The Reginald Perrin Omnibus (84 page)

Reggie was nervous.

When he had been interviewed by Colin Pillock about Grot, he had not been nervous, because he had been bent on self-destruction.

The researchers made wary, desultory conversation with him over drinks and sandwiches in the spartan, green hospitality room. The researchers wolfed all the sandwiches. Colin Pillock entered, surveyed the large plates covered only in wrecked cress, and told the researchers, who already knew, ‘You’ve wolfed all the sandwiches, you bastards.’

‘They always wolf all the sandwiches, the bastards,’ he told Reggie.

Reggie sympathized.

Colin Pillock gave Reggie a run-down of the questions he would ask.

When they got on the air, he asked totally different questions.

They went down to the ground floor in the goods lift and walked across the studio floor, past the huge hanging sign that said, simply, ‘Pillock Talk’.

They were made up so that they’d look unmade-up under the lights.

Reggie felt increasingly nervous.

They sat in elegant armchairs, with a small circular table between them.

It was all very cool.

Reggie was not cool. If he made a fool of himself now, all would be destroyed.

When he’d been bent on self-destruction, he had failed dismally.

Would he fail equally dismally now, when he was bent on success?

They tested him for level.

The opening music began. His heart thumped. The four cameras stared at him impassively. The cameramen were calm and moderately bored.

‘Good evening,’ said Colin Pillock. ‘My first guest this evening is a man whom I’ve had on the programme before, when he was head of the amazing “Grot” chain, Reginald Perrin.’

Reggie tried to smile, but his mouth felt as if it was set in concrete.

‘Good evening,’ he said.

‘I didn’t do too well with Reginald Perrin on that occasion,’ said Colin Pillock. ‘But I must be either a brave man or a fool.’

‘Or both,’ said Reggie.

No, no, no.

‘I still can’t get over your name,’ said Reggie. ‘Pillock.’

No, no, no.

No, no, no, no, no.

Take a grip on yourself.

Confine yourself to minimal answers till you’re settled in.

‘You’re now running a community called Perrins, Mr Perrin?’

‘Yes.’

‘People come to your community for as little or as long as they like, and at the end they pay as little or as much as they like.’

‘Yes.’

‘Perrins has been described as part community, part therapy centre, part mental health farm. Would you say that was a fair description?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s been described as a community for the middle-class and the middle-aged, set in what used to be Middlesex.’

‘Yes.’

Colin Pillock twitched.

Many people had had cause to regret the onset of Colin Pillock’s twitch. Would Reggie be one of them?

‘Do you intend to confine yourself entirely to this monosyllabic agreement?’ said Colin Pillock.

‘No.’

‘Oh, good, because our viewers might feel it was rather a waste of time for you to come here and say nothing but “yes”.’

‘Yes.’

No! No, no, no, no, no!

‘Mr Perrin, are you genuinely doing all this for the good of humanity, or is it basically a money-making venture, or is it a giant con, or is it simply a joke? What’s your honest answer?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mr Perrin!’

‘I’m serious. It’s all of them. That’s the beauty of it.’

That stopped him in his tracks. That made him think.

‘Well?’ said Colin Pillock.

Reggie realized that he had been asked a question, and he had no idea what it was.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking very carefully about my answer.’

‘Which is?’ said Colin Pillock, smiling encouragingly.

‘My answer is… would you mind repeating the question?’

Panic flitted across Colin Pillock’s eyes. He smiled desperately.

‘What kind of people come to your community?’

‘Well, perhaps it would be helpful if I told you who we have at this moment?’

‘Fine.’

‘We’ve got a stockbroker, a pub landlord, a time and motion man, the owner of a small firm that makes supermarket trolleys, a systems analyst, a businessman who answers to the name of Edwards, and a housewife who wishes that she didn’t answer to the name of Ethel Merman.’

‘I see. And …’

‘An overworked doctor, a disillusioned imports manager, an even more disillusioned exports manager, an extremely shy vet, a sacked football manager, an overstressed car salesman and a pre-stressed concrete salesman.’

‘Splendid. And …’

‘A housewife who longs to be a career woman, a career woman who longs to be a housewife, a schoolteacher who’s desperate because he can’t get a job and another schoolteacher who’s even more desperate because he has got a job.’

Colin Pillock smiled uneasily.

‘So work is a major problem that causes people to come to you, would you say?’ he asked.

‘They have a wide variety of problems. Some have sexual problems, some have social problems, some have professional problems, some have identity problems. Some have sexual, social, professional and identity problems. There are women who are exhausted by the strain of trying to be equal with men, and men who are exhausted by the strain of trying to remain more equal with women. There are people who live above their garages and their incomes, in little boxes they can’t afford on prestige estates they don’t understand, where families are two-car, two-tone and two-faced, money has replaced sex as a driving force, death has replaced sex as a taboo, sex has replaced bridge as a social event for mixed foursomes, and large deep-freezes are empty save for twelve packets of sausages. They come to Perrins in the hope that here at last they’ll find a place where they won’t be ridiculed as petty snobs, scorned as easy targets, and derided by sophisticated playwrights, but treated as human beings who are bewildered by the complexity of social development, castrated by the conformities of the century of mass production, and dwarfed by the speed and immensity of technological progress that has advanced more in fifty years than in millions of years of human existence before it, so that when they take their first steps into an adult society shaped by humans but not for humans, their personalities shrivel up like private parts in an April sea.’

‘I… er… I see,’ said Colin Pillock.

‘Not
too
monosyllabic for you, I hope,’ said Reggie.

On Thursday, January the nineteenth, Reggie had a visit from Mr Dent, a planning officer from Botchley Borough Council. The weather was cold. Ominous clouds were moving in from the east. Oslo Avenue was lined with cars, and Mr Dent had to park in Washington Road. On his way towards Number Twenty-one, he passed Tom and a group of footballers dressed in the Botchley Albion strip.

They were about to instigate a new system of playing football. Scoring goals for the opponents hadn’t worked. As each team played entirely for the opponents, they became the opponents, who became them. The result was two teams playing against each other in an absolutely conventional way. So now they were going to play as two normal teams, but with goals not permitted. If you scored, the opponents got a penalty. If they scored from it, you got a penalty. Etcetera etcetera.

Mr Dent knew none of this, as he walked resolutely up the front path towards Number Twenty-one. He was a short man with thinning dark hair, a small mouth, a receding chin and large ears. He would have passed unnoticed in a crowd and might even have passed unnoticed on his own.

Reggie led him into the sun-room and established him in an uninteresting chair.

‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ said Mr Dent.

‘Good,’ said Reggie. ‘I welcome that.’

‘We’ve had complaints about the parking of cars in Oslo Avenue, Mr Perrin,’ he said.

‘They never block entrances,’ said Reggie, ‘and there’s no noise or unseemly behaviour.’

‘The cars themselves aren’t my pigeon,’ said Mr Dent. ‘They come under the Highways Department. My worry is that you’re conducting a business in private premises. We’d have been on to you long ago, but there’s been a work to rule and an epidemic. Then, when we saw you on the other BBC …’

‘The other BBC?’

‘We call Botchley Borough Council the BBC.’

‘Ah!’

‘Because of its initials being BBC.’

‘Quite.’

‘We call the people over in the new extension in Crown Rise BBC 2. Not a hilarious crack, but it causes mild amusement in the town hall canteen.’

‘I can believe it.’

‘Anyway, we felt that matters were getting out of hand. Now …’

‘I’m not conducting a business,’ said Reggie.

‘You place adverts in the newspapers. Clients arrive. They receive treatment. They pay. Is that or is it not a commercial venture?’

‘No,’ said Reggie.

Mr Dent sighed.

I’m a busy man, Mr Perrin,’ he said. ‘I don’t particularly enjoy my job. My life is spent examining trivia, and I have a boss who invariably leaves me to do the dirty jobs.’

‘I see,’ said Reggie. I’m one of the dirty jobs, am I?’

The little council official looked round the immaculate sun-room, at the large gleaming picture windows, the tidy desk, the new filing cabinets.

‘Not dirty,’ he said. ‘Awkward. Unusual. My boss shrinks from the unknown.’

‘I invite people to come here, as my guests,’ said Reggie. ‘If at the end they want to give me something, fine. It would be heartless to refuse it.’

‘But you advertise?’

‘Suppose I advertised, “Party every night. All welcome. Presents not refused”. Would that be a commercial undertaking?’

‘We’re splitting hairs now.’

‘In my houses …’

‘Houses?’

‘I own Numbers Seventeen to Twenty-five.’

‘I thought Numbers Nineteen and Twenty-three were purchased by non-white gentlemen?’

‘Good friends of mine,’ said Reggie. ‘If they believe in me so much that they buy houses for me, who am I to say them nay?’

He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

‘I’m a remarkable man,’ he said.

Mr Dent’s eyes met his, and he had the impression that the Planning Officer would have smiled, if he had dared.

‘What exactly are you aiming to provide in these houses of yours, Mr Perrin?’ he asked.

‘The universal panacea for all mankind,’ said Reggie. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Mr Dent. ‘This business of the change of use becomes rather more important if we’re dealing with five adjoining houses. I shudder to think what Mr Winstanley will say.’

‘Mr Winstanley?’

‘My boss.’

‘You think he’d ruin an attempt to save mankind from suicide simply because of an infringement of council planning regulations regarding five detached houses in Oslo Avenue, Botchley?’

‘Definitely,’ said Mr Dent.

‘A petty streak in his character, is there?’

‘Most definitely,’

‘But you’re a man of a different kidney?’

‘I’d like to think so, Mr Perrin.’

‘So would I, Mr Dent. So would I. Are you sure you won’t have some coffee?’

‘Well, perhaps a small cup.’

Reggie left the sun-room, soon returning with a tray, decorated with a picture of Ullswater. On the tray were two cups of coffee and a plate of ginger nuts. Mr Dent was looking out over the garden.

‘Looks like snow,’ he said, regaining his seat.

Reggie handed him the coffee.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said Mr Dent, ‘I’m in favour of your universal panacea for all mankind. It might do a bit of good.’

‘Thank you.’

‘M’m. Delicious ginger nut.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But my job is to make sure that there are no unauthorized changes of use,’ said Mr Dent, through a mouthful of crumbs.

‘I’ve made no structural changes,’ said Reggie. ‘Another ginger nut?’

‘May I? They’re tasty. Structural changes aren’t the be all and end all, Mr Perrin.’

‘I realize that,’ said Reggie.

‘M’m. Nice ginger nut,’ said Mr Dent. ‘Quite as nice as the first.’

Thank you,’ said Reggie.

‘You’re welcome,’ said Mr Dent.

‘You’re a shrewd judge of a biscuit,’ said Reggie.

‘Are you trying to soft soap me?’ said Mr Dent.

‘It wouldn’t work,’ said Reggie. ‘You’re a man of too much moral fibre.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mr Dent. ‘So you’ve made no structural changes?’

‘None,’ said Reggie. ‘It’s true that I’m using kitchens and garden sheds as bedrooms, but they could return to their former use at the drop of a hat. Where does it end? If the Jack Russell does big jobs in the dining room, is it on that account a downstairs toilet?’

Mr Dent stood up, and dumped his empty cup in the middle of Ullswater. He put his hands on Reggie’s desk and leant forward till his face was close to Reggie’s.

‘I could get you,’ he said, with greater mildness than the gesture had led Reggie to expect. ‘I could get you on inadequate air vents. I can get anybody on inadequate air vents. Though I say it myself, as shouldn’t, I’m mustard on inadequate air vents.’

Mr Dent sat down, and gave a shuddering sigh.

‘What a pathetic boast,’ he said. ‘I’m mustard on inadequate air vents. What an abysmal claim. What a dismal piece of human flotsam I am.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Reggie stoutly, walking over to put his arm on Mr Dent’s chair. ‘I like you. Look, don’t go straight on to your next dreary task. Watch us at work. Sit in on one of Doc Morrissey’s group sessions.’

Doc Morrissey’s group session was held in the spacious living-room of Number Twenty-five. Thick yellow cloud, pregnant with snow, hung over the pocked lawns and heavy vegetable beds. A calor gas fire stood in front of the empty fireplace. It was turned to maximum and provided a steady heat. In front of it slumbered Snodgrass.

Reggie introduced Mr Dent to Doc Morrissey, and Doc Morrissey introduced him to the six guests who were present. They were the systems analyst, the stockbroker, the businessman who answered to the name of Edwards, the owner of the small firm that made supermarket trolleys, the extremely shy vet, and Ethel Merman.

‘Who’s going to set the ball rolling by talking about their problems?’ said Doc Morrissey, who was seated in an old wooden chair with curved arms, at the centre of the group.