Web Site Story

by Robert Rankin

  Small Bob’s eyes filled once again with tears. His mum. She’d died when he was fifteen. If he was a child again, he could see his mother again. And his dad too, although his dad used to knock him about quite a bit. But he’d really like to see his mum. In fact…

  ‘In fact,’ said Bob to himself. ‘I should go and see my mum right now. In case I just quantum leap all of a sudden when I’m not expecting it. It would be wonderful to see her. Even just for a moment or two. I could tell her…’

  Small Bob paused and a lump came into his throat. ‘I could tell her how much I love her. I never did when I was a child. I’m sure I never did.’

  Of course the house seemed bigger now. That little house in Dacre Gardens. That little house with its well-kept window boxes and its sleeping tomcat on the window sill.

  ‘Old boy Rathbone,’ said Small Bob, ruffling the pussycat’s head. ‘Thou venerable mouser, it’s good to see thee, boy.’

  Above him his parents’ bedroom window flew up and a pinched and troubled face glared down. Bob grinned up. ‘Mum,’ he said. ‘Mum look, it’s me.’

  The pinched and troubled face continued to glare. ‘What are you doing home, you little sod?’ his mum called down.

  ‘Who is it?’ called a man’s voice from behind her.

  Bob’s mother turned slightly. ‘Shut up,’ she muttered, ‘he’ll hear you.’

  ‘Who’s that, Mum?’ called Bob.

  ‘Shut up. It’s no-one. What are you doing home now? You’ve bunked off school, haven’t you?’

  ‘Mum, I had to tell thee, I lo––’

  ‘You just wait till your father hears about this, he’ll leather your arse with his belt.’

  ‘Come back to bed Doris,’ the strange voice called again from within.

  ‘Mum, who’s that?’

  ‘It’s no-one. It’s no-one. And if you say anything to anyone, I’ll bung you in the coal hole with the spiders for the night.’

  ‘Mum, I––’

  ‘Go back to school at once.’

  And the bedroom window slammed down shut and Bob was left alone.

  ‘Mum,’ he whispered and snivelled as he did so. ‘Mum, I did love you. I did.’ And Small Bob ruffled the tomcat’s head once more, turned sadly and wandered away.

  He wandered down to the Flying Swan. But then, remembering that he was now just a child, he wandered away from there. He wandered into the Plume Café and ordered a cup of coffee. The proprietor, Old Mr Lovegrove, demanded to see coin of the realm. Small Bob found that his pockets, filled as they were with such useful items as lolly sticks, pieces of string, bottle tops and a five-amp fuse, were bare as the cupboard of L. Ron’s mum, when it came to the price of a coffee.

  Mr Lovegrove hauled him out by the ear and flung him into the street.

  Small Bob sat himself carefully down upon a bench in the memorial park. He would dearly have loved a pint and also a cigarette. His head was spinning, his ears were red and his backside smarted dreadfully.

  ‘Woe unto me,’ whispered Small Bob to himself. ‘Woe unto Small Bob, helpless in a world of cruel and brutal adults. I never knew that being a child was really as awful as this. I’m sure I remember it being sunshine and coach trips to the seaside. Well at least the sun is shining, which is something. But was childhood really this ghastly? Surely not. Or perhaps it was, but we just took it for granted. Made the best of it and only remember those best bits when we grow up.

  ‘What a dismal happenstance. But no. Holdest thou on there, Small Bobby Boy. This doesn’t have to be a torment. Anything but. Surely this is everybody’s dream. To be young again. But knowing all the things that you wish you’d known then. You’d be one step ahead of everybody else. Two steps. Ten steps. And you could get rich. Play the stock market, knowing what shares to buy. Invent some invention that was everyday when you were grown-up but didn’t exist when you were a child.’

  Small Bob grinned and now began to rack away at his brains. What did he know, that no-one in this time knew about yet? There had to be something, and something he could profit from. Something that could make him somebody in this world.

  But slowly the grin began to fade away from his small and hopeful face. He didn’t know anything. He didn’t know anything about stocks and shares. And how would he go about inventing some piece of advanced technology that was everyday in the world he’d just come from? He had no idea whatsoever.

  ‘Well well well.’

  Bob looked up and Trevor Alvy looked down.

  ‘You bunked off school,’ said Trevor. ‘You’re in real big trouble.’

  ‘Go away thou foolish child,’ said Bob. ‘Thou art a bullying little buffoon. You will be sent to approved school when you’re twelve and, by the time you’re seventeen, to prison for stealing a Ford Fiesta. Dost thou wish this future for thyself? Come, I bear thee no malice. I understand now why thou behavest as thou dost. Rage and frustration. I understand well. Let us speak of these things. And…Oww!’

  Trevor Alvy had him in a headlock. He dragged Bob down to the dust, grinding his face and squeezing his neck. Bob squealed and struggled to no avail. And Bob remembered well. It had been Alvy’s torments that had made him train when a teenager. Go to the gym, lift weights, work out, learn the martial arts. Bully no man, but let no man ever bully him.

  Trevor Alvy poked him in the eye. ‘That to you loony boy,’ he cried. And then he jumped up, kicked Bob in the ribs and ran away.

  Small Bob lay there weeping. That was it. That was enough. That was all he was prepared to stand. He was going to get out of here. Run away to sea. Sign on as a cabin boy. Get away. Run. Run away.

  Children were pouring into the park now. Laughing happy children. Children who were making the best of being children. Children who didn’t know anything else except that they were children and this was the way things were.

  Bob huddled there in a very tight ball, his fists pushed into his eyes.

  ‘Bobby,’ said a little squeaky voice. ‘Bobby, are you all right?’

  Bob peered up through his fingers. It was Phyllis Livingstone. The little dark Glaswegian girl smiled down at him. She had a front tooth missing and orange-juice stains at the corners of her mouth. And even from where Bob lay, or perhaps because of where Bob lay, he could smell her. Phyllis Livingstone smelled of wee wee. She didn’t smell nice at all.

  In fact, as Bob looked up at her, he could see most clearly now that she really didn’t look very nice at all, either. Gawky, that was the word. All out of proportion. Children aren’t miniature adults, their heads are far too big. If an adult had a head as big as that in proportion to its body, it would be a freak.

  Bob thought of Periwig Tombs. Perhaps his head had just kept on growing along with his body.

  ‘Are you all right, Bobby?’ asked Phyllis again.

  ‘You smell of wee wee,’ said Small Bob. ‘And your head is too big and I’m sick of this world and I want to go back to my own and…oh…ouch!’

  Phyllis Livingstone kicked him. And she kicked him very hard.

  And then, with tears in her little dark eyes, she turned and ran away.

  Small Bob wept a bit more and then he dragged himself to his feet. He really had had enough. He ached all over. He was sore and he was angry. He wanted to go home. No, he didn’t want to go home. He just wanted out. Out of this and back to his real self.

  He shuffled to the playground and pressed his face against the wire fence. The children, happy, laughing, played upon the swings and on the climbing frame. A fat boy named Neville sat in one of the swing-boats. Ann Green, little yellow-haired girl, pushed the swing-boat forward. Up and back, she caught the swing-boat, pushed it forward, up and back.

  Small Bob watched her. He felt listless, hopeless, angry, wretched.

  Up the swing-boat went, forward up, then down and back again.

  ‘There must be something,’ said Small Bob bitterly under his breath. ‘Something that will let me out of here. How didst it go in that damn programme Quantum
Leap? The hero had to change something. Save someone. Put something right. That’s how it worked. And then he was free. Well, free to leap somewhere else, into some other time the next week. But that was how it worked.’

  Small Bob watched Ann Green pushing the swing-boat.

  Forward, up, then down and back again.

  ‘Look at her,’ said Bob to himself. ‘Silly little girl, pushing that swing-boat. She doesn’t know. Alvy will end up in prison and she’ll end up dead from that swing-boat. And she doesn’t know…’

  ‘Oh.’ Small Bob’s jaw dropped open. Quantum Leap. Saving someone. That was how it worked. Ann Green would die, hit in the throat by that swing-boat. And only he, Big Bob, Small Bob knew that it would happen.

  ‘Thou brain-dead buffoonican!’ Small Bob shouted at himself. ‘That’s the answer.’

  Up went the swing-boat, up and forward, down and back. Up and forward, down and back and up and forward and––

  ‘Ann!’ shouted Bob. ‘Ann, get away from the swing-boat.’

  ‘What?’ The little girl caught at the polished metal as the swing-boat swung towards her once again. Caught the metal bar and pushed it forward.

  ‘Ann, get away. Get away Ann. Please do it.’

  ‘Who’s calling me?’ The little girl turned her head. ‘Who’s calling me?’

  Small Bob saw the swing-boat coming down.

  ‘Ann!’ he shouted. ‘Duck! Duck!’

  The little girl’s mouth was open. Wet, with orange-juice stains at the corners. Her eyes were blue. Her hair a yellow swag.

  ‘No!’ cried Bob.

  The swing-boat sailing down caught the little girl in the throat. It knocked her backwards, sent her staggering, but she didn’t fall.

  Bob saw the face. The eyes. The mouth. The golden hair. He saw her expression. Puzzled.

  Up went the swing-boat, forward, up then back and down again.

  As Small Bob watched, it hit her in the forehead.

  Blood upon yellow hair, the blue eyes staring.

  Ann Green toppled sideways and lay dead.

  11

  Crackle and thump, went the paddles.

  Big Bob’s body jumped and shook.

  ‘Any heartbeat?’ asked the ambulance man.

  There was a pause.

  ‘No, give him another jolt.’

  Crackle and thump and his body shook again.

  ‘Any now?’

  ‘No, do it once more, then we quit.’

  And crackle and thump once again.

  ‘Has he gone?’

  ‘No. He’s beating again. He’s alive.’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, he is alive now, let’s get him onto the stretcher.’

  Big Bob mumbled and grumbled and moaned.

  ‘What is he saying? He’s saying something.’

  ‘He’s saying “No, no Ann, no”.’

  ‘Who’s Ann, his wife?’

  ‘Who knows, get him onto the stretcher.’

  The ambulance man and the woman driver struggled to move Big Bob. He was a big fellow and heavy with it, he really took some shifting.

  ‘Ooooh,’ mumbled Big Bob. ‘Ann I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kill you.’

  ‘God’s golf balls,’ said the ambulance man, struggling some more and getting one of Bob’s legs onto the stretcher. ‘He’s killed somebody.’

  ‘It’s not our business,’ said the ambulance woman. ‘Our business is to get him to hospital. His nose is broken, he’s covered in lacerations and look at his left foot. That big toe’s fractured, best mention that to the medics or they’re bound to miss it.’

  The ambulance man got Bob’s other leg onto the stretcher. ‘Yes, but if he’s murdered someone.’

  ‘Not our business, tell one of the policemen. If you can find one who’s still standing up.’

  ‘Madness,’ said the ambulance man. ‘Are you going to haul out the café proprietor? I think the men from FART zapped him with some of that new Mute Corp nerve gas.’

  ‘Then I’m not going in without a biohazard suit. Let’s get this one into the ambulance. Then I’m calling it a day.’

  It was certainly a struggle, but they finally got Big Bob on board. The ambulance, bells all ringing and hooter hooting too, swung away from the crash site. Leaving the tour bus imbedded in the front wall of the Plume Café, the assorted walking wounded, walking wound-edly, the Fire Arms Response Team, who were gung-hoing it with the singing of filthy songs, opening up cans of beer they had liberated from the fridge of the banjoed café, and the silver-haired beauty in the turquoise dress with the good-looking dark-haired young man, looking on.

  The ambulance did roarings up the High Street. Strapped onto the stretcher, Big Bob’s head slapped from side to side and up and down as the ambulance took corners at speed and bounced over numerous speed ramps.

  ‘Ann,’ mumbled Big Bob. ‘I’m sorry I killed you. I didn’t mean it to happen.’

  ‘He’s saying that stuff about murder again,’ called the ambulance man to the driver. ‘We’ve got a psycho here, you should call it into the station.’

  ‘It isn’t our business. It’s nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Look, he’s alive and he’s pretty much conscious and he’s only got a broken nose and a twisted toe. We could drop him off at the police station. Let them sort it out.’

  The ambulance driver stood on the brake. The ambulance man hurtled forward and so did Big Bob’s stretcher. Big Bob’s head struck the rear of the driver’s cab.

  ‘Is he unconscious now?’ the driver called back.

  The ambulance man examined Big Bob. ‘Out for the count I think,’ said he.

  ‘Then he’s going to the cottage hospital, he might have concussion.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ said the ambulance man.

  There are speed ramps as you enter the cottage hospital grounds, but if you drive slowly and carefully you hardly notice them. The ambulance passed over them at speed, bouncing Big Bob’s body in the air.

  ‘You want to drive more carefully,’ said the ambulance man.

  ‘You want to shut your face,’ said the ambulance driver.

  ‘Oh yeah, right. You’re never wrong, are you?’

  ‘Of course I’m never wrong.’ The ambulance driver stood on the brake once more and the ambulance man tumbled forward once more and Big Bob’s head hit the rear of the driver’s cab once more, once more, once more.

  ‘Home again, home again, jiggedy jig,’ said the ambulance driver.

  It was a bit of a struggle getting Big Bob out of the ambulance. The stretcher he was attached to seemed to have become somewhat twisted during the journey and the drop-down wheels didn’t drop down properly. Big Bob slid from the end of the stretcher and fell onto the tarmac right upon his head.

  ‘And I suppose you’d like to blame me for that!’ said the ambulance driver.

  ‘Who, me?’ said the ambulance man.

  They finally got the drop-down wheels dropped down and they finally got Big Bob back onto the stretcher. Then they did that comedy wheeling the patient through all those double hospital swing doors routine, where the patient’s head goes bang bang bang against them.

  ‘Do you remember the time’, said the ambulance man, as Big Bob’s head opened the doors into casualty, ‘when you were put in charge of organizing the hospital dance?’

  ‘Of course,’ said the ambulance driver. ‘The Sixties Hop, and what a success that was.’ Big Bob’s head opened the doors into the main corridor.

  ‘Oh yeah, right,’ said the ambulance man. ‘And you booked “name” bands. Chas ‘n’ Dave, Peters and Lee, Sam and Dave and Peter and Gordon.’

  ‘And?’ said the ambulance driver. Bang went Big Bob’s head.

  ‘And you gave them all separate changing rooms and then you forgot who was in each one and got them all mixed up. How well I remember Dave and Dave singing on stage. And Peters and Peter, not to mention Gordon and Lee.’

  ‘Gordon
and Lee?’

  ‘I told you not to mention them.’

  Bang went Big Bob’s head. And ‘That is quite enough,’ said he.

  ‘Eh?’ went the ambulance man.

  ‘What?’ said the ambulance driver.

  Big Bob said ‘Stop and let me off this stretcher.’

  ‘That was a bit unexpected,’ said the ambulance man.

  ‘I’d been expecting it,’ said the ambulance driver.

  ‘Let me off!’ Big Bob struggled and being Big Bob and so very Big and all, he burst open the straps that constrained him and leapt down from the trolley.

  ‘Ouch,’ he went, hopping on his big right foot.

  ‘Fractured left big toe,’ said the ambulance man. ‘You should have that put in a sling.’

  ‘Prat,’ said the ambulance driver. ‘You mean splint.’

  ‘I said splint.’

  ‘No, you said sling.’

  Big Bob hopped about some more. ‘Shut up!’ he shouted. ‘Thou blathering ninnies.’

  ‘There’s gratitude for you,’ said the ambulance driver.

  ‘Best leave it,’ whispered the ambulance man. ‘Remember he’s a psycho!’

  ‘I’m not a psycho!’ roared Big Bob, in a very big voice indeed. ‘And I am not here. I know I’m not here. This is all a deception. Someone trickest me. I won’t be manipulated any more. Yea and verily, I shan’t.’

  ‘Anything you say, big fella,’ said the ambulance man. ‘We’ll just pop off for a cup of tea and leave you to it then.’

  ‘Grrrrr,’ went Big Bob, which was new.

  The ambulance man and the ambulance woman rapidly took their leave. Big Bob stood alone in the corridor breathing hard and knotting massive fists.

  ‘Speak to me,’ he shouted. ‘I know thou art there. Speak to me.’

  ‘YOU FAILED LEVEL ONE,’ said the large and terrible voice. ‘YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SAVE THE LITTLE GIRL.’

  ‘I tried.’ Big Bob shook and great big veins stood out upon his neck. ‘I tried to save her. But that was a trick. That wasn’t real. That wasn’t how it happened.’

  ‘YES IT WAS,’ said the large and terrible voice. ‘WE’RE INSIDE YOUR HEAD. WE HAVE YOUR MEMORIES. WE KNOW WHAT MAKES YOU TICK.’