Free The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag by Robert Rankin Page B

yucky pond.
The yucky pond is actually called Tinker’s Pond, but it is locally known as the
yucky pond due to the excess of yuckiness that floats upon its surface.
    The
yucky pond is maintained by public subscription.
    Opposite
the yucky pond there stands a fine big house. All on its own with a high wall
around it. This house is built in the Tudor style and its name is Houmfort
House.
    And
Houmfort House was Billy’s house.
    Billy
lived in Houmfort House with his mum and his granny. Billy’s dad did not live
there. Billy’s dad had business elsewhere and only came home every once in a
while to hand out presents and tell Billy tales of the places he’d seen. Billy
and his dad were not ‘close’. But then Billy wasn’t really ‘close’ to anyone.
    Billy
was different.
    And ‘different’
is hard to be close to.
    Billy’s
mum was not different. Billy’s mum was the same. Very much the same. The
same as she had always been, as long as Billy had known her. Billy liked her
that way, although sometimes he felt that he could do with a change.
    Like
today, for instance.
    Today
being Tuesday.
    Billy
always took Tuesday’s breakfast on the veranda at the back of the house.
Whatever the weather, or the time of year. It was a tradition in the Barnes
household. A tradition, or an old charter or something.
    Billy
feasted this particular Tuesday morning upon roll-mop herrings and bitter-sweet
tea. His mum had her usual, which was the usual, same as ever.
    Billy
always kept very still while he ate. Only his jaw moved, slowly and
rhythmically. Twenty-three times a minute. Billy’s mum, on the other hand, was
a flamboyant eater, given to sweeping gestures and guttural utterances.
Belching and flatulence. Food-flinging and the banging down of cutlery. They
complemented one another, as is right between a mother and her son.
    ‘It
says here,’ said Billy’s mum, reading aloud from the Daily Sketch, ‘that
he engaged in certain practices which gave him the kind of moustache you can
only get off with turps.’
    Billy
swallowed a well-masticated segment of herring and turned his eyes in the
direction of his mother. She was a fine woman. A fine big woman.
Generously formed. Of ample proportions. Why, a starving man could feast upon
such a woman for a good two months. Assuming that he had a large enough freezer
to keep the bits fresh in.
    ‘Ah no,’
said Billy’s mum. ‘I must have misread it. The ventriloquist’s name was Turps.
The dummy didn’t have a moustache.’
    Billy
moved his head ever so slightly, just enough to take the drinking straw between
his lips. He sipped up bitter-sweet tea, but he didn’t swallow.
    ‘That’s
Africa for you,’ said Billy’s mum. ‘The white man’s grave and the black man’s dingledongler.
Which reminds me, have you fed your granny today, Billy?’
    Billy
nodded with his eyes. Of course he had fed his granny. He always fed his
granny. It was his job to feed his granny. And he enjoyed it very much. After
all, he loved his granny.
    Billy
kept his granny in a suitcase.
    It was
a large suitcase and it had holes bored in the lid, so it wasn’t cruel, or
anything. And it saved space. Billy’s granny used to take up quite a lot of
space. Her bed was the biggest in the house and the most comfortable. Billy now
shared this bed with his mum.
    Granny
lived under the bed. In the suitcase.
    Billy
took Granny out at weekends and gave her a wash and a change of clothes. Not
every boy was as good to his granny as Billy was.
    But
then not every boy had a granny quite like Billy’s.
    In her
youth she had danced the candle mambo with Fred Astaire, trodden the boards
with Sarah Bernhardt, glittered at society functions, and cast her exaggerated
shadow in fashionable places.
    But now
she was old and weak and withered. Bereft of speech and movement and much gone
with the moth. Deaf and blind and dotty and gnawed away by rats.
    But
Billy still found time for her. Although he wasn’t