скачать книгу бесплатно
I am going to speak to Mr Huff.
I am going to speak to Mr Huff.
I am going to speak to Mr Huff.
I am. I am.
Apologize. Confess. Apologize. I am. I will. Yes. I will. It’s just that … that after all the drama with the landslip I simply haven’t had the … the … you know … the wherewithal … the nerve … the will … uh … no … the opportunity. Then I was scheduled on, last minute, for three, consecutive shifts at Mallydams: reception desk, cleaning out cages, hand feeding that snappy young vixen with the broken jaw etc. (they’re short-staffed – poor Amy Burrell contracted Rat-bite Fever from a weasel. It’s been all the talk in Guestling this week), and of course poor Dad’s foot medication ran out yesterday (he forgot to warn me in advance) so I was obliged to charge on over to the Ore Surgery just before closing (ditched the bike, got the bus). Then there was a queue twenty deep at the pharmacy …
But I am going to speak to Mr Huff. Yes. It’s an absolute priority.
I am going to speak to Mr Huff.
Confess. Confess all.
Yes.
Although … Although no word as yet from Mrs Barrow (and this is a scheduled cleaning day at the cottage, so … uh …), so perhaps it didn’t all pan out quite so badly as I … uh …
Hoped?
Anticipated?
Feared?
No. No. It must’ve … It must’ve been terrible. Awful. The bin hidden in plain view. The little stone through the window (but only a little stone, and it’s my window after all), the stolen bulb (although – again – it’s my bulb to steal). And … and the shark. The dead shark. There’s no … I mean there’s no excusing … no arguing my way out of … Under the bed! The dead shark! The shark with its guts full of vile, writhing, rapidly pupating …
Oh Lord!
I am going to speak to Mr Huff.
Although (in my defence – I know I don’t actually have a leg to stand on) he left all the doors wide open! Really! What else did he expect? Honestly!
And he insulted Rogue! Yes! Mortally! And Dad!
And he’s an awful, supercilious snoop! He ran over Mum’s cat, for heaven’s sake!
(That was actually his wife, though, wasn’t it? Before she left?)
And then, to compound the injury, he pretty much accused me of lying! To my face! About the poor old boy’s age! Followed by the letter! That awful, vain, self-aggrandizing … Urgh! Just thinking about it makes my … makes my blood … urgh … boil.
Such a rude man.
And the subtle way he’s gone about ingratiating himself with everyone. Oh lovely, charming, creative Mr Huff with his curly hair and his clever, hazel eyes and his cheekbones and his braces and his cosmopolitan life and his artistic hands and his winning ways and his extraordinary sensitivity (Please!) and his shrunken heads and his social conscience and … and his amazing gift – his deep empathy – with macaws!
Urgh.
When I so much as … as think about the way he’s lied and connived and conned and … and charmed people. How he’s ingratiated himself (did I say that before?). Ingratiated himself with everyone. Everyone. Even Mrs Barrow! Everyone. Everyone but … well, but me. Obviously.
The way he’s …
Urgh. Urgh.
I am going to speak to Mr Huff. I am. Confess. Apologize. Although before I can head on over there – here we are … Phew! Quick left turn. Avoid the puddle. Apply the brake. Clamber off. Throw down my bike. Remove my rucksack. Peek inside: tin of pilchards, check; pork pie, check; iron supplements, check; Deep Heat, check; aniseed balls, check – before I can head over there I’m obliged to pop in on Shimmy to drop off his Dopamine and some other stuff he’s asked for.
Of course (nothing’s ever as simple as it should be in this life) when I arrive it’s utterly impossible to gain access to the cottage. Rogue has fallen asleep – as is his perfectly maddening habit – directly behind the front door. The sheer weight of that animal, the heft, is equivalent (and this is absolutely no exaggeration) to a large chaise-longue or a small settee. I smack the door into him, repeatedly (Sorry, Rogue!). I have a full three inches leeway (Oh lucky me!). But he refuses, point-blank, to budge. I know – I just know – that he’s blocking my access on purpose – I’m certain of it – purely to avoid the distinct likelihood of his being dragged out for a spot of brisk exercise.
And I can’t get in through the back, either! Dammit! Dammit! Security-obsessed Shimmy has bolted the tall side gate. I knock (obviously – doors, windows), I sit on the bell, I yell, but all to no avail. Shimmy is listening – at quite extraordinary volume – to a home-taped recording (off the TV) of Fraggle Rock, his favourite programme. I can hear him singing along to the theme tune, bless him. Damn him.
Dance your cares away!
Worry’s for another day –
Let the music play,
Down at Fraggle Rock!
Again it plays, and again and again and again. Can he have made himself two separate recordings so he doesn’t have to wait to rewind? Has he even got two functional tape recorders? Does he possess the technological know-how for such pointless shenanigans?
I try the back gate for a second time. I return to the front door and smack it into Rogue. Thud.
We’re Gobo, Mokey, Wembley, Boober, Red!
I return to the gate. I’ve climbed over it before, but only under extreme duress. There’s very little purchase for hand or foot. After scrabbling around for a while I have the brilliant idea of fetching my bike, leaning it up against the gate and using it (the pedal, then the seat) as a kind of portable stepladder.
Everything is proceeding apace. The bike is carefully positioned – a brick wedged under the front wheel, the back wheel pushed against the wall of the house. I climb up. It’s a little unstable (a little ungainly, come to that) but everything’s going perfectly to plan, until …
It’s difficult to describe what happens next. I am almost half-straddling the gate – climbing over boldly, assuredly, very confident – when something catches at my waist, I fall forward, inadvertently – violently – kick out both my feet, and the bike tips sideways, crashing on to the gravel path. I am left hanging over the gate, bent at the hip, a fleshy, top-heavy U-bend, a human peg. To fall back would be difficult – even dangerous (the bike is just below. I’d hate to land on the spokes and potentially injure my foot, my ankle, my leg). I can only move forward. It’s just … uh … a question of … of using my hands to … to … And then I find that I’m … that I’m … that somehow I’ve become … no! I’m stuck! The piece of cord in my old jeans (they’re drawstring, tautened at the waist with a gentle bow) has somehow become hooked over an irregular piece of … a little wooden chip, a knot. And so I’m … I’m utterly, irrevocably, undisputedly stuck! I simply can’t …
I struggle. I struggle for what feels like an age to get my hand under my … to loosen the … but it’s too taut. In fact it’s … it’s almost cutting into me. And it’s hard to breathe with all this weight – my weight – on my gut. So I hang forward, to rest, to inhale, but then – once rested – I find it almost impossible to straighten back up. All the strength has leaked out of me.
I am stuck! Bottom in the air. Legs kicking. Wheezing. Groaning. I am stuck! I am stuck!
The vestiges of my womanly pride restrain me from calling out for help for a full five minutes. Who will come, anyway? It’s mid-afternoon on a quiet, unmade road. But after five – or ten – or seven (time loses all significance under such circumstances) minutes, I begin to yell.
At first an informal, undemanding, ‘Hello?’
Hello? Hello? Anyone? Hello? Hello?
Eventually a less formal, more desperate, ‘Help!’
Help! Help! Help me! Hello? Help! I’m stuck! Is there anyone there? Hello? Hello?
HELLO? HELLO? HELLO?
Oh my bladder, my poor bladder with the gate cutting into it! The chafing. The mortification! The redness of face. The nausea. Hands scrabbling. Feet kicking.
Aaaargh!
I am wailing. I can hear myself. A little, poignant wail. How long has it been now? The wail appears to be coming from the other side of the gate. Although my head is here. And my mouth. How odd! Could it be the cat mewing?
In my mind I am singing that silly song by Bananarama. The chorus goes ‘Robert De Niro’s waiting, talking Italian – talking Ital-i-an. Robert De Niro’s waiting, talk-king It-al-lian!’
I hang in silence for a while, bemused. Singing in my head. I yell for help only every minute or so to preserve my voice for the long haul.
Help!
Help!
Help!
I might be here all afternoon.
In fact I must’ve yelled this strange word (help – such a strange word! And the more I yell it, the stranger it seems; the hoarser, the darker, the more absurd and despairing) several hundred times when … now this is odd (because my head is hung forward – the blood pounding in my ears, I am almost faint – almost fainting) … I hear sudden footsteps on the gravel and something that seems like a human voice but all muffled and jumbled: like Aow-aow-aow-aow wah!
So curious!
Then comes a powerful smell of clementines (I’m not making this up!). An attempt to open the gate. A tentative yank on my foot, a hand on my bottom …
Oi!
And then, pow!
The bow on my trousers is untied (how’d he/she/it do that?) and before I know better (or am able to ready/steady/adjust myself) I’m tumbling forward over the gate and landing – Crump! (trouserless!) – on my hand/elbow/face/head/back ow! on the gravel ow! path ow! to the other side.
I lie for a few seconds, breathless and winded.
Aow-aow aow-aow? the strange voice asks, evidently concerned, trying the gate again.
I slowly sit up. Anything broken? Not sure. What I do know is that several pieces of gravel are embedded in my forehead. My legs feel okay … and … oooh … my spine … but my … ow! … my right thumb is hanging loose.
I’ve dislocated it! I’ve dislocated my thumb! Just look at that! How perfectly ghastly!
‘Oy vey, bubbellah! Ve Gates? Vat in God’s good name are you doing vith yourself down zere?’
Shimmy appears at the back door with his typical, slapstick timing.
‘I’ve dislocated my thumb, Tatteh!’ I wail, holding it out to him.
‘Zat’ll have to wait, Nebekh!’ Shimmy interrupts. ‘We got us bigger fish to fry here. Look at your poor dad! I’m plotzing! Zat damn dog has had hisself another heart attack! Za putz is blocking the front door! I called you a cab already. You gotta take him to the vet’s.’
As Shimmy is speaking I hear footsteps rapidly retreating in the gravel on the other side of the gate. I try to stand up, but it takes me slightly longer to find my feet than I’d anticipated.
‘Call the vet out, Tatteh!’ I’m grumbling. ‘How’re we meant to lift him into a cab? He’s huge. I’ve dislocated my thumb! Look! I’ve got bits of gravel stuck in my forehead!’
‘You crazy?!’ Shimmy exclaims. ‘You know how much zey charge to call zem out?! It’s a disgrace! Be serious, meine Carla! Get inside! Put your trousers on! We gotta do him a heart massage! Shlof gikher, men darf di ki kishn, girl! Stop your shmying about!’
I gaze at him, disbelieving.
‘Sleep faster, bubbellah,’ he repeats, sharply, as a concession (of sorts), but in English this time. ‘We need za pillows!’
Oh – thanks so much for the translation, Tatteh.
I click my thumb back into position (gritting my teeth), grab my trousers with my good hand and follow him inside, quietly marvelling at his apparently effortless recourse to poetic sarcasm.
11
Mr Clifford Bickerton (#ubbb81443-c2ca-5d78-906f-c07893a79e0a)
I really don’t understand why I’m becoming a part of this story. It’s not that I’m angry about it, as such, or resentful. But where’s the need? I ask this in all sincerity. Because it’s obvious (predictable! Even to a registered thicko like me!) how this thing is going to pan out. It’s all about them, isn’t it? All about Carla and Franklin D.; Hahn and Huff. They’re the perfect little double-act. She says, then he says. Like a relaxing game of lawn tennis. Phut! – boiiing! – phut! Polite outbreak of applause. Yawn (that’s me yawning. It’s a nervous yawn. A defeated yawn. The kind of yawn produced by a sheepdog when you tie it up to its kennel with a length of rope in the heart of winter just as it’s starting to sleet).
So what are the actual mechanics of this thing (Yup – mechanics. Trust me to get all hot under the collar about the technical stuff!)? I mean how exactly am I meant to … to fit into this set-up? Where did I ever fit come to that? I’m just way too … too big and awkward and … and hairy to seamlessly slot in. Too home-grown, too ‘rustic’. Ah, stupid, giant, callus-handed old Rusty – reliable, practical old Rusty – with his pathetic, unrequited crush, his over-long engagement, his over-tight sodding jumper … Soppy old Rusty. An all-round bad fit. A poor fit. The spanner in the works. The hole in the elbow. The tear in the seat. The pesky stone in the lace-up boot.
Perhaps I’ll be involved in an accident at work at an especially critical moment in the plot (electrocuted by a malfunctioning school heater – their regular man, the caretaker, is off on a one-day training course in modern gas-fired central heating systems!), or get tragically drowned on duty with the lifeboat while saving the crew of a sinking trawler. Yes. I quite fancy that idea. Rusty Bickerton: Mr Brave but Mr Dispensable. A tragic afterthought dreamed up by the mean cow of an Author to add that tiny bit of extra depth, a light gloss of polish – a nice, reliable pinch of snuff (where’s the tissue? Eh?! Use your sleeve! That’s what Rusty would’ve done, God bless the poor old bugger! RIP etc.) to the ‘main’, the important, the real, the actual-grown-up-three-dimensional relationship.
Great.
I mean is that honestly the best I can hope for? To be the harmless blameless idiot caught totally unawares in the background of a dramatic photograph of an awful car crash (quietly inspecting the times on a vandalized bus shelter)? Face slightly blurry. Right ear, arm, shoulder ruthlessly cut out. Or the nervous man adjusting his comb-over in a high wind just behind the pretty, buxom woman who is laughing and letting go of a large bunch of red balloons after winning £1,000 in a charity prize draw?
Am I just a little bit of local colour? Is that really the sum of it? Although now I come to think about it, you’ve already got Mrs Barrow (with her nineteenth-century ways, her housecoat and her – uh, sorry – totally unconvincing Sussex accent) to tick that particular box.
Perhaps I’m suddenly being shuffled into focus to offer a useful – but boring – ‘sense of perspective’? An ‘outsider view’? Perhaps I’m simply serving as a manly foil – a handy, helpful, humble, practical contrast – to the clever but mysterious and (let’s face it) slightly uptight and poncy Mr Franklin D. Huff? Fine. Fine. Whatever you like. However you want to play it. I might grumble (I likes a bit of a grumble, me), but I can’t really be bothered getting all fired up about it now. Just so long as I’m back home before milking. I’ll grit my teeth and I’ll get on with it. Same as I always do.
Although … Although (while I’ve got your attention – have I got it? Hello? Oh. Yes. Hello) what about that poor parrot? Baldie? Baldo? How’s he/she fit into this mess? What did that blessed parrot ever do to anybody? Doesn’t seem right – fair – to have his/her/our innermost thoughts – our private feelings and ideas (uninspiring as they most certainly are) – casually picked over (exploited, let’s make no bones about it) for the sake of a little light relief.
I remember in RE classes at school (bear with me for a minute) being taught the biblical parable of the ‘talents’ and thinking, If this parable expresses the moral, emotional and philosophical aspirations of the One, True Religion then there’s something badly wrong with it – something horribly … I don’t know … cynical (I was a precocious boy. Grew out of it soon enough, though). For those of you who don’t recall, the parable involves a series of servants being given ‘talents’ (some kind of coin, I suppose) by their cruel master before he goes away on a long voyage. The servant given the most talents (the most – ahem – ‘talented’ servant) invests them well and doubles his money (slave trade? Opium poppies? Tobacco industry? Who knows?). When the master returns he is naturally delighted by the servant’s achievements and the servant is justly rewarded (several rhino horns. A giant, ivory dildo. Something grand and extravagant along those lines). Then there is the servant who has been given two talents. Like the four talent servant he doubles his money (slaughtering dolphins, skinning minks) and the master is delighted with him (warm smile, slightly intimidating wink, soft pat on the buttock …).
Finally there’s the servant who is given only one talent. This servant is not as clever or as successful as the other servants (one talent, and we don’t even know what that talent is. I’m guessing juggling, or unicycling – reading tarot, badly), and he is rightly anxious about stuffing up (the ire of the cruel master might be too much to bear!) so he takes his one talent and he buries it in a large hole in the ground to ensure that it isn’t lost or stolen. When the master returns, he promptly digs it up again and hands it over to him (slightly muddy, but still intact).
Is the master happy to get the talent back? Is he heck! The master (fresh from those three, fine weeks in Magaluf) is absolutely bloody filthy that the most idiotic of his servants has done so little with his pathetic one talent (gurning. Or possibly the ability to place his leg behind his head. He’s oddly flexible).
‘Why didn’t you just give it to the bankers, you foolish man,’ he demands, ‘and earn me some paltry interest at the very least?’ Of course this is the moment at which that poor, long downtrodden (but basically ignorant) servant can finally take the opportunity to tell his master that all the local banks have been investing heavily in companies supporting child labour (chimney sweeps! That’s right! Send the little blighters up those chimneys! Let ’em earn their keep!) and so he (quite naturally, quite rightly) felt compelled to take a passionate stand against it. Yes. That would’ve been very brave, very principled of him (telling his master and the stand). But then could the master be expected to listen to his mumbled excuses? Nah! Of course he couldn’t! He’s just a servant – an untalented servant! Why would the master be remotely interested in issues of racial, social or gender equality? Forget it! He isn’t. So the servant is bawled at, publicly humiliated and unceremoniously cast out.
‘To him that has plenty more shall be given,’ the parable ends, ‘to him that has nothing, even that will be taken away from him.’ (Sarcastic, partial drum roll.)
So there you have it: my pathetic little life in two short sentences. And the worst part? I knew, I just sensed, even as a small, snotty, scab-knee-and-elbowed youth, that this would all turn out to be completely true; that I would – of course I would! – find myself at the thin end of this parabolical wedge.
Looking back (a great hobby of mine) I can clearly deduce that it was at this precise moment (the reading of the talent parable – pay attention) that I finally lost all sympathy with the Judeo-Christian tradition. There have been others since (other moments, other losses) still more painful. But then that’s … Well.
Good. Okay. So I’m not entirely sure why I bored you rigid with that anecdote. I suppose it was a toss-up between this brief Bible-study session or an in-depth breakdown of the journey from Chick Hill to Toot Rock undertaken in a twelve-year-old Ford Transit with no side door, dodgy transmission and a malfunctioning water pump.
Because these are the manifold riches of my life, ladies and gentlemen (the boring parable, the crappy van). No sudden landslips or obscure collections of Soviet memorabilia here, no ancient beefs with the CIA or complex issues of avian gender orientation. None of that. Just practical, gormless old Rusty. Mr Can-do. Mr Happy to Oblige. Mr That’s Absolutely Fine, Mrs Barrow, Just Point Me in the Right Direction and I’ll Get On With It, Shall I?
‘That’s fine. Just point me in the right direction and I’ll get on with it, Mrs Barrow,’ I tell her. Mrs Barrow has kindly provided me with a list. At the top is ‘porch bulb’ (in all honesty I think she could’ve handled most of these herself – what am I? Her drudge? Short answers on a postcard, please), then there’s ‘dispose of shark’, then there’s ‘rabbit?’ (her question mark), then ‘bin’, then, finally, ‘bathroom window. Putty?’ (putty underlined, twice).
Of course as soon as Mrs Barrow describes the general scenario (rotting sand shark under the bed?!) I am 100 per cent convinced that the salmon-pink paws of Miss Carla Hahn are all over this ‘mysterious and completely unprovoked attack’. In truth I think Mrs Barrow suspects as much herself, but worker/employer loyalty (and Mr Huff availing himself of the nearby bathroom) prevents her from confiding in me. All credit to her for that. Although there is a brief exchange of significant looks. Yes. And a slightly raised, under-plucked eyebrow. And she is very – very – keen to stop the ‘highly offended’ (‘hurt’, ‘violated!’: his words) Mr Franklin D. from getting the local police involved (but what else might you expect from the wife of the local poacher? Eh?).
I know all the signs, though. In fact I’m so certain of Carla’s involvement that I promptly head over to an old brass coal-scuttle stored just inside the entrance to the bomb shelter (there is a bomb shelter behind the house – a drab, claustrophobic concrete shed-like thing with a basement nobody ever goes into. Did anyone bother mentioning this before? Nah. Probably not) and I retrieve the porch bulb from this old favourite Carla hidey-hole.
