My Little Armalite (6 page)

—Hey, Phil, sure, great, sign me up for both! There
you go. Um, the only thing is, look, Phil, about this
doctor
business …

—Gotcha, eh, Doc John? Big Brother is watching you. The Neighbourhood Watch sees all. Ha ha, don't look so worried, it was just the postie told me. Your secret is safe with me. I know you medical men like to keep mum about it.

—I'm not
that
kind of doctor, actually.

—What, you a vet?

—No, I teach at University College London.

—So, you're a teacher?

—No, no, a lecturer.

—What, like a professor?

—Sort of. Well, yes. But more junior.

—So, what, you just
call
yourself doctor, for a laugh?

—No, God, it's totally, er, kosher. I've got a doctorate. In fact, you can see it. It's there, hanging on the wall.

I stood aside and pointed to where my framed parchment hung in our little hallway. To my horror, Phil took this as an invitation to walk straight past me and into our house. Beyond which lay the garden. And the gun. I found myself standing helplessly there for a moment as the vile black dog bundled in between my legs.

—Um, Phil, if you don't mind, the dog …

—What, you don't like dogs, Prof John?

—No, no, love them, it's just, my wife, the carpets, the baby, hey, you know. I shrugged and rolled my eyes at the mysterious ways of women.

—Oh, well then. She who must be obeyed, eh? A whipped dog is a happy dog, eh? Ha ha! Uncle Joe, you sit outside. Sit. Stay. I said fucking stay or you'll get more of that! So, right you are, let's see this certificate. What, this it? What's that, Latin?

—Yes, actually.

I looked quickly up and down the street, as if the anti-terror police might already be watching the house, then I dived hastily after Phil, over my own threshold, and slammed the door.

Phil stared at the framed mock-parchment doctorate certificate on the wall of our hallway. I stared at the gleaming back of Phil's head, and at the roll of fat or muscle that bulged above his collar. How was I going to get rid of him now?

—Very posh, said he.

—Well, I only put it there for when my mum came to visit, actually. I just forgot to take it down. You see?
Doctor John Goode
. Me, ha. I only really use it to please her. And sort of, impress my bank manager, ha. Not that it does, unfortunately.

—Mums is mums, Prof John.

—Well, exactly, Phil.

—What's it all about then, Prof John? Life, and that?

—Sorry?

—Well, it says here
Doctor of Philosophy
.

—No, no, I'm not in philosophy, it just always says that, you see. I teach, I mean, lecture, in German. And on Germany.

—Oh well, you'll know all about the Nazis and the occult then.

—Actually, that's not exactly my field.

—You ought to know. I'll lend you a book. Very interesting indeed.

—Mmm. Thanks, Phil. So, well, look, um, Phil, I'd invite, er, offer you a drink, but, well, the fact is, I was, um, actually, I was just going out myself. For a drink, you know.

—Off to catch our boys on the Big Screen, eh, Prof John?

—Our boys? Oh, I mean, yes, God, wouldn't want to miss, um, our boys in the, the Big Match!

—Me too, your alley was my final call tonight. Not the same, watching at home, is it? Got to be down the pub for the England match!

—Absolutely!

—Which boozer you going down then, Prof John?

—Hmm? Oh, I, we only just moved here, as you know, so, what with the baby, I haven't really had time to …

—You should come down your own bloody local, you silly sod. Tell you what, we can go down together. It ain't posh, the old Red Lion, but it is your local. Nice new Polish barmaid too, sweet as a nut.

Whatever, just get him out of the house. Yes, why not have a pint down the pub instead of that bottle of organic ale? No difference really. And then, think about it. Surely, this was a chance to help Jack and William out at the new school? Yes! What if they come back from their holiday to find that their very own dad is now a drinking mate of this bling-hung fascist maniac, the father of those three supersized boys? Comprehensive London might yet be made safe for them. Daddy will deliver. Certainly worth a quick pint, to achieve that. In fact
, not
taking this chance, it having been offered, would in a very real way be neglecting the boys' best interests. Work, after all, for a family man, is not just about Very Important Papers!

—Well, great, yes, the Red Lion sounds … great.

—Neighbours, not strangers, that's us, Prof John! That's Phil's philosophy for you! Ha ha ha. So, this the family then?

—Sorry? Oh, look, I …

Phil had walked straight past me and on into the
living room, and was now standing crouched by the mantelpiece, squinting at our small collection of family pictures in their little frames. I sidled quietly crabwise behind him, in order to place myself casually on guard at the door to the kitchen.

Apart from the usual dusting of plastic crap (light-sabres, small foam rings from electric guns, game-machine cartridges), the room was dominated by the carefully laid-out parts and instructions for a large-scale Flying Fortress, which I'd been helping Jack and William with. And I was happy now to place my right foot beside Grandad's knife, my father's blue-grey metal-handled craft knife, which lay on the Flying Fortress's instruction sheet. The ground seemed suddenly firmer, as if my sons' undoubted maleness had added a few vital pounds to my own.

—Twin boys, eh, Prof John? Got her with both barrels, eh? Ha ha ha! Three boys, I got. We'll have to get the little sods all out down the park together for a kick-about, eh?

—Great, yeah, love to!

—And a baby girl, eh? Pret-ty. That's nice. But the words
ahead
and
trouble
spring to mind. Every little fucker in the street sniffing round. Now that's a nice house. That where you used to live, Prof John? Come down in the world a bit, haven't you, ha ha?

—No, it's Sarah's parents' house. Down Exeter way.

—Very nice. Don't suppose there's many of them, down Exeter way.

—Sorry?

—Well, whose fucking idea was it to let a million illiterate medieval cunts in who think we're all filthy fucking unbelievers and our girls are tarts because they don't wear fucking blankets over their heads? Exactly. No one's idea. No one wanted it. It was a fucking stupid
cock-up, that's all it was, but no one's going to admit it because there's fuck-all anyone can do about it except send the cunts back to Allahu-fucking-Akbar-land and no one's going to do that, because they can't, so we all have to pretend it's fine. Exeter way, eh? How much'd a place like that set you back down Exeter way? I suppose you can pick that sort of thing up dirt cheap, all the way out there?

For a second or two we both looked at the picture of Sarah, the children and me standing in front of Sarah's parents' house. A perfectly normal, solid, three-storey Victorian semi with two bays and a real attic room above and sash windows, a proper little front garden with a child's swing and a genuine drive, more than enough to park a car on, leading up to a neat red wooden garage door. I had always wanted a house like that. I could still remember with complete clarity deliberately stopping the first time I walked up to that door, so that I could look in for a moment at Sarah all alone at the piano, in her own perfect world. Sarah's parents were only schoolteachers, for God's sake, whereas I was a fully fledged university lecturer …

—Cheap? Not any more, I said to Phil. —Not even in Exeter.

—Nice-looking bird, your missus, Prof John. Often thought so in the street. This your old man, then?

Phil pointed a sausage-like finger at the other large photograph over our fireplace. This showed me back in 1989 (the glorious summer I won my first job and Sarah). I was being held playfully in a necklock by a grinning, bearded man with extremely large and hairy forearms.

—My dad? God no, that's, it's …

I thought for a moment about trying to explain. But I decided that this was not the time.

—… oh, it's just a German friend of mine. A writer. And a sort of politician now.

But Phil was no longer listening. He motioned for me to be quiet, and his ears pricked visibly back on his bald head. I cocked my head as well. We could hear the yapping laughter and cheery joshing of a young male war band passing by in the street. Phil's ears relaxed.

—Na, that wasn't the Albanians.

—Oh, good.

—That was that little cunt Dave Phipps and his scummy brothers from three doors down.

—Oh.

—That's why the Neighbourhood Watch pays special attention to your end of the street, Prof John.

—Right.

—I mean, they say crime doesn't pay, right? Well they're almost right. It doesn't pay
very well
. You tell me, Prof John, how much d'you reckon those little cunts make, selling a bit of dope and coke and nicking phones and doing motors over?

—Is that what they do?

—Don't you worry, even those cunts have got enough brains not to shit in their own nest. Not when they know the Neighbourhood Watch is watching them! I'll tell you how much they fucking make. Not much, is how much. Not enough to fucking live. Except, guess what? You and me and everyone else pays those thieving cunts dole on top of it. Which makes it worth their fucking while to go out thieving! Now whose bright idea was that, you ask? No one's, is whose. It's just another fucking cock-up and no one's going to do anything about it, because there's nothing they can fucking do about it, except abolish the fucking dole full stop for every little cunt under twenty-one with no kids and no one's going to do that.

—Well, yes, Phil, I see your point. But isn't there something that can be done about them? I mean, like call the council? Or the housing association?

—Na. It's their own place.

—What?!

—Well, their dad bought it before they was born. Like mine, see. Lucky, I suppose. Not like the stupid sods who come along nowadays and tie their bollocks to a huge fucking mortgage for the rest of their lives just so they can pay silly fucking money for … no offence meant, Prof John. Present company excepted, eh? Ha ha! You put that study thing in, under the stairs, did you? Can you really work in there without banging your nut all the time?

—Oh, yes. Well, just about.

—I see. Course, they put an extension on for the kitchen. Always wondered. Units not bad. French windows, very nice. What you got outside in the garden, Prof John? All down to lawn, is it, what's left of it? What you been planting? Apple trees? Thought you said you was oiling the mower? Mind if I take a look? Think you'll get enough light for apples? Or are they plums?

—Plums, yes. But no, stop, Phil, wait!

My hand shot out of its own accord and grabbed at hairy muscle and bone. It felt as though I had taken hold of a horribly warmed-up leg of raw, bristly pork. I looked down. My grasp scarcely reached three-quarters of the way around Phil's big wrist.

—What? You OK, Prof John?

—Phil, listen, this is, aha, well, ha, sorry, love to show you the garden, but, but … but look at the time! I mean, hey, what about the England match?

—We still got half an hour, Prof John.

—Yes, that's true, but, Phil, what about the,
the
warm-up
! We can't miss the warm-up, down the pub, for an
England
match! Can we?

—Now that's what I call philosophy, Prof John! You are so right. What's the England match without a few pints in the warm-up first, eh? Yeah, the lads'll be there already. Here, if that's what you teach them at college, I'll send my boys after all, ha ha ha!

—Look, I'll just, I've just got to send a quick email. Why don't you go and get the first one in, get us good seats? Here, I'll give you the money.

—You're on, Prof John. What you drink? Nice cold lager?

—Um, yes, yeah, great.

—We'll save you the best seat in the house, Prof John. Meet the lads. Go on then, send your message, chop-chop, don't want to let your beer get warm and flat. You be there, or I'll come back looking for you, ha ha! Come on then, Uncle Joe, the words
beer
and
lots of
spring to mind, eh? Ha ha!

—Rrrrrr!

In the garden, the moon was now high. I raced out from my back door, half-expecting to find that the Armalite had in the meantime escaped from the suit-case by itself. The suitcase was still closed, of course, just as I had left it, with the Armalite within.

Or at least I assumed it was, because nothing had moved. Even so, I found myself already about to lift the lid of the case, just to make sure.

I forced myself to stop. There was no rational way, no way at all, that anyone without superhuman powers could have sneaked over the wall and dug the gun from out of the grease whilst I was talking to Phil. It was impossible. Which meant that if I now really did allow myself to open the lid of the suitcase to make sure the gun was still there, this would cleary imply that I, (Dr) John Goode, had in fact accepted that the impossible was at least theoretically possible and that the laws of nature might in principle have been suspended tonight in SE11.

I refused to countenance this notion. According to the rules believed by Newton to be absolute at every time or place, the gun must still be there,
was
still there. Yes, of course, I knew that Einstein had shown (apparenty) that Newton's laws are subject to infinitely small (yet, in the infinite vastness of infinity, eventually infinitely significant) variations at vast speeds or tiny measurements (or whatever it was that Einstein said). But SE11 was a normal place. Well, comparatively.

Enough. I planted my feet and my mind firmly. The
world turned normally. Normally, for the world. Einstein might be fine for subatomic particles, but Newton still ruled in
my
garden. So I acted logically. I quickly spaded a thin covering of earth back over the suitcase and towed the unplanted tree across the dug patch. It lay there, now irretrievably unpotted. Pale fingers and hairs of root trailed feebly from the big lump of earth, undefended from the killing night and cold. In the wet darkness, it looked too much like something you might dig up in a nasty Bosnian forest. But I had no time to worry just now about the tree.