The One Who Is Two (Book 1 of White Rabbit)

Chapter 8

  The road was all but deserted: a man with a dog passed by on the other side, ignoring him, and a woman with a push-chair turned into a driveway a hundred yards ahead. He was menaced by a few passing cars; these howled their fury at him, but screamed past in pursuit of other prey.

  Loofah was standing on the pavement, staring up at a grand old house of red brick. The building spoke of genteel Victorian prosperity, of top hats and frock coats, and ladies with wasp waists in crinoline and bonnets. 'Greenpastures Veterinary Clinic' proclaimed the brutally functional sign that had thrust itself out of the flowerbed.

  It was a pleasant street – unpretentiously respectable, basking quietly in the suburban sunshine – but unease crawled over Loofah's skin like an army of termites. He knew he was being watched: not by the absent residents but by the houses themselves, by the gardens and the trees, even by the lamp-posts and by the grinning pillar box that squatted menacingly on the opposite pavement like a scarlet toad. He looked around quickly, forcing himself not to run, then climbed the three steps to the blue painted door in the once elegant porch.

  He was in a waiting room; bags of dog food and cat litter crouched sullenly on a shabby display stand and a cartoon puppy grinned down at him from over a marble fireplace. At the far side of the room, a green uniformed nurse sat behind a dark wood reception desk.

  A door to another room opened in a blaze of fluorescent whiteness and a waft of disinfectant, and a man emerged clutching a leather lead and an empty, dog-less collar. Closing the door behind him with gentle solemnity, he smiled sadly at the nurse and left.

  Loofah crossed to reception desk, treading softly, while strange muffled noises gurgled out from the behind the closed door and bubbled through his skull like boiling mud. The nurse gave him a tight lipped smile that failed to reach her darting, angry eyes.

  'Sorry to bother you…' he began, but was interrupted by a sonorous voice from the other room: 'Next!'

  'That's you, Mrs Frimpton,' the nurse said pleasantly, speaking to someone behind him.

  An elderly woman with cotton wool hair and Mary Whitehouse spectacles was sitting on an upright chair with a white wire basket on her knees; a fluffy ginger cat gazed out at Loofah with pale green malice. He turned quickly away as the old lady got up.

  'Is your animal on a lead, sir?' snapped the nurse, addressing him.

  'My animal?' blurted Loofah, praying that Mrs Frimpton wouldn't recognise him.

  'Your animal,' confirmed the nurse.

  His animal: he looked quickly around the floor, found nothing, then slapped his pockets. Where had he put it? Had it run away? A cold worm of panic wriggled across his belly and he winced under the nurse's angry glare. Behind his back, the old lady knocked politely and opened the consulting room door. Then he remembered: he didn't have a pet. He wanted to use the phone, that's all – a quick call, local, give them fifty pee to cover it – because he hadn't managed to find a call-box since leaving the Office.

  'Actually, I just wondered if I could – .'

  'We do ask clients to keep their dogs on a lead at all times,' interrupted the nurse, looking suspiciously around the floor at his feet.

  'Of course,' he said, 'but – .'

  'Because we don't want any fighting between patients, do we?'

  'Naturally, no – .'

  'And cats in baskets – do you have a basket?'

  'No, but you see – .'

  'Most of our clients are quite happy to follow our few simple little rules.'

  'That's nice, but – .'

  'Although there are one or two exceptions,' she finished, giving him a meaningful glare.

  Loofah squirmed with embarrassment, longing hopelessly for a dog on a lead or a cat in a basket. Behind him the consulting room door opened and closed. He turned quickly to examine the cartoon puppy over the fireplace as the old lady came over to the reception desk. More muffled gulping noises bubbled out from the closed consulting room.

  'Everything alright, Mrs Frimpton?' said the nurse, 'We've sorted little Ginger out, have we?'

  'Oh yes,' she replied, 'He's so wonderful is your Mr Abbott.'

  At that moment there was a loud belch from behind the door, followed by a gurgled 'Next!'.

  'The veterinary surgeon will see you now, sir,' said the nurse, addressing Loofah's back.

  'The veterinary surgeon,' he said slowly, to the grinning puppy.

  'Yes, sir. It's your turn.'

  The old lady was searching in her purse and thankfully didn't look up as Loofah crossed the room behind her. He noticed that her cat basket was now empty.

  As Loofah pushed open the consulting room door harsh fluorescent light assaulted his eyes and he inhaled neat disinfectant and surgical spirit. Shining metal instruments glinted menacingly on a stainless steel tray, and tubs of pills and bottles of coloured liquid were neatly arrayed on glass shelves, like clinical soldiers awaiting the call to arms. A black rubber topped examination table occupied the middle of the room and behind this squatted a mountain.

  A mountain of flesh, that is, a living pyramid: roll upon quivering roll of fat, vast cascades of blubber and entire land-slips of lard, all tumbling together into a shuddering, quaking vastness of bloated humanity.

  The body – the lower two thirds of the pyramid – was encased in a green clinical jacket. The buttons of this were hanging on for dear life, going far beyond the call of duty, and the material, moulded to the flesh as it strained to contain the trembling rolls of jelly, was stretched to tear-point and was decorated with an overlapping profusion of stains: huge patches of reeking sweat, shiny slides of grease and discrete blobs of some nameless matter, dried and cracked like desert mud.

  Above the green collar was the head, the top third of the pyramid. The flesh-folds here were naked, rolling and tumbling over each other in joyous abandon, slick with sebum and sweat. The eyes were invisible, engulfed by rolls of fat, but between two quivering cheeks, each the size of an elephant's buttock, was a pair of lips, full and sensual, cherub pink, trembling with eager depravity. And from between the lips protruded a tail, a fluffy ginger tail.

  The creature gulped – the folds of flesh convulsed and shivered, a quivering wave cascaded down the shuddering flanks, and a gout of blood-stained saliva spilled over the chin – and the tail slid between the lips and disappeared. The mountain belched and then it spoke, the words slurring and gurgling in its throat.

  'What have you got for me then?'

  As Loofah charged out of the waiting room, pushing past an alarmed Mrs Frimpton, he heard the nurse calling after him: did he want to settle up now or should she send an account?