Looking for Mrs Dextrose (39 page)

Hoath exploded. “How dare you! How dare you! You’re not too old to put over my knee!”

“He is, you know,” said Reculver, adding: “How old are you, Pilsbury?”

“I’m 33,” I told him (for the umpteenth time).

“What a nice age,” he said.

Then Peel chipped in with some garbage about being best man at Chris Bonnington’s wedding. That was the trouble with trying to start a serious conversation in the Series of Gentlemen Home
for Retired Explorers: one couldn’t.

I tried again, having first apologised to Mr Hoath, who had begun to sulk. “I just don’t get it,” I said. “There’s one of her and six of you, yet you never even
talk back to her. She treats you like shit and I hate seeing it. Why don’t you react? When are you going to stand up for yourselves?”

It was a reasonable speech, I thought, though I did check over my shoulder halfway through to see that Nurse D’eath hadn’t entered the room.

Wilmington-Hovis woke up and mumbled, “I’m hungry.”

“You’ve only just had lunch, you old fool!” snapped Hoath.

Peel tried again with his Chris Bonnington tale.

Then Wilmington-Hovis added: “I hope it’s not broccoli.”

As I sighed, Reculver piped up. “You know, Pilsbury, your visits make me sad,” he said.

I regarded him quizzically.

He went on: “Not because I don’t like you –
we
don’t like you – because we do. It’s just that you make me feel so bloody old.” He laughed to
himself and wiped his nose with a finger. “You know, you remind me of me. I imagine it’s hard for you to look at an old fool like me, in this silly, rotten shell, and picture me as a
young man. You must think my stories as ridiculous and unlikely as Peel’s…”

Peel opened his mouth, ready to splurge indignation, but Reculver continued: “I was your age once, you know. Many years ago! And in many ways I still am that age, sad as that may be. Only
the fight has gone, Pilsbury. Only the fight has gone.

“Old age suffers us so many indignities. I’m 87. You wonder how something can creep up on you over a period of 87 years. You think you’d notice it. But you don’t. One day
I was seven, and now I am not. And here we are. I have my friends with me, and we get by, on fading memories and stewed tea. Nothing Nurse D’eath can do can either improve that, or make it
heavier to bear. We are what we are. It is what it is.”

Everyone was rapt by his little speech, bar Dad who was still wrapped up in
Neighbours
. I wanted to hug him.

“But I won’t lie to you Pilsbury,” concluded Mr Reculver. “There are times when you walk out of that door that I envy you.”

Fear gripped me and I lay stock still, listening. So heightened did my hearing become that after a while I was convinced I could hear the ticking of the clock in the town hall tower, way up the
road. Still nothing stirred in the room.

After a while, when my terror had subsided and I was certain enough that I was alone, I dared to reach across and switch on my bedside light on the dresser.

I screamed.

Sitting on the end of my bed was the Shaman’s dummy, staring at me with its beady eyes. Its nose was broken off, its dinner jacket was ripped and dusty, and its monocle glass was missing
though the frame remained.

There came a banging on my door. I pulled the covers over me, fearing for my safety as well as my sanity. My hands were shaking.

“Pilsbury!” Robin Botham’s voice. Dear old Robin Botham! “You alright in there?” he called thought the door. “I thought I heard a lady scream?”

“Robin, please, come in,” I called back weakly.

How desperately I needed company.

“Christ, what’s that ugly thing?” he said, spotting the wooden boy.

“You don’t know how it got here?” I asked. “No one’s been up here? No strangers?”

He thought for a bit. “None that I can think of. You alright?”

No. “Yes, sure. I’ll be fine, thanks.”

After he left I kept the light on, waiting for the dummy to make its move. Eventually convinced that it was inanimate, I lunged at it, wrenched open the window and flung it out into the night. I
heard its wooden head land – ‘ctnth’ – on tarmac.

Then I sat there, sheets pulled up to my chin, bolt upright, terrified, wondering how the fuck that abomination had got there, when I had left it discarded at the side of the Nameless Highway
weeks ago.

Words rang in my ears. These words: “You know I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, don’t you?”

It couldn’t be her. Just couldn’t be.

Could it?

The following morning I didn’t leave my room until gone ten, when the sun was fully up and the light through the window allowed me some comfort. I dressed quickly and
crept out of the pub, peering around corners before entering corridors and inspecting the bar for signs of life. But the Dog & Duck was closed and the chairs and stools were unoccupied. Dust
floated around the room, sparkling in the winter sunlight.

Outside the back door, the alleyway and car park were likewise silent. When I reached my car – a second-hand banger purchased primarily for the 15-minute drive to and from Dad – I
checked the footwell of the rear seats before unlocking the doors. No killers there. I flipped up the boot. Nothing. Then the bonnet, though there was barely enough space under there to swing a
hamster.

Satisfied, I yanked open my driver’s door, dove in, slammed the door shut, hit the door lock and checked the back seats once again. Then I started the engine and drove away, checking in my
mirrors to be sure that no one was following. Satisfied, I breathed out such a sigh of relief that my halitosis bounced back off the windscreen and I spluttered.

For the first time since 03.58, I felt safe.

At 10.33, I parked in a lay-by just around the corner from the Home for Retired Explorers, switched off the engine, and waited there until visiting time began, whilst remaining
fully vigilant. I was too scared to grow bored.

At 13.59, I walked up to the Home for Retired Explorers and pulled back the gargoyle, as I had done so often in the past.

“
Young Mr Dextrose! Not one of your usual visiting days!
” bellowed Nurse D’eath when she answered the door.

“No!” I replied, as jauntily as I could manage. “Thought I’d break the habits of a lifetime!” I’d practised that reply out loud a hundred times in the car, so
often that I almost stumbled over it.

She poked her head outside. “No car in the car park, I see…”

“No, broken down, I’m afraid. Had to catch the bus.” I’d practised that lie too.

Her piggy eyes glinted with suspicion. “Just so long as you’ve no funny business in mind…”

“Haha! As if, Nurse D’eath!” I chirped, convinced I reeked of guilt.

At 14.48, having sat through a succession of Mr Peel’s bloody stories and Hoath moaning about the bread rolls at breakfast time, while I was a bundle of nerves, I finally
allowed myself to reveal my brilliant plan.

Gathering Dad, Reculver, Hoath, Chislet, Peel and Wilmington-Hovis in a circle of chairs, I first checked that the nurse’s office door was tight shut, then leant in and motioned for them
to do the same.

“I’m taking you to the seaside,” I whispered as loudly as I dared.

“You’ll have to speak up!” blared Wilmington-Hovis.

“What did he say?” Reculver asked Hoath.

“He said he’s taking Ruth up the backside,” replied Hoath. “I think.”

“That’s me boy!” said Dad.

I had to start again.

Eventually, I hoped, everyone understood. That night I would be taking the six of them to the seaside: Dritt-on-Sea. How I would fit us all into my car, I wasn’t sure.
Cross that bridge when I came to it. No sense in over-planning. I would drive them to the pier, we would sit and watch the waves, and after an hour or so I would drive them back to the home.

“If anyone wants to stay in Dritt, do a runner, I’m happy to turn a blind eye,” I told them.

Mr Chislet whistled. “Fuck me!” They were his very first words in my presence.

Dad stood up and slapped me on the back. Wilmington-Hovis and Peel looked petrified. Hoath didn’t seem to have taken it in. Reculver beamed.

I returned the grin and hoped I would not let him down.

Truth be told, my ‘brilliant’ plan hinged upon one crucial factor. At least I did not need to trouble the old gimmers with it; I simply needed them to be dressed and ready by
midnight.

“If you do not hear my knock on the door to your bedrooms…” I rephrased that: “If I do not open the door to your bedrooms by five minutes past midnight, go back to bed.
My plan will have failed.”

At 14.59, certain residents – I shall not name and shame them – could barely contain themselves and were fidgeting in their seats like small children. We had fallen
unnaturally silent, too pent-up to speak, though eagerness patrolled what remained of our muscle groups.

The door to Nurse D’eath’s office opened and she entered the room. She must have sensed the tension because she all but sniffed the air.

“Anything the matter?” she asked, lower-volume than usual.

She was on to us and we would have to hold our nerve.

Wilmington-Hovis twitched.

Peel raised his hand.

What the hell was he doing?

“
Yes, Mr Peel?
” bellowed the nurse.

Peel’s stare bounced around the group. His mouth had fallen open and I noticed, to my horror, that he had developed an erection.

I shook my head at him as minimally as I could, gritting my teeth, desperately attempting to master ESP: ‘
Say nothing, Mr Peel! Please, don’t blow it!
’

While Peel’s indecision reigned, Nurse D’eath walked across the room and into the centre of our circle of deceit. There, she folded her arms.

“
Well, this is all rather conspiratorial!
” she announced. Then suddenly she lunged out a hand and flicked the head of Mr Peel’s upstanding cock.

“Ow!” he squealed, as his ancient member instantly deflated.

“
Visiting time is over, the younger Mr Dextrose!
” bellowed the nurse. “
Be gone with you!
”

And so it began.

At 15.02, having closed the door to the communal lounge behind me, and having made sure that I was not being followed, I stopped at Cedric’s window. This was the crucial
part of my plan.

“Hello, Cedric,” I said.

“Afternoon, Mr Pilsbury,” he replied, tipping his cap. “Can I help you?”

I will confess, my heart was beating like a woodpecker’s beak. “Yes, Cedric,” I said. “I was wondering. Could I bribe you to conceal me beneath your desk until
midnight?”

I swear he chuckled. “How much?” (I’d banked on that.)

“Will 50 pounds do?”

From his expression alone I assumed that it would. “See your money?” he went.

I thrust the notes, previously counted out, at him. He kissed them and folded them into a pocket.

“Open your door ready,” I hissed.

I walked to the front door, opened it, waited a second, and closed it loudly. If she were watching from a window, monitoring my walk down the driveway, I was scuppered. But there was no time to
dwell on that. I slid silently back across the floor, slunk into Cedric’s office and crawled beneath his desk.

He was laughing to himself again. “You OK down there?” he whispered.

“Fine, thanks,” I whispered back.

At 15.56, Cedric, who I’d have sworn had been snacking on pickles, from the sounds he had made, dropped the first of several silent but brutal blow-offs. The stench
subjugated the air beneath his desk, like Nazis marching into Poland, and seeped into my clothing. I didn’t have the gall to ask him to desist, and anyway, all too soon I failed to notice
it.

At 16.22, he bent his head down and said, “I reckon you could come out from there if you wanted. Nurse D’eath’s so fat, you could be back under there before her she’d
squeezed her butt through the door.”

I didn’t dare chance fate. I did, however, run hastily through the next stage of my plan with him: shortly after midnight, when I had gathered together the troops, I would need him to let
us out of the front door.

“No can do,” came the reply. “At 11.30 I lock that door and switch on the alarm. If that don’t happen,
on the dot
, she will be down on me like… well, like a
ton of Nurse D’eath.”

I hadn’t foreseen that. “So how do I get us all outside?”

Cedric pondered for a while, then said: “Well, the front door’s alarmed – but that big window in the bathroom ain’t. You could climb out there. It’s on the ground
floor.”

I passed him up another tenner.

At 23.27, there came a sharp kick in my ribs.

“Shh!” hissed Cedric. “You snore any louder, you’ll bring the ceiling down!”

I’d been long enough asleep that I could feel dried saliva along the side of my cheek and gunk had gathered in the corners of my eyes. Uncomfortable and cramped as it was beneath the desk,
I’d had so little sleep on account of the Shaman’s dummy that I could probably have drifted off among hedgehogs.

“I gotta lock the door now. After that, she’ll come down to check everything’s OK. That’s when you’ll need to be real quiet, or we’re in the shit. Got
it?”

I had.

Next, I saw the bottoms of Cedric’s legs depart his office, and heard his padding footsteps head for the front door. Keys rattled, one turned in a lock, there was a brief silence, then I
heard the electronic beeps of the alarm being set. His footsteps returned.

Moments later I heard the heavy wooden door at the end of the corridor creak open. Nurse D’eath was coming. Curling myself into the tightest possible ball, I tried to slow my breathing.
When that proved impossible, I closed my eyes, clenched my fists and prayed.

“Everything alright, Cedric?” came her hushed tones, saved for the dead of night.