Terry Pratchett - Unseen Academicals

‘Ah, yes, I’m so sorry,’ said Nutt. ‘Mister Trev told me about this. I should not talk posh. I should have said that you have enormous t—’

‘Just stop there, will you? Trevor Likely is teaching you elocution?’

‘Don’t tell me, I know this one… You mean talkin’ proper?’ said Nutt. ‘Yes, and he’s promised to take me to the football,’ he added proudly.

This led to some explanation, which only made Glenda gloomy. Trev was right, of course. People who didn’t know long words tended to be edgy around people who did. That’s why her male neighbours, like Mr Stollop and his mates, distrusted nearly everybody. Their wives, on the other hand, shared a much larger if somewhat specialized vocabulary owing to the cheap romantic novels that passed like contraband from scullery to washhouse, in every street. That’s why Glenda knew ‘elocution’, ‘torrid’, ‘boudoir’ and ‘reticule’, although she wasn’t too certain about ‘reticule’ and ‘boudoir’, and avoided using them, which in the general scheme of things was not hard. She was deeply suspicious about what a lady’s boudoir might be, and certainly wasn’t going to ask anybody, even in the Library, just in case they laughed.

‘And he’s going to take you to the football, is he? Mister Nutt, you will stand out like a diamond in a sweep’s earhole!’

Do not stand out from the crowd. There were so many things to remember!

‘He says he will look after me,’ said Nutt, hanging his head. ‘Er, I was wondering who that nice young lady was who was in here last night,’ he added desperately, as transparent as air.

‘He asked you to ask me, right?’

Lie. Stay safe. But Ladyship wasn’t here! And the nice apple-pie lady was right here in front of him! It was too complicated!

‘Yes,’ he said meekly.

And Glenda surprised herself. ‘Her name is Juliet, and she lives bang next door to me so he’d better not come round, okay? Juliet Stollop, see if he likes that.’

‘You fear he will press his suit?’

‘Her dad will press a lot more than that if he sees he’s a Dimmer supporter!’

Nutt looked blank, so she went on: ‘Don’t you know anything? Dimwell Old Pals? The football team? The Dollies are Dolly Sisters Football Club. Dollies hate the Dimmers, the Dimmers hate the Dollies! It’s always been like that!’

‘What could have caused such a difference between them?’

‘What? There is no difference between them, not when you’ve got past the colours! They’re two teams, alike in villainy! Dolly Sisters wears white and black, Dimwell wears pink and green. It’s all about football. Bloody, bloody, clogging, hacking, punching, gouging, silly football!’ The bitterness in Glenda’s voice would have soured cream.

‘But you have a Dolly Sisters scarf!’

‘When you live there, it’s safer that way. Anyway, you have to support your own.’

‘But is it not a game, like spillikins or halma or Thud?’

‘No! It’s more like war, but without the kindness and consideration!’

‘Oh, dear. But war is not kind, is it?’ said Nutt, bewilderment clouding his face.

‘No!’

‘Oh, I see. You were being ironic.’

She gave him a sideways look. ‘I might have been,’ she conceded. ‘You are an odd one, Mister Nutt. Where are you from, really?’

The old panic contained again. Be harmless. Be helpful. Make friends. Lie. But how did you lie to friends?

‘I must go,’ he said, scurrying down the stone steps. ‘Mister Trev will be waiting!’

Nice but odd, Glenda thought, watching him leap down the steps. Clever, too. To spot my scarf on a hook ten yards away.

The sound of a rattling tin can alerted Nutt to his boss’s presence before he had even hurried through the old archway to the vats. The other habitués had paused in their work, which, frankly, given its usual snaillike progress, meant hardly any change at all, and were watching him listlessly. But they were watching, at least. Even Concrete looked vaguely alert, but Nutt saw a little dribble of brown in the corner of his mouth. Someone had been giving him iron filings again.

The can shot up as Trev caught it with his boot, flew over his head, and then came back obliquely, as if rolling down an invisible slope, and landed in his waiting hand. There was a murmur of appreciation from the watchers and Concrete banged his hand on the table, which generally meant approval.

‘What kept you, Gobbo? Chatting up Glenda, were you? You’ve got no chance there, take it from me. Been there, tried that, oh yes. No chance, mate.’ He threw a grubby bag towards Nutt. ‘Get these on quick, else you’ll stand out like a diamond in—’

‘A sweep’s earhole?’ Nutt suggested.

‘Yeah! You’re gettin’ it. Now don’t hang about or we’ll be late.’

Nutt looked doubtfully at a long, a very long scarf in pink and green and a large yellow woolly hat with a pink bobble on it.

‘Pull it down hard so it covers your ears,’ Trev commanded. ‘Get a move on!’

‘Er… pink?’ said Nutt doubtfully, holding up the scarf.

‘What about it?’

‘Well, isn’t football a rough man’s game? Whereas pink, if you will excuse me, is rather a… female colour?’

Trev grinned. ‘Yeah, that’s right. Think about it. You are the clever one around here. And you can walk and think at the same time, I know that. Makes you stand out from the crowd in these parts.’

‘Ah, I think I have it. The pink proclaims an almost belligerent masculinity, saying as it does: I am so masculine I can afford to tempt you to question it, giving me the opportunity to proclaim it anew by doing violence to you in response. I don’t know if you have ever read Ofleberger’s Die Wesentlichen Ungewissheiten Zugehörig der Offenkundigen Männlichkeit?’

Trev grabbed his shoulder and spun him round. ‘Wot do you fink, Gobbo?’ he said, his red face a couple of inches from Nutt’s. ‘Wot is your problem? Wot are you all about? You come out with ten-dollar words an’ you lay ’em down like a man doin’ a jigsaw! So how come you’re down in the vats, eh, workin’ for someone like me? It don’t make sense! Are you on the run from the Old Sam? No problem, there, unless you did up an old lady or somethin’, but you got to tell me!’

Too dangerous, thought Nutt desperately. Change the subject! ‘She’s called Juliet!’ he gasped. ‘The girl you asked about! She lives next door to Glenda! Honestly!’

Trev looked suspicious. ‘Glenda told you that?’

‘Yes!’

‘She was windin’ you up. She knew you’d tell me.’

‘I don’t think she would lie to me, Mister Trev. She is my friend.’

‘I kept thinkin’ about her all last night,’ said Trev.

‘Well, she is a wonderful cook,’ Nutt agreed.

‘I meant Juliet!’

‘Um, and Glenda said to tell you that Juliet’s other name is Stollop,’ said Nutt, hating to be the bearer of worse news.

‘What? That girl is a Stollop?’

‘Yes. Glenda said I was to see how you liked that, but I know the meaning of irony.’

‘But it’s like findin’ a strawberry in a dogmeat stew, yeah? I mean, the Stollops are buggers, the lot of ’em, biters and cloggers to a man, the kind of bastards who’ll kick your family jewels up into your throat.’

‘But you don’t play football, do you? You just watch.’

‘Damn right! But I’m a Face, right? I’m known in all the boroughs. You can ask anyone. Everyone knows Trev Likely. I’m Dave Likely’s lad. Every supporter in the city knows about him. Four goals! No one else scored that much in a lifetime! And gave as good as he got, did Dad. One game he picked up the Dolly bastard holding the ball and threw ’im over the line. He gave as good as ’e got, my dad, and then some.’