Читать книгу Mr Landen Has No Brain - Stephen Walker - Страница 14

Morning woke Sally with the warmth of a rising sun and the twittering of birds. Her eyes opened with a string of tired blinks, adjusting to the light, and she stretched out in a yawn that extended her to her limits.

Then she relaxed, letting herself sink into a mattress that felt like love. She felt great. She felt more than great. She felt harmless. And beside her on the pillow Mr Bushy stretched out in a great long yawn that exactly mirrored her own. He held the pose then relaxed into a ball, snuggling his warm fur against her cheek. And she smiled. Could paradise be any better?

But then a thought struck her. She rolled onto her side, Mr Bushy scampering out of her way. She looked over the side of the bed. And she sighed with relief at not finding Teena on the floor dead.

Another thought struck her. She rolled over and looked over the other side of the bed, relieved at not finding Teena dead.

She rolled onto her back, and again sank into the mattress that felt like love. Smiling she watched the wooden slats of the bunk above and gently, so as not to wake her, asked, ‘Teena? Are you awake?’

No reply. Some people had the luxury of sleeping all day. Sally had no such luxury. She had a job to do; lives to save. She sat up, cast her legs over the side of the bunk, and planted both feet on the carpet. After leaning forward for one last yawn, she stood then turned a half circle. On her toes, hands on the safety rail, she checked the top bunk, ready to see Teena asleep.

Instead, she saw a nightmare.

The bunk was empty.

‘All right, Mr Landen, you’ve had your fun, now let me in. I’ve no intention of spending another night in that madwoman’s home.’ Early morning, Teena stood on her mobile home’s front steps, her knuckles machine-gun rapping its door.

The only reply she got was the rumble of objects being moved around.

She knocked again. ‘I know you’re awake, I can hear you pushing furniture up against the door.’

‘No, Dr Llama.’

‘No?’ She gazed at the door. ‘What do you mean no?’

‘I mean no. You should understand what that means. You are, after all, the expert linguist. You know how to say no in more languages than anyone else alive.’

‘I’m fully aware of the word’s general meaning. What does it mean in the context of you not letting me into my own mobile home?’

‘It means you can’t come in till you let me marry my bunny.’

‘Marry it?’ She frowned at the door. ‘That bunny’s a boy bunny. Since when have you liked boys?’

‘I don’t care. I love my bunny and won’t let you take him off me.’

Lepus called out, ‘Help me, female! Help me! He makes me eat celery.’

She watched the door, non-plussed.

Just to make her morning complete, Landen called, ‘Help me, Dr Llama! Help me! My bunny’s just sat on me.’

‘Lepus, stop sitting on Mr Landen,’ she sighed.

‘Not unless he lets me out.’

‘He can’t let you out unless you get off him.’

‘I don’t care. I’m not getting off him till he lets me out.’

But how’d she done it? How’d she got away? Madam Tallulah hadn’t been able to escape masking tape, and Sally hadn’t bound her with half the vigour she’d used on Teena. And yet, when Sally’d found the tape, its sticky side had collected so much fluff it must have been unpeeled from her flesh for hours. She must have got free as soon as Sally’d climbed into the bottom bunk.

And why’d she escaped? Didn’t she realize Sally was trying to help her? And if there’d been a certain pleasure in seeing Teena in discomfort, a sense of revenge for her rabbit antics, that was just a bonus and shouldn’t in any way be viewed as a major part of her reason for doing it.

She tried to put Teena to the back of her mind and concentrate on her work, sticking another square of foam rubber in place.

‘What’s the hell’s this?’ asked Cthulha, to her left, watching Daisy.

Sally took the final square from the box to her right, unrolled it then pressed it in place. She ran her palms along its edges to make it stick, pressed its centre then stepped back to admire her handiwork.

It stood before her, magnificent, Wyndham’s first ever caravan to be completely covered in foam rubber. You could throw yourself at it all day and never get hurt. Not that the two hippy geeks staring out of its window looked like they wanted to throw themselves at it. They looked like they wanted to throw her at something. But to do that they’d have to leave the caravan and, when she’d called round the other day, they’d refused to do so, pushing the rent out through a slot in the door. The sign on the doorknob might have said WYNDHAM FINISHING SCHOOL FOR DAINTY YOUNG LADIES but, to Sally, they were just two geeks.

She said, ‘Cthulha meet Daisy. She’s helping me make the camp safe.’

Hands in tuxedo pockets, cigarette in mouth, Cthulha eyed Daisy from a distance of nine inches. ‘It’s flying.’

‘Floating,’ Sally beamed.

‘Jesus.’

Daisy floated tethered to the caravan door, chewing a foam rubber square Sally’d given her to keep her entertained. The cow gazed at a pink sports car parked ten feet away. Open-topped it stood so low you’d have to lie down to sit in it.

Hands in pockets, Cthulha leaned forward. Her face now one inch from Daisy’s she too watched the car. ‘Know what that is?’

‘Moo?’

‘That’s my Spooder Yo-Yo.’

‘A Spooder Yo-Yo?’ Sally laughed. ‘What the hell’s a Spooder Yo-Yo? It sounds like someone who got shoved out of an airlock in Star Wars.’

Cthulha attempted a withering stare. ‘For your information, no one got shoved out of an airlock in Star Wars. And the Spooder Yo-Yo was the grooviest car of 1968.’

‘Sure it was.’

‘It was Greek,’ Cthulha protested. ‘The title lost a little in translation. But secret agent Carnaby Soho drove one in all her films.’

Sally frowned. ‘Carnaby Soho?’

‘You remember Carnaby Soho.’

‘I’ve never heard of her.’

‘Everyone’s heard of Carnaby Soho; pink-clad super-spy, righter of wrongs and, in later years, serial thwarter of the evil Mullineks.’

‘Mullineks?’

‘Queen of the mad moon lesbians.’

‘Cthulha, where exactly do you get your videos?’

‘You must have heard of Mullineks. Everyone has.’

‘Like they’ve all heard of Carnaby Soho?’

‘But Mullineks was even hornier than Hudson Leick.’

‘Hudson what?’

Then Cthulha started singing.

‘Carnaby Soho

making all the guys go whoa whoa.

Cruising in your Yo-Yo.

Letting through your hair the wind blow.

Carnaby Soho, do you know what you’ve done?

Having make the room go spun and spun and spun and spun and spun and spun and spun and spun … ’

‘Cthulha, I’ve no idea what you’re on about.’

‘It was Italian.’ She shrugged. ‘It lost something in translation.’

‘Yeah – the audience.’

Her face again inches from Daisy’s, Cthulha told the cow, ‘That car came with my big flash job. Want to know why you’ve not got one?’

‘Moo?’

‘Because only special people get a Spooder Yo-Yo. That’s what humans get to do. We get to sprawl naked across our car at sunrise and kiss it till it hurts. Cows just get to stand around chewing grass. It must look pretty flash to you.’

Sally assumed she meant the chrome-tube tangle that jutted from it at seemingly random angles.

Cthulha told Daisy, ‘My boyfriend’s souped it up with some weird technology of his. Now it does six hundred miles an hour and a thousand miles to the pint. How fast can you go?’

‘Cthulha,’ Sally said. ‘Not many people bother asserting their superiority over cattle.’

‘Says a woman who works for squirrels.’

‘I don’t work for squirrels.’ Suddenly she was looking everywhere but at Cthulha.

Cthulha looked upwards.

Sally looked upwards.

Mr Bushy was on the edge of the caravan roof. He looked down at them, wearing a little red crash helmet, with knicker elastic tied to his tail.

He bungee jumped off the caravan, boinged just above the ground, recoiled several feet into the air, plummeted again then hung there by the tail.

Sally turned red.

Cthulha said, ‘Even I can figure out what you’re doing.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Training it to do death defying stunts because you’re so desperate to be an entertainer’s assistant you’d even accept being assistant to a squirrel.’

‘And why shouldn’t I?’ she protested. ‘No one else’ll work with me, and I happen to be the best damn assistant this town’s got.’

‘Apart from that bit where you kill the turn.’

‘This is a showbiz town. I have to be in showbiz.’

Cthulha lowered her little round shades to the tip of her nose. She looked over their rims at her. ‘Sally, the fact that Charlie Williams once played a venue within ten miles of the place doesn’t make it a showbiz town.’ She prodded her sunglasses back into place. Hands in pockets, she watched the squirrel dangle. ‘Are you leaving this here?’

Sally said, ‘He likes hanging there.’

‘Says who?’

‘I can tell he does.’

‘Does it pay rent? I can’t see Uncle Al letting it stay for free.’

‘Mr Bushy pays three pence a week with dropped coins he finds under caravans.’

‘And Dobbin?’

‘Daisy.’

‘Does it pay rent?’

Before Sally could answer, Teena appeared from round the far side of her mobile home. Gaze fixed on the offices, jaw clenched, she strode towards them. If she’d been a bull (and not just engaged to one) she’d have been snorting.

Sally took it that things hadn’t gone well at the mobile home.

Hands in pockets, Cthulha watched Teena all the way; ‘Jesus. Imagine that spread naked across your car.’

‘I take it you mean Dr Rama.’

‘That’s a doctor?’

‘And she’s not a “that”. She’s a woman.’

‘Oh yeah. You’re still into that hardline feminist “women aren’t objects” crap aren’t you? No wonder you never have any fun.’

Sally rolled her eyes.

Teena reached the offices, pulled open the door and entered. Its lax spring pulled the door to behind her.

Cthulha watched the door, imagining getting up to God knew what. ‘So, what’s the story?’

‘That big mobile home.’

Cthulha glanced across at it.

Sally said, ‘Her assistant’s locked her out of it. So she spent the night with me.’

Suddenly impressed, Cthulha twisted her head round to stare at her, ‘You gave her one?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m heterosexual.’

‘Jesus.’ Cthulha shook her head in disbelief and again watched the offices.

Sally said ‘I thought you were into men now. Only two days ago you were boasting about this great new boyfriend you’d found in a ditch.’

‘I have, and he’s okay. But you know there are times when you need a woman. No matter how hard they try men don’t understand our needs. No man’ll ever know what it’s like to have your head swell up eight times a month.’

‘Cthulha?’

‘Yeah?’

‘What’re you on about?’

‘Women’s things.’

‘Cthulha?’

‘Yeah?’

‘What’re you on about?’

‘Your head. You know?’

‘Cthulha.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Women’s heads don’t swell up eight times a month.’

‘Course they do. It’s a woman thing.’

‘No it isn’t.’

‘Doesn’t yours?’

‘No.’

‘Then why does mine?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘What about the Beloved Catherine?’

‘What about her?’

‘Her head must swell up fifty times a day at least.’

‘The Beloved Catherine’s hardly a typical example of womanhood, is she.’

‘No but–’

‘And in her case it’s down to air pressure, like a barometer.’

‘Do you think that’s what it is with me? Air pressure?’

‘Cthulha, I long ago stopped trying to explain anything about you. And who says your head swells up? I’ve never seen it swell up.’

‘Ninety-six times a year, you know what happens?’

‘What?’

‘My hat gets too tight.’

Sally glanced at the undertaker’s hat. Its black ribbon flapped in the breeze.

Cthulha said, ‘I can’t get the thing off some nights. I have to sleep in it. First thing next morning, it’s so loose it falls down over my eyes.’

‘Then don’t wear it.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘What is the point?’

‘My head must be swelling.’

‘Who says it’s not your hat that’s shrinking?’

‘I measured it. It’s always the same, twenty inches round.’

‘Then you must have a problem that’s unknown to medical science.’

Cthulha still watched Sally’s offices. ‘Do you think Dr Rama’d give me a medical?’

Sally reached into her jeans’ pocket, found an object among the handful of coins and retrieved it. It had been screwed up into a ball. Taking care not to rip it, she smoothed it out against her upper leg, then held it for Cthulha. ‘You see this?’

Cthulha cast a glance back at it and shrugged. ‘It’s a sweet wrapper.’ She returned her attention to the offices.

Sally said, ‘Daisy collected it first thing this morning and gave me it – along with two others.’

‘So?’

‘So what’s it made of?’ Sally angled it to glint in the sunlight.

Cthulha turned, and frowned at it. ‘It’s foil.’

‘Exactly. She’s collecting foil for Uncle Al’s campaign.’

‘Is it lead foil?’

‘They don’t wrap sweets in lead.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s poisonous.’

‘But how could it know about Uncle Al’s campaign?’

‘Animals sense things. They’re not too bright but they sense things.’ Unlike Cthulha who was not too bright and sensed nothing.

‘And she thinks a sweet wrapper’ll impress him into letting her stay?’ Cthulha shoved her face into Daisy’s. ‘Bye bye, Dobbin. You and your sweet wrappers are on a one-way trip to the abattoir.’