Million Pound Appointments Read online

  The lackey will ride around the woods until someone decides to put him in the picture. The starving fox will scratch around for beetles and worms in the leaf cover; it hasn't the strength to chase rabbits or mice at the moment.

  Daz turns the computer off. The longest thirty seconds of silence is taking place right now. This air, you really could slice and spread with butter.

  "Was you there that day Lawrence?" Tommy Rae asks breaking the deafening silence.

  Larry is thrown by Tommy only using his name once, and hesitates to answer.

  "Well?" Tommy asks again.

  "I was in the loo Tom. I missed the actual… thingy."

  Daz sits forward.

  "Thingy? Fucking thingy? He shouts. "Horse murder is what you missed. Fucking mass horse murder."

  "I thought he only killed Silver Lining… didn't he?"

  Now Tommy Rae sits forward.

  "Only? Only?" He screams. "Fucking only? I'll get Daz to snap your scrawny little neck in a minute, in fact Daz, snap Lawrence Lawrence's scrawny little neck."

  Larry very quickly places a business card on the table and pushes it towards Daz. Daz picks it up and forgets to snap Larry's scrawny little neck. He reads the business card.

  "Taxidermist?"

  "Taxi?" Asks an angry Tommy. "What the fuck is he giving you a mini-cab card for?"

  Daz sits back in his chair much to the relief of Larry's scrawny little neck.

  "It's ok Mr. Rae." Says Daz. "I know what this is."

  "I gave you an order." Shouts Tommy as he stands up. "Snap Lawrence Lawrence's scrawny little neck."

  "Tiger heads on walls." Says Daz. "Polar bear carpets. Parrots in glass jars. Owls on a branch. Deer heads… that sort of thing."

  Larry needs to keep his conversation with Daz going.

  "I gave him a call." Larry quickly says wanting to put as much time as he can between him and his scrawny little neck predicament. Tommy Rae is having trouble making sense of this conversation and plonks back down on his chair. Larry heaves a massive internal sigh.

  "Well carry on." Daz says to Larry.

  "I wanted to find out if it was possible to stuff something as big as a horse."

  "Don't use the word stuff." Says Daz. "Mr. Rae doesn't like it."

  "Oh." Says a rather surprised Larry. Surprised because he didn't pick up on any changes in Tommy Rae's demeanour, when he mentioned the objectionable word, stuff. Tommy Rae isn't sure if he should mention to Daz at this point that he hasn't got a clue what's going on, so therefore doesn't know if he likes it or not.

  "Oh, sorry Tommy."

  Larry now has to come up with another word to replace stuff. Unfortunately though, leaving school at fifteen because you're the only other male in a house of eight, and your Dock-worker father says, 'Get out and find yourself a job and start bringing some money in the house instead of eating us all out of house and home' has its drawbacks, and this is one of them. He searches his mental database for another word…

  "Preserve?" He asks.

  "Better, and is it?" Replies Daz.

  "Yeah he said he could stu… preserve a whale."

  "A fucking whale? Shouts Tommy looking at Daz. "Does he really think he can ease my grief my loss my pain by buying me a fucking whale? And what the fuck has a whale got to do with anything anyway? It's not like a horse and a whale are ever going to meet each other is it." But before Daz can explain Tommy continues. "I don't want a fucking whale. Where would I keep a fucking whale anyway? In the hot tub?" He turns to look at Larry. "Are you taking the piss out of me Lawrence Lawrence?" He turns to Daz. "Is Lawrence Lawrence taking the piss out of me? Horses and whales? I doubt if they even know each other fucking exist."

  "No Mr. Rae, Larry isn't stupid enough to be taking the piss; he knows I'd kill him." Tommy Rae holds Larry with his eyes again. Larry sends the message through every pore in his body that he indeed knows.

  "Larry doesn't want to buy you a whale; he wants to get Silver-Lining preserved for you. Stuffed."

  "It's just a thought Tom." Larry says hoping against hope.

  Tommy Rae thinks for a moment and starts pulling unenthusiastic faces, in fact if that's all you could see, his face, you'd think he was on the lavatory with a particularly bad case of gastroenteritis. Tommy Rae opens his mouth to say something but Larry's unfortunate syndrome decides to raise its ugly head once again and beats him to it.

  "Shit fuck bollocks I knew it."

  Tommy Rae and Daz jump; and these two men don't jump. Larry has no idea he's just hollered 'Shit fuck bollocks I knew it' at the top of his voice. He just thought Tommy Rae was on the verge of saying no, and it was the first thing that came to mind. Tommy Rae and Daz are about to ask Larry about the rather weird the rather loud outburst, when…

  "Well what if Kenny doubles your money then?" From Larry stops them.

  Larry just wants out of there now and blurted out that little gem without weighing up any potential consequences such as 'Get your scraggy little arse out of bed' at 03:07 followed by 'You're going to India' followed by 'Because I fucking said so.'

  Tommy Rae has 'I need a drink' written all over his face. He stands up.

  "Ok, but I want it all by the end of this month."

  And with that, Larry mentally gets his trainers on. Those really expensive ones that win marathons. He's quite fond of his scrawny little neck thank you very much.

  Today. Ninety minutes later...

  Larry's plane hits strong turbulence. An announcement is made. 'Deviyom aura sajjanom ja baitha aura apane seatbelts jakarana krpaya, hama sighra hi utarane ki ja'egi idhana.' Larry puts his head up and looks at the small speakers, expecting to hear the same announcement in English. He waits. Nothing. He waits some more. Still nothing. The turbulence is increasing. He notices that the Indian woman next to him is becoming panicky. Worried about the announcement and the unsteady flight path and the look of dread on her face, Larry nudges her. The Indian woman's English is almost as good as Larry's Hindi. But whereas Larry's Hindi comprises of exactly no Hindi words, the Indian woman can at least say the odd English word. "Baitha ja'o, aura apane seatbelt jakarana ke rupa mem ve idhana laindinga ho ja'ega." She says politely. Unfortunately, apart from seatbelt, and what he thinks was landing; she may as well be speaking Geordie. The announcement is made again. He waits for the English version again. Nothing. More turbulence. More panicking from the Indian woman. Larry's beginning to think that there's a problem with the plane and stands up.

  "This is ridiculous. Am I the only one who speaks English here?"

  Apart from one overweight American businessman who somehow is managing to sweat in his sleep, all the other passengers are Asian and are now trying to find something to read, or pick their noses, pick their fingernails or scratch that itch, anything, but make eye contact with this hooligan standing up and shouting, when he's just been told twice to sit down and fasten his seatbelt.

  "What's happened to the air stewards?" Larry shouts.

  The Indian woman has had enough and tells Larry in no uncertain terms…

  "An'yatha logom ko nice baithane ke li'e lagata hai ki vaha eka atankavadi hai ja'ega."

  Being a little snappy is perfectly understandable; she's a nervous flyer. She always has been. She then quite innocently and inoffensively has a stab at telling him in English; regrettably though most of it still came out in Hindi; apart from the bit that happened to mention that people will think 'You're a terrorist' the bit before that, about sitting down, fastening seatbelts, landing to refuel, all went straight over his head. If sitting down quickly was an Olympic sport Lawrence Lawrence from Maldon in Essex, would be proudly standing on the top rostrum receiving his gold medal right now.

  "Jesus wept woman." He shouts under his breath. "Are you mental or something?"

  Larry quickly looks around to see if any of the other passengers overheard her flawless, crystal clear pronunciation of 'You're a terrorist' and suspects they did. "You can't call someone." He lowers his voic
e. "A terrorist on an aeroplane, not these days, what's wrong with you?"

  The woman shushes Larry and begins to pray. She doesn't know that this mad Englishman didn't understand the four words that came before 'You're a terrorist' which were Otherwise. People. Will. And Think. Larry's What's Up With You? Syndrome looks for a megaphone and finds one.

  "You're a fucking moron; they've sat me next to a fucking moron. Thanks Air India, thanks a fucking bunch."

  And with that, the sound of a stun-gun being used roughly in the same area Larry is occupying wakes the fat sweaty businessman from his soggy siesta. Coincidentally, thirty-six hours later in an Indian police station a hard slap across the face wakes Larry up from a rather sweaty sleep too.

  "Why are you in India? Are you a terrorist?" Says a policeman who grew up with his English Empire hating grandparents.

  "I'm English I'm not a terrorist. How many more times have I got to tell you. You can't be English and a terrorist you idiot. I want a lawyer and I want one now. I've been here three fucking days, get me a lawyer you can't treat me like this."

  To emphasize the fact he can and indeed will treat Larry like this he slaps him four more times, each slap increasing in its ferocity.

  For the past three days the routine has been the same. Ken screaming the house down at 6am because Larry hasn't been in touch yet.

  05:59 turns to 06:00 and day four starts with an alarm bleeping. Ken's eyes snap open and he reaches across to dial a number on the speakerphone.

  "Welcome to BT answer phone service."

  Jane groans and puts her head under her pillows.

  "You have no new messages."

  And so starts the screamathon.

  "Where the fuck is he?" He shouts.

  That's it Jane's had enough. For four days she's been woken at six in the morning, and six in the morning is a full two hours before she normally stops hitting the sack.

  "He's in India." She snaps. "India India India, where you sent him, you."

  Ken flops back on his pillow with a big sigh and is about to say something.

  "Shut up I do not want to hear." Jane gets in first.

  "I was just."

  Jane sits bolt upright and shoots Ken a look; the kind of look that says 'Do I really need to tell you how pissed off I am at the moment?' She doesn't. He knows.

  Now you'd think Ken would learn and take some of each daybreak and carry it over to the next daybreak.

  05:59 turns to 06:00 and day five starts with an alarm bleeping. Ken's eyes snap open and he reaches across to dial a number on the speakerphone.

  "Welcome to BT answer phone service, you have no new messages."

  And so starts another screamathon.

  "Five fucking days now. Five. Fucking. Days. He better be lying dead in a ditch somewhere if he knows what's good for him."

  Jane swivels round on her back and begins to push Ken out of the bed with her feet.

  "What the hell are you doing girl?" He shouts.

  Silk sheets are nice, nice and slippery, and all of Ken's fourteen stones, all too easily begin to slide off them and onto the floor.

  Now you'd think Ken would learn and…

  05:59 turns to 06:00 and day six starts with the bleeping alarm. Ken's eyes snap open and he reaches across to dial a number on the speakerphone.

  "Welcome to BT answer phone service."

  Jane groans and puts her head under her pillows.

  "You have one new message."

  "Jane Jane you awake?" He asks excitedly. "Jane there's a message."

  Jane's head is still under the pillows. She's wondering if it's worth going to India to find the little miracle boy herself, and drag him back just so she can get some sleep.

  "Message received at 03.29. Today."

  Ken's gasps.

  "Why didn't you wake me up. He shouts. "Didn't you hear it ringing?"

  Neither of them heard it ringing. Jane put it on silent three days ago. Ken sits up straight waiting for the message, but Ken doesn't hear Larry's dulcet tones, he hears another voice, a voice that drains the excitement from his unshaven face.

  "Kenneth it's your mother, those bastard cats from next door are back again. Screaming like sodding babies they are, I've not had a wink of sleep all night… listen."

  Ken stares off into space. If a thousand cats were screaming down the end of the line Ken wouldn't hear them.

  "Can you come round and shoot the fuckers for me love? The cats I mean. Not the neighbours…"

  He presses a button on the phone and the gruff sixty cigarettes a day female voice ends.

  "Jane."

  No answer.

  "Jane."

  No answer.

  "It wasn't him."

  No answer.

  "Jane."

  No answer.

  "Jane… Jane."

  At the same time as a fourteen stone career criminal unable to get any purchase on the silk sheets, gets pushed out of the bed and onto to floor by pretty pink painted toenails; Larry is on the other side of the world sitting in a slow moving train packed with commuters, looking at two young men carrying a goat, calmly passing by his carriage window on the outside of the train.

  Shocked by what he's seeing he looks around but no one bats an eyelid; this is rural India. After three or four hours of watching men women and children pass by on the outside of the train carrying what can only be describe as the contents of a small zoo, Larry also stops paying them any mind. More relentless chugging. Hour after hour passes. Young men jumping off the moving train, young men jumping on the moving train.

  "Am I the only one that bought a fucking ticket here?" Larry thinks, he thinks and then wonders why people are looking at him.

  "What's up with you lot?" He asks.

  "Indian people do not use bad language in front of children."

  Larry sits up; he's made a friend, someone to talk to, someone to end the monotonous chugging of the train. He believes this old man wants to start a conversation with him, and not put him in his place for swearing in front of his two children.

  "And that's a very good trait." Larry says smiling at the man. "Not swearing in front of kiddies; I'm the same." Larry offers his hand to his new friend. After a second or two of weighing up this foulmouthed Englishman the man accepts Larry's hand and they shake.

  "Not very fast these trains of yours are they." He says jokingly.

  "Are you in a hurry?"

  "Hurry's my middle name."

  "No no no, I didn't say are you Harry. I said are you in a hurry"

  "Huh?" Says Larry.

  Suddenly the man's two children start tugging at their father's sleeve.

  "This is where we get off." The Indian man says to Larry.

  Larry looks out of the window expecting to see a station or at the very least a platform of some kind. There isn't one. He also expects the train to start slowing down. It doesn't. He then takes a sharp intake of breath as the smallest child, a boy no more than seven years of age, jumps from the moving train.

  "Oh my giddy Aunt." Shouts Larry. "Is he all right?"

  Then the young daughter stands up. Now when she was sitting down Larry would have put his house on the fact, the absolute fact, of her being no more than twelve, but she's heavily pregnant; so in Larry's mind she's just a very young looking thirty year old. Before he can say, 'She's not going to jump as well is she?' She jumps. Most people would gasp in horror at the sight of a young looking pregnant thirty year old jumping from a moving train or they could do what Larry's syndrome is about to do and shout…

  "Fuck me the little nympho jumped too."

  Once again the Indian man is disgusted with Larry's foulmouthed outburst and spits at Larry's feet, then promptly jumps off the train himself. Larry looks at the spittle on his shoes; 'That's a strange custom' he thinks, and then pokes his head out of the window to see his new best friend shaking his head with contempt at him.

  "Nice to have met you all." Larry shouts. "Hope none of you broke anything.
" He flops back in his chair and takes another look at the spittle on his shoes.

  "You're a funny lot out here." He says to himself looking at the other passengers who quickly avert their eyes.

  Framed by his glassless window, Larry gazes at the colourful dry landscape as the sun begins to hide itself behind distant mountains.

  "How far do you think that is?" He asks an old Indian woman opposite him.

  "How far do I think what is?" She replies.

  Larry is totally taken aback; this woman could do voice-overs for her Majesty the Queen. The woman is ninety if she's a day, and if you drew two eyes, a nose, and a mouth on the grand canyon and took a photograph of it from outer space, you'd have the perfect photo fit of her; we are talking serious facial lines here, this woman has lived and probably a number of times in the same body.