Short Story: Mixed Messages

Short Story: Mixed Messages

Letter from Julie Goodheart to Jonathan Sprockett

Dear Jonathan

You pig.

I always thought you were a really nice person, even though Madge warned me about you right from the start. I don’t always go on what Madge says but after last night and your feeble excuses, I’m not quite so certain. Your pathetic story about the company’s golf day was just the last straw. Apparently just because of this trivial little gathering, you can’t come down to meet my parents after all. How am I supposed to explain to them it’s all because of your stupid company’s golf day? Stupid company and stupid golf day, yes that’s what I mean.

According to you, you just have to take part to please the management. Well, pull the other one. You might as well admit that you would rather be off enjoying yourself, playing on a really posh golf course instead of your usual local dump, and sucking up to Whatshisname and telling me it’s all for the good of your career. Let me tell you, you’re not the first to try and wriggle out of meeting Mummy and Daddy. They were so looking forward to meeting you too. I’d told them everything about you. Well not everything.

I had a real long discussion this morning with Madge about your selfish behaviour and she says I’m quite right. Well, I know you can’t stand Madge, though I can’t think why and she is my best friend. Anyway Madge had plenty to say. Have a week off, she says. Make one of those last-minute bookings somewhere where there is plenty of sun and sand and the other. Meet lots of other young people with lots of different interests, not just stupid golf and football. People who will appreciate you. That’s what Madge says, and Madge is always right about these things, I’ve found. So that’s what we’ve done. We got straight on the Internet and found the cheapest last-minute deals for the Mediterranean from Luton. We’re off to Ibiza–Mahon since you ask. Don’t call us. We won’t call you.

Your ever-loving

Julie

Letter from HM Inspector of Taxes to Jonathan Sprockett

Dear Mr Sprockett

Thank you for your recent tax return. I have considered it very carefully and diligently and I notice you are claiming relief for expenses incurred in relation to your company’s golf day. I have to inform you that on the contrary, the company golf day is considered a benefit in kind and hence its value to you (green fees, luncheons, dinners, etc) are considered as income and you will be required to pay tax on these as though the value were earned income. As for any expenses you may have incurred during this social event, these will of course be considered expenditure for your personal benefit and may not be charged as necessary expenses. I must also remind you that the benefit in kind will be calculated to include the notional cost of membership of that particular golf club which I understand is not inconsiderable.

We have systems in operation which can confirm the actual amounts involved in regard to this particular establishment.

I look forward to your revised tax return, which you should mark for my personal attention.

Assuring you of my best personal attention at all times

Yours faithfully

John Harvey (HM Inspector of Taxes,LondonProvincial)

Letter from Jonathan Sprocket to HM Inspector of Taxes

To whom it may concern

Forgive my hollow laughter.

Benefit in kind indeed. Have you any idea how much that little day out cost me? There were the obvious things, of course which you and I have already discussed. But there was also considerable expenditure which until now I hadn’t mentioned. First there is the little matter of whether it was essential for my job for me to partake in this event. Yes it was. If I had told Mr Hargreaves (that’s the name of my Chairman) that I would rather be somewhere else (even at work) than take part in his company golf day, then I don’t think it would be long before I was joining the ranks of non-tax payers; and you wouldn’t like that, would you?

Now when I play golf, I always play very seriously, but on these occasions I can hardly pull off all my best shots and go for a near par (after handicap) round, so there I was trying every trick to keep my score over a humiliating 97, just to make sure I didn’t score ahead of the same Mr Hargreaves, who had, jokingly, he said – bet me fifty that I couldn’t beat him. He claimed the fifty quid nevertheless, the skinflint!

Even then, I almost blew it with that hole-in-one at the seventeenth. I managed a triple bogey at the last to make up for it, but that was a close thing too, Mr Hargreaves almost missing a simple eighteen-inch put at the very end.

Now on a normal quiet day in the middle of the week, a hole-in-one wouldn’t cost so much for a round of drinks. But on the company golf day! Do me a favour! I think word must have got round on the company’s intranet too, because a whole load of people from Accounts turned up at the nineteenth hole to claim their free drink even though most of them had never played golf in their lives.

Then there was the hire of the dinner suit for the dinner in the evening. And the cost of getting the said dinner suit cleaned after that idiot Kershaw from Sales thought it was a good idea to spray champagne over the hole-in-one hero, Formula One style. But I am not claiming for the champagne.

Of course nobody was in any state to drive home after that, so we wisely took a taxi. Guess who was dropped off last and was landed with the bill.

Benefit in kind! Huh!

Yours sincerely

Jonathan Sprockett (Mr)

Letter from Jonathan Sprockett to Julie Goodheart

Dear Fish Face

It’s no good trying to hide from me. Two can play at your little game. I too will be visiting foreign parts for a couple of weeks. But don’t worry, I’ll be back in touch as soon as I get home. I don’t need to say any more just yet, do I? We both know what I mean.

Yours sincerely.

From A Well-wisher.

Letter from HM Inspector of Taxes to Head of Revenue

Dear Mr Harper

I wish to tender my resignation as one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Taxes. I feel that my efforts are no longer being appreciated by the members of the public I have striven so hard to serve over the years. The last straw was just this week when I learned that one anonymous customer has got hold of a nickname I had at school – which I would rather not repeat and which I thought I had forgotten – and has sent me a particularly nasty and threatening letter.

There are a few cases I would like to tidy up where I might have been rather harsh in my demands. So with your permission, I will attend to these cases immediately and then my resignation can take effect from the end of the month.

I presume I will be entitled to the usual benefits associated with early retirement.

Yours sincerely

John Harvey (HM Inspector of Taxes,LondonProvincial)

Letter from HM Inspector of Taxes to Mr Jonathan Sprockett

Dear Mr Sprockett

I was disappointed not to have received a reply to my letter requesting further details of your claims for last year. However, after some consideration, I have decided that the questions were not really that important after all and the amount of valuable time you would have to take from running a busy department could not possibly be justified on such a trivial matter. I will therefore accept your previous estimate of your income for the year and the total expenses and allowances claimed. In addition, a refund of one-hundred pounds will be credited to your account in compensation for your troubles.

John Harvey (HM Inspector of Taxes,LondonProvincial)

Letter from Julie Goodheart to Jonathan Sprockett

Dear Jonathan

Now that we are both back in the real world and all these holiday romances can be put to bed. . . I mean . . .well you know what I mean, how about getting back together again?

But we better get some things cleared up, hadn’t we? What on earth was that rambling letter you sent me all about your miserable golf day? You know your golfing stories are boring enough without continuing the sordid details into the evening’s doings. And if we are to make a serious go of things, I might suggest you give up the silly game for good,

With all my love

Julie

Text message from Jonathan Sprocket to Julie Goodheart

Dr FF

If U rcvd my letter on the glf dy, thn who the @@@@ got my letter 2 U?

L&XXX

Jonathan