The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag (31 page)

The
ancient one gazed at me with glittering eyes, opened a mouth that offered a
vacancy for teeth, spat a tobacco-coloured gobbet of phlegm into my lap and
spoke a single word.

‘Twat!’

‘Excuse
me?’ I said.

‘Twat!’
said the ancient one. ‘You, boy, are a twat.’

I
smiled bravely and pondered over the phlegm in my lap.

‘Twat,’
said the ancient one once more. ‘Twat, twat, twat.’

‘Yeah,
all right,’ I replied. ‘I get the picture.’

What
did I tell your Uncle Brian to tell you? Beware of Billy Barnes. I told him.
And did you beware, boy? Did you?’

‘Not
perhaps as much as I should.’

‘You
twat.’

‘Yes
well, all right. I think we have established that I’m a twat.’

‘You
are a twat. Ask any man here.’ The old boy nodded all about the place, the
seafaring types nodded back.

We’re
only allowed the one.’ The old boy rootled about in his nose. ‘Only the one and
I wasted mine on you.’

‘Allowed
one what? I don’t understand?’

 ‘One
message from the other side. We’re all allowed one, to aid the living.’

‘Aid
the living? You mean you’re—’

‘Dead?
Of course I’m frigging dead. Every man Jack here’s a dead’n. Drinking away our
time, till the flesh drops off our bones and we end up on the big heap up the
road.’

‘What a
bummer,’ I said.

The old
boy shrugged, his shoulder bones made ghastly cracking sounds. ‘Serves us
right,’ he said.

‘That’s
very philosophical of you.’

‘Ain’t nothin’
philosophical about it. It’s the way it is and there ain’t no other. Did I
mention, by the way, that you’re a twat?’

‘I
believe you did, yes.’

Well
you are. I had such big plans for you, we all did, all of us here. We were all
going to use our messages on you. Help you to stop Billy Barnes.’

‘All of
you? But why me?’

‘You’d
have done. You were searching for him. Over the years we would have advised you
in your dreams. And if we had, and you’d bloody listened, the world out there
wouldn’t be in the shit state it is now.’

Well
there’s still time,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been in here long, a few months at the
most. I can still stop him doing whatever monstrous things he’s doing.’

‘A few
months?’ The old boy threw back his head, and took to a bout of cackling
laughter. And then he clawed at his head, which had fallen over his shoulders,
and rammed it back into position. ‘A few months, boy? You’ve been in the
Necronet for ten long years.’

‘I
what?’

‘Time
ain’t the same in here as it is out there.’

‘Ten
years?’ My stomach dropped. I shook and I shivered. ‘Ten years I’ve been in
here. I don’t ‘believe it. That can’t be right.’

‘Tis
right, boy. It’ll teach you to be a twat, won’t it?’

‘But my
body, out there. Am I dead too now?’

‘No,
no, no.’ The old boy held onto his head and shook it. ‘He’s still got your
body, that Barnes. Keeps it in a suitcase under his bed. You’re still alive,
what’s left of you.’

‘Oh no.’
I took to chewing on my fingers. ‘He’s been feeding me to the voodoo handbag.
That bastard’s been feeding me—’

Well,
there ain’t quite so much of you as there used to be. But I’m told they can do
all kinds of miracle stuff with surgery nowadays. Sew on a new pecker and
everything.’

‘Pecker?
Oh my God!’

‘Easy,
boy. Don’t go all to pieces.’ The old boy set in to further chuckling.

‘Oh my
God! What am I going to do? What am I going to do?’

‘Get
out of here and best the bastard. That would be my advice.’

‘But
how? But how?’

The old
boy sucked at his sunken gums.

‘Don’t
spit on me again,’ I told him.

‘I was
cogitating, boy.’

‘Oh
shit. Oh shit, shit shit.’

‘You
should have got here quicker. All that pissing about on the desert island and
in Rob’s Bar, what kind of twattery was that?’

‘You
knew I was doing those things?’

‘Course
I knew. I watched you.’

‘You
bloody watched me? And you knew the years were racing by and you did nothing to
help me?’

‘I’m
not God.’ The old boy bashed at his right ear and plucked a bit of lettuce from
his left. ‘You had to find your way to me.’

Who are
you?’

‘Me? I’m
just an old sea captain. Who I am doesn’t matter.’

‘I’ll
bet it does.’

‘It don’t!
But you, boy. You’re special.’

‘I’m
not special.’ I shook my head. ‘I’m just the same as everybody else. If there’s
one thing I’ve learned since I’ve been trapped in the Necronet, it’s that
everyone is special. Everyone. Each individual matters. We’re all as special as
each other. But no-one, no-one has the right to claim that they’re more special
than anyone else.’

Well,
you’ve learned something.’

‘But at
what bloody cost?’

‘Don’t
give up.’

‘Give
up? I’ve been sitting here talking to you for five minutes. For all I know,
another six months have passed in the real world .and that bastard Barnes has
fed me into a mincing machine.’

‘Actually,
that might well be what he has in mind.’

‘Oh
shit, shit, shit.’

‘Now
just calm yourself. We have to get you out of here and you have to put paid to
Barnes.’

‘I
certainly do.’

‘Drink
up your ale.’

What?’

‘Drink
your ale. It’ll give you strength.’

‘Good
God.’ I drank my ale. ‘Hm,’ I said, ‘good ale. The last time I tasted beer as
good as this was—’

‘Don’t
even think about it. But listen here. You’ve learned much since you’ve been in
here and you can use what you know to defeat Barnes. You must trap him and
force the information out of him.’

‘Information?’

‘How to
get you back into your body.’

‘Go on.’

‘There’s
only one way you can get to Barnes and that’s in his dreams. If you can get
yourself into his dreams, you can make him tell you what you need to know.’

‘But I
don’t know what he dreams about. The Necronet, the mind of God, it’s endless,
infinite. The only people I’ve met here are the ones I’ve dreamed up myself.
Apart from Arthur Thickett and he was dreaming back in the 1960s. What chance
do I have of getting into one of Billy Barnes’ dreams?’

‘Not
much,’ said the old boy.

‘Thanks
a lot.’

‘Just
listen to me. Say you knew someone who knew someone who knew Billy Barnes. And
you asked that someone to ask the someone they knew to ask Billy Barnes what he
dreamed about, then—’

‘Hold
it,’ I said. ‘Hold it. Hold it. You are suggesting, I believe, that I engage
the help of a friend of a friend.’

‘That’s
what all this is all about, ain’t it?’

‘Search
me,’ I said.

‘You
find out what Billy Barnes dreams about, and the next time he dreams about it,
you’re there waiting for him.’

‘And
what do I do when I meet up with him in his dream?’

‘Torture
the bastard would be my advice.’

‘I do
like the sound of that. But I do see a slight flaw in all this.’

‘Oh,
and what’s that?’

‘I
do not know someone who knows someone who knows frigging Billy Barnes!’

‘Yes
you do.’

‘No I
… what am I saying? Of course I do.’

‘Of
course you do,’ said the old boy. ‘Only a matter of applying that digital
memory of yours, wasn’t it?’

By the year 2007 books
were only a memory. In the great Health Purge of 2001 all printed matter,
books, magazines, newspapers, anything that constituted printing on a page,
was destroyed. The dwindling population of the world knew it was all for the
best. The dangers of viral infection were far too great and the cost of rubber
gloves too high.

Necrosoft,
now the planet’s single news network, kept the world informed of all that it
needed to know: that everything was on the up and things were getting better.
Crime was now a thing of the past. Folk never stole, for why should they? They
all dressed the same in their Necrowear sports clothes, ate the same burgers at
McNecro’s, listened to the top ten tunes on the Necropop channel, and thought
what they had learned to think. Babies in their cribs sucked upon their
pleasers and just as soon as they could talk they praised the name of Billy
Barnes.

Barnes
himself looked upon all that he had made and found it pleasant to behold. He
was off today to approve the finishing touches that had been put to the newly
constructed world capital of Barnes. Millions had toiled to create this super
city with its mirror-glass towers and golden cupolas. Millions drawn from
around the world. The finest architects, artisans and craftsmen. Because only
the very best now remained and all these worked, as all men did, for Billy
Barnes alone.

‘Turn
right here,’ ordered Billy.

His
chauffeur, a gaunt and grey-faced woman who had once been an estate agent,
turned the wheel between her fragile fingers, and the long long limo cruised
along Barnes Plaza, bound for the palace of he the world adored.

‘I’m
going to take a nap,’ said Billy. ‘So drive slowly and when we get there don’t
let anyone bother me until I wake up.’

‘Yes,
sir,’ said the chauffeur. Whatever pleases you.’

‘I’m very pleased to be
here,’ said Roger Vulpes. ‘But how
am
I here? How did you get me out of
the hospital?’

‘I
thought you out,’ I said. ‘I need your help.’

‘Bloody
nice of you. Who’s this old duffer?’

The old
duffer let fly a gob of phlegm, but Roger nimbly ducked it.

‘Captain
Quinn,’ said the ancient mariner.

‘Quinn?’
I asked.

‘Captain
Jonathan Quinn, whaler, adventurer and novelist.’

Johnny
Quinn?’

‘You
heard of me then, boy?’

‘Of
course. I read your stuff back in the Sixties.’

‘You
lying little twat.’

‘Any
chance of a beer?’ asked Roger. ‘I’ve had a rough day. Thought I’d made it out
of the hospital on my feathered wings. But the further I flew, the nearer I got
back to the car park. My arms are dead tired, I can tell you.’

‘He’s a
twat too, your mate, ain’t he.’

‘I
quite like him,’ I said, and went off to get Roger a beer.

I
returned to find him deep in conversation with the captain.

‘Did
you know,’ asked Roger, as I handed him his beer, ‘that Captain Quinn here was
once lost off the Florida Keys in an open boat? His oars had blown over the
side in a hurricane and he thought his end had come. So being the pious man he
is he prayed to the Lord and—’

‘A
swordfish saw burst right up through the bottom of the boat.’

The old
boy grinned a toothless grin. ‘You liked that one, didn’t you?’ he said.

I sat
down at the table and stared at the old boy. ‘Dad?’ I said. ‘Are you my dad?’

The old
boy winked. ‘I might just be. Or I might just be telling you a tall story.’

I shook
my head. ‘I think I’m sick of tall stories,’ I said.

‘They’re
not always so tall as you think. Take your mate Roger here, the stealth
fox/dog/horse/ human hybrid. Now
could
that really happen, I ask you?’

‘Probably
not,’ I said.

What do
you mean,
probably not?’
Roger plucked at his ginger whiskers. ‘Don’t
tell me I don’t exist.’

‘Of
course you exist, boy. Everything exists. Everything exists and does not exist.
Simultaneously. An old whaling pal of mine Hugo Rune used to say, “Everything
that can happen will happen, and everything that can’t happen will happen too,
if you’re prepared to wait.” But he was pissed at the time and he’d lost the
plot.’

‘Roger,’
I said, ‘I have to ask you a favour. Do you think you could get yourself into
your girlfriend’s dreams?’

Roger pulled
some more upon his whiskers. Whatever are you on about?’ he asked.

‘It’s a
plan to defeat Billy Barnes. A cunning plan. Here, let me whisper.’

And I
whispered.

The crowd about the World
Leader’s car also whispered. They knew better than to cheer without
permission. They waited patiently until the glossy black window slid down and
the gloved hand waved out at them.