by Graham Johns
“Please take a seat, I shouldn’t be too long.”
Helen took his paper away and Gordon squeezed himself into a rather small wooden chair, the sides of which pressed uncomfortably on the sides of his sizeable rear to the extent that he could feel his cheeks being squashed together like two halves of a particularly full baguette. He waited.
***
Back in the underbelly of the robotics factory in Lower Melton, Mick and Just were awaiting the awakening of Just’s cronies. Mick had had a quiet word in Robin’s ear about ensuring that all four of them were kept under close watch at all times and that Robin should use free reign to leave the facility and shadow their whereabouts after they left the facility, largely as there was no point in his staying there with nothing to do. Mick insisted that he take down anyone who showed signs of misdemeanour against himself or his friends. Robin almost looked happy at the prospect of seeing a bit of the world beyond this underground room, not that he had any experiential conception about what the world really was, or how messed up it is.
So it was that Brough, Dickens and Supré slowly roused from their lengthy, induced comatose states. Brough and Dickens were effectively the henchwoman and henchman for Just and Supré. The latter had been a senior figure to Just, and key in setting up the attempted alien takeover.
Brough, being a strong, muscular, tall woman in her twenties, with short brown hair and almost masculine features, had no love for Mick. She had once had some love for Mick after a meeting at a DWP office but Mick had never delivered on his promise to call her as he didn’t own a phone. Life seemed simpler back then, he often thought.
Dickens was also tall but had long jet-black hair. He wasn’t muscular in the way Brough was and in many ways he didn’t bring much to the role of henchman except for a willingness to do what he was told. Sometimes it’s all about attitude though.
Supré Méleader had a theatrical air about him, something of a Noël Coward look. In his fifties, his hair was thin and slicked back and he favoured pince-nez to help him to focus his brown eyes. It was Supré who spoke first in his rather posh, deeply-toned voice, beseeching the group for answers, “What on earth is going on? Just?”
We don’t need to be here to hear the explanation as you, dear readers, are lucky enough to be in the loop already. It’s fortunate because something was happening elsewhere that demands our attention.
CHAPTER 19
YOUR BIRTH IS OH SO PURE,
NEW LIFE IS QUITE THE SIGHT,
ONLY ONE COLOUR CAN REPRESENT,
AND THAT, MY FRIEND, IS WHITE.
A small notice on the nation’s noticeboard announced the following:
All villagers of Nether-Staining will be required to attend a sod cutting ceremony at 9am on Monday morning to celebrate the initial phase of construction of a new multi-million pound development of a hotel and golf course. A silver shovel will be used for this occasion and a raffle will be held to raise further funds for our new nation and to ensure that a lucky villager wins this most esteemed of prizes. Please take a leaflet, read carefully and complete your entry details for collection on the day. Wear white.
The note was signed by Bob Roberts and countersigned by Tufty McTuftykins, though to call this a signature was a bit far-fetched as it looked more like someone had stuck a bit of wool to the notice with tape. Animal welfare authorities might have a thing or two to say about the obtaining of Tufty’s personal effects but Nether-Staining didn’t concern itself with things like that just now it would seem. A stack of leaflets was contained in a metal case, which had been suspended from the noticeboard beneath the notice.
Until recently, such a blatantly dictatorial notice might’ve led to uproar and another issue for the angry, pitchfork-wielding mob to deal with, but these were not normal times. A steady stream of folk read the notice, took a leaflet and followed the instructions.
***
On the telephone in the medium we like to call ‘the ether’, albeit scrambled to forbid the listening of unintended ears, the American asked very simply, “Are we all good then?”
“Yes, all is in hand and ready for your arrival,” replied a controlled female voice.
“Excellent, I trust you won’t fail me on this, for your sakes. I expect great things from you and if everything goes as intended then you will receive your ten million each as agreed. I suggest you don’t attend the ceremony for your own benefit and I see no reason for us to converse any further if things go well.”
The call ended. Americans were usually so polite.
***
Having invited him into a small private room just off the reception area, and Gordon having somehow extricated himself from the chair, thus giving his buttocks full freedom once more, Helen delivered the birth certificate to Gordon with a surprising degree of flair as she flourished it like a flag before placing it gently on the desk in front of him. She then added another piece of paper.
“I trust these will answer your many questions?” she asked hopefully, keen to get back to the sort of admin tasks that public service workers pride themselves on, ensuring that the money of the taxpayer is efficiently and effectively spent.
Gordon looked at the documents in front of him carefully, “Can I keep these?”
“For a fee, yes, I trust you have your wallet with you?” Helen smirked.
Gordon didn’t smirk, so much for saving a few pounds on this jaunt. He paid the lady and headed outside to find Selina and Nigel. His side quest was complete. Now it was time to crack on with the main quest.
***
“Brough, Dickens, please can you get on to looking into this post-haste,” Supré requested, as they inspected a photograph of the announcement which Brough had brought back as part of a covert reconnaissance. They were gathered around the large dining table in the kitchen at Gordon’s farm.
“Will do,” Brough replied, adding a hateful glare at Mick for good measure.
“What shall we do?” Mick asked, indicating Just and himself.
“I think it would seem prudent for us to work out some scenarios which might unfold from whatever is going on with this hotel. It seems very odd for a new nation to sell land off although I understand it was announced prior to that turn of events. We need to come up with a number of possible plans for our reactions to these events,” Supré replied.
“Yes, we need to allow for a successful Lancastrian takeover this time,” Just added. He waited a moment for a look of shock to reach Mick’s face before a slight smile graced his own. A longer moment passed before Mick realised what had just happened.
“Just, was that your first joke? I think it was a joke!” Mick laughed and patted him on the shoulder which Just didn’t appreciate one bit as he shook his hand away.
“Perhaps it is, perhaps it is not, time will tell,” he said, smile now removed.
“So what do you think are the likely scenarios then?” Mick asked hopefully.
Supré began, “It would certainly appear that someone has designs on Nether-Staining and maybe more, but we don’t know who or what their motives are. It seems like some form of witchcraft has been employed in bringing the whole village under the control of the pub landlord. It was noticeable that he has a new car and flash clothes so perhaps there is a financial aspect to this. It is curious that yourself, Gordon and Harry are unaffected so perhaps this play was later although you mentioned an angry mob approaching the farm as Gordon was leaving. It’s very odd.”
Just then continued, “It could all be misdirection, or perhaps it could be as linear as you have just described. There must be easier ways of making money. Thinking like a villain, if it was me, I think I would be focussed on this new hotel, follow the money there. The pub landlord seems like a patsy.”
“But why control everyone if you just want to build a hotel and golf course?” Mick asked. “Why not just pay a few people off who hold the keys to the land?”
“You make a good point,” Supré said, “perhaps it really is about merging
the counties?”
“But then why build a golf course?” Mick asked.
“People do like a bit of golf you know, very civilised pursuit,” Supré advised.
“I think we all need to find a quiet space and have a think,” Just replied.
“Yes, be creative,” Supré added.
With that, they moved to separate parts of Gordon’s farm, trying to stay out of sight. Mick found the last of Gordon’s alcohol, hidden behind a tall yucca plant, and had some sly beverages, all the while dreaming of a nice, creamy head of a Priest’s Hole.
***
On reconvening in Gordon’s ample kitchen, around the sizeable solid oak table, that evening, Mick was surprised to discover that he wasn’t overly wobbly from consuming the last half litre of Flippin’ Whippet vodka in Gordon’s collection. The nap must’ve helped. He was slightly surprised to find that Brough and Dickens had not returned from their mission.
“Where are they?” Mick asked in a remarkable moment of clarity.
“We’re not sure,” Supré replied.
“It was only a simple request to go and get a leaflet wasn’t it?” Mick asked. “It’s not that far to the village and back. Something must’ve gone wrong.”
“We cannot risk going to look for them. I agree it is peculiar but we must press on positively,” Just said calmly.
“Leave the wounded and keep advancing you mean? A friend in need is a pest?” Mick didn’t care for Just’s rather emotionless banter, indeed had he been a man who was prone to violence he might’ve thumped Just on the nose long before now.
“They may have simply been waylaid. They are used to adjusting as circumstances dictate. Do not worry, Mr. Hunt, all will be well.”
“We need to be at the village gathering in the morning,” Supré said, “have we got any white clothes we can use?”
This might seem a slightly mundane question to most people. But to many – elderly crown green bowlers or regular cricketers excepted – the very existence of white clothes, never mind in their own wardrobe, is one of consternation. White is a colour which shows up every blemish, every stain, every sin, except perhaps for a tiny spot of natural yoghurt. On a farm, a place where real, honest dirt is part and parcel of everyday life, white is not an ideal choice of colour for anything – especially not of underwear if dealing with crazed sheep.
Just wore black. Supré wore a burgundy smoking jacket. Mick wore a dark suit.
“I think I’ll go and have a look around,” Mick said, leaving the table.
Supré decided to make a cup of tea while Mick was absent, which was not for too long as Mick returned with a few white shirts and a few pairs of what appeared to be rather used Y-fronts, given their grey look, draped over his left arm.
“They’re huge. We can’t wear those,” Supré remarked, “and I don’t have the time or the inclination to do a spot of needlework.”
Mick had anticipated this reaction and produced a bottle of bleach and a bucket from under the kitchen sink before enacting an authoritative air as he delivered his verdict, “Gentlemen, I think you will find that this is the alternative.”
Unbeknownst to Just and Supré, Mick had no intention of allowing bleach anywhere near his suit and had quite a different plan involving Gordon’s rather nice, white, pristine shower curtain. Had Gordon or Ernest been around, or even Bob or Beryl for that matter, they’d be fearing the worst right now, although Gordon would also be intending to throttle the vandal.
Mick decided to set to work, and pulled on a pair of yellow rubber gloves with as much of an evil expression as he could manage before he burst out laughing, “Gentlemen, if you’d both be so kind, please strip down to your smalls and I’ll begin.”
Just and Supré exchanged a look and the rest became history, although in the context of this story it is actually the future, if you see what I mean.
***
After completing his initial bleaching, Mick ventured outside to the outbuilding and, checking to ensure he was not being watched, located a dark bin liner hidden amongst some stacked hay bales. He checked inside and satisfied himself that moths had not gotten to the contents in recent times, and that any unpleasant smells had not festered, before he ventured back into the house. It was time for action, and Mick knew that when the time for action was nigh, it was time he changed his clothes to look like the hero he was born to be.
You may have noticed that Just and Supré didn’t tend to use bad language, being from a marginally more refined area to the west of Yorkshire. When Mick appeared back in the kitchen sometime later, just as they were extracting their dried clothes from the tumble dryer, some choice words were uttered by Just because his clothes had shrunk a touch and then he saw Mick, “What the hell do you look like?”
Mick was entirely draped in Gordon’s white shower curtain which he had tucked into his neck line so his whole body was concealed under a white sheath with his pink head poking out of the top.
“I must say, I’ve seen more impressive white outfits but perhaps not more unusual, you call to mind one of those dolls that covers a toilet roll, or maybe a fairy that sits on top of a Christmas tree,” Supré added.
Mick was content with interpreting this as praise indeed as the best was yet to come. Why it was that more people didn’t reach for their shower curtain in times of dire need was a mystery. They were large, versatile and stopped water going into those places you’d rather keep dry.
“Just, you may ask what I look like but I should suggest that you have a hint of albino about you in that colour scheme, white is most definitely not your colour. It clashes with your hair.”
Just, though generally priding himself on his self-control, felt a little like punching Mick, especially as his newly-white trousers were slightly at half-mast. He didn’t succumb.
Mick produced what he proclaimed as a surprise from behind his back, namely three white beanie hats he’d located and bleached elsewhere in the property, “Everyone else is bald, I figured we at least need to disguise our hair too without resorting to a close shave.”
***
Gordon didn’t care for the hiring of private vehicles, nor did he care for the use of public vehicles. He found that people tended to look at him a bit funny when he used a bus or train, perhaps because he was fond of farmyard aromas or maybe because he naturally occupied two seats. Taxis just got his goat in a grand way as the cost was enough to strike fear into the very core of your purse. However, needs must and all that. He was a man on a mission. He needed to return to Nether-Staining quickly and sort a few things out. He had rented a van, and not your ordinary van either. And it was not your ordinary rental. He’d technically borrowed it against the will of the owner because the ice cream man was currently subdued on the floor to the rear with twenty English pounds stuffed into his jacket pocket and a promise of freedom and a few sales later once the deed was all done.
Gordon had stuffed one of his socks into his mouth and Nigel was attempting to stand guard as the van trundled along. Selina simply shook her head disapprovingly in the passenger seat. Gordon couldn’t figure out how to turn off the musical jingle and so ‘Greensleeves’ was blasting out of the external speakers.
Interestingly, ‘Greensleeves’ was widely believed to have been composed by Henry VIII to his lover, Anne Boleyn. As it happens, Yorkshire facts dictate that it was composed by Gloria Taylor of Cleckheaton during the Elizabethan era; she had an unfortunate laundry-staining outcome after slipping and falling on wet grass, thereby proving that white can be a real problem colour and starting a fashion for more colourful sleeves, sometimes green. It is quite the lament. Also, Henry VIII was a large man, and so was Gordon, though Gordon preferred a pork pie hat to a funny little beret. Anyway, as Gordon powered along at thirty miles per hour so as not to spill any of the delicious cargo, the beautiful Lancastrian countryside was alive with the strains of such a momentous melody, played in typical ice-cream-van crappy, jingly style. You can’t win them all.
Gord
on was starting to feel like something memorable was about to occur and so slowed the van down to tractor pace to annoy a few folks en route back to Nether-Staining. He needed to change outfits from his tattered old sweater and trousers into something more respectable because he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to get his farm back, and in some style.
CHAPTER 20
YOU MIGHT CALL IT EARTH,
YOU MIGHT CALL IT A CLOD,
EITHER WAY, SHOVEL OR SPADE,
IT’S TIME TO DIG THE SOD.
The morning brought with it bright sunshine to greet those who rose with the warming star, although it had rained hard in the night, so freshening up the air a touch. The roosters of Nether-Staining had begun to cock-a-doodle-doo at a most ungodly hour as far as Mick was concerned. Be that as it may, it promised to be a momentous day as sod was to be cut and whoever was behind such a thing might be revealed at last. Why on earth people had to celebrate as they began their butchery of the natural landscape was a bit of a mystery to Mick, who still took the time to admire a more natural of worlds, especially of the genuine feminine form. At least a golf course tended to look natural in some ways, even if they persisted in putting bunkers everywhere and cutting the grass way too short. It was probably best not to think of the hotel too much, that would be a real blot on the landscape.
“Sand belongs on the beach,” Mick thought to himself as he headed for the bathroom.
At breakfast, there was still no sign of Brough or Dickens having returned from their reconnaissance. Aside from looking rather uncomfortable in having to wear their bleached outfits for breakfast, Just and Supré were now a little concerned that something had occurred to waylay their colleagues. They would pity the person who attempted to distract Brough, as she was consensually the meanest woman either of them had ever encountered.
Little was said as nobody knew what to expect.
“I was just thinking,” said Mick, “that I’m not sure any of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for you fellas. We had no mind to keep Yorkshire for ourselves until you tried to take it from us, you know.”