Inflatable Hugh

by Terry Ravenscroft

  Reamer hadn’t missed the lack of conviction in Seal’s reply. “You don’t sound very sure about your opposition to sex toys?”

  Seal tried to sound more convincing. “I’m very sure.”

  The insurance investigator looked at him for a moment or two as though making up his mind whether or not to believe him, then said: “I will give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  Seal decided it was about time he stood up for himself a bit. He hadn’t done anything wrong, despite this man’s insinuations, and if Reamer thought he had well let him go ahead and prove it. “There isn’t any doubt, Mr Reamer. No doubt at all.”

  “Which I am quite prepared to believe,” said Reamer. He smiled. “If you can answer to my satisfaction one question. And that question is this. If, as you say, you are a happily married man, why were you hiding an inflatable rubber woman up your chimney?”

  Seal couldn’t have been more surprised if Reamer had accused him of having the Crown Jewels hidden up his chimney. “An inflatable rubber woman?”

  Reamer opened his briefcase, took out four small pieces of charred rubber, the largest of them no more than four inches by three inches. He took his time in placing them on the coffee table that separated him from Seal, laying them out like exhibits in the Black Museum, then sat back, indicated the pieces of rubber with a nod of his head and invited him to comment.

  Seal looked at them more closely. “What are they?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I can’t. That’s why I’m asking you.”

  “Very well, if you insist on making things more difficult for yourself than they already are. It is an inflatable rubber woman.”

  “That? That’s an inflatable rubber woman?”

  “The remains of. Which were found amongst the resultant debris following the demolition of your chimney breast. Which, I am reliably informed, exploded by virtue of gases building up in your chimney due to it being blocked up by the said inflatable rubber woman.”

  Seal looked more closely at the pieces of rubber. “They could be anything. They could be from an old inner tube or something.”

  “They could be, but they’re not.” He pointed to one of the pieces of rubber. Unlike the other three pieces it had retained some of its pink colouring and in its centre was a round, more pinker protrusion. “Or if they are then it’s the first inner tube I’ve ever seen with a nipple.” He indicated another of the pieces of rubber. “And if that isn’t conclusive enough evidence, there is this.” He pointed out four just discernible words embossed on the rubber. “‘An Hour In Bed’. The name of the manufacturer of the said inflatable rubber woman. The manufacturer from who you purchased it.”

  “I never did!”

  “Then what was it doing up your chimney?”

  “Well I didn’t put it there,” Seal protested.

  “So who did?”

  “Well I don’t know, do I.” No sooner had he said this than the answer suddenly came to him. He blurted it out, relieved. “The previous owner. It must have been put there by the previous owner. It would be him, what was his name, Barker, Mr Barker.” Another thought came to him, adding strength to his contention. “He was a bachelor.”

  Reamer raised his eyebrows. “Was he now?” His tone was steeped in suspicion.

  Seal picked up on this and furiously nodded agreement. “Yes, a bachelor. A man who would have the need of an inflatable rubber woman. Unlike a married man, a happily married man, like me. Who would not have the need of an inflatable rubber woman.”

  Reamer nodded. “He lived on his own, this bachelor?”

  “Yes. On his own. There were no parents or lodgers or anything.”

  Reamer smiled, not his Jew hunter faux friendly smile now but a genuine smile of relief that the claimant, a fellow ex-policeman, was off the hook. “Well that would seem to wrap it up then, Mr Seal.”

  Seal breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes.”

  “And means of course that I will be able to recommend that your claim is met in full.”

  “Excellent. Thank you. Thank you indeed, Mr Reamer.”

  “If you can answer me one more question.”

  “Of course.”

  Ominously the genuine smile disappeared from Reamer’s face to be replaced by the Jew hunter smile yet again. He toyed with Seal for a few moments. Finally he spoke. “If this character Mr Barker was a bachelor – who, by your own admission, lived on his own - why did he have to hide his inflatable rubber woman up the chimney?”

  Seal couldn’t supply an answer to Reamer’s question, either then or later when he’d had time to think about it. The file was still open but he realised there was little chance his claim would be met. There had been no help forthcoming from Barker when Seal had tracked him down. The former owner of Seal’s house had denied all knowledge of the inflatable rubber woman, no doubt thinking that to admit it would lay the blame for the explosion at his door, and when Seal had persisted he had sent him away with a flea in his ear.

  ****

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Are you trying to tell me it’s worth fuck all?”

  “Well I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” said the An Hour In Bed company secretary, George Plimmer.

  Pugh was steaming. “Then which way would you put it?” Before Plimmer had the chance to tell him Pugh had thought of something. “Surely the land and buildings must be worth something?”

  “Oh indeed. But unfortunately Mr Pugh....your brother, that is...remortgaged all the land and buildings in order to partially finance his grand scheme. You do know about the ten million pounds he gave to Cleek University?”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “If only it wasn’t for the contaminated stock. If it hadn’t been for that....” Plimmer shrugged.

  Pugh’s head jerked. “What contaminated stock?”

  “You didn’t pass through the warehouse on your tour of the factory with Mr Wainwright?”

  “I did. And it looked pretty overfull to me.”

  “And he didn’t tell you about the contaminated stock?”

  Pugh shook his head. “You tell me.”

  Plimmer looked extremely uncomfortable. “Well strictly speaking Mr Wainwright is the man who should be telling you, it isn’t my....”

  Pugh gave Plimmer the benefit of the icy glare he reserved for dogsbodies. “Tell me about the contaminated stock!”

  Plimmer swallowed. “Yes. Of course. Well the thing is, one million of our inflatable rubber women, which were bound for Africa, have....”

  “Africa?”

  “Yes. It was by far the biggest order we’ve ever taken on. Mr Pugh...Aneurin Pugh...it was his idea actually - a very clever man, your brother, if I may say so, brilliant head for business....”

  “For Christ’s sake get on with it man!”

  “Yes. Well Mr Pugh negotiated the order with the African League of Nations along with the Government and a consortium of various charities. I believe War on Want and Oxfam were involved. Your brother’s vision was that instead of supplying condoms to African natives, which apparently they don’t like to use any more than do men in this country, we would supply them with a million inflatable rubber women; the idea being that they could have intercourse with them instead of having it with their wives and consequently getting them pregnant again, as I believe Africans are prone to do.”

  “And?”

  “And thus adding to the already impoverished population yet another mouth to feed.”

  “I know that Plimmer, I’m a Cabinet Minister, I’m not fucking thick. I meant and what happened? Why are they still in the warehouse instead of Bongobongoland or wherever we’re sending them to?”

  “Well as I’ve already said, they’re all contaminated.”

  “In what way?”

  “Apparently some foreign matter or other got in the mixer in the Realistic Vaginal Juices Department and contaminated the realistic vaginas. Then when the realistic vaginas were fitted to the inflatable rubber women they fur
ther contaminated the rubber and...well I’m afraid they’ve all ended up completely unusable. The slightest skin contact with them brings one out in the most terrible rash. Our head of Quality Control, Mr Diplock, is still off work three weeks after becoming contaminated. The poor man simply can’t stop scratching. Payment for the rubber women was strictly on delivery, we can’t deliver, so....” Plimmer shrugged again.

  “Shit!”

  “Indeed.”

  Pugh saw a straw and clutched it. “Can’t they keep their clothes on and wear a condom?”

  “Well that would rather be defeating the object of sending them inflatable rubber women in the first place, wouldn’t it. Besides, as I’ve already pointed out, they don’t like wearing condoms. And as far as keeping their clothes on they don’t tend to wear much more than a loincloth in Namibia.”

  “Shit!”

  “Indeed.”

  Pugh sat back to consider his options. He didn’t know what his options were yet but he hadn’t been a Minister of three Government Departments without learning that there were options, there always were, there was always a way. It was finding it. One such way came to him more or less immediately. “Who knows about this? About them being contaminated?”

  “Well Mr Wainwright. You and me of course. Mr Squelch....”

  “Who’s Mr Squelch when he’s at home?”

  “The Head of the Realistic Vaginal Juices Department. His real name is Quelch, but everybody.... And the operatives in Mr Squelch’s department of course, they will know too because all their machines had to be decontaminated. A few of the office staff, they know.”

  “But the Africans? Do they know? Or the Government?”

  “Well not so far as I’m aware. Mr Pugh told them there was a temporary glitch and that there would be a slight delay in fulfilling the order. We were about to start manufacturing replacements when the poor man died.”

  “But surely that didn’t stop you? I mean you still had a huge order to fulfil.”

  “And just as soon as the factory had recovered from the tragedy of Mr Pugh’s death we set about fulfilling it. But no sooner had we re-commenced production than the Realistic Vaginal Juices Department became contaminated again. We suspected foul play at first, but on investigation it turned out to be a deeply corroded inlet pipe. It set us back another two weeks while it was being replaced and we’ve only just got going again. And as I’ve already explained we’ve got way behind with customers’ orders, they’re turning to other manufacturers, several have cancelled, our creditors are banging on the door, and to top it off this afternoon I got no joy at all from the Inland Revenue and VAT people in my attempts to gain an extension to our already overdue obligations in that regard. So, like I say, An Hour In Bed isn’t really worth a thing at the moment. We may in fact be losing money.”

  “Shit!”

  “Indeed.”

  Plimmer sat back and folded his arms in the hope the gesture would indicate to Pugh that there was nothing more to be said about the matter. However something had dawned on Pugh. Something wasn’t quite right, wasn’t consistent with what he’d seen earlier in the day. He pointed it out. “But the factory is in full production.”

  “Yes. Producing and selling just about enough to service the interest payments on the loans we’ve already taken out to keep our heads above water, plus the loans we will have to take out in order to satisfy the demands of the Inland Revenue and the VAT people. I’m afraid we are in a vicious circle, Mr Pugh.”

  “So how much are we in the shit for?”

  “How much do we owe?” Plimmer thought about it for a moment. “Ball Park, with the tax and Vat, about half a million pounds, give or take.”

  Pugh took in this latest bombshell and remained silent for a moment or two while he thought the situation through. Suddenly he cracked a smile as an idea suggested itself. Plimmer didn’t like the look of it at all, neither the smile nor what such a smile might bode when it appeared on the face of what had already turned out to be a thoroughly obnoxious man. “So what’s to stop us just sending them anyway?” Pugh finally said.

  “Sending what?”

  “The inflatable rubber women.”

  “To Africa?”

  “No, fucking Timbuktu. Of course Africa, where else you moron?”

  It passed through Plimmer’s mind to inform Pugh that Timbuktu was in Africa. However a much more important thought pushed it out of the way. “But they’re contaminated, Mr Pugh.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well if someone were to have sex with one it would contaminate him.”

  “So? The buggers spend half the time scratching themselves anyway, what’s a bit more scratching? Give them something to do.”

  Plimmer could scarcely believe his ears. He knew that politicians could be quite ruthless in their dealings, and had even been known to start wars on a whim, but what Pugh was suggesting was quite monstrous. Fortunately his new boss wouldn’t be able to go through with it. “The Foreign Minister knows,” he said. “He was here, he knows the full story.”

  “Shit!”

  “Indeed.”

  After lobbing back what he hoped was the final ‘Indeed’ in the ‘Shit/Indeed’ rally, Plimmer went on: “Furthermore we’re stuck with them until such time as the people from the Department of the Environment advise us what do with them.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Well they’re contaminated. We can’t just dump them on the tip. Or burn them. We can’t have thirty million poundsworth of contaminated inflatable rubber women polluting the atmosphere.”

  Pugh’s jaw had dropped a few times during his meeting with Plimmer but now dropped to its lowest point yet. “Thirty million poundsworth?”

  “That’s just the costs of production of course. Forty five million if you include the profit element.” Pugh’s jaw almost reached the floor on hearing this. “Unfortunately they were from our de-luxe range, with realistic vaginal juices, so.....”

  Pugh blew his top. “Will you for Christ’s sake stop going on about realistic vaginal juices!”

  “I’m sorry. Familiarity you know. As far as we at An Hour In Bed are concerned we might just as well be talking about....oh, fruit gums or something.”

  “Well bloody well call them fruit gums in future when you’re talking to me about them! Because I’m fed up to the back teeth with realistic vaginal juices!” The mental picture his words conjured up caused Pugh to clutch at his stomach in the anticipation it was going to turn over again.

  Plimmer did his best to look concerned. “Are you all right, Mr Pugh?”

  “All right? All fucking right? I come here under the impression I’ve inherited a profitable concern and you tell me I’ve inherited a pile of shit? No I am not all right, Plimmer, I am far from fucking all right!”

  Plimmer shrugged. “Well I’m afraid that’s the position Mr Pugh,” he said, consolingly. “I wish it wasn’t so, but....”

  Utterly dejected Pugh got to his feet. “I’m going back to London.”

  Dejected as Pugh was he became even more dejected when on getting into his car a few minutes later he saw an inflatable rubber woman had been placed on the passenger seat. She was completely naked and there was a note stuck to her where her knickers would have been had she been wearing any. It read: ‘Willing Wilma. With the compliments of a fan of yours’.

  “Of all the....!” Pugh was beside himself. As well as beside Willing Wilma. It wasn’t very long before he realised that he might be beside her for quite some time.

  Wishing to keep the news of his good fortune to himself for the time being Pugh had dispensed with the services of his chauffeur and had driven himself to Ramsbottom in his BMW Z4 sports coupe. Slaithwaite had a mouth on him and, whilst maybe not having the ear of the Prime Minister, had the ear of the Prime Minister’s chauffeur, which was more than enough to make Pugh exercise caution.

  The BMW was a very small car and Willing Wilma was a very big inflatable rubber woman, and although she may very
well have been willing to supply sex on demand she proved to be totally unwilling to have herself removed from the car.

  A complication was that Pugh didn’t know whether she was one of the contaminated sex dolls or one of the new stock. Consequently he was forced to treat her as though she were the former. The problem this presented was exactly opposite to that faced by Elton Arbuckle when he was attempting to have sex with Bouncy Beyonce, inasmuch as whilst Arbuckle was trying his hardest to get into the inflatable rubber woman Pugh was trying his hardest to keep out of it, or at least well away from the part of it that might contaminate him. This necessitated the battle being engaged at arm’s length, and with the lack of leverage this strategy dictated it made an already difficult job almost impossible. After two minutes of Pugh’s tugging and pushing in all directions Willing Wilma was no further from being removed from the car than when he’d started.

  He had set about the task by getting out of the car, opening the passenger door and trying to pull her out by the breasts. Although her breasts had stretched far enough to start leaving the car the rest of her refused to follow. Pugh had therefore abandoned the method in favour of getting back into the driving seat and attempting to push her out, first with his arms, and, when this method bore no fruit, with his feet. Both to no avail. Although she was a different model than Bouncy Beyonce, Willing Wilma shared Beyonce’s conical breasts, and a minute later, when attempting to wrestle Wilma out of the car, Pugh made his task even more difficult by poking himself in the eye with one of them.

  Wiping his eye, he sat back to consider the problem. As if in sympathy Willing Wilma seemed to settle back in her seat. He thought to go for help, some manpower to drag the sex doll out of her new home, but the factory had closed at five thirty and it was now almost six. Damn Wainwright and Plimmer, they’d pay for this, by Christ would they.