LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND GOATS
Chapter 4
Saturday 17 June Rotten London Borough of Lower Springwood
A flock of radio boxes quack Lemon Jelly’s Nice Weather For Ducks.
Persistent rain reigns pestilence to penetrate the porous Earth.
The Teflon Weasel, el Presidenté Bliar, embarks on his Summer Progress buoyed with the happy news of Weapons of Mass Destruction found finally in Iraq.
Today the Earth rumbles like the long-awaited return of the Ghost of Denmark on the London Stage. Corrupted rain-waves crash the crazed concrete, raps the Great Gate like Black Rod — trick or treat! Weather fit for felons. Sheathe the world. And with one hand on your weapon stand firm for Truth and Justice against the Sluice of Scandalous Slurry.
The arrival of seven articulated lorries at the tradesman’s entrance of Chef’s kitchens with supplies from Fortnam and Mason consigns Blunkett to burrowing waist-deep in boxes of Iberian Ibex. Turbot. Shark. Langoustine. Alligator steak. Pheasant by the forest. Jersey potato. Sack upon sack of pawpaw. Hand-reared English apples. Free-range eggs. Coffee. Beef by the hunk. Loaded into the back of Blunkett’s white van and out the Main Gate before you can say Chef’s vol-au-vents.
Emboldened by a backdrop canopy of blood, Blunkett carving traffic on the Ballard Flyover in a game of chicken with a leather-bound lunatic in a black Lincoln rustbucket when down crashes the rain to wash out Incy Wincy and his gang of spidery-hairy friends.
The return of hunter-gatherer Blunkett to home base, van heavily pregnant with blag, and Mrs Blunkett is ever so pleased. A good boy. Pats him on the head with the tastiest morsel from Featherstonehaugh-Major, the honey-tongued grey man from the Home Office, charming Mrs Blunkett on the dog-n-bone to offer the deserving Blunkett a new post against which he can scratch a Beaver’s back.
Well-lodged in a favourite armchair with brown ale to lubricate the newly oiled wheels of industry, and by a wicked lash of luck Blunkett bags a Queen’s ransom on the nose of the winner of the 2.30 at Royal Ascot. A rollocking outsider.
And feet up.
***
Shivering and shaking and sherrying in a favourite mock-leather armchair <—> Rages the skull a demon ssicknes <—> Hail the return of the red devil to torment him with five-star trident! <—> Peptic ulcer on fire! <—>
To pep himself a trifle Gerbil James bets a Queen’s ransom on the tail of the favourite in the 2.30. But it trails in last. And the young lady says old nags should be put out to grass.
Before the black flag fell on his marriage he could savour a well-turned fetlock, but these dog days straw comfort found for the working man in fillies’ flesh off the hoof.
Going: heavy.
Stable lasses and lads flogged to the skin.
Black rain harum-scarum the crack’d pane, when suddenly a flapping of vulture’s wings, the Beast of the Bedroom debarks before the screen and she swoops: ‘The Grand-Pooh-Bear’s pushing you forward for a salvo of prunes.’ Warpaint of tears. Talons primed and feather duster for a jockey’s whip — ‘And don’t think you’re wriggling out of it this time, my boy. Any excuse to show me up in front of my friends. You make me the laughing stock.’ The starting stalls are open. She has him on the rails — ‘The gardening doesn’t get done by itself, you know.’
‘It’s pissing down.’
‘Well of course it’s pissing down. It’s your own fault. For leaving it so long.’
‘Mind your bum a bit.’
‘And what in God’s name happened to my candytufts? My snapdragons? My antirrhinums? Work? When was the last time you did any real work round this house? Call yourself a man? Hah! Don’t make me laugh!’
He gags on his sherry. The thrill of the chase gone sour. ‘Make you laugh? You must be joking, woman. The last time I saw you laugh Spurs were winning at home.’
‘How dare you!’
‘Give a man a break. Struth!’
‘Oh! Oh!’
‘I grind my knuckles to the bone to put a roof over your head and this is the thanks I get.’
‘Oh typical! Me me me! Sod my week.’ Lower lip quivering, ‘When was the last time you thought about anybody but yourself? I’m not allowed to have bad weeks. Jason Knees this, Jason Knees that. And who is this Jason Knees? That’s what I’d like to know. Maybe he’s a real man. I’m sick of it. So you just sit there, Archibald Hornblower James. That’s all you’re fit for.’
‘Holy fucking Whitney! I’ve a bellyful on my plate without you slagging me a second course.’
‘Oh that’s it! Call me names. Is this what our marriage has sunk to? Snumph! I used to mean something to you. Hhffff! Hiss obvious you don’t love me — wah! ...’
The bile-curdling bark of the dog-’n’-bone.
‘... So why can’t you be man enough and say it?’
Interrupting her flow. Candida James, brood mare, bounds from the living-room.
He lunges for the sherry. Mother had been right. Had warned him he would come a cropper if he married the trollop. How dare she. After donkey’s years of grinding a hero’s bollocks to the bone.
Well fat thanks.
Surrounded.
Weighted by a conspiracy.
She hoofs inside the final furlong. ‘Is it true? Now let me get this straight. Last night …’ She cuts him off from the winner’s enclosure of the drinks trolley. ‘… did you call the Chief Constable — “the goat-cunting son of a chlamydian whore”?’
‘... Might have done … Can’t remember … ’
She clubs him over the head with the feather duster <—> ‘Take that, you brute! <—> And that!’
Handicapped for the rump of his Life.
Bed made.
And now he has to die in it.
For better or for worse.
‘Now crawl to the Chief Constable and pretend you’re sorry!’
‘Fuck it!’
The Gerbil slopes sulking.
In faded brown slippers
***
C46664
Print Name Clearly: Jennifer Samuels
Address Where Mail Can Be Safely Delivered: 113 Norman Tebbit House, Elysian Fields, Edmonton Green N9
Week ending: 18th June Prisoner Barcode: OD404-XLR8
Warning: DO NOT PROFANE EL PRESIDENTÉ BLIAR, MAD PRINCE CHARLIE, OR THE LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR IN STOCKINGS, FAT TWO-BLAGS PRESCOTT. DO NOT USE SEXUALLY EXPLISIT LANGUAGE. ALL MAIL IS CENSWORD. ALL CONGEALED DRUGS WILL BE CONFISCATED AND RE-SOLD. USE NOTHING BUT PLANE NONSENSICAL ENGLISH. STRICTLY ONE LETTER PER WEEK PER HOUSEHOLD.
START HERE: My dearest Benjy Bobokins. This is Just Jennifer. I coodent wait to get home to get off my chest how sorry I is for calling Wacko-Wacko Wacko-Jacko. I promise no more to call Wacko-Jacko Wacko-Jacko. I sorry your Brief say you sharing a peter with Wacko-Jacko will prejewdiss your parasol. I do not think Life is very fair. I glad you give up poetry to read proper books. I sure Hamlet is very nice. I hear bad roomer of what poetry can do to a man’s todger. But living by the newclear plant I gess it too late now anyhow. I sorry Clyde put his hand up that lady’s skirt. Who didn’t seem too bovvered. And her old man raise the alarm. And you get strip-search. And they mistake my sweeteners for eggstesee. And Clyde start that fire. And Bonnie bite that Screw. I luv you. I miss our special times together. I think I now get the hang of using up every single available inch of space. Don’t forget Bonnie’s birthday. Say hello to Wacko-Jacko for me. PS tomorrow they cut off the gas. But I don’t want to wurry you. Luv U. Just Jennifer
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