Robert Rankin - Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

Stuffed beasts proliferate. A bear in battle with a tiger. A swooping eagle snatching at a piglet. A row of baboons clad in Regency garb standing to attention, glazed eyes alert. Pickled specimens also abound. Tall glass jars, many being the preparations of the famous Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch, who supplied curiosities to the collection of Peter the Great. Are the faces that stare out at you real? Were they once human? Yes, they are and were.

All human life is here, suspended in time. Preserved in formaldehyde. Here a diseased kidney. Here a distended bowel. Here a lung far gone with tumorous canker. Here a brain all –

“Here we are,” said Morgan.

“I’ll knock,” said Frank. “I’m the manager.”

“I’ll just skulk then,” said Morgan. “I’m the packer.”

“I’m the salesman,” said Russell. “What should I do?”

“Just stand, I suppose,” said Morgan. “But not quite so close.”

Frank did the knocking.

“Come in,” called the crackling voice of Mr Fudgepacker. “That is, enter those who are without. I’m inside, as it were, the one who’s calling you to come in. It’s me. Who is that?”

“It’s us,” called Frank.

“Sounded like just the one of you. Did you all knock together?”

“I did the knocking,” called Frank. “I’m the manager.”

“Oh, it’s you Frank. Come on in then, if you’re not in already. And I see that you’re not. Enter.”

Morgan rolled his eyes. “I’ve been sacked plenty of times before,” said he, “but this should be a new experience.”

They entered.

Mr Fudgepacker’s office was housed in the old belfry. The bells were gone, but the bats were still there. It wasn’t a very big office, because it wasn’t a very big belfry. There was room for about four coffins lying down, not that anyone had ever tested this. And they might well have, there were plenty of coffins downstairs, several with their original occupants.

The walls of this minuscule office were made gay with posters. Film posters. Film posters of the nineteen-fifties persuasion. We Eat Our Young, I was a Teenage Handbag, Carry on up my Three-legged Bloomers, Mr Felcher goes to Town , and others.

All banned. All Fudgepacker productions. All collector’s items now.

The ruins of the great director sat behind his cut-down desk. Again a word springs to mind, this word is “decrepit”. Decrepitude is no laughing matter. Not when you were once young and vigorous, once bursting with life and virile fluids. Happily for Ernest Fudgepacker, decrepitude was no problem. He had always been decrepit. He looked very much today as he had forty years before. Rough. He was altogether bald, altogether pallid, altogether frail and thin, altogether decrepit. Weak and rheumy were his eyes and he had no chin at all. He had splendid glasses though, horn-rimmed, with lenses half an inch thick. These magnified his eyes so that they filled the frames. Russell lived in mortal dread that he might one day take his glasses off to reveal –

Nothing.

“Close the door,” croaked Mr Fudgepacker.

Frank struggled to do so, but what with the three of them now in and crammed up against the desk, this wasn’t easy.

Mr Fudgepacker viewed his workforce, his magnified eyes turning from one to another. “Eerily” the word was, if anyone was looking for it.

“Where’s Bobby Boy?” asked Mr Fudgepacker.

“Off sick,” said Frank. “Stomach trouble.”

“Something catching I hope. I enjoy a good illness. See this hand?” He extended a withered paw. “The nails are dropping off. Doctor said I should have it amputated.”

“Good God,” said Frank. “When?”

“1958, silly bastard. I told him, this hand will see me out. And it saw him out too. And his successor. What’s that horrible smell?”

“It’s me,” said Russell. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, lad, nothing wrong with a horrible smell. I collect horrible smells. Keep them in little jars. Little black jars. What did I ask you lot here for anyway?”

“You sent us a memo,” said Frank.

“Ah yes,” said Ernest. “And you bloody watch it, Frank, trying to distract me with talk of sickness and bad smells. Sucking up to me isn’t going to help your cause.”

“Eh?” said Frank.

Morgan sniggered.

“Business,” said Ernest.

“Yes,” said Frank.

“We don’t have any,” said Ernest. “Any don’t we have.”

“It will pick up,” said Frank.

Ernest sniffed. It was a quite revolting sound, like half a ton of calf’s liver being sucked up a drainpipe. “I’m not going to beat about the bush,” said Ernest. “Prevarication never helps, if you prevaricate it’s the same as if you dither. There’s no difference, believe me. A prevaricator is a ditherer, plain and simple. And I’ve been in this business long enough to know the truth of that statement. When I was a boy my father said to me, ‘Ernest,’ he said. ‘Ernest, don’t do that to your sister.’ He didn’t prevaricate, see.”

“I see,” said Frank.

“So let that be a lesson to you.”

“Right,” said Frank.

“Well, don’t just stand there, get back to work.”

“Oh right,” said Frank. “Is that it then?”

“That’s it,” said Ernest. “Except that you’re sacked, Frank, so you won’t be getting back to work. Well, I’m sure you will be getting back to work, but just not here.”

Frank made tiny strangulated noises with the back of his throat.

“Are you going to have a heart attack?” Ernest asked. “Because if you are, I’d like to watch. I had one once. Two actually, but I didn’t get to see what they were like. I’d have liked to have filmed them. If you’re going to have one, could you hold on until I load my camera?”

“You can’t sack me,” gasped Frank. “I’m the manager.”

“Oh,” said Ernest. “Who should I sack then?”

“Sack Morgan,” said Frank.

“You can’t sack me,” said Morgan. “I’m the packer.”

“Oh,” said Ernest. “Who should I sack, then? One of you has to go.”

“Sack Russell,” said Frank.

“Oh,” said Russell.

“No,” said Morgan. “That’s not right, Russell is the salesman.”

“If one of us has to go,” said Russell, “then it had better be me. Last one in, first one out.”

“I agree with that,” said Frank.

“Right,” said Ernest. “You’re sacked then, Russell.”

“Thank you,” said Russell. “I’m sorry that I have to leave, perhaps if things pick up, you’ll take me on again.”

“No, no, no,” said Morgan. “That won’t do. Russell is just being Mr Nice Guy again. You can’t sack Russell.”

“Why not?” Russell asked.

“Because Russell is the salesman. He takes the customers round, writes up the orders, supervises pick ups and returns and does the loss and damage reports. You can’t sack Russell.”

“Oh,” said Ernest. “Who should I sack then?”

“Sack Bobby Boy,” said Morgan.

“That’s a bit unfair on Bobby Boy, isn’t it?” Russell asked. “With him not being here to speak up for himself.”

“Keep out of this, Russell.”

“I think Bobby Boy should have his say.”

“Bobby Boy, you’re sacked,” said Ernest, “wherever you are.”

“But –” said Russell.

“Be quiet, Russell, or I’ll sack you too.”

“Oh,” said Russell.

“Well,” said Ernest, “I think that all went rather well. Now back to work you lot.”

“But –” said Russell.

“What?” said Ernest.

“Could I wash the cups up?” Russell asked.

“Are you sure you can fit that in, with all the other things you have to do?”

“I’ll try,” said Russell.