Million Pound Appointments

by Higgins, Malcolm

  "Well can you then?"

  "Well of course I fucking can, do you think you're sitting there because I like you're company or something?"

  She screws her face up as she mulls it over.

  "Just think, you'd be able to run for the bus again." Mocks Ken.

  "Bus? Run for a bus? I've never run for a bus in my life mister and never will."

  "No more stiff knees, no more clicking ankles, you could tell Mick, Eric, Keith, David, Robert, Ronnie, and Rod, that you're back in business."

  "I'm happily married thank you very much."

  "Yeah of course you are." Scoffs Ken.

  Ken smiles and squeezes in next to Karen and puts his arm around her. Daisy jumps down yelping wanting to get away from Ken. Craig can't help himself and gives Karen a long lovingly sarcastic stroke of her hair, followed by a big wink.

  Larry has taken Rajeev and Amir back to their room. The three of them sit in an uneasy silence. Larry has a carrier bag on his lap but he's a little reluctant to take out its contents because he's bought Amir four books to help teach him English, but now he's thinking to himself he may have bought a little young, but when he was looking through them in Mothercare, they were perfect. Just right, big letters, and colourful; ideal for the job. Peppa Pig book of Colours. Peppa Pig book of Numbers. Peppa Pig book of Words. Peppa Pig book of Shapes. Amir suddenly stands up, faces Rajeev and talks to him in Hindi in a stern loud voice. Rajeev knows Larry is totally oblivious as to what Amir is shouting about, but Amir's tone and gesticulation is making it pretty clear that the two of them aren't discussing Radio Four's Shipping Forecast.

  "Hama abhi yaham nahim baithate haim hama kucha baca nahim kara sakte haim, hama baca." Shouts Amir.

  "Everything all right?" Asks Larry.

  "Yes, he is just missing his family. He wants to go home. We both want to go home." Answers Rajeev.

  "I know you do, and you will soon. I promise."

  But Amir hasn't finished his angry outburst.

  "Ina logom ko raksasa." He shouts.

  Rajeev has very little choice but to speak in Hindi to try and calm Amir.

  "Mujhe lagata hai ki isa adami Lairi hamem madada milegi, vaha eka buri jagaha mem eka accha adami hai."

  Larry in Hindi is Lairi, so he now knows he's part of the conversation. He thinks about getting the Peppa Pig books out, but Amir's voice takes on a new tone, a sinister one.

  "Maim majabuta hara dina barha rahi hum. Maim unhem mara dega, una saba ko mara."

  Rajeev takes a quick look at Larry, and Larry reads Rajeev's look correctly. It reads "I really hope you didn't understand any of that."

  Rajeev smiles at Larry and then puts a gentle hand on Amir's shoulder.

  "Shhh bhai, tuma usa taraha nahim bata karani cahie, ve mighu hamem sunane ke logom."

  Shhh in any language is 'Shhh' Larry decides to leave them to whatever's going on, and gets up and hands Rajeev the carrier bag; but Amir still hasn't finished his angry outburst.

  "Mujhe paravaha nahim hai agara ve, ve mujhe darane nahim karate, ve maim kya karane mem saksama hum koi vicara hai."

  "Shhh." Says Rajeev.

  There's that bloody Shhh again, thinks Larry. So now he knows something isn't right and the something is clearly coming from Amir.

  "I think I'll leave." Says Larry to Rajeev. "And I thought maybe later, when your brother is feeling a little bit better, we could make a start with the English lessons?"

  "We have already made a start. I have been teaching him and it is going well." Answers Rajeev hoping Amir will stay silent now.

  "Oh." Says a surprised Larry. "That's good. You won't be needing these then."

  Larry quickly grabs the carrier bag back, and as he leaves the room his unfortunate syndrome asks in rather a loud voice 'I hope I've kept the fucking receipt for these stupid books.' The door closes and Rajeev walks over to Amir, he wants to tear him off a strip for his behaviour in front of Larry, but Amir's not listening, and in perfect English, Amir says…

  "You are weak, I am strong, I will get us out of here not you, not that fool Larry me, I will kill them, kill them all, and then we will go home."

  Chapter 7.

  Karen has arrived home. Noz stands there with his hands on hips wearing just a very small pair of underpants. He likes to look at his full body tattoos and his above average sized manhood as he walks past the hundreds of mirrors all over the house. Karen still seems a little dazed and confused from her meeting with Ken earlier. She hugs and kisses Daisy.

  "How can he have killed her babe when I'm looking at the fucking thing in your arms?"

  "I told you, an Indian guy brought her back to life."

  "Karen, do me a favour, let me be the daft one in this family."

  "I'm telling you, I saw it with my own eyes."

  Karen puts Daisy down, and picks up another one of her dogs and begins to hug and kiss it. Noz sighs. He isn't really an animal lover, which is strange, as six cats, six dogs, a potbelly pig, two ponies, three snakes, twelve iguanas, eight black swans, and a parrot called Jake, all live happily together in his mansion 'Seventh Heaven'.

  "He had a copy of our bank statement. He even had copies of our birth certificates."

  "I thought you burnt those."

  "I did."

  "Yeah? Well try using matches next time."

  "He said he could make us feel twenty years younger."

  "I don't want to be twenty years younger. I like where I am now thanks."

  In one quick move, he whips his underpants down to his ankles, stands up and flexes his muscles. This normally makes Karen laugh and fall to her knees. It's just a reflex action with Karen, and what first attracted Noz to her. But not today; and with Noz's ten inch manhood quickly becoming erect because he believes he's about to enjoy his normal afternoon delight, Karen decides to drop a bombshell, rather than drop to her knees.

  "Oh I'll let him explain it to you." She sighs. "He'll be here in a minute so you better get dressed."

  He quickly pulls his tiny underpants up, and it's at times like this, when he's struggling to stuff his semi-erect overgrown penis back inside them, that he wishes he was wearing a big old pair of white M&S Y-fronts.

  "What?" He shouts. "Are you soft in the head woman? When a complete stranger tries to pull your dog's fucking head off, you don't invite him to lunch, you dial nine fucking nine fucking nine."

  Karen knows he's right, but she's not about to tell him that, not if there's a chance, no matter how small, that not only will she look twenty years younger, but she'll actually be twenty years younger. So she's now rather pleased that she couldn’t manage to dial those three nines earlier. Had she been twenty, those three nines would certainly have been dialled. Had she been forty, those nines would also have been dialled. But, although to everybody else's eyes, Karen Louise Millburn, is still as sexy as sexy can be, she is a numbers lady, and her number today isn't twenty or forty. Its sixty-five. And she doesn't like it.

  Ken and Larry are minutes away from Seventh Heaven. Ken has the latest 'Injured Party' CD playing in the car.

  "Now we're talking." Smiles Ken. "The bastard Millburn's."

  Larry leans across and stops the CD.

  "What's up, don't you like it? Double platinum that one. That's their twenty ninth album. Twenty-ninth" Says Ken.

  Ken typed 'Injured Party' into a search engine, and pound signs floated out of the screen.

  "I know its shit." He continues. "But millions of spotty little kids all over the world love it… and old farts like you."

  Larry may be in the car, but he's not part of any conversation taking place inside it. He's suffering from a massive attack of What's up with you?

  "The last few days have been mental. Really stressful." He thinks, he thinks.

  "A million pounds they're going to pay me on the back of that drivel. I Googled them. That Karen slapper isn't as daft as she looks you know, her husband is two hundred and tenth in the world's richest list. Do you realise what that
means?"

  "Killing Rajeev twice has to be the worst." The syndrome continues.

  "It means that there are only two hundred and nine human beings on this planet that have more money than they do. On this planet. Doesn't that send a shiver up your spine? It does mine. I only said a million pounds as a joke, and she said yes. Think about that Larry, a one million pound cheque from the King of pop."

  "He strangled him and then topped it off by drowning him. Jesus that's bad." Says Larry.

  "Stevie Wonder telling us to fuck off, can you believe that? Well fuck him too. I don't like his music anyway; well except for, Isn't She Lovely and Thriller."

  "Peppa Pig, what the fuck was I thinking of?"

  Those two words. Peppa and Pig, make Ken realise Larry is talking to himself, which means he's talking to himself.

  "For fuck sake Larry, turn that frown upside down."

  Larry comes back into the moment.

  "Sorry."

  As Ken drives, Larry is playing the last few minutes back in his head.

  "Darkness." Says Larry.

  "Eh?"

  "Darkness. Pop, was Jackson."

  "Pop was what?"

  "King of Pop. Jackson was King of Pop."

  "What the hell are you on about?"

  "Prince of darkness, is what you want."

  "Larry."

  "What?"

  "Shut up."

  Larry and his syndrome shut up. Ken starts to hum Stevie Wonder's 'Isn't She Lovely' even though in his head he's hearing Michael Jackson singing it. He's moving his head from side to side, trying to make up words to fit the tune, but he wants to get it just right before he sings them. After a couple of minutes of head nodding and mental lyric writing and Larry struggling to right his frown, Ken bursts into song.

  "Today is so lovely, Tommy go fuck yourself… Coz I have your money, so go on go fuck yourself. I always knew I'd pay you back, so go stick your head right up your crack."

  "How much?" Shouts Larry as his playback reaches the million pound comment.

  "You heard." Says a smiling Ken.

  Chapter 8.

  Jane has taken the opportunity of Ken and Larry being out of the house and is in bed with a naked Craig. She offers him a drag on her cigarette.

  "I don't smoke." He says.

  He does, but he just wants out of there. He wants to run into the bathroom and wash that 'What the fuck just happened to me' look off his face.

  "You didn't mind doing that for me did you?" She asks.

  "Erm… no."

  Of course he minded. If Ken ever found out he'd just had sex with his wife he'd be a dead man. But when your boss's wife says 'Come with me I need you to do something' you go with her don't you? And even when she took him into one of the guest bedrooms, and locked the door behind her, he couldn't have known what was about to happen. He just thought he was there to move a bit of furniture or something. Not to be told 'Don't move a muscle' while she stripped him naked and threw each piece of clothing into a different part of the room.

  "Only sex with Ken is rather a one-way street most of the time. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't be happier with the man."

  Craig watches her swallow a pill, he doesn't know what it is, and he doesn't want to know. Ken believes Jane takes the contraceptive pill but she doesn't. She stopped years ago when their sex life began to wane. They went from two or three times a night, to two or three times a week, to once or twice a month, so now it's just easier to swallow the morning after pill.

  "But sometimes it's nice to take charge, be the aggressor, be in control, be the fucker, rather than the fucked, do you know what I mean?" She asks Craig.

  Oh boy, he knows exactly what she means. She means, she wants to take charge, and she just did. Be the aggressor, and she just was. Be the fucker rather than the fucked, which is exactly how Craig feels at the moment; fucked. He's still trying to work out how she managed to do all the thrusting back and forth when she was on her knees, all the thrusting in and out when she was on her back. She somehow pinned him on top of her naked body and pulled him in and out of her using her legs, he hardly moved at all. The searing pains he felt on his scalp as she grabbed at his hair, coupled with that low threatening snarl of hers saying 'Don't you dare come, I haven't finished with you yet' which somehow pushed his climatic moment onto the back burners, and he lasted twice as long as he usually does.

  "And I'm afraid there's very little scope for that with Ken. I've tried being aggressive with him, but it just turns him on all the more. So I haven't got a hope in hell of satisfying that need in me."

  Craig desperately needs a draw on that cigarette.

  "Craig, isn't it?"

  "Eh? Oh, yeah."

  "Craig." She says, lowering her voice. "A man shouldn't scream during sex."

  "I don't usually, but be fair, you were pulling the hair off my head and punching me in the ribs at the time."

  "Well next time, do as you're told."

  Craig loves sex, in fact you'd be hard pushed trying to find someone who loves it more, but a chill went down his back when Jane said, next time.

  "I punched you because I know you wouldn't dare punch me back. It's a power thing. If I punched Ken, he'd just grab my hands and stop me, and I couldn’t do anything about it. More women should try it, it's brilliant. Pulling your arm back and letting fly with a punch to the stomach or the ribs. Wow. Women never get the chance to make a fist and just let rip the way I did with you. I'd never hit your face though, that's not the same thing at all."

  Craig wants to shout 'thank fuck for that'.

  "It'll only be once a year, if that really. She says as she stubs out an almost full cigarette. Jane doesn't smoke either, but that 'need in me' also includes, lighting-up afterwards.

  "You can go now." Jane says.

  Craig has never been self-conscious of being naked with a woman, but he is today. He has to walk over to the other side of the room to retrieve his underpants, which are hanging off a signed photograph of Lenny Henry and Dawn French. Walk over to the window to retrieve his shirt. Walk over to the door to get one of his socks that's hanging on the door handle. Reach under the bed to get his shoes and other sock. Most women love the sight of his bare backside, and he knows it, but walking to the furthest corner in strong sunlight knowing your boss's wife's eyes are going to be following your every step, makes him feel like Benjamin Braddock, Pre-Mrs Robinson.

  "Oh, and this will be the one and only time we talk, otherwise it makes it friendly, and I'm not your friend, I'm your employers wife. Now get back to whatever it is you do."

  As Jane lights up another cigarette she has no intention of smoking, she watches Craig walk around the room collecting his clothes and thinks to herself… "Nice arse."

  Craig leaves the room half dressed and in a rather dazed condition. Yes, he's just had sex, and bloody good sex if you can forget about losing a handful of your hair and your ribs feeling like they're on fire. As he zips up his trousers, his tormented mind begins to play out all sorts of reprisals. Every gangster film he has ever watched comes to mind, and he's now paying the price for his infidelity, by undergoing various slow painful horrific deaths at the hands of Ken. And Ken kills people twice. Jane opens the door and walks past him as though he isn't there. He looks at her.

  "That woman is going to be the death of me." He says under his breath.

  A uniformed black Butler greets Ken and Larry as they arrive at Seventh Heaven.

  "What the fuck are you meant to be?" Ken asks the Butler, looking at his immaculate uniform and highly polished shoes.

  "I'm Jacob. Mr. and Mrs. Millburn's Butler."

  Ken laughs through his nose, he can't believe Noz has a black man as a butler and turns to Larry.

  "What year is this? Can you believe he's got a fucking slave?"

  Being the Butler to a rock dinosaur since the age of twenty-three, Jacob is quite used to having guests poke fun at him. Jimi Hendrix once laced his afternoon Earl Grey with the hallucinoge
nic drug, Lysergic acid diethylamide and he spent the afternoon swimming with sharks high in the sky in fluffy white clouds. Being described as a slave though, somehow tops that. The fact that Jacob is a black man with better diction and deportment than most, did play a huge part in him getting the Butler's job… "Karen, this black guy's voice is so groovy baby; I want him, I want him, he's just like that black actor we like, Sidney what's his name" but of course that doesn't apply anymore. Jacob is now considered a member of the family.

  "How much did you cost slave?" Asks Ken. "I might get myself one."

  But before Jacob can answer, Noz walks into the hallway still wearing his very sparse underpants and nothing else.

  "Didn't interrupt things did we?" Asks Ken recognising Noz from the CD cover.

  Noz looks at Ken weighing him up. Larry is looking at the size of Noz's manhood; his isn't that big even when it's erect.

  "If it looks like an oaf." Says Noz. "Sounds like an oaf. It's an oaf."

  Ken doesn't realise that Noz's comments are aimed at him.

  "Karen." Shouts Noz. "I don't fucking like him."

  A brightly coloured lizard falls flat onto Noz's head. Ken and Larry do a double take.

  "What the fuck's that?" Says a shocked Ken.

  Noz doesn't react. He just calmly removes it, and throws it up into the air. Larry and Ken do another little double take and step backwards expecting the lizard to come crashing to the floor. It doesn't. Ken and Larry poke their heads in the doorway and look up and see that the ceiling has tree trunks and branches attached to it, and the lizard, is just one of many things crawling about up there.

  "You still here?" Asks Noz.

  Ken also notices Noz's flag pole, and is grateful for the insults to take his mind off it.

  "Shall I call the police sir?" The Butler asks Noz.

  "Nah, it's ok. I can handle that fat twat."

  Ken laughs out loud.

  "Ask me how I made my money." Says Ken.

  "I'm not interested. You still here?" Answers Noz.

  "Well I'll tell you anyway, you old fuck. Crime. Very. Violent. Crime."