At the end of the session Grandma disappeared and came down a few minutes later wearing her fur coat.
“Off out, are you?” enquired Mr Bagthorpe. “Going to get some fresh air to blow the sickening scent of commercialism from your nostrils?”
“I am going to tea with Daisy,” she replied. “She has just invited me.”
Aunt Celia looked dubious at this. She had already formed the opinion, as had the Bagthorpes themselves, that Daisy and Grandma taken singly were to be reckoned with, but as The Unholy Alliance were not to be let out of sight. Matters had not been improved by the introduction of Arry Awk as Third Party. It seemed that his invisible presence would give the pair of them unlimited licence to do anything they wanted and then lay the blame on the defenceless Arry.
“Arry Awk,” Mr Bagthorpe declared, “is an Archetypal Can-carrier. I should know. I’m one myself.”
“You may come to tea, Mother,” said Aunt Celia, “but I shall expect you to exert a proper influence. Poor little Daisy has been through a bad patch lately.”
At this Mr Bagthorpe let out one of his bitter laughs.
Grandma replied:
“Naturally, Celia. I am, after all, your mother, and think I know something about children. And Daisy and I are on the same wavelength. We understand one another perfectly. And I may as well tell you the main reason why I am coming to your house is that Daisy and I wish to write on walls, and we are not allowed to do it here.”
Mr Bagthorpe went into one of the longest speechless silences, as opposed to ordinary silences, he had ever been in.
Chapter Twelve
It was lucky for Mr Bagthorpe that he had left for Tallbuoys Health Farm just before the men came with the news about Zero. He himself believed, as he said later, that had he been present he would certainly have had a seizure or become demented.
“My hold on sanity is already fragile,” he said, “and would have snapped.”
The rest of the Bagthorpes, who were present, were at first incredulous and then, inevitably, consumed with envy.
Rosie herself was delighted to begin with, especially as the men from BURIED BONES dogfood had brought with them her prize. Mrs Bagthorpe was full of praise.
“Though I hope, Rosie,” she said, “that you will not allow your interest in photography to take precedence over your Portraits. Your Portraits are truly creative and quite unique.”
“And anyone can take a photo,” added Tess.
It emerged, however, that the BURIED BONES men were interested not primarily in Rosie, but in her subject.
“Show us the dog,” they begged, once the congratulations were over. “Is he real? Does he exist?”
“Fetch him, Jack,” said Mrs Bagthorpe resignedly.
Jack was pleased to escape. He had cringed when the BURIED BONES men first fetched out huge blow-ups of Rosie’s winning photographs. Tess and William had guffawed mercilessly, and the former shrieked:
“Wait till Father sees them! Look at Uncle P holding up that biscuit – are you going to publish them? You’re not!”
Jack went slowly upstairs, wondering how this was going to affect Zero’s confidence. He could already feel it affecting his own.
It was a rotten thing to do to you, Zero, old chap, he thought miserably. You’ll be the laughing stock of England. And it’s my fault, mainly.
Zero was guarding Jack’s comics in his room. He had gone on guarding them long after the necessity to do so had expired. He seemed to have got it into his head that they were valuable, and Jack could not convince him otherwise. In any case, he thought, it was probably a good thing for Zero to think he had an important responsibility, even if he had not.
Jack sat on the edge of the bed and gave Zero a lot of patting and praising before he broke the news about the photographs.
“I didn’t know Rosie was there, honestly,” he told him. “It was a mean thing for her to do. But I’m in it as much as you are. We’ll just have to stick together. Don’t let it get your ears down.”
At last, reluctantly, he descended, Zero trailing behind.
Their reception was stunning. Instead of the derisory laughter and cutting personal remarks he had expected, Jack found that the BURIED BONES men were almost beside themselves with enthusiasm.
“It’s unbelievable!” yelled one.
“Get him outside – let me take some shots!” shouted the other.
A dazed Jack finally came to grasp that he had in Zero something that the world had been waiting for a long time.
“He’s a gold mine, I tell you!” cried one.
“You’re sure he’s a mongrel?” enquired the other anxiously. “He is unique?”
“He’s that all right,” said William. “Mutton-brained, pudding-footed hound.” (He evidently felt entitled to use Mr Bagthorpe’s lines in his absence.)
Nobody could quite take in what was happening, least of all Zero himself. He kept edging up to Jack, practically sitting on his feet and giving him little nervous licks.
Mrs Fosdyke, disgusted, told the men, “you wouldn’t believe the wiping up I do after that animal, feet that size!” but they were not sympathetic. They gave her to understand that before long the world would be queueing up for the privilege of wiping Zero’s footprints up. What finally convinced the Bagthorpes of the seriousness of the BURIED BONES’ intentions was when one of them suddenly clapped a hand to his head and yelled:
“My God! Insurance! Is he insured?”
“Is he what?” said William. “I doubt if he’s even got a licence.”
“Quick, Bill,” urged the man with the camera. “Get on to Head Office. Can we use the phone?”
The Bagthorpes listened unashamedly while Bill got on to Head Office and gave orders for Zero’s immediate Insurance. What really created a silence was the sum he put on Zero’s head. Zero, apparently, was worth one hundred thousand pounds.
Mrs Fosdyke, who was listening along with everyone else, told her cronies later in The Fiddler’s Arms, and it was evident from their reactions that they were not representative of the Great British Public confidently expected to become instant fanatical Zero Worshippers.
“Great ugly thing he is!” exclaimed Mrs Bates, “and footmarks all over everywhere.”
“I should think they’ll find their mistake soon enough,” predicted Mrs Pye sagely. “Dogs in commercials is supposed to do what they’re supposed to do, and that one never will.”
“I daresay,” said Mrs Fosdyke, unsoothed, “but what about the taxpayers’ money? A hundred thousand pounds! That’s ten times my late hubby, and at least he was human!”
While Bill was discussing the finer points of the Insurance (ten thousand for loss of limb, fifty thousand for an eye, and so on) Grandma descended into the hall. Hearing large sums of money being thus bandied about, she leapt to the conclusion that somebody was making wills. As Bill was winding up the conversation she moved to the telephone and whisked it from him.
“Just one moment,” she said, “I wish to alter my will. Are you there? Are you there?”
There followed much confusion. In the end Grandma slammed down the phone, exclaiming, “I shall not consult that solicitor again!” and went muttering into the kitchen in search of coffee.
“What are all these men doing here!” she asked, indicating the two BURIED BONES. “I must have my hair reset before there are any more photographs. Where is Daisy? What have we won this time?”
When she was eventually apprised of the situation she tried at first to capitalise on it.
“The situation is becoming ludicrous,” she said. “Too many Competitions have been won. Daisy and I are becoming tired of the constant invasions of our privacy. We could, however, if you wished, offer your pet food to the dog. That way, the dog would not be too much in evidence. He is, after all, a mongrel.”
“He’s worth a hundred thousand pounds,” Jack told her immediately, fortified by the knowledge that he at last now had something concrete to put forward in Zero’s fav
our. “He’s just been insured for that.”
Grandma turned to Mrs Bagthorpe.
“How much am I insured for?” she demanded. “Not that I could be replaced.”
Mrs Bagthorpe was saved from replying by the advent of the Happy Family people, whose visit was expected but had been forgotten in the general turmoil. They could hardly have arrived at a less auspicious moment, the only wholeheartedly happy people present being Jack and the BURIED BONES men, and the latter did not count. Borderland Television was interested only in Happy Bagthorpes.
Fortunately the BURIED BONES and the BTV pair got on very well to begin with, and there was much mutual congratulation between them on their fortunate discovery of the Bagthorpes. The whole family, in fact, overhearing themselves being discussed in this way, began to feel rather like newly upturned buried bones themselves. They began to wonder whether they had ever existed in their own right.
“They are exactly the kind of close-knit nuclear family we were hoping for,” enthused Sue.
“That dog,” said BURIED BONES Man One solemnly, “could only have been found in a family like this. We shall corner the market within weeks. Have you insured them?”
“Insured whom?” The Borderland Television pair looked blank.
When the BURIED BONES explained, Sue and Jeremy immediately looked apprehensive. The seeds of doubt and fear had been sown.
“What if…” BURIED BONES Two lowered his voice, “… something were to happen halfway through filming?” He lowered his voice further. “There’s been a spot of Fire and Flood about lately, if you look around. If people are accident-prone, they’re always having Fires and Floods. I think these people are accident-prone.”
Grandma overheard most of this by dint of moving right in on the group.
“In my opinion,” she told Borderland Television, “you should insure the entire family. I think a quarter of a million pounds would be a suitable sum.”
“Oh, Mother!” exclaimed Mrs Bagthorpe. “Don’t be absurd!”
“It is a question of self-respect,” said Grandma obstinately, “and a sense of dignity and worth. If I felt myself to be worthless, I doubt if I could bring myself to look happy and contented for any film.”
There followed a series of telephone calls to and from Borderland Television, and the Bagthorpe family were duly insured.
The week that followed was outstandingly awful despite the absence of Mr Bagthorpe. At times there were as many as forty people in the house, all ruthlessly pursuing their own business and all, quite frequently, at cross purposes. There were carpenters, plasterers and decorators, all of whom wanted to get finished and have their bills paid before Christmas. There was a production team of twenty from Borderland Television who were themselves inexorably committed to producing a finished film for Christmas Day. And there was a team from BURIED BONES who were hell bent on a commercial out in time for the big Christmas-viewing audiences. None of these people cared who got trodden down in the process, or whether the Bagthorpes themselves were left limp and drained, shadows of their former selves.
The man who turned up to direct THE HAPPIEST FAMILY IN ENGLAND was called PJ by the crew, and the Bagthorpes hated him on sight. The feeling appeared to be mutual. He had hardly been in the house half an hour before he lighted on the plain truth that the Bagthorpes were not the Happiest Family in England.
“Though you had better try and look it,” he told them. “There is such a thing as breach of contract.”
By the end of the first day’s filming the younger Bagthorpes were all for breaching the contract and taking the consequences, but their mother pleaded with them to go on, for all their sakes.
“If we make the effort, and act happy,” she said, “we may well come to be happy. It is a known psychological fact. And besides, we want people to think we are happy, don’t we? And besides, we are happy, really.”
Grandma was adamant that Daisy should figure in the film and the Parkers came over each day. This had a bad effect on Mrs Fosdyke who was now irremediably nervous in the vicinity of Daisy.
She was forced to act happy herself, on occasions. PJ decided that the Tin Shaking should be shown, as an example of the kind of zany, high-spirited larking the Bagthorpes went in for. On the day scheduled for the filming of this sequence Mrs Fosdyke arrived with her hair newly and drastically permed by Mrs Pye and prepared for the worst.
She went obediently through the routine of asking William, whose turn it was according to the Rota, to open a tin of apricots for dessert. The family, already seated at the table with spoons at the ready, waited for the inevitable minced beef or mushy peas to appear.
William, who considered that he had not so far figured sufficiently prominently in the film, made great play with the tin opener. He finally lifted the lid of the tin with something like reverence to reveal (his first-ever bull’s eye) – apricots. The Bagthorpes, as one, broke into hysterical laughter and Mrs Fosdyke herself burst into tears. PJ fumed and swore and said it was a conspiracy and the whole sequence had to be filmed again, this time with Mrs Fosdyke sniffing and dabbing at her nose throughout.
It was this kind of thing that led to a kind of creeping madness in the Bagthorpe household. Each of its members, as the days went by, began to behave in an increasingly pronounced manner – to become, as it were, twice their usual selves. William, for instance, when not actually needed for filming, would go up to his room and beat out tattoos of hitherto unequalled frenzy and duration. Rosie took to doing unflattering but recognisable Portraits of PJ and leaving them scattered around everywhere, and Tess quoted from Voltaire in every third sentence and kept using words like “incontrovertible” and “charismatic”.
PJ tried to persuade Mrs Bagthorpe to get her husband back from the Health Farm, but this she steadfastly refused to do. She would not even divulge the name of the place where he was staying. This had been agreed before Mr Bagthorpe had left.
“I don’t mind looking happy just once,” he said, “if I can remember how. I’m used to sacrifices. I’ll do my bit at the end.”
During the rest of the film Mr Bagthorpe was to appear only, as it were, by suggestion. The rest of the family, for instance, were made to tiptoe smilingly past his study door, with the implication that they recognised and understood that a creative writer was in there, creating. Even Mrs Fosdyke was made to do this, although her usual practice was to make as much rattling and banging as possible within earshot of the study as retaliation for the looks Mr Bagthorpe sometimes gave her.
PJ also did a close-up of the notice Mr Bagthorpe had pinned on the study door and read LITTLE CHILDREN WHO COME UNTO ME SUFFER as evidence of his delightful and whimsical humour.
Mrs Bagthorpe had rung her husband on his first evening and told him how well the Happy Family project was going. She did not, however, tell him about Zero.
There was no way, she thought, that any Health Farm would be able to help Mr Bagthorpe if he heard about Zero and the one hundred thousand pounds. She did not believe anybody would be able to help him.
On this occasion, he had begged her not to phone during the rest of his stay.
“Don’t write, either,” he had said. “I need silence. I need to feel my way back into being human again.”
Mrs Bagthorpe had thought this sounded hopeful, and was determined to co-operate. She resisted all attempts to invade his privacy, and looked forward to the end of the week when her husband would return to his family a changed man.
“Miracles,” she repeated to herself firmly and often, “do happen!”
Chapter Thirteen
Zero’s hour was now at hand. Jack exulted in the certainty. His dog was now, at last, to have his day.
His ears will never droop again, he thought. I shall let him watch the commercial every time it comes up. He can take a just pride in his own achievements just like everybody else.
Making the commercial (which turned out to be only the first of many) was an achievement anyone could have taken a
just pride in. Rosie, taking photographs with her new equipment of the BURIED BONES people trying to get Zero to act the way they wanted, realised that she could easily win a Competition with these pictures too.
Jack was given an outline script to study, and asked to train Zero up to playing his part as much as he could. He had only two days to do this, because BURIED BONES were in such a rush to launch their campaign.
The idea was that Jack and Zero were to be filmed walking along together in an idyllic setting, while an unseen voice said “Zero goes for a walk every day. He just loves it.” Then Zero, without Jack seeming to notice, was to stop suddenly, and sniff hard. He was then to start digging furiously, and turn up a packet of BURIED BONES dog biscuits. Jack, meanwhile, was to saunter off into the far distance oblivious of the fact that he was no longer accompanied, while the voice said, “Zero likes walks, all right – but he likes BURIED BONES better. Ask any dog.”
None of this was easy. The walking part was straightforward enough, but when Zero was supposed to stop dead in his tracks and sniff, complications set in. For one thing, Zero had been made nervous lately by the house being always full of noisy strangers, and stayed glued to Jack even more than usual. He did not want to stand there by himself sniffing while Jack walked off and left him alone with a lot of eccentric people with cameras. He did not even seem to want to sniff if Jack stayed with him. He just edged up and sat on Jack’s feet and looked dolefully around.
“I don’t think he’s a very good actor,” Jack told the film people apologetically. “I don’t think he’s going to be able to act sniffing.”
It was then suggested that a technique similar to the one Jack had employed for training Zero to Fetch and Beg should be used. This entailed everyone present getting down on all fours and sniffing and snuffing around, while Jack urged “Sniff, Zero! Good old boy, Sniff!”
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