The Complete Afternet: All 3 Volumes In One Place (The Afternet)

by Peter Empringham

  It took intervention from the upper classes to redesign the pieces into something less rustic, and over time the game became a metaphor for the wars and struggles of kings, re-emerging in Europe some eight centuries later. By that time, the marked out plot in Geoffrey’s Heaven was a fifteen feet high morass of brambles, ragwort and bindweed, the radish pawns long since rotted and turned to dust.

  The Gods, or whoever defined this world, were not entirely oblivious to the paucity of imagination that would by nature characterise the Heavens imagined by people for whom the next meal and the avoidance of hypothermia were the prevalent thoughts of their working day. It may have been capriciousness on their part, or just as likely a glitch in the system that led to an annual ‘treat’ for the farmers. In any case, they took a particular joy in watching the occupants of the Heaven react to whatever Black Swan they had introduced.

  Geoffrey was sitting on some damp turf with Norch, an equally impoverished farmer from the East Coast, and Een, who produced, he claimed, a prize-winning crop on the south coast. They were watching their produce burgeon in the absence of any effort on their part when they noticed a lumpy orange thing growing above ground, their own vegetables of choice having the decency to achieve tumescence in the dark brown earth. They prodded and sniffed it as it became plumper and higher, sitting proudly like some kind of king vegetable.

  Eventually they had to cut it, since it was beginning to spread shade over adjoining growth, and even though they knew their activity was entirely pointless, it somehow went against their idea of what farming should be all about.

  They cut a small hole in the skin, and tasted the orange pulpy flesh, gagging and spitting it out on the floor.

  “That’s disgusting!” Een exclaimed.

  “How can anything so orange taste of so little?” asked Geoffrey. “One day there’ll be something orange that tastes of something you mark my words.”

  Een took it away, and brought it back some time later, having hollowed it out and thrown away the tasteless pulp, and as a joke carved slits into the thick skin to make a face.

  “What it needs,” said Geoffrey, “is some light, like a candle or something, make it feel alive.” Een thought about this and then went to find a stub of tallow, lit it, and placed it in the hollow maw of the strange fruit. The strange lantern flickered madly, and they stared at it as if it would at any moment grow a body and launch itself at them. They heard a cough behind them, turned.

  ‘What the hell is that?”

  “Hallo Een” said Geoffrey, with no idea of the horror he had inflicted on quiet homes for centuries to come.

  And then, almost nine hundred years after Geoffrey first arrived in this bliss, the gift from the Gods, to break up the monotony, was a witch.

  It was strange at first, because there were no women in this place. For some unfathomable reason not one single female had dreamed of an eternity farming turnips, unlike needlework Heaven, where the odd bloke, or odd bloke depending on how you look at it was trying to pull thread into the image of a rose. And then, suddenly, there she was, young slim and fragrant (fair to say the latter wasn’t difficult), wafting almost weightlessly between the rows of freshly planted brassicas.

  “Bloody hell.” Een exclaimed.

  “Where has she now come from?” Asked Norch, whose skill with syntax would not be expunged from his regional compatriots for the next few centuries. “Oh shit, she’s coming over.” They all sank deep into the angled planks upon which they were sitting.

  “Who’s in charge here?” She stood before them, in a flaxen shift, hands on hips, breasts mounding above the rough neckline, her dirty blond hair tumbling onto her shoulders Eeen and Norch glanced sideways.

  “Ee is.” said Norch, pointing at Geoffrey, for whom this was a revelation. “Ee knows ‘ow to spell words.”

  This much was true. A passing monk, in need of turnips, had taught Geoffrey how to spell the word ‘words’. That was it, but in this company it made him Stephen Hawking.

  “Spells!” she said, hands on hips, “I can do spells.” She cast her eyes around the self-growing vegetables.

  “Do you like meat?” Their bottom lips hung like the hands of beggars.

  “We’ve ‘ad rabbit.” Said Norch. “’Are’s too farst.”

  “That it?” she asked, “No mutton, beef? No slabs of steak dripping with fat, making gravy of their own accord? No chicken, plump and juicy, that moment when you rip the leg away from the body, all those juices drippin’ down so you have to lick your hand?”

  They were goggle-eyed, each with the memory of the few, even single, occasions on which such treasures had come their way. Geoffrey stared at her, arms akimbo, like some amazonian warrior. He could see her knees. He was pretty sure he’s never seen a woman’s knees. He wanted to have a look at his own knees so that he could discern the difference, but that would have meant looking away, and then she might disappear.

  The witch twitched her nose. He saw it, even tried immediately after to imitate the movement, but there was nothing mobile about his own nose. In front of them, on slate platters, were three steaks, thick and juicy, the fat crisped on the outside, the surfaces charred but underneath, as they discovered when they sliced with their knives, pink and yielding. She looked down at them as they chewed joyfully on the tender meat.

  “Whaddya think?” she asked, with the hint of a satisfied smile.

  “Fantastic.” Een’s mouth was full, and the word came out somewhat muffled. He swallowed. “Missing something, though.”

  “I think he’s right,” said Geoffrey, licking the edge of his dagger. “Sorry, what’s your name?”

  The witch was looking a little miffed at the suggestion that her dish wasn’t up to snuff.

  “Samantha. Elizabeth. Whatever.” She huffed, tossing her hair.

  “What it is crying out for,” said Geoffrey, prodding the moist slab of meat, “is a turnip puree. Smooth, with pig fat perhaps. Or mashed swede with carrot batons.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked. “I’ve just given you prime beef.”

  “Well yes,” he said, “but it’s not root vegetables, is it?” She looked crestfallen.

  “Oh, look.” Said Geoffrey, “ I’m sorry. Is this your Heaven?”

  “I’m a fucking witch, you idiot. I don’t get to go to Heaven. I have to wander around trying to make life better for ungrateful tossers like you.”

  She meandered around kicking the soil until they had finished their steaks, and Geoffrey couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her. She was attractive, too,if you forgave the fact that they were all filthy and stinking and she no less than any of the men. Her hair, had it been washed, would no doubt have been beautifully pale blonde, her eyes clear and bright if that stye could have been removed, and all the other parts seemed to be in proportion and grubby working order. And that thing she did with her nose…

  He wandered over as she began to make a move towards the back of the lean-to they had created, he assumed as a precursor to departure. Een and Norch were belching and licking their greasy lips, hands over stomachs in preparation for what he knew would be an afternoon nap.

  “Look,” he said, “ thanks for coming. The steak was very nice, if lacking accompaniments.”

  She twirled soil with a filthy toe.

  “Really?” she said.

  “Really.” Her breath rose in her breasts and Geoffrey was beginning to feel really strange. He reached into his sackcloth trousers and felt the hardness of it.

  “I wanted to give you something.” He said, throatily. She dipped her eyes and simpered as his hand rummaged in the depths of his underclothes. It was perfect. Firm, tapered, moistening. He whipped it out, waved it.

  “Oh. Wow! A parsnip!” She said, and twitching her nose, was gone.

  THE COLOUR OF MONEY

  Nineteen Eighty-Four broke bitterly into existence bringing with it no (obvious) thought police, no Room 101, no Airstrip One, to the enduring disappointment of those f
or whom, for the preceding thirty-six years, the thought of the onset of that particular dystopia had become almost a yearning. The particular juxtaposition of four digits signifying the arrival of a time foretold had no such effect on the young Justin Marchant, who had read only two books; The Beano Annual 1979 and How To Win Friends and Influence People. The first he thumbed until it fell apart, paying particular attention to the manoeuvres of Rodger The Dodger, and aspiring to be Lord Snooty although he may well have forgone the Pals. The other became something of a lifetime reference work, although most who met him would have suggested he paid little attention to the first part of the proposition.

  It was, even so, a seminal year for him in more ways than one. The least relevant was his first acquaintance with the fluid of the same name, which was a bit of a shock, truth be told. The other was that it was the year his father had what Justin assumed to be some kind of brainstorm, and turned to philanthropy. Only one of these would he ever come to understand.

  Justin’s upbringing was a cocoon of easy privilege made more so by it occurring in Droitwich in the English West Midlands. Occupants of The Hamptons, USA would have considered Julian Mercator Marchant, Justin’s father, to be a person of minor, comfortable wealth, but on the outskirts of Birmingham in the 1970s, the presence of a pineapple in your fruit bowl (in fact, owning a fruit bowl) was not to be sniffed at.

  Julian invented the Fizzinator, the small metal device clipped onto the edge of a beer glass to maintain a level of carbonation previously only achieved in a newly poured pint. This was in an era where sparkle was Nirvana. For centuries Britons had been drinking flat beer. Beer designed to be flat. Then, suddenly, the keg arrived and the world was full of sparkly, urine-coloured drinks with foamy heads, but with a sparkle and a foam that dissipated all to rapidly, leaving the consumer with something much like the beer that had preceded it but without the benefit of flavour. The Fizzinator clipped onto the edge of the glass and through a reaction with the liquid (eventually proved to cause petit mal), made the beer frothy to the end of the glass.

  It became ubiquitous. The need for fizz proved insatiable, and there were versions branded by companies as diverse as sportswear and health insurance. The Marchants were made.

  Justin’s life was therefore something of an enchanted one, in many ways. He was an only child (and wouldn’t have had it any other way) since his father came to suffer from incurable erectile dysfunction brought on by the extensive testing required to perfect the Fizzinator. Christmas for him was like a TV-advertised Christmas. Plunging into the enormous pillowcase that rapidly took over from the pathetically-proportioned stocking, he would swiftly toss the books, bought more in hope than expectation, into the corner of the room, hide the tangerine behind a plant and get down to the serious business of assessing whether the real presents were worth his while. He had more Meccano than any of his acquaintances, more Lego, more Action Men. His board games, though numerous, were only the ones suitable for 1-4 players. Usually one.

  At school he was enduringly popular because he had all of the toys and all of the confectionery. His sherbet dip-dabs seemed innumerable (and psychotropic when mixed with water and a Fizzinator); he had enough firemen’s hoses to quench the Towering Inferno; and he was always first to get the full set of the cards for Batman, Star Wars, ET, which meant that there was enough bubble gum for everyone to leave all over the playground. Nineteen Eighty-Four changed everything.

  They were looking at his school report. His mother, as ever, looked as if she had spent all day preparing herself for his return from school, whereas in fact she had just spent all day preparing herself. Her hair was dark and fell in perfect curls to her shoulders, the fringe upturned away from he eyes. She was wearing a mauve jumpsuit with an amazingly wide white leather belt, around which were regularly spaced holes ringed with gold. Her shoulders, augmented with pads generous in width, would have done credit to a bodybuilder. Massive bangles hung from her ears. His father never really looked much different. Narrow jeans and a pink linen jacket over a white t-shirt, a man ahead of Miami Vice’s time. They both looked unimpressed.

  “Why can’t you do a bit better at school, Justin?” his mother asked. “You know you’re bright enough. It’s as if you don’t care.”

  “I don’t.” He said. “We’re rich. I’ll never have to work, so what’s the point?” He missed the glance they gave each other. He was twelve. Nuance was a foreign country.

  “Your English teacher says that you’re the first pupil he’s had suggest Goneril is like Minnie The Minx.”

  “Shakespeare! What’s the point of that? I’m not going to be speaking in verse when I grow up, am I?”

  “And maths. Did you really write ‘Who cares’ to every question in algebra?”

  “Well, who does? I’ve never been in a shop where they ask me to work out the change using algebra. Two Snickers, two Mars bars. What’s the square root of that?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about that, Justin.” His father adopted the deep, meaningful voice he normally employed when asking what had happened to all of the cheese slices. Justin gave him a look that suggested anytime in the next century would be okay.

  “We’ve decided that it’s time to give something back.” he went on.

  His mother was hunched over the table with a smile on her face she probably thought was saintly. Great, give something back, but get on with it because I’ve got an Atari upstairs and no-one else is going to repel those Space Invaders.

  “It’s like this Justin. I’ve come to realise that this life, these…” he slowly waved an arm in an arc, indicating the plush surroundings, “accoutrements, aren’t what we really want. Do we need the Amstrad Music Centre? The Sodastream? The lava lamp? We’re going to give it all away to the poor.”

  “A lava lamp? What the – what are the poor going to do with that?”

  “It’s a metaphor, Justin.” His mother said, gently.

  “I don’t care who makes it,” his lack of attention in English was coming home to roost, “it’s still a bloody lamp. They’ll probably drink it. With a Fizzinator.”

  His father smiled benignly, and Justin couldn’t help wondering whether he hadn’t been at the lava himself.

  “We’ve sold up, Justin. Everything will go. We’ve bought a smallholding in Powys.”

  “Powys? Where’s Powys?” Geography. Should have listened.

  “It’s in Wales. It’s lovely.” Wales? Wasn’t that biology?

  “When? When is this idiotic plan happening?”

  “Next month, at the end of term. And don’t worry, we’re going to home school you.” Don’t worry? School was bad enough without it being delivered by these two.

  “And my inheritance?” Even at twelve Justin had had an eye on the future, a future that had up until now promised him a life of leisure and plenty.

  “Your inheritance, Justin,” his father was gazing in a worryingly starry-eyed manner towards the corner of the room, as if he expected a choir of angels to hum a soundtrack, “will be fresh air, a love of nature, the rising and setting of the sun. A love of the earth.”

  “Oh God, have you become a Moonie?”

  “What your father means, Justin, is that we won’t need any of these possessions that are dragging us down. We’re going to give everything away, get a tractor, live off the fruits of our toil.” He stared at her, realising that there was an expectation that he would also toil, a prospect he had not factored into any of the sunny outlooks of his life.

  At school, he noted a gradual diminution of the popularity he had previously enjoyed. The friends who had happily sat with him at break time as he doled out Fruit Salad chews and traffic light lollies, seemed to rediscover a love of the games taking place in the playground. Justin had never understood the pleasure in kicking or hitting a ball, or in the case of cricket being hit by one, and had shared with his companions a lusty sarcastic commentary on the efforts of those who did. Now, the emptiness of his satchel having become widely kno
wn, those same companions walked straight past him to join in the swirling crowds playing the games. He kept up the sarcastic commentary anyway.

  He became, also, the recipient of a number of gifts; certainly unlike anything he had received before. Spit in his plimsolls, for example. Thirty-two straight pages of drawings of a penis and testicles in his biology exercise book, not much use because they were dissecting frogs at the time. He discovered, when a heavy rain shower opened up on him as he walked home, that the hood of his parka had become a receptacle for used toilet paper. There were bullies at the school, of course, the bigger boys who poured misery into the lives of, in particular, those who were actually good at learning (a constituency he had never joined), but it was clear to him that the authors of these particular events were the very people with whom he had previously been ‘friends’.

  That clarity arrived when he actually came upon one of them, Winker Weston, forcing the result of a half-dozen frog dissections into Justin’s PE shorts. Winker looked surprised to have been caught, but carried on anyway, probably for want of something better to do with the remains.

  “I thought we were friends?” Justin said, fighting back tears.

  “I suppose we were.” Winker replied.

  “But not now?”

  “No.”

  “Why? What did you like about me?”

  Winker finished his task and put down Justin’s gym bag. The air was thick with the smell of formaldehyde. His eyes rolled up as if he was either deep in thought or that the question was too ridiculous to ask.

  “Sweets.” he said, at last. “Particularly Sky Rays and wine gums.”

  “And that’s it?”

  Winker shrugged as if the last question was much too ridiculous to ask.

  Every time Justin came home, something new was missing. Everything they weren’t taking with them (and that didn’t seem to be much: it seemed the operative syllable in the smallholding to which they were going was ‘small’) was piece by piece being given away and replaced with sacks of flax seed or some such nonsense.