Mr Landen Has No Brain. Stephen Walker
It stood before her, magnificent, Wyndham’s first ever caravan to be completely covered in foam rubber. You could throw yourself at it all day and never get hurt. Not that the two hippy geeks staring out of its window looked like they wanted to throw themselves at it. They looked like they wanted to throw her at something. But to do that they’d have to leave the caravan and, when she’d called round the other day, they’d refused to do so, pushing the rent out through a slot in the door. The sign on the doorknob might have said WYNDHAM FINISHING SCHOOL FOR DAINTY YOUNG LADIES but, to Sally, they were just two geeks.
She said, ‘Cthulha meet Daisy. She’s helping me make the camp safe.’
Hands in tuxedo pockets, cigarette in mouth, Cthulha eyed Daisy from a distance of nine inches. ‘It’s flying.’
‘Floating,’ Sally beamed.
‘Jesus.’
Daisy floated tethered to the caravan door, chewing a foam rubber square Sally’d given her to keep her entertained. The cow gazed at a pink sports car parked ten feet away. Open-topped it stood so low you’d have to lie down to sit in it.
Hands in pockets, Cthulha leaned forward. Her face now one inch from Daisy’s she too watched the car. ‘Know what that is?’
‘Moo?’
‘That’s my Spooder Yo-Yo.’
‘A Spooder Yo-Yo?’ Sally laughed. ‘What the hell’s a Spooder Yo-Yo? It sounds like someone who got shoved out of an airlock in Star Wars.’
Cthulha attempted a withering stare. ‘For your information, no one got shoved out of an airlock in Star Wars. And the Spooder Yo-Yo was the grooviest car of 1968.’
‘Sure it was.’
‘It was Greek,’ Cthulha protested. ‘The title lost a little in translation. But secret agent Carnaby Soho drove one in all her films.’
Sally frowned. ‘Carnaby Soho?’
‘You remember Carnaby Soho.’
‘I’ve never heard of her.’
‘Everyone’s heard of Carnaby Soho; pink-clad super-spy, righter of wrongs and, in later years, serial thwarter of the evil Mullineks.’
‘Mullineks?’
‘Queen of the mad moon lesbians.’
‘Cthulha, where exactly do you get your videos?’
‘You must have heard of Mullineks. Everyone has.’
‘Like they’ve all heard of Carnaby Soho?’
‘But Mullineks was even hornier than Hudson Leick.’
‘Hudson what?’
Then Cthulha started singing.
‘Carnaby Soho
making all the guys go whoa whoa.
Cruising in your Yo-Yo.
Letting through your hair the wind blow.
Carnaby Soho, do you know what you’ve done?
Having make the room go spun and spun and spun and spun and spun and spun and spun and spun … ’
‘Cthulha, I’ve no idea what you’re on about.’
‘It was Italian.’ She shrugged. ‘It lost something in translation.’
‘Yeah – the audience.’
Her face again inches from Daisy’s, Cthulha told the cow, ‘That car came with my big flash job. Want to know why you’ve not got one?’
‘Moo?’
‘Because only special people get a Spooder Yo-Yo. That’s what humans get to do. We get to sprawl naked across our car at sunrise and kiss it till it hurts. Cows just get to stand around chewing grass. It must look pretty flash to you.’
Sally assumed she meant the chrome-tube tangle that jutted from it at seemingly random angles.
Cthulha told Daisy, ‘My boyfriend’s souped it up with some weird technology of his. Now it does six hundred miles an hour and a thousand miles to the pint. How fast can you go?’
‘Cthulha,’ Sally said. ‘Not many people bother asserting their superiority over cattle.’
‘Says a woman who works for squirrels.’
‘I don’t work for squirrels.’ Suddenly she was looking everywhere but at Cthulha.
Cthulha looked upwards.
Sally looked upwards.
Mr Bushy was on the edge of the caravan roof. He looked down at them, wearing a little red crash helmet, with knicker elastic tied to his tail.
He bungee jumped off the caravan, boinged just above the ground, recoiled several feet into the air, plummeted again then hung there by the tail.
Sally turned red.
Cthulha said, ‘Even I can figure out what you’re doing.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Training it to do death defying stunts because you’re so desperate to be an entertainer’s assistant you’d even accept being assistant to a squirrel.’
‘And why shouldn’t I?’ she protested. ‘No one else’ll work with me, and I happen to be the best damn assistant this town’s got.’
‘Apart from that bit where you kill the turn.’
‘This is a showbiz town. I have to be in showbiz.’
Cthulha lowered her little round shades to the tip of her nose. She looked over their rims at her. ‘Sally, the fact that Charlie Williams once played a venue within ten miles of the place doesn’t make it a showbiz town.’ She prodded her sunglasses back into place. Hands in pockets, she watched the squirrel dangle. ‘Are you leaving this here?’
Sally said, ‘He likes hanging there.’
‘Says who?’
‘I can tell he does.’
‘Does it pay rent? I can’t see Uncle Al letting it stay for free.’
‘Mr Bushy pays three pence a week with dropped coins he finds under caravans.’
‘And Dobbin?’
‘Daisy.’
‘Does it pay rent?’
Before Sally could answer, Teena appeared from round the far side of her mobile home. Gaze fixed on the offices, jaw clenched, she strode towards them. If she’d been a bull (and not just engaged to one) she’d have been snorting.
Sally took it that things hadn’t gone well at the mobile home.
Hands in pockets, Cthulha watched Teena all the way; ‘Jesus. Imagine that spread naked across your car.’
‘I take it you mean Dr Rama.’
‘That’s a doctor?’
‘And she’s not a “that”. She’s a woman.’
‘Oh yeah. You’re still into that hardline feminist “women aren’t objects” crap aren’t you? No wonder you never have any fun.’
Sally rolled her eyes.
Teena reached the offices, pulled open the door and entered. Its lax spring pulled the door to behind her.
Cthulha watched the door, imagining getting up to God knew what. ‘So, what’s the story?’
‘That big mobile home.’
Cthulha glanced across at it.
Sally said, ‘Her assistant’s