‘Your customers like them,’ Harry said, nursing his head. ‘They like a nice view. It’s not my fault.’
‘And if they wanted paintings of pampered pets, I suppose you’d make him paint portraits of poodles,’ Baxter sneered.
‘Thar’s a good idea!’ Fat Harry said. ‘That’s a very good idea.’ He turned and stared at the source of this unexpected inspiration. He frowned. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
‘My name is Baxter!’ Baxter shouted.
Fat Harry staggered forward and stretched out a tattooed hand as if trying to introduce himself, lost his balance and grabbed at the girl for support.
‘Keep away from me!’ Baxter shouted. She twisted and turned but felt him fumble, catching her by the little chemise.
‘You’re the one in the paintings with the stupid grin and your tits hanging out!’ he gasped as her underwear came apart in his hands. He looked at the hand and scowled, stepped forward, wagging his wrist as if he had cobwebs stuck to his fingers.
‘You bastard!’ Baxter hissed, wrenching at the strands of lace. ‘Touch me again and I’ll kill you.’
But the sight of Baxter, sweetly naked, long limbs loose with fright and fury, failed to set Harry on fire. ‘I’m feeling very peaky,’ he belched. ‘I think I’ m going to puke.’ His face softened to a sleepy smile and he started to walk in circles, vaguely searching for the bathroom.
Baxter shrieked and flung herself at him, collided with a table and knocked a pewter vase to the floor. The vase bounced, slopping flowers across the carpet. She caught hold of Harry’s arm and sank sharp teeth into his wrist, the lipstick bleeding from her mouth.
‘Charlie!’ moaned Harry.
‘Leave him alone!’ Charlie shouted.
Fat Harry bellowed with pain, capsized and buried Baxter beneath him. He didn’t know what was happening. He couldn’t understand why he’d found himself laid out to rest, with a squirming woman under his shirt and his face in a pile of rotting flowers. He tried to regain his balance but the floor was lurching and he couldn’t organise his hands and feet.
‘Charlie!’ Baxter moaned.
‘Leave her alone!’ Charlie shouted.
He tried to rescue Baxter by catching one of her legs and wrenching her to safety. But Baxter was thrashing and screaming so much that he lost his grip, received a nasty kick in the face, and had to content himself, instead, with pulling on Harry’s ears.
It was some moments before Harry was aware of this fresh assault on his person; then he let out a terrible trumpet, gave his head a mighty shake and flung Charlie hard against the table.
Again Charlie tried to pull Baxter free and again she frantically kicked him away. But now she was making peculiar gurgling sounds in her throat and her fight was growing feeble. So Charlie picked up the empty vase and briskly smacked Harry’s head.
Fat Harry shuddered, gave a long and sorrowful whistle, as if steam were escaping through ruptured seams, and rolled slowly against one wall. Charlie jumped up and threw down his weapon.
‘You’ve killed him,’ Baxter whispered, as they stood together staring down at the corpse. ‘Oh Charlie, you’ve killed him.’ Her face shone with excitement and she cupped her breasts with her hands as if shielding them from the sight of death.
Charlie looked frightened. A moment ago he had been half-asleep in the dark, waiting for Baxter to settle beside him and now, in a few swift movements, he’d become a monster, a murderer, standing in torn pyjamas, lonely, confused, staring down with wild eyes at the broken body of the man he had always called his friend. Everything seemed blurred and distant. He couldn’t remember what had happened. He knelt down and rummaged in Harry’s fat for the ticking of his heart.
The corpse snuffled and started to snore.
‘He’s breathing again,’ Charlie whispered. ‘I think he’s fallen asleep.’
‘Quick!’ Baxter hissed, clapping her hands. ‘Let’s get out of here before he wakes up.’ She turned and ran around the attic, searching for her clothes, exhilarated by the danger.
‘Where?’ Charlie said.
‘You can stay with me,’ Baxter said, wriggling into her skirt. Charlie didn’t know it, but she had a mews cottage in Chelsea with a small yard and a smell of the river. ‘I’ll look after you. But quick, get dressed.’
‘We can’t just leave him here,’ Charlie said. He looked sadly down on his battered companion. His face was grey and his ears were crimson. His fine silk suit was smeared with lipstick and rotting flowers. They should wrap him in a blanket and put a pillow under his head. Yes. Let him dream his drunken dreams, it would all seem different in the morning.
‘I'm frightened. Charlie. He looked so crazy. I’m frightened he’ll kill you,’ Baxter said. And she pressed herself against him and kissed him, very hard, on the mouth and ran away to fetch his shoes.
25.
‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’ A small voice cried from a corner of the room.
They turned to find the ghost of Charlie’s mother sitting in a little chair and scowling at her wayward son. She looked just as dusty and dishevelled as she had on her first appearance and she still hadn’t found her missing shoe.
‘How could you?’ she said, shivering with rage and indignation. ‘How could you?’
‘What?’ Charlie said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
‘How could you let yourself be deceived by such a horrible little trollop?’ she demanded bitterly. ‘Where did we go wrong with you? Didn’t we always do our best? Didn’t we give you everything? Didn’t I feed you myself, with real mother’s milk, even though it made me feel sick because the doctor said you’d grow up to be some sort of pervert if I denied you all that biting and slobbering and made you drink from a nice clean bottle like any sensible modern baby? And later, didn’t I play with you and read you stories? You had all the Mr Wiggly books. Didn’t I make all the sacrifices that a mother could make for her son? Did you ever hear me complain? Never. And didn’t your father love you to distraction and give you everything that money could buy, even though we couldn’t afford it and sometimes had to go without, including the Little Snippety Barber’s Shop outfit for Christmas complete with badger hair brush and plastic razor blades? And he wasn’t a young man, Charlie. He found it difficult being a father. God alone knows, he found it hard enough being a husband. But he was proud of you. He had plans. And look what happened! As soon as we’ve gone you fall straight into the arms of the first little madam who flutters her eyes and lets you unbuckle her brassiere! It breaks my heart, Charlie. I’m glad I never lived to see you make such a fool of yourself…’ Her voice faded into a graveyard whisper. She looked very small and lost.
‘I was young,’ Charlie said unhappily. ‘She was interested and I thought I was in love.’
‘You should have stayed with that nice Mr Harry,’ his mother muttered. ‘He wanted to help you. If you’d listened to him you could have been very comfortable. Very comfortable. I liked him. And I liked your paintings. You had a real talent for windmills.’
Einstein stared at the ghost, grinned and cocked his ears. He squeezed from his hiding place under the table and trotted forward, his nostrils flared and quivering, amazed by her sweet. unearthly scent.
‘Keep him away from me!’ she warned Charlie as the mongrel approached her chair. ‘You know I was always allergic to dogs. They bring me out in a rash.’
Einstein hesitated, crawled forward on his belly and began to lick at her naked foot. She tasted of ancient pavement, warm leather and blowsy summer roses. He was bewitched.
Geraldine laughed and curled her toes as she tried to push him away. But the draught that was stirred in her skirt made him growl with excitement and he pushed his wet nose between her legs. Geraldine shrieked and beat her skirt with her fists.
‘Einstein!’ Charlie shouted.
Einstein cringed and skulked away. ‘I can’t help it,’ he grumbled to himself. ‘I’m a dog.’
The Mariner suddenly jerked
back his head and let out a shattering sneeze.
‘Bless you,’ the ghost said, smiling and smoothing her petticoat.
The Deep Time Mariner snuffled and pulled something that looked like a Buck Rogers Atomic Torch from the pocket of his flying suit. He directed a narrow beam of light in circles around the room.
Charlie ducked and buried his face in the crook of his arm. The torch emitted a piercing whistle.
‘This air is poisonous!’ the Mariner said in disgust as he returned the torch to his pocket.
‘He doesn’t keep the place clean,’ Geraldine sniffed. ‘Look at those curtains. They haven’t been washed in a month of Sundays. This room is a disgrace.’
‘How can you breathe this filth?’ the Mariner demanded. He shook his head and lumbered to the door.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ Charlie said. He tried to keep order. But it wasn’t so easy when you lived with a dog who liked to take his meals from the carpet.
‘Wrong with it?’ the Mariner roared. ‘It’s full of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, dust, soot and heavy metals! It’s absolutely filthy!’ He snuffled and rubbed his leathery nose. ‘I’m leaving before I do myself a mischief.’
‘Wait!’ Einstein barked.
‘He hasn’t finished telling his story,’ Geraldine complained.
‘Leave him alone,’ Charlie said. 'I’m tired of this rigmarole. Clear out and leave me in peace.'
This sudden change of heart took everyone by surprise.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Einstein said. ‘Tell him the rest of it.’
‘There’s nothing else to tell,’ Charlie insisted.
‘That’s not true!’ Einstein growled. ‘Do you want to die from modesty? Tell him the rest of it. Your life was full of incident. All sorts of strange things happened to you. There was Baxter the bumptious boggart. Baxter the burbling basilisk. You married Baxter. And that was almost as weird as striking up a relationship with one of Harry’s freaks. And then I came to live with you and tried to keep you out of mischief. And then the house was filled with hundreds of grizzling squabs.’
‘I want to see my grandchildren,’ Geraldine insisted. ‘I always wanted lots of babies. But all your father could manage was you,’ she added, looking sadly at Charlie.
‘I wasn’t the father,’ Charlie protested.
‘What do you mean?’ his mother said sharply.
‘They weren’t my children,’ Charlie said.
‘You mean she took a string of fancy men?’ Geraldine said in a shocked whisper. ‘Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Charlie? Oh, you poor lamb! Don’t you want to tell your mother what happened? Don’t you think she’ll understand?’
‘And don’t forget the episode with the chicken factories!’ Einstein chuckled. ‘That was a real song and dance.’
‘What’s that?’ the Deep Time Mariner said. He turned, cracking his head against the lampshade and glaring at Charlie through the grey cascading dust.
‘You tell him,’ Einstein said and scuttled for the safety of the table.
‘Chicken factories?’ the Deep Time Mariner growled, jabbing at Charlie with a slender finger.
‘Ambrose Pangloss!’ Charlie shouted. He was trembling with fright. ‘He made me do it. He gave the orders. It wasn’t my fault. I did it for Baxter…’
26.
They are staring down into a large and darkly furnished office. The carpet is the colour of raw liver and the walls are lined with green silk. Beneath the window, where the blinds are drawn against the sun, there is a desk the size of a grand piano cut from slabs of mahogany, inlaid with oak and walnut. There is nothing on this desk but a telephone and a small lamp. The lamp, cast from bronze, throws a pool of light on the telephone that never rings.
The phone never rings because this is the office of a man who is thought to be so important that no work can be found important enough for him. He does not place his own telephone calls, nor write his own letters, nor drive his own car, nor wash his own shirts, nor trim his own fingernails. This is the measure of the man’s success, a mark of his importance. It is enough that he is here, at his desk, captain of a mighty industry.
The man who sits behind the desk is Ambrose Pangloss, tyrant tycoon and living inspiration behind the Pangloss Chicken Empire. He is fifty-four years old, fighting fit, with a perfect out-of-season tan and immaculate steel-grey hair. He wears hand-made ltalian suits, white linen shirts and stands five feet eight in his spotless Elevator™ shoes.
He is the man behind the Pangloss Melting Moments™ Oven Ready Chicken, the original Fancy Chicken Tidbits™, Mexican Chicken Surprise™, Roast Chicken Fingers™, Spicy Chicken Drumsticks™ and Chopped Chicken Sausages™. Children love his teatime treats. Housewives adore his nourishing dinners. The supermarket freezers of Europe are stuffed with his fat and heavy-breasted birds.
He has given his life to chickens and they have given their lives for him. He owns the companies that breed them, feed them, slaughter them and market them. He also owns a chicken fertiliser company, a paper packaging company and a chain of fast-fried chicken restaurants.
The office in which he sits is at the top of a monolith of glass and steel, stuck like a stake in the heart of London. Behind him, when he cares to raise the blind, he has a view of the Thames and the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. Beneath him he has a harem of beautiful and dedicated secretaries waiting patiently for him to press the button concealed in the carpet at his feet. Beneath the secretaries he has a squad of senior executives, many of whom he knows by name, and beneath them a swarm of junior executives, many of whom look familiar to him, and beneath them he has never needed to venture.
He had not been born a wealthy man. His father had been a small-time chicken farmer and Ambrose had never forgotten those early years of misery. As a child he’d been made to rise at dawn to clean out coops, scrub down dropping boards, mix the feed and remove the corpses. When his father had died, Ambrose was working in the chicken sheds from dawn until dusk, seven days a week to support himself and his crippled mother. By the time the old lady died, Ambrose Pangloss was already making a success of his life and he could thank God that his mother had lived to see it. But the poverty of his childhood continued to haunt him.
Now he sits in a green silk office with the world at his feet. He has come to understand that everything serves a purpose. His own suffering has led him to strive for great riches. The darkest days in a man’s life are merely the shadows cast by the brilliance of his opportunities. Everything follows a grand design and he is one of the architects.
It is ten-thirty in the morning. In a few minutes he will press the button in the carpet and one of his secretaries will open the door and introduce his daughter to him. His daughter, Baxter, will be wearing a gauche collection of rags, despite a generous dress allowance, and her attitude towards him will be deeply supercilious, which is no more than he has come to expect. This does not trouble him. She is playing the part of the tortured artist. Children must experiment.
But this morning will be different from other mornings because Baxter will be presenting her odious new beatnik boyfriend. Charlie Tilson or Neilson or Nelson. She has warned her father of this encounter and he is prepared for it. Baxter placed a message with one of his senior secretaries and made an appointment to visit the office. She often pays visits to ask for money or little favours but this is the first time she has asked him to approve one of her boyfriends and from this he concludes, as he stares at his reflection in the polished mahogany desk, that this young man may be the one she intends to marry.
He contemplates the marriage of his only daughter and the prospect pleases him. He regards such an arrangement as a cure for all her filthy habits and adolescent grievances. She needs the discipline. The young man will be some sort of artistic nincompoop, no doubt, but this does not dishearten Ambrose Pangloss. The man who invented the Melting Moments™ Oven Ready Chicken is not to be defeated by a little yobo in plimsolls who thinks it will st
art raining banknotes because his hand found its way up a Pangloss skirt. If there is to be a marriage, and he has decided that there will be a marriage, then this young loafer must be transformed into the perfect husband, devoted father and fanatical executive in the Pangloss Chicken Empire.
He smiles. He lives in the happiest of worlds where everything, with the application of his chequebook, can be arranged for the best. And his daughter, like her mother, deserves nothing but the best. When the interview is complete, and he estimates that it will take no more than fifteen minutes, he will leave the office and go home to tell his wife the good news.
His wife will not speak to him but he continues to tell her what’s happening around them because it makes him feel closer to her and there is always the possibility that the doctors are wrong and she will recover her senses. She has not spoken to him since she was dragged unconscious from the wreckage of a Peruvian air liner that fell from the sky over Lima while she was attempting to travel alone on a grand tour of the world.
When Ambrose Pangloss had learned of his wife’s misfortune he had not wasted a moment indulging in grief or self-pity. He had immediately made arrangements to have his wife flown home in a chartered hospital plane and engaged the finest Swiss engineers to install a life support machine in the comfort of her own bedroom.
She had been connected to this machine for seven years.
There were valuable lessons to be learned from the tragedy and Ambrose Pangloss counts his blessings:
His wife survived a disaster in which one hundred and seventy Peruvians perished.
The accident resulted in dramatic improvements in the design and function of life support machines.
Swiss engineers also build excellent slaughterhouses.
He has done everything to help his wife and now he will do everything to help his daughter. He presses the button with the heel of his shoe.
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