The incredibly bizarre world of Uncle Reggie The writings and memoirs of Reginald Merryweather

tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?

Oh my word! My earliest ‘human’ memory has to be of myself at a garden party wearing a sailor suit and a giant papier maché head of a donkey. It was father’s idea of a joke as he thought my recreation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at junior school was a huge success. I thought that I looked like a twerp and was most embarrassed that Sophie Tucker laughed at me. I have never got over that.

Anybody who knows me well will know my regular haunts and favourite hideaways. It will come as no surprise, then, if I say that I was at my usual Sunday afternoon location for a spot of roast lunch. For no particular reason I wasn’t in the mood for the usual beef, Yorkshire pud and all the trimmings and plumped instead for a good old fry up. (There’s nothing like a Cumberland sausage inside you to get you going, I find.) However, it was a little while later that same afternoon when I had the call of nature and slipped away to use the facilities.

No sooner had I settled than I heard a tapping at the door. Not quite sure what to expect (or indeed uncertain of the protocol of holding a conversation in such a situation) I found myself coughing loudly to assert my residence in the cubicle. The knocking continued - softly but persistently and I went about my business increasingly aware of the unseen observer who by now was clearly alerted but patient.

When I emerged to wash my hands and comb my hair in the mirror I was surprised to discover that the room was completely empty and I began to wonder if I had imagined the intrusion. Perhaps, I thought, I had heard noises from the floor above and simply misunderstood but just then the knocking began once more and it was quite clearly coming from beyond the main entrance. On opening the door I was confronted by a spectacularly beautiful girl who announced to me that she was making her ‘scheduled toilet check’.

Now, to the casual observer I might look like an old man but inside I am no different now than I was when I was nineteen or twenty years old and I was struck by just how attractive the girl was. Obviously, she was a new member of staff and we hadn’t met before as I certainly would have remembered. Unfortunately, being confronted by a pretty woman still causes a flush of embarrassment in me and the only response to her confusing statement I could muster was to say: “I’m sorry. Everything’s fine here”.

I was puzzled by what it might be that she had come to check and the nature of our encounter threw me into something of a tailspin. In retrospect I think that apologising might have been equally confusing for her because she smiled as she said: “I’ll give it a minute.” This did nothing for my ego as I was now quite certain that her first impression of me would be a memory that was less than favourable.

Following my recent successful jaunt to the Planet Galena, it now transpires that the Ludwigian Order are threatening Earth’s safety. To make sure I am prepared, I have constructed a craft in which I might travel without attracting undue attention. Unfortunately, it is smaller on the inside than it is on the outside, which might prove to be something of a problem.

Deep inside Reggie’s mind, scratchy home movies were being played out and for him this wasn’t the future anymore, it was the past which was now his present. January 1962 was a period of his life which replayed for him with crushing repetition as he relived every confusing moment of the time he spent under the observation of Doctor Carter at the Beaverbrookes Respite Home.

Any awareness of Bradley or their trip to rescue Vera was now a strange daydream, drifting in the late afternoon sunshine as he sat alone in his hospital room, in pyjamas and dressing gown, staring out of the window.

In the distance, beyond the door, the familiar sounds echoed. Doors opened and closed, people coughed and endlessly - a telephone rang softly but all the while: piped music played over unseen Tannoy speakers. He felt sure that he knew the future; had felt its effects on his memory but right then, nothing made sense and all that he knew was the experience before him, which amounted to nothing.

He moved his chair closer to the window with its metal framed screen and looked out across the lawn to the trees and through his veins, the Lithium roared. For now, he was calm and could contemplate the many versions of what he thought he understood to be his life, but he was still unsure exactly which version was true. That was for the doctors to decide and their experimental techniques had begun to leave him feeling drained of the will to fight any more.

In the stillness, he became aware of a small fly that came in through the opened top pane of the window. He watched its geometric flight as it circled the room, fascinated by the poetic accuracy of its movements. He studied the way that it tipped itself this way and that through the air, as it examined every corner of his environment, occasionally landing to brush dust from its wings.

After some time, the fly became curious of him and circled his head a few turns. Reggie moved his head slowly to follow its movements but his senses were dulled and it was too quick. When he looked back to the window he saw the insect on the table before the window, pacing a crooked path towards him in sharp, efficient moves. He leaned out of his chair to get a better look and the closer he got, the more cautious became the fly.

Inside Reggie’s head, the voices of Bradley and Vera were calling, but he took no notice as he couldn’t be sure that they were real any more or just another manifestation of the many voices that he regularly heard. But above them all, one voice rang loud and clear and for him, he felt it to be the mind of the fly speaking.

“Why do you question what you know to be true?” said the voice.
    Reggie began to speak but his voice was unused and he coughed to clear his throat. “Can I be sure that I know what I hear?” he said.
    “Look at me,” said the voice and the fly moved closer.
    Reggie held out his hand to touch and incredibly, the creature did not take flight as a fly would usually do. “Is that you?” he asked.
    “Why would it not be?” said the voice.
    Reggie let a silence of age drift before answering. “A fly cannot speak.”
    The fly stepped, tinyly forward. “But, you worry for the safety of people you have yet to meet,” said the fly.

Reggie considered the rationale and decided that, in spite of the unlikelihood of this being the case, all things considered, it may well just be speaking the truth. In view of the fact that all he had to look forward to that morning was further tests and possibly the challenge of a jigsaw puzzle before they brought the tasteless mashed pudding they described as ‘lunch’, he decided to go along with the reality presenting itself before him.

“Who are you?” he asked.
    “I am not what you see before you,” said the fly.
    “Then what are you?”
    “I am called Okha Kachi. Chieftan and wise one of my people.”
    Reggie lifted his hand to wipe his chin and thought for a while. The fly tipped its head to one side and observed him.
    “And who are these people?” said Reggie, eventually.
    “The Choctaw.”
    Reggie gazed deeply into the iridescent turquoise eye and recalled legends of the ‘wild west’ that he had read in so many books as a boy.
    “An ‘Indian’ Chief?” he asked, “How is this possible?”
    “Do not underestimate my abilities. My name means ‘Avenger of the future’
    “I shall call you ‘Charlie Choctaw.”
    “You may name me what you wish, but be aware, I possess a warrior’s heart. I have all-seeing vision and can move move quickly and nimbly through the air. I have the skill to change waste into valuable resources and I can adapt to the harshest environments,” said the fly.
    “But you are ‘just’ a fly,” said Reggie. “How can you be important?”

“The elders used to tell a story, many years ago when the world was new: There was a beautiful river that was home to many fish and they provided my people with all the food they needed and the water was so pure and sweet that all the animals came there to drink.

One day, a giant moose also came there to drink but he was so big and drank so much, day after day, that the water soon began to run dry. The beavers were worried that their lodges were crumbling and the muskrats homes were being destroyed. But most of all, it was the fish that feared the most. The other animals could live on the land if the river dried up but they couldn’t.

They held a meeting to see what they could do to drive the moose away from the river, but he was so big that even the bears were all afraid of him. Eventually, the fly said he would try to drive the moose away and the animals all laughed. How could a tiny fly frighten a giant moose? they thought. But that day when he appeared again, the fly embraced the challenge.

He landed on the moose’s leg and bit him, making the moose stamp his foot hard and each time he stamped, the ground sank and the water rushed to fill it up. The fly then landed all over the moose, biting and crawling until the moose was in a frenzy. He dashed this way and that, shaking his head, snorting and stamping his feet, but he couldn’t get rid of the fly. At last, the moose fled from the river and never returned.

The fly was very proud of his achievement and told the other creatures: ‘Even the small can fight the strong if they use their brains to think,’ and the river flowed strong beside them.”
    Reginald looked at the fly as it lifted its back leg and rubbed its eyes.

“Why did you come here?”
    “Many years ago, my people were simple farmers. Soldiers came and forced us to leave our lands. We carved a trail of tears to a new place where we were forced to live and they called it Oklahoma. As an old man and Shaman, I vowed to return to tell of our struggle and help those dispossessed souls who also suffer the loss of home. I chose a humble fly as my body to remind me of the fragile nature of life and to use the speed and agility its nature provides.”

“A fly has a short life. Why choose such a thing?”
    “Because each time I am renewed. I never experience the pain and heartache of getting old.”
    “How many times must you have done this since then?”
    “Many times. How many times has the sun risen and the moon set since you were born. Time moves on and it’s not the counting that matters. It is only the moment that has significance.
    Reggie was close to tears as he listened to these words, unfolding in his imagination. “How can I make sense of any of this?” he asked.
    “We belong to the ground, we must stay close to it. We belong to our soul, we must enfold it. Forsaking either, we may never find our way.
    Saltwater began to well around Reggie’s eyes and his head swam with an eternity of memory.
    “We are not alone. The Old Ones are always there for us and bring great wisdom. They care for us and show us the way.”

In spite of the fly’s small size, Reggie saw that it contained no less life than he and no less permission to experience it, in all its glory and he wept. He lifted his hand to touch the fly and it flew to meet him, resting briefly on his fingertip. He brought his hand closer to his face and its body sparkled with rich colours and brilliance.
    “I will be watching you,” said the fly and then, in an instant disappeared, back through the open window to freedom, a place that Reggie had yet to experience.

    Somewhere between total erasure and oblivion, the two men began to dissolve into a multi-dimensional whirlpool of sensory explosions. Meaningless fragments of a multitude of origins began hurtling past their heads, melting and re-forming around them. Chairs, clocks, books, photographs, tables and other items of furniture and bric-a-bac were being hurled in a multi coloured tornado of which they were the centre. Up became down and black became white in the effervescent thunder of chaos. One of them was terrified, but the other just puffed on his pipe and watched, wide-eyed, with his hair bursting from under his hat.
    “This is the bit that I call ‘vortexifying’,” screamed Reggie above the noise and his grip became tighter in Bradley’s hand. “Hold on tight and keep your arms inside the car please.”
    “W-h-a-t-’s  h-a-p-p-e-n-n-i-n-g ?”
    “In a moment we shall be landing. Can I ask all passengers to fasten their seat belts please,” he laughed.
    “S-t-o-p  m-e-s-s-i-n-g  a-b-o-u-t.  T-h-i-s  i-s-n-’t  f-u-n-n-y.”
    “It’s called ‘Brain Theory’. It’s said that all matter began from something the size of a pin head. That’s the truth of the matter and it’s pretty straight forward. There was a very brilliant man who argued for many years that there were eleven dimensions and not ten, as string theory suggested and do you know? He was right?,” Reggie beamed and his face radiated shafts of sparkling colour.
    “Anyway, to cut a strong story short, there are things happening all around us that you can’t see, you see? A whole world of reality starts to appear when you speed things up.”
    Reggie looked at the five heads of Bradley, each one with a different shade of terror staring back at him. “It only lasts a minute or so. Don’t panic,” and as he said that, he glanced at the dials. “Nearly there now.”
    Instantly, the blur of tables and chairs became less distinct and faster moving. Their colours melding into an intense whiteness, the like of which Bradley had never seen.
    “Ohforgod’ssakewhat’shappeningnow?”
    Reggie laughed at his squeaky voice. “It’s all down to the Temporal Solenoid Inducer - that’s an electronic component that I invented, don’t you know? It sucks in time at the large end and spews it out of the other - a little tiny hole,” he said in a tiny voice. “It’s a bit like a mini Hadron Collider Accelerator - all very Bose Higson. The only problem is that sometimes, things end up, well, not quite as they should be. Classical intuition suggests that they might even shrink to a single point, but this would violate Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.”
    Bradley’s many heads had resolved into his usual, dishevelled singular self and he stared at him, grimly. “Explain.”
    “Well, sometimes you meet yourself.”
The room was now in its final stages of transformation and the sound had reduced to a sibilant hiss.
    “Just how many ‘Reggies’ are there out there?”
    “Hundreds, possibly thousands. Maybe an infinite number. I like to think of them all as ‘my children’ …seeing as I never had any.”
    Just then, there was a ping, like a microwave.

~

    “So you see, Inspector, that’s how it happened.”
    “Hm. I’m not sure that I DO see, Lady Gatenby. All I have before me, is a very tragic scene in which one of you is unfortunately dead. Someone in this room is responsible for this dastardly deed and I intend to get to the bottom of it. Mark my words” said a voice in another room, not too far away.
    Reggie and Bradley blinked in the dim light as the remains of Reggie’s pipe smoke swirled around them. The hissing had died away and the two of them stood in the silence looking about the room. Bradley broke his hold of Reggie’s hand and stepped away.
    “Whaat!” he said, wafting the clouds away. “Did that thing just go ‘ping’?”
    “Yes, nice touch don’t you think?” answered Reggie, softly.
    “This is one hell of a good trick,” said Bradley, walking slowly towards the marble fireplace and running his finger along the ledge. It was a stylish art deco dining room with a curved sideboard, and a huge dining table at its centre, standing on a rug. Two ceramic jardinières with aspidistras stood at either side of the window and a huge marble sculpture of a naked lady held a lampshade aloft in a recess.
    “Your chair, the clocks, the parrot! Where’d it all go?”. He moved between the hearth and the dining table and towards the window. “The garden! Even the view’s different,” he said chuckling. “Ok, how’s it done? How did you switch all these things? I know - the recess had a revolving floor and we’re in the next room now. Right?”
    Reggie turned a few controls on the radio and the lights within faded. “We’d better let it cool down a bit.”
    “If it’s not that, then there’s people down the Streatham High Street would pay good money for that …’vortexifying’ thing, I can tell you.”
    Reggie didn’t say anything for a while but checked his book, flicking the pages back and forth, then turned to Bradley. “We’re here,” he said eventually.
    “Where? This is still your house, right?”
    “No, I’m afraid it’s not. If my calculations are correct, this is Herefordshire, January 1939. Bodenham Manor to be precise.”
    Bradley pulled out a dining chair, which scraped against the polished floorboards, and sat down. “You’re shitting me,” he said as he ran his hand across his head and looking ‘round the room.
    “Oh what a terrible turn of phrase. Please don’t say that again,” said Reggie, looking away and reaching for his lighter. “You didn’t believe me, did you?” he added, “Well believe me now. We’re here and there’s a few rules that we have to abide by. First: never explain how we got here - leave that to me, and second: never, EVER, leave anything or take anything you find. Do you understand?” he glared.
    Bradley had taken out his phone and was framing up an image on the screen. “I can take photos though, right?”
    “If you must.” He looked back at him closely and said: “You do you know what you’re doing, right?”
   “Of course not. Fun though, isn’t it,” he smiled. “Come on, let’s investigate.” Reggie began opening the drawers and cupboards of the sideboard.
    “You can’t do that!” said Bradley.
    “Why ever not?” he said, “We can’t stay long and we’ve got a murder to solve. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?”
    Bradley considered a multitude of possible ‘worst scenarios’ then shrugged as he realised that, one way or another, he was stuck with Reggie’s version of events, had no way of knowing how to restore reality and hadn’t a clue as to how to get back to where they’d come from, wherever that was.
    “You know what? I don’t half feel queasy. Must have been all that spinning around.”
    “It’s a a mild case of ‘time-sickness’. You’ll get used to it.”
    Bradley’s face was turning a faint shade of pea green as he looked at himself in the mirror above the fireplace and stuck out his tongue. “Grugh, I feel decidedly rank.”
    “I say! Look at this would you,” said Reggie as he pulled a woman’s purse from one of the drawers.
    “What is it?” said Bradley, holding his stomach.
    “It’s evidence by the look of it, young fella-me-lad,”
Reggie poked about inside and pulled out a few pieces of crumpled paper, inspected them closely with the monocle which he pulled from underneath his checked shirt and grunted with an air of conclusive authority. “Mm, hmm.”
    “You’re loving this, aren’t you?”
    “Of course I am. Aren’t you?” he said and put the slips of paper in his jacket pocket and the purse back into the drawer. “Come on, let’s see what else we can find,” he said as he gently opened the door and pushed his nose out into the corridor beyond.

~

    “Ooh, a sitting room. How very lavish” said Reggie as they both crept slowly through the doorway like tourists in a museum.
    Walnut and mahogany furniture curved and angled in all directions around them in the sumptuously decadent room. Two armchairs and a low chesterfield straddled a black fireplace and bookshelves stood against two walls at either side. Between the chairs, in front of the fire, a low table had a chess set laid out in mid game and Reggie made his way over to inspect the state of play.
    “Knight to bishop three, I think,” he said, moving a piece carefully. “That’s to protect the Queen you know,” he added, tapping his nose.
    “Do you really think you should be doing that.”
    “Hm?” said Reggie looking up, “Oh, a bit of mischief is quite in order now and then. What have you found?”
    “Well, there’s this,” he said, pointing to a huge wooden radio and squaring it on the tiny screen for another photograph.
    “Oh yes!” said Reggie, quickly moving to inspect it, “That’s an Arvin Rhythm King, model 1127. Very nice indeed. Just look at the inlayed veneer. Beautiful.” Then, twiddling with the controls a bit, he added thoughtfully: “Could do with a service though. The pots are seized up.”
    He looked at his watch and then at Bradley then back at the dial which he turned very carefully. “If I’m right, then there should be something on here you might like to listen to,” he said.
    “Reggie, I think I’m going to be sick.”
    “…Mr Hitler went on to say that this was the sixth anniversary of his being appointed Chancellor of the Reich and that in the course of his life he has very often been seen as a prophet and has usually been ridiculed for it. We’ll have a full transcript of the speech he delivered to The Reichstag in later bulletins…”
    Bradley stared blankly at Reggie. “Wasn’t that…” but raised voices in the next room broke through the door and they both looked up.
    “Better not dilly-dally,” said Reggie as he switched off the radio and scanned the room. His attention landed on an ashtray at the top of a copper and chromium pedestal. He leant over and picked up a cigar butt, inspecting the band with his eyeglass. “This is crucial, don’t you know?”
    “Is it?”
    “Oh yes, most important indeed,” he said and put the cigar end in his pocket. “Come on, let’s go and meet his Lordship.”
    “Do we have to?” said Bradley wearily as his stomach growled in agreement.
Reggie shook his head. “No sense of adventure, you young people.”
    As they left the room, Bradley began to heave and reached for the nearest thing he could find - a seventeenth century floral vase (which held more than he thought it would.) He breathed deeply as he carefully put it back on the sideboard. Luckily, Reggie hadn’t seen him.

~

    “Ah! There you are Honey,” said Lord Gatenby, as Reggie and Bradley walked into the drawing room, moments later.
    “Honey?” whispered Bradley but Reggie elbowed him in the ribs.
    “Go along with it my lad. Every sleuth goes by a nom de plume. Can’t be having them know my real name now, can we?”
    “Just in the nick of time, Honey. Let me introduce you to everyone,” said lord Gatenby, gesturing to an elderly woman sitting on the edge of a mustard coloured settee next to him. “This, is Lady Susan Gatenby.”
    Reggie stepped over the body as she offered her hand, which he took and politely kissed. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance Madam,” he said. “Your husband has told me a great deal about you.”
“All good I hope,” she simpered.
     “Glowing,” he said as Bradley leaned over and instead of kissing her offered hand, tried to ‘air-punch’ her. She looked at him with a bewildered consternation. “Alright?” he said, nodding and winking.
     “…And this, is Tarquin - my son and heir.”
A callow young man in his twenties, wearing a double breasted suit, stood arrogantly leaning on the mantle piece by the fire, one hand in his suit pocket, the other posing with a cigarette. He didn’t step forward to greet them but simply smoothed down his greased black hair. “Charmed, I’m sure,” he murmured.
    Lord Gatenby cleared his throat and continued: “Over there is Polly - the maid.” (The girl clasped her pinafore and curtseyed, awkwardly.) “Mrs Blackdyke, the cook,” (she tried to do the same, but only managed a bulky ‘bob’, up and down,) “and that is Pompton, our Butler.”
    “Very pleased to meet you all, aren’t we Bradley?” He nodded.
    “AND this - is the late Bishop Knowsley,” said the Lord, gesturing to the body on the floor in front of them - a stout man in his middle years, who lay face down on the rug, one hand at his side and the other above his head, tightly closed.
    “And who might you be? may I ask,” said the Inspector, pacing towards Reggie and Bradley with a calm self importance, his hands clasped behind his back as they stood in the doorway. The Constable by the window took out his pocket book, licked his pencil and began to take notes.
    “Ah - and this is Inspector Diggle and his assistant Constable Jones.”
    “Allow me to introduce myself…”
    “This,” interrupted lord Gatenby stepping forward, “…is my very good friend, the very eminent Sheridan Honey, the Detective,” he said with a flourish.
    “Detective, Sir Thomas?” said the Inspector without flinching. Behind him, sir Thomas continued:
    “Yes, the bombastic Barrister of Bedford. Have you not heard of him?”
The inspector, stepped forward and looked Reggie in the face and outstretched his hand.
    “I can’t say that I have. Pleased to meet you …Barrister?” he asked softly.
    “Retired,” said Reggie,”smiling and shaking his hand.
    “Fascinating. And who is this person?” he said, looking at Bradley.
    “This,” said Reggie, is my compatriot, companion, assistant and all round good egg: Dr Foster. From Gloucester.”
Bradley frowned at Reggie and looked back at the Inspector.
    “A little young to be a doctor, is he not?” said the inspector.
Reggie leaned a little closer and in confident, hushed tone said:
    “He’s a genius don’t you know? Couldn’t operate without him.”
    “Very well then, Honey. What’s your view on what happened here?” said the inspector loudly, turning away and walking back to the centre of the room
    “Well, I was rather wondering if we could have a re-cap. If it isn’t too much trouble.”
    The inspector cleared his throat and walked between them. “Clearly, somebody in this room murdered bishop Knowsley - who, at three thirty this afternoon was brutally bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument. He was found here with one of her ladyship’s brooches in his hand.
    I am about to arrest sir Thomas here for the murder of the bishop.” There was a gasp which rang ‘round the room. Is it not true,” he said, turning, dramatically, “…that you have been seen ‘liaising’ with the bishop, lady Gatenby? And you! Sir Thomas, were quite clearly jealous of her attention of him,” he said, pointing.
She looked at him with indignation and horror then lowered her head as sir Thomas fired a furious glance at her.
    “Awesome,”said Bradley. “Just like Miss Marple.”
    “Be quiet,’ whispered Reggie. “Then, how do you account for the brooch that was found in his possession?” he continued, stepping forward.
    “A gift?” suggested inspector Diggle, smugly.
    “NO,” said Reggie, “a red herring,” The ensemble turned to look at him “Now then, at this point, I want each of you to tell me your whereabouts at precisely the time that the bishop was bashed. Shadow me Bradley”
    “I was here in the drawing room with the bishop, but I had just stepped outside for a moment and when I came back, there he was - lying on the floor,” said lady Susan
    “Is that so? Hmm,” said Reggie. “How about you?”
    “Well, I was in the library, reading a book,” said sir Thomas.
    Reggie stopped for a moment in the middle of the floor. “Bradley. When I said ’shadow me’ I didn’t mean for you to follow me about the room in the same position. Have you any idea how ridiculous it looks with us both pacing up and down with our hands behind our backs. Break formation.” Bradley stepped back, sheepishly. “You there, go on, where were you?”
    “I was polishing this candlestick in the master bedroom,” said the Polly, holding up a rather large, shining brass implement.
    “And you, Mrs Blackdyke?”
    “I was rolling out the dough for his lordships scones,” said the cook, cradling a rather heavy wooden object.
    “What about you - Tarquin. Where were you when then Bishop met his superior.”
    “I was inspecting my butterfly collection in the conservatory. I was pinning out a Patagonian Purple Copper specimen in actual fact, I think you’ll find” said Tarquin.
    “Hmm. Is that so?,” said Reggie. “Pompton? What were you doing at the said time, sir?”
    “I was planting out her Ladyship’s petunias in the potting shed,” he replied.
    “Hm,” said Reggie, stroking his chin. He reached into his pocket and took out his lighter and began to fill the room with soft clouds of doubt. Lady Susan coughed. “I think I need to take a recess, if that’s alright Inspector,” he said, eventually.
    “By all means,” said the Inspector and the two of them left, in perfect contemplatative formation.

~

    “Will you please stop ‘mirroring’ me?” said Reggie, irritably, as they entered the sitting room again. “It just looks silly.
    “Sorry. Just trying to get down with the action.”
    “Well don’t. It’s putting me off.”
    “Have you got any idea ‘whodunnit’ yet?” he said.
    “I’m afraid so, but it isn’t as clear cut as it seems.”
    “No?”
    Reggie walked over to an armchair and threw himself down in it. He took out his lighter and began to exude plumes of thought. He leaned forward with the pipe clamped between his teeth, his lips opening and closing to get a good head of steam, rested his elbows on his knees and templed his forefingers.
    “What are you thinking?” said Bradley as he sat down next to him. There was a long quietness that surrounded them and eventually he replied.
    “I’m wondering if Mrs Jiggery has remembered to get mustard.”
    Bradley scowled and looked ‘round then back at him.
    “Mustard? Are you even concerned about what’s going here? Seven people in the next room are hanging on your deductions, Sherlock, and all you can do is worry about mustard.”
    “Oh Bradley, Bradley, Bradley,” he said, looking across at him and re-focussing his eyes. “This has all happened before. Haven’t you been paying attention? Each time is slightly different, but on the whole - pretty much the same. There are a few details this time that don’t quite fit in, however, and I need to get to the root of it. Unfortunately, it will require the use of a technique I’ve not tried before.”
    Bradley looked at him suspiciously. “What do you mean - ‘techniques’?” he said.
    “Bring the radio in here would you?”
    Moments later, Bradley appeared at the door carrying the wooden box in both hands.
    “They didn’t see you did they?”
    “Nope,” he said as he carefully placed it on the sideboard next to the floral vase, which he lifted and hid behind his back.
    “I do hope you’re not going to steal that.”
    “No …I was just …moving it,” he said and put it on the window ledge.
    “Thinking about it, bring the radio over into this corner here. I don’t want to be in the way when we go back.”
    Bradley wiped his face. “Go back?”
    “To yesterday, or the week before, or however long it takes to find out  who has it.”
    “Who has what?”
    “Too many questions right now,” said Reggie as he took out his book and began setting the controls, inspecting each gauge carefully. “You remember I told you all about ‘Zoetropes’?” he said.
    “Yes, and? Are we having a film show?”
    “Of sorts, yes. The Solenoid has a rotating disc inside it which is very similar, you see? It holds little snapshots of time. Smaller than you can imagine, - Planck.”
    “Who you calling a ‘plank’?”
    “Not you, you soft ‘nana - the unit of time is called a Planck. Named after Max Planck, the man who discovered it.”
    “Oh right.”
    “You know how small that is don’t you?”
    “Er. No.”
    “Ten to the power of minus forty three.”
    “Is that fast?”
    “Oh, photons, speed of light, quantum gravity and so on. Long rambling story really but look, the point is: this spinning disc records them and using this dial here I can slow-mo back and forth to find the exact point in time, see? A bit like on a video recorder, I can locate an exact moment that I’m looking for. At least …that’s the theory,” he added looking at the radio, stepping back and re-lighting his pipe.
    “You mean, you’ve not tested it yet?”
    “As you would say: ‘Er. No.”
    Bradley sighed. “Let me guess…”
    Reggie grinned. “That’s my boy,” and with that he urgently started up the main cylinders and began thumbing through his little book of numbers.
    Before long, the room began to judder and Reggie said: “Put your hand on my shoulder. I need both hands free. Quickly man, unless you want to be left by yourself. Ha! I’d like to see you explain your way out of that one,” he chuckled.
    Bradley did as he was told, and before he knew it, the juddering evolved into a kaleidoscope of light and dark, with figures coming and going, sitting, standing and moving about them. This time he didn’t feel as sick as before but his head spun in rhythm with the turning world around him.
    “Have you seen anything yet?”
    “What am I supposed to be looking out for?”
    “Tarquin. I want proof of who he met in this room in the last few days. I have my suspicions about the cigar that I found and I think it might lead us to a clue. AH! There …did you see it?”
    “See what?” said Bradley looking ‘round at the endlessly cascading view.
    Reggie slowly turned the metric dial to a standstill and their surroundings became stabilised. Then, carefully edging it back and forth, they watched Tarquin entering and leaving the room (or rather leaving the room forwards and entering it backwards.) Reggie brought the scene to rest with Tarquin facing another man.
    “Well, wouldn’t you just know it!” frowned Reggie walking towards them, away from the radio.
    “Hey! Don’t leave me with this thing. It might go off.”
    “Don’t worry, the handbrake is on. It’s not going anywhere, and neither are we. We don’t need to, I’ve found the moment I was looking for.
    Bradley looked intently at the two young men, frozen as in a photograph. Cigar smoke hung over them like solid, transparent gauze and their expressions were carved from flesh-like marble, captured in an illicit exchange. He walked over to them and waved his hand slowly in front of Tarquin’s steely gaze to make sure he wasn’t imagining this three dimensional tableaux. He inspected them closely from all angles and blew into the ear of the other man. There was no response. Reggie was busy rifling through Tarquin’s pockets.
    “Hey! You klepto! How come every time we do this vortexifying thing, you end up looting the place. Can’t I have a go?”
    “I am not looting, I am looking for evidence - like this,” he said and he held up a bill of sale that he had found in the inside of Tarquin’s jacket. “Garrard of Mayfair.”
    Bradley looked at him. “And so?”
    “Look what it says,” he said and thrust the piece of paper closer. “Manufacture of one replica. Labour and materials. In strictest confidence, your humble servants.”
    “I’m not getting it yet,” said Bradley.
    Reggie moved around to inspect the space between the two men. Each of them held a crystal whisky glass, but the other man was offering a large quantity of currency with his left, which Tarquin’s eyes were firmly fixed upon.
    “So, who’s this dude?” said Bradley.
    “Unfortunately, someone I know very well indeed. Perhaps the only person I know who could have been behind this fiasco. I just wonder how he found out…” Reggie’s voice trailed off into a mumble, “..I was so careful.”
    Reggie walked away with his head in his hands, rubbing deeply at his eye sockets. “I’m getting tired, we need to wind this up as quickly as we can. It’s about time for my medicine and we need to get back before Mrs Jiggery comes home,” he said.
    “Sounds good to me. Have you seen all you need to here?”
    “Just about. Let’s just check three thirty on the day of the murder,” he said and went to the radio. “Come over here and lay your hands on me.” Then, moving the metrics forward so slightly that his hand hardly moved, the room become empty and he whispered: “Now, go and look in the hall, tell me what you see.”
    “Ha! It’s Pompton. He’s spying into the drawing room between the crack in the door.”
    “Exactly as I suspected, Bradley. Top form.”

~

    Striding confidently back into the drawing room, Reggie put his finger in the air and announced: “Constable, arrest Pompton, the butler, for the murder of bishop Knowsley,”
    Bradley was mirroring him close behind and the gathered group gasped in unison.
    “But, how did you know?” spluttered the butler.
    “Yes, what is the meaning of this Honey?” said inspector Diggle, walking to meet him.
    Reggie moved towards the indignant butler and continued: “Well, apart from the confession you just gave me, at three thirty this afternoon you were not potting petunias as you say but instead you were spying on her ladyship and, when she left the room, you saw the bishop put the jewel in his pocket, did you not?”
    The butler spluttered for a moment and then the inspector stepped forward.
    “How do you know that for certain, Honey?”
    “Sir, as any horticulturalist will tell you, one does not plant petunias until May is out. This is January. Constable, Take him away.”
    The room was filled with murmuring until Reggie’s raised voice once again, caught their attention.
    “Unfortunately for him, inspector, he simply made a terrible mistake. He was trying to protect your property M’Lady. There was a struggle and, unfortunately, it had a terrible conclusion. He thought he could pin the blame on sir Thomas for the jealousy he felt.” He turned to him and tapping at his nose as an aside, added: “gossip travels fast downstairs you know,” then turning back, he continued: “He saw the Bishop with the jewel and mistook what he saw as being theft, when in fact YOU had just GIVEN it to him in repayment of a debt, - hadn’t you lady Gatenby? In repayment of a wager.”
    “What?” cried sir Thomas.
    “The history books, ahem - or rather I should say, the newspapers have reported that the bishop was a ferocious gambler, as too was lady Susan here,” said Reggie, spinning on his heels.
    “They have?, when was this published?
    “It’s breaking news M’lord.”
    “Everyone knows this?” whispered Bradley, relishing the theatre being played out around him.
    “Oh yes, My father was a close friend of the bishops,” he replied under his breath, then turning back to Lady Susan, continued:
    “I also happen to know that you owe the bishop a considerable amount of money.”
    “You can’t prove a thing,” she snarled
    “Oh but I think I can. You are quite fond of a flutter on the horses are you not? I can prove it with these betting slips and in particular this I.O.U that you intended to deliver to the bishop with whom you had wager on the 2.15 at Chepstow.”
    “Have you been in my purse? How dare you.”
    “It was an impertinent gamble on my part to make you confess lady Susan. So sue me,” he said, defiantly.
    “I know a good claims lawyer,” said Bradley leaning over.
    “Shut up Bradley,” he said quietly. “I also have some terrible news for you both. You see, this brooch here would never have repaid your debt, as it - is a fake!”
    Lord and lady Gatenby stared at each other then back at Reggie.
    “…Little more than a paste replica that was made by a very skilled jeweller to look exactly like the original. It’s a common practice, as you know, with very valuable items of jewellery to have a duplicate made, so obviously, no questions were asked.”
    Tarquin began to search his pockets nervously.
    “So where is the original?” said sir Thomas.
    “Perhaps you’d better ask your son, he’s quite good at lying aren’t you Tarquin?
    “What on earth are you inferring you despicable man?”
    “The purple copper butterfly, Tarquin? That beautiful insect is one of Australia’s rarest butterflies. It’s only found in New South Wales because it thrives on a particular species of ant and a special kind of blackthorn plant which is only found there. They are NOT from Patagonia. My father was a noted butterfly expert, I know the species well.”
    “What are you saying Honey?”
    “I’m saying that Tarquin sold the original jewel to a rogue by the name of Rupert Farnesworth for a considerable amount of money”
    “How do you know that,” said Tarquin with an oily smirk.
    “Because of THIS,” said Reggie, producing the cigar butt from his pocket. “Agarillo is a brand of cigar exclusively sold by the tobacconists on campus at Cambridge and a particular favourite of the despicable Farnesworth. I also have here the bill of sale made out in your name”
    “How do you know him?” asked Bradley.
    “I’ll tell you later,” he said.
    “Oh Tarquin, and with you: a captain in the Dragoon Guards,” said Lady Susan.
    “Don’t worry, I will get your jewel back for you. Just leave it in my very capable hands.”
    “Well, I don’t know how to thank you Honey. This has been a most unusual afternoon and as it turns out, you appear to have saved my bacon,” said sir Thomas. “How ever can I repay you?”
    “Justice will be my reward,” smiled Reggie.
    “You must stay for tea. Pompton, before you go…”
    Bradley watched the constable look over his shoulder as he and the inspector led the butler towards the door.
    “As much as we’d love to, we really must be heading off now.”
    “Well if you insist.”
    “Oh, I do.”
    Lady Susan turned to look at Tarquin who was helping himself to his father’s scotch from a decanter on the sideboard. “I want a harsh word with you, young man,” she said.
    As Reggie and Bradley were leaving the drawing room, Bradley called over:
    “By the way, Tarquin. The war? Don’t worry mate. We win”
    “War?” whispered sir Thomas, falling into his armchair.
    “Oh Bradley, what have you done?”

(A beginning chapter - 3rd draft)

~

It is a time of innocence and a place of no consequence as we soar through the night air, carried along by the vibrations that inform, educate and entertain a nation. Over the moonlit, Christmas-cosy rooftops and between the softly smoking chimney pots of suburban Middle-England, we see avenue after crescent of semi detached houses. Closer now, we see the glow of hearth and home, illuminating the netted windows of each one as the families within, settle down at the end of another weekend. There, a woman draws the curtains at the floral, leaded window to keep the frosty nip of the late December air at bay but inside a fire roars, guarded by a sleeping cat.

Behind those curtains, another world unfolds. Mother - in her powder blue, lambswool cardigan, knits. Her legs demurely tucked to the right. Father, with pipe and slippers, reads the Sunday paper, smiles and dunks another digestive in his Ovaltine. But there, sitting cross-legged on the rug between the cat and the side table by the fringed floor lamp, is Timmy Brewster in his red dressing gown and pajamas. His hot milk - cupped between eager hands and his eyes firmly fixed on the walnut veneer box that stands on the table next to father. He is being drawn in through the latticed, brass porthole on the front of the box by polished, cut glass voices that softly crackle through that comforting silence of the room. They’re voices that are taking him far, far away from home. 

“Oh Reginald. When will this beastly war ever be over?”

“Vera, my darling. That was back on Earth, It’s all behind us now - in space and time.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes my dearest. Here in the twenty second century, we are safe from the Gerries but not, I fear from the Order.”

“The Order?”

“Yes, my love - The Ludwigian Order.”

“Oh yes, that Order. Sorry, you’re overwhelming me with expositions.”

“If they should ever discover that I brought you here, well - the consequences could be dire.”

“Oh no, is it terribly dangerous?”

“Not as dangerous as it is back …there. But the most important part, is that you establish the mining settlement here. As an eminent geologist, that shouldn’t be difficult. When we, or rather you, finally find the motherload of Seedstone, the world will be at our feet. Don’t you realise that darling? It will bring us riches beyond our wildest dreams.”

“Oh I do love you Reginald.”

“And I love you too Vera.”

“But …last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I’ve done a lot of thinking since then, and it all adds up to one thing: you must go back to Earth where you belong.”

“But, Vera, no. How can you say that?”

“Now, you’ve got to listen to me! Have you any idea what you’d have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we’d both wind up in a concentration camp.”

“You’re only saying this to make me go.” 

“I’m saying it because it’s true. Inside, we both know you belong on the radio. It’s the one thing that keeps you going. If you don’t let the magic radio take you back, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.”

(Mother looks at father and they both laugh. Timmy cannot understand why and he shushes them.)

“But what about us?”

“We’ll always have Paris. We didn’t have: we’d lost it until you brought me to planet Galena and then, well - we got it back last night.”

“I meant it when I said I would never leave you”

“And you never will. But I’ve also got a job to do. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. Look, I’m no good at being noble, Reginald, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of two little people doesn’t amount to a hill of seedstones in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.”

“Oh Vera.” 

“Oh Reginald.”

(As the organ music makes its final crescendo, the warm tones of a familiar voice take over.)

“And there we must leave the magical world of yesteryear and return to the present. Let’s switch the magic radio off and let it cool down. There we go. Now …wasn’t that an exciting adventure? I wonder who we’ll meet next. We’ll just have to wait and see. I do hope you’ve enjoyed your little journey through time and that you’ll want to take a trip with me again next week. You do? -oh that’s wonderful.”

(In the background, an orchestra begins to play the final coda of the show’s signature tune: Al Bowlly’s “Any broken hearts to mend” as the voice continues:)

“Well, this is your ‘Uncle Reggie’ saying goodnight until next time. Goodnight children …wherever you are.

(Then there is a silence.)

“This is the BBC and you can catch up with the adventures of Uncle Reggie at the same time next week, when he once again invites you to tune in to his magic radio. It’s very nearly eight O’Clock on Sunday the thirtieth of December and in a moment it’s: ‘Take it from here’ starring Jimmy Edwards, Dick Bentley and June Whitfield. Later this evening, Richard Dimbleby takes a look back at 1956: the year that saw the Suez Crisis and petrol rationing, the Hungarian revolution and the dawn of transatlantic telephone calls, in a programme entitled ‘Review of the year’. That’s at nine O’Clock, but first…” CLICK. 

“Aw dad!” 

“Now come on Timmy, it’s past your bedtime. You know it’s a treat to stay up and listen to Uncle Reggie,” says mother. 

“Yes son. We’ll have no backchat here. Do as your mother says and get yourself to bed now,” says father’s gentle voice and Timmy kisses them both on the forehead takes a last look at the Christmas tree sprouting from a bucket on the table in the bay window. 

He watches the lights and baubles as they twinkle then leaves to climb the stairs to dream. “Goodnight son,” they call. Through the closed door of the sitting room, he hears them switch the radio back on, quietly. Alone in his bedroom, he lays in the darkness and looks out into the night sky in the chink between the spaceship print curtains that his Grandma bought him for his tenth birthday. 

I wonder if Reggie is really out there, he thinks to himself.’ (Journey into space’ and ‘Orbit one zero’ were Timmy’s long standing favourites on the radio but Uncle Reggie’s stories were, for him - ‘proper magic’: incredible adventures lived by ordinary people, he thought to himself - like me.) I wonder if Reggie really can travel through space and time, he thinks as he slowly drifts into his own world.  

~

“Good morning, good morning, goodmorning! All you layabouts, it’s time to get out of bed and get yourself to work. Shake a leg or an arm or whatever. You are listening to the one and only Chris Moyles breakfast show and it’s five past eight, or summat like that, and anyway, it’s time you were up. But hey! Guess what gang? IT’S FRIDAY!”

The radio alarm blared the start of a new day into Bradley’s ears with a rudeness that focussed his hangover all the more heavily as he fumbled a hand from under the duvet to hit the snooze button, missed and sent the clock crashing to the floor. The muted sound of the clock radio continued under Bradley’s bed: “This is Lostprophets and ‘where we belong’ as he stumbled out of bed and inspected his face in the bathroom mirror. 

“I Don’t Need A Vision. A Light To Embrace. I Don’t Need False Promises, Hopes And Wishes,” he sang, off key, to the distant radio as he scraped the ginger stubble from his chin. Looking at himself, he saw a man of 27. Medium build, red hair, moderately attractive, mildly amusing and immensely talented - if only the world would recognise it yet. He’d been five years out of university and the freelance circuit was only just starting to open up to him. It’s just a matter of time, he thought. The next big break, and I’ll be up there with John Peel, Lester Bangs or Julie Birchill ( - well, maybe not her,) he thought as he pulled on yesterday’s Rolling Stones T-shirt and went downstairs, without showering. (Today was not a ’shower day.’)

Eating hot buttered toast to the sound of ‘Don’t stop believin’ on the kitchen radio, he strutted the length of his hallway, past the abandoned bike to the front door, to get the morning’s mail: the usual collection of Domino’s vouchers, LoveFilm offers, bills and - unusually - a jiffy bag with a London postmark - this caught his attention and he discarded the rest on the radiator shelf near the door (as he always did) and walked back to the kitchen, tearing open the package as he went. 

“Dear Mr Gardener. Further to your recent communication, please find enclosed a cd that we wish you to review. Yours sincerely, Krissi Murison, acting editor, NME.” 

“Yes!” punched Bradley at the air. “At last - something I can get my teeth into.” And then he looked at the cd that fell from the envelope. Sitting at the kitchen table and slurping his morning tea, he turned the case over in his hands. 

“Uncle Reggie’s Magic Radio?” he said, incredulously. “What the hell is this?” but in spite of himself he loaded it into his laptop and quickly transferred its contents to his iPhone for repeat play. It was the only way, he’d found, of getting a true ‘feel’ for a band’s music. But it was the name that drew him in at first: what kind of name was that? He thought as he paced about to the perky melodies and not unpleasant, hypnotic tracks he found there. 

(A final chapter - 3rd draft)

~

Every Sunday I do this. I take the scooter down to the pond and feed the ducks. I like to have a little routine in my life, you know? A little routine goes a long way: it helps pass the time and it’s nice to have something to look forward to. Monday is Post Office day - I like to check my balance and then on the days when it’s due: collect my pension (ach, it’s not much but then I don’t want for anything these days. Myriam - god rest her - left me everything. I get by.) Tuesdays I like to go to Senior’s Yoga at the community centre and although I find it hard to join in, there’s a lot you can do sitting down. They do a good cup of tea as well, so that makes it a nice trip out. Wednesday is shopping (after I’ve put the washing out). I get the bus into Hitchin and make a day of it. Thursdays I usually meet Reggie in the library and then we go for cakes and more tea. 

Friday is the Fish and Chip Club. Three or four of us meet up and go have fish. I like a piece of fish on a Friday - It takes me back to childhood memories of Shabbat but, as there’s nobody to share it with anymore, I don’t make much of a fuss in an evening. Early bedtime, maybe read a book. Saturday is usually a bus ride into Bedford to walk ‘round the shops and then Sunday, it’s down to feed the ducks (if it’s not raining) and a pint of Black Sheep at The Fox with a few hours to read the newspapers. So that’s me for you: a man of leisure you might say but after a life like mine, I think I’ve earned it. I should complain.

“Zelig! Are you talking to the ducks again?”

I look around as best I can and see him standing there. Dark brown Homburg pulled down making his ears protrude like pink handles. “Marty? Is that you?” I ask.

“Yes, you old fool, who did you think it was? The Sandman?”

“It was your ears I recognised. Let me put my glasses on.” He sits on the bench next to my scooter and looks out across the pond. 

“How’s Lydia?” I ask, but the curl of his mouth and the tipping of his outstretched hand tells me that things are not great, so I change the subject. “The grandchildren then? Have you seen them recently?”

“Ach, you should see them,” he suddenly beams, “all grown up now. But what looks they have …and bright too. They have brains,” he says, softly tapping his forehead. “They make me very proud.” 

He turns slightly to look at me and the warmth of his smile, just for a moment, takes the chill off the afternoon. It’s the kind of day that has a bleak clarity to it, that only winter could bring. The light is different, it has a sharpening effect on the senses and there, way up in the highest stratosphere, the slightest of clouds smear themself over the thin blue canopy. 

Marty, too, seems different today. January is visible in his features. Like Janus, he wore two faces - one, looking back over the old year, already blank as snow and the other: bracing the elements and pointing to the fresh green growth of renewal. He is a gardener at heart or rather: it is he. 

He’s talking to me but his voice has softened into a blur in my mind as I listen to my own thoughts. I should really pay attention as I know at some point he will ask me something but I am content to just let the time pass and feel the crisp air on my cheeks as he talks. I watch as the ducks fight with each other under the willow trees. Dropped crusts of bread are bobbing about in the ripples around them and now, here comes a coot: little white beak thrusting forward to take advantage of the squabble and steal the crust. 

“…don’t you think so?” I hear, as my attention focusses back on his voice - realising that it’s my turn to speak. 

“Oh, of course,” I gamble, is the best answer, seeing as he was clearly looking for my approval. My punt pays off, as he seems satisfied that I was right there with him in the moment and, to put a cherry on it, I continue: “If God had meant it to be, he would have made it so,” I add with a knowing nod (which was a masterstroke) and in agreement, he sits back on the bench and crosses his legs, accidentally whacking my scooter. His huge black shoes don’t register the impact and he shuffles about in his seat. As long as he’s comfortable, I think as I look back across the pond.

“Sold any good books lately?” he asks me now, his tongue investigating the remains of his lunch lodged in his dentures. 

“Marty, it’s been twenty years since I sold the bookshop.”

“But you were doing wholesale by mail order for a while, weren’t you?” he says, as he tips back his head to watch a flock of Canada geese rise in startled unison from the trees beyond. They scramble and re-form above us before disappearing beyond the rooftops with a collective claxon of noise like the London to Brighton run. 

“Meh, it was too much like hard work. All those boxes: lifting, wrapping, posting. Anyway, it was all just left-over stock. Eventually, I’d got rid of most of it. The rest I gave to the charity shop and then some to the community centre.”

“You should have told me you were getting rid of it all.”

“It was all old stuff. You wouldn’t have been interested. People don’t crack spines anymore,” I say, mainly for my own satisfaction at the visual analogy. 

“Spines? Cracking? What are you talking about already?” he says, leaning away slightly but turning to me. 

A tabby cat skulks out from the trees on the opposite bank and as I watch it, I sigh and continue: “Book spines, Marty. Kids today. They prefer to read their phones or the internet. Paperbacks? They’re finished. Like us - crumbling remains of an older time.”

“Crumbling? Speak for yourself,” he laughs and nudges my knee. Then, slowly tipping himself forward he raises his elbows behind him and I hear the click and snap of his shoulders as he grunts and flexes his back. 

“Well, can’t sit here all day. My geraniums won’t water themself you know,” he says as he rocks a couple of times before launching himself unsteadily into an upright position. “You take care of yourself now. Don’t go speeding in that thing,” he gestures with his cane and taps the wheel a couple of times. “I’m not bailing you out of prison if you get into a fight with any rockers,” he winks and I laugh.

“Rebel without a clue, that’s me Marty,” I say and as he disappears, chuckling onto the High Street and away, I call after him: “Remember me to Lydia,” and he acknowledges the thought with an un-glancing wave. 

I’ve seen this village change over the years and not for the better either. He takes some time crossing the road because of the constant stream of cars - how they’ve made the outdoors seem so alien, almost dangerous. When I was a young man, there were very few cars. It’s hard to imagine now but apart from the occasional delivery van, people used to ride bicycles or walk. When they did that, it was like the outside was an extension of inside. As though all these strangers were actually in your own world and we’d speak to each other. In actual fact we all knew each other because of it and we had some connection in each other’s lives. But now, with everyone trapped in their little tin boxes, no one talks anymore and there’s never any peace and quiet. There’s always the continual drone of an engine somewhere and when you’re not so quick on your feet (or mind) every road is a worry. 

Before all this, when life was different it was very different. I never had time to just sit and think about things like I do now. I was too busy building my empire. ‘How come you can’t be a dentist or a lawyer like your cousin Julius?’ said my mother back then but even though I loved books I didn’t particularly want to do any of the things in them - I was happy just to dream (I couldn’t read enough as child) so it was a concession on her part in a way and so it was sealed: a shop was the only option for me from an early age. 

~

I remember it well. It had been a slow day. A few tourists had passed through: flicked over some copies of local history and some picture books about the British coastline. Mr Potter came in earlier and took away a handful of crime novels. He liked a good murder mystery and I tried to keep him a few aside. He was there most weeks and I liked to keep my regulars happy. Doris Stevenson, one of the local primary school teachers, wanted something on the Vikings and I sold her a huge old thing with engravings and colour plates that she was very happy with. 

Yes, one thing that “The Shepherd’s Crook” had become known for was, catering to all tastes. “Rare, antiquarian, second hand and latest releases - all under one roof” it said in the advert I placed in the paper every week. It had been my empire for a few years and I was proud of it. Cousin Julius might be a big shot solicitor but I owned a bookshop, I thought. He had a bit of specialist knowledge but I, - I was the gatekeeper of knowledge itself, I sneered in spiteful peevishness at my absent mother. 

It was just after lunch when I first met him. I’d been opening some boxes of books I had bought at auction and carefully collating them into piles on the table by the cash register when I heard the bell go. The shop was a small, three story Tudor style affair, with leaded windows set into a curved bay. There were three steps up from the main road and I could always hear customers even before they come in, by the way their footsteps echoed in the cellar below, but this chap was different. The first I knew, was when his huge frame appeared in the doorway, dressed in a Gabardine raincoat, and he lifted his hat as he greeted me. 

“Good afternoon. Do you have anything on valve radios?” he said with a mellow voice that rung through the twists and turns of the shop, almost making the light fitting sing in reverberant sympathy. 

“I think, if I do, they’ll be on the first floor,” I said and he bustled past me with vigorous enthusiasm. “But first …excuse me,” I called, “could you leave your holdall at the desk please.”

I heard him halt and turn on the creaking boards as he reversed down the steps. 

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t wish to appear rude but it’s for your own convenience. Sometimes,” I continued into the silence of his stare, “…sometimes people steal things.”

He looked at me for a while and I was not sure what to say next. 

“Of course!,” he boomed, “forgive me. I’m not a thief but I do understand. Please, take this - but do look after it won’t you,” he said moving closer and lowering his tone. “It contains something very valuable indeed.”

I heard the floor groaning as he paced energetically back and forth upstairs and flecks of dust began to fall, softly through the shafts of sunlight filtering in between the racks in the window. It seemed as though he were consuming the contents of each book as I heard the sound of volumes being dragged from their shelves as others tumbled, causing him to trip more than once. After a while, I thought I should investigate and see if I could help.

As I climbed the stairs, calling “Is everything alright up there? Have you found anything you like the look of?” I was stopped in my tracks by his yelps of delight.

“Eureka!” he cried. “This is even better than I could have hoped for.”

“Ah,” I said. “A rare volume: ‘Calculation of Astronomical Formulae’. Good choice,” I smiled.

“I was rather hoping to discover ‘Advanced Principals of Valve Technology’ and for a while was quite tempted by ‘Newton’s Optical Writings’ but this is a bobby dazzler. Just the ticket,” he enthused as he bent back the pages and sat himself down on a dining chair by the window. Behind him, the street carried on its daily business but for him, the world came to a standstill as his eyes widened. Hurriedly flicking the pages. 

“Listen to this,” he said, (presuming that I understood his enthusiasm but as they say: the customer is always right.) “Ephemeris Time is a uniform time based on the planetary motions, whereas Universal Time only exists on Earth and is necessarily based on its rotation.

Because the Earth’s rotation is slowing down and, more importantly: with unpredictable irregularities, UT is not a uniform time and cannot be trusted. Since the calculation of the position of planets requires a uniform time, one must use ET for the calculation of accurate ephemerides. Therefore, the exact value of the differences ΔT = ET - UT can be deduced only from observations and extremely accurate recorded measurements. I KNEW IT!” he roared with a sunrise grin. “This,” he said, slamming the book closed with one hand, so close to my face that I felt the backdraft and smelt the years of neglect as the dust billowed from its pages, “…is the missing link I have been looking for.”

He was still babbling as we went downstairs and I started wrapping the book for him in brown paper. “What line are you in?” I asked as I melted the ceiling wax onto the string of the package. His choice of book was unusual and I wanted to be sure that I could earn a bit of repeat business. 

“I’m on the radio don’t you know?” he said. (I thought I had recognised the voice.) “Suspenders? Have you heard of that? ‘Best new radio drama of 1951’ said the Radio Times last year. It’s very popular,” he smiled. 

“Your name please? So I can fill out a bill of sale,” I asked, pen poised at the ready.

“My name? Yes, it’s: R.K. Merryweather.”

“Reggie Merryweather?” I suddenly realised, “Yes I have heard you. You used to present ‘Missed your chance’ didn’t you? That was a funny show. I liked that. What’s this new one then? More comedy?” He looked at me seriously for a second before answering. 

“Oh no,” he said. “It’s mystery, suspense, drama, horror and…” he slowly waved his hands as if invoking evil spirits and whispered: “the unknown,” and there was a long silence as he let the impact of his revelation fill the room.

“Well, I do hope you’ll come back if you need more inspiration or …reference material. I usually have things on most subjects and if I don’t have it I can always order it,” I smiled as I passed him my calling card. 

“Zelig Bernstein. Literary broker. I see. Well thank you Ziggy, I certainly shall be back,” he said as he reached down for his holdall but it slipped as he was trying to put the book away and the contents came tumbling across the desk - A paper bag containing seven cherry scones. 

I was surprised that he shortened my name that way - the way that they do in the States, but for some reason I instantly forgave him the familiarity. There was just something magnetic about his presence. 

“Oh, I do beg your pardon,” he said as he grappled with the tumbling cakes. “I’m afraid I can’t resist visiting Mary Marshall’s cake shop whenever I come in to Hitchin.”

“I’m quite partial to a bit of cake myself,” I said, “and she does make exceedingly good ones,” I nodded.

“Tell you what then,” said Reggie as he closed the bag and brushed the crumbs off his coat, “If you’re ever free at lunch next time I come into town, why don’t we go for tea and cakes? Then, you can tell me all about your rare and interesting books, and I can tell you all about my work. Hmm? How does that sound?”

“That sounds like a grand plan. I’ll look forward to it,” I said and I wasn’t kidding. His eyes, the voice, his style was fascinating and I was sure that he would be a good customer. ‘Repeat business, you see? That’s how you build’ - my mother’s voice told me in my head. 

“Much obliged to you Ziggy,” he said as he raised his hat and headed towards the door. 

It had started to rain and he hoiked up his collar and looked up at the sky with a frown before stepping out, chattering to himself as he went to the sound of the brass bell ringing closure to my first meeting with the ‘great’ Reggie Merryweather. But it wasn’t to be the last. 

As I was clearing away the brown paper and putting the duplicate of the bill on the spike, I found a tiny tin box with red lettering on black, nestling between the register and a jam jar of pencils. 

‘The Mighty Atom. Wireless crystal cat’s whisker,’ it read and as I slowly opened it, I was amazed to see a faint mauve glow coming from inside, but I closed it quickly. I knew it wasn’t mine and had to be Reggie’s. I wasn’t worried too much, I knew he’d be back. 

~

“Good afternoon. Do you have anything on valve radios?” says a mellow voice that rings through the willows and elms, almost making the pond ripple in reverberant sympathy. 

“Reggie!” I call as I turn and there he is, dressed in his familiar Gabardine raincoat and tweeds and he lifts his hat as he greets me with that huge, silly grin of his. 

“How the devil are you, you old goat?”

I pull the lever and turn my scooter a little so that there is room for the two of them on the bench next to me. “What time do you call this?” I ask him, as he and a young man sidestep to be next to me. 

“I’d call this a perfect time to arrive. Bradley - I’d like to introduce you to a very dear and very old friend of mine.”

“Hey less of the old already,” I say.

“Ziggy Bernstein. Ziggy this is Bradley Gardner,” and we shake hands awkwardly as he bends over.

“He’s not on the square, like us, is he?” I wink at Reggie. 

“VERY PLEASED TO MEET YOU ZIGGY,” says Bradley.

“I’m not deaf!” I say. I’m just sitting down. “And what about you? What do you do?”

“He’s a journalist, don’t you know?” says Reggie.

“Oh? Are you famous?” I ask. Bradley looks at me and then at Reggie.

“Not as such, yet”

“He’s going to write about me,” smiles Reggie. 

“Is he now?” I say. “Good luck.” - Bradley obviously hadn’t got to know Reggie very well yet (or perhaps he had), and he frowns at me as he sits, at the far end of the bench.

“Ziggy played guitar,” says Reggie, and his knee nudges mine. I know what he’s doing. 

“Really?” says Bradley, stunned, dying to laugh but still not sure if he heard properly. After looking at me for a moment he decides to go for it: “Screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo?” he says, cautiously. Reggie and me guffaw then fall silent. Reggie has a short coughing fit as he reaches for his pipe from his pocket. 

“What do you mean?” I say, straight-faced and Bradley nervously mumbles and looks to Reggie for backup. 

“He’s winding you up, Bradley,” says Reggie as he tamps down the tobacco and flicks his lighter open. “You’re learning fast though, I’ll give you that.”

Bradley might be ‘learning fast’ but he’s clearly out of his depth and Reggie was loving it. He leans over and points at the carrier bag of stale bread at the side of my scooter and asks: “Can I?”

“Sure, sure,” I say and kick the bag towards him. He delves into it and begins skimming slices of Mother’s Pride across the dark water as a flotilla of waterfowl emerge from the undergrowth in all directions and he seems pleased. 

“So,” says Reggie, as billows of creamy smoke encircle his head and he takes off his hat, smoothing down the white hair, “what do you know?”

“Ach, the same old. You know?” I say. “Got here quite early today. Had a chat with Marty.”

“Oh how is he?” he says. 

“You know, usual self.”

“Lydia?”

“Don’t ask,” I say and he cranes his neck up and looks along the High Street towards Royal Oak Lane. 

“Did you come in the Moggy?” I ask. 

“Yes. Just making sure she’s safe.”

“Still going strong then?”

“Aren’t we all?” he says with a glance. His brown eyes sparkle in the sharp sunlight and I can still see the fire within. 

Bradley is coming to the end of the bread and as he flings the end crust, it wallops a drake on the head, bounces onto the bank and the tabby cat leaps and wrestles with an unsuspecting flurry of feathers. He anxiously looks at us and points but I know there is nothing we can do. 

“I think it might be time for a lunchtime beverage. What do you think Reginald,” I ask. 

“That sounds like a perfect idea. Come on Bradley.”

“Where are we going?” he asks, still watching the forces of nature taking their course and from the look on his face - feeling responsible, or perhaps irresponsible. 

I stand up and fold the tartan blanket into the shopping basket which takes Bradley’s attention away from the cat but his mouth is still gaping as he watches me.

“I thought you …I mean. I didn’t know that…”

“What? That I couldn’t walk or something? Ach, I get lazy sometimes. Besides, my padded seat is more comfortable than that bench,” I say as they both rise and brush the cold from their trousers. “Come on, it’s just across the road.”

~

We sit in the window, overlooking the road so I can keep an eye on my scooter outside. The smell of freshly cooked chips and bacon fills the air as the soft murmur of a Sunday lunchtime warms us from the brisk day outside. A thin film of condensation blurs the glass and I wipe a small porthole with my cuff. 

“A very agreeable pint indeed,” says Reggie as he slurps at the froth of his Black Swan. “Brewed in Yorkshire,” he enthuses to Bradley, then adds: “…wherever that is,” 

Bradley’s glass is half-poised to his lips as he thinks fast and looks at him. “It’s…”

“I know - up North, but not as far as Scotland,” says Reggie and I laugh. Bradley laughs too but he is not in on our countless in-jokes. We’ve had sixty years to hone our repartee, how could he? We’re a double act, me and him. 

The Fox is a homely, ‘proper’ English pub. Red brick, slatted windows with tangled ivy and a sense of log-fire welcome that is so often lost in many of the new, ‘corporate’ pubs. Villages revolve around places like this and for me, it has become my second home and I settle back, putting the newspaper on the seat at my side as I take off my scarfe. 

“So fellas. What have you been up to this weekend?” I ask and Reggie gulps a quick mouthful before heavily landing his glass on the table. 

“Oh, it’s been quite an adventure really,” he says and Bradley smiles and nods in agreement. “Friday night, Mrs Jiggery put on a bit of a spread for Burns Night - I know it’s not the right day, but I thought it might be fun. THEN,” he continues: “on the Saturday, we caught the bus into Bedford and after visiting the Museum and lunch at the Embankment…” Bradley is looking at him now. His smile has become that goldfish-gape again as Reggie turns.

“You remember, Bradley?  I had the ‘dry-aged Aberdeenshire steak with all the trimmings and a pint of Bombardier and you had the Salmon Fishcake with a watercress salad and bottled water.? Bradley says nothing. He just looks at him and then at me. 

“Anyway, after that we walked along the Ouse, over Town Bridge and onto the high street,” - I nod in acknowledgement and saw Bradley mouthing the word ‘No’ as he pulls a bemused frown for my benefit. “Then I took us to see the place where David Robinson had his old shop. Remember Bradley? I told you I worked there as a young man.”

“They named a college after him at Cambridge you know,” I added, looking at Bradley. “Sir David he was in the end.”

“Then we took another bus into Clapham to see the Glenn Miller Museum. Have you been there Ziggy? Housed in the old control tower of the airfield where he was last seen alive in ’44,” said Reggie widening his eyes. “Splendid it was, then back home in time for tea. Mrs Jiggery had made Stargazy Pie for us and we pulled Christmas crackers - just for a bit of fun.”

“Crackers …yes,” says Bradley, downing about half of his pint in a single go. 

“Then I put on a slide show: Egypt, Paris, New York, that sort of thing. I opened a bottle of Armagnac and we had cigars,” he concluded. 

We all fall silent as the soft, muffled noises of the pub envelop us and the sound of collective swallowing and the clinking of glasses on the table is the only exchange between us. Reggie looks at the crackling logs in the fire but Bradley is troubled. He looks out of the window and back at Reggie a few times before speaking.

“Reggie?” he says, “That’s not …I mean. I don’t …hm. How can I put this?”

Reggie puts his glass down and looks at him, slowly folding his arms, “hmm?”

“That’s not what happened. You’re joking. Right?”

“Well Bradley. Perhaps you’d like to tell the nice Mr Bernstein here, exactly what you have been up to for the last 48 hours, then. Hm?” he says, raising an eyebrow. Repeatedly. I’m not sure what he means but I expect he’s been up to mischief again. As usual. Whatever it is that Reggie is trying to conceal finally dawns on Bradley with a weighty realisation and he grins. 

“Ah. Right,” he concedes and stares at the floor with a schoolboy blush just as the chips arrive. 

“Ooh! Tucker,” beams Reggie and we all dive into our bowls of hand-cut, deep fried slabs of potato, each of us thankful for the distraction for different reasons. 

“You know Reggie, I’ve been clearing out my garage recently. I’ve been getting rid of all the left over stuff from the shop as you know, and I found something that I think is yours,” I say, with a full mouth. Huffing the heat between the words. He turns to look at me.

“Oh?’ he says and I reach into my inside pocket. I offer out my hand and he wipes his on a napkin before taking the tin box from me. He is frozen in time as he gazes at the box.

“Well bless my soul,” he says, shaking his head. “After all these years.” His eyes twinkle as his fingers clasp around the tin. “Thank you Ziggy, you have no idea how precious this is.”

“What is it Reggie?” asks Bradley as he chomps and squirts more sauce on his lunch.

“This,” answers Reggie, “is ‘number seven’ …the one that was missing.” 

Bradley stops and looks at his hand as he offers it to him. “I’d like you to look after it. You might need it later,” he urges and Bradley slowly takes the box and starts to open it but Reggie’s huge hand covers it. “Not now,” he says and Bradley puts the box in his pocket, looking at Reggie to make sure that he was doing the right thing. “Good lad,” says Reggie and concludes lunch, wiping his lips with the napkin and rising to his feet. 

“You must excuse me a moment. I have to ‘see a man about a dog’,” he winks as he places his hand on Bradley’s shoulder to get past and I see him disappear across the bar and into the Gents. A few locals glance and some nod as he goes by. 

“So, you’ve been having fun with ‘Uncle Reggie’ then, have you?” I smile at Bradley as I finish my chips. 

“Yes, it’s been …interesting,” he says. 

“What do you think of him?” I ask. 

“He’s …” he thinks for a while, “fascinating,” he says. 

“Don’t believe a word,” I warn him but he is not convinced.

~

My scooter trundles along the high street, bumpily, as Reggie and Bradley walk alongside as we go back to his Morris Minor, parked a little way along from the pond. I can recognise it immediately, not only for it being an old 1950’s split-screen, vintage green banger but also for the famous ‘AND 50’ number plate. 

“Hello there Mavis,” says Reggie to the car, “I hope you’ve been keeping out of trouble.” He leans over and brushes a couple of leaves off the bonnet. 

“What have you got planned for the rest of today?” I ask. Bradley shuffles about nervously. 

“Oh, that’s it isn’t it? Bradley has to catch a train soon?” I look at him.

“Back home?” I ask.

“Yep, back to London to start my feature.”

“Where will you begin?” I ask him and he scratches his head.

“At the beginning I suppose,” and Reggie laughs.

“I doubt it,” he says. 

I hand him the newspaper I’ve been carrying and say: “Here, take this. Something to read on the train,” and he takes it with a smile and a nod.

“How about you?” says Reggie. 

“I think I fancy some duck soup tonight,” I say, looking back at the pond.

Bradley looks terrified for a moment, but I punch him on the shoulder.

“Silly boy. Sainsbury’s best. As if I’d…” I say, shaking my head and glancing at Reggie with a wink. “Next thursday, as usual?” I ask and he waves through the window and then they were gone

And that, in a nutshell, was my Sunday - same as usual: ‘nothing much happened’, but it was nice to see the old fool again. I just wonder what Bradley will make of it all. 

Hello, fellow traveler.

Since I started recounting my life’s journey (tentatively entitled “My memoirs and other untruths”) I have discovered a great many things about myself that I had forgotten and I must apologise if you have been to these pages looking for new gems and they have proved bereft. I’m afraid I have been a tad lackadaisical over recent months due to the fact that I have been hard at work on a much bigger piece of work. 

As some of you may know, I have been writing a book and just lately it has taken off with a gusto which has taken up all my concentration. As I write using a trusty office typewriter for all my drafts, I have been unable to share much with you but fear not. The powers that be require me to create these pdfiles, so over time everything will become available for you to read. 

I do hope you have enjoyed the passages that have been published here so far and of course I’d love to hear from you with any questions that you might have pertaining to my life or adventures. I don’t get much mail these days and I do so enjoy receiving letters from anyone (with the exception of of those irksome Nigerian gentlemen who insisted that they deposit large amounts of money in my bank account. I sent them packing, quicksharp I can tell you.)

Be of good cheer.

Yours most faithfully, Reg.

I always knew that my great-grandfather on my mother’s side was a writer but I was thrilled just recently, when I unearthed the following gem whilst rooting through my father’s papers. When I discover more about him I shall write more.

—-

Tempus fugit, vita brevis.

All hell released this raging night
Brought forth from slumber; nature’s blight.
The shrieking wind lashed timbers bare
And thrashed the land without a care.
The rain, as if at sea did lash
The hedgerows with a thunder clash
But there! a lamp, The dark to cheat
And shadows followed little feet.

As through the tempest, fast she ran
And with each step, the dream began.
Not once was felt the sting of fear
A bleach white courser did appear.
Upon its back there was a man.
Along his forehead; dark blood ran.
His breath was short, his eyes half closed.
The bones beneath his skin exposed.

The charger pounded through the night
With mane of fire, burning bright.
She hid at once, in case that he
Might vent his spur on such as she.
But in that dark it was her flame
Revealed conceit, not casting blame.
He hauled the beast into a halt
With snorting breath, and ne’r a fault.

He looked upon her, hiding there
And called aloud: ‘Pray, have a care!’
From deathly skies - a lightening bolt.
The frightened steed recoiled a jolt.
And in the flash of light, he saw
The maiden, frightened to the core.
“You’ve naught to fear,” he said and reached.
Her plaintive cries, his trust beseeched.

His arm was strong, a smile he gave.
Her safety and a heart to save.
“Come here,” he urged and up she crept.
From hiding hole and prison leapt.
She gave her hand with firm belief,
Releasing her from fear and grief.
As through the fetid night they tore,
The demons hunted her, no more.

____________________________________________________________
(From “Turgidity and Tragedy”, dedicated to Bella (ref unknown).
By Bartholomew Brinkley (1806 - 1864)
Essayist, romanticist and gothic poet.

A room of one’s own
(Note to editor: third draft. Yes, I know there’s a lot of editing to do.)

Little did Florence know it, but by lunchtime she would be twenty five billion light years from earth and three hundred years in the future. But then, life at the Merryweather residence was never ordinary and today was going to be no exception.

She wiggled her key in the big green door and let herself in.
“Mr Merryweather?”. She called as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She put her basket on the tiled floor and hung up her hat. Then, busily striding into the kitchen she started gathering cleaning things from the cupboards.
“Did I tell you that Mrs Enwright died, Mr Merryweather?”

In the distance, the sound of Louis Armstrong’s voice was echoing down the corridor…
“…when you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you…”
Mrs Jiggery entered the sitting room to find Reggie sitting in his armchair, smoking a pipe and staring into the middle distance. Around him on the floor were countless cardboard boxes filled with electronic components and a ridiculous variety of curious tools. He was quite clearly in the middle of some project when he became distracted by the moment and had drifted away to a place that only Reggie knew.

“I met Louis at the Gem Theatre, Kansas City in ‘32 you know Mrs Jiggery”. Said Reggie suddenly without turning.
“I’m sure you did Mr Merryweather. Have you got any bleach?”. Said Florence.
Reggie turned slowly and looked at her.
“I beg your pardon?”. He said.
“I need to clean the toilet. Have you got any bleach?”. She answered.
“I’m sorry, I have no idea”. He answered. Florence left him to his reverie and started clattering about in the scullery.
“The upstairs sink is blocked again. I can’t count the times I’ve told you about that. How am I supposed to look after this place if you don’t take notice of the things I tell you Mr Merryweather? Are you listening?”. She returned to the sitting room to find Reggie leafing through some old black and white photographs.

“This is Frank Gibson. He was a radio operator.” Reggie smiled. “We used to have such a laugh together”.
“Yes well that’s as may be Mr Merryweather, but as I say- I need to get on. I’m baking a cake for you, and you have Zelig coming to see you at five o’clock. Did you remember?”.
“Ah, ‘Conan the librarian’ how could I forget”. He replied. “Dear old ‘Ziggy’. What a character”
“You’re a one to talk about ‘characters’ Mr Merryweather”. Said Florence with her hands on her hips. “And another thing… your vacuum cleaner bag’s full. Just look”.
She gently cupped the soft fabric sack and patted it.
“Should I empty your sack for you?”. She asked.
Reggie stared at her and softly growled an affirmative but uncomfortable confirmation.

“Just look at this mess you’ve made on the floor”. She said, and Reggie glanced idly at the various piles of bizarre bits of clutter. “Please don’t move any of these things, I’ve just catalogued them all. I’m in the final stages of restoring this radio here and I need all these bits to make the final adjustments”.

“What a mess you’ve made! Just look at the dust. Here, let me bottom this”. And with that, Mrs Jiggery wafted her beeswax cloth across the surface of one of Reggie’s radios. The one that he had spent all morning working on, and the one that he had been listening to, only moments earlier.

“Please don’t touch that Mrs Jiggery. You have no idea what you’re doing”. Said Reggie, alarmed.
“Don’t be ridiculous Mr Merryweather, I’ll have no grime in this house, and no nonsense either”.

With that, she rubbed and scrubbed at the faded veneer of the old radio and in the process inadvertently dislodged a dial which started a series of bleeps & blips and the radio began to hum like a washing machine.

“Oh dear Mrs Jiggery. You’d better come over here”. Said Reggie.
“Whatever do you mean Mr Merryweather?”
“If you don’t, Mrs Jiggery, you might get sucked into a void that you really wouldn’t like at all. Please, trust me. Come and sit on my knee”
“Oh, I really don’t think…”
But despite her complaints, Reggie dragged her closer and pulled her onto his lap as the room started to spin. Just then, Mr Tibbs - Reggie’s cat, entered the room and leapt up on her knee just as the room began to spin into a kaleidoscope orb of colours and shapes.

“Oh my, where are we going?”. Exclaimed Florence.
“It looks like it’s taking us back to the time that I listened to last”. Said Reggie.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Changing rooms

After what seemed like an improbably long time, much like waiting for clothes in a spin cycle, the room slowed down to a shaky silence. With wide eyes and open mouths, Reggie and Florence slowly turned their heads to see where they were.

“Hm. As I suspected”. Said Reggie.
“Oh my word, I don’t half feel dizzy”. Murmured Florence. “Where are we?, it all looks very familiar”
“This, my good woman, is the room we were just in, but we are in a different time pocket”. Replied reggie.
“Whatever do you mean Mr M.?”. Said Florence.
“When you carelessly knocked that switch, you activated the ‘detector accelerator’ which meant that the radio, and everything within four feet of it has been transported back in time. Now, as the settings were still in place from when I was having a listen, it means that we’re probably back in the Blitz of ‘40/’41”.
“Don’t be ridiculous. How am I going to get your bathroom cleaned if I have to wait another seventy years to finish it. I’ll be expecting overtime for this you know!”. Exclaimed Florence.

Reggie looked at her and smiled. “Foolish woman”. He said kindly, and stood up.
“This is my parents house as it was. Your Mother worked here in those days and by the look of the place she’s probably due at any moment”.
In the corner, the oak grandfather clock struck half past eleven. Florence cautiously stepped into the room.
“PLEASE! don’t touch a thing, Mrs Jiggery. You have no idea of the damage you could cause”. Said Reggie, suddenly.
“OOh, Mr Merryweather you gave me such a fright. Don’t go rearing up on me like that”. She exclaimed.
“It’s important that everything is left as it is, otherwise you could affect countless things for us and our past. Now then, look here”.
He pointed to a calendar on the wall by a writing desk.
“Milo Moon and Sons, Family Butchers”. Florence read aloud. “He was a fine man, until his wife left him”.
“Not the calendar, the date. Look at the date. It’s circled for some reason”. Said Reggie.
“10th of May 1941”. Florence said slowly. “Well I’ll be blowed”
“No doubt”. Said Reggie.

Reggie strolled around the room looking at various things and eventually his attention was caught by a diary laying on a shelf.
“Ah now this I can use. It’s my journal Mrs Jiggery. I need that to keep track of my movements. What a blessing that I am a scrupulous archivist. I think I’d better take it with me, as I think I’ve lost this one.
“If we’re in your house, then where are you?”. Asked Florence.
“It’s wartime Mrs Jiggery!. I’m away doing my bit. Radio engineer don’t you know. Me and Frank Gibson, out there in the fields”. He replied.
“Then I suppose that I haven’t been born yet”. Said Florence, starting to come to terms with her situation.
“That’s right. But as I say, in those days it was your Mother who cleaned for us. And if I’m not mistaken, I can hear her bicycle on the front drive. Come! she mustn’t meet you. That would be a terrible disaster”.
“Oh but I’d love to meet her”. Mused Florence.
“No, you cannot. It’s tragic I know, but you must not meet. The effects could be catastrophic. Come on, we have to leave”. Said Reggie.

He fiddled with the controls and frantically tried to locate the present tense on the dial. When he was satisfied, he leant back and took a last look at the room. The radio began to reverberate and hum and a gentle purple haze filled the room.
“OOh, look! There’s my marbles. I was wondering where they were”. Said Reggie, and he reached down and grasped his wrinkly leather sack tightly, but before he could say any more the room began to spin around them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A blizzard of whiz

Chairs, tables, books, stuffed animals, clocks, fire tongs, storm lanterns and photographs spiralled about them in a hurricane of colour and chaos. Faster and faster they spun until it all became a rainbow blur becoming whiter and more iridescent by the second until all at once there was silence and calm.

“Ah”. Said Reggie. “This doesn’t look quite right”. He added mournfully.
They seemed to be in a large and very dark empty chamber. Blinking in the dim light, Florence looked about her.
“Looks like nobody’s home”. She said, and running her finger along the window ledge she added:
“…and what’s more, this place could do with a right good clean and no mistake”
“Listen”. Said Reggie. “Do you hear engines?”.

He stood up and started to explore the room. Taking a petrol lighter from his coat pocket he flicked the flint and an orange glow framed the empty walls and polished floor.
“My cake’s going to be overdone and that’s for sure. That’s probably what the smell is”. Said Florence pushing Mr Tibbs to the floor and brushing down her tabard. Meanwhile, Reggie was more concerned with the view from the large picture window to their right, which looked out across forests and beyond them were mountains stretching far into the distance.
“This reminds me of China”. He said. “I wonder how that could have happened”.
At his feet, Mr Tibbs was squatting and quivering suspiciously.
“Well really. How impolite of you Mr Tibbs!”. But the cat simply scratched at the floor to hide all evidence of his impropriety.

“Reginald Merryweather? I’ve been expecting you… at some point”. Boomed a deep and moody voice in the darkness. All three of them jumped in alarm.
“Who’s that? Where are you?”. Said Reggie.
“Where am I ?”. Said the voice. “Right here”.
“Where is here?”. Said Florence curiously.
“Where should it be?”. Enquired the voice.
Deciding to change tack a little, Reggie asked a different and more direct question:
“What time is it?”. He said.
“Ah, what is time?”. Said the voice.
“I don’t think we’re getting very far with this clever dick Mr Merryweather. He seems to be taking us for a right giddy kipper”

Florence tried again.
“What is your name?”. She asked.
“I am Mandelbrot, I am the architect”. Said the voice.
“The ‘great’ architect’?” Said Reggie.
“No, one of them, I am a sort of gardener I suppose”. Replied Mandelbrot.
“Is this earth?”. Said Reggie.
“Yes”. He replied.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, this is like pulling teeth”. Exclaimed Florence.
“Give him time, Mrs Jiggery. We have just ‘popped’ in to his world you know. Think about that. One minute you’re minding your own business and the next minute there’s a table with a radio on it, a floor lamp and an armchair with an old man, his cleaner and a cat in your room. Imagine how you would feel?”. Replied Reggie.

“I say. As I cannot see you, may I ask what you are. Apart from being a gardener?”. Enquired Reggie.
“I am ‘new-man’ - synthesised biology. But I suspect that you don’t know about that yet.”
“You seem to know who I am, and yet I am quite certain I don’t recognise your voice”. Said Reggie. “Just what is going on and who are you?”
“Who am I? Who are we? It’s the first thing and the last thing we ever ask isn’t it?”. Said Mandelbrot cryptically.
“Space stands still but the earth moves.”. He continued…
“We are the Ludwigian Order and we move in mysterious ways”.
“Funny kind of movement when you don’t have a body to move with”. Muttered Florence.

“Better government through ruthless expansionism. As we like to say”. Mandelbrot added.
“We’d very much like to know about your ability to time travel. We can move through reality and space but not time. That one has evaded us, even with our, frankly stunning, capabilities. For, you see, we are ‘reality shifters’  - a universe-wide intelligencia. Earth, as you call it, was a little project of ours. We’ve been dabbling with genetics and weather systems for a while now and it’s interesting how you all turned out, you humans - all those colours and cultures and best of all religions!”.

In spite of the fact that Mandelbrot was starting to become more open with his largely predictable and timely expositions in the proceedings, Reggie was distracted by the movement of an otherwise previously unnoticed plastic screen to the far end of the left wall.
“Who’s that over there?”. He said loudly.
“Pay no attention to the curtain”. Said Mandelbrot. “That’s no concern of yours”.
“I think it’s time to leave”. Said Reggie. “Come on Mr Tibbs, let’s be off”.
“How will we get away if we don’t know where we are?”. Said Florence.
“I can use triangulation”. Said Reggie. “We used to do it during the war. All I need to do is to bounce a signal off a couple of pulsars and hopefully I can find ‘Galena’. There’s someone there I know that can help”.
“Oh, I do hope hope you know what you’re doing Mr Merryweather”. Said Florence.
“Of course not Mrs Jiggery. That’s the fun of it, don’t you think?”. He added mischievously.
“No. I don’t think”. She said, but as she spoke the radio began to hum and glow and in a trice she fell backwards into Reggie’s lap as she felt the whole room begin to judder.
“I don’t like this jittering about Mr Merryweather. It makes me feel all queer”
“Hang on tight. I think I’ve found it. Ah, here we go. Mr Tibbs!. All aboard the ‘chairoplane’. We’re going home”. Said Reggie.

As the three of them huddled together, the room began to carousel once more in a glittering display of twinkly lights.
“Now that we’ve met, Reggie, I’ll find you again”. Said Mandelbrot’s voice, echoing around them. “You won’t get away you know”.
“I need a nice cup of tea. Let’s see if we can find one Mrs Jiggery”. Said Reggie and with that they were gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Up a creek without a puddle

The famous three spiralled into a whirligig of colour and shapes with a great guttural reverberation. White knuckles were clearly in evidence amongst them, and not least of all Mr Tibbs, who’s ears were firmly and safely battened down.
“What IS that vibrating and terrible smell Mr Merryweather?”. Said Florence.
“Hm. Sorry about that Mrs Jiggery. I’m just a little nervous”. Said Reggie.
After a while of tossing and tumbling, calm slowly evolved around them once more and Reggie casually checked his meter readings.

“I think I can confirm that we are on Galena Mrs Jiggery”. He said.
“However can you tell?”. Enquired Florence catching her breath and mopping her brow with a little pink handkerchief.
“Because the signal is at full strength. That could only happen in one place and this is it.”. Replied Reggie.
“Why on earth have we come here?”. Said Florence, blowing her nose. “Why can’t we go home to Bedford?. It’s nearly time for your medicine”.
“Because there’s someone here that I once knew, and besides - it is reported that they have the largest deposits of ‘seedstone’ in the local neighbourhood to earth.”. Replied Reggie.
“Whatever are you on about Mr Merryweather? You are a mystery to me sometimes”. She retorted.
“No time for for your snotty retorts now M’dear, all you need to know is that I need a gram of seedstone to get us home, Mrs Jiggery. Now come on”.
“You’re as mad as a hatter, and as charming as a badger. Do you know that? I have a pet one you know”. Said Florence, but Reggie was busy studying the landscape around them.
“Have you seen my badger, Mr Merryweather?”. She said suddenly.
“Hmm? thankfully not, Mrs Jiggery”. He replied.

Florence stroked Mr Tibbs who cowered in her arms as she walked around the radio. Both of them were wearing a startled and bewildered expression as they saw that they were in a quarry with high sided walls. There were no trees or other vegetation to be seen and a foul smelling wind blew the length of the dried up creek.
“Blimey charlie! what a pong”. Said Florence. “Truly disgusterous”.
“Not guilty”. Said Reggie standing up and switching the radio off he added: “You see the sky up there? Way up in the stratosphere, that’s pure methane. That’s what you can smell, and that’s why the sky is brown. Curious place, don’t you think?”.
“I bet it keeps the house prices down, that’s for sure”. She replied.
“Oh, nobody lives here any more. Too hostile”. He said.
“Ah, a bit like Peckham you mean?”. She said.
“No. Not really. Look!”. Said reggie and he pointed to a sign.
“Beware of the Slope” - “Whatever does that mean?”. Said Florence. 
“It means there are Slopes around. Dangerous things they are”. Answered Reggie. “Huge beasts with wings. I think”.

Beyond the ridge across the dunes and high on the perimeter there was a clearing and a collection of ramshackle huts picked out against the murky sky by their lanterns and the glow of civilisation. Reggie tugged at Florence’s sleeve.
“Come on, I think we might find her there”. He said.
“Who?”. Said Florence.
“You’ll see”. Said Reggie and they started to make their way across the sands and between the rocks until they came to a steep embankment. As they reached the top (breathless and with copious amounts of huffing and puffing all round), they faced a large single storey shed which had an electric sign bearing the legend “Starbecks” that fizzed and crackled in the dim brown fog.
“Come on, let’s see if we can get some tea and buns”. Said Reggie.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Three in a bar

Starbecks wasn’t a nice place. It was mainly frequented by labourers, workers and gruff, burly, tattooed men who drove unfeasibly large digging machines, but as it was the only bar in the settlement it got its fair share of all the residents of the outpost. This particular evening the clientele were about to be treated to some cabaret as well, to break the monotonous tedium of their dreary work.

The double swing doors of the saloon swung, in a swing door swinging fashion as Reggie and Florence entered and then stopped to take a look around. All heads turned to look, and in the corner the Mellifluonium player stopped his sweet music to observe.

Slowly, they approached the bar and faced a small man with a stern face who was polishing glasses.
“How do you do? Jolly fine day for the time of year don’t you think? My assistant and I would be most obliged, if you could furnish us with two teas, a plate of cakes and a saucer of milk for my good friend Mr Tibbs. If you would be so kind. We’re rather parched as we have been hiking, as it were”. Said Reggie.
The barman stopped what he was doing and froze as he looked them both up and down.
“What say yer? cumin in ere all triplespeak like. Me notknows how you mean. Divulge”. He eventually said, with an air of understandable confusion and suspicion in his tone.

Pertinent chatter broke out all around them as all ears were turned on the trio.
“Perhaps I should make a few introductions”. Commented Reggie, eager to fill the void of banter between himself and the barman. He continued…
“This is Mrs Jiggery, my trusty housekeeper and assistant. With her is Mr Tibbs, my good friend and I sir, am Reginald Merryweather. At your service, so to speak. Except in the present circumstances I hope it is the converse of that scenario”.
“I donno where you be from, but I sure as fek not erd vocals as random as yorn”. Said the barman. “What is yor business be ere?”. he added.
By now a few of the locals had started to pay close attention and a couple of them had moved closer to keep an eye on the proceedings with an increasing interest. Florence delved into the depths of her voluminous handbag and produced a box of teabags, which she offered to Reggie.

“Oh well done Mrs Jiggery. Top form”. Said Reggie. “Perhaps then, I might ask for a pot of hot water?”.
“Water? ha! you be lucky. All we have left is ‘Naive’ - a filterated water makebelieve”. Said the barman. And with that he produced a metal jug full of steaming transparent liquid, which Florence quickly decanted into a flask from her bag. As she did, a voice spoke behind Reggie which caused him to turn.
“Of all the geology joints in all the towns in all the universe, you walk into mine”.
The barman looked over Reggie’s shoulder and said: “Shall I be callen scurity?”
“No need Dinlo, he’s cleared. They’re of E.I.O.?”
“EIO?”. Said Reggie. “I haven’t heard that expression in years. It must be…”. He said slowly as he turned.
 ”Earth International Origin of course. Reggie. What are you doing here?”. Said a tall, very attractive woman who had sidled up alongside them.

“Goodness gracious me and bless my cotton socks. This has been much easier than I suspected. Please, allow me: this is Mrs Jiggery, and that’s Mr Tibbs. Compatriots, this, is Vera Cruz. We have known each other a very long time”.
Florence raised her eyebrows as Reggie gave Vera a longing and disproportionately affectionate embrace.
“I have been listening to him on my Altoid radio set for years now. We keep in touch”. Said Vera.

“What brings you here? Did you abscond with the church funds, or did you run off with the butcher’s wife? I’d like to think that you’d killed a man. It’s the romantic in me”. Said Vera.
“It’s a combination of all three”. Said reggie.
“But what in Heaven’s name brought you to Galena?”. She enquired.
“My health. I came to Galena for the waters”. He answered.
“The waters? What waters? We’re in the desert”. Said Vera.
“I was misinformed” Said Reggie.
“Still practising mirth control I see Reggie”. Smiled Vera.
“I’m sure I’ve heard this conversation before, but for the life in me can’t think why”. Said Florence, shaking her head and stroking Mr Tibbs.
“What do you know of the Ludwigian Order?”. Said Reggie, leaning over and speaking quietly, so as not to be heard.
“They’re everywhere. Infiltrating every corner of civilisation”. Said Vera. “At first our labours here were scientific, but now… well…”.

Just then, a commotion of official looking men with weapons and face visors entered the bar.
“There he is - beget him”. Said the leader of the pack as the roughians took Reggie and Florence by the arms and led them out to the protests of Vera (and a round of applause from the ensembled barroom). Mr Tibbs, on the other hand, made quick his escape and dashed off through the open door. The men wrestled their captives outside and into a waiting vehicle which sped off between the sheds and tents into the darkness.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reggie becomes de-briefed

Florence and Reggie were bundled without dignity into a large, damp smelling, trailer. The windows of which had been sealed with steel plates and inside were a collection of mismatched items of furniture: a table three chairs and a lamp. The walls were plain, as was the floor and ceiling. Closing the single door behind them, the men’s voices echoed outside then slowly faded away.

“Well this is a fine how do you do!”. Said Florence in the darkness. “A fine way to greet visitors, I must say”.
She could hear the sound of Reggie, fumbling about in the darkness beside her.
“Whatever are you doing Mr…”. But before she could finish, the room was filled with a pale orange glow from the lamp on the table.
“There we go now. That’s better. Shed a little light on the proceedings”. Said Reggie with a contented flourish of achievement.
“Chin up old girl. It could be worse. At least we’re still alive”. He added.
“That’s no consolation as far as I’m concerned Mr Merryweather. I was hoping to be finished by…”. She checked her watch. “Crikey! It’s nearly 2. No wonder I’m starting to feel hungry. We haven’t eaten”
“Ah. This calls for emergency measures in that case”. Said Reggie and he plunged his hand deep into the pocket of his tweed overcoat and produced a boiled egg, which he started to peel enthusiastically. “Would you like some?”. He offered.
“No thank you very much, if you don’t mind. But since when did you start carrying boiled eggs around Mr M.? It’s no wonder all your suits smell funny”. She said.
“Always be prepared, Mrs Jiggery. That’s my motto. Always stood me in good stead, I think you’ll find”. He replied and bit eagerly into the egg’s rubbery delights.
“Hmm. A little pepper perhaps is required”. He added, and produced a tiny silver pepperpot from his other pocket and shook it over his half eaten snack.

“I’ll stick with my cucumber sandwiches is it’s all the same to you”. Said Florence, shaking her head as she lifted out her lunch from the bag, wrapped in silver foil. “Oh, I almost forgot…”. She suddenly announced with a full mouthful and started to brew a cup of tea with the water-ish liquid that she’d saved from the bar and the teabags that she always carried.
“What a star you are Mrs Jiggery!. This is just like being at home isn’t it? There’s nothing better than a tea party to lift the spirits when all the world is crashing down around you”. Said Reggie, as he lit his pipe and filled the room with an atmospheric fog of Balkan Sobranie.

“What DID you do in the war, Mr Merryweather?”. Asked Florence, not only making polite conversation, but also seeking to salve a long standing curiosity of hers. After all the years she had worked for the family, she had never really got to know the ‘real’ Reginald.
“Ah, the war. Good times, Mrs Jiggery. Good times”. Said Reggie, puffing on his pipe.
“Whatever do you mean “good times” Mr Merryweather. It was not good times at all. Rationing, disease, blackouts, the bombing over Bedford, huge loss of life. I think you’re avoiding the question as usual”. She admonished. “Can you give me a straight answer for a change?”.
“All terribly hush hush you see. But… I suppose that after all these years it doesn’t matter any more”. He said and looked at her suspiciously, then continued:
“Me and Gibbons, you remember? Kenny? Well, me and him were, for all intents and purposes doing regular signal duties in Northern France, but in actual fact we were requisitioned by the Intelligence Office”.
“Spies?”. Said Florence with her eyes widening.
“Of sorts”. Replied Reggie. “But we didn’t really know it. We were commissioned to listen in to Gerry and monitor the movement of troops, equipment and so forth”.
A long silence hung in the air as Reggie retrieved various tattered memories from the long forgotten dusty cupboards of his mind.
My commanding officer, Major Hillman Day commended us for our part in the taking of several strongholds. We were decorated”. He eventually said. “…I got an engraved clock”.
“I bet that made your day”. Said Florence.
“I bet that Major Day what?”. Said Reggie.

Just then, there was a clicking and clattering at the door and it opened, bringing a dull stench on the breeze that blew in. A tall man dressed in a dark suit with sunglasses closed the door slowly behind him and turned to them both.
“Your creature I believe”. He said, coughing uncomfortably.
Reggie took the cat from him and settled it on his knee, giving it a good stroke to make it more at ease with the unusual circumstances.
“Would you like a cup of tea?”. Reggie asked politely.

“I am the big Number 2”. Said the man, and Florence failed to restrain a splutter. 
“I am…”. Said Reggie
“I know who you are Mr Merryweather”. Interrupted the man.
“Who told you?”. Puzzled Reggie.
“Have you got any bleach?”. Said Florence.
“I’ll ask the questions if you don’t mind” Said Number 2 as he turned away and paced slowly and psychologically back and forth. Eventually he asked:
Where are you from?”.
“Well, originally I’m from Bedford. Mrs Jiggery here’s from Portsmouth”.
“Where’s that? The girl said you were from Earth, No one’s lived on earth in two hundred years. You must be lying or stupid. Or both. How did you get here?”. He asked.
“I really don’t know”. Said Reggie sincerely, scratching his head. “At least not the actual details”.
“What do you know about ‘rabbit holes’?”. Said Number 2, suddenly lurching forward to face Reggie square on.
“Alice fell down one?”. Said reggie, helpfully.
“Who is alice?”. Said Number 2.

Florence finished her sandwich, folded the foil neatly and put it back in her bag. Reggie stroked Mr Tibbs as he and Number 2 stared at each other for an uncomfortably long time. Number 2’s face was perfectly still and unblinking so Reggie smiled at him to make him feel less threatened by them. Reaching over and pulling up the third chair, Number 2 sat down and clasped his hands on the table, took a big sigh and asked the question that was foremost on his mind:
“Why did you resign?”.
“From where?”. Said Reggie, innocently.
“You know where. The Corporation. You were famous, at the top of your profession. A hero. You resigned. Why?”.
Reggie frowned, which was unusual and looked away for a moment then back at Number 2.
“I didn’t fall, I was pushed”. He spat, angrily.
Number 2 leaned closer.
“We want to know about your radio Reggie”. He said.
“Who told you about the radio?”. Said Reggie.
“How did you get here?”. Said Number 2
“It was mrs Jiggery’s fault”. He answered.
“You’re lying. Where is the radio?”
“Well, right now, I’m not very sure”. Said a disconcerted Reggie.
“If you tell us how you got here, we’ll let you go free”. Said Number 2 leaning back and opening his hands with as much conviction as a used car salesman.

Reggie stood up and leaned forward. Putting his weight on the table with both hands, he used them to slap out the syllables of his protest which he delivered in a whispery indignance:
“I will not make any deals with you. I’ve resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own. I am a Freemason”.
Number 2 looked at Reggie for a long time without flinching and then slowly pushed back his chair and turned to leave.
“I’ll be seeing you …again. Mr Merryweather”. He smiled and closed the door behind him.

“What a nasty man”. Said Florence.
“Nice suit though”. Mused Reggie.
“And anyway, who is this Vera? you seem to have a skeleton in the closet there Mr Merryweather. I’d never have thought it of you”. Said Florence.
“I never thought of it myself, Mrs Jiggery. In fact, I think nothing of it. We met in paris, a long time ago”. He answered with a wry smile.

Mrs Jiggery looked at her watch.
“Oh well, my cake will probably be burned by now, and besides which, it’s past time for your medication”.
“The lithium will have to wait for another day, It seems”. Sighed reggie. “It is nearly dark. You have crossed over into the twilight zone Mrs Jiggery”
Suddenly there was a whisper at the door.

“Reggie, Reggie. It’s Vera. I have a key. Are you in there?”. Said a muffled Vera through the crack. “Come on, I can help you but there isn’t much time”.
After much furtive fiddling and frantic fumbling about, Florence and Reggie stepped down from the trailer, closed the door behind them and ran as best they could between the shadows to freedom.

“Where are we going?”. Panted Florence.
“To Big Spider’s Beck. I think I know what you’re looking for”. Said Vera.
“You’ve found it!?”. Said Reggie with excitement.
“Yes, but now the militia is taking over”. Said Vera
“What is it? - what has she found Mr Merryweather?”. Said Florence.
“Seedstone! Mrs Jiggery. The substance that makes my radio work. Up til now I’ve had to manage with a tiny particle that I created myself through a lengthy process of alchemy. But now, if what she says is true, then this is just the beginning”. Enthused Reggie.
“Beginning of a right fiasco in my view. What about the blocked sink? I need to get back. I think I left a tap running”
“Oh we’ll be back soon enough”. Said Reggie.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A system of seven

They arrived at an outpost on the edge of town. There were a few small buildings, some curious rock formations and a dried-up brook running alongside.
“Where are all the big spiders?”. Said Florence.
“We ate them all”. Said Vera.
Florence shuddered at the thought then looked at her for signs of it being a joke, which it wasn’t.

Using her security keycard, Vera opened the largest of the storage containers: A huge construction, similar to the one that they had been held captive in, but with various signs printed in a language that Reggie didn’t recognise. As the door opened, a purple glow spilled into the air around them.
“I recognise that haze”. Said Reggie with his eyes becoming wider. “Where is it?.

“Impetuous as ever Reggie”. Vera smiled. “It’s over there in that sealed casket”. She added, as she carefully opened the heavy case lid and the room became illuminated by a sparkly violet radiance. There was a breathless silence amongst them as they gazed at the contents.
“Radionium 7 - In all its glory”. Said Vera, triumphantly in a whisper.
For once Reggie was speechless and not unusually dumbstruck.
“Can I touch it?”. He asked.
“I’m not sure that’s a safe idea”. Said Vera. “It’s untested at this stage. We just don’t know its volatility”.
“If my experience is anything to go by Vera, it’s perfectly safe”. Said Reggie. Then, taking a big breath he added -
“Back in ‘32 I found a piece much bigger than this, but the Ministry confiscated it and I was held for questioning for many days. I know how to handle this stuff”.

Leaning forward he looked closer at the seven tiny orb-like granules of the deepest black laid out on a lead slab, each of which had a slowly swirling ‘atmosphere’ that glowed with a deep purple aura.
“Fascinating”. Said Reggie, and he slowly reached out to pick one up.
“It’s much heavier than I remember”. He said, passing it to Florence.
“This is all we have found so far, but it proves it’s here. The military want to use it for warfare, so it’s all been catalogued and numbered at this stage. You’d better put it back. I just wanted to give you the satisfaction of seeing that our - I mean your - speculations were correct”. Said Vera.
“Fascinating”. Said Reggie, peering at Vera’s chest.

All of a sudden, there was the sound of approaching, determined voices and transporter engines outside.
“Quick, we must leave”. Said Reggie.
“Oh not again”. Sighed Florence.
“Where to?”. Said Vera.
“Back to the radio”. He answered.
“Where is Mr Tibbs?”. Said Florence, visibly upset.
“Come on, there’s no time. He’ll find us”. Said Reggie as they all bundled themselves back out of the container shed and headed off towards the quarry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Standing on the edge

“Come on, I think this is the way”. Said Reggie in a hoarse whisper. For a man of his age he was quite nimble on his feet although his knees were less than agile and every so often he’d misjudge the rocky terrain and stumble.
“You mind how you go Mr Merryweather. We don’t want you falling and breaking your hip again”. Said Florence.
“Do you ever stop fussing woman”. Reggie mumbled to himself.
“I heard that”. Said Florence.

Shortly, Reggie could run no more and gasping for oxygen, he stopped with his hand on his side.
“It’s no good. Militia or not, I have to rest a while”. He said, and flopped down onto a large boulder amongst a small formation of rocks scattered all around them. Florence and Vera joined him as they too were breathless and starting to tire. They had made good headway and in the darkness their pursuers were still floundering in the dank fog. It would be a good few minutes before they even got a glimpse of the tracks they had inevitably left behind.

In the tense silence between them, Florence idly ran her hands along the surface of the rock she was sitting on. Looking down she noticed unusual marking on the surface and she slowly ran her fingers along the grooves.
“There’s a funny thing”. She said.
“Where?”. Said Reggie, looking around with an increased sense of alarm.
“Right here”. Said Florence gesturing towards the rocks. “They’ve all got grooves cut in them”.
“Yes, you’re right. How bizarre. Is this the result of your mining Vera?”. Said Reggie.
“No, this area is called Bennai after the leader of the first scout party. A couple of hundred years ago there was a fierce battle here between the E.I.O. and the King’s Militia. This site was once a huge rock boundary that acted as a stronghold for the researchers, freedom fighters, reformists and scientists. The underground, that sort of thing, you know. The King’s men blasted it with neutron beams and sliced the hill like cheese.
“Ah”. Said Reggie. “I think I’ve heard about that: The “Battle of Bennai Hill wasn’t it?”.

“Florence”. Said Vera. “Can we be alone for a while?. Why don’t you go on ahead and we’ll catch you up.”
“But I’m not sure where I’m going”. Said Florence.
“Just keep following this path and it will take you to the quarry”. Said Vera.
Reluctantly, Florence rose and wandered away looking over her shoulder jealously and nervously as she did.
“Don’t you go loosing me, now”. She said. “I need to get back before Waitrose closes.
“Just keep going beyond that far canal and you’ll see the ravine”. Said Vera.
“Pardon?”. Called Florence’s voice in the distance.
“Far canal Mrs Jiggery! Watch where you’re going”. Said Reggie.

“Reggie”. Said Vera looking down and kicking the sand with her boots. “There’s something I have to tell you”.
“Oh? - go on”. Said Reggie.
“I’m in love”. She said matter-of-factly and looked up at Reggie.
“I suspected that much. It’s been a long time”. He added wistfully.
“…with one of the Ludwigian elders”. Said Vera with the coldness of a tent peg.
Reggie looked away and breathed deeply.
“How could you betray me like this?”. He said.
“We were over, and with him, I feel alive”. Said Vera.
 ”What will you do now your work is over?”. Asked Reggie.
“He wants to take me to see the hanging waterfalls of Babygrau, the grand cavern of Merseybete and all the other wonders of the known galaxy. It’s an opportunity I can’t miss, Reggie. But now that you’re back, with that look on your face, I’m confused”. She said. “His ship leaves tomorrow and he’s asked me to go with him”.

“If that craft leaves the ground and you’re not with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life”. Said Reggie, with a familiar philosophical outburst.
“But what about us?”. Said Vera.
“We’ll always have Paris”. He said. “We didn’t have it before. We’d lost it until you came to Galena, but we got it back last night”. Said Reggie. “Me in my tie-dye bow tie and you with your chinchillas”.
“When I said I would never leave you…”. Began Vera, but Reggie interrupted her:
“And you never will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of, Vera, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people and a cat don’t amount to a pan of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that”. He said, pulling up the collar of his coat to shield himself from the chill wind that was starting to blow.

“I’ve found it Mr Merryweather”. Echoed Florence’s voice, both butting-in and spoiling the punchline.
“I have to go, Vera. It’s been a delight to see you again, but mark my words - we shall meet again and I’ll see to it that it’s in better times than these”. Said Reggie with prophetic authority.
They both stood and embraced, then Reggie turned and walked away. Vera started after him, rather feebly at first then stopped as she watched his silhouette merge with the shadows around him. Just then, it started to rain. She waved and pulled her hood over her head and plunged her hands into her pockets.

Reggie arrived at the radio to find Florence sitting in the big chair, with her handbag on her lap as though she were on a number 12 bus.
“Ready when you are Mr Merryweather”. She said.
Reggie opened the lid of the radio and started to fire up the main circuits. As he did, he saw the distant shape of Vera outlined against the bakelite coloured night sky. He also saw a contingent of figures arrive, riding huge winged beasts. There was a brief skirmish and he saw them drag Vera away whilst the others started to descend the embankment.

“It’s such a shame that I couldn’t steal some of that seedstone before we left, Mrs jiggery”. Said Reggie.
“Oh but you’re wrong Mr M.”. Said Florence. “You remember how you gave me your marbles to look after? well, when she wasn’t looking I substituted one of those for one of them there glow-in the dark ones.”. She added.
“OH! Mrs Jiggery, you are a star! Good form old girl, good form”. Exclaimed Reggie with glee as Florence lifted the handkerchief containing the crystal out of her handbag and unfolded it on her lap

“Ah”. Said Reggie as he hurried to engage the various controls of his timeless radio.
“What do you mean “Ah” Mr merrywather, hurry up, they’re gaining on us. Aren’t you going to beat them off?”. Said Florence.
“I beg your pardon?”. Said Reggie.
“Those cloaked men, they’re nearly here.
“It looks like we’re not going anywhere, Mrs Jiggery”. Said Reggie, standing back and scratching his head, hopelessly.
“Whatever do you mean?”. Said Florence.
“Someone’s taken the Temporal Solenoid Inducer. It’s missing”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fin (pour maintenant)
…to be continued

(LAST CHAPTER) FIRST DRAFT. 5TH AUGUST 2010.