PART TWO:
At 9.30 am, after hours of forced dozing, Charlie McTavish finally opened his eyes. He was not, by nature, a late sleeper but, since he’d gone to live above Fook’s Wok, he would delay opening his eyes for the horror of seeing where he was.
Charlie’s room was too small for anything much more than sleeping so for a while he lay, hairy and naked, on the single, sagging bed and stared up at the water-stained ceiling. Finally, he threw the tartan blanket aside and sat up. This place really was the pits but, over the last ten years, circumstances had taken hold of Charlie’s destiny. Surely, a fifty-six-year-old accountant had a right to believe he’d have something left after thirty-five years of hard work? Charlie, though, hated fights and arguments. Despite his ferocious-looking appearance, the thick beard, the biker-leathers and the dark glasses, Charlie was too timid. He was too nice. Charlie would rather hide or run away than engage in bitter arguments and disputes. It had been his downfall.
He took a deep breath. Right now, he felt surprisingly hungry.
Dining on fish fingers and baked beans at Paddy’s last night had been like a night out in the West End for Charlie. Paddy had even produced two cans of diet coke. For breakfast, though, Charlie always ate whatever was left lying around in Fook’s kitchen downstairs although there was a limit to how many left-over portions of chicken and black bean sauce or cold egg noodles Charlie’s stomach could take.
From his bed he looked around his box-like, windowless room. It could be summer, autumn, winter or spring outside for all Charlie knew though the ceiling above his head suggested it was still the rainy season.
His boots sat neatly, side by side, facing the door as if they knew they needed to be ready to flee this dump at any moment, and his leathers were strewn over three boxes stuffed with old accountancy files. He pulled a hand through his beard, scratched his armpits and concluded he needed to visit the downstairs toilet fairly promptly. For washing, Charlie used Fook’s kitchen sink, also downstairs, which first meant clearing space, taking out the black plastic bags of garbage and scouring Fook’s saucepans and woks. In return for janitorial and other kitchen duties, Charlie had negotiated a rental deal which meant he got the accommodation at less than half price.
He stood, pulled on a pair of Y-fronts and a sweater, went downstairs, did his job in the toilet and then scanned the kitchen scene. He’d seen worse. Fook’s Sunday night trade was never as good as Friday or Saturday. He opened one of the polystyrene take-away boxes, found an untouched portion of sweet and sour pork, matched it with a spoonful of cold rice from the rice cooker and ate his breakfast. He scoured the woks and saucepans, threw food, plastic spoons, forks and other detritus into the black bag and carried it outside to find it was, of course, raining.
Outside, under a plastic sheet and propped next to the wheelie bins, was Charlie’s Honda motorcycle. It should have been a Harley 1200 Custom but that had proved impossible. Nevertheless, he patted the Honda’s dripping handlebars, looked beneath the sheet to check the seat was dry and returned inside. Next, with the sink cleared, he lifted his feet, washed them in Fairy Liquid and then started on the rest. By 10.30 am Charlie, washed, fed, clean and smelling of lemon dishwasher was ready to start work.
He returned upstairs and pulled out his most valuable possession, his laptop, from beneath the bed. He sat on the floor and logged onto the internet via Wi-Fi that came, albeit with unreliable connectivity, courtesy of Fook’s Launderette and Dry Cleaners next door. If Charlie could just find one company needing an accountant with twenty-five years’ experience or a good business idea that wouldn’t need start-up funds or a bank loan he might, at last, be able to move on.
Charlie had never been the most extrovert of men but it explained why he and Albert Sinnick had struck up such an easy-going relationship and how he’d then met Paddy and Quentin. Every detail of his first meeting with Sinnick was fixed indelibly on Charlie’s memory.
His appointment at Krupton Health Clinic had been at 9.10am on a Wednesday morning, so he’d sat there in his leathers with his crash helmet on his knee. At last, at 9.35, he’d heard his name called. “Mr. McTavish, Room One. Doctor Sinnick.”
He’d got up, his boots and leathers squeaking down the corridor and knocked twice on the door of Room One. Hearing nothing he’d gone inside to find Sinnick staring at his computer.
After standing, nervously twirling the threads of his beard, Charlie coughed, sat down on what he took to be the patient’s chair and put his crash helmet on the floor. Sinnick, meanwhile, had continued to stare at his computer whilst tapping his teeth with a pen and muttering something about sneezing and freezing and wheezing. Suddenly he’d jumped. “That’s it, Freud - pleasing. Good man.”
Then, much to Charlie’s surprise, he’d sat back in his chair and looked at him. “Good Lord, have you been there long?”
“Five minutes or so.”
“You should have knocked. Right. Let me see.” Sinnick had checked his screen. “Harry Smallwood? Maurice Cook?”
“Charles McTavish.”
“McTavish, McTavish. Yes, here we are. What’s wrong this time?”
“I’ve only been here once before.”
“Well done. So why come today?”
“Spot of bother down under.”
“I see. I’ll need a fresh tube of KY then if I can’t trust your own diagnosis.”
“Hemorrhoids.”
“Tried everything?”
“The usual. They might need litigating.”
“Perhaps you mean ligating?”
“That’s it.”
“I’ll make you an appointment. Got a phone number?”
Charlie had handed over his card. “Charles McTavish: Accountant.”
“Accountant?” Sinnick said curiously, scanning Charlie from his black leather boots up to his long grey beard. “Are you sure?”
Charlie nodded. The beard had grown recently but the rest of him had remained unchanged for quite a while.
“Ah well. I’ll text you something this afternoon. Everything else, OK?”
“Fine. Just the hemorrhoids.”
That had been it. Charlie squeaked his way back down the corridor and went on his way. By co-incidence, though, they’d met again that same evening at the bar in the Red Lion. Sinnick had been sitting in the corner with Quentin and Paddy and it was his turn to buy.
Most people in Krupton knew Doctor Albert Sinnick. They knew him but he often failed to recognize them until they opened their mouths or their shirt fronts or lay half naked behind the curtain on his couch. It was names that eluded Sinnick. On that occasion, though, he recognized Charlie by his beard, the dark glasses, the black leather jacket and trousers and the crash helmet that he’d placed on the bar next to his half pint of lager and lime.
“Evening,” Sinnick said with a faint nod, “Do I know you?”
“Hemorrhoids. This morning.”
“Of course. Get the text message?”
“Thanks.”
And that had been that until a few weeks later when it was the same routine and the same location. On that occasion, though, Charlie had moved his crash helmet to give Sinnick some elbow space.
“Don’t tell me - hemorrhoids,” Sinnick said barely turning his head. “Cured?”
“Thanks. The litigation worked.”
Sinnick nodded, satisfied but appalled by the man’s understanding of the procedure he’d undergone. “A quick thank you would have been appreciated.”
“Pardon me?”
“What year did they erupt before you decided to pay me a visit?”
“2010.”
“Was that when I first saw you?”
“No. Sprained ankle. 2017. Fell off the bike.”
Sinnick looked at the helmet and then the leathers. “Of course. I remember the crash helmet. I couldn’t hear a word you said.”
“Once it’s on I don’t feel it,” Charlie said. “Sorry. I should have taken it off,”
“Still riding it?”
Charlie nodded sadly not wishing to mention that the leather gear and helmet had been bought for a tough-looking Harley not a timid little Honda.
For the first time, Sinnick had looked him in the eye seeing something else: something that didn’t quite match Charlie’s rough Hell’s Angel image. “I’m surprised you haven’t been arrested for wearing it,” he said with as much kindness as he could muster.
“I was. Barclays Bank. Someone pressed the panic button. Quite extraordinary seeing I was queuing behind a woman in a full burka.”
“Tall woman? Red high heels, red finger nails and tight jeans beneath the burka?”
“You know her?”
“Certainly, but I never get too close. Doctor Manley sees her.”
That was how the relationship had started. Sinnick had invited hm to join them in the corner. Introductions had been made and it had been Paddy who had started on an explanation of their regular meetings.
“We call it the Red Lion Club, Charlie. For revolution, resistance and revolt against pointless regulations and political correctness. Fighting for a return of respect for white, middle-aged, heterosexual men through counter liberation. Highlighting the overzealous implementation of the rights of women at our expense. Pointing out the sad state of humanity in general and how we men will, unashamedly charged by our testosterone and given half a chance, return things to their former glory. It’s not all serious, though. Now and again one of us does a comedy spot. It was Sinnick’s turn last week – a poem about a guy with hemorrhoids.”
“Tell it again, Sinnick,” Quentin had said, raising his glass. “Make our guest feel at home.”
Sinnick had paused to take a sip of his orange juice. “Well, if you insist,” he said before putting his glass down and adjusting his glasses. “All things rectal are a particular hate. But such is fate. I first asked this fellow about his current state.”
Charlie listened, thankful that it didn’t seem as if he’d been the inspiration. After all, Sinnick hadn’t even asked him to undress and the poem, if that is what it was, described in graphic detail the unfortunate patient with his trousers around his ankles.
“Once he’s lying prostrate then you check his prostate,” Sinnick went on. “Two in one, that’s how it’s done.”
As it went on Quentin slapped his thigh and Charlie spilt his Guinness until Sinnick announced he’d arrived at what he called the final passage where the words now came from the patient lying in a foetal position on his couch. “Your poetry, Doc, is good by half. I like the rhymes and all your lines. They sure do make me laugh.”
Finally, and perhaps mercifully, came Sinnick’s punchline: “Then, for my sake, please, swear on your heart. Try your utmost. Do your part. Concentrate. Try not to fart.”
Sniggers like a group of ten-year-old boys sharing lavatorial jokes spread around the table and Charlie found himself joining in - laughing for the first time in weeks.
“Simple entertainment, Charlie,” Quentin said. “It followed a discussion one night about why we no longer find stand-up comedians in the least bit funny.”
Charlie nodded though he’d not watched TV for ten years and doubted if either of the others had either.
“So welcome to the club, Charlie,” Paddy said and Charlie, like all serious accountants, had asked for the club’s terms of reference.
It was Quentin who answered that one. “No rules, Charlie. We don’t want to be taken over by bloody idiots, the woke, the liberal do-gooders, the free-loaders, the politically correct and the mad feminists. By the way, you’re not transitioning, are you or confused about your gender? You’re not about to identify as a woman or desperate to slot in somewhere as yet undefined on the queer spectrum? We don’t have to add yet another string of letters to LGBT, do we?”
Charlie shook his head. “I’m just an ordinary bloke,” he said. “Is that OK?”
“Splendid,” Quentin said. “We’ll put you down as a JAOB. What’re you drinking?”
Charlie, feeling relaxed for the first time for years, then described his arrest in Barclays.
They’d commiserated and then discussed choice of clothing and religious freedom and agreed that if Charlie had entered the bank in his beard and high-heeled thigh boots matched with a pink and white polka dot dress, red lipstick, a floppy, green leprechaun hat and carrying a copy of the New Testament in one hand and the Koran in the other, no-one would have batted an eyelid. To say or do anything like pressing the panic button would have constituted a hate crime against a confused cross-dresser transitioning between several different genders, ethnicities and religions.
Encouraged even more, Charlie moved on to describing his two failed marriages, his bankruptcy and his decision to retreat into a spare bedroom for fear of being attacked in the street by friends of second wife Bella. Bella’s friends, he explained, had believed her story about long term domestic violence when all he’d done was kick Bella’s cat that had done its business inside his crash helmet.
For the first time in his life, Charlie was listened to in rapt attention and with much nodding of heads. Cats, it seemed, had had an influence on all four of them at some time, especially Sinnick.
“It was only a short clinical trial, Charlie. Who could have imagined a cat going into anaphylactic shock?”
“Did it survive, Sinnick?”
“Oh yes. It still turns its back on me which is no problem at all but each time my wife threatens divorce she uses the incident to remind me of my insensitivities.”
“Ah, ‘tis a great pity, Albert,” Paddy said with great seriousness. "Whilst I'm a great supporter of animal welfare as a whole, I hate cats. Those slit eyed, prowling, creatures of the night with their deviant habits of loud sex on the top of, or even inside of, my trash bin at night are a menace to decent society."
"There’s a poem there, Paddy, but I couldn't agree more,” Sinnick said. “My wife claims that because they are forever washing themselves with their tongues, they’re ultra-hygienic. When I suggested that I'd stop my morning shower in favour of licking myself all over including my intimate parts she told me I was being absurd. But what I say is if you want to pat and smooth a cat covered in fur that has been washed in cat saliva, feel free. Just don't expect me to do it. And thousands of years of breeding have still failed to remove their instinct to kill anything that moves if it shows evidence of being afraid of them. They'll play with it until it's worn out and dies.”
Quentin chipped in. Mrs. Kelp’s cat, Tipsy, Charlie then heard, had met an untimely death when Quentin reversed out of the garage.
“Tipsy?” Paddy exclaimed. “It was probably drunk.”
"And eat?” Sinnick went on as Charlie sat smiling until the long underused facial muscles behind his beard were aching. “My wife’s cats turn their noses up at anything less than poached salmon - boneless of course - or tender pork fillet with cream sauce. They eat better than I do. There's enough cat food in our larder to feed a million destitute refugees for a week but if I’m not home in time for dinner mine gets tipped in the bin.”
Quentin shook his head in disgust. “Fish it out again, Sinnick. Scrape it onto a plate, sit down with a napkin tucked in your shirt collar and order her to bring you a glass of wine.”
After an hour or so they’d all stood up as if it was time to go home but then sat down again. Charlie liked that as well. After all, he had nowhere to go but the room over Fook’s Wok.
“Nothing goes beyond this table, Charlie,” Paddy said. “Secrets stop here. Privacy guaranteed. Look at Quentin for God’s sake. Quentin has us to thank for every speech he ever made in Parliament. We pre-approved everything he ever said.”
“And look where that got me,” Quentin said with a soft smile.
“She won’t last long, Quent,” Sinnick said deliberately not mentioning ‘neo-liberal’, beige cardigans or Prudence Bottomley by name. “You’ll be back.”
“And how much better are we as men for speaking the unspeakable and mentioning the unmentionable.” Paddy added. “In our company, Charlie, you don’t just sit on the periphery of life, you open your bowels. Have a good fart in the company of honest men and spit out the accumulated phlegm of a lifetime of disappointment.”
Charlie had never before been invited to join a group of men of his own age and with such different backgrounds but with whom he felt so instantly comfortable and at ease. But he was still uncertain. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“Of course,” Quentin said. “No holds barred. No stone left unturned. No embarrassments are too embarrassing to be shared. Your erectile disfunction is our erectile disfunction.”
“If you suffer from it, it’s entirely due to lack of practice and fresh opportunities,” Paddy said. “Right, Sinnick?”
Sinnick nodded seriously. “Yes, indeed. Would you like my theory on that gloomy subject, Charlie?”
Charlie had forgotten that erections had once been as common as sneezing and blowing your nose. He leaned forward.
“Women’s magazines love discussing it,” Sinnick said. “While waiting for appointments in the clinic their time is spent in titillation. They see or imagine all shapes and sizes of both faulty and fully operational members for discussion amongst their friends. We are the subjects of shame, pity and ridicule, Charlie. The magazines in our waiting room open at pages devoted to the subject but, imagine if you can, a men’s illustrated magazine full of similar articles discussing faulty or misshapen female parts. They’d be banned for being pornographic. We’d be threatened with court action as untrustworthy deviants with dirty minds, as sexual predators and for demeaning women. But those magazines in our waiting room never mention the real cause of ED.”
Charlie leaned even further forward. Paddy and Quentin sat back. They already knew Sinnick’s theory and whether true or false, wanted to believe it.
“ED is caused by over familiarity with one scenario,” Sinnick continued. “It’s like a repeat of X Factor. You already know what’s coming and how and can’t get excited. A fully functioning member needs regular maintenance like any other highly tuned machine, Charlie. After a certain mileage it’ll need new plugs and a test-run under different conditions. Reset the hardware, Charlie. Oil changes stop the big end from seizing up. Reset the hardware, Charlie. There’s nothing actually wrong that a full service can’t cure. Look at Quentin. Fit as a fiddle for a man in his mid-fifties.”
Quentin was grinning from ear to ear. Paddy was shaking his head in admiration. Charlie sat back. He had already been given a lot to think about and wondered if that was now it - that it was time, at last, to head back to Fook’s. But no. There was still more to come.
“Once,” Quentin said, “At a time when I felt my political life was in decline, I realised I was getting up at least three times a night to visit the bathroom so I called Albert. It was early one Sunday morning wasn’t it Sinnick?”
Sinnick nodded. “I was in the clinic. Trouble with cats.”
“Being unwilling to explain things on the telephone in case my phone was being tapped by MI5 we agreed to meet in the Golden Fleece as I know Colin, the landlord and he always kept a few of my cards on the bar.
“As usual the Golden Fleece was empty because Colin’s Pitbull Terrier constantly sits in the doorway. Colin’s Pitbull is called Frankly, Charlie. Have you ever been there? Colin claims that Frankly is a very good-natured dog and that his exposed teeth are a sign that he is actually smiling at customers. It’s a strange sort of smile that Sinnick says reminds him of his wife.”
“Anyway, we settled in the corner with our pints and because Sinnick had paid and I was feeling relaxed I explained that I thought I may have early onset cancer in my prostate. In his usual calm and professional manner, Sinnick suggested a quick urine test and internal examination, so we left our drinks on the table, borrowed a half pint glass from Colin and went to the men’s lavatory which, in the case of the Golden Fleece, is outside, down a short muddy path and built mostly of crumbling Victorian brick with a leaking corrugated tin roof. Frankly followed us with his tongue hanging out.
“It was also raining and as the half pint glass was already wet before we arrived Sinnick said he would make a suitable allowance for a high, water content in his analysis.
“Once inside this dilapidated shed, Sinnick admitted he had never done such a thing in his life ie accompany another man into a public toilet with a view to one of them taking his trousers down. I admitted that neither had I but after squeezing into the tiny space with Sinnick holding the half pint glass for me to produce my sample, I bent over. Unfortunately, we were then unable to close the door.
“However, he managed to perform his task and we then made our way back to the bar with Colin clearly surprised at seeing Sinnick carrying what looked like half a pint of his best bitter in a glass and a limp rubber glove. Once settled, Sinnick performed a quick dip test on my sample and was also able to confirm that his brief internal examination suggested there was nothing wrong and that the only blockage was due to Frankly barking at the wrong moment.”
“It seems we can really talk about anything,” Charlie said which felt like an understatement.
“No holds barred,” Paddy said. “Men’s rights are a popular subject.”
“Discussing women’s rights is banned because it’s being dealt with by everyone else,” Quentin clarified.
Sinnick, suddenly suffering from a terrifying image of Mrs. Pettifer in her rain hat with her arms crossed and staring menacingly at him with green slit eyes looked around the bar. No-one was in hearing distance but nevertheless, he leaned forward and whispered, “Misogyny is perfectly acceptable in order to balance the prevailing misandry – especially in the workplace.”
Quentin nodded. “Brainstorming of pioneering political ideas is welcome.”
“But political correctness is banned otherwise we’ll get nowhere,” Paddy added.
Charlie sniffed nervously. “Do we talk about each other?”
“Only in a positive light,” Sinnick said. “We must promote self-confidence, boldness, courage and self-esteem at all times. Criticism is allowed but can only be made after a complete understanding of mitigating circumstances. The words of good and honest men are too often drowned out by the shrill outbursts of others whose views have recently become fixed in quick setting concrete. In my case, Charlie, the Red Lion is the only place where I can speak honestly. I live in fear of my computer being taken away for analysis. Do you know I have become so nervous of saying something that might upset someone that I often draft notes, proof-read them and only once I’m confident there’s nothing contentious or litigious read them out?”
“White middle-aged men have become the most downtrodden and disrespected in the history of mankind,” Quentin said. “We are blamed for everything that happened in the past, for every problem of the present and are being lined up to take the blame for anything in the future.”
“Never feel ashamed in our company,” Paddy said.
“I can even talk about myself? About my feelings? My thoughts? My most personal problems?” Charlie enquired.
“Do it, Charlie. We all see burning issues raging in your soul. Is there anything that tops the list?”
They were staring at him, three pairs of eyes willing him on. What should he say? How could he start to explain how things were?
“Um,” he said cautiously. “I need to sort out my life.”
It was like a balloon pricked with a pin without even the satisfaction of a pop.
“Nothing new,” Quentin said. “Here am I, your once proud representative in the mother of all Parliaments, now reduced to reading how Prudence Bottomley plans to change the world by providing free diapers for everyone over sixty.”
“I’m at my lowest ebb ever,” Paddy admitted. “I need to move on. Urgently. Frying cod and chips for fifteen years is doing something to my once fertile brain. And I smell like old chip fat.”
“The doldrums are where you’ll find me,” Sinnick added. “Drifting in circles, waiting for a breath of wind to fill my limp and flapping sails.”
To Charlie it seemed they had all come from different directions but now found themselves standing, scratching their heads at the same cross roads where all the sign posts had been vandalised.
“I sold my client list to Beggar & Company,” he said. “Five thousand quid per client. I should have netted a quarter of a million.”
“Should have, Charlie?”
“Patsy got wind.”
“Christ Almighty.”
“Claimed she’d been my secretary for five years. Then Bella got to know.”
“Ye Gods.”
“Claimed she was the one who found half my clients.”
“Mother of Jesus.”
“I already pay maintenance to Patsy and the kids. Bella just messed around for five years. She was a…. what do you call it?”
Charlie’s words were always carefully chosen but lacked the polish of a public speaker like Quentin, a physician like Sinnick and a literary academic cum fish fryer like Paddy.
“Nymphomaniac?” Paddy offered.
“Polyandrous?” Sinnick suggested.
“That’s it,” Charlie said, though he’d never used either word before.
“I know several,” Sinnick said. “They’re very common.”