CHAPTER TEN
Jonathan glowered at Joe as he approached the stage.
The peeping Tom twat was coming his way again. His first reaction was to stamp
on Joe’s hands and head as he tried to climb up on the stage. But Jonathan was
beginning to realise that the evening was going to go on, and on, and on,
unless he moved the pace of events into a gallop. So he grabbed Joe’s hand to
give him a lift up. Even with his injuries and despite his champagne intake,
Joe was able to gain a left foothold on the stage quite easily with this help
but, as he was balanced to lift up his other leg, Jonathan, suddenly bored with
being helpful and overcome with a renewed hatred, let him go. In an attempt to
regain his balance Joe started to wave his arms about and straighten his legs.
This had the effect of propelling him backwards into the middle of the room,
similar to a back- stroke swimmer only in mid air. The air was full of flying
vinegar, pickled eggs and their jar which Joe had been carrying under his right
arm. He back flopped onto another table full of drinks, crushing everything he
landed on and adding even more to the wetness of the floor and the audience.
Their was uncontrollable laughter from the untouched
GIT’s table, all had tears rolling down their cheeks, except for Marty who was
still undergoing trouser repair by the bar. Marty felt uneasy about laughing at
Joe’s misfortune. After all they were both south east London Mayeswood Road Grove Park
Crawfie, noticing the odd Marty out, walked over to
him, leant and quickly thrust his hand through the tear in the crotch of
Marty’s trousers and squeezed very, very hard whilst whispering in his ear,
“Larf, yer bastard”
Marty’s eyes met at his nose, he spluttered, unfolded
his arms and burst into howling fits of laughter with his head thrown back,
slapping his thighs repeatedly.
Now all the GITs had tears rolling down their cheeks
but maybe for different reasons.
Jonathan was apologetic realising that he shouldn’t
have caused such chaos, it was very unprofessional. “Fun though,” he thought.
“Deawy me, I’m so weally, weally sowwy. I don’t know
what came over me. Come back Joe and weceive your award.”
“Not bloody likely,” said Joe from the middle of the
remains of the table, broken chairs, shattered glass, blood, guts and injured and distressed people, all lying
in various different foul-smelling liquids. “I’m happier here thanks, I feel
quite at home.”
The marvellous St John’s
It wasn’t really the fault of the ambulance crew.
Almost all of them had day jobs in the Yalding abattoir and they were into a
routine which they found difficult to break. Only grim old Ebenezer didn’t work
with them in the slaughter house. He was the village undertaker, so his first
thought was always to measure up the patients before his colleagues commenced with
the treatment. He always wondered why this seemed to unnerve the sick so much.
Or could it be the black suit, top hat and the four black-plumed horses pulling
the ambulance?
Joe had managed to avoid the trip to the ambulance
and was now, despite his better judgement, heading back to the stage.
He was badly winded,
“Look Jonathan, lads and ladies” he looked across at
the comely Yalding country lass, “and you too. I could really do with a bit of
break. I know we’ve only just had one but thanks to the crush in the loo, that
was not very relaxing. The bar staff also need a bit of time to clear up this
mess. Would you mind if we took five?”
Everyone shouted in agreement “Yeh, take five.”
Immediately the St John’s men rushed in as a moving
scrum, picked up another five people and dragged them off, screaming, to the
ambulance, never to be seen again. At least the place was getting less
crowded.
Joe sat down alongside the rest of the GITs and
slumped into his chair. He managed to balance himself before the three legged
contraption toppled over. All the GITs were somewhat jaded. Joe turned to The
Count,
“This is all rather unnerving Count, couldn’t buy me
drink, could you?”
“Sorry dear boy, I hate to be the bringer of bad news
and all that, but I’m afraid the source of our entertainment fund has dried up,
old man. Your money has all gone. Your wallet is almost empty, don’t you know.
Not a jolly old penny left I’m afraid, just a Farningham mobile library ticket,
a shrivelled ancient rubber johnny, a picture of a sheep with a wooden leg and
a signed photo of Graham Norton in a spangle suit.”
Joe covered the Count’s mouth with his hand.
“Shush, keep your voice down; I don’t want everyone
to know I use the mobile library.”
There was a loud shout from the bar where the comely
Yalding country lass was back trying to sew the gaping hole in Marty’s
trousers. She was getting rather fed up with her kneeling position and rather
tired of the view, so she had purposely not been as careful with the needle as
she could have been. Hence Marty’s sharp exclamation of pain.
“Tell you what love, let’s leave it for now, the
breeze might do me good.”
Marty rejoined the GIT’s table and, for a short time
they all sat there together, a picture of bedraggled brotherhood, full of
simmering hatred and suspicion, all desperate for a drink but none having the
necessary money or benevolence .
They either twiddled their thumbs or tied their shoe
laces until Crawfie said,
“Awright, I still got some of Joe’s dosh, I’ll go to
the bleedin’ bar.”
Everyone murmured in appreciation and sat in silence
waiting for his return.
After a couple of minutes Crawfie returned with a
pint of bitter in one hand and a fistful of wet change in the other.
“Do you want a hand with the booze,” asked Marty.
“Nah,” said Crawfie sitting down, “I can manage to
drink this all on me own, fanks”
An indignant Pants piped up,
“You said you would get the drinks.”
“Nah, I said I would go to the bar. Wanna make
sunnink of it?”
The rest of the GITs looked at their boots.
“Sorry, my misunderstanding Crawfie. Enjoy your
drink,” said Pants, “but I wish you’d put your trousers on.”
“Shut it.”
The atmosphere was so terrible that Pants tried to
break the ice by making small talk.
“Do you know, I think the strangest thing about this
evening has been the behaviour of Captain Pete. Something has not been right
with him tonight. He’s not been acting in his normal way. Did you notice that
his eyes lit up alarmingly and his head swivelled round 360 degrees and, when
it stopped, it was facing the wrong way? He was covered in seaweed and had a
wooden leg, and a patch over his eye. He drew a knife on us and he spouted the
most ridiculous rubbish.”
“That’s all spot on, I saw all that too” said Marty,
“ but in what way do you think he acted differently to normal?”
The Count was annoyed.
“Now hang on, pretty poor show there Marty. Just give
the Captain the respect he deserves. I won’t have a bad word said about Captain
Pete. It is obvious that something is amiss this evening, the poor blighter is
not himself.”
“Well oo the bleedin’ ‘ell is e then,” sneered
Crawfie, “Mary bleedin Poppins, Graham bloody Norton?”
Joe blushed at the mention of old spangle suit and he
noticed that Marty blushed too. Joe assumed that it was not Graham Norton’s
name which made Marty turn red, it was more likely to be the mention of Mary
Poppins. Her name probably brought back memories of the unfortunate events with
Nanny back in old Grove Park
The Count pointed a finger at Crawfie,
“My dear fellow, you really are such an uncouth
individual. You really should not try my patience too far, old thing.”
“Watcha gonna do abaht it, OLD FING?”
Crawfie didn’t know it but he was treading on very
dodgy ground. Everyone thought of the Count as being an ineffective Bertie
Wooster type but, in reality, he more resembled the Noel Coward character in
the original version of “The Italian Job”, controlling the criminal underworld
from a powerful position in prison, feared by all.
“Wait and see, old boy, wait and see. But I can tell
you one thing for certain, dear fellow. You definitely do not want to be in my
bad books. You are in great danger of getting out of your depth.”
The Count said these words in such a quiet, determined,
menacing voice that Crawfie suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable.
“I fink I’ll put me strides on, where the bleedin’
ell are they.”
He retreated, in search of his trousers.
Marty leaned towards the Count and spoke in a near
whisper, which was just as well because if it had been a far whisper, he
wouldn’t have heard him.
“I noticed that weirdness with Captain Pete and a bit
more too. Difficult to explain but I saw some very odd things, maybe they were
optical illusions, I don’t know.”
“Take a word of advice old fruit; keep it all to your
jolly old self. Don’t meddle with what you don’t understand and it won’t meddle
with you.”
While the two of them were talking, Pants had noticed
the pint which Crawfie had inexplicably left on the table. It was almost full
and Pants was Sahara dry. He started to try to whistle a
tuneless ditty through his dry lips while his eyes darted left and right, not
necessarily at the same time. The pint was not quite within his reach so he
shuffled his stool towards it with his arm outstretched, ready to capture his
prize. Unfortunately the three legged chair toppled, sending him flying down
the table and knocking the glass to the floor, spilling all its contents.
“Bloody hell,” he said picking himself up, “these
three legged contraptions are absolutely useless. Whoever designed them wants
shooting.”
Joe tried to stifle the laughter at his fellow GIT’s
misfortunate but couldn’t quite manage it.
“Ah Pants, the point is that they weren’t designed
that way. They all started life with four legs and, if you look carefully
underneath, you’ll see they have all had the fourth leg hacked off.”
Pants picked up the next stool,
“You’re right. Who on earth has done that?”
“Ahaha!” said Joe screwing up one eye, twisting his
mouth and switching to a Robert Newton Long John Silver impression , “folks
‘round these ‘ere cundry paaarts do say
it all be the work of a certain local woman,” mercifully the impression ended,
“who cannot stand to see anything in fours. If she sees four of anything, she
has to take one away to make it three. Have you noticed the lighting gantry on
the stage? If you look closely there you‘ll see that each arm has four lamps
but none of the arms have all four bulbs working.”
“So you’re saying that she has gone round and
sabotaged one bulb in every four because she can’t stand the figure four?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s daft. How does she deal with four legged
animals then?”
“Very badly I’m afraid and I have the evidence to
prove it. The other day I saw a field full of pigs and another of sheep and
every one of them had lost a leg. I took a photo but I’ve, erm, lent it to The
Count at the moment so I can’t show you.”
“Now you mention it, “said Pants, “I noticed
something funny on the way in too. I noticed that every car had a hub cap
missing.”
“See what I mean? They would also have had a wheel
missing except that they’re difficult to get off and also, rumour has it, this
woman believes all the cars have spare wheels, so they haven’t got four, they
have five so she doesn’t have a problem.”
Pants stood aghast.
“I’m aghast,” he said.
“I could tell,” said Joe, “It’s the way you were
standing.”
“But what does she do with all these spare parts?”
“Well, it is told that she sells the pig’s and lamb’s
legs to the butchers and all the rest she takes to boot fairs and the like and
sells them there.”
“Blimey Joe, if I had, say, a hub cap stolen, I would
probably go to a boot fair to buy one cheap and it would probably be the one
that was from my car in the first place.”
“Precisely. Recycling, I suppose. Everyone’s happy
and she has your car back with four hub caps to target again.”
“It’s a bloody good business, she’s on to something.
I wouldn’t fancy the chopping off a lamb’s leg though, not when it’s still
alive.”
“Ah, this is where her kindness comes in. She never
chops off an animal’s leg without either giving it a wooden one in replacement
or, if that is impractical, she will give it a walking stick or, or if that
doesn’t work, she will lean it up against a wall.”
“All heart, eh?”
Joe then went into confidential mode by beckoning,
and Pants moved closer.
“Ow! Step back a bit Pants, not too close.”
“Sorry,” said Pants, removing his nose from Joe’s
eye.
“OK,” said Joe, rubbing his eye, “I was just going to
tell you that there are strong rumours that this woman has something to do with
Captain Pete.”
“Really?”
“Yes some say that Captain Pete is behind the whole
thing.”
There was a loud “WHAT?” from the stage as Jonathan
jumped in alarm from his sleeping position on the floor.
At the start of this latest
long break,
Channel 4 went to the
adverts,
then to programme trailers,
then to the weather
forecast,
then to more programme trailers,
then to a news summary,
then to put the kettle on,
then to an updated weather
forecast,
then to a charity appeal,
then to a public service
announcement,
then to breaking news,
then to breaking wind,
then to sleep.
The 23 men, lovies all, who made up the highly strung
Channel 4 outside broadcast production team, had also fallen asleep in their
mobile studio during this long break. The poor fragile dears had had a trying
day which started with an all out fist fight with “Winkles” Willy from the
“Yalding Fisheries - Selfish to the Gentry”. (This may have been a spelling error,
or a mission statement, or just a fact. No one dared to ask).
The production company had parked their massive OB lorry in the Social Club car park earlier in the
day, but then came trouble. “Winkles” Willy turned up to find this poncy
stranger’s vehicle parked in his regular selling position. He created merry
hell and an all out fight started between Winkles and the 23 Channel 4 lovies.
Winkles Willy won the fight easily, sustaining only
slight burns from the twirling handbags, and the sobbing TV crew (“You alright,
love? Look at my lallys, all grazed and the seams all out of place, what a
palaver”) had to move elsewhere. In fact Winkles Willy himself had recommended
this new parking spot but didn’t tell them it would later be occupied by Kebab
O’Connor and Hamburger Harry. They would find out soon enough, he thought.
Jonathan had jumped out of his skin with a loud
“WHAT” because the OB team had been woken by the voice of the
Channel 4 controller screaming into their headphones and they in turn had woken
Jonathan.
“Wake up Rossy love, we’re live on air again in 5
seconds.”
Sounding like someone broadcasting from a fully tiled
gent’s loo, Jonathan’s voice echoed around the hall,
“Welcome back ladies and gentlemen, thank you for
staying with us. You may have twied to forget but we are waiting to award the
“Virgin Twain Award” for the feeblest excuse for not getting answers in on
time. Considering the delay, it’s rather
apt really isn’t it. And you probably don’t remember, or don’t care but, the
winner is - Joe.”
While the audience were having their break, the bar
staff had been very busy
tidying the mess and, amazingly, the floor was now
clean and completely dry, so Mr Roundtree felt a lot safer carrying yet another
tray of Guinness across the room.
At the sound of his name being called, Joe jumped up,
punched the air in feigned, dramatic surprise sending Mr. Roundtree and his
latest tray sprawling. The floor was no longer dry, nor were the GITs. Mr
Roundtree was up on his feet in a split second and on his way back to the bar
where the bar staff had already begun to pour the next batch. Practise makes
perfect.
Joe reached the stage and, after several attempts,
managed to clamber up to an only slightly crouching position.
“Thank you very much everyone.”
The room ignored him.
“I would just like to say, I’ve forgotten why I won
this award, I was on holiday at the time, but it is highly deserved and the judges
must be congratulated on their wisdom. As the current King GIT I have to say
that the standards I have brought to this competition can never be bettered.
You cannot improve on perfection unless you are an absolute genius and I’m
afraid only one of us here has achieved that lofty position and the rest of you
don’t come anywhere near me.”
“What an arse.” said The Count.
Joe looked behind him, “Yes, amazing isn’t it?
There’s nothing about me that isn’t superb.”
“For heaven’s sake sit down, old man, you are acting
like a complete cad and a bounder.”
The room erupted in anger towards Joe and missiles
were thrown at the stage. The Trident nuclear ones were particularly damaging.
Jonathan was not happy,
“Now look what you’ve started - World War Thwee,” he
said, “who’d have thought it would all kick off in Yalding.”
Joe continued, “I really don’t know what to say.”
“Good,” said Jonathan, “then sod off,” and he gave
Joe a mighty push off the stage. Luckily for Joe his fall was broken by Mr
Roundtree’s latest effort to deliver a tray of Guinness to a far flung table.
In the event, he and his tray of drinks were themselves flung far and scattered
over the floor.
Once again Mr Roundtree was on his feet in a split
second and back at the bar in a fast moving blur and with a cartoon
“Whooooosh”. The bar staff had already poured out the next tray and were
ordering more Guinness from the brewery.
Joe felt that he had better shut up and sit down. He
made his way back to the GIT’s table, stopping only to pick up a bottle of
Newcastle Brown which someone had foolishly left unattended and to chew on the
mangled remains of the pickled egg which he had previously secreted in his
trouser pocket and which now more resembled the scrambled variety. Eating
scrambled egg with your hands is never easy and much of it went down his shirt.
As he was wiping his chin, shirt and trousers, he looked across the hall. There
sitting in a dark corner was the weird Captain Pete who had made those strange
appearances earlier. His head was still back to front and Joe thought that he
could hear strange electrical crackling noises from inside Captain Pete. Then
he heard the chimes of Big Ben and The Archer’s theme tune emanating from the
same direction.
“This is bloody weird,” thought Joe, as usual quick
off the mark. Then a movement behind the curtains to the side of the stage made
him suddenly swivel round to face that direction.
Joe was sure that he saw the real Captain Pete
quickly pull back from the curtains and disappear off into the darkness.
He started to run towards the curtains to follow
Captain Pete but The Count called out,
“Joe, stop, leave him be, it’s not your business.”
Such was The Count’s authorative tone that Joe
stopped in his tracks.
“Come back here my good man, don’t involve yourself
in something which will end badly for you. It’s none of your business.”
Joe moved slowly to the table rather unnerved that
suddenly The Count was being nice to him again.
“What do you mean,” he said, “what sort of business
is it?”
“Look my dear friend, you’ve upset quite a few people
here tonight, particularly the fellows around this table. Just stop now, come
and rejoin us and all will be forgiven.”
Joe looked at the GITs and was very wary about
rejoining the table; they all looked very mean and upset at him for some reason
he couldn’t really fathom.
“I’m not sure I should. They don’t look very
friendly,”
“Don’t be a silly old thing, nobody’s going to hurt
you, are you lads?”
All the GITs shouted “No, course not.”
Joe smiled and sat down. Crawfie immediately
viciously stamped on Joe’s injured leg under the table, called him a very bad
name and looked the other way when Joe screamed in pain. The Count, pretending
not to see the assault, said,
“Just before the next award is announced, I must go
and see if I can have a word with a mutual friend of ours. Won’t be long, keep
up the treatment my gallant lads.”
The Count disappeared behind the curtains and Joe
disappeared under a barrage of physical and verbal abuse from the remaining GITs.
There was yet another break
in transmission for Channel 4 while the latest mess was cleared.
Joe managed to crawl out from under the assault and
crept quietly to the side of the room. The mass of GIT bodies kept rotating in
the dust and someone was being beaten under the heap but Joe was just pleased
that it was no longer him.
He just kept thinking about how he could smoke out
whatever it was that was going on with Captain Pete and The Count. Then he had
an idea. He scribbled something onto a piece of paper, put the paper into a
gold envelope and handed it to a Channel 4 flunky.
Channel 4 returned to live
broadcasting.
Jonathan stood to make another announcement.
“Wight, let’s move on and hope to god that that
peeping Tom twat doesn’t come anywhere near this stage again. Now, ladies and
gentlemen, at this time we were to have the comeback appeawance of the
bwilliant blast from the past, the twuly wonderful, Great Gusto, but luckily I
got wind of his act and smelt a wat.”
“Smelt a what?” said Marty
“No, not a what, a wat,” said Jonathan.
“What’s a wat?”
“What do you mean what’s a wat?”
“Well I don’t know what a wat is.”
“You know. Like Woland.”
“No, I don’t know. What is a Woland?”
“Jesus Chwist.”
“Jesus Christ is a Woland?”
“No Jesus Chwist is not a Woland.”
“Well who is a Woland?”
“It’s not who is a Woland, It’s what is a Woland?”
“That’s what I said, what is a Woland?”
“Woland is a
wat.”
“What’s a wat?”
“A wat is what Woland is. Are you taking the wise out
of my speech impediment?”
“Certainly not,” said Marty, “I wouldn’t dweam of it;
I just wanted to know what wat is who.”
“Good.” Jonathan wasn’t sure if he won that argument
or not but he decided to get on with the evening.
“Now as I was saying ladies and gentlemen, Great
Gusto cannot be with us but I have been handed this golden envelope which is
the announcement of the next award. It’s a bit scwibbled and difficult to wead
but here goes. The next categowwy is for the lifetime fellowship for GIT quiz
mastering and, as you would expect, there is only one nomination for this
award. And the winner is….”
He opened the envelope, stared hard at the dreadful
scrawl and said with a dramatic flourish,
“Cartoon Pets.”
There was silence in the room.
“No, sorry my mistake, the winner is - Captain Pete.”
There was the loudest applause of the evening. Joe’s
little plan to smoke out the real Captain Pete was about to be tested. He and
the entire room cheered and clapped and turned expectantly towards the stage.
No comments:
Post a Comment