by Heide Goody
“Things like what, Michael?”
“Like …”
“Like us you mean?” spat Andy. “I never heard crap like this from Reverend Zack at St Michael’s.”
“But that’s it,” said Michael, clutching at what little certainty he had. “You don’t hear this kind of thing from him. We don’t hear anything from him. His faith is so …. so soft, that it might as well not exist. He’s the kind of believer who will tolerate anything, will accept anyone. What kind of preacher is he if he accepts anything without argument and doesn’t give out rules and doctrine? He’s like a bloody sponge, Andy. I couldn’t tell you one thing he truly believes in.”
“Love.”
Michael stared at him.
“Tolerance. Acceptance. Takes everything on the chin and doesn’t throw anything back. That’s love, you pillock,” said Andy.
Michael put down his tea. “I love you, you know.”
“I know you do,” said Andy. “Doesn’t stop you being a daft twat sometimes.”
“If you love me, take the ticket.”
“Why? You think there’s going to be a flood? Torrential rain for 9½ weeks?”
“Um, no. That’s a film, Andy. It’s forty days and forty nights.”
“Are you sure? I think that one’s a film too. Frankly, this whole thing is creeping me out. If I took that ticket from you, I’d be scared to death that it might just be for real.”
“And I’m scared that it might just be real, and I can’t bear the idea of you not being safe.”
“Safe. And alone?”
“Don’t worry about me,” said Michael.
“So, I’m meant to survive you. If there’s one thing that I can imagine would be worse than the end of the world, it would be surviving the end of the world with a boatload of scurvy-addled God-botherers.”
“Please, Andy.”
“Tell those elitist fucks to take a hike. I really don’t like what they’ve done to you.”
Andy stormed out the door and slammed the door behind him. A second later, he came back in, put the bourbon biscuit back on the plate, and left once more. A few seconds later the door to the flat slammed shut too.
Michael stared into his tea for a long time.
“Idiot,” he said, eventually.
Clovenhoof patrolled the area, clipboard in hand, Gorky perched on his shoulder.
“Information centre, check. Bouncy Boob Play Palace, check. Squadron of SCUM mums prepared for an act of mass civil disobedience, check.”
Sandra, baby Jeffny or Jeggings or whatever he was called in her arms, approached with a polite but wavering smile on her face. Gorky spotted Toyah and Beelzebelle amongst the SCUMsters, and scampered down to greet his favourite playmate.
“Jeremy, hello,” said Sandra. “This is all very …”
“Magnificent,” he said.
“Unexpected,” she said. “I thought we were simply coming down to show our displeasure with Consecr8’s attitude to breastfeeding mums.”
“We are, Sandra,” he assured her. “Displeasure we are going to show.”
“But this …”
She looked at the trampolines and the swings and the bouncy castle – she could barely tear her eyes away from the bouncy castle.
“It’s brilliant, isn’t it?” said Clovenhoof. “Heinz suggested it to me when I called him. They had this bouncy beauty at the BodyLove festival in Germany.”
“But do we need it?” said Sandra.
“Need? Sandra, for shame. Do we ask whether we need flowers or baby lambs or male nipples? No, we love them for what they are. But think, that’s our enemy over there.” He pointed at the fête-like atmosphere around the Consecr8 church. “We stand in opposition to them. We have to fight fire with fire. Now, I can assure you that, when all the coaches get here, we’ll be out-gunning them on all levels.”
“Coaches?” said Sandra, her voice wavering with worry.
“Friends and well-wishers,” Clovenhoof grinned.
“But I thought we would just go over there and, you know, tut a bit, and maybe bare a chest or two to show we weren’t going to be cowed by any threats of legal action. Maybe get arrested and get our faces on the news.”
“Ooh, yes,” said Clovenhoof, remembering. “Best sort that out before Nerys goes off prematurely.”
“Pardon?” said Sandra.
“I’ve already sent in the troops.”
He pulled out his phone and called PC Pearson. He had his favourite copper on speed-dial.
Outside Consecr8, immaculate hostesses wore smart blue tunics that hinted vaguely at healthcare credentials and beamed with professional compassion as they handed out leaflets and formula milk samples. Across the way, a calypso band was playing Banana Boat Song. The Consecr8 event had drawn folks in from the surrounding housing estates.
Nerys had to admit there was nothing that attracted the average Brit quite as much as the promise of something for nothing.
She went up to one of the hostesses.
“So, you’re here to give advice to mothers?” she asked.
“Yes, hun,” said the woman with a cherry-red smile and the name Petra on her badge. “How can I help you today? Grab some samples. Don’t be shy.”
“Are you qualified to give advice?” asked Nerys.
“Oh, you should see my professional qualifications,” said Petra, with a dismissive flap of her hand. “They’d fill a wall, but I don’t like to show off. Now, what was your question, my darling?”
“It looks to me as if you’re promoting formula milk,” said Nerys, “and trying to persuade mothers that they should give up breast feeding. Is that what you’re advocating?”
“Oh, it’s a very personal decision, that one, my darling, and we’re simply here to make sure that our local mums are in possession of all the facts. Quite a few are choosing to move on to the bottle, you know, and an estimated eighty-five percent say they wished they’d done it earlier.”
“Who estimated that?” asked Nerys.
“I’m sorry?”
“And why would you even quote a figure that’s estimated?”
“You’re absolutely right, hun,” said Petra, touching Nerys’s shoulder. “Statistics can be so complicated. Best stick to a mother’s instinct. My experience is that, once a mother has seen how satisfied a baby is after a feed of formula, she’ll drop a lot of her prejudice. If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a hundred times.”
Nerys looked up as another hostess came towards the table from the direction of the church. Her eyes narrowed in recognition.
“Tina.”
“Nerys,” said her former boss. “How nice that you’ve come to engage with us.”
Tina’s smile was as bright as it was false.
“I was just enquiring about Petra’s healthcare credentials,” she said, “but now I know. This lot are all off the Vacuous but Presentable register, aren’t they? And you’re here to make up the numbers.”
“I do hope you’re not here as a bitter ex-employee, just to cause trouble, Nerys,” said Tina loudly.
“I wasn’t, to be honest, but now that the opportunity has presented itself, how could I refuse?” said Nerys, squaring up to Tina.
“Excuse me,” said Petra, tapping her on the shoulder. “What is the Vacuous but Presentable register?”
Nerys was about to reveal some insider secrets from the office of the Helping Hand job agency to Petra and the other hostesses, when Sandra appeared with a group of SCUM mothers.
“There you are, Nerys.”
“Are you the back-up?”
“I suppose we are,” said Sandra. “Jeremy said, ‘could you hold off causing a bit of a brouhaha for the moment?’ He’s having trouble getting hold of the police.”
“Really? I can’t quite imagine him using the word ‘brouhaha’.”
“No,” butted in Toyah. “His exact words were, ‘don’t let the shit go down until the pigs get here.’”
“It’s okay. I’ve got this,” s
aid Nerys, turning back to Tina. “They made the mistake of sending the B team. There’s literally nothing that this woman here can do that I can’t do better.”
“Nerys, please,” said Tina. “Don’t embarrass yourself any further. I think we both know that simply isn’t true. Let’s think of a small working example, shall we?” She pulled a thoughtful face. “Oh yes, I can keep a job and a roof over my head. I don’t believe you can say the same at the moment, can you, Nerys?”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve moved up in the world regarding my employment status,” said Nerys. “I perform the genuinely useful function of finding places for people to live, rather than getting gormless temps to stand around pretending to be midwives.”
“Who’s she calling gormless?” said Petra.
Nerys ignored her.
“Which, of course, you’ve failed at, because nobody here believes that the Blue Peter dog here and these women are anything other than wannabe actresses, do we, girls?”
There was a cackle of support from SCUM, and Petra’s hand wilted away from offering the free samples to everyone who passed. Tina’s eyes narrowed and she gripped Petra’s wrist.
“No, the samples need to be distributed. We will not back down because of a tiny band of rabble rousers. Now, do any of you ladies want to take the samples? If you don’t, I’ll need to ask you to move on so that we can engage with other, more enlightened, mothers.”
“I’ll take a sample,” said Toyah, reaching forward.
“Really?” said Nerys.
“Just being practical,” said Toyah.
Sandra turned to the SCUM group.
“Right. Women of SCUM, we came here to make a point. I think we know how to respond to this undisguised hostility. Let’s do what we came here to do, shall we?”
She led by example, timorously yet nonetheless determined. She pulled off her top and punched the air. Other women followed suit. The last to disrobe was Toyah, who was delayed by the time it took her to unscrew the top from the ready-mixed bottle of formula she’d just taken and lob it up into the air above the hostesses, adding a careful backspin as she did, so that the bottle wheeled in the air, spraying its contents all over them.
Nerys grinned at her.
“Just being practical,” said Toyah, and threw off her top.
Nerys whooped with approval.
“You know what, I wasn’t going to join in with this, but, as I’m here and as I’m in a position to show up these shapeless harridans, I think I might.”
Nerys pulled off her top. She jiggled up and down and considered her best-loved attributes.
“Well, before I’m too old for this kind of thing,” she said.
Tina was trying to smooth her hair into order while formula milk dripped into her face.
“Oh Nerys, you will stop at nothing for attention, will you?” she said with a small shake of her head.
“I told you I’d beat you at anything you like, Tina,” said Nerys. She pointed for emphasis “Get a load of these genuine, perky thirty four D puppies.”
“Really, is that the best you can do?” asked Tina.
“Come off it, Tina. I know you’re basically a big shapeless sausage under the Spanx and the Wonderbra. They don’t call you the Great Polony in the office for nothing.”
Tina gave a squeak of indignation and pulled her tunic off, thrusting out her chest as she did. Petra looked nervously from side to side, gave a small shrug, and started to unbutton her own tunic.
Nerys was about to launch into a critical tirade when she saw, from the corner of her eye, what Toyah was about to do. She leapt aside just in time, as Toyah unleashed her new formula milk weapon. She had taken one of the larger dispensers from the hostess’s table and used it to spray a wide arc across the unfortunate, semi-clad women in the way. Tina took a full blast in the face and squealed loudly. She rubbed the mess from her eyes, and met Nerys with an angry gaze.
“I had my hair done this morning. Now look at me,” she hissed. She clamped her lips and shoulder barged Nerys, shoving her against the SCUM women.
“Oh no you don’t, bitch,” yelled Toyah, and she launched herself at Tina, dropping her milk-blasting weapon.
Moments later, Nerys stepped away slightly to see that someone else had picked up the milk-sprayer. Most of the other women were engaged in a violent brawl, and all sense of order had gone.
“Great job, ladies!” said Clovenhoof as he approached the scene. “The fuzz are on the way, so just keep the whole thing simmering!”
He ducked as a baby bottle flew past his ear.
Clovenhoof glanced at the milk-splattered fight and wondered, briefly, whether Belle would be frightened by the ruckus. Her mother was perhaps a little distracted to pay proper attention, so he considered going over to say hi. He was saved the trouble when Belle’s buggy appeared from the midst of the chaos, pushed by Gorky, looking enormously pleased with himself.
“Ah, Gorky! Hello, my fine young fiend! Belle seems delighted to see you again.”
Belle reached forward, trying to grab the smug monkey, burbling with delight as she did so.
“Well, now that the band’s together again for a short while, let’s go and welcome the other guests, shall we?”
He crossed to the place where Beechmount Drive met the cleared wasteland in the shadow of the crane at the edge of the Rainbow housing development. A line of coaches had pulled up. A balding man with a velour suit, a considerable paunch, and a heavy bag of photography equipment over his shoulder pumped Clovenhoof’s hand.
“So very glad to meet you! You are the organiser, yes? I recognise you from the Tweeting photos.”
“Heinz,” said Clovenhoof.
“From Helsinki,” grinned Heinz.
“D’you know, I thought you’d be …”
“More Finnish? Like the Father Christmas? Or a Moomin?”
“I thought you’d be naked,” said Clovenhoof.
Heinz laughed, loudly and unashamedly, and unzipped his velour jacket to reveal his naked torso.
“I will make your dream come true, Jeremy. I have brought my street team with me to make it so.”
“Street team?” asked Clovenhoof.
“A superb group of people who admire my art and help me to create my pieces. My work celebrates the human form, and particularly the impact that can be gained from depictions of mass nudity, so my street team love to get naked with others.” He took in the scene and beamed. “We’re going to make some wonderful art today. I can feel the potential in the air. If we allow the world to reveal its magic to us, then it inspires constant awe.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Clovenhoof. “I think some wonderful art might be happening round the corner, if you want to go and check it out.”
He moved onto the next coach, which was a smaller one bearing the logo of Birmingham University.
“You’ve come to get naked?” asked Clovenhoof, peering through the sliding door. An earnest young woman leaned forward.
“We’re the Body Image Empowerment Society,” she said.
“Excellent,” said Clovenhoof, who had no idea what that meant.
“We are currently clothed.”
“I can see that.”
“The admin team insisted that we should travel fully clothed, and not sit on the seats with our naked bottoms, but we’re about to join you now. We’re very conscious that there are people in the world who don’t even have any clothes. It makes me choke up just to think about it.” She turned to the other students on the minibus. “Shall we show some solidarity?”
There was a polite murmuring of agreement.
“Good,” said Clovenhoof. “Well, you get your solid-whatevers out there.”
Clovenhoof moved on down the line of traffic, but a line of pedestrians appeared before him. They presented a particularly pleasing sight, Clovenhoof thought. They were all dressed in walking boots, beanie hats and nothing else. There were men and women, all of a similar age, which was a shade older than
he’d imagined.
“You’d be the Naturist Rambling Society?” he asked the woman at the head of the line.
“How did you guess?” she asked.
“I am curious how such a group would spring into life,” he said. “I approve of it entirely, but it’s not something I’ve encountered before.”
“We all attended an evening class together,” she said. “There were two classes to begin with. One was fitness for the over-fifties, and the other was sociology in the twenty first century. There were budget cuts that meant that the two classes had to be combined, and the Naturist Ramblers was the result. We like to think that we’re strengthening our bone density and exploring social taboos at the same time.”
“You’re going to learn so much today, I can just tell,” said Clovenhoof. “If you go just round the corner, you’ll be able to join in the fun.”
At the end of the vehicle line was an articulated truck.
“Just here is perfect,” Clovenhoof called to the driver. “Set up the disco, and make sure that there are enough foam guns for everybody who wants one.”
“Sure thing. I’ll extend the turret from the top of the trailer here so that you, and any other authorised user, can fire the foam rocket launcher when things really get going.”
“Sweet. That’ll just be me then,” said Clovenhoof. “Some things are too much fun to be shared with mortals.”
Returning to Consecr8, Michael heard the unfolding chaos before he saw it. The commotion of a large crowd was a buzz in the air but over that were the competing outputs of a calypso band and what sounded like an Ibiza nightclub. He rounded the corner of the last block of flats and beheld the scene before him.
Michael had been present at the first Flood, the Great Deluge, when the Almighty in his ineffable wisdom unlocked the great springs of the earth and opened the floodgates of Heaven. He had been there, too, when the Lord spoke to Noah and, exhibiting that rare Godly wit, told a man living in a treeless region hundreds of miles from the sea to build a great big ship out of gopher wood. Michael had also been there in the final preparatory days, when Noah and his family attempted to round up the local wildlife and the tribesmen came to jeer and scoff, and Michael, warrior archangel, stood as protector of the righteous.