Lady Chatterley's Lover

was effecting him, he was becoming a little vulgar. ‘Wot bleedin’ orful wevver,’ Lord Chatterley would say. He was becoming a little common. At a cocktail party he broke almost earsplitting wind, saying ‘Share that among you!’ Mrs Bolton was thrilled at knowing a man, an aristocrat, whose photo appeared in the illustrated papers and by some terrible mistake, in the Exchange and Mart .
    Mrs Bolton worshipped Clifford, he had to stop her genuflecting every time she came before him and burning a candle each side of him. Under her influence he took a new interest in the mine, every day she would bring him a lump of coal from the day’s shift. Every morning now he would put on a miner’s helmet, put coal dust on his face in sympathy with the miners, he kept one of the mine’s canaries in his bedroom to warn of gas in the shaft, and a parrot trained to shout ‘Gas’ in the event. He realized he was the real boss of Tevershall mine, he really was the pits (Eh?!!!). Things he had learned before the war and seemed forgotten now came back to him: how to harden a conker, how to cross the road and how to make a model of St Paul’s from hardened conkers. Now he sat there, his pockets full of hardened conkers, crippled, in a tub, with the underground manager showing him a coal seam with a powerful torch. He said little, because there was fuck all to say, he could have said ‘Elephants’ but that would confuse the manager who would only say ‘where?’ and the game would be up. He began to read technical works on coalmining. It was all there. ‘Put canary in place then grasp pickaxe handle by shaft, strike point in seam, remove coal, take to surface and sell in bags.’
    So that’s how it was done! Eager for more knowledge Clifford read the latest German mining techniques ‘Put zer canary in zer place. Grasp zer pickaxe handle und zer shaft strike mit point in seam remove zer coal, take up zer surface und zell in zer bags.’ So the Germans weren’t ahead of us! Many new inventions were happening there! There was one now but Clifford didn’t know of it as it happened in Brest-Litovsk. Of course the most valuable information was kept secret as far as possible, like the company chairman screwing the secretary. That night in his bedroom Lord Chatterley broke wind, a moment later the canary fell off its perch and died.
    Clifford was interested in the technique of modern mining and canary replacement. The very stale air of the colliery was better than oxygen. Once down there he had farted, three canaries died. The mines gave him a sense of power, power real power, he could feel it in every skin of the banana he was peeling. He was doing something and he was going to do something, he did, it killed another canary. The depression was on and he wanted to pull Tevershall mine out of the hole. (How silly, most mines were down a hole!). Success as a mining boss had at last got him out of himself, he was over there. Art had not done it for him, Art 26 had only made it worse. He was not aware how much Mrs Bolton was behind him, he was always comfortable in her company, of which he was a director. With Constance he was a little stiff, it was eventually diagnosed as arthritis, in ancient Greek it was Arthron. Dr Blake told him, ‘You have ancient Greek Arthron and that will be fifty drachma.’

TEN
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    C ONNIE SPENT a good deal alone now, who set up the good deal were Twerg, Spencer and Durt Solicitors & Commissioners for Oaths. Fewer people came to Wragby, among the fewer were Dick Squats, Len Lighthower, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Eric Grins and Dick Turner, the retired haddock-stretcher. Of all of them only Lord Louis resented being a fewer person. Dick Squats had become a much fewer person as he had died. Strangely enough he died of elephant. Clifford had turned against his cronies. One good turn deserves another they say, so he turned on them a second time. He was queer. 27 He preferred the radio, usually queers prefer other men, but he preferred the radio, on it he could sometimes get Madrid or Frankfurt even London’s 2LO who broadcast a talk, Musk Ox maintenance, seventy years on they wouldn’t have changed much. Clifford would spend hours listening to the loud speaker bellowing forth. It amazed him and stunned Constance while deafening him, she bought him an ear trumpet but he never learned to play it. Was he really listening to it? Or was it a soporific drug he took, yes, he was on Ovaltine, he