The Throwback

by Tom Sharpe

  ‘Bullstrode,’ he said, ‘it does not come easily to me in my professional capacity to reveal the confidences of a man I have known so many years and who may and indeed probably is at this moment on his deathbed, but I have to tell you that old Edwin had harsh things to say about you when last I heard him.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Mr Bullstrode, ‘he was doubtless rambling in delirium. You cannot rely on the sayings of a senile old man.’

  ‘True,’ said Dr Magrew, ‘but there was a certain precision about some of his comments that didn’t suggest senility to me.’

  ‘Such as?’ said Mr Bullstrode. But Dr Magrew was not prepared to say. ‘I will not repeat slander,’ he said, ‘but I am not of a mind to go back to the Hall until Edwin is either dead or ready to apologize to you.’

  Mr Bullstrode took a more philosophical and financially advantageous view of the matter. ‘As his personal physician you know best,’ he said, ‘but for myself I do not intend to forgo my professional fee as his solicitor, and the estate is a large one and will take a good deal of winding up. Besides, the will is sufficiently ambiguous to provide fertile ground for litigation. Now if Lockhart has found his father I doubt very much if Mrs Flawse will not contest the issue and the pickings of such a lengthy court action would be considerable. It would be foolish after so many years’ amicable acquaintance with Edwin to fail him in his hour of need.’

  ‘Be it on your own head,’ said Dr Magrew. ‘I will come with you but I warn you there are strange occurrences going on at the Hall and I care not for them.’

  18

  He liked them even less when the following morning Mr Bullstrode stopped his car at the gated bridge and waited for Mr Dodd to come and unlock it. Even at this distance Mr Flawse’s voice could be heard cursing the Almighty and blaming him for the state of the universe. As usual Mr Bullstrode’s point of view was more pragmatic.

  ‘I cannot say I agree with his sentiments,’ he said, ‘but if as you assert he has said some unkind words about me it would appear that I am at least in good company.’

  He wasn’t ten minutes later. Mr Taglioni’s appearance did not inspire confidence. The taxidermist had been through too many inexplicable horrors to be at his best and while Lockhart had spent half the night seeing to it that his ‘father’ was word perfect in his new role, drink, fear and sleeplessness had done nothing to improve his looks. Mr Taglioni’s clothes too had suffered. Provided by Lockhart from his grandfather’s wardrobe to replace the bloodstained garments the taxidermist had been wearing before, nothing fitted at all precisely. Mr Bullstrode looked at him with dismay and Dr Magrew with medical concern.

  ‘He doesn’t look a very fit man to me,’ he whispered to the solicitor as they followed Lockhart into the study.

  ‘I cannot express an opinion on his health,’ said Mr Bullstrode, ‘but the word fit does not apply to his apparel.’

  ‘It doesn’t apply to a man who is shortly to be flogged within an inch of his life,’ said Dr Magrew. Mr Bullstrode stopped in his tracks.

  ‘Good Lord,’ he muttered, ‘that stipulation had quite passed out of my mind.’

  It had never entered Mr Taglioni’s. All he wanted to do was to get out of this dreadful house with his life, reputation and money still intact.

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ he asked as Mr Bullstrode hesitated.

  ‘Quite,’ said Lockhart, ‘let us get on with the business.’

  Mr Bullstrode swallowed. ‘Would it not be more proper to have present your grandfather and his wife?’ he enquired. ‘After all, the one drew the will and last testament up and the other would appear to be about to be deprived of those benefits she would otherwise have received under it.’

  ‘My grandfather has stated that he does not feel up to leaving his bed,’ said Lockhart, and waited while Mr Flawse’s voice made fresh inroads into, this time, Dr Magrew’s professional reputation. ‘I think I can safely say the same for my step-grandmother. She is at present indisposed and naturally my father’s appearance here today, with all its consequences for her financially, might be said to chafe her more than a little.’

  It was no more than the truth. A night spent rubbing the ropes that bound her hands up and down against the iron bedstead had indeed chafed her but she still persisted, while down in the study Mr Taglioni repeated word for word what he had been taught. Mr Bullstrode wrote down his words and was, in spite of himself, impressed. Mr Taglioni stated that he had been employed as a casual labourer by the Waterworks at the time and being an Italian had naturally attracted the attention of Miss Flawse.

  ‘I couldn’t help it,’ he protested, ‘I am Italian and English ladies, you know how English ladies like …’

  ‘Quite,’ said Mr Bullstrode who knew what was coming and wasn’t prepared to listen to it. ‘And so you fell in love?’ He continued to improve upon the singularly distressing tastes in the matter of foreigners displayed by the late Miss Clarissa Flawse.

  ‘Yes. We fell in love. You could put it like that.’

  Muttering to himself that he wished to hell he couldn’t, Mr Bullstrode wrote this down. ‘And then what?’

  ‘What do you think? I stuff her.’

  Mr Bullstrode wiped his bald head with a handkerchief while Dr Magrew’s eyes blazed lividly at the Italian.

  ‘You had sexual intercourse with Miss Flawse?’ said Mr Bullstrode when he could bring himself to speak.

  ‘Sexual intercourse? I don’t know. We fuck. Right? First I fuck her. Then she fuck me. Then—’

  ‘So help me God, someone else is going to fuck you if you don’t shut up,’ shouted Dr Magrew.

  ‘Now what I say wrong?’ asked Mr Taglioni. ‘You …’

  Lockhart intervened. ‘I don’t think we need go into any further details,’ he said pacifically. Mr Bullstrode expressed his fervent agreement. ‘And you are prepared to swear on oath that to the best of your knowledge you are the father of this man?’ he asked.

  Mr Taglioni said he was. ‘Then if you’ll just sign here,’ Mr Bullstrode went on, and handed him the pen. Mr Taglioni signed.

  His signature was witnessed by Dr Magrew.

  ‘And may one ask what your present occupation is?’ Mr Bullstrode asked inadvisedly.

  ‘You mean what I do?’ said Mr Taglioni. Mr Bullstrode nodded. Mr Taglioni hesitated and then, after so many lies, decided to tell the truth. Before Dr Magrew could get at him Lockhart had hustled the Italian out of the room. Behind him, Mr Bullstrode and Dr Magrew were left speechless.

  ‘Did you ever hear the like?’ said Dr Magrew when at last his palpitations had abated somewhat. ‘The bloody swine has the gall to stand there and …’

  ‘My dear Magrew,’ said Mr Bullstrode, ‘I can only say that I now understand why the old man stipulated in his will that the bastard’s father should be flogged to within an inch of his life. He must have had some inkling, you know.’

  Dr Magrew agreed. ‘Personally I would have preferred him to have stipulated something stronger,’ he said, ‘like half a mile beyond it.’

  ‘Beyond what?’ asked the solicitor.

  ‘Beyond his life,’ said Dr Magrew, and helped himself to some of Mr Flawse’s whisky which stood on a tray in the corner. Mr Bullstrode joined him.

  ‘That raises a very interesting point,’ he said when they had drunk one another’s health and the ill-health of Mr Taglioni. ‘Which is quite simply what constitutes “within an inch of his life”. The question of measurement would seem to me to be crucial.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Dr Magrew, ‘and now that you mention it I can see great objections. A more exact statement would, I suppose, have been within an inch of his death.’

  ‘That still doesn’t answer the question. Life is time. We speak of a man’s lifetime, not his life-space. And an inch is not a function of time.’

  ‘But we also speak of a long life,’ said Dr Magrew, ‘and that surely implies spatial extension. Now if we assume that by a long life we mean eighty years,
and I think that a fair estimate, I suppose we can take as our standard three-score years and ten. Personally I am glad to suspect from the colour of that wretched Italian’s complexion and his general physique that the swine has a far shorter life expectancy than that laid down in the Bible. Let us say, to be on the safe side, sixty years. Now we have to transfer an inch to a scale of time relative to sixty years …’

  They were interrupted by the entrance of Lockhart who announced that to avoid disturbing his grandfather and distressing Mrs Flawse he had decided to conduct the second part of the ceremony in the peel tower.

  ‘Dodd’s getting him ready for the flogging,’ he said. The two old men followed him out still deep in disputation as to what constituted to within an inch of life.

  ‘An inch of life,’ said Dr Magrew, ‘leaves us in fact two inches to play with, one before death and one after. Now death itself is an indeterminate state and before acting it would be as well to decide what we mean by it. Some authorities define it as the moment the heart stops beating, others would have it that the brain being the organ of consciousness is capable of subsisting beyond the moment of time in which the heart stops functioning. Now, sir, let us define …’

  ‘Dr Magrew,’ said Mr Bullstrode as they crossed the dwarf garden, ‘as a lawyer I am not qualified to judge the issue. The term “to within an inch of his life” does not allow of the man dying. I would not have been party to a last will and testament which stipulated the murder of Lockhart’s father no matter how strongly I may feel about the matter personally. Murder is against the law …’

  ‘So is flogging,’ said Dr Magrew. ‘To lay down in a will that a man must be flogged to within an inch of his life is to make us both parties to a crime.’

  They had entered the peel tower and his voice echoed among the dusty battle-flags and ancient armour. An eyeless tiger bared its teeth above the great open hearth. Manacled to the opposite wall, Mr Taglioni gave voice to his objections.

  ‘What do you mean flogged?’ he screamed, but Mr Dodd put a bullet in his mouth.

  ‘To give him something to bite on,’ he explained. ‘It was an old custom in the army.’

  Mr Taglioni spat the bullet out. ‘You crazy?’ he yelled. ‘What more do you want from me? First I got to …’

  ‘Keep the bullet between your teeth,’ interrupted Mr Dodd, and replaced it. Mr Taglioni struggled with the bullet and finally got it into a corner of his cheek where it bulged like a quid of tobacco.

  ‘I tell you I don’t want to be flogged. I came here to stuff someone. I stuff him. Now …’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Dodd,’ said Mr Bullstrode as that servant silenced the Italian with his grimy handkerchief. ‘If anything persuades me that the will ought to be carried out according to the spirit of the law rather than the letter it is his constant reference to stuffing. I find the term singularly objectionable, I must say.’

  ‘And was I not mistaken in thinking that the gender was wrong too?’ said Dr Magrew. ‘I could have sworn he said “him”.’

  Mr Taglioni would have sworn too if he could but Mr Dodd’s handkerchief in combination with the bullet was doing things to his taste-buds and his breathing that took what was left of his mind off external circumstances. He turned from white to damson. In a far corner of the hall Lockhart was practising with his horsewhip on a figure in armour and the room rang to the clang of the whip. The sound recalled Mr Bullstrode to his professional rectitude.

  ‘I am still unpersuaded that we should proceed before determining the exact measurement of an inch of life,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should consult Mr Flawse himself to find out what precisely he meant.’

  ‘I doubt you’ll get a rational answer out of the man,’ said Mr Dodd, all the while wondering which cassette would give an even approximate answer to the question. He was saved the trouble by Dr Magrew. Mr Taglioni’s complexion had progressed from damson to off-black.

  ‘I think it would be as well to allow your father some air,’ he told Lockhart. ‘My Hippocratic oath will not allow me to attend death by suffocation. Of course, if this were a hanging …’

  As Mr Dodd removed the handkerchief and bullet Mr Taglioni regained a better complexion and a volubility that was wasted on his audience. He stood shouting in Italian. Finally, unable to hear themselves dispute, Dr Magrew and Mr Bullstrode went out into the garden in disgust.

  ‘I find his cowardice contemptible,’ said Mr Bullstrode, ‘but the Italians fought very badly in the war.’

  ‘Which hardly helps us solve our present problem,’ said Dr Magrew, ‘and as a man of some compassion even for such swine I would suggest that we act in strict accordance to the will and flog the brute to within an inch of his life.’

  ‘But …’ began Mr Bullstrode. Dr Magrew went back into the hall and spoke to Mr Dodd above the din. Presently Mr Dodd left the hall and returned five minutes later with a ruler and a pencil. Dr Magrew took them and approached Mr Taglioni. Placing the ruler an inch from his shoulder and marking the point with the pencil he proceeded down the Italian’s right side, making pencil marks on the stucco wall and joining them together so that they formed an outline one inch from the man.

  ‘I think that is precise,’ he announced proudly. ‘Lockhart, my boy, you may go ahead and flog the wall up to the pencil line and you will have flogged the man to within an inch of his life. I think that satisfies to the letter the conditions of your grandfather’s will.’

  But as Lockhart advanced with the whip, Mr Taglioni fulfilled the old man’s last testament to the spirit. He slumped down the wall and was silent. Lockhart looked at him in annoyance.

  ‘Why’s he gone that funny colour?’ he asked. Dr Magrew opened his bag and took out his stethoscope. A minute later he shook his head and pronounced Mr Taglioni dead.

  ‘That’s torn it,’ said Mr Bullstrode, ‘now what the hell do we do?’

  *

  But the question was to remain unanswered for the time being. From within the house there came a series of terrible shrieks. Mrs Flawse had freed herself and had evidently discovered the full extent of her late husband’s dismemberment. As the little group in the peel hall stood and, with the exception of Mr Taglioni, listened, the shrieks turned to insane laughter.

  ‘Curse the woman,’ said Mr Dodd, and charged towards the door, ‘I should have known better than to have left the bitch alone so long.’ He dashed across the yard and into the house. Lockhart and his grandfather’s two old friends followed. As they entered the Hall they saw Mrs Flawse standing at the top of the stairs while Mr Dodd writhed at the bottom and clutched his groin.

  ‘Get her from behind,’ he advised Lockhart, ‘she’s got me in the front.’

  ‘The woman’s insane,’ said Dr Magrew unnecessarily as Lockhart headed for the back stairs. Mrs Flawse was bawling about the old man being dead and not lying down.

  ‘Go see for yourselves,’ she cried, and scuttled into her room. Dr Magrew and Mr Bullstrode went cautiously up the stairs.

  ‘If as you say the woman is non compos mentis,’ said Mr Bullstrode, ‘that only makes what has just occurred all the more regrettable. Having parted with her mind she has also relinquished any right to the estate under the will thus negating the necessity for that disgusting foreigner’s statement.’

  ‘Not to mention the swine’s death,’ said Dr Magrew. ‘I suppose we had better pay our compliments to Edwin.’

  They turned towards old Mr Flawse’s bedroom while at the foot of the stairs Mr Dodd tried to dissuade them.

  ‘He’s not seeing anyone,’ he shouted, but the truth of this remark escaped them. By the time Lockhart, coming stealthily up the back stairs to avoid being kicked in the groin by his demented mother-in-law, arrived, the landing was empty and Dr Magrew had taken his stethoscope out and was applying it to Mr Flawse’s chest. It was not the wisest of moves and Mr Flawse’s subsequent ones were appalling to behold. Either the doctor’s bedside manner or Mr Bullstrode’s accidental treading on the remote control activa
ted the mechanism for the old man’s partial animation. His arms waved wildly, the tiger’s eyes rolled in his head, his mouth opened and shut and his legs convulsed. Only the sound was off; the sound and the bedclothes which his legs kicked off the bed so that the full extent of his rewiring was revealed. Mr Taglioni had not chosen the kindest spot for the wires to extrude and they hung like some terrible electronic urethra. As Mr Taglioni had said at the time, it was the last place anyone examining him would think of looking. It was certainly the last place Dr Magrew and Mr Bullstrode wanted to look but by the very complexity of the wires they couldn’t take their eyes off the thing.

  ‘The junction box and earth,’ Lockhart explained, adding a cricketing term to their confusion, ‘and the aerial. The amplifier is under the bed and I’ve only got to turn the volume up …’

  ‘Don’t, for God’s sake, don’t do anything of the sort,’ pleaded Mr Bullstrode, unable to distinguish between spatial volume and output and convinced that he was about to be privy to an erection. Mr Flawse’s reactions were awful enough without that dreadful addition.

  ‘I’ve got him on ten watts per channel,’ Lockhart went on, but Dr Magrew interrupted.

  ‘As a medical man I have never been in favour of euthanasia,’ he gasped, ‘but there’s such a thing as sustaining life beyond the bounds of human reason and to wire a man’s … Dear God!’

  Ignoring Mr Bullstrode’s plea, Lockhart had turned the volume up, and besides twitching and jerking, the old man now gave voice.

  ‘’Twas ever thus with us,’ he bellowed, a statement Dr Magrew felt certain must be untrue, ‘Flawse blood runs in our veins and carries with it the bacteria of our ancestral sins. Aye, sins and sanctity so intertwined there’s many a Flawse gone to the block a martyr to his forebears’ loves and lusts. Would that it were not so, this determinism of inheritance, but I have known myself too well to doubt the urgency of my inveterate desires …’

  There was equally no doubting the urgency of Dr Magrew’s and Mr Bullstrode’s desires. They wanted to get the hell out of the room and away as fast as their legs would carry them but the magnetism of the old man’s voice (the cassette was labelled ‘Flawse, Edwin Tyndale, Self-Opinions of’) held them – that and Lockhart and Mr Dodd standing implacably between them and the door.