“How can I possibly thank you, Doctor Smith, for all your lavish pains and for taking such risks to spirit my poor old body away from that witch hunt?”
I was sitting in his warm study with my hands around a giant mug of hot cocoa, savouring a tasty round of mushrooms on toast and starting to calm down from my string of traumas.
“You should not carry on saying that, Paul. As your consultant, it was my duty to rally round to bail you out from your drastic quandary. It was also a bit of fun to run rings around Old Bill. In fact it all has had a flavour of a Bond spy story, don’t you think?”
“But no hold ups. Or voluptuous girls, sadly!” I said, smiling.
Doctor Smith was now looking my way with a slightly disapproving air.
“I must say, though, that it was a bit hasty of you to offload your bounty in that church, as you said you had, probably with prints of your digits or your DNA on that handful of coins you put in that box. And no doubt your photo will show up shortly in print and on TV as soon as your flat is put through full scrutiny and your snap album is found. You must go to ground”.
I had nothing to add. My physician was right. I had blown it and I was nodding.
“So what will you do about that cat of yours?”
“Just now I put a call through to an old chum with a flat two doors away along my road who is totally trustworthy and who is always happy to mind my companion for as long as I wish”.
“Good. I ask this as it’s obvious you must go far away incognito until all this dust is horizontal. Paul, I want to put a proposition to you. But prior to doing so, I am right in thinking, am I not, that you still cannot talk using any words containing that barbarian?”
“I still can’t, I’m afraid.”
“I thought so. But I know that your capacity for talking almost normally has grown strikingly. It’s not just satisfactory now, but truly skilful. In fact, you might say, with no obligation on your part to go back to using a full ABC.”
“That’s probably right”.
“You will no doubt call to mind from our symposium at Clapham Junction that our Oulipo organisation in Paris has many important tasks on its books, including a multi-lingual clinic for studying original ways of improving communication among its participants. In fact, just this month, our plan is to start a school for instructing that local Gallic Oulipolitburo in talking in our British idiom without using that antagonist. And that’s a thing you now do admirably. So, how about you taking on that job and running that class? You cannot carry on working in your parkland, can you? And as you must put down roots far away for now, Paris is a good solution. In addition, Oulipo would pay you royally for your input—four thousand in local cash a month. And it would maintain a wary watch on you as you go around. How do you fancy that proposition?”
I was aghast. It was such an intriguing opportunity and such a smart way to jump ship. “Wow! That sounds an amazing solution. What can I say but d’accord?” But how can I land up in Paris incognito?”
Doctor Smith was smiling at my angst: “I was in fact planning to go across soon to visit my contacts and discuss plans for our World Symposium in Burkina Faso this Autumn. My diary is fairly blank this coming fortnight and my assistant can fill in for any minor consultations on our books. So, if it suits you, both of us could go tomorrow morning.”
“Good Lord! So soon. Many thanks—but with all our country on a lookout, what would I do about passport control?”
Doc—as I was starting to call him—was smiling impishly: “Did you mind too much riding along in my car boot just now?”
I was grinning too. “It was tight. But an apt solution. Now I’m following you”
“Through customs in this way—and it always works. So I could magic you onto a train via—to put it in our colourful way of talking—that long cavity dug all that way across to Normandy”.
“Brilliant. I’m with you!”
Doc shook my hand warmly, adding: “And finally, just to inform you, I am hanging on to all your almost daily accounts which I trust you will go on writing and submitting. As soon as your final word is said, I am proposing that you and I publish it all as a book—for ordinary humans to savour. It will turn out worth it, as it’s an astounding story. No doubt about it!”