by David Nobbs
‘That other Mr Dent you spoke of?’ said Reggie. ‘What happened to him?’
‘He can’t really cope with life. He’s keeping a low profile, but he’s there. A faint flicker of your work lives on in me. All is not lost, Mr Perrin.’
All is not lost.
Reggie took the farewell words of the likeable little official as his text for those difficult days.
He continued to keep up appearances, enduring his cigars and his regular doses of champagne. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he went to London and bought himself a whole new wardrobe of clothes including a velvet jacket which suited him to perfection.
‘You know how I’m never happier than when I’m pottering around in old trousers and pullovers,’ he told his staff. ‘Well, that’s one more thing I’ve had to give up for the cause.’
All the activities continued. Paintings were painted, baskets were woven, roofs were thatched, songs were sung, sexual problems were mulled over, and good deeds were done, ridiculous conversations were held on trains, and in the evenings they relished their bowls of apple gin and pear vodka, their protest songs and their acts of physical solidarity all the more for the fact that they were banned from every pub in Botchley.
It began to seem as if the community could gain new strength from its vicissitudes and new solidarity from its isolation.
All was not lost.
Not yet.
8 The Final Days
One day in the middle of April, Reggie’s bank manager sent for him. He had good news and bad news. The good news was that Reggie wasn’t in the red. The bad news was that the level of his reserves was ninepence.
Reggie spoke eloquently about the ideals behind Perrins. He reminded the anxious financier about the amazing success of Grot, and opined that a similar success could shortly attend Perrins.
The bank manager lent him ten thousand pounds.
‘It’s a lifeline,’ said Reggie in bed that night, as Elizabeth struggled to find her place in her book. ‘It’s a reprieve. Nothing more.’
‘We mustn’t waste a penny of it, Reggie,’ said Elizabeth.
‘I agree. Not a penny. Tomorrow we’ll get a lawyer for McBlane.’
Elizabeth lost her place in her book just as she had at last found it.
‘Don’t be silly, Reggie,’ she said. ‘McBlane is blatantly guilty.’
‘I agree,’ said Reggie. ‘He’s obviously blatantly guilty. But the press are going to be gunning for us. Peace Community Chef in Sally Ally War Cry Drunken Meat Cleaver Assault Scandal. We simply must put up some good mitigating circumstances, so that we don’t look ridiculous in the eyes of future guests.’
Reggie slid his arm under Elizabeth’s back and kissed her nose.
‘I have a plan,’ he said.
She groaned.
The little public gallery at Botchley Magistrates’ Court was crowded. So were the press seats.
The court had been built four years ago. It was panelled in light woods which had been stained to give an appearance of age and tradition. In the centre of the ceiling there was a skylight, with a dome of frosted glass. There were three lay magistrates, two men and a woman. They looked decent enough to realize how absurd it was that they would hold the scales of justice in their unqualified hands.
At ten past eleven McBlane entered the court room. He looked gaunt and long-suffering. He was wearing a suit, and had left his boil plasters off in the interests of respectability, yet he still looked like a threat to a civilized community.
He took the book in his right hand, and repeated certain words after the clerk of the court. It is to be presumed that they were the oath, but they could equally well have been extracts from the timetable of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
He was asked if he was Kenny McBlane, chef, thirty-four, of Twenty-one, Oslo Avenue, Botchley.
His nods led the court to understand that he was.
Mr Hulme, a confident young man in a striped blue shirt with separate white collar, announced that his client was pleading guilty to the charge of committing grievous bodily harm upon Ethel Henrietta Lowndes, spinster, in the Tolbooth Hotel, Botchley, between nine and ten p.m. on the evening of Friday, March the thirty-first.
He also pleaded guilty to the charge of possessing an offensive weapon, to wit a meat cleaver.
He pleased not guilty to the charge of using abusive language.
The case for the prosecution was brief and clear. Mr Hulme questioned PC Harris only about the abusive language.
‘You say he used abusive language?’ he said. ‘What did he say?’
PC Harris consulted his notebook.
‘This is a note I made at the time,’ he said. ‘I said to him, “What exactly has been going on here?” He replied, “Ye steckle hoo flecking clumpthree twinkoff”.’
‘Would you repeat that, please, officer?’ said Mr Hulme.
‘He said, “Ye steckle hoo flecking clumpthree twinkoff”.’
‘The court will draw their own conclusions from that,’ said Mr Hulme. ‘Now, did any further conversation ensue?’
‘Yes, sir. Further conversation ensued,’ said PC Harris. ‘I said, “Lor, luv a duck, you’re going to have to repeat that”. He said, “Ye steckle hoo flecking clumpthree twinkoff”.’ I said, “Never mind that, my good man. What are you doing with that offensive weapon, to wit a meat cleaver?” He replied, “Flecking sassen achenpunk schlit yer clunge”. I said, “I don’t advise you to employ language like that to me”, and he said, “Schpluff”.’
‘And this is his abusive language?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you don’t know what it means?’
‘No.’
‘Then how do you know it was abusive?’
‘It sounded abusive.’
‘It sounded abusive. It seems to me, officer, that he used elusive language.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Are you aware that using elusive language is not an offence in English law?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘No further questions.’
Miss Ethel Henrietta Lowndes was small and lined like an old tea cosy. Her left arm was in plaster. She had an extremely unfortunate effect on the magistrates. The effect was of hostility towards McBlane.
Mr Hulme only asked two questions.
‘Did the accused speak to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did he say?’
‘I don’t know.’
After the prosecution’s case had been completed, Mr Hulme called upon McBlane to take the stand.
‘Would you please give the court your version of what transpired in the Tolbooth Hotel on the evening of Friday, March the thirty-first?’ said Mr Hulme.
The magistrates leant forward, and McBlane began to speak. He spoke fast and incomprehensibly.
‘Would you speak more slowly?’ said Mr Hulme.
McBlane spoke slowly and incomprehensibly. The magistrates leant further forward.
‘What’s he saying?’ asked the chairman.
‘I don’t know,’ confessed the young lawyer.
An impasse!
‘It seems to me that we’re up a cleft palate with no paddle,’ said the chairman of the magistrates.
‘Absolutely!’ murmured C.J. in the public gallery.
‘There is one possibility,’ said Mr Hulme. ‘There’s a man in this court who does understand my client. It’s his boss, Reginald Perrin.’
‘That is correct, sir,’ said Reggie, standing up. ‘I’m familiar with his speech, and furthermore I was evacuated to Glasgow during the war, to avoid the bombing. Awa hoo frae broch acha blonstroom doon the crangle wi’ muckle a flangebot awa the wee braw schlapdoodles.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said the chairman.
‘No, but I do,’ said Reggie.
The magistrates decided that they had no alternative. Reggie was warned of the dangers of perjury, and sworn in as interpreter.
McBlane began his version of events anew.
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‘He says he’d been drinking quite heavily, and his speech was becoming slurred,’ said Reggie.
McBlane continued.
‘The lady from the Salvation Army approached him,’ said Reggie.
McBlane resumed his narrative, at considerable length.
‘She asked him to buy the War Cry,’ said Reggie. ‘He told her how much he admired the publication’s splendid mixture of information and entertainment. He said he’d buy the lot and then she could go home and put her feet up. She didn’t understand a word of what he was saying.’
McBlane spoke earnestly.
‘When he reached to take the pile of War Cry, she thought he was trying to steal them,’ continued Reggie. ‘In the ensuing misunderstanding, they were scattered. He reached for his wallet, but drew out the meat cleaver instead. In his semi-alcoholic confusion he didn’t realize this.’
‘What were you doing with the meat cleaver?’ interpolated Mr Hulme.
McBlane looked round the crowded room for a moment before launching into his reply.
‘The meat cleaver was blunt,’ said Reggie. ‘He was taking it to a friend who sharpens meat cleavers. He was expecting to meet his friend in the Tolbooth, but he didn’t turn up.’
McBlane continued his narrative.
‘McBlane saw that the lady, whose cause he had been attempting to help, was terrified and regarded him as a violent criminal,’ said Reggie. ‘For one brief moment all the frustrations of his misunderstood life welled up. He made one angry blow which unfortunately broke the lady’s arm. He bitterly regrets it.’
McBlane nodded vigorously.
He was fined fifty pounds on the charge of grievous bodily harm, and fifteen pounds for being in possession of an offensive weapon.
The charge of using abusive language was dismissed.
There was widespread press coverage of the case of the lady from the Salvation Army and the mad Scottish chef with the meat cleaver. In spite of, or possibly because of, Reggie’s intervention, much controversy was stirred up.
It was suggested in some quarters that Reggie’s interpretation had been a pack of lies. The Salvation Army were not pleased. The vexed question of the lay magistracy was fiercely argued. Reggie was besieged by reporters. Several guests left, and many forward bookings were cancelled.
Reggie plucked up his courage and sacked McBlane. He told him that the community couldn’t be associated with violence in any shape or form. He gave him a week’s notice and a golden handshake of fifteen hundred pounds.
McBlane promptly disappeared.
In the morning, the papers carried widespread coverage of his sacking.
‘They preached faith and love,’ he was reported as saying, ‘yet they sacked me for one offence, after I’d promised never to do it again.’
The journalists appeared to have no difficulty in understanding McBlane.
Reggie made a handsome donation to the Salvation Army, and informed the newspapers that he was willing to reinstate McBlane.
McBlane returned and resumed his duties, striking superb gastronomic form immediately.
Reggie went into the kitchen and welcomed him back with a firm handshake.
‘Talking of handshakes,’ said Reggie, ‘obviously now you will return your golden handshake.’
McBlane examined his poultry knife, to see if its sharpness still met his exacting standards.
‘Or then again it might be simpler to regard it as an advance on your salary,’ said Reggie.
McBlane raised the knife in his right hand.
‘Another possibility occurs to me,’ said Reggie. ‘Perhaps we could regard it as a bonus for your truly splendid cooking.’
McBlane, apparently satisfied with the sharpness of the knife, replaced it in its drawer.
‘McBlane?’ said Reggie.
McBlane turned and faced him.
‘You can make yourself understood when you want to,’ said Reggie. ‘I know you don’t like us and you feel that society has given you a raw deal, but I didn’t choose to be born English and middle-class. And I did support you in court, whatever my motives. Please, McBlane. Talk to me so that I can understand.’
‘Ye flickle mucken slampnach nae blichtig fleckwingle,’ said McBlane.
Reggie wagged his finger sternly.
‘A bit more of your jugged hare wouldn’t come amiss,’ he said.
Four clients departed. Seven forward bookings were cancelled. Four thousand pounds of Reggie’s loan had gone.
Every hour of need throws up a hero, and this one was no exception.
The hero was Doc Morrissey.
The ageing medico called on Reggie in his sun-room, on the afternoon following McBlane’s return, and plonked a milk bottle full of colourless liquid on his desk with an air of suppressed triumph.
‘Taste it,’ he said.
Reggie poured a minute measure, sipped it cautiously, then spat it out.
‘It doesn’t taste of anything,’ he said.
Doc Morrissey sat back in his chair and stretched his legs like a somnolent dog.
‘Precisely,’ he said.
‘Well, thank you very much,’ said Reggie. ‘It’s just what I wanted.’
‘Your sarcasm isn’t lost on me, Reggie,’ said Doc Morrissey.
He leapt slowly to his feet, and began to give an impression of a brilliant scientist, pacing around the sun-room like a tethered greyhound on heat.
‘It can control entirely our supplies of insulin and adrenalin, our sugar level, and blood pressure,’ he said. ‘It can cure us of all our suggestions and neuroses. It can keep our bodies in a state of perfect chemical equilibrium. It can do everything you’re trying to do here.’
Reggie lifted the bottle to the light and examined the liquid. It was absolutely clear and totally lifeless.
‘Why have I never heard of this?’ he said.
‘It’s a new invention,’ said Doc Morrissey.
Reggie turned the bottle round and round slowly.
‘British invention?’ he asked.
‘I invented it,’ said Doc Morrissey.
Reggie handed the bottle back to its creator.
‘You invented it?’ he said at last.
‘My antennae have become pretty sensitive to nuances since I started looking into this psychology lark,’ said Doc Morrissey. ‘I detect a lack of confidence in your attitude, Reggie, and it pains me.’
Reggie went to the window and looked out, drinking in the white blossom on the apple trees and the delicate pink of the almond.
Four clients jogged by on the gravel path, followed by a breathless Tom.
Faith and trust.
‘Are you prepared to stake your reputation on this working?’ said Reggie.
‘Without hesitation,’ said Doc Morrissey. ‘I bring it to you, Reggie, in your hour of need.’
Before dinner that evening, Reggie called a staff meeting. They drank coffee out of each other’s mugs. It was six fifteen on a cool spring evening, and one section of the calor gas fire was on.
Reggie sat gavel-less at his card table and explained about Doc Morrissey’s wonder drug. A milk bottle full of the stuff stood on the card table in front of him.
Doc Morrissey addressed them, his face touched with a becoming modesty. He said that the drug was made up of many ingredients with long names which would be meaningless to laymen. He proposed that the staff and guests should take regular doses of his cure-all.
‘I’m sorry,’ began Tom.
‘So am I,’ said Linda.
‘I haven’t said what I’m sorry about yet.’
I’m sorry you’re about to pontificate.’
‘Well I’m sorry that you’re sorry, Linda,’ said Tom, ‘but pompous Patterson is about to pontificate. Is it ethically desirable that we should expose people to this drug? Surely the real benefit that people get out of the place is the feeling that they have been involved in helping to create the improvements that have taken place in their mental adjustment to the environm
ent as a consequence of the manifold activities that we provide?’
‘We don’t need to let them know they’re taking it,’ said Tom.
‘We can’t afford to look a gift horse in the mouth, or we may go down with a sinking ship,’ said C.J. ‘I didn’t get where I am today by looking gift horses in the mouth and going down with sinking ships.’
Jimmy patted Lettuce’s hand. The gesture was an admission that he also thought the ship was sinking, to join the flotilla of his past disasters. More ships had sunk under Jimmy than were afloat under the Royal Navy.
‘Army put bromide in men’s tea, subdue sexual feelings,’ he said. ‘Heat of battle, erotic fantasies dangerous. Chaps falling in love with their bayonet frogs, that sort of crack. Ends justify means. I’m for old thingummy’s wonder whatsit.’
‘Me too,’ said Lettuce.
‘Good girl,’ said Jimmy.
Reggie smiled.
‘What are you smiling at?’ said Elizabeth.
‘Do you remember the English versions on Cretan menus?’ said Reggie. ‘Some of them had lamp chops, some had lamb shops, but we never actually found one that said lamp shops. Well, I was just thinking the same thing about Jimmy. He refers to Lettuce as ”good scout”, ”stout girl”, and ”good girl”, but he never, well so far as I know he doesn’t, and I can only go by what I’ve heard, never uses the fourth possible combination ”stout scout”.’
There was a stunned silence.
‘Reggie!’ said Elizabeth.
‘Sorry,’ said Reggie. ‘It’s a bit of a red herring at this important time, but you did ask me.’
He began to sweat.
Concentrate, Reggie. This is no good.
Elizabeth gave him a worried look and he smiled reassuringly.
‘Yes, well,’ said Doc Morrissey, somewhat needled by the red herring. ‘Are there any further views on my wonder drug?’
‘Is it really going to work?’ said Tony. ‘Because I’ve had the pineapple whisky syndrome up to here and I don’t feel like scoring any more revolting drinks unless it’s going to be Results City, Arizona.’
‘We’ve never had pineapple whisky,’ said Tom.
‘Children,’ said Reggie. ‘Please! Tony does have a right to ask if it’s going to work, though. I mean, has it been tested at all?’
‘A bit,’ said Doc Morrissey.