A STORM IN A TEACUP
Typically, Dr Bairstow got straight down to it.
‘Come in, Dr Maxwell, and sit down. It would appear St Mary’s has taken advantage of my absence to trigger an apocalypse. I therefore await your explanation as to the catalogue of catastrophe that was St Mary’s Christmas Day.’
‘I have none, sir. Just a simple recitation of the facts, after which, I am sure, careful consideration will enable you to see that St Mary’s is almost entirely blameless. In fact, the whole thing will turn out to be a storm in a teacup.’
Some people might have described his silence as unencouraging but sometimes silence is golden.
And . . . sometimes it isn’t. I pressed on.
‘Well, sir – because there are now so many of us at St Mary’s and space is something of an issue, we thought we’d solve everyone’s problems by erecting a marquis on the South Lawn and . . .’
He blinked. ‘The very first sentence of what only one of us will regard as an adequate explanation, Dr Maxwell, and I fear I must already request clarification.’
‘The marquis, sir? Or the erection thereof?’
‘Can it be, Dr Maxwell, that despite one of the best educations this country has to offer, you are unaware the word is “marquee”?’
‘Oh – well, yes, possibly. I always get those two muddled up. Like flammable and inflammable.’
‘Is there any possibility of jumping ahead to the arrest of Mr Bashford and the subsequent terrorist alert that ruined Christmas lunch for half the county?’
‘Of course, sir. An unfortunate series of events led to the arrest of Mr Bashford and a small – very small – terrorist alert.’
The silence lingered on. Like a fart in a spacesuit.
‘I am not prepared to join the dots myself on this one, Dr Maxwell.’
‘No, sir. Well, the bald facts – Storm Frances was on her way and it was a windy day. A very windy day and the erection got away from us a little bit. Not entirely our fault, but we didn’t anchor the thing down properly.’
‘Why not? It seems a basic precaution to me.’
‘Crossed lines, sir. Grounds maintenance thought the Security Section had done it and vice versa. Bottom line – no one attached the very large number of concrete weights supplied specifically for that purpose. The wind got up – right up, actually – and off it went. Like a tenticular Mary Poppins.’
‘Tenticular?’
‘Pertaining to a tent, or tent-like, sir. Tenticular.’
‘I bow to your superior knowledge, Dr Maxwell. I believe we had left the marquee . . .’
‘Airborne, sir.’
‘And causing a certain amount of consternation.’
‘Probably, sir. It would appear that many people and animals have a deep-rooted aversion to flying tents.’
‘As do I, Dr Maxwell. Especially when they appear to have been launched from St Mary’s. But returning us both to Mr Bashford . . .’
‘Oh, yes, well – again, sir – not entirely his fault. Eager to rectify the situation – as any responsible organisation would be – St Mary’s, as one, shouted, ‘To horse – to horse,’ piled into all available vehicles and galloped to the rescue.’
‘Mr Bashford, Dr Maxwell.’
‘Including Mr Bashford. Unfortunately, his car doesn’t always function quite according to the promises made in the manual and on the day in question, having reached the Rushford by-pass it . . . well . . . ceased to be. He’s had it a long time and although its demise had long been foretold, it was still an upsetting moment, for him, sir.’
‘Which he observed by climbing on to the roof.’
‘Not as bizarre an action as it first appears, sir. He was seeking a vantage point from which to observe the progress of the marquis across country.’
‘Hence the binoculars which caused so much consternation to our security forces.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘While clutching his chicken.’
‘His lookout chicken, sir. Angus was very keen to be included.’
‘And at no point did he consider that being discovered, standing on the roof of his car, uttering phrases such as “Target sighted half a mile away and heading north towards Waitrose. Move in. Move in”, would cause any sort of consternation among those dedicated to ensuring the safety of our beloved royal family?’
‘I think I can safely say that wouldn’t have entered his mind, sir. His selfless motivation was the recapture of the errant marquis. As, indeed, it was for all of us. And, frankly, sir, I think someone should be asking the question – why were such a large number of HRHs charging about the countryside, anyway? A bit irresponsible on Christmas Day, I think we can all agree.’
‘Certain highly placed members of the royal family were attending – or intended to attend – a Christmas Day service to mark the five hundredth birthday of St Stephen’s in Rushford, before going on to visit two orphanages and an elderly person’s hospice in the interests of spreading Christmas joy and goodwill to all men. Visits which did not occur, of course, due to circumstances I am endeavouring to establish.’
‘Not Mr Bashford’s fault, sir.’
‘I hesitate to take issue with you, Dr Maxwell, but I think even the most incompetent of bodyguards would regard a decrepit vehicle, illegally parked on the freeway constituting part of the designated route, with the driver standing on the roof, complete with binoculars and clutching a chicken—’
‘His lookout chicken, sir—’
‘To be an occurrence unusual enough to warrant attention. Nor was Mr Bashford’s attempt to escape deemed particularly helpful.’
‘They startled him and he fell off the roof, sir.’
‘He failed to respond when instructed to put his hands on his head and surrender.’
‘He was unconscious, sir.’
‘And then there was the matter of Angus’s subsequent attack, resulting in several dedicated members of the security forces incurring a severe beaking.’
‘Angus was defending her master, sir. As any right-minded chicken under the circumstances would. Really, a complete overreaction on the part of the security services. I feel a complaint should be made.’
‘A complaint has been made, Dr Maxwell. I have spent half the morning dealing with it.’
He paused. Here we go.
‘Putting Mr Bashford to one side for the moment, we return to the free-flying marquee, by now, I believe, halfway to Rushford, where it stampeded vast numbers of peacefully grazing cows and sheep – according to any number of complaints from local farmers – traumatised a group of worshippers attempting to access St Stephen’s, and severely impeded air traffic at the local RAF station where attempts
to shoot it down were enthusiastic but unsuccessful, triggering yet another alert on the part of our already overstretched security services. After this small catastrophe, and driven by the strong winds prevailing at the time, I am given to understand the marquee flapped its way towards Whittington where half the residents assumed they were under attack from an unidentified flying object and locked their doors, with the exception of a Mrs Addlepate who immediately offered herself up for . . . probing. The other half of the population, I believe, were too busy uploading the phenomenon to something called . . .’ he paused and consulted his notes, ‘You Tube. Where it went . . .’ he paused again, ‘viral. Do I have that expression right, Dr Maxwell?’
‘You do indeed, sir. Well done.’
‘Leaving chaos in its wake, the marquee was then blown across country to Streetley, where it wrapped itself around the Number Twenty-nine bus, causing the driver to skid off the road and into a small and fortunately very shallow ornamental lake which, sadly for everyone, was heavily populated with over-wintering bird life, all of whom turned on this unexpected threat in something resembling a scene from the famous Hitchcock film. The driver and passengers were trapped inside for nearly two hours before sufficient man power could be diverted from all the other St Mary’s-triggered security alerts, and sent to resolve the St Mary’s-triggered avian apocalypse in Streetley. Do you have anything to say to this, Dr Maxwell?’
I slumped. ‘Actually, sir – no.’
He flourished a piece of paper. ‘An invoice from the tent hire people for their lost marquee.’
‘Don’t pay it, sir, it’s not lost – we know exactly where it is and—’
‘It’s still wrapped around the bloody bus, Dr Maxwell.’ He flourished another piece of paper. ‘According to the letter of complaint from the bus company.’
‘Do they want it back? The marquis, I mean.’
‘No. In fact, reading between the lines of their letter, I don’t think they ever want to have anything to do with us ever again. Ever.’
I sighed. ‘A bit like the catering company. They packed up and went home, sir.’
‘You bring me neatly to my next query, Dr Maxwell. Did this year’s Christmas lunch actually occur? And if so – where and when?’
‘Actually, sir, it did. Somewhat later than scheduled, but securing Mr Bashford’s release took longer than anticipated. However, thanks to the
unparalleled talents of Mrs Mack – widely rumoured to be able to produce a six-course banquet for twenty in the middle of the Namib Desert and using nothing but a Bunsen burner and a teaspoon – St Mary’s – en masse – sat down for lunch at around twenty-five past two in the morning . . .’
‘On Boxing Day, in fact.’
‘Time is fluid, sir, as I have heard you say on many occasions. And as to the where – modesty precludes me mentioning that my own not inconsiderable organisational abilities were instrumental in ramming a quart into a pint pot and we dined in the Great Hall and around the gallery. A two-tier configuration, I might say, that lent the whole occasion an air of cosmopolitan sophistication sometimes lacking at St Mary’s, and will certainly return next year due to popular request.’
He drew breath to utter. The trick is to get in first. Attack is the best form of etc., etc.
‘The thing is, sir, and given our somewhat spectacular track record, I really don’t think this constitutes an unparalleled disaster and—’
‘Given the magnitude of . . . events . . . over Christmas this year, I can hardly wait to hear your personal definition of an actual unparalleled disaster, Dr Maxwell.’
‘Well, that would be failure of the chocolate harvest and the sudden and unexplained disappearance of Matt Damon off the face of the earth, sir, but I don’t think things are that bad yet.’
‘I await your ingenious assessment of our most recent catastrophe with bated breath, Dr Maxwell.’
‘Sir, the weather that day was awful – hence the low-flying marquis. Nothing was flying out of the airbase – not on Christmas Day. Not in that wind. Streetley is now a YouTube sensation – the pub’s crawling with UFO hunters and doing a roaring trade. Bashford’s unfortunate interaction with the security services caused the royal trip to be diverted, thus avoiding the bit of road that later crumbled away due to flooding – you know, where the road runs along the banks of the Rush. We could have had a couple of very soggy HRHs, which would have been embarrassing at best and tragic at worst, sir. Bit of bad planning on someone’s part, but all avoided thanks to Bashford’s selfless actions. We’ve even gained our own marquis since the tent people are making us pay for it, the acquisition of which will enable us to expand our range of social events greatly – because those always go down so well locally, don’t you think? Really, I don’t see this so much as a problem, but rather a series of opportunities. Golden opportunities, sir.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ he said suddenly. I think both of us took a moment to wonder if we’d somehow fallen into an alternate universe. One where my skills and talents were more widely appreciated. ‘This is definitely a series of opportunities, Dr Maxwell. And more importantly – a series of teaching moments.’
He pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘You have a three o’clock telephone conference with our deeply unhappy chief constable, a series of placatory letters to write to the Lord Lieutenant, the bus depot manager, Streetley Parish Council, sundry farmers and smallholders, the police, and an RAF station commander, who swears all automatic targeting devices are now pointed directly at St Mary’s. Not to mention the disappointed Mrs Addlepate. I myself intend to meet Mrs Brown for afternoon tea at the Copper Kettle in Rushford. Don’t just sit there, Dr Maxwell – have at it.’ ...
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