Clovenhoof (24 page)

“Killer!”

“Murderer!”

“Don’t let him get away!”

Clovenhoof looked round to see more people after him. Where had they all come from? He had to find some way to ditch the doll and give these people the slip.

He ran full pelt down the middle of the Chester Road. Brakes squealed as drivers took in the spectacle of a man running at top speed down the carriageway, with a woman under his arm, chased by an angry mob.

Clovenhoof was able to gain a few yards as cars skated into each other and blocked the road.

He rounded the corner and saw a bus just pulling up at the bus stop. He put on a spurt and with a final glance over his shoulder to see if his pursuers were in sight, clambered onto the bus.

“One adult,” he said, panting, and slapped coins into the payment slot.

The bus driver just stared at him. Clovenhoof followed his gaze to the sex doll under his arm.

“And a half?” he suggested.

“Jeremy?”

Blenda was standing up from her seat a little way down the bus.

“Blenda,” said Jeremy with a breathless smile.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He was silent for a moment, composing his thoughts and getting his breath back.

“Do you know,” he said truthfully, “I have absolutely no idea.”

• Matters Arising
  
• Easter Bonnet Parade
  
• Extra-Celestial Travel
  
• Heaven’s Population –Report
  
• The Throne
  
• Swedenborg Seminar
  
• Clovenhoof
  
• AOB
  

Joan of Arc walked into the boardroom carrying a pile of papers, files and scrolls that came past her chin. The Reverend Evelyn Steed came in after with an equally high pile.

They dropped them noisily onto the table, creating a minor paper avalanche that almost buried St Peter’s tablet computer. St Peter’s toady, Herbert, whipped it out of the way just in time, polished it with his sleeve and passed it back to his master.

“You are late,” said Michael.

“Apologies,” said Joan.

“We’ve already covered the Easter Bonnet Parade, which is
still
going ahead, and we had just finished talking about the need to perhaps regulate extra-celestial travel.”

“Has Francis’ donkey been making unscheduled visitations to the faithful on Earth?” said Joan.

“He cwied at my deathbed, you know,” said St Francis.

“No,” said Michael. “We were more concerned about certain individuals popping off to Hell to consult with the damned.”

“It was necessary for the completion of my report on Heaven’s population problem,” said Joan.

“Completion?” said St Peter. “But the data collected for you filled acres of parchment.”

“That’s why I drafted in some of those spare seraphim to help.”

Joan grinned, the wild and shameless grin of youth. How old had she been when the English had killed her? Eighteen? Nineteen?

“You should read it,” she said. “Read it and weep.”

Michael lifted the corner of one sheet and then let it drop.

“Perhaps you’d summarise it for us?”

“Well,” said Joan, taking her seat, “the Celestial City is indeed a cube fifteen hundred miles to a side.”

St Paul gave a grunt of self-congratulation at having his scriptural recollection confirmed.

“That gives us a floor space of two and a quarter million square miles.”

“That’s enormous,” said Gabriel.

“But apparently there’s no room for a harps and clouds quarter,” said Pope Pius irritably.

“By comparison,” said Joan, “there’s fifty-seven million square miles of land on Earth.”

“That’s more,” said Gabriel helpfully.

“And Heaven’s population is greater than that of the Earth,” said Joan.

“I see,” said Michael.

“To put it bluntly, each one of Heaven’s residents has roughly three hundred square feet of living space. That’s the equivalent to a very small house on Earth.”

“Thank you for clarifying the situation for us,” said Michael.

“But it’s not clear at all!” said Joan. “The more you look into it, the more it becomes obvious that this city is a physical impossibility.”

“I don’t think Heaven has to contend with what is possible and what is not,” said Pius.

“In the
physical
universe,” said Joan, “a cube fifteen hundred miles across would collapse under its own weight and become a sphere.”

“As I said-” began Pius.

“And yet,” said Joan, “we have gravity or some semblance of it.”

She pushed her mountain of report papers so that they spilled further across the table to illustrate her point.

“You talk of Easter Bonnet Parades as though they are an annual event and yet this place is located outside of the temporal universe.”

“You’ve lost me,” said Gabriel.

“I lost myself. I had to seek out a natural philosopher, a scientific genius who could explain it all. That’s why I went to Hell.”

“I am sure we have many fine scientists in Heaven,” retorted Pius.

“You have Max Planck and that’s it,” said Joan bluntly. “I got nowhere with him. Started babbling about a matrix of matter and the consciousness behind all existence. I had to go to Hell.”

“And what did you learn there?” asked St Peter.

Joan placed her hands on the table.

“One, Hell is a bureaucracy of nightmarish proportions. Two, there’s a seven year waiting list for an audience with Albert Einstein. Three, there’s only a four hour waiting list for Niels Bohr and he was just as good. Four, we have a population problem that shouldn’t exist.”

“How so?” said Michael.

“Because distance is a relative measurement. This city can be expanded to infinite size.”

“But scripture speaks plainly,” said Pius.

“As it is on Earth, so shall it be in heaven,” said St Paul.

“But what is fifteen hundred miles in Heaven?” said Joan. “Who defines a stadia? A metre? A foot? There’s nothing to measure it against. Whose foot? What light waves?”

“Light waves?” said St Francis.

“Scientists moved from measuring a metre by the wavelength of emissions from Krypton-86 in 1983 and chose to...”

Joan stopped in the presence of eight blankly uncomprehending faces. Mother Teresa, quill in hand, seemed ready to burst into tears.

Michael whispered to her out of the corner of his mouth.

“K – R – Y – P...”

“The point is,” said Joan, “we want to expand Heaven or shrink its inhabitants. As we are outside the constraints of time and space, this problem can be resolved without any scriptural contradictions. As Gabriel said, Heaven should not be bound by what is possible and what is not.”

“How nice it is,” said St Peter, “that you’ve managed to solve the problem with such ease.”

“All we have to do is take our proposal to the Throne and request that He makes the appropriate changes.”

Michael coughed.

“I don’t think that you should be bothering the Lord with such matters.”

“I didn’t mean
me
,” said Joan. “I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to approach the Throne myself. Actually, I noticed that the Throne has been an item on the agenda for two consecutive meetings.”

“More than that,” said Pius.

“Is there a problem?” said Joan.

“Pardon?” said St Peter.

“With the Throne,” she said. “Is there a problem with the Throne?”

“Ridiculous,” said Michael and waved her words away.

“In truth,” said St Peter, “your concerns about Heaven’s capacity are ill-founded and your solution ham-fisted.”

“Is that so?” said Joan.

“My underling, Herbert, has been working on an initiative – at my bidding of course - that should allay your fears and bring about many positive changes to the Celestial City.”

Herbert squeezed round the side of St Peter’s chair and placed a number of brightly coloured leaflets on the table at the foothills of Joan’s paper mountain.

“
Keep Heaven Holy
?” read Evelyn from the across the table.

“We’ll be making a full presentation at the next board meeting. We must keep to the agenda or there will be chaos.”

“Indeed,” said Michael. “Now, I see the next item on the agenda is the Swedenborg Seminar.”

“What about the Thwone?” said St Francis.

“Oh, I think we’ve covered that in enough depth for now,” said Michael. “This Swedenborg thing is another one of your ideas, Joan?”

“Yes,” said Joan. “I’ve been reading your field reports on this Jeremy Clovenhoof character. You still have two Recording Angels tailing him.”

“We do.”

“His recent exploits have taken a... romantic turn.”

Mother Teresa’s quill wobbled erratically for a moment.

“And it’s not an area I know a great deal about,” said Joan.

“Nor I,” said Pius firmly and there were general murmurs of assent all along the table.

“It is not something of particular interest to angels,” said Gabriel.

“But,” said Joan, “this sex thing is apparently quite nice.”

Evelyn nodded in agreement, so readily that all eyes turned on her.

“Well, it is,” she said. “It’s right up there with chocolate and bungee-jumping.”

“Bungee-jumping?” said St Francis.

“You’re losing the gist of what I’m saying,” said Joan. “If this sex thing is so amazing then we should be doing it.”

“In the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage,” quoted St Paul. “They will be like the angels in heaven.”

“Quite,” said Michael uncomfortably.

“I’m not talking about marriage,” said Joan. “I’m talking about sex.”

“You mean...?” said Pius.

“Yes. The beast with two backs. Rumpy-pumpy. Getting giddy with it.”

Evelyn leaned over and whispered in her ear.

“Getting
jiggy
with it,” said Joan, correcting herself.

“I feel quite pale,” said St Peter.

Herbert produced a sick bag and presented it to his master but St Peter waved it away.

“Emmanuel Swedenborg is going to explain all the details at a seminar next week,” said Joan.

“I can’t believe I’m hearwing this,” said St Francis.

“Don’t worry, Frankie. There’ll be diagrams.”

Chapter 7 – in which Clovenhoof earns his crust, corrupts the young and seeks forgiveness

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You look a little red.”

“Well, I would, wouldn’t I?”

Blenda poked at the remains of Clovenhoof’s chicken tindaloo with her fork. The dish of sag phall next to it was completely empty, although a heat haze still seemed to hang over it.

“There were whole chillies in there.”

“I’m not saying it wasn’t warm.”

“I didn’t think anyone genuinely enjoyed them. I thought they just put them on the menu for idiots, drunkards and, you know, Geordies.”

Clovenhoof sighed.

“Blenda.”

She smiled sweetly. It was a smile that played up and down his spine like those fascinating massage techniques that she’d introduced him to.

“Yes, chuck?”

“You were telling me about your dreams.”

She looked round, perhaps to see who was listening in. They were alone in the Karma Lounge Restaurant, apart from the waiting staff who loitered by the bar, all toothy grins and floppy fringes.

“Well,” she said. “I used to dream of having children but that boat has definitely sailed. At one time, I wanted to travel. And” – she laughed at her own recollection – “I wanted to be a professional belly dancer.”

“You danced?”

“With more gusto than skill,” she said.

“But what about now?” said Clovenhoof.

“More gusto. Less skill.”

“No, I meant what do you dream about now?”

She shrugged.

“Peace and quiet. Long lie ins. Finding a good man who I can trust.”

She looked at him meaningfully. Clovenhoof suddenly found himself feeling uncomfortably hot and it wasn’t the curry to blame.

The spell was broken by the waiter coming over with the bill. Clovenhoof passed him a credit card in the name of BEN D KITCHEN.

“And you?” she said.

“No, I’m not looking for a man,” said Clovenhoof.

She punched him playfully.

“Dreams, Jeremy.”

“Oh, I had dreams.”

“Yes?”

He sat and thought. Dreams of servitude they had been in the beginning, which became dreams of conquest and of vindication, dreams of a white throne in a silver city. Then dreams of revenge and the desire to ruin.

“My dreams didn’t come to much,” he said.

“And now?”

He shook his head.

“No dreams. I’m just killing time in this place.”

“What? Waiting for death?”

“Not even that.”

She made a noise.

“What do you do with your days, Jeremy?”

“I don’t know. Stuff.”

“Like what?”

“I used to be in a heavy metal band.”

“Used to.”

“I have a pet mould called Herbert. He needs frequent attention.”

“Not selling it to me.”

The waiter walked back from the bar.

“Does it matter?” said Clovenhoof. “I’m healthy, financially solvent and currently dating a beautiful ex-belly dancer.”