Hide-and-Seek

This is the sort of weather that makes you go outside and sing to something. Even the sound of other people singing didn't dampen my mood on Sunday. I spent the afternoon strolling around the garden, just appreciating familiar things dressed in bright sunlight or dark shadows. Most of the neighbours chose to spend the afternoon with the unfamiliar sights at a knitting festival. People are still telling me about the knitted teapots for stainless steel tea cosies, the knitted sheep, and the hundreds of knitted scarecrows I missed out on, but I'm glad I stayed in the garden.

My cousin Albert was planning on spending a few weeks doing as little as possible in the sun after finishing his summer exams in college one year, but when you want to do nothing, something always comes along. One morning, just two days after finishing his exams, he got a phone call from one of his neighbours, Denise, who had a small farm a few hundred yards away. All she said was, "I'm using that favour now."

He knew exactly what she meant, and he knew what it meant for his plan to do nothing. But a promise was a promise. He said, "I'll be there in a few minutes."

Denise had done him a favour six months earlier, after he bought a caravan in the pub one night. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but he regretted it on the following morning. He started to see the drawbacks then. Chief amongst them was the fact that he didn't want a caravan. He couldn't remember why he had wanted it on the previous night. There must have been some reason why he had agreed to pay far too much for it. He strained his aching head in his efforts to unearth that reason, but he found nothing. He didn't want a caravan, and even if he did he wouldn't have wanted one with holes where there shouldn't be any holes at all. He was faced with a simple choice: either give his head a rest and then try again to remember why he had wanted it, or else sell the caravan. He tried the latter option first, but he couldn't find a buyer, so he started searching his head again. He couldn't think of any reason why he would possibly want a caravan.

He was starting to think he'd have to resign himself to owning a caravan until Denise agreed to buy it. He said she could have it for nothing, but she insisted on paying him. He felt the lightness of heart of a man who didn't want a caravan and didn't have a caravan. He told her he owed her a favour. And he wasn't just saying that, he said. She had to use this favour.

Saying that seemed like a good idea at the time. He didn't think it was necessarily a bad idea when she phoned him and asked him to come over. He thought she'd get him to do some job on the farm, but when he arrived at her farm yard and saw her standing next to an elephant he started to worry. He thought it might be wise to ignore the elephant. He started talking about the fine weather, but she interrupted him.

"He's real!" she said. "The elephant! He's actually real!"

"Yeah. I thought he might be."

"My aunt Elsie has been talking about her elephant for years. 'I'm knitting Christmas stockings for my elephant,' she'd say. Or, 'Toby goes to the library with me.' Toby is the elephant. This elephant. We always thought he was a figment of her imagination, like her stories about armoured cars and gun-running, but he's real! She lives in Louth and I haven't visited her in years. We send each other two or three letters a year and there's the occasional phone call. Last week she phoned me and asked me to look after Toby for a few weeks while she attended to 'important business overseas'. I said I'd be delighted to look after him, thinking I'd hear no more about it, but this morning a truck arrived and Toby was on the back of it."

"And where do I come into this?"

"I'll be keeping him in a cow shed by night, but he'll be in a field by day, and I need you to watch him so he doesn't get away."

"Wouldn't I just be taking work away from a fence?"

"He can climb over fences, ditches or gates, or just demolish them. As soon as you turn your back he'll try to tip-toe away. Being an elephant, he'll make noise no matter how softly he treads, so there isn't much chance of him getting away as long as someone is there to watch him."

Albert remembered the caravan and he told himself it was a fair valuation of the favour.

But after two hours of watching Toby he started to wonder if this was another bad deal. He'd gone beyond the age when he'd pay to see an elephant in a zoo, and even when he was young and the sight of an elephant was a source of wonder he used to get bored after about twenty seconds of looking and pointing at them. After two hours, concrete walls of tedium were being built in his head.

He was distracted by the sight of a butterfly flying around in circles. He couldn't tell how long he was looking at the butterfly, but it was long enough for an elephant to escape. When Albert looked back he saw the gap in the ditch where Toby had left the field. Albert knew he'd have trouble explaining how a butterfly flying in circles could be more noticeable than an elephant tip-toeing through a ditch. He'd have to do his best to get Toby back before explaining this to Denise.

He ran after Toby, who started running when he heard Albert's footsteps. Toby seemed to be enjoying the chase. He resolutely refused to stop until he was too tired to go any further, and then he resolutely refused to go any further, even though he was lying on flowerbeds.

Albert didn't know who owned this garden. A man emerged from the house and slowly walked down the garden path towards Toby. After spending a few minutes inspecting the contents of the flowerbeds he said, "I think there's little doubt that this elephant is not real."

"That's where you're mistaken," Albert said. "You wouldn't be the first to make that mistake, but it's a crucial one."

"I'd be very surprised if this turned out to be real. If the elephant is real, then the lion in my glasshouse is probably real as well, and the leprechauns drilling for oil in my kitchen."

"Right. All I can say is that the elephant is definitely real."

"It doesn't matter what you say. The fact that you insist that this is real makes it very likely that you're not real. I haven't slept in over a week. It's this warm weather. I can never sleep in warm weather. And a few niggling worries aren't helping either. I find it much easier to deal with the big worries. It's the niggling ones I hate, like my sister's insistence on calling me by my real name after so many years of calling me Spitty. She started calling me that when she was three. Why did she have to suddenly stop when she's forty-three? Was it something I said or did? I've been hallucinating a lot recently. There are many occasions when I have to decide if something is real or not real. It's obvious that the elephant in my garden is not real."

"There's nothing I can say to convince you that it's real, but I know someone who can help you get to sleep. He's a psychiatrist. Sort of. After a brief chat with him you'll have no trouble nodding off. He'll ask you a few questions and he'll figure out exactly what needs to be said to put your mind at rest. I used his services a few weeks ago when I was struggling to sleep before my exams. I remember him asking me if I had any bad childhood memories relating to peas or celery, and the next thing I know I'm waking up on the floor of the pub on the following morning. And if you think I woke up there because I was drunk, you're wrong. They would have thrown me out at closing time if I was drunk. They knew I badly needed the sleep, so they left me there. People just stepped over me on the way to the bar."

The man who owned Toby's new bed agreed to watch the elephant while Albert went to get Frank, the sort-of-psychiatrist. He had a sort-of office in a pub. Albert took his time going there because it was a break from his elephant-sitting duties. Frank and Albert both took their time on the way back to see the patient. Albert spoke about the patient's lack of sleep, about being called Spitty and then not being called Spitty. It all made perfect sense to Frank. "I have a filing cabinet full of files on cases relating to childhood nicknames," he said.

"I didn't know you kept files."

"They're all in my head. Where else would I keep them? I can't explore other people's heads without living in my own."

Frank told Albert about a recent case involving the nickname 'Gorilla' and a confusion about what you'd find inside a light bulb.

When they got to the garden, they saw the man Albert had asked to watch the elephant, but the space he was watching was noticeably lacking in elephants.

"I thought you were supposed to be watching Toby," Albert said.

"Some pixies led him away. I assumed they weren't real. I have a memory of being fairly convinced that pixies aren't real. So what could I do to stop them? I have some control over what's in my garden but I have little control over the garden in my mind."

Albert followed the trail of destruction Toby had left on his exit from the garden. Frank stayed behind with his patient. Albert heard him say, "Would I be right in saying that one of your earliest childhood memories is of a frog?" Albert didn't hear an answer to that question. He just heard the sound of the patient landing on a flowerbed as sleep finally overcame him.

The pixies turned out to be kids who were playing with Toby in an orchard. Toby was lying in the shade, occasionally reaching up with his trunk to pick an apple. The kids were running around him, pretending that he was playing with them. They told Albert that this was their elephant, that his name was Henrietta, and that tomorrow would be a big day for Henrietta because the President was coming to meet him. Albert was in no mood to argue with kids, and he didn't think it mattered anyway because Toby looked so content in the orchard that it didn't seem likely he'd be moving any time soon. So Albert went home to get something to eat and have a rest. He watched horse racing on TV, and then he sat outside in the sun for an hour before going back to the orchard.

Toby had already left. Albert followed the trail to another garden. This one was owned by Mrs. Foley. She had no trouble believing that the elephant was real because she could see the evidence of the destruction done to her flowerbeds. She reacted like someone staggering through a battlefield in the aftermath of a ferocious battle. She was overwhelmed by the destruction. Albert thought it would be a good idea to get away before she returned to being whelmed, and Toby seemingly shared this thought because he agreed to be led back to the farm.

He slept soundly in the cow shed that night. Albert had a good night's sleep as well, but he wasn't looking forward to a full day of elephant watching. After two hours of looking at Toby in the morning, and ignoring butterflies, he didn't think he'd be able to cope with the stress of a full day spent watching an elephant. His plan to do nothing for a few weeks had distinctly less of an elephant flavour than this. He had to do something, so he decided to play hide-and-seek with Toby. He turned around and started counting to a hundred, and he kept counting when he heard Toby knocking down the gate.

The moose's head over the fireplace doesn't need to be watched to make sure he doesn't get away. Maybe there's someone out there who owns the body of a moose, and they have to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't wander off. The wife's uncle says that one of his first jobs was looking after a sleep-walking donkey. The donkey led him into all sorts of trouble, which they both enjoyed. That donkey was probably the only donkey ever to go hang-gliding and never to find out that he'd been hang-gliding because he slept through the whole thing, and afterwards his minder struggled to explain the concept of hang-gliding to him.

Finding a place to relax

The garden gnomes are looking forward to the summer. They have big plans. Some of them have been digging a hole in the orchard. I'm not too concerned about this. If all of them joined together they might be able to dig a hole big enough to trap me, but eight of them have formed a jazz band. I've heard them practicing at night. They made their own instruments from things they found in the shed. The musical instruments in the shed would be far too big for them. These instruments have been there since my grandfather abandoned plans for his band. He had recruited some friends to play with him, but there were too many disagreements, and he feared for their friendships, so he abandoned the band. At first the disagreements concerned things like the name of the band or what sort of headgear they should wear. Within a few days they were having ferocious arguments about whether or not you should carry on as if nothing had happened after you've spilt a jug of milk on the carpet in a neighbour's house.

My cousin Charlotte once found herself in dire need of a way to relieve her stress. At work she shared an office with two women who kept humming to themselves for most of the day. She had learnt to live with this until builders started working next door. The women just kept humming happily to themselves, and whenever the building noise ceased the humming seemed louder than ever.

In the evenings she often went for walks along the banks of a river to relax. She needed these walks more than ever while the builders were working in the office next door, but the evenings were ruined by a boat club who were planning on recreating a naval battle on the river. They practised for the event each evening. As far as Charlotte could make out, this practise was no more than men on boats shouting at each other through megaphones, each night getting closer to a real battle.

She was sure she'd be able to relax when she went to a pub to take part in a table quiz with some friends one evening. At the end of the quiz, the scores were tied between Charlotte's team and a team who called themselves The Dull Thuds. The quiz master said he'd ask each team a tie-breaker question to settle it. They had to nominate someone to answer this question. Charlotte's friends all chose her.

The other team went first. A man called Dennis was chosen to answer their question. The quiz master said to him, "Do you know where Tashkent is?"

"No," Dennis said.

"Correct. That means the other team need to get this right." The quiz master turned to Charlotte and said, "Where is Tashkent?"

Charlotte took a guess at Russia, but the quiz master said, "I'm afraid that's incorrect. The answer is Uzbekistan."

Charlotte was furious with the way they lost the quiz. Her stress levels were higher than ever. She met Uncle Cyril on the following day and she said, "I desperately need to do something to relax, and the fact that I desperately need something only makes it more difficult to relax. I'm starting to think I'm going mad."

Cyril said, "If you think you're going mad, talk to yourself about it."

"I'm not sure that's going to help."

"Then you could try helping clear the old newspapers out of my study."

"Is it going to help me or is it just going to help you?"

"Well it can't do you any harm."

It did do her harm. There were hundreds of old newspapers in the study. When she was lifting a pile of them down from the top of a bookcase she didn't notice that there was a jar full of pens on top of the pile until all of the pens and the jar fell on her head.

"There's a jar full of pens on top of that one," Cyril said.

Charlotte discussed her stress with a friend of hers called Elinor. "You're looking for relaxation in the wrong places," Elinor said. "You're looking for it in places where you think you'll find it, like the walk by the river or the table quiz in the pub. You have an expectation about how these things will go, and when they don't go according to expectations you get stressed. What you need is a leap into the unknown. Do something where you have no idea what's going to happen. Anything could happen and it wouldn't go against your expectations. Everything that happens will be exciting. Your mind will be engaged, and that's the way to ease your stress. When most people want to relax they try to do as little as possible, but I always try to do something new and exciting. You're welcome to come along on my latest adventure."

"What's that?"

"I'm going to spy on a chocolate factory tonight. I came across this place by chance last week when I was driving to a beach and I got lost on the narrow roads. This factory is out in the middle of nowhere. It's a huge square building, and it looks as if the exterior walls are made out of oak planks. Some people living nearby told me that the factory's owner, a man called Charles, hasn't left the building in over twenty-five years. He's very secretive about his methods. There are rumours that he's been working on a chocolate replica of a U-boat for years, and that he has workers who use telepathic powers to alter the flavour of the chocolate. One man told me that underneath the factory there's a particle accelerator that's used to make chocolate fudge bars. The canteen is as good as any restaurant. A chamber orchestra play there to calm the nerves of the workers. Happy workers make happy chocolate. This is especially true of the workers who use telepathy. Their sleeping quarters are like something you'd pay a few grand a night for in a hotel. Some of the workers hardly ever leave, and when they do it's always on busses or cars with dark windows."

Spying on a factory in the middle of the night didn't sound very relaxing, but she decided to accept Elinor's argument that she'd only ease her stress by doing something that didn't sound very relaxing. As they were hiding behind bushes at two o' clock in the morning, observing the factory through binoculars, Charlotte did start to feel relaxed, even though their mission was likely to result in failure. There was a line of windows near the factory's roof. Lights were on in some of the windows, but they couldn't see in. The glass was blue.

Charlotte feared greater stress than ever when she heard a voice. "Spying on the factory, are ye?"

They looked around and they saw a man wearing the uniform of a security guard. They assumed he was guarding the factory.

"No," Charlotte said. "We were... bird-watching."

"Ye don't need to worry. Every night I meet people who come here to spy on the factory and I don't worry about it. If ye actually made it into the factory I'd probably lose my job, but it's never happened before. That's why I love my job."

"Can you tell us about what's going on inside?"

"I haven't been in there in twenty-five years. There wasn't anything extraordinary to see back then, but I know it's changed a lot over the years. Charles used to run the factory with a man called Edwin, but their business partnership came to an end with a disagreement twenty-five years ago. Edwin left to set up his own chocolate factory in Scotland. We get mail from there at least once a year. Ever since Edwin left, Charles has hardly ever left his factory. He's been entirely free to run the place according to his own peculiar ideas."

The security guard wished them luck in their observations and he walked away.

"I wonder what Edwin and Charles disagreed over," Elinor said.

"We'd have to go to Scotland to find that out."

"Let's go then."

"To Scotland?"

"Yeah. Come on." Elinor started walking away.

"Are you mad?" Charlotte said.

"I don't think so."

"Oh. Okay." Charlotte followed Elinor.

It took three days of travel down remote roads in the Scottish Highlands before they finally found Edwin's factory. They had given the security guard a small bribe to get the address. He would have given the address without a bribe, but he took the money anyway. He said he'd use it to buy something for a dog.

This factory was nowhere near as impressive as the one Edwin had left behind in Ireland. It looked just like a shed. Edwin opened the door when they knocked on it. He was pleasantly surprised when he found out that they had travelled all the way from Ireland just to see his factory. They were surprised when he welcomed them in to see his operation. They had assumed that he'd set up his factory in such a remote place because he was as secretive as his former business partner. On the subject of Charles, he was willing to tell them all they wanted to know. Their business relationship had ended because of a disagreement over what colour the security guards' shirts should be. Edwin wanted blue but Charles wanted grey. "It was just one of those things we couldn't agree on," Edwin said. "We had agreed to disagree on much bigger things, like wars or what to do about fires. But somehow the little things always caught us out. We nearly came to blows over how to make vegetable soup, and neither of us even liked vegetable soup. We couldn't reconcile our differences over the shirts, so I left to set up my own factory here, and make my security guards wear blue shirts. Of course, I never actually needed security guards, but I'm still glad I came here. I prefer the relaxed atmosphere of my factory. From what I've heard, Charles is anything but relaxed."

There wasn't much to see in Edwin's factory. He had a few employees making chocolate and baking. They spent most of their time sitting at a table, drinking tea and eating their creations. They asked Charlotte and Elinor to join them for afternoon tea, which went on until closing time in the evening.

As they were driving away, Elinor asked Charlotte if she had enjoyed the afternoon.

"I really didn't need to come to Scotland for that," Charlotte said. "I could have done it all at home. But it probably would have been really irritating at home. Someone would have called on the phone and asked me to look after their pet rats or their children. One of them would be referring to her children when she asks me to look after her pet rats."

"We should set up our own chocolate factory."

"That's a great idea. I could make some rhubarb pies for it."

"I know the perfect location. My aunt converted her garden shed into an office when she set up her dating agency, but that never got off the ground. I'm sure she'd let us use it for our factory."

They worked in this factory in the evenings after work. They only hired people who didn't make annoying humming noises, didn't have annoying laughs and were never likely to talk about pet rats or children in the factory. They consumed everything that they produced. Rumours started to spread about what was going on inside. It was claimed that they were using black magic to make the chocolate, or that the chocolate factory was really a cover for a bomb factory. People started spying on them. Charlotte liked the idea of people hiding in trees, observing them through binoculars. She knew she was probably helping them relax simply by relaxing herself.

The moose's head over the fireplace is looking very relaxed these days. I think he's looking forward to summer as well. Some people stare at him when they want to ease their stress. I find it impossible to relax when people stare at me. In fairness, the staring is very often the result of something I've done, so I've no one but myself to blame. When I'm covered from head to toe in strawberry jam, popcorn and feathers, I can't complain if I attract the attention of onlookers.

Visions

The grass needs to be cut, but I don't feel like doing anything to the garden for a while. One of our neighbours had a garden party on Saturday afternoon. I'm certain he said it was a garden party, but when we got there he explained that it was actually a gardening party. These 'ing's have caused me nothing but trouble in the past. Some of the guests were happy to mow lawns, dig up weeds and plant flowers. Others, myself included, came up with some elaborate plots for revenge. But all of these plots were abandoned because the food and drink we were given in the evening was of an exceptionally high standard.

My cousin Charlie got a visit from one of his neighbours one Saturday afternoon. It was a man called Ron, who was new to the area. Charlie had only met Ron once before in the local shop, so he was very surprised when his new neighbour called around and said, "I was wondering if you'd like to come to my wedding."

Charlie asked him why he'd ask a virtual stranger to his wedding. Ron said, "My fiancee, Stephanie, will think I'm inadequate if I can only invite a small handful of friends to the wedding. She has a swarm of friends. That's the only way to describe them. She can't know any of them very well because there are so many. I'm perfectly content with three or four close friends who I know well, who share my antipathy towards crowds. I've never had good experiences with crowds or swarms. The noise they make as a group is bad enough, and it's ten times worse when you have to talk to one of them. It's possible to detect a few words in the noise, if you pay close attention. They assume that you're one of the swarm, that you actually want to be there, and you want to hear about every twist and turn of a conversation they had with a friend who only recently discovered, to her horror, that duck eggs are made by ducks. Stephanie is always going to parties or barbeques to maintain her social life. And weddings. I've had it up to here with weddings. Things always go wrong for me at these gatherings. I'll spill something on my clothes or I'll trip and knock over a table holding things that will spill on my clothes. People always end up pointing and laughing at me. They think I enjoy being pointed and laughed at. I was at a party last week and a clock fell on my head. When they'd finished pointing and laughing at me, one of them got a black marker and drew the face of a clock on my face while others held me down. They thought that this is what I wanted. The very fact that I had to be held down would tell a normal person that it's not what I wanted, but there are times when they actually want to be forced into doing things against their will. That might sound like a contradiction, but I've heard all their stories. They'll tell you about the time their friends kidnapped them, took them on a terrifying night-time trip through the fields on a trailer and left them in a pile of manure without any clothes, and they'll tell you it was the best night of their lives. After they'd finished pointing and laughing at the clock they'd drawn, one of them said that the clock had stopped my face, but at least I'd be right twice a day. Most of them didn't understand that, but they all thought it was hilariously funny."

"I know exactly how you feel. I hate crowds as well. The last time I was at a wedding I became the target of a group of kids. I was their prey, their entertainment for the day. I had to endure a lot of pointing and laughing from the kids and from people who have the brains of kids, or the mentality of kids. Most of the adults there wouldn't have been as smart as those children. I'd have admired their resourcefulness if I hadn't been the target of their ruses. I still haven't figured out how they managed to steal my shoes without my knowledge. There are some weddings you have to go to even though you'd rather be kidnapped at night and dumped in a pile of manure. From what you've told me, some people would love to go to a wedding even though they'd rather be kidnapped at night and dumped in a pile of manure. Seeing as I've only met you once before in the shop and our brief conversation concerned the quality of the cabbages on sale, I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline your invitation. But I would like to help you out. I could introduce you to some friends of mine who love going to weddings."

"That's an offer I'll gladly accept."

Charlie introduced him to Alex, Brendan and Laura, and they all said they'd be delighted to go to Ron's wedding. Alex loves to talk, and he loves large gatherings like weddings because he'll never run out of people who'll get sick of hearing him talk, and every so often he'll meet someone who shares his interest in the way some things are yellow and other things are not. Brendan loves weddings simply because they're a way to meet women, and he'd have to be bursting with energy for the whole day if every woman there was sickened by his company by the end of the night. Laura enjoys weddings because she loves seeing people expressing their joy on such a happy day, though she likes going to funerals as well.

A few days after the introductions were made, Charlie met Ron in the shop again. Charlie was going to say something about the improvement in the cabbages, but Ron said, "I'm in love!"

"You seem surprisingly enthusiastic about your wedding," Charlie said.

"Wedding? No, the wedding's off. I'm in love with Laura."

"Since when?"

"It took about half an hour of getting to know her before I realised that we were perfect for each other and that Stephanie was the last person I should be spending the rest of my life with. Laura is nothing like Stephanie. She has no interest in amassing vast quantities of friends she barely knows and going to parties with idiots. She'd rather go for a walk with me, and just talk about things."

"It does sound as if Laura is more suited to you. Is Stephanie upset?"

"She'll be fine when she realises that I'm the last person she should be spending the rest of her life with. The only reason she wanted to marry me was because a friend of hers told her he had a vision of her in ten years time, a happy family scene with her as the wife, me as the husband, and little angels as the kids. I don't know which part of it is more unlikely -- me being happily married to Stephanie or kids being little angels. She has complete trust in the visions and proclamations of this man because she thinks he's a mystic, and she seems to think that having a beard qualifies him as a mystic."

Charlie had another visitor to his house that evening. It was Stephanie, and she was very upset. "I heard about what you did," she said. "Why did you do that to me?"

"I didn't mean to do anything to you. I'm very sorry about the way things worked out, but..."

"My fiance invited you to our wedding and you thought to yourself, 'I need to introduce this man to another woman.' And you're saying you didn't mean to do anything to me?"

"Yes, but..."

"Don't think you'll get away with this. I have friends who are very angry about what you did to me. I don't know what they've got planned for you, and I don't want to know until after they've done it. It'll be something to look forward to."

She smiled before she walked away. Charlie was afraid that her friends would kidnap him in the middle of the night and dump him in a pile of manure, but that would be the sort of thing they'd do if they wanted to cheer him up. He had to somehow convince her that he hadn't meant her any harm, that he was actually trying to do her a favour, that he had actually even done her a favour.

He went to see her, and he told her that his intervention had only come about after a mystical friend of his had a vision in which she was happily married to a man who most certainly was not Ron.

"Who was it?" she said.

"It's... I can't say."

"It's you, isn't it?"

"No. I mean... no."

"It's you!"

"No. I can't say who it is because... my friend with the beard couldn't say who it was."

"There's no need to worry. I know it's you. Why else would you be so concerned about breaking up my engagement? I've never even met you before. And why would your friend tell you about it? Why would he think you'd need to know about a woman you've never met before?"

"There's logic in that. Just let me have a think about this for a second."

While Charlie was thinking, some of her friends arrived. She introduced them to him, and they could see by the look in her eyes that he was the new man in her life. More friends arrived, and soon a party had started to celebrate Stephanie's new-found happiness. Charlie got the feeling that this gathering was taking on the tone of an engagement party. People were congratulating him.

Another vision was called for. A mystic was needed as well, and when he tried to think of someone who could fill the role, he thought of Nick, who smelled of spirits and he rarely shaved. His appearance suggested that he had no regard for material, worldly things. He could easily fool Stephanie into thinking that his mind was in a higher realm. Charlie's plan was for Nick to come to the party and identify the man he saw in his vision. Charlie needed to choose someone to be that man. There were many candidates at the party. After giving the matter some consideration, he chose a man called Jake. He thought that Jake would be ideal for Stephanie because he seemed perfectly at home in a swarm of people who never fail to laugh when someone says the word 'bongo'.

Charlie phoned Nick and outlined the plan. Nick's reward would be a bottle of whiskey, so he was eager to play his part. He arrived at the party half an hour later. Charlie pointed out Jake, and shortly afterwards Nick pointed at Jake and said, "It's you!" Everyone looked at Nick. "You're the man I saw in my vision. You're the man who'll marry Stephanie."

Stephanie gazed at Jake as if she believed Nick. Jake looked as if he'd just been bound, gagged and kidnapped in the middle of the night. Charlie slipped away rather than waiting around to see if this would turn out to be an enjoyable experience for Jake.

The moose's head over the fireplace is staring at a painting of actors performing on a stage. The wife bought it at an auction. It's difficult to avoid staring at it. I spent two hours contemplating the scene yesterday, and during that time I became convinced that the actor playing the devil is madly in love with the actress playing the devil's pilot. The wife's aunt says that she once joined a church whose members spent most of their time praying that the devil would find love, and their prayers proved to be effective. They saw him one night with his personal fitness trainer (they knew that she was his personal fitness trainer because this is what they had prayed for). The happy couple were taking a romantic walk along the banks of a river. Every so often, the devil would forget himself and grab a duck to bite its head off, but his personal fitness trainer always stopped him, which was exactly what the wife's aunt and her friends had prayed for.

The Car and the Curse

I came across my grandfather's plans to build a cafe in the garden. Like many of his plans, they never came to fruition. There were a few plans that he put into action, and a few of them turned out to be successful, like the summer he opened the gardens to the public. The success of this venture is what gave him the idea for the cafe. One woman used to come to the gardens every day. She spoke to sunflowers, and sometimes sunflowers spoke back to her, but this might have been the effects of sunstroke. Being insulted by a sunflower was much more devastating than being insulted by a person. People had absolutely no idea what they were talking about when they insulted her, whereas sunflowers always told the truth. Fortunately, insults were rare, and she was never insulted by any of the flowers or trees in these gardens.

My cousin Hector used to meet up with his friends, Sean and Steve, every Saturday morning. When Sean bought a second-hand metal detector, Hector and Steve spent a lot of time following him through fields as he searched for buried treasure. Hector and Steve got bored of this fairly quickly, but Sean was losing none of his enthusiasm for finding bottle tops and bullets. He was spending most of his time searching with his metal detector, regardless of whether or not he had followers.

Hector was trying to convince his daughters, Alice and Grace, to go to bed one Saturday night. Whatever argument he put forward, they always came up with a brilliant counter-argument. He thought that he'd tire them out eventually if he kept coming up with arguments, but he was starting to get tired himself and they were still as bright as ever. He was worried that he'd have to accept defeat to his daughters, so he was glad when Sean rang the doorbell and said there was something Hector had to see. They called to Steve's house to collect him, and then they walked to the woods. Sean said he'd been searching in the woods with his metal detector, and he'd finally found the treasure he'd been waiting for.

He led them down narrow paths amongst the trees, and then they left the paths and walked through the undergrowth. Hector could think of many arguments against walking through the woods late at night when you can't see where you're going, but he kept reminding himself of the treasure at the end of their journey.

The treasure was hidden beneath a canvas cover. It was an old Rolls Royce. It looked as if it had been abandoned in the woods for decades. The car was in poor condition, and even if you wanted to take it out of the woods there wasn't enough space to get it out through the trees. Hector couldn't figure out how it got into this resting place, though he had to accept that his mental faculties were probably impaired after arguing with his daughters.

Sean was determined to get the car out of the woods. He might have to cut down a few trees, but this car was his treasure and he wasn't going to abandon it. The car hadn't lost its battle with rust, but it would take a lot of work to restore the silver paint with the red line down the side. Sean said he'd get the engine running first, while the car was still hidden by the trees. His friend Doug was a mechanic who'd relish a job like this.

Sean worked on the car every evening for the next three weeks. Doug was there on most of those evenings. Hector and Steve often went along to help as well. Sean had to pay for most of the parts needed for the engine, but he found some of them amongst the junk in and around his house. He had amassed a vast supply of junk even before he started using his metal detector.

One afternoon he was out in his back yard, using an old kettle to hammer a lawnmower that looked as if it would benefit from a good hammering. He could have walked the three yards to get his hammer, but the kettle was close at hand, so he used that. It was doing a good job as a hammer until the handle came off the kettle, or the kettle came off the handle and it flew threw the air, landing in Mrs. Darcy's garden. He looked through the hedge. The kettle had landed in a flowerbed. The last time he was on her property, she threatened to strangle a swan unless he left. The death of the swan would be on his conscience, she said. She obviously doesn't know much about Sean's conscience. A lot gets thrown at it, but very little sticks. He couldn't imagine himself mourning the passing of a swan strangled in his name. He wouldn't give it a moment's thought if he could use that moment to think about a tin of biscuits.

Mrs. Darcy didn't like Sean because he once made fun of her son's van. Her son is a country singer. He has some catchy songs, but he's developed an ego that's in no way justified by his achievements. If he spent his days nursing injured swans he'd be fully entitled to his sense of his own importance, and I'd imagine he wouldn't have to look far for patients if he set up a swan hospital.

Sean had to get the kettle back before she saw it. He had seen her driving away in her car earlier that day, so he crept through the hedge and ran across the lawn to the kettle's landing site. The flowerbed was near a window at the side of the house. After he had picked up the kettle he couldn't resist looking in the window.

He wasn't surprised by what he saw inside. The room was like the inverse of a room in his house. Most of his enemies had rooms just like this one. The place was spotless. The crystal vases on the sideboard looked as if they'd recently been polished, and the flowers they contained were fresh. The furniture showed few signs of wear and tear, and the carpet looked more comfortable than any of Sean's furniture.

He was just about to leave when he noticed a photo in a silver frame on the sideboard. It was an old colour photo, possibly from sometime in the sixties. In it, Mrs. Darcy's father was standing next to a car, a silver Rolls Royce with a red line down the side. Sean was convinced that this was the car he had found in the woods.

He told Hector and Steve about the photo. Hector suggested going to visit a man called Colum, who used to know Mrs. Darcy's father, Richard, back in the sixties. Richard worked in the music business back then. He managed bands and he owned a dance hall. He wasn't as successful as he liked to pretend he was. The Rolls Royce was the perfect tool for this pretence. The car was cheap because the man who sold it said he needed the money for an emergency wedding.

They went to see Colum, who remembered the car well. He told them that shortly after Richard had bought the car he found out the real reason why the seller was so eager to get rid of it. The Rolls Royce was cursed. Whoever owned the car would be plagued by misfortune. Accidents started happening to Richard. He was always falling down holes or being chased by vicious dogs.

He decided to abandon the car in the woods. He told his family that he'd sold it for a fortune. A few years later, he had a heart attack after being chased by a vicious dog, and he died.

At first, Sean dismissed the curse, but he became worried when accidents started happening to him as well. In truth, accidents have always been happening to him because he doesn't take enough precautions to avoid them. After abandoning the car, he was hit in the face by a piece of timber while he was hammering a chest of drawers with a portable television. He nearly set his coat on fire while he was trying to fix a wooden spoon, and he was hit on the head by three golf balls. This was a typical week for Sean. He used to go for walks on the golf course to annoy the golfers. They'd aim at him. But he thought all of these accidents were because of the curse, and he realised that he couldn't escape the curse as long as he was the owner. Richard couldn't avoid the plague of bad luck after he abandoned the car, and this bad luck eventually killed him. Sean became the new owner of the car when he started working on it, and he believed he had to pass it on to someone else before he'd escape the misfortune.

So he started working on the car again. His plan was to get the engine going and remove the car from the woods, and then he'd try to find a buyer. He found a way to get the car out, and he'd only have to cut down seven trees. This was a job that would have to be done at night. Hector and Steve agreed to help, but Steve insisted on planting new trees to replace the ones they'd cut down.

Sean spent most of the money he had on the car. He didn't have much. He had to search through all the junk he had in and around his house to find all the coins and cash he'd hidden away. But he believed all the time, effort and money spent would be worthwhile. It was a matter of life and death. The sound of the engine roar in the woods at night was like music to Sean's ears, a sound that was almost as beautiful as the roar of the chainsaws.

They successfully removed the car from the woods. When it was hiding under sheets behind Sean's house, his conscience finally woke up from its long slumber. He wondered if it would be right to pass on the curse to the new owner, someone who might be entirely undeserving of the misfortune. He decided to give the car to Mrs. Darcy instead. He'd tell her it was a peace offering. He found the car in the woods and he knew that her father had owned it. So he decided to renovate it, with the help of his friends, and give it back to its rightful owner, the daughter of its former owner. Sean felt no guilt about passing the curse on to Mrs. Darcy. She really was the rightful owner of the car. She should have inherited it from her father, and she should inherit the curse as well. Sean couldn't think of anyone more deserving of a potentially lethal dose of misfortune.

So he drove the car to her house and parked it in the driveway. She came out when she heard the familiar sound of the engine. It brought back many happy memories of her youth. Sean had only just begun his story about finding the car in the woods when she interrupted him. "I know about the curse," she said.

Sean was doing his best to pretend that he knew nothing of the curse, but she paid no attention to him. "I'll take the car anyway," she said. "I know someone who'll buy it from me, someone who might even pay a lot of money for it. He loves his cars. I've been looking for a way to get revenge on him for a long time. Ever since 1972, when he drew my face on a rock. I'd have forgotten about that a long time ago if he wasn't such a good artist. Everyone knew it was me, and his painting wasn't very complimentary. We've been trading insults ever since, and the occasional rock. I'll tell him that I've had a change of heart with regard to my hobby of collecting enemies. I've realised that life is too short, and bearing grudges only makes it shorter. I'll say that my father's Rolls Royce has been rotting away in my garage for years, and I know that he loves old cars, so I'd like him to have it. At a cost, of course. But it won't cost an arm and a leg."

A few days later, Mrs. Darcy called around to Sean's house and she told him that her plan had gone perfectly. The man who had painted her face on a rock was now the new owner of the car. She invited Sean, Hector and Steve around to her house for dinner that evening because she wanted to thank them for their part in helping her finally get revenge on her enemy.

It turned out to be the best meal Sean had eaten in years, and he saw it as confirmation that the curse had been lifted. As they were eating their dessert he asked Mrs. Darcy if she had felt uneasy about passing on such a deadly curse.

"There isn't really a curse," she said. "That was just a story my father came up with, an excuse to abandon the car in the woods. He wanted to get rid of it after he found out the real reason why the previous owner was so eager to sell. This car was once owned by a singer called Greg Architoggle, who was hugely popular for a while in the early sixties. It all went wrong for him when he released an album of songs he wrote himself. He thought it would make him a global star. He was full of enthusiasm for this album after years of frustration because of having to sing other people's songs, and pretending to be someone he wasn't. His fans didn't share his enthusiasm. They loved him when he was someone he wasn't, but they didn't like the real Greg. There were numerous songs about making a life-size woman out of tomatoes, butter and wire hangers. It sounded as if it was something he had actually done. Her name was Geraldine. His love song for Hitler didn't go down too well either. The album destroyed his career. No one in the industry would touch him with a barge pole after this. I don't know if any of them had actual barge poles, but almost everyone had a stick of some description. Hardly a day went by when they didn't have to trash a producer or a drummer. If they saw Greg, they'd start swinging their sticks in the air to make sure he didn't get anywhere near them. My father was afraid that his reputation would be ruined if people found out that he'd bought Greg's car. He thought that if he sold it, the new owner would find out about the infamous past owner eventually, and my father's secret would be revealed."

"So how were you getting revenge on your enemy by selling him the car?" Sean said.

"He used to idolise Greg. He actually built a shrine to Greg. Lighting candles and everything. But when he heard Greg's self-penned songs he tore down the shrine and he smashed his entire record collection with a sledge hammer. He didn't have any non-Greg records in his collection because it would have felt like worshipping false gods. I'll wait a few weeks before informing him of the car's past owner. I'll let him get attached to it first. It'll drive him mad."

"What'll he do to the car?"

"Do? I don't know. Polish it, I suppose."

"He won't want to get rid of it or smash it with a sledge hammer?"

"Oh no. When I say it'll drive him mad I mean it'll annoy him for a while. He'll see the funny side after a few hours. It's been a long time since his rejection of Greg."

As they were leaving Mrs. Darcy's house, Hector said to Sean, "So you spend a fortune repairing this car, and you give it to her for free, and then she sells it, probably for a few grand at the very least, and she does it just to annoy someone for a few hours. Who was she really getting revenge on? Was it the man who painted her face on a rock in 1972 or was it you?"

"It was the man who painted her face on a rock in 1972."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I'm one-hundred percent certain."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I just am."

"But why?"

"Because. Because. That's the end of the matter. The car and the curse will never be mentioned again. I'm going home to find that bottle I came across in a washing machine. It looked too tempting to test on a pig first."

The moose's head over the fireplace wouldn't approve of the gardens being open to the public. He enjoys the peace of the place. I have no intention of ever opening the gardens. I couldn't bear the thought of crowds ruining a sunny Sunday afternoon, even though it would be an easy way to make money. The wife's aunt has done very well financially since opening her garden to the public. She saw some beautiful moon orchids in a dream. She re-created the scene in her garden, with limestone for the lunar surface, and orchids made out of paper. Many people come to see it after dark.