The Bagthorpe Saga: Absolute Zero

Chapter Two

During the course of that day the pile of recent newspapers and periodicals that lay on a shelf in the sitting-room rapidly and invisibly levelled down to a mere handful of colour supplements.

The Bagthorpes quite often all got the same idea at the same time, and quite often did not say a word to one another, each imagining him or herself to be the sole recipient of the particular inspiration. Tess playing her oboe, Rosie her violin and William his drums, had each been lacking in their usual total concentration. Visions of Caribbean isles and palm trees danced between them and their semiquavers. Each, in turn, began to think along the same lines.

Mrs Bagthorpe was in her room up to her ears in Problems and was not involved. Nor was Jack, who was in the meadow trying to train Zero to Beg, nor Grandma, who was in the kitchen cross-examining Mrs Fosdyke on the finer points of Bingo. Grandpa had gone away for a few days to play bowls. If he had been present he would certainly not have gone in for Competitions. He was a very Non-Competitive Man, and the younger generation of Bagthorpes got all their drive from Grandma’s side of the family.

Mr Bagthorpe was in his study reflecting bitterly on the unfairness of life. That Uncle Parker, who to all appearances did nothing but sit around doing crosswords or else tear about the countryside putting the fear of God into old and young alike, should actually have won a Caribbean Cruise simply by doodling with a form, was something Mr Bagthorpe just could not take. He himself had already been sitting at his desk for nearly two hours and all he had done so far was tear up five false starts to a script he was supposed to be doing. He would not have minded so much if Uncle Parker had won the prize by putting the right famous eyes into famous faces, or guessing where a football ought to be on a photograph, or something of that nature. It would even have been a fruitful source of sarcasm.

But that Uncle Parker should have won a prize by using words, which were the tools of Mr Bagthorpe’s own trade, and which he felt to be more or less his exclusive province, was a bitter blow. Nothing would do, he decided, but that he himself should win an even bigger and better prize with a shorter and better slogan.

He was not a man to sit around playing with ideas. The minute he got one, he acted on it. (The critics often described his scripts as “monumentally single-minded” or “ruthlessly one track”.) Mr Bagthorpe took these as compliments, and they may have been, of course.

“Lear is monumentally single-minded,” he would point out triumphantly. “Othello was ruthlessly one track. So was Macbeth.”

Mr Bagthorpe, then, abandoned his abortive script and went to the sitting-room to find any magazines that might be running Competitions. He had often noticed them in the past but had thought it beneath his dignity to enter them. He had also, like Jack, thought that nobody ever won them anyway. He was not pleased to find that the magazine shelf had already been rifled, and guessed immediately what was afoot. He did not much like the idea that his offspring were intending to win Competitions too. It was, he knew, possible that he would end up by being a runner-up to one of them – Tess in particular, who was very good with words.

He instantly resolved, therefore, to keep his own Competition Entering secret. He was sure he would win every one he entered, if everything was all square and above board, and he was not pipped by a member of his own family. If, however, the Competitions were rigged (as he felt sure some of them must be, viz. Uncle Parker’s success) and he did not win, then he would avoid loss of face. Mr Bagthorpe was very bad at losing face.

He did get ideas, however, and had one now. Competitions did not appear only in newspapers and periodicals, they also appeared on the backs, tops and insides of grocery packages and tins. Uncle Parker’s own success had depended upon the top of a SUGAR-COATED PUFFBALL carton. He determined to raid the larder. This, he realised, depended on sidetracking Mrs Fosdyke, who was not easy to dodge because she darted hither and thither about the house all day with the rapidity and inconsequential tracking of a hedgehog. She could be in the bathroom one minute, a bedroom the next and then back down the hall, following her own obscure method of housekeeping. He had to think of a way of keeping her out of the kitchen for at least ten minutes while he had a quick sort through the pantry.

He pondered this for some time. He hit upon a solution. It was a neat one – it killed two birds with one stone.

In the kitchen he found Mrs Fosdyke serving coffee to his wife, the only member of the family who appeared to be interested in it. The rest, he surmised, were holed up in their rooms hammering out Slogans.

“Mrs Fosdyke has just been telling me how she has kindly offered to take Mother to Bingo tonight,” she greeted him.

“To what?” demanded Mr Bagthorpe incredulously.

“To Bingo, dear. It will take her out of herself. You know how drawn into herself she has become lately.”

“Laura,” said her husband, “if Mother so much as sets foot in a Bingo Hall there will be a riot. You know there will.”

“Nonsense, dear,” said Mrs Bagthorpe firmly. (She gave so much thought and time to other people’s Problems that as far as possible she tried to pretend that those of her own family were not there, in the hope that they would go away.)

“My mother,” said Mr Bagthorpe, “and she is my mother, and I think I know her as well as anyone ever could, is a congenital cheater at games. No –” he held up a hand – “don’t bother to deny it. You were present, I believe, last week, when she concealed the Q in her handbag because all the Us had already gone, at Scrabble?”

“Oh, she won’t be able to cheat at Bingo, Mr Bagthorpe,” said Mrs Fosdyke positively. “It’s impossible. It’s all done ever so fair and square and businesslike.”

“Is it?” Mr Bagthorpe threw himself into a chair and reached for his coffee. “Think they’ve got it organised, do they?”

“Oh, they have,” she assured him. “They’d never keep going, otherwise. It’s got to be fair.”

“In that case,” he said, “I prophesy – if you will excuse the expression – that whatever Bingo Hall you frequent will be closed down within the week. I also think it possible the police will become involved, and that there will be adverse publicity in the local papers. Probably –” pausing for a gulp of coffee – “in the Nationals.”

“Oh, go on, Mr Bagthorpe!” said Mrs Fosdyke skittishly.

“Henry, dear, you do exaggerate,” his wife told him. “I think it will be the healthiest thing possible for Mother to do.”

“Oh, it’ll be healthy for her, all right,” he agreed. “There’s nothing sets Mother up like an all-out row.”

“Well, let’s just wait and see, shall we,” said Mrs Bagthorpe sensibly. “And thank you so much, Mrs Fosdyke, for your kind offer. We’re most grateful.”

“Ah, and that reminds me, Mrs T – Fosdyke,” said Mr Bagthorpe. He had been about to say “Mrs Tiggywinkle” but stopped himself just in time. “There’s a little favour you might do for me, if you will.”

“Really?” She looked startled. Mr Bagthorpe hardly ever spoke to her at all, and had never in memory asked a favour. He looked at her quite a lot, and she did not much like the way he looked, but he almost never actually said anything.

“If you’ll excuse Mrs Fosdyke, dear,” he said to his wife, “I’d like her to pop down to the village shop for me. I’m in the middle of a very difficult patch with my script, you see, and there’s some material I must have if I’m to get on.”

“Well… certainly I’ve no objection,” said his wife, “if –?”

She looked enquiringly at Mrs Fosdyke who was already wiping her hands on her overall preparatory to taking it off. She was going to enjoy telling them in the shop that she was there on an urgent errand to get something for one of Mr Bagthorpe’s TV scripts.

“What is it you’re wanting?” she enquired.

“It may sound strange,” replied Mr Bagthorpe, “but what I require are current copies of the following magazines: Woman’s Monthly, Mother and Home, Happy Families…”

He rattled off half a dozen more magazines that he felt sure would be rich in Competitions. These he had selected a few minutes earlier from The Writer’s and Artist’s Year Book. They were none of them publications that were usually to be found at Unicorn House.

Mrs Fosdyke looked surprised by this but Mrs Bagthorpe did not.

“I need,” explained Mr Bagthorpe shamelessly, “to get right inside the mind of the woman in the home. Into the mind of a woman such as yourself, for instance, Mrs Fosdyke.”

Mrs Fosdyke positively scooted for her coat and hat on receiving this gratifying intelligence. She told her cronies about it later in the Fiddler’s Arms.

“He’s doing one of his scripts about me,” she boasted. “Said he wanted to get right inside my mind. Researching up on it at the moment.”

On being jealously reminded by one of her friends that she had always pronounced Mr Bagthorpe to be mad, she replied:

“It goes in patches, does madness. He’s in one of his sane spells” – which covered the present situation nicely, and also gave her a loophole whereby she could revert to her former assessment of Mr Bagthorpe if necessary.

Mrs Bagthorpe finished her coffee and went back to her Problems. Mrs Fosdyke, armed with a five-pound note and strong bag, was scuttling towards the village, and the coast was clear.

Mr Bagthorpe took a pair of scissors and went into the pantry. The haul was rich beyond his wildest expectations. There seemed hardly a packet or tin that did not offer the possibility of desirable rewards from motor cars to thousands of pounds, from holiday bungalows to trips to the Greek Islands. (Mr Bagthorpe was particularly bent on winning this latter, because it had a lot more tone than a trip to the Caribbean.) There were eight tins whose wrappers carried entry forms for this particular prize, and he swiftly removed them all and stowed them in his pocket. The very next batch of tins promised a motor car and also some very attractive runners-up prizes, ranging from stereo equipment to typewriters. These, too, were divested of their wrappers.

All in all Mr Bagthorpe was in the pantry for a full quarter of an hour. He returned to his study a happy man, every pocket stuffed with wrappers and box lids, and hours of enjoyable Slogan Slogging before him. He sorted his pickings into businesslike piles, fetched out a new notebook and prepared a record-keeping system. He made notes of how many bottle tops of certain products he would have to collect and send along with his entries. He wrote the closing date of each Competition in red, and by lunchtime the ground was prepared. All that now remained was the actual solving and Slogan-making – the least part of the thing, it seemed to Mr Bagthorpe, who was not a modest man.

The house was full of Bagthorpes similarly engaged. Rosie was sucking her pencil over a Slogan for After Shave (made difficult by her uncertainty as to what this product was actually supposed to do). In the end she settled for “You may be no saint, but X will make you feel good.” William was writing a letter in not more than five hundred words explaining why he would like a motor caravan, and Tess had already thought of three surefire Slogans for a shampoo, and was now deciding that the best was probably: “You may be no saint, but you will have a halo” (which, given Rosie’s effort, suggested a strong telepathic link between Bagthorpes simultaneously generating ideas).

Jack, meanwhile, was slack and happy in the meadow with his dog. Zero did not really seem to want to sit up and Beg, even when Jack dangled his favourite biscuits above him. The reason Jack wanted him to learn was to increase his standing among the other Bagthorpes. Even now that he could fetch sticks, none of them really thought much of him. It was Mr Bagthorpe who had given him his name. “If there was anything less than Zero, that hound would be it,” he had said. It was not a good name to have to go through life with, and Jack sometimes wondered if it affected Zero, and gave him an inferiority complex. He spent a lot of time trying to build up Zero’s confidence, because he could tell by the way his ears drooped when he was getting sad and undermined.

This morning, for instance, after each unsuccessful attempt by Zero to beg, Jack had hurled a stick and shouted “Fetch!” and each time Zero had brought it back he was patted and praised and given a biscuit.

At present Jack was having a rest and wondering how best to tackle the problem. He felt sure that Zero could sit up and Beg if only he, Jack, found the key to how his mind worked.

He’s got quite thick legs and a very square-shaped sort of bottom, he thought, so there’s no physical reason why he can’t Beg. It must be all in the mind.

There was, of course, one obvious method Jack could use for getting through to Zero. He had been keeping it as a last resort, because the only other occasion he had used it was one of his most painful memories. It was the most embarrassing moment of his life. Jack had been trying to get through to Zero how to fetch sticks, and in the end had himself dropped down on all fours, crawled after the stick and picked it up in his own teeth. Mr Bagthorpe had caught him in the act. It had been terrible. The only thing was, it had worked.

And it could work again now, he thought. In fact, it’s probably the only way.

Unfortunately the thing was not so simple as it seemed. He would need, he realised, an accomplice. Someone would have to hold up a biscuit for Jack to sit up and Beg for. It would, he was convinced, be no use his holding up a biscuit for himself. This would only confuse Zero more than ever.

Jack slumped back into the grass.

That’s it, then, he thought. He knew for a fact that none of his family was going to hold up a biscuit for Jack to Beg for. He also knew that he would never ask them. They were all genii, and he was ordinary. To ask them to hold up biscuits would be to invite the fate of being sub-ordinary. He half shut his eyes and squinted through the long, seeding grass and saw the light running like wires. He heard Zero’s steady panting by his ear, and was content. It was a shock to hear Uncle Parker’s voice.

“Hallo, there. Having a kip?”

Jack shot up and shaded his eyes against the low autumn sun to stare up at his uncle, six foot four above ground level, and looking amused in the friendly way he had. Jack and Uncle Parker were old conspirators. They understood one another.

“Not kipping,” Jack told him. “Just having a bit of a think.”

“Ah.” Uncle Parker sat down himself and pulled a grass to chew.

Jack explained the problem.

“Well,” said Uncle Parker when he had finished, “here’s your third party.”

“You? Would you?”

“No trouble. Nothing much to holding up biscuits. Got some handy?”

Jack indicated the bag containing the remainder.

“There’s just one thing you might do for me,” Uncle Parker said.

“What?”

“Go to the Bingo place with Grandma and Fozzy. I’ll give you a sub. Can’t let that pair loose on their own.”

Jack saw his point. He knew that Grandma was going to cheat, and that when she was found out she would need protecting. Mrs Fosdyke was not the protecting type. She would probably scuttle, like a rat off a sinking ship the minute the police arrived. (Jack, like Mr Bagthorpe, felt sure that the kind of cheating Grandma would go in for would eventually involve the police.)

“I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll go. Might even win.”

“Could easily,” agreed Uncle Parker. “Pure chance. No skill. No offence.”

“Come on, then,” Jack said. “Let’s start the training. Here.”

He handed up the bag of biscuits. He himself then crouched on all fours beside Zero, who was dozing.

“Hey, Zero!”

Zero opened his eyes and his ears pricked up slightly.

“Now – watch me!”

Zero yawned hugely and moved to a sitting position. He looked dazed.

“Now,” whispered Jack to Uncle Parker, “you say ‘Up!’ and I’ll sit up and Beg. If I do it and he doesn’t, you say ‘Good boy!’ and pat my head, and give me the biscuit.”

Uncle Parker nodded. He delved in the bag and came up with a chocolate digestive which he broke in half.

“Right.”

He held the biscuit aloft halfway between Jack and Zero.

“Up. Sit up. Beg. Good boy – boys, rather.”

Jack accordingly crouched on his legs and held his hands drooping forward in imitation of front paws.

“Good boy!” exclaimed Uncle Parker. He patted Jack on the head and held out the biscuit. Jack opened his mouth and Uncle Parker pushed the half digestive into it. It nearly choked him. He looked sideways to see that Zero was looking distinctly interested. For one thing, his eyes were fixed soulfully on the piece of biscuit still protruding from Jack’s mouth, and for another, he was doing a kind of stamping movement with his front paws alternately, like a racehorse impatient to be loosed.

“Look!” The exclamation came out with a shower of crumbs. “Look at his paws!”

Uncle Parker nodded.

“We’re on the right track. All we’ve got to do now is keep on reinforcing the message. How hungry are you?”

“Not terribly,” Jack told him. “You could break the biscuits in quarters instead of halves. They’ll last longer that way.”

The training session continued. It was going well. Uncle Parker and Jack became increasingly pleased with themselves and increasingly entertained by Zero’s efforts to raise himself with his front paws up. He had very big, furry paws – pudding-footed, Mr Bagthorpe called him – and he did not seem to have much control over them. Once or twice he toppled over sideways within an ace of success and rolled about growling with annoyance.

“I wish we’d got a camera,” Jack said. “I’ve never seen anything so funny.” He then added immediately, for the benefit of Zero’s ears, “And it’s jolly good the way he’s catching on. You’re nearly there, old chap. Good old boy. Good boy.”

He was the only Bagthorpe who ever praised Zero and he had to do a lot of it to keep his confidence and his ears up.

Had Jack known it, a camera was in the offing. It was going to be used at any moment, just as soon as Rosie could stop stuffing her fists into her mouth to keep herself from giggling out loud, and use her hands to operate the camera instead.

Rosie was behind a hawthorn bush not six feet from where the training was taking place. The reason why she was there was because she was out to get some shots for a Competition entitled “Me and My Pet”. At first she had passed it over, because she did not have a pet. She was too busy with her maths and violin and Portraits and swimming (which were the four main Strings to her Bow) to have time for a pet. She had then, however, thought of Jack and Zero. She turned back to the Competition and discovered that what was really wanted was something unusual.

One of the most unusual things Rosie had ever heard of (she had, to her intense annoyance, missed actually seeing it) was Jack on all fours with a stick in his mouth to show Zero how to Fetch. She had afterwards begged him to repeat the performance so that she could photograph it with her new camera. Rosie had a passion for keeping records of things so strong that it could almost have been classed as a fifth String to her Bow. She had even offered Jack her spare pocket calculator to pose like this, but he always refused point-blank.

“You do it,” he told her, “and I’ll photograph you doing it.”

“No,” she said. “I’d look silly.”

“There you are, then. Anyway, it wasn’t silly, even if it looked it. It was a Serious Scientific Experiment, and it worked.”

Rosie was now poised ready to take a shot – more than one, if possible – of the present Serious Scientific Experiment, which was funnier, definitely, than the first could possibly have been. A 16mm movie camera complete with tripod, screen and projector, were as good as in the bag.

“Hold up half a digestive this time,” she heard Jack tell Uncle Parker. “He’s about there. I’m sure he is. They’re one of his favourites.”

Uncle Parker took the biscuit and poised it between the pair of them.

“Up!” he commanded. “Sit up! Beg!”

Jack went through his usual motions, turned his head sideways and saw that Zero too, though rocking alarmingly, was up, tongue dangling, eyes fixed on the digestive.

No one heard the click of Rosie’s shutter because of Zero’s panting. Solemnly Uncle Parker placed the biscuit in Zero’s jaws.

“Good boy,” he said, and Jack scrambled up and began patting Zero so vigorously that he spluttered crumbs. Behind her bush, Rosie secretly thanked them all.

“Oh, it worked, it worked!” Jack cried. “Oh thanks, Uncle Parker! I’d never’ve done it without you. Oh, wait till the rest of them see!”

Uncle Parker was looking more thoughtful than jubilant.

“Interesting…” he murmured.

He was thinking of Daisy, who needed training as much as Zero did – probably more. He was wondering whether he could adopt this kind of technique to deal with her and make her less of a public nuisance. It was true that she did not light fires any more, but Mr Bagthorpe had not been far short of the mark when he had suggested that she was now poisoning people. She was, among other things, going into the pantry and mixing all kinds of things together, like cocoa and gravy salt, for instance, and salt and sugar, and marmalade and chutney. The Parkers and their friends had been getting some truly horrible gastronomic shocks of late.

Aunt Celia did not take this very seriously, partly because she was a vegetarian and lived mainly on lettuce, carrots, wheatgerm and fresh orange juice. She said that it showed signs of creativity, Daisy’s mixing ingredients together.

“It is one of the early signs of creative genius,” she said, in an unusually long sentence for her, “to Reconcile the Seemingly Disparate.”

Uncle Parker did not dispute this. For one thing, he never argued with his wife because he thought she was perfect. Also, she had a very highly strung temperament and must not be crossed. He had put a padlock on the pantry door, however, saying that if Daisy were as creative as all that, she would find other Disparate objects to Reconcile.