by David Nobbs
And what of those absent friends?
Doc Morrissey was sitting beside a gas fire in a much smaller room in Southall. He was surrounded by his friends. He had consumed a large meal of turkey musalla, with chipolata dhansk, korma bread sauce, sprout gosht and Bombay potatoes, followed by Christmas pudding fritters. His Indian friends were hanging on his every word, and he basked in the glory of their respect and adulation as he told them of his magnificent work at Botchley. He realized that they had journeyed to a far land in order to learn the mystical secrets of life. On that grey afternoon, Southall was Shangri-La, the mysterious Occident, and Doc Morrissey was the guru who would reveal to them the transcendental secrets of metaphysics.
It was some minutes since he’d spoken, and they began their eager questioning again.
The guru was asleep.
C.J. and Mrs C.J. walked peacefully among the Luxembourgeoisie in the grey, still afternoon.
Clearly the weather hadn’t gone to Luxembourg for yuletide.
C.J. held his hands behind his back. Mrs C.J. tried to link arms and failed.
‘Don’t you love me any more, C.J.?’ she said.
‘Of course I do, darling,’ he said.
They walked slowly over the bridge which spans the ravine in Luxembourg City.
C.J. allowed Mrs C.J. to link arms.
‘You’re happy in Luxembourg, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘Of course I am,’ said Mrs C.J.
‘Your friends are nice.’
‘Delightful. But I miss you, C.J.’
‘You seemed happy enough to come here.’
‘Maybe I was, but I’ve grown to miss you.’
They stood, looking out over the ravine.
‘Nice ravine, eh?’ said C.J. ‘I didn’t get where I am today without knowing a nice ravine when I see one.’
‘Don’t change the subject,’ said Mrs C.J.’
‘There isn’t any subject,’ said C.J. ‘So how can I change it? We’re walking in Luxembourg City. We come from a large country, and this is a small country, but I don’t think we should be patronizing on that account. I don’t think we should just barge through, willy-nilly, wrapped up in our problems, ignoring nice ravines. Nice ravines don’t grow on trees, you know. I mean, if we get back to England, and I say, “Nice ravine, that ravine in Luxembourg” and you say, “Which ravine?” and I say “You know. That nice ravine” and you say, “I don’t remember any ravine”, I’m going to look pretty silly. Women don’t always understand the rightness of time and place, my dear, and the time and place to talk about a nice ravine is when you’re looking at it. That’s what marriage is all about. Sharing things. And that includes ravines.’
C.J. gazed at the ravine. The light was fading slowly.
‘That’s the whole point,’ said Mrs C.J. ‘When am I going to get back to England? When am I going to share you? You don’t want me there, do you? There’s somebody else.’
‘There isn’t anybody else.’
‘Why don’t you want me there then?’
‘Darling, it’s Christmas. Hardly the time to be arguing.’
‘Perhaps it’s the time to be loving, C.J.’
C.J. drew his eyes away from the ravine and smiled earnestly at Mrs C.J.
‘I want to come to Botchley and share your work,’ she said.
‘Botchley’s dull. Suburban.’
‘No ravines?’
‘You’re laughing at me.’
‘I’m trying to get through to you. I’m lonely.’
C.J. put his arm round his wife, and hugged her. Slowly they began to retrace their steps.
‘We lead a monastic life at Perrins,’ said C.J. ‘Celibacy is the order of the day.’
Mrs C.J. looked at him in amazement.
‘But Reggie,’ she said. ‘Tom. David. Tony. I thought they all had their wives with them.’
‘Their wives are there,’ said C.J., ‘but they lead segregated lives. We sleep in dormitories. It’s a strict community. They can stand it. I just couldn’t stand being near you and yet not fully with you. Frustration is the thief of time, and that’s all there is to it.’
Mrs C.J. kissed him.
‘Oh, C.J.,’ she said.
‘Oh, Mrs C.J.,’ he said.
Jimmy and Lettuce had wakened to the growl of thunder and the drumming of heavy rain: Then had come gusty warm winds from the south, driving away the clouds. The wind had fallen away, and there had been hot sun. Now a cool breeze was setting in from the north.
Clearly, all the weather had gone to Malta for its holidays.
Jimmy and Lettuce looked out over the ruffled, dark blue surface of the Mediterranean from the terrace of their hotel restaurant.
‘Happy?’ said Jimmy.
‘Happy.’
‘Stout girl. Bus ride tomorrow?’
‘We had a bus ride yesterday.’
‘Aren’t rationed. Different bus, different ride.’
‘I don’t know if I’ll feel like a bus ride tomorrow.’
‘Fair enough. Nice bus ride yesterday?’
‘Yes.’
‘Interesting ticket system they have.’
‘It seemed much like ticket systems everywhere.’
‘To the uninitiated. Top hole hotel?’
‘Lovely.’
‘Al grub?’
‘Yes.’
‘Everything up to expectation in marital rights department?’
‘Lovely. Don’t worry, Jimmy!’
‘Bus ride Tuesday?’
‘Must we make plans, Jimmy?’
‘No. Course not. Honeymoon. Liberty Hall. You’re right. Good scout. Bus ride not out of the question, then?’
‘This interest in buses has come as a bit of a surprise, Jimmy.’
‘Always been a bit of a bus wallah on the QT. If not Tuesday, maybe Wednesday.’
‘Maybe.’
‘You don’t like bus rides, do you?’
‘I just don’t want to make plans.’
‘Wonder if there’ll be normal schedules tomorrow. Don’t know if Maltese have Boxing Day as we know it. Ask at desk.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Interesting. Little titbits, foreign ways. Nervous, Lettuce. Know why?’
‘No.’
‘Happy. Admit it, cold feet. Probably guessed it, not turning up at church. One failed marriage. Don’t want another. So happy now. Insecure. Don’t want to lose it.’
‘Oh, Jimmy.’
‘See that kraut, table in corner, big conk. At bus station Friday morning.’
‘I didn’t know you went to the bus station on Friday morning.’
‘Just popped in. Asked the cove there if they have any equivalent of a Red Rover. Didn’t understand what I was on about.’
Mark left on Boxing Day as he had things to do before he went to Stockholm.
In bed that night, Reggie and Elizabeth were in pensive vein.
‘I wonder how Jimmy and Lettuce have got on,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Very well,’ said Reggie. ‘Jimmy’s so much more relaxed since we started the community.’
‘I wonder how C.J. and Mrs C.J. have got on.’
‘Very well. CJ.’s so much kinder since we started the community.’
Elizabeth pressed the soles of her feet against the top of Reggie’s feet.
‘Poor Mark,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘We seem to have lost him in a way.’
‘I know.’
‘He’s gone away from us.’
‘Maybe it’s we who’ve gone away from him. The community’s our whole life now, my darling. Christmas has just been an interlude, that’s all. Our life has been suspended.’
‘Is that bad?’
‘No. But it’s just as well the community’s such a success.’
‘Is it really such a success, Reggie?’
‘Of course it is, darling. A tremendous success. What’s happened so far is just a start. The best days lie ahead.’
January began quietly. Winter flirted with Botchley. There was snow that didn’t settle, rain that didn’t last, sun that didn’t warm. The number of guests at Perrins increased steadily. There was an article about the community in a national newspaper. It was inevitable, since journalists read each other’s papers, that the article would be followed by others. It was inevitable, since the bulk of television’s magazine programmes are made up of ideas taken from the newspapers, that Reggie should appear on television. It was inevitable, given the nature of Reggie Perrin’s life, that the interviewer should be Colin Pillock.
Reggie was nervous.
When he had been interviewed by Colin Pillock about Grot, he had not been nervous, because he had been bent on self-destruction.
The researchers made wary, desultory conversation with him over drinks and sandwiches in the spartan, green hospitality room. The researchers wolfed all the sandwiches. Colin Pillock entered, surveyed the large plates covered only in wrecked cress, and told the researchers, who already knew, ‘You’ve wolfed all the sandwiches, you bastards.’
‘They always wolf all the sandwiches, the bastards,’ he told Reggie.
Reggie sympathized.
Colin Pillock gave Reggie a run-down of the questions he would ask.
When they got on the air, he asked totally different questions.
They went down to the ground floor in the goods lift and walked across the studio floor, past the huge hanging sign that said, simply, ‘Pillock Talk’.
They were made up so that they’d look unmade-up under the lights.
Reggie felt increasingly nervous.
They sat in elegant armchairs, with a small circular table between them.
It was all very cool.
Reggie was not cool. If he made a fool of himself now, all would be destroyed.
When he’d been bent on self-destruction, he had failed dismally.
Would he fail equally dismally now, when he was bent on success?
They tested him for level.
The opening music began. His heart thumped. The four cameras stared at him impassively. The cameramen were calm and moderately bored.
‘Good evening,’ said Colin Pillock. ‘My first guest this evening is a man whom I’ve had on the programme before, when he was head of the amazing “Grot” chain, Reginald Perrin.’
Reggie tried to smile, but his mouth felt as if it was set in concrete.
‘Good evening,’ he said.
‘I didn’t do too well with Reginald Perrin on that occasion,’ said Colin Pillock. ‘But I must be either a brave man or a fool.’
‘Or both,’ said Reggie.
No, no, no.
‘I still can’t get over your name,’ said Reggie. ‘Pillock.’
No, no, no.
No, no, no, no, no.
Take a grip on yourself.
Confine yourself to minimal answers till you’re settled in.
‘You’re now running a community called Perrins, Mr Perrin?’
‘Yes.’
‘People come to your community for as little or as long as they like, and at the end they pay as little or as much as they like.’
‘Yes.’
‘Perrins has been described as part community, part therapy centre, part mental health farm. Would you say that was a fair description?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s been described as a community for the middle-class and the middle-aged, set in what used to be Middlesex.’
‘Yes.’
Colin Pillock twitched.
Many people had had cause to regret the onset of Colin Pillock’s twitch. Would Reggie be one of them?
‘Do you intend to confine yourself entirely to this monosyllabic agreement?’ said Colin Pillock.
‘No.’
‘Oh, good, because our viewers might feel it was rather a waste of time for you to come here and say nothing but “yes”.’
‘Yes.’
No! No, no, no, no, no!
‘Mr Perrin, are you genuinely doing all this for the good of humanity, or is it basically a money-making venture, or is it a giant con, or is it simply a joke? What’s your honest answer?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mr Perrin!’
‘I’m serious. It’s all of them. That’s the beauty of it.’
That stopped him in his tracks. That made him think.
‘Well?’ said Colin Pillock.
Reggie realized that he had been asked a question, and he had no idea what it was.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking very carefully about my answer.’
‘Which is?’ said Colin Pillock, smiling encouragingly.
‘My answer is… would you mind repeating the question?’
Panic flitted across Colin Pillock’s eyes. He smiled desperately.
‘What kind of people come to your community?’
‘Well, perhaps it would be helpful if I told you who we have at this moment?’
‘Fine.’
‘We’ve got a stockbroker, a pub landlord, a time and motion man, the owner of a small firm that makes supermarket trolleys, a systems analyst, a businessman who answers to the name of Edwards, and a housewife who wishes that she didn’t answer to the name of Ethel Merman.’
‘I see. And …’
‘An overworked doctor, a disillusioned imports manager, an even more disillusioned exports manager, an extremely shy vet, a sacked football manager, an overstressed car salesman and a pre-stressed concrete salesman.’
‘Splendid. And …’
‘A housewife who longs to be a career woman, a career woman who longs to be a housewife, a schoolteacher who’s desperate because he can’t get a job and another schoolteacher who’s even more desperate because he has got a job.’
Colin Pillock smiled uneasily.
‘So work is a major problem that causes people to come to you, would you say?’ he asked.
‘They have a wide variety of problems. Some have sexual problems, some have social problems, some have professional problems, some have identity problems. Some have sexual, social, professional and identity problems. There are women who are exhausted by the strain of trying to be equal with men, and men who are exhausted by the strain of trying to remain more equal with women. There are people who live above their garages and their incomes, in little boxes they can’t afford on prestige estates they don’t understand, where families are two-car, two-tone and two-faced, money has replaced sex as a driving force, death has replaced sex as a taboo, sex has replaced bridge as a social event for mixed foursomes, and large deep-freezes are empty save for twelve packets of sausages. They come to Perrins in the hope that here at last they’ll find a place where they won’t be ridiculed as petty snobs, scorned as easy targets, and derided by sophisticated playwrights, but treated as human beings who are bewildered by the complexity of social development, castrated by the conformities of the century of mass production, and dwarfed by the speed and immensity of technological progress that has advanced more in fifty years than in millions of years of human existence before it, so that when they take their first steps into an adult society shaped by humans but not for humans, their personalities shrivel up like private parts in an April sea.’
‘I… er… I see,’ said Colin Pillock.
‘Not too monosyllabic for you, I hope,’ said Reggie.
On Thursday, January the nineteenth, Reggie had a visit from Mr Dent, a planning officer from Botchley Borough Council. The weather was cold. Ominous clouds were moving in from the east. Oslo Avenue was lined with cars, and Mr Dent had to park in Washington Road. On his way towards Number Twenty-one, he passed Tom and a group of footballers dressed in the Botchley Albion strip.
They were about to instigate a new system of playing football. Scoring goals for the opponents hadn’t worked. As each team played entirely for the opponents, they became the opponents, who became them. The result was two teams playing against each other in an absolute
ly conventional way. So now they were going to play as two normal teams, but with goals not permitted. If you scored, the opponents got a penalty. If they scored from it, you got a penalty. Etcetera etcetera.
Mr Dent knew none of this, as he walked resolutely up the front path towards Number Twenty-one. He was a short man with thinning dark hair, a small mouth, a receding chin and large ears. He would have passed unnoticed in a crowd and might even have passed unnoticed on his own.
Reggie led him into the sun-room and established him in an uninteresting chair.
‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ said Mr Dent.
‘Good,’ said Reggie. ‘I welcome that.’
‘We’ve had complaints about the parking of cars in Oslo Avenue, Mr Perrin,’ he said.
‘They never block entrances,’ said Reggie, ‘and there’s no noise or unseemly behaviour.’
‘The cars themselves aren’t my pigeon,’ said Mr Dent. ‘They come under the Highways Department. My worry is that you’re conducting a business in private premises. We’d have been on to you long ago, but there’s been a work to rule and an epidemic. Then, when we saw you on the other BBC …’
‘The other BBC?’
‘We call Botchley Borough Council the BBC.’
‘Ah!’
‘Because of its initials being BBC.’
‘Quite.’
‘We call the people over in the new extension in Crown Rise BBC 2. Not a hilarious crack, but it causes mild amusement in the town hall canteen.’
‘I can believe it.’
‘Anyway, we felt that matters were getting out of hand. Now …’
‘I’m not conducting a business,’ said Reggie.
‘You place adverts in the newspapers. Clients arrive. They receive treatment. They pay. Is that or is it not a commercial venture?’