My Uncle Oswald Read online

  'Were you frightened?' I asked.

  'Terrified,' A. R. Woresley said. 'I am a quiet man, Cornelius. I lead a quiet life. I am not cut out for escapades like this. Every second I expected to see his Lordship's bailiff coming running towards us with a shotgun in his hands. But I forced myself to keep going because this thing we were doing was in the cause of science. Also, I had an obligation to my brother. He had helped me greatly. Now I must help him.'

  The pipe had gone out. A. R. Woresley began to refill it from a tin of cheap tobacco.

  'Go on,' I said.

  'The bull must have heard our cow calling to him. "There he is!" my brother cried. "Here he comes!"

  'A massive white and black creature had detached himself from the herd and was trotting our way. He had a pair of short sharp horns on his head. Lethal, they looked. "Get ready!" my brother snapped. "He won't wait! He'll go right at her! Give me the rubber bag! Quick!" '

  'What rubber bag?' I said to Woresley.

  'The semen collector, my dear boy. My own invention, an elongated bag with thick rubber lips, a kind of false vagina. Very effective too. But let me go on.'

  'Go on,' I said.

  ' "Where's the bag?" my brother shouted. "Hurry up, man!" I was carrying the thing in a knapsack. I got it out and handed it to my brother. He took up his station near the cow's rear and to one side. I stood on the other side, ready to do my bit. I was so frightened, Cornelius, I was sweating all over and I kept wanting to urinate. I was frightened of the bull and I was frightened of that light in the window of Somerton Hall behind me, but I stood my ground.

  'The bull came trotting up, snorting and dribbling. I could see a brass ring in his nose, and by God, Cornelius, he was a dangerous-looking brute. He didn't hesitate. He knew his business. He took one sniff at our cow, then he reared up and thrust his front legs onto the cow's back. I crouched alongside him. His pizzle was coming out now. He had a gigantic scrotum and just above it this incredible pizzle was getting longer and longer. It was like a telescope. It started quite short and very quickly it got longer and longer until it was as long as my arm. But not very thick. About as thick as a walking-stick, I'd say. I made a grab for it but in my excitement I missed it. "Quick!" my brother said. "Where is it? Get hold of it quick!" But it was too late. The old bull was an expert marksman. He'd hit the target first time and the end of his pizzle was already inside the cow. It was halfway in. "Get it!" my brother shouted. I grabbed for it again. There was still quite a bit of it showing. I got both hands on it and pulled. It was alive and throbbing and slightly slimy. It was like pulling on a snake. The bull was thrusting it in and I was pulling it out. I pulled so hard on it I felt it bend. But I kept my head and started synchronizing my pulls with the animal's backward movements. Do you see what I mean? He would thrust forward, then he would have to arch his back before going forward again. Each time he arched his back, I gave a pull and gained a few inches. Then the bull thrust forward and in it went once more. But I was gaining on him and in the end, using both hands, I managed to bend it almost double and flip it out. The end of it whacked me across the cheek. That hurt. But quickly I jammed it into the bag my brother was holding. The bull was still bashing away. He was totally absorbed in his work. Thank God he was. He didn't even seem to be aware of our presence. But the pizzle was in the bag now and my brother was holding it and in less than a minute it was all over. The bull lurched backwards off the cow. And then suddenly he saw us. He stood there staring at us. He seemed a bit perplexed and who could blame him. He gave a deep bellow and started pawing the ground with his front legs. He was going to charge. But my brother, who knew about bulls, walked straight up to him and slapped him across the nose. "Git away!" he said. The bull turned and ambled back toward the herd. We hurried out through the gate, closing it behind us. I took the rubber bag from my brother and jumped on to the bicycle and rode hell for leather back to the farm. I made it in fifteen minutes.

  'At the farm I had everything ready. I scooped out the bull's semen from the bag and mixed it with my special solution of milk, egg yolk and glycerol. I filled two hundred and fifty of my little rubber straws with half a cc each. This was not as difficult as it sounds. I always have the straws lined up in rows on a metal rack and I use an eye-dropper. I transferred the rack of filled straws onto ice for half an hour. Then I lifted it into a container of nitrogen vapour for ten minutes. Finally, I lowered it into a second vacuum container of liquid nitrogen. The whole process was finished before my brother arrived back with the cow. I now had enough semen from a prize Friesian bull to fertilize two hundred and fifty cows. At least I hoped I had.'

  'Did it work?' I asked.

  'It worked fantastically,' A. R. Woresley said. 'The following year my brother's Hereford cattle began producing calves that were one-half Friesian. I had taught him how to do the hypodermic insemination himself, and I left the canister of frozen "straws" with him on the farm. Today, my dear Cornelius, three years later, nearly every cow in his herd is a cross between a Hereford and a prize Friesian. His milk yield is up by something like sixty per cent and he has sold his bull. The only trouble is that he's running out of straws. He wants me to go with him on another of those dangerous journeys to Lord Somerton's bull. Quite frankly, I dread it.'

  'I'll go,' I said. 'I'll take your place.'

  'You wouldn't know what to do.'

  'Just grab the old pizzle and bung it in the bag,' I said. 'You can be waiting back at the farm all ready to freeze the semen.'

  'Can you manage a bicycle?'

  'I'll take my car,' I said. 'Twice as quick.'

  I had just bought a brand new Continental Morris Cowley, a machine superior in every way to the 1912 De Dion of my Paris days. The body was chocolate brown. The upholstery was leather. It had nickel fittings, mahogany cappings and a driver's door. I was very proud of it. 'I'll get the semen back to you in no time,' I said.

  'What a splendid idea,' he said. 'Would you really do that for me, Cornelius?'

  'I'd love to,' I said.

  I left him soon after that and drove back to Trinity. My brain was humming with all the things A. R. Woresley had told me. There was little doubt he had made a tremendous discovery, and when he published his findings he would be hailed all over the world as a great man. He was probably a genius.

  But that didn't bother me one way or the other. What did concern me was this: how could I myself make a million pounds out of it all? I had no objection to A. R. Woresley getting rich at the same time. He deserved it. But yours truly came first. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that there was a fortune waiting for me just around the corner. But I doubted it was from bulls and cows.

  I lay awake in bed that night and applied my mind assiduously to this problem. I may seem, to a reader of these diaries, like a pretty casual sort of fellow where most things are concerned, but I promise you that when my own most important interests are at stake I am capable of some very concentrated thinking. Somewhere around midnight an idea came to me and began whizzing around in my head. It appealed to me at once, this idea, for the simple reason that it involved the two things in life that I found most entertaining - seduction and copulation. It appealed to me even more when I realized that it involved a tremendous amount of seduction and copulation.

  I got out of bed and put on my dressing-gown. I began making notes. I examined the problems that would arise. I thought up ways of overcoming them. And at the end of it all I came to the very definite conclusion that the scheme would work. It was bound to work.

  There was only one snag. A. R. Woresley had to be persuaded to go along with it.

  8

  The next day, I sought him out in college and invited him to dine with me that evening.

  'I never dine out,' he said. 'My sister expects me home for dinner.'

  'It's business,' I said. 'It's your whole future. Tell her it's vital, which it is. I am about to make you a rich man.' Eventually he agreed to come.

  At sev
en p.m., I took him to the Blue Boar in Trinity Street and I ordered for both of us. A dozen oysters each and a bottle of Clos Vougeot Blanc, a very rare wine. Then a dish of roast beef and a good Volnay.

  'I must say you do yourself well, Cornelius,' he said.

  'I wouldn't do myself any other way,' I told him. 'You do like oysters, don't you?'

  'Very much.'

  A man opened the oysters at the bar of the restaurant and we watched him doing it. They were Colchesters, medium sized, plump. A waiter brought them to us. The wine-waiter opened the Clos Vougeot Blanc. We began the meal.

  'I see you are chewing your oysters,' I said.

  'What do you expect me to do?'

  'Swallow them whole.'

  'That's ridiculous.'

  'On the contrary,' I said. 'When eating oysters, the primary pleasure comes from the sensation you get as they slide down your throat.'

  'I can't believe that.'

  'And then again, the knowledge that they are actually alive as you swallow them adds enormously to that pleasure.'

  'I prefer not to think about it.'

  'Oh, but you must. If you concentrate hard enough, you can sometimes feel the living oyster wriggling in your stomach.'

  A. R. Woresley's nicotine moustache began twitching about. It looked like a bristly nervous little animal clinging to his upper lip.

  'If you examine very closely a certain part of the oyster,' I said, 'just here... you can see a tiny pulse beating. There it is. D'you see it? And when you stick your fork in... like this... the flesh moves. It makes a shrinking movement. It does the same if you squeeze lemon juice on to it. Oysters don't like lemon juice. They don't like forks being stuck into them either. They shrink away. The flesh quivers. I shall now swallow this one... isn't he a beauty?... There, down he goes... and now I shall sit very still for a few seconds so as to experience the sensation of him moving about gently in my stomach...'

  The little bristly brown animal on A. R. Woresley's upper lip began jumping around more than ever and his cheeks had become visibly paler. Slowly, he pushed his plate of oysters to one side.

  'I'll get you some smoked salmon.'

  'Thank you.'

  I ordered the salmon and took the rest of his oysters on to my plate. He watched me eating them as he waited for the waiter to bring the salmon. He was silent now, subdued, and this was how I wanted him to be. Dash it, the man was twice my age, and all I was trying to do was to soften him up a trifle before dumping my big proposition in his lap. I simply had to soften him up first and try to dominate him if I was to have the slightest chance of getting him to go along with my plan. I decided to soften him up a bit more. 'Did I ever tell you about my old nanny?' I asked.

  'I thought we came here to talk about my discovery,' he said. The waiter put a plate of smoked salmon in front of him. 'Ah,' he said. 'That looks good.'

  'When I went away to boarding-school at the age of nine,' I said, 'my dear old nanny was pensioned off by my parents. They bought her a small cottage in the country and there she lived. She was about eighty-five and a marvellously tough old bird. She never complained about anything. But one day, when my mother went down to see her, she found her looking very ill. She questioned her closely and nanny at last admitted that she had the most awful pains in her stomach. Had she had them for long, my mother asked her. Well, as a matter of fact, yes, she had had pains in her stomach, she finally admitted, for many years. But never as bad as they were now. My mother got a doctor. The doctor sent her to hospital. They X-rayed her and the X-ray showed something quite unusual. There were two smallish opaque objects about three inches apart in the middle of her stomach. They looked like transparent marbles. Nobody at the hospital had any idea what these two objects might be, so it was decided to perform an exploratory operation.'

  'I hope this is not another of your unpleasant anecdotes,' A. R. Woresley said, chewing his salmon.

  'It's fascinating,' I said. 'It'll interest you enormously.'

  'Go on, then.'

  'When the surgeon opened her up,' I said, 'what do you think he found these two round objects to be?'

  'I haven't the faintest idea.'

  'They were eyes.'

  'What do you mean, eyes?'

  'The surgeon found himself staring straight into a pair of alert unblinking round eyes. And the eyes were staring back at him.'

  'Ridiculous.'

  'Not at all,' I said. 'And who did they belong to, those eyes?'

  'Who?'

  'They belonged to a rather large octopus.'

  'You're being facetious.'

  'It's the gospel truth. This enormous octopus was actually living in dear old nanny's stomach as a parasite. It was sharing her food, eating well...'

  'I think that'll do, Cornelius.'

  'And all of its eight beastly tentacles were twined inextricably around her liver and lights. They couldn't untangle them. She died on the table.'

  A. R. Woresley had stopped chewing his salmon.

  'Now what's so interesting about all this is how the octopus got there in the first place. I mean after all, how does an old lady come to find herself with a fully grown octopus in her stomach? It was far too big to have gone down her throat. It was like the problem of the ship in the bottle. How on earth did it get in?'

  'I prefer not to know,' A. R. Woresley said.

  'I'll tell you how,' I said. 'Every summer, my parents used to take nanny and me to Beaulieu, in the South of France. And twice a day we used to go swimming in the sea. So obviously what happened was that nanny, many years before, must have swallowed a tiny new-born octopus, and this little creature had somehow managed to fasten itself on to the wall of her stomach with its suckers. Nanny ate well, so the little octopus ate well. Nanny always ate with the family. Sometimes it would be liver and bacon for dinner, sometimes roast lamb or pork. And believe it or not, she was particularly fond of smoked salmon.'

  A. R. Woresley put down his fork. There was one thin slice of salmon left on his plate. He let it stay there.

  'So the little octopus grew and grew. It became a gourmet octopus. I can just see it, can't you, down there in the dark caverns of the tummy, saying to itself, "Now I wonder what we're going to have for supper tonight. I do hope it's coq au vin. I feel like a bit of coq au vin tonight. And some crusty bread to go with it."'

  'You have an unsavoury predilection for the obscene, Cornelius.'

  'That case made medical history,' I said.

  'I find it repugnant,' A. R. Woresley said.

  'I'm sorry about that. I'm only trying to make conversation.'

  'I didn't come here just to make conversation.'

  'I'm going to turn you into a rich man,' I said.

  'Then get on with it and tell me how.'

  'I thought I'd leave that until the port is on the table. No good plans are ever made without a bottle of port.'

  'Have you had enough, sir,' the waiter asked him, eyeing the rest of the smoked salmon.

  'Take it away,' A. R. Woresley said.

  We sat in silence for a while. The waiter brought the roast beef. The Volnay was opened. This was the month of March so we had roast parsnips with our beef as well as roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. A. R. Woresley perked up a bit when he saw the beef. He drew his chair closer to the table and began to tuck in.

  'Did you know my father was a keen student of naval history?' I asked.

  'No, I didn't.'

  'He told me a stirring story once,' I said, 'about the English captain who was mortally wounded on the deck of his ship in the American War of Independence. Would you like some horseradish with your beef?'

  'Yes, I would.'

  'Waiter,' I called, 'bring us a little fresh shredded horseradish. Now, as he lay dying, the captain...'

  'Cornelius,' A. R. Woresley said, 'I have had enough of your stories.'

  'This isn't my story. It's my father's. It's not like the others. You'll love it.'

  He was attacking his roast beef an
d didn't answer.

  'So as he lay dying,' I said, 'the captain extracted from his second-in-command a promise that his body would be taken home and buried in English soil. This created a bit of a problem because the ship was somewhere off the coast of Virginia at the time. It would take at least five weeks to sail back to Britain. So it was decided that the only way to get the body home in fair condition was to pickle it in a barrel of rum, and this was done. The barrel was lashed to the foremast and the ship set sail for England. Five weeks later, she dropped anchor in Plymouth Hoe, and the entire ship's company was lined up to pay a last tribute to their captain as his body was lifted from the barrel into a coffin. But when the lid of the barrel was prised off, there came out a stench so appalling that strong men were seen rushing to the ship's rail. Others fainted.

  'Now this was a puzzler, for one can normally pickle anything in navy rum. So why, oh why the appalling stench? You may well ask that question.'

  'I don't ask it,' A. R. Woresley snapped. His moustache was jumping about more than ever now.

  'Let me tell you what had happened.'

  'Don't.'

  'I must,' I said. 'During the long voyage, some of the sailors had surreptitiously drilled a hole in the bottom of the barrel and had put a bung in it. Then over the weeks, they had drunk up all the rum.'

  A. R. Woresley said nothing. He was not looking at all well.

  ' "Finest rum I ever tasted," one of the sailors was heard to remark afterwards. Now what shall we have for dessert?'

  'No dessert,' A. R. Woresley said.

  I ordered the best bottle of port in the house and some Stilton cheese. There was absolute silence between us as we waited for the port to be decanted. It was a Cockburn and a good one, though I've forgotten the year.

  The port was served and the splendid crumbly green Stilton was on our plates. 'Now,' I said, 'let me tell you how I am going to make you a million pounds.'

  He was watchful and a shade truculent now, but he was not aggressive. He was definitely softened up.

  9

  'You are virtually broke,' I said. 'You have crippling mortgage interest to pay. You have a meagre salary from the university. You have no savings. You live, if you'll forgive me for saying so, on slops.'

  'We live very well.'