Apocalypso

  What was there to be seen was a Victorian music hall, with a sagging proscenium arch, lacking its mask of comedy, but with its mask of tragedy still intact. Red velvet curtains, moth-gnawed and manky, were swagged by dust-blurred golden cords. The high-domed ceiling was lost in shadows; the seats ranked out in widening arcs. And seated here and there and no two together, was the audience. Of six.

  ‘Hardly a full house,’ whispered Rippington. ‘Let’s sit down the front.’

  Porrig hesitated. ‘I don’t like this. It’s all wrong.’

  ‘It’s hell. You’re not supposed to like it.’

  ‘But it’s not my idea of hell.’

  ‘Because it’s not your hell.’

  ‘Whose is it then?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Porrig shivered some more and—

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Rippington said. ‘Bewailing your lot. Not here.’

  Porrig shrugged and Rippington fell off his shoulder.

  ‘Ow!’ went the imp.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Porrig.

  They wandered down to the front row seats and took two close by the aisle.

  Porrig opened his mouth to complain that his seat was damp, but the house lights suddenly dimmed.

  Curtains creaked apart and footlights flickered. On the bare-board stage stood an odd-legged table and on this stood many strange things.

  A brass megaphone with an ivory handle.

  Two pairs of specs and a fat lady’s sandal.

  One round of sandwiches, cheese by the look.

  The skull of a fish and a queer-looking book.

  Rings made of pewter and balls made of wood.

  A saw and a hammer, a large Christmas pud.

  A gaudy collection, though far from aesthetic.

  Was more than eclectic and very poetic.

  Behind all this was a backdrop painted to resemble an Egyptian market scene: stalls and bundles, terracotta pots and camels and so on and so forth and suchlike.

  From stage left came a grunt or two, followed by a cranking sound, a hissing sound and a crackling sound. And then another sound: the sound of music played through an old horn gramophone. The tune was ‘In a Monastery Garden’.

  Further sounds of grunting and cranking.The sound of silence. More crackling and ‘In a Persian Market’ (flip-side of ‘In a Monastery Garden’).

  ‘Are you sure we’ve come to the right place?’ whispered Porrig.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ came a voice from off stage.

  A strident voice, a forceful one.‘Ladies and gentlemen. For the first time here at The Omega Theatre.

  ‘An act so wired and weird and wondrous strange,

  So oddball odd and damnedably deranged,

  So pinky pink and blackly bleakly grey,

  That ne’er before has seen the light of day,

  Put hands together, raise your voices, cheer,

  The one, the only only one is here.

  Amazing and incredible, spectaculous . . .

  Come cheer Apocalypso The Miraculous!’

  ‘Whoa!’ went Porrig.

  ‘Clap the man,’ said Rippington.

  And they did. Porrig clapped and Rippington clapped. They clapped and clapped, but their clapping didn’t make a single sound.

  Porrig gaped at his silent palms. ‘What is this?’ he mumbled.

  Rippington shrugged.

  A fellow walked onto the stage. He did not so much walk, as shamble. He was pushed and then he shambled. One foot dragging, then the other. Dragging sandaled feet. Ankles bare, veined blue as Stilton cheese and above, a long striped night-shirt kind of jobbie, big, loose-sleeved and collarless. Turkey neck, gaunt face, deep-lined. Eyes sunk dark, cadaverous. Narrow nose too long and mouth too small and head topped off by a battered red fez.

  Apocalypso The Miraculous looked very far from being that miraculous.

  ‘He looks wretched,’ Porrig whispered.

  ‘He looks dead,’ the small grey fellow whispered in reply.

  Apocalypso folded his scrawny arms then flung them wide. Withered flowers in withered fists appeared as if from nowhere. Then two more fell out of his sleeves.

  ‘Boo,’ went someone.

  Porrig turned around in his seat. ‘Shut up,’ he shouted. ‘Give the man a chance.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Apocalypso bowed.

  Porrig tried to clap once more, but once more no sound came.

  ‘For my first trick,’ said Apocalypso, in a wheezing distant voice, ‘I shall require the services of a member of the audience.’

  Porrig rose.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ Rippington said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Just a hunch. Trust me on this one.’

  Porrig sat back down and made a grumpy face. A lady in a straw hat stood up. It was not Russell’s mum, but it looked a lot like her.

  ‘Madam,’ called Apocalypso. ‘Madam, thank you. If you would be so kind as to come up onto the stage.’

  Porrig craned round in his seat to view the volunteer. ‘She looks familiar,’ he said, and, ‘Oh.’

  ‘Oh what?’ asked Rippington.

  ‘Well, oh, the auditorium is full now. I never heard them all come in.’

  Rippington climbed onto his seat to have a good look round.

  ‘Sit down, you little goblin,’ said the man sitting behind him.

  Rippington sat down and edged a bit closer to Porrig.

  Porrig glanced over his head and all along the front row. It was also full. Which was reasonably impossible, as the folk who sat there would have had to step past him to sit there.

  The lady in the straw hat was now on the stage. ‘And what is your name, madam?’ asked Apocalypso.

  ‘And what is your name, madam?’ said the lady.

  ‘Please tell the audience your name.’

  ‘Please tell the audience your name.’

  ‘Madam, if you would not repeat what I say. Just please tell us your name.’

  ‘Madam, if you would not repeat what—’

  ‘Give him a chance,’ called Porrig.

  ‘Shut your face,’ called the lady.

  ‘Yeah, shut your face,’ shouted the man behind Rippington.

  ‘Madam,’ said Apocalypso.

  ‘Madam,’ said the lady.

  ‘Give him a chance,’ called Porrig.

  ‘Shut your face,’ shouted the man.

  ‘Best stay out of it, Porrig,’ said Rippington.

  ‘Best stay out of it, Porrig,’ said the lady.

  ‘Don’t start on me,’ said Rippington.

  ‘Don’t start on me,’ shouted the man.

  ‘Please,’ begged Apocalypso. ‘Please, not again.’

  ‘Please,’ said the lady.

  ‘Please, not again,’ chimed in the shouting man.

  ‘One trick,’ sobbed Apocalypso. ‘Let me do one trick.’

  ‘One trick,’ said the lady. ‘Let me—’

  ‘Boo,’ shouted Porrig. ‘Get that woman off the stage.’

  ‘Boo!’ shouted someone else. And ‘Boo’ and ‘Boo’ and ‘Boo’.

  The curtains fell. The house lights came on.

  ‘You rotten lot,’ cried Porrig, turning in his seat. ‘And — Oh . . .’

  ‘And oh once more?’ asked Rippington.

  ‘They’ve gone. All gone.’

  Rippington climbed once more onto his seat. The house lights went down once more and the stage lit up again.

  Same table, same props, same backdrop. Same noises off.

  Same introduction.

  Apocalypso pulled withered flowers from his sleeves.

  The lady in the straw hat went up once again.

  She mimicked Apocalypso again.

  Porrig protested again.

  The curtains closed again.

  Footlights off.

  House lights on.

  Audience there.

  Audience not there.

  Flowers. Mimic. Protest.

  ‘See a pa
ttern beginning to emerge?’ asked Rippington. ‘Get the picture about just whose hell we’re in?’

  ‘Again and again,’ said Porrig in a voice full of fear. ‘He goes through this again and again and again.’

  ‘And he suffers again and again. He’s the only one thinking. I can hear him. There’s nobody else. The audience doesn’t really exist.’

  ‘They’re just an illusion?’

  ‘His illusion. His pain. His punishment.’

  ‘But for thirty years? He’s been going through this for thirty years, ever since he died?’

  Porrig felt breathless. Stifled. The sheer horror of it, the torture, it was all too much.

  ‘I think that’s what hell must be,’ said Rippington. ‘I don’t think it’s that fire and brimstone and the devil and all. I read in one of the big books about dharma, have you ever heard of that?’

  ‘I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know what it means.’

  ‘It’s the essential principle of the cosmos, the natural law. You get out of life what you put into it. That kind of thing. Apocalypso is paying his dues.’

  ‘Well, he’s paid enough,’ said Porrig. ‘I’ve never felt such sadness before, it’s terrible. I can’t let it go on.’

  ‘Let’s just get what we came for.’ Rippington pointed to the stage. ‘See that book?’

  ‘Book?’

  The one on the table. It’s Apocalypso’s book of magic.’

  ‘And you want me to nick that? That’s what got him here in the first place.’

  ‘No no no,’ said Rippington, shaking his little baldy head. ‘This isn’t the “demons speaking at his ear” kind of magic book. This is the “now you see it, now you don’t, it’s all done with mirrors” kind of magic. He was the real bee’s knees, with or without the demons.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about him.’

  ‘I read your book. Beyond Doubtable Reason by Sir John Rimmer.’

  ‘So I should go up on stage and compound his misery by stealing his book?’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t have much use for it here, does he?’

  ‘No. But I can’t leave him here. Not like this.’

  ‘We can’t take him back with us, Porrig. He’s dead, he’d fall to pieces. And I’d get in all kinds of trouble. More than I’m in already.’

  ‘All right.’ Porrig made a thoughtful face. ‘Maybe we can’t take him back to our reality. But what about if . . .’ and he whispered to Rippington.

  Rippington listened, then Rippington grinned. ‘I suppose we could,’ he said. ‘I mean, who else would know, if we didn’t tell them?’

  ‘Sing the magic words,’ said Porrig.

  Rippington sang the magic words.

  The curtains creaked apart once more to reveal the same stage, the same table, the same back-drop. From stage left came the grunting sounds, the cranking sounds, the hissings and the crackles. And then the sound of music.

  ‘It’s a kind of magic,’ sang Freddie the Mercury.

  Porrig settled back in his seat. Rippington sat up in his.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ came the strident off-stage voice.

  ‘For the last time here, or anywhere.

  Long in the tooth, but brave as a bear.

  Marvel, mystic and manipulator.

  Pre-eminent prestidigitator.

  Lord of all legerdemain.

  Came by bus and not by train . . .’

  ‘You get far better poetry in ALPHA 17,’ whispered Rippington.

  ‘The one, the only, and he still rhymes with spectaculous

  Apocalypso The Miraculous!’

  There was a puff of smoke.

  And he was there.

  Black top hat and tails and cape all lined with crimson silk. Patent pumps and, in his white-gloved fingers, twirling canes. Crisp white shirt with matching dicky bow.

  Apocalypso grinned from ear to ear and back again. His face was young and fit and tanned. He wore a black moustache and an Imperial upon his chin. He looked as he had while still in his prime, which once again he was.

  ‘He looks good,’ said Porrig.

  ‘Don’t he just.’

  Apocalypso’s twirling whirling canes became a blur and then became two sprays of fresh red roses. The magician bowed, then flung them to the crowd and they became a flock of doves that circled overhead.

  ‘How did he do that?’ Porrig asked.

  ‘Without the aid of demons. Watch this bit.’

  Apocalypso raised his hat, the circling doves flew back to the stage and, spiralling down like water into a plughole, they vanished one after another into the upraised hat.

  Apocalypso bowed once more, turned the top hat upside down and patted the crown. A foot appeared, a lady’s foot, followed by a fish-net stockinged leg, another leg, then a torso, head and arms and all.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ cried Apocalypso, his voice going boom about the auditorium. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I give you my lovely assistant, Myra.’

  ‘Myra?’ said Porrig. ‘But Myra’s my . . .’ He paused.

  ‘Your what?’ asked Rippington.

  ‘My mum,’ said Porrig. ‘And it is my mum. I’ve seen pictures of her when she was very young. This is her.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Rippington. ‘I’ve always gone for fish-net stockings.’

  ‘Don’t be so disgusting, that’s my mum!’

  Porrig’s mum did that stage assistant curtsy that Debbie Magee does with such grace, then the open-palmed point to the magician, which indicates to the crowd that they have just witnessed something well deserving of their stingy praise.

  The crowd clapped. And the claps sounded. Sounded loud. Rippled and crashed and sea-washed over the theatre, rising and rising and rising.

  Porrig joined in and Rippington did too. The great magician bowed and Porrig’s mum curtsied, did some more open-palming, then clapped a bit herself.

  ‘It’s going brilliantly,’ Porrig shouted through the wild applause. ‘But I never knew that my mum had been his assistant,’ he whispered to Rippington.

  ‘Your family has got more secrets than the Ministry of Serendipity.’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ Apocalypso raised his gloved hands and the audience stilled to silence. ‘This is to be my final performance and you will witness sights that you have never witnessed before. You will tell your grandchildren that you were here this night. That you saw Apocalypso The Miraculous.’

  ‘Top man,’ shouted Porrig.

  Apocalypso gazed down upon him. ‘Did somebody speak?’ he asked.

  ‘I just said: Top man, ’ said Porrig. ‘Sorry to interrupt your flow.’

  ‘Not at all, young fellow. Would you care to step onto the stage and take part in the performance?’

  ‘No, not really. I’ll just watch, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘But I do, I do.’ Apocalypso beckoned. ‘Come onto the stage. Come onto the stage.’

  ‘No, really, I . . .’

  Apocalypso pointed and stared a most unsettling stare.

  ‘I would this time,’ said Rippington.

  Porrig rose from his seat and scrambled onto the stage.

  ‘And what is your name?’ Apocalypso asked.

  ‘Pádraig,’ said Porrig. ‘But it’s pronounced Porrig. so that’s what everyone calls me.’

  ‘What a nice name,’ said the lovely Myra. ‘If I ever have a son, I think I might call him that.’

  ‘Er . . .’ said Porrig.

  ‘So,’ said Apocalypso, ‘do you believe in magic, Porrig?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Porrig. ‘I certainly do. And fate. And dharma too.’

  ‘So much belief for one so young.’

  ‘I’m learning how to learn.’

  ‘Then top man too. Let the show begin.’ Apocalypso threw wide his arms and the show began.

  Oh yes!

  Rippington looked on in awe as Porrig was first levitated, then made to climb up a rope that hovered of its own accord, before vanishing at the top to appear a moment later
at the back of the auditorium. Then thrust into a suitcase that was pierced through with spears, lifted out unharmed, rammed into a cannon and fired through a hoop of fire, collected up in pieces from the stage floor, jammed into Apocalypso’s top hat, then poured out wearing Myra’s clothes while she clapped loud from Porrig’s seat, all dressed up in his.

  ‘For my finale,’ cried Apocalypso. ‘The terrible electronic wasp-filled torture box, that will be lowered into the pit of flames, whilst simultaneously—’

  ‘No,’ begged Porrig.

  ‘No?’ said Apocalypso.

  ‘No. I’m definitely stealing all your thunder. Go into the box yourself.’

  ‘No fear,’ said Apocalypso. ‘I put my last assistant in there. We haven’t found all of her yet.’

  ‘Go on, Porrig,’ called Rippington. ‘Wasp-filled torture box. It’ll be a doddle.’

  ‘A friend of yours?’ asked Apocalypso.

  ‘Another volunteer,’ said Porrig, wiping sweat from all manner of places. ‘I’m sure he’d rather do it than me.’

  ‘Well, let’s have him up on the stage. It is a him, isn’t it?’

  Rippington scuttled onto the stage. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said, extending a slim grey hand.

  Apocalypso shook it gently. ‘And where are you from?’ he enquired.

  ‘ALPHA 17. The place where you’re not going to go.’

  Apocalypso’s smiling face became a face of fear. ‘You’ve come for me,’ he whispered.

  Rippington shook his little grey head. ‘On the contrary. As this will be your last performance, and you will only be using stage magic, and not any other kind ever, no-one or thing is going to come for you. Porrig is giving you a second chance. So don’t foul it up.’

  ‘But I don’t understand.’

  ‘Boo’ and ‘Hiss’ went the audience, and ‘Get on with it’ also.

  ‘Your public awaits,’ said Rippington. ‘Can the wasp box trick be done without help from. . , how shall I put this? Help from other quarters?’

  Apocalypso shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘It was because of the tragedy that befell my last assistant that I invoked the help of those from other quarters. In the hope of getting her back.’

  ‘It’s all beginning to make sense now, isn’t it?’ said Porrig to Rippington. ‘Why he, you know, went over to the Dark Side of The Force, as it were.’