Mr Lonely, page 21
‘Luke?’ Sid asked out of the corner of his mouth, rather like a ventriloquist.
‘Yes,’ whispered Carrie, without moving her lips.
‘And the old girl pushing him?’
‘His daughter, my cousin Daisy,’ she said through her handkerchief.
‘How come I’ve never heard of them?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’ She spoke into the hankie as if to wipe a tear away. Sid looked forward towards Carrie’s mum as she staggered behind the coffin, moaning and crying. The unfortunate distant relative was almost dragging her along, trying to look quite normal, which he was finding very difficult. Elspeth’s mouth had not closed for the last fifty minutes with surprise at the antics of her family. Her gran was almost at screaming point. Why? Elspeth thought. Good Lord, she didn’t even like Grandad, let alone love him. Elspeth was fascinated. Mummy’s so calm, she thought, Daddy’s trying to look serious and gran’s playing the part of the bewildered widow. Look at her thumping the distant relative on his back.
The church door came nearer. It was a very old church. The vicar came from the darkness of the porch through the solid, wide, two-door entrance. One half of the door was shut and had been for the last 130 years, leaving only half an entrance. The Reverend Dennis Hoddinutt put his head round the door and looking towards Carrie’s mum, ranting, raving and thumping her distant relative, then looked towards heaven and quickly ducked back into his church. Probably running up the aisle shouting, ‘Sanctuary, sanctuary’, thought Sid.
The last twenty-five yards towards the church entrance was downhill, about one in four. The coffin carriers had automatically quickened their pace and were now almost running towards the half door, carrying the coffin on their shoulders rather like a battering ram. Carrie’s mum and her distant relative ran close behind, Carrie’s mum on rubbery legs and her distant relative trying valiantly to keep her from falling. The four men in black were now getting away and rapidly lengthening the distance between the family and the body. The men were all professionals and knew this church well. Two seconds before they entered the church the leader on the right shouted, ‘Hup,’ and with amazing grace all four went into single file, lifted the coffin on to their heads and without a moment’s pause went through the single door and disappeared into the dark church. The rest of the mourners rushed into the church slightly out of breath, all except the wheelchair, which was jammed between the church wall and the edge of the door. The impetus threw Uncle Luke forward out of his wheelchair as a car crash throws its front seat passengers through the windscreen. Carrie, Sid and Elspeth heard the cry of, ‘Look out!’ from Cousin Daisy. They stepped quickly to one side to let Uncle Luke fly by them without his chair. Carrie’s mum was inside the church shouting, ‘Why have they taken him?’ to the distant relative, when Uncle Luke landed in the small of his back and the distant relative was suddenly taken from her, too. She then collapsed on top of Uncle Luke and the distant relative with a scream that made the church brasses ring and twenty-four church pigeons leave the tower for a new home in the nearby woods.
The four carrying men put the coffin down on the spot indicated by a look from the vicar, who had now realized his biorhythms for that day were not good. He now spoke fondly of a man he’d never met. He spoke of his strength, his love of his family, his work for charity, his love of animals and children. Carrie’s mum sat there rubbing a bruised knee wondering who the vicar was talking about. The vicar finished his sermon with, ‘This God is our God for ever and ever. He will be our guide even unto death.’ The organ started to play the intro to the chosen hymn, verses one, four, five and eight: ‘Thou judge of quick and dead, before whose bar severe, with holy joy or guilty tread, we all shall soon appear.’
The coffin was once again picked up and followed out of the church to the freshly dug hole. Daisy had fortunately retrieved the wheelchair and was consoling her shaken father, who was now back in the chair having missed the service. The distant relative limped along with Carrie’s mum. They were near the open grave when Carrie’s mum fell to her knees and shouted, ‘Why? Why?’ to the vicar. She then grabbed both legs of the distant relative, who was standing at the head of the grave and not expecting her to grab quite so high. He jumped out of the way like a startled rabbit, immediately lost his footing on the mound of newly dug soil and fell feet-first into the grave. He stood there six foot below ground level with the vicar and mourners looking down on his balding head. It took quite a while to get the poor man out, and only then with the help of the coffin ropes and two gravediggers. His black suit and black shoes were ruined with light brown clinging mud. Carrie’s mum kept shouting, ‘Come out of there. It belongs to my husband,’ and then tried to hit him with a heavy wreath that had been sent by Paul Newman. The vicar’s face was almost as white as his surplice.
Eventually the coffin was lowered into its final resting place. Unfortunately the hole was too small to accept it. It stuck, with one end a foot higher than the other. Carrie’s mum screamed, ‘He doesn’t want to leave me,’ as the vicar stamped on one end with his foot. Carrie’s dad ended up in his final resting place with his head six feet down and his feet four feet up. The gravediggers, on a nod from the vicar, started to fill in the grave as everyone walked back to the cars. They were then taken from the cemetery back to the cottage for a boiled ham tea.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
2 December, 1979
Sid, with Carrie, walked up the magnificent winding stairs of the Grosvenor Hotel, Park Lane, London. It was a stairway wide enough to take four couples abreast and long enough to make you out of breath walking down it. From the balcony it swept down straight into the large ballroom that was below ground level. The evening was now almost over. Sid had said his goodbyes to his guests and most of his friends. He was drunk. He knew he was drunk. He felt sophisticated, but could not say it. It was two-thirty a.m. and apart from a few people in the ballroom talking and settling bills, the staff now outnumbered the guests. It had been a great night, especially for Sid.
As Sid and Carrie slowly made their way up the stairs, Sid spoke to Carrie: ‘Hasn’t it been a great night, eh? Hasn’t it been a great night? Truthfully now, hasn’t great a beenight … a great night? Bloody great night, eh?’
‘Don’t swear, Sid.’
‘Bloody isn’t swearing. In kids’ books they say bloody. “He had been shot and his chest was bloody.” ‘
Carrie and Sid had almost reached the top of the stairs leading to the balcony. ‘You’d better let me have the car keys,’ she said. ‘I’ll drive.’
‘Okay, that’s a good idea, Olly.’ Sid gave her the car keys from his trouser pocket mixed up with loose change and a crumpled fiver. Carrie kept all of it just to be on the safe side. She was happy for Sid. He’d just won the biggest award, the Star Award. He was very drunk but, in a way, entitled to be. He’d worked hard and had become what she had thought he could never become—a star—although she still wondered why.
Sid was ecstatic. ‘You know this was the big one, eh? This is the one to have. This is the one, eh?’ Sid was now at least four stairs behind Carrie. He’d had to stop to talk. He knew he was in a state and wouldn’t be able to do two things at once, like walk and talk. He could walk or he could talk, but he knew he couldn’t walk and talk.
Carrie was at the top of the great staircase, looking down towards her husband. His evening jacket open, his tie off, his shirt out, he was now walking slowly backwards down the stairs. ‘Stop there, Sid. Just stop there,’ Carrie said, and walked back down towards him.
To give him his due, he stopped. He stood there waiting for Carrie, grinning and holding on to the wall side of the stairs in the way Tensing and Hillary must have scaled Everest. Carrie reached him at the same time as a waiter coming up the stairs did. Between them they brought him to the top.
‘Thank you, gennelmen,’ he slurred. He looked over the rail down to the ballroom floor. Drunken tears came into his eyes. He looked at the Star Award in his hands. It was a beautiful thing. Gold and shaped like a star with six long thin points like a large sheriff’s badge. He had done all the jokes in his ‘Thank you’ speech. He had put it on his jacket lapel and said, ‘Get offer yer horse, Kincaid. The only good Injun is a dead Injun. White man speak with forked tongue.’ Then he’d had a comedy shoot-out from behind the drums with the special Star Award presenter, James Stewart, one of the greatest cowboys of all time. Mr Stewart had said some wonderful things about Sid—things you should only hear at a memorial service or a Jewish wedding. Admittedly he’d read them off a script, but that was not the point; he’d said them. He said them about me, Sid thought, Sid bloody Lewis from bleeding Potters Bar. He remembered everything about the evening. He always would. It was a night no one could or would erase from his mind. Every second was there in his memory. As he looked down from the balcony he saw it all again in a flash, right from the cheer that went up when his name was announced, his friends standing, Carrie squeezing his hand, other stars saying, ‘Well done,’ his speech, the walk back to his table, the seemingly never-ending applause, the dancing and, of course, the drinking—all in his mind. The only thing he couldn’t remember clearly was coming up that great staircase. Carrie touched his arm and he turned to look at her. She saw the tears in his eyes and for a moment they held one another gently.
‘Come on, Sid,’ Carrie said at last. ‘Let’s go home.’
‘A bloody great night, eh?’
‘Yes, Sid, bloody great.’ She guided him out from the balcony to an exit.
‘I’ll have to work harder to get this again next year. Nobody has ever won it twice. Nobody.’
‘You will.’
He stopped and grinned. ‘I’ll bloody try, sweetheart.’
‘Yes, I know, dear. Stop swearing, Sid.’
They moved towards the Park Lane exit, through people saying, ‘Well done,’ ‘You’re the greatest!’ ‘You deserve it,’ ‘When are you coming back again on television?’ They eventually made it outside to Park Lane. It had been raining, but it was now a lovely clear night. Sid swayed a little more out in the fresh air. By now his grin was like a permanent fixture. Carrie told him to fasten his jacket, which he did still holding his award, and talking to anyone who came out of the hotel. Carrie’s idea was to go into the subway and cross the dual carriageway, get their car and pick Sid up in about five or six minutes.
‘Sid, are you all right outside,’ she asked,’ or would you rather wait inside while I get the car?’
He smiled at her. ‘I’ll go inside in a few minutes. The fresh hair his doing me good, I think.’
‘All right, dear.’
‘Bloody great night, eh?’
‘Yes, dear.’
She left Sid gulping fresh air into his lungs and made her way towards the Green Street subway to take her across the road. Sid was swaying and saying good night to everyone who came out of the Great Hall entrance. He waved to some people as they passed him. A taxi driver, thinking he was waving for a cab, swerved suddenly towards Sid. The road was still slippery from the rain and the taxi skidded over the kerb. The cab was doing no more than ten miles per hour, when the mudguard hit Sid. He saw it coming and instead of jumping out of the way turned his back to it. Carrie looked round in time to see Sid hit and the impact send him against the wall of the hotel. He was still holding on to his award as he hit the wall. Two of the points pierced his heart. It took Carrie six seconds to get to him but he’d already been dead five.
A group of noisy people came out of the Great Hall exit, happy, merry and laughing. They looked down at Carrie holding Sid’s head in her lap and one of them said, ‘Never mind, love. He’ll be sober tomorrow,’ and walked away.
INDEX
Miss Elspeth Lewis (daughter) now lives in a small village in central Brazil, where she is the common-law wife of Mr Ferdo ‘Rats’ Matuka, a black preacher who is wanted for questioning by Interpol, regarding a shipment of hymn books from Hong Kong. When opened, they were found to contain packets of high-grade cannabis, worth on the streets one and a quarter million dollars. Brazil has no extradition rights.
Mrs Carrie Lewis now lives in Miami, Florida, USA, and is married to Mr Daniel Crawford. Mr Crawford is a tax consultant. It is confidently said that if Dan had been in the Nixon administration, there would have been no Watergate. Mrs Crawford runs an English-style wet fish shop called the Holy Mackerel in downtown Miami. She also heads the committee of TITS (The Independent Tribune Society).
Miss Serina French (Rene Ellenberg) married Mr A Keppleman. They live in Golders Green. Miss French is resident singer at the Starlight Rooms, East Finchley.
Mr Loose Benton has his own dress shop in New York, USA, called the Loose Change. He still sings occasionally.
Mr Jimmy Parker (James O’Toole) died suddenly of a liver complaint while filming a TV medical series.
Miss Estelle Fuller married a Middle-Eastern emirate and is now Princess (translation: First one in the harem).
Mr Leslie Garland left the MGM agency to form another theatrical agency, the Thompson, Garland, Weinstein and Ulanova Agency (TGWU).
Mr Lennie Price left show business and now lives in Blackburn, where he is an importer of genuine Moslem prayer mats with built-in compasses, which are specially made to point only to the East.
Mr Ed Low died halfway through a ‘pull-your-pants-down sketch’, while appearing in pantomime at the Essoldo Theatre, Market Rasen. He was eighty-two years of age. He was cremated in Louth and his ashes were strewn all over the crematorium floor by his elder brother dropping the urn.
Mr Ivor Nolan married Ann Clyde (Bonnie). They moved to Australia and worked in television. Miss Clyde became very popular with her afternoon programme, ‘Goodday, Mrs Aussie’. It is said in both Sydney and Melbourne that her afternoon programme was so popular, it caused Kerry Packer to invent night cricket. In Australia she is an authority on fashion. She runs her own chain of hair-dressing salons; two in Mundiwindi, two in Brunette Downs, one in Noonkanbah, one in Meekatarra and one in Bopeechee. Mr Nolan is the chief cutter in Mundiwindi.
Mr Oliver Hunter died while on holiday in Gateshead. He fell down in the Mayor’s Parlour, split his head open and was dead on arrival when he reached the hospital.
Miss Shelley Grange (Minnie Schoenberg) married Mr Giorgio Richetti. They went to live and work in Italy, where she is now serving a twenty-year jail sentence for the murder of her husband and his mother, Mrs Angelica Maria Sophia Juanita Louisa Richetti. She drugged both of her victims, put their bodies—while still alive—into a large, air-tight, sea-faring wardrobe trunk. She sent the trunk by sea, c/o Miss Serina French, the Starlight Rooms, East Finchley, London, NW11. Fortunately for Miss French, the dockers at the port had a blacking on all Italian ships that week, on account of an Italian restaurant owner in Galashiels who had sacked a drunken Scottish waiter for throwing hot spaghetti over three Irish customers. The boat went back to Italy without unloading its cargo. The police found the bodies in the trunk and arrested Mrs Giorgio Richetti and charged her with murder. The last words uttered in court by Mrs Richetti were, ‘Stuff Italy and all its wops,’ which, in the opinion of her lawyers, Vittorio, Vittorio, Vittorio and Vittorio, did not help her appeal.
Miss Roberta Moor-Roberton (Bobbers) is now Roberta Loose-Leggit. Her first husband, Mr Robin Archibald Glaze-brook, committed suicide. He took an overdose of sleeping pills while on a business trip to Berlin. Her second husband, Mr Ryan Rutt-Rutter BARNRT, accidentally drowned in his bath while on a business trip to Berlin. Her third husband was Lord Hawkins Saville Picavance Phealphree ALBrMACUBCFRSOOmVC and Bar, MP (Labour). He died after falling in front of an underground train while on a business trip to Berlin. Her fourth husband is Sir Clifford Evershed Kalvin Loose-Leggit MCMM, attached to the British Embassy in Berlin, Germany.
Mr Manny Keppleman sold his half share of the Starlight Rooms to his brother Al and opened a Jewish take-away restaurant in Brixton.
‘The author and the lovely Sid Lewis were more than good friends. The book? Well, it’s divine, divine, divine and a little naughty. I’ll give it three divines and one naughty.’
Hilary Flowers,
Gay World
‘His flies are self-tied to a two pound breaking strain nylon leader. With his first effort he’s made the ginger quill his own. If his next book is half as good, he’s into the big marlin.’
‘Cocky’,
Fly Fishing Annual
‘The author, like Sid Lewis, is a genius. He understands Sid so well. He writes about him with such care and affection. He is undoubtedly a great, new talent and should write for The Times.’
Other books published
The Australian Birds and their Laying Babits (Ornithological)
The Side Effects of Preparation H (Medical)
The Story of Venus de Milo, or Farewell Two Arms (Historical)
What to Do if Peace Comes (Fiction)
How to Make Bill Hickock (Learn How Series Number Four—Women’s Section)
How to Draw the Body, the Gun and the Dole (Learn How Series Number Six)
From Tobruck to Alexandria with a Baghdadhad (Modern History)
I Was Made in Japan (A Doctor Asprin Mystery)
It’s Murder on the Leyton Orient Express (A Doctor Asprin Mystery)
A selection of Westerns
Little Women with Big Chaps by Snap Shut
Oh Ma Sheriff by T. J. Lawrence
Deep Throat, Shallow River by Linda Lacelove
‘Mr Lonely’: Music and lyrics by Peter & Daniel Davies
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