All stories

The Navy decided to clear up the high seas and to cull the extraordinary number of hirsute miscreants that could be found upon them. There was a massive pirate cull and those who escaped mostly became gentlemen of the road, or highwaymen.

They changed names of course so they couldn’t be traced, for example Blackbeard became known as “Bird’s Nest Ned”, Eggbeard was called “Smelly Jack Mayo” and Fakebeard, the female pirate was now known as “high-voiced Pete”.

Bradleigh Salterton was an exception, the couture conscious Captain of the Seahorse, was tired of the violence of piratical life and retired to the countryside with his new Parrot who liked to be known as “Giles Brandreth from The One Show and Countdown”. Despite having a posh voice, this parrot’s Trinidad upbringing meant it would burst forth into unwanted Calypso ditties at the drop of a tricorn.

Salterton led a less than glamorous existence. Due to inflation his treasure only afforded him a meagre subsistence and one by one his silken britches, pompadour wigs and ermine capes were taken to Cash Converter to keep the wolf from the door. At Christmas he dressed up as Santa and give out presents for spoilt children in the local market. His cheap red suit and fake white beard incurred the jeering of local Neanderthals outside the tavern.

“Once he was admired and feared

Now he wears a big white beard”

Sang Giles Brandreth mockingly.

When “High Voiced Pete” sent a furious missive on the subject of Bradleigh’s share of the child maintenance Salterton reluctantly consented to undertake a spot of robbery himself.

Despite his penury he fashioned a rudimentary highwayman’s outfit of mask, hat, and cloak from items he found in the cupboard and mounted his second-hand moth eaten steed . By nightfall he’d found a good spot on the London to York road.

“With a coat made out of his grandma’s curtain

You could not mistake him for Dick Turpin”

Crooned his parrot, who was accompanying him on the journey and was also dressed in full highwayman’s garb.

A few moments later a stagecoach came into view carrying some very glittery looking jewels.

Salterton galloped out in front of the coach and raised his pistols.

“Stand and deliver! Youre money or your life” he cried before catching sight off himself striking a very manly pose in the shine of the stagecoach varnish. Forgetting what he was doing he somehow caused his pistol to go off in his hand. This spooked his horse which threw him into a thick bush of nettles.

“Before this sorry tale began

I could tell you he was no highwayman”

Intoned his mischevious Macaw to no one in particular.

This was all the invitation The King’s Men, hiding aboard the stagecoach needed to rush up to the horse and arrest it’s only passenger.

The next day the gutter pamphlets were full of tales about the world’s first highwayparrot and things cooled down enough at sea for all the pirates to return to their dayjobs, Captain Salterton stopped by the gallows at Tyburn long enough to see his least favourite ever bird swing and swore never to try highway robbery again.

Guv paused the video. He surveyed the whole room slowly, letting his gaze slip over Larry and David who both let out big sighs of relief. The video had been stitched together using bodycam footage, rough and jerky, but enough to show the armoured car pulling up next to our broken-down minibus. The driver of the armoured car, this good Catholic boy raised in an orphanage, he was out like a shot to lend assistance to Sid and Joe-Joe, a pair of the butchest nuns you will ever see.

The second guard was more of a challenge, but Guv’s legendary research and psychological insight were up to the challenge.

Enter: me, dressed as a Neanderthal Father Christmas.

Apparently this guy’s father, something of a mouth breathing high forehead troglodyte had done a runner, on Christmas day no less, whilst dressed as Santa Claus. That got him out of the van advancing menacingly in my direction.

Which left guard number three in the back.

Guv whipped his gaze back to Larry and David who both sat bolt upright in alarm. He stared for several seconds, before finally beginning to shake his head lightly in disgust.

Larry and David quailed in the force of his glare.

Softly, Guv said, ‘Calypso. Wasn’t I clear?’

Larry hissed to David, ‘See, told it was a typo.’

Guv looked at him.

‘A typo…?

‘Yeah, for Calypo.’

‘Calypo…?’

Larry nodded happily. ‘The lolly. Cardboard tube, squeeze the end, you get more lolly?’

Guv was staring in disbelief.

Through gritted teeth, David said, ‘It’s spelt Calippo, you idiot, so how can it be a typo?’

Faintly, Guv said, ‘How would a lolly get the guard out of the back of the van?’

Larry stared at the table.

Guv said, ‘Well?’

Without looking up, Larry in a tiny voice said, ‘Physiological mind games, innit. That time at the beach, he wanted a lolly, it’s only fifty pence, but his Daddy wouldn’t buy him a lolly, and he felt so…’

Larry’s voice tailed into silence.

Guv bent over his laptop, bringing up a picture of a winsome young girl in loose chiffon.

He said, ‘Calypso: a nymph from Greek mythology.’

Next he brought up the picture of an equally winsome young man lost in corded navy sweater.

He said, ‘Security guard number three: a pHD in classical studies, with a one hundred thousand word dissertation on the subject of the role of women in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, now reduced to driving around in the back of an armoured truck. He would have had that door open the second he clapped eyes on Larry dressed as Calypso the nymph. David, your job was to stop the guard brutally murdering Calypso.’

Guv began to shake his head in disgust.

He said, ‘Who knows, maybe he was thirsty, maybe a lolly would have worked.’

He set the video playing once more.

Enter: Larry and David. They both wore virulent Hawaiian shirts above Bermuda shorts. Larry was carrying a guitar, and David had a pair of polished chrome bongos slung around his neck.

Guv let the video play, the pair of them singing away and sashaying their hips, their audience the bemused looking third security guard peering through the porthole in the side of the van.

Faintly, Guv said, ‘But Calypso music…?’

The fluorescent lights carved dark circles under Sallie’s eyes, picking out the hard lines beginning to set around her eyes and mouth and stripping away any lingering illusion of glamour. Twelve Christmas parties on her watch, each bleaker than the last.

Twelve Christmas parties, no gold rings. Never a turtle-dove.

She shoved armloads of coloured streamers into a bin bag, hoping that whatever the neanderthals from Finance had spattered over the carpet wouldn’t cost her the deposit. No-one else had chipped in this year, not even Huw, and she was damned if she was going to pay for everything herself again.

Her 80s theme idea had fallen rather flat, though it had paid off for her; Huw had looked extremely fetching as Adam Ant, the dandy highwayman. He had even noticed her Kate Bush outfit - red dress, wild hair, smoky eyes. He said her dress looked nice, and she had thought, just for a moment, maybe -

But then he was dancing to Harry Belafonte with Katie from HR and that was that.

Katie had come as Madonna. Sallie watched as she rubbed her perfect little backside against Huw’s crotch to the beat, giggling, while Huw blushed and stammered and let her. Fat Bob from IT leered at them from behind his stained Father Christmas beard, belching and feeling up anyone who drifted within his reach.

But not Sallie. No-one ever tried to feel up Sallie. Poor bland Sallie in her beige skirts and sensible cardigans. Thirty three going on sixty, the HR girls whispered behind their hands.

And now it was the end of the night. Christmas eve and here Sallie was, gathering up fag ends and sticky plastic cups to salvage a few quid from the annihilated deposit.

It was gone 2am when she let herself out of the dreary little building and began the walk home to her empty flat, promising herself a nice glass of scotch and an episode of Friends before bed.

When she heard the footsteps behind her, her first instinct was to clutch her keys in her fist, ready to go for the eyes, like she had been taught. Palm flat, push up into the nose. Hurt or be hurt. Assertive. Powerful. Strong.

But as she heard her would-be attacker draw nearer all her plans went out the window. She panicked, feeling the hot flesh of his hand on her shoulder, hearing the intake of breath as he opened his mouth to speak -

“Stand and deliver! Your money or -“

Crash. She smashed him round the head with her handbag. Down he went and before he could move she pinned him to the ground with her substantial backside and launched a full pepper spray attack in his face. Katie’s scrap of an arse wouldn’t hold up under this kind of pressure Sallie thought smugly.

Only when he stopped flailing did she calm down enough to look properly at her attacker. He seemed to be wearing some kind of cape and had a weird stripe painted across his face, like an old-fashioned bandit or a -

Or a dandy highwayman.

Sallie’s heart dropped to her scuffed and bleeding knees in horror. Huw, eyes streaming, breath coming in short rasping gasps, was clutching a bunch of wilting flowers and a small gift-wrapped parcel.

“Your money or your life” he coughed, weakly.

“And this,” announced Joan, “Did not come from Father Christmas.”

She sliced into the snow-and-robins wrapping paper with an antique letter opener, making the appropriate show of a present for the whole family. “Highway robbery, mind, that John Lewis. But ‘tis the season, and all that.”

There was a low-key clamour of approval as she drew out the box within.

“See Bernie, I told you, didn’t I? Trivial Pursuits. Brand new, that is.”

“Pursuit,” said Bernie.

“Eh?”

“Trivial – never mind.”

The cellophane was unwrapped and the table cleared. Fresh tea was made.

Millie, her fingers interlocked with David’s on the sofa, had first dibs on a question. Joan asked her which species of human lived in Europe 450,000 years ago and died out 40,000 years ago.

“Neanderthal.”

Millie was widely assessed to be a know-it-all, and continued her run by correctly asserting Tashkent to be the capital of Uzbekistan, and (for a pink wedge) knowing that Julian Cope was the man behind The Teardrop Explodes. Her turn ended when, much to Bernie’s seasonal merriment, she failed to name Pol Pot as the murderer of two million Cambodians.

Play continued through two pots of tea and enough Quality Street to be naughty, but not enough to be rude.

Joan drew a card and had a chuckle. “Oh, you’ll know this one, David. Which style of Caribbean music was popularised by Harry Belafonte in The Banana Boat Song?”

“No idea, sorry Joan,” said David.

“Calypso.”

There was a pause, during which Bernie shifted in his armchair and a magpie chattered noisily in the front garden. Millie frowned. “Why would David know that one, Mum?”

“Eh, dear?”

“What do you mean, he’ll know this one?”

Joan looked to Bernie for help, opening and closing her mouth as if unsure whether to say any more. “Well, I mean - he - I mean, you know, they -”

“They? David’s not Caribbean, Mum, he’s Nigerian.”

Bernie breathed out through his nose. Joan was looking down at the table now, fidgeting with a teaspoon, straightening coasters. “I - I -”

Then David was up, and crossing the room to perch beside her on the sofa. He put an arm on her shoulder. “My surname’s Adamu, Joan.”

“I’m sorry David, I didn’t -”

“No, no, It’s okay. Hey. Do you want to be the first to know something?”

She nodded, her shoulders loosening a little.

He whispered, just loud enough for them all to hear: “Soon it’s going to be Millie’s name, too.”

And now Joan lifted her face for the first time to look into David’s eyes, and then to Millie, who smiled. The waters broke.

“Oh my dears, oh my darlings. Oh, I’m so -”

David said: “I don’t know much about calypso, Joan, but I’m pretty good at a waltz.”

They stood and held out tentative arms. And in the fading afternoon - framed by the sunset through petunia-patterned net curtains - he took his first dance with his future mother-in-law, anticipating the rhythm of unheard music.

“How much?" exploded the little red faced man.

"That will be £23.45" replied Francis, maintaining her award winning customer service voice at an even monotone.

Francis looked at the man and saw that his pupils were small and his lips seemed to have fallen into his mouth.

"But I've only got a cheese sandwich, a Calypso Hits for the Road cd and a tin of travel sweets! How can that be so much?”

Francis noticed the tremor in his hands as they wrung at his brown faux suede driving gloves. She had never quite understood what driving gloves were for but could see they would be useful to wring when stressed.

"That is what it comes to sir. Do you still want the items?"

She thought that perhaps he might have been quite nice looking once.

Francis worked in the WH Smith outlet at the junction 38 motorway services. She served all sorts of people, rarely were they at their best. They were tired, grumpy, hot, hungry, frustrated, late and never delighted with the extortionate prices. Francis felt for the little man, she really did. She had once had to pay a 24 hour car parking fee because she had lost her 3 hour ticket. She remembered the desire to smash something that she had felt at the time.

Francis knew however, that she couldn't afford to be sentimental. She had been sentimental once and had the scars to show for it. It was in December 1998, late evening. A Father Christmas had called in on his way back from a children's party in Swindon. He only wanted a bag of Minstrels, some apple juice and a Radio Times. The party hadn't gone well, he was exhausted, hot, and his beard was making him itch. Francis had wondered why he didn’t take it off. She told him the price and he started to cry, not sobbing, but just a little bit. Francis felt so sad, she placed her hand on his and said “perhaps you could just have a Twix?".

Santa raised his head slowly and looked her in the eye like he might have laser beams that he could emit. With lightning speed he whacked her around the side of her head with the Minstrels and ran off with them and the other items. The sharp edge of the Minstrels bag cut her cheek and she bled. She had to dress it with a plaster and go and sit down for 5 minutes.

Francis thought about this as she looked at the little red man. With his heavy brows and beard he reminded her of a Neanderthal she had seen in the museum. She fancied he could be violent.

"I'll leave the cd, just the sandwich and the travel sweets please" said caveman.

"Thank you sir, £9.65 please"

The man paid and walked dejectedly out to his car. Francis ran her fingers over the scar on her cheek and congratulated herself on dealing with yet another challenging customer.