Mrs Caldicot's Knickerbocker Glory by Coleman Vernon

Author:Coleman, Vernon [Coleman, Vernon]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Chilton Designs
Published: 2014-02-03T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 33

A tall, arrogant and bored looking young man wearing a black martial arts costume stood in the bay window of the lounge. He’d had all the furniture moved to the sides of the room so that there was a large, clear space in the middle. He had an olive complexion and jet black hair tied in a long ponytail. He wore no shoes or socks and when Mrs Peterborough had drawn attention to this fact, wondering aloud whether they should club together to help him buy a pair of shoes and a pair of socks, Miss Nightingale took the opportunity to point out to her friend that the sockless visitor’s feet weren’t quite as clean as they might have been. ‘You’d have thought he would have had a good bath, wouldn’t you?’ she whispered. ‘He may not be able to afford shoes but it doesn’t cost much to keep your feet clean.’ Unfortunately, Miss Nightingale wasn’t getting any younger and her hearing wasn’t getting any sharper. Her idea of a whisper was most people’s idea of a full-throated bellow. ‘His feet are filthy,’ she added.

Mrs Peterborough repeated her friend’s rhetorical question and simple observation, also pretty much at full volume.

The young man with the ponytail, Dirk, looked up and glared. Most people who knew him were afraid of his glare and he was accustomed to seeing people wither when they received one of his cold stares. But Miss Nightingale was no witherer and anyway she was staring at Dirk’s feet rather his face. Not even Dirk had managed to master the art of making his slightly grubby feet look menacing.

‘A good scrubbing,’ said Miss Nightingale, in another of her whispers. ‘That’s what he needs.’

Mrs Peterborough repeated this, for the unintentional benefit and amusement of those members of the audience who hadn’t had heard it the first time. Even Mrs Caldicot sometimes found this curious facility of use. If she ever missed something said by Miss Nightingale all she had to do was wait for the instant repeat from Mrs Peterborough.

‘This is supposed to be an advanced Grade IV class,’ began Dirk. ‘How many of you have martial arts experience?’

There was a long silence.

‘The former Mrs Livingstone and I were going to watch a Bruce Lee movie once,’ said Mr Livingstone. ‘But I couldn’t find anywhere to park and so we went for a curry instead.’

‘Have any of you studied karate?’ asked Dirk, rather exasperated.

‘I got as far as Calcutta in the war,’ said Mr Roxdale. ‘But I don’t think we ever went to Karachi.’ He stopped and scratched his nose. ‘Was there anywhere called Karachi then?’ He looked around. No one had the foggiest idea what he was talking about. ‘They keep changing the names of places,’ he explained.

‘If there was no such place as Karachi then where did all the people who live there now think they were living?’ asked Mr Livingstone. ‘They can’t have just been sitting around waiting for someone to give their town a name.’

‘Oh they probably could,’ said Mr Roxdale.

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