The Crocodile in the Room

I forgot to tell you about my wonderful trip out with mum and dad a couple of days ago.  They took Oscar and I to one of their favourite antique hidey holes, an innovatively named antique shop in Heanor (Nottinghamshire), called Heanor Antiques.

I love foraging round junk shops, charity shops, flea markets and the like.  I think I must have been a pirate in a previous life, because I’m never happier than when I’m fossicking about looking for treasures.

Heanor Antiques is perfect for this.  It has five floors of stuff and things.  It is absolutely rammed to the rafters.  In some places, stuff and things hang from the rafters.  There is no order, no tidiness.  You find Dresden china sitting happily next to Typhoo tea mugs, Dan Brown novels next to the Gutenberg Bible.  You get the drift.  If you like a good rummage, it’s the place for you.

We had a fantastic time, and I resisted the urge to buy many things.  Coming home only with a modern figurine of an enormous fat lady with hair like a pooh.  She is ridiculous, but I love her, and every time I look at her on the shelf, she makes me smile.  I will provide pictures, eventually.

While we were there, we stumbled across a middle aged man, showing a rather old lady around. I presume they were mother and son, but I cannot be sure.  For the sake of narrative flow, I will continue with my assumption.

He was trying to point out various wonders to her, with great enthusiasm on his part, and very little to show for it on hers.  As I was listening he pointed to a stuffed crocodile, perched atop a classic G Plan dresser.  He said:

‘Look at that!’

‘What?’

‘That!’

‘The dresser? That’s not very good is it?’

‘No! Not the dresser. What’s on top of the dresser.’

‘What is on top of the dresser?’

‘Look!’

‘I can’t see what it is you’re talking about.’

The crocodile was about three feet long.  It drooped off each end of the dresser.  Even for someone short sighted it was fairly unmissable.

‘It’s a crocodile, isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’

‘Well. Yes. It is.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. It is a crocodile.’

‘Why?’

‘Why, what?’

‘Why is it?’

‘Because it is.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What?’

‘What you’re talking about.’

‘Look. It’s a crocodile, on top of the dresser.’

‘Is it real?’

‘What?’

‘The crocodile.’

‘Yes. It’s real.’

‘What’s it doing there, then?’

‘It’s stuffed, isn’t it?’

‘What?’

‘It’s stuffed!’

‘Why is it?’

‘Because it  just is.  It’s a stuffed crocodile.’

You could tell by this stage that he wished he had just never gone there in the first place.

She finished with an absolute hum dinger.

‘Is it good?’

‘Is what good?’

‘The crocodile.  Is it good?’

If he’d had any hair to pull out, he’d have been tearing it out by then.

I wanted desperately to follow them round the shop by this point.  I had already spied several other things that would be worthy of their Beckettian verbal jousting, including a ventriloquist’s dummy, a life sized stuffed fox in full on hunting mode, and some very eerie dolls.

Sadly, Oscar was trying to do something evil with the stock in another corner, and I was forced to move on, never to catch up with them again.  I shall go on my own next time, although I would take bets on the fact that he’s probably murdered her with a blunt crocodile and buried her in a G Plan dresser by now.

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