Comeuppance

Norbert

22

Comeuppance

Isabel Wringing-Lowd has hazel coloured eyes with long dark lashes, beneath eyebrows shaped like perfect commas turned sideways. They are darker than her fiery copper curls and so accentuate the beauty of her eyes even more. She has a finely chiselled and slightly upturned nose, so cute you ache to press it and kiss it both at the same time. Her mouth is small and sultry, her teeth small and white. Her skin is pale and flawlessly smooth and seems to glow. I thought Nurse Blethyn had shapely legs and a bottom that wobbled like jelly, but Isabel is in a different league. Had she been around in Ancient Greece, Aphrodite would have been out of a job. My love for her grows stronger with every day.

Since being smitten, that sandy-bottomed vulture, Blethyn, has been relegated to the substitute’s bench and placed on the transfer list. And as I left before she gave birth and missed the opportunity to see her loolybells in all their swollen glory, I no longer fantasize about the Storm Temptress either. That Isabel can never be mine is heartbreaking. That she is also GT’s main concubine is unbearable to live with. Nothing in my emergency first aid kit can cure the unremitting heartache. I doubt that sniffing xylene would help. Reciprocal love (or maybe a transplant) is the only remedy, but that is never going to happen.

My only consolation is she allows me to be her slave. I am hers to command. I fetch and carry, oblivious to her insults and immune to her scorn. I do whatever she asks, instantly and without complaint. I am totally besotted.

‘When you’ve finished pushing those blood clots down the plug hole I want you to photocopy me this article on the aetiology of aplastic anaemia.’

I squeeze the last rubbery clot down the drain and rinse my hands. ‘No one says lots of words beginning with “A” more sexy than you, Isabel.’

‘Get on with it you sad, stupid, soft-headed slimeball.’

‘Or with an “S”.’

I walk into the storeroom and discover GT photocopying a Microbiologist. Or rather the lady bits of a Microbiologist. Her pants are on his head and they are kissing passionately. That he can operate the photocopier and make love at the same time – well, fair dues to the man – but to cheat on a woman as lovely as Isabel when she is not thirty feet away … I turn on my heels and hurry back to the lab.

‘I’m sorry, Isabel, the photocopier is in use.’ I look over my shoulder. ‘And I think it will be for a while yet.’

She looks round the lab. ‘Where’s GT? Is he fannying around in there?’

‘You could say that.’

‘You can do it when he’s finished.’

GT appears from the storeroom a few minutes later, minus his hat.

‘It’s all yours,’ he says. ‘But you might want to wipe the glass first. It got a little smeared.’

Before I can speak, he manoeuvres me out of earshot of Isabel. ‘Don’t forget to have a good sniff first. It’s the nearest you are ever likely to get to one.’

‘Actually, I once … Have you ever seen a kebab end on?’

He looks at me funny.

‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell Isabel what I saw?’

‘It would break her heart, ergo it would also break yours. Logical, or what?’

He sits at the authorization bench.

I cannot argue, as I can already feel my heart breaking at the thought of it breaking because hers is broken and that I broke it. The other chair is vacant, so I join him.

‘She’s your girlfriend. How can you cheat on someone so beautiful? For Isabel I would gladly miss the most important vintage tractor rally of the year.’

I realize I have betrayed my feelings, but though he ponders for a moment he doesn’t react.

‘Think of me like the vending machines in the atrium on D floor. Press the right buttons and for the right price the wannabes that come up to spec get a piece of moi, a satisfying treat that brings a little happiness into their otherwise sterile lives.’

‘Does Isabel know? Does she mind?’

‘It’s a more subtle arrangement. I don’t wear a T-shirt saying “Stud for Hire”. That would be crass. Isabel knows she’s the numero uno concubine in my harem and therefore appreciates the impossible position I am in. It would be immoral of me not to use my gift and talent to bring fulfilment to womankind. I look at it as a sacred duty.’

‘You’re like a Russian doll, so full of yourself.’ I pull a slip of paper out my labcoat pocket. ‘I looked it up and wrote it down: “A harem is a collective of women living in a harmonious polygamous relationship”. What you describe is nothing but a seedy, secretive web of deceit.’

‘Of which you are now a part.’

‘How do you work that out?’

‘You, little Norbie, are the equivalent of my eunuch, the emasculated runt with the fever in his eyes, but who lacks the wherewithal to put his tortured desires into practice.’

I shut up and get on with my work. It is impossible to argue with the truth, but GT is unwilling to let it lie.

‘Face it, drone, you are never going to experience proper sex. There isn’t a woman alive would willingly have you.’

I have thought long and hard about this and done my research. ‘Statistically, that is not true. I grant you that at this moment in my life my chances are slim to nothing, but as women get older they become less attractive. They must therefore become a lot less choosy, some even desperate, in which case my chances are bound to improve. It’s a waiting game and you know what they say. It’s better to have sex with a short man than not a tall.’

‘I find that concept repulsive. Even when I’m like fifty and old I’ll still have the pick of the ripest fruit. No wrinkled, shrivelled, over-ripe windfalls for GT. No sir.’

‘Not everyone can afford to shop at the Pick Your Own farm. Some of us have to be content with rotten fruit.’

(Two days after this conversation, I am ejected from Asda during a daydream for fondling their Granny Smiths and licking tomatoes.)

*

When I walk into the lab next morning, Isabel is making up stain for blood films. The stain is deep purple and a pain to clean off your skin, so wearing rubber gloves and a plastic apron is compulsory when handling it. My eyes feast themselves on her radiance, but when they eventually reach the floor I notice her lacy white panties are round her ankles. The poor girl is, of course, in no position to pull them up.

‘Good morning, Isabel. Are you aware your knickers have fallen down?’

She looks at me. ‘GT pulled them down; he can jolly well pull them back up.’

‘I would be more than happy to report him for sexual harassment.’

She smiles. ‘Don’t be silly. He was just being playful.’

‘Don’t you find it degrading?’

‘It’s a sign of affection.’

‘How would you feel if he pulled, say, Dora Mae’s panties down?’

‘Dora Mae is in Pant-ys-Ddown?’ says Healer Dai.

‘I’m talking about the public humiliation and degradation of women.’

‘So you are talking about my home town?’

‘I wouldn’t be in the least bit worried,’ says Isabel.

‘You don’t think he’d do it? Because I can tell you…’

Dora Mae has sauntered over. She leans close. The heady aroma of Twinkle Twat confuses my senses and silences me. ‘He knows there’s no point,’ she breathes into my ear. ‘I’m not wearing any panties.’

In a daze, I say to Isabel: ‘Would you allow me the honour of pulling them up?’

‘If you so much as touch me, I will pour this stain over your head,’ she shrieks. ‘You perverted little rug muncher.’

GT and the rest of the staff are in hysterics.

Healer Dai notices Dora Mae. ‘Back already, dear? Did you have a nice trip?’

I look down in shame and embarrassment and see my shoelace is undone. I bend down to tie it up and come face to face with Isabel’s see-through lace panties.

‘Rockhampton-Smythe. My office, now,’ bawls Warnetires-Skidmore.

I jump to my feet. ‘Sir, it isn’t what it looks like. GT did it. Look, my shoelace really is undone.’

He frogmarches me into his office and closes the door. ‘You can’t say things like that to a lady,’ he rants. ‘Not even to a…’ He pauses and looks through the window. ‘Lemon and meringue tart like Isabel.’ (Today she is wearing a pale yellow skirt, white blouse and brown beret.)

‘But sir, all I did was ask chivalrously if I could pull her panties up.’

‘I heard you. You said nothing of the kind.’

‘I admit I was confused by Dora Mae, who isn’t wearing any pants at all. What did I say?’

‘“Would you allow me to sniff your panties and take them home” is what you said.’

‘Tickle our Lord!’

Baldy sits at his desk, sniffs and shakes his head. ‘You might not have fallen for the long stand, but this time they stitched you up like Frankenstein.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They’re spare knickers. No one pulled them down. You think I’d tolerate behaviour like that?’

‘They were all in on it? Including you and Healer Dai?’

He sniffs loudly at my implied accusation and changes the subject. ‘Talking of Healer Dai, I want you to follow him down to the Haematology clinic. He’s doing a bone marrow aspirate this morning. I assume you’ve never seen one done before?’

‘No sir.’

‘Well, go on, then, scoot.’

‘Yes sir. Thank you, sir. Sorry sir.’

I emerge to find Healer Dai has already left.

Meekly, almost in tears, I ask: ‘Where is the Haematology clinic?’

Needless to say, GT turns it into a guessing game. ‘Where do you think it is?’

‘In outpatients?’

‘Top marks to our favourite panty sniffer.’

Everyone giggles.

‘On C floor?’

‘You can’t miss it.’