The Reginald Perrin Omnibus

by David Nobbs

  He had one more task to perform – and this time there must be no failure.

  When he got to Acton, he went straight to the canteen and had four cups of tea, to get the foul taste out of his mouth. He also bought three rounds of egg and tomato sandwiches, in case he was hungry later on. Then he went to the ‘gents’. He sat on one of the lavatory seats, prepared for a long wait.

  Up till half-past five there were people using the toilet. After that he was alone. His head still ached, and his stomach hurt. The only noises were the automatic flushing of the urinal every five minutes, and the gurglings of his digestive system.

  He sat on the lavatory seat all evening. Nobody had seen him go in there. He wasn’t expected back at work. Elizabeth wouldn’t miss him until he failed to turn up in Worthing next day. In his briefcase there was a wig, a false beard, a mirror, and three rounds of egg and tomato sandwiches. In his pockets there were three hundred and fifteen pounds in used fivers.

  It wasn’t safe to move until he could be quite certain that he had the factory to himself, apart from old Bill, the nightwatchman. Reggie didn’t expect much trouble from old Bill.

  He hoped that Elizabeth would understand, and Joan, and the children, Linda and Mark. It was hard to accept that he would never see any of them again.

  He ate one of his sandwiches. Slowly time passed. When the urinal had flushed sixty-three times, he judged that it was safe to leave.

  Outside, it was dark. His legs had gone to sleep. He walked cautiously, quietly. His eyes began to grow accustomed to the dark, and the feeling returned to his legs.

  He could see the outlines of the long dark blocks that formed the bulk of the factory. At night it looked more like a prison camp. He half expected searchlights and guard dogs, but there was only old Bill.

  As he approached Bill’s hut the door was flung open, and Bill limped out. He had a poker in his hand, clearly visible against the bright light inside the hut.

  ‘Who goes there?’ he shouted.

  ‘It’s me,’ said Reggie. ‘Mr Perrin, from Head Office.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bill shone his torch in Reggie’s face. It almost blinded him. ‘Blimey, you gave me a turn, Mr Perrin.’

  ‘Sorry, Bill.’

  Bill led him into the hut. As well as the torch and the poker he had been carrying a large bag of pepper.

  In the hut there was a wooden table, a hard chair, a ring for making tea, a little stove and a small cupboard. On the table there were pictures of his wife and children.

  ‘That was very brave of you. Bill,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what I’m paid for, Mr Perrin.’

  That’s what you’re underpaid for, thought Reggie.

  Bill took a rusty kettle out of the cupboard. Reggie sat down. Bill went to the door and filled the kettle from a stand-pipe.

  ‘A consignment of loganberry essence has to be sent to Hamburg urgently,’ said Reggie. ‘The ship sails from Southampton tomorrow. I’ve got to get that stuff down there.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve no authority to let you out,’ said Bill.

  ‘I’ll give you the authority.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t do it. I haven’t got the authority to let you give me the authority, Mr Perrin.’

  ‘I’ve got a PXB 43 and a PBX 34.’

  ‘I see,’ said Bill, reading the forms slowly.

  The kettle whistled. Bill dropped six tea bags into a rusty enamel teapot.

  ‘And I’ve got an open PXF 38 signed by C.J.,’ said Reggie.

  He showed Bill a blank order form on which he had forged C.J.’s signature that morning.

  ‘It’s blank,’ said Bill.

  ‘Of course it is. I fill in the details. Look. I’ll do it now. One thousand packets of loganberry pie mix. Delivery to West Docks, Southampton. It’s an open order form.’

  ‘I see,’ Bill poured twelve spoonfuls of sugar into the pot.

  ‘I’ve got a PXL 2, double-checked through the computer.’

  Reggie got out a fourth form and handed it to Bill. Bill handed him a chipped blue mug. Then he spooned some powdered milk into the teapot, stirred vigorously, and poured tea into the mug.

  ‘You drink that. I’ll have mine afterwards,’ said Bill. He examined the PXL 2 very carefully. ‘Well, that all seems to be in order,’ he said at last.

  The sheer weight of forms, taken in conjunction with the mention of the computer, had become too much for a mere human being to resist.

  ‘Thanks, Bill,’ said Reggie.

  He closed his eyes and took a sip of tea.

  The rest wasn’t too difficult. He took a key at random from the transport office and walked down to the garage. He slid back the heavy doors of the garage. Inside it was cool and there were patches of sticky oil on the stone floor. There were two rows of bright red lorries, with the words: ‘Try Sunshine Flans – they’re flan-tastic’ painted on both sides in big yellow letters. There were double doors at the back of each lorry. On one door it said: ‘Bring a suns into yo’ and on the other door it said: Tittle hine ur life’, so that when the doors were closed the three-line message ran: ‘Bring a little sunshine into your life’. Four lorries had been delivered with the message on the wrong doors, so that when their doors were closed they carried the message: ‘Little bring a hinesuns ur life into yo’.

  Reggie’s key was for one of the two lorries shaped like jellies.

  It didn’t occur to him to go back and change the key. It didn’t seem important.

  He climbed up into the cab and examined the controls. He’d never been so high up in a vehicle before.

  The lorry started first time. He switched on the lights, and drove it very cautiously out of the garage. He found it very difficult to judge its length.

  He closed the garage door rapidly, and drove the lorry to the block where the fruit essences were made.

  As he’d expected, the vat of loganberry essence was almost full. He fitted a hosepipe on to the back of the lorry, put the other end on to the vat, and switched on the pump. Within minutes the lorry was fully loaded with loganberry essence.

  At ten past one in the morning Old Bill raised the automatic barrier, and the motorized jelly slid forward on to the open road.

  Saturday

  He thundered through Slough, the safety town. Maidenhead welcomed careful drivers and thanked them. The signs helped Reggie, high up in his cab, to feel that he was part of the great fraternity of the road.

  Beyond Reading the outline of low hills was clearly visible in the moonlight. At Newbury he turned south on to the A 34. The engine growled as the road climbed over the downs. The headlights picked out frightened rabbits at the roadside. They had never seen a moving jelly before.

  The road dipped towards the head waters of the River Test. Reggie turned on to the minor road that led past C.J.’s cottage. The road dropped down on to the floor of the little valley.

  Just before C.J.’s cottage there was a small wood on the right. He backed the lorry into the wood and reversed carefully down a narrow, bumpy track that led through silver birches towards the river. The engine was deafening in the quiet night.

  He switched the engine off. Far away in the sudden stillness a dog barked. He could hear the little river tinkling peacefully, with an occasional plop as a fish jumped.

  He walked back to the road and approached C.J.’s cottage cautiously. No light was showing. Behind the cottage the old water mill was also in darkness. Here, in its luxurious converted rooms, C.J.’s guests would be sleeping now, where once there had been floury smells and whirring machines and slow, kindly men in white dungarees.

  Reggie opened the wrought-iron gate carefully and tiptoed up the garden path. The cottage was half-timbered and thatched, with small, heavily-mullioned windows. In the silver moonlight it looked vulgar in its perfection, like an old-fashioned Christmas card.

  He slipped his note through the letter box and crept away as carefully as he had come.

  C.J. went down the narrow stairs in his
purple dressing gown. The ninth step squeaked. He must get Gibbons to see to it.

  It was still pitch dark, but it was time to be stirring, if they were to catch the best fishing.

  He was surprised to see the note lying in the wire letter box. He pulled it out impatiently. On the envelope it said: ‘C.J. Sunshine Cottage. By Hand’.

  He slit the envelope neatly so that it could be used again, should war break out.

  ‘The river is public property and should not be in private hands,’ he read. ‘The fish are not yours to kill. Nor are your employees. Possessions bring misery. Absolute power brings absolute misery. P.S. Blood will flow.’

  Some nutter, thought C.J., as he switched the gas on underneath the kettle. There were nut-cases everywhere these days.

  Who could it be? Doc Morrissey? Nothing that shrivelledup oaf did would surprise him.

  Blood will flow? Whose blood? He shivered.

  He wished Mrs C.J. was there, so that he could talk to her. She didn’t accompany him any more on these occasions. She got flustered by strangers, so he used outside caterers.

  ‘I didn’t get where I am today by having anonymous letters shoved through my letter box,’ he told himself angrily.

  He measured the tea carefully into the pot and poured boiling water over the tiny leaves.

  ‘No. but I didn’t get where I am today without making enemies,’ he added grimly.

  Reggie fitted the hosepipe on to the back of the lorry and put the other end into the little river. Then he settled down to wait.

  Grey, unshaven dawn crept in from the east. A cool breeze began to stir the warm lethargy of the night. It was the time of day when trout and fishermen begin to feel hungry.

  Doc Morrissey groaned, cursed C.J., tasted the stale claret and brandy that coated his mouth, crawled out of his soft bed, and slid his wizened white legs into a pair of gumboots three sizes too big for him. The tightness in his stomach wasn’t just indigestion. It was a premonition of disaster.

  The light grew stronger. On the river thin tongues of mist licked the clear waters, and there were haloes of mist over the hills.

  Reggie rested. He gazed at the expensive waters, where fat exclusive trout lurked beneath smooth stones and waving green reeds. He munched his second egg and tomato sandwich.

  C.J. had positioned himself downstream of all his guests. Immediately above him was old Hedley Norris, his mentor, half blind and half deaf now but still with a nose for trout. Beyond Hedley were L.B., S.T., E.A., and Doc Morrissey, getting hopelessly entangled in his equipment.

  C.J. made a little tour of the lines, dispensing a joke here, an axiom there, making sure everyone had a flask of Irish coffee. Then he settled down to the serious business of fishing.

  His spirits rose. This was his world, bought with his money. This was the proof that he wasn’t just a crude self-made man, he was an English gentleman. He was using a fly of his own design, the brilliantly coloured Sunshine Blue Dun. His unpolluted waters were murmuring agreeably to themselves. The mists were beginning to lift over his downs. Not yet, he told his sun. We’ve fat trout to catch. Don’t rise too fast today.

  Reggie switched on the pump, and the loganberry essence began to pour into the river. On the opposite bank a herd of black and white Friesians watched with bored curiosity.

  He ate his third egg and tomato sandwich. The essence began to mingle with the waters of the river. Little currents of deep red slowly thinned and turned pink as they spread outwards. Then the whole river was pink. Soon it was a thick red stream that was running over the stained reeds. Reggie watched his loganberry slick for a few seconds, then turned and walked back towards the lorry.

  He started the engine and drove cautiously to the edge of the wood. Nothing was coming. He slid out of the wood unobserved, and set off north, away from C.J.’s cottage.

  Doc Morrissey saw the loganberry slick. E.A., S.T., and L.B. saw it, old Hedley Norris smelt it.

  Finally C.J. himself saw it. The river was running red. ‘Blood will flow’! Clouds of blood were pouring downstream. A cold vice gripped his heart. A madman was slaughtering his guests, cutting their throats, their thick blood pouring into the river. The soldier who had seen a colleague die because of C.J.’s hesitation in 1945. The relatives of the girl he had ditched in 1949. The people he had trodden on in 1951. The victims of his big purge in 1958. The sackings in 1964 after all the hanky-panky. Visions of all those who might bear grudges flashed into C.J.’s mind.

  His face was white, his heart splitting down the middle. His guests were astounded at his reaction. He ran upstream, tripped over his rod, and fell headlong into the river. He cracked his head against a large stone which lay just beneath the surface. His last sight was of the thick, sweet loganberry waters of the river closing over his head. Then he passed out.

  Old Hedley Norris, fishing on despite the noise and the strange sweet smell, had got a bite. He pulled. It wouldn’t come. It was huge.

  ‘I’ve got a whopper!’ he shouted.

  ‘It’s C.J.!’ cried S.T. ‘It’s C.J.! Don’t pull!’

  S.T. grabbed Hedley Norris’s line and flung it into the river. Doc Morrissey rushed through the water shouting: ‘Let me through! I’m a doctor! Let me through!’

  ‘Where’s my rod gone?’ said old Hedley Norris.

  Doc Morrissey lifted C.J. out of the water, and removed the hook from the side of his face. C.J. looked as if he was covered in blood, but most of it was loganberry essence.

  S.T. helped Doc Morrissey carry C.J. to the bank. They laid him down. R.F. ripped a piece off his shirt. Doc Morrissey took it and bandaged C.J.’s face roughly. Then he knelt beside him and felt his pulse. When he stood up his expression was grim.

  ‘He’s dead,’ he said.

  C.J. opened his left eye slightly. He glared at Doc Morrissey.

  ‘You’re fired,’ he whispered.

  Reggie cut across on to the to A343 and drove south-west, making for the coast. The sun came up and it was going to be a glorious day. He drove to Salisbury, then took the A338 towards Bournemouth. He felt very conspicuous in the broad daylight. He didn’t think anyone had seen him, but if they had he would be only too easy to trace. There couldn’t be that many lorries shaped like jellies.

  In the New Forest there were ponies wandering at the roadside. Outside Ringwood a lorry shaped like a huge bottle of light ale passed in the opposite direction. The driver waved, he waved back, expressions of mutual sympathy.

  He parked in a lorry park in Bournemouth, and had breakfast in a self-service cafeteria. The breakfast had been kept under a hot plate, and the top of his fried egg was hard and green.

  He was exhausted. He felt as if it was the end of everything.

  C.J. lay unconscious in his bedroom at Sunshine Cottage. Glass cases on the walls contained stuffed trout.

  The guests had dispersed. C.J.’s doctor had been summoned.

  ‘I felt his pulse, and he felt dead,’ thought Doc Morrissey, sitting glumly at CJ.’s bedside. ‘Wishful thinking, that’s what it was. The power of mind over matter. I might write a paper for the Lancet about it. But who’d be interested? Who’ll be interested in me now? How will I ever get another job?’

  As soon as the local doctor arrived, Doc Morrissey excused himself, packed his things, got into his car, and drove right out of the book in a northerly direction.

  The doctor summoned C.J.’s daily woman and told her, ‘He’s got concussion. Aye. There’s an awful lot of it about.’

  He pronounced rest and quiet. He pronounced them in a thick Dumfries accent. Then he rang Mrs C.J. at her house.

  ‘It’s your husband,’ he said. ‘Dinna worry. He’s not dead. Merely unconscious.’

  Mrs C.J. fainted. As she fell she hit her head on the corner of a Finnish rosewood coffee table. Her daily woman picked up the phone and explained to the doctor what had happened.

  ‘Feel her pulse,’ said the doctor.

  ‘It’s thirty-eight,’ the daily woman t
old him.

  ‘Fine. Examine her pupils,’ said the doctor.

  ‘They’re dilated,’ reported the daily woman.

  Mrs C.J. came to and announced that she had double vision.

  ‘She’s seeing double,’ reported the daily woman.

  ‘It’s concussion. Aye. There’s an awfu’ lot of it about.’ said the doctor.

  The day passed slowly. It was extremely hot, and the tar melted on several roads.

  It was very hot in Worthing. Elizabeth grew very worried when Reggie didn’t turn up. She tried to hide her worry from her mother, but her mother could read her like an open book.

  It was extremely hot in Meakers, where Reggie bought a pair of trousers and a shirt and tie. It was hot in Marks and Spencer’s, where he bought underclothes and a suitcase, and it wasn’t any cooler in Mr Trend, where he bought shoes, socks and a sports jacket.

  It was hot at Sunshine Cottage, where C.J. had regained consciousness, to find that he was seeing double. And it was hot on the A30, where Mrs C.J. was also seeing double in the hired car that was speeding her towards C.J.

  ‘Can’t you go faster, driver? It is a dual carriageway,’ she said.

  ‘It isn’t,’ said the driver.

  Reggie picked at his food in a self-service cafe in Bournemouth. Every now and then he came upon a chip amid the grease. At the next table there was a fat, middle-aged woman with livid, peeling skin. At Reggie’s feet there was a suitcase full of clothes, and in his pockets there were two hundred and eighty pounds in used fivers.

  As soon as it was opening time he went into a pub. He ordered a pint of bitter and sat at a table. The room was semicircular. The bar counter was covered in bright red plastic and there was an orange carpet on the floor.

  Reggie got out a pad of writing paper and began to write some letters.

  Dear C.J.,

  By the time you receive this letter I will be dead. I don’t apologize for the loganberry slick as I hope it will teach you a lesson. I didn’t get where I am today without realizing that you didn’t get where you are today without needing to be taught a lesson.