The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag (8 page)

Stokers, Luggers and Jumping Jacks

The stoker called Tom

From Newcastle,

The lugger called Tim

From Dundee,

The old jumping Jacks

In their ill-fitting macs,

Are more than the whole world to me.

The stoker called Pig

With his whistle,

The lugger called Pan

With his flute,

The old jumping Jacks

With their harps on their backs,

And Nick in his best Sunday suit.

The stoker called Jack

With his rabbits,

The lugger called Nick

With his hair,

The old jumping Jims

And Alastair Sims,

And Jock with his sanitary wear.

At about this time the party began to get a bit
boisterous,

So I made my excuses and left.

5

My
dear boy, forget about the

motivation.
Just say the lines

and
don’t trip over the furniture.

NOEL
COWARD

There was Tom and there
was Tim and there was Nick and there was Billy. A stoker, a lugger, a
hairdresser and Billy. Billy Barnes. Billy didn’t come to the party because
Billy had business elsewhere. Billy always had business elsewhere. No-body
knew quite where elsewhere was, but Billy did, and he always had business
there. There was something different about Billy, it was hard to say quite
what, but it was there. He was very clever, I remember that. Too clever,
really. I used to sit next to him in junior school,, and once in a while his
cleverness would burst to the surface and splash all over the rest of us.

I
recall one Friday afternoon our teacher, Miss Moon, posed a question to the
class. It was: ‘How far can a man walk into the desert?’ We chewed upon our
pencils; the question was surely unanswerable. Who was this man? How old was
he? How strong was he? How much food and water did he have? How large was the
desert? Billy put his hand up straight away.

‘Yes,
Billy?’ said Miss Moon.

‘I have
the answer, miss,’ said Billy.

‘Go on
then, tell us what it is.’

‘It’s
half way, miss. Because after he’s gone half way, he’ll be walking out of the
desert again.’

Billy
was quite right, of course. His answer was correct. But this didn’t seem to
please Miss Moon. She had evidently hoped that her question would keep the
class occupied for the rest of the afternoon. Billy wasn’t at all popular with
the rest of the class either, for a while.

Because
no-one likes a smart-arse.

At the
age of twenty-three Billy went missing. He went for a walk and he never came
back. Those of us who remembered him from junior school wondered whether he had
gone for a walk in the desert. One story was that he had hitch-hiked to
Brighton, fallen off the pier and been carried out to sea.

But
nobody knew for sure, and the mystery of Billy’s disappearance has never been
satisfactorily laid to rest. Years later, when I was living near Brighton, I
met a bloke in a bar who told me a tale that might well have explained what
happened to Billy.

I
relate it here for two reasons. Firstly, because if it hadn’t been for Billy’s
disappearance I would never have got involved in the case of the voodoo
handbag. And secondly, because I consider there is a strong possibility that
the tale is true.

The
tale was told to me by a travelling salesman, but as this in itself may raise
doubts regarding its reliability, I have taken the liberty of changing the
tale-teller’s trade.

To that
of wandering mendicant.

The
village I live in is called Bramfield. It lies about ten miles north of
Brighton, just off the A23, which is the main London to Brighton road. It’s a
pretty enough village and the folk who live there are happy, being mostly
engaged in occupations connected with foxhunting. They keep themselves to
themselves and do not encourage tourists. Small boys pelt visiting cyclists
with stones and farmers run off walkers at the point of a gun. Travelling
salesmen are often to be seen, however, but rarely a wandering mendicant.

The one
who wandered into the Jolly Gardeners one Wednesday lunchtime was a mendicant
in the grand tradition. He was short and shoeless, rough and ragged, wild of eye
and long of beard. He walked with the aid of a knobbly staff and he called for
a pint of best bitter.

Andy
took one look at the wandering mendicant and ordered him straight out of the
bar. I considered this a bit harsh and I said so.

‘I
consider that a bit harsh,’ I said to Andy.

‘Dress
code,’ said the landlord. ‘He can’t drink here looking like that.’

I
viewed the mendicant’s apparel. He wore the traditional brown sacking robe,
secured at the waist by a length of knotted string. It was a fetid robe, frayed
about the hems and gone to buggeration at the elbows.

‘So
what’s the problem?’ I asked Andy.

‘Tie,’
said the landlord. ‘He isn’t wearing a tie.’

Now I
am renowned as a charitable fellow, in fact the term
living saint
has
more than once been used to describe me. And I took pity upon this thirsty
traveller and led him outside to my car, in the hope that I might have
something that would serve as a tie. I had a good old rummage in the glove box
and under the seats, but all I could come up with was a pair of jump leads in
the boot. I knotted these about the mendicant’s neck and we returned to the
bar.

‘All
right now?’ I asked Andy.

Andy
scrutinized the jump leads. ‘All right,’ he said to the mendicant. ‘You can
come in, but
don’t start anything.’

Oh how
we laughed.

‘I’ll
have a pint of best bitter, please,’ said the mendicant. ‘Before you turn
nasty.’

Why
should I turn nasty?’ Andy asked.

‘Because
I don’t have any money to pay you with.’

‘I’ll
pay,’ I said. And I did.

I sat
down in my favourite corner and the mendicant sat down with me. He sipped at
his bitter and then he said, ‘You’re a Telstar, aren’t you?’

‘I’m a
what?’

‘A
Telstar. Born under the sign of Telstar. I’m an astrologer. I know these
things.’

‘But
Telstar was a satellite,’ I said, ‘put up in the 1950s.’

‘It’s a
heavenly body and astrology is all to do with the influence of heavenly bodies.’

‘Stars
and planets, yes, but not telecommunication satellites.’

The
mendicant drank deeply of his pint. ‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong,’ he said,
wiping froth from his beard. ‘It’s all to do with proximity. Everything in
space influences everything else. And we are influenced by everything in space.
The stars and galaxies exert influence, but they are thousands of light years
away, man-made satellites are a whole lot closer. They exert a far stronger
influence.’

‘I find
that difficult to believe.’

‘Well
you would, you’re a Telstar. Consider the youth of today. All into name brand
sportswear and name brand trainers and burger chain dinners and manufactured
pop music. Why do you think that is?’

‘Search
me,’ I said.

‘They
all have the Sky TV satellite in their birth charts.’

‘Bugger
me.’

‘No
thanks. And I’ll tell you something more. ‘What’s that?’

‘I’ve
finished my pint and I’d care for another.’

‘Incredible!’

I purchased
another pint of best bitter for the mendicant and a Death by Cider for myself.

‘A
strange thing happened to me on my way to this pub,’ said the mendicant. ‘Would
you like me to tell you about it?’

‘That
would be nice.’

‘No it
wouldn’t, but I’ll tell you anyway. How old would you say I am?’

I
viewed his grizzled visage. ‘Sixty maybe, sixty-five.’

‘I’m
sixty-six’

‘Well,
you don’t look it.’

‘I keep
myself fit, that’s why. I walk twenty-five miles a day on average. Have done
for the last thirty years. I did the Hippy Trail in the Sixties and went to
Woodstock and—’

Would
you mind just telling me about this strange thing that happened to you, because
I have to go in a minute. I’ve got an appointment to see the doctor.’

‘Are
you ill?’

‘No, I
have to get some sleeping pills for my wife.’

Why?’

‘Because
she’s woken up again.’

Oh how
we laughed.

‘All
right,’ said the mendicant. ‘I’ll tell you my tale, but it’s an odd one, and
you must make of it what you will.’

‘Go
ahead then.’

‘All
right. Now, as I say, I get about a bit. I wander the world, and I sleep rough,
the stars above and Mother Earth below and that kind of stuff. Well, the other
week I was camped out in the middle of the big roundabout just outside
Brighton.’

‘The
one on the A23?’

‘The
very same. Hitch-hikers always stand there thumbing lifts to London, you’ve
probably seen them.’

I
nodded. I had.

Well, I’m
sitting there and I see this young bloke with his bit of cardboard with London
scrawled on it, standing there thumbing, and I see this old yellow and cream VW
Camper pull up to give him a lift. And I hear the driver say “London?” and the
hitch-hiker say “Yes, please.” And then they go off together.’

‘So?’ I
said. What’s unusual about that? I’ve seen that happen loads of times.’

‘Me
too. But not an hour later the van is back. Same van. And it picks up another
hitch-hiker. “London?” says the driver. “Yes, please,” says the hitch-hiker and
off they go.’

‘An
hour later?’ I said.

‘An
hour later. And an hour after that the van is back once more.’

‘And
picks up another hitch-hiker?’

‘Another
one. I watched all day. Eight hitchhikers, he took.’

‘But he
couldn’t have taken them to London and been back to Brighton in an hour.
Perhaps he only took them as far as the motorway.’

‘Perhaps.
Well, I’m quite comfortable on the roundabout and I think maybe I’ll stick
around for another day. And I do, and bright and early the next morning, the
old VW Camper is back, and he’s picked up another London-bound hitchhiker.’

‘Perhaps
it’s some kind of community bus service or something.’

‘Or
something! Well, I sit there all day and count another six hitch-hikers going
away in the VW and then I have to move off the roundabout because a bloke from
the council arrives to cut the grass. I mention to him about the VW, and he
says that he’d noticed it picking up hitch-hikers and it had been doing so for
the last five years.’

‘Definitely
some community bus service, or something, then.’

‘Or
something. Well, you hear strange tales when you’re on the road and you see
strange sights and I didn’t quite know what to make of this, but as I was
heading in the direction of London myself, I thought I’d get a piece of
cardboard, scrawl the city’s name on it, stick out my thumb and see if I could
cop a lift from the VW the next time around.’

‘And
did you?’

‘Oh
yes, I did.’

‘And
did he take you to London?’

‘Oh no,
he didn’t.’

‘Go on
then, tell me what happened.’

‘Well,
I see him coming and I stick out my thumb and hold up my piece of cardboard. He
stops and calls, “London?” through the open window. “Yes,” I say. “Hop in,” he
says. And off we go. The VW Camper is pretty knackered up inside and the driver
doesn’t say much, he’s very gaunt and pale and he doesn’t smell too good. “Can
you take me all the way to London?” I ask. “Certainly,” he says. “That’s where
I’m going. Go up there every day at this time.” I ask what line of business he’s
in and he says “recycling”.

‘“Recycling
what?” I ask.

‘‘Waste,”
he says.

‘And we’re
about twenty minutes into our journey when he says, ,,I have to make a slight
detour here to drop something off. You don’t mind, do you?” And I say “No, I
don’t mind, what do you have to drop off?” And he says “Just a letter.” And I notice,
in the back, he has a big carton of sealed envelopes. He takes a turning off
the A23 and we go along some country lanes, then he turns up this farm track
and we drive into this broken down old farmyard. He pulls up, reaches over his
shoulder and takes one of the envelopes. “Do me a favour,” he says. “Take this
to the farmhouse. Knock at the door, and if no-one answers, put it inside on
the hall table.” I say, “No problem.” I take the envelope and off I go.