Something rotten (20 page)

“Blast! Do you mean to tell me we’ve bought an entire continent with a potential food yield of ten million penguin-units per year only to find we can’t eat any of them?”

“Only a minor setback, sir. If you would all turn to page 72 of your agenda . . .”

All the board members simultaneously opened their files. Jarvis picked up his report and walked to the window to read it.

“ ‘The problem of selling penguins as the Sunday roast of choice can be split into two parts: one, that penguins taste like creosote, and two, that many people have a misguided idea that penguins are somewhat “cute” and “cuddly” and “endangered.” To take the first point first, I propose that, as part of the launch of this abundant new foodstuff, there should be a special penguin-cookery show on GoliathChannel 16, as well as a highly amusing advertising campaign with the catchy phrase “P-p-p-prepare a p-p-p-penguin.” ’ ”

The CEO nodded thoughtfully.

“I further suggest,” continued Jarvis, “that we finance an independent study into the health-imbuing qualities of seabirds in general. The findings of this independent and wholly impartial study shall be that the recommended weekly intake of penguin per person should be . . . one penguin.”

“And point two?” asked another board member. “The public’s positive and noneatworthy perception of penguins in general?”

“Not insurmountable, sir. If you recall, we had a similar problem marketing baby-seal burgers, and that is now one of our most popular lines. I suggest we depict penguins as callous and unfeeling creatures who insist on bringing up their children in what is little more than a large chest freezer. Furthermore, the ‘endangered’ marketing problem can be used to our advantage by an advertising strategy along the lines of ‘Eat them quick before they’re all gone!’ ”

“Or,” said another board member, “ ‘Place a penguin in your kitchen—have a snack before extinction.’ ”

“Doesn’t rhyme very well, does it?” said a third. “What about ‘For a taste that’s a bit more distinct, eat a bird before it’s extinct’?”

“I preferred mine.”

Jarvis sat down and awaited the CEO’s thoughts.

“It shall be so. Why not ‘Antarctica—the New Arctic’ as a by-line? Have our people in advertising put a campaign together. The meeting is over.”

The board members closed their folders in one single synchronized movement and then filed in an orderly way to the far end of the room, where a curved staircase led downstairs. Within a few minutes, only Brik Schitt-Hawse and the CEO remained. He placed his red-leather briefcase on the desk in front of me and looked at me dispassionately, saying nothing. For someone like Schitt-Hawse who loved the sound of his own voice, it was clear the CEO called every shot.

“What did you think?” asked Goliath.

“Think?” I replied. “How about ‘Morally Reprehensible’?”

“I believe that you will find there is no moral good or bad, Miss Next. Morality can be asserted only from the safe retrospection of twenty years or more. Parliaments have far too short a life to do any long-term good. It is up to corporations to do what is best for everyone. The tenure of an administration may be five years—for us it can be several centuries, and none of that tiresome accountability to get in the way. The leap to Goliath as a religion is the next logical step.”

“I’m not convinced, Mr. Goliath,” I told him. “I thought you were becoming a religion to evade the Seventh Revealment of St. Zvlkx.”

He gazed at me with his piercing green eyes. “It’s
avoid,
not evade, Miss Next. A trifling textual change but legally with great implications. We can legally attempt to avoid the future but not evade it. As long as we can demonstrate a forty-nine-percent chance that our future-altering attempts might fail, we are legally safe. The ChronoGuard is very strict on the rules and we’d be fools to try and break them.”

“You didn’t ask me up here to argue legal definitions, Mr. Goliath.”

“No, Miss Next. I wanted to have this opportunity to explain ourselves to you, one of our most vociferous opponents. I have doubts, too, and if I can make you understand then I will have convinced myself that what we are doing is right, and good. Have a seat.”

I sat, rather too obediently. Mr. Goliath had a strong personality.

“Humans are molded by evolution to be short-termists, Miss Next,” he continued. His voice rumbled deeply and seemed to echo inside my head. “We need only to see our children to reproductive age to be successful in a biological sense. We have to move beyond that. If we see ourselves as residents on this planet for the long term, we need to plan for the long term. Goliath has a thousand-year plan for itself. The responsibility for this planet is far too important to leave to a fragmented group of governments, constantly bickering over borders and only looking towards their own self-interest. We at Goliath see ourselves not as a corporation or a government but as a force for good. A force for good in
waiting.
We have thirty-eight million employees at present; it isn’t difficult to see the benefit of having three billion. Imagine everyone on the planet working towards a single goal—the banishment of all governments and the creation of one business whose sole function it is to run the planet
for
the people on the planet, equally and sustainably for all—not Goliath, but
Earth,
Inc. A company with every member of the world holding a single, equal share.”

“Is that why you’re becoming a religion?”

“Let’s just say that your friend Mr. Zvlkx has goaded us into a course of action that is long overdue. You used the word ‘religion,’ but we see it more as a one, unifying faith to bring all mankind together. One world, one nation, one people, one aim. Surely you can see the sense in that?”

The strange thing was, I began to see that it could work. Without nations there would be no border disputes. The Crimean War alone had lasted for nearly 132 years, and there were at least a hundred smaller conflicts going on around the planet. Suddenly Goliath seemed not so bad after all, and was indeed our friend. I was a fool not to realize it before.

I rubbed my temples.

“So,” continued the CEO in a soft rumble, “I’d like to offer an olive branch to you right now and uneradicate your husband.”

“In return,” added Schitt-Hawse, speaking for the first time, “we would like for you to accept our full, frank and unreserved apology and sign our Standard Forgiveness Release Form.”

I looked at them both in turn, then at the contract they had placed in front of me, then at Friday, who had put his fingers in his mouth and was looking up at me with an inquisitive air. I had to get my husband back, and Friday his father. There didn’t seem any good reason not to sign.

“I want your word you’ll get him back.”

“You have it,” replied the CEO.

I took the offered pen and signed the form at the bottom.

“Excellent!” muttered the CEO. “We’ll reactualize your husband as soon as possible. Good day, Miss Next. It was a very great pleasure to meet you.”

“And you,” I replied, smiling and shaking both their hands. “I must say I’m very pleased with what I’ve heard here today. You can count on my support when you become a religion.”

They gave me some leaflets on how to join New Goliath, which I eagerly accepted, and I was shown out a few minutes later, the shuttle to Tarbuck Graviport having been held on my account. By the time I had reached Tarbuck, the inane grin had subsided from my face; by the time I had arrived at Saknussum, I was confused; on the drive back to Swindon, I was suspicious that something wasn’t quite right; by the time I had reached Mum’s home, I was furious. I had been duped by Goliath—again.

16.

That Evening

Toast May Be Injurious to Health

That was the shock statement put out by a joint Kaine-Goliath research project undertaken last Tuesday morning. “In our research we have found that in certain circumstances eating toast may make the consumer writhe around in unspeakable agony, foaming at the mouth before death mercifully overcomes them.” The scientists went on to report that although these findings were by no means complete, more work needed to be done before toast had a clean bill of health. The Toast Marketing Board reacted angrily and pointed out that the “at risk” slice of toast in the experiment had been spread with the deadly poison strychnine and these “scientific” trials were just another attempt to besmirch the board’s good name and that of their sponsee, opposition leader Redmond van de Poste.

Report in
Goliath Today!,
July 17, 1988

H
ow was your day?” asked Mum, handing me a large cup of tea. Friday had been tuckered out by all the activity and had fallen asleep into his cheesy bean dips. I had bathed him and put him to bed before having something to eat myself. Hamlet and Emma were out at the movies or something, Bismarck was listening to Wagner on his Walkman, so Mum and I had a moment to ourselves.

“Not good,” I replied slowly. “I can’t dissuade an assassin from trying to kill me; Hamlet isn’t safe here, but I can’t send him back; and if I don’t get Swindon to win the SuperHoop, then the world will end. Goliath somehow duped me into forgiving them, I have my own stalker, and also have to figure out how to get the banned books I
should
be hunting for SO-14 out of the country. And Landen’s still not back.”

“Really?” she said, not having listened to me at all. “I think I’ve got a plan how we can deal with that annoying offspring of Pickwick’s.”

“Lethal injection?”

“Not funny. No, my friend Mrs. Beatty knows a dodo whisperer who can work wonders with unruly dodos.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Not at all.”

“I’ll try anything, I suppose. I can’t understand why he’s so difficult—Pickers is a real sweetheart.”

We fell silent for a moment.

“Mum?” I said at last.

“Yes?”

“What do you think of Herr Bismarck?”

“Otto? Well, most people remember him for his ‘blood and iron’ rhetoric, unification arguments, and the wars—but few give him credit for devising the first social security system in Europe.”

“No, I mean . . . that is to say . . . you wouldn’t—”

At that moment we heard some oaths and a slammed door. After a few thumps and bumps, Hamlet burst into the living room, stopped, composed himself, rubbed his forehead, looked heavenwards, sighed deeply and then said:

“O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew!”
¹

“Is everything all right?” I asked

“Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d his canon ’gainst self-slaughter!”
²

“I’ll make a cup of tea,” said my mother, who had an instinct for these sorts of things. “Would you like a slice of Battenberg, Mr. Hamlet?”

“O God! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable—yes, please—seem to me all the uses of this world!”
³

She nodded and moved off.

“What’s up?” I asked Emma, who had entered with Hamlet, as he strutted around the living room, beating his head in frustration and grief.

“Well, we went to see
Hamlet
at the Alhambra.”

“Crumbs!” I muttered. “It . . . er . . . didn’t go down too well, I take it?”

“Well,” reflected Emma, as Hamlet continued his histrionics around the living room, “the play was okay apart from Hamlet shouting out a couple of times that Polonius wasn’t
meant
to be funny and Laertes wasn’t remotely handsome. The management weren’t particularly put out—there were at least twelve Hamlets in the audience, and they all had something to say about it.”

“Fie on’t! Ah, fie!” continued Hamlet. “ ’Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely—!”
⁴

“No,” continued Emma, “it was when we and the twelve other Hamlets went to have a quiet drink with the play’s company afterwards that things turned sour. Piarno Keyes—who was playing Hamlet—took umbrage at Hamlet’s criticisms of his performance; Hamlet said his portrayal was far too indecisive. Mr. Keyes said Hamlet was mistaken, that Hamlet was a man racked by uncertainty. Then Hamlet said he
was
Hamlet so should know a thing or two about it; one of the other Hamlets disagreed and said
he
was Hamlet and thought Mr. Keyes was excellent. Several of the Hamlets agreed, and it might have ended there, but Hamlet said that if Mr. Keyes insisted on playing Hamlet, he should look at how Mel Gibson did it and improve his performance in light of that.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Yes,” said Emma. “Oh, dear. Mr. Keyes flew right off the handle. ‘Mel Gibson?’ he roared. ‘Mel ****ing Gibson? That’s all I ever ****ing hear these days!’ and he then tried to punch Hamlet on the nose. Hamlet was too quick, of course, and had his bodkin at Keyes’s throat before you could blink, so one of the other Hamlets suggested a
Hamlet
contest. The rules were simple: they all had to perform the ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy, and the drinkers in the tavern gave them points out of ten.”

“And . . . ?”

“Hamlet came last.”

“Last? How could he come last?”

“Well, he insisted on playing the soliloquy less like an existential question over life and death and the possibility of an afterlife, and more about a postapocalyptic dystopia where crossbow-wielding punks on motorbikes try to kill people for their gasoline.”

I looked across at Hamlet who had quieted down a bit and was looking through my mother’s video collection for Olivier’s
Hamlet
to see if it was better than Gibson’s.

“No wonder he’s hacked off.”

“Here we go!” said my mother, returning with a large tray of tea things. “There’s nothing like a nice cup of tea when things look bad!”

“Humph,” grunted Hamlet, staring at his feet. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any of that cake, have you?”