Read Online The Wilt Alternative by Tom Sharpe - Free Book Online Page A

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Suffice it to say that she's twice the man I am.' He relapsed into silence and finished his

pint.
    'Anyway, I still say you'd be making a hell of a mistake if you brought the Tech any more bad

publicity,' said Braintree, to change a distressing subject. 'Let sleeping dogs lie is my

motto.'
    'Mine too if people didn't sleep with crocs on film,' said Wilt. 'As it is that bastard Bilger

has the gall to tell me I'm a deviationist swine and a lackey of capitalistic fascism... thank

you, I will have another pint... and all the time I'm protecting the sod. I've half a mind to

make a public issue of the whole damned thing. Only half a mind, because Toxted and his gang of

National Front thugs are just waiting for a chance to have a punch-up and I'm not going to be

their hero thank you very much.'
    'I saw our little Hitler pinning up a poster in the canteen this morning,' said Braintree.
    'Oh really, what's he advocating this time? Castration for coolies or bring back the

rack?'
    'Something to do with Zionism,' said Braintree. 'I'd have ripped the thing down if he hadn't

had a bodyguard of Bedouins. He's moved in with the Arabs now, you know.'
    'Brilliant,' said Wilt, 'absolutely brilliant. That's what I like about these maniacs of the

right and left, they're so bloody inconsistent There's Bilger who sends his children to a private

school and lives in a ruddy great house his father bought him and he goes round advocating world

revolution from the driving seat of a Porsche that must have cost six thousand if it cost a penny

and he calls me a fascist pig. I'm just recovering from that one when I bang into Toxted who is a

genuine fascist and lives in a council house and wants to send anyone with a pigmentation problem

back to Islamabad even though they were actually born in Clapham and haven't been out of England

since, and who does he team up with? A bunch of ruddy sheikhs with more oil dollars under their

burnouses than he's had hot dinners, can't speak more than three words of English, and own half

Mayfair. Add the fact that they're semites and he's so anti-semitic he makes Eichmann look like a

Friend of Israel, and then tell me how his bloody mind ticks. I'm damned if I know. It's enough

to drive a rational man to drink.'
    As if to give point to this remark Wilt ordered two more pints.
    'You've had six already,' said Braintree doubtfully. 'Eva will give you hell when you get

home.'
    'Eva gives me hell, period,' said Wilt. 'When I consider how my life is spent...'
    'Yes, well I'd just as soon you didn't,' said Braintree, 'there's nothing worse than an

introspective drunk.'
    'I was quoting from the first line of "Testament of Beauty" by Robert Bridges,' said Wilt.

'Not that it's relevant. And I may be introspective but I am not introspectively drunk. I am

merely pissed. If you'd had the sort of day I've had and were faced with the prospect of climbing

into bed with Eva in a foul temper you would seek oblivion in beer too. Added to which is the

knowledge that ten feet above my head, separated only by a ceiling, a floor and some wall-to-wall

rush matting, will be lying the most beautiful, intelligent, radiant, sensitive creature...'
    'If you mention the word Muse again, Henry...' said Braintree threateningly.
    'I don't intend to,' said Wilt. 'Such ears as yours are far too coarse. Come to think of it,

that almost rhymes. Has it ever occurred to you that English is a language most naturally fitted

for poetry which rhymes?'
    Wilt launched into this more agreeable topic and finished more beers. By the time they left

The Glassblower's Arms Braintree was too drunk to drive home.
    'I'll leave the car here and fetch it in the morning,' he told Wilt who was propping up a

telegraph pole, 'and if I were you I'd ring for a taxi. You're not even fit to walk.'
    'I shall commune with nature,' said Wilt. 'I have no intention of hastening the time between

now and reality. With