Bronte's Inferno XVI (All The Terrible Books)

The Editor-At-Large had acquired a battered looking fedora from somewhere. He performed a graceful doffing just before I saw him disappear into the Gents. I waited twenty minutes before assuming it was a dismissal. I thought about checking the cubicles, but didn’t. He might have left a window open as he left, but I had the distinct feeling he hadn’t – and I didn’t want to know for sure. On the table in front of me was yet another sheet of paper with the now familiar script. There wasn’t much on it. A pair of sentences, the whole consisting of several lines, each with a hand drawn box beside it, in which one further sentence exhorted me to place a cross, a tick or any suitable mark in one of said boxes, to indicate my preference, and then to sign at the foot of the page.

“ I hereby agree to the conditions of the contract in full: to wit that, after twenty years, I shall work in whichever location Charnel House or its next iteration chooses, writing all the terrible books deemed necessary by The Editor-At-Large regardless of whose name appears on the cover” □

“I agree to replace Enoch, both as Wanderer and guardian of Girt Dog Of Ennerdale” □

I crumpled the paper into a ball, threw it towards a receptacle marked litter. Naturally, I missed. An insubstantial old fellow, wearing a cow-gown, such as a farmer or veterinarian might use, appeared. He’d as well have been accompanied by a flash and a puff of smoke, so suddenly did he materialise. He bent down to pick the ball of paper up and handed it back to me. I stuffed it in the breast pocket holding his three coloured biros and called him a rather impolite name. A man’s patience has its limits.

As fate would have it, Charon was on the point of entering The Parsonage Museum as I was preparing to exit. I was almost knocked off my feet, but she was swift enough to catch me as I fell.

‘No funny business, Mister.’

It truly was some time since I had contemplated any sort of business of that kind, funny or otherwise. I was quite flattered that she considered me capable of any behaviour that might be considered less than appropriate. Then I reflected that I would never be her partner of preference in the matter of funny business, in any case.

I allowed Charon space to effect her exit before following her to the Phantom V. The car had remained untouched. Perhaps Haworth had fewer disenchanted youths than Harehills. Or any that they did have, had been frightened off by my driver. Goodness knows she frightened me, and not just with her driving.

One mustn’t form the impression that Charon was in any way unattractive. Indeed, in younger days, I would have spent many a happy hour contemplating her jodhpurs and boots, how she filled them and how to get her out of them. Those days were long gone, of course, and, furthermore, who would have dared offer any compliment at all, for fear of repercussions?

Charon slammed the door with somewhat more force than necessary, as I was making myself comfortable in the back of the Rolls. Was everyone a mind-reader nowadays? I noted that the glass between chauffeuse and passenger was closed. The tiny cocktail cabinet had been replenished, heaven knows how, so I cracked another bottle of fizz, just to pass the time.