Rebel Without a Clue

by Kerrie Noor

  “I saw her on the roof.”

  “Oh, really? Before I did, you mean?”

  “Yes, I had seconds—and we Operators learn to make the most of them.”

  Beryl was about to mutter how grateful she was to be stuck with such a smart-arse when she realized that H2 was all she had.

  She felt a little sick.

  Chapter Thirty-Two—The Kitty

  “A KITTY BY ANY OTHER name still needs feeding.” —Anon, ladies’ door at the Argyll Dunoon

  Beryl and H2 walked into the hotel. The warm air and bright lights took them by surprise, as did the sudden silence of conversation. Everyone stared. They stuck out like spinach clinging to a front tooth.

  Beryl shrugged her shoulder. “Fancy dress,” she said, pleased with herself.

  “Aye, right,” laughed H2 with a red face as she pulled Beryl to a seat near the bar.

  H2, using her best Scottish accent, ordered something “dry and white,” as instructed by Gran’s “how to survive anywhere” note. After repeating it three times, she gave up and went back to the “Queen’s English.”

  Beryl threw her a “told you so look” and H2 threw her a “do any better” look back, which Beryl chose to ignore with a now-perfected shrugging of her shoulders. She followed this with an “I am the leader” chest-expansion stance, causing more people to stare than Beryl was comfortable with. H2 glared with another “told you so” look and Beryl blushed—something she had never done before. Her body heated up so quickly she was taken aback and began to fan herself with a beer mat.

  “I know the feeling,” said an older-looking woman walking past, and Beryl without thinking smiled back.

  The hotel was full of women and at the table beside them were two, dressed like most of the others—as if there was a heat wave, which Beryl now understood the reason for. They wore their blonde hair scraped back into a tight bun, heavy eye makeup, and large earrings with lots of exposed flesh.

  Beryl and H2 stared at each other, already exhausted under the strain of observing while trying to blend in. They gulped their drinks down in silence, enjoying the sensation of warmth, then ordered another. “This time with nuts,” said Beryl, copying the only male standing by the bar.

  “No, I’m not joking,” said first blonde, “he was doing the splits, on the scaffolding like a rubber doll.”

  “Magician doing the splits in Dunoon?” laughed the second blonde.

  “And the backbends,” said the first blonde.

  “Bet that DJ was pissed.”

  “Pissed—he was sulking big-time.”

  Beryl wrestled with her packet of nuts. She shook it, sniffed it, and then put it to her ear and shook it again—H2 grabbed the packet.

  “You take a photo?” said the second blonde.

  “Me? Oh, I’m rubbish at photos.”

  Two more women walked in. They were larger, with dark hair and even bigger earrings that swung down past their shoulders. They spotted the two blondes, waved, shouted, and then pulled up a seat beside them.

  “Did you take a photo of the magician?” said the first blonde.

  “Me?” said the first brunette, nestling into her seat. “I hate having my photo taken, it makes my head look big . . .”

  “I was talking about the magician,” said the first blonde.

  “Has he got a big head too?” said the first brunette.

  H2 tried to find opening instructions on the packet of nuts and came across “tear here,” which didn’t help. She shook the packet again.

  “You talking about DJ? I heard he spent the rest of the night acting like he was on something,” said the first brunette.

  “He said he was hearing voices.”

  “Definitely on something, always thought he was weird . . . I mean who’s his father . . . big mystery.”

  Beryl threw another look at H2.

  The women drank fast, ordering more drinks just as fast. By the time four more women turned up, the “kitty” (not that Beryl had a clue what that was) had been filled twice and several packets of chips had been eaten but, noted Beryl, no nuts.

  H2 looked around the room to see if anyone else had ordered nuts, hopefully with a clue as to how to open a packet. Two more women pulled up a chair at Beryl and H2’s table with a “do you mind” nod, and when Beryl and H2 nodded back, the women pulled their table over to join the other women’s table. Beryl, now completely fed up, pulled the packet of nuts from H2 and with her teeth tried to open the packet, sending a spray of peanuts across the two tables and the floor.

  The women cackled with laughter. “Nuts, they get you into trouble every time,” said one, as the barman tossed another packet Beryl’s way with an “on the house” comment.

  “Interesting outfit,” said one woman. “Where’re you from? Not from around here, dressed like that.”

  Beryl blushed—no one had ever called her interesting before.

  “Costume party,” said H2.

  “Costume party? What the hell is that?” said one of the woman.

  “She means fancy dress,” said another woman.

  “In Dunoon?”

  The women’s mood changed to suspicion. I never heard of any party . . . Me neither . . .

  “Except we got it wrong,” added Beryl.

  “Yes,” said H2. “We ended up here by mistake . . . the boss got it wrong.”

  The women looked at each other. “You look familiar,” said the first blonde. “Have I seen you somewhere before?”

  H2 jumped in. “We’re with the BBC but please don’t tell, it’s sort of . . .”

  “Incognito,” said Beryl.

  “Incognito,” said the first blonde. “Big word. How can you be incognito dressed like a fetish queen?”

  “That’s the secret,” said H2, tapping her nose and offering them a drink.

  “Aye, well, I don’t take too much when I’m out, just a couple of wines and then I’m on the vodka. Can’t take much of the wine . . . goes to my head.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Same with me, I’m on to the vodka after this too. Too much wine will kill you.”

  They fell about laughing, which went completely over Beryl’s head. She looked at H2. When did she get so lippy?

  The women’s conversation went from one thing to another, making Beryl and H2 giddy trying to follow. H2 and Beryl listened to many things, like how being an only child was different from coming from a large family, and imaginary friends were a thing of ridicule. That some people had cousins—which was fine but too many made Christmas not easy: “Imagine the potatoes.” And that some women had a man some had partners, and some had other women’s men or bits on the side. Which H2 explained to Beryl was not a side dish.

  They also learned that everything was amazing after the third kitty was finished and everything was shite after the fourth. They listened as their heads got fuzzier and laughed despite not understanding. In fact, understanding just seemed to get in the way of laughing.

  They learned that being a fish person had nothing to do with fishing but more to do with batter—whatever that was—and that fish on Earth apparently had no eyes, because as the second blonde said, “Yer cannae see under water.”

  They picked up on the word piss, a word unknown to Beryl and H2, which seemed to cause great hilarity in any context . . .

  “Aye, you’re talking piss, so you are.”

  “I’m pissed so I am . . .”

  “What a load of piss . . .”

  For a while Beryl and H2 forgot all about their worries until again the women talked about DJ and his secret life, which wasn’t as secret as he liked to make out—despite the amount of time he spent in Glasgow on his so-called father’s business.

  “Entertainment, my arse,” said one woman.

  The conversation was of no help at all until one woman began to talk about Bunnie’s in the West End and how she knew a friend of a friend of an acquaintance who had met a man thanks to Bunnie. She passed her phone around to show the Yo
ur Partner’s Just Around the Corner website with Bunnie posing by her plants in the porch with a homely “you can trust me” look.

  Beryl craned her neck to look. “I’ve heard of her,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, she set our friend up,” said H2.

  “That’s right . . . err, so she did,” said Beryl.

  Beryl and H2 looked at the website. H2 flicked through the pages, transfixed; so many men—all ages and sizes. The only men she had seen before were the old footmen dozing on their feet.

  Beryl ripped the phone from her.

  “This is where we start,” she whispered to H2, and H2 was just working on an affirmative reply involving the word piss in case anyone was listening when Archie walked in. He was looking for his pal DJ and wondered if any of the girls knew where he was.

  “He’s not at the caravan and I’ve tried the takeaway . . .” he said and stopped.

  Archie caught sight of Beryl sitting regally at the corner of the table with an “I don’t understand” smile. His heart stopped. The fit body of a mature woman always did that to him, especially when she looked out of place and in need of help.

  “Who is that?” he whispered to the brunette, who mumbled something about the BBC and magicians.

  “What’s your name,” he shouted across the table.

  H2 looked at the advertisement on Bunnie’s website, still sitting on the table, and thought on her feet—something she had learned from watching others. “Sheila,” she shouted, and that funny feeling stirred in Archie’s loins again.

  He offered Beryl a drink and, spying nuts everywhere, to open her nuts if she wanted more. And before Beryl knew it, Archie was offering to take the two of them to the West End to meet the famous Bunnie . . .

  “It would be a pleasure to drive such a fine woman as yourself,” added Archie. And for the third time that night, Beryl blushed.

  Chapter Thirty-Three—The Closure of the Shed

  “PRETTY AWFUL OR AWFULLY pretty?” —Archie’s joke for all his customers

  The next morning, Hilda held a meeting with the Operators. She called them into the room with a view to impress and suppress; it had the opposite effect.

  It was known to many that the room was opulent, that money had been wasted, but the Operators had no idea just how much. And, as they stared at the phallic chandelier, the plush velvet chairs, and the large panoramic view of the city, the seeds of discontent were fertilized.

  Of course, keeping the Operators waiting didn’t help.

  They argued over whether to stand or sit while the reserve fourth in command (the least important, apart from DBO and H2) worked out that the command “now” worked on everything. And, like a child left home alone, she began to play with the curtains.

  “Open—now—shut—now! Shut—open—now, no shut now . . .”

  “I wouldn’t do that, they look fragile,” said the first in command.

  “I would,” said the second in command. “Those Voted Ins are living in the lap of silk, light, and space. Look at this: a coffee machine that matches the footman. What do we have? Water recycled from where—who knows—and a vent which lets in sod-all light and just as little air. In the summer we roast and in the winter we freeze.”

  “She’s right,” muttered the secretary, who hadn’t spoken in years.

  “Shhh, someone might be here,” muttered the first in command.

  “Open—now, shut—now, let’s try in the middle . . . now.”

  “Oh for beetroot’s sake, give it a rest.”

  The curtains stalled in the middle as a cheesy fanfare trumpeted through the room. Everyone knew what was coming next; they looked expectantly at the door.

  “The Legless mission has closed down,” Hilda’s voice boomed from the ceiling.

  The curtains sheepishly reverted to open.

  “The plans for the spaceship have been discovered and destroyed and are a threat no longer.”

  “That’s if there was a ship in the first place,” muttered someone.

  “But we have another emergency at hand. It seems,” said Hilda, “our energy is not eternal after all but more . . . shall we say, semipermanent—like a battery. We, thanks to our esteemed leader, have a crisis looming.”

  The Operators began to mutter to each other . . .

  “Permanent—how can that be semi?”

  “Running out of energy?”

  “Is that why the shed closed?”

  “The shed’s closing?”

  The Operators began to panic . . .

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Will the lights go out?”

  “Lights? Who cares about the lights?”

  “Shhh,” said the first in command and pointed to the ceiling.

  Everyone looked up to see a flap opening. Hilda’s booted feet appeared on a small, round platform, followed by her black-trousered legs. The platform jutted halfway and stopped, just at the level for all to see Hilda’s hands tapping impatiently on the sides of her legs. A few held their breath; the platform started, stopped, and revved into action at high speed, finally bumping onto the floor.

  “Stop,” said Hilda. “I said stop.”

  The platform continued to reeve.

  “You need to say now . . . stop—now!” said the fourth in command.

  The platform grunted to a halt. Hilda adjusted her high-collared dark suit, let out an “I am in control” cough, and looked from one face to another. Everyone averted their gaze as she silently counted.

  She stepped off the platform and pulled her flyswatter from her belt and counted again. A few groaned. She began to pace like a teacher looking for someone to thrash . . . tapping the side of her thigh with the flyswatter. Who was missing?

  “We have plans to reinstate the stationary. Until, that is, Beryl is back from Earth”—Hilda paused for effect—“if, that is, she does come back.”

  The operators burst into a volley of questions.

  “Beryl’s on Earth?”

  “Why?”

  “What does she know about Earth?”

  “She can’t even kick!”

  “What do you mean if she comes back?” said the secretary.

  “And now that the shed is closed for rebooting, I want you to train the Voted In on how to use a stationary.”

  The Operators looked shocked.

  “Sirness,” said the second in command, “none of us know how to use a stationary.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” said Hilda. “You can read instruction manuals, can’t you?”

  No one said anything.

  “After all.” She smirked at each Operator in turn. “I think it is time the Voted In paid their dues. These coffee machines don’t come cheap, do they?”

  WHEN HILDA LEFT THE shed, DBO waited for what seemed like ages. The sun had gone down, the streetlights went on, and then she sneaked out to see H2’s gran. She stopped as soon as she saw Hilda’s limo outside. She crept along under the kitchen window and heard talk of a library, spark plugs, and Vegas. Her heart was set on fire; she loved spark plugs. Although she had never seen one, she had heard they were a thing of magnificence. She even had a poster in her bedroom—a drawing of a 1950s mechanic with “Sparkies plugs go the extra mile” slashed across the top.

  DBO watched and waited. She saw Hilda openly parade around the kitchen, pontificating with energy. She waited until Hilda and the car had finally gone, then went inside . . .

  “If you’re looking for Herself, she ain’t here,” said Gran with a flushed face. “She’s on an away day.”

  “If you’re going to make up excuses, then at least make them decent.”

  “Oh,” said Gran, acting all innocent, “what do you mean by that? Look, I’ll show you.”

  She went out of the room to get her glasses and DBO filled her pockets with food. Gran’s food was not the most eatable, but it was better than a limp biscuit. Gran entered with a handwritten note: Away today, your chance to get away . . .
r />   Gran made DBO a flask of hot chocolate and, with a “mind how you go,” saw her to the door. On her way back into the kitchen she slammed the fridge door shut, noting that finally someone had taken her synthetic soya pickled eggs . . . she had had her fill of them for a while.

  BERYL STOOD BENT INSIDE the cab, struggling to pull the seat down. H2, who practically lived in the Operators’ shed, had spent her life pulling things in and out of concealed cupboards, tables, beds, and desks, and like an expert she pulled down the seat and, as if it was second nature, muttered “Och, aye.”

  Archie looked at H2 in the rearview mirror. “How do you know Bunnie?” he said.

  H2 was lost for words.

  “School,” said Beryl, feeling pleased with herself; she too could think not only on her feet but also propped in a seat waiting to spring back into its hole.

  “That Bunnie is a woman to watch—she’s not what she seems,” said Archie.

  And neither are you, thought H2.

  Chapter Thirty-Four—The Hangover

  “THE MEMORY OF A DRUNK is filled with blanks.” —Bunnie

  Mex woke up with the sort of head that pounded and she didn’t know why. Her mouth was dry; her outfit had changed to something flowery, big, and itchy, and she didn’t have any memory of how she had gotten to bed or who was making that noise in the bathroom.

  “Pete,” she shouted. “Pete, is that you?”

  Mex slid her legs out of bed, sat up, and waited for her stomach to stop circling.

  “Because if it is, you can stop it right now and tell the plugulator—oh, bollocks; it’s gone . . .”

  Pete didn’t answer. He woke up with his face mashed against the armrest of a couch; his neck creaked. He lifted his head, groaned, and then put it back again. His face popped as he opened one eye and it squeaked like a new shoe. He reached into his pocket and fumbled for the plugulator . . .

  “Oh, bollocks, it’s gone.”

  He rolled onto his back and his head hit the coffee table at the end of the couch; he rubbed it as the pain radiated down the whole right side of his body. Where the pickled egg am I? And then he saw Woody appear from somewhere carrying two mugs with liquid spilling over the sides.