“Yes, you! Are you deaf?” He enunciated very slowly. “Would… you… say… the… service… here… has… been… very… reasonable? Dear?”
“Certainly,” she said, in an eager-to-please voice.
“But she hasn’t even been served yet!” I pointed out.
He took his seat. “She might have been here before.”
This was ridiculous. “I’d like to speak to the manager.”
“Right!” he snapped, and stormed off muttering to himself.
I waited a full ten minutes while the queue behind me became restless, and I had to avoid catching anyone’s eye – as if the situation were my fault.
Finally, the same man returned, sat down at my window and put his hands on the desk. “Yes?” he said.
“I wanted to speak to the manager!”
“I am the manager,” he said.
“But you’re the same idiot I’m trying to complain about!”
“I’m afraid we won’t tolerate that sort of language.” He was trying to put on a different, more authoritative voice.
“What? ‘Idiot’?”
He glared at me. “If you use that word again, I shall have to call Security.”
“I’ve told you, I want to speak to the manager!”
He replied through gritted teeth. “And I’ve told you. I. Am. The. Manager.”
“But you’re the same…” I had to check myself. “You’re the same person who served me, about whom I am trying to complain.”
He sat there looking pointedly confused, before a huge grin broke out across his face. Dawning enlightenment! “Ah, I see! I see what’s happened here! Yes, we often get confused, me and him, him and I, that person and this person who is myself. People quite often mistake one for the other. Because, you see, we often wear the same jacket.” He pushed his collar forward, so I could inspect it more closely.
“You’re the same man!”
“I assure you I’m not. I’m the manager.” Supercilious grin.
“You’re an idiot,” I said.
He pressed a button beneath the counter. Two uniformed security guards appeared from nowhere, put a hand under each of my armpits and carried me away.
I found myself alone in a small, airless office, seated at a bare table. An angle-poise lamp had been plonked in front of me and turned on, interrogation-style; however, since the room was bathed in daylight, its effect was lost. There were pages pulled from magazines pinned to one wall, each featuring some form of law-enforcement officer puffing out their chest in a pristine uniform, with the title: ‘AREN’T COPS SEXY? MAGAZINE – THIS MONTH’S PIN-UP’.
One of the security guards who had carted me away from the Licences & Appeals Office entered the room carrying two Styrofoam cups, sat down opposite and placed one in front of me. He wore a black uniform with a black-and-white cap (‘SECURITY’ written around its band) and had eaten too many pies. His head tapered outwards from his temples to his shoulders, as if a small child had fashioned it from slowly melting butter. There was a large sweat patch on his white shirt, hovering over his chest region, and I could tell, despite the hat, that he was bald.
“Are you aware of your crime?” Security Lunk asked, in a voice that was thick and gloopy.
“No, I’m not,” I said, wondering whether he needed a decongestant.
He snatched back the cup previously given to me and downed the contents in one. “I’m not here to play games,” he said.
Neither was I. “As far as I’m aware, I haven’t committed a crime.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said. “What’s your name”?
I sighed. “Pilsbury Dextrose.”
He narrowed his piggy, dark eyes. “Trying to be funny, are we?”
“No,” I said. “That’s my name.”
“Alright, where’s your ID card?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Everyone in Pretanike has an ID card,” he said. “That’s the law.”
“I’m not from Pretanike.”
“Not from Pretanike?”
“No.”
That seemed to stump him.
He heaved himself up and began pacing the room, thoughtfully rubbing the area where his chin should have been.
“Can I go?” I asked.
“Not until the police arrive,” he said.
I couldn’t believe it. “The police? What have I done to involve them?”
The door swung open and a uniformed, 30-something woman walked in, wearing a face chillier than a Yeti’s toes.
“Ask them yourself,” said Security Lunk.
The police officer sat down opposite me.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” the lunk asked her. His voice had risen a couple of octaves, all smarm, though still gloopy.
She ignored the question. “What’s the charge?”
“While appealing a parking fine, ma’m, he twice referred to a licensing officer as an ‘idiot’.”
“Leave!” she snapped, waving him away with a hand and eyeballing me.
Her lips barely existed. Her face looked as though it had never experienced laughter; it was pointy like a ferret’s, and she wore her bleached hair tied back in a bun beneath her police hat. She sat with both hands on the table in front of her, leaning forwards, ready to strike.
She stared at me, never blinking.
“CALLED-A-COUNCIL-OFFICAL-AN-IDIOT-DID-WE-SIR?”
It was a high-pitched shriek, emitted so quickly that the words rolled into one. I nearly fell backwards over my chair in a bid to escape it.
“Christ!” I yelped.
“DO-YOU-HAVE-ANY-IDEA-OF-THE-PENALTY-FOR-BEING-IDIOTIST?”
I didn’t. Even had I done so, I wouldn’t have been able to speak.
The officer stood up, walked to the door and peered through its little window. When she returned to her seat, she looked different. Less tense. She picked off her hat, reached back and pulled out the bun, shaking her head to let the hair fall. She replaced the hat.
“Sorry about that,” she hissed.
What the hell was going on? Good cop/bad cop featuring just the one cop?
She leaned forward. “Sometimes they listen in.”
“Sorry?”
“Don’t be,” she said. “I’m Halo,” she added, holding out a hand.
I was too shaken to shake.
“It’s OK, I won’t bite,” she said.
Pulling a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, she offered me one and lit her own. “I hate being a fascist,” she said. “But we’re in a recession so I took what work I could get. Soon as there’s a vacancy at the garden centre, I’m outta here. So, what’s your plan?”
I accepted the cigarette even though I didn’t smoke, choked on it and stubbed it out. I explained how my plan of sorts had already been ruined by the parking-ticket fiasco.
She listened intently, then said, “I’m guessing you’re something to do with the tramp they just brought into the station.”
Tramp? It had to be. “Drunk old man, face messed up?”
“That’s him.”
“Well… yes. How did you know?”
“You have the same eyes and nose.”
I didn’t. “He’s my father. Can I see him?”
“They’re deporting him. Next flight out.”
“What?” I yelped.
Halo leaned forward and clamped a hand over my mouth. “Shhhhh!”
“Bllwn?”
She released her hand.
I tried again. “When?”
She looked at her watch. “On the 17.50 flight to London, England. He’s sobering up in the cells and being driven to the airport at 15.40. You want to join him?”
“Well. Yes. Please. I suppose I have to. But I have to find my mother first.”
“Why? Where’s she?”
I explained as succinctly as possible, interrupted only by her sharp intakes of breath. “Your father’s a moron,” she said, and I nodded. “The Statue of Sir Charles Partridge is about a
dozen blocks away. You’ll make it in ten minutes in a taxi.”
“Can I call one from here?”
“You got an ID card?”
“No.”
“Then you can’t get a taxi.”
“What? You can’t get a taxi without an ID card?”
“You want me to write it down for you?” She sighed, flicked her cigarette butt onto the floor and lit another. “You gotta move. If you run you’ll just have time to look for your mother. But be back at the cop station next door by 15.15. I’ll make sure we get you on the flight with your father.”
“What if I find her?”
Halo raised an eyebrow. “You really think so?”
“I have to try.”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Thanks,” I said, and got up to leave.
She began tying her hair back into a bun. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Am I?”
“Parking fine,” she said.
“Do I have to?”
“No way round it.”
As I was about to shut the door behind me, a thought struck me. I leaned back into the room. “Is there such a crime as being idiotist?”
“Sure,” she said. “How do you think the people making the laws protect themselves?”
Having feverishly studied the map of Pretanike torn from Quench’s book, I attempted to memorise the route and ran.
The pavements were teeming with people, many dolled up for work, others ambling with shopping bags. I zigzagged between them as fast as I could, breathing noisily. I was trying to stay calm, planning my next moves like a chess player, estimating speed and direction of those heading towards me, shimmying this way and that. It reminded me of my rugby-playing days at school. How I had hated that game.
Always at the back of my mind was the thought that I was wasting my time. For so many reasons:
1. Harrison Dextrose had forgotten where he had left his wife.
2. And how long ago he had left her there.
3. However, he had revealed the location, via his subconscious, in a sketch that was at best open to interpretation.
4. Having drunk a supposed truth serum called demon juice.
5. According to a deranged shaman, the sketch resembled an area on a map, which is where we had assumed Mrs Dextrose would be.
6. Yet there was no proof that my father had even been to Pretanike.
7. (And I had omitted to ask him.)
8. (Then again, I would hardly have been able to trust his answer anyway.)
9. In the unlikely event that Dextrose’s sketch and the Shaman’s interpretation were accurate, what were the chances of Mrs Dextrose having remained around that spot?
10. Would she really trust or expect that old fool to come back and find her?
If only she knew she had her son back.
“I’ll find you, Mum,” I gasped under my breath, running, running, running.
Who was this woman? I didn’t even know what she looked like. I didn’t even know her name! She was ‘Mrs Dextrose’. That’s what everyone called her – even her own husband. But what was her first name?
Delia! I bet that was it. Delia Dextrose. Had a ring to it. Seemed to fit her era. If her husband were in his early-seventies, she’d be there or thereabouts… although knowing him as I did, I bet he had married someone younger. She might even be in her fifties, having had me in her early-twenties.
Why did I know so little about her? My mother.
At least I had tried to quiz Dextrose, that night we’d bonded beside the Lonely Highway, but he had said he was too tired to talk. Why hadn’t he wanted to tell me about her? Was he hiding something?
Generally in The Lost Incompetent he had portrayed her as the battleaxe at home – typical bravado, I had taken it with a pinch of salt. Yet there were moments…
He had dedicated his book, “To the wife”. And once he’d admitted to missing her during his travels, recalled how she looked after him during his umpteenth night of shameful behaviour. He had sounded almost contrite.
Mrs Dextrose must have had the patience of a saint and the loyalty of a batman.
What would she look like? I had seen just that one photo. Her on the yacht, headscarf and summer dress, swinging from the mast, looking so contented – boy, that must have been taken a while back. Would she be a little old lady now, with a cardigan and stoop, or upright, strident and vital, with blood in her cheeks and a gleam in her eyes? What colour hair would she have? What lipstick would she wear? What would she sound like? Would she have an accent?
How often had she thought about me since the adoption?
How much did she care?
What if I actually found her?
What on earth would I say to her?
I stopped and bent double, wheezing violently, my mouth drier than a sand sandwich. Though I was fantastically thirsty there was no time to find liquid. I scrabbled for the map again, used my recuperation time wisely.
At a crossroads, I looked up and around for street signs. Pigeon Square and Museum Avenue… so close! Rather than head into the complicated maze of roads that might have offered the shortest route from A to B, I plumped for the least confusing: straight up Museum Avenue, left onto Beegster Street.
14.26. Had to move, body unwilling.
The museum loomed before me on my left: a great block of sandstone with ionic columns, tourists milling about outside (they had to be tourists, since they were going to a museum). Several times I had to sidestep into the road, oblivious to the nose-to-tail traffic, then skip back to safety. More than once my fatigue caused my ankle to give and I toppled dangerously before, more by luck than design, regaining my balance.
What was I going to do when I got to the statue?
Mrs Dextrose wouldn’t be there, having waited dutifully beneath old Charlie Partridge, tapping a foot impatiently, on the off-chance that her husband might finally remember her and return to sweep her off her feet. Still, that statue had to be the key. Had to be.
At the junction of Beegster Street I swerved left, arms flailing outward under momentum. Passers-by stopped and stared. My face was burning up. Every breath felt like razors scoring my throat. Every muscle burned. 14.29.
I didn’t bother waiting for the traffic lights on the junction of Beegster and Rafferty. I didn’t check for cars. I just ran across. Horns honked, someone shouted (“Wanker!”), tyres screeched, I paid them no heed. I remained unscathed. Good fortune. Hell, I was owed some.
Shops on the ground floor of an austere building to my left were blocking my view of the statue, but I knew it was up ahead, could sense it.
And then what would I do?
A few feet from the kerb, on the corner of Beegster and Vine, it came into view, perched on a plinth in a rectangle of green surrounded by railings: the Statue of Sir Charles Partridge.
The road was clear. I charged across. A park gate before me. I swung it open, flew across the grass. Stumbled and fell at the feet of Sir Charles, gasping for air like a mountaineer above the clouds, yet aware, incredulously, that I had made it after all the tribulations.
This was it: my physical goal. But not the emotional one. No time to water the ponies.
Pulling myself to my feet, I looked around. Wrought iron benches were lined around the lawn, each unoccupied. Not a single old lady in sight, who might have piqued my hopes.
I turned 360. Across the roads on every side were tall, architecturally ostentatious old buildings: ornate window frames, pious figures carved into the stone, marble and gold touches, the settings of high society. I scanned the pavements around their bases. Nothing stood out. But what was I expecting? Mrs Dextrose waving a handkerchief – “Coo-ee!” – lofting herself on tiptoes?
14.32. It had taken almost half an hour to reach the statue; the return journey would take longer on my quaking limbs. At what time must I be back? 15.15? Left me less than quarter of an hour to search.
No chance. Not a hope in
hell.
The statue. Five stone steps led up to the plinth, a wilful block of polished granite bearing an inscription:
SIR CHARLES PARTRIDGE
1866-1927
AIR ACE
‘STILL FLYING ’
I looked up. The bronze full-figure, twice a man’s size, towered overhead, silhouetted against a canvas wash of ozone blue. I had failed to notice what a lovely day it was.
Taking a few steps backwards, I could fully appreciate Sir Charles’ heroic stance. He wore breeches, high boots and a leather flying jacket with its collar pulled up around his neck. His hands were on his hips, chest puffed out, gazing from beneath an old flying helmet with an expression of beatific superiority. So extensive was his moustache that I could have pulled myself up on it and perched on his head, like a vulture, or a wise monkey.
Don’t ask me why – because I couldn’t tell you – but that’s what I decided to do. I climbed the Statue of Sir Charles Partridge.
Mounting the five stone steps, I heaved my chest onto the plinth and dragged my legs up and over. One hand in the crook of his arm, a foot on the top of his boot – another heave. Other hand on his shoulder, tight grip around one handlebar of that moustache, same on the other, the soles of my trainers scrabbling for purchase…
All the while, my mind could not help drifting back to my childhood comics, in which errant tykes with catapults were chased off flowerbeds by park keepers known as ‘Parkie’.
But no one shouted, no one saw, and suddenly I was sitting – precariously – on Sir Charles’ polished helmet many feet above the ground, gazing out at what he had surveyed for all those frozen years.
There was no one fitting a possible description of Mrs Dextrose, just city gents prowling the pavements and families on the stroll. I had to be proactive. Had to prove to myself that I had tried.
Then something struck me: something I’d been staring at but not seen. A large sign above the double doors on the ground floor of the building directly across the street. ‘Victoria Hotel’.
A hotel! Had Sir Charles been trying to tell me something?
14.38.
It was a chance slimmer than a lady’s personal cavity – but it was a chance. It was all I had. Instantly enlivened, I considered throwing myself to the ground, make time, until vertigo rang the bells of good sense.
Looking for Mrs Dextrose Page 21