Space age wooing
By Amrita Dhingra

YOU were determined to take this sudden reversal in fortune with equanimity. Too tired to do anything more than take in the cell which was to be your temporary abode you decided to hit the sack. It wasn’t much of a place anyway. A chair, a bed in a six by fifteen room. The only alleviating factor was a barred window.

Something about "two men look through the same bars, one sees the mud and one sees the stars" flashes through your mind and as a result you are quite determined to lie on the cot and see only the stars. This objective is somewhat hindered by the fact that the cot is placed at a rather awkward angle and the only way to see the stars is to angle your neck in a position most facilitative of a horrible crick in the neck. Apparently the improvement of the soul is not a cherished goal when in the cooler.

Still you stick it out and gaze at the limited show the stars are putting up that night. Just as the sandman is about to caste a spell on you, you come awake with a jerk. Apparently the adjoining alley is stacked with trashcans and where there are alleys and trashcans can alley cats be far away. It seems to be of little consequence to them that it is past three in the morning and that you’ve had a tough day.

Maybe they think you are a talent scout for a music company, because they sure do go out of their way to grab the opportunity. They go on to exhibit the full range of their talent in the fine art of caterwauling — from ballads to solos to heavy metal punctuated with the crashing of trash can lids — nothing is held back.

When you get up and yell at them through the window they take it as a sign that the volume is too low. Ever obliging they raise the decibel level and carry on with the concert.

Needless to say you are forced to sit up and usher in the day. Your spirit is so low you can feel it sloshing about your ankles. Forgetting the stars and damning all cats to hell you turn over and get some shut eye.

"Ho there wake up!" It could have been an hour, it could have been two before there was the rattle of a baton on the door of your cell.

Reluctantly, you jump up.

"Visitor to see you!" You wish the constable would do something about his habit of ending all his sentences with exclamation marks. Usually you wouldn’t mind but given the circs it does rather get on your nerves.

All the same you do look out expectantly. Maybe someone has come to bail you out. Then your heart leaps with joy as you see old Frank heading towards you — a friend in need is a friend indeed.

"Frank old man it’s great to see you!" Had you been at liberty to do so you would no doubt have hugged this pal of yours.

"Gah!" Frank spits the nonsense syllable out.

"I mean I’ve just about had it up to here what with alley cats and..."

"You’re lucky you’re in there". Is it your imagination or is Frank’s usually mild face distorted with, could it really be, rage?

"What, what do you mean I’m lucky..." Astounded you can do nothing but echo his words uselessly.

"Had you been outside," he says all this deliberately, meditatively, "I would have been well on my way to rending you limb from limb. And I would have taken my time about it".

You shut your jaw, which had dropped three inches, with a click.

"Look here old man what’re you talking about?" You resist the urge to pinch yourself hard and check if you’re in the grips of yet another nightmare.

"Pah! You don’t fool me for a second!" He paces the floor restlessly and you don’t like the glint in his eye. For the first time you’re actually glad that a stout iron structure separates the two of you.

"In fact before I rend you limb from limb I would like to sock you a couple in the beezer, and give you the ripest pair of black eyes ever". What scares you most is the way he contemplates the deed, savouring every aspect of it.

"Frank!?!" You wonder if unbeknownst to you he has resigned from the space research programme and become a member of the World Wrestling Federation, for his ideas do seem to be running on their lines.

"Boy you should have heard her?" He follows this up with an agitated short and even more agitated pacing. "You are worth ten of me, she said. Never, never would she look at me while you were there! Ha! Well that’s all right because when I’m finished with you, you won’t even exist!" A short, sweeping motion of the palm exhibits your fate.

"Carrie!" It dawns on you that Frank has discovered the impending nuptials between you and Carrie Calloway.

"Don’t defile her name you blackguard!" Franks leaps around with a ferocious snarl.

"Come on Frank let me explain..." This was as good a time as any to come clean about the fact that as far as you were concerned he could keep Carrie Calloway. Forever.

"No, no, no!" said the new, vehement Frank who had once upon a time been a gentle explorer of the laws governing the milky way". No more explanations. I’ve had enough of explanations to last me a lifetime". Apparently he had discovered that the rules governing a woman’s heart are far more complex than those governing the milky way. "Good lord to think of all that I have been through the..." His voice took on a slow meditative timbre.

Frank had left for Fiona’s place early that morning stopping only to buy the biggest bunch of red roses he could lay his hands on. So what if Carrie and he had had a tiff things would be running smoothly again. So he drove up to the estate just after breakfast. An introduction as your friend was sufficient for Fiona to throw open the doors of her house to him. Frank then set to work trying to trace Carrie sho he was informed was outside near the summer house. Based on this statement, Frank spent the next hour searching for her in the garden only to come back to the house and find out that she had come back five minutes after he had left and gone out on a shopping spree.

Now Frank was a man in a hurry. He had things to say to Carrie and he had meant to say them as soon as possible. This unforeseen delay put the damper on his spirits. He missed Comet. He wished Carrie would come back and he could get it over with. For two hours he wandered near the lake rehearsing his lines — thinking of better ways to say those hundred and one things to her. For Frank had a precise logical brain, much used to figuring out the elliptical orbits of even the most wayward heavenly bodies and now he wanted to be sure he was doing the right thing.

Much to his plight, evening came but brought no relief. For when Carrie walked into the drawing room where Fiona, Jameson, C.E. Calloway and Frank were gathered she did nothing more than acknowledge him with a brief "hello". It cut through Frank like a hot knife through butter. Dinner was no better. Even though she was seated across from him, she did not deign to speak to him, except twice when whe asked him to pass the salt, please. Not that she was in a quiet contemplative mood that night. She waxed eloquent on several topics — wasn’t life wonderful these days, and weren’t things just swell, and wasn’t Fiona’s brother simply the cleverest, handsomest, best man in the world? Poor Frank he pushed away several courses of that delicious dinner untouched.

However his determination to get her back was only strengthened. Hadn’t he spent two days and three nights calculating the orbit of a demented asteroid only last week — this couldn’t be more difficult, could it? So Frank bided his time and when everyone went upstairs two hours after dinner he went up too. But while the rest prepared for bed Frank did not chuck off his suit or loosen his tie. Instead he took out his flute and laid it on the table next to the roses which were a little worse for wear having spent the better part of the day being carried about by him.

He spent the next hour learning and relearning his lines and at ten past one he tiptoed downstairs. Here, as he was passing through the drawing room on his way to the French windows he espied a decanter of spirit laid out in readiness.

Frank thought it was a good idea — though he hardly ever drank, he was suffering from a bout of stagefright and this was just the thing to settle him. So he drank a little bit, then never being one to do things half-way he poured himself a generous measureful. And then another. This caused a slight delay in his arrival outside Carrie’s window.

Here he faced an unforeseen problem. There were two identical rooms opening onto the balcony. Poor Frank realised he had forgotten which one was Carrie’s. Looking up, he stared and stared at the two rooms as if willing them to come forward and proclaim which one of them had the honour of being her boudoir.

But rooms are a stubborn, silent lot and they did not oblige him. Frank chose the one on the left and flung a pebble at its window. His aim wasn’t what it used to be and the pebble dropped two feet short of the balcony. Frank took out his flute and began to play.

Now when it comes to playing the flute Frank belongs to the category which is euphemistically and somewhat optimistically called ‘beginners’. He had only taken up the flute because Carrie had once said she found flutist so soulful. He played it now with all the soul he possessed.

Inside C.E. Calloway, whose room it was and who couldn’t sleep because of an attack of acid indigestion, felt his soul stir with agony for suddenly out of the night came the disjointed sound of an animal’s last squeals as it was strangled. Then there was a pause as Frank sucked in another lungful, followed by more soul. Now C.E. Calloway was a man with a temper especially when he was having an attack of acid indigestion. He leapt out of bed and flung on his dressing gown. What nonsense! Jameson would hear of this! He threw open the door to the balcony.

Frank, who had been wheezing away at the flute with his eyes trained on the balcony, did not wait any longer. He hurled the bouquet of red roses at the figure that had just stepped out onto the balcony. He had meant it to land at Carrie’s feet. It smacked her father hard on the face.

"Darling, buttercup, my dear heart, I love you always and forever!" shouted Frank as the Dutch courage engendered by spirits took a hold of him.

C.E. Calloway had heard and seen a lot in his life, but never had he been assaulted by a bunch of roses and addressed as "darling, buttercup and my dear heart".

"You impudent young pup!" he raged, his face growing blustery as he shook a fist at Frank.

"You make the world go round and round and round. You cause the planets to follow their orbits. You are the sun, the moon and all the stars..." All of which was highly inaccurate but appealed immensely to Frank. "Marry me, say you’ll marry me. If you don’t I’ll... I’ll.... At this point he went down on banded knee and then to his horror realised he had forgotten his lines.

"I am warning you Galley! You’ll regret this —!" roared the affronted Calloway.

"Ah yes I’ll kidnap you if I have to — we’ll run away together from the rest of the world. Especially that overgrown bully of a father you have?" Frank having given up on his lines was now playing it by the ear.

The enraged Calloway flung his slipper at Frank. Frank fell over with the shock of it and as if on cue Carrie came out.

"Daddy? Frank!"

The inevitable explanations followed with an agitated Calloway refusing to calm down. Pretty soon the whole household had gathered there. This, you gathered, was the point where Frank learnt of that Carrie was betrothed to you and that she thought you were worth ten of him.

"This is exactly the sort of thing I expect of you", she had said", destroying everybody’s peace for your selfish motives!"

Since then Frank had been looking for you. He had gone to your flat, to your office, and to Cromley’s school. He had found you now.

"It will take you another hour or so to get out of here I expect," he said conversationally.

"Yes," you said gloomily, "I say old man I don’t want to marry Carrie at all..."

"Trifle with her affections, will you?" He leapt to interrupt you with a fierce snarl. "Just what I expect of a man who tore my favourite copy of Spiderman! Well I’ll see you in an hour’s time!" He turned on his heel and stalked away.

"Frank", you called after him. "Where are you going?"

"Going to buy myself a pair of hobnailed boots. I’d like to dance on your remains after I rend you limb from limb!"

Then with a laugh that sent shivers down your spine he was gone.