19

SUSPICIONS REGARDING WHAM, POW AND ZAP

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

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

And perhaps you didn’t. Really.

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

‘Do what, Barry?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Go on.

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

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

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

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

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

‘I’m starting now.’

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

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

‘That’s very nice to know, chief.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Who, chief?’

‘That man on the screen.’

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

‘There’s something very familiar about him.’

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

‘No, Barry. Oh my God!’

‘Oh my God?’

‘It’s him! It’s him!’

‘God, chief?’

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

‘It’s just a man, chief, it’s—’

‘My brother! It’s my bloody brother!’

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

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

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

‘It’s not your fault, Barry.’

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

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

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

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

‘Well, chief…

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

‘Well, chief…

‘WHAT?’

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

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

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

‘You stupid—’

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

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

‘The ducking stool.’

‘He brought back the ducking stool?’

‘I told you he wasn’t too bad, chief’

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

‘Don’t be hasty, chief, please.’

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

‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

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

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

‘WHAT?’

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

There was some unpleasantness then, and I ran off.

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

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

‘So what are you going to do now?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Did you hear that, chief?’

‘What, Barry?’

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

‘You’re lying, Barry, aren’t you?’

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

‘So was there a car crash outside?’

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

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

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

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

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

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