GRISELDA DOES THE TWIST

On their way to Brumpton Griselda and her councillor call in at a pub for refreshment...

Griselda was well on Her way through her second drink, still in the guise of a nymphet who probably had nymphomaniac tendencies considering the amount of leg she was rubbing against the Parish Councillor’s, when something in the corner of the bar caught her eye and she stood up, pointed a quivering finger at it and demanded,

“Thomas, you old freak, is that what I think it is?”

“I’ve got it in for the young set,” growled Thomas the Greek, “and stop calling me names or I’ll let on...”

“Sorry sweetheart,” purred the tempting young Griselda, “but you didn’t answer my question, beloved, but what is it?”

“It’s a jukebox,” he grunted, knowing that the older Griselda would have raised quite a fuss at the idea that there was a music machine anywhere near the pub where she occasionally spent the odd half hour nursing a glass of something undiluted.

“How lovely,” smiled the younger incarnation of the ancient witch, “let me see what melodies it plays… would you like that, Mr Bumptious? Would you like me to get it to play a little melody to cheer you up and straighten that tie of yours? My wicked old auntie must have been flying quite viciously for it your tie to ravel itself into a knot like that!”

“I’m Mr. Tiddles even to you, my love,” he muttered, “Maybe something quiet would be nice,” he grinned, trying to conceal the agitation her presence had caused in his trouser region. “Then I must find your precious auntie and see if she’s thought any more about our problem with the UFO.” he added, clearly reluctant to do anything like revert to business.

“Oh, auntie will know everything,” nodded his exciting companion, “let me see what’s on the machine. But first I need to pop to the ladies. A girl should always touch up her lippy before she does a dance, don’t you think..?”

“Dance?” stammered Bumpy.

“I thought we might manage a quick turn across the floor of there’s something smoochy being played,” purred the suddenly desirable version of Griselda, “there’s plenty of room if we avoid Tom Coppley’s vomit from last night.”

“I can’t wait,” stammered Bumptious Tiddles, fighting with his trousers in much the same way as a kangaroo might fight with a naughty offspring joey trying to do a handstand in her pouch.

Griselda returned to the ladies with the most evil grin on her young face and once the door was shut behind her started muttering to nobody once again. As if by magic she morphed into her old self as her tiny skirt became long enough to risk tripping her up with every step, her hair developed an uncontrolled and very whitish-grey dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards look and her pert bosom reacted in an instant to the call of gravity. In short, she became a hundred and something, and every wrinkle on her face told a story of troubled old age.

She glanced in the mirror, winked at herself and pushed the door open.

“Perfect,” she croaked, and cackled as if at a huge joke.

The bar was as she’d left it and she winked at Thomas the Greek as she announced, “my niece’s has had to go home to feed the cat, she’s got a very familiar black cat, you know, and she told me that I have to put something melodious on the jukebox machine.”

“Oh dear,” muttered the Parish Councillor, “I was hoping...” What he was hoping for he remained silent about. He had learned the art of discretion in many a boring council meeting when the parish treasurer was craftily playing footsie with him in the belief she was canoodling with her elderly boyfriend sitting next to him and out of reach of her twitching toes.

“Now let me see,” croaked Griselda reading the list of titles on the jukebox, “what have we here? Oh goody! There are more oldies than I could swing a cat at … not that I do much cat-swinging, not these days of political correctness and being kind to our furry friends… ah, look! I remember this from when I was only in my sixties and as lithe as my niece can be! Let’s Twist Again it’s called! Come on Bumpy, take your hands out of your pockets and let’s dance the noon away!”

Somehow the jukebox managed to play without her inserting a single coin and she started the most grotesque display of geriatric dancing ever dreamed of in an alcoholic’s worst nightmare. Suddenly she became all angles and almost vicious smiles, with her knees and elbows prescribing absurdly jagged shapes under her oversized clothing, whilst at the same time her hair untangled and retangled itself in absurdly gay abandon. And the dance she did was a barely creaking version of the twist as she lowered herself (with many an anonymous mutter, it must be said) and raised herself on knees that shouldn’t be capable of any such movement but somehow were. And all the time there was that grin on her face and her hair flew every which way in response to the feverish 1960s music.

“Come on!” she squawked to the Parish Councillor, who was still sitting in the alcove, but with a disbelieving look on his open-mouthed face.

“If you win the dancing competition I’ll tell you what the UFO was and where it came from,” screeched Griselda, “though I dared say you’ve worked it out for yourself by now! Come on, let’s twist again and again old buddy of mine, let’s rock the day away!”

But Bumptious Tiddles hadn’t worked anything out. And as a consequence of the grotesque sight in front of him he was in no state to even think of working anything out and was even quite certain that if by some magic the meaning of the postcode that was found inside the UFO crossed his mind he’d forget it instantly in his confusion.

“I c-can’t dance,” he confessed, shamefacedly.

“Come on,” urged Griselda, “I’ll put the record on again! Just do what I do! Whee!”

Bumptious Tiddles found himself doing the impossible. He found himself standing up and actually making gentle and increasingly rhythmic movements to the raucous music. He found himself, in addition, moving ever closer to the wicked old woman who was still throwing herself about with such extreme abandon he was sure she must have a heart attack at any moment.

“You know what the code means?” he managed to force out as his breath became harder to find as a consequence of his making quite a valiant effort to do the twist a quarter as convincingly as the old woman who was still all angles and flashing eyes.

“I do now,” grinned Griselda, “and I ought to know it because it’s on every letter the postman brings me. It’s DO69mp, isn’t it?”

The parish councillor nodded.

“Come on, let’s twist again!” shrieked Griselda.

“I’ve had enough,” gasped Bumpy, his face flushed and his heart thumping in his chest like it hadn’t done in decades. “I’ll drop down dead on the spot if I jiggle another joggle.”

“Then I’ll tell you!” cackled Griselda, “it’s all very political! The first two letter and the last two are the first and last letters of a very famous name, and the number is his favourite … er …. romantically physical position, if I dared mention such a thing!”

“I don’t understand,” panted Bumpy, sinking into his seat.

Griselda joined him. Suddenly not a hair on her head was out of place. Suddenly she was far from breathless.

“Think Presidents,” she grinned, “think American presidents!”

Bumpy frowned as he worked out what she meant, and then his eyes lit up.

“You mean..?”

“Yes I do!” shouted Griselda, “Years ago he said he owed me one and now he’s sent it! The trouble is, the man doesn’t always know what he’s doing, and he didn’t this time! He always goes for too big and too much, the fool. It was meant to be a lover’s missive from him to me, landing in my back yard on Valentine’s day, and he missed by several houses and several days! The fool, the silly fool! Still, that explains where it came from. All we’ve got to do is send a token of our love back to him. So I hope you’re prepared for a little ride...”

“A little ride..?” Even as he repeated the three words Bumptious Tiddles turned a whitish shade of pale.

He had a nasty idea what Griselda was gong to say next, and he didn’t want to hear it.

© Peter Rogerson 31.01.18