Slaven had been somewhat of a smooth operator during his lifetime, always able to find a cogent argument to help him to achieve his own ends. Marcel, similarly, had a track record of success in negotiation, whether to work himself out of a tight spot or to schmooze a woman into bed. Confronted with the young man now slurping a massive confection, both were finding their previous track record of little help. Marcel couldn’t threaten death, which had been his main ploy in his lifetime, and Slaven was struggling to find a benefit to offer the boy.
He was confronted with someone who didn’t seem to want anything and had no discernible weakness for him to exploit. In fact, as well as the long spoon with which he shovelled ice cream into his mouth, he seemed to be holding all the cards, as he made clear.
“It would be easy. I just set up an application on the system to encourage all the nasties to get in touch with each other and offer prizes for bad behaviour. Thing is, it’s easy for me; it’s impossible for you. So, like I said, what’s in it for me?”
Marcel suggested that it could be not getting punched in the face. The boy said fine, punch him as much as you like, but every blow would take you further from where you wanted to be. And he then suggested that Marcel might be a dickhead. Slaven sniggered and Andras hooted.
“I think you’d better keep out of this, Marcel.” Said Slaven. “You’ve done your bit, finding Mr Furvill for us. Now, Jenkin, I am authorised by my employer, Satan, to offer you immunity from endless pain and horror in the event that The Afternet judges you one of the fallen. There are alternatives even within Hell for those who are of service to our leader. Look at me for example.” Jenkin did as Slaven suggested, gazing up and down the man sitting opposite.
“Yeah. Look at you. You’re running round the afterlife looking for young boys.”
“It’s not quite like that.” Slaven smiled.
“That’s how it looks.” Said Jenkin, licking the back of his spoon.
“Well,” Slaven tried to maintain a calm voice, though he actually wanted to ram the spoon down the boy’s throat. “As well as this immunity, we can offer the fulfilment of a single wish. Within reason, of course.”
Jenkin stopped licking his spoon and uttered a low barking laugh.
“A wish? Who are you, the fairy godmother?”
“Kind of,” said Slaven patiently, “in this instance.”
There was a commotion outside the café. The wolf, which had been snoozing across the door like a malevolent draught-excluder, was now howling and thundering up and down the porch to the extent of its’ tether. Slaven signalled to Andras to check out the problem, and the demon, sucking down the last of the mouse’s tail, stood and walked to the door.
Jenkin looked from one face to the other of the two men in front of him, rattled the spoon noisily into the tall glass, belched, and slumped back into his seat.
“Ok.” He said. “In principle I’ll do it, but I’m going to need a bit more than your word, these second hand promises. I want a signed contract.”
Slaven whipped a piece of paper out of his briefcase. “Thought you’d say that.” He laid the paper in front of the boy, who picked it up and then replaced it on the table, pointing to the bottom of the sheet.
“What do you call that?” He asked.
“It’s his hoof print.”
“Oh come on. It could be anything. Looks like some old goat stepped on it.”
“Kind of did, in a way. Here, let me show you.” Like lightning he grabbed Jenkin’s hand and pressed it to the mark on the paper. The boy felt an unbearable heat, a scorching fire on his palm, and managed to snatch his hand away.
“Jesus Christ!” He waved the hand and blew onto the palm, which bore a perfect mirror image of the cloven hoofmark.
Slaven leaned forward and put his face very close to that of the young man.
“Just so you know not to push Him too far, young Jenkin Furvill.”
Jenkin sat back in his chair, tears forming in his eyes despite his best efforts. Marcel, who had been close to dropping off, was quietly impressed with Slaven.
When they emerged, the source of the kerfuffle became apparent. Slaven and Jenkin watched with amusement, but Marcel slunk to the end of the veranda and watched from the shadows.
The huge black wolf which bore Andras around the realms of the spirits he ruled was on its’ hind legs snarling and slavering, the reins around its’ neck pulled taut as it made muscular darts at a group of tormentors. Whereas everyone else they had met had made themselves scarce as soon as they saw the beast, these were visibly enjoying their taunting.
Slaven and Jenkin couldn’t place them. They were tall and clearly fearless, clad largely in animal skins, with straggly beards and the scent of blood upon them. They were also armed, although some of their weapons were carried internally. Oddly, Slaven noted, off to one side stood a tidy woman in a floral frock, clutching a handbag, and a man in a nylon windcheater and a flat cap. Slaven, something of a fashion snob, looked away with distaste from the grey slip-ons the man was wearing. Even more oddly, the small man had a steering wheel protruding from his chest and carried a football under his arm.
“Go on Adrael, you can get closer than that!” shouted one of the tribe. The subject of the catcall, an enormous figure with a spear through his chest, edged closer to the wolf, which, having been back on its’ haunches, sprang at him with huge teeth bared, the tied reins stopping it inches short of his throat, flecking his chest with foaming spittle.
The man turned and bowed, and his friends cheered and applauded. The older man and woman both looked vaguely sick. The man looked away as the wolf sprang forward again, this time sinking its teeth into the rump of Adrael, whose bow had taken him within its’ range. His friends laughed at his scream of pain and applauded even louder. The man in the cap looked as if he had seen a ghost, which in a way he had, and walked around what he thought to be the perimeter of the wolf’s reach to where Marcel was skulking at the corner of the café.
“Marcel?” he said, “Is that you? Remember me? Ron! We met in that terrible pub.” Slaven watched the exchange, surprised. Marcel had died three centuries ago and as far as he knew there weren’t car steering wheels around to be impaled upon at that time. Marcel sheepishly smiled at the man.
“Oh. Er, yes. Ron, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. Hey, tell me, is it working?”
Is what working? Thought Slaven. Jenkin stood behind him, also intrigued as to how this small dead bloke knew one of these messengers from Hell.
“Oh, er, yes. It’s working fine now. Only a matter of time.”
“Brilliant! I knew you’d get it going. That Mary, she’s something else, isn’t she?” Marcel nodded to agree that she was. “Oh, you remember Ethel, don’t you?” Marcel inclined his head to the lady at Ron’s side.
“Hello Marcel,” she said, “how are those friends of yours? Geoffrey’s burns cleared up?”
Slaven and Jenkin looked at each other as if to ask what on earth was going on.
“So, what are you doing around here Marcel?” asked Ron.
“Oh, just passing through, you know. Came to see this young man actually.” He gestured towards Jenkin, who automatically raised his hand in greeting. The palm was red and livid. And slightly smoking.
“Oooh,” said Ethel, “ that looks nasty. You need some ointment for that. Hang on, I’ve got some in here.” She rummaged through her bag, the clinking of unknown objects overriding the more distant sound of the snarling wolf and jeering Visigoths. At length she withdrew a battered tube of some unction or other and gestured to Jenkin, who reluctantly went to stand by her.
“Put your hand out.”
“It’s fine, really.”
“Put your hand out.” He put his hand out. Ethel gently smothered the scar in the cream. “This is still hot! What have you been letting him get up to? You should be ashamed of yourselves, letting him get burned.” Slaven and Marcel looked appropriately guilty. Jenkin had somehow been reminded of
his inner teenager, and was limply standing having his hurt hand massaged, the back of his neck prickling as he tried to look as though he couldn’t care less.
“Where have you been staying while you’re here, young man? I know he’s not from here,” she gestured at Marcel, “and I don’t know about the other one. Where have you been living?”
“Oh, round and about, you know.” Jenkin whimpered.
“Right, well you must come with us for a while. That would be alright, wouldn’t it, Marcel?”
Marcel had no idea whether this was a good thing or disaster. Slaven was watching him closely.
“I don’t know if you’d like it, Ethel. He’s a teenager, you know what they’re like” (he didn’t, but he’d seen some of Hollyoaks in the Control Room) “he wants to be on the computer all the time.”
“That’s fine.” Ethel released the boy’s hand. “There’s computers everywhere now. We’ll look after you. You’ll be a companion for Lucius, he’s around your age.” Jenkin followed her arm sweep towards the Visigoths, who, bored with baiting the giant wolf, were pushing each other around with testosterone filled bonhomie. It was very violent.
“Which one’s Lucius?” asked Jenkin.
“The one with no head.” Said Ethel.
Slaven and Marcel had agreed that Jenkin would begin work immediately, and that they would provide him with his own laptop. Slaven hadn’t really wanted to monopolise one of the existing terminals in case it drew attention, and Jenkin’s new-found friends also had the handy side effect of discouraging interest from outsiders.
Slaven sidled up to Andras, who was comforting his lupine steed. The beast had been horribly tormented but had at least managed to obtain a sheen of Adrael’s blood on its’ teeth.
“Thanks for coming along Andras.” He looked into the enormous unblinking eyes of the owl head. “You’ve been utterly pointless.”
“Yeah, well it was fine until that lot turned up. They’ve got no respect.” He stroked the shaking giant wolf. “Look what they’ve done to Derek.”
“Derek?” he eyed the slavering red-eyed beast. “Derek?” He sent the demon on its way. Having arrived a fiery-eyed, owl-headed beast atop a terrifying black wolf, Andras slunk back to repair his demeanour so that he could go and be nasty to his underlings.
Slaven, Marcel, and Jenkin strolled off from the Visigoths to finalise arrangements. Jenkin would begin work at once. His Afternet application would create a way for the damned in this hinterland to get together with like-minded others; it would also flag to anyone using the terminals that such an opportunity existed.
“Don’t let this lot corrupt you, Jenkin. You’ve got this job now, you’d better get it done.” Jenkin looked back at ‘this lot’. The Visigoths had Hansi tied to a stake and were recreating the wolf-baiting episode. He wondered what form corruption might take.
“Do you mean you don’t want me to be turned from the ways of evil by a murderous bunch of heathens?” he said.
“Don’t let appearances fool you,” said Marcel, “particularly those other two. They might be quick with the ointment when its’ needed, but it could all be a ruse.” Jenkin felt the coolness on his scarred hand and agreed that perhaps it could be.
Slaven and Marcel reached the Everywhere Door to re-enter their own dimension. Slaven turned and looked at Jenkin.
“What will you call it, this application? What do you think will generate some real momentum?” the youth sniffed and looked briefly to the horizon and then back again.
“Easy.” He said. “Fiends Reunited.”
Nine
Marcel couldn’t help thinking, as he slipped back into the Control Room, that there was a cosiness about the place these days that he found paradoxically distasteful, and comforting.
Once, he would have arrived back from something, anything, to break the unending tedium of running the Afternet, to find Geoffrey sitting in front of the bank of screens. His clothing would be caked in food debris, he’d be mooning over Elizabeth Montgomery, or professing outrage that Arthur Daley appeared once again to have dumped Terry in some terrible trouble. Now, he would enter the room to find Geoffrey trying, and failing, to recreate some masterpiece from the Galloping Gourmet, Justin exclaiming delightedly as he monitored the income from A-Bay, and Mary watching the progress of The Afternet.
More noticeably, there was conversation. There was laughter. The three swapped observations on their viewing, argued about trivia, and planned future additions to the system. They made each other drinks, looked for new ways to persuade Geoffrey that the adventures of this London spiv were fictional, but that London spivs were not fictional per se, and generally interacted like people sharing an office or a living space. The Control Room, of course, was both. Marcel, although he struggled to relax enough to entirely join the banter, couldn’t help but contrast the atmosphere with the sneaky threat he had felt when travelling with Slaven.
Marcel’s re-emergence, previously, would have triggered an interrogation from an equally bored Geoffrey about where he had been, who with, and why. Now, they said “Hello Marcel.” but happily continued with their work. He had hated it, that insistence on providing details of his every move, like a suspected husband. Now he wondered whether it was better than the apparent trust they seemed to have in him. Geoffrey had, historically, asked him the questions not because he suspected that Marcel was up to no good, which in general he was, but simply because it was different from staring at the screen of a malfunctioning computer programme. Now, he was once again up to no good, but everyone was too occupied to notice, which was, perhaps, a good thing.
It was Justin who intrigued Marcel the most. His life had been a procession of petty theft, business scams, and minor philandering. When he first arrived, mistakenly believed to know about computers, he had been something of a laughable, cowardly fake. Certainly he did nothing that was not to his own benefit. Now, he blithely came out with phrases like “We’re all in this together”, helped to deliver hot drinks, and generally did everything but put on a gingham apron and bake flapjacks.
Marcel wandered over to where Justin was peering at a screen, occasionally doing something on the keyboard to change the display.
“How’s it going, Justin?” Marcel asked. Justin quickly pressed a key and the screen reverted to a picture of some supposedly cute kittens, which Marcel would gladly have drowned.
“Oh, you know.”
“No, that’s why I asked.” Justin shuffled some papers on the desk.
“I’m amazed by the things people have with them when they die. I thought most people croaked quietly in bed with their family around them checking out the porcelain. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Look.”
He worked the keyboard and a screen from A-Bay came up in front of them. It listed some of the higher value auctions taking place amongst the dead. A cow was attracting a good deal of interest, as was a Harley-Davidson, and several musical instruments, including a full sized tympanum.
“What would anyone be doing holding on to a tympanum when they kicked the bucket?” asked Justin.
“Well, you have to remember that you have a very large number of people out there, Justin, and for every ten million who died in their sleep, there may well be one who had a coronary during the end of the 1812 overture, or was using it as a raft after a shipwreck.” Marcel advised.
“Vivid imagination, Marcel, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Just been here a long time watching all this go on, actually.”
“Look at this” said Justin, flicking through some pages on screen. There was a whole sub-section based around dental accoutrements; from treatment tools brought by those who had died in the chair, to an extensive list of false teeth, which were attracting a great deal of bidding.
“It’s not a great afterlife if you’re going to spend it sucking on someone else’s teeth, is it?”
“Probably just a stop-gap.” Said Marcel, suddenly stopping, cocking his head. He sniffed.
> “What’s up?” asked Justin.
“I can hear something outside, and that nearly always means a visitation. An aroma, too. It’ll be another God with a high opinion of himself and a chance for Geoffrey to simper.”
Justin had been too wrapped up in the strange and wide-ranging contents of A-Bay to be listening. He had to admit to himself, though, that there was a peculiar pungency in the air which was more fruity even than some of Geoffrey’s cardigans.
There was a screech outside like tyres straining for grip, and the sound of running feet. There was something else, though.
“What’s that smell?” asked Mary, screwing up her face in disgust. From outside the door they heard the sound of a yelled exhortation to hurry up.
“I don’t know,” said Geoffrey, who was nosing parts of his clothing as though he may be the source, “quite nice though, isn’t it?” It really wasn’t. It was like having your nose cleared with sinus spray and then your head thrust into an army latrine. He sniffed the air like a prisoner released into a field of flowers.
“Ooh, don’t tell me! Is that musk?”
“Not unless it’s wrapped in elephant crap,” said Marcel, as the door was flung open and the pungency burst in upon them.
Two figures stepped into the room, with the gait of those convinced of their own importance. If the smell had been strong before, it was eye-watering now, almost tactile. The visitors eyed the occupants of the control room, who looked back over the hands clamped over their noses.
One they recognised. They had a lot of messages, and it was logical that a messenger should bring them. He had a new tracksuit, though, with very tight pants.
“I am Hermes.” He said dramatically.
“We know. You’re here all the time.” Marcel felt, rather than saw, Geoffrey begin to sink into a position of worship. Next to the regular visitor was a shorter, more rotund figure. His clothes were uniformly taupe and he appeared to have straw or grass protruding from various points around his smock and trousers.
The Complete Afternet: All 3 Volumes In One Place (The Afternet) Page 36
