Sprout Mask Replica

  My brother didn’t get paid that night.

  The tragedy didn’t put him off though.

  He just made sure that from then on he always got paid in advance.

  I asked him later how he felt about all those people getting snuffed out like that. He said, with a rationality unclouded by emotion, that although it was sad, particularly about the money and everything, it didn’t really matter about the old people, because old people didn’t serve much of a purpose in the community anyway.

  I mentioned this to a doctor friend of mine who deals a lot with old people. My doctor friend said that he thought my brother’s remark was cynical and uninformed. And he went on to tell me (in confidence, of course) that old people serve a real purpose in medical terms.

  ‘Without old people,’ he said, ‘who could we let medical students practise and experiment on?’

  And I was stuck for an answer.

  My brother lost his replacement van a scant three weeks later. He had fitted an extra-large aerial to this in order to pick up pirate radio, which was very popular at the time. On the evening of the disaster, John Peel was playing the psychedelic good stuff and there was ‘A Happening’ taking place in the back of the van. More than fifty proto-hippies were squeezed in and, unknown to my brother, every time the van stopped at traffic lights a few more climbed aboard to join the event and enjoy the good vibrations.

  The last thing my brother recalls, prior to awakening in a hospital bed, was Peely playing ‘Eight Miles High’ by the Byrds.

  Apparently what happened was this: the number of proto-hippies crammed into the back eventually became so great that it reached critical mass. There was then a mighty implosion which sucked the van’s sides into the shape of the great pyramid and resulted in the creation of one single super-dense proto-hippy, who was left sitting cross-legged on the floor.

  And this cosmic event spelt the end for Club 300.

  The end was as mundane as could be imagined. While my brother regained his senses in hospital, the uncle whose name I never can remember, returned to his old profession of light removals. And the very first job he took was to transport some record decks and lighting equipment from a private house to the local church hall. My uncle recognized his employer at once (although he couldn’t recall his name) as a Club 300 regular and former barman. A Mr Peter Stringfellow.

  This fellow had come up with an idea based upon my brother’s, but one that could be turned to even greater profit. Forget about holding your disco in a van, hold it in a local hall where you can get more people in and that was not a bus ride away from where they lived. Use the van to transport your own sound equipment.

  And such was the birth of the mobile discothèque. And the death of its travelling progenitor.

  But it must have been fate. For if it had not happened then I would never have met the super-dense proto-hippy and received my great REVELATION.

  It came about in this fashion. The year was 1966. England had just pulled off the double by winning the World Cup and putting the first man on the moon. Sonic Energy Authority were celebrating their tenth number-one hit single and the summer of love had arrived a year early.

  The truth that I was partially responsible for all this had yet to dawn.

  Allow me now to set the scene and explain how it all came about. The Ealing Club had changed hands and was now called Fangio’s Bar. Getting there on the bus was no longer a problem as, since the October Revolution of the previous year, all public transport was now free.

  Things have changed a lot since then.

  But that’s the way I like it.

  With jobs for all and any job you fancy, I had become a private eye. And, with the national drinking age lowered to fifteen, a semi-alcoholic. On the evening of the great REVELATION I was sitting in Fangio’s Bar, sipping from a bottle of Bud and chewing the fat with the fat boy.

  The fat boy’s name was Fangio but I hadn’t decided yet upon mine.

  In those days I had a lot of time for Fangio, although thinking back I can’t recall why. Certainly the guy was fair, he never spoke well of anyone. And when it came to clothes, he had the most impeccable bad taste I’ve ever encountered. He suffered from delusions of adequacy and his conversation was enlivened by the occasional brilliant flash of silence.

  Once seen, never remembered, that was Fangio. Many put this down to his shortness of stature, for as Noel Coward observed, ‘Never trust a man with short legs, brain’s too near their bottoms.’

  But he did have obesity on his side. And on his back. And on his front and Fangio was ever a great man when it came to the Zen Question. The one he posed for me upon this fateful evening was the ever popular, ‘Why is cheese?’ Of course I knew the answer to this, every good private eye did, but I wasn’t going to let on.

  The way I saw it, if you’ve got a small green ball in each hand, you may not win the snooker, but you’ll have the undivided attention of a leprechaun.

  Fangio pushed a plate across the bar top. ‘More fat?’ he asked.

  ‘No thanks, I’m still chewing this piece.’

  ‘Might I ask you a personal question?’

  ‘I’m easy.’

  ‘That wasn’t the one I was going to ask.’

  We laughed together, what was friendship for after all?

  ‘It’s a dress code thing,’ said the fat boy.

  ‘Go on then.’

  Fangio fingered his goitre. The guy had more chins than a Chinese telephone directory. And back in those days a line like that was not to considered casually racist. ‘You cut a dashing figure,’ said he. ‘And I speak as I find, as you know.’

  ‘I do know that,’ I said, and I did.

  ‘I’m thinking of buying a hat,’ said Fangio. ‘But the question is, brim or no brim?’

  ‘In your case, no brim,’ said I. ‘Peak at a pinch, but no brim.’

  ‘So, a fez, you think?’

  ‘Fez, pill box, brimless fedora, beret if you’re travelling the continent, balaclava for mountain wear, cloche for cross-dressing parties—’

  ‘But a cloche has a brim.’

  ‘But nothing to write home about.’

  ‘Ah I get your point.’ And I saw that he did.

  ‘Busby, turban, puggaree, tarboosh, tam-o’-shanter, coonskin Davy Crocket—’

  ‘You sure know your hats,’ said Fangio.

  ‘You have to in my business,’ I told him. ‘In my business wearing the right hat for the job can mean the difference between cocking the snook or kicking the can, if you catch my drift, and I’m sure that you do.’

  ‘So tell me,’ said the fat boy, ‘how come you presently go hatless?’

  ‘Why is cheese?’ I replied.

  We chewed some more upon the fat and I saw that gleam come into Fangio’s good eye. I’ve seen that gleam before, plenty of times in plenty of places. And here it was again, right here.

  ‘Why the gleam?’ I enquired and we both laughed again.

  ‘To be serious,’ said Fangio, when at last we had done with the mirth, ‘there’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask.’

  ‘Ask away.’

  The barman sucked air up his nostrils, causing client’s ears to pop about the bar, and blew it out of his mouth. ‘I was just wondering why it is that you have five matchsticks Sellotaped across your forehead.’

  I stiffened inwardly but maintained my composure. In my business maintaining your composure can mean the difference between laughing like a drain or howling up a gum tree. As for stiffening inwardly, I just don’t know. ‘I have to use the lavvy,’ I said and made away from the bar.

  I crossed the dance floor at the trot. It was a fox trot but I was in no mood to tango. This was the week of The Brentford Bee Festival and most of the dancers wore insect costumes. I felt for those guys, if only they’d known that the posters were supposed to read BEER instead of BEE.

  Such is life.

  I felt odd as I moved between the dancers, curiously out of place. A stranger in my
own back passage, you might say. I entered the Gents and found my way to the wash-hand basin. Above it the mirror. I peered into the mirror.

  I did have five matchsticks Sellotaped to my forehead.

  And that wasn’t all.

  My left eyebrow had been dyed lime green and I had two paperclips attached to the lobe of my right ear. Looking down I spied for the first time the blue nail varnish on my left thumbnail and the purple on my right. About my neck I wore two school ties. A number of watch springs had been sewn to the lapels of my riding jacket. My shoes were odd and I wasn’t wearing any socks.

  A dress code thing? What had happened to me? Was I hallucinating or just seeing things? Had I passed out at a party and fallen prey to merry pranksters? That seemed the most probable.

  Embarrassment! Oh, the shame.

  I rooted about in my pockets for a hankie to wipe off the eyebrow dye, but turned up an assortment of incongruous objects instead. Chicken bones, glass marbles, bottle tops, several biros bound together with pink ribbon. A half-pack of playing cards. A dead mouse.

  Someone was definitely having a pop.

  ‘Who did this to me?’ I asked the mirror.

  The mirror had nothing to say.

  ‘Come on, speak up!’ I told it.

  ‘You did it to yourself.’

  I all but soiled my under-linen. But the voice came not from the looking-glass, but a chap at the cubicle door.

  He just stood there looking, and very well he did it too. He was tall and lean and frocked out in kaftan and sandals. It was hard to say just how, but he exuded charisma as others might aftershave. One of those people who can strut while still sitting down. As I didn’t want to waste time later, I hated him at once.

  ‘Did you do this to me?’ I asked, reaching for the gun that I might have carried if I did carry one. Which I didn’t.

  ‘No. Not me.’ He shook a head-load of golden hair and flashed me a pair of ice-blue eyes. He had the kind of voice that could talk the knickers off a nun, but I wasn’t buying the baby oil.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, just to keep things pally.

  ‘My name is Colon,’ he said, ‘the super-dense proto-hippy.’ If there was a gag in that it passed me by. ‘You stuck the matchsticks on yourself. If you’d care to step outside, I’ll explain everything to you.’

  I wasn’t keen, I can tell you. But there was something so compelling about this fellow, I thought I might give it a try. I reached up to tear the Sellotape from my forehead.

  ‘No. Don’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You put it there for a purpose.

  ‘What purpose?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure.’

  ‘Well, if I put it there for one purpose, I’m taking it off for another. In order not to look absurd.’

  I ripped off the Sellotape.

  Somewhere over the Andes a pilot lost control and his aeroplane fell towards a mountainside.

  I shook my head. ‘Something just happened,’ I said. ‘Something bad.’

  ‘Did you cause it?’

  ‘No, I don’t think I did.’

  ‘Let’s go outside.’

  And outside we went.

  We stood together in the alleyway. It was a real alleyway, one of those with the trash cans and the fire escape with the retractable bottom section. From an open window somewhere near came the sound of a lonely saxophone, beneath our feet was terra firma, high over all the sky.

  ‘What do you see up there?’ he asked.

  ‘Only stars,’ I said.

  ‘Only stars?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘That’s far from all, my friend.’

  ‘If this is to be an esoteric conversation, is it okay if I smoke?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say.’

  The night was nippy, hands-in-pockets weather. I slotted a Woodbine into my cigarette harness.

  ‘You’re smoking Woodbine tonight,’ he said. ‘Is that significant?’

  ‘An earthquake in Honduras.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything.’ But I was sure that I had, I couldn’t remember just what it was.

  ‘You don’t know you’re doing it,’ he said. ‘You have no idea at all. Perhaps it would be better if I didn’t tell you.’

  I lit my cigarette, took two extra matchsticks from the box and placed one behind each ear.

  ‘Why two?’ he asked.

  ‘Bulb sales are down again in Holland.’

  ‘Ah yes, I see.’

  ‘What do you see?’ Something was happening here. Something that made me feel uncomfortable.

  ‘Tell me about the stars,’ he said. ‘What do they mean?’

  ‘The stars are the simplest of all,’ I explained. ‘But also the most difficult. When you look up at the night sky, you see stars, white dots on black. All you have to do is join the dots and see what they spell out. The answer’s up there, but everyone knows that.’

  ‘No-one but you knows that.’

  ‘Knows what?’

  ‘About the stars.’

  He smiled, it was the kind of smile that could make a lighthouse out of a dead man’s willy and a sailor come home from sea. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve broken your train of thought. Forget I said anything. Go on about the stars.’

  ‘The truth is really out there,’ I said. ‘The message is written in the heavens. The problem is in knowing how to join up the dots. Which star is dot number one and which is dot number two and so on. It all depends on where you’re standing on the planet and how good your eyesight is.’

  ‘So there’s a different message for each of us.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I tapped cigarette ash into the palm of my hand, divided it into three small piles, discarded two and devoured the third.

  ‘Why only eat one?’

  ‘Red is this year’s colour, everyone’s wearing it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘it all adds up.’

  ‘Listen, Mr Colon,’ said I, ‘there’s something funny happening around here and you’re at the back of it. Spill the beans pronto or I’ll never forgive myself for the hiding I’m going to give you.’

  ‘How long have you been a private detective?’

  ‘About twenty minutes. Why do you ask?’

  ‘What did you do before that?’

  ‘Nothing much. Dossed about. Tried to get into art school. Thought about joining the space programme. Fancied being a rock star for a while, and a gardener. Thought about combining the two, couldn’t quite make them gel together though.’

  ‘You’ve always been a bit of a loner.’

  ‘One bit in particular.’

  ‘And do private eyes get the girls?’

  ‘The ones I read about do. Hey, what is all this? I’m supposed to be asking the questions. What are we doing out here anyway?’

  ‘Remember the matchsticks and the Sellotape?’

  ‘The what? No.’

  ‘Why were they stuck to your forehead?’

  ‘An aircraft over the Andes. It had to crash, I couldn’t compensate for that. If the guns had got through to the rebels, the government would have been overthrown. The matches were a mistake so they had to come off, I had no control over the situation. I never do.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘What is interesting?’

  ‘Go on about having no control over the situation.’

  ‘You know all the stuff that’s been written about chaos theory and this holistic overview of the ecology. That everything is interlinked. Everything. A butterfly flutters its wings in the Amazon basin and ultimately the price of beef goes up in New Zealand. Well, it’s partially true, but not quite. You see there never can be an imbalance in nature, because nature is not static. Nature is always moving forward, always evolving, developing, never still. It’s harmonious. Except sometimes it’s not completely harmonious. And that’s where I come in. I compensate for partial imbalance, partial lack of harmony
. It’s a reverse of the butterfly. I balance the big events. The other way round, you see. I compensate for this year’s red fashions by swallowing cigarette ash. Don’t ask me how it works and why I’m the one who has to do it. I don’t know.’

  ‘That was quite a speech.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Go on with what you were saying.’

  ‘I’m not the first and I won’t be the last. There’s others like me, loners who can’t fit in. You might see them in rags sleeping in doorways, muttering to themselves. They’re compensators too, maintaining the balance of equipoise, helping things along. It might be in how they mumble, or the way they let their hair grow, or the number of holes in their shoes. The world wouldn’t function without them, but the world doesn’t even know the debt it owes them.’

  ‘I know,’ said Colon. ‘At the moment of my implosion, I saw it all.’

  ‘Saw what all?’

  ‘You can only answer every second question, I see that. But weren’t you ever aware of what you were doing?’

  ‘It’s something I’ve done all my life. It came naturally. I’ve never given it any thought at all.’

  ‘But what—’ he paused.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What if it worked the other way round? What if you could reverse the process? Be the mythical butterfly of chaos? Put two fountain pens in your top pocket and make next year’s fashion green?’

  ‘A man who could do that,’ I said, ‘would have the world to play with. Such a man would be as God.’

  ‘God, or something else.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I have said enough. Continue with your good work. But lay off the Sellotape. Keep it low profile. Do it in the comfort of your own bedroom. Will you do that for me?’

  ‘Yes I will.’

  ‘And what will you do for me?’

  I scratched my head. ‘I don’t know. What are you talking about?’

  He smiled that smile again. ‘Absolutely nothing. I’m sorry that I bothered you. Enjoy your evening. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye.’