Robert Rankin - Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

The Brentford night went slowly by.

In the front room the mantel clock on the feature fireplace struck three. Westminster chimes it had. You don’t hear those much any more. Except in Westminster, of course. But there was a time, not too long ago to escape fond memory, when most folk had a mantel clock with Westminster chimes. One of those 1940s jobbies, shaped like a hump-backed bridge, with two big keyholes in the face and the big key that fitted them tucked underneath, where the kids were forbidden to touch it. And it always had one corner with bits of folded-up Woodbine packet packed under it, to keep the thing level so it kept perfect time. And it was always folded-up Woodbine packet. Because in those days, before the invention of lung cancer, everybody smoked Woodbine: film stars, footballers, even the queen. Mind you, she wasn’t the queen then, she was the queen mum. Well, what I mean is, she was the queen, but she was also the queen mum. I mean, she’s the queen mum now, but she was the queen then. Yes, that’s it. But she was a mum then, of course, mum of the queen. Not that the queen was the queen then . Her mum was.

Well, one of them was anyway and whoever it was used to smoke Woodbine. Or it might have been Player’s. Or maybe she smoked a pipe.

But, be that as it may, the mantel clock with the Westminster chimes struck three and a dark van pulled up outside the bungalow of Russell and his mum. And as the chimes died away, Russell’s sister stirred from the sofa, slipped into the hall and opened the front door.

Four furtive figures climbed from the van, drew up the shutter at the back and manhandled something indistinct and bulky into the uncertain light of the street.

Struggling beneath its weight, they laboured up the garden path and through the doorway, then along the hall towards Russell’s bedroom.

Russell’s sister went before them. She quietly turned the handle on Russell’s door and pushed it open.

Russell moved in his sleep, grunted uneasily and let go what can only be described as a fart. In the darkness, Russell’s sister fanned her nose, whispered the word “typical” and took her leave.

There was sudden movement, there was sound and there was a big bright light. And Russell was cannoned into consciousness.

“What?” he went, then “mmmmph!” as a hand clamped across his face. He tried to struggle and to strike out, but other hands held down his wrists and others still, his ankles. Russell strained and twisted, but they held him fast.

Russell’s eyes went blink blink blink in the brightness. And had he been able to speak he could have named his attackers without difficulty. Bobby Boy was one, another Frank, and Morgan was another. And in the doorway, standing by a great dark shrouded something, was one more, and this was Mr Fudgepacker.

He was smiling, most unpleasantly.

“Gmmph mmph mm mmphmmph’s” went Russell, which meant “get off, you bastards”. And “grmmmph mmmph mm mmckers!” which meant something along the same lines, but with a bit more emphasis.

“Let him breathe, Bobby Boy,” said Mr Fudgepacker.

The thin man lifted his hand from Russell’s mouth. Russell tried to take a bite at it, but missed.

“Naughty,” said Bobby Boy.

“Let me go,” spat Russell.

Mr Fudgepacker waggled a frail fore-finger in Russell’s direction. It looked a bit like a Twiglet, Russell wondered just what he might have been doing with it. “Now now now,” said Mr Fudgepacker. “I want you to be very quiet, Russell. If you make a noise you might wake up your mother. And if that happens, we will have to deal with her.”

“ Deal with her?” Russell whispered this.

“As in, cut her throat!” said Mr F. “I’ve got the hedge-trimmer out in the van.”

“Shall I bring in the camcorder?” asked Bobby Boy.

“No no no. Russell’s going to be very quiet. Aren’t you, Russell?”

Russell nodded.

“Shame,” said Morgan. “I do want to see the bit with the hedge-trimmer.”

“Maybe later. But we have much to do now.”

Russell struggled a bit more. “Let go of me, you bastards,” he whispered.

“That’s the spirit.” Mr Fudgepacker waggled his Twiglet again. “But they won’t let you go. They only do what I tell them to do.”

Russell twisted his neck from side to side. He stared up at Frank. At Morgan. “Morgan,” he said, “you’re my friend. Why are you doing this?”

“It’s for your own good, Russell. For the common good.”

“What?”

“You’ll thank us for it afterwards. Well, you probably won’t actually thank us. But it’s all for the best.”

“Definitely for the best,” agreed Frank.

“Get off me,” Russell whispered. “Let me go.”

Mr Fudgepacker sighed, shuffled over and sat down on the foot of Russell’s bed. “It’s a great pity you didn’t stick to your script,” he said. “None of this would have been necessary, if only you’d stuck to your script. And we did give you a second chance, today. All you had to do was believe that the rest had been a dream. We went to so much trouble, changing the safe, dressing your head wound. But you weren’t convinced, were you?”

“No,” said Russell. “But I might be prepared to give it another go.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What are you going to do?” Russell asked.

“Convert you, my boy. Convert you.”

“I don’t want to be converted. I’m happy as I am.”

“Happy?” Mr Fudgepacker wheezed a little laugh. “What is happy ? No-one’s really happy. They just bumble along from one crisis to another, hoping that things will all work out next week, or next month, or next year. But they never do. And even if they did, what then?”

“What then?” Russell asked.

“Well, you die then, don’t you?”

“That’s the way it is,” Russell said.

“But not the way it has to be. You can have more, you see. More much more. More life, more time. You just have to forfeit a few bits of baggage. Emotional baggage. Then you get it all.”

“I really don’t want it, whatever it is.”

“That’s a shame. Because you’re going to get it anyway. Take his clothes off, lads.”

“What?” whispered Russell. “No.”

Mr Fudgepacker sniffed, then rooted in his nose with his Twiglet finger. Something gory came out on his nail, Mr Fudgepacker popped it into his mouth and sucked. “It’s yes , I’m afraid, Russell. And not without good cause anyway. I do declare you’ve added dog shit and cat food to your aromatic wardrobe since I saw you last.”

Russell took to further silent struggling, but it was three against one and he was just the one. It was Bobby Boy who pulled down Russell’s boxer shorts.

“Blimey, Russell,” said the thin man. “Mother Nature didn’t sell you short, did she?”

Russell was too mortified to answer.

“Errol Flynn used to have a tadger like that,” said Frank. “He showed it to me once, in the bog at Pinewood. Used to call it his Crimson Pirate.”

“That was Douglas Fairbanks,” said Mr Fudgepacker.

“Could have been, I couldn’t see properly from the angle I was at.”

“You sick bastard.” Russell spat at Frank. Real spit this time. Mr Fudgepacker brought his Twiglet once more into play. “Remember your mum,” was his advice.

“Please let me go. Please stop this. Please.”

“It won’t take very long and it’s better if you don’t struggle too much. Let’s have him up on his feet, lads.”

Russell was dragged into the vertical plane, which is to say, upright. And he was held very firmly in that position.

Mr Fudgepacker struggled to his feet and limped over to the large covered something that stood by the bedroom door. “Your new life awaits,” he declared. “We measured you up for it last night while you slept.”