Fart and Toast: The jaw-dropping tale of a Baker, a rock star, a broken penis and several conspiracy theories.

By Stuart Caldwell

1996: decades after the reported death of aviatrix Amelia Earhart, the truth of her disappearance continues to fuel conspiracy theories. Will a humble baker from Stratford-upon-Avon unwittingly help expose the truth?

Cheery Bob Spratt collects belly-button fluff, puts on shows at a local care home and is the loyal but long-suffering husband of the OCD-denying Muriel. When he agrees to become a doppelganger for a depressed rock legend who's broken his penis, Bob changes the course of his life and triggers a series of events that could one day send shockwaves across the world.

His only problem is, someone wants him dead ...

This humorous, slightly surreal, warm-hearted, vaguely romantic, faintly satirical, quirky adult fiction mystery twists and turns like a demented snake.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stuart Caldwell
• Release date: May 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781912924868

Book preview

Louise.

PROLOGUE

New York Times - July 3rd 1937.

Miss Earhart missing at sea; coastguard search begins

We understand from Associated Press that Amelia Earhart has failed to arrive at Howland Island in the mid-Pacific Ocean on the latest leg of her attempt to circumnavigate the globe by plane. The cutter Itasca which is stationed in the area, is conducting a search and will shortly be joined by a navy flying boat which has been despatched from Honolulu, 1900 miles distant.

Miss Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan departed from Miami on June 1st and had completed 22,000 miles of the flight before radio contact was lost near the Nukamanu Islands. Mr Roosevelt has asked Admiral William D Leahy to render whatever aid he may deem practical in order to bring the search to a rapid and satisfactory conclusion.

The flier’s husband, George Palmer-Putman, who is awaiting her return to this country at Oakland, Calif., airport said his wife had taken emergency food rations and plenty of water on the hazardous flight and that the plane’s large fuel tanks would act as buoyancy aids in case of a landing on water.

In the oak-panelled suite on the 10th floor of the Hotel Oakland, George Palmer-Putman put down the rolled gold Parker fountain pen and shifted slightly in his chair to facilitate the discreet release of a trapped fart.

He turned to gaze out of the window towards the bay and over the lights of San Francisco, to a distant star in the night sky that he imagined might be visible to his wife thousands of miles away in the Pacific.

Then he reached for his glass of TW Samuels bourbon, stood up, winked at his host Eliott E. Elliot and proposed a toast.

‘To Amelia. May she be safe and live a long and fulfilled life.’

Politely ignoring his client’s ill-disguised flatulence, the small bloated Lawyer raised his glass in a form of companionship that prospers from sizeable fees rather than empathy.

His small bloated son did likewise, although his good friend from Hyannis Port who was representing his own father at this meeting, was rather more convincing in his acknowledgement of the toast. His charm and good breeding conveyed sincerity, even though his mind was turning to his midnight assignation with Miss Lombard just long the corridor in the Lincoln suite.

‘A long and fulfilled life,’ echoed young Jack.

Surely it couldn’t be any worse than Bony Bennett? The anorexic Tony Bennett impersonator from Redditch had fallen short of his star-billing at the Christmas concert. He looked more like Alan Bennett and sang like a toad on helium.

And Ling Crosby was even more disappointing, although she’d never forget his rendition of Ludolph the Led-nosed Leindeer.

Stop it Mary, she told herself. It’s 1996, not 1946 – you must be more politically correct. Concentrate on making yourself look beautiful.

Mary Leigh sat in front of the dressing table mirror in the small suite that trebled as a bedroom, a sitting room and a window on the world. The management of Bay Tree House had tried to discourage her from bringing a compact disc player into her room as the noise might upset other residents … but they hadn’t actually said no, so she’d done it anyway.

And if she hadn’t stood her ground on the CD machine, what chance would she have when she told them what was in the somewhat larger box due to be delivered tomorrow?

To put herself in the mood for the afternoon concert, she listened to her Essential Glenn Miller CD and sang along to Stardust as she applied her new Ravish me red lipstick.

My stardust melody, the memory of love’s refrain ...

After her husband Lee had died 17 years ago, she couldn’t bear to remember the song that had become their song. Finally though, she’d come to terms with being on her own and now the tune just made her feel kind of warm - reassuring her she’d led a lucky and happy life.

Eric, Spiro, Kenneth, Dilip, Anthony, Geoffrey, Muhammad, Eammon, Larry, Hao, Bernard and Henning had all come and gone since Lee passed on – but none of them could ever hold a candle to her dear late husband. Well, car salesman Larry was funnier admittedly and so were Cardiologist Eric and Accountant Eammon. And Funeral Director Dilip. But that meant Lee was still above averagely funny.

And he spoilt her far more than anyone, always making her feel as if she was the only woman in his life. Well, Hao would never let her pay for a meal, or even a drink. And of course, Muhammad did buy her a lot of jewellery. And he sent her flowers three times a week for the five months they were together. And he took her to Cuba, twice. But Lee Leigh was generous to a tee too, in his own way.

No, she had no regrets.

Make-up finished and humming along to Pennsylvania 6-5000, she slipped into her cream organza dress, which was an inelegant process since her arthritis had worsened. After a few minutes - and fairly confident that the right buttons were aligned to the right holes - she audited herself approvingly in the mirror.

Pretty damned good for 79.

Bill Houserattle would find her utterly alluring when she joined him and the other residents downstairs in a few minutes’ time. It was even possible that Bob Spratt would find her irresistible, despite being 35 years her junior.

Ah, dear young Bob, she remembered, I mustn’t forget his fluff. She picked up the small clear plastic sample bottle from her dressing table and popped it in her clutch bag.

Suddenly, Miller’s mellow sound was overwhelmed by the muffled opening chords of My Funny Valentine, which permeated into her room from the floor below. The afternoon concert had begun. She’d leave it a few minutes before going down … she always liked to make a bit of an entrance.

Portly 84-year-old widower Bill knew she’d be fashionably late, which was just as well, as he was still recovering from a copiously-phlegmy coughing fit induced by an excess of pepper in his egg and cress sandwich. He’d reserved her a seat in the front row of the warm, ill-ventilated room by placing what was left of his plate of sandwiches onto the chair next to him.

Bill gritted his teeth as Bob Spratt enthusiastically launched into his third song, an inappropriate interpretation of While my guitar gently weeps played on an aging Yamaha organ. A few seconds later he was joyously distracted as Mary Leigh wafted into the room, leaving him in awe as to how she managed to walk so flirtatiously whilst steadying herself with that floral walking stick.

He half stood up and beckoned her over.

‘I’ve saved you a seat,’ he rasped mucously, picking up the plate so that she could sit down.

‘Ah Bill, that’s so kind, thank you,’ she said softly as she eased into her seat and took the plate from his hand. ‘Fancy you remembering I love egg and cress - and that’s so thoughtful of you to pop some, er, lime dressing on the side.’

He didn’t remember anything about the dressing – and was still rather hungry, but a couple of sandwiches were a price worth paying for having the fragrant Mary alongside him.

As Bob Spratt clumsily segued into a particularly vigorous interpretation of The Dambuster’s March, Bill watched Mary nibble away at his sandwiches, politely dipping into the oddly sticky lime sauce and throwing him the occasional coquettish smile.

Mary’s real attention was on the Organist however, who was a lovely man and made her wish she was 30 years younger. Bob Spratt was in his mid-40s and had been putting on an afternoon show twice a month since Mary had moved into Bay Tree House last summer, when her arthritis insisted she sacrifice some of her independence.

Osteoporosis was setting-in too, though there was nothing brittle about her brain. Whereas most of the residents intermittently slept and wittered their way through Bob’s songs, Mary enjoyed the sincerity he put into his generally-awful performances. She even liked the stories he regularly repeated in his slightly high-pitched south-Warwickshire cum Birmingham accent.

He wasn’t a particularly tall man – perhaps five foot nine. His complexion was pale, his face rotund and he always seemed to have a week’s worth of light ginger stubble. He also wore an unconvincing wig, which he’d once confided was to prevent people mistaking him for the famous rock star Shane Carlisle. Coincidentally, the singer was Mary’s nephew - although she found him obnoxious and thankfully saw little of him.

Bob had an odd mannerism, in that when he laughed, which was quite often, his left eyebrow seemed to freeze in place, while his right one leapt up his forehead. Despite all his quirky ordinariness however, his strong frame, the absence of any overhanging belly, his unaffected charm and above all, his forget-me-not blue eyes, conspired to make him improbably attractive.

Maybe because she was blatantly more attentive throughout his gigs than anyone else in the room (other than the pink-cravatted and panama-hatted Cyril Flowers, who despite being 97 and wheelchair bound, still had an eye for a handsome young fellow), Bob always made a point of connecting with Mary during his shows. There was often a smile and a wink while he played and they usually chatted while he was packing away his aging instruments in their well-worn carriers.

He got to know all about her late husband Lee Leigh, his battle with bromodisis and the collection of sandpaper that he’d assembled and catalogued since working briefly as an abrasives salesman in the early 1950s. And she got to hear about his OCD-denying wife, his love of all things potato - and the collection of belly button fluff he’d been gathering since 1964. In the summer of that year he’d written to John Lennon for an autograph, only to receive a handwritten note saying:

‘Sorry Robert, my pen’s run out and I haven’t got anything to write with. But my belly button keeps producing loads of fluff, so I’ve enclosed some for you. From your pal John.’

He’d once told her he’d created a small museum of navel fluff in his garden shed. She wasn’t sure she believed him, nor that she’d want to see it even if it did exist – but she was nevertheless happy to donate her own inconsequential fluff to the cause and to encourage a few of the other residents to do the same.

Today’s was one of the special concerts Bob periodically organised, where he was able to play the role of impresario as well as compere and performer. He called these occasions Afternoon Delight and this one promised the most glittering ensemble yet.

Mary thought senility might finally be setting-in, when she thought she spotted someone dressed in a shabby bear costume lurking by the archway next to the dining room. She did her best to concentrate on the story Bob was telling however, even though she’d heard it several times before.

He was describing the evening in a Solihull pub when he encountered a yet to be famous Ann Widdecombe. She’d been so convinced that he was Shane Carlisle, that she begged him to autograph her left breast and then rammed a pair of her knickers into his jacket pocket with her phone number biroed onto them.

His right eyebrow shot up his forehead as he roared with laughter at the memory, so loudly that several audience members briefly woke up – and just in time too, as Bob introduced the first act in his stellar line-up:

‘Ladies an’ gentlemen … a big Bay Tree welcome for … MISTER … ELVIS … GRISLEY.’

As Bob played the intro to Jailhouse Rock on his old guitar, a threadbare bear swaggered across the room and launched into You ain’t nothing but a hound dog. Neither singer or guitarist realised the blunder until well into the second verse. The error passed unnoticed to anyone other than Mary, who knew her music well but graciously declined to say anything.

Elvis was followed by a crooner called Blank Sinatra, who had the misfortune to be pathologically shy and today was performing with a white pillowcase over his head. He’d been advised some years ago by a psychologist to use this technique as a stepping stone to improving his self-confidence - and it was working. This time last year the only way he’d been able to sing at Bay Tree House was from within a full duvet cover, when his performance had been abruptly brought to a halt midway through the second chorus of Strangers in the night.

The late Brigadier Henry Moss, an octogenarian veteran of Middle East Command in Yemen, mistook the disguise for a giant white burqa and suffered an arousing flashback to a sexual encounter with a young filly in Aden during the summer of ’54. Blank was knocked unconscious as the Brigadier leapt from his seat and flattened him. Worse still, the old soldier suffered a fatal heart attack – although this was fortuitous, as otherwise his previously unblemished record would have been tarnished with a charge of attempted buggery.

Mary closed her eyes and enjoyed the muted but surprisingly pleasing sounds emanating from under the pillow case. But it was the final act she was most looking forward to - Glynn Miller. As with Blank Sinatra, Glynn’s quarter-hour spot was best appreciated in sound only, as watching his performance tended to be an excruciating distraction from the music.

With eyes closed it was an evocative compilation of Glenn Miller classics, occasionally overlaid by an incompetent but mercifully brief trombone solo; with eyes open it was an ill-proportioned 60-something man with the torso of a six-footer but the legs of a small child. He wore rimless specs in a vain attempt to look Milleresque and his grey-yellow skin pallor was virtually the same shade as his worn-out white tuxedo.

For most of his act he stood with his back to the audience, pretending to conduct an eight feet square black and white photograph of the Glenn Miller Orchestra whilst playing original recordings from an old Akai tape deck. Occasionally he’d turn away from his imaginary musicians, to smile over his shoulder at the audience as he casually conducted with his left hand; periodically he joined-in with a jarring trombone solo.

To Mary’s delight, In the Mood and Moonlight Serenade were followed by Stardust and for a few minutes she was 24 again, swaying on the town hall dance floor with Lee on an autumn night early in the war

… my stardust melody, the memory of love’s refrain …

A sad contentment engulfed her and teardrops formed in her eyes as she sighed and drifted into a beautiful reverie …

T -T-TOOT, TOOT, TOOOOOT, TOOT, T-T-TOOT, TOOWAAAAAY … Glynn’s screeching trombone solo snapped her sharply back to 1996 and she caught Bob Spratt’s smiling blue eyes, knowing he was second-guessing her thoughts. As the snoring of several residents harmonised with the trombone, Stardust came to an end and Mary took the opportunity to delicately remove the dozing Bill Houserattle’s warty old hand from her right thigh for the third time in half an hour.

Bob stood and invited warm applause for Glynn Miller, then for Elvis who lumbered over and took a bow – and then abortively for Blank, who remained safely disguised in his pillow case but had left the building immediately after his last song. He was now speeding back to Leamington Spa, concealed from the world behind the dark tinted windows of a motorcycle sidecar driven by his twin sister.

Several of the residents left the lounge after this, as did a serious-looking middle-aged man in a well-cut tan corduroy jacket, who Mary had noticed was watching the concert alone. She guessed he was inspecting Bay Tree House on behalf of elderly parents. Those who remained dozed fitfully, oblivious to Bob who now began packing away whilst having a chat to Mary.

‘Thank you for asking that odd little man to play Stardust Bob. You know how much I love that tune.’

‘You know me Mary, anythin’ for a bit of belly button fluff,’ he said half-jokingly, half-enquiringly.

‘Oh, I nearly forgot.’ She took the little plastic bottle from her bag. ‘Not much this week I’m afraid, sorry!’

Bob held the miniscule speck up to the light and smiled. ‘Small is beautiful mi ducks … the tiniest diamond is more valuable than the biggest rock!’

He looked at the large belly of Bill Houserattle sleeping to her left.

‘Ladies produce quality - we leave quantity to the likes of old Bill ‘ere. I bet ‘e absolutely churns it out … ‘ow about we ‘ave a peek?’

Mary had been Bob’s accomplice on this mission previously. It was rather revolting but at the same time marvellously mischievous.

‘Would you like to borrow my tweezers?’

Bob beamed an impish grin and nodded. Moving to the seat at Bill’s left he leant over and peeled back the ribbed edge of the beige woollen sweater that formed an insulating roof over the cupola of his belly.

‘Just ‘old this in place Mary,’ he instructed, then repeated the process with the lilac cashmere jumper underneath. ‘Two buttons should do it,’ he said as he gently undid the bottom of the old man’s shirt, only to be confronted by the elasticated rim of a pair of Y-fronts, into which a thermal vest was tightly tucked.

Mary could feel the tension as Bob’s heart rate increased and a droplet of sweat meandered down his forehead. He needed to act quickly before Bill stirred, yet one wrong move and all would be lost. With the delicacy of a surgeon, in one action he lifted the elastic waistband and slid the vest upwards - revealing a six-inch diameter knoll of white, hairless, stretch-marked flesh. This glorious dome rose to a magical nucleus, a crater in which resided an object of extraordinary beauty.

For a moment Mary thought a bumble bee had nested in Bill’s fleshy navel.

Bob gasped, ‘Umbilicus Maximus – I’ve only ever seen five in me life!’

As Mary continued to hold back the sweaters, he carefully manoeuvred the tweezers towards the target. It was desperately tricky. The dark blue cluster of lint was the size of a large blackberry and had to be extracted in one movement - not by pulling from the centre - but by grabbing the outside edges without touching the sensitive skin in which it was cocooned.

He was within a centimetre of his objective when the early warning signs of a cough became evident. A long wheeze, gradually increasing in volume, exploded into a single loud shuddering bark, causing Bill’s stomach to balloon and tense. Bob had no option but to retreat but gestured to Mary to keep her grip on the sweaters at all costs.

As soon as Bill’s breathing returned to normal it was over within seconds. Bob was in and out with surgical precision - his reward a magnificent specimen of fluff that now seemed impossibly large to have ever fitted in the small depression of Bill’s stomach.

Having faced a similar conundrum when she’d given birth to Lee Jnr., Mary wasn’t particularly puzzled by this phenomenon. Instead she was more curious about how some of the lime dressing had suddenly found its way into Bob’s left ear and onto his shoulder. And it seemed to have chilli flakes in it now.

Bob squeezed his Umbilicus Maximus into the thin bottle containing Mary’s meagre offering and handed the tweezers back.

‘Thanks for yer ‘elp Mary. That’s four gems I’ve uncovered today. Elvis, Blank and Glynn – and now this.’ He scrutinised the specimen with the eye of an expert, ‘I must be wearin’ me lucky pants!’

Bob sat in fulfilled silence. Rather than intrude, Mary quietly watched him, the smile that was her default expression concealing a sadness as she considered her own views on his four gems.

She felt a bit sorry for him.

Another rasping cough from Bill Houserattle abruptly curtailed this reflective interlude and Bob glanced over at Mary, catching and instantly understanding the look in her eyes.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.’

‘I know what yer thinking and yer right on both counts Mary. It’s an odd ‘obby - but it’s no different to collectin’ stamps or beer mats – an’ it gives me a proper buzz. One day me collection might be valuable, you never know. An ‘undred years from now it could be in the British Museum!’

He stood up, put the specimen bottle in his pocket and bent to pick up his guitar.

‘And I know I’m a rotten musician - and that Elvis, Blank and Glynn aren’t even fourth rate acts, but I can’t tell you ‘ow much satisfaction it gave me puttin’ on this show today.’

He paused as if reflecting on what might have been, and what could yet lie ahead.

‘I’ll tell you what Mary,’ he said very seriously, ‘I’m gonna to keep working ‘ard at all this – and one day they’ll be payin’ to come and see me play and putting on a show.’

‘Well sweetheart,’ she urged, ‘if you want me to be in the front row when you put on your concert at the Royal Albert Hall, you’d better get your skates on. I’m 79 you know and I haven’t got forever!’

Bob laughed his lopsided laugh as he put on his anorak.

‘Stratford town ‘all would be a better bet the way I’m goin’. But ticket number one in row A ‘as got your name on it! Night-night Mary ducks.’

Bob’s brilliant day continued when at just before six o’clock he drove his aging Hillman Husky van down West Street and for once found a parking space right outside his terraced house, number 42.

He donned his yellow rubber gloves and headed for the sprout-green front door, removing his shoes and placing them in the Tesco bag that was hanging limply from the gleaming brass letterbox. Once inside he went through the well-practiced routine of removing all his clothes and putting them in the black bin liner that Muriel had placed on the bottom step of the stairs.

Completely naked apart from his gloves, he cheerily shouted ‘All done Dinky,’ at which point his diminutive wife emerged from the door at the end of the hallway, wearing similar but much smaller gloves and a surgical mask over her mouth. She was wearing a chef’s hat and carrying an old dressing gown.

‘I’ve ‘ad such a great afternoon,’ he said as he exchanged the bag for the gown. ‘The concert was …’

‘The water’s hot,’ she interrupted, her words muffled by the mask, ‘tell me all about it when you’re finished. Dinner will be ready in nineteen minutes.’

And with that she scampered back into the kitchen to load the washing machine, while Bob went upstairs to the bathroom.

It wasn’t that Muriel didn’t approve of his hobbies, it was just that she was convinced that homes for the elderly were dirty places full of unseen germs incubated by the suffocatingly warm central heating. She wasn’t taking any chances that some diseased spores might escape into her home and give them gastroenteritis.

They’d bought the house in West Street nine years ago. Number 39 across the road was for sale at a lower price, but Muriel would never live in a house that had an odd number. So number 42 it had to be.

The mid-Victorian two-up, two-down had a cellar and an attic. It had been built with an outside toilet but the previous owners had converted one of the first-floor bedrooms into a spacious bathroom, boasting a matching Armitage Shanks suite in the once popular colour of Avocado.

Muriel had been troubled by the structure of the bathroom from the moment they’d arrived. In her mind a bathroom should be a place of pristine cleanliness where dirty bodies are made hygienic enough to be welcomed into other parts of the house … and certainly not a place to do number onesees, let alone twosees.

As a result, a dividing wall had been erected to create a rather claustrophobic self-contained room for the WC. This was duly made available for having a pee on the condition that all users, male and female, would discharge their bladders sitting down – and provided there was zero probability of the prospective occupant breaking wind. If a fart was remotely likely, or worse if a twosee was in the pipeline, it was mandatory to use the fully restored outside lavatory.

There was a laminated sign taped to the WC door summarising these rules and Muriel enforced them ruthlessly. She’d recently drawn-up plans to install a microphone to facilitate random fart and poo checking, but to Bob’s relief these had not been enacted.

At least, not yet.

With gloves and dressing gown safely zipped into a clear plastic bag marked ‘For sterilisation’ and with his Wednesday wig hung on the door handle, Bob rubbed himself down with Wright’s Coal Tar soap, scrubbed his nails and then repeated the process in case Muriel was listening.

Clean clothes had been placed on the edge of the bath, along with his Wednesday slippers. By 6.18pm he was sitting at the kitchen table, ready for the fish soufflé, boiled potatoes and peas that he was served on the same day each week.

‘As I was sayin’, the concert was fantastic and you’ll never guess what ‘appened. You know Mary Leigh’s friend Bill Houserattle …’

His wife butted in.

‘You know the house rules Robert,’ she said, placing his dinner in front of him and taking care that the plate sat perfectly centrally on the placemat. ‘Silence when it goes in, silence once it’s in there – and silence when it wants to come out.’

Bob knew the rules. The list had been evolving for the 15 years of their marriage. The growth was gradual, so new directives usually had time to become second nature before additional ones were added, which meant he didn’t have work too hard at remembering them. Minimising the risk of belching or farting by eating in silence (thus reducing the intake of unnecessary air) was implemented in 1991, and though it seemed a bit extreme at the time, it now seemed perfectly reasonable.

Less reasonable was the sanitisation routine he’d just been through but if it made Dinky happy and gave him a quiet life, what did it matter? As for the recent decree calling for the cellar to be checked every two to three hours to ensure nobody was hiding there, well, he had to admit that was proving a bit stressful.

Right now he could forget about rules for a few minutes. It was dinner time. Muriel removed the chef’s hat to reveal her tightly-permed, short, Marmite-brown hair, then stood observing her husband, as if testing him.

‘Ah, the cheery ol’ Maris Piper, the prince of potatoes,’ he said admiringly. ‘Yum.’ Savouring the feast, he reached for his knife and fork that were positioned exactly parallel to the edge of his rectangular placemat (and lined-up precisely with his wife’s cutlery on the opposite side).

‘HANDS!’ screamed Muriel. ‘YOUR BLOODY HANDS! How many times have I told you?’

Oh shit, thought Bob. He may have just got out of the shower, but he’d then dried himself off, probably coming into contact with more than one unsavoury part of his body in the process. Worse, he’d then touched his Wednesday wig, as well as at least two door handles and a banister rail.

What a prat.

He apologised and joined his wife at the sink where, in an act of rare intimacy, they washed their hands with anti-bacterial soap and dried them under the hot air blower that had recently replaced the old towel rail.

Nothing else was said. They ate their dinner in a perfectly comfortable silence that was judiciously maintained whilst eating the porridge that was served as dessert. Muriel was the first to speak, even though her husband had finished his pudding two minutes earlier.

‘So, the concert went well – and you were going to say something about Bill Housemartin?’

During the muted meal, Bob’s mind had wandered onto the pressing question of what to do with his Umbilicus Maximus, so he wasn’t quite ready for her question. Muriel filled the void by answering for him.

‘Well whatever it was, I’m sure it wasn’t as interesting as what happened to me in Woolworth’s today. They were selling sympathy cards at five for a pound, so I bought 25 for you, which should do you for a while.’

That’s kind, if a bit excessive, thought Bob, as only four residents had actually died at the care home in the two years he’d been visiting.

‘Well that were a bargain Dinks. Let’s ‘ope …’

‘Anyway,’ she ploughed on, ‘I was standing behind a tall man in the queue for the checkout and I thought he looked familiar. He was humming that old Ronnie Hill song about Ernie the Milkman and was buying some hacksaw blades and a bag of Rainbow Drops. I should have guessed straight away of course.’

What the hell could she have deduced from this miscellany of random clues?

She steamrollered on.

‘Well, when it was his turn to pay, I saw him side on. It was his glasses that gave him away. Then I heard his voice - and do you know, he’s got a broad Scottish accent?’

‘Who ‘as?’

‘John Major.’

‘John Major? The Prime Minister?’ he replied, incredulously.

‘John Major,’ she confirmed, nodding with an air of smug certainty. ‘Now here’s the thing, according to the six o’clock news he has been in Belgium all day today – so what do you make of that?’

Bob hesitated before replying, knowing it was always risky to contradict his wife. He decided to avoid the question but in doing so made an unforced error.

‘It’s Benny actually.’

‘Benny Major?’ she mocked. ‘Don’t make me laugh, we all know his name’s John.’

‘Benny ‘ill. Not Ronnie ‘ill!’.

A sinister pause chilled his spine and Bob realised he’d stepped on a landmine. He waited for the blast.

‘You big-headed know-all,’ she screamed. ‘Mister pea-brained know-nothing, that’s you. You want to start an argument – is that what you want? I spend all day buying you presents, cooking you food, washing your clothes - and all you can do is try and wreck our evening …’

Her face had turned puce and she burst out crying.

Dinky’s tears always flummoxed Bob, not least because they were invariably accompanied by an other-worldly shrieking that vibrated to his core and had once shattered the glass in the kitchen door. Yet no matter how irrationally she was behaving, he couldn’t help himself from putting his bewildered frustration aside and giving her a cuddle.

‘I’m sorry Dinks,’ he said as she burrowed into the base of his neck, wailing like a badger trapped in a bonfire. ‘Now I think about it, it was Ronnie ‘ill, yer quite right. I always get ‘im confused with that Benny Wood who plays with the Rolling Stones. My mistake.’

It took several minutes but eventually the caterwauling subsided into bawling, then into a quieter blubbering which could probably only be heard by their immediate neighbours. Finally, this morphed into a breathy sob.

‘So … gasp … if John … gasp … Major wasn’t … gasp … in Belgium … gasp … who was?’

Bob knew this question was coming and he’d had time to prepare a compelling answer that ought to satisfy her.

‘Oh, that’s easy,’ he said assuredly, ‘it was ‘is doppelgänger.’

She extricated herself from his arms and looked him suspiciously in the eye. ‘His what?’

‘His doppelgänger’ he replied, holding his nerve. ‘His identical twin but no relation. All really powerful people ‘ave one, so they can be in two places at once,’ he fibbed. ‘They say somewhere in the world we all ‘ave a double.’

Her troubled expression changed to a puffy-eyed grin. Bob was fairly sure he was home and dry. If he was, she’d now ascend from the depths of despair into an unsettling euphoric state in which even her OCD was briefly set aside.

She stood back from him then slapped the palm of her right hand hard against his shoulder. As he stumbled backwards onto the table she jumped on top of him and plunged her face into his nose.

‘You clever, clever man,’ she snuffled, ‘I knew I could rely on old Piglet to know the answer.’

Piglet? Wow, he thought, I am back in the good books.

Piglet was her pet name for him when they first met. Bob had been born with an extended coccyx, resembling a short bony tail. In his underpants it looked as if he had a small erection to the rear, so he avoided showers and swimming when was at school – and was self-conscious when he started dating girls. Every girlfriend had found a reason to end their relationship once they stumbled across this extra bit of Bob, leaving him convinced that he would be forever single.

That was until he met Muriel.

Maybe because she’d been born with unusually small hands (hence Dinky), his coccyx didn’t seem to trouble her. In a way, their minor physical oddities drew them closer and within nine months of first meeting, they’d married. He was Piglet to her for several years, even after he’d had surgery to shorten his coccyx, but as her OCD advanced, so this term of endearment receded from her vocabulary.

She denied her OCD, just as she denied her ferocious mood swings and her occasional shop lifting. It made her extremely difficult to live with and there were times when Bob, the eternal optimist, struggled to see his glass of married life as anything other than half empty. Maybe this was why he threw himself into his music, his concerts and his collection of belly button fluff.

While the going was good he suggested he ought to nip out to the shed, as it was already 7.25 and he’d need to go to bed in an hour. Dinky agreed, otherwise he’d be in no state to begin work at the bakery at 3.30am. And anyway, it was time for her to check the cellar and clean the skirting boards.

Five minutes later, with the sounds of Right said Fred coming from the kitchen tape player, he breathed a huge sigh of relief, knowing that she only listened to her Best of Bernard Cribbins cassette when she feeling happy. He drew the shed door behind him, switched on the light and surveyed the wall of rough wooden shelving which showcased assorted sizes of glass fluff-filled jars.

He removed Bill Houserattle’s Umbilicus Maximus from its bottle and considered how to display it.

Best not to make any rash decisions.

Bob wasn’t overly interested in new technology. He didn’t have Sky TV, his van was prehistoric and their house phone had a dial instead of buttons. It wasn’t that he was scared of fancy electronic stuff, it was just that he didn’t need most of it – and he certainly didn’t have much spare cash to throw at it.

One recent innovation however, had captured his imagination. Something called the worldwide web. Over the years he’d corresponded with a small number of belly button fluff obsessives – and it was Ike, the US-based collector from Mission Canyon, California, who’d opened his eyes to the potential of this new phenomenon.

Instead of exchanging lengthy letters three times a year with half a dozen fellow-collectors, electronic mail suddenly made it possible to talk almost conversationally whenever you wanted. It was brilliant.

So, a year ago he’d bought a Packard Bell 486 computer from Comet. It now resided in his shed. He proudly boasted his own email address: [e-mail] and last summer he’d gone as far as creating his own page on the internet, called www.navelfluff.co.uk.

Eight months on, his now obsolete pen-pal list had been superseded by a network of over 70 dedicated