Jammy Dodger (16 page)

As I sat down I noticed a frame on the wall beside me. It contained a piece of card embossed with the following:
Lovely to look at, / Delightful to hold, / If you should break it, / Consider it sold.
I was just remarking to myself how varied and inventive were the uses of poetry when the telephone rang. It was someone very elderly enquiring whether our antimacassars were handmade or factory-made. Antimacassars? I attempted to wing it. Were they available in vinyl, my interlocutor wanted to know. What colours? What sizes? Were they machine washable? Were they self-gripping? (Weren't we all? Silence.) Were they frilled or straight-hemmed? Were the crocheted ones durable enough? And finally – and this was where the jig was up – were they resistant to
all
brands of pomade?
Pomade
? I suggested the customer make the effort to visit the shop in person, then set about acquainting myself more closely with the stock.

Knicks ‘n' Knacks
was an eye opener. Taken in the round, its contents – the very fact of the
existence
of its contents – necessitated a recalibration of values, acceptance of which, by extension, meant breaking through to a new level of consciousness:
micro
-consciousness. What was most shocking was that someone somewhere had gone to the trouble of visualising, designing, manufacturing and then transporting items so arcane, so rarefied in function a family could pass through several generations before happening upon the opportunity to use them.

What was this plastic tube with metal teeth next to the ornamental saffron mills? A Carrot Gripper.
A Carrot Gripper?
And this? Between the garlic presses and the multi-coloured chicken-leg hats? A solid silver Egg Hole Puncher. And here, below the tortoise-shell sconces, beside the marjoram-scented pin-cushions? A set of twelve mother-of-pearl Butter Curlers … I ran my fingers across the slub silk valances, the cashmere napkins (and their amethyst-studded obsidian rings), the gossamer doilies (
Hand-Woven by the Elf People of Carpathia
), and gazed open-mouthed at the diaphanous skeins of fabric suspended, along with the seal-skin pampooties and fur-lined slippers, from the ceiling. Five whole shelves were dedicated to name-place holders and pomanders (
Individually painted by the Java Women's Nostril Collective
); another three to writing-paper (
Made with wood-pulp masticated to order in limited batches by the blind elders of the Okavango Delta
). A large table was taken up entirely by a collection of glass fruit. Some poor bastard had made a model of the
Titanic
out of coconut husks.

By now the fumes from fifty heinous varieties of potpourri were burning through my mucous membranes. I staggered back to mission control. As I mopped my streaming eyes with a napkin (
Personally Embroidered by Pocahontas
), a bell shrilly announced the arrival of a live customer. It wasn't. It was my brother, leaning round the door.

‘Telegram for Mongo.'

‘Fenton. What are you doing here?'

‘Right bro? I heard you'd drawn the short straw,' he sniggered, entering the shop. ‘… How does it feel to be in charge of Knickers ‘n' Knackers?'

He stood there, in his purple Ralph Lauren polo shirt, jangling a set of keys. He had my father's broad brow and heavy build, and could look forward to a similarly long struggle with his midriff.

‘Fine thanks. Nothing to it.'

‘Broken anything yet?'

‘Nope.'

‘You will. Many been in?'

‘Oh, you know …
dribs‘n'drabs
.'

He paused to pick inside his ear with the longest key, grimacing horribly.

‘You still pissing around with your wee magazine?' he asked.

‘Yes, and it's very successful. Fenton, what do you want? I thought you were working.'

‘I was,' he said, examining the result of his excavation. ‘I'm just round the corner at
Sunbirds
.'

‘Oh yes, your new venture.
Sunbirds
, is that what it's called? Not bad. Quite poetic. Is it from Arabian mythology? Symbol of rebirth or something?'

‘You're fucken kidding right?' He squinted at me. ‘I can never tell with you. Sun-birds. Sun and … birds? … Like chicks? Girls? Suntanned girls?'

‘Of course. And how's it coming along?'

‘Totally mad. Crawling with women. They can't get enough of that sun-kissed look. Although the blokes are getting in on it too, in fact – ' He patted his pockets. ‘You should have a go yourself … here, have a complimentary voucher – ' He tossed a card on the counter. ‘Don't say I never give you anything.'

‘Thanks, but – '

‘Take it. Pass it on. It's for three sessions in our latest machine: The Sizzlemaster 9000. I swear, half an hour in that thing – ' He shook his head in wonderment. ‘… It's like a week in the Mojave Desert. Very impressive results.'

I examined my coupon, with its lavish chocolate lettering and impossibly buxom silhouettes on a field of inferno-orange. Fenton consulted his watch.

‘Look, what I swung by to say is, when you see our mother you need to tell her Crystal's got new stock in, including croc-skin cotton-bud caddies,
and
she's dropped the price of her diamante crème brulee hammers by fifty percent.'

‘What?'

‘Godsake Artie, I'll write it down … gimme that biro …'

Crystal Turkington (yes, Heather was her daughter) was my mother's arch-rival. Her shop,
Dotey Things
, was situated diagonally across the village square from
Knicks ‘n' Knacks
, and sold almost exactly the same merchandise. Needless to say, the two women hated each other with life-altering intensity. A tit-for-tat price war had broken out on day one and was supplemented a short time later by a mutual, undeclared quest to seek out the obscurest trinkets, the rarest baubles, the most exclusive designers and reclusive craftsmen; to find the
ultimate
knicknack. Neither of them could picture exactly what that might be, but both knew it would be an object at once priceless … and useless … and utterly irresistible.

I swivelled in my chair and looked across the plaza at the faux-Dickensian frontage of
Dotey Things,
where several people were milling around, peering in through the window or pawing at the soaps (
Made Exclusively With Extracts From The World's Most Endangered Species
) that were heaped in wicker hampers at the door. The shop was flanked by an optician's on one side and a butcher's on the other, while further along, set back behind black railings, was a church, its classical faµade painted an incongruous pink. A banner, hung between two pillars in the portico, read:
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32
. In the centre of the stone-flagged square stood the war memorial, a life-size bronze soldier on guard with his rifle at the ready. Around the base of the plinth were chiselled the names of the local dead: Armstrong, Corry, Dunlop, Ferguson, Gray, Herron, Lennox, Mahony, Neeson, Orr, Praeger, Richardson, Shaw, Trainor, Wilson … Was this really why two world wars were fought? So we could flog each other taffeta bog-roll covers?

‘Okay, there you go. Make sure she sees that,' said Fenton, propping the note against the cash register. ‘Now, I'd better get back to my money mine.'

I had a thought.

‘Hey Fenton, maybe you'd know – ' I twisted back to face the counter. ‘… What the fuck is an antimacassar?'

He pondered for a minute, his lips working through a series of unvocalised possibilities.

‘I'm not sure. Is it … is it like a
sloth
?'

After Fenton left, a series of customers insisted on coming into the shop. I sold a garlic press, a set of ivory toothpicks, a glass pineapple, and a sack of potpourri so pungent even the buyer was wheezing and dabbing at her eyes as she fumbled for her cash. The final visitor was a leathery activist in her sixties demanding I display one of her posters in the window: a call to arms ahead of the annual Tidy Towns competition.

‘We've been the
second
tidiest small town for three years running.' she explained. ‘And it's not good enough. This time around, it's personal – ' She was evaluating with a cold eye my frayed jeans and faded T-shirt. ‘… We're all in this together.'

I promised to put on a tie.

My mother arrived just as I was thinking about shutting up shop and going to find something to eat. I was tired and hungry.

‘Sorry I'm late, Pixie had a disaster with her vol-au-vents. How did you get on?'

‘Easy-peasy. The till was lit up like a pinball machine.'

‘That's wonderful dear. And were you polite to everyone?'

‘Positively smarmy … Mother?'

She picked up Fenton's note.

‘Yes, dear …'

‘What's an antimacassar?'

‘Mmm? Sorry, what?' As she read, she had the look of a field marshal receiving critical intelligence, her face tightening to a fox-like sharpness.

‘What's an antimacassar?'

‘An antimacassar? It's um … it's a cover to prevent gentlemen's hair oil staining the backs of chairs. Why?'

‘Do we have any?'

‘Don't be silly dear, they went out thirty years ago. Now, you probably want to go and get some lunch. Let me pay you …' She opened her handbag.

I made a parodic attempt to dissuade her.

‘Nonsense. You've done good work.' She pushed a twenty pound note at me. Just as she did so, her gaze snapped towards the Welsh dresser. ‘Oh, I don't believe it!' She took a step forward. ‘Someone bought the wig tree!' She beamed at me.

‘The what?'

‘The imitation Spode porcelain wig tree! I thought I'd never get rid of it.'

‘Yes. About that – '

‘Aren't you clever!'

‘Actually, I was about to tell you. There was a little accident – '

‘An accident?'

‘Yes. With the … with the wig tree. You see I was reaching up – '

‘You broke it?'

I became aware of a refrain running through my head, a piece of verse recited sing-song fashion by a small chorus of fairy children:
Lovely to look at, / Delightful to hold
 …

‘Well, it got broken, yes, but …' Surely not? Surely she wouldn't …?

Her palm was outstretched, her expression grave.

I returned the banknote.

 

*

 

Three days later I was back on the train, stretching out my aching limbs (a long session of garden duty) and enjoying the fading afternoon heat through sun-smeared windows. The lough, on my right for this, the return journey, was an expanse of silver dazzle, the cranes and gantries that marked the edge of the city a line of small, dark pictograms in the distance. (
See Belfast, devout and profane and hard, / Built on reclaimed mud, hammers playing in the shipyard, / Time punched with holes like a steel sheet …
) The change of scene had, I felt, done me good. Apart from a few misguided attempts to make me work or play golf, my parents had mostly gone about their business, leaving me alone to read books and revisit my record collection. I had eaten well, imbibed moderately, and slept soundly in my childhood bed, reunited with the ancient mattress as though it were a faithful old pet.

At the insistence of my mother half a lasagne and a Tupperware box of cold chicken were weighing down my rucksack. Tucked in the top was a gift from my father. He had called me aside a couple of hours before I left with the air of a man about to hand over something truly significant, the philosopher's stone, say, and I had briefly allowed myself to hope for my grandfather's gold Omega wristwatch, its casing worn to the silky smoothness of a pebble. It turned out to be a golf jersey the colour of arterial blood, featuring on its front a pink, yellow and black interference pattern so shocking I actually took a step back. ‘This is brand new stock,' he whispered. ‘Top of the range. The boys at the club would kill for it. I want you to have it.'

Refreshed as I was, though, the dread and despair from earlier in the week hadn't lifted entirely, The Hawk's ultimatum returning sporadically in an ominous monotone at the back of my head. The prospect of losing
Lyre
was … well, not pleasant. Okay, so it wasn't
The Paris Review
or
The Criterion
. It was a small, provincial magazine, with horribly inadequate production values and a readership you could probably squeeze into a minibus. But it was
our
small magazine. It functioned in interesting times, and once in a while we were proud of its contents. There was no doubt that if it came to the crunch I would miss the material benefits – the warm office, the beer money, the free envelopes and, let's face it, the custard creams – but I would mourn much more profoundly the lifestyle to which I'd grown accustomed:
the state of mind
. More immediately, I would have to brace myself for a torrent of unbearably righteous pity from my parents, and a prolonged display of Olympic-standard sneering from Fenton. And then there was Oliver. What would become of him in the outside world?

The train groaned to a standstill. Doors slammed. A man wheeling a bicycle stopped on the platform to exchange banter with the conductor – some rapid-fire speculation about the absence from work of a mutual friend. Then cackling laughter. ‘Right Jackie.' ‘Right Bob.' Two teenagers carrying fishing gear traipsed through the carriage, followed by a denim-clad woman struggling with a large baby. She paused to hoist it further up her hip and the child, resting its wobbling, outsized head on her shoulder, gazed down at me with scathing incuriosity.

There was no point trying to reason with The Hawk, that much was clear: his letter had positively reeked of excuse-repellent. He wanted the right stuff and he wanted it right now. But what could we do? We couldn't pluck poetry out of thin air. On the other hand we couldn't just slap our guns and badges on the table and walk away …