I went back to England one more time, in 1972. For some reason, I don’t know why, I began to wonder if there was another me, another Norman Smith, living in England. I couldn’t see why there wouldn’t be - the absence of a Second World War wouldn’t have had any bearing on my being born, my father was too young to have been a soldier in it and possibly killed in action; and I knew for a fact that he had already met my mother in 1938 when they were both eight-year-olds. But I couldn’t see why there would be. Norman Smith was in Germany, in Hitler’s body but in Germany nevertheless, so it was impossible on the face of it. But then I used to think it was impossible for there to be a heaven and a hell and I’d been to both of them and if that were possible anything was.
I had to find out.
*
It was around seven-o-clock in the evening when I arrived outside my old house in Harpurhey. Having got there I was at a loss as to what to do next. Knock on the door and say “Hello, is Norman in?” I couldn’t very well do that. In any case it would come out in German and I wouldn’t be understood. So I just stationed myself across the road and hoped for something to happen.
I saw my mother first. She came out of a house a few doors up the road, Mrs Scattergood’s as I remember, they’d probably been gossiping, pulling the neighbours to bits. “Have you seen the colour of her curtains at Number 26?” She didn’t pay me any attention, if indeed she saw me. I paid her little either, it wasn’t my mother I’d come to see, I’d seen more than enough of her in life. About half-an-hour later my father came out through the front door. Probably going to the pub, it was a Monday, darts night. Another fifteen minutes went by. No sign of me at all. There was no one about so I crossed the road and chanced a look through the front window. My mother was watching TV. Coronation Street. Stan and Hilda Ogden arguing, Hilda doing most of the talking. I wasn’t in the room, nor was there any trace of me, nothing I’d left lying around, no jigsaw puzzle I used to do on a baking board on the floor some evenings . I stepped back and gave it some thought. If there was a me, where would I be? It soon came to me; I wondered why it hadn’t occurred to me before. Playing football. Nice evening like this, I’d be in the park playing togger with my mates, I was football mad.
I saw myself the moment I entered the park. Or at least I thought it was me. The boys, seven or eight of them, were about a hundred yards away. One of them was in short trousers. My mother wouldn’t let me wear long trousers, like my mates, although I was the same age. Too expensive. “I didn’t wear long trousers when I was twelve.” “You were a girl, Mam.” “Are you looking for a clout?”
I wanted to make sure it was me but I didn’t want Norman to see me. There were some woods just behind where they were playing shooting in. I retraced my steps and approached the game through the woods. It was me all right, unmistakably, I was only twenty yards away. I watched for a short while from the cover of the trees. Suddenly one of the boys sliced the football and it headed straight for my hiding place. Norman, I, ran after it....
*
After, I returned to Germany and lived out the rest of my life. Then I died.
PART SIX
IM HIMMEL
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
When I open my eyes I am not in hell, as I expect to be, but in heaven. I am seated on a bench, as was the case the first time I arrived in heaven, but it is not the bench in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester; it is the bench in the park in Neufahren where I often used to sit reading my newspaper before taking a stroll by the lake where I would feed the ducks.
A man carrying a clipboard approaches. He stops, smiles, and says in German, “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m The Archangel Gunther, your mentor. I’ll be....”
I butt in. “....meeting with me from time to time until I settle in. Yes, I know. I know all about heaven.”
He is surprised. “You do?”
“I’ve been before. So if it’s all the same to you I’ll just get on with it.”
*
Tentatively, my heart in my mouth, I lick my lips, take a deep breath and push gently on the door of the Hotel Königshof’s Room 242. It eases open a few inches. I step inside. Kristin is in the room, waiting for me. She is just twenty years old. She is quite beautiful. No more beautiful than when I knew her as a fifty-year-old, just a more youthful beauty. We will very soon be making love. Although I am now aged ninety-one I am still capable of making love. I know that for sure; every week, once a week, until my death, to assure myself that I could still get an erection, I thought of Kristin and masturbated.
Why? Because without ever believing it was anything more than a pipe dream, without ever believing it was anything more than remotely possible, I have spent the last thirty-five years in the hope that I might be forgiven the terrible sins I perpetrated on the human race; that because I called a halt to them and saved the world from World War Two and the holocaust that when I died I just might be returned to heaven and not to hell. Along with the natural desire to keep out of the terrible place that is hell for as long as was humanly possible it was the reason I tried my hardest to keep healthy, to give myself the best chance of leading a long life - so that if and when I met up again with Kristin we would be lovers in every sense of the word. And now we will be.
I look at her and smile. My English Rose. She returns my smile. She says, “I think the moustache will have to go.”
****
If you enjoyed reading I’m in Heaven would you mind doing me a favour? If you are a member of facebook, recommend it to your facebook friends, if you have a Twitter account, tweet your opinion of it, or if you have neither simply tell anyone in your email address book who you think might like it. Failing that your next door neighbour will do.
Thanks for this
Terry Ravenscroft.
****
Also by Terry Ravenscroft and available on Amazon Kindle
ZEPHYR ZODIAC
Dolly was rinsing the tea cups in the sink when Don came in, quite agitated.
“There’s a young couple sat in our car, Doll!”
“A young couple?”
“Teenagers by the look of them. Sitting there as large as life.”
“In our car? Are you sure, Don?”
“Come and have a look if you don’t believe me.”
Don took Dolly’s hand and led her to the front door. When they looked, the young couple were still in the car. Dolly took in the scene and turned to Don.
“What do you think they’re doing there?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“They look very young.”
“Not to mention scruffy. I sincerely hope they don’t soil the leopard skin seats.”
“Perhaps they’ll go if we just ignore them.”
“They look pretty settled to me. Oh no! Well if that isn’t the limit.”
“What’s the matter?”
“He’s lit up a cigarette.”
“We can’t allow that Don, smoking in our car.”
“We most certainly can not, Doll.”
“That won’t do the leopard skin seats any good at all. I mean sitting in our car is one thing, but....”
They made their way down the drive and stopped at the car. The occupants were oblivious to them. Don tapped on the window, businesslike. The boy would down the window.
“Excuse me but just what do you think you’re doing in our motor car?” said Don.
“We’re living in it.”
Zephyr Zodiac will be published early in 2012.
****
JAMES BLOND – STOCKPORT IS TOO MUCH
He took the cool glass and looked straight into the eyes of the object of his affection. “Please, all my lovers call me James.”
Pisa Vass returned his look, unblinkingly. “But I have never been your lover, Mr Blond.”
She turned from him as if to walk away, but before she could he caught her lightly by the shoulders and applied just enough pressure to persuade her to turn to face him. “A state of affairs I am now going to take
the greatest pleasure in rectifying,” he said, permitting his hands to slide down her arms to encircle her slender waist. He nodded towards the bedroom. “Come, my lovely Pisa Vass.”
“No.” She pushed him away, not at all violently, but firmly enough to make it clear she meant what she said.
Blond was surprised to say the least. He raised a puzzled eyebrow. “No?”
“I can't.”
His brow furrowed. “Can't? What do you mean, you can't?”
“I'm having my period.”
“Having your period?”
“Yes. Sorry.”
He was completely baffled. “But....I mean you can’t be….the girls I meet are never having their period.”
“Well I'm having mine,” said Pisa, simply.
Blond simply couldn’t credit it; for he was speaking the gospel truth. Just like the James Bond of book and film fame not once in his entire career had he encountered a girl who happened to be having her period when he came a calling; that sort of thing just didn’t happen to famous secret agents.
The girl smiled pleasantly. “I could manage a hand job?”
****
Amazon Reader’s Review:-
I'd come across Terry Ravenscroft quite recently via an author peer review site, and was delighted to discover how many amusing books he had written. This one lives up to the standard of the others I've seen, and keeps carefully just on the tasteful side of crude - I don't like crudity, sick humour or 'smut' but Terry somehow manages to avoid these things while still dealing with the fundamentals of human existence. And James Blond's spoof credentials don't stop him from reminding us sometimes of the original, which highlights Ravenscroft's skill in humorous writing. There are even aliens! – Janey Fisher
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****
INFLATABLE HUGH
“There seems to have been a long gap between the date of my brother’s death and his funeral,” observed Pugh.
“There was a rather unusual burial request,” explained Oldknow. “Certain difficulties had to be overcome in carrying it out.”
“An unusual burial request?”
“He wanted to be buried in a vagina.”
“In Virginia?” Pugh raised his eyebrows. “What’s so unusual about that?” He knew that Aneurin had connections in the southern states of America, and whilst he could see why it might be a bit awkward, not to say inconvenient, burying someone in America who had met his end in Ramsbottom, Lancashire, he could see nothing particularly unusual about it.
The solicitor leaned back in his seat slightly and peered at Pugh over his spectacles. “Not Virginia, Mr Pugh. A vagina.”
Pugh wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “My brother wanted to be buried in a woman’s minge?”
Oldknow winced at the crude language of the former Minister for Culture. “I’m afraid so. Not a real one of course. A coffin designed to look like one. He left strict instructions as to its design and construction. He was particularly insistent it should have lots of black pubic hair. ‘Like a bush’ was his most graphic way of describing it. And real hair. It cost a small fortune.
Pugh didn’t at all like the idea of a small fortune being frittered away from his inheritance by the purchase of a coffin that looked like a vagina with real hair. However he was intrigued as to why anyone would want to make such a request in the first place. He asked the solicitor.
Oldknow shrugged. “People get buried in all manner of things nowadays; indeed there are specialist coffin suppliers who cater for the most bizarre of tastes. I once heard of someone being buried in a Red Arrows jet coffin. Another in a motor-bike sidecar, alongside her motor-cyclist husband who had met his demise a year earlier. In your brother Aneurin’s case, from what I’ve been told – although I didn’t delve too deeply I must admit - he believed very much in the rejuvenating powers of the vagina.”
“Rejuvenating powers?” Pugh was surprised to say the least. “He’s not expecting it to bring him back to life, is he?”
Amazon Reader’s Review:-
"Apparently your brother maintained the belief that having sex with an inflatable rubber woman was almost as beneficial in creating a feeling of well-being as the real thing. This being the case he viewed his operation more like a public service than a moneymaking operation. Which isn't to say he didn't make substantial profits from the sales ..." Pugh's heart beat faster. Substantial profits. What a wonderful coming together of words.
With the above opening paragraph of Inflatable Hugh I was hooked. Terry Ravenscroft's tongue in cheek writing had me laughing out loud from beginning to end. From the wily to the ingenuous, from the morally indignant Vigilantes Against Sex Toys to the crafty machinations of politicians, all are depicted with subtle insight into character. In recommending this as a `great' read I could only paraphrase the author's own writing: What a delightful coming together of words! - Rue.
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****
FOOTBALL CRAZY
Superintendent Screwer fixed Sergeant Hawks with a beady eye. When would they ever learn? “Where there is football, Sergeant, there is football hooliganism. Having been previously stationed at Leeds I know that for a fact; and I know all about the cancer in our society that football hooliganism has become.”
“With respect sir, what few supporters the Town still have are nothing like Leeds United supporters.”
Screwer glared at him. If Hawks had been the office door the paint would have blistered.
“Respect?” he screamed. “Respect, Sergeant Hawks? You aren't showing me any frigging respect! If you were you wouldn't be arguing with me, you would be making plans to adequately police Frogley Town's opening game of the season!”
Hawks bit his lip. Retirement and that cottage in the Lakes suddenly seemed much farther away. “Yes sir.”
Screwer drew in his horns a little. “Football supporters are the same the world over, Sergeant. Animals. Nothing more, nothing less. Take my word for it, just because the fans of Frogley Town have yet to reveal their true colours doesn't mean to say that one day they aren't going to.”
“No sir.”
The horns shot back out again as if spring-loaded. “Well just let them! They will not find the Frogley Police Force wanting. Not while my name is Herman Screwer they won't. We'll be ready for them, Sergeant. Ready to whip then into line; ready to break them; ready to smash the brainless bastards into submission!” He suddenly smashed his right fist into his left hand. The splat of the bone of his knuckles colliding with the flesh of his palm made Hawks wince. “Crowd control, that's the name of the game. What are we like for tear gas?”
Amazon Reader’s Review:-
Apart from being very very funny, Football Crazy is unique. For me it's a marvellous mixture of Tom Sharpe and Ripping Yarns with its larger-than-life characters that come alive in your head as the story unfolds and the world of football superstars meets the rich tycoon who's going to bring the return of long-awaited success. Except we're talking Frogley Town and a meat-pie millionaire. Oh - and Superintendent Screwer who would see civil unrest in an impatient bus queue. As is the way with the best caricatures, we've sort of met the main characters before. We know elements of Donny Donnelly, Joe Price and Superintendent Screwer do actually exist in the real world; we can't quite place who and where but we recognise them when we see them. I really do recommend this book, it's a cracking story and, football fan or not, it will bring a smile to your face. It's crying out to be made into a one-off TV special. - Anthony J McCrorie
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****
CAPTAIN’S DAY
The problems posed by having a transvestite on the cour
se were as nothing however once Philip had gone through the operation that transformed him into, if not a whole woman, then minus a set of male genitalia a whole woman. For it was then that Philip Hill, now Phyllis Hill, sought to play in the ladies’ competitions, rather than the men's. Not surprisingly the Sunnymere ladies’ section would not even contemplate the proposition. As far as they were concerned Phyllis Hill was still very much a man. That he was a man now minus a penis and testicles, in addition to being the proud owner, thanks to hormone treatment, of a pair of small but blossoming breasts, didn’t even enter into the argument. The way the ladies saw it was that although Philip Hill may very well no longer have male genitalia he certainly still had the same muscular six feet two inch frame that he’d had before, as well as the two strong arms of the plasterer’s mate he had been (and still was) for the last fifteen years, and therefore had an unfair advantage when it came to propelling a golf ball round the course, especially off the ladies’ tees.
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