A Most Demented Afternoon

Emily Barlett, aspiring author, takes a dog sitting job. Unprepared for how difficult Old Major the basset hound is, she begins to go slowly mad and plots her revenge on the dog.

Emily Bartlett sat facing the blank sheet of paper as though she was waiting for the story to write itself. Her hesitation was partly narrative indecision; partly fear that the paper was so moist that typewriter’s stamp would tear right through it.

She decided to make another pot of tea. Did her mixture even qualify as tea anymore? Recent financial restrictions, as she called them in letters to her father, had meant she had to take creative approaches to living economically. When Emily’s tea supply ran low, she topped up the container with various plant specimens she had found in the park. When her attic became too cold, she would dry out the used tealeaves and burn them for warmth.

When she began to run low on soap, she would boil the old, sudsy bathwater and harvest the soap crystals that remained after the water had evaporated.

She eventually developed a system whereby she would have a cup of tea, dry the used tealeaves, burn them and use the resulting fire for both warmth and soap harvesting. If one was clever, one could get by remarkably far on a cup of tea.

True, this wasn’t the life she had envisioned when she had thought of coming to London, but she didn’t mind. Living in the icy cold attic above an undertakers wasn’t all bad. It was all part of the grand, romantic, bohemian life that lay before her.

In his replies to her letters, Emily’s father was always critical of her decision to leave her birthplace, Plott’s Burrow. The village was proud to advertise it had the lowest level of unemployment for children under the age of thirteen in the country.

“Why leave Plott’s Burrow when you’ve got everything you need here?” he had demanded, “I was born here, your mother was born here, you were born here, and by God, you should stay here!”

His favourite example of why she should stay was Barney Buslow, the son and heir to his father’s fertilizer business.

“Barney Buslow may be slow, hunched, and monstrously ugly, but he’s from a fertilizer family, and there’ll always be a need for fertilizer!” Emily’s father had boomed on regular occasions.

But despite advice to the contrary, Emily gave up on the opportunity to be a Buslow and packed her things (two changes of clothes and an old Underwood typewriter) and headed for London. She was chasing a dream fostered by thousands of afternoons behind the Plott’s Burrow public house, hiding from the horrid townspeople, reading fantastic stories of places far, far away.

But still, despite all her ambition, she sat in front of the blank sheet of paper without any thought as to what she was going to write.

She made herself a cup of tea that tasted of English Breakfast, as well as some twigs and grass, and sat back down in front of the typewriter.

Don’t be afraid, she thought, don’t be afraid to start. She boldly began to type what lay in her heart, and stopped only a moment later as the typewriter key remained jammed in the machine.

“Perhaps it’s time I find some work,” she said aloud. She took her coat, which had assembled from the bits and pieces of seven other coats, and headed out into the frigid cold.

 

Emily bought a paper with her remaining coins and began to flick through the classifieds. She spared no time closely inspecting the majority of jobs, as she was either unqualified or uninterested. She counted 17 positions for Grave Digger or Senior Grave Digger at 17 different cemeteries; four positions for Factory Chimney Cleaner (applicants over the age of nine and union members need not apply, the advertisement said); and no less than 14 opportunities to submit oneself to “exciting new medical experiments”.

She sighed deeply. Perhaps she should not have left Plott’s Burrow. Yes, the gene pool was alarmingly small, and yes, some families were what one might call “inbred”, but there was a certain charm to the village. Perhaps, under the pig faeces, Barney Buslow was a decent, intelligent and passionate human being. Perhaps being the wife of fertilizer farmer and salesman was more glamorous than she had originally thought.

Her melancholy thoughts were interrupted when her gaze fell upon an advertisement. “Seeking dog sitter”, it read, “while homeowners pursue dangerous expedition in South America. Immediate start.”

She tore the advertisement out and took off for the nearest telephone.

 

The advertisement had been placed by Mr and Mrs Blueberry of Kensington, London. Mr Arthur Blueberry was a stout man with a booming voice and preposterously large and bushy moustache. He was often seen with a smoking pipe and a smoking shotgun, remarking how the head of a beast he had recently killed would fit handsomely on his office wall. Mr Blueberry was the sort of man who shot and mounted beasts on a regular basis, so he had grown weary of English deer and longed for something more challenging. He had, weeks before, convinced his wife to accompany him on a game hunting expedition to the jungles of South America, where he sought to capture a different genus of beast for every day they were there.

Mrs Samantha Blueberry had agreed to participate, believing it was an Englishman’s God given right to shoot and mount as many beasts as he could in a week, regardless of how incredibly high the number was.

There was a problem, however: Old Major.

Old Major was a belligerent basset hound who had once belonged to Mr Arthur Blueberry Senior. Old Major hated the junior Blueberry, and the junior Blueberry had hated him.

How he longed to rid the world of that awful dog! There was never a dog more disrespectful, more annoying, more anthropogenically devious than Old Major.

The term for a female dog is a b***h. While the male equivalent of that term is not used for a male dog, Blueberry acted as though it was. Old Major, as he said frequently, is a right old b*****d.

Old Major came into the junior Blueberry’s possession by way of his father’s will. Blueberry Senior, who loved the dog dearly, knew of the conflict between Old Major and his son, so the entire Blueberry estate was bequeathed to his son on one condition: treat Old Major as though he was me. A trusted veterinarian checked his condition bimonthly, as Blueberry Senior’s will had stipulated. If any intentional harm fell on Old Major, the entire Blueberry estate was to be donated to the French government. This was how seriously Blueberry Senior loved Old Major.

And so, when the Blueberry family decided to embark on their South American adventure, they treated Old Major as though he was their real father: they sought the employment of an unqualified young stranger to make sure he was fed well and didn’t poo on the carpet.

 

“So you’re a writer then, eh?” Blueberry asked Emily, who sat dutifully in front of her potential employer.

“Yes sir,” she replied.

“Wonderful!” Blueberry remarked, “I’ve always been a keen reader of adventures, although I never had the skills to write my own. Thus, I live them! We have a beautiful old typewriter upstairs you can use, if you like,”

Emily gave a polite smile. She desperately wanted the job. The Blueberry House was immaculately beautiful. The rooms were large and grand. There was a library, a piano room and a dome atop the house that was used as an observatory. Most importantly, it was warm.

“Do you have any experience with dogs?” Blueberry asked hopefully.

“Yes,” Emily lied, “my mother was a school master and she regularly instructed students who quite often owned dogs, or at least someone who did,”

“Ah, so you understand the importance of discipline then?” Mr Blueberry remarked, and Emily nodded. Mr Blueberry was unwilling to reveal to Emily the extent of his hatred for Old Major. If he spoke too much, she may refuse to take the job.

“Excellent,” Mrs Blueberry said, “My husband and I leave tomorrow morning, so your expression of interest has been quite timely. And such a lovely girl, too!”

The Blueberrys formally offered to allow Emily to look after their home. Emily agreed enthusiastically.

“The one problem you might encounter is the dog,” Mr Blueberry said. Old Major sat in the corner glaring at Emily, his new master, “He’s getting on, as you can see. We ask you to pay close attention to his health, but if the unthinkable should happen, well, just take his corpse to the veterinarian. Let them deal with it,”

Mr Blueberry jotted down the address of their veterinarian and gave it to her.

They gave Emily the keys to their home, and departed London the next morning. On her first day, she explored the enormous Kensington house high and low, all the time wishing she were born into such privilege. She spent hours flicking through the library, playing “chopsticks” on the baby grand piano, trying on Mrs Blueberry’s ridiculous hats and challenging the mounted heads to staring competitions.

It was only towards the end of her first day that the arduous nature of her duties became apparent.

She entered the parlour to find Old Major sitting a top the most beautifully polished oak table she had ever seen. She beckoned for him to get down, lest the tabletop became damaged, but Old Major remained seated. His saggy eyelids may have once made him look sad, but now they only conveyed contempt.

“Come, Old Major,” Emily commanded, “it’s time for your dinner!”

Old Major remained still, allowing a large drop of vicious saliva to fall from his mouth onto the table. Old Major growled, slightly baring his teeth.

Emily, attempting to appear assertive, commanded him again:

“Come down, you will have your dinner on the kitchen floor, not in the parlour! The parlour is for entertaining guests of the house, not for feeding family pets!”

Old Major, as though his pride was offended by Emily’s words, barked loudly. A fleck of his salvia flew through the air and landed on Emily’s tongue. She spat out immediately and wiped her tongue on her sleeve.

“Old �" Old Major, as representative for your master, I command you to obey me!” Emily said with as much ferocity as she would muster. Her initial hesitation, however, was a dreadful mistake.

Old Major barked again, and Emily darted from the room in fear. As she left she saw Old Major’s expression change from aggression to one of smugness.

“Alright Old Major, you’ve won this round,” she said.

And so while Emily dined on the kitchen table, Old Major ate from his bowl as he sat on an oak table, which was, as far as Emily was aware, the finest table in all of London.

 

The animosity between the pair grew. Old Major, with a similar violent twinkle in his eye, demanded that Emily sleep on the couch in the piano room, while he slept in the guest room bed that Mrs Blueberry had made for her.

Each morning Old Major would howl from his bed until Emily changed the sheets. He commanded her around the home, barking incessantly whenever she did something that was not to his liking.

Emily quickly developed a dislike for Old Major, just as Mr Blueberry had, and sought ways to evade his presence. All she could think of was the typewriter Mr Blueberry had spoken of.

If she could at least start her writing, perhaps her imagination would whisk her away from Old Major and his cantankerous demeanour.

When she attempted to do this, however, Old Major would drag a metal spoon across the radiator outside the writing room. When she went out into the hall to investigate, Old Major hid the spoon and gave her a look as to say:

“I wonder what was making that horribly annoying noise,”

By the fourth day, she freely admitted to hating Old Major, and began plotting her revenge on him. She had agreed to a set of fair and reasonable terms outlined by Mr Blueberry, but not to serve as Old Major’s lap dog. Old Major had turned Emily from a sweet, loving girl to one who could seek pleasure only by planning the downfall of her enemies. The elaborate schemes she created filled her with a swelling pride, and she was truly convinced that any harm that would fall on Old Major would bring peace and happiness to the world. Emily would finally feel as though she had done something truly great with her life.

But alas, Old Major robbed her of this opportunity too. On the fifth day Emily found Old Major laying still on his bed, stone dead. Her initial disappointment in that she missed her chance to end his life gave way to unrestrained jubilation.

“Take that, you floppy b*****d!” she yelled, and then ran around the house with the same excitement she had on the first day of her employment.

Eventually, however, she returned to sanity, and realised she was faced with a most inconvenient problem.

The Blueberrys would not be back for weeks and Old Major’s body would soon start to decompose.

She considered her options. Bury him in the backyard? Cremate him? No, she would deliver Old Major’s body to the veterinarian, just as Mr Blueberry had suggested. Although Emily didn’t know this, it was of paramount importance to Mr Blueberry that Old Major’s body was delivered to the right location in the event of his death. There it could be determined whether or not Old Major had been murdered and what the fate of the Blueberry estate would be.

She considered how she would transport the corpse. A cab was far too dear, and the veterinary was too far to walk.

She decided she would take the Underground. During her initial inspection of the house she had discovered empty luggage, so she found them again, loaded Old Major into the appropriate one and set off for the Underground.

 

Perhaps it was the chill of the morning winter air, or perhaps it was merely the fact that this was the first time Emily had gone out in five days, but she began to suspect she had gone slightly mad. She made moved to London with dreams of becoming a writer. She had turned her back on a stable life as the wife of a fertilizer heir. She had told herself she would become a pillar of the literary community.

But there she sat on the London Underground, not more than four months after leaving her village, with a suitcase stuffed with a dog she would have killed herself had he not died naturally.

This surely wasn’t the life she was going to lead? Would this bad fortune follow her forever? Where would she be in a year’s time? Rattling her cell bars in a mental asylum she had been committed to for pressing her naked breasts through the gates of Buckingham Palace?

She longed for Barney Buslow’s bulbous nose, his straw-like ear hair and the way he laughed hysterically at the sight two dogs fornicating.

She looked down to the suitcase at her feet and began to cry, cursing her foolish dreams. But then, much to her surprise, a hand was placed on her shoulder. The hard was strong. Firm, but not harsh. She looked to whom the hand was attached: A man, she guessed of thirty years, dressed in a tailored suit with a comforting smile.

“Are you alright, miss?” he asked. She nodded, embarrassed that this handsome stranger should see her in this way.

“There, there,” he continued, “It’ll be alright. My name is Howard Porter,”

“Pleased to meet you Mr Porter, my name is Miss Emily Bartlett,”

“Call me Howard, please,” he insisted, “Now, what seems to be the problem?”

“Oh, I moved to London only four months ago, and already I have found myself a dreadful wreck! I should return to my birth place and shut myself away!”

“Now, Miss Bartlett, I won’t permit such absurd nattering. I refuse to believe that a beautiful young woman such as yourself is not capable of navigating this difficult city,”

Emily looked to Howard and smiled. Could it be? Did he really think she was beautiful? Perhaps it wasn’t too late! Perhaps she could give away her dreams of writing and become the wife to a rich and handsome man like Howard! Oh, how she could laugh in her father’s face! If she had listened to him, she would be stuck in the arse-end of the country, up to her knees in filth and children. But now she had a chance to make herself comfortable beyond belief!

“I must ask what a pretty woman like you is doing with this unsightly suitcase,” Howard said.

Emily froze. She searched for an answer that would not repulse her new suitor.

“It’s full of expensive dresses. From Paris. My family is astoundingly wealthy, you see,” she lied.

“Is that so?” Howard asked, “then you must permit me to carry your suitcase for you once you depart,”

Emily, who was irreparably smitten, agreed. They spoke with vigour and passion about a number of intellectual topics before Emily reached her destination. Howard, like the gentleman he professed to be, offered to carry her suitcase.

“I saw, this suitcase is rather heavy,” he said, “I wouldn’t have thought Parisian dresses weighed so much,”

“There is a fair amount of gold leafing on them,” Emily explained, and Howard nodded, fascinated.

Once they arrived at street level, however, Howard did a most peculiar thing. Firstly, he said: “Miss Barlett, it was an absolute pleasure to have met you, but I regret that it was not under different circumstances. I am ashamed to admit I have misrepresented myself. I am indeed named Howard Porter, but I am not of affluence. I am, contrary to how I have presented myself, deeply in debt with some very nefarious individuals, and I can assure you that I require the contents of this suitcase more than you do. You are, as you mentioned, from a family of astounding wealth, and I am in need of these valuable Parisian dresses. I bid you good day,”

And with that, Howard Porter ran off down the street, taking Old Major’s corpse with him.

Emily stood in the street for a long time, pondering on what she should do. She had been so surprised by the turn of events that she had not even called for help. She had not yet really wondered whether the Blueberrys would be upset at Old Major’s passing, but she presently began to wonder whether they would be upset at theft of his corpse.

Eventually, after she had stood in a confused daze for almost half an hour, she returned back to Kensington and sat down in front of the typewriter.

Suddenly, inspiration filled her entire being, and she began to write, refusing to stop until the early hours of the morning.

It had indeed been a most demented afternoon.

 

Author's Note

May be a few typos here and there, but it's just an afternoon's effort.

Reviews

[Violet Dreams...]

Whew! that certainly was the most demented afternoon. Your initiation,
"Emily Bartlett sat facing the blank sheet of paper as though she was waiting for the story to write itself. Her hesitation was partly narrative indecision; partly fear that the paper was so moist that typewriter’s stamp would tear right through it."
I'm sure every writer born can relate with.
One Afternoon's effort paid off after all