The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag (28 page)

If Billy Barnes was
worried by the prospect of a man in a bowler hat, evening suit and wellington
boots attempting a crossing of the Desert of No Return inside the mind of God
in order to come and get him, he was hiding it well.

Billy
sat in the office of Blazer Dyke. The office that now had the name of Billy
Barnes on the door. The intercom buzzed and Billy said, Yes?’

‘The
Secretary of State to see you, sir.’

‘The
Secretary of State? I thought the Prime Minister was coming in person.’

‘Some
pressing business of an international nature has come up.’

‘Business
elsewhere,’ said Billy.

‘Pardon,
sir?’

‘Never
mind, send in the Secretary of State.’

‘Certainly,
sir.’

The
office door opened and Billy’s new secretary, a woman of remarkable beauty but
for the haunted look in her eyes, ushered in a man of unremarkable character.

‘Giles
Grimpin,’ said the Secretary of State, extending his hand. ‘Very pleased to
meet you.’

Billy
Barnes shook the proffered hand. Its palm was sweaty. He smiled at the
Secretary of State. A very sweaty individual. He was plump and somewhat shabby.
He had dandruff on the shoulders of his ill-fitting suit.

‘Be
seated,’ said Billy, and the Secretary sat. ‘Coffee?’ asked Billy. ‘Or would
you prefer something stronger?’

Well,
the sun is over the yard arm. Perhaps a small Scotch.’

‘Indeed.’
Billy crossed to the drinks cabinet. Poured a large Scotch and a Perrier water
for himself.

‘Thank
you,’ said Giles Grimpin, accepting his glass.

Billy
reseated himself. ‘I assume that your department have read through all the
documentation I sent them.’

Giles
Grimpin nodded. ‘All the technical stuff, yes.

‘And
does my proposal meet with your approval?’

Giles
Grimpin turned his glass between his podgy fingers. ‘It’s all somewhat radical,’
he said.

‘Radical,
yes, but you see the economic benefits. These are very large.’

‘They
are,’ said Giles. ‘Very profitable, in fact, but—’

‘But?’
said Billy.

‘But
compulsory downloading at the age of sixty-five: that in essence is what you’re
suggesting.’

We have
all the technology in place. Thousands have already been downloaded
voluntarily.’

‘Ah,’
said Giles Grimpin. ‘You use the word
voluntarily.
This is not
altogether accurate, is it? In essence people have been paying you one thousand
pounds a head to download their unwanted dependants.’

‘In
essence,’ said Billy. ‘Do you have any objection to that?’

‘None
at all, in fact—’

‘In fact,’
said Billy, ‘we downloaded your aunt just last week.’

‘The
poor creature,’ said Giles Grimpin. ‘She was beyond medical help. It was an act
of human kindness.’

‘Exactly,’
said Billy. ‘Although whether being a grumpy old woman who kept turning up at
your house unannounced to complain about the bypass going through next to her
garden actually qualifies as “beyond medical help” …’

‘She
was very ill,’ said Giles Grimpin. ‘Mentally.’

‘An act
of human kindness,’ said Billy. ‘As they are all acts of human kindness.
Sending the dear ones off to paradise; what greater act of kindness could there
be?’

‘None,’
said Giles. ‘Might I have another Scotch?’

‘Indeed
you might.’

‘So,’
said Giles, his glass refreshed, ‘all this said, compulsory downloading at
sixty-five, we’d never swing that through the House of Commons.’

You are
in government with a very large majority. Surely it is only a matter of the PM
giving it the go-ahead.’

Wheels
within wheels,’ said Giles. ‘I suppose if the PM’s advisors were to stress the
economic advantages.’

Which
are great,’ said Billy. ‘No more paying out of old-age pensions, no more care
for the elderly.

More
housing made available to the young.’

‘It’s
very tempting,’ said Giles. ‘Very tempting indeed. But the public, the man in
the Street—’

‘The
herd,’ said Billy. You mean the herd.’

‘The
general population.’

‘The
herd.’

‘Not an
expression we in government like to use. But nevertheless, in essence—’

‘In
essence,’ said Billy. ‘They will do what you tell them to do. As long as it’s
made to look as if you’re
not
telling them. As long as it’s something to
aspire to, rather than something compulsory. I have an advertising campaign
already worked out.’

You’re
very thorough.’

‘I have
to be. And so, can I rely on your support?’

‘I don’t
know.’ Giles Grimpin mopped at his brow with an oversized red gingham
handkerchief. ‘Something doesn’t gel. Something makes me feel uneasy.’

‘In
essence,’ said Billy, ‘the Necronet offers eternal life. No death, no pain,
only everlasting pleasure. Your fantasies brought to life. Do whatever you
want for as long as you want. Heaven on earth. Who could want more than that?’

‘Not
me,’ said Giles. ‘But all the same, it amounts to euthanasia on a national
scale.’

‘Britain
leads the way,’ said Billy. ‘Today Britain, tomorrow the world.’

‘I
really don’t know.’

Billy
shook his head. ‘I do wish I could count on your support.’

‘I’ll
have to think about it. Weigh up the pros and cons.’

‘Of
course,’ said Billy. ‘But if you did agree, do you think you could persuade the
PM?’

‘Absolutely.
I hold his ear. If I advised him to go for it, he would.’

‘That’s
fine, then.’ Billy turned up his palms. What more could I ask?’

‘Good,’
said Giles. Well, I have to be off.’

Billy
rose to shake his hand. ‘Oh, just one more thing,’ he said.

What’s that?’

‘I have
something for you. A gift.’

‘A
gift? For me?’

‘For
you,’ said Billy. ‘I’m sure you’ll like it. It’s called a pleaser.’

There was nothing too
pleasing about the Desert of No Return. It looked hot and dry and forbidding.
How far can a man walk into a desert? That was a famous question. How far can a
man walk into a desert of no return? That was another.

Well,’
I said to myself. What I need here is a guide. Who is good with deserts?
Lawrence of Arabia?’ No, I’d had him fed into a leaf shredder. I could think
him up again, but he probably wouldn’t be too good with .a desert like this.
How about Conan the Barbarian, he’d done a lot of desert work. And places like
the Swamp of Eternal Doom were right up his street. No, stuff Conan, what I
really needed was some transportation. A halftrack, or a Land Rover. Yeah, that
was it, a Land Rover. One of those trans-continental exploration jobbies with
all the extras. I pictured one that I’d seen in the May 1963 edition of
National
Geographic
while sitting in the dentist’s waiting room.

And
then I stood back from it and smiled.

It was
a beauty. Exactly as I remembered it.

This
would get me across any desert.

I put
my foot on the running board and opened the driver’s door.

And
found myself staring in at nothing. Now what did the interior of a Land Rover
look like? I’d never been in one.

And— I
stepped down and upped the bonnet.

I’d
never seen the engine either. And for that matter I didn’t actually know how
the internal combustion engine functioned. I don’t know how that one slipped by
me. I probably hadn’t been paying attention when it was explained.

I
sighed as I perused the empty bonnet space.

Mind
you, I did know how a leaf shredder worked. I wondered whether I could convert
one to run this Land Rover. They were plug-in, so it would need a few miles of
cable.

‘Oh,
sod it,’ I said. ‘I’ll just have to walk.’ And so I did.

It was dull in that
desert. Hot and dry and dull. And the thought that I was actually walking about
inside God’s head did nothing to alleviate this dullness. I couldn’t imagine
why God would have a place like this inside his head anyway. But then I suppose
that if God is everywhere and everywhen he has everything in his head. I made
a mental note to look up Hugo Rune at some future time and put him right about
his Universal Creation Solution. It seemed probable that the entire universe
was nothing more than a thought in God’s head. Possibly even a passing thought.
Could that be right?.

I shook
my head. ‘God knows,’ I said.

I don’t know how far I
walked into the desert before I found myself walking out of it again. Half way would
be my guess. But it certainly didn’t take too long, so halfway couldn’t have
been that far.

I stood
amongst the foothills of a lofty mountain range. ‘That was a very small desert,’
I said to myself. ‘I wonder why it’s called the Desert of No Return? Probably
because I have no intention of returning through it.’

And I
perked right up at this. The places I had to pass through might have silly
fantasy names, but that didn’t mean they had to be a problem.

They
were probably just symbols, or metaphors, or something. Freudian stuff to do
with rites of passage and exploring the inner self. A journey into me, perhaps.

‘A
piece of cake,’ I said. ‘I’ll breeze through this.’ It’s remarkable just how
wrong you can be sometimes, isn’t it?

The Bill to authorize
compulsory downloading at sixty-five passed through the House of Lords unopposed.

There
could possibly have been some opposition from certain elder statesmen, but
there wasn’t. For these elder statesmen had already been downloaded by their
relatives.

Certain
clauses were written into the Bill: that compulsory downloading did not apply
to members of the government being one; a tax upon the pension funds of the
downloaded being another; the nationalization of Necrosoft Industries being a
third.

‘Nationalization!’
Billy stormed up and down on the plush carpeting of his new office. It was a
big office right at the top of the building. It had been unoccupied, as if just
waiting for him. And it had to be said, he looked
right
in it.

‘Nationalization?’

The
Prime Minister, who had called by en route to business elsewhere, shot Billy a
quizzical glance. You seem most upset,’ he observed. ‘Almost as if
you
own
Necrosoft.’

‘Not
yet,’ muttered Billy under his breath. ‘But soon.’

You
must surely understand that it had to happen. Necrosoft is simply too large,
too important to remain in private hands.’

‘Governments
don’t nationalize any more.’ Billy threw up his hands in protest. ‘They privatize.
They sell off utilities. Bung profitable institutions into the private sector
to line their own pockets and those of their friends. Directorships,
productivity bonuses, windfalls. We all know how it works.’

‘Happily
the
we
you speak of do not all know how it works.’

Well,
I
do,’ said Billy.

The
Prime Minister smiled. ‘Mr Barnes,’ he said, ‘do you know who owns Necrosoft?’

Billy
shook his head. ‘Actually, I don’t,’ he confessed.

Well,
I
do,’ said the Prime Minister.

You do?’

‘I do.
A gentleman named Henry Doors. A recluse whose whereabouts are presently
unknown.’

‘I know
that name,’ Billy scratched at his head. ‘It rings a bell somewhere. Didn’t
Henry Doors invent a car engine that ran on tap water, or something? And he
wrote a book, what was it called? Endless something, wasn’t it?’

‘Endless
Journey,’
said the PM.

‘That’s
right. I’m sure I’ve got a copy of that somewhere.’

‘I
thought I had,’ said the PM. ‘But I must have lent it to someone. I tried to
order it again from Waterstone’s but it must be out of print.’

‘I act
directly for Mr Doors,’ said Billy, shameless in the lie. ‘I make all major
decisions regarding policy and development. Nationalization is out of the
question. Necrosoft must remain an independent private company.’

‘Really?’
asked the PM. ‘And why might that be?’

‘Because
I say so,’ said Billy.

The PM
smiled again. What a nice smile he had. ‘Billy,’ he said. ‘May I call you
Billy? Yes, of course I may. Billy, Necrosoft was originally funded by the US
government to develop weaponry.’

‘I know
that. It was to sidestep the Freedom of Information Act.’