Faust Among Equals (12 page)

The windmills were closing. The tulips were opening a path for them, letting them through . . .

The key thing to do in situations like these is to keep your head, Lundqvist remembered, as a sail-edge grazed his collar-bone. He ducked down on his hands and knees, machete between his teeth, and crawled. The sails couldn't reach him down here, neither could the carnivorous flowers. If he met an ant, at least it would be hand-to-mandible fighting, he'd have a chance.

Behind him, he heard a rumbling sound, like thunder, and the nauseating squeaking of living tissue being crushed. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder, and saw . . .

. . . A huge yellow wheel, at least twelve feet high at top dead centre, flattening a squishy path straight at him. Not a wheel. A cheese.

Lundqvist stood up. He'd had enough.

‘You bastard!' he screamed. ‘You fucking bastard! Can't you take
anything
seriously?'

Then he threw himself at the cheese, tripping over tulip-roots, dodging the murderous sails, soaked in sap and three-quarters blinded with pollen. As the leading edge of the cheese rushed towards him he hurled himself sideways, cannoning into a tulip stem, bouncing off the rubbery surface, being hurled like a baseball at the mountainous flank of the cheese. He thrust the machete out in front of him and screamed . . .

And found himself sitting in the gutter, a bent machete in one hand, a large slice of Edam in the other, surrounded by a crowd of bemused onlookers and wearing a baseball cap inscribed with

Five minutes later, a police car came and picked him up. He was later charged with obstructing the highway, disorderly conduct and fourteen breaches of the street trading regulations.

T
here was, of course, only one course of action open to Lucky George after the battle of Amsterdam: retribution. Immediate, savage and on a sufficient scale to convey the magnitude of his displeasure.

Not that he minded. Not one little bit.

As soon as he had thanked his old college chums, therefore, and caught the first available flight to his next port of call, he settled down and worked all the details out in his mind. Then . . .

 

The first intimation that the members of all the governments of all the nations of the earth had been turned overnight into farmyard animals came from the BBC radio news, with its crack-of-dawn summary of yesterday's proceedings in Parliament. Being a radio broadcast, there was no visual confirmation; and at first the grunts, squeals, clucks, squeaks, miaows and moos were interpreted as the combined effect of atmospheric disturbance, a fault on the line somewhere and the full and free exchange of views in the most highly respected democratic forum in the world. It was only when the breakfast television pictures started to come through that anyone was able to bring himself to put a more logical interpretation on the data.

Toast-crunching news addicts were greeted with footage of the pleasant green lawn-cum-verge outside the House of Commons, where the House was dividing on the third reading of the Finance Bill. The doors opened, and what can only be described as a flock shambled out, led by an extremely old, indifferent-looking sheep dog in a full wig.

The flock divided; the goats wandering into one lobby, the sheep into the other. After the tellers had done their work with their customary speed and efficiency, the sheepdog sat up on its hind paws, waggled its tail, and proclaimed that the meeeehs had it.

Simultaneously, in Washington DC, an old grey mule opened the day's proceedings of the Senate by eating the order papers and kicking the Barker of the House with his offside rear hoof. In the Knesset building the rows of seats were empty, and the elected representatives present wheeled and banked under the ceiling as the hawks tried to catch up with the swifter but less agile doves. This was at about the time when the German parliament adjourned for Swill, oblivious of the fact that across the border in France, the nation's leaders had abandoned a crucial debate on the economy to chase a catnip mouse round the boiler room. The Japanese legislature twice narrowly missed complete annihilation; first when somebody spilt a kettle of boiling water down a crack in the floor, and second when the Peruvian foreign minister arrived in the building for a top-level meeting and nearly swept the whole lot of them up with one lick of his long, sticky tongue. The Belgian government buried the contents of the Exchequer under a tree, curled up in little nests of scraped-together leaves and went to sleep for the winter.

Perhaps the most startling manifestation of all was in Iraq, where the entire government were changed overnight into human beings.

 

‘I suppose we ought to, really,' admitted the Marketing Director, wistfully. ‘Seems a shame, though.'

‘We've got to,' replied the Production Director, stifling a giggle. On the TV screen in front of him were satellite pictures of the emergency debate in the European Parliament, meeting for the first time in that august body's history on the summit of a steep cliff outside Ostend. ‘I mean,' he went on, ‘fun's fun, but . . .' He broke off and stuffed his tie in his mouth as a cascade of small, scuttling, furry-bodied politicians streamed off the edge of the cliff into the waves below. Further out to sea, the Council of Ministers were leaving a sinking ship.

‘Not,' commented the Finance Director, with more feeling than originality, ‘for the first time.' He stopped, and forcibly returned his mind to the issue in hand. ‘Look,' he said, ‘this has got to stop. Get the tiresome little man on the phone, somebody, and tell him to turn them back this instant.' He hesitated, turned his head back towards the screen, and caught a glimpse of the Parliament's select committee on agriculture scurrying frantically backwards and forwards to avoid a flock of ecstatic gannets. ‘Well, pretty soon, anyway,' he said, his eyes glued to a close-up of the President of the Council playing hide-and-seek with a cormorant. ‘By midday tomorrow at the very latest.'

‘That's easy enough to say,' grumbled the Marketing Director. ‘Got to find the blighter first. I don't suppose it's going to be all that easy . . .'

A telephone rang at his elbow and he picked it up.

‘Got someone called Van Appin on the line,' he said a moment later, ‘claims to be George's legal adviser. Anyone want to—'

The Finance Director grabbed the receiver. ‘Hello, Pete?' he barked. ‘What the bloody he-heliotrope does he think he's playing at? Tell him to get this mess sorted out immediately, or he's going to be in real trouble.'

At his desk, Mr Van Appin smiled. ‘Excuse me,' he said, ‘but I thought he was already. I mean, excuse my ignorance, but I thought everlastingly damned was about as in trouble as you could possibly get without actually working in advertising.'

The Finance Director waved his hand feebly. ‘You know what I mean, Pete,' he replied. ‘For pity's sake, this is going too far.' As he spoke, the image on the television screen changed, and he found himself staring at a huge, distended anaconda which had apparently just imposed one-party rule in the small South American state of Necesidad by swallowing the Social Democrats. ‘All right,' he muttered wearily. ‘Tell me what he wants and I'll see what I can do.'

There was a pause, then Van Appin said, ‘You know what he wants, Norman. He wants to be left alone. Call off your people, leave the kid in peace.'

The Finance Director growled petulantly. ‘I already did that, Pete,' he said. ‘All agents returned to base, no further action. You want me to swear an affidavit or something?'

‘Lundqvist.'

The Finance Director shuddered slightly. ‘Not our man,' he said, as casually as he could. ‘Nothing to do with us. Entirely freelance, you know that. I'll withdraw the reward if you like but that's the best I can—'

Van Appin shook his head. ‘Don't act simple, Norman,' he replied irritably. ‘After yesterday's little performance, I don't suppose the money's really at the forefront of his mind.'

‘Not my fault. Serves your client right for teasing him. Anyway, nothing we can do about it, so if you'll just—'

‘No.' Van Appin took the phone away from his ear, covered up the earpiece with the palm of his hand, and counted to ten.

‘You still there, Norman?' he asked.

‘Yes, still here.'

‘This,' said Van Appin, ‘is the deal. You give me your formal undertaking to do everything you can to get Lundqvist off my client's case, we'll let you have your politicians back. And that's our last offer.'

There was a long silence.

‘And now,' burbled the television set, ‘we're going over live to Danny Bennett at the United Nations building in New York, where . . .'

‘Switch that bloody thing off!' shouted the Finance Director. ‘Hello, Pete? Look, I'm making no promises but we'll do our very best. Now, tell your man to stop mucking about.'

‘And you'll stop Lundqvist?'

‘I'll put my best demons on it, Pete, right away.'

‘You'd better,' Van Appin retorted. ‘Remember, germs are also animals, of a sort. You want the civilised nations of the world led into the twenty-first century by a bad cold, all you have to do is try and be clever.'

The line went dead. With a long, chilly sigh the Finance Director straightened his back and turned to his colleagues.

‘Get me the Captain of Spectral Warriors,' he said.

 

‘What did you say it was called?' asked Lucky George, looking round at the thronged piazza, the buzzing crowds of cosmopolitan citizens, the emerald blue of the bay and, in the background, the dazzling white masonry of the eighth wonder of the world.

‘Australia,' replied Helen. ‘Have a crisp.'

‘No, thank you.' Lucky George considered. ‘Don't think we had it in my day,' he said. ‘I suppose you're going to tell me it's Progress.'

‘Well, isn't it?'

Lucky George thought for a moment. ‘That or entropy,' he decided. ‘You know, the older I get, the harder I find it to tell 'em apart. I still say we managed perfectly well without it, but there we are, what's done is done.' He sat down on the steps and focused on the sails of the yachts in the distance.

‘This,' Helen continued, crunching, ‘is Sydney.'

‘I thought you said it was—'

‘Sydney, Australia.'

‘Ah. Sydney's its Christian name.'

‘Don't be tiresome, George. You'll like it here.'

‘Will I? Why?'

Helen sneezed. ‘Because nobody will ever think of looking for you here, that's why.'

‘Figures,' George said. ‘I wouldn't, certainly. Wouldn't be seen dead, in fact.'

‘Well, there you are, then.'

‘Yes,' George replied thoughtfully, ‘here I am. Indeed. Do they have food in Australia?'

Helen nodded. ‘Absolutely. Tons of it.'

‘Ah. That's something, I suppose. Let's go and investigate.'

Over the coffee, George expanded on his proposed course of action.

‘The only real problem,' he said, ‘is Lundqvist. The rest of them we can probably handle. By the way, did you know that this country you're so fond of is governed entirely by warthogs?'

Helen frowned. ‘You're going to have to change them all back sooner or later, George. I mean, you've made your point. There's nothing to be gained by ramming it into the ground.'

‘If,' George said, changing the subject, ‘we could find some way of getting rid of Lundqvist once and for all, then I'd be prepared to try and negotiate. A few concessions here and there, it oughtn't to be a problem. But while that nutcase is on the loose, I really don't fancy it. Pass the ashtray.'

‘I think you've got a complex about Lundqvist,' Helen replied. ‘You saw how easy it was to deal with him in Amsterdam. We made him look a complete idiot. I expect he'll go back to chivvying the undead and leave us in peace.'

‘Don't you believe it.' George shook his head, accidentally turning the cash register into a bottomless purse. ‘In retrospect, I don't think I handled that particular encounter quite right. All we've achieved so far is to get so far up his nose that we're practically coming out of his ears. Not sensible.'

‘But surely,' Helen said over the rim of her coffee cup, ‘once they withdraw the reward, surely he'll just go away. I mean, he's a professional bounty-hunter, he doesn't do it for fun. If he's not going to get paid . . .'

George gave her an indulgent look. ‘Bless the child,' he said, ‘for her naivety and purity of spirit. If Lundqvist succeeds in delivering yours truly, I've little doubt they'll come across with the money. He knows that perfectly well. Besides, he'd carry on regardless, money or not. He doesn't like being made a fool of. Probably,' he added, ‘an ingrained dislike of gilding the lily.'