Take That!

The day I saw Ingrid Bergman in Hunter’s “Waters of the Moon” turned out to be memorable indeed. Now I’m no Stage Door Johnny, but after the play I was wandering past the side door of the Theatre Royal when she appeared, fur-clad, about to alight into her limousine. She stopped when she saw me – I was dressed as one of the Three Musketeers at the time (don’t ask me which one) and thereby attracted her attention. Being Swedish by birth, she offered me a pickled herring. I of course refused this and informed her that being a vegan, anything other than a fried radish would be anathema to me. This appeared to disconcert the Hollywood beauty – but after a brief moment she threw back her still beautiful head and roared a guttural laugh that seemed to echo back to the pine forests of the frozen north.

In another moment, she was gone and I headed off in the opposite direction. I’d only been walking for about five minutes when I encountered a man dressed – incredulously – as Cardinal Richelieu. I presumed he was on his way home from a fancy dress party (whereas I often dressed like this when I’d run out of clean underwear). This was too good an opportunity to miss. Here was my arch-rival, the evil and cunning accomplice of the evil and cunning King Louis.

I challenged him to a duel and, drawing my sword, pranced around him swishing and stabbing at his flowing crimson robes. He was clearly very alarmed and began staggering away from me whilst at the same time (inexplicably) covering his ears. Perhaps he thought I would chop one of them off. Unfortunately, as he turned to escape, he tripped on a dodgy paving stone and landed arse over tit in a nearby flower bed. It was at this point that the police car drove by – well, it didn’t exactly drive by; it stopped. I was arrested on suspicion of affray, of perpetrating ABH, and of carrying an offensive weapon (the last bit wasn’t exactly fair, I told them, especially if they’d seen what I’d seen revealed underneath the cardinal’s skirts as he fell – now that was offensive). I spent the night in the cells before they decided not to press charges. But they did confiscate my (plastic) sword and break the feather in my hat. Outrageous.

I should have accepted the pickled herring.