“So was tying Hedgeclipper and his receptionist up part of the ‘restitooshun’?”
“Well, no, I haven’t got on to his restitooshun yet. I’m still working on yours – or rather your husband’s… if you know what I mean.”
She didn’t, but she felt this wasn’t the moment to ask for an explanation. “So what else have you been doing for the last three years?”
“I been working on changing my personality,” he replied.
“Oh yes. How did you set about doing that?”
He smiled proudly. “I went to see the chaplain. Never had any of that God stuff when I was a nipper, so I got him to take me through the whole business, right from the start… you know, the Garden of Eton, the whole number, right up to the Crucifaction and the Reservation… And I got him to give me books to read.”
“What – like the Bible?”
“Well, yes, a few like that, but more of them was joke books.”
“Joke books?”
“That’s right. Because, you see, it’s like what the angel said. Not only had I done wrong, but also I never had no sense of humour. That’s what distinguishes man from the animals, the chaplain said – a sense of humour.”
“Well, it’s a point of view.”
“So I been working the last three years to build up my sense of humour.”
“From the joke books?”
“Yes.” He nodded with satisfaction, then coughed. “Do you know the joke about the nervous wreck?”
“No, I don’t believe I do,” said Mrs Pargeter.
Fossilface O’Donahue chuckled. “This’ll kill you, really will. Dead good, this one. I spent most of the past three years practising telling jokes, you know.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah. All right, so here goes.” He cleared his throat again. “What lies on the bottom of the ocean and shivers?”
“Amaze me,” said Mrs Pargeter.
“A nervous wreck!” Fossilface O’Donahue pronounced ecstatically, and burst into a deep rumble of laughter.
Mrs Pargeter joined in politely, though she thought he might still have a little way to go in his joke-telling technique. Fossilface wasn’t yet quite ready for the professional stand-up comedy circuit.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” he said. “Dead good.” Mrs Pargeter smiled encouragingly. “No,” he went on, “the chaplain told me… you go about your daily life with a sense of humour and people are bound to warm to you.”
“I’m sure they will.”
“So that’s what I’ve been working on – my sense of humour. Making sure that everyone who meets me leaves with a smile on their face.”
“What an appealing idea.”
“Mm.” He waved the plastic clown mask at her. “I thought this’d give you a good laugh.”
“Oh.”
He looked disappointed. “Didn’t, though, did it? It seemed almost like you was scared of it, rather than amused by it.”
“Well, yes, of course all jokes depend for their effect on the mood of the person they’re told to, don’t they?” she said judiciously. “And the occasion.”
“Yeah. So, another time, if you was, like, in the right mood, you’d’ve thought this mask was dead funny?”
“Yes, I’m sure I would, Fossilface.”
The nickname had slipped out unintentionally. Mrs Pargeter held her breath for a second, waiting for the, reaction, but was relieved to see a smile split his craggy features.
“Good. That’s what I want to do, you see – leave people with smiles on their faces.”
“Very nice too.”
“My aim is to, like, suddenly appear from nowhere, do the restitooshun to the geezers what I done wrong to, then vanish off again.” He chuckled throatily. “Sort of like the Loan Arranger.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s another joke I learnt from one of the books while I was in the nick. This bloke, see, he goes to the bank, and there’s this other bloke sitting at a desk with a black mask on… I mean, the bloke’s got the mask on, not the desk.”
“Right.”
“And the bloke – this is the first bloke, I mean the one who come in – he says to another bloke – this is not the one sitting at the desk with the mask on…”
“It’s a third bloke, in fact.”
“It is. You got it, right, a third bloke. Anyway, this bloke – the one who’s come in – he asks the other bloke – not the one with the mask on his desk, that is, the third one – he asks him: ‘Oo’s that bloke over there?’ This is the one with the mask he’s asking about now, right?”
“Right.”
“So the other bloke – this is the third one now…”
“I’m with you.”
“He says: ‘That bloke’s our Mortgage Department. He’s the Loan Arranger!’”
Fossilface O’Donahue rumbled with laughter at his punch-line, and Mrs Pargeter too managed to summon up a little chuckle. “Very good, very good.”
“Yeah, well, the trick with jokes,” he confided, “doesn’t lie in the joke itself…”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No, it’s not the jokes – it’s the way you tell them.”
“Ah.”
“I been practising that, and all.”
“Oh, it shows, it shows.”
“Yes. You know, I’m really working on this sense of humour business.”
“So I can see.”
“And I’m going to use it in the way I make restitooshun to the people what I done wrong to.”
“Oh really?” said Mrs Pargeter, unable to disguise the edge of anxiety in her voice. She didn’t relish the loose cannon of Fossilface O’Donahue’s sense of humour coming anywhere near her.
“You bet. For instance, do you know what I done wrong to your husband?”
“No.” Mrs Pargeter wasn’t sure that she actually wanted to know.
“I cheated him out of five hundred nicker.”
“Oh dear. Well, I’m sure he would have forgiven you for –”
“Oh no, he’s going to get restitooshun for it all right – or, actually, you’re going to get restitooshun for it.”
“Thank you,” Mrs Pargeter murmured weakly.
“In fact, you already got it.”
“Have I?”
“Yes. You are the proud recipient of the first bit of restitooshun what I done since I come out…”
“Lucky me.”
“… and you’re the first one to experience the full effect of my sense of humour.”
“Really?”
“So what do you think of it, eh?”
Mrs Pargeter was perplexed. “I’m sorry. I’m not quite with you. You’ll have to explain.”
Gleefully, Fossilface O’Donahue did as he was requested. “I done your old man out of five hundred… What’s the slang for five hundred?”
It became horribly clear. “A ‘monkey’?” she suggested with resignation.
“Exactly,” a triumphant Fossilface confirmed.
Mrs Pargeter looked down at Erasmus, sleeping in his circle of debris on the carpet. “Oh yes,” she said. “Very amusing.”
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Eleven
“The thought of Fossilface O’Donahue having developed a sense of humour,” said Truffler Mason heavily, “is almost too awful to contemplate.”
“Right. I’m afraid he hasn’t really caught on to the idea properly yet. I mean, I think that maybe he understands the general principle of humour, but he sure as hell doesn’t understand what makes something funny.”
“No, he always did have a rather ponderous approach to… well, to everything, really.”
Truffler took a contemplative sip of his champagne. They were in the bar of Greene’s Hotel, later the same evening. Having started drinking champagne, Mrs Pargeter saw no reason to stop. Fossilface O’Donahue had gone, and a touching reunion been effected between Hedgeclipper Clinton and Erasmus. The hotel manager was determined to protect the marmoset more rigorously in future.