Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

7

“Blimey, Russell,” said Frank, “you smell like sh –”

“Yes,” said Russell. “I know, I was sick.”

Frank made delicate sniffings at the air. “It’s beer,” said he. “Now, don’t give me a clue, I’ll get it. It’s bitter.” Sniff, sniff, sniff. “Best Bitter. Garvey’s best bitter. The Bricklayer’s Arms. Am I right, or am I right?”

“You’re right,” said Russell mournfully.

“Flavoured crisps often throw me,” Frank brushed imaginary dust from his jacket shoulders. “But not cornflakes. I know my vomit. Elizabeth Taylor was sick all over me once, did I ever tell you about that?”

“I thought it was Greta Garbo who was sick all over you.”

“No, it was definitely Elizabeth Taylor, she’d been drinking stout.”

Russell sat down at his desk and put his head in his hands. And then he looked up at Frank and then he began to laugh. “Stout?” he said. “Elizabeth Taylor had been drinking stout?”

“No, you’re right,” said Frank. “It was Greta Garbo.”

“Has anyone been in?”

“I’ve only been back five minutes myself. But no, no-one’s been in. You’ve a memo on your desk, though.”

“A memo?” Russell perused his empty desk top. “Where is it?” he asked.

“I threw it away,” said Frank.

“Why?”

“Because it was exactly the same as the one I got.”

“But it was addressed to me?”

“Yes, but it was the same memo.”

“So what did it say?”

“Yours or mine?”

“Mine.”

“Same as mine said.”

“So what did yours say?”

“None of your business, Russell.”

Russell sighed. “Where is my memo?”

“In my waste-bin.”

Morgan now entered the office. “I’ve just found a memo on my bench,” he said.

Frank said, “Let’s see it.”

Russell said, “No, don’t you let him.”

Morgan asked, “Why?”

“Read it out,” said Russell.

Morgan read it out. “To all staff,” he read. “As you are well aware, business has been falling off in alarming fashion of late. To such an alarming fashion has it been falling off, that it has now reached a state of no business at all. Such a state of no business at all is not a state conducive to good business in terms of profit margins and expansionism. Such a state of no business at all is more conducive to a downward curve into bankruptcy and receivership. Therefore you are asked to attend a meeting in my office at 3 p.m. to discuss matters. This meeting will be held at 3 p.m. in my office and you are asked to attend it, in order …” Morgan paused.

“Yes?” asked Russell.

“Well, it sort of goes on in that fashion.”

“Is that the same as the memos we got, Frank?”

Frank shrugged. “More or less.”

“We’re all going to be made redundant,” said Morgan.

“No, no, no.” Frank shook his head. “It’s just a temporary slump. The British film industry has temporary slumps. Things will pick up. I remember Richard Attenborough saying to me once –”

“It’s nearly three,” said Morgan.

“Uncanny,” said Frank. “‘It’s nearly three and I’m pissed, Frank,’ he said. ‘Give us a lift home in your mini.’ His wife was a beautiful woman, didn’t she marry Michael Winner?”

Frank took the phone off the hook (to give any incoming callers the impression the Emporium was doing lots of business), and the three men trudged off towards Mr Fudgepacker’s office.

Russell definitely trudged, he did not have a jog or a march left in him. Frank was a natural trudger anyway, and Morgan, who was easy about such things, was prepared to give trudging a try.

Geographically, the distance between the sales office and Mr Fudgepacker’s office was a little more than twenty feet. But due to the imaginative layout of the place, the route was somewhat circuitous. About a five-minute trudge, it was.

So, while this trudging is going on, now might be a good time to offer a bit in the way of description regarding Fudgepacker’s Emporium. As has already been said, it was housed within the deconsecrated church and, as has also been said, it contained many “wonders”.

The visitor, entering by the fine Gothic doors at the front, will find a pleasant vestibule with a glazed tile floor and walls of York stone. Here is offered a taste of things to come. To the left stands a torture rack, circa 1540, a wax mannequin stretched thereon, its sculptured face expressive of considerable discomfort. Several suits of samurai armour are mounted upon stands. A row of human skeletons, two lacking heads, and a Dalek.

Through the vestibule and into the main hall. The word “cavernous” springs immediately to mind. It is not a word you normally associate with the interior of churches, but it is appropriate here. From low tiled floor to high fan-vaulting, the space has been divided into numerous levels, constructed in finely laced cast-ironwork. And the name Escher now springs to mind, that amazing artist who drew all those wonderful pictures of staircases that lead forever nowhere, yet somehow join onto one another in a never-ending, mind-boggling, continuity. Galleries and catwalks and stairways. And items. Items strung from the ceiling, rising from the floor, suspended between the catwalks, stacked along these walks and ways and housed in racks and cases, bags and boxes.

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.

“Good boy, now off you go.”

“Thank you,” said Russell.

They squeezed outside and Frank shut the door.

“That was close,” said Frank.

“Yeah,” said Morgan. “Thanks for putting my name forward.”

“You liked that?”

“No, I was being sarcastic”

“I’m going back inside,” said Russell. “If anyone has to go it should be me. Last in, first out.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Morgan.

“Oh, and why not?”

“Because I met Bobby Boy at lunch-time and he’s got himself another job.”

“Phew,” said Russell. “Then I’m saved. Thanks a lot, Morgan.”

“Least I could do,” said that man.

The voice of Ernest Fudgepacker reached their ears, it called, “Oh, and we’ll have another meeting this time next week and if business hasn’t picked up, I’ll have to sack somebody else.”

“Do you mind if I say ‘fuck’?” Russell asked.