by Ben Elton
However, finding prostitutes is not really very easy in nice English towns, or probably anywhere for that matter. As the Global Crappee advert showed, the masturbating fantasies of video directors give the impression that gorgeous prostitutes are standing on every street corner, but of course they are not. Sandy had no idea where to look for one and after a nasty mistake with a late-night doughnut maker had retired to his room rather than be done for kerb crawling.
But the defence of Britain's greatest public transport system was not over yet. Sandy had a different plan, an even drunker one. He was a slim fellow, with large eyes and fine bones, and he was desperate.
'Nothing at all, darling. Go back to sleep,' he said, stealing a pair of stockings from her bag.
'I have to pop down and do a bit more business.'
'Bloody bullshitters,' she replied through her sleep.
To Sandy's great good fortune his wife had purchased a wig that day, to wear at the end of conference ball. He took it.
'Quite important people actually,' he said . . . 'Think I'd better have a shave,' and rolling up his trouser legs Sandy disappeared into the bathroom.
I HEAR YOU KNOCKING
Deborah could not sleep. It was one of those aggravating occasions when one is too tired to sleep. Having had a busy day, she had arrived home pretty exhausted and gone to bed early convinced she would be asleep in five minutes. And here she was, two and a half hours later, wide awake, listening to noises. It was one of those nights when for no particular reason a person feels more scared than usual. Anybody living on their own is going to feel nervous every now and then, particularly a woman, but tonight Deborah had it worse.
Every creak and rustle seemed imbued with murderous intent. The shadows of the trees thrown against her curtain by the street lights turned into a steady stream of mad axe murderers strolling past her window. It was almost as if the All England Federation of Mad Axe Murderers had elected to have their annual convention in Deborah's front garden.
The wind whispered under her front door, and the wind had a very sick sense of humour that night. What other reason could there be for it whispering, 'Deborah, I'm going to get you. You can't run, Deborah, you can't run'? Unless of course it wasn't the wind at all, but an asthmatic sex fiend stretched out on her doormat getting his kicks. To Deborah's restless ear that whispering was beginning to sound more and more like the dickhead who used to ring her up before she got Telecom to put an intercept on her calls. Had he come to get her? Deborah longed to shout 'Piss off, dickhead' but it was probably only the wind.
The fridge was particularly talkative that night, it moaned and it burped, it burped and it moaned. It stopped moaning and burping, waited until Deborah's eyes began to become heavy, and then with a great moan and a burp started moaning and burping again. Eventually Deborah began to wonder whether this relentless cacophony of sound was the fridge at all. Maybe it was one of the mad axemen in the garden. Perhaps an unhappy one with a digestive problem had stepped over the asthmatic sex fiend, crept into the house and was standing in her kitchen by a silent fridge having his pre-murder moan and burp.
When the doorbell rang Deborah's heart nearly stopped. Was it the axemen? Was it the neighbours complaining about the axemen? No way was she getting up to find out. Gingerly she reached for the radio that Geoffrey had made for her and tuned into the frequency of her door intercom.
'Hello,' she said, trying to sound like a heavyweight boxer with a gun. Deborah listened then smiled with relief, she would know that guttural stutter anywhere. The relief turned almost instantly to anger.
'Geoffrey,' she snapped into the radio. 'What the hell are you playing at? I thought someone was trying to kill me.'
'Someone is trying to kill me,' Geoffrey spoke into the intercom, rather enjoying saying such a momentous and cool thing. Unfortunately the impact was wasted because Deborah, who normally understood at least 90 per cent of what Geoffrey said, was too fazed to follow him.
'God knows what you want, but you'd better come in.' She pressed the button and the ingenious radio wave that Geoffrey had created opened the door for him. Deborah remained in bed whilst, with great care, Geoffrey made some coffee and brought it through into her room, then spilt it.
'OK, duvet head,' said Deborah sternly. 'What's the big idea busting in in the middle of the night? If you've come round here trying to get in my pants again I'm going to be real mad, OK, doughnut brain? I mean, ringing your mom-type mad, Geoffrey! and you know she hates it when you get horny.'
DEBORAH
Deborah was a citizen of the US. She used to refer to herself as an American, until she got trapped in a bar by a Canadian and a Peruvian who spent two mind-numbingly boring hours explaining to her that America is a continent not a country.
She was twenty-one years old and had been in Britain for three years studying, but the spirit of New York still seemed to hang about her. At any moment you expected her to say 'All right already'. Having had an English grandmother she had come to Britain to escape an over protective Jewish family circle. Her parents were not rich but they had agreed to help her through her four-year course in textiles.
'You need to travel three thousand miles to learn how to make trousers and blouses?' her poppa had complained. 'Trousers and blouses you can make in New York and live with your family. Is there a problem with New York I would like to know? Did we all suddenly get body odour?'
'Poppa, there's nothing wrong with New York, if you discount the fact that a person can get shot putting out the garbage, and then the city can't even afford to pick up the garbage, so a person dies for nothing and rats move into the neighbourhood hanging around the trash cans taking steroids,' explained Deborah. 'I love New York. It's you and Momma I can't stand.'
'Hear her, Poppa, hear her!' Momma had wailed. 'Deborah, listen to me. You turn your back on your family, and you desert your whole people, and your god. Nobody likes a Jew, family is all we got, read a history book.'
'Momma, I'm going to England, not joining the Nazi Party,' Deborah had protested. She knew it would be OK, there was nothing her family liked more than a drama. If Deborah had not announced that she wanted to go to Britain her mother would have wailed about Deborah's neckline.
'Maybe you should hang them out of the window,' Momma would protest at anything saucier than a turtleneck. 'I hear there are still people on Staten Island who haven't seen your bosom.'
'Momma, I have tits,' Deborah would explain wearily. 'OK, I'm sorry, but they're stuck to the front of me. If I could keep them in a handbag I would.'
'So now it's OK to swear in front of your mother?'
Gradually, over supper that evening Deborah's parents came round to the idea of her studying abroad.
'I suppose New York is getting kind of dangerous,' conceded Deborah's mother.
'Kind of dangerous, she says!' said Poppa. 'Like Hitler was a little temperamental. Dangerous? I should go to work in a tank! Drugs, crack, bullets flying everywhere, nobody knows who'll catch a stray next. Last week, Gosha, the watch repair fellow, he was shot in his own apartment. Am I still living in America when a man isn't safe in his own apartment?'
'Poppa, Mr Gosha shot himself,' said Deborah. 'Crack didn't kill the guy, quartz did. He gave up the struggle when they started giving away watches inside cereal boxes.'
And so the conversation moved on to other topics, and Deborah was allowed to go to London. She was later to reflect on the irony of her parents supporting the trip partly on the grounds of New York's reputation for violence. For the night she let her friend Geoffrey into her home to seek sanctuary, she was letting in more violence than she would have got if she'd skipped London and joined the marines.
SANCTUARY
Geoffrey strenuously denied the accusation that his intrusion of Deborah's privacy was in any way carnally motivated.
'Deborah,' protested Geoffrey. 'My motives are pure as the driven snow.'
'Oh yeah?' she replied. 'Well I've seen snow in London. They mix it
with gasoline and dog shit and pile it up in the gutter.'
Deborah was justified in being a little suspicious. Geoffrey had never attempted to disguise the fact that he craved her, and she had had on numerous occasions to dampen his ardour. It was not unreasonable of her to suspect that this was one of them.
'Pitch me, Geoffrey, and it had better be good,' she said.
'Deborah,' Geoffrey replied. 'I'm in trouble, the twilight zone is here. Two men came to my house tonight and tried to kill me. But luckily I managed to kill them first.'
Deborah was flabbergasted.
'That is pathetic, Geoffrey,' she said. 'Linda Lovelace wouldn't swallow that story, and she'd swallow anything. If you're going to invade a chick's privacy in the middle of the night you're going to have to do better than that. Go home and take less drugs.'
'No really, Deborah,' stammered Geoffrey. 'It's true.'
And pausing only to knock the glass of water off Deborah's bedside table, Geoffrey explained the events of the day.
I HEAR YOU KNOCKING TOO
Digby Parkhurst was having a restless night as well.
The booze and the comprehensive way he had put down the mighty Sam Turk had put a right ruddy firework in his jocks. He was restless and randy. Digby knew that elsewhere in the hotel, other, more important ministers were holding court and probably having an amazing time, but nobody had invited him.
He kicked round his room, wishing he hadn't left the road lobby soiree. They would probably still be drinking, probably having a really great time without him. Could he go back? Of course he bloody could, he was the Minister for Transport, he could do what he liked. But even dull stupid Digby knew that it would look a bit pathetic to sidle back now after his magnificent exit. Besides he might run into those dreadful railway people.
Digby realized he had shot his bolt. He dug a Scotch out of his minibar and was vaguely wondering about whether he could be bothered to haul off his shreddies and have a bit of a twang on the old one-string bass, when there was a knock at the door.
So they weren't ignoring him after all! It was probably Sam and some of the guys from the road lobby come to crawl a bit more. Perhaps it would be a couple of his cabinet colleagues looking for a bit of a lads' booze-up. Digby opened the door with a big smile.
'I'm awfully sorry to bother you, but I can't find my room. Do you think I might come in and use your phone?' said the tall, slender figure with the tight dress, the flaming red hair and the husky voice.
Digby stared at Sandy. Sandy stared back. They were both very drunk, both for a moment lost in their own thoughts. After a few seconds Sandy felt the onus remained with him to continue the conversation.
'Oh I see you've broken the seal on your mini-bar, I'm gasping for a snort,' he said. Trying to say it through a sexy pout.
Digby, who appeared to have been struck completely dumb, came back to life.
'How did you know? Who else knows? Who the hell put you up to it?' His voice shook with guilt and fear.
Sandy had not really expected this, and did not know what to say next. So he said, 'Uhm,' and left it at that.
'Get in here now,' said Digby, realizing that his worst nightmare was now reality, and trying desperately to sober up.
'All right, sonny, you tell me, and you tell me now, who put you up to this? If you hold back I swear I shall turn you over to the police as a dirty little blackmailing whore, and hang the consequences.'
'Sonny?' said Sandy rather disappointed.
'Yes, sonny, now answer my question.'
'So you know I'm a bloke then?' continued Sandy, his voice returning to its natural brogue.
'Oh God, a bloody Scot.' Digby was a very worried man. 'I knew they'd get me. Is this because I'm planning to put a road through the courtyard at Edinburgh Castle?'
Sandy did not know what to do. His drunken plan had been to smite Digby with his girlish charms, get a tape recording of Digby propositioning him and then clear out before Digby had a chance to find the sausage. His instant unmasking as a gonad-packing, tackle-swinging member of the male sex had rather blown that out. Suddenly Sandy decided he had had enough.
'Sorry, wrong room,' he said and made to go.
'No you bloody don't!' said Digby, jumping up to stop him. 'Not before you tell me who the hell sent you and who the hell knows I'm bloody gay.'
For Sandy at least, those words seemed to fill the room with music, beautiful music, played on train whistles. He smiled a huge smile. He slipped a hand in his wife's handbag to ensure the tape was running.
In some ways Digby was a victim of his own cowardice. His unquestioning acceptance that his sexuality must always remain a dreaded secret was the very reason that the revelation was so terrible now. It is true that such are the prejudices of British society that, had he confronted it from the beginning, he might not have risen to the Cabinet – but he might have done, and he certainly would not have lived a life of career paranoia and seedy intrigue. And now he was knackered anyway, his carefully cultivated jack-the-lad image making the truth about him all the more sensational.
'Come on, who's after me? Who knows I'm a gay transvestite! I only ever do it in Amsterdam . . .' Suddenly light dawned for Digby. Amsterdam! His last three trips to the Continent had been as a guest of the road lobby. They took him to motor shows, they took him to oil refineries . . . They left him alone in the evening. God, was this Turk's way of warning him not to dress him down in public? Was Turk warning him, in none too subtle a fashion, that he would burgle as many government departments as he pleased? How could Digby have been so foolish as to quarrel with a man like Turk?
'Listen,' said Digby, 'tell Turk, I understand and I'm sorry. Tell him he can pinch every patent in London if he likes, I'll stand by him. Tell him I'm very, very sorry and he won't need to warn me again. Do you understand?'
The years fell away from Digby. The arrogance of office evaporated. He knew he was still what he always had been, a sad scared little farty. Once again he was poor old Shitsby Zitburst pleading with the school bullies.
'Do you understand?' he said again. 'Tell Turk to call it off.'
'Yes, I understand,' said Sandy, who did not understand at all.
'You can go then.'
Sandy got up.
'OK then. It's been very nice.' He was about to leave, but he turned back to Digby once more. 'Just do me one favour will you, Digby? Remember this handbag, will you?' Sandy held up the handbag, and then left without another word.
Leaving a subdued and thoughtful Digby, Sandy staggered away, suddenly realizing how blotto he was. As he entered the lift a maid was coming out of it to collect the breakfast orders. Feeling rather exposed, Sandy confronted the situation with Scottish bravado.
'A bonny evening to you, sweet lassie,' he said.
'Good evening, madam,' said the girl in a small embarrassed voice. Sandy felt pleased. So his disguise had at least worked on someone. Leaving the lift on his floor he crept back to his room and tried to get undressed without waking his wife up. He failed.
'Will you look at you,' she said. 'You've been living in London too long.'
SCUM ON THE BEACH
With the departure of the Minister the road lobby had soon broken up and Sam left the hotel to take a quiet stroll along the promenade and down onto the beach. He loved the sea at night, even in a town. At night you could forget all the crap that was in it and see it as men had seen it when they first set sail for the New World – shining and mysterious. It was a clear night and Sam turned his head to the stars. Despite the lights on the pier, quite a number were visible and Sam was just contemplating that he would probably soon be able to just about afford one, when Springer scuttled up beside him.
'Boy oh boy,' he panted, 'that wasn't too comfortable with Parkhurst there, for a minute.'
Sam kept looking up at his star.
'Who gives a fuck what Parkhurst thinks?'
'Well I was just thinking . . . What with the—' but Sam cut Springer short.
'I do hope you're not going to be stupid enough to mention our little project, Springer.'
'Well, no, of course not. But I mean, when it comes on line . . . when we start building the thing . . .'
'Building the thing?' asked Sam.
'Yeah . . .' answered Springer, hesitantly. 'Building the thing.'
Sam looked at Springer quizzically.
'Listen, Springer,' he said, 'Digby Parkhurst is a lowlife little cockroach. We kiss his ass while he's a minister so he builds us roads. That's it, that's all. He has nothing to do with our future plans.'
'But . . . but he slipped us the . . .' protested Springer.
'Exactly, Springer. He gave us the information. So what's he going to say? That he tipped us off to make a robbery? Then he's an accessory and no-one will believe he didn't take a piece. Besides, like I said to Parkhurst, we haven't stolen anything. Do you see any stolen property? I don't. What have we got to do with anything?'
'Yes, but when we start to build it, well then it has to come out doesn't it?' Springer persevered.
Again Sam looked at Springer quizzically.
'You just haven't thought this through at all, have you, son?' he said.
Chapter Nine
BLACKMAIL, THEFT AND DIRTY PHONE CALLS
THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE
Digby woke up the following morning with a monumental hangover, but apart from that he didn't feel too bad. On reviewing the incident of the previous night he reckoned he had got off pretty lightly. Turk and the road lobby had only warned him of their knowledge, as long as he played ball and was a good boy they would have no reason to use it against him.
Besides, Digby had even scarier things to consider. He had been summoned to attend an early breakfast with Ingmar Bresslaw, the Prime Minister's eyes, ears and Doc Marten boots. Digby knew that, despite being a non-elected civil servant, Ingmar Bresslaw had more influence on national policy than the whole of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, every protest march and petition ever organized plus the European Court of Human Rights, put together.