Grimble at Christmas (2 page)

Grimble found himself alone with a cake and
then he thought, actually a cake with icing is a very
Christmassy thing to have and tomorrow I shall
start up my business and in nine days' time it will
be Christmas Eve and even if my parents have
forgotten, it's going to be an absolutely complete
proper well-organized Christmas.

2. Home Toast
Delivery

The next morning Grimble woke early. He had
not slept very well owing to his business problems.
His assets, with Christmas Eve eight days
away, were one iced cake hidden in a cupboard, 13p
in a money box, the Irish 5p piece and a wrapped
loaf of which he had reckoned to give away eight
slices in the cause of advertising.

The old Grimbles had a toaster with two slots in
it and the idea was that you put in two slices of
bread . . . and after a minute and a bit they would
pop up, done to a turn.

What really happened was that after the allotted
time the toaster gave a small whirring noise and a
click and you had to get a knife or a fork or a
spoon and prise out the bread which had got stuck.
Looking at the situation calmly, Grimble realized
that the toast industry was going to be something
of a gamble until he had a full list of cash clients
and was able to buy efficient machinery for the
production of high-class wares.

The next morning he got up about seven o'clock,
took eight paper napkins and wrote on each of
them, "With the compliments of G.H.T.D.S."
This meant the Grimble Home Toast Delivery
Service; putting the initials was much quicker than
writing out the words. He then counted out eight
slices of bread, wrapped the remaining slices firmly
in the greaseproof paper so that they would stay
fresh, and decided to make the toast two slices at a
time . . . because, being the first day he would have
to stay and talk about money and delivery time.
When things got organized he might be able to
throw slices of toast straight through the letter
boxes . . . provided the people did not have dogs or
cats or mice.

At a quarter past seven he turned on the toaster,
and put in two slices and as soon as they were ready
he prised them out, wrapped them in the paper
napkin and ran out of the house. He started at the
two houses just up the hill from his; they were
absolutely dark. No lights, nothing. He wondered
whether there might be some money to be made
out of The Grimble Reliable Morning Alarm
Service – but decided that having invested so large
a part of his capital in the toast business, he had
better concentrate on that.

He went up to the first house and rang the bell;
as nothing happened and the toast was certainly
not getting any hotter he rang it again and
knocked. After a while the lights in the house went
on and a man opened the door.

"Good morning," said Grimble. "I bring you
toast on behalf of the Grimble Home Toast
Delivery Service. I expect you received my literature,"
and he gave the man his best smile and the
free slice of toast. The man looked at it with appreciation.
It was well-toasted toast. "Oh yes," said
the man. "G.H.T.D.S. come in."

Grimble went into the house and the man said,
"Sit down. Good idea this toast delivery. The wife
and I would like to join but we don't have breakfast.
Can we use it for lunch?"

"I am afraid," said Grimble, "that as yet I have no
lunch toast service, but if I may, I will enter your
name and call again when such a service
commences."

He said goodbye and went to the next house.
He rang the bell and waited and finally saw a man
and a woman through the glass of the front door, the
man with a walking stick and the woman, making
little twitty whimpering noises, saying, "Harold
don't be so angry it might be the postman with a new
4p delivery that comes earlier than the 3p one . . . or
possibly it is last week's 31/2p letters come at last.'

"It's Grimble," shouted Grimble through the
letter box. "the Grimble Toast Delivery Service."

"Bless my boots," said the man. "It's the breakfast
toast," and he opened the door and asked
Grimble to come in. "Good morning, sir," said
Grimble. "I do hope you received my letter." The
man said yes he had. "Here," said Grimble, "is your
free slice of toast with the compliments of the
directors of the company.'

The man unwrapped it and ate it quietly.

"Excellent," he said. "First class piece of toast.
Congratulate you!" "Thank you, sir," said Grimble.
"I'll take the service," said the man. "Three slices
a day, eight o'clock prompt. Pay on Friday, start the
day after Christmas. We're going away to shoot
salmon in Scotland this afternoon. Nice to have
met you."

"After Christmas," Grimble muttered. "That's
not going to help buy a turkey" – and he rushed
home to make the next two slices, wondering why
he was not feeling as happy as he had been earlier
that morning. His parents were still asleep, the
toaster was ready and in a very short time he had
the new supply of toast and was at the house
downhill from his own. As he went up the path a
man opened the door and said, "Aha come on in,
been waiting for my toast," and he took his free
sample slice from Grimble's hand, buttered it, put
marmalade on it and said, "There." Then he
said, "There," two more times. Grimble wondered
"where" but decided that customers were
always right, said nothing and waited. "Good,"
said the man. "A bit too much butter but that
may have been my fault. I'll take the service,
every day . . . but I would prefer brown toast. All
right?"

Brown toast.No toast.Toast after Christmas . . .
Grimble said, "Thank you, I shall let you know,
at present the service is confined to white, thin,
sliced which is the popular demand," and went
next door.

This time it was a woman who answered the
door. Grimble preferred men. "Hello," said the
woman, "you've come about the toast." Grimble
admitted this. "How old are you?" asked the
woman. (This was really why Grimble preferred
men.) "About ten," he said. "Oh," said the woman,
"how nice, I have a little nephew who is coming
for Christmas. He is nine and three quarters, you
must come and meet him." There was a short
silence. "Excuse me," said Grimble, "how old are
you?" The woman looked slightly put out and
said, "What an extraordinary thing for a small
boy to ask." Then she gave an embarrassed
giggle and said, "I-am-in-my-middle-thirties,"
all in one gasp. "How nice," said Grimble, "I
have a mother at home who is in her middle thirties.
I do hope you will be able to come
round sometime and play with her. We live two
houses up the hill.Now about the toast." "Ah yes,"
said the woman, "Toast. Actually we make our
own toast."

"I realize this," said Grimble. "But the point of
the service is that we take the hard work out of
toast for you at a very modest charge, 21/2p for three
slices." The woman looked at Grimble and thought
some more and finally said, "May I sleep on it?" "I
would not advise it," said Grimble. "Sleeping
on toast may well keep it warm but it would do
nothing to keep it crisp and fresh."

"I mean I would like to think about
it tonight . . ." said the woman, and Grimble
remembering his good manners said, "Naturally,
Madam; our aim is to please," and left the house.

When he got home his mother was up making
toast with
his
bread. This was very unusual . . . I
mean for his mother to be up was very unusual –
and Grimble took four of the slices of toast his
mother had made and, very quickly, because it was
getting quite near his school time, he raced round
the four remaining houses that he had warned of
the toast service. He slipped the toast through the
letterboxes, shouted, "Will try to come back this
evening," and ran home.

"Where have you been?" asked Mrs Grimble,
her head inside the refrigerator. "Out," said
Grimble, and realizing that this was not a
very complete reply added, "actually feeding
under-privileged people." His father had told him
once that when people began a sentence with
"actually", it was nearly always a lie. His mother,
who had not been listening, said, "Here is your
breakfast. Come home straight from school,
because we are going shopping."

"Shopping," said Grimble; "Christmas shopping
and there are still six shopping days to go . . ."
"Well," said his mother, "actually mostly going to
the launderette and things."

Grimble drank his glass of iced milk which his
mother had finally taken out of the refrigerator and
went to school. She said "actually", said Grimble to
himself. That means she was telling a lie. It
is
Christmas shopping.

Walking to school he thought about the eight
slices of bread given away and the rest probably
eaten by the old Grimbles. I don't know how
anyone can make a living in this country. It's
the fault of the Government. When I grow up I
am going to be a Government. Then anyone
with a good idea will be able to make a lot of
money . . .

That afternoon, when he returned from school,
his father said, "Some people called and left you
some toast . . . hold on I'll find it. I looked at
it carefully and there was no messages in it. Just
toast wrapped in a napkin with some initials on it
. . . I wonder what it can mean." "Actually," said
Grimble "it's a new club" . . . and blushed. It was
the second lie he had told that day. His father
went out and brought back three slices of toast
still wrapped with the G.H.T.D.S. slip on them
and just then his mother called, "Come on,
Grimble," and they went shopping. Grimble's
idea of shopping was to go into a shop, find
something he wanted, and say, "I'll buy it." Mrs
Grimble did not work like that. She went into a
shop, found something she liked and then spent
the next half hour looking at a lot of things
similar to it, that she didn't mind, to make sure she
liked the first thing she had seen as much as she
thought she had liked it when she first saw it.
This wasted a lot of time and was very weary for
their feet.

After his mother had bought a few womanish
things made out of buckles and elastic they went
into a food shop. Grimble headed straight for the
turkey counter and looked with interest at the
turkeys. His mother bought lemons. So Grimble,
watching his mother out of the corner of his eye,
stood in front of the Christmas puddings and as
Mrs Grimble moved off to the tomato-ketchup
shelf he said, "Oh look . . . Christmas puddings
for small families. What a good idea. I thought
you could only buy enormous ones."

"Heavy things Christmas puddings," said his
mother. "Make you feel tired – like eating
hedgehogs. You go and wait for me at the
launderette.'

Grimble left his mother in the food store and
went to the launderette and watched the clothes go
round. It was a bit like colour television only even
less plot.

He was just getting interested in a green shirt
which was twisting itself affectionately around a
pair of white underpants, when his mother came in
with a large parcel and said, "Come
on
, Grimble,
let's go home."

Grimble took one corner of the parcel and his
mother took the other and they carried it home
and on the way back he said to his mother, very
casually, "Tell me . . . what would be a good thing
to do with three slices of stale toast?" His mother
was a very surprising woman. Most mothers
would have said, "throw them away", or else
pretend not to have heard; not Mrs Grimble. She
put down the parcel, sat on the pavement, and
said, "Three pieces of stale toast. I know exactly
what you can do. You can make welsh rarebit
with some cheese and an egg and some mustard, if
you like mustard, and I shall pay you 2p for every
welsh rarebit you make."