braxton. It was distinctive; it would also remind her every day of one of her most favourite “Home and Away” characters, and even if it was abbreviated, as often happened when Brax was hanging with his mates on the beach with his surfboard, she wouldn’t mind. “Brax Trumper: respect mate!”
Mrs Trumper was confident: Todd had been an unfortunate failure, but Braxton looked a hot contender. Her husband would just roll over: end of. She handed over the winning piece of paper to Mr Trumper so that she could enjoy listening to him saying the name out loud.
“Bingo.”
“Bingo!!”
“That’s what it says here, Bingo.”
Mrs Trumper snatched back the piece of paper and stared at it. No sign of Braxton, who seemed to have done a runner with Todd, leaving the unfortunate Bingo behind in his place. Bingo? She hadn’t written Bingo on any piece of paper: the only name which even faintly resembled Bingo was…and then, finally, the penny dropped… Ringo. She looked at the piece of paper again: as a big fan of The Beatles, she had gone for Ringo as an outside possibility for a name, and there it was in front of her eyes, and yet not there in front of her eyes, as the letter R had mysteriously turned into her distinctive letter B with a curly stem.
Mrs Trumper looked at Mr Trumper; Mr Trumper looked at Mrs Trumper.
“What a wonderful choice of name, my dear, unique. Bingo Trumper…inspired: how did you come up with such a novel name? Is he a character in “Home and Away”? Or does it just evoke memories of rainy days on the sea front at Blackpool?”
It was now dawning on Mrs Trumper that something had gone most horribly wrong with her plan for world name domination. She was beginning to realise that there had been some tampering with the Name Box and was outraged that her husband could have stooped so low. She consoled herself with the knowledge that she had, at least, managed to remove all his suggestions during the last few weeks and that one of her ideas was bound to have slipped through Mr Trumper’s illegal fishing in the Name Box. Mrs Trumper put on a brave, yet still unpleasant face, in difficult circumstances.
“I like Bingo, but I’ve gone off it now as I’ve never had any luck playing bingo: I don’t want to put a jinx on the child. Let’s forget that one and try again. Let’s hope that one of your ideas comes up.” Mrs Trumper looked up at her husband to see if he reacted: a smile, a grin, a little chuckle at the very least, but he withheld all of those guilty pleasures from his wife.
One last chance left, she switched tactics and suggested that it should be Mr Trumper who pulled out a name from the box. For her to draw out the winning idea would have been very enjoyable, but to watch Mr Trumper pull out the lucky piece of paper, hoping beyond hope that he would be successful, whilst not knowing that all his pieces of paper had been removed, was doubly pleasurable.
Without a word, with neither agreement nor disagreement, Mr Trumper dipped his hand into the box, retrieved a piece of paper from the bottom corner which had been folded and refolded until it was very small indeed. For a few seconds, panic and discomfort set in as he tried, and failed, to recall changing what appeared to be a throw-out from an Origami competition. It must have got lodged in a corner at the bottom of the box, he thought, or she threw it in that morning when he wasn’t looking.
Mr Trumper tried to stall for time to formulate a strategy by pretending to sneeze (ten times) and then by loudly blowing his nose (also ten times).
“You sound like an elephant who hasn’t been to the toilet for several days,” remarked Mrs Trumper in an unusually jovial voice.
Despite his astonishing display of tip-top sneezing and an equally impressive display of tip-top constipated elephant impersonations, Mr Trumper could not think of an effective plan to deal with the crisis: in his hand lay a tiny piece of paper which, incredibly, had evaded capture over the previous weeks and months, and was going to be his undoing. Defeat, disgrace and despair stared him in the face; he was surely finished.
“I’m sorry 007, but being outwitted by a woman with an IQ the size of a toddler’s first pair of football boots leaves me with little option other than to relieve you of your mission. Leave your revolver and any unusual gadgets for outwitting criminal masterminds with Mish Moneypenny on your way out.”
M was not pleased.
What terrible fate awaited him and his son hidden in that screwed up bit of paper? Surely not another idiot name from “Home and Away”? Perhaps she had switched her taste in television soaps? Was he going to have to deal with a smooth Ken or a rough Lloyd, or a nasty Phil, or an even nastier Cain? Even more horrific, was he about to be confronted with a name from the Liverpool FC Hall of Fame? Bill or Stevie he could explain away to the world by pretending that his son was named after United heroes Bill Foulkes or Stevie Coppell , but how could he possibly explain away a son called Ian Street John?
“Well, let’s have it,” demanded Mrs Trumper, growing impatient with her husband.
With no place to hide, Mr Trumper unfolded the piece of paper, hardly daring to look at what was being slowly revealed; Mrs Trumper merely sat back secure in the knowledge that she would have the last word in this hard fought contest, although she could not remember folding up a piece of paper that much. She stared into Mr Trumper’s face, enjoying his frowns, his quivering lips, his twitching nose. Todd, Ringo and Brax were about to exact a terrible revenge.
“Tesco,” Mr Trumper mouthed, hardly audible.
“What? Speak up man, I can’t hear you.”
Mr Trumper did not repeat the word for his wife’s benefit, but just continued to unfold the piece of paper, his face cautiously changing from puzzled to pleased to very pleased indeed.
“Tell me my sweet (oh no, the dreaded words, thought Mrs Trumper) were you entirely serious in wanting to name our son after a supermarket? If that was the route which we were going down, my personal preference would have been Waitrose: it sounds so much classier. Unless, my sweet (oh God, not twice, thought Mrs Trumper, growing more and more uncomfortable), unless I have misunderstood the matter. You seem to have at least two other words written down on the same piece of paper. I’m not accusing you of cheating, but do you seriously wish to discuss the possibility of naming our son Clubcard or even Bonus?”
Mrs Trumper attempted to snatch the piece of paper, unable to find the words to express her anger and her huge disappointment, whilst Mr Trumper continued to speak most eloquently – he was always at his best when Mrs Trumper was reduced to spluttering silence.
“All right, I accept that Tesco is memorable. After all, there cannot be many boys with that name and it does open up the real possibility of sponsorship deals, does it not? Free nappies, free powdered milk, free clothes et cetera, not to mention getting our picture in the paper. So yes, I can see the merits of your suggestion. However, I have to strongly disagree, my sweet – Mr Trumper had gone for the hat-trick – with the possibility of either Bonus or Clubcard. They are both just too unusual for my taste, and besides, they would considerably reduce the possibility of a sponsorship deal. I rest my c…”
> The final word spoken by Mr Trumper never made it in one piece, having been killed off by Mrs Trumper successfully grabbing the 200 Extra Points voucher (unfortunately now out of date) and reducing it to a mere sprinkle of confetti launched towards her husband, which reminded him, uncomfortably, of their wedding day.
Silence and endgame fast approaching.
Perhaps M would now re-consider his earlier harsh words. Mr Trumper had triumphed over one of the most dangerous women in Southport, responsible for untold misery and outrages over the years and probably top of the Most Wanted List of many European Law Enforcement Agencies.
The fate of son of Trumper would now be decided by Chance, a game of Lucky Dip, a mere Lottery, a vital decision reduced to a choiceless Raffle.
Mrs Trumper, tense, closed her eyes; well, one of them, as she kept one on Mr Trumper to make sure that there was no funny business. Mr Trumper, equally tense, kept both of his eyes wide open to check that Mrs Trumper did not quickly pull out a piece of paper that she had hidden in her dungaree pocket.
This was it, the moment when the Boy with No Name would be labelled for life: for good, bad or ugly.
Mrs Trumper, squinting horribly, took out the life-deciding piece of paper, fearing the worst after the tragic demise of Todd, Brax and Ringo, and the not so tragic demise of Tesco, Bonus and Clubcard.
With the piece of paper in her trembling little hand, Mrs Trumper revealed the name to Mr Trumper who knew that the fate of 007 hung in the balance: M still needed to be convinced that he was the right man for the job.
“Arry?” It was a question, rather than a statement.
“Harry?”
“No, Arry.”
This was not one of Mr Trumper’s choices: how could it be? Mrs Trumper had removed them all. But then again, it was not exactly one of Mrs Trumper’s choices either, as she had certainly not written Arry down: there was no such name in “Home and Away”, “Neighbours”, “Emmerdale”, “Eastenders” or “Coronation Street”; and she was quite definite that none of The Beatles went by that name.
In the awkward silence that often follows not having a plausible explanation when confronted by awkward facts – like the empty page of your exercise book containing the homework you handed in weeks ago – Mr and Mrs Trumper wondered what had gone wrong.
Mr Trumper slowly solved the problem, although very quietly in his head: he had clearly found one his wife’s suggestions, had removed the first letter, but had forgotten to add something different, probably having been distracted by a creak or scrapping cats. Had it been Barry, Harry or Larry? It hardly mattered now, as under the terms of the agreement they both had to accept the name. How could he have failed in such a simple task? M would not be pleased about his schoolboy error. Perhaps, on reflection, the mistake was for the best, as being stuck with either Tarry or Zarry, would have been worse than Arry.
Mrs Trumper seethed for some time, but eventually took comfort in that fact that at least eighty percent of the name had been her suggestion; and besides, it might start a trend; starting in Southport, it might just sweep the world and reach Australia. A new surfing mate for Brax, perhaps: “Hey Arry, how’s it going mate? Wanna hang?”
And so Arry Trumper was welcomed into the world several days later, a chubby little fellow whose hearty lungs announced his arrival.
Whether it was due to the profound shock of meeting his parents for the first time or because he had received advance intelligence that he was going to be called Arry, is unclear; what is clear, is that young Arry cried continuously for forty-eight hours, before settling down into the comfort of a warm blanket, wearing what would become his trademark sulk.
CHAPTER 2
Breaking Silence
“It was not I who chose the most unfortunate nomenclature of Arry Trumper: it was my earnest desire to be known as Janice Uniparts.”
Now, I know exactly what you are thinking at this point: how could a child be so churlish, so insensitive, so utterly lacking in gratitude, when his parents had gone to so much trouble to find the perfect name for him? I bet you are also thinking that Mr and Mrs Trumper must have been a bit surprised and maybe even a tad annoyed to hear such an outburst from a mere child. And you would be right. Mrs Trumper, despite the setbacks to her grand name schemes which I told you about in the last chapter, had always been able to remind Mr Trumper, during any arguments about how to bring up their son, that she was an eighty percent shareholder in his name. And whilst Mr Trumper had been unable to find any Manchester United players called Arry, even amongst the most obscure of Newton Heath Reserve Team Lists, he had at least got a son who would probably run out at the Theatre of Dreams one day. Demanding to be re-branded as Janice Uniparts, therefore, did not fit easily into plans for life-long domestic domination or being the father of a United legend.
The outburst had also taken Mr and Mrs Trumper by surprise because they had been waiting nearly four years for young Arry to speak his first words. The children of all their friends and acquaintances had spoken their first words before their first birthdays, but Arry had remained stubbornly mute, disappointingly bringing up the rear in the local baby word stakes. At first, Mr and Mrs Trumper thought it was just a matter of time: after all, according to all the books on child development, not all children were the same. By the time Arry had reached his second birthday and still nothing had emerged from his mouth other than dribble and food, Mr and Mrs Trumper were concerned. Well, perhaps embarrassed would have been closer to the truth, as all the mothers at the local playgroup seemed to take great delight in reporting the latest addition to their child’s swelling vocabulary: a stunning noun here, an impressive verb there, doubling the annoyance with the occasional qualifying adjective or adverb.
“My Leticia said ‘pig’ this morning!” said a delighted Mrs Somebody or other.
“Well, my Jemima said ‘big pig’ last night,” boasted an even more delighted Ms Thingy.
“That’s nothing,” added a triumphant Mrs What’s-it, “little Lucas said ‘big pigs jig’!”
“Oh how lovely! But my little Sunshine told me and her daddy that ‘big pigs jig in wigs’,” announced an annoying giggly woman who nobody knew.
“I think there might be something wrong with him,” said Mrs Trumper darkly to her husband one day, after an especially depressing morning at the playgroup where Arry had distinguished himself by throwing up all over Sunshine’s head, preceded by a knowing little smirk. “I bet you were a bit slow, like him,” said Mrs Trumper, also to her husband, even more darkly.
Mr Trumper seemed to be a little more relaxed about the whole matter, but in private took to inventing possible excuses for little Arry’s unorthodox approach to conversation. Perhaps he had been traumatised by hearing about United having been beaten by Liverpool in the Cup a few years ago and was still recovering from the tragedy. Not surprising, mused Mr Trumper, as it was never a penalty. Maybe he should have been reading James Bond books to his son rather than silly and nonsensical stories about big pigs which did jigs in wigs. You and Mish Moneypenny are going to die Mr Bond, very, very painfully, Mr Trumper thought to himself, trying his best to remember some exciting quotation from a Bond novel. Now that would have knocked ‘em bandy at playgroup had Arry said it! But he didn’t.
And now that he had, after four years, managed to say something, the end product was, quite frankly, slightly disappointing.
“He doesn’t even look like a Janice,” remarked Mrs Trumper. “The only Janice I ever knew worked in a chip-shop in Accrington: always smelt of fish batter.”
“I like the smell of fish batter,” noted Mr Trumper’s father, Tommy, who had come to live with his son after having been evicted from his council flat in Fleetwood for growing cannabis in the bedroom.
“To cover up the smell of other things, no doubt,” Mrs Trumper curtly observed in order to put Tommy Trumper firmly in
his place, which at this point, was in a strategically distant corner of the living-room, well away from her.
Mrs Trumper had never liked her father-in law and having little sympathy for the noble art of horticulture and even less understanding of the finer points of supply and demand, resented him moving into their home.
So after Arry’s somewhat unconventional demand to completely change his name and family, his parents sensed that years of trouble lay ahead, quite simply because years of great trouble already lay behind. It wasn’t so much that Arry was a criminal; well, criminal in the sense that parents, teachers and the police understand that word. No, it was more a case that he did not really see the world in quite the same way that everyone else did, especially adults. He was what Tommy Trumper, with a knowing, yet appreciative nod, described as “irregular”.
This “irregularity” might not have been so bad if he had just been content to sit there in a high chair, doing normal stuff like watching mindless television programmes or sucking his dummy, keeping his “irregularity” to himself. But that was too much to hope for, wasn’t it? He had the most annoying habit of not keeping it to himself. In fact, he gave the distinct impression of deliberately getting it out and flaunting it in the face of anybody who happened to be passing by.
“Aye, aye, he’s got one on him,” Tommy Trumper would say with an air of being a world authority on the shortcomings of small children, “he’s wearing his Irregular Badge again.”
An early wearing of the Irregular Badge had been at his second birthday party. His parents had planned a lovely day for him with great care and precision, as parents often do: the food, bought at Tesco, was lovingly unpackaged and set out neatly on the table: sausage rolls, pizzas, sandwiches, sticky cakes, biscuits and twenty-four cans of lager for the adults, of course. The background music was carefully selected and played, an engaging mix of party anthems from the 1980’s; and as a finishing touch, a list of jolly games was compiled from a book, also purchased from Tesco, titled “Set your kid’s party alight!”
The Boy Who Preferred to Be Somebody Else Page 2