DaDa Detective Agency Collection

4. The Geography Teacher and the Map Room-2

Pimple now knew how Aedd’s pupils must feel in the classroom, as his own pupils disappeared to reside firmly in his forehead and his eyelids became unbearably heavy, but he had to admit to a fact you could not deny, Aedd was enthusiastic, if dubiously knowledgeable.

The room, already previously cool and shady, appeared to have darkened more as Pimple surfaced from his Crumpet trance and realised Aedd was in another part of the room and if Pimple was not very much mistaken, Aedd had moved onto the Scandinavian countries, via Wales; Pimple aware of this location as his Jacket, that might have been a coat, was adjacent. He knew this also, because his direction of vision was aided by a ceiling mounted, rotating spotlight, which was being remotely controlled by Aedd, who was concurrently explaining that this was where his ginger hair came from, but Pimple couldn’t help thinking, if he knew where it came from, he surely could send it back? IKEA had a returns policy and he permitted himself a little titter and Aedd did stop at that.

‘Amusing you I am, isn’t it?’ it was Welsh, when realistically, Pimple expected Swedish or Norwegian, but this required quick thinking if Pimple was to avoid an embarrassing situation. Fortunately for Pimple, Aedd’s brain was as ponderous as the Pimple intellect was at quick thinking and, coincidentally, Aedd had also thought of something else to impart and began, but Pimple was before him with his improving wit.

‘Know you do, Cecelia Crumpet, isn’t it?’ Pimple had slipped into Welsh, like a miner bird he thought, rather appropriately, also thinking then of canaries and wondering if they came back up from the bowels of the coal rich earth, to the surface, black, and not yellow. And if they did, did they wash them, then how, and would the miners wear marigolds like Mother’s?

Aedd had missed it completely, which was not surprising, and his dialects were all over the place and was beginning to give Pimple a headache, but extraordinarily and in BBC English, Aedd replied. ‘I know her because she did a profile of me when I presented a paper to the Portsmouth and Southsea Geological Society, Football Club.’ Pimple wondered why Aedd would be giving paper to a football club, but presumed it must have been loo rolls for the supporters. ‘I have to say, she is a bit of a corker…’ chuckling to himself in a posh dirty old man way that Pimple could identify with, ‘… and was no respecter of personal space, I can tell you,’ and Aedd’s ginger eyebrows raised. Pimple didn’t need telling, he had lost his personal space yesterday and had hoped it might be a precursor to losing something else as well, virginally speaking. ‘Too hot for me and also, I have recently given over my heart to another. I presume you heard my wife left me a year or so ago?’

Pimple confirmed he had and followed this up with an incisive journalistic question, impressing even himself and believing he was finally beginning to get the hang of this reporting lark. ‘Who is the current love of your life, Aedd?’ Pimple asked, essential background stuff this and he pictured it now, Isle of Wight syndication, a Pulitzer even, whatever that was? Those awful people in the newsroom had tried to tell him it was Pull-titser, but Cecelia had straightened him out on that one. It did seem to Pimple that Ms Crumpet had a soft spot for Pimple Minor, which he certainly could not attribute to himself, speaking metaphorically, in a bits and pieces way.

Aedd adopted a relaxed, armchair seated pose, crossed his extra long beanpole legs in an exaggerated manner that suggested he was more than pleased to discuss the current love of his life. He brimmed with a self-satisfied grin. It reminded Pimple of the film When Harry met Sally, where the girl in the film bangs the table in the cafe for some inexplicable reason. Mother had offered she was likely not satisfied with the service, but to Pimple, it looked as though she was completely satisfied.

When Harry met Sally‘Yes, I will tell you about her,’ Aedd said in such a way that Pimple was convinced he would, and then he did and pretty much as the girl in the restaurant, banging on ad infinitum, as they used to say in Roman needlework classes, to describe the blessed woman who had rescued this geography teacher from the Isle of Lesbos doldrums and had even lessened his somewhat vehement aversion of Hockey.

‘Her name is Beatrice Flat, and Bea is the music teacher at St Winifrede’s. She’s a…’ and he appeared to settle further into the armchair as he conjured a mental picture, wobbling his head, in a contemplative manner, ‘… a comely sort of woman. Plump I have heard people say rather rudely, but in the right places. Rubenesque I think, if you get my drift?’ Pimple did, and confirmed he did. ‘She’s a conductor,’ and Pimple was immediately confused, why say she was a music teacher if she worked on the buses? But Aedd was once again unmoved by the Pimple musings. ‘I have watched her conducting the famous St Winifrede’s, Nun’s Orchestra, and as she sways with the music, her beautifully rotund buttocks are like shifting tectonic plates and I told her so and, she seemed particularly smitten by my geologically geographic romantic side.’

‘Yes, I can see that would be the case.’ Pimple had managed to get a word in and appear worldly wise all at the same time. He was, however, a little surprised that following the introduction of his beloved, Aedd was off his seat again and, if Pimple was not mistaken, he was heading due north, for the Midlands, to wit and in particular, Birmingham, which although partially obscured, resided very close to the sideboard.

Shifting a vase and a pile of geography exercise books, Aedd revealed Birmingham. ‘I should really move this sideboard, what would Bea think if she came here and Birmingham was concealed, if only partially?’

Pimple could see where Aedd was coming from, sideboard wise, but was more intrigued that Aedd had imparted this recent concern in a Brummy accent, but in the spirit of geographical goodwill, Pimple offered a candid suggestion he thought amply demonstrated also, his maintained attention span and willingness to enter into the spirit of geography. ‘It’s an awful sideboard, why d’you not kick the dreadful article into touch, and say, replace it with a version of lower height and bulk?’ Then thinking even more geographically and geologically, ‘This may also afford you the opportunity to insert a chart depicting the geological constructs of this particular area of the Midlands, which may entertain Ms Bea Flat, music teacher from Brum, inordinately, as well as reassuring her that her home city, where presumably the family Flat reside, is well founded.’ Pimple then had a double take, which coincided with a swallow of breath in order to resist an attack of the vapours. ‘God, I presume Birmingham does stand on some sort of rock or firm foundation?’

To Pimple, you see, geology was simply a matter of a bunch of rocks, but he had enough savvy to realise not to impart this to Aedd, who was now off his armchair again, having only just regained it and re-established his Bea Flat relaxed and reclining posture, and he headed directly back to Birmingham and the offending sideboard, which partially obscured a Midlands city that sprawled incomprehensibly across the Black Country of England’s middle heartlands.

‘Yes, Everard. I see completely,’ Aedd said rubbing his chin in a thoughtful manner. Then Everard was stunned as the geography teacher began to shift the contents of the sideboard out into the hall. Having redistributed the books, what-nots and nick-knacks, he returned with an axe and after laying out a chart of the geological constructs for Birmingham, so that he might best describe and indicate the sub-strata whilst multitasking with the axe, he lustily attacked the redundant and excessively bulky sideboard, whilst expounding on how Birmingham was secure in its geological supporting stratum.

Pimple became a speechless spectator amidst a shower of splinters, sharp shards and larger chunks of previously attached polished timber and, creating his own form of the Mexican wave, he dodged the larger sideboard portions, occasionally steadying himself in order to best understand the subterranean characteristics of Britain’s second city, all of which Aedd described admirably, between grunts, accompanied by accomplished whooshing and swishing axe swipes. Pimple fully expected Aedd to gesture towards the forests of British Columbia and expound upon the economic and sociological structure of the lumber and pulp industry, lumberjacks even, but he didn’t, Aedd’s multitasking abilities being more or less on a par with Pimple’s own.

So Aedd progressed on his Birmingham subject matter. ‘In a climate much hotter than the present…’ he stopped and looked out of the window, the gloom of dusk did not appear to be alleviating the accumulated heat of the day outside. Although it was cool in the living room, it was about to get cooler, as Aedd raised the lower sash to its full extent and began to discard bits of sideboard, willy-nilly, so to speak. After the initial shock of seeing the sideboard, previously so prominent, exiting the room in random small and large chunks and in a rather dubious manner, Pimple became not unpleasantly aware of an ensuing draft from the open sash, which was particularly noticeable up and around his flappy trousers. Feeling somewhat relaxed, he remarked to himself that the breeze was quite beneficent as it bathed his recently weakened knees and, sooner or later, if it carried on in the equivalent direction and velocity and if ably assisted with some judicial flapping of the Pimple trouser bottoms, it would likely dampen his ardour and newly arisen sap for the delectable Ms. Crumpet.

Aedd continued his geological diatribe and demolition of the sideboard whilst Pimple protected his head with a cushion he’d picked up off a stool, nearby a Mediterranean island, Corsica if he was not much mistaken. Suitably protected and comfortable, Pimple settled down, re-summoning his mental picture of the Crumpet bosoms and stocking tops, by way of passing amusement, knowing his ardour could be cooled at any time he wished with a slightly elevated lower limb, to take advantage of the breeze from the open sash, along with a bit of judicious flapping of the Pimple trouser legs that he now had off pat, so to speak. He did have a casual thought of the receptionist at the evening news, Pat Poultry, a rare bird, not particularly good looking, but her appearance and overtly s****l Mumsey style, did it for Pimple minor, who was now drifting, imagining Ms Poultry bathing him and wondering whether she possessed marigolds.

It has occurred to me that some people may not have knowledge of Marigolds, other than the flower. The marigolds referred to here are the rubber, orange, washing-up gloves. Right, carry on…

It has occurred to me that some people may not have knowledge of Marigolds, other than the flower. The marigolds referred to here are the rubber, orange, washing-up gloves. Right, carry on…

Aedd did carry on in his destructive and informative way, unconscious of the fact that for Pimple, Ms Crumpet and her various scantily clad assets, had been temporarily transposed by a middle-aged woman receptionist, who like B Flat, Pimple supposed, was comely, although no spring chicken. Pimple managed a cackle, chicken like, thinking also he could become a raconteur, or some other sort of dinosaur, with all of these stories.

‘Most of the Birmingham area was covered by a vast shallow lake, don’t you know…’ Aedd was still talking and pointing to the geological chart with his axe, ‘… which lay below sea level, see.’

Pimple followed Aedd’s axe, but couldn’t see as he had gone again and only really stirred in a semi-conscious state, in what seemed like several hours later, at the mention of the Midland’s stratum, Mercian Mudstone, as this was the name of his mother’s best friend; Mercy Mudstone.

Pimple’s knee jerk reaction was as a consequence that Miss Mudstone, often encountered at the Pimple residence and a close companion of his mother, liked to join him in his bath and Dame Pimple would wash the both of them, though he had noticed his mother only employed the Marigolds on the Pimple intimate bodily parts. He had to say, that compared to his mental image of Ms Crumpet and even Madame Pat Poultry, Miss Mudstone, who also taught hockey, apparently, and played occasionally with Dame Pimple, or so the story goes, was not a patch on the glorious Cecelia, but each to his own Pimple supposed philosophically, in a man of the world manner.

man of the world