‘Close your eyes, dear,’ Grandma said. She wasn’t talking to him, but the kid. ‘Would you do that, for Grandma? Just close your eyes for a while.’
‘Close them tight?’ Nicola asked, voice small.
‘Yes, close them extra tight,’ Grandma nodded, trying to smile. ‘And I’ll tell you when you can open them again.’
Ricky saw the girl shut her eyes and cover her ears. He shook his head, turned back to the old woman, rolling pin held with loose ease. He took a measured stride toward her, not hurrying. Ricky had been in bad situations all his life, had been beaten up and half-killed on a hundred occasions, starting with the times that happened in his own bedroom, a room that had no posters on the walls or books on shelves or little figures of cartoon animals. Ricky’s old man hadn’t believed in make-believe either; was proud of being cynical—‘That’s what I am, boy, I’m nobody’s fool’—and working the angles and telling God’s honest truth however fucking dull it was. His lessons had been painful, but Ricky knew he’d been right.
Ricky wasn’t afraid of an old woman, no matter how tough she might be, and he grinned at her, looking forward to seeing what the pin was going to do to her face.
She looked back at him, head tilted up, grey hair awry and skin papery, and then her head popped back out.
One minute her skull was caved in, the next it was back where it should be, like someone pumped exactly the right amount of air back into a punctured balloon. It made a sound like cellophane.
Ricky gawped, arm aloft.
Grandma swallowed, blinked, then did something with her fucked-up arm. Swung it around from behind her—and as it came it seemed to become more solid, find the right planes to rotate on again. She bent it experimentally, found it worked, and used it to pat her dry hair more-or-less back into place.
‘You’re a very bad boy, Ricky,’ she said, softly, too quietly for Nicola to hear. ‘And bad boys never see Santa Claus. Hear what I’m saying, motherfuck?’
Before Ricky could even process this sentence, Margaret Harris had hurled herself at him. He tried to turn, bring the pin down, but only managed to twist halfway round at the waist. She smacked into him sideways, and the two of them spun off the corner of the table to crash into the wall. Ricky felt his nose bend and melt, and realised there was going to be blood to clean up as well as everything else.
He tried to push the old woman away, but she looped a fist straight into his face. It cracked hard against his cheekbone, far too hard. The rolling pin went spinning across the floor.
Ricky kicked and scrambled, lashing out feet, hands and elbows in a flurry of compact violence. Each time he thought he was finally going to be able to dislodge her, she seemed to gain a notch in strength. They rolled back and forth under the table, smashing a chair to firewood, and out the other side. Ricky heard Nicola squeal, and a small part of his mind was able to hope their neighbours hadn’t heard. Then he found himself with two gnarled hands tight around his throat, and almost wished they had, and were sending help. For him.
He finally managed to pull his knee up under the old bitch, and gradually forced his hands in between hers. When they were in position he steadied himself for a second, got his breath—and then threw everything he had, chopping his hands in opposite directions, and kicking out hard.
The old woman flew a yard and hit the stove like an egg.
Ricky was on his feet almost immediately, hands on his knees and coughing like a bastard. When he swallowed, something clicked alarmingly in his throat. Nicola was still squeaking, eyes shut, but he heard it as from a great distance. He could taste his own blood, and see it spattered on the wall and floor—in amongst the coffee and a few lumps of grey hair that he managed to yank out of the robot.
A fucking animatronic. Had to be. He’d been set up. John Harris had changed his mind, or more likely been a plant from minute one and there’d never been a real grandma Harris. Fuckers. Wonder World weren’t working with the cops. They were settling things their own way.
And so would Ricky. The job was over, and it didn’t matter how much mess he left. He was getting out, and then going to find Mr Harris. The fee had just gone up to include everything the bastard owned, including his wife. And his daughter.
Grandma Harris was slumped on the floor, back against the cooker. Her throat was arced up like a twisted branch, a perfect target, but jerked back into position as Ricky pulled out his gun. No matter. The face would do just as well.
He held the gun in a straight-arm grip, sighted down the barrel.
‘Don’t even fucking think about it,’ the rolling pin said.
Ricky turned very slowly. ‘Excuse me?’
It had grown legs, and was standing with little hands on where its hips would be. Two stern eyes glared out of the wooden cylinder of its body, and it looked like a strange wide crab.
Ricky stared at it. Knew suddenly that it wasn’t a machine, but an actual rolling pin with eyes and arms. He fired at it. The pin flipped out of the way, then switched direction and flick-flacked towards him, like a crazy little wooden gymnast. Ricky backed hurriedly, fired another shot. It missed, and the rolling pin flicked itself into the air like a muscular missile. Ricky wrenched his head out of the way just in time, and the pin embedded itself in the wall.
‘Careful,’ said the wall, slowly opening its eyes.
Over at the stove, Grandma Harris was pulling herself upright. Ricky blinked at her. She smiled, a sweet old lady smile that wasn’t for him. Ricky decided he didn’t have to mop up this mess. He’d go straight to talk with John Harris. He fired a couple of rounds into the wall, just between its huge eyes. It made a grumpy sound, but didn’t seem much inconvenienced. A huge mouth opened sleepily, as if yawning, as it was only just getting up to speed. The pin meanwhile pushed itself out with a dry popping sound, and turned its beady eyes on Ricky.
‘Shit on this,’ Ricky muttered, as it scuttled towards him. He swung a kick at the rolling pin, sent it howling across the room. Fired straight at Margaret Harris, but didn’t wait to see if it hit.
He turned on his heel in the kitchen door, bounded across the hallway and yanked at the front door. It wouldn’t open, and when Ricky tried to pull his hand away, he saw the handle had turned into a brown wooden hand and was gripping his like he was a prime business opportunity and they were testing each other’s strength. Ricky braced his foot against the wall and tugged, for the first time hearing the sound of the beams whispering above. He glanced up and saw some of them were wriggling in place, limbering up, getting ready for action. He didn’t want to see their action.
The door handle wasn’t letting go, and so he placed the muzzle of the gun against it and let it have one.
It took the tip of one of Ricky’s fingers with it, but the fucker let go. Ricky reared back, kicked the door with all his strength. It splintered and he barrelled through it, tripped and fell full length on the lawn. Face to face with the grass for a moment, he saw that he’d been right, and there was a little face on every blade. He heard a noise like a million little voices tuning up and knew that its song wasn’t likely to be one he wanted to hear.
He scrabbled to his feet and careened down the path towards the car, bloody hand scrabbling for the keys. Before he could get halfway there two trash cans came running round from next door. They made it to the car before him, and started levering one side off up the ground. Meanwhile the rolling pin shot out of the house from behind him, narrowly missed his head, and went through the windscreen of the car like a torpedo. Barely had the spray of glass hit the ground before the pin emerged the other side, turned in mid-air and looped back to punch through a door panel. It kept going, faster and faster, looping and punching, until the car began to look like a battered atom being mugged by a psycho electron.
Ricky began to realize just how badly his hand hurt, and that the car wasn’t going to be a viable transportation option. He diverted his course in mid-stride, just heading for the road, for a straight line to run. He cleared
the sidewalk barely keeping his balance, and leant into the turn. Ricky could run. He’d had the practice, down many dark streets and darker nights, and always running away instead of to. The way was clear.
Then a vehicle appeared at the corner in front of him, and he realised what the grass had been singing. Not a song, but a siren.
Wonder World’s designers hadn’t stinted themselves on the cop wagon. It was black and half as big as a house, all superfins and intimidating wheel arches spiked with chrome. The windows in the sides were blacker still, and the doors in the back might just as well have had ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here’ scrawled across them.
Ricky skidded to a halt, whirled around. An identical vehicle had moved into position just the other side of the remains of his car. Behind it a bunch of mushrooms and toadstools were moving into position.
The doors of the first wagon opened, and a figure got out each side. Both seven foot tall, with very long tails and claws that glinted. Bud and Slap, though rats, had been friendly rats in each of the countless cartoons they’d appeared in over the last thirty years. They were almost as popular as Loopy and Careful and China Duck, and even Ricky recognised them. Cute, well-meaning villains, they always ended up joining the right side in the end.
But this Bud and Slap weren’t like that. These toons were just for Ricky. As he held his ground, knowing there was nowhere to run, they walked toward him with heavy tread. They were stuffed into parodies of uniforms, torn at the seams and stained with bad things. Bud had a lazy, damaged eye, and was holding a big wooden truncheon in an unreassuring way. Slap had a sore on his upper lip, and kept running a long blue tongue over it, to collect the juice. Both had huge guns stuffed down the front of their uniforms. At least that’s what Ricky hoped they were. From five yards away he could smell the rats’ odour, the gust of sweat and stickiness and decay, and for a moment catch an echo of all the screams and death rattles they’d heard.
‘Hey there, Ricky,’ said Slap, winking. His voice was low and oily, full of unpleasant good humour. ‘Got some business with you. Lots of different kinds of business, actually. You can get in the wagon, or we can start it right here. What d’you say?’
Behind him Bud giggled, and started to undo his pants.
Nicola stood at the window with Grandma, and watched the parade in the road. It wasn’t the real parade, like the one in the Beautiful Realm where they had fireworks and Careful Cat and Loopy, but they were going to see that tomorrow. This was a little parade, with just Bud and Slap, and Percival Pin and Terrance and Terry the Trash Cans: sometimes they put on little parades of their own, Grandma said, just because they enjoyed it.
They laughed as they watched the characters play. Nicola had thought the man she’d come with had been a bad man, but he couldn’t have been as bad as all that. Bud and Slap the Happy Rats were each holding one of his hands, and they were dancing with him, leading him to the wagon. They looked like they liked him a lot. The man’s mouth opened and shut very wide as he danced, and Nicola thought he was probably laughing. She would be, in his position. They all looked like they were having such fun.
Finally the wagon doors were shut with the man inside, and Bud and Slap bowed up at Grandma’s window before getting back into their police car. The trashcans went somersaulting back to next door’s yard, and the rolling pin came hand-springing up the path, leaving a trail of little firework stars in its wake. Nicola clapped her hands and Grandma laughed, and put her arm around the little girl.
Now it was time for supper and pie, and tomorrow would be a new and different day. They turned from the window, and went to start cooking, in a kitchen where the tables and chairs had already tidied everything up as if nothing bad had ever happened, or ever could.
Meanwhile, well outside Wonder World, over on a splintered porch outside a small house the other side of the beltway, Marty the gateman sat in his chair enjoying his bedtime cigarette. His back ached a little, from standing up all day, but it didn’t bother him too badly. It was a small price to pay for seeing all the faces as they went into the parks, and when they came out again. The kids went in bright-eyed and hopeful, the parents tired and watchful. You could see them thinking how much it was all going to cost, and wondering whether it would be worth it. When you saw them come out, hours or days later, you could see that they knew that it had been. For a little while the grown-ups had realised their cynicism was an emotional short cut which meant they missed everything worth seeing along the way, and the children had proof of what they already believed: the world was cool. The gateman’s job was important, Marty knew. You said the first hello to the visitors, and you said goodbye. You welcomed them in and helped them acclimatise; and you sent them on their way, letting them see in your eyes the truth of what they believed—they were leaving a little lighter inside.
Marty’s house was small and looked like all the others nearby, and he lived in it alone. As he sat in the warmth of the evening, looking up at the stars, he didn’t mind that very much. His wife now lived with someone who was better at earning money, and who came home after a day’s work in a far worse mood. Marty missed her, but he’d survive. The house could have been fancier, but he’d painted it last summer and he liked his yard.
He had the last couple of puffs of his cigarette, and then stubbed it out carefully in the ashtray he kept by the chair. He yawned, sipped the last of his iced tea, and decided that was that. It was early yet, but a good time for sleep. It always is, when you’re looking forward to the next day.
As he lay in his bed later, gently settling into the warm train that would take him into tomorrow, he dimly wondered what he’d do with the rest of his life. Work for as long as he could, he supposed, and then stop. Sit out on the porch, most likely, live out his days bathed in the memory of faces lit for a moment by magic. Smile at passers by. Drink iced tea in the twilight.
That sounded okay by him.
Maybe Next Time
At first, when David began to consider the problem, he wondered if it was related to the start of a new year. January in London is not an exciting time. You’d hardly contend the month showed any part of the country at its best, but there were places—the far reaches of Scotland, perhaps, or the stunned emptiness of the midland fens—where you could at least tell it was winter, a season with some kind of character and point. In London the period was merely still-grey and no-longer-New Year and Spring-not-even-over-the-horizon. A pot of negatives, a non-time of non-events in which you trudged back to jobs the festive break had drunkenly blessed with purpose, but which now felt like putting on the same old overcoat again. But still, however much David unthinkingly lived a year that began in the Autumn—as did most who had soldiered their way through school and college, where promise and new beginnings came with the term after the summer—he could see that January was the real start of things. He thought at first that might be it, but he was wrong. The feelings were not coming after something, but pointing the way forward. To May, when he would have his birthday.
To May, when he would be forty years old.
The episodes came on quietly. The first he remembered happened one Thursday afternoon when he was at his desk in Soho, pen hovering over a list of things to do. The list was short. David was good at his job, and believed that a list of things to do generally comprised of a list of things that should already have been done.
His list said he had to [1] have a quick and informal chat with the other participants in the next day’s new business meeting, [2] have a third and superfluous scan through the document explaining why said potential clients would be insane not to hand their design needs over to Artful Bodgers, Ltd, [3] make sure the meeting room had been tidied up, and [4]…
He couldn’t think what [4] might be. He moved his pen back, efficiently preparing to cross out the numeral and its businesslike brackets, but didn’t. He dimly believed his list was incomplete, in the same way you know, when wandering around the kitchen periodically nibbling a biscuit, whether you fin
ished it in the last bite or if there’s a portion still lying around.
There was something else he needed to do…nope, it had gone.
He went home, leaving the list behind. When he covertly glanced at it towards the end of the meeting the following morning, his sense of mild satisfaction (the pitch was going well, the new clients in the bag) was briefly muted by the sight of that [4], still there, still unfilled. The list now had a [5], a [6] and a [7], all ticked, but still no [4].
For a moment he was reminded of the old comedy routine—
Item 1: do the shopping
Item 2: mow the lawn
Item 4: where’s item 3?
Item 3: ah, there it is…
—and smiled. He was disconcerted to realise that the most senior of the clients, a man with a head that looked carved out of a potato, was looking at him, but the smile was easily converted into one of general commercial warmth. The deal was done. By lunchtime he was on to other things, and the list was forgotten.
This, or something like it, happened a couple more times that month. He would find himself in the kitchen, wiping his hands after clearing away the dinner Amanda had cooked, thinking that he could sit down in front of the television just as soon as he had…and realise there was nothing else he had to do. Or he would take five minutes longer doing the weekly shop in Waitrose, walking the aisles, not looking for anything in particular but yet not quite ready to go take his position in the checkout line. In the end he would go and pay, and find himself bagging only the things he had come out looking for, the things on his and Amanda’s list.
February started with a blaze of sunshine, as if the gods had been saving it for weeks and suddenly lost patience with clouds and grey. But it turned out they hadn’t stocked as much as they thought, and soon London was muted and fitful again. David worked, put up some shelves in the spare bedroom, and went out once a week to a restaurant with his wife. They talked of things in the paper and on the news, and Amanda had two glasses of wine while he drank four. But plenty of mineral water too, and so the walk home was steady, his arm around her shoulders for part of the way. Artful Bodgers continued to make money, in a quiet, unassuming fashion. The company’s job was to take other companies’ corporate identities, and make them better. Spruce up or rethink the logo, make typeface decisions, provide a range of stationary to cater for all contingencies: business cards, letterheads, following page sheets (just the logo, no address), document folders, fax sheets, envelope labels, cassette boxes for the video companies. They had the latest Macs and some decent young designers. Their accounts department was neither mendacious nor incompetent. Everyone did their job, well enough to weather the periodicity of corporate confidence and wavering discretionary spend. His company was a success, but sometimes David thought the only interesting thing about it was the name. He’d chosen it personally, on start-up, seven years before. Everyone else—including Amanda—had thought it a bad idea. All too easy to take the second word and run with it. Who wants to hire bodgers, even if you know it’s a little joke? David fought, arguing it showed a confident expectation that clients would never feel the need to make the association. He won, and it worked, and there were other times when David thought that the name was probably the most boring thing about the company, too.
More Tomorrow: And Other Stories Page 15