by David Nobbs
Jimmy glanced round the trim, bright little bedroom as if hoping to flush out a few journalists. Then he lowered his voice until it could barely be heard above the wind.
‘Breach of security,’ he said. ‘Clive would kill me if he knew. Clive and I running one cell. Organization has three other cells. Big man head of whole caboosh.’
‘Who is this big man?’ said Reggie.
‘Secret,’ said Jimmy. ‘Even I don’t know.’
‘Who does know?’
‘Clive.’
Reggie turned the pages of Cycling News idly.
‘What’s your aim, Jimmy?’ he said. ‘You can’t use private armies to influence democratic politics. Do you want a dictatorship?’
‘Mussolini . . .’
‘. . . made the trains run on time, and the frequency with which we are reminded of it suggests that he didn’t achieve all that much else. Personally I am prepared to suffer British Rail to preserve even the tattered remnants of freedom.’
‘Question, Reggie,’ said Jimmy. ‘You, clothes on beach, Martin Wellbourne, etcetera, etcetera, expression of discontent?’
‘Yes.’
‘Everything in garden not rosy?’
‘By no means.’
‘My way, different from yours.’
‘Very different.’
Reggie glanced quickly through an article entitled: ‘By Tandem to Topkapi.’ There was a picture of a plump couple in shorts standing beside their tandem in front of the famous museum, giving the thumbs up.
The landlady came in to clear away the ham and eggs.
‘Were they all right?’ she asked.
‘Lovely,’ said Reggie.
‘Top-hole nosh,’ said Jimmy.
‘You can keep your frogs’ legs,’ declared the landlady.
‘You certainly can,’ said Reggie.
‘He says am I to give you any more to drink?’ said the landlady.
‘I’ll have a pint,’ said Reggie.
‘Pint wouldn’t go amiss,’ said Jimmy. ‘Scottish wine, help it on its way.’
Reggie ordered pints for himself and Jimmy, a gin and tonic for Elizabeth, a large whisky for Jimmy, and drinks for the landlord and his wife.
‘Did you hear that?’ said Jimmy when the landlady had gone. ‘National pride. Still there.’
‘Don’t you get a lot of your support from the area where national pride spills over into out and out racialism?’ said Reggie.
Jimmy proved evasive. The conversation flagged. The landlord entered with a tray of drinks.
That’s right,’ he said. ‘You’re as snug as bugs in rugs.’
He handed round the drinks.
‘Question?’ said Jimmy.
‘Aye?’ said the craggy licensed victualler cautiously.
‘Are you a racialist?’
‘Tha what? I bloody am not. I can’t be doing with it.’
‘Do you think there are many racialists in England?’
‘Listen. There’s this darkie playing for Rotherham reserves, built like a brick shithouse – sorry, luv.’
‘That’s quite all right,’ said Elizabeth.
‘One match, there’s a big crowd ‘cos they’re giving away vouchers for cup-tie. There’s this yobbo stood standing in front of me, and he yells out: “You’re rubbish. Go back where you came from, you black bastard.” Sorry, luv.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Where did he come from?’ said Reggie.
‘Maltby,’ said the landlord. ‘Any road, couple of minutes later, darkie beats three men and scores. T’game continues and this yobbo shouts out “You’re useless, Chadwick. Give it to the black bastard.” Now is this yobbo a racialist? Course he isn’t. Otherwise why would he want to give t’ball to t’darkie? He’d want to starve him of t’bloody ball, wouldn’t he, if he was a racialist? Course he would.’
‘He shouldn’t call him a black bastard, though, should he?’ said Reggie.
‘He was a bloody black bastard,’ said Danny Arkwright. ‘He was as black as the ace of spades. Now, listen. This is t’way I look at it. Let’s take t’case of a white man. We’ll call him Arnold Notley, for sake of argument. Now Arnold Notley, he works down Rawmarsh Main. He’s got nowt against darkies, Chinks, Ities, the lot. They’re all right by him. Now Arnold Notley, he goes down to t’Bridge Hotel, right, for a pint and a game of fives and threes, and he finds it full of darkies and Chinks and Ities and I don’t know what yelling and shouting all over the bloody shop like let’s face it they do and the stink of garlic and curry and I don’t know what else besides. He doesn’t like it, does he? Course he doesn’t. He says: “fuck me.” Sorry, luv.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Elizabeth.
‘He says: “Oh dearie me, I think I’ll try the anchor.” Now let’s take t’other side of bloody coin. Let’s take your Sikh. Let’s call him Bishen Ram Patel, for sake of argument. Now Bishen Ram Patel, he lives in Madras. And he says to his missus: “Oh dear, Mrs Patel. I am feeling the Indian equivalent of right pissed off. I think I’ll go down to the Curry and Sacred Cow for a yoghurt and tonic.” Down he goes, he opens t’door and it’s full of bloody miners from Greasbrough. And this miner, he says: “Hey up, owd lad, does tha fancy a game of fives and threes, our Bishen?’ He wouldn’t like it, would he? It’s human nature.’
There was a brief silence. Reggie and Elizabeth and Jimmy sipped their drinks.
‘Do you think this country’s finished?’ said Jimmy.
‘Course I do,’ said the landlord. ‘It’s forced to be. Finito. Caput. Mind you, I dare say we could mess along for another five hundred years not knowing it. We’re second division. Crap. Relegation fodder. The Japs and Germans are light years ahead of us. We just don’t rate. We come nowhere. There’s only one thing to be said in this country’s favour. It’s still the greatest bloody country in the world to live in.’
‘Do you think it will remain so?’ said Jimmy.
‘I bloody don’t and all. It can’t do. We’re waiting for North Sea Oil. Well, I look at it this way. T’oil’ll give us breathing space to get in a bigger jam even than what we are in now.’
‘Chap comes along,’ said Jimmy. ‘Secret army. Supporters. Money. Right ideas. Before you can say Jack Robinson, Britain great again.’
‘I’d support him,’ said the landlord. ‘I bloody would and all.’
‘Supposing that meant the overthrow of democracy?’ said Reggie.
‘Democracy?’ said the landlord. ‘Democracy’s finished. It’s a dead duck. I look at it this way. I was a socialist. Now I run a pub. I’m a conservative. Why? Self-interest. What sort of a bloody system’s that? No, I’d abolish democracy tomorrow if it was me.’
‘How?’ said Reggie.
‘Referendum,’ said the landlord.
‘Enough said,’ said Jimmy. ‘Downstairs, drinks all round.’
On the residents’ stairs Jimmy turned to Elizabeth and said, ‘Still a crazy scheme?’ and Elizabeth shrugged helplessly.
They drank until half past four in the morning. Jimmy got drunk and talked about Sheila’s betrayal and the army’s betrayal. Danny and Annie Arkwright got drunk and said that you could stick Cornwall – Cornwall was very nice if you liked scenery, but there was nothing in the whole county to compare with the view of the Don Valley between Sheffield and Rotherham at night, with the furnaces blazing, great sparks of steel lighting up the Ml viaduct, smoke belching from the chimneys of Steel, Peach and Tozer. Elizabeth got slightly drunk and worried about Mark in Africa, and whether Linda was happy with Tom, and how Reggie would take the inevitable failure of his project, and how Jimmy would take the inevitable failure of his project. And Reggie got drunk and saw somewhere in the recesses of his tired and confused mind an answer to the problems of life. The answer was crystal clear but it was both too simple and too subtle to be put into words, and the nearer he got to expressing his knowledge of it, the further away it went, and it seemed to suggest that he was quite wro
ng to be opening his shop called Grot, and in the morning he would be able to put it all into words and solve his own and everyone else’s problems.
In the morning it wasn’t clear at all. In the morning the answer eluded him entirely.
In the morning Mrs Arkwright said: ‘I look at the sea and I think, “Why didn’t we come to Cornwall in t’first place? Why did we waste all that time in t’grime and filth of Rotherham?”’
In the morning they drove Jimmy to the beginning of the track that led to Trepanning House. He didn’t want them to go any further.
‘Glad we had a chat,’ he said. ‘Clear the air, no crossed wires.’
Take care of yourself, Jimmy,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Love to Linda. See you all soon,’ said Jimmy, and he looked an old man as he trudged up the muddy track in the grey October morning.
The second major incident occurred two days before the opening of Grot. A twenty-two-year-old secretary was found raped and strangled in the little park behind the library, quite close to the High Street.
Reggie was working late that night, putting finishing touches to the shop. He was alone.
Chapter 12
At nine o’clock, on the morning of 12 November, Reggie opened the doors of Grot. No celebrity attended the ceremony. There was no waiting queue outside the door.
He walked across the street, and stood looking at the shop. It was a small Victorian two-storey terrace building, with several broken slates on the roof. Above the door, he had painted the word GROT in rather untidy signwriting.
In the window was a sign saying: ‘Every single article sold in this shop is guaranteed useless.’
He sat in the shop with Elizabeth. Outside, the morning mist cleared to reveal a grey sky that was better hidden.
Nobody came in. Hardly anybody even passed by.
‘Nobody’s coming,’ she said.
‘It doesn’t look like it. You go home, darling, and build up the stock.’
‘Oh, Reggie,’ she said. ‘What have we done?’
There were tears in her eyes. He kissed her and she went home.
What had he done?
He had made a complete fool of himself. He’d thought to cock a snook, show his indifference on a grand scale. What arrogance. He deserved to end up with a dim dusty back street shop that nobody would ever visit.
At ten-seventeen he had his first customer, a middle-aged woman, of dowdy mien.
He longed to tell her that they were closed, and never open up again.
‘Good morning, madam,’ he said instead. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m just looking,’ she said.
‘Certainly, madame. Look as much as you like. Feast your eyes.’
He saw the stock through her eyes. It was a pathetic display. Even judged as a collection of rubbish it was rubbish.
There were fifty bottles of Tom’s wine, and ten of Dr Snurd’s paintings of the Algarve. There were some square hoops made by Elizabeth, some puddings which Elizabeth had cooked and which were advertised as ‘completely tasteless’, a selection of second-hand books including Methodist Church Architecture, The Artistic History of Rugeley and Environs, Memoirs of a Bee-keeping Man, The Evolution of East European Office Equipment, and Bunions in History, some old tennis rackets with all the strings removed, some cracked pottery over which Reggie had put the notice, ‘These aren’t seconds. They are all thirds’, and a very complicated board game with a map of a town, a police car, an ambulance, six taxis, eight bollards, two sets of traffic lights, twelve counters, a dice, and no rules.
‘It’s all rubbish,’ said the woman.
‘Absolutely,’ said Reggie. ‘It’s complete and utter rubbish.’
‘It’s stupid.’
‘Thank you, madam. I’m glad you appreciate our efforts. This is the first of such shops. In time we will have a chain of them stretching from Inverness to Penzance, not to mention the continent of . . .’
But the woman had fled.
At eleven thirty-eight he made his first sale, the only one of the morning.
A balding man in his early fifties, with a little head and stick-out ears, the sort of man who drives at twenty-five miles an hour in the middle of the road, read Reggie’s message three times as if he couldn’t believe it. Then he entered the shop rather timidly.
‘Everything in this shop is rubbish, is it?’ he said.
‘It’s crap,’ said Reggie.
‘I see. What’s the point of that then?’
There’s so much rubbish sold under false pretences,’ said Reggie. ‘I decided to be honest about it.’
‘You’ve got a point there,’ said the man with the stick-out ears. There you have got a point. This wine’s useless, is it?’
‘Repulsive.’
‘Only I’m looking for something for the wife’s sister.’
‘And you don’t like her?’
‘I can’t stand the sight of her.’
‘Does she like wine?’
‘Oh yes. She fancies herself something rotten with the old vino. Château this, Riesling that, morning, noon and night.’
‘In that case,’ said Reggie, ‘I think she’ll hate any of these.’
‘Which do you think she’d dislike the most?’
‘I think she’ll find the blackberry wine at one pound ten mildly unpleasant, if you can run to something worse the turnip is pretty nauseous, that comes at one pound thirty, but if you can afford it, the sprout wine is really horrific.’
‘How much is that?’
‘One pound seventy-five, but it is disgusting.’
‘So the worse a thing is, the more it costs?’
‘Exactly.’
The man with the stick-out ears examined the bottle of yellow-green liquid. He seemed irresolute.
‘And this is really revolting, is it?’
‘Have you ever tasted weasel’s piss strained through a mouldy balaclava helmet?’
‘I can’t say I have, no. It tastes like that, does it?’
‘Worse.’
‘I’ll have it.’
The man with the stick-out ears handed Reggie two pounds. He rang up the till flamboyantly. His first sale.
‘I can guarantee dissatisfaction,’ he said, handing his customer the bottle wrapped in tissue paper. ‘But if she should by any chance like it, I’ll refund your money.’
‘Thank you.’
At the door the customer turned.
‘Odd shop, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘Extremely,’ said Reggie with a pleasant smile.
‘It fills a gap,’ said the customer.
At lunch-time, before eating his ham sandwiches in the empty shop, Reggie put another notice in the window. It said: ‘Hundreds of ideal gifts for people you hate.’
At a quarter past three he made his second sale. An overdressed, rather fat woman with peroxide hair and thick lips entered the shop. On first impression she appeared to be wearing several small dogs.
‘This is a new shop, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Yes, madam,’ said Reggie. ‘We can offer you over-priced rubbish in every range.’
‘I love those paintings,’ she said. ‘That’s Marbella, isn’t it?’
‘The Algarve.’
‘I knew it was somewhere in Spain. Who painted them?’
‘Dr Eustace Snurd, FRDA.’
‘FRDA. What does that mean?’
‘Fellow of the Royal Dental Association.’
‘Oh. How much are they?’
‘They range from six pounds to twelve pounds fifty.’
‘I’ll have that one there.’
She pointed to a lurid representation of the beach at Faro.
‘It’s lovely,’ she said.
‘You mean you actually like it,’ said Reggie.
‘I love it.’
‘It’s horrible.’
‘Are you trying to teach me about art?’ she said. ‘I’m a painter myself, and I like it. Wrap it for me, please.’
‘
But madam,’ said Reggie, ‘That isn’t the point. I am setting out to sell rubbish.’
‘Are you refusing to sell it?’ said the woman.
‘No, of course not.’
‘Wrap it, then.’
‘Certainly, madam.’
Reggie put a cheque for eight pounds in the till, and almost immediately he made his third sale.
‘What is the idea of those square hoops?’ said a soberly dressed lady of some seventy years, whom Reggie adjudged to be a spinster.
‘They’re impossible to roll along,’ said Reggie. ‘Quite useless.’
‘Is it an Irish idea?’ said the woman.
‘No, it’s my own,’ said Reggie.
‘I’ll have one for my grand-nephew’s birthday.’
Suddenly Reggie didn’t want to sell the useless hoop. He had a picture of the neatly wrapped parcel – for if this woman wasn’t a neat wrapper of a parcel, Reggie was the ‘boots’ in a crumbling Hungarian health hydro – of the boy’s pathetic attempts to roll the hoop, the childish tears, the bitter disappointment.
‘I really can’t recommend them,’ he said.
‘Nonsense,’ said the woman. ‘They’ve all got everything, but he’ll be the only boy in the school with a square hoop. That’s what counts at his age.’
Three sales. Total takings – eleven pounds twenty-five pence. Reggie did the books and went home.
A brick had been hurled through the frosted glass of the front door. Attached to it was the message, in childish capitals: ‘The killers will be killed.’
He told Elizabeth about his first day at Grot, and she was surprised that he had even made three sales.
When he went to kiss her, she shrank away.
‘What’s the matter, darling?’ he said.
‘Last night when you were putting the finishing touches to your shop, did you go for a walk?’
‘I did go for a little walk,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I had a headache. I went out to clear my head. I didn’t rape and strangle a secretary, if that’s what you mean. Good God, do you think I’m the Fiend of Climthorpe?’
‘I don’t know what to think,’ said Elizabeth. Her hands were shaking. ‘I know that you’ve done a lot of very odd things.’
‘Oh darling, how could you?’