a one hundred and seventeenth story...'norman's seventh love letter'

Dear, delicious Rosalind:

My feast, my appetiser, my main and dessert – how are you?

I am worried for you, you know.

In your last (and third) letter (the ratio is improving at least!), you said you agreed with my psychoanalyst that I am indeed ‘impenetrable’, and you also said something that hurt me - sorry, darling Rosalind, but you did! 

For your information, I am not ‘very sick’, as you suggest.  You confuse my (typically) cheery, positive and, in general, optimistic manner with illness?!  Perhaps, Rosalind, it is you whose head needs inspection.  Women of your age … with the clock ticking (and no babies), well, there’s a syndrome! (can’t recall the name, or any further details).

Come up to Hampstead, my love, you seem flustered, and fresh air and the splendid views of our stupendous city will do you good.  And Fritz would love some female company (be warned, however, he seems to be rather randy of late – humping tables, chairs, anything that stands upright).  The mind can become knotty and dotty (we writers know this as well as anyone), and – don’t be cross – poisonous.  Poison pen, poisoned mind etcetera.  Come up to Hampstead and I’ll help drain the foul sump. 

O! Rosalind, you poor thing.  But never mind, the devil won’t be inside you for very much longer (so long as you come up to Hampstead and see me – I will drive him, her (?) out).

Now, what’s happening at my end?  Well, since your last letter I am spending most of my waking hours thinking about YOU.  Do you like disco?  I don’t, but there is a song called something like that. 

And I bet you can dance.  I, however, stumble gracelessly around on two guilty feet with not even the foggiest sense of rhythm.  Then again, dancing to jazz is immeasurably more difficult than dancing to disco (I imagine), what with the time signatures inherent in both.

Time, our old friend and father!

Got to catch the late post (have drafted a letter to the publishers requesting news, and containing some advice on potential fonts, formats – book stuff).

Yours,

Norman

…healer and lover friend.    

a one hundred and sixteenth story...'norman's sixth love letter'

Dear, dreary (but hopefully not too sad) Rosalind:

My petal, my pistil, my stigma, my flower – how are you really?

I was desperately devastated to hear of your mortification at the death of the good dog, Bruno.  I know you always loved him, always will, just as I shall.  He is in dog heaven now though, and we both know it: lots of warm baskets where to lie, fat sausages to gorge on (without actually worsening his cholesterol), meadows of freshly cut grass to roll around in.

Did you ever see Rolf Harris’ cartoons of dog heaven?  Priceless, just like the man himself (no one is innocent until proven guilty guilty until proven guilty).

You know, I remember the first time I met you I thought I was in heaven (human heaven, not dog heaven, of course).  Yes, there you were – wispy, winsome, handsome, cute as a chocolate button.  Do you remember I joked that I had seen you in a Philadelphia Cheese advert? Perhaps you do not.  All the best jokes eh?  How does one forget them so readily?  I didn’t mean you shared a passing resemblance to Dawn French by the way.

Glad to see you have bought some new stationery, I do love the smell of good ink on thick, creamy writing paper – and, surprise, surprise, your hand-writing is divine!  I knew it would be!  Far better than my arthritic hack (even if I do have turn of phrase to make up for it). But, Rosalind, you are into parataxis!  But why ever, I suppose, use too many words? (sorry, yet another rhetorical question).

Two letters to my six, now.  I do believe I am wearing you down.  You are my rock, and I the wind, the rain, the blistering sun (i.e. the elements).  We are experiencing the meteorology of love.  If the forecast suggests, perhaps I should pay a visit to Michael Fish, instead of my usual psychoanalyst?  I don’t much like my psychoanalyst anymore besides: she is dreadfully scatter-brained, and says I am ‘impenetrable.’

Speaking of impenetrable, no word (still) from the publishers.  I shall write to them and see where they are with my book – there must have been several editorial board meetings; I can picture in my mind the discussions, both excitable and yet cautious at the extraordinary appeal such a book may generate.  Will they be able to meet demand and avoid a very public humiliation?!  If not, I suppose, any publicity is good publicity (so they say).

Righto, Rosalind, I will bid you farewell (but only for a short while, worry not!).

Yours,

Norman

… waving happily, not drowning.

a one hundred and fifteenth story...'norman's fifth love letter'

Dear, delectable Rosalind:

My Madonna, my diva, my one and only pain reliever – so glad to know you are alive and well!

You can’t IMAGINE my unfettered ecstasy at finding a letter from you in the mail on my return from the dentist today (and such ingenuous use of the limited space available on a post-it note!).

Yes, I realise NOW may not be the time for US.  But isn’t love too irrational a state of mind to make any sensible judgements about the present, and indeed what is to come? (No need to respond on this if you haven’t any more writing materials – I assume that was the reason for the post-it note).

Being one of two in a loving relationship is, at first, a bit like being blown apart, and then having to rebuild yourself, but in a way that is able to support the other.  It may be that my half of our psychological pleasure palace for two is just a little more developed than your half of it (dare he (I) say such a thing to such a woman – and yet, dare he (I) does (do)!).

By the way, did you ever read Dan Dare as a child?  The boys-own comic about the True British Hero who stood against the invading Martians (‘Treens’) … he was given the moniker ‘Pilot of the Future’, and I guess that’s what I am, a pilot whose plane is heading into the future. You’ll want to be on board, Rosalind, if I get a ‘yes’ from one of those publishers (they are taking their time, which probably means serious consideration).

I’ve always dreamed of being a professional author, as you know, and when my book is published, and then the sequel, the one after that, and so on, perhaps it will make economic sense for an editor to publish my letters (something that happens to all great authors, from Hemmingway to Archer).  And who will be the star of an edition of my collected letters?  Rosalind: You!

Speaking of the future, do you vote?  I can’t remember.  My old school pal, Simkins, is running for election in the local generals (?) next year.  Has some odd views about one or two issues though, and doesn’t seem to advocate much for the Arts; we writers, Rosalind, have to subsist in between creative harvests* (*my term).

And just before I sign off, Bruno was put to sleep this week, you should know.  Still, your letter ended my grief in the manner of a burst of sunshine on a dark, rainy day.

Yours sanguinely,

Norman.

… pilot of the future.

a one hundred and fourteenth story...'norman's fourth love letter'

Dear Rosalind, deary me:

My first love, my last; my best suit, my worst – your silence wears me – but how are you?

I am slow-realiser, Rosalind, and I am slowly realising that it may be my letters are not getting through to you. Or, are they simply getting way-laid in the mail (if so, you won’t be able to answer this, of course, but please, Mr. Postman, Mr. Censor?)?

Rosalind, even the merest scrap of paper with your name hastily scrawled on it (with a kiss?) would be enough for me – there is a place beyond words, after all, where we can communicate should you so desire.  Have you tried Transcendental Meditation?  I think I may take it up, if only to ‘talk’ (‘tune in’?) to you.  But your silence is deathly!  Perhaps I would do better with a Ouija board (?).

Now, Rosalind, I have some bad news to share with you (‘not more bad news!’, I hear you sigh): Bruno (one of my Bullmastiffs – you’ve met him) bit a child when I was walking him around Hampstead Heath, yesterday.  Said child made a frightful scene, not to mention his wretched (and probably filthy rich) parents.  I’ve seen POWs less hysterical!  But what it may mean is that Bruno, bless his canine soul, be put down, or, as the veterinary profession so compassionately puts it, be ‘destroyed’.  This practice completely ignores the fact that Bruno’s death would destroy me too, at least on the insides, where there is already decay.  And what will become of this child now it lives?  A life of milk and plenty, that’s what!

Would you like me to send you a copy of my manuscript (now completed)?  The ending (honeymoon car crash in the French Riviera) may seem a little abrupt, but death comes suddenly to us all (well, most of us, no?); death comes as hard and fast as running face first into an invisible brick wall.

Anyway, I’ve some time on my hands having completed my tour de force (it is, Rosalind, believe me!), and would greatly love to be able to see YOU.  The blossom on the Heath is out, and there’s the scent of summer in the air – it’s really quite romantic.  You might want to help me walk the dogs? (let us hope that I can continue to use the plural in the weeks to come).  Alternatively, I know a delightful café in Hampstead, and it has the most darling waitresses, and hot steaming cups of exotic Brazilian coffee …

Have you ever considered the aroma of food and, or drink erotic?

Yours unwaveringly,

Norman.

…unrequited and yet undeterred!  

a one hundred and thirteenth story...'norman's third love letter'

Darling Rosalind:

My all, my everything, my wet and windy world, my solar system – how are you?

A week has passed, and O! What a long seven days!  I can imagine only the Lord himself hath spent a longer and more arduous time (I am referring to His supposed creation of the universe, including Adam and Eve etcetera). 

Seven days in which I had hoped like a poor fool at some point you would call, or reply to my letters.  Alas, I remain a stranger on the shore (wandering to the aching tune of a saxophone).

Are you really too busy to be in touch?  I suppose you must be, otherwise I know you would have sent me an effervescent reply to at least one of the aforementioned missives.

No word from the publishers (yet), but I have finished the manuscript you’ll be encouraged to know.  Sadly, and perhaps in relief of how I am feeling just now (with mushy pen about to inscribe the agony that would otherwise issue forth from the fleshy, bloody wound of my mouth), I decided to kill off both characters (the man and woman in love) in a car crash on the French Riviera – it was their honeymoon no less!

Woe, woe and more woe: there’s too much of it, Rosalind.  And people forget it takes strength to be gentle and kind.  Either that or they don’t have any strength in the first instance, or an inkling of kindness. 

Remember the last occasion we were together?  Was I not as kind and gentle as a nun or a nurse? (Or a priest?).

You know, I wanted to tell you then that I loved you, I wanted to share my devout and heartfelt feelings for you, Rosalind. And only for you!  Naturally, I could not find the right inspiration, so I write, and write you (and roam, and wait).

I like touching you, Rosalind, when you are with me: a woman’s flesh is soft and forgiving, whereas mine is vile and reptilian (I had a pet crocodile when I was a boy, you know, out on the plantation.  Well, I say I, rather it was a household pet.  We killed it after it bit the legs off the gardener one afternoon - but I did touch it once when it was asleep).

Can I be with you again soon(ish)? And run my yearning fingers through your sweet-smelling hair? And caress your rosy cheek with my homonidean thumbs?  There’s an art show we should go to: I know, well, half know the artist, and doubtless we could get tickets to the opening night – champagne, caviar, the works!

Yours,

Norman

…gentle and kind.

a one hundred and twelfth story...'norman's next love letter'

Dear-est Rosalind:

My dearest one, my urchin one, my sweet n’salty sea-shell, my conch – how are you?

I know it’s only been a couple of days since my last letter, pray forgive me, but I just felt compelled to write again.  I realise you haven’t replied to the first, but still, perhaps you too have been busy?

Busy, busy, busy: that’s me just now.  Trying to get this goddamn manuscript finished for publication (yes, I have three publishers interested in the draft, all of whom say they ‘are looking at it’, and ‘will get back to me with a yes, or no’).  I trust you are as excited as I am at the thought of having a professional author in our future family.

Families? Babies?  Rest assured I adore babies.  Some men of my age don’t, and they sure as hell can’t handle the things on a hangover.  But, me, oh no!  I love babies as much as any woman, as much as I do my two dogs (you’ve met them, the Bullmastiffs), Fritz and Bruno.  Somedays I even I wish I were still one myself (a baby), then you could cradle me in your arms, and I could suck on your breasts (is that too explicit?).

Well, I suppose you’ve been wondering what my novel is about.  Let’s just say (and I realise I may sound a little presumptuous) it could take certain parts of the World of Literature by proverbial storm (I don’t know if a proverbial storm necessarily includes plagues of locusts?).  Anyhow, a critic might say of it: ‘Murikami – eat your heart out!’ (have you read him? Dreadfully over-liked, over-popular and over-rated!), (If you haven’t read him, don’t start now!).

So, to the plot: a man and woman meet in inauspicious surroundings (a grimy city bar), and they end up sharing pizza.  Their fingers touch as they tear and share the slices, and talk about pizza toppings, Italian renaissance painting, that sort of thing.  Then, a crazed ex-mafia goon bursts into the place and sprays bullets into the open kitchen, the man is hit in the shoulder and is taken away in an ambulance … but the thought of this their first meeting (perhaps unsurprisingly in view of the mass murder) never leaves either of them. 

Still, to cut a not very long synopsis short, gradually over the years, and the endless trial proceedings, the two are bought back together, and love blossoms from the darkest, most rootless place.

Like it? (perhaps don’t answer just yet!).

Rosalind:  can I write you more often?  I find on paper words come so much more easily than when I’m trying to speak them.

Bundles of love!

Yours,

Norman

…roaming, and waiting. 

a one hundred and eleventh story...'norman's love letter'

Dear Rosalind:

My sweet, my little piece of treacle, my poppet, my chocolate covered raisin – how are you?

It was mighty fine to see you last night.  You light up my life like a fountain of sparks (pretty ones), and I do so look forward to any moment we can steal together.

On the last bus home – missing you madly already – I thought: Take heart! And don’t worry! You can write her in the morning … so here I am (on paper).

Yes, dearest Rosalind, I love you.  I love you in the purest, most unadulterated way (not in the slack-jawed way of lurv).  My love for you is like a flower, a white magnolia, and it only needs the thought of you to grow.

But Rosalind: call me! Please call.  Your disembowelled disembodied lush voice on the telephone will be as sweet water from the melted snows of Olympus.

The future, Rosalind, you and I – we can write it in the stars (should we wish), and with it, and our love sealed, we would sail over mountains (including Olympus), swim with dolphins (somewhere warm), be king and queen.  Sound good?!

I have a dream!  It’s a dream about you.  A pre-Raphelian dream.  And I’m there too (if you’ll excuse me).  You are lying asleep in a shady bower, beautifully asleep on a bed of primroses, and I, dressed in knight's armour, black and gold, am watching you from a nearby thicket (so far, it may seem creepy, but stick with it!).

Next, a pearly tear slivers from your underneath your eyelashes and settles on your cheek: you are crying for something – the rack of this rough world? And I see it (the tear), and come from behind my thicket, and elegantly (at least for a man dressed head to toe in armour) stride over, take your precious head in my hands, and give you the kiss of life (or wakefulness, I’m not sure). 

Anyhow, to cut a not very long story short – the tear it turns out (in the dream) was shed for me.

Rosalind: have you ever cried for me?  Cried over me? (not literally, of course). 

If so, then do you not love me?

O! For I am sick with love for you!  Sick, sick, sick with the joy of being in love!

Until the next time I can be with you,

Yours (probably) forever,

Norman

… and I roam.

a one hundred and twenty ninth poem...'campaign for real ale'

Helmut brewed beer from

Broken biscuits and old 

Bus tickets, then watered it down,

Served chilled, and

Since 99% of the lunks whose

Bellies it filled understood

Less than 1% how beer should be made, 

Helmut's recipe went multi-national,

Every weekend helping dim,

Colourless people get laid.

a one hundred and twenty eighth poem...'existenz'

Listen:

The past has died, the

Future will never have

Life, and the

Present is forever

Dying.

The Honest Son

‘This is Castle and Allied Finances, L. speaking. How may I direct your call?’

‘Uh, hi. There was a problem with my account, a transaction made in error.’

‘Name?’

‘Jensen, W.E. Jensen.’

There was a pause.

‘Jensen, W.E. Jensen?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll put you right through.’

There was a click then a gap.

‘Angajan speaking.’

‘Hello, I hope I have the right department. There was a transaction made in error…’

‘This isn’t a department. This is Angajan.’

‘Oh, well, the right person I mean…’

‘I doubt you can say, or I can say, whether you have the right person, for it is always entirely contextual. The entity who can help you may be a department, or a division, or a person, a subsidiary… you get the picture. Your problem may be solvable by any one of our constituent bodies, but it appears you have been transferred directly to me by the clerk, which suggests either you are a very notable user of our services, there was an error, or, more insidiously, you used fraudulent means to get through to I, Angajan.’

‘Well… I merely spoke to the operator, stating my name and issue… if it seems important enough to come directly to you, that was the decision of the operator, and certainly not driven by any deception.

‘You acquit yourself well, in the circumstances. It seems you are an intelligent user of our services, but I will not be misled by your trickery with words.’

‘I’m not trying to trick anyone. I would like the error on my account corrected, that is all. Can you help me?’

‘At this time, it would be too early say whether any of my actions would help or hinder your cause. Of course, I could direct a clerk or assistant to correct the imbalance on your account this minute, in fact, I have a clerk bringing me your details as we speak, so I will see for myself. However, although this may correct your immediate complaint, in the long term this may be problematic. It can be very hard to assess the impact of decisions like this, especially in a complex case such as yours.’

‘Hold on, this isn’t a complex case. There was a simple mistake…’

‘Mistake, or error, as you stated before?’

‘Mistake, error… What’s the difference? There isn’t…’

‘I hasten to correct you, please pardon me. You have added another layer to this, as a decision on whether it was a mistake or an error must be made, and this will require deliberation by the interested parties, of which there are many.’

‘I don’t see how… who could all these interested parties be?’

‘Ah, these decisions are necessarily made in private, behind closed doors as it were, preventing outside influences from stifling objectivity and having a bearing on a satisfactory outcome. In fact, I myself am close to having conversed with you too long to be permitted to take part in this decision-making process, and as you have petitioned me so carefully, I’d assume that you would want my input on the ruling on your case?’

‘I suppose that would be for the best, however, were I to have the opportunity to petition another, as you put it, I may be able to reach outcome more quickly, at the least, which again, would be preferable for a busy… official such as yourself.’

‘Oh, you flatter me and through that show your craftiness once again. The only concession I can make to you, within the strict parameters of my role in this organisation, is to transfer your call to the basic account management commission, since I have now received your details from a clerk and it is clear that the transfer of your call directly to me was made in error, due to your specific phrasing to the operator, L., who is inexperienced and did not recognise a coincidence for what it was, and instead believed you to be of a tier of users of our service that you are not. I forgive L. for that, but I will direct you now to where your call should be. As for whether I will involve myself further in your case, I cannot say.’

‘So who…’

‘Goodbye.’

There was a click, a hum, and a gap.

Then:

‘Good morning, Castle and Allied Finances. This is the account transition committee. How can I be of assistance?’

‘Good morning, there was an issue with my account, with a transaction made in error, which I want correcting. But, account transition? I don’t want to change account or upgrade or anything.’

‘Account transition refers to any change in an account, not only changes to account types, but every transfer of funds, names, goods or other parameters. So you are through to the right place.’

‘Thank you, that’s very reassuring, especially after the conversation I just had with your colleague.’

‘The reception clerk, L.? Yes, L. is a little inexperienced, so I can only apologise if it was difficult for you…’

‘Oh, no, L. was fine, but I was just talking to Angajan?’

‘Angajan? Are you sure? My trace record states that your call came from reception. How did you come to speak to Angajan?’

‘I used the code word, not that it did me much good.’

‘From Angajan to this committee, that is a most unusual step. If you were through to Angajan, ordinarily you’d have no need to speak to us.’

‘Well, Angajan supported my cause but he said that the help from your department would be invaluable.’

‘This isn’t a department, it’s a committee; a common mistake. It sounds like you did well with Angajan, he is well known for being… aloof and difficult. Now, pardon me, but what was he like?’

‘Excuse me? He was, he spoke highly of your committee. Why, aren’t you colleagues?’

‘Well, in the strictest sense of the word, for we are ultimately both on the Castle and Allied Finances payroll, although he is most certainly in the direct service of the Directors, whereas my committee is indirectly paid through our parent agency… Anyway, he is an inscrutable one, and it was unprofessional of me to ask about him.’

‘No problem, I take it he has some high standing in the company, and perhaps I will be able to tell you more once the problem at hand has been addressed.’

‘Of course. Please be more specific about the issue with your account, and I will try to guide you through a satisfactory transition.’

‘The issue is a transaction that wasn’t supposed to be made, and I’d like it reversed.’

‘This was a transaction between you and whom?’

‘Me and Standard Investments, Provisions and Non-provisions.’

‘I see it on your records.’

‘So? Can you help? I’ve been on the phone a long time…’

There was a break, and an intake of breath.

‘You can’t rush these things, with all due respect. I’ve dealt with Standard Investments, Provisions and Non-provisions before. They have their own certain kind of complexity, and we have to be careful not to contravene any of their rules.’

‘Sure, they might not want the transaction reversed, but can they really stop you?’

‘Your misunderstanding of your situation continues. The nature of the transaction, which you have now made clear, transforms the situation. It no longer falls within the remit of the Account Transition Committee. I will have to transfer your call to the Misaligned Structures Conference.’

‘Hang on! I need…’

A hissing noise responded.

‘Hi, this is the Misaligned Structures Department, how I can I help you?’

‘Department, I was told I was being passed to the Misaligned Structures Conference, and I believe these things matter…’

‘Conference, Department, what difference does it make? Ah, your records have just come through the tube. Please, for security please state your name.’

‘W.E. Jensen.’

‘Thank you. Now… Oh! Jensen? You will know my brother!’

‘Your brother? No, I doubt it, Let’s…’

‘Yes, yes, my brother Q.R., he is quite fantastic isn’t he? All that success and yet so humble. Do you know, there was one occasion, you may have heard this story, when he got in the lift in the lobby of his building and clearly the lift operator was new, for he failed to recognise my brother and deliver him straight to his floor, so my brother had to stop at every floor on the way up to the top, picking up and dropping off, and how the people, all his devoted employees mind, gave him such unusual looks, but, the big-hearted giant that he is, he just smiled at each one, and, I say, at the top he gave that lift attendant a most generous tip, like he hadn’t inconvenienced him at all, in fact, as though it has been the smoothest service you could hope for! Ah, that says it all about my brother; you would know of course, he has spoken most fondly of you. I daresay he’d be a good one to have on your side in a tough situation like this transaction made in error and all that guff. Anyway, enough about him, you can call him when you’re finished with me, I will be able to help you with the mal-alignment, let’s not call it a misalignment just yet, for it pays to keep positive. Now, the detail I must check with you, not to question the record-keeping on our documentation, but just to be sure, what is the sum we’re dealing with here?’

‘Seven thousand.’

‘On the nose? Are you sure?’

‘Uh, yes, it was seven thousand.’

‘Well, Standard Investments, Provisions and Non-provisions have it showing as a penny over, and though that sounds negligible, given the sum, we have to quibble over these things to adjust your account back into the alignment we all want.’

‘Excellent, so you will align my account to the tune of seven thousand and a penny?’

‘Oh, certainly not! That falls way beyond the scope of this department. First, the Misaligned Structures Conference will have to deliberate, and the Account Transition Committee will make the, ah, correction, although when Standard are involved, they may even call upon Angajan… although Lord knows he is very busy, so this may be delayed somewhat.’

‘I already spoke to Transition! And to Angajan! They put me through to you!’

A hitch.

‘You spoke to Angajan?’

‘Yes, right after the operator!’

‘Angajan… remarkable, quite remarkable. What… how… what did he say to you? Oh why would I ask, you won’t want to tell me that!’

‘Well, refunding or restructuring or transitioning my account for me… may help to persuade me to tell you about him.’

‘Good Lord, you are attempting to test my ethics! User, trusted user, you may be, but forgive me a little outrage. I have been clear that that is not something I can do, and even if I could…’

‘Please, I didn’t mean… you got the wrong idea, I think.’

‘Oh no, I read you loud and clear. I have no choice but to put you in touch with the Irregularities Council. It is my duty as an employee of Allied Castle Finances to do so, I’m sorry, but this is protocol. Please hold.’

The caller held; what else.

‘You are through to the Irregularities Council. Good day.’

‘Hello, I think there’s been a slip-up here. There is no irregularity, I was just busy sorting out a transaction error and was put though to you.’

A pause.

‘I need to correct you on that.’

‘No, no need, please, just put my call back to the last division.’

‘Firstly, you admit to a slip-up in your being here. Secondly, you describe an error. Already, you present me with two irregularities.’

‘There’s nothing irregular. This is an ordinary, routine, account error that I need you to correct!’

‘There is nothing routine about your case.’

‘Look, I already spoke to Angajan, he understands my case and will vouch for me. Could you just put me back onto him, or speak to him yourself?’

‘Angajan? He may be in a tower at Castle, but this, the Irregularities Council, is the foundation of moral rectitude on which the whole edifice is built. He is of limited significance.’

‘Oh, I see, it’s good to know I’m finally talking to someone important. One simple instruction from you to your staff, and we can finish this call, leaving both us to get on.’

‘Staff? There is no hierarchy in the Irregularities Council. We work in parallel, not in sequence. I have your account here now, in fact I have been following it for some time.’

‘You have?’

‘Indeed. This transaction you say was made in error was always destined to be made. I can see something of a litany of irregularities here.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. I’ve never done anything I shouldn’t have!’

‘Again, I need to correct you there.’

‘What do you mean? Tell me what I am supposed to have done wrong!’

‘Wrong implies a value judgement, which we do not make here. I am merely referring to certain irregularities in your account, and as you know, these are my chief concern. The monies paid to Standard Investments, Provisions and Non-provisions are mere compensation for certain improprieties.’

‘Improprieties? Like I said, there’s nothing off about my dealings!’

‘It would be wrong to point to specific events or transactions, and besides, that is currently confidential information. Your infractions of our terms of service are more concerned with your bearing and demeanour. These transgressions have run through our… professional relationship since you joined Allied Castle Financial. You see, your individualism has been the disputatious topic. This institution has succeeded for a hundred years, based on collaboration and openness between Castle and the users of our services. Pursuing your own goals without full engagement with us and our associates has been a grave failing. You have taken advantage of our structures, methods and advisory systems without concern for the dues such services command. This may have been undetected for some time, for our mechanisms of exposing such contraventions of convention are imperfect, but now your proverbial birds have come home to roost. While neglecting the good of this organisation, you were accumulating dues. Thus there was no error; the correct fee has been levied.’

‘I don’t understand. I was never billed, or invoiced for anything, I haven’t skipped any payments or anything like that! You can’t just charge me seven thousand when you feel like it!’

‘This is the cost of the non-collaborative manner in which you have used our esteemed services. Please understand, this organisation is built on an ideal of honesty, candour and cooperation. Our over-arching purpose requires such an approach. You have behaved contrary to this aspiration. While individuals are vital components of our organisation, they are interchangeable fragments of the whole service. And your continual indiscretions against this ideal were brought to our attention some time ago.’

‘So I have been fined for not sharing enough!? And what do you mean; they were brought to your attention?’

‘A fine is the wrong conception. This is to rebalance your relationship with Castle. We are grateful to certain interested accessories for the information about your… attitude.’

‘Who?’

‘These people vary, some are investors, others are partners, contributors… and, in some cases, those close to our service users who are capable of recognising the greater good.’

‘Someone close to me?’

‘It is true. I can tell you, since the person concerned has now come under our protection, as a member of our Academy, which trains our more junior members in proper fiscal discipline and the ideals of self-sacrifice and truthfulness.’

‘Junior members? You mean children! Are you saying…’

‘Your son is thirteen. The perfect age for entering our Academy. He shows great promise.’

‘Where is he? He should...’

‘We all have much work to do, I am sure. Now I have clarified the situation for you, it is time for me to go. Good day, W.E. Jensen.’

a one hundred and tenth story...'letter from ernest'

Dear Ivan:

Apologies for having not written in a while … You’ll never guess – I did indeed blow my brains out.  Haha!  And I am now writing to you from Cloud Nine in invisible ink, by spectral hand, and at a desk made solely of water vapours etcetera.  You see, after the dirty business of suicide, as if by magic, my soul left my body and ascended to heaven (St Peter, did, however, take a good long look at me at the pearly gates – part of my frontal lobe was missing of course - but let me in when he was told who I was: That, I suppose, was the most amazing miracle of all).

Heaven’s alright, you know.  But, I confess, it is a bit like being back at the asylum – white washed walls, everyone in white uniforms, and it’s awfully quiet.  Started playing some of that Coltrane you gave me a few years back last week, and immediately was ssshed by a passing choir of angels (I am beginning to despise choral music – just too damned holy!).

Anyhow, it was good of you to write, even if you have some darned silly views on bull-fighting.  Death is everywhere, you should remember – death in the morning, death in the afternoon (did you really not like this one of mine?), death when the fat old sun sets (and yet the sun also rises! Ha!).  That said, I’m glad you think I was writing ‘as well as ever’, up until the whole shotgun finale. 

On blowing my brains out: don’t be sore about it.  It was what I wanted.  As you said I’d lived three lives wrapped into one, and should really have died a handful of times before – the war in Italy, and those two plane crashes.  Anyhow, when you reach the end of your tether you’ll find out too that reason and freedom are wasted on you.  Again, don’t be sad.  You never know, it might even bring you and that scheming wife of yours back together. Loretta: a tricky one, but goddamn beautiful!  (Better scribble out the goddamn, won’t get past the censors here).

Ivan, you are not terrible, and certainly in comparison with me you are steady, not prone to feeling awful, drinking too much (its what we writers do mind you), or flying off the handle in a rage.  Stay calm, and life will sort itself out, and things will become clearer.  Be a man!  You said you could stand the pain – so do so!  I would say the Lord will provide, but you and I both you he won’t (no, I haven’t met him yet), therefore here’s looking at you kid!

Yours eternally,

Ernest.

PS. Do miss fishing up here, several thousand miles above the sea.  Long to wrestle with a 1000lb Tuna again – remember the one you and I had for nine and half hours before the sharks got it?  The head alone must have been 250lb! You win, you lose: existence in a coconut shell.    

a one hundred and ninth story...'letter to ernest'

Dear Ernest:

It’s been such a long time since you wrote.  What has become of you?  And it’s been such a long time since you came down here, and spent some time with us.  You haven’t blown your brains out have you?  I’m joking of course, but you did say they had let you out of the asylum, and that you were feeling pretty lonesome - if you do choose to shoot yourself, make sure you’ve a table saved for us both at the bar in Hell for when I join you – ha! 

Anyway, since you haven’t asked, I am writing to tell you I think Loretta is about to leave me for good.  It’s a damn shame.  But she thinks our romance is dead, and that being friends is all we have left, and that we were never really ‘in it’ for the friendship, i.e. we are worth nothing together anymore. 

You know when I first met Loretta I had doubts, I remember telling you over a few drinks at Henky’s.  I was wearing that white panama suit, if you recall, and you kept on poking me with your big, stubby finger and making fun of it, and me for not falling head over feet in love with the girl.  I thought you might have fancied her then.  You didn’t. And I did, but on the sly – that’s me all over, you might say.  Well, now she’s going she better not come shack up with you (that’s if you haven’t shot yourself), and know that I love her deeply etc.

I am not a fool, Ernest, I do know when I am being lied to, or being told half-truths;.  or, when someone is trying to keep something from me as if I am not man enough to take pain.  You were there when that damned antelope got too close to the wagon out in Africa and nearly impaled me, I was up the next day shooting, one arm in a sling.  Physical and emotional pain, what’s the difference? (You’ll probably have an answer to this, if you do, tell me, write me!). 

So, the future without Loretta … it will be a mighty strange place, and one where I’ll have to consolidate whatever I have left.  You know, Ernest, after all these years of living high on the hog I am damn near bankrupt?  If the bloody publishers could sell my books then I might be alright, but none of the wretched amateurs they employ at Scribner’s these days know their Steins from their Steinbecks.  (Sorry to bring up old Gertrude, I know you can’t stand to hear her name anymore). 

By the way I finally read some of those bullfighting articles you wrote for Life magazine last summer, in the last few months.  I know you’ll hate me for saying this, but while you write as well as ever, I’m not sure I can countenance the sport (?) any longer, poor animals – it may be I’d rather the bullfighter die, if anyone has to.

Ernest, you’re an old man now, be wary of blood-lust, and blood-letting: it surely isn’t good for your blood pressure; besides haven’t you had enough excitement for about three life-times?!

But my mind keeps dragging me back to Loretta.  She said some things to a friend of ours the other night when we were out for dinner and I was chatting with Archie (you’ve met him – the artist), and in the way drunk women do they simply couldn’t keep a lid on it, be discreet, and I overheard, or thought I overheard some things I’d rather have not; I had been sinking rums all evening, still, it hurt me.  And a damn sight more than that antelope: flesh wounds heal quickly, hearts don’t, and with heart wounds sinews can turn dark and ugly, the whole thing becoming scar tissue.  Can a heart beat after that?  Perhaps it is I who needs to blow my brains out?!  (I hope you haven’t? Why the silence?).

Well, probably time I should be getting on, although with what, heaven knows.  Can’t write anything decent while this whole Loretta situation is so prevalent in my mind; only old Scott (the silly sod), could of gotten anything profound from it – and look what happened to him, not to mention Zelda, the first American flapper!  Anyhow, no more flapping from me today.  Please read this, and respond: life could be about to get jolly empty, and I am fond of you.

Yours,

Ivan.

a one hundred and twenty seventh poem...'manifesto of a pathological-pacifist-paperback-writer'

If someone says to

You that the sword is

Mightier than the pen,

Do me a favour and

Stab them in the eye

With a four colour biro

Again and again.

a one hundred and twenty sixth poem...'legs'

I woke up this morning.

Pulled back the covers.

And saw my feet attached

To my legs at the end of bed -

It was reassuring to see

After a vivid dream about

Becoming a double amputee.

a one hundred and twenty fifth poem...'arrow'

If I told you

How much I adore

You, would you

Shrug it off? Cough up

Blood? Or rip my

Heart from my chest

And throw it in

The mud

Down the

Dirty old river? Where

Once upon a time

I held you close and

You quivered

With something

Approaching love,

Along the narrow,

Your dark head buried

In my beating breast,

Breached by an arrow. 

a one hundred and twenty fourth poem...'catch a thief'

‘Wot are you doin’

Lying down there?’ said the

Policeman to the recently

Deceased.  ‘Journeying to

Heaven, of course’, replied

The spirit, recently released.

‘Oh no you’re not, you’re

Coming with me’, said the

Policeman to the spirit,

Just recently free. At which

The spirit rose weightless to the branch

Of the toppest tree, and the

Policeman dialled the fire-brigade,

A necromancer, and a priest.  

a one hundred and twenty third poem...'sonnet'

Molly was arse over

Tit in love, so she

Asked for guidance

From up above – a city pigeon

Promptly shat on her head,

Ending all thoughts of romance and 

Faint primrose beds.

a one hundred and twenty second poem...'tiny tears'

We are the dying

And the damned:

Here, alone on

This wind-blasted

Beach, we are but one

Grain of vanishing sand from

A child's bucket with a

Leak, where the

Tide inside fills bloating

Eyes and spills

Over the lip into

An ocean of

Tiny tears.

a one hundred and twenty first poem...'burial'

Stalked by rain clouds

Low and mean across the

Blasted moor, four fingers

Deep in pockets full of

Moss and earth, underneath

His nails a lifetime’s worth of

Dirt, below his feet a

Sinking morass of sodden peat -

The wind dies, then the deathless

Silence is complete.

a one hundred and eighth story...'smell a rat'

It came as an immense shock to Titch when a water rat crawled up the toilet flume in his apartment and bit him on the ass.  And could Titch later explain why he had teeth marks in his ass to the doctor, and why he might need a Tetanus jab?  Could he ever!  Titch told the doctor he and his girlfriend had been fooling around with an empty can of sardines.  The doctor asked about the teeth marks.  Titch said it was his girlfriend's finger-nails.  What an over-elaborate lie! Thought the doctor and prescribed Titch anti-inflammatory cream, as well as pills against rat bite fever.  ‘Your girlfriend must have needles for nails’, was the doctor’s parting remark. 

But about ten days later Titch was back at the doctor’s surgery complaining of sore joints and a red rash on his feet.  ‘Have you been taking your medication?’, asked the doctor.  Titch said yes he had – the anti-inflammatory cream.  The doctor asked about the pills.  ‘No’, said Titch, ‘it says on the label they are for rat bite fever’.  ‘I see’, said the doctor, ‘do you think I made a wrong diagnosis?’  Titch said he didn’t know.  ‘How is your girlfriend?’ the doctor continued.  Titch said she was fine. The doctor asked why she hadn’t accompanied Titch in the first instance.  Titch replied she worked nights at the local fish factory.  ‘Ok’, said the doctor feigning satisfaction, and told Titch to take his pills as well, and come back in a week’s time.

A week later Titch returned to visit the doctor.  By the wonders of modern medicine his joints were no longer sore, and his rash had all but disappeared. 

‘How’s your ass?’ asked the doctor.  ‘Fine, I think’, replied Titch. ‘Good’ said the doctor.  ‘I took the medication, pills and all’, replied Titch.  ‘Good’ said the doctor, playing with his desk tidy.  And then he fixed his gaze on Titch.  ‘Your ass’, said the doctor, ‘It ever talk on your behalf?’  Titch looked down at the carpeted surgery floor.  ‘Your ass got teeth and a tongue? Vocal chords?’, the doctor kept on, his beady eyes shining with delight at his tease, knowing these were leading questions.  ‘I ain’t a ventriloquist, if that’s what you mean?’, said Titch defensively and the doctor smiled at this surprisingly witty riposte.  But he hadn’t had his fun just yet.  Rubbing his manicured hands together the doctor told Titch he was probably in need of another subscription.  Titch was looking shiftily at the doctor now, like a cornered rabbit, or indeed, a cornered rat thought the doctor and snorted a quick laugh.

There had been a spate of rat attacks in the last three months in the city, and the doctor had already seen at least five cases similar to that of Titch.  But Titch had been the first, though not the last in the doctor’s thirty seven year career, to pretend something else did it, or something else really happened.

About ten minutes later Titch left the doctor’s surgery sucking on a sherbet lemon, nursing his battered pride, and carrying with him a bottle of the doctor’s finest Scotch.  The doctor’s prescription, folded into Titch's back pocket, simply read: ‘Truth Serum.  Take daily after visiting the rest rooms’.              

a one hundred and twentieth poem...'another day'

The common smelled nice this evening, and there was the sound of an old carrion crow throatily calling in the gathering dusk.  The last busker gone from the noiseless bandstand, as well as two lovers arm in hand, and the sky was high, cadet-grey and tangerine, new leaves on early summer trees, phosphorescent green: A natural sense of calm falling gently as a blanket, only the fat Jets overhead occasionally barraging the silence with yawning roars.  Later, from my balcony door, rare peace of mind, the stillness allowing thoughts too big to share with someone else space to unwind, years of pent up tension paroled for a time into quiet nothingness, weightless and free, save the idle scratchings, cross-hatchings of pen on paper, momentarily forgetting the future, leaving the rubble of the past to be searched through another day. 

Travel Light

Listen, goes the start of a book by a famous author. Not ‘listen to me’ or ‘listen to this’, just plain listen. The book is not necessarily meant to be read aloud, although it would do well if put to that test, so it seems to be a general exhortation to be quiet for once, and pay attention. On reflection, the author does well to get away with this; shouting about it isn’t usually enough to get people to take note. Neither is simply repeating oneself, or just increasing your declarations.

Anyone who’s been alive and awake recently will have noticed that the means, if not the good reasons to get others to listen to you, have proliferated to reach colossal levels. This doesn’t mean that anyone is paying any more attention than they were before, as the helpful birds in another wonderful novel frequently reminded us. That’s what this story is about, but you’ll be the judge of that.

 ‘Just changed the beer in the slug traps. And I tied back the runner beans.’

So went Nicolas’s updates to his daughter as he re-entered the wooden house from the garden. ‘Now, let’s have soup for lunch. There’s literally nothing so nice after a morning in the garden.’

He stomped about the kitchen, clots of earth falling from the tread of his boots. He pulled down a tin from a cupboard and poured the contents into a pan. ‘Oops,’ he said as some soup splashed onto his jumper. ‘Never mind, dirty anyway.’

Nicolas’s daughter Evelyn didn’t respond to any of his snippets. She was an elective mute; she didn’t have anything to say in response to her father. She hadn’t for seven years.

Nicolas was the opposite of an elective mute. He was an elective rambler.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll do the washing up,’ he said. ‘I need your help outside – to put your foot on the ladder for me.’

Evelyn used to be the talkative one. It was her twin sister who was the elective mute. At least, as far as everyone knew, she was mute. Evelyn seemed to be able to speak for her, so presumably Maria spoke to Evelyn from time to time. Unless you have faith in extrasensory perception or telepathy, that is.

Nicolas was old enough to be Evelyn’s grandfather, having married a woman half his age. He had now retired on the life insurance pay-out and spent his time in the garden, or, in winter and at night, painting and pushing tiny figurines for sprawling, complex war games on a board like a Thunderbirds set that covered the landing. He tirelessly shifted around battalions of infantry and cavalrymen, enacting tactics and a military strategy, as a chess enthusiast might play through the games of the greats, exploring the permutations of every position. His most recent wheeze was the construction of a fortress built into his bedroom door, providing yet more stages for his little humans and monsters. Their wooden house on the levels sometimes flooded, which was why the most important things were kept upstairs.

Evelyn kept all her books upstairs. Her father bought them for her to fulfil his duties: he had never sent her into a classroom, claiming that she was home-schooled. Periodically, someone visited from the local authority to check that Evelyn was indeed learning something. She performed exceptionally on the tests the man brought round. He had been piqued by her muteness at one time, and had social services come and perform an assessment. Evelyn filled out a questionnaire that reassured them, and they went away. Truth was, she learned all the normal expected general knowledge of a young adult from the encyclopaedia. Nicolas didn’t teach Evelyn anything academic, beyond the history of military manoeuvres from countless wars, which influenced the never-ending conflict that he played out on the landing. More helpfully, he taught he a great deal about growing fruit and vegetables and tending for flowers. Evelyn followed him around the garden, her faithful memory recording every technique and observation.

As a matter of fact, Evelyn was a girl of many talents: not only an elective mute, but one of the few people on this planet equipped with a wholly photographic memory.

There was no detail of Evelyn’s life that she could not recall, save events before the age of around four. Every moment, every word read and heard, every image seen was printed in ineffaceable ink on her brain. She started writing it all down one day, a kind of inch-perfect memoir of a life perfectly remembered, if not an examined existence. Evelyn gave the first twenty pages of repetitive, painfully meticulous prose to her father one evening. She quit the whole project when she saw he had dozed off after three pages. Now all she could do was record it all on her memory, every inane and banal, plus every profound, utterance of her father.

Prior to Evelyn’s disappearance, he had increasingly been asking her to record the day. Nicolas had his daughter write down everything that had happened and everything that he had said, in a perverse volte-face on her attempt at a memoir. He had bought a spiral bound blue book for the purpose, putting a large label on the front saying ‘My Life’. Nicolas never explained why he wanted this done; of course, Evelyn never asked. Sometimes Nicolas would go on for hours, blithely ignoring Evelyn’s wilting eyelids as he expounded on some detail of earthing up potatoes or, indeed, a long-forgotten battle. This was reaching an obsessive level, with eight books filled, when the floods returned.

It was spring, and record rainfall overloaded aquifers, canals and rivers. The ground floor of the house was under a foot of water. Evelyn and Nicolas were confined to the first floor, where a routine was established where he played out combats real and imagined while she read the encyclopaedias again. After a meal from a can, cooked on a portable gas stove, Nicolas got the blue book out and handed it to Evelyn. She wrote and wrote, barely thinking about it. But her dad felt that it was important, so what was she to do? At least, that was her interpretation. It may have been that Nicolas didn’t think it was important, but it was a compulsion. It wasn’t about conversation, either. This was no single father trying to engage elective mute daughter tale; this much was obvious because he continued the obsessive recording of his day, his life, after she’d gone.

It happened as soon as the flood water had retreated. Nicolas was weeding the vegetable patch, commentating all the while. Every so often he looked up, taking in the sight of his daughter but not really taking her in – Nicolas often saw her as something in the background, white noise in his blaring brain. Then he looked up to see she wasn’t listening and indelibly documenting any more, because she wasn’t there.

When she left, Nicolas didn’t call the police. He didn’t call his sister, perhaps because he was pathologically selfish, and didn’t care, perhaps because he was oh so used to his family becoming lost to him, or perhaps because he couldn’t ever hear her anyway, so he didn’t really notice. 

Evelyn had just slipped out of Nicolas’s life, as though he’d just put down a book and lost his page.

Nicolas adapted in his own way. He went on writing in the blue books at the end of the day, after pronouncing his thoughts to no-one. The problem for him was he forgot many of the day’s statements, so entries for each day shrunk considerably. This vexed Nicolas, so he took a rare trip into town and bought a Dictaphone. It was far less convenient for him to keep tugging it out of his pocket and hitting record when he had an update to make, but it improved his accuracy. He took it around the garden with him, and to the landing with its hills and plains, clicking down the button and bringing it to his mouth with increasing instinctiveness. Nicolas played back the tape every evening.

All his recording was Nicolas’s attempt to live in the present, or so he thought to start with. With Evelyn gone, this became more difficult. Her disappearance inevitably reminded him of the loss of his wife and his other daughter, Evelyn’s twin. It was a loss at sea, no less. Nicolas had made the choice; he swam for Evelyn, since she was the furthest out, and he hoped his wife would manage alone. By the time he was back out in the water, it was too late.

At the funeral, a sparse and weirdly emotionless affair, Evelyn was approached by an aunt who was visiting from the US of A, as the aunt called it. She was the kind of person fond of saying things like, ‘There are times when you just need life to come up and slap you on the ass!’ To Evelyn, she said, ‘You girl, you’ve got it rough. But your daddy…’ She whistled through her teeth. ‘You’ll have to look after my brother for me.’

From then on, Evelyn became the elective mute, until she went away. She was fifteen when she left Nicolas weeding the garden. She had been eight when her twin sister and her mother died.

To live is to lose. That’s the refrain that Nicolas recorded most commonly on his Dictaphone. Evelyn had never heard him say this; he came up with it after she had gone. He had thought that marrying a much younger woman, as his sister had always referred to her, would have meant an end to the losses. And yet, he had found, to live is to lose. He realised that he was fated to be lost in memories, and resigned to it.

Evelyn, for her part, intended to return. She loved her father, found his uncompromising aspect, when it came to gardening and war games anyway, inspiring. She left to cure herself. Evelyn felt no need to cure herself of her muteness, which she saw as a lifestyle choice, typical, maybe, of a fifteen year old. She was seeking a cure for her photographic memory.

The cargo of near-endless memories was incredible to bear. Evelyn stood atop an inverted pyramid of recollections, since year-by-year, she added a wider layer of memories. It was always organised so perfectly; she couldn’t help doing so. Evelyn went to therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists and all the other talkers and listeners. She saw a neurologist who gave her electric shocks followed by psychotropic drugs. Afterwards, she was in a stupor that distracted her for a time, but didn’t stop her uncanny retrieval of every detail of her life, and her continual building of the upended pyramid.

It would be a valuable resource, if it were worth anything.

So Evelyn returned, still afflicted, to the flood-tainted house, her father and his blue books. She walked in the front door and saw the inside transformed by a dazzling collage. Every wall, cupboard, cabinet, wooden beam and even on the pictures and mirrors were pages from the blue books. Some pages featured her own writing, but the majority were in her father’s hand. The walls were covered in a description of his every moment, his every reflection on little element of his days.

Evelyn let her eyes travel over the papers. She saw innumerable comments on gardening, the movements of birds, hedgehogs and other fauna, and even more interminable commentary on his battles and skirmishes. Her eyes flicked onwards in embarrassment at an entry about an episode of masturbation over some images of civil war widows.

Nicolas began talking only a few moments after he saw her, reserving judgement and saying nothing about her disappearance and return. ‘I’m looking for patterns. I wanted to see it all at once, so I put the pages up, but they ended up spilling over into all the rooms, upstairs too.

‘I realised I kept writing the same thing. To live is to lose.’

Evelyn stared at Nicolas, her eyes matured by her time with the doctors, yet dewy like an overtired child. She spoke to him for the first time in eight years.

‘Dad, what was the point in it all?’

If he was surprised, Nicolas didn’t show it. He shrugged and looked away.

‘Maybe there isn’t a point,’ he said sadly. ‘But it’s a life, isn’t it? This is all I have and represent.’

To live is to lose, thought Nicolas, but here is a gift of memories preserved, at least.

‘Without this, I don’t remember it all.’

‘I’ve been trying to learn how to forget,’ Evelyn admitted.

‘There’s so little in a life,’ said Nicolas. ‘So little, that every detail earns remembering. My dear child, when it’s gone, it’s gone. Don’t travel light. Please, my darling, do everything you can to remember it all. For me, I have to write it down… I was trying to show you how much that mattered. For you, you have the greatest of gifts. Keep it all, horde the memories like most people horde money. They are all that will keep you going. Don’t try to travel light.

‘All this,’ Nicolas indicated his eccentric wallpapering, ‘has been only just enough for me.’

Evelyn smiled gently then, and Nicolas smiled back.

a one hundred and seventh story...'robertby'

Robert B. Robertby was a proud man: it seemed he had good reason.  Robert B. Robertby owned an estate in the country of 50 hectares with deer park.  And had a swanky apartment in the city with décor from Sotheby’s – the apartment over-looked Berkeley square.  Furthermore, his wife, Jacqueline, was a patrician beauty, would have been French royalty had the French not decided on a revolution two hundred years previous. Further still, Robert B. Robertby was the richest of his social clique, since he and Jacqueline had decided, ‘quite sensibly’ as they were quick to tell, not to have children.  ‘I don’t need anyone to send down the mine to earn me a living, I own the mine’, Robertby would joke.  The joke was lost on some, laughed at with false bonhomie by some others. 

Much of the source of Robertby’s pride came from his humble beginnings.  He used to blague that he had been ‘born in a cardboard box’, which was rum; nevertheless, he did grow up in a drab terrace house in Folkestone – today known only as home of the Channel Tunnel.  Robertby was ‘Bob’ back then to the street urchin kids, dressed meekly in their scanty post-war attire, that he would play football with on desolate cobbled streets, and run wheel-barrow races, pretend at blind man’s bluff, and so on.  ‘Bob’s’ father was a cobbler and his mother was a nurse.  ‘My father would regularly put the boot in’, Robertby quipped, before explaining that this made him a man before time – the time when most other men were still boys.

After school every day, the young ‘Bob’ would work.  He turned has hand at anything, anything except of course shoe-making and nursing.  ‘I realised from a young age that to follow in one’s parents footsteps was to risk making the same  mistakes’, Robertby often remarked to new acquaintances he assumed keen to hear his self-made story.  So, ‘Bob’ had a paper-round for a while, worked on the rapidly decaying Folkestone docks, ran the door at an amateur boxing club, pulled pints  in the local ale house, and later, had spells as a bank clerk, and as an assistant to a town lawyer.  These last two, Robertby cited as the moments ‘my mind turned to the business of success’, and success he got, whether by miserliness, or deception.  ‘Tax?’, Robertby would later quip to friends he guessed had off-shore bank accounts, ‘Tax is but a three letter word!’

It was as soon as money began to fill up Robertby’s pockets that he began to become self-conscious about being referred to as ‘Bob’, or ‘young Bob’, and so he dropped anyone who did so.  His parents were spared, they had always called him ‘Robert’, but not a single one of his former street-urchin friends, most of whom now were in the kinds of jobs ‘Bob’ had held when he was still at school.  ‘Bob? Who was I a protest singer?’, Robertby guffawed, unaware that the Bob he was referring to was christened Robert. 

The ‘B’, by the way, in Robertby’s name stood for Broadhurst, a stout, working-class English name, or so he thought – his descendants were in fact among the first American settlers and had since become Anglo-American notables.

Anyhow, Robert Robertby (he started using the B. after his first million) set out on the yeller-brick-road to riches in agricultural stocks and shares.  Agriculture in the 50s and 60s was experiencing major change and mechanisation, as all the technologies that had before been directed at killing, maiming and generally ruining the planet and the lives of many of its two-legged inhabitants, now were diverted to the industrial murder of many of the planet’s four legged-inhabitants, as well as towards corrupting natural soils everywhere in the name of progress.

Robertby was certainly one to buy into the idea of progress without even a millisecond of thought.  After all, had someone with his meagre background not done so, life would have ended in the midst and in debt.  And pretty soon he was making unimaginable sums of money by comparison with his parents insider trading on various pieces of farm machinery from automatic asparagus harvesters, to tractors, to laboratory refined pesticides.

When Robertby reached the tender age of 23 he owned a 5 bedroom house with 3 acres, an Aston Martin, a succession of girlfriends and an ego that was growing somewhat exponentially.  And things kept on getting better for Robert Robertby, and so he believed.  At 26 he had his first million, and a new middle name, at 30 he was a millionaire several times over, and had begun to move in London circles, even met the Beatles!  ‘Money, that’s what I want’, Robertby told Paul McCartney in the Starr Club one evening, and McCartney, naturally with eyebrows raised, said ‘we’ve just recorded a song about it’.  John sang it.  George wanted more of it.  Ringo played drums.

Jacqueline Chercheurdor met Robert B. Robertby at a weekend party for the rich and famous, stupid and richly famous, and rich and stupidly famous on Carnaby Street in July 1967.  She was won over by Robertby’s brazen charm, and by then, deep, deep pockets.  Robertby was now involved in the burgeoning film industry, as a financier, and had a tough renown.  ‘Jacqueline thought I had balls of brass’, Robertby would recall, ‘until she discovered that they were the same material as my wrist-watch, and my chain’.  Gold.

Jacqueline and Robertby married a year on from their first meeting, the ceremony held at Robertby’s recently acquired apartment over-looking Berkley square.  Robertby’s parents came, and nearly died of embarrassment – Robertby’s mother fainted in the faux-Egyptian toilet and had to be revived by Mick Jagger, at which point, she fainted again. And gradually over the succeeding years, Robertby’s apartment was filled by Jacqueline with Ming Dynasty bric-a-bric, and so forth.

But, the gravy train has to run out of track somewhere, sometime.  And it was an incident on Robert B. Robertby’s aforementioned 50 hectare country estate that began the decline and fall.  One afternoon, Robertby, by now at the peak of his wealth, invited none other than Michele Ferrero and family around for afternoon tea.  ‘We won’t be having any of those damned chocolates mind you!’, Robertby had confided in a friend, and in fairness Robertby’s girth suggested he didn’t need another cocoa and sugar based confection for the remainder of his life.

So the Ferreros arrived, then with a mere 11.3 billion dollars to their name, and while the adults talked in the Regency conservatory, the house-keeper took the Ferrero children to go see the deers in the deer park.  The house-keeper and children had been gone for nearly four and half hours before either the Robertbys or the Ferreros realised the house-keeper and Ferrero children had not returned – dusk was beginning to fall, and a lot of expensive champagne had been consumed (although no chocolates).  Groggily, Robert B. Robertby issued a search party, while the adults resumed their social time, apparently unconcerned.  

At 9pm the butler, a tall, erect and serious septuagenarian, who secretly despised Robertby, walked slowly into the Regency conservatory and asked with extreme decorum whether he could step outside with Robertby for a moment, please sir.

Outside in the marble festooned hallway the butler broke the news to Robertby that a Red deer stag had mauled to death both Ferrero children and Robertby’s house-keeper (whose name Robertby kept forgetting) in her attempts to save them both.  The recent and sudden rise in air temperature, as spring had turned very rapidly to summer, had bought about a disastrous change in the behaviour of the adult male stag, and caused its levels of testosterone to go haywire.  Robertby’s reaction? ‘Bloody children’.

What he had not counted on was that Michel Ferrero was standing in the doorway at that very instant …

… The rest, as they say, is history.  Robert B. Robertby ended up back in Folkestone, and died even more destitute than his parents, wifeless, friendless, and childless, when ironically to have spawned a rich son, as his parents had done, might have saved him.

Indeed, you can find Robert B. Robertby’s tombstone in the graveyard at Holy Trinity Benefice, Folkestone.  On the grey stone is inscribed his epitaph.  A more imaginative soul might have come up with something wry and witty, such as ‘the only human known to have actually succumbed to death by chocolate’, or ‘killed by the sperm of a Cervus elaphus’, or ‘here lies Robert B. Robertby, born a Bob, raised a Robert, had an answer to everyone including Shakespeare, and yet died again a Bob.’  However, as you will see for yourself, if you brush away the poison ivy, and ignore the yellow BMX sticker some heartless teen has stuck there, Robert B. Robertby’s gravestone simply says ‘deceased’ – there are no jokes in death.  And under the sod, the intrepid among you will find a once filthy rich sod, now simply a filthy sod, with not a single penny in his eye sockets.