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Tinkle Tragedy

Humphrey Humpington took off his horn-rimmed glasses, wiped the grease from the

bridge of his nose and sighed. He sensed that his dreams were soon to come to

fruition. Oh the delight, the exquisite delight of consummation. He took a silkhandkerchief from his pocket, lifted it slowly to his button nose and let out a

protracted paaarp. Fleshy folds of facial fat rose like puff-pastry until his eyes were

no more than raisins, shiny bright raisins.

Other readers in the British Library could have been excused for thinking that a

trumpet had sounded in restaurant level two. But they were to be disappointed. The

craning necks that stole a look past their neighbours shoulders found only a glowing

cannonball wrapped in Harris tweed, resting uneasily on dainty patent-leather shoes.

What they didnt know was that Humphrey Humpington, esquire, proud owner of

Heavebrough Hall, viticulturist and gastronome par excellence, had at last made his

name. Humphrey hadnt known it when he sat down to breakfast that morning before

a plate of kippers, croutons and balsamic glaze. Nor had Fox Terrier Fomka when he

followed his master to the door, yapping for scraps. The British Library security

guardswell, they certainly didnt know it when they ordered their corpulent visitor

to place his bags on the inspection desk.

It was only when a second lemon meringue tarte yielded its crust to Humphreys

hippopotamus jaws, that he felt that sour-sweet tang of epiphany! That was it!Feudalism - curlicues of green ink danced across heavy cream paperdeclined

because.. Feeling inspiration escaping him, he took a second bite of heavenly

manna and, fortified, continued. As he wrote, he felt the warmth of satisfaction, or

was it reflux, tingle in his throat.

Despite himself, his mind wandered back to first form at prep school. His history

teacher, Dr Devlin, had conceived a visceral dislike for Humphrey from the moment

that this doughy little child had first rolled into his classroom. Just when Humphreys

upturned moon-face shone with assurance that Devlins barrage was over, he wouldspring the trebuchet and leave our hero face down in the Flanders mud.

But now that Humphrey had a theory, a genealogy, could even disprove Marx, his

name was assuredyes, surely his name was assured. H. Humpington embossed in

gold letters on a thick leather tome, sitting snugly alongside Reynolds, Engelstein,

Schama. Imagine it! He drew his hand over the acid-free paper and his heart leapt at

the gothic typescript, the angular brackets. What joy!

Treating himself to the last of the meringue, Humphrey drew his plan to a close. It

was schematic, of course, oversimplified in the extremehere he sought for his

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bowtie in anguishbut a start nonetheless. Yes, a start. With a beam at his neighbour,

a beggarly man hoarding his espresso, Humphrey resolved to do more work today. No

need to rush. He would let his ideas gestate, take the tube to Regents Park and feed

the ducks, suck on an ice-cream and stare at the maples before waddling home to

Heavebrough. It was all there in his marble-backed notebook.

He winched himself up and, bags in hand, aimed for the toilets. Navigating through

the archipelago of tables, his trailing stern caught a womans shoulder. Her icy stare

would normally have impressed itself deeply on Humphreys soft exterior, but today

he was invincible. He felt like a ball rolling down a grassy slope in full view of the

world, gathering momentum, until it pitched into the air and hung, motionless,

reflecting the suns light.

He was in the toilets. The bright blue tiles distorted his image until he was an

indistinct mass, the texture of gooseliver pate. He left his bags on a slatted wooden

bench and shuffled towards the urinal. He positioned it by touch because his view was

obscured by the curvature of his belly, like a tower swallowed by the curvature of the

earth. In the ringing tinkle of urine on porcelain he heard his own fulfilment. Turning

round, he stood aghast. His bags had gone.

Where was it, where? One minute a brown leather briefcase had sat content in its

plenitude, its shiny brass clasp winking in the phosphorescent glow; the next, poof, it

was gone. Humphrey sucked in air in painful gulps, fumbled with his dark brown

trouser buttons and took the time to remove a white handkerchief from his righttrouser pocket. A disaster had befallen him the like of which Napoleon had not known

at Trafalgar! Then, the French had suffered, now humanity would suffer.

But more than that, Humphrey, Humphrey would suffer. No bright shining lights and

glittering acclaim for Humphrey. No, he would have to shuffle down to breakfast like

a pig in a blanket and scour over reports of scientific breakthroughs and feats of

endurance, his magnifying glass hovering over words like breathtaking,

astounding, revolutionary. No-one would know what pyrotechnics had once

burned in that starch-white head, crawling with liver spots. Heaveborough Hall and

raisin-studded puddings would recall their lost wanderer and restore him to his

rightful place beside Fomka, a glass of claret in hand, looking out over the fields, sure

in the knowledge that whatever went on out there, be it floods or fire or death on the

A42, he would be fine. Yes, he would be fine.

But he didnt want to be fine. He wanted to live, to lovehere he shuffled out to the

hallto defend his outrageously one-sided theory at colloquiums, where bass-toned

professors would politely accuse him of poor scholarly practise, nay, of witchcraft,

before stopping for tea and a bourbon biscuit. Struggle was what mattered, never

letting the carrot soup and dash of cream lull you into a post-prandial stupor and

goggle-eyed imbecility. Struggle was what mattered and struggle he would.

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He drew himself up to his full height of five foot eight and a half and cast an

imperious gaze over the second-floor vestibule. Someone had clearly caught a

glimpse of his theory and followed him into the toilet with the express intent of

stealing and publishing it. But the studious tapping of keyboards and the coming-and-

going, the drinking at water fountains and atmospheric hubbub, all of it wasmaddeningly, infuriatingly normalno beetle-browed beatnik skulked in the

shadows, waiting to brandish the briefcase in Humphreys face before making a run

for it.

He inquired at the inquiries desk and solicited help at the help desk. He even cracked

a smile at baggage reclaim. Nothing. Readers are informed that last orders for books

must be placed in the next fifteen minutes. It was hopeless. The perpetrator could be

anywhere by now, spreading greasy fingers over the creamy softness of his creation.

He left, walked past Newton deep in thought and turned down Euston Road for home.