Merde And Mandarins

Chapter 1

ONE

‘May I join you?’ He looked up, nodded, and she sat. ‘How long have you been sniffing the Dogs Bollix?’

His one eye swivelled accordingly, he thought his wife beautiful. He shrugged, he was good at shrugging. ‘Kirk out,’ he said.

Mandy had seen this before, though not the Star Trek shrugging, although she had seen his shrugging before, often associated with equivocation. Sometimes he would pour himself a Jameson’s and swirl it, sniff it, put it to his lips, but not sip, and here he was sniffing, not sipping, the Dogs Bollix, an ale second only to his favourite London Pride, and doing it very much as he would with his Irish whiskey.

She looked across the C&A’s narrow, intimate bar and saw, as she expected, perched precariously on a stool too big for him, the dishevelled short-arse, Bernie ‘LeBolt’ Thompson, Portsmouth Evening News crime reporter, who was here following the chaotic conclusion to the press conference, looking to get some news crumbs off Jack’s broken emotional table. Bernie looked at Jack then swung his gaze to Mandy, who gave him her best Leave my man alone stare in return.

The skinny runt of a reporter averted his eyes to the table in front of Jack and his untouched, and only sniffed, Dogs Bollix, and shrugged himself; as far as shrugging went, it was pretty amateur. She also expected to see Roy and Will, the people Jack was probably waiting for. She decided to wait with him. She didn’t expect to see Della, though, in an extraordinary way she hoped she would, but it had been a tough day or two, Jonas had picked up a couple of wounds from the shoot-out in the cemetery, and must be wondering what he had gotten himself into with his cockney sparrow.

Bruce, the burly oaf landlord of C&A’s, a gentle soul, brought Mandy a drop of cry and tonic and waved away the charge, asking, ‘You okay?’ A gruff voice which suited his ox-like, beery frame. ‘Saw the news conference, been hearing all that happened, and Sponge Bob’s been in, moanin’ on and on about Jack, how he’d not owed him one, or something like that. His lifeboat is all shot-up and he's at a loss as to how he was going to explain that to the RNLI.’ (Royal National Lifeboat Institute).

Sponge Bob was the local lifeboat skipper, and Jack had recruited him and his lifeboat, calling in a non-existent favour, to assist in the rounding-up of a brutal horde of Fascist thugs someone had coordinated sufficiently well for them to act as a small militia. They had been attempting to take over the secret military command bunker, known as the Glory Hole, in Portsmouth. This plan had been thwarted by Jack Austin and Della Lovington. Della was a Detective Inspector, down from the Met in London, but also MI5, and coincidentally, she thought she had resigned but hadn’t. Della did, however, think Jack should retire, and had told him so several times, much to the chagrin of the more experienced and uglier of the two cockneys.

Mandy was exhausted and looked it. It had been a hell of a few weeks for her, too, coordinating the police operation, being in the thick of it, being shot at, and eventually rescuing Jack from a fireball sea, off Sponge Bob’s lifeboat, that Jack called Thunderbird 4. She was grateful for some small mercies in that they had moved from Thunderbirds, where everybody wanted to be Virgil, onto Star Trek; no argument, Jack was Kirk. Mandy knew she was someone, but couldn’t be bothered to find out who, likely O’Hurra she thought, subconsciously playing around with her ear.

Bruce knew all this. He knew about Jack and Mandy, and knew he was b****y Scotty, engineering up the beer and dilithium crystals (cheese and onion crisps) and didn’t expect an answer from Mandy. He patted the shoulder of the handsome, long-suffering, over a short period of time, police Detective Superintendent and wife of Chief Detective Inspector Jack (Jane) Austin sitting in front of him, and disappeared back to the bar of his deadbeat, but homely, local pub.

Mandy took a sip from her drink and placed it on the table. The ice lumps c*****d and alerted her to how quiet it was in the saloon bar of the pub that had the look of Fag Ash Lil’s boudoir. None of the locals looked at or cared about the decor, it was a quintessential English Pub; no music, occasional hubbub, people looking at each other, not the wallpaper or the beer-sodden carpet, or Fag Ash Lil for that matter.

Mandy massaged her chin, and Jack observed; he liked to watch her fondling her face. He was an ugly, overly large, cockney barrow boy, and if you didn’t comprehend rhyming slang, it was not his problem, communication not being one of his stronger suits, which was probably why Mandy was O’Hurra. Mandy, aware her husband was watching her intimate facial movements, allowed her index finger to slip into her not insubstantial nose, rattled it around and waited for a response. She was an elegant, handsome, fifty-five year old woman, “a real woman,” Jack said of her; his Sophia Loren of Portsea Island. All bollocks, but she liked him saying it, though she did worry she should have had her brains tested and also gone to Specsavers, as she had married the truly bonkers, ugly, cockney barrow boy spiv.

He turned his good eye and scrutinised her nose-rattling antics and could not resist a smile; she caught him, and he tried to recall his serious face, but failed. She had her man back, thank the Lord, she thought, the feckin’ eejit, and just in time, too, as Roy and Will came into the pub, looking sheepish; perceptive and intelligent men, she thought.

Mandy knew enough, also, to know these two academics were more than just good friends of her husband. They were the conduit by which Jack had communicated with Ghost; he’d not said as much to her, but he knew she knew. Wherever Ghost had been in the strife-torn world, the three of them had intermittently been in touch and acted as a home front, or rear-guard, for the extraordinarily talented, though disgraced, trauma surgeon.

As a Professor of Politics, Will Manfred was often seconded to Fact Finding missions into these hot-spot parts of the world, and Roy, a Professor of Military Strategy, would be on those trips, presumably advising on the military risks should the UN need to be involved. Who they both fed back to, apart from Jack, she could only guess, as Jack had not said. He would tell her eventually, and she bided her time; she had, after all, only just found out about Ghost. Mandy was a shrewd woman and her husband knew this. He called her a smart biscuit; she thought he meant sharp cookie, but maybe not, as she often felt like a Jammy Dodger.

‘Bollix?’ Jack shouted, making Mandy jump, and the transformation from the slumped, ugly elephant to an animated, and overtly bonhomie-fuelled, charging rhinoceros, caused him to bump her sideways as he jumped up to get in a round of drinks for his friends, his balls being at risk of dropping off if he didn’t get in first, the t**t. So because of these daft masculine rituals, she was now sprawled, like a dozy cow, across the pub banquette seat.

‘Bollix yerself, Jack!’ Will shouted back, nudging him into the table, worried for his own balls, Mandy imagined, as she righted herself, balanced and steadied the table of glasses like a consommé juggler.

‘Bollix, you bollix. Bruce!’ Roy shouted, hand gesticulating that it was he who would be buying the first round.

Bruce knew these men only too well, and smiled; ‘Three Bollix then?’ and they tittered at the incongruity like kids at the back of the class, as Bruce poured from the real ale tap. Bernie oozed nearer, like an infectious bacteria on the bar surface, and coincidentally caught the eye of the landlord. ‘Cheese sandwich, Bernie?’ Bruce called, allowing a sideways grin to Mandy to show he was in wind-up mode.

‘f**k-off, Bernie, bollix to a bollicking cheese sandwich, everyone knows you can’t trade a drink for food. Tell him, Bruce, as a landlord you should know that,’ Jack exclaimed, and looked like he was fully supported by the professors.

This was a long-standing, and likely to continue as such, wind-up, as just the once, Bernie had asked for a cheese sandwich on Jack’s round. It was as if the whole of civilisation had collapsed if Jack’s reaction had been anything to go by, and so the ritual had been continued. Mandy had told him to let it go and it would end, eventually, but in her heart she knew there were some things you just can’t tell children, especially those at the back of the class; they will never learn.

Bruce did his mental maths and arrived at a total for the round. ‘Dilithium crystals, Bernie, lager?’

‘What?’ Jack was dumbfounded, speechless, although Mandy knew this would only be a temporary condition. It was not so much the cheese sandwich, or the feckin’ cheese and onion crisps, or even Jack would feel he was buying the gutter press a three-course meal; she knew what it was and anticipated the reaction with a degree of mischievous relish. ‘f*****g cotton candy, pansy-arsed, daft lager…’ Jack looked to the professors, and like Laurel and Hardy, which was just how they both looked, they nodded agreement and said, “f**k off, Bruce” in unison, like they always did. Will, whom Jack called Stan, spoke in a squeaky voice and added an animated scratching of his head, while Roy fiddled with an imaginary tie he watched bouncing on his rotund beer belly.

Grinning benignly, Bruce unmoved by the wobbly ogre frame of Jack and the unlikely clever bonce comedy duo, plonked the pint of lager on the counter beside Bernie and told Jack the cost of the round.

‘How much? How much?’ Jack’s regular rejoinder, more energetically espoused this evening because of the injustice attached to the order than the subsequent tally. ‘Your round, Ollie,’ Jack said and, hitching his trousers in a harrumph manner, he took his Dogs Bollix to the table, mentally grabbing his balls so they remained attached whilst multitasking a gentle fondle. Meanwhile the mild-mannered rotund Roy (Ollie) Rogers placed his hard-earned Hi Hoh Silver onto the bar with a generous smile across his wobbly chops, and nudged Bernie with his pansy-arsed lager, so it spilled onto his already disgusting, gutter press trousers, for good measure.

Everyone in the bar had enjoyed the contretemps, including Bernie, who applied a nicotine-stained grin and directed his supersonic, grimy, grey-hairy, fag ash lugholes to listen into the discreet conversation at the pub table. A conversation he would not be invited to attend, but that would not stop him eavesdropping, even though he knew he would get the droppings, as and when Jack needed it broadcasting; anonymously attributed, naturally.

Mandy was on Fred Alert, as Jack’s one eye, so recently morose, was now energised. She could see the puckered skin that sank into his vacant right eye socket, twitch, and the iridescent silvery vertical scar that stretched from his forehead onto his aged, wrinkled, liver-spotted cheek, wobble and pick up reflected light. It was as if the traumatic scarring to his face was a beacon to portray his emotions, of which the incongruous man had many, not least crying at the drop of a hat. However, this was his Give me gyp twitch, as apparently his nan in Stepney, the East End of London, used to say. Probably all bollocks as well, as his explanation varied every time, but this was her man, and she was his trouble and strife, and there was no doubt that the recently sullen, contemplative husband of hers was now also on Fred Alert.

Bernie, the stick thin, diminutive, grubby reporter just two fags away from having to walk into the pub with his drip stand on wheels, edged closer. Mandy gave him a frigid stare, a head gesture, and Bernie moved back to his sandwich, cheese and onion Dilithium crystals and Nancy boy beer; he may be a revolting gutter press journalist, but he was no fool.

Jack noticed Mandy’s gesturing to Bernie. ‘Thanks, luv, this is not for Bernie,’ he said, his non-drinking hand on her thigh, where it should be. It was a thing they had, and she liked it, his overtly dirty-old-man s****l nature, and his desire for her, not only physically but emotionally and spiritually. She loved him and he loved her, and they could not get enough of each other. However, she also knew something serious was about to happen, as his hand left her thigh, which had been at advanced liberties position; ordinarily, she wouldn’t let his hand rise so far, so early in the evening.

‘Right, my round, Bollix?’ Jack shouted, as if Ollie and Stan were in another city, and, swinging his glass around like a Ouija board tumbler, he advanced unsteadily toward the bar, barging past the academically gifted comedy duo.

See, she knew her man, and knew something serious was going to happen, in that he was about to buy his round, but she cautioned him nonetheless: ‘Jack, the Queen?’

Stan scratched his Laurel head, responding to the stare from Mandy, and so the three socialists, not quite Republican, stood and toasted her Majesty with the dribbles of ale that remained in their glasses, but, before they could sing the National Anthem, For she’s a jolly good fella, they were completely thrown into a purple perplexity as Mandy rolled on the banquette in energetic mirth, so much so that Jack’s trailing dirty-old-man hand fell off its current station and assigned task, feeling for her b*a strap outside of her shiny, silky blouse.

‘What?’ he asked, irritated. He was enjoying feeling her shoulder and imagining what lay beneath, and the other two musketeers also thought, what?, and looked to Mandy’s now exposed b*a strap, aware of what was happening, as Jack had spoken his thoughts.

‘You daft bugger, we’re meeting the Queen tomorrow, and I don’t think she would like your ugly, hung-over face quite as much as I do, my love.’

Jack’tangnan and Ollie Porthos looked like they’d just noticed Cardinal Richelieu order a cheese sandwich and a pint of lager before they could run him through. Jack and Ollie turned to the other musketeer, who scratched his head in a thoughtful silent film reverie, his I need to spill some beans face on.

‘Something to say, Stan?’

‘I’ve heard from Ghost and he is going to the Palace tomorrow, and furthermore, he has no invite. You know he will get in,’ Stan reported, sighing. ‘I think you need to speak to a few people, Jack…’ he looked at Mandy, ‘…or you?’ (They knew Jack and Mandy were associated with MI5, not whether they were retired spooks or even still in the police, so there's no point in asking the professors, but I am sure we will find out later as the story progresses; my money is on he’s still in, but a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat (spook talk, that), don’t you know, and I do; I know things.)

Mandy pulled out her bat-phone and blindly called Father Mike and informed him of Ghost’s intentions. Father Mike was a Catholic Priest and longstanding friend of Jack, as well as being his conduit, and now also Mandy’s, in MI5. He would sort it as well, but she did wonder what Ghost was up to. Jack didn’t seem bothered. Did he know something, she mused, smiling to herself, wondering if Ghost had a morning suit, as she further recalled the fiasco that had occurred the last time Jack was at the Palace (see A Barrow Boy's Cadenza). Jack had been awarded the George Medal, and his dog, Martin, the scruffy ginger Border Terrier, the George Bone. For tomorrow, she had at least got Jack a morning suit that fitted, having on the previous occasion, ruined the Prime Minister’s and attended the ceremony wearing an ill-fitting suit provided by Prince Phillip. To rub salt into the Duke of Edinburgh’s wounds, Jack had not returned the suit, but had auctioned it off to provide funds for the children they had recently rescued from a paedophile ring. She imagined they would have some explaining to do at the Palace tomorrow.

‘You wearing your green dress and Jackie’s cream hat, love?’ Jack had moved on, round of drinks purchased, his balls secured.

‘Yes,’ a despairing lilt, 'I will explain to the Queen I’m wearing the same dress as before, because you like me in it.’

‘She’ll understand, love. Tell her I fink it brings out the green in yer mince pies and goes well with your raving Barnet. Shite!’

‘What?’

‘Me tan brogues went into the sea.’ He relaxed, which signalled he had a contingency plan, and she decided not to enquire. The Queen had seen him before in an ill-fitting morning suit with his tan brogues that had juice, so she relaxed as well; with Jack, you have to take relaxation wherever and whenever you can, and the Queen knew this also.