by Heide Goody
“Tell me about yourself,” said Tina, settling a clipboard onto her knees.
“Well, I have a small daughter, great kid, you’d love her, but expensive all that gear she needs. So now, I’ve got Gorky, my au pair.”
“East European?”
“South American, I think. Anyway, I’d like to take on a bit of part time work to bring in some extra cash.” Tina jotted notes in a meticulous, loopy hand. “I can see me doing something in the evenings, when she’s sleepy. Gigolo would work, if you’ve got anything in that general area?”
Tina looked up sharply.
“Sorry, I thought you said... I wonder if you meant something else, like serving coffee or ice cream...?”
“Whatever the ladies require.”
“I tell you what, shall we start with your name and address, for the form?”
Tina smiled brightly, pen poised.
Clovenhoof reeled off his details. Tina paused.
“You live at the same address as Nerys, a colleague of mine. Do you know her?”
“Yes, everyone knows Nerys,” said Clovenhoof with a saucy wink. “Although she’ll maybe calming down her socialising for a few days. Her dog died, you know.”
“Oh goodness me, has her dog died as well?” Tina gave a sad little pout at Clovenhoof.
“As well?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know? There’s been a death in the family.”
Clovenhoof shook his head. Apart from one sister in Cheshire and another on the other side of the world, all of Nerys’s family lived in North Wales and he was certain that, if one of them had popped their clogs, she would be on the road to Wales rather than performing demonic rituals.
“Nah,” he said. “Don’t think so. Carefree and single, our Nerys. She’s got no one, certainly no dependents like me. Costs me a fortune on nappies and oranges.”
“But she said…”
“Nerys just worries when she has to pay full price at Kinky and Frilly.”
Tina’s face hardened. “Are you telling me that Nerys has taken the day off for the death of a pet? A pet!”
“No, Twinkle’s not just a pet, he’s more like a...” Clovenhoof reached for the right words. Nemesis wasn’t right, neither was annoying ball of fluff. Then he realised that they described his own relationship with Twinkle, and that Nerys’s was probably different. That might go some way towards explaining her determination to resurrect him from his present state (which Clovenhoof actually thought was an improvement in terms of his behaviour). “Actually, yes. Pet. You’d call him a pet,” said Clovenhoof.
Nerys held the phone to her ear and listened with growing dismay.
“Yes, I am aware of the company policy, but can’t I just take a day? One day?”
She raised her eyes to Ben, but he was mollifying a woman whose child had started to cry after seeing dead mice on the bookshelf. The mouse choir hadn’t quite engaged customers in the way he had hoped.
“No, of course I didn’t send him in to be annoying and offensive to you,” said Nerys. “He’s annoying and offensive to everyone …”
Nerys gritted her teeth.
“Within the hour? Yes. Yes, of course. See you soon, Tina.”
The call ended, she stared at her phone for a long moment.
“Jeremy Clovenhoof, you are a selfish, ridiculous bastard and I’m going to show you what I think of you!” she yelled.
The mouse-spooked child started crying again.
“Any idea where he’s gone?” she called to Ben.
“Jeremy? He said something about going to the park and ‘letting his little one run wild in the bushes’ this afternoon,” said Ben, pulling a face. “He has got some filthy habits.”
“He’d better hope I don’t find him before he gets himself arrested,” said Nerys, and made for the door.
Clovenhoof brought the Segway-buggy combo to a halt under a spreading oak tree on the plush grass of Sutton Park. Gorky rode on top of the buggy, chattering at Beelzebelle as he peeled an orange with a dizzying speed.
“Right, gang, let’s decide what we’ll do to start with,” said Clovenhoof, holding up a book to show them. It was entitled 50 Things To Do Before You’re 11 3/4. “I am taking my duties seriously, as you can see. We need to start work on these nice and early, Beelzebelle. I’ve seen several other titles in Ben’s shop. Boutique Hotels to Stay in Before You Die might have to take a back seat – a bit pricey. I did some calculations, and if we attempt to do all of them before you go to school, we need to get through at least twenty five every day. If we apply ourselves, we can get through this book this afternoon, what do you say?”
He flicked through the pages.
“We’ll come back to kayaking. I need to figure out where to get a kayak. It’s a kind of moose, isn’t it?”
Gorky squeaked at him.
“Let’s start with tree climbing, shall we? There’s one right here.”
Clovenhoof walked over and slapped his hand on the enormous trunk. It looked like a good one. He picked up the book to see what it said about climbing trees, but it was very light on detail. The branches that looked climbable started well above his head. He tried to grip the bark and dig in his feet, but he just slipped straight off.
He turned to the others.
“I think this might be an unsuitable activity for those of us with hooves,” he said. “Your upper body strength isn’t what it should be, Beelzebelle, so I can imagine you might struggle with this, too. I wonder if I put the Segway against the trunk, whether I can give you a leg up onto the first branch?”
Gorky leapt off the top of the buggy and rummaged in the basket below until he found the baby sling. He carefully put Beelzebelle into the sling and twisted himself into the straps, so that she was suspended in front of him, suspended with her knees and feet dragging on the floor. She laughed and patted his face as they were pressed close together.
“Well done, Gorky. It’s useful to know that you can do that,” said Clovenhoof. “Not sure how it’s helping with our current predicament though. Oh.”
Gorky scrambled speedily up the trunk of the oak tree with Beelzebelle in the sling. Clovenhoof examined the bark, wondering if he might follow, but he had no idea what Gorky had used as hand holds. Maybe he had suckers? He’d check later. He stepped back to watch as Gorky climbed higher and higher, with Beelzebelle emitting squeals of delight.
“Well, that’s one we can tick off the list,” called Clovenhoof. “You can come down now. Mugging squirrels is not on the list, Gorky! Oh, all right, have it your way. I guess we all like nuts.”
Moments later they were all reunited on the ground. Clovenhoof took Beelzebelle and carried her on his hip as he read aloud from the book, munching the nut that Gorky had passed to him.
“Right, we have to find and handle squishy bugs. That should be pretty easy. Let’s head down there towards the pool. There should be some properly squishy bugs in the muddy part. Tell you what, after we’re done with the bugs, we’ll come up here to this hill. Rolling down a hill is on the list, and that’s definitely something we can all do.”
The three of them sat at the edge of Keeper’s Pool, grappling through the mud, looking for bugs, or eating it in Beelzebelle’s case.
“You know, Gorky, that was a really good idea, taking the nut off that squirrel,” said Clovenhoof. “We should do more foraging for food, you know, living off the land. I picked up a book in Ben’s shop about making homebrew. Lots of wild plants are suitable for brewing.” He picked up a nearby leaf and rubbed it between his fingers, giving it a sniff. “This has some of the subtle fragrance that belongs to Lambrini, Gorky. I bet I have what they call a ‘nose’. If I make Lambrini out of everything that smells good, it stands to reason it would be awesome, right?”
He handed the leaf to Gorky, who sniffed it, screeched, and threw it vigorously away. Clovenhoof grabbed armfuls of vegetation and stuffed it into a spare carrier bag.
“That was rude,” said Clovenhoof, straightening, “althou
gh I can see that you find anything other than oranges a bit of a challenge. You should be more open-minded, like Beelzebelle. What is that she’s eating?”
He wandered over. “A slug! Well done Beelzebelle, you can tick another one off your list. Foraging too, I’m going to call that an extra point for ingenuity. Right, it’s time to roll down that hill.”
“Oi, Jeremy! I want a word with you!”
Clovenhoof looked round.
“Nerys!” said Clovenhoof in surprise. Nerys strode towards him with her fists clenched and a scowl on her face.
“Why on earth did you have to go and talk to Tina? She gives me enough trouble without you giving her any more ammunition!”
“Really?” Clovenhoof was genuinely surprised. “You’ve got such a lot in common with her. I sort of assumed you’d be best buddies.”
Nerys stood for a moment and absorbed this comment, and then her eyes bulged, she stepped forward, and used her handbag like a sap, whacking Clovenhoof repeatedly as she screamed at him.
“That is the most horrible thing you could possibly say to me! Do you ever think a sentence through before it comes out of your mouth? Ever?”
Clovenhoof thought for a moment, and shook his head with a small shrug.
“I’ve told you about Tina. I moan about her all the time. Don’t you listen?”
“No, but in my defence, I read an article somewhere that said women’s voices are too high-pitched and whiny for most men to hear.”
“God damn it, Jeremy! I know you’re not normal, but can’t you at least try? You’re still wheeling that baby buggy around. What’s that all about? Everything that you do is creepy and weird!”
Clovenhoof beamed.
“That wasn’t a compliment, you twat!” she snapped.
Clovenhoof’s face fell. Nerys was being a little harsh, but that was perhaps understandable, given the loss of Twinkle. What was a more immediate cause for concern was the absence of Gorky and Beelzebelle. Where had they gone? He and Nerys stood alone on the bank of the pool, the buggy nearby. A small electric whine made them both look behind them.
“There you are!” Clovenhoof said as Gorky barrelled towards them on the Segway with Beelzebelle hanging from his chest in the sling. Clovenhoof could see an immediate problem with this arrangement. To hold onto the handlebars, a diminutive capuchin monkey had to extend his arms as high as he could, so steering was somewhat compromised. “When I said roll down the hill, I’m not sure that this is quite what the authors intended.”
Clovenhoof wondered whether Gorky had a plan for stopping. He suspected not, from the look of panic in his eyes as he approached. He wasn’t sure that Nerys had yet processed the reality of what was approaching them, so he stepped in front of her.
“Sorry Nerys, we need to – oof!”
The Segway hit him in the midriff, and he leaned over the handlebars, winded. Somehow or other, the Segway kept going, and shifted direction, although Clovenhoof clearly heard the sound of Nerys splashing into the pool accompanied by a string of Welsh invective.
“Did we have a plan here?” grunted Clovenhoof, dangling over the handlebars of the Segway as it carried him backwards at high speed. Gorky’s screeching told him everything that he needed to know. There were sounds from behind, as pedestrians and cyclists threw themselves out of the way. The trees got thinner, and the noise of traffic came to Clovenhoof’s ears as they approached the entrance to the park, and the road that ran alongside it.
Clovenhoof was aware of two things at the same time. One was a look of intense fear in Gorky’s eyes, and the other was the honking of a car’s horn. Gorky reacted by stepping expertly off the Segway, taking Beelzebelle with him. Clovenhoof saw him give a final sad little wave as he stood at the kerb.
There was the sound of brakes screeching. Clovenhoof twisted to see what lay in his path and was surprised to see the same stretch transit van he’d encountered earlier in the day.
As he somersaulted through the air, horns gouging the paintwork and shattering the sunroof, he was dimly aware of the Segway landing heavily on the vehicle’s rear end. His very last thought before blacking out, suspended upside down inside the van’s interior, was that the space in the back of the van was not at all what he’d imagined.
Chapter 3 – In which Twinkle gets stuffed, Michael gets a new church, and Clovenhoof goes off-road
Nerys put a hand to her mouth, speechless.
“It’s… it’s…”
“Horrible?” suggested Ben. “Wonky? An affront to all human decency?”
She blinked rapidly and there were tears on her cheeks.
“You,” she whispered hoarsely. “You…”
“Failed? Betrayed me on a level previously thought impossible?”
“And I’m…”
“Leaving? Going to kill you?”
Nerys stepped forward shakily and reached out for the stuffed and mounted Twinkle that Ben had placed on her kitchen counter.
“It’s terrific,” she said.
Her tone sounded positive, but Ben had been caught out by feminine conversational nuances before.
Nerys ran her fingers through his fur.
“Incredible,” she breathed.
She plucked the little dog up and wrapped her arms around it. She pressed her face against the stuffed Yorkie’s and spun in a little circle on tiptoes.
“You like it?” said Ben,
Nerys grabbed Ben and placed a fat kiss on his cheek.
“He’s gorgeous, Ben. I’ve never loved you more.”
“I didn’t know you loved me.”
“I don’t, but I’ve never loved you more than I do now. For once, you’ve not screwed up.”
“Thank you,” said Ben, and then, after consideration, added, “I think.”
He was relieved that Nerys liked the mounted Twinkle. It was, he thought, his best work yet. He had arranged the dog stood on all fours, although with a bend in the back legs as though the little beast was about to jump up (he had worried it was going to look like it was about to take a crap, but he had somehow avoided that). He had arranged Twinkle with his mouth slightly open, tongue just visible. In so far as it was possible to put a smile on a dog’s face, Ben had achieved it.
“I had my doubts,” said Nerys, tickling Twinkle under the collar. “I thought it might look tacky or stupid, but no.”
“No?”
“You’ve given him back to me,” said Nerys.
Ben blushed.
Nerys placed Twinkle on the floor by the dog bowl.
“And mummy’s so glad,” she said.
She reached for a box of dog biscuits on the counter and poured a liberal quantity into the bowl.
“And I should think you’re hungry after all your adventures,” she said.
The words “It is dead,” closely followed by “Stuffed animals don’t eat, you know?” attempted to escape out of Ben’s mouth but, with uncommon foresight, he quashed them.
“I must offer you something,” Nerys said to Ben. “This means the world to me.”
“I’ll take a cup of tea before I head to the shop.”
“Tea it is,” she said, and filled the kettle at the sink.
When she turned the tap off and the sound of running water ceased, there was a biscuity crunching sound. Both looked down. The stuffed Twinkle sat by his bowl, perfectly still.
Of course he’d be perfectly still, Ben chided himself.
“Do you know,” said Nerys with a foolish grin, “for a moment there, I thought …”
She stopped. There was the crunching sound again.
Their gazes snapped downward. Ben even leapt a little, pressing himself back against the fridge. Twinkle was quite still. The noise had stopped.
“Ben,” said Nerys quietly.
“Yes?”
“When you… restored Twinkle, you didn’t…?”
“What?”
“No, I’m being silly now.”
“Please, go on.”
“You did
n’t turn him into a cyborg?”
Ben kept his eyes fixed on the dog.
“Robo-Pooch? I wouldn’t know where to start.”
The crunching sound came again. Twinkle sat motionless.
Maybe Nerys had a rat infestation, thought Ben.
Nerys slapped Ben on the arm.
“Ben, quick question,” she whispered.
“Uh-huh?”
“When you came in with Twinkle, did you also bring a stuffed monkey with you?”
“A what?”
On the counter by the door sat a brown and gold capuchin monkey. It was in a pose not unlike that of Hamlet contemplating a skull except, in this case, it was not a skull, but a handful of dog biscuits.
“No,” said Ben, quiet and insistent and more than a little weirded out. “Is it stuffed?”
Perhaps realising the game was up, the monkey gave them a toothy grin and stuffed the remaining dog biscuits in its mouth.
“Lambrini me, Lennox,” said Clovenhoof.
The Boldmere Oak barman took a bottle from the chiller cabinet behind the bar. Clovenhoof was pleased that, in the years since his arrival, the pub’s stock of Lambrini had gone from one lonely bottle to a whole fridge of the stuff. Clovenhoof didn’t know if it was reflection of his own personal alcohol consumption or if he had sparked a renewed fashion for the drink. He was happy with either.
“This one’s on me,” said Ed Lawrence, coming up to the bar.
“I never refuse the offer of a free drink,” said Clovenhoof.
“Well, I owe you one and, maybe – just maybe – I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
“I had a neighbour who had that. I think it was cataracts.”
“I meant financially.”
“Or possibly excessive wanking.”
Ed shook his head and paid Lennox.
“The research company have given me an additional cash advance.”
“Drinks on the house then.”
“The cash is to procure those samples of exotic animal DNA. Cheers.”
Clovenhoof clinked glasses with Ed and downed the glass of fizzy perry.
