A Long Trip to Teatime Read online

  ‘Would you like me to go for help?’

  ‘Oh yes please,’ Edgar said, but then he reflected that it would take a tortoise a very long time to go for anything. His doubt must have conveyed itself to the tortoise, which now said:

  ‘Think I’ll be too slow, is that it? Don’t you believe it. From here to Edenborough is less than a mile, and I reckon I could easily be there and back by, say, the Christmas after next. That’s not too bad for speed, the way I see it.’

  Edgar groaned. He said: ‘I don’t have all that much time. I’d starve to death, lying here and waiting.’

  ‘Ah, that’s because you have a wrong sense of time. You don’t live long enough, that’s your trouble. Now we tortoises think nothing of living a hundred years. Like parrots, you know. Not that I think much of parrots. They can’t really talk, they just imitate. Pretty Polly and all that nonsense. Scratch Polly’s head arrrrrrrgh. Ridiculous.’

  ‘Well,’ Edgar sighed, ‘if you’re going for help perhaps you’d better go now.’

  ‘No need to take that attitude. Plenty of a time for a bit of a chat and a few reminiscences of a long long life. Did I ever tell you about the second King of Rome – Numa his name was? His wife was a kind of a fountain called Egeria.’

  ‘No,’ Edgar said patiently, ‘you never told me. We haven’t met before. And I really do look forward to your telling me, but not now. Please, not now. What I want is to get out of here.’

  ‘Give me your hands,’ said Crossjay to Edgar. ‘Old Durdles has got hold of my ankles.’ And so Edgar was yanked up. He was very glad to see the light of day again and feel the road under his feet.

  Before the tortoise could say something offended in reply, Edgar to his joy heard human voices up there on the road. A lady spoke first:

  ‘Oh, Willoughby, Willoughby, how clever those flowers are. Listen to them talking away.’ Then a bored and haughty man’s voice replied:

  ‘Fiddlesticks, my dear Laetitia. What they’re saying is hardly worth listening to. Not a single original thought in a cart-load of fallen petals.’

  ‘Help! Help!’ called Edgar. ‘I’ve fallen into the ditch.’

  ‘Now that,’ said the man’s voice, ‘is just lying stupidity. Flowers don’t fall into ditches. Or if they do they don’t raise a big noise about it. It’s a common hazard of flowers, I should say, to fall into ditches.’

  The tortoise said: ‘A fat lot he knows about anything,’ and the lady said: ‘Oh, dear Willoughby, you’re so right.’

  ‘I’m never wrong, my dear Laetitia,’ replied the man, and Edgar called: ‘Help! Help! It’s a boy that’s fallen in. My name is Edgar. Help, please help!’

  ‘Ah,’ came the man’s voice, ‘a boy, eh? I don’t care much for boys. Not reverent enough. No appreciation of their betters. Best let him stew in his own juice.’

  ‘Oh, Willoughby, no! That would be too cruel!’

  ‘Think so, eh? Very well. Let’s have young Crossjay over here.’ And he called: ‘Crossjay, let us be having you.’ Then he said: ‘What I said was hardly apposite, my dear Laetitia. Stew in his own juice no, one can hardly say that. Rot in his own ditch – that’s better, eh, eh?’

  But now Edgar saw a jolly young round face peering down at him. This was Crossjay, Edgar supposed. ‘Ah,’ smiled Crossjay, as Edgar supposed him to be, ‘got a tortoise on you. That’s good, that’s very good. Fond of tortoises I am meself. What’s your name, old fellow?’

  ‘Edgar,’ Edgar replied.

  ‘No, no, I meant the tortoise. Oh, offended, is it?’ For the tortoise was now crawling away. It said to Edgar:

  ‘Can’t stand familiarity. I’m old enough to be that boy’s great great grandfather. Well, I’ll see you sometime, I suppose. Glad to have been of service.’ And off it went.

  ‘Give me your hands,’ said Crossjay to Edgar. ‘Old Durdles has got hold of my ankles.’ And so Edgar was yanked up. He was very glad to see the light of day again and feel the road under his feet. The man called Durdles was very old and bald and seemed to be covered with stone-dust. He said to Edgar:

  ‘Everyone to his taste, I suppose. But if it’s lying in earth you wish to be, I have some very nice graves new-dug over in the churchyard, and I’ll do you a lovely headstone for next to nothing. With cherubs on it too.’

  The lady called Laetitia was tall and thin, but the man called Willoughby was even thinner and taller and he had what looked like a perpetual sneer on his face. ‘Before we go any further,’ he said haughtily to Edgar, ‘I would have you know that I am to be addressed as Sir Willoughby.’ He had a very tall grey hat on.

  ‘Well,’ Edgar said, ‘grateful as I am for your help, I don’t think the occasion for my calling you anything is likely to be much prolonged. For I must hurry on to Edenborough. Let me then reiterate my gratitude and take my leave.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Laetitia, ‘he speaks so like a gentleman. You must try your poem out on him, Willoughby.’ And it seemed to Edgar that she was rather proud of not having to call him Sir Willoughby. That she was not his wife Edgar had no doubt. Her clothes were very poor and full of mended tears, whereas he was dressed like a dandy. Sir Willoughby said, in a bored voice:

  ‘Oh, very well. It is up to the already enlightened to spread the light, I suppose. Eh? I think that’s rather good, eh, eh, what?’ All this time Crossjay was peeling an apple he had taken from his pocket, using a very blunt knife and grumbling softly in a good-humoured way. ‘Here it is, then,’ said Sir Willoughby, and he struck a dignified posture like an actor:

  ‘I used to know two Eliots,

  Both good with words and stops and commas.

  They started writing in their cots:

  The first was George, the other Thomas.

  Now one of them, despite the name,

  A woman was, and not a man.

  But which was which? – A crying shame,

  I do not know. For though I can

  Distinguish between types of wine

  And playing-cards (all fifty-two)

  And weather foul and weather fine

  And faces in a boat-race crew,

  Orang-utan and marmoset

  And cherry pie and apple tart,

  Alas alack I never yet

  Could tell the Eliots apart.’

  Before the lady called Laetitia could clap her hands and say how wonderful it was or Edgar could murmur something politely admiring, Sir Willoughby held up his right hand sternly and said:

  ‘You must understand that I really do know which was which, but the sensible thing to do now and then is to pretend not to know everything. Otherwise people regard one as uppish. Hence,’ he said, ‘the poem.’

  ‘Too many words,’ grumbled Durdles. ‘It’d be hard work getting all them words carved on a gravestone. Still, everyone to his taste, I suppose.’

  ‘The point is,’ repeated Sir Willoughby, ‘that I really do know which was which. All that was poetic licence.’

  ‘Done it at last!’ cried little Crossjay, holding up his peeled apple. ‘Thought as how I should never get it done. Oh, well.’ And he threw the apple away into the long grass. He smiled at Edgar and said: ‘Can’t stand the taste of ‘em. It’s the peeling of ‘em I really like.’

  ‘Again thank you,’ Edgar said. ‘And now I really must be on my way.’ And he bowed in a very old-fashioned and courtly manner, so that Laetitia giggled and said:

  ‘Such a polite little boy.’

  ‘I know which is which,’ said Sir Willoughby loudly and crossly.

  ‘So,’ said Edgar, ‘good day to one and all.’

  ‘I’ve a little grave just right for you,’ said Durdles. ‘Won’t be at all right for you in six months time, boys growing the way they do, but now it would be fine. Come and see it.’

  ‘I know, I do really know!’

  ‘Of course you do, Willoughby dear.’

  ‘Won’t take a minute to view it,’ Durdles said. Edgar began to run. He ran and ran until he turned a corner. He could still
hear Sir Willoughby shouting crossly:

  ‘I know, I know, I really do know!’

  But soon he could hear nothing more, and all his attention was taken up by the sight of the great city of Edenborough, which stretched below him in the late afternoon sunlight. He stood on a hill, and down there was a fine wooded valley with a silver river running through it like a monstrous snake, and on the river, which had many bridges, stood the city with its shining domes. ‘Edenborough,’ breathed Edgar to himself, and a little voice near him repeated the name in tones of disgust. ‘Edenborough,’ it said. ‘Pah!’ Edgar looked down to see a little grey man dressed all in grey, leaning on a crooked stick. ‘And what,’ said the little man frowning, ‘might your name be, if, as seems more likely than not, you have such? Come on, answer.’

  ‘Edgar, and what’s yours?’

  ‘I’ll give you three guesses,’ said the little man. Edgar needed only one. He said:

  ‘Grey?’

  ‘Depends on how you spell it. If you spell it with an e, no. With an a, yes. Gray.’

  ‘You seem,’ said Edgar, ‘to have a very low opinion of that great city spread all before us in the valley.’

  ‘And so I have,’ said Mr Gray. ‘I wrote a poem about it once. Listen.’

  Nearly everybody Edgar had met this day seemed to have a poem to recite; nevertheless, he hid his sigh and politely lent an ear. The little man recited, bitterly:

  ‘On well-heeled feet and tartan-trousered legs,

  They jeer and leer and sneer at all who come.

  They sift soft sugar over hard-boiled eggs,

  They chew the crust and throw away the crumb.

  They season herrings with vanilla custard,

  And groaningly they grind at ground-up gristle,

  They sup cold soup because they say they must. A d-

  -ay goes hardly by without they whistle.’

  Very difficult,’ said Mr Gray, ‘to find a rhyme for custard. Now here comes the important bit. Listen carefully -

  ‘They hear loud music every time they feast,

  They play a sort of game with bat and ball.

  They feed their children to the Blatant Beast

  And to his dam, and do not care at all.’

  ‘What is all that about a beast and a dam?’ said Edgar, who could not hear very clearly, since Mr Gray had recited this last verse in a mumbling undertone.

  ‘Dam? His mother, of course,’ said Mr Gray. ‘But you’ll see soon enough. Now don’t interrupt. I’m coming to the last verse, and this sums it all up. Listen -

  ‘An old man’s curse cast spavin on their hocks.

  Soon they’ll be glad to go into the dark.

  I’ll find for each a cast-iron wooden box

  And feed them to the turkeys in the park.’

  He nodded direly and said: ‘I don’t think that’s going too far at all. You’ll see when you get there.’ Then he hobbled off away from the town, leaning on his stick and muttering. Edgar, with joy and hope in his heart, made his way down the hill towards Edenborough. That poem was all a lot of nonsense.

  CHAPTER V

  E and D

  and G and A

  AH, EDENBOROUGH – so delightful a town it seemed. Edgar walked with pleasure through its comely streets, but all the time he was looking for a way back to the classroom and then home to tea (surely by now the lesson must be over). He asked many of the charming policemen he saw smilingly patrolling the tree-clad avenues and shining shopping thoroughfares: ‘How shall I get back?’ And they nearly all said.

  ‘Wait till four o’clock, sonny.’

  The town seemed to be full not only of native Edenborough folk but of people from distant countries like Brazil, Jamaica, Honduras, South Africa, Red China, Blue China and White China. Tourists, said Edgar to himself. They all had guidebooks and cameras, and they leafed away and clicked away, for there was much to see and read about and record. These were some of the things:

  The Boxing Museum with Living Specimens of Ancient and Modern Pugilism.

  The Mechanical Statue of Pierce Egan, Author of Over Twenty Thousand Pieces of Cheap Literature.

  A working Model of Egdon Heath.

  The Eglinton Tournament with Jousting Knights and Firespitting Fiery Steeds, Together with Lovely Ladies Cheering them on.

  Egyptian Thieves in Safe Cages.

  Eidothea, Daughter of the Master of a Million and One Disguises.

  An Eisteddfod of Bards, Singing and Reciting in Genuine Welsh.

  El Dorado, the City of Gold, in Miniature but Complete in Every Detail, Complete with the Gold King, also in Miniature, its Ruler.

  Domenico Theotocopuli, Painting Visitors on the Spot in Bright Colours and With Distorted Shapes, but Very Cheap and Remarkably Quickly Done.

  The Roman Emperor Heliogabalus Raging and Screaming.

  Elaine le Blank, A Pretty Girl but Not Very Bright. Rather Silly In Fact.

  Electra and Her Ten Thousand Coloured Electric Lamps.

  The Elephant in the Moon.

  Genuine Elves in Little Green Coats, Stealers of Children and Causes of Nightmares, But All Safely Locked Up and Unable to Do Any Harm at All, Ha Ha.

  The Play of Elijah in Four Scenes: (i) He is Given a Meal by Ravens at the Brook Called Kerith (ii) He raises the Dead Son of the Widow of Zarephath (iii) He Confutes the Prophets of Baal (iv) He Is Carried Up to Heaven in a Chariot of Fire.

  Elisha Being Mocked at by Children Who are at once Most Cruelly Though Quite Justly Really Destroyed by Big Brown and Black Bears. A Musical Play with New and Original Songs and Dances.

  Elizabeth and Her German Garden.

  St Elmo’s Fire, This Being the Ball of Light Commonly Seen on the Masts and Yard Arms of Ships During Storms at Sea. Also Called Corposant.

  An Hourly Lecture by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Very Learned and Most Interesting American Gentleman All the Way from Boston Mass.

  The Story of the Witch of Endor, Very Frightening, Told by Sir Endymion Latmos.

  ENGLAND EXPECTS THAT EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS DUTY, famous signal of Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar: six easy lessons on how to convey This Important Message with Flags, Flags, And More Flags.

  The Lady Quintessence Will Allow Her Hand to Be Kissed in Her Castle, Ever Open (at a Price) To Visitors, called Entelechy.

  Etc Etc Etc Etc Etc.

  There was a great clock high up above the main street of the city and at four o’clock on the dot it began to strike and then play a charming tune which to Edgar sounded like Pop goes the weasel upside down. And when the tune had jangled to stillness, Edgar was interested to see crowds of people making their way to what signposts called Walkinshaw Square. Some, he saw with curiosity, were unwilling to go there, but the smiling charming police herded them along, making the sort of noise that horsemen make to horses. Edgar politely approached a big fat police sergeant, all blue and silver and gold, and said:

  ‘How do I get back?’

  ‘You get back by going forward,’ said the policeman. ‘Go with this lot to the square there. Listen carefully. Can you hear the band playing? You go there and everything will be as right as ninepence.’ He smiled in a friendly way, then he pushed Edgar rather rudely and roughly into the moving crowd. A man next to him said:

  ‘Making you go there too, are they? Well, all I can say is that I’d rather be old and tough as I am and not young and tender like what you are. But it all depends, after all, on the tune that they play, don’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Edgar said. ‘I’ve never been here before.’

  ‘And you’ll not be here again, if you’ve half a centimetre of sense in that young noddle of yours,’ said a fat wheezing old woman.

  Then Edgar thought of Mr Gray and his poem and a shiver went down his spine. There was something not quite right about Edenborough. There was something quite certainly wrong about some of the signs above the shops: T. MOORE’S CHOCOLATE CLOCKS AND WATCHES – THE EPIGO SHOP FOR ACHES AND CHILLS – CURE THAT C
OUGH WITH ENTENT CORDIAL-EPIDAURUS’S LIVE SUGAR MICE. He said to the man next to him:

  ‘What are they going to do to us?’

  ‘You’ll see. It’s all for the tourist trade. Tourists coming here spending money. Disgraceful, I call it.’

  ‘Don’t you want their money, then?’ asked Edgar.

  ‘Money isn’t everything,’ said the man. ‘What I like best in all the world to eat is a nice roast diadoch.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Diadoch, diadoch, have you never heard of a diadoch? Now you can’t buy one of these with all the money in the world. So what good is their dirty money is what I say. Ah, here we are then. ‘

  The square was crowded. There were buildings all round it, all with names on them – LITTLE ERIC; HANKY AND PANKY; ER; ERNEST MALTRAVERS; A. E. OEXMELIN; ESTHER WATERS (BOTH PLAIN AND MINERAL) – and from the windows many people looked out (tourists?) clicking cameras in the sun. In the centre of the square, which was shaped like a circle, there was a fine big statue of a man on horseback, and this statue seemed to be conversing, with many shakes and nods of his metal head, to a man in clown’s costume (was he a member of the Edenborough Revue troupe?). There was a big band up on a bandstand, conducted by an immensely tall and thin man in military uniform and gloves of dazzling white, and the band was at the moment playing something soft and rather dreamy. Then, without warning, it went into a very fierce loud chord, with cymbals clashing, and the clown leapt into the air several times. Then he ran, with much comic tripping, to a bank of microphones, all with names – TUC, TOP, HOW, UPP, YOU, QZXERVK – and cried, his voice booming from loudspeakers all over the square:

  ‘You all know why we’re here this gorgeous sprinter, or is it smautumn, afterlunch, and we’ll waste no more time, shall we not, no we shan’t, not by no manner of means shall we not, my friends, and also my mother-in-law who I see down there, yoo hoo. So on with it.’ He made a big conducting gesture at the conductor, who made a big conducting gesture at the band, and then the whole band played just one note. This one: