Tom Sharpe - The Throwback

'I am told you are an excellent taxidermist,' said the figure pushing past Mr Taglioni into the passage.

'I am,' said Mr Taglioni proudly.

'You can stuff anything?' There was scepticism in the voice.

'Anything you care to mention,' said Mr Taglioni, 'fish, fox, fowl or pheasant, you name it I'll stuff it.'

Lockhart named it. 'Benvenuto Cellini!' said Mr Taglioni lapsing into his native tongue, 'Mamma mia, you can't be serious?'

But Lockhart was. Producing an enormous revolver from bis raincoat pocket he pointed it at Mr Taglioni. 'But it's not legal. It's unheard of. It's…' The revolver poked into his belly. 'I named it, you stuff it,' said the masked figure. 'I'll give you ten minutes to collect your tools and anything else you need and then we'll go.'

'What I need is brandy,' said Mr Taglioni and was forced to drink half the bottle. Ten minutes later a blindfolded, drunk and partially demented taxidermist was bundled into the back seat of Miss Deyntry's car and driven north and by three o'clock in the morning the car was hidden in an abandoned lime kiln near Black Pockrington. Across the fell there stalked a tall black figure and over his shoulder he carried the insensible Mr Taglioni. At four they entered the Hall and Lockhart unlocked the door to the wine cellar and laid the taxidermist on the floor. Upstairs Mr Dodd was awake.

'Make some strong coffee,' Lockhart told him, 'and then come with me.'

When half an hour later Mr Taglioni was coaxed back to consciousness by having scalding hot coffee poured down his throat, the body of the late Mr Flawse lying on the table was the first thing to meet his horrified gaze. Lockhart's revolver was the second, a masked Mr Dodd the third. 'And now to work,' said Lockhart. Mr Taglioni gulped. 'Liebe Gott, that I should have to do this thing…' 'That is not a thing,' said Lockhart grimly and Mr Taglioni

shuddered.

'Never in my life have I been called upon to stuff a person,' he muttered, rummaging in his bag. 'Why not ask an em-balmer?'

'Because I want the joints to move.'

'Joints to move?'

'Arms and legs and head,' said Lockhart. 'He must be able to

sit up.'

'Legs and arms and neck maybe but hips is impossible. Either sitting or standing. It must be one or the other.'

'Sitting,' said Lockhart. 'Now work.'

And so while his widow lay sleeping upstairs unaware of her recent but long-awaited bereavement, the grisly task of stuffing Mr Flawse began in the cellar. When she did wake, the old man could be heard shouting from his bedroom. And in the cellar Mr Taglioni listened and felt terrible. Mr Dodd didn't feel much better. The business of carrying buckets upstairs and disposing of their ghastly contents in the cucumber frames where they wouldn't be seen because of the snow on the glass above was not one he relished.

'They may do the cucumbers a world of good,' he muttered on his fifth trip, 'but I'm damned if they do me. I won't be able to touch cucumbers again without thinking of the poor old devil.'

He went down to the cellar and complained to Lockhart. 'Why can't we use the earth closet instead?'

'Because he didn't want to be buried and I'll see his wishes carried out,' said Lockhart.

'I wish you'd carry out a few of his innards as well,' said Mr Dodd bitterly.

What Mr Taglioni said was largely unintelligible. What he had to say he muttered in his native Italian and when Lockhart inadvisedly left the cellar for a moment he returned to find that the taxidermist had, to relieve the strain of emptying Mr Flawse, filled himself with two bottles of that late gentleman's crusted port. The combination of a drunk taxidermist elbow-deep in his lamented employer was too much for Mr Dodd. He staggered up the stairs and was greeted by the unearthly voice of the late Mr Flawse bellowing imprecations from the bedroom.

'The devil take the lot of you, ye bloodsucking swine of Satan. You couldn't be trusted not to steal the last morsel of meat from a starving beggar,' the late man bawled very appositely, and when an hour later Lockhart came up and suggested that something substantial for lunch like liver and bacon might help the taxidermist sober up, Mr Dodd would have none of it.

'Ye'll cook whatever you damned well please,' he said, 'but I'll not be eating meat this side of Candlemas.'

'Then you'll go back down and see he doesn't help himself to more wine,' said Lockhart. Mr Dodd went gingerly down to the cellar to find that Mr Taglioni had helped himself to just about everything else. What remained of Mr Flawse was not a pleasant sight. A fine figure of a man in his day, in death he was not at his best. But Mr Dodd steeled himself to his vigil while Mr Taglioni babbled on unintelligibly and delving deeper into the recesses finally demanded more lights. The expression was too close to the bone for Mr Dodd.

'You've had his bloody liver,' he shouted, 'what more bleeding lights do you need? They're in the fucking cucumber frame and if you think I'm going to get them, you can think again.'

By the time Mr Taglioni had managed to explain that by lights he meant more illumination, Mr Dodd had been sick twice and the taxidermist had a bloody nose. Lockhart came down to separate them.

'I'm not staying down here with this foreign ghoul,' said Mr Dodd vehemently. 'The way he goes on you'd not think he knew his arse from his elbow.'

'AH I ask for is lights,' said the Italian, 'and he goes berserk like I asked for something terrible.'

'You'll get something terrible,' said Mr Dodd, 'if I have to stay down here with you.'

Mr Taglioni shrugged. 'You bring me here to stuff this man. I didn't ask to come. I asked not to come. Now when I stuff him you say I get something terrible. Do I need telling? No. That I don't need. What I got is something terrible enough to last me a lifetime, my memories. And what about my conscience? You think my religion permits me to go round stuffing men?'

Mr Dodd was hustled upstairs by Lockhart and told to change the tapes. The late Mr Flawse's repertoire of imprecations was getting monotonous. Even Mrs Flawse complained. 'That's the twenty-fifth time he's told Dr Magrew to get out of the house,' she shouted through her bedroom door. 'Why doesn't the wretched man go? Can't he see he's not wanted?'

Mr Dodd changed the cassette to one labelled 'Heaven and Hell, Possible Existence of.' Not that there was any possibility in his own mind of doubting the existence of the latter. What was going on in the cellar was proof positive that Hell existed. It was Heaven he wanted to be convinced about, and he was just listening to the old man's deathbed argument borrowed in part from Carlyle about the unseen mysteries of the Divine Spirit when he caught the sound of steps on the stairs. He glanced put the door and saw Dr Magrew coming up. Mr Dodd slammed the door and promptly switched the cassette back to the previous one. It was marked 'Magrew and Bullstrode, Opinions of.' Unfortunately he chose Mr Bullstrode's side and a moment later Dr Magrew was privileged to hear his dear friend, the solicitor, described by his dear friend, Mr Flawse, as litigious spawn of a syphilitic whore who should never have been born but having been should have been gelded at birth before he could milk the likes of Mr Flawse of their wealth by consistently bad advice. This opinion had at least the merit of stopping the doctor in his tracks. He had always valued Mr Flawse's judgement and was interested to hear more. Meanwhile Mr Dodd had gone to the window and looked out. The snow had thawed sufficiently to let the doctor's car through to the bridge. Now he had to think of some means of denying him access to his departed patient. He was saved by Lockhart who emerged from the cellar with the tray on which stood the remnants of Mr Taglioni's lunch.

'Ah, Dr Magrew,' he called out, shutting the cellar door firmly behind him, 'how good of you to come. Grandfather is very much better this morning.'