But that Uncle Parker should have won a prize by using words, which were the tools of Mr Bagthorpe’s own trade, and which he felt to be more or less his exclusive province, was a bitter blow. Nothing would do, he decided, but that he himself should win an even bigger and better prize with a shorter and better slogan.
He was not a man to sit around playing with ideas. The minute he got one, he acted on it. (The critics often described his scripts as “monumentally single-minded” or “ruthlessly one track”.) Mr Bagthorpe took these as compliments, and they may have been, of course.
“Lear is monumentally single-minded,” he would point out triumphantly. “Othello was ruthlessly one track. So was Macbeth.”
Mr Bagthorpe, then, abandoned his abortive script and went to the sitting-room to find any magazines that might be running Competitions. He had often noticed them in the past but had thought it beneath his dignity to enter them. He had also, like Jack, thought that nobody ever won them anyway. He was not pleased to find that the magazine shelf had already been rifled, and guessed immediately what was afoot. He did not much like the idea that his offspring were intending to win Competitions too. It was, he knew, possible that he would end up by being a runner-up to one of them – Tess in particular, who was very good with words.
He instantly resolved, therefore, to keep his own Competition Entering secret. He was sure he would win every one he entered, if everything was all square and above board, and he was not pipped by a member of his own family. If, however, the Competitions were rigged (as he felt sure some of them must be, viz. Uncle Parker’s success) and he did not win, then he would avoid loss of face. Mr Bagthorpe was very bad at losing face.
He did get ideas, however, and had one now. Competitions did not appear only in newspapers and periodicals, they also appeared on the backs, tops and insides of grocery packages and tins. Uncle Parker’s own success had depended upon the top of a SUGAR-COATED PUFFBALL carton. He determined to raid the larder. This, he realised, depended on sidetracking Mrs Fosdyke, who was not easy to dodge because she darted hither and thither about the house all day with the rapidity and inconsequential tracking of a hedgehog. She could be in the bathroom one minute, a bedroom the next and then back down the hall, following her own obscure method of housekeeping. He had to think of a way of keeping her out of the kitchen for at least ten minutes while he had a quick sort through the pantry.
He pondered this for some time. He hit upon a solution. It was a neat one – it killed two birds with one stone.
In the kitchen he found Mrs Fosdyke serving coffee to his wife, the only member of the family who appeared to be interested in it. The rest, he surmised, were holed up in their rooms hammering out Slogans.
“Mrs Fosdyke has just been telling me how she has kindly offered to take Mother to Bingo tonight,” she greeted him.
“To what?” demanded Mr Bagthorpe incredulously.
“To Bingo, dear. It will take her out of herself. You know how drawn into herself she has become lately.”
“Laura,” said her husband, “if Mother so much as sets foot in a Bingo Hall there will be a riot. You know there will.”
“Nonsense, dear,” said Mrs Bagthorpe firmly. (She gave so much thought and time to other people’s Problems that as far as possible she tried to pretend that those of her own family were not there, in the hope that they would go away.)
“My mother,” said Mr Bagthorpe, “and she is my mother, and I think I know her as well as anyone ever could, is a congenital cheater at games. No –” he held up a hand – “don’t bother to deny it. You were present, I believe, last week, when she concealed the Q in her handbag because all the Us had already gone, at Scrabble?”
“Oh, she won’t be able to cheat at Bingo, Mr Bagthorpe,” said Mrs Fosdyke positively. “It’s impossible. It’s all done ever so fair and square and businesslike.”
“Is it?” Mr Bagthorpe threw himself into a chair and reached for his coffee. “Think they’ve got it organised, do they?”
“Oh, they have,” she assured him. “They’d never keep going, otherwise. It’s got to be fair.”
“In that case,” he said, “I prophesy – if you will excuse the expression – that whatever Bingo Hall you frequent will be closed down within the week. I also think it possible the police will become involved, and that there will be adverse publicity in the local papers. Probably –” pausing for a gulp of coffee – “in the Nationals.”
“Oh, go on, Mr Bagthorpe!” said Mrs Fosdyke skittishly.
“Henry, dear, you do exaggerate,” his wife told him. “I think it will be the healthiest thing possible for Mother to do.”
“Oh, it’ll be healthy for her, all right,” he agreed. “There’s nothing sets Mother up like an all-out row.”
“Well, let’s just wait and see, shall we,” said Mrs Bagthorpe sensibly. “And thank you so much, Mrs Fosdyke, for your kind offer. We’re most grateful.”
“Ah, and that reminds me, Mrs T – Fosdyke,” said Mr Bagthorpe. He had been about to say “Mrs Tiggywinkle” but stopped himself just in time. “There’s a little favour you might do for me, if you will.”
“Really?” She looked startled. Mr Bagthorpe hardly ever spoke to her at all, and had never in memory asked a favour. He looked at her quite a lot, and she did not much like the way he looked, but he almost never actually said anything.
“If you’ll excuse Mrs Fosdyke, dear,” he said to his wife, “I’d like her to pop down to the village shop for me. I’m in the middle of a very difficult patch with my script, you see, and there’s some material I must have if I’m to get on.”
“Well… certainly I’ve no objection,” said his wife, “if –?”
She looked enquiringly at Mrs Fosdyke who was already wiping her hands on her overall preparatory to taking it off. She was going to enjoy telling them in the shop that she was there on an urgent errand to get something for one of Mr Bagthorpe’s TV scripts.
“What is it you’re wanting?” she enquired.
“It may sound strange,” replied Mr Bagthorpe, “but what I require are current copies of the following magazines: Woman’s Monthly, Mother and Home, Happy Families…”
He rattled off half a dozen more magazines that he felt sure would be rich in Competitions. These he had selected a few minutes earlier from The Writer’s and Artist’s Year Book. They were none of them publications that were usually to be found at Unicorn House.
Mrs Fosdyke looked surprised by this but Mrs Bagthorpe did not.
“I need,” explained Mr Bagthorpe shamelessly, “to get right inside the mind of the woman in the home. Into the mind of a woman such as yourself, for instance, Mrs Fosdyke.”
Mrs Fosdyke positively scooted for her coat and hat on receiving this gratifying intelligence. She told her cronies about it later in the Fiddler’s Arms.
“He’s doing one of his scripts about me,” she boasted. “Said he wanted to get right inside my mind. Researching up on it at the moment.”
On being jealously reminded by one of her friends that she had always pronounced Mr Bagthorpe to be mad, she replied:
“It goes in patches, does madness. He’s in one of his sane spells” – which covered the present situation nicely, and also gave her a loophole whereby she could revert to her former assessment of Mr Bagthorpe if necessary.
Mrs Bagthorpe finished her coffee and went back to her Problems. Mrs Fosdyke, armed with a five-pound note and strong bag, was scuttling towards the village, and the coast was clear.
Mr