by Heide Goody
“Wolf!” shouted Christopher in recognition.
The Women’s Institute ladies screamed.
“I won’t look at another willy again, I promise,” whimpered Lynne as she cowered in her seat.
“It’s okay,” said Christopher, holding up invisible hands to appeal for calm.
The driver, abandoning the wheel, ran back into the cabin to see what was occurring. The Wolf of Gubbio turned on him, snarling.
“No!” shouted Christopher. “Bad dog!”
Aurélie, her camerawoman Marcelle, and some lady called Sabina who was all toothy smiles and brazen laughter all thought it was a brilliant idea. It required no planning and, Claude assured him, would have high impact.
“For the fuwwy animals,” agreed Francis solemnly and, with only a second of prudish hesitation, flung his habit over his head, pushed his way through the seated crowd and clambered onto the catwalk.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he shouted, naked in the glare of the catwalk footlights. “This must stop.”
The seated men and women looked at him. No shock or awe or disgust but simple interest, as though his appearance was a natural part of the parade of fur fashion. And, indeed, the models (such tiny slips of things even up close that Francis felt an instinctive urge to offer them alms for the poor) continued to strut up and down in complete ignorance of him.
As one tried to walk past him, Francis took hold of the woman’s fur jerkin and waved both it and her at the crowd.
“Did this… this… What is it?” he asked the model.
“Mink,” she spat and tried to pull away from his grip.
“Did this mink die just to decowate this woman’s body?” he shouted. “What kind of stewards of God’s earth are we if we engage in such senseless slaughter?”
The model jerked away from him and, slipping from Francis’s hold, pitched off the runway and into the laps of the front row audience. Now, they all reacted. There were gasps and shouts and the black suited men of security came muscling through towards him.
“We were born naked,” Francis shouted. “Our bodies are beautiful without such fwipperwies.”
“Please, come down, Mr Dzalto!” shouted a voice from the crowd.
“Go on, Francis!” shouted another voice.
“A wighteous man cares for the needs of his animals!” quoted Francis, screaming to be heard above the noise of the crowd.
Cameras flashed, people stumbled to get to or get away from the scene and, down in the crowd, Francis could see Claude and the toothsome Sabina doing battle with the security guards.
“Come all!” shouted Francis. “Fling your furs away!”
One of the few remaining models on the catwalk strode up to him.
“Cast aside this wicked garment, my dear!” Francis implored.
The woman gave him a tight, thin-lipped smile and then punched him square in the nose.
“Prick!”
Francis clutched his nose and squeaked in pain.
“Ow! That really hurt! I was only…”
He stopped and pointed past the woman.
“Is that boat going to hit us?”
Entranced by the slow inevitability of the scene, Joan and Matt watched the tourist boat veer to the side and towards the floating party pontoon. The wolf was somewhere inside that boat and, by its sudden deviation from course, Joan could imagine he was at the tiller.
“It is,” said Matt. “It’s going to hit it. Wait here.”
He ran off, stopped and turned to face Joan.
“Seriously. Stay here. Don’t go anywhere,” he said and then ran across the Pont des Arts towards the Left Bank.
Joan, too drunk and weary to follow, stayed at the railings and watched the broad river cruiser ram into the floating platform. The great squares that formed the pontoon collided, pitched and folded up, turning the pontoon into a series of slopes that flung people, furnishings and fixtures into the Seine.
And now, speeding along the path, a phone in his hand, came the daring atheist, Matt Rose. Watching the man as he ran to help others, Joan felt that strange swirling sensation in the pit of her stomach again. In all her centuries in the Celestial City, she hadn’t felt like this. What could it be?
She looked for Matt among the chaos on the riverside and saw his dark hair and grim expression. The feeling expanded within her. A sudden thought occurred to her. Was this it? Could this feeling be lo—
Suddenly, several glasses of wine and an unidentified quantity of something that might once have been beer, came rushing up from her stomach. Joan leaned over the railings and threw up into the Seine.
She stared down as her vomit rained onto the river, to go down among all those keys thrown by young lovers.
“Oh,” she said, disappointed for a whole variety of reasons.
With a wrinkle of his nose, Christopher killed the boat’s engines but, while the boat had suffered little beyond a superficially cracked prow, the damage to the pontoon was significant and already done. Among slowly sinking pot plants and bobbing plastic chairs, dozens of soggy men and women trod water in the dark river.
Christopher wrenched open a locker by the forward entrance to the boat and flung orange life vests out to the swimmers. There were squeals and shouts as models, fashionistas and the well-to-do squabbled over the floatation devices.
“Typical,” he said.
He looked down at the Wolf of Gubbio beside him.
“This is your fault, you know,” he said.
The wolf snorted and then leapt into the water. Christopher momentarily thought that it was a simple act of indignation but then saw that the beast was swimming purposefully towards a somewhat familiar and apparently naked figure.
“Oh, great,” said Christopher and jumped in after him.
With strong strokes, Christopher quickly caught up with the wolf and, together, they approached Francis who was flailing unproductively. Francis saw the wolf, gave a shout of joy and immediately sank.
“All right, mate,” said Christopher, hooking an arm around Francis’s neck and dragging him back up. “I’ve got you.”
Francis spat out a stream of water.
“Ack! It’s like my pilgwimage to Jewusalem all over again!” he moaned.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Christopher as he hauled him towards the bank. “At least I’m here this time. Patron saint of travel here to get you out of shtuck.”
“A decent patwon saint of twavel would have stopped the boat hitting us in the first place,” said Francis.
“I could let you drown if you don’t stop mithering,” said Christopher.
“No, thank you. You’ve got to go back for my entourwage afterwards.”
“Entourage?”
“Claude and Aurelie and Marcelle and Sabina. I’m a famous fashion designer, you know.”
“And is that why you’re naked?”
Francis frowned.
“I might have had a bit to drink.”
“Is that so?” said Christopher wearily but, despite himself, smiling. “Do you know what this reminds me of?” he said.
“By any chance,” said Francis, “is it something to do with cawwying the infant Chwist across a wiver?”
“That’s spooky,” said Christopher, impressed.
“Lucky guess,” said Francis.
Chapter 6 - Lyon
As Joan approached the Gare de Lyon on foot, her eyes scanned the morning crowd for signs of Christopher and Francis. They should have been easy to spot, a medieval monk and a muscle-bound brute with a fashion sense taken straight from the Dark Ages.
“They’re not here,” said a voice.
Joan looked in surprise at a table positioned near to the entrance. Em was sipping a coffee with a newspaper in front of her.
“Join me,” said the Mother of God. “Pull up a pew.”
Joan sat, putting her carrier bag of plate mail down beside her, and wrinkled her nose in confusion.
“I didn't expect to see you here.”
“Hmph. Me neither.”
“Are you just making sure we all get on the train?”
Em pulled a bitter expression that probably had nothing to do with the coffee.
“I'm coming with you.”
“To Toulon?” asked Joan.
“Yes,” said Em. “Something funny's going on. Those quotes.”
“Quotes?”
“From Revelation, which that bloody machine spouted at us yesterday.”
She gestured through the door to the bank of machines, one of which looked like it had recently taken a severe denting at knee height.
“Three days ago,” said Em, “you received a phone call in which ‘Simon’ spoke of the earth, the trees and the green grass being burned up. And that day there was a forest fire in Africa.”
“Coincidence?” suggested Joan.
“The second message, the one we all heard, was about a third of the sea being turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea dying, and a third of the ships being destroyed.”
“Yes?”
Em stabbed a finger at a newspaper story on the page in front of her.
“Well, a whole junkyard of ships were set ablaze off the coast of Karachi yesterday.”
“Karachi?”
“That’s Pakistan, dear. Nobody seems to know why these things happened but it's beyond coincidence.”
Joan frowned.
“You think someone is making these accidents happen?”
Em gave her a shrug.
“God moves in fucking mysterious ways but he’s not the only one. Quite frankly it reeks of some Satanic plot. If ‘Simon’ is a demon, that would explain the lack of a soul. That thought is bad enough, but I need to know why they keep mentioning me by name. I don’t like it.”
Joan pulled the newspaper towards her to read the story.
“So you're coming with us?”
“Yes,” said Em unhappily.
“Perfect.” Joan smiled despite the mystery now laid before her.
“Don't get excited,” said Em. “As soon as I've satisfied myself, I'm ditching you three as fast as I can. Where are the others anyway?”
“I expect they'll be here in a moment,” said Joan, glancing around hopefully. “Any… moment… now…”
“I told you lot to stay at the bar,” said Em.
“And then you went off and left us,” retorted Joan. “Where did you go?”
“To help Michel with a protest event.”
“Did it go well?” asked Joan.
Em shook her head, her eyes hidden behind the glasses.
“Tits up,” she muttered.
“I...” said Joan, looking down at her chest.
“It went tits up. Two hours ago, our lorry-load of coins crashed in the Pont d'Alma tunnel as it swerved to miss a party of British women who were walking up the carriageway.”
“Oh no,” said Joan, hand over mouth.
“Ach, it's not so bad,” said Em. “Michel has decided that we can claim it as a victory. The coins were spilled across four lanes. By the time he's written-up the press release, it will be as if we planned a dramatic road block all along, a simultaneous protest against immigrant wages and the government’s transport policy.”
A horn sounded. Joan and Em looked round at the monstrous car that had just mounted the kerb.
The door swung open and Francis and Christopher climbed out of the zebra-print interior. Francis was wearing dark glasses, a rhinestone-studded baseball cap and several heavy-looking pendants. More disturbingly, he was wearing a blonde woman on each arm, dressed in ripped and scrappy dresses. Joan wasn’t sure if they were related, but they both seemed to be suffering from a wasting disease of some sort.
“Has he been out helping the waif and strays of the city?” asked Joan.
“I doubt it’s alms he’s been giving them, if you know what I mean,” said Em.
Joan frowned at her.
“Which of course you don’t,” said Em.
The Wolf of Gubbio followed Francis, and Joan saw that he sported a collar with some sort of slogan that she couldn't quite make out.
Francis stepped forward and held up his arms while he shimmied his hips. He watched with a wide grin while the two women shimmied in the same way.
“Ladies, wegwetfully, I must leave you now,” he said. “Do pass on my best wegards to Mr Galliano and thank Mr Louboutin for the shoes.”
Joan looked at Francis’s feet and saw that his sandals had been replaced with new ones. They featured elaborate, interwoven thongs of leather, and she saw a flash of red as Francis wiggled his foot and exposed the sole. The women giggled and planted kisses on Francis's cheeks. They climbed back into the car and it pulled away.
“Why don’t you both sit down?” said Em frostily. “In fact, Christopher looks as though he’d better sit down before he falls down.”
Christopher winced at the scraping of the chairs on the floor as he and Francis dragged them into place. He lowered himself gently into his seat and smiled weakly.
“Fall over? Not likely,” he said. “I’m used to soldiering on, me. Any coffee going?”
“You’re hung over,” said Em, as she pressed a coffee into his shaking hand.
“He’s been at the beer!” said Joan, glad that her night of drinking with Matt had only left her with a buzzing head and a foul taste in her mouth. “For shame, Christopher! So, Francis, who were your friends?”
“Twixie and Twacey. Lovely girls. They seemed to be genuinely intewested in my views on fashion.”
“You have views on fashion?” asked Joan.
“It seems I do. I'm a famous fashion designer, you see.”
“What became of Claude?” asked Em, leaning forward. “Did you see where he went?”
“Yes, he's gone for a networking bwunch at one of the fashion ateliers on the Wue de Faubourg Saint-Honore. There are quite a few people who want to talk to him about the working pwactices in our workshop in Cwoatia.”
“You have a workshop in Croatia?” said Joan.
“They were all fascinated to know that human uwine is used to fix pleats in fabwic. He was forced to explain, as they seemed a little angwy at his demonstwation in the dwessing room.”
Em stood up, shaking her head.
“I don't doubt that he will keep them entertained with tales of his fashion expertise,” she said. “In the meantime, we have a train to catch.”
“We?” said Christopher. “All of us?”
“I’ll explain,” said Joan.
Em looked at her travelling companions from behind her sunglasses. Fifteen minutes into the train journey and she was already regretting her decision to travel with them. She certainly doubted she could take another two hours of the excited babble from Joan and Francis. They marvelled over everything from the speed of travel, to the table that was able to balance on a single leg.
“And look,” said Francis. “They’ve got carpet in here too. Carpet inside a vehicle.”
“These modern people will put carpet on everything,” said Joan.
“I wouldn’t be surpwised if they haven’t carpeted the vewy fields,” joked Francis.
“Astroturf,” said Em.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing,” she said.
At least Christopher, squashed in next to Em, was trying to sleep off his hangover. Every couple of minutes he either belched or farted in his sleep. The only entertainment on the train was trying to guess from which end Christopher’s next gaseous emission would come. That, and pondering if the other passengers in the carriage could smell the noxious saint, even if they couldn’t see him.
Em’s phone buzzed. It was a text message from Claude.
Your man Francis is a genius. Let me no when he’s nxt in town, I’d love to wk with him again.
She had originally texted him to ask what on earth he’d been up to the previous evening. The reply puzzled her but she decided to drop the matter until she could have a proper conversation with him.
<
br /> Joan was talking again and Em realised that she had just been asked a direct question.
“What did you say?” said Em.
“I was just saying that… if you meet someone, a man for example, and you feel that there might be… something, you know…” Joan grimaced, coughed and started over. “I have a friend and she met someone last night.”
“A man,” said Em.
“Yes.”
“An attractive man?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“And this friend of yours has questions she needs answering?” said Em.
“Yes, she does,” said Joan.
“And is this friend of yours called Joan?”
“What? No.”
“Does she, by any chance, carry a stupid sword with her everywhere she goes?”
“I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Em…”
“And is she perhaps a fifteenth century dweeb who has all the guile of a cushion and hasn’t got any female friends, never had, never will?”
Joan crossed her arms angrily. Francis looked from one of them to the other.
“I’m weally confused. Has Joan got a fwiend called Joan?”
Em stretched, cracked her knuckles and put her feet up on the seat space between Francis and Joan.
“The girl wants to know about men,” she said.
“I was just asking an innocent question,” said Joan. “I just wanted to know how do you know if it means something? If it's, you know, special?”
“Special how?” asked Em.
“How do you know if you've met someone you can enjoy being friends with, or if it's someone you could maybe…”
“Careful!”
“Fall in love with. I don't understand how you recognise the difference,” said Joan.
“Are you seriously asking me what love is?” asked Em.
“I suppose I am.”
“You're hilarious, Joan.”
Joan looked at her. Em recognised the look. Joan was unfazed by Em's scorn and she really wanted an answer. She groaned inwardly.
“I don't know that I'm the right person to answer questions about love. Don't forget that I had a husband who was much, much older than me. He used to say that he had piles of sawdust in his workshop that were older than me. Why don't you ask Francis?” she said, and then turned to stare out of the window to indicate that she would not be providing any further thoughts on the matter.