and a gormless little tart who, wearing a continental waitress’s costume, bends over a lot. The dialogue was thin to the point of near-invisibility and how in the name of Judas I managed to get involved I’ll never know. But the deed was done, the parts had been cast and a rehearsal timetable was already ticking down, so I decided to regard my part in it as Community Service, although what my crime had been was beyond comprehension.
I hastily concocted a supper, a sort of kedgeree made with tinned tuna, a boiled egg with a deeply blackened yolk, the last of my rice and the remains of a can of peas. I washed it down with a can of lager while listening to the weariness that was the news, then made my way, unwillingly like snail, to the Arts Centre to confront the cast and the first rehearsal of Scent.
SCENE 2
The delicate tracery of frost flowers on the inside of my window confirmed that it had been a bollock-breakingly cold night and that I’d been wise to leave my thermal underwear on. Cloudesley had slept on the bed keeping my feet warm, but the succession of cat farts throughout the night had given me a smidgin of sympathy for Mrs H. Then, as the unseen Sun crawled above the frozen rooftops and my feet began to itch, came a knock at the door.
‘Who is it?’ I yawned.
‘Who d’you bloody think?’ snarled Higginbottom the Small.
I swung out of bed and opened the door. There they were, visitors from the planet Despair, Mr and Mrs H standing together, stooped and pinched, in all their grey, wrinkled, tragic hopelessness. He was holding a bunch of unlit candles.
‘Yes?’ I enquired sleepily as Cloudesley shot first between my legs and then Mrs H’s, pushing her nicely over the edge of coping with life and sending her into a dead faint. H attempted to lift his waif-like bride, but wasn’t quite up to it on his own, so I took hold of her legs and we carried her to my bed. She came round just as I, standing between her legs, was lowering her feet to the mattress. She gave me a terrified look, screamed like a banshee and in one bound was out of the door faster than Cnut with wings. As he watched her hurtle in her own unsteady way down the stairs, H the Simpatico mumbled something I didn’t quite catch, then he turned on me.
‘T’bloody pipes’r froze.’
‘Ah.’
‘Gotta thaw ‘em,’ he grunted.
‘That’ll be why you have the candles, then,’ I observed.
H looked at me, expressionless, but his soul radiated a curious, frozen hatred. Then, slowly, his thin northern lip curled. ‘Yu’ll have ter open t’taps,’ he sneered, pointing to the cracked and blackened sink in the corner of the room. In the arctic atmosphere, I crossed the room and did as I was asked while H the Artless placed lit candles under all the exposed pipes he could find.
Having arrived home late and tired from rehearsal the previous evening, I hadn’t bothered to apply father’s brine and alcohol pickle to my feet. Fortunately the cold of the cracked lino floor stopped the itching dead and as it seemed that there would be no water for some time in the house of mirth, I decided to visit the aquatic centre and enjoy a hot shower there. So, with towel, bathers and tube of fungicide stuffed into my environmentally friendly calico shopping bag, I set off in reasonably high spirits, planning to stop off at the Black Cat Café for breakfast. Sr Corsini made a magnificent bacon sandwich which simply oozed… well, some sort of spread, and his coffee was… strong.
‘You can keep your Subways, Senor Corsini,’ I said, ‘there’s nowhere like the Black Cat Cafés of this world in the frozen, drear, sleet-abused mornings during winter.’ Then I remembered that Cloudesley was still on my bed. The urgent dash back to Mafeking Avenue did nothing for my digestion.
Le Misérable, ankle deep in water in the hallway, was on the phone to the plumber. The thawing pipes had burst while he had been out walking Cnut. La Misérable hadn’t known where the stopcock was located and was now crying quietly in the kitchen as I paddled gently through the flood. She was doubly upset as they’d only just finished decorating the ground floor for Christmas. For the second time that morning I felt a twinge of sympathy for her; but I gave Mr H a big beaming smile and a cheery little wave. I smuggled Cloudesley out under my coat, leaving H berating his own existence.
I arrived at the aquatic centre only to find that it didn’t open until ten o’clock. Shit! I was frozen, my feet in particular due to my desert boots becoming waterlogged during the cat evacuation mission. I could almost feel the toes blackening as frostbite took hold, but at least they weren’t itching. I decided to ride on the tube for a while for warmth and after a search, during which the extra large tube of fungicide was examined minutely by armed anti-terrorist officers, I boarded a Circle Line train and began to read through my notes about the previous night’s shambles of a rehearsal.
First act blocked (the thing should be burned).
Casting. Hah! Not sure that an apprentice Stonemason (this one anyway) is going to be able to enter the role of glamorous pop star, Randy Broome, however much the imbecile fancies himself (Birmingham accent – oh please!).
McGregor. Dreadful, and would be in any role requiring the man to speak in English. Not even his fellow Glaswegians could interpret the swinelike grunts he emits. Unfortunately he’s the senior member of the Company and casting director, so no chance of removing him from the role of West Country Vicar and uncle to the pop star
Misses Neave, Blumberg. Mr Roberts (Archbishop!! You might as well cast Mr Bean as Jesus Christ) - never mind.
Miss Pickering. Unhappy about the morality, or lack of it in ‘Scent’. Says she’s not been happy with it from the start and the rest of the Company knows that. Believes they are trying to get rid of her by giving her lewd parts – might suggest she does the vamping scene with the Archbishop, naked. Both of them.
Stage Manager. New to the Company and a refugee from the hippy era (thought they’d gone extinct during the Thatcherite impact). Thinks a flat is what you live in and has no idea what a patchboard is. Suspect if I mention gels he’d go into a conspiratorial huddle and ask how much a gram. Claims to be able to hang wallpaper and paint scenery – suspect if he had a tail he’d use it as a brush.
Rowena! Rowena Singleton. Ah, fair Rowena, whose beauty shines soft, as spring sunlight on the bejewelled webs of dawn. In short, deep down, drop dead 3D gorgeous. And terrific as Debbie, the heroine of the thing.
We hit it off as soon as we saw each other. At least I thought so.
After rehearsal the Company retired to the Rat and Carrot, a pub considered to be their ‘Green Room’, to feed humanity’s old but grand addiction to chemically altered states of perception. Despite the Company’s name for it, the shocking pink wallpaper with the Spanish dancing lady design was anything but restful. I drank halves of bitter, Rowena G&Ts. I paid. But for me, the best thing was that she was also working at Harridges, on men’s toiletries, over the build-up to Christmas so I would see her every day. Life was beginning to look up.
The visit to the aquatic centre was just what I needed. I’d forgotten to take clean socks, so after anointing the white, flaking flesh between my toes with the trusty clotrimazole, I turned the old ones inside out.
Harridges, By Appointment. Arguably the most distinguished and famous store in the world. Certainly one of the most expensive. Patronised by royalty, the rich and the famous from all over the world since the beginning of the twentieth century, it had a reputation for opulence and the courtesy, not to say obsequiousness, of its staff. Behind the scenes, the Human Resources story had more of an edge.
Captain Crosly-Dobson, Cavalry (ret’d), the HR Manager, walked me around the store, pointing out important architectural features and reciting its history like one who was totally immersed in its world. I didn’t like the way he kept putting his arm around me.
‘Sorry old chap,’ Crosly-Dobson blustered, when I complained. ‘It’s just that it says on your resume that you went to public school. So naturally a chap assumes…’
‘With respect, Mr D
obson…’
‘Ah, that’s Crosly-Dobson, actually.’
‘With respect, Mr Crosly-Dobson,’ I made particular emphasis of the hyphen, ‘just because I went to a minor public school...’ He was giving me a blank stare. ‘Oh, never mind.’
‘Righty-ho, old boy. Whatever you say,’ Crosly-Dobson replied, confused, wondering momentarily whether there was any more. He inadequately outlined my role, then, with a dismissive wave sent me off to the stores for my Santa suit.
The suit must have belonged to St Nick himself it was so old. The jacket and trousers were full of holes, some made by moths, carnivorous ones by the look of the bite marks, and others by cigarettes. The white fur trim around the hems was mouldy in places and seemed to be suffering from what for all the world appeared to be mange, something which I thought affected only living skin. The beard was a dirty yellow and stank of tobacco; it also had what looked like scraps of food blended into it. The boots were dry and cracked, but worst of all they were half a size too small.
‘Look,’ I protested to the storeman, ‘I can’t possibly wear this, it’s awful.’
‘Tell someone who gives a shit!’ the sullen beast snarled.
I was deeply offended by his attitude. ‘I give a shit, and so will my audience.’
‘Audience?’ he jeered.
‘The children, not to mention their parents…’
‘Then don’t.’
‘What?’
‘Mention them.’
‘This is outrageous!’
‘Take it or fucking leave it,’ the storeman replied as he stuffed it all into two carrier bags from Safeway, of all places.
‘But those beautiful, innocent children, so trusting, will be sitting on my knee looking at a costume that’s not fit for a… What?’ I asked defensively.’ He’d stopped stuffing and was giving me a long hard stare.
‘You had police clearance?’ he asked, a cold, almost savage look in his eye.
‘Yes… no… probably… I don’t know. Does it matter? I’m Santa for god’s sake’
Slowly, now, he finished stuffing the bags and held them out at arm’s length. With a nod of the head I took them from him and backed away. As I left his office I noticed him lift the phone from its hook and dial a number. Not once did he take his eyes off me.
Next, I was taken to see the Grotto accompanied by Mr Duggan who’d designed and built it single-handed despite repeated requests for an assistant. He seemed rather bitter that Harridges had allocated him such a small budget, but he’d done the best he could under the circumstances and I could see he was, with some justification, rather proud of the quality of the finished product.
The theme was Santa’s workshop and there were lots of little elves beavering away in a series of tableaux. In the first tableau the elves were felling trees in the magic forest and carting away the logs to turn into toys. All well and good. But I felt traditional axes and handsaws would have been more appropriate tools than chainsaws and mechanical rippers. They would certainly have been a lot quieter. The quagmire that the bulldozers and trucks were leaving behind as they dragged the logs from the forest also disappointed me. And this wasn’t a renewable plantation they were cutting down, oh no. It was old forest. Very environmentally conscious, I thought, and said so above the din. Mr Duggan told me that I’d completely missed the sodding point, asked if I thought I was really the man for the bloody job and left me to take myself round the rest of his handiwork. It was more of a salute to the rape of Amazonia and the melting of the Greenland Icecap, than a foray into the world of childhood imagination.
It was a bit of blow to discover that one of my duties was to restock