Mondo Desperado (15 page)

My father (it was said of him that he considered himself above such mundane pursuits – had not worked in thirty years, devoting himself entirely to the declamation of verse in public
places since his own graduation from that same aforementioned august institution) continued, perching his pince-nez on the bridge of his nose: ‘But the oddest thing is – it’s in a
place I’ve never heard of!’

Such was my excitement I did not care a jot if I had been offered a position in Kathmandu or the Outer Hebrides. I leaped from my chair and, gripping the sheet of paper, read furiously in a
trembling voice: ‘On behalf of the community of Labashaca, I would like to take this opportunity to offer you the position of General Practitioner, to take effect immediately. Signed yours
sincerely, Fr Tom Bannie.’

I could not believe my eyes. I landed my father a rough punch on his right shoulder and cried: ‘I got it, Daddy! Do you realize what this means? Do you?’ I could see that he was
delighted for me and resolved to repair to my room and pack at once.

The saddest part of all was bidding farewell to my mother. I have always harboured a special affection for her, both of us consequently finding ourselves in floods of tears at the garden gate as
the jarvey waited patiently for me. ‘Please write to me, son! Write and tell me all about the people of Labashaca and your new-found friends!’ she said. I assured her that I would. Then
I said goodbye to my father and we were off. Johnnie Colcannon was the jarvey and he had been driving our family for generations so I felt I was in safe hands. That was my first mistake.

*

The last thing I remember before I fell asleep was a beautiful rose-red sky with the sun a shimmering orange ball hanging like a lamp between the sharp peaks of the distant
Slieve Took mountains. But when I awoke both it and they had vanished and in their place were clouds of the oddest ink-blue hue that somehow seemed to possess just the slightest touch of menace,
filling me throughout with a sense of the deepest foreboding. Which, I realized at once, was fanciful nonsense, and wholly due to the fact that our journey had already taken us some hours and that
I had been overcome by a debilitating lassitude. I suppose it is fair to say that by my very rationality – upon which I pride myself, and always have – I effectively demolished my
irrationality. And was about to observe as much to my good friend the jarvey, except that when he slowly turned to hear my words, I saw that it was not him but a smaller man who, whilst bearing a
superficial resemblance to Johnnie Colcannon, my driver of some hours earlier, had within his skull set two bead-like eyes of such glassy emptiness that it could mean only one thing – the
driver of my jaunting car and custodian of Ernest, our trusty trotting steed, had been spirited somehow away, and in his place installed – a
changeling
!

There are those who will claim that in the case of adults the removal of one person and their substitution with another who bears a vaguely similar yet somehow different aspect is, quite simply,
an impossibility. But this is not the case. There have been many such instances. A well-to-do lady in Ballintack in 1892 returned to find her husband Martin’s chair inhabited by a beguiling
stranger with whom she had to spend the rest of her life, eventually being beaten to death by him in a row over cups and saucers. An ordinary housewife in the county of Cash lay in bed one night
and awoke to see an empty-eyed stranger – who bore the swarthy features of her husband but did not speak with his voice – climbing in beside her and making illicit suggestions of the
most repellent kind. The evidence is ample, to say the very least. And now – here I was! – sharing a car with a jarvey who was not my own. A clammy hand of fear took hold of me and I
swore I should never reach Labashaca alive.

*

Which, fortunately, I did, but whether, considering the fate that lay in store for me, ‘fortunately’ is the appropriate word or not is a moot point, for hardly had I
arrived at the door of the hotel than I was approached by an oily-looking individual in a hacking jacket who let it be known that his name was Albert Huntingdon. I smiled as best I could, having no
interest whatsoever in either him or his name, and was about to tip my cap and push past him into the hotel when I found myself pinned up against a wall and as malevolent an eye as ever I
encountered bit into me as sharp and as deep as any sword. ‘Don’t think I don’t know who you are, Mr JJ Parkes, so-called practitioner in the field of medicinal arts! And
don’t think I don’t know you are a direct descendant of Fortescue Hastings-Parkes, would-be veterinary surgeon and part-time scientist, who has visited a scourge on the town of
Labashaca that no amount of forgiveness can ever wash away! You would do well to remember that, Mr Dr JJ!’

*

As I breathlessly slumped to the tarmacadamed forecourt, I looked up to see my bulky assailant disappearing with a shuffle into the dark. I was bewildered, his harsh words still
ringing in my ears. For I did indeed have a relative by the name of Fortescue Hastings-Parkes, a pioneer in the field of animal medicine, who had disappeared without trace in the late 1890s, and
who was rarely spoken of now, as though his name were tainted by some horrendously unspeakable shame. As I hauled myself aloft and once more gripped my travelling bags, I was about to consider this
ravelled web of perplexity when to my ears there drifted the coarse sound of mocking laughter and I looked up to see the writhing, corballed face of the changeling observing me from the shadows of
an alleyway where he had stalled his jaunting car, his mouth a lopsided aperture from which this indulgent chuckling emerged, his pocket jangling with the sound of the coins he had wilily
extricated from me earlier. When I looked again, he was gone. As indeed was the hotel, which only minutes before had been standing directly in front of me and was now entirely relocated, brick by
brick, on the opposite side of the square. I stumbled across the tarmac, tired and exhausted, unable to probe these mysteries further and, with all the strength I could muster, provided the
receptionist with my name and details and made my way upstairs to bed.

*

Throughout that night I found myself assailed by strange dreams. I saw myself standing by a withered tree, holdall in hand, as if anxiously waiting for someone. Which, it
transpired, I was indeed, as moments later an autobus came to a halt directly in front of the withered tree. I was astonished to find myself confronted by what appeared to be a middle-aged man in
plus-fours and Edwardian jacket, but which was impossible for me to say for certain as he had no face. Surely, I feel assured I hear you murmur, he must have had some face! But no. In all
sincerity, reader, I tell you – in this case, of face, or features even approximating thereto, not the slightest trace was evident. And yet, somehow, I heard him speak! I heard the words, as
he extended his beautifully manicured hand to me, clear and mellifluous as a stream flowing on a bright summer’s day: ‘Good day! My name is Fortescue Hastings-Parkes. Come with
me!’

Within minutes, I found myself transported to the interior of the most magnificent edifice. Through the opened French windows the plangent melodies of Schubert drifted out across the splendid
gardens, above which towered the leafy shape of a large horse, to which a bent and aged figure was putting the finishing touches. ‘O’Hagan, our topiarist,’ explained Fortescue. As
he spoke, a large red setter came bounding along the hall and pinned me to the wall, licking me furiously about the face and ears. ‘Fergus,’ cried Fortescue, ‘stop
that!’

I was relieved when the animal withdrew its paws and sat like a lamb in the centre of the floor. ‘Yes,’ continued Fortescue as we made our way towards the library, ‘I have many
things to tell you, Dr JJ! Many things!’

As I turned to face him, I was astonished to find that his face had almost entirely returned, and even more perplexed as I realized, now that it was fully formed, it was what you would describe
as an almost perfect replica of my own! As we stood there beneath the packed bookshelves, sipping a tincture of the finest port it has ever been my privilege to taste, I might have been engaged in
conversation with my twin. ‘Yes, dear JJ,’ he continued, ‘I have many things to explain. Tell me – has it ever occurred to you why you possess such a sense of – how
shall I put it? – “class” – of what perhaps we might call “breeding”? And yet all your life you have spent in a tiny ramshackle cottage in which there is barely
room to swing a cat? Has it never occurred to you that you, like some of these poor creatures who claim they are women trapped in the bodies of men, are a blue-blooded landowning fellow, of the
finest, purest extraction, marooned in what can only be called a habit of the coarsest, most mundane flesh? Have you never asked yourself: “Why am I called John Joe? Why is my name not
Erskine? Or Johnston? Or Ivan Percival? Vernon, perhaps?” Mm?’

He observed me fixedly and I am sure he heard my heart miss a beat. How many times as I lay in my bed had I asked myself these questions? How many times as the rough words of the village corner
boys came once more to my ears in such phrases as ‘Good man, John Joe!’ and ‘Take it handy, Squire John Joe!’ had I asked myself those very same questions? Why, from the
very day I was born, had I not felt as they did, and instead perceived myself as ‘chosen’? Why did my grandfather, until the end of his days, stare at me with such sadness, a broken and
decrepit white-haired man old before his time, crippled upon a crooked stick because of some dark secret in which the world could not be permitted to share? It was all I could do not to hide my
face beneath my coat. For if anyone had ever released a dart that found its mark in the centre of someone’s heart, in that single moment, Fortescue Hastings-Parkes had.

*

The following morning, at table, when I perceived that it was the intention of my fellow diners to be less than civil, I decided at once that I would not permit myself to be in
the slightest way intimidated by them and resolved to continue as genial a conversation as was possible in the circumstances, passing comments on the quality of the comestibles, toast and the
various other items of foodstuffs which it had fallen to us to dispose of that morning. But it was all to no avail and, in the end, I found that I could contain myself no longer, rising to my feet
and slamming my knife and fork down on my plate, crying: ‘Damn you all! What is the matter with you! And just what the hell is going on in this village!’ If I felt that this outburst
might produce some reaction, I was but a fool! For all the reaction I provoked I might as well have been sitting alongside people made entirely of sponge or straw. With whatever equanimity I could
muster, I finished what remained of my breakfast, dabbed the stain of egg yolk that had lodged itself upon my tie and made my way out into the morning.

I had all but gone ten yards when I felt a hand touch my shoulder. Instinctively I turned. ‘Fortescue!’ I cried. But the small round man shook his head. ‘No,’ he said,
‘my name is Considine. Tom Considine. I am informed I am to be your partner here in the village.’ When I heard those words, a huge sense of relief came over me. Such was my unease since
my arrival in Labashaca that had I turned and discerned before my eyes an Indian warrior or Nazi war criminal I should not have been in the least surprised. Now, for the very first time since my
arrival, I found myself in the company of someone I felt I could trust implicitly. Which was foolhardy in the extreme, for, as it transpired, Tom Considine was not only a hopeless incompetent, but
also a mean, spiteful, and wholly disreputable individual who would stop at nothing in order to line his pockets so that he might feed his vile habit. Which, I was very soon to learn, involved the
consumption of ludicrously inordinate quantities of alcohol. I am by no means prudish by nature, and have no objections whatsoever to the inhalation of a regular opium cigarette or quiet disposal
of that substance in tablet form, but such was my partner’s reliance on these vast volumes of liquid intoxicants that it became only a matter of time before I grew to despise him. Hardly had
we been installed in the beautiful office which, as he explained, we were to share, overlooking the main street and the blue cloud-necklaced mountains that encircled Labashaca, than his manner
toward me began to change – ever so slightly at first, but, without a doubt, with enough significance not to go unnoticed. Initially he would debate enthusiastically with me regarding various
ailments particular to the town, advising me on the most appropriate manner in which to deal with certain patients, and going into great detail about any number of exotic illnesses, of which I knew
little or nothing, I admit. And I could only marvel at the undiluted breadth of his knowledge as he paced the office floor in his starched white coat. A starched white coat that slowly but surely
became a crumpled grey pile dumped in a corner beneath a faded chart depicting the labyrinthine complexity of the human anatomy as my so-called partner and ‘superior’ reached deep into
his pocket to produce a twenty-pack of Major cigarettes (acknowledged in the medical profession as the strongest available on the market) and, proceeding to light one for himself, audaciously
requested ‘the loan of twenty pounds’. I presumed that its return would be forthcoming later, and thought no more of it. Little did I know that this was but the beginning. Before the
week was out, I had parted with the sum of not less than one hundred and twenty-seven pounds, and was slowly beginning to realize that in all likelihood I would never lay eyes upon those monies
again. Especally when, upon my return to the hotel late one night, I heard a familiar voice call from across the street: ‘Oi! John Joe! Are you all right for a few quid?’ and looked
over to see, not, at first, my medical partner, but a rotund, red-faced man whose face was a mass of sundered capillaries – clearly a knight of the road: behind whom lurked my so-called
colleague, doing his level best to conceal himself, the unmistakable sound of chuckling emanating from behind his nicotine-stained fingers.