BLOW THE WIND GENTLY

When a wind from nowhere blew Old Foggarty's greenhouse away I never suspected it would change so much for me...

BLOW THE WIND GENTLY...

It was the very devil of a bad wind the day that Evelyn disappeared.

It came from nowhere, or so it seemed. Old Foggarty with his pine cones and his seaweed never predicted anything like it and looked as shocked as any of us when his greenhouse blew away. But then, Old Foggarty was sort of trapped in the old ways of predicting things, and mock him as we might he often got things bang on the nose, so to speak. We called him Old but he wasn't really, not in years " just in ways, you might say.

Then, one day, the one after the devil of a wind he hadn't predicted uprooted more trees than a profiteering property developer might, he knocked my door and said in his cracked but hoary voice,

“Have y' seen our Evelyn, then, Adam?”

I hadn't, and I would have known because I've long had a hankering for a kiss and a cuddle with Evelyn, though I wouldn't dare to, not knowing the way other blokes looked at her. For other blokes had lascivious eyes when they scanned dear Evelyn and I was plain scared of causing trouble with them. Not that Evelyn ever had much to do with any blokes that I know about, and certainly not those that wheedled at her, trying to get into her drawers and, I dared say, failing utterly. I'd have liked to ask her out, but she was too far out of my league, and I knew it.

“Nah,” I replied. “Saw her the day before yesterday, though,” I added so as to seem helpful. “Before that scary wind blew us upside down! She was going to the shops and said to me that if I wanted anything she'd fetch it for me, but I didn't.”

“She said that, did she?” muttered Old Foggarty. “Never made that sort of offer to me, did Evelyn, not in all the years I've known her, which is quite a few.”

I nodded. “Me too, since we were nippers,” I agreed.

He looked at me with a face that might have been crafted out of thunder, and said, “Well, if you was to see her, tell her as I was looking after her...”

“That I will, Old Foggarty,” I assured him.

Then the telephone rang, inside my house. I never went for one of those modern cell phone devices, the mobiles as the kids call them, so I had to rush to my land-line.

“'Scuse me, and see yourself off,” I slung at Old Foggarty, and went to answer the phone before it stopped clamouring.

“Hello,” I said, cautiously. I'm always cautious when I don't know who I'm talking to. That's the trouble with phones. All voice and no face, as you might say.

“It's Evelyn,” said the phone.

“Why, Evelyn, Old Foggarty was just asking after you!” I told her. “Said he hadn't seen you recently.”

Her voice sounded a shade mournful when she said, “He won't have. Nobody's seen me recently on account of the wind.”

“The wind?” I asked, and jokingly (because I do like a jest every now and then) “Too many beans?”

“I didn't say I'd been farting!” admonished Evelyn with a laugh in her voice, “I said nobody's seen me since that wind on account of the way it blew me away!”

I was astounded when she said that. “You mean, sort of wizard of Oz-ish?” I asked, trying not to sound incredulous because I'm too level headed for anyone to accuse me of being that.

“Worse than that,” she said, and I knew there were almost tears in that voice of hers. “I've been blown to aliens,” she added. “I'm here now, in a shining crystal space whatsit, high in the sky over our street, and I'm looking down on you even as I speak. Can't see you, of course, 'cause you're indoors, but I am looking down.”

“Do you want me to fetch Old Foggarty?” I asked. “He'd know what to do, would Old Foggarty. He knows stuff.”

“What kind of lass do you think I am? He's got a hankering for more than he knows!” she snapped back. “Why I caught him sniffing my undies on the washing line last week! Sniffing them good and proper, he was, really having a go at them, round the crotch...”

“Crikey,” was all I could think of saying.

“Now listen and listen hard. It's the aliens,” she whispered. “They say I'm to stay with them, that I mustn't go back home on account of I might have caught a lurgi or something from them and it might spread all over the world and kill everyone! I mean, can you think of that? A lurgi so powerful that it can kill everyone alive! That's what they say, and they're clever folks.”

“Aliens...” I whispered, sort of weakly. I've never believed in aliens and didn't want to now even though the way Evelyn was talking and the quiet cadence in her voice was giving me sort of excitement in my own underwear. Her voice has always done that to me and it can be plain embarrassing when you stop to have a chat with her in the fish aisle in the supermarket.

“They're really nice,” she sort of cooed. “They say it wasn't their fault the wind came and blew me up to them. It was a storm, they said, sort of caused by global warming and climate change the way all them floods down south were... Anyway, I'm here and that's that.”

“You are?” I stammered, sort of stupidly.

“Yeah. Anyway, they say that I can't go back on account of the lurgi they might pass on to humanity, and I guess they're right. They've got lurgi written all over their scales. Anyway, out of kindness they say I can have one human companion because they've only got room for two of us...”

“They do? Someone to sort of keep you company?”

She laughed, sweet as tinkling music. “More than that!” she giggled. “They say as I should have a bloke for companionship and maybe a little bit more. They say they'll take me to a little planet they know about, uninhabited by anything bigger than monkeys with a low IQ, that it'll be mine and mine alone on account of the dangers of spreading any stray lurgi I might have in my blood, and that... you can guess the rest, surely?”

“You mean, you do want me to fetch Old Foggarty?” I said, ruefully.

“Say that name again and I'll ring off!” she snapped. “No, you daft fool, I want you! Will you come here to me … they'll send some sort of little boat for you … but once here you'll have to spend the rest of your life with me, just you and me and a few chimpanzees and so on, and live with me, and love with me, and be by my side through good times and through bad? I know it's a big ask, but will you do that, Adam? For me?”

I wanted to. I've always had a hankering for Evelyn, mostly because of her voice, that much is true, but also because she's the most beautiful woman on our street and I've always known she's much too good for me.

“Of course I will!” I shouted into the phone.

Then everything started happening too quick. There was a whooshing noise in my bit of a back garden and I saw the little crystal boat landing from the skies, majestic and see-through almost, glittering in the sunlight. Old Foggarty was standing next door in his yard, his mouth open like a goldfish on heat, staring like he didn't believe what he was seeing, which he probably didn't.

I was at sixes and sevens. What should I take? Spare boxers? Socks? Shirts? What would I need...?

But things just cantered along at a breakneck speed and in seconds I'd been drawn into the crystal boat. I couldn't stop myself. There was nothing I could do.

Then me in the boat and my whole life and everything were gone from the land where I'd always lived. Gone from my home. From my street. From my country, even!

“Just you and me,” whispered Evelyn, and I saw her standing there and realised, suddenly, why a change of clothing would be daft. I was goggle-eyed, but tried not to stare.

She was naked as the day she'd been born, glorious bosom and all, legs made out of perfection and everything, and smiling like an angel.

“Evelyn!” I stammered.

“Adam,” she whispered. “But don't call me that! I might have been christened Evelyn, but everyone, absolutely everyone who counts, calls me Eve...”

© Peter Rogerson 09.02.14

Author's Note

I might have called this science fiction, but I didn't because it's fundamentally about a man's desire for the lass of his dreams

Reviews

[roarke]

Speaking for the rest of the chimpanzees.... quite an encapsulation of the theory of everything I'd say. I wonder what old Foggarty thinks of your stories... hahahaaha, I like the world yer livin' in Peter. Fine writing.

[Peter Rogerson]

I sometimes think Old Foggarty must be the real hero, sort of Mr Everyone staring through big open eyes at Adam and Eve.

[roarke]

hm, I actually was interpreting Foggarty as God.... somewhere in the dim recesses of my memories, and I don't know why or where, I seem to heard God refered to as "old Foggarty". Still don't know why I go that impression.

[Peter Rogerson]

I've not heard that. To me he was the dirty old man next door, sort of a sleazy Mr Everyman.