by Andy Coffey
Chapter 6 – Is there a bank around here?
Merlin ‘Cracky’ Crackfoot was not quite his usual cheery self today, despite the success of the previous night. Today was the 30th anniversary of his father’s death and he still missed him greatly.
Morgan Crackfoot was the last of the great wizards of Llangollen. He was also a kind and patient man who used his powers to help others, and Cracky had always wanted to emulate him. When he was young he would practice magic every day, sitting on his father’s knee, whilst the attentive Morgan watched and guided him with wise and loving words. Sadly for Cracky he was what could be described as ‘magically dyslexic’. He understood the principles of magic, but he simply couldn’t get to grips with it in any kind of practical perspective. That’s not to say he couldn’t perform any magic at all, it’s just that it never quite went as he intended. His first real attempt with fire spells provided a clue to his unfortunate condition.
It all started fine, as he adopted the correct posture, thrusting his arms out and concentrating on the freshly-chopped wood piled high on the log fire. It was only when he opened his mouth that things went slightly awry, with the words ‘Inflamus Logs’ somehow being translated by his will into ‘Inflamus Rocks’. Sadly, the large log fire in the cottage remained unlit, whilst the cat with the flaming testicles made a very swift exit into the nearby stream.
However, Cracky discovered that he did have a natural aptitude for cookery, after imaginatively embellishing a recipe he found one day in his mother’s cookbook. He assembled all of the listed ingredients, seemed to know intuitively what to add to enhance the texture and flavour, and created what both his mother and father agreed was a delicious steak and raspberry soufflé.
From this point onwards there was no stopping him, and, if anything, his prodigious talent for creating gourmet masterpieces from mixing together the most unlikely ingredients was the equal of his father’s gift for wizardry. However, as gratifying as it was to see his parents so proud of his culinary achievements, he still longed to follow in his father’s magically altruistic footsteps… so the cat kept out of his way most of the time.
‘Excuse me,’ Aiden said, from the doorway of Cracky’s Diner, ‘but is there a bank around here at all?’
‘What?’ Cracky said, snapping out of his thoughts. ‘Oh, yes, about ten minutes’ walk, just on the outskirts of the town centre.’
‘Thanks. Er, what’s the branch called?’
‘The Black Bank, of course,’ Cracky replied. ‘They’re all Black Bank branches now, sadly.’
Cracky looked Aiden up and down, noting his hair, clothes and general demeanour. ‘I sense that you’re a stranger to these parts, Mr…?’
‘Peersey, Aiden Peersey.’
‘Well, Mr Peersey, my instincts tell me you are quite a ways from home. And, I would add, not too familiar with this area?’
‘You could say that,’ Aiden replied. ‘But please, call me Aiden.’
‘Aiden it is then,’ said Cracky. ‘I can accompany you, if you like. I need to head down to the bank myself. By the way, the name’s Merlin Crackfoot, but please call me Cracky, everyone else does.’
‘Thanks, Cracky. I’d appreciate that.’
Aiden found Cracky to be very good company. In the ten minutes it took to walk to the bank, he told him all about his Diner, all about Llangollen and its inhabitants, and he strongly recommended ‘The Sheep’s Stirrup’ as a place to stay. He was particularly scathing about Baron Blacktie, who, he said, ruled North Wales, Chester and the Wirral with an iron fist, and had introduced many unpopular laws.
The sign in the window of the Black Bank said ‘Bank with the Black Bank and Your Money is Safe.’ In smaller letters underneath it read ‘After all, it’s not as if you have a choice’. Aiden could see another poster on the wall behind the counter which read ‘Your Money is Our Money… and we like to keep it like that’.
‘Right, I’m going to see Mr Grabitall, the manager,’ Cracky said. ‘Unless he wants a fight again, I shouldn’t be more than five minutes. There’s the ATM in the doorway.’
Aiden tentatively inserted his card and fully expected it to be eaten by the machine, no doubt followed by alarm bells, armed guards and god knew what else. Instead, the screen asked for his pin number. He entered his pin and was given the option of how much cash he wished to withdraw. Having no idea what things were likely to cost, he opted for the maximum, which was £200. A few seconds later his card was returned and a little metal flap opened, providing him with a mixture of ten and twenty pound notes. He breathed a sigh of relief, placed the card back in his wallet and examined the money.
All the notes bore the image of Baron Blacktie. On the front of £10 note he was dressed in military regalia, looking out to sea; on the back he was seen playing with children, laughing (although Aiden noticed that the children didn’t look so cheery). On the front of the £20 note he was sat on a throne with a ferret on his knee; on the back he was in serious pose reading from a book.
For all his vanity, and there was a great deal of that, Baron Blacktie was as astute with money as he was devious and treacherous. After he was elected Supreme Ruler, he decided to merge all of the independent banks under one banner, ‘The Black Bank.’ Now, not all the banks were keen to simply throw in their lot with the Baron, irrespective of his promises of higher interest rates for loans, lower interest rates for savings, and the introduction of harsh penalties for unauthorised overdrafts. The Baron didn’t take too kindly to any dissenting voices and made personal visits to see the concerned parties. He was always accompanied to these meetings by his personal bodyguard, Grunt.
Now, Grunt may have been a troll; he may have been the missing link between man and Neanderthal; he may have been abandoned by his parents because he’d never be in a successful boy band; or he may simply have come from Rhyl. Nobody knew, but nobody asked and nobody argued with him. The dissenting voices became assenting voices when they met Grunt.
‘Now, come on, Mrs Muncher, you know the rules,’ an armed bank guard said, as he escorted a little old lady out of the bank’s front door.
‘But I’m only 10p overdrawn,’ protested Mrs Muncher, ‘and that’s because I didn’t think the direct debit for my new subscription of “Tai Chi Bingo for Beginners” would come out until next week, and that’s when I pay my pension in.’
‘That’s too bad, I’m afraid,’ the guard said, as a second guard handed him a large hammer. ‘Now, if you’ll kindly lie down here so I can get a good swing at those knees, please.’
Mrs Muncher lay down and the second guard grabbed her ankles. ‘Now keep still, this will only take a second.’
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ Aiden said, standing in the way of the guard with the hammer.
‘Move out of the way, sir, please. This is a bank matter, I’m sure you understand.’
‘No, I bloody well don’t understand. The lady said she’s only 10p overdrawn and you’re going to kneecap her. That’s barbaric!’
‘Well, overdraft punishment is overdraft punishment, and she drew straws to see which one she’d get after all,’ the guard said. ‘She could have got nostril stretching or severe ear twisting, but she got kneecapping. That’s just the way it goes, I’m afraid. Rules are rules.’
Aiden weighed up the situation. He wasn’t exactly small, but he figured that the two guards would be able to overpower him easily if he physically intervened. Plus, if this ritual was in some bizarre way accepted in this reality he was in danger of exposing himself as an outsider, and the last thing he wanted was any kind of brush with the authorities, particularly if this is how they dealt with overdrafts.
‘So, do you actually want to break her kneecaps?’ he said to the guard with the hammer.
‘Er, no, not really, sir. But, as I said, rules are rules.’
‘But, if you do break her kneecaps it’s pretty likely she won’t be able to walk again, particularly given her age, would you not agree?’
&
nbsp; ‘Oh, there’s no way she’ll walk again after this, sir. Not a chance,’
‘In fact, it’s possible that she could die from shock, or from a heart attack?’
‘I’d say that’s a very likely possibility, sir.’
Mrs Muncher was still lying on the ground listening intently. So was the second guard. ‘And,’ Aiden continued, ‘if that happened she’d still be overdrawn and wouldn’t be in a position to be able to clear the overdraft.’
‘I never really thought about it like that, but I believe you’d be right, sir.’
A small crowd was beginning to gather, and Aiden felt he was on a bit of a roll. ‘So, you’d actually serve the bank better if you didn’t kneecap her, as that way she’d still be a regular customer.’
‘Are you suggesting that we stretch her nostrils or twist her ears severely instead, sir?’
‘No, no. I’m suggesting that you, Mr… ’
‘Tenderhands, Albert Tenderhands,’ the first guard replied.
‘I’m suggesting that you, Mr Tenderhands, make an executive decision to delay her punishment, thereby allowing her to collect her pension next week and pay it into the bank.’
‘And then we kneecap her?’ said the second guard, who was still holding Mrs Muncher’s legs.
‘No, you won’t have to, because then she’ll have cleared the overdraft and there’ll be no reason for any punishment.’
‘Doesn’t sound right to me, Albert,’ the second guard said.
‘Executive decision, eh,’ said Albert. ‘I’ve never had to make an executive decision before. Why it would almost feel like a promotion.’
‘Yes, it would,’ Aiden said. ‘Now, Mrs Muncher, can you promise that you’ll come in next week, as soon as you get your pension, and pay it into the bank to clear your overdraft?’
‘Too bloody right I will,’ Mrs Muncher said, nodding frantically.
‘Well, then, Mr Tenderhands, are you going to bend the rules and make that executive decision, thereby doing the bank a great service?’
‘Bend the rules. That’s a new one, I’ll say,’ Albert said, and you could almost see the wheels of his mind turning… slowly.
‘Right then, Mrs Muncher,’ he said after some serious chin rubbing, ‘I’ve made an executive decision. I hereby grant you a delay in your overdraft punishment, thereby allowing you to clear said overdraft next week when you pick up your pension. Do you agree?’
‘Oh, yes. Thank you, thank you,’ said Mrs Muncher, as she was helped to her feet by the second guard.
‘If you don’t, of course, your kneecaps are forfeit,’ Albert added.
The small crowd broke into a round of applause and Mrs Muncher stretched up to plant a kiss on Aiden’s cheek. Cracky walked out into the street just as the crowd started to disperse. ‘What’s all the commotion here, then?’ he asked.
‘That young man just saved Mrs Muncher from a kneecapping,’ shouted a small, portly gentleman with a red face and matching cardigan.
‘Did he now?’ Cracky said, raising an eyebrow, as Aiden simply shrugged. ‘C’mon, then, I’ll walk you back to the Diner and then lunch is on me. After that we’ll sort you out a room at The Sheep’s Stirrup.’
‘By the way,’ he added, as they set off down the street, ‘do you happen to like rock music, by any chance?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do.’
‘Well, you’re in for a treat later. It’s live music night at the Stirrup and Sacred Wind are playing. They’re actually very good.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Aiden, blissfully unaware of what the night would bring.