by Brian Hughes
And with that Phillipa Morgan span on her heels, the gothic chains rattling against her buckles, and stomped off through the drunken press of ignorant partygoers.
Miss Duvall felt the thud beside her and the cold night air was disturbed.
It was the distinctive thud of a teenage girl’s backside connecting with stone.
In the manner of some love-struck child whose clandestine meeting had just been discovered by an old fashioned parent, she let go of Felix’s hand and sat awkwardly still for some short time.
“Not having a very good evening?” When she finally spoke to the black shape beside her, the words weren’t so much designed as a question rather than to provoke some sort of response.
It seemed to work. The silhouette grunted and the turgid silence filled the air once more.
“Being gay isn’t against the law, you know?” Miss Duvall ventured again. As was her intention the question hit a nerve.
“You mean, you knew all along?”
“Let’s just say I had my suspicions, Pip.” The pensioner attempted to pat Pip’s hand. Because of the darkness she misjudged its whereabouts and patted the top of her head instead. “Don’t let it bother you. He was boring anyway.”
Another long pause for emotions to be juggled and eye shadow to be smudged.
“Someone more suited will turn up eventually. Just don’t give up, that’s all.” Another grunt from the darkness that was difficult to fully comprehend, although its basic implications could be understood by the most retarded of dullards. “It always happens that way.”
At that moment, when endings are in sight and ironies are pulling pranks thick and fast, the rusty fire-exit squealed opened again. The increase in volume of colourful music and even more colourful lights was intrusive to say the least.
Pip squinted from beneath her locks at the stumpy constable who was just about filling the frame. His helmet was tucked smartly under his arm and his thin hair was slicked back with an overdose of hair-gel.
“Miss Morgan? Is that you?” Robins craned his neck into the night, cocking it inquisitively at an angle. “I thought I might find you out here.”
Pip let her hair flop back over her eyes. Her thickly applied mascara had run into the semblance of two burnt eggs and needed covering up.
“Miss Duvall. Mr Wetherby.” Robins acknowledged the other two forms that were now being lit from behind. “Er...ahem...”
He coughed once or twice, stumbling over the following words.
“I was wondering, Phillipa, if you’d care to join me for this dance.”
Pip listened intently. First, to his voice as it attempted to sound important and dignified. Second to the warbling music that reminded her of coleslaw adverts from her childhood.
“It’s the Birdy Song!” she replied petulantly.
Miss Duvall leaned closer.
“Some of us dance to different tunes, my gal. They might not be everything we originally expected. But it’s better than never arriving at the ball in the first place.”
Moments later, stumbling over the ill-positioned step, the door closed behind them. As it did so, Miss Duvall caught the first few bars of the conversation before it was snuffed out by the crowd.
“When I’m not on duty I’m a Goth myself, y’ know? Sarge reckons me mohair sweater makes me look like Dennis the Menace. He says, ‘It don’t do much for public confidence that’.”
An awkward, slightly trembling reply from Pip: “Do you like Siouxi an’ the Banshees?”
“Like ’em? I almost changed me name t’ Prudence once.”
“I know somebody else who’d like t’ do that.” There was the cynical, sneering edge returning to Pip’s voice with familiarity. “Although for different reasons I suspect.”
It was an overcast sort of evening. Not entirely unpleasant, but not exactly a mid-summer night’s fantasy either. A dim light was shining from the window of the Greyminster Homicide Division.
Above the rooftops the shower-curtain of clouds had started to leak. Now tiny prickles of rain were plinking off gutters and stabbing cobbles, creating pockets of cold against the darkness.
Detective Inspectors Malcolm Clewes and Reginald Nesbit were hunched studiously over their respective binders at either side of the writing desk. Mounds of officious paperwork were piled up like biblical towers all around them.
Every so often Malcolm would scratch his ginger mop, scribble frantically at a sheet of foolscap, then sit back and lick the nib of his pen.
“Aitch Six, Sir?”
Nesbit lifted his own piece of paperwork, tapped his fountain pen against his lips and drew a large cross.
“Direct ’it! En Fifteen, Clewes!”
“Actually, it’s my go again, Sir.” Clewes held his ground as Nesbit threw him a snarl designed to unnerve. “Accordin’ to the rulebook, if you manage to hit a...”
“Rulebook! What bloody rulebook?”
“Evening Gents.” Hodges cautiously closed the door behind him and shook the night from his expensive trench coat. Having successfully brought the temperature of the room down by at least four degrees, he hung the coat over Nesbit’s trilby so that it flattened with a weak crunch.
The two detectives attempted to clear their desks of evidence.
“’Ave y’ finished that paperwork yet?” Hodges went on, turning to confront them. “It’s been a fortnight already.”
Without comment Nesbit rummaged for a well-thumbed note amongst the upturned pencil tubs. Having found it tucked discreetly beneath his playing cards, he handed the message to his superior.
Hodges accepted it and read the first few lines aloud with a sense of mistrust.
“Memo from Councillor Ordenshaw following her meeting with the Home Secretary on the fifth of this month...”
His voice faded to a whisper but his blubbery lips continued to syncopate. After several moments, almost as though somebody had suddenly turned up volume knob, Hodges concluded out loud, “Official Secrets Act?”
He held the missive at arm’s length as though his eyesight was failing.
“Good job we ’adn’t actually started our reports, eh Cuthbert?” Nesbit grinned, dug out his oxford and slammed it smartly beneath the hem of his moustache. “Care t’ join us?”
“I might at that, Reg.” Hodges tugged the wooden chair from beneath the table and, with some considerably difficulty, wedged his bulk onto its seat. “Prunella’s got a meetin’ with some of the neighbours tonight.”
“At least you’re back at ’ome, Sir...” Malcolm slid the jotter across to his boss, accompanied by a ruler so that he could add the grid to the pages himself. “What is it this time? Neighbourhood Husband Watch?”
“Ann Summers...” replied Hodges with a degree of resignation. “And that can only mean one thing later.”
He shuddered and pulled a disgusted expression.
Several biscuit crumbs fell from his jacket.
“Not t’ worry, Cuthbert.” Nesbit struggled to his boots, crossed to the hat stand, unhooked the superintendent's coat and stuffed it callously behind the radiator. “There’s a lot of work that requires y’r attention, tonight. Clewes and I can vouch for your being ’ere if the need arises.”
He turned to gaze out of the window into the quietly steaming yard.
“Besides...it’s starting t’ rain. And, apparently, you ’aven’t brought a coat.”
The rain was prickling all over Greyminster now.
It bounced off the roof tiles and gurgled excitedly down the gutters.
In the cloakroom of the Albert Finney Memorial Hall, Winifred Duvall and Felix Wetherby were arthritically battling with their coats.
As always Father Wordsmith was hovering by the door to see them off with a cheerful nod.
“Come along, dear.” Miss Duvall helped straighten Felix’s shoulders. Then she brushed a minuscule bolus of lint from his crooked hem. “We’d best be getting home before the downpour starts proper!”
“You know...I can�
�t help feeling I’ve forgotten something.” Felix readjusted the dufflecoat and fumbled with the toggles. “Mind you, I’ve had that feeling for the last couple of weeks. It’s almost as though there’s a bit of me missing, somehow.”
“We all get that feeling,” snuffled Miss Duvall, yanking her leather gloves around her fingers and pulling her flying goggles down across her eyes. “Believe me, it’ll pass. Now...”
She hunted around, lifting several police helmets from their pegs and checking underneath them.
“Have you lost something, Miss Duvall?” asked Father Wordsmith, a little bit too helpfully.
“No...” She handed Felix his crash helmet and thrust her tongue into her upper lip thoughtfully. “It’s just that I could have sworn I brought my brolly.”
On the other side of Greyminster, as the bantam flies...or rather walks somewhat higgardly-piggardly as bantams are incapable of flight as a rule... there was an area of town known to the locals as Lower Wattling.
It was a quiet sort of place, comprising of several cul-de-sacs, one tree lined avenue that had been experiencing problems with terrorist seagulls, and a corner shop. This Victorian building now bulged dramatically, brought to its current state of disrepair by the weight of many cruel winters being dumped on its shoulders.
Not that Eccles’ Grocers is of any further concern to us.
No...the location that’s important is further up the road. The gate at number thirty-four to be exact. And at precisely that moment it was creaking open with an unoiled shriek.
Two yellow feet scratched along the slate path, surrounded by their own circle of dryness. It didn’t take long before they reached the cracked front door step and one brown wing reached up to rap on the door itself.
There was a bustling down the hallway beyond. Presently the door opened the minutest of cracks. Allison Moore’s freckled thumb of a face peered anxiously out of the gap.
At first she scanned the immediate horizon. But there was nothing to be seen except the hedges separating her rockery from Ashbourne Road rustling slightly under the downpour.
Then she noticed the red and white canopy opened at just below knee height. The umbrella tilted backwards and a bright yellow beak peered up.
“Allison Moore?” Ethyl asked in a business like manner.
Allison nodded, confused.
“I believe you accept unusual pets.” Ethyl folded the brolly, tucked it securely under one wing and bustled past Allison’s chubby legs with an amount of indignant authority. “I don’t expect much. And I won’t take charity.”
The door closed behind her. Allison watched as the bantam clucked and strutted its way down the narrow hallway. Ethyl marched haughtily across the lounge, past the cage containing the goobledons that had been sent to Allison as a present from Palbo Moon. (Don’t ask...it’s a long story.)
Then she goose-stepped over the toes of the robot snoring in the comfortable armchair, and finally hiked into the kitchen with an undisguised snort of disdain.
Hitching up her dressing gown Allison bustled along in Ethyl’s wake.
“Just somewhere comfortable to roost will suit!” Ethyl continued, throwing Miss Duvall’s brolly into the litter tray. Opening the cupboard beneath the sink she dragged out the hefty sack of straw normally used in the hamster cage. “And a bit of peace and quiet.”
She booted the sack into the corner, climbed on top of it resolutely, settled down with a wriggle of her knicker-bocker thighs and stared up at the speechless house owner.
“Eggs for breakfast?” she asked quite simply.
Then she reached for the light switch, added, “I’ll have them ready by eight thirty,” gave it a yank and plunged the room into darkness.
BOOK THE SIXTH: A COLLECTION OF GREYMINSTER STORIES
Introduction
There was an article in the Greyminster Chronicle that afternoon. It was a lengthy, opinionated and verbose affair concerning an art exhibition taking place in Birmingham that featured an endless video loop of grown men masturbating.
Naturally the exhibition had come in for a fair bit of criticism from George Mungford, the Chronicle’s editor, not least because children were being allowed inside to witness these lewd acts.
As far as Lucy could see the only effect it would have had would have been to put people off visiting modern art galleries ever again. I mean, seriously, if you wanted to see that sort of thing you’d just have to wait in one of the toilets at the memorial park after seven o’clock at night. And the ‘artists’ there would even pay you for watching.
The article itself was tucked away at the back of the newspaper which made Lucy wonder exactly what modern art was hoping to achieve from such ludicrous stunts. Time was when a pile of bricks would enrage the populace, forcing grannies from the Styx to sit around greasy cafe tables, violently debating the pros and cons of artistic merit. Since then, however, there’d been sliced cows, pickled foetus earrings, homosexuals urinating into each others’ coffees with help from the Arts Council, exploding beds and dodgy light switches, copied book covers and jokes about the Jewish holocaust.
And nowadays nobody gave a toss.
Mention the Turner Prize and its shocking approach to modernism and everyone that Lucy knew would just say, “I’ve been meaning to ask, did you watch the Antiques Roadshow last night?”
And that was that.
‘Radical’ had become ‘Old Hat’ with the once racy galleries heading into the same obscure twilight world as modern opera.
She laid down the newspaper and watched a few of the brown, crinkled leaves from the memorial park outside struggling to break free from the damp cafe floorboards with the help of an univited draught.
“In order to inject some enthusiasm back into increasingly lethargic public opinion,” Lucy contemplated, brushing her hair from her coffee and opening her notepad optimistically, “This year’s Turner prize should be awarded to something truly disturbing. Say perhaps a work of ‘real art’...I don’t think they’ve ever done that before.”
She blew the steam from in front of her nose, bit the end off her pencil and snorted resignedly.
At that moment a shadow fell across her, breaking her train of frustrated thoughts.
“You’re tired of life,” said the stranger, pulling the chair from beneath the opposite side of the table. “You’re fed up with your marriage and under pressure from your children. And more than that, you’d like to be a character in some romantic novel.”
Lucy squinted at the tall, shabby figure struggling to push his bony knees between the table legs.
He was probably the oddest man she’d ever set eyes on. All grime and tousled patches and clothes that didn’t fit properly. They were either too large or too small or looked as though they’d been bought from a 1970’s catalogue.
The stranger settled himself down. This took some time. His rucksack, covered as it was with pots and pans and rolled up things tied together with string, required some manoeuvring over the chair back.
At length he looked up from beneath the brim of his large brown hat. The whites of his eyes seemed to loom from the band of shadow.
“So you’ve decided to become a poet...” he continued.
He was obviously taking a wild stab in the dark. And he was wrong. But there was something absorbing about the manner in which he continued to dig his own verbal grave that kept Lucy entranced.
“A poet dressed in colourful jewellery, velvet tunics and summer dresses,” the stranger went on.
Lucy wrinkled her nose, cast a glance at her attire and realised that perhaps he was right after all.
About the clothes at least.
“Bugger off...” she said, picking up the pencil again and trying to look enigmatic.
“And you think that you can find your soul by writing poetry and bathing in tubs filled with rose petals?”
The stranger’s teeth flashed as he broke into a grin, a boomerang of white against his berry-brown cheeks.
“Is there
a point to this?” Lucy asked, putting her pad down again and crossing her legs defensively. “Or is it just some cheesy chat-up line. ’Cos if it is, I’m not interested.”
“The point is...” continued the stranger, unrolling a handkerchief stuffed with curiosities. “I’m a seller of dreams. And I couldn’t help noticing that you were stuck for inspiration. You’ve stirred that cup so many times in the last five minutes that I’m surprised the spoon hasn’t broken in half.”
“And these are your dreams, are they?”
Lucy picked up an object at random from the assorted jumble inside the hankie. It was a buckled camera lens covered in pocket fluff. Not exactly what she’d call a dream, but then again the world held few romantic notions for a thirty-something year old housewife with too much time on her hands.
“How much are you selling this rubbish for?”
“Just an hour or so of your time...” The traveller took the lens from her and studied it himself. “Each of these objects has a story to tell. Would you like to know about this one?”
“Not really...” said Lucy with a half-hearted snarl. “But I suppose you’re going to tell me anyway.”
The Illusory World of Arthur Boroughs
Episode One: In which we are introduced to Arthur
It was 3.35 on a dismal afternoon. Arthur Boroughs had spent the majority of that Good Friday morning dragging his trunk through the slippery streets of Greyminster. To make matters worse his magician’s cape kept working itself beneath his feet.
The blubbery midriff of Bertha Bloggs was currently occupying most of his vision, poking itself through her sequinned costume.
“Come on Bertha, you fat walrus! ’Ave I got to give y’ another kick up your backside or what?”
Bertha’s fat fingers grappled helplessly with the handle before losing grip. The trunk came down with a wallop on Arthur’s foot.
“I’ll tell y’ what, Bertha! The world’s buggerin’ conspirin’ against me, y’ know? Even the weather bloomin’ ’ates me. I swear that someone’s controlling it somewhere!”