5. Dr Griping Grohns Addiction Clinic.

BOB SKELLINGTON’S REMAINS Part 5

Dr Griping Grohns addiction Clinic., when Rosie finally pulled up I what she assumed was a car-park, one that had originally been gravel but was slowly being reclaimed by nature in the form of sun-dried tufts of grass, was a dismal looking place if ever there was such a thing.

Rosie stared at the weathered building complete with peeling paint and grubby windows in disbelief. But the equally squalid notice hanging at a grotesque angle was quite clear. This was most certainly Dr Griping Grohns addiction Clinic, and the website she had found for it (which incidentally illustrated the place when it was a great deal newer, with pristine paintwork and even more pristine lawns surrounding it, assured her that she might visit the patients between 5 pm and 5.30 pm every other day, starting on Mondays.

“That doesn’t make mathematical sense,” she mumbled to herself, and she marched up to the door with her warrant card firmly in one hand.

The door didn’t open when she knocked it, so she knocked it again and then she noticed the bell-push which indicated in faded letters that she should press it only once. So she pressed it twice

Somewhere a bell must have rung because the door opened and a woman who vaguely represented her mental image of a geriatric nurse in nurse’s uniform stood there and, owlishly, blinked at her.

“Police,” she said as crisply as she could, holding her card so that the blinking nurse could see it, “I’ve come to see Mr Montclare. Mr Selwyn Montclare on police business.”

“Oh, you can’t do that, dearie,” mumbled the ancient nurse in a voice more cracked than those reproduced on nineteenth century cylinder recording machines when the wax has roughened, “the doctor’s most firm about it, most firm indeed. No visitors before 5 or after half past,” and she went to close the door.

But Rosie was used to doors being shut when she wanted them to be open, and she pushed her foot against it, confident that the strength in one of her feet was more than equal to the withered muscles of a nurse of huge age.

“You will inform the doctor that there is a senior police officer at the door, wishing to see Mr Selwyn Montclare,” she said firmly.

“I can’t do that, dearie,” replied the old woman.

“Can’t? Didn’t I make it clear that you must?” demanded Rosie.

“But he’s dead and buried, deariie. That he is, this past few years. I can take you to his grave. Over there it is, on the lawn, though you probably can’t see it on account of the grass needing to be mowed. But the mower’s not working any more and the gardener’s dead anyway.”

“But you’re not dead,” said Rosie grimly, deciding that if this was an actual mad house then she might as well adopt an attitude its staff and inmates might understand and state the obvious.

“No, dearie, I’m not,” replied the nurse, “so off you go before I call the police.”

“But I am the police,” protested Rosie, raising her voice, “and I as here to question Mr Selwyn Montclare on an important matter concerning his brother.”

“Would that be his middle brother or his smaller brother?”

“That’s no concern of yours, and if you don’t help me by taking me to see Mr Selwyn Montclare I’ll be obliged to arrest you and charge you with wasting police time.” Rosie’s voice was icy when she said that but even so she doubted whether the nurse understood much of it.

“You won’t get through to him,” grunted the nurse, finally standing to one side so that Rosie could enter the building, and when she did so, when a draught of its contents wafted past her she wondered if it might be wiser for her to simply turn round and return to sanity, for the place smelled of an almost intolerable mixture of alcohol and urine.

But she held firm, and allowed herself to be taken along a corridor and into a large lounge in which a single elderly man sat in an arm chair with his feet up and a large glass of something that looked suspiciously alcoholic in one hand.

“Is he sober?” she asked, guessing the answer.

“Nah. Not him. The doctor says that one day he might sober up, but it’s a long job, what with the state he was in afore he came here.”

“And that’s Selwyn Montclare of the fine old Montclare family?” asked Rosie in near disbelief, not wanting to challenge the use of the word doctor if that doctor was, in actual fact, reclining in a home-made grave out in the gardens.

“Son of Abram. Yes, that’s him, bless him.” croaked the nurse, and she called out, “Selly, you’ve got a visitor.”

The man in the only occupied chair slowly turned round to face them and Rosie shook her head in disbelief.

His head had the appearance of being made almost entirely of beard, and what wasn’t beard was moustache.

“Selly, it’s one o’ them there modern things, a girl copper,” the nurse told him.

Then the bewhiskered apparition spoke.

“If ever whisky’s breath could smell so sweet, come hither wench and sit on my little bony knee.” It was neither speech nor whispering but a breathy kind of groaning and it sent shivers down Rosie’s spine.

But she had a job to do, and she was going to do it.

“I want to talk to you about your brother,” she said.

“Ah, flesh of my father’s flesh. My father’s dead, you know, foundered in the arms of alchemy. But brother, you say? Not the young tyke, surely, the howling beast who understands neither words nor melody, who fails at every turn to make a pleasing melody with his offensive voice? Not him…”

“No,” snapped Rosie, “the other.”

“Oh, darling Robert. He had a huge whatsit, you know, though it’s not the sort of thing to discuss with girl coppers. But he did! Enormous, it was. Went into politics, he did, changed his name.”

“He did? What did he call himself?”

Before he could reply the nurse clapped her hands and giggled as of she was the mad thing he was supposed to be. “That’s fine!” she laughed, “he’s said more to you than I’ve heard this past ten years! Hurrah for you, that’s what I say!”

“Skellington. That’s what he is now, Sir Bob Skellington, Member of Parliament and doubtless the more honourable than the lot of you, though he can’t be bothered to call on his insane brother. Too busy, I should assume, to have much time for me!”

Rosie smiled to herself. Should she tell this man, who was slowly sipping from a pint pot of what looked suspiciously like whisky? Might he be teetering on the edge of total mental oblivion, and might knowledge of the loss of a brother, send him completely over?

She took one look at him, and turned to go.

Then, half way to the door she paused and turned back.

“You might like to know,” she said, “that he named himself well, for his is now a skeleton, a very dead and very lifeless skeleton, though he’s probably more use as he is now than he might have been had he not shed his flesh!”

Rosie thought that the sound of the whiskery head of hair cackling as if at the funniest of jokes would probably stay with her for quite a long time. At least, she thought, as she stumbled towards her car, until teatime.

© Peter Rogerson 04.02.21