Free Bigot Hall by Steve Aylett Page B

shoved the dog out but did not close the door correctly. Moments later Nelson re-entered and began staring again. These are the facts.’
    ‘Laughing boy’s window,’ Leap announced, looking me in the eye, ‘is directly above the kitchen door.’
    ‘Laughing boy!’ bellowed Snapper, grabbing me.
    After five hours of futile denial, I was left tied to a tree near the lake. ‘Think on the anguish and trouble your childish trick has caused,’ ordered Leap as they departed. Standing there alone, all I could think of was how much I needed Adrienne to sit on my face. I had indeed been at my window when Nelson was standing below. I had whispered nothing, but had heard it all.
    Now Nelson skittered over and took up a post a short distance away, watching my struggles and smiling in resolute silence.
    It was the longest afternoon of my life.  

HOSPITALITY
     
     
    Colour in reverse, Lord Brakes and Lady Marjoram were like something grown in an ashtray. Next to them Roger Lang resembled a fascinating individual. Algernon Brakes pressed his eyebrows nightly in a copy of The Pickwick Papers . Even his aura was made of tweed. Lady Marjoram seemed unaware that her gloves were removable, and appeared to be wearing a marquee. As welcome as a vase on a butcher’s slab, their very shadow inspired in us all a valiant disgust.
    They insisted on visiting us as though they were neighbours and perhaps they were. With admirable restraint we responded to their knock by ducking under the windows and if they entered we hid as best we could. Brakes and Marjoram would wait for hours in the kitchen under the deep ticking of the clock, or staring blankly up at Ramone the moose-head, over whom we had long since pushed a bucket of cement which had dried to form a permanent nosebag. Trudging subdued through the silent house, the pair would peer through doorways and then give eachother vacant looks. A visit to the storage attic was spent tearing through giant webs, crashing into disconcertingly lifelike marionettes and so on.
    On one regrettable occasion, however, they abruptly opened the cupboard in which Father and I were silently standing. ‘Er - Brakes old fellow,’ said Father briskly, ‘you’ve met the lad. Laughing boy - you know Algie.’
    ‘I have had the pleasure of scraping some from a bucket.’
    ‘You’ll be forgiven for thinking my son here is a disciple of Satan. He’s just a small boy adjusting to the mayhem and corruption of circumstance. Shall we adjourn to the sitting room?’
    As the guests started off in that direction Father ran the other way, his face a carnival of luck and mischief.
    After several moments Brakes and Marjoram re-emerged from the sitting room to find me stood in the hallway alone. ‘Father finds you drab,’ I stated, ‘and has run away. It falls to me to entertain you. Come here.’
    The guests hesitated, looking fretfully at eachother.
    ‘Do not be concerned,’ I said, any pretence at interest cold and dead. ‘We are composed largely of water. This way.’
    Leading them into the kitchen, I motioned for them to sit down and stood near the progressive wall markings which, on days of family togetherness, Father would pencil up to record my pain threshold. ‘I spy,’ I muttered, ‘with my little eye. Something beginning with death.’
    Brakes and Marjoram fired startled glances at eachother and their surroundings.
    ‘Death-mask,’ I intoned, opening the larder to reveal that of Lenin. I went to the door. ‘Consider this your home. There’s the kettle. Tip out the scorpion. Goodnight.’
    Crowded into the boiler room, everyone sat around on bales of Father’s funny money. Overlit by a bare lightbulb, Snapper resembled a bottlenose dolphin. ‘Well laughing boy?’ he whispered fiercely. ‘Are they gone?’
    ‘No,’ I hissed. ‘They’re in the kitchen, trying to decide.’
    ‘This is ridiculous,’ said Snapper. ‘Hiding underground to avoid the dullards.’
    ‘Study history,’ muttered