: Henry Woodiss
: George Dalrymple
: Woodiss Wins
: Help for Writers
: 9781910823163
: 1
: CHF 2.60
:
: Comic, Cartoon, Humor, Satire
: English
: 100
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
Woodiss speaks directly to you. He presents himself as a hapless buffoon, exploited by his family and employer and the many women who prey on him. These range from a teenage housemaid who fancies a place in literary history, to an aging widow who believes Woodiss can persuade her son, a dissolute Glaswegian doctor, to enter the priesthood. Among them is Miriam, a beautiful young spiritualist, who claims she has been instructed by his late wife to provide him with comforts. These include ‘practices’ which, she tells him breathlessly, she has ‘heard of but never indulged in.’ Their prolonged and often farcical courtship forms a large part of his story. The tenderness that he starts to feel for Miriam does not spare her from his mockery, however. Like him, like everybody, she is a figure of fun, another participant in the farce. WOODISS WINS is the third part of the trilogy AND WOODISS GETS AWAY WITH IT. In WOODISS IS WILLING, Part One, he told how, as a young man, a WW1 hero, driven by circumstance to work as a gamekeeper, he was seduced by his boss’s wife. WOODISS WAITS described his life during the first years of WW2. Discharged by the army, at a loss what to do, he decided to mark time till the end of the war. He took a job at an institution run by an extreme religious sect. He soon realized that the members were trying to recruit him to their faith. Later, however, it emerged that some of them had another, less worthy purpose in mind. In WOODISS WINS the sect achieve their aims. The effects are disastrous and provide the dramatic end to Woodiss’s story.

TWENTY-SIX

I dropped down the hill and turned and drove alomg Briarmains. The rain had eased. As I chugged past the statue, my eye was taken by a young woman who came out of the Co-op Emporium on the far side of the marketplace. She hesitated, looked up at the sky and decided she needed her umbrella up. She then walked round the corner into Lowgate. She was a striking figure, tall and fair-haired and would have had my attention even if she hadn’t looked familiar. As I crawled towards her I confirmed it was Gough’s sister. Apart from a brief word with her on the night she was welcomed back from exile, I hadn’t spoken to her. And before that our acquaintance had been limited to smiling and saying it’s-turned-out-nice-again. This day, I could have driven past and she wouldn’t have noticed me. There was no need to stop, just as there’d been no need to get in the Demon Despatch Rider’s way, but as I drew alongside, I did stop. I leaned across and called out, ‘Jo.’

Momentarily she looked sulky and surprised.

‘It is Joanna, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose you recognize me.’

‘Of course I do,’ she said loud and clear. ‘How are you Henry?’ She pushed her umbrella back and bent her head to talk to me. Her skin, stung by the icy drizzle, glowed pink with health. ‘I was going to have a word with you the other night, but you and Rebecca had got your heads together. Then you left early.’

‘If I’d known I’d have stayed,’ I said. ‘Which way are you going?’

‘I thought there was a teashop round here. I’m dying for a cup of tea.’

‘We don’t have refinements like teashops in Briarmains,’ I said, ‘but I’m going home and you’re welcome to share a pot with me.’

She hesitated. I realized that given The Company’s policy on not mixing the sexes, not to mention Jo’s own history of mixing, the invitation mightn’t be welcome.

‘Will Miriam be there?’ she said in a tone of voice that suggested she’d prefer her not to be.

‘Most likely she’ll be upstairs getting ready for work.’

That reassured her. She shook the bit of rain off her umbrella and got in the car.

As we entered the house, Jo sniffed the air. There was a delicious smell – Belle’s scent, not game stew - and it’d be even more pronounced in my bedroom. There’d be no occasion for Jo to go into my bedroom, but I slyly pulled the door to all the same.

Jo was studying Edith’s murals. ‘They’re good,’ she said, but her tone of voice seemed grudging as if, good or no, she disapproved of them.

I put her parcels on the console table, hung her hat and coat up and ushered her into the drawing room.

Jo stood for a sec, looking round as if she’d lost something, then settled on one of the sofas while I poked some life into the fire. I went off to make the tea.

Miriam was in the kitchen. ‘Ah, you’re home, I thought I heard voices,’ she said.

‘It’s Jo – Gough’s sister. She was looking for a café.’

‘In Briarmains? Was she really?’

‘Are you going to join us?’ I said, getting the cake tin out the cupboard.

‘No thank you.’ This was said in a decisive,not-Pygmalion-likely voice, but she added rater more civilly, ‘I’m going to the MacTurks. I’m sure you can manage another young woman on your own.’

She knew Belle had been here. I should have known I couldn’t keep it from a woman with her pow