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or garden moose.’

      ‘It makes it very difficult for us, madam. Are you absolutely certain he had no distinctive features? Listen. I’m going to read you a list of things he might have been wearing in order to jog your memory: surgical truss, bowler hat, long pants — over the trousers. MCC blazer.’

      ‘Why are all these gas masks hanging in the hall?’ says Pearl. She sounds slightly frightened and very unimpressed.

      ‘My father collects things like that,’ I say. ‘He’s fascinated by anything to do with war.’

      Pearl shudders. ‘Sounds unhealthy to me. What about the wooden legs?’

      ‘They came from North Staffordshire. We use them as firewood.’ That doesn’t sound very nice, does it? I wish Dad would nick a more superior class of article from the lost property office. It is difficult to explain the situation to visitors. They would never believe some of the things people leave on trains. Dad is like one of those Scavenger Beetles that goes around disposing of lumps of shit. He gets rid of the stuff that nobody claims. Society owes him a debt really.

      ‘Does the barometer wo —’

      ‘Don’t —’ Too late. The glass has fallen off again. People will keep tapping it. ‘It’s waiting to be mended. You didn’t see which way the hand went did you?’

      It is difficult to see anything in the hall because after the cost of electricity went up again our wattage came down to a level which would cause complaints at a teenagers’ snogging party. You can hardly see your hand in front of somebody else’s tit. It does create rather a gloomy atmosphere and I can see that Pearl is having no difficulty in resisting the temptation to shout ‘Fiesta!’ and run round the front room with one of the plastic roses between her teeth.

      ‘Come into the drawing room,’ I say. I call it the drawing room because of some of the things my nephew Jason Noggett drew on the wall with his felt pencil — I don’t know where a child that age hears the words, really I don’t. Unfortunately they didn’t come off without smudging and this meant that the settee had to be moved against the wall to hide them. This liberated a large stain in the middle of the carpet and a pink latex brassiere which nobody claimed, neither of them. Sid said that Dad must have brought the bra home from the L.P.O. which didn’t go down very well. In order to cover the stain. Mum moved the fireside rug but this revealed all the scorch marks and holes where I had tried to pick out the pattern of the carpet with a red hot poker — of course, I was just a child at the time and I didn’t really know what I was doing — until the fire brigade arrived, that is. In the end, Dad solved the problem by bringing back a screen which we were able to put against the wall where Jason had done his stuff — I mean, the writing. At first, I thought the screen came from the L.P.O. but when I read that a bloke had fallen down a manhole on to some geezers who were repairing a power cable, I had another think. The initials L.E.B. were a bit of a give away, too.

      ‘There we are,’ I say proudly. ‘Do you want to watch telly while I get us a cup of tea?’

      ‘Have you got a colour set?’ she asks.

      ‘Oh yes,’ I say. ‘What colour would you like?’

      ‘What do you mean?’ She sounds startled. Maybe I should have explained. It isn’t exactly a colour set. It’s a black and white set and Dad got hold of these strips of tinted perspex. You prop them in front of the screen to get a colour effect. It is not very realistic and the perspex is so thick it is difficult to see the picture. Still, it is quite ingenious, isn’t it? Unfortunately, Pearl does not seem to agree with me when I explain it to her and starts poking around the room — not a bad idea when you come to think of it. ‘What are the dentures doing at the bottom of the fish tank?’ she says.

      The correct answer must be ‘growing a kind of green mould’, but I do not give it. ‘They must be Dad’s,’ I say. ‘Jason — he’s my little nephew — was messing about with them. Dad will be pleased.’ At least, he will be pleased that they have been found. It is not surprising that nobody has noticed them up to now. The tank is pretty dirty and the dentures look not unlike an ornament as they sit grinning amongst the coloured gravel.

      ‘Don’t get them out now,’ says Pearl with a shudder as I start rolling up my sleeve.

      ‘All right,’ I say. I can see what she means. The sight of Dad’s best gnashers covered in green slime doesn’t exactly make you come out in a romantic flush. ‘Tea or coffee?’

      ‘What kind of coffee is it?’

      ‘Nescafe.’

      ‘Do you have any real coffee?’

      ‘It is real coffee. Out of a jar.’ I suppose coming from Trinidad she doesn’t know about things like that.

      ‘I’ll have tea, thank you.’

      I don’t argue with her but flash into the kitchen. It is now getting on for midnight and I don’t have a lot of time to waste. Dad should soon be taking Mum in his arms for the last mazurka. I clean the dribbles off the teapot spout with a rag I find in the sink and start bunging things on a tray. Some uncouth bugger has helped himself to the sugar with a wet teaspoon so there are unattractive brown lumps and streaks all through the basin. I get cracking with rag and fingers and try and clean things up. In the end I find it easier to bury everything under a fresh avalanche of sugar. The kettle is taking a long time to boil which I find is because I have switched on the wrong ring. Dear oh dear. I hope it isn’t going to be one of those nights. I try and put a gloss on everything by digging out some cakes I find at the back of the cupboard but it occurs to me that the little chocolate flakes may be mouse droppings so I abandon the idea. The yellow icing was going a nasty transparent colour anyway, as I find out when I try and scrape away the mould. Blimey, this bird had better turn up trumps after all the effort I am putting in. In the end, I settle for some soggy biscuits and lug the whole lot back on a tray.

      ‘I’m afraid we’re out of milk,’ I say.

      She looks at me in a funny sort of way. ‘You needn’t have bothered,’ she says. ‘I can’t drink it without milk. Is this what you brought me all the way here for, a cup of black tea?’

      I put the tray on top of the telly and sit down beside her on the settee. A straight question deserves a straight answer. ‘No,’ I say. I gaze into her minces and suck in my breath sharply as if her wild animal beauty defies description.

      ‘What is it?’ she says. ‘Has one of my lashes smudged?’

      ‘They’re perfect,’ I say. ‘Like — like —’ once again she can feel me struggling for words ‘— like you. You’re just too much.’

      ‘Do you feel all right?’ she says.

      ‘I know it sounds ridiculous me talking like this,’ I say. ‘But I can’t help it. It’s the effect you have on me. You draw the words out of me — words I never thought I could utter. It’s some strange kind of magic.’

      ‘Do you have a proper drink?’ she says. ‘Something alcoholic. The way you go on I should think you must have.’

      I cannot help feeling that I am not getting through to her. The old verbal magnetism is dropping a bit short of target.

      ‘I’ll have a look,’ I say. ‘I know we were running low.’ Understatement of the year. Last Christmas we must have been the only family in the land toasting the Queen in Stone’s Ginger Wine. Ever since I was a kiddy I have looked at a bottle of scotch like it was inside a glass case. I open the lower door of the sideboard and glance inside. There are a number of cork table mats which have been attacked by mice, a paper streamer and a pile of yellowing Christmas cards going back to the early fifties. Mum says she keeps the cards because she likes the pictures but it is really because it is the only way we can get a mantlepiecefull. When we get a Christmas card it is like another family getting a present. Everybody gathers round and it is passed from hand to hand and turned over to see how much it cost and if it came from the 2p section at Woolworths. The best card we had last year was addressed to somebody

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