Read Online The Midden by Tom Sharpe - Free Book Online

Vy had evidently had the switch moved. She was always getting builders

or plumbers in and changing everything round. Not that he wanted the light. Mustn't wake Vy. Just

to make sure, he took his shoes off and stumbled as quietly as he could up the stairs.
    It was then that he heard the snores. He'd complained about her snoring before, but this was

something totally different. Sounded like she was farting in a mud bath. One thing was certain.

He wasn't sleeping in the same bed with that fucking noise. He'd use the spare room. He went into

the bathroom to have a pee and couldn't find the light cord. Bloody builders hadn't put it where

it ought to be. Sir Arnold undressed in the dark and then went out onto the landing and was about

to go into the spare room when he remembered that Aunt Bea was probably in there. He wasn't going

to risk getting into bed with that foul old bag. No way. He fumbled back along the passage, all

the time cursing his wife. It was typical of her that the light switches had been moved. Always

wanting everything to be different. Outside the bedroom door he hesitated again. Dear God, that

was a fearful sound. Then it crossed his mind that something might be really wrong. Perhaps Vy

had taken an overdose of those damned pills the doctor had prescribed for her depression. She

could be hyperventilating. She was certainly doing something extraordinary. And wasn't snoring

dangerous? He'd read that recently. For a moment a dark hope rose in the Chief Constable's mind.

He was tempted to let her snore on. In the meantime he'd better take a Vitamin C and his half of

Disprin.
    Sir Arnold groped his way back to the bathroom and found the Redoxon. Or thought he did. A few

moments later he knew he hadn't. The fucking things were Auntie Bloody Bea's denture cleaners. In

the darkness Sir Arnold Gonders spat desperately into the basin and thought dementedly about his

wife and her rotten relatives. And she had the gall to blame him for her nerves. They were the

result, she claimed, of being married to a man with such a close relationship with all those

dreadful criminals he worked with. She'd been ambiguous about which criminals she'd meant, but he

had always been conscious that she and her family believed she had married beneath her and really

couldn't have done anything else short of marrying one of the classier Royals. The Gilmott-Gwyres

were appalling snobs. On the other hand she also felt very badly about his relationship with God,

and if God Almighty wasn't socially upmarket, Sir Arnold Gonders would like to know who was.
    Unfortunately Lady Vy's nerves had recently been made very much worse by some clown in the

Communications Repair Section who had twice programmed her car phone so that it had put her

through to some very shady establishments down by the docks. The next time Vy had used the phone

she had been answered by the sod who ran The Holy Temple of Divine Being or on occasion, the

second occasion in her case, The Pearly Gates of Paradise. Lady Vy, trying to get through to her

sister who was supposed to be still alive, had been horrified to find a clear indication that her

husband actually did phone God and that the blighter was manifestly an Oriental bent on offering

her 'any sexual application, herb or vibrating what-not that will bring you Heavenly

satisfaction. Money-back guarantee. Massage and manual assistance also available.' Her reaction

to this first call had been to write off her Jaguar and two other cars by going down the up

slipway onto the M85. On the second occasion, three weeks later, she told God, or whoever was in

charge of The Pearly Gates of Paradise and it could be the Angel Gabriel himself for all she

cared, to fuck off, you shit. As a result she had had a terrible crisis of conscience before

she'd even got home at the thought that she might indeed have been speaking to God. 'You're

always having talks with the