The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived (16 page)

‘You
can’t do that,’ he wailed. ‘You can’t. You just can’t.’

‘But I
have to,’ said Norman. ‘It’s the only way. If I could fly up to the hole, I could
get out, then open up the iron door, lower a rope or something and free you
too. You could work the big sky nozzle for me then. And you would be free.’

‘Yes,
but all my evidence. You’d burn it up.’

‘Some
of it, but not all.’

‘Tell
me what you’ve got in mind again, sonny. Go on say it again.’

‘I fly
up the shaft,’ said Norman. ‘Not with wings, they just wouldn’t work in so
small a space. But in a hot-air balloon. This paper’s damp, we could glue it
together like papier mâché, make a balloon, build a burner underneath and
something for me to hang on to, then light up, fill with hot air and float up
the shaft. It’s a blinder of an idea, you have to admit it.’

‘But
all my evidence.’

‘You’d
still have all the stuff that was glued together to make the balloon. Look
there’s an old tin waste-paper bin here, that could serve as the burner and we
could break up these bits of old chairs to burn, you’d not lose much paper.’

‘How
would you start the fire?’ asked the oldster. ‘Have a box of matches, do you?’

‘Where
there’s a will there’s a way,’ said Norman.

‘Yes I
bet there is for you, you smart-arsed little bastard.’

‘Does
that mean we have a deal?’ Norman asked, while sticking his hand out for a
shake.

‘It
does,’ said the ex-controller shaking it vigorously.

17

The most amazing man who
ever lived threw wide the Draylon curtains of the KEV-LYN suite and drew in his
first breath of the new day.

And
phew wot a scorcher it was.

The sun
shone in through the UPVC — which was clever as it had also been seen to go
down through it — and lit up the appalling apartment. A figure bundled up on
the floor in blankets awoke with a start and went through the traditional,
‘What, who, where am I?’ routine. Then coming fully awake, arose and bowed
before the man who was now his master.

‘Good-morning,
guru,’ he said. ‘May I fetch you breakfast?’

Rune
adjusted the sash on his monogrammed silk dressing-gown and straightened his
matching cravat. ‘I’ll take the full Grande belly buster,’ said he, ‘whatever
newspapers this establishment has to offer, black coffee, toast with honey,
some jaffa cakes and a bottle of the finest brandy.’

‘As you
wish, guru.’ The daring young man of the night before did not seem quite so
daring now. Somewhat hollow of cheek was he and wild about the eyes. Something
sinister had come to pass and something best not dwelt upon or even guessed at.

Urgh!

Rune
waved the pale young man away upon his duties and settled himself down upon a
Parker Knoll recliner of a hideous auburn hue. ‘So much to do,’ said Hugo Rune.
‘But all the time in all the world to do it in. For some of us at least.’

*

‘Remove the asterisk,’
said Rune. ‘This chapter is at an end.’

18

Something was nearly at an
end at the bottom of the abandoned lift shaft.

Nearly.

‘Roll
that bit up,’ said Norman. ‘And glue it onto this bit here.’

‘This
bugger will never fly,’ said the Ben Gun look-alike. ‘Its shape’s all wrong.
What’s it supposed to be anyhow?’

‘It’s a
head,’ said Norman. ‘Hot-air balloons always look like heads nowadays. Or farm
houses or hairdryers. They never look like hot-air balloons any more.

‘So
whose head is this one supposed to look like?’

‘Jesus,’
said Norman.

‘Jesus?
That doesn’t look like Jesus. If that looks like
anybody then it looks like—’

‘Look,
OK. I don’t know what Jesus really looks like. It’s a representation. It’s a
hot-air balloon.’

‘I met
Jesus once,’ said the ancient.

‘You
never did.’

‘I did
too. He told me this story.’

‘Go
on,’ said Norman.

‘About
after he’d been crucified, when he came up to Heaven.’

‘Go
on,’ said Norman once more.

‘Yes.
Well, he came up to Heaven and he was chatting with St Peter at the gates and
St Peter had to go to the toilet and Jesus agreed to stand in for him for five
minutes. Checking in the new arrivals.’

Norman
busied himself with bits of wire and broken office furniture.

‘Yes,
and Jesus was standing there at the Pearly Gates and this old Jewish fellow
comes up. And Jesus says, “Name?”

‘And
the old Jewish fellow says, “Joseph.”

‘And
Jesus says, “Occupation.”

‘And
the old Jewish fellow says, “Carpenter.”

‘And
Jesus says, “Hang about, you look familiar, didn’t you have a son?”

‘And
the old Jewish fellow says, “Yes I did, lovely boy.”

‘And
Jesus, who is now convinced that the old chap is his dad, but wants to make
absolutely sure, says, “Did your son have any distinguishing marks or scars
the last time you saw him?”

‘And
Joseph says, “Yes, he had holes in his hands and his feet.”

‘And
Jesus throws his arms around the old Jewish fellow and says, “Father.”

‘And
the old Jewish fellow throws his arms about Jesus and says—’

‘Pinocchio,’
said Norman. ‘Yes, I’ve heard it.’

‘You
never have?’ said the ancient. ‘He told it to you too?’

‘Jesus
never told you it,’ said Norman. ‘It’s a really ancient gag.

‘He did
too tell it to me. It’s his favourite joke. That and the one about “Peter, I
can see your house from up here”. And of course it’s ancient. He told it to me
about a thousand years ago. And that’s who your balloon looks like.’

‘Jesus?’

‘Pinocchio.
You’ll never get it in the air.’

‘I will
too. And I’ll get us both out of here.’

‘You
bloody won’t. You’re barking mad, sonny. Did you hear the one about “the
elephant’s cloakroom ticket”, by the way?’

‘I’m
all done here now,’ said Norman, standing back to view his creation. He
couldn’t stand back too fir, him being at the bottom of an abandoned lift shaft
and everything. But he was able to get the general gist of the thing.

And a
fair old thing it was too.

A touch
of the Montgolfier brothers here, a hint of a Richard Branson tax dodge there,
and for those with very long memories, a smidgen of the
Nimble
bread
commercials up at the top end.

It
looked mighty fine.

Mighty
head-like and handsome.

It
looked mighty like Pinocchio though.

‘Told
you,’ said the ancient one. ‘Look at that big hooter. Jesus doesn’t have a big
hooter like that.’

‘It’s a
cunning innovation of my own,’ said Norman proudly. ‘To get
you
out. I
light up the rubbish in the waste-bin, the balloon fills with hot air, I drift
up the shaft to the opening. Then I untie the end of this Pinocchio’s nose bit,
the hot air is released, the balloon drifts down again. You tie the nose up
again. The balloon re-fills with hot air and you drift up on it to join me at
the hole. Now is that clever or what?’

The old
boy looked at Norman, he looked at the balloon, he looked at the Pinocchio’s
nose and he looked back once again at Norman.

And
then he grinned a fearsome grin and slapped the youth soundly on the back. ‘You
are a genius,’ he crowed. ‘A veritable genius.’

‘Thank
you,’ said Norman. ‘I do my best.’

‘You
certainly do. You certainly do. So go on then, sonny, light up the waste-bin.
Do your stuff.’

‘Ah
yes,’ said Norman. ‘Light up the waste-bin.’

‘Light
it up, sonny. Light it up.’

‘There
must be some way of starting a fire.’ Norman rooted though his grey-flannel
trouser pockets. They contained all the standard unsavoury things that
fourteen-year-old boys always keep in them. But no matches. Norman considered
his digital watch. He’d heard tell that if you took the battery out and crushed
it, it would burst into flame. But he had tried that once, and it certainly
didn’t work.

Norman
glanced around and about. ‘Light-bulb,’ he said. ‘Smash the light-bulb, put
something into the socket to cause a short circuit, flash bang, burst of
flame.’

‘Oh my
word no!’ The old white-bearder stepped back in alarm. ‘You don’t want to go
messing with electricity, sonny. You really don’t. Do for you that will. Souls
are charged particles. You could short yourself out. You’d cease to exist
completely.’

‘You’re
joking.’

‘I am
not. Stay clear of electrical discharge, that’s my advice to you.

‘Electrical
discharge!
Oh dear, oh dear.’ Norman shook his ‘Oh
dearing’ head. Then, ‘Gunpowder,’ he said. ‘Make gunpowder; all the ingredients
are here. Graphite out of old pencils, sulphur out of those,’ Norman pointed to
those certain things from which sulphur might easily be extracted. ‘And
saltpetre. That’s potassium nitrate.’ Norman ran his finger down the nearest
wall. ‘See that white powder, that’s a crystalline compound, forms on bricks in
conditions like this. It’s all here.’

‘Seems
so,’ the old fellow agreed. ‘Where did you say you were going to get the
sulphur from again? I couldn’t quite see where you were pointing.’

‘Er,’
said Norman.

‘Er
indeed,’ said the ex-controller.

‘Now
just you see here,’ said Norman. ‘Unless we escape from this place and get to
Earth and stop whatever is destined to happen before it does, millions of
people, if not
all
people, are going to die. This is a big number.
Surely you’d be prepared to overlook a bit of bullshit over where the sulphur
comes from. I mean, check out the hot-air balloon. We
are
talking “fantasy”
here, after all.’

‘Well,’
the old man shuffled his ragged footwear, ‘I suppose it is remotely possible
that all the ingredients to make gunpowder would be down here.

‘Of
course they would.’

‘But to
save any embarrassment, why don’t we just use this?’

‘What
is that?’

‘It’s
my pocket lighter,’ said the ex-controller.

19

‘Did you get us anything
to eat?’ asked Tuppe.

‘Not a
lot, I’m afraid,’ replied Cornelius. ‘I found a couple of bob in a pay-out tray
of a fruit machine. But I reinvested it. Nearly came up three bells. But not
quite.’

‘So we
have no breakfast.’

‘Not as
such. Have you given any thought to the matter of our business partnership?’

‘Cornelius
Murphy Productions present Professor Tuppe and… no, not a lot,’ said Tuppe.
‘I asked Boris, but he wasn’t keen.’

‘Boris?’
Cornelius asked.

‘That’s
my name,’ said the amphibious fellow in the sheep suit. ‘But tell you what, do
you like fish?’

‘Love
fish,’ said Tuppe.

‘Me
too,’ said Cornelius.

‘Well,
why don’t I catch us the fish. You get a fire going on the beach and we’ll cook
up some breakfast.’

‘I
don’t have a fishing-rod,’ said Cornelius.

‘I
don’t need a fishing-rod,’ said Boris. ‘Catch them in my teeth.’

‘You’re
kidding,’ said Tuppe.

‘I am
not. What do you favour, flounders or sea bass?’

‘Anything,’
said Cornelius. ‘You’ll want to get out of the sheep suit though, won’t you?’

‘Best
not. Don’t want anyone to see me getting back into it.’

‘Well,
whatever you please.’

‘Righteo
then, give us a lift over the parapet and I’ll dive us up some brekky.’

‘Good
one.’ Cornelius lifted Boris up and dropped him over the rail. Plop he went
into the sea and sank away from view.

‘He’s a
character and that’s for sure,’ said Tuppe. ‘Let’s get down to the beach and
start a fire.’

‘Oi
you!’ shouted a night fisherman who, with several of his burly mates, had been
packing away his gear. ‘We bloody saw that, you sadistic bastard.’

‘Let’s
run to the beach,’ said Cornelius. ‘I like an early-morning work-out.’

‘You certainly know how to
fry,’ said Boris somewhat later, as he munched upon a mackerel.

‘How do
you cook under the sea?’ Tuppe asked. ‘Doesn’t the water put the gas out?’

‘Perhaps
they use the trans-perambulation of pseudo-cosmic antimatter,’ said Cornelius,
tucking into a herring.