Sprout Mask Replica (18 page)

‘Go
back to sleep,’ Fange told him. ‘I’ll wake you up if anything interesting
happens.’

I
accepted my bottle of Bud, made payment in kind (whatever
that
means),
flipped open the uncle’s laptop and perused the keyboard.

‘What
you got there then?’ asked Fangio. ‘Toy typewriter, is it?’

‘Portable
computer.’

Fangio
whistled through the gap between his eyebrows. ‘What will they think of next?’

‘Fuel
cells. They’ll make the internal combustion engine redundant by the turn of
the century.’

Fangio
fingered his jowls. ‘Your brother told you that, I suppose.’

‘No, I
just know it.’ And I did.

I
cranked up the laptop and tapped away at the keyboard. I had to know how my
uncle had cracked the code. If, as it appeared, I really did possess the power
to effect great changes in the world, by the exercise of small and seemingly
arbitrary actions such as rubbing two biros together, how had he discovered the
formula?

The
computer had printed out the ‘gags’, told me what I had to do (although not, of
course for the genuine reasons). So was there some program in the computer
designed specifically toward this end? And if so, who had thought it up?’

‘That
guy was in again asking for you,’ said Fangio.

‘What
guy?’

‘Guy
from the Ministry of Serendipity. Very nervous he seemed, very edgy.’

‘You
genius,’ I told the fat boy. ‘It’s some secret government research program,
that’s what it is.’

‘What
is?’

‘In
this computer. Either my Uncle Brian nicked it or he’s working for the
Government.’

‘He’s
not working for the Government,’ said Fangio. ‘Your Uncle Brian’s a Russian
spy. And I should know, I live next door to him. His short-wave radio
transmissions always bugger up
The Archers
on a Friday night.’

‘Then
he nicked it.’ I tapped some more upon the keyboard. The word PASSWORD flashed
up on the screen and a little clock that began to tick down from one minute to
zero. I switched off the computer. ‘Do you know any hackers?’ I asked the fat
boy.

‘Jimmy
there has a smoker’s cough, you want I should wake him up?’

I made
a face that says, That’s a really crap joke.

Fangio
made the one that says, I know.

I
ordered another bottle of Bud.

And
then I saw Litany entering the bar.

And I
knew it was fate.

You all
know Litany. By sight. You’ve all seen her, although you’ve never known her
name. Until now. Litany is the beautiful blond girl in the bikini top, who is
always on some fellow’s shoulders down near the front at an outdoor rock concert.
Yes, you see, you
have
seen her. If you’ve got any big stadium concerts
on video, check them out. She’s in all of them, and it’s always her.

Recently
she appeared in the audience during the Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge tour gig
at Wembley. I can personally vouch for that, because she was on
my
shoulders
at the time.
[21]
But if you get a copy of the Woodstock Video, she’s there too, looking exactly
the same.

Rumours
abound, of course. The most popular being that she is some blond female version
of the Wandering Jew. That she first appeared, no doubt cheering wildly, upon
the shoulders of a Roman centurion, at the crucifixion of Christ. And that she
was doomed to an eternity of such shoulder-sitting until Jesus comes again and
she is finally allowed to get down and go to the toilet.

Personally
I don’t believe that particular rumour, plausible though it is.

But
there she was, in the flesh. Her long blond hair hung over her perfect
shoulders and her patterned-bikini-top-contoured breasts, exquisite enough to
make a sleeper sigh.

I
sighed for them and so did Fangio.

Litany
stepped carefully over the woman in the straw hat, walked up to the bar and
smiled at the fat boy. ‘Can I use your toilet?’ she asked.

Fangio
dropped to his knees. ‘The Second Coming,’ he cried. ‘We’re all doomed.’

‘It’s
in the back,’ I told the beautiful blonde. ‘Ignore the barman, he’s from Penge.’

‘Ah, I
see.’ And Litany went off towards the toilet. As she passed the end of the bar,
Lightweight Jimmy Netley sighed in his sleep.

‘Get
up,’ I told Fangio. ‘It’s not really the Second Coming.’

‘Oh
good.’ Fangio got to his feet, rooted in the plate and thrust a piece of
chewing fat into his mouth.

‘I
wonder what her name is,’ I wondered.

‘It’s
Litany.’

‘How do
you know
that?’

‘Because
she’s my daughter.’

‘Then
you—?’

‘Yes.’

‘And
you didn’t really—?’

‘No.’

‘It was
all a—?’

‘You
got it.’

We
laughed together. Such a crazy guy, that Fangio. What a shame about the way he
met his end.

‘Met my
end?’ asked the fat boy. ‘What is this?’

‘It’s
later, don’t worry about it now.’

‘Phew,’
said Fangio. ‘You had me going there.’

We both
laughed again, though I can’t remember why. Litany returned from the toilet and
settled herself on the bar stool next to mine. I offered her a drink and she
took my bottle of Bud.

I
enjoyed your act,’ she said.

‘My
act?’ I did my best to remain calm in the presence of this goddess. ‘I didn’t
see you in the audience.’

‘The
guy who’s shoulders I usually sit on has a cold. I just stood at the back.’

‘You
were part of the rented crowd?’

‘Strictly
freelance. I go where the spirit takes me. What’s your name?’

I told
her.

‘Mine’s
Litany.’

‘So
your father just said.’

Litany
looked the fat boy up and down. ‘He’s
not
my father. I’ve never even
seen this man before.’

Fangio
shrugged. ‘She’s right. I remember now. I don’t have a daughter.’

‘Is
that your computer?’

‘It’s
my uncle’s. He lent it to me, but I can’t remember the password.’

‘That’s
easy, let me have a look at it.’

I
passed the computer along the bar. She took it between long slim delicious-looking
fingers. ‘This is government issue. An M.o.S. machine. If it’s not yours, then
I’d lose it fast. They can track these things.’

‘I have
to know how the program works.’

She
tossed back her golden hair. ‘This belongs to the guy who was sitting in at
your gig, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes,
but he
is
my uncle.’

‘You’re
holding back a lot of anger, I can feel it. I don’t want to get involved.’

‘I only
want the password. I’ll give you money.’

‘How
much money?’

‘There’s
the details of a bank account in there. There’s a lot of money in it. You can
have it all.’

‘All
right.’ Litany’s fingers trod the keyboard. I watched the seconds tick by on
the clock above the bar. 3-2-1— ‘There you go,’ she said. ‘The password is DOGBREATH,
does that mean anything to you?’

I nodded
dismally. ‘How
did
you work it out?’

‘I was
looking over your uncle’s shoulder.’ Her eyes didn’t leave the keyboard. ‘There’s
a great deal of money in here, I don’t think I should take it all.’

‘Take
half then, I’ll have the rest.’

‘All
right, I’ll transfer it to my account. So what is it you want to see? Or is it
just the money?’

‘It’s
linked to the money. I have to know how the money got into the account, trace
back the cause and effect right to its source.’

‘That
should be reasonably simple.’ She tapped at the keyboard. ‘Whoa, perhaps not.’

‘What
is it?’

‘This
is not your everyday computer system. This is bio-tech.’

‘Which
is?’

‘Brand
new. State of the art. It’s organic. Artificial intelligence, if you like.
Replicating DNA strands.’

‘You
mean something’s actually alive inside the computer?’

‘Yes,
but not human or animal. It’s vegetable. Strands of vegetable DNA bombarded by
neurone particles. Very advanced and highly classified.’

‘But
how does it work?’

‘According
to theory, all plant-life on Earth is inter-dependant and inter-connected. It
communicates, but not in human terms, it doesn’t speak or anything. It’s
vibratory, on a cellular level. A marigold getting pulled up in Sumatra affects
an oak tree in Windsor Great Park.’

‘This
all sounds very familiar.’

‘It’s
chaos theory,’ said Fangio. ‘A butterfly in Dresden—’

‘Shut
up,’ I told him.

‘He’s
right,’ said Litany. ‘But then
you
know that, because you’re the
butterfly, aren’t you?’

The
explosion wasn’t a large one. But it made its point. The street door was ripped
from its hinges and cart-wheeled into the bar. Smoke and flame. Confusion and
chaos.

Litany
snapped shut the laptop and grabbed at my arm. ‘Quick,’ she shouted. ‘The back
door.’

I
joined her at the hurry-up. My last memory of Fangio’s Bar is of men in dark
uniforms storming forward with guns, and Fangio shouting, ‘Wake up, Jimmy, I
think something interesting’s about to happen.’

And
then he met his end. Which
was
a shame, but these things do happen.

DROWNED
SAILORS’ HATS

If early some morning

You poo-poo the warning

And head for the grey mud flats

When the tide’s well out

You can search about

And find drowned sailors’ hats

Among the relics of the wrecks

Are plank-walked captains with hairy necks

And tattooed wrists and long frock coats

Who feed the crabs and shrimping boats

Are moth—balled clerics who went astray

Upon some long-forgotten day

Arm in arm with pirate chiefs

With rusted swords in crusted sheaths

Are pewter tankards full of sand

And diamonds big as a gypsy’s hand

Are fancy pistols with silver stocks

And quill-penned parchment in a box

Barnacled bosun, corral shot

Rum-filled casks from the captain’s cot

Charts and deeds and treasure maps

Chains and charms and braided caps

If early some morning

You poo-poo the warning

And head for the grey mud flats

You may sink in the mud

When the tide comes flood

And join those sailors’ hats.

11

I
LOSE MY VIRGINITY

THE LAST THING I NEEDED AT
A TIME LIKE THIS WAS A POEM ABOUT
drowned sailors’
hats.

What I
really needed was a blow job.

And I’m
not being facile or frivolous here. I really, truly mean it.

A
friend of mine who was once in the TA told me that at that exact moment when
you think you’re going to die, your whole life does
not
flash before
your eyes. Something quite different occurs. He’d had his experience on
Salisbury Plain. He enjoyed the old weekend-soldiering, got a real buzz out of
shooting real guns and throwing thunderflashes at sheep. And he’d been quite
looking forward to the war games his part-time regiment were going to have
against a unit of full-time regular soldiers. But things didn’t go as well as
they might have. He tripped in a rabbit hole and broke his ankle. Considering
that the war games were over for him he gave himself up, limped to the enemy
camp waving a white handkerchief. It was an ill-considered move. The regulars
did not pack him off in a field ambulance, they tortured him instead. They
stripped him naked but for his boots, tied him up and put him out in the rain.
My friend was in such agony from the broken ankle and the freezing cold and
everything that he really truly thought that he was going to die.

And did
his whole life flash before his eyes?