Dr Shock and the University of Stump

THE RETURN OF DOCTOR SHOCK

     I’ve been dead for three days now. At the moment I’m lying in a grave in Longbottom cemetery but I’ll have to move soon, the bed’s comfy and I’m sheltered from the wind, but there’s work to be done. I pop my head out to see if the coast is clear, I do not wish to alarm any poor mourner with my zombie antics, and then I hoist myself up and scramble onto the grass. I’m crusted in mud and kicking the dirt in to cover my traces cakes my shoes. Still, the sun’s going down, I’ve not far to go and I can hide in the shadows, that’s second nature to a ghost.
     Ducking round the side-streets and back-alleys of Longbottom, down the cobbled lanes between the old potbanks, across the waste ground into Normacot, I get to the yard just before the gates are locked. I slip in unseen, one with the dark, dressed in black and camouflaged with dirt. I find a space between two skips full of rotting coffins and crouch there, waiting. I remember thinking I’d never return here at night, too many homeless spirits flying around, but now I’m just one of the crowd. Dona nobis requiem.

     When I went through the door I didn’t know what to expect but everything pointed to a set-up and I wanted to know who was behind it. I hoped I was wrong, I wanted to walk into that house and find Tina and the bad guy sitting on the sofa discussing her dying brother while magic music wafted through the air; I’m sick of being right. The crimplene suit with the slicked-back hair and oily grin, who opened the door and ushered me into the front room, was a nice touch but little more than a caricature. I presumed that his thespian skills had been honed in the Alderman Machin Community Hall down the road and the knowing wink he gave his fellow artiste when his part was over and he withdrew would never be tolerated on the professional stage. I felt a little ironic applause was in order but by then my hands were not my own. They belonged to two large gentlemen wearing leather jackets festooned with decals proclaiming their allegiance to the Bell Abbey Local Volunteer Service. I was thus constrained from showing similar appreciation for Tina’s performance, so I contented myself with a brief smile, a nod of the head and a simple, “Bravo.” I felt she had a glittering career in front of her, she would definitely go far and my only regret was that I would not be able to follow her, with a knife.
     The room was full of Blabby Elvis. I’d never seen them up close before. Like everybody else in Stump I’d witnessed their marching displays at the Potton Park Pageants, the close-order drill with chains, their demonstrations of disarming techniques. I’d clapped along with the rest of the merry families, watching them do their stuff in the middle of a field, while we were safe behind the ropes. Now I was the star attraction and the Blabby Elvis were all watching me. There were about a dozen of them, not counting the two holding me up, standing, sitting, lounging around. I looked at the ceiling to see if any were hanging from the rafters, but there was just fungus. I could tell the difference, that’s how come I’m at the top of my profession,  that and the fact I don’t crash any party without a plan of escape. If I got into trouble I was going to throw something through the window to alert Ginger to my plight. Admittedly it wasn’t much of a plan and it did require the full use of at least one of my arms, so as plans go it went. But this wasn’t the time to talk Scottish, there were other armless ruses to essay. Every eye in the room was fixed on me and no one was saying a word. I tried to lighten the mood.
     “What we celebratin’, lads? Death of the dinosaurs?”
     The thug on my left hit me playfully in the stomach. This got a laugh. Should’ve known slapstick would be more their level. I was glad they were holding onto me. When I doubled up I saw things crawling on the floor, didn’t fancy joining them. Then Tina takes out Machiavelli and gives it to a Blabby Elvis in a black hat. She tells him it’s my knife, suggests he sticks me with it but the irony seems lost on him and he hands it to a bald youth with a tattooed face.
     “Where’s me manners?” says Black Hat. “Offer our guest summat eat, Bogger.”
     The tattooed lad bends down and with a flick of the wrist impales a cockroach on the point of Machiavelli. He holds it to my mouth, close enough so I feel the little legs brush against my lips, still running. He holds my nose till I open up then pops the titbit in and watches me swallow. I pretend I am some visitor from a foreign land, used to such delicacies, but in an acting contest I fear the crimplene suit would win the Oscar. Bogger sticks out his tongue, licks his lips and says, “Yum.” I fight the urge to vomit, afraid they’ll make me eat that too. Bogger goes down to the larder for more comestibles.
     This is all boys’ stuff, horrors of the playground revisited. Tina tells Black Hat she’s going. “Don’t forget the two outside.”
     “Two?” says Black Hat. “You said one was a poky.”
     “She could still be dangerous, scream for help.”
     He just laughs. “And who’d come running? This is Bell Abbey, it’s dark and I’m the Lord of all Protection.”
     Tina just shakes her head and says, “Whatever.” She nods to a petrol can on the floor. “Don’t forget to burn him.” Then she gives me another kiss and goes. I’d like to say I preferred the cockroach but that would just be tough talk. If I were to be honest and now that Bogger’s making me chew on some juicy grub that’s worked its way up through the floorboards there seems no better time, I’d have to admit that in the good old days of this afternoon when Ginger and I were reviewing the possibilities, one particularly attractive scenario had me riding off into the sunset with the eminently adorable Miss Moran. I can be daft as next bugger. That was the one where she was telling the truth. There were many others. The thought had even crossed our minds that she might be Bet the Midge Jackson, but we let that one go since only those Stump bornybred can do the accent and Tina was definitely born within sight of the ringing spires. It was a pity, such an encounter would have had some class. The two professionals fighting it out alone above the Reichenbach Falls, then plunging to their death amidst the white water spray. Infinitely preferable to this diet of worms and a grubby demise at the hands of a gang of morlocks. Still, if we could choose our own deaths we’d all go suddenly in our sleep and I’d have to get my old job back at the hospital. We play the cards we’re dealt, we can do no other.
     Black Hat tells Bogger to give him the knife. Playtime’s over. “Go outside and move his mates along. Use the back door.”
     “I want do ‘im fost,” replies Bogger.
     “I’m doin’ ‘ im,” says Black Hat.
     Bogger looks upset.
     “Dunner forget one of ‘em’s a poky.”
     Bogger brightens. He feeds me a fat black slug then lets the tip of the stiletto hover in front of my eyes. He shaves an eyelash or two and I daren’t blink, can’t flinch, can’t even swallow the thing of acrid slime that I can feel gripping my tongue. Any movement and he’ll poke the point into my eye. Then he laughs and throws Machiavelli into a rotting floorboard at my feet, adrift in the sea of lost souls. I’m the angel on top of Coalport Old Town Hall, held in place by the stone giants. Fly or fall, whatever it’s to be, now is the time to make my move. I swallow the slug.
     “Excuse me,” I say, “isn’t it tradition for the condemned man to be allowed a final smoke before his execution.”
     Black Hat laughs. “Where d’you think you are? Down among the happy chaps on the playing fields of Eton?”
     “I just thought we could be civilised about this.”
     “Bogger, give the man a fag.”
     “That’s all right Mr. Bogger, I prefer a pipe. I have it in my pocket. If these gentlemen would just relax their grip a little perhaps I might be allowed to get it.”
     “Must think we’re daft,” says Black Hat. “Give ‘im a fag.”
     Bugger. Well that was it, I was out of ideas. I bowed to the inevitable, let Bogger stuff a cigarette between my lips, a pleasant change from his usual fare, and while I waited for a light I read his face to pass the time. I recalled something my Uncle John once told me. Except I never had an Uncle John. As the match burst into flame I said, “Do you think there’s any point?”
     As Bogger lit my cigarette and I drew in a refreshing lungful of smoke, Black Hat took out a Zippo, flicked it alight and said, “Why not?” Then all heaven broke loose. Black Hat ordered Mark and Tony to let me go. It took me by surprise, I thought they all had names like ‘Bogger’. I was looking round for two gents dressed in roll-neck sweaters and beige slacks when I realised I wasn’t being held up anymore, my legs gave way and I fell to the floor. Black Hat was most apologetic, rushed over to help me up, told them all to get out.
     “Just go, out the back, and leave his mates alone.”
     This was the Lord of All Protection speaking so they filed out meekly, but Bogger gave me a wink as he went and there was mischief in his eye.
     “Many apologies mate,” said Black Hat as he dusted me down, “but why didn’t you reveal yourself sooner?”
     “You didn’t give me a chance.”
     “My mistake. But it was Tina set it up. She said she was bringing Mr. Johnson so I just took it was approved. If I were you I’d bring it up at next meeting. Yer conner trust poky. Apologies for casting aspersions, and the other stuff, I have muck in a bit. They’re rough lads but hearts of gold. Bet you could use a drink.”
     I nod and he turns to fetch a bottle of whisky from the table. He continues to talk.
     “Funny though, innerit? I’ve never known ‘em make a mistake about Mr. Johnson. Unless...” He pauses and I notice the muscles in his neck tighten. “Zero ophidia habe eco Island.” He waits a second for my response. And little lambs eat ivy. Then he smashes the bottle and turns. I take pity on Machiavelli and find him a new home.
     It was a shame, I really did need a drink to get that taste out of my mouth and I would have liked to talk to him some more. I knew somebody was trying to kill me and Black Hat might have told me who. And why. All I knew was it had some connection to Pye’s, the junk shop at the heart of Stump. The carrot Tina Moran had dangled in front of my ears to drag me here had told me that and her exit line and the petrol can also indicted them for the murder of Mary’s friend, Jonathan.
     I looked around for something to swill my mouth out, found a near-empty bottle of vodka and made do with that. Then I did housework. If someone was out to get me then life would be quieter if they thought I’d been got. I looked around for a hammer, found one in the kitchen, turned on the gas cooker while I was there but didn’t light it. I did the same with the fire then went to work on Black Hat. We were about the same height and build so I took off his hat and put it on. Now I was him and he was me. Invoking the spirit of the great Doc Holliday I used the hammer on my face, then soaked my body in petrol. Regretfully I had to leave Machiavelli where he was, hoping he’d survive the fire and carry a message to Ginger. There was a party going on outside. I peeped through the curtains and saw Bogger bouncing on my car. It was time to leave. I poured the remains of the petrol into the vodka bottle, tore a piece from my shirt and went out the back door. I would have waited longer for the gas to build up but I took a look round the corner of the house and Ginger seemed to be in trouble so I lit the cocktail, hurled it through the kitchen window and ran. Then it was all hell’s turn. I reckon the Blabby Elvis must have been using that place for more than recreational purposes. I was over the hills and far away when I turned to watch the faint glow in the night, the loud alarum bells a mere jingle in the distance. I stood there in my new black hat, safe and dead.
     I thought of following Ginger around for the next few days, eavesdrop on conversations, find out what people really thought about me, but vanity’s one of the bad seven so I followed Mary instead. For a while there I thought she might take Terry’s place in our merry band. I was all ready to slice her thumb and make her a full member of the tribe when Tina Moran arrived on the scene with her tales of fabulous acoustic riches to be found up Blabby. I decided to wait until we’d crossed the river of weird. Now it looked like Mary might never make it to the other side. The people from Pye’s had fried her friend, had officially killed me, so why wasn’t Mary Culper on their list? She’d been in the shop and mentioned ley lines which was a cremating offence in those parts, so how come she was immune? Now I was dead I had time to find out before chasing up my only other lead, the man with a cigar and a white Rolls-Royce.
     She worked in a florist’s outside Longbottom cemetery, a bit of a comedown from the groves of Academe but still in gardening. I haunted the derelict house opposite the shop and watched her arrange the flowers in the buckets on the pavement. Following her home, as she cut through the cemetery, I noticed we were not alone. She has another pursuivant, a grey-haired gent in a master potter’s coat, bobbing round the tombstones. He cuts in front of me and so I follow him following her like that Candid Camera gag. When Mary goes through her front door he waits awhile then walks off and I decide to follow him. I am the Man of the Crowd endlessly following whomsoever takes my fancy. He catches a bus to Potton then goes to the multi-storey. He stops by a big German car. I see two flashes of fire in the dark. By the time I’ve worked my way round the back and up a level their conversation is nearing its end. Crouching between two cars and peeping through the concrete slats I can’t see the man inside the Mercedes at all but I hear him say, “I know, you only joined up for the water sports.”
     “Yer conner talk to me like that,” says the man from the cemetery, leaning on the car and seeming upset, “I’ve cracked my share of stones, I just anner done a wench afore.”
     “No difference. She’s Mr. Johnson. Plenty mates see that as perk, that’s why lots were drawn and you the lucky winner. So get on with it.”
     “Tomorrer, I’ll do it tomorrer. Dunner werrit.”
     “I’m not worried mate. I’m not the one sat in the street on Sunday surrounded by childer begging pennies.” With that he turns on the motor, hits the lights and drives off. I catch the look on the face of the man I followed as he staggers back, I have seen it many times before. Abject terror is an apposite phrase. I watch him leave, there is no longer any need to follow. I am only two hundred yards from my home, I could go there now, make a cup of tea, have something to eat, put my feet up in front of the fire. A nice relaxing evening followed by a good night’s sleep. I walk down Lichfield Street to my house but just hang around outside, scratch the wall a bit, then turn back. The river is wide and we’re only halfway across. As the Potton Elvis take to the streets and the revelry begins I make my way to the Grand Hotel and book a room for the night.
     I get to Mary’s house in time to see her leave. Follow her to work and watch her all day. Before the buckets are emptied and the flowers put to bed I go into Longbottom cemetery and stroll around, one eye on the gravestones looking for dead relations, the other peeled for a man in a big overcoat. If the job were mine then this would be the time and place. A darkling graveyard is perfect for swift murder, few witnesses and all attuned to the possibility of ghosts. So I find him hiding behind a tree next to the path, a flat cap on his head, a muffler wrapped round his face, a bread knife in one gloved hand and a petrol can at his feet. There’s an open grave nearby, covered with planks for safety’s sake, all ready for some early bird in the morning. He is so intent on watching the gate he doesn’t hear me come up behind and ease his worries forever. He falls to the ground just as Mary enters the cemetery. I drag him over to the empty grave and we hide behind the mound of earth until she’s passed by, then I shift the planks and drop him in. Unfortunately he does not go quietly to his rest and Mary turns to look, so I have to follow him one last time.

     Now I’m just waiting to see Old Man Butler. The white Rolls-Royce is parked beside the hearse, the lights are on in the portacabin and I can hear him shouting at his idiot son. I want to see him alone. First I shall apologise for I owe him that. Then I shall ask him questions and he will give me answers. Our business concluded, I shall return to the land of the living. I have not yet decided whether he will be accompanying me. Junior comes out into the yard and stomps off to the big house for his tea. I slide round the skips and into the portacabin and stand before him, a creature from his worst nightmare. The old man seems unperturbed, he takes a dead cigar from the ashtray on the desk, finds his lighter and flicks on the flame.
     “Do you think there’s any point?”
     I play the game, take out my own lighter and make fire. “Why not?”
     Old Man Butler’s face suddenly creases with an effulgent grin as he rises from his chair and comes toward me, hand outstretched. “Doctor Shock, I presume,” he says as he takes my hand and shakes it vigorously. “I knew you’d do it, I never had any doubts at all on that score. Hearty congratulations and welcome, welcome to The Conflagration.”

DOCTOR SHOCK DISCOVERS FIRE

Thursday, 2nd November 1995

     I am privileged to announce that soon I shall be formally enrolled as a member of the most powerful organisation in the world. It is difficult for me to express my feelings of unabashed joy at the thought that I have been chosen to sup at the fount of absolute wisdom, that I have been deemed worthy to join this august company of men and women who know all the answers and possess the power to act upon that knowledge. For too long I have been as one crying in the wilderness, alert to the chaos that surrounds me but impotent to impose order. Now that is to change for I am to join The Conflagration.
     Of course I shall be inducted at the lowest level, a mere foot-soldier, or Dark Lantern to use the correct term, but Mr. Butler has expressed great faith in my abilities and has confidently assured me that before long I will be promoted to Lucky Stone. Beyond that who knows? Maybe one day I will have proved my worth to such an extent that I will attain the ultimate status in The Conflagration and take my place among the 36. But all that is for the future, for the present I must do my duty as a Dark Lantern, undertake any assignment, follow all orders to the letter, and do my best to make the world a better place in which to live.
     I am most anxious to get to work, but I must learn to curb my impatience. Perhaps that is one more lesson in this intensive course of education, although I must also avoid the temptation to impute hidden motives. Just because The Conflagration is a secret society it does not automatically follow that its organisation is Byzantine. The only reason I have to stay here and cannot go out into Stump is to avoid mortal danger to myself. Mr. Butler explained it all to me after he brought me to Pye’s in his white Rolls-Royce. At that time of night the shop was closed but he had a key and led me through the junk, behind the counter and into a back room. From here we descended into the cellar, like the rooms above full of strange and wonderful items which in another lifetime I would have enjoyed perusing, but now Fate had decreed another course. Through another door and down another flight of stairs and then I found myself standing on hallowed ground, in the original headquarters of The Conflagration, established by Arnold Stump in 1907. Mr. Butler must have noticed a look of disappointment flit across my face for he had already impressed upon me the extent of The Conflagration’s influence and power and I suppose I was expecting more than this albeit large room filled with old filing cabinets, wooden desks and a staff of elderly matrons intently typing on ancient Imperials. He explained that this first office of The Conflagration was maintained in this fashion as a working museum, to give new members an insight into the origins of the organisation, to show them the seeds of Arnold Stump’s vision of a perfect world, so that they could gain a complete understanding of the vast scale of his achievement. In every major city in the country, bar London, for London belongs to the world and ceased to be a part of England centuries ago, The Conflagration maintained offices, truly vast complexes filled with the latest electronic equipment. Here in Stump there was the museum, which still operated as a hardcopy base for the Membership department, and a standard facility beneath Coalport Old Town Hall which dealt with the day-to-day business of The Conflagration within the local area. All new members, at different stages in their induction, would visit Pye’s and I was privileged to be allowed to glimpse this living piece of history on the very day of my adoption as a candidate for membership of The Conflagration. Mr. Butler then gave me a guided tour of the rest of the museum. There was a ceremonial room, bedecked with its original fixtures and fittings, which he said was used for all local initiation ceremonies as well as for those rare special occasions when a vacancy arose in the 36. Then there was Arnold Stump’s original office, dominated by a magnificent portrait of the great man. Then sundry other rooms containing display cases devoted to memorabilia of The Conflagration’s rise to domination of the world. As I paused to browse among this treasure trove, Mr. Butler hurried me along assuring me there would be plenty of time for that later. Now he wished to get me settled and begin the indoctrination process.


Friday, 3rd November 1995

     When Mr. Butler gave me the diary he asked me to make one entry per day, which entry was not to exceed the length allotted by the size of the page. On no account was I to upset time by continuing one day’s entry into the next day’s space. Because of the exceptional nature of yesterday’s activities I found I had reached the end of Thursday’s page well before I had concluded my account of the day’s proceedings. However I did as ordered and after a brief account of today’s revelations I shall return to the subject of my first night in the home of The Conflagration and how I came there.
     After a pleasant sleep, aided by the soothing music which plays constantly in the background, I was awakened by a knock on my door. A middle-aged woman dressed in a white overall entered with my breakfast tray. She seemed very pleasant, smiling while I sat up and arranged my covers, and when I began to dig into the bacon and eggs she left the room, only to reappear several minutes later with a pile of books and a brown envelope. I enquired after Mr. Butler, wondering what plans he had for me today, but she just handed me the letter and said, “Mi acte phoro pan bible de tu.” As she left I chewed my toast and reflected on the international nature of The Conflagration.
     The envelope contained a note from Mr. Butler telling me to stay in my room and read the books. I looked at the titles. There was Arthur Barratt’s The Little Tinker and all the rest were by Jane Austen. I began to read. The foreign lady brought me my lunch just as I finished the Barratt, and my tea while I was immersed in Emma. So went the day and by supper-time, aware that my light would be switched off at ten, I reluctantly tore myself away from contemplating whether Mr. Darcy was such a cad as he first appeared, and reached for my diary. Sipping cocoa I complete the allotted page.
     Now to return to yesterday. Mr. Butler ushered me out of the museum and into a more modern extension. The stone walls gave way to concrete as he led me down a corridor, explaining that these rooms were used by visiting members of the organisation when involved in top secret assignments. Finally he stopped at one door, opened it and informed me that this was my room and I would be obliged to stay here for the next few days. When I enquired as to the reason, he seemed slightly embarrassed. He insisted I was not a prisoner and the time I spent here would be put to good use. Any other new member would have to undergo various educational procedures and psychological tests lasting several weeks, whereas if I took advantage of their hospitality then the whole programme could be dispensed with in a matter of days. I was to think of it as a special privilege and I heartily concurred but there was still something that seemed to be bothering him and so, to put him at his ease, I pressed him on the matter. Finally he admitted that an error had been made and I was in protective custody, in fact I was no longer safe on the streets of Stump. It was all due to the unorthodox nature of my recruitment. Tina Moran, a Lucky Stone in the security division of the Stump branch of The Conflagration, had been assigned to eliminate me. She had also been instructed to deal with her fellow Lucky Stone who headed the Blabby Elvis, he who thought he was everybody just because he wore a black hat, since he refused to adhere to the principles of universal brotherhood which underpinned the organisation and insisted on acting in a fashion wholly contrary to the wishes of his mates. Two birds having been lined up and her department short-staffed as ever, Tina Moran proposed a plan to the Beacon Men. If I succeeded in killing the aberrant Lucky Stone and escaped from the Blabby Elvis then I should be offered full membership of The Conflagration. After much argument the terms were agreed although one of Mr. Butler’s colleagues insisted on a contingency plan should I refuse to join The Conflagration. A ridiculous concept but his fellow Beacon Men agreed to hire a professional from without the organisation. Unfortunately the Beacon Man who suggested the contingency plan, who took it upon himself to hire the outside hitter, also sponsored the king of the Blabby Elvis for membership of The Conflagration and as penance for this error of judgement was temporarily assigned to security detail. He had since vanished, apparently had balked at the prospect of torching a woman, and the name of my would-be assassin had disappeared with him. Damn. No more space.


Saturday, 4th November 1995

     “O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” As the poet so aptly put it. I beg your indulgence but I have just witnessed one of, no strike that, definitely the most exciting spectacle known to man. A ceremony of such exquisite beauty and charm, noble yet simple, heavy with the echoes of history but full of implications for the future, and here, right here at the very heart of Stump. I have just this minute returned from the ceremonial chamber where I was privileged to see a new member of The Conflagration inducted as a Dark Lantern. To think that tomorrow, according to Mr. Butler, it will be my turn.
     I do not know where to begin. Should I take the day in chronological order, or should I finish off yesterday’s entry first? No, I cannot help it, I must describe the happenings of this evening before the memory fades, though the ceremony made such an impression I cannot think those sights and sounds will ever recede into the dull grey monotony of my former life. So here I shall begin with Mr. Butler`s knock at my door at seven minutes to six o’clock and I shall endeavour to control my enthusiasm so that space will be left for the more mundane doings of the day.
     Mr. Butler apologised for not coming to see me sooner but expressed delight with my progress thus far and as reward for my patience and hard work a special treat had been granted me: I was to be allowed to witness one of the most solemn ceremonies of The Conflagration. A new member was about to join the organisation and I could watch. Mr. Butler stressed what a great honour this was, all the ceremonies of The Conflagration were of course secret, but even a new member did not fully realise the splendour of his induction ceremony until he had been properly admitted and could sit with his fellows and watch another’s hour of glory. I must admit I could make neither head nor tail of this and I duly expressed my confusion, but Mr. Butler gave one of his hearty chuckles and told me that soon all would be revealed. He led me down the corridor to the museum and into the ceremonial room. The place was packed with a mighty throng all bedecked in the most quaint and colourful costumes. The seats were arranged down the sides of the room, flanking a central aisle, at one end of which were the main doors, at the other end a raised platform on which stood six large, elaborately carved, wooden chairs. Five of these were occupied by three men and two women, and after Mr. Butler had seen me settled in my place, right on the aisle, he assumed his position on the sixth throne. Then the general muttering of the crowd subsided and the doors were flung open and a most curious character appeared. He was dressed in dirty, ragged clothes, including a rough hat, and his face was masked. He was carried, upright, by two large gentlemen the length of the aisle and then deposited on an old chair before the dais. He did not speak, he did not move, he did not even look to see the glories which surrounded him, or her, for there was no way of telling. He (it will be shorter to assume) just sat slumped in the chair, his costume the symbol of the wretched life he was leaving, his silence and his stillness reflecting the awe he felt in the presence of The Conflagration. Then one of the ladies on the platform left her seat and approached the new member. She placed a length of rope in his left hand and a lantern in his right and then intoned the following prayer:
     “By the skin of Bartholomew flayed from his flesh,
     By the guts of Erasmus wound out upon the screw,
     By the breasts of Agatha served upon a dish,
     By the head of Cecilia still singing sweet and true,
     Ring the bells, fetch the wood and light the fires anew.”
     The response of the full assembly was suitably bloodcurdling and obviously used to strike fear into the heart of the new member should he ever consider betraying The Conflagration.
     “Rumour, rumour, pump and derry,
     Prick his heart and burn his body,
     And send his soul to Purgatory.”
     I am close to the end of my page so detail must be sacrificed. The two men who had brought the new member in now lifted the chair on which he sat and carried him out to a general cry of “Smug him.” Thus The Conflagration greeted its newest Dark Lantern. Then Mr. Butler took me back to my room, leaving me with a wink and the promise, “Your turn tomorrow.” I can hardly wait.


Sunday, 5th November 1995

     Today I resolve to write down everything as it happens. Then I will not repeat yesterday’s mistake of being carried away by the momentous events of the evening as a result of which I never even mentioned my model-making activities. So before my maid returns with another set of instructions from Mr. Butler and a further task I shall take this opportunity to fill in all the gaps of my narrative. I have just realised I haven’t even described my room. It is very nice, with ensuite bathroom facilities and no distractions such as televisions, telephones or windows. I was suitably impressed when Mr. Butler showed it to me on my first night here and by bouncing on the bed and complimenting the decor I was able to put him at his ease regarding the unfortunate but eminently understandable need to curtail my freedom. He assured me everything was being done to cancel the contract and a full-scale hunt was on both for my potential killer and the errant Beacon Man who had hired him. I wasn’t worried, I had absolute faith in the powers of The Conflagration.
     If I get the chance I also intend to offer my compliments to the chef. The food is very good. Plain fare and large portions, just as I like it. Big breakfasts are a habit I have not indulged since I was a child, so when I get back home I shall find it hard to return to my customary slice of toast and cup of tea. I am being spoiled! I said this to my maid yesterday when she brought the matches but all she managed in reply was, “Mi acte phoro pan luciferi de tu.” Then she picked up all my books and went. I remonstrated with her, for I had hardly made a dent in the pile and I was desperate to know the fate of Mrs. Bennet and her daughters, but to no avail. The woman obviously does not speak English. I looked at the thirty-six boxes of kitchen matches and the large tube of glue and opened the brown envelope. The simple instruction was ‘Make something’. For the rest of the day this is what I endeavoured to do.
     At first I considered a boat, but my vision of a four-masted schooner with sails billowing in the wind was perhaps too ambitious, so I revised my plan and set about constructing a house. Then, fired with enthusiasm, I became more adventurous and began to add a clock-tower and a spire. It was coming along nicely when Mr. Butler called to take me to the ceremony.
     My maid has just returned and taken away my breakfast tray. She also took away my church, my glue and the remaining matches. I told her it wasn’t finished but it was no use. Still they should get a sense of what I was aiming at. She didn’t bring me anything to do today. I am bored. Perhaps this is another test. Maybe I have to find something constructive to do when left to my  own devices or maybe I should empty my mind and prepare myself for tonight’s ceremony.
     My costume has arrived. The maid brought it in with another brown envelope containing the instruction: ‘Put this on and wait’.
     I’m sitting on the bed dressed in an old pair of corduroy trousers, a ripped shirt, grey pullover, brown jacket, a pair of scuffed winkle-pickers on my feet, an ancient trilby on my head and a plastic Boogieman mask on my face. I sing along to the familiar music. Now I am ready to become a Dark Lantern. Soon I shall truly belong.
     Two men have just come in. They are the ones who escorted yesterday’s new member. My maid is with them, carrying a tray on which I spot a roll of heavy-duty sticky tape, a little bottle and a syringe. She tells me to stop writing.

Thursday, 2nd November 1995

     In the country of the cakey, the nose-tattooed man must pass muster. So I play the game, watch the cards, learn the rules and spy my chance to kick over the table. I’m writing this on toilet paper under my blanket in the dark, I don’t know whether they are watching me but I don’t want to take chances. If everything goes awry and I end up a pile of ash outside Hobbes’ factory then Brainy Bob will find this alternate diary of events hidden in my shoes.
     The other diary I will keep for their benefit. I just heard someone come in and remove it. I pretended to be asleep, which is about as close as you can get to the land of Nod with this incessant racket. They alternate tapes of Mantovani with the Black and White Minstrels doing a medley of cockernee songs. The bed itself is comfortable and as for the room I have no reason to doubt Old Man Butler`s explanation that it`s used by visiting members of the Conflagration. The easy manner in which he reveals the secrets of his club goes some way towards explaining my feeling that I am in no immediate danger here. If he wished me dead then he could have killed me the moment I set foot in the shop above. On the other hand he did insist that I hand over my knives and when he left, I distinctly heard the key turn in the lock. The reason he gave for my imprisonment is convincing and, if true, I have only myself to blame since it was I who buried their missing ‘Beacon Man’ in Longbottom cemetery. All secret societies are by nature floating on dolphin-torn and gong-tormented seas.
     For the moment I am safe, there is no whiff of petrol in the air. As to a plan of escape, I’ll leave when I’m ready, just let the old women try and stop me.

Friday, 3rd November 1995

     After a day reading Jane Austen to the accompaniment of Mantovani I’m beginning to think there may be method in their madness. I’m ready to flood the bathroom and stick my finger in the light socket. I’ve never been a great believer in conspiracies. All I know is that whenever two or three are gathered in anybody’s name it just means trouble for the one who wants to sit in a corner and read a book. What are these women wittering on about? Where’s the plot? Half the world starves and the other half pays its farmers not to plant food, is that the work of the Bilderberg Group or Jimmy Thickbastard? We are the sons of monkeys and natty dressers to boot. I keep thinking about that museum. Butler wasn’t that keen on me taking a look at the exhibits but I saw enough to convince me The Conflagration is heading for world domination. In a glass case were arranged dozens of cans of baked beans, all with different labels, Heinz, HP, supermarket own brands, home grown, foreign, old and new. I took it as art, looked for some card that acknowledged the loan from New York, but there was just a brass plaque screwed to the frame bearing the legend: ‘Man’s Inhumanity To Man’. The next cabinet held a solitary coin, an old penny with the faded head of Queen Victoria, and the shiny label read: ‘The Fruit Of All Evil’. They’re definitely on their way, they’ve got their beret. I read Barratt’s The Little Tinker again and with my new-found knowledge of Arnold Stump I didn’t laugh in the right places, I waited till the end and then let it all out in one huge guffaw.

Saturday, 4th November 1995

     Now they’ve got me sticking matches together. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned here. We’re all just passing the time, waiting for death. We’re no better than the dinosaurs. We should move on, give the flies a go. Armageddon, that was a good idea and we had the technology, it would have worked. We could have dropped the bombs and all gone out in glory like our giant reptilian cousins, but instead we chickened out, we became the meek and inherited the earth. Now we sit here like pond scum and stagnate.
     They had a party tonight for some poor clown in a raggy suit. He looked totally out of it, no idea what was going on. You could tell by the way he sat they’d pumped him full of something. Let them come near me with a needle and I’ll poke it in their eyes. I’m no junkieman sat in Woolie’s doorway waiting for the Elvis come and kick me to death. I don’t like this Conflagration. I don’t join clubs. Tomorrow I’m through the door and away. I’ve had enough of this music. I watched them tonight, all in their finery, donkey-jackets and jeans, chanting their chants, making out they kings of the world. I don’t need that. Just get away. Away from the music. Heard some of them muttering about Mr. Johnson, should just be smugged tomorrow. All tradition gone, custom out the winder, no respect for history, no bells on Ringing Day, no roasting chestnuts, taters on the fire, parties in the backs.
     You think the Conflagration runs the world? They dunner even run Stump. I spotted some of ‘em tonight, coupla councillors, landlord of the Paraclete, woman what works on the till in me local Wayway, bus driver, even the cakey man who wanders round Potton cleaning the streets. Sure there’s rich bastards too like Old Man Butler and his mates, tell them by the fur round their wellies, but they aint the great and the good, they’re the mean and the mingy. That’s who runs the world and when they turn this music off I’ll get up and tell them so.
 

Sunday, 5th November 1995

     So here’s the plan. I put the funny suit and the Boogieman mask on and then when they come to get me I ask them politely to turn the music off. After that they can do what they want. I don’t care. The other bloke still thinks he’s heading for fun. I’ve done fun. Somebody always ends up crying. I’m going stuff all this in me new shoes. Let him get on with it, it’s his life now, let him write the book.

Epilog

     I woke to the sound of children laughing. My mouth was taped but I could open my eyes. Everything was black. Night. I was outside, could feel the wind. I tried to move my body but it was strapped down. I was sitting on a wooden chair somewhere in the open at night with glad children around me. But they weren’t that close. I looked into the distance and made out the roofs of houses, the tops of trees, faint stars in the night and then a sudden noise, a trail of sparks shooting into the sky, a great flash of light and I knew where I was. I looked down and saw the sparklers dancing in patterns, illuminating the tiny, excited faces. My initial fear was swiftly overcome by admiration for the sublime majesty of The Conflagration. I was a Dark Lantern, a symbol of its power and might. I could have been cast aside, a pathetic victim of spontaneous combustion, so much rotten wood to be cleansed in the fire, but I was rescued, redeemed, returned to the fold, readied to take my rightful place in the seat of honour. I marvelled at the Conflagration’s infinite neatness and wondered how many other inquisitive souls up and down the land would conveniently disappear on this Guy Fawkes Night.
     I tried rocking the chair to and fro but it was wedged amid the wood and refused to move. I heard other voices, adult voices muttering under the squeals of the children, moving round the back. They were coming to light the fire. A great roar went up from the crowd, I smelt the smoke, and then I closed my eyes and seemed to float away.

     As the guy toppled from his perch into the flames another general shout rang out and I turned to Ginger and said, “Who’s the guy?”
     “Old Man Butler. Seemed appropriate, though he wasn’t jolly about it, but that’s for Santy Claus not Mr. Fawkes, so I bopped him with Mary’s bat, lit the fire for covering smoke and made the switch. Bet you thought we wouldn’t make it.”
     “It never crossed my mind.”
     “We might not have read the writing on the wall.”
     “You couldn’t miss it.”
     “I also couldn’t read it.”
     “I didn’t know if they were watching me, so I wrote it in runes. I knew Mary could translate.”
     “ ‘Butler Pyes’, hardly the stuff of which self-destructive tapes are made.”
     “I was dead, make allowances.”
     “You have a touching faith in our abilities. Or else you had already devised some cunning plan to effect your escape in spectacular fashion. With one mighty bound you would be free and dancing over the rooftops like Spring-heeled Jack.”
     “You have a touching faith in my abilities.”
     “Just tell me everything did not depend on chance. Tell me you were in control the whole time.”
     “I wouldn’t say that.”

     We watched the fireworks with the rest of the merry families. I’ve always had a particular fondness for the Snowstorms and the Mount Vesuviuses; the small, pretty ones. Mary likes the Catherine Wheels, Ginger the rockets. He says they were bigger last night. I forgot they must have done all this before.
     Thursday night Ginger found the message I’d scratched on my house, fetched Mary, then called in a few favours and set up round the clock watches at Butler’s yard and Pye’s. By then I was already under the shop but they didn’t know that. Last night they see two big men with a ‘Guys R Us’ van pull away from Pye’s and go delivering. The last drop’s a big fancy do in Trentwood Gardens. That’s how come the good rockets. Ginger finally figures out why the guy looks so lifelike, by which time he isn’t. They spend today watching the shop, not knowing whether I was one of the opening acts, hoping I’ll be topping the world at tonight’s performance. Ginger tries to sneak a look in the van while they’re loading but gets chased off, so all they can do is follow it again. The biggest bonfire tonight is the municipal event in Potton Park. Ginger rates that as favourite, but Mary disagrees. She’s read the runes, not once, but twice.
     We’ve walked up to the school dining hall, we’re sitting there eating taters in jackets nattier than mine and drinking tea. So I ask, “How come you knew I was here.”
     Ginger nods at Mary and she says, “You told us.”
     I keep getting odd looks from the other people in the room. Even though they’re all set for a night in a muddy field I get the impression they think I’ve not made enough of an effort. I should have left the mask on, pretended it was fancy dress. I wave Mary to continue. I have no idea what she’s on about.
     “The runes. ‘Butler Pyes’ is an anagram of ‘Ruby Peel St.’ so when they dropped a guy off here, I knew it was you. While they put you on the bonfire I convinced Ginger to let the van go. He wasn’t sure, but then we spotted Butler and that girl so we knew this was the right place.”
     I take a look around, return some stares. “Where exactly are we?”
     “Peel Street Junior,” says Ginger, “in Longbottom.”
     “And the Ruby?” I ask, the epitome of cool, if cool can ever be epitomised by a man in a trilby.
     “The perfect ruby is another name for the philosopher’s stone, the elixir, the ultimate prize searched for by alchemists throughout the centuries. Obviously that which we were seeking would be found in Peel Street.”
     “Obviously.” She had read the runes and read them wrong. I didn’t have the heart to tell her. “Well done.”
     “But how...” starts Ginger.
     “Later, I think we should adjourn to the dark, my appearance seems to be upsetting the children.” I take up my tater and walk.

     We stand watching the remains of the bonfire. The fireworks have ended, the people are beginning to leave. Ginger is full of  questions, I am devoid of answers. I beat a hasty retreat into heritage talk.
     “I was always afraid of guys when I was little, wouldn’t walk up the street if there were kids collecting pennies. Always liked fireworks though. My dad didn’t, he’d never have anything to do with bonfire night. Thought Guy Fawkes was a brave and honourable man, never gave in to torture, never let his mates down, just fighting for a cause he believed in, unlucky to get caught.”
     “That’s a Catholic thing,” says Ginger. “You’ve got to have a guy on bonfire night, kids expect it. It’s tradition.”
     Mary hands me a book. It’s the diary.
     “Where did you find this?”
     “Tina Moran had it. She was inside the bonfire getting ready to light it. I hit her.”
     “Good for you. She run off?”
     “No. There was an old cricket bat on the ground, I hit her with that.”
     “So there were two guys.”
     “Named Moe,” says Ginger.
     “Is it important?” asks Mary looking at the book.
     I find my pages, rip them out and shove them in a pocket. "There’s a story by Arthur Machen about a man who decides to write down everything he thinks throughout the day. Every odd idea, every strange whim, every stray thought he writes down on scraps of paper. Come the night he sits down to read what he’s written. ‘And every day we lead two lives, and the half of our soul is madness, and half heaven is lit by a black sun. I say I am a man, but who is the other that hides in me?’” I throw the empty diary on the dying embers. “No, it’s not important.”
     Then we went home. Larry, Curly and me. And Shemp.

DOCTOR SHOCK SAYS MERRY CHRISTMAS

     As I walk into the Flying Buttress I am pleased to see that Algy and Ginger have managed to secure our usual table in the corner. It is Christmas Eve and the pub is packed with people making merry on this most magical of nights. I bid them all a hearty wassail and join my friends.
     “Thought you’d never get here,” says Ginger. “I’ve got you a drink.”
     I shake the snow off my coat, sit down and take a sip of the whiskey.
     “I was beginning to worry,” says Algy. She raises her glass. “Merry Christmas.”
     “Merry Christmas,” says Ginger.
     I take another drink and then fill my pipe.
     “You okay?” asks Algy.
     “Sure, fine. I am jolly. ‘Tis the season for it. Sorry I was late. I went up Stump do some shopping, thought I’d walk back, what with the snow, so I’m coming past the park and I see this little girl sitting by the railings, crying. Any other day I’d cross the street to avoid the implications, but I’ve just been to see Santa Claus in Lewis’s so...”
     “You didn’t did you?” says Algy.
     “What?”
     “Go and see Santa Claus?”
     “Of course, I go every year, don’t you?”
     She shakes her head and laughs. I sometimes forget she’s not Stump bornybred. One thing all us Stumpers know, Lewis’s Santa is the real one.
     “D’you sit on his knee?” asks a giggling Algy.
     “No, that would be silly. I just queue up, go in and offer him the compliments of the season.”
     “And what do you ask for?”
     “The usual, peace on earth, goodwill to all men.”
     Algy explodes with laughter. Ginger joins in, so I light my pipe and wait for the merry gentlemen to give it a rest. I could tell her I also go to Midnight Mass every year, but she already thinks I’m daft. When they finish choking on their crisps I continue my tale.
     “So I see this little girl crying and I go over to her and ask her what’s the matter. She’s all muffled up, scarf and hat and gloves, and she doesn’t look up when I talk to her. Just sits in the snow, sobbing. She says she’s lost Billy. Who’s Billy? Her dog. Slipped his leash and chased a cat into the park. I ask her if her parents know she’s out, she must live nearby so I reckon I’ll just take her home then her dad can go looking for the dog. She says they’re both at work, she wasn’t supposed to leave the house but it started snowing so she just wanted to take Billy for a walk. She won’t go back till she’s found him. The street lamps are on but it’s dark in the park. I don’t fancy wandering around in there shouting Billy. But stay out here stood next to a blarting little girl and get spotted by Christmas Elvis I’ll just be one more decoration on the big tree outside Stump Shoppy Centre. So I decide to let somebody else bring tidings of comfort and joy, I’ll get off wom, goo deck me ‘alls. Then she grabs my coat. I’ve got to help her find Billy. She’s crying louder now, almost in hysterics. I have to calm her down, so I make soothing noises, tell her to stand up, she’ll catch cold sitting in the snow. But she won’t move, hangs onto my coat and won’t let go.  Then she starts talking. But I can’t make it out, just mumbles. I bend down a little but with her mouth in her scarf I still can’t hear, so I kneel down beside her. I make like Santa Claus, ask her what she wants for Christmas, but looking at her little gloved hands, pulling at the empty leash, tugging it this way and that, I reckon I don’t have to be sitting in Lewis’s elfin grot to guess the answer. I promise her I’ll find Billy and for the first time she looks up at me. This sweet angelic face, cheeks wet with tears, golden curls peeping out from under her woolly hat. Have you ever looked into a child’s eyes and seen the wisdom of the ages, felt a depth of experience you’ll never know?”
     Ginger and Algy just stare at me, then simultaneously shake their heads.
     “No, neither have I. Before she could tug that leash one more time I picked her up and slammed her body on the railings, pushing it down till the spikes poked through.”
     I raise my glass and note the look of horror on Algy’s face.
     “Bet the Midge Jackson. Merry Christmas.”

BUSINESS STUDIES

     “Fuckface you fuckin’ playin’ or what?”
     “Me mam said I’d got be wom fer ten.”
     “Fuck that, the cunt’s pissed up club again, she dunner give a shit about owt. Fuckface you fuckin’ playin’ or what?”
     He stubs out his fag on the black brick wall, covers up his eyes and begins to count. All the other kids run off and hide. I quicken my pace, I have to get home. Write everything down, before I forget. I wish I’d left my car nearer the church, but I never park on the street at night, so I’ve got to walk to Unity House.
     Back in my car I sit and consider the things he said away from the gutter. Safe in the night shelter at St. Mark’s, a tramp of the old school not dirty drunk, more weather-beaten and down on his luck. He was bearded of course, as you’d expect, but not a whiff of foulness on his breath and all the words he uttered clear and clean. He sat there and talked for over an hour and I polite listened and said not a word. Just nodded my head and stared in his eyes, sounding their depths to shake off the disguise. Totally at ease he seemed and why not, he was comfortable in his own house. I, on the other hand, began to squirm as he spoke of things beyond the pale and raised a corner of the twisted veil.
     I sat there in my car and turned the key, switched on the lights and saw the sign had gone from Tart’s the junkshop across the street, though the window was still full of such stuff as dreams are made on in a long lost time when I believed sweet music held the key to unlock the mysteries of the world and solve all problems of the human kind. So the shop had changed hands no more than that, it would continue to bedevil men, nothing changes that fast in Stoke-on-Trent. I drive through Hanley on my journey home, my past life dripping through my mind again. The long search now over I am at peace, content to watch the happiest people spewed out of the pubs and onto the streets to fight for their right to behave like beasts, and I in my car will just ride on by, knowing the answers yet living the lie. At least I’ve put in the work and found him. The rest seem content to stay in the dark. I’ve tracked him down from the age of seven, when I lost him first in the fairy tales. They still hold their power for so many but I questioned the spinner of gold thread, the funny-named dwarf was all right by me, the king the villain as ever the case. So I sought solace in the works of man, to make a better world by heart and hand. But all was spite and self-preening foolery, the story never-ending as they played their childish games of guns and glory, playground cowboys shooting their fingers. I moved on to music but not for long, New York’s East River stilled more than the song. So I began to write and found a thing, the scariest thought my mind could conceive, that this was it, nothing more lay in wait. Death was the end, the rest was nothingness, no seeing, no hearing, no feeling, no sensing, no being, no nothing. We would become as we were before birth, returned to the endless void with our death. I wrote a story to chill the soul, friends just said, ‘What else would you expect?’ And so I came to terms and like the rest buried my head in the sludge and lived on. Until my father died and I sat there, next to his bed in the City General, waiting for him to slip softly away. For days he had been raving like a loon, his hands unpicking invisible knots, his body in revolt, his kidneys dead, his own poisons seeping into his brain. But the end was near, nothing more to do, they pulled all the plugs and calmed him down and so I sat there with him and waited, waited through the night for his final breath. I fell asleep and a nurse woke me up and told me this was it, the end was here. My father struggled on the bed, awake, he grabbed hold of my hand and tried to speak, but his lungs were full of fluid, drowning, his brain was swamped with poison, drowning. I looked into his eyes and saw him see, something, just before he passed away. He fell back and I let his hand drop and the nurse asked me if she should go, leave me alone to pay my last respects but I shook my head and went outside. I stood alone in the clear night air and smoked my pipe and thought of my father. In my mind I held the look on his face as he saw what was waiting there for him. Abject terror is an apposite phrase.
     Doctor Shock stopped reading and poked the fire. This was interesting stuff but he knew that soon he’d have to go. Ginger had done the trick with the alarms but you can only create so much smoke before it reaches someone’s nose and by now the Hotel would be on patrol. He was late getting here but he blamed Howard Phillips for that. He’d spotted him when he first entered the building, down the far end of a corridor reading a notice-board. The place was otherwise deserted, it was a perfect opportunity to take care of unfinished business. Darren Hammersley could wait, the name of Professor Phillips headed Dr. Shock’s list of complimentary kills, jobs requiring no specific contract but performed pro bono publico. As the good doctor made his decision, the bad professor turned from the board and walked away. The game afoot, Doctor Shock pursued his quarry down corridors, upstairs, downstairs, through lecture halls, across car parks, in and out of laboratories and even underground, finally losing him in the boiler rooms beneath the university. He had been led a right merry chase and all to no avail, but Doctor Shock knew that their paths would cross again. He returned to the building which housed the Business School and resumed the appointed task of the night. He found the room, ascertained that the young man sitting at the computer was Darren Hammersley, and did the job. A little late, but no matter. Then a name on the screen caught his eye and, intrigued, Doctor Shock began to explore the strange world of Planet X.
     The name was that of the diabolical Howard Phillips, for the Planet X program was his baby. It was a computer simulation of Stump, designed by the Head of the Business School as a teaching aid for his students. As Shock clicked round the screen, calling up endless sub-menus, dipping into vast pits of files, dragging forth stories and pictures, pie-charts and spreadsheets, maps and 3D-rendered landscapes, he felt himself irresistibly drawn to this other world. The Planet X program was a warren of connections, an infinity of minutiae, a replica of the real world, though twisted by the imagination of its founder. Howard Phillips sat in darkness here, hatching vain empires, serving in one to reign in another. His imps and afrits, the students in his care, let loose on this other world to create at will a mirror image of our own. But what if the glass be dark, the observer purblind? Shock found instances where foul debauchery dwelt in this neverland, saw signs of wicked student games, ragmag japes and reckless tilts at natural law. The sons of Belial were loose on the streets, flown with insolence and wine. In the pages of the Sentinel, this Other-Stump’s prime organ of record, he read of doings outside the city, strange tales which chilled his heart of gangs with guns fighting twixt themselves in slums of other towns. He long suspected that the students of Stump followed the tanglewood path and powder and pills and unguents were slipped between the covers of their well-thumbed tomes, but now he saw the proof for Planet X was a junkieman`s very heaven. One story made him click the switch to fish another stream, a product of the sickest mind, a cthonian aberration about a school in Scotland. Doctor Shock thanked God for Elvis and gave a nod to Bob, for their tireless efforts to impose order would ensure that such a thing could never happen here. He sought solace in the personnel files of the city. There were thousands on thousands of biographies, each with names, dates of birth, employment records and a brief history of their lives to date. Again the eternal preoccupations of students raised their disparate heads. He found a lot of the stories amusing but several crossed the bounds of decency and writhed in the raw sewage of Bedlam. He felt himself sinking into the dark unbottomed infinite abyss, so dragged his eyes away and gave the poet another poke, stirring the stick among the glowing embers of his entrails.
     He searched for more background information, it was safer to skirt the edge. There was a copy of an article from the Stump University Literary Review by a Dr. M. Anstey on the linguistic origins of Arthur Barratt’s Four Towns. ‘As Barratt conceived it, the name of Bursley, the Mother Town, was taken from the Greek, bursa, meaning a hide but also the name of the citadel of Carthage. Barratt was partial to classical allusions, in this case referring to the story of Dido tricking the natives of Africa into selling as much land as she could encompass with a bull’s hide. She cut the bursa into thongs and thus enclosed a space big enough to build a citadel. Barratt continued the theme with the naming of Hankley, a hank or skein of intertwined rope, with Longton merely referring to the length of same. Barratt chose the names with care for they matched his conception of his tales of the Four Towns being intertwined strands of narrative encompassed by an imaginary locale. Euphony led to his alteration of the endings, so Bursley became Burslem and the ‘k’ was dropped from Hankley. As to Stoke, Barratt left the Greeks behind and tied it closer to home, a sop to his friend, ‘the little tinker’, a simple corruption of stock, originally a tree-trunk but lop it off and what remains, a stump.’ Doctor Anstey went on to explain why Barratt left out Cobhead in favour of Stump in his urban conglomeration and Howard Phillips had attached a note to her essay, which concluded the story of the naming of the towns in the Planet X simulation. He had taken Barratt’s four but to make the model more accurate had added a fifth. Exhibiting the same level of wit as his students he explained the origins of Tunstall, the equivalent of Cobhead. It came from tun and stale, meaning a vat of horse piss. So the names of the Five Towns were set and as art mirrored nature, in 1910 they were federated into the City of Stoke-on-Trent. Stoke because it was the equivalent of Stump and despite Coalport’s best efforts ‘the little tinker’ had had his way, and ‘on-Trent’ in a vain attempt to avoid confusion between town and City. There were countless memos from Howard Phillips scattered throughout the files, reprimanding his students for referring to the City as merely Stoke and allowing the original town to drift into nameless limbo. It was his own fault adding the name of the piddling little steam which drained through Stump to the title of his virtually great City. It was one joke too many.
     But the whole of Stoke-on-Trent was a ragbag of jokes and crazy capers. The town of Stoke had been isolated from the rest by a big road. Even though it still housed the Civic Centre there was no evidence that the Council ran the place. Shock mused that this might be intentional to give greater authenticity to the simulation, but then where was the Carvery? Where the Conflagration? He felt the students needed more guidance in their work. Large areas of Stoke-on-Trent lay abandoned while others were crammed full of activity. The concept of town planning was notably absent. And then there were the wags who, acting like children in a schoolroom when the teacher has been called away, merely cut up didoes, sending in the bulldozers at random for no other reason than their own amusement. Thus Longton had been flattened by another big road which cut a swathe through the very heart of the town. Shock looked for a memo from Phillips explaining the idea of ring-roads, but he found nothing. In this as in so many other cases - the king of Albania sprang to mind - the Master seemed to lend his tacit approval to the spiffing wheezes of his charges.
     Of course the Professor had other things on his mind as the good doctor knew only too well so perhaps his lack of control could be excused. However it was a pity, for in the right hands such a project as this Planet X might prove an invaluable tool for those wishing to understand the workings of the world. Shock looked at the maps of Stoke-on-Trent again, the five towns strung in a line, north to south from Tunstall to Longton, another example of missed opportunity. Stump itself was diamond-shaped with Stump the town at the centre, a far more imaginative layout. But so much detail was displayed on the Stoke maps, all the districts between the towns delineated and named, and zooming in, all the streets marked out and named, and zooming in, all the factories and shops neatly drawn and named, and zooming in, all the houses carrying the number of the text file that held the details of who lived there, every citizen thus named. Shock marvelled at the sheer volume of effort expended on the project. If we had computer enough and time, what multitudes of worlds could we define? It was contagious. Time to go. He put Stoke back the way it was when he found it.
     Abject terror is an apposite phrase. ‘Why, that makes your friend a monster!’ How true, the blind gaucho grandson of Stoke-on-Trent distils Browning through Kafka, nails the head. I run the conversation one more time, ordering the arguments in my mind, testing his assertions against the truth of what I already know to be true. I pass the Forest Park and want to stop, write everything down in case I forget, but half-term always brings the fairground out so I keep going and hope to reach home before memory fades
     It ended there, just hanging in mid-air. Doctor Shock cleared his head with a shake, the smoke must be getting to him. He noted the time on the screen, and the minutes elapsed since the file was opened. He worked it out. If he’d not been distracted by Howard Phillips then nothing would have been written. He took a last look at Darren Hammersley, smouldering on the floor, took pity on the writer and hit the key to save his creation.

THE HIDDEN

     I am in the dark. As are we all. The game is about to begin. There are countless strategies. One can choose to stay close to home, break back quick, a winner you may be, but then to spend an eternity waiting for the game to end, a somewhat hollow victory. Run too far and then it’s further to get back, more chance of being caught along the way, jaded and witless. Most players opt for the medium course, find the best hideouts then wait for the pack to pass. I, as ever, have my own agenda. I want to be caught. Once you are touched by It you are no longer hunted, by ancient rule you join the hunter, you have lost, but what bounty won in the losing? All worries eased at that fingertip’s tap, all stress relieved, all insecurity vanished, no longer alone to run and hide, but joined at last with some other, working to a common end. Heaven may have its glories but the fires of hell serve to make it cosy.
     I would have liked to be It, but my number did not come up and we play by the rules, this is an ordered house. Elsewhere, I’ve heard, there are establishments which do not cater for the traditional family game, where money changes hands to choose It and costumes may be rented to increase excitement and the losers pay forfeits of a not nice nature. No fear of that here for this is one of the best Hideyhoes in Stump, the only leather in sight the pads we wear on elbows and knees for our own protection. So, It chosen, the blindfold secured, the lights go off and we await the bell. The moment of darkness, of profound silence, extended for what seems an eternity to heighten the suspense. We champ at the bit, eager for the off, then all of a sudden, the blinding light, the deafening ring and the pre-recorded voice begins the countdown and we all scream like little kids and run. I note the clever-dicks sidling in between the pipes near the start, planning to be the first home, the rest scatter up the corridor and into the maze. I try the first door on the right. It leads to a small room decorated in the Victorian style. It is cluttered with heavy furniture, a large sofa, a solid oak sideboard, a grandfather clock. I check the fireplace and see the light coming from the room beyond. The sideboard is the obvious hiding place, but the clock looks odd. The hands move, but the tick’s too soft and the pendulum doesn’t swing. The brassware is painted onto the glass panel of the door, so I open the trompe-l’oeil and find the clock has no back and a recess has been carved into the wall behind. Given a cursory glance it might be missed by It, so I crawl into the sideboard and listen to the numbers drop to zero.
     Peeping through the keyhole I see It enter and look around. It is already red of face and puffing out of breath. Thus the element of chance can affect the quality of the game. The fastidious It will take an age checking every nook and cranny, while the over-eager It will miss too much in a reckless race to cover as much ground as possible. What we have here is an old fat It, accustomed to sitting in Council Chambers and sleeping the afternoons away. I bear this provenance in mind when It turns around and makes to leave. I cough and rattle my cage. It comes over to investigate, old and fat but thankfully not yet deaf. As It opens my door, jumps up and squeals in triumphant surprise, I stick in the knife. It`s dead before It hits the floor. Weak heart. I would like to bundle It into the clock but It’s way too fat, so I settle for the sideboard and even then I have to jam the sofa up against the doors to make them shut. I pity the poor grandchildren for whom the birthday treat will soon turn sour but It should have stayed asleep as planned and paid for and not woken up in confusion to cast the vote which lost so much money for those with a vengeful turn of mind. Still enough of politics. I crawl up the chimney and through to the Georgian room beyond and with a whoop and a holler and a loud halloo I set off in pursuit, making enough noise for two men, or at least one man and a fat old woman.
     Now I am It the game proceeds at a faster pace for no Hideyho designer born can defeat my keen eye. I drag them from behind false bookshelves, from within cookers, from under mirrored tables and beneath kitchen sinks. I pass through history and fairyland to worlds of the future and beyond the stars until I have recruited an army to my cause and then I quietly recede into the shadows and seek the way out. I am passing through a volcanic land with palm trees and straw huts when I catch voices from two upturned canoes.
     “Zero ophidia habe eco Island,” says the first canoe.
     “Re habe topo un in-centra de cycli,” answers the second.
     Like a good shepherd I gather in my flock. The boats are made of polystyrene so my knife squeaks as it goes in, but red-oiled comes out silent. I pause to consider. To the list of names in my book, hand-tooled in Samarran leather, I have added a general rider to the effect that any member of the Conflagration I may come across I shall kill. I never sought a Moriarty, a Joker, a Sheriff of Nottingham, but the Conflagration has become my deadly nemesis and no doubt it will plot and scheme to do me ill. Likewise I am expected to construct elaborate devices to lure it to the greenwood, where presumably with the Sheriff’s throat at the tip of my rapier I will toss off a witty quip then send him scuttling back to face the wrath of Prince John. Not so, the blade will be thrust in to the hilt and there will be one less villain in the world. In this case two, ill met by firelight when the hooded man just happened by on his merry way home. A paranoid might think they were lying in wait, ready to cast off their canoes and hurl him into the volcano, but I am above such mere mania, I see the twin lights flash on every street-corner, hear the obscure tongue in all the bright cafes. I am trapped in the town of cats, telling my tale to Dr. Silence. Or closer yet, Kevin McCarthy pursued by the pods, for my ending too, will no doubt be rewritten; The Conflagration has the power. Then a singular idea erupts in my mind and I take a closer look at the volcano. It is a mere fabrication of plaster and wood, the lava running down its slopes and bubbling in the crater a clever manipulation of polythene and coloured lights. Useless for my purpose here but in the future I will find other means. To defeat any organisation you must sow the seeds of confusion from within, let them take root and grow the weeds of chaos. When convenient I shall adopt their own methods of disposal and let them search for reasons where there are none. If I am caught then I shall be chained to the rock and the eagle will peck out my liver, but if I stay one step ahead then Pandora will open her box inside the Conflagration. So, with a whispered, “You’re next,” I quickly make my way to the fire exit.

LAST TRAIN TO STUMP

     I try to avoid domestic squabbles, they tend to get messy. Bread and butter to Bob of course, no hefty cobbler’s bill forthcoming from trudging mean streets on the trail of the crazed killer. Just look in the corner and slap the darbies on the surviving partner, the weeping widow, the sobbing hubby, can’t go wrong. If whichever hasn’t actually wielded the knife or the gun or the blunt instrument, then they’ll try to confuse matters by blaming the honest worker they employed to do the job. That’s why I always turn them down when they approach me with their tales of hatred and disgust. They assure me that my name will never be revealed, they swear on bibles to that effect, but I just say they’ve done that before and look where it’s got them. Love kills more people than I do. I don’t intend to get caught in the crossfire. So I always say no, pass them the name of a competitor, preferably some cocky new kid just starting out in the business, anxious for work. I say ‘always’ but I admit there have been occasions when the sun’s shining, the birds are singing, God’s in his heaven and I get a request from a wife to kill her husband and two minutes after I’ve declined the offer the husband appears and asks me to kill his wife. In the face of such synchronicity it would be churlish to demur and so I contact the wife, apologise for my brutish insensitivity, arrange the details, collect the money and do the jobs. Thus everyone’s a winner, except poor Bob.
     Now this particular double came courtesy of Chum. All the relevant details plus copious portraits of His Majesty concealed within the pages of Pierre Menard’s Don Quixote. I watched the wife glare her husband off, slipped inside unseen and booked her passage on Charon’s Love Boat, then swiftly made it up to Coalport to catch the train. I found the husband in the buffet car and since the aim was to establish an alibi he was very chatty. Then it was simply a matter of manoeuvring him beside a door and adding him to the statistics. You can always rely on British engineering. As I made my way back to my seat I suddenly realised the fundamental error in my scheme. I was now stuck on a train not destined to stop until it reached the Land of the Cockernees. I considered pulling the chain and paying the fine but it seemed a somewhat drastic measure, so I resolved to travel to Euston, hang around the station, get something to eat, then catch the next train back to Stump.
     I’d visited the capital before of course, in my distant youth, had seen the fellows in the furry hats, the crippled sailor-boy up his pole, the warehouse full of statues in Westminster and the waxwork show across the street. I had walked along the river and bathed in the heritage of oppression, noting the speed at which the people moved and marvelling at the price of ice-cream. The palaces of culture once held me in thrall, but now they seem mere charnel-houses. I must agree with my learned  colleague, ‘when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’, so I will take my rightful place among the somnambulists of Stump and eke out my days at a gentler pace.
     Such was my state of mind when I got off the train and joined the bustling crowd on the station. But then, oh let me just blame the imp, for instead of heading for a sandwich and a cup of tea, I found myself moving underground. I think it was one of those niggling doubts, which burrow into the brain and divide and multiply to raise their own civilisations based on forgotten dreams and unfulfilled desires, that made me join the mole people in hope of sharing at last their vision of the shining world above. They were destined to be blinded by the light and I admit that once I stepped into the burgered air of Leicester Square I was disappointed still to see.
     The decision made, for better or ill, I spent the day among the jerries and the japs and our colonial cousins, wandering the streets and watching the amusements. The natives put on many shows and their antics were right merry. Dressed in bowler hats and pin-striped suits or bedecked with pearls they capered in their town calling out “Who are you?” and “Does your mother know you`re out?” and “What a shocking bad hat!” to the gaping tourists. Bob was on every corner, telling the time then holding out the hand, or pointing to a sight then holding out the hand, but I felt no need to contribute to their upkeep. I might be gormless George up for the cup in their eyes but without the likes of us they’d all be wearing twisty crosses on their sleeves and walking funny. Stump made the man what made the Spitfire, so by rights they should be giving me money but I say nothing and give them a paddy smile as I pass. I took a stroll down Whitehall and caught a bit of the Nice Man’s performance outside his house. “Has your mother sold her mangle?” I heard him ask and all the assembled multitude of chirpy geezers returned the cry, “There he goes with his eye out!”  We clapped as they took their bows and many a Nice Man T-shirt was sold that day.
     I’d had the presence of mind before leaving Euston to check the time of the last train to Stump so after tea I decided to take in a show. The latest craze to hit the capital was the Magic Lantern. Tickets were like gold-dust to judge by the price, but I managed to procure a seat in the gods and spent the next two hours of my life watching stereoscopic views of Switzerland and other mountainous lands. Leaving the theatre I was astonished by the lack of Elvis but then I remembered the riots. No one actually lives in London proper, besides the Nice Man and the King and you can’t expect them to find time to form a posse, so the inhabitants of the Cockernee hinterlands were always fighting over who should get the plum job of protecting the high-tipping tourists. Finally Metropolitan Bob was appointed to take charge of night-time security and old London town was deemed off limits to the Local Volunteer Service. The followers of the Pearly King were much miffed at first but then took solace in the fact that torchlit Bobs were yet another innovation which set their city apart from the rest of the nation. So I made my way back to Euston, trying to avoid staring at the outstretched hands beneath the pointy hats, for I had spent the day among the Cockernee people and wished now to appear the sophisticate.
     The last train from London to Manchester, stopping at Stump, was crowded. Maybe that was why they stuck the two old carriages on the end, the kind with corridors instead of tables, or else they were just hitching a ride to the scraplands of the North. Anyway that’s where I ended up, having walked the length of the train. I even dared to pop my head into the domain of the toffs, before shuffling my way past the thrust-out legs of businessmen returning triumphant from the wars, regaling their sleeping wives with tales of victory on their dinky phones, then on through the day-trippers, shop-worn and grubby childered, the odd student sleeping with pop can and books laid out neat before them, the gangs of drunken louts, minds switched off to ought but fun, nowhere to park my weary bones. I was nearing the end, in the cold, dark corridor, peeping in windows at rooms packed with prim matrons, wild-eyed demons desperate for tunnels and noddymen going snore. Passing five soldiers who sat staring at an obvious happy chap waiting for the off, I came upon the last compartment of the last carriage on the train and found it empty save for a cripple in a corner. He grunted when I entered and waved his left arm at me. The hand was missing. I saw his crutches laid out on the seats beside him and noted his twisted, lifeless legs, held together with metal braces. He was the kind of character one crossed the street to avoid unless you were some flash Samaritan wishing to show off in front of your friends, but either I joined him and shattered his hard-won isolation or sat on the cold floor outside. I took the seat nearest the door but it was wet and there was a smell of disinfectant in the air. I felt one further along and then like Goldilocks sat in the third for that was just right. I was now next to the window, staring straight across at the fucked-up man. I apologise for the language but the phrase sprang fully-formed into my mind as the most accurate description of the creature sitting opposite. He waved his stump again and grunted some more but despite the fact there was no heating on down here and the lights were just the festive variety used only for emergencies, I was tired and determined to get cosy. I took out my pipe, checked the windows for warnings then proceeded to light it. The cripple goes grunt again and I think I’m in for an argument but he firks in his pocket with his good right hand and gets a packet of Player’s out. He sticks one in his mouth and waves his stump and gargles again and I twig he wants a light. As I flick on the flame I ask, “Do you think there’s any point?” It’s a habit now. He just shakes his head. Sort of answer you’d expect from such a sorry piece of humanity but I’m glad to see it. The train begins to move and we sit there smoking as London recedes into memory once more. He leans close to the window and breathes on the glass. Then he writes, ‘Ta for the light. No matches.’ I nod and smile. He gets a notebook and pen from inside his jacket, scribbles something then shows me the blank page. I nod and smile, but he waves his stump and breathes on the window again. ‘No ink’, he writes. “Ah,” I say, pat my pockets to show I’m penless too, nod and smile. He points to his mouth, and I shake my head, I’ve got nothing eat either. Then he breathes again and writes, ‘No tongue’. This time I just nod. Now he breathes enough to hyperventilate and covers almost all the glass, then proceeds to write me an essay. I have to stand up and peer over his shoulder, read the words quickly before they disappear. To paraphrase his story, he’s been down to London visiting publishers, hawking his book around in person, quicker and cheaper than paying the postage.
     “Any luck?”
     He shakes his head. There’s a big Boogieman bag resting on his crutches. He drags it over, pulls out a thick battered file and hands it to me. I open his book. To judge by the state of the pages, odd tears repaired with sticky tape, grubby fingermarks, frayed corners, the thing has definitely run the gamut. I don’t know whether it’s the lighting, or the age of the manuscript, but I couldn’t make one word out. I turned the pages but they were as blank as his notebook. Either the ink had faded over time or there was never anything there. I check his nose but it’s surprisingly clean. I hand it back to him and nod and smile and the country goes past the window and there are no stars, no moon.
     He gets another cigarette and I light it for him, then refill my pipe and light that too. His face hits the glass again and he writes, ‘What do you do?’ and I take pity on his lungs, for those things he smokes are jolly Jack Tars and have no safety features. So for the next two hours I tell him tales, changing names to protect the innocent, altering places to hide my tracks, but on the whole I let him have the truth. His breath never tastes glass throughout and when I perceive the train begin to slow I swiftly end my final story and get to my feet. I ask him if he’s getting off here but he shakes his head. The train pulls into the station and I say goodbye. He waves his stump and I’m about to leave the compartment when the spirit of Christian charity crawls across my mind and I turn and toss my lighter into his lap.
     On the platform, waiting for the rush to the stairs to subside, I glance back as the train pulls out and I see him hunched over his book, scribbling away as if there were no tomorrow.

THE PARACLETE

     I’m sitting in the Paraclete watching the bar. The landlord’s busy, pulling his sticks, joshing the customers, dispensing the crisps and nuts, full merry with his lot. I sip his spew through my beard and wipe away the foam with the sleeve of my grubby mac. It’s Friday night, the pub’s full and I’m just an old man in a corner, enjoying a quiet pint before hobbling back home to my cold bed. My wife died three years ago and I don’t get out much now, what with the arthritis and my chest. I puff my pipe and cough a little. No children, it was her, she never wanted any, so now I’m on me own in the world and just waiting for the next bus. Forty year I was down the pit. No, too obvious that, potbank then, but nothing technical, packing maybe. Forty years I packed plates for Grimley’s and they went all over the world, but me, I’ve never set foot out of Stump. Apart from that week in Colwyn Bay. Honeymoon that was, but the wife didn’t enjoy it much, never took to travel like, so we always stayed at home. She’d sit and read her books, love stories, me I like a good cowboy. That’ll do. Old Algy taught me the trick but now I walk a finer line. The beard and the glasses and the dirty mac will have to do. If anybody tries to engage me in conversation I’ll wing it. I cough some more and blow big smoke to discourage chatters.
Time to kill I decide to clear some of my backlog. I’ve already been to Wayway’s and the streets of Potton will be a tad dirtier tomorrow. Now it’s the tavernkeeper’s turn. Then the door opens and a mirror walks in.
     Beard, glasses, dirty brown mac, he could be my twin. The only difference is our taste in footwear, I’ve gone for black oxfords in the Eastern European style, split-soled rubber bottoms and badly-sewn leather-uppers, whereas he’s settled for tatty trainers. His eyes roam round the place then fix on me. He gives me a nod and shuffles over. My first impulse is to leave, but then I realise how this strange coincidence could work to my advantage. I could be as bold as I liked in dealing with the landlord, I could just leap right over the bar and slice his throat where he stands, leap back and be gone before his blood drips into his beer, leaving my stooge to take all blame. I would need to put on my gloves then slip him the knife as I leave, but the speed at which he moves, that could be done. He’s three tables away, distracted momentarily by the flashing lights of a slotty, then I see another difference. He has a nose tattoo. No need for Bob to find a motive, plain as the nose on his face, this singular state of affairs appears to get better and better. Which is why, in the end, I decide to postpone the landlord’s appointment and just sit there, sipping my beer, smoking my pipe, waiting for the old man to sit down opposite me.
     “I know you,” he says, taking his seat. I think I’ll just get up and go now but he grabs my hand and stares me down. “I knew you’d be here.” I am held fast by his skinny hand and glittering eye. I wait for him to tell me how he shot the albatross but he says, “I’ve got a job for you.”
     “No thanks.”
     I tell him to let go my hand, offer to buy him a drink but he grabs my pint and takes a swig of that. “Listen,” he says. I look at his hand gripping mine and shake my head. Eftsoons my hand dropt he but I’m still held by the gimlet eye, so I listen to his tale, full of sound and fury and much spitting. The phlegm gathers at the corners of his mouth, seeps down into his matted beard, matches the snot dripping from his nose running through his moustache. I’m deficient in the make-up department, could never capture that rheumy eye effect. But from a distance, the other side of the room, we must look like long-lost brothers chatting away on family matters. When faced with a nose tattoo you naturally drag out the couch, try to find some truth behind the gibber, find some fact that’s yet to grow wings and fly away. Thus I gather he was once a gardener. We’re sitting next to a window and the brewery’s done the place up, put pot plants everywhere, so he points to this begonia on the sill and says, “I made that. Me I did that. You don’t believe me do you? I did all them. Dunno why. Summat do. Little game. Watch ‘em grow, see if they do owt interestin’. Never do. But I made ‘em, conner take that away from me. I made ‘em. That there, see it, see it?”
     I look at the flower. “Very nice.”
     “You cakey or what? Tinner nice. Conner call it nice. That, that there, see that, that’s not nice. I made it though. Look, d’you see it? There, there.”
     He didn’t mean the pretty petals, he’s pointing at a greenfly crawling over a leaf. “Oh, very intricate work, very detailed.” Time to put the couch away and move on. His turn to listen. “My wife died three years ago...”
     “No she dinner,” he interrupts and fixes me with the eye again. “Making that up you are. That’s a lie. Go hell you will. I can write it down in me big book and you’ll burn for all eternity. You’re buggered now. I can save you though, I’ve got a job for you. You do it, you sit on me right hand, or leastways somewheres close, over there next to Mary Magdalene, good spot that, she’ll look after you, do the business. You can have it if you do me the job. That’s not all though, that’s just instead of hellfire and damnation in the life to come, I’ll pay you fair and square in this life too, what you’ve got left of it. All right and proper, cash in hand. Here look at this.” He hands me a brown envelope, festooned with the official stamps of the Social. On the back is scrawled, in spidery hand, a list of names, places and dates. Four names: Martin Smith, Ralph Curwen, May Anstey, Darren Hammersley.
     “Who are they?”
     “Muckers and messers and makers of mischief. Kill ‘em for us and I’ll be right pleased. You’ll get your reward in Heaven, and here too. You’ll find ‘em where it says, when it says. That’s all you need know. I could kill ‘em mesen of course.” He reaches over and grabs the greenfly twixt thumb and forefinger, gives a squeeze and pops its life. “Just like that. I make ‘em so I can squash ‘em anytime I want, but I’ve got a lot on right now. You have to have eyes in the back of your head keep up with all the evil in the world. Got ‘em of course, see everything quite plain, owt what’s goin’ on I’ll spot it. See him over there,” he nods at the landlord, “he’s goin’ die tonight cause of stuff he’s been doin’. Bad stuff. So he’ll die. Half past ten.” I glance at my watch, three minutes to go. “No, tell you what, I’ll give you a sign, so you know who you’re dealing with. I don’t usually do signs, people keep asking for ‘em and I say no, bugger off, work it out yersen, I’ve got better things do, have a bit of faith little men, but for you I make an exception. He’s due for death, right, written in the book and everything, but just for you I’ll let him off. There, that’s it, I’ve done it, erased his name from the ledger, he can carry on a bit doing his bad things, I dunner care, no skin off my nose. But them four, them on the list, them dunner get no second chance. They’ve messed with very fabric of the universe, yer conner do that and spect get away with it. They’ve got be given the chop so we can seal it up again, tight as a drum, way it should be. You’re my instrument of glue, you’re my right-hand man, you the way, the truth and the light, you long-lost brother and son. Catch ‘em at it when I’ve put and no worries for unravelling time and space. Do ‘em all, do ‘em there, do ‘em then. Dunner be late or there’ll be hell to pay.”
     He’s suddenly seized by a coughing fit. He reaches for my beer and drinks. It’s half-past ten. I look across at the landlord, he’s watching the snooker above his head. I could put a stop to this. Administer some shock treatment, let the rains fall and wash away all his flies but he’d probably just blame his rubber. I look behind his eyes and there’s just a black hole, no little man waving frantically, trying to get out, he’s long gone. So I let the landlord off and listen some more to the loony.
     “I’m getting too owd for this. Jaded. Keep trying think of new things do. Tires you out. Could end it all of course. That’s all been sorted out and written down and costed but then what do I do? Be back on me own then. Sat there, nowt do. Bit of excitement that’s what we need. Idle hands the devil’s whatsit. And he’s not nice. You don’t want mess with him. He’s a right bugger. I made him though, so I suppose it’s my fault, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. We were all just sat there staring at each other, being good. Needed something liven things up a bit, so I made him. Made everything me. Whole world entire, cludin’ this pub an all what’s in it. That bag of crisps, that ashtray, that hard-faced cow wettin’ hersen laughin’, me I made ‘em all. Not individually like, not hand-crafted from clay and spit, but sowed the seeds right enough and out they all popped. I’m essentially an ideas man. I think of summat and it gets done. Creative type me. But then it gets complicated. Wheels within wheels and this cog turns that cog and you squash a bug here and some silly sod in China sneezes. Hard to keep up with it all. That’s why stuff leaks out round the edges. That’s why you’ve got do this job. It’s what you’re here for. It’s what you’re good at. You kill them four folk and seal up the holes.” He gives me a watery wink. I look at the envelope and wonder what day it is. “Let me take care of the rest. All be fine and dandy then. Nice cup of tea and piece of cake. You like cake? I like cake. Made that too. Cake. That’s one of mine. Cabbage, that was one of his. Fags were mine, gorgeous things, then he went and put the cancer in ‘em. He’s always doin’ that. I make summat good and he has to come along and stick his oar in, ruin it. Like sex, that was just a simple plumbing job, neatly designed on my part I must admit, but look at the mileage he’s got from that. That’s cause he’s not creative like me. Anytime he tries make anything it goes wrong, comes out stinky. Dinosaurs, he came up with them, daft bugger. We all had a good laugh and he took the huff. No sense of humour despite his publicity. Didn’t put one in, designed like that. So my fault again I suppose. Always blaming me. Stuff I’ve done to make ‘em happy, give ‘em cake and everything and they still blame me when things go wrong. If things dinner go wrong time to time then you’d all be sat here staring at each other being happy and that’s no life, I’ve done that, that’s no life at all. You want be happy? You do this little job for me and then you’ll be happy all eternity, you’ll be on yer white ‘oss and away, out of it forever. No point making them happy, they wunner like it, I know. Other plans for them, nowt do with happy.”
     I glance around, uncomfortable with his choice of words. Tuts are raised in corners. Then the silly sod compounds offence and grabs my hand. I try to pull away but there’s strength in his bony fingers. He stands up and reaches inside his coat, takes out a little plastic bag and drops it on the table.
     “It’s all there. No need count it. Standard fee. I know the ropes. Nod and a wink and a shake of the hand. I’ll be off then. If you do it right you won’t be seeing me again.” And he shakes my hand and shuffles out of the pub.
     They watched him leave then turned their mordant gaze on me. I opened the bag and emptied it out. The mirror smashed, the hammer falls, a scattering of stars. On the table there is a pile of tiny silver coins. Fivepenny pieces. I counted them. Thirty. I scooped them up with a hand that still ached from his grip, still warm and wet with the sweat from his palm, and shoved them in my pocket, then headed for the exit. I felt their eyes follow me, felt the daggers in my back, felt the scorn of the whole world on my shoulders. As I opened the door I looked back at them all and said, “See you later.”

(“Doctor Shock and the University of Stump” was first published by the Inverted Tree Press in 1996.
Copyright: Patrick Regan 1996.)

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