Bigot Hall

LIAR

My mother was an insane and matronly lady with two sky-blue eyes which she claimed were interchangeable. And she sat at my bedside formulating tales which I now understand were meant to fire my imagination and slam me into nightmares so inescapable as to make The Trial look like The Clangers. She had my undivided attention as she described a spectral, nocturnal intruder, garlanded with entrails, beaked, fishfaced and wearing a turban. When I asked in undisguised wonderment why it wore a turban she said ‘To hide its glowing brain.’ Apparently this impetuous ghoul biffed its way into kids’ bedrooms and took the occupants free of charge to some farcical underworld, where even the most compliant brat was submitted to baleful tortures. Mother stated with absolute conviction that the brute was brimming over with lubrication and unnecessary thoracic legs. She said hide under the covers when you hear the frilling of its gills, watch out for its utensil hands, don’t even try to locate its arse, and so on.

It was clear we couldn’t have a thing like that running around and I resolved to trap and kill the beast using every ruse at my command. One of the things Mother always emphasised was that the creature only sprang into view when a child had been misbehaving. In order to lure the beast I would have to provoke some kind of ruck and I decided to belt Uncle Snapper in the eye to kick off the campaign. Clutching at his face and bellowing for assistance, Snapper flushed like a blood orange. Everyone piled in to spectate his flailing distress. ‘This flaunting idiot claims the right to ignore every moral code which inconveniences him!’ he yelled. ‘He’s just this second belted me in the face!’

At this Father swelled with pride and pleasure. ‘Good boy,’ he said.

‘But Dad, look!’ I cried, kicking Snapper expansively in the balls. The onlookers began to laugh and applaud, already composing the tale for the mirth of future generations.

Father was chuffed and encouraging. ‘No need for concern, Snapper. He’ll tire of it eventually.’

At three in the afternoon I told the Verger exactly what I thought of him and his way of life. The Verger smiled and took me aside — in fact I was taken so far aside I ended up in the lake. ‘It’s better than you deserve, boy!’ he hollered from the shoreline.

‘I don’t love it or even like it!’ I yelled, sputtering as I trod water. ‘Snap said you were a crippling burden on our leisure and joy — he wrote down every seditious word. Said I should memorise it — say it to you without pulling any punches.’

The Verger was operatically apprised, adopting the stance of a fierce Victorian balloonist. ‘Oho! So Colonel Blimp’s funnelling his malice!’

‘Yes sir,’ I said, swallowing and coughing water. ‘Had everyone convinced you should go and take your creaking sagacity with you. Whole household was behind him, urging him on with word and gesture. I drew the short straw. Tried to hide but they dragged me out by the legs. Don’t be angry, sir — they’re uneducated and mired in hopeless lust.’

The Verger strode off with a set expression, rolling up his sleeves and fists.

He happened to encounter Father first. Father was reading the paper when the Verger entered, austere and glowering. ‘So the whole household thinks I’m an acute picture of parsimonious reserve and as abruptly shootable as a town crier, is that it?’

Father looked up, mildly. ‘Well now that you mention it, yes.’

‘On my ruddy bum I am!’ shouted the Verger with a compressed bellicosity.

As I slapped ashore a blue light pulsed across the landscape — the Verger speeding to hospital in an armoured van.

‘Snapper,’ said Father during the evening meal. ‘Imagine my disappointment this afternoon when the Verger went bonkers.’

‘Eh?’ said Snapper, perplexed.

‘I had hoped that your fooling days were over. Then the Verger, poor man, flies off his hinges.’ He looked at Snapper coldly. ‘Am I understood?’

It was getting dark and I was not yet disgraced.

‘Congratulations, Mother,’ I said, ‘you have constructed this meal with a cunning and ruthless evil.’

Everyone agreed. ‘The bacon’s like chainmail,’ remarked Professor Leap.

‘And this fish is as fresh as a newborn,’ said Adrienne.

‘The gills are still working on mine. At least she covered it with cress so as not to distress us. It seems about to cry.’

‘Look at the bloody bite-radius on the thing,’ urged poor Mr Cannon. ‘And what’s this? Cartilage? What are you making of that, Professor?’

‘I do believe Cannon that you have discovered the unhappy sod’s swim bladder.’

After dinner I was taken aside by Father. ‘Trying to keep order in this cracked house is like trying to bury your grandmother,’ he said. ‘Difficult and distressing, yet one of the activities I crave though it exhausts me. You, lad, are the civilising force I never dared hope for. Non-pious honesty. This is the proudest day of my life.’

The long and the short of it is this — despite my having kicked Snapper in the balls, implicated Snapper in the Verger’s breakdown, set fire to the curtains and blamed Snapper, shot at Snapper, boxed the ears of Snapper, roared abuse at Snapper, reversed over Snapper and cackled at Snapper, it seemed that as far as everyone was concerned I had spent the day behaving myself until I was raw.

That night I lay in bed as Mother read a story about a dog who went to the moon. ‘And good riddance,’ she concluded, shutting the book.

‘But before I settle down,’ I said, ‘I’ve got something to show you.’ And cupping both hands to my nose, I blew out a snotpile resembling pulverised kale.

Mother shrieked like a parson.

‘It’s perfectly legit, mother.’

‘You evil child!’ she screamed. ‘You’ll lock antlers with the monster I’ve mentioned for the terrors you enjoy!’

After Mother had pushed off I lay in wait for the phantom, which I had privately concluded was some kind of mutant, like Dumbo. My vigil was rewarded. At midnight a sinister shadow entered the room, its head clinking the mobile I had made from dried anchovies. Loitering and ragged, it stepped into the snare and was flung upside down, dropping several knives and making sounds which were frankly tedious and uninspired. The whole household burst in with guns at the ready as I hit the light and took aim with a Beretta and a Smith.38. Ofcourse the honking and flipping aberration suspended before us was Uncle Snapper, bent on revenge. More surprisingly, Mother was carrying a cake with eight candles as the household gathered at my bed-end singing ‘Happy Birthday’. Father pinned a pistol target to Snapper’s back.