My father's aim was to affect the look of a mad professor. Ever since Einstein, this has meant sporting an unruly confusion of birds' nest hair. Undeterred by the plain fact that he was completely bald, my father applied his inventor's resourcefulness to the problem; adapting an old grey wig that he had inherited from his great grandfather Bernard which he had jokingly nicknamed 'the family hairloom'. Bernard had been a fishmonger all of his working life, and the ghosts of the thousands of fish he had filleted combined to declare their presence in the faint but odious smell still emanating from the wig, despite repeated attempts at exorcism through dry cleaning. Today I have ambivalent feelings towards that smell. Though fetid, it was Dad's odour, and it gave me a certain sense of power in revealing his recent movements around the house as he wafted it from room to room.
It seems extraordinary now, but at the time I had no idea how ridiculous Dad looked. With his tattered tweed jacket, threadbare cords, scuffed brogues and Keith Richards' fright wig, people must have thought him a cross between a down-at-heel lord of the manor and Worzel Gummidge. Perhaps it was because of my sheltered home-schooled upbringing, but I assumed all dads looked like that.
During the months leading up to the milestone of my father's 50th birthday, my mother was once more faced with the perennial riddle of what to give a man who makes everything he wants himself. A week before the big day, she was desperate. The Eureka moment finally came when an untamed dog-washing machine which Dad was covertly testing on next door's angry Chihuahua left his head covered in soap suds.- Of course! A new wig! With a full fitting costing a little over £200, it was an expensive gift, but one she would soon make her money back on with the savings from unbought air fresheners.
Decision made, Mum gently persuaded Dad into swapping his "foul fish rug for something more fragrant and modern!" More bouffant than Beethoven, the new grey
wig he reluctantly chose was a completely different animal to the family hairloom, and to my mother's despair he immediately set about 'fluffing it out' with
a comb.
I was 20 years old and still living at home on the last day of my parents' lives. However, on that awful Thursday in June three decades ago I was not at home but at my dad's sister Flora's house, as was usual on Thursdays, helping her prepare for her weekly séance. This generally involved removing ectoplasm stains from her tablecloths and covering her Ouija board with fresh lettuce leaves ready for the arrival of her psychic slugs. After I had finished my chores that morning, Aunty suggested we walk over to her allotment where she had grown those lettuces as she had some jobs to do. When we got there, Aunt Flora began picking spring cabbages while I hoed the weeds between the long rows of vegetables. During a conversation which covered the importance of quality gardening tools, how to make compost and the best ways to eradicate green fly, Aunty was on the verge of telling me what a visiting Prince Philip had said about her huge prize-winning melons when she tantalisingly broke off mid-sentence. Silently placing the cabbage she had just picked onto her head, she pulled out a large wriggling slug from her breast pocket and dangled it a few inches from her face. After several seconds her eyes rolled back into her head and she began to emit a torrent of excruciating guttural sounds. If these were words Aunt Flora was spitting from her mouth, they were in a language that sounded like no other I had heard and seemed to be drawn up from the very pit of her stomach. Before I could fully take in what was happening, the din stopped and Aunty's eyes flashed open. Now wild and bloodshot with terror, they were staring at some indeterminate point in the distance. A moment later, having returned from wherever she'd been, Aunt Flora dropped the slug back into her breast pocket then turned to look me straight in the eye, her cabbage-topped face grim.
"We must go to your house now," she said resolutely.
Home-schooling combined with my mum and dad's unique parenting style ensured that my window on the world was at best narrow. However, even with my limited knowledge of social mores, I had a strong suspicion Aunt Flora was not normal.
When I insisted she tell me why we both had to suddenly go back to my house, all she would say was: "The slugs don't tell me everything." I decided it was best not to pursue the subject.
Hurrying back across acres of allotments, Aunt Flora told me that we first needed to call in to her house to collect our transport. Disappearing upstairs for a minute, she returned sporting a 1920s-style purple corduroy driving cap and goggles, which made her look like a character out of The Great Gatsby. Aunty's chosen vehicle was a souped-up mobility scooter, which although able-bodied, she used whenever she wanted to get somewhere fast; having a life-long aversion to the congestion and pollution producing effects of almost all other forms of motorized transport. I on the other hand had to make do with a broken relic from my childhood which Aunty had recently rediscovered.
And so for nearly half an hour in the searing June heat we hit the streets; unsuspecting pedestrians flying off both sides of the pavement as Aunt Flora approached at high speed, honking her horn with reckless abandon, while I struggled to keep up behind on a three-wheeled skateboard which I had dumped in her potting shed when I was 10.
When we finally arrived at the house, my legs gave way and I sank limply to the ground; my head coming to rest on a grass verge. Soaked in sweat, my lungs bursting with exhaustion, it must have been a full minute before I had recovered enough to raise my body up again. When I did, I saw that two police cars were parked in front of our driveway.
Reaching the gate, I could see Aunt Flora standing outside the front door. She was talking to a short, fat, policeman who was sweating profusely and introduced himself as Inspector Grimble.
"I'm afraid there's been an incident Sir," he informed me solemnly while dabbing his glistening forehead with a sodden handkerchief. "Would you mind if we step inside?"
As I walked down the gloomy hallway past Dad's prototype dog-washing machine, I heard a commotion behind me: a terrible tumult of growls, yaps and shrieks followed by a long ominous snarl. Swinging around I was disturbed to see the angry white Chihuahua from next door. Although his presence in the house was not unexpected considering his new career as an inventor's guinea pig, what was disconcerting was that he appeared to be hanging pendulously in mid air; his puny body swinging violently from side to side. In the dimness of the hallway it took me several moments to realize that the canine's jaws were clamped to the ballooning buttocks of Inspector Grimble. Squatting low while wildly thrusting his hips back and forth, he could easily have passed for an overenthusiastic twerker at a Weight Watchers' disco.
"Let go you little Hell creature!" he shrieked as he windmilled his arms behind him. "You beast! You beeeeeest!"
Despite Grimble's desperate protestations and frenzied dance moves, the canine stubbornly refused to let go. Allowing his body to be flung at every angle of the clock face, the only discernable sign he was in any discomfort were his short rhythmic growls which he let out in time with each wild hippy shake.
Suddenly it dawned on me what must have happened: the Inspector's hand had brushed the dog-washing machine when he had followed me down the hallway, and the watching Chihuahua, thinking he was about to be subjected to another round of sudsing, had leapt up from behind like a wide-jawed crocodile.
Behind Grimble I could see Aunt Flora silently watching the scene unfold. Tilting her head backwards, she slowly raised both of her arms into the air and then closed her eyes as if she were an Aztec praying to an ancient god. I felt my blood run cold as her awful guttural voice punctured the air once more; echoing hideously around the hallway. This time the words were in English:
"In the name of Black Shuck: fiery-eyed Dog-fiend, bringer of thunder, mutilator and destroyer of church steeples, I command you to let go!"
The reaction was instantaneous: the Chihuahua's ears bent flat to his head and his body stiffened. Releasing his grip on Grimble's girating bottom, the dog fell unceremoniously to the floor in a splayed-legged heap. After several frantic attempts to recover his footing, he scrambled up and scurried back down the hallway, whimpering as he went.
The trembling policeman turned to face Aunty, an expression of shock and disbelief on his now crimson sweat-soaked face.
"What did you do?" he asked shrilly.
"I simply reminded him of a distant relative," she replied, shrugging her shoulders.
After resisting Aunt Flora's pleas for him to pull his trousers down so that she could inspect his bite marks, Grimble led us into the living room.
"I think it's better if you sit down," the policeman said, gesturing to the sofa with a sweep of his handkerchief.
"Just tell us what you know Inspector," replied Aunty firmly.
"Okay madam. Following a telephone call this afternoon reporting a disturbance at this address, two of my officers arrived at the scene. On receiving no response after calling at both the front and side doors, they searched the grounds. Whilst my officers were combing the back garden they discovered two bodies. We're going to have to ask you to come down to the morgue with us to identify them."
A chill rippled down my spine. Bodies in the garden! No, this wasn't right. This was the sort of thing that happened to other people - the ones you read about in newspapers or watch on television giving tearful interviews. Grimble must have made a mistake... But then Aunt Flora and her psychic slug brought us here. They knew something was wrong. Oh God!
"Yes I'll go to the morgue. Can you give us all of the facts Inspector - we want to know everything," said Aunty.
"Very well madam," he replied, pulling out a black notebook from his shirt pocket and flicking it open. "At 12.37pm today we received a call from a Mr Granville Tink who we understand had come to the house to deliver a DIY magazine for Mr Jeffery."
"Wingnut World - my dad receives it every fortnight," I confirmed.
"Mr Tink told us that on his approach to the house he saw a woman, who we now believe was Mrs Jeffery, in the back...... gar... den..."
Inpector Grimble had stopped speaking and was craning his kneck towards us. His eyes were widening like saucers and his mouth was gaping. He appeared to be peering directly at Aunt Flora's bosoms. Swinging my head around to look at her, I saw that it wasn't her breasts that were mesmerizing him, but the contents of her breast pocket, which was now moving. A moment later, two pairs of feelers emerged, followed by the swaying head of Aunty's oversized slug. I nudged her in the side and rapidly moved my eyes back and forth in the direction of her pocket. Seeing that the snake had been charmed, she casually pushed the gastropod back down into the depths of her blouse with her forefinger.
"Is that what I think it is?" asked the policeman.
"And what do you think it is?" asked Aunt Flora.
"Well, it looked very much like a slug."
"Bravo! Your powers of observation haven't deserted you Inspector. I've been asked by the Royal Shakespeare Company to play Cleopatra."
".... Mmm?" replied the Policeman, narrowing his eyes and furrowing his brow.
"Oh Inspector, you must have cracked it. - I'm rehearsing with my own mini asp!"
"Right.... Of course.... That's very er... dedicated of you."
"Why thank you Inspector. Now can we please get back to the back garden."
"Oh yes... Sorry. When we interviewed Mr Tink he told us that as he was walking up the driveway to the house he saw a woman - Mrs Jeffery - over the back garden fence who appeared very agitated. He said that she was crouching next to the bird table and staring down at a long brown steaming object on the lawn which he didn't have a clear view of. According to his statement Mr Tink then witnessed her stand up and sprint across the garden towards a stationary vehicle he described as a homemade JCB."
"Dad's poo-powered log-lifter. He uses it to move logs from the pile at the bottom of the garden to the house for our woodburner," I interrupted.
"Poo-powered! That's very green Mr Jeffery," replied Grimble, nodding his approval.
"Don't you mean brown?" I said, not understanding his meaning.
"Ha ha... Mmm... Yes... Well..." The Inspector's lips tightened. Shoving his hand deep into his trouser pocket, he retrieved his handkerchief then began to dab more sweat off his forehead. After loudly clearing his throat he began speaking again. "Our witness told us that Mrs Jeffery climbed into the 'log- lifter', started the engine and then proceeded to drive it very erratically around the garden; flattening flowerbeds and crushing garden ornaments before finally applying the brakes a few feet from the bird table."
"Mum can't drive!" I gasped.
"Evidently," said Aunt Flora.
"Mr Tink said that Mrs Jeffery then got out of the vehicle and rolled the long object into its scoop. It was at this point that he claims he clearly saw what the object was: a body. I'm afraid that's all I can tell you now," said Grimble, snapping his notebook shut.
"Oh no you don't Scheherazade! You can't leave us hanging like that. This isn't some tale from the Arabian Nights. We're talking about this poor boy's mother and father!" thundered Aunt Flora, putting a protective arm around my waist and squeezing me a little too vigorously.
"I'm sorry madam. Our investigations are ongoing. Once we've collated all of the evidence and fully examined the witness statements we'll be able to tell you more."
"What rot! What else did Mr Tink see?"
"Just leave it Aunty. He can't say any more," I sighed, lowering myself down onto the sofa and burying my face in my hands. There were so many unanswered
questions: Why on earth was Mum moving dead bodies around our garden in the log lifter? Not only had she ruined our flowerbeds through her reckless driving,
but all the facts suggested she was actually a homicidal maniac; merrily bumping off her victims amongst the begonias and rhododendrons every Thursday while
I was conveniently out of the way scrubbing ectoplasm stains at Aunt Flora's! And where did Dad fit into this nightmare? I didn't know my parents at all!
When Aunt Flora visited the morgue she confirmed that the two bodies found in our garden were those of my mother and father.
It was quickly decided that I would move in with her at least until the inquest was over, or rather Aunty decided; arguing that this arrangement would make it easier for us to support one another in our grief. However, it soon became apparent that this 'arrangement' would also involve me providing a five star catering service to her slugs, laundering her spirit-soiled tablecloths, polishing her ouija board and weeding her allotment, as well as any other chores she dreamt up for me to do in order to earn my keep.
"The key is to keep active and not dwell," Aunty would say. "Your mum and dad would have wanted us to carry on as normal." The problem was that 'normal' for Aunt Flora and 'normal' for the rest of the planet were two completely different things.
During the inquest the Coroner decided that it would benefit the investigation if I was given a copy of the full witness statement to read. As I knew my parents' characters and behaviour patterns, he hoped that I would be able to shed some light on some of the seemingly unaccountable aspects of their deaths. It was also a relief to finally find out what else Granville Tink saw:
Picking up from where Inspector Grimble had left off, after my mum had rolled the body into the log-lifter's scoop, she climbed back into the driver's seat and began to frantically pull levers. The paperboy said that he saw the vehicle perform a series of 'cool breakdance moves' before the complicated system of wires and pulleys slowly raised the scoop high into the air. After a cacophony of clanking sounds, the log-lifter surged forwards; almost knocking the bird table over before coming to a screeching halt at the edge of the ornamental fish pond. Granville told the police that the jolt to the vehicle was so violent that it shuddered for several seconds afterwards. When the shaking stopped, several of the wires snapped and whipped violently around the garden; one decapitating our stone statue of Saint Christopher, whose head was later found in the fish pond. Slowly lowering herself down from the log-lifter, my mum, now moving unsteadily on her feet, stopped to stand under the scoop. The paperboy said he heard the sound of groaning metal before the remaining wires broke and my mother looked up; mysteriously yelling:
"Why did you have to fluff -?"
Before she could finish, the scoop swung down and emptied its load on top of her.
The autopsy found that my mum had died of a broken neck due to trauma induced by a blow from a heavy object. The falling body, as you have probably deduced, was my dad's. His post-mortem found that he had died of electrocution, which explains the steam Granville saw rising from his body.
Now that the cause of his death had been decided, the main aim of the inquest was to establish why my father had died. The autopsy results confirmed that his injuries were consistent with a Squirrel Zapper-strength shock of 2000 volts. As fresh seeds and fat balls were discovered on and around the bird table, the Coroner concluded that the most probable reason that Dad had touched the metal sheet was because he was laying out food for our feathered friends. At first the investigators suspected that the Zapper had faulty wiring, but this was discounted after a detailed inspection by an electrician. So if the wiring hadn't been faulty, what had happened? Leaving aside my earlier befuddled vision of my mother as a member of the Manson Family, it seemed inconceivable that she would have picked up the remote control and turned on the current while Dad was at the bird table.
I knew that the answer must lay in my mother's unfinished sentence: "Why did you have to fluff -?" Fluff what? The meaning of those few words became chillingly clear one evening as I was settling down to a large glass of sherry from the cabinet in Dad's study, having popped back to the house for a drink after a hard day of choring. Unfortunately Aunt Flora was a militant teetotaller, and would not allow alcohol in the house; believing that its presence alone would dilute her psychic and clairvoyant abilities. As I relaxed back in Dad's antique leather armchair, my gaze settled on his beloved family hairloom which was spending its retirement draped over the corner of an old framed photograph of his great grandfather Bernard set on his writing desk. Proudly standing outside his shop dressed in his fishmonger's apron, my great great grandfather was captured holding up a giant salmon; a broad grin stretched across his face. Remarkably, the unruly wig hanging off the sepia photograph appeared to be in almost identical condition to its younger incarnation which Bernard was shown wearing in the image, taken over a hundred years earlier. Like the ancient fish whose smell still lingered ghostlike amongst its hairs, it was as if it had travelled through the picture through its similarly ineffable desire to live on. I reached for the photograph and held it close. Staring at the image, my eye was drawn towards something I had not noticed before. There was a small thin metallic object sticking out of Bernard's apron pocket which looked at first sight to be a filleting knife. I opened Dad's desk drawer and pulled out a large magnifying glass which he used to read small print when his glasses were not to hand. Holding the lens up to the photograph, the fine details immediately revealed themselves, and I could see that the blade had a row of teeth and was in fact a comb. At that moment I realized that the reason the wig looked as wild and weathered then as it did now was because my great great grandfather, like my father with his new wig, had been using a comb to fluff the hairs out.
Fluff the hairs out...
Fluff the...
FLUFF
- It took a few moments for the significance of that word to properly register in my brain. When it did, the thing my mother was about to say when she died and its shocking implications became as clear to me as the old photograph seen through the magnifying glass. My mother's last forlorn words had of course been directed at my father lying in the log lifter's scoop above her. She was about to say: "Why did you have to fluff your wig out?" On the surface this appears a bizarre question to ask your dying husband. However, when I thought about how Dad had been killed and realized what had happened, Mum's words and the emotional agony behind them seem inevitable.
As the Coroner had correctly deduced, on the morning my father died he had been laying out food for the birds on our bird table. Being a very tall man with back trouble, he habitually put out the seeds and fat balls while on his knees. If you were facing Dad from a distance, the bottom of the family hairloom's fringe would appear to be on a level with the bird table's platform. This is the view from our living room window which looks on to the back garden.
That morning my mother was almost certainly in the living room sitting in her window-facing easy chair. She had been reading David Icke's The Perception Deception, which the Police had found open on the arm. Glancing up from her book to admire the garden, Mum would have been met with the repellent vision of a bushy grey tail on the bird table. Springing up from her seat to grab the video remote control, as she had countless times before, she would have poked the Eject button and sent 2000 volts through Tufty. Or rather she didn't. It was a miracle that it hadn't happened before.
One thing that still puzzles me is why Mum tried to move Dad's body with the log lifter. As the Accident and Emergency Unit is based just around the corner
from our house, perhaps she thought that driving Dad straight there would be quicker than waiting for an ambulance. We'll never know. I suppose people do
reckless things when they're hysterical.
Part Two
The Wig Maker's Curse
"I warned your father that our great grandfather's wig was cursed," she said, screwing her eyes shut and shredding the salad plant with her fingers so that its shrivelled leaves fell like rotten confetti.
"I'm sorry?... The family hairloom? That's ridiculous!" I replied.
"That's exactly what he said."
"Wait a minute. Are you saying that the wig had something to do with Dad's death?"
"It had everything to do with his death, and probably your mother's too."
"But he wasn't wearing it when he died. He was wearing his new wig."
"Precisely."
"Sorry?"
"It's not something the family likes to talk about Neil, but now your father and mother have gone I think you've got a right to know the truth. It was all because of a petty dispute Great Grandfather had with a man called Harold Slitherton. Let me tell you about Harold: He came from a family of gypsies and lived alone with his gin-soaked mother who spent most of her days trying to sell lucky heathers in the fishing village where Great Grandfather lived. When Harold was a boy she used to beat him for fun; swilling from a bottle in one hand while bashing him with the other. Their sneering neighbours joked that rather than Romani folk songs, the only music that ever rang out from the Slithertons' caravan were Harold's screams and his mother's cackles and burps. Almost all of the villagers hated the gypsies and didn't think to help Harold - it was none of their business. Harold's lot seemed to get better when he fell in love with the vicar's daughter, Annabelle. People were happy for him, and when they wed in her father's church the whole village turned out to see them. A few months later a notice in the Church Gazette announced the good news that Annabelle was expecting. Unfortunately the poor wretch miscarried, went completely cuckoo and set light to her hair. There was a silver lining though: her charred barnet got Harold into wig making, and he went on to start a successful business. Of course when Great Grandfather decided to get a wig, he went to Harold.
"One morning Harold turned up at the fishmongers looking like a thundercloud. Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a large halibut and slapped it onto the counter in front of Great Grandfather.
"'Look at that - I bought this halibut from you yesterday and it's already gone home! Give me a fresh one you shyster.'
"Great Grandfather stared down at the fish.
"'Well it looks fine to me,' he replied.
"'How can you say that? - It stinks!'
"Great Grandfather lifted the fish up to his nostrils and took a long sniff.
"'That's just normal fish smells. Nothing wrong with that,' he said firmly.
"'Aren't you going to change it as a courtesy?' asked Harold.
"'A courtesy.... mmm. Well normally I would, but as you haven't shown me an ounce... Listen Mr Slitherton, I've never sold a bad fish in my life and I don't intend to do so,' replied Great Grandfather proudly.
"'A curse be on you then!' cried Harold, pointing at Great Grandfather's head. 'If you ever stop wearing my wig, you'll meet with a fate so apalling that Lucifer himself will feel humbled! And when you sink into the abyss, not one soul will help you.'
"'Are we talking Dover or Lemon?' asked Great Grandfather, grinning."
"Hang on," I interrupted. "How do you know what was said? You weren't there. You weren't even alive!"
"Great Grandfather told me."
"Told you?"
Aunt Flora nodded.
"But how could he have done? He died years before you were..." I tailed off when I suddenly remembered.
A smile formed on Aunty's face; the knowing, rather superior sort you would expect a medium or anyone laying claim to a higher consciousness to wear.
"Sorry - I forgot."
"Can I continue?" she asked haughtily.
"Please."
"Dumbstruck by how he'd been mocked by Great Grandfather, Harold eyeballed him then turned on his heel, shaking his head as he walked out of the door.
"That evening Great Grandfather lit a bonfire in his back garden. Yanking the wig from his head, he threw it on top of the pyre.
"'Burn Slitherton you venomous clotpole!' he seethed.
"Great Grandmother said that for a long while afterwards he stood gazing silently into the bonfire as though he'd been hypnotized by the flames; only walking away when they'd completely consumed the wig.
"The following day after he'd closed the shop, Great Grandfather took two rubbish bags full of bones, scales, rotting flesh and other fish waste out into the yard to empty into his bin. As he passed his prized statue of Neptune wielding his spear-fishing trident, one of the bags burst, freeing the foul dregs, which slithered out onto the slabs around him like guts spilling from a freshly butchered carcass. Great Grandfather tossed the unbroken bag into the bin then began to tread carefully back towards the door to get a mop from the filleting room. When he was almost clear of the putrid ooze, the toe of his shoe caught the slimy head of the halibut which Harold Slitherton had angrily slapped onto his counter the morning before. Feeling his foot slide away from under him, Great Grandfather was hurled forwards towards Neptune, and watched helplessly as the wild-bearded Sea God rose up to meet him. Landing hard, face down in the fish slime, he suddenly felt a terrible pain in his head. When he lifted it, Great Grandfather found he could only see blurrily out of one eye. Squinting at the view in front of him, he slowly made out Neptune, who was now lying on his back, broken into several pieces. As Great Grandfather's eye refocused, he noticed that something important was missing from the fragments. Reaching out to touch his blind eye, the movement of his hand was stopped when he felt one of his fingers hit something cold, wet and metallic. When he wrapped the rest of his fingers around it to feel its full shape, Great Grandfather let out a hollow laugh.
"'You just can't stop fishing can you Neptune!' he said.
"Great Grandfather heaved himself up off the ground and staggered back into the shop, then went out through the front door and onto the high street to get help; blood gushing from his eye socket from which Neptune's trident now jutted. He only had to wait a moment before he saw one of his regular customers, Mrs Hornblower, walking towards him with her young daughter Iris.
"'Mrs Hornblower! Please would you help me. I'm afraid I've had an accident...'
"'Oh God in heaven help us!' cried the woman recoiling; aghast at the dreadful blood-soaked monster with the spear through its eye, reeking of rotting fish. 'Don't look at him Iris,' she warned, quickly pulling her daughter across to the other side of the street.
"'But Mrs Hornblower, it's me Bernard - your fishmonger!... Mrs Hornblower!'
"It was no use. The two were quickly disappearing down the high street and weren't going to turn around.
"Great Grandfather decided to make his way down to the village quay where he'd be able get help from some of the local fishermen he knew. It was a lot nearer than the walk to his house where his wife Lily would be busy preparing his dinner. That evening there were few people on the streets. Those he asked for help either squealed in terror then legged it like Mrs Hornblower, or acted as though he wasn't there at all.
"When he reached the quay, Great Grandfather could see a group of fishermen's wives, mothers and children mending nets by the sea wall. They were sitting together in a semi circle with their backs to him. Feeling very weak and dizzy after losing so much blood, Great Grandfather shuffled quietly towards them. One of the women, picking up the foul smell, turned her head around. Seeing the ghastly creature approaching, she screamed.
"'Help me,' Great Grandfather croaked. 'Please help me.'
"Now just a few feet away from the group, he felt one of his shoes catch in the mess of fishing nets lying on the ground. Flying through the air once more, the poor man landed plumb on top of one of the wives' young daughters. After a lot of screaming and frantic arm waving, several of the salty old hags hauled Great Grandfather off the girl and threw a fishing net over him, while another began beating him over the head with a lobster pot. Soon the noise of the ruckus reached some of the fishermen tending to their boats on the other side of the quay, and around half a dozen ran over to see what was happening. When one of the gossipy young wives told them that the man had attacked the girl, the fishermen grabbed Great Grandfather, tied him up, then bundled him below deck on one of their boats while they decided what to do with him.
"Early the next morning the men took the boat out to sea to fish as usual. After they'd hauled in their catch, they went below and got completely sozzled on rum. Bellowing: 'What shall we do with the bad fishmonger?' to the tune of Drunken Sailor, they stuffed Great Grandfather's mouth full of pilchards, twisted the trident in his eye socket, and put a live lobster down his trousers." I sprang back and yelped as Aunt Flora thrust both of her hands towards my crotch and turned them into viciously snapping pincers.
"Oh I'm sorry dear - I didn't mean to scare you. I was just demonstrating... Shall I carry on?"
"Ok," I squeaked.
"Just as the fishermen turned their boat around to sail back to the village, a huge storm broke. While the men were busy bailing out water and doing everything they could to keep themselves afloat, Great Grandfather decided he'd try to escape. Managing to wriggle free of the ropes tied around him, he clambered up to the heaving deck, crawled on his hands and knees to the stern, then flung himself overboard.
"When my terrified Great Grandmother contacted the police to tell them that her husband was missing, over one hundred officers and volunteers from the village began to scour the area, and a call was put out for witnesses on the night he'd disappeared. After two days, when the police had neither found a body nor had any leads to go on, one of the wives of the fishermen came forward and told them what she'd seen. The men were dragged into custody and the evil blighters all confessed to abduction and battery.
"On the morning of the third day, word spread like wildfire around the village that something unusual had washed up on the shore, and the news reached my
Great Grandmother. Curiosity and the thought that a bracing walk along the beach might make her feel better, spurred her to put on her coat and scarf and
leave the house for the first time since Great Grandfather had gone missing.
"Great Grandmother followed the winding track up the steep hill that overlooked the beach. As she neared the top, she began to hear a distant roar of voices.
Far down below the entire village had gathered. They were swarming around the object which had drawn them there: an enormous blue whale. Astonished, Great
Grandmother paused on top of the hill watching the spectacle. A team of men were busy cutting up the creature with saws and axes, while the excited villagers
were waving their arms and pointing.
"Keen to get a closer look at what was going on, Great Grandmother quickly made her way down the hill towards the beach. By the time she'd reached the end of the track at the bottom, the noise of the villagers had become deafening. Jogging across the wet sand, Great Grandmother could see that the men had stopped cutting into the whale and that four of them were now perched on top of it. They seemed to be trying to haul something out from its insides. When she reached the crowd, Great Grandmother tugged the sleeve of the first person she met: a mean-looking old lady in a tattered floral headscarf cradling a bottle. She recognized her immediately.
"'What's happening?' Great Grandmother asked.
"'Why are you asking me?' snapped back the lady. 'You should be asking my Harold - he'll tell you.'
"Great Grandmother began to fight her way through the crowd towards the whale. As she got to the group of workers surrounding it, they suddenly pulled
backwards, forming a semi circle around a small space in front of the creature. All of the men had turned very quiet and were staring down at something on
the sand in front of them. Forcing her way forward between two of them, Great Grandmother came face to face with the thing that had silenced them. She let
out a scream and sank to her knees. Lying on his back on the sand was Great Grandfather.
"A few weeks afterwards my great grandmother died. Everyone close to her said that it was from a broken heart.- All for the sake of a stupid halibut!
"Over fifty years later Great Grandfather's wig reappeared in my parents' (your grandparents') house. Harold Slitherton's hex had turned it into an imperishable hoodoo hairpiece fated to destroy every head that chose to wear it if that head ever dared discard it. When my grandparents saw it during a visit, they were shocked, and after years of silence told my mum and dad Great Grandfather's story; begging them to hide the wig away. My parents made it clear to me and your father that they thought the whole thing was claptrap and that we should take it all with a pinch of salt. Well I can tell you now that when I made contact with Great Grandfather across the spirit realm he assured me that every word of it's true.
"And now this curse blighting our family has struck your father and mother down. Your dad thought it was codswallop! - And that's from someone who believed that the education system is being run by a secret society of lizard people!"
When Aunt Flora had finished speaking I was at a loss for words. It was an incredible story, and one which I am sure she had embellished for dramatic effect. I could understand why Dad had found it hard to swallow. After the things i have seen I can honestly say I now believe in psychic slugs, messages from the dearly departed and the legend of Black Shuck. I am even willing to believe in the existence of an English wine people actually enjoy drinking. However, when it comes to accepting that a cursed wig with the staying power of Lazarus killed my father and mother, it is a leap too far. Needless to say I am not so confident in my conviction as to ever risk trying it on.
After hearing Aunt Flora's story I decided to remove the family hairloom from my great great grandfather's photograph, which, whatever the truth, I think he will appreciate. It still remains confined in the study, but now safely under lock and key; quarantined from any potential heads, where I can keep an eye on it.
