by Nicky Blue
‘Did you know a dandelion cracked open my patio? I put this to Mr Baldwin and do you know what he said?’ Barry opened his mouth to reply but Brian steamed on. ‘He said he was aware the plant had a strong “growth force” and with that I just burst out laughing, Barry. Of course I had to explain to him that he was confusing “growth force” with “root pressure” which is an entirely different volitional kettle of fish.’
Barry was not listening. He was staring off into the distance, daydreaming. Why did Doctor Harper chant in Japanese? He looked possessed. This must be what my dad was warning me about in my dream. Brian continued rabbiting away to himself in the background until Barry eventually brought his mind back momentarily to ponder, I wonder if Brian is the most boring man in the universe?
Barry eventually escaped the allotment policy inquest and prepared himself for the journey back to town.
Darkness had set in by the time he mustered up enough confidence to leave the safety of his shed. It was a quiet Sunday night; the only sounds were the occasional buses going up and down the High Street.
Donning his ninja mask and black kimono, Barry slinked his way via parks and back gardens to avoid detection.
On arriving at the rear of the salon, he cautiously climbed over the back gate and made his way through the shrub borders and down the steps to the sunken bunker door. A new steel-framed door had been erected since he was there. His heart sank. There was no way he’d gain entry. The clang of steel boomeranged around the garden as Barry kicked at it hopelessly. He flumped to the ground and lay back on the grass, looking up at the stars. Never had he felt more lost and alone.
That’s it, he thought. I’m going to hand myself in, I’m going to go upstairs, tell Mum what’s happened, then call the police.
As he walked back to the gate, he heard a tapping noise. He walked all around the garden but could see nothing through the blur of night.
The tapping grew louder and Barry realised it was coming from the bunker door. He pressed his ear against the door.
‘Is anyone in there?’
‘Yes,’ came a muffled response.
‘Speak up. I can’t hear you.’
‘What are you doing in the garden?’
‘I should be asking what you are doing in there?’
‘This is where I live,’ replied the indignant voice.
‘How long have you been in there?’
‘I don’t know… years and years.’
‘Are you a prisoner?’
‘No, not at all. Robbie invited me down here to—’
An ice-cold shiver swept over Barry.
‘Mindy?’
‘Barry?’
‘Mindy, what the hell are you doing in there?’ Tears started falling from his eyes.
‘I’ve been looking after a gang of slow lorises.’
‘What the hell are they?’ Barry yanked at the door joints as forcefully as he could but it failed to budge.
‘They’re cute little furry creatures with funny sausage fingers.’
‘Just wait till I get hold of Robbie. Have you been looked after? How are you?’
‘How am I? I don’t know. It’s been so long since I thought about it really. Robbie bestowed upon me the honorary title of Loris Protector and I’ve sworn a lifetime oath to serve—’
‘Mindy, you’ve been fucking kidnapped.’
‘A Loris Protector is a very important job, you know! Robbie has kindly given me a DVD player that has a documentary on slow lorises, I’ve seen it eight thousand three hundred and twenty-two times. Sometimes I pretend to be a loris and my friend Big Mandy has kindly built me a wooden platform so I can perch near them. Not inside their cage though as they are pretty deadly!’
Barry felt his stomach tightening as he brushed the tears from his eyes.
‘Mindy, what the hell is going on?’
‘What do you mean? Did you know that loris is Dutch for clown?’
She’s lost her tiny mind, thought Barry. I’ve got to get her out of there. Barry looked towards the back of the salon.
‘Okay, Mindy. I’m going to try to find the key to get you out of there.’
‘Okay, Barry. Please be careful of Big Mandy if you see him. He isn’t friendly with everyone.’
Barry gradually made his way over to the back door of the salon and looked up to where he could see a window open about six metres up from the back door of the building. One of the best-kept secrets of a ninja was how they could scale the walls of a castle seemingly unaided. This secret was a set of metal claws that you could strap to the bottom of your feet. As luck would have it, Barry’s friend Tom was a dab hand at metal work and had made some for him by smelting down a pair of his rusty old shears. Barry strapped them on and climbed up the rear wall of the salon. He grabbed hold of the window ledge and slowly put his hand into the window to open it fully.
Before he had a chance to climb in, a light went on and a large man with crimson cheeks, wild protruding eyes and a colossal beard appeared at the window. This was no ordinary beard; it was as if a particularly invasive rhododendron had colonised his face.
Losing his grip and exchanging the ledge for two handfuls of beard, Barry let out a short scream. ‘Ahh! Fuck me!’
‘Let go, you little bastard,’ the man growled, trying to hold onto the upper part of his beard to stop having his chin pulled off. Barry could see another window ledge to his right, which he decided was the only place he could possibly reach. He swung on the beard to gain enough momentum to successfully make the leap. Having Barry’s fat arse swinging from his beard was pulling the man further and further out of the window.
‘What the hell are you trying to do?’ howled the man, tears streaming from his eyes.
Just as Barry was about to take his lunge, he heard the rasping sound of beard tearing from chin, after which he found himself freefalling through the Portslade night clutching two handfuls of wiry beard.
Barry hit the lawn with a sharp thud and then… nothing.
Barry awoke handcuffed to a wall in the bunker next to Mindy. She was staring at him adoringly with an emoji smile that took up her entire face. Apart from having hair that touched the floor and a t-shirt the colour of Gollum’s underpants, she looked as though she hadn’t aged a single day. Barry couldn’t take his eyes off her. Across the room was a cage with ten motionless slow lorises intently observing their new visitor. The large man from the evening before stood directly in front of Barry, sporting flared nostrils, a satanic glare, and half a beard.
‘That’s my friend Mandy I was telling you about, Barry,’ whispered Mindy. ‘He doesn’t speak much. I think you might have upset him, try not to look at him.’ Mandy turned his back and walked out of the bunker, slamming the door behind him.
‘Mindy, that guy is not your friend and we have to get the fuck out of he—’ Barry choked on his words. ‘Here. He’s going to kill me.’
‘But this is where I live, Barry. Did you know they have found nine different species of slow lorises?’
Barry’s blood quickened and whirled through his veins. He grabbed Mindy and exploded,
‘Come back to me, come back to me!’
‘But, Barry, I’m alrigh—’
‘No you’re not, you’ve lost your fucking marbles!’ Barry shook his sister wildly until she crumpled like a rag doll to the floor, weeeping inconsolably. Barry knelt down and hugged her tighter than he could remember ever having done so.
‘I’m sorry… I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry, just come back to me.’
‘I’ve been so lost, so very lost…’ Mindy wiped her snotty nose with a corner of the t-shirt she had been living in all those years.
‘What have they been doing to you in here?’
‘I’ve spent the last twenty-five years playing games with Mandy and looking after these creatures.’
‘What kind of games?’
‘Whatever Mandy is in the mood for: Twister, Scrabble, you name it. Robbie joins in some
times – he likes to play a game called sploshing.’
‘What the hell is that?’
‘It’s some weird thing he’s into; he turns up with bags of cream buns, chocolate puddings, custard tarts and raw eggs. The object of their game is to throw these things at me until I’m covered from head to foot. I think he gets off on it.’
‘Jesus… and why does he keep these slow lorises?’
‘Robbie takes them round to visit the old ladies he’s been sleeping with after he’s convinced them to include him in their will. Slow lorises secrete a deadly venom from their armpits which they lick before biting their victims. If you didn’t know that, you couldn’t help but cuddle them… the poor old dears. Robbie says the venom is untraceable; it just looks like a heart attack. He thinks he’s invented the perfect murder.’
‘What a bastard. Did you know that Dad went missing the same day as you did?’
‘I did see him on my way home from work and he told me that he had to go away for a while. He said something really odd, that his ninja family were in need of him and he had to go and help them. Do you know what that means?’
‘I haven’t a clue, but I’m going to find out. Mindy, I have to tell you I’ve got myself into a lot of trouble and the police are after me.’
‘What have you—’
The conversation was interrupted as Robbie and Mandy entered the bunker.
‘So, Mandy, have we caught ourselves a naughty boy?’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘And what happens to naughty boys and girls, Mandy?’
‘I play with them, boss.’
‘Exactly! You play with them, and what happens when you play with them?’
‘Sometimes I break them, boss.’ Robbie’s head tilted back to let out a loud self-satisfied laugh.
‘You’re clumsy aren’t you, Mandy.’
‘Yes, boss.’
Mandy unfolded a plastic mat on the floor and said to Mindy, ‘Mandy is going to play Twister with you first.’
‘I don’t fancy my chances of getting out of this, Barry,’ said Mindy anxiously. ‘I need you to know I would never have left you on purpose and I love you.’
Mandy unlocked Mindy’s handcuffs and pushed her down onto the Twister mat.
‘Do you want me to go first, Mandy?’ asked Mindy.
‘No, Mandy’s going to go first and last.’ And with, that he jumped on top of her and got her into a strangle hold. If any of Barry’s ninja training was ever to mean anything, now was the time he most needed to draw upon it. He dislocated his wrist and carefully slid it out of the handcuff, ran over and jumped on Mandy’s back whilst poking two fingers in his eyes.
‘Argh!’ screamed Mandy as he dropped Mindy and threw Barry against the wall. He picked up a baseball bat, a sinister smile lighting up his face.
‘Would you like to play a game of rounders with me, Barry?’
‘Over my dead body!’ screamed a voice in the doorway. Everyone looked up.
Molly was standing in the entrance with ten other ladies from the salon. Each one was sporting curlers, hairnets, and an assortment of Barry’s ninja weapons. Molly growled at Robbie,
‘So you’ve been holding my daughter captive all these years, have you?’
‘No, not really. It’s what she wanted, darling. She was helping me look after my pets.’
Molly had a certain look in her eye. A look that took you back to that fateful day of the Emmerdale plane crash. A look born of twenty-five long years of brooding and unresolved grief. A look that was about to find some unexpected resolution. Revolving her nunchucks, she addressed her posse.
‘Ladies, I’ve been around for a long time. You all know me well. I’ve come to understand there is one great inescapable truth in this life. That truth, my friends, is justice. Like all great reckonings, it doesn’t come very often. But when it does, it is quick, brutal, and very bloody. Prepare yourselves for an OAP armageddon. Charge!’
Molly ran full pelt at Robbie with the rest of the old dears in her wake. It was unremitting and relentless carnage; there were metal chains, samurai swords and hair curlers flying everywhere. Dispensing with her nunchucks, Molly jumped on Robbie’s back, deciding instead to head-butt him until further notice. Mandy played trampolines on top of two old dears who were looking a little the worse for wear until Merril took him down with a ninja star between the eyes.
Mandy fell backwards, crashing into the cage of slow lorises, which immediately swarmed over him, ripping little chunks of flesh from his body. He struggled momentarily, before falling silent in a bloody heap on the floor.
Molly hobbled over to her ladies.
‘Did you see where Robbie went? One minute I was head-butting him, the next he just vanished… into thin air!’ She reached down and helped Mindy up off the Twister mat.
‘Be a good girl and give your old mum a hug.’ They embraced, sobbing long lost tears into each other’s shoulders. Mindy seemed to be slowly emerging from her trance.
‘I’ve missed you so much, Mum… so very very much.’
‘I know dear, I know.’
Barry walked around checking everyone was okay, then stopped and put his arm around Merril.
‘How did you know we were in here?’
‘I live across the road from the bakers and have been getting very suspicious with all the cream buns Robbie was buying. Molly saw him bringing them back here from her kitchen window and we knew he had to be up to no good.’
‘That’s what you’ve been staring at all this time, mum!’ Barry started picked up the weapons from the floor. ‘We need to cover our tracks and get rid of this body.’
‘I know where they keep the spare key for the undertakers,’ said Merril. ‘I think we could add his body to a coffin that’s awaiting burial. What do you think?’
Molly found a hose-pipe and began spraying the bloodstains off the bunker walls.
‘I can’t think of a better plan. There’s a wheelbarrow in the garden – we could use that to get him over there.’
Mindy looked at the remains of the slow loris cage. ‘The lorises got their revenge on Mandy but it looks like they have escaped! Be on your look out, everyone. Avoid them at all costs.’
The group crept into the back of the undertaker’s, dragging one limb each of Mandy’s massive corpse. They found a room that had five wooden coffins in it and judging by the smell must have been the embalming room. It had a spectral yet clinical feel to it, maybe what the waiting room for Nosferatu’s dentist would be like. Barry carefully unsealed the lid of the largest coffin and, to Molly’s surprise, she saw one of her good friends from the hairdressers.
‘That’s Ada, bless her. Robbie had just turned his attentions towards her.’
‘I think it was an accident,’ interjected Mindy. ‘Mandy suffocated her while they were playing hopscotch together. It’s quite fitting they go in the same coffin, but how the hell are we going to get him in there?’
Barry wandered off and returned with some rope, which he looped over a stack of coffins.
‘Let’s hoist him in, tie the rope round his waist, and we can lower him down on top of Ada. Molly walked over and inspected Mandy’s gnarly tuberous face.
‘I wonder where it all went wrong for him? He looks so sweet lying there.’
‘Yeah, dead sweet,’ replied Barry.
Suddenly, Mandy sat up and, through the mass of ripped-up beard, screamed, ‘Mandy lives!’ His wild protruding eyes surveyed his environment as his demolition truck hands ripped the rope from his torso. He was just about to get up when Barry hit him slap bang in the face with a coffin lid.
‘Quick! Follow me.’ Barry led everyone out the front door and they ran down the middle of the high street.
Mandy was behind them in hot pursuit, stark bollock naked with a ninja star sticking out of his forehead. He was letting out loud groans as his body convulsed, careering down the road like a truck with withered brake cables. His eyes had changed, they were disused coal mines, dark
and vacant. He began a Japanese death chant. ‘Eigo no ninja e no shi’
‘Whats he saying?’ asked Molly gasping for breath.
‘Death to the English ninja, I think’ replied Barry.
‘Who’s he referring to?’
‘Me, for fuck’s sake!’ Barry shook his head and pointed to his puffing posse to cross the road. As they reached the end of Portslade High Street they turned the corner to find a group of police officers helping the pest control department round up a gang of slow lorises that had taken residence in some trees outside the post office.
‘We’re being chased by a naked lunatic!’ screamed Molly.
Before the police had a chance to react, Mandy had jumped headfirst into their midst. All hell broke loose; truncheons, handcuffs and tit-shaped hats flew in all directions. The mayhem was the perfect opportunity for Barry to smuggle everyone into the back of a pest control van. They quickly disappeared into the darkness.
‘Take us to Ada’s house,’ Molly ordered. ‘She never locked her door, no one will find us there.’
As soon as they arrived at Ada’s, Barry jumped out of the van and embraced Molly and Mindy.
‘I love you both with all my heart, but I have to carry on. I’m on a journey and I need to see where it takes me. Please don’t worry. I’ll be back soon, hopefully with some answers about Dad.’
‘You’re a good boy Barry,’ said Molly with tears in her eyes.’ By the way I didn’t manage to buy you anymore of your nappies, I’m afraid.’
‘They are not nappies mum and you haven’t told anyone have you?’
‘I mentioned it to a few of the girls at the hairdressers but they aren’t likely to tell anyone.’ Said Molly sheepishly.
‘It’s a good job I’m leaving isn’t it!’ Mindy grabbed Barry and hugged him as tightly as she could. ‘I’m sorry I was so cruel to you. Can you ever forgive me?’
‘None of that matters now. All I care about is having you back. Are you two going to be okay?’