What a Load of Rubbish (10 page)

It had been an unpleasant night, hot and sticky – typical August weather, Malcolm awoke feeling more tired than he had been when he went to bed. He could not sleep. So he had just lain there flat on his back, staring at the ceiling until finally fatigue made his eyelids too heavy and when they did eventually close that nightmare kicked in. You know, that one where the “All-in-One-Der” simply drove over him, mangling his body and his beautiful, although unwieldy, barrow into a horrible mixture of flesh, bones, galvanised steel and rubber. Leaving an unsightly, sticky
slick
on Willowy Lane, to be cleared, scrubbed and purged by those rubbish noshing robots. And all
the time, in the back of his mind that roller on the front of the “All-in-One-Der” was going round and round faster and faster.
That “All-in-One-Der” was so fast.

I’m on a hiding to nowhere here, he thought, but if I’m going to go down I’m going to go down fighting, I’m gonna show them nasty, perishin’ nano-bots what it is to be human..!

KNOCK! KNOCK! BRINNG! BRINNG! THUMP! THUMP!
– but very quietly – it was early morning, you know.
“SCHNELL SCHNELL! AUFSTEHEN! MALKY! MALKY! LIEBE SHON YOU MUST BE GETTINK UP!” BRINNG! BRINNG! THUMP! THUMP! KNOCK! KNOCK! “ZHERE IST NOT MUCH TIME!”

Yes, it was Gisele – yet again. “Kommen sie Malky darlink get in der shauer. I vont you shaved, washed und shining like ein pfennig coin und be vasteing no time about it. Und zen hereinkommen der livvink room und see vas I haff for you!” Using the swagger-stick, she pushed and prodded Malcolm into the shower…

The pavements, driveways, gutters and road of Willowy Lane were awash with debris. Thanks to an email sent by Willy
Eckerslike at the beginning of the month, well he never actually sent the email – he felt computer work was beneath him, so he simply wrote a
directive
and sent it downstairs to be typed up by one of the secretaries – there had been no rubbish collection for nearly four weeks. The recycling lorry had not collected any paper or plastic materials and empty bottles and boxes of rubbish, old newspapers, stale food, trays of eggs way past their sell-by date that had gone bad, broken crockery and stuff like that – were strewn across the ground.

Dustbins that had been filled to bursting were emptied all over the road, had then been re-filled again and had, yet again, been tipped all over the road. The residents of Willowy Lane were quite happy to contribute to such a worthwhile cause and were only too pleased to simply sling, fling or bung the contents of their ashtrays, waste-paper baskets and kitchen bins anywhere but an outside dustbin or rubbish receptacle.

The Willowy Lane Residents’ Association went as far to organise special night-time “burn-ups” in which anything disposable and flammable was burned and the ashes were just dumped in the road, to be kicked around and spread all over by can-kicking, yobbo teenagers and passers-by – obviously non-residents of Willowy Lane. A fashionable touch was
added by chairwoman of the association, Spanish-born Seville orange tycoon and multi-millionairess Mrs. Ava DeCosta, when cheese and wine was served at these events. This meant that the Residents’ Association was able to charge a fee to cover the cost of the wine and cheese, thus keeping away free-loading riff-raff and the events went down like “a house on fire”, excuse the pun.

“Come and Party in the Poop”, “Disco in the Dung”, advertised fliers put out by a small but successful local printing firm; this contest was proving to be a “good little earner” and many small-time businesses were becoming a little bigger time because of it. “Come and Have a Great Time in North East London’s Garden of Grot” invited a roadside café. “Welcome to bring your own sandwiches if you do not trust us”. They raised the price of its beverages by £1.00 a cup irrespective of what the drink was. In fact, the only person not making “mega-bucks” out of the day was Malcolm. He just stood to get his old job back.

And to do that he had first to win the contest.

Dogs, attracted by general unkempt seediness of the area, did their business on road and pavement, on lawns, on driveways, even on a couple occasions on someone’s front porch, but did people complain? No they did not. Rather than
being repulsed by the revolting mess and smells, residents became quite proud of their ability to generate grime, grot and disease. Word soon got around to other posh areas in other towns and Willowy Lane became quite the area to be seen in, the height of fashion and if you caught an air-borne virus, you carried it around like a badge of honour.

News continued to spread. Many television and radio celebrities, some who didn’t like to be seen in public unless they were wearing earphones, or they were behind a screen, began to visit Suburbiaville to visit “friends” because it was fashionable and a good career move to be seen there.

Each over-spilling dustbin, each discarded, half-eaten take-away, each canine misadventure attracted its own miasma of flies and the little hardware outlet next to Suburbiaville Central – remember that place which sold cool-boxes? – also made a tidy profit selling army surplus gas masks and chemical warfare suits.

Willowy Lane had the look and smell, if you dared to remove the gas mask you had just bought, of a cross between a medieval fare and an alternative perfumery, a retail outlet that sold only the most offensive, disgusting fragrances permitted in a built-up area – we can be sure that if ever such a shop became popular
or trendy, then a chain of them ranging across the country would soon exist – originating from Suburbiaville High Street.

Newspapers soon got hold of the story. A tabloid journalist from the Daily Reflector, a local reporter from the Suburbiaville Siren and a gossip-monger from that epitome of the gutter press, Views Of The Globe, were all there flashing their notebooks around, trying to get an angle on this scoop – and the more interest they could generate the better. So they spent their time weaving in and out of the crowds getting as many facts and figures as possible, then using a large dollop of “poetic licence”, they would twist them round to suit what they thought their readers would like to hear.

The Artisan’s Arms had set up a beer tent with a pig-roast, or the option of a nut-roast for vegetarians, on grass areas at either end of Willowy Lane. The aroma from both was irresistible and attracted people like a magnet, so Mrs. DeCosta felt it made good business sense to charge £5.00 a head for a single slice of pork, or nut roast. Proceeds to go to charity of course, however she did neglect to mention that the charity nominated was the Willowy Lane Residents’ Association. No wonder she was voted business woman of the year. No wonder
Missus DeCosta had a residence on Willowy Lane.

The car-park of Suburbiaville British Rail station filled with purveyors of fast-food – don’t laugh, some of it was quite edible and had only a few E-numbers. Mobile caterers arrived in vans, caravans, hot-dog vans and burger vans and a French bloke came on his bike and sold onions. All hell broke loose when a Chicken, Noodles and Satay van collided with Bert’s Fish and Chips wagon while they competed for a pitch within the limited confines of the station car-park. Further confusion resulted when an air-borne division of the Women’s Institute (WI) parachuted down from a hovering helicopter and set up a cake stand. Buns and rock cakes were thrown, insults were hurled, pages were torn from Women’s Realm, the WI bible. Finally police were called in when knitting needles were brandished. The situation became very heated indeed when a wax effigy of Margaret Thatcher was set on fire and Suburbiaville’s idyllic reputation suffered a severe pummeling when the whole thing developed into a brawl. Blood was shed when secretary of the group, Mrs. Elsie Crabtree, pricked her thumb on her own hat-pin. A peace keeping force form A-company, Suburbiaville Army Cadet Corps were eventually called in from its display tent to
calm the situation. This was considered a useful training exercise by the commanding officer of the unit.

The Fire Brigade provided an engine with a turntable and extending ladder. No sooner had it arrived when it was descended upon by hordes of screaming and yelling kids; the air was thick with gruff firemen’s voices, barking commands like, “OI – DON’T UNRAVEL THAT HOSE!” “GET DOWN OFF THAT LADDER!” or, “OKAY, SONNY – I THINK WE’VE HEARD ENOUGH O’ THAT SIREN DON’T YOU?”

Children swarmed round the ambulance pretending they had broken their arm – just so they could wear a sling – or leg – because they
might
be given a walking stick. At one point the ambulance ran out of bandages. So that this did not happen again, the paramedic in charge, as there was such a demand, said: “Right – one cure suits all!” and lined the kids up outside his ambulance and treated them with a miracle cure which was, in fact, an aspirin stuck to the child’s forehead with a sticking plaster. Some children went away feeling a little cheated, they felt they had been let down by the health service.

Bunting and streamers were draped, like gaily coloured spaghetti, from lamppost to lamppost. Large brightly coloured light bulbs flashed on and off
between the telegraph poles. If you ignored the filth and that tangy sort of smell that reminded anyone foolish enough to breathe in deeply of open drains, Willowy Lane appeared very festive. This was not going to last forever and residents actively went out in their cars or in lorries to search for the filthiest, most obnoxious smelling refuse they could find and fetched it back to be spread liberally across the street.

Then the finishing touches were added: one was a raised platform from which future Mayor, the Honorable Mister Willy Eckerslike could doff his Mayoral hat, which he felt sure he would be presented with directly after the contest had been won, to the citizens of Suburbiaville. And the all-important start line. There was a finish too, at the end of Willowy Lane, but because nobody on the council really thought Malcolm stood any chance of finishing, not much attention was paid to that. No bright lights flashed there, no bunting was strung across the street, just one strip of ticker-tape was stretched between the big iron gateposts on the way in to the town park at the far-end of Willowy Lane.

Dressed in olive-drab overalls that added a slight military flavour to his
appearance – they fit perfectly too, whilst allowing a full degree of movement, giving him the freedom to bend and stretch; we hinted at Gisele’s skill with a sewing-machine before – Malcolm pushed “Belinda”, his unwieldy barrow, before him, arriving at the start-line on Willowy Lane. Gisele brought up the rear on her bicycle, the basket on the handle-bars filled with bottles of muscle relaxing embrocation and arnica gel in case of sprains or tired muscles. Although she was confident of Malcolm’s ability, if her past experience as chief trainer with the East Berliner Ladies’ Amateur Shot-put Team had taught her anything, it had taught her to be prepared for every eventuality, so she was. Towels, bandages, aerosols, spare clothing and a flask of sauerkraut-und-banana milkshake, mixed with a little prune juice – in case of blockage – made her bicycle look just as unwieldy as Malcolm’s barrow. They must have looked a pretty weird couple arriving at the start-line.

Nobody could ever accuse Gisele of being a boastful girl but she could not help feeling just that little bit proud of the job she had done on Malcolm’s overalls; the elbows and knees had been reinforced with day-glow yellow pads cut from his “Hi-Way Vest” and across the back of the garment, in fluorescent thread of the same colour read, simply
CLEAN, GREEN – SUBURBIAVILLE’S FINEST.

“An’ ’ere he is,” Willy Eckerslike’s blunt, northern accent greeted their arrival. “All t’way from a somewhat less desirable part o’ Suburbiaville. It’s that paragon of ’ighway maintenance, Malcolm Tilsley. The chap who –
HA! HA!
– is gonna –
HA! HA! HA!
– singely ’andedly beat
my
‘All-in-One-Der’ –
AHA! AHA! AHA! HA! HAA! AHEM!
” He went on as he often did. “An’ in t’spirit o’ goodwill the driver o’ t’ ‘All-in-One-Der’, Geordie ’ere, out of the goodness of ’is ’eart will give our Malcolm ’ere an’ ’eadstart o’
five
’ouses. Malcolm ’ere can even choose the side o’t street ’e wants to clean. An’ our Geordie ’ere will not even start t’engine until our Malcolm ’ere has finished cleaning in front of t’
fifth
’ouse – worra lovely bloke. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our very own,
Geordie the driver
- thankyou!” A ripple of applause sounded and Geordie raised his hands and nodded, then got into his cab, folded his arms across chest and pretended to yawn – giving an air of couldn’t care less.