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Even more DD's Christmas Carol

Wednesday, December 24 2003

The previous chunks

Introduction
Stave 1 - The Ghost of English Cricket
Stave 2 - The First of the Three Spirits
Stave 3 - The Second of the Three Spirits

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Just a little more....

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came, Ducky bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

As the ghoul approached closer, Ducky became aware of a fearful, grating, dragging sound. He blinked, peering in the direction from which the demon approached. Writhing on the floor behind the Phantom was a short fellow clad all in white - all, that is, except for the foul, stinking bonnet which adorned his head.

The creature moaned pitifully as he was dragged along, writhing, struggling against the chain which held him. Ducky saw that he wore protective garments on both hands and feet, but they seemed to offer no succour to him because of the frequency with which he tossed them aside before scampering hither and thither.

Somewhere, deep in Ducky's soul, he knew that he had seen the poor, tormented creature before, but where? His mannerisms were so familiar and yet.....

His attention was drawn back to the Phantom - it was shrouded in a deep, black garment which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing visible save one outstretched hand.

"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?" said Ducky.

"What? Oh, sorry, Ducky. I'll get to you in a little while. I'm just taking my Jack Russell out for a walk." replied the Phantom.

The clock struck ONE.

"You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us," Ducky pursued, "Is that so, Spirit?"

The Spirit answered not, but pointed skyward with his hand. The unfortunate cur sloped off, tail between his legs, spitting and snarling, and immediately announced his retirement from first-class cricket.

"Ghost of the Future. I fear you more than any Spectre I have seen. Yea, more so than the wickedest Shane Warne flipper (Ha! Fancy naming a ball after a dolphin). But as I know your porpoise purpose is to do me good (sorry about that. Dolphins on the brain), and as I hope to live to be another man..."

"Duck," said a distant voice.

"sorry, duck, from what I was, I am prepared to bear your company."

A large woman bearing a whiffle-bat caught Ebenezer Ducky a fearful blow just there, right above the beak, sending him sprawling. Bruised, battered and clearly shaken, he leaped to his feet, his eyes darting around from shadow to shadow.

"I told you to duck." said the distant voice, now a little closer, so I suppose I should have written 'said the now a little closer voice', although you, dear reader, might have supposed (wrongly, as it happens) that it was an entirely different voice if I had so done because you are not exactly as well-endowed in the old brain department as what I is.

"What was that?" enquired Ebenezer Ducky.

Regular readers of this column will instantly recognise the fine work of Doris Hickinbottom of Barnsley and can therefore skip the next bit and move on to something interesting, but for those who have yet to have the pleasure, here we go...

Doris Hickinbottom is a fishwife and part-time meadow trawler-woman by calling, but is currently an employee of Philip Sharpe of Pitches-R-Us. She has special dispensation from the ECB to bring the following unusual articles into any first-class cricket ground in England and Wales:

a) A whiffle-bat
b) A large bag of ants
c) A pink can of paraffin.

Her official duties include the following:

a) To extract ants one by one from the bag, grasping them firmly but gently by the feelers using a pair of specially-designed ECB ant-tweezers.
b) To dip the aforementioned ant in the aforementioned ECB paraffin.
c) To light the ant, thus causing it to cry out in pain.
d) To use the aforementioned whiffle-bat to distract and torment any armadillos attracted to her vicinity by the agonised cries of the ant in its death-throes, thus preventing them from interrupting play.

The principal result of her endeavours is such that it is a relative rarity for armadillos to disrupt play anywhere in England (with the possible exception of Trent Bridge, because none of Philip Sharpe's department are even aware of that ground's existence, judging by the standard of the wickets they produced for the Twenty20 Cup and the South Africa test match during 2003).

Footnote:

Doris Hickinbottom is the great, great, grand-daughter of Allen Hill, the one-time scourge of Australia and taker of the first wicket to fall in test match cricket. Her favourite television personality is Jamie Oliver.

Otherfootnote:

The biggest improvement, due entirely to Philip Sharpe's department, seen in the first-class game over the last 25 years in England, came in 1995 when Doris Hickinbottom suggested that her paraffin can be painted pink from the original blue '... because pink is less threatening and might encourage more families to come to the matches.' She claims that the natural development from this was the Twenty20 Cup.

Brad Cheaty-Hodge's footovertheropenote:

Her request for a tactical thermonuclear device to be used to '.... rid the County Championship and the world of the foul scourge which is Gloucestershire' was turned down on the grounds that it is no longer ECB policy to play first-class cricket in England on uncovered pitches, whether there is lethal radiation present or not, and that the floodlights are quite adequate at Bristol already.

Jamie Oliver???

Now, back to the sorry tale.

"Lead on," said Ducky. "Lead on. The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit, but first off, do you have any iodine? My beak's coming up like Brad Hogg's lip."

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.

The Spirit stopped before a knot of businessmen, all wearing MCC blazers.

"No." said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "I don't know much about it either way. I only know he's dead."

"When did he die?" asked another.

"Last night, I believe."

"Why, what was the matter with him?"

"Rumour has it that he finally wrote something funny. It was all too much for him. He just closed his little ducky eyes, banged his little ducky beak on the keyboard and fell into his own briefcase. Good riddance, I say. Another Pimm's, Bunty?"

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

Ducky fingered his swollen beak. So is this how he meets his fate? Chuckled to death by an imaginary woman wielding a symbolic whiffle-bat? He cursed the day he ever heard of Barnsley.

The Phantom glided into the street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Ducky listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here.

He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of aye business, very wealthy, and of great importance at Lord's and the AMP Oval.

"How are you?" asked one.

"Well!" returned the other. "Old Ducky's got his own at last, hey?"

"So I am told." replied the first. "Cold for Christmas, isn't it?" said David Morgan, ECB Chairman and the second most powerful person in the land.

"Not bad for Buxton in July, though." replied Tiny Tim Lamb, ECB Chief Executive and the most powerful person in the whole of the northern hemisphere and erstwhile saviour of English cricket.

"How would you know, Timmy? You've never ventured North of Watford."

"What is this 'North of Watford' you speak of?"

Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, their parting.

Ducky was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial, but in common with the majority of rulings emanating from the offices of those fine fellows at the ECB, he felt that there had to be some purpose to it all. Only, he couldn't see it - or could he?

The Spirit pointed again, and the scene changed once more. Summer, glorious sunshine, a cricket ground, almost deserted save for the players. Scarcely a cheer could be heard from the thinly populated stands as batter after batter strode out to the middle, wafted more in hope than judgment as the fearsome red missile breached the poorly-executed defensive stroke.

The sound of leather on timber echoed around the ground. The batsmen, disconsolate, sloped back to the pavilion.

Ducky blinked, looked up at the scoreboard, blinked again as he took in the scene in a single glance. Well, two glances actually. And a sly look. He read the legend : 'Hayden b Harmison 0. Ponting b Clarke 0. Australia 0-2.'

The Spirit swept his hand and the scene changed. Now the crowd bayed. This time, it was the turn of the fielders to be slouched as though they carried the weight of a once-proud cricketing nation on their shoulders.

Ducky read the scoreboard again : 'Hayden 381*. Clarke 0-180. Harmison 0-201 (w 2, nb 199).'

He began to understand.

"Spirit," said Ducky, shuddering from beak to webbed foot. "I see, I see. My own life tends this way now. The case of these unhappy men might be my own. What I write indeed has an effect - and the way it is written can have an even greater effect. In short, it is I who am destined to be the saviour of English cricket."

The Spirit spoke for the first and only time.

"I think you'd better leave the good stuff alone in future, Ducky. Here. Have a Dorito."

Ebenezer walked on through several streets, familiar beneath his feet, following the Phantom. They entered poor Bob VVS-Catchit's house, the dwelling he had visited before, and found the mother and the children seated around the fire. Mrs VVS-Catchit still wore the ragged India one-day shirt and the pirate's hat, but the voice was her own.

"Yar! Avast there, me hearties. Ye swabs scrub the decks or ye'll swing from the highest floodlight pylon at Hyderabad."

Another voice, this time soft and soothing, yet pained all the same. As the saying of the time went, 'You are never alone with schizophrenia'.

"He was very light to carry. I know that he was paid an enormous salary by the ECB commensurate with his age and experience, but he was worth every penny. After all, was he not elected to his position in 1996 on a manifesto which claimed that cricket '...should be treated as a business in a game rather than a game within a business'? Did he not dedicate his life to Middlesex England? Did he not give the ECB financial stability, culminating in a turnover of 67.1 million pounds, of which fully 50 million pounds was profit to swell their already burgeoning coffers and buy plentiful bottles of Pimm's?"

"Yes, he did all those things, Mama, but above all he was an insufferable prat with an ego to match."

Tiny Tim. Gone. The truth dawned on Ducky.

"I'm sure he had a soul - I mean, I'm sure he was a good soul." said Mrs VVS-Catchit.

"I am very happy," said Bob. "I saw Crystal Gayle the other day and he says that I will soon be as good a slip fielder as Mark Butcher."

"No, dear. He said that you were as good as THE butcher." said Mrs VVS-Catchit.

Mrs VVS-Catchit kissed him, the children kissed him, His Splendid Majesty the Most Excellent Regal Left-handedness Sourav Ganguly kissed him, although in a rough, tough, brusque, manly way not designed to start any unfortunate rumours in any way whatsoever.

"Hooray! India will soon be as good as England - and definitely better than Pakistan anyhow. Krishna is to blessing us, every one."

"Spectre," said Ducky, "something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead."

As the words fell from the mouth of Ebenezer Ducky, a cold shiver ran down his spine. They hadn't actually seen anyone dead. Sure, they had eavesdropped over a few conversations, but for all he knew, they could, just possibly, have all been rehearsing a play. On the other hand, the author had done it again - turned over two pages at once only on this occasion, there was no getting away from it by resorting to bluffing and the sneaky use of Steve Harmison as he just about managed previously. This time, it was personal. It was down to the duck - and he knew what to do.

"Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come, fancy a pint?" asked Ebenezer. So it was, the pair found themselves at the door of The Cross Keys, Castle Donington, an Inn destined to become the end-point of pilgrimages by cricket fans the length and breadth of the land. You have to hand it to Ducky - he knows a good thing when he sees one.

The Spectre pointed a bony finger towards the 'David Shepherd Nelson Ale' pump, but the new landlord shook his head and said in a thick Australian (sorry, can't think of a better way to put it) accent, "Nah, sorry, sports, but in honour of the latest Ashes victory by the glorious Baggy Green, we've only got Castlemaine and Fosters - FOR EVER!!!"

Now Ducky thought that he understood the significance of the mention of the dead body from a few paragraphs back. It was symbolic (phew!). Castlemaine and Fosters at his local? "Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come, you keep revealing horrors to me, each one worse than the one before. Is there no end to this torture?"

The Spectre left the Inn, this time following Ducky who couldn't be seen for dust. The pair very nearly upturned the dustbin in their haste to make their exit. They glanced at one another before venturing back to the battered bin and tried again, this time with more success.

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but Ducky dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

"Answer me this," said Ducky. "These things which you have shown me. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or merely the shadows of the things that may be?"

The Spirit was as impassive as David Shepherd in the face of the most vociferous Glenn McGrath sledge appeal. The Phantom pointed down towards the grave by which it stood.

Ducky crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name and legend, 'EBENEZER DUCKY KBE, Booker Prize Winner, Nobel Laureate, Duck of the Year, Knighted for Services to Cricket Writing' followed by some bit containing graphic details of Ducky's horrible, extremely painful death which you couldn't possibly be interested in, despite the fact that it involves custard.

"Well, that's a relief." exclaimed Ducky. "At least I won't have to drink that armadillo pee which masquerades as beer."

"Spirit!" he cried, tightly clutching at its robe, "Hear me. I am not the man I was."

"Duck!"

"Sorry, not the duck I was." Ducky immediately realised that he had fallen for it again and glanced around anxiously, greatly relieved not to come face to face with the earlier joke. "Why show me this, if I am beyond hope?"

The kind hand trembled.

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present and the Future. The Spirits of all Three will strive within me in all my future writings. I shall search for the positives in anything and everything, in the eternal hope that others do likewise. That is my destiny, that is how I will assist English cricket to rise from the, er, 'ashes', for want of a better word. No more will Steve Harmison be described as 'wayward', nor Rikki Clarke 'spotty and talentless', nor even will Inzamam ul-Haq be..... er, will you accept two out of three? Oh, tell me I may yet sponge away the writing on this stone - except all the literary honours, of course. And the cheerleaders. Oh, yes, and the bananas and custard."

Ebenezer Ducky grasped the hand, only for it to shrink, collapse and dwindle down into a bedpost. The third and final Spirit had departed.

"Sucker!"

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Boldly go where no infinitive has been split before - to Stave Five, The End of It


Posted by Eddie