The Bogleys

By Tim Noble

Geoffrey and Godfrey Bogley are adolescent twins who care nothing for the subtleties of history with absolutely no reverence for conventional behaviour and morals. Describing them as terrible twins doesn't do justice to the escapades and antics they get up to causing mayhem and uproar in their family and village.
With bonsai plants grown for profit, which are not really bonsai plants at all, to flatulent hens and mass hysteria from the innocent 'cakes' they peddle around town there is never a quite ordinary peaceful day with these Bogley lads around. And then you can add to the mix another set of adolescent twins, Jane and Monica, seductive sirens to our lusty Geoffrey and Godfrey.They are rebels against a grown up world which seems to work hard at deliberately misunderstanding the adolescent feelings of youth.

According to Grandad Bogley, they are sinister ne'er- do-wells: a definite case of the kettle calling the pot black!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781326233631

Tim Noble

Tim Noble is Associate Professor of Missiology in the Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University in Prague. He is the author of The Poor in Liberation Theology (2014) and numerous articles on mission, liberation theology, and theology and culture.

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The Bogleys

The Bogleys

By

Tim Noble

Copyright

Copyright © Tim Noble 2015

eBook Design by Rossendale Books: www.rossendalebooks.co.uk

eBook ISBN: 978-1-326-23363-1

All rights reserved, Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention and Pan American Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author. The author’s moral rights have been asserted.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organisations, events or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

PROLOGUE

To Edna and Trevor having endured fifteen years of a barren marriage the news was God sent.

Not one but two tiny bundles of joy and set to arrive on such a joyous and celebrated period even as Christmas day itself. Growing up for Godfrey and Geoffrey presented little difficulty. Always together, sharing, scribbling, colouring, eating the same foods, sleeping in the same cot bed and always idolised and therefore doted by parents Trevor and Edna. After the innocence of junior school what trials to come. On reaching the tender age of eleven and entering the new harsh, alien and grownup world of the seniors where acts of bullying reigned and were openly encouraged by those in authority. What to do then, when finally faced, along with others the only ‘solution’ but to be rid of those who had tormented for so long.

It was Godfrey who had suddenly found a remedy for such trials and ills. It was Godfrey, who had suddenly discovered by some quirk of their adolescent character, a talent for the most vengeful behaviour, aided and abetted, of course by Brother Geoffrey.

All this became a side show to the real event when in their final year at school this was met by the arrival of two further likewise characters of the most devious kind, and whose names just also happened to be Bogley. This was however no time for contest or division, but a meeting of minds and so there began a pathway of pleasure, hedonism and even a life of total abandonment.

All set then to embark on selling this new lifestyle to others out therein that grownup world who also needed those same pleasures to enhance and brighten their often dull, tired and unfulfilled lives. Like the old folks at the retirement home the ‘Balmer Lawn’ who had suddenly found an ‘elixir,’ a new life giving force. Or the mothers down at the baby clinic, their lives enhanced by the arrival of a ‘refreshing’ new form and meaning to the word ‘afternoon tea’.

Then there was another ‘sideline’ of Godfrey and Geoffrey, the growing of plants. Innocent in the extreme and yet Venus fly traps of the most veracious kind, which appeared to be ‘more hungry’ and with indiscriminate appetites that devoured anything and everything set within the parameters of ‘easy reach’, not to mention the twins devotion to growing a new form of ‘Bonsai’ which had somehow become associated and ‘mistakenly’ confused with a similar plant from another distant continent, that of south America.

And what of Auntie Vera and uncle Harold’s chicken? Why of course they too needed a supplement to their diet. Tired and listless they might once have been, but not after the ‘infusion’ to the new tonic, which now set the birds on a course of self destruction.

ONE

It was with a deep and driven sense of unbounded joy for Edna Bogley, stepping through the pneumatic doors, and leaving behind the quiet corridors and confines of the Lady Valerie Dutton Maternity Wing. Once through the swing doors and out into the early sunshine, she drew deeply on the abundance of scented air from adjacent avenues of flower beds, totally at one with that sensation of being elevated and carried along on the warmth of an early spring breeze, her feet gliding in a somewhat majestic manner over a paved thoroughfare already carpeted with pink and white cherry and chestnut snow blown blossom, and all in time to that somehow inevitable and age old sense of at least partial fulfilment that what she at last carried in her own ‘foetal sac’ gave way to a deep and now indelible feeling of a life suddenly made more worthwhile by the ‘confirmation’ that soon, at last, after almost fifteen barren years of marriage, the announcement of an impending Christmas birth, of not one, but two tiny joyful bundles.

Standing at the bus stop she heard little of the adjacent ‘tittle-tattle’ and meaningless whispered and soft mouthed words from fellow travellers, only those voices in her head which were about to take over her life in such a deep and cluttered way, and yet with an inner warmth that only the impending joy of fulfilment, and the true destiny of womanhood that would only be understood by no one but the grateful recipient. And so as she stepped aboard the bus, now came upon her that depth of care with every step, sliding into her seat, and holding arms and elbows, ‘at the ready,’ forming that protective and subconscious barrier to the new life that had already given way to a gently swathe within.

Watching the world go by the window of the bus, she giggled inwardly at how she and Trevor had dealt with the barren years. He had called her his ‘hardened egg case’ and she had commented to friends and selected relatives; ‘Trevor couldn’t  be bothered with swimming very much-just like his tadpoles!’ and when in the closest of company and often after a gin and tonic, she had been heard to  say; ‘He has always been tight with his tadpoles-he won’t share-he keeps them in a jar under his side of the bed!’.

Hard at work in his garage workshop however, Trevor Bogley had something of a different and difficult task in mind. That of a growing contempt and a bitter sense of unreasoning behaviour from a lawn-mower that just refused to fire, all with the impending seasonal needs which now arose with the coming of spring. Leaving the confines of the bus and gliding the short distance to number 51, The Oaks. Edna Bogley felt herself still fired by that womanly warmth and inner glow, and decided to go straight for the garage workshop and a meeting with her husband, ready to burst in upon him with the joyous news, and cheerfully warbling, ‘Hark the herald angels sing!’.

‘Don’t suppose you managed to get that spark plug did you!’. Husband Trevor expounded, lunging his foot at a worse than useless mower.

The coming of that statement caused Edna to halt in her tracks as if stunned, leaving her with a sense of puzzlement and immediate isolation.

‘Er...no love!’. Edna replied, and throwing open her coat announced; ‘You can embrace me now if you like…It’s twins!’.

‘No new mower then!’. Trevor Bogley lunged again at a useless piece of machinery that seemed to be mocking him by the sheer immovability and that of a wilful denial to respond.

Wiping the oil from his fingers, he pecked her on the cheek and said; ‘I won’t touch you at the moment love …‘til I can get this bloody thing going again!’.

‘Oh…very well then!’. Edna Bogley wrapped the coat around her, and snorted; ‘I had better go and congratulate myself I suppose…after fifteen years of marriage…our crowning moment…you and I…I’ll just go and put the kettle on!’. And then she added in a somewhat facetious manner; ‘With little else happening of course!’.

Having realised he had created a potentially abrasive situation with wife Edna, Trevor responded immediately rounding on his wife her and saying somewhat belatedly; ‘Erm…are they…er…are you sure it’s twins love…no mistake then!’.

‘Of course not!’. Edna stared hard at her husband and giggled before adding; ‘They did ask me, down at the clinic, how was it you managed to part with two tadpoles instead of just the one…It was, they thought, a complete mystery!’.

‘H’mm…I suppose I asked for that!’. Trevor Bogley added ruefully, giving her another peck on the cheek. ‘No, but seriously…It is twins then, straight up!’.

‘Well…what they said was…!’. Trevor Bogley now felt a certain sense of diffidence, and leant back against his workbench in anticipation.

‘They could find two set of arms and legs…Oh, and two bodies…but only one head…well at least…they know!’.

‘They know what!’. He said, now with a morbid infatuation, as if there was suddenly and by nature curious doubt. ‘There are two heads!’. Edna added as if to assure him, ‘And they both look like you!’.

‘Thank goodness for that!’. He said, turning his face away, and then he said in a somewhat nefarious manner; ‘Otherwise we could enter them in Olympics…there’s a rumour the Olympic committee are starting a new competition, the three legged race!’.

‘Trevor!.. That is a disgraceful thing to say!’. She turned on her heel. ‘I’m not staying here to listen…!’.

‘I was only trying to cheer you up love!’. Trevor Bogley said in a somewhat half-hearted yet persuasively apologetic manner; ‘Honest!’.

Edna Bogley felt somehow cheated and flushed with a womanly sense of anger, at what was conceived to be sleight of typical male chauvinism that all her endeavours were to be derided at the expense of womanhood. It was not however, that to which she had understood to be his mocking of her, but expounded in that very masculine way to a very deep sense of maternal relief.

TWO

Spring rolled on into summer, and with it a holiday in the sun, two weeks in Spain on the Costal de Sol, the expense of which, Trevor had remarked on numerous occasions, it may well be their last for some time to come, given the impending new arrivals. And so it was, with the months ‘bearing down’ on the Bogleys, mountains of baby clothes new and second hand began to arrive, the identity of which had crossed over into that realm where ‘rompers’, bonnets, gloves, tiny track suits, and all manner of slumber-wear and of any colour, size and likely dimension, and of course, boxes of ‘winky-wear’ had filled the ‘spare room’ at number 51, the Oaks, to the point that well-wishers were told, ‘We don’t know the sex-just, please, no more!’.

And so it was, on that great day of much rejoicing, at ten thirty on Christmas morning, and with the sound and salutation of church bells, first came little Godfrey, followed latterly, some four minutes later, and as much would be the pattern of his future life, the tiny head of even tinier Geoffrey. Growing up for the twins surprised no one. Everything would be attempted with that silent togetherness. Drawing, cutting out, sticking together, eating the same foods, running, going to the toilet, and of course, sharing the same tiny bed, and with dad Trevor or mum Edna silently entering a bedroom, flooded with moonlight, they lay arms entwined around each other in gentle slumber. All that happened did so in that same moment, just as if one tiny mind might read the other so no empty space would be left beside or close by, it was as though that space and atmosphere had already been filled by the permanent presence of either one.

These were the wonderful dreamland years, where children share those early thoughts in play-land innocence, one with another. The little school they both attended, always sitting together, and being always in the playground together, never one without the other, it was just an accepted and totally natural and blissful state for both the twins Godfrey and Geoffrey, and a world that was about to be shattered in a most devastating and consequential manner. It was called growing up. Those first destructive steps into that other world or the very beginnings of the realization that adulthood might well be just around life’s corner, and that this might well turn out to be a truly earth shattering experience.

Age eleven, it was the twins Godfrey and Geoffrey now expected excursion and introduction to senior school, and a now fated meeting with destiny, which came in the shape of tall, thin and bony headmaster Herbert ‘Heinrich’ Krait, and his sidekick informer and school bully, Gerald ‘grimy’ Griswold, so named for his aversion to soap and water. The lack of washing and the consequence of filthy habits had not deterred headmaster Krait from recruiting ‘grimy’ Griswold, whom he had come to quickly recognise as a bully, having observed  ‘grimy’ in the school playground, pushing the first years against a convenient wall with his knee and watching them hand over sweets or money, whichever he so desired at the time, even carrying out his own ‘search’s’, and in full view of the rest of those gathered fearfully in their tight little groups around the playground, who observed all this without so much as a murmur. Now there’s a man I can use! Herbert Krait had told himself, thoughtfully rubbing bony fingers over an equally scrawny countenance. I will give him carte blanch to act according to his own set of rules, just as long as he carries out my duties and any other of consequence that I may bid him so to do.

And so it was, on this fateful day, with all the first year arrivals sat nervous on their first new day with headmaster Krait about to address them from the front of the class and with ‘grimy’ having taken up his position of observance at the rear of the classroom. Headmaster Herbert ‘Heinrich’ Krait had something of a peculiar habit, which was screwing his arms behind his back, giving him the appearance of a flag wrapped around a pole and of being even taller than he was, and possibly more forbidding to the already somewhat bewildered first years, as ‘Heinrich’ stared out and down at them with cold hard eyes and from behind his spectacles and their thick tortoise shell rims.

‘The expectations of this school are that you will forget your junior years and you will persevere to a new standard… And!’. Herbert Krait raised a bony finger. ‘I have set a path from which you will not be allowed to deviate, not even for an instant!’.

Headmaster Krait had then turned on his heel, and although un-noticed at the time, ‘grimy’ had slid from his seat and silently followed Herbert Krait from the first year form and back to his own classroom. In keeping with his standards, Krait had taken up the practice on each and every Friday afternoon, at the end of the school week, to remove a selected number of pupil’s books to his own study, where he would work on until the evening with his ‘assessment’ of each and every, particularly new pupil and their progress noted.

It soon became apparent to the first years of what might well be the consequence of any pupil who had ‘erred’ and fallen behind or short of the standards set by headmaster ‘Heinrich’ Krait!

Mondays for some had become a time of great dread. ‘Heinrich’ would appear soon after commencement of school class and a period of ‘correction’ and humiliation would soon become apparent. On this particular Monday, it was the turn of Geoffrey Bogley to be singled out for ‘selective ‘treatment’. As well as carrying the wretched pupil’s book which he had already scrutinised, ‘Heinrich’ carried a sheet of blank paper, approximately two feet square and a small pot of gum.

‘Stand up Geoffrey Bogley!’.  Krait announced in a commanding voice and in a manner which demanded absolute obedience. It had suddenly also become apparent to Godfrey sat alongside his brother that a new presence had taken residence quite close by. It was the bodily scent of humankind that wafted the arrival of Gerald ‘grimy’ Griswold who had slid into the classroom almost unnoticed behind his mentor the headmaster and taken up a station of his very own in a desk behind the Bogleys.

‘There will be no dilatation from what I have to impart!’. Krait did no more that wave an exercise book in the air, just as though it was a filthy rag.

‘Heh…Heh…Heh!’. Griswold responded with slimy theatre of his own.

‘This!’ Herbert Krait continued. ‘Is without doubt the worse example of poor standards that I have encountered for some time!’.

‘Thicko…Dicko!’.  Griswold mouthed in words loud enough, not only to heap humiliation on its victim, but in a voice loud enough for all to hear.

‘For example!’. Krait continued. ‘The rise and fall of the Roman empire’ was not written by Julius Caesar!’.

‘Nah!..Nah!’. Griswold punctuated his derisory clamouring with sniggering laughter.

‘Fuggin’ twit!..Idiot!’. ‘Grimy’ Griswold leant forward to push Geoffrey Bogley unceremoniously in the small of his back.

Herbert Krait’s mouth twisted in a thin snarl. ‘Jerusalem!’. His voice rose and heightened, to that of a piercing whine as he homed in on his victim. ‘One of our most sacred hymns was not written by Oscar Wilde!’.

For the first time since entering the classroom, Herbert ‘Heinrich’ Krait now stared with cold hard eyes at a quivering Geoffrey Bogley, bending forward, as if to further emphasize his height and dominance.

‘The Danish people are from Denmark…The Norwegians from Norway…And!’. Herbert Krait towered over in his lament of Geoffrey. ‘Lap-dancers are certainly NOT from Lapland!’.

‘Grimy’ sniggered and shoved a helpless Geoffrey Bogley cruelly in the small of his back.

Herbert ‘Heinrick’ Krait’s thin lips and mouth twisted, and he gazed wilfully around the class as if to revel in malignant glee. ‘And furthermore!..and to add total ignorance to this miserable essay; ‘Sir Walter Raleigh  circumcised the world with his big clipper!’.

Herbert Krait’s resounded around the walls of the classroom. ‘Bogota is the capitol of Colombia…not Spanish for