The door flew open. Nathan leapt from the desk in fright. He was already under the table before he noticed that it was Martin and not Jenny.
‘What the hell are you doing under there?’
‘I dropped my pen,’ Wright lied unfazed, fumbling along the floor, thinking he was doing a good job of making like he really was looking for his pen. Martin wasn’t fooled. Martin knew Wright knew Jenny was after him. So the chicken shit was hiding.
‘Yeah, sure you are. Anyway Captain Courageous, there’s a phone call for you.’
________________
There was a set of brass bells in the kitchen downstairs. They were evidence that the original owners had, unlike the current incumbents, been wealthy enough to afford the servants Nathan so wanted.
Attached solid to the blue wall just inside the door leading to the connecting hall, they were housed in a teak wooden box. Originally installed to notify the servants of any summons from the master, mistress or any other pompous arsehole who felt they deserved to be waited on (some arsehole like Wright for instance), they were no longer functional.
These days, this primitive communications device refused to toll and was just a curiosity. A mere reminder of the house’s more halcyon days - an era of servants and silver. Wright, however, didn’t care that the gizmo didn’t work any more when he wanted something from the kitchen. He merely compensated, screaming instead of tolling.
And was tolled to get stuffed.
________________
‘What?’ Nathan said to the phone. Martin, standing a few feet away, a curious grin on his face, watched on. No-one answered Wright’s enquiry. Instead, an unmistakable dirge came wafting down the phone line. Nathan had been to enough weddings to recognise this particular tune.
It was the Death March
________________
While normal people called home ‘Greensleaves’. Or ‘Casa Blanca’ or ‘The Grange’, Wright, being deranged, called his ‘The Asylum’. The title was etched on a rectangular brass plaque which was screwed tight to the front fence right by the mail box in proud confirmation.
Of the one inmate inside.
________________
‘Ha bloody ha ha Jenny. Get off the damn phone. I’ve got better things to do than listen to your national anthem,’ Nathan squealed, slamming the phone down, Martin now collapsed on the bed laughing hysterically.
________________
The only inmate inside was Wright. It was his sign and his idea. The wierdling thought “The Asylum” was humorous. The others on the inside thought it horrendous and routinely, forcibly, removed his title from their fence.
But Wright was persistent. Persistently peculiar. When his house-mates removed it, Wright simply replaced it and the bloke at the hardware shop on the High Street was managing to send his kid through law school purely on the profits from Wright’s whack-off humour.
Such was the regularity of replacement that in gratitude, at the end of each semester, the plaque man sent Wright his son’s results. Mr. Hardware also included an order form which indicated to a philanthropic Nathan the number of name plates required to be brought this term for the man’s son’s continued education. Bloody cheek.
Anyway, adamant the name-plate should stay, Wright always told the others to use fluoride if they wanted the plaque gone. But neither toothpaste; nor screams; nor scorn; nor screwdriver would keep Wright’s sign from Wright’s fence.
Wright was seriously ill.
________________
Half an hour later, convinced that Jenny wasn’t in the vicinity, Wright was back at the desk. He’d finally managed to stop Martin from laughing at him by telling him Yaska, his dog, had been run over by some Kamikaze Japanese tourist. As Martin left to scrape up the bits Nathan, fed up with being patient, turned heretic megaphone and began wailing. Loudly.
Again hovering over the enemy keys, he began praying for something to tap out. A line or a sentence. A chorus of thought. He pleaded. Then argued passionately about the injustice of it all and demanded God assist his writing. When God didn’t answer his abuse, he changed tactics. He began grovelling. Pathetically. Then God answered.
‘Banzai!’ God said. Or rather yelled for it was no divinity who replied. Just the devil in a frock as a very annoyed Jenny swept through the door, responding to Wright’s pleas for inspiration by inspiring terror.
Face awash in gleeful vengeance, she hurled a shoe at a target head. Wright ducked athletically, easily managing to dodge the incoming footwear. But he couldn’t stop it flying out the window where it lodged in the shrubbery. In the shoe tree.
The shoe tree was a vast oak net of greenery called this because it held more of Wright’s footwear than the wardrobe into which he now escaped.
Jenny, from the doorway, grabbed the other half of the pair and tried to lodge it smack between Wright’s bloodshot eyes. But she was too slow, he was already gone.
Nathan had disappeared with the urgent ease of a whore’s underwear.
________________
This throwing of foot grenades was an ancient ritual perpetually performed by this mad Amazon. It was one of Jenny’s less curious customs. She’d turn human catapult whenever she was mad at Nathan and according to Nathan she was certifiable. And therefore mad most of the time, so he seemed to spend much of his life dodging incoming objects and hiding in wardrobes.
Defiant, wedged in the darkness of a clothes filled closet, Wright was safe but uncomfortable. Whack. Jericho shook.
‘You damn cringing fairy, its time you came out of the closet,’ she yelled, kicking his shield. The door of the bunker shook on its hinges with each rhythmic footfall as a queer, but inescapably heterosexual Nathan, sat confidently isolated from the crazy woman’s attack.
Although he’d done nothing to earn the queer title, Jenny was always calling him a fairy. So Wright in turn called her a dyke, or a troll. Or a fuckin’ deranged goblin. Consequently, Wright was always fleeing the goblin.
‘Go away, you maniac!’ He ordered, offering her fifty bucks to do so. His voice was remarkably clear, even though he was speaking through the thick wooden doors with a thick accent. (The Australian drawl had evolved directly from the flu virus. It was a no nose, no nonsense dialect which made all those who spoke it sound rather less well educated than they actually were. Were just out of primary school mostly).
‘Listen Nathan, face facts. You’re going to die. You’re only delaying the inevitable so stop cringing. Accept your fate with some dignity, you spineless, mindless moron!’
‘So I’ll get a brace....and buy some brains. Maybe I can get them cheap. Or second hand. Where did you get yours?’
‘Mine came at birth Nathan. Your pea sized mass resides in Lost Property still waiting to be claimed.’
‘Get fucked.’
‘Get plague.’
‘Don’t you have anything better to do than attack an unharmed man.’
‘Sure. Your autopsy.’
‘Very droll. Listen. The phone’s ringing. You’d better answer it.’
‘Liar.’
‘The kitchen’s on fire.’
‘Liar.’
‘Your boyfriend’s downstairs lying naked on the bed all excited and panting and erect just waiting to spear you. Right between the thighs’
‘Pervert’
‘Honest’
‘Liar.’
‘He’s oiled himself specially.’
‘Liar.’
‘Your beauty is legend.’
‘Li.....bastard’
‘Ha.... now piss of and leave me alone. I’ve got things to do.’
‘What.. in the cupboard?’
‘Of course in the cupboard.’
‘Like what? Play with yourself......Turn bat......Process film.... Nathan?’
‘What..?’
‘What’s thrives on shit and grows in the dark?’
‘A mushroom.’
‘Wrong. A Nathan does...’ She cackled hysterically, giving the door a further hefty kick for good measure before putting her feet to better use. By departing on them.
‘Chicken!’ She sneered leaving.
‘So go find me a white feather and post it to me,’ the mushroom retorted.
‘Go eat yourself. Then you could hallucinate that you’re human,’ the nearly departed laughed, stooping to collect further ammunition. Exiting, hurled a white turned brown Reebok at the bunker door, screaming. ‘You’ve been warned!’ She warned, leaving him (and his footwear) in no doubt that she meant what she threw.
________________
Jennifer Wilde was not to be trusted. (Nor were the others who shared this huge house. But only Martin was about so they weren’t much of a threat. For the moment anyway).
Far too often after an attack like this one, one of them, Jenny in particular, would lurk silent. Fake departure only to hide in the corner some-where as quiet as a peeping tom. So Wright, wary of this, refused to take chances. He didn’t budge.
He allowed a full half an hour to elapse before he felt confident enough to risk leaving the dark safety of the cramped bunker.
________________
Having lived with Nathan for a few years now, in various locations, Jenny was, by shared time, an old friend. She was the sister of an even older friend, Sue.
Sue, the calmer of the Wilde sisters, had worked with Nathan for a while and she’d suggested him to Jenny as a potential house-mate. (Sue’s suggestion made in vengeful retribution for all the awful things Nathan had done to Sue when they worked together Nathan said. Sue’s suggestion made in vengeful retribution for all the awful things Jenny had done to Sue when they were kids Jenny said).
At the time, Jenny had just finished University so she was impatient to flee the coup, for a coup with fleas it transpired. So Nathan gained her parents loss. And an avenging Anglo.
Her family was British. Her dad was from Blackpool. Her mother from the Black Lagoon, Wright said and while older sister Sue had been born in London, Jenny had been dropped on her head by a passing spaceship from the Galaxy Aggro (Wright again).
The family were seventies immigrants who’d escaped a union ill economy to come Down Under in search of a better life (and an orphanage willing to accept brain damaged aliens Wright claimed).
So, settling here, Jenny’s parents had worked hard, raised the kids, brought a house and become successful. Then this! Tragedy. Disaster of unspeakable proportions!
Ma and Pa were mortified at the prospect of their youngest, supposedly most innocent daughter, living with the deviant Wright. Who wasn’t married, was old, so was obviously seriously defective. They begged, they pleaded, they advised. Unsuccessfully, they tried everything to dissuade Jenny. But she wouldn’t be swayed. She wanted freedom and independence at any price and the rent Wright wanted was uncommonly cheap.
Because he was living alone at the time in a small flat in Brighton, he was willing to subsidise any-one who’d help banish the loneliness. And do the cleaning.
________________
Yaska came bounding through the door and took a leak (actually Martin with a water pistol. But Wright wasn’t to know) on the door of the wardrobe Wright was still cringing in.
‘Good dog Yas! That’ll teach the bastard to kill you,’ Martin patted him, Yaska’s tail wagging like a loose spring.
Hell, now even ghosts were after him!
________________
The Wilde’s grew desperate as the date for their daughter’s departure to the House of Wright in Brighton neared ever closer and, grasping at straws, two concerned (and far too frantic) parents tried one desperate last ploy. They tried reverse psychology.
They encouraged her to leave in the mistaken belief that two days with the Weird Wright would be more than enough to get their daughter back. Home. They were wrong for the plan backfired when, typical of Jenny, much to her mother’s horror and despite her father’s repeated attempts at bribery to win her back, Jenny remained. Away.
She enjoyed the new found freedom so stayed put, having a great time haranguing and harassing, and generally making Nathan’s life as uncomfortable as possible.
In truth, there was nothing vindictive, or malicious, or even real about her vendettas. Then or now.
It was a game. A mock antagonism that had evolved naturally over the years she’d lived under the same roof with a not quite sane Nathan. But had definitely not (she’d emphasise definitely, adding never ever when her parents accused) slept with him. OR bonked him.
Why, the very prospect was enough to make her giggle uncontrollably for days on end when the accusation that she’d been had horizontal by him was levelled at her. By her parents usually when she went home for Sunday lunch.
In their day, no woman lived with a man unless they were doing IT and no matter how much Jenny protested they still believed the worst. And as far as Jenny was concerned, bonking Nathan was as bad as it could get.
Nathan, needless to say, wasn’t the least amused when she told him this. He was wounded by her laughing dismissal of his vain glorious virility. Not that he wanted to bonk her either. But the thought that she’d not bonk him to save herself hurt his pride and he’d demand to know what was so ridiculous about the concept of sex with him, claiming that most women found him positively irresistible.
Positively life threatening, Jenny said.
________________
There were friends Nathan fucked, friends he didn’t. It was strange how few could grasp the concept that men and women could be friends without sharing bodily fluids. How two people of the opposite form could even share a bed without engaging organs. Honestly, it never ceased to amaze him how dubious people were when he’d try to explain. How grubby minds could twist and pervert what was purely friendship. So he gave up and told them he fucked anything that moved.
Friend OR Foe.
________________
Always smiling (unless pursuing) Jenny had shortish brown hair that stuck wire straight from her head when she’d just awoken. Because of this Wright used her as a filing system, impaling small yellow reminder notes on her nail hair when she sat down to eat breakfast.
Not overweight, but not slim, she seemed to spend her life dieting, chasing men, exercising at the Gym, and, when she wasn’t busy doing any of these, pursuing an ever erring Nathan about the house.
She was rarely really mad at him for she’d lived with Nathan for too long to get seriously angry. Nathan was too predictable, too childish, and had an all too short an attention span to even bother really getting angry with him.
As Jenny huffed occasionally, would you bother getting mad at a three year old?
________________
Quietly, cautiously, Nathan inched open the wardrobe door. Whack, with an Armageddon thud another flying leather slammed into the woodwork as another misguided missile almost amputated the left out lobe. Nathan, cursing his misfortune, immediately retreated back into the black of the coffin closet, momentarily vanquished by the army of a thousand helicopter heels.
Sitting alone in the darkness, surrounded by the all pervading waft of thousand year old moth balls, he began to think seriously about renting space in there on a more permanent basis.
Perched sullenly in the deepest darkness, he began contemplating his cowardice. He realised thirty minutes later that he was indeed chicken so started clucking like a chased chook. Arching an already bent back, he groped in his pockets until he found the bulge in his jeans that wasn’t him and removing a soiled white kleenex he gingerly, clucking loudly, wearing a lampshade for a helmet, stuck a nervous hand out the wardrobe door. Wright had decided to capitulate.
Waving piteously in abject abdication, feeling that surrender and shoes were preferable to such prolonged incarceration (or having to celebrate his fiftieth birthday here in this cathedral for clothes) he hoisted the white snot flag of surrender.
Surrendered in vain unfortunately for there was no General. Nothing generally pernicious to accept his humiliation. Jenny had better things to do than persecute Wright ad infinitum.
She’d left him sweating in the closet while she went downstairs to change then head for the gym to do some sweating of her own, hostilities on hold.
Nathan, white flag Kleenex returned to an empty pocket, smiled triumphantly. Victory was his. Yet again he’d out lasted the foe.
Creeping from self-imposed exile, he wandered aimlessly back to the desk, walking carefully to the humming typewriter trying to dodge the minefield of rubbish on the dump floor and only stopped smiling when, sitting down, it occurred to him that he’d have to play Tarzan and do some fairly rapid tree climbing if he wanted shoes on his feet when he arrived at work on Monday.
Bellowing, thumping a chimney chest, he leapt sole searching from the upstairs window.
Chapter Seven
KID’S STUFFED
SEATED ON LARGE ROCKS in a garden hewn from the hillside, four boys, spotty and not yet grown to any significant size, sat exchanging voices.
Robert, already obese with sausage fingers and the rear of a rhino, picked his nose. Then ate it (this being his idea of a dietary supplement). On the rock next to him Simon, buck teeth and poor eyesight, searched in his marble bag for his favourite tom bowler, a red/black monster that had thus-far conquered all-comers. Trevor, already handsome with straight teeth and wealthy parents, and so set for an easy life, drew pictures in the dusty soil. Wearing grey shorts, neat shirt and tie, the young Wright was chewing an apple (Nathan was a cute kid and there was little to indicate a future that would be almost as dim as Robert’s mind was).
Eating mum packed lunches above the sandpit, slides and monkey bars of the school playground, they were waiting to catch a glimpse of the coloured linen. Or cotton panty'd backsides belonging to the laughing prepubescent girls who’d hang upside down on the metal apparatus. Playful evidence that Darwin’s theory was not as misguided as creationists would have their zit minded converts believe. Certainly, there was a strong streak of chimpanzee in this lot.
‘Look at Mary Hecktor, she’s got green one’s on today.’
‘She had green one’s on yesterday.’
‘Didn’t.’
‘Did.’
‘Didn’t.’
‘Did.’
‘Didn’t.’
This sparkling repartee went on for another ten minutes and was only halted by the appearance of the ever naked rear end of Wanda Louise Hogg (whose mother perennially neglected to rivet panties to this subsequently perennially bare bum).
‘Wanda’s got no pants on!’
‘Wanda’s never got any pants on, pooh brain.’
‘Do you think she’s too poor to buy some?’
‘Nah, she was born that way.’
‘What, she was born without pants on?’
‘Holy shamoly you twit face nerd. We all get born without pants on! I mean she’s a free spirit...’
‘What, like my dad?’ Simon said, still searching. ‘Only his spirits aren’t free. Me mum says we could buy a small island with what pop spends at the pub.’
‘Where were you when they gave out brains? In the stupid cue? My mum says Wanda was born a free spirit..’
‘You told your mum?’ There was a tangible hush. The other kids looked horrified. Their most private secret had been revealed to an outsider. Worse, to a mother.
‘Nah, what do think I am, a stupid?’ There were murmurings from the others. Murmurings of a unanimous yes.
‘I told her I saw it on TV.’
‘And she said Wanda was a free spirit?’
‘Yep.’
‘What’s a free spirit?’
Fortunately the bell rang and the question stayed asked but unanswered.
________________
Sadly, most women’s spirits weren’t as free as Wanda’s. Most cost. At eighteen, Wright was happy (a rare and thoroughly temporary affliction). He did a paper round in the morning, absconded from school in the afternoon and gave resuscitation lessons in the back seat of his mother’s Mini Minor at night. Life was good and so were his dates. Unfortunately.
Good girls didn’t so he was constantly searching for the bad ones who did. But none of them did either. No girl Wright tried to fondle followed Wanda’s lead. None of them were so casual about their underwear. The women Wright tried to mate wore glue linen, not no linen. He’d tried scissors, oxyacetylene blow torches, wire cutters. Begging and bribery but nothing would separate these girls from their mum locked panties.
While Nathan wanted lust, they wanted no part of it (or his fumbling of theirs). Nathan was beginning to think that maybe his old school friend had been right.
Maybe girls were born with their pants on?
________________
Playtime, and they were back watching Wanda. For the boys, grouped in their voyeur huddle, observing the inverted was supposed to be exiting. Supposedly, it would give them some mysterious thrill. Only it didn’t. They were too young to know what a thrill was - or what to do with it. After six months of solid study, none of them were any the wiser as to why the rest of the world was so interested in girls. (And their backsides. Or for that matter, front sides - clad or unclad).
When the boys saw underwear, the boys saw underwear. They saw nothing exotic, nothing exciting - just underwear. With senses as yet unwrapped, they were retarded by youth and the still dormant urges.
Nathan, unwrapping an ice-cream, speaking to no-one in particular, asked. ‘If you had one wish, what would it be?’
‘I’d wish we lived in a lolly shop with chocolate bars as big as the moon,’ Robert answered, his arms outstretched, giving an idea just how big he wanted them to be. Somehow, unwrapping two chocolate coated vanilla ice-creams, he managed to jam both of them into his tremendous gob at the same time. Trevor laughed at him. What a lack of vision, there was no way he’d squander his one wish on anything so trivial.
‘I’d wish for all the money in the world so I could buy your dumpy little lolly shop and then I’d force you an’ your family onto the street where you’d have to live in a cardboard box what I’d charge you rent for,’ he said. Even then, Trevor was a budding capitalist. A budding capitalist arsehole .
Simon had been silently considering the options.
‘I’d wish for peace on earth,’ he said. There was spontaneous laughter and Simon knew he’d done it again. Said the wrong thing. Or the right thing badly. Simon was far to sensitive for this lot or the reality which awaited him. Later, after University and divorce, he was to became a famous alcoholic who slept on park benches and smelt worse than Wright’s feet. And who died in 1985 when his liver failed him as miserably as humanity had.
‘What would you wish for?’ Robert said to the kid on the end.
‘I’d wish that every wish I wished would come true.’ Nathan said.
Even then Wright was a greedy son of a bitch.
________________
Wright refused to age gracefully. His years had fled so casually that aside from the fact that his body and brain were failing him, he’d almost hadn’t noticed their passing. Until a birthday rolled around. Then he noticed, then he wept. He was almos