Sprout Mask Replica (21 page)

And a clergyman came with a plumber called Derek

And made certain signs as he knelt down to pray

Dear Lord make us free of this monstrous matchbox

Cause it to vanish away in the night

But the spells that he spoke were as spots on a snatchbox

No fun at all and a terrible sight

So Tim in despair took a leap through the casement

Like Father Merrim had done in the flick
[25]

And he lay very dead down below in the basement

The vicar just smiled and said, ‘That’s done the
trick.’

EPILOGUE

The Rev and the plumber returned to the rectory

And guzzled away at a bottle of rum

And Del tore in half an old telephone directory

While good vicar Norman played taps on a drum.

Comment:
It must be understood that a cleric is under considerable mental and physical
stress when performing exorcisms upon devil-possessed matchboxes, tea trolleys,
golf carts, etc., and after a successful exorcism it’s always nice to relax with
a glass or two of rum, a telephone directory, a pair of bongos and a consenting
plumber.

12

LUCKY
BEGGARS!

I LAY UPON THE BED, HANDS
BEHIND MY HEAD, THINKING.

Litany
had gone off to the en-suite to do whatever it is women do there after making love.

Have a
shower, probably.

As I
lay there, glowing warm all over and feeling blessed that I had lost my
virginity to such a beautiful woman in such elegant surroundings, a grim
thought came to me.

‘Now
look here,’ said this grim thought, ‘why do you think that beautiful woman has
just had sex with you?’

‘Because
she loves me,’ I replied.

‘Bullshit!’

‘Why?’

‘She’s
just after something; women are always after something. Men work on impulse but
women plot and plan ahead.’

‘So
what’s she after?’

‘She’s
after your money.

‘I don’t
have any money.

‘But
you could have. Once you’ve worked out how to do the mystical butterfly
routine, you could give her the world. That’s what she’s after, she’s planning
ahead. You see if I’m not wrong.

‘Nonsense,’
I said, but the grim thought got me thinking. Now I know there’s been a lot of
talk that men and women are not, in fact, members of the same species, that the
similarities are purely physical. And it seems to be the case that although no
man has ever really been able to understand how a woman thinks, all women
understand how all men think only too well.

Which
gives them a natural advantage.

My
Uncle Charles, whose name I can never remember, worked for a while on the
railways before he went into light removals. Shifting things from one place to
another always fascinated him and he told me that doing this had given him a
small insight into the way women functioned.

He drew
an analogy between women and trains. He said that if you consider a woman to be
the locomotive and the freight, cargo, passengers she carries to be money, then
much will become clear. Men, he said, were the guards and porters on the
station, they directed the cargo (money) aboard, but the women (locomotives)
went off with it and dictated where it ended up.

Imagine
a beautiful well-dressed ambitious young woman full of fire and passion, she’d
be your express-train type. Load her up with carriage loads of money and
whoosh, she’s off into the night.

Now an
average woman, she might be your goods-train type, you put your money on board,
but she comes back with a load of goods from the other end in exchange. He
suggested a stable home, children and a relationship as an example of this load
of goods.

And so
he went on. It made some kind of sense, although not much. I understood when he
said that you can’t stick an express in the goods yard and expect it to
function as a goods train, nor vice versa. And I think I got the general gist,
which was that ultimately the distribution of money in the world (where it
ultimately gets spent or goes to) is ultimately down to women (ultimately).

It’s
rubbish, of course. I mean, what about the blokes manning the signal boxes and
the trains that break down or crash? And anyway ultimate distribution of money,
where money actually goes to, is not down to women at all. Well, it is
indirectly.
But, well…

Allow
me briefly to explain.

A short
while ago I had a very strange experience. It was one of those experiences that
make you re-adjust the way you think about the world. I recount it here for two
reasons. The first, that it is an absolutely
true
story and the second,
that it relates to what happens next in this narrative.

At the
time of which I speak, I was seated in the Pizza Express, munching upon a Veniciana
(lop goes to Venice in peril) and staring distractedly out of the window
(watching young women go by).

As I
looked on I saw this beggar
[26]
come around the corner. He wore the basic uniform of the new-age traveller:
dreadlocks, studied-raggedness and bare feet. The bare feet marked him out as
slightly different, as big boots are usually considered
de rigueur.
But
it was more than this that made me notice him. It was the manner in which he
carried himself. He didn’t shuffle, and he wasn’t sitting in a doorway with a
dog on a string. This chap was begging on the move and he moved like a man with
a mission who was off somewhere important, hated to have to beg on the way, but
just did.

I
wondered where it was he was off to and hoped that it was somewhere exciting.

Not ten
minutes later, however, around the same corner he came again and then ten
minutes after that, again. Each time begging and each time definitely looking
as if he was off somewhere.

I was
quite impressed by this technique.

I
finished my meal, paid up and left the restaurant. As I did so, around the
corner came the young beggar again and tried to touch
me
for my small
change.

I
almost
put my hand in my pocket.

Almost.

‘Now,
hang about,’ I said.

‘I can’t
stop,’ said he. ‘I have to be off.’

‘No you
don’t. I’ve been sitting in Pizza Express watching you and you’ve circled this
block of buildings four times now.

‘So?’
said he.

‘Well,
so, actually I’m impressed. The way you carry yourself, this impression you
convey that you’re off somewhere, it shows imagination, originality of thought,
perseverance, all qualities that might lead a man to success. What I want to
know is, why someone such as yourself, who obviously possesses these qualities,
is spending his time in such a low-paid occupation as begging, when he could no
doubt turn his hand to something far more profitable?’

And he
looked at me as if I was quite insane.

‘Low-paid
occupation?’ he said.

‘Well,
it’s all small change, isn’t it?’

‘Small
change is what pounds are made of,’ and he tried to push past me.

‘Just
hold on,’ I said. ‘Surely you are wasting your talent? Surely you could find an
occupation that would enable you to make big bucks rather than small change?’

He
looked me up and down. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what I do. How many
times did you see me from the restaurant?’

‘Three
times,’ I said.

‘And
how many times did you see me beg someone for money?’

‘Three
times.’

‘And
how many times did you see them
give
me money?’

I
thought about this. ‘All three times,’ I said.

‘And
during the period that I was beyond your range of vision, what do you think I
was doing then?’

‘You
were circling the block.’

‘I was
begging,’ he said. ‘And I was being given money. If you’d sat in another
restaurant anywhere on the block, or in a pub, or in a shop and watched me go
by you’d have seen the very same thing. You’d have seen me beg someone for
money and them give it to me.

‘They
can’t all have given you money,’ I said.

He
raised a pierced eyebrow. ‘That is hardly a conclusion based on the evidence of
your own observation, now, is it?’

I shook
my head. ‘Then you’re telling me that all day long people give you money. More
and more and more money?’

‘More
and more and more,’ he said.

‘That’s
incredible.’

He
shrugged and made to push past once more.

I
stopped him. ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘What I want to know is, what do you do with
all this money? Have you got a big expensive car or something?’

‘Have
you ever seen me in a big expensive car?’

‘No, I’ve
only seen you begging money and being given money.

‘Well,
you can ask anyone in Brighton if they’ve seen me in a big expensive car, and
each of them will say, no, they’ve only seen me begging and being given money.’

‘You
put it all in the bank then.’

‘Have
you ever seen me do that?’

‘Well,
no. All right. You hoard it then.’

‘Seen
me do that either?’

‘No,
but you can’t carry it all on you. You’d end up having to have a Securicor
truck driving along behind you.’

‘That’s
a pretty stupid remark, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Yes,’
I agreed. ‘I’m sorry. Ah, hang about,’ I said, ‘you spend it, you spend exactly
the amount you earn each day. On really expensive food and wine, perhaps.’

‘Have
you ever seen me go into a shop?’ he asked. ‘No, but my experience of you is
based only upon limited observation. Someone must have seen you go into a shop.’

‘They
haven’t,’ he said. ‘Ask anyone, anyone at all. Ask this bloke here.’ He
indicated a gentleman heading out way.

‘Excuse
me,’ I said to the gentleman, ‘but have you ever seen this chap before?’

The
gentleman looked at me in a most suspicious manner, put his hand into his pocket,
produced a fifty-pence piece and handed it to the beggar. The beggar said, ‘Thanks,’
grinned and made as to move off once again.

‘Hold
it!’ I told him. ‘All right. That fifty pence, what are you going to do with
it?’

‘What
fifty pence is that?’

‘The one
that gentleman just gave you.

‘I don’t
have no fifty pence,’ he held up his hands. ‘You can search me, if you want.’

‘No
thanks, but I just saw him give it to you.’

‘And I
don’t have it any more.’

‘So
what have you done with it.’

He
opened his mouth and pointed down his throat. ‘It’s gone.’

‘You’ve
eaten
it?’ I stepped back in amazement. ‘You
eat
the money?’

‘In a
manner of speaking.’

‘Is
your surname Crombie?’ I asked him.

‘No.
But you’re holding me up from my work. Please let me pass.’

‘No,’ I
said. ‘Not until you’ve told me all of the truth. I don’t believe you exist on
a diet of small change.’

‘Oh I
do,’ he said and then in a very dark tone. ‘But you wouldn’t want to know why.’

‘Oh yes
I would.’

A
sinister gleam came into his eyes. ‘Then I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘Why do you
think it is that every country in the world except Switzerland is in debt?’

I
shrugged. ‘Countries owe money, they have national debts.’

‘So
where has all the money gone to?’

‘It was
borrowed and spent.’

He
shook his dreadlocks. ‘If it was spent then someone else must have the money,
but they don’t. The whole world (except for Switzerland), is in recession, more
and more money vanishes away, but no—one ever knows where it really goes to.’

‘And
where does it go?’

‘It
goes to me. Me and other special ones like me. We’re all over the world. We go
around in circles collecting money. But the money never leaves the circle.’

‘So
where
does
it go?’

‘In
here,’ he pointed down his throat again and this time as I looked I could see
that it wasn’t a throat at all, it was a great black endless void. ‘I am one of
the financial black holes of the world,’ he continued, ‘a monetary vortex that
sucks cash in. Where to? Even I don’t know that. To the past, to the future, to
somewhere it is needed more?’