Apocalypso (2 page)

‘Father,’
said Porrig. ‘I must speak with you.’

‘To wit
to woooo,’ went Porrig’s father.

‘No,’
said Porrig. ‘You cannot fool me by doing that. You are not an owl, you are my
father.’

Augustus
Naseby straightened up and addressed his son. ‘Is it yourself then, Porrig?’ he
asked.

‘It is,’
said Porrig.

‘And
sure would you look at yourself there.’ Porrig shook his head. Why the Irish
accent?’ he enquired.

‘I’m
thinking of converting to Catholicism. I just wanted to know what it felt like
before I commit myself.’

‘And
what does it feel like?’

‘Pretty
good. If you do a Northern Irish accent you get served much quicker in pubs.
But why are you speaking at all, son? You know it’s not allowed in the house.’

‘I have
something very important to say. It’s about your brother.’

‘God
rest his soul.’ ‘Ah. Then you know already.’

‘Know
what?’ That he’s dead.’ Who’s dead?’ ‘Your brother.’ ‘I don’t have a brother.’

‘But
you said, “God rest his soul.”‘

‘It’s
an Irish expression. They say it all the time.’ Augustus Naseby crossed
himself.

Porrig
sighed.

‘Don’t
do that,’ said his father. ‘You know it depresses me.’

Porrig
sighed again and his father flinched. ‘Do you or do you not have a brother? Or
did
you? Yes or no?’ Porrig folded his arms. ‘Come on, I want to know.’

Porrig’s
mother, Myra Naseby, now entered the room carrying a goldfish bowl with a piece
of cheese in it.
[1]
‘Shut up, Porrig,’ she said.

‘Mother,
this is important. An uncle has died and left me a planet.’

Myra
Naseby burst into tears. ‘You wicked boy,’ she blubbed, ‘with the cruel and
evil things you say. Why can’t you be like your brother?’

‘I don’t
have a brother.’

‘And
whose fault is that?’

‘Don’t
look at me,’ said her husband. ‘I did what was expected of me on our wedding
night. Once was enough, surely?’

Porrig
sighed once more. His mother shrieked and his father ducked back down behind
the drawerless chest.

‘I
intend to get to the bottom of this,’ said Porrig. ‘One of you must have had a
brother. He couldn’t have been my uncle otherwise.’

‘Go to
your room,’ said Porrig’s mother. ‘And don’t ever come out of it again.’

Porrig’s
arms were folded and they stayed that way. ‘Which one of you had a brother?’ he
demanded to be told.

Augustus
Naseby stuck his head up from his hiding place. ‘Look, Porrig,’ he said, ‘there’s
something your mother and I have been meaning to talk to you about and now
would seem to be the right time.’

‘Oh
yes?’ said Porrig.

‘Oh yes
indeed to be sure.’

‘In an
English accent might be nice.’

‘Quite
so. You see, Porrig, you aren’t our real son.’

‘I’m
not?’

‘You’re
not. You were created in a laboratory as a cure for the common cold.’

‘No,’
said Porrig, shaking his head.

‘No?’
said his father.

‘No. I
have heard all that stuff before. How the fairies left me on the doorstep. How
Mother was artificially inseminated during an alien abduction. How I came in
parts from a toy company and was brought to life by some magic dust that a
witch woman gave you for pulling her out of the canal. How…’

‘How we
opened up a can of sardines and—’

‘That
too. Why do you insist on making these things up?’

Porrig’s
father shrugged. Porrig’s mother said, ‘It’s because we don’t like you, dear.
It’s nothing personal. Well, actually it is.’

‘All
right,’ said Porrig, ‘that’s fair enough.’

‘You
mean you don’t mind?’

Why
should I mind? You can’t be expected to like everyone you meet. I certainly don’t
like everyone
I
meet. In fact, there are some people I really hate. For
instance—’

‘No,’ said
his mother. ‘Please don’t. That’s one of the things, you see. I know you’re
only being honest, that you mean no actual harm by what you say, but you offend
everybody you meet. Ellen was on the phone before you came in. She said you’d
offended her friends and that the wedding was off and she never wanted to see
you again.’

‘Oh,’
said Porrig.

‘I’m
sorry if that’s upset you, dear.’

‘I’m
not upset. I know she only wanted me to father her children.’

What?’
said Porrig’s mum.

‘I don’t
think women really enjoy sex at all,’ said Porrig. ‘I think they’re driven by
their hormones to reproduce and they—’

‘Shut
up, Porrig!’

‘Sorry,
Mother.’

‘Actually,
I think he might be onto something with that one,’ said Porrig’s dad.

‘And
you shut up too and stand by the window where I told you. You’re messing up my
feng
shui
‘and I won’t have it.’

‘Look,’
said Porrig. ‘It’s quite clear that you don’t want me around any more. Ellen
doesn’t want to marry me and as I’ve been left this inheritance, now would
probably be as good a time as any for me to ‘go off and make my way in the
world.’

‘Inheritance?’
said Porrig’s mother.

‘ALPHA
17. The planet. I told you.’

Porrig’s
mother began to laugh.

Why are
you laughing?’ Porrig asked.

‘Oh, no
reason, dear. Sometimes I just break into spontaneous laughter due to the sheer
joy of being alive.’

‘Hm,’
said Porrig.

‘It’s
quite true,’ said Porrig’s dad. ‘It used to ‘happen every time I took my
trousers off. That’s probably why we never had any more children, now that I
come to think about it.’

Porrig’s
mother shushed her husband into silence. ‘Porrig’s right,’ she said. ‘Now would
definitely be the time for him to leave home and make his way in the world.
What with him being left a… left a…’ She crumpled once more into
laughter.

‘Planet,’
said Porrig.

‘Planet,
dear, that’s right.’ And Porrig’s mother collapsed onto the carpet, where she
rolled about, laughing hysterically and kicking her legs in the air.

‘I am
going upstairs,’ said Porrig. ‘I am going to pack my bags and I will be leaving
first thing in the morning.’

‘Sleep
well then, dear,’ howled Porrig’s mother, gasping for breath and drumming her
fists on the floor.

Porrig went up to his
room, pulled his battered suitcase from beneath his bed and packed.

He
slept very ‘badly that night. His dreams were full of spacecraft and of alien
ambassadors who came in peace but left in a right huff after his welcoming
speech. There was a magistrate who said things like, ‘Porrig Arthur Naseby, you
stand before me accused of causing intergalactic war, how do you plead?’ And
Porrig’s mum was there laughing and shouting, ‘Guilty! Guilty! Off with his
head!’

Porrig
was awoken early by a scream, a thud and a shattering of bottle glass, as the
milkman, tripping on the piano wire, dropped his crate and struck his head on
the front door.

Porrig
shook himself fully awake. ‘Time to
be
off, I think,’ he said.

In the
bathroom he showered and dried and dressed. And gathered up his razor, comb and
toothbrush. He thrust these into a pocket of his ‘jacket and stood for a moment
before the bathroom mirror, considering his reflection.

A young
man gazed back at him. A young man of nineteen years, moderately handsome, firm
of jaw and twinkly of eye. It was not the face he would ‘have chosen, had he
been given the choice, but it was not a face to be bewailed. Porrig grinned at
the face and the face grinned back at Porrig. Simultaneously.

‘Right
then,’ said Porrig to his reflection. This is it.’

 And it
was.

 His
parents were still asleep and so Porrig left a note which thanked them for
having him and wished them all the very best for the future. He closed the
front door quietly behind him, stepped over the prone body of the milkman and
set off to the station with a whistle.

‘The
sun rose over Brentford, beaming blessings on the borough. Sparrows sang their
simple songs. Chaffinches chewed cherries on chimney-pots and a dark dog did a
doo-doo in a doorway. Pete the parish pervert was probably playing with his
pecker in the park, but as Porrig wasn’t passing by that way didn’t see him.

Porrig
did, however, pass by Mad Jack’s Used Car Emporium. And here he paused to push
a postcard through the letter-box. On this postcard were written words of
apology, explaining that Porrig had, through no fault of his own, been forced
into taking an early retirement. Porrig had been very careful indeed when
penning this missive to couch it in terms that would not be likely to cause
offence or risk retribution.

He had
only used the word ‘fuckwit’ twice in describing his employer.

Porrig
went a-whistling on his way and the sun rose ever higher over Brentford.

 Ahead
lurked trouble with a capital T.

In the ticket office at
Brentford Central Station sat Russell The Railwayman. He had originally been
christened Russell Hubner, but had changed his name by deed poll. Working on
the railways can do strange things to a man (as will certain women if you pay
them enough). But this aside, Russell had changed his name with a definite
purpose in mind:

to
pursue a career as a stand-up comedian. There had once been a singing postman.
There had also been a singing nun. A laughing policeman had been sung about, as
had a fisherman called Pedro who was always whistling. But where were all the
railwaymen, eh? Working on the bloody railways, that’s where! Russell meant to
change all that. Well, for himself at least.

But so
far things hadn’t worked out all too well. In fact they hadn’t worked out at
all. His attempts to take the world of comedy by storm had been met with
indifference. And when not with indifference, then with outright hostility. His
regular appearances at The Flying Swan’s Thursday Talent Night were received
with catcalls and the throwing of furniture. The world of comedy did not seem
ready for a ribald railwayman.

But
why?

Well,
it did have something to do with Russell’s ‘delivery’. He was a natural
mumbler. And when it came to stage presence, you either have that or you don’t.

As for
his material, limited as it was to Russell’s specific interests, the bogie
arrangements on pre-war locomotives and the music of Abba, it did not appeal
as widely as it might have done. Russell’s only real fan was his mother.

And so
Russell festered in the ticket office of Brentford Central Station, bitter and
resentful and taking his spite out on the travellers.

 And
one was approaching even now. A young man with a bulging suitcase. Evidently
off on his holidays.

Russell
peered through the grimy glass of the ‘ticket office window. ‘The first of the
day,’ he mumbled. ‘And with only five minutes to catch the Victoria train. He’s
going to have to hurry if he doesn’t want to miss it.’

Porrig
dragged his suitcase into the booking hail and set it down upon the tiled
floor. Squaring up before the counter window, he said, ‘A single to Brighton
please and… er… Hello, where have you gone?’

Beyond ‘the
range of Porrig’s vision, Russell had sat down in a corner and opened up the
latest edition of
Bogie World.
‘Shan’t keep you a moment, sir,’ he
called.

‘Fair
enough.’ Porrig stuck his hands into his trouser pockets and gazed all about
the booking hall. The station was Grade Two listed, as were most of the older
buildings in the borough. When Sir John Betjeman allegedly wrote of Brentford,
in his famous poem ‘Town I do thee love’:

Oh beauteous borough, fairest jewel

Set in the crown of London’s west

By the Thames so coolly cool

And blah de blah and beer is best.

He
might well have had a few pints under his belt, but he certainly wasn’t pissing
on his boots. When it came to tasteful architecture, Brentford had it. And then
some.

Porrig
idly perused the railway timetable.

The
trains that ran to Victoria, where he must make his Brighton connection, ran on
the hour.

Porrig
idly perused his wrist-watch.

It was
now four minutes to the hour.

‘Oh,’
said Porrig, and, ‘Excuse me, please, but can I buy a ticket?’

Won’t
keep you a moment, sir.’

‘Hurry
up. I’ll miss my train.’

In his
hidden corner Russell smiled. ‘A live one,’ he whispered. ‘Be with you in a
minute, sir,’ he called.