A Message from Hardcourt

I received the following message beneath my door this morning. The slide woke me up. I am constructing my reply, which hopefully shall be less winded than the original.

Nigel,

I am recuperating as I dictate this epistle, which Edwina's sure hand will transcribe. To begin, I must say I thought you rather a stick-in-the-mud last week when you turned down my invitation to jet to Ireland for All Hallows'. (In fact, I still think you looked and acted like a fuddy-duddy in your Hercule Poirot costume.) For what better place is there to celebrate Celtic New Year in true pagan fashion? I suppose we had just had that row about the abacus and were both rather tight. The last thing I recall is marching down the street in Westminster. I had a lingerie-angel on my back who was chanting her siren's hymn:

"Patron' on ice
And we can pop bottles all night
Baby you could have whatever you like
I said you could have whatever you like
Late night sex so wet you're so tight
I'll gas up the jet for you tonight
Baby you could go where ever you like"

Next thing I knew I was aboard my jet to Ireland with Rodney at the helm. I had lost one Poirot, but gained one shiner and one lingerie-angel. She grew infuriated after I ejaculated over the Irish Sea and started teasing her about her costume: "Pardon me, are you dressed as a trollop?", "Ugh, excuse me madam, are you dressed as a harlot?", "Ma'am, I daresay, are you costumed as a whore?". I did some laudanum on the plane. I cannot recall the slut's name or her departure, but she was not there when I sprinted through downtown Cork in search of the party.

I came across a Samhain Night celebration. Never before has the division between the world of the living and the Otherworld been so blurred. I danced with a goblin and drank with the green faerie. To stave off corruption I endeavored to speak only in Spenserian stanza. This proved difficult, so I tried to speaking with my wild eyes only. Dressed as Dickie Greenleaf, I appeared quite daft. I started singing "My Funny Valentine" and jabbing at those that tried to lure me into the pagan dance ritual. I felt they were trying steal my corrupted soul.

One chap was dressed as a banana. He prodded me as his ghoul friends danced around in a circle laughing. I felt the key was to peel him thereby revealing his true spirit to stave off the Netherworld. He became enraged as I tried to bite the bottom of his peel. Then I knew evil had triumphed and it was time to escape. I found a rotten Ronnie's and gathered all the salt I could before their service people drove me out. I sprinkled the salt in my hair to ward off the otherworldly creatures and ran into the forest.

It was darker than the circles under a Bangkok streetwalker's eyes that night. The witching hour had struck. I took off my dazzling blue top-hat and attached it to a tree as an indicator. There was snow and I became frightened of the tracks I was leaving. After running serpentine figure eights I decided the best course was to hang from a tree limb and make my footprints smaller before they dissipated to nothing. That would throw the spirits off course. I swung from tree to tree in this dense thicket using branchiation techniques I had learned in an earlier incarnation. I curled up in the groin of a sturdy oak.

My blue satin vest looked exquisite as a makeshift sheet, but did little to shield me from the howling wind. I did my last dose of laudanum before passing off into a deep slumber. Queen Mab haunted my dreams. I dreamt I was the King of Majorca in 1341. Jude Law was my jester.

When I awoke my throat was dry. My teeth chattered intensely. I was lying sideways in a snowdrift and my tailored Greenleaf costume pants were torn in many places. (How had the fall from the tree not woken me? Had Queen Mab enchanted me there?) The underworld had been defeated and I was alive in the mid-morning Irish sun!

When I surveyed my surroundings I noticed I was only a few hundred metres from McDonald's. My hat was spiked through a sapling and totally ruined. Further, "Regin" had been peed into the snow and there were faeces nearby. Footprints were everywhere. My back ached like the devil. I did not feel ashamed as I hitched a lorry back to the airport (my money clip was not about my person). I felt I had truly safeguarded mankind from some terrible fate.

Faithful Rodney was on the tarmac waiting and whisked me off to the Isle of Mann. I have been nursed back to health for the most part, but my mind still turns like the triskelion. I have been medicating with absinthe to quell my overwrought nerves. You certainly missed a hell of a struggle old chap. I shan't soon forget your abandonment but fear you may have made a pact with the Otherworld to save yourself. It is probably all for the best.

Yours,

Reginald Hardcourt