It
is good to acknowledge how well the group of readers was shepherded
by Priya during the absence of Joe, a testament to the lasting worth
of communal reading that every committed member of KRG feels. For
Joe's part the absence was more physical than mental, for his mind
would keep coming back to how he could contribute from afar. It is
now established that the simple use of the Dropbox enables
full-fledged participation at a distance, barring only the real-time
interaction.
Priya, Pamela, Zakia, Shoba, KumKum
Humour
has been a part of the annual reading at KRG, and some of our readers
have a predisposition to this genre, which makes people laugh about
absurd situations and improbable causes. Those have been the most
enjoyable sessions, though who could miss the abundant humour in
novels such as Herzog? As Dickens said: There is nothing in
the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.
Priya, Pamela, Zakia
We
congratulate Shoba who has been appointed to the Alliance Française
in Kochi and will assume her job there from Oct 2016. We hope she
remains a faithful reader at KRG. We are sad to bid goodbye to Gopa,
a diligent reader who left Kochi to join her husband, Michael, in
Bengaluru, after an ailment. Raksha will miss her even more than we
do.
Preeti wearing costume jewelry her sister designs and markets
KumKum
has been a cheerleader for KRG events and her being on Whatsapp has
increased the intensity of exchange between readings. Her readiness
to keep in touch with the readers has been a source of convivial
togetherness which I want to acknowledge.
Sunil. Zakia, Thommo, KumKum, Priya, Shoba, Pamela, Preeti, Joe
Tom Sharpe - The
Gropes
Full Account and Record
of the Reading on Sep 23, 2016
Author Tom Sharpe photographed in 2004 for the Daily Telegraph - he died in 2013 at age 85
Nine of us met for reading
The Gropes by Tom Sharpe, a comic novel selected by Thommo and
Priya. Chocolates were handed out by KumKum to acknowledge a happy
return to the bosom of KRG from a long sojourn abroad.
The
dates for the next readings were fixed as follows:
Tue
Oct 18, 2016, 5:30 pm – Poetry
Fri
Nov 11, 2016, 5:30 pm – Brideshead Revisited by
Evelyn Waugh
Fri
Dec 2, 2016, 5:30 pm – Poetry
Flowers for writer Tom Sharpe, at Throcklington Church
1.
Thommo
Thommo
introduced the author, Tom Sharpe, saying he is the P.G. Wodehouse of
the current era. In his comedies the police are habitually made to
look like buffoons. His characters are a motley assortment of people,
each of whom has a kink of some kind. The Gropes' estate in
Northumberland is much like one of the lordly manors in which PGW set
his farces. And the blowsy Vera Wiley is similar to Aunt Agatha.
Wilt
is his best novel so far, said Thommo who has a copy, but the present
one came so late in his career that even Al Qaida is mentioned. For
an interview with Tom Sharpe, see
On how Sharpe earned his
seat at the high table of campus humour, read this from The
Guardian
Tom Sharpe was against
apartheid in the heyday of S African colonialism. The dedication to
doctors in Catalunya shows he fell ill there and was saved by their
medical intervention. Thommo learned that Catalan is a mixture of
Spanish and French by reading this novel. It is quite close to Latin.
Shoba, KumKum, Sunil, Thommo
KumKum
mentioned Indira Outcalt, former KRG member, being 'surprised' that
this novel was chosen and asked who selected it. Why surprised? At
KRG we read all kinds of fiction, not classics alone. Thommo pointed
to all the unread books in the CYC library around us and rhetorically
questioned the interest classics hold for moderns. We had another
modern-age humorist, Kingsley Amis (Lucky
Jim, Dec 2011), also
selected by Thommo and Priya.
Priya pointing to KumKum
and Joe said it was “so nice to have you back in the reading.”
The passage chosen by
Thommo was from Ch 5. Horace Wiley recoils from his son's likeness
to himself (“mirror image of his youthful self, awash with
burgeoning manhood”). Returning home one evening from an extended
session in the pub, he takes up a knife to stab his son, Esmond.
Vera, his wife, thinks he suffers from delirium tremens, but a close
encounter with his breath confirms he's merely sloshed.
The number of laughs
elicited among the listeners as Thommo read confirmed the novel was
indeed comic in sketching situations that are improbable and that is
the source of its humour. Moreover, in such a gathering one chortle
by a listener suffices to set the whole group erupting in chuckles.
At least six phrases in the passage caused such perturbations!
2.
Sunil
Suspicion about novel
completion falls upon readers who choose to start on page 1. Sunil,
however, showed that Ch 1, about
how the House of Grope is said to have originated, lets loose the
humour of Tom Sharpe from the very outset. It is a historical fact
the Nordic invaders pillaged the monasteries and nunneries of
England, Scotland and Ireland for the unguarded wealth they held in
the form of sacred gold vessels, but from that to the launch of a
new tribe ( “Ursula insisted that Awgard the Pale save her honour
as an unraped nun and do his duty by her”) requires the
wild imagination of a Tom Sharpe.
Preeti, Priya, Pamela, Zakia
The number count of giggles
in the audience was even higher in this passage. No doubt Tom Sharpe
as a novelist knew how to make his beginnings count and draw in
readers. The fact that the female line prevailed among the Gropes has
an analogue in classical Nair customs in Kerala where matriarchy was
the norm, and matrilineal inheritance the custom. But Nair women did
not have to mud-wrestle suitors into acquiescing for service. The
practice of Sambandham essentially gave a Nair woman the
liberty to initiate, consent to, or terminate a sexual relationship
with any man.(http://historyofnairs.blogspot.in/)
3.
KumKum
Vera Wiley is under a
misapprehension in Ch 17, imagining she has her husband Horace locked
up in his room, when in fact he has taken the chance to escape
forever from bondage to bank job and wife, and secure his freedom
from the 'ever-lurking' look-alike son, Esmond. Meanwhile her
sister-in-law, Belinda drives through the night to make it back to
Grope Hall and refashion the matriarchal society she was born into.
Not a laugh in this passage, even one set off by an unmindful titter
among the listeners. Here's a contrast with PGW whose every page
gleamed with some nonsense or farcical situation. Tom Sharpe is often
reduced to writing fillers for continuity.
Shoba, KumKum, Sunil, Thommo, Preeti, Priya, Pamela, Zakia
4.
Zakia
This passage from Ch 25, in
which the police fumble and fume while trying to make sense of Vera
Wiley's deposition, rang with group laughter in the reading. Well
chosen! Tom Sharpe brings out the obtuseness of the police; he also
has hilarious barbs about the euphemisms with which sex talk is
ordinarily clouded.
Preeti, Shoba, KumKum
5.
Pamela
It is a kind of idyll on
which the novel ends, the retreat of Belinda Ponson to Grope Hall,
recreating the old ways there. Esmond the wayward lad, her nephew
whom Belinda wants to take in hand and have children by, grows up and
develops a sort of cunning never foreseen. He wants to be the master:
“You're never going back
there, Belinda,' he began, adopting a stern look. 'You're going to
stay here and you're going to damned well do as I say from now on.”
Magically he succeeds in
inverting the centuries-old male-female power structure and at the
end Belinda complies willingly:
”Well, you're the boss,
my love. You make the decisions.”
And with that the novel
concludes. Thommo pointed out that in ancient times a good part of
Europe was matriarchal, though not necessarily matrilineal. He cited
the book Volga se Ganga by Rahul Sankrityaan:
It is a collection of short
stories about travels the author undertook, throwing light on
societies he encountered.
6.
Priya
The passage is a fine
example of an inspired imagination taking off on a commonplace
subject. The obscene drawing on the wall of the lavatory of the
Wileys' house expands in terms of the consequences: the art grows as
the visitor sits on the pot, the painting cannot be obscured even by
seven coats of emulsion, the visitor's husband manages an overdraft
at Horace Wiley's bank by threatening to reveal the lewdness going on
in their house, and finally the anatomical part gets named! It wasn't
abstract art after all, but very realistic representation. But where
did Esmond get his inspiration?
Architect Zaha Hadid's Al-Wakrah stadium in Doha has been compared to a vagina, but she dismisses the claim
Priya chose the passage
well, for cackling and chortling peppered the reading throughout, and
Joe not catching a word had to ask for a reiteration twice. Ah, what
fun, jejune but fun.
Pamela mentioned that many
mothers trot out their children before visitors to show off their
attainments in music, singing or recitation. Thommo said the piano is
okay, because even if the tot can't play with any feeling for the
music the notes are there on the keys; but with stringed instruments
it can grate something awful if a untalented kid is told to scrape
away to entertain visitors.
From there to nicknames for
people. Sunil said in his time there was an Anglo-Indian lady, so
wide that they called her 'Almari Missy' (lady as wide as a
cupboard); another was called 'Cut-puff' because mutton puffs would
be quartered before serving to visitors in her house; a foreigner
called David McCarrick was called 'Makri sahib' (frog gentleman) on
account of his visage. Joe chimed in that the late father of a person
he became acquainted with was called 'Tavala Cherian' (frog Cherian)
because he had established himself in the frog-legs export business.
Sunil recalled there was in Kottayam a schoolmaster called 'Itto-sar'
('put it sir') because he got incensed in class at a pupil and
threatened to put a black mark against his name, when back came the
answer 'itto-sar!' Later the schoolmaster's son was called
'Koch-itto' (small put it). Pamela said when she tells her name to
Malayalam speakers they call her either pām-ela
(leaf of a palm tree) or plāv-ela (leaf of a jackfruit tree).
Thommo referred to there
being tons of Koshy jokes, and at his former company to distinguish
between two Thomases with initials AM and PM, one was called Morning
Thomas, and the other Evening Thomas; the Thomas with initial WC was
labelled 'Kakoose' Thomas, i.e., Water Closet Thomas in Malayalam.
7.
Joe
The passage comes from the
end of the novel when Horace Wiley signs off with a flourish in the
company of Elsie in Catalunya. Priya and Zakia laughed, having
guessed that's where Joe would go to read!
Elsie was in it for the
fun, not for the money. Priya asked: are deaths during love-making
common? Titillating laughter greeted the question. But it is a germane
concern in a senior milieu. Joe said there is, in fact, an asymmetry
regarding sexual activity in older men and women — men's risk for
cardiovascular disease increases while women's risk decreases. He
promised a reference for Priya, and here it is cited from the Journal
of Health and Social Behavior at
Thommo added that he has
heard of people dying from taking Viagra. There is a literature on
this too. It is a prescription drug and needs to be administered
under medical supervision. But Thommo opined that it was a good day
for Horace's taking off, seeing as he experienced more orgasms on the
one day than he had during a lifetime of staid existence by Vera's
side! Would it have been more dramatic if he had keeled over in the
arms of Elsie?
Reading this book one comes
to appreciate how difficult it is to write a comic novel that will
make the reader laugh, or at least smile, throughout. There are many
scenes that a standup comedian could employ to make people laugh by
narrating it, such as the demise of Horace after his arduous
love-making with Elsie, but it is light fluff as you read it.
Similarly, the Fall of the House of Ponson would make a hilarious
scene in a film, but somehow it doesn’t provoke mirth if you are
merely reading it on a page. I think the novel lacks knock-out punch
lines that would make you fall backwards in your chair, or cause your
bed to quiver like jelly if you are reclining while reading.
However, there is magic in
reading humorous passages with congenial people for company. Being
with KRG folk made reading the few chosen passages from The Gropes
a completely different experience for Joe than reading the whole
book privately in silence.
One concludes that Tom
Sharpe is not sharp in this novel in a comic vein if you are just
reading the book; unlike his hero Wodehouse who never fails to amuse
on every page. At most you can say Sharpe is a satirist, e.g. poking
fun at the mores of society by inverting the male-female roles within
the Grope matriarchy, or making the police out to be incompetent
morons. The ending is flat, as though the author ran out of juice and
hastily wound up the novel to make it ready for the publisher. Thommo
maintains Sharpe's novel Wilt is much better ('A very antic
novel by the very funny Tom Sharpe'). For those interested here it
is:
8.
Preeti
Preeti made her entrance
just in time before we closed the proceedings and read us the passage
where Esmond comes into his own and discovers his metier in Ch 29 on
the Grope Farm.
Readings
1.
Thommo
Ch 5 – Horace Wiley's
reacts to his son Esmond, a mirror image of his youthful self, and
tries to stab him when more than mildly in the cups
Horace Wiley had in recent
weeks developed some slight affection for his son - a boy who could
provide him with the means of silencing so voluble a wife, even if
this required obscene drawings in the downstairs toilet and the
expense of replacing the plaster and redecorating the place, could
not be all bad.
He even forgave him the
appalling din of the drums. They had, after all, driven Horace from
the house early enough in the morning to avoid the rush hour and
provided him with a perfectly legitimate excuse for coming home late
in the evening with his morale reinforced by a couple of large
Scotches at the Gibbet & Goose, the local pub. And now that he
came to think of it, Mrs Wiley's encounter with the Noise Abatement
Officer and the threat of being prosecuted had been no bad thing
either. It had lessened Vera's sense of authority, as had the scandal
of the 'growing' whatnot in the lavatory and Mrs Lumsden’s account
of her experience there.
In short, Horace Wiley had
come to appreciate Esmond's destructive gifts, so far removed from
his own cautious and fearful existence. His early revulsion at
finding the lad who could, to all intents and purposes, be his double
lurking about the place was replaced with a new warmth towards the
boy, coupled with a deep admiration for his spirit.
And so it was that when
these early signs of rebellion had dissipated themselves and a
reformed Esmond instead began to model himself once again on his
father, Mr Wiley's new-found fondness entirely evaporated.
Being himself was bad
enough, and indeed Horace had always found looking at his face in the
bathroom mirror while shaving an especially dispiriting experience.
But then to look up from his plate of porridge at breakfast and see a
younger version of himself, a dreadful replica, seated across the
table duplicating his own actions and even eating porridge in the
same way and with the same sort of reluctance - Vera insisted that
porridge was the healthiest food for his heart - did nothing for his
state of mind.
Or, for that matter, for
his health. Never good, Horace Wiley's body now reacted to this
mirror image of his youthful self, awash with burgeoning manhood, or
manhood as burgeoning as one would expect from a burgeoning bank
manager in Croydon, by plunging paradoxically into premature old age,
as if to escape the torment of this unwanted recognition.
At forty-five, Horace Wiley
looked sixty, and a year later had so much the appearance of a man of
sixty-five that a visiting manager from the Lowland Bank's head
office went so far as to enquire what he intended to do the next year
when he retired. That evening, Mr Wiley returned from the Gibbet &
Goose with six double Scotches inside him instead of the usual two.
'Of course I'm drunk,' he
told his wife with some difficulty when she accused him. 'And you'd
be drunk too if you could see yourself like I do.'
Mrs Wiley had been
understandably furious.
'Don't you dare talk to me
like that,' she shouted. 'You married me for better or for worse and
it's not my fault I am not as beautiful as I once was.'
'True, very true,' said
Horace who found the statement peculiar. He had never found her
beautiful so he couldn't see why she should raise the issue now.
Before he could puzzle this out and find a kitchen chair to slump
into, she went on.
'You should take a look at
yourself,' she snapped.
Horace peered at her and
tried to focus. There appeared to be two of her.
'I do. All the time,' he
muttered, making for the chair. 'It's unbearable. It's awful. I can't
escape looking at myself. I'm . . . he's always there. Always bloody
there.'
It was his wife's turn to
peer. She wasn't used to dealing with drunks and in any case she had
never seen Horace more than mildly in his cups before. To have him
come home in this awful condition only to insult her and then,
slumped in a kitchen chair, to start talking about himself in the
third person suggested more than mere drunkenness. Something more
organic, perhaps even dementia, briefly crossed her mind before a
whiff, in fact a veritable blast, of Scotch hit her as Horace
struggled to his feet with an ashen face.
'There it is again,' he
screamed staring wildly past her at the kitchen door. 'And now there
are two of me. And what are they doing in my pyjamas?'
Mrs Wiley glanced
apprehensively over her shoulder. She had DTs on her mind now.
Perhaps Horace had been a secret drinker and the stuff had finally
caught up with him, sending him crazy. But it was only Esmond,
lurking. Before she could point out this seemingly obvious fact
Horace started again.
'Out, damned spot! Out, I
say!' he yelled, the overdose of Scotch evidently combining with
vivid memories of a school trip to the Old Vic. 'One, two: why then,
'tis time to do it. Hell is murky!'
Grabbing a carving knife,
Horace drunkenly advanced on his son, lunged at him and fell flat on
his face.
'What's up with Dad?'
Esmond asked, as Vera knelt by Horace and removed the knife.
'He's not himself,' she
answered. 'Or he seems to think someone else is him. Or something.
Leave off lurking, Esmond, and help get your father sorted before I
ring for an ambulance.'
Together they dragged
Horace up the stairs and put him to bed, by which time Vera had
decided not to call the doctor after all. Instead she phoned her
brother Albert who said he'd come over in the morning.
'But I need you now,' Vera
insisted. 'Horace has just tried to stab Esmond. He's out of his
mind.'
Albert kept his thoughts
about his brother-in-law's mental condition to himself and put the
phone down. He was over the alcohol limit himself and he had no
intention of losing his licence for no better reason than that Horace
Wiley had tried to do what any sane father would have done years ago.
2.
Sunil
Ch 1 – How the House
of Grope is said to have been created.
It is one of the more
surprising facts about Old England that one can still find families
living in the same houses their ancestors built centuries before and
on land that has belonged to them since before the Norman Conquest.
The Gropes of Grope Hall are one such family.
Neither rich nor titled and
having never excited the envy of their more powerful and influential
neighbours, the Gropes had kept their heads down, worked fields still
bearing the same names as they had in the twelfth century, and had
gone about their business without taking the slightest interest in
politics, religion or anything else that could have got them into
trouble. In most cases this was not due to any deliberate policy. On
the contrary, it had to do with inertia and the determination not to
be burdened with ambitious and able offspring.
The Gropes of Grope Hall
can be found in the County of Northumberland. They are said to be
able to trace their ancestry back to a Danish Viking, one Awgard the
Pale, who had been so seasick on the voyage over the North Sea that
he had deserted the raiding party while it was sacking the nunnery at
Elnmouth. Instead of raping nuns, as he was supposed to do, he had
thrown himself on the mercy of a skivvy he had come across in the
bakehouse, who was trying to make up her mind whether or not she
wanted to be raped. Not being in the least beautiful and having twice
been turned down by Viking raiding parties, Ursula Grope was
delighted to be chosen by the handsome Awgard and led him away from
the appalling orgy in the sacked nunnery to the isolated valley of
Mosedale and the sod hut in which she had been born. The return of
the daughter he had hoped he had seen the last of - and in the
company of the enormous Awgard the Pale - had so terrified her
father, a simple swineherd, that he hadn't waited to find out the
Viking's real intentions but had taken to his heels and was last
heard of near York selling hot chestnuts. Having saved Awgard from
the horrors of the return journey to Denmark, Ursula insisted that he
save her honour as an unraped nun and do his duty by her. It is thus
that the House of Grope is said to have been created.
Awgard changed his name to
Grope, and so alarmed were the few inhabitants of Mosedale by his
size and awful melancholy that Ursula, now Mrs Grope, was in time
able to take possession of their thousands of acres of uninhabited
moorland and eventually to establish the Grope dynasty.
As the centuries passed,
the family legend and the dark secret of their origins encouraged
succeeding generations of Gropes to keep themselves to themselves.
They need hardly have bothered. The strain of melancholy and aversion
to travel that had so afflicted Awgard continued in the Grope blood.
But it was the Grope women
whose influence was most profound. To be twice rejected by Vikings,
not normally discriminating in their choice of victims, as unworthy
of violation had clearly left a psychological scar on the Founding
Mother. Having secured Awgard she was determined never to let him go.
She was also determined to hang on to the thousands of acres that his
gloomy aspect and dangerous reputation had secured. That the Viking
was in fact a deserter and terrified of the sea made both tasks easy.
Awgard was always at home and refused even to go to the market in
Brithbury or to the annual pig-gelding fair and mud-wrestling on
Wellwark Fell. It was left to his wife and their five daughters to
drive hard bargains at the market and indulge in the dubious
activities at the fair. Since the daughters took after their father
in size and strength and had inherited his red hair while combining
these assets with the unprepossessing looks and determination of
their mother, the result of the said mud-wrestling matches was never
in doubt. Here, as in all matters involving the Grope women, the
female line prevailed. Indeed, whereas in every other family, the
eldest son succeeded to the estate, with the Gropes it was the eldest
daughter who took over the Grope acres.
This became such a firmly
established tradition that it was widely rumoured that, on those
infrequent occasions when the firstborn was a boy, the infant was
strangled at birth. Whatever the truth, it was certain that over the
years the Gropes produced an unusually large number of baby girls,
though this may have been due less to male infanticide than to the
fact that either by choice or the Grope women's overt masculinity,
the men they married tended to be somewhat effeminate.
Following the tradition
laid down by the Founding Mother, the bridegrooms were forced to
change their names to Grope. All too frequently they were forced into
these marriages themselves. No ordinarily virile man would willingly
have proposed to a Miss Grope even in his cups, and it may well have
been as a result of the Misses Gropes' insistence on challenging
local bachelors to a bout of mud-wrestling at Wellwark Fair that the
event lost its attraction and finally died out. Even the most
stalwart wrestlers hesitated before accepting the challenge. Too many
young men had emerged from the ordeal half choked with mud and unable
to deny that in the contest they had proposed to their opponents.
Besides, the Grope girls were too formidably united to brook any
denials. On one dreadful occasion a fiancé who had the temerity to
say, when he could get the mud out of his mouth, that he would rather
die than go to the altar and become Mr Grope, was hurled into the mud
pool and held under until his determination was fulfilled.
3.
KumKum
Chs 17 & 18 – Vera
Wiley decides Horace is not worth the trouble of remaining married;
Belinda Ponson comes home to Grope Hall
Chapter 17
Vera Wiley remained
miserably awake. She had lost her love child to the Ponsons and, with
unusual insight, she realised that they were bound to lead him into
bad ways. It was all Horace's fault. For the first time in her life,
Vera lost her faith in the fantasy world of the romantic trash she
had marinated her mind in for so many years. The only thing she could
hope for was that Horace would come to his senses so that Esmond
would be able to return home as soon as possible. In the meantime she
would keep Horace on short rations and let him suffer. She hadn't
bothered to give him supper and she had half a mind to let him go
without his breakfast too. He was going to learn not to drink himself
into a nervous breakdown, and if he didn't like it, he could divorce
her. She wouldn't care. She no longer had any illusions about him.
Chapter 18
Belinda Ponson had no
sooner left the garage in the Aston Martin than she realised she had
made a mistake in taking the car. It was far too conspicuous for her
journey So she drove to Albert's second-hand car lot, grabbed the
keys to a Ford from the office cupboard and, after a bit of a
struggle, managed to transfer the still-comatose Esmond to the back
seat. There were several similar cars in the lot and it was unlikely
to be missed immediately To confuse the situation still further, she
then drove the Aston Martin to the hospital car park where she
abandoned it, before walking back to the car lot.
Esmond still lolled as she
had left him. The time was ten forty-five and she had a long drive
ahead of her. As she drove, she laid her plans. She would stick to
side roads to avoid the CCTV cameras on the motorway, and go across
country rather than direct. This would make the journey much longer,
but it was worth it. Nobody, particularly Albert, must know where
she'd gone. And so she drove through the night without tiring and
kept well within the speed limit.
It was just as the eastern
sky was beginning to lighten and full dawn was soon to break that the
old Ford breasted a long steep hill. Belinda cut the engine and sat
still until it was possible to see the landscape far below. Its
bleakness was entirely as she remembered it from her childhood
holidays. She had been happy then and that sense of happiness now
flooded back to her. Nothing had changed. In the distance she could
make out the looming shape of Grope Hall. In her own way she was
coming home.
4.
Zakia
Ch 25 – The chief
inspector of police is perplexed questioning Vera Wiley as to why her
husband, Horace, tried to stab his son, Esmond
Vera Wiley, who had been
sedated in A & E, had recovered completely by the time the
superintendent arrived at the hospital. She sat up in bed and
demanded her clothes. The superintendent told the doctor to move the
bed into a private room and the doctor was only too happy to oblige.
The other patients in the ward cheered. They were sick to death of
Mrs Wiley screaming she wanted her darling love child Esmond back.
'Who is Esmond? Is he your
husband?' asked the superintendent who had just been rung up by the
Home Secretary's top assistant calling to tell him that the job of
the police of whatever rank was to arrest criminals and not to
destroy houses. He rang off before the superintendent could answer.
'He told me, "You can
leave that to al-Qaeda,"' the superintendent told Vera.
'You mean my brother. He's
not called Kyder. His name is Albert Ponson. Where's he got to? I
left Esmond with him and he's supposed to be protecting him from my
husband who tried to murder him.'
'What a pity he didn't
succeed,' murmured the superintendent, thoroughly sick of the lot of
them, and then immediately regretted it. Vera leapt out of bed and
hurled her full weight on him. As his chair fell back onto the floor
he landed on his back and slashed his head on the edge of the bedside
cupboard. A doctor and two nurses carried him on a stretcher to have
ten stitches in Accident and Emergency.
The chief inspector took
over when several policemen had managed to force Vera back into bed
and put handcuffs on her ankles.
'Try leaping out of bed
with them on and you'll break your blasted legs,' she was told.
Vera lay back on the pillow
weeping. 'I want to know what my brother Albert has done with Esmond.
My husband tried to kill him. I've told you that before.'
'You mean he tried to kill
Mr Ponson. Why did he want to do that?'
'Because he said there were
three of him.'
'Three of him? Your husband
has a twin brother? I mean, he has two twin brothers, like he's a
triplet, is that what you're telling me? How do you know who's making
love to you if that's the case?'
'I don't know what you're
talking about,' screamed Vera.
'That makes two of us. Oh,
of course, your husband tried to kill three bloody Ponsons. Well, I
can't say I blame him. One Al is crooked enough.'
Vera stared at him
dementedly.
'I didn’t say that.
You're putting words in my mouth,' Vera whimpered, wishing he could
put some sensible ones in.
The chief inspector did his
best to clear his mind and then started again.
'Just tell me who tried to
kill two people. That's all I want to find out.'
'Horace did.'
'And Horace is your
husband?'
'Of course he is. We've
been married for twenty years.'
'OK. I've got that. So now
he's gone down with some illness and you say he tried to kill Esmond.
And Esmond is your only son?'
'Yes. He tried to stab him
with the carving knife.'
The chief inspector came up
with what he thought was a reasonable question.
'And was Esmond his real
son? I mean, you hadn't been having it off with another man and got a
bun in the oven from this other bloke?'
The expression was not one
Vera knew.
'How could I have? I was
cooking supper at the time. '
I mean, had you been having
a love affair with a man who wasn't your husband and got pregnant
when he ejaculated?'
'When he what?' asked Vera,
whose romantic reading had limited her vocabulary.
'When he came his load.'
'Load? What do you mean?'
'All right, let's just say
making love.'
'But if we were he'd have
had to be there. Not that we were.
'Oh never mind. What I am
trying to ascertain is why your husband tried to stab your son.
That's all. He must have had a reason.'
'He said it was because
Esmond was exactly like him.'
'I should have thought that
would have reassured him you weren’t having an affair with another
man,' the chief inspector said.
'But I've told you, I'm not
like that. I've always been completely faithful.'
The chief inspector could
well believe it. Even a sex maniac wouldn't have been attracted to
Mrs Wiley. Her husband must be utterly hideous himself. On this note
he stopped the interview and went to see how the superintendent was
getting on. He wasn't. The stitches hadn't taken and were having to
be redone.
'It's bloody hell. Much
more of this and I'll go off my rocker too.' 'Makes two of us. This
is the weirdest case I've ever tried to understand.'
5.
Pamela
Ch 39 & Ch 43 the
end – Esmond plots to ensure that this new-found happiness will
continue at Grope Hall, but he inverts the male-female power
structure there after eliminating the possibility of bigamy.
At Grope Hall, Esmond was
happy too and was busy plotting to ensure that this new-found
happiness continued. His previous existence had nothing to offer
compared with his new life here. He could scarcely believe he was the
same person when he thought back to that insipid fellow lurking
around the place and imitating his weakling of a bank manager father
for want of anything better to do.
The one thing that still
puzzled him was the prospect of having to marry his Aunt Belinda. He
wasn't at all sure that he really wanted to and, moreover, he really
didn't understand why, or even how it could be done.
Despite Belinda's claim of
having divorced his uncle he was sure she was still married. Besides,
she was a lot older than he was - she must be in her late thirties or
even forty
- and he'd always imagined
he would marry someone his own age and not someone who was actually
old enough to be his mother.
Belinda had said they'd get
married in the little chapel by the rose garden. He'd been into it
several times and it was quite pretty with three stained-glass panels
above the altar - not a bad place to get married at all. Something
about the single grave in the chapel did puzzle him. It was longer
than any grave he'd ever seen in a church and the gravestone had sunk
several inches at one end. It was strange, but then everything at
Grope Hall was odd. The fact remained she was almost certainly still
married to that drunkard Uncle Albert. If he wasn't her husband and
they had got divorced he was sure his mother would have mentioned it.
If they were still husband
and wife then Belinda would be committing bigamy if she took another
husband and that was a crime. He'd learnt that from his father who
had been doing the crossword in TheTimesseveral years before. He had
tried 'bigot' but that was too short and 'bigotry' which had been too
long. Finally he had found what he needed in 'bigamy'.
'What's bigamy, Dad?'
'It's spelt with an "a"
not an "o", boy. And if it were not a crime I would happily
commit bigamy to get away from . . . Oh, never mind. Go and find
something to do. Life's difficult enough with your mother around, the
last thing I need is you lurking around the place.'
On the other hand, Esmond
really didn't want to have to go home again. He liked life at Grope
Hall and enjoyed working on the thousands of acres around it. He felt
himself to be a power in the land he was supposed, as Joe Grope, to
run. He was absolutely certain that there were more advantages to be
had from his new name if only he could think of exactly what they
might be. And of course if he could make sure that neither Belinda
nor that old hag Myrtle got in the way of his plans.
The key thing was that he
definitely didn't want to go back to Croydon - or, worse still, to
Essexford - and to the suffocating sentimentality of his mother, let
alone his mad and murderous father.
Lying on his side beside
the piglets' run, Esmond found his thoughts strangely returning to
the consequences of bigamy. As Joe Grope married to Belinda, might he
be in a position to have her sent to prison for bigamy? And actually,
now he came to think of it, for kidnapping him as well? After all, he
hadn't asked to come out to this empty landscape. He'd been too drunk
at the time - in fact, he'd been unconscious.
The more Esmond thought
about it, the better he liked his power and position and the more he
liked his plan. He'd go through with the marriage and once that was
over he'd put the boot into Belinda. To add to his innocence and her
guilt, she had stolen the car and had then insisted it was buried in
the coal mine. And Myrtle had collaborated, by ordering Esmond and
Old Samuel to carry out the crime.
With a degree of confidence
in himself he had never felt before, Esmond crept close to the wall
surrounding the yard and made his way unseen until he was under the
kitchen window where he could hear what was being said inside.
...
Ch 43
'Well, you're a very rich
man now. You can do what you like, buy what you like, go where you
like. You can - '
'Balls!' Esmond exploded.
'I know what I'm going to do, or rather we are. We're going to go
halves. You found the stuff which is more than I could ever have done
in a million years though how the hell you knew it was there I can't
even begin to imagine.'
Jeremy laughed. 'Think of
that iron slab and the inscription on it in lousy verse. That told me
there was something more than a skeleton with a spade down there,
though I didn't expect it would be a fortune in gold sovereigns.'
'Which we're splitting
because of our genuine friendship. And now I'd better be getting back
to the Hall. I've something to say to my new bride.'
Esmond found Belinda in the
garden with a large bunch of red roses which she was putting in a
bowl.
'Isn't it wonderful to be
here,' she said. 'I loved it as a child when I visited in the summer
but it's even better now I've escaped from that dreadful Albert and
his horrible bungalow. You've no idea how I hated living there.'
'I can imagine,' said
Esmond who, now that he thought about it, really could imagine how
dreadful life with his uncle must have been. Even more alarmingly,
the very thought of Belinda in another man's arms made him feel quite
ill. Whatever had come over him?
'You're never going back
there, Belinda,' he began, adopting a stern look. 'You're going to
stay here and you're going to damned well do as I say from now on.
I've been thinking about it and I love the peaceful natural life I
have here and I'm going to stay and be a farmer but I can't hold with
you slipping me sleeping tablets and telling me what to do and say
all the time. I want a proper wife: one who looks after me properly
else there's going to be hell to pay. And what's more Old Samuel
isn't going to be called Old Samuel any longer. It isn't even his
name. He's going to be called Jeremy, Young Jeremy for now and then
when he's old, Old Jeremy. And what's even more, Old Samuel - I mean
Young Jeremy - isn't going to work for us any more because he and I
are going to go into partnership. He's come into some money and we've
decided that we're going to go into business breeding bulls as well
as running the farm. You're to have nothing to do with any of it
although you can feed the piglets from time to time if you've a mind
to . . . And, and . . .'
'Well, you're the boss, my
love. You make the decisions.'
6.
Priya
Ch 3 – Esmond lurks,
develops musically, and decorates toilets with parts of a woman's
anatomy
At ten and even eleven
years, Esmond was a singularly quiet child who communicated, when he
spoke at all, only with Sackbut the cat, a neutered (a symbolic act
on Mrs Wiley's part and one that had more to do with Horace Wileys
lack of performance than with Sackbut’s personal propensities),
obese animal who slept around the clock and only roused himself to
eat.
Things might have gone on
this way for ever, with Esmond conversing only with the impotent
Sackbut and lurking in Croydon corners and never going near
Northumberland, let alone any of the Gropes, had puberty not had a
peculiar impact on the boy.
At the age of fourteen,
Esmond suddenly changed, and in direct contrast to the timidity of
his early years took to expressing his feelings with a vehemence that
was deafening. In fact, quite literally deafening. The day before
Esmond's fourteenth birthday, Mr Wiley, returning from an enervating
day at the bank, was appalled to find the house reverberating to the
sound of drums.
...
Defeated in the matter of
her son's musical development, Mrs Wiley still persisted in her
belief that the newly transformed Esmond was naturally artistic.
However, after he had expressed himself visually with an indelible
felt-tip pen in the downstairs toilet, even she had some reservations
about him becoming a painter. Mr Wiley's reservations were total.
'I am not having the house
desecrated simply because you think he's Picasso come back from the
grave, and the cost . . . when I think of the cost of redecoration!
The repairs will come to several hundred pounds thanks to that damned
felt-tip pen.'
'I'm sure Esmond didn't
know it would permeate the plaster like that.'
But Mr Wiley wasn't to be
diverted.
'Seven coats of emulsion
and it still showed through, and where has he seen a woman's whatnot
like that? That's what I'd like to know.'
Mrs Wiley preferred not to
look at it like that.
'We don't know it was what.
. . what you think,' she said, drawing him into a trap. 'That's just
your dirty imagination. I didn't see it as any part of anyone's
anatomy. I saw it as purely abstract, as line and shape and form and
- '
'Line and shape and form of
what?' demanded her husband. 'Well, I'll tell you what Mrs Lumsden
saw it as. She - '
'I don't want to hear. I
won't listen,' Mrs Wiley said, and then saw her opportunity. 'And how
do you know what she saw? Are you saying Mrs Lumsden told you she
thought it was a . . .'
'Mr Lumsden did,' said Mr
Wiley as his wife ground to a halt before the unspeakable. 'He came
in to the bank to ask about extending his overdraft and just happened
to mention at the same time that his damned wife had been fascinated
to see the drawing of a woman's fanny on our lavatory wall when she
came round for coffee with you the other morning.'
'Oh no, she can't have. It
had been painted over by then.'
'So it had. Twice but it
still came through the emulsion. Mrs Lumsden told her husband it
actually grew as she sat there.'
'I don't believe it. How
could it grow? Drawings don't grow. She's invented the whole thing.'
Horace Wiley said that was
hardly the point. The point was that Mrs Lumsden had seen the . . .
well, the bloody thing growing . . . all right, not growing,
appearing through the emulsion as she sat there, and that scoundrel
Lumsden had the nerve to try to increase his overdraft by threatening
to let it be known that the Wileys, or more precisely Horace Wiley,
made a habit of drawing vulvas, - yes, to hell with whatnots and
fannies, let's get down to nitty-gritties - on the wall of his
lavatory and that being the case
'You are not going to let
him? You can't possibly allow him . . .' Mrs Wiley squawked.
Horace Wiley seemed to look
at his wife for the first and, possibly, the last time.
'Of course I denied
everything,' he said slowly, and paused. 'I told him to bloody well
come and check for himself if he didn't believe me. Which is why the
plasterers are arriving to repair the rest of the damage tomorrow.
'More damage? What damage?'
'The damage done by a litre
of Domestos, a hammer and a blowtorch I paid twenty-five pounds for.
And if you don't believe me, go and have a look yourself.'
Mrs Wiley had already gone
and from the silence that followed Horace knew that for the first
time in their married life he had achieved the seemingly impossible.
She had nothing to say and the question of Esmond's artistic
education was shelved for good.
7.
Joe
Ch 38 & 41 –
Horace Wiley signs off with a flourish in the company of Elsie in
Catalunya. 748 words
p.214 They went up in the
lift to end of ch 38
p.225 from beginning of
Chapter 41 to ‘effect of his sudden death.’
They went up in the lift
and Horace was surprised that Elsie nestled up close to him although
there was no one else with them. As they entered his room he was even
more surprised when she locked the door. The next moment she'd taken
her blouse off and was busy removing her bra. He gaped at her and
groped for the Glenmorangie. She stopped him.
'That's for afterwards,'
she said.
He sat down on the bed. The
whisky was taking effect.
'What do you mean,
afterwards?' he gasped. 'After what?'
'After what we've both been
longing for. You don't imagine for a moment that I don't know what
effect a pair of binoculars staring every day at semi-naked girls and
practically salivating over them can have? Oh yes, two people can buy
binoculars. I followed you and was watching you when you bought them
and the moment you came out I went in and bought an even more
powerful pair.'
She laughed as he stared at
her.
'But where were you? I
didn't see you.'
'Of course you didn't. Look
over there at that red umbrella. I cut a hole in it and I look
through it every day with a towel over my legs to keep the sun off.'
Horace stared at her even
more intensely. She was lying on the bed with only her panties on.
'Why did you pick on me?'
he said.
She smiled. 'Because you're
an innocent, my dear. Because you are a typically English innocent -
and shy with it. One thing I am certain of: you're not going to hurt
me. I've had enough of sadism. Now get undressed and we'll make
love.'
Horace went into the
bathroom, had a quick shower and came out naked and pink. As they
clasped each other and Elsie squeezed his scrotum gently, Horace had
his first glorious orgasm for many years. He rolled off her and knew
he had fallen in love. By the time they went down to an excellent
lunch he was made happier still by the knowledge that he finally knew
what passionate love was and that Elsie's room was not far away.
…
Chapter 41
In his room in the Catalan
hotel, Horace Wiley was having a wonderful time. He had made love in
a few hours more times than he had in his entire married life, and
while he was now so exhausted he could no longer achieve yet another
orgasm, he still had an erection and could fondle his lover's
buttocks and kiss her breasts to his heart's delight.
Eventually, and with some
reluctance, he broke off to go downstairs to the dining room with
Elsie. Lunch was a splendid affair since after all his lovemaking
Horace found that he had a huge appetite. He devoured a large
plateful of Iberian ham and followed it with an enormous pork cutlet
and finally a double ice cream and three coffees. Feeling pleasantly
full, Horace and Elsie left the dining room and returned to his
bedroom. Horace had just undressed and was about to climb onto the
bed with the thought that this was heaven when he slumped to the
floor with a terrible thump. Elsie jumped out and knelt beside him to
feel his pulse. To her horror she couldn't find one in his wrist or
neck. Horace Wiley was dead.
Ten minutes later Elsie had
dressed and, having checked that there was no one in the corridor,
was about to scurry off to her own room when she realised the bed was
in a desperately crumpled state that would indicate all too obviously
what had caused his heart failure. It looked exactly as though two
people had been making the lethal love on it that Horace and Elsie
had. So many people had seen them at lunch together that it seemed
certain that she would be implicated.
Elsie relocked the door
using a handkerchief and made the bed before turning back to Horace.
If she could get him back onto the bed, preferably with his clothes
on, the situation would be far safer for her. In fact, considering
the enormously fatty lunch he'd had, his death might seem perfectly
natural.
But Elsie's attempt to get
Horace back into his trousers and shirt failed hopelessly. He was far
too heavy. Exhausted by her efforts, she sat down on a chair to get
her breath back and only now started to feel the frightful effect of
his sudden death.
8.
Preeti
Ch 29 – Esmond
satisfies his hankering for blowing things up and enjoys looking
after the pigs on the Grope farm.
Esmond was fascinated. He'd
always wanted to blow something up. He went back to the barn and
fetched the old Ford. It fitted easily into the tunnel and while Old
Samuel's back was turned Esmond climbed onto the bonnet and carefully
checked that the cases were fully pressed up into the holes he'd
drilled. In fact, they fitted exactly and only one of the two needed
extra wedging with a sliver of wood. Meanwhile, Old Samuel had
fetched an electric generator and was waiting for Esmond, whom he
called Joe or Mr Grope, to help him bring down some bales of barbed
wire.
'Not that we'll need it but
it's best to be on the safe side. We'll explode the roof first to
make sure the powder works as it should do. After that we may have to
get an iron gate. That will deter people coming in, not that anyone's
likely to. Those black bulls keep them away from the house in any
case. Oh no, Grope Hall is known for being a place to avoid. From
what I've heard in the kitchen you're safe here. Mind you, no man has
ever got away from here unless they want him to, "they"
being them in the kitchen.'
'I don't want to,' said
Esmond, surprising himself with the sudden realisation. He'd always
had a hankering for blowing things up and he'd discovered how much he
enjoyed looking after the pigs. Above all he felt free. The thought
of going back to the house in Croydon sickened him. Out here,
wherever 'here' was, he felt he could be himself instead of having
his mother suffocating him and calling him her darling, never mind
his father attacking him with a carving knife. Looking back over his
life he was conscious that he had never for a moment really known who
he was. Here in this wild countryside he felt he finally did. Even if
he wasn't entirely certain quite what he was called.
'Might as well see if the
cartridges work,' said Old Samuel and attached the main copper wire
to the electric generator. 'Stand by, I'm going to start it now.'
He turned the generator on,
and a dull rumble came from the side shaft along with a cloud of
powdered earth. When it had cleared they went in and peered at the
result of this improvised explosion. There was no sign of the old
Ford.
'Better get the flashlight,
Joe. It looks as if the whole roof is down. Mind you, that will save
us using the barbed wire.'
All the same Old Samuel was
taking no chances. That night he painted a large warning notice which
read 'DANGER. BEWARE FURTHER ROOF FALLS' and fixed it to a post
beside the entrance.
'That ought to do the
trick,' he said.
And so for the first time
since his arrival, Esmond was given no sleeping pill and slept
happily.
Joe's reportage is par excellence. Not a single detail of the reading go amiss, it is minuted and vividly described, further reinforced by his research and inputs. The blog makes wonderful reading. Thank you Joe
ReplyDeleteThank you, dear Priya.
ReplyDeleteMain koshish karta hoon keh koi aisi baat likhoon jo parhay khoosh ho jaaye (Ghalib)