RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30688, 2 March 1965, Page 26

RANDOM REMINDER

SORRY SAGA

It began on a Tuesday, with her waking up with a blinding headache and him staggering out of bed to adopt the unfamiliar role of minister of wants, i.e. cups of tea. He wandered about blindly, in his bare feet, and it was this which made the going out for the paper uncomfortable. It was not a good start to the day, and there was the business of the urgent typing which he had to do at home. He went at it in a mad fervour, crossing and re-crossing his hands like Solomon in one of his more energetic moods, until the machine s * D ’ pl J seized up and stuck. And not the most skilful attentions of his talented hand? could make it move,

he had a second machine, and brought it along to get on with his work. His frame of mind 1 was not improved by a resounding crash just as he struck his best typing attitude. A large mirror in the hall which had been on the wall for four years fell. It didn’t break, which seemed to save them as it turned out, something like six years and 363 days of bad luck. The mirror bounced on its edge and did no more than chip some paint from a door. So she said she would make some coffee to soothe his shattered nerves and when it came he swept it to the floor, the liquid leaving dreadful stains on the carpet, desk •nd wallpaper. And that

was about enough for Tuesday. Wednesday dawned, and with fate still apparently on the war-path, they decided to play it safe and lurk beneath the bedclothes. And it was from there that they saw the cat leap from the window Bill to the bookcase to the tallboy by the bed and start sparring with the wrought-iron bedside lamp which rocked its way to within a couple of inches of falling—on her—before she could intercept iL Thursday, and she’s had it. Outside, she thought, would be safer. She decided to stake up an apple tree too heavily laden with fruit No hammer. But there was the hatchet; multiple wounds of the left hand.