His technique proved to be faultless. Having selected from the breeder’s guide a horse suitable for cloning, Norman shouted abuse at the stable lad grooming it. The stable lad replied to Norman’s abuse in the manner which has been favoured by stable lads since the very dawning of time.
He hurled horseshit at Norman.
Norman gathered up the horseshit and put it in his bucket.
Having visited five stables, Norman had a full bucket, containing all the genetic material he needed.
He was even home in time for Sunday lunch.
On the Monday, Norman used whatever time he could between serving customers to slip away to his back kitchen workshop and extract the DNA from the horseshit. This was a rather tricky task, requiring, as it did, a very large magnifying glass, a very small pair of tweezers and a very steady hand …
By shop-close, however, he’d filled up a test tube. Now, there is, apparently, something of a knack to gene-splicing. It calls for some pretty high-tech state-of-the-art equipment, which is only to be found in government research establishments. Norman did not have access to these, so instead he gave the test tube a bloody good shake. Which was bound to splice something.
On the Tuesday, which was today, things had not gone well for Norman. He’d been hoping to at least knock out a test horse, but there had been too many interruptions.
People kept bothering him for things. Could he get them this? Could he get them that? Norman told them all that he certainly could not. And then there had been all the fuss about the videos.
He should never have started hiring out videos. It was a very bad idea. Norman couldn’t think for the life of him why he’d started doing it in the first place. But then, for the life of him, he remembered that he could.
It was all the fault of John Omally.
Omally had come into Norman’s shop a couple of months before, complaining bitterly that there was nowhere in Brentford where you could hire out a videotape.
Norman had shrugged in his shopcoat.
“There’s a fortune waiting for the first man who opens a video shop around here,” said Omally.
Norman nodded as he shrugged.
“A fortune,” said John. “I’d open one myself, but the problem is finding the premises.”
“Why is that the problem?” Norman asked.
“Because there aren’t any shops to rent around here.”
“Which must be why no one has opened a video shop.”
“Exactly,” said Omally. “And it’s not as if you’d need a particularly large shop. In fact, when you come to think about it, all you’d really need would be a bit of shelf space in an existing shop.”
“I see,” said Norman.
Omally glanced around at Norman’s shop. “I mean, take this place, for instance,” he said. “Those shelves over there. The ones with all the empty sweetie jars. Those shelves there could be earning you a thousand pounds a week.”
“How much?” said Norman.
“A thousand pounds a week.”
“Those shelves there?”
“Those shelves there.”
“Bless my soul,” said Norman.
Omally did a bit of shrugging. “Makes you think,” said he.
“It certainly does,” Norman agreed. “Of course, there would be the enormous capital outlay of buying all the videos.”
“Not if you had the right connections.”
“I don’t,” said Norman.
“I do,” said John.
And it had seemed a good idea at the time. What with Omally knowing where he could lay his hands on five hundred videotapes for a pound each. It was only after Norman had parted with the money and Omally had loaded the tapes onto the shelves that Norman thought to ask a question.
“What are on these tapes?” Norman asked. “None of them are labelled.”
“I don’t know,” Omally said.
“But haven’t you tried any out?”
“How could I try any out? I don’t own a VCR.”
Norman’s face came over all blank. “But I thought you were bitterly complaining that—”
“There was nowhere in Brentford you could hire a videotape from. Yes, I was. But I was speaking generally. I didn’t mean me personally.”
“Oh,” said Norman. “I see.”
“Well, I’m all done now,” said John. “So I’ll be off.”
And with that said, he was.
It took Norman more than a week to go through the tapes. He had some very late nights. To his great disappointment, none of them turned out to be Hollywood blockbusters. All contained documentary footage. Of Chilean secret police interrogating prisoners.
Norman marvelled at the methods of torture employed, although he did think that some of the electrical apparatus used could have been improved upon.
“Although I won’t waste my time writing to tell them,” Norman said to himself. “Because they probably won’t answer my letter.”
But now Norman realized that he had a very real problem on his hands. What was he to do with these videos? I mean, he could hardly hire them out.
Not without titles.
And when it came to little movies, these ones all had the same plot.
Norman put his mighty brain in gear. Snappy titles, that’s what they needed. Norman at once came up with OUCH!: THE MOVIE. This was good because it allowed for OUCH! II: THE SEQUEL. And also OUCH! III. In no time at all Norman was into his stride.
He followed up the OUCH collection with the NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL TORMENT series and he even managed to cut together a blooper tape of humorous out-takes. Torturers slipping over in the blood and accidentally electrocuting themselves and so on.
Norman toyed with the idea of calling this one CARRY ON UP MY BOTTOM WITH THE ELECTRIC CATTLE PROD.
But that was a bit too long.
Norman earned his money back on the videos and he made a bit extra besides. They didn’t prove popular as family viewing, but they attracted a certain following amongst a certain type of male.
The police raid at lunchtime had come as a bit of a shock. He’d noticed the police presence, just up the road outside the Flying Swan, and when a couple of coppers came into his shop to buy sweets, Norman had asked them, in all innocence, whether they’d like to join his video club.
And now here he was in a police interrogation room at the Brentford nick. An interrogation room that looked strangely familiar. Norman sighed and shifted uncomfortably. The metal chair was cold on his naked bum. The electrodes were pinching his nipples.
Norman hoped that they’d soon let him go. After all, he’d answered all their questions. Several times over. He’d said all the things they’d expected him to say. That he was an innocent victim of circumstance. That he’d bought the videos from a stranger he’d met in a pub. The policemen wouldn’t keep him tied up around here much longer, would they? Sitting on cold chairs gave you the piles and Norman didn’t want those.
And he had too much to do. He had to get back to his workshop and see how his horse was coming along. He’d left the DNA gently cooking in a nutrient solution on the stove, and although it was only on a low light, it might all end up stuck to the bottom of the saucepan if he didn’t get back soon to give it a stir.
Norman sighed again and made a wistful face. If only there weren’t so many complications, he thought. If only we could live our lives in little movies.
As chance would have it (or if not chance then fate, and if not fate then who knows what?), there was something closely resembling a little movie going on in Norman’s kitchen workshop even as he thought and said these things.
It was a little B-movie, although the special effects were superb.
If there had actually been a script for this movie, it might well have begun something like this.