- FOREVER IN BLUE GENES
The two old men were sitting on the bench, checking out the specials in the supermarket catalogue when a shadow blocked their light. When Oodles looked up, the Mayor, of all people, was standing between them and the sun.
James Northan, briefcase in hand and wearing a pinstripe suit as though he were on the way to the office he no longer had, smiled snidely.
Oodles was flabbergasted. But he knew the big man beside him would react more explosively.
James had avoided talking to him and Wish-Wash for more than 15 months, quite a feat in a town as small as Windy Mountain. They hadn’t even seen him at this end of town.
Sure enough, Wish-Wash scowled and thrust out his chin. “Are you lost, Jimbo?”
James sighed loudly as he tilted his head downwards and flicked a piece of lint from his lapel. “Why must thou always have to be so prickly, Bert?”
The reason he called him Bert was that Wish-Wash was his nickname, and James Northan thought nicknames were crass. The big man’s full name was Bert Whish-Willson, and he was 82, one year older than James Northan, who had been the actual mayor years ago. People sometimes called him the Mayor nickname because he still behaved like he was.
Oodles’s full name was Clarence Noodle. He was 85.
James Northan looked from man to man. “Methinks the time hast just come for us to bury the hatchet.”
“Bring it here then, and I’ll bury it in your head—maybe it’ll stop you from talking funny, too.”
James stepped back sharply. “Did you hear that, Clarence? Bert is threatening me with violence.”
Oodles sighed. “I didn’t hear anything, James. Except, like him, you talking funny.”
“I forgot you two are as thick as thieves.”
Wish-Wash bounced to his feet with a flash of yellow shirt and the kind of vigour Oodles hadn’t seen from him in years. “I’m sick of you calling me thick.”
Oodles quickly levered himself up using the armrest and stepped between them, mainly to hold back Wish-Wash.
This wasn’t the first time the three oldest men left in the town had nearly come to blows.
Oodles and Wish-Wash were the unlikely owners of the Tasmanian Tiger Museum across the road from the bench where they had been sitting in the sun taking their mid-morning break.
The Mayor had only set foot in that museum once, and that hadn’t ended happily for him.
Oodles, dressed in his usual grey overalls, battled to hold Wish-Wash back. “If you’ve come here to sign my plaster cast, James, you’re too late. Doc Jenkins removed it ages ago.”
“Thank goodness for that. I don’t give my autograph to any damn fool. I’m not about to reward someone careless enough to break his leg. No, I just thought I would buy you both a cup of tea, for old time’s sake.”
Wish-Wash jabbed a finger over Oodles’s shoulder. “I’ve never known you to do nothing for nothing.”
“People change.” James tapped his briefcase. “I thought you both might like to see one of the advertisements in this magazine I’ve come across.”
Oodles exchanged a glance with Bert before they fell in line behind the Mayor. James strode ahead as if he were leading them into battle. On the way, Oodles threw the Roses Supermarket catalogue into a roadside bin.
“What’s the bet this is another one of his hare-brained schemes?” Wish-Wash said.
“Oh, guaranteed,” Oodles replied.
They reached the Wind Tunnel Cafe at the other end of the High Street.
Wendy, the blonde, middle-aged waitress, looked up as they came through the door. “Would you look at this? Someone’s put the band back together!”
The Mayor put his briefcase down next to one of the two tables and wrung his hands as he sat down. “Tea for three, Wendy, dear.”
Oodles and Bert sat down opposite him as James clicked open the briefcase. He laid a glossy magazine down on the dappled-red laminate table, flipped through the pages, then turned it towards them.
Oodles frowned. “So what’s this all about?”
James stabbed at an advertisement. “Did you know scientists can trace your ancestry through DNA?”
“Can they?” Wish-Wash scratched his head.
“Not from dandruff, you cream-faced loon!” James said. “They take a swab from inside your mouth.”
“Gawdsake!” Oodles said. “Why would I want to volunteer my DNA anyway? That’s how they build evidence against criminals.”
James gave him a disapproving look. “Dost thou have something to hide? Like convict ancestry?”
“Oh, I see what’s happening here. You want to prove your lineage goes back to someone famous with pure British blood, who spoke in the same stupid way that you are doing now, and you want to out Wish-Wash and me as being descended from petty Irish criminals.”
“Are you?”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Oodles said.
Wish-Wash blew out his cheeks. “I wouldn’t mind having a convict in my closet.”
“You don’t know your lineage?” James asked.
“Are you kidding?” Wish-Wash ran a hand down one side of his unshaven face. “I don’t even know who my father was. Not really.”
James turned towards Oodles. “What about you? Any idea?”
Oodles shook his head slowly. “Noodle is an anglicised name. But from what, I can’t tell you. All I know is my grandparents arrived on a ship. The ship might have left from Ireland, but more likely it came from Ukraine or somewhere.”
“I’ll pay for the DNA test, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You’ll also pay for me?” Wish-Wash said.
“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”
Wish-Wash held up the magazine. “It says here a lucky entrant will win a trip for two, all expenses paid, to the area their ancestors came from.”
James snatched it back and scanned it. “So it does.”
“So if you pay for me to take the test, and I win the trip, will I have to take you?”
James sighed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Bert.”
Wish-Wash grinned. “But what if I do?”
“That is very unlikely, Bert. But if it doth happen, thou mayest take whoever thou willst. Just not me.”
2. I HEAR YOU KNOCKING
Oodles sat bolt upright in bed and looked around the room trying to get his bearings.
His heart was pounding and his flannel pyjamas were sticking to him.
He realised after a few seconds he’d been having a nightmare and the banging was actually coming from the front door.
“Hold your horses, I’m coming.” He slid out of bed, grabbed his dressing gown from a bed knob and put on his slippers.
He shuffled past the grandfather clock in the hall, which is when he saw the time. Gawdsake! Who’d be visiting at 7.15 on a Monday morning?
Knock-knock, knock-knock.
When he opened up, his eyes were assaulted by a familiar blaze of colour.
“Seriously?” Oodles blinked against the flood of light. “I just had a dream about you.”
“Tacky!” Wish-Wash said.
“It wasn’t that kind of dream, you muppet. I dreamt Father O’Boring was conducting your funeral. You should have seen his face when he heard knocking coming up from your coffin.”
Wish-Wash grinned broadly.
Wish-Wash was a large man with skin the colour of linseed putty. He had shaved off his beard again but, as usual, he had missed clumps of whiskers. This was probably accidental but there was the possibility he thought these outcrops could disguise his double-chin, or at least draw attention away from it.
He was dressed as outlandishly as ever, wearing a tie with slanting stripes and a shirt with rainbow-coloured horizontal hoops.
He lived in the flat above the museum premises, so what was he doing here at this time of the morning?
“I’ve won a holiday to Ireland,” Wish-Wash blurted. “I want you to come on the trip with me.”
* * *
Oodles shook his head as he spooned tea from the caddy into the teapot on the kitchen sink. “You’ve never even been on a plane. Ever heard of Melbourne? Sydney? Somewhere closer?”
“No need to get stroppy. The tickets are for Ireland. You might have won them instead of me if you hadn’t been such a pigheaded old man.”
“Who are you calling old? I’m less than three years older than you!”
It was a tight squeeze in the cramped kitchen, and probably a fluke Wish-Wash hadn’t put a foot in Gough’s water bowl. Oodles swung around. “Anyway, I have no idea at all what you are talking about.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about the DNA test already?”
Oodles tightened the cord of his green tartan dressing gown. “Of course I haven’t forgotten. What are you implying?”
“If your short-term memory was any flamin’ good you’d recall that this trip was the prize they were offering for the winner.” Wish-Wash took a small red folder from his pocket, and waved it. “An all-expenses trip for two to wherever you came from. Business-class.”
“And you won! I’ll be blowed.” Oodles gazed vacantly out the kitchen window. “Do they know how old you are?”
“They’ve got my DNA, haven’t they?”
“You muppet. DNA won’t tell them your age!”
“You don’t know that? If the testing is smart enough to tell them my ancestors came from Donegal, don’t you think they’d be able to work out my age?”
“From a scraping of gob from inside your cheek? You reckon they’d be able to place you in the Jurassic period, do you?”
“You can laugh! You’re too scared to use a computer but now you think you know everything there is to know about science!”
“Gawdsake! Don’t get me started on the computer again. I’m not afraid of technology. I just don’t see why I need one.” Oodles switched off the jug. “If Sally Hopkins says we need a computer at the museum, well, I’d be foolish arguing with someone like her who knows her way around the tourism industry. But you haven’t come up with one good reason for me to have a computer here.”
“You’d be able to email me.”
“You could always walk up here.”
“What if I needed you in a hurry?”
Oodles poured the hot water into the teapot and covered it with a red, white and blue woollen tea cosy.
“It’s not just email,” Wish-Wash said. “Think of the other things you could do with a computer?”
Oodles got a carton of milk out of the fridge and carried it to the table in the living room, with Wish-Wash trudging right behind him.
Oodles turned around, and put his hands on his hips. “You could at least have carried something, old son.”
“I thought you’d want to hear about the trip.”
“This is the first time I’ve known you to let something else come between you and a cuppa.”
Oodles returned to the kitchen and came back with a laden wooden tray that he plonked on to the yellow formica table.
He transferred the teapot, the sugar bowl, a couple of teaspoons, a tea strainer, and two mugs. He sat down opposite Wish-Wash.
Oodles held out his palms. “Go on? Name one good reason why I need a computer at home?”
Wish-Wash scratched his prickly whiskers. “I dunno. I’m discovering new things every day . . . ”
“One thing!”
“All right then. We could be friends on The Facebook.”
“Are you kidding me!”
“How do you feel about Twitter?”
“Gawdsake! You haven’t signed up to social media, have you?”
“Not yet. But even if I can’t convince you I don’t reckon finding friends would be difficult. Barely a day goes by I don’t receive an email from a beautiful woman who says she wants to get to know me better.”
Oodles rolled his eyes. “You don’t reply, do you?”
“Of course not. I don’t think Moose would want to give up his kingsize bed, do you? The flat is cramped enough with just two of us; adding an internet bride to the mix would be just asking for trouble.” Wish-Wash made a point of looking around. “You, on the other hand, have two spare bedrooms. You could have your own harem.”
Oodles held up his ring finger. “What don’t you understand about Until Death Do Us Part? BOTH DEATHS!”
“You were the one who asked what you could do with a computer.”
“Bad enough you’re trying to knock my eyes out with that bright shirt, now you’re asking me to divert much-needed blood from my heart!”
“You’re going to need a computer to do research if you want to come on this trip with me.” Wish-Wash jabbed an index finger at the folder, which was now on the table.
“I hate to disappoint you, old cock, but even if I wanted to go with you, my medical issues might make travel insurance prohibitively expensive.”
Wish-Wash started laughing. Hee-haw, hee-haw. “You don’t need to worry about that!” He tapped the folder again. “Read it for yourself. All expenses are paid, including the insurance.”
“Gawdsake! I might not even get medical permission to fly all that way.”
Wish-Wash’s smile became even broader. “I’ve already sussed that out. I went to see Doc Jenkins yesterday.”
“You didn’t?”
“I’ve actually had these tickets for a week, but it took that long to get an appointment with the quack.”
* * *
Oodles suspected James Northan would be peeved. “Have you told the Mayor yet?” he asked.
“I wanted to surprise him by sending him a postcard from Ireland. But I haven’t seen the old sod. Have you?”
Now Oodles thought about it, they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of James for more than a week. They had maintained an uneasy truce with him after mailing in the two DNA samples. He hadn’t lowered himself to sitting on the bench with them but he had joined them for a few pots of tea, keeping up his barrage of odd language.
James’s daughter Maddie was actually the mayor these days. But they’d normally see James poncing around town like he thought he should still be.
James’s great, great, great grandfather, Colonel Richard Northan, had founded the town of Windy Mountain in 1841, and when James ascended to the mayoral chains, every mayor had come from that same bloodline.
Conversely, Wish-Wash was the first person in his family to become town drunk. But he forged a reputation as the best town drunk Windy Mountain had ever had.
That all came to an abrupt end though shortly after a wintry night in 1967.
Wish-Wash had been napping in the bus shelter in the High Street when he was woken up by a growling noise around 3am.
He claimed that when he glanced up, a Tasmanian Tiger was gawking down at him.
The problem with this story was that the last Tasmanian Tiger in captivity had died in 1936, so the likelihood of the shy marsupial dog making a comeback in the Windy Mountain main street in the swinging sixties was quite unlikely.
But the media still milked the story for all it was worth.
James, who really was the mayor back then,claimed, however, Wish-Wash had made the town the butt of jokes, and took steps to make sure his claim could never be verified. He also lobbied to have him sacked as town drunk.
This is how the big man lost the only job he had ever aspired to.
Wish-Wash had served for 13 stellar years and his name had been the most revered on the town drunk honour board which hung in The Applecart pub. A long line of people had since tried and failed to maintain his high standards. The latest incumbent in the job was Barely Legal Leigh.
When Father O’Boring (real name Father John O’Rourke) finally met his maker in the church fire 18 months ago at age 92, it left Wish-Wash, James and Oodles as the last three old blokes in town.
* * *
Oodles stroked the tea cosy. Madge had knitted that from soft wool she had brought back from England. Now she was gone, it would feel funny getting on a plane without her. “So what did Doc Jenkins say?”
Wish-Wash straightened in his chair. “He gave me a green light. He said nothing was wrong with me. He didn’t exactly say so, but I reckon now I’ve worked out how to use the cash register at the museum and I’ve mastered the new computer he’d be fine with me actually flying the plane.”
Oodles rolled his eyes. “But me? What did he say about me?”
Wish-Wash surveyed the things laid out on the table. “I knew something was missing? You’ve forgotten the biscuits again!”
“Never mind that. What did Jenko say about me?”
“Shall I be mother?” Wish-Wash picked up the teapot and poured tea into the two mugs.
Glug, glug, glug.
“What are you holding back?” Oodles said.
“Nothing. I’m just waiting for the bickies.”
Oodles got up wearily and went to the cupboard in the kitchen. He came back and threw an unopened packet of Iced Vo-Vo’s on to the table.
Wish-Wash’s eyes lit up. “Ooh la la, very fancy.”
“Now will you tell me what he said?” Oodles sat down again.
“As I said, Doc Jenkins gave me the green light. But I’m afraid he’s only given you the amber light.”
Wish-Wash ripped open the packet, examined the biscuits to make sure they were all the same size, made his choice, dunked it into his steaming cup, then sucked on it noisily before stuffing the soggy biscuit into his mouth. He pulled a face, as if he had just sucked on a lemon. “Why didn’t you remind me I hadn’t put sugar in my tea?”
“Gawdsake! As if those biscuits aren’t sweet enough! But never mind what you’re doing to your teeth. Can I travel or not?”
Wish-Wash answered with a shower of crumbs. “You can travel but only if someone accompanies you.”
Oodles lifted his mug towards his lips, surreptitiously also watching Wish-Wash spoon four teaspoons of sugar into his tea. “What are you saying?”
Wish-Wash stirred noisily. By the look of it, he was also combing his mouth with his tongue searching for pockets of biscuits. Then came the little sucking noises.
When he was satisfied he had got them all, Wish-Wash looked Oodles in the eye. “Doc Jenkins wants me to go as your carer.”
* * *
“Carer!” It was lucky Oodles had just swallowed a mouthful of tea otherwise he’d look like a fire hose. “Be buggered if I’m going to let you nursemaid me.”
“It’s because you’re Ukrainian, isn’t it?”
“What?” Oodles wiped his lips with a hand. “Who said I’m Ukrainian?”
“You did. All those months ago. It’s why you didn’t want to take the DNA test. You said you couldn’t care less if you were Ukrainian, or not.”
“That was just an example. I might well have Latvian forebears as far as I know.”
“Same difference. It helps to explain your independent streak.”
Oodles wondered if Wish-Wash even knew where Ukraine or Latvia were on the map, let alone know anything about their qualities of independent spirit. He held him in his gaze.
“Don’t look at me like that? Admit it. You’ll need me on this trip.”
“Need you? You’re assuming I’ll even agree to go with you.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Wish-Wash said. “This will be the trip of a lifetime.”
“More likely it will be the trip that ends our lives.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you watch the news?” Oodles said. “Plane crashes, terrorists, bubonic plague–”
“Donegal doesn’t have any flamin’ bubonic plague. All they’ve had is the potato famine.”
Oodles took another swig of his tea, then he pushed the packet of biscuits towards Wish-Wash. “Here, have another one. I’m all out of your pills.”
Wish-Wash’s hand was halfway to the packet before he reacted. “Oh, very funny! You forget green light here doesn’t take any pills. One of my jobs on the trip will be to make sure amber light takes all his.”
He extracted another Iced Vo-Vo and examined it like a long lost friend. “But thanks for the thought.” He dunked it into his cup, then sucked it into his mouth. It was like watching a whale gulping pink plankton.
Oodles tutted. “At this rate, the plane won’t even be able to get off the ground because of the weight.”
Wish-Wash placed his index fingers into his ears, and sprayed more crumbs over the table. “I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”
“Oh, don’t be so childish! I bet you don’t even know where Donegal is.”
Wish-Wash swallowed. “Do too! I’ve been doing research on the computer.”
“So where is it, then?”
“North-west Ireland.”
“You have been busy. Doing any work?”
Wish-Wash wriggled in his chair. “We had four tour groups through yesterday. V did more than 100 teas and coffees.”
“You helped her then?”
“What do you think I am? Mandrake?”
* * *
Oodlesherded Wish-Wash towards the front door.
“What’s the hurry?”
“I thought you said you were busy at the museum?”
Wish-Wash stepped down the three steps into the empty carport, and Oodles nearly ran into the back of him. “The first tour group won’t arrive until 9am, which means I had plenty of time to finish that packet of biscuits for you.”
“I thought you preferred chocolate digestives.”
“I do. You can’t dunk Iced Vo-Vo’s in your tea properly.”
“That didn’t seem to stop you!”
“You should have seen the pink goop in the bottom of my cup.”
Oodles blinked slowly, but the vision was painted on the insides of his eyelids — giving him something to look forward to when he came to wash the dishes.
Wish-Wash picked at the shoulder of Oodles’s woollen dressing gown. “Anyone would think it’s the middle of winter!”
Oodles slapped his hand away. “Do you mind? Madge bought me this.”
“Did she also buy you a set of bagpipes? Maybe your ancestors came from Scotland?”
“Will you lay off. I told you I don’t give a damn where I come from.” Oodles said.
“I just hope that daggy old dressing gown stays here when we go to Ireland.”
“You know the Irish also have tartans? Didn’t your computer tell you that? Why don’t you put that in your pipe and smoke it?”
Wish-Wash reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his packet of cigarettes, probably to emphasise he didn’t actually smoke a pipe. That was Oodles’s caper. Or it used to be. Doc Jenkins had been on at him for years to give it up for the sake of his health. The doctor finally stopped nagging, and that’s when Oodles had quit just to show he could. Now he watched as Wish-Wash popped a fag into his mouth.
“How are you going to stand going without a smoke during that long flight?” Oodles said.
Wish-Wash’s eyes popped. “They won’t let me smoke? Even in business class?”
“Not even if they do let you fly the plane.” Oodles smiled. “You’ll have to go cold turkey all that way.”
“I don’t know what you find so funny?” Wish-Wash said. “It won’t be much fun for you, either, cobber, having the passenger next to you sweating like a pig, and tossing and turning when you’re trying to get some kip.”
“You haven’t been listening to me! I’m no certainty to even be on that plane with you. It’s easier for you. You don’t answer to anybody. For a start, who’s going to take care of the dog if I go away?”
Wish-Wash shrugged. “Any one of a number of people. Moose, Joffa, Katy, Tim . . . ”
Oodles glared at him. “Tim? Who the heck is Tim?”
Wish-Wash smacked his forehead. “I knew I had something else I needed to tell you. I forgot all about it because of the excitement over our trip.”
“You still don’t get it. I’ll need to think it over.”
“Take all the time you need. We’ve still got four weeks.”
“Four weeks! Strewth!”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you? All you have to do is sit back and enjoy being pampered. If Tim can travel halfway around the world at his age . . . ”
“There you go again! Who is this blinking Tim?”
The unlit durry in Wish-Wash’s mouth bobbed up and down, but his voice just went up. “If you would just listen, I’m trying to tell you.” He let that admonishment sit for a moment, then said, “He starts work at the museum this morning.”
“We can’t afford another employee!”
“We can actually. Have you checked our bank account lately?”
“How much are we paying him?”
Wish-Wash coughed into his hand. “I didn’t say we were paying him. He’s one of them interns. You remember that rich Yank who came to town years ago?”
Oodles stared into space. “Yes,” he finally said. “Big bloke who looked like Rupert Bear wearing a stetson hat?”
“Tim is his grandson. He calls himself Tim Noah the Fourth. Speaks just like the old bloke too. His voice goes up and down like a yo-yo.”
“Why’s he here? You don’t think his grandfather is making another attempt to buy us out, do you?”
Wish-Wash shrugged.
He was holding his unlit cigarette between fat fingers on his right hand, and he folded his arms. “Apparently, he’s chosen Windy Mountain as one of his stops on his way to see the world, and he’s agreed to work for us for nothing.”
“Really? It won’t cost us a cent?”
Wish-Wash coughed into his hand again. “I didn’t say that either. We’re paying for his board at The Applecart.”
The pub let out a few cheap, shabby rooms upstairs. Wish-Wash even used to have a room there before he moved to the museum. His hotel room wasn’t much bigger than a shoebox, had a black and white TV that only sometimes worked, and he had to share a bathroom with five other residents.
“You should be happy he seems so capable because now I can meet you up at the Wind Tunnel Cafe around 11 o’clock,” Wish-Wash said.
“You’re leaving him in charge? Strewth! Didn’t you say it’s his first day!”
“So? He has to learn sometime. I haven’t had a break for days.”
He popped the fag back in his mouth and took a match out of its box.
“Don’t you dare light up here!”
“Why not?” Wish-Wash looked around at the empty carport. “I presume your pride and joy is safely parked in the garage, where I can’t flick ash on it?”
“It is. But I don’t want smoke wafting back in the house.”
“Why not? It’d make the place smell better.”
“My house doesn’t smell!”
“It smells of old man, bleach and mothballs.”
“You know I didn’t lay any of those mothballs. When I find them, I turf them out. It’s not my fault Madge scattered them around like a treasure hunt.”
“What are you doing about the old man smell?”
Oodles glared at him. “I suppose your place smells of roses?”
“Cigarette smoke, actually. I’m offering you my deodorising service. But if you don’t want it, can’t you just close the flamin’ door?”
“No, I blinking can’t. I don’t want to accidentally lock myself out in my dressing gown.”
“Typical!” Wish-Wash pointed to the sky. “No clouds. It’s going to be a beautiful summer’s day and you’re dressed like McScott of the Antarctic.”
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JOHN MARTIN 