The Landlady Rises
It’s Time for a StoryTime Story here on Fashion by Dad and this week’s story comes from Roald Dahl, Norwegian writer, best known for his children’s books, many of which have become major motion pictures. Matilda, Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, Witches … to name just a few.
This week we provide an insight into The Landlady. This includes a couple of readings from the yarn itself, as well as a little background on your Host’s involvement with it.
The Landlady is one of Roald Dahl’s tales from a Taste of the Unexpected. It features on Fashion by Dad, for a number of reasons, Your Host starred in a 1980 student film based on it, with the bonus that the opening credits are carved into the skin of his back, most unusual; and perhaps just as significantly the chicken that features in last episode’s Ain’t Necessarily So makes a cameo in the same film. A snip from that film featuring those highlights has been posted to the Fashion by Dad socials. Watch them and weep.
For the sake of your peace of mind, Dear Reader, I should point out that I enjoy a rare form of Urtacaria known as Dermatographia (yes, drawings on skin) which mean that if you scratch me, an internal chemical reaction emulating nettle rash, raises welts on my skin, allowing you to draw reasonably intricate diagrams anywhere on my naked body, or to leave a decent handprint on my cheek if you are particularly cross. (Yes, Eleanora, if you read this, I have not forgotten.)
Roald Dahl is famous as a writer because he combines the dark and cruel nature of humanity with a moral simplicity and innocence that engages young and old alike. The characters betray each other cruelly for no good reason other than simple humanity, and revenge is gleefully taken by the victims. Retribution becomes redemption. There is no higher moral, and if there is any ambiguity it is usually in whether we should feel regret at how harshly we dish out vengeance. Good clean, old-fashioned violence of the sort that once populated fairy tales. “Being jealous, the old woman locked the princess in the tower and fed her only onions.”
And so our hero, your host in the film, being a cheap skate who wants to save his money for fast food and other instant gratification responds to a To Let sign in the window of a slightly run down old house.
“We have it all to ourselves,” she said, smiling at him over her shoulder as she led the way upstairs.
“You see, it isn’t very often I have the pleasure of taking a visitor into my little nest.”
“I should have thought you’d be simply swamped with applicants.” He said politely.
“Oh my dear, I am. I am. Of course, I am. But the trouble is, I’m inclined to be just a teeny weeny bit choosy and particular if you see what I mean?
And it is such a pleasure. My dear, such a very great pleasure when I now and again I open the door and see someone standing there who is just exactly right.”
She was halfway up the stairs and she paused, one hand on the rail, turning her head and smiling at him with pale lips. “Like you,” she added, and her blue eyes travelled all the way up and down Billy’s body, to his feet and up again.
Our innocent guest, in full Brad and Janet style, completely ignores the warning signs screeching “unwarranted intimacy”, “rape pad” and “Get Out NOW!” at him and, after the usual introductions, negotiations and a long series of further warning signs, all equally blithely ignored, proceeds to take tea with The Landlady in the parlour, ominously stuffed with taxidermied animals, including a chicken looking suspiciously like the ones encountered on his way in the door.
Billy started sipping his tea. She did the same. For half a minute neither of them spoke … Now and again he caught the whiff of a peculiar smell that seemed to emanate directly from her person. It was not the least unpleasant and it reminded him, well he wasn’t quite sure what it reminded him of. Pickled walnuts? New leather? Or was it the corridors of a hospital?
For those brave enough, the original 1964 story is available in the edition of a Taste of the Unexpected, the film appears on this author’s You Tube channel, and the audio of the final moments of the film are available on the playlist for this week’s podcast.
We pick up the story of the co-starring chickens, later, here on Fashion by Dad. Be warned, neither came to a good end. Possibly fitting, given the context.
