COMPETITION

A cruel creelful

Christopher Howse

IN COMPETITION NO. 2095 you were invited to incorporate 12 words in any order under the title 'A Fishy Story' — at least that was the idea, I think. Before Jaspistos disappeared on holiday to his Prospero's island he stipulated the words as: dab, cod, sole, skate, ray, perch, brill, jack, roach, nurse, tope, roach. That makes roach twice, but, in a holiday mood, I did not insist on both. And they were not to be in their 'literal' sense — as fish.

The quality of the catch was not as fresh and silvery as it might have been. Some shoals brought from your uncon- scious depths slimy fantasies; one com- petitor had his girlfriend eating cockroach pie. Those pesky roaches also figured as sails, combed hair or dope dogends.

The winners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus bottle of The Macallan Single Malt Highland Scotch Whisky goes to David Jones.

`In America,' pondered Morse, 'they sell card- board boxes called Roach Motels. Cockroaches check in, but they don't check out,' he added in a cod American accent. 'We'll find a different kind of roach here, Lewis. And I'm not talking fish.'

He contemplated the entrance of the Ashram Oxoniensis. 'Cowley's not exactly an epicentre of Buddhism, but this place is a regular tope.' Inside, a spaced-out teenager in orange robes sat cross-legged at reception, swaying to Pavarotti singing '0 Sole Mio' on Classic FM.

`This guy's brill, yunno?'

'Brillo, in musical parlance,' replied Morse. `Now jump off your perch and talk. Fingerprints found a dab on the jack in the stolen vehicle. Your thumbprint, my little ray of sunshine. I'm not one to nurse a grudge, but your story should come wrapped in yesterday's newspaper.'

`You're in shark-infested water,' cautioned the sergeant. 'Best not to skate on thin ice.' (David Jones) In winter Lazlo and I used to skate. At this he was a dab hand — brill, said admiring English tourists. In summer we fished. At the first ray of sunshine on the lake he would wade out, roach as ever between his lips, and climb on to his perch, using his one arm to jack up the sole of his club-foot and nurse his poor body into a com- fortable position.

He must have spotted the roach of the boat's sail before I did, for he reached into the cod of his net and pulled out some sort of packet. Moments later to my horror I saw him tope over into the boat, which hauled the wind and made off as it had come. Next day they said he had died —after an accident while fishing, wrote the Party newspaper. It was no accident that my friend Lazlo met with. (David Heaton)

Sole command. Jack liked that. Let the rest of his chambers escape to Tuscany to dab on sun-cream and tope to their usual championship standards, leaving him to nurse the few non-holidaying clients. In his back-room perch, where no ray of sunlight ever penetrated before afternoon, he could plot his satisfying, unattributable revenges. Fenella was always so poised — but would a roach in her coffee be too crude? Guy was irredeemably pompous — he'd enjoyed forging his signature to

the most formal of Inns of Court dinners under the one word: 'Brill!' But Max was the problem. Max had nerves of steel and could skate on the thinnest argument without its cracking under him. Cautiously Jack scanned the cod fax he was draft- ing. Would it be called the Personality Disorders Restraining Act? And how would Max react when he read that the Home Secretary had ordered his immediate detention? (D.A. Prince) Our precious cargo had been carefully packed into the bilges in Morocco. One trip would be sufficient to set me up. The dim and voluptuous Jane was getting nervous, riffling through the papers as we approached the drop.

`Dab your face, you're sweating,' I told her from the perch in the wheelhouse, high above the cabin sole, and flicked my roach over the side. It was dawn. The first ray of the sun's light had appeared over the eastern horizon. The hangover from our previous evening's tope had made me ratty.

`You're supposed to be a nurse, Jack, that's what it says on your passport,' she replied.

`Let's skate over that,' I said. 'The cod pass- port is the least of our problems. There's a cus- toms cutter appearing from behind the roach of our sail.'

`Brill, that's all I need!' she complained uncon- vincingly. 'And I thought we were importing medical supplies.' (Peter Cooke) In his youth he'd been known to tope quantities of Scotch; now, he smoked the outsize joint down to the roach, handed the ashtray to the nurse, and told her solemnly, 'I'm going to jack it in.' Why did she perch on his bed? Why did she dab incessantly at his forehead? 'Dope doesn't ease the pain any better than booze,' he added. `You're a ray of sunshine, aren't you?' she retort- ed. 'Life's brill. You just like to carp.'

He winced. 'Don't give me all this cod. If life's thin ice, then I ceased to skate on it ages ago. I am presently at the bottom of the pond.' Now she was angry. 'You see this butt-end?' she said. `It's not the only roach in here. You're a roach, too. Your sole aim is to infest life's kitchen to the last.' They were the last words he heard.

(Bill Greenwell)