We had decided to cancel all visits from guests until after the party. There were constant visits from our artisans, but still they seemed no nearer to completion. Henry would turn up to do a job and then discover he had left behind the appropriate tool. He would make things worse by trying to use an inappropriate tool and then not return for another two days. Trevor had managed to relaunch the Flasted 49 but it listed alarmingly. We told him it would not do. Lesley turned up in quite the wrong frame of mind to repair the delicate plaster ceiling and left a lifelike but quite unsuitable shape dangling just above the door for all to see.
We decided to leave them all to it. Perhaps our constant indignant vigilance was putting them off.
We therefore planned to visit an ancient Halmatrope cellar to buy some supplies for ourselves and for the party. The cellar was in the sole charge of an old Drool who had lost the use of his legs. It was built into the side of a hill and, once through the narrow entrance, the groined arches of the roof inside soared upwards and the walls were concealed entirely by rack upon rack of bottles. The old Drool presided over a small table with two chairs in the middle of the great room. He told us it had once been the debating chamber of the first Bepommel Council The Councillors would be bricked in until they reached a unanimous decision. The quality of the Halmatrope would determine how quickly they were prepared to bury their differences and no problem was ever found that was too intractable to be solved by this method. It would no doubt have persisted until this day had it not been for a disastrous year of Halmatrope. The various opposing factions were unanimous in deciding that they all felt ill and that the proceedings should in future be carried out by some other method. Thus the chamber fell into disrepair until its reinstatement for the obvious purpose of Halmatrope storage. I perused the labels and climbed the ladder to make selections before placing them on the table before the old Drool. When we had finished he bade us take a seat.
“Ah, I can see you are a creature who knows his Halmatrope,” he said, with difficulty, raising himself on his elbows to speak.
“You have a fine selection here, sir,” I said, for it was indeed so.
“Tell me what you think of this,” he said, and brought a bottle and two glasses out from under the table. He wrang the contents expertly into each glass so that there was not a bubble or trace of sediment. My wife and I each took a sip. It was as if something had grabbed our tongues and refused to let go. The Drool chuckled at our reactions. Drools had no such problems with their single purpose food vacuoles. One by one it played upon our tastebuds then in harmonic groups, each time gaining in intensity, finally arching into a shuddering crescendo as the last drop slid down our throats, our tongues collapsed exhausted back behind our teeth, totally lifeless.
“You want some more?” the old Drool laughed. I found it impossible to articulate and shook my head. Some things are just too good. We paid and took away our purchases, my wife managing a very passable attempt at thanking him in Drool, but it was a full hour before our tongues returned to normal. This made it difficult for us to express ourselves when we returned home to find Rolf with his creation in the back of Henry’s Zulex. It was indeed at first view startling, some might say, horrific. Rolf must have believed it had rendered us speechless for we were unable to actually say anything until Rolf, Henry and the two cousins had carried it through into our living room. It was larger than we had anticipated, but one had to admire the sheer physical ability of the artist to so transform such an unexciting substance as Drib.
“Like it, eh?” Rolf beamed, when it was placed right in the middle of our room. My tongue was returning to life, but I only felt confident enough to say “Mmm”. We realized that a true work of art needs to be lived with and experienced on many levels over a period of time before any real judgements can be made. I did not, however, feel that constantly bumping into it was necessary for its appreciation. I managed to ask them to move it as far into a corner as it would go.
“Too much for you, eh?” Rolf grinned. I thought it best just to splutter my agreement. Rolf slapped me consolingly on the back. “You’ll get used to it.” Then he handed me his bill. That took some getting used to. “No hurry,” he said, “long as it’s before your party, eh?” Then he laughed and the Pataguin laughed too. I paid him and he was gone before our powers of speech returned fully.
With two days to go before our party Henry and his cousins arrived early, determined that when they left the job would be pronounced finished. They tiptoed so delicately around the house taking such care to avoid having to repair repairs to repairs that when they finally presented themselves to us to give us the good news we did not have the heart to mention the few last blemishes they had overlooked. They were about to leave when my wife asked them to tap a hook in the wall to hang a Flora Diraea “Summer Plague” rug on. The hook unfortunately pierced one of George’s pipes which lay just below the surface of the plaster. A thin stream of hot purple fluid sprang out across the room. Henry covered it with his cap and I rushed to ’screen George.
Miraculously enough, George was in and he appreciated that there was an element of urgency in my request for help. None the less, Henry was beginning to tire when George arrived with his toolkit. He passed Rolf’s creation in the living room and observed, “Oh, I see Rolf’s sold you one of his crashed Stromba chassis too, has he?” much to my annoyance, having just paid Rolf. George plugged the hole in the pipe and gave Henry a withering look. We saw them all off and said we would see them at the party.
We were overjoyed. Everything was as finished as it would ever be, the house was ours again, all ours. The next day we knew we would be moving furniture, purchasing provisions and preparing for the following day’s party, so we determined to relax with a large snack and a Halmatrope and just enjoy the peace. We deserved a rest after all the work of the year. We looked back and reminisced. We talked of all the delicious food, all the delightful drinks and all the wonderful creatures who had welcomed us to their planet so warmly. I thanked my wife for the wonderful present she gave me when we first moved into our house. This tiny Wordpack on which I have been compiling this diary since the beginning of the year has scarcely left my palm. I have become so used to the simple tendril-tip controls that I can add extra snippets to it almost without thinking. I am not sure what I will do with it at the end of this, our first complete calendar year. Perhaps I will just keep on year after year recording each delightful event.
When we arrived back from our second trip to Bepommel laden with more provisions for our party we discovered Henry, George and Trevor waiting for us. They were neatly dressed, not in their working clothes and each one held an envelope which he handed to me. They were, as I suspected, final bills. I pointedly looked across at the Flasted 49 when I took Trevor’s, it was sitting neatly in the water, the bowsprit would never be the same again but he seemed to have solved the listing problem. We asked them in. They seemed very serious. I realized that they thought that to have everything finished before the party was a two-sided affair. They had finished their part, now we had to finish ours and pay them. Adopting their tone, I solemnly paid them before offering them a drink. They brightened up.
“We thought we ought to settle everything before the party,” George explained. “There may not be an opportunity otherwise.”
“Quite, quite,” I nodded. “We understand.” We lifted our glasses and toasted their good health. They drank up and prepared to leave. George looked a little awkward and asked, “About tomorrow, what sort of time?”
“If you all turn up about midday, George, and then it can go on as long as you want.”
George still looked awkward. “And you? What time shall we…?” He was not his usual self at all.
“Listen, George,” I said, trying to put him at ease—he had probably heard what formal affairs Conimunculi parties could be, “We just want you all to have a good time, don’t mind us, eat as much as you can. We don’t want anything left at the end.” That seemed to put his mind
at rest. They all shook our palms firmly and departed.
We woke early. The weather was kind to us on our party day. It was cool, but not cold, with no foam to be seen anywhere in the clear sky. A slight breeze rippled the lagoon waters and we ate a hearty breakfast and ran over our plans for a busy morning of preparation and cooking. Tudor curled in and out around us and we fed him little scraps. We knew it was naughty to encourage him but it would be his party day too.
Just before midday, with the tables and all available surfaces groaning under the weight of our party provisions, we got changed ready for our guests.
We could hear the approaching vehicles long before we saw any of them. The first in the line was Trevor and his wife. He held up everyone behind him so that by the time he reached us in his old Stromba, Henry, George and their respective wives were only just behind. They were in their very best clothes as far as we could see, and Henry was in a Stromba, not his old Zulex. We invited them all in and handed round the Halmatrope. Lesley wiggled in with her swaggering partner, Beverley. They seemed too intent on each other to bother anyone else.
Alf arrived with his little wife and also the Spansule driver who had delivered some of our materials. We were handing round second Halmatropes to the earlier guests when Neville and his old mother appeared. She was extremely small and withered. I made a personal note not to confuse her with the grilled Nullion later on in the day. We urged everybody to help themselves to the enormous piles of food we had prepared but they seemed strangely reluctant to fill themselves. They took little helpings just to please us, we suspected. Obviously, they would eat in earnest later, when the party was in full swing. Guests started to appear who we only vaguely recognized and had not actually invited. Creatures from the shops and markets in Bepommel and waiters and waitresses I recognized from the restaurants we had eaten in. We welcomed them all, the more the merrier. It was wonderful.
Then Don slipped in, he must have only just arrived. He whispered in Henry’s ear. Henry stamped on the floor twice to silence everyone.
“Ah,” Henry said to my wife and me, “I think we might have a little problem. You’d best come outside.” We followed Henry out and everybody followed us. There, outside was Henry’s Zulex with something enormous on the back, covered in a sheet. Mr Dobson was leaning against it, grinning.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s for you,” Henry said. “From all of us.” He pulled back the sheet. “… A Conimunculi cooker!”
“Good gracious, what a marvellous find, but where will we put it?” I said, looking at my wife.
She looked alarmed. When I turned back they were all advancing on us with open mouths.
“Oh.” I said. “I see.”
THE END
Michael Martin lives in the New Forest with his wife and two sons. He left Swansea University halfway through the English course in pursuit of reality, which has so far eluded him. In his search for higher things he has spent much time up on the roofs of old buildings, re-roofing them in traditional materials to preserve their character.
The original of this diary was discovered by him, printed on an unknown metal, discarded by a Wiltshire corn circle. Believing it to contain the wisdom of an advanced civilization, he began to translate it but carried on anyway and completed the translation.
A Year Near Proxima Centauri Page 12