"Bloody hell! Talk about splitting hairs! She said two hundred dollars when she walked in the door! And that was before things got kinky."
"Ah, but I never agreed. A crucial point, my dear. Crucial!"
I rested my case. And my leg. That didn't stop her.
"And what happened as a consequence of your lawyering? Hmm? What happened?"
She claimed after that I looked sheepish, but of course not a bit of it. I was simply bemoaning the depth of depravity in the human soul.
"They came after me with – sticks – you know…"
"Baseball bats."
"That's right – baseball sticks. In the dead of night. At eleven o'clock. When I was walking home from a convivial evening with fellow philosophers at the Grunt amp; Groan."
"Staggering more like."
"Staggering be buggered! I had the legs of them, convivial evening or not!"
"Especially after you pushed the line of supermarket trolleys into them."
I sniggered. "That was rather effective. Made a lovely noise."
"And then…"
I scowled.
"Only the great Harry Neptune could get run over by a minivan full of strippers."
"They were on their way back from a stag do. They were picking up pizza. And they weren't looking where they were going!"
I groped in the bag for more grapes, but Lawrence had scoffed the lot. I was reaching for the bedpan with a view to clouting her when the door opened.
"Time for our medicine, Mr. Neptune! Be a good boy now…"
"Nurse Benjamin, Miss Lawrence. Miss Lawrence, Nurse Benjamin. I knew Nurse Benjamin's mother in Antigua, you know."
I'll bet you did!
"Did you know Whistler's mother too, sweetie?"
"Shurrup, Lawrence, I'm concentrating!"
"Get Nurse to fetch you a laxative then."
Nurse Benjamin advanced, a broad smile illuminating her sunny face. I looked up. And up. She was a big girl. I sensed a theme developing and gave Harry a hard stare. He tried to look innocent.
"Nurse Benjamin is a direct descendant of the Bigaboobi tribe. Bigaboobies fill many lofty positions in the Virgin Islands."
"I can see that, darling. Delighted to meet you, Nurse B."
The young woman grinned, perfect teeth gleaming in contrast to her dusky skin. Her hair was black and curly, neatly pinned beneath a starched white cap.
Wait a minute! Starched caps went out with Dr. Kildare! This is no ordinary nurse…
"Open wide! Who's a clever boy?"
I watched, incredulous, as Nurse B deftly crushed a brace of painkillers, mixed them into a dollop of jam and spooned the mixture into Harry's strangely willing mouth.
"You baby, Neptune! Take your medicine like a man!"
"There. All gone!"
Attentively, Nurse B leaned forward to dab at her charge's sticky lips and I saw Harry's eyes cross, then focus intently on the girl's heroic chest. She lingered just long enough to give him a good eyeful, then stood up, straightening her rustling apron. I wondered which fancy dress hire store had purveyed an Amazon-size retro nurse's kit. An awful thought occurred to me and I hissed at the invalid.
"What did you do with the real nurse, Harry? I hope she's not tied up in the sluice room or something equally nasty."
Harry sighed.
"They're on bloody strike! I was lucky to get plastered, I can tell you. For one moment, I thought I'd have to do it myself. Anyway, I had to go private for the convalescence. Fortunately, I still have P.H.U.C.T. coverage from my last post with Rope amp; Tackle."
"P.H.U.C.T.?"
"Private Healthcare (when) Undercover (in) Crappy Terrain."
"You're not undercover!"
Harry drew the sheet up to his nose and made coy eyes at me.
"I am now!"
I looked suitably skeptical.
"So, Nurse B comes with Plan A, does she?"
"No, Nurse B came with Scheme 3, sub-section vii, addendum 19d, actually. She's covered by the "post-traumatic stress syndrome" clause. I've been subjected to severe mental cruelty and need succor in my hour of pain…"
"Succor!"
"I'd love to…"
At that point, Nurse B began to laugh uproariously, throwing her head back until her cap fell off and wild strands of dark hair began to spring loose from the mass of pins. She looked down at Harry, then at me. There was a distinct glint in her bright black eyes.
"Fancy a bit of bondage, Mr. Neptune? Seems we're already set up!"
Harry gulped.
"No! Scheme 3, sub-section vii, addendum 19d is quite specific. Stress relief. Not stress inducement! Fetch me my cocoa."
Little and Large looked at each other, or rather the one looked down and the other peered up. I thought with some satisfaction that Jay might have met her match in Nurse Benjamin.
"Bugger addendum 19d. What does addendum 19e have to say? Where's the book?" My diminutive friend had a most unpleasant glint in her eye.
"Addendum 19e refers to restraint of temporarily deranged trauma victims," replied Nurse B with what I can only describe as a wolfish grin.
"Hey, that's enough! I've paid for Scheme 3, sub-section vii, addendum 19d, and that's it! No extras! I'm post-traumatically stressed, not a loony…"
"You were pre-traumatically stressed, Neptune. I think you've diddled the insurance company."
Miss Lawrence's face took on a contorted, pained expression, as if she were giving birth to a prize watermelon. I had seen that performance before. She was thinking. With a grimace like a primeval swamp facing a dinosaur about to enjoy bath time, she spoke.
"How much more is addendum 19e, Nurse Benjamin?"
"A hundred dollars a day. In advance."
Miss Lawrence produced a checkbook and started writing.
"Hey! You produced that checkbook from my bedside locker! It's mine!"
"So? You're the one needing treatment. You pay for it."
I folded my arms over the bedclothes. "I'm not signing that."
"No need. Tell the difference?"
The dwarfish mal-busted insensitive swamp-cologned peanut-brained trollop had my signature off pat.
"Now I know where your new broomstick came from!"
"No need for a receipt, Nurse B. By the way, how well did the old boy know your mother, exactly?"
Nurse Benjamin grinned, slyly.
"I have a half-sister named Venus Harriet. The family resemblance is remarkable, actually. She's quite the little entrepreneur, runs a lemonade stall that's the envy of her classmates. And no wonder, as she filched a huge neon arrow from the local drive-in movie theater. You can see it for miles. Real chip off the old block. I do wish she could see her old man. She'd be just wild about Harry." The nurse's eyes positively gleamed. There was only one thing to do. I gulped again.
The nurse and the houri stood beside my sick bed, the bed to which I had been confined by dastardly blackguards egged on by – another nurse. Yes, Norma had been wearing a nurse's uniform! For a while at least. Was this a conspiracy? Was the whole world against me? Or a substantial proportion of the auxiliary medical profession, at least?
Answer – yes.
I didn't like the way they were looking down at me, not one little bit. Nurse B was used to dealing with helpless patients, but for Miss L, this was a new sensation. I didn't need to follow the twitches across her contorted face to know that she was liking the sensation.
I steeled myself. Who was the boss in this relationship, anyway? Who wielded the heavy palm and the flogger? Who administered the punishments? When push came to shove, who was on top? Harry Neptune – that's who!
I drew myself up to as much of my height as I could manage from the prone position. I fixed my eyes on Miss Lawrence. I concentrated hard, recalling some key points from Hypnosis for Incompetent Buffoons by Ima Charlotte An, the renowned Asian mesmerist. Miss Lawrence raised one delicate little eyebrow.