Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life

Claud sipped his tea to give himself a little more time and he couldn’t help wondering how the miserable old bastard’s face would look if he simply up and told him the truth right there and then, if he’d said what we’ve got, Mr Hoddy, if you really want to know, is a couple of greyhounds and one’s a perfect ringer for the other and we’re going to bring off the biggest goddam gamble in the history of flapping, see. He’d like to watch the old bastard’s face if he said that, he really would.

They were all waiting for him to proceed now, sitting there with cups of tea in their hands staring at him and waiting for him to say something good. ‘Well,’ he said, speaking very slowly because he was thinking deep. ‘I’ve been pondering something a long time now, something as’ll make more money even than Gordon’s second-hand cars or anything else come to that, and practically no expense involved.’ That’s better, he told himself. Keep going along like that.

‘And what might that be?’

‘Something so queer, Mr Hoddy, there isn’t one in a million would even believe it.’

‘Well, what is it?’ Mr Hoddy placed his cup carefully on the little table beside him and leaned forward to listen. And Claud, watching him, knew more than ever that this man and all those like him were his enemies. It was the Mr Hoddy’s were the trouble. They were all the same. He knew them all, with their clean ugly hands, their grey skin, their acrid mouths, their tendency to develop little round bulging bellies just below the waistcoat; and always the unctuous curl of the nose, the weak chin, the suspicious eyes that were dark and moved too quick. The Mr Hoddys. Oh Christ.

‘Well, what is it?’

‘It’s an absolute gold-mine Mr Hoddy, honestly it is.’

‘I’ll believe that when I hear it.’

‘It’s a thing so simple and amazing most people wouldn’t even bother to do it.’ He had it now – something he had actually been thinking seriously about for a long time, something he’d always wanted to do. He leaned across and put his teacup carefully on the table beside Mr Hoddy’s, then, not knowing what to do with his hands, placed them on his knees, palms downward.

‘Well, come on, man, what is it?’

‘It’s maggots,’ Claud answered softly.

Mr Hoddy jerked back as though someone had squirted water in his face. ‘Maggots!’ he said, aghast. ‘Maggots? What on earth do you mean, maggots?’ Claud had forgotten that this word was almost unmentionable in any self-respecting grocer’s shop. Ada began to giggle, but Clarice glanced at her so malignantly the giggle died on her mouth.

‘That’s where the money is, starting a maggot-factory.’

‘Are you trying to be funny?’

‘Honestly, Mr Hoddy, it may sound a bit queer, and that’s simply because you never heard of it before, but it’s a little gold-mine.’

‘A maggot-factory! Really now, Cubbage! Please be sensible!’

Clarice wished her father wouldn’t call him Cubbage.

‘You never heard speak of a maggot-factory, Mr Hoddy?’

‘I certainly have not!’

‘There’s maggot-factories going now, real big companies with managers and directors and all, and you know what, Mr Hoddy? They’re making millions!’

‘Nonsense, man.’

‘And you know why they’re making millions?’ Claud paused, but he did not notice now that the listener’s face was slowly turning yellow. ‘It’s because of the enormous demand for maggots, Mr Hoddy.’

At that moment, Mr Hoddy was listening also to other voices, the voices of his customers across the counter – Mrs Rabbits for instance, as he sliced off her ration of butter, Mrs Rabbits with her brown moustache and always talking so loud and saying well well well; he could hear her now saying well well well Mr Hoddy, so your Clarice got marrie

d last week, did she. Very nice too, I must say, and what was it you said her husband does, Mr Hoddy?’

He owns a maggot-factory, Mrs Rabbits.

No thank you, he told himself, watching Claud with his small, hostile eyes. No thank you very much indeed. I don’t want that.

‘I can’t say,’ he announced primly, ‘that I myself have ever had occasion to purchase a maggot.’

‘Now you come to mention it, Mr Hoddy, nor have I. Nor has many other people we know. But let me ask you something else. How many times you had occasion to purchase… a crown wheel and pinion, for instance?’

This was a shrewd question and Claud permitted himself a slow mawkish smile.

‘What’s that got to do with maggots?’