Necrophenia (29 page)

And thus did I descend into the abyss.

Upon braided cord, secured by a chrome carabiner and employing certain belay devices, shock-absorbing lanyards and polyester webbing.

A veritable sight to behold.

But no one beheld me as I lowered myself carefully down. Down, down to where I beheld the beauty of sparkling gold. For sparkling gold there was a-plenty. My big mega-candlepower torch, affixed to my person with the appropriate chest harness, cast its brilliant light across burnished walls and dazzling glittering spires. I was above the city of Begrem, which, it appeared, was enclosed within a monstrous cavern. One that now had a dirty great hole in its ceiling. Happily I had not skimped upon the braided cord. And I had gone for the best-quality ACME nail-clamp-pseudo-sprockets, so the pulley-wheels whirred upon frictionless bearings as I went abseiling down.

To land in some central plaza, surrounded, it appeared, by buildings of the Byzantine persuasion. There was much in the way of helmed and hipped roofs, Palladian-style minarets, fluted in the Isabelline fashion. Lancet windows were in evidence, but also Diocletian, in the clerestory regions. And there were cusps and cupolas and flying buttresses a-plenty.

And so on and so forth and suchlike. So, a somewhat eclectic collection of archaeological styles. To say that I was entranced would be to severely underplay the emotions that were whirling all around and about within me.

I had found it. I had actually found it. It actually existed.

I had dreamed of this moment. When I had lain there in that hospital bed, I had dreamed of finding Begrem. I had pictured myself strolling amongst its ruins, picking up this golden gewgaw and that. Tossing them into my rucksack. Returning to the surface in glory.

And now I was here. And I felt desperately lonely. All of a sudden, I did. It just swept over me. I was all alone here in this lost city, and no one knew of it. Mr Ishmael, he knew of it. But he wouldn’t know that I was here now. Nor my family, nor any one of the few friends that I had. I was totally alone. And I really hated it.

But I did love it, too. Being here. Incredible.

I disconnected myself from the braided cord, unclipped my torch and flashed it all around. And the gold of the buildings twinkled and glittered, and then I saw something more.

And I switched off my torch. Because there was light here, here in this sunken realm, a soft effulgence that seemed to swell from the very golden buildings themselves. It was so unspeakably beautiful that I sank down to my knees and, lacking any words that could be said, I had a little cry.

And then I pulled myself together. And took myself off to explore.

There was quite a lot of rubble on the central plaza, all blown down by the force of my explosion above, and I have to admit that it did somewhat sully the golden cityscape. And that made me feel rather guilty, because this place had lain here hidden from the eyes of man for centuries and now I had arrived and littered it up and made mess.

And that made me sigh somewhat. But then I thought, well, what the hey, I can always get it cleaned up before I open it to the tourists (live tourists) and get a few food concessions going down here.

So I went off to explore. And all about me the buildings twinkled and glimmered, magically, magically, weaving wonderful spells.

‘I wonder where the King’s palace is?’ I wondered. Because if I was going to set up camp here, and I was, well, where better to set it up than in the palace of the King? In fact, where better to spend the night than in the King’s bedchamber itself? And then another thought struck me, for many thoughts were now coming my way. I could live here. In this magical city. In the King’s palace. After all, I’d found it. This was all my discovery. This was all mine! And I could have electrics run down here and set myself up in the palace.

I sniffed at the air. And the air smelled good. None of that taint from above. There was a golden purity down here. Living here would be as near to living in Heaven on Earth as surely was possible.

This and many other such thoughts, some supportive and others contradictory, blustered about in my head, bumping into each other, big ones elbowing smaller ones aside, mad ones rising to prominence, then getting all dashed away. And I had to sit myself down upon a golden pavement and take a few breaths to steady myself. Because a man could well go mad with all this thinking and I didn’t want that to happen, not now I’d come this far.

And I had travelled far and no mistake from my upbringing in Ealing and Southcross Road School. Being a detective with my brother Andy. Being with The Sumerian Kynges. Meeting Lazlo Woodbine. And meeting Elvis also. Although I didn’t want to dwell too long on that.

It had been a very strange trip and I knew now that it was nearing its end. That my journey through life, a life that had ticked and tocked and ticked itself away, was coming to an end. I knew that I would find what I wanted here and with it I would defeat and destroy the Homunculus. I just knew that I would do this, though don’t ask me how I knew.

And so I set out for the palace. And the palace was not too difficult to find. I reasoned that it would probably hold the best, most prominent position in the city and be the biggest, grandest building there was. So I returned to my dangling braided rope, shinned up it a bit and took a good look all around.

And it didn’t take too long to spy out a vast building of enormous and imposing grandeur. Which just had to be the palace, really. And so, shinning down, I set out in its direction.

As I strode along through the ancient streets, I did wonder one thing, amongst all the others. And that one thing was, I wonder what happened to all the people?

Would I come across skeletons in regal robes seated about a grand table in the royal dining room? I wondered. And might there be a skeleton waiting to greet me around the next corner?

And might there be ghosts?

Now that was a thought, ghosts. If God smote this city, and it was a pretty dead cert that he had, then did He smite all the people in it straight to Hell? Or did He doom a few to wander for ever throughout the sunken city, bewailing their foolishness in falling out with the Almighty?

And that sent a bit of a chill up me. Because this wasn’t then just a sunken lost city of gold. This was a cursed sunken lost city of gold.

And I might now be one of the cursed for entering it.

And I had to have another sit down and take a few more deep breaths. And I helped myself to a bit of special chocolate, because I reasoned that my energy levels might well have fallen somewhat, which might account for all this gloominess of thought.

And after I’d had the special chocolate, all of the special chocolate, and washed it down with a bottle of special glucose drink, I felt a lot more chipper. Quite bouncy, really. In fact, more than just a little hyper.

And I pressed on with a goodly spring in my step.

And soon reached the gates of the palace. And these gates were golden, which came as no surprise to me. And also open, which came as a bit of a surprise. Although I’m not entirely certain why I’d thought they would be closed. Probably so that I could dramatically fling them open, I suppose. And so in order to have just one more thing to remember, I edged the gates closed and then I flung them dramatically open. Nearly taking both my arms out of their shoulder sockets. Because they were most heavy gates.

And then I entered the courtyard and then I entered the palace of the King, of King Georgius, who had struck the deal with Satan and created the first Homunculus. How many centuries back? Well, many more indeed than I could clearly recall being told of.

And within, all was gold.

I spied out tables and couches and settles and settees. Vases and knick-knacks and whatnots stacked in threes. Plates and pans and flowerpot stands and fixtures and fittings and a great big throne.

And all of these were of gold.

And there were tapestries and tabards and tablecloths and toiletries and tambourines and tricycles and tubas and trumpets, too.

And these too all of gold.

And I sat down upon the King’s throne. And I felt suddenly sick. Because it was too much. It was all too much. It was too much gold. More gold than the human mind was ever intended to see. Gold is precious because it is pure and because it is not commonplace. But a golden city, where everything is gold, was simply too much. And frankly it made me feel rather poorly. And so I sat in a slump on the King’s golden throne and buried my face in my hands.

And then I heard the voices.

And that did make me worried. Because, let’s face it, when you start to hear the voices, you know you’re in really big trouble, mentally.

But hear the voices I did. And I heard the voices chanting. It sounded to me like a Latin chant, which would probably be about right for a place like this. But as I listened more carefully to these chanting voices, I came to realise almost immediately that they were not the product of madness. They were the product of real people chanting. Real people? Or the ghosts of real people?

I huddled on that throne and I listened. It really did sound like Latin.

Wennem clennum wendos.

Wennem clennum wendos.

Ukenem siewott iken sennun.

Wennem clennum wendos.

Well, that’s what it sounded like to me. It was definitely Latin, and once more I fretted that I’d never been taught Latin. At a time like this, a working knowledge of Latin would have come in very handy.

And the chanting voices drew closer.

And everywhere I could hear the sounds of marching, charging feet (boy!).

And something told me that these sounds were not the sounds of ghosts, but indeed the sounds of men. But men? And here? Here in this sunken world? My sunken world?

‘Oh dear me,’ I said to myself. ‘It’s their sunken world I’m in.’

And that really upset me.

And it worried me also, because the chanting was becoming ever louder and the marching, charging feeters were growing closer and closer. And it seemed very likely that they were marching and charging to this very throne room. And that if they were and if they found me here, trespassing, as it were, they might not take to me altogether kindly.

Of course, there was always the chance that they might. That they might welcome me eagerly and ask me to marry the present King’s daughter, if there was one. But this thought did not cross my mind. Because sometimes, when I’m really up against it, I can be just plain pessimistic.

But whatever the case might turn out to be, I shinnied right out of that big throne and scuttled around behind it and hid myself from view.

But peeped out a little from the side, to see what was going on. And presently people entered the throne room, marching, charging and chanting.

Wennem clennum wendos (they went).

Wennem clennum wendos.

And I beheld these underground folk and they were, frankly, gorgeous.

Their complexions, their clothing and their hair colour shouldn’t have surprised me. It was all-over gold. And I could see that their eyes were golden, too. As were their tongues. And although they presented by this colouring a most alien appearance, it was one of such striking beauty that I found my eyes popping wide and my lower jaw dangling down.

And they marched and charged and chanted. And then they stopped. And I beheld, in the midst of them, that they carried aloft a saintly statue of a grinning man of benign appearance. And although the golden folk who carried this statue wore the robes of olden days, this statue appeared to be attired in twentieth-century clothing. Or indeed an impression of it, as a child might draw a house from memory. But the face of the statue was well crafted. The grin was a big one, which exposed a goodly array of teeth, and the eyes were crinkled and friendly.

And there was something familiar about that face. It was as if I had seen it before somewhere. Knew the owner of that face.

But then a fellow gold all over and slightly taller than the rest approached the golden throne, bowed before it and then turned to face the congregation before him.

‘Ettas ternowt nysee gen. Ettas ternowt nysee gen,’ he intoned, most solemnly. And the golden folk did bowings of the heads and mumbled the same in reply.

And I looked very hard at that statue. Stared very hard indeed. And as the congregation took up their former chant once more, I heard it. Heard it for what it really was. Saw him for who he truly was.

Wennem clennum wendos.

Wennum clennum wendos.

You can see what I can see

When I’m cleaning windows.

And yes, it was him. It was him.

That statue, carried aloft, was him.

George Formby.

Ettas ternowt nysee gen.

It has turned out nice again.

And I began to laugh.

And that, it turned out, was a bad thing. And it did not turn out nice again at all.

Because I was overheard in this laughter and I was set upon and I was battered a good many times until I fell once more, and almost willingly, considering all the pain, down and down into that whirling black pit of oblivion.

You know that dream you have, where you’re on your holidays and you’re on a coach going off for a day trip to see some well-known tourist thing, like the Grand Canyon or the Taj Mahal, but the driver takes a wrong turn (and you never know whether he did this on purpose) and you end up in the square of an ancient Aztec city, one of the ones with the big stepped pyramids with the sacrificial altar on the top. And the next thing you know, you are being hustled out of the bus by all these natives with exotic jewellery and up to the top of that pyramid and onto that altar. And a high priest sort of chappie has you all held down and then bares your chest and brings out this razor-sharp dagger and raises it high-

And then the alarm goes off, so you miss the exciting bit.

Well, I was having one of those dreams and it was just getting to that exciting bit when, wouldn’t you know it, I was woken up, and so I missed the exciting bit once more.

Woken up by a splash of cold water right across the gob. To find that I was strapped, all spreadeagled and half-naked, across what, from my limited field of vision, appeared to be a sacrificial altar.

Is that ironic, or what?

And I was about to remark upon its irony, or what, when a certain cold, hard hit of reality informed me that I might well be in a bit of a fix here. Because the high priest chappie, who had been intoning the ‘it’s turned out nice again’ line, was looming over me, holding in his golden mit a whopping great golden dagger.

And I spoke out regarding my disinclination towards him bringing that item of weaponry into close proximity with my person, or indeed to a proximity that was well within it. But found that I could not. As someone had stuffed up my mouth. Which caused a real speech impediment.

And I recalled the fear I’d felt when I’d been made the target of an auto-da-fé in the garden at Graceland. And I felt a similar fear right now. Although at least this death would probably be a quick one. Although I did recall that Captain Lynch had once told me how the priests were so skilled with their knives that they could plunge in, slice away arteries and withdraw the heart, still beating, to display before the victim’s still-living eyes.

And I didn’t fancy that one bit.

And so I tried, with renewed vigour, to give voice to my misgivings. But again without success.

And the priest began a new chant, which again sounded like Latin but was more like pidgin English when I listened carefully. And he chanted the first verse of… ‘Mr Woo’s a Window Cleaner Now’.

And then he ceased his chanting and he spoke unto me.

In a broad Lancastrian accent.

Which I will not attempt to imitate here. But he did use the phrase ‘well, I’ll go t’t foot of our stairs’ more than once.

‘Oh monster,’ he spake unto me. ‘Oh horrid pink beasty from the overworld. We have now beheld the terrible ruination of Hindoo Howdoo Hoodoo Yoodoo Man Plaza. How you cast down your thunderbolts from above and descended upon a coloured rope of doom to destroy us all. We who have remained true to the True Faith, who worship at the shrine of the cheeky chappie.’

I thought that Max Miller was the cheeky chappie, but no matter. George was, after all, a generic, or indeed archetypal, cheeky chappie.

‘As the words of the George came down to us in the ancient days, it was prophesied that an evil one would descend upon us. And that he would be all pinky pink. But that if we captured and ate him, it would all turn out nice again.’

And I said, ‘Mmmph mm mm.’ Which, I agree, had never proved to be much of a winner as a means of communication.

‘So die, pinky overworlder!’ And the blade, held high as ever, rose a tad higher.

And I went, ‘Mmmph!’ which meant, ‘Please.’ But no doubt sounded like mmph! And then the terrible blade came down and I closed my eyes and I prayed.

‘Please, please, God,’ I prayed. ‘I know You’re not going to help me. But I also know that in Your infinite wisdom You are infinitely wise and so me dying now in this horrible fashion is all part of Your divine plan. Although, and pardon me for putting in my three-pennyworth here, but it is my considered opinion that it would have been a better deal for Mankind, for Your Mankind, if I lived to fight another day and destroyed the evil Homunculus.’

And obviously, you have to understand, I prayed this really really fast, because that blade was heading on down towards my heart and I didn’t want to get cut off in mid-sentence.

And I heard the swish of that blade. And then nothing. And then whispering. And I opened my eyes and looked up. And there was someone rabbiting away into the priest’s ear. And this rabbiter had one hand over the priest’s knife-hand and had stayed its progress towards my heart. And I heard the priest say, ‘Are you certain?’ in a Lancastrian kind of a fashion. And the other fellow nodded hugely and replied, ‘They are bringing it here even now.’

And I heard the priest say, ‘Well, this puts an entirely different complexion on things. I will need to cogitate upon this intelligence.’

And with that he sheathed his dagger and marched and charged away.

Which left me to say thank you very much indeed to the Almighty and promise that I would not let Him down when it came to the slaying of the Homunculus and the saving of Mankind.

‘Amen,’ I said.

Though it sounded like, ‘Mmph.’

And then I was left alone for a bit. And then the priest returned, but this time not in the company of his dagger. This time he appeared in the company of several young and most nubile golden girlies, scantily clad and looking well up for it.

And he ordered one of these lovelies to unstrap me from the sacrificial altar and he began to speak to me words of apology.

‘I, I mean we, are most humbly, humbly sorry, your mightiness,’ said he. Which I liked the sound of. ‘There has been a terrible, terrible mistake. A clerical error, I suppose. And fear not, I will find the individual responsible and have him hung up by his wedding tackle, whilst many blows are dealt to his snout with a stout stick.

‘That it should happen today of all days. Upon this sacred day, which is to say your sacred day. Which, of course, would be why you chose this day to bestow upon us the wondrousness of your presence.’

And the lovelies were now dusting me down in a most intimate fashion and readjusting my clothing. And that did get a bit of a smile playing about my lips. But I really had no idea what this priest fellow was going on about.

And so I asked him.

‘Hmmph mm mmph?’ I went.

And then I removed the stuffing from my mouth. ‘What are you on about?’ I asked him.

‘And he speaks the sacred Lancashireland.’ And the priest fell down on his knees. And the lovelies fell down on their knees too all around me. And that was a really good look, I’m telling you.

‘Up,’ I said. To the priest. Eventually. ‘Speak to me clearly.’

‘Yes sir, yes.’ And he called out now to some underling, ‘Bring the sacred pouch. Display the sacred tools of Godhead.’

Which made me a trifle edgy. Because there was always the chance that a sacred pouch might contain the celestial castrating shears, or some other such sacred tool.

And an underling scuttled in and this underling had my rucksack.

‘Oi!’ I said. ‘That’s mine. Give it back.’

‘Oh yes, your sirness, yes,’ said the priest. ‘But please, might I display the sacred tools? Might I touch the sacred tools?’

‘If you must,’ I said. And I shrugged. Which reminded me of the Shrugger. And I wondered whatever had become of him.

But not for long, as the priest had now taken my rucksack from the underling and had reverently opened it and was now spreading its contents out upon the sacrificial altar.

‘You have them,’ he said, in a hushed and awestruck tone. ‘As it was prophesied. In a different prophecy altogether. The one about the coming of the Special One. You have the sacred tools.’ And he pulled out a stick of dynamite. Which made me flinch somewhat. But there weren’t any naked flames about, so I relaxed slightly.

‘You have them!’ he cried, in an exalted fashion.

‘I do,’ I said. ‘And they’re mine, so be careful.’

‘Oh yes, sir, yes.’ And he stroked the stick of dynamite. ‘The Little Stick of Blackpool Rock,’ he said.

And I remembered that song well enough – I’d rehearsed that particular George Formby number a goodly number of times in the music room of Southcross Road School.

And the priest laid out the six sticks of dynamite. ‘One for each of the ministers of the church,’ he said.

‘Absolutely,’ I said. What is this all about? I thought.

And then his hands were once more inside my rucksack. In a rather intimate manner, I thought. Although I suppose it had never occurred to me that one could get all precious about the contents of a rucksack. But then I’d never owned one before.

‘And yes!’ cried the priest. ‘You do have it. The sacred strummupon. The Instrument of God.’ And he drew out the ukulele that Mr Ashbury Molesworth had sold to me as a useful means of passing the time when trapped hopelessly far beneath ground level.

‘That’s also mine,’ I said. And I took it from his hands.

‘And so,’ he said, in a breathless fashion, ‘can you strum the holy hymns upon the sacred strum-upon?’

‘Can I!’ said I.

‘Well, can you?’ said he.

‘Yes, I can,’ said I. ‘Would you care for me to sing you a song?’

And the priest was speechless. But he nodded. And then he said, ‘Sing one of the holy hymns of the George. Oh yes.’

And I took to checking whether the uke was in tune.

‘It’s G, C, E and A,’ I explained. ‘Or as we musicians say, my dog has fleas.’

And his head bobbed up and down.

And I said, ‘Okay, it’s in tune. So what would you like to hear?’

And the priest just turned up the palms of his hands and said, ‘Anything, Lord sir.’

‘Okey-dokey,’ I said. ‘In that case I will play one of my own compositions. I wrote this number in my head, when I lay in a coma in a hospital bed. But you don’t need to concern yourself with that. I wrote it for one of my favourite authors. He is known as the Father of Far-Fetched Fiction and his name is Robert Rankin.’

The priest viewed me, blankly.

‘Well, he is something of an acquired taste. But I wrote this song for him to sing. And it is sung to the tune of George Formby’s “When I’m Cleaning Windows”.’

‘It’s called-’

WRITING FAR-FETCHED FICTION

‘And it goes something like this.’ And I played and I sang. And it sounded something like this. To the tune of ‘When I’m Cleaning Windows’.