‘Evenin’, Missus James.’
‘Sherry for Missus James, Jack.’
‘Dry.’
‘Hen-joy the feast, Missus James?’
‘Well as you know, boys, I am partial to spotted dick ...’
Stiffen the Achilles tendons of Pym and Whitelaw sententiously, priapismically.
‘... Though I thought the vine leaves chewy.’
‘You turn fruit-’n’-nut!’
‘Yes, boys, I’ve given up meat.’ She swipes her schooner of sherry with the savage assurance of a whaling captain. ‘And how’s my honeybunny hero?’ She haddocks a handful of prime cheek and twists. ‘Thirty-five dragged to the hospital. That’s very impressive, darling.’
He winces wanting the nursery. ‘Ten. Ack. Ack-shooely.’
Flashing ivory tusks and puckering blood lips — ‘Now I expect you boys to keep an eye on my honeybunny hero.’
‘Yes, Missus James.’
‘Yes, Missus James.’
‘He’s promised to do the gardening this weekend, haven’t you, dear?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘And he’s promised to sweep me off my feet later in a Gay Gordons, haven’t you, dear?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me.’
She wafts a tsunami of lipstick, lavender and fear.
‘Honeybunny?’ digs Whitelaw when the coast is clear.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ fumes the Gerbil buck-riding the stool.
***
‘Men are slimy sexist slug-like creatures,’ lets slip Candida James on docking at her side table. ‘So by and large they’ve done a solid job.’
Mavis Clarke swallows her Black Russian in one. ‘I wouldn’t truss a man further than I can throw him.’
Candida James dim-viewing the rat’s huddle at the bar, the ragged black jackets having shed their black neck-ties, and the hunchback of her husband rocking and rolling the rickety stool. ‘I’d go mad if it wasn’t for our SWOPP sherry mornings.’
‘Who’s guest speaker next week?’
‘Doctor Mengele is giving us one of her monthlies ...’ Warm sticky sherry slips sweetly down.
‘What’s she pushing?’
‘... The Liberated Clitoris.’
‘Should get bums on seats.’
‘I was rather hoping for Castration and Its Rightful Place in a Phallocentric Society.’
‘Candy, I don’t mean to speak ill out of turn but ain’t your Archie a lirral bit tipsy?’
The rump of rats at the bar Candida James regards with gross distaste. ‘I know. Hiss the Gay Gordons next. That’ll spoil his fun.’
***
‘Shish wishties.’
‘You’ve run out of credit.’
‘Wimmy da boddle! Wimmy da boddle!’
‘Now leave me in peace,’ pleads Jack the Bar Steward.
‘Mine!’ Gerbil James cuddles the captured prize of a brown bottle. Lowers to the label. Olde Mother McCready’s Medicinal Speckled Egg. He seizes a small crusty glass — lipstick smudged o’-the-rim — and tips the dregs into the ice bucket. Fevered with the beat of a Highland Fling, the bar stool swivels left then swivels right.
‘With my cut hyme off to the Philippines,’ confides Whitelaw and belly-bumping the buck-balancing Governor. ‘Here, old son, I’ve heard you can live like a king out there on next to nuffin’.’
‘Shish wishties.’
‘Women out there wear next to nuffin’.’
‘Disgustink.’
Whitelaw pink and glowy about the chops: ‘Hyme groina find me a wife. Hew know. Liddle darlin’ to do the cookin’ hen the washin’-up.’
‘Got drugs though.’ A spinning Gerbil James hangs to the ice-bucket for support. ‘Seen it ton tele.’
‘They got drugs hall odour der shop sneeze days.’
‘Snow way! Snot in my prison!’ The Gerbil jerks upright. ‘I’d hang ’em all hun throw away the key. Nan-nan-nan I’d scrap these handouts they give to these layabout scroungers.’ Yes, if he had a hammer he’d throw it to the mirror and smash the fat bottles and the fat people would stop dancing and he’d twist and shout, ‘I’m a prize Gobberler for fuck’s sake! Don’t you think I deserve a medal?’ Bastards.
‘I had a lady friend once,’ confessing Whitelaw.
‘Get away!’
‘She copped me a court summons to stop me coming wigeon hundred yards hoffer fanily.’
‘I blame the mothers.’
‘Oops. Steady.’
‘You can castrate the lot feral I care.’ Fishily the beachhead swamped with rank festering seaweed and the Gerbil finds himself nuzzling the armpit of demon dick Whitelaw. ‘Too many longhaired johnnies think the world owes ’em a living. Bring back the birch,’ wheals the Gerbil and eyeing the filthy Bar Steward with a ribald loathing. ‘Man knows where he stands. Gives man sense her rotten Ron. Teaches man to hook up to his betters. Man knows then who he should vote for.’
‘You in good form tonight, old son. Here. Let me buy you an udder.’
‘I didn’t get where I am today without a barrow-load o’ bloody-minded hard work.’
‘Here, old son. We got your man Knees on the run. How about that then?’ Whitelaw proudly discharges a bugle-burp of bad belly gas. ‘You rely on the experts.’
‘Don’t talk to me about that man. He’s made my Life rotten ruddy Hell. You two don’t know the half of it.’
‘Yeah, but what with the riot ’n’ all we gutter be careful ho security.’
‘Shecurity, did you say? I’m the expert. And d’yer know why? Curse I’m the Groveller.’
‘You the Big White Chief.’
‘Hat gaff ... hat gaff ... is as safe as the Bank of England ...’
Slowly in the dim morbid vaults of the Grubbelor’s brain encrusted cogs and wheels slip into gear, and from some dark recess, from some decrepit corner, drops a paltry penny. The Bank of England. A bank. Like the Bank of England. ‘That’s it! I have crack’d it! I have fucking crack’d it!’
‘Penny for yore thoughts, old son.’
The Governor of Springwood Prison grapples a glass and grins triumphant. ‘Mr Golden-Boffin-Bollocks has gone and stashed the money …’
‘Yes?’
‘... in a bank!’
‘Not with you.’
‘It’s staring you in the face. He takes it out of one bank ...
‘Yes?’
‘... hang he pays it into a nutter!’
‘He takes it …’ begins Whitelaw, ‘… nope sorry ’ss gone.’
‘It’s obvious! He’s taking the piss. And where else hissy gonna stash a castle of cash but in a bank —’
A crashing of cymbals, a bang of a drum, and the blurry boys in blue put the Highland Fling out of its misery — ‘Gentlemen, haul you please be taking your partners — for the Gay Gordons.’
‘Fuck it.’
The world falling backwards, the soft flap of skin on the back of the skull slamming hard wood, the brain blanking blackness, Governor Gerbil James and the bar stool part company for good.
*****