Alva and Irva - Edward Carey [7]
UNHAPPY GRANDFATHER, the postmaster, began to see his plans take on grotesque shapes. Orphan Linas, that motherless, fatherless, rootless man, as postmaster? Weak and dreamy orphan Linas as his daughter’s husband? Never! Generally he could combat his daughter’s inappropriate infatuation by calling her away from the post office’s granite steps where he would find her every evening sitting with Orphan Linas. But one night, some four months after Mother and Father had met, grandfather was unable to call mother away because he was in the City Hall2, at the official annual meeting for principal workers of the post offices throughout our region.
SO NOW I THINK again of the bell tower and the baptistry.
WHEN GRANDFATHER left the City Hall late that night, drunk and red-faced, he looked across Napoleon Street to the Central Post Office and saw, lying down, in the shadows, on the top step, two people in post office uniforms. His immediate reaction may have been to leave them alone in their happiness, in order, perhaps, to enjoy the delight of publicly embarrassing them the next morning in front of the entire small army of his employees. But then he recognised his daughter.
I SHAN’T TELL of Grandfather’s screams. I shan’t tell of Mother’s yells and tears. I shan’t tell of the slap that Father received from Grandfather. I shan’t tell of the swelling that immediately began to deform Father’s face. I shan’t tell of the hair-pulling and kicks that Mother delivered to Grandfather after the slap. I shan’t tell of Grandfather sitting afterwards on a step crying like a five-year-old child. I shan’t even tell of the miserable night of sleeplessness that occurred at Grandfather’s residence. Nor shall I tell how things seemed scarcely better the morning afterwards. For these things are better left unsaid.
I SHALL TELL that the following morning, as Grandfather climbed the post office steps to begin his day’s work, he saw a pair of girl’s panties abandoned near the entrance door. I shall tell that seeing those panties removed any remaining doubts in his mind. I shall tell that picking up those panties before anyone else had a chance to see them was the saddest thing that this man would ever do in his life. I shall tell that as this man hastily thrust his daughter’s panties into his jacket pocket he began to die a little, and that his eyes would ever after see the world a little out of focus. I shall tell that a pair of panties in Grandfather’s jacket pocket meant an end to all dreams he had previously had for the future of his post office. I shall also tell that panties in Grandfather’s pocket meant that a marriage must be arranged. And I shall also tell that the marriage concerned one Dallia Grett and a certain weak and dreamy Linas Dapps.
1INCIDENTALLY—national insects drawn by our very own artists of entomology.
2SITES OF INTEREST. THE CITY HALL. The Banqueting Hall, within the City Hall, with its magnificent painted ceiling, can be made available to tourists to view by polite enquiry at the porter’s desk or may even be booked for business conferences at a very reasonable rate—regrettably, all five city hall porters speak no English.
A NEWLY MARRIED COUPLE
ONCE PLAYED HUSBAND AND WIFE
ON NAPOLEON STREET
Napoleon Street
Napoleon Street, a major thoroughfare of our city, does not only extinguish itself into Cathedral Square, does not only contain our Central Post Office, but is home also to our Opera House and our National Theatre, and is perhaps the most cultivated street in our city. However, various other buildings with far less colourful purposes