Over the summer I began work on my first novel, Resistance, which is currently in the writing stage. At the same time, I took time to focus on the writing of short stories by taking a second year module dedicated to the form. It was also during this time that the writing group known as the Fosbraey Five was formed. I feel it would be prudent now to post the best of my efforts during the course of this module, starting with yet another parody, this time inspired by the Ernest Hemingway short story 'Indian Camp'. It seemed to be very popular among the other members of the Five.
At the back of a hospital another ambulance was parked. The two Indian takeaway delivery boys stood waiting.
‘Sorry’, said Doctor Dad. ‘You won’t be needed. I have been to M&S.’
The two delivery boys bowed their heads in sadness and walked away.
Doctor Dad and, for some strange reason, his son, Nick, got into the back of the ambulance and the delivery boys shoved it off and one of them got in for a ride home. The engine had broken, but Doctor Dad felt he would look silly turning up on foot, so intended to allow the ambulance to roll down the street and jump out at the last moment. Doctor Dad’s Uncle George had also decided to come along, and sat in the passenger seat. The other delivery boy shoved the ambulance off and got in to turn the steering wheel when necessary.
The two ambulances started off in the dark. Nick heard the brakes of the other ambulance quite a way ahead of them in the mist.
‘Cor, blimey, that’s a loud pair of brakes for me to hear them this far off, isn’t it, Dad?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay.’
Nick lay back with Doctor Dad’s arm around him. Dad looked over at the delivery boys in case they thought him a bit fruity, but they were too busy touching each other in quick choppy strokes. Dad felt more at ease.
It was cold on the road. The Indian who was turning the steering wheel was working very hard, but clearly not hard enough since the other ambulance moved further ahead in the mist all the time. Lazy, that’s what it was. He had not pushed hard enough.
‘Where are we going, Dad?’ Nick asked.
‘Over to the Indian takeaway. There’s an Indian lady very sick. Either that or giving birth.’
‘Oh,’ said Nick.
‘Can’t you say more than that?’
‘Like what?’ said Nick.
‘Show some interest in my job if you want to come along.’
‘Oh, okay,’ said Nick.
‘Nick!’
‘Cool,’ said Nick.
‘Yes.’
‘When will we be home, Dad? Nick asked.
‘When another beautiful Indian baby has been introduced to the world.’
‘Will we miss Doctor Who?’ asked Nick.
‘Yes.’
‘I already hate this woman,’ said Nick.
‘Me too. That’s why I’m going to give her a Caesarean with a dirty knife.’
‘Ha,’ said Nick.
‘Lol,’ said Dad.
On the other end of the road they found the other ambulance overturned. Uncle George was smoking cannabis in the dark. It’s just a thing he likes to do.
Rather than drive up to the takeaway, they chose to walk up from the beach through a meadow that was soaking wet with something Dad hoped was dew but which he had a sneaking suspicion was something far more sinister, following a young man who had somehow found a lantern and decided to light it. Then they went into the woods and followed a trail of something I will not specify that led to the logging road that ran back into the hills and then went underground to a secret takeaway area, and we passed a chip shop and then a fish shop and then a fish and chip shop and then a Chinese and then for some reason walked into a public convenience where the woman had chosen to have her baby.
On the floor of the lavatory there lay a young woman who had been trying to have her baby for two days and had, it turned out, been relocated here when they refused to pay any more seating tax for remaining in the premises. For some reason it turns out you have to pay extra to have you baby in the takeaway, but if you take it away, as the name implies you should, it costs less. I don’t know. Capitalism gone mad.
She screamed just as Nick and the two Indians followed his father – that’s Nick’s father, not the Indians’ father: sorry for being unclear – and Uncle George into the lavatory. The room smelled very, very, very bad.
‘This place clearly hasn’t been cleaned for a while. And this is what we pay taxes for?’ asked Nick.
‘It’s not the government’s fault, Nick,’ said the Doctor. ‘Mr. Clegg is having a particularly hard time working with the coalition government due to their being more Conservative MPs than Liberals, meaning Mr. Clegg has had to turn his back on all his policies and spend six days of the week at home watching Bargain Hunt.’
‘Oh,’ said Nick.
‘I know,’ said the Doctor.
‘Sad,’ said Nick.
‘Very,’ said the Doctor.
On the top of the cistern lay the woman’s husband. He had stubbed his tow on the sofa three days before, and now was virtually incapacitated.
‘This lady is going to have a beautiful baby, Nick.’
‘I know. I’m not stupid. I think most people would be able to tell that,’ said Nick.
‘You don’t know,’ said his father.
‘I do. Her eggs have become fertilised by the male sperm and have developed over a period of nine months into a foetus. Now contractions have started, meaning the baby is soon to be born.’
Doctor Dad chose to ignore his son. If he wanted to come along, he would at least pretend to be learning something.
‘You don’t know,’ said his father.
‘Yes I do. We learned it at school in biology.’
His father looked at him. ‘Listen to me. You don’t know.’
Nick sighed. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t you?’ asked his father. Well then, listen to me. What she’s going through it called labour. Her eggs have become fertilised by the male sperm and have developed over a period of nine months into a foetus. Now contractions have started, meaning the baby wants to be born and she wants it to be born.'
‘I don’t want it to be born!’ screamed the lady.
‘Quiet you,’ said the Doctor in a kindly way.
‘I see,’ said Nick.
‘Did you honestly not know that? I would have thought everyone knew that. You’re a very stupid boy aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Nick.
‘I see,’ said the Doctor.
‘Oh, Daddy –‘
‘I told you before,’ the Doctor said out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Never call me Daddy around the guys.'
‘Sorry. But can’t you give her something to stop her screaming?’
‘No. I left my anaesthetic in the ambulance. I’ll look like a right tit if I go back and pick it up now, because then people would know I had forgotten it, and they would laugh at me. By the way, Nick – do you like spaghetti?’
‘Yes,’ said Nick.
‘Then hold on to this bowl of afterbirth for me, will you?’ Nick turned his face away, and the Doctor whispered ‘don’t tell social services.’
And then the baby was born. The Doctor screamed out in horror. The child was an ugly brute. It was knobblier than a piece of stem ginger. But the work was done.
‘That’s one for the medical journal, George,’ he said. ‘Doing a Caesarian with a spoon because you forgot you knife and sewing up with nine foot strawberry laces.’
‘And now, for lunch.’
He pulled back the lid on his lunchbox. His hand came away wet. He mounted on the edge of the toilet with a lamp in one hand and looked in. The sandwich was mashed to pieces, and was clearly well past its sell by date. The filling had separated from egg to mayo. The filling had flowed down into a pool at the bottom of the lunchbox.
‘I’m terribly sorry you had to see that, Nickie; it was an awful mess’.
‘Do M&S always make such horrible sandwiches?’ Nick asked.
‘No, that was very, very exceptional.’
‘Why was it out of date, Daddy?’
‘I don’t know, Nick. They didn’t check the label before putting it on the shelf, I suppose.’
‘Do many men forget to check the use by dates before buying things when shopping, Daddy?’
‘Not very many, Nick.’
‘Do many women?’
‘Hardly ever.’
‘Don’t they ever?’
‘Oh, yes. They do sometimes. But they blame it on the men anyway and if you don’t agree then you will never hear the end of it for days.’
‘Daddy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where did Uncle George go?’
‘I think he went home to catch Doctor Who.’
‘Without us?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jammy bastard,’ said Nick.
2011
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