Sprout Mask Replica (6 page)

Norman
cut himself a slice of bread, then went in search of an Elastoplast to dress
the thumb he’d nearly severed.

Accident,
pure and simple.

And
painful.

Another month went by
before Norman returned to my uncle’s DMZ. Norman would have liked to have
returned sooner, but he was kept rather busy issuing high court injunctions
against the publication of two books in the disaster series
The Truth
Behind…
These books,
The Truth Behind the RIOI Disaster
and
The
Truth Behind the Destruction of Crystal Palace,
mentioned the names of
certain past members of the Crombie family, in connection with the consumption
of fire extinguishers.

It was
a somewhat penniless Norman who eventually found himself once again knocking at
the stockade door.

All
seemed rather quiet within, and answer came there none.

‘Hello.’
Norman knocked again. ‘It’s me, Norman. Are you in there, Brian?’ Norman put
his ear to the door. Nothing. Or? Norman’s ear pressed closer. What was that?
It sounded a bit like a distant choir singing. It sounded
exactly
like a
distant choir singing.

Norman
drew his ear from the door and cocked his head on one side. Perhaps someone had
a wireless on near by. He pushed upon the stockade door, which creaked open a
few inches and then jammed. Norman put his shoulder to it and pushed again.

‘Go
back, go back,’ called a voice. ‘You’re rucking up the carpet.’

The
door went slam and Norman went, ‘What?’

There
were scuffling sounds and then the door opened a crack and a wary eye peeped
out. It was one of a pair of such eyes and both belonged to Uncle Brian. They
blinked and then they stared a bit and then they sort of crossed.

‘What
order of being are
you?’
asked their owner.

‘Don’t
lark about, Brian. It’s me, Norman.’

‘I
dimly recall the name.

He’s
lost it completely, thought Norman, I wonder if I should call an ambulance.

‘No,
don’t do that.’

‘Do
what?’

‘Call
an ambulance.’

‘How
did you—’

‘I just
do. Are you
all clear?’

‘Actually
I am,’ said Norman. ‘I have absolutely no metal about my person whatsoever. I’m
right off metal at the moment.’

‘Then
you can come in. But first you’ll have to promise.’

‘Go on.

‘Promise
that you won’t speak a word of anything I show you to anyone. Promise?’

‘Cross
my heart and hope to die.’ Norman made the appropriate motions with a bespittled
finger.

‘Then
enter, friend.’

Uncle
Brian swung open the heavy door. A light welled from within. It was of that
order we know as ‘ethereal’. A smell welled with it.

‘Lavender,’
said Norman, taking a sniff.

‘It
might well be. Now hurry before something sees you.

‘Some
thing?’

‘Just
hurry.’

And so
Norman hurried.

Uncle
Brian slammed shut the door and turned to grin at his bestest friend. His bestest
friend had no grin to return, his face wore a foolish expression. The one
called a gawp.

‘God’s
gaiters,’ whispered Norman. ‘Whatever is it all?’

‘Isn’t
it just the business?’ Uncle Brian rubbed his hands together. They were very
clean hands, the nails were nicely manicured.

‘It’s—’
Norman turned to view his host. ‘Whoa!’ he continued. ‘What happened to
you?’

Uncle
Brian did a little twirl. The transformation was somewhat dramatic. Gone the
matted hair, greasy aspect, ghastly dried-grass smock and unmentionable
whiskers. He was now as clean as a baby’s post-bath bum and perky as a fan
dancer’s nipple. On his head he wore a monstrous bejewelled turban, of a type
once favoured by Eastern potentates as they rode upon magic carpets. And
gathered about him, by a silken cummerbund, great robes of similar stuff. That
stuff being decorative brocade and a good deal of it.

‘Dig
the slippers.’ Uncle Brian raised the hem of his garment to expose a pair of
those curly-toed numbers that the potentate lads always favoured. ‘Hip to trip
and hot to trot, what say you?’

‘I’m
somewhat stuck to say anything as it happens, this place it’s—’

‘Bloody
marvellous,’ said Uncle Brian. ‘It’s an exact re—creation of the harem of the
Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1520 to
1566.’

‘Yes,
of course,’ mumbled Norman. ‘Well I recognized it straightaway, naturally. But
where did you get it from? I mean, Shiva’s sheep, Brian, you didn’t nick it,
did you?’

‘Certainly
not.’ Uncle Brian swept over to a low carved satin-wood couch and flung himself
onto an abundance of cushions. ‘It’s all a present.’

‘A
present?
From who, or is it from
whom,
I can never remember.’

‘It’s
from
whom,
I think. And that whom is …’ Uncle Brian paused for effect.
‘The fairies,’ he said.

Oh
dear, thought Norman, he’s a basket case.

‘I
never am. I did it, Norman, I did it. Cured myself of the good luck-bad luck
virus, freed myself from the influence of iron. And lo and behold.’

‘Curiously
I don’t understand,’ said Norman, who curiously didn’t.

‘Iron,
dear boy. Don’t you know your folklore? It all makes sense to me now.

‘It’s
still got me baffled,’ Norman shuffled his feet on the deep-pile carpet that
smothered the ground and tapped his toe on a Persian pouffe.

‘Iron
repels fairies,’ said Uncle Brian. ‘Surely everyone knows that. In the old days
it was regular to hang a pair of scissors over the cradle of a new-born infant
to protect it from being carried away by the fairies. There was a dual
protection in that because open scissors form a cross.

‘But
what has that got to do with all this?’

Uncle
Brian shrugged up from his cushions. ‘Get a grip, Norman.

I freed
myself from the influence of iron. The reason fairies are no longer to be seen
is because there’s too much iron. It’s everywhere.

And it’s
bad for their health. So they’ve retreated. But my DMZ, the old Demetalized
Zone, attracted them, like,’ Uncle Brian gave a foolish titter, ‘like, dare I
say, a magnet.’

‘Preposterous,’
said Norman. ‘Ludicrous, in fact.’

‘If you
say so.’ My uncle plumped himself up and down on his cushions. ‘You’d know
best, I suppose. Shall I bring on the dancing girls?’

‘What?’

‘Well,
it is a harem after all.’

‘You’ve
got
dancing girls?
You’re kidding, surely?’

Uncle
Brian rose to clap his hands.

‘No no,’
Norman raised his and then slumped down onto the Persian pouffe. ‘This can’t be
true,’ he said. ‘It just can’t.’

‘I knew
I wasn’t wrong about the iron,’ said Uncle Brian, re-seating himself in a
sumptuous manner. ‘Although I’ll admit that I wasn’t expecting all this. Things
have worked out rather well really. How’s it all going for you, by the way?’

‘Oh,
swimmingly,’ said Norman. ‘I’m virtually bankrupt. It seems that my ancestors
have been responsible for almost every major disaster in the last one hundred
years and thanks to this wonderful world of information technology and stuff
that we’re presently living in, all their dirty deeds are now being brought to
light and I’m knee-deep in doggy doo.’

‘I hope
you didn’t bring any in on your shoes, that’s a very expensive carpet.

‘Cheers,’
said Norman.

‘Still,’
said my uncle, ‘chin up, old friend, you’re here now and it would be
uncharitable of me not to share some of my largesse with you. What would you
say to a helping of untold worth?’

‘I’d
say thank you very much indeed.’

‘Well,
there’s treasure chests all over the place, why not fill your pockets?’

‘Can I?’
Norman’s mouth dropped open and his eyes grew rather wide.

‘Least
I can do for you, old man. After all, if you’d never suggested that I eat my
motorbike, I would never have formulated my theory about iron, been visited by
the fairy folk and come to gain all this.’

‘No,
you’re right,’ said Norman. ‘You’re absolutely right. Where are the treasure
chests?’

‘Well,
there’s a big pouch of jewels over there,’ said my uncle, pointing. ‘The
fairies only delivered it today, I haven’t got around to opening it yet. Help
yourself, dig in.’

Now there are some among
you, and you know who you are, who just
know
what’s coming next. And
churlish of me it would be to deny you your triumph. I could simply leave a
space at the bottom of the page for you to write it in yourself, but then that
would be to deny the others, who hadn’t seen it coming a mile off, and who
might cry, ‘Cop out ending!’

So here
it comes.

‘This pouch here?’ asked
Norman, spying out a large furry-looking purse-like thing with silver
attachments.

‘Yes,
that’s the one.

And of
course it was.

Norman
opened up the opening bit and peered inside.

‘Emeralds,’
he cried. ‘Emeralds the size of tennis balls.’

And in
he delved, most greedily.

And
then he said, ‘Hey, these aren’t emeralds, these are sprou— And snap went the
sporran of the Devil, gobbling him up with a single gulp and concluding with a
huge highland hogmanay of a belch.

‘Baaaaaaeeeeeuuuuugh!’
by the sound of it.

Uncle
Brian reclined upon his couch, blew upon his fingernails and buffed them on his
robe. ‘That will teach you, you bastard,’ said he. ‘Revenge is sweet, oh yes
indeed. Are my dancing girls there?’ And he clapped his hands.

Clap-clap.

And he
brought on the dancing girls.

This is
not, of course, the end of the story, but it’s all there is for now.

MURDER
IN DISTANT LANDS

A captive tribesman told to me

How many ships that went to sea

Wound up on ancient coral reefs,

Their crews devoured by wild beasts.

I used to lie awake and wonder

If what he said was true.

A captive tribesman said he saw

A twenty-masted man-of-war

Sail out from fair Atlantis Isle.

He said he stood and waved a while.

I used to sit for hours and wonder

If what he said was true.

A captive tribesman told me when

He and his fellows lived on men

They found washed up upon the shore.

He said he’d eaten five or more.

I used to gasp, my mouth wide open,

If what he said was true.

My father said the man was mad

And though I really trusted Dad

I thought about those pointed teeth

And how those sailors came to grief

And I am still inclined to think

That what he said was true.

3

THE
ALPHA MAN

‘Caricature
is the tribute that

mediocrity
pays genius.’

OSCAR WILDE

WHEN YOU ARE YOUNG AND
FOOLISH YOU BELIEVE THE THINGS YOU
are told. And why
should you not? You have yet to learn the terrible truth that most adults lie
most of the time.

Whether
the captive tribesman who lived in our shed told all of the truth, I do not
know. Certainly the tinker I sold him to, in exchange for five magic beans, was
not being altogether honest with me.

I
recall my dad saying that the tribesman was easily worth
six.

My
Uncle Felix told all of the truth. And it got him in trouble. He wasn’t my real
uncle, because his surname was Lemon.
[8]
And ours wasn’t (or isn’t). But we called him Uncle, because those were the
days when children called adults Mr or Mrs or Uncle or Aunty, and would no more
have thought of using their Christian names, than telling a lie.