Monday, June the 6th, 2005

back to: title, date or indexes

hear this 

A Pedant's Righteous Nostrums

It has to be said that most of the inhabitants of O'Houlihan's Wharf are not worth writing about. They are, with few exceptions, a grey and insipid bunch. One of those exceptions, however, is the pedant from whose pen streams a series of righteous nostrums, or possibly nostra, regularly sent out into the world, or at least into this bilgewater-befouled corner of it, posted as they are on a noticeboard outside the pet shop, from which they are rapidly torn down and stuffed into the pockets of those citizens who collect them with something approaching mania.

Three questions present themselves to the inquiring mind. Who is this pedant? What are his nostrums? And are they righteous?

I do not have an inquiring mind, at least not today, for I am too busy putting the finishing touches to my Taxonomy Of Swans in tin, wood, grease and sand, an imposing sculpture which has not yet found a buyer and may therefore remain wedged into my bathroom for years to come. But I know that readers will be curious about the pedant and his nostrums and their righteousness, so I asked Dr Ruth Pastry to investigate.

Now Dr Pastry and I have a somewhat fraught relationship. Many moons ago, we got into an argument about that anonymous 18th century suicide note which reads, in its entirety, “All this buttoning and unbuttoning”. I cannot recall the substance of our dispute, only that harsh and unforgivable words were exchanged, saucepans hurled—one still brimful of an appetising soup—and threats levelled against pets, to wit, a tortoise and a goose. The tortoise was mine, the goose Dr Pastry's. In the end, neither of them came to any harm, at least not immediately, although of course the ravages of the passing years took their toll, and both of them are now dead and gone, Diego the tortoise in a maelstrom and Rex the goose in a railway accident.

Very much alive, though, is the feud between me and Dr Pastry, and it was with a view to ending it that I invited her help with the pedant and his righteous nostrums. It was the sort of assignment I thought she would enjoy, given her fondness for both pedants and nostrums. I was wrong. Here is what she wrote in reply to my invitation.

“For the love of heaven, Key! What makes you think for one moment that I would ever again set foot in that confounded sea-girt wasteland? The last time I went to O'Houlihan's Wharf I was young, cheery, and full of beans, a bluestocking with the glint of glory in my bright blue eyes. Two hours after cycling into town with a pannier full of Proust, I was sprawled on a heap of pebbles, stinking of the sea, a prematurely-aged drudge with gnats in my hair, pustules on my brow, and a belly full of 90% proof egg nog. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the shrivelled and witless O'Houlihan's Wharfites. It is simply the spirit of the place. It does that to a person, even to me. Well, never again. Your pedant with his nostrums can go hang. I am going out to the cemetery now to place a bunch of peonies and flax on poor Rex's tomb, and as I do so I will curse you again and again, as I have cursed you every single day since the buttoning and unbuttoning business first flared. Adieu.”

Clearly, if I was going to satisfy my readers' curiosity about the pedant and his nostrums and their righteousness, I would have to think again. Dr Pastry seemed in no mood to make peace, and I was not sure I would be able to change her mind.

All of which, I suppose, goes to explain why I found myself hopelessly lost in the dark, dark woods as midnight struck. With Dr Pastry down the pan, as it were, I worked desultorily at the Taxonomy of Swans, my mind buzzing away trying to think of someone else who might be able to help. As I tamped a fistful of grease into a knothole, I suddenly remembered the old blind woodcutter. It was true that he knew nothing of O'Houlihan's Wharf, but, I reasoned, that might work to my advantage. Dipping my hands into a tub of swarfega, I tried to recall his telephone number. He had made we swear never to write it down, and I had honoured my promise, partly out of rectitude and partly because he said that if I broke my word he would send a sloth of slow, lumbering bears to smother me in my bed. His sightless eyes gleamed dangerously in the candlelight as he said this, and I realised that the story about how Old Ma Bagshaw met her end suddenly made sense. “My word is my bond,” I mumbled, and the old blind woodcutter cackled.

Now, though, twenty years later, with the Soviet Union long collapsed, I simply could not remember that damned number. I realised I would have to set off into the dark, dark woods and find the old blind woodcutter's crumbling cottage, and ask him face to face. I tacked the end of a length of string to my gate, and paid it out behind me as I walked, each step taking me further and further from the comforts of home, and the unfinished Taxonomy of Swans, and closer to the perils of the dark, dark woods.

Had I known that my neighbour's eagle, Simon, had swooped out of the sky within minutes of my departure, and bitten the end off the string, because it smelled of hamster, I would have stopped then and there. In my ignorance, of course, I tramped on, little knowing that, like the answers, my friend, my string, the string that should see me safely home, was blowin' in the wind.

And the answers to my three questions, about the pedant of O'Houlihan's Wharf, and his nostrums, and the righteousness of his nostrums, they too are blowin' in the wind, for what hope do I have of discovering them now, in this Stygian darkness? It is midnight. I am encircled by enormous trees. The duff underfoot is musty and damp and alive with tiny biting creatures. There is no trace of the old blind woodcutter's cottage. Perhaps I only ever imagined him. My hands still stink of swarfega. It is midnight, and pitch black, and I have been wandering these dark, dark woods for a hundred years.