The Reginald Perrin Omnibus (93 page)

‘I find you irresistible,’ he cried as he jumped out of the window.

Jimmy and his expeditionary force, trudging home from an afternoon of carrying shopping bags for old ladies, were surprised to see the leader of their community leap out of a bedroom window yelling, ‘I find you irresistible’.

Reggie would have crashed into the flower bed, if his fall had not been broken by several small rose bushes.

Jimmy sent the guests rushing off to look for Doc Morrissey.

‘I can’t move,’ Reggie groaned.

Doc Morrissey arrived with a makeshift stretcher.

‘I need a doctor,’ said Reggie.

‘I am a doctor,’ said Doc Morrissey.

There was a film of sweat on Reggie’s brow.

‘I mean ...’ he began feebly.

‘Faith and trust, Reggie,’ said Doc Morrissey.

Reggie nodded resignedly.

They put him on the stretcher, and carried him to Doc Morrissey’s room. Doc Morrissey examined him carefully.

‘Is anything broken?’ said Reggie.

Doc Morrissey stood up with difficulty. His back creaked like rowlocks.

‘You need a doctor,’ he said.

Miraculously, nothing was broken. A sprained ankle, a twisted knee, a strained back, severe bruising and widespread abrasions – these things can be lived with.

Three guests left, declaring the place to be a shambles.

Reggie decided that he had no alternative but to ask Deborah Swaffham to leave. It was either the community or her.

He hobbled along the street to Number Seventeen. His face was covered with pieces of elastoplast. Painfully, a step at a time, he hobbled up the stairs. He limped along the corridor, knocked on her bedroom door, and hobbled in without waiting for a reply.

The room was empty.

None of them ever saw Deborah Swaffham again.

The April weather remained changeable, but the fortunes of Perrins were not. People crossed the road to avoid speaking to anyone connected with the community. They were banned from every pub in Botchley. Youths jeered at Jimmy’s expeditionary force. Among them Jimmy noticed the three who had attacked the smaller youth in Lima Crescent. And the smaller youth.

Mr Dent paid them a visit.

‘I’ve come to check your air vents,’ he said awkwardly.

Reggie nodded slowly.

‘Rats don’t desert sinking ships any more,’ he said. ‘They condemn them for having irregularly spaced portholes and the wrong kind of hinges on the companionways.’

‘I can’t blame you for casting me as Judas,’ said Mr Dent.

Reggie accompanied him on his inspection. He was still hobbling, but the little municipal official didn’t seem to mind their slow progress.

‘You still have friends in the Town Hall,’ he said, peering at the bricks of Number Twenty-five. ‘We’re being as slow as we can, but the wolves are closing in on Oslo Avenue.’

‘Thank you for warning me, anyway,’ said Reggie.

When the inspection was over, they shook hands.

‘That other Mr Dent you spoke of?’ said Reggie. ‘What happened to him?’

‘He can’t really cope with life. He’s keeping a low profile, but he’s there. A faint flicker of your work lives on in me. All is not lost, Mr Perrin.’

All is not lost.

Reggie took the farewell words of the likeable little official as his text for those difficult days.

He continued to keep up appearances, enduring his cigars and his regular doses of champagne. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he went to London and bought himself a whole new wardrobe of clothes including a velvet jacket which suited him to perfection.

‘You know how I’m never happier than when I’m pottering around in old trousers and pullovers,’ he told his staff. ‘Well, that’s one more thing I’ve had to give up for the cause.’

All the activities continued. Paintings were painted, baskets were woven, roofs were thatched, songs were sung, sexual problems were mulled over, and good deeds were done, ridiculous conversations were held on trains, and in the evenings they relished their bowls of apple gin and pear vodka, their protest songs and their acts of physical solidarity all the more for the fact that they were banned from every pub in Botchley.

It began to seem as if the community could gain new strength from its vicissitudes and new solidarity from its isolation.

All was not lost.

Not yet.

8
The Final Days

One day in the middle of April, Reggie’s bank manager sent for him. He had good news and bad news. The good news was that Reggie wasn’t in the red. The bad news was that the level of his reserves was ninepence.

Reggie spoke eloquently about the ideals behind Perrins. He reminded the anxious financier about the amazing success of Grot, and opined that a similar success could shortly attend Perrins.

The bank manager lent him ten thousand pounds.

‘It’s a lifeline,’ said Reggie in bed that night, as Elizabeth struggled to find her place in her book. ‘It’s a reprieve. Nothing more.’

‘We mustn’t waste a penny of it, Reggie,’ said Elizabeth.

‘I agree. Not a penny. Tomorrow we’ll get a lawyer for McBlane.’

Elizabeth lost her place in her book just as she had at last found it.

‘Don’t be silly, Reggie,’ she said. ‘McBlane is blatantly guilty.’

‘I agree,’ said Reggie. ‘He’s obviously blatantly guilty. But the press are going to be gunning for us. Peace Community Chef in Sally Ally
War Cry
Drunken Meat Cleaver Assault Scandal. We simply must put up some good mitigating circumstances, so that we don’t look ridiculous in the eyes of future guests.’

Reggie slid his arm under Elizabeth’s back and kissed her nose.

‘I have a plan,’ he said.

She groaned.

The little public gallery at Botchley Magistrates’ Court was crowded. So were the press seats.

The court had been built four years ago. It was panelled in light woods which had been stained to give an appearance of age and tradition. In the centre of the ceiling there was a skylight, with a dome of frosted glass. There were three lay magistrates, two men and a woman. They looked decent enough to realize how absurd it was that they would hold the scales of justice in their unqualified hands.

At ten past eleven McBlane entered the court room. He looked gaunt and long-suffering. He was wearing a suit, and had left his boil plasters off in the interests of respectability, yet he still looked like a threat to a civilized community.

He took the book in his right hand, and repeated certain words after the clerk of the court. It is to be presumed that they were the oath, but they could equally well have been extracts from the timetable of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

He was asked if he was Kenny McBlane, chef, thirty-four, of Twenty-one, Oslo Avenue, Botchley.

His nods led the court to understand that he was.

Mr Hulme, a confident young man in a striped blue shirt with separate white collar, announced that his client was pleading guilty to the charge of committing grievous bodily harm upon Ethel Henrietta Lowndes, spinster, in the Tolbooth Hotel, Botchley, between nine and ten p.m. on the evening of Friday, March the thirty-first.

He also pleaded guilty to the charge of possessing an offensive weapon, to wit a meat cleaver.

He pleased not guilty to the charge of using abusive language.

The case for the prosecution was brief and clear. Mr Hulme questioned PC Harris only about the abusive language.

‘You say he used abusive language?’ he said. ‘What did he say?’

PC Harris consulted his notebook.

‘This is a note I made at the time,’ he said. ‘I said to him, “What exactly has been going on here?” He replied, “Ye steckle hoo flecking clumpthree twinkoff”.’

‘Would you repeat that, please, officer?’ said Mr Hulme.

‘He said, “Ye steckle hoo flecking clumpthree twinkoff”.’

‘The court will draw their own conclusions from that,’ said Mr Hulme. ‘Now, did any further conversation ensue?’

‘Yes, sir. Further conversation ensued,’ said PC Harris. ‘I said, “Lor, luv a duck, you’re going to have to repeat that”. He said, “Ye steckle hoo flecking clumpthree twinkoff”.’ I said, “Never mind that, my good man. What are you doing with that offensive weapon, to wit a meat cleaver?” He replied, “Flecking sassen achenpunk schlit yer clunge”. I said, “I don’t advise you to employ language like that to me”, and he said, “Schpluff”.’

‘And this is his abusive language?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you don’t know what it means?’

‘No.’

‘Then how do you know it was abusive?’

‘It sounded abusive.’

‘It sounded abusive. It seems to me, officer, that he used elusive language.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Are you aware that using elusive language is not an offence in English law?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘No further questions.’

Miss Ethel Henrietta Lowndes was small and lined like an old tea cosy. Her left arm was in plaster. She had an extremely unfortunate effect on the magistrates. The effect was of hostility towards McBlane.

Mr Hulme only asked two questions.

‘Did the accused speak to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did he say?’

‘I don’t know.’

After the prosecution’s case had been completed, Mr Hulme called upon McBlane to take the stand.

‘Would you please give the court your version of what transpired in the Tolbooth Hotel on the evening of Friday, March the thirty-first?’ said Mr Hulme.

The magistrates leant forward, and McBlane began to speak. He spoke fast and incomprehensibly.

‘Would you speak more slowly?’ said Mr Hulme.

McBlane spoke slowly and incomprehensibly. The magistrates leant further forward.

‘What’s he saying?’ asked the chairman.

‘I don’t know,’ confessed the young lawyer.

An impasse!

‘It seems to me that we’re up a cleft palate with no paddle,’ said the chairman of the magistrates.

‘Absolutely!’ murmured C.J. in the public gallery.

‘There is one possibility,’ said Mr Hulme. ‘There’s a man in this court who does understand my client. It’s his boss, Reginald Perrin.’

‘That is correct, sir,’ said Reggie, standing up. ‘I’m familiar with his speech, and furthermore I was evacuated to Glasgow during the war, to avoid the bombing. Awa hoo frae broch acha blonstroom doon the crangle wi’ muckle a flangebot awa the wee braw schlapdoodles.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said the chairman.

‘No, but I do,’ said Reggie.

The magistrates decided that they had no alternative. Reggie was warned of the dangers of perjury, and sworn in as interpreter.

McBlane began his version of events anew.

‘He says he’d been drinking quite heavily, and his speech was becoming slurred,’ said Reggie.

McBlane continued.

‘The lady from the Salvation Army approached him,’ said Reggie.

McBlane resumed his narrative, at considerable length.

‘She asked him to buy the
War Cry
,’ said Reggie. ‘He told her how much he admired the publication’s splendid mixture of information and entertainment. He said he’d buy the lot and then she could go home and put her feet up. She didn’t understand a word of what he was saying.’

McBlane spoke earnestly.

‘When he reached to take the pile of
War Cry
, she thought he was trying to steal them,’ continued Reggie. ‘In the ensuing misunderstanding, they were scattered. He reached for his wallet, but drew out the meat cleaver instead. In his semi-alcoholic confusion he didn’t realize this.’

‘What were you doing with the meat cleaver?’ interpolated Mr Hulme.

McBlane looked round the crowded room for a moment before launching into his reply.

‘The meat cleaver was blunt,’ said Reggie. ‘He was taking it to a friend who sharpens meat cleavers. He was expecting to meet his friend in the Tolbooth, but he didn’t turn up.’

McBlane continued his narrative.

‘McBlane saw that the lady, whose cause he had been attempting to help, was terrified and regarded him as a violent criminal,’ said Reggie. ‘For one brief moment all the frustrations of his misunderstood life welled up. He made one angry blow which unfortunately broke the lady’s arm. He bitterly regrets it.’

McBlane nodded vigorously.

He was fined fifty pounds on the charge of grievous bodily harm, and fifteen pounds for being in possession of an offensive weapon.

The charge of using abusive language was dismissed.

There was widespread press coverage of the case of the lady from the Salvation Army and the mad Scottish chef with the meat cleaver. In spite of, or possibly because of, Reggie’s intervention, much controversy was stirred up.

It was suggested in some quarters that Reggie’s interpretation had been a pack of lies. The Salvation Army were not pleased. The vexed question of the lay magistracy was fiercely argued. Reggie was besieged by reporters. Several guests left, and many forward bookings were cancelled.

Reggie plucked up his courage and sacked McBlane. He told him that the community couldn’t be associated with violence in any shape or form. He gave him a week’s notice and a golden handshake of fifteen hundred pounds.

McBlane promptly disappeared.

In the morning, the papers carried widespread coverage of his sacking.

‘They preached faith and love,’ he was reported as saying, ‘yet they sacked me for one offence, after I’d promised never to do it again.’

The journalists appeared to have no difficulty in understanding McBlane.

Reggie made a handsome donation to the Salvation Army, and informed the newspapers that he was willing to reinstate McBlane.

McBlane returned and resumed his duties, striking superb gastronomic form immediately.

Reggie went into the kitchen and welcomed him back with a firm handshake.

‘Talking of handshakes,’ said Reggie, ‘obviously now you will return your golden handshake.’

McBlane examined his poultry knife, to see if its sharpness still met his exacting standards.

‘Or then again it might be simpler to regard it as an advance on your salary,’ said Reggie.

McBlane raised the knife in his right hand.