The View from Mount Dog (8 page)

Nothing untoward happened for the best part of the day, however, and the spectators had all but lost hope of witnessing another historic intervention by this weird counter-athlete. Then just before the start of the final event, the men’s 4 x 400 metres relay, a figure whom everyone had taken for one more of the press corps was noticed assuming the increasingly familiar pugilistic stance on a level with the inside runner. By the time a thousand fingers had pointed and a thousand voices had mouthed his name it was too late to do anything. The starter’s gun fired, and Carney was off. This time, in deference to the need for disguise, he was wearing a bright green nylon anorak with the hood up, a complicated-looking camera bouncing on his chest; but there was not a soul present who did not recognise the twinkling black pumps, and a great cheer went up.

Carney kept pace with the lead sprinter, but it was obvious he was not exerting himself overmuch. Now and again he would pull out a lead of several paces and then glance back with a sympathetic shrug and allow himself to be caught up. By the time the first baton changed hands Carney was adjusting his speed to match that of the new leader, a powerful-looking blond German who tore away, stabbing the air with his baton. It was dawning on the spectators that Carney Palafox was planning to run the entire relay race solo
and
win. Every so often marshals would appear in his path on the outer edge of the green central oval, arms outstretched and shouting inaudibly; but each time Carney evaded them with deft footwork and the elusiveness of a rabbit. Just before the last baton change, however, a murmur began growing. The pace was evidently beginning to tell even on Carney Palafox. His twinkling feet were settling somewhat flatter on the turf; his head had begun to roll. As the leading team’s last sprinter took over from his exhausted colleague, Carney stopped dead. The cheers mixed relief with disappointment. He produced a handkerchief, mopped his brow, blew his
nose, glanced at his watch, shook his head and took off like a bullet. The cries became a roar.

It seemed certain he had overplayed it; the sprinter already had a fifty-metre lead. But to everybody’s amazement the gap decreased rapidly. From the stands above the track it was less as though a fast runner were being caught by a faster than that the man in the lead were being somehow
pulled
back
by what was on his heels. The weight of contempt which was implicit in every stride Carney took in his dancing shoes appeared to attach itself to the heels in front of him, slowing them down. With eighty metres to go Carney overhauled the man, glancing sideways at him as he did so like an anxious parent on school sports day worried about their child’s overdoing it, then shot past. He was far enough ahead at the finish to stop a few feet short and walk the rest, still crossing level with the line a metre or two in front of the winning East German. The crowd were hysterical.

Immediately after the games had ended Carney was mobbed when spotted trying to sneak out of the stadium. In return for the promise of an escorted passage home he condescended to give a short press conference. In a stuffy room behind the royal box he faced some of the world’s less distinguished sports correspondents who had been delegated to cover what had been supposed was a minor friendly fixture while the luminaries of the microphone were commenting on more prestigious events elsewhere. As it turned out, and thanks to the serendipity which watches over the careers of the undeserving, these correspondents – who were mostly either rookies working their way up or hacks drinking their way down – found themselves present at one of the more significant sporting interviews of the century.

It began as a bear-garden, a barrage of simultaneous questions which Carney sat out. Sometimes he glanced at his watch, sometimes at his pocket notebook. Once he took off one of the patent-leather pumps and studied the inside thoughtfully. Finally there was a lull. Then spontaneously it started again as each reporter tried to steal a march on his colleagues.

‘Mr Palafox, why did you take part in the games today when you had been officially replaced?’

‘Mr Palafox, what training have you had as an athlete?’

‘Do you have a special diet?’

‘Are you on anabolic steroids?’

‘Are you a member of a religious sect?’

‘Are you really forty-one?’

‘Who is your trainer?’

Carney raised a hand. The voices gradually subsided.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, and his voice was so quiet they had practically to stop breathing in order to hear him at all, ‘let me just give you the odd fact about myself. I will then answer a question or two providing they are sensible and then, I’m afraid, I’ll really have to be off; I have a cat to feed.

‘As to who I am, quite a lot of you will already have seen my name countless times on television, but only in the credits so it probably won’t have registered. As has been rumoured, I am a scriptwriter with the television company whose logo you see on the side of that camera there. If you wish to check further, I am the deviser of a series which I deeply regret is entitled
Up
Yours!
currently being shown on, I believe, Wednesday evenings, although I myself have never watched it. I am indeed forty-one years old. I do not smoke, I am not a homosexual, I detest all religions and especially Christianity, I despise the monarchy, I’m strongly against capital punishment and vehemently in favour of putting all pensioners back into useful employment at the earliest opportunity – possibly down the mines since most of the miners seem currently to be busy practising to be pensioners. Oh, and I’m fond of cats but not pathologically so. Does that help any?’

There had been some nervous laughter at these
sotto
voce
declarations. The correspondents were clearly unsettled by their interviewee’s twin roles as amateur sports phenomenon and professional comic writer: it seemed devilish hard to separate them out.

‘Can we quote you on all that, Mr Palafox?’ asked a voice. A look of exasperation crossed Carney’s face.

‘I understood that was the entire purpose of press conferences,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it would be easier if you went away and just made it all up as usual? Then I could go home.’

‘Mr Palafox,’ broke in another correspondent, ‘I think what a lot of people would like to know is where have you been all this time? Why do you decide now to make your extraordinary talents public?’

‘That’s a very reasonable question,’ said Carney. ‘Why, indeed? One of the answers would be that I have only lately had them revealed to me. Don’t,’ he said quickly, ‘don’t misinterpret me. Perhaps “revealed” is the wrong word since it smacks of
religious lunacy. The Holy Ghost did not pay me a personal visit in my bath one night and whisper to me divine revelations of gold medallions. More accurately, I suppose, I realised what I could do comparatively recently. I can tell you truthfully that it was running for a bus that convinced me, but you probably won’t believe it.’

‘But now, of course, you’ll concentrate on a sporting career?’

‘Good heavens, no; indeed, I shan’t. I have no interest whatever in sport of any kind, which I suppose is why it took me so long to discover I could do it.’

‘You can’t be serious, Mr Palafox. We believe you have three world records pending official confirmation and all in different events.’

‘I assure you I’m entirely serious.’

‘Could you comment on the suggestion that you’re in it for the money?’

‘Easily. I’m not “in it” and I’ve neither received nor wish to receive a solitary penny. I do what I do entirely for my own amusement. You may say I’m in it for laughs if you like.’

‘Is that why you wear the clothes you wear?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mr Palafox, one last question, sir: are you aware that in addition to the admiration you have aroused in taking on and beating top athletic performances at the age of forty-er, one, you must also be arousing considerable opposition and resentment by the way in which you have chosen to do it?’

‘I am.’

‘Would you say it amounted almost to a carefully planned insult aimed at the international sporting fraternity?’

‘Strike “almost”, as I believe they say in America.’

A clamour of voices among which a reasonable bass was heard to ask: ‘Whatever did they do to you to deserve it?’

‘Bored me rigid,’ said Carney Palafox succinctly, and the press conference was over.

*

He went back to the life of an itinerant hermit since his modest flat near Sadlers Wells was besieged night and day and Katie was constrained to shut the place and move in with friends, taking the cat with her. She toyed with the idea of beginning piano lessons.

‘What for?’ asked her friend. ‘Did Carney ever practise running?’

‘Carney
?
You know Carney, Beth. The very idea….’

‘Exactly. So it would be much better just to book the Festival Hall and go right in off the street wearing tennis clothes and play Tchaikovsky like he’s never been played before.’

Meanwhile Carney was wearying of dodging reporters. Besides, never having had to live the life of a celebrity, he was rather bad at it, although considerably helped by his all-purpose middle-aged appearance. He looked like Almost Anybody as played by the late Tony Hancock. Still, he often failed to elude the newshounds, and the papers seized on Carneyisms with relish. His views were, as they were fond of saying, ‘controversial’ and began to be eagerly sought on matters a long way from the sporting field. When asked to express an opinion about an imminent anti-nuclear demonstration which promised to close off much of central London for the day he said although he had no wish to be fried in any global holocaust he thought it highly undignified to winge in public about it. Death was only death, after all, and mass displays of cowardice were unedifying. It was quite unfashionable at the time to call the caring, sharing, Earth-Mother-of-four on a peace demo ‘chicken’ – not like a few years later – and his remarks led to howls of protest. It was bad enough, they suggested, that anyone as unspeakable as Carney Palafox should ever have emerged to cock a snook at the sporting pleasures of millions but far worse that he should thereby be accorded a public soap-box from which to air his monstrous views about the world in general.

One morning a priest with horn-rimmed spectacles entered the
Action
Replay
studios and asked to speak to Bob Struthers.

‘I’m afraid Mr Struthers is extremely busy at the moment, Bishop,’ said one of the clones. ‘Would someone else do?’

‘I am not a bishop, my son, merely a minor canon. Rather small beer, I’m afraid. Thank you for your offer, but I fear it must be Mr Struthers. If he will just speak to me for a moment, he will learn something to his immortal soul’s advantage.’

Eventually Bob Struthers appeared, a video-cassette in one hand and a preoccupied expression on his face. Track-suit confronted cassock.

‘If you’ve come to tell me you’re the world’s best pole-vaulter, I shall scream,’ he said.

‘But I am,’ said the priest. He removed the spectacles. ‘Father Carney would like an audience.’

‘Carney!’
cried Bob Struthers. ‘My God, man, where have you
been? Do you realise you’re the world’s most sought-after person? The phone here never stops ringing. “Who is his agent?” “How can we sign him up?” “Would a million dollars do?”’ He ushered Carney into his sanctum and shut the door. Curious faces pressed towards the glass from all sides.

‘The deal I want to make is once more very simple,’ said Carney, declining a can of No-Calorie Root Beer.

‘Name it. We’ll talk it over and then get some lawyers up. This is going to be big.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ Carney corrected him. ‘At least, probably not in the way you’re hoping. I’m afraid I don’t want a manager. But I do need an agent who’s in the sporting business and who can fix, er – what are they called nowadays? –
venues,
I think. Dreadful expression.’

‘You want to take part in some competitions? As a team member?’

‘Dear me, no.’

‘Just as well. I don’t think it would be easy. You’ve no idea how ironic it is. You’re currently the world’s hottest sporting property – or at any rate you’re in some insane class of your own – but I doubt anyone would let you into a team. Not only would you presumably refuse to conform in such matters as training, clothing and – dare I say it? – conduct, but I can’t imagine you’d find many people willing to compete with you. Or even against you. You make a mockery of it all, Carney, and that people can’t forgive. They might at a pinch put it all down to eccentric temperament – genius or something – if you were the world’s greatest at one particular thing. Then the only guys you’d really upset would be those directly involved in it. But to be that good at everything and still not give a damn and wear, God help us, tap-dancing shoes while doing it: nobody in the trade is about to overlook that.’

‘The expression you see on my face, Bob, is one of pure contrition. But I still feel I have a little way to go yet with my mission – a few more laughs to get. I want to set one or two more records before I get really bored and find something else to do. You can help arrange it just as you did at that dismal stadium the other day.’

Bob Struthers was nodding. ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘we can fix that’ – and his brain lobes were thudding with arithmetic. ‘Let’s see, the TV fees we could charge would be astronomical – we could cover our costs in the first five seconds of
bidding…. What about spectators?’

‘Oh, yes, lots of those. The more the merrier.’

‘Great, Carney. Entrance fees…. How much will your cut be, do you imagine? A ball-park figure?’

‘Nil.’

‘You mean
nothing
?’

‘I told you before, I don’t want money; I’m not doing it for money. I already make quite a decent amount out of my serials, you know.’

‘Yes, but no
money
…. It’s pretty weird. In fact it’s the most bizarre thing of all. Limitless talent and you refuse to capitalise on it.’

‘I’m laughing, Bob, that’s what you don’t understand. Deep inside I’m falling about.’

‘Well, that’s nice,’ said Bob Struthers, ‘but, OK, if that’s what you want. Now for the bad news, Carney. There’s going to have to be a
quid
pro
quo
on your part.’