Bigot Hall by Steve Aylett

Father’s vexingly exuberant cousin, Roger Lang. Sometimes when speaking of him, Father would become uncharacteristically pop-eyed and begin strangling empty air. I remember one occasion when Roger turned up yelling like Santa and expecting us to respond. Me and Adrienne crept halfway down the stairs and saw him shouting toward Father in the hallway. ‘Good heavens old man, this place of yours is a gothic nightmare. A few ornamental fiends and Bob’s your uncle. Speaking of which.’ And he tore the wrapping from a huge mounted moose-head at which Father stared in appalled astonishment.
    ‘A cow.’
    ‘I prefer to think of it as a moose, old fellow - and the best of its type I’ve ever come across. Quite a find really. It’s been sat on a barrel in an unsuccessful fruiterers for the last six years and the shopkeeper was arrested the other week for going mad - said the blessed thing kept shouting at him and trying to run things. In fine condition though. Name’s Ramone. Eyes are quartz crystal, and those antlers are tough enough to swing on. I believe it even salivates.’
    Father was doubtful. ‘Yes, well the benefits of having a dribbling wildebeest forever mournfully regarding one are dubious at the best of times.’
    Lang looked at Father as though at a madman. ‘Dubious? Why the benefits my dear fellow are legion . I’ll hang it on the hook here, shall I?’
    ‘If you have strong feelings on the matter.’
    Lang placed the bleak-featured head on the hallway wall. ‘Now - where are those brats of yours? There they are - Alice and the Little Prince!’
    ‘That animal head is rotting from the inside,’ I stated, walking solemnly down.
    ‘Like Roger’s principles,’ stated Adrienne, following after.
    ‘Antlers like radar,’ I muttered.
    ‘Perhaps it’ll whisper the racing results,’ muttered Adrienne.
    ‘Crack your face, you two,’ chortled Roger like a toytown mayor. ‘You’ve got to laugh otherwise you’ll cry.’
    ‘I see no impediment to doing both at once,’ said Adrienne, looking expressionlessly up at the moose-head. Then she turned, giving Roger a scornful glance, and walked back upstairs.
    ‘Did it relinquish its bonce by choice?’ I asked, regarding the head.
    ‘Ha, ha - nice one, Scooter,’ he laughed, fuzzing my hair.
    ‘Don’t ever ,’ I emphasised murderously, ‘call me Scooter again.’ And I marched away.
    Roger took a spare room and toured the house like a stranger. His routine rejection of the facts allowed him to be surprised by the same ones repeatedly. ‘Listen old man,’ he said to Father, pouring port, ‘I’ve just been in the west wing - entered a room back there and interrupted a nun in a welding mask. What’s the story?’
    ‘You know very well what the story is, Roger,’ said Father tiredly. ‘They bother no one.’
    ‘D’you mean to say you countenance these extraordinary practices?’
    Father sighed, his eyes filming over.
    The moose was beginning to salivate, forming a pool on the carpet like the slime of a snail. Snapper took Father aside and whispered urgently. ‘We can’t tolerate a gobbing mammal like this all day every day. It’ll start pursing its lips - expressing itself. It’ll come alive and terrorize the creatures which belong here.’
    ‘It’s a gift, brother.’
    ‘Roger’s a hound in all but name,’ said Snapper. He kicked at the slime. ‘Look at this. He’d harness a wren to pull a houseboat. Get rid of him, brother.’
    ‘Secret assignations?’ smiled Lang, appearing in the hallway, and Snapper made a brisk exit. Lang idled at the moose-head, admiring it as Father stood awkwardly by. ‘A curious point which you will scarcely believe is that this artefact requires occasional feeding.’
    ‘How,’ asked Father, ‘occasional?’
    ‘Only once an hour, old soak,’ beamed Roger. ‘With grain. Let’s take a turn round the grounds and I’ll state my plan.’
    ‘The whole front area,’ Lang announced as he and Father