The Da-Da-De-Da-Da Code (5 page)

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Authors: Robert Rankin

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Humorous

BOOK: The Da-Da-De-Da-Da Code
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8
 

Jonny Hooker awoke with a head full of noise.

A head full of noise and a very damp constitution.

He blinked in the daylight and took in the leaves and the grass and the sky and the hedgehog. The hedgehog sidled away and Jonny clasped at his naked arms and felt a little confused.

Slowly, but shuffled and dealt as if playing cards, memories of the previous evening returned to him. Jonny sorted these memories into their separate suits.

The Special Wing of the hospital. Nurse Hollywood. The padded cell. Nurse Cecil. The interview with Dr Archy. Dr Archy’s knowledge of Jonny’s doings. Jonny’s escape through the window. A horrid chase up the Ealing Road. The outrunning of his pursuers. The scaling of the gates of Gunnersbury Park. The hiding out in the mulberry bush.

The waking up in the morning now, all damp, in the mulberry bush.

And a head full of noise, noise, noise.

‘Da-da-de-da-da! Da-da-de-da-da! Da-da-de-da-da!’

‘Stop it!’ shouted Jonny, and he pressed his fists to his temples. Then, ‘Keep it down,’ he told himself. ‘But stop with the “da-dade-da-das”.’

‘Would you prefer a couple of fol-de-rols and a twiddly-diddly-de?’ asked Mr Giggles the Monkey Boy. ‘This is rather rubbish accommodation, even for you.’

‘The drugs have worn off, then,’ said Jonny Hooker, ‘and I am cursed once more with you.’

‘And you should be glad to have me. See the trouble you get yourself into when you’re on your own? Medication and a padded cell and a nice plate of salad for your supper.’

‘I escaped,’ said Jonny. ‘I didn’t need your help. And it was all your fault that I ended up there in the first place. Drowning child? There
was
no drowning child!’

‘You saw the drowning child with your own eyes.’

‘We both know that I cannot trust the evidence of my own eyes.’

‘I suspect that you’re being personal again. But no matter. It’s a beautiful day – how do you plan that we spend it?’

Jonny Hooker made an exasperated face. ‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘I’m wearing nothing but a hospital smock. I am officially an escaped mental patient. They’ll have my picture in the papers and on the news.’

‘You’d better keep your head down, then. That would be my advice.’

‘Oh, sound advice, thank you very much.’

‘I do detect a certain tone in your voice.’

‘I’m starving,’ said Jonny. ‘I’m starving and I’m freezing to death.’

‘Then you must be fed and warmed. My advice would be to hide out here in the park until things calm down a bit. Back in the days when Sir Henry Crawford owned the mansion here, he employed an ornamental hermit to adorn the grounds. The hermit was allowed a Bible for his spiritual sustenance and access to the kitchen garden for vegetables, which he was required to consume raw. He wore a rabbit-skin surcoat and boots made from bark and—’

‘Please be quiet,’ said Jonny. ‘I have no wish to live the life of a hermit, ornamental or otherwise.’

‘You were pretty much a hermit anyway. Living rough and foraging for your own food will be character-building. And you know what they say: a healthy body makes a healthy minefield.’

Jonny had long ago given up on the thankless task of taking a swing at Mr Giggles. ‘Perhaps,’ said he, ‘I will just return to the hospital. The bed was comfy enough and I’m sure I could come to some arrangement with Nurse Cecil that would involve me being fed at regular intervals.’

‘A tree house,’ said Mr Giggles.

‘What?’

‘You could build a tree house, here in the park, high up a tree
and camouflaged. And there’s loads of fish in the ornamental pond. You could catch fish at night. And you could rig up ropes between the trees, swing from one to another, like Tarzan.’

Jonny had always liked Tarzan.

‘I’ve always liked Tarzan,’ he said.

‘Really?’ said Mr Giggles. ‘Fancy that.’

‘No,’ said Jonny. ‘
Not
a tree house. Although, perhaps … I wonder what time it is.’

And, as if in answer to his question, the distant clock on the spire of St Mary’s chimed the seventh hour.

‘I have an idea,’ said Jonny.

The park rangers’ hut was nothing much to look at from the outside. It was one of those horrid Portakabin affairs, of the variety that working men rejoice to inhabit on building sites. There is always the suggestion about such huts that dark and sinister things go on inside them.
*

The park rangers’ hut lurked behind trees to the north of Gunnersbury House. The trees were many and various. There were the standard oak, ash and elm, sycamore and horse chestnut, but this being Gunnersbury Park, a park which, it must be said, had, over the years, been owned and landscaped and planted and tended by one rich weirdo after another, some of the trees that prettified the place were of the ‘odd’ persuasion. You don’t see moosewood every day – well, not hereabouts anyhow – nor too much in the way of monkey puzzle. And there were sequoias, cornels, dogwoods, ilex, sal and Papuan minge trees, in considerable abundance.

The monkey puzzle having been planted during Princess Amelia’s residence, the minge trees during that of Sir Henry Crawford. Who, being a member of the aristocracy, was never averse to a bit of minge in his ornamental garden.

Jonny drew Mr Giggles’ attention to the monkey puzzle tree.

Mr Giggles pointedly ignored it.

The park rangers’ hut was locked.

‘You’ll have to smash a window,’ said Mr Giggles.

‘Which is where you are wrong,’ said Jonny, and he rooted
around and about the door. Presently he upturned a flowerpot to disclose the keys that were hidden beneath. ‘Nice as ninepence,’ said Jonny.

‘What?’

Jonny opened up the door and had a peep within. ‘Splendid,’ he was heard to say, and he made his way inside.

And presently, at a time not too far distant from his entrance, Jonny Hooker emerged from the park rangers’ hut wearing the uniform, cap and boots of a Gunnersbury park ranger. ‘How about
that
?’ he said to Mr Giggles.

‘Positively inspired,’ said the Monkey Boy. ‘Now I suggest that you run like the wind before the real park rangers arrive.’

‘No,’ said Jonny. ‘I won’t.’

‘They will catch you and bring you to book.’

‘They won’t.’

‘They gave you a pretty sound walloping when they dragged you out of the pond.’

‘They won’t recognise me,’ said Jonny.

‘What?’

So how exactly does it work, or rather why does it not? You can go into that shop week after week, month after month, and get served by the same person, or be on the same bus every day and have your ticket clipped by the same bus conductor. But pass the shop assistant or the conductor in the street, when they are out of uniform and not in the environment that you have come to associate them with …

And you don’t recognise them!

What is
that
all about?
*

But whatever it
is
all about, it works the other way round.

Put someone you know well into a uniform and you hardly recognise them. Freaky, isn’t it?

‘So your theory is that you will not be recognised because you are wearing a uniform?’ said Mr Giggles.

‘In as many words,’ said Jonny. ‘Although, of course, I do not recall uttering any to that effect.’

Jonny dusted down the sleeves of his uniform and squared up his shoulders. The uniform fitted him rather well, and it rather suited him, too.

‘I think I cut something of a dash,’ said he.

‘It’s a shame the Village People split up,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘You’d have looked right at home amongst them. So much the bum-bandit, you look.’

‘Bum-bandit?’ said Jonny. ‘How dare you.’

‘I dare,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘I use the word “n****r”. Trust me,
I dare
.’

‘Aha,’ said Jonny, hastily relocking the hut door and returning the key to its flowerpot bower. ‘I hear approaching footsteps.’

And so Jonny did. The approaching footsteps of Messrs Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawtrey. Charles was whistling ‘Birdhouse In Your Soul’ (the They Might Be Giants classic). Kenneth was accompanying the whistle by laying down a percussive track involving a rolled-up newspaper and his right trouser leg.

And then.

‘Well, hello,’ said Kenneth Connor. ‘Who is this?’

Jonny Hooker stood to attention. ‘David Chicoteen,
sir
,’ said he. And he offered a salute.

‘At ease, Mister Chiocteen,’ said Kenneth Connor, but he couldn’t help but return the salute.

‘David Chicoteen?’
*
said Mr Giggles. ‘Who he?’

‘Student,’ said Jonny to Ranger Connor. ‘Studying for a degree in—’ He paused. ‘Park rangering,’ he ventured. ‘Sent here for work experience, told to report to you directly. To take my orders directly from you and you alone.’

‘Me?’ asked Ranger Connor. ‘Me, personally?

‘The senior ranger,’ said Jonny, choosing his words with care. ‘You carry yourself with authority. I am certain that I have the right man.’

Ranger Hawtrey made a face. Ranger Connor did some puffing up.

‘Well,’ said he, ‘you do indeed have the right man. Splendid. I have asked them at the Big House again and again for another man. But what do I get? Cutbacks here, cutbacks there. You are a veritable blessing, young Chicoteen.’

‘Chicoteen?’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘What kind of name is that?’

‘A rubbish one,’ said Mr Giggles.

‘Dutch, I think,’ said Jonny, for who has it in for the Dutch?

‘I went to Holland once,’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘They have a museum there, dedicated to poo.’
*

‘Did he just say what I think he just said?’ said Mr Giggles.

Ranger Connor had unpotted the key. He opened the hut door and ushered Jonny inside. ‘Our little cottage in the woods,’ he said.

It
was
elegantly furnished, Jonny noted, now that he had time for more than a quick look around. There was a very nice George III mahogany sofa-table, with rounded twin-flap top and ribbed trestle supports. A delicious William IV walnut footstool with scrolling legs and brocade-padded seat. A magnificent Empire rosewood cabinet with foliate marquetry veneers. Several exquisite Queen Anne dining chairs, on shell-carved cabriole legs, and a host of other antique bits and bobbery, which lent the hut’s interior the look of Lovejoy’s lock-up.

Jonny viewed all this as one who had not viewed it before. ‘Very nice indeed,’ he said.

‘Commandeered,’ explained Ranger Connor, ‘from the museum basement. No point leaving it all to rot down there when it can be put to good purpose here.’

‘Quite so,’ said Jonny.

Ranger Hawtrey switched on a small television that stood upon a Swedish ormolu-mounted kingswood, walnut and parquetry bombe commode, with a saleroom value of six to eight thousand pounds.

Ranger Connor said, ‘That’s odd.’

‘Odd?’ said Jonny.

‘The armoire door is open.’

‘Armoire?’

‘Clothes cupboard, if you like. The French provincial-style one over there, with the cross-banded top and the boxwood stringing.
We keep the spare uniforms inside it. The door’s open. Odd.’

‘Blimey,’ said Ranger Hawtrey,’ settling himself down upon one of the Queen Anne chairs. ‘If you think that’s odd, check
this
out.’

He pointed to the television screen. It was one of those first-thing-in-the-morning news shows. The ones hosted by uncomfortable-looking male presenters whose suits are a little too tight, and very attractive female presenters with heaving bosoms and sexy spectacles.

‘Odd?’ said Ranger Connor. ‘What very sexy spectacles that woman’s wearing,’ he continued.

‘Listen and look,’ said Ranger Hawtrey.

‘Again, this breaking news,’ said an uncomfortable-looking male presenter whose suit was a little bit too tight. ‘Doctor Roland Archy, head of the psychiatric unit at Brentford Cottage Hospital, was viciously murdered last night. Police are seeking escaped psychopath Jonathan Hooker, aged twenty-seven. The public are warned that this man is armed and dangerous. Do not under any circumstances approach this man.’ And up flashed Jonny’s photo on the screen. A nice, crisp, detailed photograph that Jonny did not recall having taken. ‘If you see this man, report his whereabouts immediately to the police.’

‘Ugly-looking customer,’ said Ranger Kenneth Connor.

‘Viciously murdered?’ whispered Jonny Hooker.

‘Psychopath,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘You’re in trouble now.’

9
 

Ranger Hawtrey brewed a morning cuppa.

‘Ranger Chicoteen’ held his cup between trembling hands and supped and supped at its contents. His stomach grumbled loudly for the lack of a filling and illicited some sympathy from Ranger Hawtrey, who offered the stomach’s owner half of a fresh bacon sarnie.

‘Thank you,’ said Jonny, chewing at the sandwich but finding the swallowing hard.

‘South America would be your man,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘That’s where all those Nazi war criminals retired to. Perhaps you could make a few subtle alterations to the uniform, pretend you’re a merchant seaman and sign on with a cruise liner, or something. Then, when you get there, a few more subtle alterations and lo, you’ll pass for a young Martin Bormann.’

Jonny Hooker said nothing to Mr Giggles. But Jonny’s brain was buzzing like a beehive.

Viciously murdered?
Jonny thought.
I only gave him a bit of a smack. This is all some terrible mistake. It’s all been a terrible mistake. All of it. Everything from the arrival of that letter. Ever since I determined to crack that Da-da-de-da-da code, my whole world has turned to dirt
.

‘It was dirt anyway,’ said Mr Giggles, ‘but it’s quite exciting dirt now. I wonder what is going to happen next.’

‘Switch off that television,’ said Ranger Connor. ‘If we see that lunatic in this park, I’ll give him the hiding of his life.’

‘It’s
him
!’ cried Ranger Hawtrey.

And Jonny’s blood froze.

‘It’s who?’ asked Ranger Connor.

‘That loon,’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘The one who was in the pond the day before yesterday. The one you did the Electric Dragon move on.’

Jonny Hooker slowly crossed his legs.

‘Damn me, you’re right,’ said Ranger Connor. ‘Of course, they carted him off to the Cottage Hospital. If I’d known he was a serial killer, I’d have given him the Dimac Death-Touch.’
*

‘It didn’t say on the news that he is a serial killer,’ said Jonny, keeping his cap on and his head down.

‘He probably will be by the end of the day,’ said Ranger Connor. ‘He’ll probably go on what the Yanks refer to as a Goddamn killing spree.’

Ranger Hawtrey nodded enthusiastically ‘A nun-raping, child-slaying, cocaine-fuelled, coprophiliac—’

‘Eh?’ said Jonny.

‘Baby-strangling—’ said Ranger Hawtrey.

‘What?’

‘Puppy-buggering—’

‘Now stop it,’ said Ranger Connor. ‘You’ll get yourself feeling all unnecessary and I’ll have to throw a bucket of water over you.’

‘Hanging is too good for those types,’ said Ranger Hawtrey.

‘Did they bring back hanging?’ Jonny asked

‘I wrote to the Prime Minister, suggesting it,’ said Ranger Hawtrey.

‘I’m seeing a rather unexpected side to you here,’ said Ranger Connor. ‘Off with that television and let us get down to the job in hand today.’

Ranger Hawtrey switched off the television.

‘Obviously we must be particularly vigilant today and on the lookout for this maniac. We will keep in constant radio contact with our walkie-talkies. And travel in pairs.’

‘But there’s only three of us,’ said Ranger Hawtrey.

‘Improvise, boy,’ said Ranger Connor.

‘I’m loving this,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘And these lads think that
you’re
a loon.’

‘We’d best tool up,’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘Electric truncheons are what we’ll need.’

‘And you know where we can acquire electric truncheons?’ asked Ranger Connor.

‘Actually, yes. I’ll make a call on my mobile.’

‘No, you will
not
.’ Ranger Connor waggled his teacup at the younger ranger. ‘
I
do not need tooling up because
I
am skilled in Dimac.
You
cannot legally carry a weapon.
Although
—’

‘Although?’ said Ranger Hawtrey.

‘It is something of a grey area, because we are on private property. You could actually carry a sword, if you wish, but not if you conceal it. Funny old thing, the law. Do you have any martial arts training, young Chicoteen?’

‘Me?’ Jonny, head-down, shook his head. ‘But if there is any trouble, I do know how to run.’

‘Hm,’ went Ranger Connor. ‘So, we travel in pairs, except for myself. You can carry a cudgel, Ranger Hawtrey.’

‘There are some very tasty swords in the museum,’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘I could commandeer one of those.’

‘A stick,’ said Ranger Connor.


A stick
?’

‘A stout stick. But enough chitchat. It is time to get off on the morning round. Master Chicoteen, you will accompany Ranger Hawtrey – he’ll show you the drill today. Tomorrow I will find specific tasks to set you.’

Jonny Hooker nodded ’neath his cap.

‘Right, then,’ said Ranger Connor. ‘Up and at it, lads. Up and at it.’

Down shone the sun and it was a beautiful day.

Jonny had never been in the park so early, and the trees and grass all dew-hung and glistening really rather moved him. When you are very ill, or very harassed, or both, you can truly see beauty in simple things. It’s something to do with their purity.

Jonny Hooker sniffed at the air. ‘What a wonderful smell,’ said he.

‘Yeah,’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘It
is
good, isn’t it? There’s something really special about walking around the park first thing, before it’s opened to the public. It’s, well, it’s
untainted
, if you know what I mean.’

‘I do,’ said Jonny. ‘Have you worked here long?’

‘Five years,’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘I left school and applied to
the police, but I failed the entrance exam. Have you ever wondered why people become traffic wardens?’

‘Actually, yes,’ said Jonny. ‘I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do a job that consists of little other than making people miserable.’

‘They’re folk who’ve failed the police entrance exam. The examiners know that they are not bright enough to be policemen, but they do so want a job that involves wearing a uniform and bullying the public, so—’

‘So how come you didn’t become a traffic warden?’

‘I failed that exam as well.’

‘They have an exam for
that
?’

‘I didn’t try very hard. Next down the line is park keeper, or park ranger as we are now rather romantically called. And I love it. Ken is a bit of a nutter, but he’s got a good heart. And where else are you going to get all this?’ And Ranger Hawtrey gestured all around and about.

‘It
is
beautiful,’ said Jonny. ‘You think you’d have a go at this psycho, then? If you came face to face with him again?’

‘Not without a very big sword. I’d run like a girlie.’

Jonny chuckled. And then Jonny paused. He’d just had a little chuckle there. A moment of lightness, considering the direness of his situation.

But then, perhaps that’s what it was. In this beautiful park, in the earliness of the morning. Just for one moment.

‘Surely you’re a bit old to be a student,’ said Ranger Hawtrey.

And the moment was gone.

‘Failed the police exam,’ said Jonny.

‘No way!’

‘No,’ said Jonny. ‘I don’t really know what I’m doing with my life. I don’t seem to be in control.’

‘Oh, don’t say that,’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘You sound like my mad brother.’

‘Your mad brother?’

‘Everyone seems to have a mad brother, don’t they? I think it’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something.’

Jonny Hooker nodded.

‘My brother has this thing about machines. All kinds of machines,
or appliances, really. Anything that plugs into the electric and does something. Radio, TV, iron, hair-straighteners. He gets the messages.’

‘The messages?’ said Jonny. Slowly.

‘He says that messages are being beamed into his head through the electrical appliances. They’ve got his frequency.’

‘They?’

‘The controllers. The ones who control the folk who control us. My brother says that he’s onto them, so they torment him day and night, beam these voices and images into this head.’

‘He’s a paranoid schizophrenic,’ said Jonny.

‘That’s what the doctors say, yes.’

‘But you don’t agree?’

‘I don’t know. There’s stuff he says that makes a lot of sense. Stuff he knows.’

‘Is he your older brother?’ Jonny asked.

Ranger Hawtrey nodded. And spied a stick on a grassy knoll and picked it up and waved it.

‘What kind of stuff does he know?’ Jonny asked.

‘Mad stuff,’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘But it does make some kind of sense. He reckons it’s all to do with holes. He reckons that there’s another world, one that for the most part we can’t see or hear. But the folk of that world can see and hear us and they love to torment us. But mostly they can’t because human beings are born with these inbuilt mental screens to keep them out. It’s an evolutionary thing. But some people, so-called paranoid schizophrenics, they have little holes in their mental shields and so these beasties, or demons, or whatever they are, are able to squeeze through and torment them. Drive them to do mad things. That’s his theory, anyway.’

‘It’s a popular theory,’ said Jonny.


It is?

‘Amongst a certain fraction of society.’

‘It’s feasible,’ said Ranger Hawtrey, ‘if you are prepared to adopt a medieval overview of life – that the insane are indeed Devil-possessed. The thing is that that theory works just as well as any theory of mental imbalance.’

‘So you believe him?’

‘I don’t know what to believe. But I don’t think I really believe that
messages are being beamed into his head via the pop-up toaster.’

They ceased their perambulations and sat down upon a bench.

Ranger Hawtrey took out a small, white contrivance from his pocket. ‘New iPod,’ he said. ‘You can store two thousand tracks on this. Do you like They Might Be Giants?’

Jonny Hooker shrugged. ‘I’m a big fan of The Lost T-shirts of Atlantis,’ he said.

‘Check this out.’ Ranger Hawtrey stuck the tiny earbuds into his earholes, tinkered with his iPod, pulled the ear-bead jobbies from his earholes, passed the whole caboodle to Jonny and said, ‘Check this out,’ again.

Jonny slotted the ear-bead jobbies into the ears that were his and then pressed the appropriate button.

There was a moment of silence. In stereo. And then a voice said, ‘We know where you are, Jonny. You can’t hide from us.’

It was a dark and horrible voice.

It wasn’t Mr Giggles.

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