Cut and Shut

Norbert

Chapter 30

Cut and Shut

Isabel answers the phone at 08.20. ‘Haematology. The gorgeous and desirable Miss Wringing-Lowd speaking. How may I help you? And don’t say anything rude.’

She listens for a moment. ‘Where are you?’ She listens. ‘Are you all right?’ Another pause. ‘I’ll send down as many as I can.’ She puts the phone down. ‘Listen up. Dora Mae Blimp is stuck inside her car.’

‘How do you mean?’ says Dora Mae Doll.

‘She had to brake suddenly in the car park. The seat slid forward and pushed her against the steering wheel. Now she’s stuck and can’t get out.’

‘Is she back already?’ says Rube.

‘She lives with her parents, so child care isn’t an issue,’ says Isabel.

‘And a full wage is essential to sustain her gluttony,’ says GT.

Ruben, GT and I rise from our seats to go and help.

‘This will require brawn,’ GT says to me, ‘which means you’d be as useful as an inflatable dartboard.’

Rube orders Velcro to make a flask of tea and join them. I stay put.

After twenty minutes, I take a call from Rube.

‘Get your arse down here, we’re tit-tickled.’

‘I thought I was too weak and puny to be of any assistance?’

‘Just do it.’

It isn’t hard to spot the car. A fairly large crowd has gathered. I squeeze through. ‘What’s the score?’

‘Two nil to the steering wheel,’ someone says.

It is one of those weird little cars with no backseat, about the size of those toy cars you see in supermarkets for children to play in.

‘I think it might be a cut and shut,’ someone says. ‘Only when they cut it they forgot to shut it.’

‘Shut the hell up and get me out,’ screams Dora Mae. ‘I’m desperate for a wee and a sticky bun.’

She is overflowing out of the cramped driver’s seat, her chest pressed against the wheel. The hole vacated by the baby appears, if anything, to have grown bigger.

Velcro is in the passenger seat. ‘There, there, calm yourself down and drink this tea. That’s the lubrication for your tight space.’

Clotty is also feeding her comfort food, discovered in the glove compartment, the trays inside both doors and on the back shelf. ‘In case of emergencies,’ Dora Mae explains. ‘I once got caught in a snowstorm on the two-mile journey to the cake shop.’

‘I do not believe you would choose to live two miles from a cake shop,’ says GT.

‘The local one went out of business.’

‘How is that possible?’

Healer Dai turns up. ‘Move out of the way and let the dog see the rabb… Tickle our Lord! It’s like a whale trapped in a goldfish bowl.’ He reaches in and gives her a solid push. Her head jerks; the rest of her sort of wobbles back into place in its own good time. ‘This may require surgery.’

‘The only thing blubber-buttocks needs is a diet,’ says GT. ‘Have you never tried to lose weight?’

‘I went to the paint section in Homebase once,’ she answers through a mouthful of Scotch egg.

‘Why?’ says Isabel. ‘What good would that do?’

‘I heard you could get thinner there.’

‘There’s no need to cut her out,’ says Rube, ‘arse-tickled as it is. This is all down to aerodynamics.’

‘Genius,’ says Clotty, gripping Dora Mae’s shoulder. ‘If we’re to get you out of here quickly you have to breathe in and let out an enormous trump. At the same time, we’ll all push and pull.’

‘Will someone please get me out of here,’ Dora Mae whines, close to tears.

GT manhandles Healer Dai out of the way and grabs Dora Mae’s arm. ‘Breathe in and let rip, old girl.’

Dora Mae strains and has no trouble blowing one off.

GT tugs and Velcro pushes. The sleeve of Dora Mae’s blouse tears off in GT’s hands and sends him backwards on to his bottom. Dora Mae jerks forward, the buttons on her blouse ping against the windscreen and her loolybells lodge firmly between the spokes of the steering wheel.

‘Back to square one,’ someone says.

‘Smell the horse on that,’ says someone else.

‘You can stop farting now,’ GT says to Dora Mae.

‘Toss me off with a barbed wire glove,’ says Rube. ‘We’re well and truly turd-tickled.’

Enveloped in a gaseous cloud, Velcro loses consciousness.

Dora Mae Doll appears with a can.

GT looks up. ‘I hope that’s WD40.’

‘I’ve brought you some Coke,’ the doll says to the blimp. ‘I’m afraid it’s diet.’

‘What a spiffing idea,’ says GT. ‘Give her something gassy to bloat her up even more.’

‘Come on everybody,’ says Healer Dai. ‘Concentrate on the job in hand. We have to get the poor girl out, and quickly.’

‘Before we can ease her out, someone small has to wriggle into the footwell and dislodge her big old nellies,’ says Isabel.

Everyone looks round the assembled crowd. Within seconds all eyes have settled on me.

‘No way.’

‘Get in there you withered prune of a minionshit,’ Ruben orders.

I protest vehemently. ‘I suffer from at least seven different maladies which prevent me from squeezing into the tight space between her legs.’

Willing hands bundle me inside the footwell.

I am sitting on the pedals, my knees up to my chin and my back bent double, tight up against the steering column.

‘Dora Mae, I want you to open your legs for me,’ says Healer Dai.

She is in no position to argue. Her kneecap scrapes across my nose.

‘What colour pants is she wearing?’ a chubby chaser blurts out breathlessly.

‘Concentrate on her boobies,’ says Isabel.

‘Don’t you dare tweak my nips,’ Dora Mae warns, ‘otherwise you’ll drown. I didn’t express this morning.’

Under any other circumstances, the thought of being squirted with breast milk would have made me squirt. As things stand, I don’t even have room for a bunnyhorn, never mind a third sock. ‘I am doing this under protest.’

‘I would suggest we do a risk assessment first,’ says someone who identifies himself as a Health and Safety officer, and is frantically leafing through his manual. ‘But I can’t find a damn thing about removing bosoms from steering wheels.’

‘Bugger the risk,’ screams Dora Mae. ‘Just get me out. I haven’t eaten in eight minutes and I’m getting dizzy.’

‘All this grannytickler needs is synchronization,’ says GT, leaning across the body of Velcro. ‘Rube, my man, you lift her right tree trunk out. Healer Dai, you grab her under the branch, Norbie, you lift and push her titties through the steering wheel. On my count. One … Two … Yikes!’

On two his foot slips from under him, his head bounces off Velcro’s splendid bosom and crashes into her crotch with a thump.

I place one hand under each loolybell and push. Dora Mae lactates in my face and tiddles over the rest of me.

Velcro wakes up, strokes GT’s hair and says: ‘Not here, dear boy.’

It is at this point that Baldy Warnetires-Skidmore arrives.

*

GT and I stand in front of the Chief’s desk. I have showered and am wearing nothing but one of my lab coats, so I am pretty much covered from head to foot.

‘Did it not occur to either of you to call the fire brigade?’

‘Why should those drones have all the fun?’ says GT.

‘From where I was sitting…’

‘Shut up,’ roars Warnetires-Skidmore. ‘We are the laughing stock of the entire hospital.’

‘Nothing to do with me, boss. My shoe just slipped from under me.’

‘Enough,’ says Warnetires-Skidmore. ‘In the next few weeks one of you will be the new senior.’

‘Come to papa, I cannot wait,’ says GT.

‘On today’s performance neither of you deserve promotion. I want an end to this constant bickering, you hear? Show some maturity. Now, get out of my sight.’