Free The Complete Talking Heads by Alan Bennett

aid of?’ She said, ‘Leave that. The whole arrangement pivots on that.’ I said, ‘Pivots?’ ‘When the adjudicator was commenting on my arrangement he particularly singled out the hint I gave of the forest floor.’ I said, ‘Mrs Shrubsole.This is the altar of St Michael and All Angels. It is not The Wind in the Willows.’ Mrs Belcher said, ‘I think you ought to sit down.’ I said, ‘I do not want to sit down.’ I said, ‘It’s all very well to transform the altar into something out of Bambi but do not forget that for the vicar the altar is his working surface. Furthermore,’ I added, ‘should the vicar sink to his knees in prayer, which since this is the altar he is wont to do, he is quite likely to get one of these teazle things in his eye. This is not a flower arrangement. It is a booby trap. A health hazard. In fact,’ I say in a moment of supreme inspiration, ‘it should be labelled HAZFLOR. Permit me to demonstrate.’ And I begin getting down on my knees just to prove how lethal her bloody Forest Murmurs is. Only I must have slipped because next thing I know I’m rolling down the altar steps and end up banging my head on the communion rail.
    Mrs Shrubsole, who along with every other organisation known to man has been in the St John’s Ambulance Brigade, wants me left lying down, whereas Mrs Belcher is all for getting me on to a chair. ‘Leave them lying down,’ says Mrs Belcher, ‘and they inhale their own vomit. It happens
all the time, Veronica.’ ‘Only, Muriel,’ says Mrs Shrubsole, ‘when they have vomited. She hasn’t vomited.’ ‘No,’ I say, ‘but I will if I have to listen to any more of this drivel,’ and begin to get up. ‘Is that blood, Veronica?’ says Mrs Belcher pointing to my head. ‘Well,’ says Mrs Shrubsole, reluctant to concede to Mrs B on any matter remotely touching medicine, ‘it could be, I suppose. What we need is some hot sweet tea.’ ‘I thought that theory had been discredited,’ says Mrs Belcher. Discredited or not it sends Miss Frobisher streaking off to find a teabag, and also, it subsequently transpires, to telephone all and sundry in an effort to locate Geoffrey. He is in York taking part in the usual interdenominational conference on the role of the church in a hitherto uncolonised department of life, underfloor central heating possibly. He comes haring back thinking I’m at death’s door, and finding I’m not has nothing more constructive to offer than I take a nap.
    This gives the fan club the green light to invade the vicarage, making endless tea and the vicar his lunch and, as he puts it, ‘spoiling him rotten’. Since this also licenses them to conduct a fact-finding survey of all the housekeeping arrangements or absence of same (‘Where does she keep the Duroglit, Vicar?’), a good time is had by all. Meanwhile Emily Brontë is laid out on the sofa in a light doze.
    I come round to hear Geoffrey saying, ‘Mrs Shrubsole’s going now, darling.’ I don’t get up. I never even open my eyes. I just wave and say, ‘Goodbye, Mrs Shrubsole.’ Only thinking about it as I drift off again I think I may have said, ‘Goodbye, Mrs Subsoil.’ Anyway I meant the other. Shrubsoil.
    When I woke up it was dark and Geoffrey’d gone out. I couldn’t find a thing in the cupboard so I got the car out and drove into Leeds. I sat in the shop for a bit, not saying much. Then I felt a bit wanny and Mr Ramesh let me go into the back place to lie down. I must have dozed off because when I woke up Mr Ramesh has come in and started taking off his clothes. I said, ‘What are you doing? What about the shop?’ He said, ‘Do not worry about the shop. I have closed the shop.’ I said, ‘It’s only nine.You don’t close till eleven.’ ‘I do tonight,’ he said. I said, ‘What’s tonight?’ He said, ‘A chance in a million. A turn-up for the books. Will you take your clothes off please.’ And I did.

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    Come up on Susan sitting in