Danny Yates Must Die

Danny Yates Must Die Stephen Walker You have never read anything like this in your life. A truly remarkable comic debut.If you put Mel Brooks, Eddie Izzard, Spike Milligan, and Salvador Dali around a table in an enclosed room with no lights and a few cylinders of Nitrous Oxide fizzing away in the corner and asked them to write a book, they might have come up with Danny Yates Must Die. But why bother when Stephen Walker can do it unaided?It follows the adventures of sad Danny Yates on the run from the Great Osmosis, formerly a failed magician, now a rapacious landlord with a bucket permanently attached to his head. Along the way, Danny meets up with:• Teena Rama, a scientist so beautiful she has to sedate people to stop them falling in love with her• a gang of nuns who know wonderful songs about sea-horsies• a giant alien ant intent on world domination with his fledgling army of one earwig and one cockroach (both dead)• his only friend Lucy who point-blank refuses to help him in any way because she’s still cataloguing all the possible permutations of breast shape, weight, nipple structure and directional swing that exist within the human species. Danny Yates Must Die Stephen Walker Copyright (#ulink_c91a7321-21c4-5c66-9269-20324ac1bed0) Voyager An Imprint of HarperColllinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.voyager-books.com (http://www.voyager-books.com) A Paperback Original 1999 Copyright © Stephen Walker, 1999 The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks. Source ISBN: 9780006483809 Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007400874 Version: 2015-12-14 For nice people everywhere CONTENTS Cover (#u5303ab80-7888-57e6-82d4-4aded0e5519e) Title Page (#u79bae9f1-a6af-5c09-9549-656bfc564ff7) Copyright (#ud89767c6-66ef-5f2f-be5f-653961601c3c) Dedication (#u5c2065d8-65db-55cf-af03-162cda1d9f86) one (#ud749cee5-016f-5e6c-ba4d-51d8f9097111) two (#u021fe901-1366-5220-bc6f-e6f21c7dd86c) three (#u305e6d9d-28ec-5f4e-900e-c267fe549549) four (#u9ff0098e-701b-5ca5-b812-b2108c807516) five (#u548e030e-af72-5e45-9a19-09dfef69e0f9) six (#u29230937-7248-557b-8d8b-884747bf0569) seven (#u666b8d07-2fd3-5473-a219-9c169dc0b843) eight (#u335bf3aa-94cf-5db0-86a5-a5221557fbd3) nine (#ub412f53c-2ed1-5198-ada4-ec2f98d6f0da) ten (#uddc98c22-5bb1-5e88-84c2-3bf28e096c47) eleven (#ub05c74d2-1203-50ca-877f-e26c78dc4523) twelve (#u2b043f93-3bc1-545f-b5ab-14d31d92515d) thirteen (#litres_trial_promo) fourteen (#litres_trial_promo) fifteen (#litres_trial_promo) sixteen (#litres_trial_promo) seventeen (#litres_trial_promo) eighteen (#litres_trial_promo) nineteen (#litres_trial_promo) twenty (#litres_trial_promo) twenty-one (#litres_trial_promo) twenty-two (#litres_trial_promo) twenty-three (#litres_trial_promo) twenty-four (#litres_trial_promo) twenty-five (#litres_trial_promo) twenty-six (#litres_trial_promo) twenty-seven (#litres_trial_promo) twenty-eight (#litres_trial_promo) twenty-nine (#litres_trial_promo) thirty (#litres_trial_promo) thirty-one (#litres_trial_promo) thirty-two (#litres_trial_promo) thirty-three (#litres_trial_promo) thirty-four (#litres_trial_promo) thirty-five (#litres_trial_promo) thirty-six (#litres_trial_promo) thirty-seven (#litres_trial_promo) thirty-eight (#litres_trial_promo) thirty-nine (#litres_trial_promo) forty (#litres_trial_promo) forty-one (#litres_trial_promo) forty-two (#litres_trial_promo) forty-three (#litres_trial_promo) forty-four (#litres_trial_promo) forty-five (#litres_trial_promo) forty-six (#litres_trial_promo) forty-seven (#litres_trial_promo) forty-eight (#litres_trial_promo) forty-nine (#litres_trial_promo) fifty (#litres_trial_promo) fifty-one (#litres_trial_promo) fifty-two (#litres_trial_promo) fifty-three (#litres_trial_promo) fifty-four (#litres_trial_promo) fifty-five (#litres_trial_promo) fifty-six (#litres_trial_promo) fifty-seven (#litres_trial_promo) fifty-eight (#litres_trial_promo) fifty-nine (#litres_trial_promo) sixty (#litres_trial_promo) sixty-one (#litres_trial_promo) sixty-two (#litres_trial_promo) sixty-three (#litres_trial_promo) sixty-four (#litres_trial_promo) sixty-five (#litres_trial_promo) sixty-six (#litres_trial_promo) sixty-seven (#litres_trial_promo) sixty-eight (#litres_trial_promo) sixty-nine (#litres_trial_promo) Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) By Stephen Walker (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) one (#ulink_a092c155-8c99-5ed7-b8ac-e9a3ddd47008) ‘Just look at that; Superman’s breaking twenty-eight laws of physics. And it’s not even noon yet.’ ‘Doesn’t bother me. I’ll be dead within fifteen minutes.’ Teena Rama raised a Dan Dare eyebrow. She stood in a doorway, looking across a tiny shop at a boy up a ladder. His back to her, T-shirt half hanging out, he stapled comic books to a wall, finding an assassinal rhythm any supervillain would envy. Kerchung. There went Superman. Kerchung. There went Spiderman. Kerchung. There went Batman. A Doc Marten back-heeling the door shut, she clomped down three wooden steps then browsed among tight aisles of comics, model kits and ‘cult collectables’. ‘So,’ she asked, ‘how do you reckon you’ll be dead within fifteen minutes?’ Kerchung. ‘This is an industrial stapler,’ he said, ‘used for fastening tank parts together. It’s unbelievably dangerous in the wrong hands.’ ‘And are yours the wrong hands?” ‘Completely. By the time I’ve finished stapling the most expensive stock to the walls, there’ll be so many holes around the entire place’ll collapse.’ ‘So hadn’t you better stop?’ ‘I don’t want to. That’s what three years working here does to a man.’ ‘It doesn’t seem that bad,’ she said. ‘Do you have nightmares?’ he said. ‘Never.’ She took a battered paperback from a rack by the window: Herbolt Myson, Victorian Sleuth. While speed reading it, she told the boy, ‘I have a recurring dream about an angel dispensing knowledge to the peoples of the world, who are all like children not understanding the simplest of concepts. I try to see her face, knowing she must be the most beautiful thing in Creation, but can’t get her to look at me. Then, just as I’m waking, she turns my way.’ ‘And?’ ‘And she’s me.’ She returned Herbolt Myson to his rack, after three chapters, deducing the Pennine Hell Hound to be Sir Charnwick Hoyle in a five-shilling dogsuit bought from Mlle Beauvoir’s theatrical costumiers. When she abandoned the tale, Myson was still pondering the odd nature of the hound’s woofing; quite unlike any Hell Hound he’d ever encountered. She glanced across at the boy. He still had his back to her. She said, ‘You do know you’re allowed to look at me?’ ‘I won’t be looking at you at any point in this conversation.’ ‘Because?’ ‘No offence, but you’re bound to be gruesome.’ She inspected one of her dreadlocks. It needed re-dyeing. ‘I suppose I could have made more effort with my appearance today.’ Then she flicked it aside. ‘But it never occurred to me that any man I’d meet in a comic shop could afford to be choosy.’ ‘I have a nightmare,’ said the boy. ‘It’s about shelves. I’m here, stock taking, and the racks come to life – oh quietly at first, so I don’t notice. And as I work, they creep up on me, nudging each other with wooden elbows, sniggering stupidly among themselves. Then one taps me on the shoulder. I turn. And they’re encircling me, like Pink Elephants on Parade. They close in on me, crushing me, smothering me, falling on me, killing me. And I wake, screaming, to discover I was awake all along. Well; today I’m killing that dream.’ ‘Even if it means killing yourself?’ Kerchung. ‘Have you considered a holiday?’ she asked. ‘They come along with me.’ ‘Who do?’ ‘Shelves – on holiday.’ ‘But not really?’ ‘Yes, really. I sit on the coach, looking forward to a good time, then I look around. And they’re filling all the other seats, reading newspapers, smoking pipes, one leg flung over the other. Little baby shelves kick the back of the seats in front and get told off by their mother shelves.’ ‘I see.’ Choosing to lighten the subject matter, she pulled a comic from a low rack. ‘How much is this Fish Man. He Swims?’ ‘One pound seventy-five.’ ‘And this Hormonal Fifty?’ ‘One pound seventy-five.’ ‘And The Human Leech?’ ‘One seventy-five.’ She placed them back on the rack, none containing the information she needed. On tiptoes she scanned the rack’s upper reaches. ‘None of your stock seems to have a price tag.’ ‘Osmo’s orders. He says, “Daniel, my dear boy, we are tigers in the jungles of commerce. Customers are our prey. Keep them confused, disorientated. Show a dapple of movement through the trees here, a dapple there. Keep them guessing. When they are suitably frightened, pounce.” ’ ‘Osmo?’ ‘The Great Osmosis, my boss and landlord. He models himself on El Dritch, Menacing Master of Mirage from Man Fish. He Breathes.’ ‘Don’t you mean Fish Man. He Swims?’ She referred to the comic she’d just studied, being a stranger to such things. ‘No; Man Fish. He Breathes. Fish Man was half man, half fish. Man Fish is half fish, half man. You can’t confuse the two, it’s in the swim bladders. Osmo won’t stock Man Fish because Man Fish always beats El Dritch.’ ‘Sounds a well-balanced individual,’ she said. ‘Osmo wears a bucket over his head, with smoke pouring from the eye holes. He appears from nowhere, checks for dust, delivers lofty, muffled orders then disappears in a cloud of smog. God knows why he takes so much interest in a dump like this when he has his fingers in every pie in town.’ ‘I believe I’ve had dealings with him.’ ‘Then you know what a pillock he is.’ Now she was by his step ladder. Knuckles on hips, lower lip jutted, she gazed up at him. Kerchung. How old was he? Nineteen? No age at all to die, but still a year older than her, and she’d packed a lifetime into her eighteen years. ‘He seemed a little smarmy,’ she said of the Great Osmosis, ‘but otherwise okay.’ ‘That’s because you’ve never had to endure a lunch hour with him.’ A comic fell from the ladder, hitting the floor. She scooped it up. Strolling through the aisles, she flicked through pages that looked as though someone had wiped his trainers on them. Like extinguishing birthday cake candles, she blew dusty marks from paper. ‘How much is this one?’ ‘What is it?’ ‘Mr Meekly.’ ‘Never heard of it,’ he said. She read out the front page blurb. It informed them that Mr Meekly, 45, a man in a brown suit, was responsible for handing out tax refunds. Alone among his colleagues, he delighted in redistributing money to the populace. And he was famous for it. Upon spotting his approach, women would lean out through their bedroom windows, asking, ‘Why, Mr Meekly, are you coming to my house?’ And he’d say, ‘Yes, Madam, I am,’ even if he wasn’t, because the more money he handed out, the better he felt. And, excited, they’d rush to the door, still in their night wear, inviting him in for a cup of tea. And, though tea was all he ever received, he was content with that. One day, a call arrived. He was sent to Future City’s new Atomic Underground. The underground was vital for the city to compete with Tomorrowville’s nuclear taxis, it was claimed. Some saw a more sinister purpose. They said there was no such thing as a nuclear taxi, although they could never prove it in televised debate. The underground was still under construction when Meekly arrived. At the entrance, the foreman warned him it might be unsafe to enter the building site. ‘Nonsense,’ said the taxman. ‘A man in there deserves his money, and his money he shall get.’ So the foreman handed him a yellow helmet, two sizes too large, patted it on ‘tight’ and sent him through a gauntlet of environmental protesters. Thrown house bricks bounced off that helmet. It was a good helmet, a life saver. Meekly climbed the barriers then descended into the bowels of the Earth. Briefcase in hand, he made his way down dusty tunnels, giving the occasional polite cough. Emerging onto the dimly lit platform, he spotted the man he wanted. Mike Mionman, 26, knelt – his back turned to Meekly – riveting square things to a wall. Meekly stood still. He removed his shoes, one at a time, placing them neatly to one side, then tiptoed up behind the man, smiling, anticipating the look Mionman’s face would adopt upon seeing the cash laden case. But then … … Disaster. A child was loose on the platform. Panicking, oversized helmet falling over his eyes, Meekly staggered around, arms outstretched before him, and toppled onto the track, as the Atom Bomb powered train approached on its final test run. He took the full force. Against all odds, Mr Meekly survived the collision; Future City did not. And the radiation did things to his blood. ‘Now,’ read Teena, ‘when exposed to travel delays, rude staff or ill-considered town planning, Mr Meekly becomes the Human Tube Line, powerful as an Atom Bomb, obdurate as a ticket collector, stupid as the fascist government’s love of private roads when we should be travelling by bicycles or Out Of Body Experience as taught us by the Inuit.’ She closed the comic, pulling a face she felt to be appropriate. ‘Eco crap,’ said the boy. ‘In the early ‘90s, someone decided ecology’d be the next big thing in comics – that and talking turtles. Now do you see why I hate working here? All eco titles are a hundred and thirty-five pounds, sixty-eight pence.’ It stopped her in her tracks. ‘A hundred and thirty-five …?’ ‘Osmo’s orders; “Daniel, the only people who care about the environment are those who can afford to avoid it. Charge them extra. If they don’t complain, add VAT.” ‘I see,’ she said, not seeing. ‘Well, I’ll take it anyway. In fact, I’d like to order every back-issue of Mr Meekly, and any other comic in which he’s ever appeared.’ ‘You do know that might be hundreds of issues, each at a hundred and thirty-five pounds?’ ‘Believe me they’ll be more than worth it. Can you have them delivered?’ ‘No.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘I’ll be dead. Osmo could deliver them. Just write your details in the counter’s order book. I’m sure he’ll find it in the rubble. It’ll be the first thing he looks for.’ The implication of that comment was not lost on her. Rolling the comic up, she strode across the shop, and stopped at the foot of his ladder. Fists on hips, she looked up. And she said strongly, ‘Excuse me.’ Kerchung. ‘I said excuse me.’ And she gave a forceful tug at one leg of his tatty jeans. Danny Yates broke off from stapling, sighing loudly, eyes cast heavenward. Without turning to face this interloper, he knew what to expert. They’d enter the shop, drab little things in black, usually dragged along, passive as wet rags, by equally dull boyfriends. But girls who came alone were the worst, unable to see the horror of the shelves. ‘Gosh. How lucky you must feel,’ they’d say, ‘to be surrounded by this escapism all day long.’ And they’d leave without knowing the scars that one sentence had left on him. Again the girl tugged as though trying to pull his jeans off. So Danny Yates looked down from his ladder … … and almost fell off with shock. ‘Hello.’ She sparkled. ‘My name’s Teena; Teena Rama.’ Cleopatra-painted eyes lowered to his lower portions, drilled into them with medical efficiency then returned to his eyes. A perfectly proportioned hand extended for him to shake, the girl saying, ‘And judging by the rapidly swelling lump in your trousers, you’ve just found a reason to live.’ two (#ulink_93285e64-f07f-5364-bdd5-76d229641149) Then the building collapsed. three (#ulink_1f667604-83f8-5bd6-9708-edf1ddc6207b) Lucy said hi. Danny woke, to find his flatmate sat doing piranha impressions by his bedside. The twenty-one-year-old wore a second-hand Bay City Rollers T-shirt. Beneath each Roller’s nose she’d marker penned a Hitler moustache. Fresh Faced Roller had two. Bad Hair Day Roller had three; one for his nose, one in place of each eyebrow. Roller Who’s Name No one Remembers had no moustache; Lucy’s pen had run out by then. Explaining to Danny who the Rollers were, she’d once named them as, Uncle Bulgaria, Orinoco, ‘A couple of others,’ and Madam Choulet. They wandered around Wimbledon Fortnight tidying things up when no one had asked them to, and were therefore like your mother. Danny’d always felt she’d got it wrong somewhere. She flicked a peanut in the air, mouth catching it, head stationary, her tongue clicking on contact. Cold, forward gazing eyes – and lower jaw jutting to catch each nut – gave the killer fish effect. But it was how he’d always seen her. ‘Fancy a peanut?’ she asked, not tipping her giant-size bag his way. ‘I’m allergic to peanuts,’ he said, still weak. ‘Oh, yeah.’ She chewed. ‘So you are. You’d’ve thought I’d have considered that before buying them you.’ She sounded as though she had. ‘Where am I?’ he asked. ‘Looks like a chip shop to me.’ Flick. Click. Groggy, he looked around at jade coloured walls, at doctors, nurses, trolleys, opened screens, closed screens and beds. A machine by his side blipped. A clear plastic tube fed purple liquid into his arm. This isn’t the hospital they usually take me to.’ ‘Nah,’ she said. ‘This was your first calamity in the north west of town, so they brought you here. Congratulations, you’ve now had life or death surgery in each of Wheatley’s four big hospitals. How does it feel?’ ‘Wheatley General?’ Again he looked around, this time seeing danger everywhere; behind those screens, in those beds, in that adjacent corridor which had no door to separate it from this recklessly open ward. ‘Yup.’ Lucy confirmed the location. ‘But this is Boggy Bill territory.’ ‘Yeah,’ she snorted, the ring through her pointy nose glinting. ‘The laughs I’ve had over that video on those Sad but True shows.’ ‘But what if he knows I’m here?’ Heart thumping, he sat up, throwing back the sheets. He looked at the floor for his shoes. His clothes, where had they put his clothes? ‘I’ve got to get out of here before …’ ‘Lie down.’ She pushed him back down onto the bed then held him there, ‘You’re going nowhere till the doctor’s seen you.’ ‘But …’ Again he tried to rise. And again she stopped him, either not understanding or not caring about the situation’s urgency. Hard grey eyes stared into his. She gave her, ‘Don’t argue with me, Daniel,’ look. He stopped resisting, and she reclaimed her seat, pulling it closer to his bed. It scraped over tiles, making a noise like a braking lorry. The ward’s other occupants looked at her then returned to their own concerns. She ignored them, retrieving the peanut bag from the floor, where she’d dropped it. And she asked, ‘Why would he come for you? I’m sorry to break the news to you but I’m sure there’s better people in this place to bump off.’ ‘Like who?’ ‘Like the Financial Director. If I was Boggy Bill, he’d be the first to go. Jesus, I’m not even Boggy Bill and I want to punch that bloke’s lights out. And is the Financial Director dead? No. He’s in the car park, walking his Dougal dog.’ ‘But you’d like to punch everyone,’ said Danny. ‘Boggy Bill picks his targets with surgical precision, planning for months ahead, biding his time, awaiting the right moment to burst from the trees and grab you.’ She frowned. ‘Boggy Bill does?’ ‘All the time.’ ‘The Wheatley Bigfoot?’ ‘The Wheatley Bigfoot.’ ‘A creature with only one word in its vocabulary?’ ‘Yes,’ he tried to make dwindling conviction sound like growing conviction. ‘And that word is …?’ ‘We don’t need to go into that.’ ‘Yes we do, Daniel.’ He shuffled slightly in his bed, turning red, finally saying the words, ‘Tamba-lulu.’ ‘Tamba-lulu. And what does that mean, Daniel?’ ‘No one knows.’ ‘Do you think Boggy Bill knows?’ she asked cynically. ‘No one knows.’ ‘And that’s a cunning planner of revenges, is it?’ ‘Don’t mistake a lack of formal education for stupidity.’ ‘Are we talking him or you?’ Shaking the bag, she emptied a handful of nuts into her palm then swallowed them. ‘Do you reckon Boggy Bill’s cross-eyed? He sounds the type of monster who would be.’ ‘He’s no laughing matter for some of us, Lucy.’ ‘So why would he choose you as his prime target?’ ‘Because of my brother.’ ‘And how would he know who your brother is?’ ‘He’d know.’ He glanced round meaningfully, as though the thing was about to leap out from behind a closed screen or appear in the doorway, cunningly disguised as a nurse come to administer his bed bath. His blood froze solid at the realization that he’d been lying there for God knew how long, and at any time. Bill could have walked right in and torn his head off, giving its blood curdling cry of, ‘Tamba-lulu?’ which could be frightening, if uttered while your head was being bashed against a wall. ‘Danny, you’ve been here all this time. If he was coming for you, he’d have done it by now. I refuse to believe he’s blessed with patience, even if he did exist, which he doesn’t.’ ‘He exists alright. Brian assured me.’ ‘And if your brother said the world was hollow and inhabited by a secret sect of Aztec rabbits?’ ‘He did.’ ‘He did?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘When?’ ‘In a letter yester … I mean the day before my “accident”. He felt someone should know the truth, in case the rabbits came for him with their obsidian blades.’ ‘And you believed him?’ ‘Not necessarily,’ he conceded grudgingly. ‘Brian may have a tendency to fantasize. But I like to keep an open mind. And let’s face it, if anyone’d know the world was hollow, he would. Brian’s been everywhere.’ ‘Everywhere except the planet Earth.’ Flick. Click. Danny scanned the walls for a calendar. There wasn’t one. A clock on the far wall told him it was 2:30 in the afternoon but not which afternoon. ‘How long have I been here? I was in the–’ ‘Six months.’ She consumed half the peanuts in one go. ‘Six months?’ he said in disbelief. ‘Pretty cool, huh?’ Munch munch munch. ‘I never knew anyone who’d been in a coma before – least, not for six months.’ Swallow. ‘Course, my flatmate before you – Keith – he was dead. But who could tell? But you, Danny, you’ve gone for it big time. Me, I’m proud of you. I may not look it but I am.’ ‘Six months?’ ‘Everyone at Poly wants to meet you, especially Annette Helstrang from Occult Pathology. She wants to dissect you; after you die, of course. Remember Annette Helstrang?’ He didn’t; and didn’t want to. ‘You met her once. She frightened you. She dissected Keith, put him in this hu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u--u-uge pickling jar.’ Lucy did a full stretch One That Got Away gesture. ‘Then she put him on display in her living room. She did a great job. You should see him, Dan. He never looked better.’ ‘And for six months you’ve sat here, waiting for me to recover? Lucy, I don’t know what to say.’ Visions of Blackfriars Bob frisked, waggy tailed, in his head. And it had taken something like this for Lucy’s true feelings to show through? Her lies and insults, the practical jokes that only she found funny, her over pushiness, her casual fraud and theft, they didn’t mean a thing, not really, not when it mattered. And maybe the two of them could have a future as flatmates, one that didn’t involve her always trying to trample all over him whenever she was in a bad mood. He took her non-peanut-flicking hand, squeezing it tight. ‘Thanks, Luce. I won’t forget this.’ She snatched her hand away. ‘Yeah; like I’ve nothing better to do than sit around waiting for you. I told you when you first moved in with me; don’t expect me to run round after you just coz I’m a woman; no washing for you, no ironing, no cooking. Coma watching was out too. Don’t believe me? Check the contract.’ ‘But, then …?’ ‘I only just found out you were missing. The hospital got in touch. You’d been plain “Anonymous” till two hours ago. I suppose that’s nothing new for you. You started muttering my name and address. They figured you probably weren’t, “That cow Lucy Smith,” so they called me. Anyhow, I thought I’d better come round and see you.’ She flicked another nut. He frowned at her. ‘You didn’t notice I was missing for six months?’ She shrugged. ‘Osmo said something about it a few times but, I dunno, I suppose I wasn’t listening. Maybe there was something more interesting on TV; Home and Away or something.’ Danny was beginning to recall something. ‘There was a girl at the shop …’ ‘With spotty hair?’ ‘Tangerine,’ he corrected. ‘Huh?’ ‘Tangerine; tangerine dreadlocks, big thick ones with lemon polka dots.’ ‘Whatever.’ Flick. Click. ‘She’s dead.’ ‘What!?!’ ‘You killed her, Danny. The building fell right on her, squashed her like a polka dot lemon. It was only coz she’d thrown herself over you that you survived.’ Danny stared, numb, at the ceiling. In his mind’s eye it gave way; just a crack at first, a tiny thing spreading, like black lightning, from one wall to the other. Then it was a torrent of falling masonry, chunk by heartless chunk beating the life from the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen – as though hurled by a mad god lacking the sense to know who should live and who should die. This couldn’t be right. He thought she’d have time to get out before the building collapsed, leaving him to face the fate he now knew he deserved. Deserved because she was lovely and brave and witty and clever – and innumerable other things he’d never know about her – while he was nothing. What was he supposed to do now, with a life that had been spared for no reason? He didn’t know. He just knew he felt empty and stupid and useless. Most of all he felt nothing because he didn’t know what to feel. And that was what he hated himself for most. Croaky voiced he asked, ‘How did she …? ’ ‘How did she get home? She walked.’ ‘What?’ ‘She walked. You know, used her legs. Maybe she got the bus later. I dunno.’ ‘How could she walk if she was dead?’ he asked, completely lost. ‘She’s not dead.’ ‘You just said she was.’ ‘I lied.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Teach you a lesson.’ ‘What lesson?’ ‘Not to go demolishing buildings on young ladies. In case your mother never told you, it’s bad manners.’ @!%%$*@@&$*!!! ‘So, what the hell happened to her?’ ‘According to the emergency services, when they reached the scene, she was with you. She’d dragged you from the rubble, given you mouth to mouth, performed emergency surgery with her credit card and boot laces, then kept you going with heart massage till they arrived. Seems she’s some sort of hotshot doctor.’ Lucy retrieved a Gladstone bag from by her feet, placing it on her lap. Click, she opened it, pulling out a sheet of paper. ‘On my way in I grilled the ambulance crew in question. They had a little trouble – her having been fully clothed when they met her – but, using hypno-regression, I got ‘em to construct this photofit of her chest. It’s a bit vague but I think it captures the essence.’ She studied it further. They’re pretty good, though way too small for my purposes.’ And she held the picture for him to see. Indistinct, it reminded him of the flying saucer photos which sometimes appeared in The Wheatley Advertiser, only the exhibitor seeing in them what they purported to depict. Lucy pointed out assumed areas of interest. ‘As you can see, they’re equally perky, which is unusual. Normally one’s perkier than the other. Why do you reckon that is?’ He shrugged blankly. ‘Of course no photofit’s entirely reliable. I’ll need to get some proper pictures.’ She made a note, paper on lap. Lank, green hair hanging over one eye, she murmured along as her biro wrote; ‘One … must be … as perky as … the other.’ The pen stabbed a full stop. She slotted the photofit back into the Gladstone, clicking it shut, placing it by her feet. Danny contemplated the girl’s use of mouth to mouth resuscitation. ‘She kissed me?’ Lucy stuck the pen behind her left ear. ‘Only coz she had to. I’m sure she must’ve pulled a face while doing it. Anyway, how are you? You okay?’ ‘I think so.’ He mentally checked; toes, feet, legs, fingers, arms, neck, head. There was no discomfort nor disconcerting numbnesses. The small of his back itched. He scratched it. It wouldn’t go away but that was all right, itching rarely happened to dead people. ‘I feel a bit weak,’ he said, finally finding something to complain about. The tube in his arm slurped. He looked at it, concerned. ‘Lucy?’ ‘Yup?’ ‘What’s that liquid?’ She pointed at it. ‘This?’ ‘Yeah.’ Leaning forward she scrutinized the tube. She unhooked it from his arm, stuck one end in her mouth and took a long hard suck on it that gurgled like a straw drawing on the bottom of a near empty glass. She reaffixed it to the tap on his arm. He stared at the tap. He stared at his flatmate, horrified by what she’d just done. ‘Ribena,’ she shrugged and, bag in hand, left – swiping someone’s grapes on her way. Danny frowned at the tube. Ribena? Boggy Bill had been replacing his blood with Ribena? four (#ulink_480440f1-c48c-56e6-8598-a40961cac527) The Great Osmosis appeared from thin air, late afternoon, accompanied by billowing smoke and the opening chord of the Beatles’ Her Majesty. His stage magician’s cape swirled melodramatically. Thunderous black fumes belched from his bucket’s eye slits. When Danny stopped coughing, following the smoke’s dispersal to all quarters of the hospital, the esoteric entrepreneur slammed a grocery box down onto the boy’s chest and boomed, ‘Oh, perfidious betrayal!’ Another cloud swallowed the man. And, with a final flourish, he was gone. Coughing one last cough, Danny tipped the box toward him for a better look. Its contents rattled. This was trouble. Big trouble. The Dr Doom Detection Pen was a cheap, see-through biro available at any stationer’s. It didn’t even write properly, failing on every other word. And the snot-green mug with the not-quite-on-right handle and full length crack? In what way could it ever be connected with the Green Hornet? The Deluxe Spiderman Webbing (snare any villain in seconds) was sellotape. But not good sellotape. Danny dropped the biro back into the grocery box, with the rest of the junk. It was his property – Osmosis had always insisted – freebies from a sales rep who’d arrive once a month, dispense rubbish then depart without selling a single comic. And there were the rats, two. He’d rescued them from the broom of the girl who ran the takeaway next door. She’d screamed hysterically when told he’d be keeping them because he’d felt all shops should have a pet. Each rat had had a five-pound note in its mouth, as though they’d entered the takeaway planning to buy a meal. Osmosis had pooh-poohed the idea. ‘Daniel, my boy, rats rarely appreciate the value of money.’ Regardless, Danny had put the notes in a piggy bank on the counter, doing it in front of them so they’d know where it was should they need it. Now he checked the grocery box. Inevitably Osmosis hadn’t returned the money with the rats. In the box, their noses twitched up at him. And he knew they deserved better than being squashed by broom heads, or having their money stolen by over-theatrical shop owners, or being unacceptable in hospitals when cuter animals would be welcomed as therapeutic. Right! That was it. He looked around. No one was watching. Sitting up, he placed the rats on his lap. Tearing four thin strips from the box, he bit required lengths from the ‘Spiderman Webbing’, and taped cardboard to rodent ears. He pressed their new, longer ears on securely, to resist high winds. There. That was better. Now they were rabbits. Blam! Danny jumped. Blam! Danny jumped. Blam! Danny jumped. Blam! Someone was firing a shotgun in the nearby woods. Another fired, then another, and another, till it became a chorus of hastily discharged pellets, each blast nearer than the one before. And Danny knew all too well what it meant. No time to waste, he placed his rattits back in their box, giving them one final stroke. Then he looked around to see if anyone official looking was watching. They weren’t. Since he’d awoken, not one member of staff had paid the slightest attention to him. Initially they’d all been gathered around the bed by the door, watching its occupant perform his card tricks. Their presence had deterred Danny from trying to leave. But, fifteen minutes after the card trick man’s death, they’d finally realized there’d be no more tricks from him and all the prodding in the world wasn’t going to change that. So, bored, they’d gravitated to the bed furthest from the door. That was his chance. Now the man in the bed furthest from the door was showing them his magic tricks. Constantly smiling he produced doves from nowhere and threw them into the air. In mid flutter they transformed into much needed medical supplies which clattered to the floor around him, whereupon he donated them to the hospital. The act elicited gasps and applause from the entranced nurses, doctors, surgeons and accountants. The man didn’t even have the decency to look as unhealthy as Danny looked when healthy. But Danny’d figured it out; in this hospital, attention given related directly to entertainment value. Good; because Danny Yates had no entertainment value. He leaned to one side and placed the rattits’ box on the floor. Now the man produced bunches of flowers from behind a doctor’s ear, handing them out to delighted nurses who sniffed at them and blushed coyly – even the male nurses. Now he handed flowers to the surgeons. And they blushed more than anyone. Danny turned off the tap attached to his arm. He unplugged it then carefully slid it free of his vein, relieved to see the limb didn’t become an opened sluice discharging liquid by the gallon. He licked the one drop of purple liquid that formed on his arm where the tube had been. It was Ribena. Throwing back the sheets, he climbed from the bed as more applause erupted behind him. A small cabinet stood by his bed head. Inside, he found his clothes folded into a neat pile, trainers on top. Casting furtive glances over his shoulder, grocery box and clothing in his arms, the unnoticeable Danny Yates made his escape, as the world’s most entertaining patient sawed himself in half. five (#ulink_7d56c657-9ff5-56e1-ae3e-a75c876c03e5) The Great Osmosis sat in the dressing room of a closed down Working Men’s Club. Where once he’d heard the babble of club members awaiting the next act, he now heard silence. And it didn’t matter. He no longer needed the applause of fools. Holding his bucket steady on his head, he sat before the huge wall mirror. With the softest of cloths he polished his precious pail. When that pail gleamed with all the vigour of Lancelot’s armour, he put aside the cloth. He placed the lid on the polish. He twisted tight its tiny latch. And he leaned forward, eyes narrowing to better admire the bucket. In that mirror’s cracked reflections he glimpsed the past … … March 28th, 1984. In that club, a novice magician donned his white gloves and marked his debut by making his pretty young wife disappear. He’d been trying to saw her in half. Confused, but hiding his desperation, he looked beneath the cabinet. He looked above it. He checked either side of it. He checked inside it. He checked beneath the curtains. He checked above the curtains. Still he found no sign of her. Accompanied by boos, jeers and beer glasses hurled from the audience, he fled the stage, in tears. When he got backstage and sobbed against the wall, what did he see by the fire extinguisher? Nothing less than his new bride kissing the club secretary. She spotted him. She threw back her head and laughed. Days later, jobless and wifeless, he sat by the ring road and cried into a bucket – the only thing that could never betray him. And he knew what he must do. He stood up, donned that faithful bucket so he wouldn’t see the onrushing traffic, and said goodbye to the world. He stepped forward. But, as he was about to step into the road, a miracle happened. A comic book blew onto his bucket. It was Man Fish, the last ever issue, where the soon-to-retire artist had finally granted El Dritch his deserved victory. Oh the writer had tried to hide Man Fish’s defeat, with captions that claimed being torn in half, and squashed by a mountain, was part of Man Fish’s master plan. Osmosis knew better. His new career began with the founding of a small comic shop on that very site. He kept it spotless. Herbolt Myson was added to the stock, then model kits, then posters; all things that in childhood had given Osmosis hope of escape. And a new dream was born … … But now a boy threatened that dream. He’d destroyed the shop, the very foundation of Osmosis’ empire. What if he should strike at other parts of that kingdom; the tenements, the skyscraper, the munitions works? An empire cannot stand without foundations. And, as he gazed into that mirror, Osmosis again knew what must be done. Danny Yates must die. ‘Danny? What’re you doing here?’ Lucy stood at the far end of the hallway, in boxer shorts and a vest, holding a TV set. Hair dangling over one eye, she gave a shapeless grin. Danny stood just inside the flat’s opened front door. ‘This is my home too – in case you hadn’t noticed.’ Carrying the TV into his bedroom, she called through to him. ‘Used to be your home. The Great Osmo materialized ten minutes ago. As of the moment you left hospital, you no longer lived here. Of course, technically, you’ve not lived here for the last six months, but your lease was still valid, so he’s been debiting rent from your bank regardless. Did he mention that during his visit?’ Teeth grinding, Danny dug his fingernails, talon-like, into the sides of the grocery box he held pressed against his chest. Lucy explained: ‘At first he did it coz he thought it’d be what you’d have wanted had you lived, sort of a memorial. Then, when he discovered you had lived, he just plain emptied your account and went on holiday with it. I’ve never seen him so angry.’ Her head popped round the door; ‘If I were you, Daniel, I would not go round to complain,’ then popped back again. Her voice receded deeper into his bedroom. ‘Anyway, he’s given me your room. Is this your wardrobe? Or did it come with the flat? If it’s not yours, bags it’s mine.’ ‘Lucy, how could you do this to me? I thought we were friends. Well, no, I never thought we were friends but …’ ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said against the swish of coat hangers being test driven along wardrobe rails. ‘There’s nothing personal in this but you know I’ve always wanted this room. I’m a growing girl, Danny, or intend to be. Once I’ve had my breast implants, I won’t even be able to get through my old room’s door.’ ‘You’re not really going through with that?’ ‘Too right I am. Soon as I’ve graduated, and earned some real money, my chest will be a whole new barrel of fish. Besides, it’s not fair that whenever some new kid moves in they always get this room, when I’ve been here the longest.’ Spring spring. Creak creak. Boing boing creak. ‘This bed’s great.’ Boing. ‘Did it come with the flat?’ He closed the front door, taking a final look around the dingy hallway. Today was the third anniversary of his moving in. On that first day, he’d inadvertently set himself alight. On the second, Lucy had electrocuted him; accidentally, she’d claimed, though laughing too readily whenever retelling the tale to friends. On the third day had been the blender incident. Subsequent events had taken a turn for the worse. There’d been a third flatmate, Josephine. She sang; like Aretha Franklin, in her sleep – like Bill Franklyn, while awake. And she danced; like Baryshnikov, while asleep – like Barry Sheene, while awake. She acted; like Olivier, while asleep – like Olive Oyl, while awake. Josephine Daly sold eighty million albums, won three Grammies, two Larries (and an Emmy for her X-Files guest spot as ‘Snoring Alien on the Left’) but had slept through the whole thing. She’d believed she only worked at Mr Kake’s Bakery – her day job – never accepting Danny’s attempts to tell her otherwise. When two workmen arrived, one midnight, to put the Sleeping Diva in a packing crate and mail her to Hollywood, Osmo’d immediately replaced her with Maria, the flatmate no one had ever seen. Clearly Danny would never get to see her now. What to do next? The rattits squeaked in their box, oblivious to all worry. Should he give them names? George and Ira? Arnold and Sylvester? For that matter, what sex were they? No way would he be checking, his Aunt Fi having always warned that only people you don’t want to meet go round checking animal genitalia without veterinary need. And she should have known, having been married to Uncle Fred. Danny’s index finger stroked a rodentine back. Whatever sex they were, those two lumps of scraggy fur were all he had left in the world. Lucy reappeared from her new bedroom, for the first time noticed his grocery box and, after a pause, asked, ‘Did those rats come with the flat?’ When he left, Danny left ratless. six (#ulink_49254c05-ab34-5858-a124-242467e37d8d) ‘Erm, hello?’ Danny stepped forward, tentatively. The young nun stopped writing, put the lid on her pen then placed it to one side. She slammed shut her hefty ledger and put it to one side. Chin on knuckles, elbows on desk, smooth faced, she gazed down from behind a counter so high it couldn’t fail to make you feel inadequate. And she gazed. And she gazed. She blinked once. And she gazed. Danny found her unreadableness disconcerting, but he found anyone in uniform disconcerting, having always lived in fear of the reintroduction of National Service. ‘Hello,’ said a soft, Dublin lilt. ‘Would you be Gary?’ ‘No. My name’s Danny; Danny Yates.’ ‘Well, good afternoon, Mr Danny Yates. Can I be of assistance?’ ‘You put homeless people up?’ ‘We offer refuge to locals who’ve fallen on hard times after a lifetime devoted to this town’s maritime industries, yes. Are you a sailor?’ ‘Not really.’ His heart sank like a holed tug. ‘A cabin boy?’ ‘Not really.’ ‘A ship’s mascot?’ ‘Not really.’ ‘Have you ever been on a ship?’ He shook his head. ‘A hovercraft, catamaran, or dinghy?’ He shook his head. ‘A raft, crossing the mighty Atlantic?’ He shook his head. ‘A bathtub crossing Windermere for charity?’ He shook his head. ‘Have you ever been on any vessel on any water?’ she asked. ‘I celebrated my fourteenth birthday with a pedalo ride in what’s now Osmosis Park,’ he said. ‘You had to be fourteen to go on one.’ ‘Well, I suppose that’s something – ’ ‘I drowned.’ Her expression told him to continue. ‘A freak tidal surge overturned my boat, smashing it to smithereens. Washed ashore, face down in mud, I was only saved by an unfeasibly large mallard repeatedly jumping up and down on my back, thinking I was attacking its nest. The action emptied my lungs of water and got me breathing again. When I started coughing, the duck jumped down, quacked one last angry quack at me and waddled off. The park keeper’d said he’d never seen anything like it. If not for that incident, I might have been a sailor.’ ‘Heavens,’ she said. ‘But did the park keeper not try to save you?’ ‘He’d thought about it but really couldn’t be bothered. I have that effect on people. Since then, I’ve pretty much avoided open water. But then, I avoid most things because of … incidents.’ Eyes still gazing into his, she shrugged. ‘Well, we can’t have that, can we, Mr Yates? A non-sailor staying at a seaman’s mission?’ He shook his head, having known all along that this would happen. Now he’d probably have to endure a lecture. ‘Why,’ she lectured. ‘Such a thing would be an abomination against reason. What would Barnables, the patron saint of shipwreck survivors, have to say about that?’ Her eyes looked toward a huge painting Danny took to be Saint Barnables. Like all Godly men, he possessed the face of a man whose sole pastime was strangling donkeys. And, head down, Danny trudged toward the door, a futureless, homeless, penniless void opening up before him. ‘Mr Yates?’ she said. He stopped. ‘You’ve left something behind.’ He turned, puzzled, not aware of having brought anything in with him. She took an item from beneath the counter, tossing it to him, then resumed her chin on palm pose. He unfolded the thrown object. It turned out to be a sailor’s hat. Baffled, he looked at her. ‘Try it on,’ she said. He did. It didn’t fit. But smiling, she winked. ‘You look a mighty fine sailor to me.’ ‘This is where you’ll be staying, the sleeping quarters; or “cabin”, as we call it to make sea dogs feel at home.’ ‘It’s empty.’ Danny stood at the room’s centre. Crunchingly narrow, its decor loosely echoed a galleon’s lower quarters. Ship’s wheels alternated with port holes along the walls. Lanterns hung from the low ceiling. The nun stayed by the door. ‘Completely empty.’ She opened a steel locker beside the door, hauled out a rolled up web of knotted ropes and carried it across to the wall nearest him. She tied one end around a hook projecting from the wall and yanked it tight. ‘You have to remember, Mr Yates, Wheatley is over sixty miles from the sea, in all directions. In its history, the town has produced just one, nominal, sailing man; Peghead Flannaghann, scourge of the leisure boat industry. Of course, back then there were no leisure boats, nor indeed a canal, nor any large stretch of water in Wheatley, nor any boat makers, nor sail manufacturers. Rigging was hard to come by, and expensive. All in all, Peghead Flannaghann’s adventures are a bit of a let down to the thrill seeker.’ ‘Shouldn’t that be pegleg?’ asked Danny, watching her. ‘In 1694, Declan Flannaghann, self-declared buccaneer of the pavements – though pavement quality was much poorer then than now – came down with a headache following an all night drinking session. To relieve his pain, his friends, for he had many among the underclasses, sawed off his head and replaced it, in grand pirate tradition, with a peg.’ His jaw dropped. ‘They sawed off his head?’ ‘Sadly, none of his friends were medically trained. Nor were they reivers. Nor were they a full shilling. They may have misunderstood the term “cut throat pirate”.’ ‘But they sawed off his head?’ Danny was horrified. It was the sort of act he’d thought only Lucy capable of. The sister continued. ‘Undeterred by his lack of mobility, his shipmates’ descendants kept him mummified in a public house where regulars would amuse themselves by spinning plates on his peg head, until the canal was built. Whereupon he was placed on a small barge and left to drift, causing aimless terror and consternation among passing traders, in conjunction with Sqwark the peg head parrot.’ Danny frowned. ‘Are you making this up?’ ‘It’s in the reference books. Flannaghann and Sqwark were accompanied by Bark the peg head dog, and Mark the peg head cabin boy. Atop the mast was Krark the peg head albatross. Once his friends had got into the groove, they just couldn’t stop themselves. It must all have been quite a sight emerging from the mist, peg-heading toward you.’ And she crossed to the opposite wall. ‘No one knows what happened to him after the 1880s. Some say his ghost still stalks the canal though boats no longer sail it. Some claim a daring soul has replaced his peg with a wonderful mechanical limb possessing a mind of its own; which is just as well, considering he himself lacks any sort of mind.’ She tied the webbing’s other end to the wall. Its narrow span bisected the room at waist height. ‘Some may say Peghead Flannaghann wasn’t much of a hero for Wheatley to have but I like to think he was rather noble in his battle against the odds. And by all accounts …’ she became flushed, ‘… quite rough.’ She yanked tight the rope, tied a final knot then stood back, admiring her handiwork. ‘There.’ Quietly satisfied hands clapped themselves free of dust. Danny looked at her, across the newly completed hammock. ‘So why does Wheatley have a seaman’s mission?’ ‘Sister Remunerable.’ ‘Who?’ ‘My partner in this venture, and best friend in all the world. She was my bunkmate at the convent; taught me to drink gin, which was naughty of her but fun. The Mission was her idea. “Sister Theresa,” she said. “Every town should have a seaman’s mission, regardless of need.” She was most insistent. She’ll be delighted we have our second ever guest.’ ‘You have another?’ ‘We had. He packed his bags and set off to make his way in this world, not forty-five minutes ago. In many aspects he was not unlike you, a man who’d given up all hope until he found us. But I’ve blathered on enough. You want to get settled in. I’ll leave you to unpack.’ ‘I don’t have anything to unpack.’ She headed for the door, not looking back, said, ‘Regardless,’ and left. Her footsteps receded, leaving Danny to test the hammock. He didn’t bother. He’d seen enough sit-coms to predict the outcome. Setting the hammock creaking back and forth he considered the floor, deciding it’d be better to sleep on than the street. And he had this whole room to himself. And, unlike Lucy, a nun wouldn’t help herself to his property, claiming Finders Keepers as English Law’s one inviolable principle – when the item had been ‘found’ in a locked drawer, using a crowbar. The sister’s footsteps returned. Her head popped round the door, her fingers wrapping around its frame. ‘Do you play a musical instrument, Mr Yates?’ ‘No. Why?’ She just smiled then left. Danny was lying on the floor when Sister Theresa returned. Smiling mischievously, she was hiding something behind her back. ‘Hello again, Mr Yates. Lying on the floor are we?’ He said nothing. She lay beside him. The hidden thing droned like a trod on octopus. Produced from behind her back, one end strapped to one hand, the once hidden thing distended and sprawled like an sick caterpillar across her chest. The thing dribbled to the floor and expired. It was a squeezebox. He squinted at it, suspicious. The sister made herself more comfortable. ‘I thought we could have a sing along. Do you know any sea shanties, Mr Yates?’ ‘None.’ He hoped to discourage her. ‘Fortunately, I know one. It’s called The Rhyme of Long Gone Hats and is so authentic it practically reeks of salt. A sailor taught it me in a Liverpool bar.’ He glanced at her. Gazing at the ceiling, she answered his implied question. ‘Sister Remunerable took me there. “Tessie,” she said, a Rothmans flapping in her mouth, “in order to understand sailors, we must first mix with them. We must ape their ways, however coarse.” Sister Remunerable spends near all her time getting to know sailors. That’s where she is today, seeking them out in the pubs of Newcastle on Tyne, before moving on to its many all-night clubs.’ Danny chose to say nothing. ‘Mr Dimitri Stassanopolou, my sailor was called. Sister Remunerable introduced us. He had some very strange ideas about what nuns get up to.’ Her free hand entered the other strap and, fingering a bewildering array of buttons, she held the small accordion ready. ‘Right. Here goes.’ And she squeezed. THE RHYME OF LONG GONE HATS: Oh my hat lies in the Eastern Caucasus. It was thrown there by naughty porpoises. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea … ‘Can you stop singing now, please?’ … horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. 10 PM. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. ‘Can you stop singing now, please?’ 11 PM. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. ‘Can you stop singing now, please?’ Midnight. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Sea horsie. Danny set about making a string of desperate phone calls. seven (#ulink_b522fbb9-56eb-5862-ba26-9b5a01ad1bf5) First thing next morning. Annette Helstrang awoke, threw back the sheets, sat up, stretched out in a great big, foot-stomping, yawn. Then she watched the floor, puzzled. Between her bare feet, a pair of legs were protruding from beneath her bed. ‘Lucy?’ Early morning, Danny answered a knock at the Mission door, surprised to find her stood on the doorstep. She grabbed his arm, almost yanked it from its socket, and dragged him to her psychedelic taxi. ‘How did you find me?’ he asked. Fingers tapping steering wheel, in time to REM, she said, ‘I asked myself where would the saddest of sad losers end up in this town, chose the Seaman’s Mission and rang the bell. You answered.’ Lucy drove along a tree-shaded road out of town, Danny seated beside her in the pink and purple cab she ran to supplement her student loan. Wedged above the rear view mirror was a rolled up copy of the comic book Daisy the Cow. Daisy would spend each issue’s thirty-seven pages sampling different types of grass to see which tasted best. In the end, she always settled on New Zealand Rye; the message being that the familiar is always the best. Daisy the Cow was the number one comic strip among students. It was an irony thing. ‘So, what’s this about?’ asked Danny ‘I have a King Kong of a surprise for you.’ ‘You’ve found something of mine you’ve not stolen?’ ‘Don’t get bitter on me, Danny.’ ‘Well what do you expect? You take my room, my rats, my grocery box, on top of all the other rotten things you’ve done to me over the years.’ ‘You don’t want to know what I have to say?’ He folded his arms and looked out through the side window. ‘Get on with it.’ ‘I, Lucy Jane Smith, who everyone said was neither use nor ornament, have found you a home.’ ‘Is it crap?’ ‘Daniel, this is not crap. This is with Annette Helstrang. You remember her from Hallowe’en?’ ‘The horror movie?’ ‘The party. She was at my Walpurgis do. Annette remembers you; remembers you big time. She was the nice one.’ ‘There was no nice one at your Hallowe’en do.’ ‘Course there was. She frightened you.’ ‘They all frightened me,’ he complained. ‘They all frighten me at all your do’s. I don’t know where you unearth your friends but, frankly, I’d rather you didn’t.’ ‘You’re one to talk,’ she retorted. ‘With the state of your friends.’ ‘What’s wrong with my friends?’ ‘Chuff, Biffer and Bloaty Elvis? Need I say more?’ ‘Chuff was a good enough name for you when you went out with him.’ ‘For three hours, Daniel, for three hours. And believe me, it’s the last time I blind date anyone on your recommendation. So where is your “mate” Chuff during your time of crisis? Practising that hilarious trick of his with the U-bend?’ ‘Everyone thinks it’s funny except you.’ ‘Danny, they laugh out of pity.’ He told her, ‘I spent the early hours on the Mission’s pay phone, trying to call my old friends. Do you know, every single one of them moved house while I was comatose?’ ‘Yeah, that’s what they tell you.’ ‘No, really. Each number was answered by someone I didn’t know. And none had a forwarding address. What do you think the odds are against that?’ ‘With you, pretty long; you were never that lucky before. Anyway, the party. Annette was the one in the cyberman suit.’ He looked at her. ‘That was a girl?’ ‘A girl? You know what was inside that baco-foil? Winona Ryder, or as good as. And you turned down a chance to snog that?’ He thought about this. ‘Which Winona Ryder?’ She frowned, intent on the road ahead. ‘Which Winona Ryder? Which d’you think? The one works down the chip shop, says she’s Elvis.’ ‘But she’s not the same in every movie is she? She’s a human chameleon. In some movies she’s nice. In some she’s nasty.’ ‘She’s Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice. Happy?’ ‘She’d do, I suppose.’ ‘You suppose.’ ‘I preferred Edward Scissorhands Winona.’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry; you see, I forgot that a classy bloke like you has to be careful which Winona Ryder he’s seen in public with.’ ‘Just as long as she’s not The Crucible Winona.’ Lucy chuckled malevolently. ‘Oh yeah. I remember you running out the living room in a panic, half way through that one.’ He shuffled in his seat, turning red, and gazed out through the side window. ‘I was not in a panic. I was just …’ ‘You were just what?’ ‘I was checking things.’ ‘What things?’ ‘Things that needed checking.’ She smirked and accelerated. ‘Anyway, Annette’s sweet. Everyone says so. And frankly, cybermen are not scary. She’s a little eccentric but you like that in a woman. And, Danny, God strike me down if I’m lying but, although she wears one, Annette does not need a bra.’ ‘Here we go,’ he groaned. ‘ “Here we go,” what?’ ‘Have you ever considered therapy for this fixation?’ ‘What fixation?’ she asked. ‘Your breast fixation.’ ‘I have no fixation.’ ‘They’re your sole topic of conversation.’ ‘No they’re not.’ ‘Yes, Lucy, they are.’ ‘No, Daniel, they are not. I have a full and varied range of conversational subjects.’ ‘Such as?’ ‘Such as Annette Helstrang, who I was in the process of describing when you so rudely interrupted.’ ‘Okay, so tell me about her.’ ‘Danny, this girl has rock hard nipples. Every morning, climb from bed, go downstairs, collect two eggs from the fridge, close the fridge door, get a frying pan, go back upstairs, walk into her bedroom. Tap once, tap twice, crack those eggs, one on each breast. Sizzle sizzle sizzle. Sunny side up, you’ve got breakfast. That’s how firm we’re talking. I know how important spigotal hardness is to a man in a home-sharing scenario.’ ‘Lucy, nipples are not a factor.’ ‘Mine were.’ ‘No. They weren’t.’ ‘Don’t lie.’ ‘They were never important.’ ‘What you saying? You saying they’re rubbish? You saying they’re too close together? Too far apart? Too identical? Too unalike? Too high? Too low? Too inbetween? Too two? Do they lack character, charm and mischief? Do they lack thrust? Do they thrust too much?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘ “Yes,” what?’ ‘ “Yes,” all that stuff you just said.’ ‘You’ve not even seen them, for Godssake; apart from surreptitious glances when I’ve been wearing something clingy. And don’t tell me you didn’t look. Coz I know you did.’ ‘No, Lucy, I didn’t.’ ‘Yeah, right,’ she sneered, and crunched gears. ‘No, seriously, I didn’t.’ ‘Yeah. Right.’ ‘No. Really.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Breasts are too passive,’ he said. ‘All they do is hang there.’ ‘What do you want them to do? Attack you?’ ‘I’d just like them to do something. Nothing dramatic. Nothing clever. Just something. Anything.’ ‘Well that’s where you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘Because breasts are the best things ever and don’t need to do anything in order to be entertaining. Just sitting here my own chest’s a veritable fun fair. And no one can have too much of them.’ ‘I suppose you want me to look at them now,’ he sighed. ‘You’d be the last person I’d show them to. Wait till I get my new ones. Try ignoring them, Mr I’m So Squeaky Clean I Don’t Even Look When They’re Shoved In My Face. Not that I’ll let you see them. I’ll probably wear a double thick overcoat every time I see you. And you’ll just have to dream about what you’re missing. Probably keep you awake at nights, craving.’ ‘What about this Annette woman?’ ‘They’re too small. She’ll never make an impact at parties; not with her, “Hey, boys, I’m a non-underwire-dependent cyberman,” malarkey. Size, that’s what gets you noticed. And you can tell her that from me.’ ‘I meant, tell me about this home offer.’ ‘She called me an hour ago, saying you could move in with her.’ ‘But I don’t even know her.’ ‘Who can figure it? Must be desperate. I don’t think she gets many callers, what with being flat chested.’ ‘So, what’s the catch?’ She drove on, gaze fixed on the road ahead. ‘Lucy?’ She drove on. ‘Lucy?’ ‘No catch.’ ‘What’s the bond?’ A lump slid down her throat before she answered, still looking straight ahead. ‘No bond.’ ‘References?’ ‘No references.’ ‘Rent?’ ‘No rent.’ ‘Terms? Conditions?’ ‘No terms. No conditions. Simply be there. But, Danny, under no circumstances mention her embarrassingly small breasts. Between you and me, she attaches far too much importance to such things. I tried to avoid mentioning them on the phone when she called but somehow it slipped out.’ ‘Is there anything about this place you’re not telling me?’ he asked. ‘It’s not in an earthquake zone or something?’ ‘Believe me, this is the house to be. And, Danny?’ ‘What?’ ‘Imagine cracking those eggs.’ ‘So where is it?’ ‘666, Hellzapoppin Cul-de-sac, Nightmareville.’ ‘What?’ ‘Ha ha, only joking. It’s on Plescent Street, Wheatley 48, a really nice area, all manual lawnmowers and salad sandwiches. I’ve done loads of pickups there and never once got a tip – a sure sign of affluence. Do you know they have a residents’ committee? People round there talk to their neighbours, Dan. Can you believe that?’ ‘And you’re sure about this?’ ‘Positive. You’ve landed on your feet better than a cottonwool cat with eighteen legs and cast iron paws. Annette has a cat, by the way. It’s called Ribbons. Be nice to it, it bites.’ ‘Lucy?’ ‘Yup?’ ‘Why are you helping me?’ ‘I’m not helping you.’ ‘You’re going out of your way to take me to a new home.’ ‘I’m not helping you.’ ‘Yes you are.’ With a screech of tyres the cab swerved to a halt, half climbing the kerb, Lucy scrunching on the handbrake. Danny’s momentum flung him forward. His seat belt stopped him from melding with the windscreen. She reached across and unlocked his door, letting it swing open. Upright again, one forearm on the wheel, the other on the back of her seat, she stared him in the eyes. ‘You want to get out?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then don’t say I’m helping you.’ ‘But …’ ‘You want to get out?’ He sighed, gazing at the ceiling, then reluctantly pulled the door shut. ‘You’re not helping me.’ ‘Damn right I’m not.’ And she steered the cab away from the kerb. ‘Eyes up, shipmates. Plescent Street ahoy.’ Lucy turned her cab up a sloping avenue on Wheatley’s outmost outskirt. He watched passing rows of neat trimmed housing. Whitewashed picket fencing contained hedges topiaried into trains, snowmen, castellations, airborne kites, friendly dinosaurs, friendly dinosaurs flying kites, kites on castles and snowmen on trains. Each bordered a perfectly square garden. He’d once seen a documentary: in America, an identical street had built a Berlin Wall at each end then issued residents with ‘passports’ to keep the riff-raff out. Danny was riff-raff; or he’d have known there were such places in Wheatley. ‘You’re sure this is the right place?’ he asked. ‘There’s not another part of town with the same name?’ ‘Course I’m sure. What kind of cabbie do you take me for? I know this city like the back of my hand. Aargh! What’s that on the end of my wrist?’ ‘Your hand,’ he said, as unamused as on the first three million occasions she’d cracked that joke. ‘Only joking.’ ‘This is the place.’ Lucy scrunched on the handbrake, engine noise dying away. He gazed out through the windscreen, puzzled, seeing only cherry blossom trees to either side and the crown of the road ahead. Straight backed, head raised to peer over the crown, he saw the green fields of open country beyond. His gaze flicked across that landscape. ‘Where?’ ‘There.’ ‘Where?’ ‘There.’ He watched her, suspecting a practical joke. ‘Where?’ ‘Straight ahead.’ Again he looked, still seeing nothing. Then he grew excited. ‘You’re saying, all that countryside, as far as the eye can see, is my new home? The woman owns the countryside? Lucy, this is fantastic.’ eight (#ulink_fde26aaf-7d3c-5c11-bb34-cbe5b383d330) Danny climbed from the cab, letting its door swing to behind him. It clunked as Lucy pulled it shut. He stepped forward, eyes fixed on distant fields and a white cottage gleaming in the sun. An imaginary choir sang as he imagined summer days spent running through that long long grass, lazing by that cool cool lake, climbing that distant ridge against a sunset that couldn’t fail to be glorious in such a setting. And he knew at last he’d found happiness. He heard Lucy approaching behind him. He wanted to hug her, to take her in his arms, spin her round and round and round in slow motion, laughing and giggling stupidly. He decided not to, fearing violence. ‘Danny, the girl’s a student. How could she afford the countryside? She owns just these houses.’ ‘Which houses?’ ‘Either side.’ ‘There are no houses either side.’ His gaze remained on the fields, still dreaming of the days ahead. And this woman? Annette? Beneath the cyberman suit she was Beetlejuice Winona, or as good as? And she liked him? It was as though all the rotten luck he’d ever had was now being cancelled out by the law of averages. Lucy’s grip forced his head leftward. She said, ‘Look twenty feet, straight ahead.’ ‘What about it?’ ‘Concentrate really hard.’ He did – convinced she was wasting his time when he could be running around that valley, like the Railway Children as the final credits rolled and they knew everything would be perfect from now on. Ahead he saw nothing but full-bloom cherry blossom stretching down to a stream that seemed made for stickleback jam jar fishing. Then he frowned. The harder he looked, the darker those trees became and the fewer of them there were. They twisted, thickened, threatened. Branches became arms. Twigs were fingers reaching out to scratch the eyes of unwary passers by. Bark became the faces of souls who must have done terrible things in life to be so anguished in death. The daisies punctuating the cherry blossom turned into coarse grass to grab the ankles of those foolish enough to encroach, and to tug them to the ground before consuming them. He frowned deeper. Something was materializing. It was a black smudge, floating, spreading, as though being sketched in charcoal by some mad artist. It became huge, brooding, a gaunt silhouette. It had chimneys, twelve, one on each outcrop. Screaming-faced gargoyles appeared beneath the eaves. Things stuck out for no purpose. Things stuck in for no purpose. Things stuck. Windows were eyes. A door was a mouth. A crazy, yellow brick path connected street to door; an invitation to enter at your peril. And it was a house, a great, complacent toad of a house waiting to unroll its tongue and reel in the careless. ‘Jesus.’ Danny gasped and stepped back. The cab blocked his uncoordinated retreat. ‘Now look right.’ Lucy’s grip redirected his head. On the street’s other side, a second house appeared, faster now he’d learned the trick. It exactly mirrored the first. How many houses like this were there? Was the town full of them and he’d never noticed? ‘See them now?’ she asked. ‘See them? They’ll be in my nightmares for the rest of my life.’ He glanced behind him but the rest of Plescent Street was still square-gardened suburbia. Lucy was sat grinning on the cab bonnet, feet on bumper, elbows on knees, chin on palms. ‘Involuntary denial. Your subconscious doesn’t want to accept they exist, so it hides them from you unless forced to reveal them.’ ‘And you expect me to live there?’ He was incredulous. ‘Damn right I do.’ He again watched the houses. ‘Which one belongs to this Annette creature?’ ‘Both; fifty pence each from a bucket shop estate agent. For twenty-five years they couldn’t sell either. Then along comes Annette and buys them both. Great, huh? Like the twin towers of Wembley but less clich?d. And every kid dreams of going to Wembley.’ ‘I didn’t.’ ‘Now’s your chance to start.’ ‘I’ve never seen anything so horrible,’ he said. ‘You’ve never seen yourself naked?’ ‘Lucy, I look a lot better than that naked.’ ‘Believe me, Danny, you don’t.’ He looked at her. Chin on palms, she shrugged. ‘I drilled a hole in the bathroom wall once. Remember when you complained of funny noises while you were showering, and I said we had a big cement-burrowing worm problem? And you said the worm looked like an endoscope and I said, no no no, all cement-burrowing worms have glow-in-the-dark heads that follow your every move and try to look up your bottom. I had to stare for fifteen minutes before my subconscious’d let me register you. It wasn’t worth the wait. I took photos. Want to buy them? Ten pence the lot. I’ve got stacks. Tried selling them at Poly but no takers. No one could see you, apart from Annette. She bought loads. She walked off smiling. But then Annette likes you.’ He stepped toward her. ‘One of these days, I’m going to …’ ‘You’re going to what?’ she challenged, contemptuous. Fists clenched, he tried glaring her into oblivion. She was unaffected, her gaze settling on the house to her left. ‘That, Daniel, is a style known as Wheatley Gothique. No one expects an ingrate like you to understand but some things can only be produced by the personal vision of an individual.’ ‘What kind of individual would build things like these?’ Wednesday, April 21, 1926. What Hejediah Johnson saw from his bedroom window bothered him. He saw neat trimmed houses. Whitewashed picket fencing contained hedges topiaried into trains, snowmen, castellations, airborne kites, friendly dinosaurs and friendly dinosaurs flying kites. Each bordered one of a row of perfectly square gardens with identical ornaments in identical positions by identical ponds. Propriety as God. Next morning, the same. And the next. And the next. And the next. After two months’ growing disquiet, he emerged into a summer morning, paint pot in hand, bold strokes daubing his front door red. Not any old red, but the blazing scarlet of his fondest-remembered sunset. The street’s other front doors were army green. Always had been. Always would be. His neighbours’ reaction amazed him. Far from being outraged, they were delighted, having also hated being identical, though lacking courage to defy the Residents’ Committee. The Residents’ Committee comprised one member; Miss Xenia Minnlebatt. It represented the interests of one resident; Miss Xenia Minnlebatt. Her meetings ran with an iron fist in a chain mail glove, often ending with the death of a small domestic servant. Frequently, she would beat even herself into submission during displays of bloody-minded intolerance. But now he’d given a lead, they’d all paint their doors a different colour; and hang Miss Xenia Minnlebatt – literally, said some. But Miss Xenia Minnlebatt’s public execution would have to wait a further ten years. For the first time ever, Hejediah Johnson went to work with a spring in his step and a song in his heart. Though no one knows what the song was, some said it involved lost hats. He whistled all through work at Givens’ design office. Workmates thought him delirious. Osbert Givens insisted he knock off early, happy men being of no use to a munitions works. Hejediah Johnson collected his coat. He whistled all the way home, striding Wheatley’s streets, like a man possessed. And some did claim him possessed, though they were the ones who said he sang about hats. Faster, faster, ever faster, revelling in the twelve-mile journey’s every step. His tune grew with each corner that brought his destination closer. By the final turn, he was whistling so loudly people shouted from their windows, ‘Call the constabulary. Call the constabulary. There’s a madman loose.’ Regardless, he turned the final corner. And Hejediah Johnson’s world crumbled. Every door on that street had been painted red. Not just any red, but the blazing scarlet of his fondest remembered sunset. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ said a neighbour. ‘Now we’re all different – just like you.’ No, it bloody wasn’t wonderful. Over the next two weeks, Johnson threw himself into insanity, installing a temperamentally unsuitable gazelle as a gazebo. His neighbours copied it. He built a spaghetti statue of the Phoenician war goddess Burut Ana, using pasta for plaster. His neighbours copied it. No act seemed too lunatic for them to emulate. On May 8, 1926, Hejediah Johnson ate Wheatley. Then with only an egg for an implement, he built a new home, one so nightmarish that no one would copy it. And no one did copy it. Except Miss Xenia Minnlebatt. And that was the story of 353, Plescent Street. At least, that was how Lucy told it. ‘It’s frightening,’ said Danny. ‘Take me home.’ ‘This is your home now,’ she told him. ‘Play your cards right, lick up to Annette, cough up a quid, and one day, when she graduates and leaves town, this’ll be all yours.’ Lucy called from the porch. ‘C’mon, Danny. What you waiting for?’ He stood, hands in pockets, kicking a heel, head down, leaning back against a cab door. ‘I do not want to live there.’ ‘Course you do. Anyone would.’ He looked at her accusingly. ‘Then why don’t you live there?’ Sighing like she was dealing with an exceptionally dim child, she strode down the porch step, then along the path, toward him. ‘You think I don’t want to live here? Daniel, I would kill to live here. But I’ve not been invited. You have. You can’t turn down a chance like this. This is the coolest address in Wheatley. When I tell them about this at Poly, they’ll be so-o-o jealous, they’ll be queuing round the block, waiting for you, with baseball bats. Now come on.’ Grabbing his hand, she yanked his arm half out of its socket, and dragged him up the path, up the step and onto the porch. They stood watching the front door, with its cobra’s head door knocker. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Knock.’ ‘Lucy.’ ‘Knock.’ With a deep breath, he half-heartedly pulled knocker away from door. But her hand prevented him knocking. She said, ‘Hold on a mo.’ ‘What now?’ ‘I almost forgot something.’ She took a silver chain from around her neck and placed it round his own. He gazed down at the large, looped cross at the chain’s end and held it between thumb and finger. ‘What’s this?’ ‘An ankh.’ ‘An anker?’ ‘Ankh; an ancient Egyptian lucky charm. All the pharaohs wore one. Some wore two. Tutankhamen wore dozens. He was famous for it, the Liberace of his day – and he played the piano. Annette insisted you wore one before entering. I hope you appreciate this, Danny; I had to slap the eighth toughest girl in Fabric Studies to get this off her.’ ‘What’s it for?’ ‘Beats me. Annette said something about it protecting you from the head-sucking demons who infest every third corner of the house.’ She grinned, gaze running up and down the door. ‘Demons. Cool or what?’ He didn’t answer. He was heading back to the cab. ‘Danny?’ she called. ‘Where you going?’ No reply. ‘Danny?’ He climbed into the car, slammed the door shut and demanded to be taken home. nine (#ulink_7598e2d7-68bf-57c8-9de9-45eb9155dac8) ‘He’s gone?’ ‘I said he would.’ Having watched Lucy’s taxi drive off up the road, Annette Helstrang let the cobweb pattern net curtain fall closed and she told the boiler-suited legs protruding from beneath her bed, ‘There was no way he was going to move in. He’s not the type.’ The legs protested, ‘But this can’t happen.’ ‘You think not? If there’s a wrong decision, bet on him to make it.’ ‘But it’s his fate to move in here.’ ‘So?’ she asked. ‘If even one person refuses to follow his fate, it sets in motion a chain of events that may destroy us all.’ ‘I fail to see what Danny Yates could do that could destroy us all.’ ‘We must make alternative arrangements immediately.’ ‘You want me to kidnap him?’ ‘Would you like to do that, Annette Helstrang? Would you like to tie him to that chair by the door, and for several weeks feed him a diet of bread, water and bromide to keep his lusts to a minimum?’ ‘No, I wouldn’t. Lucy might. But she might torture him.’ ‘We might still be able to cut him off at the pass.’ ‘Pardon?’ ‘You must get a pedicure.’ Perched on the bed. Ribbons Melancholia gazed down at the legs, suspicious. He swiped at them with his ginger paw, missed, and lost balance. He hit the carpet with a disdainful miaow, shook himself down, tried to look dignified, failed to look dignified, then jumped back onto the bed. He circled three times before resuming his legwatch. ‘Wheatley is full of bad feet,’ said the legs. ‘Only two people in this town have ones of the necessary quality, and, being a slightly tall girl, the other would be unsuitable.’ ‘I’m sorry?’ asked Annette. ‘You shall see.’ ‘But how can a pedicure save us all?’ ‘How many over the aeons have asked us that? Always it comes down to feet.’ ‘Then I’ll go and get them seen to.’ She didn’t know what was going on. Since first appearing, the legs had talked in nothing but riddles. Where were they from? Who did they work for? They wouldn’t say. But clearly, they worked for a higher power. Magic’s twelfth rule was that only the very highest powers could leave disembodied legs beneath your bed. Grabbing her blackest coat, adopting her most earnest face, she headed for the door. ‘C’mon, Ribbons. We’re going.’ ‘Wait,’ said the legs. She stopped at the door, held the handle and looked to the bed. ‘You may not go yet. And there is one particular pedicurist you must visit.’ ‘There is?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Reasons.’ ‘What reasons?’ ‘Reasons reasons.’ ‘So,’ she sighed, ‘who is this pedicurist?’ ‘Watch the wall.’ She did. And across the far wall, blood red letters began to appear forming the words: MADAM FIFI’S LATE NIGHT PEDICURES ten (#ulink_af09d194-686d-5885-9bda-cfa974a70832) Sullen-faced, curled almost into a ball, the prickliest of hedgehogs, Danny sat on the Mission’s front step, watching the world fail to go by; no passers by, no wildlife, no points of interest. No weeds grew between the cracks in Tolly Street’s paving. Across the empty road, the sun was setting behind a shut-down multi-storey car park by a shut-down industrial unit by a shut-down burger bar by a shut-down bus stop. Each reflected a shut-down life back on itself. Just two hundred yards away, the town’s main shopping street would be bustling with activity. But from here, in the city centre’s dog end, you’d never know it. His feet were bare, Lucy having claimed his trainers as payment for him wasting her taxi time. She’d again worn her, ‘Don’t argue with me,’ look. So he’d be stuck here forever, with the singing nun and her song of hats. Verse 155 drifted out from somewhere within the building, rhyming, ‘Architeuthis,’ with, ‘Truth is,’ with ‘Toothies.’ He stared at the pavement, trying to make it wither. It ignored him. He tried to wither the car park. It ignored him. They wouldn’t have ignored Lucy. Rumble rumble rumble. ? Rumble. ? Rumble. ? Rumble rumble. He looked to the street’s far end. A tall fridge was climbing the slope, toward him. It clattered, rattled and jolted over bad paving join after bad paving join. He rose to his feet, mouth drying in anticipation. He’d noticed the tangerine, with yellow polka dot, dreadlocks bobbing along behind it. ‘Erm, hello?’ Danny walked along beside Teena Rama, sideways so he faced her while talking. ‘Hello.’ She concentrated on pushing her fridge; five feet eight, slightly too tall for her weight, Albert Einstein T-shirt, red (with white polka dot) skirt. Long bare legs. Small bare feet. He watched his own small, bare, girl’s feet. He and she had a thing in common. ‘Am I bothering you?’ he asked. ‘Are you trying to?’ Her teeth were gripping the thin end of a wooden door wedge. ‘No. I’m not.’ She continued pushing the fridge, not looking at him. ‘Then you’re not bothering me.’ ‘Do you remember me?’ ‘Jog my memory; I meet too many people.’ ‘I was in the shop.’ ‘Which shop?’ ‘The comic shop.’ ‘Which comic shop?’ ‘The one that collapsed.’ ‘Two collapsed,’ she said. ‘They did?’ ‘Subsidence. The town’s built over the world’s largest cave system. Don’t tell anyone I said so. I’ll deny it.’ ‘You pulled me from the rubble. I never got a chance to thank you. Thank you.’ She frowned, recalling vaguely, ‘You were in the little comic shop?’ ‘That’s the one.’ His spirits rose. ‘You’re Gary?’ ‘Danny.’ ‘Danny?’ ‘Danny.’ Still pushing, she looked at him. ‘You’re the erection boy?’ ‘There’s no need for embarrassment, Gary; I’m gorgeous. That’s not boasting, I have pie charts to prove I’m gorgeous.’ She strolled alongside Danny, hands loosely clasped behind her back, enjoying the sunset. ‘Upon meeting me, gay men turn straight, straight women turn lesbian. Straight men become ultra-heteros, setting themselves a helpless quest for my seduction, driven like lemmings by urges beyond their control. I feel sorry for them.’ Grunt, strain, wheel-squeak wheel-squeak. Teeth gritted, blood pressure soaring, Danny shoulder-pushed her rock heavy fridge up yet another stupid hill as best he could, already regretting having offered. The things he’d do to impress a girl. And she wasn’t impressed, he could tell. It was hard to be impressed by a man having a seizure. Did girls go to these lengths to impress boys? If so, why didn’t boys ever notice? He studied her flawless face, unable to imagine her ever having had to go to any lengths to impress anyone. She said, ‘Involuntary erection, in a young man with hormones still in full swing, is all but unavoidable in my presence. As a doctor, I’d be more concerned if you didn’t react that way. Close your eyes.’ ‘Are you going to kiss me?’ She gave a look that suggested not. ‘Just close your eyes.’ He closed them. ‘Imagine me,’ she said. ‘Okay.’ ‘Where do you see me?’ ‘In a field.’ ‘Surrounded by?’ ‘Big toadstools.’ ‘Next to?’ ‘A rabbit warren.’ ‘And I’m …?’ ‘Lying by a burbling, little fountain.’ ‘Am I naked?’ she asked. No reply. Again; ‘Am I naked?’ ‘No.’ ‘Am I in a state of near undress?’ ‘No.’ ‘Am I half dressed, like a brazen hussy, with you about to administer the seeing to I’m asking for?’ ‘No.’ ‘I should be.’ ‘You’re not.’ ‘That’d be the standard fantasy I’d induce in your personality type.’ ‘It’s not mine.’ ‘Are you telling me the truth, Gary?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I don’t believe you.’ He opened his eyes. ‘Can we change the subject?’ ‘To?’ ‘Where’re we taking this fridge? You do know the council tip’s the other way?’ ‘That’s where I got it. I’m taking it home. I want to test it.’ ‘For?’ ‘Time travel potential.’ ‘Time …?’ At the hill’s crown, he stopped pushing. Worn out, he leaned back against the fridge, sank to his knees and tried to regain his breath. The world was purple and spinning. She dropped the door wedge to the ground, kicking it into place beneath a fridge castor. ‘You probably know time can be frozen. You may have done it yourself, setting your freeze box to nought degrees Kelvin; Absolute Zero. A switch, on the back of all fridges, allows you to do so. Amazingly, most people don’t even know it’s there, not having bothered to read the instructions fully. Flick it left, time stands still. Flick it right, time accelerates. But what if you lower temperatures further, into negative values? Then time runs backwards.’ ‘Are you winding me up?’ In fading light, she clambered onto the fridge, sat cross legged atop it, and looked down at him. ‘Within two weeks, this battered frigidaire,’ clungk, her knuckles rapped it, ‘may be the world’s first functional time machine. Weird Science, I hold several doctorates in it.’ He gazed up into deep green eyes, trying to imagine them travelling through time atop that fridge. But somehow, no matter how hard he tried – and he tried hard – he could only imagine her naked in a field of strangely phallic toadstools. ‘You were sat outside the Seaman’s Mission?’ she asked. ‘I’m staying there, between homes.’ ‘Are you a seaman?’ ‘I’d rather not go into that.’ She went quiet, thinking, finally deciding, ‘I suppose you could stay at my place.’ ‘You mean it?’ ‘I could do with the company. Since arriving in this town, I seem to have spent all my time talking to the walls. Plus, I’d like to further research the problem of you being unable to imagine me naked.’ He scrambled to his feet, pulse quickening at the prospect of moving in with her. ‘I can imagine you naked,’ he insisted, hoping to impress her with his etiquette. ‘I just choose not to.’ ‘Even odder.’ ‘What’s the rent?’ he asked, like it mattered. ‘No rent.’ ‘Bond?’ ‘No bond.’ ‘References?’ ‘No references.’ ‘Demons?’ ‘Demons?’ she asked. ‘Are there any head-sucking demons?’ ‘Not that I’ve noticed. Do you want me to get you some?’ ‘No chance.’ And not altogether successfully, he fought back the urge to laugh like an idiot. ‘Are there any catches at all?’ ‘None. Just a place to live and the pleasure of my company. So, how about it?’ eleven (#ulink_c75f5490-0136-58b8-ad7f-ac5cd2619142) Clack. First thing next morning, something dropped through Lucy Smith’s letter box and hit the mat. Yawning, straight from bed, she shambled from her room and collected the buff, windowed envelope. She checked the back; no sender’s address. Curious, she tore the bitter envelope open with her teeth then pulled out the crisp, white paper. Discarding envelope on floor, she unfolded the note. It read: Mz Lucille Smuth, 77, Osmosis Tenements, Dead End Street, Wheatley 2 (April 15) Drear Mz Smuth; Please make an appointment to see me at the erliest oppurtunity, to discuss staff and student complaints that you have an altitude problem. Yours Gerald Soldacre, Principal, Wheatley Pollytecnick. Lucy frowned. Meanwhile the phone began to ring. She went to answer it. Altitude problems? twelve (#ulink_6341a1bc-1a3f-5ad8-afc4-61291397de2b) Danny arrived, first thing that morning, stopping only to collect his jaw from the pavement. Teena Rama’s own personal White House ran some three hundred feet from one end of Moldern Crescent to the other, half enclosing the houses across the road, as though trying to eat them. From somewhere behind the building, a white pole prodded the sky, its polka dot flag declaring the owner to be in residence. He checked the address she’d given him and, having reassured himself for the fiftieth time that this must be the place, climbed the step that connected it to the street. Staring at the oak panelled front door, he again checked the address. It was still the right place. About to knock, he noticed a tiny sign beside the handle; please press me. An arrow pointed to a green plastic panel by the door. He did as instructed. The panel lit up. ‘Hello?’ asked a voice that seemed to be Bob Holness. Danny looked around, trying to locate its source. Above the door, a camera’s red light activated. He addressed it. ‘Er, good morning. I believe I’m expected.’ ‘Expected?’ ‘By Teena Rama. I’m her new lodger.’ ‘Ah. You’ll be young Mr Gary.’ ‘No. I’m Danny.’ ‘What happened to Mr Gary?’ ‘He won’t be coming.’ He lacked the inclination to go into all that again. ‘Has he had an accident?’ asked the voice. ‘No.’ ‘Is he dead?’ ‘No.’ ‘Have you murdered him and taken his place, in a daring assassination bid on Miss Rama?’ ‘No,’ protested Danny. ‘He just won’t be coming.’ The voice fell silent, as though checking something, then said, ‘Miss Rama will be disappointed. She was rather looking forward to receiving young Mr Gary, much as one welcomes the arrival of small but unfocused animals. However, I’m sure she’ll accept you in lieu. Miss Rama can be tolerant.’ Clunk, the door unlocked. ‘Feel free to enter, Mr Daniel.’ ‘Thank you.’ He was about to push the door open, when the voice warned, ‘But please don’t touch the door frame; you’ll be disintegrated.’ Once in the hallway, Danny closed the front door behind him. Stepping over a junk mail mountain, he took care not to touch the frame. But perhaps the man had been having him on. His finger reached toward it, curious, then stopped. Upon starting work once, he’d resolutely refused to cross town for a left-handed screwdriver and had promptly been sacked from Wheatley Long Stand, Glass Hammer and Left-Handed Screwdrivers PLC. It was a mistake anyone could have made, but hadn’t. Then there’d been his fourth day at Lucy’s, when she’d said Osmosis had given her Danny’s room and he’d have to sleep out on the landing because he was the new kid and sleeping out on the landing was what new kids always had to do. And he wasn’t to use her old room, it was needed for frog storage. For a month he’d slept on that landing, until Osmosis had pointed out the lack of ribbiting. Perhaps everyone played a joke on the new kid and this was Teena’s. But he withdrew his finger anyway. He looked around. The hallway stretched to the distant back door, silent but for the ticking cuckoo clock to his left. A wooden bird burst from its slot, said, ‘Cuckoo,’ then went into hiding for another hour. Tiny doors flipped shut behind it. Danny went across. Stretching on tiptoes, he removed clock from wall, turned its hands forward fifty-nine minutes, then took it to the door. He pointed clock at frame then, confident it would be unharmed, waited. Tick tick tick tick … The bird burst from its hidey hole, gave one proud, ‘Cuck –’ and disintegrated. Clunk, Danny threw the twisted thing-that-was-once-a-clock out onto the street, hoping someone would steal it. They would have done back at his old home. He slammed the door shut, having not seen any shady characters in the moment it was open. Like the police, shady characters were rarely around when you needed them. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/stephen-walker/danny-yates-must-die/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.