by Brian Hughes
Agatha wrapped her arm round Otto’s shoulder.
“Thelma member of women’s lib!”
The mammoth transvestite lifted his thumb in the universal signal for triumph. He stuck his nose in the air and gave a sniff.
“Smells like pie is burnin’.”
Another grin as the revolting stench grew that little stronger.
“Thelma good wife now. Thelma thought she’d better make her Master breakfast.”
Intermezzo the Fifth
“Bravo,” said Lucy sarcastically. “So you’re not just a local vagrant, after all? You’re actually a champion of feminist causes.”
“I just tell the stories...” replied the stranger, pulling his hat a little further down over his eyes. “I didn’t invent them. I simply copied them down verbatim. Circumstance and life provided me with the inspiration...”
“I still reckon it’s funny I never read about these things in the Greyminster Chronicle,” muttered Lucy, toying with a small sticky object on one corner of the handkerchief on which the items were laid. “I assume the government covered most of them up?”
They sat in silence for a few moments. Obviously the stranger was unimpressed by her cynicism.
At length:
“So, what’s this then?”
“Sorry...” The stranger took the fluff-covered object from her fingers. “That’s just a mint humbug that was stuck to my hankie.”
He popped the sweet in his mouth. It rattled against his teeth as he continued.
“On the other hand, this tale’s a bit more odd.” He chose a couple of sheets bound with ribbon from the collection and handed them to her. “When I was transcribing this tale on my word processor, something peculiar happened.”
“Yeah...” muttered Lucy, noticing the ancient typewriter sticking out of his rucksack. “Your word processor aged by a century or two...”
Regardless, she unrolled the pages and started to read quietly to herself.
The Lullaby of Mrs Wainthrop
Chapter One: Mrs Wainthrop’s Awakening
The summer breeze ran its fingers through the branches of the oak tree. It had stood against the wall of Mrs Wainthrop’s yard for as long as she could remember.
Granted that wasn’t very long.
She was seventy-four years old now and her memory, as far as she could recall, stretched back only as far as her eighty-second birthday.
Mrs Wainthrop hadn’t so much ‘lost her marbles’ as ‘walked away from the game with nothing more than the chalk stub.’ Whatever the case, the oak tree had stood against the wall since her earliest childhood and probably before that.
Now two workmen in donkey jackets had turned up with chainsaws. A telegraph pole was designated to take its place. As the bobble-hatted foreman bent over to lift his chainsaw from the flowerbed his hairy arse-crack gaped up at the sunlight being dappled through the leaves. Mrs Wainthrop placed the tea tray down on the patio and attempted to insert a sandwich between his buttocks.
FFzzzsst! Crackle! PHUTTTT! Testing! Testing! One, two, three! Don’t get so close to the microphone, Julian. It looks as though you’re doing something vulgar to it! Greetings Earthlings! We have taken now control of this short story with our advanced computer system.
Buzz, phuttt, crackle!
We can now control the words of this short story horizontally.
We can also control the words of this short story VERTICALLY.
We can FFzzzsst! Pop! Crackle! Spit! Bollox! Stop pigging about with the buttons, Horace!
It’s this machine. It’s got a bit of a dodgy plug!
Earthlings! Our Super Advanced Short Story Intruder System is now relaying everything we say. We have been monitoring your television signals for some time now.
Especially Cilla Black. We don’t like her very much.
And in a fortnight’s time we, the Warriors of Gnart, a small planet in what you would call the Belt of Orion…
More like his dick really...
Will invade your puny world with our superior space technology!
FFzzzsst! Binker, cackle, sputter, buggerin’ Nora. PHUTTT!
Mrs Wainthrop hobbled across the doorstep, her bunions aching, the orangutan slung across one shoulder.
“There you go, dear.”
She sat the ape down at the breakfast table, flattened the gingham cloth with her FFzzzsst hoary palms, filled the kettle from the tap and ignited the hob. Buzz! Phutter… Greetings… FFzzzsst… For crying out loud! Give me that microphone! Give me that…Mrs Wainthrop rubbed the towel across the orang-utan’s head, spiking his hair into…Earthlings, our machinery can translate everything we say and insert it at random into your puny Earth books. We are sick of your pathetic, annoying world continually warring with itself.
Julian?
We also dislike your Mr Tony Blair and his artificial grin.
I’ve found a loose wire.
What? Er, do not go away Earthlings! Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
Buzz…
In her youth Mrs Wainthrop had been an attractive girl, all lily-white limbs and rouge-coloured cheeks. She’d been around the houses a bit, but never in her life had she come across such an enormous Are we on? The little light’s going. Right…
FFzzzsst. Our intergalactic battle cruiser is even now heading toward Earth as we speak. We will be landing at a place you call Stone Henge tomorrow morning.
No we won’t. We’re stopping off to see Aunt Maureen, remember?
We’ll stop off at Maureen’s on the way back!
But she’s expecting us, Julian.
Then she’ll just have to expect won’t she, the tiresome old…turn the microphone off a min…Click!
Gavin grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her into the sweet smelling hay. Somewhere in a nearby copse an owl hooted. With his masculine teeth Gavin gripped the elastic on Mrs Wainthrop’s knickers, wrenching his head back with the grace of a stallion. The undergarments tore with a shredding noise revealing a Buzz…making me sound stupid! I was only trying to help! Well don’t buggerin’…crackle…It was a most unpleasant experience for the duck.
Clunk, FFzzzsst, Parp!
Earthlings, there is no point in attempting to destroy us with your puny little weapons. Our craft is indestructible. Resistance is futile. Shit! Shit! Shit! What’s up now? There’s a bee in the cockpit! AAARRRRGH!
FFzzzsst, crackle, beep.
Chapter Three: The Aftermath
Mrs Wainthrop took a puff on her cigarette, her eyes glazed over. She’d never imagined how much power a group of acrobatic pygmies could exert.
Only in her wildest dreams could she ever have come across the performing shire horse and its incredibly massive…Our demands are simple, Earthlings! Get down on your hands and knees and grovel to us! Yes, yes and kiss our toes with your puny Earthling lips! Don’t be disgusting, Horace. Have you seen the state of your toes? It’s only a fungal infection, Julian. We also demand that Bonnie Langford be hung, drawn and quartered as an example to you all. And Brian Blessed, don’t forget him. He’s so outré! And Brian Blessed apparently… and the Queen Mum. Have you seen the state of her teeth? All nasty brown things with seaweed on ‘em. Horace! We also demand that…AAAARGH! Shit! The bee’s come back! It’s looking at me, Julian! STOP PRATTING ABOUT! YOU’LL ‘AVE YOUR COFFEE OVER! FFzzzsst! Crackle! Spit! Ping! Wheeze!
COMPUTER MALFUNCTION. ABANDON CRAFT! ABANDON CRAFT!
You stupid pillock! Look what you’ve done! CRACKLE! PHUtttttt….
Mrs Wainthrop settled herself down in the armchair and picked up her knitting.
Through the window she could just make out the sea lion hanging from the branches of the oak tree.
“Well,” she thought, setting about a pearl stitch. “It isn’t often one discovers the meaning of life in a shoebox. I suppose that things around Greyminster will never be the same again.”
Crackle! Spit! You rescued the machine, did you Horace? Even though we couldn’t fit any supplies in
the Escape Pod you still managed to get the machine? Right, well give us your finger. That’s right. Put it inside the little socket…
FFFFFFZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZST!
Intermezzo the Sixth
“That was mercifully brief.” Lucy placed her chin in her hands and stared at the stranger quietly. For his part the stranger appeared to blush, although it was difficult to tell how deeply with his face being in the shadow of his large hat.
“Of course, I know I’ve mentioned this before but if you searched your heart you’d have to admit that you were trapped in a relationship you don’t want,” commented the stranger at length as though he was struggling to get Lucy back on the right track.
His statement could almost have been a question the way it turned up at the end.
Whatever it was, it was designed to catch Lucy off-guard.
It failed.
“Didn’t you used to work in the grocer’s on Atwell Crescent?”
“It’s better to be alone...” the stranger stumbled on. “Than to be with the wrong person.”
“Yeah, I’ve watched Ally McBeal as well.”
“Well...I haven’t had a cigarette for hours,” said the stranger affronted. “It’s very difficult to work without my nicotine fix.”
“Sorry, can’t help you there.”
“Never mind,” said the stranger. “I’ll just have to smoke my pipe instead.”
Lucy sat back in her chair, studying her companion with narrow eyes as he pulled a clay pipe from his waistcoat pocket.
“You can’t possibly make a living out of this, can you?”
“I do my best,” said the stranger.
“And this is your best, is it?”
There was almost a sneer in Lucy’s voice.
“So, what’s this then?”
The stranger seemed glad to change the subject.
He adjusted the collar of his sweater and took the ancient book from her.
“Now this is quite a big adventure,” he said. “One that requires a slice of Eccles Cake to help it on its way.”
“Hmm...” Lucy opened her purse and compressed her lips. “I haven’t had much inspiration for my essay yet. I hope this one’s going to be worth it!”
“Oh I assure you it will be.”
Lucy still seemed unconvinced.
“Only one slice of Eccles’ cake. The cheapest in the cabinet.” There was almost a pleading in the stranger’s voice now.
He’s not hungry, thought Lucy. He just wants some reassurance that’s all.
“One slice of Eccles’ cake then,” she said out loud, removing a fifty pence piece from her purse. “But this time I want inspiration.”
The Dream of the Great Barking Toad
Portion the First: Rude Awakenings
It was a winter’s afternoon in Devil’s Copse. Snow hung from the knuckles of the trees.
Jess Hobson watched the ducks tumbling across their frozen pond. At length he hoisted his stomach and felt the cold air pinch his closely cropped scalp.
There was the rustle of bushes somewhere behind him. Jannice Applebotham sauntered through the prickly bowers. “I’ve done it, Jess.”
Jannice was an exceptionally large girl, her corpulence thinly disguised by her colourful attire.
“I’ve given up my Women’s Studies.”
She twisted a willow twig between her fingers coquettishly.
“What about Germoline Greer?”
“Actually Jess, it’s Germane. And I’ve written her a letter pointing out the fundamental flaws in the Female Eunuch.” Another twist and the willow began to shred. “I said that all she really needed was a damn good shag.”
Jess rubbed the sprout of his nose. Then he checked his hand for whatever had abandoned his nostril.
“And Janet?”
“Yes, Jess…Jar-nette’s agreed to three in a bed. We both fully understand the male need to procreate and widen his gene-pool.”
“She doesn’t mind ’aving ’er nipples coated in banana custard then?”
For a moment he thought he might have overstepped the boundaries of common decency.
But Jannice pursed her lips and watched a clump of snow tumble soundlessly from a nearby oak.
“No Jess! In fact, all the girls from the Women’s Study Group now understand the error of their ways. They’d like to become your disciples.”
“’Bob on! Am I a pussy magnet or what?”
“Jess?” Jannice tossed the twig into the undergrowth. “Y’ know what I’d really like to do?”
Her eyes sparkled mischievously.
A bolus of worry scaled Jess’ throat.
“Bury you’re ’ead in a pig trough full o’ sausages?”
“No…rip off your Dennis the Menace boxer shorts with my teeth.”
Suddenly she was on him, her hot breath lifting the hairs on his broad neck, her lips sucking his cheeks in the fashion of damp squids.
“No, no, no!”
A fake duck’s head now joined in with the melee, pecking violently at Jess’ ears.
The dark bedroom came into focus, the sweat pouring down his temples.
A skein of dust-mites toppled onto his duvet as the last of his shouts vibrated the rafters.
Jess shook the sleep from his still-ringing ears as his eyes became accustomed to the dark.
“Dear God! What an ’orrible nightmare!”
Portion the Second: Media Studies and Social Intercourse
June the Fifth, 114 Applegate. Jess Hobson’s living room resembled Normandy at the end of the Second World War. Beer cans littered the carpet like abandoned tanks, burger cartons resembling damaged pillboxes.
Not much of a showpiece for the headquarters of Hobson & Co, Paranormal Investigators, it must be said.
Amongst it all, spread-eagled across his armchair with all the delicacy of a jellyfish, floundered Jess himself, his head buried in a copy of Old Kent Road.
There was a sudden knocking at the door.
Jess stuffed the magazine beneath the cushion as Jannice Applebotham poked her face around the jamb.
“Hello Jess?”
She struggled through the gap, forcing a mound of unwashed plates towards the skirting board. Holding onto her hand was Thomas.
“Watcha up to?”
“Nothin’!” Jess replied, with too much emphasis to ring totally true. “Watchin’ telly!”
Jannice cast one quizzical eyebrow towards the blank screen.
Jess’ features turned deep crimson.
“What are y’ tryin’ to say, Jannice? That I was ’aving a wank, or somethin’?”
“I never said a word.”
With deliberation she reorganised the cruets about the coffee table until there was enough room to put down her college files.
“Actually, Jess, I’ve come to ask you a favour. The truth is, I want to borrow some of your porno films. I’m doing a project for the Women’s Study Group, y’ see?”
“Well, I ’aven’t got any!” The armchair creaked as Jess worked himself into its comforting folds. “Don’t need ’em! I have t’ fight the birds off as it is!”
“Yeah, I can believe that!” Jannice lifted a pair of rigid boxers from a toppling mound of cassettes. “So what are these then? ’Oliday videos?”
“I’m just lookin’ after ’em! For Greg O’Donnel. Y’ know Greg? Likes t’ smack around the old bishop more than Grace Darling.”
Lifting one of the videos from the pile and flicking a wedge of mouldy pizza from its cover, Jannice studied the startlingly pink illustration.
‘Bouncing Buttocks, Volume 41’ read the words in badly photocopied yellow letters.
“So he won’t mind if I borrow some, then?”
“What are y’ up to any’ow?” Jess continued, ignoring the question. “Some sort of lesbo all-night lick-in?”
“I’m preparing a thesis on ‘Men’s Role as the Sexual Aggressor in the Changing Modern Environment’.”
“Whilst licking the television sc
reen with Jar-nette?”
“You know what, Jess? You’re a sad little sod, aren’t y’?”
Without waiting for permission she fumbled a video into each of the pockets of her dufflecoat. Then she turned to leave.
Thomas was already three steps ahead of her.
“It’s perhaps as well that men are controlled by their sexual organs," she muttered on the way out. "If it was your brains we’d all be buggered!”
June the Fifth, 7.30 p.m.
The television crackled. Crinkly Bottom flooded the room with a sense of chilling mediocrity.
From Jess’ armchair cigarette smoke spread up and across the ceiling like the roots from some upside-down tree.
“Bearded git!”
At times like these Jess took his drunken misery out on the television screen.
“Y’ wouldn’t dare hide a camera in my apartment! I’d have y’ taken off the air faster than I could shit a Tandori Take-Away.”
Just to be on the safe side he took a sidelong glance about the room anyhow.
“Wobble, gobble, wobble!” shrieked the joker in the rubber chicken costume on the television.
“And you can bugger off as well y’ talentless fat wanker!”
The filter of his cigarette sizzled. It was accompanied by the smell of burning fingernail. Suddenly animated, Jess hunted for the ashtray.
Now where the buggerin’ Hell had that gone? Through some chain of events (which will have to remain a mystery I’m afraid) the melted Val Doonican record that had become the mass grave for thousands of dog ends had become wedged behind Jannice’s college books. She must have left them on the coffee table in her hurry to leave the boarding house before her lungs had collapsed.
“What’ve we got ’ere then?”
Jess gave a tug and sent a spring of dog-ends into the air.
The Winnie the Pooh folder fell open at a random page.
Squinting drunkenly Jess started to read:
‘My whole term’s work concerning the case study of Mr X was almost undone yesterday when I thought that he’d rumbled my investigations.