‘Too late and wrong too. Say your piece, Mr Molloy.’
‘It’s him,’ said Scoop. ‘The magistrate. You know, whenever you see a film with a courtroom scene, the magistrate always looks vaguely familiar and you waste the rest of the film saying, “Wasn’t he the bloke who was in that film, or that film, or that film?” Well it’s this bloke, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ asked the crowd.
‘It is,’ said the magistrate. ‘Called in at the last minute to play the part of Brigadier Algenon “Chunky” Wilberforce. I’ve been in retirement, you see. I took the part to earn enough money to pay for my wife’s hip replacement.’
‘I’ll buy her two new hips,’ said Cornelius. ‘And a set of dentures too if you want.’
‘No can do, I’m afraid,’ said the ex-Hollywood bit-parter. ‘You’re dealing with a professional here.’
‘Plan Nine from Outer Space.’ said Scoop. ‘Didn’t you get butchered by Tor Johnson?’
‘That was me. Stung to death in The Savage Bees. I was the janitor.’
‘You wore a beard,’ said Scoop.
‘False one.’
‘Carried it off though. But who did you play in Dark Star?’
‘The alien,’ said the magistrate. ‘But I only did the hands. Very astute of Mr D’hark though. Do you have anything to say, Mr Murphy, before I pass sentence upon you?’
‘How about a fair trial?’ Cornelius asked.
‘Very amusing, Mr Murphy. Very satirical. But I will tell you what I’ll do. I will ask you one question and if you get the answer correct you can walk from this court a free man with your head held high.’
Cornelius glanced at his wristwatch. Precisely 3.14 and a one-minute walk to The Flying Swan. ‘Ask on,’ said he.
‘What’s my name?’ asked the magistrate.
‘It’s er . . . it’s er . . .’
‘Have to hurry you now.’
‘It’s on the tip of my tongue.’
‘Is it? Anyone in the courtroom? Come on now.’
‘Oh and ooh and ah,’ went the balcony folk. ‘What’s his name? It’s that bloke who was in . . . What was that picture? You know the one, he played the part of . . .’
‘Can’t get it, can you? Come on, Mr Murphy.’
‘Give me a moment. Oh, I nearly had it then.’
‘Cornelius Murphy, I find you guilty upon all counts, and I hereby sentence you to—’
‘Cash Flagg,’ said Cornelius Murphy.
Silence!
Pin drop!
‘Wrong,’ said the magistrate. ‘Twenty-three years.’
‘No,’ said Cornelius. ‘No, no, no.’
‘Yes,’ said the magistrate. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’
‘I rest my case,’ said Gwynplaine D’hark QC.
‘Me too,’ said Arthur Brown. ‘It’s really heavy.’
‘Briefcase gag at the end,’ said Scoop Molloy. ‘What a cop out.’
‘Bruce Morgan,’ wailed Cornelius, as he was led away to the cells. ‘Charles Winthrope. Clive McMurty. Bill Seabrook . . .’
But his words vanished from the page. The court all rose and most of it went home. And justice had once more been seen to be done.
‘So what was his name?’ asked Scoop Molloy.
‘Haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Gwynplaine D’hark. ‘Would you care to take a little trip with me to the basement?’
7
‘Sprout,’ said Norman. ‘I choose sprout.’
‘You don’t?’ Jack all but fell off his chair. ‘You can’t be serious, mate, I mean Norman. I mean you can’t. You just can’t.’
‘I can, you know. If it’s a choice between working here and being a sprout, then a sprout I shall be. Where do I sign?’
‘No, Norman, wait. Don’t be rash.’
‘Pen please,’ said Norman. ‘Or do you want it in blood or something?’
‘No!’ Jack flapped his hands about. ‘You don’t want to be a sprout. Really you don’t.’
‘I do. Sprouts laze about in the sun all day. That’s the life for me.’
‘Sprouts get picked,’ said Jack. ‘That’s what sprouts get.’
‘Comes to us all.’ Norman shrugged. ‘A quick pick and kaput. I can live with it. Put me down for sprout. Mark my file “sprout until Judgement Day”’
‘Sprouts don’t die when they’re picked,’ said Jack.
‘Of course they do.’
‘They don’t, you know. Vegetables are still alive when you buy them in the shops. If they ain’t rotting, they ain’t dead.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Norman. ‘You’re winding me up.’
‘I’m not. You’d still be alive and fully conscious when you got plunged into the boiling water. You’d die in there though, once you were all cooked through. Takes about twenty minutes. Horrible way to go.’
‘Vegetables don’t feel pain,’ said Norman.
‘Oh yes they do. God didn’t mention it to Adam and Eve, of course. He figured it would put them off their lunch.’
‘Do they cook radishes?’ Norman asked.
‘Eat ‘m raw, I think. Raw as in alive. One mouthful at a time: chomp, chomp, chomp. Bits of you would still be alive down in the stomach. Amongst the terrible gastric juices. Some bits might even survive to come out the next morning in the sh—’
‘Thank you,’ said Norman. ‘I think I get the picture.’
‘Still,’ Jack had a fine grin on again, ‘you do have the choice. So what will it be, the radish or the sprout?’
‘What are the hours like here?’ Norman asked. ‘As a matter of interest.’
‘Pretty good,’ Jack plucked the form from Norman’s fingers, crumpled it up into a ball and tossed it into a wastepaper basket. Here it came to rest amongst hundreds of other little crumpled up balls of paper, each of which had once been an identical form.
Now, had this been a movie, possibly one directed by Jeannot Szwarc or Bruce Geller, the camera would have zoomed in upon this, to register in the mind of the movie-goer that it was ‘significant’. The implication being that Jack had not been altogether honest with Norman regarding the matter of Norman being the first dead boy that he had done any Post Life Counselling for.
But, as this was not (as yet), a movie, this very significant detail was missed altogether.
‘There’s recreational facilities,’ said Jack. ‘Ping pong and the inter-departmental five-aside-football league. And swimming in the company pool.’
‘I’m thrilled beyond words,’ said Norman.
‘Yeah, well, you’ll find something you like. You’ll be OK. It’s better than being a sprout, I promise you. So, shall we get started?’
‘Would you mind if I just went to the toilet first?’
Jack raised the eyebrow of suspicion. ‘You wouldn’t be thinking of making a run for it, would you?’
‘Certainly not,’ Norman lied. ‘There isn’t anywhere to run off to, is there?’
‘Afraid not, I suppose you could hide in a cupboard or something.’
‘Would that help me?’
‘No, but it would make me laugh.’
‘I’ll just use the lavvy then, if you don’t mind.’
‘Good lad. Left out of the door and third door on the left.’
‘Thanks.’ Norman rose from his stack of boxfiles and picked his way carefully to the door.
Somewhere amidst the chaos of Jack’s desk an intercom began to buzz, when the door had closed upon Norman, Jack cleared papers from it and flicked a switch.
‘Bradshaw,’ said he.
Words came to him via some telephonic-cable-link jobbie, but not one of sufficient interest to be worth mentioning.
‘How are you progressing, Bradshaw?’ asked the voice of the controller.
‘No problems, sir. He’ll be perfect. A right little skiver. Just what you were looking for.’
‘Splendid, Bradshaw. Well, you know the drill; coax him along, tell him all he needs to know and make damn sure he doesn’t find out the rest.?
??
‘He asks a lot of questions, sir, but I know what to tell him. He’s a no-mark; all he wants to do is laze about.’
‘Which is all we want him to do. Nice work, Bradshaw, speak to you soon.’
‘Goodbye, sir.’
Outside in the corridor Norman withdrew his ear from the door. ‘A no-mark, eh?’ he whispered to himself. ‘Well, we’ll see about that.’
In a faraway room the controller replaced his telephone receiver and sank lower into the perfumed water of his marble bath-tub. Here he sought to compose the final mathematical equation that would complete his formula for the universal panacea and elixir of life.
He was a large man, the controller. Bald of head and big of belly. And there was absolutely no doubt whatsoever as to whom he was the dead spit of.
Quite uncanny the resemblance.
‘All right now?’ Jack asked on Norman’s return. ‘Find it OK?’
‘Yes thank you. So where do you want me to sit?’
‘You can have my chair,’ Jack rose from it.
Norman sat down on it. ‘So what do I have to do?’
‘I’ll explain the procedure.’ Jack did so. It was a very complicated procedure, which involved many visits to many different filing cabinets, much in the way of cross-referencing and form-filling and the use of an intricate brass Comptometerish affair, which Jack described as a Karmascope. The exact purpose of this device Jack did not elaborate upon; only to say that all the final figures gleaned from all the filing cabinet visits, cross-referencing and form-filling were to be double checked and then fed into it.
‘Everything you need to know is in here,’ said Jack, presenting Norman with a user’s handbook the size of a telephone directory. ‘All make sense to you so far?’
Norman yawned. ‘Where will you be sitting?’ he asked.
‘In my new office,’ said Jack. ‘Upstairs. Promotion, you see.’
‘My heartiest congratulations.’
‘I’ll pop down in an hour or so and see how you’re getting on. If you need any help, push the blue button on the intercom.’
‘Better make it two hours,’ said Norman. ‘I’d like to do a bit of tidying up first.’
‘I could make it four hours if you like. Be about knocking-off time then.’
Jack made his way to the door. ‘See you later,’ he said.
‘See you later.’
The door swung shut upon the terrible little room, leaving Norman all alone in it. Outside Jack pressed his ear to the door.
And heard nothing whatsoever.
No sounds of activity, of paper shuffling, of tidying up. Nothing. Exactly what he expected not to hear, really.
Chuckling to himself, Jack made off towards the lift.
‘Chuckle on, you sod,’ whispered Norman, whose ear was pressed against the inside of the door this time. ‘I’ll find out just what you’re up to, you see if I don’t. But first things first,’ said he, negotiating a route back to the desk. ‘I wonder what would be the best way to break this brass machine?’
Norman sat down and sulked. ‘I should have demanded a change of clothes,’ he complained. ‘I’m damned if I’m going to spend the next two millennia dressed in my school uniform. But then I’m damned if I’m going to spend the next two millennia here anyway.’
He worried at the brass machine, but it was secured to the desktop by meaty bolts. It would not be broken.
Norman leaned back in his chair, kicked boxfiles aside and put his feet up on the desk. ‘I won’t do anything,’ he said. ‘Not a stroke. They won’t get any work out of me.’
Humming a tune of his own making he waggled his feet in time with its rhythm. ‘I’ll laze about until the roll is called up yonder, or whatever. That’s what I’ll do.
‘No I won’t. Whatever am I saying?’ He removed his feet from the desk and climbed from his chair. ‘That seems to be exactly what they want me to do: nothing. They want me to just laze about, know only what I’m supposed to know and not find out the rest. Well, we’ll see about that.’
Norman took himself over to the nearest filing cabinet and pulled out the top drawer.
What a lot of files.
He plucked one out at random, took it back to his desk, seated himself and opened it up. ‘Colin Scud,’ he read. ‘What kind of name is that, Colin?’ He perused the file of Mr Scud and read aloud his details. ‘Born 27 July 1949, coveted fellow toddler’s blue plastic wheelbarrow at playschool (this was underlined in red ink). Infants’ school.’ Norman turned page after page.
‘Junior school,’ more pages. ‘Senior school.’ On and on. ‘Took job in department of Social Security.’ On and on. ‘Interests: railways; the history of the English canal system; member of the Model Bus Federation. Never left home. Lives with his mum. And dies . . .’
Norman read the date and consulted his multi-function digital watch, which was still strapped onto his wrist. ‘Dies midnight the Friday after next. You poor dull bugger, Colin. How do you meet your end?’
Norman leafed through to the final page. ‘Receives fatal electrical discharge whilst opening fridge door. What a bummer. Well, I wish I could help you, Colin mate, but I can’t. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll try and find you something really red hot for your next incarnation, porno movie star or Formula One racing driver or something.’
Norman went over and pulled another file. Pulled another ten, in fact, to save all the walking back and forwards.
‘Right,’ said the lad. ‘What do we have here? Another live-already one, and another. Wrong filing cabinet, I need the Yet-to-be-borns. I wonder where they’re kept.’
It didn’t take too long to find them. There were twenty-three filing cabinets full. Norman dragged out an armful of files and took them back to his desk.
‘OK then, the yet-to-be-borns. Let’s find you a good’n, Colin me old mate.’
Norman opened one up.
At random.
‘Here we go, Col. A bouncing baby boy, to be born next Tuesday. Let’s see if he becomes famous.’ Norman flicked through to the last page of what was a very thin file. ‘Oh no. He doesn’t. That’s very sad. Dies midnight on the Friday after next due to a short circuit in his incubator. Poor little mite. That’s a real bummer. Let’s find you another.’
Norman found another. ‘Here’s another. Little girl. That would make a change for you, Colin. Bet you’d give the train-spotting a miss. Let’s see if she becomes a top fashion model or a prime minister or whatever. Oh dear, she doesn’t. Dies due to electrical discharge, struck by lightning in her cot. Midnight, the Friday after next. What is all this?’
Norman returned to the ‘live-already’ files he’d pulled out. All those chronicled within came from different walks of life, had been born in different countries, in different years, had fulfilled, or failed to fulfil, different ambitions. But they all had one thing in common. They were all going to die at midnight on the Friday after next, from an electrical discharge of some kind! All of them!
‘All of them?’ Norman stumbled to the nearest filing cabinet and clawed out as many files as he could claw.
Another and another and another.
And all and all and all and all.
They all were due to die at midnight, the Friday after next.
All of them.
The old folks, the young folks and the yet-to-be-born folks.
The whole damn lot.
And all due to an ‘electrical discharge’.
‘No,’ said Norman. ‘This can’t be right. It can’t be right. Alphabetical order. Start at the beginning.’ Norman floundered amongst the filing cabinets and began to work his way into the As.
Suddenly he said, ‘Oh my dad!’ Which at least meant that his surname, whatever it was, began with an A.
‘Right here in the Bs,’ said Norman, proving that sometimes you’re right and sometimes you’re wrong. ‘My dad’s file.’ He took it back to the desk and swept all else to the floor. And his hands hovered over the file.
He turned up a corner of the cover with a quivery thumb.
But let it fall back again.
He just couldn’t do it. Not look. Not see when your own father was going to die. And how. That was really horrible. You couldn’t do that.
‘Someone else,’ Norman pushed the file aside. ‘Someone else I know. Someone I don’t care about. That bloody Mr Bailey who fell into my grave. He’ll be in the Bs.’
And he was.
Norman flicked through the schoolmaster’s file, boggling here and there at the science teacher’s exotic sexual activities.
‘Why the orange?’ Norman asked himself.
Ah, but here it was. Right on the last page.
And there it was. Writ bold in letters big.
‘Twelve midnight, Friday after next. “Short circuit in vibrating interior section of Little Miss Magic Mouth leisure facility appliance.”’
Good old ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE!
‘Aaaaaagh!’ went Norman. ‘They’re all gonna die!’
8
Scoop Molloy returned from the toilet and sought out a bar stool. ‘Anyone sitting on this one?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Tuppe. ‘I’m sitting on it.’
‘Oh sorry, I didn’t see you there.’
‘People don’t. You’re the news reporter who was at the County Court, aren’t you?’
‘That’s me.’
They were in The Flying Swan, of course. The afternoon sun shone through different panes than had the morning sun, but the effect was the same. Simply splendid.
The saloon bar dwelt in the mellow amber tones, sunlight a-twinkle upon the burnished brass of the beer engines. There was the rise and fall of glasses, the chit-chat and merry converse of the lunchtime regulars. The sense that here was how it should be and always would be and whatever.
Ah Brentford.
‘Where’s my pal Cornelius?’ Tuppe asked Scoop. ‘He should have been here by now.’
‘Murphy!’ Scoop inadvertently ordered himself a pint of that beverage. ‘The magistrate sent him down.’
‘What?’ went Tuppe.
‘Gave him twenty-three years,’ said Scoop.
‘What?’ went Tuppe.