Part 25 (1/2)
”Just what is so funny?”
Elspeth said, ”Just sounded sort of gay is all-you prying your treasure from Neal's b.u.mhole.”
”I'm so glad I was able to lighten the mood.”
Neal looked at me with sad eyes. ”Doctor's orders. I'll keep you posted, Ray.”
f.u.c.ker.
And that's when things stopped being merely bad and became catastrophic.
Dear The G.o.ds, Yes, it's me! Yes, that's right, Raymond Gunt. Hope you've been well lately, causing a few storms, frightening the occasional simple village folk ... life's great when you're The G.o.ds. Thunder! Lightning! f.u.c.king irreparably with Raymond Gunt's life! Whoops ... did that slip out? Sorry. Feeling a bit emotional is all, but I was wondering, now that we're having a small chat, could you focus your attentions on the people around me, rather than on me? Not that I want others to suffer. More like I, myself, would just like to live in a bit of comfort. If that means a lessened quality of life for those around me, so be it. As you can see, I am a reasonable man.
Yours, Raymond Gunt
42.
So, here's the thing.
Having adjusted somewhat to the fate of my red plastic, I was going about my day, having adventures like any of us do-in this case, contemplating a not unpleasant menage a trois with Elspeth and Tabs (Hooray! Finally! Took long enough!)-when a sound from the tent area, and from my deepest memories, ripped through my soul like an industrial meat slicer.
”Raymond Gunt? Raymond, are you here? I know you are. I can smell fear in the air.” It was a woman's voice, crusty and loveless, seasoned by a lifetime trapped on a conveyor belt of f.a.gs and discount booze.
Neal, Tabs and Elspeth stared at me with raised eyebrows. All colour must surely have drained out of my face, sunburned or not.
The voice continued, ”Or should I say Herry Potter? How the f.u.c.k could anyone be stupid enough to spell 'Harry Potter' with an 'e'?”
”Anyone you know?” said Neal.
”You feeling okay, Ray?” asked Elspeth.
From around a coconut bush appeared the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e-congealing slag known as my mother, dressed in the shabbiest of high-street summer style, smoking two cigarettes, her pair of bingo wings flapping, looking for all the world as though she'd just popped out the front door ready for a day of shoplifting with her best friend, Sheila.
”There you are, Raymond. Fiona said you'd be here.”
f.u.c.king h.e.l.l. This is just the sort of thing Fiona would do, the miserable b.i.t.c.h.
Neal and the two girls wore the innocent but ent.i.tled expressions of car pa.s.sengers whose half-hour delay in stalled traffic has earned them a good long gawp at the blood-soaked crash that interrupted their journey.
”h.e.l.lo, Mother. Welcome to Kiribati.”
”Look at you, Raymond, all dressed up like a pervy version of the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.”
”Mother, this is Neal, Elspeth and Tabitha.”
Mother stared at the trio like a grifter a.s.sessing fresh marks. ”h.e.l.lo, then.”
”Has Fiona set you up in nice digs?”
”She's done more for me in one day than you've done in a lifetime, useless son that you are. Brought me down here for a holiday, out of the kindness of her heart.”
”That's Fiona, all right-give, give, give.”
Mother glowered at me. ”Are you taking the p.i.s.s?”
”Yes, Mother. I'm taking the p.i.s.s.”
I heard Neal whisper, ”The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?”
”Okay, then, Mother, if you're finished ...”
I could tell she was about to launch into one of her invectives in which politics and religion and utterly ambiguous personal foibles coalesce to create a sort of satanic meatball of misinformation. ”I am not finished. By changing one vowel in the name 'Harry,' you desecrated the imagination of every child and of every child-grooming pedophile who ever entered the Potter universe of mugwumps and pixie-wixies or whatever else that that billionaire woman is always writing about. Childhood is sacred, Raymond, sacred.”
”Mother, that made no f.u.c.king sense. What do you want?”
”Fiona very kindly invited me down here for a leisurely South Pacific vacation, and all I've found so far is tinned luncheon meat and some ghastly fungus that has turned my minge into a Halloween house of horrors. I want my holiday, and I want it now.” She dropped her two dead cigarettes onto some highly endangered plant and crushed them with her heel.
Silence.
”Well, Mother, you certainly know how to win over a crowd.”
”Raymond Gunt, you are a bad, bad son. I rue the day I ever dreamed of bearing offspring.”
”Do you?”
”I do.”
”Well then, guess who is about to stop making payments on your breast enlargement surgery.”
”You wouldn't!”
”Wouldn't I?”
Neal said, ”Ray, really? You paid for your mum's implants? You're a good son, you are.”
”Thank you, Neal.”
Mother was running scared. ”Raymond, they can't take my implants away, can they? They're already inside of me.”
”Yes, Mother, yes they can. If I don't keep paying, they will systematically hunt you down wherever you try to hide. They will pounce on you from behind, armed with Stanley knives, and they will rip you open right there on the cobblestones.”
Mother burst into tears.