Fudge Cake Voice

Walter Gudgeon was the Spectrum production manager. He was a tall man of forty-five or so, portly but in good nick: the whites of his liquid chocolate eyes had the faintly bluish clarity of health and his hair was still vigorous and free of grey.

Equally as strong and dark was his voice, a rich baritone with that oily, crumbly, winning timbre much used in commercials sell cholesterol-rich food. This voice, redolent of fudge cake and porksausages, was Gudgeon's pride and joy. He was as plainly in love with it as a body-building hunk with his torso,
and just as the iron pumper augments the muscle bulk bestowed on him by nature, so by constant workouts Gudgeon had enhanced the splendid instrument he'd been born with, enhanced it in a
particular way: he'd succeeded in investing it with such melody, such continuous, effortless, mellifluous changes of key, that listening to it was like being treated to a private recital by Fischer-Dieskau.

It must, that magnificent baritone, have sounded even more magnificent to him than it did to his listeners, since for him the supplement of bone conduction would have given the sound waves added resonance. Not being in the kind of line he should have been in, one in which he could have flaunted that voice, that portamento, to his heart's content - on the stage, say, or in the pulpit - he grabbed every opportunity to show it off as lengthily as possible, So he never made a simple statement. Instead of ´Jennings rang me', he would say, to hear himself render gorgeously a whole lot more syllables: Í had the honour this morning of a telephone call from our very good friend Mr Robert Jennings.´ And whenever, by being asked to report on some production matter, he was given the chance to perform lieder, how joyfully he seized it: 'Time is absolutely of the essence in this matter, I feel, as I'm sure all of my most worthy and respected colleagues here would agree. . .'

Gudgeon's colleagues were always most worthy and respected, whoever they might be not because he was buttering them up nor because on the contrary he genuinely believed in and wished to acknowledge their worth and entitlement to respect, nor because he was particularly fond of, for its own sake, that 'your obedient servant'-style hyperpolitesse of the old school but simply because it was only as most worthy and respected that his colleagues (and only as very good friends that Mr Robert Jennings and every other mere acquaintance) could provide him with welcomely extra relishable feet in his vocal line.