The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived

  ‘You were too far gone, mate. Sorry.’

  ‘So I’m . . . you know . . . I’m—’

  ‘Dead, mate, yes. As dead as a, well, dead as a dead boy. Yeah.’

  ‘What a bummer.’ Norman looked on as various mourners sought to hoist Mr Bailey from the open grave. He was pleased to see that none of 3A was helping.

  ‘That suitcase-shagger is making a right holy show of my funeral,’ said Norman. ‘I might have hoped for a more dignified send-off.’

  The lad in white smirked on. ‘I thought it might give you a laugh,’ said he. ‘Cheer you up a bit. Bereavement can be a very traumatic time for everyone concerned, especially for the deceased.’

  ‘I don’t feel particularly deceased. In fact, I don’t feel particularly much of anything really. Are you sure there hasn’t been some mistake?’

  ‘No mistake, mate. Take it from me, you look pretty dead from where I’m standing.’

  ‘What a bummer.’ Norman looked on again and watched as the Reverend Cheesefoot, leaning over to help Mr Bailey, received a kick in the trouser seat from his wife and plunged in the grave on top of him.

  ‘Tell you what,’ said the lad in white, ‘if you want to make absolutely sure, then go over to your dad and wave your hands about in front of his face. And shout a bit, if you like. He won’t be able to see or hear you. But some dead folk like to do it. Get it out of their systems.’

  ‘Do you think it would help?’ Norman asked.

  ‘Not in the least. But it makes me laugh, I can tell you.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’ Norman tried to put his hands into his trouser pockets, but found that he could not. ‘I seem to be somewhat transparent,’ he said dismally. ‘But who are you anyway? Mr Jordan, is it, or the Angel Gabriel?’

  ‘Leave it out,’ the lad in white made mirth. ‘I’m your PLC.’

  ‘Public Limited Company?’

  ‘Post Life Counsellor. It’s my job to be of comfort. To help you through your first few difficult days of readjustment. You’ll find that being dead’s not so bad once you’ve come to terms with it. You seem to be coming to terms with it rather well already, as it happens.’

  ‘I’m just putting on a brave face,’ said Norman. ‘I’m really crying inside. And you’re not being any comfort at all, if it comes to that.’

  ‘Sorry, mate. It’s my first time at doing this. They gave me a handbook, but you know how it is.’

  Norman didn’t, but he said, ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Do you want to stick around for the bit when Teddy Bilson inevitably falls into the grave and puts his foot through your coffin lid, or shall we just shove off now?’

  ‘I think we should just shove off now.’ Norman looked up at the clear blue sky, then down at the grassy ground, then up to the face of the smirker in white. And then Norman’s own face fell. ‘Shove off to where?’ he managed.

  ‘What do you mean, where?’

  ‘I mean,’ Norman made shaky finger-pointings, first toward the direction of where Heaven is generally supposed to be situated, then downwards to where…

  ‘Not down there.’ The Post Life Counsellor fell about in further hilarity. ‘There’s no down there any more. I’ll explain everything to you. Well, as much as I know anyway. We’ll take the lift.’

  ‘The lift?’ Norman viewed once more the clear blue sky. ‘We take the lift up?’

  ‘How else?’

  ‘Well,’ Norman tried to scratch his head, but couldn’t, ‘there’s no chance of any feathered wings, I suppose?’

  ‘Feathered wings?’ The lad in white creased double. ‘None at all, no mate. You really cocked up in that department.’

  Norman glared bitterly towards his blubbering dad. But his blubbering dad was no longer in his wheelchair. For he too had somehow managed to fall into Norman’s grave.

  ‘Stuff it then. The lift it is.’

  And the lift it was.

  And a fine-looking lift it was too.

  Just like those ones you used to see in big stores and underground stations. All twiddly-widdly Victorian ironwork and a big brass up-and-down-control-knob-jobbie It looked a little out of place in the corner of the graveyard though. But then no-one could see it there, except for Norman and his PLC.

  ‘All aboard,’ said this fellow. ‘Going up. Top floor: eternal life, endless bliss, harps, gowns and halos.’

  ‘Leave it out,’ said Norman.

  ‘Please yourself.’

  Norman wandered into the lift and the lad in white swung the gates shut. ‘You know,’ said Norman, ‘you look sort of familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?’

  ‘Took you long enough. I used to go to infants’ school with you.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. You’re—’

  ‘Jack,’ said Jack. ‘Jack Bradshaw.’

  ‘Norman,’ said Norman.

  ‘Yes, I know who you are.’

  ‘Oh yes. So, well, Jack, what have you been doing with yourself then?’

  ‘I’ve been being dead, haven’t I? Snuffed it when I was five.’

  ‘I thought you moved away. That’s what my mum said.’

  ‘Fell off the pier and drowned, that’s what I did.’

  ‘What a bummer. But what a coincidence. You being my PLC.’

  ‘Not really.’ Jack cranked the big brass up-and-down-control-knob-jobbie and the lift began to rise. ‘I saw your name come up in the ledger so I volunteered for the job. You’re the first person that I used to know who’s snuffed it since me, so I thought it would be nice to meet up with you again. Do you still poo yourself when you get frightened?’

  ‘No I do not. I was only five then. Do you still pick your nose and eat the bogies?’

  ‘All the time. Doesn’t everyone?’

  ‘I suppose they do.’

  The lift rose at an alarming rate of knots. And had Norman still been five, there is no doubt that he would have disgraced himself. Up and away went the lift. Through a little cloud or two, then up and up and up.

  ‘But hold on,’ said Norman. ‘You’re not five any more.’

  ‘Well, nor are you.’ Jack leaned close to the lift gates and spat through them. ‘Look at that sucker go down. Bombs away.’

  ‘I mean’, said Norman, ‘that if you died when you were five, how come you’re not still five? You don’t grow older in Heaven, do you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to Heaven.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘I said you weren’t going down there. Because there’s no down there any more. I never said anything about you going to Heaven.’

  ‘So where else is there to go? Not Purgatory? I don’t want to go there. I’m not a Roman Catholic, I’m a Presbyterian.’

  ‘What’s a Presbyterian?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to church.’

  ‘I reckon you’re dead lucky that there’s no down there any more. Dead lucky, did you get that?’

  ‘Most amusing,’ said Norman. ‘Will we be there soon, wherever it is that we’re going to?’

  ‘Soon enough,’ said Jack. ‘Do you want to take a couple of gobs through the lift gates before we arrive?’

  ‘Not half.’

  Now, as Norman had no preconceived ideas about what he might find when he arrived at wherever it was he was bound for, what he saw when he arrived neither surprised nor disappointed him. So to speak.

  Whatever it was and wherever it was, there was a lot of it about. All over the place. And it hung there, whatever it was, evidently attached to the side of something far bigger.

  Whatever that was.

  To be a little more specific, the lot of it that Norman now found himself gawping up at looked something like the outside of one of those great imposing Victorian Ministry-of-something-or-other buildings that stand around, taking up lots of space, in the Whitehall area. The ones that you never see anyone go in or out of.

  In his masterwork The Book of Ultimate Truths, Hugo Rune explains that these buildings are, in fac
t, nothing more than brick façades which were knocked up at the end of the Second World War to fool visiting Germans into believing that all their bombs had missed London during the Blitz. Rune apparently learned this from his good friend Winston Churchill, who confided that they had all been erected by set builders from Pinewood Studios and were completely fall of rubble.

  Well, this building looked something like one of those. But there was much more of it. It went on and on and on. Tier upon tier. Row upon row of featureless windows. A great swathe of steps led towards a most imposing British Museum sort of portico.

  ‘It’s not Heaven, is it?’ Norman scratched at his head. ‘I can scratch my head again,’ said he.

  ‘Of course you can. You’re all solid up here.’

  ‘But up here is not Heaven.’

  Jack strode off towards the steps. ‘It’s where you’ll be working,’ he called back over his shoulder.

  ‘Working?’ Norman chewed upon the word and then spat it back out. ‘Working? Hang about.’

  ‘Look at it this way,’ said Jack, once Norman had caught up. ‘The bad news is that you’re dead. But the good news is: you’re in full-time, regular employment. You’ve me to thank for that.’

  ‘You what?’ Norman spluttered. ‘But I don’t want any full-time, regular employment. I’m only fourteen. I’ve got years left to laze about at school. Then I intend to go on and laze about at college. Get myself a degree and then laze about on the dole. You’re out of touch, Jack, young people don’t work any more.’

  ‘They do here,’ said Jack. ‘And you don’t have years to laze about at anything. You’re dead, mate. Dead as a—’

  ‘Dead boy. Yes, you told me.’

  ‘Come on then.’ They had reached the top of the big swathe of steps and now stood before a big revolve of revolving doors. Jack pushed, the revolving doors revolved, and he with them.

  Norman remained upon the threshold, making the face of great doubt. He did not like the look of this place one little bit. It wasn’t Heaven and Jack might well be lying about it not being ‘The Bad Place’. Perhaps he should make a run for it, take his chances elsewhere, take the lift down to earth again and escape. Haunt Druid’s Tor or something. Anything would surely be better than an eternity of regular employment. No matter what form that employment would actually take.

  ‘I’m off,’ said Norman, turning to flee.

  But flee he did not. At the bottom of the steps, where the lift had brought him up, there was now nothing.

  And it was a serious nothing, very void-like and specked with stars. It was the kind of nothing that said, ‘No way, matey.’

  Norman’s face of great doubt became a face of a terrible glumness. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this,’ he mumbled. But then, just for a moment, he had this crystal flash of memory. And he could see himself, in his Y-fronts, sitting in a pentagram calling out the barbarous names of unholy deities. And with this crystal flash, Norman felt that perhaps he did know just what he’d done to deserve this after all.

  And so, very meekly, he followed Jack inside.

  4

  Now many miles north of Skelington Bay, but just three south of Transglobe’s West London offices, there lies a little borough known as Brentford. And on this day the sun shone there, as very well it might. With tenderness it touched upon the fine slate rooftops of the elegant Victorian terraces, bringing forth the architectural splendours of the Memorial Library and the historic Butts Estate; the rich floral glories of the magnificent parks and gardens.

  Ah, Brentford.

  The sun entered many windows here. Those of The Flying Swan, for instance. ‘That drinking man’s Valhalla, where noble men take sup and speak of noble deeds.’ Here the sunlight played upon the Brylcremed head of Neville. Full-time part-time barman and now lord of his domain. What tales this man might tell, and soon perchance we’ll listen when he does.

  And here, The Wife’s Legs Café. The sun peeps in to spy upon the fair wife here, as she, with fingers slender and nails most gorgeously manicured, adds just a touch of elder flower to an omelette in the pan. And sighs. For what? Who knows.

  And down the road a piece, through double-glazed lounge window and the patio sliding door, who’s this the old sun shines upon? Why, Norman’s mum so it is, before the TV screen. And on the sofa. With the milkman, Mr Marsuple. Tut, tut. The old sun makes no comment and shines on.

  And shines most gloriously indeed through tall arched windows of the Gothic ilk. Those of Brentford’s County Court. And here, in angled shafts, alive with floating motes of gold, helps set the scene for drama and excitement and intrigue to come.

  The way it should.

  The court is packed this day. The balcony, where sits the public, not a spare seat to be found. All tickets sold the night before, within The Flying Swan. By one John Vincent Omally, Dublin born and Brentford bred, whose family, so it is claimed, hold this privilege, handed down through generations, by tradition, or an old charter, or a something. And at five bob a head, who churlishly would think to argue, for a chance to view a show, the likes of which this promised so to be?

  For in this town of Brentford, a town which continued to defy all national statistics and remain virtually crime-free, the occasion of a local boy coming up before the magistrate had caused a certain stir. And that this local boy should be an eighteen-year-old self-made millionaire, who had generously bestowed a great deal of largess upon the community and was now being dragged before the court upon some trifling matter, seemed nothing short of scandalous.

  Especially to those who had received a share of this largess, purchased their tickets and now thronged the public gallery with their Thermos flasks, packed lunches and comfy cushions.

  The courtroom was a proud affair, both dignified and venerable. With panelling of polished oak, pews of musty velvet, balustrades of burnished brass and carpets rich and red.

  Beneath the town crest, with its griffins rampant above a yard of ale and the Latin motto Non est disputandum Brentfordium Large (there is no disputing the beer of Brentford), stood the judge’s throne. And occupying this, the judge.

  A short man, red of face and black of outlook. Brigadier Algenon ‘Chunky’ Wilberforce DSM, OTO, KY, and so forth, fumed in a shaft of sunlight and rued the day that hanging had been stricken from the statute books.

  A stranger to the borough was this man, brought in at the very last minute to replace Brentford’s resident magistrate, Mr Justice Glastonbury, philosopher, libertine and author of the bestselling book Don’t Let the Legal Bastards Stitch You Up: A New Age Traveller’s Guide to the British Judicial System.

  Some said that Mr Justice Glastonbury had been taken sick at the eleventh hour, but others, who probably know more than most, suggested that the Brigadier had been brought in to provide that essential cheap-one-dimensional-stereotypical-easy-target-comic-cliché element which would otherwise have been so sadly lacking.

  Flanking this ogre was a clerk of the court named Wallace and a lady in a straw hat who was knitting something grey and sock-like.

  Around and about the courtroom sat all those people that you find around and about courtrooms: earnest young men in little wigs and legal attire, who move bundles of documents from one place to another; an efficient woman who types up all that is said onto a small device that doesn’t seem to have enough keys; people with beards and jumpers, who make out ‘social reports’; secretaries and minor officials; and this body and that.

  The nation’s press was represented in the person of ‘Scoop’ Molloy, cub reporter for The Brentford Mercury.

  Scoop leaned against a pillar near the fire exit, puffing on an illicit roll-up and wondering what were the chances of anyone straining a new gag out of a court case. On the evidence so far, not good, was his conclusion.

  In ‘the dock’, between a brace of bobbies, stood the defendant. A long lad in loose light linen, a crumpled Hawaiian shirt, canvas loafers and no socks. He sported a tall turret of hair, a fine aqui
line nose, a pair of gentle eyes, a smiley mouth and a noble chin that was all but made. There were points of interest to be found around and about his person, that his loose linen suit lacked for an arm being one, and that above his left eye there was a large bruise being one other. No doubt in time, these would be explained.

  The long lad’s name (and he was a long lad, standing head and shoulders above the boys in blue) was Cornelius Murphy.

  And he was the stuff of epics.

  Cornelius turned, grinned and waved an un-handcuffed left hand towards the balcony. This gesture was greeted by much warm applause, a whistle or two and a cry of ‘Free the Brentford One’. Scoop Molloy took out his pencil and made a note of that.

  Mr Justice Wilberforce, who had been leafing through the mound of papers on his venerable bench, looked up from this leafing and said, ‘Silence in the bloody court’, which boded about as well as it might have been expected to do.

  ‘Clerk,’ continued his Honour, ‘which is the charge sheet for this wretched villain?’

  ‘All of them,’ explained the clerk of the court.

  ‘Damned lot of the blighters. Be here all day at this rate. Just give me the gist of it and I’ll pass sentence.’

  Scoop Molloy pocketed his pencil.

  ‘It is a rather complicated case,’ the clerk of the court explained. ‘It began with a minor parking offence, but its implications have spread now to encompass a world-wide network of espionage, involving international crime syndicates, vast money-laundering operations, political conspiracy and a threat to destroy the economic stability of our native land.’

  The magistrate cast a disparaging eye upon Cornelius Murphy. Cornelius caught it and cast it back. ‘Are you responsible for all this?’ asked the magistrate.

  ‘No,’ said Cornelius. ‘I’m innocent.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we? Nature of the first charge, clerk of the court.’

  ‘The defendant is charged that he did park his electric-blue Cadillac Eldorado on a double yellow line outside the business premises of one Wally Woods Pre-eminent Purveyor of Wet Fish to the Brentford Gentry, in or about the time of one p.m., last Thursday week.’