The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag

  ‘A piece of cake,’ I said. ‘I’ll breeze through this.’

  It’s remarkable just how wrong you can be sometimes, isn’t it?

  The Bill to authorize compulsory downloading at sixty-five passed through the House of Commons and then the House of Lords unopposed.

  There could possibly have been some opposition from certain elder statesmen, but there wasn’t. For these elder statesmen had already been downloaded by their relatives.

  Certain clauses were written into the Bill: that compulsory downloading did not apply to members of the government being one; a tax upon the pension funds of the downloaded being another; the nationalization of Necrosoft Industries being a third.

  ‘Nationalization!’ Billy stormed up and down on the plush carpeting of his new office. It was a big office right at the top of the building. It had been unoccupied, as if just waiting for him. And it had to be said, he looked right in it.

  ‘Nationalization?’

  The Prime Minister, who had called by en route to business elsewhere, shot Billy a quizzical glance. ‘You seem most upset,’ he observed. ‘Almost as if you own Necrosoft.’

  ‘Not yet,’ muttered Billy under his breath. ‘But soon.’

  ‘You must surely understand that it had to happen. Necrosoft is simply too large, too important to remain in private hands.’

  ‘Governments don’t nationalize any more.’ Billy threw up his hands in protest. ‘They privatize. They sell off utilities. Bung profitable institutions into the private sector to line their own pockets and those of their friends. Directorships, productivity bonuses, windfalls. We all know how it works.’

  ‘Happily the we you speak of do not all know how it works.’

  ‘Well, I do,’ said Billy.

  The Prime Minister smiled. ‘Mr Barnes,’ he said, ‘do you know who owns Necrosoft?’

  Billy shook his head. ‘Actually, I don’t,’ he confessed.

  ‘Well, I do,’ said the Prime Minister.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I do. A gentleman named Henry Doors. A recluse whose whereabouts are presently unknown.’

  ‘I know that name,’ Billy scratched at his head. ‘It rings a bell somewhere. Didn’t Henry Doors invent a car engine that ran on tap water, or something? And he wrote a book, what was it called? Endless something, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Endless Journey,’ said the PM.

  ‘That’s right. I’m sure I’ve got a copy of that somewhere.’

  ‘I thought I had,’ said the PM. ‘But I must have lent it to someone. I tried to order it again from Waterstone’s but it must be out of print.’

  ‘I act directly for Mr Doors,’ said Billy, shameless in the lie. ‘I make all major decisions regarding policy and development. Nationalization is out of the question. Necrosoft must remain an independent private company.’

  ‘Really?’ asked the PM. ‘And why might that be?’

  ‘Because I say so,’ said Billy.

  The PM smiled again. What a nice smile he had. ‘Billy,’ he said. ‘May I call you Billy? Yes, of course I may. Billy, Necrosoft was originally funded by the US government to develop weaponry.’

  ‘I know that. It was to sidestep the Freedom of Information Act.’

  ‘Of course. But such funding ended years ago. Necrosoft is independent. It supplies urban pacification systems on a worldwide basis. The revenues from that are vast. The revenues from downloading fees are equally vast. The revenues from software to link Internet users to the Necronet are equally vast. Have you any idea what this company is worth?’

  ‘Some,’ said Billy.

  ‘Henry Doors is the richest man in the world.’

  ‘I wonder where he lives,’ said Billy.

  ‘Don’t we both? So far we have been unable to locate him. Tracing his financial interests leads us around in circles. The forced nationalization of his company may just draw him out.’

  ‘And that’s the point, is it? To draw him out?’

  ‘We must negotiate with him face to face. Necrosoft’s technology must not fall into foreign hands. The hand that controls Necrosoft will one day control the world.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Billy. ‘I somehow thought it might.’

  ‘The government and Necrosoft must become one,’ said the PM. ‘And then you will see Britain rise as a world power once again. Oh yes.’

  Billy nodded thoughtfully. ‘You’re so right,’ he said. ‘It makes perfect sense. I wonder how I didn’t think of it before.’

  The PM smiled his winning smile. ‘Then we’re agreed,’ he said.

  ‘We are,’ said Billy, smiling too. ‘And I’ve a little gift for you.’

  Weep No More for Uncle Albert

  Weep no more for Uncle Albert,

  Somewhere in the Necronet.

  Out here all his fond relations

  Divvy up what they can get.

  To young Tim I leave my motor,

  Toby gets my scarf,

  Tom Boy, you can have my muffler,

  And my book of Garth.

  Not a chair left there to sit on,

  Not a sofa you can get on,

  Picture patches on the wall,

  Rolled-up lino in the hall,

  Hinges taken from the butt,

  Turfs are raised and flowers cut.

  Auntie looks a little queer,

  She comes up sixty-five this year.

  But weep no more for Uncle Albert,

  He’s above it now.

  20

  Science without conscience is the death of the soul.

  FRANÇOIS RABELAIS (c. 1494–1553)

  The doctor said I was a paranoid schizophrenic. Well, he didn’t actually say it, but we knew he was thinking it.

  ‘Tell me more about your work,’ the doctor said.

  ‘My work? You mean my detective work?’

  ‘That’s what you do then, is it? Detective work?’

  The doctor viewed me through his pince-nez. I’d had a pair of those once. But mine had tinted glass. An image thing, I don’t want to dwell on it.

  ‘I did do detective work,’ I said carefully. ‘But I wasn’t very good at it. I never managed to find anything I was supposed to be searching for.’

  ‘Such as the’ – the doctor consulted his case notes – ‘handbag? The voodoo handbag? What exactly is that?’

  ‘It all got terribly complicated. I sort of lost track of what I was doing.’

  ‘You were confused.’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘But you’re not so confused now.’

  ‘Not so much. No.’

  ‘The tablets are helping then, are they?’

  ‘Tablets always help. That’s what tablets are for, isn’t it?’

  The doctor rose from his chair and drifted over to the window. I noticed the way his toecaps lightly brushed the top of the wastepaper bin.

  ‘Am I boring you?’ the doctor asked. ‘You keep nodding off. Are you tired?’

  ‘Me? No, no. I never sleep.’

  ‘Never? Not at all?’

  ‘I don’t dare to fall asleep. If I fall asleep I might dream, and if I dream I’ll be back in there. Back in the Necronet. I’m not going back in there. Not me. Not ever.’

  ‘Quite,’ said the doctor. ‘So you never sleep at all.’

  ‘Maybe a minute or two. But no dreams. If dreams come, Barry wakes me up.’

  ‘Your Holy Guardian, Barry?’

  ‘He’s a sprout. From God’s garden. God has a very big garden. Very big. It goes on and on for ever. I’ve been there, it’s very beautiful.’

  ‘Inside the mind of God?’

  ‘That’s where we all go when we dream. I think that’s also where we all go when we die. Because you can meet dead people in your dreams, can’t you? And they’re not dead when you meet them.’

  ‘And you met dead people?’

  ‘Only the one.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about that?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Caref
ul on that chair,’ said the doctor. ‘You might fall over the mountain.’

  I edged my chair away from the precipice. Four legs safely on the ground and two feet flat. You shouldn’t drift about,’ I told the doctor. ‘You could get blown away. They’d never find you, you’d blow out into the desert.’

  ‘I have special tablets,’ said the doctor. ‘They keep my feet heavy. They’re gravitational.’

  ‘Wake up, chief!’

  ‘Thanks, Barry.’

  ‘Did you drift off again?’

  ‘Only for a moment.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Barry woke me.’

  ‘So you’re still here?’

  Yes. Those glasses are new.’

  ‘I think they make me look a bit like Clark Kent,’ said the doctor, removing his black-framed spectacles. ‘But didn’t you once have a pair like these? An image thing, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I can’t remember clearly any more. I know too many things.’

  ‘But couldn’t you remember everything?’ The doctor returned to his desk and went through a bit more case note consultation. ‘Digital memory. Total recall. Positively photographic.’

  ‘It’s how magic works.’

  ‘Magic? Where does magic come into this?’

  ‘It’s most of this.’

  ‘Voodoo magic?’

  ‘Some of it, yes.’

  ‘Superstition,’ said the doctor. ‘Science is the new magic. Would you mind if I kissed you on the mouth?’

  ‘Wake up, chief!’

  ‘Thanks, Barry.’

  ‘Enforced wakefulness leading to psychosis,’ the doctor said as he wrote further case notes. ‘Recommend that the patient be placed on a course of—’

  ‘No,’ I shouted. ‘No sleeping tablets, I mustn’t dream, don’t you understand? I mustn’t dream.’

  The doctor reached forward and pressed that little button on his desk.

  ‘No dreams! No!’ I pushed back on my chair. ‘I’ll go over the edge. I will.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ the doctor smiled. No teeth. The doctor had no teeth. The back legs of my chair squeaked on the lino as I pushed towards the cliff edge.

  ‘Don’t try to stop me. I’m going to jump.’

  ‘You’ll wake up if you jump.’

  ‘I’m not asleep. I’m awake now.’

  ‘Wake up—’And I jumped. And I fell.

  And I woke up in some confusion. ‘Barry, you rotter. You let me jump that time.’

  The wind shuffled sand around my wellington boots.

  I looked up at the Mountains of Madness.

  ‘Barry. Barry? Barry?’

  But I was all on my own again.

  Before the Cave of Ultimate Horrors.

  And frankly I was well peeved off.

  ‘I’m well peeved off,’ said Billy Barnes. ‘You mean that you found no trace at all?’

  The beautiful secretary turned down her haunted eyes. ‘At first all the shopkeepers I talked to thought they remembered Henry Doors and had read his book. But the more they thought about it, the less they seemed to remember. And eventually they all said that they probably didn’t remember him at all.’

  ‘And the library?’

  ‘The library, and the posh companies that trace rare books. I’ve asked all of them. Are you absolutely certain there is a Henry Doors, sir?’

  Billy swung around in his expensive chair. ‘Absolutely certain. Carry on searching. Don’t eat. Don’t sleep. Search the company records, trace the name through Somerset House. Use every means at your disposal. Find Henry Doors.’

  Tears welled in the haunted eyes. Yes, sir,’ said the secretary. ‘Whatever you say.’

  When the door had closed upon her, Billy swept expensive objects from his desk, rose and kicked his chair over.

  Henry Doors was the man. Target number one. The big trophy. If he could insinuate himself into the service of Henry Doors, it would not take too long for Billy to become Henry Doors. And then the wealth. The power. It could all be his.

  A telephone began to ring.

  Billy snatched it up. ‘What is it?’ he shouted.

  ‘There’s a Mr Henry Doors on the line,’ said the voice of Billy’s secretary.

  My hands were trembling and my knees knocking, too. And it wasn’t because of the prospect of a stroll in the Cave of Ultimate Horrors. It was all that stuff. That stuff in the doctor’s office. Am I awake? Am I asleep? Was that madness, or was that something else? Am I dreaming this? Are you dreaming me? Am I dreaming you? Who’s actually awake and who isn’t?

  I made fists. I’m sure I had to be learning something. I just wished I knew what it was supposed to be.

  I took deep breaths. Right. Cave of Ultimate Horrors. If the Mountains of Madness had played on my paranoia, were still playing on it, actually, then was I asleep? What would the cave play on? What were my ultimate horrors?

  I dreaded to think.

  ‘I hope you don’t think this too forward of me,’ said the voice of Henry Doors. ‘And I know you’re a very busy man, but I was wondering if we might get together for a bit of a chat.’

  ‘A bit of a chat,’ said Billy.

  ‘If that’s all right with you.’

  ‘Certainly, when—’

  ‘My car is waiting in the car park. Perhaps you might cancel all further appointments for the day.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Billy. ‘I will.’

  The car was all Billy might have expected. A white stretch-Merc with blacked-out windows. As Billy approached, a rear door swung open. Electric door, nice touch.

  Billy peered into the car. A young man in a white designer suit and Ray Bans beckoned him inside. Billy climbed in and the door closed upon him.

  The young man comfied himself upon the tan leather seating. ‘Henry Doors,’ he said. ‘Excuse me if I don’t shake your hand.’

  ‘Excuse me if I don’t shake yours,’ said Billy.

  Henry Doors grinned wolfishly. He had the look of a male model, or one of those brat pack film lads who used to be so popular. Killer cheekbones, floppy hair, beach tan.

  ‘You expected someone older,’ said Henry.

  ‘Yes I did.’

  ‘Then let me tell you a little bit about myself. I was born in San Francisco in nineteen sixty-seven, the Summer of Love. My mother was a Carmelite nun, my father – well, who can say. I was brought up on a farm in Wisconsin, under the supervision of agents of the American government. They protected me from harm. I have a way with computers, an empathy you might say, and I was writing my own programmes by the time I was nine. By the age of fifteen I had founded Necrosoft and was already a multimillionaire. Any questions?’

  ‘Many,’ said Billy.

  ‘Well, keep them to yourself. I have been watching your progress, Billy, right from the start. Your every move has been closely observed. Your rise through the company ranks. Your conversation last week with the PM.’

  ‘You overheard my conversation?’

  ‘Watched you on screen. The entire Necrosoft building is under camera surveillance. It’s built into the very walls. Very subtle stuff. I hear all and I see all.’

  ‘Where does this leave me?’ Billy asked.

  ‘With your trousers round your ankles and your bare arse in the air.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Billy.

  ‘The question is, do I pat your bottom kindly, or ram my—’

  ‘I get the picture.’

  ‘You are the picture, Billy. Because you are in the frame. Tell me this, and answer honestly because I will know if you lie. If you could gain control, how much control would you want?’

  ‘All,’ said Billy, without hesitation.

  ‘All seems very fair to me.’

  ‘It does?’

  ‘I need someone to assume control. Someone ruthlessly ambitious. Someone who will let nothing and no-one stand in their way. Someone such as you.’

  ‘But why should you offer this to me? This company is yours.’

  ‘I don’t want the company, Bill
y. I want you to have the company. Ownership of the company means nothing to me. It’s what the company does that matters.’

  ‘The Necronet.’

  ‘Exactly. The PM wants to nationalize Necrosoft. He wants the government and Necrosoft to become one. That is my wish too. Let both become one, but with you at the helm.’

  ‘That was my intention,’ said Billy, ‘should I have failed to locate you.’

  ‘Well, go for it, my boy. Spread the Necronet around the world. Encompass the globe with it. Download millions and millions and millions—’

  ‘To what ultimate end?’

  ‘Call me an ecologist. Call me one who cares about the planet. All this overcrowding, all this pollution. We have it in our power to save the world.’

  ‘Or destroy it,’ said Billy.

  ‘I hope I don’t detect a twinge of conscience there.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. I have no concern for the herd, drive them all to the abattoir, I don’t care.’

  ‘Not all,’ said Henry. ‘The prime stock you keep for breeding purposes.’

  ‘I see,’ said Billy, who didn’t.

  ‘You don’t,’ said Henry, who did. ‘There are too many people, Billy. Too many little people. Too many nonentities. And they jabber away, don’t they? In their banal little voices. Jabbering and jabbering. It drives you mad, doesn’t it? All that jabbering. Imagine if they were all inside your head, all of them, jabbering at once. It would drive you insane.’

  ‘It would,’ said Billy.

  ‘So let’s clear them all away to somewhere, so we don’t have to hear their jabbering.’

  ‘Into the Necronet.’

  ‘Exactly. And then the world is a better place for us, isn’t it?’

  ‘Much better,’ said Billy. ‘And so you’ll let me control Necrosoft, and ultimately—’

  ‘You’ll control the world, Billy. You will become the World Leader.’

  ‘And you will remain in the background?’

  ‘I always remain in the background. That is what I do best.’

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Billy. ‘Who are you, really?’

  ‘Come on,’ said Henry Doors, ‘you’ve worked it out by now, surely?’