by Graham Johns
Hermit Harry had such a knack, even while sporting Mick’s crumpled suit, which dangled from his withered frame as if he were not much more than a coat hanger. After having trimmed his hair and beard the knack persisted. He resembled only a similarity to Harry now.
He looked at himself in a piece of broken mirror he had nailed to a wall and uttered, “Nice. Very nice. I might keep this suit.”
Harry left his shack and ambled down from the sanctuary that is Bent Knob Hill towards the centre of the comparative metropolis that is Nether-Staining.
***
Gordon, Selina and Nigel had managed to cadge a lift in a lorry. The driver didn’t speak a great deal of English largely as he was Romanian, something that suited Gordon just fine. The three travellers had been shepherded into the trailer and Gordon was currently attempting not to engage with the handful of illegal immigrants they had found there, also cadging a lift and preferring to stay undetected. Nigel and Selina didn’t appear to understand the situation and were having a gay old time of it. Nigel was delighting in the attention from strangers who hadn’t encountered an English dog before. Being of a robotic persuasion, Selina had a natural flair for picking up language and was currently well on her way to learning Ukrainian. Nigel was well on his way to being as happy as a pig he’d once seen in…well, you get the picture.
After listening to laughter for what felt like forever, coupled with occasional looks and pointing in his direction, Gordon figured he might as well ask what was going on.
“They’re just wondering about how you got so fat and why you look like a cartoon character,” Selina replied with a smile, pointing at his luggage.
“You picked all that up in the space of half an hour in the back of a truck?” Gordon was nothing if not surprised. He smiled at Selina, “You’re brilliant. Now tell me how I tell them about myself and answer their questions.”
***
Mick located a curious key from inside Gordon’s kitchen, the key was painted blue and was hanging from a hook complete with a glittery keyring bearing the slogan ‘A nice ass should be seen and not heard’. He pocketed it and then went back outside and found the keys to Gordon’s tractor in the cab where he usually left them. He started the powerful engine and put the huge vehicle into gear before hitting the road. Mick hadn’t driven a tractor before but he figured anyone and anything that felt like getting in his way would choose to get out of his way pretty quickly once they saw him coming down the middle of the road. To avoid any risk of being accused of doing any work, he’d borrowed one of Gordon’s spare hats, a bright yellow Sou’wester, by way of disguise.
He found his way to the Lancashire border, ignored the toll demands and then kept going. He had a planned destination, which for once in his life didn’t involve a woman’s inner thighs.
He slowly entered the village of Lower Melton and eventually a barn came into view. It was a ramshackle barn that held a secret which Mick knew only too well. Mick parked the tractor on the concrete area just outside and walked quickly around to the back of the building to a steel door. He unlocked a shiny blue padlock with his blue key and entered.
The room inside was spotlessly clean and mostly empty, save for a few large crates in the middle of the floor and an influx of spiders that had made home around the ceiling space. The floor was bright white and Mick had to shield his eyes momentarily as the lights came on automatically.
Mick knelt on the floor in a very specific spot and whispered, “Miserable old crow.” A panel slid back to reveal a staircase which he descended. Downstairs, the factory that had once been used to manufacture robots to assist in the attempted alien invasion of Yorkshire lay dormant, although sparkling in its cleanliness. Mick entered the enormous room complete with its shiny machinery and various synthetic body parts sticking out of boxes, moving across to an adjoining room which contained hundreds of empty beds. Only four of the beds were populated.
“Hello, Sir Michael of Blue Boy,” said a formal voice as he entered the ward.
“Hello, Robin, it’s been a while,” Mick replied with a nod and a smile, and then indicating the prostrate forms with a look, “how are they?”
“Normal. No change from last time,” Robin replied coldly.
Robin was a robot, rather a polite one. Mick had christened him Robin when they had stashed the four bodies in here after the invasion was repelled. Robin was still happily functional for some reason he didn’t know. He had a rather nice thatch of ginger upon his head and emerald green eyes. As with many of the ginger persuasion, freckles were plentifully added to his skin. As Mick had named him, he had figured he may as well have a proper title in return.
“What can I do for you, Sir Michael of Blue Boy?”
Mick thought for a moment about how Broken had been educated to shout “MICK SUCKS!” and a slight evil glint entered his eye, “The next time you see Squire Gordon, I think you should know he has changed his appellation, he now wishes everyone to acknowledge him by the moniker of ‘Fat Bastard’, just so you know.
“But that isn’t the real reason I came. I think I need to bring at least one of our sleepers back into the land of the living.”
Robin didn’t bat an eyelid. Mick looked at him while thinking about his choice, “OK, can we bring this fellow back to being awake?” He pointed at a tall, middle-aged man with pasty, unblemished white skin and bleached hair.
“Very well.”
Mick seated himself on a nearby chair after obtaining a cup of coffee from a nearby vending machine and waited. He would be waiting a good while. These were powerful sedatives. After a while of waiting, Sir Michael of Blue Boy decided that he may as well avail himself of one of the empty beds in the room.
“Robin, please wake me when the patient nears consciousness.”
“Yes, sir.”
***
Harry had seen enough of people in his time to resent having to dip back into social affairs, but he also took great delight in the bargain he had made with Mick and so he put this to the back of his mind. He spent the morning sitting on a bench on the village green pretending to watch the ducks milling about on the pond while secretly observing the villagers going about their business. The ducks, meanwhile, pretended to mill about on the pond while secretly wondering why the humans in this village were so crazy. After a while Harry began to notice a pattern which caused him a small degree of horror and duly led him to return home immediately for an appointment with a razor blade which he kept sharpened for very special occasions.
***
When you’re a tourist, it can be funny to think about the types of places you end up or things you partake in that you would never have intended before your trip began. Leaping out of a plane while strapped to another human being perhaps? Or jumping off a bridge with elastic wrapped around your ankles? Eating live insects? Or perhaps you’ve just bought a nice designer leather jacket from a smooth Italian diplomat who needed some cash to enable him to leave his own country with haste – it does happen. Anyway, Gordon was right now doing something he could barely warrant and was mentally in denial. He was having a free meal courtesy of a local mosque.
Gordon didn’t really have anything against those of the Islamic faith, he wasn’t that ignorant, but these were Lancastrians who by default merited his disdain. And they were giving him a free meal. He wasn’t entirely sure how he could’ve gone from the back of a lorry of illegals one minute to a free meal provided by a local mosque the next, but that’s the beauty of unlikely stories.
Nigel, of course, saw sense in all of this as he tucked into a nice bit of lamb outside. Selina simply conversed with the local people while Gordon filled his stomach, which had been complaining bitterly for an hour about the possibility of his throat being cut, due to a lack of incoming sustenance.
***
The sedated man began to wake. Mick had been roused from his slumber ten minutes prior by Robin the Reliable Robot, as Mick liked to call him in his head. The man was restrained by some straps w
hich Robin had diligently applied around the bed once the sedatives had been switched off.
“Mister Just Master,” Mick said in a sullen, serious tone, “I’ve been waiting for you, please have some coffee.”
Mick proffered the plastic cup to the prostrate man’s mouth to facilitate a sip, followed by a hungry swallow and a desire for more. Mick duly obliged but then withdrew the cup to the top of a bedside cabinet under the watchful icy stare of a very thirsty man.
The man struggled against his restraints briefly but was clearly too exhausted and relaxed back against his mattress, looking around the room.
“I see that I find myself a victim of my own prison,” he said hoarsely, coughing a little. Even in his current state, his voice was deep, smooth and almost hypnotic, Mick had to remind himself to focus.
“Indeed, although I hope that it need not be for long as I feel the time has perhaps come for us to be friends.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have a little problem,” Mick paused and reflected on his choice of words, “to be honest, we have a little problem, and it would benefit us both to work together to solve it.”
“Release me from these bonds and we can talk, otherwise you are on your own.” His voice was now recovering a degree of composure and assurance.
Mick might not be shaping up to win Brain of Yorkshire anytime soon but he knew when he couldn’t trust someone so he spoke unto Robin, “Robin, please prepare a dose of ketamine large enough to floor a randy stallion and be ready to strike Mr. Master with speed should he attempt to get up off this bed.”
Robin left the room and made for the rear of the silent factory. In his absence, as there was no friendly gossip to catch up on, things remained at an uneasy peace. This was largely because Just Master was one of the main protagonists involved in attempting to take over Yorkshire with a plague of alien robots. Nether-Staining history is nothing if not unusual.
Robin returned with a syringe which glistened from the tip of the needle and he waited calmly for events to unfold before him. Mick proceeded to undo the tethers and allow Just to sit upright. For his part, Just remained seated and showed no inclination to move, other than to reach over and grasp the coffee cup which was mercifully still hot. Robin was poised with the needle mere centimetres from Just’s neck.
“I am listening,” Just said as he fixed Mick with what could best be described as a glare from the depths of hell, his deep brown eyes looking hard at his subject. He ran his hand through his hair to sweep it backwards into its normal style, almost like a bleached Peter Cushing.
Mick took a deep breath before beginning, “OK, just to let you know, you have been under sedation here for only a matter of weeks rather than years, well OK it is actually months but not too many.” Mick was babbling a bit. Just remained still.
“Can you get to the point?” he asked.
“Well, there are those who seek to unite Lancashire and Yorkshire together under one rule. Being on the frontline, we in Nether-Staining have taken it upon ourselves to, firstly, build a wall around Yorkshire and, secondly, to now decide that Nether-Staining is its own country.”
Mick allowed the words to hang in the air for a moment while he took a breath.
“How exactly is this my problem?” Just asked.
Mick wasn’t expecting total enthusiasm but equally he wasn’t expecting disinterest, “Something odd is happening in Nether-Staining, I don’t know what it is but people are doing strange things and I thought you’d have a good idea, given your prior experience, what might be causing it.”
“Really?” he asked, barely seeming to pay attention as he gazed around the room.
“Yes, and I doubt you’d stand for a united county line any more than I would.” Things were getting a little annoying now, Mick had hoped for a somewhat better response, but then he had got a man talking to him under duress.
“And the others who are kept sedated in this room?” Just pointed to three other people currently in slumber.
“Do we need them?” Mick asked.
“The more the merrier I should think, mwahaha.” When Just laughs, it sounds slightly evil, even when it’s more of a chuckle.
Mick was concerned about unleashing all of Just’s cronies back into the land of the living. He wasn’t overly worried about Supré, who was a fair bit older than Just, but he was concerned about the two heavies who had been masquerading as police officers last time around. Brough and Dickens were the supposed names of the police, he’d no reason to assume they were fake but who knew?
“Let’s talk about how we might tackle this problem first,” Mick said coolly, “but please excuse me for a moment while I chat with Robin over here.”
Robin was seemingly reluctant to leave his post of jabber-to-be and Mick whispered in his ear on the other side of the room before they both returned to Just, who had remained seated throughout the intermission.
“OK, so let’s discuss what our plan might be,” Mick said.
“Right you are,” Just said, “but perhaps we should first take a trip to Nether-Staining together so you can show me the lay of the land?”
CHAPTER 17
SOME ARE WITHIN YORKSHIRE,
SOME ARE LEFT WITHOUT,
THOSE MINUS COUNTY PARENTAGE,
ARE BASTARDS AND MUST POUT!
Mick parked Gordon’s tractor back at the farmhouse and Just and he alighted. Just took a moment to adjust his posture after being crammed into the tractor by the side of Mick. Mick thought it was getting a little late so he figured they might not be doing a great deal today.
“Cup of tea?” he asked, before adding, “Yorkshire Tea that is.”
“So we are clear, my acceptance of a cup of tea from yourself is not acceptance of a blossoming business relationship or of friendship, and will you please remove that absurd hat now,” Just replied.
Mick looked slightly awkward, removed the Sou’wester, and simply unlocked the kitchen door and indicated for Just to head in first.
“Perhaps we should relax for this evening as it will be getting dark soon, and I’ll show you around the area tomorrow?”
Just sighed a little to himself, “The darkness is usually when those who seek to do harm start doing that very thing, we should venture out.”
“If that’s the case, can we at least find you a hat to cover that beacon of light that is your thatch?” Mick enquired.
“If you insist, but I should tell you that I will not be wearing that hideous yellow hat you were sporting earlier.”
***
Harry was hoping that Mick wouldn’t be too much longer as much had altered, not least of all himself. Razor blades had a nasty habit of doing that to a person. Watching the people of Nether-Staining behaving in such peculiar ways was one thing he was used to because generally speaking he disliked the lot of them and found everything about the way they chose to live their lives was really quite peculiar, but even he was shocked by recent developments. He was looking forward to purging his head of the things he’d seen in this very short time if only to ensure it wasn’t his problem any longer and he could return to his home and forget all of this nonsense.
From his vantage point by the duck pond on the village green, Harry watched Bob park his Jaguar outside the pub and venture into the Dog & Duck, his bushy beard flapping around on his face somewhat in the still air as he did so. “That’s weird,” said Harry to himself. He was the only person listening, and was still largely invisible.
***
Gordon, Selina and Nigel had had the pleasure of getting to know a number of people during the afternoon. The pleasure was mostly reserved for Nigel as Selina is a robot and Gordon is hard to please at the best of times. He was distracted by his mission which was not yet over, although it was close. When they decided it was time to seek a B&B for the night, their hosts, who Selina had befriended at the mosque just earlier, insisted that they take up a spare room in their house, although Nigel would need to remain outside. You can take the
man out of Yorkshire but not Yorkshire out of the man, and therefore with the opportunity to save a few English pounds, Gordon accepted before they changed their minds. He was delighted when they were offered a ride to Preston in the morning. Things were coming together just a little.
***
The past has a habit of remaining in the past, except for when irritating people insist on continually bringing it up in an effort to make a point or to ridicule someone for not learning from the mistakes of yesteryear. Funny how those people never learn from their own mistake of past-dredging isn’t it? If the definition of insanity is repeating the same action and expecting a different result, we must all know a lot of insane folk.
It’s been a while since Roger the Pure had had his past featured and so we must climb aboard our DeLorean, complete with flux capacitor, and venture back in time once more.
Roger watched with concern etched on his brow as Fettler Shepherd seemed to take an age to come back into view, wandering away into the hills with his precious map, “I fear that this could be a bad decision in the grand scheme of things but I couldn’t risk Honesty finding it,” he thought.
“Afternoon, monk,” was whispered from just behind him into his right ear. Roger almost soiled himself and rotated his bulk around so he could see what Honesty was up to.
“Can I help you?” he asked while trying to conceal his alarm.
“I couldn’t help but wonder why such as yourself was staring so wistfully off into the distance? You’re normally more transfixed with small boys, are you not?”
Roger decided against taking the bait, “I’ll ask again, can I help you?”
“I thought I’d happen by and check if your map remains secret and safe?” he rasped through gritted teeth.
“You’ve nothing to worry about there, I am a man of my word. Leave me in peace and you have nothing to worry about, in fact I’d prefer if you didn’t bother me again.”