Little Nelson (7 page)

The Prince, an ex-member of the Communist Party and an emigré from Nova Sibersk, and the Peasant Girl, the daughter of a Cheltenham dentist, were the acknowledged stars within their sphere. Already the partnership had become world-famous, and the Prince's one fear was that the authorities back home might one day answer his wife's impassioned pleas for a visa and that he would have her beside him once more. In the meantime, the Cheltenham dentist's daughter had acquired a rather stronger Russian accent than her companion's, and she and her Prince were regularly seen about together in places frequented by gossip-writers and the better class of Press photographers.

On the night of the Gala the ex-Party member had, by universal consent, never been more ethereal, more inspiring. Effortlessly he had already held his loved one in his arms and made half-a-dozen full-speed rounds of the stage, with the Peasant Girl held either upright in crucifix position or wrapped around his neck like a boa constrictor. Throughout, his feet had seemed scarcely to touch the boards and, in all parts of the house, the name ‘Nijinsky' was being discreetly whispered. The dentist's daughter, too, assumed a magical, almost unearthly quality and after each sauté she was caught in mid-air as gently
as if she had been a dream-child made of gossamer and swan's down.

The moment for which the audience had been waiting was about to come. The Prince was standing, stage right, his body braced like concrete ready for the impending impact. The Cheltenham girl, stage left, was looking down demurely at her feet, breathing deeply in preparation for the headlong rush and spell-binding leap upon his bosom. Otherwise the stage was deserted. A deep, impenetrable silence had fallen upon the house for the second time. The instant, imprisoned within the eternity of space and time, had become sacred.

Then without warning, three small, incongruously dressed figures emerged from behind one of the canvas trees. The Prince, transfixed in his stance and too rigid to move a muscle, remained entirely unaware of what was happening. The Peasant Girl, on the other hand, could see only too well. With a gasp she let out all the air that she had been conserving and sank, deflated, where she stood. The conductor held his baton aloft. Not a note was struck. Violin bows remained frozen in mid-air and only the trembling of the baton showed that the conductor was breathing and still among them.

Meanwhile the three small figures had arranged themselves in line abreast, marched purposefully down-stage, bowed to the Royal Box, and proceeded to link arms. There was a neatness about the whole
operation that showed that the whole thing must have been intensively rehearsed. And this was apparent in the first ten steps of the number, all backwards and all faultless. Then, with a rolling side-to-side movement, distinctly nautical in effect though bucolic in intention, they broke into the opening steps. And immediately it showed itself for what it was – a perfectly executed version of the old North Country favourite,
Fred Fazackerly's Ride
Even the audience, waving their free copies of the advertisement-infested programme, applauded.

The trio, as the dance demanded, were all wearing clogs, and Prince and Peasant Girl withdrew tactfully into the woodland while the clatter-clatter-clatter continued. It may indeed have been the noise as much as the visual shock that temporarily disarmed the Management. It is admitted that they faltered. But what, they asked themselves afterwards, could they have done, even if it had not been a Gala Night? Curtains are not lowered lightly in the face of distinguished audiences. And it is to the credit of the Assistant Stage Manager that he should have succeeded in restraining the indignant stage-hands from forming a posse and charging onto the stage in force. What he had not remembered was that the Chief Electrician was a Welshman and an impulsive one at that. Otherwise occupied at the time of the incident, as soon as he was informed he gave the order that the main switch should be thrown and,
behind the proscenium arch, primal darkness, nothing less, prevailed.

It is scarcely surprising that, in the resultant obscurity and confusion, the clog dance team should have been able to make their get-away without hindrance. Even the Stage Doorkeeper failed to stop them. Nor can he be held blameworthy when it is borne in mind that they were all below eye-level as they passed his look-out. They were observed later scampering noisily down Floral Street, spotted again for a moment in Long Acre and reported, unreliably, at the corner of St Martin's Lane and Cecil Court, and then lost sight of completely.

Five roughly carved and scarcely worn clogs, all children's size, were recovered next morning from a refuse bin on the other side of Regent Street. Despite appeals in all the media, however, the sixth and missing clog was never located.

The letter columns of
The Times
immediately became full once more of correspondence devoted entirely to the gnome menace. And this time it tended to concentrate on the Police Force, and the Metropolitan Police Force in particular. Why, the angry readers demanded, had there been no arrests, no round-ups? If shooting was out of the question because of the possible danger to random passers-by, could not the little fellows be painlessly lassoo-ed? It was even suggested that large nets of the kind used
for tuna fishing should be installed in the entrances and exits of all public halls and Underground Stations and brought into operation, scoop-fashion, as soon as an alarm was raised.

The whole of the correspondence, however, was by no means confined to consideration on the physical level. Theology vied with it. Satanism was put forward as the probable cause of the common nuisance and days of intercession were proposed for all the Churches. A retired Archdeacon in Dorset composed a special prayer for the nation's use, and the superstitious were warned by clergy of all denominations of the uselessness of wearing a hare's foot or a sprig of herb-gentle as protection against demonic manifestations.

It was, however, left to the Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Neasden to put the whole thing into perspective. His was a cold, lucid sort of letter. The writer accepted everything that had happened as perfectly explicable, even familiar. He cited the numerous examples of a similar nature from all countries and in all centuries. His list of such happenings extended all the way from the doings of Cat-Goddesses in pre-Christian Egypt down to a fortune-telling horse in Nova Scotia as recently as 1972. The letter, nearly a column long because of the number of scholarly references, concluded with these solemn words; ‘Satan is not a name that should be uttered lightly or cited ignorantly. Nor should
the concept of demons be invoked when there is no clear evidence of demonism. The happenings in this country in recent months have shown no evil intent whatsoever, no campaign waged against the spirit of the human soul. Rather, they have been thoughtless, playful, mischievous. In short, they may confidently be ascribed to the work of
imps,
an order so much lower in the infernal hierarchy that no profound or lasting significance need be attached to it. The events,' the Auxiliary Bishop added confidently, ‘will cease as suddenly as they began.'

Much as he disliked the priesthood of what he always referred to as the Italian Mission, the Reverend Woods-Denton found the letter greatly comforting and of deep consolation.

Mrs Mewkes, as might be expected, was not a regular reader of
The Times
and therefore had no such consolation. All that she knew was that there was something fishy going on within the Vicarage, and she made up her mind to find out what it was.

This was not so easy because Hilda continued to take every precaution. Little Nelson's pretend meals were all prepared before Mrs Mewkes got there in the morning and cleared away after she had left the house at lunch time. Even his fresh milk, carefully poured to avoid any signs of spilling, was emptied down the sink each time, and the medicine glass washed up and put back afterwards. All personal
laundry was carried upstairs by Hilda herself and the vacuum cleaner, modern and ultra light-weight at the time of purchase but ponderous and old-fashioned by today's standards, was returned to its alcove on the landing the moment Hilda had finished with it. And she was particularly careful about the door, locking it from the inside whenever she was there and turning the key behind her if ever for a single moment she had to leave the room unattended.

On her part Mrs Mewkes was just as thorough. She noted every detail of the household arrangements. Mondays and Tuesdays were hopeless: Hilda simply shut herself up in her room like a meditating nun. Wednesdays were more promising because, in the old days, Hilda had always made a point of visiting the Meals on Wheels organizer, not actually to do anything, more to show the flag as it were. But, of late, even that banner had remained undisplayed. Thursday was another
dies non,
with the bedroom door locked and the extraordinary sound as of something on wheels coming from within. Friday was, then, the only day. Every Friday at 10.30 the Reverend Woods-Denton went round to the local C. of E. Primary to put some backbone, to use his own expression, into their Religious Instruction classes; and he was never back much before lunch time. That, too, was the day when Hilda went round to the church to see about the flowers. Her brother was a Low-Churchman, an Evangelical. Ritual and
display were obnoxious to him, and it was essential that someone who knew his mind should supervize the decorations. The browner sort of chrysanthemums were, when available, what he preferred with, of course, holly (no mistletoe) at the appropriate season.

On the following Friday, therefore, Mrs Mewkes was in the front hall as Hilda left the house and, stepping round to the sitting room, Mrs Mewkes stood watching her go down the path. Even then she did not move. By the presentation clock on the mantelshelf she gave Hilda a full ten minutes to get clear. Then she began to mount the stairs.

She had the whole foray worked out. The Vicarage was builder-built rather than architect-designed, and the upper landing had no natural light at all. That was why a plain glass fanlight had been let into the wall over Hilda's door. It was towards this vantage point that Mrs Mewkes was now making. A Gothic, vestry-looking chair stood outside Cyril's door and this was to be Mrs Mewkes's vantage point, her look-out. Stealthily, cautiously, she dragged the chair along the landing.

She could, in fact, have saved herself the trouble of so much stealth. She was a large and heavy woman, and Little Nelson had been following her every movement. He was, indeed, right up against the key-hole when on the other side of the panel the chair was placed there. And he had an unimpaired
view of Mrs Mewkes's massive foreleg as she lifted her skirt and began to climb into position. Then, for the first time, Little Nelson realized his peril. Not since last winter's heavy falls of snow down beside the pool had he felt such waves of cold run through him. He began to shake. To shake, but not to panic. Going down flat on his stomach, he squirmed his way under the bed and, keeping his head below mattress level, wormed his way into the wardrobe.

And only just in time. A moment later, Mrs Mewkes's flat, expressionless face appeared at the fanlight. And she let out a gasp of sheer astonishment. It was all that she had feared, and Little Nelson could hear the chair creak as she rocked back upon her heels. There, down below on the carpet, she could see an untouched plate of bread-and-butter fingers, a medicine glass of milk filled nearly to the top, and a low-built four-wheel truck with a battered teddy bear sitting upright as though he were driving it.

Then Mrs Mewkes realized the truth. Poor Hilda, broken at last under the strain of Meals on Wheels, church decorations and all the rest of it, had reverted to second childhood. She was now helpless, a pathetic dependent invalid. And the Vicar, true Christian soldier that he was, had rallied to conceal the awful truth from her friends and his parishioners.

Concealment of the truth, however, was some
thing that stuck in Mrs Mewkes's gullet. She had an abhorence of hanky-panky in any form, and here it was flowering at its most flagrant. It was all too clear that she would have to go on keeping an eye on things. Sweating slightly, she lowered herself by degrees from the high Gothic chair. Again it creaked protestingly during her descent. Breathless and panting, she began brushing herself down.

Inside the wardrobe Little Nelson was sweating, too. A faint mist of perspiration was now clinging to his forehead. Nor was this surprising. The consciousness of being spied on is always unpleasant. But Little Nelson's mind was working fast. Already, he had his own plan of counter-espionage.

It would take time, but he was determined to make it work.

The intricacies of inter-sectarian theology had proved too much even for
The Times.
For a full week, impishness had not even once been mentioned. What had taken its place and was being just as angrily debated, was the identity of the three gnomes. The Albert Hall and the Covent Garden incidents were both closely analysed. Indeed, as the enquiry went on, the question arose as to whether they were the same three gnomes who earlier in the year had set Mr Meehan's milk-float in motion – to say nothing of those who had taken part in that
unseemly race through the Chamber of the Commons while the House was still in session.

An animal behaviourist from Bristol University suggested that, just as hunting lionesses move off in three or fours when in pursuit of their prey, so a trio in gnome society could be assumed to be the natural zoological unit. On the other hand a music lover, writing from St John's Wood, contended that it was improbable that the barbarian attitude shown to both Vaughan Williams and Ballet would extend throughout the entire species and that the three miscreants were probably mere gnome drop-outs, miniature misfits, the sort who could be relied on to disrupt gnome football matches, if there were such things.

And poor Cyril, so painfully dependent on his
Times,
was growing hopelessly confused again. His mind was now full of hunting lionesses and delinquent threesomes, and his work in the parish began to be affected. He visited some of the sick twice in a single day, even, in one instance, twice in a single morning. Services of marriage and baptism became noticeably vague and perfunctory as though his thoughts were elsewhere – as indeed they were.