And I thought about Count Otto. And what a good friend to Sandra and me he had been for years.
And I thought about what a shame it was that I would be forced to swoop upon him one night as he lay asleep in his bed. Bind him, gag him and slowly torture him to death.
Because, after all, he was sexing my wife!
And company man and sell-out boy and wimp and twonk that Sandra might have thought I was.
I certainly wasn’t having that!
13
It’s funny how things work out, isn’t it?
If Sandra hadn’t gone off on that caravan holiday with Count Otto Black, I would never have put in that bit of overtime and found out just how useless Barry was at the bulb.
It was honestly as if he didn’t care.
Can you believe that?
I was standing there, talking to him about switch technique and what I called “alert-finger” and the bulb flashed. And Barry just reached out across the table, slow as you please, as if he was answering a telephone, and flapped his hand down on the switch.
I was flabbergasted.
I was stunned.
Stunned, appalled, and flabbergasted.
All at once.
“That is so bad,” I said to Barry. “That is so bad. I can’t believe how so, so, so, so, so, so bad that is.”
“It’s just a bulb,” said Barry. “Just a fugging bulb.”
“Curb that language in this booth,” I said to Barry. “This is not just a bulb.”
“So, what is it, then, a way of life?”
“It’s a job for life. And I’ve worked at it for five long years of mine. And it’s a responsibility. A big responsibility. It’s your responsibility when you’re on your shift.”
“Get a life,” said Barry. “Get real.”
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” I said. “I spy anarchism here. I spy subversion. I smell recidivism.”
“You smell wee-wee,” said Barry. “And it’s yours.”
“No wee-wee on me,” I said. “Sniff my groin if you have any doubts.”
“Smells of teen spirit,” said Barry. Whatever that meant.
“You’ll have to apply yourself more to the job,” I told him.
“Barking,” said Barry. “Barking mad.”
“I’ve never been to Barking,” I told him. “I can get mad about Penge, perhaps. But never Barking.”
“Fugg off home,” said Barry. “I want to read my book.”
“You can’t read a book here. You have to be ever alert.”
“I have to switch a stupid bulb off when it comes on. I’ll read my book until it does.”
I opened my mouth very wide but no words at all came out of it.
“I’m reading Passport to Peril,” said Barry. “It’s a Lazlo Woodbine thriller. Not that you’d know about that, I’m sure.”
“On the contrary, young man,” I said. “I’ve read every Lazlo Woodbine thriller at least a dozen times. I know the lot. By heart, most, if not all, of them.”
“Yeah, right,” said Barry.
“Yeah, right indeed.”
“Oh, so if I was to ask you a question about Lazlo Woodbine, you’d know the answer, would you?”
“I applied to go on Mastermind answering questions on the detective novels of P.P. Penrose as my specialist subject. I didn’t get picked, though.”
“All right, I’ll ask you questions.”
“Not here,” I said. “The bulb might flash.”
“Fugg the bulb,” said Barry. “If it flashes, I’ll switch it off.”
“I’ll switch it off,” I said. “You’re useless at it. I’m going to see if there are drugs I can take that will allow me to stay awake twenty-four hours a day so I can do your shift too.”
“What drug did Lazlo Woodbine take in Waiting for Godalming that allowed him to stay awake for twenty-four hours a day for a whole week?”
“Trick question,” I said. “No drug at alclass="underline" he did it by willpower. He had to stay awake because if he fell asleep the Holy Guardian Sprout inside his head would have read his mind and given away the trick ending of the book to the readers. Waiting for Godalming was a Post-Modernist Lazlo Woodbine thriller – one of the weakest in my opinion.”
“Good answer,” said Barry. “But it might have been a lucky one. All right, I’ll ask you another. In Death Carries a Pink Umbrella—”
“Set in Berlin,” I said.
“East or West?”
“Both,” I said. “And also Antwerp, where Laz identifies Molly Behemoth by her ‘distinctive birthmark and Egyptian walk’ …”
“Yes, OK. But who ‘ate his way to freedom’ and never used the word ‘nigger’ when ‘Frenchman’ would do?”
“Callbeck the miner’s son, who sold his soul to Harrods in a bet with a Rasputin Impersonator who turned out to be one of the Beverley Sisters.”
“Burger me backwards over my aunty’s handbag,” said Barry. “You sure know your Lazlo Woodbine thrillers.”
“Buddy,” I said, “in my business, knowing your Lazlo Woodbine thrillers can mean the difference between painting the town red and wearing a pair of red pants, if you know what I mean and I’m sure that you do.”[17]
“I know where you’re coming from,” said Barry. “Although that was a pretty poor imitation.”
“No one can do it like Penrose could,” I said.
“Too true, brother,” said Barry. “Although I never had time for his Adam Earth science-fiction books. They were rubbish, in my opinion.”
“True,” I said. And I sighed. “Listen,” I said, continuing. “It’s really wonderful to meet another fan of the great man, but you really are useless at this job. Perhaps you should just quit and let a more committed individual take over.”
“There’s no quitting, is there?” said Barry. “It’s off to prison for the quitter. I foolishly signed the Official Secrets Act.”
“Ah, yes,” I said. “I signed that too.”
“Which is why you’re such a twonk, I suppose. You gave up, sold out and gave in.”
I didn’t like to talk about this stuff. It was personal. “All right,” I said. “I thought about rebelling. I really did. I came here on my second day with every intention of smashing the bulb or pulling it out and sitting here with my arms folded to see what would happen.”
“And so why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was going to do it. I got drunk the night before and determined utterly that I’d do it. Then I got up all hungovered and came in here and sat down in that chair. Which now has my special sprung cushion on it, you’ll notice, and I was going to rebel. But I had such a hangover and I thought I’d rebel later and the light flashed and I switched it off. And I thought, ‘Stuff it. I’ll just not switch it off next time.’ But then it flashed on again and I was all on my own and I thought, ‘OK, I’ll just switch it off the one time more. But this will be the last time.’
“And then I thought about my wife Sandra and how she was really ticked off about how I was always out of work. And Harry, her brother, who said about saving up for a motorbike so you could be first at interviews for really good jobs, and I thought, ‘OK, I’ll just stick it out for a week. Or maybe two. Then find some way of getting out.’ But then it sort of grew on me and I started taking pride in my job. Because I was in it and Mr Holland kept impressing upon me how important it was. Although I’ve never been able to find out why. But he said it was. And, OK, there was the threat – that was always there in the back of my mind – foul up and you’re off to prison.
17
This will mean absolutely nothing to anyone who has never read a Lazlo Woodbine thriller. But who are these people? Anyone?