Chicken Run

2

Chicken Run

    “Hul-lo, ’ullo!” said the big fluffy yellow chicken with a laugh, imprisoning the lady in the damp mac and crushed woolly hat over the mop of black curls between its substantial tummy and Stoner’s plate glass window.

    Its victim shrank.

    “It’s me, Iain Ross,” said the chicken. “We met at my Aunty Meggie’s cottage last summer. She predicted I was gonna end up as a chicken, and she was right, by God!”

    Veronica Johnson peered at what was visible of the chicken’s yellow face between its beaky cap and the yellow jersey-knit hood that came right up over its chin.

    “Puh-caa, cuck-cuck-cuck!” said the chicken obligingly.

    “Oh, yes, it is you. Hullo, Iain,” she said feebly.

    “Cluck! Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck! Puh-caa, cuck-cuck-cuck! –Have an Easter egg,” he said, proffering his basket of very small ones wrapped in coloured foil. “They won’t let me produce them from me nether end, even though I did try to tell ’em it’d add verisimilitude,” he added sadly.

    “Then it’s a wonder you got the job at all!” replied Veronica with feeling.

    “Nobody else wanted it,” replied Iain simply. He twinkled at her from under his beak. “It requires looking a total prat and making a complete ass of oneself in public, plus and the hot suit, though that isn’t too bad, in this weather! Puh-caa, cuck-cuck-cuck! Cuck—cuck—cuck!” he said, doing a little dance in a circle and ending up facing her again. “Cluck, cluck! Cluck, cluck!” he cooed softly, wobbling his big yellow fluffy tummy horribly.

    “Ugh! How on earth do you do that?”

    Dulcetly Iain explained: “Requires swivelling of the ’ips coordinated with a forward thrust of the pelvis, an unnatural movement, or such was their claim, to the great majority of England’s male chicken candidates.”

    Veronica bit her lip. “Mm,” she conceded in a strangled voice.

    Grinning, he asked: “What the Hell are you doing in this neck of the woods, anyway? Oh—your local department store, is it?”

    “No, I’m working here. It’s just temporary.”

    “Ooh, as an Easter Chick? We could make sweet chicken music together!” he gasped.

    “No, don’t be silly, they’re all slim little girls, half my age. No, in Accounts. They always need more staff over the long weekends—well, whenever they have sales, really.”

    “Got it through Fridays Every Day, did you?” he asked with a smile.

    “Mm. The man who interviewed me mentioned the Easter Bunny’s Helpers, and I’ve met the chicks and the Sugar Plum Fairy, but I didn’t realise there’d be a big chicken.”

    “Yes; it’s a new departure for them. –Cluck, cluck! Cluck, cluck!” he cooed softly, approaching a harried-looking lady shopper hauling two small kids along. “Would the children like an Easter egg? Have one yourself, dear, they’re free. Quite nice, I think it’s genuine Cadbury’s milk chocolate, actually. Cluck, cluck! Cluck, cluck!”

    “Big Bird,” said one of the kids solemnly.

    “No, I’m Big Bird’s cousin, I’m the Easter Chicken! Cluck, cluck! Cluck, cluck! The Easter Bunny’s inside. –On the first floor, dear, if you feel like struggling up there with them,” he said nicely to the mother, who was now eating her Easter egg. Or eating out of his hand might put it better, thought Veronica, eying the performance drily.

    “They ’aven't got that bleedink ’orrible Mad ’Atter this year, ’ave they?” she asked suspiciously.

    “Ugh, were you here the year the head fell off? Gruesome!” said Iain with a shudder.—Presumably it was a shudder: the tummy wobbled wildly and the older kid gave a loud giggle and poked it experimentally.—“No, they’ve scrapped that, they’ve just got a bloke dressed up. But they’ve got really nice gifts this year—kind of a lucky dip.”

    “Like what?” she said, but not as warily as she might have.

    “Little packets of S,W,E,E,T,S, tiny teddies—well, I wouldn’t give them to a littlie, think they might be made in China, but they’d be nice Christmas tree ornaments—really nice plastic yellow ducks for the bath—small, but nice—some lovely rattles—quite safe, the shop’s had them properly tested—and really super clocks with Thomas the Tank Engine faces.”

    “Ooh, Thomas a Tank Engine!” cried the smaller child.

    “Round, about yay big,” said Iain to the mother, demonstrating with his yellow-gloved hand.

    “Sounds all right. Might give it a go, then. –Yes! We’ll see the Easter Bunny, but not if you keep on about it!” she snapped as the older child launched into it.

    “Good luck!” said Iain with a laugh. “Oh, and if you’ve got time Ladies’ Lingerie have got some simply fabulous slip-tops on sale, and between you and me they’ll be putting out a new lot round about now!”

    “Really? Might take a look, then. Ta. –Yes! We’re going!” And in they went.

    “‘Between you and me’?” said Veronica limply.

    “Suzanne from Ladies’ Lingerie was moaning that the ones in shades of puce and maroon aren’t selling, so I told her to mix in a few light mauve ones for effect and I’d push them with the punters.”

    “I was there yesterday, and if you mean those gorgeous lilac ones, they’re not on sale,” she croaked.

    “A handful of ’em are now. Loss leaders, is that the phrase? –’Scuse me. Cluck, cluck! Cluck, cluck!” He did a little shuffling dance and his fresh victims, two middle-aged lady shoppers, collapsed in giggles, one of them into the bargain gasping: “Give over, ducks, we’re not two years old!”

    “Happy Easter, ladies,” said Iain solemnly, wobbling the tummy.

    More giggles, verging on the hysterical, this time.

    “Have a free Easter egg—real Cadbury’s milk chocolate, they’re yummy. Seen the sale up in Ladies’ Lingerie, yet?”

    “There won’t be anything there in our size, ducks,” said the lady in the bright emerald crocheted hat, unwrapping her Easter egg.

    “Well?” said her fellow on a suspicious note as she bit into it,

    “Mm,” she conceded, nodding round it. “Solid chocolate.”

    “Well, of course there’s lots of flimsies in the smaller sizes—very pretty, mind you,” said Iain, beaming at them from under the beak, “but in case you were looking for those lovely big pants like Bridget Jones favoured, they have got a whole bin of them on sale, put them out fresh this morning.”

    “Think you mean Hugh Grant favoured ’em, love,” noted the lady in the brown, gold and off-bright red headscarf drily. “Well, all right, give it a go, eh, Sal? Been years since any place sold decent knickers except Marks and Sparks, mind you.” And with that they forged inside.

    “Puh-caa! Puh-caa!” crowed Iain, doing a little dance of triumph.

    “More than worth your weight in alleged Cadbury’s milk chocolate,” noted Veronica evilly, heading for the doors.

    “Oy, hold on!” he gasped, grabbing her arm. “This is the sort of coincidence that has to be celebrated!”

    “It’s not really a coincidence when you think about it, because my mum’s an actress and your aunty’s an actress and all the out-of-work theatricals go to Fridays Every Day for temp jobs,” replied Veronica thoughtfully.

    “Boy, you sure know how to make a fellow feel dashed,” said Iain sadly. “Just when I was thanking a bountiful, not to say, in view of me past sins, merciful Providence!”

    Veronica went very red. “Rubbish.”

    “Aw, go on! Just a drink!” He wobbled the tummy at her and gave her a leer from under the beak. “I’ll wear the costume, if you like!”

    “You’d have the bloody brass cheek to do it, too,” she recognised grimly.

    “Very well, I’ll dispense with the costume, if you like,” said Iain on a glum note. Shit, what was wrong with him? Hitherto he’d sort of thought he had what it took. Well, quite a few ladies had behaved as if he did, nay, given him firmly to believe he did! “Come on, just a drink won’t hurt, surely? I don’t know a soul in these parts.”

    “That I can believe. But I wouldn’t have said you were the sort that had difficulty in making friends.”

    “What have you got against poor ’umble chickens? I warn you, I’m getting really, really sad and me feathers have gone all droopy, in fact I’ve just about gone droopy all over, and—”

    “Stop that!” she gulped.

    “—and I may moult,” finished Iain, pouting horribly under the beak.

    A choke of laughter was surprised out of Veronica. “Um—yeah,” she said weakly. “Okay, one drink. When do you finish?”

    “Fifteen minutes before closing or when all me eggs have been laid. Uh—it’s a complete scrum in the room they make us change in. I’ll meet you down here just after closing, okay?”

    “Yes, um, there’ll be a huge queue in the Ladies’,” said Veronica, pinkening.

    “I’ll wait,” replied Iain simply. “Cluck, cluck! Cluck, cluck!” He approached an unwary young mother. “Cluck, cluck! Cluck, cluck! What a pretty little girl you’ve got there, dear! Can an aging chicken that’s not ’alf as sexy as Mel Gibson”—here he rotated the tummy and the young mother collapsed in the predictable giggles—“ask what her name is?”

    Veronica went into the store. She was rather flushed, but she was also muttering grimly: “Jesus!”

    “Bye-bye! Bye-bye! Happy Easter! Come back and see us again!” cooed the Easter Bunny’s Helper, waving his paw. “Boy, I’ve had it. Me dogs aren’t half barking,” he said to Iain.

    “Me, too, Dilip. Pack it in?”

    Dilip peered round warily—he could do this quite easily, his Easter Bunny’s Helper’s bunny-eared hood left his face uncovered, though that didn’t mean it wasn’t painted with a horrid black nose, horrid whiskers, and nasty spots—small brown spots on white circles. The kids apparently accepted this as a valid representation of a bunny. True, Iain had with his own eyes observed half a dozen kids going in with horrid war paint that he would have guessed was meant to represent, at best, monsters from a Japanese kabuki performance, had not one of them informed him that she was a pussycat—and about five dozen coming out with circles, spots, whiskers and black noses just like Dilip’s, and that was only today.

    Dilip’s peering resulted in the report: “Think we’re safe: looks as if that ruddy Malcolm’s pushed off early again.”

    Malcolm was the dreaded floorwalker. Iain hadn’t actually observed him bawling anybody out, let alone any of the temping Easter Bunny’s Helpers stationed near each door of the store, but he agreed: “Good, come on, then,” and they sloped off to change.

    In the inadequate cupboard provided for the male costumed temps the Easter Bunny was discovered removing his head in front of the mirror. “I swear this ruddy thing’s got hotter since last year,” he noted.

    “Just be thankful you don’t have to be on your feet all day, Pete!” responded Dilip swiftly.

    “Yeah,” conceded Pete, rubbing his sweaty head with a small, hard towel.

    “Where’d ya get that?” asked Dilip with interest.

    “Brought it from home, whaddaya think?”

    “Oh. Thought a miracle might of occurred and they’d actually kitted you out properly from stock. All right, laugh,” he said glumly as the Easter Bunny, who was a small middle-aged, greyish-skinned, disillusioned-looking man, gave a cackle of sour laughter.

    “This is only his second year, Iain,” Pete then explained as Iain sat down with a sigh. “His cousin put him onto it.”

    “Ashok,” explained Dilip. “He’s working, this month. Only a bit-part in Heartbeat, mind, but better than nothing.”

    “Always did the side door,” explained Pete—Iain nodded, he did understand that Stoner’s Department Store had two doors giving onto the main street and one down a side street, in fact his own patrol was between the two front doors. “Volunteered for it.”

    “Er—out of Malcolm’s orbit?” ventured Iain, removing his chicken feet.

    “No—well, that, too. No, it faces the florist’s—Gloria’s Hatbox. Dunno why hat, flowers have never come in hatboxes. Anyway, he fancied that red-headed girl that works there.”

    “It all becomes strangely clear, Pete!” admitted Iain with a laugh, massaging his feet.

    “Yeah. How you finding those things?”

    “Oddly comfortable: they’re heavily padded,” Iain admitted. “And they seem to be waterproof.”

    “Rubber matting, stuck on,” explained Dilip seriously.

    “Is it?” he said on a weak note. “Mm. It’s not the shoes themselves. I thought I was used to square-bashing, but Jesus!”

    “Yeah. Most shop assistants get varicose veins. Well, I’ve had parts in me time when I was on stage for the best part of three hours with hardly a break but there’s no comparison. Washing soda, Iain,” advised Pete kindly.

    “Eh?”

    “Soak your feet in it,” elaborated Dilip, massaging his own feet. “Warm water, dissolve the salts—Mum says they’re what they make bath salts out of, actually—and then soak them for at least half an hour. Keep it topped up with hot water from the kettle.”

    “Yeah, that’s right,” agreed Pete. “Nothing like it. It’s good in a bath, too. Really soothing, if your knee and hip joints are aching.”

    “And your shins,” admitted Dilip, rubbing his hard.

    “I see. I haven’t got a bath but I’m sure Mrs Gardiner downstairs’d let me use hers.”

    “Probably join you in it,” drawled Pete.

    Dilip collapsed in splutters, though eyeing Iain warily at the same time.

    “She’s seventy-three, you birk,” rejoined Iain cordially.

    “All right, I won’t make the obvious remark,” Pete conceded amiably. “Coming for a jar?”

    “I can’t tonight, Pete, got a date. –Of sorts,” he admitted.

    “That Kathleen from the cheap handbags downstairs?” suggested Dilip.

    “Not tonight, Josephine.”

    “It’ll be an Easter chick,” said Pete in a bored voice.

    “That one with the red hair?” he suggested.

    “Sinead. No,” said Iain blandly.

    “All right, the thin blonde one, um, think her name’s Juliet?”

    “Juliette. No.”

    “The cuddly little blonde one that looks as close to Bridget Jones as a chick that Wayne was ordered hadda be under five-foot-three and no more than a thirty-two B could?” drawled Pete.

    “Trisha. No.”

    “I’d of said she was at least a thirty-two C,” offered Dilip.

    “Thirty-two D, ’smatter of fact, but she’s got the short qualification, so Wayne overlooked ’em,” said Iain dulcetly.

    “Overlooked’s one word for it,” noted Pete swiftly.

    “Yeah!” choked Dilip. Once he was over the splutters he suggested: “The dark one: Tanya.”

    “Tonya,” corrected Iain. “No, she’s got a permanent boyfriend, Dilip.”

    “When did that stop you?” asked Pete in friendly tones.

    “This one’s six-foot four, in the Blues and Royals, and boxes for the regiment, Pete,” said Iain sadly. “I grant you there was a time when it might not’ve stopped me,”—Dilip collapsed in further splutters—“but my dancing days are over.”

    “Yeah, right,” said Pete drily. “Okay, well, it can’t be the Russian one—or not tonight, it can’t, that Giles from Accounts has grabbed her—so it’s the Black one.”

    “Lovely, isn’t she?” said Iain with a smile. “Personally I’d’ve made her a little black chick, dressed her in black fuzz, but the display lads decreed otherwise, apparently. No, ’tisn’t her.”

    “She’s married with two little kids,” explained Dilip. “Oona, her name is, unusual but nice, eh? She was really good in that bit-part in that series with David Suchet a couple of years back, only nothing came of it.”

    “Don’t ask which David Suchet series of the many,” advised Pete drily.

    Iain had no idea what he was talking about. “No, I won’t,” he agreed smoothly. As that had completed the roster of the Easter chicks he added smoothly: “Perhaps I should just come right out and admit it isn’t an Easter chick.”

    “Hah, hah,” said Dilip weakly. “Well, who? Not that Aileen from Accounts?”

    At this point Pete was driven to say heavily: “Dilip, if you'd stop second-guessing him for two seconds, he might tell you.”

    “Yes,” admitted Iain. “I don’t know if you know her, Dilip. She’s a temp in Accounts and I have met her briefly before.”

    “That’s a first,” muttered Pete.

    Iain cleared his throat. “Not entirely. –Her name’s Veronica.”

    Dilip looked blank.

    “Too old for you, laddie,” said Pete kindly. “I’d class her as a luscious brunette, myself. Bit the Nigella Lawson type. Not as tall, though.”

    “Oh, yeah, I’ve see her,” agreed Dilip. “I thought she looked nice, actually. –I can’t come to the pub, Pete, Mum’s expecting me for dinner, it’s Aunty Baby’s birthday. See ya!”

    In his absence there was a short silence. Then Iain said weakly: “How old is that boy?”

    “Nineteen, and you’re setting him a bad example.”

    “I’m doing my best to, Pete,” replied Iain drily.

    “Yes, well, Indian families tend to shelter them.” He gave him a hard look. “I’ve known Veronica’s mum for ages. She’s a nice girl, and she’s had some rotten luck.”

    “Look, I’m merely taking the woman for a drink! Her mother’s a friend of my Aunty Meggie’s!”

    “Half the Profession’s friends of Meggie Callender’s, I’ve stayed at the cottage myself. You were reported to be in Germany at the time, doing half a dozen blonde birds. Now tell me your intentions towards Veronica are entirely pure and I’ll eat the bloody bunny head.”

    “Don’t do that, it’s rather nice,” said Iain weakly. “Well, um, no, but then, are one’s intentions towards an attractive woman ever entirely pure?”

    “No, but it is possible to control them,” replied Pete sourly as another Easter Bunny’s Helper came in, pushing his hood back and saying loudly: “Christ, my feet are killing me!”

    “Washing soda, Fred,” advised Pete.

    “Yeah, but I gotta get home, first. Oh, you are here, Iain. I’ve got a message for you.”

    “Who from?” he said tightly.

    “Nice dark girl called Veronica. Temping in Accounts.”

    Jesus, was the woman gonna dump him after all? “What is it?”

    The middle-aged Fred removed his giant puffy spotted bloomers and sat down. “Those things make you sweat like buggery! Worse than when I was a ruddy pumpkin in panto.”

    “What’s the message?” shouted Iain.

    “Keep your hair on. She can’t make it after all ’cos she’s gotta finish something and she promised her mum she wouldn’t be back late,” reported Fred faithfully, rubbing his shins vigorously.

    Iain’s mouth tightened. “Jesus! I knew it! Um, thanks, Fred.”

    “Crumbs, the only woman in the universe that’s immune to his manly charms,” said Fred conversationally to Pete.

    “Apparently,” he agreed.

    They looked curiously at Iain...

    “All right, drop it,” he growled. “She gave me the cold shoulder before, too, if you must know.”

    “New experience for you, was it?” drawled Pete. “—Hurry up, Fred, I’m dying for a drink, that bloody head’s absolutely parching.”

    Fred was rapidly cold-creaming his face. “I did hear a rumour that the window-dressing boys are fighting for real whiskers for us.”

    “God, glue as well? Maybe I’m better off with the head.” Pete had now assumed his outer garments. “You might as well come for a jar, then, Iain.”

    “What? Oh—yeah. Thanks.”

    “Bring your cold cream?” asked Fred.

    “No, um, I went to the chemist and the girl said she’d never heard of it.”

    “Go on, use mine,” he said generously.

    “Posh chemist, was it?” drawled Pete.

    “No, it was the one round the corner from my place, and drop it, will you, Pete?” said Iain with a sigh.

    “Old Ma Carey’s all right,” said Fred to the sub-text.

    “As landladies go—yeah,” allowed Pete. “Mothers you, though. And you’re surrounded by members of the Profession all borrowing your stuff without asking. Well, you’ve got the costume for it, Iain,” he allowed.

    “Eh?” said Iain weakly, creaming his face. The yellow was bloody hard to get off.

    “To be one of Mother Carey’s chickens,” said Pete blandly.

    Iain bit his lip, failed to control himself, and collapsed in agonising splutters.

    Fred was looking puzzled. “Dunno that I’ve ever heard that one before,” he said to the smirking Pete.

    “No, but that’s ’cos you’re not literate, Fred,” he replied kindly. “Didn’t you tell him to put some cold-cream on first?”

    “Um—no.”

    Pete sighed. “Iain, the trick is, rub some cold-cream in well first, before you put the yellow on.”

    “Really? Then why didn’t they give me some cold-cream as well as the yellow muck?”

    “Too mean!” chorused the two actors. Their eyes met in the inadequate, bleary mirror and they laughed.

    “Yeah,” confirmed Fred. “I know a Boots that always stocks it, Iain.”

    “Oh, great. What’s the address?”

    “Got a pen?”

    “Um, just tell me, Fred.”

    Fred told him. It didn’t involve a street number, it involved bus stops and bus route numbers and just around the corner froms. Weakly Iain found a pen and wrote it down.

    “Hurry up if you’re coming, or we’ll be landed with the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse,” warned Pete.

    “Where are they?” asked Fred, getting up quickly and climbing into his trousers.

    “George went to join the long, long queue at the loos—don’t tell me he could’ve gone before, this Year’s Sugar Plum Fairy’s actually got a bum—and Keith went down to Hardware, he’s looking for one of those little sets with a garden trowel and a fork and, um, something else. His new flat’s got window boxes and he thinks he’s gonna develop a green thumb on the strength of it.”

    Fred got into his jumper and anorak. “All his pot-plants died,” he said to Iain. “Coming?”

    “Right you are.” Iain grabbed his muffler and they went, Fred explaining redundantly: “Keith’s all right but we’ve had enough of the new flat, really. And George is a bit hard to take.”

    “Mm,” agreed Iain. George was a tall, thin, gloomy-looking man who made an effective Mad Hatter but wasn’t in the Profession and, according to Pete and Keith, didn’t pull his weight in handing out leaflets to the queue at the Easter Bunny’s Grotto when there was a juicy Sugar Plum Fairy assisting the kiddies onto and off Pete’s knee, or assisting them to dive into the lucky dip. Iain hadn’t needed telling, he’d worked out for himself that a considerable amount of bending over was involved. The Sugar Plum Fairy’s outfit consisted of a pink tutu, spangled tights and very high-heeled silver shoes. Apparently the current one wasn’t as good as the one they’d had a year or two back, but good enough.

    … “How are the mighty fallen,” noted Fred about half an hour later when Iain, having stood a round but refused another pint, pushed off back to his room at Mother Carey’s. “Seemed keen, didn’t he?”

    “He’s always keen, Fred,” responded Pete drily.

    “No, I mean he seemed really cut-up when she broke the date, did you notice?”

    “I did, but so what?”

    “Well, um, maybe he’s really struck. I mean, seriously.”

    “Do me a favour!” Fred was looking blank so Pete added sourly: “You realise she’s Thea Johnson-Wright’s daughter?”

    “Yes, she told me. Thea’s okay: well, I mean, doesn’t put on side like some. She was in Lady Windermere with bloody Gaynor Grahame that time I took the butler—did the feed, it was an older lady that time, not an ingénue.”

    “Lady Windermere’s Fan, isn’t it?” said Pete in a bored voice.

    “No, this was a modernised version, with La Gaynor doing a song and dance number.”

    Pete shuddered. “God! Still?”

    “No, well, about ten years back, Pete: the managements were still wearing the insurance premiums in those days. Anyway, if it hadn’t of been for Thea, it would’ve been completely unbearable for the rest of us.”

    Pete sighed. “Yes, Thea’s okay, but don’t you know what sort of hyphenated toffee-nosed gits Meggie’s sister married into?”

    “Um, I don’t think Iain’s got a hyphen, has he?”

    “No, his poor little mum dropped it when she discovered the bastard of a husband was still doing the scores of girlfriends he’d had back when she first met him. She was twenty-one and the boy was two.”

    “But, um, if she divorced him way back then, then Iain—”

    “He was a boy, Fred, people like his father’s family don’t give up on legitimate male issue. They paid for him to go to some bloody public school—don’t ask me which one, I’ve forgotten, if I ever knew. Then he went straight to Sandhurst for officer training.”

    “I dare say, but he’s temping for Fridays Every Day, same as you and me!” snapped Fred crossly.

    “It’ll look good in his memoirs.”

    Fred was now very red. “He isn’t that sort, Pete!”

    “Not quite, maybe, but he’s certainly having a lot of fun playing at being one of the great unwashed. But my point is, he isn’t the sort that’ll settle for something with a mum as down-market as Thea Johnson-Wright, that’s for sure.”

    Fred scowled. “That’s what you say. I thought he seemed really keen.”

    “It’s known as S,E,X,” said Pete tiredly. “I’ve forgotten exactly what that is, but I do know it has that effect.”

    “You’re better off without her, Pete,” said Fred kindly.

    “So I keep telling myself. Fancy a short?”

    Fred brightened, but said kindly: “You sure?”

    Pete was sure, so they each had a whisky.

    Iain made three more attempts to get a date with Veronica. Unfortunately he had to work on the store’s late nights and she didn’t, but by dint of skiving off early on the nights he did finish at the same time as her, scrambling into his jeans and anorak before his fellow temps infested the changing room and hanging about at the side door, he did manage to see her. The first time she went very red and said in a strangled voice: “I can’t tonight, I promised Mum I’d get the dinner,” and the second time she went very red and said: “No, thanks.” Misguidedly Ian replied to this with a cry of “What’s wrong with me?” so she was able to explain: “Everything your Aunty Meggie told me about you. I’ve gotta go, I’ll miss my bus.”

    Interrogation of various persons who worked for Accounts didn’t get him any sympathy, though several people did note that he was as bad as Giles, but it did eventually elicit the information that Veronica would be with them for the week after Easter, because Accounts were always busy after a long weekend. So he thought out his strategy and put on his very best suit—though as he didn’t have a camel-hair overcoat to go with it and it was a freezing-cold night it had to be his uniform greatcoat with it. And fronted up to Stoner’s side door well before closing so as not to miss her.

    He had an agonising forty minutes’ wait and then she appeared.

    “Veronica,” said Iain with his nicest smile, “I’m making one last desperate effort to ask you for a date. A drink, a meal, anything you like. I am serious, please believe me.”

    Veronica was again very red but see, Iain had persuaded himself that this wasn't entirely a Bad Sign: meant she did fancy him but wasn’t giving in because of his Aunty Meggie’s report that little Iain was a naughty boy that never pulled his socks up and had had far too many ladies in the past.

    “You can’t possibly be serious, we don’t even know each other,” she said in a markedly strangled voice.

    This felt like a Very Good Sign to Iain so he beamed at her and said: “But I am! And if we never even have a drink or a meal together, how are we to get to know each other?”

    “I don’t want to,” said Veronica flatly.

    A sane chap would have thrown in the towel right there and then, but there were so many pheromones flying around in the chill, grimy London pavement air directly outside Stoner’s side door that, what with them and the raging testosterone, Iain was way, way past sanity, so he said urgently: “Look, whatever Meggie may have told you is undoubtedly true, but most chaps sow a few wild oats; doesn’t mean they can’t be serious with a—a nice girl like you, Veronica!”

    “A few! What about all those chicks?” cried Veronica loudly.

    Iain blinked. “Not all. And I didn’t realise you were working here, then. Thought I’d never see you again. But, um, when I did, it sort of seemed like fate.”

    “I don’t care what it sort of seemed like, I don’t want to go out with you!” cried Veronica very loudly. “Just leave me alone!”

    Iain looked numbly after her as she hurried down the street. For God’s sake! Everybody did have their wild oats and— Okay, he’d seen innumerable bad movies where the prat of a hero or quite frequently heroine just stood there numbly and let the party of the other part walk off, and he wasn’t gonna—

    He ran after her.

    “Look, are you so pure?” he gasped, grabbing her arm.

    “No,” said Veronica grimly, “that’s why I know just what you’re like! I don’t care what Meggie told you about me, once bitten twice shy and I wouldn’t go out with another man like you if you were the last man on earth, and if you don’t let go my arm I’ll scream!”

    “I’m not him, whoever he was, Veronica!” shouted Iain.

    “No, you’re even more of a ladies’ man!”

    “I’ve been in the bloody Army with nothing permanent in my life, why the fuck do you think I should’ve been living like a saint?” he shouted.

    “I don’t, but lots of soldiers get married quite young and have lovely little families, you see them on the News saying goodbye or hugging them when they come home, so don’t try to make the Army your excuse!” she snapped, trying to pull away.

    At this point—possibly, as those who knew him would have claimed, because he’d never really been rejected before—Iain Ross lost it completely and shouted: “Look, for God’s sake, if that’s what you want, I can give you a lovely little family!”

    “You? Get real, it’d be your awful father all over again!”

    His jaw sagged. “Is that what you— I’m not him, Veronica!”

    “Not bloody half! And let go my arm this instant, or I will scream!” cried Veronica with tears in her eyes.

    Iain gave it one last desperate shot. “I can see you feel it, too, I’m not blind! Why else are you so upset?”

    “Because you’re pestering me and I don’t want you! Let me GO!” she shouted.

    “You do bloody well want—Ow!” he gasped as she kicked him viciously in the shin.

    As he’d let go of her arm, Veronica backed off hurriedly. “Go back to your chicks and your dim eighteen-year-old Celias. And if you come near me again I’ll get a restraining order!” With this she gave a loud sob, swung her handbag and hit him on the upper-arm with it, and rushed off.

    Iain was left hopping like a prat on his good leg whilst rubbing his sore arm with his good hand. Ow! Shit! The bitch!

    Terry Waite from Fridays Every Day eyed him somewhat drily. “Well, Stoner’s were thrilled with your performance as the Easter Chicken,” he allowed.

    “Thanks. Got anything out of London?”

    Mr Waite blinked. Most of their temps refused to work out of the metropolis. There was a job going, but his business partner’s reaction had been: “The depths of the countryside and Arabs? They’ll end up having to bring their own people over from home!”

    He rubbed his chin. “Butler-chauffeur for a pleasant Muslim couple? Lovely house in the Cotswolds.”

    “Uh—Terry, I’d be willing to give it a go, though I haven’t a clue what’s required of a butler, but I’ve just spent several years shooting Muslims!”

    Terry’s amiable face fell. “Oh. Blow, I suppose it would be a bit tactless. But they’d like you: she wants class.”

    “I’d rather not give them the embarrassment, thanks. Nothing else?”

    “Lots of demos. Well, you’ve got the personality, but we’ve got a lot of people with experience, you see... Hang on,” he said, consulting his computer. “Ooh, good! Thought Dianne might’ve filled it. With HT Security. Office stuff, to start with.”

    Iain took a very deep breath. “That’s Johnny Sage’s show, right?”

    “Um, well, yes, he does run one of their sections, but this is definitely for the office initially. You’ve got sufficient computer skills, and you’re ex-Army, you’d fit in really well! And there are prospects for promotion to investigative—”

    “Look, Terry, there is no way that a tight-arsed ex-Army type like Johnny Sage is gonna take on an iconoclast like yours truly! Insubordinate, subversive, individualist, undisciplined, lacking due respect for authority, incapable of functioning as part of a team, and damned insolent—and that was when they weren’t even trying!”

    Terry looked weakly at Iain’s file. “Major Richardson gave you a really good reference, though, Iain.”

    Iain sighed. “Yes, well, in the first place Martin isn’t as prejudiced as he looks, and in the second place I did pull him out of a tightish spot when we were both in Bosnia.”

    Terry’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, did you save his life?”

    Iain thrust a hand through his hair. “Put it like that if you like.”

    “Wow! Did they give you a medal?”

    “No, they don’t give gongs to naughty, insubordinate little fellows what didn't ought to have been on the spot in the first place, Terry.”

    “But heck, if you saved another man’s life—!”

    “No,” said Iain definitely. “Can we drop it, please? Are you sure there’s nothing else out of London? Um, driving, delivering cars, anything like that?”

    Terry consulted his computer. “There is a chauffeur’s job going. Well, driving.”

    “Yes?”

    “They want someone to drive them slowly down the— Hang on, it’s not the Rhine Valley, is it? No. Um, the Loire Valley. Know where that is?”

    “France,” said Iain very limply indeed. “Full of châteaux.”

    “Right, that’s what the client said... Um, the thing is, they’re an elderly couple, there’s him and her and his male nurse, he doesn’t drive—not professionally, I mean—and they’ve tried out six of our drivers so far and none of them suited.”

    “What went wrong?”

    “They drove over twenty-five miles an hour,” said Terry glumly.

    “Eh?”

    “Yeah.”

    “You’re not telling me this old biff wants someone to drive him down the Valley of the Loire at twenty-five miles per hour?”

    “Loire Valley,” he corrected glumly. “Yeah.”

    “Uh—Terry,” said Iain, swallowing a laugh, “you are sure it isn’t at twenty-five kilometres per hour, are you?”

    “No, definitely miles. See, Dennis Cater, he said he hadda speed up, this cop was waving him on, only the old man wouldn’t listen to a word ’e said!”

    “Got it.”

    Terry looked at him without hope. “Could you?”

    “Uh—well, I need the dough, but in the spirit of knowing one’s own limitations, I honestly doubt it,” admitted Iain.

    “No. Nobody could!” he said with feeling.

    “No, well, if they try one out, I suppose I could put in for it. Unless you don’t want a seventh failure,” he said kindly.

    “Well, I think they’d like you,” conceded Terry, eying him critically. “Wear a suit. You haven’t got a chauffeur’s cap, have you?”

    “Uh—khaki cap? Could take the badge off it.”

    “Like a beret— You don’t mean an officer’s hat?” gasped Terry in horror.

    “Yes, but without the—”

    “No! For potty old Mr Bensimon? After Bosnia and Iraq? No!” he cried.

    Crumbs. And God save the Queen to you, too. “No, very well. It was just a thought. But I will give it a go, Terry.”

    So he went for the interview and test drive. Halfway round Piccadilly Circus old Mr Bensimon had a choking fit, so that was that. But Jesus, in the traffic flow you had to— No, okay, daft idea to start with.

    However, Terry had found him a job as a sort of Michelin man! They weren’t actually tyres: inflatable things for drowning kids in swimming pools or, take your pick, at the seaside, brightly coloured. A brightly coloured Michelin man—right. The summer hols were, according to the large leisure gear shop’s manager, in sight, and they wanted to encourage— Yeah, okay: he was paying, Iain didn’t care why. And his opposite number was a frogman with a bright green plastic snorkel and that suit was excruciatingly tight round the cobblers. The promotion lasted a fortnight, by which time Iain, frankly, was ready for anything.

    No, he wasn’t.

    “You’ve been a chicken before,” said Terry with a would-be persuasive smile.

    “Not outside a Chickin Lickin’, though!”

    “It’s only short-term, it’s a new outlet, see—”

    “No, thanks.”

    Skin-Flint McMurtrey eyed him drily. “Thought we might see you again, Captain. Now, see this Jag? Quite a nice model, these old ones are going for a good price these days.”

    “The E-Jag,” said Iain coldly, “is one of the most distinctive cars ever made. I’m not up for taking one of those through Customs, ta.”

    “Only the Channel Tunnel, Captain: you could—”

    “No.”

    “Well, there’s the Lamborghini,” said Skin-Flint, looking more lugubrious than ever. “I ain’t claiming she’s new, but we done ’er up real nice, eh, Jim?”

    “Yeah, she’s safe enough, Captain!” he urged.

    That meant the bloody thing had been in a crash! “All right, I’ll buy it, where to?” he groaned.

    Gee, they had a client in Mostar. Jim was wincing and avoiding his eye.

    “Yes, I do know where that is, Mr McMurtrey,” said Iain politely.

    “See, the Captain—” Jim thought better of it.

    “It’ll be a lovely drive, at this time of year,” Iain conceded. “I’m up for it so long as the door linings aren’t stuffed with anything but door lining.”

    “No, it’s a legit sale!” said Skin-Flint crossly. “See, there’s a waiting list long as yer arm for the new ones!”

    “Mm. This’d be a nouveau-riche Bosnian, would it?”

    “Dare say, but ’is money’s all right.”

    “Yeah, yeah. I’ll want a meal allowance and some way of getting back, ta awfully.”

    Skin-Flint McMurtrey had that all jacked up. This pal of Jim’s, he drove a long-distance lorry, see, and if he, Iain, could get himself as far as Split—knew where that was, did he?

    There was very little doubt that a lorry travelling from Split to London would be smuggling something, because why the Hell else would you go to Split, but Iain could always get off in France and have a break with Mummy and Rudi. And anything was better than sitting round brooding over Veronica, or dressing up as another chicken.

    So he did it. Never mind what was on the Lamborghini’s speedo: she wouldn’t, experiment determined, go over sixty kilometres an hour. The trip was completely uneventful, except that a couple of French cops told him to pick up his speed, not putting it that politely, and an Italian cop was very cross with him for going so slowly on the autostrada, but it did take a while, and he missed the connection with Jim’s pal. But he’d be able to pick him up on his next run! So he had the choice: hang round in Mostar kicking his heels, or hang round in Split. There’d be fewer chaps wanting to shoot him, Iain, in Split, so on mature consideration he went there. Not overland, there’d be a few chaps wanting to shoot him in those parts, on mature consideration. He went down to the coast and took a series of little local ferries and little local fishing boats. It was great fun, actually. And it was a beautiful coastline.

    As it turned out Jim’s pal was smuggling something and two seconds after he’d stopped in Mummy’s and Rudi’s village to let Iain off, the French cops nabbed him. It took some days and Rudi’s very expensive French lawyer to get little Iain out of that hole.

    “Idiot,” concluded his stepfather sourly. “Bersonally Oy don’t giff a fuck how many toimes you end in clink, but you’ve upsed your mother. You can bloody h’well go to Austrylia.”

   “Pardon?” said Iain limply.

    “You can go to Austrylia! Ellie says you know some colonel there, but bersonally Oy don’t care if you don’t know a soul, you can go and be damned to you!” he shouted, turning an alarming shade of puce.

    “Calm down, Rudi. Er—well, Australia’s as good as anywhere, but, um, if you're talking about emigration, think I’d have to have a job out there.”

    “Oy will figs it,” he said evilly.

    Iain cringed, but let him. Why the fuck not? Anything was better than—well, than French clink, to start with. But than hanging round parts of Europe brooding about Veronica, frankly.

    It did entail telling huge lies to Australian officialdom, though the papers offering him a job were genuine enough and Rudi’s contacts out there were genuine, that was, actually existed and did operate a legitimate business. Possibly legitimate on the surface, but it wasn’t just a paper company. Iain didn’t believe for a moment that they actually wanted little Iain to work for them, though. Never mind: all the paperwork was correct, so he was going.

    “Why, in God’s name?” sighed his Aunty Meggie on the night of his farewell visit.

    Iain had drunk a great deal of her gin followed by a great deal of the champagne he’d brought her followed by a great deal of the port he’d brought her, so instead of saying “Why not?” and leaving it at that, he burst out with the lot. Chickens an’ all. Luscious Veronicas that didn’t want little Iain or his little fellow, an’ all.

    His aunt looked at him limply. “You let her give you the brush-off? You just gave up?”

    Iain was so drunk he didn’t lie, he just said glumly: “Yes. Lost my nerve completely.”

    “You feeble idiot!” concluded his aunt roundly. “Talk about chicken!”

Next chapter:

https://temps-anovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/rightsmart-first-round.html