Sprout Mask Replica (30 page)

If I
could have managed a smile, I would have. But I couldn’t, so I did not.

So,
Barry, I thought, What do you have to say for yourself?

‘About
what, chief?’

About
the nukes, perhaps?

‘Oh
those.’

Yes,
those.

‘It was
all quite innocent really. He was doing it for the good of all mankind.’

Bunging
nukes to Iraq? For the good of mankind?

‘Certainly.
Your brother reasoned that a country
with
nukes dare only nuke a country
without
nukes. Because if another country
has
nukes, it will nuke
back, right?’

Right.

‘So if
every single country in the world has nukes, then no country would ever dare to
nuke any other country because it would fear the inevitable retaliation. It was
what he called a world peace initiative.’

‘It
would never have worked.’

‘Why,
chief?’

‘Well …’
I tried to think of a why, but … ‘just
because,
that’s all.’

‘Fair
enough, chief. We’ll never find out now, will we? Not now he’s resigned from
office.’

‘Hmph,’
I said, and it didn’t half hurt.

Actually I didn’t look too
bad once the plastic surgeons had finished with me. I could have passed for
forty, as long as I wore a hat. They told me my hair would eventually grow back
and that the no-eyebrow look was the current chic. They were also very
apologetic when they handed me the bill, saying that before the old government
got ousted over the nuke scandal, all the work could have been done on the NHS.
But the new government had privatized all hospitals, so I’d just have to pay
up.

I told
them that this created no problem, that I would just telephone my friend who
was a cardinal, and then I slipped out of a back door and ran.

I returned to my room at
Hotel Jericho. There wasn’t much of it left and the bed was down to bare
springs. But I wasn’t beaten yet.

‘Have
you ever heard the expression,
sucker for punishment,
chief?’ Barry
asked.

‘Just
shut it, you.’

‘But,
chief, come on. Surely you’re getting the message. Every time you do something
small that causes something big to happen, it bounces right back upon you and
you end up in the ka-ka.’

‘All
right, you don’t have to rub it in.’

‘I’m
just trying to look after you, chief, provide a bit of Holy Guardianship. If
you get snuffed out a second time, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to rescue
you. I mean, let’s face it, it was a pretty far-fetched do the last time,
Golden Tablet of Tosh m’Plonker, or whatever.’

‘Aha!’
I said. ‘Aha!’

‘What
are you “aha—ing” about, chief?’ ‘You’ve just given me a
very
good idea.’

‘Was it
the one about hitting the beach, by any chance?’

‘No, it’s
a reworking of the more-radical-than-voodoo one. I am going to withdraw from
the plot and let other people do all the doing.’

‘But,
chief, I won’t be able, I mean
you
won’t be able to have any influence
over them.’

‘Wanna
bet?’

‘No,
stop, chief, this chapter’s too short, you can’t end it like—’

21

THE
BIG ANSWER

‘THE GREATEST DARTS PLAYER
I EVER MET WAS GEORGE BERNARD
Shaw.’ This extravagant
claim emerged from the not-particularly-extravagant lips of John Vincent
Omally, The Flying Swan’s Liar in Residence.

‘Old
George and I once fought for the love of a good woman, said Gimlet Martin from
The Shrunken Head. ‘I won, he came second.’

‘I only
met him on a single occasion.’ The voice belonged to Derby Phil Wainscot of The
New Inn. ‘And that was in a former incarnation.’

And
that earned Derby Phil the point and he took that round clear. The scores now
stood at ten apiece, but Omally was warming up nicely.

‘George
Bernard, or Podger, as he liked me to call him, was a great man for the
hang-gliding. Not a lot of people know that.’

‘I knew
it,’ said Gimlet Martin.

‘Me
too,’ said Derby Phil. ‘Went gliding with Podger many a time.’

‘So,’
continued John, unabashed, ‘we were up one day at about two thousand feet and
Podger said to me, well he sort of
called
to me, “John,” he called, “John,
you and I have a lot in common. We both enjoy a game of darts, the company of
rough-looking women and the study of interplanetary communications.”‘

‘I hope
Omally knows what he’s doing,’ said Neville the part-time barman. ‘We could
really do with a win this year.’

For
this was The Flying Swan’s fifth annual
All Brentford Open Lying Competition
and out of the original one hundred and fifty contestants for the much
coveted Silver Tongue Trophy and the even more coveted fifty-pound prize, three
alone had survived to the final.

The
crowd that remained to witness this event was of that discerning variety one
observes mostly at darts matches and road traffic accidents. Little was spoken,
but for the occasional appreciative gasp, depreciating exhalation or whispered
order for drinks. There was fifteen minutes left on the clock and all was even
on the scoreboard.

Gimlet
Martin took up Omally’s challenge. ‘The study of interplanetary communications
has for me always been an interest second only to that of viewing women’s legs
on escalators. But as I have an uncle who is married to a Venusian woman with
very long legs, I am able to combine my interests.’

‘What’s
your uncle’s name?’ enquired Derby Phil. ‘Perhaps my Cousin Stubby, the Martian
ambassador knows him.’

‘If it’s
his Uncle Barry,’ said Omally. ‘Then we all know that old deviant well enough
and if he’s married a Venusian, then I will eat the hat Orson Welles once gave
me. The one he wore in
The Third Man.’

‘Get
your knife and fork out then, Omally,’ said Gimlet Martin.

‘Did
your uncle marry a south Venusian or a north Venusian?’ asked Derby Phil, as if
it
really
mattered.

‘South,
from the D-Zm lake region.’

‘I know
the place well,’ said Derby Phil. ‘I was there last week with my Cousin Stubby.
We went to a movie,
Roswell Alien Autopsy: The Director’s Cut
[27]
.’

‘The
place has gone down since the tourists have moved in,’ said Gimlet Martin. ‘But
the beer’s good.’

‘Oh
yeah,’ Phil agreed. ‘Good beer.’

And
this turn in the conversation found the three finalists studying their now
empty glasses.

‘Your
round, Phil,’ said Omally. ‘A pint of Large, please.’

‘Certainly,’
said Phil and rising purposely, began to pat his pockets. ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘you’ll
never guess what.’

But by
the rarest of coincidences both John Omally and Gimlet Martin
did
guess.
Correctly.

‘Surely,’
said Gimlet, ‘I am right in assuming that you’re next up in line for getting
them in, Omally.’

John
Omally grinned. ‘If only such
were
the case, I would gladly oblige. But
I know for a fact that the lot falls to you, and I have no wish to insult us
both by muscling in.’

‘Your
nicety is a thing to inspire us all,’ said Gimlet. ‘But you see Phil here was
carrying
my
money also. Why not then lend him the cash and he will get
the round in.’

Omally
turned up his hands. ‘If only I could, but on the way here I was accosted by
two Jehovah’s Muggers.’

Neville
called for a time out and the three finalists repaired to separate tables for
refreshment, and some scholarly advice from their trainers.

Jim Pooley
spoke close at Omally’s ear. ‘Don’t keep changing the subject,’ was what he had
to say. ‘You started well on George Bernard Shaw but within a couple of minutes
the talk had turned to beer on Venus. I hope you know what you’re doing.’

Omally
sucked upon his orange. ‘I know
exactly
what I’m doing,’ said he, ‘and I’m
moving in for the kill.’

The battered Guinness
clock above the bar struck nine silent strokes, which meant it was ten o’clock.
Something to do with British Summer Time ending and nobody getting around to
climbing up and altering it. Or possibly, as has been mooted, it was a
tradition, or an old charter, or something.

The
finalists returned to the competition table.

‘I was
having a word with God the other night,’ said Gimlet Martin.

‘Which
one?’ asked John Omally.

‘How
many are there?’ came the rhetorical reply.

‘Six to
my knowledge,’ said John. ‘Although I’m only on first-name terms with three of
them, myself.’

‘Which
three do you mean?’ enquired Derby Phil. ‘Only another of my uncles happens to
be the Dalai Lama and he’s not just on first-name terms with the gods, he has
them round to tea on Thursdays.’

Omally
shook his head. ‘These gods are strictly pagan,’ said he. ‘Your Lamaic uncle
wouldn’t know these lads.’

Derby
Phil nodded sagely.

Gimlet
Martin wondered what he’d got himself into. ‘Which gods are you talking about,
exactly?’
he asked.

Omally
raised his eyebrows. ‘The six tertiary gods, of course:

Goth, Mebob,
Kalil, Narfax, Bah-Reah and little Wilf. The three to which I reverently refer,
and before whose images I prostrate myself three times every day, are Goth, Mebob
and Bah-Reah, born of the dreamtime world BLISH, apprentices to the big jobber Zematod,
who plumbed in the universe after the great flood.’

‘I have
an uncle who chats with a dead red Indian via the medium of a golden megaphone,’
said Phil, ‘although the communications seem strangely one-sided to me.’

‘An
uncle of mine died once,’ said Gimlet Martin. ‘My aunty says he’s gone to see
God.’

‘As I
was saying,’ Omally continued, ‘Goth, Mebob and BahReah, apprentices to the
celestial plumber who guards the big stop-cock, which if turned would see the
entire universe vanish down a great plug hole.’

‘Black
hole,’ said Gimlet Martin.

‘Plug
hole,’ said John. ‘And I don’t just speak to them, they speak to me also.’

‘Perhaps
you might ask them to say something to you now,’ said Phil.

There
was a long pause.

‘We are
all blessed,’ said Omally. ‘Fancy them saying that.’

‘I didn’t
quite catch it,’ said Phil.

‘I did,’
said Gimlet Martin. ‘It was something about you having the price of a round
hidden in your boot, wasn’t it, Omally?’

‘Not
even close,’ said John. ‘It was, in fact, the Big Answer.’

‘The
Big Answer,’ said Phil. ‘I’ve had that from the wife. It’s “no” mostly.’

‘It’s
bigger than that,’ said Omally. ‘This is the
Big Answer.’

‘It’s “yes”
then,’ said Gimlet Martin. ‘No answer could be bigger than “yes”. Although some
could be a lot more complicated.’

‘This
one is very straightforward,’ said Omally, ‘although it may take a little time
to interpret correctly.’

‘Oh,
one of those, is it?’ said Phil. ‘Then it will probably turn out to be the
instructions for the erection of flat-pack kitchen units. An uncle of mine had
a go at those once, he ended up eating his own foot. I don’t think that was in
the instructions. I think he just went—’

‘To
Margate?’ asked Gimlet Martin. ‘I was told that Margate was good for arthritis,
so I went there and I got it.’

‘The
Big Answer,’
went Omally in a big voice, ‘from he
who speaks behind the eyes, between the ears, beneath the tongue—’

‘Under
the clock?’ Phil suggested.

‘All
around my hat?’ said Gimlet.

Omally
raised a glass which had been refilled during time-out. ‘To Goth and Mebob, and
to Bah-Reah,’ he toasted, ‘and to the Big Answer.’

‘And to
Arsenal Football Club,’ said Phil.

‘And
Ruby Keeler,’ said Gimlet. ‘Whose legs went all the way up to her bum.’

The
three drank.

‘I feel
that the gods will be favouring me shortly,’ said Omally.

‘Crocks
of gold, or a touch of immortality?’ Phil asked.

‘Or
possibly three wishes of the Aladdin persuasion,’ said Gimlet. ‘An Irish uncle
of mine was offered three wishes by a Genie he freed from a Persian matchbox.
He asked for a bottle of Guinness which would never run dry, much after the
manner of the now legendary cornucopia. After taking a couple of swigs and
seeing that the Guinness had not gone down at all, he used up his two other
wishes. “Give us two more of these wonderful bottles,” he said.’