And we set to work. If you’ve ever skinned anything, you’ll know the deal. So let’s fast forward to dinner. I decline a drink, but Lucas is having none of my protestations.
“Ring home. We’ve got a phone. Call up your estranged harpy and tell her you’re staying over. She’ll be glad to get rid of you for a while. We however, would be glad of the company. At least till morning… when the novelty wears off and we kick you out.” He has such a charming way with words.
My mind wanders back to my last visit. When they balanced body parts on my sleeping form and took photographs. Producing the pictures over breakfast was of equally questionable taste. Well, I’m making my excuses, but they’re not taking no for an answer. Soon I’m standing with a glass in my hand and it’s too late to leave.
“I’ll stay on one condition,” I say, “no practical jokes.” But it’s a vain hope. I know I’ve no choice in the matter.
Laura flashes those mischievous eyes of hers and Lucas starts to laugh – two lunatics lost in their own world of internal organs and sick humour.
The night goes as you’d expect. It’s fun to start with and the rest is a blur. I wake up in the spare room. My head feels like it’s been nailed on and I don’t need Laura greeting me at the breakfast table with Bactrian’s skin folded over a chair. I don’t need her making it dance for me.
“We did a good job,” she says. “But I’m not sure how long he’ll last. He’s starting to go mouldy. You might need to polish him or something.”
Lucas walks in clutching his forehead.
“You need to tan him. That’s what you do with leather. You tan it.”
“What with?” I ask.
“There’s a couple of options. You can either use mashed brains and oatmeal rubbed in or soak it in tree bark and urine,” he answers cheerily. “Take your pick.”
Can my life get any worse, I ask myself. It can. Laura passes me a computer print. I see my own sleeping face. But what’s that on my head? Lucas disappears beneath the table. He returns waving a large intestine.
I’m outside my secret workshop; my secret workshop in the shittiest part of the city. And I’m nervous. The door’s open and I left it locked. I’m wondering who’s in there. I’ve got a rolled up bundle of human skin under one arm and I know for a fact that the floor’s still covered in human matter. Please don’t be the police, I pray. It doesn’t matter that I’m working for the government. They see me, they see the blood and they’ll shoot on sight. I’m hoping it’s thieves. I’ll wave Bactrian and they’ll run like scared mink.
But it’s not cops and it’s not criminals. It’s worse. I can’t speak. My face drops. My stomach cramps. Is that an ulcer I can feel? I turn to leave. Too late, he’s seen me. There’s a pause, a mere split second, and then it starts:
“Yer know, I can’t get ’er out me mind, yer know. It’s like… It’s like…”
Elton. Sodding Elton. Well, this is a kick in the balls. When you’ve hauled yourself out the cesspit, it’s always a disappointment when the shit follows you home. Or to your not-so-fucking-secret-anymore workshop. I let out some inhuman cry, like a whale getting harpooned, and the unholy idiot joins in with me.
“I’m screaming because you’re here,” I tell him. “You’re not allowed to join in. You can’t scream at yourself!” Then again, he probably can. And then I start wondering how he found me.
“You’ve had a delivery,” he says. “Spare parts”.
He flicks a switch. I look. I listen. I swear.
This is the sound of my situation getting stupider. Elton’s ‘spare parts’ come in the form of three automated cats, promoting some long-gone brand of breakfast cereal.
“We are The Crueslie Kittens!” they announce in their deeply creepy way. Then they damn well sing again:
“Great, ain’t it?” says Elton, grinning like an imbecile.
“‘Betterer’ isn’t a proper word,” I answer. But he’s not listening.
“There’s more! The ‘It’s Tough Without Roughage’ poem!” And, God rot him, he’ll be right. I know he’ll be right because he’ll have sat there for hours on end listening for backwards messages from Satan.
“‘That’s a mighty fine log’, said the Captain to the owl,
‘I’ll admit were all agog. It’s a whopper!’ he did howl
‘Well, it’s Crueslie takes the credit, Skip’, replied the gracious fowl
‘It’s a belter in your bowl and even better in your bowel!’”
I can’t take it. It’s like being back in the playground again. Only, this time, regaled by some blasphemous simulacrum of a morally ambiguous mammal.
“Let’s play the Turning Off Game,” I suggest.
“What’s the Turnin’ Off game?” Elton asks.
“This!” And I yank the kitten’s plug from the electricity socket. “Now the key to the Turning Off game is not turning it on again until you’ve taken a hammer and smashed up all the little drives with songs about cereal on them.”
He looks at me blankly.
“I ain’t a child,” he says.
“Not physically,” I answer.
“And what’s yer problem with cats?”
“Well, a cat was responsible for my mother’s death,” I say, using dialogue as a plot device,”but I wouldn’t say I have a problem with them. I just, sort of… disapprove of them.”
Elton looks at me blankly.
“Eh?”
“Well, they’re elegant. You’ve got to give them that. But, at best, they’re substitute children. At worst, they’re parasites. I mean, you can kid yourself that it actually feels some kind of affection for you. But it doesn’t, really. You’re a source of food and warmth. Your cat looks at you and all it sees is a massive tit. In every sense of the word.” Elton just launches into some ramble about how cats and women deserve each other.
“Both the same,” is his insight. “Ignore ya; eat all yer food. An’ then, when they want somefin’, they stick their arse in yer face.”
“Yes, yes, the similarities are endless. You’re a genius,” I say.
“And then they leave. And you miss them.”
“Okay. Fine. That’s just fine, Mr Misogynist.”
“We always want what we can’t ‘ave!” he moans and here we go again. Lost loves and lah, lah, lah!
It’s cold outside. Climate Change has taken the weather beyond screwy. Last week we had a heatwave, this week it’s ankle deep snow. We’re lucky enough to have a gas burner. It keeps us a few degrees above frostbite. The warmth rises, hits the workshop’s icy aluminium roof and drips condensation on our heads. There are worse things in life.
I’m building a mechanised body for Bactrian’s newly preserved skin. Elton carried out the tanning process. You can’t count on his silence. You can count on nobody in their right mind believing him.
You see, Elton is notorious for his Lindberg-style meltdown. Formerly a celebrity ventriloquist, his primetime career came to end after appearing on live children’s television with his hand up a dead swan and triggering an epidemic of night terrors and bed-wetting. Not entirely stupid, he now earns a crust as the face of a waterproof mattress cover company and the ‘Easy-On Elton’ is now the nation’s favourite rubber sheet.