Sprout Mask Replica (29 page)

‘No,
Barry, you’re not. We are now going to a hotel where I am going to set up shop.
I have formulated a plan for world-wide renewal. I will assemble all the
foolish bits and bobs I require and then I will begin. I will build a glorious
world. A utopia where all men will be free and happy. And honest. A world in
which mankind will reach its true potential. A fine world. A happy world. A
world of love.’

‘I don’t
mean to rain on your parade, chief, but a speech like that is generally
preceded by the words “They thought me mad, the fools, I who have created life”
and generally ends with the line, “We belong dead.” That one spoken by Boris Karloff,
of course, before he pulls the big switch.’

‘Quite
finished?’

‘Well,
there’s the villagers with the flaming torches.’

‘There
will be no villagers with flaming torches, only people with bright smiling
faces.’

‘Don’t
trust those, chief. I’ve seen those at Philip Glass concerts.’

‘What’s
with all the Philip Glass references?’ I asked. ‘What have we got against
Philip Glass?’

‘Perhaps
it’s a running gag, chief. We’ve been quite short of those.’

‘Well
it’s not very funny.’

‘Perhaps
the humour lay in you drawing attention to it. But let’s not improvise here.
Smiling faces, you say?’

‘A veritable
carpet of smiling faces.’

‘Carpets
are made to be walked on, chief.’

‘A
host, then. An exuberance.’

‘Oh
dear, oh dear.’

‘Perk
up, Barry. Today we check into a hotel. Tomorrow we make the whole world smile.’

‘I’m
really not keen, chief.’

‘Listen,
Barry, I’m going to make everything right this time. Every decision I make is
going to be the right one. And my first right decision is that we’re going to
check into that hotel over there.’

‘Which
one is that, chief?’

‘That
one. Hotel Jericho.’

19

SUSPICIONS
REGARDING WHAM, POW AND ZAP

AND SO YOU CAME HERE. THAT
YOU
THEN, THAT IS THE
ME
NOW.
The me who
sits alone in this room at Hotel Jericho. Recording the events as they
happened. Writing in my red exercise books, thirty lines to the page, twenty
pages to the book. Alone here, the walls and windows painted black, water
dripping from the tap, the smell of old stale cabbage always in the air.

But don’t
let me spoil the mood, your mood. Your mood was optimistic then. You really
knew
you couldn’t fail.

And
perhaps you didn’t. Really.

‘All right, chief, I give
up. How did you do it?’

‘Do
what, Barry?’

‘Arrange
all this. We turn up at a hotel, picked seemingly at random, to discover a
suite already booked in your name. And what do we find when we come up to it?
Your favourite beer in the fridge, a full computer set-up on the desk, a row of
televisions and a young woman of negotiable affections waiting to try out your
ten-inch todger.’

‘There’s
nothing magic about it, Barry. It’s all
very
straightforward.’

‘But
none the less, I’d like to know.’

‘Fair
enough, I’m sure you recall that during my convalescence at the hospital, there
was a certain bed-pan over-spill incident, which led to a sheet-besmirchment
and nose-hold situation.’

‘Recall
it all too well, chief. I popped out of your head for half an hour to have a
little drift about outside.’

‘That’s
right. And while you were gone I made a telephone call. Called in a favour or
two.’

‘Go on.

‘I
called the present bass guitarist of Sonic Energy Authority. The ex-waiter. He
covered all my hospital expenses and agreed to find my set up here. It’s as
simple as that.’

‘Well,
it’s always nice when something so simple can tie up such ENORMOUS loose ends,
chief.’

‘So,
you’ve had a beer and a woman and a bit of a kip, what say we hit the beach?’

‘No.’ I
took up the remote controller and switched on a TV. ‘I have to catch up on
thirty years of world news, find out what’s gone on in my absence, decide
exactly where I should start with the from-the—ground—up reconstruction.’

‘Start
tomorrow, chief. It’s a lovely day outside.’

‘I’m
starting
now.’

‘I
really don’t think you should, chief. It might upset you.’

‘I can
no longer be upset, Barry. Nothing can faze me any more. I know this world is a
rotten place, I know it is my destiny to change it. Nothing can get to me any
more, I am immune to all upset.’

‘That’s
very nice to know, chief.’

‘Who’s
that?’

‘Who,
chief?’

‘That
man on the screen.’

‘Him?
Just a man, chief. I think he’s the, er, I think he’s the present Prime
Minister. Yes, that’s who he is.’

‘There’s
something very familiar about him.’

‘They
all look the same, don’t they, chief? Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher,
hard to tell one from the other. Switch the TV off, let’s hit the beach.’

‘No,
Barry. Oh my God!’

‘Oh my
God?’

‘It’s
him! It’s him!’

‘God,
chief?’

‘Not
God. You know exactly who it is, don’t you?’

‘It’s
just a man, chief, it’s—’

‘My
brother! It’s my bloody brother!’

Actually, I think I took
it
very
well, considering. All right, so I trashed the room. All right,
so I threw the television set out of the window. All right, so I got into a
fight with the policemen who were called to deal with the disturbance. And, all
right, so they did give me a kicking down in the cell. But considering the
circumstances, I still think I took it very well.

Apart
from the kicking, of course. I didn’t take that too well. And as I lay there on
the cell floor, all bruised and battered, I must confess that I didn’t take the
next bit too well either.

‘I’m
sorry, chief. What can I tell you? I’m sorry.’

‘It’s
not your fault, Barry.’

‘Well
it is, chief, that’s why I’m saying sorry.

‘Forget
it. You didn’t want me to watch the television, because you didn’t want me to
find out that my brother is now the Prime Minister. You didn’t want to upset me.
That’s OK.’

‘That’s
not what I’m ‘apologizing for, chief.’

‘Well,
you don’t have anything else to apologize for, do you? It’s not as if
you
made
him Prime Minister, is it?’

‘Well,
chief…

‘What
do you mean,
well, chief?
You
didn’t,
did you?’

‘Well,
chief…

‘WHAT?’

‘I was
only trying to help, chief. I mean I
am
the family retainer. For
all
your
family. I’m your brother’s Holy Guardian Sprout too. And what with you banged
up in the freezer for thirty years and your mum and dad thinking you were dead
and everything—’

‘My mum
and dad. I hadn’t even thought about them, are they still alive?’

‘They’re
fine, chief But what with them thinking you were dead, I thought that if your
brother became really successful, it would ease their grief. And it did, you
know, I don’t think you’ve crossed their minds in the last twenty-five years.’

‘You
stupid—’

‘Steady
on, chief. He’s not a bad Prime Minister. Obviously he’s not a
good
one,
none of them are. But he’s no worse than any other. And he’s a real
crowd-pleaser. Brought back conscription and hanging and—’

‘Don’t
tell me any more. I don’t want to hear it.’

‘The
ducking stool.’

‘He
brought back the ducking stool?’

‘I told
you he wasn’t too bad, chief’

‘Well,
good, bad or whatever, he’s going to be out of office tomorrow.’

‘Don’t
be hasty, chief, please.’

‘We’ve
been through all this, Barry, and there is no hastiness at all involved. I’ve
made my telephone call and as soon as the bass player bails me out, it’s back
to the hotel and on with the show.’

‘Oh
dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

‘I
suppose there’s no other little skeletons in the family cupboard you’d care to
mention, Barry? I mean you haven’t made my Uncle Brian President of the USA or
anything, have you?’

‘Well,
chief, now that you mention it.’

‘WHAT?’

The
bass player did bail me out, but he made a right fuss. He said I’d behaved
irresponsibly and that throwing a TV out of a hotel window was a disgraceful
thing to do. I, in reply, asked just what kind of a rock’n’roller he thought he
was, with an attitude like
that?
And then he told me that he had
recently been elevated to the status of Cardinal by the new Prime Minister.

There
was some unpleasantness then, and I ran off.

‘Is it heresy to head-butt
a Cardinal?’ Barry asked, once we were safely back at Hotel Jericho.

‘No,’ I
said, looking dismally around the trashed-up room, ‘but it does mean that we’ll
have to go this one alone from now on.

‘So
what are you going to do now?’

‘I’m
going to start at once, Barry. And you are
not
going to stop me this
time.’

‘As if
I’d try, chief, as if I’d try.’

‘As if
you would. But just listen to me for a moment. Thirty years ago I became aware
of my special gift, I used it to bring wealth to some homeless people, then
WHAM!
I’m run over and killed. I spend the next thirty years in frozen pain. I
get defrosted and I tell you that I intend to go on with my mission. Then
POW!
I’m involved in a fight in Wembley High Street that puts me in intensive
care for six months. I survive and we come here. I tell you that I am
still
determined
to continue with my mission, and what happens, I see my brother has become
Prime Minister and
ZAP!
I’m banged up in a police station. Now call me
paranoid if you will, but I have the definite suspicion that someone, or
something
is trying to stop me from changing the world.’

‘I hope
you’re not implying that I have something to do with it, chief.’

‘What
you, who made my rotten brother the Prime Minister, and my uncle,
Pope?
Perish
the thought. So now, if you don’t mind, I intend to begin. The door is locked,
the blinds are drawn and there is nobody here for me to get into a fight with.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing that is going to stand in my way this
time.

‘Did
you hear
that,
chief?’

‘What,
Barry?’

‘It
sounded like a car crash outside, do you think you should go down and see if
anyone’s hurt?’

‘You’re
lying, Barry, aren’t you?’

‘I can’t
lie, chief, I’m a Holy Guardian Sprout.’

‘So
was
there a car crash outside?’

‘No,
chief. But there might have been. You never know. Best go and check, eh?’

‘No,
Barry, I am going to remove my brother from office. This is the new phase one
in my from-the-ground-up reconstruction.’

‘It’s
not a good idea, chief. Please don’t.’

‘Silence,
Barry.’ I took a deep breath and concentrated all my thoughts.
Remove my
brother from office.
And then I snapped my fingers, tugged upon the lobe of
my right ear and stamped upon my own left foot.

There
came a great pounding at my door. ‘Fire, fire!’ someone shouted. ‘Evacuate the
building!’

‘Nice
try, Barry,’ I said, ‘but too late.’

20

AHA!

‘YOU
AGAIN!’
SAID
THE DOCTOR, STARING DOWN UPON ME. ‘WHAT
happened to you
this time?’

‘He can’t
speak,’ said the nurse. ‘He has forty per cent burns. Refused to leave his room
when they were evacuating the hotel.’

‘Was
this
the
hotel? Hotel Jericho?’

‘That’s
right, doctor.’

‘Well
indeed, I suppose it makes this chap a little part of history, doesn’t it?’

‘How do
you mean?’

‘Well
if there hadn’t been one guest left in the blazing hotel, then the fire crews
would never have gone in. And if they hadn’t gone in, they would never have
burst into the secret room by mistake and found all the documents that proved
the Prime Minister was selling nukes to the Iraqis. I just heard on the news
that he’s resigned from office. And apparently the Pope was in on it too. And
he’s had to resign as well.’