Day 42

Dear Diary,

I didn’t tell you about the conniption fit Missus Milly Da Fardle had when it turned out Finian Da Fabricator wasn’t never gonna come back outta The Bank of Old Wanger Nose with her suitcase full of blackmailed bingo winnings. She jumped up and down, or at least she would’a if her zimmer hadn’t got stuck in a crack and fell over with her under it. Poor old dear (not that she’s a dear, more like a fart wots got out after someone’s eaten broccoli), she hit her head something terrible and looked dead as a slab of beef wots been left out in the sun. At least that wot I suppose she looked like, but you’ve gotta understand they don’t see no sun to speak of here on the island, but you get the picture. Mostly it’s cold and wet and even all the maggots’ve immigrated. It’s depressing to think that nothing much happens here when meat is left out except smell, but wot with locals not bathing much on account of it’s sinful to take off your clothes and let water touch your intimate unmentionables, visitors can’t tell the difference between the living and the dead, and that’s even before they talks to ‘em.

But back to Missus Milly Da Fardle thwacking her head on the pavement and looking deader than the sisters Purdy did before they were regenerated (as they say) into Special Exotic Siamese-Flavoured Deluxe Luxury Cat Food. Well, a coupl’a strangers (wot could’a been Arnie Pizzlepod and Maybelline Dorcus O’Brien, only nobody’s ever seen them before in the daylight, so you couldn’t be sure) ran up from nowhere and checked her pulse and also stole the money from her purse, which was the acceptable thing to do. After they decided she might be alive, all appearances to the contrary, one of ‘em, probably Arnie Pizzlepod, on account of he was already holding his mobile phone in his left hand, phoned the police to tell ‘em all about Missus Milly Da Fardle lying on the pavement with her head all bashed it. Or at least he thought twice about phoning ‘em. Unfortunately, on account of wot he did for a living at Bump ‘n’ Grind Lap-o-Matic down on the other side of the island, where all the sophisticated and worldly people live, he said to hisself it weren’t such a good idea. He might be accused of doing her in for her money, and since it was already in his pocket, even the best lawyer on the opposite end of the world from the island (where all the best lawyers live in big houses with locks on the doors and swimming pools instead of bathtubs) wouldn’a been able to get the case throwd outta court. For that reason, as well as him not knowing the phone number of the police on account of it not being on his speed dial, he only pretended to make the call. As a consequence, Missus Milly Da Fardle lay there for several hours without moving (and also without the money from her purse, on account of Arnie Pizzlepod and Maybelline Dorcus O’Brien having taken it all and gone into Gerald Da Britch’s Drink ‘Til You’re Blind Pub and Wedding Party Rooms to drink it all away). Finally, Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion woke up from their naps, all overcome by an urge to open the spigot on their bladders. Seeing as how they’d already ruint my upholstery and made it wetter’n a bowl of water, they decided the only thing to do (especially since Finian Da Fabricator wasn’t around to yell at) was to go into The Cute Little Spring Flower Tea Shoppe and pee on the floor before they’d reached the toilets. It took ‘em a time to unlock their seatbelts, on account of Finian Da Fabricator having taken the keys to the padlocks with him, but eventually they cut their way out with the garden secateurs they always carries in their purses for emergencies such as this. Well, Dear Diary, they eventually climbed outta the bus (being me), in spite of the best efforts of their zimmers to get stuck in the door and scrape off all my lovely classic paintwork, and found Missus Milly Da Fardle lying there where she’d fallen and bashed in her head. The first thing Miss Cabbage said to Mrs. Emily Da Onion was, “looky here, Miss Cabbage, wot do you think that is lying there like a loaf of pumpernickel,” and Miss Cabbage answers right back, “I left my specks back on the bus, Mrs. Emily Da Onion. How the feck should I know.” Well, right then and there Miss Cabbage’s starts in a’twitching this way and that like it always does when she smells something rotten to tell the other biddies at Beryl’s Hair Parlour for Old Women. “You know something?” she says to Mrs. Emily Da Onion. “I smell Missus Milly Da Fardle somewhere around here, and I’d say she forgot to put on a double pair of knickers over the old ones.” “Harrumph harrumph,” harrumphed Mrs. Emily Da Onion, “and wasn’t Missus Milly Da Fardle saying to us only this morning how much better she was than the rest of us!” “That’s right,” replied Miss Cabbage, shaking her head and tutting to beat the band. “That just goes to show, don’t it?” Mrs. Emily Da Onion took out a hanky from her sleeve and honked her nose in it. “Well,” she said with the sort of tone she uses when talking about members of the Woman’s Institute on the other end of the island, where they knows how to make jam, and who banned her for life from applying for membership. “All I can say is that’s the last time she’ll ever spread rumours about how dirty my windows is! Her who is so uppity uppity’s been caught going out without new knickers on a day she’s planning on falling down dead by a bus.”

Miss Cabbage was about to say a whole lot more that was incendiary and full o’lies and scandal, but I’m sorry to say it’ll hafta keep ‘til later. I’m gonna hafta leave you with a cliff-hanger ending, Dear Diary, but Widow Fartie Da Whistle’s just turned on the hose and is squirting me right up the tailpipe. My wheels has gone all wobbly and I’ve blasted right in her face. The thing is, she’s smiling in that way certain and my whole life’s flashing a’fore my eyes. Before I faint entirely, I’m going to hide my pen and say, if not for the first time, so endeth the last moment before I don’t know what.