Nostradamus Ate My Hamster (10 page)

Russell’s bank manager eyed him through the long-distance section of his bi-focals. “Forty million pounds, you say?” said he.

“Give or take,” said Russell. “We haven’t worked out all the details yet.”

“I see.” The bank manager took up a sheet of paper, which is called in the trade, a “statement”, and ran his eyes up and down it. “You have one thousand one hundred and one pounds and one penny in your account,” said he. “Quite a memorable sort of sum really.”

“My life savings,” said Russell. “To buy my mum a stair lift. I’ve almost enough.”

“And according to the records, you’ve never had an overdraft.”

“I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.”

“Dream of such a thing, no, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

“Not me,” said Russell.

“Not you, no. But …” The bank manager made “ahem” noises. “You wish me to advance you a loan of forty million pounds?”

“We’ve tried elsewhere. My associate, Bobby Boy, called Hollywood. He tried to speak to Mr Spielberg. But Mr Spielberg didn’t phone back. And Walt Disney’s dead, apparently. Although ‘Walt Disney’ continues to produce films. I don’t quite understand that.”

“I don’t think you quite understand about finance at all, do you?”

“Not a lot,” said Russell. “But you
have
seen the videos. You can surely see the potential.”

“Ah, the videos, yes. The ones with you beating Arnold Schwarzenegger at the arm wrestling contest.”

“That was a good one, wasn’t it?”

“Very inspired, yes. You seemed a bit –”

“Drunk,” said Russell. “Yes I was drunk, I admit it. But you’d have been drunk, if you’d been there, realized the potential and everything.”

“I don’t drink,” said the bank manager. “I am Plymouth Brethren. We do
not
drink. Neither do we loan out forty million pounds to drunkards.”

“Wasn’t Aleister Crowley Plymouth Brethren?” asked Russell.

“Get out of my bank,” said the bank manager. “And don’t come back.”

“What about the loan?”

“We don’t swear either,” said the bank manager, “but in your case I am prepared to make an exception.”

“Well thank you for your time,” said Russell. “I’ll be going now.”

Russell trudged a bit more. Along the streets of Brentford. Nobody was
really
going to lend him forty million pounds. That was ludicrous. In fact, everything about this was ludicrous. Forty million pounds! Movie making! Holograms and time travellers! Ludicrous. It was like some plot from a really daft book. Like one of those Pooley and Omally yarns. Not real life at all. Nonsense.

Nonsense? Russell ceased his trudging upon a street corner. What
was
all this? What had he got himself involved in? It had all started out with his quest to locate The Flying Swan, to see whether Neville and Pooley and Omally really existed. And now
he
,
Russell
, Mr Ordinary, Mr Common Sense, had got involved in something as ludicrous as the things Pooley and Omally had supposedly got themselves involved in, in some mythical Brentford past.

Was it something about this place? About this town?

Russell sighed. It was something. But people were now relying on him. Old Ernest. Everyone at Fudgepacker’s. Jobs were at stake. The company would go under if he didn’t pull this off, it was
his
responsibility. And the technology
was
true. It
did
work. You really could make a movie with it. And one that would sell big time.

The forty million was a problem though.

Forty million!

“Forty million,” said Russell. “Hang about, we don’t need forty million. We don’t need any millions at all. All we need is a camera and some lights. We’re not paying anything for the stars, they’re holograms. Bobby Boy and Julie can act and get paid later. Everyone can get paid later, out of the profits. A camera and some lights, that’s all we need. We can do the show right here. Bobby Boy has the studio, Ernest has the props.” Of course they didn’t actually have a script. But they could work
that
out.
Forty million pounds
! That was just Bobby Boy trying to line his pockets.

“We can do this,” said Russell. “This we can do.”

Russell returned to Fudgepacker’s Emporium with a spring in his step. Bobby Boy was up in old Ernest’s office. They were drinking the expensive Scotch.

“Wot-ho!” said Ernest, upon Russell’s entry. “Do you have the scratch?”

“Not as such,” said Russell.

“Well, you want to hurry on up. Bobby Boy and I are almost finished on the script.”

“You are?”

“We are. And this is a killer. Blood and guts and sex and splatter. But with a strong social comment, or content, or something.”

“And lots of bits to make your eyes water,” said Bobby Boy. “As in weep. At the pathos.”

“I can’t raise the money,” said Russell. “No-one will lend
me
forty million. It’s too much. The bank manager was really rude, he told me to, well, he wasn’t interested.”

“Then we’re all doomed,” said Ernest Fudgepacker. “The company goes down like the
Titanic
. Everyone is ruined. Shame and misery. How will you ever be able to live with yourself? I know I couldn’t.”

“We don’t need the money,” said Russell.

“We don’t?” said Ernest. “That’s a very silly thing to say. And I should know, I say some very silly things myself.”

“We don’t need the money,” Russell reiterated. (Reiterated, I ask you!) “If we borrow forty million, then we have to pay back forty million, plus a percentage. If we
don’t
borrow anything at all, then we don’t have anything at all to pay back.
All
the profits are ours.”

“I
do
like the sound of
that
,” said Ernest. “But how do you make a movie with no finance?”

“Well, we’ll need
some
finance, just enough to pay for a camera and film and some lights.”

“No problem,” said Ernest. “I know chaps in the trade, I could hire all that.”

“And the only actors will be Bobby Boy here and Julie, the only actors we have to
pay
.”

“This really isn’t the way movies are made,” said Ernest. “But this
is
going to be a very special movie. Let me make a couple of phone calls.”

“Hold on there!” cried Bobby Boy. “
I’m
in this! And
I’m
going to be starring alongside the Hollywood greats. I want paying and I want paying big time. Proper Hollywood fees, I won’t work for less than five million. That’s not a lot to ask.”

Ernest scratched at his old head, raising flecks of scalp that drifted all about the little office, sort of dangled in the air, most unpleasantly. “I can appreciate that,” he said. “A labourer is worthy of his hire, and things of a likewise nature. But that’s not down to me, of course, I’m
only
the director. That’s down to Russell. And it’s Russell’s technology we’re using and Russell
is
the producer.”

Bobby Boy glared daggers at Russell. Big daggers, they were, and sharp with it.

Russell didn’t glare any back. He did grin at Ernest though. Ernest had really changed. He wasn’t rambling any more. He was focused.
Dead
focused. Russell really felt for the old fellow. He felt that he would
not
, under any circumstances, let him down.

And he saw Ernest wink a big magnified eye.

“I
am
the producer,” said Russell. “So the finances
are
my responsibility.”

“Of course if you’re not happy, Bobby Boy,” said Ernest, “I suppose you could quit. Walk off the set, as it were. We could possibly get in a replacement. Perhaps Russell here might care to star as well as produce.”

“Well –” said Russell.

“Only joking,” said Bobby Boy. “Of course Russell is in charge, the financial responsibilities are all his. What he says goes.”

“Well put,” said Ernest. “I’ll get on the phone then.”

And he did. He phoned this fellow and the next, struck this deal and the next and when this, that and the next deal had been struck, he put down the telephone and smiled up at Russell. “We’re rocking and rolling,” he said. “I can hire us a camera, panavision of course, absolute below-the-line discount, get us lights and get us film. We can shoot the whole thing right here, on location, in Brentford and in Bobby Boy’s studio.”

“Brilliant,” said Russell. “I knew we could do it.”

“We certainly can. All I’ll need is a cheque.”

“A cheque?” said Russell.

“A cheque from you. Well,
I
don’t have any money, do I? And
you
are the producer, taking full financial responsibilities.”

Bobby Boy grinned evilly.

Russell made that groaning “Oh” sound once more. “How much?” he asked.

“One thousand, one hundred and one pounds, and one penny,” said Ernest. “Quite a memorable sum. Really.”

And so it came to pass that Russell’s mother didn’t get her stair lift. She didn’t get it, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind because she had no idea that Russell intended to buy her one and even if she had known, she still wouldn’t have minded.

She was dead nice, was Russell’s mum. Much of Russell’s niceness came from her side of the family. So she wouldn’t have minded. And not only because she was nice, but also because she lived in a bungalow.

Of course Russell’s one thousand, one hundred and one pounds and fifty pence (no longer such a memorable sum as it had earned a bit of interest) was
not
going to finance the making of an entire movie. Russell would have to come up with a lot more than that. But being Russell and being nice and being a hard worker (and everything), he
would
come up with it. But not at this precise moment.

At this precise moment I would like to relate to you a tale told to me by a close friend of mine. He told me this tale in response to me telling him the one my Uncle John told to me, about the man who wasn’t really a man at all.

The reason for the telling of this tale is that it plays a large part in what will shortly occur to Russell. And even if it didn’t, it’s a real raging stonker of a story.

My close friend’s name is Mr Sean O’Reilly and I know what you’re going to say, “Oh yeah right, Bob.
Sean O’Reilly
!” But he
is
a real person and it
is
his real name and being a Sean O’Reilly
is not
without its problems.

For instance, a couple of weeks back he was having a night out in Brighton. The final bell had gone and no more orders were being taken at the bar. Sean, for whom the night was yet young, set off in search of a club with more civilized licensing hours, where music played and ladies of negotiable affections might be found. And he came across the Shamrock Club.

Now being of Irish descent, and being a Mr Sean O’Reilly, he reasoned that a welcome would lie within for him and proceeded to engage in friendly chit chat with the bouncer (or “door-supervisor” as he preferred to be called). This able-bodied fellow agreed to waive the usual formalities, accept a five pound gratuity for so doing and sign Sean in as a member.

“Phwat is yer nam?” enquired the door-supervisor.

“My name is Sean O’Reilly,” said Sean O’Reilly, and was promptly booted from the premises on the grounds that he was “taking the piss”.

It’s not much of a story, I know. But it’s a true one and the trouble with true ones is that they never usually amount to very much. The one Sean told me, however, in response to the one I told him, is a different kettle of carp altogether. It is a strange and sinister story and again the warning is issued to those of a nervous disposition, those wimpy individuals who get squeamish about watching a snuff movie or a live execution (hard to believe, I know), that now would be the time to flick on forward to the next chapter.

Right, well now we’ve got rid of that lot, on with the gory stuff.

At the time Sean heard all the gory stuff of which this tale is composed, he was sitting in the casualty department at Brighton General. Sean had been working as a roofer, and, as anyone who has ever worked as a roofer will tell you, roofers periodically fall off roofs. It’s a sort of perk of the job. Sean had been working on a garage roof and Sean had fallen off and sprained his ankle.

Now, as those who have never worked on, or fallen off roofs, but
have
sat waiting in a casualty department will tell you, about fifty per cent of the other folk sitting there have got sprained ankles. This is not because they are all roofers, you understand, it is because most injuries occur to your extremities. Your hands and feet. A nurse once told this to me, as I sat waiting to have
my
sprained ankle looked at. (I hadn’t fallen off a roof, but I’d tripped up in one of the potholes that no-one wants to take responsibility for, in the-lane-that-dare-not-speak-its-name, where I live.)

“It’s hands and feet mostly,” she told me. “And hands and feet are
low priority
, so you’ll just have to wait.” Adding, “Would you care for a copy of
Hello!
magazine to read? It’s the one with James Herbert in it.”

Sean
did not
have to wait to have
his
sprained ankle looked at. Because Sean had been tipped off by a friend of his who was a male nurse about how to get seen at once in a casualty department, even if you only have a sprained ankle. Sean passed this tip on to me, and I, in turn, pass it on to you.

The tip is SCREAM!

Scream as loudly as you can and scream continuously. Doctors and nurses can’t abide screaming in their waiting-rooms, it upsets them and it makes the other patients uneasy. That’s the tip, but keep it to yourself.

So Sean had screamed like a maniac and Sean had been wheeled away to a cubicle and given an injection of something quite nice. And while he lay there, awaiting the results of the X-rays, he overheard a conversation going on in the next cubicle between an old man and a priest. And the substance of this conversation is the substance of Sean’s tale, which has a later bearing on Russell.

And what Sean overheard was this.

The old man was groaning a lot and Sean recognized The Last Rites being read. Then the old man spoke.

“I must tell you, father,” said the old man. “Tell it all to you.”

“As you wish, my son.”

“It all began for me some years ago. I was living up North at the time, in the town of H –”

“The town of H –?”

“As in Hamster.”

“Oh, that one, go on then.”

“I was chief wick-dipper at the candle works, a position of considerable responsibility and prestige. Many doors were open to me then, even some with the closed-sign up. But fate being fickle and man ever weak to desires of the flesh, I fell in with a bad crowd and engaged in acts of drunkenness and debauchery.”

“Would you care to enlarge upon these, my son?”

“No, father, I would not”

“A pity, but go on.”

“My employer was a goodly man who greatly feared God and was rarely to be seen without his hat on. He was the very soul of forgiveness, but even he, for all his God-fearing ways and the wearing of his hat, could not find it in his Christian heart to pardon my wickedness.”

“Was this fellow a Protestant?”

“That he was, father.”

“Shameful, go on with your story.”

“After the episode with the pig he –”

“A pig, did you say?”

“And a modified power tool.”

“Was that a Black and Decker?”

“No, just a pig on this occasion.”

“Sure it happens to the best of us, go on.”

“I was stripped of my trappings, my badge of office torn from my bosom, my woggle trampled underfoot.”

“And all for a pig and a modified power tool?”

“Father, would you let me just tell my story? I’m dying here.”

“Go on then, I won’t interrupt.”

“Thank you. I was cast out, expelled from The Guild of Candlemakers, a social pariah. Ostracized, a proscribed person. Boycotted, blackballed –”

“
Blackballed
? But I thought you said –”

“Father, will you shut the fuck up?”

“I’m sorry, my son. Go on now, just tell me what happened.”

“I was an outcast, all doors that had previously been open to me were now closed. Even the closed ones were closed. I walked the streets as a man alone, none would offer me ingress.”

“Not even the pig?”

“
Father!”

“
Sorry, go on.”

“I was alone. Alone and unwanted. I would sit for days at a time in the library, poring over the papers in the hope that I might find some gainful employment, no matter how humble. But so foul was the stigma attached to my person that all turned their backs upon me. I was low, father, so low that I even considered returning to the occupation I’d had before I entered candlemaking.”

“And what occupation was that? If you’ll forgive me asking.”

“Priest,” said the old man.

“Right,” said the priest.

“But it never came to that, although now I wish that it had. Rather would I have thrown away the last vestiges of my dignity and rejoined the priesthood than –”

“Don’t lay it on too thick,” said the priest. “You might be a dying man, but you’ll still get a smack in the gob.”

“I saw this advert, father. In the paper. It said, SELL YOUR SPINE AND LIVE FOR EVER.”

“Would that not be a misprint? Would it not be sell your
soul
?”

“It was SELL YOUR SPINE. There was a telephone number, I rang that number and there was a recorded message. It said that a seminar was to be held that very evening at a particular address and to be there by eight o’clock.”

“And so you went along?”

“Yes, I went along. I don’t know why I went along, but I did. Madness. Sell your spine? How could such a thing be? But I went along, oh fool that I was.”

“Should I just be quiet now and let you do all the telling?” asked the priest. “Build up the atmosphere, and everything.”

“That would be for the best. As I said, I went along. The seminar was being held in this little chapel affair that was once an Anabaptist hall. It was very run down and all boarded up. The door looked as if it had been forced open and a generator was running the lights. Old school chairs stood in bleak rows, there was a small dais where the altar had been. On the chairs sat a dozen or so folk who were strangers to me, upon the dais stood a tall man dressed in black. He welcomed me upon my entrance and bade me sit down near to the front. And then he spoke. Of many things he spoke, of the wonders of modern medicine and great leaps forward made in the fields of science. He was an evangelist, he said, come to spread the word of a new beginning, that each of us could have a new beginning, cast away our old selves and begin again.

“He had been sent among us, he said, by an American foundation that had made a major breakthrough. It was now possible to extend a person’s lifespan. Not for ever, he did admit that, because, as he said, there is no telling exactly how long for ever might be. But he could guarantee at least five hundred years. And how could he guarantee this? Because the special units, constructed to replace the spines that were to be removed, were built to last at least this long.

“He explained that the ageing process was all to do with the spine. Certain genes and proteins manufactured within the spinal column, certain natural poisons, made you grow old. Total spine replacement freed you from ever growing old.

“He talked and he talked and although I did not understand all that he said, there was something in the way he talked, something compelling that made me trust him. And when he had finished I found myself clapping. But I was clapping all alone. The other folk had gone, I’d never heard them go, but they were gone, there was only myself and the man in black.

“He asked me whether I would like to live for another five hundred years and I said yes. I said yes and praise the lord. Yes, father, you may well cross yourself. I said yes and praise the lord and I said, show me, show me.”

“And he showed you?” The priest spoke slowly.

“He led me into a little back room, sat me down upon a chair and then he took off his clothes. In front of me, right there. He removed his jacket and his shirt and then he turned around. And I saw the buttons, father. I saw them.”

“The buttons?”

“On his skin. On his back. The skin, you see, had been cut, from his wrists to the nape of his neck and from there right down the middle of his back. And the skin was turned back and hemmed, as would be the material of a garment and there were buttonholes with buttons through them.”

The priest caught his breath. “You saw this?”

“I saw it. He was inside a suit of his own skin. Do you see?”

“I see.”

“Do you
want
to see?”

“Want to see?”

“See them, father. See those buttons. See them on
my
back?”

“No … I … my son, no.”

The old man coughed and the priest mumbled words of Latin.

“I saw his back, father. He explained to me how it was done. How they made a cast of you, of your body and they constructed this perfect replica of you which you climbed into through the back. I don’t know, father. Is it my skin on the outside? How much of me is still me? But I saw it and he told me how it was done, how you climbed inside yourself and they removed your spine and buttoned you up and you would live for five hundred years.” The old man coughed hideously. “You make decisions, father. All through your life, you make decisions, wrong decisions. You can’t rewind to the past and remake those decisions, set your life off in a new direction. No-one can do that. I made the wrong decision and now I must die for it.”

The priest spoke prayers as the old man rambled on.

“Why would I have wanted to live for five hundred years? I was out of work. Did I want five hundred years of unemployment? But I was greedy for life. For more life. I said yes, do it to me, give me more life.

“I stayed all night with him. I let him make casts of my body. I stood naked before this man whom I’d never seen before. He took photographs of me and samples of my hair and when it was all done, he told me to come back the next evening, that all would be ready then.

“I didn’t sleep that day, I was sleeping rough anyway. I just walked around the town, this town that hated me so much. And I thought, Look at these people, they may have jobs, they may be rich, but they will all die, die soon. Not me. I’ll outlive the lot of them. I will cheat death. I’ll go on into the future. Dance on their graves.”

The priest let out a small sigh.

“And so I went back the next night. The man in black, I didn’t even know his name, he took me again into that room and he showed me. He showed me the new me. It was a perfect me, taller, better built, younger-looking, more handsome. It stood there and it was an empty shell. I hadn’t eaten, I felt sick and light-headed and he showed me the back, my back. And there, at the back, were these little doors, hinged doors, of polished wood. On the arms and the legs, like a suit of armour, but of polished wood, beautifully made, brass hinges and little catches, the skin closed over these, you see, once you were inside. But I don’t know how that worked, I didn’t understand. And they’d built it so fast. It was a work of art. Sort of like ship-building, polished wood, little bits of rigging –”