The Angry Stone

 

Salisbury, 20^th October 2020

“You’re doing a good job there”, said Dave to Tommy. Tommy was not going to disagree, but it was clear from the expression on his face that something was bothering him.

Tommy was a master stonemason, doing restoration work at the Cathedral, and Dave was his supervisor. They were currently replacing a series of stones that formed a decorative parapet high above the ground. Each new stone was shaped and carved in the masons’ yard that was almost certainly where the original masons had done their work 700 years previously.

As each new stone was completed it was loaded aboard a hoist that that carried it up to its location, and that was how the old stones had been brought down to the yard so that they could be copied exactly, with the ravages of centuries of weathering made good.

“So what’s on your mind?” Dave asked.

“It’s this stone”, Tommy said, pointing to the weather-worn stone that he was currently working on replacing.

“What about it?”

“I get a strange feeling every time I go near it”, Tommy said. “It’s as though it’s trying to tell me something.”

“Stones can’t talk”, Dave said.

“This one can. It’s telling me to be very careful.”

“You always are, “said Dave, “there isn’t a mason in this yard who takes more care over their work than you do.”

“I don’t mean that that sort of care”, said Tommy. “I get a sense of fear when I go near it, as though something terrible is going to happen. And I know it sounds strange to say, but that stone is angry.”

“Angry?”

“That’s not all”, Tommy continued. “I’ve noticed something very odd about this stone, in a purely physical sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“As you know”, Tommy said, “the old masons used to put their mark on every stone as they finished them. That’s how they got paid – a certain amount for each stone they ‘signed’ on completion. Well, all the stones on the parapet, up to this point, were signed with a W mark. The mason was clearly assigned the job of working his way along, with each stone being identical.

“But this is the last stone with the W mark – all the ones further along have a different mark, and they were not worked anything like as well. Even with the weathering, you can see that the quality dropped off after the W stones ended.

“And there’s more. You see this spike here? There are three decorative spikes on top of each stone, and every one has weathered to just about the same degree – apart from here. This spike has broken clean off.”

Dave had to agree. Even after 700 years of wind and rain it was easy to see that something had happened to this stone that set it apart from all the others. All the work on the parapet up to that point had clearly been of excellent quality, apart from this one stone, the last one that bore the W mark. Why – if a spike had broken off - would the builders have put this stone on the parapet? “W” was clearly a man who took great pride in his work, so why would he have allowed an inferior piece to be used? It made no sense.

 

Salisbury, 20^th October 1320

“Another beautiful piece of work, William”, said Brother Geoffrey, as he surveyed the latest creations being completed in the masons’ yard.

“I thank you, Brother Geoffrey”, said William, who had been working at his trade for more than thirty years and was widely regarded as the most talented mason in the country. That was why he was entrusted with the most finely detailed work.

“I do my work for the glory of God and I put a piece of my soul into every piece I carve. Nothing short of perfection is good enough for this great cathedral.”

“Well said,” said Brother Geoffrey. “And is this stone ready to be lifted up to the parapet?”

“Indeed it is”, said William. The men are about to haul it into place. Stay with me awhile and watch as it rises to where it will stay for hundreds of years.”

So the two men watched as the newly finished stone was lifted onto a cradle that had thick ropes attached to it. The labourers hauled at the ropes , which wound round a block-and-tackle arrangement high above them, and the stone lifted off the ground. This was something that the well-muscled men had done many times before, and they had no reason to think that anything different would happen this time, but that was where they were wrong.

The stone had nearly reached the level of the parapet, where other workers were waiting to catch hold of it and swing it into place, when everyone heard a sharp crack and watched in horror as the timber that supported the block-and-tackle split in two and everything supported by it started to fall back towards the ground. The men who had been hauling the ropes gave a warning cry, but it was too late – the stone and the accompanying equipment landed straight on top of the mason and the monk, killing them instantly.

 

Salisbury, 4^th November 1320

Once everyone had recovered their senses after the terrible loss of William the mason and Brother Geoffrey, decisions had to be made as to what should happen next.

Simon, the clerk of works, was conscious that the work was taking much longer than it should have done, partly because there had been several other accidents in recent weeks including a number of fatalities. These were mainly due to men falling from high places, sometimes because the high wooden scaffolding had been poorly assembled or the timbers had not been strong enough for the weights they were then expected to bear. The latest tragedy had been just one more misfortune and there would surely be many more.

However, the work had to progress, and time could not be wasted.

That was why he was determined to get William’s final stone back on to the parapet as soon as possible. This had meant re-assembling the scaffolding that held the block-and-tackle and getting everything back into place. The preparatory work had now been done and it was time to get hauling.

However, there was a problem, as was pointed out to Simon by Bernard, the mason who had taken over William’s role in the masons’ yard.

“We can’t use William’s stone”, he said.

“Why on earth not?” Simon replied.

“Just look at it. When the stone fell it not only killed William but it was damaged – this spike broke off half way up. William would never have allowed a stone like this to be used – we need to a carve a new one from scratch.”

But Simon would not listen. As far as he was concerned, it was perfectionists like William who were a major cause of the delays that were so burdensome to him. Not only would William’s now less-than-perfect stone be used, but corners would be cut in future – the spikes would be as plain as possible with no hint of decoration of the kind that William had been so expert at.

 

Salisbury, 4^th November 2020

William had been right – there was a piece of his soul in that stone, and it was not at all happy with Simon’s decision.

During the intervening centuries, the narrow gap behind the parapet had become the home of peregrines which delighted in using the cathedral as a launch pad for swooping down on unsuspecting pigeons and other luckless prey. Nests were built every year and young birds raised to follow the tradition of their parents. However, it was noted by birdwatchers who trained their binoculars on to the parapet from below that there was one place where the peregrines never built a nest – there was one stone behind which no young birds were ever raised.

But today all that would change. Tommy’s perfect replacement stone was now in place and a piece of William’s soul could depart after 700 angry years.

© John Welford

Ladders and Snakes

 

It was a sunny day in August. Twins Jack and Hazel, aged 10, were tired of hanging around at home, playing boring games like snakes and ladders, and decided to take a walk on the heath that was a short bus ride away.

“We might see some lizards”, said Jack. “And maybe snakes”.

“Snakes?” said Hazel. “I don’t like snakes, and I don’t just mean the ones that aren’t ladders”.

“Real snakes are fine”, said Jack. “Have you ever seen one?”

“Only on TV”, said Hazel. “Snakes can bite you, and you might die”.

“Only adders can bite you”, said Jack. “And even if one does it won’t kill you”.

“I’m still not all that happy about it”, said Hazel.

The two of them wandered off down a sandy track with heather and gorse all round them. Hazel watched where she put her feet with great care, just in case she trod on an adder.

“So where do you expect to find lizards and snakes?” she asked her brother.

“They like warm, sunny places on days like this”, he said. ”Let’s see if we can find some rocks that have got nice and warm”.

They searched around for a few minutes without success, with Jack being much keener on turning over the few rocks that they found than Hazel was. All of a sudden she stood upright with a worried look on her face.

“I can smell something”, she said. “I think it’s smoke”.

“Smoke?”

“Yes. Something’s burning”.

“Where?”

“Behind us. Over there. Look - I can see a fire”.

“That’s miles away”, said Jack. “Nothing to worry about”.

“If you say so”, said Hazel, but she didn’t sound all that convinced.

They carried on searching for another ten minutes or so, after which Jack gave a shout of triumph as he turned over a rock and saw what was unmistakably an adder with a zig-zag pattern down its back.

“Look”. he shouted, “I’ve found one. Quick, look here before it slides away”.

But Hazel was far more concerned with what she could see behind them, which was the heath fire a lot closer to them than it had been before, now that a breeze was blowing the fire in their direction.

“Jack”, she called out. “Forget the snake, we need to get out of here, fast”.

Jack took one look and had to agree with his sister. The two of them started running, but had a nasty shock when they realised that the smoke from the fire was closing in around them and making it difficult to breathe.

“Jack”, Hazel shouted. “This is awful. We need to get above this smoke. There’s a tree there - let’s climb up it”.

The tree, a solitary pine, looked to be their best hope of escaping the smoke, but it soon became clear that this plan was not going to work. There were no low branches to give them a handhold or foothold, and therefore no way of climbing up it.

“If only we had a ladder”, Jack said, but Hazel was conscious of the fact that a tree was probably not the best bet for safety when a raging fire reached it, whether not a ladder was handy. They had no choice but to keep running, coughing with the smoke as they did so.

Then Jack saw something that made him stop in his tracks.

“What are you doing, Jack?”, said Hazel. “We need to keep going”.

“It’s the snakes”, said Jack. “Look at them.”

“We’ve got no time for that now”, said Hazel. “Forget them, keep running”.

“No”, said Jack. “Those snakes know something. We should follow them”.

Jack had a point. The two adders he could see certainly seemed to have a purpose in mind as they slithered through the heather in the direction of a large rock that was just about visible through the swirling smoke. Jack and Hazel watched as the snakes made for what appeared to be quite a large hollow in the sand underneath the rock. Jack could see that this must be where the snakes knew they would be safe, and that this could be their own best hope for escaping the fire.

“Come on”, he yelled to Hazel, “there’s room for us as well in that hole”.

With the smoke in her throat, Hazel had no breath with which to argue, so she joined her brother in crawling underneath the rock. They found that the smoke was very much less dense down below ground level.

“Where did the snakes go?” she asked.

“I think they found a crevice right at the back”, Jack said. “Besides, would you rather be nipped by an adder and have to go to the doctor or be burned to death?”

Hazel could see Jack’s point, and that following the snakes was clearly the most sensible thing to have done. At least they would both live to tell the tale, knowing that there are times when snakes are more useful than ladders.

© John Welford

 

Gang Aft Agley

 

Rick had most of the plan worked out, but he just needed to think out a few details. As he sat over a coffee at Chieveley Services he reckoned that he was just about there.

He was heading south on the A34 from where he lived near Leicester to his mother’s old home in Southampton, where he was due to meet his sister Pauline, who lived in Bournemouth. Their mother had died some months before at an advanced age and the two siblings were engaged in the long and cumbersome business of sorting out her affairs and selling the property.

Today’s task was deciding what to do with the many possessions that their mother had acquired over the years, both before and after she had been widowed some thirty years before. She had been an avid collector of what she supposed were antiques and works of art, with her purchases being very much at the lower end of the market, mostly at charity shops and car boot sales.

As a result, her house was crammed full of what Rick was happy to call assorted junk, and Pauline agreed with him. Today’s task was to sort out what each of them wanted to keep and what could safely be returned to the charity shops.

However, as far as Rick was concerned, it was not quite as simple as that. This was because of what he had found at the house on a previous visit. When going through piles of papers in a filing cabinet – mostly old bank statements and receipts – he had come across an envelope addressed “To Pauline and Richard”. Pauline had not been there at the time – she had gone to the shop to buy a few things for lunch  - so Rick opened the envelope and read the letter it contained. It was dated only three months before their mother had died, as was apparent from the shaky – but still readable – handwriting.

“Dear Pauline and Richard”, it began, “I know that my time is short and that you will have to deal with everything I have left behind. My will leaves all my possessions to you jointly, and I know that there is almost nothing there that is of particular value, but there is one item that just might be.”

Rick’s eyes lit up when he read that bit.

“This is a sketch that I picked up at a car boot sale many years ago. It is not of a particularly pleasant subject, which is why I never had it framed and mounted on a wall alongside all the other prints and daubs that you can see. Apart from anything else your father hated it, calling it ‘Tarts on the Game’ – I apologise for his language, he could be quite coarse at times – so I put it in the loft, where it has been almost ever since.”

“About six months ago I was reading a book about the artist Picasso, and it had a picture of one of his best-known paintings – so it said, although it was new to me – and I suddenly recognized it as another version of the sketch I had stored in the loft. The painting is called ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ and it features five semi-clothed women who were apparently prostitutes on a street in Barcelona. It seems that this painting was one of the first Cubist works of art and it is very famous for that reason.”

“But to me it was just like ‘Tarts on the Game’, with a few differences. I got the sketch down from the loft – this was when I felt a lot better than I do now - and compared it with the picture in the book. There was no doubt in my mind that this could have been a preliminary pencil sketch that Picasso made before getting to work on his painting – I could see where shapes had been partly rubbed out and slightly different ones superimposed on top of them.”

“In other words, this could be a genuine work by Picasso and worth a great deal of money. I have no idea how it ended up in a car boot sale, but it is now mine and will soon be yours. I hope this treasure will make up for all the rubbish I am leaving you with.”

Rick’s first thought had been to tell his sister about this letter as soon as she came back. His second thought had been to do nothing of the sort. Pauline knew absolutely nothing about the letter or the Picasso sketch in the loft. If there was a fortune to made here, why split it between two people when there was absolutely no need to do so? He therefore slipped the letter into his pocket when he heard the door open as Pauline returned from the shop.

As Rick sat over his coffee at Chieveley Services he watched as a guy he supposed was a truck driver – going by the huge all-day breakfast he was ploughing into after drowning it in brown sauce – tapped away at his phone in between mouthfuls. It looked as though he was playing a game of some sort and making a fist in triumph as he moved up to the next level.

Rick could have done the same as he put the last pieces of his plan into place. He would offer to clear the loft, knowing that Pauline would never go there due to her horror of spiders, and quietly slip the sketch into one of the boxes of items that he wanted to keep. To be frank, there was unlikely to be much that took his fancy, but he needed to choose a few items in order to hide the sketch from Pauline’s view.

His main problem would be what to do with the sketch after that. How do you sell a genuine Picasso in Leicester? He reckoned that it had probably been stolen at some point and would be on a Police register of sought-after artworks. That was the missing piece of the plan – he needed to find a channel through which the sketch could be fenced without any connection being made to him. As he sat there he suddenly remembered a conversation he had had some weeks before with a work colleague about an acquaintance of his who had recently been released from jail after serving a sentence for art theft. That chap would surely know about how to fence stolen artworks? Maybe Rick could make some discreet enquiries and see where things went?

As he set out back on the road towards Southampton he was a lot happier in his mind about how things would go. He would get the sketch, take it home, and arrange to sell it to some Middle Eastern sheikh or Russian oligarch via a dubious underworld channel.

But there was a huge hole in his plan. This took the form of a massive juggernaut that was coming up behind him, its recently breakfasted driver still playing a game on his smartphone and utterly unaware that the traffic ahead was slowing down to a crawl.

Had he lived, Rick would have been interested to know that the juggernaut driver in question had criminal connections of his own and regularly undertook trips to Europe – as he was due to do now – to smuggle stolen works of art hidden in his cargo.

© John Welford

The Hole

 

It was not long after Okami arrived last year that we became aware of her delight in digging holes. She is a border collie, on the small size for her breed, but very friendly and a bundle of energy.

She had not been with us long before the first hole appeared. This was in a flower bed, nowhere near anything we wanted to continue growing, so we had no problem with it. However, the next hole was in the middle of the lawn, and that was certainly a problem. Not only did it look awful, but it posed the constant threat of turning an ankle if one stepped into it – and that is indeed what happened more than once.

Of course, we tried filling it in, but that did not last long. The next day all the infill would be out again, so we gave up trying. We consoled ourselves with the notion that she would eventually grow out of the habit, but we were wrong on that one.

The fact is, she loved just having a hole in the lawn, apart from the pleasure she gained from the digging of it. She could drop things into the hole and then fetch them out again. She devised a form of doggie golf – nudging a ball towards the hole and then patting it forwards with her nose from increasing distances. She was soon scoring holes in one from up to three feet away.

Oh well, we thought, if it keeps her quiet and we watch where we put our feet, maybe having a hole in the lawn is not such a terrible thing after all.

If only we had known how things would turn out.

It must have been about three months ago when we spotted that the hole was getting bigger. As Okami dug, less and less of her could be seen above the surface. She – like virtually all border collies – has a prominent white tip to her tail, and before long this was all we could see, wagging furiously as she scrabbled away. Then even that disappeared as the hole got both deeper and wider.

It wasn’t just balls and toys that went down the hole. Other things from the garden were dropped in – flowerpots of increasingly larger dimensions, then whole plants – small ones to start with, then quite substantial shrubs and bushes. We knew things were getting serious when the wheelbarrow vanished followed by the garden furniture – a couple of folding chairs then a table and a substantial wooden bench.

It was obvious by now that we no longer had a lawn with a hole it. We had a hole with a fringe of lawn round it.

Things got really bad when the fridge disappeared. We knew at this stage that Okami must have had help of some kind. It had taken two guys with a trolley to get the fridge into the house, so it was just plain impossible for a small border collie to get it out of the kitchen and into the hole all on her own.

We reckon that she must have been planning all this for weeks in advance. We had thought that all those little doggie conversations during her morning walks when other dogs came up to play and exchange sniffs of rear ends were just innocent greetings, but there was clearly much more to it than that.

This became clear when we realized that other dog-owners in the village had reported their dogs to be missing. Not only had Okami vanished from view, but so had every other dog within a half-mile radius. They must have been responsible for carrying our fridge out of the house and depositing it down the hole, then jumping down after it. The fridge contained lots of cold meat, such as chicken, beef and ham – all excellent sustenance for a team of hole-digging dogs. Many of the dogs must have brought other supplies with them, as several losses of Sunday joints and barbecue reserves were reported along with those of the dogs themselves.

The really odd thing was that nobody ever saw any of this activity taking place. Okami and her mates were so clever at hiding their tracks and doing all this when nobody was watching. Clearly we have underestimated the resources of the average dog to an alarming degree.

We knew that the hole must have been getting really deep when the village suddenly became deprived of every ladder that wasn’t securely locked away, and even some that were. Not only that, but the digging dogs must have realized the need for a secure structure to support the ladders. That was why builders were amazed to find, on turning up to work after one weekend, that every roof repair and house extension project in the village had lost all its scaffolding. Not a single pole or board was to be seen – the whole lot had vanished.

Of course, the Police were contacted and we were happy enough to tell them about the huge hole in our garden. They said they would look into it, which they duly did. Like us, all they could see was inky blackness and hear a very distant sound of panting and scrabbling.

We had given up all hope ever seeing our dog – let alone our fridge – again, until one morning when I glanced out of the window just as the top of a ladder appeared out of the hole. A succession of dogs then scrambled out of the hole – dozens of them – with Okami being the last to emerge. They were all filthy dirty but extremely pleased to be back above ground. There was much barking with delight and wagging of tails.

The something else appeared out of the hole. It was a human head, closely followed by the rest of the human. He had a broad grin on his face and was carrying a crate of Foster’s.

“G’day!” he said. “Anyone fancy a tinny?”

 © John Welford

The Ghost Story

The library at Upper Snodsbury, where I had my first job, was a throwback to a previous age. The walls were lined with bookshelves that reached to the ceiling and the solid fixed island stacks were packed with dusty leather-bound volumes that were hardly ever borrowed.

It was not long into my time there as Assistant Librarian that I became aware of one particular “regular”, a man in his fifties who visited several times a week. He was not a library member and never borrowed anything but would take a book from the shelves and sit at a table to read it.

I was curious to see what his taste in literature was, so I looked over his shoulder as I passed by from time to time. It was always the same book, and he invariably had the book open at the same place.

It was a venerable copy of the Complete Ghost Stories of M R James, who was arguably the best ghost story writer of all time. All the stories are worth reading, but why did the man only appear to want to read the same one?

And which story was it? I knew many of them very well, such as “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” and “Number 13”, which had always struck me as being particularly spine-chilling, but from how the man opened the book it appeared that it was one of the later stories that seemed to attract him.

On one occasion I was able to glance down at the book just after he had opened it, and I could see that the title was “The Death of Black Arthur”. This was not a title that I knew, so I decided one day to have a closer look at the book after the man had left.

Finding the book was not a problem, as the library only had one copy of the title, so I took it down and opened it at the table that our strange visitor always used. I turned to the place in the book where I had seen him read “The Death of Black Arthur”, but I simply could not find it. I flipped through the pages in both directions but with no luck at all. I looked at the table of contents at the front of the book, but there was no sign of any story with that title. Had I imagined it?

It was a surprise to me that the man did not pay us a visit for the whole of the following week, but on the Monday after that I was sitting behind the issue desk in the library when I became aware of something very strange happening in the bookstacks. There was no doubt about it – I could see a wisp of smoke rising above the top shelves. Could somebody have slipped in there and be having a crafty ciggie?

Of course, I rushed round to have a look and was astonished to see that one of the books appeared to be smouldering. I pulled it off the shelf and dropped it on the floor, where it fell open. As I had half expected, the volume in question was the M R James book of ghost stories that had so intrigued me, and I could see that the pages that were being engulfed in smoke were the very ones where I had searched in vain for the “Black Arthur” story.

There was a sudden burst of flame that died away instantly, leaving no sign that anything untoward had happened. The book looked just as it should do, with all the pages in just as good a condition as they had been in before the fire had started. I was on the point of reaching for the book to put it back on the shelf when I heard a cry of alarm from outside the library. I looked through the window to see that a man had collapsed on the pavement just over the road and that a group of concerned people had gathered around him.

One of them was known to me as a retired doctor and I could see him trying his best to revive the man with vigorous CPR. However, the expression on his face did not look encouraging.

Indeed, it soon emerged that the man on the pavement who, as I had feared, was my unknown reader, had died very quickly from a massive heart attack that had struck at the same instant that the mysterious Black Arthur story had vanished from the M R James book in a puff of smoke and flame. Surely there had to be a connection?

A few days later we had a visit at the library from a gentleman who introduced himself as Detective Inspector Michael Groves. He wanted to ask me what I knew about the victim of the heart attack, which was not a great deal. However, what he was able to tell me was much more illuminating.

“The man’s name was Peter White”, said Inspector Groves. “Last year he finished doing a ten-year stretch for armed robbery, but I always suspected that he was involved in a murder that went back several years before that.

“At the time he came out of prison I was very busy with several other cases, and before I could turn my attention to asking him a few questions he had vanished. He was not at any of the addresses we had for him and it looked as though the trail was going to go cold very quickly.

“However, I spoke to the few contacts I had, including his former cellmate who told me something very interesting.”

“Which was?”

“Our friend Peter White suffered from bad nightmares and had a tendency to talk in his sleep. The dreams appeared to be the same every night, and the cellmate was often kept awake as he repeated, over and over again, words that included ‘must read’, ‘read the story’ and ‘dead Arthur’.

“Last week I got a fresh lead that suggested that Peter White might be in this area, and that he was obsessed with visiting this library. I also got the impression that he realized that I was getting close and he might have to change his plans.”

“That might account for why he hasn’t been here for several days”, I said.

“But he clearly couldn’t stay away for ever”, said the Inspector. “He felt compelled to come here, for some reason I just don’t know, but the stress on his weak heart was just too much for him.

“So do you know”, the Inspector asked me, “anything that might explain this compulsion?”

I told him about the story in the M R James book and the fact that the man I now knew to be Peter White kept on reading it, even though I had never been able to do so myself. When I mentioned the title of the story the Inspector’s eyes opened very wide indeed.

“Of course!” he exclaimed. “How could I have forgotten? This is Upper Snodsbury, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is”, I said.

“The victim of Peter White’s murder came from this very village. He was born in the Rectory.”

“That’s the house next door”, I said.

“And what was that story’s title exactly?”

“The Death of Black Arthur”.

“It would appear that the victim has called his killer home and exacted his revenge. Would you believe that the house next door was the scene of the birth of the late Arthur Black?”

© John Welford

 

Mrs Bryant

 

The last time I saw Mrs Bryant was on a warm, sunny morning in early September. I always enjoyed popping in to what had once been the village post office but was now the nearest thing we had to a shop in our small village, although the range of goods for sale was always somewhat limited.

Mrs Bryant had been the village postmistress for many years, being the last in a long line of her forebears who had played this role. She was widowed quite a long time ago, the marriage having produced twin sons who were now in their mid-40s.

One of her sons had followed the family tradition but was based at the sorting office in the nearest town, from where he drove his delivery van round all the tiny villages in the locality. Mrs Bryant had been in the habit of delivering the post to the villagers and local farmers, and was reluctant to give up this role. James therefore deposited the village post with her while he used his van to save his mother the trouble of pushing her bike up all the farm lanes. This had become more important since she had started to develop a heart condition which meant that much exertion made her very short of breath.

Mrs Bryant now sold local produce in her shop, such as milk, eggs and whatever vegetables were in season, as well bread that she had baked herself. She also gained a small income from the campsite up the hill at the back of her house. This was a fairly small field that was entirely surrounded by high hedges and was therefore not visible from the road or any nearby footpaths. It had become quite a popular venue for campers who valued their privacy.

However, it was the current intake of campers who were on Mrs Bryant’s mind as I visited her that morning.

“I’ve got a bunch of naturalists on my field this week,” she told me. “None of them wearing a stitch of clothing. They might call themselves naturalists, but I ask you – that’s not natural, is it?”

I thought the obvious answer one that she might struggle to understand, so I didn’t give it. Neither did I point out that her campers were unlikely to be there for the purpose of studying the flora and fauna of the neighbourhood, and the word she wanted was nearly in her vocabulary but not quite.

Instead, I was happy to listen to Mrs Bryant as she went into one of her regular panegyrics about her other son, Graham. She was proud about what both her sons had achieved, but Graham had given her something that she could never have imagined coming her way, namely an extensive knowledge of parts of the world that she had not known existed before Graham was able to tell her all about them.

This was because Graham had gone to sea as a steward on board a cruise liner and he regularly sent her letters and postcards from the places he visited all over the world. On one of his periodic returns to the UK he had given his mother a globe of the world and a compass and he showed her how, wherever he had gone on his voyages, she could work out exactly in what direction he might be from where she was now, in the village.

Mrs Bryant was therefore willing to indicate to anyone who cared to know – as well as those who did not – precisely where Graham was. Not only that, but she could tell them the names of all the places and put her finger on where they were on the globe before pointing in precisely the right direction. I never knew her to get this wrong.

However, if you were to ask Mrs Bryant where somewhere was that was beyond the confines of the village, but still within England, she would not have had a clue. She had been born in the house she lived in now, and certainly knew every square inch of the village as far as the limits of her original postal round, but that was it. In her younger days she had occasionally visited the local town, without really knowing where she was in geographical terms, but these days she did not even do that. Everything she needed was either brought to her by her son James or came in the post.

Later that day, after James had called with the post for the village houses, Mrs Bryant paid a visit to the campsite up the hill in order to deliver a few letters. As she approached the gate that led through the hedge she suddenly felt unwell and fell to the ground. Some of the campers had seen this and rushed over to help, forgetting to cover up as they usually did when a non-camper approached.

Presumably it was the sight of four completely naked men and women leaning over her that brought on the heart attack from which Mrs Bryant failed to recover.

Poor Mrs Bryant, who knew so well her own little world, much of what was thousands of miles away, but almost nothing of what lay between. I won’t forget her in a hurry.

© John Welford

Proxy Buyer Beware

 

“Does my bum look big in this?”

The temptation to reply “Your bum would look big in anything, my dear” was nobly resisted, but only just.

Shopping was never Derek’s favourite occupation, and any faint enthusiasm he might have had disappeared completely when he was forced to accompany his wife Barbara on one of her expeditions. On this occasion she had insisted that they spend all day touring the shops and take lunch at one of the town’s better restaurants.

He therefore had no choice in the matter, given that she positively refused to cook anything that evening and if he wanted to get a decent meal today it was this option or nothing. At least Barbara had offered to pay for lunch, although everything else she bought would – as usual – be charged to his credit card.

She now appeared from the changing room holding two dresses, one red and the other green.

“Which do you think will look better on me?” she asked.

To his experienced eye the red dress looked a lot cheaper, so that was the one he chose.

“So what’s wrong with the green dress?” said Barbara. “I much prefer the green dress, so that’s the one I’m going to buy”.

Derek felt an impulsion to ask why she had bothered to offer him a choice, but he also knew that it would make no difference if he did. He soon found out that his initial fear about the price was a valid one. The green dress cost something over £100 more than the red one.

And that was how the morning proceeded. They visited just about every clothes shop in town, omitting only the ones that sold ladies apparel at what Derek considered to be sensible prices, and Barbara was delighted to add a number of classy new items to her wardrobe, at her husband’s expense.

Derek’s primary role was that of wielder of the credit card, but his secondary function – namely beast of burden - was called into play in no small measure. It was therefore with considerable relief that he was able to put down all the bags and packages when they reached the restaurant.

The menu was an impressive one and contained one of Derek’s favourite dishes, turbot with mushrooms and ginger. Barbara was paying, so that was what Derek chose.

“Have you seen the price of it?” Barbara said. “That’s far too expensive. You can jolly well have the scampi”.

So Derek had scampi for lunch.

After lunch, Barbara reminded Derek that it was her birthday the following week, and she knew exactly what she wanted for her present from her husband. So off they went to the jeweller’s shop where Derek soon found himself on the wrong end of a massive bill for a pearl necklace.

Derek reminded her that it was his own birthday not long after hers, and that there was a rather nice camera that he would quite like to have. He pointed it out to her in the shop window.

“Six hundred pounds for a camera?” Barbara exclaimed. “You have to be joking. You can have that little point-and-shoot one over there. Fifty pounds is quite enough to spend on a camera”.

Barbara then decided that she wanted to have her nails done, so she headed for a nail bar where a row of bored looking East Asian teenagers were beavering away making women’s hands look beautiful and probably earning only a pittance themselves.

“While I’m in here, you can go to the travel agent and see about our holiday for this year. I want you to come back with three possibilities and I’ll decide which one we’re going to choose. I want to go somewhere nice, but we’re not spending a fortune.”

Given that the family tradition had always been that the annual holiday was paid for by the lady of the house, this latter comment came as no surprise to Derek.

Half an hour later Derek rejoined Barbara at a nearby coffee shop and showed her the details of three holidays that he had discussed with the travel agent. Barbara did not take long to make her choice, plumping instantly for the cheapest option.

“Are you sure about that?” Derek asked.

“Of course I am”, Barbara said. “That one will do perfectly well for us. Now go back to the travel agent and make a firm booking”.

With all the shopping done and the holiday booked, Derek and Barbara headed for home. Barbara was delighted with her purchases, most of which had been paid for by her husband, and Derek looked somewhat satisfied with the day’s proceedings as well. Had Barbara glanced in his direction at any time she might have been puzzled as to why an enigmatic smile was playing around his lips, but this was not something that she bothered to do.

In the weeks that followed, Derek continued to be in an upbeat frame of mind, whistling happy little tunes to himself from time to time. Barbara was not used to this, and she started to wonder what Derek had to be so pleased about. Perhaps he was looking forward to going on the holiday they had booked?

That was precisely the reason, although Barbara was completely wrong about one aspect of it.

As Derek pointed out to her a week before their departure date, when it was far too late to cancel, the holiday he had booked - at her insistence - had been for over-60s only. Derek was 62, but Barbara a mere 58.

He would be delighted to take one of his friends from the bowls club to fill the otherwise vacant slot.

© John Welford