by Louth Nick
Mother: “Bernard. The electricity’s gone off, they’ve taken the meter away and I can’t find where to put me shillings.”
“What are you talking about? You’re on direct debit. You don’t have a coin meter.”
“Well, I must. I put four bob in yesterday. But now I can’t find it.”
“Are you telling me it’s dark? Have you tried all the lights?”
This deranged Mastermind went on for some time (Mrs Dot Jones, you passed on only nineteen questions) until I gave up and drove over. It was the fuse of course, but Dot had indeed been feeding coins (5p pieces, £2 coins, and the odd pfennig) into the gap under the gas meter, and I needed a screwdriver to get them out.
Frustrating, yes, but nothing compared to the fate that befell me on Wednesday.
Chapter Ten: An Arresting Experience
Wednesday 22nd February: Driven to distraction
Terrifying day! Jem had been badgering me to go and help her remove her belongings from the flat she shared with gay Toby and bring them here so she can rent it out. So I hired a van, left it outside here last night hoping for an early start today. But at 7am have a discovery: someone has bashed into it, scraped the side, and left the driver-side wing mirror dangling. Great! That’s £200 in excess up the Swanee.
Already fuming, arrive in Fulham to discover Jem’s “few bits and bobs” would fill an airship hangar. She’s no help on furniture-lifting either (“Daddy, I’ve broken a nail!”), so it was muggins here with high cholesterol and low back pain who did the work. Didn’t finish until 5pm, and traffic out of Fulham was awful. Two hours later, halfway between Sevenoaks and Tonbridge, traffic on the A21 comes to a standstill. Police helicopters overhead, sirens ahead. Kept thinking: must be one heck of a pile up. Must get the van unloaded and back by 10pm to avoid another day’s charge, so see a side road on the left 200 yards further up, and slip out onto the verge to scoot along to it. All this is hard enough, as Jem has so much stuff on her lap in the cab (including a four-foot suede-covered pig called Prescott) I can’t even see the remaining mirror, but soon we are whizzing up a country lane. Then some noisy bloody motorcycle is on my tail, can’t see him but he won’t overtake, so I put my foot down. Helicopter noises get louder, and suddenly there are sirens ahead, and round a corner two police cars parked across the road.
“Daddy, stop! They’ve got guns!” Jem screams, but it’s too late and I turn sharp left and plough into a hedge instead. Hit my head on the wheel, and Jem, who’d used the seat belt to secure her box of bloody teddy bears instead of herself, ends up across the dashboard.
“Armed police!” is the next I hear but I’m already cradling a whimpering Jemima in my arms and looking at a smear of blood on the windscreen when the door is ripped open by some burly copper who points a sub-machine gun in my face and bellows: “Come on Fossett, you’re nicked!”
Who the hell is Fossett?
Close of play: Banged up at Paddington Green while two coppers keep asking me where I’ve stashed the cash and “Who’s the mole at Securitas”. They won’t listen to my protestations and ignore my pleas about Jem. Instead they wave the van paperwork in front of me bellowing: “Come on Fossett, couldn’t you think of a better alias than Jones!”
It’s almost midnight when a female inspector comes in and admits that they’ve got the wrong man. Jem apparently is OK, just bruises. No apologies, no contrition, just a final kick up the backside. I’m to be charged with driving without due care and attention! Still, the interrogation I got from Eunice as she drove me home made the Met look like beginners.
2.30am: Got home. Hugged Jemima, poor bruised thing, for the longest time since she was a child. Tears all round.
Thursday 8th March: The wheelie thing
4.45am: Dreaming of African exploration, my bearers struggling in the heat with their load of cherry bakewells and eccles cakes as we wade across crocodile-infested rivers (and particularly alert for hippopotamus manoeuvres). Then the sound of tom-toms, coming closer and closer. Struggle awake. Peek between the curtains, fully expecting to see massed hordes of Watusi warriors pillaging Endsleigh Gardens.
The reality is more horrifying. Workmen are hurling wheelie bins off the back of an enormous lorry onto the street, where they crash and boom. Goblin-like figures swarm around them, dragging them into inconvenient places where they block drives, hem in parked vehicles and occupy pavements. Suddenly a light goes on at number 43 and a door bursts open, showering the scene with the light of righteousness. There in the doorway, clad only in a quilted pink housecoat and fluffy slippers and armed only with a broom is Daphne Hanson-Hart, paladin royal and scourge of the council Waste Services Team. A halogen halo lights her recently-permed crown as she gallops down her path toward the massed enemy beyond. A large bespectacled hobgoblin, clad in high-visibility tunic over a shirt and tie, draws his clipboard and prepares to block her path. Though he is fully a foot taller than her, fear is a stranger to this warrior queen. Proudly she chants words of power, the wagging finger smiting her way into the heart of the enemy. Taken aback by the ferocity of her attack, Waste Services regroup by the back of their lorry, gesticulating in turn and holding up their magical clipboard of ‘orders from a higher authority’. Undeterred, Daphne smites a green wheelie bin with the shaft of her broom, toppling it into the gutter. In desperation, one Waste Services operative clambers back into the lorry, which roars into life. Orange lights flash and a piercing Beep-Beep-Beep is emitted by the monster as it reverses towards her, breathing deadly diesel. Undaunted, she stands her ground, striking the steel dragon with her broom. Now from further up the road comes the cavalry. Mr and Mrs Oliver Pendlewood, in matching lavender bathrobes, are pushing back their wheelie bins towards the lorry. Mrs Davidson, waving a letter, is taken on by the chief hobgoblin with his clipboard.
After a frantic mêlée of pointing and gesticulating, Waste Services is overmastered. They load back half a dozen bins, and drive away leaving the spoils of victory to the residents of Endsleigh Gardens.
Saturday 11th March: Key of life
Glory be, I’ve found the key! It was in the case of an old pair of reading glasses (one of nine lost around the house in eighteen months) The Hornby drawer is now secure. No more kiwi fruit, no inscrutable Chinese pears, just good solid British bickies. Notice that Nasdaq has made a bid approach to the London Stock Exchange. Time to open a museum for bowler hats and black brollies?
Monday March 13th: Marks expensive
Misery. Post brings bill for £200 excess on the van, notice of prosecution and reminder for first instalment on the damn conservatory. Builders aren’t due to start work until next month! Perhaps we should have gone with Ultraframe, they certainly need the work and it would have been cheaper. Final nail in the coffin, some spiv from the spread-betting company phones up and demands £464! Tells me that M&S have shot up to 562p, eaten up all my margin, and if I want to keep my short position I shall have to “pony up and pronto”, otherwise I’ll have to cut my losses. Have to admit I hadn’t kept my eye on this ball for weeks, and this sends me into a panic.
“What should I do?” I ask him, and he says smugly, “Sorry Sir, we’re not allowed to give investment advice.” Can’t bear to let Stuart Rose get one over on me, so I say I’ll pay up. Damn!
Elevenses: Two delicious fresh cream éclairs (buy one get one free, how could I resist?) from the bakers, the box concealed under my coat to get past Eunice security and into the den! Somehow this makes me feel like a cholesterol suicide bomber.
Chapter Eleven: Feeling the Digital Revolution
Saturday 18th March: Chinese paper torture
Breakfast guerrilla games again. Eunice waits until I have my head well into the paper and then starts wittering at me. Today, the only day of the week I take the FT, I was well into a brain-stretching analysis by Martin Wolf. I’d just reached a paragraph which started ‘Seventhly, Chinese GDP growth…’ and then she launched in.
“Don’t forget you’ve got to see you
r mother next week.”
I grunted my assent. Then there was a short pause before: “You’ll need to fill the Volvo up before you go, it’s on the red.”
Yes I know. Then there is a thirty-second pause and it will be something else. Concentration finally interrupted I lower the paper to find she has finished wittering and is herself reading a magazine, curling a finger through her hair as if nothing had happened. Only when the paper goes back up (‘And eighthly, the motive for holding U.S. Treasury bonds…’) then she launches in again. This little charade can go on for hours. I recall nothing I was reading, yet no information of any value is passed across by Eunice either. No, the point of the exercise is to get attention. To compete with and (yes!) defeat the hated newspaper.
Sunday 19th March: Fears and prostration
Lengthy breakfast skirmish, machine-gunned with trivia while I try to read about Vodafone’s boardroom quarrels. Finally I drop the Telegraph and ask her to tell me whatever it is she wants to say. First she accuses me of being testy for rattling the paper, then she says:
“Bernard, have you ever had your prostate checked?”
“No”, I reply.
“Well you do have problems with your urinary tract, don’t you?”
Urinary tract? Why doesn’t she just say waterworks? I’m sure she’s been reading American medical journals on the internet again.
“You are up twice or three times every night,” she continues. I respond that it’s just a bit of a dicky bladder, no trouble at all.
“Well you keep getting up, wake me up, and then I lie awake worrying that you might have problems.”
Problems? Nothing a little wife strangling couldn’t sort. However I tell her I feel fine.
“Ah but there are often no symptoms.”
“No symptoms of what, for God’s sake?”
“Prostate cancer.”
“I don’t have cancer, Eunice. Stop fretting.”
“Bernard. One man in six gets it. Do think about it, it’s Prostate Awareness Week next week.”
The week after, I respond, is Holiday from Harridans Week.
Exit one bristling Eunice. Slammed door.
Tuesday 21st March: Prostate Awareness Week
Eunice somehow has laid hands on a ‘prostate awareness’ badge, and has pinned it to her cardigan. She hasn’t said any more, but clearly I’m going to get no peace on the issue. I sigh deeply, ring the quack and make an appointment. Dr Ross, 3.45pm on Friday. Never heard of him. Why can’t I ever get to see my own doctor?
Elevenses: Plain chocolate Bounty. Being good, only eat half.
Close of play: M&S continues to climb. Now 573p. Help!
Wednesday 22nd March: Budget day
Biggest hot air-to-action ratio ever. Munched entire multi-
pack of Hula Hoops while watching Brown drone. Feel queasy now. Salt-overdose? Nerves about Friday’s appointment?
Friday 24th March: The NHS digital advance
Just got back from quack’s in a state of shock. First off, walked in to the consulting room and found Dr Ross was not male at all. In fact a loud, industrial-size version of Ann Widdecombe. Asked me horrendous waterworks questions, culminating in: “How often do you have sex?” I exaggerated and said once a month. Then without looking up from her form, she said “How about masturbation?”
“Not at the moment, thanks all the same.”
“Mr Jones.” She glared at me over her glasses. “How often? Once a day, once a week?”
So began the lecture. Apparently the old prostate needs flushing out, and regularly bashing the bishop, particularly in your twenties and thirties, keeps it in fine fettle. I wish they’d let me know when I was fifteen. I’d kept it down to thrice daily out of fear of blindness.
The quack sat me on the bed took a blood sample, and then said to be on the safe side she would do a digital check of the prostate and would I be kind enough to slip off my clothes.
“Oh,” I said. “I thought being the NHS the machines would still be analogue.” For some reason she found this hilarious, but I was so relieved there wasn’t going to be the rumoured prodding I’d heard about that I didn’t give it a second thought. Then I heard the stretch and snap of latex gloves, looked over my shoulder as the curtains parted and saw the digit she had in mind.
“Come on Mr Jones. Bend over. And do try to relax.”
Chapter Twelve: Anno Domini
Wednesday 29th March: No such thing as a free lunch
Share club meeting. Serious drinking probable, so got Eunice to give me a lift. Mistake. Only she can overtake at 60mph in second gear, then ask what “that funny screaming noise” is. Only she can make me flinch at every bend or junction, make me stamp on imaginary brakes and stare in horror at the road ahead.
Immediate double scotch on arrival at the Ring o’Bells to quell quivering. Harry Staines already on his second pint and third punch line. (“Oh”, she says. “If I knew you’d got ten pounds I’d have taken me tights off!”)
Mike Delaney calls the meeting to order. Decided to set a variable contribution level, with units to match. Like Mike Delaney I’m going for £50 a month (could have been £100 but for that M&S margin call). Harry reckons he can only manage £20 but K.P. is going for the maximum £200. Got ribbed (again) over my van chase and arrest.
Elevenses: Bowl of free crisps at the bar. Tasted appalling, so I asked the barmaid what flavour they were. The girl, a pale spiky-haired creature with numerous rings in her eyebrows (does she wear curtains at night?) poked through the bin until she found the packet. “Says here ‘Roasted Mediterranean vegetable, organic sun-dried tomato an’ drizzled with extra virgin olive oil flavour’,” adding “best before July 2003.”
Seeing my expression she added, “Well, that’s why it’s free ain’t it? I can get yer a bag of salt n’ vinegar for 40p.”
“Done.”
Thursday 30th March: Queen’s Gambit
M&S, thankfully, are slipping a little. Still, my short spread-bet is nearly £1,000 in the red, given that I set it at 482p and the shares have climbed to 570p. I’ve got a couple of successes, though. BAE, bought in October 2005 for 330p is now at 420p, and Bovis is going great guns. Bought at 660p in December, now just below 950p! Portfolio added £2,014 so far this year.
Quack’s receptionist phoned and whinged that I haven’t followed up my cholesterol test with an appointment to talk about diet. I reluctantly agree to do so, then get put through to the dreaded Dr Ross who has my prostate test results, conveniently rendered into Sanskrit. “The protein specific antigen test confirmed my initial hypothesis of benign prostatic hypertrophy.” Reckon I should get a bloody trophy, considering what she put me through.
Elevenses: Now lockable, Hornby drawer contains an Aladdin’s cave of secrets: an entire packet of all-butter Scottish shortbread, a Mr Kipling treacle tart, two Crunchies and, cunningly, an apple. This I can whip out if the tyrant queen demands to know what is concealed within.
Friday 31st March: Birthday neglect
I’m 63 tomorrow. In mirror, face is a battlefield of disappointments, fringed in fading grey. Live a kind of cowering existence, flitting from model railway in the loft to computer in the den, dreams confined to Great Western Region rolling stock or stock market riches. Reality? Last week Eunice went through my wardrobe to make space for Jemima’s wagon train of clothes and shoes. I found my old brogues, still gleaming from 20 years of daily polishing, in a box destined for Age Concern, together with Eunice’s old lampshades and an Emmerdale video. Was I asked? Not at all.
Elevenses: Three shortbread bickies.
Close of play: Down £203.76.
Saturday 1st April: Wrong kind of birthday coach
Presents: Signal box from Brian and Janet. Bag of lichen and bark allegedly from the Antichrist, but clearly bought and labelled by Janet. Bottle of Glenfiddich from Jemima, very nice. Eunice must have misread my list. Instead of the pair of GWR 1930s coaches I requested, she has bought me a 12-part life-coaching cours
e. I gazed at the book and DVD with speechless amazement. It was entitled ‘Hug the inner you’. On the cover was a tanned 8’ tall lantern-jawed American with a halogen smile and his arms around some 25-year old swim suited Barbie doll. ‘Our promise: To unzip the bold, confident you.’ It went on: ‘Renew the body and rebuild the mind, to hug that heart within.’
Eunice said, “Come on Bernard. You just seem so down recently. I’ve been at a bit of a loss, what with you avoiding me and glaring at everyone. So I was talking about it to Irmgard, and she recommended this to build your self-confidence.”
At that point I went ballistic: “Don’t discuss our life with that nosy hag! In two seconds she’ll have us all in a Welsh peasant collective, colonically irrigated and munching organic kelp. This Californian new age tosh is appalling. How much did you pay for it?” Eunice hesitated, before whispering “Um, £112 I think.”
“What!” I roared.
Then she added sheepishly: “Plus VAT. Per month. I’m afraid I signed up for the first six months in advance. I thought you’d approve, we get a 10 per cent discount.”
Aarrgh!
