Bedwetters and Brainless Oafs

'Dark skies over yonder, Unkle Funkle.  Hoist the main-brace and crank up the -'
'Thar she blows!  The Great Whale of the West!'
'That's not the Great Whale of the West, you blind fool. That's Mrs T-G, sunbathing on the Fulmars' decking.'
It was half past ten on a Tuesday morning, and already Tuppence was raving.  His Unkle Funkle obsession was well out of hand.
He'd stormed in at eight, demanding rum, and wearing a patch over his left eye and a fake 'peg leg'.  Receiving the reply that we hadn't got rum, we'd only Madeira, and precious little of that due to 'austerity cuts', he'd stormed out again till ten, spitting over his shoulder as he went, and cursing horribly.
'Best ignored,' I said to Geoffrey, 'Like most things in life these days.'
 We then had our usual 'triple bacon' sandwich, accompanied by five cups of tea and an argument about pigs, and why it was OK to eat them and cows, but not OK to eat sheep or horses.
'It's because we don't know any pigs personally,' explained Geoffrey, wiping some red sauce from his snowy white breast feathers.  'I'd never eat a sheep, because I know one, i.e. YOU, personally.  Just as you'd never eat a gull, because you know one, i.e. ME, personally.'
'True.  We don't know any cows - oh!  Except Mr Spockfingers.  But he was a Highland cow and perhaps - '
'PerHAPS you should enlarge your circle of acquaintances,' snapped Tuppence, who by then had reappeared.
'And perhaps YOU should keep a civil tongue in your head and lay off the rum.'
'Why on earth should I listen to a pair of old bores like you?  You're not experts in anything.  You've no moral fibre.  You're fat and lazy. You're failures in every possible respect.'
Geoffrey began to sob.  I knew Tuppence had hit a nerve; Geoffrey lacks my capacity for denial.
'It's true Tuppy!  We ARE fail - '
I interrupted, shaking my head and gesturing for him to be silent.  'Easy to criticise from the dizzy heights of youth Tuppence. What are you an expert in, then, other than catapults, bed-wetting, and raspberry chews?'
'I was not criticising, merely suggesting.  You brainless pair of oafs.'
'Well!  Unkle Funkle must be turning in his grave.  He'd be shocked to his marrow if he heard your cheek.'
'Two problems with that last statement Uncle Tuppy.'
'Oh really?  Do pray continue.  I'm all agog.'  I yawned in a faux-theatrical manner.
'I fully intend to continue.  If you'd stop interrupting and yawning in that pathetic faux-theatrical manner.   Firstly, Unkle Funkle was unshockable.  Secondly, he was stone deaf, so even if he had been shockable, which as I've already said he was not, he could not have heard you. Or indeed me.  Thirdly - '
'TWO problems you said.  Now it's three all of a sudden...'
'Is it?  Oh.  I can only count to two.  Being young and all that.  Anyway - as I was saying - '
'Oh DO hurry up.  I've sausages to fry.'
'All right.  Thirdly - he's not dead.  Ergo, he is incapable of turning in his grave.'
'WHAAAATT???????'

more later.

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Tuppence reads - Wise Words from Unkle Funkle...

...he of the Wintry Isles circumnavigation fame.  Or notoriety.  Or infamy.  Or nothing at all.  Whatever.

'What are you reading,  Tuppence?'  Imagine him, reading, I thought.  Him!   Of all people!
'Don't you mean 'HE' of all people,  Tuppy?'
Geoffrey was at the mind-reading again.  Tiresome at times*.  'He of all people? Does that sound right to you Geoffrey?'
'Well, it sounds about as right as 'him' of all people.'
'Are you talking about me, you fools?' said Tuppence, glaring at us over his golden pince nez. Not that he needed 'eyewear' of any type.  His vision was perfect, even at night. Convenient for his exploits with the rats (see e-books for details).  The pince nez, therefore, were a mere affectation.  A phase.  Next thing will be tattoos I imagine - ghastly depictions of his fave prog rock stars, such as Rick Wakeman and Mont Campbell of Egg. 'If so, 'he' has got a name.  And I'm  reading Unkle Funkle's Diaries.  I found them wrapped in oilskin in a rusty tartan tin under the stairs, along with a packet of Lipton's tea, three tins of rice pudding and a Kendall Mint Cake wrapper with a use by date of June 3rd, 1920. The tin was labelled 'KLEENING MATERIELS' - that's why you wouldn't have ever opened it.  I only did cos I was bored and looking for - well, anything really.  But preferably cash.  The Diaries are ever so interesting Uncle Tuppy.  I think he went completely insane from time to time, what with the sea water drinking and the unfortunate incident with the albatross and all, but in between bouts of madness he made some useful observations.'
'Oh yes?' said Geoffrey, settling down and fluffing his feathers on his favourite end of the  mantlepiece.
'Such as?'  I said.
'Such as never work for a living, if you can possibly avoid it.  And if you must work, never ever work for someone else as an 'employee'.  Especially not in catering. He wrote that bit while employed as cook on the clipper 'Violet Carson', tacking round the Cape of Good Hope.'
'Well before he found the Wintry Isles then.'
'Yes.  He didn't like working as a cook.  He jumped ship in South Georgia and made a raft from balsa wood and a sail from his erstwhile cook's apron, and steered north, by the stars.  Only he went south, due to the prevailing winds and his getting mixed up with the northern and southern hemispheres and stuff.  And he ended up at the Wintry Isles, with a case of rice pudding, a pound of Lipton's tea and five bars of Kendall Mint Cake to see him through six months of Antarctic darkness.'
'Did he ever regret chucking his job in?'
'No.'

*useful at others

Tuppence attempts to contact Uncle Funkle using the power of his own mind...

...while in the sweat lodge.

'One tap for yes, two for no...' droned Tuppence. 'Are you there Uncle Funkle....will you talk to me? Can you bring me some sweets? Not Werther's Originals or Pan Drops.'
'We've got to get him out of there Val, ' I said. 'I know you said the longer the better but it's been weeks and weeks.  It's affecting his brain.'
'Nonsense,' snapped Val,' It's the fever itself that's affecting his brain.  Nothing to do with the sweat lodge and being on his own all the time and surviving on a diet of goji berry tea and nettle and dandelion ermmmmmm......nettle and dandelion......ummmmmmm.......'
'Stew?' I suggested.
'No.  Definitely not that. It's much too...basic a name.  Besides, it's raw.'
'Salad then.'
'No. Too blunt.  Too ordinary.  Too suburban.  Smacks of clumsily-cut under-ripe tomatoes, limp lettuce, and own-brand salad cream out of a bottle.  If my online customers thought I was selling 'salad' they'd desert me in droves - and they'd be right.  The bastards.'
'What if you used Kraft thousand island and added some bacon sprinkles?'
'Don't be disingenuous.  You know perfectly well what type of stuff I sell. It's all high-end organic health foods aimed at the discerning and eco-conscious middle-earner.'
'Oh well.  Who cares what you call it.  It's basically weeds, and he needs more than that to keep body and soul together.  He needs a square meal Val.  He needs sausage and chips and some bakewell tart and custard.  Followed by a pot of tea and some banana cake, and then an egg and bacon sandwich for supper.'   And so do I, I thought.  My stomach was beginning to rumble.  It was over an hour since breakfast and I'd only had mushrooms on toast, three rashers of smoked back, two rounds of black pudding and a pickled egg.  Preceded by a large bowl of Ricicles and followed by five oatcakes thickly-spread with butter and three fruit marmalade.
'Tuppy, he's got Brain Fever.  You can't let him out mid-cure, and you can't start feeding him sausages.  It could be fatal.  Look at him Tuppy.  He's raving.'
We both bent down and stared through the flap.
'Uncle Funkle....are you there, Uncle Funkle....' Tuppence continued, leaning back in his chair with half-closed eyes. 'Help me Uncle Funkle...I need to escape...even if it is only to somewhere else inside my Own Head...'
Is he raving?  I wondered.  Or is he just bored out of his mind?  It was impossible to tell without talking to him directly, and I wasn't going to risk that in case he really did have Brain Fever.   Either way I had to Do Something before matters took a turn for the worse.
Or did I?  Why should I act?  Why was Tuppence MY responsibility?  Why couldn't someone else do the difficult bits for me?
Perhaps I should just turn my back, and leave him to Val and her weeds health foods.
But I knew I couldn't abandon him.  I'd have to have a sit down, and a think, and make a decision.  I'd have to let him out, basically.  But how would he react?  He was unpredictable at the best of times.
And who on earth was Uncle Funkle?  and why did he circumnavigate the Wintry Isles?  I was about to find out.

more later

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