Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks (45 page)

Polar couples do not bicker about what to do during the day, either: shopping, scuba-diving, sightseeing, paragliding, gambling, visiting the doll museum, lying by the pool staring at that woman, I wasn't staring, and so forth, are unavailable for marital dispute. What polar couples do during the day is walk. They do not even have the option of standing still. If one of them stands still for more than a few seconds, he or she becomes a permanent topographical feature. Nor are they required to argue nightly about whose turn it is to get up at the crack of dawn and bag a lounger: any territorial claims that German couples might have entertained about the Arctic Riviera have so far proved to be atypically muted, and while there must always be a chance that, some day, Herr und Frau Jerry will be sprinting out six months before sun-up to begin oiling one another at minus 60 degrees, it was not, as I understand it, a problem for the Thornewills.

But did this first mould-breaking couple run, as so many of Britain's other 12 million have run, the risk of holiday boredom? Unlikely: while there are, admittedly, precious few topics of Arctic conversation, all of them white, no couple can manage more than two seconds of speech before tugging their balaclavas back up, lest their lips go solid and chip off. Since most duologue therefore consists of waving mittens about, the likelihood of vacational chat occasioning marital ennui is remote; unless, of course, one of the Thornewills was a semaphore freak.

In short, their chilly stroll was a doddle from start to finish. I was not in the least surprised when Fiona hugged Mike and confided to the phalanx of goggling hacks that ‘the trip has brought us much closer together. I really want to encourage other couples so that they too can achieve their lifetime's dreams.' Bang on the money, Mrs Thornewill: look for me and Mrs Coren this very weekend, and you will find us shopping at Sleds 'R' Us.

82
All Quiet On The Charity Front

A
s you know, many supermarkets, local authorities, and even
some branches of the Royal British Legion have stopped
issuing pins with poppies this year, lest people not merely
prick their fingers, but also claim compensation for wounds.
Understandable, given these poignant memoirs of one veteran Poppy
Day survivor, which I make no excuse, on this special day, for
quoting:

There was three of us up there that morning, in the thick of it as per usual, me, Chalky White and Nobby Clarke. The rain was coming down stair-rods, the wind went through you like a wossname, knife, but the mud was the worst. Slip off the pavement and you was done for; the lads do not call white vans whizz-bangs for nothing, you never hear the one that gets you.

Anyway, we was all keeping our heads down, because there was poppy-sellers all over; they'd moved up in the night and now they was in position everywhere, but you couldn't hardly see most of them, they are crafty buggers, you got to give them that, you see an empty doorway, you reckon you're all right, and suddenly they spring out from nowhere, they are on you before you know it. That is how they got Chalky that morning: we was creeping along, staying close to the wall, we was all but at the pub, we could hear blokes getting 'em in, we could smell roll-ups, and then Chalky only goes and sticks his head over the top for a shufti, and suddenly me and Nobby hears that terrible rattle what is like nothing else on God's earth, and poor old Chalky finds hisself looking down the wrong end of a collecting tin.

Course, me and Nobby stood up as well, it is one for all and all for one in our mob, and we marched out, heads up, bags of swank, and Chalky shouts: ‘Wiffel ist es, Kamerad?' because he has always been a bit of a wag, he does not let things get him down, nil carborundum, and this woman takes his ten pee and she gives him one of them looks they have, they are not like us, never will be, and hands him a poppy and a pin, and he says, ‘Aren't you going to pin it on for me, Fraulein?' and she says, ‘You want a lot for ten pee,' so I say, ‘Leave it out, Chalky, it is not worth it, I'll do it, come here,' and I hold the poppy against his lapel and I take the pin and Chalky says, ‘Is this the Big Push they're always going on about?' and I laugh so much that the pin goes and sticks right in my finger.

Blood gushed out. I must have lost very nearly a blob. ‘Stone me!' yells Nobby. ‘That is a Blighty one and no mistake. You will have to go straight home and put an Elastoplast on it.' Chalky looks at the woman. ‘This is the bravest man I know,' he says. ‘He has got his knees brown, he has done his bit, but that does not mean he likes the taste of cold steel up him. Look at that finger of his. It will not grow old as we that are left grow old. It may very well end up with a little scar on it. It might even turn sceptic and drop off into some corner of a foreign wossname, he will never be able to find it. So gimme my ten pee back.'

At this, despite the agony and spots before the eyes, I wade in, too; do not call me a hero, mind, I was just doing what any man would do in the circumstances, you would do the same. ‘As soon I get this finger seen to,' I inform her, ‘I shall be using it to dial my brief!'

At this, she lets out a shriek, chucks the ten pee at us, and runs off. Typical or what? They do not have no bottle, poppy-sellers: oh, sure, they may look hot as mustard quartered safe behind their lines, parading up and down outside Harrods in their spotless Barbours and their cashmere twinsets, with the sun winking off of their diamand brooches, and all smelling of Channel 4, but it is a very different matter up the sharp end in Lewisham, there is more to poppying out here than bull and bloody blanco. Me and Nobby and Chalky watched her skedaddle, and we gave a bit of a cheer, and then Nobby took my feet and Chalky held me under the arms, and they carried me past a number of material witnesses into the Rat and Cockle, and Chalky went off to get them in, and Nobby lit a fag and put it in my mouth, and he said: ‘Could have been worse, mate – suppose it had been her what had stuck it in Chalky? He would have been pushing up daisies by now.'

‘She might have got both of you,' I said. Nobby shook his head. ‘No chance. One of 'em tried once, caught me off guard, took a quid off of me and before I could stop her she had shoved a pin straight through my lapel. It might have done me serious mischief if it wasn't for the Bible I always keep in my breast-pocket. I found it in a hotel bedroom, you know.'

‘Bloody lucky,' I said. ‘It could so easily have been a towel.'

‘Or a rubber shower-mat,' said Chalky, setting down the drinks.

‘A man needs a bit of luck,' said Nobby, ‘out here.'

83
Ah, Yes, I Remember It Well!

We had been watching happily for the best part of a bottle when my wife said: ‘Oh, blast, I think a dog's going to come round the corner in a minute.'

In a minute, a dog came round the corner.

‘Well, that's it, then,' she said. ‘We've seen it before.'

‘I thought we might have done,' I said, ‘half an hour ago. When they pulled the body out of the water with the boathook.'

‘Why didn't you say anything?' she said.

‘I wasn't sure,' I said. ‘They're always pulling bodies out of the water with boathooks. I might have been remembering an old
Morse
, or an old
Wexford
, or an old
Bergerac
.'

‘Or an old
Taggart
.'

‘Or an old
Taggart
,' I said. ‘Exactly.'

‘Instead of an old
Frost
,' she said.

I looked back at the old
Frost
. ‘We could carry on watching,' I said. ‘After all, it's only a boathook and a dog, we don't know how it ends. We don't know who dunnit.'

‘We might remember,' she said. ‘There's another hour to go. We might suddenly remember after 45 minutes. I think there's a bit, later on, where he argues with his Superintendent. It might jog our memory. It might all come back.'

‘They all argue with their Superintendents,' I said. ‘It didn't jog our memory in that
Midsomer Murders
we watched last week.'

‘No, it didn't,' she said. ‘What jogged our memories in that was the nurse on the bicycle.'

‘It didn't jog mine,' I said. ‘I was enjoying it. You could've kept quiet about it. You could've just carried on watching.'

‘No, I couldn't. As soon as I saw the nurse on the bike, I remembered, and then I remembered there were two slit throats coming up, and then I remembered the killer was the twerp in the blazer. I couldn't have just sat there after that could I?'

‘He was only pretending to be a twerp,' I said.

She looked at me.

‘Hang on,' she said, ‘if you remembered as well, what was the point in either of us watching?'

‘I didn't remember then,' I said. ‘I've only just remembered now.'

‘You might have remembered then,' she said. ‘We might have both carried on watching, with just me knowing we'd seen it after the bike bit, until something else happened half an hour later which jogged your memory, and I'd have been watching for half an hour for nothing.'

‘It's called marriage,' I said. ‘It is fraught with that kind of thing. I might have not had my memory jogged at all, and then at least one of us would've been happy.'

‘Happy,' she said, ‘is putting it a bit strong. I didn't even think much of this one . . .' she waved her glass at the screen ‘. . . when we saw it the first time.'

‘You didn't say that while we were watching it this time,' I said, ‘for the hour before the dog came round the corner.'

‘It wasn't the hour I didn't think much of the first time,' she said. ‘Now I know it was the one with the dog, I can remember not thinking much of the whole thing, after it had finished the first time.'

I reached for the remote, and switched off. ‘Don't you want to know who dunnit?' she said.

‘Not enough to sit through it for 45 minutes – until he has the row with his Superintendent,' I said. ‘Even if it doesn't jog my memory, it might jog yours, and I wouldn't want to carry on sitting through it knowing you knew who dunnit and just weren't saying.'

‘But we're not even certain this is the one where he's going to have the row,' she said. ‘It might be the one where his dim but lovable sergeant asks for a transfer to traffic division because his wife is pregnant again and wants him back home at a reasonable hour. If it is that one, the car blows up.'

‘No, I remember the one where the car blows up, and it didn't have a boathook or a dog that came round the corner. Anyway, it wasn't his car. Frost's car has never blown up. You're thinking of Dalgleish's car.'

‘The Triumph roadster with the dickie seat?'

‘No,' I said. ‘That is Bergerac's car.'

‘There's one
Morse
we've seen three times,' she said. ‘It was cars that reminded me. Morse's nice old red Jag got dented. You winced.'

‘I could only have winced the first time,' I said. ‘I wouldn't have forgotten a thing like that.'

‘Who are you kidding?' she said.

I picked up the programme guide, and peered at it. ‘God, I hate the summer,' I said, after a bit. ‘Would we have seen
Have I Got Old News For You
, with Eddie Izzard? Before it had the Old in it, I mean?'

‘Is there anything left in that bottle?' she said.

84
I Blame the Dealers

The report in yesterday's
Times
that Pietro Forquet, Italy's most venerated bridge master, had, during Friday's national championships, been tested for drugs, will have stunned players the world over. Not because, as non-players might jump to conclude, bridge is the very last game in which drugs could play a significant part, but because, as every player knows, it is the very first.

What point was there in testing Signor Forquet for substances so integral to the game since the dawn of bidding that, without them, it can never properly be played at all?

Let us illustrate this with a hand played in the opening match of last weekend's Cricklewood Championships. North, South (Mrs North), East, and West (Mrs East) have begun the evening with their narcotics of choice, large dry martinis, straight up, no twist, and have now sat down at the card table – East somewhat heavily, with the result that the table lurches, spilling their pencils on to the carpet. North, South and West glance sharply at East, who declares that the table must have a wobbly leg. West responds that it is not the table that has wobbly legs. North and South say nothing, but exchange a glance, noticeably irritating East, who suspects some tacit coded message. Each player now bends to retrieve his pencil but North, in straightening up, bangs his head on the corner of the table, to which South says Oh God, not you, too, North's response being What do you mean not me, too, at which East intervenes with Yes, what do you mean, not him, too, and West counters with You know what she means not him, too. North in emollient reply refills everyone's glass, deals, and opens one spade.

East passes, and South replies with I seem to have 14 cards. West says I have 11, North swears and says It's these cards, they're sticky, it must be the gin, and East says it's the gin all right, and now exchanges his own tacit coded message with West. After the reshuffle, North deals, again, goes white, and, before speaking, lights a cigarette. East says those are my fags, I thought you'd given up, which South answers with, yes he has, he is nervous, he has obviously got an amazing hand. North shouts Thank you, partner, shall I just tell them what I'm holding, has a coughing fit, and opens two clubs, indicating slam potential. East passes, and South responds with You're sweating, have you had your pill? West says What does he take, is it a beta-blocker, I didn't think they mixed with alcohol, whereupon East replies, They don't, it affects your judgement, he probably doesn't have a two-club opener at all, I bid two diamonds, to which North shouts that he can't do that, he has already passed, but East argues that he can, because South hasn't bid yet. North now brings his fist down on the table with such force that South's drink topples into her lap. She rushes out for a cloth, dropping her cards, face up, on to the table, thereby revealing more than enough points to have made the grand slam her partner invited.