The even better news is that the dog spent all day in the back garden, with all the Pollitts out of the house, and didn’t bark once. Perhaps, after its traumatic experience, it was simply taking time to build up its energies before returning to full barking and howling mode, but hopefully not. Maybe due to its enforced sleep something has happened to it psychologically, and it now felt it could get by without having to bark and howl its fool head off all day. I couldn’t even induce it to bark. In an effort to do this I lobbed several small rocks and half a red brick at it and although they didn’t hit it some of them landed quite close, but if it noticed them it didn’t give any indication, and made not so much as a murmur.
Whilst I was doing this Atkins called round and when I’d explained to him what I was trying to achieve he offered to return home and get his shotgun to see if both barrels of shot in the dog’s behind would get it barking again. I thanked him for the offer but told him that both barrels of shot in the dog’s behind would almost certainly not only get it barking again but keep it barking for a very long time, and that was the last thing I wanted. Atkins said that if this happened he also had a .303 Lee Enfield rifle amongst his arsenal of weapons and could quickly and humanely put the dog out of its misery. I thanked him and put Atkins’s suggestion on the back burner.
It made a move towards the front burner the following morning when the dog started barking again. It wasn’t barking very often, it must be admitted, and only for short spells and in a very muted manner, and it still hadn’t started howling again, but I felt sure it was only a matter of time before it would be at it again.
The Trouble said, “You know what’s wrong with that dog, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied. “What’s wrong with it is that I only gave it a dozen sleeping pills instead of two dozen and a drop or two of cyanide and a space cake for good measure.”
“What’s wrong with it,” she went on, ignoring my opinion in favour of her own, as usual, “is that no one ever takes it out for a walk. Barking is its way of drawing attention to itself, in the hope that someone will get the message and take it out for a walk.”
I chewed on this. She was probably right. A daily walk might indeed quieten the brute down a little if not silence it altogether. A bullet would achieve the same object and with more certainly but....
The Trouble interrupted my thoughts. “Why don’t you take it a walk?”
“Me?”
“Well it’s you who’s doing all the complaining. And I don’t imagine that any of the Pollitts are ever going to take it for a walk.”
I mulled over the idea for the rest of the day. The following morning I decided to take The Trouble’s advice. I go for a walk every day as a matter of course so it wouldn’t be as if I was putting myself to any inconvenience.
I’m pretty good with dogs and didn’t anticipate any problems. I didn’t get any at first. When I went through the gate and into the Pollitt’s garden the dog stopped barking immediately and started wagging its tail. I went up to it, patted it on the head and stroked it a couple of times to show it I was friendly. So far so good. I then attached the piece of rope I’d brought with me in lieu of a lead to its collar. It was then that things started to go pear-shaped as the moment I did this it set off for the garden gate at a speed that would have left the Road Runner coming in a poor second.
I could probably have coped with a road runner but this was a big strong dog and as I held on to the rope its breaking strain was tested to the full and not found wanting. Consequently my arm was almost wrenched out of its socket and both my feet left the ground at the same time. I was now on my knees, being dragged along the Pollitt’s lawn towards the gate. I managed to stagger to my feet only just in time to avoid being dragged into the ornamental stone bird bath, and was dragged instead into a fully-laden clothes drying carousel, where my head became entangled in the washing lines. Fortunately I managed to grab hold of the carousel’s central column with my spare hand otherwise my head could very well have been pulled clean off my shoulders.
The dog ploughed on regardless of my plight. Fortunately the carousel couldn’t have been mounted very securely as after only token resistance the dog, assisted by me, pulled it clean out of the ground. I was now being dragged along the lawn again in a melee of carousel and Pollitt’s sundry clothing.
Why I didn’t let go of the lead the moment the dog took off I have no idea. Why didn’t the bricklayer in Gerard Hoffnung’s famous ‘The Bricklayers Lament’ let go of the rope when the barrel of bricks lifted him off his feet? Indeed why didn’t Atkins let go of the lasso when the goose attacked him on the canal? I distinctly remember having to shout to Atkins “Let go of the rope you bloody fool!” before he was inspired to take this rather obvious action. All I can think of is that it must be something instinctive that takes over from rational thought when danger threatens, the natural inclination being to hang on to something rather than let go of it.
After common sense had eventually prevailed and I let go of the rope I hauled myself to my feet and took stock of myself. My right arm felt as though it had had a tug-of-war team pulling on it for the last half hour; my neck was throbbing from being almost strangled; thanks to my unnatural exertions my bad back had started up again; and I was covered from head to foot in dog shit.
The dog stood at the back gate looking anxiously at me and wagging his tail. It could have wagged it until the cows came home as far as I was concerned. My dog-walking days were over; enough was enough.
As if my injuries weren’t bad enough my pain was made even harder to bear the following day when the Pollitt’s simply upped and left, just as quickly as they had arrived. I later found out that they’d only been renting the place for a month, or rather the council had been renting it for them whilst their council house was being redecorated after one of Catherine Zeta Pollitt’s birthday party guests had torched a gatecrasher and set the house on fire.
****
October 1 2010. VIAGRA.
I saw on the television news this evening an item about baby Lewis Goodfellow, who weighed only 1lb 8ozs when he was born sixteen weeks premature last September with seriously underdeveloped lungs, and was given Viagra to treat this condition. Noting that seriously underdeveloped lungs would seem to be a desirable quality in a new born baby, if the nocturnal howlings my own three offspring when they were babies were anything to go by, and that it might be not a bad idea to keep the Viagra pills as far away from baby Lewis as possible, I watched the rest of the news item. It informed me that the prescribed male impotence drug worked by opening some of the small blood vessels in baby Lewis’s lungs to help carry oxygen around the little mite’s body. Now, six months later, he is finally at home with his delighted parents.
I myself can testify to the benefits of Viagra and I couldn’t help wondering if as well as opening the blood vessels in little Lewis’s lungs it had also done for him what it does for me. Less than a year old and able to get an erection, eh; he’s going to be a little terror when he starts playschool.
It reminded me of Arthur Simmons, a classmate of mine when I was at infants school. Until the Viagra-fuelled Lewis Goodfellow came along Arthur, at nine and a bit, was by far the youngest person I had ever heard of who was able to achieve tumescence. All his classmates, me included, had to wait about another five years before we were presented with this wonderful gift. Not Arthur. He could get an erection at will. He could also get one without will, which he very often did, causing much merriment for his classmates and much embarrassment to Arthur. He shared a desk with Maisie Marshall and her hand would shoot up. “Miss, Miss, Arthur Simmons has got that lump in his trousers again.”
Poor Miss Snotrag (her real surname was Gartons but one day Billy Higginbottom discovered that Snotrag was Gartons spelt backwards so she was Miss Snotrag from that moment until the day she retired), her face beetroot red, always tried to ignore the problem. “Get on with your composition about what you did during the Easter holidays, Maisie.”
Maisie however was undeterred “My mam says it must be because he plays with his willy, Miss.”
Now it was Arthur’s turn to blush. “Don’t Miss! Just happens.” And it did. Often. In fact I think he spent more time with a hard on than with a hard off.
When out of the classroom and away from the girls - usually in the boys lavatories or down the old school air raid shelters - he wasn’t anywhere near so bashful about his gift, and would get out his proud penis for the rest of us to gaze at in awe on request, and often without request. His penis wasn’t very long - about four inches I would say - but as that was about three inches more than what the rest of we nine-year-olds had it was well worth looking at.
He could ejaculate as well. However at first he didn’t know he could ejaculate, and the first time it happened he hadn’t got a clue what was happening and apparently - unfortunately I didn’t see it but I have it on very good authority - he thought he was erupting like Vesuvius and tried to stuff the semen back down his urethra. When it wouldn’t go down and he’d stopped coming he wiped his hands on his trousers. Miss Snotrag told the inquisitive Maisie Marshall it was wallpaper paste and sent him home to change.
Needless to say all the boys in the class were very jealous of Arthur and his erection. A further cause of our envy was that he was excused Religious Instruction as the teacher, Mrs Dawlish, refused to have him and his tumescence in her class.
By the time we were eleven Arthur’s erection had grown another inch but I don’t know how it progressed from then on as at that age we went our separate ways, Arthur to the local secondary modern school, me, having passed the eleven plus, to the grammar school. I did see him occasionally, although not his penis, when I went shopping for my mother, as he helped out on Saturday mornings at the Co-op butchers, but we both felt it was inconvenient - and possibly dangerous given all the sharp knives and meat cleavers being wielded in close proximity - for him to get it out in the shop.
I like to think that Arthur, having failed the eleven plus, one day reached this mark with his erection, but by the time we’d reached maturity he’d moved away, and I lost touch with him altogether, so sadly I will probably never know.
****
November 10 2010. ELECTORAL ROLL.
I answered the front door. I didn’t like the look of the man who was stood there one little bit. He was wearing tinted glasses and I’ve always been suspicious about people who adopt this affectation ever since I saw that planet-saving pop singer, what’s-his-name, Bongo or something, wearing them. Plus the man was carrying a briefcase, which almost certainly meant he would be either poking his nose into my business or trying to sell me something, both of which I could well do without.
“Mr Ravenscroft?” he said, in a tone of voice that in addition to incorporating a question mark also contained an unhealthy degree of hubris.
I ignored the question mark and went to work on the hubris by treating his statement as though it were an announcement. “Well what a coincidence! That’s my name too. We must be related. Tell me, are you, like me, one of the Derbyshire Ravenscrofts? Or maybe you’re one of the Scottish branch of the family?”
When confronted by arrogant people it has always been my policy to try to disrupt them right at the outset, to try to get them off the front foot and firmly on the back. I succeeded in this instance because for a few seconds the man just stood there looking at me open-mouthed. Then he managed to close his mouth and another few seconds later started forming words with it. “No. You misunderstand. I’m not Mr Ravenscroft.”
I affected surprise. “I thought you said you were?”
“No. I was enquiring if you were Mr Ravenscroft.”
“Ah. I see. So then, now we’ve got that established (and that the arrogance has disappeared from your tone), what can I do for you?”
“It’s about your Electoral Roll form.”
“Yes? What about it?”
“Apparently we’ve sent you three and on each occasion you have failed to do the necessary.”
“Wrong. I returned all three of them.”
“Yes but you didn’t fill them in and sign them.”
“Right. That’s because by the time I was old enough to vote I was old enough to realise that I don’t wish to have an electoral role as the only thing politicians are interested in, having been elected Members of Parliament or town councillors, is feathering their own nest. My wife shares my views so she also wishes to have no role in any elections.
He looked at me as if to say “You stupid bugger.” Unfortunately for him he isn’t allowed to call me a stupid bugger, so instead he said, a leer now on his face and the hubris making a speedy comeback appearance, “It’s not an Electoral Role R..O..L..E it’s an Electoral Roll R..O..L..L, it’s nothing to do with you having a ‘role’ in elections, nor your desire to vote or otherwise.”
I stuck to my guns. “Electoral….elector…elections….seems to me it has everything to do with voting and nothing to do with anything else.”
“It is to do with the Local Authority knowing who precisely resides at every address within the boundaries of that Local Authority,” he said, the voice of authority, or maybe the voice of local authority.
“You already know who lives here. My wife and me. You printed our names on the Electoral Roll forms under ‘Names of People Living at this Address’.”
“We need you to confirm it.”
“Right, I confirm it. We live here.”
“By signing the Electoral Roll form.”
“Sorry, no can do. I sent them back. All three of them.”
“I know.” He treated me to a supercilious smile before opening his briefcase and producing a form. “I’ve brought along another one.”
I took it off him, gave it a cursory examination then said: “Yes well it all seems to be in order, I’ll sign it then. Shan’t be a moment I’ll get my pen.”
I closed the door on him, put on a top coat and went out the back door for a walk. I don’t know how long the man waited on the doorstep but he wasn’t there when I returned about an hour later. He’ll be back again I suppose, and I’ll probably have to sign the Electoral Roll form next time. Donald Duck, I think. Or maybe Eric Cartman.
****
January 15 2010. NUCLEAR FREE.
The city of Manchester, which is only fourteen miles from my home town, just thirty minutes on the train on a good day, God knows how long on a bad, is a place I only ever visit out of absolute necessity. If I needed something and the only two places I could get it were Manchester and Siberia I would probably have to apply for a Siberian visa and check out the condition of my thermal underwear. That is not to say that Manchester is without its pockets of charm – King Street and the Castlefield area, with its concert hall and fine museums, are excellent - but these oasis are more than outweighed by its abundance of rubbish-strewn streets, grubby buildings and probably more Big Issue sellers to the square yard than anywhere else in England. However, needs must, and I had to visit it yesterday; and because of that visit I shall be visiting it again at least one more time, and when I do it will be because I want to, eagerly, and in a hell of a hurry.
Why has Manchester, once a city of dark satanic mills, now a city of dark satanic gay bars, suddenly become so attractive to me? Simply because quite by accident I have discovered that it is safe from nuclear attack, a haven from any future holocaust. Really? Well it is according to the official City of Manchester Council notice I saw on my way from Piccadilly station to House of Fraser on Deansgate. ‘Welcome to Manchester,’ the notice proclaimed, ‘A nuclear free city’. That’s for me, I thought, the first sign of World War Three breaking out and it’s me, The Trouble, my children and my grandchildren Manchester bound, to stay there until the nuclear winter is over and it’s safe to come out.
I don’t quite know how being a nuclear free city works – however I’m sure the City of Manchester Council will have worked out something with the Russians - probably there’ll be some sort of
sensor in the nuclear missiles UK-bound and when they lock in on a plethora of Big Issue sellers they’ll pass over; or more likely when their sensor homes in on the ‘Welcome to Manchester, a nuclear free city’ sign the missile will say to itself , “Ah, a nuclear free city, I mustn’t transform it into a wasteland where nothing will be able to live for the next fifty years”, then continue on and lay to waste the next place it comes to that isn’t a nuclear free city, possibly Stockport. I hope so because I dislike Stockport even more than I dislike Manchester. Check, more than I did dislike Manchester. Because I’ve taken quite a shine to the old place now.
****
February 1 2010 PINK
It’s not every day you get the answer to something that’s been puzzling you for years but today was one of them. And all I had to do was ask The Trouble.
Whilst shopping in Buxton this morning I had noticed a pink car. I’ve seen cars before that were pink on the outside and cars that were pink on the inside but this car was unusual in that it was pink on both the outside and the inside. The seats were bedecked in pink covers, the steering wheel wore a fluffy pink glove, a giant pair of pale pink dice with deep pink spots hung in the windscreen and a pink nodding dog sat stupidly in the back window awaiting nodding duties.
Stairlift to Heaven Page 17