Domestic Bliss At Castle Frankenstein

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

“Igor, come here for a minute,” doctor Frankenstein said into the intercom beside his favourite armchair in the spacious library of castle Frankenstein. The Baron was sitting before a roaring fire toasting his tootsies as he read the Times and smoked an enormous Cuban cigar. Igor was in the middle of washing the dishes in the kitchen downstairs when he heard his employer's request over the static that invariably plagued the new-fangled device that the Baron had invented in his secret laboratory, and when the trusty henchperson dragged himself up the wide stone staircase and entered the library he was still wearing his bright yellow Marigolds.

“Yes, Master?”

“Oh, it's nothing. Get back to your chores, skivvy,” the Baron said.

“Yes, Master,” Igor said, leaving the room and traipsing back downstairs.

“Igor, come here, please,” the Baron said over the intercom a couple of minutes later.

“Yes, Master?” Igor said breathlessly once he had re-climbed the forbidding staircase.

“Never mind, it doesn't matter, go away.

IGOR!” the Baron yelled down the intercom five minutes later. “GET YOUR BONY ARSE UP HERE STRAIGHT AWAY, M'BITCH, WE NEED TO TALK!”

“What is it, Master?” Igor gasped as he staggered into the library.
“You took your time, didn't you? I've been thinking, Igor, our relationship is getting a little, erm, tense. And, dare I say, stale. I reckon we're spending too much time together, and I think we should maybe spend more time apart, sort of.”

“Oh,” Igor replied. “I don't understand what you mean, Master, I'm just a simple servant with no O levels or CSE's. You want me to leave, to go back to living in yonder shitty nineteenth century British gutter? That would be a shame, I like it here in pre-Nazi Germany. Are you trying to say that you want us to..... to split up?”

“No, Igor, I don't want us to split up, and whatever happens I'm sure it won't come to that. I just think we both need a little space, a little me time, a bit of room to spread our wings. We need to get out more and experience new things, we need to meet new people and savour exciting new adventures.

Personally I'm a bit fed up of this place - I'm sick of being stuck in this dusty old castle day in and day out, I'm sick of locking myself in yonder cobwebbed secret laboratory for hours on end while I invent labour saving devices and build lumbering great monsters. By the way, did you manage to procure Kerry Katona's brain as instructed? Good..... I'm even sick of pouring boiling oil onto the heads of screaming peasants over yonder battlements to quell the riots that occur every time my monster slays a few worthless villagers.

I need a break, Igor, I need to get away from it all, so I've booked a month in a five star hotel on the Costa Brava in yonder sunny Spain just for myself, for me alone and not anybody else at all; I'm definitely going alone, oh dear me yes..... Admittedly I have a craving to meet new henchmen and henchwomen that I've heard holiday in those parts, but only on a friendly basis and not to, you know, covertly employ them or cop off with them or anything like that. I'm sure you have a secret desire to sail to the shores of Clacton On Sea in poxy England, perchance to deflower a fair maiden - the daughter of Arthur Mullard is a proper goer, or so I've heard - or maybe you ache to temporarily serve a new Master.”

“No, never! How could you say such a thing, Master? What sort of a wo – man do you take me for?” Igor pretended that he had something in his eye, but obviously he was wiping away a tear. “All I've ever wanted in my whole life is at castle Frankenstein, and I belong here, with you..... It was a bit cold last winter when we had no electricity, especially after we burned all the logs in a ten mile radius, but thankfully you sold the family silver and your father's collection of novelty underpants so that you could pay the bills, and now everything's going to be all right, I know it is. By the way, Master, what's your real name – you know, the name you use when you're not playing Baron Frankenstein?”

“What do you mean? I don't have another name. I am Baron Victor Violet Frankenstein, I always have been and I always will be.”

“Don't be silly, you're a bleedin' actor! None of this is real, your castle's made of polystyrene and papier mache and you're somebody else in real life. Your monster is called Wilf, he's a six foot six piss artist, and when he isn't lumbering around yonder set pretending to brutally tear people apart he's doing his party trick, which consists of practising the porcelain yodel that he uses to summon his invisible good buddies Rolf and Hughie, otherwise he's lying in an alley somewhere singing songs about naughty elves.”

“Don't be preposterous, man!”

“It's true! Why do you think there's a bunch of cameramen filming our every move?”

“I thought we were on Big Brother.....”

“My real name is Pablo Jones, Master, and I'm a half Mexican, half English actor. I'm a bit of a jackass, I guess, as my mates would no doubt tell you if I had any, and I have a serious personal hygiene problem, which is why I'm currently working as a henchman/woman (well that's what it says in my job description) for a mad German scientist who has no sense of smell, probably because he spends so much time shut away in his secret laboratory fiddling with pungent chemicals.

The most exciting thing I ever did (apart, of course, from getting a part in this film) was killing my abusive, moonshine swigging mother with a shovel when I was fourteen and burning her body a bit at a time in the pot-bellied stove that kept our tumbledown mountain shack warm during the colder months. When we ran out of baked beans Phil, our Jack Russell, shot himself, and in a huff of unprecedented proportions I ran away and joined the circus.”

“Aah,” Frankenstein said. “I see. I'm still Baron Frankenstein, I'm afraid, Igor, and I can't remember being anyone else. I'm not Claude the woodcutter, I'm not Flossie the goat, I'm not Johann the dancing moose and I'm not Androgyne the disturbingly alluring female impersonator that I never had the balls to tell my dear mother about. Now run along and carry on washing the dishes, there's a good chap. I have a private telephone call to make, which means I'll have to get up and walk all the way across the room and dial the number. I wish someone would hurry up and invent the mobile phone, I have some urgent business to discuss with my monster.”

“Didn't your monster move into a plush little flat in one of the sexier suburbs of yonder village?”

“Yes, yes he did, she did, I mean. She needed a break from you and I saying 'yonder' all the time, it was seriously pissing her off. Sheena's quite happy in her new apartment, and I hardly ever sneak round to see her, except on rent day, of course. Igor, I want you to pack your things and move out immediately. You're fired – I detest you and I can't bear to look at your maggoty face for a single second longer.”

“But -”

“No buts! Shush now, I'm on the bloody phone. Sheena? Sheena, it's me, Baron Squidgy Bits, I mean Baron Frankenfurter, I mean Baron Frankenstein, your creator and boyfriend, I mean plain old friend. Is that a strange man's voice I can hear in the background calling you Bouncy-bouncy-bum-bum? No? OK..... Yes, I know this isn't a real phone. What? You're leaving me for an even madder scientist with grand, very nearly plausible plans of world domination? I don't believe it, you wouldn't dare! After all I've done for you, you strumpet, you cheap hussy. Yes, and the same to you with bells on, you tart. Igor, I take it all back. Unpack your stuff and move back in, you're rehired.”

“Yes, Master.”

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