Man alive, Stoat has stuffed that Secretary of State good and proper, stitched her up, hemmed her in, eyes of rubies, teeth of pearls, leant her stiff against a swanky oak lectern, her calves bulging American Tan, his best window display yet.
Flock to see her and the rest of his exhibits, they do, gawping at his art, his science, his flair, the intricacies of his cross-stitch, the way he nips and tucks.
Two gold coins they pay to get in, with one return visit included, although some do not get the full value, the ones with the marble smooth chests or the smooching chocolate eyelashes, the ones with the furling curling fingers, or the ones with only nine delicate silver-ringed toes.
Owl and Hare, they’re part of the squad, claws primed and ears pricked, impervious to the dismal pierce of an underground scream, the serrated garotte of a belly-slitting blade, they stay schtoom oh yes wouldn’t you. All those tourists flocking, filming, praising, spending, offerings of fridge-cooled diced carrots, an open tin of sardines in brine, a jumping matchbox of fed-up crickets, a basket of steaming greasing chicken nuggets fresh from Grab and Dine.
Owl supervises the queues, eyes brimming, head spinning, do-not-touch-my-feathers gliding, swooping this way and that, that way and this, keeping them all in line. First Saturday of the month, change over day, at least five hundred or more, snaking past the butchery, hipping the conga through the bakery, backs slid down kegs behind the brewery, a spiked peck is all it takes to tame the coiling queue.
Who is this?
Trumpets blazing, fawns a dancing, crowds cooing and booing and pushing and craning. The smooth roll in of a blacked-out limo, a president no less, his ligatures of gold, his gloves of foetal calfskin. his wedge of silk green acolytes. Owl ushering him out of the car, Hare handling the security, no exemptions, patting him down, poking his holes, rifling his bag, sequestering investigating penetrating validating, boxing his ears before sending him through.
Welcome, welcome, Your Excellency, step right in, Stoat on his tippy toes, bouncing on the glass cabinet containing the once crooked Ambassador to Azerbaijan stretched over an oil barrel, arse up in an elegant pose.
I’m sure you’re dying to see, Your Excellency, the private collection through the back, just for our VIPs. Stoat trotting in front, leading him on, pointing, explaining, pontificating.
Past the Tobacco Magnate, propped up in bed, his jellied lungs all a quiver on a silver platter on his bilious crimson quilt.
Past the Queen of Payday Loans, locked in a pillory, naked but for her coffee-stained paper bikini of red-letter final notice demands.
Two presidential eyes roving crossing, blinking popping, following the black-tipped brush of an upright tail. Stoat urging him on, nearly there, mind your head in the next bit, the ceiling’s low never got round to raising the roof just the dead ha ha ha.
Past the Chairman of SUVs, flat out and flattened, a black tyre print indented across what’s left of the horizontal flush of his bare and hairy belly.
Past the Pastiche of Media Barons, their brazen venalities tattooed orange on the mottled purple of their lumpen inner thighs.
Past the Triplet of Fornicating Free Traders, each with a pond net pulled tight over their head, secured at the neck with the most intricate of violet feather flies.
Past the Laird and Gamekeeper in their bloody snared embrace.
Four weeks later. 12.21 on the Saturday afternoon, everyone checking watches even those without, bending peering, wrists fobs lockets, shaking and shining and winding, ready now, look away look away look away, shut your eyes, keep them shut, keep them shut… and now!
Owl crashing cymbals. Hare drum roll beat.
rat a tat tat
rat a tat tat
rat a tat rat a tat
rat a tat tat
Swish back the curtains, all the window a stage, out with the Secretary of State, in with the preserved for posterity President sat proud on a plastic blow up planet, necklace of fingernails, buttons of toes, a truly lustrous enamel gilt stare, and look at the calf, live no less, laying sweet at his feet, chewing a bale of sun-blessed hay.
They surge they gasp they press their noses to the glass, they stare, they tremor, they blow for air, not a cut they say, not even a gash they say, what a talent they say, Stoat for President they cry as they shoogle and shuffle their turn to examine every specimen in its neatly labelled glass case.
Stoat skipping and leaping and glaring and lairing from his fresh grass nest on the granite shelf behind the pinging till.
Ooh and ahh and wow and goodness and see that, the wee thing doesn’t even have hands just claws how on earth does he do it incredible isn’t it just incredible just as well we’re ordinary we’re normal, normal people, local people, no chance of us ending up like that.
Stoat taking a bow, Stoat winking a black forest eye, Stoat puffing an elegant so-white-it-must-be-bleached perfect down bib.
What’s all this then? Two proud officers of the law with their fly-blown bellies and their clack clack shoes, their caps that sweat their pustulant brows, their ties that torque their larding necks, their nylon holsters that chafe and slide and give them a splint of a swagger.
Welcome, welcome, Officers, step right in.
Man alive, that stoaty laugh chortling out of the gallery, giggling down the alleyways, snickering across the cobbles pop goes the weasel kill the stoat said no one ever in this once proud industrial town now squeezed between the unspeakables, the undeniables, the unforgivables, where Owl counts them in and counts them out and is very good at his minuses.
SANDERLINGS 