Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life

by Roald Dahl

  But then an astonishing thing happened. The first day that he stayed away – a Monday it was – not one single child came near the playground.

  Nor the next day, nor the one after that.

  All week the swings and the see-saws and the high slide with steps going up to it stood deserted. Not a child went near them. Instead they followed Ole Jimmy out into a field behind the Rectory and played their games there with him watching; and the result of all this was that after a while the Council had had no alternative but to give the old man back his job.

  He still had it now and he still got drunk and no one said anything about it any more. He left it only for a few days each year, at haymaking time. All his life Ole Jimmy had loved to go haymaking and he wasn’t going to give it up yet.

  ‘You want one?’ he asked now, holding a bottle out to Wilson, the soldier.

  ‘No thanks. I got tea.’

  ‘They say tea’s good on a hot day.’

  ‘It is. Beer makes me sleepy.’

  ‘If you like,’ I said to Ole Jimmy, ‘we could walk across to the filling-station and I’ll do you a couple of nice sandwiches? Would you like that?’

  ‘Beer’s plenty. There’s more food in one bottle of beer, me lad, than twenty sandwiches.’

  He smiled at me, showing two rows of pale-pink, toothless gums, but it was a pleasant smile and there was nothing repulsive about the way the gums showed.

  We sat for a while in silence. The soldier finished his bread and cheese and lay back on the ground, tilting his hat forward over his face. Ole Jimmy had drunk three bottles of beer, and now he offered the last to Claud and me.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘No thanks. One’s plenty for me.’

  The old man shrugged, unscrewed the stopper, tilted his head back and drank, pouring the beer into his mouth with the lips held open so the liquid ran smoothly without gurgling down his throat. He wore a hat that was of no colour at all and of no shape, and it did not fall off when he tilted back his head.

  ‘Ain’t Rummins goin’ to give that old horse a drink?’ he asked, lowering the bottle, looking across the field at the great carthorse that stood steaming between the shafts of the cart.

  ‘Not Rummins.’

  ‘Horses is thirsty, just the same as us.’ Ole Jimmy paused, still looking at the horse. ‘You got a bucket of water in that place of yours there?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘No reason why we shouldn’t give the old horse a drink then, is there?’

  ‘That’s a very good idea. We’ll give him a drink.’

  Claud and I both stood up and began walking toward the gate and I remember turning and calling back to the old man: ‘You quite sure you wouldn’t like me to bring you a nice sandwich? Won’t take a second to make.’

  He shook his head and waved the bottle at us and said something about taking himself a little nap. We went on through the gate over the road to the filling-station.

  I suppose we stayed away for about an hour attending to customers and getting ourselves something to eat, and when at length we returned, Claud carrying the bucket of water, I noticed that the rick was at least six foot high.

  ‘Some water for the old horse,’ Claud said, looking hard at Rummins who was up in the cart pitching hay on to the rick.

  The horse put its head in the bucket, sucking and blowing gratefully at the water.

  ‘Where’s Ole Jimmy?’ I asked. We wanted the old man to see the water because it had been his idea.

  When I asked the question there was a moment, a brief moment when Rummins hesitated, pitchfork in mid-air, looking around him.

  ‘I brought him a sandwich,’ I added.

  ‘Bloody old fool drunk too much beer and gone off home to sleep,’ Rummins said.

  I strolled along the hedge back to the place where we had been sitting with Ole Jimmy. The five empty bottles were lying there in the grass. So was the satchel. I picked up the satchel and carried it back to Rummins.

  ‘I don’t think Ole Jimmy’s gone home, Mr Rummins,’ I said, holding up the satchel by the long shoulder-band. Rummins glanced at it but made no reply. He was in a frenzy of haste now because the thunder was closer, the clouds blacker, the heat more oppressive than ever.

  Carrying the satchel, I started back to the filling-station where I remained for the rest of the afternoon, serving customers. Towards evening, when the rain came, I glanced across the road and noticed that they had got the hay in and were laying a tarpaulin over the rick.

  In a few days the thatcher arrived and took the tarpaulin off and made a roof of straw instead. He was a good thatcher and he made a fine roof with long straw, thick and well packed. The slope was nicely angled, the edges cleanly clipped, and it was a pleasure to look at it from the road or from the door of the filling-station.

  All this came flooding back to me now as clearly as if it were yesterday – the building of the rick on that hot thundery day in June, the yellow field, the sweet woody smell of the hay; and Wilson the soldier, with tennis shoes on his feet, Bert with the boiled eye, Ole Jimmy with the clean old face, the pink naked gums; and Rummins, the broad dwarf, standing up in the cart scowling at the sky because he was anxious about the rain.

  At this very moment, there he was again, this Rummins, crouching on top of the rick with a sheaf of thatch in his arms looking round at the son, the tall Bert, motionless also, both of them black like silhouettes against the sky, and once again I felt the fine electricity of fear as it came and went in little waves over the skin of my stomach.

  ‘Go on and cut through it, Bert,’ Rummins said, speaking loudly.

  Bert put pressure on the big knife and there was a high grating noise as the edge of the blade sawed across something hard. It was clear from Bert’s face that he did not like what he was doing.

  It took several minutes before the knife was through – then again at last the softer sound of the blade slicing the tight-packed hay and Bert’s face turned sideways to the father, grinning with relief, nodding inanely.

  ‘Go on and cut it out,’ Rummins said, and still he did not move.

  Bert made a second vertical cut the same depth as the first; then he got down and pulled the bale of hay so it came away cleanly from the rest of the rick like a chunk of cake, dropping into the cart at his feet.

  Instantly, the boy seemed to freeze, staring stupidly at the newly exposed face of the rick, unable to believe or perhaps refusing to believe what this thing was that he had cut in two.

  Rummins, who knew very well what it was, had turned away and was climbing quickly down the other side of the rick. He moved so fast he was through the gate and halfway across the road before Bert started to scream.

  Mr Hoddy

  They got out of the car and went in the front door of Mr Hoddy’s house.

  ‘I’ve an idea Dad’s going to question you rather sharp tonight,’ Clarice whispered.

  ‘About what, Clarice?’

  ‘The usual stuff. Jobs and things like that. And whether you can support me in a fitting way.’

  ‘Jackie’s going to do that,’ Claud said. ‘When Jackie wins there won’t even be any need for any jobs…’

  ‘Don’t you ever mention Jackie to my dad, Claud Cubbage, or that’ll be the end of it. If there’s one thing in the world he can’t abide it’s greyhounds. Don’t you ever forget that.’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Claud said.

  ‘Tell him something else – anything – anything to make him happy, see?’ And with that she led Claud into the parlour.

  Mr Hoddy was a widower, a man with a prim sour mouth and an expression of eternal disapproval all over his face. He had the small, close-together teeth of his daughter Clarice, the same suspicious, inward look about the eyes, but none of her freshness and vitality; none of her warmth. He was a small sour apple of a man, grey-skinned and shrivelled, with a dozen or so surviving strands of black hair pasted across the dome of his bald head. But a very superior man was Mr Hoddy, a grocer’s
assistant, one who wore a spotless white gown at his work, who handled large quantities of such precious commodities as butter and sugar, who was deferred to, even smiled at by every housewife in the village.

  Claud Cubbage was never quite at his ease in this house and that was precisely as Mr Hoddy intended it. They were sitting round the fire in the parlour with cups of tea in their hands, Mr Hoddy in the best chair to the right of the fireplace, Claud and Clarice on the sofa, decorously separated by a wide space. The younger daughter, Ada, was on a hard upright chair to the left; and they made a little circle round the fire, a stiff, tense little circle, primly tea-sipping.

  ‘Yes Mr Hoddy,’ Claud was saying, ‘you can be quite sure both Gordon and me’s got quite a number of nice little ideas up our sleeves this very moment. It’s only a question of taking our time and making sure which is going to be the most profitable.’

  ‘What sort of ideas?’ Mr Hoddy asked, fixing Claud with his small, disapproving eyes.

  ‘Ah, there you are now. That’s it, you see.’ Claud shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. His blue lounge suit was tight around his chest, and it was especially tight between his legs, up in the crotch. The tightness in his crotch was actually painful to him and he wanted terribly to hitch it downward.

  ‘This man you call Gordon, I thought he had a profitable business out there as it is,’ Mr Hoddy said. ‘Why does he want to change?’

  ‘Absolutely right, Mr Hoddy. It’s a first-rate business. But it’s a good thing to keep expanding, see. New ideas is what we’re after. Something I can come in on as well and take a share of the profits.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  Mr Hoddy was eating a slice of currant cake, nibbling it round the edges, and his small mouth was like the mouth of a caterpillar biting a tiny curved slice out of the edge of a leaf.

  ‘Such as what?’ he asked again.

  ‘There’s long conferences, Mr Hoddy, takes place every day between Gordon and me about these different matters of business.’

  ‘Such as what?’ he repeated, relentless.

  Clarice glanced sideways at Claud, encouraging. Claud turned his large slow eyes upon Mr Hoddy, and he was silent. He wished Mr Hoddy wouldn’t push him around like this, always shooting questions at him and glaring at him and acting just exactly like he was the bloody adjutant or something.

  ‘Such as what?’ Mr Hoddy said, and this time Claud knew that he was not going to let go. Also, his instinct warned him that the old man was trying to create a crisis.

  ‘Well now,’ he said, breathing deep. ‘I don’t really want to go into details until we got it properly worked out. All we’re doing so far is turning our ideas over in our minds, see.’

  ‘All I’m asking,’ Mr Hoddy said irritably, ‘is what sort of business are you contemplating? I presume that it’s respectable?’

  ‘Now please, Mr Hoddy. You don’t for one moment think we’d even so much as consider anything that wasn’t absolutely and entirely respectable, do you?’

  Mr Hoddy grunted, stirring his tea slowly, watching Claud. Clarice sat mute and fearful on the sofa, gazing into the fire.

  ‘I’ve never been in favour of starting a business,’ Mr Hoddy pronounced, defending his own failure in that line. ‘A good respectable job is all a man should wish for. A respectable job in respectable surroundings. Too much hokey-pokey in business for my liking.’

  ‘The thing is this,’ Claud said, desperate now. ‘All I want is to provide my wife with everything she can possibly desire. A house to live in and furniture and a flower garden and a washing-machine and all the best things in the world. That’s what I want to do and you can’t do that on an ordinary wage, now can you? It’s impossible to get enough money to do that unless you go into business, Mr Hoddy. You’ll surely agree with me there?’

  Mr Hoddy, who had worked for an ordinary wage all his life, didn’t much like this point of view.

  ‘And don’t you think I provide everything my family wants, might I ask?’

  ‘Oh yes and more!’ Claud cried fervently. ‘But you’ve got a very superior job, Mr Hoddy, and that makes all the difference.’

  ‘But what sort of business are you thinking of?’ the man persisted.

  Claud sipped his tea to give himself a little more time and he couldn’t help wondering how the miserable old bastard’s face would look if he simply up and told him the truth right there and then, if he’d said what we’ve got, Mr Hoddy, if you really want to know, is a couple of greyhounds and one’s a perfect ringer for the other and we’re going to bring off the biggest goddam gamble in the history of flapping, see. He’d like to watch the old bastard’s face if he said that, he really would.

  They were all waiting for him to proceed now, sitting there with cups of tea in their hands staring at him and waiting for him to say something good. ‘Well,’ he said, speaking very slowly because he was thinking deep. ‘I’ve been pondering something a long time now, something as’ll make more money even than Gordon’s second-hand cars or anything else come to that, and practically no expense involved.’ That’s better, he told himself. Keep going along like that.

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘Something so queer, Mr Hoddy, there isn’t one in a million would even believe it.’

  ‘Well, what is it?’ Mr Hoddy placed his cup carefully on the little table beside him and leaned forward to listen. And Claud, watching him, knew more than ever that this man and all those like him were his enemies. It was the Mr Hoddy’s were the trouble. They were all the same. He knew them all, with their clean ugly hands, their grey skin, their acrid mouths, their tendency to develop little round bulging bellies just below the waistcoat; and always the unctuous curl of the nose, the weak chin, the suspicious eyes that were dark and moved too quick. The Mr Hoddys. Oh Christ.

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘It’s an absolute gold-mine Mr Hoddy, honestly it is.’

  ‘I’ll believe that when I hear it.’

  ‘It’s a thing so simple and amazing most people wouldn’t even bother to do it.’ He had it now – something he had actually been thinking seriously about for a long time, something he’d always wanted to do. He leaned across and put his teacup carefully on the table beside Mr Hoddy’s, then, not knowing what to do with his hands, placed them on his knees, palms downward.

  ‘Well, come on, man, what is it?’

  ‘It’s maggots,’ Claud answered softly.

  Mr Hoddy jerked back as though someone had squirted water in his face. ‘Maggots!’ he said, aghast. ‘Maggots? What on earth do you mean, maggots?’ Claud had forgotten that this word was almost unmentionable in any self-respecting grocer’s shop. Ada began to giggle, but Clarice glanced at her so malignantly the giggle died on her mouth.

  ‘That’s where the money is, starting a maggot-factory.’

  ‘Are you trying to be funny?’

  ‘Honestly, Mr Hoddy, it may sound a bit queer, and that’s simply because you never heard of it before, but it’s a little gold-mine.’

  ‘A maggot-factory! Really now, Cubbage! Please be sensible!’

  Clarice wished her father wouldn’t call him Cubbage.

  ‘You never heard speak of a maggot-factory, Mr Hoddy?’

  ‘I certainly have not!’

  ‘There’s maggot-factories going now, real big companies with managers and directors and all, and you know what, Mr Hoddy? They’re making millions!’

  ‘Nonsense, man.’

  ‘And you know why they’re making millions?’ Claud paused, but he did not notice now that the listener’s face was slowly turning yellow. ‘It’s because of the enormous demand for maggots, Mr Hoddy.’

  At that moment, Mr Hoddy was listening also to other voices, the voices of his customers across the counter – Mrs Rabbits for instance, as he sliced off her ration of butter, Mrs Rabbits with her brown moustache and always talking so loud and saying well well well; he could hear her now saying well well well Mr Hoddy, so your Clarice got marrie
d last week, did she. Very nice too, I must say, and what was it you said her husband does, Mr Hoddy?’

  He owns a maggot-factory, Mrs Rabbits.

  No thank you, he told himself, watching Claud with his small, hostile eyes. No thank you very much indeed. I don’t want that.

  ‘I can’t say,’ he announced primly, ‘that I myself have ever had occasion to purchase a maggot.’

  ‘Now you come to mention it, Mr Hoddy, nor have I. Nor has many other people we know. But let me ask you something else. How many times you had occasion to purchase… a crown wheel and pinion, for instance?’

  This was a shrewd question and Claud permitted himself a slow mawkish smile.

  ‘What’s that got to do with maggots?’

  ‘Exactly this – that certain people buy certain things, see. You never bought a crown wheel and pinion in your life, but that don’t say there isn’t men getting rich this very moment making them – because there is. It’s the same with maggots!’

  ‘Would you mind telling me who these unpleasant people are who buy maggots?’

  ‘Maggots are bought by fishermen, Mr Hoddy. Amateur fishermen. There’s thousands and thousands of fishermen all over the country going out every weekend fishing the rivers and all of them wanting maggots. Willing to pay good money for them, too. You go along the river there anywhere you like above Marlow on a Sunday and you’ll see them lining the banks. Sitting there one beside the other simply lining the banks on both sides.’

  ‘Those men don’t buy maggots. They go down the bottom of the garden and dig worms.’

  ‘Now that’s just where you’re wrong, Mr Hoddy, if you’ll allow me to say so. That’s just where you’re absolutely wrong. They want maggots, not worms.’

  ‘In that case they get their own maggots.’

  ‘They don’t want to get their own maggots. Just imagine, Mr Hoddy, it’s Saturday afternoon and you’re going out fishing and a nice clean tin of maggots arrives by post and all you’ve got to do is slip it in the fishing bag and away you go. You don’t think fellers is going out digging for worms and hunting for maggots when they can have them delivered right to their very doorsteps like that just for a bob or two, do you?’