Tom Sharpe - Grantchester Grind

'And you still have no papers? You don't have a passport or a birth certificate or anything?'

'Oh, but I have. Once you're here it's easy to get a birth certificate.'

'How?' Purefoy asked. He wanted certainty. She gave it to him.

Purefoy looked at her in amazement. 'You didn't,' he said. At least, I hope you didn't.'

'Well, we had to do something. And he was such a pathetic man. All alone in the world and slaving away in Somerset House and no one had been nice to him before.'

'So you got a passport in the name of Mrs Ndhlovo?' said Purefoy suspiciously.

'Oh no, not Mrs Ndhlovo. She was only a temporary expedient much later. I'm Isobel Rathwick and I was born in Bournemouth. I'm entirely legitimate now. All the same I much prefer Mrs Ndhlovo. I don't want you to call me anything else It gives me a lot of fun with all those serious people who are concerned about the Third World.'

'I'm sure,' said Purefoy. And what about your sister? What's she doing now?'

'Being frightfully respectable in Woking. She's married and has two daughters, but every now and then she has to break out and go back to being herself.'

'It all sounds very odd to me. I don't see how you can live a lie.'

'Because we've had to invent ourselves, Purefoy dear, just like everyone else.'

'Not me,' said Purefoy. 'I'm certain I know who I am.'

'You only think you do,' Mrs Ndhlovo thought but she didn't say it.

They strolled back up King's Parade and looked at the stalls in the market and had tea in a little café behind the Guildhall, and this time Purefoy told her about his sparring rounds with the Dean and the Senior Tutor, and how Skullion had been taken away.

'Oh Purefoy, how brilliant. And it's all because of me and Brigitte. I think I shall become something called…What shall we call it? A Provocator, yes, a Provocator and conduct classes for shy young men who believe everything they are told or read in books. I'm tired of Male Infertility and Masturbatory Techniques and all those earnest women feeling deeply about Female Circumcision and not a smile among them.'

'But you are an expert on it. You can't just give it up like that.'

'I took it up just like that,' said Ms I. N. Cognito. 'I got the slides in London and read up on all the rest. And if you want to know why, because I was bored with being a stewardess on airlines and being polite to people I would never want to see again. Oh, the lies one had to tell! And they were always the same boring lies. At least as Mrs Ndhlovo I could be more imaginative, but that's got boring too, and people, usually most unattractive ones, will come up to me afterwards and ask questions. The number of really awful women who have tried to proposition me! But now it's all going to be different. I want you to show me your Porterhouse. I'm going to apply for the post of Provocator. Junior Provocator. Do you think they'll accept me?'

'They've got enough troubles already,' said Purefoy.

In the bedroom at General Sir Cathcart D'Eath's 'safe house' near the Botanical Gardens Myrtle Ransby was experiencing a sense of the unreal combined with a hangover that was the worst she had ever known. She had arrived at the right time the night before as the General had ordered, having had one or two brandies to steady her nerves which were still affected by meeting the American with the bloodstained apron, the awful knife and the partly dismembered stallion at the Catfood Canning Factory. She had let herself in the back door and after one or two more brandies-there was no one else about-she had managed with great difficulty to get into the black latex suit and had put the hood on over her en bouffant. Then she had sat down and waited, every now and then helping herself to some more brandy. The client hadn't turned up. Myrtle rummaged in her bag and read the General's instructions again. He had definitely said Friday at 8 p.m. It was now nearly nine. Well, she'd get paid whatever happened. Those torn notes were going to become whole ones even if she had to sit there all night. Two hours later she decided to take the hood off and get some fresh air. This entailed removing the rubber gloves first and they wouldn't come. She was interrupted in her struggle with the things by the need to go wee-wee and she was fighting another battle, this time with the bottom half of her costume when the phone rang. Myrtle told it to go fuck itself and stayed where she was. Then, when it was too late, she made an attempted dash for the thing and tripped over. The phone stopped ringing. Myrtle reached for the brandy bottle and drank quite a lot more. It was almost midnight when she tried to go to the bathroom again and inadvertently switched the light off and couldn't find the switch again. By now her efforts to rid herself of the gloves, the hood and the rest of her costume had become a waste of time. In the darkness she crawled about the floor and found the brandy bottle and finished it. Presently she passed out and spent the night where she lay, happily unaware of time, place and her own condition.

Morning, not a bright morning in the shuttered room, was very different. It took her some time to work out why she could hardly breathe, could only see out of part of one eye-the hood and en bouffant had both changed position-and was encased in something that was at once cold and sticky. Slowly and painstakingly she managed to get to her feet and make it with the help of the wall to the bathroom and turn the light on. The image in the mirror did nothing to restore her self-esteem. Used to fairly awful mornings in the company of boys at the airbase with peculiar tastes in fetish costumes, she had never seen herself in anything approaching this bizarre condition. Myrtle Ransby sat down on the lavatory and began to cry before dimly remembering that she had promised her husband she'd be back by one o'clock at the latest. She had also been promised the other half of the two thousand pounds. For a moment fury rose in her. She had been betrayed, was in a strange house and in a rubber suit that was far too small for her. She felt like death. Worst of all it was the weekend and somehow she had to get home. At that moment the effects of the brandy made themselves felt in various ways.

Ten minutes later, feeling only slightly better, Myrtle rallied and tried to find something to help her cut her way out of the costume but apart from an old toothbrush which was no help at all, the only thing was a double-bladed plastic razor but even in her desperation she couldn't get it to cut anything. Once again she set to work trying to get the gloves off and when that failed, she spent a fruitless and frequently painful twenty minutes dragging at the various slits in the costume which kept recoiling violently. There was nothing for it. She wasn't going to risk having her nose broken or being choked to death on her false teeth. She'd just phone for help. She sat on the edge of the bed squinting down at the telephone and wondering what her husband Len would say or, more importantly, do if he came and found her like this. Knowing him, he'd either knock her about a bit, and quite a bit at that considering she was in no condition to fight back or, even worse, laugh himself sick and tell all his rotten mates down the local and she'd be the laughing stock of Thetford.

Darker thoughts slowly made their way into her mind. She'd been left in the fucking lurch, which was bad enough, and she'd been made to look a bloody idiot, but, worst of all, she had been robbed blind by an old poncey General and a Sir. Oh no, she hadn't. Myrtle Ransby had been through too many sordid squabbles and downright wars over payments for services rendered to be done out of her two thousand nicker by an old fart called D'Eath, Sir Cathcart fucking D'Eath. Well she'd D'Eath the bugger before she'd finished never mind that Yank who killed horses. After much thought Myrtle rang her sister and told her to come over from Red Lodge and not to say anything to anyone, not anyone at all. Maggie wanted to know what was wrong with her voice 'cos she sounded all hoarse or something and anyway she couldn't come until Perce got back from Newmarket with the car and Myrtle knew what Perce was like when he'd been to Newmarket. Worse when he won of course. Anyway she'd come when she could. Rather than enter into a prolonged argument with her sister, Myrtle put the phone down and checked her handbag to see if the envelope with her half of the two grand was still safe. She'd brought it to compare the way it was torn with the other and make sure she wasn't being done. She also looked at her watch and found it was 3.15. She lay on the bed and thought even darker thoughts until 7 p.m. when Maggie drove up in front of the house and blew the horn. Myrtle put on her leopardskin-the gold lamés were too tight to fit over the latex leggings-and went downstairs and made a dash for the car.