Sprout Mask Replica (28 page)

‘Rape
is a serious issue,’ said a stumpy woman with short hair and badges on her
anorak, as a crowd began to gather. ‘Rape is a heinous crime.’

‘Rape’s
not
that
heinous,’ said a young-fellow-me-lad, slinging in his two-ha’penny
worth. ‘Murder’s more heinous than rape.’

‘Not as
heinous as rape
and
murder,’ said another young-fellow-me-lad, the first
young fellow’s chum. ‘Or murder,
then
rape. That would be
really
serious.’

‘You’re
being facetious,’ said stumpy of the anorak. ‘You’re taking the piss, like this
old bloke.’

‘Don’t
call me
old,’
said the old bloke. ‘I’m only forty-five.’

‘Hear
that, chief? Makes
you
look good.’

‘Shut
up, Barry.’

‘Don’t
call
me
Barry,’ said the old bloke, shaking his fist. ‘I suppose that’s
some acronym, is it? Like Bloody Auld Rotten Reprobate Yobbo. You can’t bandy
words with me, I once won
University Challenge.’

‘You
never did,’ said the lady with the straw hat. ‘There was only one bloke who
ever won
University Challenge
and he was a taxi driver called Fred.
Everyone remembers him.’

‘Fred Trueman,’
said a cricket fan who was on his way to the sports shop.

‘Freddie
Mercury,’ said the stumpy woman.

‘Freddy
Kruger,’ said one of the fellow-me-lads.

‘Fred
Flintstone,’ said another.

‘Yeah,
well I
was
on it,’ said the old bloke. ‘And I did win. And
my
name’s
Fred. And I’m not having this bastard calling me a BARRY.’

‘I wasn’t
calling you a Barry,’ I told him, as the crowd began jostling and pushing. ‘I
was talking to another Barry.’

‘Well,
don’t look at me,’ said the first young-fellow-me-lad. ‘I ain’t no stinking
Barry.’

‘Nor
me,’ agreed his mates in unison. There were three of them.

‘So
what’s a BARRY, then?’ asked stumpy the anorak wearer. ‘Is a BARRY a challenge
to your manhood, or something?’

‘Nothing
challenges
my
manhood, darling,’ said the first young fellow.

‘Well
I
do,
darling!’
said stumpy.

‘I’m
not the
darling,
darling, I’m straight.’

‘Implying
that I’m not, I suppose?’

‘Maybe.
So what are you anyway?’

‘I
happen to be a radical feminist.’

‘You
mean lesbian.’

‘No I
don’t.’

‘Of
course you do, all feminists are closet lesbians.’

‘And
all heterosexual men are closet bum-bandits.’

‘Are
you asking for a smack in the mouth?’

‘Hit a
lady, would you?’

‘No,
but I’d hit you.

‘Hey.
Cool it, cool it,’ said the young fellow’s fellow young fellow, young fellow
number two. ‘Let’s all be friends. Respect each other’s sexual preferences.’

‘Yeah,
well …’ said the radical feminist.

‘Everybody
has a right to be what they want to be,’ continued young fellow number two. ‘Now
let’s all smile and make up. Listen, I’ll tell you a joke. Why did the lesbian
cross the road? Answer. To suck my coc— The radical feminist lesbian swung her
shoulder-bag. It evidently contained an Aga.

And she
caught me right in the face with it.

I went
down as the fists began to fly and I mouthed words to the effect of ‘why do
bloody women always hit
me?’
It was the lady in the straw hat who helped
me up again. I put up my hands. ‘Stop fighting,’ I shouted, ‘or someone’s bound
to get hurt. Behave yourselves, all of you.’

Now why
did I say
that?

‘You
bloody started this, moosh,’ said the old bloke, who had a young fellow by the
throat. ‘Calling perfect strangers BARRYS. What you need is a dose of the army
with a sergeant major up your back passage.’

‘Up my
what?’

‘Did I
say, back passage? I meant, rear guard action, no, that sounds as bad, doesn’t
it?’

‘There
you go,’ said the radical feminist lesbian. ‘All closet bum-boys. What did I
tell you?’

‘Well,
you didn’t tell
me
anything,’ said the lady in the straw hat. ‘And
I’m
your mother. And here you are “outing” yourself in the High Street with
everyone looking on. What will the neighbours say?’

‘They’ll
say,’ said the radical feminist lesbian daughter, ‘what they always say, “don’t
be late on Thursday, it’s wife-swapping night.”‘

‘They
never do, do they?’ asked the fellow-me-lad whose throat was being held.

‘They
bloody do,’ said the old bloke, releasing his grip. ‘I’m always round there on
Thursdays with
my
missus. Swapped her for a lawn mower once.

‘You
hetero-fascist,’ shouted you-know-who, bringing her shoulder-bag once more into
play and hitting
me
once more in the face. And then the fight got well
and truly started.

‘Just
break it up!’ I shouted, staggering about in the mayhem. ‘Break it up,
everyone, please!’

‘Calm
down, chief, it’s not your business.’

‘SHUT
UP, BARRY!’

It must
either have been twenty-past-something, or twenty-to-something, because as I
shouted that out there was this one brief moment of absolute silence.

And
then, in total unison, the entire crowd shouted, ‘DON’T CALL ME A—’ and fell
upon me.

I
couldn’t pick out what the last word was, they kicked me to unconsciousness. I
think it might have been BARRY.

17

THE
LITTLE HOSPITAL CHAPTER

‘LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE,’
SAID MY HOLY GUARDIAN SPROUT. ‘THE
swellings will soon
go down. The fractures will mend. Your hip joints will be reset and they’ve
almost finished the reconstruction of your rib cage. Once the heart-lung
implants go in on Friday you’ll be as right as rain.’

I
groaned. Inwardly.

‘You’ll
come up smiling like the trooper you are, chief. Listen, have you thought about
what kind of job you might apply for once you leave hospital? Perhaps something
in the entertainment industry. You liked being on the stage, didn’t you? Chief,
are you listening to me?’

‘No I’m
bloody not. Leave me alone.’

‘Now
you
thought
that, chief, didn’t you? You didn’t actually say it.’

‘Well,
I can’t bloody say it, can I? Not with my jaws wired together. Oh shit, I need
the bedpan again.’

‘I wish
I could help you out, chief, I really do.’

‘Well
that’s nice of you, at least.’

‘Oh I
wasn’t trying to be nice, it’s just that we share the same nose.

‘Will
you
please
leave me alone!’

‘Sorry,
chief, sorry. Oh look, here come the doctors again.’

‘And so
how are we feeling today?’ asked one of the doctors, taking up the regulation
clipboard from the bottom of the bed and giving it that once—over look that
pretends to be a
real
once-over look. ‘Everything hunky-dory?’

If I’d
had any teeth left I would have ground them.

‘We’ll
soon have you up and about, old fellow.’

‘You
hear that, Barry? He thinks I’m old.’

‘It’s
just a figure of speech, chief. You look like a million bucks.’

‘I do?’

‘Yeah,
green and wrinkly.’

‘What
was that, Barry?’

‘Nothing,
chief.’

‘Well,
just keep your pecker up,’ said the doctor. ‘What you have left of it anyway.
Nurse, are we thinking of sewing his nose back on?’

‘Sorry,
doctor, there’s been so many other bits to do.’

‘Quite
so, nurse.

‘Here,
chief, that reminds me of a joke.’

‘I don’t
want to hear it.’

‘Of
course you do, chief, it will cheer you up.

‘I don’t
want to be cheered up.’

‘Of
course you do. Now just listen. There was this bloke, see, and he was in
hospital, just like you, all bandaged up from head to foot, and the doctor
comes in, and the doctor says, “Ah, I see you’ve regained consciousness, now
you probably won’t remember but you were in this pile-up on the motorway. Now
you’re going to be OK, you’ll walk again, everything, but something happened, I’m
trying to break this gently, but your penis was chopped off in the wreck and we
were unable to find it.”‘

‘Turn
it in, Barry.’

‘No,
listen, chief, so the bloke groans, a bit like you just did, but the doctor
says, “But it’s going to be all right, we have the technology now to build you
a new one that will work as well as your old one did, better in fact. But the
thing is, it doesn’t come cheap. It’s a thousand pounds an inch.” And the bloke
perks up a bit at this, even though it’s a thousand pounds an inch. “So the
thing is,” the doctor says, “it’s for you to decide how many inches you want.
But it’s something you’d probably better discuss with your wife. I mean if you
had a five-inch one before and you decide to go for a nine-incher, she might be
a bit put out. But if you had a nine-inch one before and decide to only invest
in a five-incher this time, she might be disappointed. So it’s important that
she plays a vital role in helping you make the decision.”

‘So the
bloke agrees to talk with his wife and the doctor comes back the next day. “So,”
says the doctor, “have you spoken with your wife?”

‘“I
have,” says the fellow.

‘“And
has she helped you in making the decision?”

‘“She
has,” says the bloke.

“And
what is it?” asks the doctor.

‘The
bloke looks up and says, “We’re having a new kitchen.”‘

‘That
is a very sick joke, Barry.’

‘Yeah,
and an old one too, but a classic, chief, a classic. Very, very funny.’

‘But
not too funny if you were the bloke.’

‘Oh no,
chief, not too funny at all. Hey look, the doctor’s leaving, good riddance, eh?’

The
doctor turned as he reached the door, ‘Nurse,’ he said, ‘about the other bits
you still have to sew on. Did you come across his penis?’

The
nurse shook her head. ‘They never found it,’ she said. ‘And you know what a new
one costs. I hope this chap has an understanding wife.’

18

SIX
MONTHS AND TEN THOUSAND POUNDS LATER

‘I FEEL LIKE A MILLION
BUCKS,’ I TOLD BARRY, AS I STOOD OUTSIDE
the hospital,
the sunlight dancing upon my new cheek-bones and twinkling in my glass eye. My
prosthetic limbs were all a-quiver and I felt mighty fine. ‘I feel mighty fine,’
I said. ‘And have you noticed something else, Barry?’

‘What’s
that, chief?’

‘The
poetry’s gone from the beginning of the chapters.’

‘Don’t
knock it, chief.’

‘No, I
wasn’t. But I know why. Since my “accident”, I don’t have to compensate for
anything any more. I don’t need the poetry in my head. I’m totally recharged
and I’m totally charged up.

‘That’s
nice, chief, that’s really nice. So what are you going to do now, hit the job
centre?’

‘No,
Barry, I think I’ll do something else instead.’

‘Hit
the beach then, a bit of a holiday?’

‘No,
something else.’

‘Go to
the café for a cup of tea?’

‘No.’

‘Care
to give me a clue, chief, it wouldn’t be—’

‘Change
the world, Barry. Rebuild it from the ground up. ‘Ah, it would be
that.
I
thought it might just be that. Look, chief, we’ve been through all this.’

‘You’ve
been through it, Barry. I haven’t started yet.’

‘But
your — dare I say it? —
attitude problem.’

‘All
sorted, I’m a new man.

‘Well,
a lot of you is. Especially the—’

‘I am
going to do the right thing this time, use my gift for the good of all mankind.’

‘But
you tried that last time, chief, and it wasn’t a raging success. I don’t like
to mention it, but you must recall the matter of the bass—playing rock star.’

‘I have
paid my debt to him, Barry. Thirty years’ cold turkey.’

‘I’m
not going to be able to talk you out of this, chief, am I?’