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anyone about our little session, not even The Handyman? Quick might turn nasty if he ever found out.
 I won t say a word, don t worry.
 Have you ever heard of drugs being hidden inside maracas and smuggled through customs?
 It must have been tried.
 Watch this, he said, unscrewing the handle of one of them to show me it was hollow inside. The
dinner gong sounded downstairs.
 Oh fuck, he said, and quickly returned the maracas and other oddments to the cupboard before
The Handyman appeared to take me back home.
In the car he asked,  How d it go, Bendy? Anything to report?
 We got on all right.
 Sex?
 No, I said, smiling at the way he always turned our conversations to drugs or sex.
 You know I can see you sitting there in the mirror. You ve got a sweet little smile on you. I could
park, nip round the back and give you a quick one if you like.
 Thanks, but I ve got a boyfriend.
 What s that got to do with it?
 Everything. Look, about the autobiography, is anyone going to tell me properly what it is I m
supposed to be doing?
 Writing it, of course, what else do you want me to tell you? Quick ll be wanting to see something
before long. Soon as you re indoors, if I was you I d get shuffling those tarot cards. He s dying to have
his book come out. We don t want him turning nasty.
Hatshepsut s Pavilion was usually ready to welcome the world before nine o clock. On Monday at ten I
noticed that Alicia had not yet opened up. She was always bright and sparkling first thing, difficult for
someone like me who needs time for the brain cells to warm up. When Jeremy arrived at the bookshop
a little later he was in an agitated state, his face flushed, his hair messed up, one shirt sleeve down and
the other rolled halfway up.  Thank heavens you re here, he said.  Something awful has happened. I
don t know what on earth to do.
The last time he had been like this was when he had dropped his breakfast egg on the floor and, as
he tried to clean up, spread the goo everywhere. I got him to sit down while I made him tea, took the
steaming mug in, and sat opposite him.  Now, tell me all about it.
 There s no way of breaking this to you gently. The fact of the matter is&   he took a deep breath
  Alicia s hat has been taken into police custody.
 What did you say? Her hat?
 Yes. You remember, that wonderful bio-thaumaturgical hat, the miracle of germination one that you
helped her plant up.
 Is Alicia all right?
 She s taken it very badly. And it had to happen during one of her country weekends with her
girlfriend, Muriel. I m so upset for her. I think I may have to lie down.
Afraid that Toby s cannabis seeds in the brim had resulted in the police charging Alicia with
possession of an illegal substance, I held back a feeling of panic. Could my little joke have caused such
a disaster? What if sniffer bloodhounds, excited by the scent of the weed, had leapt through the air,
grabbed the hat in their teeth, and knocked poor Alicia to the ground? Concealing my own fears I
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reassured Jeremy until he was calm enough to go into the little office to do some work on the accounts,
a task that might distract him from worrying about Alicia.
We heard nothing more until midday when she rang to say she was in the shop and had opened up.
Jeremy took his sandwiches over and kept her company over lunch, and I went in during the afternoon
to see how she was, ready if necessary to admit responsibility for the drugs in her hat. For the first time
in months she was not wearing headgear of any kind. Actually her hair was rather nice, sort of sandy
coloured and fluffy. Cautiously I told her I was sorry to hear of her bad news.
 What bad news? she asked.
 About the police and your hat.
 Oh that. Well, I suppose Myrtle and I were asking for trouble.
 Myrtle? I thought your girlfriend was called Muriel.
 Yes, Muriel is her name really. My pet name for her is Myrtle  rather sweet, don t you think? You re
showing off, aren t you? You ve never heard me call her Muriel, I never do, but you just knew it without
needing to be told, didn t you?
 Did I? No, of course I didn t. Jeremy always refers to her as Muriel.
 Not when he talks to me he doesn t. Is he all right? He was a bit shaky when he came over for
lunch. He s a worrier. Well, of course, no need to tell you that. Can I ask you something? Do you know
everything that s going to happen in advance? I mean, did you set off for work this morning thinking
oh dear, Alicia will be late opening up and Jeremy is going to be in an awful tizzy, I ll have to calm him
down?
 Please don t start going on about me being  gifted . Tell me about the hat.
 You re so stubborn& in denial as usual. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the hat. The trouble started
when Myrtle and I were driving to her cottage in Hay-on-Wye. We usually stop off at this pretentious
tea shop full of posh old biddies. It s one of those snooty places where the staff dress up as maids
from days of yore. We thought we d give all those wilting petunias in their Sunday best a jolt, so we
strode in, argued about which table to sit at, and banged the chairs about before plonking ourselves
down. Then we complained about lack of choice on the menu, and when our order arrived we said it
was barely enough to sustain a budgerigar. We slurped our tea, talked loudly, then pretended to have a
row. You know the sort of thing, I don t suppose it s much compared with what you and Dale get up to
when you go out. Well, the looks of indignation from all around almost curdled our milk. We were
really pleased with ourselves. The manageress actually came over and asked us to leave. We got up,
protesting vociferously, and said it was no good her hanging around expecting a tip.
 Unfortunately in the excitement I left the hat behind, and the vindictive cow of a manageress
noticed some strange leaves among the seedlings in the brim. She called the police and said she thought
they were cannabis. Half an hour later, on the road, we were pulled over. Myrtle is now terrified I m
turning into a drug fiend.
 Doesn t she mind you calling her Myrtle?
 Mind? Why on earth should she? You do say the strangest things sometimes, even if you are gifted.
 What happened next about the hat?
 It s still at the police station. God knows what they re doing to it. I suppose the firm that made it
could have accidentally put some hemp seeds in the compost. It s hardly my fault if they did. Anyway,
the leaves didn t look much like hemp to me. Myrtle is quite a plantswoman, she would have spotted
hemp leaves, I m sure. No, it s just the thought of that snooty manageress causing us trouble that riles
me. In a way I wish they were cannabis. Imagine what a laugh the court case would be& newspaper
headlines screaming Psychic shopkeeper grows drugs in her hat. If only we had thought of putting some in
when we planted it up! You could have spoken in my defence in court and said you saw someone sneak
something into the brim while we were on a bus.
 You haven t been wearing that hat on a bus?
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 No, silly, as if I d risk damaging it on a crowded bus. What is up with you today? Is anything
wrong?
Her attitude made it difficult to decide whether to confess to planting the cannabis seeds or to keep [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]