Today, he was channelling De Niro in Angel Heart, immaculate dark suit, silk shirt and tie, a goatee beard and, resting against his chair, an ebony cane topped with a silver horse’s head.
“You look tired.” Satan said, as God settled into a chair across the table. “Is it all getting a bit much for you?”
“Got a bit of a cold.” God said, although he hadn’t.
“Well, I suppose that can be a problem when you poke your nose in all over the place.” Said The Devil. “Shall I ask someone to get you some Lem-Sip?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” God affected a small cough. “I think it would be best if we just got on with it.”
“Oh yes. With what, exactly? I haven’t seen you for decades, so it must be something important for you to ask me here. You’ve forgotten my last four thousand birthdays, you know.”
“I have forgotten nothing. Least of all the day you fell. Millions of others suffer every day because of that, so I think you have probably had enough gifts. I really don’t want to extend meeting this any longer than we have to. The air in here doesn’t agree with me.”
“Personally, I love the smell of sulphur in the morning.” He picked up the cane and turned the head, gazing at the way the decoration caught the light.
“A taste I have never been able to acquire. Here’s the thing. It occurs to me that all of this has gone on long enough.”
“This? We’ve just got here.”
“This.” God waved an arm expansively, and as he did so, in the wake of the moving limb half-formed pictures of war and torment seemed to emerge into the light and then dissipate like smoke. “All of it. We need to bring it all to a conclusion.”
“Well,” The Devil smiled thinly, “we both know that we do have to do that. I hadn’t anticipated you wanting to do it with any urgency. Fair to say, I think Deloitte’s might audit the world in my favour at the moment.”
“That’s not how it ends, though, is it? You’ve read the same stuff as me. You know that the final battle is preceded by a time of unprecedented moral torpor, dissolute behaviour, the rise of-“ He circled his hand as if it would grasp the word He wanted. “-scum.”
“Scum? Is that the best you can do?”
“Is it the worst you can?”
God tapped the table, pursed his lips, leaned forward onto his elbows.
“I am saying that we should have it out. Now. You and Me. Finish this.”
“Oh, what, mano a mano? Outside round the back?” He mockingly mimed chewing his fingernails in fear. “Forgive me, but I’m not going down some alley with the Supreme Being. That can only end one way, whatever The Marquess of Queensberry says. I think we have to have a proper battle, don’t we? You know, flame and fury; screaming, contorted faces; the stink of burning feathers and stripping flesh?”
“Well, that’s the traditional view.” God breathed a lengthy sigh. “I’m just not sure it works in the modern world.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Well, not so long ago, a massive battle somewhere, then the winner coming back and saying to everyone ‘Victory is ours. You’re mine now’ would work fine. The world has moved on, though. People are used to- no, demand- seeing events as they happen. They’re online, they swap pictures and information, they comment, they tweak.”
“Tweet.”
“That’s it. They do that. They demand information. We can’t just bugger off to some field somewhere and kick the shit out of each other.”
“We can.”
“Well, yes, we can. But the thing is you can’t really broadcast war. You never get the sense of scale, I don’t think. Even in Saving Private Ryan.”
“Why broadcast it? What’s it got to do with any of them?”
“Because I want them to see me win. I want everyone to bear witness to the victory of Good over Evil. To rejoice and accept me as the one true God.”
“But you’re going to lose.”
“Yeah, right. Think of it. Live showing to everyone in the Afterworld through the Afternet terminals. It would be a must-see. Like WWE only with consequences.”
“So everyone would see me taking you on?” God nodded. “I could stand there and be observed in my glory,” his voice began to rise in volume and tenor, “marshalling my forces. Standing atop a hill with the storm raging behind me, casting down the futile works of, er, you. Everyone. Everyone, looking at me.” God contemplated sending out for tissues.
“Exactly. Well, exactly the opposite, but yes. But it can’t be a war, because it’s too confusing. No-one knows what’s going on. Or even who’s on who’s side. You could just be some bloke who has been unfortunate enough to stand in the rain.”
“Well, what, then? They need to see me. They have to know me. They should understand and quake at my glory.”
“Well,” said God, trying to hide his relief, “I had a bit of an idea.” He slid a thin folder across the desk.
20
The grand opening of Everland was undertaken with the little pomp that could be mustered. There were the members of a marching band who died when they fell down a sink hole in La Paz during Independence celebrations; not the whole band, just a couple of tubas, a tin whistle and a bass drum, but they managed to bash out a few tunes as the first guests entered the park. These had won a lottery amongst the throng in residence around the perimeter. They picked up their belongings and walked as if in a state of deep wonderment around the fence and into occupation of a tin shed a few metres from where they had slept the night before.
Those few metres, though, seemed a massive step from their workaday routines into a new cornucopia of imagined delights. The entrants appeared visibly rejuvenated as they walked through the gates. Ron and Ethel stood arm in arm and smiled as they recognised the feeling, the same one they felt every year when they took their caravan holidays. The feeling that everything they did now: drink tea; eat fish and chips; have a drink in the evening, was different, more special than the tea, fish and chips and small sherry they had consumed in the weeks before they came.
By day the guests mingled outside their chalets, walked through the woods to the waterfront, dipped in their toes and found it too cold, sat under grey skies avoiding sunburn with no great difficulty, and luxuriated in their chalets as the teeming rain thundered on the roof. When the weather allowed, the site was alive with the noises of simple enjoyment: the cries and laughter of children as the chased each other amongst the chalets; the thud of bat on ball arose from impromptu games of cricket, the mechanics of which were a mystery to the majority of the players; music and singing from impromptu gatherings.
They bartered with Obadiah at Lucky Obie’s for souvenirs. Chunks of wood with ‘I’ve Been To Everland’ whittled on them by Chippendale’s apprentices; glass tubes filled with sand and grit from what passed for a beach; flags and caps, bottles of Goodtime Ale. On the fourth day after opening, Lucky Obie’s jerry-built shop actually blew down in something of a gale, but all of the guests rallied around to rebuild it as good as new. At least until the fire.
There were raft races in the pool, treasure hunts, and tugs of war. The children were royally entertained, the highlight of the week involving the pursuit of a shadowy adult figure through the forest, along the beach and back into the camp. He mysteriously disappeared, appeared again just at the edge of their sight, left clues, and finally was almost within touching distance as they hounded him into a dramatic leap, cloak horizontal behind him, eye-mask still in place, into the deepest part of the swimming pool. They called it The Hunt for The Scarlet Pimpernel, which was a good choice, since that was indeed his name.
It was the evenings that gave Ron and the others particular joy. The Entertainment Complex teemed with the holidaymakers, all bent on maximum enjoyment and only too willing to participate in the eclectic programme of events. In the early evening they brought their children and then packed them off to bed in the chalets as the fun became what some would deem more adult-oriented.
The kids
sat cross-legged before the stage to be entertained by Franzel and His Amazing Bottom-Sword; to have their faces painted by Maggsy, although he had to stop doing the one that made it look as if their heads had disappeared; to sing along with ‘Uncle Caruso’ as a couple of tubas parped along in the background. The throng of self-proclaimed entertainers who had rolled up wanting to perform meant that every Monday night was talent night, with the audience of holidaymakers, through the enthusiasm of their applause, choosing the roster for those to follow.
The Master of Ceremonies was Søren Kierkegaard, who not only had a dry line in observational comedy (“Existence! What’s that all about then?”) but used his intrinsic belief in the power of the individual to bring out the best in those who chose to appear on the stage, where many may have mocked. The Italian would-be acrobatic troupe all of whom had at least one missing limb were helped off the stage to stunned silence, but Søren remained supportive.
“There you go, folks. Not so much an act as a jigsaw. This time next year, Cirque Du Soleil!”
The tenor from 18th century Madrid who had a shot at Y Viva España despite having been hung, drawn and quartered for religious crimes didn’t want for encouragement, from the interlocutor at least.
“How about that, a one-man barbershop quartet.” Said Søren, “Remind me not to use his barber. Now, we’ve got a real treat for you. Everybody loves a bit of prestidigitation, don’t they? Like you, sir? Probably had a bit before you came out, eh? Anyway, please welcome with his amazing magic act, The Great Diminuendo!” The magic turn was booed off stage when the climax to his act, sawing a woman in half, was revealed to feature a woman who was already in half. “Nice legs.” Kierkegaard quipped. “Did you come with any body?”
The former street entertainer who juggled with flaming brands went down a storm until he repeated his performance in the open air, causing the fire that brought renewed destruction to Lucky Obie’s recently rebuilt shop.
Tuesdays were Knobbly Knees, won once by a man who had his knees in a bag, but which were authentically knobbly, and Thursdays Glamorous Grandma (“Come on Victoria, give us a smile love, you must be amused about something”). Friday night was the final night of everyone’s stay before a new intake arrived to go through the whole routine again, and was a massive party with dancing and usually featuring a headline act. These people just kept turning up, wandering in singles or groups to the gates of Everland and asking if they could play. Mainly singles of course, because after all just because you are a band in life it doesn’t mean that you all keel over simultaneously, and co-located. But there is such a thing as the law of averages, and in the billions of terminations of lives in the last four centuries, there have been a surprising quantity of events causing the ripping from life of coherent musical combos.
The Visigoths were most taken by the performance of Slaughter der Römer, a self-styled ‘uber-thrash metal’ outfit from Wiesbaden, who met their end as possibly the first band in the modern era to be killed by their audience. They had made a fatal error. They were due to perform at a pub, a favourite of bikers and neo-fascists called Das Haus von Deutsch but wandered instead into the two-storey next door, Haus der Deutschen Frauen, a refuge for abused women that couldn’t afford a proper sign. Their opening number, a cover of Smack My Bitch Up, was as far as they got. They spent the first six months of their time in the Afterworld apologising to every woman they saw. Now they were headlining Goodbye Night at Everland. Guntrick and his compatriots lumbered massively around the dancefloor. They did it all night, from Beat On The Brat to Let Your Love Flow.
The Tijuana Mariachi band (road traffic accident) were only too happy to provide latin rhythms to back up the La Scala soprano (ingestion of nut); the Jamaican Reggae outfit (bad weed) just funked it up; the Bantu Bongo Boys (rhino attack) clicked rythmically with an ageing boy band from Philadelphia (shame). They were just musicians, after all, and they had time on their hands. What they wanted to do was play music.
Tears were shed as holiday romances waxed and waned, gropings both furtive and public took place on the dance floor and amongst the chalets, and guests shuffled in clinches around the dance floor to the sound of two tubas and a tin whistle, mariachi, reggae, whatever, playing ‘When Will I See You Again’, the song becoming the obligatory finale. It was exactly as Ron had imagined it, exactly as he remembered the holidays of his life. Every week he danced with Ethel, held her as close as the steering wheel allowed. He looked up at the disco ball, cobbled together from left over bits of aluminium and turned through the efforts of some mice in a wheel in the attic, and thought he might be in Heaven.
21
In our lifetimes many of us have periods where we simply want things to go on forever the way they are, times when the balance of love and friends and place seem to somehow coalesce into a kind of perfection we could not have foretold if we had been asked. Those times, though, are usually transitory, ephemeral. For Ron and Ethel there were a few such passages when they walked the earth, but now, inexplicably, they were inhabiting such a purple patch despite being dead. If the arrival of earthly balance and happiness is impossible to predict, how much more so when you are cast into a netherworld that shouldn’t even exist, if the authorities had been doing their job.
The end of such passages is equally unpredictable. Change, however minor, in any of the myriad factors that comprise an existence, the flapping wings of the butterfly, undermine the equilibrium, and since you don’t know how it all came together in the first place you also don’t know how to put it back together. As they breezed happily along in the company of a surrealist, a master carpenter, one of the unluckiest people they had ever met, and long-time friends, they were loving the picture it made. Everland had somehow drawn this jigsaw into completion. Inevitably, something was going to come along and jolt the table, dislodging a corner piece. This would then disappear into a vacuum cleaner or under a rug, others would follow, and the picture would never again be so complete.
The undermining of this strange but effective combination of circumstances and characters came from an unexpected quarter. It was the night of the Miss Everland competition, which over the weeks became a particular highlight of the routine. It was a source of constant amazement to Ethel that even in death girls and women could not resist the urge to put themselves up for judgement by men, and worse, other women. She at first agitated for equality, demanding a Mr Everland contest, but the male visitors to the camp were much more reluctant to expose themselves to the potential ridicule and after a couple of iterations comprising only tittering Visigoths striking suggestive poses the experiment was given the boot.
On that particular night, Kierkegaard was in a reflective mood, running a riff on the need to live life and seize the moment. It may have worked in a Californian retreat but drew some dark mutterings from an audience that, after all, had no life, or moment to seize.
“And what’s your name?” he asked, smiling at a woman of indeterminate age who died in transit to Australia, expelled from Norfolk for stealing a lump of cheese.
“Emily, sir.” She smiled sheepishly towards the packed audience, a move unlikely to help her chances of victory.
“Emily. Lovely name. And what do you want to do with the rest of your, er death, Emily?”
“I want to travel, and help the poor, sir.”
“Lovely.”
“And look after small animals.”
“Any in particular?”
“All of them. And do good for those in need of edercashun.”
She glanced to the wings of the stage, where Miss Burkina Faso 1979 gave her an encouraging nod and the thumbs up. She had perished when her winner’s sash had become entangled in the wheel of the second-hand Nissan Cedric given as a prize for her triumph, and now was engaged in coaching entrants to the camp’s ‘beauty’ contest.
“And education is…?” said Kierkegaard, cruelly.
“Crucial for the development of the young and their ability to contribute to society, p
articularly as we look for ways to support an ageing population.”
One newcomer had been trying to place the contestant’s face, and hearing her speak he realised that she was a dead ringer for Michael Gove. This would normally militate against success in a beauty contest, but here, he reminded himself, anything was possible.
Mary was in the gloom in the farthest corner from the stage, close to Maggsy’s mural, the section where the strained faces of spirits stared longingly out into the buzzing room. Marcel, Geoffrey and Justin sat with her. In front of them were pints of Goodtime’s latest brew, ‘Hop Springs Eternal’. They had sneaked into the camp with a bunch of youngsters who had been pursuing the Scarlet Pimpernel through the forest. That they weren’t identified as out of place was thanks to attention being diverted by the Pimpernel’s simultaneous entrance, on a stretcher.
“This is horrendous.” Said Marcel, dark glasses tight against his face.
“I love it.” Geoffrey said. “I can’t believe people used to get the time to do this every year! Imagine!”
“Not people, Geoff. The proles.” Justin was in a bit of a hump because he had been plucked, once again, from his search for fortune. “No one with any style went to places like this. We went to, like, all-inclusives in Sharm, or Bodrum. Different world, man.”
“In what way different?” asked Mary.
“Well, classy birds in the swimwear comp, for a start. Russian tarts mainly.”
“”Don’t age well,” said Marcel. “Lovely when they’re young, but then they turn into their grandmothers without passing the mother stage.”
“What the hell gives you the right to talk about women like that?”
“Well, two things. One, I am a wealthy Frenchman from the 17th century and therefore a product of my environment, and secondly, I don’t age at all. I think that puts me in a position of strength.”
“I think that makes you a bit of a prick.” Mary said.
The Complete Afternet: All 3 Volumes In One Place (The Afternet) Page 81
