The Wilt Alternative w-2

by Tom Sharpe

  'If you mention the word Muse again, Henry...' said Braintree threateningly.

  'I don't intend to,' said Wilt. 'Such ears as yours are far too coarse. Come to think of it, that almost rhymes. Has it ever occurred to you that English is a language most naturally fitted for poetry which rhymes?'

  Wilt launched into this more agreeable topic and finished more beers. By the time they left The Glassblower's Arms Braintree was too drunk to drive home.

  'I'll leave the car here and fetch it in the morning,' he told Wilt who was propping up a telegraph pole, 'and if I were you I'd ring for a taxi. You're not even fit to walk.'

  'I shall commune with nature,' said Wilt. 'I have no intention of hastening the time between now and reality. With any luck it'll be asleep by the time I get back.'

  And he wobbled off in the direction of Willington Road, stopping occasionally to steady himself against a gatepost and twice to pee into someone else's garden. On the second occasion he mistook a rosebush for a hydrangea and scratched himself rather badly and was sitting on the grass verge attempting to use a handkerchief as a tourniquet when a police car pulled up beside him. Wilt blinked into the flashlight which shone in his face before travelling down to the bloodstained handkerchief.

  'Are you all right?' asked the voice behind the flashlight, rather too obsequiously for Wilt's taste.

  'Does it look like it?' he asked truculently. 'You find a bloke sitting on the kerb tying a handkerchief round the remains of his once-proud manhood and you ask a bloody fool question like that?'

  'If you don't mind, sir, I'd lay off the abusive language,' said the policeman. 'There's a law against using it on the public highway.'

  'There ought to be a law about planting ruddy rosebushes next to the fucking pavement,' said Wilt.

  'And may one ask what you were doing to the rose, sir?'

  'One may,' said Wilt, 'if one can't bloody well surmise for one's ruddy self, one may indeed.'

  'Mind telling me, then?' said the policeman taking out a notebook. Wilt told him with a wealth of description and a volubility that brought the lights on in several houses down the road. Ten minutes later he was helped out of the police car into the station. 'Drunk and disorderly, using abusive language, disturbing the peace...'

  Wilt intervened. 'Peace my bloody foot,' he shouted. 'That was no Peace. We've got a Peace in our front garden and it hasn't got thorns a foot long. And anyway I wasn't disturbing it. You want to try partial circumcision on flaming floribunda to find out what disturbs what. All I was doing was quietly relieving myself or in plain language having a slash when that infernal thicket of climbing cat's claws took it into its vegetable head to have a slash at me and if you don't believe me, go back and try for yourselves...'

  'Take him down to the cells,' said the desk sergeant to prevent Wilt upsetting an elderly woman who had come in to report the loss of her Pekinese. But before the two constables could drag Wilt away to a cell they were interrupted by a shout from Inspector Flint's office. The Inspector had been called back to the station by the arrest of a long-suspected burglar and was happily interrogating him when the sound of a familiar voice reached him. He erupted from his office and stared lividly at Wilt.

  'What the hell is he doing here?' he demanded.

  'Well, sir...' one constable began but Wilt broke loose.

  'According to your goons I was attempting to rape a rosebush. According to me I was having a quiet pee.'

  'Wilt,' yelled the Inspector, 'if you've come down here to make my life a misery again, forget it. And as for you two, take a good look at this bastard, a very good, long look and unless you catch him in the act of actually murdering someone, or better still wait until you've seen him do it, don't lay a finger on the brute. Now get him out of here.'

  'But, sir '

  'I said out,' shouted Flint. 'I meant out. That thing you've just brought in is a human virus of infective insanity. Get him out of here before he turns this station into a madhouse.'

  'Well, I like that,' Wilt protested. 'I get dragged down here on a trumped-up charge...'

  He was dragged out again while Flint went back to his office and sat abstractedly thinking about Wilt. Visions of that damned doll still haunted his mind and he would never forget the hours he had spent interrogating the little sod. And then there was Mrs Eva Wilt whose corpse he had supposed to be buried under thirty tons of concrete while all the time the wretched woman was drifting down the river on a motor cruiser. Together the Wilts had made him look an idiot and there were jokes in the canteen about inflatable dolls. One of these days he would get his revenge. Yes, one of these days... He turned back to the burglar with a new sense of purpose.

  On the doorstep of his house in Willington Road Wilt sat staring up at the clouds and meditating on love and life and the differing impressions he made on people. What had Flint called him? An infective virus... a human virus of infective... The word recalled Wilt to his own injury.

  'Might get tetanus or something,' he muttered and fumbled in his pocket for the doorkey. Ten minutes later, still wearing his jacket but without trousers and pants, Wilt was in the bathroom soaking his manhood in a toothmug filled with warm water and Dettol when Eva came in.

  'Have you any idea what time it is? It's ' She stopped and stared in horror at the toothmug.

  'Three o'clock,' said Wilt, trying to steer the conversation back to less controversial matters, but Eva's interest in the time had vanished.

  What on earth are doing with that thing?' she gasped. Wilt looked down at the toothmug.

  'Well, now that you come to mention it, and despite all circum... circumstantial evidence to the contrary, I am not... well, actually I am trying to disinfect myself. You see '

  'Disinfect yourself?'

  'Yes... well' said Wilt conscious that there was an element of ambiguity about the explanation, 'the thing is...'

  'In my toothmug,' shouted Eva. 'You stand there with your thingamajig in my toothmug and admit you're disinfecting yourself? And who was the woman, or didn't you bother to ask her name?'

  'It wasn't a woman. It was...'

  'Don't tell me. I don't want to know. Mavis was right about you. She said you didn't just walk home. She said you spent your evenings with some other woman.'

  'It wasn't another woman. It was...'

  'Don't lie to me. To think that after all these years of married life you have to resort to whores and prostitutes...'

  'It wasn't a whore in that sense,' said Wilt. 'I suppose you could say hips and haws but it's spelt differently and...'

  'That's right, try to wriggle out of it...'

  'I'm not wriggling out of anything. I got caught in a rosebush...'

  'Is that what they call themselves nowadays? Rosebushes?' Eva stopped and stared at Wilt with fresh horror.

  'As far as I know they've always called themselves rosebushes,' said Wilt, unaware that Eva's suspicions had hit a new low. 'I don't see what else you can call them.'

  'Gays? Faggots? How about them for a start?'

  'What?' shouted Wilt, but Eva was not to be stopped.

  'I always knew there was something wrong with you, Henry Wilt,' she bawled, 'and now I know what. And to think that you come back and use my toothmug to disinfect yourself. How low can you get?'

  'Listen,' said Wilt, suddenly conscious that his Muse was privy to Eva's appalling innuendos, 'I can prove it was a rose bush. Take a look if you don't believe me.'

  But Eva didn't wait. 'Don't think you're spending another night in my house,' she shouted from the passage. 'Never again! You can take yourself back to your boyfriend and...'

  'I have had about as much as I can take from you,' yelled Wilt emerging in hot pursuit. He was brought up short by the sight of Penelope standing wide-eyed in the passage.

  'Oh, shit,' said Wilt and retreated to the bathroom again. Outside he could hear Penelope sobbing and Eva hysterically pretending to calm her. A bedroom door opened and closed. Wilt sat on the edge of the bath and cursed
. Then he emptied the toothmug down the toilet, dried himself distractedly on a towel and used the Elastoplast. Finally he squeezed toothpaste on to the electric toothbrush and was busily brushing his teeth when the bedroom door opened again and Eva rushed out. 'Henry Wilt, if you're using that toothbrush to...'

  'Once and for all,' yelled Wilt with a mouthful of foam, 'I am sick and tired of your vile insinuations. I have had a long and tiring day and '

  'I can believe that,' bawled Eva.

  'For your information I am simply brushing my teeth prior to climbing into bed and if you think I am doing anything else...' He was interrupted by the toothbrush. The end jumped off and fell into the washbasin.

  'Now what are you doing?' Eva demanded.

  'Trying to get the brush out of the plughole,' said Wilt, an explanation that led to further recriminations, a brief and uneven encounter at the top of the stairs and finally a disgruntled Wilt being shoved out through the kitchen door with a sleeping-bag and told to spend the rest of the night in the summer-house.

  'I won't have you perverting the minds of the wee ones,' Eva shouted through the door, 'and tomorrow I'm seeing a lawyer.'

  'As if I bloody care,' Wilt shouted back and wove down the garden to the summerhouse. For a while he stumbled about in the darkness trying to find the zip in the sleeping-bag. It didn't appear to have one. Wilt sat down on the floor and got his feet into the thing and was just wriggling his way down it when a sound from behind the summerhouse startled him into silence. Someone was making his way through the orchard from the field beyond. Wilt sat still in the darkness and listened. There could be no doubt about it. There was a rustle of grass, and a twig broke. Silence again. Wilt peered over the edge of the window and as he did so the lights in the house went out. Eva had gone to bed again. The sound of someone walking cautiously through the orchard began once more. In the summer-house Wilt's imagination was toying with burglars and what he would do if someone tried to break into the house, when he saw close outside the window a dark figure. It was joined by a second. Wilt crouched lower in the summerhouse and cursed Eva for leaving him without his trousers and...

  But a moment later his fears had gone. The two figures were moving confidently across the lawn and one of them had spoken in German. It was Irmgard's voice that reached Wilt and reassured him. And as the figures disappeared round the side of the house Wilt wriggled down into the sleeping-bag with the relatively comfortable thought that at least his Muse had been spared that insight into English family life which Eva's denunciations would have revealed. On the other hand, what was Irmgard doing out at this time of night and who was the other person? A wave of self-pitying jealousy swept over Wilt before being dislodged by more practical considerations. The summer-house floor was hard, he had no pillow and the night had suddenly become extremely chilly. He was damned if he was going to spend the rest of it outside. And anyway the keys to the front door were still in his jacket pocket. Wilt climbed out of the sleeping-bag and fumbled for his shoes. Then dragging the sleeping-bag behind him he made his way across the lawn and round to the front door. Once inside he took off his shoes and crossed the hall to the sitting-room and ten minutes later was fast asleep on the sofa.

  When he awoke Eva was banging things about in the kitchen while the quads, evidently gathered round the breakfast table, were discussing the events of the night. Wilt stared at the curtains and listened to the muffled questions of his daughters and Eva's evasive answers. As usual she was garnishing downright lies with mawkish sentimentality.

  'Your father wasn't very well last night, darling,' he heard her say. 'He had the collywobbles in his tummy that's all and when he gets like that he says things... Yes, I know mumsy said things too, Hennypenny. I was... What did you say, Samantha?... I said that?... Well he can't have had it in the toothmug because tummies won't go in little things like that... Tummies, darling... You can't get collywobbles anywhere else... Where did you learn that word, Samantha?... No he didn't and if you go to playgroup and tell Miss Oates that Daddy had his...'

  Wilt buried his head under the cushions to shut out the conversation. The bloody woman was doing it again, lying through her teeth to four damned girls who spent so much of their time trying to deceive one another they could spot a lie a mile off. And harping on about Miss Oates was calculated to make them compete to see who could be the first to tell the old bag and twenty-five other toddlers that daddy spent the night with his penis in a toothmug. By the time that story had been disseminated through the neighbourhood it would be common knowledge that the notorious Mr Wilt was some sort of toothmug fetishist.

  He was just cursing Eva for her stupidity and himself for having drunk too much beer when the further consequences of too much beer made themselves felt. He needed a pee and badly. Wilt clambered out of the sleeping-bag. In the hall Eva could be heard hustling the quads into their coats. Wilt waited until the front door had closed behind them and then hobbled across the hall to the downstairs toilet. It was only then that the full magnitude of his predicament became apparent. Wilt stared down at a large and extremely tenacious piece of sticking-plaster.

  'Damn,' said Wilt. 'I must have been drunker than I thought. When the hell did I put that on?' There was a gap in his memory. He sat down on the toilet and wondered how on earth to get the bloody thing off without doing himself any more injury. From past experience of sticking-plaster he knew the best method was to wrench the stuff off with one jerk. It didn't seem advisable now.

  'Might pull the whole bloody lot off,' he muttered. The safest thing would be to find a pair of scissors. Wilt emerged cautiously from the toilet and peered over the banisters. Just so long as he didn't meet Irmgard coming down from the flat in the attic. Considering the hour she had got back it was extremely unlikely. She was probably still in bed with some beastly boyfriend. Wilt went upstairs and into the bedroom. Eva kept some nail-scissors in the dressing table. He found them and was sitting on the edge of the bed when Eva returned. She headed upstairs, hesitated a moment on the landing and then entered the bedroom.

  'I thought I'd find you here,' she said crossing the room to the curtains. 'I knew the moment my back was turned you'd sneak into the house. Well don't think you can worm your way out of this one because you can't. I've made up my mind.'

  'What mind?' said Wilt.

  'That's right. Insult me,' said Eva, pulling the curtains back and flooding the room with sunshine.

  'I am not insulting you,' snarled Wilt, 'I am merely asking a question. Since I can't get it into your empty head that I am not a raving arse-bandit '

  'Language, language,' said Eva.

  'Yes, language. It's a means of communication, not just a series of moos, coos and bleats the way you use it.'

  But Eva was no longer listening. Her attention was riveted on the scissors 'That's right. Cut the horrid thing off,' she squawked and promptly burst into tears. 'To think that you had to go and...'

  'Shut up,' yelled Wilt. 'Here I am in imminent danger of bursting and you have to start howling like a banshee. If you had used your bloody head instead of a perverted imagination last night I wouldn't have been in this predicament.

  'What predicament?' asked Eva between sobs.

  'This,' shouted Wilt waving his agonized organ.

  Eva glanced at it curiously. 'What did you do that for?' she asked.

  'To stop the damned thing from bleeding. I have told you repeatedly that I caught it on a rosebush but you had to jump to idiotic conclusions. Now I can't get this bloody sticking-plaster off and I've got a gallon of beer backed up behind it.'

  'You really meant it about the rose bush then?'

  'Of course I did. I spend my life telling the truth and nothing but the truth and nobody ever believes me. For the last time I was having a pee next to a rosebush and I got snagged in the fucking thing. That is the simple truth, unembroidered, ungarnished and unexaggerated.'

  'And you want the sticking-plaster off?'

  'What the hell have I been sayi
ng for the last five minutes? I not only want it off. I need it off before I burst.'

  'That's easy,' said Eva. 'All you've got to do...'

  Chapter 7

  Twenty-five minutes later Wilt hobbled through the door of the Accident Centre at the Ipford Hospital, pale, pained and horribly embarrassed. He made his way to the desk and looked into the unsympathetic and obviously unimaginative eyes of the admissions clerk.

  'I'd like to see a doctor,' he said with some difficulty.

  'Have you broken something?' asked the woman.

  'Sort of,' said Wilt, conscious that his conversation was being monitored by a dozen other patients with more obvious but less distressing injuries.

  'What do you mean, sort of?'

  Wilt eyed the woman and tried to convey wordlessly that his was a condition that required discretion. The woman was clearly extraordinarily obtuse.

  'If it's not a break, cut or wound requiring immediate attention, or a case of poisoning you should consult your own doctor.' Wilt considered these options and decided that 'wound requiring immediate attention' fitted the bill.

  'Wound,' he said.

  'Where?' asked the woman picking up a ballpen and a pad of forms.

  'Well...' said Wilt even more hoarsely than before. Half the other patients seemed to have brought their wives or mothers.

  'I said where?' said the woman impatiently.

  'I know you did,' whispered Wilt. 'The thing is...'

  'I haven't got all day, you know.'

  'I realize that,' said Wilt, 'it's just that... well I... Look, would you mind if I explained the situation to a doctor? You see...' But the woman didn't. In Wilt's opinion she was either a sadist or mentally deficient.