Sprout Mask Replica

  ‘Right,’ said Colon. ‘If that’s the way you want it, don’t believe in me. See if I care.’

  ‘Fair enough, I won’t.’

  ‘Just waggle your fingers and return all my Holy Guardians.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you mean, no? You can’t say no to God.’

  ‘Oh yes I can. If you’re God, then you waggle your fingers. You bring back your stupid Holy Guardians.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m not allowed to interfere in human affairs.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s written into my contract. I only have the franchise for this particular planet and it’s a real struggle to hold it all together I can tell you, but I can’t act directly. I can’t interfere.’

  ‘You’re interfering now. You’re trying to persuade me to do something.’

  ‘It’s a vision. Visions are allowed.’

  ‘This is all absolute nonsense. I’m getting out of here. But I’ll tell you one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You’ve just given me a great idea. I will bring back the Holy Guardians, if it’s the only way to restore some kind of order, but I think you’re onto something with this God business. I think I’ll give that a go.’

  ‘You’ll what?’

  ‘Sssh now, I’m waggling.’

  MORE ABOUT PIRATES AND CANNIBALS

  The longboats of the sorry wreck

  Brought pirate men ashore.

  Cloony, hiding on the deck

  Was not too keen on desert isles

  And cannibals with pointed smiles

  And so he thought he’d stick it out and wait for dawn to come.

  The longboats landed on the beach

  The pirates disembarked.

  Cloony sat and ate a peach,

  And looked around the captain’s bed,

  And wondered what the captain read,

  And downed another glass of rum and ran himself a bath.

  The longboats lay on golden sand

  The pirates all were gone.

  They really were a dismal band,

  And filled the guts of native folk

  Who have no time to sing and joke

  But have enormous appetites for men and fish and fowl.

  At dawn the ship broke free again

  And Cloony floated off,

  And soon was in Dundee again,

  With captain’s robes and piles of gold,

  But luck is hard and luck is cold

  For Cloony was arrested as a pirate and was hanged.

  24

  THE CHURCH OF THE CHOSEN ONE

  The way I saw it was this. If God puts an idea into your head, you’d be a fool not to take advantage of it. I didn’t know for certain whether I’d actually met God, or merely hallucinated the entire event. After I gave my fingers a waggle and brought back the Holy Guardians, things got back to normal in a big way. And fast too.

  People stopped hitting the beach and they all went back to work the next day. Within a week the whole business had been forgotten. It was just as if it had never happened.

  And perhaps it hadn’t.

  But I still wasn’t giving up. Even in the face of all the setbacks and chaos, I was still absolutely determined to make this world a better place. But a bit at a time, this time. Not over-extend myself. Do the job properly. From the ground up, but upon firm foundations.

  And it was so simple, I was surprised I hadn’t thought of it before. The first thing I had to do was to ‘acquire’ about a hundred acres of prime beach-front property in California. Because, let’s face it, if you’re thinking of setting yourself up as the New Messiah, where better to do it than California?

  I had no problems whatsoever in ‘acquiring’ the land. I simply made a little wish and moved two of my Asprey’s fountain pens from the left top pocket of my Saville Row suit to the right, during the voyage over on the QE2. I had become very much into the science of acquisition. I was careful, of course, nothing flashy, nothing too big at the one time. Just a little twitch of a nostril to make someone drop their wallet, a flick of the wrist to make a shopkeeper misread my bus ticket and take it for an American Express gold card. No lasting harm done to anyone. Not strictly honest perhaps, but all in a good cause.

  The lawyers were waiting for me as the ship docked. And the media. Who was this unknown fellow from England to whom a hundred acres of valuable land had been donated by a Wall Street consortium? they wanted to know.

  Only me.

  But did I say only?

  I don’t know who the big limousine (much bigger than the one my Uncle Brian had once hired) was really waiting for. I diddled with one of the mother-of-pearl buttons on my handmade silk shirt and the chauffeur was sure it was me. We drove west.

  We picked people up along the way. I talked to them in diners and donut houses, McDonald’s and Jack in the Boxes, gin joints and go-go bars, lounges and Taco Bells.

  I sized them up on a simple criteria. Marks out of ten for beauty. Anyone found scoring less than nine was not in the running. I would smile and stare into their eyes and shuffle two beer tops in my trouser pocket and make a little wish. It worked every time. They followed me. By the time we swept across the state line into good old Cal-if-orn-eye-ah, we had us a mighty convoy.

  We had some problems with the police. But each time I just gave them the smile and the stare and shuffled the beer tops.

  I was getting it down to a fine art.

  I soon found that it was second nature to me. I didn’t have to think about it at all. I recall an occasion in one of those lap-dancing clubs somewhere in the mid-west. I spied out a particularly worthy-looking disciple. A young blond woman of quite outstanding beauty and gymnastic capabilities. I was just walking out of the door with her, when this bruiser, evidently her boyfriend, laid most unfriendly hands upon me. I only gave him the look. If I did anything else I was not aware of it. Just the look it was. He stuck his hand down his throat, and, well, it wasn’t too pretty. My police escorts laughed though. One of them named Joe Bob did it in a really high voice.

  I got to quite like Joe Bob. It was a shame the way he met his end.

  Now, the sun really knows how to shine in California. It’s not the same kind of sun we have in England. Ours is a small-scale kind of sun, California’s is really panoramic. Big time. The sea was very blue also. I suggested (without saying anything, of course, just by winding my watch a couple of times) that everyone take off all their clothes and go in for a swim. They readily obliged.

  The water was really warm. I made love to three women in that water. And that made me so happy and contented that I plucked a hair from my right nipple and everyone else made love too.

  This did cause a bit of trouble, what with all the media types who had followed us down with the cameras and all. I had to get out of the water and flex my toes in the sand.

  The media types came and joined us in the sea.

  Food and drink came in by truck and helicopter. I found that if I simply wished for it before I turned in for the night with whichever disciple I’d chosen to honour with my body, things would occur. Manifests became confused at depots, delivery notes were misread, whatever I desired was delivered straight to the door the next morning.

  And I did not have to wait too long for new disciples to appear. Word soon got around. They arrived in campers and Volkswagens, bronzed young men and women, eager to see what was on the go. And I told them what it was. ‘You can join me and be happy,’ I said, ‘or you can go away and be miserable.’

  Simple choice, and I meant every word. Everyone who turned away was very miserable later. I saw to that.

  My people were happy people. They smiled all the time. I imposed certain penalties for not smiling, because not smiling has a tendency to spread, it’s infectious. So not smiling was a punishable offence. People smiled a lot.

  And they went out of their way to please me, to do l
ittle things to make me happy. Keep my white robes well ironed. Put out their hands to catch my cigarette ash. Wipe my bum and pull the chain. As you would, for the Chosen One.

  My, but we all lived well.

  Once in a while some representative from the IRS or some state committee would appear on the scene. But they were easy meat. I’d dispensed with the beer tops, I only shuffled Kruger Rands now.

  And once in a while Barry would cut up really rough in my head, shouting that I was taking advantage and being corrupt. But as I said to Barry, ‘Shut the F**k up!’

  When the chaps came over from Hollywood to discuss the making of my life story as a motion picture I entertained them royally. I had one hell of a party. Dwarves with lines of cocaine on their shaven heads moving amongst the crowd, live performances by specially favoured acolytes, the whole caboodle.

  I decided I would direct the picture myself.

  And after a shuffle of the old Kruger Rands they readily agreed.

  It was a very short step from there to politics. Of course, I knew that the picture would be a success. I really wished hard that it would. And America is never happier than when it has an ex-film star for a president.

  My campaign was as basic as could be. ‘Vote for me and be happy,’ I told the people. ‘Don’t and then don’t.’

  They did.

  I enjoyed the campaign trail. I enjoyed all the motor cavalcades.

  I enjoyed the speeches and the interviews, I promoted certain soft drinks and razors. Well, I owned the company. And when finally I sat down in the oval office there was a big smile on my face.

  ‘Right then, lads,’ I said. ‘So what needs sorting?’

  ‘Well,’ said senator someone or other – they all looked the same, just suits and bright faces – ‘here’s the list,’ and he handed me a tome, big as a church Bible and thicker than two short planks.

  ‘That’s a very big list,’ I told him.

  ‘There’s never any shortage in the supply of world crises,’ he replied.

  ‘And that’s just what I’m here to deal with,’ I said. ‘So where should we start?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’s welfare.’

  ‘What’s that, exactly?’

  ‘The budget for the poor and needy.’

  ‘Give the poor and needy everything they want.’

  ‘But we’d have to cut down on other things then.’

  ‘So do it.’

  ‘What things, Mr President?’

  ‘What things do you have?’

  ‘There’s Arms.’

  ‘Cut down on those. In fact, do away with those.’

  ‘But we can’t do away with those.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m not going to declare war on anybody, dump the arms.’

  ‘But you don’t understand, Mr President. One in twenty people in America work directly or indirectly for the arms industry. After the illicit and illegal sales of drugs, armaments are the biggest import/export industry in the world.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, it’s right.’

  ‘Well, we’d better not cut down on them, then. What else do you have?’

  And he told me what else he had. And every time I tried to take money from this and put it into that, I kept being told that the books would not balance, that people would be put out of work, that some dire consequence would arise. Eventually, when it came right down to it and I was getting very fed up indeed, I asked, ‘Well, what can I do?’

  And he said, ‘Nothing, Mr President. You can do absolutely nothing.’

  ‘Then what exactly is the point of me being the President?’

  And the senator shrugged and all the other senators or whatever they were shrugged and one of them said, ‘Well, the buck stops with you, sir.’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Well,’ said the senator, ‘if you look at it this way, huge events occur all around the world. No-one exactly knows why they occur. They build up, from little things. Like the First World War being started by an assassination. And in order to balance these huge events, certain people are chosen to compensate for them. These people are Prime Ministers and Presidents, people like that. They don’t actually cause anything to happen, they can’t, their hands are tied by the sheer complexity of Government. But the world events reflect upon these leaders of nations and they make speeches about how they have all the answers and such like, but what they’re really there for is to act as scapegoats for the public.

  ‘They’re there to blame. It’s a little like the mythical mystical butterfly of chaos theory. But in reverse. And that’s your job, Mr President, and we’re really pleased to have you on the team.’

  25

  FACING THE FINAL CURTAIN

  And that was almost it for me. Almost, but not quite. I quit the White House. I made my excuses and left. It seems strange to me now, when I watch some Prime Minister on the TV that I should never have seen them before for what they really are.

  I should have recognized the slightly out-of-kilter clothes, the curious haircuts, the odd turns of phrase, the mispronunciations of simple words, the flapping hands, the whole body language thing. Recognized them for what they really are: compensators, just like I used to be.

  As I sit here now in my room at Hotel Jericho, writing in my red exercise books, thirty lines to the page, twenty pages to the book, I look at it all and I don’t feel bad.

  Certainly I failed to change the world for the better, I can hardly deny that. My every attempt, no matter how well intentioned, was doomed to ultimate failure. But it wasn’t my fault. I tried my best. Of course there are those who might consider some of my motives questionable – all right, so I did enjoy all that free love in California – but I did have good intentions. I was a good person.

  And so before I sing ‘I Did It My Way’, take another tablet and slide off to my sorry bed, I would just like to relate to you one final episode.

  It is an episode not without interest, and it does at least provide an explanation to all that has gone before, while at the same time being an absolute joy to read.

  Which can’t be bad.

  Can it?

  SPROUT MASK REPLICA

  (At last the truth.)

  The black and unmarked helicopter swept in low, searchlights dicing the night sky. With clattering blades stirring dust clouds about, it settled into the compound. An electrified perimeter fence had been raised around the area of devastation to discourage the curious, and within armed guards stood at twelve-yard intervals, guns held at the ready to reinforce this discouragement.

  The date was 17 August 1977. The place was Brentford. The time, eleven o’clock of the evening. Clear night, full moon.

  The hatch slid open in the helicopter’s belly and disgorged three men wearing silver one-piece coverall suits. A tall slim one with a prodigious red beard, a middle-sized one with a nimbus of white hair and a short young one who was scratching his groin. They were greeted by more men in uniform.

  ‘I am Captain Vez,’ said one of these, offering a stiff salute. ‘And you are Sir John Rimmer?’

  The tall slim figure with the beard flashed an official ID. ‘On secondment to the Ministry of Serendipity,’ he said, ‘above-top-secret classification. Are all the perimeter fences manned and secured?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And the drilling rig is fully operational?’

  ‘Yes, sir, ready to go.’

  ‘And you are absolutely certain that the area has not been compromised, that nothing has been tampered with?’

  ‘A few locals were poking about earlier in the day, sir. But nothing was disturbed. The entire area is now fully secure.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But, sir—’

  ‘Yes, soldier?’

  ‘What is it all about, sir? What have we got here?’

  Sir John exchanged glances with his middle-sized companion. ‘What do you think, Dr Harney?’ he asked.

  ‘These men have all sign
ed the Official Secrets Act,’ said the good doctor, ‘and we will need their assistance with the excavation and the containment. We have no choice but to tell them.’

  ‘So be it.’ Sir John stared down upon the captain, a man of no small size himself. ‘We have an alien abduction situation,’ he said. ‘Seismic scans suggest that the craft is still in the area, in a disabled condition.’

  Captain V turned about in circles, dragging his gun from its holster. ‘Flying saucer?’ he went. ‘Where is it? Have we fenced off the wrong bit? It isn’t round here.’

  ‘You’re standing on it,’ said Sir John.

  The captain took a jump backwards and angled his pistol towards the ground. ‘It’s buried?’ he asked.

  ‘More like dug in,’ said Sir John.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Sir John pulled out a map of the area and tapped at it with a finger shaped not unlike a haricot bean. ‘The building that stood here,’ he said, ‘was the Sir John Doveston Memorial Gymnasium, known locally as the Johnny Gym. The abductee’s name was Nigel Bennet, brother of the boxer Billy ‘The Whirlwind’ Bennet who won last night at Wembley.’

  ‘And a damned good fight it was,’ said Captain V. ‘I was there myself, local boy making good and all that.’

  ‘Quite so. However, while Billy was scoring great points in the annals of boxing, his brother packed dynamite into the foundations of this gym and blew the building to kingdom come.’

  ‘But why?’ asked the captain, which was reasonable enough.

  ‘He was compelled to do it. Compelled by something alien.’ Sir John tapped at his temple. ‘Something made him do it.’

  ‘And then he got abducted?’

  ‘You have it.’

  ‘But you say the craft is still here. Why didn’t it fly off into space?’

  ‘The craft didn’t come from space, captain. It came from right here.’ Sir John redirected his haricot bean. It pointed this time down towards the ground. ‘The aliens we seek do not come from above, they come from below.’