GRISELDA X (MARKS THE SPOT)

Back in Swanspottle, and there's news in the air...

The spit-and-sawdust bar in the Crowne and Anchor in Swanspottle was busy.

The latest incumbent of the vicarage, the Reverend Daisy Duchess was there. with her begged, borrowed or occasionally stolen glass containing as much gin as she could contrive to get her hands on either honestly or with divine assistance. It had been a shock to her system when she had been given the Swanspottle Church to minister to, especially as it had the most leaky roof of any church in Christendom, but her predecessors had all been of the male persuasion and fallen prey to the McMudd sisters who had excessively ministered to their and their very physical needs, and thus been removed to a mental institution where there was a vibrant club of Grateful Escapees from the Swanspottle Vicarage. When in her favourite bar the Reverend Daisy Duchess was fond of singing, hymns at the start of the evening and country and western romances as time wore on.

Then there was Tom Coppley, the local alcoholic who preferred the cheaper beers even though he was well aware that the landlord, Thomas the Greek, watered as many as he could down so many times that they were often more water than ale. In between ordering refills of his pewter tankard he spent his time vomiting, in the gents when he could make the distance and on the floor when he couldn’t.

Sergeant Lockemup was there for once on this particular evening. He had once frequented the bar as often as his police duties would permit, when he had been a mere constable and knew his way around the system, bit since his promotion he had been forced to be more thorough with his duties and couldn’t make it to the Crowne and Anchor as often as he would have liked. But he had heard that the old hag Griselda Entwhistle was back and he had a really soft spot for her niece, and so he had stretched reality in order to put in an appearance … just in case.

And, of course, there was that hag herself, the wrinkled, obstinate, even sometimes wicked Griselda Entwhistle who was busy selling a map.

“There’s a fortune to be made,” she cackled, “for someone young enough to put in the spadework. I’d do it myself, but my poor old back...” here she moaned and rubbed it where she could reach … ”won’t let me any more.”

“What’s wrong now, Griselda?” asked the sergeant knowingly. He was aware that one of the things that delighted Griselda Entwhistle more than any other was the effort she put into trying to convince the deluded that delusions were unprofitable.

“It’s me old bones,” cackled Griselda, “and I think I’ll get me niece to give them a rub later. She’s got magic fingers, has that young lady, and she can’t half rub my aches and pains away...”

“So what’s with the map?” he asked, preferring not to think too much about the niece lest his trousers give him away.

“Oh this…?” she murmured as if it had no relevance at all. “It’s a map I made in my recent trip to visit the American President who, you will be glad to hear, has agreed to restore the houses damaged by his damned UFO recently. He said he might even visit personally.”

“We don’t want his sort round here!” snapped Thomas the Greek, who was not only not Greek but was a surly landlord with disgusting habits.

“Why not?” asked Griselda, aware that the answer would be both entertaining and controversial.

“He farts a lot, I’ve been told,” mumbled Thomas. “Someone said he’s always trumping, and that’s not good in an establishment like this, which is based on the highest standards of hygiene.”

Griselda nodded and watched him as he polished a glass with a cloth that had last wiped the dip-stick of his geriatric motor car, and then, after spitting on a spot of dirt, placing the glass on a shelf that can’t have been dusted since the crabby old Griselda had been a child.

“We all know that,” nodded Griselda.

“That’s why I’ve got me own tankard,” contributed Tom Coppley.

“I can’t say I’ve noticed,” put in the Reverend Daisy Duchess.

“You wouldn’t,” snarled the atheist Thomas the Greek.

“Well tittle to you lot! I met him only last week, and he’s a right gentleman,” said Griselda. “He’s got a streak of pure goodness in him and the last thing he told me is he’s ordered a thousand brooms like the one I sweep my bit of a yard with! A thousand! That’s because he wants to make sure that his Whitehouse is spotlessly clean!”

“What’s that got to do with the map?” asked the still sober Reverend Daisy.

“I’m glad you asked,” grinned Griselda, “and I’ll tell you. That good President has a fetish for cleanliness. You should see how clean his p***y cat is. He has it lathered and vacuumed twice a day, you know, not so many people know that. But I do because I was there!”

“I’ve heard he’s more interested in a completely different kind of p***y,” croaked Tom Coppley, who had just returned having made it most of the way to the gentleman’s toilet before discharging the best of his last three pints of inferior diluted beer onto the taproom floor.

“I’ll ignore that!” said Griselda tartly. “He’s a gentleman who knows a good sausage when he sees it, I can assure you of that. But that’s not the point. When his supply of new old fashioned broomsticks arrive he’s going to have an army of men and women brushing every room in the Whitehouse, and this map, the one I’ve got for sale to the highest bidder, shows where all the rubbish is to be dumped. And in that rubbish there will be treasure, real diamonds and gold treasure because his big house is full of it! They won’t be able to miss them, sweeping like mad and shoving the debris into a big hole in the ground. And that hole, my friends, is just here!” And she pointed to where she’d inscribed the letter X.

Nobody was particularly interested. Nobody was fishing in their wallets for paper money. All anyone wanted, really, was, another chance to be served at the bar. And anyway, not one of those present could see any way they could make the journey across the Atlantic to the home of American democracy. It was a long way and their small change (and paper notes) were ear-marked for the Ccowne and Anchor.

“Well, X marks the spot,” sighed Griselda, feeling peeved that nobody had taken her bait.

Then the main door to the bar swung open and in walked Bumptious Tiddles, a broad grin on his political face.

“They’re here!” he gloated as though it was a scoop and he was the triumphant journalist, “dozens of them! Machines of all sorts! And tomorrow, they say, they’re going to make a start on repairing the damaged buildings down the road!”

“Hurrah!” exclaimed Thomas the Greek, “more customers for me!”

“And what’s more,” chuckled Bumptious, “the President himself is flying over! Maybe he wants to spend an hour with your niece, Griselda!”

“He’d better not,” muttered Sergeant Lockemup, “He’d better bloody not!”

“I’ve got another map,” cackled Griselda, “and this one shows the exact whereabouts of the Golden Hoard of Swanspottle, a lost treasure from the dark ages, and that map’s not for sale!”

She held another somewhat yellowed sheet up so that everyone could see it.

“And this one’s for me,” she whispered, “this one’s my pile of gold! This one’s my crown of gems! And as I say, it’s not for sale!”

© Peter Rogerson 03.03.18