Sprout Mask Replica (8 page)

‘Well,
come and sit down, we have much to discuss.’

‘We do?
I mean, yes,
we do.’

‘Exactly.’

Felix
seated himself on one of the leather Chesterfields.

‘Now,’
said the man, ‘as you are no doubt aware, we at the Ministry of Serendipity
have had our eye on you for quite some time.’

‘I
thought as much,’ said Felix. ‘Although of course I never said anything,
because I realized that it’s all very hush-hush.’ He tapped at his nose in the
approved manner.

‘Quite,’
said the man, tapping his. ‘So, as you must also know, we have a very good
reason for having our eye upon you.’

‘Of
course,’ said Felix, stroking his chin. ‘Indeed, but would you care to refresh
my memory?’

‘Most
amusing,’ said the man. ‘But why not. It is no doubt clear to you, Mr Lemon,
that you are not as other men.’

Felix
nodded vigorously.

‘You
are different,’ said the man. ‘You are special. You see, all fads and fashions,
inventions, innovations, thoughts and theories have their origins somewhere.
People take a hint from others who have previously taken a hint from others
still, but somewhere at the back of it all there is an originator. What we have
come to recognize as the Alpha Man. He is the last, or rather the first, in the
line. The average man-in-the-street doesn’t really have any ideas of his own.
He merely reflects upon ideas that are given to him, through books, through the
media. Ideas which come from
the few.
The few control the many, thus it
was ever so.’

‘Thus
it was ever so
what?’
asked Felix.

‘Most
amusing,’ said the man once more. ‘The Alpha Man is the first in the line of
idea-to-creation-of form And our researches tell us that for the most part the
Alpha Man is unaware of what he is. He is constantly plagued by seeing his
original ideas being exploited by others.’

‘Quite
true,’ said Felix. ‘I was just going to say the very same thing. Said it plenty
of times before, also.’

‘Quite.
Well our researches lead us to believe that you are such an Alpha Man. We have
so far found only one other.’

‘Yes,’
said Felix, adding, for good measure, ‘I know.’

‘You
do
know. Splendid, splendid.’ The man leaned back in his chair and twiddled
his thumbs. ‘What a relief that is. We have made the occasional slip up, as you
can imagine.’

‘Indeed
I can.’

‘Poor
Larry.’

‘Larry?’

‘Our
first Alpha Man. But let us not speak of such horrors, let us concentrate on
your good self.’

‘Are
you offering me a job?’ Felix asked.

‘The
job,’ said the man.
‘The
job.’

‘Larry’s
job?’

‘Got it
in one.

‘And
what exactly would this job entail?’

‘Just
sitting mostly. Sitting and thinking.’

‘Thinking
about what?’

‘All
manner of things. It’s
your thoughts
we want. Just
yours
and
nobody
else’s.
You love your country, don’t you?’

‘Of
course,’ said Felix. ‘But what has that got to do with it?’

‘It has
everything
to do with it. It is the whole point of it. To be very brief,
those who run our country do not always run it well. The public’s view, the
view of the-man-in-the-street, is that politicians are all careerists, out for
what they can get at the expense of the general population. But this is
not
the
case. Politicians are, for the most part, sincere individuals. It’s just that
when they get into power they realize that they’re not actually any good at
running the country. All they were ever any good at was being politicians. And
it’s not quite the same thing.’

‘You
want me to be Prime Minister,’ said Felix, warming to the idea.

‘Not
exactly. We want you to be more “the power behind the throne”.’

‘Does
the Prime Minister have a throne?’

‘Most
amusing. Your job will be to apply your special gift to affairs of state.
Problems that baffle the average cabinet minister will be as nothing to you.
With an Alpha Man at the helm, the Empire will flourish. Jobs for all,
prosperity for all. An end to sorrow and deprivation, the dawn of a new
tomorrow. Why, we’ll have an Englishman on the moon by nineteen sixty and a
queen who’ll rule the whole wide world. Will you do it, Felix? Will you do it?’

‘Oh
yes,’ said Felix. ‘I will.’

And so
he did. And the rest, as they say, is history.

THE END

Oh no.

Sorry.

There
were two pages stuck together. And some crossings out.

That is
not
the end of the story.

‘Oh yes,’ said Felix, ‘I
will.’ He didn’t mean to say it, but it just came out. The truth of the matter
was that Felix was becoming very very uncomfortable. It now occurred to him
that he was getting in well over his head on this one. But old habits do die
very hard, so Felix went on to say, ‘I just knew you were going to say that.’

‘Of
course you did.’ The chap behind the desk’s head bobbed up and down in the
manner of a nodding dog in a Cortina rear window (whatever happened to them?).

‘So you
will therefore have realized that what we must do, must be done.’

‘Er,’
said Felix. ‘Mm, yes.’

‘Good.
Good. We have, of course, prepared the isolation chamber. It is constructed
entirely of wood so that no interference will reach you. A special bath of
sterile solution has been constructed to contain your brain, it will float
upon this, wired up to an electrical contrivance that will channel its
brainwaves through—’

And so
on and so forth and Felix listened, somewhat slack-jawed and all agape.

‘And
with your naked unfettered brain, world domination should be a piece of pork
pie, as it were,’ the chap concluded.

And his
words hung in the air like drying laundry.

‘A
piece of pork pie.’ Felix’s slackened jaw became all wibbly-wobbly. He was
indeed in this thing well over his head. In fact, this thing was going to cost
him his head.

This
man, this
we;
because it was definitely a
we
rather than a
me,
was going to do for him good and proper and Felix now knew for absolutely
good and proper and certain that there was about as much chance of he himself
really being one of these so called Alpha Men as there was of him piloting the
aforementioned English moonship.

‘Well,’
said the truly rattled Felix, ‘this has really been most interesting, but I
think I must be off about my business now. Things to do, people to see, you
know how it is.’

‘Things
to think,’ said the chap. ‘People to mould.’

‘That’s
not exactly what I said, nor what I meant.’ ‘We know
exactly
what you
mean.’

‘I don’t
think you do. Honestly I don’t.’

‘Let’s
get you down to pre-med,’ said the chap.

‘Oh no,
let’s don’t!’

And
then there was some unpleasantness. Felix rose to take his leave. The chap rose
to stop him, there was some pushing and shoving and then there was some
punching and running. The latter all the work of Felix.

Monday
morning and ten of that clock found a most worried Felix sipping at his tea and
declining his Bourbon biscuit.

‘Did
you have a nice weekend, Felix?’ Norman’s voice was that of the condemned
prisoner who asks the captain of the firing squad what tomorrow’s weather
forecast is.

But
instead of the usual, ‘Well, on Saturday I’m off down the boozer and what do I
see but someone wearing the very shoes I’ve had in my mind to put on the market
for months now,’ there came a dismal groan and a sad little voice that said, ‘Bad
news, Norman. Bad news.’

‘I
suppose you know my wife broke her leg?’

‘No.’

Norman
slumped back in his utility office chair.
‘No,
Felix? What do you mean,
no?’

Felix
shook his head. ‘Well, how would I know? No-one told
me.’
And then Felix
went on to tell Norman all about the Ministry of Serendipity and his escape and
his running along railway tunnels and falling down and taking the knee out of
his trousers and having to go back to the dry-cleaners to discover that a steam
iron had been left on his best ones and burned the bum out and how he was a
doomed man and everything. Everything.

When
Norman went to visit his wife in hospital that evening he told her all about
everything. Everything that Felix had told to him.

‘Well,
I knew that was bound to happen,’ said Norman’s wife. ‘But, of course, no-one
ever listens to me.

Norman
raised a quizzical eyebrow to this and then shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he told
himself, ‘not a chance.’

As for the Ministry of
Serendipity. Well, who can say? You certainly can’t get a train to Mornington
Crescent and that must prove something. Felix is still up and about and
occasionally,
very
occasionally, phrases such as ‘I suppose you know who
they nicked that idea from’ can be heard coming from his direction. But these
are accompanied by much nervous over-the-shoulder looking and rarely go any
further.

It’s a
bit of a shame really, as he’s a harmless enough fellow. Of course,
I
knew
it was all going to happen. But then no-one ever listens to me.

But
they
will.

Oh
yes
they
will.

Because finally, in case
you were wondering where all this has been leading, it’s now that my story truly
begins.

ROPED
INTO SOCCER

Roped into soccer on Thursdays.

Pair of old boots on my shoulder.

Pads made of bone

To protect precious shin,

Big brother’s shorts

Secured by a pin.

I shan’t do this stuff when I’m older.

Roped into soccer? Not me, sir!

Roped into games, Friday morning.

Plimsolls that smell in the summer.

Horses to vault

When you haven’t a note.

Mats made of rush

And you can’t wear your coat.

Burns upon hands that might play the piano.

Roped into games? No, not me, sir!

Roped into dull social studies

By teachers with beards and bad jackets.

Learning of Lenin

And Stalin and Marx,

Tolpuddle Martyrs,

Sedition and sparks,

Crass revolutions in God-awful places.

Roped into that lot? Not me, sir!

Roped into prizes on Prize Day.

Projects that no-one approved of.

Always some boff

From the fourth form or third

Who writes some great thesis

On ‘Flight of the bird’

And wins every prize and becomes the school captain.

Roped into prizes. NO THANK YOU!

I was always a loner really.

4

NOW THERE ARE REVELATIONS.

And
there are
REVELATIONS.

The
preceding chapters were laid before you not without good reason. The matter of
my great
³
granddaddy’s sporran, my Uncle Brian’s discoveries
regarding the hidden properties of metal, Felix Lemon’s encounter with the
Ministry of Serendipity, all these play a part in revelations yet to come.

But of
the
REVELATIONS,
these begin right here.

My
discovery that I was the Chosen One came quite without warning. Although I had
always considered myself a bit of a loner, I had no idea just how much of a
loner I really was. The sudden revelation came as quite a shock and unleashed a
chain of events that I could never have foreseen.

But I
am getting ahead of myself here. Let me begin at the beginning, or as near to
the beginning as is necessary. To begin…

Let me
tell you about my brother.

Being four years my
senior, he held for me the status of a demi-god.

While
Mother shooed away my questions with talk of pressing housework, and Father
replied to my askings with parables, brother Andy was always there to provide
an answer when one was required. How well I recall the occasion of my eighth
birthday, when he taught me all about the workings of our record player. It
being my birthday, I was allowed, as a very special treat, to sit alone beneath
the kitchen table and lick the varnish on the legs. Ah, such childhood bliss.
My brother was playing the gramophone record he had bought me as a present. It
was by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band and although it made little sense
to me at the time, I was pleased that at least my brother seemed to be enjoying
it.