My Uncle Oswald

'I'll bet it is.'

'You can lead them around anywhere you want like that.'

'I'm sure.'

'It's like putting a twitch on a horse.'

I took a mouthful of Beaune, tasting it with care. It had been shipped by Louis Latour and it was really very fair. One was fortunate to find something like that in a country pub. 'So then what?' I said.

'Chaos. Wooden floor. Horrible bruises. The lot. But I'll tell you what's interesting, Oswald. He didn't know quite what to do. I had to show him.'

'So he was a virgin?'

'Must've been. But a damn quick learner. I've never seen such energy in a man of sixty-three.'

'That's the vegetarian diet.'

'It could be,' Yasmin said, spearing a piece of kidney with her fork and popping it into her mouth. 'But don't forget he had a brand new engine.'

'A what?'

'A new engine. Most men of that age are more or less worn out by then. Their equipment I mean. It's done so much mileage things are beginning to rattle.'

'You mean the fact that he was a virgin...'

'Precisely, Oswald. The engine was brand new, completely unused. Therefore no wear and tear.'

'Had to run it in a bit though, didn't he?'

'No,' she said. 'He just let her rip. Flat out all the time. Full throttle. And when he'd got the hang of it he shouted, "Now I see what Mrs Pat Campbell was on about!" '

'I suppose in the end you had to get out the old hatpin?'

'Of course. But you know something, Oswald. With a triple dose they're so far gone they don't feel a thing. I might've been tickling his arse with a feather for all the good it did.'

'How many jabs?'

'Till my arm got tired.'

'So what then?'

'There are other ways,' Yasmin said darkly.

'Ow again,' I said. I was remembering what Yasmin had once done to A. R. Woresley in the lab to get away from him. 'Did he jump?'

'About a yard straight up,' she said. 'And that gave me just enough time to grab the spoils and dash for the door.'

'Lucky you kept your clothes on.'

'I had to,' she said. 'Whenever we give an extra dose it's always a sprint to get away.'

So that was Yasmin's story. But let me now take it up from there myself and go back to where I was sitting quietly in my motor car outside 'Shaw's Corner' in the gathering dusk while all this was going on. Suddenly out came Yasmin at the gallop, flying down the garden path with her hair streaming out behind her and I quickly opened the passenger door for her to jump in. But she didn't jump in. She ran to the front of the car and grabbed the starting-handle. No self-starters in those days, remember. 'Switch on, Oswald!' she shouted. 'Switch on! He's coming after me!' I switched on the ignition. Yasmin cranked the handle. The motor started first kick. Yasmin dashed back and jumped into the seat next to me, yelling 'Go man, go! Full speed ahead!' But before I could get the gear lever properly engaged, I heard a yell from the garden and in the half-darkness I saw this tall, ghostlike, white-bearded figure charging down upon us stark naked and yelling, 'Come back, you strumpet! I haven't finished with you yet!'

'Go!' Yasmin shouted. I got the car into gear and let out the clutch and off we went.

There was a street-lamp outside the Shaw house and when I glanced back I saw Mr Shaw capering about on the sidewalk under the gaslight, white-skinned all over save for a pair of socks on his feet, bearded above and bearded below as well, with his massive pink member protruding like a sawn-off shotgun from the lower beard. It was a sight I shall not readily forget, this mighty and supercilious playwright who had always mocked the passions of the flesh, himself impaled now upon the sword of lust and screaming for Yasmin to come back. Cantharis vesicatoria sudanii, I reflected, could make a monkey out of the Messiah.

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