Millions (6 page)

Mr Quinn came over to me and said, ‘Lots of excitement on the playground today, Damian.’

I said, ‘It’s all very unenlightening.’

He looked at me a bit strangely.

Anthony wanted to buy some flying saucers on the way home but when we got to the shop, the shelves were almost empty. They’d bought everything except the Fisherman’s Friends and Vim.

The shop man said, ‘What’s going on? Where’s it all come from?’

Anthony decided we shouldn’t go there any more just in case.

I didn’t buy anything much personally, though I did manage to get to the repository shop at the back of St Margaret Mary’s. I got statues of St Francis, St Martin de Porres, the Little Flower, Gerard Majella and the Child of Prague. I got miraculous medals of St Benedict, St Bernadette and St Anthony. They had a St Christopher, but I don’t count him as a proper saint personally. They had colourful cards of all the above plus St Michael the Archangel with a burning sword. They all fitted on my windowsill. It was a different matter with the micro-scooters and the Airzooka. Anthony tried to squeeze everything under the bed, but there was hardly any space because of the Subbuteo and the money.

‘You’ll have to put them in your den.’

‘It’s not a den, it’s a hermitage, and I don’t want it cluttered up with worldly goods. That’s the whole point.’

‘You know what we could do? We could rent a garage, a lock-up.’

‘I don’t know why we don’t just tell Dad. What’s the point in having all this stuff if we can’t even play with it?’

‘OK. OK. OK. We’ll play Subbuteo.’

He didn’t actually want to play. He was just making a point. We spread the cloth out on the floor and it was so green, it was like having a real little lawn in your room. You flick the player with your finger and the player flicks the ball. Sometimes you miss the ball and then it’s the other one’s turn. Anthony could hit the ball five or six times in a row and I’d move the linesmen up and down the touchline. We barely spoke as we played and the cloth seemed to grow bigger and greener, so it was like being on a real pitch, except it was quiet and everyone did what you told them to. Anthony flicked one in from the wing that dropped into the centre. There was nothing between him and my goal. You’re allowed to move your goalie while the other one takes his kick. He shot. I quickly moved my St Gerard Majella statue into the goal. The ball hit the skull at St Gerard’s feet and went bouncing off down the pitch, into Anthony’s area.

‘What the hell was that supposed to be?’

‘I prayed.’

‘You can’t pray in football.’

‘Excuse me. Brazilians pray all the time. They’re always crossing themselves.’

‘Saints do not come down and kick the ball for them.’

‘How d’you know? They always win.’

‘If you can have a saint, I can have Action Man.’

So Anthony laid his Action Man across the mouth of the goal.

‘What? Where’s the logic in that? You can pray to a saint. You can’t pray to a doll.’

‘Action Man is not a doll.’

‘A doll is a doll is a doll and Action Man, I hate to tell you, is a doll.’

‘It’s got a grappling hook.’

‘Barbie with a grappling hook.’

‘What’re you talking about, Barbie? It’s a bloke. It’s got grip-action hands.’

‘St Francis could talk to animals.’

‘Dr stupid Dolittle can talk to animals. Are you going to play him out on the left?’

We were so absorbed in this discussion that we didn’t hear anyone coming upstairs or opening the door until it was too late. Until Dad was looking down at the Subbuteo, saying, ‘Where the bloody hell did that come from?’

Anthony can lie so fast it feels like the truth but blurred. ‘Won it,’ he said.

‘Won it for what?’

‘Art.’ He was actually picking up speed. He was amazing.

‘Art? What did you do? Paint the Sistine Chapel?’

‘Made a model.’

‘What of ?’

‘You know. What’s it called? Tracy Island. It’s excellent. The best.’

‘Excellent. The best.’ Dad said the words slowly to himself, as though they were his favourite flavour. He was lost. That’s the other thing about Anthony’s lies. They weren’t just quick, they were tasty. People wanted to swallow them.

Dad looked at me. I did a St Roch. There’s no patron saint of lying. You tell a lie; you’re on your own.

To be nautical about this, we were getting into murky waters. The first chance I got, I retreated to the hermitage to contemplate my situation. I took St Francis with me, to help me focus. Unfortunately, Anthony had got there first. The place was cluttered up with material possessions, namely the two micro-scooters (boxed) and the Airzooka. There was no chance of a visitation as long as they were there.

I went and got the tartan blanket that used to be in the boot of the car and covered them up with it so that it looked like a couch. It was better than looking like a shop window. I stood the statue of St Francis up on the back of it, looking down at me. It was one of those of him holding a bird’s nest. The minute I put it down, I had my idea.

I got a wad of money from the bag under the bed, remembering to zip it tight afterwards and to push the Subbuteo back in front of it. Then I took the money down to the Shopping City. Just as you go in, there’s a place that used to be a swimming pool but now it’s a pet shop. There’s a massive cat fish in the baby pool and the main pool is ornamental carp. If you dip your fingers in the water, the fish come up and let you stroke their heads. The staff say it’s because they’re friendly. It could be because they want to get out of there, though. You can’t tell with fish.

All around the poolside, where the changing lockers used to be, that’s where they keep the birds. Hundreds and hundreds of them piled up on top of each other in little cages. It’s very noisy, not because of singing, but because of wings buzzing like pages in a flicker book. I asked the bloke if I could buy some.

‘Sure. What d’you want? Zebra finches . . .’

‘Yeah.’

‘Our canaries are going cheep. Ha ha.’

‘I’ll have some of them as well, then.’

‘We do have parakeets and cockatiels, that type of thing.’

‘They sound good too.’

‘You’ll have to make your mind up.’

But the nice thing about being rich is that you don’t have to make your mind up. ‘I was thinking of having some of each.’ He looked none too certain, so I showed him my money and then he looked worse. I said, ‘It was given me, after my mum died.’

So he took me round with a shopping trolley. When you choose a bird, they put it in a little box, a bit like a cake box with holes in. I tried to pick one from each cage. It was hard to choose, but I asked for guidance and did my best, and after one trip round the poolside I had two dozen boxes of birds and no cash left.

The man helped me push the trolley to the door. ‘You’ll have to bring that back, you know. How’re you getting home?’

‘Oh, I’m not going far. I’ll bring the trolley back right away.’

I pushed the trolley over the road and took the path up the Rise. When I got to the top, I lined up all the boxes. I opened the first one, then the next. Nothing happened. You have to tip the box a bit when you open it. If you do, the birds inside fan their wings, lift their necks and fly off. I opened the next box and tipped it, and the next, and the next. Birds exploded from the boxes like fireworks. Parakeets went off like rockets. Zebra finches went up like showers of sparks. The cockatiels screamed as they whirled away into the sky, flying round and round each other. The whole sky was full of colours and singing.

In case you don’t know, this is what St Francis did when he was my age (i.e. in 1190 ). He bought some birds from the market and let them go. So I was actually doing a saintish thing. In fact St Francis didn’t have a shopping trolley, so he probably didn’t do it to as many birds as me. So technically I was being more saintly than him even. The parakeets flew low over my head, like they were trying to thank me. Their long red tails streamed out behind them like fire.

I turned around to watch them and there was a man behind me, in a tatty brown gown, with a bald head and a big hole in the back of each hand. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this brings back memories.’

I said, ‘St Francis of Assisi (1181–1226)?’

‘I did this, you know.’

‘I know. I know. That’s why I did it.’

‘Course, mine was mainly pigeons and songbirds. We couldn’t source the tropicals back then, or the fancies really.’

‘Do you know of a St Maureen at all?’

‘Doesn’t ring a bell to be honest.’

‘Oh.’

‘But there again, I’m kept very busy these days. My trouble is I’ve become increasingly relevant as time’s gone by. There’s the environment, animal rights, the Third World, and now this whole Muslim thing. I met the Sultan, you know.’

‘I know. In Acre in 1219. You walked over hot coals without being hurt.’

‘Don’t try that at home.’

The parakeets came swooping back and flew over our heads towards town. We strolled up after them. You could see the whole muddy river now, and the town perched on the edge of it and the oil refinery with its plumes of bright yellow smoke. And the Widnes–Runcorn bridge like a big stepladder leading up to Heaven.

‘I was the first vernacular poet in Europe. And the first environmentalist. And I started out by doing exactly what you’re doing. Setting birds free.’

‘What did you do after that?’

‘Well, you know . . .’ He waved his hand towards the Shopping City. There was a bus pulling up and crowds of people waiting to get on it. ‘I helped the poor.’

‘Of course. Of course you did. That’s brilliant. Thanks.’

I ran all the way home.

The Widnes–Runcorn two-hinged arch bridge – proper name ‘the Jubilee Bridge’ – was built in 1961. It’s not really a ladder to Heaven. This doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as a ladder to Heaven. There is. It’s in Genesis, Chapter 28, Verse 12.

Every time you do a good deed, it takes you up a rung. Well, 229,000 pounds is enough money to give 458 poor people 500 pounds each, and 458 good deeds equals 458 rungs of the ladder, which is a long way up. We would be practically saints in Heaven by the time we’d given it all away. I decided to tell Anthony about the exciting opportunity for canonization.

He was behind the telly, rigging up a new Digibox. ‘Anthony,’ I said, ‘do you ever feel that the money is hollow and meaningless?’

‘How can it be meaningless? It means we’re rich.’

‘What has it given us really, apart from piles of stuff ?’

He switched the telly on and flicked through all the channels, making sure the new ones were there, and said, ‘Thirty new channels, that’s what.’ Then he sat down to watch
World Federation Monster Truck Tug of War
.

‘Won’t Dad notice thirty extra channels on his telly?’

‘Dad never notices anything.’

The Monster Trucks were good but not meaningful. ‘Imagine if we could be saints.’

‘Why?’

‘I think we should give the money to the poor. We’ve got enough to give 458 poor people 500 pounds each. And then they won’t be poor any more. And we would be saints, which would just be quality. If you’re a saint you can walk through fire, or do a miracle, or grow a big bushy beard like St Wilgefortis.’

‘What’s so good about growing a beard?’

‘Wilgefortis was a woman. She grew it to avoid unwelcome male attention.’ The unwelcome attention, by the way, was from the King of Sicily. Wilgefortis’s dad wanted her to marry him. When she woke up with the beard, the King of Sicily changed his mind, which was exactly what she prayed for. Her father did have her crucified though. ‘Come on, Anthony. It’s a brilliant idea.’

He shook his head. ‘Nice but not practical. Where would you find 458 poor people?’

‘The world is full of poor people. The whole world is poor nearly. You’ve only got to look at the telly.’

‘Yes, on the telly but not round here. There’s no poor people round here. The house prices keep them out.’ He explained about house pricing and social zoning. ‘We live in an exclusive development, which means there are no poor people here. The only people who can afford to live here are nice people. You must’ve noticed. It’s not like where we used to live.’

He was right. In St Francis’s day, there were lepers, beggars, mendicants, orphans and young women forced to sell their honour on every corner. Nowadays, you could walk from Cromarty Close to Great Ditton Primary every day for the rest of your life and never meet a young woman forced to sell her honour.

‘Now, I’ve got an idea that
is
practical.’

‘Go on.’

‘We buy a house.’

‘But we can’t just spend it. It’s been given to us for a higher purpose.’

‘That’s the beauty of it. When you buy a house, you’re not spending the money. You’re keeping it. It’s called investing. Houses are always going up in price. If you buy a house now, for say a 150,000 pounds, in ten years’ time it will be worth maybe 300,000 pounds. So when you sell it, you will make 150,000 pounds’ profit. That’s called equity. You must have heard of equity.’

‘I don’t want equity.’

‘It’ll be great. We can get rid of all the money in one go, and when we’re older sell the house, and we’ll have even more money then than we’ve got now. And in the meantime, we can keep our stuff in there. It’d be better than your cardboard den.’

I tried to explain the difference between a den and a hermitage, but it fell on deaf ears.

In the estate agent’s, Anthony went up to the counter, like it was a sweet shop, and said, ‘Have you got any houses in Swindon?’ He was mad on Swindon, because that’s the place where house prices were going up fastest.

‘Well, no,’ said the woman. ‘We only really do local. Most of our customers want a house where they actually live.’

‘This is for an investment portfolio.’

‘Oh, is it really? Oh, well, then. Is this a project for school?’

Anthony immediately invented a non-existent project, a non-existent school and a non-existent teacher. Honestly, if he was telling you this story, you wouldn’t know which bits were true and which weren’t.