Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks (27 page)

PC Wisely: False alarm. Great long pointed tins with EXOCET on the side. God knows what that is. Probably the vegetable equivalent of horsemeat.

PC Rimmer: They'll eat anything, the Frogs.

Upon arrival at the Boulogne docks at 2.18 pm, we were at pains to thank said driver for his assistance and informed him he was the first straight Frenchman we had met. He replied that he was an Argentinian.

That explains it, we said.

38
Smiling Through

Computer scientists in California believe they have
evidence that the Mona Lisa was originally wearing a
necklace.

Dr John Asmus, who headed a team which investigated
the picture using computer image analysis techniques,
told yesterday's annual meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science that Leonardo
da Vinci probably changed his mind about the portrait
and painted over the necklace.

Independent

‘H
allo!' shouted Leonardo da Vinci, into the cocoa tin. ‘Is that Florence 2?'

He put the tin to his ear.

From somewhere deep inside came a sound not unlike a cockroach running through iron filings. He took his ear out of the tin again.

‘Speak up!' he shouted.

The tin squawked, unintelligibly.

He pulled on the string. Beyond his attic dormer, it tautened above the umber roofscape, scattering sparrows. He was about to put the tin to his ear again, when the string went suddenly slack.

‘Sod it,' said Leonardo.

He put the cocoa tin back on his desk, and ran out of his studio, slamming the door. Caught in the slipstream of his flying cloak, a preliminary cartoon for
The Battle of Anghiari
trembled on his easel, floated to the floor, and came to rest face up. The moted sunlight fell across two battered Medici grenadiers crouching in a muddy crater. ‘
If you knows of a
better 'ole
. . .' the caption began; but, like so much else these days, it was unfinished, and would in all likelihood remain so.

On the landing, Leonardo sprang into the lift, plummeted, screamed, and was hurled off his feet as it stopped without warning between floors. He rang the emergency handbell, and was winched slowly down by a bloomered pupil.

‘Up the spout,' muttered Leonardo.

‘
Up the spout
, Master?' murmured the pupil.

‘It is a technical phrase I have invented,' replied Leonardo da Vinci, straightening his plume, ‘to describe lifts.'

‘Is it like
on the blink
, Master?' enquired the pupil.

‘No,' said Leonardo. ‘
On the blink
describes telephones.'

‘Is Florence 1 on the blink again, then?'

‘Yes. There is a fault on the line. It is my opinion the knot has come out of Florence 2.'

‘It is nevertheless,' said the pupil, simpering warmly, ‘a wonderful invention, and a boon to man!'

‘Inventing the cocoa tin was the hard part,' said Leonardo. He sniffed, bitterly. ‘You would think that once you'd come up with the cocoa tin, it would all be downhill after that. You would think the string would be a doddle. It's a bugger, science. Half the time, it makes no bloody sense at all.' He pushed into the new revolving door which led to his workshop, and the pupil pushed in behind him. After about ten minutes of banging and shrieking, the pupil came out in front.

‘Up the blink, Master?' murmured the pupil, gloomily watching Leonardo's shredded cloak smouldering in the door's boiler. ‘On the spout?'

‘Down the tubes,' muttered Leonardo. He dusted himself off, and peered into the bustling workshop, on the far side of which a tiny buskinned man was throwing vegetables into a large glass cylinder. ‘Hallo, what's that little twerp Giovanni up to now?'

The pupil examined his clipboard.

‘Where are we?' he said. ‘Tuesday, Tuesday, yes, Tuesday he is supposed to be on rotary-wing research. He is down here as developing the Leonardo Gnat.'

Cursing, Leonardo ran across and snatched an imminent cucumber from Giovanni's little hands; in the confusion, a chicken scrambled out of the glass cylinder and fled, clucking.

‘That's never a helicopter!' cried Leonardo.

‘Insofar as you would have a job getting to Pisa in it,' replied the pupil, ‘that is true. However, Master, it works on the same principle. It is what we call a spin-off. If I may be permitted?'

Leonardo prodded the cylinder with his patent umbrella. The ferrule droped off.

‘Two minutes,' he said. ‘But God help you if it turns out to be another bloody toaster. They'll never send the fire brigade out four days in a row.'

Giovanni, who had meanwhile been turning a large key protruding from the base of the cylinder, now took a deep breath, and flicked a switch. Inside the cylinder, blades whirled, howling; a white lumpy mass spread across the ceiling. Leonardo looked slowly up, as the substance coalesced into soft stalactites; a blob fell into his beard, and he licked it off.

‘Vichyssoise, is it?' he enquired, levelly.

‘Leek and turnip, actually,' said Giovanni. He spooned a quantity from Leonardo's hat, and tasted it. ‘Could do with a bit more garlic?'

Leonardo swung his umbrella. It turned, naturally enough, inside out, but the residual sturdiness was still enough to fell Giovanni where he stood. Slowly, his ear swelled, glowing.

‘I want this one,' said Leonardo to the pupil-foreman, ‘on the next train to Santa Maria della Grazie.'

‘
The Last Supper
, Master?' cried the pupil-foreman, aghast. ‘Are you sure he's up to it?'

‘I'm a dab hand with apostles,' retorted Giovanni, struggling to his feet, ‘also glassware. You could drink out of my goblets.'

‘He will not be painting the wall,' said Leonardo, ‘he will be plastering it prior to undercoat, as per ours of the 14th ultimo, plus removing all rubbish from site and making good.'

‘Bloody hell!' cried Giovanni. ‘All I forgot was the lid! I have not even mentioned the fact that the amazing new Vincimix comes with a range of attachments which chop, shred, slice, and whip the pips out of a quince before you can say Jack Robinson.'

At which point, all the windows blew in.

Slowly, Leonardo da Vinci walked through the settling dust, and looked out. A blackened face looked back at him. Neither spoke. Leonardo turned and walked back through the room.

‘You'll have to go by horse,' he said to Giovanni.

‘Do not be downcast, Master,' said the pupil-foreman. ‘Nobody said trains were easy.'

Leonardo stared at the floor.

‘Funny,' he said, ‘the lid hops up and down all right on the kettle.'

The clock struck ten. Absently, Leonardo picked up the fallen cuckoo, walked out of the workshop, into the sunlit street, climbed on his bicycle, and began pedalling slowly towards Fiesole, scattering nuts and spokes. By the time he reached the house of Zanoki del Giocondo, he was carrying a wheel and a saddlebag, and sweating.

He tugged the bell-rope.

‘I phoned,' he gasped, when she answered the door.

‘The knot came out,' she replied.

‘I thought so,' he said. He cleared his throat. ‘Is he in?'

‘He's out in his tank.'

‘I thought he'd like that,' said Leonardo. ‘I thought it might get him out of the house.' He walked into the hall. ‘I hope he doesn't suspect anything, mind.'

‘No. He thinks you're a faggot. Nobody else gives him presents.' A neighbour passed, and peered, and smiled. La Gioconda nodded, and closed the front door. ‘How long is he likely to stay out?' she said. ‘I don't know anything about tanks.'

‘Days, possibly,' said Leonardo. ‘We haven't cracked this business of the tracks. It tends to go round in circles until the engine seizes up. Even if he manages to get the lid open again, he won't have the faintest idea where he is.'

‘But we ought to do a bit more of the painting, first?'

‘You can't be too careful,' said Leonardo da Vinci. He propped his wheel against the dado, and opened his saddlebag, and took out his palette and his easel; but as he was following her through the house and out into the garden – not simply for the light but for the assuaging of neighbourly curiosity – he could not help noticing the way a sunbeam fell across her plump shoulder, and the way her hips rolled.

So they decided to do a bit more of the painting afterwards, instead.

And when they were in the garden, finally, he put the necklace around her neck, and fastened the clasp, and she cried aloud:

‘Diamonds!'

‘What else?' he said.

So she sat in her chair, with her hands folded and a broad smile on her tawny face, and Leonardo da Vinci's brushes flicked back and forth, and the neighbours peered from between the mullions, and were satisfied.

And then it began to rain.

Not seriously enough to drive them in; just a warm summer blob or two. But one such, unfortunately, fell on her necklace, and, after a few moments, she looked down, and stared; and then she said, carefully:

‘The diamonds appear to be going grey.'

‘Ah,' said Leonardo.

‘Is that usual?'

Leonardo came out from behind his easel, and looked at them.

‘It could be,' he said, ‘With this new process.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘It's a bit technical,' said Leonardo.

‘Try me.'

‘You start off with coal,' said Leonardo.

‘I see.'

She stared at him for a long while after that, until Leonardo went back behind his easel. He picked up his brush.

He looked at her.

Her lip curled.

He put the brush down again.

‘It isn't much of a smile,' said Leonardo da Vinci.

‘It isn't much of a necklace,' said Mona Lisa.

39
The Gospel According to St Durham

. . . and Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved by compassion toward them, and he healed the sick with the blue mould that he had scraped off the five loaves that he had brought.

15  And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, Shut the surgery, none of these people has an appointment anyhow, send them away that they may go into the villages and buy themselves some victuals.

16  But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.

17  And they said unto him, We have here but two loaves and five fishes.

18  And Jesus said, It is
five
loaves and
two
fishes, for the umpteenth time, why does everyone always get that wrong, two loaves and five fishes would be tricky, but five loaves and two fishes is a doddle, we could even cut off the crusts.

19  And he took the two fishes, and he hung them over the fire a little while.

20  And his disciples marvelled, saying, What is this miracle that thou art performing now?

21  And he said unto them, It is called smoked salmon, you slice it very thin and you put it on titchy pieces of bread, you would not credit the number of people you can cater for, it will change the face of bar mitzvahs as we know them.

22  And lo! The miracle of the canapé was done, and the disciples went around with twelve trays, and the multitude said, Terrific, but what about the little slices of lemon?

23  And Jesus said unto them, Look up into the trees, and the people were amazed, for they had never realised that the things in the trees were lemons, they had only ever seen lemons in slices at catered functions.

24  And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children and gatecrashers who had pretended to be distant relatives on the bride's side.

25  And straightaway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away, and he went up into a mountain apart to pray.

26  But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves; for the wind was contrary.

27  And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.

28  And when the disciples saw him, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.

29  But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I and this is the breaststroke, be not afraid.

30  And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

31  And Jesus said, You do your legs like a frog and you push with your hands, but the main thing is not to panic.

32  And Peter was come down out of the ship, and walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord save me.

33  And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, if thou hadst merely turned upon thy back and not panicked, thou wouldst have floated, it is simple hydrodynamics, one day all Jews will swim, personally I blame Moses, parting the Red Sea was just molly-coddling people.

34  And the disciples gazed upward, fearing that the clouds would part and a great finger would come down and poke their boat, because the Red Sea plan had been God's idea in the first place.

35  But that did not happen; instead, the wind ceased, probably because God had conceded the point. And they that were in the ship came and worshipped Jesus, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.

14
And after the miracle of the smoked salmon, Jesus was much in demand at big affairs.

2  And the third day thereafter, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there.

3  And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And the disciples murmured amongst themselves, saying, Wonder what it'll be this time, five cocktail sticks and two little sausages? The miracle of the croquette potato?