by Heide Goody
Ben sat back down with a file clutched in his hand. He had an uncomfortable look on his face although Clovenhoof didn’t know if that was because of the leather trousers or because no-one seemed particularly in awe of his rules overhaul. “So, subject to the new religion rules we have Saint Philip’s Cathedral, Saint Chad’s, the central Mosque and the Scientology headquarters.”
“Ah, but is Scientology a religion or a cult?” asked Nerys.
“For the purpose of these rule changes it’s a religion, although the debate might influence a future change in direction,” said Ben. “If a player lands on one of these squares, then they must pay the rent to the player who owns the property. The rent will be based on the number of followers that the owner has.”
“Followers?” said Nerys.
“The number of followers is calculated thus,” said Ben. “We add up their Facebook friends and twitter followers. We subtract the number of twitter followees –”
“Is that a word?” asked Nerys.
“– followees and then we add on the number of people whose attention the owner can attract from the front doorstep during the course of ten minutes.”
“Well, I suppose there’s Festering Ken for one,” said Nerys.
“I think he’s gone wandering off to dig up devils or something elsewhere,” said Clovenhoof.
“Yes,” said Ben thoughtfully, “I wonder if we ought to add in a clause about followers being of sound mind?”
“No,” said Nerys firmly.
“The player must then take a miracle card,” said Ben, “and the quality of the miracle multiplied by the number of followers is the amount payable.”
“Good. We can play now,” said Nerys.
Ben shuffled uncomfortably and tugged at his tight trousers.
“How’s Ben going to seduce Narinda when he’s pulling a face like his nads are on fire?” asked Clovenhoof.
“They are on fire!” moaned Ben, “Waxing is inhumane and these leather trousers were a terrible idea. I hope you realise that I could get an infection!”
“You could always pull them down until she gets here, let the air circulate a bit,” said Clovenhoof. “Soak your delicate parts in your cider and black for a bit of a cooling-down. I sometimes do.”
Nerys and Ben turned to stare at him.
“What?” he said.
“I hope one of those miracle cards says ‘Jeremy Clovenhoof decided not to be a complete knob today’,” said Nerys. “It would be a rare and precious thing if it ever happened.”
“I don’t remember discussing these rules,” said Nerys.
“We brainstormed them in the pub a few days ago,” said Ben.
“But we were drunk,” she argued.
“We all signed a non-sobriety waiver agreement, though.”
“And were we drunk when we signed that?”
Ben sighed and re-read the new rules. “We need to calculate Jeremy’s followers,” he said. Nerys, can you check his Facebook and twitter?”
Nerys flicked through her phone and tapped into the calculator. “Total of Facebook friends, twitter followers, minus twitter followees is… forty thousand three hundred and seven.”
Ben stared at her. “What?”
Nerys shrugged. “I have no idea either, but for some reason Jeremy is quite the social media star.”
“Don’t forget I get the chance to increase my followers from the front doorstep,” said Clovenhoof.
“Is it worth it to make it forty thousand three hundred and eight with Festering Ken?” asked Ben.
“Yes, it is,” said Clovenhoof, standing. He walked to the front doorstep and pulled out his phone. “Ten minutes, yeah?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rutspud nudged Joan as they approached Heaven’s gates. “See, it’s worked like a charm.”
There was a gathering of newly deceased near to the gates, all clutching their tickets pumped out by Belphegor’s lap-top photocopier.
Claymore Ferret was holding court amongst his friends.
“It’s time these people recognised that we’re a breed apart. We need that exclusivity to make sure standards are upheld. Take my funeral for instance, they’ll have had it by now. Only the cream of society invited. Roast swan for all the guests, you know? Not everyone can do that, but we Ferrets have been roasting swans for years. Special arrangement, you might say. String quartet, harp player and a hundred white doves released at the end of the service.”
Joan rolled her eyes. “So what’s the deal with your tickets, Rutspud? They all think they’re going somewhere?”
“Yes, they are going somewhere,” said the demon. “It’s going to be… special.”
“You’re not going to just cart them off to Hell, are you?”
“Heaven forbid.”
“Yes, it probably would. Gabriel and Eltiel are meeting us out in Limbo. Belphegor’s gone to where?”
“Back to Hell. Says he needs to make preparations for our journey.” Rutspud looked up at the teenager. “I still haven’t forgiven you for that.”
“Earth will be fun,” she said.
“Don’t make it worse by being optimistic,” he grimaced. He waded in amongst the gathering. They looked at his gnarly demon body with disdain, which cheered him no end. “Right,” he said, “can I make sure that you are all holders of these exclusive tickets? We can’t allow just anyone along on the trip we’re about to make.”
He made a big show of checking everyone’s ticket, to the accompaniment of much muttering, along the lines of don’t you know who I am?
When he was satisfied, Rutspud addressed them again. “I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that Heaven contains everything you could possibly need, but its populace probably doesn’t reflect the social structure that you’re used to. What you’d really like is somewhere a little more exclusive.”
There were mumblings of agreement from the entire crowd.
“Follow me then,” he said and led them through the massive gates that swung open before them. The Celestial City had twelve gates. The famous pearly gates where St Peter used to stand and tick the newly dead off a list, like a maître d’ at a pretentious restaurant, were elsewhere; these gates had no regular traffic, opening only onto the creamy mists and dreamscape of unformed Limbo.
The ungrateful dead all followed Rutspud, clearly keen to see where he was taking them, but careful to maintain the louche swagger of those who might decide to go somewhere different at any moment.
Rutspud faltered as he saw something up ahead in the swirling mists of Limbo. He could hear faint sounds.
“Go get it! Good boy.”
Rutspud glanced at Joan.
“I recognise that voice,” she said.
“Cewbewus, to you! Good doggie, well caught!”
Ahead, Hell’s three-headed guardian leapt and twisted in mid-air. His mighty jaws mashed together onto a frisbee, catching it and sending splinters of plastic in every direction. Against all the odds he landed back on his feet as Saint Francis reached inside his robes for a replacement frisbee.
“Go on Cecil, off you go!”
The lion stopped nuzzling Francis’s legs and bounded over to catch the frisbee.
“Pass me my gun, Cynthia,” said Claymore.
“There’s no hunting in Limbo,” said Joan, firmly.
“Go on,” whispered Rutspud. “Let him take a pot shot at Cerberus. At least, let him try.” Cerberus slobbered in anticipation from all three of his muzzles, but Francis whistled urgently.
“Cewbewus! Cecil! Come this way, quickly!”
The terrifying Hell hound and the elderly lion bounded away, and Rutspud led the group forward. The Celestial City, like Hell, was finite but out here in Limbo space and distance were as utterly meaningless as time. The geography here was essentially an infinite plain of cotton wool fluffiness, as featureless as the inside of a ping-pong ball. They had walked sufficiently far that the Celestial City was completely lost to sight. A soul could get utterly lost out here. A
human soul at least; Rutspud could feel the rock solid tug of Hell in that direction and an opposing revulsion from the Celestial City in that direction and assumed that the angels felt something similar but entirely opposite.
Thinking of angels…
Gabriel and Eltiel stood on a short cloudy hillock of their own making up ahead.
“You got those images I described?” he called to them.
“We are competent, little demon,” said Gabriel. “Remember your place.”
Rutspud climbed the slope while Joan stayed to corral the vaguely-blessed dead.
“My place is a hop, skip and a jump over that way,” Rutspud said to Gabriel, “and the sooner I get back there the better, your Archangelness.”
Gabriel huffed dismissively and pushed up his robe sleeves. “Very well, we shall start with serene Palladian arches, sublimely symmetrical facades and pure, tranquil vistas.”
“The photos,” said Rutspud. “Did you not look at the photos?”
“Yes,” said Gabriel, “but I feel we can do better.”
“Better? Those photos I showed you of gated communities in Cheshire and luxury apartments in Shanghai? Purpose built holiday villages in Spain. Luxury compounds in Dubai.”
“Yes, yes. All that but we can make it much more tasteful.”
“No! the whole point is that it should drip with ostentatious wealth and excess,” said Rutspud. “Think crystal-encrusted. Think gilded. Think made from rare and irreplaceable resources.”
“Finery, yes.”
“But with zero class or artistry,” Rutspud emphasised. “Imagine you gave a six-year-old ten trillion quid to build a palace. That. But we also want swimming pools, hot tubs, saunas, the largest Nando’s in the world –”
“Nando’s?” said Gabriel.
“I do love me a cheeky Nando’s,” grinned Eltiel.
“And a casino. And a George and the Dragon pub with Sky Sports in every bar. And shops. Lots and lots of shops. And I want it so that the residents, whatever they want, whenever they want it, it will just appear.”
“Then why do they need shops if they can wish for stuff and it will just appear?” asked Gabriel.
“They don’t need them but they’ll want them,” said Rutspud. “Trust me. All of that but make it, you know, more.”
Eltiel waggled his eyebrows. “You know that more is my speciality, right?”
Gabriel grimaced but rubbed his hands together and concentrated hard as he set about creating a glorious enclave for their guests. Eltiel showered the audience with glittering motes of heavenly light and made accompanying whizzbang sound effects as each new building popped into existence. When it looked as though Gabriel was almost finished, Eltiel walked around, casting a critical eye on each turret, pathway and wall. If he saw an unembellished surface he made sure that it was embellished. He went back round and added embellishments onto the embellishments. When the whole thing looked as if would give a Disney princess a migraine, he declared it ready.
Rutspud beckoned to the waiting crowd.
“Freshly minted, nobody else has set foot in here,” announced Rutspud. “I think you’ll find that it contains everything you could wish for. You’re all welcome to move in here right now.”
“Unsullied by the hoi polloi,” he heard Cynthia whisper to Claymore Ferret. “It’s got to be better.”
“Well, cream rises to the top as always, darling,” Claymore replied. “I knew we’d be treated properly once this lot caught on to who we are. We’ll take this place, I think.”
He addressed Gabriel. “So, listen, boy.”
“Boy?”
“How can we be sure that we’ll be protected from the proles who want a bit of what we’ve got, hmmm?”
Rutspud cut in before the archangel could launch into what would undoubtedly be a sermon. “We can make absolutely sure that your private residence remains undisturbed,” he said, “We’ll shut these gates, and only authorised members of Heaven’s committee will be permitted to unlock them.”
“See to it,” said Claymore and they all trooped in happily, eager to claim their own place in their own private Heaven.
Joan looked at Rutspud. “So, your response to selfish ingrates throwing a hissy fit was to give them exactly what they wanted?”
“Exactly.”
“Hardly very devilish,” she said.
“Joan, the devil is in the details. The details.”
She gave it some thought. “I knew I was right to choose you to go with me to earth.”
Rutspud scowled. “Well, we’re going to Hell before we go to earth.”
“What for?”
“You think we’re going on this mission unequipped?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Clovenhoof put a finger to his lips to try and stop the indignant bleating noises from Ben and Nerys. The call connected.
“We’ve got Jeremy from the West Midlands on the line,” said the radio presenter. “Hi Jeremy.”
“Hi Trish, Jeremy Clovenhoof here,” he said. “You want my opinion on fracking, yeah?”
“I certainly do Jeremy. Tell us all what you think.”
“Well I think that as long as it’s between consenting adults then it’s fine. People worry too much.”
Clovenhoof didn’t wait for a response, he killed the call and checked his watch. “Eight seconds to go.” He looked up and down the road. Only Festering Ken was in sight. Clovenhoof put his fingers in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle. Ken looked up and Clovenhoof gave him a cheeky wave.
“So,” he said, “you’ll need to add together the listening figures for BBC West Midlands, BBC Coventry and Warwickshire and the internet radio station Angry Folks Moaning About Stuff.”
“The rules did not say that you could use your phone!” said Nerys.
“Nor did they say that I couldn’t,” said Clovenhoof. “My church attendance figures are based on the total number of people’s attention I can draw while stood on the doorstep. I’m on the doorstep. Attention has been drawn. Get totalling, Nerys.”
A car pulled up outside the house.
“And add one to that total,” said Clovenhoof.
Nerys segued from a string of fruity swear words into a warm greeting as Narinda got out of the car.
“You’ve all come to greet me,” she said, mildly perplexed to see the three of them crowded on the doorstep.
Clovenhoof tapped the parking sign he’d put next to the door. “As much as I’d like to let you off because you’ve come here at my invitation, I know you’re a stickler for rules, so I’m going to have to charge you thirty quid for –”
“Not now,” said Nerys. “Narinda is our guest for the evening.”
“I’ve come to put Jeremy’s tax matters to bed,” said Narinda. “I’m not stopping long.”
“Of course,” said Nerys smoothly. “Ben, why don’t you get Narinda fixed up with a drink while Jeremy and I calculate these figures?”
Ben adopted the alpha male body language, as drilled into him by Nerys. He stood with his feet in a wide stance and his arms away from his sides, chin jutting out slightly.
“Are you all right, Ben?” said Narinda. “You look a little tense.”
“We’re all a little tense. I suspect I owe Jeremy a great deal of money.” Ben waddled inside. Whether he was maintaining his alpha male stance or suffering the after-effects of waxing wasn’t clear.
“Well,” said Nerys, after tapping it all out on her phone, “I reckon your new follower total to be three hundred and seventy thousand three hundred and seven. Let’s go and see what that means for Ben, shall we?”
As they entered the games room, Ben was performing a cocktail-mixing routine for Narinda. Clovenhoof stared. He’d watched the rehearsal of this, with Nerys shouting instructions and something here wasn’t quite the same. Then he saw the kettle and realised that Ben was making a cup of tea. Narinda was equally transfixed, especially when Ben attempted to juggle sugar cubes.
“Ah, no sugar fo
r me, thank you.”
Ben dropped the sugar and turned his attention to the milk, shaking the bottle in the air to his left and to his right and then pouring a thin stream from a great height into Narinda’s cup.
He used the teabag squeezers and a few pelvic thrusts to extract the teabag from the cup. He flipped the teabag onto his nose, put his hands on his hips and, after some strutting and shoulder-wiggling, ducked his head and deposited it into the bin.
“Thank you,” said Narinda uncertainly as Ben handed her the cup. “And that routine was… did you perhaps lose a bet?” She scanned his new attire. “Several bets, perhaps?”
“He’s about to lose something,” said Jeremy, dropping into his seat and messily quaffing his glass of stout.
“Now, what’s the update regarding your tax payments and your general financial position?” asked Narinda.
“Sorry, I think there’s a more pressing matter to deal with,” said Nerys.
“More pressing than the fact you’re all about to be evicted from your home?” asked Narinda.
“For the next few minutes, yes. We need to see what Ben owes Jeremy for landing on his church.”
“Cathedral!”, said Clovenhoof.
“Surely a church is a free resting place?” said Narinda. “They don’t take money off people in real life.”
“Which does them no favours in the twenty-first century,” said Clovenhoof.
“It’s why they’re selling some of them off to private buyers,” said Ben. “There’s a curry house in Tamworth in a church building.”
“Maybe St Michael’s should try selling curry instead of peddling horrible biscuits and lukewarm tea,” said Nerys. “They might make enough money to make a proper nativity instead of wrapping dusters around the leftover power rangers from the jumble sale and hoping that people don’t look too closely.”
“I quite enjoyed the carrot that played baby Jesus last year,” said Ben.
“It did get a little bit mouldy towards twelfth night though. Have you got the miracle cards, Ben?” asked Nerys.
“About the tax…” said Narinda.
Ben offered a stack of cards to Clovenhoof, who picked a card and held it up with a flourish. “A statue of the Virgin Mary in Saint Michael’s graveyard is observed weeping. Visitors flock to see it from all over the world. Value one hundred thousand pounds. Cool, huh?”
