Betty and Maude

  by Marjorie Kretch (Mrs)

In the Summer of 1998 I received a letter from a Zimbabwean friend, containing a photograph of a couple of paintings of his which had been recently exhibited at a gallery in Harare.  Unaccountably, a few of the paintings had remained unsold, though the exhibition, over all, had been a success.  Two, in particular, immediately caught my attention.  Perhaps the reason they were not snapped up by the good Burghers of that city was the subject matter - after all, it is not to everyone’s taste to have, on the walls of their sitting rooms, large depictions of naked, elderly ladies.  Perhaps, in our pursuit of lifestyle, as opposed simply to getting on with the age old business of living, we have forgotten to appreciate genuine quality, for its own sake, and have unlearned the art of recognising it.  Also, we don’t desire such items any more because they are not what that the Sunday supplements are telling us we want - I mean, when was the last time you saw antique-pine-framed prints of nude Senior Citizens on offer in the ‘Innovations’ catalogue?

Now, I’d hate you to think that I’m a necromancer (or whatever it is that one calls a fancier of Persons Of Advanced Seniority) but I did, nevertheless, find these paintings strikingly beautiful and was taken with them enough to contact my friend, asking him to send them over.  Andrew was delighted at my enthusiasm for his canvases, so an exchange of emails duly followed, during which he notified me exactly as to when and where “Aunt Betty” and “Aunt Maude” would arrive.

The story you are about to read is my letter to Andrew, written a few days after I had endured their passage through customs.  It is, in its own way, a story of our times.  It is a gruesome, tragic tale. I even sent the story to John Carpenter (the director of the horror classic “Hallowe’en”, amongst others)  - but he reckons it wouldn’t get a certificate.  In light of the foregoing, therefore, I would suggest you leave the reading of it until well after any meal and, if possible, a good long nap.  

*****

London, 18 August 1998

Dear Andrew

Well, as you know, the Ladies arrived safe and sound.  That was the short version.  Here’s the longer one (tip: you may wish to bail out at this point).

The day of the Arrival dawned much as any other English summer day.  It was cold, with a stiff north-easterly breeze, cloudy and there was enough ‘prickle’ in the air to suggest that there would be a pretty heavy downpour at just about any moment.  This monsoon of Biblical proportions was inevitable for two good reasons.  One: it flipping well just was.  You only had to look out of the window to know that God was going to play the old ‘bucket-of-water-balanced-on-the-door’ trick on you. And two:  England were on the very brink of winning their first home Test series in twelve years.  So there didn’t appear to be any pressing need to rush down to Heathrow at eight o’clock in order to be back in time for the umpires to come out at 10.55 am.  We had another cup of coffee while I tried (once again) to explain to Rosie the rules of Test cricket and why, if it bloody well rained all day today, I would be a total pain to live with for approximately the next three and a half weeks.  That second cup was the first mistake of the day.  Because at about 9.25 the lowering, black, tarpaulin skies suddenly and inexplicably cleared (contrary to all Met Office predictions) and the sun came galloping out with a jaunty ‘Gotcha!’ sort of expression all over his face.  I was out of the flat by 9.28.

You see, my thinking was that I could get to Customs by about ten, pick up the Old Dears, sign the forms and be back by about 11.00, having only missed Geoff Boycott’s pitch report.  I wouldn’t even need to take a radio, as I’d be spending most of the time in the car.  Second (BIG) mistake.  

I arrived at the Cargo Centre at about 10.04 am, and was immediately directed to a grubby side-window, where a grubby lady handed me a grubby form (first sinking-feeling of the day).  She also informed me that the form (the ‘waybill’) was all she was giving me right now and that I would have to take this to the Customs Office for clearance.  Apparently, there I would be interrogated as to the nature of the ‘package’ (nudge, nudge...) and, should Customs feel so inclined, they would come back with me and have it opened.  If, however, they decided to believe my ludicrous story, that the ‘package’ (wink, wink...) merely contained the likenesses of two naked, elderly ladies and not, as was patently obvious, several kilos of narcotics, then that would be the end of the matter.  I would be free to come back and collect them.  The Customs Office was half a mile away.

I reached ’Wayfarer House’ at 10.20 am..  The car park had spaces for about eight cars (clearly ludicrous) so I was forced to double park.  On entering the building, I told the receptionist where my car was and that, should anyone need me to move it, I would be happy to do so (still quite chirpy huh?).  She instructed me to take a numbered ticket and wait for my turn.  I took the ticket, number ‘18’, and was delighted to see that the counter said ‘15’.  Not bad, only three turns to wait!  One hour later, it still said ‘15’.  It is at times like these that one catches oneself doing rather stupid things.  On this occasion, I found myself not looking at the machine for a few moments and then, when I thought I might catch it unawares, giving it a sly glance out of the corner of my eye.  But, evidently, it had played this game before.  Once, I thought it had gone to sixteen but changed back just as I swivelled a cunning eye towards it.  Drat! 

 

By now the waiting room was filling up.  I had, during this time, struck up a resigned, sighing, lifting-your-eyes-to-the-ceiling sort of a relationship with a girl two seats away.  Suddenly, the machine burst into life and our little world moved excitedly into the 16 Era.  She looked at me with a pretty smile.  All I could think to say was, 'That’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to me all morning!'  As indeed it was.  So the aeons ticked, inexorably, by.  I had no radio, no TV and England needed me, dammit!  I consoled myself with the thought that it was probably all over by now (11.35).  Somebody had to have won.  I just prayed it was us. 

A gloomy silence settled on the room, disturbed only by the occasional rustling of paper, an odd sniff here or there and the murmuring of voices a long, long way off.  This, almost sylvan, calm was suddenly broken by an Asian gentleman coming into the room and asking if the owner of the Citroen would kindly move it, as he had to get his Mercedes out.  I, of course, complied.  It was only when I got to the car park that I realised I had dropped my numbered ticket.  At moments like these, all sorts of weird things go through your mind, along the lines of: “Some bastard’s stolen my ticket!  I’ll bloody have him!”  So I left the engine running and raced, dementedly, back into the building where I stood, for a moment, wild eyed and nearly hysterical as I accusingly surveyed each and every person in the room.  Individually.  They weren’t in the least bothered.  They had their own problems.  I then got down onto all fours and groped about on the floor.  

There is a particular kind of muck on the floor in public buildings.  It is a dreary, weary, resigned sort of muck, not at all like the cheery, friendly muck you get at home.  Home muck is yours.  This is Government building muck, and it is so bored it will do anything for a new life.  So, seizing its chance, it leapt excitedly off the miserable carpet and jumped, giggling, all over my clothes where, it figured, it would begin a new and far more interesting existence.  Moments later I stood up again, resigned to my fate.  I had lost my ticket and my world was in tatters.  To cap it all, I was now covered in someone else’s muck.   Still, there was a chance my ticket would yet turn up but, just in case, I took a new one from the machine.  My heart sank when I saw this ticket read "24".  At this rate I could be there for days.  To cap it all, the LCD chose this very moment to move, grudgingly, onto 17.  For crying out loud!

I moved the car and, having played a ridiculous Chinese Puzzle around the car park with two Toyotas, a Land Rover and an over-laden Reliant Robin, hastened back into the waiting room, where I immediately set about verifying the whereabouts of the recalcitrant ticket.  And suddenly there it was, the little darling!  I greeted it the way a cat lover greets a kitten that’s been stuck up a tree.  We had a little hug and, I could almost swear, the damn thing purred. And the LCD moved onto 18!  Things could not have been more wonderful...

The uniformed man at the window looked, thoughtfully, at my waybill before raising a weary eyebrow and fixing me with a practised stare. 

 

'Two naked, elderly ladies?'  Seemed perfectly natural to me...   I beamed at him.  

'From Zimbabwe!' I offered, by way of explanation.  He looked, grimly, back at the waybill.  'I wonder, could we get on with this?  Only there’s a Test match going on you see, and...'  

'From Zimbabwe?'  (Second, much worse, sinking feeling of the day).  

'Well, yes.  Paintings.  Framed.  Painted by a friend.' 

‘Value?'  I had no idea what he was talking about.

'They are a present.  Look, it says so right there: “Gift".  See?'  He made that particular noise that only builders and car mechanics make.

'I don’t know about that.  I mean they’ve got to have a value.  Is he well known?  You know, famous?  What does he charge for a painting?”

'He’s an amateur.  He does it for fun.'

'Fun, you say.  I don’t know about that.  I’ve got to put a value on them, otherwise there’d be no point me being here to put values on things, now would there?  Look, it’s got to have a value.  Here I am in this uniform and everything, and I can’t have people walking about the place with no values on their goods.  This is Customs and Excise, after all.  It’d be more than... well, you know.'  He had the grace to stop himself just in time.

'So, give it a value then.' I sighed.

'Well, now,' and here he looked straight at me, with a big, jolly, welcoming smile, 'what are they worth, then?'  

You’ll have to forgive me, at this point,  for wondering what all this had been about.  It was clearly my impression that this was his job, his raison d’etre, his sine qua non, the very thing that made his life worth living, the reason he got up in the morning.  Valuing stuff was, in short, his metier...

'Er...isn’t that your job?' I ventured.  He actually looked hurt. 'I’m very sorry but I really don’t know what they're worth.  I’m not the expert here.  I’ve never done this before.  I’m not the one wearing the uniform.'  We both stared at the waybill for an embarrassing minute.  And another.  And then a third.

'What about the frames, then?  How about we value the frames and call it quits?'  He knitted his fingers in front of me and fairly beamed.

I suppose one of life’s great turning points is the day you learn that it’s going to be just impossible to win at everything.  Having learnt this lesson at an unusually early age has given me the edge in a great deal of otherwise long, not to mention fruitless, negotiations.  The thing is it saves time.  By now I was ready to quit.  I had given it a good go, but was beginning to feel the dread, cold, heavy hand of Government and, besides, they’d drained the fight out of me.  More to the point, I had to know what had happened in the cricket.

'Fifty quid each?'

‘Done.'  It was as simple as that.  He wasn’t even going to haggle.  Maybe I should have said "a tenner for the pair" but felt time, and my luck, both wearing heavily on the proceedings.  

'I’ll write out a cheque, then.’

'Sorry, mate (MATE?!) you’ll have to take this form to the payment counter and fill out a B/447/HMG-26.'  He passed me a grubby pink note.  'When you’ve done that, take the waybill, the form and your receipt back to the Cargo Centre and they’ll sort out your ladies.  All the best then. Cheerio.'

I was a beaten man.  But I had recognised a situation that was clearly not in my control and, in true Dunkirk Spirit, had reaffirmed in myself the belief that discretion is indeed the greater part of valour and that, all things being equal, and all equivocation aside, I’d been given a good seeing to.   So I shuffled wearily to the Payment Counter where, after a surprisingly short wait, was handed form B/447/HMG-26, which I patiently filled out.  A kind lady explained that the Duty of 15% would be added to the ‘Given Value’ and then that would be added to a New Total which would attract VAT at 17.5%.  Total: £35.12.

Not long later, having played another "Chinese Puzzle" game in the car park (this time in reverse) I arrived back at the Cargo Centre.  By now, of course, all thoughts of seeing any live Cricket had long since gone so, resignedly, I switched on the car radio and, joy of joys, learned that England had indeed managed to pull it off.  It had all been over by twenty past eleven.  I fairly bounded up to ‘Reception’ and showed the man my documents.

'Window over there, chum.'  In my new spirit of total ecstasy, I persuaded myself to believe this was Government Employee patois for “Good morning, Sir.  How may I help you?  Oh you’ll need Collection which is over in the corner.  A very good day to you.  Oh and, Sir, marvellous news about the Test, don’t you think?'

The queue was long.  And rowdy.  Two African blokes were actually fighting.  Apparently, Bloke A had tried to barge in but Bloke B had a consignment of live snails (evidently, slowly becoming dead snails) in the warehouse and he wasn’t going to let anybody, let alone Bloke A, get ahead of him.  A trucker ahead of me in the queue suggested opening a book on the contest, but no-one took him up on it; besides which it blew over quite soon and settled into something of a childish, name-calling sort of affair.  We inched on.  The sun screamed in through a closed, grimy window and thudded into the dark grey carpet tiles.  Everything was cooking: floor, feet, armpits.  We stared, grimly, at the drinks machine in the corner but knew, without even trying it, that it had died long ago.

A large, cooling fan began to whirr above my head.  I tilted my face upward to feel the coolest of midsummer breezes gently settling on my skin. A white-liveried waiter appeared with a large, ice-cold Singapore Sling on a polished silver tray.  I licked my lips, held out my hand and a voice said, ‘Waybill.’

'Huh?  Wha...'

‘Waybill!'

A moustachioed, warty, middle-aged matron in an ill-fitting dress was eyeing me thoughtfully from behind a smeary glass screen. She drummed her fingers on the warm steel.  I snapped out of the happiest of reveries, fumbled in my trouser pocket and produced the documents. 

'Er...Zimbabwe...' I offered; then, cheerily,  'All paid now, I hope.'

'Freight and storage.' She countered, mysteriously.

'Freight was paid at the other end.' I said, helpfully.

'Freight out of the country, but not carriage here, and not storage.'

'Well...'

'Let me see.'  She tipped her glasses further towards the tip of her nose.  I noticed, with no surprise whatever, that the glasses were attached to a pearly strap.  A plastic brooch on her large bosom read “Mrs Cramp”.  Hm...  She smelled of leather.  And Eau Sauvage.

'Carriage, £40.  Storage £5 a day for two days.'  And then, softly, ‘Each'. The calculator burst into song.  'Making, er...  £60.  Sign here, please.' I fumbled in my pockets.  'Need a pen?' she asked.  What I really wanted was an aspirin and a good lie down.  She handed me a pen and I signed.  A moment later she had liberated £60 from my bank account and was giving me instructions to the warehouse.  The terrible queue dragged itself a weary step forward.  As I left, I gave them a sympathetic smile.  For me, it was nearly over.  For them,... who knows.  Maybe they’re still there.

And so, on to the warehouse.  I was directed to wait in the car until my number showed up on the large screens outside.  My heart sank but, in fairness, the numbers were clicking round quickly and mine appeared in no time.  A few minutes later, the Old Bags were aboard and we were on our way home.  I walked into the flat at 2.30 pm.

*****

Epi...thingy

And that’s about it.  Except one thing, and that is this.  It is my profound belief that all of this was on purpose.  There is absolutely no conceivable reason why an exercise as simple as getting a painting, or much else, for that matter, through customs should take four hours.  We do it all the time, at airports, on European trains, through the post for goodness sake!  Why does it take so long at a Customs warehouse?  Why?  Because they want it to.  Because there exists a cosy little gang of ne’er-do-wells and dodgy Customs Officers (collectively known as the Import-Export industry)  who are all in cahoots and are making a tidy living out of it, that’s why.  And the whole thing’s shrouded in Government muck and Government paperwork and Government speak and everyone wears a uniform and it all looks and sounds terribly important.  But the bottom line is, they don’t want you to bring stuff into the country.  The even bottomer line is, they don’t want you to bring stuff into the country.  Not drugs, not cars and definitely no elderly, slightly plump, naked ladies.  

Unless, of course, there’s something in it for Them...

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