That's How I Ended Up Killing Noel Edmonds

The man who sold me the phone didn’t look like your average car-boot vendor. He wore an oversized coat with the hood up and a scarf covered most of his face. “How much is the phone?”, I asked, trying not to look interested, as you do. I was interested, very. it was a trimphone, you know, one of those slim phones that made a high-pitched, shrill sort of noise. Very popular in the early seventies, but almost impossible to find nowadays, thanks to the big seventies revival that has seen the return of platform shoes and long leather coats “A pound ,” came the reply. I couldn’t pick it up fast enough. I gave him the pound and he said nothing. As I turned, I heard him say, “enjoy,” but didn’t bother to reply. There was nothing else there that day apart from a rather nice, grotesque, hard-plastic woody woodpecker that a bloke wanted twelve quid for because someone had told him it was ‘a collectors item’. “ There’s even a magazine for this type of stuff, ” he tried to impress.

“What ?” I pressed, “Badly Moulded, Poorly Painted, Unlicensed Sixties Promotional Item Weekly?”

“Yes”, he replied. I left and headed for my car and knew in a couple of weeks he’d sell me it for a quid. I the white plastic bag with the phone in on the passenger seat and set off. The lights were not kind. It was at the sixth set I nearly hat a fat mans heart chuckle. The phone rang or was it the radio? I pushed the knob and turned it off. I heard the ring again. I pulled in to the bus stop and stared. It rang once more. I picked up the receiver.

“Hello,” I said, then felt stupid. Here I was sat in a car, answering a phone I ‘thought’ was ringing. A voice growled, “Hello Tom”. I dropped the receiver, then picked it back up. “Who is this?” I demanded, annoyed that someone was actually there. I heard a laugh, no, a cackle. “Who is this?” I demanded again. The cackle stopped. “Put it this way Tom, it’s not God.”

I knew it wasn’t God, I mean, you never hear of God contacting someone by trimphone do you? More often than not he appears to a peasant girl in a field or imposes his image on a glass window on an office block in a central American country. This was the other fella, the one with the horns and the red chops. What did he want?

“What do you want?”. “I’ll let you know. I’m just checking in for now, letting you know I’m here, call me back tonight, and we’ll chat.” The line cleared and it all went silent.

Chat! Chat! I found it difficult enough to talk on the phone as it is, never mind ringing ‘Old Nick’ up for a pointed chinwag. I’m not sure how I got back to the flat in one piece. I saw the Devil’s face in every traffic light and an ad for Extra Strong Mints claiming they were ‘devilishly hot’ made me circle a roundabout five times. Synchronicity kicked in. The radio played ‘That Old Devil Called Love’, I sang ‘That Old Devil Called Me.’ At a set of pedestrian lights, a kid crossed the road in a Manchester United kit.

Finally I got home. I sat on the bed. I had for some reason I‘d put the trimphone in the oven and closed the door tight. “Ring me back tonight and we’ll chat”. the voice of Lucifer poured through my head like a jug of warm syrup. What did he want? Had he got the wrong

number? I took a pen and a wedge of A4 paper. I’d better list all the bad things I’ve ever done as it seemed to be reckoning time. I stared at the paper and, being racked with catholic guilt, knew what was to be the first thing. I remember Father Duggan calling me into his study in the third year and asking me did I play with myself. “No”, I replied. “I play with me mates, Father”. I lied of course. On the way home in the summer, I would sit on the top of the schoolbus like a horny toad. The sight of a milky-white inner thigh or heavy chest would have me scampering to my room like a drunken monkey. Heaven knows, I was a sweaty-palmed beast. Mum must have thought I had a constant cold. It all came to light when the pipe that ran in the floorboards under my bed burst. I came home to find a grinning plumber, a mortified mother and where once there was a well-thumbed collection of peroxide chicks and high-heeled shoes, lay a bible and a picture of my deceased Nan with the words, ‘Nana’s watching’ stuck to it with a yellow post-it note. This indeed put me off for a week or so until the foxy woman next door took to washing her car in a light, summer, dress which inadvertently got soaked very quickly and clung to her like I wanted to. I scribbled it down: ‘Number one; Palming Percy’. It’s not how the devil would put it, but a cute euphemism seemed to soften the offence.

Right, number two; killing ‘The Yorkie’. I hadn’t meant to kill it, it was an accident - but I wasn’t sorry. It happened in the first few weeks of my drinking career, you know, when you’re like a kid with a new toy. It was Aunt Dolly’s dog,she was staying with us. I came in from the pub about half nine, you know how you did when you first started drinking, and I stood on it. It sort of yelped and that was it. Lucky for me at the time

that everyone was out. I could probably excuse the accidental killing of the feisty beast, but it was the positioning of it in his basket like Noel Coward with a cravat on and a Benson and Hedges in its mouth was unforgivable. Funny, but unforgivable.

She’d accidently killed ‘Suki’ her other dog by slamming the door of her mini on its head, fracturing its tiny skull. When she spotted Sidney Belvedere Moschop sat stiff in the basket a la cigarette, she screamed like a boiling lobster. I licked the pencil tip and scribbled, ‘Number two; killing the dog’ . A bead of sweat dropped onto the page and my hand shook like I needed the Off Licence. I placed the pencil and pad down, went to the oven and opened the door. The trimphone sat next to an oven cod that had been a good idea at half past eleven six nights ago. I slammed the oven door and walked over to the window. A brightly coloured bird, probably an escaped parrot flew past the window followed by a mob of sparrows.

Ah, the parrot - number three. Nobody ever told me you shouldn’t give a parrot a Starburst (formerly Opal Fruits). I mean ‘made to make your mouth water... and your best friend’s parrot die’. I can’t recall that particular jingle, although I must confess, the whole episode provided me with a ‘think of a happy place’. You know what I mean, when things are all going horribly wrong and you need a mental image to cheer yourself up. Well the thought of Eddie’s dad, stooped in his bitty nylon trousers, giving a gargling parrot the kiss of life, has seen me through many a dark moment. I took the pencil and jotted it down: ‘Number three; Killing the Parrot.’ I was going to put ‘choking the parrot’ but as you know, I covered that with number one. A bead of sweat snaked down my forehead and dripped onto the paper. I’d have to get used to this, I thought, it’s going to be even hotter down there. I wondered, was it really hot or was that just a big fib? I mean, you could be a mass murdering Eskimo and have a really bad time in the fires of the abyss, or you could be a heathen aborigine and wander around in a loincloth, like you were on your afternoon stroll. And him, Beelzebub, Old Nick, was he really a cloven-hoofed, red-faced, pointy-chinned, two-horned, goaty-bearded demon or did he just look like a slightly balding Terry Scott?

Ah, Terry Scott, there’s number four, Terry Scott. no not the Terry Scott of ‘Terry and June’ fame, but Terry Scott, the fella who my sister went out with from the age of sixteen to twenty four, that Terry Scott. He was a golf nut and had even turned his back lawn into a mini putting green, complete with flag and hole. Well, I shouldn’t have done it but I thought he was hurting Zoe my sister. I was around at his house for a New Year’s Eve party and he sneaked upstairs with her. I listened to them through the wall. She was moaning in sexual ecstasy. “Oh! Oh! Oh! No! No! God! Stop! Stop! Oh

No!...” and here’s me thinking Terry was giving her a massive Chinese burn. I toyed with the idea of punching him on the nose, but decided to crap in the hole on his back garden putting green instead. His face was a picture when, at a quarter past two,he drunkenly putted a ball much to the delight of on looking revellers. I nudged Zoe and said “You alright sis?” as he reached in and retrieved it.Nuff said: ‘Number Four; Crapping

In Terry Scott’s Golf Hole’ . My mind wandered a tad. “Ring me back later he said”. Ah, I thought, I haven’t got his number. A rush of relief flushed up from my hobbits feet. Then my black heart sank like a fifth - form souffle. I knew his number, everybody knows it. 666 the telephone number of the beast. I mused that if I rang 667, would I get the neighbour of the beast? I allowed myself a smile then number five hit me.

I hated the car, it was an Austin Allegro in that fantastic hearing aid beige colour. The engine had no more than a week left in it and I still owed the bank three grand. So, armed with a panda pop bottle of petrol and a lighter, I set about conning the Norwich Union out of four thousand, three hundred and twenty two pounds,ruining the only decent bit of grass on the estate and giving me a set of singed eyebrows that left me looking very surprised indeed. It was wrong and not a day goes by when I don’t regret it. It was fraud on a massive scale. Well massive for me anyway. The closest I’d ever come to anything like it was putting a reduced price sticker on a wedge of coloured cheddar at Sainsburys. It didn’t taste right either. It tasted stolen and I ended up chucking it out, concealing the evidence by wrapping it up in a bread bag and secreting it inside a milk carton. I know it was hardly likely that Hercule Poirot would turn up as the dustman, but I was racked with guilt, paranoia and indigestion. When the police came round to say they’d found my car burnt out I had to comb my hair down into my eyes to disguise my lack of eyebrows. It’s a good job ‘I’m a believer’ by the Monkees was on the radio or they’d have gotten suspicious. As it was, all went well and the cheque arrived three weeks later. I waited in the bank for ages before putting it into my loan account, convinced that the builder in front of me was really an undercover insurance fraud investigator, who would wrestle me to the ground in a cloud brick dust and flaked emulsion as soon as I banked the money. He didn’t, of course. just strolled out of the branch in his too big jeans and checked shirt. I took the pencil: ‘Number Five; Insurance Fraud’.

I knew it was time to ring back. I grabbed the phone, bounced the cod into the bin and dialled. Six, six, six. Nothing. I tried again. six, six, six. nothing. Was I too late? Was I already damned? The first of what seemed like a million thoughts raced through my head. So this is what a nervous breakdown feels like is it? Then I heard a knock. I stood rooted to the Wilton. Whoever it was could wait. The trimphone rang. I picked it up. Three words oozed. “Answer the door.” He was at the door. OK, I’d had enough. I stomped to it and swung it open. I experienced a mixture of surprise mingled with fear, as the bloke who sold me the phone stood at the door. Once more he had his hood up, a scarf covered his face and he was wearing dark glasses. Thora Hird looked more like the Devil. Stuck for words, I blurted out ... ‘Well?”. The man took his hood down, removed his scarf and glasses and took his left hand from behind his back. He looked familiar. He beamed a smile. “Hello,” he said, “It’s me Noel.” Then around the corner came my best mate John. It had all been an elaborate hoax... and I was the victim. John had written in to the show and suggested the wind up. So that’s how I ... that’s how I ... that’s how I ended up killing Noel Edmonds.

End.