Grimble at Christmas (5 page)

He looked round and found it was coming from
the saucepan . . . so he took it from the flame and
when it was a bit cool he noticed that the onion
had stuck to the bottom of the pan, because of the
heat. By far the best way to unstick things that
have burned on to pans is to pour on some water
. . . so when the pan had cooled down he poured on
some water and let it boil until the burned onion
was loose and then, just before he threw away the
water, he decided to taste it . . . he poured it into a
cup, blew on it to make sure it was cool, and took
a sip. It was not just golden coloured water. It was
very good onion soup . . . especially when he had
added some salt to it.

5. The After-Soup
Announcement

I don't suppose, said Grimble to himself, that
we need have a very large turkey, but it ought
to be a turkey. A pigeon put under his father's
microscope might look all right, but he was sure it
wouldn't taste the same.

At breakfast his father was in a very good mood.

They ate a lot of streaky bacon, which his
father cooked under the grill because that way
the fat ran off and the bacon became crisp, and you
can eat it with your fingers. Also they read
the papers.
FATHER CHRISTMAS HITS CHILD IN CHEMIST SHOP
said the headline in one of them.

"What on earth was Father Christmas
doing
in a
chemist shop?" asked Grimble.

"There are two things," said his father. "Either
he had a headache and was getting an aspirin, or
he was stocking up with talcum powder. Nearly
everyone gets talcum powder. It is one of the most
giving things there is, so Father Christmas needs a
lot of it."

"Does he make his own?" asked Grimble.

"This is a silly conversation," said his father.
"What happened to Chelsea?"

"I do not wish to know that," said Grimble.
"What is happening to Plymouth Argyle?"

They left a very neat pile of washing-up for
Mrs Grimble who had gone to bed with her feet
again, and Mr Grimble said "Come into the study
. . . I want to talk to you."

Grimble tucked his shirt, which usually hung
outside his trousers, back into his trousers
and followed his father into the study. "Sit
down," said Mr Grimble. It sounded quite an
important meeting, so Grimble rubbed his shoes
against the back of his socks to polish them and
sat down.

"Well now," said his father, "I have news for you.
Next Wednesday is Christmas Day."

"I know that," said Grimble. "I have known that
all winter."

"Please let me continue. Next Wednesday is
Christmas Day and today we are going to go to a
restaurant for lunch. Do you understand?"

Grimble said he understood both things his
father had said. But even if they went to the best
restaurant anywhere and ate everything that
restaurant sold, he would still be very hungry by
next Wednesday. Unlike camels, who had a drink
and could make it last for a week, human beings
had to be fed daily.

"At this luncheon," said his father, ignoring
Grimble, "I shall make an important announcement
concerning the whole Grimble family and
Christmas."

"Isn't it possible to tell me what it is now?" asked
Grimble. "You see I have been worrying quite a lot
about Christmas and lunch time is still hours
away."

His father shook his head. "All I can tell you is that
the news will be announced directly after the soup."

"Suppose we have grapefruit instead?" asked
Grimble.

"No soup, no news," said his father and started
twisting the globe of the world. "Second time
today I have lost the Falkland Islands," he
muttered. "Ah there they are. Just to the right of
Patagonia," and he got a magnifying glass and
examined them carefully.

Grimble went out partly happy because he
liked restaurants but partly worried because he did
like to know exactly what was going to
happen, when it was going to happen . . . and an
important family announcement after the soup was
a bit too vague for comfort. Grimble found his
encyclopedia and looked up turkey. "Turkey" . . .
said the book: "Republican country lying partly in
Asia and partly in Europe." As this was not the
turkey he had in mind he looked up the next
column and it said: "Turkey – large game bird with
a pendent dilatable appendage on the head and a
wrinkled and tuberculed neck. The male weighs up
to 34 pounds." He did not understand that – except
the weight part.

As the encyclopedia did not give the price,
he went down the street to the butcher's shop,
where there were a lot of turkeys in the window
with
THIS JOINT
cards stuck into them and every
THIS JOINT
card had a price written on it.

The small turkeys cost at least two pounds fifty
pence and some of the bigger ones cost much
more than that. For a boy who had 119p, some
tree delivery money, and an Irish 5p piece it was
quite obvious that this was too expensive. With a
swift decision such as Nelson, Napoleon and other
leaders have had to make in their time, Grimble
made up his mind:
No turkey from me to the old
Grimbles
. They cost too much and it's not really my
job . . . anyway the announcement after the soup
might well make the whole idea of turkey-buying
unnecessary.

On the other hand . . . on the other hand I have
five fingers . . . that was David Sebastian Waghorn's
joke . . . (David Sebastian Waghorn was a very
funny boy.)

On the other hand he had not yet bought any
real Christmas presents for his parents – the fudge
he had made for them was all right but he had used
their
sugar and
their
milk and
their
chocolate so it
was really more their present to them.

119p is a fair amount of money to spend
on presents for two people so perhaps he could
keep his earnings from the Christmas trees for
himself. He thought about it and decided he
should spend 79p on his father and 40p on his
mother. Then he thought that was a bit mean;
his mother had been very good to him about the
welsh rarebits, so he made it 69 and 50. His mother
ought to have something for her feet and his father
some arrows that would stick to the globe, so that
he could find places again when he was looking
for them.

He went into a stationer's shop and there were
some good red stick-on arrows in an envelope that
cost 19p, and as this left exactly 50p and the shop
sold a book called
Grimble
by Clement Freud for
25p, he bought two. He thought it was a jolly good
name for a book.

For his mother he bought four 121/2p tins of
talcum powder, one smelling of lavender, one of
violets, one of roses and one of French fern. They
did not have any onion talcum powder. He asked
and the chemist said not.

Back in the Grimble household, preparations for
going out to the restaurant were in full swing. Mr
Grimble had put a dust sheet over his globe, combed
his hair, and put on a pair of purple socks. As neither
of the Grimbles drove a car (in fact the Grimbles did
not have a car) a taxi had been ordered to take them
to the bus stop. It was going to be a really proper
outing.

The restaurant to which the Grimbles went was
called The French Restaurant. All the waiters were
Italian and the chef was Indian. He sometimes
came in and watched people eat to make sure they
did not leave anything on their plates, and when
they had finished he would turn to the waiters and
say, "There, I was right."

A man with a long finger came up to the
Grimbles and said, "Follow my finger," and he held
it up and they followed it to a table. Then the man
gave them a menu and went away.

After a while he came back with a piece of paper
and a pencil, to write down what they had chosen
to eat. Grimble ordered vegetable soup and some
roast chicken and bacon and fried onion and
spinach. His parents said prawn cocktail and duck,
both of them. He thought that was a waste. If they
were both going to have the same things, they
could have had it at home. Restaurants were for
being different in.

When he had finished his soup and his father had
finally got hold of the last prawn in the cocktail glass
and swallowed it, he gave a small cough and said,
"Here is the Christmas announcement. At half past
three tomorrow afternoon the Grimble household
will leave for Africa by taxi and bus and then by train
and boat. We shall spend Christmas on the
SS
Particular
, which is a very luxurious kind of
passenger ship with nine out of ten for roast turkey
and the best Christmas-pudding maker in the
Mediterranean Sea. I expect you have heard of
Particular
Christmas pudding."

"On Boxing Day we arrive in Ifni, which is at
the top end of the Sahara desert and we will take
sand samples, which I need very badly for my
work. We will then fly home."

"In an aeroplane?" asked Grimble.

"I have always felt that to be the best way to fly,"
said his father.

The chicken and the duck then arrived and the
waiter got all the vegetables wrong.

"It is going to be an absolutely marvellous
Christmas," said Grimble. "It is going to be the
best Christmas I have ever had, I know it is."

"There are," said his father, "one or two things I
feel I should tell you. While the good ship
Particular
's chef is a master in the art of making
Christmas puddings he has absolutely no
idea about the manufacture of Christmas cake.
I should have bought a Christmas cake and taken
it with us – but I regret that it is now too late. It
is very sad, but I only thought about this on the
bus."

Grimble turned a bit red and said, "It so happens
that I have a Christmas cake ready and iced and
rather looking forward to going to Africa."

His parents looked at him with great admiration.

"It also happens," said Grimble, "that my
presents to you are very small and light and they
will be most suitable to be brought back on an
aeroplane."

They munched their chicken and duck and as
the old Grimbles picked up their pieces of duck in
their fingers, Grimble realized that this would be
an all right thing to do; after all it was a
French
restaurant.

When he had pulled the wishbone with his
father . . . and lost – his father was very pleased –
he said to his mother, "If we are going to Africa,
why did you buy a Christmas tree?"

"Against burglars," said his mother. "If a burglar
sees a Christmas tree in a house he knows there is
someone in and does not burgle anything."

"Why did you hide the tree in the shed then?"