Free The Reginald Perrin Omnibus by David Nobbs

wasn’t an officer or a war-hero. I was terrified they’d find out that I’d been expelled from Ruttingstagg. It was very difficult to get to Tonbridge, because all the cars had been laid up for the duration and the station was marked “Inverness” to confuse the Germans. It confused the guests all right. Acting Lance Corporal Sprockett had to stand on the platform with a loud-hailer and a carnation in his buttonhole shouting “Change here for Paddock Wood, Headcorn, Ashford, Folkestone and the Perrin-Anderson wedding.” We ferried everyone to the church in a ten ton truck.’
    ‘Poor dad.’
    ‘The reception was in an incredibly draughty hotel. There were dried egg sandwiches, snoek canapes and whalemeat bridge rolls. The Andersons had pooled their ration books to get the ingredients for the cake. Grandpa Tonbridge had a face about eight miles long. Auntie Katie Willoughby made rude remarks about Uncle Percy Spillinger’s war effort, Acting Lance Corporal Sprockett made a terrible speech, I had a nose bleed, and then suddenly we heard a doodlebug. Its engine cut out.’
    ‘Christ!’
    ‘We all lay on the floor. I held your mother’s hand. The doodlebug fell on the British Restaurant two hundred yards away. All the hotel’s windows were blown out and the cake collapsed.’
    ‘God.’
    ‘Well actually that seemed to break the ice.’
    ‘And the icing.’
    ‘Very good. After that it was all quite fun. They picked up Uncle Percy Spillinger two days later in Tenterden, playing bagpipes at the top of the church tower and singing “Scotland the Brave”.’
    There was a long silence. Neither of them liked to say anything, for fear it would break the mood.
    ‘Would you like a beer, old carthorse?’ Reggie said at length.
    ‘I’d love one.’
    Reggie poured a couple of beers, while the gloom of the storm began to lift. It was the hour of religious programmes on television.
    There were pictures of Reggie with his parents. His father, the bank inspector, pointing at something in every picture. His mother, the bank inspector’s wife, always looking in the direction in which his father was pointing. His father died of a bullet through the head and his mother died of not having any interests in life except his father.
    There was a picture of a very young and handsome Jimmy, on Littlehampton beach, and a snapshot of Reggie and Nigel at Chilhampton Ambo, grinning fit to bust, no doubt dreaming of Angela Borrowdale’s riding breeches.
    Reggie wanted to say, ‘This is nice, old parsnip, sitting here together, just the two of us,’ but he was afraid that if he said it it would cease to be nice.
    He picked up his next memento. It was an empty box. Then the doorbell rang. Damn. Damn. Damn.
    It was Major James Anderson, of the Queen’s Own Berkshire Light Infantry, no longer so young and handsome.
    ‘Sorry to bother you,’ said Jimmy. ‘Fact is, bit of a cock-up. Forgot the blasted food.’
    ‘Yes. I know.’
    ‘Got home. Hungry family. No chow. In the doghouse. Came back quick as I could.’
    ‘Mark and I have been having a beer. Will you join us?’
    ‘Fact is, Reggie, ought to get straight back. Well, just a quick one, if you insist.’
    Reggie led Jimmy back into the living room, and poured out another beer.
    ‘Well, Mark,’ said Jimmy. ‘How are things on the drama front?’
    ‘Not too bad, Uncle Jimmy.’
    ‘All the world’s a stage, eh?’
    ‘Something like that.’
    ‘Jolly good.’
    Jimmy lolled to attention in the brown Parker Knoll chair, and took a long draught of his beer.
    ‘I was just showing Mark some of the things I found in the box room,’ said Reggie.
    ‘Carry on. Don’t mind me. Going in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,’ said Jimmy.
    Reggie handed round the empty box.
    ‘This is an empty box of Nurse Mildew’s Instant Wart Eradicator,’ he said.
    ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ said Mark.
    ‘I once had twenty-five warts. Nothing cured them. All remedies failed,’ said