by Ben Elton
Standing at the top of the spiral staircase, the scene which greeted them was slightly less decadent than the one which Rosalie had encountered on the previous evening. However, slightly less decadent than that still meant pretty decadent, especially to the likes of Judy and Saunders. They were momentarily lost for words, finding themselves faced with a room full of half-naked people nibbling at drugs, drink, brekky and each other in an extremely spaced out manner. Trying not to stare, Judy cast his eyes around the room. Neither Rosalie nor Jurgen were anywhere to be seen.
‘Uhm, excuse me everybody,’ Judy mumbled, ‘sorry to burst in on you like this, but does anybody know where Jurgen Thor is?’
‘He was here a few minutes ago,’ said the girl in the sarong.
‘Yeah.’ A voice came from the bed. It was the girl who had tried to touch up Rosalie in the night. ‘He went off to find that uptight redhead chick. I don’t think he’ll get very far there.’
The suggestion that Rosalie had possibly been alive as late as a few minutes ago spurred Judy on and, followed by Saunders, he ran down the spiral staircase, past the bedroom and further into the house. They passed the ablutions floor where jolly squeals of glee were to be heard emanating through the steam of the spa baths and power showers. They passed the kitchen, where a couple of slightly more together souls were making coffee.
‘That’s Rosalie’s coat!’ Saunders shouted, spotting the combat jacket that was hanging over a chair.
A floor below them, in the study, Rosalie herself had crossed the floor and was now standing on the trap-door, the answering machine in her arms.
‘Where do you want me to put it?’ she inquired.
‘I want you to take it with you, baby. Ciao, good looking,’ Jurgen replied and his hand moved towards the deadly lever.
Just then, the door of the study burst open and Judy stood in the doorway with Saunders behind him. Jurgen paused, his hand hovering over the switch which would consign Rosalie to the chasm below.
‘Rosalie!’ Judy said. ‘Thank God, you’re alive!’
‘Of course I’m alive, you fool,’ Rosalie replied. ‘Why wouldn’t I be? More to the point, what are you doing here?’
‘That bastard there is Plastic Tolstoy’s partner!’
Rosalie looked at Jurgen. His face showed it all. Judy was right. Then she saw his hand move. A warning bell rang inside her. Somehow with that hand Jurgen Thor was attacking her, she knew it. Her whole body knew it. Every muscle suddenly tensed as she instinctively readied herself for the attack which she knew was coming. The attack, whatever it might be, that Jurgen’s hand was somehow initiating.
That moment of knowledge saved her. When the attack came, the tension in her body gave her the power with which to reach for safety. As the floor dropped away beneath her feet, Rosalie’s arms shot out like bolts from a sprung lock. Indeed, her whole body seemed to twist in mid-air as she lunged for the edge of the bottomless tomb that Jurgen Thor had attempted to consign her to. The Ansafone, of course, leapt from her grasp and fell away into the darkness, but Rosalie found a grip and hung on, her fingertips all that remained visible from inside the room.
During her Mother Earth training days, Rosalie had been taught to rock climb, a sport in which the last joints on the fingers are the most crucial part of the body. The climber is instructed to exercise these joints constantly, and the preferred method for doing this is to perform chin-ups, whilst suspending oneself from the tops of door-frames. Rosalie had never lost the habit and seldom went through a door at home without pulling a couple of fingertip chin-ups on the frame. Her granny had often lamented the damage done to her door surrounds as they slowly cracked and pulled away from the wall, not having been built to withstand the hanging weight of an adult person, even a small one like Rosalie. Had Ruth been able to see her granddaughter now she would have counted those door-frames cheap and a million more like them. For Rosalie was hanging on, quite literally by her fingertips, whilst hundreds of feet below her, inside the terrible granite jaws of the chasm, poor Scout’s rotting corpse lay awaiting company.
All this had, of course, happened in one stunning moment. Nearly as stunning for Judy and Saunders as it had been for Rosalie, since they had not expected to see their comrade suddenly drop through the floor. Jurgen Thor was able to capitalise upon this second or two of shock to produce a gun from his desk, fit a silencer to its muzzle, out of deference to his guests upstairs, and level it at the two men.
Keeping the gun trained firmly upon Judy and Saunders, Jurgen walked around his desk and towards the hole in the floor where the eight white points of Rosalie’s fingertips were flattened on the edge. It was clear what his intention was. He was going to stamp on Rosalie’s fingers.
‘Please remain exactly where you are, OK, guys, yes?’ Jurgen said. ‘Once I have said farewell to Rosalie, I should like to know how you came upon the wild idea that I hang out with Plastic Tolstoy, OK?’
It was Saunders who acted. He had a plan, not a very good one as it turned out, at least not for him, but it saved Rosalie’s life anyway. Also it meant that Saunders got to die the way he had always wanted, in the defence of the planet, so perhaps it wasn’t such a bad plan.
Saunders’s plan was to remove his bag. The idea being that the shock effect of his gruesome visage upon Jurgen Thor would be enough to make Jurgen throw up his arms in horror, thus giving Saunders the crucial split second in which to rush him and, if possible, hurl him down into the chasm.
‘Aaargh!’ shouted Saunders and tore off his bag, revealing, as he had done so many times at parties, his absence of face. Sadly for Saunders, Jurgen was a big boy and had seen many horrid sights in his time. He remained unmoved and, as Saunders leapt towards him, Jurgen fired, killing poor Saunders with a single shot to the head, or what there was of the head anyway. Saunders hit the ground with a thud.
Judy now had to face Jurgen Thor alone, but not for long. Hanging in mid-air as she was, Rosalie heard the commotion of Saunders’s lunge and subsequent death. She did not know what these noises signified but since her strength was already ebbing, she judged it a good time to attempt a chin-up and try to scramble to safety. She hauled her head above the edge and managed to slide one elbow over on to the floor before the sound of her movements made Jurgen turn. Seeing Rosalie clawing her way back into the land of the living, he launched a huge kick at her, catching her full in the face. Had he been wearing shoes, that would have been the end of the matter, but Jurgen was of course barefoot, and despite the pain, Rosalie was able not only to hang on, but also to grab hold of his foot.
In order to avoid being toppled forward into the trap, Jurgen was forced to throw himself backwards to the floor, dropping the gun as he did so. He was about to try and kick Rosalie away with his free leg, when Judy made a lunge for the gun. Reaching backwards, Jurgen was able to grab Judy by the trousers and, despite being flat on his back with a desperate woman using one of his legs as a climbing rope, he easily pulled Judy over. The little agent crashed down on top of Jurgen and bravely started trying to bang Jurgen’s head on the floor. It was a futile gesture, considering Jurgen’s physical superiority, but Judy did at least distract the prostrate giant for a moment while Rosalie, still pulling on Jurgen’s leg, was able to drag her chest up over the edge of the precipice. That was all the breathing space she had, for Jurgen, quickly tiring of having Judy on top of him, hurled a mighty hammer-like fist at the side of Judy’s chest, thus punching him away and also breaking most of his ribs and knocking all the wind out of his small body.
As Judy lay in agony, retching beside him, Jurgen turned his attention back to Rosalie, raising his free leg in order to kick her back down into the chasm once and for all. But the respite caused by Judy’s tiny attack had been enough. Rosalie had her other elbow up over the edge, thus momentarily freeing the arm with which she had been hanging on to Jurgen’s leg. As Jurgen raised his other leg to kick her down, Rosalie’s opportunity lay stretched out before her. Jurgen was, of course,
wearing only a gown, and by raising one leg to kick Rosalie, he revealed his meat and two veg to her in all their glory. Rosalie threw her free arm forward and grabbed Jurgen’s mighty dick.
‘Don’t kick me off, Jurgen!’ she shouted. ‘I swear I’ll never let go of it, no matter how hard you kick. If I go, it goes.’
Jurgen looked down at Rosalie in amazement. This was not a development that he had expected. In fact, he was at a loss to work out how in such a short space of time he had managed to move from being in complete control, to lying on the edge of the precipice from which his enemy was climbing, using his prick as a rope.
At that moment, the door of the study opened and one of Jurgen’s guests poked their head in.
‘There’s been a monsoon warning, Jurgen. People are thinking about heading off before —‘ The visitor stopped mid-sentence and took in the scene: Judy retching, Jurgen prostrate on his back, his gown thrown open whilst a girl hung on to his dick halfway out through the floor. ‘Well, excuse me,’ she said. ‘Wow, you people are wild! Ciao, Jurgen baby, thanks for a great party.’
The woman left, shutting the door behind her. Rosalie got a leg up over the edge and, leaving hold of Jurgen’s penis, lunged up and over him, trying to make it to the gun. Jurgen was too quick for her, though, and grabbing Rosalie in his mighty arms he rolled over on top of her, his hands upon her throat.
‘Now I will finish the job,’ he shouted. ‘It seems that I must kill you before I throw you into the precipice, depriving you of the final exhilaration of terminal free-fall. So be it, Rosalie. Bye bye, baby, bye bye!’
He began to throttle her with his huge hands. So big indeed were they, and so small was Rosalie’s neck, that Jurgen could probably have choked her with only one of them. Within seconds Rosalie began to lose the plot, his grip was crushing the life out of her before she even had a chance to suffocate. Her legs flailed about, her arms flailed about, she was helpless. Judy, who could see what was happening, tried to come to her aid but he could move only very slowly in case his broken ribs punctured his lungs. He was helpless, knowing that Rosalie would be dead long before he reached the gun.
Her face was turning blue, her limbs were now twitching more than flailing. She was definitely dying. One of her hands fell upon the pocket of Jurgen’s gown. She could feel herself gripping something, the only item in the pocket. She recognised it, something stirred the memory in her fast-darkening brain … That was it! She knew what she was holding. What else would she find in the pocket of a dressing-gown at an orgy but a condom spray?
At this point, Rosalie probably only had one voluntary act left in her, but it was a beauty. With one movement she swung her arm upwards, the spray in her hand, and let Jurgen have it full in the face. Within seconds his head was completely laminated. Now it was Jurgen Thor who was suffocating. His grip relaxed almost instantly as he realised the danger he was in. There was no solvent in the pockets of the gown, he had to get to the bathroom. He staggered to his feet, leaving Rosalie on the floor gasping life back into her desperate body. Blinded, for he had on reflex shut his eyes as the liquid rubber hit him, Jurgen bumbled his way across the room and felt his way to the study door, bursting through it as Rosalie was beginning to drag herself to her feet behind him.
Staggering up the stairs, naked but for the open gown, Jurgen presented a shocking sight to those guests who had not yet ascended to the heli-pad, his head encased in rubber, the black hole of his mouth tugging at the merciless laminate stretched across it. A great heaving and wheezing was emanating from his mighty chest. Behind him came a girl, a wild, dangerous-looking girl. She too was staggering, her chest was also heaving with the pain of breathing. She was still blue in the face, and the livid marks of strangulation were yet bright red upon her neck. In her hand was a gun. The remaining guests mumbled their apologies and retreated upwards. This was rough stuff indeed. Much too rough for them. What they liked was to take designer drugs and make love to people who were as beautiful as they were. Indeed, the simple fact of being beautiful was the biggest buzz, and this was not beautiful, this was positively horrid. Pain, strangulation, guns and rubber were things that they wanted no part of. If Jurgen was pushing the party that way, then they were definitely leaving.
Jurgen kicked open the bathroom door as the last of his guests jumped out of the spa bath and slipped past him. He crashed up against a basin and, hurling open the cupboard above it, groped blindly amongst various creams and lotions, spraying his face with various scents and aftershaves before, finally, he found what he was looking for: . . the solvent. Turning it on himself he sprayed and sprayed, gasping and retching with relief as the tight-as-a-drum skin that had enveloped his mouth dissolved and he was at last able to suck in great gusts of air. Collapsing to his knees, he coughed and burped as little bits of melting rubber found their way into his lungs. He scarcely noticed, though, for he was breathing again… that was all that mattered. It did not even matter very much that Rosalie was standing at the bathroom door, leaning against the wall and pointing the gun at him. For the moment, Jurgen was simply happy to be alive.
Rosalie stared at him for a long time. That once mighty man, a man who had been an inspiration to a generation, and was now revealed for what he really was and had been all along, a contemptible, double-crossing wretch. Rosalie stared and stared, trying to recognise in this low figure the hero of old, but she could not. Instead she asked a question, a single word, in fact.
‘Why?’
Death of a salesman.
‘Why?’ Jurgen spoke not to Rosalie, but to the basin which he still held on to for support. ‘Because I may be many things, Rosalie, you dig? But I am not a wally, OK? The world is dying and nobody can stop it.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Rosalie.
‘It is bloody true!’ Jurgen replied hoarsely. ‘It’s always been dying, ever since man began to take from it more than he needed. This planet is a finite quantity, logic dictates that it cannot be consumed indefinitely. I tell you, Rosalie, Earth as we know it is finished, because man rules it and man is incapable of acting responsibly! Of thinking in anything other than the short-term.’
‘That’s just a pathetic generalisation to justify your —‘Is it, Rosalie? Is it? Let me ask you this. What politician, facing an election next year, would be prepared to make laws, the benefit of which would not be felt until the following year! I will tell you. None. There is no profit to be had today in protecting tomorrow.’
Jurgen Thor had said his piece. He sat down on the floor, brushing aside the various toiletries that had fallen from the bathroom cabinet. He took another great breath and leant back against the plinth of the marble washbasin. He was still coughing from the rubber in his throat, and there were great strands of semi-dissolved latex hanging from his eyelashes, hair and nose. He looked like one of the living dead… which in many ways was what he was.
‘So you’ve always known what Plastic Tolstoy has been doing?’ Rosalie asked.
‘Not always, but nearly always. I joined the board of Claustrosphere as Tolstoy’s number two about a year after I founded Natura.’
‘But that’s nearly thirty years ago! You’ve been on the board of Claustrosphere for thirty years?’ Rosalie gasped.
‘Yes, my attitude changed very quickly,’ Jurgen replied. ‘Like any good greenie, I could see the way the wind was blowing. The industrialised world’s blind obsession with “growth” meant death, that much was obvious. The human race was going to self-destruct and take the planet with it. That would happen whatever anybody did, despite me, despite Tolstoy, despite Claustrosphere. I knew that then and I know it now. At least Claustrosphere offers people some kind of future.’
‘Have you got one?’ Rosalie inquired.
‘Of course. I am not a fool. My Claustrosphere covers the whole of a small Pacific atoll. It is very beautiful.’
‘How come they tried to kill you with that bomb?’
It was Judy who asked this question. He had collected him
self sufficiently to slowly follow Rosalie up to the bathroom and had heard most of what Jurgen Thor had said.
‘Believe me, man,’ Jurgen said. ‘If they’d wanted to kill me they would have succeeded. It was just a marketing strategy. Claustrosphere sales have been down for a while, Plastic was planning a relaunch and I volunteered to be a part of it.’
‘That was good of you,’ said Rosalie bitterly.
‘Get real, baby, I’m no philanthropist. I have nearly as many shares as Tolstoy does, it’s my profits too. I must admit to you, though, I was pretty annoyed that my dick got blown off. The blast was only supposed to singe my hair. Our sabotage people said there must have been other bombs planted in the building which ours set off. That’s European democracy for you, for every delegate, an assassin.
They made a strange triumvirate. Judy was on his hands and knees, the only position he could sustain without fainting. Jurgen sat against the basin amongst the broken bottles. Only Rosalie was on her feet and she was mightily bruised about the head and neck. It was a sorry scene, but a fitting one in which to learn how careful and meticulous was the marketing of the end of the world.
‘You seem kind of happy to talk about all this. You’ve kept your secret carefully up until now,’ Judy gasped between breaths.
‘I once promised myself that if I could, I would one day tell pretty little Rosalie here the whole truth. The whole truth about her life and her world. Crueller than killing you, eh, baby? Don’t you think? Your tape of Tolstoy’s confession has long since vanished into the depths of my mountain. The only evidence you possess now is your word, and let me tell you, OK? Dead people speak neither truth nor lies.’
‘Dead people?’ Rosalie inquired.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so, baby. I know Plastic Tolstoy, you see, and if you attempt to tell your story, you will be dead almost before you have uttered the first sentence.’
Jurgen spoke no further. He could not, for he himself was dead. Rosalie shot him through the head. She did not plan to do it, she just did it, without even saying goodbye. The world’s second best Claustrosphere salesman was no more.