114 Man’s world

In which our bold and decisive Southern correspondent confronts stalkers, stalkees, and the other recalcitrants of his local, long-suffering community group.

More recalcitrant behaviour from our Southern man’s local community group.

Ihad a nice column planned about weed-eaters. The things are poorly named. Yes, they eat weeds, but that is by no means all. My own machine, for example, is drawn to daphne as inexorably as a dog to a lamppost.

And I had more to say about weed eaters, some of it astringent, some of it frankly hilarious, but you’re not going to get it now because we just caught a stalker at the Lyttelton Beautification Society.

I had vowed to write no more about the LBS, partly because the three Marys have taken to playing up to their own caricatures. Scary Mary now goes nowhere without a military-grade catapult with which to pick off stray dogs; Mary the Posh has taken to quoting Shakespeare; and Mary Meditate now adopts the lotus position on her front lawn while the kids are coming out of school.

On the plus side, the publicity has led to a surge in membership, though some of the applicants have required a second and more sceptical look. There was, for example, a Ms Muvragott who described herself as a Turkmenistani refugee recently settled in Lyttelton. Naturally the committee assured her by email of the warmest possible reception at the

War Memorial Hall on the third Wednesday of any month. Ms Muvragott thanked them by return and added that she was hoping to become the society’s fourth Mary. Indeed she had already chosen Holy Mary as her soubriquet.

After weighing the matter carefully the committee chose not to reply.

But, to the stalker. A recent LBS lecture on the cultivation of rosemary (entitled Prostrate and Weeping) was attended by a gentleman wearing a coat that he refused to take off despite the warmth of the evening.

At lecture’s end the presenter asked for questions. Up rose Mary the Posh.

“As the immortal bard put it in the famous play Hamlet,” she said, “rosemary, that’s for remembrance.”

“Indeed,” said the lecturer, “and your question?”, but Mary the Posh just stood and smiled.

“Gotcha,” boomed Scary Mary erupting from her seat like a tweedclad Polaris missile, and making a grab for the unfamiliar man.

He ran.

“Stop him!” cried Scary Mary, reaching for her catapult.

Mary Meditate, seated on the floor at the point where a ley line intersects with an abscissa of karmic energy, chose that moment to move from the lotus position into the downward dog. She sent the man flying.

As he struggled back up, Mary the Posh delivered him a ringing blow to the skull with her hardback copy of Shakespeare Quotes to Impress, whereupon Scary Mary seized him by the collar, rummaged inside his coat and emerged triumphant with a miniature camera. “Explain yourself,” said Scary Mary in a voice that made the rafters ring. The man shrank. In a voice so tiny that everyone had to bend to listen, he confessed that he had developed a crush on one of the Marys. Silence.

Mary looked at Mary looked at Mary.

“And which of us…”

But already the man’s spaniel eyes had swivelled to take in the abundant form of Mary the Posh. “Hom,” said Mary Meditate. “Bind him to the chair and leave him to the Sea Scouts,” said Scary Mary.

“The quality of mercy,” said Mary the Posh, “is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed.

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”

She paused and looked around. And they let the man go. ✤