Wednesday 8 January 2014

Cocktails / or The First Tale



Was Branson T Pickles a man of average words or a master of linguistic gymnastics? A gallant and a flaneur, it was his curious habit to inspect every nook and cranny as if looking for a woman in distress. 

Branson lived alone above a glen in a mountain hut surrounded by summer swallows who didn't seem to mind the rain. There was a lake nearby where swans bathed in the foggy stillness and admired their reflections. He had a piebald horse, two dwarf goats and a dung heap full of pecking chickens. 

The T in Branson T Pickles stood for Tangier. This middle name had been his mother's whim. It had a ring to it and it pleased her. But Branson never used it. He didn't like it. His mother Sylvia was a gentle poetess and a rare creature of her time. She arranged the flowers in the church.

Father Nemeth was the parish priest and an amateur poet. It was rumoured that he had once been asked to read a poem at an Eisteddfod across the sea in Wales. 

When I read the work of the great poets I wonder why I bother writing poetry at all, he once said to Sylvia over a slice of venison sausage after the final service one Sunday. But she said nothing. She just looked. 

I cannot come to the level. I cannot ascend to the heavens where the echoes return slow and the feather and the paper whirl in angelic dance. She looked again. She laid down her cutlery. Touched her lips with her apron. I see, she said.  

She reached for Father Nemeth's unpublished manuscript on the sideboard.  

Her knowing eye scanned the list of poem titles. Her finger ran quickly down the page: Long Island Iced Tea, Donau Zombie, Swimming Pool, Pina Colada, Planter's Punch, Cuba Libre, Tangier and then it stopped. Sex on the Beach, she said. And she smiled. 

Orange, Grenadine, Vodka and Peach, he said. But what is the point? he asked, carefully laying down his fork. My pen would be better employed in idleness, he said. 

It was a grim sadness too great to bear. And soon he fell into a deep depression. 

With unusual rapidity he faded away. 

Sylvia travelled to Father Nemeth's homeland and threw his ashes into the winds over Cader Idris. And then she threw herself under the wheels of the Barmouth train as it passed over the estuary. 

The coroner said it was an accident.

Unusually the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded that year for a first collection. It was presented to a new name on the scene - B Tangier Pickles the author of Cocktails. 

The acceptance speech was the shortest on record. 

B Tangier Pickles was never heard of again. 


(c-2014) 
Gwilym J Williams