The Trouble with Pre

"Oh, enough to keep me from getting bored. And from your reaction earlier, I know that you've read the story too!"

Little, if anything, seemed to slip past her.

"Several times," I replied nonchalantly.

Her eyebrows lifted. "You sad bastard! It wasn't that good!"

"Charming! It didn't fare too badly. Anyway, I was proof-reading it."

"Ha! What, are you one of those volunteer editors?"

The others at the table, apart from Jerry who was still looking down at his plate and glowing gently, were following the conversation as though watching a match at Wimbledon. Julia decided that this would be a good moment to jump back in and 'clarify' things.

"Pixie, is this one of them smutty sites that I keep telling ma boyz not to go to?"

"Well, let's just say it's not an opera digest, so probably!" she said grinning. "And, anyway, Richard, you haven't answered my question."

"What?"

Her glare told me that she knew I was prevaricating. I dissembled, waiting for her to take a drink.

"No. I wrote it," I said in the best blasé tone I could muster.

The three faces opposite told quite different stories. Pixie was both spluttering on her mouthful of wine and laughing at the same time - not a happy combination for a face to have to cope with. Jerry had turned crimson with some shades of grey nervousness creeping in - a sort of facial sunset. Arthur had obviously come to some sort of conclusion, probably helped by Julia's rather dirty giggle (I warned you she was quick on the uptake), and raised a quizzical eyebrow. Since neither of the men sitting on either side of Pixie seemed able to help her out, Jack went round to pat her back, and to use his serviette to clean up the mess that she had made.

I grinned at her. At least when Julia had surprised me, I had managed to keep my mouth, and my nostrils, shut!

"Soooooo," Sian put forward into the silence that followed, "we appear to have an author in our midst. I don't think we've ever had that honour at dinner before."

The lack of any form of admiration in her look warned me about what was to come, so I decided to get in first.

"Well more writer than author," I said. "It was only a short story."

"And looking at your corduroy jacket, chinos and loafers, I bet it was a smutty one, wasn't it?" That evil gleam was back in her eye - although there was a small crinkle in her lips that I took to be the beginnings of a smile.

"Oh it was really quite fun," said Pixie. "Tell me Roberta, is your AmDram group like the one in Richard's story?"

"Like what? I've never read any stories about the play." Roberta clearly had no idea what the conversation was all about. Jerry's squirming, however, confirmed that he did.

"Well, how can I put this," Pixie mused. "In depth one-on-one dress rehearsals, dress optional, type of thing."

Roberta looked totally askance. "What do you mean?" She turned to me. "What's she going on about, Richard? I don't understand. Is she taking the mickey?"

"Pixie's being a bit naughty," I replied, glancing across the table with a warning glance. I had seen Roberta's wide and teary-eyed look and realised she was close to losing it. Compared to the other three women around the table, all of whom had smutty minds and a sense of devilment, Roberta was a total innocent. I decided to tone it down.

"Bertie, don't worry about it. It was all made up. It was just a fictional story about an Amateur Dramatic group that were more interested in swinging than acting."

"Swinging?..."

Oh God, how on earth did Sian and Jack end up inviting these two? Was Jerry threatening to expose where Jack's financial skeletons were buried? No wonder Sian had insisted on some protective cover. I looked across at Pixie.

"Don't look to me for help. You wrote it, you explain it," she said with a huge grin plastered across her face.

I swear that all women have the same sadistic streak in them as cats have. I knew then that I had been right all those years ago when, as a very young child, I thought that cats were the females and dogs were the males. Never mind any of that Mars and Venus bullshit!

"Let's just say, Bertie," I said with a sigh, hoping that using her preferred name would make the words more meaningful to her, "that if whoever is playing Trevor wants to do more than kiss, or suggests additional rehearsals away from the rest of your group, you just say 'No', OK?" I looked hard at her until she nodded her agreement. "Isn't that right, Jerry?"

Thankful that the conversation seemed to moving away from him, Jerry agreed wholeheartedly.

"And, Bertie," I continued, "I suggest that you never use the word swinging without referring to the seat you were sitting on at the time. Otherwise, you could find yourself in very deep water without a life belt!"

It was tempting to suggest that she read some of the stories on the web site that Jerry clearly could introduce her to. She would then understand the particular meaning of the word swinging that we had been referring to. Or would she? Best not to go there, I thought.

Arthur had also noticed how close to tears Roberta still was. He joined in, cooling the emotional temperature a bit more.

"Good advice, Richard, but don't worry about it, Roberta. It sounds as though Richard has rather a warped sense of humour, and likes taking things to extremes in his stories," he said across the table. "I'm sure the subject will never come up among your friends and your Drama Group, so just ignore these wind up merchants around you," he added smiling.

I saw Arthur put his hand on Pixie's arm as he mentioned extremes - by the way she was struggling to keep a serious look on her face, I am convinced she had been about to say something somewhat risqué. And indeed, she did confirm later, that she had been about to complain that it wasn't extreme enough in her view.

Arthur continued his cooling down session: you could understand from the way he empathised with Roberta that he was a very successful salesman.

"Even I know enough to know there's no singing in it, but we should try and go, shouldn't we Julia?"

Julia surprised us all by immediately agreeing. "Oooh, yes! Great idea, luvva. It'll be fun. We should make up a group. Sian and Jack and Pixie and Richard would love to come, wouldn't they? Pixie can give a pre-show talk on what to expect of the play, and Richard can add a bit about the characters, can't you Richard?" She fluttered her eyelashes at me, grinning all the time. I swear she was purring! There's a damn good reason that female cats are called Queens: there were three Queens of Devilment sitting round the dining table.

Roberta looked aghast. "But the tickets haven't gone on sale yet: they won't for another two weeks."

Jack entered the fray: "We'll just have to pre-book, won't we? You've got a website, haven't you?"

"I don't know, "Roberta replied. "The Front of House people deal with all of that - I just know that we can't get any tickets ourselves yet. And what do you mean by 'pre-book'? I've never heard of it?"

"It's some sort of bollocks dreamt up by marketing people," I said. "It doesn't get you anything special, just gets your name on to some bloody mailing list, so that they can inundate you with spam and junk mail.

"It's to con you into thinking you have some sort of priority over anyone else. I'm sure it's just to appeal to peoples' egos - make them think they have one over on everyone else." I was on a roll. "And, if you're dumb enough to give your phone number, so that 'We'll be able to call you and let you know when booking is open', all that will happen is that, one after the other, several dickwads with very dodgy foreign accents will call you, claiming to be from Microsoft Windows Technical Support, telling you that you have a problem with your PC." I paused to take breath.

"I bet they don't stoop to that 'pre-booking' rubbish at Glyndebourne, do they, Julia?" I asked.

"Don' fink, so. We're members, so I know booking opens earlier for us - but I always has a note on my calendar when and what to apply for."

"There you are. It's only those shows that keep advertising their tickets on radio or television that insistent on this 'pre-book now for our performance in December 2025' crap. "

"Seems to get you rather hot under the collar, Richard," Sian joined in with a smile. I think she was still trying to get at me about the subject matter of my writing. "What don't you like about it? The word or the activity? Seems fine to me." It wasn't a smile, it was a great big wind-up grin. Bloody Queen!

And I knew it was a wind-up, but it still gets my goat. "Well, you can still enter all sorts of idiotic information when applying for anything on the web, so it's not really the activity that I don't like. It's the bloody word. What the fuck does it mean? What's wrong with just 'book'? Doesn't that already have a future implication to it? What's 'pre-' got to do with it?

"Anyway, it's all Arthur's fault!"

"Mine?" he spluttered.

"Well, OK, maybe not yours directly, but your industry."

"How so?"

"Right. What's the name of your company?" I asked him.

"Telhampton Car Sales."

"And do you sell any new cars?"

"No."

"OK. So how many of the advertising banners, or posters, or window notices do you have around your showrooms and outside among the case have the word 'Used' on them?"

"Err... I don't really know."

"You're hedging!" I replied. "Alright, I'll make it easier for you. Do any of those advertising posters or slogans have the word 'Pre-Owned' on them?"

"Well, may be a few of them," he muttered.

"Oh bollocks, Arthur. When I was growing up, every town had a 'Used Car Sales' place with advertising boards saying just that. Hell, my town had three of them! Now, the signs all advertise 'Preowned Cars' - what's more, you don't even see the '1 Careful Owner' plastered across the windscreen anymore!

"'Used' is a dirty word. Everything is 'Pre-Owned' and it's everywhere. Computer game shops are worse! I don't think they even know how to spell 'Used'. Jesus, in Retail, the U-word is even more offensive than the C-word!" I could feel my face getting red. As you might have guessed, I have strong feelings about the prefix 'pre-' (and, yes, I know that the word 'prefix' also has the prefix 'pre', but we won't go down that particular etymological avenue!)

"Good grief! Animation!" Sian cried out, and Jack started to applaud. "So there is still some blood coursing through those cynical old arteries of yours," Sian continued. "Lazarus has returned from the dead." This time, there was a genuine smile in her eyes as she raised her glass in my direction.

Of course, no one else around the table had the slightest idea of what she was really referring to, and I think they were all still a little bit shell-shocked by my vehemence. Except, of course, the person opposite me who immediately bounced back in.

"No, Sian", Pixie drawled. "You've got it wrong. As Richard said, 'pre-' is everywhere these days. I think you'll find that the new expression is 'pre-lived' not 'dead', isn't it Richard? I mean, it's just so much more up-to-date than these fuddy-duddy old words that have been around for centuries. Don't you agree, Richard?"

Queen of Devilment, did I describe her as earlier? Ha! I swear those sharp little ears had turned into little red horns! Devilment Incarnate, that's what she was - and knew it!

"And I bet you really love it when someone is described as passing rather than dying, don't you?" she continued, with a huge grin that went from horn to horn.

"I do so hope that forked tail of yours is making you really, really uncomfortable," I replied, laughing myself. "Jack, you do know that it's going to be very difficult repairing the pitch fork marks in her seat don't you? Or maybe you should just get a special 'Pixie' chair with a groove in it so she can rest her tail in it and not sit there squirming all the time!"

"Don't you dare get me involved," he laughed. "I'm not taking sides - it's bad enough with Arthur giving me stick every week-end on the golf course: I don't need any more of it from either of you two! You're unattached, you deserve each other. Richard's a divorcee, and you're a widow, what's stopping you two getting together and taking it out on each other?"

Old philosophers claimed that the air was really an aether through which everything flowed. The only thing that flowed through the aether in this room was pure, unadulterated mischief.

"Leave the rest of us out of it!" he sniggered.

Pixie beat me to an answer.

"Now, there are another two other words that need updating. They're so politically incorrect: widow and widower; divorcee, do you spell it with one or two final 'e's depending on the sex. They're sex indicative, we can't have that! In these days of a Chairperson, we have to have something gender neutral...

"How about Pre-Married? It covers divorce and death, it applies equally to both sexes - perfect! In fact, if you think about it, you can get rid of fiancé as well - that's gender indicative too. I mean, when you're engaged you're in the state before marriage, so you're premarried.

"It's brilliant, we've got rid of 6 non-PC words from the language and ended up with three simple descriptions: premarried, married and pre-married. Never mind the comma," she added, grinning at me, "just find the hyphen! Richard can write a story about it!"

What could I say! Game, set and match to the Empress of Devilment!

EPILOGUE

Yes, it was a set-up by Sian and Jack, despite all of their fervent denials, and yes, Pixie and I did end up together. Did I write that story? Well, the story about how it came about is before you: we're still researching the sequel, but whether it ends up on the web has yet to be determined.

~--~--~--~--~

End Note

I couldn't find an obvious way of working Tom Lehrer into this one - apart from one very contrived reference. I'll try harder next time!