Going Off Alarming: The Autobiography: Vol 2 (19 page)

Following the episode in the tree we had raised our fence higher. After the episode with the tunnel we had laid paving stones along
the back. We tried to anticipate where Twizzle would move next and saw that we had a weakness either side with the relatively low fences that separated us from our aged neighbours, Ethel Jones and Maud Birch. These two wonderful old ladies were our very good friends. Both in their late seventies, they had lived in Scawen Road since they were little girls. Maud used to tell us what a high reputation the street had when she was younger:

‘Before
we moved here, we lived up by the high
street,’
she would tell us as we sat by the fire in her kitchen.
‘And
if my mother ever took us into the park or we had to walk along the road here, we had to wear our best clothes and spotless gloves. It always was a beautiful square. Then in the war a mine got dropped on the far side one night and blew down a lot of the houses and the whitewash factory that stood over the back. That’s why the Grinstead Road side is just open ground these
days.’

Maud’s memories of the area took up many a Sunday afternoon after I would take her in the extra dinner that Wendy always prepared. One tale concerned the chilling moment the terrifying reality of the Blitz first intruded on the lives of those who lived in the street.

‘It
was a late
afternoon,’
Maude began in the clear but hoarse tones this fiercely house-proud widow delivered all her tales.
‘My
Bob was home on leave for some reason, but he’d gone to the big pub that used to be over on Evelyn Street – it kept a monkey, that pub, and that was a big attraction then. Any rate, the sirens had gone but at that point we hadn’t really had any what you might call big raids and so we’d got to ignore them a bit. All us women were in Deptford Park, which had become an allotment and had big barrage balloons tethered in it – you can’t imagine such a thing now. So we decided to stay, because nine times out of ten nothing happened. But this time some planes did come over and they started dropping these bombs – but not like you see on telly, more like thin cylinders that burst into flames but didn’t blow up or anything. So we all ran indoors, but it didn’t last long and when we come out there were little fires going everywhere. So we all got out these stirrup pimps that they’d issued that you were supposed to use on any blazes before they got too bad. Some of the trees were on fire and a few of the roofs near Hicks
Street too, but the main damage seemed to be over at the warehouses and docks across by the river.

‘So
there we all were – having a bit of a laugh about it, if truth be told, because we’d all heard it said that these bombs could bring your house down when really it was just starting these fires, so we was all a bit relieved. Then back comes my Bob and his mates and said we all better get down the shelters quick. He looked really pale, I remember that. Well, we all said he should get a bucket and give us a hand, but then he told us what it was all about. These fires were just the markers, he said, there to point out the targets for the heavy bombers coming behind. It was getting dark then and as we looked about we could see all the places where these flames were starting to get a hold.
“Everybody
in!”
he said.
“This
thing ain’t even started
yet.”

‘Well,
we all gathered our stuff and started for the shelters. Nobody was saying a word any more. And that night was the first night of the Blitz. We’d never known anything like it. The pub he had been in came down like a pack of cards. All the blokes who’d stayed inside got killed. Even the poor little monkey. Nobody knew what to expect, see
 . . .’

As the logs in her fireplace spat and crackled, Maud would fall silent and sit staring off into the distance. I stayed quiet too. There was nothing anyone from my generation could add to that.

Ethel Jones on the other side was of a similar age to Maud, but the peculiar thing was that the two women did not get on at all. When forced to acknowledge each other – we always invited them both to the parties we seemed to continually host – they would only ever say a clipped
‘Mrs
Birch’
and
‘Miss
Jones’
when holding their stilted conversations across their teacups. Neither of them had any children; Ethel, because she had stayed at home with her mother until late in life, and Maude because, as she once gloriously told Wendy and I with a grimace,
‘My
Bob was never very good in that
department.’

Fortunately, keeping these two frosty old gals from actually being neighbours was our house and, germane to Twizzle’s story, our garden. Because we were friends with E&M, the fences between us were not very high and topped with a simple trellis that allowed us to
see and chat to each other on sunny days. It was through the obvious weakness this amiable arrangement offered that we now believed Twizzle would launch his next invasion of Rambo’s turf.

Ethel’s side was clear favourite, given that her back wall adjoined the junk yard at a height Twiz could easily clear with three paws tied behind his back. So, after explaining the situation to the old ladies, we decided to bolster defences on either side by a few feet, though not so high that our yard would start to resemble some sort of canine Stalag.

Now comes just about the most extraordinary tale any dog owner has ever recounted to a cynical public. In the short interim between the hole-digging and the new barriers going up, we took to restricting Twizzle so that he only had the freedom of a short passageway that ran outside our back door and along the length of the rear of the premises. This was a space about twenty feet long by four feet wide, with another fence along Ethel’s boundary we judged high enough to thwart even a runner in the Grand National. At the end of this passage was the garden itself. A tall narrow gate fashioned from curlicue wrought iron marked where the alleyway ended and our garden began. This gate, topped as it was by a small brickwork arc, coupled with the fence, firmly denied Twiz access to his Eden beyond. He was, at last, penned in.

It took him about an hour to figure out that, while he couldn’t jump over this latest enclosure, he was able to look over it. With a mixture of wonder, admiration and outright hysteria, I discovered him hanging over the top of the fence, its upper edge wedged beneath what I suppose we must call his armpits, surveying the world from his suspended perch. From the other side it must have looked as if he was ten feet tall and leaning over for a natter. The only drawback for Twiz was that, once in place, he couldn’t get down again and so at regular intervals I would have to go out to the passageway, stand on a box and unhook him.

Fed up with him grumpily growling at me as I did him this favour, I told him what I thought of this ingratitude.

‘Don’t
you fucking growl at me, you mad sod – I’ll leave you up there all night next
time.’

On about the third day of this series of suspensions, Ethel knocked. Ethel, unlike the Amazonian Maud, was a classic little old lady who spoke in the wavering tones her appearance suggested.

‘I’m
sorry to bother you,
Danny,’
she began, looking embarrassed,
‘but
Twizzle has started hanging over the fence looking into my front
room.’

I told her I knew and apologized, saying it was only a temporary situation until other enclosures were in place.

‘It
gave me a terrific shock when I first saw him. I thought it was a man. The trouble is, neither of my cats will go out now. They see him looming up there and run back
indoors.’

She laughed as she said this, but I could see it was a worry for her. Also, when Ethel said
‘neither
of my
cats’
that was something of an understatement. Wendy and I were never sure exactly how many cats Ethel had, but if ever she left her back door open in summer the waves of ammonia emanating from unseen cat trays deforested hedgerows for several miles around. If just two cats were responsible for that, they must have had bladders like nuclear reactors.

Promising Ethel it wouldn’t happen again, I closed the door and vowed to keep Twizzle indoors for the remainder of the work.

After bringing Wendy up to speed with the latest arrangements, I went out to work on a voice-over for a TV ad – a further sign that my radio presence was getting noticed. This commercial was for Weetabix breakfast cereal and I was very flattered to be asked to perform the lines for one of the five wheat-cake-based cartoon characters that comprised the gang fronting the campaign. Previously my character had been played by Bob Hoskins, whose gruff,
‘If
you know what’s good for
you!’
contribution finished each commercial. Bob, understandably, felt he had taken the role as far as he could and had decided to step down before his performance began to deteriorate. As I travelled up to Soho to make my debut as the tough, streetwise, no-nonsense Weetabix, I was hopeful that I could bring something fresh to the role. Tragically, the waiting nation was never to know what might have been.

As soon as I arrived at the studios, I was told by a concerned-looking receptionist that I must phone home immediately. Nobody
likes to be told this and as I dialled the number I desperately hoped it would be something as trivial as me going out with both sets of keys in my bag. When I got through, it was clear I wasn’t to be so fortunate.

Straight away I could tell there was anguish bordering on panic in Wendy’s voice.

‘Oh,
Dan
 . . . 
it’s Twizzle
 . . .’
Wendy was now sobbing.

Though looking discreetly away as I stood at her desk, the receptionist must have noted how silent I had fallen as I listened to Wendy’s terrible news with just the occasional
‘Oh
no
 . . . 
oh no
 . . .’
by way of reply. But even she looked around when she heard me say,
‘But
how could he hang
himself?’
followed by a low,
‘Christ
almighty
 . . .’

Saying I was coming directly home, I placed the phone back on the cradle and with a rushed,
‘I’ve
got to go
 . . .’
ran out into the street again.

There were no cabs to be had and in a daze I ran to Piccadilly tube station and rode the Bakerloo line to Waterloo. There I jumped in a taxi from the rank. In those days a fare to SE8 was not greeted with a cheery
‘Right
away,
guvnor!’
and so in order to shortcut all the huffing and puffing I just yelled,
‘I’ll
pay you double the meter if you get me to Deptford without
stopping,’
as I leapt into the back.

Even then the journey took over half an hour. Chucking the cash at the cabbie through the partition window, I strode up our front path ready to burst into tears at this awful turn of events. As I twisted the key in the lock I hesitated just for a moment, took a deep breath, then threw open the door.

The first thing I saw was Twizzle at the foot of the stairs, doing his
‘Welcome
Home’
dance.

I looked at his wild circling and energetic shakes for several seconds before putting my hand on his snout to make sure this wasn’t some phantom vision. It wasn’t. Or if it was this was one of the new hyper-realistic phantom visions that came with genuine whiskers and a wet nose.

Trying to take it all in, I now became aware of Wendy talking to someone in the scullery. Making my way there I found Wendy
sitting at the table with John and Adrienne, our good friends from two doors down and our first call in a crisis.

For a moment nobody spoke. Then they all laughed as Adrienne said,
‘You’re
too late, you’ve missed it
all.’

I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t laugh along with them. And if I’d missed anything, my first thought was that it was the chance to bring the world my own take on a cartoon skinhead Weetabix that came with repeat fees. What kind of ghastly practical joke was this?

‘I
just saw Twizzle in the
passage,’
I managed to eventually mumble.
‘You
said he was
dead.’

‘He
was
dead,’
said Wend, uttering perhaps the most peculiar three words of our entire marriage. Then she topped that with:
‘But
he came back to
life.’

I shall make my précis of how Twizzle was apparently rejected by St Peter – possibly even by Beelzebub himself – as coherent as I can.

Though thankfully infrequent, there arrives into the life of any grown-up householder moments when minor events combine to form a perfect storm. Let’s say you have enough to do already and things are not going well. On top of this you have workmen in. Another lot arrive to estimate a future job. A friend pops by. The phone goes. And there’s someone at the door. You begin to feel like you have somehow become mixed up in a strained sixties stage farce, and will even say,
‘I
am going to scream in a
minute,’
to invisible cameras you believe must be placed around your home.

It was during one of these extreme fits of domestic turbulence that Wendy found she could no longer keep shuttling our dog from room to room in case he took a snap at someone or made a bid for freedom. So in desperation she took him out into his alleyway enclosure and, putting him on his lead, tied the other end to a drainpipe and said she would be back in ten minutes. He was now prevented from charging into the garden, launching himself at strangers, or popping up like a pantomime villain over Ethel’s skyline. The job of enlarging our garden perimeter was nearing completion at this point, although one section, on Maud’s side, remained completely open. It may have been this tempting portal that caught Twizzle’s eye and set in motion the unbelievable events that followed.