Uncle Fester's Fidgety Fingers

Uncle Fester spent his days sitting at the beaten up drop leave table in the corner of our kitchen constantly a tip tap tapping his fingers in a rhythm alien to the sensibilities of those around him. At first it had been menacing. Then maudlin. And finally maddening. The pastor who lived at number six stopped stopping by for his harvest festival donation demands and his inglorious attempts to save Ma's soul (ever since dad had walked over those furnace hot plates and burned his feet right off the pastor had taken an increased interest in Ma's soul). None of us missed the pastor very much, least of all Ma's ample soul. Less happily the constant drumming had driven Mitch, Lizzie's handsome young suitor, to self harming such that his face and arms looked somewhat akin to a bloodied scarecrow. The house was often filled with the horrified shrieks of the young 'uns, should they chance upon him blundering out of the lavvy or weeping in a corner. Uncle Fester had a profound effect on the house, and the village, when first he had arrived.

"Stick another fag in Uncle Fester's fingers would you love?" Ma asked.

We'd tried everything to still his beating fingertips. Soft cloths would get knotted round the knuckles until we were a feared he'd snap his fingers off and they'd go parading about the place causing eleven times the trouble. Weighty books on the back of his hands would routinely skitter off to drop open on the floor where the dog would worry, with a loud and long howling, that it couldn't read a word (we had a particularly stupid dog). Buckets of water and bowls of thick viscous soup would equally just splash about leaving a right royal mess. The only thing that would give a moment's reprieve was a Lambert & Butler Superking on each juddery in-draw. The cacophony of the pursuant coughing was an angelic chorus in comparison to the otherwise incessant drumming. We fed Uncle Fester's pleurisy to excess for the relief it bought.

In the...[Read On]