The Reginald Perrin Omnibus (40 page)

‘Not that I know of. Why?’

‘Freud? Grimond?’

‘What are you talking about, Reggie?’

The Milfords returned noisily from their snifter at the nineteenth.

‘There seem to be a lot of people with the names of Liberal MPs. Steele, Pardoe.’

‘Oh yes. I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘No.’

On Monday morning Reggie pretended to oversleep. He was due at the piggery at half past seven, but he was still at home at eight o’clock.

The sun had returned, yet he handed Elizabeth her umbrella.

‘Umbrella,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He handed her her handbag.

‘Handbag,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘Have a good day at the office,’ he said.

‘I won’t.’

‘Give my love to Mr Steele and Mr Pardoe and any other members of the Liberal party who may be present,’ he said. ‘And if any of them drink like fishes and ask you to work on Saturday tell them to stick their wooden legs up their baskets.’

Elizabeth ignored the attack.

‘Have a good day at the piggery,’ she said.

‘I won’t,’ said Reggie.

Nor did he, because he did not go to the piggery. The moment Elizabeth had gone, he telephoned Mr Pelham.

‘Mr Pelham?’ he said. ‘Reg here, Mr Pelham. It’s me muwer. She’s been taken ill. I’m all she’s got, Mr P. Do you mind if I take the day off, like? … Thanks, Mr P… . Yeah, well, families are important. Very kind of you, Mr P., very kind … What? Without pay. Yeah, I understand. Oh, and Mr P.? … Give my love to the pigs.’

Over his piggery outfit he put a filthy old raincoat smeared with creosote stains. On his head he jammed a squashed gardening hat.

Thus disguised, he hurried along Coleridge Close. He caught sight of Elizabeth in Tennyson Avenue, followed her along Wordsworth Drive and down the snicket into Station Road.

He waited by the station bookstall until he heard the eight sixteen come in. Then he rushed on to the platform and boarded the train.

At Waterloo he followed her down the platform. He was only dimly aware of the loudspeaker announcement, apologizing for the fact that they were seventeen minutes late, and blaming track improvements at Clapham Junction.

He lost her briefly on the concourse but caught sight of her again as she walked down the steps out of the station.

Imagine his speculations as he saw her plunge into the mean streets where the head office of Sunshine Desserts was situated.

Judge of his amazement and anger as he watched her walk towards the grim portals, pass beneath the lifeless clock, and disappear into the ignoble building with nary a glance at the bold letters that proudly flashed to an astonished world their familiar message:
UNSHIN DESSERTS
. He followed her up three flights of stairs, because the lift was out of order, and saw her enter the office where she worked.

The dreadful truth hit him immediately, and he knew what he had to do.

C.J. was staring grimly at his morning mail. The storm-clouds were gathering over Sunshine Desserts. Only he knew on what shifting sands the edifice was built, to coin a phrase.

His jaw relaxed as he thought of the sweet loveliness of Elizabeth Perrin. Perhaps she would be his confidante. Perhaps Mrs C.J. would be injured in Luxembourg. Nothing serious. Just a few weeks in hospital, followed by six months in a convalescent home.

Marion murmured something about Perrin and he said: ‘Send her in.’

His face melted into a gentle smile, which froze when he saw Reggie.

‘Morning, C.J.,’ said Reggie.

‘Er … good … er … do … er … sit down.’

‘No,’ said Reggie.

‘You can sit on the … er… they’re new … Japanese.’

‘I’d rather stand,’ said Reggie.

The lunatic was wearing a filthy old hat and coat, but he didn’t appear to have a gun. It didn’t occur to C.J. that he had done nothing worthy of guilt. He had thought things worthy of guilt – and that was enough.

‘It’s about Elizabeth,’ said Reggie.

‘Let’s not be hasty,’ said C.J.

‘She’s working here,’ said Reggie.

‘I know. I gave her a job.’

‘She’s having an affair.’

‘Let’s discuss this like …’

‘She told me she was working on Saturday,’ said Reggie. ‘Working my foot. I want you to sack her, C.J. And him.’

C.J. lit a cigar with shaking fingers.

‘Him?’ said C.J.

‘Tony Webster.’

‘Ah! Tony Webster.’

‘Who did you think?’ said Reggie.

‘Who indeed?’ said C.J. ‘I was at a loss.’

‘Secretaries always fall in love with their bosses,’ said Reggie. ‘So I’ve heard anyway.’

‘Your story’s pure hearsay,’ said C.J. ‘Though you know what they say: there’s no smoke without the worm turning.’

‘I can get proof,’ said Reggie. ‘I’ll follow her next Saturday, if she tries that one on again.’

‘Of course I know of Webster’s reputation,’ said C.J. ‘His appetites.’

‘Appetites?’

‘I didn’t get where I am today without knowing of Webster’s appetites.’

‘What do you mean, appetites?’ said Reggie.

‘Do sit down, and take that dreadful hat off,’ said C.J.

Reggie sat in the little Japanese chair, and took his hat off.

‘What appetites, C.J.?’

‘Let’s say he has a weakness for women of mature years,’ said C.J.

‘He’s always with dolly birds.’

‘A front, Reggie. I didn’t get where I am today without knowing a front when I see one. And I suppose your wife is still quite an attractive woman.’

‘She’s a very attractive woman.’

‘Yes, I suppose she is,’ said C.J.

Reggie stood up.

‘Will you sack them, C.J.?’ he asked.

‘I can’t,’ said C.J.

‘You sacked me.’

‘That’s different.’

Reggie slammed his hat on his head and stormed towards the door, the tails of his gardening coat flying in his slipstream.

‘Careful,’ said C.J. ‘Look before you …’

But Reggie had slammed the door, so we will never know how C.J. would have finished his sentence.

At five-thirty Reggie was to be seen hanging around the end of the road, near the Feathers.

The aim of his vigil was to catch Tony and Elizabeth in flagrante.

Tony came down the road alone. That looked bad. Clearly the guilty parties were trying to avert suspicion.

Reggie approached him.

‘Hello, Reggie,’ said Tony.

Reggie punched him in the face. Tony staggered backwards. Reggie punched him again. Tony kicked out and Reggie stumbled.

Reggie got to his feet. Tony watched him in amazement. Reggie advanced to hit him again, and Tony punched him in the face. Reggie butted Tony in the stomach, and Tony gave him a bang on the back of the head.

Commuters hurried past the two grappling figures towards the safety of their trains. Tony gave Reggie one more punch and felled him before going down winded himself.

The two men bent gasping by the wall of the Feathers. Reggie’s squashed gardening hat lay in the gutter.

Joan hurried towards them anxiously.

‘Oh my darling!’ she said. ‘My darling! What has he done to you?’

‘He hit me,’ said Reggie and Tony in unison.

Both men held out their arms feebly. Joan embraced Tony. They went into the Feathers for a drink. If the landlord hadn’t known them he would have refused to serve them.

‘What have you been doing to my fiancé?’ said Joan.

‘Your fiancé?’ said Reggie.

‘Joan and I got engaged on Saturday,’ said Tony.

‘But I thought Elizabeth was with you on Saturday,’ said Reggie.

‘With me!’ said Tony.

Reggie explained about Elizabeth’s outing and the fictional loan of her from Mr Steele to Mr Pardoe.

Tony and Joan exchanged quick looks and remembered C.J.’s lunch with Elizabeth at the Casa Alicante.

Reggie bought large drinks to celebrate their engagement. Tony bought large drinks to celebrate Elizabeth’s innocence. Joan brought large drinks to celebrate Reggie and Tony’s buying of large drinks. Reggie and Tony bought large drinks to celebrate Joan’s buying large drinks. The landlord bought small drinks to celebrate his profits.

Both men developed black eyes. Reggie’s was the left eye, Tony’s was the right.

When Tony went to the gents’, Reggie said: ‘I thought you loved me, Joan! That day in the office!’

‘You spurned me,’ said Joan.

‘I hope you’ll be happy,’ said Reggie, and he kissed her on the lips. Her tongue slid into his mouth.

‘We never quite made it, did we?’ she said.

Reggie arrived home at a quarter past twelve, full of renewed happiness and love. He opened his mouth to tell Elizabeth the good news that she hadn’t been having an affair, and a stream of incomprehensible noises issued forth. He laughed, lurched forward, tripped over Ponsonby, and fell, cracking his head against the nest of tables.

‘Late,’ he managed to say. ‘Wandsworth failure at points.’

Then he passed out.

Quite soon he came round. She poured water over his face and gave him black coffee, and suddenly he was sober.

His other eye, which had struck the nest of tables, was coming out in another magnificent shiner.

And so, sitting in the kitchen with two black eyes, and a wet flannel pressed to his forehead, at a quarter to two on a humid July morning in the sleeping Poets’ Estate, Reggie told Elizabeth of his unworthy suspicions, of his conversation with C.J. and his fight with Tony Webster. She seemed to find parts of the story unaccountably funny.

‘Who
were
you with?’ said Reggie.

The firm’s Luxembourg representative,’ she said. ‘He’s over here on a training scheme. I did some typing for him in his flat in Godalming.’

She couldn’t tell Reggie that she had been with C.J. She felt guilty even by association with his unspoken feelings.

She felt awful about lying, but she had eased her conscience slightly by mentioning Godalming.

In the morning Reggie limped into the yard of Pelham’s Piggery thirty-seven minutes late.

Mr Pelham approached him. He was carrying a tin bath full of grain, and he looked at Reggie with amazement.

‘You seem to have rubbed your mother up the wrong way, old son,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’

‘She appears to have given you two black eyes.’

‘Oh those,’ said Reggie. ‘It’s sad really.’

He thought of his own dear kind gentle mother who had died ten years ago, and silently begged her forgiveness.

‘She’s going doolally,’ he said. ‘She’s convinced she’s Joe Bugner.’

‘When did Joe Bugner ever give anybody two black eyes?’ said Mr Pelham.

That evening three separate events occurred. Mrs C.J. broke a leg when she was knocked down by an ambulance in Echternach, Jimmy set off for his secret HQ, and in Swinburne Way a middle-aged man exposed himself to a schoolgirl with nine ‘O’ levels.

Chapter 9

Next morning there was a letter from Mark, and Elizabeth wore an unsuitable dress.

‘You aren’t going to work in that, are you?’ said Reggie.

Elizabeth laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’ said Reggie.

‘You, trying to be pompous and self-righteous with two black eyes.’

‘Darling, you can’t wear that dress to work,’ said Reggie, biting a piece of toast angrily.

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘It’s too revealing.’

‘Mammary horror shocks jelly workers,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Now can I finish Mark’s letter?’

She finished the letter, handed it to Reggie and kissed him.

‘Are you really going to wear it?’ he asked.

‘You’re a stickler for convention all of a sudden,’ said Elizabeth. “Bye bye, darling. Have a good day at the piggery.’

‘I won’t,’ he said.

After two and a half hours of mucking out, Reggie went for his tea break in the little brick hut provided. He had two colleagues, both surly. First one in made the tea in a large tin pot. The conversation consisted largely of four-letter words, spiced with the occasional seven-letter word.

On this occasion Reggie used neither four- nor seven – letter words. Instead he read Mark’s letter.

‘Dear old folks,’ wrote Mark. ‘I was amazed to hear that Martin Wellbourne was Dad all along. Fantastic news. Nice one. Ace. Wish I could see yer, honest.

‘The weather here varies. Sometimes it’s hot, but the rest of the time it’s bleeding hot. It can get a bit taters at night, though. The steamy heat of the jungle turns me on but none of the chicks in the company do. I may have more luck with the fellers. Failing that, baboons. Sorry, Mater.

‘Houses – or should I say “huts”? (Joke!) – are quite good. Tonight we’re doing
A Girl in My Soup
to some tribe or other, so quite likely there is a girl in the soup. Oh well, laugh, eh? No? Well we can’t all be Einsteins.

‘Last month we played to pygmies. Very small audiences. (Ouch!) We gave them
Move Over, Mrs Markham
, but it was over their heads. (Shoot this man!)

‘Seriously, folks and folkesses, I miss yer all. Love to the mad major and the fat sister and the bearded wonder and the little monsters and good old Ponsonby and anyone else wot I forgot. There goes the five minute drum. I’m on in a minute. Cheers.’

‘You’re late,’ said Tony.

I stopped to feed the ducks,’ said Elizabeth.

Tony gave her a look, then he had another look at her dress.

‘I’m loaning you to David Harris-Jones today, if you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘He’s got a bit of a backlog with his trifles.’

‘I’m yours to command,’ said Elizabeth.

She went along the corridor to David Harris-Jones’s office, which was tiny but drab. While it was draughty in winter, it was baking hot in summer.

‘Here I am,’ she said.

David stared at her dress. His eyes almost popped out of his head.

‘Super,’ he said.

Tom and Linda called round unexpectedly that evening. Tom brought a bottle of his 1973 quince wine.

‘You’ve got two black eyes, Reggie,’ he said.

‘I know,’ said Reggie.

‘He knows that,’ said Elizabeth. ‘There’s no point in telling him that.’

Linda sat on the settee. Tom remained standing and cleared his throat.