Nicola Barker - Burley Cross Postbox Theft

The house is in an awful state of disrepair, although (from what I can tell) he’s an amazingly talented carpenter. The town’s various big-wigs are always moaning on about it (I think it drives them all nuts that this odd, haughty African owns one of the village’s landmark properties but never so much as lifts a finger to maintain it). He seems to actively delight in antagonizing them all (very weird).

Where was I? Oh yes. So they’re sitting at the table together, in this companionable silence. She’s painting her ashtray, at one end, he’s whittling away at the other, working on a sculpture — an African totem thingummy — female, about four inches high, astonishingly well-observed, with a tiny pair of withered breasts and a hugely protrusive vagina (I’ve seen other examples of his work. It’s really terrifying. Figures with amputated arms, blindfolded men with pliers hanging from their penises, African devils in Nazi uniforms. In fact one of his pieces — an African Christ writhing on the cross — has caused the most humungous stink in town after it was hung in the front portal of the church by the ‘old’ vicar without the permission of the ‘new’ one, who went completely nuts when he found out about it!).

The point I’m struggling to make, here, Ivo, is that if a quaint village in the wilds of West Yorkshire can generate such stores of unbridled creativity, then why the heck aren’t people producing stuff of this quality in Hoxton and Camberwell and Shoreditch? And if they aren’t (which they aren’t), then surely it’s my job to share it with them?!

The way I see it, the bottom line re Threadbare is that I can’t (I can’t) just sit here and let this amazing opportunity pass me by. I won’t . I must act! I must! And I don’t think what I’m doing is wrong! Not remotely! I’m a facilitator , Ivo. That’s my role! I’m a ‘cultural midwife’. I’m like one of the Medicis. It’s my moral duty to bring beauty to the world! How can I simply stand back and watch it bloom and die, unnoticed, unloved, unmourned?

Ow. I’m starting to develop cramp. And there goes my phone! Perfect timing! Is it you? Oh, do let it be! I’m absolutely longing for a proper chin-wag.

But hasn’t this been fun? We should write letters more often! It feels so healthy, so rustic , so wholesome!

Simpson’s scratching at the door. My bottom’s quite dry again. I’m dashing straight over to pick up and answer just as soon as I can scribble — Toodle-pip!

(And stuff this thing into an envelope…)

XXX

JJ

17 THE BECK

THURSDAY, 3.15PM

RHONA BROOKS,

I HAVE SPOKEN TO YOU TWICE NOW ON THE SUBJECT OF THAT DUCK OF YOURN AND I WILL NOT SPEAK AGAIN ON THE MATTER I CAN ASSURE YOU. NEXT TIME I WILL COMMUNICATE WITH YOU THROUGH THE PERSON OF THE LOCAL CONSTABULARY.

THAT I SHOULD BE OBLIGED TO FORK OUT FOR A STAMP ON ACCOUNT OF NOT BEEN ABLE TO WALK TO YOUR DOOR AND KNOCK (OR POST THIS THROUGH YOUR LETTERBOX IF I DIDN’T FEEL AS I WANTED TO SPEAK IN PERSON) BECAUSE OF FEAR OF ATTACK, IS NOTHING SHORT OF CRIMINAL! I HAVE STROLLED ‘THE CALLS’ MAN AND BOY, LITTLE THINKING THAT ONE DAY I WOULD BE HALTED IN MY PERAMBULATIONS BY SOME PESKY BIRD THAT OUGHT TO BE IN A PEN OR ON A DINNER PLATE, NOT CAREENING UP AND DOWN THE WAY LIKE A JUMBO JET.

SHAME ON YOU, RHONA BROOKS, AND SHAME ON THAT GIDDY SISTER OF YOURN. I THOUGHT BETTER OF YOU BOTH (ALTHOUGH WHY I DID SO I AM CURRENTLY AT ODDS TO REMEMBER).

I’VE A GOOD MIND TO HAVE A WORD WITH REVEREND HORWOOD ON THE MATTER — NOT THAT I’M MUCH GIVEN OVER TO SPEAKING WITH MEN OF THE CLOTH, BUT I KNOW HE STILL HOLDS SOME PALTRY SCRAPS OF INFLUENCE IN YOUR CORNER. PERHAPS HE MIGHT BE ABLE TO TALK SOME SENSE INTO YOU! BETTER STILL, PERHAPS HE MIGHT FEEL INCLINED TO BASH YOUR TWO SILLY HEADS TOGETHER! I CERTAINLY FEEL INCLINED THAT WAY MYSELF!!

IF YOUR OWN DEAR MOTHER COULD SEE WHAT A WILD COURSE YOU PAIR HAVE TAKEN OF LATE SHE WOULD BE TURNING IN HER GRAVE! I’LL NOT PRETEND HERE THAT ELIZABETH AND ME EVER HAD SO MUCH AS A CIVIL WORD TO SAY TO EACH OTHER, BUT THAT’S HARDLY THE ISSUE, IS IT?

THE ISSUE — POINT OF FACT — IS THAT INFERNAL DUCK OF YOURN! I CALL IT A DUCK BUT IT’S THE SIZE OF A GOOSE AND IT KNOWS IT AN’ ALL! THAT DUCK IS A WRONG ’UN. IT HAS THE EYES OF A KILLER.

WALTER FRANCIS SAID THE THING ATTACKED HIM WHILE HE WAS CHECKIN’ OVER SOME EGGS AT MRS RHODES’S STALL. HE SAID THE WRETCH CAME DOWN ON HIM OUT OF THE SKY LIKE AN EAGLE! HE SAID IT POOPED ALL OVER HIS JACKET. HE DROPPED THE EGGS IN SHOCK AND BROKE THREE OF ’EM. HE SAID HE DIDN’T FEEL INCLINED TO PAY FOR ’EM AFTER THAT, GIVEN AS THEY WAS BROKE, BUT THEN MRS RHODES CAME CHARGIN’ OUT OF HER HOUSE AN’ GIVE HIM A PIECE OF HER MIND FOR’T! HE SAID, ‘I’M HARDLY GOIN’ TO PAY FOR THAT WHICH IS ALREADY BROKE, MADAM!’ SHE SAID, ‘WELL THEY WASN’T BROKE BEFORE YOU HAD ’EM IN YOUR THIEVIN’ HANDS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, MR FRANCIS!’ THEN ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE OR SO I’M TOLD.

NEXT THING I HEAR THE DAMN THING HAS BROUGHT DOWN THE GUTTERING ON BRIAN BREWSTER’S EXTENSION. THEN HE GOT INTO MRS LOOSE’S KITCHENETTE AND IS FOUND MAKIN’ HISSELF AT HOME IN HER WASHING UP BOWL! SHE SAID IT GIVE HER THE HORRORS WHEN SHE SAW IT SITTIN’ THERE WITH ITS BIG RED FACE ALL DISFIGURED LIKE IT WAS SCALDED. I SAID THAT’S AS HOW THE BREED IS MEANT TO LOOK, MRS LOOSE — UGLY AS SIN, AND FULL OF SIN AN’ ALL. IT MAKES YOU WONDER AT THE KIND OF HUMAN MIND THAT COULD CONCEIVE SUCH A SIGHT WAS WORTH THE LOOKIN’ AT! SHE SAID I DON’T EVEN CARE ABOUT THAT, KEN, I CARE ABOUT THE POOP WHICH WAS ALL OVER MY COUNTER. SOME OF IT HAD EVEN GOT INSIDE MY SECOND-BEST TEAPOT!

IT’S GREEN POOP, SHE SAYS, AN’ IT STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN!

THIS VILLAGE IS IN COMPLETE UPROAR OVER THAT DAMN BIRD. I’VE NEVER SEEN OWT LIKE IT IN ALL MY NINETY-FOUR YEARS. IF YOU DON’T TAKE A PAIR OF SHEARS TO ITS WINGS THEN I’LL SURE AS DAMMIT DO IT M’SELF.

I’M AT THE END OF MY TETHER, OR THEREABOUTS.

DON’T SAY AS I DIDN’T WARN YOU, LADIES!

YOURS SINCERELY,

KENNETH CRANSHAW (SR)

Find enclosed: letter 7 by Edo Wa Makuna (of Bleachers) in some weird Franco-African lingo (completely incomprehensible) followed by the translation I commissioned (7a), in some kind of deranged, haut-bourgeois English (equally incomprehensible).

The translation costs amounted to the princely sum of £897. Given that the translation is almost twice the length of the original, I am at least confident that we got our money’s worth,

Loz

Bleachers

The High Street

Burley Cross

Wharfedale

20/12/06

Oh my dear Brother!

Every year the same, old charade, eh? Every year our mother’s first-born puts pen to paper — his hand growing shakier, his French getting clumsier — in the pathetic hope that his brother — the second-born — will receive his letter and hungrily devour it with his crazy, shit-coloured eyes and be born to him again.

We both know the truth, eh, Bro’? We both know the truth, too well. But every year…

Where are you, my brother? I see you, as of old, sitting on the thick stump of that rotted acacia outside the Catholic Orphanage in Leopoldville! Your sunken cheeks! Your quick, angry laugh like the yap of a hyena! Your long legs sticking out like twigs from a pair of tattered shorts. Those brown knees pinkened with scars! Those brown arms chalked a ghostly white with streaks of sweat.

How loud you were! How you stank! A maniac! A fiend! Stolen mango pulp festooning the gaps between your gnashing teeth! You always were the greatest thief! A terrible liar! A vagabond!