CONSTANCE AND THE TOWN CRIER

There's a civic unveiling of a statue outside the library...

There was a great deal of fuss going on in the small open square outside the library, an area that provided light and fresh air to the buildings clustered around it.

There was a mechanical digger … Constance knew so little about machinery that moved soil and dug holes that they were all mechanical diggers so far as she was concerned … and that mechanical digger had been making a great deal of noise, but was silent now.

She supposed it happened about once a year, that the square was used for some purpose vital to the town and its council, and when that happened there was often an import of mostly men, who considered themselves more important than ladies, in expensive suits and often bearing almost overwhelming moustaches. They would line up, one or more of them would speak in a whiskey-flavoured voice to the masses assembled there, masses who they hoped were keen to learn and worship, and then the whole thing would be dismantled and life carry on very much as normal.

This time, Constance knew, it was on account of a statue.

Back in the nineteenth century when small children had been considered the perfect working force in the cotton mills that had erupted like a bad case of venereal rashes across the country, establishments where bigger, adult, people might have found the working environment dangerously cramped, children often almost toddlers were employed to perform menial but vital tasks. And it was against this perceived wickedness that Sir Hugo Balls had fought a valiant battle in and out of Parliament and been instrumental in changing things for the better.

And in order to commemorate the reformer Sir Hugo Balls that a statue was in the process of being erected.

A crowd gathered, slowly and inquisitively, men, women and their children wandering past and pausing on their way to see what on Earth was going on and clumping together like gossamer threads in a gentle breeze.

The statue, of course, was already in place and the mechanical digger had reduced itself to silence when a voice spoke out.

And what a voice!

A powerful resonant and generously positioned on the decibel scale voice rang out and made something in Constance’s stomach do a small pirouette even though she was in the library at her station and the voice was out in the small square.

Much to her disappointment that voice was limited to introducing a town clerk with a feeble moustache and watery eyes, and as far as Constance was concerned that man’s voice was as nothing because she could barely hear it. But the really significant thing happened next.

Speeches over, the crowd dispersed. The whole ceremony and unveiling of Sir Huge Balls’ statue had taken very little time and the town clerk wanted to get back to the cricket, from whence he had come. People drifted this way and that, mothers and fathers with their little ones, until everything was returned to its normal calm, but with the addition of a bronze Sir Hugo Balls casting his metallic eyes on one and all.

The library door squeaked open and Constance, the librarian, looked up from the paper she was puzzling over.

And her heart gave an almighty somersault and almost flew past her tonsils as she took in a man in the most splendid uniform she had ever seen.

Constance had a thing about men in uniforms. She couldn’t help it, but when she spied a man in any kind of uniform she got to imagining what manner of fleshy bits resided under that uniform. She was really quite explicit in the imagination department, and a wide range of possibilities crept past her own built-in censor until she almost swooned, and that might be at the sight of a postman in his neatly pressed jacket and shorts rather than the magnificent sight that faced her.

But this man was something else. It was the town crier, and he was in full regalia. He was dressed in overflowing colour and with archaic exactitude. His hat, complete with the most effusive of feathers, sat proudly on his head as if he was a seventeenth century highwayman. His jacket, all red and yellow patterning and with big brass buttons stood out magnificently, and his trousers almost made Constance faint. Knee-length and velvet, they tempted the good librarian’s imagination to wonder about matters that verged on being beyond her experience.

Her eyes failed her when it came to the footwear because they were locked onto the trousers in a way that threatened to become permanent.

In addition to uniforms she found herself fascinated by trousers.

Then the town crier spoke.

“I say, my dear, do you mind if I rest my cheeks for a few minutes?” he asked in a voice that was so well-trained that it would have frightened bull mastiffs from half a mile and waken the dead of seven counties at the same time.

Constance should have said “Sshhh!” because it was her job to ensure peace and serenity in the library, but as he was the only person in the place besides herself and as flamboyant as a bird of paradise she let it pass and merely smiled at him in an enthusiastic and very pleasant sort of way.

“Of course it’s all right,” she said, and added, “would you like a cup of tea?”

He sighed, removed his fancy hat and sat down, then nodded and smiled through a moustache so glorious and well-trained that it enhanced his appearance in a way that most moustaches don’t.

“At least, I think it’s tea,” she continued, “though, in truth, it’s made from powder and I’ve never been quite sure what it’s meant to be because it comes in a plain package.”

“Anything would be welcome,” he boomed at her, his rich and well-oiled voice filling the library and even finding its way, undiminished, to the Reference section.

She scurried into her cubbyhole and, nervous and shaking, managed to create a cup of something brown and milky.

“Sugar?” she asked.

“Five please,” he bellowed. So he fuels that magnificent voice of his with sugar, thought Constance, how wonderful...

“Here you are,” she said, carrying the cup to where he sat and hoping with a pornographic little tease at the back of her mind that he would invite her to sit on his lap.

“Delicious,” he shouted before sipping it, and then, after sipping, “what an interesting flavour.”

“It’s what the council provides,” she said, smiling and desperately wanting him to invite her onto his lap.

“I’ll have to tell my wife about this,” he said to her in a voice that caused one of the light bulbs hanging from the ceiling to burst and shatter.

“That’s always happening,” he yelled, “I think it’s got something to do with the tone of my voice.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, then, changing the subject, “you’ve got a most interesting uniform.” That last word made her shiver with something nervous in the pit of her stomach.

“It’s got its roots in days before electricity was used to amplify sound and they recruited men with decent voices,” he told her, “but it’s a bit too fancy for me, and my good lady hates it because it sometimes needs cleaning and pressing and she finds that damned difficult even though she does get it done professionally. But she always says they don’t do it properly, and out comes the iron! Quite fastidious is my Dumkins.”

“But it makes you look...” she began, and was going to say something like sexy but drew back before she reached the letter s. “It makes you look distinguished,” she added weakly.

“So they say, but it is traditional,” he grinned at her, his voice reaching out of the library and echoing down the High Street.

“Is your wife really called Dumkins?” asked Constance, rather rudely, she thought, but her heart was still all a-flutter.

He laughed. And that laugh was the last straw. It was a total contrast to everything else about the man. It seemed to suck every bit of wonder from the way he wore his uniform as it trilled like that of a demented budgie to be lost somewhere near the ceiling where it could do no harm. His laugh, compared to his speaking voice, was like a soprano compared to a bass, and it did in a microsecond for Constance’s fascination with his uniform.

“I call her that,” he grinned, “because the silly b***h is so dumb, so outrageously stupidly dumb!”

Then he stood up and replaced his hat with a flourish and grinned at her. “Must be off!” he shouted, and exited through the squeaking door, and was gone.

“Well,” she thought as she went back to her place behind the counter, “that’s taught me about men in uniforms. What a horrible bit of trouser!”

© Peter Rogerson 07.01.18