The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) (33 page)

“A chair – you say?” Uncle George enquired gently.

“That’s what I understood.”

“A chair that wears a vest?”

“Well, he did say it was to hide the joins. Some sort of padding I expect.”

Charlie was heard running down some of the stairs and falling down the remainder. The crash of an overturned bucket marked his journey through the kitchen. Uncle George climbed laboriously to his feet.

“I’m going to have a look,” he announced.

“But it’s to be a surprise.”

“Then I’ll surprise myself.”

The two women were left staring at one another and when one moved the other flinched. The marble clock on the mantelpiece
struck eight and the thunderstorm gave a final ominous rumble before retiring to the west.

“Shall I switch the telly off?” Cousin Jane enquired.

“Yes, dear. There’s nothing much on now.”

Presently they heard slowly approaching footsteps, which preluded Uncle George’s entry into the room. He walked with a strange stiff gait, his face was very pale, and he lowered himself into a chair without speaking a word. There he sat staring intently at a framed portrait of Dirk Bogarde – for whom Aunt Matilda entertained a partiality – which hung on the opposite wall. The silence became extremely oppressive.

Cousin Jane was the first to crack.

“Well – what has he made?”

Uncle George, without removing his gaze from Mr Bogarde, opened his mouth – and screamed. It was a very loud, very hoarse and very unnerving scream. Then silence again descended on to the room, until Aunt Matilda ventured her enquiry.

“George . . . George, is there anything wrong? Have you been drinking too much? I’ve always said that whisky on an empty stomach cannot be good for anyone.”

As though this statement had triggered off an automatic impulse, Uncle George rose and walked sedately over to the sideboard, where he poured himself a very generous helping of whisky; drank it in one mighty gulp, put down the glass with elaborate care, then turned and screamed again.

After this second and much improved performance, he went back to his chair and continued his contemplation of Mr Bogarde’s classic features.

“I’m going home,” Cousin Jane announced after an interval of deep thought. “And I’m going to lock all the doors and windows and not come near this house again.”

“Perhaps he’s got the delirious trimmings,” Aunt Matilda suggested. “I mean to say there can’t be anything in that old shed that could make him like this. Could there . . .?”

“I’m not waiting to find out.”

“But you haven’t had your cocoa, dear.”

“You can pour your cocoa where the monkey poured his ginger-beer. Anything that can make old George bellow like a demented banshee is something I don’t want to see. If you want my advice you’ll have that boy put away.”

And she gathered up her knitting, two copies of
True Confessions
, a box of chocolates and an electric torch, then moved swiftly towards the door. Another scream from Uncle George and a glimpse of Charlie coming down the passage did much to improve the
order of her going and the house shook when she slammed the front door.

Charlie did not appear to be at all put out by this sudden exit, but poked his head round the door-frame and asked, “May I have some butter please?”

“Never mind butter,” Aunt Matilda replied, patting Uncle George’s forehead with a handkerchief, “what have you done to your poor uncle? I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He keeps screaming and my nerves won’t stand much more of it.”

Charlie assumed a sullen expression and he stared defiantly at the floor. “He shouldn’t have peeped. It was supposed to be a surprise. And he looked in through the window before I had a chance to cover Oscar with Grandad’s woollen vest.”

Aunt Matilda raised an eyebrow. “Oscar! That’s a funny name for a chair.”

Charlie stood on one leg and swung the other back and forth. “It’s not a chair. I can’t make a chair. If you must know it’s a monster. Now you’ve made me spoil the surprise and I’ve a good mind not to show him to you.”

“I’m sure, dear, if you’ve made a monster it’s a very nice one,” Aunt Matilda said calmly. “But that still doesn’t explain why your uncle persists in staring at dear Mr Bogarde and screaming. I remember my mother used to say my brother was a little monster, but I’m certain she never screamed.”

“Can I have some butter?” Charlie repeated his former request. “The trolley wheels squeak.”

“Very well. But don’t take too much. It’s now seventy pence a pound.”

After about five minutes of having his forehead bathed with Eau de Cologne, Uncle George began to display signs of returning life. He examined every item of furniture in the room with mild interest, counted his fingers and seemed profoundly astonished to find they were all present, then turned to Aunt Matilda and whispered:

“It’s got ’orns.”

“Has it now? Well I’m sure they’ll be very useful for something or the other. Would you like a nice cup of cocoa?”

“And long metal arms,” Uncle George added thoughtfully.

“I wouldn’t care for metal arms myself,” Aunt Matilda admitted, “but I daresay they’d be better than nothing. Shall I make you a nice condensed-milk sandwich to eat with your cocoa?”

She shook her head reprovingly when Uncle George insisted on volunteering another piece of shocking information.

“And it’s down to its ’ambones.”

A retreat to the kitchen was clearly the only recourse, where Aunt
Matilda made a jug of cocoa and coated thick slices of bread and butter with a generous layer of condensed-milk. She seemed to remember that something sweet and hot was strongly recommended as a curative for anyone suffering from shock. While she was engaged in this act of mercy, Charlie came in from the garden and after opening the kitchen door to its fullest extent, asked quietly:

“Do you mind if Oscar comes in? He wasn’t happy in my laboratory.”

Aunt Matilda scraped the lingering residue of condensed milk from the tin and spread it on a crust. “You know, dear, I never object to anyone you might invite home. So long as they are refined.”

Without waiting for any further invitation Oscar glided into the kitchen.

I find difficulty in describing this product which symbolized the marriage between two widely divided trades. Butchery was of course responsible for Grandad’s torso and the goat’s head; while the motor industry must be given credit for the metal arms, the red flashing eyes and the sparking plugs which were embedded on either side of the Grandad/Goat blended neck. Inner tubes aided by glue hid whatever needlework that had been necessary to unite crankshaft arms to Grandad’s shoulders, while hands – complete with six fingers – had been fashioned from back-seat cushion springs. Remembering that compactness was of major importance, Charlie had sacrificed most of Grandad’s legs, and he was – as Uncle George had most tactlessly stated – down to his hambones. Short thick stubs encased in inverted car wheel-hubs and held firmly in position by glutinous rubber solution. A pair of trolley castors – that might well have been liberated from Alfie’s go-cart – were riveted on to the underside of the wheel-hubs and served as an excellent – even an improved substitute for feet. A woollen vest mercifully concealed whatever liberties that had been taken with Grandad’s torso.

Oscar – for such we must now designate this collection of bits and pieces – was not more than three foot six high and decidedly disconcerting in appearance to anyone who did not appreciate the unadorned work of genius. His communication apparatus also left a little to be desired.

The goat jaws opened, a sliver of rotary fan-blade glittered in the lamp-light and a high pitched oscillating sound gradually emerged into recognizable words.

“This is BBC Radio Four. For the next half an hour Professor Hughes will describe his journey along the Zambezi River . . .”

“Oh, blast it!” Charlie protested giving Oscar a hearty thump on the back. “There must be an overcharge between the radio valves
and the loudspeaker. Wait a minute – I’ve installed an instrument panel under his shoulder-blades.”

He pulled up the woollen vest, pushed what had formerly been a self-starter, adjusted a small plastic knob – and finally aimed a kick at the lower portion of Grandad’s torso. This drastic action must have achieved some result for a bleating voice enquired:

“What the bl . . . eedin . . . g . . . h . . . ell is go . . . ing . . . on . . .?”

Charlie positively beamed with satisfaction.

“That must be coming from that portion of Grandad’s brain I was able to plant in the goat’s skull. You see I made a little sump . . .”

Contrary to her usual practice Aunt Matilda interrupted a man while he was speaking. Ever since Oscar’s entrance she had stared, sighed, on occasion made small appreciative sounds, but had not attempted to contribute any observation of her own. Now she spoke quite sharply.

“Charlie, am I to understand that you have used a portion of your dear Grandad’s remains to make this contraption?”

“Well – yes. You see materials were very hard to come by and Grandad was going to be wasted . . .”

“That’s no excuse. Although I can understand your wish to be usefully employed, you still should not have laid rude hands on your Grandad. He wasn’t yours to take. In a way he belonged to us all and certainly I – at least – should have been consulted.”

Charlie hung his head. “Sorry, Auntie. I didn’t think.”

Aunt Matilda nodded. “That’s the trouble with the young generation – they never think. Well, I’ve said all I’m going to say. The matter is now closed. Tell me about your invention. What can it do?”

They both watched Oscar circle the kitchen table, then roll smoothly towards the sitting-room, where Uncle George sat considering the mad possibility of becoming a tee-totaller. Charlie, like all true artists, had not thought of his creation in terms of sordid usefulness, because, so far as he could remember Baron Frankenstein’s monster had not been expected to find gainful employment.

“Well,” he said after a thoughtful silence, “I might be able to train it to do little jobs round the house. Fetch the letters from the doormat, punch holes in tins of condensed milk and things like that.”

Aunt Matilda did not comment on these suggestions, but listened to the bleated words that came from the sitting-room.

“Wh . . . ere . . . the . . . bl . . . eeding . . . g . . . h . . . ell . . . is . . . me . . . l . . . e . . . gs?”

“What a pity you had to save that part of your grandad that used bad language,” she murmured.

A loud – and by now familiar – scream rang out; only now it was much louder, more drawn out and was perhaps the cry of someone who had crossed the barrier of fear and walked in that black and white country where reality takes on the shape of mad fantasy. Then Uncle George came out of the sitting-room; moving with a speed that would have excited the envy of a much younger man who had not formed a close alliance with a whisky bottle. Oscar was not far behind. Rolling smoothly, eyes gleaming like car rear lights, head lowered, butter-lubricated trolley wheels turning silently; he gave the distinct impression that he was, at least for the time being, a very happy little monster.

Uncle George’s scream as he was propelled out through the back door, was most certainly his best effort to date; and Oscar, having perhaps decided that he had more than done his duty, rolled back to his creator and bleated two words.

“Bl . . . e . . . eeding . . . tw . . . i . . . t . . .”

“You must do something about this bad language,” Aunt Matilda insisted. “It is really most unpleasant.”

Now I am aware that a man-made monster is supposed to come to a bad end. Be roasted in a burning mill; dissolved in a lake of acid; or blow itself up by pulling a convenient handle which in some mysterious way ignites a ton of high explosives. From a purely moral point of view it would be nice if I could record that is what happened to Oscar, but truth – that monster whose face must never be hidden – forces me to confess that he is at this very moment alive and well.

Charlie recharges his battery once a week and has trained him to fetch the newspaper and letters from the doormat, punch holes in condensed milk tins with his horns, and give hell to anyone who turns up whenever Aunt Matilda is watching
Coronation Street
. But to be honest this doesn’t happen very often, as visitors are the exception rather than the rule these days.

Uncle George has joined the Sons of Temperance and has twice appeared on television, where he caused much alarm and despondency among publicans by describing the terrifying effects of strong drink.

Charlie is now considering making a mate for Oscar, but of course is handicapped by the same old problem – the lack of materials. He keeps looking at Aunt Matilda with a speculative eye, but as the old lady appears to be good for at least another twenty years, it may be sometime before the world of science is shocked out of its
complacency by the birth of a Do-it-yourself-done-by-themselves-monster.

In the meanwhile, if you should have an old decrepit female relative to spare – drop me a line.