Tom Sharpe - The Throwback

'Oh, Lockhart, darling,' she wailed, 'what on earth is happening to us?'

'Nothing,' said Lockhart, 'it's happening to them.' In the pitch darkness of the kitchen Jessica shuddered in his arms.

'Them?' she said. 'Who's them?'

'Them's the warld that is not us,' he said involuntarily slipping into the brogue of his native fells, 'For arl that's them the good Lord curse. And if ma prayer he doesna heed, It's up to me to do the deed.'

'Oh, Lockhart, you are wonderful,' said Jessica, 'I didn't know you could recite poetry.'

No more did anyone else in Sandicott Crescent. Poetry was the last thing on their minds. Colonel Finch-Potter had no mind to have anything on, and it was doubtful if his Scarlet Woman would ever be the same again. Certainly the Pettigrews' house wouldn't. Torn to shreds by the bull-terrier, the house was in a state of total chaos. The Pettigrews, emerging finally from the closet under the stairs just after the lights had failed, supposed that they alone had suffered this misfortune and it was only when Mr Pettigrew, trying to reach the phone in the living-room, tripped over the hole in the Persian carpet and landed on a savaged lampshade that the true extent of the damage began to dawn on them. By the light of a torch they surveyed the remnants of their furniture and wept.

There's some terrible curse on the street,' wailed Mrs Pettigrew, echoing Lockhart's prayer, 'I won't stay here a moment longer.' Mr Pettigrew tried in vain to adopt a more rational approach but he wasn't helped by the demented howls of the bull-terrier in the bird sanctuary. Having lost a tooth it had fortunately lost its way as well and after gnawing several large trees in the archetypal belief that they were mammoths' legs had given up to wail at five multi-coloured moons that squirmed in the sky above its imagination. Mr and Mrs Lowry were busily trying to bandage one another in portions of anatomy least amenable to bandaging and were considering suing Colonel Finch-Potter for his dog's damage when they too were plunged into darkness. Next door, Mrs Simplon, convinced that her husband had deliberately fused the lights so that he could the more easily break in to retrieve his belongings, proceeded to warn him off by loading the shotgun he kept in the cupboard in the bedroom and firing it out of the window twice at nothing in particular. Not being the best shot in the world and lacking the light of the bull-terrier's imaginary moons, she managed with the first shot to blast the greenhouse in the garden of the Ogilvies at Number 3 and with the second, fired from the front, to add to the Pettigrews' problems by peppering those windows the bull-terrier had left unscathed. Only then did she realize her mistake and the fact that the entire street was in darkness. Not to be dissuaded but rather encouraged by the screams and yells of the Scarlet Woman, who was being dragged into the police car, and convinced now that the IRA had struck again, she reloaded and loosed off two more barrels in the general direction of Mr O'Brain's former house. This time she missed the house and fired point-blank into the Lowrys' bedroom which happened to intervene between the Simplons' and Mr O'Brain's residence. Outside Colonel Finch-Potter's the policemen hastily dropped their burden, took cover and radioed for armed assistance.

It was no time at all coming. Sirens sounded, police cars converged and under covering fire a dozen men surrounded

Mrs Simplon's mock-Georgian mansion and ordered everyone inside to come out with their hands up. But Mrs Simplon had finally discovered her mistake. The volley of revolver shots that seemed to come from all quarters and through every window, and the winking lights of the police cars, not to mention the voice on the loudhailer, persuaded her that absence was the best defence. Dressing as swiftly as she could and grabbing her jewels and what money she had, she went through the connecting door in the garage and hid in the sump pit which Mr Simplon, who liked tinkering with the underbodies of cars as well as Mrs Grabble's, had thoughtfully constructed. There, with the wood pulled over her head, she waited. Through the wood and the garage door she could hear the loudhailer declare that the house was surrounded and there was no point in further resistance. Mrs Simplon had no intention of resisting. She cursed herself for her stupidity and tried to think of an excuse. She was still trying in vain when dawn finally broke over the Crescent and fifteen policemen broke cover, the front and back door, four windows and found the house to be empty.

'There's no one there,' they told the Superintendent who had come to take charge. 'Searched the attic but there's not a soul.'

Mr Pettigrew protested that there must be. 'I saw the flash of the guns myself,' he said, 'and you've only got to look at my house to see what they did.'

The Superintendent looked and expressed some doubt that gunshot had ripped lampshades from their stands, cushions from sofas and curtains from windows, and had sunk what looked like fangs into the mahogany dining-tables.

'That was the dog,' said Mr Pettigrew, 'the dog the ambulance men brought with them.'

The Superintendent looked even more doubtful. 'Are you trying to tell me that all this devastation was caused by a dog and that the aforesaid dog was introduced into your house by ambulance men?' he asked.

Mr Pettigrew hesitated. The Superintendent's scepticism was contagious.

'I know it doesn't sound likely,' he admitted, 'but it looked like a dog.'

'I certainly find it hard to believe that a dog can have created this degree of havoc on its own,' said the Superintendent, 'and if you're suggesting that the ambulance men -…' He was interrupted by a howl from the bird sanctuary. 'What in God's name is that?'

'That's the thing that wrecked my house,' said Mr Pettigrew. 'It's coming from the bird sanctuary.'

'Bird sanctuary my foot,' said the Superintendent. 'More like a banshee sanctuary by the sound of things.'

I didn't think banshees wailed,' said Mr Pettigrew inconsequentially. A sleepless night, most of it spent in a broom cupboard, and the rest in the darkness of his devastated house, had not helped to make him clear-headed and Mrs Pettigrew was wailing too. She had discovered the remnants of her underwear shredded in the bedroom.

'I tell you it wasn't a dog,' she screamed, 'some sex maniac's been chewing my undies.'

The Superintendent looked at Mrs Pettigrew dubiously. 'Anyone who chewed your undies, madam, would have to be…' he began before checking himself. Mrs Pettigrew had only her vanity left and there was no good to be done by removing that too. 'You've got no idea who might have a grudge against you?' he asked instead. But the Pettigrews shook their heads in unison. 'We've always lived such quiet lives,' they said. It was the same in every other occupied house the Superintendent visited. There were only four. At Number 1 Mr and Mrs Rick-enshaw had nothing to add except gratitude that the police car was always parked outside their house. 'It makes us feel much safer,' they said.

The Ogilvies didn't share their opinion. The blast of the shotgun that had smashed every pane of glass in their greenhouse had given them a sense of grievance they voiced to the Superintendent. 'What's the world coming to when peaceful citizens can't rest easy in their beds, that's what I want to know,' said Mr Ogilvie indignantly. 'I shall complain to my MP, sir. The country is going to the dogs.'

'So it would appear,' said the Superintendent soothingly, 'but you're not suggesting that a dog destroyed your greenhouse?'

'Certainly not,' said Mr Ogilvie, 'some damned swine with a shotgun did.'

The Superintendent breathed a sigh of relief. He was getting sick of hearing all the blame put on dogs. Mrs Simplon wasn't.