Museum of Old Beliefs by I. Peter Lavan (cool books to read .txt) 📖

short, so here’s forward payment for the next five years whisky.”

Tom’s hand left his groin to take the package; with a banker precision he flicked the contents. “I can’t accept this, never mind five years worth of whisky, there’s a down payment on a distillery in here, thanks Pete, can’t take it.” He made to give it back.

Peter held up his hand. “Take it, a home, hospital or the bloody government will seep it away for profit or some pointless parliament plan, and all my working life will mean nothing, just take it, you’ll appreciate it, they don’t care where it’s come from.”

“But Amy.”

“Amy’s looked after, plus I’ve given her as much as I can, the death duty scavenging tax jackals will devour what’s left.”

“Thanks, it means a lot.” Tom put the package away and reverted back to scratching. “You seem down Pete?”

“Mmm, me-thinks there’s plans a-foot. In fact, I’m sure there’s plans in place to put me in hospital, I suspect this is the last time we’ll be able to meet here.”

“Pete, I’m sorry, don’t know what to say.”

The two stood up as one and embraced for the first time ever. “I’ll come and see you.”

“Don’t bother mate, my body may be there, but I suspect my mind will be somewhere else.”
The final words of a fifty-one year friendship.

Peter wiped the precipitation from the side of his eye as he entered Leopold Street; he had a quick glance over to the plaque on the other side. He had one last thing to do before he went to see Sabine. He didn’t do his usual linger outside the shop, instead he walk straight in and up to the counter where the red headed girl was waiting.

“For years I’ve wanted to come in and buy something, now I have a friend, I don’t know what to do.”

“A friend,” echoed the girl’s pursed lips emphasising the end of ‘friend’.

“Can you advise me? After three years of courting we are beginning to get, get a bit intimate.”

The glint in the girl’s eyes matched his. “Three years, intimate.”

“Intimate,” he nodded, the girl nodded back, lips still pursed. The manager huffed from somewhere in the shop.

“What do you think she’d like?”

“Don’t know, one of these” He felt the fabric of a Basque besides the counter.

“You’ll need pants and stockings to match,” the girl disappeared for a second coming back with two open boxes. “These match beautifully.”

Peter looked at the items, “I don’t know, it’s difficult to tell, they’re all so… flat”

The girl smiled a most wicked smile. “What size is your friend?” She took a deep breath in, “anything like me?”

He resisted spreading and waggling his fingers. “Mmm she would be about your size.”

The girl lent forward in a conspirator whisper. “Would you like me to model them for you?”

“You can do that?”

The girl took the boxes and then his hand and led him into an enclosed area to the back of the shop and sat him down. “Wait there I’ll be back in a moment.”

As she came out Peter could only smile. “You’re gorgeous.”

“Thank you” she curtsied, revealing a scaled down Cheddar gorge. She gracefully spun round.

He pointed with one finger. “They…”

“You didn’t think this was natural,” she flounced falsely while taking off a bright red wig, letting down a fall of auburn curls.

“You should model.”

“That’s the plan.”

“I’ll take it. Don’t suppose you come with it?”

“What about your friend?” she was teasing him.

“Between you and me, I haven’t a friend.”

“Between you and me, I know.”

“Why then?”

“We had a bit of fun, didn’t cost anything, life’s for living not constraining to death.” She turned as she left for the changing rooms, “you don’t have to buy them.”

“I want to, a present to you.”

“They are rather nice, good choice.”

They returned to the checkout the manager was hovering. The girl, with bright red hair back in place, started wrapping the clothes.
“Long time ago I lost my second daughter at birth, if she had lived I truly hope she would have been like you.”
The girl came round the counter and with one leg cocked at the knee chastely kissed him. “Thank you,” she murmured softly.

“Is cash alright?”

“Err… sure.”

Peter took an envelope out of his coat. “Keep the change.”

The girl took the money out. “I can’t, there’s hundreds.”

“Thousands, for your career.”

The manager intervened. “Can I help?” He could see her eyeing the cash.

“One moment m’dear,” he turned his attention back to the girl. “You keep the change, you do what you need to do.” He turned back to the manager. “Yes you can, I need something else, what do you think?”

“It depends on what you’re trying to achieve.”

“I know.” He walked over to a rail and took down a sheer piece of black material with three strategic openings; he turned the hanger round to reveal three string ties that held the whole thing together. “What about this? Will you model it for me?”

Peter saw the flash of resentment in her; he also saw the want flash from a fleeting glance at the cash.
He tapped his breast pocket. “For five grand?” He held out the hanger.

The manager looked at the tiny piece of material, then to Peter, then back to the material. He could experience the apprehension tension, then with a “Humph” she snatched the hanger.

He waited ‘till she got to the dressing room curtain. “One second,” he tapped his coat pocket, then he started rummaging in his trousers. “I haven’t got five grand, what about modelling for five pence?” He took a five pence coin out of his pocket.

The manager threw the garment to the floor like it was soaked in Hydrochloric acid. And with the venom of a crotalidae Pit Viper she screamed. “WHAT TYPE OF FUCKING WOMAN DO YOU THINK I AM?”

He looked at her calmly, raised the Homburg and politely replied. “We’ve established that, all we’re doing is negotiating a price.” Peter had to admit bake beans are a lot softer then the palm of a hand.

He rubbed his left cheek as he looked across the road, deliberately assassinating time, he frantically searched for things to do, any excuse not to cross the road, anything. A cup of tea, but he wasn’t thirsty. A sandwich, he wasn’t hungry. A, a, a, a, there wasn’t anything, nothing. So it was with extremely anxious trepidation he crossed the street. He looked down the cellar steps. His vestibular spun and vomit built, swallowing back each step he took, he made for the big studded door and stopped. Slowly the door swung open, he didn’t now how, but he knew he was expected inside.

It wasn’t dark, but it wasn’t exactly light inside either. What light there was came from floor, up-lighters, that fanned out beams of vermilion shaded laser light up the walls into prisms about head height, that in turn, refracted light into a myriad of pinpoint spots on the ceiling. The door slammed shut. Without outside light the corridor he had just entered had became darker. His heart rate rose, his breath became shallower, just as his eyes adjusted to the new level of light, everything went black. Then it started, the sound of a mounting pulse, it matched his increasing internal rhythm, the up-lighters started to flick to the beat until sound, light and body vibrated as one. Everything grew swifter, faster, his head started swimming, he couldn’t breath quick enough, he was about to tumble, when it stopped. Everything paused for a moment of black perpetuity. Then gradually images started to flash, slowly at first. Where they came from, Peter couldn’t tell. Old images from old archives, faded and flickering, parts remembered and others forgot, parts brown, others faded and burnt out. How long he was there, he couldn’t tell, a lifetime? A few seconds? A few minutes? A few… it went dark again. The pulse created a new cadence, slower, it sounded to ripple down the corridor in a repetitive dying tone. The lights illuminated the hall for a millisecond, then darkness, and then every second beat the lights sequentially followed the sound down the passageway, passing flashing memorable images along the way. Peter was aware of an urge building. The lights and sound were calling him down the corridor. His head’s rational belief said no, irrational heart said yes, and won. As he got closer to the end of the corridor, he could see a plain wooden door, a door just like any internal doors found in millions of houses everywhere. He hesitated by the door; there were no handles or any distinguishing marks. He had a sensation that somehow, this was the most important door in his whole life. Why or how, he didn’t know, but it was. Hundreds of cognitive thoughts bombarded with reasons not to proceed; yet there was a deeper pull that diminished all of them. The door was there to be opened and he could, and he would, and he did.
The room was triple vaulted and full of what looked like hard-edged objects around the walls but they were obscured by low light. What light there was came from the left-hand corner of the vault, a single desk lamp. Lots of hands could just be seen working in the puddle of the light, they were quick and efficient. As he moved towards the light Peter kept stopping with a jolt or a shudder, it was if he’d bumped into something, yet there was never anything there. As he approached the lamp someone from behind the desk turned it and caught him, not unlike the searchlights from the past, he stopped.

“Another who didn’t use the left door.”

“I used the right door?”

“Probably, then a lot of people do, bet you’re here to see Dr Trudeau?”

“Sabine, yes I am, she gave me her card.” He started fumbling for proof.

“I should have guessed it’s nearly always people who’ve been with that Dr Trudeau that tend to come this way, never mind.”

The illumination lifted; as his eyes adjusted and as the black-flecked effects from the light subsided, he was surprised to see only one person behind the desk, he hadn’t heard anyone leave. The person (Peter was unsure of the gender) shook their hands down by their sides, as if trying to shake cuffs down from inside the arms of a jacket. Their head was an unusual shape, wide at the top yet elongated and tapered, and what looked like their ears were far too far up the sides of their head. But it was the eyes that unnerved him; they were far too big for the head, if it hadn’t been for the two arms coming out of their jacket, he would have thought it was an octopus.

“Right, let me see… you must be PP?”

Peter was shocked it had been a long time since anyone had called him PP. It brought back memories of his mum, she called him PP, Perfect Peter, she’d say, but she actually admitted later on in his life the first P was some form of reference to his lack of bladder control.

“How did you…?” He stopped, he was sure Octoson or Perpus or whatever they were was deliberately looking towards his groin area with a knowing look and