#TheMajorsCorner. …….Madness.

A few months ago on a Wednesday, I took my place at my bay window roost as the club clock chimed 10. Comfortably slouched in my green wingback chair, I leaned forward and nodded at the first mem in the usual queue.
You will recall it has become an expectation for me to make myself available to fellow members who wish to take advice from your Major on various subjects. I quite enjoy the seemingly universal need to hear my thoughts on closely held secrets that are being shared only with me. Unless they come from Sherman Sorbet, who was the first one in the healthy lineup that morning.
Sherman is a cross to bear for the club and more and more for me personally. You see ever since I started this advice session on Wednesdays, Sorbet has attended every one of them. No one else stands in the queue weekly, but he does. Most leave with my suggestions tossing about in their grey matter and that is that. Sherman, however, appears to have a “problem a week” sort of life.
“Well?” I said acerbically, as that week’s line stretched all the way to the fireplace and I would be hard-pressed to respond to half the gathered mems.
“I am in love,” he said blithely. “She is in the theatre,” he embellished.
“Not again,” I said, as it was not the first time I had heard that tale. It felt like only yesterday, but it might have been a few years ago, that S. Sorbet had fallen in love with a showgirl and it had come to no good.
Then it was the lead in a small touring company of The Sound of Music. In fact so economical a troupe was it that not only did she (Vyvyen) play the part of Maria, but also the second Nazi and Sister Bernice. She was more of a quick change artist than an actress of any note, but nothing would dissuade Sorbet from proposing marriage, which he did with alacrity, promising his fortune in the bargain.
Vyvyen was a well-structured lady, beyond Rubenesque, which seemed to blind Sherman to her very worldly outlook. As the play had a limited engagement of four days, she had to work fast. On their first dinner date, she stripped him of his cufflinks and tie clip. The next night, when she came dressed as the third Nazi, he lent her $10,000 when she promised to not hit him with her truncheon. The third dinner ended with her lifting his wallet and belt buckle while still in Sister Bernice’s garb.
It was all too much for his fellow mems, so we locked him in the upstairs gym till her show left town. Before departing, she struck our famous front door several times with her stick while using the most appalling language, but eventually left shouting that she would never return with the Sound of Music again. Sadly Sherman now appeared to want Act Two.
This time it was some creature known as Desiderata, who was a soprano of prodigious size. She was the lead in Verdi’s opera Aida, and was again in a small touring company. Not only did she play Aida but also the pharaoh and the front part of an elephant. Sherman had attended two shows and wept openly at the finale when Aida and her lover are dispatched from this life when entombed together.
A fellow mem told me the opera normally has four acts but had been cut to two, which caused mass confusion in the audience and no doubt had Verdi spinning in his grave. However this is the cultural life available in a small city like Victoria, so we make do.
I immediately advised Sherman to give this woman a miss as he must remember the last time he got involved with show people. He stared at me as if I were suggesting something untoward and left in a huff.
It was soon discovered that 83-year-old Sorbet had lent $20,000 to the 32-year-old Desiderata to enhance the microphone system at the theatre and a further $5,000 for a new elephant head. Neither were evident at the Saturday performance attended by many interested club members including yours truly, which made up most of the crowd.
Sherman was there too, sitting in the three-person orchestra pit, beaming up at the large bellowing singer, who winked several times at her beleaguered patron below. He sat between an inebriated trumpeter and a palsied violinist who was supposed to handle the percussion as well but who kept tossing away the drum sticks, which Sherman helpfully chased after. The disinterested pianist seemed stuck playing La Traviata.
Once more we locked Sorbet in the gym, where he sat unhappily while half a pachyderm banged on the street door. Some people refuse to take my advice. What can one do?
Copyright Christopher Dalton 2016