Jago (59 page)

“’Cause I don’t understand,

But I turn into a monster

When I hear a rock-’n’-roll baaaaaand…’

‘Is that thing safe?’ Susan asked.

Lytton shrugged, appalled. Godzilla bobbed, huge eyes rolling, jaws clamping. The backing vocals (
bop-bop-a-da-bop-bop, bop-bop-a-da-bop-bop, bop-bop-a-da-bop-bop, BOP!)
were coming from its maw through concealed speakers.

‘It ain’t radiation,

Or an Aztec curse,

Or the end of civilization.

It’s something worse.

The music is in my chromosomes,

I never can be free.

Doomed to wander round the world-

A rock-’n’-roll lizard like meeeee…’

The Godzilla was overhead now, descending slowly, floppy feet thumping towards the ground, scattering sleepy festival folks. An extended guitar solo abused the air, fuzzing and screeching through protesting speakers.

‘Those guys know how to make an entrance,’ said an American voice nearby.

‘It’s just a rip-off of Pink Floyd,’ said a cynic.

‘Who’s this band, Mum?’ someone asked.

‘I’ll surprise the ice-cool cop,’
sang The Heat,

‘When I eat his car.

Terrorize the high-school hop

And the local bar.

I’ve got me a master plan.

To rule the world, you see.

I’m gonna make me a master race

Of rock-’n’-roll lizards like meeeeee…’

Lytton pulled Susan back. One Godzilla foot slapped the ground where she had been, pretend-crushing a hysterical teenager and genuinely crushing an elaborately pitched tent. Mooring ropes were released from the helicopters, and Godzilla swayed forwards and back before settling, anchored by a long, weighted tail. People in the field scattered like panicking Japanese extras. The helicopters were climbing now, having delivered their present to the festival. Susan saw a thin, middle-aged man with unfettered long grey hair leaning out on a brace, waving a floppy hat at kids who had not been born the last time he was on
Top of the Pops.
He lost his hat to the chopper-draught, and started abusing the guitar slung around his neck, repeating the solo. Shouting to him for help and an airlift out did not seem an option.

The helicopters circled, and Godzilla lurched forwards in their blade breeze, spewing oily flames into the air. Smoke and smuts fell out of the sky, stinging Susan’s eyes.

But what do they do for an encore?

An elegant girl nearby, who had been lying as perfectly coiffured and made up as Sleeping Beauty on a blow-up mattress, languidly got up on her elbows. Silk chemise hanging from her spectacular chest, she opened her startling blue eyes and saw a fifty-foot, fire-breathing prehistoric monster looming over her tidy bower. She turned over, silk slip clinging to her equally spectacular rump, and went back to sleep. Susan envied her composure, but assumed she was technically insane.

One of Godzilla’s legs had a slow puncture. Hissing, it crumpled like a concertina and the monster listed badly to one side. Electrical workings sparked and spat in its chest, and its eyes went out.

‘Gangway,’ Lytton said, pulling her again.

The slow puncture ripped wide and became a rapid puncture. A last burst of flame coughed between painted teeth, and sagginess crept rashlike up one side. An arm shrivelled and deflated, slapping against its collapsing monster hip. A seam went in its neck, and the head, outside in, fell into the torso. People all around heckled the glass-jawed monster. With an embarrassed and embarrassing burp, Godzilla fell down like a circus tent, heavy rubberized canvas piling up in the centre of the field, one freakishly still-inflated lizard arm sticking out defiant from the heap, claws outstretched.

The guitar noise went away. The Heat flew the hell out of the village. The helicopters became specks on the horizon. A great booing rose into the sky. The crowd gathered and pounced, kicking and tearing the monster’s remains.

‘Like, crazy,’ Susan said.

T
erry the Wolf had been close on his arse, but Mike had lost the wereboy in the thick of the forest. The sun was up, but where he was it was night dark. Gnarled tree trunks were close together, a tangled web of brambles strung between them. Thorns tore his jump suit. Low-hanging vines slapped his face, stinging like bastards. The going was slow and painful, but at least he couldn’t hear Terry rending his way through the growth after him, slaver falling from his mouth, big teeth swelling. That kid was one Weird Psycho Fucker from Hell. Terry’s teeth and claws could shred flesh like tissue paper. In the last few minutes, Mike’s panic-making rush of fear—the certainty he was going to die
right now
!—had evaporated, leaving him with only the nerve-shredding frustration of being lost in the forest.

Everyone called him Mike Toad, but his name was Matthew Glover. As a brat, he had told elephant jokes, knock-knock jokes, doctor-doctor jokes. What’s big, red and eats rocks? Now, it was dead-baby jokes, blackie and Paki jokes, cunt jokes. Fucking, shitting and pissing jokes. How do you get twenty queers into a Mini Metro? Cremation. What’s a baby seal’s favourite drink? Canadian Club on the rocks. Jokes, always jokes. He didn’t even know why any more. Once, it had been to make people like him. Now, he told jokes people didn’t like, couldn’t like. When he told his zingers, people—especially girls—were genuinely offended, left the room, never spoke to him again. Even the ones who laughed were ashamed, as if he’d shown them something about themselves they didn’t like.

He was well off the beaten track. He hadn’t spent much time out of London, but still knew these weren’t the kind of woods you were supposed to get in Somerset. The trees were too close together, brambles too thick. As he fought his way through, fungus broke under his feet, farting foul odours. If Terry had transformed into a wild animal, the woodland had transformed into a habitat for Terry.

He’d been knocking around with Dolar for years. They once lived in the same flat in Muswell Hill. The others just put up with him. Syreeta was a fat cow with no sense of humour, and Ferg was on a one-way time trip back to 1977. He hoped the punk would disappear completely, because he might have a go at Juicy Jessica. Mike had never had a girlfriend for more than three weeks. Dozy cunts, the lot of them. Most weren’t even good for much of a shaft. Pam had been promising, but got lost in the crowds. Her sister—and whatever had happened to
her?
—was another headcase. Not as bad as Allison or Terry, but still a vicious bitch.

A barbed tendril lashed his face, scratching. Blood trickled past his mouth. The woods were thinning. Sunlight dimly penetrated to the forest floor. Listening, he heard birds—the after-dawn chorus—but nothing else alive. No human sounds, and nothing from Terry the Wolf either. He couldn’t get out of his mind the picture of Terry burying his face in the woman they’d killed, and he couldn’t get out of his craw the taste of human meat. He’d changed, too. He was blooded.

Jokes just came to him. People would feel the need to unburden themselves by giving him jokes. Sometimes, jokes would literally appear out of nowhere and slip from his mouth, especially when related to a recent news item. What does
NASA
stand for? he’d asked the day after the space-shuttle crash. Need Another Seven Astronauts. After a stadium fire, how can you identify a Bradford supporter? Dental records. When he was little, he’d had an imaginary friend called Pat. That was where his name started, with Pat and Mike. Sometimes, he thought Pat was the one supplying the jokes. Pat always listened to his riddles, well after he’d pissed off all the adults with them. Who was the skeleton in the closet? A Biafran bank manager.

There was a building ahead, cocooned by trees bending over a red-tiled roof. It was a country pub. The sign hanging outside showed long female legs, with a dress raised far enough to flash red pubic hair. An aroma of beer hung around, getting into Mike’s head, making him almost drunk. Outside the pub stood a short, fat man with carroty hair under his derby hat, an emerald-green shamrock pinned to his fully stuffed waistcoat. He had a couple of cans of tartan paint set down beside him, and he was smoking a clay pipe upside down, tugging at leprechaun side whiskers.

‘Ahh, Moike, me boy, ’tis a deloight to be seein’ you,’ said Pat. ‘Oi I’m just waitin’ fer de Queen’s Legs to open so’s we can wet oor mouths.’

By the time Mike had fought his way up close, the landlord had unlocked the doors, and Pat had pushed into the warm, welcoming dark beyond, beckoning Mike to follow. Beer ran out of the windows and dripped brownly on the wall, staining the white plaster like faecal gravy. Terry the Wolf was after him, but Mike reckoned he always had time for a couple of pints. He barged through bat-wing doors, and found himself in the snug of the Queen’s Legs. The pub smelled of tobacco and urine and semen and lager. There were patches of red light in the gloom, and rows of glinting bottles covered one of the walls. At first, Mike couldn’t make out anyone in the darkness, just Pat standing against the bar.

‘Did’ja hear about de Oirish garden-chair manufacturer comes in here? Patty O’Fumiture,’ Pat said, laughing.

Pat’s laugh was a scraping sound, choking up from deep inside his rounded chest. He had a pint of Guinness up on the bar beside him, another one coming for Mike. The Irishman greeted him like a long-lost friend.

‘D’ja know, Moike, Oi was down de Job Centre an’ dere was nottin’ in de cards fer an honest painter, so Oi walked away. An’ outsoide de p’lice station dere was a big sign up wit’ a slogan, “West Indian wanted fer rape”, so Oi says to mesself, “Dem niggers gets all de best jobs.”’

Pat’s face split open, and laughter puked from his mouth.

‘D’ja get it, Moike, d’ja get it?’

Pat slapped his back, sending him reeling. He laughed like a drain.

‘Ya haff ta laff, Moike me boy, ya haff ta laff…’

From the populated darkness, laughter came. Mike made out the shapes of drinkers, black shadows outlined red. He smelled their sweat, their drinks. A jukebox, lit up like Piccadilly Circus, was pouring forth
Sinful Rugby Songs,
shouted choruses over a rinky-dink electric organ. Pat poured Guinness into his mouth, letting it flow dark over his chin on to his chest.

‘Ah, ’tis a treat, dis Liffey water,’ the Irishman said, ‘an’ ’tis a treat ta drink wit’out bein’ disturbed by de terrible, terrible people dat usually comes in here. Terrible, terrible people.’

Mike held his Guinness in both hands, unable to get a singlehanded grip on the glass. It was more like a quart than a pint.

‘D’ja hear ’bout de black and sticky dead poet laureate comes in here? Sir John Bitumen. D’ja hear ’bout de ‘merican blue fillum star comes in here? Hugh G. Rection.’

A near-nude woman stood behind the bar, watermelon breasts plopped in rolling puddles of lager. She had puckered nipples the size of pancakes and no face. Between her stiff fringe and her chin was a stretch of lumpy dough, expressionless and curdled. She was laughing inside, but it couldn’t get out. Her tits shook like giant jellies, rolls of fat under her chin rippling.

‘D’ja hear ’bout de mad Russian murderer comes in here? Knocker Bolockoff.’

The background chatter died like a switched-off tape.

‘Terrible man,’ Pat reflected, ‘terrible, terrible man.’

Pat called for another pint. The faceless barmaid hauled on a handle, filling up a bucket with green-yellow froth. As the pump spewed drink, the works gurgled like an old-fashioned chain-pull bog flush. Leaning over the bar, Mike saw the barmaid had an arse the size of a steamroller, enormous cheeks bulging around a tiny, stretched-to-bursting pair of frilled French oo-la-la knickers.

‘D’ja hear ’bout de t’ree nancy boys in de Jacuzzi?’

The barmaid plunked Pat’s bucket on the bar. He looked into his drink, and saw surface scum clearing.

‘Terrible drink,’ Pat said, ‘but ’tis fer me health.’

The Irishman opened his mouth wide as a letterbox, and tipped the green beer into it. His belly swelled like a toad’s neck as the drink went down, and buttons popped from his waistcoat.

‘Dey was gropin’ away in de bubbles when a dorty great lump o’ sperm floats up, an’ one o’ de pansies says, “Shush me gobbie, but who farted?”’

The gale of laughter came again. Everyone convulsed, laughter blending in with the squelching of the jukebox. The snug was crowded, dark shadows screeching hysterically in every corner, at every table. The red patches had got brighter, but the dark around them was darker than ever. Mike couldn’t make out faces.

The barmaid was near Pat and Mike, mammoth breasts on display between the pump handles. Mike couldn’t help but look at them. There were acres of white flesh, veined with subtle blue lines, with creases a man’s hand could get lost in. Her no-face was shadowed now, and the red light fell only on the breasts.

‘Moike, me boy,’ Pat said, ‘would ya loike to feel a tit?’

Immediately, Mike had an agonizing hard-on that wouldn’t go away. His mouth went dry, and he bent his head to his Guinness, sucking up a mouthful of ice-cold stout. He gagged, but kept it down.

The doors opened, and a fiercely bearded cossack exploded into the Queen’s Legs, puffy trousers stuffed into the tops of his shiny boots, thick-pelted chest bare, tall fur cap on his head, bottle of vodka in his king-sized hand.

‘’Tis Knocker Bolockoff,’ Pat said, trembling.

Winds and snows roared in around the Russian. He gnashed his teeth, and flames sparked in his misaligned eyes. He slapped a long whip on the floor, and stalked towards the bar with a lion-tamer’s tread, glaring at Mike. He began cursing him in Russian. As the red light grew brighter, darkness shrank like a salted slug.

Mike began to recognize the people in the pub. Inchworm-crawling forwards past the Russian’s boots was a dead baby, blue face wrapped in clingfilm, forks in its eyes, sharp little teeth in its mouth. And there, by the Ladies’, was a legless woman walking on her hands, glistening trail behind her, red vulva throbbing like a hungry wound. And a loose-limbed black buck tap-danced slowly, three feet of tattooed dick stuffed into his jockstrap. They were all laughing at Mike.