25. Plans, Pens, and Planes

What Ho Proles!

Cyril Henderson stood before an A2 whiteboard with a large black marker pen in his hand. He looked, I imagine, much like General Montgomery would have looked had the British Army in North Africa shopped at Stationary Box.

In front of him sat the rest of ‘the team’, as I’d taken to calling Cyril, Spoon, Cropper, Jenkins, Harris, My Man, and myself. We’d assembled in the nursery like children fearful of our governor who, though free-spirited enough to take a great delight in sniffing the end of his pen, still refused to conjugate the verb ‘to wear’ with the noun phrase ‘any underpants’. In the spirit of fear, we had dutifully copied down everything Cyril had written on the board but, so far, this amounted to the names of Jeremiah Finch and Millicent Granger which he’d penned in at the top of the board before replacing the top on the pen after only the briefest sniff of the nib.

I could see the attraction. A smell not unlike that of pear drops had filled the room and I had been transported back to happier days until Cyril’s voice cut through the warm fuzzy nostalgia of the local sweetshop.

‘The Smallchurch Air Show’ he said and promptly went about writing that beneath the two names. Again there was the smell of pear drops and I thought I could even hear the rustle of sugar-coated toffees inside small paper bags. I opened my eyes as saw it was only Jenkins opening a packet of pork scratchings.

He caught my inquisitive gaze.

‘In case I miss lunch,’ he explained.

‘J.P.? Your attention, please?’

I instinctively ducked, expecting a stick of chalk to hit the back of my head. At Eton, I was known as ‘cueball’ on account of the amount of chalk dust usually left north of my neck after lessons when my mind had wandered.

‘Sorry, Cyril,’ I said. ‘You were saying?’

‘I was saying that it starts tomorrow and runs through until Friday.’

The man was being too damn elliptical for his own good and, as you might know, a man with a craving for pear drops cannot tolerate an elliptical nature.

‘I take it that this is all good?’ I asked.

‘Good?’ he laughed. ‘It’s good if you have wings but just about ruddy perfect if you’re a Tory.’

‘And I am a Tory,’ I assured him.

‘You most certainly are, J.P., and this is definitely perfect for you.’

‘I’m so glad.’

‘The plan is simple,’ Cyril carried on, his voice rising to an almost Montyesque whine. ‘You’ll be attending the air show as the honoured guest of Sir James Vembre. You get yourself in the public eye, press some flesh, kiss some infants, generally praise air traffic, and totally dominate the first day’s proceedings with speeches, toasts, and, when the need arises as it certainly must, suitable input from Mr. Mullins the duck.’

‘That means you get plenty of chance to make him quack,’ said Samantha Spoon, who, it I’m honest, probably held something of a grudge against me over the bald spot she’d found on Mr. Mullin’s rear end.

‘That sounds like a plan,’ I agreed.

‘It is a plan, J.P.,’ said Cyril before he popped off the top of the pen and wrote ‘Plan’ right at the top of the board and the name ‘Vembre’ at the bottom. He then proceeded to join everything up with a sequence of arrows that made no sense unless they resembled a strategy to take Tripoli from Rommel’s African Korps.

‘Vembre?’ I mused. ‘Why do I know that name?’

Cyril was too busy sticking the end of the pen up his nose, which is why it was Larry, sitting at my side, who answered me.

‘Oh, come now, Murgatroid,’ he said. ‘You must remember Jimmy from the club. He pops in occasionally. Usually gets very drunk and dances a burlesque fandango on the snooker table.’

‘Can’t say I do, Larry. Are you sure you’re talking about the same club? Men dancing on a snooker table sounds much more like the Savile Club...’

‘Don’t doubt me, Murgatroid. Jimmy’s a tall chap, about your height, and likes everybody to know he once flew tornadoes with the RAF. He seduced that one legged barmaid we had in the shop a couple of years back. Don’t you remember? They had a child that’s supposed to be a mathematical prodigy. Jimmy’s always going on about how his lad’s already solved some tricky puzzle that’s been baffling the German’s since the days of Leibniz.’

‘Is that right? Leibniz? Well, I hate to say it, Larry, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. The name means nothing to me. Don’t know the chap. Wouldn’t spot him in a line up of sausages.’

Larry’s face reddened with despair. ‘Come on, Murgatroid. Remember the Christmas party when Jimmy set himself on fire after spilling gin on his coat? Fell into the curtains and the whole ruddy place went up in flames? The fire brigade took an eternity to get there but Jimmy had already beaten back the flames single-handedly using the Christmas tree and a soda bottle. We all ended up singing carols on the back of the fire engine?’

‘Nothing rings a bell,’ I said again but this time with an apologetic rise of the shoulders for good measure.

‘Honestly!’ sighed Larry, sagging back into his seat. ‘Can’t believe you don’t remember Jimmy. The man’s a walking legend... Or rather, a limping legend.’

‘Oh, Jimmy!’ I said as memories of the man now came hobbling back to me. ‘Of course I know Jimmy. He has a limp!’

‘Well done, J.P.,’ said Cyril who quick as quick as a flash, popped the end off his pen and jotted my name on the board before drawing a double-headed arrow between myself and Vembre.

‘I thought you knew him,’ said Larry. ‘But even if you didn’t, Jimmy certainly knows me. He owes me a few favours too and tomorrow is his chance to pay me back. To start off, you’re going to be his guest at the air show.’

I shrugged. ‘Fair enough,’ I said. Air shows are nothing new to me. I’ve done many a deal with munitions moguls during the time I spent working as a minor executive in the military branch of one of the UK’s largest aircraft manufacturers. ‘I still don’t see what’s so wonderful about this news. When do I get chance to outwit T.H.U.M.P.’

‘You’ll have plenty of chance to outshine those oversized amateur penguins,’ Cyril promised.
Don’t worry. He made no sense to me either. In fact, he made no sense at all. A glassy sheen had fallen over his eyes.

‘Go easy on the pens, there, Cyril,’ I said.

‘Most certainly will, my love,’ he replied and began to draw oddly shaped aeroplanes on the board.

That’s when Larry Harris piped up again.

‘Millicent Granger’s going to be there,’ he explained. ‘She’ll be pressing the flesh with the crowd, so there’s no doubt her brother will be close by. It’s going to be a big event. Chance to impress lots of people especially when you’re given such an honour...’

‘An honour? What honour?’

‘You’re going to set the day’s festivities going. You see, Jimmy heads the organising committee for the show. He was going to signal the off by waving the first plane off the runway. Only, he’s agreed to let you do it instead. It’ll be on the news and make the local papers. It’ll be a fine chance to upstage T.H.U.M.P., especially if you take your lucky mascot along with you.’
Cyril wasn’t so much rubbing his hands at the thought than waving them above his head. ‘Can you believe it, J.P.? You get stand in the runway and wave the flag to tell all the penguins that winter has arrived!’

‘It’ll be the highlight of everybody’s day,’ agreed Larry, for the first time casting a funny look towards Cyril. ‘And who will they think about when they look back on those happy memories?’

‘Me, of course,’ I said, damn sure that if any scheme was sure to succeed, it was a scheme involving airplanes, ducks, and a man called Murgatroid.

I would have considered the plan further but I had to move.

Cyril was claiming he was an Angora sweater built by Boeing to be flown by Himalayan pygmy Nazis. It was a fine delusion as delusions go, but not so fine when taken to the extreme of jumping out of a nursery window proclaiming ‘Charles Handy is the leader of Namaland!’

It took My Man nearly an hour before he brought him back.