Bang

by Charles Kennedy Scott

  Delilah had an idea. ‘Have you heard of this ex-popcorn seller waitress woman?’ she asked, suspecting he had.

  ‘Have I heard of her.’

  ‘Yes, have you?’

  ‘Have I indeed! She is quite something. A woman. More. And if I hadn’t heard of her I’m sure I would have. Yes I would have. I know that for a fact. Don’t try telling my otherwise.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Delilah. ‘But perhaps you have influence with her. It would help you to deal, should you be able to bring to bear on her that influence.’ Delilah spoke assertively now, and Cagee had taken a step back.

  ‘I am an Authority money man, I think we both know that I have influence, weighty influence at that. Come on, whisper the line in my ear. Currency, currency. Smell the moolah.’

  Delilah said, ‘If you can promise me that you’ll persuade the special waitress to service a post-court luncheon party instead of her customary supper party, on a date I will give you, I will whisper the line in your ear.’ Not that she much liked the look of his hair-filled ear, but this wasn’t the point.

  ‘It’s a deal,’ agreed the money man. ‘Give me the date and I will give you my delightful ear. What is the date?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Delilah’s chin was set in frustration now.

  ‘The date?’ said one of the two officers in a helpful tone. ‘This is the date of her court appearance you’re after? No problem, money man. We’re due to escort the prisoner to her lawyer this morning. He will give us the date and we will pass it on to you. This prisoner has been good to us and we have earned the odd half a promotion here and there off her back. Also, she ate food we gave her, that, despite our pretending to be, or even believing at the time that we were, restaurateurs, was, looking back at it, quite inedible. Tea leaves and eggshells, urgh. We know, we tried them after we tucked her up in the luxury of Dormitory 100.’

  ‘Excellent, we can bake,’ said the money man. ‘Fire up the money ovens.’

  ‘Now hold on just a minute,’ interrupted Cagee, stepping forward again, something his twitching knees had been striving to do for the last few minutes, ‘it most certainly is not a deal. The janitor must come to the new school. She is the janitor and this is her first day at work. I am the headmaster and I will not have her gallivanting off with the likes of you to hobnob over coffee and biscuits with her lawyer. It is out of the question. No, no, no.’

  ‘It is important that I see my lawyer this morning,’ announced Delilah, strongly.

  One of the officers said, ‘Her lawyer does not like to be kept waiting, either.’

  ‘Look, I’ve heard just about enough of this infernal lawyer,’ said Cagee. ‘I’m the headmaster and what I say around here goes, got it?’

  ‘The lawyer in question, Headmaster, is Lawyer Poy Yack.’

  Cagee gulped. ‘Lawyer Poy Yack the killer prosecutor Lawyer Poy Yack? Oh.’

  ‘The same. And I’d say you’re treading on dangerous ground.’

  His words clearing through their mumble, Cagee became coherent as he was saying ‘… and, um, in those circumstances I’m prepared, on this occasion, to, er, acquiesce to your demands.’

  ‘NO NEED,’ called a voice. ‘No need at all. Hello!’ Lawyer Poy Yack walked speedily up. ‘Morning, all. Lovely day, isn’t it? Hello, munchkin.’ He squeezed Delilah’s upper arm. ‘Mind your back, my little precious.’ He gently moved Delilah out of the way of four workman passing with a large rectangular object under a blanket, which judging by the blanket’s stains had collided with a few walls wet with paint on its journey. ‘I was down this way anyway,’ he said, ‘thought I’d come chat with you before you start work. Wonderful it is, your procuring this new janitorial job, it’ll really help sway the Superintendent. Given your case a real boost, I’d say, no doubt about it. Can’t wait till court, I’m terribly confident. We’ll win, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not even me. A legal battle awaits, certainly, but it is you,’ he raised Delilah’s hand with his own, ‘and I that shall be victorious!’

  ‘What is the date,’ asked Delilah, ‘the court date?’

  ‘Pop-pop-popkin, don’t you worry about the date. You must have a thousand things on your mind, you mustn’t concern yourself with details as trifling as your court date, leave all that to me.’

  Delilah said, ‘This man needs to know, it’s really rather important. I importune you, Lawyer Poy Yack, to tell him.’

  ‘Importune me, hey? I’ve been importuned, fancy that. Well, well. Then, my chirpy child, it would be my pleasure, and once I get back to my office I’ll find it and Life it to him straightaway. Is that okay?’

  It wasn’t, but Delilah didn’t have much choice. The question instead was answered by the money man, who said, ‘Quite satisfactory, I’ll await your message, Poy Yack. Now, Delilah.’ He approached her with his ear and placed it against her mouth. His ear hairs tickled her lips when she whispered the line. She remembered all her most contemptuous remarks concerning the Authority. What Delilah muttered in the cage and repeated now was: ‘If the Authority owes the bloody language I’m surprised it doesn’t sell it off, privatise it, it’d make a fortune. It’s sold off everything else. It’s the next step. Bloody Authority. I hate this cage.’

  The money man was ecstatic. ‘Genius. Genius. I knew it, I knew you were brilliant. And so you are. Sell the language! What a woman. Now, if you don’t mind, and don’t think me rude, everybody, but I must rush. I have a very important meeting on 102. I bid you farewell.’ And the money man was gone.

  ‘Just the five of us, then,’ said Lawyer Poy Yack as four more workman passed with another large rectangular and blanketed load, slim like the last one, and lilac-stained. ‘What shall we do now?’

  Cagee said at once, ‘We shall proceed to the new school, forthwith. The janitor needs to take a look around, familiarise herself with the layout, chose herself a staff locker, bagsy an armchair in either the staff room or the teachers’ lounge, depending upon which she prefers. We’ve got both. This way.’

  ‘Splendid,’ said Poy Yack. ‘You two go on ahead, the officers and I will grab coffee and biscuits and meet you there. Right oh. Jolly good. And Dear Delilah, you’re looking terribly well, as always. See you in ten. Gentlemen, the cafeteria.’ Poy Yack thrust out his elbows and shifted off quickly, the two officers in the tow of his legal tailcoat, which today he adorned in preference to his smart suit, for some reason.

  15 – A Defacement

  Cagee led Delilah away. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, reaching the school door.

  Delilah, really not interested in becoming the new school’s janitor, far more preoccupied with worry that Poy Yack would forget to Life the money man the date, wasn’t listening – one reach of her thoughts. The other was more gut-felt, a terrible and almost unbearable excitement: should this deal go through, and it wasn’t that complicated (just getting the special waitress to attend only a lunch party, meaning Delilah’s court date would have to be in the morning), Delilah would, with Poy Yack defending not prosecuting her, be out of the System by lunchtime of her court date, up in Authority Welcome collecting her temporary Life, soon back on the moving floors with the pale populous. Returning to the same old problems, the less-than-effective health system, the at-times dangerous infrastructure (which allowed roof parts to fall from time to time, often fatally), and all the other inconveniences – a result of, or anyway always attributed to, an underfunded Public Body. But what inconveniences to have, what problems! She couldn’t wait to get out of here. She felt naughty with excitement.

  ‘Janitor. Listen to me,’ demanded Cagee. ‘Stop drifting about like that!’

  Delilah returned to the System, not happily. ‘Yes, what?’

  ‘Tell me what you make of this.’ Cagee pointed a feather duster glove at the note hanging from the door handle of the former Remand 111, which read, Morning lessons cancelled. Pupils to return at 12 noon or risk punishment. Defacement of this note will be dealt with SEVERELY. Signed, the Headmaster.
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br />   Delilah gave Cagee short shrift, ‘Why did you bring me all this way if you’ve closed the school for the morning?’

  But the deformed man was terribly disappointed. His face darkened, tears pushed, his under lip quivered. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Oh no, no. I don’t remember putting it there. I don’t remember at all.’ Tears welled and he wiped at them, clogging his feather-duster gloves’ fine feathers, even wicking out their dye. ‘Oh, this is awful,’ he said tearfully. ‘I’m sure I would have remembered.’

  Something occurred to Delilah about Cagee and it wasn’t his odd name. She said, ‘Then maybe you didn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t what?’

  ‘Didn’t put it there.’ She pointed at the note.

  ‘Didn’t I? Why not?’

  ‘Because you couldn’t.’

  Cagee raised his eyebrows and clogged gloves in a questioning manner, one that led Delilah to be wary.

  ‘Well it strikes me that … that …’ she said, faltering.

  ‘Strikes you that what?’

  Delilah asked simply, ‘Can you write?’

  ‘What do you mean!’

  ‘I mean with your … er … like that, your arms.’

  ‘How dare you, Evil Woman. Hasn’t anyone ever told you to be tactful when asking such question of the physically impaired? Do you think I enjoy having no hands? It is not a hobby, you know, being handless. Can I write? What a question. It is like asking a man without any legs if he can run. It is an insult. Or asking a woman without any arms if she can sew up the man’s trouser legs now he no longer needs them. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

  Delilah exhaled, calming herself. ‘It’s a reasonable question, surely. You people can be hypersensitive, you know. I’m only asking.’

  ‘You people? You people? What am I, from another world?’

  ‘No, that was the wrong thing to say. Now you’ve got me all on edge. I didn’t mean to upset you, I apologise. But the plain fact is that you haven’t got any hands, and if I can’t ask whether you can or cannot write, how can I help establish whether you did or did not write the note?’

  ‘Of course I can write, you insensitive wench.’

  Delilah looked doubtfully at the v-sign of feather duster gloves on each arm.

  ‘I have a gadget.’ He pulled off his right arm’s gloves with his teeth and fished in his pocket for the gadget and it came out attached to his v-sign stumps complete with pen. ‘See?’ he said, threatening Delilah with it. ‘This is my gadget.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘So is that your handwriting?’

  ‘Are you trying to be funny?’ Delilah realised what she’d. Cagee angrily stammered, ‘You might as well ask, Is that your stumpwriting? You are amazing. I’d have thought with all the disfigurement and mutation around these days, and with more to come, probably, that you’d have learnt to process your words more carefully.’

  ‘Could you have written that note?’

  ‘Let’s see, shall we.’ He copied out the note, writing under the sentences themselves, doing so identically.

  ‘Yes,’ said Delilah. ‘You could have.’

  ‘There is a similarity.’ He took a step back for another perspective.

  ‘Similarity? You’re the author. No question.’

  ‘Well I don’t remember. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, what do we do now? I am at my wits’ end. School has been closed for the morning and now I’m stumped. Damn. Now you’ve got me doing it.’ He stamped his deformed feet in childish frustration. ‘Ouch. My poor feet. That’s another toe gone. Oh dear, I really am a wreck. Just like all headmasters I suppose. Still, at least I do not have dusty hair. My poor back aches from two years’ standing in that cage. Are you laughing at me? I am the one with the laugh round here.’ He laughed his laugh, over-loudly, then said, ‘Silence, janitor, where is your broom? There is litter in the playground. I will not have it. And a pupil has vomited behind a radiator. Don’t just stand there, go about your – Go about your–’ With a jerk of his head Cagee began to snore.

  ‘Headmaster?’

  Now I should try escaping, thought Delilah.

  ‘Mind yourself, love,’ said one of the four workmen exiting the door minus the blanketed load. ‘We’ll have everything shipshape for you by noon, don’t you worry your pretty little head one bit. And ain’t it a lovely head. Shame you’re missing a tooth but beggars can’t be choosers. Here, you’re the janitor, right? Be a doll and sign this for us, would you? Save us finding an officer to do it, they can be right uppity them officers. Much obliged. One more load and we’ll be out of your hair. You wanna have a look inside? Make sure we’re shoving everything in its proper place? Here. Follow me.’ He held out his hand. Delilah, begrudgingly thinking she should take a peek at this new school everyone seemed so excited about, took a step toward the door, following the hand …

  ‘Morning,’ said Cagee, waking up. ‘Where am I? Who are …?’

  ‘On seconds thoughts, you’d better see to your pal,’ said the foreman of the four workmen. ‘He’s looking a little worse for wear. Been on the orange, has he? Come on, lads, this one’s not for us.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Cagee, in the tone of someone saying goodbye, to the retreating men.

  ‘You’re confused,’ said Delilah. ‘You fell asleep.’

  ‘No I didn’t.’

  ‘Yes you did.’

  ‘You’re mistaken. And I will not have you answer me back. I am the Headmaster and don’t you forget it. You are the Janitor and you’d better remember that, too. Do we understand ourselves? I would not want to have you punished.’

  ‘You,’ called a voice. ‘Yes, YOU!’

  The Whipping Boy rushed up. Delilah backed away, eyes down.

  ‘An explanation is in order,’ he said to Cagee.

  ‘What can we do for you, my dear Deputy Headmaster?’

  ‘Perhaps you would care to tell me who is responsible for this?’ The Whipping Boy fluttered the door note in Cagee’s face.

  ‘That’s enough, Deputy Headmaster,’ said Cagee, waking up fully now

  ‘Enough?’ asked the Deputy Head, who took so little notice of Delilah she wondered if her janitorship hadn’t relegated her into the invisible. ‘You don’t know who defaced this note?’

  ‘I’m very busy right now, Deputy, and didn’t we agree you had the curriculum to be seeing to? Were we not, after all, unclear who would be taught calculus by the pupils – you or the junkie teacher?’

  ‘Headmaster,’ said the Whipping Boy, ‘please do not attempt to derail me with calculus, a sensitive issue, the issue at hand right now is defacement, defacement of the very note that pledges severe punishment of anyone caught defacing it. As the master responsible for punishment, it is I who must establish whose hand wrote this. If necessary I will have the entire school stay back after lessons and copy out the note until we find a match. I do not care how long it takes.’

  ‘Yes, Deputy,’ said Cagee, ‘if necessary, do that,’ and dismissed him with a wave of a feather-duster glove.

  ‘However, I believe I’ve already detected a match between this note and another.’

  ‘Really – how interesting. Now, we must be getting on. Janitor.’ He shifted his deformed feet impatiently.

  ‘Does this hand not look familiar, Headmaster?’ The Whipping Boy again fluttered the note, along with another note that began, Deputy, it is with pleasure that I offer you the position of … under Cagee’s face, which began to show signs of distress.

  ‘Not familiar so as I could name the author.’

  ‘Your hand, Headmaster.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Cagee. ‘You may let the defacement go, on this particular occasion. It was me, yes. I copied the lines for comparison. Now, please forget the matter.’

  In the matter-of-fact manner of discipline, the Whipping Boy stated, ‘You will be punished.’

  ‘No, no, I am the Headmaster as I keep telling you, not that I believe you have forgotten, more to remind you of the signif
icance of our relative positions, as I just had to with my janitor, and to make the statement itself, and because I am the Headmaster, and it’s important that you remember so.’

  Looking up at Cagee, for at 11 he was a good foot shorter, the Whipping Boy said, ‘If the Headmaster makes rules for which the Headmaster threatens punishment, yet the Headmaster breaks those rules, how can the pupils be expected to learn?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I am the Headmaster, I can do what I want. How dare you.’

  ‘How dare I? How dare I?’ The Whipping Boy withdrew the cane from the Voltaire’s holster and arched it over his knee, letting it go with a sharp cut of the air, and commanded in a voice that chose this exact moment to break, and in doing so made him seem taller too, ‘BEND OVER!’ Delilah noticed his tongue was also very orange, as were his eyes.

  ‘Deputy,’ said Cagee, this has gone far enough. It is very well to administer the cane upon my backside in the private confines of my study for the sake of practice, but in front of the Janitor it is quite another, she is a worthless and meaningless employee of the school, beneath even the pupils, whose vomit she must clean up, and is by that fact assumed stupidest of the stupid. Now go and find a slot in the timetable where calculus will sit uncomfortably close to the accent and diction lessons and street-talk lessons and insert it there. I insist. That is the end of the matter.’

  ‘Headmaster,’ boomed the Whipping Boy, ‘You have forced upon me, with narcotic cajolery, the tenure of Deputy Headmaster and with it comes the responsibility of punishment within the school. Were I to let the headmaster off scot-free with defacement of a note, I would be forced to let the whole school off whenever the question of administering the cane came to my attention. A dereliction of my duties, you most certainly will agree. Now, sir, bend over.’

  Cagee stammered, ‘Deputy, Deputy, it is not that I do not appreciate your application to your duties – I do – nor that I do not enjoy your application of the cane upon my buttocks – I do too, in practice, as I have mentioned – but I really must insist that if I am to maintain authority as Headmaster you must kowtow to me, not the reverse. Do I make myself clear? And what in the name of education has happened to your eyes? They are orange.’