by Tom Sharpe
'You're not to go into that part of the cellar,' she said looking severely at the evidence of Wilt's inexpert brewing in the shape of several exploded bottles. 'It isn't safe.'
Then why does Daddy drink it?' asked Penelope.
'When you get a little older you'll learn that men do a great many things that aren't very sensible or safe,' said Mrs de Frackas.
'Like wearing a bag on the end of their wigwags?' asked Josephine.
'Well I wouldn't quite know about that, dear,' said Mrs de Frackas evidently torn between curiosity and a desire not to enquire too closely into the Wilts' private life.
'Mummy said the doctor made him wear it,' continued Josephine adding an unmentionable disease to the old lady's dossier of Wilt's faults.
'And I stepped on it and Daddy screamed,' said Emmeline proudly. 'He screamed ever so loudly.'
'I'm sure he did, dear,' said Mrs de Frackas, trying to imagine the reaction of her late and liverish husband had any child been so unwise as to step on his penis. 'Now let's talk about something nice.'
The distinction was wasted on the quads. 'When daddy comes home from the doctor mummy says his wigwag will be better and he won't say "Fuck" when he goes weewee.'
'Say what, dear? asked Mrs de Frackas, adjusting her hearing aid in the hope that it rather than Samantha had been at fault. The quads in unison disillusioned her.
'Fuck, fuck, fuck,' they squealed. Mrs de Frackas turned her hearing aid down.
'Well, really,' she said, 'I don't think you should use that word.'
'Mummy says we mustn't too but Michael's daddy told him...'
'I don't want to hear,' said Mrs de Frackas hastily. 'In my young days children didn't talk about such things.'
'How did babies get born then?' asked Penelope.
'In the usual way, dear, only we were brought up not to mention such things.'
'What things?' demanded Penelope.
Mrs de Frackas regarded her dubiously. It was beginning to dawn on her that the Wilt quads were not quite such nice children as she had supposed In fact they were distinctly unnerving. 'Just things,' she said finally.
'Like cocks and cunts?' asked Emmeline.
Mrs de Frackas eyed her with disgust. 'You could put it like that, I suppose,' she said stiffly. 'Though frankly I'd prefer it if you didn't.'
'If you don't put it like that how do you put it?' asked the indefatigable Penelope
Mrs de Frackas searched her mind in vain for an alternative.
'I don't quite know.' she said, surprised at her own ignorance. 'I suppose the matter never arose.'
'Daddy's does,' said Josephine, 'I saw it once.'
Mrs de Frackas turned her disgusted attention on the child and tried to stifle her own curiosity. 'You did?' she said involuntarily.
'He was in the bathroom with mummy and I looked through the keyhole and daddy's...'
'It's time you had baths too,' said Mrs de Frackas, getting to her feet before Josephine could divulge any further details of the Wilts' sexual life.
'We haven't had supper yet,' said Samantha.
'Then I'll get you some,' said Mrs de Frackas and went up the cellar steps to hunt for eggs. By the time she returned with a tray the quads were no longer hungry. They had finished a jar of pickled onions and were halfway through their second packet of dried figs.
'You've still got to have scrambled eggs,' said the old lady resolutely. 'I didn't go to the trouble of making them to have them wasted, you know.'
'You didn't make them,' said Penelope. 'Mummy hens made them.'
'And daddy hens are called cocks,' squealed Josephine but Mrs de Frackas, having just outfaced two armed bandits, was in no mood to be defied by four foul-minded girls.
'We won't discuss that any further, thank you,' she said, 'I've had quite enough.'
It was shortly apparent that the quads had too. As she shooed them up the cellar steps Emmeline was complaining that her tummy hurt.
'It will soon stop, dear,' said Mrs de Frackas, 'and it doesn't help to hiccup like that.'
'Not hiccuping,' retorted Emmeline, and promptly vomited on the kitchen floor. Mrs de Frackas looked around in the semi-darkness for the light switch and had just found it and turned it on when Chinanda cannoned into her and switched it off.
'What are you trying to do? Get us all killed?' he yelled.
'Not all of us,' said Mrs de Frackas, 'and if you don't look where you're going...'
A crash as the terrorist slid across the kitchen floor on a mixture of half-digested pickled onions and dried figs indicated that Chinanda hadn't.
'It's no use blaming me,' said Mrs de Frackas, 'and you shouldn't use language like that in front of children. It sets a very bad example.'
'I set an example all right,' shouted Chinanda, 'I spill your guts.'
'I rather think somebody is doing that already,' retorted the old lady as the other three quads, evidently sharing Emmeline's inability to cope with quite so eclectic a diet, followed her example. Presently the kitchen was filled with four howling and vomit-stained small girls, a very unappetizing smell, two demented terrorists and Mrs de Frackas at her most imperious. To add to the confusion Baggish had deserted his post in the front hall and had dashed in threatening to kill the first person who moved.
'I have no intention of moving,' said Mrs de Frackas, 'and since the only person who is happens to be that creature grovelling in the corner I suggest you put him out of his misery.'
From the direction of the sink Chinanda could be heard disentangling himself from Eva's Kenwood mixer which had joined him on the floor.
Mrs de Frackas turned the light on again. This time no one objected, Chinanda because he had been momentarily stunned and Baggish because he was too dismayed by the state of the kitchen.
'And now,' said the old lady, 'if you've quite finished I'll take the children up for their bath before putting them to bed.'
'Bed?' yelled Chinanda getting unsteadily to his feet. 'Nobody goes upstairs. You all sleep down in the cellar. Go down there now.'
'If you really suppose for one moment that I am going to allow these poor children to go down that cellar again in their present condition and without being thoroughly washed you're very much mistaken.'
Chinanda jerked the cord on the Venetian blind and cut out the view from the garden.
'Then you wash them in here,' he said pointing to the sink.
'And where do you propose to be?'
'Where we can see what you are doing.'
Mrs de Frackas snorted derisively. 'I know your sort, and if you think I am going to expose their pure little bodies to your lascivious gaze...'
'What the hell is she saying?' demanded Baggish.
Mrs de Frackas turned her contempt on him. 'And yours too, don't I just. I haven't been through the Suez Canal and Port Said for nothing you know.'
Baggish stared at her. 'Port Said? The Suez Canal? I never been to Egypt in my life.'
'Well I have. And I know what I know.'
'So what are we talking about? You know what you know. I don't know what you know.'
'Postcards,' said Mrs de Frackas. 'I don't think I need say anymore.'
'You haven't said anything yet. First the Suez Canal, then Port Said and now postcards. Will someone tell me what the hell these things have to do with washing children?'
'Well if you must know, I mean dirty postcards. I might also mention donkeys but I won't. And now if you'll both leave the room...'
But the implications of Mrs de Frackas' imperial prejudices had slowly dawned on Baggish.
'You mean pornography? What century you think you're living in? You want pornography you go to London. Soho is full '
'I don't want pornography and I don't intend to discuss the matter further.'
'Then you go down the cellar before I kill you,' yelled the enraged Baggish. But Mrs de Frackas was too old to be persuaded by mere threats and it took bodily pressure to shove her through the cellar door with the quads. As th
ey went down the steps Emmeline could be heard asking why the nasty man didn't like donkeys.
'I tell you the English are mad,' said Baggish. 'Why did we have to choose this crazy house?'
'It chose us,' said Chinanda miserably, and switched out the light.
But if Mrs de Frackas had decided to ignore the fact that her life was in danger, upstairs in the flat Wilt was now acutely aware that his previous tactics had backfired on him. To have invented the People's Alternative Army had served to confuse things for a while, but his threat to execute, or more accurately to murder Gudrun Schautz had been a terrific mistake. It put a time limit on his bluff. Looking back over forty years Wilt's record of violence was limited to the occasional and usually unsuccessful bout with flies and mosquitoes. No, to have issued that ultimatum had been almost as stupid as not getting out of the house when the going was good. Now it was distinctly bad, and the sounds coming from the bathroom suggested that Gudrun Schautz had torn up the lino and was busy on the floorboards. If she escaped and joined the men below she would add an intellectual fervour to their evidently stupid fanaticism. On the other hand he could think of no way of stopping her short of threatening to fire through the bathroom door, and if that didn't work...There had to be an alternative method. What if he opened the door himself and somehow persuaded her that it wasn't safe to go downstairs? In that way he could keep the two groups separate and provided they couldn't communicate with one another Fräulein Schautz would be hard put to it to influence her blood-brothers down below. Well, that was easy enough to do.
Wilt crossed to the telephone and jerked the cord from the wall. So far so good but there was still the little matter of the guns. The notion of sharing the flat with a woman who had cold-bloodedly murdered eight people was not an attractive one in any circumstances, but when that flat contained enough firearms to eliminate several hundred it became positively suicidal. The guns would have to go too. But where? He could hardly drop the damned things out of the window. The effect of a shower of revolvers, grenades and a sub-machine gun on the terrorists was likely to encourage them to come up and find out what the hell was going on. Anyway, the grenades might go off and there were enough misunderstandings floating around already without adding exploding grenades. The best thing would be to hide them. Very gingerly Wilt put his armoury back into the flight bag and went through the kitchen to the attic space. Gudrun Schautz was now definitely busy on the floorboards and under cover of the noise Wilt climbed up and edged his way along to the water cistern. There he lowered the bag into the water before replacing the cover. Then, having checked to make quite sure that he hadn't missed a gun, he steeled himself for the next move. It was, he considered, about as safe as opening the cage of a tiger at the zoo and inviting the thing to come out, but it had to be done and in an insane situation only an act of total lunacy could save the children. Wilt went through the kitchen to the bathroom door.
'Irmgard,' he whispered. Miss Schautz went on with her work of demolishing the bathroom floor. Wilt took another deep breath and whispered more loudly. Inside work ceased and there was silence.
'Irmgard,' said Wilt, 'is that you?'
There was a movement and then a quiet voice spoke. 'Who is there?'
'It's me,' said Wilt, sticking to the obvious and wishing to hell it wasn't, 'Henry Wilt.'
'Henry Wilt?'
'Yes. They've gone.'
'Who have gone?'
'I don't know. Whoever they were. You can come out now.'
'Come out?' asked Gudrun Schautz in a tone of voice that suggested the total bewilderment Wilt wanted.
'I'll undo the door.'
Wilt began to remove the flex from the doorhandle. It was difficult in the growing darkness but after several minutes he had undone the wire and removed the chair.
'It's OK now,' he said. 'You can come out.'
But Gudrun Schautz made no move. 'How do I know it's you?' she asked.
'I don't know,' said Wilt, glad of this opportunity to delay matters, 'it just is.'
'Who is with you?'
'No one. They've gone downstairs.'
'You keep saying "They". Who are these "They"?'
'I've no idea. Men with guns. The whole house is filled with men with guns.'
'So why are you here?' asked Miss Schautz.
'Because I can't be somewhere else,' said Wilt truthfully. 'You don't think I want to be here? They've been shooting at one another. I could have been killed. I don't know what the hell's going on.'
There was a silence from the bathroom. Gudrun Schautz was having difficulty working out what was going on too. In the darkness of the kitchen Wilt smiled to himself. Keep this up and he'd have the bitch bombed out of her mind.
'And no one is with you?' she asked.
'Of course not.'
'Then how did you know I was in the bathroom?'
'I heard you having a bath,' said Wilt, 'and then all these people started shouting and shooting and...'
'Where were you?'
'Look,' said Wilt deciding to change his tactics, 'I don't see why you keep asking me these questions. I mean I've taken the trouble to come up here and undo the door and you won't come out and you keep on about who they are and where I was and all that as if I knew. As a matter of fact I was having a nap in the bedroom and...'
'A nap? What is a nap?'
'A nap? Oh, a nap. Well it's a sort of after-lunch snooze. Sleep, you know. Anyway when all the hullabaloo started, the shooting and so on, and I heard you shout "Get the children," and I thought how jolly kind of you that was...'
'Kind of me? You thought that kind of me?" asked Miss Schautz with a distinctly strangulated disbelief.
'I mean putting the children first instead of your own safety. Most people wouldn't have thought of saving the children, would they?'
A gurgling noise from the bathroom indicated that Gudrun Schautz hadn't thought of this interpretation of her orders and was having to make readjustments in her attitude to Wilt's intelligence.
'No, that is so,' she said finally.
'Well naturally after that I couldn't leave you locked up here, could I?' continued Wilt, realizing that talking like some idiotic chinless wonder had its advantages. 'Noblesse oblige and all that, what!'
'Noblesse oblige?'
'You know, one good turn deserves another and whatnot,' said Wilt. 'So as soon as the coast was clear I sort of came out from under the bed and hopped up here.'
'What coast?' demanded Miss Schautz suspiciously.
'When the blighters up here decided to go downstairs,' said Wilt. 'Seemed the safest place to be. Anyway, why don't you come out and have a chair. It must be jolly uncomfortable in there.'
Miss Schautz considered this proposition and the fact that Wilt sounded like a congenital idiot and took the risk.
'I haven't any clothes on,' she said opening the door an inch.
'Gosh,' said Wilt, 'I'm awfully sorry. Hadn't thought of that. I'll go and get you something.'
He went into the bedroom and rummaged in a cupboard and having found what felt like a raincoat in the darkness took it back.
'Here's a coat,' he said handing it through the doorway 'Don't like to turn the bedroom light on in case those blokes downstairs see it and start pooping off again with their guns. Mind you I've locked the door and barricaded it so they'd have a job getting in.'
In the bathroom Miss Schautz put on the raincoat and cautiously came out to find Wilt pouring boiling water from the electric kettle into a teapot.
'Thought you'd like a nice cup of tea,' he said. 'Know I would.'
Behind him Gudrun Schautz tried to comprehend what had happened. From the moment she had been locked in the bathroom she had been convinced that the flat was occupied by policemen. Now it seemed whoever had been there had gone and this weak and stupid Englishman was making tea as if nothing was wrong. Wilt's admission that he had spent the afternoon cowering under the bed in the room below had been convincingly ignominious and had helped
to confirm the impression she had gathered from his previous nocturnal exchanges with Frau Wilt that he was no sort of threat. On the other hand she had to find out how much he knew.
'These men with guns,' she said, 'what sort of men are they?'
'Well I wasn't really in a very good position to see them,' said Wilt, 'being under the bed and so on. Some of them were wearing boots and some weren't, if you see what I mean.'
Gudrun Schautz didn't. 'Boots?'
'Not shoes. Do you take sugar, by the way?'
'No.'
'Very wise,' said Wilt, 'awfully bad for the teeth. Anyway here's your cup. Oh I am sorry. Here, let me get a cloth and wipe you down.'
And in the close confines of the little kitchen Wilt groped for a cloth and presently was mopping Gudrun Schautz's coat down where he had deliberately spilt the tea.
'You can stop now,' she said as Wilt transferred the attentions of the towel from her breasts to lower areas.
'Righto, and I'll pour another cup.'
She squeezed past him into the bedroom while Wilt considered what other domestic accidents he could provoke to distract her attention. There was always sex, of course, but in the circumstances it hardly seemed likely that the bitch would be particularly interested in it and, even if she were, the notion of making love with a professional murderess would make arousal extremely difficult. Whisky droop was bad enough, terror droop was infinitely worse. Still, flattery might help, and she certainly had nice boobs. Wilt took another cup of tea through to the bedroom and found her looking out of the balcony window into the garden.
'I shouldn't go over there,' he said, 'there are more maniacs outside with Donald Duck shirts on.'
'Donald Duck shirts?'
'And guns,' said Wilt. 'If you ask me the whole bloody place has gone loony.'
'And you have no idea what is happening?'
'Well I heard somebody shouting about Israelis, but it doesn't seem likely somehow, does it? I mean what on earth would Israelis want to come swarming all over Willington Road for?'
