Mr Pemberton
Goes Too Far
by Eric
McFarlane
I think he’s
gone too far this time. I mean you do have to be
careful what you do, especially in public. You’ve
got to keep up appearances. Just saying that
makes me think of Mam, although she was the
opposite. She never worried about appearances.
Every Saturday night she’d be down the
boozer arm-wrestling the men for pints. Sometimes
she won and she got her pint. Thing was that even
when she lost they usually bought her one anyway,
or even two. So Saturday night she’d be
steaming home up the high street. She had a
lovely voice. It was kind of sopranoy only a bit
bassy as well. I could have listened to her all
night. Sometimes I did and all.
Uncle Bill
used to go on about her and her singing. He didn’t
like it. Thought she was making an exhibit of
herself. ‘That mother of yours, Seline, she’ll
be the death of this family.’ Then he went
and dropped dead himself at the races a couple of
days later. It was very sad. A horse ran
over him when he drank a little too much and
wandered onto the course. There’s a horse-shoe
engraved on his headstone, not because he got ran
over by one, just ‘cos he liked the gee-gee’s
so much. I’ve seen it. It’s quite
touching and very tasteful.
Anyways that’s
what I mean about appearances. You’ve got to
keep them up even in graveyards, that’s what
I was saying. Look I’ll tell you a story, it’s
true mind. I can’t be bothered with all this
fiction stuff you get in the library. What’s
the point in reading about things that never
happened when there’s stuff happening all
around? You only have to look, and they get paid
for it too. Thousands of pounds for writing down
stuff that never happened. Lies, Mam would have
called it if she were alive today bless her. And
then they swan off and sit by swimming pools in
Bolivia and maybe have women there who aren’t
their wives and they do stuff what I’ve read
about it in the papers and you probably have too
- read about it I mean. My God, excuse me, it
makes me so angry and there we are paying our
taxes so that they can sit and proliferate with
women who could be their daughters and should
know better by swimming pools in Bolivia and
probably women as well with young men cos women
write lies too and... what was I saying? Oh yes,
real stuff happening like what you see when you
open your eyes.
Mam used to
say what you don’t see won’t do you no
harm. That’s why she married Dad, she said,
but I don’t think that made a lot of sense.
Senga, she’s my best friend, sometimes goes
around with her eyes shut. I mean really shut.
She’ll be outside and we’ll be walking
along talking about this and that and boyfriends
sometimes and she’ll just shut her eyes and
try and keep going in a straight line, only
usually she doesn’t, she pushes against me
and I push back to straighten her up only I might
push too hard and she goes wandering into the
road to the conflagration of vehicle drivers who
may be passing at times and may toot in an
unfriendly fashion at her. She just toots back at
them only I don’t suppose they hear her as
she doesn’t have a very loud toot.
What she does
have is a loud voice, a voice like a stegosaurus
the librarian said when we were in the other day
counting the books. Senga likes to count all the
books one section at a time. Like this week it
was thrillers, next week it’s Westerns and
last week it was chicken-lit. She writes them all
down in a little book with pink stripes on the
cover. There were three hundred and fifteen
thrillers if you want to know or even if you don’t
that’s what it was. I asked her about it
once and she said that one of these days the time
would come and put her finger to the side of her
nose. She’s deep Senga is, very deep. She
has wheelies within her wheelies. Now I don’t
ask her any more, I just help her count. I know
there’s a reason behind it all, I’m
just not clever enough to see it.
Anyway the
librarian wasn’t very happy seeing as Senga
was counting out loud and making a spectator of
herself she said, so she asked her to be quiet.
Senga stared at her and she stared back at Senga.
I stared at them both. Senga’s mostly quiet
like but when she gets annoyed with people she
can get all steamy. It was what you call a tender
situation. I needed to do something.
“Can I
use your toilet?” I said to the Librarian.
“What?”
she said.
“Your
toilet, can I use it?” I spoke a little
louder. I think she was deaf.
“I... no,
sorry, it’s for staff only.”
“I’ll
be very quick,” I said. “It’s a
bit urgent.”
“I don’t
think...”
“It’s
my bladder see. I had an operation last year. I
have problems doing it and then when I do...”
“Yes, yes,
yes. OK it’s this way. I’ll need to get
the key. Just follow me please.”
I gave a
thumbs up to Senga as I followed the librarian
round the corner. By the time I’d finished,
Senga had gone which was my plan. I was just
heading out the door when the librarian shouted
at me in a very rude voice.
“Excuse
me, the key?” she said.
“Yes,
thank you,” I said.
“Well can
I please have it back.”
I stopped in
the doorway and thought really hard and you know,
I couldn’t think where I’d left the key.
“It’s in the door,” I said.
It was a
little white lie. I mean I really couldn’t
remember so it might have been in the door. I had
a quick look through my pockets but the librarian
was heading for the toilet so I thought I’d
better run quick. You know I found that key two
weeks later, it was in the drum of our washing
machine. The repair man showed it me when he gave
me the bill. I thought of taking it back to the
library but decided not. Senga said I should take
the bill to the library and ask them to pay as it
was their key what broke the machine. I wondered
if I would but then I’m never sure if Senga’s
kidding. Sometimes she says things all serious
and then says she was only kidding. You’re
supposed to smile when you kid aren’t you?
At least that’s what Mam always said. Keep
smiling when you kid, Seline she said. Actually
she didn’t say that at all. I was just
kidding, see, but I didn’t smile, so you
didn’t know. I mean it’s the sort of
thing she might have said. She was always coming
out with wise sayings and whatnot. Guff Dad
called them which is what he called wise sayings.
Anyway, I was
talking about appearances, keeping them up and so
forth. Well I was just walking down the street
see minding my own business and trying to look
over Mr. Pemberton’s hedge which he’s
let grow far too tall. I told him so last week.
He said it helped keep pests out. I don’t
really see how it makes any difference ‘cos
they’ll just crawl under it or fly over it
but he seemed happy. Anyway I couldn’t quite
see so I dragged a milk crate over that was lying
outside the paper shop. I left the bottles neatly
at the side so no one would trip over them. and
when I stood on the crate I could just see over
the hedge. Well Mr. Pemberton was there and there
was a woman with him only it wasn’t his wife.
She was a little curvy young lady in a short
skirt. They were both on their knees in the
corner by the water feature and he was planting
his seeds. She was holding his dibber and he was
popping them in quite the thing.
Well it wasn’t
right, she was young enough to be his daughter,
mind maybe she was his daughter. But I know Mrs.
Pemberton, she works down the post office and she’s
never mentioned a daughter so maybe it was his
fanciful piece which wasn’t right. That sort
of thing just doesn’t go on in our
neighbourhood in broad daylight where anyone
standing on a milk crate could see everything.
“Hello,
Mr. Pemberton. I can see you,” I said.
He looked up
from his dibbling and did a kind off double take
when he saw me. It must have been quite a
surprise to know that his game was up.
“God, it’s
you,” he said.
“Yes it
is,” I said.
“You’ve
grown since I last saw you.” I hadn’t
expected him to say that, but then what can you
say when you’re caught with your dibber in a
comprising situation.
“No, I
think you’re mistaken,” I said. “I
am however standing on a milk crate.”
“Ah now
that explains everything, especially the current
economic situation,” he said.
I thought
about that for a minute. I didn’t understand
what he was on about. Then I noticed they were
heading for the back door and I realised he was
just trying to distract me.
“Excuse
me,” I said. “We haven’t been
introduced.”
“Oh dear
haven’t we?” He stood there with his
hands on his hips looking like a two handled
teapot without the spout and with stripes because
he had a stripy shirt. “Well I’m Mr.
Pemberton and this is my niece Sally.”
He turned to
her and said, “This is Miss Seline Allbright,
Sally.”
She stared at
me “Oh that’s her,” she
said.
They didn’t
say another word, just went back inside and
slammed the door so hard that the little gnome on
the step fell over and chipped his beard. I could
see in the back window a bit but then Mr
Pemberton appeared and swished the curtains shut.
There was nothing else to do. If I’d had a
hedge trimmer I could have done his hedge for him
but I didn’t so I returned the milk crate to
the shop.
It was all
very confusing. I mean if she was his niece
perhaps she really was just helping him, but
nieces didn’t look like that in my day, but
then I suppose I was the same age as him so
perhaps my age was his age but I still don’t
think she looked like a niece. I decided I would
ask Senga what I should do. She’s good with
these things or maybe I would go and see Mrs.
Pemberton in the post office and ask her about
strange young women in her garden. I would have
to be subtle of course, but that would be easy,
it’s second nature to me.
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