by Nev Fountain
CHAPTER TWENTY
The door had just closed on him.
Surely that wasn’t supposed to happen? He started to panic.
Don’t panic, Mervyn told himself. You’ll achieve nothing by panicking.
I’m a writer, Mervyn replied to himself tartly. Most of the things I do achieve nothing. Why should I start avoiding things that achieve nothing now? Don’t tell me not to panic! He did some more panicking.
All right. Mervyn took a new tack with himself. Let’s look at this logically. There is no point having a freezer locker that cannot be opened from the inside; people would get trapped in them all the time and die cold and horrible deaths… He had another quick panic. Are you listening Mervyn? Forget the cold and horrible death bit. I’m making a important point here. To avoid such a tragic occurrence, there HAS to be a handle on the inside of the door.
Good thinking, Mervyn. He scrabbled along the walls of the locker, hands sticking on the cold metal of the trolleys, until he felt the wonderful shape of a handle.
He pulled it. The lever came away in his hand. The shock caused him to drop the handle, which jangled to the ground. It was too loud in such a small space.
So he was going to die. The production team had had enough of him, and locked him in here to die.
He was going to die.
It didn’t make as much of an impact on his brain as he thought. Perhaps he’d worn himself out with all the panicking. Perhaps he was too frozen stiff to worry about it any more. God, he was so very, very cold. Perhaps this was revenge from the patron saint of Cornwall, St Piran, for his rude thoughts about Cornish hospitality. He offered up a silent prayer, promising never to be rude about the Black Prince Tavern’s central heating ever again.
He was still too detached from the whole dying thing. He had to focus, create a sense of urgency about the situation so he could think of a way out.
He was going to die.
He. Was. Going. To. Die.
He was never going to finish his novel.
So what else is new? You think I’m going to finish the bloody thing if I live?
Okay… He was going to die.
He was never ever ever going to have sex again.
I don’t think my penis cares at this precise point about never having sex again. It’s about the size of a jelly bean as it is. Even if I ever live, I don’t think I’ll ever extract it from inside my scrotum and grow it back to normal size.
So he was going to die.
Oh my God, he was going to die!
And my underpants are disgusting!
How bloody ironic, he thought. All those jokes about always wearing clean underwear in case you get run over—well the joke was on him. Very bloody funny. His icy body would get carted out of here to meet doctors, pathologists, mortuary attendants and embalmers wearing his emergency pair; underpants that had now reached the age at which they could legally vote and drive a car.
Mervyn’s survival instinct rebooted. Like many cringing Englishmen, he stoked it up with quiet indignation. He fantasised about to whom he was going to complain about the faulty door, the phone calls he would make, the letters he would write. The vouchers he would get in compensation. He mentally steeled himself for a long grim fight, tedious phone calls to mystified, slow-witted people in customer services, indifferent letters from assistants of assistant branch managers, but finally there would be the grovelling apology from the head of the supermarket and an ironic trolley full of frozen meat as reward for his two ordeals; first his ordeal trapped in a freezer, then his ordeal trapped on an 0845 number listening to Bach.
But he would only collect that prize on the other side of this bloody door.
Mervyn practised a few screams; quiet, polite ones to begin with. Even in mortal danger, Mervyn didn’t like to make a fuss. He soon managed to lose his inhibitions, but five minutes of yelling at the top of his lungs brought no response.
He tried long screams. He experimented with a series of short, sharp ‘hey!’s. He had a go at alternating between the two. ‘Heeeeeyyy! Hey! Heeeeeeyyy! Hey! Heeeeeeyyy!’
Nothing still.
Mervyn felt wretched. Not only was he going to die, there was also nowhere to sit. He’d reached the age where a Nice Sit Down was important. Thank heavens it was an early-morning location shoot, because he’d already dressed to keep warm, putting on a jersey underneath his jacket. Pulling his hands inside the sleeves to make crude mittens, he groped around in the darkness and pulled out a box of something to sit on. By the feeling of it on his bottom, it was a box full of frozen chips.
Then there was a rattle. A scrape. Rescue!
‘Hey,’ croaked Mervyn. ‘I’m in here!’
The door opened, light flooded into Mervyn’s eyes.
‘Mervyn?’
It was Randall. His green customised tie was swinging from side to side as he hauled the door open.
‘Close that door,’ said Mervyn, ‘there’s a hell of a draught.’
‘What?’
Mervyn rushed out of the freezer, standing as far away from the open door as possible, frightened that it would reach out and swallow him up. ‘Sorry, I always make stupid jokes when I’m terrified.’
‘What are you doing in there?’
‘I’m a writer. Isn’t that where you keep the writers?’
‘What are you doing inside the refrigerator?’
‘I wanted to see if the light went off when you shut the door.’
‘What?’
‘Okay, I’m calming down now. I’m calming down. I’m calm. The heart rate is falling.’
‘Do you need anything? Brandy?’
‘No. Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. I am so desperate for coffee. You know those cups you get in your country? The ones you call “tall”?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I could drink one of those.’
They walked out of the back and into the aisles.
‘Thank you for letting me out. I was worried that no one would hear me.’
‘I didn’t hear you. I was looking for the Styrax prop. It wasn’t where it’s supposed to be.’
‘It was in the freezer with me.’
‘It’s what?’
‘It’s back in there.’
Randall gave Mervyn an odd look, then called over a props man. ‘I’ve just been told the Styrax is inside the meat locker. Don’t ask us why. We don’t know. Just get it out.’
The props man looked at Mervyn with deep suspicion, then ran off to the locker.
Randall gripped Mervyn’s shoulder with friendly force. ‘Mervyn. We don’t know why it’s in there, right?’ he said lightly.
‘No.’
‘Because you didn’t put it in there, right?’
‘Of course not. I was told that the Styrax was in there and you’d invited me to have a look at it.’
‘In there? Why would we want to put it in there?’
‘Well I just assumed you needed to…’ muttered Mervyn lamely. ‘Keep the paint fresh or something.’ Then Mervyn remembered. ‘There was a note on the door. It said “Styrax”.’
They went back and looked at the door. The note had gone. Of course it had.
They tracked down the runner who delivered the message. She was swanning around, blatantly giving coffee to other people who weren’t Mervyn. That’s what annoyed him the most; not the whole her-sending-him-to-his-almost-death business, it was the her-getting-everyone-else-a-coffee-but-him business that really wounded.
She saw Randall and Mervyn coming towards her. ‘Hi. Do you want a coffee, Randall?’
Oh, the bitch knew how to twist the knife. She so knew.
‘No thanks. Mervyn would quite like one.’
She looked at Mervyn dubiously. ‘Sorry, do you drink coffee?’
‘Yes. I do. On occasions.’
Whenever I’m awake.
‘Sorry, I thought you didn’t.’
‘Forget the coffee. Did I just call you from the OB van and ask you to ask Mervyn to go to the meat locker?
’
‘Behind the delicatessen? Er… Yes.’
‘To see the Styrax?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I didn’t do anything of the sort.’
The runner blinked, confused. ‘It sounded like you. It was American. I’m sure it was you.’
Randall’s eyes narrowed. ‘This is very concerning.’
‘It must have been a mix-up. Just a communications cock-up,’ said Mervyn, in his best let’s-not-make-a-scene-and-just-go-and-get-coffee voice.
Randall didn’t look convinced.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
>CLICK<
[SIGH]
This is, without doubt, the shittiest point in my life.
My life resembles the shittiest public toilet in the shittiest train station in the shittiest town in this shitty country. My life is wet toilet rolls sitting in the bowl, clogging up the U-bend and swilling urine-coloured water onto the floor.
My life is excrement smeared on the edge of the bog.
That’s what this fucking location shoot is.
And yet, and yet, this fucking lousy trip to the middle of Dreary in the county of Fuckall is just about bearable. I thought I could get through it. I’d placed tissue paper on the door handles, wiped the shit off the seat, and avoided the puddles of metaphorical piss on the floor.
And then guess what? Someone’s put shit in the soap dispenser, and wiped their shitty arse with the towel on the wall. Because Mervyn Stone is still here.
The turd which, no matter how much you flush, keeps bobbing up again, the same shit-eating grin on his shitty face.
I tried to kill Mervyn yesterday. Just an innocent accident on set, I thought, nothing too dramatic. Nothing, which screams ‘murder’. Don’t want to get the police running around, searching my stuff.
I know I didn’t try very hard to kill him yesterday. Don’t you think I don’t know that, okay? Of course I know it. I thought; just do a quick pull on the chain, and that would be it, he would disappear down the U-bend. Flush him into the sea. But no, not him. Not the floater from hell.
Just goes to show, I’m going to have to try a bit harder. Proper planning next time. I’m also going to have to be clever, and careful. I saw Nick…
[SIGH]
…looking at me in a funny way when I walked off the set. Can’t let anyone get suspicious. Not good.
I’ll set him a little trap tomorrow. And the beauty of it is, I’ll be nowhere near when it happens.
[SIGH]
Tomorrow, Mervyn fucking Stone dies.
No mistakes this time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The next morning Mervyn woke up surprisingly refreshed, considering all that had happened. He guessed the lungfuls of fresh country supermarket air had done him the power of good.
He removed the badger from his crotch and started to dress hurriedly—the room was freezing. He couldn’t wait to tell Maggie all the things that had been happening to him. There had been an attempt on his life! He felt like a really interesting person, for once. He hadn’t told her that he was working with the Stepford Wagz; she was bound to be impressed. Perhaps she would be so captivated by his exploits she would replace the badger in his bed.
First things first. He had to deal with the increasingly desperate problem of his lack of underpants. He had still failed to get to Marks & Spencer, the village didn’t have a laundrette, and he lacked the courage to ask the barmaid if she minded washing his smalls for him. All his pants had now been worn far more times than was healthy—and that included wearing them inside-out. They were very ripe. He swore he could hear them plotting inside his suitcase, planning on stealing a car and driving to the coast where they could park on the cliffs and make out with dirty knickers. The incident in the freezer was an important lesson as well. He couldn’t get caught out like that again.
So this morning, he had to make a choice. Desperate times called for desperate measures. He put on his shiny old swimming trunks, which were too tight and itchy but at least it gave him some support. They might make him walk a bit funny but they wouldn’t try to growl at him at an inappropriate moment.
*
He was passing through the bar, having nodded self-consciously at the drunk, when he heard Maggie; her big man-like laugh erupted in the lounge.
That couldn’t be her. How could that be? How could that laugh exist without him there to make it happen?
Of course. It couldn’t be her. It had to be another woman with a big manly laugh, or a burly man with a slightly feminine giggle.
But it was her.
She was sitting with someone. A man. His back was to Mervyn, so he couldn’t see who it was; but the man spoke, and Mervyn instantly recognised those languid tones.
Roger Barker.
Mervyn went up to the table and stood there over him, in an ‘Excuse me you’re sitting in my seat’ fashion.
‘Hello Mervyn’ said Maggie.
‘Mervyn!’ exclaimed Roger. ‘Are you staying here too?’
‘Hello Roger. Yes. Yes I am.’
‘What fun! Pillow fights and pyjama parties all round!’
Maggie laughed. Mervyn seethed.
Roger was dressed in a very typical Rogery way. He wore a cricket jumper (even though it was nearly October) just to remind everyone how athletic he was, designer jeans and expensive trainers. He had a fountain of charity badges pinned self-consciously to his jumper; the Lord’s Taverners, the Grand Order of Water Rats and the Sons of the Severed Ankle were just a few. He had a huge expensive watch round his wrist. It must have been incredibly heavy, it certainly seemed to drag his hand down—it usually needed to be rested on the nearest female knee.
His hair, once blond, was now grey and, even though there was much less of it it, still flopped into his face in a self-effacing college-boy look that helped him charm his way into jeans, up skirts and into boiler suits. His face was a deep scary orange, as though he’d stood too close to a fence while it had been weatherproofed.
Roger was an actor who had worked on the original series. He played a dashing advisor to the court of Prime Mistress Magaroth, who had tried to sleep with most of the major characters—both on-screen and off—during the seven years the show was on air. He had had three high-profile marriages to famous and beautiful actresses that each failed spectacularly after about 18 months, because—not to put too fine a point on it—no one was able to love Roger as much as Roger did.
Even though he disliked Roger intensely, Mervyn tried to sound delighted to see him. He had watched other people do it really well, but hadn’t quite mastered the art himself.
‘So, Roger. Good to see you, of course. What are you doing here?’
‘Same as you, Merv. Same as you. I’ve been roped in for this new Vixens telly thing they’re doing. I’ve got a cough-and-a-spit cameo as Magaroth the Prime Mistress.’
‘But Magaroth the Prime Mistress was a mad old woman.’
‘You don’t need to tell me that! Apparently I’m going to be dragged up. Very Quentin Crisp. Very subversive. I’ve worn a few dresses in my time in panto—you should have seen my Widow Twanky, Maggie, it was a scream. I had everyone in fits—but I’ve never trannied up for the telly. Sounds fun. Anyway, a thousand quid is a thousand quid and all that. And I love the West Country, don’t you, Mervy?’ Roger put his hand to his mouth, in an overstated ‘What have I said?’ manner. ‘Oh, you probably don’t, do you? After what happened last time.’
‘Roger’s been telling me all the stories about the last time you filmed down here,’ said Maggie.
Of course he would, thought Merv. First rule of Roger when chatting to a lady—ridicule, marginalise and eliminate any male competition in the vicinity, and then dive in for the kill.
‘Oh yes, wasn’t it dreadful, Merv?’ chortled Roger. ‘Remember when that arc light nearly fell on you and you squealed really oddly, like a cartoon chipmunk?’ He dissolved into giggles. ‘Oh my, Maggie, it was utterly hilarious. All the runners and the produ
ction staff copied him for weeks, and they actually got it on film! They put it on the end of a blooper tape with “That’s all, folks!” written under it!’
He giggled and placed his hand on her arm. Mervyn noted with icy fury that Maggie didn’t bother to remove it.
‘And then, there was that time when Mervyn crashed his car at about two miles an hour! That was a scream!’
‘I did explain what happened, I was in a hurry—’
‘What happened was, it was an absolutely filthy day, weatherwise, great muddy raindrops, filth everywhere, and Mervyn’s windscreen was utterly caked in mud. Couldn’t see a thing out of it. And guess what he did? He just got in his car and drove it, and didn’t think to clear the mud off.’
‘My windscreen washers had stopped working. The wipers couldn’t move the mud. They just smudged it and made it worse.’
‘That’s his story, washers broken, wipers couldn’t clear the mud, just smudged it, exactly. BUT! He didn’t think to put on the brakes, did old Mervyn, oh no…’
Old Mervyn. You slimy bastard. You’re five years older than me if you’re a day.
‘…No, not old Mervyn, he just gently rolled his car down a slope and crashed it, very slowly, into a tree! It was the slowest of slow-motion crashes, you had to see it.’
‘Yes, well no one found it very funny at the time—’
‘And here’s the really funny part of it. He tried to get it out of the mud, we all did, we couldn’t shift it, and he just gave up! Just left it there! Two weeks later, after he’d gone back to London, he rang up a garage and got them to take it off to the nearest junkyard… And he never drove again!’
‘I’d had enough of cars, Roger.’
‘You can never have enough cars, Maggie,’ said Roger, deliberately mishearing Mervyn. ‘I’ve got a Range Rover for towing the yacht, an old Bentley for turning up to charity bashes, and a Merc which I use for pootling up and down the country. It’s the one outside with KI55 ROG3R on the plates. The women all say “Kiss Roger?” and I say “Yes please!”.’
‘Anyway, I didn’t like the car very much…’
‘Oh God! And then poor Nicholas fell off that bloody boat and nearly died of ‘flu!’ Roger cackled. ‘I shouldn’t laugh. Something like that very nearly happened to me the last time I was on my yacht…’