My own aversion to golf is well documented elsewhere. Hayden, in his defence, hated the so-called sport too, but the fact that he agreed to meet Bram for ‘a quick round’ tells its own story. A sentimental attachment to childhood friendship? Let’s be charitable here. He lost by the odd hole in three – well, something along those lines – and accused Bram of switching his balls in the rough. But that’s by the by. The important point is that I was to be cast adrift from my own novel for the duration. I had no intention of monitoring their progress in case one of them said something of interest. They were hardly likely to; this, after all, being golf.
I was outside Eddie’s pondering my options – and savouring the smell of freshly mown grass, the tang of the sea, the glorious late June sunlight, the temporary absence of my main character – when the learned Professor flew past, his white hair dancing crazily in the breeze. I had to think quickly. How long is a game of golf? Would I manage to solve the CDU conundrum if I set off in hot pursuit immediately? This may be one of those mysteries – did Stern disappear from the leafy suburb of Clontarf into another dimension and, if so, how could I possibly find out? – of more interest to me than to others, plus it was a beautiful day, there was a break in the narrative, and – golf?
My mind was made up. I hurried around the side of the house and grabbed hold of Eddie’s bike. I wheeled it quickly down the gravel driveway and hopped on. The ageing tyres had already gone a bit soft. No Pascal, no pump. Still, bit late to do anything about that now, so I redistributed my weight to minimise the effect and set off.
I raced along Kincora Road like a man possessed. I was a man possessed. I’d become convinced that Professor Stern, in pursuit of the comic afflatus, had entered a parallel universe. Was I right? I was also convinced that this would be my last chance to find out. I turned up Castle Avenue.
In the far distance, an eruption of white hair anointed by the sun. Grunt, grunt, grunt. The grunts were me, by the way. Stern, probably also grunting, mounted the pavement and turned left onto Howth Road. So did I but not, I hasten to add, on the pavement. No sign of the Professor up ahead. No beacon of white hair to light the way. No – but wait: a man in a bobble hat was pushing a bicycle through a house gate up ahead. Something about his movements alerted me. He looked like the Professor without the electrified hair; the hat would explain that. I raced on, got to the house, then – nothing. Not a sign. The front door opened. A different man came out, blinking into the sunlight. He looked around, puzzled. Scratched his head. Shook it. Went back in. Still puzzled. Inference? He thought he’d seen something, but his eyes had been deceiving him. Ah well. Back to daytime telly. Back, for me, to the Professor.
His bobble hat was the perfect disguise. Without the trademark mane, he looked like any other eccentric male cyclist of advancing years. But what about the rest of it? Why had he ducked into this particular house? Did he spend the day in a stranger’s garage? Hardly. It was then that I noticed a narrow passage between the garage and the next-door-neighbour’s wall. I decided to check it out and walked briskly up the driveway and along the passage, which led to a small, neatly-tended garden. At the far end was a modest fence backing onto the garden opposite, which was, seemingly, a mirror image of this one. Garden with garage, passageway leading to – aha! Easy enough to lift your bike over the fence, through the mirror image in reverse, out the front gate of the house opposite at – where exactly?
I raced back to Eddie’s bicycle. Still there. I hopped on and raced back the way I’d come. I thought about mounting the pavement. Very anti-social I know, but I was a driven man on an ancient bicycle in the grip of an obsession. Normal rules of civilised behaviour didn’t apply. Having said that, I didn’t mount the pavement. I did, however, cycle on the wrong side of the road. I pedalled frantically till I reached the turn off to Castle Avenue, careered downhill and took the first available right which was, presumably, the street of the house opposite. From here, it was guesswork. The Professor had long since gone.
I had to make a snap decision with very little information to go on. Well, just one thing. Mirror image. That was my clue. I decided that the Professor, for reasons I couldn’t begin to fathom, had decided to retrace his steps by a circuitous route. I raced along Stiles Road, through the stiles to Castle Avenue, and was about to speed down to Kincora Road when I thought, no, he wouldn’t retrace his journey back along the same road. Think circuitous. Seafield Road. It had to be Seafield Road. Long shot, but it was the only shot I had.
I sped along Seafield Road, examining the houses to left and right. Big driveways. Secluded gardens. Impressive habitations. Nice if you could afford one. But as for locating the Professor, a pretty impossible task without a huge dose of luck. I was about to reconsider my options when my eyes were drawn to a slightly crazed figure at an upstairs window pulling off a woolly hat, releasing a magnificent head of white hair. I braked violently. There was my dose of luck.
A large sign, just inside the main gate:
HARDY LAING
ESTATE AGENTS
AND DAY CENTRE FOR THE TERMINALLY INSANE
I cycled up the long driveway, shaded by a grove of deciduous trees, parked Eddie’s bicycle, and went in. Nobody about. Not a sound. Then –
‘SILENCE!!!’
A huge man with flaming red hair and wing commander eyebrows marched into the vestibule. ‘Sorry about that,’ he roared. ‘It’s Bedlam in here!’ He strode over to where I cowered at the entrance. ‘Hardy Laing, Doctor of Lunacy,’ he bellowed in a refined Scottish accent, Edinburgh South if I’m not mistaken. ‘I was lumbered with an estate agent’s name – it seemed churlish not to succumb to the lure of a quick semi-legal buck – but insanity is my passion! So, what brings you here?’ He glanced down at my socks, still tucked over my trousers. ‘Surprise me!’
A nurse led a patient out of a side door and along the corridor. Hardy Laing leaned in for a conspiratorial bellow. ‘Napoleon. Sad case. He’s convinced he’s Declan Mulholland of 42b, Dunseverick Road, D3. I mean, why? Think of all he could have achieved as himself!’ He leaned in closer. ‘Now,’ he enquired, producing a large syringe from his left trouser pocket, ‘what seems to be the problem? And if it’s aboot a hoose, I won’t accept a red cent under 12 million!’ He may have been about to leap on me with the syringe when he spotted something along the corridor. ‘Nurse!’ he roared. ‘Put that man down. There’s such a thing as a code of ethics.’ He squirted the syringe at the ceiling and winked. Lewdly? Probably not, but it looked pretty lewd close up. ‘I’ll be back, laddie,’ he confided at the top of his voice, waving his empty syringe like a broadsword. ‘I favour the left buttock,’ he concluded. ‘Also known as the back-entry manoeuvre.’
With that, he charged off in search of a refill and left me to my own devices.
I made my way to the first floor. Hardy-Laing-free, it was a comparative haven of peace. I didn’t have to look far, as Stern’s door was thankfully open. A huge room, bare except for the desk at which he sat, hunched over, manically tapping a keyboard. I coughed politely. No response. I went in and approached him tentatively, continuing to cough every few steps. Still no response, even when I stood right behind him. Awestruck, I glanced over his shoulder and read, ‘A Man Walks Into a Horse: Comedy and Subversion’.
That’s all I managed. Great title, though. Must be his new book. I was about to read on when I heard the stamp of approaching footsteps.
‘I’m coming, laddie!’ The voice got louder. ‘My syringe is fully loaded.’ The voice got louder still. ‘No innuendo where none intended.’
Stern typed frantically on. I hurried over to the window and yanked it up just as Hardy Laing appeared in the doorway with a hefty male companion.
‘Nurse Hector here will give you a quick swab,’ he bellowed. ‘Innuendo intended, I assure you!’
He tested his syringe with a quick squirt.
‘Troosers doon the noo!’
Difficult to describe my feelings as I hit the gravel below. Relief, mainly, and a sprained ankle. I pedalled furiously off with the proprietor’s final bellow reverberating in my ears.
‘Do you question my methods?!’
I didn’t, but I do. On the positive side, I’d managed to escape a full course of treatment. I began to shake violently as I escaped along Seafield Road, but relaxed as soon as I reached Vernon Avenue. I stopped the bike, safe at last, and went for a coffee at that nice little café on the corner. I had a great deal to mull over as I broke the top off a blueberry muffin. Comfort food? Possibly. I’d ordered six.
My main concern involved the allegedly learned Professor. He wasn’t, it would appear, attached to an accredited university, yet he’d been my comedy guru for some time. I’d read all his papers. His Learned Disquisition was my bible. But what if, as seemed to be the case, he wasn’t a real professor? Did this invalidate his theories? They’re the same theories, you might argue, but without the rubber stamp of academic approval. Had I simply fled the hell of Hardy Laing – I haven’t described Nurse Hector in all his nightmarish detail as I don’t want the present publication to be filed under horror – for the mental hell of having my most cherished belief that the universe is essentially a comic construct, and that the possibly fraudulent Professor Emeritus Larry Stern is our earthly guide, demolished? A pretty unwieldy sentence, but it was a pretty unwieldy thought.
Then it struck me. A blinding flash of insight. I’d just reached the moist centre of my fifth muffin and swallowed it unchewed. The blinding flash? Great comedy ferments, not in the hallowed groves of academe, but the madhouse. This, for me, was a hugely cathartic moment. The Professor was back on top. I’d never doubt his learned word again.18
18 See The Annotated Sloot for further reading. World as madhouse. Failed efforts of philosophy, religion, science to explain same. Suggestion that if we accept Hardy Laing’s dictum that ‘only the mad are truly insane’, and further accept the three aunts’ assertion that ‘the whole world has gone skitherum ditherum, Hayding’, then Stern’s theories make perfect sense.