Dandruff Hits The Turtleneck Page 23

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Game On

  I may not be a practising psychiatrist but as a keen observer of the human race, I can guarantee you the following…Put a handful of men into a room that contains a dartboard or snooker table and sooner or later, a metaphorical gauntlet will be thwacked across the slavering chops of some poor soul and a challenge will be laid down and graciously accepted.

  Following the rigours of downing and digesting a hearty breakfast a few hours earlier, the majority of the male contingency had buried themselves in newspapers that were at least two days old, or they had embarked on a series of strenuous yawning and stretching exercises in the comfort of obliging leather armchairs. But as soon as one of the gathered clan, in this case Stribley Wainwright, could be bothered to summon up the extra energy necessary to stroll the full six-yards and grab himself a cue from the line of wooden soldiers standing to attention in the rack on the far wall, it was action stations.‘

  Anybody fancy a game?’ he exhaled as he examined the cue from handle to rubber tip to make sure she was gun barrel-straight. ‘Why not?’ said Moot Point, creaking into life. As Councillor Ted Scampi had resumed his full-time residency on the telephone and Harold Garstang had headed for the safe haven of his room to sleep off three early pints, the only foursome available was Reginald Frimpton and the Reverend Colin Wheatsheaf; but having declared himself ‘Utterly useless, I’m afraid,’ the Reverend Colin felt the need for no further excuses and went to help Matson on cookhouse. Frimpton, without a doubles partner and temporarily beached for the nonce, offered to play the winner. However, Reginald did manage to come up with the best-received suggestion of the day thus far.

  ‘Anyone fancy a drink?’ he offered.

  ‘Pint,’ came back almost simultaneously from the two men of the baize.

  Frimpton toddled off to find Arnold Matson and do the necessary and returned a few minutes later with a heaving tray of frothing inspiration. He then volunteered to act as scorer and settled himself by the immaculate mahogany and brass-rails of the board on the far wall. Wainwright racked-up the reds and Moot had shown surprisingly nimble footwork as he manoeuvred round the table and popped the colours on their spots.

  Both contestants had chalked the tips of their cues fairly meticulously and it looked, to all intents and purposes, as though the pair of them knew what they were doing and a keenly fought contest was being anticipated by the capacity crowd. Alright, there was only actually Reginald Frimpton in attendance but as soon as he has managed to unfasten a particularly dogged resistant packet of smoky bacon crisps, the tension and expectation could well reach fever pitch…

  I dare say that there will be quite a few of you out there that have never played snooker on a full-size table, so I shall give you a tiny ringside insight, if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor, as to how vast an open space this greenery appears to a novice when he hasn’t played for a while; in the case of our current combatants, Stribley and Moot, that’s an aggregate total of about forty-five years.

  The person who takes the first, or as it is known, the break-off shot, is not under a great deal of pressure. Everything is laid out neat and tidy before you and there are fifteen lovely shiny reds to aim at on the winking horizon. However, what quickly becomes apparent to the enthusiastic novice as the game unfolds is that you more or less require a powerful pair of binoculars if you intend to hit anything that is staring back at you from the other end of the table. A full-size snooker table, you see, ladies and gentlemen, boasts the almighty dimensions of twelve feet long and six feet wide. What I am coming to is this…

  Reginald Frimpton had not only polished off his packet of smoky bacon crisps and been to collect himself another pint before either Stribley Wainwright or Moot Point had potted a ball, he had also had time to remove a biro from his jacket pocket and manage to fill in five tricky cryptic clues from yesterday’s Times crossword before a red was finally sunk and a cry of unbounded, relieved delirium was heard from the far end of the table.

  How many hours men, and to a lesser extent women, have spent watching sport over the years clearly doesn’t bear thinking about, but the three hours that drizzled away over the course of the ensuing afternoon needed a medical report to excuse it from mental cruelty and tedium. The highlights and magical moments in the four frames played, at best described as sporting Greek tragedies, were so rare that by the time they arrived, the two people observing were simply willing whoever was at the table to put the object ball out of its misery in order to shake off a collective lethargy verging on that of three half-house bricks immersed in a bucket of lentil soup. Who actually won the frames need not concern us; just be grateful that you didn’t have to witness any of the sorry affair.

  Realising life was slipping away, the three men returned their cues to the wall rack, waved their hypothetical white flags of surrender in honour of the game itself, and convened at a comfy table for a post-match analysis. More beer was ordered and soon the awful cloud of their inept display was a distant memory.

  ‘Arnold tells me you’re a successful writer, Reggie,’ said Moot, clumsily tearing open a packet of cheese biscuits.

  ‘Well,’ said Frimpton modestly.

  ‘No, no,’ chipped in Stribley Wainwright, ‘there aren’t many people in this world who do what they want to do for a living.’

  ‘Snooker players, for instance,’ stated Moot, with a dollop of irony.

  All three acknowledged their shortcomings in that department before Frimpton went on, ‘I had loads of jobs before I became a writer…shoe repairer, milk man…I actually wanted to be an accountant but I failed miserably.’

  ‘How lucky did that turn out to be?’ threw away Stribley, ‘You must employ an army of them these days.’

  ‘Just the one,’ said Frimpton quietly, not understanding what all the fuss was about. ‘Actually, Moot, I’ve always held a strange fascination for men in your position. I mean, how does one become a bookmaker, for goodness sake?’

  ‘Well, I’d made a pot of money in a barmy venture I got involved in and I’d always loved horse racing so I thought let’s give it a shot,’ said Moot, thinking back a few years before adding philosophically ‘Like anything, it has its good and bad days…but it knocks spots off coal mining.’

  ‘Same with newspapers,’ agreed Stribley Wainwright, helping himself to a few of Moot’s cheese biscuits, ‘Some days I ask myself what I’m doing in a cramped-up office editing an article about a protest and petition for a new Belisha Beacon, but as you say, Moot…’

  ‘Actually,’ said Reginald Frimpton, rising from his seat to fetch more ale, ‘Oscar Wilde summed up your two jobs in a nutshell.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ said Stribley Wainwright, mildly intrigued before he drained his pint pot.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Frimpton, collecting a few empty glasses from their table to make a bit of room, ‘Wilde said, “What could be more immoral than a newspaper? It condemns gambling on the front page and prints racing tips in the back.”

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’ smiled Frimpton.

  Moot and Stribley eye one another across a gaping silence.

  ‘Just get the beers in, Reggie, there’s a good lad,’ said Stribley, bringing the curtain down.