Picture a man, pleasant, quietly spoken, of middle-age and average build. Add a good head of dark hair tinged with silver at the temples, a ready smile and dressed as becomes of man of quality, if not of wealth, and you have a man whom many women wish to take into their arms and cuddle to bits.
I know such a man. Ben Norwood is his name.
I know too, that he's unaware of the qualities he embodies. He appreciates the few women in his small circle of friends. They live some distance away and, cluttered as they are with family concerns of their own, seldom get under his feet. His understanding daughters love him and keep an eye on him since the death of Susan, his wife, some six months back.
Glenda Thorpe, an admirer, appears at Ben's door quite often these days. He's still at the vague, penny-hasn't dropped stage and you can be sure that Glenda is neither treading carefully nor is easily put off. As his friend and neighbour she says she has no ulterior motive in visiting him round the corner, it's just that his delightful ways have grown on her.
After visiting long enough recently to allow her perfume to linger, Glenda departed, Ben promising to call at her place around 10.30 the following morning with some things of Susan's gathered together by his daughters for the Salvation Army. The fine weather after four days of late winter rain helped as he appeared at her front door with some colour in his cheeks and was soon seated at the table enjoying the assortment of Glenda-made encouragers. The enticing smell which greeted him just before he entered was a pre-emptive strike on Glenda's part, making sure the savouries came out of the oven as he'd turned the corner. A pleasantly satisfied tummy would help things along she thought. You know she was right.
That was a few months back now. They're not exactly going steady, but the relationship is building, Glenda quietly purring to herself that she’d been successful in encouraging him to spend more time at the local library. It got him out of the house and into circulation again. Italy, in the travel section took his interest; she had a relation who'd come from there and probably accounted for her delightful come-on looks. Ben's mind hadn't progressed that far but he was humming Italian tunes he'd heard her singing and it was to that section he gravitated.
A few weeks later, Ben's mind was proceeding in the Glenda induced direction but still at the unset jelly stage. The cost of a holiday for two according to some travel brochures he’d picked up was well within his reach. Glenda knew, she had the very same holiday brochures, with close friends in the local travel agencies there wasn't much going on in the affairs of the town she didn't know about, and I mean that in the kindest possible way. She is altogether a warm hearted and warm-bosomed woman, which I'm assured by those in the know, do go together nicely.
Then something chanced along that threw a spanner in the works. Isn't that typical? Where do all these ‘somethings’ and ‘spanners’ come from? Ben found this 'something' tucked between the pages of a book in the travel section. He'd worked along from things Al Fresco to Dolce Vita when he found the book in question. It had slipped or been pushed behind the others. Travels in Italy, by Cicerone, was not attractive on the outside. It was not attractive when opened and had been taken out only three times since its accession date, yet it gave evidence of more handling than that. He was about to pop it back into place when the something slipped out into his hand, an envelope of clear plastic containing a quantity of white powder. Ben whispered something then that would have warmed Glenda's heart. Just the two words: 'Mama mia', but in the most convincing of Italian accents. In plain English they meant: ‘Bloody hell,’ or in the dawn of millennium lingo: ‘Bugger me.’
Now while Ben might have been something of a push-over for the Glendas of this world, and he was, he still had the correct number of marbles. He slipped the envelope back into the book and the book back into place and left as if nothing untoward had happened. The local police were amused at his story, they had an exercise book full of such; it helped keep them sane when the going got tough. Ben persisted. They grew less amused and showed him the door. Checking the government departments in the phone book he found and rang the local superintendent, who sounded only mildly interested. His immediate superior who was into amateur dramatics and cross-dressing didn't fool Ben either. A chief inspector's ear at divisional HQ was next in line. He sounded tight-lipped as if prone to haemorrhoids but things got moving after Ben hinted that his next call would be to the media with the tape of all the calls he'd recorded thus far.
Glenda's nose was out of joint for a day or two when he declined her offer to go fishing with him, he was fishing for a more interesting catch. He'd left the gear with his best mate Ted and took a round-about route down to the nearby city where he paid a visit to the Police HQ there. He was greeted by a nondescript person of indeterminate gender with voice to match, and was shown into a small room on the fifth floor. At this point, Ben had a feeling that a small cog in his brain had slipped into gear, upgrading his brain power so that his thinking was sharp and crystal clear. The wall in front of him contained a two-way mirror and knew he was being observed but his body language said nothing.
Enter nondescript number two followed by a uniformed person introduced as a chief inspector CIB, his identity tag with photograph whisked away with a well-practised flourish, leaving Ben no wiser as to who the chappie was. However he sat up and began to take notice as Ben outlined how he found the small packet of white powder in the library.
In the flurry of activity which followed, Ben mentioned his holiday plans and was co-opted onto the investigating team set up that very day. It seemed his personality made him a natural when it came to fitting into the background, to observe and report. They drew the line at Glenda though. She had a few connections too many.
The following day seated in the rear of an unmarked police car with a uniformed driver they headed for the airport and the plane that would take him to Italy within a couple of hours. He knew he was going to enjoy the next round in the game of playing silly beggars, and the broadening of Ben Norwood’s mind was underway, with a flourish.
Dennis Crompton © 1998
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)
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