Schultz jumping out of the car. Wading knee deep in a snowdrift on the sidewalk. At least that’s a help. The fucking snow has just frozen my ankles so I can’t feel one of them is broke. Jesus both my loafers have just come off. Hey jesus where did they go deep in this snow. And leaving me with wet fucking socks already. Fuck my loafers, shit my house. Jesus, it couldn’t be me that’s burning. My god. It is. A hose is up the fucking steps through my front door. With nobody in there all afternoon minding it. Jesus my ten thousand quid in foreign currency could burn, plus my private hoard of tax dodged cash. Never mind the heirloom letters my Prague great great grandmother wrote my Prague great great grandfather in Czech I could never read.
Schultz limping, skidding and falling in his snow encrusted socks. Getting up again and licking snow from his lips and shaking out the snow from jacket cuffs and sleeves. Lights flashing. The gleam of the fire apparatus reflecting shiny red on the snow. Jesus not one, two hoses are in the front door.
‘Back sir, back please. If you will.’
‘Hey that’s my house you’re in.’
‘Who might still be in there, sir.’
‘Nobody nobody. Hey but what the hell is happening.’
‘Your house is on fire sir. Have you any dangerous inflammables inside sir.’
‘Yeah. If perfume burns. My wife’s got two hundred varieties. You name the brand and she’s got it. In a big bottle. And I got contracts and cash in there.’
‘Well sir any minute now you might only have ashes and charcoal, please don’t attempt to enter.’
‘O my god I should live so long.’
‘Just a moment sir. If you will. What is it John.’
‘The kitchen, sir. Suits, clothes, shirts, pictures, papers all piled up on the table and burning like an inferno. Smell of paraffin oil. Too early to say. But we may be dealing with suspicious circumstances. We’ve nearly got it now under control. We’re lifting up the floorboards above in what looks like a library.’
‘You’re what. Stop. Don’t tear my house apart for Christ’s sake. Stop. Let me in there.’
‘Please. Get back sir. No one is allowed in the house till we know the fire is under control.’
‘John, this is the owner here.’
‘How do you do sir. We certainly will avoid doing any unnecessary damage. But the fire was eating into the kitchen ceiling. We’ll let you know when it’s safe to go in.’
‘Hey jesus guys cut down on the damage will you and I’ll give you reduced reductions to a West End show.’
‘I’m afraid sir we can’t accept any kind of gratuity however well meant. And be assured we will avoid doing any unnecessary damage.’ ‘OK, OK. Christ we brought back fish to cook for dinner.’
‘Well the only cooking you’ll be doing in there at the moment sir is on the embers of your kitchen table.’
‘O momma meeo.’
‘And if it hadn’t been for the prompt action of a neighbour living behind you sir, the entire building would now be a shell.’
‘Christ when can I go back into my house.’
‘Not for a little while sir, not till the whole premises is checked. Meanwhile sir can we give you something to put on your feet.’
‘Holy christ my shoes. Back there in the snow drift.’
‘Well at least your socks sir, fire engine red, are of an appropriate colour.’
Schultz returning to the limousine. Tiptoeing in his frozen woollen footwear along the pavement past the long line of stopped cars. Watched by black faces in all the embassy windows across the street. O my god. He’s smiling and waving at me. Jesus that’s wonderful. The Ambassador’s back. He must have survived the fucking coup in Zumzimzamgazi. At least that’s a spark of cheerfulness in this abyss. Yet what did I do to deserve this. When everything was suddenly going so smooth for two seconds. Petrol. Jesus arson. It’s fucking her again. I got to change the locks for the third time. And put iron bars for a door on the house. Jesus my last emotional trauma is not fifteen minutes old yet when I got another already to torture me.
‘Jorricks it’s us.’
‘O dear sir. Can I do anything.’
‘Play Ave Maria will you. I got to soothe my nerves. And find my shoes they’re planted in the snow out there somewhere between here and the kerb.’
The side window shades of his limousine drawn. Schultz with bare feet propped up on the jump seat. The soothing strains of Gounod’s Ave Maria. Close my eyes. Not even erotic images are blinding out this latest disaster in my life. With the only thing that I can imagine that’s worth imagining, is Louella. And that one and only night. O god the soft pouting magic between her legs. Her cunt tasting like the sweetest nectar. Not since Izzy Goldstein’s pineapple soda he made back in his drug store in Woonsocket, have I ever savoured anything as beautiful as that ambrosia. Holy jeez I swear if I ever get near her again I’m going to give her a sample of teenage premature ejaculation that will knock her over. Even if I have to blow a gasket like Al. She’ll get an astonishment she’ll never forget. The very first time I ever clapped eyes on her I wanted to clap my wide open mouth straight on her crotch. And once when she wore satin tight moss green slacks over her two long tapering thighs, I was left drooling for days. Jesus I’m abreacting and going sex crazed nuts out of my mind. How am I able to think of such things when my house has just nearly burned down. Procreation must be stronger than cremation if you’re not cremated first. Someone’s knocking on the door of the crematorium. Holy shit I must have fallen asleep. What the fuck is that.
Schultz bolting awake. The fire brigade officer tapping on the limousine window. Schultz pressing the window switch. The glass gliding down. The fire officer removing his helmet, leaning forward to speak in.
‘Sir, it’s all right for you to return to your premises. However there are some questions we’ll be having to ask, but we can come back later when you’ve settled in.’
Jorricks pulling up in front of number four Arabesque Street. The limousine parking in the wake of the flattened snowdrifts left by the departed vehicles of the London fire brigade. Jorricks in his black suit and peaked black cap, following his barefooted master up the steps carrying his snow encrusted loafers and red socks and entering the Sigmund Franz Isadore Schultz townhouse. The front door askew on its hinges and with its broken locks and latches.
‘Jorricks this is horrible. Unbelievably horrible. Tell the Dorchester Hotel I’m coming over.’
‘Very good sir.’
In the hall, Schultz righting an overturned table and picking up the ceramic pieces of the lamp previously resting there. The library door open where I left it locked. Jesus my safe door too is open. The foreign currency gone. All the Hungarian forints, German marks, Swiss francs. My poor money, my poor house. Which jesus has, now that I’m counting again what’s left of what I have, has sixteen windows in front instead of the fourteen I thought I had. This is all worse than the scorched smell of dead bodies. Once more remind myself for the umpteenth time, expect the worst and that’s what you’ll get only it will be much worse. The sooner I escape to a residence of charm and character in the countryside surrounded by a fifty foot high stone wall and a fifty foot deep moat, the better. Here I am with my first ever hit on my hands, a chauffeured limousine I’m not hysterical about affording and I end up walking around London in a snowstorm in my socks, which of all fucking days, I had to pick out a pair to match the fire trucks while my house is burning down. The red carnation in my buttonhole might just as well be sticking out my ass. Today’s code name at the Dorchester is going to be changed the moment I get there to being double barrelled. So anyone calling can ask to speak to Mr Attulah Shattered Shambles. My life has got to the point now where the only thing to do is disguise myself as an Arab.
‘I’m afraid sir, the Dorchester is fully booked.’
‘What. My suite too.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Holy shit now even the Dorchester is leaving me destitute.’
‘Not to worry sir. I’ll air o
ut the bedroom, build a fire and we’ll be as right as rain in a jiffy.’
‘Jesus Jorricks don’t talk about building another fire. Just turn up the thermostat for the central heating.’
‘Very good sir. And I can, you know, use the pantry upstairs for a little cooking.’
‘You do that. I’m going to see how bad the damage is down there.’
‘It’s bad sir.’
‘Thanks for the warning.’
Barefooted Schultz descending the stairs to the kitchen. Stepping on top of the door smashed flat and floating in the water an inch deep on the floor. Look at this total loss. Up through the ceiling I’m looking into my own sacred library with books I was even planning to read one day. Smoke through the whole house. Not a penny of insurance was I carrying on my personal effects. Why waste money and a fortune in premiums. And a fortune in my chattels promptly get burned up. Hold my nose in this rising stinking steam. Jesus I can’t, I got to catch my breath and give my heart a chance to start beating again. Not only every single solitary pair of shoes but every suit, jacket, shirt, tie of mine, fucking burned into charred remnants. This could make you cry. Plus make me have to go barefoot to the shoemaker in St James. Christ I am crying. Every one of my six new silk polka dot bathrobes I bought at the Harrods sale reduced to a couple of polka dots. O god what’s this. Pictures of actresses. And my debutante dancing star Margot who signed her picture to me with a welcome suggestive remark as well as with love. And who I always wanted desperately to fuck. And who just moved in across the garden from his Lordship. Jeez even my casting volumes of Spotlight. Isn’t there anything personal of mine that that bitch has left undamaged. Any second don’t tell me that in this mess is going to be unearthed the charred edges of my foreign currency. If that’s destroyed it is going to break my heart. Only that I know she took it. Two thousand quid of which is the French francs I was going to go to Paris with. I’ll be asked questions. Police will arrest her. Could be the answer to all my prayers. Only holy shit. She is the mother of my children. Two innocent sweet little babies with their mother a jailbird. Plus here I am their father. Two gorgeous little twin daughters who could be debutantes one day. Hanging out at Ascot. Marrying the top most acceptable people like his Lordship in the peerage. With a beautiful wedding just like his in Westminster Abbey. O K God. So keep giving me disaster on a platter and pieces of ass on a spoon. I don’t give a fuck about anything else so long as I get Louella as dessert. But jesus, if you leave me on this sexually deprived desert any longer I swear I might fall in love with Jorricks first. He’s been a godsend in at least keeping away that black cloud of a wife with her voodoo hanging over my life. Nothing I ever did to her could deserve this terrible awful catastrophe she’s done to me. And O no. I don’t believe it. At times like this you wish to god you were deprived of your eyesight and sense of smell. Right under these bloody charred remains of my first genuine Savile Row suit, only a month old, are both of my gold watches from my father. Given him by his father who got them from his father who made the fucking things up a side street in Prague before people in the rest of the world even knew anything about fancy horologically perfect gold watches that could ring with tiny chimes. Look. My cufflinks. With the big diamonds from Uncle Werb dug out of the centre and gone. Why didn’t she just steal the cufflinks whole. How could she stoop so low. Shit she could. Look. My silver letter opener given me by my parents on my high school graduation. Bent like a pretzel. The engraving scorched. For Sigmund.
Wishing him success always as we know will come with every letter he opens. Mom and dad I got a surprise for you. That letter opener just recently opened up the beginning of a big fucking legal action from my wife. She had a household of stuff she could have incinerated of sentimental value. Instead the bitch threw everything of financial worth she could find of mine into the conflagration. To leave me barefoot shivering and cold. Smoked out of house and home. While she, jesus I can’t stand the thought of the expense, has an eight room flat in Kensington. Not counting a big fucking front hall you could graze sheep in, plus a kitchen, pantry and four bathrooms with a nannie, a housekeeper and daily help running around them. And she’s chiselling diamonds out of my cufflinks I was going to wear to receive the Queen.
Schultz climbing up on a chair. Standing on his bare soaked cold toes to peer and reach into a cupboard and open a board inside. Got to get higher on my one good ankle. Jesus, she’s got it. This too. Holy god. Eleven and a half thousand quid sterling tax free. Another nice lesson how to save money by not opening the biggest safety deposit box they got in London. Where I should have installed a mattress and slept in it. What did she do this to me for. I need a second now to gather up my guts after they have been emptied out in my arms by an Arab scimitar swipe. There could be strychnine now put in everything. Like there was rat poison last time she broke into this house. Hey jesus what’s this stuff hidden up here in the secret cupboard I’m sniffing. It’s fucking kerosene oil.
‘Holy living crucified shit.’
Schultz slipping on the chair his nose stuck in the vessel of oil and loosing his one footed balance backwards, clutching the container as he falls splashing ass first in the water. Sending waves lapping across the floor. Now I need a row boat. While I’m soaked in kerosene oil which I’ve just now fucking dumped all over me and she must have dumped to start the fire. Just so she could make sure no trace was left of stealing my money. My present Harris tweed jacket and my flannel trousers could explode now in flames like a torch. The only clothes in the world I got left to wear. I may not have seen much action in the Coast Guard but this is fucking battle stations. After for Christ’s sake, the ship has fucking sunk. And she’s like a circling shark in the water. Waiting to strike to take off my legs after she has made an appetizer out of nipping off my cock and balls. But she better remember one fucking thing though. I made what I made out of my fucking sweated blood. And with my sweat and blood I’ll keep every penny of what I’ve got left. And I’ll fight to the fucking end. Through thick, through thin, and through paraffin. But jesus, this is getting to be a full day. Which has already taken the permanent wave permanently out of my pubic hair.
And is
Driving me straight
To Jerusalem
To the
Wailing wall
Wet assed
And all
5
‘Ah, good morning Schultz, and what brings you yet once more, early dawn to the offices of our rapidly expanding
5 theatrical empire. But of course, you’ve rushed in to sign what appear to be top priority contracts just arrived by messenger. Rebecca here and I were just at this very moment discussing a little gossip column item about you in today’s early edition of the evening newspaper. With a picture of your town-house no less. Dare one imagine there could have been a fire in such an attractively elegant abode.’
‘Yeah Binky. A fire. But that’s nothing compared to what I’ve been reading about you. And about which I want a retraction printed in no unminced fucking words.’
‘You’d better hold my calls Rebecca. Seems our most favourite fellow director of Sperm Productions is about to call one of his extraordinary general fucking meetings. And Rebecca, I do think we may require a little coffee and chocolate doughnuts for elevenses.’
‘Milk or cream Mr Schultz.’
‘Just bloody plain black for me.’
‘Ah but Schultz dear me aren’t you going to put down your armful of parcels. Upon which I do declare that I see royal warrants emblazoned. And from the best of London’s haberdasher’s. And upon my word, what on earth have you got on. By my perceptions it appears as if you are in an old pervert’s mackintosh. And a pair of, yes, the more usual blue green striped pyjamas very much favoured by the more prurient of such desperate gentlemen when making their visits to the remoter located gents’ conveniences in our better London parks.’
‘Just tell me when you’re finished with your usual shit Binky.’
‘And, good gra
cious me, slippers, too. Do we owe all this to, O no. Not to your fire I hope. A debacle about which I understand you had our publicity agent busy an entire evening acquainting every paper in Fleet Street.’
‘You have your fucking nerve. Talking about publicity.’
‘Well of course we do from time to time get a little notice here and there. To which I must confess we’re not entirely opposed. But speaking of publicity, Al’s picture was in the paper this morning without his toupee. Tell me what fresh news is there of our dear friend. We tried to visit and had sent over some exotics in both fruit and flowers for the poor dear old chap. Last information was that he was hourly sinking and not expected to remain long with us. We volunteered our help in the matter to his little lady. Indeed she seemed already bereaved. And I do hope Schultz you don’t intend appearing like that at the funeral.’
‘When it’s official I’ll be wearing plenty. And don’t worry he hasn’t sunk out of sight yet.’
‘Schultz you do speak as if you wished he might do just that. Surely you haven’t forgotten that noble man got you most if not all of your investment money. While at the same time gaining you entree to London’s more rarefied celebrity circles. And you know Schultz, the picture is becoming quite clear. What in fact have you yourself actually invested and risked in cash in our little smash hit.’
‘I put my whole life in that fucking production never mind money. That’s why you’re going to print a fucking retraction that you’re the producer. Or I go see my fucking lawyers about it. And let me tell you something else. You Binky are going to sink one of these days. And out of sight.’
‘Ah the coffee thank god has come. Dear Rebecca, thank you. Our fellow director Izzy here at this ungodly hour of the morning, is not only just about to cast curses upon me but is threatening to sue me. Surely Schultz you don’t mind my calling you Izzy short for Isadore.’
‘You call me what you want. I want a retraction.’
‘As you will notice Schultz we have doughnuts with the nice big holes. Especially for you and your lawyers to indulge your proclivities. Now dear me. Pray speak sir. Do tell me. How shall I sink out of sight. Could be a most preferred condition I assure you. I’m always doing it in the deepest chair in the furthest corner of my club. By the way must propose you as a member Schultz.’