What Peebee Did Next

Yep. Been over a year since I posted anything.

Seems about right.

Anyway - last night I performed at 'Tall Tales' - a night of stories and such at 'The Good Ship' in Kilburn.

This is the story that I read - for you to read you no actual cost.*

*Cost of time will occur.

Enjoy!

What Peebee Did Next

Peter Binkleman, ‘Peebee’ to his friends, and the more grown up members of his family, ‘Binko’ to his colleagues at Binkleman’s Toys, apart from those on the factory floor who called him ‘Mr. Binko’, or sometimes ‘Sir Bink’.

Nordberg, the extremely formal middle-aged Swede who drove Peter, and also took care of a lot of the day to day running of the house in Specksham called him ‘Mr Binkleman’. Nordberg once attempted a ‘Peebee’ but found the informality to be so distressing that he had to spent three days in a bed and breakfast in Edinburgh to get over it. The bed and breakfast in question has a notoriously formal landlady who once ejected a guest for starch reasons.

His children - Ivor, Douglas and Esme called him ‘Poppa’, and his wife Emily, for reasons long forgotten called him simply ‘Oscar’.

I shall call him Peebee.

Peebee was the loveliest man you could ever hope to meet. He couldn’t help it. There was something in his make up that made it impossible for him to be disliked. And several people tried very hard to dislike him, only to fail miserably and then be invited round for Christmas.

His children adored him, and believed for many years that he was in possession of magical powers, for when they were with him, they could feel their hearts bursting from their chests with joy, and he hadn’t even given them sweets, or horsey-rides, or let them stay up late. His wife Emily did not think Peebee possessed magical powers; She knew it. But not the magic of fairy stories. Real magic. The magic that made her sadness go away, and everything all right. The magic of mummy kissing it better, but at a thousand times the strength. The magic of just the right patch of dappled shade and and the last page of an excellent book. The magic of a perfect yorkshire pudding, or a particularly fascinating rockpool. He was the sun of the household, and the rest of them were blissfully happy satellites.

He would have loved you too, you know. And you would have loved him back. And when your birthday came around he would have given you the most perfect gift. Try to think now of what would be the most amazing thing for someone to give you. Think of it now. Go on. Imagine opening it. And seeing it there. Well - he wouldn’t have given you that. When you opened the haphazardly wrapped parcel from ‘Your friend, Peebee’ you’d discover that there was something else you wanted. Something else you didn’t even know about . Something that made you smile for the rest of the week and kept forever.

Peebee’s house was a house that groaned with joy.

And when his heart stopped beating the morning before his fiftieth birthday, the joy was instantly replaced with emptiness, and an impenetrable grey fog. The world had caved in and left the family without their sun. So darkness fell.

The funeral was predictably well attended. Nordberg wailed so hard throughout the service that he had to be removed from the church, but his Scandinavian laments could be heard even over the choir. The family remained silent thoughout. Unable even to grieve. Unable to accept their loss. At the end of the service, in a touch of posthumous generosity, Peebee made sure that everyone took away a little present. Nothing ostentatious - a handsome pocket knife, or silver plated napkin ring, that sort of thing.

Days later, Emily, Ivor, Douglas and Esme made a discovery. That they would never recover from the loss of their beloved Peebee. They knew that the happiest section of their lives was over, never to return. The thought of never seeing him again was too much to bear.

But they did see him again. The following thursday. When he arrived at the house. He had been stuffed by a taxidermist in Pilthorp who had done an excellent job. Standing his full five feet eleven inches tall, with one hand in his pocket, one hand holding a crystal tumbler, and an expression of glassy benevolence was Peebee. Accompanying him was his solicitor from Tackett Tackett Hedgeworth Shander and Prigg. Peebee’s last will and testament was very specific in its peculiarities. And the exhumation, preservation and taxidermation of his body was just the beginning.

The family were under strict instructions to keep Peebee in whatever room they were in. Facing them.

Stunned, upset and horrified the family did what they were told. They sat that night in the drawing room, staring at the late Peter Binkleman not knowing what to think.

They were further surprised to discover that the munificent cadaver, once filled with laughter and light, now with a mixture of polyester resin, sawdust and plaster, also contained a surprisingly effective loudspeaker, fitted in the late Peebee’s throat.

It sprang into action a few hours after delivery of the body, and then would activate every seven and a half minutes. It seemed that Peebee had recorded some special messages for his family. Three in total. In rotation. Every seven and a half minutes.

“I’m still here!” He would bellow. And just four hundred and fifty seconds later : “Scotch Please”, and finally and most irritatingly “I’m sorry, would you say that again, Darling”. After which, whoever had last spoken was under strict instructions to repeat, loudly, and to the ear of the carcass whatever it was they had just said.

“We must do it”, the family insisted. “If it’s what he wanted, then we must do it. He did so much for us.”.

And so they did what Peebee wanted. There he would stand, demanding scotch and attention at all hours of the day and night. They took turns in keeping Peebee in their bedrooms at night, watching over them, demanding to hear things again, his rictus grin always finding a patch of moonlight to be illuminated in.

For the family the grief turned to horror and frustration.

Several weeks later, one of the house cats attacked Peebee, after his sixteenth request for scotch since breakfast. The normally placid Persian, a sweet tempered little thing called Orpheus, went for Peebee in a terrifying way, scratching at first his trousers, then his arms, and finally, in a surprising display of athletic prowess hitherto unseen, his smiling face.

Emily, Douglas, Ivor and Esme all swore they were just about to call her off, but were expecting one of the others to, hence their hesitation.

What was left of Peebee was not a pretty sight, and they universally agreed that wishes or no wishes, Peebee should be buried again, never to return. This was swiftly arranged, and they felt no need to alert the good men of Tackett Tackett Hedgeworth Shander and Prigg.

After the extremely quiet second burial of Peebee, things got back to normal in the house in Specksham. Houseguests were invited, the garden opened for the summer, and Orpheus was given a new and extremely comfortable bed.

Peebee’s final act of generosity was a triumph.

Emily, Ivor, Douglas and Esme didn’t miss him anymore.