An Early Childhood Chapter 26 Part 6: A Visit to Middlesex

An Early Childhood Chapter 26 Part 6: A Visit to Middlesex

CONTINUED FROM PART 5 OF CHAPTER 26.

          Dylly Oblong got out of bed and stretched her lithe, nightclub singer’s body.

          “I have to feed the pooch,” she declared.

          I stayed on the bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking.

          There was a thump on the door below, and Dylly came back into the bedroom. She was dressed in a wedding gown.

          “What are you wearing?” asked myself.

          “My wedding dress, Sugar Plum,” she said. “I want you to see my blushing bride look, so that you know what you’re missing out on!”

          She winked.

          The knocking continued. An ominous knocking that made us both be looking at each other like startled rabbits, right on the apartment door, rather than the hall door below.

          “Who could that be at this hour?” Dylly asked. “All of my gentlemen caller friends keep night club hours!”

          She stripped out of her dress, putting it into the wardrobe, and walked to the door in bra and knickers – which were granny pants.

          Opening it, and there stood my Cousin Barney no less!

          “Heya Dylly! I’m just in town right now and I thought I’d give your door a crack, wha’?” he said.

          Cousin Barney was an old man now. He had spent his early years in the British Army, serving in a tedious conflict in South Africa.

          He stepped into the apartment and saw me lying on the bed.

          “Paddy!”

          “Barney! What are you doing here?”

          Barney limped into the apartment, and came over and all three of us sat on the bed.

          “Well, Ireland’s only after exploding! So I fled to the British mainland here to try to get a bit of work while they’re carrying out repairs over there!”

          Barney removed the leg made of teak he had strapped onto the stump that remained of his real leg which he’d lost during the war in South Africa. He handed it to me and he said:

          “Hold this,” in his gravelly and hoary voice. Clearly familiar with Dylly Oblong’s apartment, he hopped over to the chest of drawers and opened the bottom one. He withdrew a second wooden leg and he shouted out:

          “Leg fight!” and the spare leg whirred through the air, struck me across the temple and felled me to the floor. I got to my feet quickly, howsoever dazed, and I said:

“What was that in aid of?”

          Barney whipped the fake leg over his stump and had it attached with alacrity.

          “Be prepared for anything,” was his response. “Now,” he said, as he put his shoes on and tied his laces with alacrity. “What’s for breakfast?”

To be continued at the top of Chapter 27...