by Tom Sharpe
In a foolish attempt to induce in her the feminine equivalent of whisky droop, Verkramp had plied her with Scotch from a bottle he kept for special occasions and had been horrified not only by the doctor’s capacity for hard liquor but also by the fact that the damned stuff seemed to act as an aphrodisiac. Deciding to try to reverse the process, he went through to the kitchen to make some more black coffee. He had just lit the stove when an eruption of noise from the living room sent him scurrying back. Dr von Blimenstein had switched on his tape recorder.
‘I want an old-fashioned house with an old-fashioned fence and an old-fashioned millionaire,’ cried Eartha Kitt.
Dr von Blimenstein accompanying her was more modest in her demands. ‘I want to be loved by you, just you and nobody else but you,’ she crooned in a voice several decibels above the legal limit.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ said Verkramp, trying to edge past her to the tape recorder, ‘you’ll wake the neighbourhood.’
In the flat above the creak of bedsprings suggested that Verkramp’s neighbours were taking notice of the doctor’s demand even if he wasn’t.
‘I want to be loved by you alone, boo boopy doop,’ Dr von Blimenstein continued, clasping Verkramp in her arms. In the background Miss Kitt added to his embarrassment by announcing to the world her desire for oil wells and Verkramp’s own predilection for coloured singers.
‘Whasso wrong with love, baby?’ asked the doctor, managing to combine whimsy with sex in a manner Verkramp found particularly irritating.
‘Yes,’ he said placatorily, trying to escape from her embrace, ‘If you—’
‘Were the only girl in the world and I was the only boy,’ bawled the doctor.
‘For God’s sake,’ squawked Verkramp, appalled at the prospect.
‘Well, you’re not,’ came a voice from the flat upstairs. ‘You’ve got me to consider.’
Spurred on by this support Verkramp squeezed out of the doctor’s arms and fell back on the divan.
‘Give me, give me what I long for,’ sang the doctor, changing her tune.
‘Some fucking sleep,’ yelled the man upstairs, evidently sickened by the doctor’s erratic repertoire.
In the flat next door, where a lecturer in Religious Instruction lived with his wife, someone banged on the wall.
Scrambling off the divan, Verkramp hurled himself at the tape recorder.
‘Let me turn that coon girl off,’ he shouted. Miss Kitt was on about diamonds now.
‘Leave the coon girls alone. You’ve turned me on,’ screamed Dr von Blimenstein, tackling Verkramp by the legs and bringing him down with a crash. Squatting on top of him she pressed herself against him with an urgency that inserted the bobble of her garter belt into his mouth, and fumbled with his trouser buttons. With a revulsion that sprang from his ignorance of female anatomy, Verkramp spat the thing out only to find himself facing an even more disgusting prospect. With his horizon bounded obscenely by thighs, garter belts and those portions of the doctor which had figured so largely in his fantasies but which on closer acquaintance had quite lost their charm, Verkramp fought desperately for air.
It was at this juncture that Kommandant van Heerden unwittingly chose to intervene. Enormously amplified by Verkramp’s electronic equipment the Kommandant’s falsetto voice added its peculiar charm to Miss Kitt’s contralto, and Dr von Blimenstein’s insistent commands to Verkramp to lie still.
‘Simon,’ squeaked the Kommandant, oblivious of the effect he was having half a mile away, ‘that last night here we buried our love alive, our glorious, blessed passion, we buried alive.’
‘Whazzat?’ asked Dr von Blimenstein who had ignored all Verkramp’s previous entreaties in her drunken frenzy.
‘Let me go,’ screamed Verkramp to whom the Kommandant’s mention of burying alive seemed particularly relevant.
‘Someone’s being murdered in there,’ squealed the Religious Instructor’s wife next door.
‘I must have been mad. I suppose I thought it’d die,’ continued the Kommandant.
‘Whazzat?’ shrieked Dr von Blimenstein again, drunkenly trying to distinguish between Verkramp’s frantic screams and the Kommandant’s impassioned confession, a process of decoding made no less difficult by Eartha Kitt impersonating a Turk.
On the landing the man from the flat above was threatening to break the door down.
At the centre of this maelstrom of noise and movement Luitenant Verkramp stared lividly into the vermilion flounces of Dr von Blimenstein’s elaborate panties and then overcome by the hysterical fear that he was about to be castrated took the bit between his teeth.
With a scream that could be heard half a mile away and which had the effect of stopping the Kommandant reading aloud, Dr von Blimenstein shot forward across the room dragging the demented Verkramp inextricably entangled in her garter belt behind.
To Luitenant Verkramp the next few minutes were a foretaste of hell. Behind him the man from the flat above, by now convinced beyond doubt that he was privy to some hideous crime, hurled himself against the door. In front Dr von Blimenstein, equally convinced that she had at last aroused her lover’s sexual appetite but anxious that it should express itself in a more orthodox fashion, hurled herself onto her back. As the door burst open, Verkramp peered up through the torn vermilion flounces with all the Weltschmerz of a decapitated Rhode Island Red. In the doorway the man from upstairs was standing dumbfounded at the spectacle.
‘Now, darling, now,’ screamed Dr von Blimenstein writhing ecstatically. Verkramp scrambled furiously to his feet.
‘How dare you break in?’ he yelled, desperately trying to convert his embarrassment into justified rage. From the floor Dr von Blimenstein intervened more effectively.
‘Coitus interruptus,’ she shouted, ‘coitus interruptus!’ Verkramp seized on the phrase which sounded vaguely medical to him.
‘She’s an epileptic,’ he explained as the doctor continued to twitch. ‘She’s from Fort Rapier.’
‘Christ,’ said the man, now thoroughly embarrassed himself. The Religious Instructor’s wife pushed her way into the room.
‘There, there,’ she said to the doctor, ‘It’s all right. We’re here.’
In the confusion Verkramp slunk away and locked himself in his bathroom. He sat there, white with humiliation and disgust, until the ambulance arrived to take the doctor back to the hospital. In the living-room Dr von Blimenstein was still shouting drunkenly about erogenous zones and the emotional hazards of interrupted coition.
When everyone had left, Verkramp emerged from the bathroom and surveyed the mess in his living-room with a jaundiced eye. The only consolation he could find for the evening’s horror was the knowledge that his suspicions about the Kommandant had been confirmed. Verkramp tried to remember what that ghastly falsetto voice had said. It was something about burying someone alive. It seemed highly unlikely somehow but Luitenant Verkramp’s whole evening had been calculated to induce in him the suspicion that the most respectable people were capable of the most bizarre acts. Of one thing he was absolutely certain, he never wanted to set eyes on Dr von Blimenstein again.
*
Kommandant van Heerden, arriving at his office next morning freshly imbued with the determination to behave like a gentleman, felt much the same. Dr von Blimenstein’s questionnaire had aroused a storm of protest in the Piemburg Police Station.
‘It’s part of a campaign to stop the spread of Communism,’ the Kommandant explained to Sergeant de Kok, who had been deputed to express the men’s sense of grievance.
‘What’s the size of a kaffir’s teats got to do with the spread of Communism?’ the Sergeant wanted to know. Kommandant van Heerden agreed that the connection did seem rather obscure.
‘You’d better ask Luitenant Verkramp about it,’ he said. ‘It’s his affair not mine. As far as I’m concerned no one need answer the beastly thing. I certainly don’t intend to.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,’ said the Sergeant and went of
f to cancel Verkramp’s orders.
In the afternoon the Kommandant returned to the Golf Club in the hope of catching a glimpse of the foursome who called themselves the Dornford Yates Club. He hit a few balls into the woods for the look of the thing and returned to the Clubhouse quite shortly. As he approached the stoep, he was delighted to see the vintage Rolls steal noiselessly down the drive from the main road and park overlooking the course. Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon was driving. She was wearing a blue sweater and skirt and matching gloves. For a moment she sat in the car and then climbed out and walked round the bonnet with a wistfulness that touched the Kommandant to the quick.
‘Excuse me,’ she called to him, leaning on the radiator with a gesture of elegance the Kommandant had seen only in the more expensive women’s magazines, ‘but I wonder if you could help me.’
Kommandant van Heerden’s pulse rate went up abruptly. He said he would be honoured to help her.
‘I’m such a fool,’ continued Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, ‘and I know absolutely nothing about cars. I wonder if you could just have a look at it and tell me if anything’s wrong.’
With a gallantry that belied his utter ignorance of motor cars in general and vintage Rolls Royces in particular, the Kommandant fumbled with the catches of the bonnet and was presently greasily engaged in looking for anything that might indicate why the car had so fortuitously ceased to function at the top of the Golf Club drive. Behind him Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon urged him on with an indulgent smile and the idle chatter of a fascinating woman.
‘I feel so helpless when it comes to machinery,’ she murmured as the Kommandant, who shared her feelings, poked his finger into a carburettor hopefully. It didn’t get very far which he judged to be a good sign. Presently when he had inspected the fan-belt and the dip-stick which more or less exhausted his automotive know-how, he gave up the unequal task.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘but I can’t see anything obviously wrong.’
‘Perhaps I’m just out of petrol,’ smiled Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon. Kommandant van Heerden looked at the petrol gauge and found it registered Empty.
‘That’s right,’ he said. Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon breathed her apologies. ‘And you’ve been to so much trouble too,’ she murmured but Kommandant van Heerden was too happy to feel that he had been to any trouble at all.
‘My pleasure,’ he said blushing, and was about to go and get the grease off his hands when Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon stopped him.
‘You’ve been so good,’ she said, ‘I must buy you a drink.’
The Kommandant tried to say there was no need but she wouldn’t hear of it. ‘I’ll telephone the garage for some petrol,’ she told him, ‘and then I’ll join you on the verandah.’
Presently the Kommandant found himself sipping a cool drink while Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, sucking hers through a straw, asked him about his work.
‘It must be so absolutely fascinating to be a detective,’ she said. ‘My husband’s retired you know.’
‘I didn’t know,’ said the Kommandant.
‘Of course he still dabbles in stocks and shares,’ she went on, ‘but it isn’t the same thing, is it?’
The Kommandant said he didn’t suppose it was though he wasn’t quite sure as what. While Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon chattered on the Kommandant drank in the details of her dress, the crocodile-skin shoes, the matching handbag, the discreet pearls, and marvelled at her excellence of taste. Even the way she crossed her legs had about it a demureness Kommandant van Heerden found irresistible.
‘Are your people from this part of the world?’ Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon enquired presently.
‘My father had a farm in the Karoo,’ the Kommandant told her. ‘He used to keep goats.’ He was conscious that it sounded a fairly humble occupation but from what he knew of the English they held landowners in high esteem. Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon sighed.
‘How I adore the countryside,’ she said. ‘That’s one reason why we came to Zululand. My husband retired to Umtali after the war, you know, and we loved it up there but somehow the climate affected him and we came down here. We chose Piemburg because we both adore the atmosphere. So gorgeously fin de siècle, don’t you think?’
The Kommandant, who didn’t know what fin de siècle meant, said that he liked Piemburg because it reminded him of the good old days.
‘You’re so right,’ said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon. ‘My husband and I are absolute addicts of nostalgia. If only we could put the clock back. The elegance, the charm, the gallantry of those dear dead days beyond recall.’ She sighed and the Kommandant, feeling that for once in his life he had met with a kindred spirit, sighed with her. Presently when the barman reported that the garage had put the petrol in the Rolls, the Kommandant stood up.
‘I mustn’t keep you,’ he said politely.
‘It was sweet of you to help,’ Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon said and held out her gloved hand. The Kommandant took it and with a sudden impulse that sprang from page forty-nine of As Other Men Are pressed it to his lips. ‘Your servant,’ he murmured.
He was gone before Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon could say anything and was soon driving down into Piemburg feeling strangely elated. That evening he took Berry & Co. from the library and went home to draw fresh inspiration from its pages.
*
‘Where’ve you been?’ Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon asked when his wife arrived home.
‘You’ll never believe it but I’ve been talking with a real hairy-back. Not one of your slick ones but the genuine article. Absolutely out of the Ark. You’ll never believe this but he actually kissed my hand when we parted.’
‘How disgusting,’ said the Colonel, and went off down the garden to look at his azaleas. If there was one thing he detested after white ants and cheeky kaffirs, it was Afrikaners. In the living-room Major Bloxham was reading Country Life.
‘I suppose they can’t all be swine,’ he said graciously when Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon told him about the Kommandant, ‘though for the life of me I can’t remember meeting one who wasn’t. I knew a fellow called Botha once in Kenya. Never washed. Does your friend wash?’
Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon snorted and went upstairs for a rest before dinner. Lying there in the still of the late afternoon listening to the gentle swirl of the lawn sprinkler, she felt a vague regret for the life she had once led. Born in Croydon, she had come from Selsdon Road via service in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force to Nairobi where her suburban background had served to earn her a commission and a husband with money. From those carefree days she had gradually descended the dark continent, swept Southward on the ebb tide of Empire and acquiring with each new latitude those exquisite pretensions Kommandant van Heerden so much admired. Now she was tired. The affectations which had been so necessary in Nairobi for any sort of social life were wasted in Piemburg whose atmosphere was by comparison wholly lower-middle-class. She was still depressed when she dressed for dinner that night.
‘What’s the use of going on pretending we are what we’re not when no one even cares that we aren’t?’ she asked plaintively. Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon looked at her with disapproval.
‘Got to keep up a good front,’ he barked.
‘Stiff upper lip, old girl,’ said Major Bloxham, whose grandmother had kept a winkle stand in Brighton. ‘Can’t let the side down.’
But Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon no longer knew which side she was on. The world to which she had been born was gone and with it the social aspirations that made life bearable. The world she had made by dint of affectation was going. After scolding the Zulu waiter for serving the soup from the wrong side, Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon rose from the table and took her coffee into the garden. There, soundlessly pacing the lawn under the lucid night sky, she thought about the Kommandant. ‘There’s something so real about him,’ she murmured to herself. Over their port Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon and the Major were discussing the Battle for Normandy. There was nothing real about them. Even the port was Australian.
5
In the following days K
ommandant van Heerden, oblivious of the interest that was being focused on him both by Luitenant Verkramp and Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, continued his literary pilgrimage with increased fervour. Every morning, closely shadowed by the Security men detailed by Verkramp to watch him, he would visit the Piemburg Library for a fresh volume of Dornford Yates and every evening return to his bugged home to devote himself to its study. When finally he went to bed he would lie in the darkness repeating to himself his adaptation of Coué’s famous formula, ‘Every day and in every way, I am becoming Berrier and Berrier,’ a form of autosuggestion that had little observable effect on the Kommandant himself but drove the eavesdropping Verkramp frantic.
‘What the hell does it all mean?’ he asked Sergeant Breitenbach as they listened to the tape-recording of these nocturnal efforts at self-improvement.
‘A berry is a sort of fruit,’ said the Sergeant without much conviction.
‘It’s also something you do when you want to get rid of bodies,’ said Verkramp, whose own taste was more funeral, ‘but why the devil does he repeat it over and over again?’
‘Sounds like a sort of prayer,’ Sergeant Breitenbach said. ‘I had an aunt who got religious mania. She used to say her prayers all the time …’ but Luitenant Verkramp didn’t want to hear about Sergeant Breitenbach’s aunt.