“Often consideration of a poor example, by virtue of its imperfection, tells one more than consideration of a prime example, in its perfection.”
Modwind is tilling the field with several other space-labourers. The artificial sun is blisteringly hot. Effulgent waves warp and glaze over a desolate, rayless, alien reality. Modwind vainly attempts to wipe his brow from under an oversized desert campaign cap with a sun flap curiously placed over a bubble helmet. An antenna protrudes slightly through the cap, though it does not puncture it. Modwind has somehow snuck off a piece of fruit from one of the shrubs he is tending; he is enjoying the refreshment it provides from inside his helmet, unable to manoeuvre the food except with his chin, teeth and lip against the inside of the fishbowl.
He is staring off into the distance when domesticated mutant thrumwort plants cross his line of sight; his eyes soon come alive with stupefaction—the sight stands revealed. One of the thrumworts has swelled to colossal proportions, has perambulated deep into the penned-in enclosure where the labourers work. It kicks aside a now empty bag labelled Growth feed—use in moderation. The plant has mutated into a monstrosity: twelve feet high, more ungainly than usual and towering over everything in its path. Its encumbered movements sway toward the workers, its leaf-feet weighted down with iridium. Modwind is stabbing the air with his garden hoe, screaming muted whelps through a radio-fuzzed walkie. He makes scalping movements at the vegetative predator. Shwank, shwank in stereo.
His colleagues have wisely evacuated the pen and stand huddled inside a cockpitless hovercraft, quaking with fear and motioning their friend over. Modwind is the only one left to save the yield. The thrumwort picks up Modwind by the legs and turns him upside down. Modwind is shaking wildly, but somehow still manages to grip the hoe; he slashes at the amaranth’s bosom of fruit bulbs. It lets loose a waterphone keening into the zero-grav heavens. One must take precautions against isolation-bred space-cafard any way they can, even in thankless risk-taking (most of the yield does not make it to Earth intact anyway). Modwind falls to the soil in slow motion, the background behind him exploding into fractals of light. Title in relief, spinning out from Modwind’s heart, and growing larger and larger: The Fat of the Land.
Modwind’s flailing torso blurs into a water rippling effect, giving way to the very picture of domestic placidity—a tiny, non-futuristic kitchen where Modwind, free of his tubular-ringed gyro-suit, sat leisurely at his dinner table, is scooping leaves of lettuce reminiscent of the caudatus leaf into an outsized autolyzed yeast spread jar in the same fashion as Space-Gardener’s hoe-parrying. Modwind happily sheens his teeth with the lettuce strips as one would masticate leaves of tobacco, the sounds of his contented smacking occasionally interrupted by intense, guttural inarticulations from the recesses of his throat. The wireless by the kitchen counter, which had moments ago been playing a song in the same key as the waterphone wails from the opening scene, suddenly rasps to life.
“We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast for a special bulletin. Breaking news from the Cuthbertson estate in North Warwickshire: A.D. Cuthbertson, president and founder of Cuthbertson Industries, has died of natural causes. He passed away in his private residence surrounded by a small circle of business confidants and legal representatives. An announcement from a Cuthbertson Industries representative is forthcoming. It is believed that Mr. Cuthbertson had no heirs to his sizeable, property-based fortune. More on this story as it develops.”
Modwind had slowly risen in increments upon hearing each sense-shattering particular of the bulletin, his cranking teeth stalling and then drawing to a close mid-mouthful. The camera tracks in tightly on his face where the whites of his eyes register aspiration and disbelief. No sooner do the dulcet melodies of a swing number erupt from the wireless than Modwind is out the door of his apartment, racing down a flight of seemingly endless stairs. He emerges from the cramped interior of his apartment into a bustling market square. Modwind crosses frenetically through the bevy of extras but he is being swallowed whole by the tide of people, his bobbing head the only indication that he still exists within this crush of swirling bodies. His trademark bandit cap with its flared visor is occasionally almost knocked over, but by some sort of filmic resolve, it remains anchored to its topgallant. Modwind vainly pipes up with a few “Well, I nevers,” and “My words.” Reaching the other side of the street—after shaking his fists and kicking the air near the assembly line of marching feet—Modwind knocks at the first door he has come to.
“Wake up, Mr. Smidlarge, wake up!” he howls. “It’s happened, Mr. Smidlarge, the day we’ve been waiting for!”
A Brilliantined head covered in shaving cream pops out of the second-storey window and the uncharacteristically unspectacled visage of Mr. Smidlarge squints incision-sized suspicion at Modwind.
“What is it now, Oscar? You’re liable to wake the dead with all that hollering.”
“Mr. Smidlarge, Old Man Cuthbertson has died! I’ve just heard it on the morning news!”
“Well, why didn’t you say so? Come on up, then, but don’t wake Clara or I’ll be up to my ears in trouble. Not the foyer. Go through the back, Oscar, the back!”
With atomically-propulsed glee, Modwind runs around the Smidlarge residence and shimmies up a downpipe, wherefrom he leaps onto a garden trellis. The trellis, however, is unbalanced, and begins to sway side-to-side with the weight of Modwind’s body. The scene cuts to Clara in her nightie powdering her face in the bathroom. At the sight of Modwind’s mooning face in her mirror, Clara disregards the impression as a figment of her imagination. With each passing interval of Modwind’s head, a slide whistle dips up and down. By the third or fourth pass, Clara has turned around. The scene shifts to Mr. Smidlarge shaving in his washroom. A feminine scream shatters the peace and an ear-splitting crash sends the frame of the film rocking, nudging Smidlarge’s arm so that he cuts himself shaving.
A fade slowly brings into view the stationary bodies of Modwind, a chin-bandaged Mr. Smidlarge and his wife Clara seated around the breakfast table. Modwind is a bustle of energy trying to contain itself.
“Well, go on and tell her, Mr. Smidlarge! That you stand to inherit it all!”
“Inherit what, darling?” Clara chimes.
Mr. Smidlarge gives a strained look of disapproval to Oscar, his eyes looking out from over his glasses.
“It’s like this, love. A.D. Cuthbertson, the richest man in our fair town, has died, but his estate and assets are subject to escheat. However, me own mother brought me up with the notion that I was the sole by-product of their, er, unwearying romance. She had evidence to support this, of which I am in possession.”
“Oh my! Well, isn’t that exciting!”
“Today I shall put my case forward with the managers of my estranged father’s estate, and we shall have restitution for my life in the repellant shadows.”
Clara’s eyes momentarily look away from her cup of tea as the word “repellant” is uttered.
“Do you think you shall be well received?”
“Of course he’ll be well received, Clara. Mr. Smidlarge is, after all, Mr. Cuthbertson’s own flesh and blood.”
“Me own father denied every communication I sent him. Just because we have the truth on our side does not mean we’ve won the day. It’s only natural that there will be some infighting regarding my, some will say, all-too-timely arrival.”
“But there’s nothing timely about it, Mr. Smidlarge. If anything, you were too late to save him!”
The scene shifts to the closest thing to a sky-scraping, matte-enhanced corporate building the small town has on offer. It is noticeably out of place among the scrabble of modest, worn-down buildings of Merseylinton—its roof is not even visible. The Cuthbertson logo is engraved on a two-ton stone megalith that welcomes visitors by the porte-cochère looming over the entrance doors. The camera pans upward rapidly until the windows blur into a shiver of lights before stopping and craning in on the executive suite at the top of the building. Four executives in boxy, bespoke suits are debating the future of Cuthbertson Industries.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Tunleyh,” a dyspeptic, starched-shirt type named Mr. Emedonds cautions. “The Cuthbertson future is in danger. Just you wait and see what we shall have crawling out the woodwork.”
“No need for hysterics,” Mr. Tunleyh rejoins. “Measures have been put in place to maintain a sense of stability. Bring in Ailsa, please. Gentlemen of the board, allow me to introduce to you the rightful successor of the great Cuthbertson name.”
Through a panelled door, a charmless woman enters the boardroom in a chequered-print dress with her eyes held firmly on the tips of her shoes. She stops at the foot of the hardwood conference table.
“Ailsa Cuthbertson.”
A commotion erupts from the three other executives.
“Piffle!”
“Oh botheration! He’s actually done it!”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen! Allow me a moment to explain. Allan indeed produced no biological heirs. Ailsa is a young woman he took on as his ward in secrecy. He has been financing her studies and vocational training in an arrayed field of economics and business for years now, has shaped her mind in the mould of his own.”
“How do we know this isn’t some ploy to undermine the rest of us?”
A montage of young Ailsa playing in the street commences while a sound bridge of Tunleyh’s exposition plays over.
“You have before you now Ailsa’s adoption papers. Allan saw this gamine on the streets wherever he went. Property development sites, the country club…”
A ball rolls into the street and a shoeless child shown from the knees down darts after it. A black car comes into frame before screeching to a stop. The sound of a car door opening is followed by a close-up of an adult hand holding out the ball. The boardroom comes into view again. An executive’s hand is holding a wad of scrunched tobacco in a graphic match of the preceding scene. The tobacco is adroitly stuffed into a pipe.
“Moved by her depths of hardship, he took her to breakfast one morning,” Tunleyh continues. “She demonstrated an inborn facility with numbers.”
“Shame we couldn’t say the same about Allan,” the pipe-smoking executive mutters to Edemonds.
“Regarding Allan’s relative secrecy in the matter, I think your attitudes speak for themselves.”
“Tunleyh, you can’t expect us to go along with this. To reserve a seat on the board for a woman we know nothing about?”
“We must honour Allan’s final wishes. He asked that we allow her a period of time to prove herself. Time alone will tell whether she will earn a place beside us in the administration of this board.”
A crossfade soon reveals Mr. Smidlarge and Oscar tramping their way up to Cuthbertson HQ accompanied by a tuba sonatine. They approach the reception desk and are ignored by the carefree, prim-looking receptionist.
“Ahem.”
The receptionist makes no gesture of recognition.
“Hello, dear. A Mr. Smidlarge and Mr. Modwind to see a Cuthbertson representative.”
“Do you have an appointment?” the receptionist drawls with characteristically anodyne low feeling.
“No, as a matter of fact, we don’t,” Oscar chirrups.
“I really can’t let you—”
“Now wait a minute, ma’am, wait a minute. Please understand. My name is Mr. Smidlarge. It’s regarding a sensitive personal matter of some grave importance.”
“Oh, let me guess. This is about the Cuthbertson estate? Heredity and Filiation.”
“I beg your pardon, madam?”
“You’ll be wanting to join the queue. Up the stairs and to the right.”
“But I’ve—”
“Heredity and Filiation. Up the stairs and to the right.”
Mr. Smidlarge and Oscar scale the stairs. They emerge on the second floor and collectively wince at the sight of hundreds of people lining up under an ad hoc sign scrawled in fresh paint that reads Heredity and Filiation. Ailsa Cuthbertson is standing conspicuously behind the administrative nodes at the end of the hallway processing the army of heir apparents born practically overnight.
“I think we’re out of luck, Mr. Smidlarge.”
“Except that we have the truth on our side, lad. Never forget that. Move along then, Oscar. We’ll lose our precedence.”
Through the miracle economy of the time-lapse, Smidlarge and Modwind come to the reception desk. Ailsa has taken particular notice of this curious duo before her.
“Hullo, my name is Smidlarge. Rewdilf Smidlarge.”
“I suppose you’re brothers?” an H&F functionary remarks sarcastically.
“What? Oh no, this is my colleague, Mr. Modwind. I don’t know about the rest of these impostors, but I am the true son of the late Allan Cuthbertson.”
“And you have documentation supporting this allegation?”
“I do, making it no mere allegation. A birth certificate, notarized by my mother and Mr. Cuthbertson’s assistant Mr. Emedonds, records of a trust in my name disbursed annually, and letters my father wrote to my mother.”
The functionary swallows a hard lump of humility before Ailsa interjects.
“Good morning. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am the superintending officer of the Heredity and Filiation Department. Who did you say your mother was?”
“Emas Smidlarge. But don’t you think this is a subject better discussed in private, madam?”
“Yes, of course, Mr. Smidlarge. Please follow me.”
Ailsa, Oscar and Smidlarge enter single file into a cramped corner office, but before the door can rasp shut, a halting voice off-screen bawls “Smid-large! Mod-wind! Why haven’t you reported for duty yet?”
A cold, uniform shiver runs up Smidlarge and Modwind’s spines and they turn their heads past their shoulders to see the imposing figure of Foreman Dogel, a bullheaded and comminatory browbeater.
“You’re an hour late! Just what exactly do you think you’re… Oh, Ms. Cuthbertson, please do forgive me! Pardon the outburst, but these two have a history of truancy, they do.”
At the mention of Ailsa’s family lineage, Smidlarge and Modwind’s necks swivel. A clownish note from a Harmon-muted flugelhorn carries the point across.
“W… what did you say your name was, madam?”
“It seems you’re late for work, gentlemen. Now is that any kind of impression to leave on your employer?”
Smidlarge and Modwind are now in the lower-level changing rooms of Cuthbertson Industries putting on nondescript, twill one-piece uniforms, unidentifiable and featureless except for the smallest of insignias bearing the letters CI stitched on the lapels. As he is fastening his suspenders beneath his uniform, Oscar flicks Mr. Smidlarge’s chest with his index and middle fingers.
“Your ship’s come in, eh?”
“Not even close, Oscar. I can sniff a termagant a mile away.”
“You’ve got her wrong, Mr. Smidlarge. Her eyes reflected a noble and gentle spirit.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway? Best to get a move on before that Dogel gets back. C’mon now, hop it.”
The scene transitions with breakneck speed to the two men joining a small army of other Cuthbertson maintenance workers boarding panel vans and transport trucks. Out of the back garage, a handful of vehicles pour out to various corners of the city. The A35 van on which Mr. Smidlarge and Oscar are sitting appears to be slower than the others, and is sputtering thick black smoke out of its exhaust pipe. Oscar calls out to the driver from the rear bench seat to give it more gas.
“C’mon, then! Haven’t got all day!”
“Sorry, Oscar,” the driver whines. “I think it might be the return line… we won’t get far in this heap. Looks like you’re going to have to go out on foot.”
“Ahhhh-ohhhh!”
Oscar and Mr. Smidlarge carry the spirit of grim death on their faces, but beat a forsaken path to one of the Cuthbertson properties, a four-storey walk-up that sits as a perfect brick cube in a rundown part of town. The two men enter the property, and then head to a door marked Cuthbertson Employees Only. Inside the small, closet-sized room, there are mops and brooms on racks, a basin and a special telephone with the words direct line labelled on the handle. Mr. Smidlarge picks up the receiver and calls HQ. Oscar pulls out a key from around his neck that dangles from a chain. He opens a complaint box attached directly beneath the mail slot.
“Apartments six, eleven, twenty-eight and thirty-one. That’s not too bad.”
“Hullo, headquarters? Employee #1193 here. We’re at the Waverly Heights property, confirming a work order for four apartments. Mmmhmm… are you aware of why we are behind schedule? There’s hardly anything I can do about that. I see. Alright, I understand. Hmmph.”
“Well, then?”
“We still have to clear all seven sites today.”
“Owwhhh… It’s not even possible!”
“Let’s not tarry. You take the top floor and—”
“Eh? Why do I always get the top floor, Mr. Smidlarge?”
“Well, ahem, you know how my back gets, Oscar.”
Sometime later, Oscar is barrelling down the stairs carrying a broom and dustpan, his face and uniform covered in soot. There is some sort of commotion coming from inside the stockroom and Oscar throws down his cleaning materials and hangs on to his cap while his feet carry him away. Two musclebound toughs are on either side of Mr. Smidlarge, shoving him about like a ragdoll. Mr. Smidlarge grimaces awkwardly as spasms of pain flutter across the lower half of his face.
“Now listen here, Smiddy, we don’t want anything to happen to you. Of course we don’t, do we, Eric?”
“Aye.”
“So be reasonable, Smiddy. We’re not asking much.”
“What’s all this, then?” Oscar yarps. “Let go of him!”
Oscar dives straight into the man holding up Mr. Smidlarge by the collar, but is deftly kept away by the second man, Eric. There is hardly any moving room.
“Oh, Oscar, it’s you. You’re with this bag of bones, then, are you? You’ve done right by us, but well, should we explain it to him too, Tom?”
“Occurs to us that we could do your jobs for you. Save you a spot of bother coming down here. We couldn’t do that for free, though, now could we? Big job, making sure the heat don’t cut out.”
“You’re out of your mind, you tallow-headed hooligan. Don’t you listen to one word, Mr. Smidlarge. Whatever they do to us, you can be sure the boys back at headquarters will pay it back double. We, eh, eh, we know where you live, after all!”
The two extortionists consider this advice thoughtfully. Tom, the bigger of the two, lets Mr. Smidlarge fall to the ground in an ashamed heap and squeezes past Oscar. “We didn’t mean anything by it, Oscar. Just messing about.”
“Mr. Smidlarge, are you alright? Let’s have a look at you.”
Mr. Smidlarge is clutching his heart, his temples are pulsing rhythmically and he has lost his facility of speech.
“Hey! Heeey, Eric! Call an ambulance! Somebody call an ambulance!”
An L cut follows, and the scene shifts to Oscar at the side of Mr. Smidlarge, who is rolling in and out of consciousness in a turned-down hospital bed. Mr. Smidlarge looks up at his companion with stilled resistance in his eyes, his face in the agony that only a supposititious mortality can produce.
“Oscar, come closer…”
“Yes, Mr. Smidlarge, what is it?”
“Oscar…”
“Yes? Go on.”
“You’re sitting on my arm!”
Oscar bolts upright, while Mr. Smidlarge yanks his arm free from under the covers.
“Blasted hospitals, they’re all the same, preparing you for the final curtain, even if you’ve nary begun the second act!”
“You gave me quite a scare, Mr. Smidlarge. How much longer do you reckon you’ll be holed up in here? We’ve got six more jobs to finish, not to mention a trip back to Heredity and Filiation if we have the time.”
“Oscar, does it look like I’ll be leaving this bed any time soon?”
“But you just said—”
“Never mind what I just said. A man earns his rest as much as he earns his right to a little griping here and there.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“Typical gobbledygook. Lots of bed rest, get your affairs in order…”
“Prognosis?”
“Apparently, I had a stroke.”
“You what? Cor, that’s you having me on, then! A stroke. At your ripe old age.” Oscar considers his wording.
“One more and I’m finished.”
“But what about what’s rightfully yours then?”
“What’s rightfully mine and rightfully anybody’s is of no concern. They have us running around in circles while this Ailsa is getting her house in order. I didn’t want to play this card but they’ve forced my hand. You’re going to have to stand in for me, you hear? And look after Clara.”
“Don’t go talking nonsense.”
“I have at the home, the title deed to a property on the outskirts of town—attendant documents, warranty deed—in my father’s name. It’s inside one of Clara’s bandboxes. False bottom. I need you to go to the house and find it before Ailsa can get her mitts on it. I’ve left further instructions—”
“You’re paranoid!”
“I’ve been on enough medication to sing the tune of a half million pounds, Oscar.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do with it in case you’ve gone for a Burton by the time I come back?”
“Who’s talking paranoia now, boy?”
Oscar makes shift to hurry to the Smidlarge residence. He is on his knees surrounded by twenty hatboxes that have all been upturned and discarded haphazardly in the Smidlarge bedroom. He is flinging shoes over his shoulder looking for the legal documents in question.
“Oh now, where is it?”
A shadow begins to eclipse Oscar’s body from off-screen.
“Looking for something?”
Expecting Clara, Oscar rises sheepishly, but is taken aback when he sees Ailsa standing in the Smidlarges’ bedroom, flanked on both sides by two boulder-headed bruisers. In Ailsa’s delicate right hand is a document folded along the middle, and in the other, a bone folder and a torn manila envelope.
“How did you get in here? You’re trespassing on private property! I’ll notify the authorities, I will.”
“I have a much more appealing proposition for you, Oscar. Why don’t you come with us and let me tell you about it?”
“You must think I’m awfully gullible to fall for a nasty trick like that. I’ll scream. The Smidlarges have paper-thin walls. The neighbours don’t hardly leave their houses.”
Ailsa divides a look of hesitation between her thugs.
“And you’re in possession of stolen legal documents respecting the last will and testament of one Mr. Rewdilf Smidlarge. Felony charges, the lot of you!”
“Easy, Oscar. We were merely keeping them safe until your arrival. You know, at Cuthbertson Industries, we’re all one happy family.”
“Throw it here then, you pack of jackals. No tricks!”
Oscar has picked up some Christmas wrapping folded around a cardboard tube, and is brandishing it like an admiral’s cutlass, stabbing it forward each time one of the burly men leans forward too suddenly.
“How about we all go on our merry way, and you can have Clara back.”
Oscar is taken aback by this threat, recalling his promise to Mr. Smidlarge. He drops the tube, and the men descend upon him in seconds. He is held fast between them and escorted to a Silver Wraith waiting outside.