Sparks (29 page)

“What a lot of oak,” said Kaye.

“I like oak,” said Alison.

“You never mentioned that before,” said Sparks.

Alison gave him an old-fashioned look.

“Shall I be mother?” asked Mrs Reeves. She had a large teapot and an awful lot of biscuits on a plate

“What?” said Kaye.

“It’s just an expression,” said Alison.

“Obviously,” said Sparks.

“Don’t get snippy, Sparks.”

“I’m not. I just meant it’s a common expression.”

“You’re getting snippy.”

“It’s all right,” said Joseph Kaye. “I think we’re all entitled to some degree of emotion at this point.”

“I’ve got Garibaldis and fig rolls,” said Mrs Reeves.

A large oak-panelled door opened and Alan came in. He looked more and more like someone who worked for the BBC. He even had a green corduroy jacket with elbow patches.

“Where’s Jeff and Duncan?” asked Sparks.

“They’ll be along in a while,” said Alan. “We were debriefing them. We don’t often find members of the Random nowadays.”

“Bit like teddy boys,” said Mrs Reeves. “Do you have teddy boys where you are?”

“What’s the Random?” said Sparks, “Is it anything to do with the…”

“Random Life Generator,” said Alan. “Yes. It’s what they use to get around. Slow thing, really, but all they could cobble together, given their resources.”

“What do you use then?” said Sparks.

“That would be telling,” said Alan.

“I know,” said Sparks. “I want you to tell me.”

Alan gave Sparks a look.

“You see,” said Mrs Reeves, “we are not the Random. We are the Society. The Random are a sort of splinter group.”

“Well, they are a splinter group,” said Alan. “There’s no ‘sort of’ about it. Sorry.”

“Have they been illegal and persecuted for hundreds of years?” said Sparks, hopefully.

“No,” said Mrs Reeve. “They used to meet in the pub across the road. But they got rowdy and the landlord banned them.”

“The Society does disapprove,” said Alan. “But what can we do? We’re not the police.” He sounded slightly disappointed.

“Then what are you?” said Sparks.

“Where do we start?” sighed Alan

“How about 300 years ago, with the aim of finding God’s Perfect World?” said Sparks, who really didn’t like Alan.

Alan looked at Sparks, as a man who knows everything looks at a man who knows too much.

“Oh, and they like hitting people and telling them to shut up,” added Sparks.

“No, that’s the Random,” said Alan. “The hitting part, anyway. The Society is still looking for God’s Perfect World, but in a more informal, nicer way. The Random, however, differ. They don’t believe there is a perfect world, made by God or anyone, but rather that the universe is…”

“Random,” suggested Sparks, guessing wildly.

“Yes,” said Alan. “While the Society has a noble sense of deistic purpose, the Random believe that the chaos of alternate worlds proves only that if there is a God, he is incredibly indecisive, and that this world, and the others, are half-baked, unfinished and senseless.”

“Well,” said Sparks, “they sort of have a point.”

The room went quiet.

“I mean,” said Sparks, ploughing on, “look at wars and that. ”

“Illness,” said Kaye. “Imprisonment and injustice.”

“Death,” said Alison.

“Accidents,” said Sparks. “And… random events.”

“Have you actually found any perfect worlds yet?” asked Alison. “Or come near to it even?”

Alan sighed like some important at the BBC being asked something obvious about the licence fee.

“This is a very old argument,” said Alan.

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t valid,” said Alison.

“Yes,” agreed Kaye. “In fact, its age tends to suggest that you’ve been unable to refute it.”

“Yeah,” said Sparks, not to be left out.

“Well, the maths is on our side,” said Alan. “There is clearly an infinite amount of worlds out there and one of them must be perfect.”

“Whose definition of perfect?” said Alison.

“Yes,” said Kaye. “How do you know that, say, the world I come from, the world that Alison comes on, isn’t perfect?”

“Yes,” said Alison. “It seems pretty perfect to me.”

Sparks looked at Alison.

“There aren’t any cockroaches,” he said.

“That’s not…” said Kaye. He stopped because Alison nudged him. Sparks was looking very unhappy.

“Come outside a sec,” said Alison.

“I only did all this to get back with you,” said Sparks.

“I’m not that Alison,” said Alison. “If you wanted to get back with that Alison, you should have gone after her. Not every other Alison in the universe apart from her.”

“She’s in Australia,” said Sparks. “It’s very expensive to go there.”

“Sparks, you’ve been round the universe. Australia’s fairly easy to get to in comparison.”

“I just… I’ve changed, you know.”

“I know you have. You’re different to the Sparks I knew. I mean, you’re not dead, but also… you’ve changed.”

“Then…”

“Sparks. I love you. I do. But I am in love with Joseph. And he’s in love with me.”

“He’s a nutter.”

“You know he isn’t.”

Sparks was silent. He knew this to be true.

“I know,” he said. “It’s just all a bit disappointing. I mean, not for you. Or him. It’s great. And I am glad. Or I will be. But…”

He stopped.

“Oh, you know.”

They went back in. Kaye was saying to Alan, “For all you know, God’s Perfect World might be composed entirely of cockroaches,” and Alan was saying, “Look, we’ve got a booklet that explains that,” and Mrs Reeves was opening more packets of biscuits. They all stopped when Sparks came in, probably because he looked so devastatingly sad.

“I want to go home,” said Sparks.

Alan looked at him.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll get Jeff and Duncan.”

“Great,” said Sparks. “Pardon?”

“We’re not the police,” said Alan. “We don’t arrest people.”

“But they did bad things,” said Sparks. “They made me, well one of me, disappear.”

“Oh, him,” said Alan, annoyingly. “He’s fine. He went to some bloody world and became a pop star. We’d have got him back but he seems to be liking the sex.”

“They tried to kill me,” said Sparks. “They tried to get me to kill people. And they set fire to my bed.”

“Well, we might reduce their privileges,” said Alan, virtually yawning.

“A lot,” said Mrs Reeves, quite firmly. “And re-assign them. There’s a world where no one remembered to invent personal hygiene. That’s not nice. And there’s one where thin people are considered a delicacy.”

“The possibilities,” said Alan, “are infinite.”

“I am sorry,” said Duncan. “But I got confused.”

“Because he’s an idiot,” said Jeff.

“I was an idiot,” said Duncan. “Now, oddly, I find Jeff’s hysterical personality and aggression more pitiable than interesting.”

“What?” said Jeff. “I’ll do you for that.”

“No you won’t,” said Duncan. “While thin, I am heavier than you. And more patient. You’ll stop bullying me now.”

“Can I hit him?” said Sparks. “For old times’ sake.”

“No,” said Duncan. “I’ll be looking after his sorry behind from now on. Maybe he’ll turn out to be less of a fool now.”

“I can see that happening,” said Sparks.

Duncan shrugged.

“I agreed with a lot of this Random stuff,” said Sparks.

“It’s a good theory,” said Duncan. “But sometimes you think the other lot have got the right idea. I mean, all this stuff and it just got here somehow?”

“It’s possible,” said Jeff.

“Who knows,” said Duncan. “Here,” he said to Sparks, handing him a small bag.

“What is it?” said Sparks.

“It’s a small bag,” said Duncan. “In it is an A-Z of Melbourne in Australia, and an address.”

Sparks looked in the bag, then back at Duncan.

“She’s dumped him,” said Jeff. “Obviously can’t make her mind up. Spends her life wandering from unsuitable man to unsuitable man. We’ve all done it.”

“Are you gay?” said Sparks suddenly.

“Yes,” said Jeff. “Problem with that?”

“No!” said Sparks. “Why are you giving me this?”

“It was her idea,” said Duncan. “Not the one in Australia, the one having tea with Alan. Resolve it, she said. Go down under, not sideways. Whatever that means.”

Sparks took the address out.

“Blimey,” he said.

“In here,” said Duncan, and opened a door. A lot of blinding light came out again.

Sparks saw Jeff and Duncan, first as silhouettes bordered by sheets of light, then as waving stickmen, and then they were gone. And then…

OW!

NOT AGAIN!

OWWWW!

Sparks woke up. He was outside a large apartment block in a very sunny street.

“Excuse me,” he said to a woman passing with some dogs, “is this Australia?”

The woman looked at him and walked off.

Sparks got up. He took out the directory. He looked at the address. He went up to the apartment door and rang a buzzer. He waited.

Several thousand miles away, in North London, a young woman got out of a cab. She walked up to a small grubby door and rang the bell. She rang it six or seven times.

“Bloody hell, Sparks,” said Alison.

THE END