Good day, one and all. George Pendlebury here once more, this time back in The Phantom Hound.

   Well, summer’s now in gradual retreat and it won’t be long before the coal fire’s once more lit, here in the pub’s snug.  In the winter, it’s certainly the cosiest of Wisstingham’s three locals.

Summer seemed to be shorter than ever, this year.  Absolutely whistled by. All the holidays are over and now taking on the aspect of a thing of the past. However, that’s probably not the case for poor old Gerald Barraclough who, on retirement, moved down here, earlier in the year.

Had quite a time of it from what we’ve heard – I’ll leave you to see for yourself.

Cheeers and best wishes for now.

George.

 

‘ORACE.

‘I’ve got what?’

   ‘You’ve got chocolate on you.’ As Hattie stepped forward for a closer inspection, her husband’s pink face looked up then suddenly bent forward as he clapped a hand to his eye.

   ‘Owwwww!’ he bellowed, ‘what the ’ell’s goin’ on?’ Bent nearly double, Gerald Barraclough gingerly wiped his eye and groaned as Hattie hovered over him, a protective hand tentatively resting on his back. She looked up to find the source of his latest woe.

A chocolate slick trickled down the white wall from the balcony of the hotel room above and dripped onto the courtyard. The bar’s silver wrapper peeped out over the short upstand on which it had been left.

   ‘It’s ‘Orace!’ Gerald roared, taking in the situation through his open eye, ‘and it’s on me flaming’ sandals,’ he wailed.

   Three baffled German sunbathers, sitting in the courtyard, looked on with cautious interest. The shoulders of another, who’d taken in the situation, shook with suppressed laughter.

   ‘When’s the little ’orror goin’ ’ome?’ seethed Gerald as the creaking lift bore them upwards. Hattie glanced in the mirror and smiled, thinking how Gerald’s baldness would simplify the clean-up operation, but wisely said nothing.

   It was now eight days into their annual holiday at this tranquil Greek paradise. The small family hotel on the narrow beach, the calm seas, gentle people and superb views were an annual refuge from the Barracloughs’ arduous final years of commuting and working in Manchester. But this year’s visit was turning out very differently. Gerald had named his ‘persecutor’ ’orrible ‘orace’, after the boy had managed to soak his beach towel and the ground below his sunbed with a whole bottle of orange juice. For the rest of the day, the hapless Gerald had been befriended by dozens of wasps, which no doubt would have thought of ‘the little wretch’ quite differently.

Thereafter, at regular intervals, to the sniggers and smiles of the other sunbathers, Gerald’s skinny frame had cavorted round the courtyard in vain attempts to escape the little visitors he hated and feared.

   After this and other occurrences, even the nine year old’s exuberance, loud, incessant voice and constant courtyard gymnastics now stood as ‘minor offences’ in Gerald’s case for the prosecution.

   ‘Soaked mi towel, trapped mi fingers, broke mi watch, ran over me with a pedalo and now this!’ the seated Gerald moaned at the ceiling as Hattie dabbed and wiped him clean.

   ‘Well, he couldn’t help falling just as you were lifting the sunbed,’ his long suffering wife pleaded in defence of ‘the little monster’. 

   ‘Walking on a low wall, eyes closed aint the behaviour of a sane person,’ Gerald parried, ‘and what was ’is father doing in all of this, may I ask? I’ll tell thee, in case tha ’adn’t noticed. Nowt!’

   Goatee and facial cleanliness restored, his head returned to its chrome dome finish and both eyes now functional, though one quite bloodshot, with a final mutter of ‘Ruddy’ foreigners,’ he strode to the door, determined to wring whatever enjoyment he could from the rest of the day.

   It was only later when Hattie, who despite her generous frame could almost float on air, having been obliged to perfect the art of walking on eggshells from early on in married life, cautiously asked whether it was time for lunch.  Gerald’s growl in response confirmed her fears of another grumble-ridden meal so, seeking to halt the advance of further barrages against ‘the child from Hell’, she launched a pre-emptive strike.

   ‘Well it really was your fault Gerald,’ she whispered, ‘if you hadn’t left your watch lying on the ground it wouldn’t have got broken.’

   ‘It was reet next to the sunbed and totally safe until the lumberin’ little rhino came charging past within a hairs breadth of me,’ he hissed back.

  They donned shirt and Kaftan in a silent truce and ambled along the beach to their favourite bar, spirits lifted and smiles restored to see their usual table empty.

   The smiling waitress took their order and the duo gazed happily out on the tranquil scene before them. 

   As Gerald slowly raised a chilled beer to his smiling lips, his hand froze in mid air.

   ‘Jeremiah! Please, not here also,’ he muttered, lowering the glass.

   The Mayhem family, loudly announcing their arrival in an unrecognisable language, made their way to a table behind the despondent couple as Gerald cradled his head in his hands.

    Hattie offered up a silent prayer as a game of verbal tennis started between the child, now gamboling on the shore, and his loud parents.  Gerald, like a Wimbledon ball boy mentally crouched at his net position.

   Only the arrival of their food brought temporary comfort and distraction. Gerald hungrily tucked into his plate of calamari, and Hattie neatly attempted surgical incisions into the slab of feta topping her Greek salad.

   Alerted by a louder than usual outpouring from ‘orace to his doting parents, who Gerald maintained should be ‘’ad up in The Hague on crimes against humanity, for ’avin’ given birth to the brat’, Gerald looked up to see a sun hat arcing like a meteor over their table, in its wake a trail of falling sand.  He would testify ever afterwards that the sand which fell on his calamari and into his beer would have filled a beach bucket. Whatever the amount, there was no doubt his lunch was well and truly ruined.

   ‘Not the salad or white wine mind!’ he’d fire across at his wife, on each recounting of the incident, ‘oh no! not a grain of sand in those. Singled me out, that’s what the little whelp did.’

   His persecution now complete, with a bellow of ‘Gordon Bennett!’ the crimson faced Gerald, apoplectic with rage, sprang to his feet, upsetting the whole table in the process. Beer and white wine merged to form a moat around the upturned salad, liberally sprinkled with calamari and broken glass.

   Rooted to the spot, the stupefied Gerald stared down at the wreckage. Hattie, with facial serenity of angelic proportions, remained seated staring fixedly out to sea. Though calm on the outside, internally she wrestled with indecision as to whether her preference was for the earth to open up and swallow her, or to consume Gerald instead.

   ‘I hope you’re satisfied now,” she murmured, her gaze still fixed beyond the chaos around them. She even refrained from turning to glare at the parents behind who, from their sniggers clearly found the proceedings most amusing.

   Gerald, whose low tolerance level had now reached its cork-popping limit, muttered, ‘It’s no good, I’m going to ’ave to go and calm down afore I clobber someone.’

   ‘Yes, I think you’d better,’ she replied quietly, ‘I’ll sort things out,’ adding, ‘by way of a change,’ in a quieter voice.

   Gerald barged past the waitress now advancing tight lipped upon the disaster area, armed with dustpan and brush.  Seeing the extent of the destruction and task before her, she immediately retreated for more substantial implements, scowling after the retreating culprit.

   Gerald darted a glare at the cavorting child that would have blistered paint then, despite being a poor swimmer, flung himself into the sea and set off, arms flailing furiously, plotting a course round the boats moored in the bay.  If he had to stay out there for the rest of the day, to avoid seeing the little beast, he felt determined to do so.

   After paying for the meal and having liberally showered everyone with profuse apologies and tips, Hattie waddled back to the hotel room determined to liberate no small measure of the chilled, white wine from in their room’s fridge, thereafter to probably sleep it and Gerald’s antics off.

   ‘You know that funny Englishman Daddy?’ ’orace casually enquired of his father when the day’s shadows had lengthened.

   ‘Urgh,’ grunted the comatose form.

   ‘Well he’s been hanging on to that boat for a really long time.’

   ‘Oh.’

   ‘Do you think he’s alright?’

   ‘Not really, I think he’s mad, but I reckon, they’re all a bit weird those English. I expect he’s trying to keep out of his wife’s way.  She looked very annoyed at lunchtime.’

   ‘He’s been waving for a very, very long time now.’

   Grumbling about how troublesome this man was being and how he was spoiling his holiday, the father of ‘the little behemoth’ finally turned his attention to his son’s irritating intrusion.

   ‘My, it’s a lot posher than I thought it’d be,’ Hattie observed, glancing around the room. ‘a room all to yourself, you’d never get this back at home, would you?’  She gazed down at the lobster red face on the white pillow then up at the intravenous drip. The slow drops of saline solution in the little transparent container held her fascinated gaze until Gerald’s groan reminded her of her new role as a hospital visitor.

   ‘They say you’ll be out tomorrow,’ she offered brightly, ‘just observation and they think you got dehydrated. I’ve told you before about drinking plenty,’ she chided, ‘and if you’d put some sun cream on at lunchtime, like I told you to, you wouldn’t have got burned like that. Fancy swimming out all that way and going all funny like that. Just silliness. Dehydration that’s what it was.’

   There was another groan as Gerald recalled the last drink he’d been trying to do justice to.

   ‘Just to think, it was little ‘orace who got you rescued. Oh I suppose I shouldn’t really call him that now, should I?’ she wittered, ‘I wonder what his real name is.’ 

   The door swung open and as the visitors entered. Hattie felt uplifted at the absence of a groan or oath from next to her. Reconciliation must be on the cards she thought, oblivious to the horrorstruck look on Gerald’s face.

   With various histrionics, mime and bodily contortions that would have done credit to a drama student, the Mayhem family finally introduced themselves, pushing the young hero of the day forward so the patient could meet his saviour at close quarters.

   Gerald’s head twitched, his eyes darting to Hattie’s smiling face in fear and frantic supplication for protection. 

   ‘Look Gerald,’ she enthused, ‘the boy’s come to see how you are.’

   ‘More like the little blighter’s come to finish me off,’ Gerald croaked, staring at him as if he were a rattlesnake. The boy moved forward and smiled. Gerald winced. The beggar’s probably got a weapon, he thought. 

   ‘How about shaking hands?’ Hattie suggested, beaming at the child then turning a better do what you’re told  glower on the fearful patient. 

   Eyes rooted on ‘the brat’, Gerald extended a reluctant hand.  ‘Young Mephistopheles’ stared blankly at it then, after some clarification as to what was expected, extended his own hand. Gerald shook it gingerly, rapidly withdrew his hand and looked at it, as if counting his fingers, then returned the boy’s smile with something closer to a grimace.

   This formality over, the communication drama between the adults resumed while the child’s attention wandered to the TV remote whose buttons each received attention. That is until a few hefty decibels, brought about the father’s hasty intervention.  All the time Gerald’s eyes warily followed Hattie’s ‘Little Hero’.

   When the continuing attempted communication had wearily dwindled into embarrassed silence, the couple gradually shuffled to the door, smiling and nodding. Hattie followed closely, chaperoning their departure which left the task of encouraging the button pressing, knob twiddling hero to follow suit.

   ‘Put the control down on the trolley,’ the beaming father instructed as he and his wife waved to the relieved Gerald. They passed into the corridor closely followed by Hattie, determined to give them a gracious send off.

   The TV control reluctantly parted with, after a final flurry of other button pressing, the boy smiled back, waved to Gerald then hurried out to catch up with trio. Gerald’s open-mouthed expression of apprehension following him.

   The mattress slowly responded to the button-pressed instructions and began to gradually fold in the middle, the room and corridor echoing loudly to a painful cry and enraged shout of,

   ‘Oh flamin’ Norah!  Come back ‘ere, yer little rat.’