Unseen Academicals

open it up, see what it said, dig out a bit of earwax and no one would be any the wiser.
    But that would have been a very bad thing to do.
    Glenda thought that same thought fifteen times before Juliet walked into the Night Kitchen, hung up her coat on the hook and put on her apron. ‘There was a man on the bus readin’ the paper and it had a picture of me on the front,’ she said excitedly.
    Glenda nodded and handed over her own paper.
    ‘Well, I suppose it’s me,’ said Juliet, with her head on one side. ‘What shall we do now?’
    ‘Open the damn letter!’ shouted Glenda.
    ‘What?’ said Juliet.
    ‘Er, oh, Trev sent you a letter,’ said Glenda. She snatched it from the shelf and held it out. ‘Why don’t you read it right now? ’
    ‘He’s probably just mucking about.’
    ‘No! Why don’t you just read it right now? I haven’t tried to open it!’
    Juliet took the envelope. It opened more or less to a touch. Glenda’s evil side thought, hardly any gum at all! I could have just flicked it open!
    ‘I can’t read with you standin’ so close,’ said Juliet. After some time moving her lips she went on, ‘I don’t get it. It’s all kinda long words. Lovely curly writing, though. There’s a bit here saying that I look like a summer’s day. What’s that all about, then?’ She pressed it into Glenda’s hand. ‘Can you read it for me, Glendy? You know I’m not good at complicated words.’
    ‘Well, I’m a bit busy,’ said Glenda, ‘but since you ask.’
    ‘First time I’ve ever had a letter that’s not all in capitals,’ said Juliet.
    Glenda sat down and started to read. A lifetime of what even she would call bad romantic novels suddenly bore fruit. It read as though someone had turned on the poetry tap and then absent-mindedly gone on holiday. But they were wonderful words, nevertheless. There was the word swain, for example, which was a definite marker, and quite a lot about flowers and quite a lot of what looked like pleading, wrapped up in fancy letters, and after a while she took out her handkerchief and fanned the air around her face.
    ‘So, what’s it all about?’ said Juliet.
    Glenda sighed. How to begin? How did you talk to Juliet about similes and metaphors and poetic licence all wrapped up in wonderful curly writing?
    She did her best. ‘Weeell, basically he’s saying that he really fancies you, thinks you’re really fit, how about a date, no hanky panky, he promises. And there’s three little x’s underneath.’
    Juliet started to cry. ‘That’s loverlee. Fancy ’im sitting down and writing all those words just for me. Real poetry just for me. I’m gonna sleep with it under my pillow.’
    ‘Yes, I suspect that he had something like that in mind,’ said Glenda and thought, Trev Likely a poet? Not likely at all.

    There was a dreadful load on Pepe’s bladder, and he was stuck between a rock and a hard place, if that wasn’t too offensive a description of lying between Madame and a wall. She was still asleep. She snored magnificently, using the traditional multi-part snore, known to those who are fortunate enough to have to listen to it every night as the ‘errgh, errgh, errghh, blorrrt!’ symphony. And she was lying on his leg. And the room was pitch dark. He managed to retrieve his leg, half of which had gone to sleep, and set out on the well-known search for porcelain, which began by him putting his foot down on an empty champagne bottle, which skittered away and left him flat on his back. In the gloom he groped for it, found it, tested it for true emptiness, because you never knew your luck, and, as it were, filled it again, putting it down on what was probably a table, but in his mind and the darkness could just as well have been an armadillo.
    There was another sound syncopating with Madame’s virtuoso performance. It must have been that which woke him. By groping, he located his shorts and after only three tries managed to get them the right way up and the right way round. They were a little chilly. That was the problem with micromail; it was, after all, metal. On the other hand, it did not chafe and you never had to wash it. Five minutes on the fire and it was as hygienic as anything. Besides, Pepe’s version of the shorts held a surprise all of their own.
    Thus feeling that he could face the world, or at least the part of it that would need to see only the top of him, he shuffled and stubbed his way to the shop’s door, checking every bottle