Watchers

by Philip Caveney

  Reg smiled. ‘Oh, we’re quite well attuned to other creatures with wings,’ he said. ‘We can get them to do quite a bit of stuff, though in this case I don’t know how long it will last. Birds have very short memories, I’m afraid.’

  ‘And you can do other tricks, can’t you?’ said Will. ‘Ari did this one where he went from inside a building and up onto the roof.’

  ‘Did he now?’ Reg gave Ari a quizzical look. ‘The old spatial shift, eh? Didn’t think you still had it in you.’

  ‘Spur of the moment,’ said Ari, not looking up from his cigarette rolling. ‘Needed to show the boy that I meant business. No big deal.’

  ‘Hmmm. I remember a time when you could shift from one country to another if you needed to.’

  Ari shrugged.

  ‘Glory days,’ he said. ‘I reckon we’ve all slowed down a bit since then.’

  Reg nodded and Will thought he detected a certain sadness in his blue eyes. ‘I’m always trying to impress upon my fellow Watchers that we need to conserve our powers for when we really need them,’ he said. ‘It’s not like the old days when we could smite our enemies. We’re shadows of our former selves,’

  ‘You speak for yourself,’ grunted Mark, flexing a muscled arm.

  ‘I’m only saying, we shouldn’t use up our powers unnecessarily,’ protested Reg.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Amy, gleefully. ‘Like you really had to tell the rooks to pipe down just now, when you could just as easily have got a shotgun and scared them off?’

  Reg looked baffled.

  ‘Umm . . . well that was spur of the moment too,’ he said and gave a weak smile.

  Will took a sip of his tea and then wished that he hadn’t, because he had to pull a chunk of bitter-tasting leaf out of his mouth. He thought for a moment.

  ‘Ok, let me get this right in my head,’ he said. ‘You ange−’ He noticed the sharp look that Ari gave him, and tried again. ‘You . . . Watchers. You were chucked out of heaven by God, yeah? Because er . . . because you’d become . . . too proud?’

  Reg smiled sadly. ‘Well, that’s what everyone says. Makes it sound so simple, doesn’t it? But of course, the truth is much more complicated than that.’ He glanced at Ari. ‘How does he . . .?’

  ‘The internet.’

  Ari nodded. ‘Yes, of course. Well, we could hardly expect them to get all the facts right, could we? I mean, the greatest religious thinkers of history couldn’t manage it, so how could you expect veracity from a mere website?’ He returned his attention to Will. ‘You see, this whole pride thing, that . . . that’s a complicated issue. And to be honest, it was more about Lou than it was the rest of us.’

  ‘Lou?’ Will stared at him. ‘Who’s Lou? Oh, hang on . . . you mean . . . Lucifer?’

  ‘Yes, though he doesn’t like answering to that name, any more. A bit too Old Testament for his liking. You see, these days, Lou thinks of himself as the coolest bloke on the planet.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, very cool,’ said Amy. ‘The last time I saw him he was riding a Harley Davidson . . .’

  ‘Really? What model?’ asked Marc. ‘I’ve always wanted one of those. God knows where he got the money to buy it.’

  ‘Is that right?’ muttered Wormy, glancing up from his comic. ‘Well, if God knows, he isn’t telling anyone.’

  ‘Shush!’ Reg chided them. ‘You shouldn’t take the Lord Thy God’s name in vain. And besides, the boy has more questions.’

  ‘Uh . . . yeah.’ Will felt rather nervous about his next one. ‘But . . . er . . . Lucifer’s the devil, isn’t he? And you’re on his side, so . . .’

  ‘Hold on a minute!’ Reg lifted a hand, palm out ‘Who says we’re on his side? Let me assure you, these days, we spend most of our time trying to avoid him.’

  ‘But on this website, it said you fought for him in the battle in heaven!’

  ‘Well, that much is true,’ admitted Reg. ‘But in our defence, we were somewhat duped by him.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ari. ‘He told us that God had got it in for all of us, that he was going to set Michael and his bully boys onto us. Well, of course we fought back, it was only self-defence.’

  Reg nodded. ‘And it was only after the event we found out that Lou had been somewhat economical with the truth.’

  ‘That’s Reg’s way of saying that Lou’s a blooming liar,’ said Wormy, helpfully. ’And it was no use going to God and trying to explain what had happened, he wasn’t prepared to listen. Got quite irate, he did. So, you see, Lou stitched us up, good and proper.’

  Reg shook his head as though reliving bad times. ‘Alas, yes,’ he said, ‘You can be sure that we parted company with him pretty soon after he got us grounded. And look, who says he’s the devil? For your information, Lucifer is not the devil. He’s a devil and a very unpleasant character, I’ll grant you. But the devil is . . . a very abstract concept . . . I mean, he’s lots of things, all rolled together. He . . . he’s an entity, a powerful force, and he can operate through all manner of different minions. And certainly, Lou and his followers have a very close link with him . . .’

  ‘So this Lou character . . . he’s not here now?’ ventured Will, nervously.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Amy, poking the fire with a stick and sending up flurries of sparks. ‘But it’s only a matter of time, you can bet your boots on that.’

  Will looked at her in alarm.

  ‘What Amy means,’ said Reg, ‘is that he’s like a bad penny. He always shows up sooner or later. When we get involved in something, he senses his opportunity. Always sees it as a personal challenge. He won’t lose the chance to go up against us one more time.’ He gestured at the caravans behind him. ‘One reason we have chosen this . . . travelling lifestyle is to enable us to put distance between him and us whenever he gets too close.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just . . . fly away?’ asked Will.

  There was an embarrassed silence. He noticed that all the watchers seemed to be staring intently into the fire. After a few moments, the silence became unbearable. ‘Well, I mean to say,’ continued Will, ‘you’ve got wings, haven’t you? So surely . . .’

  But Reg was shaking his head. ‘I’m afraid that’s one thing we cannot do,’ he said mournfully. ‘You see, when we were cast down, we . . . we lost the power of flight. These wings we carry are nothing but useless appendages and they will remain so until we have . . .’

  ‘ . . . atoned for your sins by . . . by practising virtue,’ said Will, triumphantly. ‘That was on the website!’

  ‘Well, at least they got that bit right,’ muttered Ari. ‘And you’ve obviously got a good memory.’

  ‘Yeah, but . . . what does it mean?’ asked Will. ‘How do you atone for your sins?’

  Reg sighed.

  ‘It’s all about souls, really,’ he said. ‘Or more accurately, lost souls. Take your poor father, for instance, a good case in point. Under ordinary circumstances, he would be going straight upstairs, no question. But currently he’s confused, he’s in Limbo and it’s our job to make sure he goes in the right direction.’ His expression became grim. ‘Likewise, Lou and his cronies, will be trying to . . . send him downstairs. Think of it as a football match. For every lost soul we guide to the right place, we score a goal. A soul-goal, if you want to call it that. And likewise, if Lou scores a goal, he . . .’

  ‘Just a minute!’ Will had had a terrible thought. ‘Are you saying that my dad could go to hell because of this?’

  ‘Er . . . well . . .’ said Reg.

  ‘Theoretically, he could,’ said Amy.

  ‘Yes, but of course, that’s not going to happen,’ added Reg, hastily. ‘Because we’re here and he’s come to us for help.’

  ‘To me,’ Ari reminded them. ‘He came to me, don’t forget.’

  ‘Yes, whatever. And it’s by helping people like your father that we will finally find our salvation.’

  ‘And be able to fly again,’ added Marc.

  But Will still wasn’t satisfied with the answers he’d
received. There were plenty more questions milling around in his head.

  ‘How many souls do you have to save before you get forgiven?’

  Reg looked troubled by this question.

  ‘We don’t exactly know,’ he admitted sheepishly. ‘God never set us an actual figure.’

  ‘He’s like that,’ said Wormy. ‘Vague.’

  ‘Well, what’s the score so far?’

  ‘Oh, we stopped keeping score hundreds of years ago.’

  Will stared around the circle. Now he was starting to feel very afraid.

  ‘Hundreds of years?’ he murmured. Then . . . how old . . . I mean, how long . . .?’

  Reg shook his head.

  ‘Don’t even bother trying to get your head around it,’ he said. ‘Watchers are not governed by the kind of lifespan that humans enjoy. We’ve been around since the very beginning of time.’ He paused for a while to allow Will to get his head around this information. Will tried hard, but it didn’t really compute.

  ‘But . . . the beginning of time,’ he cried. ‘That must be like . . . billions of years!’

  Reg nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Oh, we’ve seen some changes, I’ll tell you that much. But . . . going back to your other question, we simply don’t know how many souls we need to guide to heaven. Could be another one, another hundred, another thousand, another million. When God is ready to forgive us, he’ll let us know.’

  ‘And we’ll be able to get back to heaven,’ said Ari.

  ‘So . . . what’s heaven like?’ asked Will.

  There was a long silence. He looked around the circle and saw that all the Watchers were looking wistfully up towards the sky.

  ‘It’s great,’ said Ari.

  ‘Dreamy,’ added Amy.

  ‘Nothing like it,’ said Marc.

  ‘They have table tennis,’ said Wormy. Everyone looked at him.

  ‘It has everything a person likes,’ snarled Reg.

  ‘Yes,’ said Wormy. ‘And I like table tennis. I was champion of my league, you know.’ He smiled happily. ‘I had a service that nobody could get back, not even Gabriel.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Reg, quietly. ‘But with respect, Wormy, this is not the time to go on about how you won heaven’s all-comers table tennis championship. Number one, we’ve all heard it . . .’

  ‘The kid hasn’t,’ Wormy reminded him.

  ‘And number two, it’s possibly the most boring story since Lou’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt.’

  Wormy scowled and muttered something that Will didn’t quite catch. He went back to his comic. Reg smiled at Will.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘you should now have a better idea of where we’re coming from. We need to get your dad into the place where he’ll be happy. The good place. How do we do that?’ He extended his hands and made a kind of rippling motion with them. ‘We calm his troubled spirit. And in order to do that, we have to sort you and your mother out. Once you’re happy, your dad will be happy and then everything will just fall into place!’

  Will frowned.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I think.’

  ‘OK, let’s start with you, Will Booth. Tell me . . . ‘What can we do to make your life better?’

  Will thought for a moment.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose . . .?’

  Reg leaned forward. ‘Yes?’ he murmured.

  ‘I don’t suppose you could get me broadband?’

  SEVEN

  ‘Broadband?’ Reg stared at Will for a moment, a baffled expression on his scarred face. Then he looked around at his fellow Watchers. ‘Could somebody elaborate?’

  ‘It’s an internet thing,’ said Ari.

  ‘But . . . I thought he already has the internet. Isn’t that where he read about us?’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s dead slow,’ said Will. ‘It takes ages to do anything.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ said Ari. ‘What’s the point of us being around all these years if you don’t actually keep an eye on what’s going on? Broadband is just a faster, more reliable way of logging on to the ‘net. Everyone uses it now,’

  ‘Not quite everyone,’ Will told him. ‘And anyway, even if I had broadband, my computer is still a heap of rubbish. Actually, now I come to think of it . . .’ He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a sheet of paper. He unfolded it and handed it to Ari who looked at it for a moment and then passed it around the circle. Eventually, it got to Reg.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s the new iMac,’ said Will. ‘I’ve been carrying that around for ages. See, just before Dad had his accident, he told me we’d be getting a new computer and that’s the one I really wanted. Not that we’d have got that one, it’s a bit pricey. But, I don’t suppose . . .?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Reg. ‘What would your mother think if a brand new computer appeared in the house without explanation?’ He thought for a moment. ‘No, we’ll just have to make your current computer do all the things that this one can.’

  ‘But . . . that’s not possible,’ said Will. ‘My machine is like something out of a museum. It couldn’t do a hundredth of what that one does.’

  ‘It will,’ Reg assured him. He closed his eyes for a moment and looked as though he was concentrating deeply. Then he opened his eyes again. ‘In fact, it already does,’ he said.

  ‘But . . . you haven’t even been out to look at it,’ protested Will.

  ‘There’s no need. It’s sorted. Now, what else?’

  Will scratched his head. He couldn’t believe that upgrading a computer could be quite that easy. It occurred to him that maybe the Watchers didn’t really understand technology. After all, they were knocking on a bit and to be honest, he had been pretty unimpressed by all their talk of the powers they used to have.

  ‘Well, we’ve got a football match against St Chad’s tomorrow,’ he said. ‘And they’re all brilliant players and they always beat us by about ten goals to nil. And it doesn’t help that I’m like, the most useless player on the team?’

  ‘OK,’ said Reg. He looked at Ari. ‘I’ll leave you to co-ordinate that one,’ he said. ‘You’ve always had an interest in the game.’

  Ari shrugged.

  ‘No problem,’ he said.

  ‘You ever play table tennis at school?’ asked Wormy.

  ‘Not really,’ said Will.

  ‘Pity. I could definitely have shown you a few tricks. Did I mention that I was a champion player in heaven?’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ said Amy, sharply. ‘So belt up, before we start throwing things at you. Anything else, Will?’

  ‘Umm . . . there’s a history paper I have to write by Wednesday. If you could do something about that, it would really be a miracle, because I am hopeless at history.’

  Reg frowned.

  ‘You’re asking us to cheat on your behalf?’ he murmured. ‘I don’t know, Will, that’s not exactly fair play, is it?’

  ‘It isn’t any different than fixing a football game for him,’ said Ari.

  ‘We wouldn’t be fixing it, exactly, just enhancing his performance,’ said Reg. He sighed. ‘Oh, very well, it’s not an actual exam, is it?’ Will shook his head. ‘And I know exactly who can help you with that. Leave it to me.’ He studied Will for a few moments. ‘You do believe that a better performance at school will help you feel happier?’

  Will thought about it for a few moments.

  ‘I guess so,’ he said. ‘It couldn’t do any harm, anyway. And I know Dad was always on at me to try and do better at school.’

  ‘OK. Well, we’ve a few things to work on,’ said Reg. ‘And if anything else occurs to you, well . . . just email me.’

  ‘Email you?’ Will looked at him. ‘You’ve got a computer, have you?’

  ‘Oh no, there’s no need for that.’

  ‘Well, then you won’t have an email address, will you?’

  ‘Don’t worry. Jus
t write my name in the box and it will reach me. Same goes for all the others. Just write Ari or Amy and the words will get to them. Likewise, we can send instant messages to you.’

  Will shook his head.

  ‘I don’t have instant messaging on my computer,’ he said.

  Reg closed his eyes for a moment and seemed to concentrate.

  ‘You do now,’ he said, and opened his eyes again.

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Will. ‘I don’t think you understand how computers work. You can’t just close your eyes for a minute and make things happen. Otherwise, you’d all be rich and travelling around in Rolls Royces.’

  Reg smiled wearily.

  ‘I see where you’re coming from, but you have to understand something. We Watchers all have certain powers . . . powers that are unique to each of us. But what we cannot do is use those powers to better ourselves. Only to help others . . . people like you and your mother. And . . . speaking of your mother . . .’

  ‘What about her?’ asked Will suspiciously.

  ‘We can’t just focus on you and do nothing about her, now can we? We need to think about what could be done to make her happier.’ Reg looked across the fire at Amy. ‘What would you suggest?’ he asked. ‘You understand the workings of the female mind better than any of us.’

  Amy smiled and once again, Will felt that curious lurching sensation in his stomach. She really was incredibly pretty, he thought to himself; but no sooner had he thought it when she looked at him, in a knowing kind of way and he could feel his face colouring. Now she took a small round mirror from her pocket and gazed into it for a few moments.

  ‘Your mum,’ said Amy, ‘has been alone for over a year now. She’s a relatively young woman, still very attractive.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ protested Will. ‘You’ve never met her.’

  ‘I’m looking at her now,’ said Amy. She passed the mirror around the circle. Each Watcher in turn looked into it and nodded their approval. When it got to Will, he almost screamed and threw the mirror away because there, framed in it, was his mother’s face. What’s more, the image was moving. She appeared to be putting on her mascara and was making weird faces, pouting her lips and squinting her eyes. Will half-expected her to say, ‘What are you looking at?’ He quickly passed the mirror to Ari.