-
Announcement
-
Simtropolis Returns! 05/26/2026
See here for details about our site recovery efforts.
-
Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'humour'.
Found 21 results
-
Letty Albin, Mayor of Burton A massive unlit bonfire towered at the end of a processional path of cardboard Llamas. A rowdy gaggle of students were heaving a massive wicker hoop upright, while another excited group steered an unstable wheelbarrow full of waste wood towards the ceremonial pyre. Myrtle and I were squirty lemony fresh Bleacho into the dubious looking camper toilet inside Lowell Cree’s vintage motorhome, also known, by my friend at least, as ‘the rust bucket’. I really wasn’t sure if festivals were ‘my thing’. An occasional venture into an easy going rock and roll radio station would be enough to keep me entertained for a year. The idea of being blasted by enormous speakers, and wading around in mud had not appealed in the slightest. ‘Will you STOP moaning,’ Myrtle moaned, ‘The Burton festival isn’t really about music anyway.’ I couldn’t disagree with her. Hairy Pete’s Experimental Electric Banjo Tunes, which were floating towards us from the folk stage really didn’t qualify as a recognisable melody. Lack of sleep was a factor in our quarrelling. I had been claustrophobic lying in the overcab bed, and my friend had been unable to organise the dinette cushions in a way that didn’t involve zips, gaps and lumps sticking into parts of her that preferred a proper mattress. I slapped a pair of enormous headphones onto my ears, to block out any obnoxious noises, and we went in search of a hot drink, hopefully somewhere more civilised. ‘What’s a Legbut Rainbow beer Tent?’ Myrtle enquired. I didn’t care, it looked quiet and out of the wind. We sulked at a wooden table, staring at our soy based vegan Ovaltine. ‘As soon as Stacy and Thea do the hoop thing we’re gone,’ my friend decided. I agreed wholeheartedly. Mayor Albin floated past wearing an enormous grin and a ‘Rainbow Ally’ t-shirt. A group of people were gathering at one end of the tent. ‘Please no more singing,’ I whispered to myself, hiding my head under an organic embroidered cushion. ‘I am honoured to welcome to the stage,’ announced Letty Albin, ‘two well known faces who will appreciate your support this evening at the bonding ceremony.’ A small ripple of applause followed. ‘We’re being haunted,’ exclaimed Myrtle, wrenching me out of my upholstery nest. Neil Fairbanks and Augustine Osbourne stood awkwardly holding hands on the raised platform, acknowledging a somewhat muted cheer from the audience. ‘Well that’s a surprise,’ cackled Myrtle, ‘I was convinced that Augustine bloke was a vampire, hanging round tombs and disappearing at night like he did, when he was actually just slipping away to bed down wherever that slimeball Fairbanks hangs out.’ I was too exhausted to comment. Fairbanks was holding a sheaf of papers, and looking towards the rear of the tent. ‘I rather thought that my father might be.. well never mind..’. He donned a pair of half-moon spectacles and opened his mouth to begin. Whatever speech the chief government advisor had prepared, however, was drowned out by a hysterical flurry of barking and minor explosions just outside the tent’s canvas wall. ‘Fluffy McD!,’ we both shouted in unison, leaping to our feet, and racing outside, followed by a relieved crowd of Legbut patrons, who seemed glad not to have their supportive instincts tested to the limit by the reading out of twenty pages of closely typed text. Our furry friend, towing a desperate Lowell Cree behind him, like a water-skier on mud, was throwing himself alternately at the a platoon of FemLegUh Feminine Fitness Role Models, in their pink knee-length modesty bloomers, and the Church Ladies’ tambourine chorus, all of whom were ducking and diving to avoid mini fire-crackers which were spraying out of a rotating tin box. Myrtle threw herself on top of FluffyMcD like a mother hen protecting her chick, and the resulting change of momentum sent Mayor Cree cannoning into a large plastic recycling bin which overturned to reveal Bob ‘the grease’ Pit clutching at his electric organ, and a quivering Stanley Green, financial advisor for Magnasanti, shaking his head and saying ‘I never touched it, I only looked at it! Over and over again. We finally regained some sense of order, and retreated to the Rust Bucket. Cree, who was obviously in the process of trying to win back his estranged wife, had offered to see if anything could be done with the dinette cushions. This was a doubly generous gesture, as he himself had spent the night in a leaky old army tent, on my second best air mattress, with the agitated dog tied to his leg. ‘There’s no point, we’re going straight home after the heathen weddings.’ Myrtle objected, but still she went inside the van to supervise his efforts. I decided to take FMcD for a very long walk, well away from the maddening crowds, to see if fresh air, exercise and some peace and quiet would calm him down, and me too if I was being honest. It didn’t take long to leave the smoky campfires, ‘perineal boosting’ chanting, and ill disciplined tambourines behind. I found a narrow muddy path into a small wooded valley. My furry friend and I followed the track along a tumbling stream, until the way was blocked by a delightful waterfall. It was the perfect place to sit and relax, and let the soothing sounds of nature take away the corrugations of stress that had gathered in my neck and shoulders. I squeezed through bushes to get to a comfortable looking fallen tree, and was anticipating a nice sit down when FMcD startled and tugged on the lead. I slid sideways down the bank, and landed full square on top of the Vicar. Miss Polanski’s guide to social etiquette, which had been such a reliable source of support in my uncertain teenage years, had much to say about the proper management of relationships with religious officials. She did not however anticipate the situation I had been currently thrown into, merely suggesting that unexpected and awkward encounters could be made more palatable by neutral references to the weather. I decided that commenting on the likelihood of rain was not an appropriate reaction to being dragged through mud towards the edge of a water course whilst tied to a churchman by an extendable dog lead. It was obvious that the Rev Cotterall was having similar social difficulties, but one of us had to crack first. ‘I’m sorry about the dog,’ I gabbled, ‘ He hates being left alone, but isn’t good around people either.’ Cotterall nodded and smiled, ‘Well I know how that feels!’. ‘He just needs a proper home, sensible meals, and someone to take him round the park at midnight after everyone has gone home and the ducks have gone to sleep. He would settle down a treat then!.’ Cotterall disentangled himself from the lead and tickled McD under the chin. To my amazement, the dog seemed quite happy with the gesture. ‘Those park ducks can be quite a pain in the neck.’ The Rev laughed,and Fluffy, delighted with the sympathy, rolled over and begged for a tummy rub. ‘You like dogs?,’ I asked. ‘Some of them, yes, some people too,’ he answered, causing me to blush unexpectedly. Having run out of conversation, we walked back towards the festival site together, somewhat awkwardly avoiding eye contact. A huge crowd had gathered to watch couples leap through the wicker hoop, and I was right at the back unable to see anything. ‘I’m meant to be watching Stacy and Thea,’ I panicked. ‘This is my fault entirely,’ the Rev apologised, ‘please could I?’ He was offering to give me a leg up onto a nearby wall. I decided to ignore my inhibitions and allow the Vicar to help. I was just able to see the top of the hoop, but not the couples passing through it, I needed to push to the front of the crowd somehow. Getting down was not nearly so simple as climbing up. The muddy ground looked a long way off now I looked at it, and I half fell and wound up clutching onto the Vicar’s head with one leg wrapped around his shoulder. The churchman staggered this way and that. Even the most distracted of festival goers could sense the danger of staying within the range of potential disaster, and a path magically opened up, just as Fairbanks and Augustine jumped timidly through the wickerwork to a round of polite applause. As our unintentional acrobatic act tottered ever closer towards the hoop, a queue of romantic couples featuring all kinds of gender combinations suddenly lost their sense of commitment and scattered in various directions. Upset by the excitement of the crowd, the howling Fluffy McD wrapped his lead like a maypole dancer tightly around the churchmans’ legs. I clutched desperately onto what remained of Cotterall’s hair, dreading the inevitable contact with the ground which must follow. I think I shouted ‘Don’t let Parry Marcelyn operate on me if I break a hip!’ but it was all a blur really. I’m sure the spiritual leader of Saint Muldyke’s, one Geoffery Cotterall, has in one of his many sermons, reached out and affected the odd parishioner here and there, but he could not possibly have, in whole career, experienced the effect that he would have on the youthful crowd, of suddenly appearing in his muddied up Church of Ballina regalia illuminated by the ring of torch-light behind the bonding hoop, with a purple haired woman wearing tartan bondage trousers, and effecting a kind of flying parachute roll through the bedecked mystic circle, accompanied by a baying, one and a quarter eared hound. The scream of delight that went up from the assembled throng was electrifying. Camera flashes blinded us, roaring students competed with the outraged ranks of church women. Through it all I could hear Myrtle, screaming at the top of her voice. ‘You upstaged Fairbanks!’ Lying in the wet grass, part dazzled by camera flashes, I made out the blurry figures of two gentlemen in brown GUM overalls, wearing dark glasses. They made towards us, but hesitated, realising that their only free path lay through the bonding circle. An uncomfortable pause followed when they avoided looking at each other while weighing up the strength of their loyalty to whatever dark forces employed them. A simultaneous collective decision was made to run off in opposite directions. Having completed a survey of my fallen body, and concluded that nothing had been too far damaged, my brain allowed me to realise that I had, somehow managed, to accidentally marry the Vicar. Glancing sideways, I noted that Geoff had reached the same startling conclusion. Thankfully a new incident arose as a welcome distraction from our predicament. Sally, the most civilised of the helpers at the Boll Road Sheltered Housing Centre, was shouting for assistance. ‘Somebody help, Mrs Rorshach is being crushed by a boa constrictor!’. A rush of onlookers hurried towards the overflowing car park. I noticed Alice, with an unusually empty carrier bag, exchanging a thumbs up with a top-hatted stilt walker. A group of Firefighters were prising a window out of the excursion coach and directing their hoses at the site of the reptilian attack. It seemed that this was their stock response to any emergency. I thought I could hear the distant panicked voice of Roy, Fairbank’s brother, trying to rescue his pet from the torrent of water. ‘Some days I think Alice goes too far,’ Myrtle had appeared behind me. ‘Mind you, that Rorshach woman sulking in the bus when there’s all this fun going on, it probably serves her right!’. ‘Ooh I forgot to say, Thea and Stacy aren’t coming, she’s got morning sickness and didn’t want to travel.’ This last piece of information, with Myrtle’s trademark inclusion of previously undisclosed information was so infuriating that I stormed off, without really knowing where I was going, hopefully somewhere that made more sense. What I found was the small sad looking Neil Fairbanks with his father Mortimer Green, at the quiet end of the Legbut tent. ‘I was hoping she might come after all, Mother you know,’ said Neil. Dr Green patted his son on the shoulder. ‘Hilda can be difficult, when she doesn't get her own way. She never has accepted your divorce from Pamela.’ The Mayor of Deighton Augustine Osbourne, Neil’s newly wed partner, returned to their table. ‘They don’t sell alcohol I'm afraid. It is only a beer tent in the metaphorical sense, apparently.’ He sat down heavily on a flimsy folding chair, and stared at the tray of bamboo beakers he had balanced on his knee, each filled with floating vegetable matter. The family group suddenly noticed me hovering, mouth hanging open, so I took off my scarf, and acted waitressy by wiping their table with it. ‘I’m sorry your Mother didn’t come to your wedding,’ I blurted out, to my own surprise as much as anyone. Neil grabbed both my hands and said ‘thank you’ a little tearily. Little brother Roy arrived just then, and pushed past me carrying a writhing rainbow sack while complaining about ‘yet more vet bills’, so I took the chance to escape. I had no idea what to do next, so I went outside and sat down beside the fireworks controller. A little light on the side was flashing and I spotted what looked like a tiny camera lens and leaned down to investigate. I was startled when an electronic voice activated. ‘Welcome O-Val-Tine Family Member Two, thank you for purchasing a quality product from Magnaprime software, how can I assist you today?’ Magnaprime was owned by Neil’s Mother, Hilda Fairbanks wasn’t it? Suddenly a lot of things started slotting into place and I wondered if the electronic assistant really could help me. So I started asking questions. It was completely dark by the time I had finished. FluffyMcD spotted me first, and jumped up and down at the end of his long lead, which had been tied to the Motorhome. ‘I told you she would be back,’ Myrtle’s voice floated through the surrounding haze of burning campfires and other substances I tried not to think about. Geoff hovered uncertainly. ‘I’m so sorry, it was all my fault, I’ll ask the Bishop for an annulment as soon as his office opens tomorrow.’ he blurted out. ‘No you won’t,’ I said, more calmly than I felt, and then I reached up on my tiptoes and kissed him.’ It was hard to say who was most astonished, though I would argue myself to the top of the list given a chance. ‘Fluffy and I are going to come and live at the Vicarage, and I will cook you some proper dinners, and we are going to stop Ballina turning into a district of Hilda Fairbank’s Magnasanti together.’ Myrtle handed me a steaming mug of our favourite drink. ‘With Myrtle’s help of course,’ I added, diplomatically. ‘Sounds like a good idea,’ my friend replied, ‘I was thinking it couldn’t be Neil doing all this, he is as much of a bumbling fool as the rest of the males in his family, he just hides it better under that veneer of smarm.’ Talk about Mortimer Green becoming the default pattern for Magnaprime’s facial recognition system, or how the liquidated stock from Hilda Fairbank’s previous novelties and garden statuary business had been sold off illegally to Gustav’s after the fuss about psychotropic substances in novelty biscuits, and conversations about the secret spies that were sent out to protect her favourite son, all these topics could wait for a suitable rainy day. Bob ‘the Grease’ Pit was playing a tango rhythm arrangement of the Nutcracker suite, and a hearty band of students were busy tossing cardboard Llamas onto their huge bonfire down in the wedding field. It would be a shame to miss any of it. Later, while trying to digest Lowell’s blackened bbq meats, my new husband turned to me thoughtfully. ‘Vicar’s wife, are you absolutely sure this is what you want?’ he asked, ‘It’s,’ he hesitated, ‘a lot of being polite and refereeing between warring parties, it might drive you barmy.’ ‘Well,’ I answered,’you can do it that way, or you can follow my Mother’s plan, which was to be equally rude to everyone except the Bishop, it was a very efficient system.’ Geoff looked at me for a few seconds before bursting into laughter. I squeezed his hand, and FluffyMcD barked and jumped up and down for joy, or possibly in an attempt to get more cindered sausages off the charcoal grill. Myrtle slid beside me, passing out steaming mugs of her favourite brew. ‘I might have been wrong about the Vicar.’ she said neutrally, as if admitting to being wrong was something she did everyday, ‘You should have heard what he said to that FemLegUH lot when they came complaining about his lack of moral example!’ She fished into her capacious handbag and brought out a promotional leaflet about dog flea treatments, which had been covered in any unprinted areas by her scrawling handwriting. ‘I wrote it down,’ she said, propping her rarely seen reading glasses on the end of her nose, ‘He said, I am proud to get married in this company, what I am embarrassed about, is when committed couples ask to be joined in my church, and I have to say no because of outdated rules based on the small minded prejudices of higher officials.’ Lowell leaned over conspiratorially, ‘Then Fluffy McD took a fancy to chewing on those stupid athletic bloomers and they positive role modelled away at high speed. It was a shame you missed it really.’ he chuckled. ‘I might have to forgive Cotterall for the mix up with the bingo calling. I do hold a grudge sometimes, and I’m not one to ignore my own faults,’ said Myrtle, adopting a holy expression and looking upwards for a moment, ‘and at least he has civilised tastes in hot drinks’ she smiled, tilting her head towards the unexpected bridegroom, who was now sipping Ovaltine out of a plastic camping beaker and reading the bits of the Simnation Times that FMcD had not already chewed over. I just nodded happily in response, because I know that she likes to have the last word. ‘
-
Stella Kenelm, Mayor of Boll I was waiting for Myrtle outside the Boll Road Sheltered housing unit, poking at a bit of loose plastic which kept popping up on the dashboard when I noticed my old apartment block neighbour, Mrs Rorshach, glaring at me out of Doris’s old bedroom window. ‘Don’t encourage that tedious old witch,’ instructed Myrtle, as she landed rather heavily into the passenger seat. ‘I had to have a shower at the Fire Station this morning because she ran off all the hot water in the building trying to flush an imaginary spider out of her shower tray.’ I nodded sympathetically, but I was fully occupied trying to find 359 Harbour Road, Boll, in my spiral bound street gazetteer of Ballina. This was the address of our portacabin neighbour Clinton. After struggling to control the hound at work, Bill had been experimenting with leaving FluffyMcD at home during the day, but complaints about noise had flooded in from the neighbours, so we had offered to visit the poor dog to give him some company, and a break from being locked inside. We had reached the centre of Boll, and I was trying to work out the next move before the lights changed, but I couldn’t concentrate because Myrtle was still muttering on about Mrs Rorschach, so I interrupted her by bashing hard on the dashboard with my road map. This had the additional effect of snapping off the rogue loose plastic piece from the dashboard. However, now the car’s hazard warning lights were flashing on and off, and we had to park up in front of Blinky Sloane’s Discount Opticians to stick a bit of one of Myrtle’s toffee’s into the hole left by the broken trim to fix the problem. I decided that I wasn’t in a good mood. Fluffy McD was waiting in the bungalow’s front room window. He had already clawed down the curtains, and our arrival excited him further. I began to think that the double glazing would give way before we managed to get the door open. ‘He doesn’t like being left on his own,’ said Myrtle, stating the obvious. The lounge door had sustained deep grooves where the poor hound had tried to escape. We made a huge fuss of the beast, and he responded with a body whirling, tail wagging dance. ‘I wish I could take you home, yes I do,’ my friend pulled a coochy coo face and was rewarded by having her face coated in dog saliva. ‘I don’t know why Clinton bought a pet if he doesn’t have time to look after him, ' I objected,’ opening the fridge, and sliding a plate of salmon odds and ends into a pet bowl. ‘He didn’t buy FluffyMcD,’ my friend replied, ‘ Clinton found the dog chained up when he took over the lease for the breaker’s yard on the industrial estate.’ ‘How could anyone abandon an animal like that?’ I said angrily, trying to put the bowl on the floor through a barrier of swirling dog. FMcD didn’t so much eat the snack, as run at it with so much momentum that it was absorbed internally as he passed through it. ‘Ugh, salmon,’ Myrtle pulled a face, ‘it isn’t the taste, it’s the price.’ I looked at her , but not encouragingly. ‘Cost me four thousand dollars, all my savings, stupid Fairbanks was at the bottom of it, but he got away with it like he always does.’ My attention shifted to this surprising information. ‘What are you on about now?’ ‘That salmon farm nonsense, I told you about it before,’. ‘No you didn’t..’ ‘I did, it was when I was living up in Bachrein, with Lowell. This big scheme, american backers, couldn’t fail, fresh mountain salmon, they dug a huge hole in a mountainside, then the so called company director vanished with all the funds, and I was left chasing after nothing. I’d invested all my money. How do you think I ended up living in the Sheltered Housing?’ I shook my head. ‘It was an offer I couldn’t refuse,’ that’s what they call it when you poke about somewhere you shouldn’t for too long. I didn’t have the state of mind to fight back anymore, and it was all finished with Lowell. I had nowhere else to go.’ I shook my head again, some days new facts just get filed away in an overflowing part of my brain to be dealt with later. A walk on the beach had been refreshing, if a little stressful at times, FMcD is very fussy about strange people, or animals, who get in his way, or look like they might get in the way, or who might be flying overhead, making remarks in gull language which contradicted his world view. He also had contentious opinions about the best location for discarded ice-cream wrappers. We believed that these were better left in the litter bins that lined the beach side path, FMcD disagreed, sometimes extremely vocally and fighting with all his strength at the end of the extendable lead. My ears were ringing by the time we returned to Clinton’s home. Once back at the bungalow, things settled down at last, and we were able to relax in the delightful back garden. At least, the parts of the plot which hadn’t been subjected to McD’s recent mining activity were still delightful. A sea breeze wafted through the loose fencing, and the weather was unusually hot for February. The dog had finally dozed off on a warm patch of patio slabs which had caught the low sun. Myrtle was stretched out on a sun lounger, wrapped up in her coat, scarf and hat, and reading a lurid medical romance she had borrowed from Alice. That is, she had the book propped up by her side and occasionally glanced at a page between longer patches of closing her eyes and snoring. Though this can’t be regarded as sleeping, because she never does that in an afternoon, apparently. I was much more agitated and sitting bolt upright on a dining chair at the garden table, working out my financial budget for the following month. If it hadn’t been for Clinton filling up my car with the truck diesel he’d recovered from the fuel tanks of wrecks, I would be reduced to sneaking into Myrtle’s sheltered housing dining room again, to tolerate those bright green peas that the centre manager, Evadne Blackheart, buys in huge cans from a catering wholesaler on the ring road. As it was, my calculations still kept ending with displeasing minus signs around the third week. I was uncomfortably aware that it was mainly my legal representative who was benefiting from my penny pinching, and the insurance appeal was, frustratingly, still getting nowhere. I tried to work out at what point I would have paid more in profesional fees than I had any chance of getting back in compensation, but the wind kept blowing the pages of my notebook over, and I gave up in frustration. A group of boys were playing on the beach with some sort of flying toys that looked like mini drones. Their happy laughter distracted me for a while, until I heard the unwelcome loud conversation of an approaching couple of beach walkers. ‘I’ve read your book ‘Tightening The Belt’ ten times now,’ an eager young voice rang out ‘it is such a thrill to actually meet you in person Dr Green!’ An older man replied with unconvincing modesty, 'Just glad if it could be of some use.’ ‘You inspired me to go into politics,’ the keen fan continued. ‘Of course I am here in Ballina on a family matter, but I am always glad to spread the word about frugal financial management, especially to those eager to learn.’ ‘What are the Mayor of Boll and Magnasanti’s chief financial advisor having a cosy chat about now?’ Myrtle had popped up behind me like a stealthy galleon. We both sneaked closer to the fence. She crouched under a juniper bush and I continued to hide behind an unused laundry whirligig. Whatever wisdom Green was planning to impart was never to be heard though, as he suddenly started yelping, and hitting at his own face as if stung by bees. ‘It’s doing it by itself, the controls aren’t working any more,’ a panicked child’s voice floated up the beach. Soon a small crowd of boys surrounded the political pair, trying to stop their drones pelting Mortimer Green. The situation had finally caught the attention of our lazily relaxing hound. He stared for a moment, through a gap in the fence, then leapt completely over it from a standing start, nipping one of the flying toys out of the air as he landed neatly on the other side. Presently the sand was littered with crunched up electronics and crying boys trying to retrieve their gadgets. Once FMcD had established that the drones were inedible, he lost interest, and shot off down the beach to investigate the intriguing patch of rotting seaweed and decomposing jellyfish that he’d remembered from our walk earlier, and I ended up screaming ‘come back Fluffy’ over the fence until my throat was sore. It took us half an hour to capture the dog, but we could not persuade him to enter the hated front room, so we left him to roam free in the bungalow. ‘Bill will have no furniture left by the time he gets home,’ commented Myrtle dryly, and some mean part of me hoped it would be true. Later that evening, while I was experimenting once again with adjusting the air mattress, it occurred to me that Mortimer Green, when seen in real life, rather than his obviously touched up press shots, seemed oddly familiar. It wasn’t a resemblance to Neil Fairbanks, who must have taken after his mother, and had to be admitted, was quite handsome, if in an oily way. Roy Fairbanks, the younger child, had the same stocky build as his father, but again that wasn’t what was eating at the edge of my consciousness. The realisation finally came to me in the middle of the night, while fighting to switch off Fur Elise, belting out from the toilet roll holder in our small portacabin bathroom. Gnomes!!! Those ugly faced gnomes could have been moulded from a full body cast of Green, and their faces, if I took away the mispainted stoniness, were an exact match. What could this mean?
-
Isabella Braeden, Mayor of Feilubin Urban legend suggests that the price charged per hour goes up a hundred dollars per floor in the Eagle Corp Business Services Tower. Horatio Chiseler, declared by Myrtle to be decent for a legal type, rented offices in the lower levels, so my elevator trip was short, and his fees were simply unaffordable, rather than astronomical. Even so, I had signed up for the ‘thirty minutes focused sessions’ rather than a more luxurious hour, to discuss the finer details of my insurance dispute. This brevity caused problems in itself, as the advisor made up for lack of time with rapid delivery. More than once I had found my mind rebounding from the dense jargon, and caught myself immersed instead in envious desire for the simple, yet pampered, life of Chiseler’s pot plants. I managed to pull myself away from the polished green shininess of a particularly fine specimen and forced my brain to focus on the anxiety provoking information being presented. ‘Their accusations against you are obviously ridiculous, but all they have to do is spin this out and bammo, you are out of funds.’ my advisor stated, as kindly as possibly. The current topic of conversation revolved around a spurious claim that I had left a clockwork timing device in my apartment, and therefore I was clearly a terrorist who had blown up the building myself. A few scorched fragments of gear wheels, and gaffer taped components were enough to support this fantasy. The previous incendiary incident at Dudley Sewage works was also brought up. It was a wonder that I survived the drive to Boll Road Sheltered Housing Complex, my mind was whirling. ‘They think I blew up the building with that cuckoo clock Arnold sent me!’ I yelled furiously, as my friend climbed into the passenger seat. Myrtle’s burgundy hat turned towards me sympathetically, but her actual head seemed less interested in my revelation than I had anticipated. ‘It’s blackmail, pure and simple.’ I spluttered on, unregarded. Maybe her feet were hurting. I reminded myself to be understanding just in case. ‘The choice is to be penniless, or a criminal or..’ but my angry outburst seemed to freewheel to a stand-still, pitted against this unexpected lack of comment. I watched as my friend’s coat sleeve reached for the seat belt, but I was unconvinced by the slim, pale hand which accompanied it. If it were not for the usual difficulty my passenger had stretching the safety device across her ample torso I might have suspected another one of her silly crash diets, like the time she fainted in a swan pedalo on the park boating lake, and the medics had to paddle out in a plastic pirate galleon to see to her. We reached the traffic queue for the Foulden Road Junction, and Myrtle did not relate the anecdote about her Mother ripping up the first set of traffic lights that appeared here, because they were ‘flashing on and off through her bedroom window’. This was really worrying. Some days I drove the long way round just to avoid hearing this tale one more time. I glanced sideways, but my friend was staring out of the passenger window, so I was unable to read her expression. I spent the next few miles reviewing my memories of the last few days. Could I have offended her in some way, or was she ill with some awful disease and was working herself up to telling me about it? I slammed my foot on the brakes in frustration, and also to avoid a Government Utilities Maintenance van which had made a reckless U-Turn right across my path. ‘Did you see that, I ought to report it, driver wearing dark glasses in this weather?’ The vow of silence by the occupant of the passenger seat remained intact. I ground my teeth and decided she could be like that, and see if I cared, I was quite able to be just as awkward if I put my mind to it, and decided to ignore Myrtle, and anything she did for the rest of the journey. We got as far as the Deighton by-pass before my resolution was tested past the limit. I could see in my rear mirror that some sort of van was dangerously hopping forward through the fast moving traffic. I managed to keep my mutterings about unsafe commercial drivers under my breath, but when the vehicle cut right across my path and caused me to swerve violently off the road into a lay-by I shouted a few things out loud that would have had me confined to Miss Simmons detention room in my high school years. My friend, however, seemed wholly unconcerned about our near miss, and was more occupied retrieving something from the footwell, and then with stuffing the found items down the front of her bulging Houndstooth Macintosh. Toilet rolls? I looked more carefully. The clip on earrings, the inevitable blue beads, all these were present and correct, but …? “Alice!! What on earth is going on??.’ Some sort of bewildering body swap appeared to have happened. Myrtle’s pal passed me a note. ‘Dear (the name was illegible due to the missive being written with a failing biro, I assumed the note was addressed to myself) (There followed a heavily embossed scrawl which had apparently revived the pen, but my correspondent kept the rest brief, obviously in case her writing implement let her down again) Alice=Me today M’ The rest of the drive to Feilubin passed in silence, with me nervously looking in the rear-view mirror in case any more white GUM vans were thinking of doing something unpredictable near-by. The turn off to Feilubin seemed to take us back in time, the roads were surrounded by fields, and even the farmers seemed ancient, but not quite as old as their outdated agricultural equipment. A few gulls squawked miserably around a rubbish tip, and then we dipped down into the tiny town. Mayor Braeden’s Mayoral mansion had a definite colour scheme. It was as if an explosion had occurred in a paint factory which confined its range to shades of the colour pink. In case the effect lacked enough punch, a range of pink hued wallpapers and matching curtains had been applied to complete the look. Myrtle had obviously coached Alice into looking like a sound recordist. She held the microphone out at the correct angle, and tapped at buttons convincingly. Her expression of polite interest was maintained at all times, unlike Myrtle’s tendency to lapse into irritated boredom at the slightest provocation. The Mayor seemed unconcerned at any rate. We were at least three chapters into ‘Isabella My Life and Works’, while sitting on a frilly pink sofa, drinking Ovaltine out of dainty pink china cups. ‘Spoils the taste,’ I imagined my friend saying, and her ghostly intervention was correct, it did. At least the extended tedium of the Braeden’s recollections had calmed my nerves and I could now sip the drink without rattling it against the saucer. ‘So moving on from my early childhood achievements, I was sent to Dr Swaroffski’s residential school for gifted children. That is where I met the young Neil Fairbanks you understand,’ Amidst a vast ocean of droning on, Mayor Braeden had suddenly produced a wavelet of interest. ‘He was totally in awe of his Mother, and hid under the bed when she visited. We had to tempt him out with a tin of sardines. Of course Hilda Fairbanks practically runs Magnasanti now, she is the power behind the throne, as it were. Her software business bankrolls the whole economy as far as I understand. I think it says a lot that Neil took his Mother’s name, rather than that deadweight father, Mortimer Green, what a total klutz that man is, and so much shorter than he appears in the newspapers. I suspect they stand him on a box for the photo ops.’ Mortimer Green, the photo which appears regularly in the Simnation Times. Mortimer Green, as snapped by a Magnasanti Citizen. The rest of the self aggrandising speech, promoting the expanding remit of FemLegUH, her single handed heroic rescue of Feilubin from the horrors of a progressive school system, all passed me by. Fairbanks had parents, and what a pair they sounded! I couldn’t wait to get back home, and find the frustratingly absent Myrtle to give her the news. Saying Alice was quiet on the way home is as redundant as saying the wind in Ballina is a bit windy today, but there was an intense quality to the quiet which differed from the trip out. Apart from an occasional glance over her shoulder at the road behind she was very still and seemingly thoughtful. I was tempted to turn on the radio to interrupt the silence, but something held me back. Eventually a fresh idea seemed to occur to her, as she sat up straight and tapped my knee for attention. We were approaching the Deighton roundabout but she pointed determinedly at the side turn to a 24/7 petrol station and convenience store. My puzzlement was abated when she hopped out of the car and headed towards the customer comfort facilities. I could see the shop manager glaring at me through the glass window from behind her counter, so I decided to enter the convenience store and buy the smallest price item available, so as to qualify as a genuine patron. While I was queuing with the heavily discounted tiling grout, I saw a familiar white van slide into an empty space next to the tyre pressure checking facility. It could have been my imagination, but both the occupants seemed to be staring at my car through their inappropriately dark sunglasses. I could hardly concentrate enough to pay for my shopping. With Alice back in the passenger seat, I made to rejoin the road, but she indicated that we should drive round the back of the shop. As soon as we were out of sight of the van, she hopped back out of the car, after grabbing a large handful from the foreign coin collection that had been skidding around in a recess on the dashboard. Why was she fiddling with the payment tower on the car wash? Acting like a character from a spy novel, Alice then bobbed up and down trying to peep through the gap in the buildings, eventually she was satisfied, and waved me into the empty bay. I wasn’t happy at this development as I hated these noisy machines with their semi-violent brushes and gushing water, but my collaborator had not yet confirmed the wash program. Then a great many things happened at once. The nose of the white van poked around the corner, Alice hit a big green button, then flapped her arms frantically for me to drive straight through before the program started. She squeezed down the side of the monstrosity and leapt back in the passenger seat. The pair of government maintenance engineers saw their quarry escaping and accelerated into the path of the oncoming brushes. Realising their mistake they tried to back out, but the hinge of the emergency exit gate was trapped shut by a fat pink quilted toilet roll, identical to those last seen in the chintzy visitor’s cloakroom at the official mansion in Feilubin. An error siren blared out as foam, water and brushes swirled in a maelstrom of misused programming. Wax, water and a tidal wave of suds flowed from the machine. The last we saw of the suspicious occupants was two pairs of sunglasses pressed up against their windscreen, which was rapidly disappearing under a blanket of foam. Alice calmly smiled and clutched her carrier bag of toilet rolls in triumph as we cruised back to Ballina Central. When I dropped my substitute partner off at Boll Road, Myrtle was just arriving back at the Centre, wearing her best coat. She claimed that she had been to get her ears dewaxed and was therefore unavailable for the trip, but she wouldn’t look me in the eye. In any case, Sally has one of those electric things that pumps warm water out, and she does all the Boll Road residents for free. I couldn’t see Myrtle throwing away good money just for a bit of soft carpeting and a string quartet playing over the speakers at the private centre. I was really cross, if she hadn’t wanted to go she could have just told me surely? However things fell into place that evening, when Lowell Cree rang me in the portacabin. He wanted to know in detail what Myrtle had thought of their day out together, specifically had she said anything good about him? Hesitating, I managed to come up with ‘well she didn’t say anything bad,’ which was sort of honest, and seemed to reassure him at least. I wondered how this attempted reconciliation might work out, it was certainly food for thought. It seemed a little selfish, but if my friend upped and moved to Bachrein I would actually miss her very much. Maybe she was, as she had said before, simply keeping her options open? There was nothing to do but wait and see.
-
Lynda Cheryl, Mayor of Cuinchy Myrtle had finally worked herself up to visiting the chiropodist, so I had a little time to myself. After reading ten times through a letter from my legal representative, which explained the difference between subsidence caused by a gas explosion, as opposed to a gas explosion set off by subsidence, I decided to sort out my hair instead. Edna the hairdresser had been quite cutting when I met her coming out of the post office. Ok, it could be seen as a generous offer to do a ‘touch up’ on my mis-matched roots for free, due to my circumstances, but up until then the state of my appearance had not felt an issue. Now I was staring in every reflective surface and feeling self conscious in the street. I thumped my newly purchased packet of hair dye onto the tiny counter by our portacabin sink. An old army blanket was the only original content of the portacabin when I signed my first rental cheque, and had served various functions over the years, today it was a hairdressing cape. I imagined that it would transition back into being a draft excluder in the near future. Guinee Laboratories Apricot Splendour had served me well for decades, it was the same powder that Edna mixed up in her stained plastic beaker, while she probed me for details about my love life, or lack thereof. The label on the packet was twisted around, and it was hard to read the instructions. Still, at 49p from the bargain bucket of Roger’s Rejects Stall at the Flea market, I shouldn’t grumble. I had worked up sachet one into a decent froth when the first knock of the day landed on the portacabin door. Dripping small staining puddles as I went, I leaned outside the window to see who was calling. It looked like a small woman waving a placard which read ‘Adulterer’s Repent’, but as I had removed my glasses I couldn’t be sure. ‘We don’t want any,’ I shouted, before closing the window. My visitor had greater lung power than I might have imagined, considering her diminutive stature. ‘I’ve brought you some turkey,’ she yelled, holding up a covered plate to the window, and pointing to it encouragingly. Some of the mystery of this situation dissipated when I spotted a pink minivan parked outside our plot. The signage on the vehicle read ‘FemLegUH Mission For The Homeless’, with a smiling cartoon style woman holding up a plate of food. ‘Right,’ I said, to myself mostly. I might have said more, but for the hurtling rocket which was Clinton’s new guard dog, having smelt something tasty from its distant abode, and appearing airborne as it leapt from a handy pile of tyres. If it hadn’t been for the chain attached to the dog’s collar it might have reached the object of its desire. As it was, the creature spun around in mid air, and just missed hitting my small visitor in the face with its hind quarters. The previously keen FemLegUH agent was discouraged enough to speed climb a six foot fence in a way that would have impressed an army recruitment officer looking out for talent on an assault course. She had left behind her plate of turkey dinner, but not close enough for the dog to reach. I sped wetly outside to see if the poor hound had injured itself, and looking around to make sure I wasn’t observed, pushed the plate nearer to the dog’s nose. He swallowed three yorkshire puddings and the rest of a roast dinner, then looked at me with something approaching love in his eyes. Fluffy McDougal, for that was his name, then whined for thirty minutes until I detached his collar, and let him into the office. My hair dying schedule had been thrown off, and having missed the deadline for adding lotion two, and cream three, I decided to mix the two together into a paste and restart the clock. It was at this point that Myrtle's nephew Arnold rang, to ask me why his Aunty Myrtle wasn’t answering her phone, I simply said ‘Chiropodist’, and he said ‘Oh God,’ and hung up. The paste had hardened into a dried out lump, so I held it like a large piece of chalk, and scraped the concoction onto the relevant areas. Fluffy McD then jumped up to try and kiss my nose, and in the process knocked down the toilet roll holder. What with Fur Elise belting out, and me chasing around after the dog to get the paper back, I missed the predetermined slot for applying conditioning solution four. I had the plastic vial in my hand, when the second visitor appeared on the step. Deciding to squirt and run maybe wasn’t the best plan, as most of it went in my eye, and rest onto F McD, who was utterly delighted to answer the door in my stead, throwing himself at the flimsy panel boarding so hard that the lock flipped open, revealing the Mayor of Cuinchy, Lynda Cheryl. She started talking as soon as I appeared, turbanned up in my army blanket. Chapter one of her monologue centred around the topic of Mayors being recognised for their achievements rather than dubious rumours that might be floating around. About two paragraphs in, my knee based friction hold on Fluffy McD gave way, and he launched himself past the babbling politician, and towards the approaching Ken, the owner of a catering trolley selling weak tea and horrible sandwiches. This was the same nuisance who had fallen down a pothole many weeks ago, and who had now branched out into selling hotdogs, amongst his other revolting comestibles. The unwelcome snack vendor was in the process of pursuing a negligence claim with the Ballina Central Roads and Highways department, so was sporting an unconvincing plaster cast, and when he remembered, limping in a photogenic fashion. FMcD loved Ken, or rather he loved hotdogs, and the annoying purveyor of those goods was now so steeped in their aroma from daily contact that FMcD could barely tell the difference. Bus stop in Cuinchy. So far as we can see, the paintwork looks in good order. It would be long winded to give all the details of the chase, so I’ll jump ahead. Mayor Cheryl has moved on to detailing how many bus stops she has had repainted this year and is petitioning me for recognition of her achievements, and Ken is hanging from a telegraph pole, with a rapscallion mixed breed Alsatian dangling from his plaster cast. Meanwhile, I am attempting to lasso the dog with a hosepipe Clinton’s lads use for washing down their tyres. Unseen by me, a platoon of FemLegUH reinforcements have arrived, in an attempt to retrieve their van and the swiftly cooling turkey dinners contained within. Into this scene arrives Clinton himself, wondering what all the noise is about, just as I am successful in making a cunning rubber harness and enclosing his new pet. At this point there was definite potential for a de-escalation, but then one of Clinton’s lads turned off a second unseen hosepipe, in the next yard, and the water pressure shot up. Let’s cut ahead to the point where all the FemLegUH acolytes are inside the van with FluffyMcD circling the wagon, Lynda Cheryl is denying ever having an affair with the chief government advisor, despite the fact that nobody was accusing her of doing so, Ken the snack man, who had lost his grip in more ways than one, is sitting in the hotdogs on top of his cart, and I, having realised that ‘now rinse’ was an instruction I was meant to carry out half an hour ago, am standing with my head under the hosepipe. Tyre chief Bill trying to gain some control, slides in the wet mud created by the hosepipe, then trips over the placard, previously dropped by the original FemLegUh visitor, and has landed on one knee at my feet. Myrtle then rounds the corner, in a fine temper, and slightly unbalanced from wearing foot bandages and beach sandals in a wet environment, she takes in the chaotic scene at one glance, and in a burst of bad temper yells at Clinton. ‘‘If you are going to ask her you’d better get on with it, because if I don’t get my Ovaltine right away I won’t answer for the consequences!!’ The moment of awkward silence that followed was broken when the Mayor of Cuinchy spotted the contentious placard, grabbed it by the handle, and started smashing it to pieces on the bonnet of the pink van. ‘I don’t think that ego crazed megalomaniac Fairbanks bash bash even likes women, all those boring meetings I went to, bash bash, listening to him rabbit on, and if there’s one thing I hate more than Neil ‘ooh look at me how great I am’ Fairbanks, it’s bash bash bash splinter a misplaced apostrophe.’ The group within the van had shrunk away in fear as Cheryl glared through the windscreen. ‘It’s Adulterers Repent, verb, not the Repent, noun, belonging to the Adulterer.’ Then she said a rude word that I won't repeat, pushed Ken plus cart out of the way, and stomped off up the badly tarmaced road. I had heard a rumour that the Mayor of Cuinchy used to be a school teacher, I decided at that point to believe it. Retreating into the portacabin to find the mugs I found Myrtle hanging over the table, seething about cheapskate government funded so called professionals who wouldn’t know a toenail from a corn plaster. ‘You know how I feel in that poxy Chiropodist’s waiting room?’ she asked, and then jumped back in, before I could think up an answer, ‘Old is how I feel, and I’m looking at the old dears parked up on the plastic chairs around me, and I think that’s going to be me, sooner than that!’ she clicked her fingers. I nodded as I swirled the teaspoon around each Ovaltine exactly ten times each. ‘That’s if I can still drag these feet up those stairs to his office after that lousy, incompetent..’ Myrtle paused mid rant to stare at my head. ‘You dyed it purple?’. The Guinee Laboratories’ label peeled off quite easily, and under the smiling photo of a woman wearing an obvious wig, was another image, of exactly the same woman, just as happy as before, but now with a more modern looking hairpiece, coloured in a vivid shade called ‘Purple Haze.’ Roger, the stall holder of Roger’s Rejects, Wednesdays and Fridays, Boll Road Flea Market would be getting some very stiff feedback about his retail practices. Myrtle meanwhile, had cheered up to the point of chuckling to herself while wiping the condensation off the portacabin windows with the old army blanket. ‘You want to encourage that Clinton you know,’ she commented mid wipe, ’you’re not getting any younger, and he’s obviously loaded with money, you could do a lot worse.’ Fluffy McDougal, after a good rummage through my donated clothes bag, carried over a vivid cerise crop top, which appeared to be held together with safety pins, and had ‘ ‘Rude word’ the government printed across the chest’. Edna’s daughter Julie must have flirted with anarchic punk fashion at one time. ‘He’s a clever dog,’ murmured Myrtle, tickling the hound behind the more complete of his two ears, ‘if you’re not wearing it I am!,’ she laughed. We spent the next hour trying to prise the dog’s mouth open to check he wasn’t still chewing any of the pins.
-
Parry Marcelyn, senior orthopaedic surgeon and Mayor of Dallas (when he has the time) Ward twenty-seven, of the Ball memorial Hospital in Dallas was run by a very efficient sergeant major type Matron. Hildebrande Fassbinder had Les so tightly tucked into his bed that he could hardly move. As non-combatants we were considered too untidy to stay for the ward round, so we hid behind a pillar in the corridor and peeped through the squares of safety glass to watch as Chief Surgeon Marcelyn toured the beds, followed by a gaggle of awe-struck medical students. When he had nodded, and prodded his way around the whole room, the great man swished back out of the doors with a dramatic flourish, and strode off in a cloud of medical admiration. We rushed back inside to hear the verdict. ‘Have you found out why you are here yet?’ Myrtle asked anxiously. ‘It’s great news, they’re not chopping anything off this time!,’ Les looked delighted. ‘I’m getting a new knee instead!’ ‘What?’ I didn’t have medical training of course, but it seemed to me that in order to add a new knee, the surgeon would need something to attach it to. I saw Les’s lack of legs as a barrier to the planned procedure. My friend told me to stop being so pernickety, because I was ‘spoiling it for him’, so I decided I would take a break and go and check the vending machines to see if any of them served something other than gritty coffee, or tea with an unwelcome scum floating on the surface. My optimism levels were not high. I left the loving couple organising Les’s bedside cabinet, so he could reach his sweeties, sci-fi novel and bottle of Lucozade more conveniently, but the pre-op tranquilising dose he had been given to ‘calm his nerves’ was already kicking in. Myrtle joined me in the hospital atrium. A sickly looking tree was bedecked with thank-you notes, written in childish handwriting. Even at this distance I could tell who they were addressed to. I searched through a pile of magazines on the architectural coffee table, and found an unfinished crossword in one of them to keep our minds occupied. S blank A blank S and then two blanks, the clue is immortal glory shines at the end of a french street. ‘I hate cryptic clues, what time is it?’ Myrtle jumped up to stare alternately at the two clocks which flanked the large reception hall, each one displayed a different opinion. We were meant to wait a further hour and a half before an official came to tell us how Les had done on the operating table, but were concerned to be called instead into Marcelyn’s office. Looking out over neatly tended flower borders, and encrusted with awards and certificates, I had cause to wonder how the good doctor could possibly have time to fit a bit of ‘Mayoring’ in between the other duties and achievements displayed within his office. Despite my overwhelming conviction that even the least competent of surgeons would eventually notice that he had made a mistake, and give up on pursuing the impossible surgery, I found myself oddly worried. ‘Mrs Scambetter,’ Marcelyn began, erroneously, and the conversation didn’t improve from there on. ‘It’s got to be a mistake,’ said Myrtle, glugging at the half empty bottle of Lucozade, as we drove back to Ballina Central, ‘Les was alive and happy this morning, it was only a knee, people have them all the time.’ I nodded in sympathy, and we entered the city limits in a sombre state. For some reason the answer to the cryptic crossword clue came to me suddenly, in St Muldyke’s Cemetery later that week. ‘It was Swanson,’ I said, 'Gloria, she starred in Sunset Boulevard, Boulevard is a French street.' It was probably a good thing that nobody heard me. The hearse had arrived, and brought a fair sprinkling of onlookers in its wake. Organising the funeral seemed to have helped Myrtle, and she was busy thanking everyone for attending. A short coffin was lifted reverently out of the smart black vehicle. Reverend Cotterall turned to greet the arrival, service book in hand, then stopped in his tracks nervously. As the casket turned we saw that the other side was oddly truncated. Instead of the polished walnut and brass handles which featured elsewhere, the foot end was a criss-crossed mass of sticky tape. ‘A forklift ran over it in the funeral parlour,’ confided my friend, ‘I got it cheap on account of the damage. ’ then she sniffed elegantly into a lace handkerchief. ‘He didn’t need the full length so there was no point paying for it’. ‘That’s my gaffer tape, ‘ I remarked tactlessly, suddenly remembering lending the product to my friend to fix her glasses, several weeks before the apartment explosion obliterated the rest of my possessions.’ The service was quite moving, but ended rather abruptly half way through a prayer, when The Rev vaulted over the grave and sped off in the direction of the Vicarage. The assembled throng broke up, and started heading back to the Church Hall, where corned beef sandwiches and hot beverages were on offer. Myrtle dallied by the graveside, staring down the hole at the tiny coffin. ‘Well I suppose that’s it then,’ she said, removing her engagement ring, and putting it in the breast pocket of her black blazer. I wasn’t sure what to do and was feeling rather tearful myself, so I backed away to give my friend some space. Standing half in an evergreen bush, it seemed like a trivial concern in the circumstances, but my outfit was causing me discomfort. Edna, the hairdresser, had given me a large carrier bag full of clothing that her daughter would never fit into again after three babies. My current attire featured elements from Julie’s Goth period, including some high heel burgundy and black suede boots, which laced up the front to the knees, and had dangly decorative elements which kept getting stuck to my tights. I was trying to discreetly free up a cluster of skulls when I saw a most peculiar thing, a single eye, disconnected from any kind of face, was staring up at me from the grass. The eye then looked side to side and vanished. A familiar giggling noise seeped into my brain, and I spun round on one heel, grabbing hold of the shrubbery to stop me collapsing in a dizzy heap. Les rolled out of the laurel bush in a fountain of leaves and ended up on the gravel path, unable to breathe from laughing so much. ‘It was ..a..great funeral service..’ he panted, ‘I loved the vicar hurdling over the coffin at the end, very scandinavian!’ ‘Leslie Scambetter, I knew you wasn’t dead!!!’, Myrtle rushed towards us, her face going through a series of mood induced transformations which ended up in a mix of outrage and relief. ‘Knee replacement for a legless man,’ he gasped in delight, ’I thought, here’s a chance for another go at the old medical negligence fraud. They wouldn’t dare challenge it, with the mess the admin is in at that hospital.’ I looked this way and that, trying to update my thought processes with the confusing incoming data, eventually I tottered over to the grave. ‘Who’s in the box?’ I asked, hoping to sound like an Agatha Christie sleuth spotting the flaw in the murderer’s cunning argument, though I suspected that ‘game show host’ was nearer the mark. ‘Ohh that’s the hairdresser's Flemish rabbit, Mr Snuffles. He got run over chasing the greengrocer’s bicycle. The thing was surprisingly heavy so the swap worked a treat, and saved the expense of a pet cremation as well.’ ‘I thought that Edna was crying too much! muttered Myrtle, ‘I suspected some sort of …well it doesn’t matter now,’ she corrected herself. ‘So the hairdresser knew?’ I asked, attempting to get my facts straight. ‘Ho yes, it was partly her idea. Young Julie, her daughter, works in Dallas General as a filing clerk, she was our inside man.’ We retrieved Les’s latest ride from behind a tomb. ‘Triple lithium batteries and tungsten gearing, check out the glow in the dark decals, it’s a superb machine and will be perfect for Kingston.’ ‘Jamaica?’ I questioned. ‘No she went of her own accord, boom boom,’ Les chuckled. Myrtle’s face dropped, ‘you’ll have to leave the country.’ ‘Yup, don’t fancy jail. Doris is going out there to help look after her fancy man’s Mother, said I could tag along.’ Seeing our faces drop he chirped up, ‘Don’t worry, you two will have no problem keeping yourselves busy, cleaning up corrupt governments and the like.’ Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cotterall returning, rubbing his guts and looking downfaced. I decided to head him off, so my friends could say their goodbyes in peace. The Rev and I walked together towards the wake chatting about this and that, until Myrtle caught us up. ‘Was it the medlar jam?’ she asked the reverend. ‘Perils of the job,’ bewailed the churchman. I learned a new vocabulary word from the church ladies in the hall, a loupe. This is the small magnifying glass that jeweller’s use to peer at pieces of jewellery before they click their tongues and offer you five quid for it. The collective verdict, after some period of study, was that Myrtle should get more for her ring than she paid out for the funeral, so all was fair enough. Later, washing up in the church kitchen, I realised that something had been puzzling me. ‘How does Les get the money?’ I asked, waving a tea-towel printed with an infomap detailing beetles of the Patagonian jungle. ‘I mean you can hardly get compensation for death under the scalpel paid to the corpse, that would give the whole game away.’ ‘Oh he thought ahead’ explained Myrtle, ‘It’s all going to his brother in Jamaica.’ Seeing my frown she continued, ‘He is his own brother,’ and raised her eyebrows to make it all clearer. ‘I see,’ I said, not very convincingly. ‘Never mind,’ said my friend, ‘I think it’s time for a brew anyway.’ She found some mugs and I pulled the Ovaltine out of my borrowed black fringed handbag with zebra skin handles. It had been a long day. ‘ You know, that crossword answer, I thought she was called Gloria Swansong, with a G, funny how your mind plays tricks,’ burbled Myrtle, before dozing off into a snoring heap on a stackable chair. Everyone else had gone, so the Rev stayed behind to help me finish tidying up the kitchen. It turned out that he knew a remarkable amount about insects living in the rainforest. He was quite a different man when not being hounded by massed troupes of Church ladies. Eventually, when every pot and fork had been neatly stacked, Cotterall coughed awkwardly, and apologised again for his sudden departure from duty in the graveyard earlier. I don’t know why, maybe it seemed such a shame that he was blaming himself, but I found myself telling the Rev the whole story, up to and including Les being replaced by a deceased rabbit. I could see that the churchman was struggling to inhibit a reaction, what if he became angry and informed the authorities? My anxiety was unnecessary, Cotteral gave up the struggle to hide his emotions, and roared with laughter, wiping tears from his eyes with the squeezed out dishcloth. The row woke up my friend, and we were led out of the hall so the Rev could lock up. He patted each of us on the back as we squeezed through the broken front door, then signalled we should wait a moment. The churchman returned swiftly and pushed a cassette tape into my hand. ‘Something for the car ride,’ he explained. We rode off towards the high street with Pink Floyd’s ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ blasting out of the speakers. ‘Tribute to Les,’ I explained, a little doubtfully. ‘He’s very weird that vicar,’ said Myrtle sleepily, ‘nobody even knows his first name.’ ‘I think he’s called Geoff,’ I said, smiling to myself. ‘Oh,’ replied my friend.
-
Janis Douglass, Mayor of Harden Clinton, or Bill as he asked me to call him, turned out to be quite an interesting man. In the occasional breaks that he got between shouting at the young ‘uns’ for putting the tyres in the wrong pile, he would come around to the portacabin for a quick chat and a nice brew up. His time in the army was a rich source of stories, and he had me laughing or in one case weeping, as he shared his experiences, and tales about the characters he’d known. One name that cropped up regularly was that of a Sergeant Dorks, obviously a great friend, the two had kept in touch. Bill kept promising himself he would go and visit Dorks as he only lived over in Harden, but he was finding it hard to find a whole day free to drive over there. So when it came up that Dorks needed a bigger car, to fit his wife’s new walking aid, and Clinton knew someone who had just the thing, I volunteered Myrtle and I to drive it over. After all, we could interview Janis Douglass, the Mayor, and make the most of the trip. The promised motor was to be picked up from behind the Foamy Fun bathroom emporium, with the key left in the ignition, and I would then collect Myrtle at 9:30am, after her weekly appointment at Edna’s Hairdressing Emporium. Better still we discovered that Frank Highnote and his Fabulous Falsetto Five were due to perform at the Harden Hippodrome, and tickets were still available. Clinton insisted on paying for our concert tickets, and return rail fare, so we were getting a free day out for our trouble! The young Frank Highnote, surrounded by his Falsetto Five in their glory days. Myrtle was particularly excited, because as a teenager she had been forbidden from going to watch the group, in case their ‘tight trousers’ turned her head. She was almost hopping up and down on the pavement when I collected her from the kerb outside Edna’s. Several of the salon customers stared out of the window, in envy of Myrtle’s ride. The vehicle had been somewhat bigger than I had imagined. ‘Are you sure this is the right car?’ my friend asked, poking at the touch screen of the fancy audio system. I consulted Bill’s note once more. ‘Is it blue?,’ it was, ‘was the key in the ignition?’ Well yes, complete with fancy keyring.’Did I find the car behind the bathroom showroom?’ That was a little trickier, as I’m not good at recognising shops from the back and it was a long row of buildings, but surely it must be correct? Even the door had been left open for me. We soon left Ballina Central behind, and it was a real pleasure cruising along in our plush cocoon. Myrtle discovered that the fancy radio could respond to voice commands, and she had great fun requesting tunes, or thinking up questions for the ‘posh lady’ to answer. Eventually though, she reached the limits of the system’s entertainment potential. ‘O-val-tine, the best drink is Ovaltine. Tell me now, what is the best drink?’ she asked sternly. ‘Beer is very popular, especially in the northern part of….’ *click* Our synthetic friend’s opinion met the barrier of the off switch. I decided that it might be a good strategic moment to make a comfort stop. Randy’s All Chicken Sandwich Ranch would not have been my first choice, but the parking lot was fairly empty, and I was keen not to damage the lovely paintwork on our wide berth vehicle. We both agreed though, that Randy kept his toilet facilities in a very hygienic condition, and that this outweighed the disadvantages of his limited menu options. On returning to the vehicle we were concerned to hear a knocking sound, coming from the rear end. I suggested it might air in the ‘pipes’. Myrtle looked uncertain, ‘does it have pipes?’. We looked under the car, and up into the exhaust, but nothing struck us as strange. ‘The tyres have air, maybe it keeps going round for a while, after the wheels stop?’ I’d seen a science program about conservation of momentum on the small tv in the dentist’s waiting room the week before, and had been waiting to use the knowledge. Crouching down by the hubcaps didn’t solve anything, and the noise had stopped anyway, so we set off towards Harden, chewing on chalk tablets to stop Randy’s paprika wraps from repeating on us. The concert was as good as I expected, which was not really that good at all but with moments of enough interest to salvage the situation. The Falsetto Five were hampered by their trademark trousers, which impaired the dance routines. Frank Highnote seemed to be suffering from a bad cold, and had several coughing fits while cycling through their greatest hits. Most of the sound was pre-recorded, and the lead singer’s vocals carried on, even when he left the stage to fetch a glass of water. The crowd were enthusiastic nonetheless. The group in more recent years. ‘He is nearly eighty now,’ Myrtle concluded, so you can’t expect much. We saw the troupe later, as they attempted to enter a minivan in the Hippodrome car park. Eventually someone brought a safety step and they were able to make their exit, still waving to the fans. Clinton’s notes were not that explicit when it came to finding his old army friend’s bungalow. ‘White, with a blue door, next to a post box. Might have a tree in the garden.’ ‘I can’t read his handwriting, what street is this?’ Myrtle donned her seldom worn glasses and pronounced ‘Cockwilton Road’. My interpretation tended more towards Bob Newton Road, as he was a footballer that my Dad was fond of. We decided that there couldn’t be many Dorks in Harden, we should just ask some passers-by if they knew the family. Unfortunately, this didn’t go well. Maybe it was my accent. Myrtle decided to tackle the in car infotainment unit once more, but it wouldn’t switch on. ‘That robot woman could be angry about the beer,’ suggested my friend. She leaned in to see if there was a ‘stop sulking button’. At this the unit burst back into life. ‘Facial recognition engaged,’ the posh voice intoned, mechanically,’Thank you O-val-teen, for using Magnaprime software, your region is set as,’ a slight pause followed,’Afghanistan, the date is the first of January 1999, time one minute after midnight, is this correct?’ ‘Don’t argue with it, I hissed urgently, we just need Dork’s address, then we can,’ I mimed hitting the off button. ‘Bernard Dorks, where does he live?’ Myrtle asked, emphasising each syllable. ‘There is no..Bernard Forks…registered as living in Kabul at this time, glad to be of service!’ It was probably of benefit to our collective sanity that a dog walker chose that moment to pass by, and leaned towards us to ask if we knew that there was a knocking noise coming out of the boot of our car. We reassured the good samaritan that we were aware, and discovered that he lived quite close to our intended destination, so we gave him and his little dog a lift. I think it is quicker just to say that the Dorks family home wasn’t even a bungalow, and leave any comments about trees, nearness of post-boxes or deviations in described colour schemes for another occasion. The ex sergeant waved out of an open window, ‘We’re watching the news, have you seen it?’ he called, beckoning us inside. The small lounge was made even tinier by the hanging of an enormous television set, which took up most of one wall. ‘It’s new, I won it at bingo,’ explained Mrs Dorks, triumphantly. ‘Really, I never win anything,’ said Myrtle, unnoticed. We were all glued to helicopter camera shots of the Ballina Central, a small family car was speeding along the emptied road, followed by a platoon of police vehicles. My friend pursed her lips, and picked up a local freebie paper from the overcrowded coffee table in front of her. It was the kind of publication that is ninety percent advertising with the occasional article about how to clean your patio and so on. Nevertheless, she made sure we knew the content was much more fascinating than anything being broadcast by the mega television set. The camera shots switched to an interview clip. A tanned man in a large cowboy hat was gesticulating angrily. ‘They said don’t call the police, well nobody tells JD Berkhamsted what to do so, I rang the police, hell I rang everyone. If that kidnapper wants to shoot my sisters he’d better get on with it, ‘aint nobody calling my bluff, not JD Berk…’ ‘According to this feature in the Harden Gazette, Mayor Douglass’s favourite colour is yellow, and she wants to encourage music venues to open in Harden,’ said Myrtle reading quite loudly, then making vigorous page turning sounds. When my friend saw her diversionary tactic wasn’t working added, ‘I never watch these HUGE tvs, I wouldn’t want one myself, they are bad for your eyes!’. The fascinating footage changed again to a wobbly close up of the alleged criminal hanging out of the car window, waving a sawn off shotgun. A pale looking Sam Worthington, government advisor for public safety, was inset into the live video stream, advising all citizens to stay indoors. In the background we could see a hot-dog wagon being hauled off the highway by a group of officers, followed reluctantly by a long queue of hungry onlookers. Myrtle, was now so enraged by being ignored that she jumped up and stood in front of the enormous entertainment screen gesticulating like an angry windmill. ‘I could have won one of these big tvs if Reverend Cotterall hadn’t got his sixes and nines upside down. He’s a rotten bingo caller!!.’ Ex sergeant Dorks leaned around my animated friend to view a wide shot of the runaway vehicle careering over a grass embankment to land upside down in an office car park. Onlookers were cheering as armed officers surrounded the smoking car like a swarm of bees. Bernard whooped as the miscreant was dragged away by the tiny looking officers. ‘You can see every detail, the picture clarity is amazing!’ he thrilled. ‘I’ll have a cup of tea love, if you’re not watching it,’ the brave man suggested to Myrtle, twisting this way and that to see around her. ‘Ooh yes, and the sound quality, it’s like you are actually there in real life, two sugars for me if you’re brewing up pet,’ piped up Mrs D, ‘The funny thing is that’s the kind of car we thought we were getting, same colour ‘an all.’ She continued to laugh in delight as the fire crews doused the flames of the crashed vehicle. Myrtle erupted like a floral patterned polyester volcano. ‘TEA!!! We drove all the way here with a lovely car that anyone would be grateful to have and you’re not even interested in it.’ Something about my friend’s tone broke through the Dorks’ fixation with the news channel, and they reluctantly agreed to find the record button on the remote so as not to miss the inevitable follow up and speculation. They then followed us outside, though it was obviously a wrench to do so. ‘A bit posher than I thought,’ said Bernard, ‘but the boot looks small, bring your walker Jean, we’ll see if it fits ok.’ ‘What’s that noise?’ Mr Dorks asked, as we attempted to open the back hatch. Myrtle folded her arms in annoyance, ‘Air, in the pipes,’ she menaced. ‘Push both buttons together,’ Jean Dorks suggested. ‘On the keyfob’. ‘You can do it if you like,’ my friend rankled, followed by, ‘as if we hadn’t tried that a hundred times already.’ under her breath. A luxurious popping sound announced unexpected success, and the boot lid swung slowly open. Mrs Dorks was unable to try out the fit of her walker however, because the luggage space was already occupied by a pair of glowering Berkhamsted sisters, tied up with waterproof plumber’s tape. The local police force in Harden were delighted to be invited to take part in the media frenzy of the month, but we slipped away to the train station as soon as we could, and skipped our planned Mayoral interview altogether. We refused to appear in the evening news bulletin, so the news channel used my old college photo with an unfortunate hair-cut, and Myrtle suffered by being represented by a twenty year old wedding shot, with the veil edited out. Marlon Tapp, would be kidnapper, and owner of the Foamy Fun bathroom company had apparently ‘cracked’ due to the stress of trying to extract payment for plumbing work done on the Berkhamsted mansion, and had masqueraded as an agency chauffeur when the family’s original driver had walked out due to unreasonable working conditions, such as not being paid. Tapp had planned to drive the sisters to a remote farmhouse, but I must have come along just as he nipped back inside his shop to get some extra tape due to the elderly female Berkhamsteds being more feisty than he anticipated. Street cameras showed the culprit running around Ballina Central’s back-streets, before ‘stealing’ the unlocked small blue family car, which had been located behind a gas fitter’s workshop three streets away. It was widely anticipated that attempting to get money out of JD Berkhamsted would be considered extenuating circumstances in any court of law. Myrtle was still muttering outraged phrases such as ‘Tea!!’ and ‘75 inch set!!’ for up to a week afterwards, whereas I focused on complaining about our neighbour Clinton’s appalling lack of attention to detail when it came to directions.
-
Isabel Todd, Mayor of Douglas Sleeping in the portacabin was not easy. Our used tyre dealing neighbour, Clinton, had translated his newly refound enthusiasm into buying up the expired leases from the abandoned plots around our small industrial estate. From six in the morning until past ten at night, I could hear endless activity. Great pyramids of quality used radials and cross-plies surrounded the office on all sides. Still it was better than the war of nerves trying to avoid being found out for squatting in the sheltered housing complex. I was still muttering about the noise and trying to deflate my air mattress when Myrtle arrived. ‘Reverend Cotterall said he’ll let you use his address for your personal post,’. This news was a relief as I didn’t want to get caught violating the non residential rental contract for our office, but my face did not project gratitude. Grumpiness would be a closer match. Myrtle made a big show of flashing her left hand around, while handing me a mug of Ovaltine. Something seemed different but I couldn’t quite pin it down. Having tried the subtle approach my friend then switched up a gear, and pushed her paw under my nose. ‘Do you like my ring?’ A flashy sparkle caught my eye. ‘That’s nice, where did you find it?’ I asked, though by her expression it was obviously the wrong question. My friend was unusually quiet as we walked towards the church hall. I had previously agreed to help out at the upcoming jumble sale, a fundraiser to replace the bent hinges on the main hall doors. I really had thought that being suddenly homeless was enough to get me out of the commitment, apparently not. Mayor Todd nodded a greeting as she turned the corner, her arms were occupied carrying a tray of jam jars, each one with a handwritten label ‘Homemade Medlar Jelly’. I stared at the gloop, trying to work out what a medlar might be. Whatever it was, I didn’t fancy it. Myrtle waved her hand significantly. ‘Ooh, who’s the lucky man?’ the politician asked, while struggling to balance the heavy load and open the church hall door with a large set of keys. By my friend’s smile I assumed that this was exactly the response she’d been hoping for. After an unsuccessful fight with the lock, the portal opened by itself, and revealed Les, wearing a bow tie, and sitting in a very swanky sports model wheelchair. ‘The bodywork is manufactured from graphene,’ the ex solicitor stroked the material reverently, ‘super light and would have cost a fortune. We claimed it at the lost property office in the bus station, didn’t we, my sweet’? A certain amount of embarrassing affection followed, and I realised at once who the mystery fiance was. The Mayor threw down her donation to the jumble sale, on a table which was already piled up with incomplete tea-sets, twenty year old obscure board games and some indecent jig-saw puzzles. I had trouble knowing what to do with myself. Les and Myrtle’s unexpected loving couple routine made me feel excess to requirements, so I slid into the kitchen to see if I could contribute there. A group of Church ladies were attempting to lever open a cupboard using a plastic fork. I stood and watched for a while then retreated to poke through a pile of used clothing on a nearby table. Seven days wearing the same badly fitting dress was enough for anyone. ‘Strictly no browsing before opening time,’ a curly haired woman snapped at me, after emerging from rummaging through a bin bag full of grubby looking soft toys. A loud argument had broken out in the kitchen. Mayor Todd leaned through the hatch and offered up her bunch of keys, but none would fit the mug cupboard. To deflect the talk of crowbars and blunt screwdrivers the Mayor suggested she pop round to see if the Reverend might have the correct key, or failing that, some spare cups and plates. I offered to walk with her, having nothing better to do, and I could take the chance to thank Cotterall for agreeing to take in my mail. We squeezed through the unruly mob that had gathered outside the church hall. With ten minutes to opening time there were already disputes breaking out, as eager bargain hunters jostled for prime position. I had become used to Myrtle leaping in and keeping conversations going, so it felt awkward trotting along attempting to appear sociable with someone I hardly knew. It was almost a relief to reach the smouldering wreck of my old apartment block, as this introduced a potential new topic to discuss. However, just as I had formulated an appropriate remark to share, my walking companion seemed to startle, then made a show of looking at her watch, and declared she had forgotten a meeting with the Cheerleaders’ Pompom renewal fundraising committee at the sports stadium. She was sure I could carry on and fetch a few tea-cups by myself. I was so busy watching her scurry off that I almost walked right into Neil Fairbanks and his mini self, who were standing surveying the muddy crater which was once my home. I pretended to saunter off, then crouched behind a roadside flowerbed, to see if I could hear what the Fairbanks duo were discussing. The wind direction kept shifting, but I picked up some of the conversation. From my notes; NeilF: …It’s a miracle there were no serious injuries here Roy RoyF: …don’t know how I got on the directors list Neil... NeilF: Did you have to bring that thing with you? (pointing to a canvas bag that Roy seemed to be struggling with) RoyF: …the babysitter wouldn’t put up with it and the wife is away this week.. (loud road traffic for a while so I couldn't hear) NeilF: You are a complete and utter (list of rude words I won’t repeat) Roy. (Roy’s attention was distracted by trying to hold down his hand luggage, which continued to have a mind of its own.) NeilF: ..loft insulation made from shredded paper, those yokels in Farnham making some sort of effigy out of valuable government papers, then that jail in Huxley melting in the rain. RoyF: You told me to use my initiative Neil , recycled vegetable waste is the building material of the future. NeilF: There's mashed potato blocking the gutters, you should hear the phone calls I get. I'm sick of the Fairbanks name being dragged through the mud yet again! (At this point, Roy totally lost control of his strangely animated bag, and it leapt out his hands and rolled off towards the side of the road, where the receptacle went oddly flat, as if it had been deflated.) RoyF: It’s escaped Neil, Amber’s going to go ballistic!! NeilF: What idiot carries a snake in a bag Roy? I told you after I fixed that salmon farm in the mountains debacle, that was it, you are on your own now. You’re a walking disaster area brother. RoyF: Mister Snake, come out, here’s a nice treat for you! (Roy was hanging over a roadside water grid, dangling something I didn’t want to look at.) NeilF: (striding away from the scene and shouting into a telephone) Let loose a boa constrictor into the drainage system, you heard me right….. I would say shoot first, ask questions later, wouldn’t you? Yes the snake, not my brother, though the thought is tempting enough. Neil Fairbanks' horrible laugh rang in my ears as he bounced away. I decided to continue on to the vicarage. My mind was in a whirl, and it felt steadying to focus on my original mission. The Rev was acting a little strange when he answered the door. The churchman was wearing a black and white checked apron and had his sleeves rolled up. A foul smell drifted out of the house and my eyes started to water. ‘I’ve come to borrow some tea-cups’, I coughed through my sleeve. Cotterall gave me a harassed look, then pulled me through his hallway and into the small kitchen. I was a little disturbed by a large shoal of unidentifiable fish, bubbling away at a rolling boil in a pan on the hob. Their little eyes seemed to stare at me as they rose up with the heat, before descending back into the murky depths. Recipe books lay open on all available surfaces, many with sullied cooking utensils holding open the pages. Several large bulbs of garlic had been ripped apart, and macerated with red peppercorns in an old fashioned press, and a rancid bottle of wine had been half emptied into a bent enamel bowl full of nastily pungent herbs. I was getting to the limit of holding my breath. Gasping for air I lunged to open the back door, but the religious gourmand was having none of it. ‘Tea-cups,’ he reminded, and reached into a tall cupboard to drag down a splitting cardboard box full of mice droppings and assorted crockery. I staggered under the weight, but was so relieved to escape the vicarage, that I took it in my stride when a familiar six foot yellow boa-constrictor slithered out of a road drain and hid itself in the corner of the covered bus-stop just outside the house. Someone else could deal with that. I had obviously missed rush hour at the jumble sale, most of the punters must have left already. They did warn me that it all happens in the first ten minutes. The Church Hall looked like a deserted war zone, its battle scarred floor was scattered with torn bin bags and broken toys. Two committee members were playing push me pull you with Mayor Todd’s medlar jam, arguing vociferously about whose turn it was to find a home for the unwanted produce this time. Snappy curly haired woman was busy scraping scone crumbs off a table, but she was kind enough to direct me to the unsold clothing pile. It was fair to say that the choice was limited. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t wear a zip-up lurex jumpsuit after fifty. If it has been reduced to 15p and you are desperate enough, then anything can be made to work. I changed into my new purchase behind the stage curtains. The front doors were wide open now, and hanging somewhat wonkily. It seemed that the faulty hinges hadn’t been improved by holding back the weight of expectation created by the assembled discount shoppers of Ballina Central. Myrtle was bending over the promotional sign-board on the pavement, wiping away ‘tea and scone £1.50’ and replacing it with ‘Hot Ovaltine’. Her new fiance was sitting alongside in the space age wheelchair, with a half empty bag of polystyrene cups hanging from one handle. His bow-tie was rotated to the vertical, and his eyes held a dazed expression. ‘Les got trampled in the rush for the erotic jigsaws,’ my friend explained, before turning to look at me properly. Then her jaw hung down low in astonishment as she blinked at the full view of my outfit, sparkling in the winter sunlight. The ex solicitor appreciated my new look. In fact he laughed so much that the brake was thrown off his new ride. Several passing cars honked their horns in appreciation as Myrtle and I bent over to rescue the giggling pint-sized man from the gutter. Later my friend handed me a steaming mug of our favourite brew. ‘You’ve cheered up our Les no end, ‘ she confided, I don’t think he was really ready for the challenge of a church jumble sale. I nodded and wiped the foam off my top lip. 'I'm not sure if I'll volunteer next time,' I suggested, but Myrtle didn't hear me, she was too busy sorting through a somewhat rattly large shopping bag. 'Something to do in the evenings,' she muttered, 'so long as there aren't too many missing pieces.'
-
Lowell Cree, Mayor of Bachrein I will say this for Myrtle, she isn’t easily thrown. After I fell through a ceiling panel and landed in a heap next to her breakfast table, she did not, as I might have done, scream or make a fuss. The large dining hall in Boll Road Sheltered Housing Unit is a noisy room, with gingham-aproned attendants hurrying around, mopping up spills, and clanking dishes. Thankfully, my unusual method of arrival did not attract as much attention as it might have done in a less chaotic space. My friend leaned over, grabbed a steaming bowl of porridge from a passing trolley, and pushed it across the formica table in my direction. ‘We wondered where you’d got to,’ Myrtle commented, passing me a very sticky bottle of squeezy honey. I untied one of Doris’s large pink brassieres that I had wrapped around my knees, and utilised this as a shield against the drips, which had congealed on the outside of the tube. My friend watched me create a nightmare Jackson Pollockian landscape on top of the sludgy oatmeal. ‘Your flat has burned down,’ Myrtle offered, as a distraction from my bleak creative process. I considered many responses, but went with ‘I know’, as it was brief but covered most of the bases. The Simnation Times was pushed across the table, not my friend’s usual read. The paper was folded to display regional news and events. I spotted the small byline and tiny image of the apartment fire. For some reason it took me longer to notice that the section’s much larger article, with colour photograph, featured yesterday's coach trip, with myself front and centre, being sprayed by sewage, and Evadne Blackheart loop-di-looping over the safety railing behind me. ‘They won’t put that in the newsletter,’ chuckled Myrtle. The American tan, xxxxl sized tights I’d found at the back of Doris’s drawer were pooling around my ankles, now that I had removed my home-made knee pads, and I felt uncomfortable in every way possible. Random thoughts rebounded around my brain like a painful game of pool. The exorbitant building maintenance fees which had left my bank account yesterday. I doubted I would get good value from that outlay. Small trinkets that I had treasured, all burned to ash. My favourite lavender blouse, left on my bedside chair to remind me to sew up the loose button, gone along with the rest of my clothes. Tears dripped off the end of my nose. Myrtle passed me a tea-towel, which she had found on the floor. I wiped the table with it. ‘No good sitting around here getting worked up, a bit of fresh air will do us good.’ My friend suggested, then grabbed the pink sleeve of the voluminous coat I was wearing, and by degrees, steered me towards an open window. I was already upside down in the shrubbery outside, before I realised her plan. The cheery morning DJ blasted out when I turned the key to start the car engine. ‘Wake up Ballina, it’s going to be a sunny day!’. I scowled at the intruding cheerfulness, but complied with Myrtle’s directions, and we found ourselves in the busy outskirts of town, heading for the river. Mary’s Snax N’ Brew, tucked in beside our local ferry terminal, was a great deal nicer on the inside than I had imagined. The peeling paintwork and rusty corrugated iron of the exterior had discouraged me from entering previously. There was much to approve of in the neatness of the sausage rolls, lined up with parallel precision in the hot cabinet, and the framed five star health certificate on the wall was a great comfort. I almost apologised as I handed over my flask. It had been rolling around in the rear footwell of the car and was rather grubby. ‘There wasn’t time to swill it out properly,’ I whispered meekly, but I needn’t have worried, the proprietor had obviously seen much worse. It felt like a form of therapy seeing Mrs O’Hanlan produce a pristine bottle brush from out of a sterilising cabinet, and with this, several squirts of catering style detergent, and a steady stream of scalding water restore the receptacle to a hygienic state. She even sandpapered off the spot of rust that had developed on the base. ‘I’m making it with full fat milk, you look like you need building up a bit.’ Fighting back the tears at this unexpected kindness I scooted outside, hugging the freshly made Ovaltine as if it were an old friend. Both Myrtle and the car had vanished. My brain didn’t feel equipped to deal with this conundrum, so I stood staring at the parking spot where I had left it. A truck pulled up behind me, and a familiar voice rang out. ‘Get in, we've got a lift!’ There was something vaguely familiar about the tattooed driver. ‘It’s Karl from Finska,’ Myrtle exclaimed, ‘he showed us round, remember, his son’s a footballer?’ I nodded vaguely as I was hauled into the second passenger seat, my legs dangling. ‘Your car’s in the back of the truck, we only need to pay pedestrian fare on the ferry now, and he’s driving right through to Bachrein. We can be dropped off!’ Myrtle couldn’t have grinned more if she had won the lottery. I found the journey a distraction from my inward churn of worry. The ferry trip was as crowded and stressful as always, but once we disembarked in Beesley, snow capped mountains appeared on the horizon, with the tranquil prospect of open spaces ahead. The wild landscape of the Ballinian heights really did seem to put things in perspective somehow. Karl was not a music fan, so the radio was silent, and we enjoyed watching winter birds and even a deer in the distance. The twisty and steep final climb was hair-raising, but our driver inspired confidence. I tried not to look at the rusting vehicle parts scattered in the shadowed depths of roadside gullies. ‘Anytime, yaaah,’ Karl waved from the high cab dismissing our thanks, and we took time to look around the large hill-farming village where we had been conveniently deposited, complete with our old faithful car. Away from the freight trucks’ diesel clouds, the air tasted clean and cold. The Mayor of Bachrein, Lowell Cree met us at the end of his driveway. He was emptying the mailbox. ‘F****** Fairbanks again!’, took the place of a greeting, he waved a stash of brown envelopes under my nose. Each one had a Ballina Central Government postal stamp. ‘Health and safety concerns, I tried to tell that lanky t**t, they go too fast these lorries. The roads aren’t up to it.’ We agreed, they definitely were not. ‘Lack of adequate fencing in community gardens, that’s a new one.’ The Mayor scanned to the end of a lengthy document, then sighed. ‘You see that?’ Cree pointed to a row of cabbages, on the opposite side of the road, perched above a precipitous slope, ‘There was a b****y fence there last week. It’s those trendy wood-burning stoves I blame. That hippy lot buy them then they don’t want to pay for the fuel.’ The Mayor grabbed my, or should I say Doris’s coat, even though I tried to hang on to it, and threw it over a motorbike he had parked inside his hallway. ‘Cup of tea ladies?’ our host asked, Myrtle pursed her lips. The one-story house breathed ‘single man in need of a cleaner and or decorator’. Greying underwear hung unevenly across the radiators, motorbike parts filled the cushions of any available seating, and a curling stack of magazines held up an old fashioned stereo system, which was blasting out vintage heavy metal. To my relief, Myrtle located the off switch. Lowell pulled a tea-pot out of a grim looking cupboard. He lifted the lid and stared inside, but was displeased with whatever he found in there. ‘I don’t get visitors, as a rule,’ the Mayor explained, unnecessarily. ‘I’ve missed seeing you’ said Lowell, looking directly at Myrtle. ‘Why are you living in that awful place when you could be with me, in your own home?’ I stared at Cree, not able to process his change of tone or remarkable question. My friend was cycling through a selection of emotions, and settled on outrage. ‘My place is awful, at least it is clean there!,’ she retorted, bristling with anger. ‘I’ve let things go,’ agreed Cree, surveying the room. ‘Even the curtains have gone mouldy’. I couldn’t see my friend’s face as she had turned to inspect the kitchen, her mood was indecipherable. This was bewildering. Myrtle shook her head. ‘I knew this was a mistake.’ There was an unbearable tension in the room that was only broken when a mouse ran across my foot and I shrieked louder than a train whistle. As we were leaving, Mayor Cree grabbed my wrist, ‘Let me know if she needs anything, Myrtle’s not as…’ he struggled for the words, ‘she needs an eye kept on her, that’s all.’ Half way down the mountain I pulled off onto some flat grass by the side of a hairpin bend. It seemed like a good idea to wait for the traffic to die down before we attempted to descend the rest of this treacherous route. A convenient rock offered itself as a perch, and we sipped our Ovaltine by the car, nibbling out of date chocolate biscuits, watching the trucks almost jack-knife as they took the bend. Debris had been swept into the kerb, loose loads were obviously a hazard on this route. Myrtle kicked at a broken piece of plaster. ‘I thought it was a bit of one of those gnomes, I’m seeing them everywhere now.’ she commented. ‘Oh!,’ For some reason this interruption of my internal deliberations prompted me to remember the letter I had found in my pocket, the night before. I handed the envelope to Myrtle. She ripped it open and read out loud. ‘Dear Myrtle and Friend, We have examined the gnomes’ heads in great detail, and cannot find any mechanism which would cause the odd behaviour of nearby electronic equipment. We will continue to investigate, but we are totally flummoxed by the situation. Forgive the subterfuge in getting you this note, as we are being watched all the time now, Best Wishes Stacy and Theo Mayors of Furlanija and Guinee ‘Why does nobody remember my name?’, I complained. Myrtle rolled her eyes, ‘Who gave you this?’. I couldn’t answer, but I knew it wasn’t before the coach trip, as I always checked my pockets before travelling, in case I forgot my handkerchief. My friend put her head in her hands, and thought hard. Then she reached into the car and pulled out today’s Simnation Times, in order to study the ridiculous photo. ‘Mayor Dortha!,’ she exclaimed, ‘Of course, she must have slipped it into your pocket just after she popped out of that hatchway.’ ‘Yes, and I didn’t notice because of all the exploding sewage.’ I suggested, dryly. ‘Furlanija, Stacy's patch that’s just next to Dudley, they must be friends.’ The light started to fade as we resumed our trek home, or in my case, trek back to Doris’s vacant bedroom in the Sheltered housing complex. As we passed the sign telling us we were leaving Bachrein, my friend stared around for a while. ‘People go mad in places like this, middle of nowhere,’ she offered, ‘not like the town, always something going on to keep your mind occupied.’ I kept my questions for later, the day had already been overwhelming enough.
-
Candis Dortha: Mayor of Dudley My daily mood is best reflected in the patterns I create while squeezing honey onto my porridge. This morning’s cereal featured a daisy, hopeful, fresh and ready for the new year. A ray of sun appeared through the kitchen window, and for a moment obliterated the distant view of construction cranes on the horizon. I looked happily around my tiny domain, taking in the lovely new mug set that Myrtle had kindly bought me for Christmas, squeezed between the electric kettle and a large new jar of Ovaltine, still sporting its festive bow. My optimistic glow survived three pairs of tights inexplicably laddering while I got dressed. Mrs Rorschach, our building’s most irritating resident, received a smile instead of my usual attempt to slide past unnoticed, as we passed in the apartment building lobby. The gasman she had in tow got a nod, as he waved his instrument about. Even the usual exasperation of the Foulden Road traffic lights failed to dent my mood. My old faithful car had a youthful spring in her shiny new tyres, and my seat failed to slide around when I took the corners. I patted the dashboard affectionately. Myrtle was waiting for me when I arrived outside her government sponsored housing complex. ‘Come on, they’re ready to take the photo!’ Sally, a paid helper from the centre, gave me a knowing wink and slapped a name badge onto my coat, then disappeared behind an enormous wheelchair, which on visual inspection looked like it might be jet propelled, with two huge gas bottles strapped to the back. ‘Don’t stare at Les, he’s pretending to be disabled’, Myrtle whispered loudly. ‘He’s got no legs,’ I objected, ‘that’s taking a bit far for pretending isn’t it?’ ‘Not that kind of disabled,’ Myrtle’s whisper had become even louder, ‘the kind they want in the papers for the photo. You are putting him off!’. Les winked at me conspiratorially and I, to my surprise, winked back. New year, new me, why not just go with the flow? A crumpled photographer was lurking in the gutter, gasping at one of those electronic cigarettes and flirting with the housing complex manager. She wore an oversized gold badge announcing the role, but Mrs E. Blackheart seemed to be leaving the actual work element of the job to Sally, whose badge was a lot smaller and less impressive looking. I posed between Myrtle and a lady who was introduced to me as Alice. She was clutching at a bulging carrier bag. ‘Right then you horrible lot,’ Sally, clapped her hands for attention, ‘everyone look properly ‘umble and grateful for the free trip to the Sewage Plant we’ve been given, and no laughing for this very serious photo!’ Of course everyone did laugh, including Sally, and then Les broke down and chortled more than anyone else. Evadne Blackheart threw everyone an irritated look, before she and the press photographer claimed the front seats on the coach, then paid her charges no further attention. Myrtle had assured me that the centre manager didn’t have a clue who anyone was, and it was therefore quite safe to assume the identity of the absent Doris, who had escaped the thrall of government housing and gone to live in a flat in Lumsden street with a nice Rastafarian man. Most of the short trip was taken up by Sally taking various residents back and forth to the cramped onboard toilet. Les’s wheelchair was too big to clamp into the special grooves in the bus floor, so he had great fun spinning around and ending up in various ladies’ laps. ‘That’s not even his wheelchair,’ Myrtle told me, pursing her lips,’they lost that when he was in the hospital, having more bits cut off.’ ‘I found this beauty in a hospital corridor, some fool hadn’t chained it up,’ giggled Les, as he whizzed past,’No idea what’s in the gas tanks, could be rocket fuel!’. Dudley Waste Waterworks was more pleasant than you might imagine. The staff had gone to some trouble planting shrubs in strategic places, and they even had a wildlife garden set up, which was full of birds flitting back and forth, grabbing at peanut feeders and winter berries. I’m not sure if I felt entirely happy about having my lunch in the Sewage Worker’s staff room, but at least they had shut the windows. However, by the time I had eaten my third, somewhat delicious, salmon roll I was beginning to think that Doris had missed a nice day out. Mrs Blackheart skulked around, and I noticed her tipping some choice leftovers from the buffet table into a lunch-box, concealed within a shiny expensive looking handbag. However even she couldn’t dampen the mood. We were supposed to be joined by the Mayor of Dudley for a welcoming speech, but the politician sent her apologies for being unavoidably detained. We didn’t mind, all the more ice-cream for us! Les kept us all entertained with his jokes and tricks. He had a fake glass eye that he kept in his pocket, and this was used in many different ways to cause shrieks and hilarity amongst our party. ‘He used to be a solicitor,’ Myrtle nodded towards the ongoing chaos, ‘course he had to give it up, they retired him early.’ ‘Health reasons I suppose?’ The retired solicitor had just hidden himself under the buffet table, and was tittering away as he startled the stragglers finding some room for more food, by tapping them on the leg with the glass eye. ‘Oh yes, that as well, health,’ my friend said, laughing to herself. It was a little cold touring the water settlement tanks. I was hoping that we could skip to the end and get back on the warm bus. However, the waterworks chief was a thorough man who was evangelical about sewage treatment, and wasn’t prepared to shortchange us. Maybe some karmic intervention led to the dunking of Mrs Blackheart in the smelliest of the open tanks. It was a stroke of fortune that the photographer captured the moment, only moments before he had been leaning over a safety barrier and smoking a small cigar. Mayor Dortha had now arrived, and threw open an access door rather suddenly, thus catapulting Alice and her bulging carrier bag into Les’s lap. This triggered the turbo function of his new wheels. Meant for hill climbing the impressive machine was quite capable of acting like a snow plough through a whole crowd of people, causing a ripple effect which carried Evadne to the edge. Even then, she may have clung on, if it hadn’t been for the cigarillo being wrenched from the photographer’s hand, and landing next to Les’s gas tanks. No real injuries were sustained, thankfully, but the bus trip back to Ballina Central felt somewhat fraught. Every one of us smelled appalling. The coach windows were left open, but the only thing that this achieved was to circulate the odour more equitably, so no one could escape the stench. I couldn’t wait to get home and bin my outfit, it was totally ruined. Les had lost one of his chair wheels in the explosion, and being partly propped up by a mega-cube of adult diapers, was unable to scoot around. It felt like the party was definitely over. Then Alice managed to block the bus toilet by using her own personal supply of soft and fluffy toilet tissue, which she carried with her in that bulging carrier bag. The Complex Manager was absolutely furious, as now our progress was slowed to an intermittent snail’s pace by needing to stop every few minutes or so for comfort breaks. Back at base, Mrs Blackheart busied herself extending the poor helper’s shifts, so they could hose down those residents unable to manage by themselves. I decided to leave the car and walk, rather than take the chance of staining the upholstery. It was quite dark. The LED powered street lighting only lit a small pool of pavement, but some sort of orange glow in the distant sky helped once I neared the centre of town. I imagined I was seeing an elaborate shop front light display that I simply hadn’t noticed before. The fire engines racing past should have given me more of a clue, but I was so much concentrating on not tripping over uneven paving slabs that I mentally filed that information away to be dealt with later. Mrs Rorschach’s voice was what finally pierced through my torpor. ‘I said to them, you won’t find gas waving it about round there, you need to poke it right into the piping. I’ve reported that leak thirteen times, you check my phone records!’. The soot covered woman was surrounded by a group of law enforcement officers. A burly police woman wrapped my neighbour in a blanket, muting the rest of the complaining under the thick khaki fabric. By various means I found myself in an official vehicle, wrapped in the same style of blanket, and being transported back to the sheltered housing complex, because when asked for the address of a friend or relative I had been quite literal in my answer, without thinking it through. Evadne Blackheart was leaving the building when we arrived, obviously on her way home, having substituted her ruined skirt suit for a cleaner’s overall and baggy tracksuit bottoms. She noticed the police van, then spotted the Doris badge which was still attached to my coat, and sighed in exasperation. ‘Not another one wandered off!!’ The manager grabbed my arm roughly, and propelled me through the lobby before the policewoman could explain, then forced me down an internal corridor, until we reached a room marked ‘Doris’. I was pushed inside. Then the lights were switched off from the outside, and the door locked before I could say a word.. ‘It’s for your own good,’ she shouted through the keyhole, before flip- flopping away in her make-do rubber shower sandals. I reached into my coat pocket to retrieve a handkerchief to dry up the sobs, but found instead a crinkly envelope, which was very odd, because I definitely hadn’t put it there. The pitch black of the room was relieved a little, as my eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, but the door was firmly locked no matter what I tried. I simply had to come up with an escape plan, and before that find something to wear that didn’t smell of sewage! To be cont…
-
Thank you to everyone that has read my city journal so far, and especially to those who click the like button or leave a comment, the feedback is very much appreciated! I am taking a break from posting this week due to the holiday season, but I hope that you will continue with me on my journey through the sometimes eccentric region of Ballina, starting again next week. (I usually post on Saturday) This page shows a list of the episodes so far, in case you have missed any and would like to catch up.
-
Mayor of Houston: Mollie Desirae (continued from https://community.simtropolis.com/journals/entry/30209-hend-garth-ilene/ ) Houston has a lively nightlife, and the festive season had swelled the ranks of thrill seekers more than usual. Even the desperate backwater which housed The Railway Cutter Man’s Green Arms saw staggering groups of laughing revellers banging taxi doors, falling into gutters and generally making a nuisance of themselves. A few even rattled the handle of the bar door, hoping for a last snort of cheap ale to extend their celebrations. At last all was quiet, and we could concentrate fully on the pressing matter of trying to stay warm, amongst the dust and mess of the half completed remodel. Myrtle found a woolly hat which had been left by the builders, and added to the thermal insulation it provided with a plastic rain hood, found in the recesses of her coat pocket. I concentrated on collecting together a pile of dust-covers and old curtains, from which we constructed a make-shift tent and sleeping bag, balanced on the largest of the pub’s velour sofas. My friend and I arranged ourselves like tinned sardines, with heads at either end. After a great deal of adjustment and wriggling around, we were able to settle. So it was very annoying to hear a light tapping at the door. We tried to ignore it but the knocking got louder, and more insistent. ‘I can see you!’, a sing-song voice lilted through the open letter box, ‘let me in’. ‘We don’t need any, go away!’, Myrtle lilted right back. ‘It’s very cold out here, please open the door,’ the dulcet tones persuaded. Myrtle made a sound, not unlike that of an annoyed hippopotamus being disturbed at its mud path, then slid out of the ‘tent’. I grabbed at the sheets to stop the whole thing falling apart. Peeping between the notices on the window, my friend tutted to herself. ‘Silly woman looks frozen, who wears a crop top in this weather?’ ‘Don’t open the d…’, I started, but it was useless. Myrtle alternated in her attitude towards fellow human beings, they were either obstacles to be overcome, or lame ducks who required her attention. In this case, it seemed, we had entered waterfowl sanctuary territory. Pushing my friend aside, the invading wraith ran across the floor in a cloud of billowing snowflakes, as Myrtle battled against the wind to reclose the door. Meanwhile the wild looking woman forced open the cellar hatch and disappeared down the stone steps. An icy blast of air rushed up from the basement, and I shivered in my dismantling tent. ‘They’ve moved all the drink out!’ Myrtle yelled, ‘you won’t find anything down there.’ The interloper contradicted her by reappearing with a spider-web coated crate of clinking bottles, then expertly opened one against the newly fitted bar counter, knocking a great chip out of the faux marble in the process. Throwing her head back, the woman attempted to glug down the contents of the bottle, but no liquid ran out of the inverted vessel. She started stabbing inside with a blunt screwdriver that had been lying beside a rusty toolbox. ‘Effing stuff is frozen solid.’ she complained. Somewhat flustered, Myrtle squeezed around the upturned furniture. My friend returned carrying a concrete splattered electric kettle, obviously belonging to the builders, and poured steaming water into an equally unsavoury looking mug. ‘There you go, have this instead, it will warm you up, and do you more good than Houston’s Old Peculiar. That stuff is alcoholic treacle.’ The dazed brunette grabbed at the mug, and dunked the beer bottle into it happily, leaving it to defrost. ‘I didn’t mean that!’ Myrtle sighed. ‘I was an astronaut!’, the woman confided suddenly, then paused to poke around hopefully in the beer bottle. ‘When I was in space,’ she continued. ‘Which planet was that I wonder?’ Myrtle muttered under her breath. ‘It was a lot more boring than I thought it would be. We just went round, and round,’. Our visitor illustrated this action with the beery screwdriver. ‘Round and round, and it was the same boring view, and the same aggravating people nagging at me every single day,’ The distant sound of a police siren caught the storyteller’s attention for a moment. ‘trying to force me to talk to the psychiatrist on the video link. I said get him to come up here, see what it’s really like, then we can have a good chat about things.’ Our new friend nodded in self approval. ‘Then it was all, it’s your turn for the spacewalk Mollie, sort out the nuclear fuel rods Mollie, I saw through all their plots to get rid of me.’ Our visitor swung around to shake her fist angrily at the night sky. ‘So I cut holes in all their space suits, and peed in the dehydrated beef cobbler, and they cut short the mission and blamed it on asteroids.’ Exhausted by the effort of relating this tale, the alleged astronaut fell into a chair, knocking over the beer bottle in the process. A single drop of sticky liquid oozed onto the grimy table top. She lapped it up smiling. The room was suddenly lit by red and blue flashing lights, as a patrol car pulled up outside. I worked my way round the mess to let the officer inside, and he led our unwelcome guest away, gently enough. ‘Houston’s gone downhill since I used to live here,’ was my first comment. ‘Yes,’ admitted Myrtle. ‘And do you want the bad news first, or the even worser one?’ I didn’t challenge the grammar of my friend’s sentence, this wasn’t the moment. ‘Number one,’ she was telling me anyway, ‘ that was the Mayor,’ I swivelled around and goggled after the retreating patrol car. ‘Number two, she stole our gold travel pass.’ As we gathered ourselves together, it became obvious that the kleptomaniac Mayor had taken more than just the pass. My handbag was almost emptied, Myrtle’s pockets had been rifled through, the remaining beer bottles had disappeared. Even the revolting breakfast tray had lost its dried up white bread with mould in the corners. The only thing we had left was the flask, which I had left to soak in the sink behind the bar. We filled it up with boiling water from the builder’s kettle, and decided to head for the railway station, to see if anything could be done. Houston Central was populated by frustrated travellers who had been caught out like us by the cancelled late train. It wasn’t a happy atmosphere. The Sunday morning 6:10am from Houston to Ballina Central arrived on time, but without a buffet car, so even if we’d had any money, breakfast was not an option. Myrtle found a child’s packet of jelly sweets under a seat, but I couldn’t face them, despite feeling faint with hunger. Hot, slightly Ovaltiney, flask water is a poor substitute for porridge with honey and a slice of buttered toast, my usual fare. The construction cranes outside Ballina never stop moving, and they took on a sinister, robotic look as the train finally approached our home. When we reached the station, any available staff were distracted dealing with the complaints of disembarking passengers, which thankfully allowed us to sneak past the barriers unchallenged. Staggering towards our portacabin, my stomach growled more loudly than the breaker’s yard dog. I fantasised about the box of mince pies I’d left balanced on the non-functioning boiler. Once inside the office it took me a good five minutes to realise something wasn’t as expected. Why was my third mince pie warm? Had the portacabin tilted over, or were all the cupboard doors straight now? ‘There’s no hole in the toilet room wall!’, Myrtle shouted deliriously, over the strains of Fur Elise, emanating from our musical toilet roll holder. Looking through the strangely transparent and unmisted window, our old faithful car had an odd sheen. ‘It’s clean,’ said Myrtle, wonderingly, ‘polished even.’ A note under the wipers flapped in the wind, we rushed outside to read it. ‘You have been an inspiration to me, I was going to give up, then I saw you, two old ladies pushing that car, and I thought, if they can fight back so can I. Hope you like the improvements, Merry Christmas Bill’. The car started with a luxurious purring sound. Music danced out of the replaced stereo, even Myrtle’s seat had been returned to the correct position. I wasn’t sure whether to cry with relief, or grump about being called an old lady, so I did both. ‘Who is Bill?’, I looked at Myrtle. She pointed to the sign over our neighbour’s plot, W. Clintons Est 1974. ‘He must be a William.’ ‘The tyre guy? You know what this means don’t you? ‘Well I’m not going to sleep with him if that’s what he thinks!’ Myrtle folded her arms. I was momentarily confused by my friend’s train of thought. ‘No, it means somebody is actually reading the Ballina Files and supports our work!’ ‘Don’t get carried away,’ returned Myrtle, ‘he probably wants to stop any more tenants leaving the industrial estate, otherwise Fairbanks will leap in and build shoddy apartments on the land.’ I had to agree, that did seem a likely scenario. ‘Of course we’ll have to change the locks now’, I suggested. ‘Absolutely,’ Myrtle mumbled through the crumbs of mince pie number five, ‘we can’t have just anyone poking round the Portacabin.’ So we brewed up the Ovaltine, but I was so tired that I fell asleep in my office chair before I could even drink it.
-
Mayor of Hend, Garth Ilene ‘I wanted an estimate, not a heart attack!’ Our old faithful had moved on from unreliable starts, to difficult goes and almost impossible stops. Bob's grease pit staff gathered around, shaking their heads and wondering if mending the old girl was worth it at all. Myrtle and I drove dejectedly out of the garage, with the car making charung ka-flutter noises, accompanied by intermittent squeals and grinding sounds. Heading for the portacabin, we hit traffic, and the engine’s charunging changed tone and eventually vanished altogether. I had gathered just enough momentum to freewheel off the main street into Ballina’s Central Rail Station car park. ‘Don’t stop here, they will charge you an arm and a leg’, Myrtle exclaimed. I had to explain that I wasn’t parking so much as breaking down. We could almost see the portacabin, behind Clinton’s used tyre storage pound on the other side of the busy road. Maybe we could take a shortcut? Two middle aged women, pushing a broken down car across a main town thoroughfare in the morning rush hour, garnered as much attention as you might expect. Luckily the lads from Clinton’s came to our rescue. With their help we made it to the other side before the police needed to declare a major traffic incident. We reached our office in one piece. My friend got tired of listening to my doom laden financial woes and left me, still gripping the lifeless steering wheel in our portacabin yard and regretting having spent nearly all the remaining funds filling the useless machine with diesel. I was startled out of my dark reveries by a friendly thump on the roof. ‘Myrtle says get your skates on, or you’ll miss the train!’ The tyre mechanic grinned. Running past the amused workmen back to get to the rail station, I wondered how my colleague could possibly have afforded the tickets. ‘I didn’t need to,’ explained Myrtle, as we picked up speed, passing the outskirts of Ballina Central. She reached into her pocket and pulled out an item of extreme luxury, a gold tipped, first class, all areas travel pass. My jaw dropped. ‘I’ll have to thank that Reverend Cotterall’, she continued. ‘He gave you a $1000 travel pass?,’ I was astonished. The last I’d heard the good rev was trying to raise $20 to repaint the church hall radiators, after the ‘mums and tots’ crayon melting incident. ‘Oh no, When I told him we were going after Fairbanks he said he’d have a word upstairs on our behalf.’ Myrtle glanced towards the carriage ceiling. ‘The Rev is trying to stop his church being knocked down for the new bypass,’ she explained. Myrtle paused to pull our flask and packed lunch out of a tatty plastic carrier bag. ‘I found this on the floor in the station.’ she continued, ‘See here, Thelma and Louise Berkhampsted, it’s a family pass, they even look a bit like us in the photos. Just when we needed it most, a proper Christmas miracle!' My previous amazement turned to alarm, followed by outrage. ‘Which one is supposed to be me, these two are at least ninety?’ Eventually I persuaded my friend that we had to hand the pass in, but agreed reluctantly that it would be more practical to wait until we got back home. It was an effort, but I managed not to imagine the elderly Berkhamsteds fishing in their matronly handbags for the missing travel card and immediately phoning the authorities. I attempted to act casual for the rest of the journey, in order to allay suspicion. Eventually we rattled into Hend station, and found our way to the agreed meeting venue, at the newly opened West Hend Community Hub and Information Resource. ‘Hello my name is either Thelma or Louise and I want to see Mayor Ilene’, I blurted out with no spaces between the words. The receptionist smiled politely, and suggested we wait in the lobby. She would let Garth know he had visitors. A familiar smell of new carpet and old books took me back to happy memories of my childhood. The hallway in the newly built library had been given over to a display featuring the early history of our region’s colonisation. This was a controversial subject amongst seasoned residents of the area, particularly those with native Ballinian ancestry, so I was surprised at the choice of topic. ‘They're keen on Lancelot Ball,’ Myrtle remarked, staring at a blown up illustration of our founding father handing a string of beads to a smiling group of individuals wearing tribal dress. I shuffled along uncomfortably to view a poster sized reproduction of a familiar vintage photograph. This image featured the main entrance of Ballina City Hall, with Governor Ball’s marble statue installed in pride of place. The statue was posed grasping an extremely large bat in his right hand and wearing, what I have always thought of as, a cowboy hat. Nowadays of course, the ridiculous edifice has been pushed into a dark corner, and hardly even gets dusted. There followed a series of framed prints of the colonial military. Each scene showed the soldiers being troubled by the same oversized flying mammals. The rest of the walls were filled with less professional artwork following a similar theme. Red scrawls had been employed extensively to depict gore. Rampaging robots were included in a few examples, but my favourite picture depicted our founding father being devoured by a tyrannosaurus rex. ‘Wonderful imaginations, children.’ Mayor Ilene had appeared behind us, unannounced. ‘Ball was a hoot, don’t you think?’ The young man’s refined accent was a strange contrast to the local burr. ‘A hoot?’, Myrtle asked, dangerously. ‘Yes, this giant bat nonsense,’ the Mayor replied, ‘I believe he asked for the statue to be fully clothed and holding the scrolls of office. Rather than just admit the Italian sculptor screwed up due to language problems, he made up this whole story about defeating flying vampire warriors and the like. Then he wouldn’t back down, and started commissioning paintings to commemorate his victory over the fictitious creatures,’ Garth chortled. Myrtle made the disapproving clicking noise that made those who knew her rather nervous. ‘You’re from Magnasanti, aren’t you?’ The young man laughed to himself and focused on twirling an overlarge high tech watch around his rather slim wrist. ‘I think what my friend means is, the bat story is traditional, and it isn’t polite to ridicule it.’ I offered carefully, into the stony silence. Garth rolled his eyes. ‘Y’ know I moved here because I was sick of Santi, literally sick. I needed fresh air and open spaces and something to do that made sense to me. Ballina’s my home now, I love it just as it is, eccentricities and all.’ he nodded towards the artwork, ‘ludicrous chaos is better than ordered dictatorship in Magnasanti.’ His smile faded for a moment, but soon returned. Myrtle looked obviously confused, having set herself up to having one opinion of the young man, she found herself wrestling with contradictory evidence. Garth gave a conciliatory shrug, ‘Look I’ve got a ribbon cutting for our women’s technical college coming up. FemLegUH! have organised a ‘weep and knit’ circle for lost femininity or some such nonsense. I’d better go and discourage them before the welding students start throwing things. Why not just look around Hend and see for yourselves what we’re doing here?’ With that he shook our hands firmly, then strode out of the building, hands shoved into his combat trouser pockets. We watched as his strangely familiar long legged bouncing gait carried him out of sight. Myrtle and I then made our way back slowly to Hend Junction, in a state of puzzlement, and shivering in the icy wind. The short rail journey to Houston passed without incident, but it was a different story when we exited the local train to make our connection. Large signs advertising engineering works blocked our passage, and eventually we found a company employee who admitted that the next departure would be tomorrow. This left us in a panic, so we asked around the dwindling crowds for advice on the cheapest place to stay overnight. The consensus was a pub with rooms, down by the brick arches of the east-side railway bridge. The winter sunlight had faded into a grey gloom before we reached our destination. The front of the establishment was festooned with ‘Under new Management’ posters, and another optimistically announced that they were opening soon. An older sign suggested that ‘Bed, breakfast and evening meal’ was an option. I realised how hungry I had become. ‘Why is this place called ‘The Railway Cutter Man’s Green Arms.’ asked Myrtle uncertainly,’ 'Did the guy get gangrene? The sign, like the rest of the establishment, seemed to be in a state of transition. A weary man with a duster was cleaning a chalk written menu off a board. ‘Chef’s off’, he said, ‘you can have two breakfasts, but there’s no beds’. This did not sound promising at all, I was feeling too tired to find somewhere else, and anyway, I suspected we couldn’t afford the alternatives. Several workmen were packing up their tools, and a smell of glue wafted out of the door. One whispered to Myrtle as he left, ‘whatever you do, don’t eat here!’, then held his stomach and winced as he climbed into an overloaded van. The manager, for this was the position of the duster wielder, asked us for a small amount of cash in advance which he pocketed swiftly, then passed over the keys and told us we could push them back through the letterbox when we left in the morning. The stairs were completely blocked by decorating equipment, so we scanned around the dusty bar room for somewhere to settle down. Myrtle peeled back an old curtain being used as a dust cover, and carefully checked the upholstery of a dingy looking banquette to reassure herself that nothing nasty would jump out, then threw off her shoes and sat down. I joined her, and we shared what was left of the Ovaltine in our flask. Despite the warnings I was too hungry to miss a meal so we examined the manager’s ‘breakfast’ tray. It seemed safer to disregard anything which wasn’t sealed in its original plastic. Myrtle coated some wheato biscuits with the contents of a tiny pot of marmalade, and I ate a long life yoghurt mixed with muesli. It wasn’t very filling. The windows were frosting up, and the room took on an unwelcome chill. How on earth would we survive the night, in the freezing cold and surrounded by builder's mess? (To be continued)
-
Stacy Maurine, Mayor of Furlanija The next week was spent in a state of nervous tension. Myrtle was mysteriously absent, and my phone calls went unanswered. This left me with not much to do but worry for days on end, and all the uncertainty manifested itself in the usual way by messing up my sleep patterns. I found myself wandering my apartment at night, visiting the bathroom, making endless soothing hot drinks, then visiting the bathroom yet again. By Thursday I had decided I could use the small hours more usefully to catch up on the list of small DIY tasks that had accumulated throughout the year. My tiny hallway featured a recent present from Myrtle’s nephew Arnold. His job as garbage collector, in one of the more choice districts of his home city Magnasanti, allowed the perk of finding all sorts of interesting oddities hidden amongst the trash. This cuckoo clock was an attractive timepiece, with ornate carving, and had obviously cost the original purchaser a considerable sum. Much like his Aunt, Arnold was attracted to those objects which very nearly worked, but nevertheless failed in some important detail. The wooden bird, which was designed to pop out for a quick chirrup on the half, and a more extensive performance on the full hour, must have suffered some past misfortune. Rather than a melodic cuckoo sound, and dignified exit, the creature produced an alarming squeal, then shot out of the housing as if its tail was on fire. After which, the creature bungee jumped upside down on its madly rotating spring, before being hauled back inside in a cacophony of protesting cogs and gears. This performance played on my nerves, and would make an excellent first project for my new positive attitude towards insomnia. After an hour spent with a limited selection of tools, poking and prodding, I decided to change my approach, and taped the bird’s door shut with the strong gaffer tape I kept under the sink. Now the passing of the hour was marked with a pathetic buffeting noise, and the sad little ‘doink’ of unemployed clockwork. I smiled with satisfaction, and decided a celebratory mug of Ovaltine might be in order. While making the brew I had a rush of confidence, and started populating my DIY ‘to do’ list with more challenging tasks. Was fixing the loose hinge on my apartment front door a possibility? Gaffer tape in hand I approached the offending fixture with a glint in my eye. A quick inspection revealed that I would need to open the door, and slap the tape around the loose fixing screws. This was going to save me a fortune in call out charges. I pre-cut the tape, so as to minimise the amount of time I had to spend in the public corridor in my nightgown, then flung open the offending portal. Myrtle was standing just outside, hand raised as if to use the door-knocker, wearing what could only be described as a ‘Christmas Jumper’. This festive sweater could easily have been banned from airport runways as a dangerous pilot distraction. An LED display of Angels cavorted clockwise around her ample form, colliding merrily with a herd of similarly animated reindeer, stampeding in the opposite direction. The rest of the light show was made up of falling snow, rotating presents, and a very jolly Santa rocking back and forth on his heels, firing off Ho Ho Ho’s in red flashing text. Peeling the gaffer tape from her face, along with half an eyebrow, Myrtle spotted the mug in my hand. ‘Why didn’t you make me one?’ she complained. ‘It’s three o’clock in the morning!’ was all I could manage in response. Myrtle sighed, then bent down and peeled back the carpet. A gas bill, three takeaway menus and a pile of pretty postcards with familiar handwriting was revealed, all signed with a large M. I added ‘fix loose carpet behind the door’ to my DIY list, then rushed around in a panic throwing off my nightwear, and searching through the laundry basket for something remotely wearable. ‘Where are we going, and why didn’t you ring?’ These questions seemed reasonable enough, but they were not answered. Myrtle was distracted trying to catch me as I tripped over my own feet, knocking the gaffer tape from the clock as I tottered. The imprisoned cuckoo saw its chance, and burst free, shooting across the hallway in a screeching orgy of pent up ucks and oos. We queued on the steps of Ballina’s Civic Hall, with a crowd of mostly women, all wearing holiday themed garments. It was bitterly cold and I was glad to reach the shelter of the huge double doors. ‘Name?’ The security guard looked as bad tempered as you might expect. If there is a short straw which could be drawn in an enforcement agent’s list of duties, then rising before dawn, with the prospect of being forced to listen to the Ballina Combined Houses of Worship caterwauling their way through a final desperate dress rehearsal for the Christmas Concert must be a candidate for that position. ‘Doris and Ethel’ Myrtle replied, inaccurately. I stayed silent and followed her lead, as we had hurriedly agreed while running down the darkened main street to reach this unexpected appointment. ‘House of Worship?’ ‘Seventh Day Jehova’s Latter Day Salvationists’, My friend responded efficiently. ‘Never heard of them,’ the guard grumped, looking down his list. ‘We are very shy,’ explained Myrtle, whose jumper had just switched over to a blinding festive fireworks and ‘Happy New Year’ motif. The guard gave a withering look, ticked a box on his sheet, and ushered us along. ‘Stacy hacked the guest list on their computer’, my colleague confided, as we attempted to mingle with the throng inside the vaulted hall. A bad tempered woman shouted instructions at the sleepy gaggle of choristers. Several different versions of ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’ started up all at once. This inspired the choir mistress to begin the first of a series of loud motivational rants, accompanied by the violent thrashing of her baton on a well worn podium. Sneaking along behind the singers, Myrtle led me to an opening, hidden behind a hideous marble statue of our region's founding father, Lancelot Ball. I had always wondered why he was wrestling with a giant bat, but that was a thought for another day. Tiptoeing after Myrtle’s glowing sweater up the darkened stairway, I became aware of the distant sound of machinery. Then the twinkling light of my friend’s sweaters revealed the face of Stacy Maurine, emerging from behind a large cutting tool, which she had pressed up against the corridor wall, outside Fairbanks’ office! ‘We don’t have long,’ she whispered, carefully breaking away parts of the internal plaster wall with her gloved hands. Soon an opening appeared. Peering through I was astonished to be greeted by rows upon rows of gnomes’ dismembered heads. The mysterious Mayor leaned inside, grabbed at one of the smirking faces, slid the plaster body part into a satchel, then re-fitted the wooden panelling over the plasterwork, to cover her tracks. The choir had moved on to loudly ruining ‘silent night’ by the time we squeezed back into the main lobby of Ballina’s Civic Hall. I had to physically pull my friend through the narrow gap left by our marbleised founding father on this return journey. Stacy’s bag secreted under Myrtle’s clothing added twelve inches to her circumference. Our mission then, and it wasn’t easy, was to sit through another hour of what, for want of a better definition, must be called singing, then drive to Furlanija, to a pre-organised rendezvous point and drop off the package. Luckily the security guard on our exit from the hall had been so worn down with the trauma of his shift that he was very lackadaisical in the execution of his duties, so we were able to leave without challenge. We decided that mid-morning the next day might be the least suspicious time to set out. Stacy had been concerned that we could be followed. She herself had been under surveillance since her neighbour Dr Quinten had involved her in the whole affair. However Thea had suggested that our disguise as ‘dotty old women floundering around trying to be reporters’ had thrown the security services off the scent. Myrtle avoided my eye for a while, but we could laugh about it later. ‘So are we friends with Quinten now?’ I asked, as we drove three times round the exit roundabout, to deter potential pursuers. My colleague didn’t go as far as admitting to changing her mind. She was happier with the idea that Stacy had talked some sense into him. ‘He would have been exploding gnomes from now until kingdom come unless she got the idea to locate some that hadn’t been booby trapped yet,’ Myrtle explained, ‘They need to find out what those awful things are designed to do, so we can take Fairbanks down with proper evidence!!!’ I was all in favour of that! It was several hours before we arrived at an ore processing plant on the outskirts of Furlanija. The random diversions we worked into our journey really added to the mileage. Checking carefully for observers first, we hid the backpack under a seating bench, located inside a lonely bus stop, and then immediately turned around and headed for home. In our rear-view mirror three puffs of smoke emanating from a tall white chimney told us all was well with the transfer. Apart from one disastrous stop at a diner (Ovaltine light is not an experience either of us want to repeat), we drove straight home. I then went for a quiet lie down on my bed, and didn’t wake up for twelve hours.
-
Mayor of Foulden, Jem Frank Our portacabin sat on a light industrial estate, near to the main streets of Ballina Central. The land had been designated a development zone, and over the years had been subject to various political whims and proposed building schemes, none of which ever came to much. I had been feeling more nervous recently though, due to Fairbanks and his recent push for development. Leaving the dusty front yard, I noticed again how the plots around us had been slowly emptying as leases ran out, and there was an air of neglect about the place that felt worrying. How would we manage without an office? Adding to my anxiety was the state of my car. The engine was taking longer each morning to get going, and needed a good long run to warm it up, before I could be confident we wouldn’t stall at junctions. I was, therefore, alarmed to see a potential impediment to our progress. Ken, seller of greasy sandwiches, and weak cups of tea, toured the estate with his squeaky cart and had an inexhaustible capacity for mindless chatter. He spotted Myrtle, and sprinted towards the open passenger window in eager anticipation of a sympathetic ear. My friend was not her usual communicative self though. Ken did his best to overcome this, hopping along sideways, and talking non-stop as I attempted to keep the car moving at a walking pace. Myrtle answered in a tight-lipped series of monosyllables, and eventually the snack entrepreneur noticed her lack of enthusiasm. ‘Time of the month is it?’, he winked at me conspiratorially, while jumping backwards over a loose kerb edge. 'This’ll cheer you both up,’ he spluttered, running out of breath as I picked up the pace. The unwelcome gossiper reached into his ketchup stained trousers, and brought out an audio cassette, which, with surprising accuracy, he was able to throw onto our dashboard, just before he fell into a pothole. Myrtle glowered at him through the rear window, then went back to her own dark thoughts. The weather was unseasonably warm for early winter. Birds, encouraged by the sunshine, were singing cheerful tunes. I, however, was unable to shake a feeling of impending doom. Maybe the three phone calls I had in the morning, each from different members of Jem Frank’s team, asking me to confirm our time of arrival had set me off. Then watching the build crews crane sheets of flimsy wall boarding into the fast growing forest of cheaply built, tiny roomed multi-storey apartment blocks on the edge of town had really ground my gears. ‘This all used to be fields,’ I complained to my downcast companion, who was studiously staring out of the passenger window. Myrtle gave me a look, leaned over and turned on the radio. We caught Dr Quinton mid sentence, advocating a new wave of investment in some obscure industry. I clicked off the program immediately. All the events of the morning, combined with my friend’s disturbing mood erupted into a bad tempered diatribe, as I desperately tried to weave around great chunks of sub-soil dropped by construction vehicle tyres onto the road. ‘I don’t want the so-called new Ballina, I don’t want these new houses, and what I definitely don’t want in any way, shape or form is to visit a Llama Themed Tourist Attraction in Foulden.’ Myrtle turned slowly towards me as my words tumbled out, and I glanced nervously in her direction. ‘Well I like Llamas.’ My friend gave me one of her extra strength glares, and pushed Ken’s cassette into our ancient audio system. I ground my teeth to the distorted strains of the Ballina Combined Houses of Worship singing uplifting songs for the rest of the drive. Mayor Frank met us in the car park. She seemed a little sheepish. ‘I, er, the committee that is, are worried about , well… Do you mind filling in these forms, so they can make their minds up about you?’ The politician handed us two clip-boards and a couple of pencils with the words ‘A Sustainable Souvenir From Foulden’ embossed upon them. Then she scooted away, back inside the peculiar Llama shaped building, to watch us out of the window through a pair of binoculars. We were faced with a pile of papers filled with tick boxes, comment sections and strength of feeling queries circle one to five and so on. Myrtle was stuck on the ‘share your basic details’ first page. ‘What are my pronouns?’, she sighed. ‘Just write anything,’ I advised, ‘ we are not going to be here very long, so it doesn’t matter.’ ‘Pronouns, any-thing,’ she wrote. I backed off and leaned against a juggling Llama themed lamp post so I could concentrate better. On page three I started to tick boxes at random for questions I did not understand. By page seventeen I was experiencing exam sweats, and rushing out untidy diagrams that looked more like crazed scribbles than a serious response to the topic of globalisation and its effects on tribal food production. Ms Frank appeared to retrieve our endeavours, then disappeared, for what I imagined would be a long discussion session with her cohort. To my complete astonishment she reappeared almost immediately, walked over to Myrtle, grabbed both her hands, looked deep into my colleague’s eyes and said, ‘We didn’t need to read past the first few answers, your response to 6 b section ii told us all we needed to know. ‘I don’t know why they were so pleased about my duvet covers,’ Myrtle muttered, ‘ I only ticked that box because 100% cotton never dries after you wash it, and nylon snags your toe-nails and makes you sweat.’ I must admit that I had been confused by many of the questions, but couldn’t remember any that could be construed as an inquiry about bed linen. Maybe uncharitably, I also suspected my colleague of skipping all the questions after page one. She did seem to finish the task rather quickly. As we headed towards the bamboo fibre door in the Llama’s oesophagus. I was dreading what might lie beyond. A low hanging banner read ‘this is a carbon neutral attraction’. We pushed our way through to be confronted by a bank of video screens, each showing examples of the various diseases that can afflict Llamas, with a particular focus on parasites and fungal conditions. I passed these looping films as quickly as possible, to see a further display entitled ‘Patriarchal Systems Within Modern Subsistence Agriculture’. The theme here revolved around photos of smiling families with their Llamas, surrounded by information boards written in tiny excitable fonts. ‘I wrote this part myself,’ beamed Mayor Frank. We nodded politely. At least I hope we did. My face was already aching from forcing a neutral but interested expression, and Myrtle seemed to have drifted off into her own thoughts. The last section consisted of a sulky woman, wearing homespun clothing, wobbling around on a hand-made stool, surrounded by a pile of tangled yarn. A sign above her head invited visitors to ‘knit your own Llama Wool hat’. Myrtle, who under optimum conditions had been known to knock out a 4-ply twin-set in under a fortnight, was unable to give the task her total concentration. Meanwhile I wasted at least ten minutes trying to lower myself safely down onto the tribal floor-cushion seating. The combination of being stabbed by the splinters shed from the badly made wooden needles, and the unevenly spun yarn having a mind of its own led to multiple instances of knots, or dropped stitches. My friend had managed four rows of garter stitch before giving up, claiming that the wool was taking the skin off her fingers. ‘Can we pet the Llamas now?,’ Myrtle pointed hopefully to a set of fake hoofprints leading outside. ‘Ah no,’ replied Mayor Frank, looking uncomfortable, ’We, er, unfortunately ran out of budget before we bought the actual Llamas. We just have placeholders at the moment. There is a photo point though.’ she added brightly. We posed obediently besides the cardboard Llamas, while Ms Frank asked us for our feedback on the visit. ‘Our group especially wants to attract children,’ she explained. Myrtle gave the Mayor a long look. I started to sidle backwards, planning to have a clear run to the exit just in case. ‘Educational but fun, that was our primary concern,’ continued our host, ‘we always welcome constructive criticism.’ I slid even further away, shuffling my feet to avoid detection, as Myrtle opened her mouth. ‘Well, I’m not sure it is realistic, for a small child, to knit a whole hat,’ she blurted out, ‘In the time available I mean.’ Mayor Frank thought for a moment, ‘That’s so helpful, yes, a simpler project for the youngsters, maybe a primitive lamp formed with dung. I’ll discuss it with the committee right away.’ In the car, I turned hesitantly to my friend. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Myrtle pre-empted crossly, ‘I wasn’t going to say anything because there was no point. They’ll be closed inside a month. What kid wants to go to a petting zoo without any animals?’. She folded her arms, and continued simmering in silence for some time, until we reached our usual turn off from the city ring road. ‘I’ll get out here, I’ve got stuff to do.’ Myrtle startled me by making a move for the door, and I pulled over onto the grass verge as quickly as I could to avoid her leaping into the heavy traffic. ‘I’m sorry,’ I apologised,’ I didn’t mean to be so..’ ‘It’s not you,’ my friend’s face softened for a moment, ’I need to go check something, by myself. I just...' , a long hesitation followed, 'think I might be wrong about something.' I left her, on the side of the road, with trucks racing past, and she waited until I was very nearly out of sight before she moved, to make sure I wouldn’t know which way she was going. There was no point going back to the portacabin, so I headed off home instead, in a very peculiar state of mind.
-
Mayor of Galacia, Rebeccanne Jezza Myrtle’s new coat, when it first appeared, fitted easily through the letterbox. The dense, vac-packed parcel gave birth to a synthetic fabric coat, which was so stiff that Myrtle could hardly fit her arms into the sleeves. ‘It doesn’t look like the picture’, she complained, consulting her well read ‘handy buys for seniors’ mail order catalogue. Our postie, Joe that used to be Joanne according to Myrtle, had delivered some surprisingly useful items recently. The jar gripper helped tremendously with over tightened containers of Ovaltine. Even the floral china toilet roll dispenser which played ‘Fur Elise’ at each grab of the paper had continued to function as advertised, if somewhat annoyingly at times. So I understood my friend’s disappointment. ‘It was supposed to be warm, this coat’, she moaned, trying to force her hand into a tightly shut pocket. Not one to give up though, she decided to ‘give a bit longer’, and sulked in the passenger seat as we drove towards Galacia. Leaving the main roads and heading towards the rural west, a few sprinkles of snow landed gently on our windscreen. I turned up the car heater, and soon the rhythmic squeak of the wipers, and the soothing rattle of the bit of paper we could never get out of the fan, sent my friend off to sleep. The car radio signal kept fading in and out, so I took the opportunity to let my mind drift. I was just debating with myself about whether our postie had been two separate people, or some sort of surgical intervention had occurred when I found myself unable to change gear. My hand was somehow stuck. Panicking and stabbing at the pedals, the car stalled and thankfully rolled unharmed off the side of the road, just as a speeding Farley’s Foundry lorry rattled by, carrying a shifting load of metal tubing. I turned to my colleague and was astonished to see that Myrtle’s face, somewhat pink from overheating, was the only bit of flesh visible within a black quilted cocoon which had inflated to completely fill her side of the car. I woke her up. Groggy and confused, Myrtle, with my help, struggled to sit up. The situation was exacerbated by a sudden shift in signal strength. The radio, which I had inadvertently left on, started broadcasting the booming voice of Dr Quinton, obviously being interviewed on local talk radio. ‘Technology is the future of Ballina,’ he pontificated. ‘And you can shut up,’ grumped Myrtle, stabbing at the audio controls. We had no time for debate. The head of the newly formed Galacia Residents Opposed to Purposeless Edicts group, Delamere Trot, had been utterly insistent that we must arrive on time. So I was glad to be able to pick up speed when ice on the road began to melt. Winter sunshine broke through the clouds as we headed down into the Galacia valley, but cold winds still buffeted our car. Mrs Trot had asked to meet us in a small park. Donald Trot, secretary elect of GROPE had come along to help push his wife’s wheelchair. ‘We shouldn’t have got rid of the last Mayor. Sure he was a bit odd, but who isn’t these days. This one is a thoroughly bad lot’, the man panted, as he pushed his wife up a grass slope and into a copse of trees. We followed. I was feeling thoroughly puzzled, while Myrtle was still muttering to herself about the coat, which she was trying to hold down as it flapped about in the stiff breeze. Delamere shushed them both. ‘That crafty cow will make a run for it if she hears us coming.’ We arrived at a tall fence which divided the park from the small back gardens of an adjoining street. ‘The back of the Mayor’s house,’ Mrs Trot explained. Mr Trot reached into a haversack slung over the wheelchair handles, and pulled out a crow bar. I must have looked alarmed at this point. ‘Don’t worry,’ whispered Mrs T, ‘we aren’t planning to hit her with it, just cut off her escape.’ Donald positioned himself near a loose fence panel and waited. The distant sound of door knocking floated towards us on the wind. ‘That’s Eloise, our treasurer, right on time too,.’ confided Mrs Trot, consulting a large military style wristwatch. The knocking continued, more loudly this time, then we heard the careful squeak of a badly maintained patio door being slid open. ‘Now Donald!’, our host exclaimed. Mr Trot wrenched with his tool, maybe a little too vigorously, as it brought down most of the fence rather than just one panel. Rebeccanne Jezza was revealed, balancing on the roof of a beaten up garden store, with one leg cocked over the neighbour’s wall. She was stunned into paralysis by the sight of Myrtle sailing towards her like an out of control gothic dinghy. Our party made its way on foot, over a level crossing, through a smoky industrial estate and onwards. First in line were Eloise and Myrtle, who seemed to have bonded over a discussion about the ‘Handy Buys for Seniors’ returns policy. I could hear my friend’s voice when the wind dropped, saying things like, ‘They claimed this coat was slimming in the catalogue!.’ Next came the miserable Mayor, shivering in her thin jacket, being prodded along by Mrs Trot, while Donald Trot struggled to keep the wheelchair going in the right direction due to the cobbles in the road. I followed after, walking next to our guard, a young man named Trevor, who was half-heartedly brandishing a lightsabre. His Mother didn’t let him have a real weapon, and it was very embarrassing apparently, especially now the battery had gone flat. I discovered that he had been the district’s only policeman, until the former constable was sacked during Mayor Jezza’s first week in office. One of a series of bizarre decisions, mostly based around repaying old grudges. Our destination was revealed as the railway station waiting room, chosen, we were told, due to the lack of suitable alternative venues. Myrtle and I were led through the crowd to two plastic seats marked ‘press’, right in the front row. In the end though, we needed to borrow an extra seat, due to the width of my colleague’s expanding coat. The Mayor was pushed onto a makeshift stage, which already contained a disgruntled looking man wearing only an ample pair of white y-fronts. He was tied to an office chair with a clothes line, and had tape over his mouth. On Mrs Trot’s signal Donald ripped away the tape and the man howled in pain while the chair spun around unsteadily on its squeaky wheels. ‘It took me six months to grow that moustache’, he yelled, ‘I demand to talk to the police!’. Everyone in the room turned to look at Trevor who hid the light sabre behind his back and stared intently at the ceiling. A group of railway workers clad in grey overalls lifted Chairwoman Delamere, plus wheelchair, onto the stage, and she grabbed a microphone. After the usual amount of sound troubles the meeting began. ‘We discuss it, then we have a vote,’ the organiser announced. ‘What are they voting on?’, I asked, but nobody answered, and Myrtle was busy fiddling with the recording equipment stashed in her coat pocket. ‘Who keeps a bath in the cellar? Especially one full of frogs!!,’ screamed an angry voice from the rear of the room, ‘Only those who are up to no good, that’s what I say!’. An angry murmuring from certain quarters seemed to approve this interjection. ‘All I’m saying is they were consenting adults, those frogs, they weren’t tadpoles after all!’. Donald Trot shouted back, shielding his eyes against the makeshift arc lamps lighting the stage to see who had spoken, ‘We should go back to the old Mayor here, forgive and forget, he can’t be worse than what we’ve got now!’. ‘You complete idiot Trot, I am totally innocent. I was just cleaning out the pond, I had to put them somewhere!!’ The captive fought against the washing line so that both he, and the swivel chair bumped up against Mrs Trot’s wheelchair. A quick grab by her husband saved the GROPE activist from tipping off the stage and into Myrtle’s lap. ‘What about the bath then, that’s evidence of pre-planning that, isn’t it?,’ the angry voice from the back wasn’t satisfied. ‘We were getting our bathroom done, there was nowhere to put it, it wasn't even plumbed in’, the prisoner protested, trying to turn to face the crowd, as his chair teetered dangerously. Eloise, GROPE treasurer, jumped on to the stage and grabbed the microphone. ‘I say he should get rid of the bath, and fill in the pond, completely remove the temptation.’ Approving murmurs followed. Egged on by this she continued. ‘We all understand a moment of weakness. I decide every Monday I won’t have any chocolate cream eclairs this week, and then by Wednesday I’m back off my diet again.. If the bakery was on the other side of town it would be easier to resist, that’s all I’m saying.’ She acknowledged the round of applause, which to my surprise had been led by Myrtle. ‘Well she's talking sense,’ my friend justified. ‘None of this makes any sense, it never does,’ I responded, head in hands. ‘Do you agree to the conditions? Mrs Trot pushed the microphone towards the previously ousted politician. ‘Oh alright, if it gets this over with,’ the weary hostage nodded his agreement. ‘And you Ms Jezza?’ Rebeccanne spoke but the microphone was pointing in the wrong direction and failed to pick her words. ‘She said she never wanted the job in the first place, she only went in for it because she couldn’t manage on her social security’ translated Eloise, and the Mayor in transition nodded her affirmation. ‘Was that a coup we just witnessed?’ I asked Myrtle as we got back to our car. ‘It was common sense is what it was’, replied my friend. ‘But why did you give Mayor Jezza your coat?’ I asked, still bewildered. ‘Because she only had one, and someone that thin would be cold without one.’ Seeing my continuing bafflement she explained, ‘They had to dress up the old Mayor, so he looked like the new one, so nobody from the government would start complaining about irregularities when he went to meetings and what not.’ ‘That’s why they put him in that wig,’ realisation was beginning to dawn. ‘Exactly, and they swapped glasses,’ my colleague continued. ‘How did she get voted for in the first place though?’ ‘Oh you know how it is,’ said Myrtle, ‘people don’t like to admit they don’t know what they’re doing, or who’s who. Though I reckon most of them didn’t vote at all. They just like to complain about it afterwards.’ As we drove away I saw Donald Trot walking by at a fast pace, carrying a saw and hammer. ‘He’s off to mend that fence, very civic minded those Trots.’ Myrtle nodded approvingly. Nearby, I could see previous Mayor Jezza, sporting the huge black padded coat. She was blinking in a pair of bifocals, and clinging onto a bus stop with both hands to stop herself blowing away in the wind. I decided to give up at that point. Debating the ins and outs of democracy could wait. There was a jar of Ovaltine back in the portacabin with my name on it and for some reason I could just fancy a chocolate cream eclair. Myrtle suggested we make a short diversion to call into a bakery she knew about. Luckily my friend had already worked out the directions. Frog photo credit David T Jones (note we are not accusing him of anything, the photographer had a damp problem in his bathroom, apparently!)
-
Amberley Danna, Mayor of Beesley The Simnation Federated Grocer, a respected trade magazine with low circulation numbers and a strong tendency towards avoiding conflict had this to say about Norman Randolph Small. Former Librarian, age 68. Owner of the Small Shop range of convenience stores. His business practices have met with a mixed reaction among some customers. ‘Mixed reaction,’ Myrtle blurted out in frustration, ‘have you seen his prices?’ We found ourselves in the outskirts of Beesley, with just about enough in our flask to last out the day, but we had decided not to risk it and top up our supplies in case of ‘emergencies’. I generally avoided Small Shops, not least because of the array of placard shaking fanatics that were attracted by Norman Small’s belligerent attitude towards any group who were foolhardy enough to engage with him. The Feminine League for Uplifting Homecrafts (FemLegUH!) had once dared to question the freshness of his sultanas, and the consequent tit for tat escalation had evolved into an ongoing war. FemLegUH! believed that Norman Small needed to be stopped. They weren’t as clear about what precisely needed to stop, and in fact skirmishes often broke out between the members about this very topic during their twenty-four hour protest vigils outside the contentious retail outlets. The view of the calmer kind of Ballina resident was that Mr N.R. Small enjoyed nothing more than winding people up, and the best thing to do was ignore him. Luckily for us, the agitators were spread more thinly than usual, due to a FemLegUH! organised coach trip to Magnasanti. The militant crafters planned to embroider tapestry cushion-covers in the main arena of the Interregional Women’s Weightlifting Quarter Finals. I had no idea why. ‘The Ballina team don’t stand a chance of course,’ commented Myrtle, as she bent over to deface an unguarded placard with her large tipped bingo pen, ‘Those Magnasanti women are enormous.’ I’ve learned, over time, that there was no safe answer to that kind of remark, so I remained silent. On entering, the layout of the unfamiliar grocery outlet felt extremely confusing. More than once we found ourselves completely lost, and ended up staring at the same pile of children’s Xylophones and Zebra patterned rugs by the exit several times. A team discussion produced a new strategy. Rather than randomly wandering, we elected to leave the shop entirely, and start again at the entrance, carefully avoiding the lone protester who had returned to her post while we were absent. In fact, the fervent activist was so offended by Myrtle’s amendment to her placard that she hadn’t yet gathered the energy to yell at the customers properly before we slipped back inside. Apples, Bananas, there was some sort of pattern here but I couldn’t quite work it out. Then I saw a familiar jar on the next shelf. ‘I’m not drinking that, Chocolate Ovaltine is an abomination’, Myrtle folded her arms to emphasise the point. ‘No wait, I think I’ve got it now, we need to head this way.’ I led my friend down an empty aisle, but just as I was about to turn the corner she grabbed my sweater. ‘I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but does that person sound familiar?, inquired my friend. ‘Tuna Kittie Bites, is that what he likes?’, the chief government advisor’s voice sounded strangely desperate. ‘Why is Fairbanks so tiny now?,’ Myrtle asked bewildered, after peeping around a display of Quesadillas. I recognised the familiar face behind the Mexican snacks, but his jacket? Even Fairbank’s worst enemy, and there was fierce competition for that post, would say that the civil servant always turned out well dressed. A certain amount of manoeuvring allowed us to see the family group more clearly. Shrunken Fairbanks was leaning on a baby buggy which, to our surprise, carried only a selection of well used gardening equipment. He was addressing a pair of twin girls, who were grasping a silver furred tom cat between them. Head-end was nodding at the tuna flavoured tin, but tail-end shook her head, and the feline himself refused to share an opinion. This deadlock appeared to agitate our mini clone into a spate of wild muttering. ‘Hold it together Roy.’ seemed to be his main theme. ‘How odd’, remarked Myrtle, though she didn’t hold that thought long, after finally spotting her regular Ovaltine, nestled between a pile of notebooks and some tins of pork luncheon meat. Shopping completed, we reached Danna’s Mayoral home in good time. The politician answered the door and waved us into a family style lounge, then continued shouting into her phone in the hallway. ‘I’m not sitting down,’ whispered Myrtle, pointing to a series of mystery brown stains which were distributed around all the upholstered furniture in the room. My feet were aching so I decided to take a chance, and as I changed my line of sight was immediately confronted by the spectacle of a green watered fish tank, populated only by floating plastic construction bricks. Then the large hairy rug, which Myrtle had backed into, surprised us by rising to its feet, and ambling towards a small child, who had appeared out of a part-demolished play-house, carrying a bowl of spaghetti bolognaise. Some of the meal went on the floor, a few spoonfuls went in the right direction, but most of the remainder was swallowed up by the hound. ‘Don’t feed Bernie honey-bun, remember his cholesterol’, the Mayor imparted through the door before returning to her phone call. I tried not to look at the dog, who was busy cleaning up any remaining sauce from the child’s face, so my eyes focused instead on a long wobbly dresser, which was festooned with chaotically placed, framed photos. I was feverishly wondering if the combined weight of all those pictures relatives had affected the stability of the furniture, when I noticed a pair of whiskers appear over the top of a trio of well rounded individuals receiving some sort of academic awards. I have heard of certain eastern mystics who can, by will alone, step outside the flow of normal time. I must admit to having been skeptical up until this point, but experiencing the following sequence of events caused me to re-evaluate the phenomenon. I expect the rat, the owner of the whiskers, knocked down the photograph and caused a domino effect, which resulted in the happy snap of siblings at a funfair being knocked into the fish tank. The image which burned itself into my memory is of five identical smiles sinking helplessly into the murky depths. Another development which haunts me still, is the smell and feel of my hand, coated in streaks of bolognaise and drying saliva, as if I were an extra in a zombie apocalypse movie. The dog must surely have had something to do with that. A final sensation which I find impossible to shake, is of being rooted to the spot in horror as a python dropped down heavily into my lap, then slithered away over my feet. An actual python, which must have been wrapped around the light fitting, and I had been sitting right underneath it completely unknowingly all along. I was so paralysed with fear and shock that I couldn’t even scream. The animal then accelerated towards the small child, whose back was turned as she attempted to push her pet rat into a small cage. I will never forget the swish of damp training pants as she turned at the last moment, and the sound of the crunching thwack as she hit the reptile on the head with the hefty volume entitled ‘A Youngster’s Guide To Tropical Spiders’. ‘Tyson!!!!!, Mr Snake is out of his vivarium again, what have I told you about…’ Their Mother’s shout seemed to break the spell. I leapt to my feet as a young boy ran into the room, who then began alternately screaming at his sister, and giving mouth to mouth resuscitation to his beloved reptile. Still in a complete daze, I spotted Myrtle. To my surprise, she was now standing in the garden, outside the window. I walked dreamily towards her and found myself being forcefully squeezed through a smallish gap between the shutters. As soon as the fresh air hit my face I threw up in a hydrangea bush, then passed out for a moment, upside down behind a pile of compost. ‘You wouldn’t move, it was like you were frozen,’ my friend quailed, slapping me repeatedly with a damp gardening glove that she had retrieved from behind a disintegrating box of weed killer. There’s a baby in this wheelbarrow I said, looking at the peacefully sleeping infant, nestled amongst the gathered leaves. ‘You must be delirious,’ fretted Myrtle, grabbing under my arms and dragging me towards the passenger seat of our car. Retrieving her little used driving spectacles from the overstuffed glove box, Myrtle took the wheel, and the car bunny-hopped slowly away with Mayor Danna, now alert to our potential escape, running behind us brandishing a folder stuffed with rapidly escaping papers. ‘Don’t you want to know about my award winning education policy?,’ she screeched as we attempted to outrun her at 5mph. Thankfully the politician was distracted by our Fairbanks look-alike, with his pushchair full of garden ephemera plus cat carrying twins, wandering into the driveway. The last thing I heard as we turned into the road was Amberley Danna’s voice, at high volume, demanding to know what Roy had done with the baby. The rest of the day was a meandering blur, consisting mostly of car horns complaining about our slow rate of progress. This noise however, became increasingly clouded out by the effects of the extra strong migraine tablets that I slurped down with the final dregs of our flask. ‘Do you think Fairbanks has a brother?,’ I remember asking, but didn’t hear Myrtle’s reply, I must have fallen fast asleep.
-
Mayor of Guinee, Dr Thea Quinton (PhD) Myrtle, my sound recordist, seemed to have switched her purchasing obsession away from TV shopping channel tat, and transferred allegiance to the hideous range of cut-priced goods that made up the stock of Gustav’s Gewgaws and Knicknacks. The car park of this establishment served as an overflow display area for occasions when all the monstrosities could not be housed within. A battalion of life-sized gnomes stared at me. The mix of poor moulding and slapdash paintwork gave them a variety of facial expressions, none of which were friendly. Customers milled uncertainly amongst this cursed throng. I found myself cowering further into the driver’s seat to avoid the disturbing gaze of a particularly angry looking red-hatted garden novelty. It was therefore a relief to see Myrtle returning with the ‘bargain’ of the day, some sort of sealed container that was so large that she had to roll it on its side along the tarmac. ‘Catering sized Ovaltine’, she announced in triumph, ‘and two weeks left on the use-by date, I checked!’. I sighed to myself, then jumped out of the car to help my friend heave the purchase into the back. However, the bucket was far too heavy and awkward to lift over the tailgate, with its sharp plastic edges and inadequate wire handle. ‘Leave it in the car park,’ I hissed in frustration. Myrtle was adamant though, and looked around for a solution. Spotting the gnomes, she dragged one up against the rear of the car, and attempted to roll the Ovaltine container into the vehicle using the ornament as a makeshift ramp. This was a very unstable arrangement, and the bucket suddenly leapt for freedom. Thankfully we were not injured, though if possible, the plaster demon looked even more bad tempered after the adventure. ‘Ladies, let me help you.’ We were startled by this sudden onset of smarm. Neil Fairbanks is tall, irredeemably insincere, and surprisingly able to pop out of nowhere at unexpected moments. He steered us forcefully towards the front of the old faithful car, and we felt the heavy thump of our purchase being thrown into the back. ‘Show off’, Myrtle exclaimed, under her breath. We drove off, eyes forward so that we wouldn’t have to acknowledge our ‘glorious’ government leader. I managed a cursory wave in his direction as we turned onto the East road. The habit of not looking back seemed set for the whole journey. The low traffic was relaxing, and the pleasing landscape occupied our attention. In fact it was only as we entered Guinee itself that I glanced rearwards to check we hadn’t missed our turn to the Mayoral mansion. I stamped on the brakes so hard that the tractor driver behind had to divert into a ditch. ‘What the mufumph?!?!’. The last part of Myrtle’s sentence was cut off by the uninflated passenger airbag breaking free of its mount and wrapping itself around her face. ‘That complete and utter IDIOT!!’ I yelled. ‘What did you want the farmer to do, drive over us?’ responded Myrtle, stuffing the malfunctioning safety device back into its niche. ‘No’, I pointed shakily to the rear of the vehicle, ‘look what that stupid Fairbanks did.’ A familiar stony face was furiously glaring at us, pinned down by the bucket of Ovaltine. There was no time to think what to do. The Mayor was already waving us into his driveway. He ushered us into a sunny reception room, every wall of which was covered in photographs of the politician against various industrial backdrops. In pride of place, above the ornate fireplace, hung a cork board, pinned with multiple portraits of the Mayor, painted by local school children. Melissa, aged five, had made an impressive attempt to capture Dr Quinten (PhD) alongside a tall tower which appeared to be on fire. ‘These young people are the future,’ smiled the Mayor, pouring tea out of a china pot, decorated with images of power stations. ‘I only drink Ova..’, started Myrtle until she saw my expression, and got on with pretending to sip the brew in silence. Once we had finished our refreshments, or in Myrtle’s case, found a suitable potted palm to empty her cup, the technology enthusiast led us outside. Dr Quinton surprised us by suggesting that, rather than a regular tour we might like to see his domain from the air. Myrtle was quick to object. After the loose harness incident in a propeller plane during her youth, my friend was very reluctant to try flying again. Thea laughed away her objections, and unpacked an expensive looking drone camera. We stood obediently in the Mayoral car park to watch his demonstration. However, to our new friend’s utter frustration the thing would not respond properly to the controls. It would hover for a moment and then shoot repeatedly towards our parked car. ‘Must be interference’, he muttered, waving a sensing device around, ‘aha!’. The Mayor dragged our plaster stowaway from the vehicle. Dr Quinton was surprised how easily we were persuaded to allow him to drill a hole in the garden menace, ‘just to check something’. A series of drills were produced, each larger than the last and finally a mammoth ore testing drill had to be brought down from Quinton’s workshop. ‘Surprisingly hard material,’ he muttered, pressing his knee against the glowering statue's chest. Wearing a protective mask, and asking us to stand well back, the engineer positioned a foot-long drill bit into the uncooperative patient’s mouth. Later, trying to piece together the sequence of events, Myrtle thought she remembered a gas escaping noise, just before the explosion. We dragged the dazed scientist out of his flower border. Thankfully Dr Quinton had been mostly protected by his industrial strength day wear and visor, though a few stray areas of skin had been punctured when he landed in the rose bush. This seemed like an apposite moment to bring our visit to a close. Chunks of the dismembered plaster figure littered the drive, and it was challenging to navigate our way onto the main street without risk of puncturing the tyres. We waved goodbye to the dazed, and white powder coated Mayor, then slowed down to pass a group of pedestrians who were staring into a roadside gully. There we saw the farmer who had avoided colliding with us earlier. He was sitting beside an upturned tractor, pulling desperately at a gnome's head, which had somehow replaced his own. Being aware of our own contribution to the agriculturalist’s predicament, and noticing the increasing size of the crowd, we thought it expedient to leave the scene as rapidly as possible, so I accelerated away up the hill. This was when we realised that Dr Quinton had not clicked our car’s tail-gate home properly. Up shot the rear hatch door, out popped the mega bucket of Ovaltine, and started back down the hill with a slow roll, which accelerated into a series of increasingly high bounces. The locals who had gathered to watch the entertainment in the ditch now realised that they had been promoted from bystanders in the scene to active participants by the rapidly approaching, powder spewing projectile. We noticed the Mayor running towards this crowd, still holding the large drill and waving his arms while shouting helpful things, such as ‘Move out of the way!’ to the gathered electorate. By this time we were already almost out of sight, and had no intention of turning back. In fact we drove with our rear door open for several miles before daring to stop and close it in a quiet layby. As I willed my still shaking knees to keep walking back to the driver’s seat, I could see by her facial expression that Myrtle was working herself up to some sort of pronouncement, but she seemed to decide against sharing it at the last minute, and instead sucked on a cough sweet that had been ejected onto the carpet by the failed safety device earlier. The countryside which felt so peaceful on the trip out took on a menacing atmosphere for our return. I couldn’t shake the feeling that eyes were watching from empty windows. As we opened the portacabin door, it was hard to pin down the reason why, but my stomach felt a little queasy to see our answer machine light blinking red. Dr Quinton’s voice began ‘You won’t believe what I found in the..’ ‘Five messages,’ said Myrtle, ‘four, three, two, ..’. All were deleted, then the seldom used instruction manual fished out of our ‘bits’ drawer. ‘Every number from Guinee blocked, just in case he keeps trying,' my colleague stated emphatically. The mood lightened a little as we sank our third Ovaltine. ‘All I’m saying,’ offered my friend, ‘is that there’s investigating, and then there’s sticking your nose in where it might get bitten off, and we are the first kind.’ ‘Oh definitely,’ I replied. 'Whereas that Quinton fellah, clever as he is, doesn't know which side his bread's buttered.' Myrtle concluded. Despite the fact that my colleague’s words made no real sense, I found myself relaxing properly for the first time in weeks.
-
Mayor of Huxley, Scotty Lou We had dropped off the old faithful at Bob’s Grease Pit to get a full service with complimentary valet, and the courtesy car they lent us was far from ideal. Bright red, with advertising slogans on every external surface. The interior was proving a challenge as well. Myrtle, being taller and more solidly built than myself, had managed to wedge herself up against the passenger window, and if she kept her knee on the glove box and foot pressed against the handbrake she could avoid being thrown around too much. I, however, was really struggling. The seats were bolted to the floor with no adjustment possible, and I could hardly reach the controls. Any slight bump in the road bounced me up so hard that I hit my head on the roof, and despite the tight uncomfortable seat belts, the shiny plastic seats sent me skittering to either side, even on the gentlest of corners. My colleague suggested we call in at the retail park on the edge of town, and see if they had ‘a cushion or something’ which might help. I was dubious if anything could fix the situation, but she insisted we try Gustav’s, because 'they have all sorts and you never know’. The car park was fairly empty when we arrived, but I refused to actually go inside in case they were secretly filming me on the last visit when I accidentally stole some cookies. After my uncomfortable wait in the car park, scanning the horizon for security staff, the happy shopper returned in triumph, carrying a rubber bottomed coir mat. ‘This will stop you sliding about’ she explained. ‘It was very cheap’, she continued,’ probably because the writing is in foreign’. ‘El Come’, Myrtle explained, seeing my puzzlement, ‘it means the house in Spanish’. ‘Come doesn’t mean house’, I objected, being forced against my will onto the newly bristly seat. ‘Of course it does’, she replied, ‘look, there’s a picture of a house on it.’ To my amazement, the door-mat on the seat hack seemed to work, and our test run of three times round the block gave me more confidence that we could actually reach Huxley in one piece. The only remaining snag in our borrowed vehicle was the sound system, which had been replaced with a digital contraption blasting out popular classics reworked for an eighties style electric organ. Apparently Bob, CEO of the Grease Pit fancied himself as a musical performer, and treated his customers as a captive audience. We became adept at switching the volume knob to minimum, and we needed to do this often, as the sound level would reset itself every time the eco-friendly engine turned itself off and on again at road junctions. The drive to South Huxley passed more quickly than I had imagined, and with little incident, until we reached our last turning. Waiting at the lights we saw a man in a yellow jumpsuit run across the road, and into the vehicle compound which sat behind the police station. He then fiddled around by a freight lorry, the engine started, and to our astonishment the man drove the truck right through the fence and sped off behind us up the road. The lights changed, and we were blasted out once more by stupid organ music from the substitute radio. Scrabbling for the controls we inadvertently turned up the volume knob to maximum and, to our horror, it jammed in position. Myrtle put her hands over her ears and wound down the window ‘to let the noise out’, while I retained just enough composure to steer the car unsteadily towards our destination. We announced our arrival at Scotty Lou’s Mayoral home by broadcasting the Bossa Nova rhythm version of Ride of The Valkyries at high decibels out of every window of the car. It was a blessed relief to turn off the engine and cut the din. I slid out of the vehicle, and peeled off the mat which had stuck to my posterior, while Myrtle drew my attention to the police dog handler guarding Mayor Lou’s gate. ‘Should we say something about the man stealing the lorry?’ We lost the chance though, as we were escorted rather brusquely through the Mayor’s front door, with the dog sniffing inquisitively at the stray bristles still adhering to my skirt. We found Scotty Lou lurking in the hallway, inexplicably clutching a life sized plaster gnome. Due to Myrtle having been romantically entwined with a Glaswegian Port Worker in her youth, we had agreed that my colleague would lead the interview, as she claimed a knack for translating the lingo. ‘Now then Jimmy’, she said carefully, as if she were speaking in capital letters, ‘Och aye the noo?’ This introductory greeting was followed by an experimental twirl of the highland fling as a further gesture of friendship. Scotty looked bewildered. I began to suspect that Myrtle’s romantic liaison with ‘Jock the Docker’ had not been heavily focused on conversation, and so her grasp of the native Scottish tongue was possibly not as adept as she had thought. I pulled her back. ‘Mayor Lou,’ I tried, mouthing each word in an exaggerated fashion, ‘we are rep-orters from the Ballina Files, we are here to do an in-ter-view, you left us a message.’ Scotty sobbed into the cold embrace of his sinister red hatted gnome friend, and I reflected that he didn’t seem so cheerful as he had appeared in his answer machine message a week ago. Something must have happened. In the corner of my eye I could see Myrtle handing the police guard a cup of Ovaltine from the flask we had stashed in the car, and obviously probing him for information. They all trotted inside, and the conspirator hissed in my ear ‘It’s about the jail, the voters are furious. Apparently there’s only one inmate and it’s costing a fortune.’ ‘The curse of Macbeth,’ wailed the weeping Mayor. ‘Pardon me?’ ‘The prisoner, James Tiberius Macbeth, fare dodger caught by the Ballina Ferry Company.’ Whispered the policeman, slurping his Ovaltine. Mayor Scotty Lou, our supposed interviewee, dragged his peculiar plaster-moulded pal to the window, leaving a long groove scratched into the wooden parquet flooring. They both stared mournfully at the jail which was right next door. ‘The prisoner wasn’t a Llama Ag truck manure truck driver by any chance?’ I asked quietly. The policeman looked momentarily surprised. ‘It’s just, we think he might have, escaped….’ ‘He’s gone, gone!!,’ a maddened lurch twisted the Mayor towards us, ‘The trembling earth resounds his tread!’. This effort of communication overwhelmed the politician, and he slumped down unconscious onto a pile of unanswered correspondence, which had formed a large drift behind the front door. ‘I, er, gave him some of the dog’s tablets. They calm Sabre down a treat on fireworks night,’ the policeman gulped, ‘The poor fellah here was ranting something terrible before you came. I thought it might help.’ The police dog handler grabbed Scotty Lou under the armpits and, hindered by his furry assistant barking and running around in circles, dragged the snoring Mayor towards the ceremonial stair-case. He paused on the bottom step, ‘’ere, you won’t write any of this down will you?’ We shook our heads, feeling guilty as we did so. The later press release, from Huxley’s chief of police, briefed that the jail's single inmate was driven to despair by Mayor Lou’s regular visits, trying to cheer him up by playing Kumbayah on the guitar. Jim Macbeth had subsequently managed to tunnel his way out of Huxley’s secure facility using a potato peeler whilst on kitchen duty, and should not be approached by members of the public. The journey back home was uneventful, and quiet. Myrtle, looking shifty, said that someone had ‘stolen’ the courtesy car sound system while we were distracted indoors. I said that she could explain that to the garage then. We picked up our serviced car from Bob’s Grease Pit. They were not convinced that the organ music device had been stolen. They were also angry about their car valeting vacuum system, which was now completely clogged with glitter. We saved ourselves the angst of explaining why the courtesy car interior was coated in bristles, they could discover that parting gift for themselves. It was only in the portacabin later, three mugs of Ovaltine later, that I started to have uncomfortable thoughts about prisoner Macbeth, and his supposed crimes. Maybe it would be worth reading up on the court reports, just to see the details. I didn’t mention it to Myrtle, as she was happy enough outside the door, organising her new Elcome mat to the best advantage.
- 3 Comments
-
- 7
-
-
- simscity 4
- story
- (and 1 more)
-
Mayor of Birma, Norah Christabel The ferry ticket website flashed red, all pre-booked places had been taken. Myrtle was right, I do leave things to the last minute, especially when I’m not looking forward to something. An appointment with Norah Christabel was not a situation I liked to contemplate. As a cub reporter on the now defunct Houston Herald, the fiery redhead had made me feel inches high on numerous occasions while reporting from government house. I framed the words of my apology to my colleague as I wedged the portacabin door closed behind me, but the thoughts evaporated when I saw her in the front yard. Myrtle was standing on one leg, with both arms raised. She then pivoted around, at the same time performing a body roll, before grabbing at the car roof for stability. Muttering to herself, she then opened the passenger door, and attempted to enter the vehicle. Pausing for thought, she leaned in an awkward sideways manner, and adjusted the seat until it was as far back as the runners allowed. Throwing herself inside face down, she tilted the seat back until it was nearly horizontal. This seeming to satisfy her purpose, Myrtle then swivelled to face upwards, grabbed at the seat belt, and hissed ‘Hurry Up, or we’ll miss the ferry’. It was unsettling to drive with my colleague stretched out besides me staring at the car roof. I said nothing though. The traffic was as bad as always, and I was fretting about what to do about the ferry when a shout made me nearly jump out of my seat. ‘Black spots!! Can’t breathe, stop the car, STOP THE CAR!!!’ Worrying she was having some sort of seizure, I performed a screeching ninety degree turn off the road and into the closest available parking space, outside a retail outlet. Myrtle kicked open the car door, and part ran, but mostly staggered towards a sign marked ‘Toilets / Restroom, customer use only’. I followed her as quickly as I could, and caught up with my friend in the Ladies’ facilities, clutching at her clothing desperately. ‘Get it off, GET IT OFF!!’. The source of the trouble turned out to be a very tight elasticated corset. It was lucky that I had some nail scissors in my coat pocket. Once I’d made a few small snips the strained garment gave up, and tore itself free. Myrtle gasped in relief and threw the torn corset into a waste bin. ‘Stupid home shopping cr*pola’, drop a dress size my ****’. She carried on like this for a while. As we had used the facilities we felt obliged to buy something in the shop, so as not to feel awkward. It wasn’t easy. Gustav's Knicknacks and Gewgaws is full to the rafters with plastic tat and the kind of simulated marble ornaments you wouldn’t inflict on your worst enemy. ‘We’ll get this, it’s got food in it’. Myrtle grabbed at a box, and conscious of the time, I fished a handful of coins from my bag and threw them down at an empty cashier station, there being no staff visible. We left the car park in a hurry, trying to dodge the noisy freight trucks which habitually clogged the roads. ‘These Princess Fairycake cookies are not bad’, mumbled Myrtle, through a mouthful of crumbs. The pink cardboard had been torn open, to reveal a luminous selection of iced treats, each one coated in iridescent glitter. The car seat refused to return to its normal position, so Myrtle lay back like a roman emperor, ingesting the snacks as if she had been starving herself all week. A fine sparkly cloud began to envelop both herself, and various parts of the car interior. The queue for the ferry was long, and slow moving. By the time we approached the boarding gate my colleague’s face, hands and clothing had adopted a blueish reptilian sheen, and all the cookies were gone. At last we reached the ticket booth. Lacking the necessary paperwork, and not sure what to do next I wound down the car window to speak to the attendant. ‘You can’t go on, boat’s already overloaded’. Myrtle must have misunderstood. She is a little sensitive about her weight. I won’t trouble any delicate readers with the details of what happened next. Let’s just say that the wrath of a glittery, crumb spitting woman rising unexpectedly from the depths of the hidden passenger seat caused the ticket booth employee to review his options. I threw some money into the stunned official’s hand and soon we found ourselves squeezed behind a Llama Ag manure truck, on the deck of an overcrowded ferry, sailing for Birma. Making the most of the break from driving, I fished into my bag to try and find something to wipe up the worst of the twinkling pollution which was rapidly turning the interior of the car into a lurex upholstery nightmare. The three dried out sanitising hand-wipes I had found in the glove-box were definitely not up to the job. Meanwhile Myrtle was singing a happy little tune while reciting the long list of complicated ingredients that adorned the reverse of the empty cardboard container. ‘Oh dear’, her tone changed, ‘No wonder I feel peculiar, these cookies are three years past their sell-by date’. That news hit me just at the moment I’d worked out the reason why I couldn’t find the usual set of emergency cleaning supplies in my bag. The business-like leatherette briefcase, complete with pre-interview notes, and money wallet that I thought I was holding had been inexplicably replaced with the child’s straw basket that we kept under the office desk to store small assorted items that we couldn’t quite throw away because they might, some day, become ‘useful’. The sudden panic that I’d become unknowingly senile, was replaced by an even worse realisation that we had been paying our way on the journey using mostly tap washers, and dead circular batteries. A docking siren howled, and I sank down low into the driver’s seat in terror, fearing immediate capture by law enforcement agencies. Increasing my anxiety further, I spotted the familiar form of Norah Christabel, arms crossed in fury, glaring in our direction from the port-side. I needn’t have worried about security checks though. The impatient Mayor pulled us from the disembarkation line, shoving aside the officious man in a uniform who was threatening to delay our passage with his travel bureaucracy. There was no time to celebrate this deliverance though. Norah’s rant started as soon as we exited the car. I’d planned to ask about her policies, the controversial bust-ups with near-by districts. I’d imagined probing queries about the relationship with her controversial father, ‘comrade’ Joe, then working my way expertly towards the well known and long standing feud between the Christabels and the long serving Mayoral Saige family of Farnham. However, in my disturbed state of mind, I was unable to thrust any of these carefully rehearsed questions against the forceful torrent of verbiage pouring from the irate Mayor. I must admit to tuning out most of the diatribe. Neil Fairbanks and his perceived deficiencies were the main focus, but she covered all the main government advisors in her wide ranging criticisms. As far as I could gather, the central cause of her current consternation concerned the fifteen families of refugees now living in the basement of her Mayoral home, after she had been guaranteed funding and temporary housing by the authorities. Of course, neither of these commitments had been fulfilled. Mayor Christabel’s Home, allegedly housing refugees in the basement. Myrtle, who had been spinning around absently on one foot until now, suddenly remembered her usual function in this situation, and lurched towards Norah, holding out a microphone. The sight of my colleague, shimmering bluely in the low autumn sun seemed to startle the Mayor out of her single minded focus, and the continuous flow of complaint slowed to an uncertain trickle. This interruption created an excellent chance to escape. I dragged my bewildered friend back into the car, and drove briskly away from Birma’s main port , checking continually to see if we had been followed. The fuel tank was still half full, and with my emergency cans in the boot I calculated that, with careful driving, we could just about make it home the long way round. This would avoid the river police, and any awkward queries about fare dodging, or indeed, shop-lifting. In the small hours of the night we finally pulled into the front yard of our portacabin. I threw a blanket over Myrtle, who was snoring in her glittery, reclined passenger seat, and fell into our office, tripping over the leatherette briefcase I’d left behind the door. I sat for a moment on our small sofa to think, and found myself waking up fully eight hours later, with numb legs from having slept with my limbs inadvertently propped up against the portacabin wall. It was already mid-morning, and Myrtle, who seemed fully recovered from her stale cookie induced delirium, walked in carrying a box of doughnuts. She informed me that we'd had a phone call. From a man with a Scottish accent. How intriguing this seemed, but no work was allowed before breakfast doughnuts and our morning mug of Ovaltine.
- 2 Comments
-
- 10
-
-
-
Gary Korey (or Corey as we have seen sometimes) first found fame as a world class athlete. He then left his country of origin under a political cloud, and made a new home here in Ballina, planning to share his experience, and inspire young hopefuls to compete in sporting events, both locally and wider afield. You may have seen the Finska Mayor making regular appearances selling the Korey range of fitness equipment on a well known TV shopping channel. He also runs popular motivational workshops, and has written a number of favourably reviewed books, including his best seller ‘The 73 Hour day, How to Succeed At Everything.’ Needless to say, we were keen to meet this local legend, but things didn't go exactly to plan! First, we wasted forty five minutes trying to disentangle the “Korey Patented Jaw Strengthener” which had been used to replace a broken hinge on the Ballina Files portacabin door. Myrtle was insisting that we take the device to Finska and have it signed by the man himself. In the end we had to leave the contraption behind, but my sound recordist wasn’t happy about the decision. The compromise agreed was that we would ask the Mayor to sign the ‘Walk Your Butt Younger With Gary Korey’ VHS tape, which had been wedged under our rattly office mini-fridge for several years. ‘I’m not even sure if it’s authentic,’ Myrtle wailed, ‘I don’t want to upset him with an illegal bootleg’. Due to this distraction, we were already very late when we reached the turnoff to Finska, located at the newly built main road junction. There we met another unwelcome obstacle. ROAD CLOSED The orange blinker lights around the sign seemed to taunt us. We could see a dusty group of construction vehicles in the far distance, but no evidence of any work being carried out. The diversionary route indicated turned out to be very congested, and by the time we finally reached Finska we were both desperate for a cup of something, but instead we pressed on to our agreed meeting venue, by now a full two hours behind schedule. The sports complex in the centre of the new town was well used, but none of the crowd present knew where our interviewee might be. The phone signal was very intermittent, as it had been on the journey, and we were contemplating walking to the Mayor’s office on the other side of town, to see if anyone there could help us. Just then, we were hailed by a very large man wearing a tracksuit, outside of which every inch of flesh was covered in multi-coloured tattoos. ‘Ballina Files?’ He asked, in a pronounced eastern European accent. We nodded, and he indicated we should follow him. We were both somewhat wary of this strange looking character. ‘What if he is scheming to drag us off to be, you know, one of those working girls?’ , my colleague whispered anxiously. I had my doubts if Myrtle and I were obvious candidates for this option, and besides, as we struggled to keep up with the extremely fit resident, he maintained a non-stop commentary on all the wonderful things achieved by his beloved Mayor, which knowledge would have required excessive research from someone with nefarious purposes. After the very brisk walk which left us both panting, we spotted Gary Korey, perched half-way down a road embankment, staring into a coned off underpass. ‘It iss Kaputttt, yarr’, our tour guide pointed to broken tiles which had obviously fallen from the tunnel roof. It was at this point that Myrtle panicked, realising that we had left the celebrity endorsed, butt lifting video back in the car, and she tried to drag me back to go and get it. ‘I’ve got nothing for him to autograph,’ she pleaded. Mayor Korey must have thought we had changed our minds about the meeting, because at this point he shot out of his hole to greet us. So Myrtle had to stay to tape the interview, although she was quite agitated at this development. We found the man to be charming, positive and full of enthusiasm in his plans for the town, and its inhabitants. It was only when topics of a more practical nature cropped up, such as newly built roads which had to be immediately closed for repair work, that he lost his trademark smile, and adopted a more distant, troubled look. ‘It will all be worth it,’ he said, ‘when we get youngsters, like Karl’s son here, into the national teams. He’s the best soccer player I have ever seen.’ Our newfound tattooed friend swelled with pride. ‘Best Mayor ever!’. He patted Korey so hard on the back that the politician nearly slid back down the road embankment. At the end of an already long day, we endured another wearisome journey back to the office, reflecting that despite this, the Finska trip had been, overall, a good experience. ‘Sometimes it is ok to meet your heroes’, said Myrtle, getting out of the car rather stiffly after the extended drive, but still beaming with pleasure. ‘He sells a good hinge anyway’, she laughed, slamming shut the portacabin door with a satisfying rubbery twang, before grabbing the mugs to brew two long overdue cups of Ovaltine. My colleague gazed down fondly at Korey’s signature, emblazoned on her forearm in green marker pen. ‘That will wipe off if you’re not careful,’ I suggested. ‘Oh no, I’m having it tattooed on permanently in the morning, as a souvenir,’ Myrtle smiled, ‘That Karl gave me the idea, he recommended the best places to go.’ I knew better than to argue with her. If Myrtle was about to do something foolish no amount of logic would dissuade her from her ambition, and if she was secretly winding me up, then I didn’t want to give my old friend the satisfaction of rising to the bait.
- 4 Comments
-
- 8
-
-
- simscity 4
- story
- (and 1 more)
-
Bindy Saige “They’ve stolen the Taj Mahal!”. This mysterious phone message left us at the Ballina Files both intrigued and puzzled, but paying a visit would give us the chance to interview the new Farnham Mayor, and that was an opportunity too interesting to miss. Bindy Saige, niece to that unforgettable grand dame Edwina Saige, had stormed to victory in the ensuing election, after the notable lady, forty years the Mayor, had passed away in a fit of apoplexy brought on by a dispute with an overcharging window cleaner. Apparently the deceased Saige Senior was still clinging to the soapy bucket as the medics stretchered her away. We know little about Bindy's early life, apart from the information in her web profile, which states she gained a degree via a postal correspondence course with the Hawaiian Institute for Modern Farming, and that her ambition is to ‘own a lot of horses’. Maybe our trip to Farnham would allow us to learn more? Farnham After a long trek on bumpy country roads, at last we saw the sign for Farnham. Finally reaching the Saige ancestral home, we were greeted at the door by a domestic servant wearing a torn apron and carrying a duster, which she used to usher us into a comfortable sitting room. Ms Saige, sat at an overpiled antique desk, spun around to greet us, the well used office chair squealing in protest as she did so. Saige Mayoral Mansion in Farnham Seeing nowhere else to sit, my sound recordist Myrtle and I pushed some of the document folders from a previously elegant sofa, and tried to find a spot to sit where the springs hadn’t yet broken through the fabric. From this lower angle we could see more signs of neglect in this once beautiful room, missing chunks of plaster and obvious damp patches were mixed with peeling wallpaper and chipped paintwork. The empty fireplace competed with a taped up window to see which could produce the coldest draft. We shivered in our city clothes. ‘That’s where they broke in’. Ms Saige used a chewed pencil to indicate the broken pane of glass. ‘Levered open the window. The only thing stolen was this.’ We had to jump backwards suddenly, to avoid the young Mayoress swooping to grab at a mouse nibbled cushion from behind our backs. She proceeded to fight with the zip, setting off great clouds of dust as she did so. Eventually Ms Saige found what she was looking for, a crumpled photograph hidden in the upholstery. She leaned over to show us the image. A group of pink-faced women gathered around an incomplete model of the Taj Mahal. They were in the process of sticking paper pieces to the exterior. ‘That’s the Rural Ladies Events committee, creating the centre-piece for the international themed harvest festival supper. The whole thing was made from papier-mache. ‘Why would anyone want to steal that?’ We shook our heads dumbly, and took the chance to wriggle about to get a softer spot amongst the hazardous upholstery. ‘We burned most of it, you see.’ ‘Burned what?’, we asked, through chattering teeth, and wondering whatever it was whether she could set fire to some more and warm the place up a bit. ‘Of course Mrs Diddingcot saved some of the larger pieces, she said we might as well use them for something, that’s how we ended up making the Taj Mahal.’ ‘Saved larger bits of what??’, we asked. ‘The paper for the papier-mache! We got it from those stupid tin-tack houses they tried to build at the edge of the village. They were made of paper would you believe?, Of course they fell to bits in the first bit of wind.’ Myrtle had been studying the photo, ‘The Taj Mahal, there’s writing on it’. ‘Oh yes,’ replied Bindy, ‘we noticed that. We were going to paint over it, it spoils the look really. I was cross with Mrs Diddingcot for showing that photo round. The break-in happened the day after that. Some idiot obviously saw it and was trying to ruin our Harvest Festival. Maybe if you get the word out, someone might know something, and we’ll get it back?’ We promised to share her dilemma from our pages, and wished her luck with the upcoming event, before scurrying out as fast as our frozen limbs would allow. My sound recordist was very thoughtful on the drive back. ‘I can’t see anyone wanting to steal that monstrosity of a model’, she said. I tried to agree but my jaw was so busy rattling over the potholes due to the unkempt roads I could hardly speak. ‘Maybe’, she continued, ‘it wasn’t the model they were after, but the writing on the paper?’ I wasn’t sure, but everything about our visit to Farnham had been either puzzling or uncomfortable. I needed to get back to our warm office and get my brain cells working again with a hot cup of Ovaltine. Site of the destroyed construction site, this recent satellite image shows no trace of the previous buildings..
