Nostradamus Ate My Hamster (6 page)

I told you it was possible.

And I
did
tell you you’d kick yourself afterwards for not seeing how obvious it was.

Well, I
did
.

“
Blimey, Russell,” said Frank, “you smell like sh –”

“Yes,” said Russell. “I know, I was sick.”

Frank made delicate sniffings at the air. “It’s beer,” said he. “Now, don’t give me a clue, I’ll get it. It’s bitter.” Sniff, sniff, sniff.
“Best
Bitter.
Garvey’s
best bitter. The Bricklayer’s Arms. Am I right, or am I right?”

“You’re right,” said Russell mournfully.

“Flavoured crisps often throw me,” Frank brushed imaginary dust from his jacket shoulders. “But not cornflakes. I know my vomit. Elizabeth Taylor was sick all over me once, did I ever tell you about that?”

“I thought it was Greta Garbo who was sick all over you.”

“No, it was definitely Elizabeth Taylor, she’d been drinking stout.”

Russell sat down at his desk and put his head in his hands. And then he looked up at Frank and then he began to laugh.
“Stout?”
he said. “Elizabeth Taylor had been drinking
stout
?”

“No, you’re right,” said Frank. “It
was
Greta Garbo.”

“Has anyone been in?”

“I’ve only been back five minutes myself. But no, no-one’s been in. You’ve a memo on your desk, though.”

“A memo?” Russell perused his empty desk top. “Where is it?” he asked.

“I threw it away,” said Frank.

“Why?”

“Because it was exactly the same as the one I got.”

“But it was addressed to me?”

“Yes, but it was the same memo.”

“So what did it say?”

“Yours or mine?”

“Mine.”

“Same as mine said.”

“So what did yours say?”

“None of your business, Russell.”

Russell sighed. “Where is
my
memo?”

“In
my
waste-bin.”

Morgan now entered the office. “I’ve just found a memo on my bench,” he said.

Frank said, “Let’s see it.”

Russell said, “No, don’t you let him.”

Morgan asked, “Why?”

“Read it out,” said Russell.

Morgan read it out. “To all staff,” he read. “As you are well aware, business has been falling off in alarming fashion of late. To such an alarming fashion has it been falling off, that it has now reached a state of no business at all. Such a state of no business at all is not a state conducive to good business in terms of profit margins and expansionism. Such a state of no business at all is more conducive to a downward curve into bankruptcy and receivership. Therefore you are asked to attend a meeting in my office at 3 p.m. to discuss matters. This meeting will be held at 3 p.m. in my office and you are asked to attend it, in order …” Morgan paused.

“Yes?” asked Russell.

“Well, it sort of goes on in that fashion.”

“Is that the same as the memos we got, Frank?”

Frank shrugged. “More or less.”

“We’re all going to be made redundant,” said Morgan.

“No, no, no.” Frank shook his head. “It’s just a temporary slump. The British film industry has temporary slumps. Things will pick up. I remember Richard Attenborough saying to me once –”

“It’s nearly three,” said Morgan.

“Uncanny,” said Frank. “‘It’s nearly three and I’m pissed, Frank,’ he said. ‘Give us a lift home in your mini.’ His wife was a beautiful woman, didn’t she marry Michael Winner?”

Frank took the phone off the hook (to give any incoming callers the impression the Emporium was doing lots of business), and the three men trudged off towards Mr Fudgepacker’s office.

Russell definitely trudged, he did not have a jog or a march left in him. Frank was a natural trudger anyway, and Morgan, who was easy about such things, was prepared to give trudging a try.

Geographically, the distance between the sales office and Mr Fudgepacker’s office was a little more than twenty feet. But due to the imaginative layout of the place, the route was somewhat circuitous. About a five-minute trudge, it was.

So, while this trudging is going on, now might be a good time to offer a bit in the way of description regarding Fudgepacker’s Emporium. As has already been said, it was housed within the deconsecrated church and, as has also been said, it contained many “wonders”.

The visitor, entering by the fine Gothic doors at the front, will find a pleasant vestibule with a glazed tile floor and walls of York stone. Here is offered a taste of things to come. To the left stands a torture rack,
circa
1540, a wax mannequin stretched thereon, its sculptured face expressive of considerable discomfort. Several suits of samurai armour are mounted upon stands. A row of human skeletons, two lacking heads, and a Dalek.

Through the vestibule and into the main hall. The word “cavernous” springs immediately to mind. It is not a word you normally associate with the interior of churches, but it is appropriate here. From low tiled floor to high fan-vaulting, the space has been divided into numerous levels, constructed in finely laced cast-ironwork. And the name Escher now springs to mind, that amazing artist who drew all those wonderful pictures of staircases that lead forever nowhere, yet somehow join onto one another in a never-ending, mind-boggling, continuity. Galleries and catwalks and stairways. And items. Items strung from the ceiling, rising from the floor, suspended between the catwalks, stacked along these walks and ways and housed in racks and cases, bags and boxes.

Stuffed beasts proliferate. A bear in battle with a tiger. A swooping eagle snatching at a piglet. A row of baboons clad in Regency garb standing to attention, glazed eyes alert. Pickled specimens also abound. Tall glass jars, many being the preparations of the famous Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch, who supplied curiosities to the collection of Peter the Great. Are the faces that stare out at you real? Were they once human? Yes, they are and were.

All human life is here, suspended in time. Preserved in formaldehyde. Here a diseased kidney. Here a distended bowel. Here a lung far gone with tumorous canker. Here a brain all –

“Here we are,” said Morgan.

“I’ll knock,” said Frank. “I’m the manager.”

“I’ll just skulk then,” said Morgan. “I’m the packer.”

“I’m the salesman,” said Russell. “What should I do?”

“Just stand, I suppose,” said Morgan. “But not quite so close.”

Frank did the knocking.

“Come in,” called the crackling voice of Mr Fudgepacker. “That is, enter those who are without. I’m inside, as it were, the one who’s calling you to come in. It’s me. Who
is
that?”

“It’s us,” called Frank.

“Sounded like just the one of you. Did you all knock together?”

“I did the knocking,” called Frank. “I’m the manager.”

“Oh, it’s you Frank. Come on in then, if you’re not in already. And I see that you’re not. Enter.”

Morgan rolled his eyes. “I’ve been sacked plenty of times before,” said he, “but this should be a new experience.”

They entered.

Mr Fudgepacker’s office was housed in the old belfry. The bells were gone, but the bats were still there. It wasn’t a very big office, because it wasn’t a very big belfry. There was room for about four coffins lying down, not that anyone had ever tested this. And they might well have, there were plenty of coffins downstairs, several with their original occupants.

The walls of this minuscule office were made gay with posters. Film posters. Film posters of the nineteen-fifties persuasion.
We Eat Our Young, I was a Teenage Handbag, Carry on up my Three-legged Bloomers, Mr Felcher goes to Town
, and others.

All banned. All Fudgepacker productions. All collector’s items now.

The ruins of the great director sat behind his cut-down desk. Again a word springs to mind, this word is “decrepit”. Decrepitude is no laughing matter. Not when you were once young and vigorous, once bursting with life and virile fluids. Happily for Ernest Fudgepacker, decrepitude was no problem. He had always been decrepit. He looked very much today as he had forty years before. Rough. He was altogether bald, altogether pallid, altogether frail and thin, altogether decrepit. Weak and rheumy were his eyes and he had no chin at all. He had splendid glasses though, horn-rimmed, with lenses half an inch thick. These magnified his eyes so that they filled the frames. Russell lived in mortal dread that he might one day take his glasses off to reveal –

Nothing.

“Close the door,” croaked Mr Fudgepacker.

Frank struggled to do so, but what with the three of them now in and crammed up against the desk, this wasn’t easy.

Mr Fudgepacker viewed his workforce, his magnified eyes turning from one to another. “Eerily” the word was, if anyone was looking for it.

“Where’s Bobby Boy?” asked Mr Fudgepacker.

“Off sick,” said Frank. “Stomach trouble.”

“Something catching I hope. I enjoy a good illness. See this hand?” He extended a withered paw. “The nails are dropping off. Doctor said I should have it amputated.”

“Good God,” said Frank. “When?”

“1958, silly bastard. I told him, this hand will see me out. And it saw him out too. And his successor. What’s that horrible smell?”

“It’s me,” said Russell. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, lad, nothing wrong with a horrible smell. I collect horrible smells. Keep them in little jars. Little black jars. What did I ask you lot here for anyway?”

“You sent us a memo,” said Frank.

“Ah yes,” said Ernest. “And you bloody watch it, Frank, trying to distract me with talk of sickness and bad smells. Sucking up to me isn’t going to help your cause.”

“Eh?” said Frank.

Morgan sniggered.

“Business,” said Ernest.

“Yes,” said Frank.

“We don’t have any,” said Ernest. “Any don’t we have.”

“It will pick up,” said Frank.

Ernest sniffed. It was a quite revolting sound, like half a ton of calf’s liver being sucked up a drainpipe. “I’m not going to beat about the bush,” said Ernest. “Prevarication never helps, if you prevaricate it’s the same as if you dither. There’s no difference, believe me. A prevaricator is a ditherer, plain and simple. And I’ve been in this business long enough to know the truth of that statement. When I was a boy my father said to me, ‘Ernest,’ he said. ‘Ernest, don’t do that to your sister.’ He didn’t prevaricate, see.”

“I see,” said Frank.

“So let that be a lesson to you.”

“Right,” said Frank.

“Well, don’t just stand there, get back to work.”

“Oh right,” said Frank. “Is that it then?”

“That’s it,” said Ernest. “Except that you’re sacked, Frank, so you won’t be getting back to work. Well, I’m sure you will be getting back to work, but just not here.”

Frank made tiny strangulated noises with the back of his throat.

“Are you going to have a heart attack?” Ernest asked. “Because if you are, I’d like to watch. I had one once. Two actually, but I didn’t get to see what they were like. I’d have liked to have filmed them. If you’re going to have one, could you hold on until I load my camera?”

“You can’t sack me,” gasped Frank. “I’m the manager.”

“Oh,” said Ernest. “Who should I sack then?”

“Sack Morgan,” said Frank.

“You can’t sack me,” said Morgan. “I’m the packer.”

“Oh,” said Ernest. “Who should I sack, then? One of you has to go.”

“Sack Russell,” said Frank.

“Oh,” said Russell.

“No,” said Morgan. “That’s not right, Russell is the salesman.”

“If one of us has to go,” said Russell, “then it had better be me. Last one in, first one out.”

“I agree with that,” said Frank.

“Right,” said Ernest. “You’re sacked then, Russell.”

“Thank you,” said Russell. “I’m sorry that I have to leave, perhaps if things pick up, you’ll take me on again.”

“No, no, no,” said Morgan. “That won’t do. Russell is just being Mr Nice Guy again. You can’t sack Russell.”

“Why not?” Russell asked.

“Because Russell is the salesman. He takes the customers round, writes up the orders, supervises pick ups and returns and does the loss and damage reports. You can’t sack Russell.”

“Oh,” said Ernest. “Who should I sack then?”

“Sack Bobby Boy,” said Morgan.

“That’s a bit unfair on Bobby Boy, isn’t it?” Russell asked. “With him not being here to speak up for himself.”

“Keep out of this, Russell.”

“I think Bobby Boy should have his say.”

“Bobby Boy, you’re sacked,” said Ernest, “wherever you are.”

“But –” said Russell.

“Be quiet, Russell, or I’ll sack you too.”

“Oh,” said Russell.

“Well,” said Ernest, “I think that all went rather well. Now back to work you lot.”

“But –” said Russell.

“What?” said Ernest.

“Could I wash the cups up?” Russell asked.

“Are you sure you can fit that in, with all the other things you have to do?”

“I’ll try,” said Russell.

“Good boy, now off you go.”

“Thank you,” said Russell.

They squeezed outside and Frank shut the door.

“That was close,” said Frank.

“Yeah,” said Morgan. “Thanks for putting my name forward.”

“You liked that?”

“No, I was being sarcastic”

“I’m going back inside,” said Russell. “If anyone has to go it should be me. Last in, first out.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Morgan.

“Oh, and why not?”

“Because I met Bobby Boy at lunch-time and he’s got himself another job.”

“Phew,” said Russell. “Then I’m saved. Thanks a lot, Morgan.”

“Least I could do,” said that man.

The voice of Ernest Fudgepacker reached their ears, it called, “Oh, and we’ll have another meeting this time next week and if business hasn’t picked up, I’ll have to sack somebody else.”

“Do you mind if I say ‘fuck’?” Russell asked.

“Grease,” says the old song, “is the word,” but this is not altogether true. In fact, it isn’t true at all. “Stress” is the word. Stress. Stress. Stress.

In movies, the hero or heroine is put under stress. Hollywood scriptwriters understand this. They understand this because this is what Hollywood producers demand of them.

“Is the hero being put under stress?”

The reason for this is because a movie must not be “plot-led”. The hero or heroine must take the initiative. Forces are up against them, but they must do all the doing. They have a goal that must be reached. You may argue that all movies aren’t like that. But they are, you know. Pick any movie you like and think about the plot and the hero (or heroine). It’s all to do with stress.

Hollywood thrives on stress.

Russell didn’t thrive on stress. Russell hated stress. Stress was not Russell’s thing. But stress he had and stress he was going to get lots more of.

He didn’t get sacked the next week. Morgan didn’t get sacked the next week, nor did Frank. Although Frank really deserved it.

The reason none of them got sacked was because something rather unexpected happened. And what this rather unexpected something was, was a rather unexpected upturn in the fortunes of Fudgepacker’s Emporium. And how this rather unexpected something came about was all down to Russell.

Who was under stress at the time.

“Under stress” and “at the time”.

We’ve done a bit about stress, so now let’s do a bit about time.

James Campbell once said (last week, in fact, at The George), “The future and the past have a lot in common. This being that neither of them actually exists. Which leaves us with the present, whose round is it?”

“Yours,” I told him.

“It was mine last time,” he said.

“But that was in the past,” I told him, “and the past does not exist.”

“Fair enough,” said James and went off to the bar.

Presently he returned, with just the one drink. For himself.

“Where is mine?” I asked him.

“Good question,” he replied, “I believe, at the present, we’re buying our own.”

An evening out with James is always instructive. Though rarely profitable.

But, time. Time is a bit of a bugger, isn’t it? It doesn’t really exist at all. It appears to be a series of presents, perhaps a never-ending state of presentness. But something
must
happen, because you definitely get older. Which is strange if you spend all your time in the present and never in the past or the future. Mind you, you have spent some time in the past, which used to be the present. But you’ve never spent any time at all in the future. Because when you get to the future, it turns out to be the present and by the time you’ve thought about it, it’s already the past.

Russell never thought that much about the future, he was always happy with the present. Especially the birthday present, especially if it was a bicycle. Which it once had been, but that was in the past now.

It’s all so confusing, isn’t it?

Russell certainly didn’t know that he was going to be instrumental in future events which would affect the present yet to come. As it were.

He wasn’t happy when he got back to the sales office. He was mournful.

“Why are you mournful?” Morgan asked.

“I am mournful,” said Russell, “because I do not want to be sacked.”

“You won’t be sacked,” said Morgan. “If anybody’s going to be sacked, then that somebody will be Frank.”

“It bloody won’t,” said Frank. “I’m the manager.”

“I wasn’t going to bring my wild card into play just yet,” said Morgan, “but I think I will anyway.”

“Oh yes?” said Frank.

“Oh yes,” said Morgan. “You may be the manager, but Ernest Fudgepacker is my uncle.”

“Shit,” said Frank.

“I should go,” said Russell. “Last in, first out.”

“Will you shut up about that.”

“No, he’s right,” said Frank. “Don’t stand in his way, he’s doing the right thing. Forestall the ignominy of a sacking, Russell, go and hand your notice in.”

“All right,” said Russell. “I will.”

Now, this is all wrong, you see. In Hollywood they wouldn’t have this. In Hollywood they would say, “The hero is under stress and now the hero must fight back. And win.” That’s what they’d say. In Hollywood.

“I’ll hand my notice in,” said Russell. “It’s only fair.”

“Quite right,” said Frank.

“Quite wrong,” said Morgan.

“You know what though,” said Russell, “if we could do something to bring in some business, none of us would have to be sacked.”

“Good point,” said Morgan.

“You can’t run a company without a manager,” said Frank.

“There must be something we could do,” said Russell. “Something
I
could do.”

“What?” Morgan asked.

“Hand in your notice,” said Frank. “Save the rest of us.”

“That wouldn’t be fair to you,” said Russell. “Putting you through all the misery, waiting for the axe to fall. No, handing in my notice won’t help. I must do something positive, something that will help us all.”

“Are you taking the piss?” Frank asked.

“No, I’m dead straight. I’m going to think hard about this. Find a way to save Fudgepacker’s. That’s what I’m going to do.”

“It’s five-thirty,” said Morgan. “Knocking-off time. What would you say to a pint of beer?”

“Not in The Bricklayer’s?”

“Not in The Bricklayer’s.”

“I would say thank you, let’s do it.”

The Ape of Thoth was a popular pub. A music pub. All kinds of bands had played there. Some had become quite famous since. The Who once played there, and Manfred Mann. Of course that is going back a bit. The Lost T-Shirts of Atlantis never played there, nor did Sonic Energy Authority, but you can’t have everything. The landlord of The Ape was a Spaniard by the name of Luis Zornoza. Tall, dark and handsome, he was, and a bit of a ladies’ man
[20]
.

Russell had never been into The Ape before. Morgan drew his attention to a sign above the bar. “The Ape of Thoth, formerly The Flying Swan, welcomes you.”

A blond barmaid came up to serve them.

“I’ll have a Perrier water,” said Russell.

“You’ll have a pint,” said Morgan.

“Yes, you’re right, I will.”

“Two pints of Special,” said Morgan.

The barmaid looked at Russell with wistful eyes. “Pity,” she said.

“Look,” said Morgan, as the drinks were delivered. “I know you’d like to help, Russell, but it really isn’t your thing, is it? I mean you’re a helpful felllow, but when it comes to
big
helpfulness, like making a
big
move, you just don’t do that sort of stuff, do you?”

Russell sniffed suspiciously at his pint, then took a small sip. “I’m not an idiot, you know,” he said. “I am quite capable. I could
do
things.”

“Yes, but you know you won’t. Chaps like you never do. No offence meant, but you just don’t.”

“But I could, if the opportunity presented itself.”

“I think you have to make your own opportunities.”

“So you just said.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did, and you said that too.”

“What?”

“Oh no.” Russell glanced about the place. Luis the landlord had gone off to the cellar with the blond barmaid and but for himself and for Morgan the bar was deserted. “Quick,” cried Russell. “Jump over the counter. Quick.”

“You’re not going to rob the place? Russell, no!”

“Something’s going to happen. Quickly, quickly.” Russell shinned up from the barstool and scrambled onto the counter.

“Have you lost all reason, Russell?”

“Quick, it’s going to happen, I know it is.” Russell grabbed Morgan’s arm and began to haul at him.

“What is? Oh shit.”

A vibration ran through the bar. A shudder. Optics rattled, ashtrays shook. The dartsboard fell off the wall.

“Earthquake!” cried Morgan.

“Not an earthquake, quickly.” Russell dropped down behind the bar, dragging Morgan after him.

“Oh my God!”

An icy wind sprang up from nowhere, became a mini-hurricane, snatched chairs from the floor and hurled them about the place.

“Keep your head down,” Russell shouted, but Morgan didn’t need the telling. Tables whirled and twisted, splintered against the walls, beer mats and ashtrays, glasses and bottles filled the air, rained down from every direction.

And a blinding light.

It shot up before the counter, became a sheet of blue-white, expanding to extend from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling. Then it folded in upon itself with a sound like water vanishing down the plughole and was gone.

A tinkling of glass, a final thud of a falling chair and all became silent.

Very silent.

Unnaturally silent.

Russell got to his knees, brushing glass and beer mats from his shoulders. He peeped over the counter and gawped at the devastation.

“Is it over?” called Morgan, from the foetal position.

“I think it’s just about to start.”

The sound was like an express train coming out of a tunnel, or a jet plane taking off, or a rocket being launched (which is a bit like a jet plane, though less like an express). Sort of “Whoooooooosh!” it went. Really loudly.

The wall at the far end of the bar seemed to go out of focus and then to open, much in the fashion of a camera lens. As Russell gawped on he saw the light reform, blaze out, and a figure, a distant moving dot of a figure, running. Closer and closer. Though two dimensionally. It’s a bit hard to explain really. Imagine it looking like a movie projected onto the wall. That’s what it looked like. The figure running towards the camera. With a further much-intensified whoosh, the figure burst out of two dimensions into the third.

It was a woman. A beautiful woman. She wore an elegant contour-hugging frock of golden scales. Cut above the knee, her stockings were of gold, as were her shoes.

And her hair.

She flashed frightened eyes about the bar. “Russell,” she called, “where are you?”

“I’m here.” Russell’s gawp had achieved the status of a mega-gawp. But he said, “I’m here,” none the less.

“I knew you wouldn’t let me down. I knew it.”

“It’s you. It’s you.”

And it
was
her. It was the barmaid from The Bricklayer’s Arms.

“Take it quickly, there’s no time.”

“Take what? What?”

The beautiful barmaid thrust a golden package into Russell’s hand. “The programmer, keep down, don’t let them see you, and, Russell …”

“What? What?”

“I love you,” she leaned across the counter and she kissed him. Full on the lips. Russell felt his toes begin to curl and his hair becoming straight.

“Oh,” said Russell, as she pulled away. “I don’t …”

“Understand? You will. And thank you, for everything.”

“I … er.”

Metallic clangs and crashes. She glanced back towards the way she had come, clicked something on her belt. Another white disc sprang up upon the far wall. “Keep down,” and with that she ran towards the disc.

Russell watched her dash across the bar, leap at the disc on the wall, which swallowed her up. And she was gone.

“Oh,” said Russell once more, and then he turned his head, saw something rather fearful and took a dive for cover. From two dimensions into the third they came, clashing and clanking. They were like knights in dead black armour.

Two of them, both tall and wide, of terrible bulk, the floor shook to their footfalls. The helmets were spherical, featureless, without visors or eyeholes. The metal gauntlets had but the three fingers. These clasped enormous black guns of an advanced design. Little red lights ran up and down the barrels.

They came clanking to a standstill before the bar.

Morgan raised his head but Russell forced it down again, rammed a hand over his mouth.

Above, the mighty figures stood immobile as statues, and then their heads began to revolve. Whirring, clicking sounds, the heads turned. Round and round they went.

“The woman is not here,” said one, in a voice like a long-distance telephone call.

“Readjust the coordinates. Search mode. And delayed correct, two minutes.”

Lights flickered upon the carapace breast plates. The white spot grew once more upon the far wall.

Crashing and banging they ran towards it. Terrible creaks and groans of grating metal. Into the disc of light, then zap. Gone. Kaput. Vanished.

Russell peeped out once more. The walls of the bar were as before, no trace of anything remained. Morgan struggled up. “What the bloody Hell …?” he mumbled.

“I think we’re in some kind of trouble,” Russell said.

“Trouble?”

“Trouble?” The voice was that of Luis Z the Spanish landlord. “
Trouble
? You bastards, what have you done to my pub?”

“It wasn’t us.” Morgan took to backing away. Luis had his big peace-keeping stick in his hand. Russell took to backing away also.

“You bloody mad men! I step out for a moment and you smash my pub to pieces. You’re dead. You’re frigging dead.”

“Run,” Morgan said.

“Run,” agreed Russell.

Luis put up a spirited chase, but Morgan and Russell had youth to their account and they finally out-ran him down near the Butts Estate. Bent double in an alleyway, hands upon knees, they gasped and gagged for breath.

“What bloody happened?” Morgan managed. “What went on back there?”

“I don’t know.” Russell had a bit more breath left in him than Morgan. “I just don’t know.”

“Earthquakes,” croaked Morgan. “And bright lights and flashes and crashes and bangs and voices and –”

“I still don’t know.”

“What did you see? Tell me what you saw.”

“I don’t know, I –”

“A woman, I heard a woman.”

“A woman, yes.”

“You knew, Russell. Whatever it was, you knew it was going to happen.”

Russell nodded slowly. He
had
known something was about to happen. Though he hadn’t known what and he didn’t know how he’d known. So to speak.

“We’re in deep shit,” puffed Morgan. “That Luis will call the police for sure. We’re wanted men. We could go to prison.”