Sparks

by David Quantick

  A hundred – well, five – thoughts raced through Sparks’ brain as though they might win something. Clearly, this was a weird place, especially re: bears. Clearly, Alison was annoyed with him. Equally clearly, she was often annoyed with the other Sparks who, equally equally clearly, she thought he was. The alley thing probably meant she wasn’t really taking him to the police station, unless it was an extremely small police station in the bins. But the annoyed thing suggested to Sparks that he would have to explain himself, and in a way that wouldn’t enrage Alison, such as, for example, the actual truth.

  Sparks thought fast. He would tell her that he had been pretending to be a foreigner who didn’t know local customs. Alison and he had once spent a day doing this, putting on foreign accents and booking hotel rooms in the West End and then having sex, foreignly, so it wasn’t such a bizarre assertion.

  He was about to assert it when Alison said, “And don’t tell me you were pretending to be a foreigner, Sparks. You weren’t doing the accent.”

  Sparks stopped thinking for a moment, literally, like a stalled car. His brain rotated uselessly in its skull. Then he said:

  “I think I’ve got that flu.”

  “What flu?” said Alison. “The one where you go mental and act like a complete idiot?”

  “Yes,” said Sparks, immediately realising Alison was being sarcastic. “All right, no. But I do have flu and it’s really doing my head in. I got up this morning and I didn’t know where I was.”

  “You were at my flat,” said Alison, her eyes changing shape in a dangerous way, as though the irises and the pupils were regrouping to throw tiny eye rockets at Sparks. “We had sex and you said it was brilliant and then you asked me to marry you.”

  “Oh hell,” said Sparks, feeling immensely guilty. Then he realised that in fact that morning he hadn’t had sex and proposed to Alison; he had been in bed in a parallel universe, dreaming he had retractable legs. But this logic wouldn’t work on Alison, even if she wasn’t, which she now was, very angry.

  Then her expression changed completely and abruptly from anger to bafflement. It changed so completely that Sparks thought it looked like someone had stuck a slide of a person looking baffled into a series of holiday slides of people looking angry.

  “What’s wrong?” said Sparks.

  Alison wasn’t listening. She gave every impression of concentrating hard on looking baffled.

  “You’re not Sparks,” she said.

  Sparks felt an electric wave go up his spine and mess with the hairs on his neck.

  “Yes I am,” he said, which was pretty much the truth. In fact, it was the truth. And also, it wasn’t.

  “You look different,” said Alison. She looked scared, Sparks thought, and wondered once more at the human capacity to change emotions like a chameleon on a gay flag. One of those rainbow ones, Sparks explained to himself, then realised he was going into a reverie and Alison was crying, in a scared way.

  “What’s going on?” said Alison. “I mean, you are Sparks, I can see that, no one would be as daft as you, but…”

  “Thanks,” said Sparks, before he realised that mild sarcasm never helps with crying, and in fact may not even be noticed.

  “But also you’re not Sparks. Which doesn’t make sense.”

  Sparks inhaled powerfully. Then he looked around, in case anyone had written the solution to his problems on some nearby walls. Then he spoke.

  “I have an explanation. It’s stupid, but it’s true.”

  Alison sniffed a bit and wiped a tear off her cheek. He really was scaring her, Sparks realised.

  “OK,” she said. “That sounded like the sort of thing Sparks would say if he was being sincere. Um – where is he, by the way? You haven’t killed him or occupied his body or... I’m going to stop talking now.”

  “I don’t know where he is,” said Sparks, “I expect knowing him, you know what I mean, knowing me, anyway, I expect he’s still in your flat, looking for bacon. Does he like bacon or do all the bears get it here for free?”

  “Bears don’t eat bacon,” said Alison. “They eat…”

  “Anyway,” said Sparks, anxious to move on. “We need to talk about the bears thing but I suspect me being Sparks is more of a priority for you.”

  “Have you been on a training course of some kind?” said Alison. “Because you’re talking like you have.”

  “Anyway,” said Sparks again, and told Alison everything. It took ages, and he missed out the giant dentist the first time, so he had to start again. When he finally finished, Alison looked like she was wearing all her emotions at once, just to see if she could. Then she said:

  “Bloody hell, Sparks. You couldn’t make that up.”

  “I know,” said Sparks. “It’s amazing.”

  “No, I meant you couldn’t make it up,” said Alison. “That’s how I know you’re not lying, because you’re not that... you don’t have that kind of... imagination.”

  “I see,” said Sparks, like a detective’s assistant, because he didn’t see at all. But he was glad that Alison believed him.

  “Also,” said Alison, “normally when you try and explain things, if there’s too many words, I can see you thinking of them, and putting the sentence together.”

  “I see,” said Sparks, this time more like a cold assassin who has been corrected and will never forget the slight.

  “Sometimes it’s like being at an airport and watching the destinations and the gate click round and you know it’s going to say gate four but you still have to wait…”

  “I see. I really see,” said Sparks, this time not like a detective or a cold assassin but a man who just felt stupid.

  “Sorry, Sparks,” said Alison. “I’m just a bit confused.”

  Sparks, who nevertheless wished that Alison had actually said, “I didn’t mean a word of it,” said, “It’s OK, I’m a bit confused myself. Um... so tell me about the bears then.”

  Alison looked puzzled. “What about them?” she said. “I mean, apart from the fact that they’re lovely and nice and look after people, there’s nothing to say.”

  “That one wasn’t lovely and nice. He wasn’t going to look after you,” said Sparks. “He was going to bite your head off. That isn’t considerate, not in most cultures. I mean, maybe he thought you had a spot on your neck and the best way to get rid of it was to sever your head from your body, but that’s not…”

  “Don’t be sarcastic about the bears,” said Alison. “You don’t understand.”

  “Sorry,” said Sparks. “But I do think you’re being defensive.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “All right, you’re not, but the last time I remember you talking in this sort of way was about Rob Lester who you said was an all right bloke when everyone knew he two-timed you.”

  “God,” said Alison with some meaning. “How depressing. I even went out with Rob Lester in a different universe.”

  “At least one,” said Sparks, who rarely knew when to let things drop.

  “But I split up with you.”

  “Is that meant to be like compensation? You went out with Rob Lester but you split up with me? It evens out sort of thing? Swings and roundabouts like?”

  “No,” said Alison. “But much more of the old Sparks aggrieved self-pity and it will be. I was just wondering… I mean, here, in this world…”

  “The one with the bears,” said Sparks, helpfully.

  “Leave off the bears for a minute,” said Alison. “I was wondering why I split up with you in your world.”

  “I was just wondering why you stayed with me in this one,” said Sparks.

  “I was thinking about dumping you a year or so ago,” said Alison. “But then there was the fight. I was amazed.”

  “Fight?” said Sparks. “What fight? Did we fight?”

  “No,” said Alison. “You and some men fought. It was in the paper.”

  “Were bears involved?”

  Alison looked sharply at Sparks.


  “Sorry,” he said.

  “You were in a shop when some men, there were two of them, started laying into the woman behind the counter, all Paki this and Paki that…”

  “I remember that,” said Sparks. “It was really embarrassing. I always wish I’d said something.”

  “But you did,” said Alison. “You said, I don’t think you should be talking to people like that…”

  “Was I drunk?” said Sparks.

  “No, it was too early. Anyway, they objected to you intervening and there was a fight. Turned out afterwards one of them had been in jail on GBH charges…”

  “And I beat them up?”

  “No… they beat you up. But it was all on camera, and they got done. And that’s why it was in the paper. The other one, the not GBH one, he was wanted for some proper crime.”

  “Beating me up is a proper crime!”

  “Yes, that’s what you said at the time. But the point is, I was thinking of dumping you, but that whole thing made me think... and when you came out of the hospital a month later…”

  “A month?”

  “Yes. My Sparks has, I can see it now, a slightly different shaped jaw. When you came out of the hospital, you were different. Like less…”

  “Casual? Flippant? Devil-may-care?”

  “Of a prat, I was going to say. Less of a prat.”

  “So all I had to do to stay with you was get beaten up?”

  “Not quite… I suppose you had to be there. Literally. You know, Sparks, you’re a bit of a boy really. Which is what I like about you but also it drives me mad. At least, it used to. I think you, or, anyway, him, anyway, Sparks is different.”

  “Not a boy?”

  “Not so much a boy.”

  “I see,” said Sparks, in the manner of a duchess who has just been told by a social inferior that he will not be attending luncheon. Sparks really could say “I see” in a lot of different ways.

  “I’d better be getting back,” said Sparks. “Thanks for everything.”

  “Don’t get huffy,” said Alison. “Really, you’re a nice person and I’m sure there’s someone out there for you.”

  “Ta,” said Sparks.

  “It’s not me,” said Alison. “You know, Sparks, maybe it’s not her either. I mean, maybe it’s not her as in it’s you as in you’re the problem. You know people who leave town to get away from their problems and when they get to the new town, they find they’ve brought their problems with them? Perhaps that’s what you’re doing.”

  “We’ll see,” said Sparks, just to avoid saying “I see” again.

  “And don’t worry about the bears,” said Alison. “I expect in your world, it must sound odd letting huge animals roam free, but in our culture they’re very important.”

  “Sacred cows,” said Sparks. “Literally, I suppose.”

  “What?” said Alison. “Is that an expression?”

  Sparks told her what a sacred cow was. For the first time that day, Alison laughed.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “I mean, what would the bears eat?”

  Alison walked Sparks back to the reservoir. He pointed out the haze of the portal to her and she was suitably amazed.

  “Want to come and see some worlds?” said Sparks.

  Alison thought about it.

  “No,” she said. “Life’s weird enough as it is. Besides, I don’t think I could stand the way you people treat your bears.”

  They embraced.

  “Don’t take it too hard, what I said,” said Alison. “Even though it was true and I meant it.”

  She kissed him. Sparks felt a small tear of nostalgia for being kissed by the other Alison and kissed her back.

  “Goodbye,” he said, “And thanks. Now I have to take my clothes off and swim out to the middle of the reservoir.”

  “That sounds like Sparks,” said Alison. “I shall avert my gaze.”

  Sparks swam out to the shimmering portal. He turned and waved to a distant Alison (who had no way averted her gaze, in case Sparks had some interesting alternative tattoos, or just a nice bottom) and plunged down under the water.

  Then he came back.

  “Bloody hell, Sparks,” said Alison. “You have no idea how to make an exit.”

  “Sorry,” said Sparks, dripping a lot. “It’s just I’ve had a shit hot idea. Can you get me into your bloke’s office?”

  “What?” said Alison. “I mean… what? I mean, why, I suppose. I thought you had to go and find some more portals or something, not stay here and carry on freaking me out.”

  “That’s it, though,” said Sparks. “Not the freaking you out part, the portals part. Can you get me into the office?”

  Alison perched a hand on her hip and looked askance at the sky, as though it had really annoyed her by not going away when she had already said goodbye to it.

  “Bloody hell, Sparks,” she said again.

  Sparks could hear voices in the next room. One of them was freaking him out quite substantially. It was his own.

  In the next room, Alison was persuading the other Sparks to come out and have a curry with her. The other Sparks was suspicious, and again Sparks felt freaked out, because he kept thinking what the other Sparks was thinking, and then a second later hearing the other Sparks say it.

  “I just fancy a curry, that’s all,” Alison said unconvincingly, through the thin wall.

  Alison hates curry, thought Sparks. She says it makes her spotty and she farts.

  “You hate curry,” said the other Sparks. “You told me it makes you spotty and you…”

  “Well, I just fancy it,” said Alison, a bit sharply.

  He’s going to think she’s pregnant, said Sparks.

  “Are you OK?” said the voice of the other Sparks, suddenly concerned, and Sparks had to admit, he was impressed at the other him’s near tact.

  “I’m not pregnant!” said Alison. “I nearly got eaten by a bear, OK, and I feel a bit stressed, and I don’t think it’s fair of you to give me… to just…”

  Alison sounded genuinely upset, and Sparks realised that she had the other Sparks beat. A direct, confusing emotional appeal always worked on him.

  And so it was. Within seconds, after some vaguely romantic noises that Sparks tried to block out (fingers, ears, wax), the outside door slammed shut and Sparks was alone.

  Sparks crept into the office. It was the same as his office, with the same wall of 1970s T-shirt designs, only missing a T-shirt that said DO BEARS CRAP IN THE VATICAN, presumably because in this world, they did, and anywhere else they wanted to as well. He leaned forward and turned on the other Sparks’ computer, which was reassuringly identical to his own.

  He clicked the mouse. The screen billowed up the familiar gusts of words and numbers, only this time in a typeface that Sparks, had he been in the least homophobic (and, really, even if he hadn’t) could only describe as “gay-faced”.

  In gay-faced type, the screen read:

  TODAY’S WORD MANATEE OPERATING ENTRANCE KIEV 75 AVENUE KRASNY DUTY R K D KUZNETSOV

  The screen emptied and then filled up again.

  TODAY’S WORD MANATEE OPERATING ENTRANCE LONDON TOYO’S 246 REGENT STREET DUTY MRS REEVES

  Regent Street was a short tube journey away. Sparks looked at the screen in the hope of seeing a nearer address which wouldn’t involve meeting anything with claws or teeth, but there wasn’t one. He shut down the computer, after changing the typeface to annoy his other self, and sneaked out the front door.

  By now it was evening, and while this might prevent anyone recognising Sparks as the man who didn’t let bears eat people, it did mean that lurching fanged you-know-whats might come charging at him from nearby Londises and betting shops. Sparks hurried to the tube station and asked the woman at the ticket counter for a single to Piccadilly Circus. Then he changed his mind, and asked for a return, as he was probably coming back to the same part of town later, only in a different world. Sparks felt proud of himself for this trans-dimensional
piece of economy.

  Regent Street was quiet. A large sign outside the tube station that read LONDON’S WEST END WELCOMES FEROCIOUS, WISE BEARS might, Sparks felt, have held a clue to this. Instead of the trampling humps of tourists and late night shoppers eager to get some tartan cashmere before the shops closed, there were some nervous-looking policemen and a few tramps, most of whom were worryingly single-limbed, and some of whom held placards saying BLESSED BY CONTACT WITH A WONDERFUL BEAR! PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY.

  Sparks made it to 246 Regent Street quite speedily. He was a bit surprised to see that it was a large department store; after a few seconds, he realised that this made a lot of sense, as Regent Street was generally known for being full of large department stores rather than tiny wooden huts or pretty thatched cottages. The store at 246 Regent Street was called Toyo’s, and it was, logically enough, a toy store.

  Sparks was happy about this. He liked toy stores, especially big ones where there were lots of free things to do, and this one was enormous. As he looked for the duty person who was (he consulted his tube ticket note) Mrs Reeves, he could take time to have a go on the train set, test out some radio-controlled tanks and, most interesting of all, make some battery-powered puppies yelp and do back flips.

  Sparks made his way through the store, towards the back where some tanks might be. Instead, he found himself in his least favourite place in the world, the stuffed toy section. On shelf after shelf, sitting with their useless stumpy legs sticking out and their pawless arms reaching forward, were tens of plush cats, fake fur doggies and the odd bloated clothy lion. The whole thing was insufferable, and Sparks headed for the lift at speed.

  He was stopped by the sight of an enormous bear. It wasn’t a real bear, it just looked like one. It stood next to a sign that said THIS WAY TO THE TEDDY BEARS. The sign did not look friendly; to Sparks, it was worded in such a way as to not in any way say, PLEASE COME AND LOOK AT SOME CUTE BEARS, IT REALLY MIGHT BE FUN! or OOH BEARS! HOW LOVELY! Sparks found himself compelled to go and look at the teddy bears, even though he hated teddy bears, as well as Winnie The Pooh and pretty much anything to do with the toy ursine world.