8 Short Funny Stories - Taking The Biscuit

[Music]

Taking the Biscuit by Paul Lewis read by James [Music] Bolam

I was freezing. My legs had turned to jelly, and my arms felt like they'd been stretched to twice their normal length. Even though I could not wait to get home, I had to concede defeat, or rather, I had to take a break. The first two cafes I looked into were packed to the roof. It was Market day, after all. There appeared to be room in the third, and so I went in. Not the most impressive of places, I thought, but if it could provide me with a seat and a half-decent cup of tea, I'd be happy.

It was self-service only, and there was a queue at the counter. I put the shopping bags down while I waited, groaning aloud with relief. How on earth could two people eat so much? Or had Margerie, my wife, amused by the fact that it was I who would be buying the groceries that week, being a little overeager with the shopping list? Whatever it was, the first and last time I would endure the slings and arrows of Tesco on the busiest day of the week. Next Thursday, it would be down to Marjerie again. I had no doubt she would be over the hip replacement op by then.

Standing at the cafe counter, I became convinced I needed not just a hip, but a whole body replacement. A man with hairy arms came over and asked what I wanted. "A cup of tea," I told him. "Oh, and a KitKat. Four fingers, not two." A minute later, a cup was banged onto the counter with such force that it wobbled and rattled on its saucer. Beside it was dropped the KitKat. "£15," the man muttered. I fished in my pocket for change. I was still wearing my gloves but could not be bothered to take them off. Pulling out two pound coins, I handed them over and began to look around for a seat. Unfortunately, the place was a lot busier than I'd first thought.

I held the KitKat in my left hand and picked up the cup with my right. When the man slapped down the change, I was left with no way of transferring it from the counter to my pocket. My ability to grip more than one item at a time was hampered by my gloves. There was an impatient cough from behind, and I realized I was holding up the queue. I tutted loudly in response. Some people simply have no patience. Ignoring the flurry of angry whispers, I put the cup of tea back on the counter, took off the gloves, and pushed them into my coat pocket. I grabbed the change and gripped the teacup again and walked away from the counter. The first part of my mission was accomplished, though I have to admit I was not in the most pleasant of moods by then.

The coffee was hot and noisy and absolutely filled with smoke. There appeared to be no hope of finding a seat. Perhaps, if I had closed my eyes and concentrated hard enough, I could use telepathic suggestion to make someone really want to leave. Then again, probably not. I was left with no choice but to swallow my pride and share a table with a stranger. The most likely candidate was in the farthest corner. A table for four, occupied by a grandmotherly type. Surely she wouldn't object. I weaved my way around the pushchairs and the coats draped over seats until I was there.

"Do you mind if I join you?" I asked the old woman. She looked at me. Her head moved so quickly it could have been a twitch. I took it to mean no, she didn't mind. "I sank gratefully into the seat. 'Place is absolutely heaving,' I offered, trying to be pleasant. The woman, though, was having none of it. She simply slurped at her own tea and stared rather vacantly at the wall behind me. 'Never mind,' I consoled myself. 'You'll be out of here and home soon, and then you can tell Mar you will never, ever go shopping again.'"

I suddenly went cold. The shopping! I had been so distracted at the counter that I had left the carrier bags on the floor. Anyone could walk off with them. I lunged out of my seat and zigzagged back across the cafe. Luckily, they were still there. I picked them up and carted them over to my table. The old woman did not even blink at my return. Still, two could play at that game. I would make no further attempt at conversation. Instead, I simply sipped at my tea, picked up the KitKat, and began to unwrap it.

I should explain that for years I've had a soft spot for the things. I even open them in the same methodical way. A minor eccentricity that drives Margery around the bend. So, first, I took off the outer wrapper, which I folded over and over until it was the size of my thumbnail and put it in the ashtray. I was amused to notice the old woman watching me. I sincerely hoped it irritated her as much as it did my wife. Next, I ran a fingernail along the edge of the foil until it could be peeled back, exposing the chocolate biscuit beneath. Finally, I exerted exactly the right amount of pressure to separate the four fingers without damaging them.

By now, the old woman was staring openly at me. It was all I could do not to smile. I felt a ridiculous sense of victory, which vanished as the woman picked up a finger and ate it. I was too shocked to say anything. The nerve of it! Maybe she was upset I had invaded her cozy little corner. If that was the case, she should have said something. Instead, she had stolen part of my KitKat. That was a declaration of war, and by God, I was ready for a fight. Looking her straight in the eye, I picked up the second finger and, with deliberate slowness, bit down on it. The woman's lip movement subconsciously matched my own as I began to chew.

"One!" I thought. She retaliated by snatching the third finger. By now, I was beginning to wonder if she was not so much upset at me as a little soft in the head. Her actions, after all, were not those of one blessed with a full quiver of marbles. Not that she looked mad, but appearances can be deceiving. I was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt, to bite back any words of remonstration I may have been tempted to voice. If I could square the score, I would be happy to leave it at that. My eyes narrowed in concentration. The noise from around me faded away. The cafe seemed to shrink to a small circle of reality, containing only myself, the old woman, two cups of tea, and a finger of KitKat. I licked my lips. My hand twitched in anticipation. I went to reach out, and the woman beat me to it. Only those who have witnessed the speed of a cobra's deadly strike could appreciate just how quickly she moved. One moment her hand was empty; a split second later, it held what remained of my biscuit.

"3-1. Game over." I had to admit defeat. Even though it had been my KitKat, I could not bring myself to say anything to the old woman. I knew it was an utterly ridiculous situation to find myself in, but I supposed I was as much to blame as her. I should not have allowed myself to be drawn into such a childish confrontation. All I could do was finish my tea, which suddenly tasted bitter, and leave with what remained of my dignity.

Before I could, the old woman stood and, fixing me with an enigmatic look, began to walk to the counter. I wondered what she was playing at. Surely she didn't want a rematch? Well, if she did, she'd had it. I would be gone from the cafe before she returned. That was the plan, and it would have worked had luck been on my side. As I reached for the carriers, one of them tipped over, discharging two tins of soup and a bottle of ketchup, which rolled under the table. Cursing, I bent over to retrieve them. By the time I had returned them to the bag and straightened again, the woman was heading towards me, a plate gripped in one hand.

"No way," I thought. "I'd had enough silly games for one day." Still, I could not resist a quick glance as she sat at the table and placed the plate in front of her. On it was a donut. One of those big, sugar-covered, jam-filled types that, like KitKats, have always been a favorite of mine. I was overwhelmed by a temptation. I swear I tried to resist, but which finally proved too strong. Even though the bags were heavy, I managed to lift them with one hand. I stood and casually walked around my opponent, my gaze fixed on the cafe door, in case she looked at me. At the very last minute, my free hand shot out and grasped the donut before the woman could react. I sank my teeth into it, tearing off a chunk, then dropped what was left onto her plate. I straightened my shoulders and, licking jam and sugar from my lips, marched past the tables and chairs out into the street. A few yards down the road, I stopped and allowed myself to smile. I'd had my revenge, and yes, it had been sweet. The day had not been a total disaster after all. I could return to Margerie with my head held high.

Despite my elation, I found myself shivering. The weather was turning cold again. I noticed it was starting to snow. Putting down the bags for a moment, I reached into my coat pocket for my gloves, which is when my fingers brushed against the KitKat I had [Music] [Music] bought.

The Way to a Man's Heart by Norma Hars read by Julian [Music] McKenzie

Gina stood half-paralyzed by shock at the telephone. There was no recollection of how she had finished the conversation with Jerry Hiller. What had started as a simple call to make an appointment for a massage had turned into something else altogether. "We've all been worried about you. How are you managing?" "Managing what?" was he talking about? "Everyone at the club..." There was a slight pause. "...our sympathies are with you. Hang in there. Men are such damn bastards." The fact that Jerry didn't quite fit himself into the male category allowed him to be vituperative.

A wave of nausea overwhelmed her. What she'd always dreaded had obviously happened. So far, Bernie had always been discreet, keeping his liaisons outside their life, outside Toronto. In fact, sometimes Montreal, sometimes Vancouver, but right in his own backyard. This was the final humiliation. At that moment, she detested Jerry Hiller, detested his false sympathy. The fact was that Jerry was the worst gossip at the club. It was amazing what people told him when they were slack and comfortable under his soothing hands.

How long she sat by the phone, staring into space, she didn't know. She felt mortally ill, unable to move. The phone rang again. Margie's voice at the other end. "Two o'clock, Gina." She didn't answer. "I've got a court for two, Gina. Is that all right?" The last thing she needed was a game of squash. The very idea of walking into the lobby of the club filled her with nausea. Right then and there, she felt like going to bed, diving in and covering herself, and hoping she wouldn't wake up. Poor Gina, poor dumb Gina, poor stupid Gina, who was getting a little fat and didn't know how to keep a man. They would look at her walking past and, safe in their own little domestic igloos, would feel nothing but sympathy. But much as she didn't care about playing squash, she had to see Margie. Margie would know. Margie would fill her in on who it was. Later, much later.

She sat sweating on the locker room bench, feeling drained and empty, but peculiarly focused on the subject she had to broach. "Who is it?" she asked quietly. "Margie?" "You were a demon today," Margie said, stripping off her whites and ignoring the question. "Who is it?" she repeated. "Who is what?" "Who is it that Bernie is laying?" Margie stared at her for a moment and sat down beside her. She dried her pink forehead with a towel and looked miserably at the towel as though she expected to see blood. "You really want to know?" "Why not? Everyone else does." "Patty Reese," she said, and looked up at Gina. "Patty Reese?" Margie nodded. "It was rumored that most of the single men at the club knew Patty intimately, and that she wasn't averse to the married ones either. But Patty Reese was tall, blonde, and gorgeous. At least half a head taller than Bernie, and athletic, which is something you could never say about Bernie."

"Patty and Bernie? I don't get it." She stared at Margie, looking for an answer. "Power. Pat is into men who have power, and Bernie kind of fits into that category. She likes his profile, you might say." Margie wrapped herself in a towel. "Didn't you know about Bernie?" Margie asked, looking pityingly at Gina. "I suppose I did, but it was never on the doorstep before." "You think not?" Margie managed to look embarrassed. "Who else? God, I don't know. People like to talk. All I know is rumors. All rumors." Margie touched her arm. "Throw the bastard out, then." "What then?" "Get on with your life." "Bernie sort of is my life."

She stood looking at herself in the long mirror in the locker room. What she saw was still reasonable looking, if a bit overweight, but nothing was irreversible. Funny, she smiled at Margie. Things seem to be so great. Bernie had been so loving lately, so appreciative. "He's in love with this gourmet cooking course I'm taking," thought. "It was cute that I should do this now for him." Later, in the coffee shop, Gina asked, "How did the word get out?" "Oh, Patty's been going around telling everyone Bernie's leaving you." "She has?" Margie nodded. "Well, Jerry probably assumed it had already happened. Patty was a fool. She might not be any judge of character, but Bernie was deep in his gift-giving phase, one that told her he was dealing with a lot of guilt. Their lovemaking had taken on a new fervor, another sign of deep regret. She knew all the signals. Bernie wasn't about to leave. Bernie would deny to the death that he was having an affair. They'd been through it all before."

Bernie was home for dinner that night. She served up bito misto that had been simmering since morning at a low, low heat and topped it off with sea dumplings. Cooking was a way of temporarily forgetting about the pain he brought her. He brought home a bouquet of roses and arrived early for dinner, kissing her neck and telling her that he'd thought all day about the food. Bernie loved his food. On her bad days, she told herself that she had cooked her way into Bernie's heart. Now, as she watched his heaped plate disappearing and saw the small layer of fat that ran round from Bernie's chin and bulged over his collar, she knew that if Bernie had to pick between sex and food, food would win out every time. She had made double chocolate mousse cake for dessert. He barely noticed that she didn't eat. Bernie was an absorbed eater, a concentrator on food. He didn't talk much when he ate, and never had. He wouldn't notice that she was quiet or that her face was white with the strain of what she'd learned that day. She put another helping of mousse cake on his plate and calculated in her head how many calories Bernie had consumed in that one meal. Probably around 3,000, not to mention the pancakes he'd had for breakfast and the lunch he would have had with one of his clients. Bernie didn't skimp on lunch, ever.

It wasn't easy to get through the evening without mentioning what she'd found out that day. The problem was the memory of all the other times: the accusations, shouts, screams, yells, the petulant, affronted Bernie who swore, always on his mother's grave, that he was totally innocent, and next, inevitably, the lovemaking, which for her started slowly and stiffly, then his incredible ability to make her feel that she was the only one in the entire world who mattered. She couldn't face that tonight. She looked at Bernie's back as he spoke on the telephone. She saw the soft handles of flesh hanging over his pants. She heard him belch as he hung up the phone. He would have to take something for his indigestion later. It was always the same. Bernie simply didn't know when to stop eating. He didn't even seem to be aware that he was putting on weight. How would darling Patty feel about him if he were fat and sluggish? She smiled to herself.

For breakfast, she cooked savory crepes filled with sour cream and brie. "Bernie was ecstatic. 'Honey, you outdid yourself.' He helped himself to the last crepe in the dish. 'Aren't you having any?' 'I don't seem to have an appetite.' 'You've been awfully quiet. You feeling okay?' 'Fine, a bit tired. All that squash playing.' 'Take a break, have a rest today. Stop pushing yourself.' She tried to smile, but nausea filled her empty stomach, and for an instant, she felt like retching."

Bernie's idea of what she would want to do with her life had to do with her lying around all day on the couch and eating chocolates. The more she thought about Bernie and his knowledge of her, the more she came to the realization that her likes and dislikes were completely unknown to him. The things he did for her were things he would like to have done for him. He assumed somehow that she was part of him and should cultivate his tastes. "Too bad you can't come home for lunch. I'm trying out the quails," she said casually. He frowned. "I have to go to Brampton. Maybe I can have someone to come home." Sure, she knew by noon his stomach would be growling and there'd be a phone call. She was a little generous in her estimate. The phone rang mid-morning. "Hi, honey. Going to take a detour and try out those quails?" She smiled to herself. "Great."

She made some creamy soup and checked the refrigerator to make sure she had plenty of cream. By 12, it was simmering on the stove. She stirred in the egg yolks and whipped cream and added the Madeira. Bernie was early, but luckily it was already ready. His eyes were shining. She noticed that the buttons on his shirt were beginning to pop slightly. It would take some tack to suggest larger sizes, but perhaps he could buy them similar to his old ones, wash them, and slip them into the closet, and he might not notice.

Six months later, the once slightly overweight Bernie Ravens was unrecognizable to anyone who had known his 165 lb frame. He had gained 75, and everything had stopped except his enthusiasm for Gina's cooking. As Bernie got fatter, Gina got thinner, fed by her consuming energy to produce something new and interesting for Bernie to eat. She saw it all as a crusade to keep Bernie. When Gina looked at herself in the mirror, she was astounded by the face that was reappearing. She had dropped to her size 10 in dresses, and a kind of light seemed to have come back into her face, a light she remembered from long, long ago. She thanked Heaven that all attempts on Bernie's part at lovemaking had ceased. He had tried only a few weeks back to heave his great whale of a body onto hers, and all that the encounter had produced was lashings of sweat as his body poured with the disappointment of unsatisfied desire. She knew, without having to be told, that Patty was a thing of the past. There were no more apologies for absences. Instead, Bernie was there all the time, out-of-town trips postponed as he hovered near her in the kitchen, attentive and loving as he waited for her latest culinary efforts. But it was odd, now that he was there all hers, she felt nothing for him. It didn't have much to do with his size, but everything to do with his neediness and greed. Oddly enough, in her efforts to get Bernie back, she had inadvertently discovered two things: her own talent for cooking and the fact she no longer loved Bernie.

A couple of weeks later, on Monday morning, she produced a list for Bernie and set it in front of his breakfast of pecan cinnamon toast and bacon. It neatly listed the week's menu. "What's this?" he said, with his mouthful. "At dinner tonight: Gruyère soup, celeriac, and apple pie. Tuesday night: squash and corn soup, osso buco, cassis ice cream," she recited, enjoying the sound of the dishes that she devised. Bernie's eyes were shining, but not with their former clarity. She noticed of late that the whites of his eyes had become even more yellow. She might have been able to feel pity for him if there hadn't been a trickle of corn syrup on the side of his mouth, wending its way down on its sideways track to his chin. "Why are you telling me, hon?" he smiled lovingly at her. "Because I won't be here, and it's all in the fridge, labeled." He stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. "Where will you be?"

She didn't say anything for a moment, and then she opened the kitchen drawer and slapped down an envelope in front of him. "This time tomorrow, I'll be sailing out of Miami, bound for the Virgin Islands, assistant chef on the Viking Princess de luxe liner." Bernie's knife fell from his hand. "You're joking! You've been a great tester, Bernie. Thank you. What about me?" "What about you? You can't go off like this without another thought." "I'm not..." "Bernie, I thought a week of food in the fridge would get you used to the idea, and then you'd have time to plan your menus and the rest of your life." Instead of putting the letter back in its envelope, she attached it to the refrigerator with one of the little magnetic bananas she had. Its contents memorized anyhow, but it made it all official and final for poor Bernie. She congratulated herself for having been more than humane. Attached to the last container in the refrigerator, along with the vichyssoise, the pesto linguine, and the poêlée vanille, she had attached a brochure from Weight Watchers and had heavily underlined the number of the local [Music] branch.

Edward Problem by Judy Gardner read by Haley [Music] Mills

Accustomed to calling Dr Mortimer "doctor" in the way one would call God "God," Edward was perturbed by the transformation from navy blue suit, spectacles, and stethoscope to bare feet, red cotton shorts, and a white linen sun hat. The quiet, authoritarian had suddenly become a jovial extrovert with hairy legs who choked with his wife and rolled his laughing children in the warm, pale sand. Apart from the baby, all the children were older than Edward, and they had all spent their previous holidays at the seaside. Only Edward looked at the glittering expanse of sea and the great golden playground of a beach and found it as extraordinary and perturbing as the newly metamorphosed doctor himself. Edward had never been to the seaside before, and was only here now because Doctor had supervised his recent recovery from a serious infection and then suggested to Edward's mother that a holiday would do him good.

"I can't get away, Doctor." "In any case, I can't afford it." "Don't worry about that, Mother. I'll talk to my wife and see if something can be arranged." While calling Edward's mother "mother" in the same way that she called him "doctor," something was arranged, and the something was that Edward, thin, pale, and six years old, should join Doctor and his family on their annual holiday in Normandy. It had filled Edward's mother with the deepest misgiving that he should travel by plane to another country, and her voice had been no more than a creaking whisper when she answered the phone call from Doctor to say that they had all arrived safely and that young Edward was in the pink of condition. She tried to thank him again because he was so kind, and because this was a kindness in no way promoted by the Department of Health and Social Security, but he brushed her gratitude aside with a laughing nonchalance that disconcerted her, for she was unable to see the doctor transfigured by holiday T-shirt with a phone in one hand and a glass of duty-free in the other, while his family rampaged happily around.

The other children, and there were five of them (not counting the baby), were very nice to Edward whenever they encountered him, but he tended to escape their notice as they rushed around the house, taking claims on beds and spilling the contents of suitcases and rucksacks. The family rented the same big grey stone house every year and were rapturously possessive about its shabby, sparsely furnished rooms. To his relief, he had been allocated a single bed in the small slip room that led off the big one shared by Doctor and his wife and the baby. He was alone, the way he was accustomed to be. Without switching on the light, he undressed and crept into bed. Then remembered that he had not said his prayers, so he crept out again, knelt down, and folded his hands against the quilt while he said the Lord's Prayer, before asking God to bless Mother and Doctor and Doctor's wife and all the children. He opened his eyes, then closed them again, and added, "And please forgive me for nearly forgetting." He fell asleep, exhausted by the day's wonders, and clutching Woolly Rabbit, whom Mother had packed in his small plastic suitcase.

And next morning, after a late breakfast, they were all on the beach. Edward's mother had rifled her savings and, in addition to the suitcase, had bought her son a new pair of trousers and a shirt, new vests and underpants, and a sponge bag which contained a toothbrush and a face flannel, as well as a tablet of soap and a small tube of toothpaste. She had washed his hairbrush and comb, shampooed old Woolly Rabbit, and darned a hole in one of his ears. And then, as a final acknowledgement that Edward was indeed going to the seaside, had hurried back to the big store and bought him a pair of swimming trunks. They were dark maroon and rather scratchy. He sat on the beach in his new trousers and shirt, astounded by it all, by the sea and the sand and the clean, brilliant light pouring down on people running, jumping, strolling, chatting, laughing. Others lay outstretched and motionless and glistening like sausages in the process of being grilled.

One of Doctor's sons hurled himself upon his father and, in an excess of puppy-high spirits, tried to lug him to the ground, laughing. Doctor seized him and held him aloft, and then swung him down, kicking and shrieking, into the warm, soft sand. He began to bury him, heaping the stuff over him while the boy yelled for help, and Edward watched in silent fascination. Then the other children flew to the rescue, leaping joyously on their father and trying to immobilize him with their twining limbs. "Go on, join in!" Edward's Doctor's wife called through her laughter. "Go on, go and help too!"

Divided to obey and uncertain as to which side he was supposed to take, Edward remained where he was. And when he looked across at Doctor's wife for further instructions, saw with horror that she had removed her T-shirt and underthing and was sitting there with nothing on her top. He had never seen a woman like that before. Instinctively, he switched his eyes towards Doctor, expecting to hear him remonstrate. But with the now defeated children lying in a panting, giggling heap around his feet, Doctor retrieved his sun hat, bashed it back into shape before replacing it on his head, and then looking straight at his wife, said, "Is anyone else coming for a swim?" He looked straight at her and displayed not the slightest sign of shock. "I'll come later," she said, and to Edward's increased discomfort, began to massage her two uncovered things with suntan oil.

The children were now wrenching off their jeans and T-shirts in a headlong rush for the sea. The eldest daughter slid out of her flowered skirt and suntop to reveal a sleek black swimsuit with no back to it, and with the leg holes cut so high at the sides that they almost reached her waist. Humming to herself, she gathered up her thick, curly hair and secured it on top of her head with an elastic band, and then began to run down towards the sea. The other children ran with her, whooping and laughing, and the seven-year-old paused for a moment to look back at Edward. "Come on," he shouted, beckoning. "Come on!"

"Why don't you go along with him down to the sea?" Edward's Doctor's wife suggested, screwing the top back on the bottle of suntan oil. She prepared to lie down in the sand on a large striped beach towel. "Come on in with me," Doctor said, and removing his red cotton shorts, disclosed a pair of emerald green swimming trunks. It had never occurred to Edward that Doctor might have a navel, and he found it upsetting. Very slowly, he began to undress, unfastening the buttons of his new shirt and then folding it meticulously and placing it on a little pillow of sand away from the hastily flung mish-mash of the other children's clothes. Edward removed his sandals and his socks, and then his vest and his new trousers. Upon Mrs. Doctor's advice, he too was wearing his swimming trunks under his other things, and he stood there in them for a moment, pale-skinned and awkward, not knowing quite what to do next.

Doctor took his hand, and threading their way through all the other family groups, many of the women in the same brazen state as Doctor's wife, they reached the edge of the sea, where the sand was hard and wet, and tiny white-edged wavelets tickled at their feet. "Lovely and warm," Doctor said encouragingly, still holding his hand. To Edward, it felt dreadfully cold. "He gasped when the green-blue water reached the tops of his legs, and Doctor put his strong arm around him and said, 'Come on, let's get the next bit over quickly.'" They were in the sea, really in it, and Edward discovered that if he gave a little jump, he landed slowly, rather like a balloon gently touching ground. The effect of this began to please him, and after several repeated jumps, he began to feel much warmer and a little more in control of the strange new world in which he found himself. Doctor grinned at him, wet-faced, then, securing the knowledge that Edward would make no attempt to go out of his depth, executed a perfect dive and swam vigorously away.

Everything here was brightly patterned, brilliantly colored: the flowery beach umbrellas, the flaunting holiday play clothes, the striped canvas windbreaks, all of them given further emphasis by the clean, radiant light of the sun. There was very little color at home. His mother preferred meek, serviceable shades that didn't attract attention, and the sun had a job to find its way into their terrace house that faced north. Edward resumed his rising and falling, and each time he submerged the tops of his shoulders, he spread his arms and allowed them to float on the water. Perhaps people would think he was swimming. He remained there for a long while, detached and fairly happy, while the multicolored holiday world swept and splashed all around him. Then his dreaming eyes focused on the streaming figure of Doctor, who was standing in front of him with his hands on his hips. "Okay, Edward. Not cold?" Edward shook his head in answer and made little lapping movements in the water with his pale arms. "All the same, I think it's time to come out now. The others are all going over to the store to buy some crêpe for lunch. They're sort of pancake things." "Where did you get changed?" "And go along with them."

Obediently, Edward followed him and was surprised that it now felt colder out of the sea than in it. He fought the temptation to run back and let the water envelop him. The other children had already discarded their wet swimsuits, except for the eldest girl, who Edward saw worriedly had pulled down the top of her black costume and was thus in the same state of undress as her mother. She too had got things, only not as big. "Edward, you look cold," said Doctor's wife. "Get dried quickly and put some clothes on." He picked up his towel and began to rub his arms and shoulders. The sand was sticking to his legs and feet, so he tried to brush it off, then paused to watch two of Doctor's sons lazily playing with the beach ball. He began rubbing his arms and shoulders again. "Hurry up, Edward," encouraged Doctor's wife. She was now sitting cross-legged, and her two things had turned glistening pink in the sun. He started on his chest. He rubbed down to his waist, conscious that the dry part of him was now deliciously warm, and the wet part beneath his swimming trunks, clammy cold. His teeth chattered convulsively. Doctor now lay sprawled by the side of his wife, and one of the smaller children, a girl, but she hadn't got things, knelt down beside him, began idly filling his navel with sand. A period of torpor seemed to have fallen. People moved slowly, as if drunk with sun and salt air, but it became increasingly apparent to Edward that those who weren't lying down with their eyes shut were watching him, watching and waiting for him to remove his swimming trunks so that they would be able to look at his part. It had no other name.

"Don't forget to wash that part," his mother always said as she straightened up from washing his back in the bath. His face, neck, and ears would already be glistening clean, and from the way her expression seemed to tighten as the flannel flicked straight from his middle to his knees, he had known from earliest days that the part was of greater significance than the rest of him. He still didn't know why, but just accepted the fact for what it was. "Want any help, Edward?" Doctor's wife changed her position, stretching out her legs and leaning on one elbow. Her things slipped sideways a little. Edward managed to constrain a smile and shook his head, holding the towel tight against his waist. He began to ease his trunks off from behind. His belly and backs were wet and cold and felt as if they didn't belong to him. He tried to rub them with a towel while continuing to use it as a shield. "Hurry up, then," Doctor's wife said gently. They were all waiting for him, lounging in the sand in dry shorts and T-shirts, while Edward continued his lonely struggles with propriety. He had now worked his trunks down almost to his knees, squirming but without exposing himself. He had managed to dry most of his lower half, which felt gritty with sand but a little warmer. He flicked a glance at the girl who'd been filling Doctor's navel with sand. She now piled the sand in a neat little cone shape and was about to stick a seagull's feather in the top. The eldest girl was slowly tossing a small white shell from one hand to the other. Her small things tilted towards the sun like ripening fruit. Edward had never seen things until today, and certainly not his mother's. She only had an indeterminate bulge beneath her jumper or beneath the brown dress that went with her mac and brown headscarf when they went to chapel. His dry clothes, neatly folded, were still on the pillow of sand where he left them. Aware now that Doctor's sons didn't include vests and underpants in their beach attire, he toyed briefly with the idea of dispensing with his own, but the idea of wearing his trousers and shirt next to his skin was too unorthodox for him to seriously contemplate, and a sudden spasm of misery shook him. He had tried hard, but he didn't like it here. It was too big, too bright, and all of it much too intrusively close: the hairy chests, the navels, the pairs of things, all of them strange and frightening. And then, with terrible abruptness, bringing back the memory of that hot summer night when his mother's cry of "Don't, don't! You know I can't stand that part!" it snatched him from sleep, and he heard the frantically creaking bed, and then seen his father's moon-shadowed figure creeping from the room, pajama trousers bunched in one hand, while his mother lay sobbing. "I love you," his father had said, standing in the doorway. "I just love you, that's all." And in the morning, he wasn't there. Ed, Ed had never seen him again. There had only been him and his mother in the chapel.

With the towel held close against his hips by his elbows, Edward finally worked his swimming trunks down to his ankles, then stepped out of them, hoping desperately that no one was watching. He snatched a quick glance at Doctor's wife, who seemed to be studying her fingernails with extraordinary intensity. No one else was saying anything or doing anything. They all seemed caught in some long, timeless moment, with only Edward alone and quietly struggling here. "Edward, catch!" Suddenly, the eldest daughter swung around to face him, and he saw a small white object flying through the air towards him. Instinctively, he raised both hands high above his head. The towel slipped from beneath his elbows, and there he stood, with a little white shell caught triumphantly between his palms. "Well done, Edward!" cried Doctor's wife, and Doctor himself, with his sand-filled navel crowned by a seagull's wing feather, lay back and clapped his powerful hands in applause. And they all looked at him, looked at all of him, with love: the two parents because they seemed to think that he had done something brave and magnificent; the middle-sized children because they were hungry and wanted to go to the crêpery; and the baby because it had recently discovered that it could clap its hands together, and the sensation made it laugh. "Come on, Edward!" cried the eldest girl, springing to her feet. She seized his hand, and with her young breasts bobbing and his small part twinkling free, they headed the merry, tumbling procession towards the hungry smell of hot oil and frying pancakes. [Music]

Wish You Were Here by Paul Lewis read by Penelope [Music] Keith

As she bumped and bounced down the High Street, Josie Simmons wished for the hundredth time that she could somehow manage a holiday. Being pushed to the village by a woman ten years her senior was not Josie's idea of fun, and it certainly couldn't match a fortnight in Majorca or a wet weekend in the Lakes, for that matter. Josie had always been obsessed with travel. The trips did not stop with the death of her husband in a car crash. A generous insurance payment allowed her to nip overseas as often as she liked. Neither did the birth of her children slow her down. She simply left them at home with her sister. They'd only get in the way. Her wheelchair hit a particularly vicious pothole. Josie cursed. "Sorry, dearie," said Mrs. Evans from behind. "Wasn't looking." Typical. She had been ordered into the wheelchair because her bones were so frail. Now they were at risk of being shaken to pieces by an elderly woman who had not spotted a hole in the road roughly the size of the Grand Canyon. Josie knew she should have rung for a taxi. What had she done to deserve this? Life had been fine until she reached the age of 50, and then everything started to go wrong. Her weak bones, she could have lived with. Then came the stroke, which finished her holidays once and for all. On the advice of her consultant, she moved to a bungalow on the coast. The sea air, she was told, and the easing of strain by not having to climb stairs would do wonders. Her condition worsened. Soon she was virtually confined to a wheelchair, able to walk only with the aid of two sticks, and then not without a great deal of pain. Her children paid her scant attention. Once the initial scare of the stroke was over, they visited infrequently. Her daughter telephoned once a week, and her son, successful as he was, put in the odd call whenever his busy schedule would allow. Forced to spend time on her own, Josie grew increasingly bitter by the day. Bitter when she thought about her children, bitter when she thought about those useless bloody doctors, bitter especially when she thought about how her life had wasted away. Holidays, being pushed down the road to the village centre by Mrs. Evans next door, was about as much as she was likely to get these days.

Her obsession with postcards had started three years ago with a call from her daughter, Carol. "Are you sure you'll be all right?" "Yes, yes," Josie told her testily. "You don't have to worry about me. Anyway, Tony's only an hour away if I need anything." That was a laugh. She'd have to be at death's door for Tony to be dragged, kicking and screaming, from his desk. Carol knew that, of course, but it wouldn't hurt to make her feel guilty. "Oh, I know," Carol had said. "Still, I worry about you. I hate to think of us enjoying ourselves with you stuck there on your own. If only you could come with us." "Don't you worry about me," Josie had responded in a tone which actually stated, "Just hope I don't die while you're away." Then, as an afterthought, she had asked to be sent a postcard. It soon snowballed. Tony would send one during each of his regular business trips abroad. If any of Josie's family and friends failed to take the hint, she badgered and pestered until they did. It was as if, now she could no longer enjoy foreign places in person, the postcards were the next best thing. Even Tony's partners sent them. Within 3 years, she had a master collection she was convinced would get her into the Guinness Book of Records. At first, these filled photograph albums, then scrapbook after scrapbook. By the end of that third year, Josie began piling them into boxes. She began a system of cataloging those locals she had a pictorial record of and those she did not. If she found out someone was going to say, Jamaica, then she would make sure she had a promise to write before they left. If this meant ringing them three times a week, often late at night or first thing in the morning, so be it. Josie was not in the least worried.

"It's gone beyond a bloody joke," she'd heard Tony mutter to Carol during the last Christmas get-together at his London home. Presumably, he'd thought his mother was sleeping. "I mean, it was fine at the start, but it's getting downright embarrassing now." "Come on, Tony," Carol had protested. "She's old and she's ill, and she's hardly putting anyone out just by asking for a postcard, isn't she? You know, Mike, our sales manager for France, he came back home early because he was hurt in a crash, and she rang him to moan he hadn't sent her a card like he'd promised." "Yes, well," Carol had murmured, "try to be a little forgiving, Tony. It won't be a problem for much longer." According to the consultant, Josie had a life expectancy of no more than 5 years. Her stroke and subsequent confinement had led to a general worsening of her condition. According to Josie, that was a load of bull. She was planning to stick around a lot longer than half a measly decade. The wheelchair hit another deep mine, and Josie wondered if perhaps she was being a little optimistic. Never mind, at least the weather was fine, which meant she got to leave the bungalow for an hour or two. Better still, it was June, traditionally the time she prepared for summer with a barrage of phone calls to find out who was going where. Mr. and Mrs. Evans, her immediate neighbours, had booked for Thailand. Thailand! This was an opportunity she was not going to let pass. The Far East, about the only place left unrepresented in her catalog. She could picture the postcard: a big bronze statue perched on top of a temple, set against a dazzling sunset. It would take pride of place on the mantlepiece, next to the urn containing her late husband's ashes.

"Now, are you absolutely positive you don't mind?" "Mind what?" Perhaps distracting Mrs. Evans was not the best idea, but being sure about the postcard far outweighed the risk of being steered into a lamp post. "You're sure it's not too much trouble?" "The postcard? Not at all, not at all," Mrs. Evans' daughter, a half-scaly woman in her late 60s, promised. "Now, you just sit back and relax." If only, Josie thought. She closed her eyes, resigned to her fate as the chair's offside wheel crunched over a broken bottle. If only, somehow, she was still in one piece when she eventually got home, albeit with slightly frazzled nerves. Josie was determined to spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing, daydreaming of a holiday on some distant, sun-kissed shore. She paid little attention to the ambulance which passed her living room window. It was only when she heard the vehicle stop, followed by the slamming of doors, that she began to wonder if something was going on. So little happened in the village, even the smallest of dramas was worth witnessing. That was her philosophy. She peered out of the window, saw two ambulance men carrying a stretcher from the Evans' house. There was Mr. Evans walking alongside them, shaking his head, and was he crying? The stretcher was eased inside the vehicle, and Mr. Evans climbed in with it. Then the ambulance moved slowly away. Josie shook her head. What on earth was going on? Who was that on the stretcher? It couldn't possibly have been Mrs. Evans. She'd looked fine when Josie had asked her to wheel her into the village to pick up some groceries. Maybe the bags had been a little heavy, but Mrs.

Evans had not once complained. Joosie tried telephoning in her neighbor's house, but there was nobody there to answer the call. It was late in the night when Mr. Evans rang her, voiced tight with grief, to break the news. "It's Dorothy," he said. "She... that is her heart..." He broke off, crying. Josie knew her friend was dead. The dreadful enormity of the implications struck her like a hammer. She felt her throat tightening as an awful sense of loss began to build within her.

"Does that mean," she said, "you won't be going to Thailand now?" And she was surprised and hurt when Mr. Evans slammed down the phone. "Oh well," they were church people after all. Church people, as in odd people. Josie tutted. She didn't believe in God. If he existed, then he'd have a lot of explaining to do to Mrs. Evans, who had certainly believed in him.

It was several weeks before Mr. Evans spoke to her again. Even then, he was subdued, almost cool. Josie assumed it was because he was still not yet over the death of his wife. She wanted to do something to help him get through the worst of his grief, but what? Stuck in her stupid wheelchair, trapped in the bungalow. What on earth could she do for Mr. Evans that he could not do for himself? She realized there was one thing: talk to him. Give him some good old-fashioned common sense advice. So she invited him around to tea, spent a lot of time preparing for it, and dressed in her best clothes.

Mr. Evans seemed nervous at first, almost reluctant to talk. But before long, and with the aid of a few stiff gin and tonics, he was pouring his heart out. "There, there," Josie comforted, patting his knee. "If you ask me, you need something to take your mind off all this." Mr. Evans remained silent as she explained her idea and was in a strangely offish mood when he left shortly after. But he must have realized the advice was sound, because within a week he was on his way to Thailand. The poor man needed a change of scenery and the chance to meet new people. How else was he to try and forget his dear old wife? It was no good sitting around the house moping all day.

Josie felt a warm sense of satisfaction. She had helped Mr. Evans in the only way she could, and now he would repay the kindness. It wasn't much to ask for, just a few shillings in postage, but it would mean such a lot to her.

During the first week of Mr. Evans's month-long holiday, Josie got up from bed earlier than normal each day, just to hear the welcoming clatter of the letter box. Nothing happened. By the end of the second week, she was almost at the end of her tether. What on earth was the problem? Maybe Mr. Evans had been taken ill? Maybe his plane had crashed? No, that was silly. It would have been on the news, surely. He couldn't have forgotten. Of course, he would not have forgotten. Josie cursed herself for worrying. The card was probably on its way right now, the delay caused by the atrocious postal system which seemingly afflicted every country in the world except Britain. She nodded and smiled. "Just a few more days, that's all," she would have to wait.

It was on the Wednesday of the third week, a fine July morning, that Josie had her postcard. She was easing herself from the bed to the wheelchair when she heard the letter box rattle, the almost inaudible rustle as something light landed on the hall carpet. It had arrived. Pain temporarily forgotten, she hurled herself into the chair and pushed on the wheels with unaccustomed force to speed her way to the front door. There, there it was. She leaned over and snatched up the card, dropping it onto her lap. She reversed into the living room and hunted for her handbag. She found it and pulled out her reading glasses. Then she looked at the postcard.

The picture on the front did not look like Thailand. At first, Josie thought it was some kind of arty shot of a blazing sunset. Then she realized it was no sunset. It was an inferno. Flames seemed to lick at her, as if the postcard she held had suddenly turned into a window to another world. She could almost smell the smoke, and her eyes, for some reason, began to water. In the picture, the flames were parting. A figure began to take shape. Initially, she thought it was simply a man. Only there were horns on its head, and its eyes, staring straight into hers, glowed an angry red. As it came closer, its mouth opened hungrily to reveal rows of sharp teeth. A tongue, forked like a serpent, flicked out at her. Josie gaped and flicked the postcard over. There was writing on the other side. "Be seeing you very soon."

[Music]

[Music]

Dear Mr. Previn,

By Judy Gardner. Read by Prunella Scales.

[Music]

Dear Mr. Previn,

I'm sorry to bother you because I know you're very busy, but could you please tell me what has happened to my husband? His name is Kelvin Hol, and he is one of your flautists. He has brown wavy hair and horn-rimmed glasses, and he generally sits between a lady flautist with a page-boy bob and a little bald man who plays the piccolo. I saw him off on Tuesday after an early lunch because of the rehearsal, but when I switched on to watch the concert in the evening, he wasn't there. I saw you all right, and all the others, but when I came to look for Kelvin, he wasn't there. The space where he normally sits had closed up. In other words, the lady with the page-boy and the little bald man who plays the piccolo was sitting side by side with no Kelvin in between. And I haven't seen him since.

I can't stop worrying, but I decided not to go to the police or tell the newspapers or anything without getting in touch with you first. I tried to telephone you at the Festival Hall, but they said you never accepted calls from members of the public. I felt like saying that I wasn't a member of the public; I was one of your players' wives, and that I was very worried, but they cut me off before I had a chance to say anything more. I suppose they're very busy too, but if you could just spare the time to let me know whether you saw Kelvin on Tuesday, whether he turned out for rehearsal, and whether he looked quite normal and everything, I would be very grateful. I would add that our marriage is a happy one, and I'm very proud of Kelvin. My mother, who is now in her 80s, always gets him to play the Flight of the Bumblebee every Christmas. She thinks the world of him.

Once more, I'm sorry to trouble you with this when I know how busy you are. Kelvin says you never seem to stop, but anything you could tell me would be greatly appreciated. I enclose an SAE and would point out that he has never done anything like this before.

Yours truly,

Brenda.

[Music]

hamto

Dear Mr. Pring,

You could have knocked me down with a feather when I got your letter. It came as a bombshell. Kelvin leaving just like that and going all the way to Barbados all on his own, without me and without even saying goodbye, without even telling me. I can't get over it. I keep sitting here thinking, what have I done? What did I do wrong? And not even to let me know. I know he thinks the world of you, but I do think he could have told me first. After all, he's married to me, not you. Kelvin and I have been married for 15 years, and we've never had a cross word. It's so unfair, but that's all the thanks you get. All the years of laundering dress shirts and pressing trousers and getting him off in good time and seeing he's got his flute and everything. I've never gone along with the modern idea of men having to do everything for themselves when they come home cold and tired after working hard, but there you are, that's all the thanks you get. I feel so hurt and angry and bewildered.

All the same, thank you for letting me know and for being so kind in your letter. I know how busy you are.

Yours sincerely,

Brenda.

[Music]

hstor

Dear Mr. Previn,

Please pardon me for writing again because I know how busy you are, but I do miss Kelvin so much. To begin with, I felt very bitter and angry, but now it's just so lonely without him. I've got nothing to do. My mother is also very upset and says that Christmas will never be the same without the flute of the BB. Poor old soul. This cold weather gets her down, and the neighbors aren't being at all nice. I mean, when Kelvin first went, I said that he'd gone on tour with you, but they kept seeing you on the box and said, "How can he have? Where is he really?" So I've had to tell them, and now those that don't snigger at me look down on me. It's very hurtful that people could be so mean when they must know how deeply hurt I am already, but there you are, that's human nature, I suppose. But I do miss Kelvin so much. I'd got so used to doing everything for him, and there are times when I'd give anything in the world to have a row of dress shirts blowing on the line. I always polished his evening shoes with furniture cream because it gives a much deeper shine, and also it feeds the leather, and I always packed his bag very carefully so that nothing got creased, and there was always a nicely folded clean hanky on top. All this used to take up a lot of time, but I enjoyed it because it made me feel a part of his life, part of the orchestra too, in a way. But now there's nothing. I don't know what to do. I joined a flower arranging class but gave it up because the others weren't very nice to me, and anyway, there's no one to arrange flowers for now.

Please forgive me for taking up your time, Mr. Previn, but I just felt that if I didn't write to you, I'd go mad with everything so pent up. I know you are very busy, and I won't enclose an SAE because there's not really anything you can say or do. I've just got to soldier on, but thank you for listening, as it were.

Yours sincerely,

Brenda.

[Music]

hstor

Dear Mr. Privin,

Well, honestly, I don't know what to say. Words fail me. I mean, when Mr. Quadrant stood on the doorstep with his French horn in his hand and said that he was trying to find somewhere to live, I just didn't know where to look at first. I said no, I couldn't, not possibly. But when he said that you had sent him and that he had always been very fond of Kelvin, I asked him in for a cup of coffee, and he had a slice of walnut loaf, and suddenly it was wonderful to have someone to talk to. We talked and talked about you and Kelvin and the orchestra, and I told him about poor old mother not being too good, and about our cat Binky getting run over, and he said, "What a sad life I was having," and I said, "Well, yes, it does have its ups and downs, I suppose." So he's now in the spare bedroom, Mr. Quadrant, that is, and I'm just writing this to thank you very much indeed, Mr. Prevan, for forcing me to to take the bull by the horns, as it were. I mean, I would never have dreamed of taking someone in on my own, but it seems to work beautifully for both of us. Mr. Quadrant, or rather Gareth, is very thoughtful and courteous and seems to appreciate having little things done for him. I gather that, like me, he has a sad past. So here I am again with six dress shirts blowing on the line and two more ready for ironing. I have also been treating his evening shoes with furniture cream; the leather was very starved, and no matter how late he gets home from a concert, I'm always there to welcome him with a cup of hot cocoa and a little friendly chat. It takes me longer to polish his French horn than it did Kelvin's flute because of all its loops and valves and things, but I've got it now that you could see a face in it.

I'm sorry for taking up your time with all this, Mr. Prevan. I do know how very, very busy you are, but I just had to say thank you for sending me Gareth and to tell you how very happy I am, although, of course, I still think of Kelvin and wonder what made him do what he did.

You're sincerely,

Brenda Humber store.

[Music]

Dear Mr. Previn,

I wasn't going to write again because I know how busy you are, but I just had to let you know, in case he hasn't let you know himself, that Kelvin's come back. It was a bombshell. You could have knocked me down with a feather. He said he was very sorry for going off like that, and I could see in his eyes that he really was. After all, you're not married to a man for over 15 years without being able to read what's in his eyes. All the same, I told him that I didn't think much of his behavior, that I had been deeply hurt and upset by how he treated me. Although he had a deep tan, he didn't look very well, and when I asked if he had enjoyed himself in Barbados, he said no, he hadn't. Apparently, the food had given him diarrhea from the moment he landed until the time he took off again. I felt like saying, "Serves you right," but I made him some coffee, and he had two slices of walnut loaf. I didn't quite know how to break the news about Gareth. It... it was a bit awkward, really, but to my great relief, he didn't seem to mind. "Good old Gareth Quadrant," he said. "What a marvelous idea."

So I'm just scribbling you this quick note to keep you up to date and let you know that I've now got two orchestral players to get off in time for rehearsals, concerts, recording sessions, etc. They get on very well together; sometimes they clown about like a couple of silly schoolboys, and I've forgiven Kelvin for what he did because people in my position just have to learn to live with the artistic temperament, as I'm sure they do in yours. Must call a halt now because I have a stack of ironing to do.

Yours sincerely,

Brenda Hamto.

[Music]

[Music]

Dear Mr. Previn,

This is positively the last time you will hear from me, but I thought it might interest you to know that I've had enough. I can't go on. Sixteen dress shirts, 24 bow ties, and 19 black socks. The 20th has gone down behind the back of the washing machine, and I can't reach it. I do nothing but work, washing, starching, ironing, pressing, and then baking and making cups of coffee and polishing shoes and flutes and French horns. I never get a minute to myself. It's worse than being the mother of 10. Neither Kelvin nor Mr. Quadrant take any notice of me, except to ask about the next meal. They expect a cooked breakfast every morning and would no more think of making me a cup of coffee than flying to the moon. So this is the finish, Mr. Previn, and nothing you can say or do can possibly change my mind. You will not hear from me again because I'm leaving for London Airport first thing in the morning. I'm not going to Barbados in case I get a bowel infection, but I'm going somewhere where it's warm and quiet and peaceful, and where there are no orchestras.

Yours truly,

Brenda Hamb store.

P.S. And I'm taking Ma with me.

25. By Judy Gardner. Read by Brian.

[Music]

Blessed the soprano gave a last appalling squawk, collapsed on her her knees, and died, profoundly relieved. Lacy turned to study his wife's reaction and saw that tears were traveling slowly down her cheeks. He watched her close her eyes in glorious suffering. The curtain swept down, and she began to clap feebly, all passion spent. Lazy clapped too, but with a simple briskness of someone who has come out of the darkness into the light. In the past, he had sometimes envied Winifred's artistic sensitivity and had even tried briefly to cultivate some of his own, but each time it flew away and left him the same as he had been before: a rather stolid person who liked playing snooker. Now he was content to remain as nature ordained.

When the curtain had risen and fallen for the third time, she allowed him to adjust a little white fur tippet thing around her shoulders and lead her from the theatre. A chill wind met them outside, and she stumbled against him. "Can't we get a taxi?" "Look at the queue. It's not far to walk." "I don't know the way." "No, but I do," clutching her firmly by the elbow, he marched her away from the surging mass of opera lovers and down a narrow street, shining darkly after the rain. "Oh, Jamie, my shoe hurts." "It won't be long now." "But it's hurting so." "What'd you expect me to do? Carry you?" He'd have carried her all right, 25 years ago, slung her up in his arms like some darling, delicate baby, and been happy when people stared. But 25 years is a long time, and things don't stay the same. He splashed in a puddle and heard her wince.

"Real life seems so awful after all that beauty." "You're right, because it wasn't all tragedy. I mean, the story was, and so was the whole underlying theme, but I thought the man who sang The Alchemist was terribly funny, didn't you?" "Yes," said Lacy, who had never laughed aloud in an opera except for the time when Josie got his nose trapped in Carmen's castanet. "Yeah, he was a real clown." They walked on. "I do wish you could have got a taxi." "Nearly there." "Yes, but it's my birthday." "I know it's your birthday," he said. 25 of her birthdays, and not counting the one when they were only engaged, and each of them had been celebrated by going to something artistic and having to discuss it afterwards.

"To dinner." It was one of those restaurants that have a striped awning and dwarf evergreens in window boxes. They went inside, and the head waiter conducted them to a table for two against the wall. Settling herself, she glanced around appreciatively. "I read about it in one of the glossies," she said happily, "while I was having my hair done." "Very nice," he said. "Martini?" She nodded, then her bright smile faltered, and you watched her expression change to one of diffidence. He knew what was coming. "As it's my birthday, could I have a Pimm's No. 1?" "Of course you can," he said. Every year she asked for a Pimm's No. 1, just as later in the meal she always asked if she could have crêpe suzette. She was a great girl for ritual. He ordered the Pimm's and a double Scotch for himself, then sat back and waited.

"Shoe still hurting?" he said at length. "No, not now. Not now I'm sitting down. Down my mother suffered agonies with bunions." "It's not a bunion," she said quickly. "Only old people get bunions." The drinks came. Raising his glass, he smiled gallantly and wished her many happy returns. She began to reply, but another waiter had appeared with the menus. They studied them, and she asked for Alsbury duckling. "Duckling? I thought you always had quail." "No, I love duckling. Quail's too expensive." "Rubbish. Have quail." By the time he had finished ordering the meal, his glass was empty. He ordered another double Scotch, then watched her lean across the table to him. "Do you come here often?" It was her routine joke, framed in a bright, pretty smile. She really did look very pretty in the glowing candlelight, and he should have been grateful for all the years she had spent at the dressing table, patting in lotions and ointments and things. It was no fault of hers that he suddenly longed for a mature, mysterious woman instead of a little, tinted, carefully preserved blonde.

"I did love it, didn't you?" she said, touching his hand, and he knew that they were about to embark on the annual artistic discussion. "Of course, English opera is very different from Italian or German, isn't it? And not only have we very little of it apart from Britain and poor old Ethel Smyth, but there's something about our national character which doesn't seem to go with the essential theatricality of opera, does it?" "Jamie?" And then the waiter arrived with his whitebait and her snails, and he watched her little hands get to grips with the big silver tools that always reminded him of dental equipment. "Oh, Jamie," she said suddenly, tremulous, "isn't it lovely us being here together? Just an old married couple having dinner in a nice restaurant and still being in love." The Pouilly-Fuissé was fresh and agreeable, and he took another gulp. "It certainly is. I mean, we're so lucky, both enjoying the good things in life like music and the arts, and then going back to our nice little home where we share everything." She dug a snail from its shell and transferred it, glistening, to her mouth. Lacy flinched, certain that it had wriggled.

"Some women just amaze me," she said. "The way art doesn't seem to mean anything to them at all. I mean, we all know it's very important to keep yourself looking nice for your husband; I certainly always do my best, but men want something more than that from women, don't they, Jamie? I'm sure most men sometimes feel like plunging really deep into interesting depths." The majestic bones of her quail lay neatly stripped to one side of her plate. "Poor little sods," Lacy thought lugubriously and refilled his glass before the waiter could do it for him. The Burgundy was rich and heavy after the Pouilly-Fuissé and seemed to be affecting his mood likewise.

"I still enjoy a game of snooker," he said, rousing himself. "Funny old boy," she said fondly. "You're just a great big schoolboy at heart, aren't you?" She twitted on about love and happiness, and suddenly he had to get away. Suddenly it was imperative to get away somewhere quiet where he could lean against a cool wall and let some of the evening's terrible tedium disperse. "Excuse me a moment," he muttered and shied his chair across a restaurant in search of the men's room. Mercifully, it was empty, and he stood with his face pressed against a roller towel, thinking, "25. Next year it'll be 26." He had to get away, much further away than the men's room. For the first time, he saw that what he needed was to strip himself of his marriage like an insect sloughing off a dead skin. Raising his face, he slowly became aware of the frosted glass window on the opposite wall. With haggard eyes, he calculated its dimensions and then lurched over to it. To his surprise, it opened easily, and a gust of night air flew in his face. And standing there, it came to him that the whole thing was too simple for words.

"Here we go, chaps," he said, and spitting lightly on his hands, took four backward paces before launching himself at the window ledge. His feet hit the woodwork, and he crouched giddily for a moment before plummeting like a stone into the darkness outside. He had expected to fall much further and met the ground with a swiftness that jolted his teeth. Picking himself up, he blundered between dustbins and crates of empty bottles before reaching the street. It had started to rain again, and he stood with his head tilted back so that the drops fell on his upturned face. Swaying, he opened his mouth and joyfully visualized them diluting all the evening's alcohol with their cleansing power. He toyed with the idea of taking his clothes off so that he might wash away the accumulated awfulness of the last 25 years, then decided against it. Laughing wildly, he set off down the street. The first thing was to find a hotel for the night. Then, tomorrow, he would write to Winifred explaining what had happened.

"Dear Winifred, I'm afraid I've left you. My reasons for doing so are hard to explain without running the risk of hurting you unnecessarily, and this I have no wish to do. You have been a good wife to me, Winifred, in your fashion, and I'm content to leave it at that. Don't try to find me, Winifred. I am going where I hope to build a new life for myself. I'm fed up to the teeth with your posturings about art and your silly mooing about love. I'm going far away, Winifred, but until such time as you find another man to bore their thingies off, I am perfectly willing to make financial provision."

Which brought him to wonder whether he had sufficient money on him to pay for the hotel when he found it. Wavering to a halt, he took out his wallet and began to count the notes. There seemed to be an unusually large number of them, so he counted again, breathing heavily. Then he remembered that he had cashed extra money in order to take Winifred out on her birthday. He put his wallet away and walked on until it occurred to him that he had left Winifred sitting in the restaurant with no means of paying the bill. He stopped again. When he said "financial provision," he was of course thinking about the common necessities only, but on the other hand, it seemed a bit mean to start the new arrangements before she was even aware that there were to be any. His brain was working slowly, but very clearly, as he turned and walked back the way he had come. His brain was working clearly, but for some reason, it chose to ignore any possibility of re-entering the restaurant in the conventional manner. He only knew that having left by means of the window in the men's room, there was no other course but to return by the same route.

Groping among the dustbins, he squinted up the wall and found that during his absence the window had been closed. His heart sank, and all he could think of was Winifred sitting alone at the table with a large bill to pay and only a couple of pounds in her purse. He always saw to it that Winifred never had more than a couple of pounds in her purse. Peering more closely, he found that the window wasn't shut shut after all. It was merely on the last catch, and to slip his hand inside and release it was simplicity itself. The window was higher from the outside, and he dragged a crate of empty bottles across to stand on. Even so, it was difficult. It took a lot of strength to lever himself up onto his elbows, and he was beginning to feel rather tired. Closing his eyes, he listened to the rain gurgling in the gutters, and then, from a crouching position, half jumped at, half fell forward. He landed in darkness, his fall partly broken by a large, immovable object that appeared to be made of china. Baffled, he tried to work out why he seemed to be in a large cupboard, and then heard the quick patter of high heels coming towards him. Instinctively, he froze. Then the door opened almost in his face, and the air was torn by a high female scream. "Oh God, there's a man in there, and he's all wet!" The door slammed to again. Drunkenly, he sank down on the lavatory seat and tried to work out how he had got in through the wrong window.

They dragged him out, and although they seemed frightened of him, they wouldn't let him go. There seemed to be dozens of them. "How'd he get in here?" "Somebody send for the manager." "He was waiting to pinch my bottom!" "Sex maniac!" "No, look at him," said another voice, and as she loomed out of the fray, Lacy recognized the woman who had sat at the next table. She had eyes like... like a lizard, and a skin the texture of orange pith. "Look at him," she repeated. "He's not a maniac, he's just a creep. A creepy, creepy little creep." She shook her head sorrowfully, and suddenly, overcome with impatience of the whole absurd situation, Lacy tried to lunge past her towards the door. She caught him by the front of his shirt, and there was a pop of exploding buttons. "He's just old and pathetic," she said, tightening her grip, and Lacy roared as her sharp red fingernails bit through his flesh. He tried to fight back, but was hampered by increasing physical exhaustion and a sense that nothing really mattered, while somewhere in the back of his mind lingered the knowledge, learned at his mother's knee, that nice men didn't hit women.

"I can explain!" "Like hell you can!" the woman cried joyously, and gave him a hard blow on the ear. "Would you mind telling me what you think you're doing with my husband?" said a new voice, new yet oddly familiar, and Lacy opened dazed eyes as the powder room door swung to behind his wife, displacing his tormentor with a neat shove of her hip. She went over to him and tucked his shirt back inside the waistband of his trousers. Standing on tiptoe, she smoothed his hair. "I made a mistake," he mumbled. "Of course you did," she smiled at him reassuringly, and he remembered how she had cried in the opera. He put his arm around her shoulders and leaned his stinging ear against her soft, tinted hair.

"He was crouching in the blue, waiting to spring," one of the other women said, "and I don't think it's right." Beneath Lacy's armpit, Winifred drew herself erect. "If my husband happened to be in your laboratory," she said slowly and with emphasis, "you can take it from me that he had a watertight reason. And now, if you'll excuse us." They did so, standing back silently while the two Lacies, still clamped together, left the room.

"I'm awfully sorry, Win," he mumbled in the passage outside. "I can explain exactly what happened. You'll just have to believe me when I said that I wasn't..." "No, of course you weren't," she said, "because you never are, are you?" He was struck by the odd, brittle quality in her voice. "Never what?" "Oh, shut up," she said, and removing his arm from her shoulder, led the way back to the restaurant. He followed her to the table, which had been swept clear of everything except the salt and pepper and their two crumpled napkins. "I must pay the bill," he said, looking around. "I've already paid it." "You've paid it?" "But that's what I said," primly, she adjusted her little white fur tippet thing and picked up her handbag. She swept past a head waiter who bowed. Outside, the rain had dwindled to a slow, weeping mist, and Lacy hurried to catch up with her. "You better find us a taxi," she said over her shoulder. "But, but I want to know how you paid the bill." "A taxi," she repeated, and suddenly he was too weary to care anymore. More like an old, hopeless dog, he crossed the street and slunk off in the direction of Shury Avenue, where the lights were bright and taxis were plentiful, and where women earn money by doing all manner of strange and terrible things.

[Music]

Goodbye Gertie. By Judy Gardner. Read by June Whitfield.

Incidentally, the cat made a mess under the dining table," said Mrs. Bell to her daughter-in-law. "So, with poor little Timmy sobbing for his mother and next door's music blasting through the wall, I realized that my stamina is no longer quite what it was." "I'm awfully sorry," Belinda panted, she wrenched off her jacket and dumped it on the floor. "Oh, how naughty of them both." "I cleaned up the mess, and Timmy is bathed and bedded," continued Mrs. Bell. "I gave him Corn Flakes. I hope that was right, but you left me no instructions, dear. I read him a little piece from the Times obituary column. 'What at his age? It's the sound of the human voice that counts,' and I reassured him that Mommy was coming back, she was merely a little late." "I'm sorry," Belinda repeated. "The time just flew. Um, can I pour us a drink or something?" "No, thank you, dear," replied Mrs. Bell, putting on her coat and taking up her handbag. "Perhaps you would just run me home straight away." "Oh, God," Belinda said very quietly. "I don't know how to tell you this, but I've run out of petrol. I had to leave the car in Hawthorne Avenue. Honestly, I'd no idea the tank was so low."

Mrs. Bell heaved a sigh that raised her bosom a good three inches. She closed her eyes, seeking patience, but none came. "It had been a long, hard day, dear," she said with her eyes still closed. "You are a very sweet girl in your way. Oh, but you are incompetent, incompetent, inconsiderate, and inconceivably muddle-headed. Apart from your pretty face and rather waif-like charm, I consider you, in short, to be an utter and complete dead loss. I'm sorry you cannot cook, apart from warming things in a microwave. You never sweep or dust. I could write my name on the coffee table, and yet you never have time for anything, not even for this poor, poor plant that I gave you." Mrs. Bell bent to insert an index finger in the large plant pot standing on the hall floor. "Look, dry as a bone." "We call her Gerty," Belinda said faintly. "I prefer to think of it as a Ficus benjamina. You may remember that I grew it especially for you." "I'm sorry," Belinda suddenly blurted. "I keep on saying I'm sorry whenever we meet. I have to keep saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry for this, sorry for that, like a silly sort of machine." "Don't shout, dear. I was merely pointing out that..." "Well, don't bother. Just bear in mind that your darling son likes microwaved food, that we both adore having dust on our coffee table, and if that's how you feel, you can take a blasted plant home with you." "Thank you," said Mrs. Bell. "I will be glad to. Perhaps you will kindly open the door." Readjusting her shoulder bag so that it hung from her neck, she gave Belinda a flinty goodbye smile. "But you can't really. I mean, it's too..." Belinda fell silent. "Just open the door, and then close it behind me." Belinda did so, and Mrs. Bell clasped the plant pot in her arms and staggered out into the street.

They had never got on, not really. They both tried, of course, and would no doubt continue to do so, but they never seemed able to progress beyond a weary suspicion of one another. The fact that Mrs. Bell only ever addressed Belinda as "dear" and that Belinda could rise to nothing more personal than "you" just about said it all. A pity, thought Mrs. Bell for the 18th time, but there it is. It was dark now and rather cold, still warm with exasperation. It took her several minutes to fully appreciate the situation in which she now found herself: alone and tired and carrying a plant pot of heroic proportions. Its topmost branches swayed and bobbed above her head, and its width was greatly in excess of her own. Seen from the opposite direction, she was no more than a Ficus benjamina on legs.

"I must get a taxi," she thought, and peered hopefully through the foliage. Two passed her already engaged, and the third hastily accelerated at the sight of being flagged down by a mobile tree. There was nothing for it but to walk, and Mrs. Bell thought longingly of her son, who would have driven her home like a shot if only he hadn't been traveling abroad for his firm. Fresh indignation filled her at the thought of the silly girl he had married. Only she could be silly enough to call an ornamental fig "Gerty." She staggered on with a pain beginning to gore her spine and her arms aching. There were few people about, and those who passed turned to look at her with curiosity. Two teenagers even sniggered. Almost on the point of setting the plant pot down for a moment's rest, she suddenly remembered that a little further on, where the common began, there was a public bench. Breathing hard, she managed to reach it. It was unoccupied, and she sank down with the plant pot at her feet. It then occurred to her for the first time that she could never have taken a taxi anyway; the plant was far too big to go inside. "Might as well try to take it on a bus," she thought with grim humor. "Oh, never mind, I'm almost halfway home now."

Lost in her own thoughts, she failed to notice the man who appeared out of the shadows until he seated himself beside her. Faintly alarmed, Mrs. Bell shifted slightly so that their elbows no longer touched. "Oh, my word," the man murmured. "What a beautiful, beautiful exhibit." He leaned forward and touched one of the leaves with reverent fingers. "Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a Ficus benjamina." "My late husband was a very keen plantsman," Mrs. Bell heard herself saying some 10 minutes later. "His speciality was pelargonians." "Really?" said the man. He turned to face her, and in the shadowy light, she became aware of a thin, rather aesthetic face wearing a gentle expression. He was not young, for there were lines at the corner of his eyes and the hair visible from beneath the old-fashioned trilby hat looked as if it might be turning gray. There was a quiet elegance about him that rather pleased her.

"I had a benjamina once," he said. "I tried repeatedly to take cuttings from it, but all in vain." "Cuttings?" said Mrs. Bell. "Oh, no wonder. The more common figs can be increased by cutting, certainly, but the benjamina must be air-layered." The man removed his attention from the plant in front of them and turned to gaze at her again. "Oh," he said softly. "I had no idea." "Air layering isn't easy," went on Mrs. Bell, "and I don't recommend it to the amateur, but in a nutshell, it means the method that is used to stimulate root development without the stem being in contact with the potting agent." "Uh, by that I mean the compost?" "Oh, my word," said the man. "I'm not sure I could ever rise to skills like that." "Oh, of course you could," said Mrs. Bell perversely. "Once upon a time, I was unable to grow anything but mustard and cress."

"But it's such a beautiful specimen," the man breathed. They fell silent, watching the occasional glint of car lights through the finely cut foliage. "Gerty," thought Mrs. Bell with a shudder, and wondered whether she should begin to explain the technique of air layering in more detail. "An upward slanting cut with a sharp knife, the insertion of a piece of matchstick to hold the cut open while you..." No, instead, she surprised herself by saying that if he really wanted one, she would propagate a specimen for him herself. "Oh, I couldn't possibly put you to all that trouble," he breathed gratitude at her through delicate nostrils. "Give me your address, and you may have it in about 3 months' time," said Mrs. Bell. "In the meanwhile, I must be getting home." She stood up, stamping her chilled feet, then bent to retrieve the plant pot. But the man was faster. He stood clasping the Ficus to his chest. "Oh, I couldn't possibly allow you to carry such a heavy thing," he said. "You lead the way on, and I'll follow."

Two thoughts crossed Mrs. Bell's mind. The first concerned the man's quite extraordinary kindness, and the second, a little more ignoble, wondered whether it would entail having to ask him in for a cup of coffee. It was very late, and she was not in the habit of asking strange men into her home, no matter what time it was and no matter how nice they appeared. "Please, I can manage it quite easily, no problem," cried the man gaily, and as if to prove the point, began to stride rapidly in the direction she indicated. He was taller than she realized, with long legs ending in soundless, spongy-looking shoes. He drew ahead of her. "Uh, wait," she called. "I'm afraid I can't keep up." Without replying, he increased his long, loping stride. The distance between them widened, and Mrs. Bell began to run, a little breathless, tottering run with her handbag bouncing against her bosom. She caught sight of the Ficus benjamina waving and fluttering imploringly from the man's arms. "Come back, come back!" her voice echoed eerily in the nighttime street. Passes-by seemed to have disappeared, and there was only the silently fleeing figure in the distance. A moment more, and he too had disappeared. Mrs. Bell abandoned the pursuit and turned, weeping, for home. Although the heating was on, she felt cold, so cold. Tiredness clogged her muscles, while shock still fogged her mind. Confusedly, she set about warming a bowl of soup, then abandoned it. She felt too sickened to eat or drink. Instead, she immersed herself in a hot bath and then climbed into bed with her electric blanket turned up to number eight. But warm at last, she still couldn't sleep. The endless stupidities of Belinda collided with the cynical persiflage of the man who had chatted her up with the sole intention of stealing the Ficus benjamina. Having to admit, in the lonely darkness, that you have finally lost all faith in the human race is not pleasant. To be quite honest, even her own son was not always entirely beyond reproach, and so she tossed and sighed until 5:30, when at last she fell into a heavy sleep.

She was awoken by someone ringing the doorbell. Dazzled by the stream of winter sunlight falling across the bed, she fumbled for her dressing gown and slippers and made her way groggily downstairs. Belinda was standing there, Belinda smiling her beguiling, waif-like smile. "I'm sorry I was rude to you yesterday," she said, and proffered something wrapped around in a scroll of florist's flowery paper. Peering, Mrs. Bell saw a small plant nestled inside it: a small, very small Ficus benjamina with two little leafed branchlets held out to her like arms imploring sanctuary. "Ooh, my dear," said Mrs. Bell, greatly moved. "There was really no need." "I thought you'd like it." "Oh, I do indeed. Now come in and have some coffee." "I'd love to, but I'd better not. I've left Timmy with my friend next door." Belinda backed away. She reached the gate, then sidled back again. "By the way," she said diffidently, "I don't want to be a nuisance, but please could I have Gerty back?"

[Music]

A Light Quickly. Story by Charles Coldwell. Read by Andrew Sachs.

"I'm constantly amazed at the brazen effrontery of criminals who appear before this bench and attempt to excuse their gross and flagrant lack of respect for the rule of law by asking us to believe stories that a 5-year-old would deride as incredible. And today, we've been asked by you, Mr. Farley, to accept that your presence in your unfortunate victim's dining room at 2:00 in the morning was the result of a telephone call from a third party, whom you cannot produce, requesting that you take part in a challenge for a popular television program that doesn't exist. The fact that you have produced this insultingly unlikely tale as evidence of a lack of criminal intent on your part convinces us not of your innocence, but merely that you are foolish as well as felonious. We normally be disposed to accept arguments from your counsel that a first offense of this kind should be dealt with by a probation order or community service. However, your unrepentant stance, as evidenced by your singularly childish and persistent denials of guilt, convinces us that a custodial sentence is more appropriate in this case. You will go to prison for 12 months."

Leslie O'Rodstacker sat back and looked around the courtroom with that expression on his face which many others in the past had found so infuriating. It at the same time indicated smug satisfaction in a job well done and challenged any liberal do-gooders to defy his god-given moral right to deliver this particular short, sharp shock to the dejected Farley. The two female magistrates who sat either side of him looked intently at their papers. Mrs. Bagot had suggested that she had found his excuse mildly entertaining in an otherwise dreary procession of wrongdoers, but she was a liberal Democrat, thought Leslie dismissively, consigning her along with Greens, hippies, and even the Salvation Army to that soft underbelly of society: the insipid and well-meaning who were obstacles to the restoration of decency, order, and discipline. Thankfully, Mrs. Deacon Brown was more impressed by Leslie's arguments, particularly as she was anxious to jump the queue in the waiting list to join the Golf Club of which Leslie was the honor president. The fact that Mr. Bagot's dahlias had beaten Mr. Deacon Brown's to second place in the South Sar flower and produce show did not, of course, affect her decision to support Leslie Stacker.

After a stunned pause, Farley erupted. "But it's the truth, I tell you! They said if I did it, we could win a holiday with the kids in Torremolinos!" "You miserable bleed..." Mercifully for his chances of avoiding a further period of incarceration for contempt of court, his description of Les Stacker was cut short by the heavy clang as the door to the subterranean cells heralded a trip to somewhere arguably less beguiling than Torremolinos. Although the arresting officer was heard to murmur words to the effect that he'd been to Torremolinos and knew where he'd rather be going right now. The food and company were likely to be better in the nick, not to mention the view, and Spanish telly was terrible. All in all, Spanish. Honestly, these crims, they didn't know when they were well off, and at least the wife's sister wouldn't be giving him constant grief about not helping the wife with...

The kids and it being her holiday too. Some hours later, Bill Farley was contemplating the cell which he was to call home for the next few months. His cellmate was relishing the opportunity to share with his dazed companion the love of animals and taxidermy, which had led him to "perin" people's cherished pets in order to immortalize them in his extensive collection.

The other prisoners had long since lost patience with Paxo Gudge. His tendency to elaborate on the finer points of his hobby as the beef stew was being ladled onto their plates was not a characteristic that endeared him to them. Pao had been caught red-handed. It was rumored that the police dog accompanying the officer who arrested him had not yet recovered from the emotional trauma of greeting another German Shepherd in the traditional manner and finding itself sniffing from "alahh" rather than the expected exciting new variation of an intimate canine aroma.

At the same time, as 500 miles away, Bill Farley was digesting information about the delicacy of touch demanded by the formidable challenge of a deceased Chihuahua. Leslie Stacker was settling into more salubrious accommodation in the Claymore Hotel in Inverness. But it would have been no consolation to the incarcerated Bill to know that Leslie too was not overjoyed at the situation he had found himself in. He was reluctantly attending a 3-day seminar for lay JP's on sentencing policy. He'd noticed with considerable chagrin that one of the speakers was to address them on the role played by inappropriate custodial sentencing in the creation of a recidivist criminal subclass. He'd allowed himself the luxury of a rare half-smile when it had occurred to him that he would prefer to deliver a lecture himself on the incidence of pickpockets reoffending after amputation of the hand. Leslie was proud of his sense of humor. "Just my little joke" was one of his favorite sayings.

But he had arrived in Inverness to find that the convention hotel had been overbooked and he'd have to be accommodated elsewhere. His displeasure was intensified when, on arrival at the other hotel, he discovered it to be a modern, impersonal, multi-story monster which was hosting a fantasy science fiction convention. During the period that he would be there, the foyer was seething with semi-clad girls in greasy makeup and enthusiastic young men in ill-fitting Star Trek uniforms. Not that Leslie knew the source of the inspiration for the costumes. He didn't believe the television had contributed anything useful to society that couldn't have been achieved by healthy exercise and regular visits to the public lending library.

Leslie negotiated the corridors teeming with alien life, all desperate to be seen and admired by their peers and therefore constantly moving with pretended purpose around the hotel. He closed the door on room 7143 with a sigh of relief. His suitcase was due to follow him from his original convention hotel, along with those of the other handful of delegates who had been obliged to transfer to the Claymore. He availed himself of the services of the "team making equipment" and ate the small packet of Rich Tea biscuits and the chocolate mint that had been placed upon his pillow, despite finding the juxtaposition of the potentially messy chocolate and the crisp white pillow a trial.

Irksome when his case failed to appear after what he considered to be a reasonable time, Leslie telephoned the reception desk to complain. He was told that somehow it had been mistakenly placed on the last train to Edinburgh with the luggage of a bishop, who would doubtless realize the error on arriving at his destination and, being a man of undoubted probity, would arrange for its prompt return. They would then arrange for its delivery to his room before breakfast. And was there anything they could do in the meantime? Could they perhaps provide him with a complimentary bottle of their "housewife" from the restaurant? Leslie curtly dismissed their offer and decided to retire. At least the en-suite bathroom provided sufficient facilities to enable him to do so, feeling clean enough to slip under the unaccustomed duvet without the usual security of his sensible wicking pajamas between himself and the sheets.

In the small hours of the morning, he woke, as he usually did if he made the mistake of consuming too much tea before retiring. Half asleep, he followed the route he usually took to visit his bathroom at home in Guildford. As the door clicked shut behind him, he realized that he was standing stark naked in the corridor. He quickly turned and tried to open the door again, despite knowing with a sickening certainty that without that ridiculous piece of plastic he'd been given on checking in, he was not going to be able to get back into his room. He was right. Thoughts whirled through the fog of his rapidly clearing brain. How was he to regain access to his room without the embarrassment of being seen stark naked by whichever hotel employee came to let him in? How was he to summon assistance anyway? He could hardly take the lift down to reception, and if he knocked on another guest's door, how would they react to the sight of an unclothed man with his bony hands clasped over his genitals? They wouldn't even wait to hear his explanation. How could he get to a telephone without being seen?

Before he could begin to come to grips with the full, impossible horror of his position, the sound of excited voices approaching the junction at the top of the corridor drove him to scurry inelegantly towards a door marked "Emergency Stairs." He made a truly bizarre sight. He was a tall man, and his slenderness accentuated his height. The neat white goatee beard which he sported lent him an even more ridiculous air. He looked like nothing less than a demented Great Goblin from a Hans Christian Andersen story as he skittered along the corridor with a jerky, stooping gait. He had to escape before he was spotted and wanted to protect his modesty and what remained of his dignity. He gained the sanctuary of the concrete stairwell just in time to avoid being seen by a 5-foot-2 Darth Vader and his girlfriend, Morgan Le Fay.

The incongruousness of the appearance of these two characters didn't trouble their impersonators, an unemployed electrician and a care assistant from Leicester. An uncharitable outsider might feel tempted to observe that the real Morgan Le Fay would probably not have gained such a prodigious reputation as an irresistible enchantress had she been quite as massive as her 20th-century impersonator, and furthermore, would probably have been less inclined to allow cleavage to dominate all her other undoubted qualities quite so comprehensively. These uncharitable thoughts didn't, however, occupy Leslie. He had more important things to think about. He had to find a telephone.

He descended to the next floor and cautiously opened the door into an identical corridor to that on the seventh floor he had just left. Similarly, the sixth and fifth floors offered no solace, as a rising panic began to make his heart hammer uncomfortably in his throat. He was getting further and further away from his room, which he now saw as the only point of safety in a frightening and dangerous world. He realized at the likeliest spot to find a telephone without the risk of being seen before he could summon assistance was the basement. As he passed the door to each floor on the way down, he was constantly made aware that there were still many residents roaming the corridor. Distant laughter and bursts of artificial laser fire mingled with electronically distorted voices to remind Leslie that he was in imminent danger of the most unwelcome experience in what he, at least, regarded as his hitherto entirely blameless life.

After several heart-stopping close calls, he reached the deserted hinterland of the service areas of the basement and saw a sight comparable in his predicament to an oasis to a parched traveler in a desert: a glorious Bakelite telephone attached to the wall beside a row of aluminum trolleys bearing stacks of clean crockery. As he grasped the handset with relief, a pair of doors burst open, and two alien monsters came through, firing bursts of staccato electronic fire back into the room they had left, to the accompaniment of cheers of encouragement from those within. Before the revelers could turn and behold the unlikely sight of the crouching, naked, and horrified Justice of the Peace, church warden, and found member of the Guildford Guardians of Decency, Leslie had ducked into an open doorway.

He found himself in a storeroom which was the temporary repository of assorted artifacts, weapons, and other items belonging to the convention organizers, including a Cyberman costume and a Dalek. Under normal circumstances, Leslie would rather have died than assume either of these guises, but at this moment, the role of a Cyberman seemed a very attractive alternative to his present vulnerable situation. All he had to do was clamber into the costume, walk to the front desk, explain the situation, and have the staff readmit him to his room. He lifted the silver-painted Wellington boots off the rubberized and tube-encrusted boiler suit, but before he could pick it up, he heard one of the two gun-toting aliens outside say, "Come on, Brian, let's get the stuff up to the main room. Andrew will do his nut if it's not all set up for the opening ceremonies in the morning. I don't fancy doing it at the crack of dawn."

Leslie's instinct for survival drove him to make his next big mistake. Still clutching the silver gum boots, he climbed inside the Dalek and pulled the hinged, domed lid down over his head. Later, when going over the sequence of events, he realized that if anyone might have been likely to accept his story and sympathize with his plight, it would have been these two young men, who evidently inhabited a world where nude men skulking furtively in basements wouldn't perhaps excite the same reaction as they undoubtedly would in Leslie's world. However, these thoughts came later. Leslie was now naked, clutching a pair of rubber boots, and was being wheeled through the still busy foyer of a hotel in the small hours of the morning by two alien monsters.

As he passed out of the reception area, he thought of shouting out for help, but could imagine the likely reaction of the young girl behind the counter and the dozen or so people sprawled chatting in groups around the low tables. The Dalek was pushed by the young men across the car park and formal garden in front of the hotel and into the conference center, some 100 or so yards from the main building. Half an hour later, he was alone in the main hall, inside a Dalek, and heard the night porter incongruously assuring two alien monsters that the room would be securely locked until they came and requested it to be opened in the morning.

Leslie climbed out of the Dalek and frantically searched the hall for anything with which he might cover himself before attempting to summon assistance. There was nothing. In desperation, he put on the silver Wellington boots and removed from a table on the stage an alien mask which, although he neither knew nor would have cared, had been used in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Holding it strategically in front of him, he explored the room and found a pair of fire doors with push bars on the wall opposite the entrance. He contemplated his options, found that there were none, pushed slowly on the bars, and the doors opened. He emerged from the warmth of the hotel to the darkness of the paved walkway at the back of the building.

Time seemed now to take place without any input from the exhausted and sorry spectacle that Leslie had become. As if in a trance, he arrived at the rear corner of the building to peer around before embarking into another unknown realm. With a sudden surge of hope, he saw that there was a public telephone kiosk on the pavement at the side of the road which ran up to the hotel. All he had to do was climb the grassy bank and go through a clump of low bushes. He would even be able to reach the telephone from the security of those very bushes without exposing himself to the gaze of any passing motorist. Clutching the mask before him, he scrambled awkwardly up the bank, and as he gingerly negotiated the evergreen and holly bushes that separated him from his lifeline to normality, the world erupted into madness.

Simultaneously, quartz halogen spotlights sprang on all around the hotel. A young courting couple in considerable disarray sprang to their feet from the bushes only feet away from him, and a police car screeched to a standstill beside the very telephone kiosk towards which he'd been heading. The police had been summoned by the triggering of the security alarm when he had opened the crash doors in the main hall. Dazzled by the lights coming at him from all directions, Leslie, understandably but ill-advisedly in the circumstances, lifted the mask to his face to shield his eyes from the glare.

"And now, listen, this isn't what it seems, officer."

"Isn't it, sir?"

"Well, then, there's a novelty," replied one of the policemen as he covered Leslie in a most welcome blanket.

"You don't understand, man! I am a magistrate! For Heaven's Sake!"

"Were you, sir?" came the chilling reply.

The following day, Leslie appeared in court and, as if through a fog and a very long way off, heard the lady magistrate begin, "I am constantly amazed at the brazen arrogance of criminals who appear before this bench."