The Wilt Alternative

By the time she had finished the bottle she had difficulty concentrating on anything. The world had suddenly become a delightful place and all it needed to make it even better was more of the same. She swayed back to the wine store and selected a second bottle and was in the process of unscrewing the top when the thing exploded. Doused with beer and holding the neck of the bottle Mrs de Frackas was about to try a third when she caught sight of several larger bottles in the bottom rack. She pulled one out and saw that it had once contained champagne. What it contained now she couldn't imagine but at least it seemed safer to open and less likely to fragment than the beer bottles. She took two bottles out into the cellar and tried to uncork them. It was easier said than done. Wilt had fastened the corks down with Sellotape and what looked like the remnants of a wire coathanger.

'Need some pliers,' she muttered as the quads gathered round with interest.

'That's Daddy's best,' said Josephine 'He wouldn't like it if you drank it.'

'No dear, I daresay he wouldn't,' said the old lady with a belch that suggested her stomach was of the same opinion.

'He calls it his four-star BB,' said Penelope. 'But Mummy says it ought to be called peepee.'

'Does she?' said Mrs de Frackas with mounting disgust.

'That's because he has to get up in the night when he's drunk it.'

Mrs de Frackas relaxed. 'We wouldn't want to do anything that would upset your father,' she said, 'and anyway, champagne needs to be chilled.'

She went back to the bins, returned with two opened bottles that had proved less explosive than the others, and sat down again. The quads were gathered round the freezer but the old lady was too busy to care what they were doing. By the time she had finished the third bottle the Wilt quads were octuplets in her eyes and she was having difficulty focusing. In any case she had begun to understand what Eva had meant about peepee. Wilt's homebrew was making its presence felt. Mrs de Frackas got up, fell over and finally crawled up the steps to the door. The damned thing was locked.

'Let me out,' she shouted, and banged on the door. 'Let me out this inshtant.'

'What you want?' demanded Baggish.

'Never you mind what I want. Itsh what I need that matters and thatsh no concern of yours.'

'Then you stay where you are.'

'I shan't be reshponsible for what happens if I do,' said Mrs de Frackas.

'What you mean?'

'Young man, there are shome things better left unshaid and I don't intend dishcushing them with you.'

Through the door the two terrorists could be heard struggling with slurred English sentences. 'Things better left unshed' had them baffled, while 'not be reshponshible for what happens' sounded faintly ominous, and they had already been alarmed by several popping noises and the crunch of glass from the cellar.

'We want to know what happens if we don't let you out,' said Chinanda finally.

Mrs de Frackas was in no doubt. 'I shall almosht shertainly burst,' she yelled.

'You what?'

'Burst, burst, burst. Like a bomb,' screamed the old lady, now convinced she was in the terminal stage of diuresis. A muttered conversation took place in the kitchen.

'You come out with your hands up,' Chinanda ordered, and unlocked the door before backing away into the hall and aiming his automatic. But Mrs de Frackas was no longer in a condition to obey. She was trying to reach one of several doorknobs and missing. From the bottom of the steps the quads watched in fascination. They were used to Wilt's occasional bouts of booziness but they had never seen anyone paralytically drunk before.

'For Heaven's shake shomeone open the door,' Mrs de Frackas burbled.

'I will,' squealed Samantha and a rush of competing girls fought their way over the old lady for the privilege. By the time Penelope had won and the quads had cascaded over her into the kitchen the old lady had lost all interest in toilets. She lay across the threshold and, raising her head with difficulty, delivered her verdict on the quads.

'Do me a favour, shomeone, and shoot the little shits,' she gurgled before passing out. The terrorists didn't hear her. They knew now what she had meant about a bomb. Two devastating explosions came from the cellar and the air was filled with frozen peas and broad beans. In the freezer Wilt's BB had finally burst.

Chapter 19

Eva had been busy too. She had spent part of the morning on the phone to Mr Gosdyke and the rest arguing with Mr Symper, the local representative of the League of Personal Liberties. He was a very earnest and concerned young man, and in the normal course of events, would have been dismayed at the outrageous behaviour of the police in putting at risk the lives of a senior citizen and four impressionable children by refusing to meet the legitimate demands of the freedom fighters besieged in Number 9 Willington Road. Instead, Eva's treatment at the hands of the police had put Symper in the extremely uncomfortable position of having to look at the problem from her point of view

'I do understand the case you're making, Mrs Wilt,' he said forced by her bruised appearance to subdue his bias in favour of radical foreigners, 'but you must admit you are free.'

'Not to enter my own house. I am not at liberty to do that. The police won't let me.'

'Now if you want us to take up your case against the police for infringing your liberty by holding you in custody, we'll...'

Eva didn't. 'I want to enter my own home.'

'I do sympathize with you, but you see our organization aims to protect the individual from the infringement of her personal liberty by the police and in your case...'

'They won't let me go home,' said Eva. 'If that isn't infringing my personal liberty I don't know what is.'

'Yes, well I do see that.'

'Then do something about it.'

'I don't really know what I can do about it,' said Mr Symper.

'You knew what to do when the police stopped a container truck of deep-frozen Bangladeshis outside Dover,' said Betty. You organized a protest rally and...'

'That was quite different,' said Mr Symper, bridling. 'The Customs officials had no right to insist that the refrigeration unit be turned on. They were suffering from acute frostbite. And besides, they were in transit.'

'They shouldn't have labelled themselves cod fillets, and anyhow you argued that they were simply coming to join their families in Britain.'

They were in transit to their families.'

'And so is Eva, or should be,' said Betty 'If anyone has a right to join her family it's Eva.'

'I suppose we could apply for a court order,' said Mr Symper sighing for less domestic issues, 'that would be the best way.'

It wouldn't,' said Eva, 'it would be slowest. I am going home now and you are coming with me.'

I beg your pardon?' said Mr Symper, whose concern didn't extend to becoming a hostage himself.