The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag (15 page)

‘Shall
we shake upon it? Perhaps you will take off your gloves.’

‘I
think not,’ said Billy. ‘But we have a deal.’

‘Splendid.’

‘Just
one or two small details. Accommodation?’

‘Pick
out a place you like in the area. The company will cover the costs.’

‘Transportation?’

‘You
acquired the young man’s car, I believe.’

‘It
will do for now, I suppose.’

‘Splendid.
We’ll have all the documentation altered to your name.’

‘And my
granny,’ said Billy.

‘Ah
yes, your granny.’

‘I’d
like her downloaded straight away, if that’s all right.’

‘That’s
perfectly all right. Just bring her in whenever you want and I’ll take care of
it myself.’

‘Thank
you,’ said Billy. ‘I have her with me now, actually. She’s downstairs in the
car.’

‘I didn’t
notice any passenger when you drove into the car park.’

‘Well,
you wouldn’t have,’ said Billy. ‘She’s in the boot.’

Legs Kirby

‘Here, what’s this?’ says Kirby,

Kirby with those legs he wears,

Kirby with his books and prayers,

Kirby living under stairs,

Stupid bow-legs Kirby.

‘So, who’s there?’ says Kirby,

Kirby with his Fifties suit,

Kirby with his iron book,

Kirby with his pheasant shoot,

Stupid bow-legs Kirby.

Well, why’s this?’ says Kirby,

Kirby with his kipper tie,

Kirby with his lazy eye,

Kirby with his tasty fry,

Stupid bow-legs Kirby.

‘Yes, I see!’ says Kirby,

Kirby with his winning ways,

Kirby with his love of praise,

Kirby with his open days,

Stupid bow-legs, greaseball, over-fed, toffee-nosed,
know-it-all, no-good-son-of-a-pig who wouldn’t let me in his gang—

Stupid bow-legs fat-head!

10

I
never deal with the common man.

The
common man has no spirituality.

The
common man thinks that

Ganesha
is Dennis the Menace’s dog.

HUGO
RUNE

Mrs Barnes gave it two
weeks and then reported Billy’s absence to the police. They sent round Inspector
Kirby who had done courses in bereavement counselling and community relations.
He had also done courses in stress management, positive thinking,
actualization of the self, releasing the spirit within, neoistic post-modernism
and macramé. He held a degree in Humanities and was qualified to teach
hang-gliding and white water rafting. Exactly what he was doing in the police
force was a mystery to both him and his mother.

Inspector
Kirby rang the doorbell, but receiving no reply took himself round to the side
of the house.

Mrs
Barnes sat upon the veranda in her wicker chair. As it was a Thursday she was
cross-dressed. Evening suit, dickie bow, patent pumps and a rather fetching
Clark Gable moustache sketched in felt-tip pen beneath her nose.

‘Madam?’
said Inspector Kirby.

‘How
dare you!’ said Billy’s mum. ‘Does this look like a brothel?’

‘No,
madam. This looks like a mock-Tudor house. Circa 1933 and the work of the
architect Klaus Bok, brother of the painter, Karl. Bok favoured the use of
traditional materials, but was not averse to modern innovation, as can be seen
in the window catches and guttering.’ Inspector Kirby had also done ‘Architectural
Styles of the Twentieth Century’ in an Open University course.

‘My
husband was a great friend of Bok,’ said Mrs Barnes. ‘Which was curious
considering the disparity in their heights. My husband was very tall and Bok
was positively dwarf-like.’

‘Was he
Welsh?’

‘If he
was, he kept it to himself. They could put you in prison for that, back in
those days.’

‘For being
Welsh?’

‘Oh,
Welsh? I thought you said “raving homosexual”.’ Mrs Barnes put her head on one
side and pounded her right ear with her fist. ‘I’ve a bit of carrot stuck in my
left ear, you know how it is.’

Inspector
Kirby nodded. ‘As much as you can eat for a flyer. So you get your head right
into the salad bowl.’

‘No,’
said Mrs Barnes. ‘It’s vomit.’

Inspector
Kirby scratched at his knees.

‘Your
legs are extremely bowed,’ Mrs Barnes observed. ‘Do you have your trousers
specially tailored?’

‘Only
the ones I wear when I’m on duty.’

‘And
when you’re off duty?’

‘I
normally wear a kilt.’

‘Well,
it’s legal nowadays. Although it’s still frowned upon in the armed services.

Inspector
Kirby shook his head and gave his knees another scratch.

‘That’s
why my husband left the country,’ said Mrs Barnes. ‘Because of homosexuality. “Mavis,”
he said to me, “two hundred years ago they hanged you for it, one hundred years
ago they jailed you for it, thirty years ago they legalized it and I’m getting
out before they make it compulsory.”‘

‘It’s
regarding your son, Billy,’ said Inspector Kirby.

‘I
wouldn’t have thought he was your type.’

‘He’s
not my type.’

‘So
what type do you prefer then?’

‘I don’t
prefer any type. I’m not gay.’

‘Don’t
knock it if you haven’t tried it.’

‘I wasn’t
knocking it.’

‘Then
you
have
tried it.’

‘No,
well, er, that is neither here nor there. I am here regarding your son’s
disappearance.’

‘Come
and sit down over here,’ said Billy’s mum. ‘Your legs are distracting me. It’s
like looking through a porthole.’

Inspector
Kirby joined Mrs Barnes on the veranda. ‘When did you last see your son?’ he
asked, as he sat himself down.

‘The
Wednesday before the Wednesday before last.’

‘And he
said nothing to you about where he might be going.’

‘He
might have mentioned business elsewhere.

But I
can’t be certain. We’ve never been close, you see.’

‘Does
he miss his father, do you think?’

‘He’s
never mentioned him.’

‘Probably
in denial,’ said Inspector Kirby. ‘An inability to express outwardly feelings
of loss and abandonment can often result in deep-seated psychological trauma.
Introversion, bed-wetting, masturbation, voyeurism—’

‘Homosexuality?’
asked Mrs Barnes.

‘No,’
said Inspector Kirby. ‘I wasn’t going to say homosexuality.’

‘Well,
you should say it. After all it’s homosexuality that has raised us above the
animals.’

‘I don’t
think I quite follow that.’

‘Well,
you just think about it. What is it that elevates mankind? Makes it superior to
the animal kingdom?’

‘A more
sophisticated brain, opposing thumbs, the ability to communicate through
language—’

‘At
first, yes. But think about culture. Think about the arts. Think what
homosexuals have contributed to the arts. How many artists, poets, writers,
singers, musicians, composers, filmmakers, dancers, actors, clothes designers,
set-dressers and hairdressers are homosexuals?’

‘A very
great many,’ said Inspector Kirby.

‘Exactly,’
said Mrs Barnes. ‘They may not breed. But breeding is for the herd. The
homosexual is one apart. He’s different. An individual. The homosexual contributes
to the quality of life.’

‘You’re
quite right,’ said Inspector Kirby. ‘I’d never thought about it like that
before.’

‘Everything
in the gene pool is there for a purpose. And homosexuality is not an
evolutionary hiccup or blind alley. It serves its purpose. Through the culture
of the arts we are all ennobled. I always cross-dress on Thursdays as a
personal tribute to homosexuals for all the joy they have brought to mankind.’

‘Bravo,’
said Inspector Kirby, clapping his hands. ‘It makes me proud to be gay.’

‘Bravo!’
agreed Mrs Barnes. ‘As so you should be. But tell me this.’

‘What’s
that?’

‘How
come they let a shirt-lifter like you into the police force?’

Inspector
Kirby stayed for lunch. As it was a Thursday they took lunch in the trophy room
surrounded by the many curious artefacts Mr Barnes had brought back from his
world wanderings.

‘That’s
a whale’s tooth,’ said Mrs Barnes, in answer to the Inspector’s question. ‘My
husband pulled it from the jaw of the slain creature while on one of his many
whaling voyages.’

‘How
very interesting,’ the Inspector said.

They
dined upon mince and slices of quince, which they ate with plastic forks, as
the runcible spoons were away being cleaned.

“What
are the chances of finding my Billy?’ asked his mum, munching loudly and
rattling her plate about.

‘Very
good,’ said the Inspector, examining his uncooked mince. ‘After all, we have
yet to establish whether he is actually missing. You say he took a packed
suitcase. It is most likely that he has just gone off for a while and will
contact you shortly.’

‘He’s
never gone off before.’

‘He’s
twenty-three years of age, Mrs Barnes, perhaps he just wanted to get a bit of
space. Spread his wings. Expand his horizons.’

‘So you
don’t think he’s in any danger, then?’

‘Let us
not be pessimistic without due cause.’

‘Fine,’
said Mrs Barnes. ‘Then let’s forget all about him. If he turns up dead in a
canal or something you can always give me a call, can’t you?’

‘Well
yes, but I— Listen, do you… I mean, are you all alone here now?’

‘My mum
lives with me. She’s an invalid, she’s upstairs.’

Now
this was a lie and a deliberate one. Mrs Barnes had no intention of mentioning
her mum’s disappearance. Mrs Barnes collected her mum’s pension every week and
she needed the money for her Tuesday evening activities.

‘I’d
like to meet your mother,’ said Inspector Kirby.

‘She’s
asleep. Perhaps another time.’

‘That
would be nice. This really is a fascinating room, Mrs Barnes. A regular museum.
That carved ‘cabinet on the mantelpiece, where did that come from?’

‘Haiti.
My grandfather was the governor there at the turn of the century. The cabinet
is a reliquary, it holds the family’s most precious possession.’

‘Absolutely
fascinating. And what is that, exactly?’

‘A
plaster cast of a voodoo handbag. The handbag of Maîtresse Ezilée, the Haitian
incarnation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.’

‘Incredible.
I did a night school course on the occult a couple of years ago and we studied
the voodoo pantheon. Papa Legba, Agoué, Loco and the rest. Isn’t the handbag
supposed to possess certain powers? Act as an oracle, or something?’

‘They
say it speaks, although I’ve never heard it. Billy said it used to speak to
him, tell him stories.’

What
kind of stories?’

‘Tall
ones, I think.’

‘Fascinating,’
said the Inspector. ‘Do you think I might see it?’

‘Absolutely
not!’ Mrs Barnes bashed her big fists down upon the table. ‘Far too dangerous.
The handbag is a
transitus tessera.
It can take you from the world of
the living to the world of the angry dead.’

‘You
mean I might die if I saw it?’

‘If you
were to touch it you would die.’

‘I see.
Is it then, impregnated with some poison from the Amazon?’

‘Possibly.
But trust me, if you opened that cabinet and touched the voodoo handbag you’d
die.’

‘Incredible,’
said Inspector Kirby. ‘Absolutely incredible.’

‘I
suppose so.’ Mrs Barnes shrugged noisily. ‘But you get used to things, don’t
you? And you learn by your mistakes.’

‘Indeed.’

The
telephone began to ring.

‘That
might be your Billy,’ said Inspector Kirby.

‘No,
that’s not his ring.’ Mrs Barnes forked up some quince and gobbled it down.

‘Aren’t
you going to answer it?’

‘It
will stop ringing eventually, it always does.’

‘It
might be for me.’

‘Oh,
all right!’ Mrs Barnes flung her fork aside, rose rowdily and stomped out of
the room, slamming the door behind her.