You Did Say Have Another Sausage Read online

  When I got home, Mum, Dad and Linda were in the house.

  “Close your eyes,” I shouted genially into the living room, “I’ve got a surprise for you. A guest is staying with us for Christmas.”

  I then removed Myrtle from the sheet and sat her in the armchair, with one foot up on the coffee table.

  “Open them,” I said, with a flamboyant, “Ta dah!”

  They took their hands from over their eyes expecting to see a friend with me. Linda and Mum gasped in astonishment as Dad yelled.

  “What the bloody hell is that?”

  “It’s Myrtle Byrtle, our model from college. She’s lost a bit of weight lately so I thought I would invite her for Christmas dinner.” My joke was met with blank faces and a deafening silence.

  “Well it’s not staying in here, you can keep it in the garden shed,” ordered my mum. Linda just laughed and shook her head. As I was carrying the skeleton out to the shed, my mum shouted “It isn’t real... is it?”

  “Of course not,” I lied, “It’s made of plastic.”

  During her stay with us, I did manage to do some drawings of Myrtle. I fully intended to do so of course, but I suspected that Mr. Gill would be likely to look at them in January, just to make sure that I hadn’t wasted my time messing about and having fun. As if.

  One evening, just before Christmas, Norma was due at our house, and of course I couldn’t resist the temptation to introduce her to Myrtle Byrtle. I arranged the skeleton in a seated position on the settee, with her feet raised on a stool and an arm draped casually across the back of the sofa. The final touch was a cigarette in her mouth as she watched television.

  “You will frighten the poor girl to death,” Mum commented in a concerned tone.

  “Norma is just walking up the road now,” announced Linda gleefully, and mischievously, as she looked out of the window. She opened the front door to let her in, so that I could be sitting in the lounge to enjoy the full impact of my prank.

  “Merry Chris - Aarrh!” was Norma’s horrified reaction as she entered the room.

  Just as I started to laugh, the opening door nudged the settee which caused the skeleton’s skull to turn to the left, and the jaw fell open as if Myrtle was laughing. My laughter quickly changed to a “Woah!”

  Linda pointed to Myrtle and whispered in ghostly mock-horror, “John, it’s the curse of Tutankhamun... Woooo.”

  My dad was on afternoon shift at Fibreglass. I had been trying to think of ingenious practical jokes to frighten family and friends, and I wondered how Myrtle could welcome him home from work.

  “Shall I sit Myrtle on the toilet before dad gets home?” I suggested playfully, but I was categorically out-voted. However, I couldn’t resist taking Myrtle along for a ride in the car when I took Norma home. Stopping at traffic lights was great fun, especially when I turned around and pretended to talk to my back seat passenger. I decided not to stop at the garage for petrol, not after what had happened earlier in the year with a lion skin. But that’s another story...

  ...Okay, rather than leave you in suspense I will digress for a moment and tell you the story now.

  A Whim Away

  When I was in the 6th form at Cowley School, a good friend of mine, Jim, who lived on the same housing estate always claimed that he was a descendant of Mungo Park, the 19th Century African explorer. None of us believed him, or, in fact, cared; mainly because nobody had ever even heard of Mungo Park. But it did go some way to explaining why his living room at home was dominated by a full size lion-skin rug, which included the tail, legs and a fierce male head, growling menacingly from beneath a full mane. Jim’s dad, Mr. Park, used the head as a footstool while he watched the telly. And you thought having a skeleton in the lounge was weird.

  Cowley was divided into two separate schools; boys at Hard Lane and girls at Cowley Hill Lane. The schools were about one mile apart, and never the twain shall meet, except for the occasional film society. These were organised by teachers who would hire films and show them in the school hall on a reel-to-reel 35mm projector. It was a rare opportunity for the 6th formers to get together.

  I was able to borrow my dad’s car for one of these film nights, and, on a whim, we came up with the bright idea of taking the lion with us. The giant head fit neatly onto the parcel shelf of the Austin A40, with its body draped over the seats, as we set off for darkest St. Helens. We stopped for petrol and I crossed the garage forecourt to pay. Just as I was collecting my change, there was an almighty, blood-curdling scream. A lady, who had been filling up her car next to mine, dropped the pump-gun on to the concrete floor, spraying petrol around the forecourt. The headlights of a car pulling into the garage had momentarily picked out the glistening eyes and huge fangs of our lion, who was minding his own business just looking out of the rear window. She ran towards the pay booth screaming, “There’s a lion! There’s a lion!” pointing towards our car. We made our escape quicker than Bonnie and Clyde from a bank job, as I got a fleeting glimpse of her terrified face in the rear mirror. Come to think of it, she looked remarkably like the lady who had been sitting next to me and Myrtle on the bus. No, it couldn’t be. Could it?

  We arrived for the film show and waited outside for a few minutes, until the lights dimmed and the projector to start to whirr. The sixth form were sitting on rows of wooden chairs, the ones used for school assemblies, as we crept into the hall from the back. Jim and I sat on the back row, holding the lion between us, hoping to create a bit of a laugh. ‘What a lark,’ we thought. However, we did not envisage the pandemonium that we were about to unleash. A girl in front of us turned around casually to smile, but, instead, found herself face-to-face with a snarling lion. But did she see the joke? Of course not! Her scream made the one by the woman at the petrol station seem like a whisper. Her hysteria moved forward through the audience like a sound wave, a tsunami of sheer terror and blind panic. Wooden chairs clattered onto the parquet floor as everyone stampeded towards the exits. Unfortunately, the projector just happened to be situated in the centre of the audience on a raised stand. Needless to say, it did not survive the tidal wave. The room emptied in record time, leaving a tangle of furniture which looked like the aftermath of a saloon brawl in a John Wayne western. Still sitting in our seats at the back were Jim and I, holding the lion between us. The teachers in charge were first to re-enter the hall.

  We looked at each other, realising that things hadn’t quite gone according to plan, and neither of us could think of any excuse to come up with.

  “Meadows, Park!” thundered Mr. Holland. “What on earth do you think you are playing at?”

  “Sorry Sir,” was all we could mumble as a meek apology.

  “Report on Monday morning to the headmaster’s study. Now get out of my sight.”

  When I got home, my mum and Linda were in, and my dad was out at the Parr and Hardshaw Labour Club for a Friday night pint.

  “How was your night out?” they asked.

  “Oh, it was okay,” I replied nonchalantly.

  “What film did they show?”

  I realised that I didn’t have a clue, so all I replied was, “Tarzan.” I omitted to mention that particular incident to Mr. Gill when I asked him if I could borrow the skeleton for Christmas.

  My enthusiasm for skeleton-themed practical jokes was shared, or even exceeded, by my sister.

  “What about using a garden rake to hang the skeleton on?” Linda suggested.

  Perfect. Who would be our first victim? Mrs. Murphy was top of our list. I hid in the shadows at the side of her backdoor; I held Myrtle high in the air, suspended on the rake. Linda knocked loudly on the door and jumped behind a rhododendron bush. The kitchen light came on and, as the door opened, Myrtle swung into view like they do on a funfair ghost train, dramatically lit by the kitchen light. Mrs. Murphy’s scream pierced the cold night air and frightened me and
Linda, probably more than the skeleton frightened her. After she had slammed the door in panic we made our escape over the garden fence and returned Myrtle, and the rake, to Dad’s shed.

  “What are you two laughing at?” asked mum suspiciously.

  “Oh nothing,” we replied innocently as we looked out of the kitchen window and watched the Murphy family rush out into the garden. Mrs. Murphy was still in an agitated state as she gesticulated skywards, obviously trying to explain that a skeleton had flown towards her out of the night sky. We tried to interpret Mr. Murphy’s body language as he scratched his head incredulously. Our conclusion was that he thought that his wife had made an early start on the Christmas sherry.

  One day while drawing Myrtle Byrtle, I had a flash of inspiration - not so much aesthetic or artistic, more mischievous. The metal bracket protruding from the top of her skull was perfect for flying her through the air on a wire or, better still, a clothesline. I started to rub my hands together like a silent movie villain tying someone to the railway track. The houses on our estate had reasonable sized gardens, each with a brick built shed/washhouse and separate coal shed. The garden boundaries were hawthorn hedges that were kept low purposefully, because in the 50s and 60s the favoured means of communication was actually talking to each other face-to-face. Telephones had not yet reached as far as Blackbrook; while mobiles, texts, Facebook, or skype were all in the realms of science fiction, as were Walkman, Mini discs and iPods. I spent many happy summer days sitting in a deck chair in the garden listening to ‘Two-way Family Favourites’, ‘The Billy Cotton Band Show’ and Alan Freeman’s ‘Pick of the Pops’ on my transistor radio; while all around me conversations were taking place over garden fences, sometimes with four or five gardens in between. At the bottom of every garden was a seven-foot concrete post for the clothesline, which stretched the full length of the lawn. Perfect for my dastardly scheme! So, after that brief nostalgic journey down memory lane with its images of neighbourhood harmony and rose-tinted recollections of endless summer days, my only thought now was which neighbour I could frighten the living daylights out of.

  In those pre-central heating days, the only source of warmth was a coal fire in the living room, and the worst thing you could be asked to do - or should I say told to do– was to go and get a shovel of coal. If it was raining or snowing, you could not avoid receiving an ice cold drip right down the small of your back as you bent down to shovel up the coal. The light from the back kitchen would light up the garden. It was particularly un-nerving if you were in the middle of a horror film on the telly - opening the latch door, creaking ‘Hammer Film’ style, and stepping into the black hole. A perfect scenario for Myrtle to hurtle through the night sky!

  I raised the clothesline from its usual hook and attached it to a pipe higher up, to give a good angle for Myrtle’s maiden flight down to the concrete post. There was a light dusting of snow illuminated by the moonlight. Nice and eerie. I looked through the kitchen window, wondering who would be our next victim. Mrs. Hunter next door would be ideal since we couldn’t risk giving Mrs. Murphy’s heart valves another challenge. We sat in our kitchen, lights out, watching diligently for any of the neighbours’ lights switching on.

  After a couple of false alarms a garden lit up as the back door opened. It was our next door neighbour, Mrs. Hunter, who picked up a shovel and opened the coal shed. Timing is everything when trying to frighten someone to death, so I held Myrtle in position as I waited for Mrs. Hunter to turn around.

  As Mungo Park must have said, ‘Wait until you see the whites of their eyes’. She closed the shed door with one hand, while balancing a full shovel of coal with her other hand, and turned to step into the light. I launched Myrtle with the precision timing of the ‘Dambusters’ dropping a bouncing bomb. The skeleton flew through the air, silhouetted by the moon, accompanied by another of Linda’s ghostly “Woooo” sound effects, which was quite convincing. When I say quite, what I really mean is extremely convincing, if Mrs. Hunter’s reaction was anything to go by. Her scream seemed to reverberate in the still December night off the pebble-dash walls of the closely-packed houses. Her shovel went high into the air and I was bombarded with a sudden fall of giant black hailstones. I dashed down the garden to remove Myrtle from the clothesline, but as I stood in the middle of the black and white polka-dot lawn every kitchen and bedroom light within ten yards came on. Neighbours appeared in their gardens. My 14-year- old accomplice was nowhere to be seen. As I stood there alone, floodlit and exposed, I knew exactly how Steve McQueen and David Attenborough must have felt in ‘The Great Escape’ when the tunnel came up ten feet short of the edge of the forest. At that moment, I hoped that a tunnel would open up for me: any Tom, Dick or Harry would do! I had an audience of about twenty neighbours peering over their fences to see me standing forlornly in the snow, holding a skeleton.

  “Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio. A man of infinite jest...”

  I recited theatrically while holding Myrtle’s skull in front of my face. I wasn’t so much playing to the audience as playing for time. I wanted to prolong the soliloquy from ‘Hamlet’, frantically trying to dredge up long-faded memories of O Level English Literature, but I realised that the time had come for me to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

  The cold weather came to my rescue and all the neighbours turned to go back indoors, muttering to each other contemptuously. At least Mrs. Murphy was vindicated, her reputation was intact. She had not after all been at the Christmas booze. I managed to pick up comments like “Bloody students,” and “Yeah, art students are the worst of the lot.” And that was just from my own parents, with Linda nodding her head in agreement, while ‘tut tutting’ innocently.

  Only after my profuse apology did Mrs. Hunter finally laugh and see the funny side. Mrs Murphy required a little more grovelling. After picking up every individual piece of coal from the snow-covered gardens, I decided that Myrtle was to be grounded, as was I. Myrtle’s maiden flight turned out to be her last, but, then again, she probably gained her wings long, long ago, and a bell would have rung in Bedford Falls.

  I tried my best to rein in my propensity for practical jokes, but to quote Oscar Wilde, ‘I can resist anything, except temptation’. The day after Boxing Day we had just finished lunch when there was a sharp, loud ‘rat tat, tat, tat’ on the front door.

  “That’s a money knock,” Dad would always say.

  “Oh, it will be the Club Man,” Mum said, as she went to open the door.

  In the 50s and 60s an insurance salesman, or executive, was known simply as the ‘Club Man’, and the same bloke from ‘Royal London’ had been collecting every week on the estate for years. This was too good an opportunity to miss. I grabbed Myrtle Byrtle from the front room where I had been drawing her, and sat her at the dining table, knife and fork in hand. The dining table was a drop-leaf in the lounge. The front room was never used; it was only ‘for show’, a Northern thing.

  “Hello Madeline, all the best to you,” the Club Man said as he came into the hall. He always had an A4 size hard-backed exercise book which had an elastic band around it, and his pen was always tucked behind his ear. As he was writing, he looked into the living room.

  “Hello Joe, have you had a good Christmas?” he said cheerily to my dad, and then looked around the door to greet the rest of the family. Myrtle didn’t reply as she sat there. The Club Man remained expressionless as he put his pen back behind his ear and closed his book. He just looked at me and tilted his head towards Myrtle and quipped, “At least somebody has managed to lose weight over Christmas.”

  He paused for a second, hoping we might enlighten him, but all he got was a sweep of the hand from dad with an exasperated, “Don’t ask.”

  On the first day of term in January, I returned Myrtle to her stand in the studio. Jeff and I walked to college; I couldn’t risk another crowded bus with a skeleton under my arm. I bumped into t
he principal on the corridor, and he asked me if everything had been okay with the skeleton over the holidays.

  “Oh, fine,” I answered cheerily, “She’s had a really good Christmas.”

  With a dubious smile, he asked me if I had done much work. I assured him that I had. He nodded and, as he went off towards his office, I shouted, “Oh, by the way Mr. Gill,” and as he turned around I said, “I’ve counted every bone, especially the little fingers, so I don’t think you will be reading about any murder investigations.”

  Chapter Two

  At the Chalk Face in Clock Face

  “We have had a visit today from a headmaster. He was looking for you,” were the words that greeted me as I got home from my job at an Old Folks’ Home. I instantly regressed in my mind and was transported back in time to my school days; when those words spelt only one thing... Trouble!

  Mr Ball, the headmaster of a local primary school, had called personally to see me regarding a letter I had sent to the St. Helens Education Authority a couple of months earlier. I had enquired about the possibility of working as a classroom assistant, since it was likely that I would become a teacher at some point in the future.

  My parents were not on the phone at that time, hence the personal house call, and the headmaster had left a message asking me to ring him as soon as possible.

  After leaving the Art School I decided to take a ‘gap year’, decades before that terminology was coined. The plan was to earn some money and to spend some time travelling in Europe prior to taking up an offer of a place at Leeds University. I had worked for a while as a fork-lift truck driver in Widnes at the ‘British Copper Refinery’. I thought it was a place where they taught policemen to be better-mannered. Obviously, Bill hadn’t been there yet.