Nicola Barker - Burley Cross Postbox Theft

‘This is just a formality,’ the girl interjected, irritably (and with great authority, if I say so myself), waving her hand around, airily, ‘just a formality. Come on, dear, quick, quick …’

She grabbed hold of the pen (which one of the two men was proffering me) and pushed it into my hand.

‘Crawford,’ she said. ‘Sign.’

The second man passed me a clipboard with an official-looking document attached to it and she pointed to the space at the bottom of the page, next to the word SIGNATURE. ‘Crawford,’ she repeated, prodding at it, forcefully, with her forefinger, ‘Catrin Crawford.’

Now obviously, with the benefit of hindsight, Mr Jennings, I realize that it was a mistake — a terrible mistake — for me to take that clipboard and to sign Catrin Crawford’s name on it. In truth, I can’t actually even remember signing it. I was still half asleep at the time. I’d had the sherry, remember, on top of a rather large quantity of painkillers. I was physically and mentally exhausted after an exceedingly long and trying day.

And I know it probably sounds rather like I’m just making excuses for myself, here, Mr Jennings (and I probably am , truth be told), but the girl who stood before me, Miss Lydia May Eardley (as it later transpired), had an extraordinary presence about her (one might almost call it a surfeit of character!). She exuded this strange atmosphere of… of calm implacability, as if she must — by necessity, by pure force of will — control any situation she might get herself in to.

I signed the name, Mr Jennings. Indeed I did. I knowingly and calculatedly committed perjury (the legal consequences of which have yet to be fully thrashed out). Although may I just say, in my own humble defence, Claw, that my motives, I believe, were entirely good and honourable (I have a tacit agreement with both of my immediate neighbours on Lamb’s Green, for example, to automatically sign for deliveries on their behalf. It can so often be the case with modern delivery companies that if they fail to make a drop on their initial visit to your home, it can take literally weeks for them to arrange to come back).

As soon as the document was signed (I know it was wrong, Mr Jennings, but I sincerely believed I was helping Catrin out) Lydia May pushed past me (somewhat rudely) and disappeared into the house. The two men thanked me, cordially, then turned on their heels and left. I closed the door and limped back to the living room (I had forgotten my stick in the rush), fully intent on seeking an explanation of some kind from Lydia May about the unusual circumstances of her arrival.

When I re-entered the room, however, I was somewhat astonished to discover the girl — large tumbler of sherry in hand — going through the Crawfords’ compact disc collection, looking for something to put on. Yet instead of simply reading the names of the discs as they sat in the rack, or removing each disc, individually, and inspecting it more closely, she was pulling them out, in fistfuls, and then hurling them down on to the carpet around her!

I immediately tried to encourage her to desist from this somewhat disruptive (one could even say violent!) behaviour, but she was talking all the while (ten to the dozen!) and asking a series of these infernal questions that one couldn’t really find an answer to, saying things like, ‘This is such a taupe house, don’t you think? Catrin’s so very taupe . Don’t you just loathe taupe, Laura?’

(She called me ‘Laura’ throughout the time we spent together.

It later transpired that Laura was the name of Veterinary Crawford’s dead mother.)

At last (at long last!) she happened across a compact disc that she didn’t mind the look of and shoved it into the CD player — Ravel’s Boléro , I think (yes. The Boléro . I’m sure of it, now), but it was almost impossible to tell what it was when it actually began to play because Lydia May had turned it up to such a deafening volume.

The rattle of the drum (is that how the thing starts?) during the opening refrain sounded not unlike a volley of gunshots. In fact I was so startled by this explosion of sudden harsh sound that I lurched to my feet, in alarm (I was crouched on the floor, trying to gather the wretched CDs together, some of which had slipped out of their plastic containers), and inadvertently knocked Lydia May’s sherry glass from her hand!

The sherry went everywhere, Mr Jennings: my cardigan, the CDs, the carpet (which isn’t taupe, for the record, but what I’d call a very modern and attractive ‘pale mushroom’ colour).

‘Oh, you clumsy old fool!’ Lydia May exclaimed (once I’d finished grappling with the volume controls; I remember her words exactly, for some reason). ‘Now look what you’ve gone and done!’

Well, I tried to keep my wits about me, Mr Jennings (even in the face of this abusive onslaught!), and hobbled into the kitchen to look for a cloth to clean up the mess with. I’d just located one (under the sink) when I thought I could hear a phone ringing in the other room. By the time I’d returned, however (cloth in hand), Lydia May had already finished her brief conversation and was hanging up the receiver.

‘Was that Catrin?’ I asked, slightly breathless. ‘Uh… yes,’ Lydia May answered, turning and inspecting an abstract watercolour on the wall behind her with a sudden — very intense — level of interest. ‘Yes. I do believe it was.’

‘Did she mention whether she would be home any time soon?’ I followed up.

Lydia May didn’t respond to my question at once. Instead, she continued to inspect the painting, very closely, until, ‘What the hell is this?’ she demanded, pointing to it.

‘An abstract,’ I answered promptly (and why not? The question seemed perfectly uncontentious).

‘A bowl of fruit, I believe.’ ‘A bowl of fruit?!’ Lydia May echoed, plainly astonished. ‘A bowl of fruit?! Seriously?!’

She drew in still closer to the painting, until her nose was almost pressed up against the glass. ‘Is there a problem?’ I asked (somewhat querulous, now).

‘Fruit , you say? Fruit? But what about…?’ She stepped back again, scratching her head, obviously deeply puzzled. ‘I mean how can you possibly ignore…?’

‘Ignore what?’

I stared at her, nervously.

‘Those!’

She pointed.

I gazed at the painting, blankly.

‘Those! Those!’ She continued to point. ‘The two, huge iguanas , stupid!’ she exclaimed (although she pronounced it ig-hu-anas). ‘The two of them, right there, just… just…’

She threw up her hands, horrified.

‘Iguanas?’ I murmured, hoping that if I gazed at the painting for long enough, the iguanas might just magically materialize (but I could see no physical evidence of the iguanas, Mr Jennings! All I saw was an apple, an orange, some grapes and possibly a pear).

‘Urgh!’ Lydia May grimaced, turning to face me, again, appalled. ‘Don’t you just find that perfectly disgusting?!’ I didn’t answer her immediately. Instead I pretended to busy myself (to win a little time) with the sherry stain on the carpet.

‘I mean in a public space like this? A lounge-cum-diner? To hang a picture — a painting — on your wall, of two, huge, taupe reptiles sodomizing each other? Doesn’t that revolt you, Laura? Doesn’t that just make you sick to your very stomach?!’

I stopped dabbing at the carpet for a moment and gazed up at her, dumbly.

‘I mean here we supposedly are, in this safe, taupe world,’ she continued blithely, ‘this safe, respectable , taupe world. Everything in its place… Everything “just so”… And then hanging there, in the middle of it, right in the middle of it, at the very heart of it, these vile and brazen reptiles, these two, huge, deviant reptiles, engaged in a blatant act of filthy, lusty, uninhibited—’