Drood was a Londoner – an east ender to be precise. West Ham born and bred, so how the hell did he come to live in Hulke? It was a long story, but I guess that’s what you’re here for. At the age of 26 Drood had fallen for a beautiful lady called Christine who had insisted that she didn’t want to stay in West Ham and dreamt of racing off into the mystical West Country with the man of her dreams. Who was Drood to argue with such a persuasive tone? They had spent a couple of trips searching out new homes – Drood had found the Holmes Street property via an auction, had bid on it and startled himself into action by actually winning it. The dream was coming true! A house in the mystical west, just as madam had ordered! However, Drood had turned out to be not quite the man of Christine’s dreams. No sooner had they moved down here when she had cleared off with the Master of a local hunt and was now breeding babies and fox hounds in vast numbers somewhere up on the Mendips. And serves her bloody well right thought Drood. She had gone from hippie love child to Tory hunting-shooting-fishing harridan within six months. That’s quite a change. Drood himself had continued his lonely, monk-like existence buoyed only by the occasional oasis of lust with a temporary girlfriend, and frequent bouts of the sort of thing your mother told you would ruin your eyesight. He had settled well in Hulke though – he loved the pace of life and the whole feel of the town. He even quite liked his job – office manager at the local adult education college. It wasn’t exactly taxing, but then again the pay was atrocious so it really was a case of swings and roundabouts.
Today was Saturday! Drood’s favourite day. He would set off from his house, walk to the newsagent, purchase a paper, saunter home and sit in the garden drinking tea, smoking fags and reading the paper very slowly and in minute detail. It was what weekends were all about. The newsagent was just on the corner of Holmes Street and Lambert Street, not a long walk by any standards, but in the summer pleasant enough, and in the winter far enough to blow any cobwebs away. It was a very old fashioned place – hard floors, floor to ceiling papers and magazines, large chilled cabinets full of anonymously made and sinister looking sandwiches and racks of horrendously tacky greetings cards. You know the kind – the ones with “Happy Birthday to a Special NINE Year Old” printed over a photo of Stan Bowles playing for Q.P.R. in about 1974. Drood paused momentarily outside the shop and perused the items for sale postcards stuck in the window. His advert was still there, offering his old Yamaha acoustic guitar for a mere £40. No one had contacted him about it. If he had sold it he was going to put the money towards buying a really nice Electro-Acoustic he had seen for sale in Kingsland’s Music Emporium on the High Road. It was glossy black with glinting silver frets and just looked the business. What a shame Drood was such a terrible guitarist. He sighed and pushed open the glass fronted door. The tiny bell above it jangled and danced. Mr Letts, the owner, was busy fleecing a young child aged about six of his pocket money. Drood moved to the papers, picked up a copy of “The Times”, “The Sun”, “The Hulke and Silston Gazette” and “Private Eye”. He moved to the counter and plopped his selection as the six year old departed, ladened with sweets but significantly less well off.
“Morning Mr Letts” began Drood jauntily. Mr. Letts, a large lugubrious man with mutton chop whiskers and a personal freshness problem gazed at Drood over his half moon spectacles.
“You’re up bright an early this morning.” He said with a small mischievous smile playing over his ravaged features. Drood frowned at him, unsure of where this was leading. “Hear you had a touch too much of everything at the Flag of Nations last night.” He grinned and revealed a mouth like a graveyard. Drood groaned silently. Bad news obviously travels fast in Hulke. Nothing like a bit of misery for someone to really cheer up the local gossips.
“You’ve heard?” Drood ventured, as a rather pathetic opening. Mr. Letts snorted like some pig that was a bit too over pleased with itself.
“Trying to cop off with Claire Piper and then attempting to start a fight with the Hulke Barbarians’ Captain? Well put it this way – I am surprised your balls and your head are still in the right place!” And he guffawed at his own joke heartily. Drood seethed and dearly wished he could think of a stunningly witty and adroit response that would leave Letts a quaking shaking incontinent wreck, penitently grovelling on the floor in front of him. However the best he could manage was:
“Just fuck off and die you fat git.” OK, admittedly not exactly in Oscar Wilde or Spike Milligan’s league, but it did at least make Drood feel a little better about himself. True, he would have to find somewhere else to buy his papers and fags from now on, but it had been worth it. And Letts had still sold him what he wanted before throwing him out.
The back garden of 63, Holmes Street was particularly pleasant this morning. Drood lay in the over long grass, a large mug of tea in front of him, a Camel Light cigarette in his right hand, and his large athenaeum of papers and magazines piled up waiting for him to work his way through them. The Times was as it always was – Giles Coren only reviewing restaurants that were within staggering distance of the Groucho Club. How did he get the job in the first place? Thank God that nepotism isn’t rife in the British media. Simon Barnes trying to make football out to be something akin to Buddhism – or in other words, the usual. The Sun was as entertaining as ever. Some large breasted pop tart that Drood had never heard of, had turned up at some London club he had equally never heard of, and had been photographed getting out of a London cab possibly not wearing any knickers. Wow. This was Earth shattering news. Who cared what happened at the Middle East Peace Conference – can you see if she has any shreddies on? Mind you, the Hulke and Silston Gazette was turning out to be almost equally exciting. Someone somewhere didn’t like what someone somewhere else was planning and they were complaining about it at the council offices. Nothing would ever happen about this, of course, but the Hulke and Silston Gazette still reported on it. There was also the usual section of wedding photos – heavily hair gelled men with fake tans and ear-rings marrying a variety of butt ugly women with Jennifer Aniston haircuts and shoulder tattoos, and nearly all of them spending their honeymoons in “The Dominican Republic”. Where the hell was that? It sounded like something out of “1984”.
But now Drood was getting on to his favourite part of the local rag – the adverts! There seemed no limit to the depths the good people of Hulke and Silston would stoop to – nothing was too crappy to be sold. For instance:
“Red and grey Formica kitchen cupboard. One door missing. Some glass damage. £5 ono. Buyer to collect. Call Hulke 353711.”
Drood lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Would there be anyone at all in the surrounding area who considered his or her life so empty that they just HAD to have a red and grey Formica kitchen cupboard with a door missing? There was always an outside chance. Come on, the half-wits round here had voted in a Tory candidate at every election since the Battle of Hastings, so they were quite capable of anything. He turned to the next page. Still nothing here that would interest a man of his tastes and sensibilities. But by now his advert trawling was taking him away from the stark reality of second hand kitchen cabinets, and into the only partially charted waters of the “Personal” columns.
Aside from the usual grunt groan “man-seeks-woman-for-bouncy-bouncy-sessions” ads there was also the cryptically fascinating announcements column. These adverts were free as long as you weren’t selling anything and were something of a tradition in the Hulke and Silston Gazette going back 20+ years. It was always a long column and was inevitably packed full of bizarre proclamations. Drood picked the first one out immediately as a classic of its genre.
“Oozlum Woozlum to Cathode Ray Tube. The ink monitors are watching. Switch to scramble mode.” And that was it. Further down this column Cathode Ray Tube was urging Oozlum Woozlum to consider his (or her) procrastination techniques, whatever that meant. And so it went on, line after line of eccentric nonsense that obviously meant something to someone somewhere. However, half way down the second column a small one line advert snapped Drood out of his semi-interested state. It read:
“Drood. Something wonderful is going to happen.” And, again – that was it. Drood grabbed the paper tightly and pulled it closer, as though sticking his face close enough to the inky print might make this mad message make sense. He read it and re-read it. It definitely said Drood.
“Something wonderful?” He said, out loud. “Like what?” His eyes ducked back down to the paper in his hands. Five messages below the first seemingly addressed to him, was his answer.
“Drood – everything you could hope for. What is your dearest wish – right now?” His heart was beating a little faster now. This was weird. He slowly stood up to his full height, never taking his eyes off the message. The only other time he had experienced goose bumps like this was the night the first four balls out of the National Lottery Draw had been on his ticket. The message straight below the previous one made his pulse rate sky-rocket.
“Drood – just like the first four numbers in the Lottery. Of course you were never going to get the final two, were you?” Sweat suddenly beaded on his brow. He cried out as the forgotten cigarette in his hand finally smouldered through to his fingers. Drood stamped out the final smoking remains of the fag and took himself back to this weird paper. What was his dearest wish – right now? Well, he’d always fancied driving round in a brand new Land Rover Discovery… oh, come on. He could do better than that. The mystical column agreed eight lines further down.
“Drood – only a car? We know you and we need your help.” They needed his help? And surely his idea of an ideal world could stretch further than a large car. What about World peace? That would be nice, everyone getting on with each other for a change. The column agreed once more.
“Drood – that’s more like it. And you will achieve it.” But how? Who would ever listen to him? He had no influence, no status and barely a pot to piss in.
“Drood – your pot runneth over. Go see your wood burner.” And that was the final advert of that week’s column. Now this was definitely not your usual Saturday, even on a day with such a ferocious hang-over to contend with. What did it mean? Go see your wood burner? It was the height of summer for Christ’s sake. Drood pondered a while as he stood in silence in his garden. He picked up his tea mug and marched inside. It was time to take a good hard look at his wood burning stove.
Inside seemed spectacularly dark after the brilliant sunlight of the back garden. Drood wandered through into his sitting room, but everything seemed wonderfully normal and re-assuring. The sagging shelves of books, CD’s, LP’s and his elderly stereo were all where they should be. The signed photo of Spike Milligan smiled down at him from its alcove. And there, lurking in the middle of the stone fireplace was the wood burner itself. It was a nice modern model, a Villager, but its front windows were blind and blackened from the heat they had experienced in the winter. Cobwebs trailed round the hinges and indicated the front doors had not been in opened in a while. Drood knelt in front of the black box and tried to crane his neck so he could see if anything was going on round the back of the burner, but it was, as ever, flush to the wall with the flue running up into the chimney breast. There was absolutely nothing out of place or unusual. Drood tentatively reached out a hand and unlocked the front doors. The cobwebs split and broke as the doors opened outwards. Inside was a mass of old ashes and darkness. But there was something else. A small clear plastic wallet, a little bit like the bags you get from banks for your small change. Drood picked it up. Inside was a piece of A4 paper that had been folded neatly into a quarter. He opened the bag, took the paper out and unfolded it. In clear, neat handwriting was written the message:
“I recommend you check your bank balance.” And that was it. This was madness. Expecting Drood to check his bank balance – on a Saturday? Anyone would think that Banks opened for their customer’s convenience! Seriously, this definitely needed checking up, so a visit to the High Road seemed like an urgent need.
Today was Saturday! Drood’s favourite day. He would set off from his house, walk to the newsagent, purchase a paper, saunter home and sit in the garden drinking tea, smoking fags and reading the paper very slowly and in minute detail. It was what weekends were all about. The newsagent was just on the corner of Holmes Street and Lambert Street, not a long walk by any standards, but in the summer pleasant enough, and in the winter far enough to blow any cobwebs away. It was a very old fashioned place – hard floors, floor to ceiling papers and magazines, large chilled cabinets full of anonymously made and sinister looking sandwiches and racks of horrendously tacky greetings cards. You know the kind – the ones with “Happy Birthday to a Special NINE Year Old” printed over a photo of Stan Bowles playing for Q.P.R. in about 1974. Drood paused momentarily outside the shop and perused the items for sale postcards stuck in the window. His advert was still there, offering his old Yamaha acoustic guitar for a mere £40. No one had contacted him about it. If he had sold it he was going to put the money towards buying a really nice Electro-Acoustic he had seen for sale in Kingsland’s Music Emporium on the High Road. It was glossy black with glinting silver frets and just looked the business. What a shame Drood was such a terrible guitarist. He sighed and pushed open the glass fronted door. The tiny bell above it jangled and danced. Mr Letts, the owner, was busy fleecing a young child aged about six of his pocket money. Drood moved to the papers, picked up a copy of “The Times”, “The Sun”, “The Hulke and Silston Gazette” and “Private Eye”. He moved to the counter and plopped his selection as the six year old departed, ladened with sweets but significantly less well off.
“Morning Mr Letts” began Drood jauntily. Mr. Letts, a large lugubrious man with mutton chop whiskers and a personal freshness problem gazed at Drood over his half moon spectacles.
“You’re up bright an early this morning.” He said with a small mischievous smile playing over his ravaged features. Drood frowned at him, unsure of where this was leading. “Hear you had a touch too much of everything at the Flag of Nations last night.” He grinned and revealed a mouth like a graveyard. Drood groaned silently. Bad news obviously travels fast in Hulke. Nothing like a bit of misery for someone to really cheer up the local gossips.
“You’ve heard?” Drood ventured, as a rather pathetic opening. Mr. Letts snorted like some pig that was a bit too over pleased with itself.
“Trying to cop off with Claire Piper and then attempting to start a fight with the Hulke Barbarians’ Captain? Well put it this way – I am surprised your balls and your head are still in the right place!” And he guffawed at his own joke heartily. Drood seethed and dearly wished he could think of a stunningly witty and adroit response that would leave Letts a quaking shaking incontinent wreck, penitently grovelling on the floor in front of him. However the best he could manage was:
“Just fuck off and die you fat git.” OK, admittedly not exactly in Oscar Wilde or Spike Milligan’s league, but it did at least make Drood feel a little better about himself. True, he would have to find somewhere else to buy his papers and fags from now on, but it had been worth it. And Letts had still sold him what he wanted before throwing him out.
The back garden of 63, Holmes Street was particularly pleasant this morning. Drood lay in the over long grass, a large mug of tea in front of him, a Camel Light cigarette in his right hand, and his large athenaeum of papers and magazines piled up waiting for him to work his way through them. The Times was as it always was – Giles Coren only reviewing restaurants that were within staggering distance of the Groucho Club. How did he get the job in the first place? Thank God that nepotism isn’t rife in the British media. Simon Barnes trying to make football out to be something akin to Buddhism – or in other words, the usual. The Sun was as entertaining as ever. Some large breasted pop tart that Drood had never heard of, had turned up at some London club he had equally never heard of, and had been photographed getting out of a London cab possibly not wearing any knickers. Wow. This was Earth shattering news. Who cared what happened at the Middle East Peace Conference – can you see if she has any shreddies on? Mind you, the Hulke and Silston Gazette was turning out to be almost equally exciting. Someone somewhere didn’t like what someone somewhere else was planning and they were complaining about it at the council offices. Nothing would ever happen about this, of course, but the Hulke and Silston Gazette still reported on it. There was also the usual section of wedding photos – heavily hair gelled men with fake tans and ear-rings marrying a variety of butt ugly women with Jennifer Aniston haircuts and shoulder tattoos, and nearly all of them spending their honeymoons in “The Dominican Republic”. Where the hell was that? It sounded like something out of “1984”.
But now Drood was getting on to his favourite part of the local rag – the adverts! There seemed no limit to the depths the good people of Hulke and Silston would stoop to – nothing was too crappy to be sold. For instance:
“Red and grey Formica kitchen cupboard. One door missing. Some glass damage. £5 ono. Buyer to collect. Call Hulke 353711.”
Drood lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Would there be anyone at all in the surrounding area who considered his or her life so empty that they just HAD to have a red and grey Formica kitchen cupboard with a door missing? There was always an outside chance. Come on, the half-wits round here had voted in a Tory candidate at every election since the Battle of Hastings, so they were quite capable of anything. He turned to the next page. Still nothing here that would interest a man of his tastes and sensibilities. But by now his advert trawling was taking him away from the stark reality of second hand kitchen cabinets, and into the only partially charted waters of the “Personal” columns.
Aside from the usual grunt groan “man-seeks-woman-for-bouncy-bouncy-sessions” ads there was also the cryptically fascinating announcements column. These adverts were free as long as you weren’t selling anything and were something of a tradition in the Hulke and Silston Gazette going back 20+ years. It was always a long column and was inevitably packed full of bizarre proclamations. Drood picked the first one out immediately as a classic of its genre.
“Oozlum Woozlum to Cathode Ray Tube. The ink monitors are watching. Switch to scramble mode.” And that was it. Further down this column Cathode Ray Tube was urging Oozlum Woozlum to consider his (or her) procrastination techniques, whatever that meant. And so it went on, line after line of eccentric nonsense that obviously meant something to someone somewhere. However, half way down the second column a small one line advert snapped Drood out of his semi-interested state. It read:
“Drood. Something wonderful is going to happen.” And, again – that was it. Drood grabbed the paper tightly and pulled it closer, as though sticking his face close enough to the inky print might make this mad message make sense. He read it and re-read it. It definitely said Drood.
“Something wonderful?” He said, out loud. “Like what?” His eyes ducked back down to the paper in his hands. Five messages below the first seemingly addressed to him, was his answer.
“Drood – everything you could hope for. What is your dearest wish – right now?” His heart was beating a little faster now. This was weird. He slowly stood up to his full height, never taking his eyes off the message. The only other time he had experienced goose bumps like this was the night the first four balls out of the National Lottery Draw had been on his ticket. The message straight below the previous one made his pulse rate sky-rocket.
“Drood – just like the first four numbers in the Lottery. Of course you were never going to get the final two, were you?” Sweat suddenly beaded on his brow. He cried out as the forgotten cigarette in his hand finally smouldered through to his fingers. Drood stamped out the final smoking remains of the fag and took himself back to this weird paper. What was his dearest wish – right now? Well, he’d always fancied driving round in a brand new Land Rover Discovery… oh, come on. He could do better than that. The mystical column agreed eight lines further down.
“Drood – only a car? We know you and we need your help.” They needed his help? And surely his idea of an ideal world could stretch further than a large car. What about World peace? That would be nice, everyone getting on with each other for a change. The column agreed once more.
“Drood – that’s more like it. And you will achieve it.” But how? Who would ever listen to him? He had no influence, no status and barely a pot to piss in.
“Drood – your pot runneth over. Go see your wood burner.” And that was the final advert of that week’s column. Now this was definitely not your usual Saturday, even on a day with such a ferocious hang-over to contend with. What did it mean? Go see your wood burner? It was the height of summer for Christ’s sake. Drood pondered a while as he stood in silence in his garden. He picked up his tea mug and marched inside. It was time to take a good hard look at his wood burning stove.
Inside seemed spectacularly dark after the brilliant sunlight of the back garden. Drood wandered through into his sitting room, but everything seemed wonderfully normal and re-assuring. The sagging shelves of books, CD’s, LP’s and his elderly stereo were all where they should be. The signed photo of Spike Milligan smiled down at him from its alcove. And there, lurking in the middle of the stone fireplace was the wood burner itself. It was a nice modern model, a Villager, but its front windows were blind and blackened from the heat they had experienced in the winter. Cobwebs trailed round the hinges and indicated the front doors had not been in opened in a while. Drood knelt in front of the black box and tried to crane his neck so he could see if anything was going on round the back of the burner, but it was, as ever, flush to the wall with the flue running up into the chimney breast. There was absolutely nothing out of place or unusual. Drood tentatively reached out a hand and unlocked the front doors. The cobwebs split and broke as the doors opened outwards. Inside was a mass of old ashes and darkness. But there was something else. A small clear plastic wallet, a little bit like the bags you get from banks for your small change. Drood picked it up. Inside was a piece of A4 paper that had been folded neatly into a quarter. He opened the bag, took the paper out and unfolded it. In clear, neat handwriting was written the message:
“I recommend you check your bank balance.” And that was it. This was madness. Expecting Drood to check his bank balance – on a Saturday? Anyone would think that Banks opened for their customer’s convenience! Seriously, this definitely needed checking up, so a visit to the High Road seemed like an urgent need.
1 comment:
Coo! Lumme! Quick, where's chapter two?!
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