journey to the outer islands - VI

The first day was no more than could be expected: waves above the vessel, sharks the size of whales and whales the size of hillocks. The hillocks we spied at the bottom of the ocean with the radar were the size of hills, and the hills as big as mountains. You possibly get the idea and I would only elaborate were I being paid by the word, which I ai-not.

The tiny craft tossed and turned on the water and I do declare Old Rogers looked quite green, and not the usual gammy green but something far more rancid. I felt a punchline was in order and giggled ‘if you think this is bad, wait till we get off the canal!’ How he laughed as he vomited, though with Old Rogers it is always hard to know where a vomit ends and laughter begins.

The second day his eyes were alive with wonder as they darted about the new landscape surrounding our canal. ‘Ma’am,’ he said. ‘I must of died and gone to hivvin. For look! I’ve nivver seen that tree before. Nor that ‘un, nor that ‘un, nor… nor that ‘un, ma’am. I cunnot ‘magine names fur all these trees, ma’am, though I think that ‘un might be called Nerrida, ‘n that ‘un, Cassie.’ He passed many a moment thereafter assuming possible names, just as he had named all the trees in his previous experience, most of them Bunton. ‘Look at that tree thar, ma’am!’ he’d say. ‘Some of the branches much the same shape as Bunton’s.’

The third day, we came to the open sea. Of course, I was used to the journey, and Old Regansett used to do the paddling with some enormous, ill-shaped oars and I would naggivate – a special kind of Lax tradition, where one motivates the worker by nagging incessantly. And I have never been known to let up in my duty in this regard. Old Rogers was not quite the paddler I had imagined he would be, being of peasant stock, and it took quite some explaining. He seemed befuddled largely because there were now no trees, and only large waves to name. I was quite relieved when, by some kind of oblique process too complicated to relate heretofore, we arrived at the Outer Islands.

To be continuaciously extended

journey to the outer islands - V

‘Hey, Old Rogers’, I carped twittingly, ‘have you packed the tea?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he puffed, in a way that suggested a positive response. ‘And also the biscuits. Does they… does they have mouths, the people where we are going? Y’know, for putting things like biscuits inter?’ Even at his advanced age, he had a very punchy attitude and a desire for knowledge, despite being, quite naturally, terrified and fearful of anything new, strange or tangible.

‘Do you know, Old Rogers,’ I laughed, ‘I really never cared to look, for fear of seeing some toothless, misshapen, rabbit-hole-like distortion of a… oh, I do beg your pardon Old Rogers,’ I corrected myself, spying the dimensions and proportions of his own yaw. I must have been feeling sorry for him, because it is most unlike me to apologise to a servant, in fact last time I did it Labor got in and I had a lot of apologising to do at the Tory Club. ‘I imagine they probably do, though of course they may gather nutrients from the sun, or the soil, like you.’ On his nights off, Old Rogers loved nothing better than to stand for hours in the mud in the belief that he was receiving sustenance; I encouraged this, as it saved on the weekly gristle bill, and of course kept him svelte and lithe.

‘Now, I wonder if I’ve forgotten anything,’ I wondered, possibly-forgottenoratively. I had, of course, the usual list on an illuminated scroll, and had ticked everything off as Old Rogers had laded the burro with it. At the bottom of the list was, as usual, the words say goodbye to husband, which in this case I absent-mindedly ticked while not actually doing anything about it. It was Mr. Lax’s day for helicopters, and he would usually be in the good room building an enormous helicopter model out of smaller, attentively-constructed, meccano helicopters, however circumstances had since changed slightly as he had died during the week. ‘Now, affix the sofa, Old Rogers’ I yapped, authoritatively, and he bolted the sofa to Carlo’s load along with four more of those very useful helium balloons. I lay on it gracefully yet appropriately and prepared for the trip with a dish of improving novels on my left and a dish of cruskets on my right. Old Rogers climbed atop of Carlo’s neck and directed him three metres to the canal which runs behind the house and leads to the sea. There the poor beast would stand, for four days as we travelled westwards, laden with baggage. A horrendous cruelty, but what can you do?

To be, as Rev. De Witt Talmadge would say it, continufied…

journey to the outer islands - IV

Every year, ever since I was a gel (once again, I refer you to my manual on sexual instruction if you need explanation of how all people begin in gel form) the Laxes have travelled to survey their kelpery properties at the foregone conclusion of the known world, the Outer Isles. The enormous riches I generate from my books, media appearances and Grace Lax xtreme moral inaction figures are not, you see, sufficient for me to retain my all-important status as a rich person, so it behoves me to run other exploitative enterprises elsewhere wherever possible. It is also part of my good work for the poor. Just as my readers are dependent on me for knowledge, I find it most appropriate to run industries in remote places where I can extort maximum labour from people with no other options; it works so well, frankly, I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t do it, including the buffoondiots I employ.

Formerly, my companion on these travels had been Old Regansett, my woman who does, but she had developed a bone tumour which had made her annoying and she was no longer willing, able or unugly enough to draw me along in a cart, so I decided to put her out to pasture, tethered to a cherry tree. Instead, it seemed behovery to recruit Old Rogers for this important work. The old fool, doddery, bewhiskered and dirty as he was, had never been out of the shire, indeed, he had been known to hold forth on the belief – based, admittedly, on his own experience – that nothing at all existed beyond its bounds. I admit, little fat reader, that I wished to expand his horizons rather as one might expand a child on a rack; more importantly, I needed a man-who-does to do, and I imagined he would. Do.

Excuse me, I'm bored with you. I will go on tomorrow.

journey to the outer islands - II

It wasn’t planned, well, it was planned in meticulous detail, but what I mean is, it wasn’t planned to take the course it did at the end. So in fact you’d have to say it wasn’t planned. It just happened, and in the most unusual way. Settle in, as I am (as the poor people say) goanna tell you all about it, in ways you are sure to find most instructive and worthwhile, with just a frisson of usefulness and a soupcon of, er, instructivity.

Ah, Lax Manors, my family pile! Its extensive, thick columnadery, its bronze tarnishing, its statuesque sculptures of St George slaying, sledging and slamming various dragons all around; its topiary, hedges and bushery; its five-lane, eleven-mile driveway and the unique follies all through the grounds – the fifty-foot marble tardis, and the enormous wedding cake filled with spiders. This is the place where I was born, grew, grew again, continued to grow and, I imagined, would die, if such a thing were possible. But fate, or should I say I, was ultimately to decree otherwise.

You can easily imagine the sumptuous façade of Lax Manors and the elaborate turning circle at its frontispiece which keeps the local police completely occupied directing traffic, and its hedgerows moulded to a tableau of Colonel De Groot belabouring the petit point at Aubergine. Now, can you imagine Old Rogers, loading up Carlo, the manor burro, with boxes and packages all tied with string, rope, and lacker bands? Puffing and panting, he hoists yet another parcel in place with the manor pulley, and carefully – always carefully – he straps another hydrogen balloon to Carlo’s head and tail every time his back concaves and his legs start to shake and buckle in a comedic fashion, and you can almost imagine him looking ththerwards and expressing the opinion ‘ay, caramba!’. For today, you see, is the day we journey to the Outer Islands.

To be continuated…

journey to the outer islands - II

It wasn’t planned, well, it was planned in meticulous detail, but what I mean is, it wasn’t planned to take the course it did at the end. So in fact you’d have to say it wasn’t planned. It just happened, and in the most unusual way. Settle in, as I am (as the poor people say) goanna tell you all about it, in ways you are sure to find most instructive and worthwhile, with just a frisson of usefulness and a soupcon of, er, instructivity.

Ah, Lax Manors, my family pile! Its extensive, thick columnadery, its bronze tarnishing, its statuesque sculptures of St George slaying, sledging and slamming various dragons all around; its topiary, hedges and bushery; its five-lane, eleven-mile driveway and the unique follies all through the grounds – the fifty-foot marble tardis, and the enormous wedding cake filled with spiders. This is the place where I was born, grew, grew again, continued to grow and, I imagined, would die, if such a thing were possible. But fate, or should I say I, was ultimately to decree otherwise.

You can easily imagine the sumptuous façade of Lax Manors and the elaborate turning circle at its frontispiece which keeps the local police completely occupied directing traffic, and its hedgerows moulded to a tableau of Colonel De Groot belabouring the petit point at Aubergine. Now, can you imagine Old Rogers, loading up Carlo, the manor burro, with boxes and packages all tied with string, rope, and lacker bands? Puffing and panting, he hoists yet another parcel in place with the manor pulley, and carefully – always carefully – he straps another hydrogen balloon to Carlo’s head and tail every time his back concaves and his legs start to shake and buckle in a comedic fashion, and you can almost imagine him looking ththerwards and expressing the opinion ‘ay, caramba!’. For today, you see, is the day we journey to the Outer Islands.

To be continuated…

journey to the outer islands - I

Dear reader, can I make the funniest confession. Don’t judge me too harshly, please, for though you have probably bought most of my previous books for large sums of money when you could, perchance, be feeding the poor or yourself or your offspring, it’s not as though you could have spent it on anything better or more improving – on occasion, sometimes, I have periodically got in a ghostwriter in to fill up the word count on a book or two. There, I said it. Or three or fourteen.

But my newest book – to be published by the goodly Godly golden good golly religious right down at Affirm Press in February 2010 – I am pleased to say, represents a tried and tested piece of work. It is a compendium of advice and value entitled Advice to Young People on Leaving Home. It really does contain quite a bit of advice on leaving home, for young people. And I know it works rockingly phat well. For you see, just as I laid down my diamond-studded typewriter and considered the book at an end – I merely had to roll up the manuscript and tuck it into the canister that slips into the spring-triggered vacuum tube – I left home myself. I did. I will tell you all about it tomorrow.

merry christmas

There is no accounting for foreign tastes. I do believe this eskimo is perfectly happy in his teepee. No doubt he has harnessed his reindeer to go and help Santa (anagram of Ansat, a particularly devilish airline) make 'toys'.

He has probably never heard of Christmas. 'Bully-o,' I hear you say. 'A fine thing. More nosh and presentiments for me-dee-d'dee!' I wish you wouldn't talk that way, but never mind.

You should spare a thought for the less godless in our troubled times. I know many a young man and wo-man who have been inspired by the spirit of a christly christmas to really seriously think about accepting a missionary position in somewhere distant and ungodly, such as Alaska, the Belgian Congo or New York.

Have you ever thought perhaps it's time to ruin your so-called life and go over to God?

Tea with the Rev De Witt Talmadge - III

‘One night, lying on my lounge…’ he began, then stopped. ‘Excuse me Mrs. Lax, I am happy to avoid the poses – despite my litheness they are tough on my limbs – but would you mind if I did it in italics?’

‘Not at all, please do.’

One night, lying on my lounge, when very tired, my children all around me in full romp, and hilarity and laughter – on the loung, half awake and half asleep, I dreamed this dream:

I was in a far country. It was not Persia, although more than Oriental luxuriance crowned the cities. It was not the tropics, although more than tropical fruitfulness filled the gardens. It was not Italy, although more than Italian softness filled the air. And I wandered around looking for thorns and nettles…

[‘As you do,’ I thought, cynically.]

… but I found that none of them grew there, and I saw the sun rise, and I watched to see it set, but it sank not. And I saw the people in holiday attire, and I said: ‘When will they put off this and put on workmen’s garb, and again delve in the mine or swelter at the forge?’ But they never put off the holiday attire.

And I wandered in the suburbs of the city to find the place where the dead sleep...

[‘Well really,’ I thought to myself, ‘I know I have my parents buried in the backyard but the Reverend might be a little morbid if the first thing he does when he comes to a new town is look for the cemetery.’ ‘Twas as though he heard my thoughts, which had admittedly been spoken quite loudly, and he responded, Be quiet Mrs. Lax, I’m talking, and you’re out of grapes.]

… and I looked all along the line of the beautiful hills, the place where the dead might most blissfully sleep, and I saw towers and castles, but not a mausoleum or a monument or a white slab could I see.

[‘Cannibals?’ I queried. But he ignored me.]

and I went into the chapel of the great town, and I said: ‘Where do the poor worship, and where are the hard benches on which they sit?’ and the answer was made me:

‘We have no poor in this country. And then I wandered out to find the hovels of the destitute, and I found mansions of amber and ivory and gold; but not a tear could I see, not a sigh could I hear, and I was bewildered, and I sat down under the branches of a great tree, and I said: ‘Where am I? And whence comes all this scene?’

And then from among the leaves, and up the flowery paths, and across the bright streams there came a beautiful group, thronging all about me, and as I saw them come I thought I knew their step; and as they shouted I thought I knew their voices; but then they were so gloriously arrayed in apparel such as I had never before witnessed that I bowed as stranger to stranger. But when again they clapped their hands and shouted ‘Welcome, welcome’ the mystery all vanished, and I found that time had gone and eternity had come, and we were all together again in our new home in heaven. And I looked around and said, ‘Are we all here?’

[Note to reader: I had stopped paying attention by this time, and was doling out 'farvins' for the servants’ monthly pay. I’m glad you’re here to keep up appearances however.]

…and the voices of many generations responded: ‘All here.’ And while tears of gladness were raining down our cheeks, and the branches of the Lebanon cedars were clapping their hands…

[‘Nice touch,’ I thought. I’d caught that bit.]

and the towers of the great city were chiming their welcome, we all together began to leap and shout and sing, ‘Home home home home!’

‘No poor in Heaven?’ I flustered. ‘No poor? What on earth makes life worth living without those wonderful, salty, dumpy poor? I fear, my good sir, that if I did not see someone else sitting on a hard bench in church, I may find my own luxuriously soft bench particularly less comfortable – why, it would make me a worse Christian, if that be possible. I mean, if there could ever be anything to challenge my faith.’

‘There you are, Mrs. Lax,’ sayeth the wise Reverend De Witt Talmadge. ‘That’s the way it goeth. All will be equal in Heaven, and jumping up and down singing one-word songs wearing amazing clothes. I wonder if you have ever seen a show called Video Hits on television?’

‘I may have caught it, while looking for something to complain about. And I found plenty, might I add.’

‘Well, Heaven is a little like that television program, only the trees clap their hands.’

After I bade the Reverend farewell, I fell to thinking. Not about his absurd notions of equality; why, you might as well put a hat on a turnip and call it Winston Churchill; but about the importance of correctly dying.

You have lived a grand, obsequious life, of little consequence except that it caused no ruction, no tremor, no trial. You upset no apple cart, and went about your life piously, correctly and with as much pearlash, emprote and alabaster as was right. You applied yourself to the right stages, and in the correct order: birth, school, work, and now, death.

Keep a sound head about you when dying, is my advice: don’t thrash about or cause a scene. It’s hard enough for your children and your children’s children to see your demise, without being reminded of late 90s Metallica videos. Don’t groan, merely smile; if you must express some unusual OTT behaviour, a few words about clapping cedars will suffice. Present an example. A few more tips:

Die with your hands on your hips and your legs together to fit snugly in your coffin.

Die with your eyes open; officials and religious folk love to do that eye-closing-with-one-hand trick.

Before dying, make sure to dispose of all ‘spending my children’s inheritance’ bumper stickers and other paraphernalia.

If dying at sea, make sure to do so in a calico sack which can then be stitched up with a few quick movements before you are thrown overboard.

If you have further queries about death, consult with a specialist e.g. a dietician. He will answer all your questions and concerns.

Tea with the Rev De Witt Talmadge - II

Old Rogers, who had been standing unnoticed in the corner for the past three hours – he had come in to attend to my bonsai with a miniature chain saw and, when the Reverend and I had entered the room, thought it best to stay motionless in front of a picture of some sunflowers my mother had painted from another picture of sunflowers, hoping I suppose it would look like Degas’ Rustic with sunflowers, which it did – coughed. We turned. ‘Excuse me Ma’am, Reverend,’ he obfuscated. ‘I was just fixing this ‘ere bonsai. Fixin’ it good and proper.’

‘Ignore him, Reverend,’ I said. ‘And have another grape.’

‘Thank you, Mrs. Lax, thank you.’

My friends, I hope you do not call that death. That is an autumnal sunset. That is a crystalline river pouring into a crystal sea.

‘Death too, though,’ added Old Rogers. ‘Richard Dawkins…’

‘Shush, Rogers,’ I snapped. ‘Isn’t it time for you to bring in the llama?’

‘Aye, Ma’am,’ he deferred, and slunk from the room.

‘I do apologise, Reverend,’ I spake. ‘Another grape?’

‘Thank you, my good woman,’ came his voice from a small cupboard. ‘I shall.’

That is the solo of human life overpowered by the hallelujah chorus. That is a queen’s coronation. That is heaven. That is the way my father stood at eighty-two, seeing my mother depart at seventy-nine.

There was a couple of minutes’ silence, of respectfully waiting to see if he had finished. ‘Oh, bravo,’ I said, ‘bravo, Reverend De Witt Talmadge. What a remarkable tale. Yes, truly I see your point. One should die in an appropriate manner, with all the proper things in order, properly. I do wish you would have another grape and… oh, have the whole bunch, there are only two left anyway.’

‘Thank you Mrs. Lax. Yes, indeed, death should be like a crystalline river running into a crystal sea, IMO. I very much feel that is how it should be.’

‘Oh Rogers,’ I sighed, suspecting that somewhere in heaven my life was being turned into reality television but with a live audience laughter track, ‘I didn’t mean bring the llama in here!’

After we had cleaned up the mess, or rather, the servants had, and we had done nothing but retire to a small alcove from which we could not see in front of ourselves and stood, unsmiling and unresponsive, facing each other in that cramped space, I had another discussion with Rev. De Witt Talmadge about death. It seemed to much on his mind, and considering the book from which he was quoting so readily had been published in 1890, I am not surprised.

‘Surely, Reverend,’ I said, leaning forward in my chair like some kind of present-day Oprah Winfrey, ‘there’s so much we don’t know about death. Why, despite the beautiful word-picture you painted earlier, I still don’t feel I really want to die at all.’

‘Oh, Mrs. Lax,’ he lamented. ‘You must die, it will be so much fun. Can I tell you about my dream?’

‘Is it merely pages and pages of your book on marriage, recited whilst you strike unusual poses?’ I asked, ambiguously. I imagined the dreams of Reverends were no more or less savoury than anyone else’s. Last night, I dreamt of Old Rogers in his swimming trunks. Serves me right for wearing them, I suppose.

‘Well, yes and no,’ he wavered. ‘Yes, it is, and no, it isn’t not. But I will refrain from the posing if’ – here he sighed – ‘you insist.’

I sighed. I couldn’t very well refuse a Reverend. One of my few weaknesses.

To be continued...

Tea with the Rev De Witt Talmadge - I

I took tea and grapes with Reverend De Witt Talmadge this morning, and the Reverend – a strong, fat little man with a corkscrew moustache and a tendency towards religiosity in his dressing – was most interested to hear of my life instruction book. ‘Tell me,’ he said in his wonderful Bostonian drawl – he is a real wild west preacher! – ‘Mrs Lax,’ he lay one leg over the other, as he held his teacup American style in the crook of his arm, sucking pensively through a crystal straw, ‘will your book,’ here he nibbled at a Emprote biscuit from a batch I had recently made (…Cook make for me), ‘instruct young people in how to die?’

‘Another grape, Reverend?’ I asked, then the full impact of his words hit on me. ‘How to die, Reverend De Witt Talmadge?’ I gasped. ‘Truly you are an extraordinary thinker. Why, no-one can be told how to die! Another grape? Do have one.’ I then returned to the main theme. ‘Indeed, that is possibly – dare I say it – blasphemous talk, and as Young Rogers might say, I call bullshit on it!’

‘Thank you, I will have another grape, Mrs. Lax. And au contraire, mon cher woman, au contraire,’ he Frenched. ‘A virtuous life deserves a virtuous death, the kind of death which will inspire all who witness it. Take for instance, the death of a wife.’

‘Please have another grape,’ I said. ‘I would prefer not to take that as a ‘for-instance’. I would prefer not indeed, being one myself.’

‘If I may quote from my own Marriage and Home,’ he suggested, leaning back on the sofa with the air of a fish thrown into a corner, ‘if I may, Mrs. Lax…’ I sat back, purse-lipped but increasingly wide-eyed as he lapsed into italics:

There is a time when the plainest wife is a queen of beauty to her husband. She has done the work of life. She has reared her children for God and heaven, and though some of them may be a little wild, they will yet come back, for God has promised. She is dying, and her husband stands by.

I should mention that the Rev. De Witt Talmadge has the most wonderful way of acting out his sermons creatively, spontaneously feeling the word-‘shapes’ rather than their meaning and responding with what he calls ‘phonetic soulhood’. ‘God speaks English’, says the Reverend, ‘and I am his vessel.’ For the above words, I surmised that he initially toyed with the idea of acting out the dying woman, prone on the couch eating grapes (for that is what he, the Reverend, continued to do as he spoke) and the anguished husband watching on, eating grapes. But instead he threw the most remarkable series of shapes, and for a short time (the ‘for God has promised’ section) he was elevated with his feet on the picture rail and both hands on the edge of a cupboard.

They think over all the years of their companionship, the weddings and the burials, the ups and downs, the successes and the failures. They talk over the goodness of God and His faithfulness to children’s children. She has no fear about going. The Lord has sustained her so many years, she would not dare to distrust Him now.

‘Another grape?’

‘Thank you, I will.’ This from the mantelpiece, where he had already dislodged a mahogany clock.

‘Another?’

‘Please, and if you don’t object I will continue.’

The lips of both of them tremble as they say good-bye, and encourage each other about an early meeting in a better world. The breath is feebler and feebler, and stops. Are you sure of it? Just hold that mirror at the mouth, and see if there is any vapour gathering on the surface.

‘What is she dying of?’ I asked, totally involved in this story of a pious and glorious demise. ‘And would you like another grape?’

‘Thank you. She is not dying “of” anything. You might as well ask what did she “live of”.’

‘Another grape?’

‘Thank you.’

‘Another one?’

‘You’re very kind.’

Gone! As one of the neighbours takes the old man by the arm gently, and says: ‘Come, you had better go into the next room and rest,’ he says: ‘Wait a moment; I must take one more look at that face and at those hands!’ Beautiful! Beautiful!

To be continued...

Getting married

The marriage ceremony is the single most important moment in any adult’s life. If the slightest misstep is taken, God dictates a memo to St Peter about it and when you are at the gates of heaven, he will probably quiz you on the errors before he even thinks about letting you in. That said, you should not feel any pressure.

The day before the wedding, the bride-to-be sends white gloves, wrapped in white paper and tied with white ribbon to each of the bridesmaids. The bridegroom does the same to each of the bridegroomsmen.

One portion of the wedding cake is cut into small oblong pieces, and passed by the bridesmaids through the wedding ring, which is delivered into their charge for this purpose. The pieces of cake are afterwards put up in ornamental paper, generally pink or white, enamelled, and tied with bows of silvered paper. This pleasantly obscene old custom (silver paper! I ask you!) is, however, much on the wane.

The bridesmaids on the evening also prepare the wedding favours, which should be put up in a box ready to be conveyed to church on the morning of the marriage. A picturesque custom is observed in many country weddings, where the bride’s friends strew her path to the church door with flowers. In the city, a substitute strew might be asphalt, pieces of brick and manure, or urban vomitus. Huzzah!

The parties assemble on the morning of the wedding in the drawing-room of the residence of the bride’s father, and then the cortage – that’s French for, er, cottage – proceeds to the church in this order:

In the first carriage, the bride’s mother, and the parents of the bridegroom

In the second, third, fourth etc carriages, the bridesmaids, giggling pissily

In the next carriages, the bride’s friends

In the last carriage, the bride and her father, blowing hot air out of his nostrils like a bull.

Then they all go to the church and you get married. The end.

starting a conversation

Starting a conversation is a dirty, desperate business. The upper classes, to which I am a belongant, have their own interests and conversationaries; for all I know, the other classes do too, probably talking about forks in tree trunks or newts’ eyes. But I am fairly sure the best way to find people to talk with is to join a club. Even children can be clubbists: my old friend Lord Baden-Powell started a movement, which started the whole world scouting; his lady pal Lady Browen-Owell set up something similar for young gels.

In our village, the Egyptian-style Domestic Snake Club is very popular, as is the make your own crisps club, and the Pickling Society, the Let’s Arise Against the Coloureds Now Club and the Get Fat Quick club. There is, of course, the usual range of Colonel de Groot Courage clubs and the increasingly popular Colonel de Groot Transvestites-for-a-laugh-it-doesn’t-mean-anything Clubs. Mr. Lax is of course very prominent and popular in the Lego… only joking, Meccano club, representing as he does the maximum possible percentage of the membership. You might also wish to be a part of amateur theatricals, or if your constitution is up to it, the Noughts and Crosses Club. I was going to join what I thought was the chest club, owing to my own rather spectacular chest which I assumed would win all the competitions both in the club itself and with other units in the county. However, I peeked through the window of the clubhouse out on Pleaseck’s Plain one night and was simply bewildered to find the room packed with people I knew from my day to day village life, pushing small and odd-shaped pieces – idolatrous representations of horses, castles and other unidentifiables – around a checquered board. OMG, I thought in italics, it’s a chess club! All was silent, then I stepped on a twig, sneezed, a dog barked and I unthinkingly shouted loudly ‘I’m out here!’ and golly! I was rumbled! Lopey Barnstorm, the village lawyer, turned and stared straight into my eyes. ‘Mrs. Lax!’ he gasped. I ducked down instantly I wondered what I should do. Spying on the chess club like a commoner! To be discovered doing so would have been enormously embarrassing and might cause unseemly comment!

I looked to my left and to my right. Pleaseck’s Plain is a vast, empty and huge place of about fifty square miles square, a few square miles out of the village on the west road. It looks something like the moon, but not very romantic. I had, you see, driven out there in my coach and four, and really, there was nothing around but my horses, the golden coach, and a few rocks. I could hear the chess club clan moving around in the hut, as if they had every intention in the world of coming outside to discover who it was who looked so much like me peering in the window. I could hear them talking:

‘I’m sure I saw Mrs. Lax at the window!’ came Barnstorm’s wheedly, anxious voice.

‘Any other human being I’d believe it.’ That was St John Whiskers, the town’s mayor, always a loyal supporter of mine. ‘But Mrs. Lax is the most correct user of appropriate behaviour and she would rather pop her eyes onto skewers like picked onions and cook them on a barbecue rather than peer in windows. It must have been someone in a humorous Mrs. Lax mask, as are sold respectfully in the village gag shop.’

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ came a high, stupid voice. It was that of Horry ‘Jammy’ Smears, the town publican. ‘We must go out and see.’

There seemed to be some general agreement signified by repeated uses of the word ‘yes’, and the sounds of chairs being pushed back from tables and shoes on the floor of the wooden floor of the hut were heard. My heart was in my mouth! I would be discovered any second!

‘Psst!’ A voice at my elbow but there was nothing there but… a bush!

‘But there are no bushes here on Pleaseck’s Plain,’ I gasped to myself. ‘There are literally none whatsoever!’ and you must be made aware, I rarely use word ‘literally’ without meaning it.

‘Psst!’ A grizzled potato of a ruddy ugly white coconut face peered out from between the bush’s leaves. I think it was a rooibus, actually, as is found in South Africa. We used to boil the leaves up to make tea and kill things when I was a girl on the veldt. ‘Psst!’ it was saying. ‘Ma’am!’

Only one person calls me that, aside from all the other servants.

‘Good lord!’ I said. ‘Old Rogers! Is it really you?’

‘Yer, ma’am, it’s me in the bush!’ histed Old Rogers hoarsely. ‘Climb aboard, no-one will suspect a four-legged bush fleeing the scene of a suspected sneak-peaking!’

‘I see your reasoning, Old Rogers,’ I mused. ‘But is it really proper for me to share a bush with a man who ‘does’?’

‘What are your options, ma’am?’ wheezed Old Rogers. ‘You’re rooted otherwise.’

I could hear the chess men inside the hall, and the sound of the doorknob turning. Then the sound of the door opening, and the noise people make when passing through a doorway on their way towards you.

The suspense was appalling. I could hear a lungy wind whistling up out of throats and through the hairs around their nostrils. I could hear their eyebrows furrowing as they wondered, pondered and thoughtened about who the person with Mrs. Lax’s face, height and peering nature actually was.

Still I stood stock still, uncertain which of the two courses of action were more proper.

I could see the hazed air preceding the gentlemen as they came around the corner, the moonlight practically prismed around their skin. I looked behind me: the friendly face of Old Rogers beckoning (oh, how his wrinkled, fuzzy, wizened aged face can beckon! His knuckled nose is so expressive) from within the portable vegetation. I looked ahead of me: the eyelashes of the chess men were visible around the building’s brickwork. I looked behind me: Old Rogers’ lips whispering quick! They’re coming! Get into the bush and hide! I looked ahead of me: the tips of the shoes on the chess-playing men were becoming surely visible as they emerged from the fronts of those very same men’s shoes. And I looked behind me: ‘Ma’am!’ urged Old Rogers. ‘Please come with me back to the ‘ouse! Remember you’ve got your Advice for young ‘uns wot are leavin’ ‘ome book to write!

‘My goodness,’ I thought. ‘So I do.’ And I do.

I could see, by this stage, the full feet of the chessthusiasts as they were racing to turn the corner. I could see the cuffs of their jackets as they swung their arms to aid their swift walking. And then suddenly… it was too late! They were upon us!
Seven sturdy men from the village. Lined up in a line, they linishly faced us. Finally someone spoke. ‘Mrs. Lax!’ gasped Whiskers. ‘It is you!’

‘Now I come to think of it,’ added Barnstorm, ‘you are the person round here who looks most like you. I don’t know why I didn’t consider that as a possibility. Why, you’re not even wearing a Mrs. Lax mask.’

‘Mrs. Lax,’ said one of the men, one whose name isn’t silly, ‘since we’re all in here playing chess, and you’re out here looking in through the window, why don’t you come in and play with us?’

And do you know what? I can’t remember if I did or not! But I do seem to recall a funny old white monkey head fringed by leaves and with little tears in its eyes, squinting to watch me play chess through a window while it rained briskly around. And do you know, it was a kind of chest club after all – everyone pushed the pieces around the chessboard with their bosoms! And then they’d go off to a side room and manufacture cabinets.

I must say, I got some extraordinary conversation practice on your behalf, not needing any myself. When you’re doing something entirely meaningless, like playing of chessery, you are often able to make much useful discussion. ‘I say, why do they call them pawns? Are you a bit of a pawn, in life?’ Or ‘They call this one the bishop. Do you know a real-life bishop who always goes diagonally? Or not? Yes or no? No? Answer me!’ is another one. Or, ‘The white ones go twice as fast as the black ones, you know.’ And the so on. And if there is any lull in the conversation, just knock the board over: ‘Oh my goodness, I knocked the board over! What must you think of me?!’ St John Whiskers tried that one a few times, until I told him.