Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

  And one of the many thoughts that he was thinking was ...

  What if I’m dreaming this?

  Although considerably confused, he still felt certain that he hadn’t dreamed the rest. So if that was the case, then he had to be dreaming this.

  And if he was dreaming this, then no-one could do any harm to him, and if he knew he was dreaming, he could do pretty much anything he wanted.

  ‘OK,’ said Russell, ‘fine. Thank you very much everyone. You’re all very kind. I’ll have some of that champagne, if I might. Ah, Julie, you’re looking well. Perhaps after the movie you’d like to come back to my place for some sex.’

  Julie’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘Oral sex is fine by me,’ said Russell. ‘That’s a date then.’

  The crowd parted before him and Russell made his way to the table. Glances were exchanged, shoulders shrugged.

  ‘He’s been over-working,’ said Mr Fudgepacker.

  ‘Hey, Fudgy.’ Russell gave the old boy a jovial pat that sent him reeling. ‘How’s it hanging, you old spawn of Satan?’

  Murmur murmur murmur, went the crowd.

  ‘Over-working.’ Mr F struggled to stay upright. ‘He’s not normally like this, as we who know and love him know. This is quite out of character.’

  Russell winked at Ernest and whispered close by his ear. ‘I’ll give you “character”, you old bastard. Just show the movie.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Ernest eased his way past Russell. ‘Take a seat, dear boy. Down at the front.’

  ‘With you and the man in black behind me, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Anywhere you like, then.’

  ‘At the back.’

  ‘As you please. Well, seats everyone. Bobby Boy, get the lights switch on the projector and come and sit down the front with me.’

  The crowd, looking somewhat bewildered, bundled for the best seats. Russell’s mum wrung her hands and shook her snowy head. The sister Russell was sure lived in Australia said, ‘Typical.’ But whether this was directed against the bewildered bundlers or against Russell must remain uncertain.

  When the bundling had finished and everyone was settled into their seats, the lights went down and the screen lit up.

  A RUSSELL NICE PRODUCTION in association with

  FUDGEPACKER INTERNATIONAL BIO PICS presents

  ‘NOSTRADAMUS ATE MY HAMSTER,’ said Russell.

  A SHOWER OF GOLD

  ‘Eh?’ said Russell. ‘A shower of what?’

  ‘Ssssh!’ went Russell’s mum.

  ‘Typical,’ said his sister.

  Russell sat back, sipped champagne and stared on as the movie unfolded before him.

  Bobby Boy played the part of a blind watchmaker’s apprentice. The time was the present and the place was Brentford. The watchmaker’s business was going bust and a wicked developer was doing all he could to acquire the premises, demolish them and build some great corporate enterprise on the site.

  Julie played the developer’s PA, a high-powered woman with a troubled conscience. In fact, everyone in the picture seemed to have a troubled conscience. The watchmaker harboured some terrible secret from his past. His apprentice, while on the surface pretending to support the old man, was in fact scheming to sell him out. The developer was in love with Julie, but he had done something awful concerning the brother she didn’t know she had. And Julie, through a chance encounter, had fallen in love with Bobby Boy, neither of them knowing who the other one was. There was enough in the way of stress to bring joy to any Hollywood producer’s heart, and the plot, superbly crafted, led eventually to a denouement so apposite and touching that there wasn’t a dry eye left in the house.

  And certainly not one in Russell’s head.

  Russell sat there and blubbed into his champagne. The movie was a masterpiece. There was nothing trite or schmaltzy about it. The direction was impeccable. There was excitement, there was intrigue. There was not a Cyberstar to be seen in it.

  The cast was entirely composed of local folk. And all were wonderfully professional. Bobby Boy out-Hanked Tom Hanks and the sallow creep who ran The Bricklayer’s Arms all but stole the show with a compelling performance as a crippled footballer trying to rebuild his life after the tragic death of his wife.

  It was a film for all the family. And not The Manson Family, as had been the case with Mr Fudgepacker’s previous efforts. There was no sex here and no violence. There was humour, there was joy. There was love and there was hope.

  It was very Heaven.

  Russell blew his nose on his shirt sleeve. He could already see the reviews.

  Sensational. A film you’ll want to see again and again. Simply sensational. The Times

  I don‘t have to actually watch a picture to know whether it’s good or bad, and I haven’t watched this one. But I love it. Marvellous. Barry Norman

  Ernest Fudgepacker is one of the rare guys who can always make me cry. Terry Pratchett®

  And so on and so forth.

  When the end credits had all rolled away and the lights went back on, folk rose from their seats and set up a thunderous applause, with the occasional break for eye-dabbing and sniffing.

  Ernest struggled unsteadily to his feet and limped to the screen. He raised his wrinkly hands to the audience. ‘I think a round of applause should go to the man who made it all possible. The man who has worked harder than any of us. For Russell. Take a bow, my boy.’

  Russell flapped a hand and grew a little rosy at the cheeks. But to cries of ‘speech, speech’ and ‘well done that man’, he got up from his seat and took a little bow.

  ‘It’s quite something, isn’t it?’ said Morgan. ‘Almost had me sniffling. Almost.’

  ‘They were all so good.’ Russell scratched at his head. ‘All those amateur actors, they were brilliant.’

  ‘Old Ernie knows how to get a performance out of people.’

  ‘It’s a work of genius.

  ‘You made it happen, Russell.’

  Russell shook the head he’d been scratching. ‘This has got to be a dream.’

  ‘Then it’s a bloody good one.’

  Mr Fudgepacker came hobbling up. ‘You liked it, Russell? You think you can sell it for us?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ Russell’s head now bobbed up and down. ‘I’ll call Eric Nelluss, (The biggest independent film producer and distributor in the western world. Try to remember his name, because he turns up in the last chapter.) ‘he’s the man to handle this.’

  ‘That’s my boy,’ said Mr F.

  ‘Mr Fudgepacker.’

  ‘Yes, Russell?’

  ‘I’m sorry about, you know, me being rude and everything.’

  ‘Forget it, my boy. You’ve been over-working. We’ll all help you now.’

  ‘Great. Just great.’

  ‘As soon as the movie’s finished, we’ll all give you a hand with the marketing.’

  ‘Finished?’ Russell asked. ‘But it is finished, surely?’

  ‘You have to be kidding, lad. That’s only about half of it. There’s all the other bits to go in. The important bits. The meaningful bits.’

  Russell’s heart departed through the soles of his feet. The important bits? The meaningful bits? Not ...? Russell’s top lip began to quiver. ‘Not those bits?’ he managed. ‘Not the stuff about me? Not that thing? Oh no, not that.’

  Ernie shook his ancient head. ‘Whatever are you on about, Russell? There aren’t any bits about you. And there’s no thing. Whatever the thing is. These are other scenes that flesh out the performances.’

  ‘But not about me? And not about a thing?’

  ‘No, Russell.’

  ‘Phew,’ went Russell. ‘Well, I don’t know how you can improve on perfection and the movie was as near to perfect as anything I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. It will be a lot better when it gets the rest in.’

  ‘Well,’ Russell gave his head another shake, ‘I’ll be prepared to be amazed then.’

  ‘You will.’ Old Ern
ie smiled a mouth load of sunken gums. ‘You just wait until you see the gang bang at the bikers’ barbecue and the shoot-out with the General Electric mini-gun and the bit where the cannibal cult breaks into the convent and the amazing slow-motion sequence when the escaped psychopath takes this hedge-clipper and puts it right up this ...

  15

  MORE HORROR FROM BOX 23

  The party moved on into evening, gathering mass and momentum. More folk that Russell didn’t know arrived together with a further delivery of champagne that Russell had to sign for. Music played and people took to dancing, drunkenness and bad behaviour, as is the accepted social norm at any decent bash.

  Russell slipped outside and tried his hand at flying. Well, he’d always been able to fly in his dreams and if this was a dream.

  But he couldn’t get off the ground and after a quarter of an hour of bunny-hopping foolishly around the car park, Russell slipped back inside again. It seemed as if this wasn’t a dream but he still had his doubts about the rest.

  There was just too much to it. Too much detail. The Flügelrad and the Cyberstars and the horrible red-faced insect thing. He didn’t have a mind like that. He could never have dreamed such awful stuff.

  Russell poured himself champagne and watched the revellers revel. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Were they all in on it? All part of the great conspiracy? The great Satanic conspiracy? Russell downed champagne and poured some more and stood aside and wondered.

  ‘Why so sad?’ asked Julie, the barmaid-cum-movie star. Russell turned to face the beautiful woman. ‘Oh,’ said he. ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Russell made the face of shame. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said. ‘About, you know, what I said to you earlier.’

  ‘I forgive you, Russell. But I’d rather you’d said it to me in private.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Russell, once again. ‘Oh. Really?’

  Julie smiled her wonderful smile. ‘And after you’ve had a bath. You smell rather…’

  ‘Yes.’ Russell took a step back. ‘I was sick earlier in the day. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You look a bit drunk now.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry about that too. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘You’re such a sweet man, Russell.’

  ‘Thank you and I really am truly sorry.’

  ‘Just forget it.’

  ‘Yes.’ Russell smiled back at the beautiful woman. Now she was a dream. A real dream. And she did seem to like him. A relationship wouldn’t be out of the question. Russell felt sure that she couldn’t be up to anything sinister. She might well have seen something though. The Cyberstar machine. She might have seen that.

  ‘So why are you so sad?’

  ‘I’m confused,’ said Russell. ‘I wonder, could I ask you a question?’

  ‘Anything you like.’

  ‘Well, when you were making the movie, did you use any weird equipment?’

  Smack! went Julie’s hand on Russell’s face.

  ‘What did I say?’ Russell watched her storm off into the crowd, ‘What did I say?’

  ‘That’s a pretty crap technique you have there,’ said Bobby Boy, sidling up. ‘Not a patch on my own. But then we actors have a certain charisma, especially with the starlets. Anyway, that’s my bit of tail, so keep your eyes off it.’

  ‘Why you—’ Russell raised a fist, but Morgan caught his wrist from behind.

  ‘Don’t let him wind you up, Russell,’ said Morgan. ‘Come and have a chat with us.’

  Russell glared Bobby Boy eyeball to eyeball. There was much macho posture-work and you could almost taste the testosterone. Russell let himself be led away.

  ‘He’s not worth it,’ said Morgan, as this was the done thing to say in such circumstances.

  Frank stood talking with a couple of half-cut production buyers, the two young men joined them.

  ‘All right, Russell?’ asked Frank. And then, sniff sniff sniff. ‘It’s vomit again, isn’t it?’

  Russell sighed.

  ‘Now, let me see if I can identify it correctly. It was Garvey’s Best Bitter last time, if I recall. Hm, let’s sniff. It’s Scotch. It’s a malt. It’s a five-year-old. It’s Glen Boleskine. Am I right, or am I right?’

  Russell nodded helplessly.

  ‘Frank certainly knows his vomit,’ said Morgan.

  ‘It’s a knack,’ said Frank. ‘You see a lot of vomit in the film game. I remember one time I was drinking with Rock Hudson in his hotel room. We’d had a few, well, I’d had more than him and I chucked on the carpet. But he was a real gent, cleaned it all up and when I passed out he tucked me up in his own bed. I woke up the next day with a right hangover and I don’t know what I must have sat on the night before, but my bum wasn’t half sore.’

  Looks were exchanged all around.

  Morgan hastily changed the subject. ‘That movie was a real stonker,’ he said. ‘Er, I mean, it was really good, wasn’t it?’

  ‘And it will stay that way too,’ said Russell. ‘I’m not going to let Mr Fudgepacker ruin it by putting in all that gore and guts.’

  ‘Shame,’ said Morgan. ‘I was looking forward to seeing the bit where the psycho gets the hedge-trimmer and sticks it right up—’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ Russell waved a wobbly hand about. ‘But tell me this, Morgan. Did you actually watch any of the movie being shot?’

  ‘Can’t say that I did. I was looking after the Emporium.’

  ‘What about you, Frank?’

  ‘Too much paperwork. Which reminds me—’

  ‘So it was all down to Bobby Boy and Mr Fudgepacker?’

  ‘And Julie,’ said Morgan. ‘Is that woman a babe, or what? Why did she whack you, Russell?’

  ‘I don’t wish to discuss it. But all those other people in the movie. Apart from the landlord of The Bricklayer’s, I don’t know any of them personally, do you?’

  Frank and Morgan shook their heads. ‘Local colour,’ said Frank. ‘Local characters. Fudgepacker knows how to get a performance out of people. Do you want a top-up, I reckon we’re in for an all-nighter here.’

  ‘No thanks.’ Russell put his glass aside. ‘I don’t want any more. I’ve had too much already. I’m going home to have a good shower and get a good night’s sleep. Things might make more sense to me in the morning. Has anybody seen my mum?’

  ‘I think she left hours ago,’ said Morgan, ‘with your sister.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Russell. ‘My sister.

  Russell breathed goodbyes over Mr Fudgepacker.

  ‘You take all tomorrow off,’ the old one told him. ‘Clear your head. You’ve done a splendid job and we’re all proud of you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Russell. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘And change your clothes. I like a bad smell as much as the next man. More actually. But you have to draw the line somewhere. No offence meant.’

  ‘None taken, I assure you.’

  ‘Goodbye to you.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  And Russell waved goodbyes about the place and left.

  Russell bumbled along the little riverside path that led by Cider Island and the weir. It was another of those perfect Brentford nights that poets like to write about. And had there been one present, and had he brought his Biro and notebook with him, he would probably have penned something of this nature.

  The waters of the Thames flowed on

  Towards the distant sea.

  With moonlight moving on the waves

  Like ribboned mercury.

  And Russell breathed the fragrant air

  And viewed the stars that be

  And trod alone his path for home

  In deep serenity.

  And all was peace and all was held

  As in a looking glass

  And Russell stepped in doggy-do

  And slipped upon his….

  ‘Ohh! Ow! Bloody Hell!’ Russell struggled to hisfeet and hopped about, a-sniffing. ‘God,’ groaned Russell. ‘Dog crap too. Whiskey and v
omit and dog crap. I stink like an open sewer. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.’

  Russell rammed a hand over his mouth. He was quite sure he’d spoken those fateful words before. The previous evening. And they’d led him to all kinds of horrors. Or had they? He still didn’t know for sure.

  ‘It’s all too much.’ Russell shuffled his feet in the grass and bumbled on his way.

  The stars shone down, the moonlight mooned and the Thames went quietly on its way.

  After numerous abortive attempts and much in the way of beneath-the-breath swearing, Russell finally got the key into the lock and the front door open. He tip-toed into the house and closed the door as quietly as he could, the lights were all off. His mum was probably fast asleep. And what about his sister? Where was she? Not in his bed, he hoped.

  Russell looked in at the front room. A bit of borrowed moonlight showed his sister snoring on the sofa.

  Russell swayed back into the hall and stumbled upstairs. Then, recalling that he was in a bungalow, he stumbled down the stairs again (which promptly vanished). Taking a shower now was out of the question, he’d wake his mum up. Russell thought he’d best make do with a bit of in-the-dark face-splashing at the kitchen sink. This he achieved with remarkable dexterity and now wearing on his shirt front much of the floating contents of the cat’s bowl which had been soaking in the dishwater, he wiped his face on what he thought to be the tea towel, but wasn’t, and stumbled off to his bedroom.

  Fully clothed and wretched he collapsed onto his bed and fell into a troubled sleep.

  The moon moved on across the sky.

  The Brentford night went slowly by.

  In the front room the mantel clock on the feature fire place struck three. Westminster chimes it had. You don’t hear those much any more. Except in Westminster, of course. But there was a time, not too long ago to escape fond memory, when most folk had a mantel clock with Westminster chimes. One of those 1940s jobbies, shaped like a hump-backed bridge, with two big keyholes in the face and the big key that fitted them tucked underneath, where the kids were forbidden to touch it. And it always had one corner with bits of folded-up Woodbine packet packed under it, to keep the thing level so it kept perfect time. And it was always folded-up Woodbine packet. Because in those days, before the invention of lung cancer, everybody smoked Woodbine: film stars, footballers, even the queen.