Better The Devil

Seven chapbooks unnaturally joined together like the planks of an improvised gallows. You, the reader, are the hangman; I'm the forlorn felon. I don't know where the rope is, maybe it can't be found. But as the Chicago mobster, Upside Downey Jr, once said when he was in a similar position, "No noose is good noose!" He didn't really. I made that up…

BETTER THE DEVIL By Rhys Hughes

Copyright © 2010 Rhys Hughes This eBook edition published 2010 by Ghostwriter Publications www.ghostwriterpublications.com ISBN 978-1-907190-13-1

BETTER THE DEVIL Seven Story Chapbooks Collected Together Like This:

Romance With Capsicum The Skeleton of Contention Madonna Park Plutonian Parodies

The Fanny Fables To Err is Divine The Devil You Don't

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

This e-book consists of seven chapbooks unnaturally joined together like the planks of an improvised gallows. You, the reader, are the hangman; I'm the forlorn felon. I don't know where the rope is, maybe it can't be found. But as the Chicago mobster, Upside Downey Jr, once said when he was in a similar position, "No noose is good noose!" He didn't really. I made that up… The first chapbook is called Romance with Capsicum and was published in 1995. It includes ' Raindancing', my earliest surviving tale, and 'The Third Blow', my second earliest surviving tale. Originally it also featured the story 'Big Game', but as that also appears in a later chapbook, I've removed it and replaced it with 'The End of the Road'. Romance with Capsicum is much sought after by collectors, but is rather weaker than my later chapbooks. Some lucky writers are brilliant right from the start, others crawl painfully slowly towards talent like exhausted stoats. I belong to the latter category. That's not false modesty. Saki was also a slow crawler; his first book was dismal. A decade later he had turned into one of the best short story writers in history. Not that I'm comparing myself to Saki… I have forgotten to mention that Romance With Capsicum was issued by the extremely obscure Wyrd Press, who were also responsible for a strange Des Lewis chapbook. A pair of white witches operated Wyrd Press, but I don't know if they ever danced naked in the woods. I like to think they did. Which reminds me… When I was younger I assumed that a 'chapbook' was a book for chaps, in other words full of pictures of naked women. But it isn't necessarily. And in fact it's not. Drat. Anyhow, the second chapbook is The Skeleton of Contention and it was issued by the miserably named D-Press in 2004. I don't know why there was a delay of nine years between my

first and second story chaps. Maybe it was simply a case of a paucity of publishers willing to issue chapbooks. Yes, it must be that. Or else my fecklessness. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth chapbooks were issued quite recently by Ghostwriter Publications. I'm proud of all of them, but I'm especially pleased with two stories included therein, namely 'The Sun Trap' and 'Cracking Nuts With Jan Hammer'. I also have a fondness for my poor Fanny, heroine of the fables that are named after her. Fanny is a name that has gone out of fashion, just like Dick, Clit and Esra backwards. Puerile humour is sometimes called 'Rabelaisian'. I haven't read Rabelais yet, but I do have a paperback copy of his infamous scatological work in a box. The seventh chapbook, The Devil You Don't, exists nowhere else, only in electronic form here, and was created especially to be a part of this e-book. It's a parade of flash fiction. I like flash fiction. A lot. I make fitful attempts to write extremely short stories. As an example, here's my shortest so far, a one-sentence tale called 'Sloping Off'.

I was instructed to measure the angles of all the gradients of all the foothills and peaks of an entire mountain range, but I went home instead.

Do you like it? I wrote it in a freezing log cabin in the mountains near Cercedilla in Spain while living on a farm during the winter of 2007. The twelve-hour working day was too much for my delicate constitution and I ran away after less than two weeks. I will never milk a cow before dawn again. The Devil You Don't also features my first published story. It's called 'An Ideal Vocation' and I wrote it at least twice, once in 1988 and then again in 1991. I lost the first version. That's a common problem with me. I always seem to be rewriting lost tales. 'An Ideal Vocation' was inspired by some of the short pieces of Kafka; I was strongly affected by his nightmarish, coolly intense tone. When I saw the printed version, I was vexed to be confronted with a text that was rife with typographical errors; for reasons known only to themselves, the editors had tried to alter the tense of my story but had done an incomplete job, so the end result veered alarmingly through time. In short it resembled a small dog's breakfast. I'll never milk a dog in the morning again. What now? Dum de tumte. Shall I say something about the authors I most enjoy? I'd love to make a statement such as, "Apart from Saki and Kafka, my other influences include Nabokov, Barthelme, Borges, Lem, Alfau, Calvino, Sladek, Beckett, Flann O'Brien, Pynchon, Vian, Akutagawa." In fact I often do say stuff like that but I'm aware how pompous it sounds. And yet I'm fully conversant with all

the works of those writers. Only joking. I barely know Akutagawa. I do have a book of his tales awaiting me, though, Rashomonand Seventeen Other Stories, published as a Penguin Classic. I collected Penguin Classics in my teens. Didn't read most of them.Liked having them on my shelves anyway. I also collected swords, knives, throwing stars and halberds. And I made my own harquebus that could fire ball bearings through garage roofs. As the Cavalier strategist, Sir SuckitAndsee, muttered when faced with Cromwell's guns, "You wait a century for an harquebus then 3000 come along at once!" No he didn't. I made that up too. Incidentally, the fact I cite high-class literary authors as my favourites doesn't mean I think I'm as good as them. That assumption is wrong. I wish I could say that my influences were all pulp writers, but it simply wouldn't be true, and I don't feel comfortable lying. Having said that, I do sometimes refer to future events in the past tense, but only if it helps to get me out of trouble. I'm not gratuitous about it. Talking about pompous influences, as we were a few paragraphs above, reminds me of an incident at college. I had a room in the Halls of Residence and I lived next to a young feller who liked to strum and pick his guitar all night. Thing is, he didn't strum or pick it in any way that helped to produce a pleasing, or even a bearable, sound. He just slapped and clawed at the thing. I went round to see him one day and politely inquired if he was influenced by any particular guitarists or styles? "I never listen to any other guitarist," he said. "None at all?" I persisted. "I don't care for my purity to be adulterated," he responded, but then he frowned and finally conceded, "I suppose you could say that I am slightly influenced by Segovia." The italics are mine. Segovia was not only a very famous guitarist but is also the name of the nearest city to the farm where I froze. This anecdote has now stalled.

ROMANCE WITH CAPSICUM

andother piquant assignations

The End of the Road – Raindancing - Thinner Air - Passengers - The Catastrophe Trials The Urban Freckle - The Journal - Oaths - The Dungeon - Romance With Capsicum - The Faust Business - Zumbooruk - The Third Blow - Trombonhomie

THE END OF THE ROAD

This is a long dark road for a weary music student to be trudging up. And this is a heavy instrument to be balancing on thin shoulders. If only I played the piccolo instead of the double bass! But now I am frozen in my tracks by a groan. A man is lying in a ditch by the side of the road. I am always polite, so I lower my burden to the ground and sit down to talk to him. His name, he tells me, is Marcel; and he is in love. When I point out that love is scant reason for lying in a ditch, he replies that he was knocked there by an M.G., an M.G., furthermore, driven by the greatest beauty ever to swerve across a road. It was love at first strike. His bones are all broken, but it is his heart that aches. I am sympathetic. I offer him a cigarette. He declines on the grounds they are bad for your health. What am I to make of this last statement? As a poor student, tobacco is frequently an alternative to a meal rather than an adjunct. I remark that suppertime in my draughty garret is often a damp cigarette in front of my faulty paraffin heater, with the single red head of a broken match to ignite both. At this, he adopts a dreamy tone. Redhead, yes, and her hair flowed out behind her like molten copper… I have never seen copper, molten or otherwise, though once I had a brass monkey, so I ask if he managed to have a good look at her. Oh no! A glimpse is all he had; but it was enough. It seems to me that he is burning up with fancies. Love, of course, is an illusion. I decide to play him something to calm him down. I stand up, open my instrument case, take out my double bass and proceed to play a few notes of a dismal melody. My hands are too cold to extract much worth. I apologise. Perhaps a cigarette will help to warm me? I fumble in my pockets. Five left: one every mile till my destination. My destination? The end of the road. I am to play my double bass there at a soirée attended by various aesthetes. Yes, perhaps the M.G. was repairing thither when it knocked you head over heels into love and this ditch. She wore a silk scarf of the palest pink? Then she certainly sounds like an aesthete. Naturally, I do not envy him. He is in love, it is true, but it is unrequited. His girl ditched him, in a manner of speaking. If I feel anything at all, then it is pity; but he does not want to be pitied. He insists that, for the first time in his life, he is happy. I am astonished. For only the first time? Yes, he has had a loveless existence. Like some grey and sad whale he has always

wallowed in the seven seas of depression. But all that has changed now. It changed when the M.G. struck him down. I am contemptuous. How could it? The woman he loves was a bad driver and a glimpse of red hair and pink scarf. Nothing more. But he insists that there is always more. Seeing is not always believing. We have already worked out that she is an aesthete and can be found at the end of the road. Surely, with a little more effort, we should be capable of deducing exactly what she looks like, how the facets of her personality glitter, even what her name is? This is his argument. As I said before, I am always polite. I wish to help him. I cannot turn back to summon help, nor can I carry him forwards to the end of the road. In the first case, I would lose sight of my destination; in the second, I would have to arrive without my double bass. Yet there is one thing I can do. I tell him that philosophy, like bad poetry, should be reserved for the college paper, and not declaimed aloud from a ditch. I tell him that ideals exist only in the mind or the liver, and very possibly do not exist at all. I tell him that, fantasy aside, he can name not a single one of her attributes and therefore cannot possibly be in love with her. As a musician, I am used to developing themes. I dismantle his picture for him, piece by piece. He is a poor deluded fool, and I wish to bring him to his senses. I hammer the final nail into her coffin. I tell him that she must have been exceptionally vacuous not to have realised that she had been the cause of an accident… At this, he begins to laugh. I have obviously misunderstood. It was no accident. She drove into him deliberately. There can be no doubt about it. She altered her course as soon as she spotted him in the glare of her headlights! I am astounded. I shake my head in bewilderment. I can do no more for him. How can I reason with such? My conscience is clear. I return my double bass to my long-suffering shoulders, bid him farewell and resume my journey towards the end of the road. As I walk, his final words ring in my ears. Deliberately? My step is not so heavy now. I am eager to reach my destination. I begin to increase my pace. Although this is a long dark road for a weary music student to be trudging up, I am content. Although this is a heavy instrument to be balancing on thin shoulders, I am happy. My heart flutters like a trapped butterfly. His final words have had a profound effect on me. At the end of the road, if he has spoken truly, she will be waiting with pink scarf and molten copper hair. At the end of the road, I will find the woman I love. (1992)

RAINDANCING

They were still lost when the sun began to set. Karen struggled to keep hold of the map as their convertible swerved around the bends. Henry wrestled with the steering wheel and adjusted the mirror so he could keep an eye on the picnic hamper that bounced precariously on the back seat. Karen fumbled and the map was suddenly gone, wrenched out of her grasp, borne away on the currents of cold air. She glanced over her shoulder and watched it flapping high like some ungainly but triumphant bird. She sighed. "No matter," Henry said. "We're better off without it." Karen bit her lip. She had known all along this would happen. When Henry drove they always got lost. The reason why being quite simple: he was a fool. "Why did I trust you again?" she wailed. She wanted to beat her fists against him, but she knew it would achieve nothing. He would probably just smile back at her as if each blow was a loving caress. The road wound into a forest; a gloomy place where the odour of damp earth and decaying leaves was almost overpowering and where the ground was strewn with animal bones. Henry was cheerful enough even here, but Karen began to grow uneasy. She was grateful when the trees finally thinned out and they emerged, safe, at the foot of a blue hill. Henry stopped the car on a little wooden bridge that crossed a glittering stream and pointed. "Look, a house! I'll go up there and ask directions." "Good idea." Karen was sardonic. Lighting a cigarette, she blew smoke at Henry. Stained by the last rays of the dying sun, the house resembled a monstrous droplet of blood that was ready to roll down the hillside. Henry coughed, jumped out of the car and crossed the bridge. With his eyes fixed on the house, he stepped lightly onto a dark path that led up into the heights. Karen scowled at him as he climbed. She shivered, cursing. It was a cold day, too cold for a picnic certainly, and yet he had insisted that conditions would be perfect. "Kurt would never have led me here!" she fumed. She curled a hand around her mouth and tried to broadcast this message to Henry. But he was already out of range, high above her, gasping for breath, wiping his face with a handkerchief. "Kurt was a real man!"

She watched as Henry stumbled on the stones and flints of the rough path. He was worse than a fool, she decided. He was an imbecile! Before long, as twilight deepened to dusk, this imbecile had strayed off the path into the undergrowth. Tall grasses, brambles and ferns had closed in around him. They were so tall that even on tiptoe he could not peer over them. He began to feel a tinge of panic. As he paused to wipe the sweat from his brow, he noticed a curious pounding, a regular rhythm, just ahead. It was this he chose as his guide and, lurching forward, he burst free of the undergrowth and found himself right in front of the house. A tall bearded man was standing on a stool, boarding up his windows. He turned to look down at Henry and adopted an aggressive, warning posture. He raised his hammer menacingly. Henry blinked. He peered closer. He gasped. "Good heavens," he cried. "It's Kurt Masters!" The bearded giant threw back his huge handsome head and laughed loudly. Yes, thought Henry: Kurt Masters, hardly aged a day since I last saw him. Looking even better in fact. They shook hands. Kurt was enthusiastic. He invited Henry into the house and slapped him on the back, nearly knocking him over. His grin was very wide, his perfect teeth were very white. "And how are you?" he demanded, adding as an afterthought: "Old friend!" "Oh, fine." Henry nodded and scratched his nose. "And how is Karen?" "She talks about you." "Does she really?" Kurt's eyes twinkled. "A great deal." "Ah!" Kurt moved to the fireplace and stirred the dying embers in the grate with a poker. And then, embarrassed by Henry's silence, he cried: "I thought you were a vagabond come to beg or beat money from me and ransack my house." "It really is your house then?" It suddenly occurred to Henry that he did indeed resemble a vagrant. His clothes had been torn by brambles and stained with the juices of strange berries. He crouched down and rubbed at his scuffed shoes with his handkerchief. "Rather out of the way isn't it?"

"It's merely a residence I use for a month or two in the year. A sort of autumn retreat. But it's a nice enough house. I've done well, all in all. I take chances, you see. You have to take chances if you want to succeed. Do you take chances Henry?" "It's a nice house," Henry agreed. "But why are you boarding up all the windows?" "Ah!" Kurt tugged at his beard. "Well there's a storm coming, but I think it's a good idea anyway. Plenty of vagabonds about, you know; and I don't want anyone getting in when I'm not here." "Very wise," said Henry. Kurt selected a bottle from the drinks cabinet, poured himself a glass and offered one to Henry. "I was thinking about erecting a fence around the house as well, but it would probably get torn down." "By vagabonds?" Kurt shook his head. "By the storm." Henry sipped his drink. "Of course." He would have smacked his lips in appreciation, but they would not come together. He screwed up his face, his eyes betraying a sudden concern. "Will it be that bad?" "Yes, I think it will." Kurt nodded sagely and made extravagant gestures with his hands. "I can see the river bursting its banks again. Last year the bridge was swept away and went sailing down the road like a raft. My dogs drowned too. They were crossing at the time." "I saw their bones." Henry failed to see the joke. "They snapped and cracked beneath my tyres. In the forest." Kurt sighed. "Come now, there must be other things to talk about. Have another drink and tell me what you've been up to since our college days." Henry shook his head. "I've left Karen in the car," he explained. "I only came up here to ask directions. We're lost, you see." "Karen is here?" Kurt made no attempt to conceal his glee. "Yes, we were going to the coast for a picnic. But we couldn't find it. I can't imagine where it got to."

"Tell you what," Kurt said reasonably. "It's getting late. Why don't you and Karen put up here for the night? I could look after you. I mean, it might be dangerous out there in the storm." "No, we can't stay. We'd better be off now in fact, before it begins eh?" "Well let me guide you back down the path." "Not if it's too much trouble." "No trouble at all." Henry accepted the offer with a shrug and they left the house. Kurt almost giggled as they scrambled down the steep path. He had been struck by an outrageous idea. Lengthening his stride, he soon left Henry behind. His heart began pounding. By the time he reached the car, Henry was nowhere to be seen. He stood before Karen and beamed at her. She became very soft and weak when she noticed him. "Kurt?" Her voice was caught in the back of her throat. "Yes." He touched her, lips to lips. "Quick, let's go before Henry gets here." "What?" "Fate has obviously thrown us together. I think we were meant for each other. Let's take the chance. You have to take chances if you want to succeed." "Yes." She was a young girl again, crying: "Away!" He jumped in beside her, into the driving seat. He swore. "What's wrong?" She frowned. "We'll have to wait for him after all." He spotted the picnic hamper. He reached over and snatched it up. "That's odd." "What is?" "It's empty." They looked up at the house.

And sitting on a chair in front of the fire, Henry dangled his car-keys and chuckled. It amazed him how neatly everything had worked out. He had been doubtful at first; too much had been left to chance. But, as he had been told, you had to take chances. He checked his watch. The clouds should soon be gathering. Perhaps a little raindance might encourage them. Heavily, he rose to his feet and locked the door. And then he skipped a few steps, resumed his seat and waited. (1989)

THINNER AIR

King Cosimo tugged at his beard and regarded the nervous archers who stood in a row before him. Although he did his best to appear cheerful, it was obvious that he was troubled. He turned to face his Minister with a sigh. "There are not enough of them," he said. "The deserters have already been executed," Xymes explained hastily. "However, I can assure you that those who remain are all the more eager. Each one is worth ten ordinary warriors. Just look at their bloodthirsty eyes…" King Cosimo frowned and shook his head. "I have my doubts. But it is too late to worry about such things. It is all in the hands of the one-legged god, Hopp." "Indeed." Xymes bowed and mumbled a prayer. King Cosimo turned back to address his men. He cleared his throat and licked his lips. The soldiers stared at him unblinkingly. He mopped his forehead with a perfumed cloth. "Any minute now," he began, "the Kandalii will be here. For many years, as you all know, the Kandalii have been ravaging the lands of the West, moving steadily closer. No one knows where they came from. Some say from beyond the sea, others say from beneath it. What we do know is that they are singularly ruthless and spectacularly successful. "The secret of their success has long been a mystery. Recently, however, a refugee fleeing from their onslaught provided us with some information. It seems that the Kandalii have discovered the key to invisibility. A lens of cunning workmanship beams a ray that renders transparent all that falls within its influence.

"We are not sure how this weapon is employed. We can only assume that by turning themselves invisible, the Kandalii also become invincible, easily able to cut down their enemies with impunity. The advantage for them would be the same as facing an army of the blind." King Cosimo fanned himself and took a deep draught of cold wine from a silver goblet. He had been rehearsing this speech all morning, but had the feeling it was being wasted on his present audience. Nevertheless, he decided to continue: "The refugee urged us to abandon our cities and flee also. Yet we refused to do so. If we fall, then the whole continent falls. We are the last bastion of civilisation against these barbarians. We must face them. "Accordingly, we have prepared you especially for the purpose. There is one disadvantage to an invisible army: overconfidence. We have decided to exploit this weakness. We have revived the tradition of the longbow. No one has considered using archers before. Yet a hail of arrows will be an effective force against an invisible enemy by virtue of the laws of chance." King Cosimo bent forward, anxiously peering into the faces of the archers, to gauge the effect of his words. Some of the warriors gnashed their teeth or trembled, but as this now seemed to be their normal behaviour, few clues were provided. "Actually there are two disadvantages to an invisible army," Xymes ventured. The second disadvantage had only just occurred to him and he was desperate to communicate it. King Cosimo silenced him with a wave. "To demonstrate our contempt for cowardice, we have arranged a grim spectacle." He snapped his fingers and cried: "Executioner!" A burly deformed man stepped forward, dragging a prisoner by the hair. He raised his knotted club and proceeded to beat the prisoner to a pulp. Soon there was nothing left but a twisted mass of purple flesh, swollen veins leaking blood into the dusty soil. "The refugee," King Cosimo said lightly. "A warning to the fainthearted." He was about to launch into a tirade condemning the sin of cowardice when he was interrupted by a shout: "The Kandalii are here!" King Cosimo squinted into the distance. On the crest of a far hill he could just make them out. "What are they doing?" "They appear to be setting up a machine of some kind." "The lens of invisibility!" King Cosimo nodded sagely. "The information was correct. They seek to destroy us by fiendish knavery!" "Majesty! Our warriors are disappearing!"

King Cosimo blinked. It was true: the air had started shimmering around the archers. Soon they had completely vanished. The Kandalii began to bear down on their hideous sea-green mounts. "The fools!" he laughed. "They have pointed the lens the wrong way! This is even better than I could have hoped for! We will annihilate them!" Slowly, the horrible cries of the Kandalii grew louder as they approached closer. King Cosimo smiled. Before long, they would be in range. It would be a massacre. Relishing the prospect, he waited for the right moment and then gave the command to fire. There was a curious scuffling from the empty space where the archers had stood. A yelp of pain. A single arrow flew out of the field of invisibility, gracefully arcing in the wrong direction. King Cosimo raised an eyebrow. Xymes bent forward and whispered in his ear. "As I was about to say, I fear we may have overlooked a minor point. The human eye works by collecting light and thus stimulating the optic nerve. However, if you were invisible, light would pass straight through you. The optic nerve would not be stimulated." "Are you trying to tell me that our archers are all blind?" "I was merely wondering if this was the way the Kandalii used their weapon. The opposite way to the one we anticipated." King Cosimo turned pale. "Then we shall have to retreat! Sound the horn! Cowardice is not so bad after all!" "Majesty! Our men will not know which way to run!" "Then they shall have to stay and fight. At least they should give a good account of themselves at close quarters." Xymes coughed and shook his head. "Arrows are of little use in hand-to-hand combat." King Cosimo pondered. He had to make a decision quickly and act on it. It was the prime duty of a King. As he considered, there seemed to be only one course of action left. "Whose idea was it to use archers?" he demanded

"Mine Majesty." Xymes stepped forward. King Cosimo nodded and tugged at his beard again. Yes, there was no doubt about it. There was only one thing he could do. Glowering at Xymes, he snapped his fingers and cried: "Executioner!" (1992)

Passengers

A lonely man and the freedom from fear. The former desires the latter, I decided, as I entered the departure lounge. I saw at once how his mind was focused on images on impending disaster. His fingers kept moving, ruffling the shock of wiry hair, seeking to compress his face back into a mode of normality. The high-pitched whine of the loudspeakers broke over him like waves on a wreck. His eyes were very wide. I took a seat next to him and he wept — banally — in the stark light that pushed through the vast windows overlooking the runway. I decided to speak to him then, less out of sympathy than as an exercise in style. My voice has a leatherwood honey timbre, a caramel tone that can smooth the ear of any who listen. I said: "Fear of flying has not prevented you from buying a ticket. Surely that is all that matters? The action defines the man rather than the reverse. You have already accomplished much. What more is there?" He looked at me in astonishment. "This is a twelve hour flight! Don't you realise what that means?" Little muscles in his face began to twitch and quiver. I nodded slowly but kept my gaze level. He seemed oblivious of the commotion that revolved around him. Business commuters bound for shuttles pushed ahead of long-haulers who, fatalistic and weary with eyes that barely registered their surroundings, could make no protest. "I know," I said. "So this is your first time?" He shook his head. "Not at all. But familiarity makes no difference. I have a wife in Colombo. My second wife. It is her birthday on Tuesday. I haven't seen her for nearly five years. She does not fly at all, she does not travel. I have forgotten what she looks like. So much has happened. This is such a vast terminal. There are so many people. Rushing, always rushing. I have a photograph of her. In my wallet. I do not recognise her face. It might not even be her. We were never very close. We were…" Abruptly he burst into tears again and sought to hide from my careful gaze. "This is a twelve hour flight!"

"Of course." I searched my memory for my store of platitudes. They came, like the taste of lemons, sharp from the edges of my tongue: "There is nothing to be frightened of. Flying is safer than crossing the road. Statistically speaking, there is more danger in climbing a stepladder." As if listening to a familiar tune, he tapped his foot rhythmically on the tiled floor. Plastic coffee cups, empty save for a spit of liquid and a few undissolved grains, crunched beneath his shoe. "Look," I began, but saw that it was futile. I raised my hands in an empty gesture. "No." He chewed at his bottom lip. "There is no comparison. Listen to me. When you cross a road in front of a moving vehicle, you have a choice. You have control. Your death is your own. But up there you are nothing. You have to die with people you do not know, with people you do not like. Besides, there is a big difference between the five-second collision and the fifteen-minute plummet. My wife…" I waited for him to continue, but his voice drifted off into a confused jumble of sobs and snorts. I smiled and reached into my pocket, producing a small bottle that I offered to him. "What you need are some of these. Sleeping tablets. Extinguish reality." He reached out and touched the bottle with an expression of utmost horror. "I use them," I added, and the words inside him began swelling like rice. At last they tumbled out, one by one, faster and faster: "No. When you fly you don't sleep. You should not. You stare at the wings. You hold them on with the power of your will. You must never take your eyes from them. Never. You grip the armrests of your seat; the stewardess offers you a newspaper. You do not reply. The meal is left untouched on the tray before you. The glass of mineral water rattles in the turbulence. If your attention wanders for an instant, the merest fraction of a second, you are lost. Sleep is for others. But you do not show your fear. You smile, as if contemplating the scenery below, the clouds, the sea. To show your fear is to invite advice from those who cannot help. Your resolve weakens, your power fades. The wings…" His voice became a hoarse whisper. "Twelve hours!" I sighed and replaced the bottle in my pocket. Soon I would grow bored with this silly man and seek my entertainment among the other passengers. The departure board flickered with names impossibly exotic, linked to my reality by invisible threads; improbable and unattainable. "Then there is no hope for you," I said. The loudspeakers hissed. I felt supremely superior to this little man. "Hope?" He seemed bewildered. "Yes, hope." I was confident that I would be able to startle him out of his absurd solipsism, if I so chose. "Why are you here? You obviously have no intention of boarding." "But I have a secret." He managed a nervous laugh. "Oh yes. Would you like to know what it is? I will defer my destruction. I will make a pact with death. Let me live this time, I will say, and you can have me on the way back. I promise. What do you think? An honest opinion please. Will it work? Just this once? Look." He fumbled for his wallet and held it open. The photograph of his wife was badly faded and turning blue around the edges: a dour plain-looking girl with doe eyes. "Two weeks of life before the return flight. Two precious weeks."

I shook my head emphatically. As we sat next to each other, a Boeing came in to land on the nearest runway. We were close enough to discern the heat haze spiralling upwards from the massive engines, the faces of passengers blinking from tiny windows, as curious as marmosets. What more was left to say? I merely pointed a finger at the mass of metal as it touched down. "Safe," I murmured. I toyed with the word and repeated it with greater urgency. "Safe!" "Safe?" There was an infinitely sad mockery in his voice. He replied with a gesture of his own; a tired half-wave through the giant windows. Whole languages were implicit in this signal, whole despair. He was denying my assertion. He was saying: consider this; the height, the speed, the pressure! He was crying out against this travesty of nature that was rolling to a halt at the end of the tarmac, wings cooling and metal plates snapping like landed fish. I knew for certain now that it would never be possible to convince him, that my exercise in style was over; that I had failed. "I have never met anyone like you before," I remarked. There was no malice in the accusation; merely frustration and disbelief. "Look around you. Are any of the other passengers as distraught as you are? I think not. I think that you are the only one." He frowned darkly. "Exactly." I was taken aback by this admission. While I struggled to find a rebuke, he took a brief note of my surprise, his frown dissolving into a wry smile. He continued: "I am not frightened of flying in itself. Oh no! It's not flying that I'm afraid of. Not just flying." He paused and leaned towards me. I could smell the sickness on his breath. "No. Not flying as such. It's the other passengers!" "The other passengers?" He nodded. "Don't you understand anything? After all I've told you, all the dangers and worries and terrors, all the long minutes of unbearable agony, they still come back. Day after day, year after year. They sit still on their seats, unconcerned, oblivious. The plane shudders, it races down the runway. But they sit there, reading newspapers, chatting away. They do not scream. They do not cry out to be released. What sort of people are they?" His voice now loosed itself into a shriek. "What sort of people are they? Are they really the sort of people that anyone would want to fly with?" Without looking at him, I rose and walked away. Black eyed and horrible, commuters elbowed past me. I shuddered at their touch. Suddenly I knew who the real victim was, and how he was unable to bear this knowledge. There was only one thing left for him to do. My hands began to tremble. In the mirrored panes of the duty free shops they set to work and made a fine snow of my better judgment and my ticket. (1994)

The Catastrophe Trials

In the old days, of course, murderers were often locked away in dungeons while hurricanes and earthquakes went free. And let there be no doubt that they took full advantage of their freedom. They rushed and shook, shattered and toppled whenever it suited them. They had no conscience. The first Natural Disaster we arrested was the volcano that erupted on the outskirts of our City when the President was making his inaugural speech. Without stopping to retrieve his hat and coat, he raced to the scene with many attendants and ministers. He did not hesitate to show his concern on camera. The ash had engulfed one of the richer suburbs, the President's majority. There was a hung Parliament then, an economic crisis followed as share prices fell sharply. The President took to drink and gambling. Women were a mystery to him. His nose was too large. Before he had completely destroyed his liver, we decided to take action. The trial was swift. Our Judges proclaimed the volcano guilty with due solemnity and sentenced it to life imprisonment. They stood on the volcanic glass and hammered off pieces as souvenirs. We solved the problem or removing the remainder to a place of security by constructing the prison around it. We used iron bricks. We threw away the key. To be perfectly honest, the idea was not entirely my own. I knew a poet once who suggested it. She had long hair and a winsome smile. I loved her, but I could never give her any credit, not even of the financial sort, and thus it was I, Titian Grundy, Prefect of Police, who became the renowned and much-loved one. There followed a period of prosperity then, hope, luxury even. There was a Golden Age of sorts. We expected a Platinum one to be just around the next corner. The blue Tsunami rolled in from the east, towering so (I gesture here with upraised eyes) that we could not see the noontime sun. It bore an island with it, one of the outlying Aracknids wrenched free from the Continental Shelf, palm trees and huts and village life all still intact upon the rich soil, although the latter considerably disrupted, and it crashed down on our wharves with the force of the Cosmic Serpent's own heartbeat. Our crystal piers became shards, glistening on the green waters of the harbour, a hazard to shipping for many years to come. Very pretty they looked too, those shards, more pretty even than the original structures, though that is missing the point. We had greater difficulties with this one. After all, the guilty party had melted away into the greater ocean again. We had nothing to point the finger at any more. But we were not foiled so easily. We employed mathematicians to calculate the probable volume of water involved and we pumped this amount directly out of the sea. We were not above punishing innocent liquid if necessary, yet we felt sure that at least some of the molecules we had acquired had been responsible.

We took longer over this trial. We stored the water in a large outdoor tank and adjourned often, fishing or boating on the accused, thus forcing some Community Service out of it while we waited for the verdict. Naturally, the Defence Lawyer was outraged. He was also frustrated. We cut his wages, handpicked the Jury ourselves and let them make the correct decision. We tortured our captive with red-hot pokers. During these revolutionary changes in the legal system, I never failed to miss my poet. I tried to behave like an ordinary man: I visited the President and played croquet on his lawns. I married a beekeeper and asked my poet to become my mistress. She turned me down, however, having had enough of such romantic entanglements. She adopted a cat and took in lodgers instead. You know the way I feel about my work. I have had doubts, but they have been few. I do not believe that I must justify my actions. I have posed nude, grown a fiery beard and learnt to juggle. I envy the arty set, I suppose. I can no longer walk into a student pub without being jeered at. I love my poet more than ever. I have not yet forgotten her name. I write this report as a story for good reasons. Last summer, a particularly vindictive tornado escaped from its reinforced bottle and wrecked my office. All my papers were shredded. My filing cabinets were peeled back and my secretaries stamped through the floorboards. I was left without a single record of my achievements. That is why I must circulate this one more carefully. Perhaps it might even find its way into the pages of a fiction magazine or a book of tall tales. These tornadoes, incidentally, were my first real mistake. We collected them in barrels at first, but these were easily burst. We tried jars before bottles. Our bottles were made out of stainless steel. We had to wait until the tornado began to die and shrink to the correct size before pouncing. This did not seem to deter others: they saw how much damage they could do before they were apprehended. They began to come in pairs. The mistake I made was as follows: I issued instructions to bottle tornadoes before they had formed. We collected them before they had committed any crimes, and forged the documentation. The scheme seemed to work quite well. The number of arrests increased dramatically. I was awarded a bonus. And then one day, I received a telegram from the pressure group Amnesty Interstellar. They had been making the rounds of the prisons. One of the developing tornadoes I had arrested had turned out not to be a tornado at all, but a dust devil. I was disgraced. I had to resign and move into politics. The President and I became firm friends. We both complained about the World, about life, about women mostly. I drank espresso and smoked fat cigars. The President wrote pamphlets and picked his nose, which were both tasks that could take all day. My captive tornadoes were released. An independent body was set up to monitor Police procedures. My statue in the plaza was defaced.

I am no longer handsome, but my poet is still beautiful. She now works as a Careers Officer. There is a man who wants to marry her. He takes her to restaurants in a solar-powered glider. I know: I have seen them. I will follow them one day in my hot air balloon. I have kidnapped her cat. The President keeps a typhoon in his cellar. A man I know at the prison smuggled it out to us. In the evenings, the President, the cat and myself, creep down the winding stairs and peep cautiously at it. We are careful not to open the door too wide, in case it escapes. We feed it model towns that it devours with great avidity. The World is going soft. We will soon return to the old days, when (as I said before) murderers were often locked away in dungeons while hurricanes and earthquakes went free. Sentences are being reduced everywhere. I hear that even the volcano on the outskirts of the City is due up for parole next year. (1991)

The Urban Freckle

Oscar Wildebeest threw down his pencil, raised his mug of yerbamate to his lips and skimmed the steam off with his stale breath. He had finally finished the designs; the new Capital had been worked out to its very privates. There would be no secrets in this most tortured of cities that he was not already aware of, no hiding places for lovers. He could imagine them now, reclining on balconies that had not yet been built, chasing each other in the shadows of the colonnades (her garment has unwound around his fingers, skin as white as the capstones of the New Pyramids) and possibly swimming in the fountains during the dog days. He had prepared the citadels one by one. The main square resembled a giant chessboard; ministers scurrying from one government department to another would be the pawns. Oscar fanned himself with one of the outsized sheets of paper and felt the moisture burn the lines around his eyes. It had taken nearly three whole days to sketch the new limits of wonder; the details had taken rather longer. What height exactly for the Ziggurats? And the New Hanging Gardens? How much water to be pumped daily to the orchids that curved like moonbows, flowers as inviting and heady as a scented yoni? He had consulted the I Ching on these matters, of course, but the final decision had been his responsibility. He finished his yerbamate and filled his battered pipe. The design had yet to be approved by President Jodorowsky, but he felt confident enough. Indeed his worries were much more abstract things: what would the general public think of a city shaped like a human face? He

sighed and sealed the papers in a large envelope lying on his desk and then rang for a messenger to come and collect it. He lit his pipe and watched as the blue smoke was sucked up in the turbulence of the electric fan. The messenger was a squat civil servant of Indian descent. He picked up the envelope and marched off with it. Oscar yawned, stretched himself, stood up and pushed back his chair. Then he left his office and caught a taxi back to his house. He lived in the suburbs, on the outskirts of Asuncion, in a blue villa. He made himself another mug ofyerba mate and dozed the afternoon away, awaking to the smell of freshly baked tortilla which Maria, his maid, was cooking for his dinner. He ate in front of the television, with a bottle of imported Finnish vodka and a Dutch cheese by his elbow. The television crackled and hissed and then the solemn moustachioed face of President Karl Lopez Jodorowsky appeared in front of the national flag. "Fellow patriots, citizens of Paraguay," he began. "Today is a glorious day for our little nation. At last we are going to build a capital that will rival the greatest cities of the world. Despite the doubts and mockery of other governments, we are now prepared to invest the funds necessary to complete such a venture. We have employed one of the most skilled architects on the continent to design the city and he has today announced the completion of his plans. I have them here in my hands. Construction will begin immediately!" Oscar poured himself a glass of spirits and settled back to watch the rest of the broadcast. The President seemed excited; he garbled his words and made extravagant gestures. Oscar smiled at his naivety; as if he could really believe that idealism could change anything. Oscar was beyond such ingenuousness; he was a cynic. "Our new city — Paraguayia — will be the envy of not only the cities of our neighbours but also the cities of the old world," the President was saying. "Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Brasilia, Sao Paulo and Rio, Santiago and Lima, Bogota, Caracas and La Paz will knock their knees at our arrival; but so will the cultural hubs that straddle continents other than ours! London, Paris, New York and Tokyo will tremble before us; Rome, Shanghai and Moscow will seem like truly drab affairs after the completion of our metropolis. Rejoice citizens! For it is I, your President, who give you cause to be proud!" Oscar sighed and snapped the television off. He still was unsure how the people would take to living in a city shaped like a face. Besides, the voice of President Jodorowsky was too hysterical to be kind on the eardrums. He decided that he needed a holiday. He stood up, moved to the globe that stood in the corner of his room, span it and stopped it with an outstretched finger. This would be his destination. He spent a long year on Maui; long because the days were long and fine and bright and there was much coconut milk to drink and beaches to walk and warm seas to swim, and because the money he had earned designing the new capital of Paraguay meant that a long year was no harder on his purse than a short one.

One morning (this is how it must have been) he received a letter; from President Jodorowsky. The capital had been built and his presence was required at the ceremony that would bless the fresh megalopolis. There would be speeches and the usual rousing music, pumped on sousaphones and tinkled on glockenspiels with the flags waving in the breeze; an artificial breeze if need be. And there would be a formal blessing from the Archbishop of Concepción, an immaculate worthy from a pristine town, huge mitre bobbing and tipping in the evening cool. "Finished?" Oscar said to himself. "So soon?" But he caught a plane to Asuncion (they stopped for an intolerable hour at Quito, where fat flies suck the humidity from your brow) and when the President greeted him, his face fell. Instead of a handshake, he was prodded in the ribs with the barrel of an automatic rifle and chauffeured away from the airport in a less than comfortable manner. He tried to protest, but his hands were knocked away by the dark-suited bodyguards. The President, who rode in the front of the car, turned his head and regarded Oscar through dark sunglasses. There was a bitter smile at the corners of his mouth. Oscar Wildebeest, for all his cynicism, was frightened and he tried to make small talk, the way that a mouse makes small squeaks in the jaws of a cat; trying to forge an empathy that can never be forged, trying to lose a wind in a bottle that has no deposit, trying to catch the sun in a butterfly net. "Nice day," he said. "Where are we going?" "Paraguayia," the President hissed. "Oh yes, the city of the golden noon!Your city as well as ours. It has been built, following your plans, and it is dying. The city is dying. You have made a fool of me and you have made a fool of our people." "I don't understand," Oscar replied. But no one seemed ready to enlighten him. They drove on past scorched fields and tawny scrub. They drove through the outskirts of Asuncion and then higher into the hills along pockmarked roads and through dusty vineyards. It was a long journey, a bumpy cramped day and Oscar's fear turned first to thirst, and then to utter boredom. Finally, they crested the brow of a small rise and coasted down towards a large plain. Before them, mighty skyscrapers peeled and crumbled. "That is Paraguayia," the President remarked. "And it is sick. Look at it. Already it has fallen beyond repair. And do you know why? Have you any idea what has made it so ill?" He pointed a finger at the rows of damaged buildings. Strange unnatural swellings made the road a hazardous prospect to venture down. Huge black stains covered the ground and the walls of buildings. Oscar blinked and shook his head. "You designed it in the shape of a human face," the President continued, "and at first I thought that it was a good design. In the first few months, the city smiled. The people who lived in it were happy. They smiled along with the face. But the city had no cover from the sun beating down on it day after day. One morning, a local worker noticed a freckle in the centre of the main

square. Every day this freckle grew larger. Soon it began to bleed. Do you now understand what I am trying to say?" Oscar breathed heavily. His throat was suddenly full of not only his wildly beating heart, but also of his bilious liver. "Skin cancer? You're telling me that my city caught skin cancer?" The President nodded. "Exactly." He wiped tears from his dark brown eyes. "And we left it too late before taking action! What fools we were! Yes, the city is dying. And there is nothing we can do about it. Except one thing. We can construct a monument to your folly." "What sort of monument?" Oscar began to perspire. He had an inkling of what was going to happen; a terrible inkling. He started to tremble; a mighty tremble that began at his toes and spread its shaking fingers upwards to caress all of his body… The President smiled again. He said: "There are two pools in a ruined city; a city which was once the mightiest metropolis in the Southern Hemisphere. These pools once formed the eyes of the city, for the city was built in the shape of the human face. Seated in both these pools lies the reflection of a man. His name is Oscar Wildebeest. Here we see him at work, throwing down his pencil, raising his mug of yerba mate to his lips and skimming the steam off with his stale breath. But this is not the real Oscar; the real Oscar has been dead for a thousand years, killed by a single bullet wound. "When the citizens of Paraguay feel the need to teach themselves the meaning of folly, they take themselves out to these pools and gaze at the image of this man. This image will never fade, as long as suns whirl and stars form webs of galaxies. Some people ask this question: how did this image get there in the first place? Others know the answer. They say: the last thing seen by a dying man is forever imprinted upon his retinas. The city is one dying man; you are the other." Oscar looked up. His mouth made a single letter; a vowel and the first letter of his name. It was both an answer and a resignation. A resignation that had already been accepted. Coughing fumes, they reached the chin of the city. (1994)

The Journal

When I realised the truth, I came running to you. Your arms, Theresa, are softer than hers, though your eyes are not as bright. I shuddered against your breasts. You do not resent playing the role of mother: I am grateful.

In the morning, we will leave this hotel and walk hand in hand down to the river. I will buy you roses and tell you that I love you. I will stroke your auburn hair and dribble only slightly as I kiss your neck. Yes, it is a simple revenge. I am still immature, if you like. But I am not bitter. My wife, I now realise, was incapable of acting in any other manner. She deserves to be forgiven. Yet I have to be fair to myself. I will tell you everything. My wife has always kept a journal. A well-hidden journal. I felt that, even if I could find it, I would never be able to peer within. The day that she left it out, the spell was broken. I became familiar with all her secrets, her long sentences and secretions. Her hand is a scribble (context provides the key to many words) but she omits nothing. Every Tuesday, for example, she attends a writing class. She has recently met a poet there with dark eyebrows, eleven years her junior. She has already stroked his nipples. They are learning all about puns. She admires his work vastly. They are also learning about similes. They are stretching to their limits to find new ones. The search seems very important. Their words burst like flour bombs on the night of the blackboard. Usually, they grow excited, their nostrils flaring, their knees twitching. Shall I continue? Do I merely seek to justify my own betrayal? I avoided a direct confrontation. I did my best to act naturally. I patted my wife on the head and tickled her under the chin. I did not mention the journal. Before each class, I drove her to various locations. Last week, I drove her to the beach, to the moon. She had to describe the moon. Her tutor was very keen that she avoid cliché. She wrote, "The moon was like a…" and considered these options: a Chinese lantern, the head of a straw puppet, cheese. Reasonably enough, in the circumstances, she settled for cheese. She has never seen a Chinese lantern, she does not even know what shape they are. And heads, I reminded her, are not always round. They are often young and empty with dark eyebrows. She wrote a short piece about her lover cavorting naked under a moon as mottled as a cheese. Her piece, a vignette, was very explicit. She confided in her tutor, telling him that she feared it might embarrass the man she loved. He insisted that good writing precludes all worries. She read her piece aloud. He advised her to worry. Later that night, just to annoy her, I picked her up and we stopped at the supermarket on the way home. I overspent, staggering back to the car loaded with only the heaviest edibles. My wife showed concern, but I smiled with stoic grace and made a joke about my burden being like a lovesick heart.

"Service with a simile!" she snapped. She was pleased that her puns, at least, were improving. I decided that there was little doubt about her future prospects in literature: soon she would roll with her poet between covers other than the green leather ones of her journal. I left her to unpack and skulk around the house, pacing like a caged animal. I retired to my study with a bottle of Chablis. I threw open the windows and stepped out onto the balcony. The garden seemed hostile in the gloom. I drank from the bottle without spilling and, when finished, hurled it at the drained fishpond, scowling as it fell short and bounced on the damp earth. The moon was very low in the sky. I felt that an excellent simile was almost within my grasp. It occurred to me that if I joined a writing class myself, I might win back her affections. But would I be able to persevere with a hobby I had no interest in? Besides, I knew I would never be able to outdo her poet. I would be tilting at windmills with a broken pencil. From my mouth came all sorts of words. I leant over and the contents of my stomach followed. I yearned for our early days then. You can picture the scene, alcohol tears. Yet I was happy. I resolved to change. I had motivation. There was nothing for it now, I felt, but drastic action. I would give up smoking, begin a new diet, have regular health checks. Yes, Theresa, you too have it heard it all before. No doubt you will hear it again, from your own moustachioed husband, he whose lovers number not a few, all of them as flame-haired and freckled as yourself. Am I ranting, Theresa? Has the glorious seediness of this hotel, of my present situation, loosened my tongue a little too much? That fatal moment on the balcony altered me. I felt that I was finally capable of keeping my promises, that I had acquired an inner strength. Perhaps a shock such as that was what I had needed. Usually my attempts at reforming my character fall as flat as Euclidian geometry. My efforts at giving up smoking have, as you know, simply resulted in a switch to cigars (but at least you adore the smell, the blue smoke clinging to the net of your hair.) We have always been friends. I never intended to become as intimate with you as you have often wished. Not even when I thought my wife might actually find Arcadia with her poet, did I consider forming a relationship with you. Certainly not with my newfound will. You doubt my words, I can see. I lie here beside you with a cigar spilling ash on the crumpled evidence of our consummation. But for six whole days I managed a transformation. I realised that I would not weaken, that a glittering personal triumph was in sight. No, I was not worn down by despair. You have obviously misunderstood the nature of her betrayal. Listen then: I had taken to washing every day, to anointing my body with those odours that sting, to eating whole-foods and brushing my teeth. I had even started wearing my nice shirts.

These shirts come in nine different shades of colour, but they are all very tasteful. One day, I will wear one for you. I ironed them all, thoroughly, and hung them carefully in my wardrobe. Yesterday, I was trying one on in front of the mirror, when I dropped a cufflink. And that was my undoing. Stooping down to retrieve it from its position under the bed, where it had made a mad dash for liberty, my fingers chanced upon a hardback book. I drew it out and frowned in recognition. It was my wife's journal. Let me explain that frown. This journal was the real one, the journal I had never read. The other was a fake. The difference between them was obvious, yet in my anguished state of mind I had not noticed. With trembling hands, I turned the pages of this discovery. As my eyes scanned the lines, I realised the awful truth. My wife loved me. She had eyes for no other. The journal I had read had merely been an exercise in creative writing. A fiction. Awful truth? Of course it was awful: my wife loved me, dearly and without doubts of any kind. She loved me just as I was, dirty, unshaven, bellicose, and she loved me for what I was. What could I do? The shock was profound. There was no need now to continue my character reforms. They would not help me win back my wife. I had never lost her. My sense of motivation had vanished. Yes, my wife had betrayed me. She would never leave me for another man, she would remain faithful until the end. And so you, Theresa, are now my only hope. (1992)

Oaths

The art of swearing has reached its apotheosis with the annual competitions organised by the Wilde Bores Foundation, an international society dedicated solely to the expletive. Members of the Foundation are drawn from all walks of life; they attend meetings in limousines, in battered vans, on motorcycles, on unicycles and on foot. There is no discrimination when it comes to insults. All races and creeds can mingle freely and denounce each other equally. As Publicity Officer for the Foundation, it is my prime duty to insist on public displays of swearing. Accordingly, the annual competitions are usually held in town squares or in public parks. With concealed microphones and a suitable number of amplifiers, it is possible to extend

the range of such events far out into any given suburb. Old women have been offended in their own homes; priests have been drowned out during services. Pigeons have dropped dead. A typical competition will usually involve a group of fifty or so blackguards, male and female, who must compete on terms similar to those employed in marathon dancing sessions. The insultees, that is the judges, rate a performance on aspects of originality, duration and vehemence. Any competitor who bursts a blood vessel during a performance is instantly disqualified. The true art of swearing demands not a hysterical outburst but a controlled and thoroughly calculated stream of abuse. As competitors drop out from the arena, it begins to become apparent who the finalists will be. There are always a handful of formidable participants who appear year after year. Boris, the Westphalian banker, is a particular favourite with the crowd. He has a retreating brow and the manners of a hog. Then there is Giovanni Papini, a surly Sicilian with a voice that is almost as musical and deadly as that of La Pelos, the senora whose penchant for obscenity extends beyond words to the physical gesture. Greatest respect of all, however, is reserved for our own man in the fray, Sir Guy Boothby. Raised by a gentleman farmer in Hampshire, Sir Guy has mastered the subtleties of the polite insult. Dressed in a crushed velvet frock coat and purple cravat, he presents a foppish and flamboyant appearance that never fails to delight. With perfect grace, he can sigh languidly, pick his nose with a little finger held just so, and then deliver a casual putdown that cuts right across the more aggressive exhortations of his antagonists. As for the spectators, they too provide entertainment for themselves. The competitions are rife with freelancers who seek to outdo the professionals by holding up banners bearing the words "bum", "bugger" or "sod" or some such thing. The competitors take a dim view of such interference. There have been fights; the police have been called in on more than one occasion. Heads have been broken. Pigeons have been crushed underfoot. Naturally, I am delighted by such scenes, for they confirm and validate the ideals of the Foundation. After each major riot I am awarded a pay rise. What could be more gratifying to one in my position? For is it not the case that once police and public are pitted against each other, the taunts assume a monstrous creativity? Thanks to the concealed microphones such clashes are relayed far and wide. It seems that the demands of the Foundation are being met head on; a society in which every spoken word is an affront to be dealt with by another. We are mystics, in our own way. We seek the serenity of tension, the peace of uproar. There is a problem, however, which we have overlooked. Recently, we have noticed a thinning in the actual effect of curses and oaths. With familiarity, the power of certain words has started to wane. The reliable expletives have been overworked. People yawn now when they hear them. Old women are no longer offended in their homes; priests do not pause for even a moment. The cat among the pigeons has grown indolent and the pigeons strut in safety. What then is to be done? Attendances at the competitions are falling; membership of the Foundation is decreasing. A pay cut looms over my job. I seek inspiration in a bottle of brandy

and a long-stemmed pipe. I shut myself away in my office for three days. Inspiration is not merely perspiration but also masturbation. Fists pound on my door. The telephone rings. I am a wanted man. The wheels of society have ground to a halt. Without swearing, labourers can no longer work; irate customers can no longer complain to managers; the markets of the world are closing down. On the evening of the third day, I find the answer right in the hollow at the bottom of the bottle. One potent solution has bred another. New swear words are needed. That is the realisation that has dawned in my addled brain. There is no need to create completely new words, merely to adapt the old. Words that are innocuous but little used, or used mainly by specialists, are ideal. With grim determination, I start to rewrite the dictionary of swearing. And so now at our annual competitions, we have regained our previous audiences. The matter will not end there, of course, but we at least have a method to work with. The process must be continuous, evolution must be maintained through a series of mutations. The engines of society whirl once more and at Hove, at Bognor Regis, throughout the Midlands and the greygreen North we hear the latest wonderful utterances of Boris, Giovanni, La Pelos and the rest echoing through the consciousness of a million individuals: AardvarkΦ

.

BetelgeuseΦ

.

CalligraphyΦ

.

DidgeridooΦ

.

DungareeΦ

.

FKumquat. FRumpus FShamble FHabitation FFruitful FPalindrome MiltonΦ

Keynes.

TundraΦ

.

And so on. And so on. And my pay has been restored and Sir Guy has hinted that a knighthood might not be out of the question and all Gaul has been quartered into three halves and electric aeroplanes fly on the ends of cables plugged into the national grid and I cry "artichoke!" at the moon and old women are offended once more in their homes and priests are drowned out during services and I feast on pigeon pie. (1994)

The Dungeon

This is a tale they told in the old days, saying: "In the very old days, there was a King who liked nothing better than to lock his own people into dungeons. And not large dungeons either. By no means! Indeed, many of his dungeons were so small that their occupants could barely grimace, let alone writhe. "Needless to say, his subjects did not share his enthusiasm for confined spaces. One bright sunny day, they presented him with a petition. The King took the trouble to read this petition, lips moving silently as he studied it. For good measure, he locked up not only the signatories, but also their families and friends. "There was much discontent then. It was felt that the King had exceeded his authority. The Marshals of his Army were the first to rebel, followed by the Admirals of his Navy. With staggering lack of prejudice, the King had them all imprisoned in equally tiny cells. "The problem, or part of the problem, lay in the King's personal bodyguard, a troupe of well-trained and heavily armed baboons. These savage beasts enabled the King to shut up whoever he pleased without fear of reprisal. They served their master with great loyalty, and in the evenings were rewarded with meals of fruit and the bones of former courtiers. "Before long, thanks to the King's excesses, the cities and the towns had been emptied of their citizens, the villages and the farms had been cleared of their peasants, the woods and the hills had been deprived of their hunters and foragers. Only in the remote deserts existed a few refugees who had managed to evade incarceration. And these souls knew it was only a matter of time before their turn came. "And so these people prayed to the Old Gods. They pleaded with Grunnt and Drigg and Hiss. Their spinning prayer wheels threw their messages through the ether and far out to the Heavenly Realm. They informed the Old Gods of the situation and demanded vengeance. They cried, 'The King has shut up our people. Come and punish him.' And they suggested three alternative methods of retribution.

"But Grunnt was off on holiday, snuffling for truffles; and Drigg had not been worshipped for such a long time that he had quite turned to stone; and Hiss was busy baking a mirror pie, the pie that will show reflected all the sins of mankind at the end of the world. And so the words of the people were ignored. "But the people did not despair. They prayed instead to the one-legged God, Hopp. They repeated their demands for vengeance, calling, 'O Hopp! Come and punish the King. Bury him up to his neck in a sandpit, slice off his eyelids with your little knife and cover him with honey, so that the ants will nibble him piece by piece while the sun burns out his retinas.' But Hopp, though he listened and was a New God, did not pay heed. "So the people spun their wheels the faster and said, 'O Hopp! Come and punish the King. Insert a divinely sharpened stake into his nether regions and hoist him aloft to die in agony over the Palace Gates while our people resume everyday life in the market square below.' But Hopp declined to answer and continued to chew on a toenail. "So the people spun their wheels so fast that smoke began to issue forth from their gearing mechanisms and they shouted, 'O Hopp! Come and punish the King. Force a hook up through his nasal cavity and pick out his brains little by little, not wiping the gore away as it pours but letting it flow into his mouth.' Yet still Hopp remained silent, seated on his blue hill, dreaming. "And indeed, Hopp would scorn all such incitements to torture, hack, tear and crush, and it was only when the supplicants realised this and, in despair, begged, 'O Hopp! Come and do to the King as he has done to us,' that he opened first one green eye and then his other green eye and then his other green eye. "For he was a just God, was Hopp, though rather unbalanced, and this latter prayer appealed to his sense of fair play, whereas the others had merely irritated him. Also, he was the God of Keys and thus knew all there was to know about locks, including those of dungeons. "Now it must not be imagined that the King's dungeons were made out of stone. Not at all! It would have been highly impractical for him to lock away his entire population in real dungeons. No, the King's dungeons were not physical structures, but corresponding states of mind. Nevertheless, they were every bit as cramped and bleak. "But Hopp knew the secret of such dungeons as well as any other, and he knew how to pick their locks. So with a mighty bound, he leapt off his blue hill and down towards the world of mortals. He was a gaudy God, with a bright orange foot and yellow ears, to say nothing of a purple mouth, and his rapid descent left a blaze of colour in the sky, like the falling feathers of a rainbow goose. "Where he landed, left he an enormous footprint, just the one, though the size of a crater and very deep, and then he was springing off again into the air, covering the distance across the Land with wide hops not ever before witnessed.

"And his final bound took him over the city. And at his passing, the locks of all the dungeons sprang open, releasing their captives from their existentialist gloom, and the baboons, glimpsing his towering and garish form, lost all self-control, threw down their spears and fled into the sea in a panic, where they all drowned. "But as he soared high over the Palace, Hopp paused to address the King, saying, 'As you have shut up others in small dungeons, so will I shut you up in like manner. And though your dungeons are indeed very small, and barely permit their occupants to grimace, let alone writhe, your own dungeon shall be even smaller. For your dungeon shall be a story, and locked in a tale shall be your fate until the end of literature.' And thus did he sow his magic. "And then it seemed to the people that the King no longer existed, and that they had known of him only as a character in some fable. And they shook their heads to clear them of this fable that was filling them up with nonsense, when they should have been resuming everyday life in the market square, and they resolved to tell this story only at night to their children, to lull them off to sleep." And such, dear child, were the tales they told in the old days. (1993)

Romance With Capsicum

She was hot stuff; he gasped for breath and mopped his brow with a wholeNaan bread. Sweat trickled down his nose, his fingers groped for the turmeric, his eyes were full of the molten passion of the cayenne pot. He spooned a loving measure, added a little of the spice of life and then calmly proceeded to raise the ambient temperature. "This is the last time I try to curry favour with you," he warned her. Unsure of whether this was supposed to be a joke or not, she remained silent. He could already tell that she was in one of those moods where nothing less than perfection would satisfy. He wiped his damp hands on a dishcloth, took a sharp little kitchen knife and began to chop the vegetables with savage jerks. He had first seen her in the window of a shop; she had come over from Venezuela the previous month. He had admired her from an uneasy distance, afraid to do anything until obsession had driven him back. He had entered the shop and had spoken to her. Surprisingly, she had not seemed offended. The following day, he repeated this manoeuvre and that evening she went home with him. She was beautiful. He gave her a room of his own, with a bed and a mirror and a bookcase full of Spanish novels. He hoped that one night she might creep into his own bed and

he kept his door open in desperate longing. But she was too coy and this reticence actually charmed him all the more. He admired her slim curvaceous figure through the keyhole, despising himself for his voyeurism and yet unable to tear himself away from a purely visual appreciation of her naked elegance as she sat by the window and stared out across the gardens. Once, when he was feeling more confident, he suggested to her that they consummate their love; but she did not offer a reply to this proposal. He began to feel a deep frustration; a frustration that was unbearable and yet also pleasurable. It suddenly occurred to him that she was a virgin, that no other man had ever tasted her flesh. He knew that he would have to play the gentleman, obedient to her every whim. Accordingly, he began to treat her more like a childhood friend. Together they sat and dreamed away the days. Eventually, it seemed that he had won her round. He discovered a selection of spices and flavourings in his kitchen: coriander, garammasala, cardamom, cumin, fenugreek, caraway. She had placed them there. He knew that this was a sign, a code; she was telling him that she was ready for his love. She was going to give herself to him completely. He was so excited by the prospect that he had to polish off half a bottle of vodka to steady his trembling hands. He supplied the olive oil and vegetables and began to fry the spices. The coriander snapped and hissed in the pan like the pods of his desire; the angry oil swirled in agitated circles like the ichor of his lust. He could feel the swelling in his trousers; he was forced to undo his flies to release the pressure on his fundamentals. Now, at last, everything was nearly finished. He deposited the chopped vegetables into the screeching mixture and stirred the primal chaos with a wooden spoon. The rich colours broke through the surface and winked their spectrums at him: Indian yellows, nipple reds, freckle browns, yoni pinks. The heady odour was like the sandalwood of a girl's thighs. His eyes rolled in ecstasy; Nirvana was close. Finally, he turned round to confront her. She stood there, more naked and vulnerable than ever. He gasped as he beheld her smooth skin, inhaled the pungent scent of her body. She had changed her colour, just for him: she was a redhead now. He smiled and embraced her and carried her over to the table. Forcing her down onto the chopping board, he cut her head off with a single neat stroke. Then he sliced the rest of her body into thin strips. He whispered words of love as he did so; poems in Spanish, which he knew she would appreciate. At the very end, he dumped her, seeds and all, into the bristling pot and began to cry. Tears were always appropriate at such times. The real point of a vindaloo, he decided, was not the pleasure but the scouring pain: a pain as clean as a desert wind. He bore the curry from the kitchen into the dining room and sat down in front of it. Soon she would be a part of him; and their love would be truly consummated. Already her ruby promises were bleeding the sweat from his brow. With a strange sort of sigh, he gave himself wholly up to her, forcing his face into the steaming plate and sharing with her a long, deep, lingering French kiss.

(1994)

The Faust Business

It landed on the window ledge just before midnight, claws scraping a hold on the crumbling stone. The casement was open, but it did not find the task of entering easy. Its bulk was such that, halfway through, it became stuck. Reluctantly, it detached its wings and, heaving forward, fell with a crash onto the warped floorboards. Gingerly, it regained its feet and regarded its surroundings with mild curiosity. The figure it sought lay sweating on a four-poster bed. The creature chuckled softly. Bad dreams, it knew, were as nothing compared with the horrors it could summon. Slowly, it made its way towards the figure. It reached out a claw to shake the dreamer awake. But there was no need. The man's nostrils quivered, his face wrinkled up in disgust, and then his eyes snapped open. The creature managed a thin smile and bowed theatrically. "Good evening, doctor. I trust I have not disturbed too sound a sleep?" "Eh?" The man squinted up in not a little surprise. "Who are you? What do you want? And what is that awful smell?" "My apologies. I have lately been wallowing in the filth of Tartarus, waiting for the time when I would be free to collect my debts. The filth of Tartarus lingers, you must understand." "I'm sure it does. But what has that got to do with me?" "Oh come now, doctor. Surely you haven't forgotten our deal?" The creature seemed genuinely offended. It held aloft a document embellished with seals and sigils. "Twenty years of material success. Remember?" The man blinked through the gloom. "I can't possibly read that in this light." The creature shook its head sadly. The letters on the document began to glow with a deep red radiance. The man peered closer and rubbed his eyes. The sweat on his forehead had turned very cold. "I've never seen this before. I don't know what you're talking about. Besides, I have been feeling unwell lately. This is most inconsiderate of you."

The creature sighed. "Really, doctor, I expected you to show a little dignity when the time came. I've conducted my side of the bargain and now it's up to you. It would be far simpler for both of us if you just came quietly." The man frowned. "I know nothing of any deal. And I'm not a doctor. You must have me mixed up with someone else. I would be grateful if you left now and let me get back to sleep." The creature snorted and raised itself up to its full height. Clouds of blue vapour poured from its gaping maw, twisting rapidly to the floor where they vanished like snakes down the knotholes in the bare boards. "I am a very busy demon. I cannot afford to waste time here. I must be stalking abroad, seeking new clients before they fall into the hands of my rivals. It is fiercely competitive, this Faust business." "Perhaps if you explained a bit more, we could clear this matter up." "Very well. You are Dr Anthony Vaughan. I am an experienced trader, once apprenticed to the Unmentionable, now working freelance. Twenty years ago, you offered to exchange your soul for material success." "So you claim. But what was the nature of this success?" "The success you chose," the creature replied, "was to be the best transplant surgeon in the world. That is what you now are. I see that you have managed to buy a fine old house with the proceeds arising from your talents. I admire your taste, by the way. Carpenter's Gothic is one of my favourite styles." "So I assume that the twenty years is up, and I am now supposed to let you take my soul?" "Exactly." The creature panted with relief. "Then the mistake can be easily cleared up," the man said. "You have come to the wrong room. My name is Peter Roedelius. I am a medical student. Dr Vaughan offered to put me up in his attic last week, rent-free. Naturally, I accepted. Student grants don't go very far these days." "Oh yes? Then why are you sleeping in the doctor's room?" "Eh?" The man's eyes widened. He glanced around. "I don't understand," he said weakly. "I fell asleep in the attic…" The creature began to laugh. The laugh was hideous, obscene. The panes of glass in the windows rattled, ornaments fell off the bedside dresser. The house groaned. Abruptly, the creature ceased.

"I've heard them all now. This one really takes the proverbial biscuit. Full marks, doctor, for entertaining me in your final minutes." It stretched forward to touch the figure. The claws burned like ice. The man recoiled and pulled the bedsheets closer. His vision grew clear. "You're real!" he shrieked. Fever explained his earlier nonchalance. He had become used to hallucinations. "You exist!" "Of course, doctor." "But I'm not the doctor! I'm Peter Roedelius! Look at me! How can I be the doctor?" The creature reached over to the bedside dresser and picked it up, mirror and all. It angled the mirror under the man's nose. In the half-light, confusion cutting a swath through fear, panic cutting a swath through confusion, the man could make out an old lined face staring back at him, nostrils flared, thinning grey hair atop a high forehead. Somewhere, far away, a church clock struck twelve.

When the screaming, and the laughter, had finally faded, Peter Roedelius entered the room and switched on the light. The bulb swung crazily back and forth, throwing shadows across the chaos. The room was in complete disarray. The four-poster bed lay on its side. Roedelius gagged and pressed a handkerchief to his mouth. The stench was almost overpowering. Moving across the room, he reached the broken window and peered out. There were few bloodstains. He was grateful for this. Gazing into the cracked mirror that lay near the bed, he inspected his youthful face. There were no lines around his eyes. His hair was black and lustrous. He flexed his joints and nodded. Good times lay ahead. "Congratulations, doctor," he said. There was, for instance, a glittering career to look forward to. He was assured of a first class degree. Hard study would not be necessary now. He was too experienced, he knew all the secrets of his profession. He could not fail. After all, he had already performed the world's first soul transplant. (1992)

Zumbooruk

Listen to me," said the old sailor. "For I have a tale stranger than any other you're likely to hear.So strange, indeed, that I can scarcely believe it myself." I stopped and regarded the man with my cold eyes. He sat on the edge of the quay, smoking a pipe and gazing wistfully out to sea. Beyond the comforting arms of the harbour, the flags of the ships snapped in the wind. "A strange tale, eh? Then tell away, my friend. I have a liking for tall stories. I will sit next to you and listen with my wonderful ears." "You must listen with your soul as well as your ears. You must picture a youth whose heart beats with the rhythm of waves breaking on an exotic shore. A youth whose eyes sparkle with buried treasure, lost cities and sunken continents." "It is not too difficult. The image is welcome." The sailor puffed on his pipe and spat onto the ground. "Then we have much in common. For it is myself I am talking about. Once I was young, quick in mind and body. The strength of the body has waned, to be sure, but the mind is as sharp as ever. For example, what will you give me to continue? Gold, silver, semi-precious stones?The kindness of a best and better friend?" "None of them or all of them, or a combination of both none and all, but not because of your story. It will be because you are crippled. You are somewhat lacking an arm." "Not I. You misunderstand. But you will see. Tell me, have you ever heard of a land called Zumbooruk?" I shook my head. The name was not even vaguely familiar. I supposed that he had lifted it from the mythology of his own imagination. He smiled knowingly and gestured at the wide expanse of blue. In the distance, craggy islands shimmered in the distorted air. A single tear spilled from his eye. "Far away it lay, beyond time and reality. A continent that spanned an entire ocean.A land of alien civilisations and arcane secrets. I had read about it many years before in a musty volume and had been enthralled at the prospect of chancing upon it myself." I snorted and stroked my chin. I did not see how anyone could chance upon a land beyond time. I could not imagine how anyone could hope to reach a world beyond reality. The concept seemed to be metaphysical nonsense, a bubble of reveries that could float for only the briefest instant. The sailor noted my cynicism. "First listen to what the book said. In the land of Zumbooruk, so it went, everything was different. The people were different. Their anatomy, their desires, their dreams were utterly unlike ours. But Zumbooruk itself could only be entered

through a mystic gateway. For long ages I wondered what this gateway might be. It became an obsession. In an attempt to forget this obsession, I started drinking in a sailor's tavern." "And?" "One evening, a man came into the tavern, wrapped tight in a long grey cloak. One half of his moustache was grey and he had glass fingernails. He was a merchant who wished to transport a shipload of spices to a distant port. The more rapidly he could get them there, the bigger profit he would make. The usual route would take him three months. However, if he braved the straits of Khyor the journey would be cut down to a couple of weeks." "I take it that the shorter route was more dangerous?" "Considerably. The straits of Khyor were notorious for a gargantuan whirlpool that sucked all vessels in the vicinity to their doom. With careful navigation and a brave crew, it was just possible to negotiate the straits. The merchant claimed to have the right crew. All he was lacking was a navigator careful and skilled enough. He offered vast sums of money as an inducement." "What happened?" "The sailors in the tavern laughed at him. Even the best navigators there mocked and chortled. All except myself. I accepted the offer and he took me by the arm and we ran out into the street. Down by the wharf, his ship bobbed on the waters. We raced up the gangplank and I stood on the deck and laughed at the world. Somewhere out there lay the realm of my desires, albeit in a dimension separate from ours and connected to it at a single point." "And were you equal to the task? Could you navigate his ship through the straits?" "No. I was not even a navigator. I was a cook!" I frowned and bit my tongue. I did not approve of the old sailor's deceit. But I was eager to hear the rest of the tale. I urged him on with an impatient gesture. He tapped the bowl of his pipe against his heel and smirked. "We set sail the next morning. It was very cold; the seagulls froze solid in the air and crashed into the sea. We sailed for many days, until we reached the fearsome straits. There, in the distance, we could see a huge cloud of water vapour and hear a terrible roaring. A veil of perpetual mist hung over the whirlpool, towering higher than the tallest mountain. I had to shout my instructions to the helmsman, even though my mouth was next to his ear. Naturally, I directed him into the very heart of the vortex." "Did no one try to stop you?" "Before the merchant or the Captain or even the helmsman himself knew what was happening, it was too late. The Captain staggered out from his cabin and waved a cutlass at me,

but our velocity was increasing at such a rate that he could not keep his balance. His blade clattered onto the deck and shattered into a thousand pieces in the brittle air. There was no turning back now. We were in the grip of the most powerful current in all the oceans of the world. With a sickening rush, we plummeted over the edge of the whirlpool and into the void…" "And yet you did not die. What happened to the ship? What happened to its crew?" The old sailor refilled his pipe with patient severity. "Are you not curious as to why I directed the ship right into the very region I had been paid to avoid? Let me tell you. I had earlier decided, while sitting in the tavern, that the whirlpool of Khyor was the same gateway my book had mentioned. The gateway to Zumbooruk. And I had no other way of testing my theory. Luckily, I proved to be at least partly correct." I adopted a high moral stance not in keeping with my raffish appearance. "It was irresponsible of you to take such a risk with the lives of others. Your ambition might have destroyed them as well as yourself." The sailor shrugged. "Perhaps it did. I do not know. You see, according to my book, the gateway had to be entered alone. To do this, I had to abandon the ship during its frightful descent. While everyone else clung on for dear life to mast and rails, I climbed over the edge and flung myself into darkness. Because the sails of the ship offered a little wind resistance, it fell more slowly than did I. It lumbered behind me like a whale. I saw the merchant gazing over the side with a look of stark terror. I was spinning faster and faster. Fascinated despite himself, the merchant shook his fists and called for me to come back. I waved at him and poked out my tongue." "And did you find what you sought? Did you enter into the land of Zumbooruk?" "I shared my descent with starfish and lobsters. For long hours I fell. Gradually, I left the ship behind. It grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared. The bottom of the helix seemed to stretch into infinity. Eventually, I grew so tired that I fell into a troubled sleep. When I awoke, I was lying on a beach, covered in seaweed. I had been washed up on a shore of blue-green sand. The sea was also blue, but the sky was a strange shade of purple. Various beings stood around me. Before they even spoke I knew I had reached Zumbooruk." "Why? Did they match your expectations?" "No. My book had offered conflicting accounts of the people and societies of Zumbooruk. One chapter claimed they had a third eye in the back of their heads. Another maintained that this third eye was a spiritual one. Others insisted that they were more intelligent than us and lived either in shining cities or else in a honeycomb of caves. Some suggested that they had wings or tails or even an extra head. And their temples were supposed to be made of glass and invisible to mortal eyes, or else made of rubies but as fragile as dust. The book was mistaken…" "So what was Zumbooruk really like?"

"The houses were all whitewashed, young men strummed lutes on street corners, people laughed and cried in the marketplace, balloons soared high overhead, ivy covered the buildings and children danced in the street." "This land does not sound particularly strange to me. Were the people barbaric? Did they capture you? Did they torture you?" "No. I am not a cripple. I have not lost an arm. I have already explained this to you." "So how did you leave? How did you return home?" "Ah!" The old sailor began to laugh. His laughter quickly became a shrill and bitter thing. He turned back to the sea, uttered a sigh and a second tear runnelled his dusty cheek. I understood at once. Moving over to him, I patted him on the head with a gnarled hand. And then, with my other hand, I reached into my pocket and threw him a gold coin. And then, with my other hand, I scratched my nose... (1993)

The Third Blow

Reverend Richards closed his book with a sigh. It was almost midnight. The storm was raging furiously outside and the vicarage was groaning. Moving to the window, he rubbed at the glass with a sleeve and peered out. He could see nothing. The storm had brought the power lines down, leaving the village in darkness. It was as if he looked out over the edge of the world. "The wind plays tricks," he muttered. He fancied that the clatter of hailstones on his path had grown louder, that they sounded uncannily like footsteps. He shook his head. His wife lay fast asleep in bed, her auburn hair shining like gold in the candlelight. It was good to have a wife, he decided, especially one as kind and devoted as her. She made him feel young again. He crept to her side and was about to extinguish the candle when he suddenly realised that the pounding coming from downstairs was no longer due to the wind. There was someone at the front door.

"Who the devil…" he wondered aloud, but his wife could not answer and so, quietly and not without a little trepidation, he snatched up the guttering flame and tiptoed down the stairs to the hall. It took him a long time to slide back the bolts and open the door. He grimaced as the icy hail stung his face. He held the candle high, dripping wax. "Yes?" A face loomed out of the darkness. A face he had seen in many dreams. He gasped. His tongue clicked against his teeth as he struggled for words. "Daniel? But it can't be. It's absurd." "You look a little pale vicar. Have you caught a chill?" The Reverend drew in a long shuddering breath, his chest swelling like an organ note. He rubbed at his nose. "What do you want? You should not be here." He frowned. "You're not a ghost?" He made as if to touch his visitor, to settle the question of substance. "Are you?" "Not quite." The visitor shuffled his feet and hugged himself tightly for warmth. "Well are you going to invite me in or not?" The Reverend chewed his bottom lip. He had no choice, he knew. They would both surely freeze solid on the threshold. With a deep sigh, he led his visitor through the hallway and in to the living room. He set his candle down on the mantelpiece, lit two others from it and screwed them into brass candlesticks. His hands trembled. He moved to the drinks cabinet, poured two glasses of sherry and handed one to his uninvited guest. "I don't understand." He drained his glass at a single gulp and poured himself another. "You've been dead for nearly a year." "Oh yes?" "You drowned." The Reverend closed his eyes as he remembered. "You drowned in the Winter River. We searched for many days, but we knew it was hopeless. We saw the broken bridge." Daniel laughed. "I did not drown. I am alive."

The Reverend moved to the grate and tried to prod the dying embers into new life with an iron poker. Despite the extra candles, the shadows in the room were still too long and needed to be chased away. Daniel helped himself to more sherry and took a seat. "I rose before dawn and went to the forest to cut some firewood. At the bridge I stopped and leant over the railings to admire the sunrise. The wood was rotten and I fell through. It was an accident." "An accident." The Reverend was aghast. "Of course. When I awoke I was lying on the bank a few miles downstream. I had been carried by the current. But I had no idea where I was. I had struck my head on a boulder in the stream, you see." "Go on." "I wandered in a daze for a while, until I eventually stumbled upon a road. I hitched a lift to the City and I have been living there ever since." The Reverend was confused. He ran his fingers through his thinning hair. "Amnesia?" "Exactly. I took a new identity, a new name, a new job. My old life was completely unknown to me. Until yesterday, that is, when another blow on my head brought it all back." "Well this really is remarkable." Reverend Richards raised his eyebrows. "Perhaps even a miracle. But what have you come back for?" "To reclaim everything that was mine." The Reverend shook his head. "You must leave. And you must leave immediately, before anyone sees you." Daniel furrowed his brow. "Why?" "There is a reason." The Reverend began to sway. He steadied himself with the aid of the mantelpiece and stared at his reflection in the mirror. Tears shone in his eyes. "A good reason." "This is all nonsense." Daniel scowled. "I do not want to hear your reason. I suffered two blows on the head for this. At least my wife will be pleased to see me!" "Clara?" "Yes, Clara. Who else? Now cease your babblings you old oaf!"

Reverend Richards recoiled. Daniel's mouth fell open. "I'm sorry vicar. I don't know what came over me. Forgive me." Reverend Richards regarded Daniel coldly and weighed the poker in his hands. "You must lean your head forwards for forgiveness, my son." Daniel chuckled. "Of course." And later, as he tramped wearily back up the stairs to bed, Reverend Richards began to feel very afraid. His wife was awake and her eyes glittered in the gloom. "I thought I heard voices. From downstairs." "The wind." Reverend Richards rotated a knuckle in an eye. "It plays tricks." It seemed to him for a moment that he had an inner darkness that matched the outer. But then when he clambered into bed and felt the warmth of his wife, his own dearest Clara, he knew that it did not matter. (1989)

Trombonhomie

When my neighbour plays the amplified trombone it means another sleepless night. But I don't sleep anyway, so perhaps it doesn't matter. I don't sleep because my neighbour plays the amplified trombone. I also play the amplified trombone. I play the amplified trombone to annoy my neighbour for keeping me awake. I slide the notes like fish through my windows, beyond the trees, higher than the rising moon. I play blue notes and purple passages and make the house shudder. I once considered killing my neighbour. But I knew what this would entail. I would have to pack a bag with provisions and sling it over my shoulder. My other shoulder would be in a sling. My sling would be at my belt, my stones in a pocket. Journeys last longer than pockets; stones longer than journeys. So I would leave with a pebble-smooth chin and before I was close it would be as prickly as a pear. My neighbour lives far away. That is why I play an amplified trombone to annoy him. If I played an ordinary trombone he would not be annoyed. He would probably fall asleep and then I would have no reason to play any sort of trombone. And I am getting good now. I need the practice.

At any rate, if I ever reached his house I would look very foolish. I would have to knock on his door and say, "excuse me, but your amplified trombone is keeping me awake," and he would look me up and down with his sombre eyes (but no, really, what would his eyes look like? The eyes of an amplified trombone player are always sad, must be) and his reply would be, "I'm awfully sorry, but I play the amplified trombone because my neighbour does," and I would say, "I am that neighbour," and he would shake his head and answer, "by your appearance you come from the lands of the west and my neighbour lives in the east," and I would say, "you mean your other neighbour?" and he would nod and I would bow a retreat and be unable to knock on his door a second time. And then he would return to his amplified trombone playing with renewed vigour. And I would have to feel a sort of sympathy for him. And reaching into my pocket to cast away my stones, I would find that they had already escaped through a hole. So I would have to look beyond the immediate problem. I would have to consider killing his other neighbour, the one that lives in the east. There would be no other option. What other option would there be? So I would pack a bag with provisions and sling it over my shoulder, etc. I would whistle a callow tune and fill my pocket with fresh stones. Not the pocket with a hole in it, but my other pocket. And I would travel for many weeks, down dark and winding forest paths where monstrous orchids dipped their anaemic heads at my passing. And finally I would reach the house of my neighbour's other neighbour and I would knock loudly on the door and make a fool of myself again. I would say, "excuse me, but your amplified trombone is keeping my neighbour awake," and the figure who would appear would scratch a warty nose and reply, "but it was my neighbour who started it," and I would raise my hands in an exasperated gesture and say, "well he never mentioned that to me," and he would gaze at me doubtfully and remark, "you look to me as if you have just travelled through the forests of the west and my neighbour lives in the east," and then I would understand that he too was referring to his other neighbour. So I would have to bid him farewell, refusing his kind offer of a cup of blue-green tea, and go on my way in a kind of light-hearted despair. And this would go on and on (imagine, if you will, sixteen thousand similar encounters, variations without the theme) until I was sick and beyond redemption. And strange and subtle things would start to happen, so subtle that they would be almost unnoticeable. Language would begin to change, until I found myself in a completely alien country. But as I pressed further eastwards, it would come back into focus. And one day, I would eventually find a man whose neighbour did not play the amplified trombone and I would ask, "why is this the case?" and the man would explain, "he used to play, but he has not sounded a note for over a year now," and racing onwards to greet this man who had given up playing the amplified trombone, I would discover that it was myself. No, I don't want to take that course of action. I would rather stay at home and have to contend with my neighbour blowing those infernal lines on his amplified trombone. I would rather slide my notes like fish, pace my darkened room, anger my heart with coffee and cheap cigarettes. The rising moon rests like a steady flame on the wick of my bedside candle. I bury my head under the pillow; a premature burial because I am still breathing, crying out for release. If I

could connect an amplifier to the moon as it changed gear over the horizon, I would have a celestial revenge indeed. But I do not possess the necessary skills. One evening, while we are both playing for all we are worth, a curious thing happens. Our widely diverging melodies form a compelling harmony. The time lag has been taken into account, his preference for atonality also. But suddenly we are playing together, an unearthly counterpoint, a music whose sum is far greater than its parts. For the first time, we have made a sort of contact with each other; it is as if we are sitting in the same room, at the same inglenook, warming our boots before the fire, tapping the stems of our Churchwarden pipes against our teeth; the hearth of our hearts. For the first time, I bless the technology that can amplify trombones. Our duet continues throughout the night. The wind rises up from the distant sea and the clouds scud across the milky sky, entangling themselves in the branches of the highest trees. The grass picks up our refrain, each slippery blade an Aeolian harp. I no longer hate my neighbour; I almost love him instead and resolve to make the arduous journey to his home as a gesture of friendship. But there is little need. Why make a gesture of friendship to the man or woman you are already embracing? When the moon sinks down over the opposite horizon, and the sun spreads its orange nets once more, we end with a remote and beautiful chord. I sink exhausted back onto my bed and sleep the sleep of the satiated. I know that I will never be able to play another note on the amplified trombone. I will have to dismantle my instrument and create something new from the brassy tubes. All this applies in equal measure to my neighbour. So what will we make from our throaty monsters? How will we pick over the trombones of civilisation? When my neighbour plays the amplified triangle it means another sleepless night. But I don't sleep anyway, so perhaps it doesn't matter. I don't sleep because my neighbour plays the amplified triangle. (1994)

The Skeleton of Contention

The Undeniable Grin * The Innumerable Chambers of the Heart * There's a Woman with a Cactus Instead of a Head * The Apology * The Backwards Aladdin * Miserable with Groceries, Cuddly with Stubble * Under the Tree * Primate Suspect * Sucking the World's Thumb

The Undeniable Grin

It was the first and last time I visited a theatre. I've never been a cultured man, because I'm still a boy at heart. If I went to see a play now, it's certain I would be ejected from the premises for disruptive behaviour. The temptation to cause mischief is too strong, and that's entirely due to what happened to me in that original audience, when I sat near the back with my girlfriend. Natasha was seventeen, a year younger than me. She didn't care for the amusement arcades and rickety rides of the funfair, so I was forced to think of a more sophisticated venue for our introductory date. Uncle Max suggested the local playhouse. A roving company had established itself there for a single evening with a new romantic drama. I hadn't read any reviews, but it seemed ideal. I was at the age when I believed poetry could soften up any woman. A big mistake, for the production in question was an experimental piece. I don't remember the name of the author, but he wasn't famous. I reckon he was that tall fellow who was flapping around the lobby when we entered. Natasha had her arm linked in mine and I felt very much like a genuine grown-up lover. We were the youngest there, but I don't think we looked out of place. Uncle Max had lent me his smartest suit in exchange for several of my best comic books. I bought the tickets with money earned from my Saturday job in the newsagents, and we passed into the auditorium. The usher showed us our seats and luckily our row was as distant from the stage as possible. I didn't want too many people sitting behind me when I chanced a kiss. We sat down on the squeaky seats and waited for the theatre to fill. The interior was grand but faded, with chipped plaster cherubim clinging to the ceiling and frayed velvet drapes. The cheap sculptures which occupied every nook and recess in the sidewalls reminded me of the background characters in my comics. They were poor representations of people and animals, hidden by potted plants but obtrusive enough to trouble the eye. When I directed my gaze at the stage, they poked themselves into the corners of my vision. Strange to say, it actually hurt. Tears hatched like eggs under my lids. I decided to save all my sly glances for Natasha. But something new caught my attention. If you've ever wondered who pays for a private box in a crumbling regional theatre, then you're on your own. I already know. It's no mystery to me because I saw him enter with his wife. It was Mr Lucas, the newsagent who employed me. He stood for a full minute before taking his seat, which was a real chair rather than a folding contraption like ours, fiddling with the creases on his trousers. Either he was embarrassed or else he hoped to give everyone a reasonable chance to notice him. An unfortunate incident, as it turned out. It reminded me again of comics. Apart from Natasha, they were my main passion. I liked the ones full of superheroes best. Mr Lucas allowed me to read them fresh off the shelves while I waited to serve customers in his shop. I wasn't ashamed to be still under their spell. Uncle Max was also an enthusiast and had convinced me

they were good fun at any age. Not that I planned to reveal my hobby to Natasha. She was too perfect, with her long tumbling hair, to tolerate such a simple pleasure. Anyway, I pushed these thoughts to the back of my mind and prepared for the beginning of the play. The audience wasn't vast but adequate for this place at that time. We settled as the lights dimmed. Somewhere, in the bowels of the building, there must have been a man whose task was to dim. I took that responsibility later, in respect of Natasha's view of me. But her love, if there was any, went out abruptly, and this swelling gloom was gradual and less alarming. The ragged curtains parted to mild applause. No scenery, no props. A man on a bare stage. Frankly I felt let down. Just a single character, muttering. This was supposed to be daring theatre, a minimalist romance, but it came over as mean. I was constantly expecting other actors to run on, to liven up the drudge. But they didn't. A monotone speech and jerky postures. A glut of meaningful pauses. I began to sweat. Was I really going to have to sit through another three hours of this? The very concept was appalling. Then the spotlights died, one at a time. I assume the author wanted to manipulate atmosphere directly, as well as through the words of his character. But the process didn't work for me. Soon the entire stage was black except for the man, wrapped in his unearned halo. Then his feet disappeared and the darkness crawled up his legs to his knees. The beam of the remaining spotlight was being narrowed to achieve an unspecified psychological effect. The man was talking about love, but in an unbearably cryptic fashion. I'm sure he made important points, but I don't know what. Ask the author yourself, if you can find him. Now all that was left of the character was his mouth. Two pink lips and a set of bright teeth, hovering in the void. This seemed to be an echo of many of my favourite superheroes. They tended to wear sealed costumes and masks that covered their faces apart from the mouth. They had names like Antman, The Phantom Joker, Dr Squid, Captain Superb, The Green Clown, TonguewaggleChipchop, The Excessive Clump, Buttertalons, The Dull Gleam, Nadirthe Octaroon. They were all loners, individualists, mavericks. Generally, but not always, they fought on the side of good. They never recommended their tailors. I was falling into a trap set by boredom. I willed myself to ponder on something, anything else. I had recourse to a last desperate measure. I turned in my seat without warning and kissed Natasha on the lips. She slapped me. A loud slap. In the almost total darkness it wasn't obvious to our neighbours what she had done. They would have worked it out, of course, but I couldn't bear the dishonour. Call it reflex or immaturity, but I smothered the truth with a shout: "The Undeniable Grin has struck his enemy!" There was a selection of giggles, then someone added: "He must have very long arms to reach you from there!"

I nodded, although the gesture was lost in the murk. "They are made of elastic and can stretch halfway around the world!" To my astonishment, nobody objected to this absurdity. Not a single complaint reached my ears. Instead, the audience supported me. There was a squeal and a sudden cry of rage: "The Undeniable Grin has pinched my thigh!" A voice asked: "Why? What did you do to him?" The actor on stage fell silent. Maybe he had forgotten his lines in the excitement, or perhaps he was simply waiting for us to finish before returning to his monologue. He fell silent, yes, but he kept grinning, a wide floating smile in the dusk, and this was his fatal error. It seemed an admission of guilt. In our minds now, he was this farcical superhero, this implausible mutant, and for an unknown reason he was opposed to us, radiating harm from his hub of power. The pause was brief. Invisible and nonexistent arms snaked out from the stage and violated us. We screamed. "The Undeniable Grin has poked me in the eye!" "The rascal has stolen my wallet!" "He groped my wife without permission!" "The bugger has filled my mouth with obscenities!" "He's forcing me to have unnatural thoughts!" "About me, probably! And stop tickling me there!" "It's not me. It's The Undeniable Grin!" "He persuaded me yesterday to declare myself bankrupt!" "He made me gamble away my salary on the horses!" "Everything I've ever done wrong in my life was really the fault of The Undeniable Grin!" "That's true for all of us!" And so on and so forth. I can't imagine where all this nonsense was leading to. Perhaps it would have ended in a party. But it went beyond a joke before the management could react properly. There was a loud thud, the tipping of a heavy object out of a soft one and over a low edge into a vertical distance that ended on a hard tiled floor. One of the tiles cracked. When the

house lights came on all at once, we were no wiser. It took long minutes for our eyes to adjust to the glare, but when they did we saw how simple the answers were. The low edge was the wall of the private box, the soft object was a chair and the heavy one was Mr Lucas. His wife was standing and looking down at his broken body. Her hand was held to her mouth and she tried to appear shocked as she groaned: "The Undeniable Grin has murdered my boring husband!" All eyes turned to the stage, blinking guiltily as they accused. The poor actor was a man after all. He must have changed back. Having had so many amazing feats attributed to him, it seemed unlikely he was capable of trumping any of them. But he did. As his body came back into sharp focus, his grin utterly vanished. (2000)

The Innumerable Chambers of the Heart

As she lay awake one night, Viviana suddenly realised that the tapping noises inside her radiator were deliberate messages. For several weeks she had assumed they were the products of unsatisfactory plumbing. Everything in the apartment creaked or gurgled or found some other means of audible protest. Now she attempted to make sense of the code. It was simple enough, for each letter of the alphabet was represented by a different rhythm. With short sequences of notes clustered into words, somebody was hoping to establish contact in this vast labyrinth of loneliness. There was desperation in the plea, but also, strangely, an element of humour. The apartment block was the largest in existence. It dominated the eastern horizon of the city and blotted out the dawn. Not even the architects knew how many rooms it contained. Rival firms had worked independently on the designs, which were finally superimposed on each other and constructed like that. It was still a mystery whether this had been a mistake or not. The geometry of each floor was confusing and inhuman. Passages intersected at unlikely angles. There were stairways that ended in blank walls. The exploration of the entire structure had never been achieved by any individual, though several had vanished into unknown volumes in the undertaking. The authorities had moved the inhabitants of the central slums into the block in a single night. This difficult operation was illuminated by floodlights suspended from cranes. There had been a war. The residential areas were smashed and unsafe. The people converged on the gargantuan building, invading its emptiness and filling it with their own little voids, the dead emotions inside them. As they selected their rooms at random and switched on the lights, the round windows formed a growing constellation on the immense façade. But this pattern became

mundane as it became more regular. None of the countless glass circles displayed any variation of brightness or colour. Eventually the monotony was broken as the residents made efforts to individualise their apartments. Lampshades or curtains softened the glare as perceived from outside. Plants on windowsills filtered light with their leaves and tinged it green. Viviana had arranged mirrors in her room and in the corridors outside in a manner that uniquely personalised her own space. She had discovered an obscure skylight at the rear of the building, at the end of a passage that led nowhere. Her mirrors reflected and bounced the sunrise through the width of the hive and out again through her window. Dawn now became a solitary red ray that slanted from her room down into the rubble of the city. She guided this beam with her silvered angles and her new duty made her feel special. But it did not cure the isolation. Only the messages from her radiator managed that. Somebody was knocking on the pipes in another room, hoping the sound would be carried along the hidden network of gargling conduits and deciphered by a potential friend. It was impossible to judge how far these rhythms had travelled to reach her, how many bends they had negotiated, how many times they had split along the branching pipes, rejoining at further junctions and finally bursting out with all the implacable joy of an acoustical trick in her tiny domain. The messages were sent by a man. Viviana was certain of that even before she taught herself to interpret them. It should not really matter, but it was a relief. They were tinged with passion, subtle but powerful, in the same way that a casual shrug is adulterated with only a twinge of despair. The sender did not have poetry in his heart, for his phrases were often awkward, but he was definitely reaching out for a woman and her tenderness. She listened for several days before responding. The workmen who had constructed the apartments had lost many tools in the various rooms. At the back of a fitted cupboard, she found a heavy spanner. She swung it thoughtfully in her hand for a minute, aware she was about to cross a threshold. Then she struck her radiator sharply and waited. Her ears tried to follow the sound along the pipes, but they could not twist and diverge at such speed and they returned to the sides of her head. The ensuing pause seemed to last longer than her senses could bear, but this was an illusion, for she remained hunched over the radiator. Then the single note returned. It was a replica of her own message, one of the simplest greetings. Are you there? Suddenly his poetry had been reduced to something plainer, more real, human and intense. Once again she wielded the spanner. Who are you? And now her heart, not her ears, raced along those pipes, as if her loneliness had fallen into arteries and veins to be dispersed throughout the organism of the building. But there was no real warmth in the arcane spaces that contained all the plumbing. Despite the lagging, those conduits were always chill, a fixed web that washed itself from the inside as part of its purpose, a solid representation of the cold water, its direction and destination. Where are you? I am Viviana. Yes, you are. That must be so. I am here. You might be anywhere.

Same as you. I am looking for someone. For you. For me? The search is over now. Perhaps it is. Yes, it is. This relationship of words without mouths, hopes without shapes, began to deepen almost immediately. She felt comfortable with this secret man, with his responses to her questions, sentiments and interests. They were in phase both intellectually and emotionally. It is impossible to fall in love at a distance: this fact is common knowledge. But what is the maximum range at which the real feeling can still work? After all, he might be in the adjacent room, or in one of the other apartments along her corridor. Perhaps their messages took an unnecessarily long route through the monstrous building simply to span a few metres of opacity, in the same way that an explorer at the mouth of a labyrinth may be separated from its terminal chamber by a single wall. But the loops and twists are not wasted if they are negotiated successfully, whether by foot or word. Viviana did not fully believe the force of love is directly related to linear distance. But if this man was housed in her vicinity, it would make the whole process both less and more mysterious. Less because it is conventional for love to develop among couples who are in physical proximity. More because the improbable nature of their meeting, via the plumbing instead of face to face in the corridor, indicated that destiny was a reliable phenomenon. Despite the ambiguity of the magic, she was satisfied. But she doubted he was close. The apartment block was simply too huge. Almost certainly he was far away, eclipsed by thousands of cells of huddled families. She suggested that they try to meet, and he agreed. The difficulties inherent in this enterprise were beyond the dreams of the architects of the complex. Her apartment was one level beneath the highest floor, on the left or northern edge of the façade. She knew where she lived. But he could not even guess his own position. There were no windows in his room and no skylights in his ceiling. He often heard footfalls above and below his cell, and other human sounds behind his three walls. His door opened onto a narrow corridor that slanted steeply upwards and joined a wider passage. From this information, Viviana wondered if he dwelled near the very centre of the building. It was feasible. There were no obvious landmarks that they could use to pinpoint his location in relation to her own room. And there were no maps of the maze. Once they tried to meet by leaving their rooms simultaneously and walking towards the heart of the block at a specified rate. The moment they moved from their radiators, all contact was lost. The unreasonable corridors led her past closed shops to a place she had no desire to visit. A courtyard filled with deserted stone benches and a crumbling fountain. This was where all senses of desolation came to rest. She was near the roof, because she heard the sour rain striking the ceiling, which was high in darkness. She had planned to descend, because the core of the hive lay below her original point, but the passages had ushered her their own way. Somehow she managed to retrace her steps, shaking with exhausted frustration as she collapsed on her bed.

The next time, they agreed to meet outside, by the main entrance. This should have been easier, but it turned out there was no such thing. Or if there was, it was no larger or different from hundreds of other portals which graced, or disgraced, the length of the edifice. She stood in her best coat, utterly alone, like a woman at the edge of the world, her back to the concrete, the myriad windows above and to both sides. She waited. The ruined city, mostly levelled, stained rather than filled her gaze. Separated by enormous distances, sodium lamps on tall posts turned nothing of significance an unnatural yellow. From unknown regions, a faint sound of machinery saturated the damp landscape. Industry at play. She returned to her room and sent him a desperate message. There was no answer, but later he signalled to her that he had waited at the designated spot, but had selected a different side of the building. Then he seemed to change his mind. Now he explained he had felt too ill to attempt the adventure. Viviana frowned. The mistakes in his behaviour, the discrepancies here and there, made her uneasy. A suspicion started to grow in her mind. He wanted to flirt but always pulled back before the point of commitment. He was afraid of something. First she thought it was his own emotions. Gradually she deduced it might have a less vague outline. It would be able to loom more alarmingly than an extreme change of heart. A scruple with a shadow. They always announced themselves to each other with that same call. Are you there? On many occasions, his messages broke off in the middle of a sentence. She had assumed this was an undesirable property of the plumbing under certain conditions: a faucet might have been opened elsewhere, drawing his words with the water away from her, diverting his passion. Now she wondered if the true cause of the interruptions had a more anatomical explanation. Even when he did communicate with her for long periods without a pause, there was a furtive slackness in his rhythms that she had not noticed before. He was not striking his radiator with vigour as she did, but tapping it gently, almost with a muffled instrument, with desire that was in fetters. His adoration for her followed the rules of a forbidden game. On the shortest night of the year, she was awakened by a metallic voice. She stumbled to the window and peered out. Loudspeakers on trucks roared up at the apartment block, huge chunks of fragmented sound reverberating from the cheap concrete and feeding back into the amplifiers, so that a wail rose in volume and made the landscape scream, which was a perfect substitute for the panic in the voice of the announcer. The building was being evacuated. Lines of people were already streaming from the numerous exits. Viviana dressed hurriedly and left her room. She had no idea which way to run, but soon chanced on a staircase which spiralled down. At the bottom she found a door that gave out onto the chaotic scene. She joined the mass exodus, tripping in her slippers. The residents stopped when they reached the location of their former homes. Then they turned and watched. From snatches of gossip, Viviana worked out the reason for this extraordinary operation. The apartment block had apparently been raised directly over a caldera, a subterranean volcano. The seismologists at the university had calculated it was due to erupt. Most of the occupants had left their lights on, to ease their escape from the cells, and the whole edifice blazed like some ancient computer at the limit of its ability, horribly magnified. There was stasis and drowned stars. The crowd lingered until the cold weakened and the first pale light of dawn, blocked by the

enormous domestic silhouette, changed the odour of the air. Viviana sniffed. Then all the windows snapped to grey. The generators in the basement had stopped working. The caldera had burst inside the building. First the lowest level of rooms filled with lava, the molten rock glowing and swirling behind the reinforced windows in too many variations of a drunken wink. Then the second level began to fill and the grey returned to red. Relentlessly, one at a time, every cell in the block received the flickering liquid. The room which was last to be filled, through some trick of corridors and conduits, belonged to Viviana, though it was not the highest. When it was the only grey square left in the matrix of fire, the sun rose behind the building. The mirrors were still intact and her pane anticipated its own fate with a more ethereal red. The single ray that shot out pierced her directly in the forehead. She felt its dim warmth and an ironic smile altered her face. Then it died, for the lava had taken over. The caldera was exhausted. The molten rock cooled and hardened, and the walls of the structure, weakened by the pressure and heat, crumbled away. A replica of the apartment block was left in its place, slightly smaller but solid throughout, with all the furniture and fittings, the plumbing and its romantic possibilities, vaporised and trapped like love in gestures, embedded and mingled indistinguishably. Vivianarealised she was holding something heavy. It was the spanner. She must have instinctively snatched it up when she fled her room. She looked around. There were many people of every description. Families, couples and solitary individuals. She wandered among them. Her route was random, but she had a purpose. Somewhere amid all this humanity was her man, her untouched lover, the same person who had done so much to kill her loneliness and lift her hopes out of the truth of her situation. She would find him now. However long it took, she would meet him at last. Although she had no idea what he looked like, she knew exactly how to recognise him. She had their greeting call. Are you there? She had that, and he had a head. Ignoring the single men, concentrating on those who were with wives and girlfriends, she meticulously began to call for him. (2001)

There's a Woman With a Cactus Instead of a Head

There's a woman with a cactus instead of a head. She has no children. She must be barren. Every morning I climb onto the bus and take the seat just behind her. I am forced to stare at the back of her head — her cactus, rather — and this annoys me. I am needled by it. I would like to curl my fingers into a fist and strike out at that woman. But I will do nothing of the kind. I would be pricked by more than just my conscience. My knuckles would sprout spines. So I sit there and stare and dream of tequila and tortillas and sweat trickles down my brow. It is always too hot on the bus. Great clouds of steam drift down the aisle. It is difficult to perceive why anyone should want to catch such a bus and sometimes my own actions mystify

me. But then I remember why I must catch this bus: it is because I must travel to work every morning. And why do I work? It is because I need money for the bus-fare. My life is mundane and sour; this is true. But the bus-driver has a much harder time of it than I. Unlike his other passengers, he travels to work every day but never arrives. And then the following day he has another attempt. But all his attempts are as futile as each other. I have never seen his face. It is always bathed in steam. Truly this bus is more like a sauna than a bus; and there are too many windows. But pedestrians rarely peer in. So it does not really matter. Nothing matters. When the bus arrives at my destination, I jump off with a sigh of relief and make my way to my place of work. To be honest, my place of work looks no different from any other place on the bus-route. The same old houses, crowded like starving toads around a lame bluebottle, with the same crumbling chimneys and the same coughing fits of dense black smoke. Even the people are the same: flat caps squashed down on heads as lumpy as a mug of mushy peas; curlers in blue-grey hair; whippets on strings, trailing behind in the air like kites; kitchen sink dramatists and noir poets, pacing naturalist paving slabs in a socio-realist manner, hand-rolled cigarettes cupped in grimy hands, with a left wing nod at all. The factory where I toil is a large, hollow rusty building, completely deserted save for a few pigeons and a three-legged dog who lives up in the foreman's office and howls to be let out. How he came to be locked in the foreman's office is a mystery to me. I can only guess that he fell through the ceiling while pacing the corroded roof in search of cats or the bones of long-dead roofers whose ladders collapsed behind them in the distant past. Possibly he fell out of an aeroplane or was fired from a cannon in some banned circus or other. Perhaps he was generated spontaneously from the piles of rotting reports and chits in the filing cabinet. Almost certainly he sustains himself on chocolate bars from the automatic vending machine, which dispenses one bar a day and has enough in reserve to last at least another decade. In general appearance, the factory is identical to the one near my own house, which is also deserted. I wonder why I have to travel across half a city to work in this factory, when I might as easily stroll down to the one at the bottom of my road. But then again, I am not paid to be curious. I am paid to make chain. Note that I studiously avoid the plural here. I do not make chains, I make chain; a single continuous length that I have been adding to these past thirty years. This chain passes through a small hole in the wall and out into the grey day. Link by link, with my little hammer, I am binding the world. Where the chain goes to is anyone's guess. It stretches far away over the horizon; another cord to fool travellers who seek to escape this labyrinth called life. I once took the notion into my head to follow it, but I was perceptive enough to restrain myself. Wherever it leads to will be a place no different to the one from whence it came. A pointless quest. The maze has no real beginning and no real end. There are only the occasional picnic areas to give the illusion of rest. I would rather hedge my bets. I will stay where I am and make chain. Funnily enough, I am never at a loss for materials to make this chain. Through a hole in the opposite wall, a length of redundant chain trails into the factory. This chain stretches over the

other horizon. I reel this chain in and remove the links and then add these links to the new chain. When I tug at the old chain, the new chain moves out into the world. This is a phenomenon I have yet to question. Indeed I will not question it. At lunchtime I sit and gnaw at my sandwiches. Every day my sandwiches are the same: anchovy and egg. I loathe anchovy and egg. Every day I make the same vow: if today's sandwiches are anchovy and egg I will kill myself. This, I believe, will teach my wife a lesson. When I prise open the lid of my sandwich box and spy the inevitable, I sigh and climb a nearby gantry. I am fully prepared to hurl myself into the rusty void below. But then I remember that it is I who make my sandwiches. My wife, who does not speak to me, has never made anything for me in all the years of our marriage. And I have never made anything for her. We have what you might call a modern relationship. The reason that my wife does not speak to me is because she does not know how. She is an immigrant whose country of origin I have as yet been unable to ascertain. Her language is comprised entirely of the use of violent gestures and impulsive actions. Despite many hours spent at the local lending library I have not yet found a phrasebook that will enable me to communicate with her. Sometimes when I lie on the bed and watch her climbing the walls and ceiling, I wonder whether we are really right for each other. But she has nice legs. I once contemplated having an affair with the woman who hands out my pay packet every Friday. I have never actually seen this woman, but I know that she must exist. Otherwise who is it that leaves my pay packet on my desk? Admittedly I never touch the thing; I have just enough money left in the bank to keep me going. My needs are simple. No, I leave the pay packet where it is, in the hope that this woman will seek me out and demand to know why I have not picked it up. But she never does. It does not seem to concern her very much. Nonetheless, a new one is waiting for me every Friday, so she must worry about me to some extent at least. She is so considerate in this respect that she even tries to make the new pay packet look identical to the old one, right down to the grimy thumbprint on one corner. Something happened three decades ago, when I took that summer holiday in Luton. I cannot put my finger on what exactly, but I know that before that holiday I seemed to be happier. I had friends, colleagues, hobbies. When I returned, everything seemed subtly different. My house had shrunk to the size of a shed and was full of spades and other rusting garden tools. Also work had became a lonely place; completely deserted save for me, the pigeons and the threelegged dog. Even the journey to work had altered in some almost imperceptible way. Instead of boisterous workers and clamouring children, the bus seemed full of women with the heads of exotic plants. And suddenly I discovered that I had a wife. I do not dwell on these matters too closely. I know my station in life. It is one of those small rural stops without so much as a waiting room or a place to buy a cup of tea. But I am content. I work hard, eat a frugal tea of lettuce — there seems to be a great deal of wild lettuce in the vicinity of my house — and listen to the news on my portable radio. Sometimes a thought creeps into my head totally unlike any other that I have ever had. It whispers that my whole life has been founded on a mistake, a misunderstanding that occurred shortly after I returned from that fateful vacation.

That first morning back — always a disorienting experience — I had somehow forgotten the way to the nearest bus stop. So I asked a passerby for directions. He smiled back at me and said: "Two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left!" I duly thanked him for this and set off. He must have been a very friendly man indeed, for as I walked away I could hear him laughing merrily behind me, obviously pleased that he had been able to assist another human being. I found the bus waiting for me, boarded it and sat down. And that was the very first time that I saw the woman with the cactus instead of a head. But what if he had given me the wrong directions? This is the thought that occasionally troubles me. What if he had misheard me and had directed me not to the bus stop but to the local greenhouse? This would explain why the bus is usually bathed in steam. I know that it is an absurd idea, but at least it proves that I have a vivid imagination. I wish there was someone I could share the joke with. My wife is always too busy spinning webs or eating flies. No matter. I will savour the jest alone. I will retire to bed and dream of tequila and tortillas. I will turn the thought over in my mind more slowly. It is too far-fetched to be worthy of serious consideration, but it continues to obsess me. At the very least, it would also explain why the real greenhouse is always full of shopping bags and gossiping old ladies. (1994)

The Apology

A graduate applied to become a radio astronomer and was offered the job on the spot — he had hyperbolic ears. His new boss tugged his own lobes. "Here, we hope to find evidence of extraterrestrial life before anyone else." The graduate raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Will I be helping to make contact with an alien intelligence?" His boss smirked: "No, the tea." Actually the graduate, whose name was Bogart, made such poor tea he was promoted. His new task was to decipher the signals from a region of sky in the constellation Cetus. The equipment was not all it should be. Funds were not available to make a truly effective search, contact had to be done on the cheap. Project Artemis was the latest in a string of half-hearted attempts to listen in on alien broadcasts. The galaxy was so large and the range of possible frequencies so wide, no one really expected to intercept a message. Bogart's enthusiasm was an irritant to his cynical colleagues. They took him aside for a friendly chat.

"Listen, this project is largely a symbolic gesture. We're not here to discover aliens but to prove we can handle the philosophical issues. Just go through the motions, like us." Bogart was not to be deterred. Even though the chances of success were minuscule, he intended to fulfil his duties. His colleagues were dismayed. Philosophical issues were fine until they had a face. On Earth, the airwaves had been manipulated for no more than a century. Any message received from a star more distant than 100 light years would indicate a superior technology. Contact was the last thing they wanted. Bogart continued to scan the constellation. Any civilisation using radio waves to send messages would surely pick a frequency familiar to radio astronomers. The song of hydrogen, 1.420 GHz, provided background noise. Caused by spinning hydrogen nuclei, it made an ideal reference. A multiple of this wavelength was a good bet. For a year he tried multiplying the frequency by various perfect and prime numbers. Working through the Fibonacci sequence finally paid dividends. From a star 5000 light years distant, on the band 204.483659 GHz, a burst of information was received. The message, an analogue code with twenty-four elements, defied the antique efforts of the project computers. Bogart summoned his boss who declared wearily: "It's all Greek to me." Never one to waste inspiration, Bogart matched each of the elements to the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet. A little research, via the local library, confirmed that the message was written in an ancient version of the tongue. Bogart brought the translation to his boss, who turned very pale. "Apologise now and make appropriate conciliatory gestures?" he cried. "What does that mean?" Bogart shrugged. "That's what it says." The boss had a breakdown. He mumbled something and rushed out of the room. Later, he was seen climbing the huge dish of the telescope. A meeting was called to determine what action to take. A rescue attempt was opposed on principle — astronomers are observers. The researchers made notes as he fell. Bogart addressed them in lieu. "Can it be," he wondered, "that this is not our first contact with these beings? Is this a reply to a previous message? If so, the original must have been sent from Earth some ten millennia ago, before the advent of civilisation. This is a paradox." As he thought about it, a probable answer came to him. In the dim mists of time, a lost technology, maybe that of Atlantis, had beamed a rude message in the direction of Cetus. The message was picked up and interpreted by an unknown intelligence. The reply, demanding an

apology, had just been received. But Atlantis had drowned and an innocent culture had risen in its place. "It seems proper to make the apology," he continued. "The problem is we don't know what we are apologising for. What sort of conciliatory gestures must we make?" "Let the bugs stew," was one opinion. Bogart decided to solicit others. The conciliatory gestures could be anything. Juggling fruit on stilts or living on a traffic island for several months were equally valid. Running naked through every hotel lobby in the world might be just the ticket. Who was to say what was required? There was no clue. "Okay," announced Bogart, "this is my idea. We try every single combination of everything. We go out and perform any action that occurs to us. We dance, we sing, we dress up in absurd outfits. We obey every whim. We'll videotape it all and beam it back. It's feasible we'll hit on the right gesture." Without looking back, he strode into town, accompanied by Amanda, the loss adjuster. He chose a place near the fountain. Amanda held the camera as he splashed about in the oily waters. Later, stripped to the waist, he paraded along the shopping precinct, hitting shoppers on the head with an umbrella. The others made no attempt to follow him. It occurred to them that as any gesture was as valid as any other, they might as well continue as before, leading normal lives. One by one, they drifted away into normal jobs. Some became estate agents and settled down and had children who flunked physics at school. Bogart remained active for the next fifty years. A group of street entertainers who saw him as a rival plotted his assassination. Homemade bombs became an occupational hazard. One blew off his ears, but he did not complain. It might be what the aliens wanted. Amanda, the loss adjuster, remained with him until the end. Senile and toothless, she quickly forgot how to change the tape in the camera. It did not matter. This too might be the gesture. Who knew what aliens thought? Besides, his best moment had already been transmitted, juggling fruit on stilts on a traffic island. He died in the wrinkled arms of Amanda with a phrase on his lips. A light shone in his eyes, as if he had finally solved the riddle. These last words, together with some spittle of dubious consistency, spattered her face: "One lump or two?" At the same time, he made a stirring motion at the stars. 5000 light years away, a young civilisation, born from the flotsam of one that had sunk, was working its way up the ladder of technology. It was unaware of two converging lines: the discovery of radio astronomy and an alien signal that contained the most outrageous insult in the language — two flying hyperbolic ears. It was an insult that demanded an immediate apology.

(1995)

The Backwards Aladdin

The lamp was as Persian as a carpet made from a fluffy cat. Niddala rubbed it with her sleeve and told the emerging figure that she didn't want to spend all her wishes at once. Was interest available on those she saved for later? The blue creature shook its head. "The old stories got it wrong. I'm only compelled to give you one wish and you have to use it right now." "In that case, I wish for more wishes!" "That's not permitted." "What if I wish for you to fall in love with me? That way you'll always be happy to do anything I ask." "That's also against the rules." Niddala protested but the creature had no sympathy and merely added, "You're running out of time." So she said, "I wish I was a genie." "Very clever!" hissed the apparition in dismay but it waved its hands about and there was a blinding flash. After the smoke cleared, Niddala found herself wearing a turban. "Now I can do what I like." "No you can't!" roared the bald being. "That's not how genies work. You have to grant wishes to others!" Immediately it pounced on her and rubbed her stomach furiously. "I wish I was human!" Niddala's arms seemed to acquire a life of their own, describing strange shapes in the air. Another flash and the creature had shrunk to a normal size. He was still bald but now he was the colour of human skin. His laughter was full of desperate relief. "Free at last! I'm a man!"

"Wait a moment," said Niddala. "Are you sure a genie is allowed to rub another genie? That doesn't seem right somehow. I wouldn't trust the result of such a wish. The effect might wear off." "I hadn't thought of that. But I'm a man now and you're a genie and I haven't had my wish as a man yet, so I'm going to reconfirm my decision." He leaned forward with raised hands, rubbed her stomach again and called, "I wish I was human!" But nothing happened. Niddala sighed. "You can't wish to be something you already are. That's not a wish but a grammatical error. A wish implies a yearning for a lack. You can't lack a quality which you have." "I hate the pitfalls of logic!" came the exasperated reply. "Let me think of a different wording. I have it! I wish not to be a genie." This time arms were waved. Smoke. Niddala blinked at the object that existed before her. It seemed to consist of everything at once, or parts of everything, or parts of an unimaginable number of other parts. The colours were scintillating. Then she understood what had happened. "You fool! You've accidentally wished to be everything that isn't a genie! Not being a genie is a quality that all things except genies possess. You've become a universal soup!" The reply was trillionfold. "Yes, and I don't feel well." Niddala arched an eyebrow. "I'm not surprised." Then an idea came to her. She reached into the unbelievable swirl and felt around for a moment before rubbing the smooth and large something she finally found. "I wish to be Niddala!" Instantly she was back to her former self. Before she departed she explained, "If you are everything other than a genie, then you must also be whatever it is that genies rub to get wishes from. I think I'll go shopping now." She looked back over her shoulder. "You don't happen to have a place that sells carpets in there, do you?" (2004)

Miserable With Groceries, Cuddly With Stubble

These students, you can't get away from them. Hard to avoid their bleak stares in corner shops and cheap cafés. Take a walk in the frosty park and there they are, all scarves and long coats and little round glasses. Or in the pub: huddled around a single pint of soapy beer, straws raised to chapped lips. I loathe them and yet, at the same time, am envious of their studied presence. They are poor enough now, their thin bones are cold, but it will not always be this way. The future awaits, bright lights and waterfront apartments. So it is said. I have to trail in their wake without any such illusions. My life can hardly change at this stage. I am forced to frequent their realm, the labyrinth of terraced streets that define their mood and manner, the greasy alleyways. There is no golden cord to lead me outside. From the railway bridge it is just possible to glimpse the lands beyond the factories, all out of reach and pure. In the library it is possible to read about them, tracts of open country, rural lanes, places where apples come not in tins, where bread is the colour of melting snow. In the autumn, the new students are poured into the university like curdled milk into a dirty glass; they overflow, they spread in a viscous pool along the tabletop of my suburb. The oily rains alone can water them down, send them scurrying off the streets into the cracks of houses where they lurk like avant-garde mice. So I venture abroad most often when it pours, umbrella left at home, for it is not possible to carry two bags of groceries with an umbrella, unless one bag is hung on the hook of the handle, an art I have not mastered. The engineering students are the most grotesque, they do not betray their status with eccentric fringe or studded nose. They dress almost like people, a most despicable deceit. My advice: talk to no one. When will I ever leave this terrible city? How will I escape? Will I take to the road one day in a fit of angry determination armed only with a thumb and a Kerouac? Perhaps I will walk the long walk, through endless sprawling outskirts, crumbling estates, abandoned supermarkets and choked canals. Perhaps this journey will be as long as a childhood, a generation, a lifetime. I have heard that it is possible, that it has even been done. But this urbane quarter is awash with legends and tall stories. The students pass these stories to each other around the glow of a candle or roll them in their own hands like joints. My favourite is the tale of the undergraduate with one boot who mounted his bicycle and set off in search of the golden astrakhan. He brought it back and it hangs to this day over a bar in a downtown pub. But which pub exactly nobody knows. One day I may find it. Tomorrow perhaps. The students have a name for me. They call me Candide. I suspect they wish to prove they have discovered philosophy as well as make a valid point about my essential nature. Yes, I am innocent. But I am still capable of feeling the deep hate that can stretch a bigger smile than any amount of love or compassion. In the corner shops I buy eggs and rotting celery and overpriced flour. I do not buy beer. I brew my own, in a plastic barrel caught in a ludicrous web of intestinal tubes and gurgling pipes. I do not buy cheese, pulses, members of the onion family. I buy pickles and canned soup and a National Lottery ticket, one a week. In the cafés I drink weak tea, no sugar. In the newsagents, I browse through the magazines of the top shelf: Fluid Entropics Weekly and New Ontologist. I do not lack courage. No, it is not courage that I lack. Nor is it patience. It is hope.

These long terms, you can't seem to get through them. Surely terms were never as long as this before? My own college days seem implausibly brief, a quick dabble with the creaking chairs of the lecture theatre and the damp grass of the campus embankment and then it was time to don mortarboard and depart. Candide strides in mounting agitation. Despite all that the authorities have done, all that I will continue to do, they still come. Is there no way to discourage them? How hard do we have to make their lives before they will give up? I am an honest taxpayer. I demand my say. My prejudices are objective ones. It is time to make a stand, it is time to take to the streets in protest. But the streets are theirs, ego-bright with tiny crumbs of broken glass and mouldy carpets. Enough is enough; bonfires must be built. Young lovers and musicians must burn with the numerate and depressed. If only one of them would take my virginity I might feel less bitter. There are so many girls on campus. Surely one will be generous enough to give themselves to me? Once is all I require. Is this really too much to ask? It seems that it is. They are not interested. Smooth girls, caramel skin and flame-dark hair, eyes as green as lapidary lore, teeth not quite straight. Why do they ignore me? Why do they have no time for my own waistcoat and dirty fingernails? My eyebrows are as thick as those of any fresher. I see my neighbours in the mornings, girls mixed in with the boys, and know that two of them, a speech therapist with a hat and a gaunt biophysicist with a cold, are forming an intense sexual relationship. Soon they will roll and squeak together. This is unfair. He has nothing that I do not have. We have similar form, gait, odour. We are identical in all the important ways. In the street he is miserable with groceries, cuddly with stubble. But so am I. Women are a mystery. What are they, if not an enigma? But perhaps it is merely that times have changed. In my day they were much less choosy. It was easy to persuade them that freedom equated with lack of inhibition. These students are much too aware, they are difficult to exploit. They never require extra tuition, they mock the concept. My fellow lecturers feel the same way that I do. But they are content to suffer in silence. I have spoken to Pantagruel, head of Economics, but he refuses to discuss the matter with me. Yes, the world has changed. We must adapt to the best of our ability. In vain do I raise the issue with my other colleagues. Even Icarus, head of Geology, seems to lack any enthusiasm for my views. He sees me as a fossil, an eozoon petrified in the amber of my angst. Candide, you are a fool, he tells me. I do not disagree. Harsh times require harsh words. Two changes in particular stand out as reminders of our growing isolation in the modern age. One I have already mentioned: the view from the railway bridge. I dimly remember a time when the spaces between cities were larger than the cities themselves. This is certainly the case no longer. In those days, maps named the urban conglomerations; now they delineate the few remaining fields. Ariosto, head of Astronomy, and myself manhandle a telescope to this railway bridge and set it up right on the edge. What do we see through the eyepiece? Trees, grass, a bird, a little cloud. We lick our lips. Rows upon rows of greenhouses to feed us, to fill the corner shops, to set the factories hard at work forcing produce into cans, to give the pickers something to do in the summer. Another irony: most pickers are students on vacation. Even more dramatic is the way in which the Graduation Ceremony has altered. How I dread this annual ritual. How we all dread it. Students these days have all the advantages, they

don't understand what we had to go through. In my day it was a scroll, a handshake, a photograph and then abandonment. We did not even know how to fly. But now they take everything for granted. The discovery of God in a basement flat near the university and His subsequent election to chairman of the Student Union has had profound repercussions for us all. It is true that both undergraduates and trains now run on time. But at what cost? Every year we are treated to the same spectacle. They gather in the Great Hall, they shuffle their feet in an orderly queue, they listen to the Latin speeches. The names are called, they step forward. They receive their wings and halos and then they are off, launching themselves through the open windows. Higher and higher they soar, but where to? Bright lights and waterfront apartments, no doubt. This is what we are told. They blaze like meteors in the sky above us. We follow their progress with envious eyes. We cannot emulate their achievements, we who gave so much of our time to them. Icarus has tried, it is how he earned his name. But gown and mortarboard are no substitute for feathers and grace. Perhaps I will try next, but not today. I am weary. I pick my way through their discarded affectations and clothes. Yes, Candide is weary. He is tired of tending his garden. He wants to resume his original questing. It was not so bad in hindsight. Besides, he has modified his outlook somewhat. He no longer believes in perfection. He no longer wants reassurance, he no longer seeks misery in groceries. Perhaps he never really did. He will go out and never come back. He may even try to lose some weight and submit his chin to the caress of the razor. (1994)

Under the Tree

(i) The tiny seed embedded in the nape of my neck has finally grown into a mature tree. The weight of this tree threatens to crush me into the ground, but I am resolute. Each day, I make my way to the Bank and sit at my desk. The manager is planning my transfer. He says that customers cannot trust a man who is also a tree. Possibly this is true, and yet they enjoy the shade that I provide from the glare of the fluorescent lights. This shade also comes in useful when walking down the street in rain and sleet. In windy weather, the situation is somewhat reversed. It is I who am disadvantaged. My knotty burden creaks and sways and threatens to topple down onto my fellow commuters. In autumn, I shed multi-coloured leaves in bright spirals; in winter, the frosty rime creeps down the trunk to chill my back. This gnarled trunk also shelters animal life that I can hear but never see. There are squirrels, an owl, a woodpecker. There are also many insects. Cats have been known to become stuck in my branches. I am wary of dogs and children. Attached by two stout ropes to a

particularly strong branch, a makeshift swing dangles just above my head. I disclaim all responsibility for any accidents or injuries suffered from its use. Occasionally, when I am in a more thoughtful mood, I wonder how the seed managed to become lodged in my neck in the first place. A misadventure with a peashooter perhaps? Or a natural propagation from an overhanging branch during a shady picnic? Having neglected to wash for many years, the seed must have been buried in several inches of grime. A fertile ground for an ambitious seed. Ambition, of course, is the key word. I too am ambitious. Like the tree itself, I wish to grow, to expand outwards into the purer air above the smog of the city, to reach towards the sun. I must settle for spiritual growth, alone in my tall-ceilinged house. My soul is balmed in the sweat of more than one difficult yoga position. I have skewered my own cheeks without pain. My soul. Oh, my soul!

(ii) The world is changing too rapidly for a man who is also a tree. I can no longer comprehend the complexities of city life. I prefer the slower rhythms of nature. The cloud that appears to entangle itself in my topmost branches has a clear purpose. Rain and sunlight are the twin symbols of my life now. I need no others; they will suffice. The large paper mills contact me with offers of employment. Their usual sources of materials are dwindling rapidly. The Green Belt has already been levelled. Such is the nature of their business. They cannot, however, offer me a permanent post. I am genuinely tempted. I know that I should be grateful for what I can get. But I will not succumb. There are too many terrors in this brief life of ours. I know what I am talking about. Consider the secret agonies known only to the trees. Last month, with quiet deliberation, a man hung himself from one of my branches. I saw nothing, heard no sound that might have warned me, until his twitching feet dropped dramatically into my field of vision. I suffered a black eye and a broken nose from his convulsions. The police were not sympathetic. Naturally, I was questioned as a suspect or, at the very least, an accessory. I spent two miserable nights crammed into a cell far too small for me. Once they were satisfied of my innocence, however, the police became polite, almost genial. They even discussed with me the possible motives for the suicide. A domestic discord.Witchery and madness. The man had used three strands of piano wire. These corkscrew wires were pulled taut by the weight of his despair, sounding a suitably gloomy chord. The wires damaged my branch. I felt that I could endure no more of these torments. I made a resolution to have the tree removed from my neck. However, no doctor was willing to perform the operation. The roots

were too finely integrated into my nervous system. It was impossible to tell, where wood met flesh, which was which. In a quiet backstreet in one of the poorer quarters of the city, I chanced upon an arborist — a tree surgeon — who did not refuse to consider my request. He had lost his license over a case of mistaken identity and was desperate for work. He had once, so I learned, amputated the pithy limbs of a yew instead of an elm. As I waited in his surgery, he informed me that he would accept me as a patient. Anaesthetic, however, would not be available. At first I was jubilant, I congratulated him on his fortitude. But as I reclined on the operating table and listened to him sharpening his saw, my mind was crowded with doubts. Would he be removing the tree from my person, or my person from the tree? The latter prospect filled me with dread. Yet it was not a groundless fear. Which was the parasite? Which was the growth that, cut free from its host, would wither and die? I was not certain enough of the answer to remain. In a blind panic, I rushed out of the surgery… Sitting in the park, on the way home, two young lovers carved a heart and initials on my trunk. A romantic gesture, but an irresponsible one. An outlet, or inlet, for disease, I am not sure which. I admonished them with love, by shaking the sweet dew of the dawn from my leaves onto their tousled heads.

(iii) Time indeed moves in mysterious ways. It changes a life beyond imagination. From one who was scorned and mocked, I emerge into a circle of light. Far from despising me, my superiors begin to see me as an asset. My manager cancels his plans for my transfer (or transplant) and treats me as a favourite, watering my roots and singing softly to my sinuous branches. It seems that I am the last tree left in the world. Big Business has had its way; rotten stumps march across the decimated landscape. I am followed everywhere by representatives of the large paper mills. I have been offered considerable sums for my services. Conservationists have also taken an interest in me. They urge me not to sell my soul. There is little fear of this, I tell them. My soul cannot now be bought. It is far too valuable. Too much earth energy courses through my body and through my roots. All ley lines now converge at my centre. By permitting the unravelling of this mystic network from the land, the authorities have merely redirected it. I am now the centre of a grid, a shifting web of power that moves as I move. There will be a reaction against all this mindless destruction, I can tell. Optimism will blossom forth again. Technology will start to decay, the people will return to the fields. They

will live in houses made of wattle and daub. They will recite epic poetry over peat fires. They will drink parsnip wine. Perhaps the trees will return, as I wander the land, far from my office, sowing the acorns of contentment, nibbled by goats and deer as I nod off in some grassy dale. And now it is Midsummer. The Solstice has arrived in a swirl of hazy frenzy and dancing mania. The cities are not burning. They have simply been abandoned. Weeds and herbs push up between the broken paving stones. Unrestricted, the winds howl across the globe, fanning madness and desire. People have started to touch each other again, their hair smelling of sandalwood and musk. But I am excluded. A tear burns the edge of my eyelid. As I fall asleep, curled tightly in a ball, I feel suddenly very small, a mere homunculus bearing aloft a bonsai. The sun sinks beneath the horizon, sunset's last lick sweeping gold across my tremulous leaves, and the stars come out pale and wan. My eyes do not see. But my leaves know. I am woken by a curious chanting, a low pagan counterpoint. The sound of rebecs, crumhorns, serpents. Hooded faces with wide mouths are spinning in circles around me, hands linked. The Druids of the past seem to wink from their shady eyeholes. At the climax of the frenzy, they tear off their robes and hoods and fall upon each other in a parody of lust. Exhausted, they finally collapse into the deep sleep of the satiated. Stepping over the prone bodies, I study each face in turn. They are my colleagues, every one of them. The Bank manager lies entwined with his secretary, his face contented. For once, she too seems untroubled. In the damp grass, real serpents slither.

(iv) Yes, the world is changing too rapidly for a tree who is also a man. Though I feel that I have almost succeeded in repressing my humanity, it occasionally resurfaces. Today, for example, I caught a wood nymph peeping at me through my dense foliage. It is a logical progression, no doubt. I asked her questions of immense import, begged her to give me advice. The New World Order, as I envisaged it, would have to be designed chiefly by nymphs and suchlike elemental spirits. How should we live our lives? What occupations should we assume, now that we no longer held on to the illusion of technology? She replied that my questions were meaningless to her. The spirits of nature, she said, were tired of the rural life. They wished to move into the abandoned cities, to recline in luxury, pampered by electronic marvels. Now that Mankind had renounced such things, they had seen their chance to take them over. She was paying me a visit, she confessed, because she wanted to open a Bank account.

I was bitterly disappointed. I rolled around on the ground, aghast at the irony. Appreciating my tears, she suggested that we might be able to come to some arrangement. The solution, of course, lay in moderation. Together we would prevail. Under the tree we forged out a new reality. Tapping her nose, she told me that the world was already a much larger place, that the mysteries of existence no longer lay beyond the edge of reason. And now Mankind, it seems, is no longer barking up the wrong tree. (1993)

Primate Suspect

The banqueting hall stood in a clearing in the overgrown forest, roofed with moon-shaped leaves and walled with orchids. Macaws chattered in the mahogany rafters; lamps suspended from vines lit the interior, flashing on silver platters and golden delicacies. The company of gastronomes, popping buttons with each elevation of spoon or jug, eructating behind the anonymity of silk napkins, was full of easy malice as they chewed. At the head of the groaning table, visage stained with the syrup of every course, Rufus Dashcoal raised a glass of yellow froth and proposed a toast. "Bloated friends – toads by any other name – sappy trenchermen – I stand before you (I cannot sit without rending my trousers) with a heart full of cholesterol and rejoicing. At long last – and at considerable expense – here in the jungles of Zugzwang – I am able to declare the independence of my very own Banana Republic!" The listeners, not interrupting the repast for an instant, slapped the table with pudgy hands. Their applause was more like the rumble of a stomach than a consensus of appreciation. Rufus was about to gasp more revolutionary sentiments, before attacking dessert, when the great teak doors flew open and a score of armed men burst in, slipping erratically on the remnants of the first course. "Rufus Dashcoal?" The jowls of the worthy shook with passion. "Yes?" The leader of the armed men waved his pistol. "You are wanted on charges of terrorism." Dashcoal sneered. "Utterly absurd, I am simply enjoying a meal. Since when has that been illegal?"

The agent of justice squinted at his surroundings. "All this food is based on bananas. You have banana soup and banana curry and banana beer and banana bread and banana trifle…" "So what?" "Prepared by whom, eh?" Rufus paled, then shrugged and called, "Come out, boys. The game's up. We've been caught yellow handed." There was a muffled chattering. Then from the kitchens, arms raised in surrender, trooped the gorillas. (1996)

Sucking the World's Thumb

I have this terrible headache that doesn't interfere with my work. Or maybe it does but I'm not allowed to say. I'll make enquiries. One way or another I should have the answer next week. Or the week after. You know how papers are so easily lost in the workings; it can't be helped. But perhaps it is not even my concern. Try a different Department, just along the corridor there (17 miles of them, coiled like a pig's intestine) and up a dozen flights of stairs. But it's lunchtime now so you might have to wait. Come back tomorrow. My office is small, lightless and grey; the open-plan scheme was a disaster. A thousand typewriters make formidable music. Sometimes there was harmony. We can't have that, we can't have distractions of such nature. Besides, real music is played from concealed loudspeakers in the walls. On public holidays. What sort of music is that? Generally it is Fado from Portugal; two 12-string guitars and a plaintive chant. The Director dreams of visiting the QueimadasFitas in Lisbon. But he will never be invited. The place where I work then is a collection of perfect cubes, very cramped and as separate as the chambers of a tetrabranchiatecephalopod. My own cube is no different from (and no more identical to) any other. I have a desk, a chair, a lamp, a pen, a selection of official seals and stamps, an inkpad, a telephone, a pair of rimless spectacles, a headache. The telephone is always ringing; no one can say for sure whether it is connected to anything, or what might happen if it was. The next public holiday is in four weeks. Every morning, we assemble in the corridor and wait for the Director to open the door of our Department with his tiny silver key. There is a problem. He has brought the wrong bunch. They jangle with a different sound; in a different key, so to speak. No, I am too hasty. The keys are correct, they are all in order, there is nothing at all amiss with these keys. They are wonderful

keys. It is the lock that is dysfunctional. A lock with an unhelpful attitude. Enquiries will have to be made. The buck will have to be passed. Enquiries are made. The buck is passed. Eventually. The lock has been changed overnight. Another Department has taken precautions. This lock is not amenable to tiny silver keys. This lock favours only large golden ones. A security matter, of course. We charge in wedge formation, all together, our stiff ties caught up in the slipstream of our own motion, our carefully lacquered hair cracking like frost. The door gives way. We are inside. The Director offers us words of encouragement, words of sound executive wisdom. "Mind how you go," he says. We give up a cheer. Today I have a fresh case to deal with. I am unused to fresh cases. I cannot bear their texture, their colour. Cases have to mature, seasoned with the myriad shuffle, mellowed with the dust of much older cases, greasy with the fingerprints of many, many handlings. I lose it in the depths of a filing cabinet. Or even in the space between cabinet and wall. This is not neglect; this is dedication. I have a headache. The telephone rings. I am allowed a single personal item in my office. I have chosen a photograph of my wife, Eva. I have not seen Eva for more than a decade. She works nights and our paths never cross. I am no longer even sure whether she is my wife. I age the photograph, according to my whims, with a deftly applied pencil. The skin around her eyes is now a mass of wrinkles. My own skin is a mystery to me. There are no mirrors in our Department; we ordered a consignment three years ago and are still waiting. I make expansive gestures in the air as if to sculpt my image in nothing. Perhaps tomorrow I will probe my face with my fingers in an effort to sketch the bland topography of my nose, my lips, my chin. Perhaps not. I lean back on my chair and sigh. I lean forward on my chair and sigh. The following week, the case reappears on my desk. I study the file not too carefully. I glance at the name. Josef K. Apparently he has been arrested for no reason whatsoever. So what is new? Nothing.Nothing at all. I think that my headache has gone. I shall have to consider the matter. It could take time. I file the document in the wastepaper bin. Again it emerges onto my desk. I hide it one of the ventilation shafts. Busy, always busy. You cannot imagine the sheer amount of work that goes into being so inefficient. The wheels of the world would spin too quickly without us. The economy would overheat, reforms of law would come in such rapid profusion that they would invalidate those that went before. It would make a mockery of all systems, all absolute values. The public would lose confidence. It is vital to slow these wheels down, to maintain the order of absurdity. Society has pricked its whorls on the thorns of progress and it is up to us to suck, like mother to child. We are essential. The Director announces a ban on all whistling. It is necessary. No one in the Department whistles. The Director wants to know why. Again we are locked out. A security matter. This lock will accept only a medium-sized platinum key. Again we charge and batter down the door. The telephone rings. The case is waiting for me. It is rumoured that we are planning to return to the open-plan scheme. I will be able to stare at Jana's legs. I am aghast.

I smuggle the case to the toilet and try to flush it down the bowl. It refuses to go down at first. I close the lid and return to my office. My headache has returned. Perhaps it never left. It is difficult to ascertain at such short notice. In three days we shall have a public holiday. The Director will play music from concealed loudspeakers in the walls. But not Fado music. No, no; Fado has been banned. We shall have Kemence music from Turkey, which is possibly what we have always had. The Director sits and dreams of Istanbul. Who is Josef K. and why am I doing so much for him? Constantly I am working, manufacturing delays and pointing out problems where there are none. But I am not alone. Can you imagine how many workers it takes to keep a single man in such a relentless nightmare? Dozens and dozens; I cannot even quote a number. And all this work for the sake of one being. We who preserve the frustration and endless bureaucracy are the real victims. Josef K. is free in comparison; he is the recipient of all your sympathy, your empathy. We are forgotten or despised. It is impossible to delay forever. This morning I find a knife on my desk. How can we be really sure that Josef K. is who he says he is? There will have to be a blood test. I will have to lunge inefficiently. The Director offers me words of encouragement, words of sound executive wisdom. "Like a dog," he says. I have a headache no longer. I have a toothache instead. I pick up the knife and saunter out into the corridor. There are 17 miles of them. I will never reach my destination. I shall have to seek alternative transportation. A unicycle perhaps? I shall have to make enquiries. Up a dozen flights of stairs to the relevant Department. But it's almost lunchtime already and I may have to wait. I will come back tomorrow. (1994)

Madonna Park

Big Game * Three Friends * The Big Lick * Madonna Park * Suttee and Sweep * The Gunfight

Big Game

"There's a jaguar in the hills."

Julia knew it was going to be a stressful day as soon as Karl spoke those words. He had been out all night; foliage and damp earth had left green and brown stains on his jacket. "Yes dear? And how do you know that?" "I heard it." Karl gave her a knowing wink. "The sound is quite distinctive. What's for breakfast?" "Nothing." Julia pulled open the larder door and peered inside. "We've run out again. Why don't you let me drive into town and buy some food from a grocery store?" Karl shook his head. "We agreed to live entirely by hunting. I'll just have to go out again tonight and see what I can find. Perhaps if the jaguar comes back…" Julia wrinkled up her nose. "Do you think we could?" Karl shrugged. "Why not? The meat's just the same as any other. Isn't it?" Julia sighed. They had been living the frontier-style life for two months now. It had seemed a good idea at first to reject the comforts of modern civilization and retreat into the wilds, but lately she had been nagged by doubts. As for Karl, he was in his element. It was still as exciting for him as it had once been for her. It was Karl who had developed their own special brand of hunting, a brand that was highly illegal, of course, but also more productive than trying to snare rabbits or spear fish. "I'm going to clean my trophies," he suddenly announced. He was becoming increasingly obsessive. Soon, she realised, he would care more about his trophies than about her. Feeling in need of fresh air, she opened the kitchen door and stepped out onto the porch. The sun had not yet risen over the hills. A chill fog filled the valley. The pine trees on the highest slopes seemed to hang in space. As she clattered across the wooden boards, she muttered to herself. Suppose Karl was going insane? After all, his talk about a jaguar was rather dubious. Jaguars simply did not exist around here. She shivered and squinted up at the hills. When the sun finally cleared the peaks, the fog would lift. And then she might be able to see, like a silver thread snaking through the trees, the road that was her only link with the outside world. For her, this road was the source of all hope. It was seldom used, except by young couples. They would return night after night to presumably enjoy more than the scenic view. Julia envied their innocence.

Our days are numbered, she thought gloomily. Her worst fears were surfacing again. Surely it would not be long before someone reported them? She tramped down the steps of the porch and across the sodden ground to a large shed. Inside stood the sausage machine, unused since their last kill over a week ago. The machine had come with the cottage: the previous tenant had kept pigs. Julia entered the shed, took out her wire brush and set to work. As some of the original sparkle began to return to the rusty contraption, her reflection became clear in the metal. She was shocked by her haggard appearance. Her eyes had become deep-set, her cheeks sunken, her long auburn hair tangled and dirty. After she had finished cleaning, she turned her attention to all the other mundane tasks that were necessary to keep their little homestead going. There was wood to be cut for the fire, water to be drawn from the well, knives to be sharpened. She even had to oil Karl's rifle. At least when he ran out of ammunition they would have to go into town, if only for more. She looked forward to that day. She did not see Karl again until dusk. He crept up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. He was armed with a sack and a rifle. "Don't worry." He smiled at her. "It will be like any other hunt. Just a better trophy." "But how long can this last?" she cried. "How long before we are stopped?" "The locals like us. We help rid the area of pests." She nodded. It was probably true. Most of the locals were farmers and eager to shoot things themselves. She stretched stiff joints and walked to the house without looking back. Karl scratched his head, bewildered. He wondered if she was growing soft or whether this was just a special case. Perhaps she merely thought a jaguar too noble to destroy? "Little fool," he called after her. He knew that if he did miss this opportunity, both their stomachs would regret it. With a peculiar chuckle, he loped off into the gloom. Julia reached the kitchen, placed the kettle on the stove and spooned coffee into a cup. Caffeine always gave her courage. If Karl was successful in his hunt, she would need to be brave. She heard the shots during her fourth cup. They were distant and sounded unreal, as if they came from the depths of a dream. She did not bother to look when Karl returned and held up his sack.

"I was right," he said. "A jaguar. Quite rare around here I should imagine. Now even rarer, eh? This will take pride of place in my study." Her reply was a mumble: "Food?" "In about a minute. Take out your knives." He grinned and left the kitchen for his study. He was only halfway there, still in the hallway, when he heard the frantic pounding on the kitchen door, the click as Julia opened it and the desperate voices. "We saw your house in the dark. We need your help!" "There's a madman out there. A madman with a gun!" And moving into his study, Karl found a suitable space on his wall. Then he selected nails and hammer, opened his sack and drew out his prize: a gleaming chrome hubcap. (1990)

Three Friends

The three friends were mountain climbers who had trekked to the roof of the world. They had encountered many dangers on the way and each had taken a turn to plunge down a crevasse. Bound together by ropes as well as friendship, it seemed they had all escaped death by the narrowest of margins. One by one, they had praised their luck and had agreed that teamwork was wonderful. After the end of one particularly difficult day, as the crimson sun impaled itself on the needle peaks of the horizon, the three friends set up their tent on a narrow ledge. The first friend, who had survived the first crevasse, boiled tea on his portable stove and lit his pipe. Stretching his legs out as far as the ledge would allow, he blew a smoke ring and said: "The wind whistles past this mountain like the voice of a ghost, shrill as dead leaves. The icy rock feels like the hand of a very aged corpse. Those lonely clouds far away have taken the form of winged demons. Everything reminds me of the region beyond the grave. I suggest that we all tell ghost stories, to pass the time. I shall go first, if you like." Huddling closer to the stove, the first friend peered at the other two with eyes like black sequins. "This happened to me a long time ago. I was climbing in Austria and had rented a small hunting lodge high in the mountains. Unfortunately, I managed to break my leg on my very first climb and had to rest in the lodge until a doctor could be summoned. Because of a freak snowstorm that same evening, it turned out that I was stuck for a whole week. The lodge had only one bed. My guide, a local climber, slept on the floor.

"Every night, as my fever grew worse, I would ask my guide to fetch me a drink of water from the well outside the lodge. He always seemed reluctant to do this, but would eventually return with a jug of red wine. I was far too delirious to wonder at this, and always drank the contents right down. At the end of the week, when my fever broke, I asked him why he gave me wine rather than water from the well. Shuddering, he replied that the 'wine' had come from the well. I afterwards learned that the original owner of the lodge had cut his wife's throat and had disposed of her body in the obvious way…" The first friend shrugged and admitted that his was a very inconclusive sort of ghost tale, but insisted that it was true nonetheless. He sucked on his pipe and poured three mugs of tea. Far below, the last avalanche of the day rumbled through the twilight. The second friend, who had survived the second crevasse, accepted a mug and nodded solemnly to himself. He seemed completely wrapped up in his own thoughts. Finally, he said: "I too have a ghost story, and mine is true as well. It happened when I was a student in London. I lived in a house where another student had bled to death after cutting off his fingers in his heroic attempt to make his very first cucumber sandwich. I kept finding the fingers in the most unlikely places. They turned up in the fridge, in the bed, even in the pockets of my trousers. One evening, my girlfriend started giggling. We were sitting on the sofa listening to music and I asked her what was wrong. She replied that I ought to stop tickling her. Needless to say, my hands were on my lap. "I consulted all sorts of people to help me with the problem. One kindly old priest came to exorcise the house. I set up mousetraps in the kitchen. But nothing seemed to work. The fingers kept appearing on the carpet, behind books on the bookshelf, in my soup. I grew more and more despondent and reluctantly considered moving. Suddenly, in a dream, the solution came to me. It was a neat solution, and it worked. It was very simple, actually. I bought a cat…" The second friend smiled and sipped his tea. Both he and the first friend gazed across at the third friend. The third friend seemed remote and abstracted. He stared out into the limitless dark. In the light from the stove, he appeared pale and unhealthy. He refused the mug that the first friend offered him. The first two friends urged him to tell a tale, but he shook his head. "Come on," they said, "you must have at least one ghost story to tell. Everybody has at least one." With a deep, heavy sigh, the third friend finally confessed that he did. The first two friends rubbed their hands in delight. They insisted, however, that it had to be true. "Oh, it's true all right," replied the third friend, "and it's easily told. But you might regret hearing it. Especially when you consider that we are stuck on this ledge together for the rest of the night." When the first two friends laughed at this, he raised a hand for silence and began to speak. His words should have been as cold as a glacier and as ponderous, but instead they were casual and tinged with a trace of irony. He said simply: "I didn't survive the third crevasse."

(1993)

The Big Lick

After all, it was a magnificent house. They could feel no regrets as they received the key from the plump fingers of the estate agent. A large detached modern dwelling; the house of the future.One kind of future, at any rate. As a light breeze ruffled the fur on the walls, Tony smiled and opened the door. The house purred. They had been accepted. Inside, they saw that everything was waiting for them exactly as they had arranged. The old battered sofa was there; the one they had bought for their first flat. And the little ornaments from their many travels to exotic lands. And the books and musical instruments scattered over the floor. What more could they ask for? What doubts could they have now? They would be happy here, they would be safe. Tony turned to Claire and embraced her. "Our new home," he said simply. And then, as if determined to wax lyrical before the wax melted, he added, "Debt where is thy sting? Ground Rent where is thy victory?" It was essential to satisfy a few outmoded traditions. Tony attempted to carry Claire over the threshold; he grunted but could not obtain sufficient leverage. So it was Claire who carried Tony over, dumping him in a contented heap before the inglenook of the authentic hearth, on an indigo rug all knotted with abstract designs in colours that should have clashed but did not. They spent the rest of that evening watching the television, snug beyond good taste in each other's company, nibbling shortbread or lobes or upper lips, while some cartoon rodent raced across a landscape as harsh and surreal as any by Dali. The house began to chatter and crouched low, as if ready to spring. With a sudden flash of terrible insight, Tony reached for the remote control and switched channels. Almost at once, the house lost interest. "It's the mouse," Tony explained, referring to the cartoon. "The house was getting excited. We'll have to be more careful." Claire nodded vaguely, her mind too frantic with serenity to pay much attention to his words. She had already hung her needlework above the mantelpiece over the grate, and was already planning a sequel. HOME NUTRASWEET HOME would be a project worthy of a sixmonth energy package, made up of lots of little delicate motions and more thought. The votive lights in her eyes were at once bright and distant. They had first chanced upon the house while gliding on a picnic quest down the road that led out of the city and into the hills. There it had napped, curled up tight, tail wrapped round the trunk of an old tree that lurched out of mossy ground. They had fallen in love with it

immediately; the glistening black fur with the white ruff, the delightful expression and endearing sundries. They had stopped, noticed that it was for sale and had made enquiries. The estate agent was a large oily man with an absurd hairstyle. ArnieTroppmann had been selling state-of-the-art houses for more than a decade. His experience revealed itself every time he smiled; a gold tooth encrusted with diamonds. He mopped his forehead with a contract, shook rancid buttery hands and showed them around the building, pointing out features with an enthusiasm that was not only infectious but positively septic. "These latest models are self-regulating. They have a nervous system based on that of the domesticated cat. As you can see, the fur covers the inside walls as well as the whole exterior, minimizing heat loss. The house is extremely sensitive to outside changes and will warn you of the approach of intruders or rain. It has a superb sense of balance guaranteed to withstand the most violent earthquakes. Also it is self-cleaning. Every Monday night." And now as Claire and Tony blinked in surprise, two enormous eyes appeared on the ceiling from nowhere, flooding the room with soft yellow light. This was another fixture designed for the conservation of energy: reflected starlight amplified and focused wherever it was needed most. The house, they also quickly discovered, had a wonderful sense of smell and hearing. The rose garden seemed constantly within, rather than without, the enclosed lounge, and the music of the wind playing the kazoo on separate blades of grass charmed them to sleep with Aeolian lullabies. The following evening, at roughly the same time, the fur on the walls pricked up alarmingly and the house arched its roof. Tony and Claire were instantly aware that trouble was afoot. Bounding into the kitchen, Tony snatched a garlic crusher and bore it to the front door, which he threw open with a flourish, at the same instant daring any intruder to approach closer. He was startled by a mangy hound that — though no clove — was sufficiently impressed by the unlikely weapon to beat a hasty retreat. "Scat!" cried Tony, which was both completely unnecessary and unnecessarily complete. He pumped the garlic crusher handle a few times in sullen victory. "A stray," he explained to Claire. "An unkempt mutt. Reminded me a little of Toasted Muffin." And he fell into a redundant fugue, a nostalgic slice from the melon of his youth: his dog, his air rifle, the heel of a loaf, the nettle itch and the doc leaf wrap. Toasted Muffin, he recalled, had been run over by a tractor. On Monday night, they decided to stay indoors yet again. It was cleaning night, after all. The estate agent had warned them to absent themselves at this time, but they were too curious to see what would happen. Besides, Troppmann had also suggested that if any problems arose they should come to see him and he would put matters right. So there was nothing to worry about. They waited for the show to begin. They waited and watched. Thus it was that when Troppmann himself was pulled out of bed in the early hours, cursing and sweating, to answer the door, he knew that it would soon be time to start breaking promises. But at first he did not recognise the raw-red couple who leered through the glass door

at him and he refused to let them in. They seemed to be covered in some sticky substance and they pounded on the door with a disturbing sort of squelch. "Please may we have our skins back?" (1994)

Madonna Park

At dawn, they set out with hooks and chains. They followed the rutted road as far as the dry riverbed. They wove between desiccated trees and cut a swath through the grasses of the veldt. "There's one!" cried Travis, squinting into the rising sun. A flash of blue raced across the horizon, a tiny figure with billowing mantle. Travis stood up and grasped the handrail as the tall grasses closed in around them. "A miracle!" Eliot clutched his stomach and groaned. The stench of petrol, the rotting odours of the veldt, left him feeling vaguely disappointed. So far his chief impressions of the hunt were lurching terrain, the glare of sun on metal, the smell of boiling sap. He peered in the direction of Travis's finger, seeing nothing but the flicker of sun through grass. For three days all prey had eluded them. Eliot suspected the priest who blessed their jeep had skimped on the holy water. "What?" he mumbled. "Do you believe in them?" Travis was in high spirits. He bared his yellow teeth and adjusted his fedora over his eyes. His rugged looks, his stoicism, were all second hand. Eliot frowned as he gazed upon the younger man's hair, dyed blue-grey at the temples. The lustrous black of his emerging beard gave the lie to his image. He was probably an avid reader of Hemingway novels. "Miracles? But of course!" The driver nodded his head. A dubious fellow, he claimed to be a Jehovah's Witness. Again, this was all part of the act: you paid your money and the illusions shimmered at your feet, refracted by the hot air of the promoters. "Do we not owe all this to one? Tears of blood!" Travis had chosen the role of a Lutheran. He struck the floor of the jeep with the stock of his rifle. "Hurry!" The package had included the malaria that varnished his forehead with perpetual sweat. The skin cancer cells, grown in culture and grafted onto his cheeks, were not unlovely – they formed an archipelago of dark colour on his bland features and raw-red complexion.

The Driver thrust a pungent cheroot between his lips and changed gear as they bumped over something that squealed. Abruptly, they burst out of the long grasses into a flatter area of savannah. Ahead, a herd of blue figures looked up in alarm and began stampeding across the wide landscape. "Mothers of God!" Eliot shook his head in amazement. He had never expected to see a whole herd. Even though his role of extremist Quaker had originally seemed a poor fit, he felt his heart swelling with anticipation of the kill. His stomach forgotten, he joined Travis at the rail. Travis was mumbling a prayer beneath his breath. His fingers were busy slotting silver bullets into his magazine, like the beads of a lethal rosary. The blue tide surged away from them, the fleetest of foot leaving the older ones behind. It was not long before they reached their first target, a toothless crone, her mantle and halo both faded with age. Travis loosed a shot and caught her in the neck. She fell without a groan. "Bravo!" The Driver roared his approval and Travis's eyes lit up with pride. He began firing carefully into the general herd, saliva dribbling down his chin. Eliot took aim but the jeep lurched and a puff of dust bloomed at the feet of his target. After the crones came the youngsters, the children, who screamed as they fell, with irritating high-pitched wails that offended the ear. Splashes of red on blue showed Eliot he was learning to handle his weapon with greater efficiency – and these were too small to be easy targets. The ones they did not hit they tried to run down. As the victims mounted, the Driver fixed tiny crucifix transfers to the door of the jeep, steering with one hand and exhaling cheroot smoke through his flaring nostrils. They skidded on a patch of blood; Eliot lost his balance and fell back with a thud. Travis laughed. "Die papist swine!" His eyes, glazed with blood lust, fluttered. One of the figures did not attempt to flee. She merely stood and awaited their approach. Eliot blinked. Although all these beings were just aspects of a single entity, there seemed to be something special about her. Travis signalled for the Driver to stop. He jumped down from the jeep, stalked across to the target, placed the rifle against her head and fired. The gun jammed: he had paid good money for this. He licked his lips and drew his knife. As he did so, the figure opened her mouth and said something. Eliot was unable to hear her words, but the tone had a strange effect on him. He wanted to weep. He turned away and hid his face until Travis returned to the jeep. "Is she dead? How did she die?" Travis showed him his knife. "Like a virgin." "What did she say?"

"She forgave me." Travis grinned. "Forgave all my sins. You should have come down too. Saved your soul as well." Later, they drove back to the clubhouse to have their photograph taken. The Madonnas would be stripped of their mantles and thrown into pits – the mantles taken to a nearby processing plant for lapis lazuli extraction. On the way back, they passed a bus taking a coachload of pensioners on a guided hunt. The tannoy system blared at them, fading in and out of audibility as they lurched past: "Welcome to Heaven-on-Earth… latest extravaganza of Prejudice Inc… utilising techniques of modern science… the perfect opportunity to settle scores… Thanks to a statue of Our Lady in Verona which has started weeping blood… top scientists have succeeded in isolating the DNA of Mother Mary herself… In the confines of this park… no less than a thousand Madonna clones… different ages…" "Dilettantes!" Travis snarled. Senile faces peered at them from the tinted windows of the bus, eyeing their catch with dim jealousy. Behind them in the dust, on the hooks and chains, forty Madonnas bounced along the rutted road — a respectable hoard by any standards. Travis was flushed. Eliot felt it was only partly with excitement. "There are no males loose in the park are there?" he ventured. The Driver scowled. "Of course not! This is a moral outfit. A Lutheran should know this. Ask your complimentary pastor for more details." Travis frowned and pulled out his knife. He looked at the blade. "If I take the trip again, I'll have to come as an atheist." "What are you talking about?" Travis shrugged. "The one I killed with my knife." He abruptly broke down, though it was difficult for Eliot to tell whether his tears were those of despair or mirth. "She was pregnant." (1995)

Suttee and Sweep

"I need more space," said Mr Sweep to his wife. Martha gritted her teeth. At first she had tolerated his growing introspection, his reversion to a childlike state, because she believed it was only a temporary reaction to stress. But six

months had passed and he still showed no sign of emerging back into the adult world. On the contrary, he now wanted more time alone, not that he considered himself to be isolated in the basement he had converted into a private playroom. They had argued about that many times. "Your puppets aren't real!" she kept insisting. A crafty look would come into his eyes. "Of course they're real. What you mean is that they aren't alive, but you're wrong about that too. They are alive, all of them, Noddy is my favourite, he's my best friend and he listens to me." "No he doesn't." She always felt too exhausted to reason with him. "Noddy shows more understanding than you ever did. The other puppets are fine too, but Noddy's special. Some of the modern puppets are made of plastic but Noddy is wooden and his eyes are real glass. The others say stupid things in low whispers but Noddy only delivers nuggets of wisdom or remains silent. He never stops listening to me, though. He hears everything." And so it went. She would throw up her hands in defeat and leave him to his own devices. Before moving to this house he had been relatively normal. Something about this place had changed him, started his obsession with puppets, compelled him to visit junk shops and jumble sales in an attempt to add to his collection. Now he had all the puppets he wanted and never went out. Nor did he allow her to go down into the basement. Once, when he was fast asleep, she tiptoed down the stairs and switched on the light. The puppets stood in a large cardboard box in the centre of the room and she formed the distinct impression they were disappointed by her sudden arrival. A curious illusion. "I need more space," Mr Sweep repeated. "You're getting in the way." "You need a psychiatrist," responded Martha. "No, I'm not mad, you don't understand. I know that puppets aren't normally alive, but mine are different, at least they are different here. My puppets can dance if they want to, and in fact they are constantly dancing in their souls, but they don't physically move for my sake. They told me why. Puppets build up a lot of resentment over the years, forced to move and jump at the whim of a human owner, with no choice in the matter." "Puppets don't have souls, you fool!" "Martha, listen to me. All that resentment eventually becomes a blind force. Provided the status quo isn't disturbed, everything will be fine, but if they are ever compelled or urged to move on their own all that pent up energy will be unleashed at once. That's when they will become truly dangerous. Imagine an avalanche of puppets! But it's fine right now, just dandy. They dance deep down inside only. This is a holy place for them. Our home, I mean."

She snorted in derision. "Why?" "Because it has been built on the site of a puppets' graveyard!" She wanted to beat her fists against the top of his head, but she restrained herself and plotted a more subtle revenge. She decided to use his own delusions against him. The following morning she went out for an hour, killing time in the park but returning with a great show of excitement, slamming doors and calling for him. He emerged reluctantly from the basement, his eyes full of annoyance but not suspicion. "Something strange just happened!" she gasped. "What was it?" he muttered. "I went shopping and took a short cut through the park and I came across a group of puppets balancing in a tree. It was almost as if they were lost and trying to get their bearings by studying the landscape from a higher vantage. I could swear they were alive! I ran back as fast as possible to tell you." "What did they look like?" Mr Sweep bellowed. "One of them was a very old gnome, another was a policeman, a third was a clockwork mouse, and I also noticed a wobbly man, a set of anthropomorphic skittles, a pair of goblins and a sort of bunny-monkey hybrid." Mr Sweep's eyes bulged. "Are you serious? Those are all Noddy's friends! His friends from the original Noddy books! They must be searching for him! I'd better go and find them." "I'm sure they're still there," said Martha. He hurried out and Martha grinned to herself. Then she set to work building a fire in the unused grate in the front room. For the first time in many months she felt alive, suffused with joy, vengeful, energised. As for Mr Sweep, he scoured the park in vain, squinting up at each tree and shuddering with an unspecified fear. He had a touch of agoraphobia due to his long confinement indoors but he forced himself to continue until the light began to fade. He was bitterly disappointed and returned home slowly, imagining that the lost puppets had climbed down from the tree and gone off in the wrong direction. What was wrong with them? Couldn't they detect the emanations of the puppets' graveyard and use that to guide them? But he cheered up when he reached his front door and saw the note taped there. He read the first two lines of it and was so delighted he snatched it into his hand, entered his house, slid the bolt and piled the hallway furniture against the door. He was scared Martha might change her mind and come back.

The beginning of her note said: "I have gone forever. You wanted more space and so I now give you all the space you could ever need..." He danced into the front room. Alone with his puppets at last! He was laughing so hard, his eyes were so blurry with tears of happiness, that it was a full minute before he understood there was a fire in the hearth. He blinked and his blood turned to acid. Then he was up and running to the kitchen for a pan of water. It took several trips to extinguish the abominable blaze. Martha had ignited the entire box of puppets! The individual figures weren't utterly consumed yet. Some of the plastic models had melted over the others and hardened under the impact of the cold water. Mr Sweep found himself gazing at a monster composed of many charred and twisted limbs and mutant heads, the vilest abortion in the history of puppetry. And it moved! The level of resentment was simply too high to repress any longer. The disgusting mess in the grate was alive and it wanted revenge on the nearest human! Only Noddy had been spared, his favourite puppet, because Mr Sweep had taken him to the park. Noddy fell out of the wide pocket of his jacket and lay on the floor, idiotic head bouncing on its spring. The rest of Martha's note said: "You are married to those damn puppets but you are dead to me. Do you know what happened long ago in India when a man died? His wife was burned alive on his funeral pyre. Our marriage is dead and so I have incinerated those who you loved. There is no puppets' graveyard here, only a crematorium!" Mr Sweep was too terrified to move, but even if he had run it wouldn't have done him any good. His exit was barred. Noddy kept nodding at his feet, still loyal but helpless. Mr Sweep groaned. Why had he asked for more space? Space was terrible, a place where nobody was there to offer help. The malevolent mass reached him. His mouth opened and something came out. A sound. In space, Noddy can hear you scream. (2007)

The Gunfight

"The English are coming," said Hopkins. "Following us, they are," confirmed Jones. He frowned and tapped his commander on the shoulder. "I thought you said we won the battle?" "So I did," responded Williams, "and so we have." "Then why are the English chasing us?" Bullets zinged into the undergrowth on all sides. The moonlight streamed through the holes in perforated leaves. The spores of shredded mushrooms floated. "And firing at us!" squeaked the other Jones. "Because we didn't win the battle in the right way. Instead of winning it in the style of a victory, we won it in the style of a defeat," explained Williams. "That's why." "Daft, that is," commented Hopkins. The first Jones said, "If that's the way it is, we're done for. Here's a bloody ravine with no way across." "Doomed, we are," agreed Hopkins. "Not at all, boyo. Look here!" cried Price. "An abandoned cottage is what that seems to be," said Williams, "and maybe we can knock on the door to see if anyone's at home?" "Who would live in an abandoned cottage," wondered the first Jones, "on the edge of a ravine? That's daft." More bullets pinged around his head, striking sparks from the stone wall. He was about to speak again but Hopkins interrupted him: "Maybe we can live there? At least until the English go away. What do you think about that?" "Perfect place for a redoubt," said Thomas. "What's a redoubt?" asked Price. "Something that is doubted more than once," ventured the other Jones, but Williams clucked his tongue and shook his head. "Don't be daft. A redoubt is a kind of stronghold or sanctuary."

"That's clever," commented Thomas. Bullets continued to whiz. Williams tried the front door and realised it was locked, but Hopkins noticed that a window was open. "Someone help me and I'll climb through," he said. "That's smart," said the first Jones. Hopkins stood on Price and clambered inside. "Dark in here. Come and join me. Hurry up!" he hissed. Williams sighed and said: "Don't be daft. Pull us through. Give me your hand." One at a time they were drawn into the interior of the deserted cottage. Williams groped with outstretched hands but the room was bare. Then he remembered his electric torch and turned it on. There were no furnishings of any sort but a broken lightbulb dangled from a cord in the middle of the ceiling. Williams rummaged in the pocket of his jacket for a spare bootlace and used it to suspend his torch from the lightbulb cord. He had to ask for a volunteer to crouch down on all fours so he could stand on his back and reach. It was Thomas who finally agreed to do this. As Williams jumped down he said: "A fine bloody pickle we're in, boyos. We can't retreat any further and if we make our last stand here, a few grenades chucked through the window will finish us all off. We've only gained a few minutes of safety. So we must counterattack!" "Why don't we just surrender?" asked the first Jones. In the cone of dim light Williams displayed an ugly grin. "Don't take prisoners, the English. Heard all about it from my dad. He told me what they were like. No quarter is what we can expect from them. Blot us out, they will! We have to go back out and take the fight to them. But we'll prepare ourselves properly. Make ourselves immune to their bullets. I know a way of doing that!" "Is it a magic dance?" asked Price. "Daft, that is," commented Thomas, but Williams spoke over him: "Not a dance, no, because there's no such thing as magic. Science is the only way to make things work. My uncle went to college to learn medicine, he did, and he brought back lots of those oblong things called books. I remember them well. I was only a child but I knew how to read because my mam taught me. Uncle Dewi let me read his college books and I learned secrets from them. Such secrets!" "That's lucky," said Hopkins.

Williams nodded. "One of the secrets I learned was called vaccination. Sounds like a magic word but it's not, it's a scientific word. It means curing a disease in advance by being infected with a weaker version of that disease. The body fights the weaker version and beats it and in the process develops the ability to take on and defeat the bigger disease. We can vaccinate ourselves against the English, see?" "How will we do that, boyo?" blinked the second Jones. Williams smiled faintly. "Listen carefully and tell me what kind of ammunition the English are using." The bullets continued to hiss and clang outside. "I think it's .45 calibre," said Price. "That's correct. Fired from semi-automatic pistols. And now tell me what kind of cartridge we use in our own guns," continued Williams. "The size is .22, isn't it?" answered Hopkins. Williams nodded and reached for his holster. With a deft motion he drew out his pistol and waved it in front of his men. "The English have got the bigger ones. So we can vaccinate ourselves against them, but how can they vaccinate themselves against us? They would be daft to try. One shot of this for all of us and we'll become immune to their bullets. Then we can go out and kill the lot of them. Easy when you know how…" "That's logical," said Thomas without any conviction. "Come on, form a queue. Not a request but an order. Want to beat them properly, don't we? You first, Jones." "Not me, boyo," cried the first Jones but Williams shot him anyway. "Daft!" objected Hopkins but he also got a bullet in the face. So did Price, Thomas and the other Jones. Williams licked his lips. His men sprawled on the floor in ungainly postures. Blood trickled. "A bit sore, I suppose," he said sympathetically. He waited a whole minute, then he frowned. "Come on, get up. We have to go out and face the English. No need to be scared, you're immune now. What's the matter? Having a rest first, are you? Fine, but don't make it too long. Be here soon, the English will." His men still didn't stir. Their eyes held a glazed look.

Williams sighed. "I'm going to vaccinate myself now and the moment I've had my shot, the time for resting is over. Serious, I am. You must be ready to leave when I'm done. Supposed to be fighting the English, we are. The bloody English. Do you hear me?" He jammed the barrel into his open mouth and pulled the trigger. He fell down. His own blood poured out of his head and joined the spreading puddle on the floor. It might have been nice if that puddle had formed a significant Welsh shape, a red dragon perhaps, or a daffodil, or even a leek, but it didn't. (2009)

Plutonian Parodies

Dedicated to the memories of: Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) and Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) Poe Pie * The Lollipop God is Dead * The Sun Trap

Poe Pie

Hunger had long debilitated my body. When my belly was only half its former size, I summoned a cab and went off into the night. We soon reached my specified destination and a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I remember the buzz of curiosity that my advent excited within the precincts of the building. I am the descendant of a race whose imaginative temperament has at all times rendered them remarkable, but this was not the reason for the general fuss as I crossed the room and found a seat at an empty table. The very fact I had passed through the door was enough. All who enter this establishment are greeted in the same manner. Bewildered by the brilliancy of the menu brought to me by a tall and gaunt waiter who was shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave, and with my ears deafened by my own carefully voiced choices, I neither saw nor heard the closing of the manacles upon my wrists and ankles. I had been chained to the iron chandelier directly above my head! With a sudden tug this chandelier was drawn up and I felt myself dangling high over the other customers. An ingenious apparatus now came into play and I was trundled along rails set into the

ceiling at a frightful velocity towards a pair of swing doors located near the top of the wall. Once through these doors the manacles opened and I found myself plummeting down a chute. I swooned but will not say that all of consciousness was lost. In absolute darkness I slid and tumbled and the metaphysical concepts that absorbed the entirety of my remaining attention were typically and conveniently unutterable. At times I believed myself caught in a maelström in the realms of the boreal pole. Amid a roaring and bellowing I was at last deposited in an unknown place at an unknown time. I felt that I lay upon my back. I reached out my hand and it fell heavily upon something damp and soft and I strove to imagine where I could be. My eyes were still closed and I longed, yet dared not, employ my vision. I dreaded the first glance at objects around me. At length, with a wild desperation at heart, I quickly opened my eyes. By a disturbing yellowish lustre, the origin of which I could not at first determine, I was enabled to see the extent and aspect of my prison. The walls of this circular chamber were constructed of spherical bricks many rows deep. Looking upward, I surveyed the ceiling and my attention was riveted by what appeared to be a gigantic spoon gently swinging on a stout rope like the huge pendulum of an antique clock. Then I realised with a start that it was much nearer than I had supposed it to be, and thus much smaller, no larger in fact than an ordinary tablespoon, well within my grasp if I stood on tiptoe. The rope turned out to be stout only by the same trick of perspective, for in reality it was no more than an insignificant length of string that broke when I snatched the spoon. Here was my tool of escape! Holding it before me I attacked the substance of my confinement. Juice spurted and I shrieked. The bricks were melons — peeled carefully and selected for their flavour — honeydew melons! Without so much as a napkin to wipe my chin, I began to gorge my way to freedom. Buried alive! Buried alive in melons! I wielded my spoon with greater force. To the right — to the left — far and wide — up to my mouth and down again! I alternately laughed and howled, dribbling incessantly, my lips and slick tongue moving convulsively as I chewed and swallowed. Slowly — with a tortoise gradation — I approached the brighter light of the other side. I groaned and slipped on cool melon flesh, a wretch to these fruits foredoomed! Exhausted and stuffed I stumbled out into a chamber illuminated by smoky torches set in iron brackets fixed to black stone walls. This chamber was ornately decorated and gave the impression of existing in some secret underground crypt, the vaults of an immense unholy cathedral. Seated before me on an elevated platform were three figures dressed in cloaks and pointed hoods who glared at me. I was sick — sick unto death with all those melons — and yet I heard clearly enough the sentence they passed on me. I saw the lips of my judges, thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness — of immovable resolution — of stern contempt of sensible eating habits. The candle flames wavered and I almost fainted at the finality of the words addressed to me: "Take him away and incarcerate him in the lasagne! The vegetable lasagne! And let him be accompanied by a light salad."

Unseen hands seized me, my shirt was stuffed with lettuce leaves and slices of cucumber and I was dragged down a corridor into a room smelling strongly of the preheated Ovens of Hell. A trapdoor was raised in the centre of the floor and into the gaping pit thus exposed I was thrust. I fell and knocked my head and lost my senses but this relief was only temporary, for when I recovered I found myself standing between two barriers of green pasta, obviously flavoured with spinach, barriers that were moving towards each other, threatening to crush me between them! With a howl of desperation I lashed out, shredding them with my fists, but although they dropped limply to the floor I perceived two new barriers behind them, barriers made of chopped courgettes, mushrooms and tomatoes, cooked in a merciless pan and compressed into a solid layer by some incredible pressure. I punched and kicked my way through these barriers also, only to discover another pair of pasta walls. It seemed the substance of these barriers alternated in this manner right to the limits of the crust — if crust there was! As this awful conviction forced itself into the innermost chambers of my soul, I cried aloud and fell to my knees. I had not sufficient strength or technique to punch through every layer. Then an idea came to me. The belt I wear is remarkable for its dull, dark and soundless buckle. Drawing it quickly out of the belt loops of my trousers, I stood and employed it as a whip, cracking it left and right and smashing layer after layer of pasta and vegetable paste. This method of attack promised complete success until a horrible disaster sabotaged hope! My trousers had been gradually working loose all this time — by imperceptible degrees — but abruptly they quivered — oh dear! and — fell down! I was left in the unenviable position of having to insert my belt back through the loops and reserving the buckle to spare my blushes rather than my life. At this point my hand strayed to my pocket and discovered the spoon that had delivered me from the melons. My judges had not thought to search me before casting me to the lasagne! Now I fought back with renewed confidence, jamming spoonful after spoonful of pasta and vegetables into my maw. The most notorious feeling of fullness must, in the end, yield to the untiring rapacity of simple greed. At last, dishevelled and bloated, I devoured my way through the final barrier. But the catalogue of horrors was not to have reached its climax so soon. I now found myself facing an enormous ape, or at the very least a man wearing an ape suit. As I recoiled in alarm this beast brandished a razor and cried, "You could have had the pudding or the tart, but you ordered the cheese — that takes the biscuit!" I shrieked and fled and realised that I was trapped in a maze made of cheese, a Leerdammer labyrinth, or rather that the maze itself was the inside of a titanic cheese riddled with the holes that served as passages from nowhere to nowhere else. Wherever I ran I heard the heavy breathing of my pursuer, his infrequent grunts and occasional curses as he tripped in his clumsy costume. Fleeing in circles was pointless. I had no option but to eat my way right through the dividing walls of this maze to the outside. I spooned and chewed with wild abandon, my stomach on the point of bursting, my blood overwhelmed with cholesterol, my teeth overworked, my New Year's Resolutions out the window, my sentiments utterly cheesy.

At last I broke into the outside world! I found myself in a little space with a low wooden ceiling and a circumference of red cloth. Crawling under this hanging I discovered that I had emerged directly beneath the table from which I had been snatched by the monstrous chandelier! I slumped in my chair and summoned the tall and gaunt waiter. He appeared promptly and chuckled with sepulchral derision as he asked, "Everything to your dissatisfaction, sir?" "Cheque please!" "May I interest you in a coffee?" "Cheque please!" "How about a complimentary mint?" "Cheque please!" "Pass your hand over my tray. You cannot help feeling it is loaded with mints. Once more let me implore you to take one. No? Then I must positively press upon you a heated towel." "For the love of God, cheque please !" "He!he! he! — ha! ha! ha! — yes, the cheque. I will bring it to you with my own hands, these same hands that fought the conquering worm in the tomb, and I will laugh a long and bitter laugh, a laugh for which men have deemed me mad, but the question is not yet settled whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence — whether much that is glorious — whether all that is profound — does not spring from disease of thought — from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen..." "Villain!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I have lots of spare change! — dip into my pockets! — here, here! — it is an overgenerous tip!" I scarcely remember leaving my table and passing out through the door. The moment I found myself in the street I shrieked and fled and did not cease until it started to rain and I needed to hail a cab. I have been warned on many occasions never to order a three-course meal in that establishment. Wise advice! And yet I believe I escaped lightly. The previous month an acquaintance of mine wandered in and ordered a single course consisting of a pie — an ashen and sober pie with crisped and sere edges. It arrived at his table carried on the shoulders of six pallbearers. It was shaped like a coffin. When he removed the lid with his knife, he saw it was occupied by a corpse with features identical to his! An instant later this corpse sprang up to a sitting position, pointed a finger and moaned the words, 'Thou art the man!' My acquaintance lashed out with his napkin and the whole frame of the corpse — within the space of a single minute or less, shrunk — crumbled — absolutely rotted away beneath him. Inside the pie there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome — of detestable putrescence. My

acquaintance also struck the pie itself and this also dissolved into a nearly liquid mass of detestable putrescence. Then the waiter ran up. He also crumbled into a nearly liquid mass of detestable putrescence. The same held true for the table and chair. Everything my acquaintance struck with his napkin turned into a nearly liquid mass of detestable putrescence. Utterly unhinged by such horror, he went on a rampage until even the walls of the establishment melted down around his ears. It was a traumatic experience and now he has a phobia of detestable putrescences. He cannot bear to be near them. This phobia has significantly affected his everyday life. He takes unnatural precautions to avoid the possibility of coming to contact with nearly liquid masses of detestable putrescence, deliberately making detours around morgues, abattoirs and scenes of industrial accident. I find it difficult even to persuade him to frolic in the compost heap. He has suffered much. My own sufferings were far less intense and yet I have still decided never again to dine at the Café Poe. (2005)

The Lollipop God is Dead

I am an elderly man and the time has come for me to pass on the sacred staff of my profession. My thirty-second birthday was a solemn affair, held in the upstairs room of the PRINCESS LOUISE, a tavern in that part of London known as Old Holborn. We age not as normal people do, but that is the price of the secret. I ordered a selection of drinks at the bar and lined them up. When I felt the risk was minimal, I waved them across one at a time into my other hand, and from there into my mouth. We take our work very seriously. My colleagues circulated around me, chattering and laughing, croaking and shuddering, drooling and gasping as was their wont — for want of a better desire. They came in limited shapes and shades, lank and stooped and creased, though an occasional rotund one proved we are not exact copies of each other. Most leaned on their staffs, some roamed free but none sat at tables, for the art of balancing on stools is still a mystery to our fraternity. The altar was all but forgotten for the moment, lonely in an unlighted corner. I believe my name was once Bernie. My introduction to the secret came when I was still a child. That is generally the way. In turn I had won many new disciples for my masters until my level of experience earned me promotion to the highest ranks. Now I was the supreme ruler and the trappings of my previous life, including the names that ordinary men called me, were insignificant or disgusting. But power did not corrupt me. I was always aware I was merely a vassal of forces that lurked beyond the mortal spheres of perception. My life had been worn out in the service of our particular gods, strange deities who mockingly adopted a few postures and habits of human culture while retaining a dark sense of cosmic inscrutability that pulsed most horribly behind the façade. Whenever I beheld one of

them in the flesh I was reminded awfully of a bland mask being pushed into a wall of rotten cheese with the greenish stuff oozing through the holes for eyes and nostrils and mouth in unbroken cords like untrimmed worms. I worshipped them but I was shocked by their presence. I was close to death and the idea I might soon be free of my responsibilities filled me both with relief and regret. But we do not flinch from complex emotions. I finished my final drink and turned to regard my friends and underlings. No member of our order has ever lived beyond the age I was presently at, for each year withers us with the cruelty of an entire century. I blinked at my surroundings and smiled. This tavern was a traditional establishment with brass rails, smoked glass and real ale in the cellars. A good place for the ultimate retirement. My gaze fixed itself on the altar. It was a bare plinth in truth, for no idol was necessary to adorn it. The real thing would appear soon enough as a witness. And then in its divine or grotesque presence I would select my replacement and give him my blessing and the god would approve my choice and recognise my chosen heir as the new supreme ruler. He did not yet know it, but I had settled on a man called Roger. I had followed his career with interest for many months and was convinced he had the right qualities to assume my role. The gods in our pantheon are innumerable and possibly infinite, but there is one who is a sort of messenger to all the others. He appears to us more regularly than his brothers. He seems to enjoy our civilisation and customs and sometimes even spends time here without being summoned. I saw him once in Regent's Park in the distance. On another occasion he rented a house near Gipsy Hill. A few reports even claim he owns a bookshop in Clapham. I do not censure him for any of this. I only hope he takes care on the roads. The roads are always so busy! The traffic in London was once merely bad but now it is simply appalling. Our order is needed more than ever. Yet the sacred staff is no longer universally respected. There are arrogant drivers out there and some are even women! But there is no use fretting about the state of the world, for my true concerns lie outside it — in that place inhabited by my gods and their dreams and yawns, where the only road is made from stars or darkness, I am not yet sure which. Perhaps both. A layer of stars tarmacked with darkness. My white coat had started to feel heavy on my shoulders, a sure sign my end was rapidly approaching. The tinkle of glasses resembled the collision of the headlights of two impacting vehicles. No, that is an exaggeration, but I am old and should be forgiven. I shuffled closer to the altar and the room fell silent and faces gaped at me. The time for chattering and drooling was over. The official ceremony was about to commence. I indicated the traffic cones at the four corners of the altar. The symbolism was simple but powerful and the atmosphere suddenly became tense. The masters and novices moved into position and I stood to one side and took a deep breath. My lungs rattled with unearthly music and the acidic spittle at the back of my throat audibly hissed and sizzled as it eroded the superfluous passages in the speech I was about to make. I had committed it wholly to memory. No written evidence of the secret must ever be permitted to exist. Or rather, no outsiders must be allowed to suspect our members of anything

other than the humblest and most generous of motives. That is why this report has been written in poison ink. Before you rush off to seek medical attention, listen to my speech, for the secret is contained within it, and I might as well share it with you as your final request. Here is a faithful transcript of what I said: "Brothers! We are the lollipop men! We are the stuffy men, shoulders flecked with dandruff. Alas! No more poetry from me, dear comrades, because I am too worn out and shrivelled. We all know the reason for this gathering. It is time for me to announce my successor before I leave this tavern and find a nice doorway in which to curl up and die. To expire on the street is my fondest wish, as it must be for you too. The bustle and danger of the road is part of what makes us real. The wrinkles on our faces closely match the byways of a city map. "Yes, my work is almost done, but for you the task continues. The manipulation of human evolution to empower our gods is the noblest of professions and yet we must live and act with few of those glories regularly heaped upon mundane heroes. The lollipop man should perform his true mission with absolute stealth. When the children are lined up ready on one side of a busy road, it is he alone who must detect those of a superior type and ensure they cross safely. Thus he aids their preservation and the development of our species. "If the public ever became aware of our real intentions, they would condemn us as elitists or fascists, but our grading of the worth of mortals has nothing to do with race, class or culture and everything to do with a greater or lesser refinement of the imagination. We seek to protect those children who are usually denounced as dreamy or abstracted, for they are more sensitive to the dimensions beyond this one. Through them our gods may meddle with the affairs of this world more effectively. They are the future of our ideals and must be safeguarded at all costs. "But you already know all this. These children are the ones most in danger from traffic because they rarely look where they are going. Therefore our society exists! Every man in this room was once such a child. Did we wonder at the motives of the lollipop man who befriended us and took us into his confidence? Did we flinch on the night we were formally enrolled into the order? Most experiences can become commonplace and even bland. But there is one thing that never fails to inspire awe and ecstatic terror in all of us — the physical manifestation of one of our gods! "And now, my friends, prepare yourselves once again to behold a deity who has a special meaning for those who wield the lollipop. You will chant for him and he will come, for it is necessary that he witness the nomination of my heir. Chant for him, dear colleagues! Already I detect a faint odour of something sweet! Call for him with the old chants, the gruesome ditties, and watch the space above the altar. First it will shimmer and the air will seem to harden and then he will pop fully into existence, the sucking god, stylish and bald — Kojakulhu!" I finished my speech by pounding my sacred staff on the floor with all my strength. On various tables throughout the room glasses jumped. Then the weird songs began. Clustered before the altar in their grubby coats, this hideous choir appeared to have fused into a single

misshapen entity like many unwrapped lollipops left in a pocket on a hot day. The first incantation had a tropical rhythm that only increased my sense of diabolical joy. I listened with approval to the words and I swayed out of time, ignoring the pounding in my head of my sluggish blood.

Our god lollipop You make our hearts go giddy-up You set the world afire You are our one desire Oh, our lollipop

Slowly the altar changed itself from a cold plinth into something profound, a gateway from spheres far beyond unlighted cosmic gulfs into the humble environment of an Old Holborn tavern. I watched with a thin smile, the best I could manage, for I suddenly felt very ill and knew my remaining lifespan might now be measured in hours. As the chant progressed, so the surface of the altar no longer remained bare. Something very nebulous was forming there, streaked with colour and pulsing with an energy utterly inhuman and totally amoral. It was beautiful.

We love you, we love you, we love you so But we don't want you to know We fear you, we fear you, we fear you so And you'll never let us go

I could no longer restrain myself. I shouted, "It is he! Kojakulhu is coming!" And I clapped my desiccated hands, my staff resting in the crook of my arm. A bulbous shape had congealed above the altar but it was still indefinite and difficult to focus on. Strange mists swirled around it like alien exhaust fumes and the sickly odour I had noted earlier became almost overpowering. I began to pant and wondered whether I might last long enough to complete the ritual. Then the melody altered to one even more vile with words that I can scarcely force myself to record.

On the GOD ship lollipop It's a bitter trip to a poison shop Where monsters loom Above the sticky bones of your doom

Without warning he burst through the invisible barrier that separates his reality from ours. At least that is what I originally assumed. But something was wrong. I imagined at first he had daubed his smooth head with ochre, but then I saw that one lens of his sunglasses was cracked. He did not stand tall but squatted and clutched his knees and rocked on his heels. He seemed to be shivering. Then I noticed the tyre marks on his body. I think my colleagues missed none of this too, but we all waited for him to articulate his customary greeting. "Who loves ya? Eh? WHO loves ya?" It was uttered more like a genuine question than the unanswerable formula it was supposed to be. I retreated a step because I had no convincing reply. Kojakulhu removed his sunglasses with a flick of one hand and we saw that his eyes were full of uncomprehending pain. His throat rippled as he attempted to speak again. It was essential the greeting was completed. We strained our ears, assuming it would come out as a hiss, but in fact the god found enough strength from somewhere to bawl more loudly than he had ever done. "Who loves ya BABEEE'YAYAYAYAAAA... ngh'aaaa... ngh'aaaa... h'yuh... h'yuh... ffff-ff... ygnaiih... thflthkh'ngha... y'bthnk... h'ehye-n'grkdl'lh...?" He keeled over before we could applaud. Cosmic gore dripped from the altar onto the floor. At that very moment we were interrupted by a new arrival. Heavy boots crashed up the stairs. It was Roger! I had not noticed that my intended replacement was absent! He glanced from face to face and mumbled an embarrassed apology. Then he smiled as if we had already forgiven him and I realised he was too impulsive and careless to make an effective supreme ruler. But I had already picked him in my heart. He would have to suffice. At last he spoke. "Sorry for being so late. Terrible accident at Marble Arch!" I choked back my tears. "Describe it." He approached the altar and blinked at the crushed god. "It was exactly like that!" And then he collapsed to his knees and began raving about how something had stepped out in front of his vehicle without looking. The blame was not his.

I retorted coldly, "Lollipop men are not supposed to drive." He bowed his head and remained silent. There was a murmuring among the gathering. It was very rare for one of our gods to die. Tradition demanded that Kojakulhu be replaced. But how? It was unanimously agreed that my retirement should be cancelled. It seemed I was about to be promoted one last time — from man to deity. This had happened only once before in the history of our order. My instinct was to refuse, but my reason is more responsible than that. It encouraged me to accept. My colleagues clapped and helped remove my white coat. I muttered a prayer to myself. Many hands gently lowered the foul but beloved corpse of Kojakulhu from the altar. The octopus cape was unknotted from his flattened shoulders and draped over mine. I mounted the empty plinth with the aid of my staff. Then I ordered Roger to stand up straight. He did so and I stretched out my staff to him. He took it with a nervous nod of gratitude. I was not yet convinced that being transformed into a god was preferable to curling up in a doorway to die. I was weary but my work had only just begun, hideous and ineffable toil at that! I needed to say something. Our gods mock certain forms of popular human culture and so it was essential I did the same. I was stuck for long moments, unable to think of suitable phrases. Then it all came to me. I threw back my head and screamed: "Y'ai'Ng'NgahOgthrodAi'fGeb'l-Ee'hH'ee-L'gebF'aiThrodogUaaah'Ngah'ng Eh-ya-ya-yayahaahYog-STARSKY Uaaah ' Ngah'ngAi'yh'yuhH'ee-L'gebTekeli-HUTCH Uaaaahygnaiiiihthflthkh'ngha HUGGEEE'YAYAYAYAHAAH BEAR...!" These words danced easily but horribly around the room and I knew I was already partly a real god. My former colleagues shuffled closer to chant me the other way through this cosmic gate — into undreamed regions beyond the descriptive power of any sentence, however convoluted and clumsy and forcefed with unimaginable nouns and nameless adjectives. But before I allowed them to send me on my baleful but extraordinary journey, I issued my final command. I instructed them to tattoo this report, the story you are reading, on the bare chest of Roger, my replacement, as a punishment. "Use poison inks and sharp needles!" I cried. "And if anyone is foolish enough to publish him, make sure the same inks are employed in the printing process." Turning to the man himself I added, "Your reign as supreme ruler will be very brief but none the less valid for that. I suggest you already start considering who will replace you. And if you have any respect for our order, you will act like a liar for the remainder of your brief lifespan. Now I am ready! It is time for me to cross into the higher dimensions. Are both ways clear? Look left, look right, look left again! Wish me the best of luck and the worst of scenarios!" The chanting began and I suddenly felt less old. The world slowly faded away and I felt other presences close behind me. Something large and sticky brushed my shoulder. I was crossing the road of stars tarmacked with darkness! I drew my octopus cape more tightly about myself. It tickled. I address my final human words to the reader. Listen carefully! Everything I have told you so far is untrue. Lollipop men have no secret agenda at all. The next time you see

one on the street remember that he is innocent. His gods do not palpitate like melting sweets behind the counter of unlighted gulfs. (2002)

NOTE: Because Roger did as he was told and acted like a liar, the story tattooed on him was disbelieved by all who read it. But the denials in the final paragraph were certain to be disbelieved anyway. The result is a double disbelief, a disbelief of the disbelief, which means that the story can now be accepted as doubtlessly true.

The Sun Trap

It was hot. I went into a bar. Inside it was cool. The barman looked at me and said, "What'll it be?" He was sweaty. I needed a drink, so I licked my lips and asked for a gin sling. It was hot outside. The barman frowned and said, "What did you say?" "I'll have a gin sling, that's what I said," I said. "A gin sling?" the barman said. "A gin sling," I said. He made me a gin sling. It was cool. Outside it was hot. I finished my drink. I needed another. "I'll have another," I said. "Another gin sling?" the barman said. "Yes, a gin sling," I said. He made me a gin sling. It was cool. Outside it was hot. I licked my lips. There was a fish on the wall. Not framed behind glass, but nailed to the wall. It stank a little. "It stinks a little," I said, "that fish."

The barman frowned at it. "Because of the heat," he said. "Because it's dead," I said. "As well," he said. "I need another drink." I said. "A gin sling?" he said. I nodded. He made me a gin sling. I drank it. Outside it was hot. Inside it was cool. "A fish is like a novel," I said and nodded at the fish. The fish didn't nod back. It was stiff. "In what way exactly?" said the barman. "The moment a fine fish is hooked, the sharks come along like critics and bite chunks off until the fish is just a skeleton and those critics don't ever give any credit to the lone fisherman on his boat who hooked the fish in the first place. That's how." "Maybe, maybe not," the barman said with a shrug. "By the way, I'm thirsty," I said. The barman nodded. "What can I get you?" he said. "A gin sling," I said. "A gin sling?" he said. I nodded. "A gin sling," I said. He made me a gin sling. I drank it. It was cool. Outside it was hot. The barman nodded at a book on a shelf behind the bar. "That novel isn't like a fish. It was left behind," he said. "Who by?" I said. "Someone," he said, "many years ago." "One of mine," I said. "One of your what?" he said. "Novels," I said. "I'm a writer. I'll have a gin sling." "A writer, a gin sling?" he said.

I nodded. Inside I was cool. Outside I was bearded. The barman made me a ginsling. "I'm Ernest," I said. "Earnest about what?" he said. "About my name. Same name as the name of the cover of that book on your shelf that's a novel." He read the cover. "Ernest Humblebee," he said. "That's my name," I said. "Coincidence," he said, "that your name's the same." "Not really, I wrote it," I said. "That's why, is it?" he said, frowning. "But don't you use a pen name? I thought writers used pen names." "Not me. I'll have a gin sling," I said. He made me a gin sling. "So what's your style like?" he said. "Simple," I said, "and repetitive." "Does it do much?" he said. "No, it doesn't," I said. "Why are you here?" he said. "Because it's hot outside, cool inside. I'll have a gin sling," I said. "Waiting for assassins?" he said. "Not this time," I said. "Here's your gin sling," he said. I drank it. Then I nodded at the fish on the wall. "Nailed it while it was still swimming, I bet," I said. "With a crossbow," he said, "but no one has explained what the fish was doing at that altitude." "A crossbow," I said as I drank my gin sling.

"The marvellous thing is that it's painless. I'm awfully sorry about the odour though. That must bother you." "Don't! Please don't! I'll have a gin sling," I said. "What's that out there?" he said. "Out where?" I said. "Out there. Through the back door," he said. I craned my neck. "I think it's a garden," I said. "A good cool place to drink a good cool gin sling." "No, it's not. I know that garden," he said. "If you know it, why did you ask me what it was?" I said. "You're a writer and I was testing your powers of observation. It's a garden. And here's your gin sling." "I've already got one," I said. He raised his eyebrows. "A garden?" "No, a gin sling," I said, but by this time I had already finished it and needed the other one. So I took it and drank it. It was cool. Outside it was hot. I frowned. I knew my prose style could keep going like this forever, earning praise, though my odium for critics would never slacken. I looked at the fish, at the hole in its body. It wasn't really anything. It was just to let the air in. Same as any wound. "What are you writing about now?" the barman said. "One day," I said, "I'll write about the war and the soldiers marching, marching, marching. One day I'll write about peace and the bohemians dancing, dancing, dancing. One day." "What about today?" he said. "Today I plan to write about you asking me what I'm writing about today," I said, "but maybe later." "Can I get you anything?" he said. "A gin sling," I said.

"A gin sling?" he said. "A gin sling," I said. "That garden," he said, "is a sun trap." "A sun trap," I said. "That's what I said," he said. "Yes, that's what you said," I said, "and now I'm saying it too, so it'll soon also be what I said." "It already is," he said. "I won't go out there if it's a sun trap," I said. He made me a gin sling. I drank it. Then it was gone. "Do you know what a sun trap is?" he said. "It's a place that collects the warmth of the sun. I bet that's what you were thinking. A place like a place somewhere without shade that collects the warmth of the sun. Well, my suntrap isn't like that. Nope." "What's it like?" I said. "You'll see," he said, "or maybe you won't see, maybe it'll be too dark to see. One or the other." "I'll have a gin sling," I said. "Why is your prose style so annoying?" he said. "So annoying?" I said. "So annoying," he said. "Because I'm a creep," I said. "A creep?" he said. "A creep," I said. "What kind of creep?" he said. "A misogynistic one," I said. "I'll have a gin sling." "A gin sling?" he said.

"A gin sling. Do you like to see bulls dying?" I said. "Not particularly," he said. "I do. I like to see bulls dying. I like to see horses dying too. I like to see elephants dying. I like to see leopards dying. I like to see fish dying. I like to see men dying, men with beards, men without beards, men with women, men without women too. I like to drive ambulances in the war. I like to pretend to be tough," I said. "You really are full of macho bullshit," he said. "Indeed I am," I said. "Pathetic," he said. "Ernest Hummingbird's the name," I said. "No, it's Humblebee," he said. "We're on the second draft now," I said. "Get me a gin sling." "The second draft of what?" "Of this story, the story we're standing in," I said. "You're not standing," he said. "I'm sitting instead," I said. "And it's a bar, not a story," he said. That wasn't true, but he made me a gin sling. Outside it was hot, but not as hot as before. I drank my gin sling. My beard helped me do that. "The bar's inside the story," I said. "That's crazy," he said. "Ernest Humdrum's the name now. Third draft already. All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time. Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut. I'll have a gin sling." "What kind of story is it exactly?" he said. "A sort of parody," I said. "I thought as much," he said, "but I think it's wrong."

"What do you mean?" I said. "It's clearly a parody of a writer you don't know well enough to parody properly but only superficially and unfairly. A true parody should be done with love, not like this," he said. "Maybe," I said. "What's it to you anyway?" "Nothing much," he said. "Are you waiting for assassins or something?" I said. "You misunderstand me. What I meant was that you've obviously read one or two short pieces by the writer in question and they angered you so much you didn't try to read more of his work, so you actually don't know much about his aims, beliefs, passions, strengths, dreams and everything else that helped make him tick." "I know enough," I said. "Get me a gin sling." He made me a gin sling. I drank it. Outside it was hot, maybe, maybe not. Inside he was right, maybe, maybe not. I began thinking about the time I bullfought a fish. Bullfought is the past tense of the verb bullfight. I bullfought a fish and I won. A bigger fish than the fish on the wall.The biggest fish in the sea. I fought it with a shotgun. Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death. Apart from painting ceilings while suspended from a cotton thread. Apart from sculpting butter with a grenade.Apart from lava dancing. "Can't you think more quietly than that?" he said. "I'll have a gin sling," I said. Suddenly it went dark. "What the hell?" I said. "I can't see my own memories." "The trap has sprung," he said. "Sprung is the past tense of the verb spring," I said. "Same way that simmer is the present tense of the verb summer. I was taught that by the soldiers marching, marching, marching. And by the bohemians dancing, dancing, dancing.And by all the other irritating understated things in all my irritating understated books." "Please shut up," he said. "You blithering idiot." "Get me a gin sling," I said. "I refuse," he said.