2023: a trilogy (Justified Ancients of Mu Mu)

by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu

  ‘Yoko, do you ever think about sex?’

  Winnie and Yoko are still lying on their bunks.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well, if you are going to be in here for the rest of your life, that means you are never going to have sex again.’

  ‘What do you mean? Are you suggesting we should try to have sex?’

  ‘You know what I mean. Real, physical, penetrational sex with a man.’

  ‘But you told me you never had penetrational sex. Not that I believe you.’

  ‘Yeah, but you are different. You told me you and John were always having sex.’

  ‘Yeah, but that was then, I feel different now. Anyway, what about you? You told me you used to have all these fantasies about nailing men to the floor and all sorts of things.’

  ‘Yeah, but being pregnant seems to have changed that. All that seems to have gone. I just think about how I am going to bring a Baby up here in a prison cell.’

  ‘Yeah, but the prison staff tell us everything will be provided for and … anyway, when you were asleep before and the warden was bringing around our breakfast, she told me we have a new neighbour. Some right posh one calling herself Lady Penelope. She was most insistent she was allowed to bring her own teapot into her cell. My guess is it was just a ruse to smuggle in some weed.’

  ‘“Lady Penelope”? What kind of name is that?’

  ‘Fuck knows. Your waters about to break yet?’

  ‘Not yet. You will be the first to know.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Parker gets a call on his in-car phone. It is from his former boss Lady Penelope. He has not heard from her in some time. Not since the incident. She was always going to take it too far.

  The Lady Penelope in question’s real name is Anastasiya Oleg. She is Ukrainian. She is a qualified midwife over there but, when the trouble with Russia happened in the 1990s, she escaped to London. Once here she took whatever work she could find, which was being a cleaner.

  Anastasiya Oleg had never been one for doing the lottery, but then there was a week with a triple rollover. She could not resist buying a ticket, and she won. Sixty-seven million pounds. This was back in 2016, before they had ZitCoins. The first thing she did was buy a title off one of the penniless members of the aristocracy. She then bought a pink Rolls-Royce, which she had stretched, and a sound system, cocktail bar and hair salon fitted in the back. She next did what many would overlook doing with so much easy money. She did the smart thing and got a tax advisor on Fernando Pó, and through him set up a number of offshore companies so she could dodge paying any tax.

  She chooses the tax advisor because of his name – King Francisco Malabo Beosá XXIII. This is not the King Francisco Malabo Beosá XXIII featured earlier in this novel. This one is a rival to a very disputed title. As of 24 December 2023, there are at least five different claimants to the title.

  This King of Fernando Pó is not interested in sticking needles through straw dolls in an effort to save the world from the Five. This King Francisco Malabo Beosá XXIII is only interested in making as much money as possible. Ripping off failed states or his own vulnerable clients is his trade. But the newly titled Lady Penelope is neither as vulnerable nor as naive as he assumes. When Lady Penelope learns she has been cleaned out, and there is nothing she can do about it above the law, she sends her Parker to assassinate him.

  After assassinating the wrong King Francisco Malabo Beosá XXIII – but not the one introduced earlier – Parker makes his attempt on the right one. Again he fails, but in doing so shoots and kills the right King Francisco Malabo Beosá XXIII’s favourite son and heir.

  There will be retribution.

  But this was way back in 2016, before everything else. Lady Penelope’s fortune is well and truly lost. Parker keeps the Roller in lieu of unpaid fees for the assassination attempt. Then he takes up employment with M’Lady GaGa.

  Lady Penelope goes into hiding, resumes her old name, Anastasiya Oleg, and takes up cleaning for people in the Borough area of London. But the long arm of the law finally tracks her down. She is arrested, charged and found guilty of at least a dozen crimes. Historical tax avoidance is the least of her crimes. Last night she was banged up in Holloway Prison for Ladies. Ten years and ten days is the sentence.

  Not to mention, the tax-advising King Francisco Malabo Beosá XXIII is still hungry for revenge. The murder of his son is not going to go unpaid for, especially as now the world is on a more even keel, and these things are quite understandable, if not above the law.

  She also changes her name by deed poll to Lady Penelope. Even if she does not like it, from now on in this book she will always be referred to as Lady Penelope.

  As the key turns to lock her in her cell, and that massive sense of loss and emptiness begins to fill her soul, she finally accepts in herself that buying that lottery ticket is the one major mistake in her life. She should have stayed in the Ukraine doing what she does best and brings her the most happiness – delivering newborn babies into the world.

  She kneels on the floor of her cell, puts the palms of her hands together and prays to God to let her deliver one more baby in her life.

  God is listening.

  As is Yoko Ono the Younger – prison walls are thinner than you might expect.

  Chodak stops striding across London Bridge and turns to look over the side of the bridge to the waters below. And then up into the sky.

  Chodak has been thinking.

  Chodak has been thinking about the same thing for most of the past nine months he has been striding across India, Pakistan, Afghanistan … etc., etc.

  And what Chodak has been thinking has been troubling him, and he knows it shouldn’t. He understands the Four Noble Truths. He has followed the Eightfold Path. He … well, this is what Chodak has been thinking and can find no way out of. If he were to write down these thoughts in actual words, they would be as follows:

  I lift my right foot to take the next step, and I know what the feel of the sole of my right foot hitting the ground is going to be like before it hits the ground.

  I watch a drop of rain fall from the sky and I know when it hits the ground it will splash and then join other drops of rain that have also hit the ground, and then when the sun comes out it will dry up.

  I know if I don’t eat for three days, I will be very hungry, and if I then eat, I will not be hungry.

  And on and on it goes.

  Cause and effect for hundreds and thousands and millions of years.

  Everything is part of a huge chain of cause and effect.

  And I am part of that chain.

  Everything I think is part of that chain.

  From the very beginning of time to whenever the very end of time is to be – all of it is part of the same chain of cause and effect. Every drop of rain, every ray of sunshine, every step I take, every move I make. Every thought I have.

  Freedom of thought is just an illusion, because whatever we think, every choice we make or are going to make was already programmed at the beginning of time.

  What then is the point of living?

  Or if I do live, being good?

  Or for that matter, being bad?

  What is the point of punishment?

  Or …

  And on and on it goes for Chodak.

  Each step of the way, mile after thousands of miles, he can never see a way out of this, and nothing in what he understands to be the teaching of the Buddha has anything to help lighten the chains that seem to be dragging him down.

  But just as he is staring down into the dirty waters of the Thames, he feels the chains drop away from him. It is not that he sees a way through the rationale of his thinking, he just thinks, ‘Fuck it.’ And those chains drop from his body over the balustrade of London Bridge and into the waters below.

  If he looked up, he would have noticed a crow flying overhead. A crow late for a band meeting.

  It is then he realises he is freezing – it is 24 December and he is still only
wearing his off-the-shoulder saffron robe.

  He starts striding again across the bridge to the North Side. There he sees the Golden Arches of a newly reopened McDonald’s. He walks straight in and orders:

  ‘Big Mac With Fries.’

  Fate has smiled kindly on Chodak. Big Mac With Fries is back on the menu of every McDonald’s in the world.

  ‘Yes, sir, right away. Do you want extra fries and ketchup?’

  Chodak does not know what he is being asked, as Chodak’s English is very rudimentary.

  ‘Thank you, kind sir,’ says Chodak.

  There is some more confused conversation. The fact that Chodak has no pounds, shillings or pence is overlooked as it is Christmas Eve and the homeless – there are once again homeless in the capital city, and there are once again those that go hungry – will not go hungry tonight as all McDonald’s around the world are giving away free Big Macs With Fries to everyone who asks for one. It’s a promotional thing.

  As he is leaving McDonald’s he is handed a flyer by a young man. If he could read English, he would have read the words ‘BE THERE FOR THE BIRTH’, and a long list of artists who were supposed to be doing PAs and sets.

  Four miles further North in Holloway Ladies’ Prison, there is a new prisoner in one of the cells. She is sporting a blonde bob and a pink cat-suit and she has the look and demeanour to match. In her hands she is cradling a silver teapot. She lifts the lid and talks into it.

  ‘Parker? Is that you, Parker?’

  We hear a voice rise from the teapot.

  ‘Yes, M’Lady.’

  ‘Parker, you have to get me out of here.’

  ‘Yes, M’Lady, where precisely are you?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Parker. I’m in the ladies’ prison.’

  ‘Holloway, M’Lady?’

  ‘Yes, Parker, of course.’

  ‘I have to remind you, M’Lady, I am no longer actually in your employment.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Parker; we will sort that out later. But first things first, you need to get me out of here.’

  Parker cannot help himself. Not that he has ever had any designs on M’Lady, or any real sense of responsibility towards her. It is somehow that he has always felt sorry for her and all her stupid aspirations. If Parker had ever had a wayward daughter, he may have felt the same emotions. But Parker has no children. In fact, Parker’s private life is never discussed. Parker is a homosexual, and everybody knows it but nobody mentions it. Or not the people in this book. If one goes down to certain pubs in the old East End, they know all about it. It is rumoured Parker was one of Ronnie Kray’s ‘boys’. It was with the Krays that he learnt his trade. ‘Parker the Gun’, they used to call him. He was the one they always sent in when there needed to be some ‘gun work’ done first. But that was a long time ago. But you need to know because …

  Well, because when it comes to breaking in or out of prisons, Parker is your man. He did it for the Krays, he did it for Bruce Reynolds. Whenever it is needed, he is the man to call upon.

  A reader in Scunthorpe is thinking, ‘So how come he ended up being a chauffeur for a lottery winner with cheap aspirations?’ The answer to that will have to wait for another book. Right now the story has to move along, before readers who are not of a certain age and did not grow up in the UK get totally bored with these knowing references to icons of a very localised popular culture.

  Vladimir Putin is in his office in the Kremlin poring over a large map of the old Soviet Empire. On his desk are well-thumbed biographies of Peter the Great and Stalin the Terrible – his heroes and his rivals.

  Now the world has come to its senses and there is no need any more for the proposed and very embarrassing world tour with Michelle Obama, he can get back to doing what he does best – controlling people.

  Leonard Cohen is Putin’s favourite singer and songwriter. At each of his weddings he has contracted Cohen to write a song specifically for his new bride. And, of course, Leonard Cohen then has to perform the song at the wedding.

  There are some other songs in Cohen’s repertoire that Putin has specifically commissioned. Some more famous than others. With most of these songs there is the version the world knows, then there is the original that only Putin and those in his inner circle know. One of these songs is playing right now as Putin pores over the map.

  First we take the Black Sea, then we take Berlin …

  Putin picks up the phone – the same one Stalin would pick up to talk to Churchill and Roosevelt, and, of course, Adolf.

  Putin dials the number he dials most days. It is to his good friend and only worthwhile rival. The only ‘real woman’ in his world. But it is time to leave Putin’s office and head back to HM Prison Holloway.

  ‘Yoko, have you gone back to sleep again?’

  ‘Why do you ask me if I have gone back to sleep every time I fall silent?’

  ‘Well … just … I have been thinking …’

  ‘That is what I have been doing. That is what you are supposed to do in prison. I have got a whole life of thinking ahead of me, so I may as well get good at it.’

  ‘I have been thinking we should write a book so we can put some of our thinking to good use.’

  ‘A book?’

  ‘Yes, a children’s book. Or maybe something like Alice in Wonderland, and we discover a secret drain-cover in our cell and it takes us down into this other world like the Rabbit takes Alice into.’

  ‘I never read Alice in Wonderland. I never read books when I was young. I watched television. What was your favourite kids’ TV programme? Mine was In the Night Garden. I used to want to be Upsy Daisy.’

  ‘I used to love Abney & Teal. While watching it I would roll around on the living-room carpet in hysterics. My carer could never work out why. Yeah, and I used to want to be Teal, the girl. I even made a tree-house I wanted to live in, like Teal. I remember when I was about seven and being taken for a walk through Victoria Park in Hackney, being told Abney & Teal lived on a particular island on one of the lakes in the park. I desperately wanted to swim out to the island to join them.’

  ‘Maybe we should write a story about Upsy & Teal in Wonderland. I would go for that.’

  ‘Brilliant. It starts with them both in a prison cell, when they hear these sounds from underneath the bottom bunk. They look underneath it to discover there is a manhole cover there, and it is being opened from below …’

  ‘A white rabbit?’

  ‘No, maybe a …’

  Meanwhile:

  In the Kremlin a man is making a phone call.

  ‘Angela, is that you? I have been thinking about what you were saying. You might be wrong—’

  ‘Vlad, I am never wrong. I keep Poland. You can have the rest …’

  Meanwhile:

  ‘The two dark figures climbed out of their ice-cream van and proceeded to graffiti on one of the walls of the derelict building.’

  Meanwhile:

  In Andrew’s café in Clerkenwell Jimmy and Bill bottle out of kicking Alan out of the band as soon as he turns up.

  ‘All right, you Teds?’ For some reason Alan always refers to Jimmy and Bill as ‘you Teds’.

  ‘Yeah, we were thinking—’ But before Jimmy gets any further Alan is straight in with:

  ‘Well, there is too much thinking going on. We have a gig tonight and we’d better be getting the van loaded.’

  Meanwhile:

  Dead Perch feels he has almost got it all worked out. If only he could mastermind the crossbreeding of a fish with a human being.

  Meanwhile:

  The five claimants to the throne of Fernando Pó all arrive on the same flight to Heathrow. They want an audience with the brand new Queen of England. None of them know of each other’s claims, and none know they are on the same flight. One of them is carrying a gun.

  Meanwhile:

  Parker has a plan.

  15:03 24 December 1984

  Saint Crispin’s Lunatic Asylum

  Dear Diary,


  I would have had at least a couple more chapters of the book done by now, but I had another surprise visit. I shouldn’t complain, but it was that Bill Drummond who I met on Jura. Which was a bit of a coincidence as Alan Moore had visited me only a couple of hours ago.

  Drummond’s parents live in a place called Corby, which is not far from Northampton. He is visiting them for Christmas.

  And he brought 23 freshly made mince pies. He told me he made the mincemeat as well.

  It turns out Bill Drummond used to work in this hospital some time in the early 1970s. He was a nursing assistant, or so he told me. He said he used to have to lay out the dead bodies and give injections and change bedpans and feed those that could not feed themselves, and sell cigarettes. It seemed all the patients back then were allotted a daily allowance of cigarettes, but, instead of handing them out, the sister on his ward would divvy them up among the staff, who could then sell them to their friends and family.

  And to my unsurprise, and Drummond’s major surprise, this ward sister is now the matron who has confiscated my transistor radio and headphones. Nothing changes. I bet she has sold them.

  But the good thing about Drummond’s visit was that he was able to ‘officially’ get me off the ward and take me for a walk around the hospital, even though he is not a current member of staff. It seems Matron trusted him. My guess is something may have gone on between them. There was a glint in her eye when she was talking to him that I have never seen before.

  He took me off to visit one of his other old friends in this place. He is the mortician. I didn’t even know the hospital had a morgue. His name is Stewart and he’s from the same part of Scotland that Drummond was originally from: Wigtown, or Whithorn, or somewhere.

  Drummond was amused that there is still the same Frigidaire fridge that can house nine bodies at a time. The three of us sat around the autopsy table and drank mugs of Camp Coffee, while those two talked about the old days, about the Winter of ’73, when the Frigidaire was full and they had to stack up a further seven corpses on the floor of the morgue and leave the door to the garden open, so that the freezing outside air could keep the bodies from decomposing.