Grandad
Patches’ Bedtime Fables: Whelk Come.
Many years
ago, or so I have heard, my dears, there was a snail who lived with a whelk.
Now, your
actual whelk is a sea-faring kind of chap. Tempest tossed from hither to
thither until he puts his one good foot upon the rock and sticks. His shell is
a thing of wonder like a spiral cerebrum that twists, turns and falls in
thought like many a multi-colored helter skelter.
It is true
when he tells you that the sea fills his nooks, his crannies.
His
companion was a small brown snail called Barry Highland, who claimed some
affinity with The Gower, The Mumbles or something that was dreary in Wales and
mostly he would sit by Whelk’s rockpool and glower.
Barry
probably would have liked to have shared a meal or slept in a bed in Whelk’s
place, but salt disagreed with him and bought him out in rashes and boils – or
so he had been told. Barry wasn’t going to test it out, believe me.
Well, you
know, Barry didn’t want to get too salty in case it made him poorly – or even
worse – dead. If you let me explain, my dears, I’ll tell you. He’d probably
heard about salt and slugs and lettuce from Jones the Farm who lived near
Pontypridd.
While Barry
Highland was worrying about salt, his best mate Whelk would be thinking inside his shell, upon his rock, his
one good foot like a root, his mind a book and his sinews would sing with sea
shanties he had heard, memorized, committed to paper…until Barry interrupted
him.
“Hoy,
Whelk!” Barry would holler. “Watcha cock! I’ve just come from Jones the Window.
I’ve got some exciting news.” And he would slither as close to Whelk’s pool as
he dared, waving his upper tentacles to attract attention, and glower with his
eyes popped out on stalks, waiting for some response.
Mostly he
got none, especially at high tide.
Getting
huffy, Barry whipped out his mobile and snapped, “Yo, Siri, call Whelk.” He
would place it on a flat rock and stare at the screen as the contraption did
its dance, threw its shapes…and wait and wait and wait.
Finally,
because Whelk had not appeared or answered, Barry gave up. “Well, anyway, I’m
off on my travels, Whelk. Jones the Block has just come back from a magical
place where the mountains are very, very high indeed. I must see them. Travel
broadens the mind, don’t ya know? You should come.”
This
provoked no response from Whelk at all.
“Huh. Some best
mate you are, Whelk.” And with this final retort, Barry picked up his phone,
and, because he was a snail, made for those sugar mountains very, very slowly
indeed.
In truth, he
often wondered what Whelk looked like.
Anyway, when
he got to the mountains which were at the head of the valleys, Barry sat and
looked at them for a bit. After looking at them for a bit more, he chowed down
on some mountain shrubbery, took out his phone and snapped a few pictures.
There were a
few other tourists, he noted, scowling in his glowery sort of way. They were
blocking the scenery, taking photos, cropping at the mountain shrubbery,
slapping each other on the back, that sort of thing. There was a general air of
congratulations and smuggery.
“These
mountains are somewhat high,” opined a Woodlouse to his Earwig companion.
“Very high
indeed,” replied a nearby Cabbage, who had been growing there for some time,
and had always wanted to travel when she retired.
“I pity the
poor fools who don’t see these magnificent mounds,” a Cockroach chipped in.
“Should we climb them do you think?”
But cabbages
are somewhat challenged in the legs department, and, in any case, it was enough
to sit in wonder amongst the foothills. “No, but we’ll do some selfies.”
Barry licked
his lips. He was rather partial to humping a bit of cabbage, in truth. But he
decided to respect the culture and resist the urge.
He looked up
at the mountains instead. Jones the Tub had been right. They were well worth
the trip up the A470. Not wanting to be left out, he took his phone, snapped a
couple of selfies, then looked some more.
The
mountains looked back.
After about
five minutes, Barry thought he’d seen enough and started to puff his way back
to Whelk’s pool, followed part way by some other insects and grubs. It took a
while, maybe a month, because, as I’ve said before, Barry was a snail.
Still,
eventually he found his way back to the pool and edged up to Whelk as close as
he could without getting salty.
“Yo, dude,”
he cried, in a state of high excitement, “Yippety yay! I’ve returned from my
adventures. My mind is broadened. Have a look at my happy snaps.”
There was no
answer from Whelk.
“I wasn’t
the only one,” he continued, unabashed. “I met all manner of persons, all kinds
of cultures…there were earwigs, lice and a cabbage. You’re missing out, dude.”
Still no
answer.
“Hoy, mate!
What are you doing in there, anyway?”
But
somewhere deep inside, the roaring of the oncoming seas had filled Whelk’s
shell and it pounded through his ears, stung at his mind, whipped at his senses,
lashed his body with a delicious cold – he wrote, he dreamt, he played.
Barry
Highland’s mobile started to do whatever those things do – he stabbed at it and
listened intently, his eyes nearly falling from his stalks.
“Wowsers!
Near Merthyr Tydfill, you say?” He snapped his phone off in a state of high
excitement, then turned to his best mate. “Get this, Whelk. That was Jones the
Shrubber. There’s a very, very deep lake on the outskirts of Pencader. We must
go. He who travels is rich indeed.”
But, as
Whelk did not answer, Barry glowered, huffed and set off on his travels once
more.
When he got
there, after a month or two, he was irritated to see he was not alone, dear me
no.
As usual,
there were other tourists, lousing up the place, spoiling the view, dropping
litter, getting drunk on whatever was in the muddy puddles…he bristled as he
saw none other than Cabbage, Earwig and Cockroach themselves. How very dare
they steal his unique idea? At least there was no sign of Woodlouse.
“Hoy, get
out of the way,” shouted a large Parsnip, who had always wanted to travel, “I
can’t see the lake.”
“You get out
of the way,” retorted Barry. “This was my idea. I thought of it first.” And he
dodged a visiting bus load of bed bugs who had just disembarked from Rhymney
Valley.
“No you
didn’t,” replied Woodlouse, who was there after all, it seemed, “Jones the Snot
thought it up and phoned me. Now I need to take some selfies to prove I was
here.”
“Bastard,”
replied Barry Highland. “Your sort are always spoiling things for everybody.”
And do you know what? He punched Woodlouse in the snout. Luckily, however,
Snails are not renowned for being pugilists, and Woodlice have an armored
shell, so the only thing damaged was a bit of pride.
Yes, I
agree, dear, bastards is a rude word and we shouldn’t repeat it.
Anyway, that
was by no means the end of it. Earwig decided it was his turn to become
embroiled in the brouhaha: “I’ve always wanted to travel and by Jove, travel is
what I’m going to do, you, you…snail, you.”
“Well,
travel, then,“ replied Barry, angrily, shoving Earwig into the lake, then
regretting it because earwigs can’t swim and just floated round and round
waving his pincers in alarm, until a mocking heron fished him out and the lake
watched on sardonically.
Barry
Highland wasn’t waiting around to see what happened next. He stuck himself to
the mudguard of a passing bicycle and was out of there faster than you could
say ‘insecticide’.
When he got
back to Whelk’s pool and sidled up as close as was expedient, he’d had time to
think about his regrettable actions and, as there seemed to be no come back,
regretted nothing.
“Wotcha,
Whelk,” he shouted, and as usual there was no response.
But, because
nature abhors a vacuum, his phone went off. “Hello?” he grunted, after whipping
it out. It was Jones the Plop Plop. As he listened, Barry Highland’s mouth grew
longer and longer until his jaw – or at least the snail version of a jaw – hit the
deck.
“Shankers
jankers, did you hear that, Whelk?” he screamed. “There’s a castle cross the
channel atop a pearly promontory, where French druids were want to genuflect.
We must travel there immediately. Travel completes us, you know?”
“Must we?” answered
Whelk. “Why?”
Barry
Highland dropped his phone. It skittered boyishly upon the crinkled rocks
before dropping into Whelk’s pool with a splash and sinking with a sigh to the
bottom. “Whelk,” he spluttered, “it’s you.”
“Of course
it’s me, Snail, you silly billy. Now what have you been up to?”
“I’ve been
travelling, of course. It’s the done thing once you’re retired. You know how
people say we’ve always wanted to travel. See the sights.”
“Oh, Snail. If
you follow the herd to see the sights, you’ll never understand it’s the sights
that look into you, you foolish creature. Away with you to France, my friend. I’ve
heard they eat snails there.”
Barry
Highland drew himself up to his full height in indignation and anger at Whelk’s
mocking tone. “How dare you speak to me like that, you smug slugabed,” he
cried, “you never even come out of your shell.”
But Whelk
did not hear him. He was already back beneath the welcoming ocean, feeling the
salty water fill his shell and his mind with briny.
So, Barry
Highland packed his bags once more and set off for France, determined to prove
Whelk wrong. But do you know what? He never did come back to show those
selfies. In fact, I don’t think, my dears, that anybody ever heard of him
again. Outside of this story, of course.
