The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag

For
my good pals

across
the water

Jams,
James and Michael

And
to celebrate the opening of The Flying Pig Bookshop

Hip Hip
Hoorah.

A Turnip for the Book

‘Now that’s a turnip for the book,’

The farmer said to the pastry cook.

‘That’s a rare one, if I ever saw.’

The pastry cook was indisposed,

And both his eyes and ears were closed,

And so he never heard the farmer when the farmer
swore.

‘Here’s a strange thing that I see,’

Said the cook of the paste-ter-ee.

‘Here’s a thing of which I’ll later boast.’

The farmer, foaming at the jaw,

Had bolted through the kitchen door,

And was far out in the desert and was making for the
coast.

The farmer was always far out.

1

Paranoia
is a state of heightened awareness.

Most
people are persecuted beyond their

wildest
delusions.

CLAUDE
STEINER

The doctor Said that I was
a paranoid schizophrenic. Well, he didn’t actually
say
it. But
we
knew
he was thinking it.

‘Tell
me about the butterfly,’ the doctor said. Which particular butterfly would that
be?, I said.

The
doctor consulted his case notes. ‘The butterfly of chaos theory.’

‘Ah,
that lad.’

‘That
lad, yes. Would you care to tell me about it?’

I
shrugged. ‘It’s just a theory. You know the kind of thing. A butterfly in
Acapulco flaps its wings and England lose the European Cup.’

The
doctor nodded thoughtfully. ‘And you believe that, do you?’

I
shrugged again. ‘I can take it or leave it. I’m not bothered.’

‘And
yet’ — more case note consulting — ‘I understand that you claimed to have such
powers yourself.’

‘Me?
Never!’

‘Really?’
The doctor raised an eyebrow and also a press cutting. ‘But I have here a
review of your stage act, “Carlos the Chaos Cockroach”.’

‘That
was just a comedy routine.’

‘Really?
Yet in a taped interview with me earlier this month you claimed that by moving
a biro in your top pocket, or putting paperclips on your ear, you could cause
major events to occur’ —
more
case note consulting — ‘effect
fluctuations on the stock market, topple governments, bring about world peace.’

‘I
might have.’

‘You
might have.’ The doctor adjusted his spectacles. Expensive designer spectacles
they were, I’d had a pair like them once. Plain glass in mine, though, an image
thing, I don’t want to dwell on it.

‘But
didn’t you employ these powers in order to become the President of the United
States for a week?’

‘That
was an error of judgement on my part. I apologized to everyone. I stood down,
didn’t I?’

‘But
you
did
have the powers.’

Yes,
all right, I
did.
But I don’t have them any more.’

‘The
tablets are helping, are they?’

‘Tablets
always help. That’s what tablets are for, isn’t it?’

The
doctor nodded.

‘Like
God said.’

‘God?’

‘Like
God said to Moses, “Keep taking the tablets.”‘

Was
that supposed to be a joke?’

‘Very
possibly. You’d have to ask God.’

‘I’m
sorry I missed that stage act of yours. It must have been most amusing.’ The
doctor’s tone lacked sincerity.

‘Hm,’ I
said.

The
doctor consulted further case notes. He had an awful lot of case notes. A very
great many case notes. A considerable wad of case notes. And they were all in a
big fat folder with my name on the front. Well,
one
of my names, ruse so
many.

Sighing
just a little, he leaned back in his chair. ‘Tell me all about the sprout,’ he
said.

‘Sprout?
What sprout?’

‘Harry.
wasn’t it?’

‘Harry?’

‘No,
Barry. The sprout who lived inside your head.’

‘He
didn’t live there. He’s not alive.’

‘He was
a dead sprout. ‘‘He was a theophany.’

‘And
what is that, exactly?’

‘A
manifestation of the deity to man, in a form that, though visible, is not
necessarily material.’

‘So you
could see him?’

‘No, I
could hear him. He was my Holy Guardian Sprout.’

‘As in
Holy Guardian Angel?’

‘That’s
right. You see, there are more people in the world than there are angels in
heaven, so God has to improvise. He shares out the produce of his garden. You’ve
probably got a radish, or a turnip.’

‘Inside
my head?’

I
nodded. ‘It’s like the voice of your conscience. Only
you
can hear it.’

‘And so
Barry spoke to you and only you could hear him?’

‘That’s
how it worked. It got me into a lot of trouble.’

‘And is
Barry speaking to you now?’

‘No,
you’re speaking to me now. ‘‘Good. Very good. We are making progress. ‘‘Does
that mean that I can go home soon?’ We’ll see.’

‘How
about letting me out of this straitjacket?’

‘All in
good time.’

‘Look,’
I said, ‘I’ve answered your questions. I’ve told you about Barry. Barry was a
delusion, I understand that now. I’m much better now. I just want to get out
of here and get back to work.’

‘Ah
yes, your work.’ The doctor took once more to the consultation of his case
notes. ‘This would be in your capacity as a private detective, would it?’

‘It
would, yes.’

‘And
what exactly does a private detective do?’

‘Oh,
come off it. Everyone knows what a private detective does.’

‘But
what exactly did
you
do, when
you
were being one?’

Well…’
I had to think about this. It was a tricky question. ‘For the most part I just
stood around in bars talking a load of old toot.’

‘And
that’s what private detectives do?’

‘No,
that’s what
I
did.’

‘And
you called yourself’ — more bloody case note consultation — ‘Lazlo Woodbine,
Private Eye.’

‘After
the new legendary detective in the P. P. Penrose novels. Some called him Laz,
you know.’

Would
you like me to call
you
Laz?’

‘I’d
like you to call me a cab and let me get off about my business.’

‘Standing
around in bars talking a load of old toot?’

‘No,
solving my case.’

‘And
this would be—’

‘The
case of the voodoo handbag. Please leave your notes alone.’

‘Does
the consultation of my notes upset you?’

‘It’s
designed to, isn’t it?’

‘Of
course.’

‘Then
it’s working a treat.’

‘So,
this case of yours, might we go through that again?’

‘I’d
rather not, if you don’t mind.’

Why?’

‘Because
I’ve been through it with you dozens of times, and I’m fed up with telling you
about it, and you must be fed up with listening to me telling you about it.’

‘I
never get fed up,’ said the doctor. ‘I’m a doctor. We have tablets for that
kind of thing.’

‘If I
tell you about it again, will you take the straitjacket off?’

We’ll
see.’

Who’s
this
we?’

‘I’ll
see.’

I
shrugged once more. A shrug was all I could manage.

‘The
case was to do with the Law of Obviosity. And before you have to consult your
notes again, that’s the Hugo Rune Law of Obviosity, which states, “Everything
has to be somewhere and nothing can ever be anywhere other than where it is.”‘

‘That
sounds logical.’

‘It
might sound logical, but that doesn’t mean it’s true.’

Would
you care to explain?’

‘OK.
Now I’m sure you’ll accept that there is a science to detective work. “The
science of deduction”, as Holmes once put it. Private detective work is mostly
to do with finding something that is missing. Something or somebody. So let’s
say that you have to find something that’s supposedly gone missing. Where is
the first place you would look?’

The
doctor shook his head.

‘You’d
look in the most obvious place, wouldn’t you? But if it’s missing, then it won’t
be there, will it?’

‘I
would assume not.’

‘So
then you look in the next most obvious place, and then the next and then the next
and so on, until you find it. Because everything has to be somewhere and
nothing can ever be anywhere other than where it is.’

‘Go on.’

‘Right.
But in order that you don’t involve yourself in an infinite amount of looking,
the very best place to start looking would be in the
least
most obvious
place.’

‘That
makes sense.’

‘You’d
think so. But if the
least
most obvious place is the most obvious place
to start looking, then that makes it the
most
obvious place. So
therefore it’s not the
least
most obvious place any more, because now it’s
the
most
obvious place and there’s no point in looking in the most
obvious place for something that’s gone missing, is there?’

Were
you any good as a private detective?’ the doctor asked.

‘The
very best. So, having eliminated the
least
most obvious place, because
it’s the most obvious place to start looking, what you must ask yourself is,
where is the least most obvious
least
most obvious place? And ten cent
gets you a dollar back on the bottle, that’s exactly where it won’t be.’

‘So
where will it be?’

‘It
will be in the original most obvious place, because that is the least most
obvious of all least most obvious places it could possibly be.’

‘But if
it’s in the original most obvious place, then surely it’s not missing?’

Well,
if it’s not missing, why come bothering me about it in the first place?’

The
doctor made a sort of coughing sound in his throat. ‘You were searching for a
missing handbag, is that right?’

‘A
missing voodoo handbag, yes.’

‘And
did you find it?’

‘I
found a handbag, but it wasn’t the one I was looking for.’

‘Bad
luck.’

‘Not at
all. It was the one I had been looking for on my previous case. And, as the
least most obvious
least
most obvious way I was ever going to find that
handbag was while looking for a different handbag, I wasn’t the least bit
surprised when I did find it. It was all so obvious, really.’

‘But
you didn’t find the one you
were
looking for, the voodoo handbag?’