The Reginald Perrin Omnibus (73 page)

Reggie tipped the spilt coffee back into his cup.

‘How d’you know he’s got a willy if you haven’t seen it?’

The balance of probabilities.’

‘Has he got a hole?’

‘No.’

‘Liar. He’s got one in his bum.’

Reggie sipped the coffee. It was lukewarm.

‘Mankind, Jocasta, is distinguished from the lower orders by his capacity to conceptualize about abstract matters of ethical, moral, aesthetic, scientific and mathematical concern,’ he said. ‘I know you’re only six, but I think you ought to be turning your mind to slightly higher questions than you are at present.’

‘Does C.J. sit down when he does his wee-wees?’

That evening Reggie told Tom and Linda about Jocasta’s thirst for knowledge. Tom looked glum.

‘Her failure is a mirror of our failure,’ he said.

‘Your failure is a mirror of my failure,’ said Reggie.

On Monday it rained all day. There was no play in the Schweppes County Championship or the Rothmans Tennis. The word of the day was Innovation.

Tom called on Reggie in his study. He was wearing a blue tracksuit and carried an orange football.

‘I’ve got an innovation,’ he said.

‘Fire away,’ said Reggie.

Tom sprawled in an upright chair that might have been designed specifically to prevent sprawling.

‘Football,’ he said.

‘It’s been done before,’ said Reggie.

‘With a difference,’ persisted Tom. ‘Football with no aggro, no fouls, no tension, no violence.’

‘What’s the secret?’ said Reggie.

‘No opposition,’ said Tom.

‘Pardon?’

‘You asked me to be unconventional. This is unconventional. We have eleven members of staff. The perfect team. Only nobody plays against us. We use skill, passing, teamwork, and tactics. It’s pure football, Reggie.’

‘Interesting,’ said Reggie.

‘I’ve been in touch with Botchley Albion,’ said Tom. ‘They play in the Isthmian League. They can rent us some costumes for a consideration. We don’t want to look ridiculous.’

Tuesday dawned cloudy but dry. The word of the day was Connect.

It was C.J.’s turn to be analysed by Doc Morrissey. The chaise-longue, purchased at the Botchley Antique Boutique, seemed out of place in Doc Morrissey’s tent.

‘Lie down on the couch,’ he told C.J.

C.J. clambered on to the chaise-longue with bad grace.

Doc Morrissey lay back on his sleeping bag.

‘A little word association,’ he said. ‘Both of us making random connections. Sex.’

‘Table tennis,’ said C.J.

‘Why?’

‘Random.’

‘When I say random, I mean that you’re to let subconscious logical associations replace your conscious logical associations. Let’s start again. Sex.’

‘Table tennis.’

‘Oh for goodness sake, C.J,’

‘In my palmier days,’ said C.J., ‘I had relations with a table tennis player in Hong Kong. She had a very unusual grip.’

‘What happened?’

‘She beat me twenty-one-seventeen, twenty-one-twelve, twenty-one-nine. Then she took me home and I beat her. She seemed to enjoy that sort of thing. Very disturbing. So did I. Even more disturbing.’

‘Why did you say it was a random association, then?’

‘I was lying.’

Doc Morrissey sighed.

‘You’re on this project, C.J.,’ he said. ‘You might as well take it seriously.’

‘Oh very well.’

C.J. stared at the cool white roof of Doc Morrissey’s tent. He could feel his mind going blank.

‘Table tennis,’ said Doc Morrissey.

‘Sex.’

‘Girl.’

‘Dance.’

‘Gooseberry.’

‘Raspberry.’

‘Fool.’

‘Jimmy.’

‘Army.’

‘Resistance.’

‘Underground.’

‘Rush-hour.’

‘Red buses.’

‘Moscow.’

‘St Petersburg.’

‘Dostoyevsky.’

‘Idiot.’

‘Jimmy.’

‘Very interesting,’ said Doc Morrissey when they had finished. ‘Why do you associate Jimmy with fool and idiot?’

‘He is a fool and an idiot.’

‘People can’t help what they are,’ said Doc Morrissey. ‘Their behaviour is conditioned by many things. You should say, “The many environmental and hereditary influences to which I have been subjected lead me to believe Jimmy is an idiot”.’

‘He is an idiot.’

‘All right. The many environmental and hereditary influences to which I have been subjected lead me to believe that the many environmental and hereditary influences to which Jimmy has been subjected have made him an idiot.’

C.J. clambered stiffly off the couch.

‘Is that all?’ he said.

‘No,’ said Doc Morrissey. ‘Many factors influence our behaviour. The state of the planets. Our biorhythmic cycle. The weather.’

‘The many environmental and hereditary influences to which I have been subjected, allied to my low biorhythmic cycle, the relationship of Pluto to Uranus, the fact that it’s pissing down in Rangoon and that my auntie was jilted by a tobacconist from Wrexham lead me to believe that you’re talking a load of balls,’ said C.J.

Wednesday dawned dry but cloudy. The word of the day was Bananas. For the best part of an hour, they struggled to think bananas, talk bananas and be bananas.

Then they gave it up.

Thursday began brightly but fell off fast. The word of the day was Bananas.

They examined the slips that remained in the hat, and found that eight more carried the legend ‘Bananas’. They never found out who had chosen bananas for all their ten words.

They abandoned having a word of the day after that. Doc Morrissey explained that it was stifling individual responses and preventing a steady emotional development.

Friday was extremely cold for May. Severiano Ballasteros shot a five under par sixty-six to win the Tampax Invitation Classic by three strokes.

In the evening Reggie put a little plan into action.

McBlane’s excellent dinner was already but a memory. Little Reggie was asleep. Adam and Jocasta were watching Kojak. Reggie and Elizabeth waited for their guests in the living-room. Four guests were invited. But only Mr Penfold and Mrs Hollies arrived. Their loved ones were indisposed.

They accepted small medium sherries.

‘I have great news for you,’ said Reggie. ‘I’ve decided that you were right. This is not a suitable environment for our project. We’re selling up.’

Mrs Hollies and Mr Penfold tried not to show their relief. They accepted more sherry with pleasure and praised the decor with sudden enthusiasm.

‘The would-be purchaser is calling round shortly,’ said Reggie. ‘You’ll be able to meet him.’

Quite soon the doorbell rang.

This may be him now,’ said Reggie.

Elizabeth answered the door. Mr Penfold and Mrs Hollies stood up expectantly. Elizabeth returned with Tony, who was heavily blacked up.

‘Ah, there you are, Winston,’ said Reggie.

‘Here ah is, man,’ said Tony.

‘This is Mr Winston Baldwin Gladstone Vincent Fredericks,’ said Reggie.

Tony flashed his carefully whitened teeth, and extended a blackened hand. He was worried lest the boot-polish came off – unnecessarily. Neither Mr Penfold nor Mrs Hollies seemed over-anxious to shake his hand.

‘I don’t think my new neighbours dig me man,’ said Tony. ‘Because I’m a black man, man. Sure is a sad thing. I was really looking forward to scoring some curried goat barbecues with them this summer.’

On Tuesday afternoon Tom led his team out for their football match versus nobody. A ‘For Sale’ board was being stuck in the soft earth outside Number Nineteen.

The eleven members of staff turned left, past the ‘For Sale’ board in the garden of Number Twenty-three. They looked self-conscious and sheepish in the Botchley Albion strip. Varicose veins and white legs abounded.

They turned right into Washington Road, Doc Morrissey behind Joan, gazing at her legs.

‘Yellow and purple suits you,’ whispered Jimmy to Linda. ‘Legs as top-hole as ever.’

They turned left into Addis Ababa Avenue.

‘I’m playing a four-three-three line-up,’ Tom confided to Reggie.

The line-up was C.J.; David Harris-Jones, Elizabeth, Tom and Prue; Tony, Reggie and Linda; Doc Morrissey, Jimmy and Joan.

As they were not all in the full bloom of youth and fitness, they only played twenty minutes each way. It began to rain at half time.

It proved rather boring playing with no opponents and they had the rain and wind against them in the second half. Even so, the result was something of a disappointment.

‘We should have won by far more than four-one,’ said Tom as they walked wearily back down Addis Ababa Avenue, hair flattened by the rain, legs reddened by exertion. ‘We frittered away our early advantage.’

Next day, a West Indian who bore a striking resemblance to Tom was shown round Number Twenty-three.

The following day another dusky-hued gentleman examined the bijou charms of Number Nineteen. He sounded more like a Southern gentleman than a West Indian.

‘You sure has a mighty fine residence here, Ma’am,’ he told Mrs Hollies. ‘Ah didn’t get where ah is today without recognizing a mighty fine residence when ah sees it, no sirree ma’am ah didn’t.’

Two days later, ‘For Sale’ boards went up outside Numbers Twenty-five and Seventeen.

By the end of June the community had bought Numbers Seventeen, Nineteen, Twenty-three and Twenty-five.

The tents had gone.

Alterations were in progress in all the houses. Kitchens, dining-rooms and living-rooms were converted into bedrooms.

C.J., Doc Morrissey, David Harris-Jones and Jimmy became house wardens. McBlane moved reluctantly into Number Twenty-one.

The weather was changeable and temperate. It was a year without seasons.

The evenings began to draw in. The training intensified. Jimmy tried to persuade Linda to let him paint her in the nude. She refused.

‘Come to my room,’ he said.

‘I can’t, Jimmy. We’re supposed to be nice, perfect human beings.’

Jimmy buried his head in her lap.

‘Come and do nice perfect things in my room,’ he said.

Linda stroked his greying, receding hair gently.

‘That’s all over, Uncle Jimmy,’ she said.

‘Absolutely. Should never have started,’ said Jimmy. ‘Just for ten minutes.’

‘No!’

‘Quite right. Glad you said “no”. Best thing. Some time next week, perhaps.’

‘No, Jimmy. Never again.’

‘Absolutely right. Bang on. Like to paint you in nude, though.’

The opening day was fixed for August the fifteenth. Soon there was only a fortnight to go. Reggie placed an advert in several newspapers and journals. It read:

Does your personality depress you?

Has life failed you?

Do you hate when you’d like to love?

Are you aggressive?

Are you over-anxious?

Are you over-competitive?

Are you over eighteen?

Then come to
PERRINS
for
PEACE, GOOD LIVING
and
CARE
.

STAY
as
LONG
as you
LIKE
.

PAY ONLY
what
YOU
think it was
WORTH
.

Apply 21, Oslo Avenue, Botchley.

Behaviour improved all round. Reggie Harris-Jones hadn’t cried for fifteen days and sometimes Adam and Jocasta went for several hours without doing anything beastly.

Only one week remained before the opening day.

Excitement was at fever pitch, dampened only by the fact that there wasn’t one single booking.

Reggie began his final assessment interviews with his staff.

First he saw his psychologist.

Doc Morrissey leant forward and banged Reggie’s desk so hard that the knob fell off one of the drawers.

‘I have an awareness explosion, Reggie,’ he said. ‘A sensory tornado. An auto-catalystical understanding of my complete orgasm.’

‘Don’t you mean organism?’

‘Possibly, Reggie. Rather a lot of terms, you know. Can’t remember them all. Anyway, the point is, my visual, tactile and acoustic lives are amazingly enhanced. You know what that’s called, don’t you?’

‘No.’

‘Extrasensory perception, Reggie.’

He banged the desk, and the knob came off again.

‘We seem to have a bit of desk castration here,’ said Reggie, replacing the knob.

‘You know what’s done all this for me, Reggie? Confidence.’

Doc Morrissey raised his hand to bang it down again. Reggie removed the knob.

The Websters also expressed themselves delighted with their progress. Joan was enjoying the musical training, even though the staff weren’t a musical lot, and Tony was really into culture. Shakespeare was the kiddie, and old Ibsen was a knock-out, for a Norwegian. Tony reckoned they could have been really commercial if they weren’t so famous.

‘We haven’t had a row for three days,’ said Joan.

‘That’s not very long,’ said Reggie.

‘Well, we like a good argument,’ said Tony.

‘I don’t,’ said Joan.

‘You don’t want to be like those bloody Harris-Joneses, do you?’

‘What’s wrong with the Harris-Joneses?’ said Reggie.

They always agree about everything,’ said Tony.

‘I think that’s rather nice,’ said Joan.

‘Well, I don’t,’ said Tony. ‘I’d hate to be married to somebody who always agreed with me.’

‘I disagree,’ said Joan.

Tony kissed her affectionately on the cheek.

On the Tuesday, a day marred by thunder and the non-arrival of any bookings, it was the turn of the Harris-Joneses to have their assessment interviews.

David Harris-Jones was wearing sandals, fawn trousers and a yellow sweater.

Prue was wearing sandals, fawn trousers and a yellow sweater.

They sat very close together and held hands.

‘How are you getting along?’ said Reggie.

‘Super,’ they said.

‘It has been suggested that you spend so much time thinking alike that you hardly exist as separate entities any more,’ said Reggie.

‘I don’t think that’s fair,’ they said.

‘Oh, sorry. After you,’ they added.

They laughed. Reggie smiled.

A peal of thunder rumbled around Botchley.