by Robert Ford
For a time they both watched in silence as the procedure unfolded before them. Then Hal, noticing perhaps the look of alarm on Sam’s face, leant over and whispered to him. ‘You know, I had a teacher at school when I was a kid.’
Sam continued to stare, transfixed.
‘Well, his name was Baxter. Anyway that’s not important now. He had an operation once to fit him with a new anus. Trouble was it was made entirely of tin - if the poor bugger bent over on a windy afternoon, his arse would whistle like an Irish pipe.’
Sam turned to look at Hal, trying to catch up. ‘What?’
‘I said: His arse would whistle like an Irish pipe.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Hal laughed, partly at the memory of his poor teacher, and partly due to the scrunched-up seriousness of Sam’s face.
‘Me, too. Let’s go then. We must attend to Teddy Boy.’
OPEN DAY
The glorious sunshine of the previous day had gone, chased away by a drab, damp kind of morning. Hal and Sam had recuperated from their bout of the dreaded Ape Flu, and so were discharged from the infirmary, sent back to the front lines of geriatric care.
As they strolled along the path towards the main house, it soon became apparent that something out the ordinary was taking place. Fleets of slim-line, low-slung cars were parked in rows across the gravel ahead, while still more arrived, edging along the narrow driveway like so many shoaling fish.
Inside, the house was awash with activity, handlers running hither and thither along the tiny yellow corridors, possessed by a sense of urgency far removed from the lethargy that usually defined proceedings.
‘Smells rotten,’ grumbled Hal as they made their way from the rear of the house.
‘Reeks.’
Up ahead, Morris rounded the corner, head down, poring over the multiple pages of his clipboard.
‘Morris. What’s going on?’ asked Sam.
The big man slowed, not quite stopping in front of them. To Sam’s surprise he looked flustered, or at least as flustered as it were possible for him to be.
‘Open day. Family and friends of the residents. Them that pay the bills.’
‘Reeks,’ repeated Hal, skulking to one side so that he could lean against the wall.
‘I’ll need you two to report to the atrium, to Daniels - he’s i/c over there today.’
With that, Morris tucked the clipboard under one arm and hurried off along the corridor.
‘Yeah, I’m fine, Moz. Quite recovered, Moz. Thank you,’ Hal called after him, but either Morris did not hear or, more likely, didn’t care as he continued on his way around the corner and out of sight.
The one, standout rule of the Edge Hill open day was this: that only the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the residents were allowed to attend, as the experience was deemed too traumatic for anyone under the age of thirty. However, such a stipulation made it no more easy to delineate the different generations as the crowd of wealthy, well-dressed folk all appeared to be in their late twenties, just like the residents.
Sam stood alone on the periphery of the action, at the edge of the atrium. Almost all of the family members had arrived and were now milling around by the main staircase, picking at the canapés or politely sipping from their champagne flutes. Viewed from a distance, it was obvious that they all shared the same sad look - anxious and tired, and not at all pleased to be at Edge Hill, to be confronted here by their own extraordinary futures. Meanwhile, in the corner of the room, four large, ruddy men clad in white shirts and lederhosen ground out hearty German polkas, leaping and swaying and shouting as they played with a great, Teutonic enthusiasm.
‘Swift!’ Daniels boomed, impressive arms outstretched as he bundled across the hall. ‘What an occasion. Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Well...’
‘Yes. Yes. You’re right, of course. They are an impressive ensemble,’ Daniels continued, glancing over towards the polka band. ‘And cheap, too. I will not be accused of flaunting company cash. Cost. Guidelines. Is that clear?’
‘Well, yes. Of course.’
With a squeak and bang the huge double doors at the far side of the atrium were opened, allowing the residents to file in towards their families, who, upon seeing the distant, slow shunting advance of their loved ones were united in the projection of lip heavy grins - sullen, apologetic smiles.
‘Excuse me, dear boy,’ said Daniels hurrying off around the room to help the other handlers cajole the residents from the cloisters and into the atrium, a harder job than one might imagine due to the bottleneck created at the entrance by the polka band, who had been placed rather too close to the doors. And so it was that very quickly things started to turn sour. The column of residents started to back up, those at the front unsettled by the audacious volume of the belligerent polka troupe. Indeed it wasn’t long before one of the residents took a ferocious swipe at the poor unsuspecting accordionist, knocking him back into a handler who happened to be carrying a large tray of canapés. Olive and cheese and pineapple and meat flew in all directions as the two of them were sent sprawling across the floor, landing heavily, a heap of limbs.
The tuba player, feeling rather disgruntled at the treatment meted out to his band mate, and not understanding the situation at all, sidled over to the resident in question and pushed him hard in the chest - an action that was innocuous enough, but one that proved to be the defining moment of the day. The colour drained from Daniels’s face, watching on as the resident exploded into a sudden rush of limbs, pushing the large man and his tuba backwards onto the stricken accordionist. The noise and the aggression helped agitate the residents further, those at the back pushing forward and those at the front yearning to escape to the rear, away from the point of confrontation. All together, the group began to shape and eddy, expanding and contracting this way and that until soon they reached a tipping point, charging across the atrium as one solid mass of muscular geriatric aggression towards the guests, the petrified visitors diving frantically in all directions, screaming, terrified, running for their lives as the residents burst through their ranks and out into the cloisters beyond.
Sam watched these events unfold from the safety of his position at the side of the room, not quite believing what he had just seen, although the irony was not lost on him. There was some sort of poetic justice in such an act of rebellion, the residents rushing the very people who had sent them to this place.
After several minutes the terrible echo of the stampede began to recede as the residents continued their course of destruction unabated through the house, with some of the more eager handlers setting off along the cloister in pursuit.
‘Come on then!’ cried Spike, grabbing Sam by the arm as he and Morris ran past. ‘Lets go!’
‘I...’ Sam turned to no one in particular, hoping that an exit strategy might appear, but it was too late, he was on his way through the house, six or seven of them in pursuit of the residents, running along the broad stone corridors towards the incredible crash and howl of the destruction ahead.
‘Surely we need more? More handlers?’ Sam asked Spike as they ran on, already a little out of breath and really not looking forward to this confrontation at all.
‘Less! Less!’ shouted back Spike, full of nervous energy, a certain wild look to his features.
The group ran on and on through the house, following the din to the end of a long corridor where it seemed the residents had wheeled left into a large drawing room. And by the tremendous noise coming from the other side of the broad oak doors, their rage showed no sign of abating, the residents now engaged in the process of tearing apart the room.
The handlers grouped around Morris, breathing hard from their sudden trot.
‘Right, guys, so we’ll go in like this with...’ Morris was mid-sentence when Spike interjected.
‘Moz. Listen, mate. I want to volunteer for this one. Those guys are already bananas and if we charge in there, that’s j
ust gonna throw them right off their bloody heads.’
Morris and the other handlers listened, not entirely convinced. Not convinced at all, in fact.
‘Sneaky catch the monkey, hey?’
‘Well, I don’t think that’s actually -’ Sam tried to explain.
‘Yeah, right.’ Spike gave Sam a solid punch to the arm. ‘OK. Come on!’
Morris grimaced, a sign Spike took for a measure of assent. He opened the heavy latch and slipped inside the drawing room, shutting the door behind him. Sam and Morris and the other handlers crouched, hands on knees, straining to hear what was going on behind the door; amazingly, the clamour within the room fell off to a slight babble and croak, the sound of the residents mixed in with snippets of coaxing dialogue from Spike - ‘You beauty’, ‘Shoooosh’, ‘Good, good, good’ and the like.
Morris nodded, surprised and really quite impressed.
However, the calm proved to be only a brief cessation of hostilities, a new wave of carnage sounded out by a large, expensive sounding crash, a yelp from Spike and the resumption of the familiar glottal barking from the residents.
‘Shit,’ Morris said, straightening to tuck his tunic into the top of his enormous trousers. ‘I’m going in.’ Leaving the rest of the group huddled together in a circle, Morris launched himself through the doors and into the fray.
‘Do you think we should...?’ said one of them, motioning towards the door.
‘No,’ said Sam quickly, and much to the relief of the rest of the group.
After a couple of minutes of ominous thumps and the odd crash and wallop, the doors flew open and out bolted Morris carrying Spike under one arm.
‘Shut the doors! Shut the doors!’ he shouted, depositing Spike on the floor, dumping him.
Morris was bent over, breathing hard. Although he had escaped without much in the way of injury, Spike looked like he had been dragged through a hedge backwards. Several times. His tunic and trousers were badly ripped, particularly around the seat, and a small trace of blood was collecting at the entrance to his right nostril.
‘They’re animals!’ he shouted, wild eyed as he lay on the floor. ‘Animals!’
DANIELS
The atrium had cleared somewhat by the time Sam found his way back to the front of the house. At the door a handful of shell-shocked visitors were leaving, staggering out into the cold daylight. Those who remained sat huddled about the floor, waiting for medical attention to the scrapes and bangs they had sustained while evading the frenzied dash of their loved ones. Meanwhile over at the other side of the hall, the polka players reconstituted themselves, the tuba player and the accordionist locked in a delirious clinch, as if they had somehow escaped the jaws of death. And perhaps they really had.
However, the person who held Sam’s attention was Daniels. The poor man sat slumped in the far corner, head between his knees. In all the excitement of the proceeding hours his hair had flopped loose from the thick pomade he so often used, and it now hung limp, a great matted swathe across his pink forehead. Sam thought for a moment that he should go to him, to offer words of kindness and commiseration. But before he could act Daniels began to sob, thick shoulders heaving rhythmically as this jolly fellow cried his heart out. The day had been an unparalleled disaster, the blame for which lay at his door alone. Suddenly, and not perhaps for the first time, his life lay in tatters.
The police arrived within the hour, flying in by attack helicopter from their base in the capital - the nearest significant constabulary. Sam and Rachel watched from the sidelines as twenty or so officers in full riot gear barged through the atrium and out along the cloisters, heading for the dining hall where the residents still continued to demolish with great enthusiasm. Indeed such was the precarious nature of the situation that it would take the them some time to contain the stampede, herding the residents back towards the dormitories where the night-shift handlers helped usher them to their chambers so that sleep might be induced.
The clean up operation was ongoing, indeed would continue over the coming days. By nine o’clock in the evening most of the day staff had retired, now littered amongst the soft furnishings of the Rec. Spike, Sam, Rachel and Hal sat in the far right corner of the room, the table in front of them littered with empty glasses. Meanwhile, Ted attended to the record player, sobbing continuously as he played Glen Miller’s Moonlight Serenade over and over and over and over. Under normal circumstances such repetition would have been unbearable, but no one seemed to care - least of all Daniels, who stood in front of the bar, eyes shut, pink fists tucked tightly beneath his chin as he swayed to the music.
Spike leant over towards Sam. ‘Story goes, Daniels was a schoolteacher, a housemaster in one of those posh boarding school places. Then one night when he’s on duty and a fire breaks out. Daniels doesn’t realise, the alarm’s shot or something. Anyways, all of the kids get out, apart from one. He’s toast. So the school sack Daniels - have to - which means they take away the house that comes with the job. And of course no other school will touch him. He’s ruined. And he knows it. Starts drinking all day, everyday. Blows the savings. The wife can’t take it any more so she leaves, and takes the kids with her, too.’
Spike shook his head, looking off into the middle distance for effect.
‘Poor guy,’ said Sam.
‘It’s a sad story for sure, mate. But then we all got ‘em.’
‘Yeah? What’s yours then, Spike?’
‘Me? No, not me, mate. I’m just a man of the world. Man of the world,’ said Spike with a great flourish of his large hands, although he looked to Sam as if he might in fact burst into floods of tears at any moment. ‘Right. Think I’ll call it a night, folks.’ Spike stubbed out his cigarette in the heavy glass ashtray on the table in front of them.
‘Yup,’ said Hal absentmindedly from his position, laid out flat on one of the ragged sofas nearby. Neither Sam nor Rachel threatened to add anything further to this, and so Spike finished the dregs of his beer and shuffled off to bed.
The evening limped along, wounded. Certainly the faces around the room looked pensive; even Alan behind the bar had gone to the lengths of donning a long, lank chainmail suit - a sartorial selection that somehow seemed appropriate given the current mood in the house.
And still the same song played, Ted continuing his tear-stained vigil at the record player.
‘Right!’ said Hal, clambering round into a sitting position. ‘If I hear this song one more time, I’ll murder someone. In fact, I shall murder Ted, and that wouldn’t be fair. The poor man’s heartbroken, after all.’
Hal jumped to his feet and made to the exit. ‘Well, come on then!’ he said, scowling back towards Rachel and Sam from the door. ‘Come on, come on!’
Light rain was falling as the three of them exited the house from a side door, stumbling across the lawn towards the infirmary. Perhaps it was the effect of the fresh air, or the change of scene, but Hal’s sudden call to arms had seemed to raise their spirits. And so with all the stealth that their considerable inebriation would allow, they sneaked through the front entrance of the building and along the corridor towards the rear.
‘Fell? Fell!’ called Hal as they rounded the corner into the storeroom.
Fortunately they did not have to look far to find the good doctor. He was in fact lying flat out on his front in the middle of the room - eyes open, hands placed by his sides, nose almost, but not quite, touching the zebra’s cherry snout.
‘Fell?’ Hal called again but to no effect - in this state the doctor was unreachable. ‘This is no way for a respected professional to behave.’
Hal stepped across the room towards the pharmaceuticals store and began to rifle through the various bottles, until at last he appeared to find what he was after.
The others had meanwhile been paying a closer inspection to the doctor, Sam passing a hand in front of his staring eyes in the hope of eliciting some kind of response.
‘Perhaps he’s dead. Do you think he’s dead, Ha
l?’
‘No, I don’t think so. He gets like this sometimes. Can’t be good for him but...’ Hal shrugged his compact shoulders. ‘Right. Get some of these down you.’
Hal held out a handful of small spiked pills the colour of mud, medieval looking things.
Much to Sam’s surprise, Rachel took a couple from Hal’s palm straight away, swallowing them down with the minimum of fuss.
‘What are they?’ asked Sam.
Hal’s eyes narrowed, nothing if not eager. ‘Just a loosener, young man. A good. Old fashioned. Loosener.’
Sam looked at Rachel, looked at Hal, looked at the pills. ‘Loosener?’ he repeated, voice creaking a little, nervous. ‘What harm could a loosener do?’
They stood at the top of the main cloister of the house where the light was better, Rachel’s laughter echoing off towards the plump shadows, the absolute darkness that draped the far end. Out in front Hal moved around behind the trolley - a four-wheeled, wooden construction with a flat wooden top raised not more than twelve inches from the ground.
‘Come on! Do it!’ Rachel said, tears of laughter running down her cheeks.
‘Alright, alright,’ said Hal looking back, trying not to burst into laughter himself.
Then, with a yelp, he dove forward onto the trolley, an untidy flop performed much to the delight of Sam and Rachel, who were laughing so hard they had to hold onto each other for support.
‘Come on, you imbeciles! Push!’ Hal cried at the top of his voice, lying with arms by his sides, feet pointed back, in his head a real live rocketman.