Idle Tom’s plan is revealed …
My hands were tingling. Especially my thumbs. Pricking almost …
And then I remembered a line from Shakespeare that I’d learned over half a life-time ago. Macbeth’s witches, doing foul deeds. And one says to t’other, "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes …"
And my thumbs were throbbing like anything …
"So Tommy," I said, with quite considerable foreboding, "what is your plan?"
"It’s a GREAT plan!" said Idle Tom, publisher of my first novel, The Well-Tempered Clavier. "It’s the plan that’s going to give this book lift off. It’s going to be the plan for 2008."
"And somehow it involves the gorgeous lovelies?"
"Yes! Yes it does indeed involve the five waitresses you had over for that bun-fight of yours! Disappointed, by the way, that you didn’t have me over."
"Get on with it."
"We need to get the girls involved. They’re gorgeous aren’t they? And you’ve given them all the book, so they’re bound to love it - and we just, you know, just …"
"Just what?"
"Just need to get them on side."
Idle Tom’s round-the-houses method of conversation can be particularly wearing after a while. It’s like he’s dealing with the village idiot; or maybe it’s as if HE’S the village idiot.
"And once we’ve got the girls on side," I said - (by the way, Emma, Emily, Amelia, Molly and Calandra are their names, all students at Edinburgh University) "what, exactly, do you want them to do next?"
"Well … dress up and stuff. Maybe you should get some T-shirts made up."
"You think I’m going to be able to get them to wear those T-shirts for five-year-olds that ride right up over their belly-buttons?"
"That’d be perfect! Now - what are we going to have printed on the front of the T-shirt?"
"What about Well-Tempered?"
"No! I’ve got it! Not Well-Tempered, but Well-TAMPERED!!"
"You are a total sicko!"
To be continued. (It gets worse …)