Back at the
bothy, and replete on Fray Bentos meat pie, mashed potatoes and peas, Ptolemy
Pheasant and Jack Green have fallen into companionable silence in front of the warmly glowing woodburning stove. They are sipping tea and dunking shortbread biscuits, which
is one of the very best ways to spend an evening – fact. Better than dunking Jaffa cakes. That never works.
Ptolemy
thinks that now would be a good time to broach the subject of Jack being resident in
the bothy and thinking it is okay to purloin another chap’s pie and provisions.
‘So, Jack,’
he says. ‘What brings you to these parts? How come you’ve ended up staying in
my love shack and eating my pies?’
Jack Green
stares at Ptolemy. He is mid-dunk, and Ptolemy’s question takes him by
surprise, so much so that he forgets he is in mid-dunk and the end of his
biscuit falls off – PLOP! – into his tea. This is the only downside of spending
an evening drinking tea and biscuit dunking. One must be ever vigilant if one
is to avoid spoiling such a grand event with a floppy biscuity mess.
‘Botheration!’
says Jack. And then he promptly bursts into tears.
Ptolemy
thinks this is rather an over-reaction to the lost end of a biscuit and
immediately feels guilty at having caused a man of such enormous stature and
girth to cry. ‘I say,’ he says. ‘Steady on there, old chap. No offence meant. I
mean, you are more than welcome to stay here. It is a shelter for the lost and
weary traveller after all.’
Jack gives
an enormous sniff and blows heavily into his handkerchief, which makes Ptolemy
feel a bit queasy because he’s not great with phlegm, slime and ooze. ‘That’s
EXACTLY what I am,’ Jack wails. ‘Lost and weary! I am in the biggest pile of
doo-doo and I don’t know what to do…do….’
And he
flings himself onto the rug in front of the woodburning stove and beats the
floor, all the while a-wailing and a-snotting.
Well,
thinks Ptolemy. Now what? He’s very au fait with comforting ladies in distress,
but hulking great big blokes? They are a different kettle of haddock altogether. He alights from his own chair and tentatively
pats Jack on the shoulder that isn’t heaving quite as much as the other with
the effort of sobbing so hard.
‘Come now,
Jack,’ he says. ‘Things can’t be THAT bad, surely? Can I get you a drink? I’ve
got a rather nice vintage whisky hidden away in the corner cupboard over
there…’
‘No, you haven’t,’
comes the sniffling and blubbering response from Jack. And he flails an arm
vaguely in the direction of the waste paper bin, where Ptolemy immediately sees
the top of the whisky bottle poking out.
‘Empty?’ he
says, a bit crestfallen, because it had cost him ALL of his supermarket loyalty
points accumulated over the last two years.
Jack lifts
his head up from the rug, sniffs and nods. ‘Sorry,’ he says.
Ptolemy
helps Jack up from the floor, in the best way he can given he is barely a foot
tall and Jack is at least six feet taller and a hundred times the weight. He sits him back in chair,
tucks a blanket over his knees, makes a fresh pot of tea and, when the wild
sobbing has abated to little more than a snivel and drip, he says, ‘Now, why
don’t you just tell me all about your doo-doo, and we’ll see what we can do, eh?’
Jack looks at him, gratefully. ‘If it’s all the same with
you, I’d rather turn in for the night. I feel quite exhausted. If I start
talking about my doo-doo now, I’ll just become even more confused and then I won't be able to sleep. What with that, and
the surfeit of pie and mash.’And he pats his stomach.
‘Fair enough,’ says Ptolemy, who’s had quite enough of the
histrionics, too. The experience is well outside his manly comfort-zone,
although he does have a strange and growing feeling that now might be a good
time to develop his emotional intelligence skills. He bids Jack goodnight, and
decides perhaps he will stay, too, snuggled up in front of the fire, wrapped in
his favourite tartan blanket. The blanket smells of Mrs Pumphrey’s perfume – Sssshenelle
No. 37.5. Lovely!
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