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know anything about it, do you?’

  The letter! I’d completely forgotten the letter. ‘Yes,’ I said enthusiastically, ‘it was for me. Thank you for reminding me about it.’

  ‘But it didn’t ‘ave your name on it,’ he said sideways.

  ‘Oh, Albert,’ I heard, just, from the top of the stairs.

  ‘Ah, yes, actually, it did. Let me explain, you see…’

  H rounded on me. ‘So why did you give us a false name when you took t’room?’

  ‘No, no,’ I took the letter from my pocket, ‘I gave you my real name. This,’ I added pointing to the letter, ‘is my false name. Well, not a false name, is it? A stage name, the name I work under. More like two personalities really.’

  I heard a whimper from upstairs as Mrs H retreated to their bedroom and closed the door ever so gently as the milk in the saucepan boiled over and extinguished the stove. I said goodnight and climbed the stairs to my room.

  The letter was from my agent. He said that he’d been trying to contact me urgently about some work, but the idiots at my lodgings had never heard of me. What was I trying to do? Ruin him? I was to contact him ASAP. Since it was now Friday night and I had neither his home phone number, nor his mobile, it would have to wait until Monday morning.

  SCENE 6

  I assumed that Saturday would be a big day so, despite my impecunity, I ate a hearty breakfast.

  Harridges was uncommonly warm, even in the sub-basement where Harry was drinking the first of his morning cuppas.

  ‘Hi, Harry,’ I greeted him, jovially, ‘how’s tricks?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ he responded.

  I told him that I needed some replacement stock for the Grotto and slowly, reluctantly, he rose from his chair.

  ‘How was Mrs White?’ I asked as I loaded the boxes from the pallet into the lift.

  ‘Who?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Mrs White, Chalky’s wife.’ He still looked puzzled. ‘You were going to take her Chalky’s wages last night.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ he replied, ‘who d’you fancy? Man U or Millwall?’

  ‘Oh, Man U, of course,’ I said confidently. This was not a good reply.

  I made a particularly good job of the make-up and was very pleased with the boots. But the beard really did look tatty now and I would have to dry-clean the suit as soon as possible. I ascended my throne feeling confident and ready for anything, but I was still worried about the set for the play.

  It was a surprisingly slow start to the day. Mr Jobsworth, Brian, ambled over after apprehending a three year old hijacker in a stolen Ferrari pedal car and returning the offender to his grateful parents. He eased the collar of his shirt.

  ‘Hot in here this morning,’ he observed. ‘You seem to be a bit troubled, if you don’t mind me saying so. Hope it’s not the boots.’ I said the boots were excellent and secretly wished I’d done something about the nail in the heel.

  ‘Got a problem with a stage set,’ I said.

  ‘P’raps I could help,’ he remarked almost casually. He’d stopped calling me ‘sir’. I liked that.

  ‘Ah, no I couldn’t ask…’

  ‘I’ve done it before. Kath, God rest her soul, used to make costumes for an amateur group in Nottingham and naturally I found myself helping out backstage from time to time.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘The lads are on duty over Christmas, so I’ll be on my own. Give me something to occupy myself with.’

  ‘You know where the Arts Centre is?’ I asked.

  ‘Live just round the corner,’ he replied with a smile.

  What a gem. I promised him a spare copy of the script that I just happened to have in my locker downstairs and invited him to the next rehearsal the following Monday. He apologised for not being able to make it to that one as Mondays was Sea Cadets’ night and he taught navigation and seamanship, but he would be there Tuesday to start measuring up.

  I felt at peace with the world and the rest of the morning passed like a dream. Only one high-spirited youngster tried to pull the beard off. He was left with a handful of straggly hairs for the trouble and the beard had another small bald patch. I decided to put in for a new one.

  Lunch was quite hectic due to the large number of Saturday staff. Elsie was now conscious, but still attached to several tubes and the surgeon was trying to settle out of court. But wasn’t it a shame about Mr Bartholomew from the sports department? Mind you, nobody was really terribly surprised seeing as how he’d been buying all those ‘things’ from ladies lingerie for years. And him unmarried! Nevertheless, it was a bit much that customer getting away with breaking his jaw like that.

  The store seemed even warmer after lunch.

  I gather they were an OAP outing from Blackpool. They could just as easily have ridden in screaming on snarling steeds from the Steppes of Central Asia. The men were actually quite civilised and mostly stood around in twos and threes, hands in pockets, looking slightly bemused by it all. Many of them looked alarmingly like Mr H and their one topic of conversation, conducted in their thick Lancashire dialect, seemed to be the ‘piss-week’ southern beer.

  It was the women that struck the most terror. I picked up the first warning signs when I heard hysterical giggling in the Grotto, but by then it was too late. Their main interest was the elves and by the time the pack of fifteen or so large ladies appeared from around the corner, they were in no mood for compromise.

  ‘Right, who’s going to be first?’ one of them guffawed. Instantly, the mob surged forward with the biggest of them eventually barging her way to the front. I had played rugby at school and remembered now, with awful clarity, why I had very quickly learned to get rid of the ball if it came into my possession. I actually thought I heard bones snap as the behemoth landed on my knees. I felt the nail in my boot drive deep into the flesh of my heel. I couldn’t help the look of intense pain as a dozen camera flashes went off in my face.

  ‘Eee, Betty you must’ve sat on summat tender!’ one of the others shrieked. They all broke down into tearful whoops of coarse laughter when Betty said she hadn’t felt a thing and perhaps I was related to the dwarves.

  I felt the other ankle that had been gently throbbing all morning, go into overdrive. It was swelling rapidly, but I managed to maintain a level of composure and even considered, briefly, joining in the merriment and tickling Betty under the chin. It was the gin fumes and traces of beard rivalling my own that put me off.

  Each, bam, in turn, wham, sat on my knees, slam, for a photo, crunch. The nail was driven repeatedly, deeper and deeper into my foot.

  ‘Go on, Doris, ask him,’ Betty ordered as the last quivering carcass landed in my lap. There was a moment of giggling and goading as Doris first said she couldn’t, then asked if she should. I heard the bones in my legs creak and remembered that this was the sound miners in the past heard when the old wooden pit-props were about to give way.

  ‘’Ow big are them dwarves, then?’ Doris asked eventually. She’d been drinking rum and blackcurrant, lots of it.

  ‘Well,’ I began, considering, ‘I’ve never actually measured them.’ This drew more uncontrollable laughter. ‘But, I should think about two feet.’ Now they had to support each other in an effort to stay upright. ‘And actually, ladies, they’re elves.’ They all, more or less said the same thing.

  ‘I don’t care what they’re bloody called, chuck, elves or dwarves, at two feet I’m taking one of them home and leaving Frank/Bernard/Eddie, etc here. And what about you? Are you two foot, too?’

  ‘I can’t feel either of them anymore,’ I moaned.

  ‘Bugger’s got two!’ Betty exclaimed. But before the laughter could rise to new heights, a piercing scream, which sounded like all the souls in purgatory crying out at once, rent the air.

  ‘’E’s dead!’ a woman was shrieking. All eyes turned to the body of a man lying nearby. ‘It’s Bill! E’s dead I tell you,’ said the tearful wo
man. She was shaking what I presumed to be the corpse of her husband so violently that the lolling head repeatedly hit the floor with sickening thuds. Brian sprang into action. Coolly, he reassured the woman as he checked the man’s airway, breathing and pulse. He prised his eyelids apart and checked the reaction of his pupils with a small torch he carried. Then he put the man into the recovery position and radioed for an ambulance.

  ‘It’s the ‘eat in ‘ere,’ one of the corpulent platoon opined.

  ‘I should sue the store, love,’ another advised.

  ‘I ‘ope their insurance is paid up,’ one muttered to another.

  ‘It’s never like this in Blackpool.’ And so on.

  The ambulance crew arrived and took the body away on a gurney, the grieving woman following them.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about you,’ Doris said to the others, but I’m off to see t’manager.’ The entire coachload followed in her wake, vowing never to come to London ever again. It had all been a terrible mistake and hadn’t they all said so all those months ago. They’d known summat like this was going to happen and just wait ‘til they got their hands on Jack Birtwistle, the one who had arranged it all.

  Brian came towards me.

  ‘Well?’ I asked. He shook his head.

  ‘He’s dead alright. Dead drunk.’

  Probably the piss weak southern beer, I thought.

  I removed the boots and examined the multiple puncture wounds in my heel before going for tea break. The Saturday staff had eaten all the biscuits. The Bull appeared in the canteen and spoke with Mrs J about the incident. Apart from a quick glance in my direction and a curl of the lip, he ignored me, much to my relief.

  The last customer of the day had a streaming cold and sneezed all over me. Oh, god!

  Diseases crucify the soul of man, attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, shrivel them up like old apples, make them so many anatomies.

  I don’t know why I know this, but the Dutch, who the Admiral revelled in calling ‘swamp Germans’, have a saying which goes, Sickness comes on horseback and departs on foot. I thought of the horse-borne barbarian hordes from Blackpool as I limped home in extreme pain.

  Letters had arrived from mummy and the old sea dog. H himself handed them to me with the words, ‘I suppose these are for you, whoever you are.’ I was too tired to respond, so simply smiled weakly and limped upstairs. Cloudesley was waiting; I fed him, flopped onto the bed and opened the letter from father.

  SIGNAL OUT

  TIME: 1413 HRS ZULU

  TO: NANCY BOY

  MESSAGE:

  YOU WILL NOT REPEAT NOT COME ANYWHERE NEAR THIS ESTATE OR THE DOGS WITHOUT PROVIDING EVIDENCE OF DISEASE-FREE STATUS STOP HAVE INSTALLED CPO STEELE AT LODGE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOUR WATCH STOP HE IS ARMED STOP SHOULD HAVE SENT YOU DEEP SIX AT BIRTH STOP THE ADMIRAL

  From mummy.

  The Willows

  Thistledown Lane

  Mylor

  Cornwall

  Dear Pooh, (she had always called me that)

  As you can see I am staying for a few days with your Aunt Kitty. I always come here when the Admiral is in one of his moods, as you well know.

  Thank you for your letters to the Admiral and myself. It is so good to hear that you are well and have found yourself a nice girl. Funnily enough, the Admiral says he remembers court-martialling a Stoker Singleton many years ago for throwing the ship’s dental equipment over the side in mid-Atlantic. Apparently the Admiral had a raging toothache at the time and he had to wait until the ship reached Portsmouth for treatment. Anyway, it was the last time that a flogging sentence was handed down in the Royal Navy, but as flogging had been abolished for a long time, it was an illegal sentence and the man only spent a few days in the brig. But what a coincidence about the names!

  We continue to prosper in our declining years – me with my gardening and poetry, him with his shooting and fishing and yarning with old shipmates at the Club.

  Rodney