by David Nobbs
Clive and Jimmy provided a military escort for the sandwiches throughout their perilous journey from the bar.
‘Rare,’ said Clive.
‘Me,’ said the little bald man.
‘Rare. Well done.’
‘No, I’m well done,’ said the wife.
‘Well done. Well done,’ said Clive.
Linda laughed till the tears ran. Tom couldn’t understand what she was laughing at.
‘Socialists niggers in woodpile in your caper?’ said Clive to Tom.
‘I voted socialist last time out,’ said Tom.
‘Well, duty calls,’ said Jimmy, looking at his wrist, for he had sold his watch.
‘Duty, on holiday?’ said Linda.
‘Ah. Yes. Sight-seeing fatigues,’ said Jimmy. ‘14.30 hours. Polperro. Come on, Anstruther. Best foot forward.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ said Clive. ‘Next time, my shout.’
As the two stiff-backed staccato veterans left the bar, the driver of the soft drinks delivery van entered.
‘All hell’s broken loose up at the hotel,’ he announced. ‘There’s a gang of four-year-old hooligans charging around yelling: “Bollocks to Trust House Fortes.”’
That evening, a man attacked a pretty young dental receptionist as she walked home across Climthorpe Cricket Ground. He chased her and flung himself upon her, in front of the scoreboard.
Unbeknown to him, however, the girl was on her way home from her karate class. She repelled his attack and even dealt him some heavy blows before he ran off defeated.
Memory plays strange tricks in moments of crisis. The girl was able to tell the police that the scoreboard had stood at 45 for 3, last man 17, but of her assailant she remembered nothing except that he was ‘a bit odd-looking’.
News of the incident spread through Climthorpe like dysentery through a coach party.
‘I wonder if it was the flasher,’ said Reggie the next night as they sat in the garden in the dark. ‘I didn’t think flashers ever did anything. You know what Shaw said: “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, flash.”’
The storms had passed away. The night was warm, and the leaves were quite still in the faint sodium glow.
‘If only you hadn’t gone for a walk last night, you’d have had a perfect alibi,’ said Elizabeth.
‘But I did go for a walk,’ said Reggie.
The headlights of a car turning into Coleridge Close lit up Ponsonby’s green eyes as he lurked by the bird table.
‘You don’t think it was me, do you?’ said Reggie.
‘Of course I don’t, darling. I just wish you hadn’t gone for a walk.’
He had passed quite close to the cricket ground. What a wild scene it must have been – two dim figures fighting in the rain, the numbers on the scoreboard clanking, the poplars behind the pavilion bending before the gale.
‘Why did you go for a walk?’ said Elizabeth.
‘You know why I went for a walk,’ said Reggie. ‘I went to clear my head. I went to try and get some inspiration about Perrin Products.’
There was a loud crash from the front of the house, as a brick sailed through their bedroom window.
Reggie hurried round the side of the house, crashing into the dustbins as he did so. By the time he had got round to the front the phantom brick-thrower had gone.
Mr Milford leant out of an upstairs window. His chest was bare.
‘Can’t you keep the noise down?’ he shouted. ‘Some people are trying to get to sleep.’
Linda sat in an alcove in the Fishermen’s Arms, with Jimmy beside her.
‘You got your late pass, then?’ said Jimmy.
‘I told Tom that I thought it was a good idea if we both had one evening out on our own, while the other one minds the children, because the hotel won’t be responsible for them any more. He said nothing was of any value in a marriage unless it was shared. I said nothing was worth having unless you were prepared to sacrifice it. It would do him good to give up his quiet evening of marital bliss in the hotel with me and stand here all alone and miserable getting drunk on real ale. He agreed.’
Jimmy put his left hand on Linda’s right hand.
‘Happy with Tom?’ he asked.
‘It’s hard work sometimes,’ said Linda. ‘I do love him, but he has to work out the social and economic consequences before he blows his nose.’
Jimmy bought another round.
‘Looking very pretty, Linda,’ he said.
‘Thank you, Jimmy.’
‘Nice chap, Clive. Top-drawer.’
‘What are you really doing down here. Uncle Jimmy?’
‘Holidaying. I told you.’
The barman cleared the empties off their table, and wiped it with a smelly cloth.
‘These dead?’ he said.
‘What does it look like?’ said Jimmy. When the barman had gone, Jimmy said: ‘Nice lad.’
‘You were rather abrupt with him,’ said Linda.
Tactics. Keep locals at arm’s length.’
‘Jimmy, what are you up to?’ said Linda.
‘Hush hush,’ said Jimmy. ‘Classified.’
A man and wife came to share their table without apology. Both were tall, pale, thin and miserable. Each had a dog. They spoke to their dogs but not to each other.
‘Subject closed,’ said Jimmy. ‘Walls have ears.’
Linda bought a round, then Jimmy another. It got warm and crowded and noisy in the little pub. Jimmy’s hand slipped on to Linda’s thigh.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘No monkey business. All that in past.’
He slapped Linda’s thigh twice.
‘Don’t like skinny young things,’ he said. ‘Nothing to them.’
The couple started to feed crisps to their dogs. The smelly dachshund favoured salt and vinegar, while smoky bacon proved more to the taste of the asthmatic pug.
The woman caught Linda’s eye and said: ‘They both like spaghetti.’ It was the only remark either of them addressed to a human being all evening.
‘Nice material. Smooth,’ said Jimmy, running his hand over Linda’s breasts.
‘Jimmy!’ said Linda, removing the hand firmly.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Jimmy. ‘Safe with me. Earlier incident forgotten. All records destroyed.’
A group of German aqualung enthusiasts entered the bar.
‘Germans,’ said Jimmy.
‘You have Ruddles beer?’ said their spokesman. ‘You have please Marstons? You have Fullers ESB? You have Theakston’s Old Peculier?’
‘Arrogant swine,’ said Jimmy. ‘What do they know about English beer? It’s all the same anyway.’
‘They seem quite nice to me,’ said Linda.
‘Lull the enemy,’ said Jimmy. ‘Then whoosh. U.K. caput. Oldest trick in book. Lucky some of us aren’t asleep.’
‘What do you mean, Jimmy?’
‘Said too much already. Same again?’
‘Haven’t we had enough, Jimmy?’
‘Nonsense. Only live once.’
Jimmy bought two more drinks. Linda noticed that he was weaving more than somewhat. He couldn’t take his drink any more.
‘Between you me and gatepost,’ he said. ‘Glad Sheila’s gone. Good riddance to bad rubbish.’
‘Jimmy!’
‘Rat leaves sinking ship.’
‘Jimmy!’
‘News for her. Last laugh on me. This ship isn’t sinking.’
‘Jimmy, what are you up to?’
‘Said too much already.’ Jimmy put his mouth very close to Linda’s ear, and whispered: ‘Dog-loving friends. Could be journalists.’ And then he stuck his tongue in Linda’s ear.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Out of bounds. Never happened.’
He smiled at the dog-lovers.
‘My favourite niece,’ he said.
The last bell went.
‘One for the road,’ said Jimmy.
‘No,’ said Linda.
‘Insist,’ said Jimmy.
‘Well I’m getting them,’ said Linda.
‘Compromise,’ said Jimmy. ‘You pay, I fetch. Scrum at bar.’
When he returned he was walking even more unsteadily.
‘Salt of the earth, Sheila,’ he said. ‘Not her fault. Army wife, long hours, mess dinners, other wives, married quarters, foreign parts. Poor cow!’
‘Try and forget her,’ said Linda.
‘Best wife in the world,’ said Jimmy. ‘She’ll be back.’
He put his arm round Linda.
‘Want to kiss you all over,’ he said.
‘Jimmy!’
‘Not going to. Discretion better part of valour.’
The couple left with their dogs.
‘They didn’t look like journalists to me,’ said Linda.
‘Never do. That’s the clever part about it,’ said Jimmy.
They crossed the road and stood on the low sea-wall, watching the phosphorescence on the water. There was a full moon, and the breeze was from the south.
Four young people were having a noisy midnight swim, with much splashing.
‘You can tell me now,’ said Linda.
‘Government work,’ said Jimmy. ‘Ministry of Defence.’
‘Doing what?’ said Linda.
‘Told you too much all ready,’ said Jimmy. ‘Totally new form of detection. Radar obsolete.’
He slipped his hand into Linda’s and squeezed it.
‘Lovely night,’ he said. ‘Fancy a stroll? All above board. No funny stuff.’
They walked up the cliff path. There were litter-bins every three hundred yards. The wind began to freshen, and a cloud covered the moon.
Linda tried to support Jimmy, because she knew that he was drunk. But her legs wouldn’t do what she told them.
They stumbled and fell, in the long dewy coarse grass of the cliff-top. Jimmy kissed her and she didn’t resist.
He fumbled with her clothes. Grasses like whipcord pricked her naked thighs.
‘It’s prickly,’ she said.
‘Golf course over there,’ said Jimmy. She pulled her tights up and they walked on to the close-cropped fairway of the 368 yard eleventh. Both of them were breathing hard.
‘Green nice and smooth,’ said Jimmy.
And so they lay by the lip of the eleventh green, on the lush well-watered grass, and came together in ecstasy. The green had a slight borrow to the right, but neither of them noticed.
‘Oh darling,’ said Jimmy. ‘Oh my beautiful beautiful darling.’
The clouds cleared once more, and gentle stars twinkled on them. As his frustrated body exploded in meteors of delight Jimmy clenched his hand round something hard that lay to his right.
‘All I’ve got,’ he said. ‘You’re all I’ve got.’
At the moment of exultant climax his clenched hand moved, the hard object turned, and he switched on the stopcock on the water sprinklers.
The sprinklers began to rotate, there was a gentle hissing sound, and they were drenched in fine spray.
The rearranged August Bank Holiday was cool and grey. Reggie went for a walk, right to the far end of the Poets’ Estate, where the spacious detached houses gave way to a council estate on the right, and the beginnings of a neo-Georgian cock-up on the left. The Show House stood alone, tiny and sad, in a sea of mud and rubble.
He walked fast, loping excitedly along. Nobody spoke to him, for he was an outcast, and this suited him, because he was working out an idea, and nobody wants to be interrupted by cries of ‘Hello, Reggie, think we’ll win the test match?’ when he is working out an idea. Who can say how many of his theorems Euclid would ever have completed if everyone had cried out ‘I say, why don’t you and Mrs Euclid come and make up a bridge four next Tuesday?’ all the time?
He walked along Masefield Grove, Matthew Arnold Avenue, Shelley Lane and Longfellow Crescent (Unadopted), returning via Dryden Drive, Anon Avenue and Swinburne Way. And while he walked he found the concept that he was looking for – an idea so ridiculous that it could not succeed, yet not so absurd that he could not produce arguments in its favour, to persuade Elizabeth and his bank manager and the finance companies that it had a sporting chance of success.
‘Trash,’ he said to Elizabeth on his return.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Grot,’ he said.
‘I haven’t got the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ she said.
The name of our shop,’ he said.
‘What shop?’ she said.
‘My plan is to make and sell rubbish,’ he said.
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘I plan to make things that are of no value,’ he said, ‘and sell them in our shop at high prices to people who will find them of no possible use whatsoever.’
‘Come on, what are we really going to make?’
‘I mean it, Elizabeth.’
Elizabeth gazed into his face and saw that it was so.
‘Oh Reggie,’ she said. ‘I thought all that was over. I thought we were serious about this.’
‘I am being serious,’ said Reggie. ‘What do you want me to do, something utterly conventional? I spent twenty-five years being conventional. Do you think I’ve been through everything just so that I can be conventional all over again? What would you have me produce – bulldog clips? Perrin’s epitaph in a country churchyard: “Here lies Reginald Iolanthe Perrin. He made 196,465,287,696 bulldog clips, and they were all exactly the same.”?’
‘I don’t want you to make bulldog clips,’ said Elizabeth. ‘There are a lot of other things in life apart from bulldog clips.’
He leant forward and stroked her hair.
‘The world is absurd,’ he said. ‘The more absurd you are, the more chance you have of success.’
‘People aren’t complete fools,’ said Elizabeth. ‘They’ll find out our stuff’s rubbish.’
‘They’ll know all along,’ said Reggie. ‘We’ll put a notice in the window: “Everything sold in this shop is totally useless.” We can sell Tom’s wine, Dr Snurd’s paintings, your father’s old books. All rubbish.’
He went to the cardboard-speckled windows and looked out over the grey Bank Holiday afternoon. It had begun to rain.
‘All over the estate, at this moment,’ said Reggie, ‘people are listening to the Radio Two road works report: “There’s a ten-mile tail-back at Gallows Corner.” And they’ll feel all warm inside, because they’re not stuck at Gallows Corner with the masses. “We aren’t sheep,” they’ll all think.’
‘Don’t change the subject,’ said Elizabeth. ‘The point is, why on earth should people buy utter rubbish?’
‘People like rubbish,’ said Reggie. ‘Look at Christmas crackers. People would feel they’d been done if the jokes were funny and the little plastic knick-knacks worked. Look at punk rock. And how many times do you hear people say they must rush home because there’s the worst film they’ve ever seen on the telly? They brought out a silent LP in America. It sold well. People who dislike noise played it on juke-boxes.’
He switched on the radio. There were seventeen-mile jams at Tadcaster and Keswick, and two-hour delays at Tadcaster.
‘Switch it off, darling,’ said Elizabeth.
Reggie switched it off.
‘It’ll be fun,’ he said. ‘We’ll give them a run for their money.’
‘That’s just the trouble,’ said Elizabeth. ‘We’ll be giving them a run for our money.’
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ he said. ‘We’ll make our fortunes.’
He kissed the top of her head.
‘You just see if we don’t,’ he said.
The bank manager was sympathetic. If it was up to him personally, he would lend Reggie money like a shot. Certain things which needn’t be mentioned had happened. A certain ruse concerning credit cards had been perpetrated last year, and as a result credit facilities had been withdrawn. This was now forgotten. There had been the matter of the will of the late Reginald Iolanthe Perrin, who had turned out no
t to be dead after all. Then there had been a Mr Martin Wellbourne who had opened an account, paid cheques in and out, developed a healthy overdraft and generally behaved like a model client. Nevertheless, he did not exist, and this was against bank regulations. The banks are broad-minded, they will overlook minor peccadillos both financial and moral, especially moral, but there are limits. They cannot permit their clients not to exist. Where would it end if they did? Anybody who was anybody would protest if anybody who was nobody could open a bank account. But even this could be skated over, if it was up to the bank manager personally.
But the manager was responsible to the bank, and they could not at the present moment in time regard Reggie as a man of impeccable financial probity. No doubt they would if it was up to them. But unfortunately it wasn’t up to them. They were responsible to the government. The government were decent chaps at heart, despite what everybody said. If it was up to them, they would turn a blind eye to Reggie’s misfortunes. Unfortunately however it wasn’t up to the government. The government’s hands were tied. They were responsible to the International Monetary Fund, and without actually saying so the manager intimated that the International Monetary Fund was a load of foreign bastards.
The finance companies were no more helpful. When Reggie told them that his plan was to make and sell rubbish, they couldn’t get rid of him quick enough.
He found a small shop on an unprepossessing site off the wrong end of the High Street, between a pet shop and an architect’s office. The seven building societies refused to give him a mortgage. He went to two friendly societies but they were both extremely unfriendly.
C.J. was alarmed to get Reggie’s call. Did it mean that he had found out about Elizabeth?
Reggie’s appointment was for eleven-thirty on 2 September, and C.J. fortified himself with a medicinal brandy.
The knock came promptly on the dot.
‘Come in,’ said C.J. in a masterful voice belied by a slight croak.
Reggie entered. He looked diffident rather than angry, and a wave of relief swept over C.J.
Reggie sat in the Japanese chair.
‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ he said. There’s no sense in beating about the bush.’
‘You’re talking my language,’ said C.J.
