Clovenhoof (33 page)

“Orcs aren’t from hell, you idiot!” Clovenhoof yelled through the wall.

He wondered desperately if he could hide the burnt puddings under layers of crème fraiche or custard. He poked one. It hissed and sank even further onto the plate.

“Orcs are bad guys, just the same,” Ben was saying, “so they probably belong in hell. I guess we can have whatever we want there, it’s all made-up anyway. You could have orcs, and cybermen and the Borg.”

“And traffic wardens,” said Nerys.

“And queue-jumpers,” said Blenda.

“And football hooligans,” said Dave.

“While we’re making it up, how about putting Jeremy in charge?” giggled Nerys.

“Good one,” said Ben.

“He’d be perfect if Satan wanted to take a holiday at any time.”

Clovenhoof roared with anger and charged into the room, flamethrower aloft.

He was angry that Blenda and Dave had been pally all evening. Look, her hand was still on his knee. He was angry that Michael kept making small sarcastic comments and insulting his human friends. But most of all he was angry that his Arctic Roll Alaska, the crowning glory of his dinner party had been instantly cremated by the flamethrower.

“You have no idea, do you? Absolutely no fucking idea!”

They all fell silent, eyes on the flame that swung in time with Clovenhoof’s agitation.

“Running an efficient Hell is the hardest thing you can imagine. Harder than getting Ben laid, even harder than getting Nerys to keep her knickers on. You can sit around mocking, but I’ve seen tough times like you’d never believe. Cleaning out the litter trays for Cerberus. Three mouths, one arse, it’s not pretty! Up all night with the admissions during the World Wars. I even had to write a preparedness plan in case there was a bird flu pandemic.”

“Put the flamethrower down, will you, chuck?” Blenda said.

Clovenhoof adjusted a switch and the yellow flame vanished, leaving only the tiny blue pilot light. Everyone breathed again.

“What are you trying to tell us?” said Nerys.

Clovenhoof groaned loudly between clenched teeth.

“I am Satan, you idiots! I am the devil. I am Lucifer. I am the Adversary, the fallen one. Old Nick, Old Scratch, the Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Most Unclean, Son of Perdition. Can’t you see my horns? My hooves?”

There was a long silence.

“Er,” said Dave.

“He’s not a well man,” said Michael, to the others. “There’s history of... you know.” He tapped his skull.

“Those cocktails were very strong,” said Ben.

“That’s right,” agreed Nerys hurriedly.

“And he’s been over-worked recently,” added Blenda.

“No!” Clovenhoof squealed. “I am Satan. I am God-damning bloody sodding Satan, you stupid twats!”

More silence followed, then there was a thumping sound from above.

“Ah,” said Nerys, clearly glad for the excuse. “Aunt Molly wants me to put Twinkle’s dinner out before it gets dark, to see if it’ll bring him back.”

Nerys stood up, took an automatic step towards the door and then slowly turned.

“Oh no,” she said softly.

“What?” snapped Clovenhoof.

“Oh no, no, no. Jeremy. That roast dinner. The bones. You always hated that dog. Did you, did you…cook Twinkle?”

Clovenhoof rolled his eyes.

“No, I put him in next door’s coal bunker because he kept sniffing round my prawns.”

“Oh. What was the meat then?”

“Rabbit. From the market.” he added. It was actually from the hutch two doors down but that was just a trifling detail.

There were exhalations of relief from everyone.

“And the morcilla?” asked Dave.

“Oh, that was Mr Dienermann,” Clovenhoof said.

“Who?”

“He was in for an embalming. It seemed wrong to waste all the blood we pumped out so I brought it home in a bucket. Yummy, wasn’t it?”

Blenda paled in an instant and vomited into Dave’s lap.

The next moments were a scramble. Everyone wanted to get to the bathroom or the front door. They argued afterwards about who had knocked over the gently hissing flamethrower, but what is beyond doubt is that it quickly ignited the elegant draped tablecloth and then the curtains.

Nerys formed an impromptu action plan for the firemen who were called to the scene and gave a ‘
Nerys: Your Kind Of Woman’
flyer to each and every one of them.

Dave had rushed home, because he’d discovered that Clovenhoof’s Yorkshire puddings contained milk, and he’d eaten at least six of them.

Ben had managed to snag the bottle of absinthe on the way out and sat in the garden taking hearty swigs and hoping that the flames and the fire fighters didn’t reach his own flat.

Blenda released Twinkle from the coalbunker and reunited him with Molly who was wrapped in a blanket, sipping tea.

Nobody knew where Clovenhoof had gone, but Michael stayed around long enough to assure the emergency services that he was not in danger. Betty and Doris stood beside Michael making clucking sounds as they watched the drama unfold.

“Well that depends how you define danger,” said Doris. “He’s going to have a bit of explaining to do after this.”

“To his friends you mean?” asked Betty.

“Friends! You can call them that. For the time being,” said Doris with a hollow laugh. “They might have other ideas after his latest antics.”

“We don’t know exactly what happened yet,” said Betty. “All that we can be sure of is that he’s had some kind of breakdown.”

Doris stooped to pick up a charred piece of paper from the ground.
Mind-Bending Cocktails for Students on a Budget
.

“Lighter fluid cocktails?” she suggested.

“No,” said Michael. “Someone kicked over the flamethrower.”

“Flamethrower?” said Doris. “What was he doing with that?”

“Cooking,” said Michael. “Obviously. There was a panic.”

Doris scribbled in her notepad.

“So what was the thing that made people panic?” asked Betty.

“He’d used human remains in his haute cuisine,” said Michael, lifting his eyes to Heaven.

“Oh dear. Oh deary me!” said Doris, scribbling gleefully.

“But he was making an effort, you say? Lovingly preparing a meal for his friends?” said Betty.

Michael thought for a minute.

“No,” he said. “He was really just showing off I think.”

Betty made a few notes of her own.

“It sounds as though he’d put a lot of effort into socialising though,” she said. “Human remains or not.”

“What kind of body parts did he cook?” asked Doris, eyes wide in anticipation.

“Sir!” said a fire fighter to Michael. “You might want to be careful about talking to reporters. It can start a lot of irresponsible speculation.”

“Oh, I hardly think that these two are reporters. They’re completely harmless,” said Michael.

Another fire fighter ran up breathlessly.

“There’s a woman across the road who swears she saw the silhouette of a man running through the flames.”

“Really?” said Michael.

“She said it looked as though he was dancing.”

“Dancing?” Michael gave him a supercilious look.

“Yeah, I know. Think she might be bats. Well, as long as everyone’s accounted for, we just need to put that out.”

He indicated the flames coming from the window of flat 2A. He turned back, but Michael was gone. Betty and Doris smiled at the fire fighters and continued to jot notes at a feverish pace.

• Matters Arising
  
• Keep Heaven Holy
  
• The Throne
  
• Clovenhoof
  
• Festival
  
• AOB
  

Herbert, St Peter’s flabby assistant, ensured that his
Keep Heaven Holy
presentation was understood by all.

He had produced a slide-by-slide computer presentation, had given annotated copies of the slides to all present and then read through each slide word for word, just in case anyone happened to have been struck blind. Mother Teresa dithered over whether to take minutes given that she had Herbert’s presentation notes in front of her and eventually plumped for copying them out onto parchment in her flowing golden script.

“In summary,” said Herbert, clicking onto a slide that began with the words ‘
In summary’
, “
Keep Heaven Holy
is designed to ensure that the moral rectitude demanded of the faithful on Earth is similarly demanded of all Heaven’s inhabitants, present and future. Although ‘Love God with all your heart and love your neighbour as you love yourself’ remains the spirit of the law, the letter of the law must also be enforced.”

“Enforced?” said Joan sceptically.

“We want the same Heaven you do,” said Herbert. “You spoke of over-crowding and chaos. We want to sweep that away. Picture if you will... light open airy spaces, parks and flowers, amenities for all, venues for all manner of socially acceptable activities.”

St Michael looked at the
Keep Heaven Holy
leaflet he had been given. The image on the front leaf depicted a long street of shops and houses beneath an azure sky, huge tubs planted with blousy flowers in pinks and purples, carefully spaced trees heavy with neatly pruned greenery. Michael realised that it was an idealised version of a street he had come to know very well over the last few months. Yes, here was the bank Clovenhoof had robbed, here Ben’s bookshop (in the picture converted into a library), here a certain beauty therapist’s now become a respectably austere barbershop.

“And what about animals?” said St Francis.

“Of course,” said Herbert. “There will be a place for every lion to lie down with a lamb, a place for every donkey.”

“It sounds wemarkable.”

“Reminds me,” said Gabriel. “The Wolf of Gubbio has been trying to eat people again.”

“Impossible,” said St Francis. “Bwother Wolf made an oath to me that he would never dine on human flesh.”

“And when did he make that oath?” asked Pope Pius XII.

“1214,” said St Francis. “Owiginally.”

“What do you mean, originally?”

“It’s a difficult oath for a giant, savage, man-eating wolf to keep. But he wenewed his oath here in Heaven in 1571.”

“I see.”

“And again in 1749.”

“Yes.”

St Francis raised his eyes in recollection.

“Again in 1838. Then 1884, 1905, 1916, 1922 and 1925.”

“And since then?” asked Pius.

“We’re on a sort of wolling pwobationawy contwact.”

“Well, he’s been trying to take bites out of people in that shanty town outside the ninth gate,” said Gabriel.

“I will have words,” said St Francis.

“What shanty town?” said Joan.

“They’ve grown up in the past months around the Celestial City,” said Gabriel. “A sea of white tents.”

“I thought I’d noticed fewer people coming in,” said Joan. “Can’t manage the traffic, Peter? There are twelve gates to Heaven and you only ever have the one open.”

“There is no traffic issue,” said St Peter. “I’m insulted by the notion.”

“So?” Joan spread her hands. “What’s going on?”

“I think we need to stick to the items on the agenda,” said Michael.

“I can assure you,” said Herbert from his position by the presentation screen, “those shanty towns will be dealt with once
Keep Heaven Holy
comes into effect.”

“What do you mean, dealt with?”

“Perhaps now would be a good time to talk about your proposed festival, Joan,” suggested Michael loudly.

“You’re trying to change the subject,” she said.

“You don’t want to talk about the festival?”

Joan sighed angrily.

“I want these shanty towns on next meeting’s agenda.”

“Done,” said Michael, nodding to Mother Teresa.

Evelyn passed Joan a large rolled up sheet of paper secured by an elastic band. Joan unrolled it on the table top and pinned down the corners with chalices.

“Here’s the venue layout. We have three main stages here, here and here. We’ve got Johnny Cash, Lillie Langtry and Karen Carpenter headlining. George Handel and Glen Miller are putting together some fusion thing for the chill-out tent.”

“Johnny Cash,” said Pius. “Isn’t he in Hell?”

“We got him on secondment.”

“You’ve got the damned performing at our festival?”

“No, The Damned are still alive and touring down on Earth,” said Joan, grinning.

No one else smiled.

“Whoosh,” said Evelyn, passing a hand over her head.

“It was a joke,” said Joan feebly. “Anyway, here we have the craft tents, the food courts, children’s activities, beer tent-”

“Beer?” said St Peter.

“Not just beer. Wine, cider, stout, mead.”

“I’m not sure if this is appropriate,” said Michael.

“Drinking makes you loud and foolish,” quoted St Paul.

“I should hope so,” said Joan. “I picked this up from Michael’s Recording Angels, Betty and Doris.” She placed a damp and singed copy of
Cocktails: a Man’s Guide
on the table. “I hear you enjoyed a Golden Daisy or two.”

“I’ve been known to indulge, responsibly,” said Michael.

“This looks huge,” said St Francis looking at the festival plans.

Joan tilted her head.