Monday, July the 12th, 2004

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Some Ponds, a Hotel, the Hollyhocks

I—Some Ponds. There are seven ponds. Their names are Brink, Cramped, Dribble, Lamont, Presumption, Ravenous and Unholy. In a lead box at the bottom of one of the ponds an Icelandic fontoon lies sealed against the elements. But which pond? The fontoon is made of some nameless metallic alloy, and it has a long history. Countless learned tomes have been devoted to pondering its existence, location, significance, colour, smell, incontrovertibility and malevolence. Its value is incalculable. A facsimile made of petrified dough was sold by the Museum at Ack-on-the-Vug for an undisclosed sum. The identity of the buyer was also undisclosed, at the time. Now, this shadowy figure has the true fontoon almost in his clutches. He has booked in to a hotel just four hundred yards away from the ponds.

II—A Hotel. The major domo at the hotel stared out of the dining-room window. The sky was overcast. Soon the drizzle would begin. It always did. He hooted, once and once only. He was afraid of sheep, baffled by corkage, continually muttering about the gasworks, defiant, elegantly ragged, flappable during snowstorms, grotesquely carnivorous, helpless with starch, ignoble, just dying to shake hands with a lion tamer, kept waiting for hours by guests late for breakfast, lascivious yet hard of hearing, mistakenly shot at by poachers, nerve-wracked, overcoated, pitiful, quite likely to hoot for a second time, risibly bemuffled, still awaiting a voyage around the world, tempestuous every Thursday, unbelievably festooned with old sacking and netting, vigilant, weak, xerophilous despite the rain, young at heart and zestful at the prospect of his daily milk supplement. He hooted for a second time, much louder.

The hotel was fully occupied. Among the guests were anthropomorphic beings, bauxite miners, cartographers, dribbling thugs, elk fanciers, fontoon hunters, genuflecting dolts, heroic chefs, idiots savants, jugglers, kaolin quarry workers, lopsided people, marionettes, nautical curmudgeons, old besmirched gravediggers, pond draggers, quicklime spreaders, ruffians, sink bashers, taloned maniacs, untidy throwbacks, vinegar brewers, waxen image igniters, xylophone construction experts, yellow-bellied burblers and zinc inspectors. Watching them all gobbling down their breakfast porridge, the major domo tried to work out who was who. There appeared to be some trouble at one of the tables in the far corner. An aged couple, raddled and with frenzied gleams in their eyes, were raising their voices at a pallid and neurasthenic git still wearing his nightshirt. This man was Richard Widdmarke, implacable seeker of the Icelandic fontoon. His antagonists were a cartographer and a lopsided person. Their names were, respectively, Eileen and Wolfgang Hollyhock.

III—The Hollyhocks. Widdmarke did not realise that for over forty years the Hollyhocks had also been searching desperately for the Icelandic fontoon. Their interest had been ignited by Eileen's discovery of a tiny zinc fontoon in the Serengeti. It appeared to have talismanic properties, which Wolfgang had catalogued into seven basic groupings: elemental, dishevelled, yellow, crimped, congruent, dismal and vagabond. Among their luggage, the Hollyhocks carried the fruits of years of research. Eight hundred ledgers and a voluminous card index system contained information on all manner of fontoons, voils, Wesniod slabs, forensic triumphs and choir-stall scrapings. A parallel compendium of exciting facts about flags, pennants and bunting had fallen over the edge of their raft some years ago, or perhaps been lost in a swamp.

After the altercation at the breakfast table, the Hollyhocks realised that Richard Widdmarke was, like them, on the verge of discovering the sunken lead box containing the Icelandic fontoon. They immediately set out in the drizzle to drag the ponds. They wore horrifying mackintoshes. When they reached Lamont, the nearest of the ponds, they were outraged to find Widdmarke already there, equipped with a thrilling collection of nets, poles, metal detectors, rotating things, crimping irons, and booster guns…

The major domo stood at the dining-room window, peering out through the drizzle towards the seven ponds. A fight had broken out among three of the guests. Mackintoshes had been removed and boxing gloves donned. There were fisticuffs. There were gunshots. There was wailing. Before long, all three had managed to drown one another, and all in the same pond. But which pond? And was it the same pond at the bottom of which a lead box lay?

The major domo turned away, hooting quietly. He trudged into the kitchen and made a start on the porridge-encrusted bowls. He had work to do.