The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived (21 page)

‘You kicked
my Brixton briefcase,’ went the black man in the white tuxedo, head-butting the
wrong fellow.

‘Did
somebody say
briefcase?’
asked the vicar of Skelington Bay, who had been
lunching with Max Clifford.

‘Death
to the Government plague merchants!’ cried the burly kitchen porters, wading
into all and sundry as they beat their righteous path.

‘Stay
here,’ said Tuppe to Boris. ‘I’ve got to help my friend.’

Louise
was helping Cornelius and doing a good job too. She was not quite so vicious as
Thelma. Well, actually, she was.

‘Oooooh,’
went a tattooed vest-wearer, doubling up in agony.

‘Here,’
said Mr Craik. ‘Those burly kitchen porters are coming for
us.

Now who
set off the fire alarm is anyone’s guess (Thelma would be a good one). And
fiercely ringing bells always add that bit of something and step up the action.

Tables
were now being overturned and bottles thrown.

A
heavy-metal fan called Chris, who had been lunching with a party of fellow
librarians, cried, ‘MEGADEATH!’ and pummelled on a passer-by.

Tuppe bit
the ankle of the vest-wearer who had Cornelius by the throat. The Reverend
Cheesefoot, who was developing a passion for the lady in the straw hat’s
knitting bag, caught one in the ear from her Roman Catholic husband, which
brought in elements of the Anglo-Irish conflict.

Cornelius
clunked!
the now-hopping vest-wearer on the head. ‘Gather up the girls
and the sheep,’ he told Tuppe. ‘And let’s get out of here.’

Kevin and Lynne were
returning from a trip to the ASDA superstore in the next town. The fire engine
overtook them as they drove along the promenade. They followed it.

All the
way home.

The
fire engine had to pull up short as an electric-blue 1958 Cadillac Eldorado was
leaving the private car-park at some speed. And lurching rather violently from
side to side.

‘There’s
something wrong with this car,’ said Cornelius Murphy, clinging to the
steering-wheel.

‘Just
drive,’ said Tuppe. ‘We’ll get it fixed later.’

In the
rear seat was a drunken sheep with his hooves (did we agree hooves?) about the
shoulders of two bedraggled young women. ‘You blokes are just great,’ he
giggled. ‘You said we’d have some laughs. Just great. Just frigging great.’

‘Get
your bleeding hoof off my tit,’ said Thelma. ‘Or I’ll punch your lights out.’

24

‘Get off me. Get off me,’ screamed
Norman. ‘I can’t hold on with you clinging to my legs.’

He had
his head through the hole did Norman, and one arm. But things weren’t looking
too hopeful.

‘You
need me,’ crowed Claude. ‘You’d better hold on.’

‘I
can’t, you’re too heavy. You’re dragging me down.’

‘Save
your breath, sonny. Pull us through the sodding hole.’ Well, he’d got this far.

He
couldn’t fall back down again now.

Could
he?

No.
He couldn’t.

Norman
puffed and panted. He struggled and strained and bit by bit and inch by inch.
Until at last.

‘We did
it.’

Norman
gulped in air and Claude sat coughing.

But
they’d done it. They really had.

They
sat now upon a high gantry. The big machines that did the business for the big
sky nozzles pulsed away beneath them. Rising steam puffs, oily smells, wee men
in overalls.

‘What
now?’ Norman asked between gulpings.

‘Revenge,’
said Claude. ‘Sweet revenge.

‘All
right,’ said Norman. ‘Let’s do it.’

The two
of them stood up, stretched, nursed bruised places, and considered the state of
each other.

The state
wasn’t any too good.

They
were both down to their vests and underpants.

‘That’s
a really cakky pair of knickers,’ said Norman.

‘Oh
yeah? Well I bet yours aren’t short of skid marks.’

‘Mine
were clean on the day I…’ Norman paused, made a very sad face.

Claude
patted him on the shoulder. ‘You’re a good boy,’ said he.

‘I’m a
dead
boy,’ said Norman, in a most mournful voice. ‘And I don’t like it one
little bit.’

‘You
have things to do,’ said Claude, giving him another pat. ‘Great things. But
things best done with clothes on. Tell you what. You lure a couple of engineers
up here and I’ll bop them on the head with this spanner and we’ll nick their
overalls and shoes. What do you say?’

‘I say,
where did you get the spanner from?’

‘Same
place as I got the pocket lighter, I suppose.’

‘Fair
enough.’

‘That was quick,’ Norman
said, zipping himself into an engineer’s overall. ‘I never even saw you hit
them with the spanner.’

‘Well,
I never saw you push their unconscious bodies though the hole and down the lift
shaft,’ said Claude, zipping himself into another.

‘You
missed that, did you?’

‘Some
bits you have to miss, sonny, when you’re in a real hurry to get things moving
along.’

‘Which
we are!’

‘Which
we certainly are. So let’s get you to the nearest big sky nozzle and blast you
back to Earth. You’re going home, Norman. Going home.’

‘Going
home,’ sighed Norman. ‘Oh I do like the sound of that.’

25

Off the road and on the
beach a little ways out from Skelington Bay, Cornelius drew the Cadillac to a
squidily-diddly halt. ‘The brakes are all fouled up,’ he told Thelma. ‘What did
you do to this car?’

‘It was
all right yesterday. But ever since we left Collins’ Farm it’s been acting real
funny. Anyway, stuff your car, Cornelius, look at the state of
me.’

Cornelius
looked at the state of Thelma. Much as a Texan might look at the State of
Texas, or a Carmelite, the State of Grace.

Most
approvingly.

Tousled,
Thelma was, about the golden tresses; her perfect cheekbones were lacquered
with perspiration. Blue eyes showering sparks. Boob tube slightly torn. Firm
young breasts rising and falling to a sensual rhythm.

Forget
Texas. Forget Grace.

‘Don’t
stare at me like that,’ said Thelma. ‘Well, OK, you can if you want to.

‘I’m
sorry I got you into a fight.’

‘Don’t
be, I really enjoyed it.’

‘I fear
the vest-wearers may be walking with a pronounced limp for a few days.’

‘And
sleeping rough probably,’ said Louise. ‘Or two of them at least. I lifted their
wallets during the fight.’

‘They’ll
all
be sleeping rough,’ said Thelma. ‘I lifted the other two.’ Cornelius
shook his head at this, then gathered in his wandering hair.

He did
not approve of such dishonesty, but considered that to take the moral high
ground now, might well interfere with his chances of sexual intercourse later.

Or sooner.

‘Why
don’t we all go in for a swim and cool off?’ he suggested.

‘I’m
for that,’ Tuppe pulled off his shirt. ‘How’s Boris?’ he asked.

‘Boris
has passed out on the floor,’ said Louise.

‘Best
leave him to sleep it off then.’

‘I
don’t think the world’s quite ready for Professor Tuppe and his dancing sheep,’
said Cornelius.

‘I
don’t think
I’m
quite ready for a life on the cabaret circuit,’ said
Tuppe. ‘If that was the Skelington Bay lunchtime crowd, then stuff the Glasgow
Empire on a Saturday night.’

‘What
are
you
going to do?’ Thelma asked Cornelius.

‘About
what?’

‘About
Mr Rune and your millions of pounds, and whatever it is that your millions of
pounds are
helping
him to finance?’

‘I’ll
get around to that,’ smiled Cornelius. ‘All in good time.’

‘I
thought you were an adventurer.’

‘An
epic
adventurer. That’s me.

‘Then
it’s your job to make things happen, not just wait for them to.’ Cornelius rose
to his full height in the driver’s seat and pushed his hair to the back of
himself. ‘I have to know what Rune is up to,’ said he. ‘I shall be breaking
into his hotel room this evening in order to find out.’

‘Oh,’
said Thelma.

‘Quite,’
said Cornelius. ‘But for now, I wish first to frolic in the waves.

‘And
then?’

‘And
then later I hope to seduce you.’

Thelma
grinned, ‘Why not combine the two?’ she asked. ‘Right now.

‘Jolly
good.’

There was jumping in the
waves near Skelington Bay. Jumping and a bumping and a humping. But it wasn’t
gross. It was rather beautiful really. There’s something about making love in the
sea which sets it in a realm apart. Showers, baths and Jacuzzis have much to
recommend them. Particularly the latter. And who amongst us can truly put their
hand upon their heart and swear that they’ve never done it one hot summer’s
night in the Thomas the Tank Engine paddling-pool on next door’s back lawn?

Not
many!

But the
warm waves have it every time. It’s probably something primeval. Some inherited
distant memory of mankind’s origins. Born of the sea. Rising to the land.
Returning to the watery cradle. Something like that.

Something
almost spiritual.

The
party of nuns on the beach who were viewing Cornelius and Thelma considered
that it was probably something almost spiritual. Those who could see what Tuppe
and Louise were up to in the sand dunes considered otherwise, these hitched up
their skirts and fled screaming up the beach.

‘That was sweet.’
Cornelius and Thelma now sat in the rear seat of the Cadillac, feet upon Boris
the woolly cushion, sharing a cigarette.

Tuppe
and Louise were in the front seat. An exhausted Louise had fallen asleep. Tuppe
was reading a copy of the day’s
Skelington Bay Mercury,
which he’d found
blowing along the beach.

‘LUGGAGE’
VICAR IN ‘GRAVE’ MISDEMEANOUR

Ran the
headline, and beneath it:

RIOT
BREAKS OUT AT LOCAL YOUTH’S FUNERAL

‘They
like a punch up in this neck of the woods, don’t they?’ said Tuppe. ‘Cor look
at that, poor kid.’

‘What
is it?’ Cornelius asked. Tuppe displayed the newspaper. There was a big,
blown-up photograph of Norman on the front.

‘Some
local boy,’ said Tuppe. ‘Got killed when his father fell out of the sky onto
his head.’

‘Are
you making this up, Tuppe?’

‘No,
it’s all here. Fourteen years of age. That’s pretty tragic.’ Cornelius studied
the newspaper. He looked long and hard into the face of Norman and a strange
expression passed over his own.

‘Whatever’s
the matter?’ Tuppe asked. ‘You look mighty strange.’

‘I
don’t know.’ Cornelius shook his head, showering the occupants of the Cadillac.
‘I seemed to feel something. Or sense something. We’ve never met this boy, have
we?’

‘Nope.’

Cornelius
folded the newspaper and rammed it into his trouser pocket. ‘Mighty strange
indeed. So what shall we do now?’

‘Let’s
go and have a drink,’ said Thelma, fishing a vest-wearer’s wallet from her
shoulder bag. ‘I’ve plenty of cash.’

‘Yes, I
was hoping to have a word with you about that.’

‘You
don’t approve, do you?’

‘Well,
it’s not exactly a “victimless” crime, is it?’

‘I’ll
tell you what,’ Thelma took out the wallets and removed the cash from them,
‘we’ll call the money compensation for the violent interruption of our lunch.
And we’ll mail the wallets back to the owners’ home addresses. Be a nice
surprise for them after they’ve hitchhiked home.’

Cornelius
grinned and climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘Wicked woman,’ said he, keying the
ignition.

The
Cadillac shivered and the engine made a low, evil, growling sound. ‘And we’ll
put this car into the first garage we come to. There’s definitely something not
altogether right about it.’

Mr Rodway’s brother Clive
ran the Skelington Bay Auto Agency. He looked quite pleased to see Cornelius.

‘I’ll
have a look at it,’ he said. ‘But I can’t promise how soon I’ll get it done.’

‘You
got a lot on then?’ asked Tuppe.