Snuff Fiction

  And so I wrote the book. And that was it. You’ve read it.

  So why are there still some pages left to go, you may ask. Wouldn’t it just have been better if it had gone out earlier on a chorus of ‘Here we go’?

  Well, perhaps it would.

  If you could examine the original manuscript of this book, which, I am told, is to be stored in the New State Archives, you would see that up until this paragraph, it is all hand written. Yet these final chapters are typed.

  They are typed upon a 1945 Remington Model 8 manual typewriter. The Newgate Prison typewriter.

  All statements have to be typed up. It’s one of the rules. It’s the way things are done. There’s not much point in arguing.

  I wrote the rest of the book in longhand. It took me months. But I do have a photographic memory. I didn’t need any notes made in Filofaxes, or access to the Doveston Archive. I had it all in my head.

  All I had to do was write it down. Tell it the way I saw it. How I remembered it. How it really was. On the day of my arrest, Norman and I had been fishing. Private access to the trout stream is one of the perks you get, being the mayor.

  It was nice to be away from all the noise of the builders I’d had Mr Cradbury bring in to rebuild Castle Doveston. We’d had a splendid afternoon and Norman had caught four large troutish things, which didn’t give off too much of a radioactive glow. We were whistling and grinning and pushing each other into bushes as we shuffled home for tea, and I remember thinking at the time that even after all we’d suffered, we still seemed to have come through smiling.

  I’d handed the finished manuscript to Mr Cradbury on Edwin’s Day last.

  Which was the day before yesterday.

  Norman and I had long ago renamed the days of the week. There was Edwin’s Day, then Norman’s Day, and then we’d got a bit stuck. So we’d had Edwin’s Day II and Norman’s Day II and so on. But that didn’t work, because there were seven days in the week. So Norman had said, ‘Well, poo to it. If we’re renaming the days anyway, why bother with a seven-day week? If we had a two-day week instead, it would be far less complicated.

  He was right, of course.

  The only problem was that certain people, and I will not name them, kept saying it was their day when it wasn’t. When it had, in fact, been their day the day before.

  So Norman hit upon another idea.

  As we had to take it in turns to empty the latrine and this really did have to be done on a daily basis (as it was only a very small latrine and neither of us wanted to dig a bigger one), Norman said that we would easily be able to remember whose day it was if their day coincided with the day they emptied the latrine.

  I asked Norman, Why not the other way round?

  Norman said that it was the fact that he’d known in advance that I’d ask that question, which had decided the matter for him.

  I have still to figure out just what he meant by that.

  So, as I say, we were shuffling home from the fishing, whistling and grinning and pushing and whatnot, and I was saying to Norman that hadn’t he noticed how we always had good fishing on Edwin’s Days? And good hunting and good bird-nesting? And didn’t it seem just the way that Edwin Days were particularly lucky days for that kind of thing? In fact much nicer and sunnier days all round than certain other days I could mention.

  And Norman had asked whether I’d noticed how on Edwin’s Days the latrine never seemed to get emptied properly? And wasn’t that a coincidence? And perhaps we should rename Edwin’s Days, “old baldy fat bastard who never empties the latrine days.”

  And I was just telling Norman that even though in my declining years, of failing eyesight and somewhat puffed in the breath department, I could still whip his arse any day. Be it a Norman or an Edwin.

  And Norman was singing ‘Come over here if you think you’re hard enough’, when we saw the helicopter.

  It wasn’t a real helicopter. Not in the way we remember real helicopters to be. Real helicopters used to have engines and lighting-up dashboards and General Electric Mini-guns slung beneath their hulls.

  That’s how I remember them, anyway.

  So this was not what you’d call a real helicopter.

  This was an open-sided, pedal-driven, three-man affair. It was all pine struts and canvas sails of the Leonardo da Vinci persuasion. Old Leonardo. Which meant dead in Brentford rhyming slang, didn’t it?

  The helicopter was parked close by the building site. There didn’t seem to be too much in the way of building going on, a lot of down-tooling and chatting with the helicopter’s pedal men, but that was about all.

  ‘I’ll bet that some high-muck-a-muck from the publishing company’s come to tell them to pack up their gear and go home,’ said Norman.

  ‘Why would that happen?’ I asked. ‘Mr Cradbury promised to have the house rebuilt if I wrote the book.’

  ‘Your faith in Mr Cradbury is very touching,’ said Norman. ‘Have you ever thought to ask yourself just why his company is being so generous?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And what conclusions have you come to?’

  I did not reply to this.

  A builder chap came shuffling up.

  ‘There’s a toff from London to see you, your mayorship. He’s come about that book you’ve been writing. He’s waiting for you in the trophy room.’

  ‘Well, there you go then,’ said Norman. ‘It was great while it lasted. But if you’d listened to me when I told you to take at least five years writing that book, at least we’d have had the house finished.’

  ‘A book only takes as long as it takes,’ I said. ‘I’d better go and speak to this toff.’ I paused and smiled at Norman. ‘We have had some laughs, though, haven’t we?’

  ‘And then some,’ said the ex-shopkeeper.

  ‘It’s been good to know you, Norman.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I’m glad to have called you my friend.’

  ‘Have you been drinking?’ Norman asked.

  I shook my head. ‘I’ll see you when I see you, then.’

  ‘Er, yes.’

  I took Norman’s hand and shook it.

  And, leaving him with a puzzled look upon his face, I shuffled away.

  He had been my friend and companion for almost fifty years.

  I would never set eyes on him again.

  I shuffled past the builders and the helicopter-pedallers and I shuffled down the worn-down basement steps and along the passageway to the trophy room. And I stood for a moment before I pushed open the door and my hands began to tremble and my eyes began to mist.

  Because, you see, I knew. I knew what was coming.

  I’d seen it and I’d felt it and I knew that it had to happen.

  I did a couple of those up the nose and out of the mouth breathings, but they didn’t help. So I pushed open the trophy-room door.

  The London toff was standing with his back to me. He wore a long black coat with an astrakhan collar, over which fell lank strands of greasy white hair. He turned slowly, almost painfully, and his head nod-nodded towards me.

  He was old, his face a mottled wrinkled thing. But beneath two snowy brows a pair of icy blue eyes were all a-twinkle.

  His hands seemed crooked wizened claws. In one he held my manuscript. And in the other, a pistol. He smiled when he saw me.

  And I smiled in return.

  ‘Hello, Edwin,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Doveston,’ I replied. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

  28

  And now, the end is near and so de da de da de da da. Da de da de da de, da de da de, da de de DADA.

  Trad.

  ‘You’ve had the gardens redone,’ he said, as casual as casual could be.

  ‘I’ve moved all the trees. I could never be having with that Gaia logo of yours. I uprooted the trees, one by one, and repositioned them. It took me nearly eight years. You can’t really appreciate the new pattern from ground level. Did you see it as you flew in?’

  ‘No.
’ The Doveston shook his old head. ‘I was sleeping. I sleep a lot nowadays. But not in comfort. I have dreams.’

  ‘I’ll just bet you do.’

  ‘So,’ the Doveston said. ‘Here we are again. I must say that you look well. The country life evidently suits you.’

  ‘Huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’,’ I said.

  ‘And you’ve been expecting me?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ I perched my bum on the edge of the table. ‘I knew you’d be along pretty smartish, as soon as you’d read my manuscript.’

  ‘This?’ The Doveston held the wad of papers in his trembling hand. ‘This rubbish? This load of old bollocks?’

  ‘Now, I did consider calling it that,’ I said. ‘A Load of Old Bollocks. But I settled for Snuff Fiction. I felt that Snuff Fiction said it all.’

  The Doveston hurled the manuscript down. It was an excellent hurl. If I’d been awarding points for hurling, I would have given him at least nine out of ten.

  ‘Well hurled, sir,’ I said.

  His body rocked. ‘It’s rubbish.’ His voice cracked and quavered. ‘It’s rubbish. It’s bollocks.’

  ‘You don’t like it, then?’

  ‘I hate it.’

  ‘And might I ask why?’

  The hand that held the pistol twitched. ‘That book isn’t about me. That isn’t my biography. I come out of it as little more than a peripheral figure. That book is all about you. What you thought. What you felt. How you reacted to everything that happened.’

  ‘So you really really hate it?’

  ‘I loathe and detest it.’

  ‘I felt pretty confident you would.’ I pulled from my pocket a packet of cigarettes. Doveston’s Extra Specials. Mr Cradbury had got them for me. I took one out and I lit it. ‘Care for a smoke?’ I asked the Doveston.

  ‘No.’ The old man’s head rocked to and fro. ‘I don’t any more.’

  ‘Too bad. But tell me this. What did you really expect me to write?’

  ‘The truth. My life story. The truth.’

  ‘The truth?’ I shook my head, blew out smoke and spoke through it. ‘What you wanted from me was a whitewash. A snow-job. That’s why you left all your money to me. So I would be forever in your debt. So I would think what a wonderful fellow you were. And when the time came for me to write your life story, I would write a hagiography. And to do what? To make you a role model for the young. The shuffler who made it big.’

  ‘And why not?’ The Doveston waggled his pistol. ‘I am the man, you know. I am the man.

  ‘The man who runs it all?’

  ‘All,’ said the Doveston.

  I puffed upon my Extra Special. ‘I thought that was probably the case. There’s one thing I can’t figure out though. How did you fake your own death? The head and the hand looked so real. I would have sworn they were real.’

  ‘Of course they were real. They were my head and my hand. It was me, lying there in the coffin. I was worried for a moment, when Norman wanted to show you the way my head had been stitched back on. I’m glad you stopped him. You see, I just couldn’t resist it. Attending my own funeral in person, hearing all the nice things people had to say. I was somewhat miffed that you didn’t get up to say anything. And I didn’t think it was funny when that twat from the Dave Clark Five sang ‘Bits and Pieces’. Nor the fact that you put someone else’s brand of cigarettes in my pocket. Or the way Norman knocked the vicar into the lake.’

  ‘Oh come on,’ I said. ‘That was funny.’

  ‘Well, perhaps a wee bit.’

  ‘And so everyone, including me, thought you were dead. And I would probably have gone on thinking it, if it hadn’t been for what happened here on that final night of the last century. When I discovered that all those people were members of the Secret Government. And when you blew them all to kingdom come. I knew then. That wasn’t a revenge killing. That was a coup d’état. You wiped them all out so you could take over.’

  ‘I’m very impressed,’ said the Doveston. ‘I really didn’t think you’d work that out.’

  ‘Sit down,’ I told him. ‘Please sit down.’

  He sank into the single chair. The pistol on his knees. His eyes now rolling wildly.

  ‘But please tell me this,’ I said. ‘Because I really have to know. What was it all about? Why did you do all the things you did? Was it just to have power? Surely you had enough. You were so wealthy. So successful. Why did you do it all? Why?’

  ‘You never understood and why should you have?’ He stroked the barrel of his pistol. ‘It was all so wild. So off the world. It was all down to Uncle Jon Peru Joans. He was my mentor, you see. Oh yes, I had a mentor too. And all those things he told us about. All that wacky stuff. The talking to the trees. The revelation. Armageddon. The mad mutant army marching over the land. It was all true. Every bit of it. Especially the drug.’

  ‘I can vouch for the drug,’ I said, ‘it helped to ruin my life.’

  ‘It was only in its first stages of preparation then. It was raw. When it was accidentally administered to the crowd at Brentstock, it was still crude, but I realized then what I had. Something incredible, once it was refined and refined.’

  ‘So all of this is about a drug?’

  ‘Not a drug. The drug.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘No.’ The Doveston rocked in his chair. ‘You don’t. A lifetime’s work has gone into the refinement of this drug. My lifetime. But why not? After all, what is a lifetime anyway? A drop of water in the ocean of eternity? A fleck of dandruff on the head of time? A nasty brown dingleberry on the arse of—’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I get the picture.’

  ‘Oh no you don’t. As I say, you only experienced the drug in its crude and unrefined form. It gave you flashes of the past and the present and the future. But they weren’t all altogether accurate, were they?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘But now it is perfected. After a lifetime of work and a fortune spent in research and development, it is perfected.’

  ‘So the world can soon expect Doveston’s Wonder Pills, can it?’

  ‘Oh no. You fail to understand. These pills cannot be mass produced. It has been the work of a single lifetime to perfect one single pill.’

  ‘Just the one?’

  ‘I only need the one.

  I shook my head and sighed and I dropped my cigarette butt and ground it out with my heel. ‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘Everything you did, you did to get your hands on one single pill. What does this pill do?’

  ‘It bestows immortality.’

  ‘Does it Hell. And even if it did, look at the state of you. You’re an old man. Do you want to live for ever in your condition?’

  ‘No no no. You still fail to grasp it. When the pill is placed in the mouth, its effect is instantaneous. It allows you to experience the past, the present and the future simultaneously. All of it. Can you imagine that? Can you possibly imagine that? In the space of a single second, which is all the time the effect of the drug lasts for, you experience everything.

  ‘You are beyond time. Outside time. You wrote something about it in your load of old bollocks. About Christopher Mayhew. When he took mescaline. When he said that there is no absolute time, no absolute space, and when he said that within the span of a few moments he had experienced years and years of heavenly bliss. When I take my pill, I will experience eternity, all in a single second. For me the second in the real world will never pass. I will be immortal. Eternity within a single second.’

  ‘And what if it doesn’t work?’

  ‘Oh, it will work.’ The Doveston patted at his pocket.

  ‘You have this pill with you?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course. In the silver coffin-shaped snuffbox that Professor Merlin gave to me. When my time comes, when I am dying, then I will take the pill.’

  ‘And you’re sure that it really will work? That you will experience eternity? Enjoy eternal bliss?’

  ‘There is no doubt
in my mind.’

  I whistled. ‘Do you want me to put that in my book? It might make the end a little bit more exciting.’

  ‘Your book.’ The Doveston spat. He spat down upon the scattered pages of my book. ‘Your mockery of a book. Your load of old bollocks. That to your book and that again.’ And he spat again.

  ‘That’s not very nice,’ I said.

  ‘You betrayed me,’ he said. ‘Writing that rubbish. You betrayed me. Why?’

  ‘To get you here, that’s why. If I’d written the whitewash you’d hoped for, you never would have come. But I knew that if I wrote it the way I saw it, the way I felt it, the way it really was, I knew that would really make you angry. That you would come tearing around here to fling it in my face. When Mr Cradbury made me all those offers that I couldn’t refuse, then I knew for certain that you were alive. That you were commissioning the book. And I just had to see you again. Just the one more time. To say goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye?’

  ‘But of course, goodbye. If you’d read the book carefully, you’d know what I’m talking about. Take this page here, for instance.’ I reached down to pick up a sheet of paper. But as I did so, I slipped upon the Doveston’s spittle. Or at least pretended that I did. Just for a moment. Just for a second, actually. Sufficient to stumble; to reach forward.

  To snatch away his pistol.

  ‘Matters adjust themselves,’ I said.

  He quivered and shivered.

  I twirled the pistol on my finger. ‘Goodbye,’ I said.

  ‘Goodbye?’

  ‘Goodbye to you, of course. In the first chapter of the book, I promised the readers something special. Something different. And I promised how I would write of your terrible end, as I alone could. I wanted the biography that I wrote to be different from any other biography that had ever been written before. And I’ve come up with a way to achieve this end. This will be the first biography ever written which ends with the subject of the biography being executed by his biographer. Now, is that an original idea for a book, or what?’