by Rufus Offor
‘Geez ‘at!’ Ordered the blue bag wielding Chav, gesturing for his companion to hand him the open bottle of cider. He took a massive swig and then hurled it back at his friend.
‘Wit ye up tae?’ Slurred the leader of the McBurberrys.
George didn’t quite understand the dialect; it sounded vaguely Russian or German but he strongly suspected that it’d be some form of English that he hadn’t encountered before.
‘Am talking tea you pal! Ya deef or som-et’
The gaggle of dim-witted Neanderthals spread out as they got closer, circling George like predators trying to decide whether or not they were hungry. Was the kill worth the effort? They only needed the slightest of excuses to move on their prey.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t quite understand, what was that?’ Said George in what, now more than ever before in his life, sounded a lot like an upper middle class English accent. He started sweating nervously.
The Chavs had their excuse.
At the sound of George’s voice their eyes lit up, lips began to sneer in gleeful hatred and there were a number of happy sideways glances.
‘You English or som-et?’ Sneered the leader of the pack through yellow stained and partially blackened teeth and vicious wide eyes. He adopted the traditional Chav fighting stance; shoulders back, neck forward, his whole demeanour screamed dim-witted male bravado. George could smell the filth-smattered testosterone in the air. It was pungent.
‘’mon-nen ya bam!’ said the Chav leader. George didn’t know what he’d said but he took it as some sort of invitation to “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough”. Which was daft because George clearly wasn’t “hard enough” to fight his way out of a long queue. ‘English Basart! ‘Mon-nen! Hea a fockin’ go likes!’
It was clear now, from the near indecipherable grunts and body language, that George surmised correctly. The rancid youth clearly was trying to engage him in some sort of pugilism. This wasn’t George’s sort of thing at all. Scrapping had, historically, been something that other people engaged in.
‘No I’m fine thanks.’ He said sheepishly.
Being polite to an angry Chav is like throwing petrol on a fire to put it out.
‘Ye English eh?… Ye English?...’ The leader shoved George’s shoulder with frightening speed and accuracy for a man who’d been up all night drinking and consuming untold quantities of illegal substances. The shove prompted some of the other circling hyenas to push him around a bit.
‘Wit ye dein here eh? How’re ye no where ye fockin’ belong big-man? Wi’ they other poofs doon sooth eh? EH?’ The sharpness of the Chavs last word visibly shook George.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t want any trouble, I’m just waiting for someone.’ The hyenas kept circling while the leader faced George, scowling, greasy badly dyed hair poking out from under his imitation Burberry cap, a nasty gold and diamante ear-ring that’d made his lobe turn green, a face like a bulldog pissing on a stinging nettle.
‘A dinea gee a shite wit ye want man, trouble’s foond you ya prick!
George understood those words. The Chav had made them very clear as he put down his blue carrier bag and retrieved a Stanley knife from his tracksuit pocket. The rest of the Chavs took up formation behind their leader, waiting to step in if needed or to take the occasional pot-shot to assuage their need for carnage.
Violence was imminent.
George let out a sort of squirty bubbling noise from his rump and felt something warm trickle down the inside of his thigh. Laughter wracked the hyenas.
‘Fockin’ hell man, he’s filled ‘is keks!’ one of them squeaked through fits of mirth.
‘Fockin’ English shite-bag man, cut im ya raj, fockin’ dice the basat! But watch ye dinea get shite oan yer blade man!’ More laughter.
George braced himself for the attack; there was nothing that he could do and he knew it. He started babbling in fear.
The head Chav came at George like a cobra strike, he barely saw it coming. The knife sliced through his chest underneath the mirage of his disguise. The disguise was made of hard light, but could only be penetrated by swift movements. The visual effect of the cut and the disguise was distinctly odd. As far as the Chavs could see, the man that was standing in front of them wasn’t even remotely damaged, and yet blood still spurted out of him in a thick jet.
The Chavs stood back in confusion as George reeled back from the blow, screwing his face up in pain. He fell on his backside, blood oozing from a wound that didn’t appear to be there at all.
‘What the fuck?’ Quizzed the leader, wondering if the previous evenings cocktail of drink and drugs had altered his perceptions to the point of hallucination. For a moment doubt pulsed through his mind.
‘Did one e yooz basats slip me a fockin’ “A” tab ‘r som’n?’
(“A” tab: slang for small rectangular piece of paper that has been dipped in liquid hallucinogen, usually made from lysergic acid. Also known as LSD, Acid, and a trip.)
The leader decided that hallucination or not, the Englishman in front of him was the cause of his bewilderment. He stopped to think about things for a moment, which angered him even more as thinking wasn’t something that he liked to do and was definitely not on his internal “to do” list.
‘Fuck it!’ He said and sprang at George again, Stanley knife aimed directly at his throat.
A large stone flew at the Chav leader out of nowhere. It cracked into his jaw and he was knocked sideways, bouncing off the ground like a hurled pebble skimming over a frozen lake.
George tried to stem the bleeding with his hands as the rest of the hyenas span round to see where the projectile had come from.
The milky mist revealed a small, curly haired be speckled woman. She had dark hair, a slight figure and was dressed in a heavy jacket, kinny black jeans and army boots. She was tossing a dense stone in the air and catching it as she walked into view. She couldn’t have been any more than twenty-three years old and looked a bit like a hippy that’d defected to the dark-side. She was pretty, but her face was veiled under thick black eye make-up and lipstick. The scowl on her face suggested that she was no stranger to violence. She seemed cool, calm and collected, that was, until she started rambling in a posh English accent.
(Posh; somebody from the upper classes. A popular etymology states the expression originated from the phrase "Port Out, Starboard Home", which, before air-conditioning, were allegedly the most desirable cabin locations on ships traveling to and from British colonies in the Far East because they were shaded from the sun in both directions.)
‘Good evening gentlemen, I really didn’t think that one would succeed in projecting the previous projectile with such accuracy. One had to stand at quite a distance to avoid the eventuality of being regarded by your grubby little peepers. I had no intensions of being spied, as it would’ve spoiled the rather marvellous surprise of that chap being bashed cleanly on the jaw. Of course if one had been less accurate then things would’ve taken a different turn; I would’ve had to approach you and challenged you personally, but seeing as though that fine gentleman,’ she motioned to George, ‘would’ve shuffled off his mortal coil by then, one wouldn’t have had much call to become involved in the filth that is your lives now would one. Which was why the throw was so damnably important. If I’d missed, well, I suppose I would’ve just ventured home and drawn myself a lovely bath with some of those exquisite baths salts from Harrods. I won’t buy any others you know, there’s just no substitute, but as luck, or skill would have it, I didn’t miss. Which is a fortuitous eventuality for this poor creature but not a shining bastion of golden luck for the lump of human excreta that forms the vile lucidity of you and your friends.’
The Chavs weren’t quite sure what was going on. The barrage of long words and talk of Harrods bath salts had caught them distinctly off balance, not to mention the large rock that had made a visible dent in the jaw-line of their leader, which was quickly becoming a swollen lump. The cider distributi
ng pile on the floor groaned, spat out some blood onto the gravel, clicked his jaw back into place and got to his feet, scanning for the Stanley knife that’d flown from his hand.
‘Whey the fuck are you ‘an wit the fuck business is this o’ yours!’ He demanded.
‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ said the tiny girl, ‘One will give you a choice. You can leave right now, so saving me from dirtying my hands on the grub that makes up your pitiful selves, or you can stay and one will be forced, wholly against one’s will you understand, to inflict a rather dazzling array of physical injuries upon each of your persons.’
‘Aye away an’ shite man!’ Spat one of the hyena Chavs.
‘In that case,’ she said, ‘one will be forced to execute a succession of actions thusly. One will perform what is known as a knife-hand stroke directed at your larynx while performing a sidekick aimed directly at the bridge of your friend’s nose. These two movements will be performed simultaneously whilst air born. Upon landing one will violently rotate at a low centre of gravity with ones leg extended, sweeping the legs out from underneath the rest of you foul smelling worthless collections of boil-puss. As you hit the ground one will have risen to ones feet and will busy oneself by leaping vertically and with a little forward momentum, coming down directly, heal first, onto the repositories of your so called “family jewels”; withered and sweaty as they are. One will then take great pleasure in reducing the rest of your testicles into a smooth mayonnaise kind of substance, while giving you a stern talking to on the finer points of good manners and why it isn’t polite to use such foul and uninventive language in front of a lady such as oneself… Ready?... Okay then!... Here we go!’
The hyena’s laughed; then one of them was knife handed in the throat, another was kicked in the face, three of them were swept to the ground and then they all had their testicle battered to a pulp. Casually the girl walked between them, stamping violently on each of their family jewel purses while lecturing the writhing lumps of pain on the finer points of good manners. She gave them all the phone number of a charity for Eunuchs that she always carried with her and then tended to the blood soaked George.
‘George I presume?’ Asked the girl.
‘Please, I need medical attention!’ Growled George through the wild yelping that was coming from the felled Chavs.
‘One can’t see that as a problem. May one introduce oneself,’ she extended a hand, presumably for George to kiss in greeting, ‘Lady McChuntlington Smithe-Smithe, the first Smithe is from mater and the second from pater. I’ve not the slightest idea why they saw fit to hyphenate two of the same name, but there you have it. You may call one Chunt, the rest of one’s friends do.’
‘Please help me!’ Squeaked George.
‘Yes of course, one was forgetting oneself, dire need for action is needed, that much can be seen. One happens to be extremely well versed in the application of medicinal expertise.’ She looked around; there was quite a lot of blood but no visible cuts. George noticed her confusion.
‘I’ll explain later, just get me out of here.’
‘Right you are!’
George lay on the back seat of the girl’s car feeling drained and retched. The bleeding had slowed but he was still tainting the fabric of the car with his blood. He drifted in and out of consciousness and every time he woke, all he could hear was the dry drawl of his saviour’s voice.
‘Its terrible, whenever one attempts to change gear in this ridiculous machine one is greeted with the same grinding wail, listen, one is about to modify the engine and engage the third of the gears,’ George heard a metallic grinding noise, ‘If one had not the knowledge that such things are quiet impossible, one would believe that this collection of metal and plastic had the ability to focus its distain directly at me. Every time I alternate from one transmission setting to another the damn thing howls at me like the hound of the Baskervilles across a misty moor. Observe, I am approaching the point at which a further advancement in the gears will become necessary; here it comes,’ CCCRRNNCCHH, said the car.
‘It's these automotive hunks from the continent that cause the problems. A nice Bentley would be practically incapable of emitting such a foul and irritating mechanical utterance…’
Apparently the woman didn’t have an editing system between her brain and her mouth and every word than articulated itself in her mind spilled out of her in a constant stream that seemed to be drilling straight into George’s central nervous system.
‘Um… I don’t mean to interrupt… actually I do mean to interrupt… but, well, you see I happen to be slowly sliding toward death right now and would greatly appreciate it if you would please just shut the hell up! I’m not feeling very well, what with the massive blood loss and everything and would appreciate a little silence. Not that I’m not grateful or anything you understand.’
‘Charming!’ She said, mildly putout but appreciating George’s situation. She mumbled away to herself instead, clearly unable to stop spewing drivel. It was a compromise and George was in absolutely no shape to be arguing with her.
They headed northwest out of town in the direction of a small suburb called Crammond village. It had been an old fishing town before Edinburgh had grown too big and swallowed it whole.
Along the banks of the river Almond, which flowed into Crammond and the sea, there were sparse and very expensive looking houses barely visible, poking out from in between ancient trees. Lady McChuntlington Smithe-Smithe lived in a particularly remote little mansion away from the encroaching city. Chunt mumbled something about how hard it was to find decent property in secluded, yet central areas. George couldn’t have cared less.
The woman helped George into the house and fetched a well-stocked first aid kit that looked a lot like a cake trolley in a hotel from the thirties. It was stuffed with all manner of anaesthetic, surgical instruments and wound dressings.
‘One used to operate as a triage doctor in the field before one realised that one preferred dismantling people rather than putting them back together. One feels one must comment though; one’s bedside manner was somewhat of a legend among the other doctors and the wounded. It was nothing short of exemplary. One is forever receiving all manner of communication from prior patients, post cards, parcels; in fact, just the other day while one was…’
‘For the love of god woman! Would you please just shut up and get on with it!’
‘I’ll take that rudeness just this once young man, but only because you’re almost dead!’
In truth, Chunt had never received as much as a phone call from her old patients, which was mostly because she hadn’t worked as a doctor at all. She’d hung around outside of war hospitals stealing things from dead people and had managed to pick up a more than fair amount of knowledge of the medical arts in the process. Any money that her family had had was long gone. Her father was indeed a lord, and her mother a lady before they died in a tragic camel riding incident in Syria, but they’d put all of their money into a crackpot scheme for eternally renewable energy that’d been quashed by the American government in the 1980’s. Everything that she had was due to her talents as a bodyguard, a thief and a compulsive liar.
Chunt mumbled on as she worked, preparing the trolley as George slipped his disguise off his wrist and popped it in his pocket.
‘Jesus!’ She said, as she turned round and saw the transformation from grey haired scientist to ginger haired librarian. She jumped back in surprise.
‘I’ll explain later!’ said George. He was pail and drawn from his ordeal and promptly passed out.
Chapter 25
The Aboriginal and the Lobotomising Of a Six-Foot Mouse
Some weeks later Shoop had come to the conclusion that, without a shadow of a doubt, someone, somewhere out there in the big wide world was taking the piss! It was the only explanation for the frankly distasteful sequence of events that had lead him to where he now stood. The view in front of him confirmed a suspicion that had been growing in his mind as he
and the independents trudged their way around the globe, hopping from one continent to another, battling Sphere agents at every border.
He was looking at a fifty-foot tall plastic castle and there were children running to and fro as their parents desperately tried to convince themselves that they were having a good time.
Something was definitely very wrong and Shoop fully intended to find out who had been messing him around so flamboyantly.
They’d taken a small, rickety, noisy boat (or as Jim called it, “a plank with an engine”) from Pankor, giving a local man far too much money for it in their desperation for transport, and headed east to the next island. There they managed to get their hands on a larger, but still decidedly rickety boat that seemingly had a better chance of getting them where they wanted to go. Australia was a long way away and finding an aeroplane for hire was proving difficult. Well, it was actually proving relatively easy but the fact that all of the aircraft looked like they’d been patched together from the carcasses of dozens of ancient flying life hazzards, corrugated iron and super glue didn’t fill them all with very much confidence in their ability to be able to remain airborne. They were a long way from the affluence of Singapore and its happy supply of non-dangerous aircraft.
They continued to island hop for a week or so, taking short breaks along the way to spend a little time in relative civilisation; relative to the squalor and shifting uncomfortable rolling of the boat that is.
Eventually they reached a port that had a vast cruise ship docked in it. The ship was full of aging American tourists and was considerably more comfortable than their ready to sink little barge. They decided that they’d stow away in a huge crate of bananas and, if they were discovered, try to convince the captain that they should be allowed to stay onboard.
