Chapter 10 – Retrieving from Cheryl
The rug set off the room and brought it all together. The walls shone and the empty shelves beckoned.
It was time to retrieve his things. Pete, Diane and Danny had become a hilarious threesome. Cheryl stood grim-faced while the three of them gathered Danny’s things and put them in boxes. It took seven trips walking through the streets and lugging the heavy boxes of books and albums up the flights of stairs. It was only the banter that stopped their arms being wrenched out of their sockets. It gave them all extra energy.
But they were eventually finished and Danny was in.
That evening he carefully, lovingly, arranged his precious four hundred albums on the shelf he had ear-marked and organised his books alphabetically. He placed his hi-fi on the floor. He blue-tacked his posters on the walls and then stood back to admire his work. Put his favourite Harper album on the turntable and felt a smug satisfaction creep over him.
There was nothing left of the shabby, dreary place he’d come into. This was his home. He knew that he could live here for a while.
There was just one more trip needed to collect the last of his essentials. Danny had been a little worried about it. But Lip her, Cherokee and Bill and Ben were essentials for any home of his.
He had no concerns for Bill and Ben nor Lip her. He knew they could adapt anywhere. But Cherokee was another matter altogether. He felt the place wasn’t suitable. It might be a prison for her. He needn’t have worried.
The next morning he collected all four of them and brought them home. In truth Cheryl was probably glad to be rid of them and all his clutter. She could move on.
Danny put Bill and ben on top of the chest of drawers. He arranged their rocks and gravel and changed the water. They poked their heads out of the water and he fed them some bits of chopped liver. They seemed content. They did not even look round at the decoration. But then Turtles aren’t known for their homeliness.
Lip her was eager to get out of her cage. Danny simply undid the door of the birdcage she was in and she set off to explore, running along the walls, under the furniture and out into the kitchen sniffing and snuffling. When she’d had a good look everywhere she came back to Danny. She was pleased to be reunited with him and let him pet her to death. Rats can take any amount of affection. All Danny was concerned about, in terms of Lip her, was whether Diane would get on with her. He needn’t have worried; following an initial reticence Lip her won her over and Diane delighted in the little black and white rodent, scratching the top of her head which sent her into catatonic euphoria. They were inseparable.
Cherokee was the worry. Danny let her out of the box that she’d been frantically mewing in. She jumped out and arched her back, glaring accusingly at him. There is nothing quite so melodramatic as an annoyed cat who thoroughly objects to being unceremoniously shoved into a cardboard box. It is an indignity. As far as Cherokee was concerned she was a majestic feline who was there to be worshipped and waited on – not shoved in a box. Her raised tail and fur fully communicated her extreme annoyance. Danny gave her time to recover. Cherokee gradually got over it and allowed her fur to subside. Then she began to take note of her surroundings. She sniffed round the flat, working her way through all the three small rooms. Lip her sat in her usual position on top of her cage and watched her with what Danny thought of as a detached look of superiority. Though that is hard to discern in a rat.
When she was through with the flat, much to Danny’s surprise, Cherokee took a leap up on to the window ledge and proceeded to slip straight out of the window on to the roof. She had found her domain.
That evening Danny reacquainted himself with his music as Cherokee sat in his lap and Lipher resumed her customary position on his shoulder, peeping out from his hair. Bill and Ben were stationary, unblinking, with their heads shoved in the air. They were turtles; they didn’t need attention, warmth or friendship. But they were immaculate in their serenity.
Danny was truly home. All was right with the world again.
Other selected books and novels:
Anecdotes-Weird-Science-Writing-Ramblings – a book of anecdotes mainly from the sixties and other writing.
More Anecdotes – following the immense popularity of the first volume I produced a second
Goofin’ with the cosmic freaks – a kind of On the Road for the sixties
The book of Ginny – a novel
In Britain :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1461306850&sr=1-2-ent
In America:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=opher+goodwin
In all other countries around the world check out your regional Amazon site and Opher Goodwin books.
What, you couldn’t find space for a dog.
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
Chapter 10 – it proceeds.
“That evening he carefully, lovingly, arranged his precious four hundred albums on the shelf he had ear-marked and organised his books alphabetically. He placed his hi-fi on the floor. He blue-tacked his posters on the walls and then stood back to admire his work. Put his favourite Harper album on the turntable and felt a smug satisfaction creep over him.”
Something tells me this is drawn from real life …
I have drawn extensively from real life for all the characters in the book. Though many are composites or deliberately changed in some aspect. The events are true. I have tried to capture the atmosphere of the strange old place I spent three interesting years of my life in and its denizens and be faithful to the atmosphere. The story that I have used as a vehicle is largely imagined with elements of reality.
It certainly has the ring of truth …
That’s good. I wanted to stay true to it while providing a vehicle to move me through it. There’s a lot of me in Danny though that was not quite my story. I have had the book in my head for thirty/forty years. I did not know how to write it in a meaningful way. I read Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat and it came to me what I needed to do. After that it flowed.