Snakes' Elbows

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Authors: Deirdre Madden

BOOK: Snakes' Elbows
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For Brigitte Fabre, with love

The story I am about to tell you took place in Woodford, a most unremarkable little town – or so it seemed. It had the usual shops and houses and offices, factories and parks and churches. A slow river flowed through the centre, spanned by a series of stout stone bridges and at the edge of the town there was a dark forest. Beyond that again there was a mountain, but it was not particularly high or famous or important or beautiful. Like the town, it was quite unremarkable: it was just a mountain.

Had you asked any of the citizens of Woodford what was special about it, I doubt if
any of them would have been able to answer you straight off. There would have been quite a bit of head-scratching and humming and hawing. ‘Now let me see,' they'd likely have said. And then they would probably have mentioned the church: not Saint John's, the modern one, but the other one, which was very old. How old? Your average Woodford man or woman probably didn't know ‘Oh, ancient,' they would say if you pressed them. ‘Hundreds and hundreds of years old.' It had stained-glass windows that didn't show angels or saints but wild flowers: primroses in one pointed window, violets in another, harebells in another and so on. On a frosty afternoon in February when the light is at its best for looking at such things, they glowed like jewels in the darkness of the church and reminded the people, who were cold and tired at the end of winter, that the Spring would come again soon, bringing real flowers to the fields and to the forest: primroses and violets and harebells.

Of what else would the citizens have spoken? They might have mentioned that in the middle of the main square was an imposing statue of Albert Hawkes, the little town's most famous son. ‘Born in Woodford. Died in Glory' it said on the plinth; and generations of children thought that Glory must be the name of the far-off city in which Albert Hawkes had ended his days. But there was, unfortunately, a slight problem: no one had the foggiest idea who Albert Hawkes was and what he had done to merit such a grand statue. Was he a military man who had won a famous victory? Probably not, because then the statue would have shown him in uniform, waving a sword in the air. Perhaps he was a learned man, a professor or even a poet, but then he would have been holding a bronze book in his bronze hands. An inventor? Then why wasn't he holding the thing he had invented? Albert Hawkes' statue gave no clues to who he had been. It showed him as a man of medium height with a frock coat and a
splendid moustache, leaning on a broken pillar with his chin propped in his right hand. He was gazing off into the middle distance with a slightly puzzled expression. You could have been forgiven for thinking that even he had forgotten who he was, and was trying his best to remember.

The people of Woodford didn't even think of him as Albert Hawkes, and had long since stopped wondering what he had done to be famous. They simply spoke of The Statue and used it as a place to meet before heading along to do something more interesting, such as going to the cinema or to an ice-cream parlour. The Statue was a bus terminus. I hate to have to tell you this, but the odd passing dog used to lift its leg against the plinth and no one thought this an outrage or indeed cared at all. There are many people who spend their lives desperately trying to be famous: they should think about the fate of Albert Hawkes.

The town did have an art gallery but I doubt
if anyone would have mentioned it, because unfortunately the paintings in it were not good. Not good at all. In fact they were completely hopeless. They looked as if when they had been painted, the artists had had a bad headache or tummy ache; or perhaps simply their minds had been elsewhere and they had been wondering what was for tea that night or if the postman would bring something interesting.

Anything else? Yes, Woodford Creams! They would certainly have told you about Woodford Creams, which are chocolates with a
rose-scented
cream-filled centre that are every bit as delicious as they sound, and horribly expensive. They were sold from a shop the size of a large suitcase, by the shy, dreamy woman whose mother had invented the chocolates and who had given her daughter the secret recipe. The people of Woodford bought them as gifts or as treats for themselves. At Christmas time there was always a queue out the door of the shop, down the street, around the corner, sometimes
even as far as The Statue. (And if you knew Woodford you would realise that that is a very long way indeed.)

And so already you can see that even though it was a most unremarkable little town, there were things in it that were interesting and delicious and delightful. This is true of every town no matter how dull it may at first appear to be. Of course if you have absolutely no curiosity or imagination whatsoever, even the most exciting city in the world will seem boring to you. But if you do open your eyes wide and look at what is there under your very nose, you will find wonders and marvels even in a completely ordinary place like Woodford.

But wait! How could I possibly have forgotten Jasper? Jasper Jellit was an extravagant and flamboyant millionaire who lived in a flashy great mansion at the edge of town. He threw wild parties and the people of Woodford were completely and utterly fascinated by him. ‘Not every town has someone like Jasper living in
it,' they'd have said, although the wiser folk would perhaps have pointed out that this was something of a mixed blessing. On the day this story begins, however, it wasn't Jasper they were thinking about. At the church and in the chocolate shop, in the art gallery and among the groups of people standing around The Statue, waiting to meet their friends or to catch a bus, there was tremendous excitement. ‘Have you heard?' they said to each other. ‘Have you heard the news?' There was one topic of conversation that day and only one, which was this:

Barney Barrington was coming back to live in Woodford.

The people knew this because they had read about it in the
Woodford Trumpet
, a small, loud newspaper with lots of photographs and great big headlines. It also had a rather odd habit of putting some words in BLOCK CAPITALS, so that it looked like THIS. Perhaps they thought their READERS were too BUSY to read the paper SLOWLY, and in glancing over the main WORDS they would get the general IDEA. Perhaps they thought their EYESIGHT was BAD. Perhaps they even thought that their READERS were a bit DIM.

Whatever the reason, the headline that
morning read: ‘MUSICAL MILLIONAIRE COMES HOME TO WOODFORD!' And then in smaller print it said, ‘See pages 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7.' This didn't leave much room for any other news, which was a pity, because lots of important if rather unexciting things were happening at that time.

‘After YEARS away,' the paper said on its front page, ‘Pianist BARNEY BARRINGTON is coming back to LIVE in WOODFORD. (I'll drop the capitals from here on out if you don't mind. You're probably not BUSY and I'm certain you're not DIM and even if your EYESIGHT is BAD (mine is terrible) I doubt if CAPITALS will HELP.)

‘Millionaire Barney, who is even richer than Jasper Jellit, has bought The Oaks and is expected to move in any day now. Child genius Barney left Woodford when he was only five. The piano-playing sprog went on to stun the world with his skill on the ivories. Now, more than sixty years later, he is coming back to live
here again. And who can blame him, eh? Good on yer, Barney! Welcome Home!'

Above this there were two large photographs. One showed a frail, rather anxious little child with soft fair hair standing beside an immense black grand piano. ‘Nimble-fingered nipper: Barney at six,' the caption read. The other photo showed a frail, rather anxious looking elderly man with soft grey hair, standing beside an immense black grand piano. ‘Still packing 'em in,' it said below. ‘Barney wowing New York last week.'

The rest of the paper was full of pictures and stories about Barney. The
Trumpet
said that he had never had a home since leaving Woodford, but had spent all his life travelling the world, staying in hotels and giving concerts. They told about the zillions and squillions of records he had sold and of how sometimes there had been punch-ups at the box office when there weren't enough concert tickets to go round. They said how quiet and shy he had been as a child and
how he had never changed. There were photos of him in London and Tokyo and Sydney and Paris.

‘Snakes' elbows! Richer than me?' Jasper Jellit was sitting up in bed in his ruby silk pyjamas reading the paper and eating a soft-boiled egg with toast soldiers, his Tuesday morning breakfast. He was a picky eater and had a different breakfast brought to him, cooked just so, every day in the week. ‘RICHER THAN ME??!!!'

He shouted so loud that he woke up his two Alsatian dogs, Cannibal and Bruiser, who were snoozing in their basket at the foot of the bed.

‘Oh what is it this time?' they thought crossly. ‘There's no need to make such a racket.'

Jasper leafed wildly through the paper looking for news about himself. There was always something. The morning after one of his incredible parties there would be pages and pages of photographs in all of which Jasper appeared, and reports in which the guests said
how it was the best party they had ever been to in their entire lives and how Jasper was the most wonderful person they had ever met. Often he would pull some stunt just to get attention. One day, for example, he went out and bought up every single Woodford Cream in the shop. It was the most anyone had ever bought at one go and it was all over the
Woodford Trumpet
the next day. There were far too many for him to eat himself and he fed some of them to Cannibal and Bruiser, even though he knew you should never give chocolate to dogs. He was curious to know how sick it would make them: it made them very sick indeed.

But there was nothing about him in the paper today, nothing at all. Everything was about Barney Barrington.

‘What's wrong with him now?' Cannibal wondered.

‘He's gone the same colour as his pyjamas,' thought Bruiser.

Jasper threw his paper aside and jumped
out of bed, sending the toast soldiers flying. He picked up the phone and rang his butler.

‘Come here,' he said. Jasper rarely bothered with details such as saying ‘Please' or ‘Thank you' or even ‘Hello'.

‘Come here IMMEDIATELY. You're going to help me to plan the biggest and best, the most incredible and amazing party that Woodford has ever seen.'

Cannibal and Bruiser looked at each other in dismay. ‘Oh no!' they thought. ‘Oh no. Here we go again.'

Meanwhile, over at The Oaks, Barney Barrington was quietly moving into his new home.

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