by Kerrie Noor
H2 drove down the dirt track road on her 49cc peddle-start moped designed purely for Operators. Nothing like the limo, four-lane freeway experiences for the Voted Ins but far better than the dusty footpath for the masses. After all, an Operator could be called in at a moment’s notice and would need to get to the shed in the nick of time, as many Voted Ins put it, which was not easy when the dirt track road was full of potholes.
H2 was not the first who, at the high speed of thirty-five miles downhill with the wind behind her, hit a pothole, landed on her face, and carried on, all in the name of . . . getting there in the nick of time.
Of course, any requests for pothole-filling were always denied, usually with the threat of cutbacks along with a confusing spreadsheet, and if this didn’t do the trick, then a quick “Do you want to go back to transportation on your feet along with the masses?” always worked. No one wanted to join the masses.
H2 was fed up. Helping Hilda would have to have been the stupidest decision she had ever made. Hilda showed no interest in her name and would probably not even remember her face. But the Operators would, and they would never forgive her. She would be forever stuck in the back of the shed with no chance of the cheesy bit of the pizza and no rest from the tea run.
H2 parked her moped outside the shed and noted that pizza had been ordered, probably consumed. She went inside.
Chapter Twenty-Two—The Cat Out of the Bag
“A CAT CAN MEOW, A CAT can purr, a cat can also stick up its fur.” —Identity unknown
Beryl was listening to Chill with the Stars on the radio when she arrived home; it always helped her forget. She closed her eyes and took a sip of fizzy when the voice of Deidre, a young upstart of a reporter, interrupted with an annoying urgency that had Beryl regretting her choice.
“Updates from the esteemed supporter of the Esteemed; Hilda is here with the latest of the latest. Hello there, Hilda. I must say, you’re looking rather Spartan tonight.”
“Thank you,” said Hilda.
“Miss your beauty sleep?”
“Turn it up,” snapped Beryl to the volume control. Nothing happened; she sighed. “Please.”
“Ma’am . . .”
“Is there a reason for the late-night conference? Anything to do with the rumored leaks?” asked Deidre.
“It is hardly my place to say,” said Hilda.
“Is it true that the financial committee are aware of this overspending?”
“This is more a question for the committee . . .” Hilda stopped.
“Are they aware?”
“It is not strictly a case of awareness but more a case of reading between the lines . . .” Hilda again paused.
“Are they aware?”
“Aware is such a crude word,” Hilda’s voice purred.
“Yes, but are they?”
“The funding committee have consolidated a proposal of balance for the said . . . missing funds . . .” Hilda’s voice trailed off.
“Get me a coffee,” snapped Beryl to the coffee maker.
“Did you say missing?” asked Deidre.
“Did I?”
Beryl noted the coyness in Hilda’s voice. “Make it a double.”
Silence.
“Oh, for the love of cucumber; since when do machines want manners?”
“Ma’am can always pour herself.”
“Please!”
“Did you say missing?” continued Deidre.
“I meant untraceable,” said Hilda.
“Is that not the same as missing—so-called untraceable?”
“Not in its interlaying process.” Hilda let out a dramatic sigh. “As Beryl our esteemed leader has pointed out.”
Beryl spluttered the rest of her fizzy. In the name of beetroot.
“Who?” asked Deirdre.
“Our esteemed leader,” purred Hilda.
“Oh,” muttered Deirdre. “Her.”
Beryl listened as Hilda made her sound like a fool, like it was Beryl’s indecision that caused the whole financial issue that didn’t really exist. She listened as Hilda hinted at the missing unmentionable (Legless) with not one mention of his name. Hilda was questioning the truth about Legless, alluding to the fact that he was still “alive and kicking it up down below.” She treaded a fine line of words and she did it perfectly and Beryl came out looking as bad as week-old eggs sitting in the sun.
Beryl gazed out into the gray night with the occasional flickering of lights. She opened the window and let the cool air blow in. All around the planet, millions of women were at home sleeping, living, because of her. And were they grateful? Did they even know or care who kept this planet alive and turning?
She stared at the Milky Way swirling along the horizon. Is it all worth it, the constant fight to keep on top?
BERYL LOOKED AT HER H-Pad; it was flashing.
“Sir, I have Mex’s coordinates for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Three—The Tube
“TO CRUSH A MAN TAKES more than a good set of thighs.” —Legless
Beryl’s beehive hair faded from view, leaving Mex clutching Izzie like a James Bond Blofeld, muttering, “He’s alive . . . and she wants it that way.”
Bunnie took the H-Pad from Mex’s hand and placed it on the table as Izzie nudged her hand for a stroke.
“Was that your boss then?” said Bunnie.
“Well, yes.”
“Don’t think much of her hairstyle.”
“Not many do.”
“Don’t think much of this . . . Legless for a name either. What is he, an alcoholic?”
“Not exactly.” Mex stared at the photos on the wall. Beryl had finally told her the truth, and she was speechless.
“So you got to find a spark plug now? My Don, he knows all about that sort of thing, maybe he could help.”
“It’s not that sort of spark plug.”
“And this Legless, you’ve got to find him too?”
Mex said nothing. She was trying to get her head around the fact that not only was Legless alive but Beryl wanted him kept that way. She wanted him not sliced, diced, and silenced but found and watched, and then for her to wait . . . for what?
“She seemed quite wistful about him,” said Mex. “I’ve never seen her like that before.”
“People change,” said Bunnie.
“Why watch a man—why wait?” said Mex. “Since when has Beryl waited?”
“Maybe she has mellowed.”
Left to her own devices, Mex could easily squeeze the truth out of Legless with just a few crushes of her thighs around his head, which always worked. But no, Beryl wanted a “softly, softly” approach. Since when did that work, or for that matter why would you want it to? Mex was purely a “crush and be done with it” sort of woman, and up to now she thought her mentor, Beryl, was too.
“Mellow,” said Mex, “there is nothing mellow about Beryl. She may have slowed down a bit, let a few things slide, but mellow . . .”
Mex always had a mild reverence for a woman who fought off many to keep her power, a woman with a scientific, quick-witted approach to things. Who claimed to have the planet’s best interests at heart.
Mex looked down at Izzie. “You’d crush him, wouldn’t you?” Izzie did nothing. She was fast asleep—patted, tickled, and fed into a submissive coma.
Bunnie, not knowing what else to do, offered Mex a whisky, who downed it like it was cough syrup, and pulled a face. My best Islay malt. Bunnie poured another for both of them and told Mex to savor it.
Mex, with no idea what savoring meant, sniffed it like a cat at its food tray only to realize it was a day old.
“That’s the best you can get,” said Bunnie. “Straight from Islay—men have killed for less, a mild exaggeration but needs must—and you’re drinking it like it’s Calpol laced with laxatives.” Bunnie tossed her whisky back and poured another.
“She asked me what would seduce him to shut up,” said Mex. “Am I to seduce now? Because I have no idea about that sort of malarkey.” M
ex tossed her whisky back. It made a warm path down to her stomach, erupting into a loud belch. Izzie looked up.
“I just crush things . . .”
Izzie barked as Bunnie refilled her glass. And Mex, still coming to terms with her now-so-called-mellow boss, pressed play on the H-Pad.
PETE AND WOODY HAD followed DJ onto the tube and, within one stop, realized that DJ was more than ordinary. They had witnessed a connection. Pete had read about the connection in Beryl’s “Legless and the Aftermath” file, but seeing it in action was far more impressive.
The carriage was empty except for a sad-looking older woman with way too much makeup on and hair piled high into a bun. DJ had hardly sat down when his eye caught the lady’s and she smiled. It was nothing and yet . . . extraordinary. As the train shook and rattled through the tunnel, the carriage, for a second, fell into darkness. Woody and Pete heard a muffled “Oooo,” followed by a slap and a giggle.
The lights flashed on again, revealing the elderly woman with her hair down—well shaken, grinning, and with not a wrinkle in sight—and Pete a foot from DJ, doing his incognito pose involving a one-foot-in-the-air stance and his hand inches from the plugulator.
Woody pulled him down. “Later,” he whispered to Pete.
“Later,” DJ whispered as the lady stood up at her stop.
Four stops later, DJ had repeated the same connection with three other women. And each time, in the dark, Pete made for his plugulator only to be caught mid incognito pose as the light flashed on again. And each time Woody pulled him down . . .
Pete’s frustration was almost at the boiling point, and so was Woody’s.
THE OPERATORS HAD CONNECTED Mex to Woody’s Nokia, and as Mex and Bunnie watched Pete and Woody on the Tube, Mex, under the influence of a few whiskies, tried to explain to Bunnie about Identities.
“Apparently women are attracted by their scent,” she said.
Bunnie pulled a face. She was never fond of aftershave—a flashback from the days when Old Spice was the rage.
“The connection is made, followed by a trancelike hallucination.”
“I see.”
“Yes, and as you can see here,” said Mex, replaying the scene on the tube, “they tend to go for the sad ones. She probably lives alone in a cold, empty flat—lunching for one.”
“Poor thing; how terrible it must be to be on your own with only Emmerdale to look forward to,” said Bunnie.
“Yes,” said Mex. “Women can be pathetic.”
They watched as Pete and Woody followed DJ onto the tube train; they watched as it blacked out for seconds and the elderly woman emerged with a “tousled, just-got-out-of-bed” look, as Bunnie put it.
Mex, confused, froze the picture and looked closer. “Tousled . . . go to bed?”
“Yes, I would say that the last thing on her mind just now is Emmerdale.”
“Emmerdale?” said Mex.
“Bit like Corrie,” said Bunnie. “But with more car crashes.” Bunnie smirked at her own wit.
Chapter Twenty-Four—The Meeting
“TO MEET UP REQUIRES more than just an address.” —an Identity of great standing
That evening, rumors were flying about a rebel without a clue and Legless getting his due—Jimmie’s Arabic Tea Shop was overflowing with Identities.
It was because Don had told the others of the West End connection that DJ had come across something. “Hy Man, Hilda and Beryl,” he texted to many. “Does that ring a bell?”
Identities were excited and argumentative. They all had their own ideas on what DJ had and how it related to Legless. Maybe the great Legless was still alive? Maybe his prophecy of “getting his due” was coming true? Maybe the “rebel without a clue” was him in disguise?
The problem was that there was no Identity who had actually met Legless. So no one knew just which stories were true, and if they, whoever “they” were, were actually coming for Legless or bringing him—if they were coming at all.
In the end, after heated texts along the lines of “he said, she said,” it was agreed by all in the West End connection that the plugulator would flush out something, so DJ was told to wear it as obviously as possible. DJ was happy to comply; he had learned so much: that a Spice Moroccan tea “lived up to its reputation,” that Frank Sinatra sung Christmas carols, and that Beryl was the leader no one listened to while Hilda was the one to be feared. This could be a step up for him, a move from being a DJ of sorts to more important things.
“This Beryl,” DJ said to Don, “do you know if Legless ever talked about her except for her exceptional thighs?”
Don laughed. All women, according to Legless, had thighs of an exceptional quality, so his source said. But then Don’s source had always been a “thigh man” and a storyteller of more imagination than substance.
DJ GOT OFF AT KELVINBRIDGE Tube Station and Woody and Pete followed. Woody took the lead as Pete struggled with the road crossings; he seemed to think that a thank-you wave was required if a car stopped and traffic lights were back to front.
“Green is for panic where I come from,” said Pete.
Woody didn’t explain; he figured that if Pete was intuitive enough not to pat him on the head (most people do at some point when you’re four foot nothing), then he was smart enough to pick things up. Besides, following incognito was not the easiest thing to do as a dwarf, and it took all of Woody’s concentration. He patiently took Pete by the arm; for once, Woody was in charge.
If Pete had a question, it was Woody he asked, and when Woody gave him the answer, Pete didn’t laugh or argue, he took it as good—a new experience for Woody. He was used to being the butt of his brother’s jokes and the bane of his mother’s life. No one ever asked him anything except to move if he stood in front of the TV. If only they could see him now . . .
Woody and Pete followed down a lane leading to the rustic entrance of Jimmie’s Arabic Tea Shop where Scottish dance music was blasting from inside. They watched as DJ eased the gate open and with a cryptic look left it ajar and entered the cluttered patio. Hanging limply from the doorway was a tatty purple curtain with gold stars painted on it. Woody and Pete entered the vanilla-scented room.
“And now let’s hear one of Jimmie Shand’s favorites: the two-step,” said a heavily Scottish voice followed by a chord pressed on an accordion . . .
Deeeeeeeeee de de de dill-de dill-de de de dill-de dill-de . . .
Before they had time to comment, to wonder who Jimmie Shand was or who would hang such a useless curtain in the middle of winter, a hand appeared from behind the folds of the curtain.
It was an old gnarled hand with yellow fingers covered in rings, and it beckoned the woman in front of them with its forefinger stiffly.
The hand was attached to the doorframe with a contractible brace; it motioned to the woman, who threw herself into a starfish pose. The hand patted her down, pulled her phone from her pocket, and tossed it like a coin across the room into a bag hanging on the wall.
Woody and Pete looked at each other as the woman let out a long, heavy moan. Woody slipped Pete his phone, and Pete faked a cough and slid the phone into his enormously filled bra and then, for added drama, mimicked the moan of the woman.
The hand motioned to Woody, who assumed the star position . . .
BUNNIE LOOKED AT THE H-Pad as Woody and Pete walked onto the patio of Jimmie’s Arabic Tea Shop. “I know that place,” she said. “Don goes there all the time; there are so many teas to choose from I always end up with a coffee.”
THE OPERATORS WATCHED as Pete entered the tea shop and were in the middle of making jokes about the star design on the curtains when the picture blacked out along with a muffled “you take it.”
The next thing they knew the screen was white. Woody’s mobile was now snugly slotted between the underwire of Pete’s Primark bra and a scrunched-up toilet roll—a challenge for even the most advanced technical operator.
WOODY AND PETE WERE ushered into different doors.
&nb
sp; Woody, clutching an itchy-looking kilt, followed behind Fin, a large round man, into a cloakroom full of men swapping kilts and moaning about how useless the entrance hand had become.
“There was a time when that hand could tell a thirty-two-inch waist from a forty; not now. Look at this, I could make a tent out of it.”
“I could wrap this around my finger,” another grimaced, tossing his kilt on the floor.
“Tell me about it, look at mine; the whole world and its dog will see my knickers. Twirling will be positively pornographic in this.”
“You wear underpants, are we not meant to be incognito?”
“In commando, I keep telling you.”
The men fell about laughing.
Woody faked a laugh. It wasn’t easy; he was trying to wrap a larger-than-life kilt around his small waist and failing miserably. The kilt swung well below his knees. He looked up to see the men staring at him. There was something about these men, he thought, something . . .
The men moved closer; one poked him. Woody stopped thinking and attempted a casual stance.
“Hey, look at Tiny Tim.” The others laughed; one even pulled the kilt from Woody and flicked it at him like a towel. Woody, who was now in his large cover-everything boxers, thank God, wasn’t sure how to take this. Until Fin took the kilt off whoever was now swinging Woody’s about his head and put it on.
“That’ll do me.” He smiled and passed his handkerchief of a kilt to Woody.
“Cheers, mate,” said Woody in a deep voice—they all looked at him.
Then it hit him what was different: he could hear them but he didn’t see them speak.
Just joking, he thought, making sure to keep eye contact, and they all laughed. Woody wrapped his kilt around his waist and with a blank mind waited to see what the others did next.
