by Nick Louth
Just then the doorbell rings. Damn! My parcel. Unable to leave my post, I yell for Eunice. No reply. I yell louder. No reply. “Just coming,” I bellow towards the door. As I plead and curse, a card is, with agonising slowness, pushed through the letterbox. Two minutes later I hear the loo flush, and Eunice breezes downstairs in her green leotard.
“Bernard, what was all that shouting? There’s no peace in this house…Oh God, what on earth have you done?”
“ME? You think I did THIS?” I bellow, and in that momentary twitch of rage the entire ceiling comes down.
Tuesday 19th February: Getting Up
Arrived with Eunice’s morning cup of tea to find her distinctly grumpy. Even the cat, which has a far more secure place in her affections than I do, was unceremoniously pushed off the bed when she jumped on for her morning stroking session. Cleary, yours truly was going to be in for a much rougher experience. As usual I needed to reshuffle various objects on Eunice’s bedside table to make way for the mug. Today it’s worse than usual: earplugs, eye mask, tablets, nail clippers, nail file and emery board, plus a nine-item receipt from Boots. With my hands now being scalded by the hot mug, I place the mug on the receipt, about the only place it has room to go, and get a particularly severe tut from her.
“Bernard, don’t leave a ring on that. I’ve got to take the gel-filled heel pads back today. No, not there. Not on the book. You know it leaves a heat mark!”
“But it’s hot! I’m being burned.” I lift the mug again.
“Oh don’t be such a nancy-boy, Bernard. Hold on a minute.”
While my knuckles are being gradually grilled against the mug, I start to do a little tap-dance of agony on the carpet. Sighing deeply, Eunice sits up further in bed, reshapes her triangular back-pain pillow, then picks up her hardback (How I Lost 600 Pounds In Six Weeks On The Idaho Nine-Bean Diet by Flatula Tailpipe) checks the page number, folds down the corner and places it gently on the bed beside her.
“Now, place the tea down there,” she says.
I virtually drop the mug onto the table, and insert my scalded digits between my pyjama-clad thighs.
“Bernard, stop whimpering. If you had the gumption to bring up the tea on a tray like a normal person, you wouldn’t have got burned, now would you? Go and run it under the tap.”
So while I stumble into the en-suite to extinguish my smoking flesh the harangue continues. I really can’t believe it. Never mind that I got up at 5.45am because the cat was scratching at the door, never mind that I actually am kind enough to make her tea and bring it to her, never mind that I’m bringing in the only money this benighted household ever sees, everything that goes wrong is my fault. She won’t be happy until I’m dressed up like a room-service waiter with a linen napkin over my wrist, and a silver tea tray with a teapot and two china cups.
Finally I emerge.
“It’s no good waving it around, Bernard. That won’t make it better. Go and fetch a bag of frozen peas, and hold it in place for ten minutes. I’ve got some aloe vera you can put on it.”
“Aloe vera? It sounds like a cockney greeting.”
“Very droll. Now chop-chop. It’s in the drawer downstairs”
“Which drawer?”
“The kitchen drawer.”
“Which kitchen drawer? We have several.” Indeed, since we had the kitchen expensively and extensively refitted by Möben we have more drawers than Madonna’s boudoir. I am never able to locate anything. I start to wend my way downstairs and the braying voice follows me.
“Use your common sense, Bernard.”
“I could be hours looking for the damn stuff. I have no idea where you keep it or what it looks like.”
I open a drawer and riffle noisily and one-handed through knives and forks. “It’s not here. I can’t find it.”
“Well it’s hardly going to be in the cutlery drawer, is it?” is the shouted reply. “And don’t bother with the drawer to its left, which is baking sheets, icing materials and pastry cutters.”
“Are we going to go through this like some process of bloody elimination or are you going to actually tell me where this life-saving gunk actually is?”
“Don’t you shout at me Bernard! There is no need to raise your voice. I’m trying to help!” she bellowed.
I find something called Nivea in a drawer by the sink. “Is it this Nivea stuff? It does say it is a skin cream.”
“No. It’s aloe vera. Oh for goodness sake.” One minute’s thunderous descent finds Eunice, dressed in housecoat and fluffy slippers, standing next to me as I open the seven-hundredth drawer full of knick-knacks and detritus.
“It’s not bloody here,” I say, sifting through mounds of cocktail sticks, drink swizzlers and decorative candleholders.
Eunice walks past me and opens the cupboard next to the fridge. “Here it is Bernard, you can stop panicking now.”
“But that’s a cupboard. You clearly said a drawer. A drawer slides, and that damn thing was hinged. I mean how was I supposed to find it? You’ve just sent a man with third degree burns on a wild goose chase.”
“Do stop exaggerating. It was a hot mug. You make it sound like a napalm attack in the killing fields of Cambodia.”
Eunice opened the top of the bottle seized my hand and splotted a great squirt onto my fingers. “There we are, is that better now?”
“It still bloody hurts, if that’s what you mean. You fed me misinformation, which delayed my treatment.”
“You’d better tell Social Services then,” Eunice retorted. “If you’re lucky they might take you into care and you could sit in Ebbing Tide Homes with the other geriatrics, waiting to be fed liquidised foods on a plastic spoon by underpaid and over-worked care staff. I’d not be unhappy to be shot of looking after you with your ridiculous demands.”
So for the next hour we continued with the withering row, with me in my pyjamas with greasy fingers and a packet of frozen peas, and Eunice complaining about how unreasonable I am.
Elevenses: Walked out to the local bakers and ate two fresh cream slices, with fondant custard, strawberry filling and a layer of icing. Felt much better.
Wednesday 20th February: Getting Up
Eunice is feeling particularly bleary-eyed this morning. Naturally, I am to blame. Over breakfast I feel her accusations crystallising while she sips coffee, and stares sullenly over the top of my Daily Telegraph.
“How many times did you get up to go the loo last night?” she asked.
“A couple of times I suppose. Why?”
“Bernard, it must have been more than that. You woke me at least three times. It’s very inconsiderate.”
“Well, if you hadn’t left the ironing board in front of the linen basket I wouldn’t have kicked it.”
“Have you seen the doctor recently about your prostate?”
“Er. Yes, I think so. It’s fine.”
“When?” she said with sudden intensity. “You didn’t mention it to me.”
“It was December I think.” This is of course a lie. With Eunice so involved in Christmas shopping I’m hopeful she won’t have kept any record to disprove this. However, as Eunice’s eavesdropping and surveillance skills would put the Stasi to shame, I’m not overly optimistic. Then of course there are the famed interrogation techniques, with which I was soon re-acquainted.
“What date in December?”
“I don’t recall. It was a Tuesday, I think.”
“Which doctor?”
“Actually, no. The NHS finally got its act together. They had a properly qualified one this time. No leopard skin headdresses or ju-ju charms, I’m relieved to say.”
“Bernard. Which doctor did you see?”
“Dr Parkinson.”
“On a Tuesday? He only works Wednesdays and Fridays. Are you sure?”
“It might have been Dr Rahman.”
“For goodness sake Bernard. Which was it? Do you seriously expect me to believe you can’t tell the difference between a six-foot Lancastrian cricket
fanatic on the verge of retirement and a 30-year-old Bangladeshi woman who always wears a sari.”
“Oh. It probably wasn’t Dr Rahman then.”
“No, I don’t think it was. I don’t think it was anyone at all. You haven’t been to have it checked, have you? After all I said to you about it being the biggest killer of men.”
“Marriage?”
“Prostate cancer!”
“I haven’t got cancer.”
But perhaps I am suffering from a terminal case of marriage. If only there was somewhere I could go to get a cure.
Thursday 28th February: Cave-In Cost
City Link, which last week said it would do no more re-deliveries for me, has contributed to an earnings collapse at Rentokil that was almost as spectacular as the ‘great dining room cave in’ of Endsleigh Gardens. I just wish I had been able to ‘short’ the shares because now I’d have had enough money to cover the cost of getting the builders to fix the ceiling.
Wednesday 5th March: The Buffett Way
All is misery at the share club as we contemplate an ever-falling market. Chantelle, working longer-than-ever hours behind the bar, breaks the news that she can’t continue to make her monthly contributions to the club. Club treasurer K.P. Sharma shrugs, noting that Harry Staines has not contributed a penny for six months, while Martin gave up when his IVA began.
“So it’s just you, me and Mike Delaney,” I say. “I hope you’ve corrected for our increasing share of the assets.”
“I have,” K.P. says. “Of course this is crazy. We’ve got £1650 in cash in the account. If everyone had contributed as they should have done we’d have more than twice as much. With the FTSE at 5800 there are loads of bargains just waiting to be snapped up. Some banks are on incredibly juicy dividend yields.”
“This from the man who got us to buy Northern Rock,” murmurs Harry Staines, without looking up from The Daily Sport.
“No, I mean others like Royal Bank of Scotland.”
“Ah, the next Northern Rock,” Harry chuckles.
“Look,” says K.P. “We should be optimistic about lower prices. We’ve got to behave like Warren Buffett.”
“But I already do,” says Martin Gale. “I’ve lived in the same house since 1958, I drive an 11-year old car and when I married Holly I bought her a ring from a discount catalogue.”
“Did Buffett do that?” asks Chantelle. “What a cheapskate!”
“Yes, but Buffett owned the catalogue company, and a lot else besides,” K.P said. “No, what I mean is that Buffett says he is more certain that buys are good value as prices fall. But if we don’t keep our contributions up when the FTSE is low, we’ll miss loads of bargains and just raise the average cost of the shares we buy. If we kept contributions the same, or better still increased them, we’d see the benefit of pound-cost averaging.”
“Okay, I’ll put a hundred in,” says Harry, handing K.P. a roll of notes which he had prised from his back pocket. “But no banks, mind. Something safe, like a fag company.”
“Safe for investors but not customers,” I say.
“Whatever,” Harry says. “That’s Avril’s housekeeping, mind. So let’s not lose it eh, Rockefeller?”
Chapter Ten: Antichrist Antics
Saturday 8th March: Dot-To-Dot
This weekend is devoted to a family shindig, with my mother plus Brian, Janet and the Antichrist. Take them all out for a traditional afternoon tea in Tunbridge Wells. The place is modelled on a Lyons corner house, with waitresses in uniform and a Glenn Miller CD playing in the background. My mother is charmed, though can’t stop herself asking whether the victoria sponge is made with powdered egg. She also asks for bread and dripping “as a special treat.” The Antichrist, in a particularly vile mood, orders a slice of coffee and walnut gateaux, at the very 21st century price of £3.95, and then won’t eat it because he claims he doesn’t like coffee.
“Please eat it, Digby,” says Brian, in his most emollient Guardian-reading tones. “Think of those in less-developed countries struggling to afford food because of biofuels.”
“If you don’t eat it, Digby, give it to your grandad. He loves cake,” says Janet, trying to appeal to the malicious mite’s competitive instinct.
Digby smiles wickedly and mashes the slice with his fork. “Here you are, Grandad. Nice and easy to eat.”
“Ooh, you’re a wicked one,” says Dot. “That’s a whole week’s butter ration! You’d have been hung for that in the Blitz.”
“It’s alright Mum,” I say, as I eat the still-delicious rubble. “Digby is going to pay for this, aren’t you?” The child shakes his head, but he’s wrong. I’m going to deduct it from my contributions to a stakeholder pension which I will be starting on his birthday. By the time he’s 65, that slice of cake will have cost him £150.
Sunday 9th March: Digby Checkmated
As planned I take Digby over to see ‘Perfect’ Peter Edgington for a game of chess in the morning. We sit in Peter’s giant conservatory, surrounded by pot plants while Geraldine serves tea, plus lemonade for the Antichrist.
“Urggh. There’s bits in it!” says Digby, inspecting the glass.
“I made it with fresh lemons, dear,” Geraldine says, miffed.
The game begins and Digby is immediately in trouble. His brows furrow and I see the telltale signs of a tantrum gathering as his ears go red. Peter is just poised to trap Digby’s queen, when the child makes a sudden lunge and spills his lemonade over the board, sending pieces flying. However, he hasn’t counted on Perfect Peter giant chess player’s brain, which allows him to accurately recall the position once the board and table have been wiped. Digby lasts another five minutes and stamps off to the loo after being checkmated. He doesn’t return for half an hour. “It’s alright,” Peter says. “I told him he could play games on my computer.”
Oh no. That’s surely the chess player’s biggest ever blunder.
Monday 10th March: Bovis Satisfaction
Oh dear, oh dear. Bovis has missed forecasts. On the day of its results, I can happily watch them fall close to the 490p I sold them at in January. My son Brian remarked at the weekend that I now seemed to be agreeing with him about there being too many housing estates planned. Maybe it’s my lost profits at Bovis, which I could have sold for 1200p had I seen the light, which are informing my opinions. Or perhaps it is my experience at the hands of the Harmsworth brothers, who cut down the precious pear tree on which I carved Amelia Wrigley’s name all those years ago. That reminds me, I’ve read that they’re going to planning appeal over the housing development at the Old Orchard. I think I’ll write in to the council about that.
Elevenses: As I eat a Club biscuit, I remember that I still haven’t received that damn parcel from City Link. Looking at the last card I received I realise that I have to fetch it by tomorrow or they will return it to sender.
Tuesday 11th March: Pass The Parcel
Drive forty miles to a windswept industrial state and take half an hour to find the anonymous warehouse from which City Link plies its trade. I go into reception, which is as deserted as the Marie Celeste. After five minutes an acne-afflicted youth with earrings appears and I hand him the card. He disappears for a full twenty minutes. A wheezing woman then comes in and asks me if she can help. I tell her that someone is looking for my parcel, but hasn’t been seen since 1903. She asks for the number of the parcel, which as I explain is only on the card. I describe the chav who took the card. She then pages ‘Darren.’ A bearded bloke in an overall comes in to tell her that Darren is on his break.
“But what about my book?” I say.
“I’ll get it for you,” says beardie. “Wossa number?”
“I don’t know, Darren took the card,” I say, with rising exasperation. “Can you just trace it from my address?”
There’s a long pause, with sucking of teeth and shaking of heads. “You just can’t do it without logging into the dispatch system,” says the woman.
“Is that a problem?” I
ask.
“It’s down. Could you come back tomorrow?”
At this point, I’m afraid I blew up like Vesuvius. Finally, I returned to my car, and drove home like a demon. I got in to find the house deserted and a single delivery card on the mat from City Link: ‘We called but you were out.’
Gaaaah!
Wednesday 12th March: Fed Up
Federal Reserve has pumped $436 billion of liquidity into the U.S. banking system to get them to start lending to each other. Loaning all this taxpayer’s dosh to the nutcases who started the sub-prime disaster sounds daft. Won’t they just fill their suitcases and head off to Las Vegas? It didn’t even convince the stock markets for long, prices started falling again within 24 hours.
Thursday 13th March: Perfect Peter’s Imperfect PC
Peter Edgington phoned me today in a state of uncharacteristic agitation.
“Bernard, I’m sorry to tell you this, but when your grandson came here on Sunday, I think he inadvertently changed some settings on my computer.”
I knew this would happen. Peter had foolishly let the Antichrist, newly defeated in their chess game, play computer games on his PC while we chatted downstairs. I’ve had a nagging worry about it ever since. I’m quite sure that the one word that doesn’t apply here is ‘inadvertent.’
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“Well, the default character set has become Cyrillic, the type size is four, the type colour is yellow and the background colour pink. It didn’t take that long to undo it, but as soon as I rebooted the PC, it was back again! Then I discovered that all my website bookmarks were gone.”
