Dandruff Hits The Turtleneck Read online

  Chapter Twelve

  Lunch with Councillor Ted Scampi

  An invitation to share a trough with Ted Scampi needs no prolonged consideration before the acceptance speech is delivered.

  ‘Beeley’s Bistro, one o’clock. See you there, Ted.’

  Throughout the village, the general consensus on Councillor Edward Scampi is a straight yea or nay. You either love his brash, big-mouthed bullishness or you wouldn’t trust him any further than you could sling your grandmother’s bedstead. For my money, I’ve always liked the old devil. Alright, he comes at you like a Rhinoceros diving from the top splash and only listens to every fifteenth sentence you say to him, but I still insist that his heart is a decent nugget and his spirit and liberality are as genuine as his late-father’s Trilby and Victorian tie pin.

  I arrived at Beeley’s a few minutes early but old Ted had beat me to it and was already in full swing on the blower, while one of the waiters desperately tried to edge into the picture as Ted went through the gears on a spot of business…

  ‘No, what I actually said was, that to tune a xylophone properly you must have your ears syringed and then lengthened by special lead weights and pulleys. Only then can you be certain of perfect pitch.’

  ‘Are you ready to order sir?’

  ‘And blow-football and threepenny bits hardly get a look-in these days - and whatever happened to gimlets for pity’s sake?’

  ‘I can recommend the lemon sole.’

  ‘And when Sir Dennis announced he thought that everyone knew that courgettes were bilingual and the price of tortoises in Venezuela are the equivalent of three bedroom semis in Stoke Poges....’

  ‘Or the haunch of venison?’

  ‘And don’t try to tell me that it’s possible to squeeze eleven sea-lions into a Vauxhall Victor and still have room for grandma to finish her macramé because my lymph glands wouldn’t believe you ........ Sorry? Who’s that?’

  ‘I said, are you ready to order sir?’

  ‘Still, what’s a mongoose between two lopsided goalposts…?’

  ‘Ted, good to see you,’ I managed to squeeze in before he left the runway again.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ he boomed, before turning to the waiter and adding, ‘two of whatever the chef recommends and another couple of bottles of this delicious Chateau whatever it is…’

  ‘Certainly, Sir,’ hissed the exasperated waiter, and sauntered off to get the grub under starters orders.

  I have dined with Ted Scampi on quite a few occasions and despite the fact that I have never had the chance to choose something of my own from the menu, I’ve never been let down by his faultless taste and open expense account. His first bottle of red was already almost a dead soldier, but he managed to pour me half a glassful before the reinforcements arrived.

  ‘Ah, splendid, splendid,’ Ted chirruped to the waiter, ‘Just leave ‘em there; we’ll see they don’t escape…’

  The waiter headed for the relatively safe foxhole of the kitchen. Once the wine had arrived there was only one thing I needed to do. I asked the obvious and lit the blue touch paper. See you in about ten minutes…

  ‘So, how’ve you been, Ted?’

  ‘If you ask me, they had it coming all along…all along, they had it coming.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Elect people like that on to the board, you’re asking for trouble.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Frederickson’s no more than some sort of glorified maggot farmer; Tindall has all the insight and enthusiasm of a half-eaten tube of Smarties and when it comes to ideas and initiative, I’ve got more time for a trawler full of dead whelks than I have for Eric Sutherland and his loopy mistress. If it is a woman…got my doubts…’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘You see,’ said Ted, mellowing in a lay-by as he topped up our wine glasses, ‘What it all boils down to is this…’ First, second, third gear through to fourth and away…

  ‘Ask any police dog and he’ll tell you where the bones are buried. Whisper ‘I love you’ into the shell of an untrained Bulldog, it’ll turn round and whip your ears off, pronto.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Gunslingers don’t wander into the saloon bar with peashooters in their holsters.’

  ‘With you there, Ted.’

  ‘You don’t catch the Dalai Lama reading his copy of The Beano in public, no more than you’d see Buzz Aldrin screaming ‘Remember me?’ at the man in the moon.’

  ‘Too right.’

  ‘Anyway…’ Ted petered out. I quaffed and anticipated another mini-hurricane at any moment. It never arrived.

  ‘I got a ‘phone call,’ said Scampi, seemingly back on the straight and narrow.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ I said.

  ‘From old Harold Garstang. Trying to line me up to attend some sort of cheese and wine bash at the local ale house.’

  ‘Arnold Matson’s place. Nice bloke. You met him?’

  ‘Some sort of insect freak, by all accounts. Get him a seat on the council with those qualifications.’

  ‘He’s an interesting man, Ted. You’ll like him…Anyway, it’s not just insects he’s into; he loves nature generally. Knows his stuff.’

  ‘I could have a word with him about my Wilting Magnolia,’ said Scampi, inspecting the wine label.

  ‘He once let me in on a little secret about Gorilla’s,’ I said.

  ‘Really?’ sighed Ted, now peeling off said label.

  ‘Apparently, they only have a one-and-a-quarter-inch member.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Ted, perking up.

  ‘It’s true…and Arnold also told me that the Chimpanzee, a copulator of gigantic appetite, with hundreds of sexual encounters and dozens of females each year, fares little better.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Ted, genuinely impressed…’Maybe I’ll not mention my Wilting Magnolia after all…’ he said.