BEDFORD
APRIL, MONDAY
Dear diary, I am broken hearted!
I’m also deeply ashamed and positively suicidal. I know everybody’s laughing at me behind my back, and why not, eh? I deserve it.
The truth is, not only am I the talk of the town, I’m broke, badly behind with my rent, and when I ran out of petrol the other day, I had to borrow a tenner from the ever loyal Poppy. How low is that?
Dickie Manse brains-in-his-pants offered to bail me out, and I had no choice but to accept! The trouble is, now that I’m beholden to him will he ever let me forget it?
To tell you the truth, my faith in human nature is well and truly shattered. I will never trust a woman again. I’ve already made a vow of celibacy, and I thoroughly intend living my life on my own (except for Dickie Manse brains-in-his-pants, who at the moment is keeping the roof over my head).
What is it with me and women, eh? Why am I such a loser? I’ve learned my lesson this time though. Flying in the face of my mother’s advice, I made a huge mistake with Laura, the possessive, vindictive bunny-boiler I married. Then there were a few unforgettable skirmishes with the shadier members of the opposite sex, and now the insatiable Nancy Cruddle. Will I never learn?
I can’t say I wasn’t warned; even the woman in the paper shop tried to put me off her…‘That flighty trollop has had the pants off you, and now she’s after blood.’ She wagged a knowing finger. ‘Tarts like that…we women can suss ’em out a mile away, while all you men can see are the come-on eyes and long legs.’
She was right, because it was Nancy’s long legs that caught my attention in the first place.
‘Women like her are bad news!’ she went on, still wagging her finger. ‘Predators, that’s what they are!’
‘I’ll thank you to mind your own business!’ I was really fed up now. ‘If you want predators, you’ve only got to look at your fat, lazy lump of a husband!’
I was almost out the door when the Coke can got me in the back of the neck. ‘You cheeky young bugger! I’ll admit my Len might be lazy, but he ain’t been riding the local bike…not like you!’
You won’t be surprised to know that I was off work for three days with whiplash. It didn’t matter though, because thanks to Nancy Cruddle, it suited me to hide away and sulk.
As you might have guessed, my engagement party was the party from hell! Nancy Cruddle is the only woman to have ever taken me for an idiot…big time! (Not counting that shapely little blonde who worked the till at Tesco. She never warned me about the big, hairy husband who caught us snogging in the car park. She went off with him cool as you like, while I was left lying face down on the pavement, my jaw throbbing and my pride dented.)
The truth is I can’t seem to find a sweet, innocent girl who would make my life worthwhile. Okay, I know I’m not the best catch in the world, but I’m hard working and passable, so why can’t I find the girl of my dreams? I seem to attract nothing but disaster.
I mean, there’s the mother from hell, and that walking catastrophe, Dickie Manse brains-in-his-pants (though he’s not all that bad when you get to know him). There’s my vicious ex-wife, Laura, who once threatened to cut my balls off if she ever caught me with another woman. When she saw me talking with a good-looking neighbour who was simply asking directions to the bus stop, I hardly dared go to bed that night. I mean, after what she threatened, I could have woken up without a spare part to call my own.
And y’know what? I’m sure I caught sight of the dreaded Laura, lurking suspiciously outside the hotel where the party was held.
Now I come to think of it, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she hadn’t engineered the whole horrible, humiliating episode!
It’s hard to believe I did not see it coming, when everyone else did. If they knew all along, why did they come to the party? Why were the cheeky buggers eating my food and drinking my booze?
I expect they were just waiting for the show to begin. Well, they were not disappointed, because when it did kick off, it was the carnival event of the year, with me as the clown.
I really thought me and Nancy had the world at our feet. We made a big thing of announcing our engagement, then when I presented her with the white-gold diamond ring, everyone clapped (except for the lovely Poppy, who ran off, and my drunken psycho mother, who lurched between my father and the flower display, her face a picture of pure evil).
As for Dickie Manse brains-in-his-pants, he thought nobody could see him when he slunk behind the curtains with this lanky, well-endowed redhead, blissfully unaware that, thanks to the garden light behind, we could all see them as they snogged and fooled about.
When the snogging got serious, the entire room went deathly quiet; all we could hear was grunting and squealing and smacking of lips. (Everyone assumed that’s what it was, but knowing Dickie Manse brains-in-his-pants, there was always room for doubt.)
You’d have thought he might have realised he was not alone. But as we all know, he lives on another planet.
Everyone was having a good time though. Towards the end of the evening, they were all out there on the dance floor, enjoying the good music and dancing the night away (all except Dickie and his redhead, who were back behind the curtains, doing some dancing of their own). I can’t understand how they didn’t realise that we could see their every move; or maybe he did know and wanted us all to share in the fun!
We all sensed the inevitable, and we were right. It was only a matter of time before they fell through the open windows and crashed into the garden. (The elderly couple on the patio did not enjoy the experience, when they were sent careering into the swimming pool!)
‘Whatever did you see in her?’ I asked him later. ‘Your buxom redhead looked like a bloke in drag.’
‘Now you know why we fell through the window,’ he muttered semi-incoherently, ‘I found something I shouldn’t have.’
‘What?’ The mind boggled. ‘You don’t mean…?’
He gave an almighty groan and collapsed at my feet. It took four of us to lay him out on a garden bench.
I’ve decided never again to mention the redhead. Some things are best left alone, if you ask me!
Leaving him snoring contentedly on the bench, I went in search of Nancy.
It was a cracking party. The band was first class and when I found Nancy, I dragged her on to the crowded dance floor, ready to boogie the night away.
Everyone was merry, there was a lot of laughter and singing and drunken revelling. The band was wild, and the guitarist was out of this world! In fact some of the more reckless girls were literally throwing themselves at him; but he just carried on playing, all proud and glorious…like a captain going down with his ship.
As for me, I couldn’t take my eyes off that massive crop of wild yellow hair wrapped round his head…bobbing up and down, thrown every which way, it couldn’t have been a wig or it would have come off long since. What puzzled me was how could he see with a Labrador flopping all over his face?
‘Ben?’ Nancy yelled over the noise.
‘What?’ I leaned in closer.
‘I really love this party!’ She shouted again.
I was dead chuffed. ‘Do you?’
‘I just said so, didn’t I?’ I could see Nancy was a bit distracted.
‘The wedding party will be even better!’
‘WHAT DID YOU SAY?’
‘I said…THE WEDDING PARTY WILL BE EVEN BETTER!’
‘Listen, Ben!’
‘What?’
‘I’ve got to go!’
‘Aw, Nancy! We’ve only just got on the dance floor.’ And I was having fun, arms in the air, doing the YMCA!
‘LOOK!’ She pointed across the room. ‘It’s my old school friends! There’s Joanne and Elaine and…Ooh! Look…it’s Lennie…I owe him a big thank you for saving me from the school bully.’
‘What?’
‘THE SCHOOL BULLY! He was trying to take advantage when Lennie clobbered him…Ooo, they’ve seen me! I must go
and say hello…it’s been such a long time.’
‘Nancy?’
‘WHAT NOW?’
‘I can’t see them.’ All I could see was a forest of dancers.
‘They’re over there…look!’
‘WHERE?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll introduce you later.’
‘ALL RIGHT, SWEETHEART! I’LL WAIT TILL THEY’VE FINISHED YMCA AND I’LL COME AND FIND YOU!’
‘No, it’s all right! I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘BUT I WANT TO MEET YOUR OLD…SCHOOL…’ I only looked away for a second and she was gone. The music stopped for an instant while the band shifted about, and then they were playing YMCA for a second time.
The trouble is, once I was in full swing, I didn’t want to stop. ‘DON’T WORRY, NANCY!’ I yelled. ‘I’LL FIND YOU AFTER!’
She was soon swallowed up in the heaving crowd. Then the band went for a break leaving only the keyboard player. The crowd chanted for YMCA again. So there I was, having the time of my life, doing my stuff and singing along with everyone else, YMCA…du…du…du…YMCA. How brill is that? I kid you not. There is nothing to touch it.
Exhausted but delirious, I cheered like the rest of them when YMCA crashed to a finish and the keyboard player went off to enjoy a well deserved break.
‘Have you seen Nancy?’ I must have asked about twenty people and they all said they’d seen her a while back, but not lately.
I spent a full half hour searching inside and out, but she seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. I even fought my way through the shrubbery—that’s where I thought I saw the dreaded Laura lurking about. But I’d had a few bevvies by then, so it could have been anybody.
The bartender was useless. ‘She was here for a while,’ he said, ‘then she asked me to tell you that if you came looking, I was to let you know she’d gone outside for some fresh air.’
So I went outside, scouring the area and fighting my way ever deeper into the shrubbery; but still no Nancy.
Half an hour later, smothered in bracken and twigs, with both arms scratched and bleeding, I staggered out looking like a tramp.
‘Good grief!’ The caterer was shocked. ‘You poor thing. Look, the staff are using the bathroom upstairs…third on the right. You’d best get off and clean yourself up, before you frighten the punters.’
I never got to the bathroom.
I climbed to the top of the stairs, startling two girls as they came skipping down. ‘You’re not the enemy are you?’ they giggled nervously, ‘Parachuted in to kidnap us?’
Undaunted, I looked round for the bathroom. I had my hand on the doorknob when I heard a familiar voice coming from the room next door. Gingerly, I crept up to the door and listened; was it Nancy or not? Only one way to find out.
I put my ear to the bedroom door, and sure enough it sounded very like my Nancy. She was talking to somebody, then she was singing and then there were muffled voices mingling with the music. ‘Nancy, is that you in there?’ I tapped on the door, but the music was so loud inside I didn’t know if she could hear me.
Suddenly there was a dirty, girly laugh, and yes! That was definitely my Nancy!
When I gingerly opened the door, I got the shock of my life! There they were, rolling round the floor as arse-bare as the day they were born. I recognised the guitarist by the Harley Davidson tattoo on his upper arm. His bald head threw me at first, until I saw the dead Labrador hanging on the bed head (it was a wig!).
I stood there in total shock for at least a full minute before Nancy saw me and gave a loud scream, and she kept on screaming. ‘HELP! IT’S THE THING FROM THRILLER!’ Stupid cow!
Wide-eyed and terrified, the guitarist reached for his clothes and his Labrador wig. In his haste he threw the Labrador on back to front and couldn’t see a damned thing. ‘I’ve caught you at it!’ I was gutted. ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’
‘Don’t shoot!’ Nancy hadn’t recognised me. ‘Please…don’t shoot!’
‘My mother was right all along,’ I intended to keep my dignity at all costs.
She suddenly recognised me beneath all the shrubbery, and she put on her little-girl act. ‘Oh, Ben…oh, sweetheart! It’s you! I didn’t recognise…oh, and this isn’t what you might think. You see…I was just helping him find his wig, that’s all.’ We both glanced at the guitarist, who by now was locked in a deadly struggle with his tatty hair piece.
‘Oh, I see…’ My lazy grin gave nothing away. ‘Looking for his wig, were you? And with no clothes on. Well I never! That’s the first time I’ve heard it called that!’
I did not yell. I did not resort to gutter tactics. Instead, I stayed outwardly calm but raging beneath (also twitching a bit where the nettles had somehow punctured my trousers and stung my nether-regions). ‘I tell you what, Nancy…why don’t you just carry on with your little game. And when you’ve finished “looking for his wig” you can get out of my life, because you and me are history. D’you understand what I’m saying? It’s over…for good!’
I was totally in control; no screaming, pleading or temper tantrums, and no smacking the guitarist. (I could hear him, but I couldn’t see him. He’d fallen over trying to get his right limb in his left trouser-leg. I reckon he was terrified of me.)
I might have kept my control if she hadn’t hobbled towards me on her knees and started clawing at my leg, ‘Please, Ben…don’t take it bad. I love you and I want to marry you, I really do.’
It wasn’t the fact that she was lying through her teeth that did it. Nor was it that pitiful look she gave me, with racking sobs and eyes filled with tears. No! It was because she was gripping the leg that was caked in rose thorns, which she was now accidentally driving into my flesh.
‘GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU WITCH FROM HELL!’ Screaming with pain I pushed her away; that was when she fell against the guitarist, and they were both on the floor in a tangle of clothes and wig. I didn’t feel any sympathy though. Serves them bloody right that’s what I say!
In utter agony but feeling proud of myself, I hobbled down the stairs leaving them both shouting and struggling.
Treating them with the contempt they deserved, I made my way across the hall and through the crowds that were gathering. ‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘everything’s under control. Start the music and enjoy what’s left of the evening.’ I had absolutely no idea why they stared back at me as though I’d recently escaped from an asylum!
I was about to go into the loo and clean myself up when the hired security men grabbed me. ‘This is a private party,’ they man-handled me to the front door. ‘We don’t want no trouble here!’ They then slung me out on my face and slammed the door shut. ‘AND DON’T COME BACK!’
As I lay there, bruised and battered, and plastered in jungle stuff, a small hand reached out to help me up. ‘I’ve got the Land Rover,’ she said, ‘I’ll take you home.’
So off we went down the path together, me and Poppy; my loyal little friend.
As for Nancy Cruddle, if I never clapped eyes on her again, it would be too soon!
Mind you, I mean to get that diamond ring back.
I desperately need it if I’m to catch up on the rent.
Judging by the excitement going on behind the seethrough curtains, Dickie Manse may never surface again.
Naw! After what happened tonight, I could never be that lucky.
BEDFORD
JUNE, WEDNESDAY
Well, hello diary, here we are again, and I’m feeling really unsettled.
It’s been a bit too quiet of late; although having said that, we have had the odd crazy antic from you know who!
Do you remember that tall redhead he got tied up with at my engagement party—the party that turned out to be a disaster on a mega scale?
How could you forget the pair of them going at it until they crashed through the window, sending two poor old buggers careering into the swimming pool?
Two days later, our Dickie started itching, down there…if you
know what I mean?
It got to the point when I just could not stand it any longer. ‘What the devil’s wrong with you?’ He was itching while he was eating his Cornflakes; then he was having a crafty scratch on his way out the door, and going down the street he was rubbing his legs together and doing the twist like you’ve never seen. Honest to God! One minute he was hopping and jumping along, and the next minute he was up against the corner of the wall, rubbing his back and making noises like an orang-utan in season.
It was worse at night after he’d gone to bed. The old iron bed he found in a bargain-basement shop has a habit of rocking and rolling every time he turns over, and now it was even worse.
It nearly drove me over the edge! The knob on his bed head is really loose, so when he started with the jumping and scratching, the knob rattled out a ghostly tune against my wall. It was like the march of the skelebobs all over again!
‘BEN!’ It was three a.m. when he came hammering on my door, ‘Ben, wake up! I can’t get to sleep!’
‘No, and neither can I, so bugger off!’ What did I have to do to get some peace?
‘I’ve got the itch!’ He wailed.
‘Get back to bed and let a bloke get some sleep!’ I was not going to get up.
Dickie moaned, ‘But I need help!’
‘You’re not the only one!’
‘BEN!’
‘WHAT?’
Silence.
‘DICKIE, IT’S THREE IN THE MORNING. WHAT DO YOU WANT?’
‘I think I’ve caught the pox.’
‘Who from?’
‘You know!’
‘How do I know?’
‘Because you warned me about it.’
‘Right, that’s it!’ I leaped out of bed (well, kinda rolled out). ‘As soon as it’s light I want you ready to go.’
‘Go where?’
‘The clinic! Where you should have gone days ago.’
‘No way! You can forget that! I’m not having anyone looking and feeling my private parts…’
‘That’s never bothered you before.’
‘Well, this time it’s different!’
‘How?’
Divorced and Deadly Page 8