LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND GOATS
Chapter 10
Friday 23nd June London Suburb of Upper Springwood
Percy Pettifog peers over half-moon spectacles at the lush lady with the lovely lumps in the red frock leaning over the lip of the desk. Any lady who can remain calm after a rinsing though the marital mangle deserving the best legal advice Poor-Fund money can buy.
Rampant rumours of Traitor James’ madness rebound the hollow halls of Law. Percy Pettifog licks his thin legal lips and admires the red dress, heaving bosom, and knee-creases of milk-bottle legs. Oh the luck of a divorce case as delicious as this one.
One sure to attract such publicity.
That callous, cunning, conniving swine Traitor James can count on a trip to the cleaner’s. Won’t have a shirt on his back by the time Percy Pettifog is finished.
The high-gloss page of the magazine exposed centre-spread he taps with a gold fountain pen — ‘This expert lady, er Dear Lizbie Browne, seems sure of herself, I must say.’ Transfixed by the V of her heaving cleavage, he tilts his half-moon spectacles: ‘One feels driven to fill you in from the outset er, Missus James, for when it comes to the loss of conjugal rights, the Law takes a very dim view. A very dim view.’
How he longs to give himself up into those puff-pink arms. The plump pink softness of knees and ankles and with the right amount of slip showing.
‘This is intolerable. A full fit fragrant lady like your good self in her prime of Life deserves more from this ... this ... cad! ... ’
Brown doleful eyes blink with the trust of a puppy.
‘... Loss of connexion is a very serious matter. Very serious.’
The voluptuous vision of fluffy loveliness fiddles with her fiery tails — ‘Suppose so.’
‘You leave yourself entirely in my hands.’
‘You’re too kind.’
‘Not at all. Not at all.’
Hot passion inflames the loins. The man of letters Percy Pettifog fiddles in a deep trouser pocket, and dabs a moistening neck. ‘I find as I practise — these ladies like your good self often have these dormant desires. Have you considered remarriage? A professional, say?’ He hankers with the desire of the devil’s dog the hillocks and valleys of the Promised Land: ‘Hell, the ladies I’ve had coming through that door!’
A lone salt tear trickles the cheek of the poor deserted client.
He flies from the chair and unfolds a red rag before a cash cow — ‘Oh my poor dear.’
‘Thank you. I’m s-so sorry.’
‘Think nothing of it.’ He flops to the pounding of a pleading heart. ‘One feels driven to relate, Missus James, a little work can of course begin on your case, but perhaps we should bear in mind Traitor Jam — ahem — the other party — has only been missing for twenty-four hours.’
‘My Archie’s never been missing before.’
‘Quite. Quite. I do sympathise. Honest I do.’
The steel shutter of a locked heart flutters lower-circuit blood. ‘In the eyes of the Law, Missus James, twenty-four hours may not always amount to desertion ...’
Transfixed by the protruding nipple.
‘... It is though a good start.’
Hard-baked by the demands of a boneheaded marriage.
‘Tell me, my dear, what if the other party rejoins the marital nest offering to resume the kind of connubial bliss your union must once have enjoyed?’
‘You mean what if my Archie comes back?’
‘Yes, my dear,’ he soothes in best bedside manner.
‘I know my Archie. My Archie’s not coming back.’ The poor deserted client fiddles with the corner of a red rag.
Percy Pettifog puts the tips of his fingers together to form a triangle — ‘One feels driven to enquire, dear lady. Is the other party endowed with any sizeable, manageable assets? Holiday home? Stocks and shares? Nice bit tucked away?’
‘The only asset my Archie left is a Volvo estate.’
Dear oh dear. What an unfeeling bastard. In the case of James v James the Wheels of Justice will grind very slowly indeed. ‘In my long experience, Missus James, married life’s not all its crack’d up to be.’
The gold clock high off the wall alarums High Noon.
‘Time’s up. I’ve covered the bases. I’ll get Betty the receptionist to book you another appointment.’
The rustle of cheap cotton and a client’s sobbing. And seeping the backwaters of a Law-sodden brain the sound of a door closing gently.
***
The Chief Constable’s afternoon inspection of a fresh case of pornography prematurely interrupted by the desk intercom flashing red. ‘Brenda, I said no —’
‘Sir, I’ve a pigmy here, a er Mr Feather-stone-something or other —’
‘Jesus!’ The mound of hardcore evidence strong-armed into the bottom drawer, the Chief Constable stiffens erect. ‘Send him in.’
The shrivelled pink head of the little grey man from the Home Office, Featherstoneheaugh-Major, bobs above the shag of the carpet and bounds into the big-boy chair, eyeballs blinking above the event horizon of the desk.
‘Sar, good to see you,’ lies the Chief Constable and squirming in a black hole of guilt. ‘Can I offer you a drink? Tea? Something stronger perhaps?’
‘Come come, Chief Constable, where are these communist fwiends of yours, Piffle and Waffle?’
Away in the bowels of the building the flushing of a toilet bowl.
‘Oh, deep undercover, sar, deep deep —’
‘My dear chap, you’ve held your end up for the good of the team. Nanny wants to give you an early bath. Cuwwy’s cooked and the chukka’s kaput. Time to head back to the pavilion for a cup of tea and a slice of auntie’s Victowia sponge, what! ...’
The Chief Constable shifts stickily in the hot seat.
‘... No shame in holding your end up for the good of the team. It’s not as if the Fagmaster is saying the Captain flopped the wong toss ...’
Gold-linked pension, Big Job, and as much hardcore pornography as a Chief Constable can handle, swirling the Toilet Bowl of Life and flushing out of sight.
‘... Now’s not the time to be blubbewing to Matwon because you’ve been dwopped for a bigger boy ...’
A goose of an innings to the last.
‘... Take a holiday. All work and no play makes Jack a dull chappy ...’
Bowled below the belt for a duck.
‘... We need the sort of chap who’s not blubbewing to Matwon because he’s been fagging for the Head Boy ...’
<—> Bearing your backside for stripes before the whole house <—>
‘... We need the sort of chap who’s not kowtowing to these communists ...’
This stale cruel world a false cold promontory.
Swirling the murky depths of an over-moneyed imagination the Chief Constable thrown back to laps of the school playing-field and sobbing for Mummy.
‘… Chief Constable, are you a wacing man?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Man needs a hobby. Takes him out of himself. Nothing like the smell of good English gwass in your nostwils.’
The Chief Constable thrown back to hot nights down the alleyways of Lower Springwood gamehunting gerbil. He picks up cap and badge. No point in waiting for the umpire’s finger. The hot phlegm of injustice jemmies the throat <—> The Chief Constable rises on weak knees, brass badge burning a black hole through the palm <—> The panelled walls of the office warp to jelly <—> He staggers from the desk, past the mocking picture of Her Majesty, and out into the crack’d custard tiles of the hallway <—>
To push the button.
On the wall.
For the lift.
To take him down.
To the unwashed streets of Springwood.
Take my Chevy to the levee but the levee is dry.
Them good ole boys are drinking whiskey and rye. Come to me, Gerbil. I smell a rat. Lost in a darker dimension of windswept humiliation and widespread injustice the Chief Constable plants size-twelve clodhoppers on the crack’d pavement slabs of Lower Springwood. Dickies chirp low in the sky. Green gas thick with flies. England at its finest in glorious high summer. Just the day for raiding the shops with your nearest and dearest. The butcher’s, the baker’s, the chav-tracksuit-maker’s. Something that normal common people do every day of their Lives. Not that the Chief Constable has any loved ones. And if he had a bottom wish, here is where they would be. The Chief Constable kicks forward into the heart of the community ...