Verruca Music Read online

FOUR

  to recap briefly we have observed an entertainment capable of bringing about little more than financial ruin and ownership of an equine companion now departed for who knows where under its own steam

  but let us remember that our lifelong friend and compatriot the protagonist is currently situated atop a squashy blanket

  no

  duvet

  no

  wait

  blanket floor duvet mattress

  mattress

  that's it a mattress

  i wondered how long it would take you to find the right word

  now i've found it i've forgotten what i was saying our friend compatriot and dare i say it hero the protagonist is situated atop a squashy mattress in a darkened room beneath a frayed green duvet

  hang on a moment there was it not blue

  o yes sorry blue frayed green duvet which prevented the floor from swallowing the sinking cup of tea generously provided when the lungs froze the intercostal muscles rebelled and there was rime in the hair of the feet going swish swish and the arms going needle and the heart as usual having a good go at

  what

  stopping

  have you quite finished your entirely misguided recap for i fear i am a great deal more confused than i was when you started it

  well suppose for a moment i was

  no

  no more of that thank you very much

  in the light of previously imagined and somewhat disastrous forms of entertainment as represented by the shopping rigmarole outlined above and in the light also of the inability of our friend compatriot and hero the protagonist to stray too far from the squashy mattress that prevented the floor from opening up and swallowing his sinking heart it was decided that the limits should be imposed in the following manner

  there were to be five entertainments per day

  to avoid falling off the squashy mattress that prevented the et cetera no entertainment should involve movement of more than a couple of feet in any one direction our protagonist working in entirely imperial measurements being a perverse soul and fundamentally opposed to the stultifying effects of the decimal system upon the imaginations of the young

  to avoid the hop skip and jumping of the jolly old bonce from one scattered fragment of thought to another a period of quiet contemplation of the approaching entertainment was to be followed by the entertainment itself which was in turn to be followed by a satisfying reflection upon the entertainment just undertaken

  allowing one hour for each of these steps the entertainment plus its prelude and coda if i may be permitted to misappropriate such musical terms were therefore to last three hours in total and therefore when performed in succession the complete set of entertainment was to take fifteen hours allowing nine exhausted hours for sleep during which our hero would be oblivious to the dark and tremulous night but awaken fully refreshed for another day of entertainment the following morning

  unless something went badly wrong and one of the entertainments failed to last as long as planned in which case the full horror of the night would present itself along with an only recently-noticed mysterious figure with a covered face that was only noticeable in our hero's peripheral vision

  was it wearing a jumper

  now now there's no need for flippancy

  well we can't have these mysterious figures that you conjure up catching their death of cold now can we

  to recap

  are you sure that's wise

  to recap then each entertainment to last three hours and consisting of prelude entertainment proper and coda and to involve not too much movement for fear of

  yes

  at the end of five entertainments therefore a whole day of distraction would have been achieved and our protagonist aglow with joyful contentment in the old bonce would therefore sleep soundly and deeply without the assistance of the fibonacci sequence or indeed two thousand five hundred and eighty four sheep shambling over a rickety old gate

  well and how did you go about deciding what the first entertainments were to be

  o that was not easy at all

  suppose i had some particular entertainments in mind and was drawing lots using matchsticks or straws or pipe-cleaners or something of that ilk that would be easy enough but underneath the frayed blue duvet atop the mattress that prevented the floor from swallowing me up i had no access to matchsticks straws pipe-cleaners or anything that could cause more than a minor injury

  anything more than a minor injury being a very undesirable form of entertainment indeed and generally discouraged by the kind pair of hands that previously delivered nutrition

  and god knows it could barely be described as nutrition

  in the end it was decided that entertainments would be selected sequentially rather than planned fully in advance so as to add a small frisson of excitement which meant in turn that the period prior to the execution of the entertainment would now be spent in deciding the nature of said impending entertainment rather than in gleeful anticipation of entertainment previously decided upon although the post-entertainment period would remain as a contemplative spell in which the pleasant process of experiencing the entertainment could be recalled

  well and what was on the entertainment menu then

  given the constraints of being domiciled atop the great big squashy mattress that prevented the floor from opening up and being underneath the blue frayed duvet

  it's still blue then

  don't interrupt me young man i will be testing you on this later

  given the constraints of being domiciled atop the squashy mattress et cetera that prevented the o you know all that there were two forms of entertainment available to whit small amounts of physical movement and recollection and retelling of past activities undertaken in a non-mattress non-duvet environment in other words on the one hand entertainment of the body and on the other entertainment of the jolly old bonce the difficulty occasionally being in distinguishing the one from the other

  as it fell out one bright sunny morning with rime on the ground and nary a jumper to be seen jumpers being unnecessary when sandwiched snugly between mattress and duvet it was deemed the time for the limits to be imposed and the entertainments to be distributed evenly throughout the day

  unfortunately it was also observed that a timepiece was not in evidence this having been removed as being a potential cause of slightly more than minor injury

  a plea was thus made to the generous hands that brought nutrition

  and god knows it could barely be called nutrition

  a timepiece was brought

  and god knows it could barely be called a timepiece

  but it ticked and tocked as the feet went swish swish back and forth and the arms went needle needle

  and the following day the process could begin

  FIVE

  suppose for a minute i am

  this is not the one about the jumper again is it

  no

  suppose for a

  nor the one about the shopping rigmarole with the buying and the replacing and all that

  no

  suppose for a minute i

  and you are not going to go claiming that the duvet was red and you were lying on a nice comfortable futon

  no not that

  suppose for a moment i am but a lad of six years fair of hair short of leg long of back and grumbly of disposition

  why grumbly

  o wait and i will tell you young man and pay attention

  yes i know you will test

  one weekend afternoon a week would come the washing of the hair which occurred in the kitchen there being no such things as showers at the time i was growing up or if there had been such things as showers such amenities were not to be found in the parental domicile

  even now as i lie here i recall the dread of mounting the orangey yellow kidney-shaped standing stool so as to be tall enough for the head to be bent over and dunked in the stainless steel o so modern looking sink

&
nbsp; even now as i lie here i recall the reluctance to feel those other hands running through my hair which was perfectly fine thank you as were my hearing and eyesight and not really in need of washing when i could be outside playing with toy cars dinosaurs and goodness knows what else

  or watching and catching butterflies crowding the flowers of the buddleija

  even now as i lie here i recall through the fog of decades the sting of the soap in the eyes the water splashed over the head with a plastic cup and the admonition of any complaint

  even now

  yes

  even now

  and suppose for a moment i

  this is not the

  no

  even now

  no

  as you were

  the process began with a mental declaration of intent from beneath the blue frayed duvet atop the squashy mattress et cetera to whit grandly THIS IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE IMPOSITION OF LIMITS WITH REGARD TO ENTERTAINMENT followed by the somewhat less grandiose quiet acknowledgement to self that the somewhat forlorn hope that this would make the time spent atop the squashy mattress run a little more smoothly was just that

  a somewhat forlorn hope

  yet still the declaration of intent having been made it remained to get the process well and truly underway

  and the feet went swish swish and the