Good to Be God (33 page)

“We’re looking at bigger premises,” explains the Hierophant.

“The Temple of Extreme Abundance will probably be moving on.”

“Gene, it was great working with you. I learnt a lot from you

– you helped me a lot, but I’ve got other plans now.”

I’m worried for a second that he’ll ask what my plans are, as I couldn’t make up anything convincing. He gives a smile and leaves.

Napalm has already moved out. Without saying goodbye. I’d like to pretend that I don’t care, and I don’t care a great deal, 266

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but it’s always disappointing when you’ve extended your hand to someone and it isn’t noticed. I shall take time to explore that disappointment more fully later on.

The door to Gulin’s room is opened, and her stuff is all neatly boxed up. I don’t have much in the way of packing to do, but it occurs to me it’s time to do it and to make a decision. I’m wondering whether I’ll see her before she leaves, when I hear steps and she appears.

“Hi,” she says, pleased to see me. It is a small, but real pleasure, to see that someone is pleased to see you. “How you doing?”

“Okay,” I reply. “When you moving?”

“Soon. Why don’t you ask me if I have any news?”

“Do you have any news?”

“Yes. I’m a millionaire.” I wait for the punchline, but there isn’t one. “My boss has left me a ranch. Fifty acres.”

I laugh. I don’t know why I find it so funny, but I do. I laugh and laugh. She’s beaten the system. It’s the best news I’ve heard for years.

I can see why he left her something so generous. He left his family in Illinois when he was sixteen, never had contact with them again, he came out to Florida on his own, built up a chain of movie theatres. That he was gay might have been a factor, because it was a different era, the Forties, when having a fruit for a son was worse than having him eaten by wolves, but maybe it wasn’t that. Sometimes it just doesn’t work. He saw himself in Gulin, someone who was completely unsupported, completely on her own, because very few of us are without some backup, some family, some membership, some savings. Very few of us have the courage to step right out into the unknown. I don’t.

I came here because I had nothing to leave behind. I spoke the language. I had some money.

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“I’m a millionaire,” she says, “but I’m broke.” Gulin’s got the ranch, fifty miles outside of Miami, but no money to pay all the overheads. I’d sell the whole caboodle immediately, but as has been observed, I’m often in the company of the wrong decision. “I need to find a way of making money. There used to be a chicken farm on the property.”

One of the great shortcomings of life is the lack of captions, that there is no punctuation, no musical sting to warn you when something important is happening. The very important events usually appear as indistinct from the unimportant events.

Friends or relatives put on their coats and leave, they close the door quietly, as they have done hundreds or thousands of time before and you have no inkling that that will be the last time you’ll see them, that that particular walking-out, number three hundred and sixty-two, will be the one that will change everything, even though it looked exactly the same as the other three hundred and sixty-one.

I’m glad I have a chance to say goodbye to her properly.

“I could use a lodger. You interested, Tyndale?”

G

Orinoco is put on the back seat. Being boxed up upsets some cats, but Orinoco, as always, is calm and, while cooperative, dignified, like a celebrity signing an autograph. Orinoco has to be the reincarnation of some wisdomist. Every time I look at Orinoco I feel inferior – because the cat has clearly got things figured out.

Keep cool. That’s all you can do. Keep cool and wait. Wait for your opportunity. There’s always a danger that coolness can collapse into capitulation, but all you can do is keep cool 268

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and wait for your opportunity. Maybe I’ve missed some, and maybe the ones I’ve taken wouldn’t have been the ones I’d have chosen, but I’ve had some fun. Crusher of lighting companies, destroyer of multinational criminal organizations, swatter of sanctimonious swindlers, that’s me. At least one was a mission, and it’s nice to have a mission accomplished.

Keep cool. Or at least sham cool. Sham cool and true cool, they’re almost the same. What’s our future? Orinoco and I, we laugh. I finger the diamond I’ve had fitted in my left ear as a memento of Miami, and the lesson I hope I’ve learnt here: be cool, be hard, be patient as a diamond waiting in the ground.

“Is Orinoco any special breed?” I ask.

“Just your black cat. I got him from a rescue centre. Some heartless person had abandoned him,” says Gulin.

As I manoeuvre my suitcase in the car, I have a strange sensation, something I haven’t experienced for so long, I’ve almost forgotten it: I’m home.

We’ve said our goodbyes. Dishonest Dave gave me a compilation disc which we play as we head south towards Florida City. A singer I don’t know sings about being lucky. It occurs to me that perhaps bad luck, the nasty, unscenic sibling of good luck, can shepherd you to your destination too.

“Idiot,” comments Gulin, as an idiot cuts in front of us, but it’s an observation not a curse. Gulin is a gifted driver, effortless but masterful. There’s nothing like driving in a comfy, powerful car, in sunshine, to give you the feeling that you’re getting somewhere. Despite my persistent and embarrassing medical condition, I ponder my future and eternity with amusement.

My future? I’m wearing a sharp, short-sleeved silk shirt that Fash gave me, appropriate to an upender of realms, a man who has taken out entire empires single-handed, not that anyone 269

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will know or believe it; but I don’t care. The sun is shining, I don’t care. This might be extremely superficial, but the extremely superficial, like a tissue, can often get the job done.

I ponder eternity. If you think about it, eternity can’t be a long time, because time has been removed from the mix. Eternity might feel momentary, like putting on a pair of sunglasses, or like a drive in the sunshine, while you wear a sharp, short-sleeved silk shirt. Honestly, what good is the world? Why does it have to be so big, crowded and messy, when it boils down to a handful of characters, and maybe just one?

Somehow Gulin always cheers me up. There’s an infectious optimism about her. No, not that, not optimism, because it’s not that everything will be fine. She’s not that foolish. No, there’s a can-do will about her. Whatever comes, it can be managed

– and you really can’t ask for anything more than that.

Keeping her eyes on the road she asks:

“So, Tyndale. Have you ever thought about children?”

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• Cover
  
• Praise for Good to Be God
  
• Series Page
  
• Title Page
  
• Copyright Page
  
• Dedication
  
• Halftitle Page
  
• Text Start
  
• Text End