6.15: A hint of Fabian’s past
pTravis pops back to the Potting Shed in search of the Chairman but finds it almost deserted. He asks Lois-the-Hippo whether she knows where he is. She doesn’t, but she asks, politely, if there’s a specific problem and whether she can help.
“Hmm. It’s a bit embarrassing. It’s about Fabian. We are finding him hard to get along with. For one thing, he stole my scarf and sponge! That’s just not on! Is he really ‘one of us’? Did Alcock know him at all before just letting him in? Might he even be a sworn enemy of the Order of the Sponge?”
Perhaps fearing scepticism, he does not mention the Disorder of Catastrophe.
“Ah.” Lois replies and pauses. “Hmm… Well you know that we treat everyone with utter confidentiality, including newcomers. No tittle-tattle! So I cannot break any confidences. But I also realise that if you ask Alcock, he will feel particularly unable to say anything. He is quite a stickler for the rules! So perhaps I can help.”
Fabian looks hopeful but knows when it is best to keep silent. She continues.
“Alcock does know Fabian from the past. I don’t know from where or when. That said, I don’t think Fabian meant to come here. Something startled him and he came here almost by chance. I do not know whether he has ever heard anything about your mystic ‘Order’ but I very much doubt it. No one has heard of it! If it even exists!
No, he came here for his own reasons and his own disappointments. Perhaps his own trauma. We do seem to specialise in trauma! He used to be a promising racing snail. That is how he signed himself into the visitors book.” She gestures to the open page by the hatstand.
“But I understand that he had several surprising losses and he also lost his confidence. I can perhaps tell you that because you could have read that in the Racing Post. He may have been rather bullied – it is a very pressured business – and he gave it up. Again, there has been public speculation reported in the same august journal. But, perhaps, now, he is considering trying it again. We should all help him, if so.”
“Might that have been the reason he made us chase him? Just to have a run?” This thought suddenly strikes pTravis, thinking how the chase ended.
“You will have to think about that for yourself. Ah. I can perhaps give you one more hint. The poet Ted Hughes wrote a poem about a famous racing snail who never succeeded in his ambition. I noticed that Fabian carries a copy with him which he gets out from his shell. I suspect he thinks of the subject of the poem as a kind of honorary forebear. Read it and see what you think.”
Lois takes down a copy of a slim volume of poetry and hands it to pTravis who takes it outside onto the veranda to read.