Jaspistos
Tata Ltd
In Competition No 2477 you were informed of a German firm that offers to say goodbye on your behalf to an unwanted friend or lover by telephone, letter or personal visit
In Competition No 2477 you were informed of a German firm that offers to say goodbye on your behalf to an unwanted friend or lover by telephone, letter or personal visit, and invited to describe one such operation from the viewpoint of either the victim or the messenger. If you look up Tata Ltd in the telephone directory you will find it, but beware: it is a huge conglomerate and may be puzzled by the service you require. The man you want is Herr Bernd Dressler, who no doubt has a niche on the internet. Sixty years ago I was in the unhappy position of being asked by a close female friend to meet my best chum at Paddington and tell him that a short-lived blaze was dead. Last year, for the first time, we three met again. My chum and I remembered the incident, but the lady didn’t. A sobering thought.
A disconcerting event. The doorbell rang and there was an odd-looking fellow on the mat. Couldn’t make him out through the spy-hole. No one I knew. Didn’t look like the usual sort I mix with — but not a salesman, I felt. Anyway, I let him in. He looked shifty and embarrassed, but somehow brassy at the same time. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘Am I speaking to Angela Broscati?’ (or some such). ‘Broschetti,’ I replied. ‘I’m Angela Broschetti.’ ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘will you please sit down.’ I obliged. ‘I’m from Tata Limited. Heard of us?’ ‘’Fraid not’, I said. ‘Basically it’s my painful duty to tell you that Graham Pastorson is terminating his friendship with you.’ You mean Patterson,’ I said. ‘Do I?’ he said. ‘Yes. Well, sod him!’ I said. ‘Shall I convey your feelings to him?’ he said. ‘I’ll do it myself,’ I replied. ‘He’s asleep in the next room.’
Well, you know Darren, he never did want to face the music, but this time, not a word of a lie, this bloke shows up on my doorstep while I’m whizzing up a smoothie for breakfast, not even dressed, and I’m like ‘Yeah?’ and he’s like er, um, so I say ‘Cat got your tongue?’ and he pulls out this script and he starts reading it and it’s only Darren dumping me. I mean he’d hired this bloke, this agency, to do the dumping, Darren probably thinks that is a class act but there is no way that it is a class act. So the bloke is going through all this palaver, dead self-conscious the way strippergrams and the like are, which starts me giggling and when I look at him I see he’s well fit so I say come in anyway and have a smoothie.
Although the customer had chosen our top-of-the-line Gold Star Sugar the Pill package, this service call was less than a success. The lady in question appeared to be of Mediterranean origin and to know only two words of English (‘bastard’ and ‘money’). We had received no forewarning of this from the customer. The expensive flowers and chocolates were trashed on the spot, and our eloquently worded letter of regret and everlasting affection was torn up unread before my eyes.
Turning off Colette was hard, because she knew no English.
‘Gnädige Frau,’ I remarked, as she opened her unfortunately peeling door, located in a dismal suburb of the north-eastern city of Gateshead, ‘I have come with a message from your canine companion, Holstein Pils, the dachshund. After his period of time in quarantine within the confines of Düsseldorf, where he has incarcerated been, an animal psychiatrist has completed all his notable assessments, and in consequence I bring you news that he has a neurotic aversion to his owner. You are Frau Armstrong, hein?’
He was easy to spot: ginger hair, thick specs, standing pensively at the edge of the playground. ‘Barnaby Bumstead?’ I said. He reddened. ‘I’ve a message from your best friend.’ Hope lit up his freckly face. ‘Bethany’s coming?’ he almost prayed. ‘My apologies,’ I explained, ‘I should clarify. I’ve a message from your former best friend. Essentially the message is goodbye. She couldn’t deliver it herself; too much like drowning a kitten apparently. I should take that as a compliment if I were you.’ He began to cry. ‘You have to see it from her point of view,’ I continued, ‘she’s almost eight now, time’s getting on, she needs to network more productively.’ His sobbing intensified. ‘But she’s my best friend!’ I shuffled impatiently. ‘I’m afraid lack of competition renders that accolade worthless.’ With the child inconsolable — and consolation outside my remit — my job was done. It’s seldom so easy.
No. 2480: Poor relation