Magic Mobile

by Michael Frayn

  Poverty

  War

  Discrimination

  Hunger

  People wearing funny reindeer antlers at Christmas

  All of the above

  NEWS FLASH! Two desperately urgent appeals just launched! Tick below:

  To demand aid for victims of the epidemic of sunstroke now ravaging Abergavenny.

  To call on the government to end the disastrously outmoded month of July, which is no longer fit for purpose, and to move on to the August that the nation so desperately needs.

  – Also, do you realise that you can start an appeal of your own?

  No, I didn’t realise!

  – So start one!

  Wonderful! Here we go! What about?

  – No idea. So we take it that you’re supporting our appeal for ideas for appeals. But remember – appeals and petitions cost money! Will you chip in with a quid or two? Every little helps!

  Yes, I will donate a quid …

  All right, all right – no need to pull that kind of face. You did say a quid or two. So – two quid, then …

  Oh, a figure of speech. OK, how about – I don’t know – five quid …?

  No? Well, then, you make a suggestion … Something more like … How much? Five thousand …? No, not laughing. Just trying to catch my breath. I realise you have to try. And it’s a good cause … Though I have to confess I’ve forgotten exactly what it is … Make it £7.50, then – and that’s my final offer.

  Please pass on my address to the many thousands of appeals out there that are still longing to make contact with me and inform me about injustices and outrages which would also arouse my indignation if only I knew about them.

  Please don’t pass on my address or send me any further appeals, because I don’t care enough about anything to put even a few miserable little ticks in boxes – I just want to eat junk food and insult people on social media and leave everything in the horrible mess it’s in at the moment.

  I happened the other day to find myself in the kind of old-fashioned resort hotel where time passes so slowly that it always seems to be somewhere around the year 1910. You know the sort of place I mean – where writers of an older generation so often happen to find themselves, with nothing much to do but sit sipping a brandy and soda and keeping an amused but watchful eye on their fellow guests.

  I was reflecting quietly to myself, as I often do, what a rum business life is, when I couldn’t help becoming aware that one of my fellow guests was keeping an amused but watchful eye on me in his turn, and I must have failed to hide a little smile at the irony of the situation, because he evidently took it as an invitation to stroll across and sit down beside me.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t help noticing you smiling a little ironic smile. So I naturally wondered if you were by any chance a writer, of the sort who specialises in stories of life’s little ironies, and if you were perhaps waiting for one of us to tell you one that you could later work up for your next book.’

  I have, I confess, recently been rather too busy sitting in old-fashioned resort hotels sipping brandy and soda to have enjoyed any ironic adventures of my own, so his offer was not as unwelcome as you might imagine.

  ‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘There’s nothing I should enjoy more. Except perhaps spending the royalties that I hope will accrue as a result.’

  He chuckled, and signalled to the waiter to bring us both fresh brandy and sodas.

  ‘A funny old thing, life,’ he began thoughtfully, and paused while we both savoured this preliminary observation. ‘Or so I couldn’t help thinking once again recently, when I chanced to find myself in one of those continental spas which are so frequently the setting for stories of the sort that I imagine you write. Time was hanging a little heavy on my hands, so I thought I might try my luck in the local casino. Well, you know what these places are like.’

  ‘I do,’ I said. ‘And I believe you’re going to tell me that you couldn’t help noticing one of your fellow players at the roulette table.’

  ‘I am,’ he agreed with a smile.

  ‘I can’t help interjecting here,’ I couldn’t help interjecting here, ‘how often neither you nor I can help doing things. We both seem to be in the grip of obscure forces outside our control.’

  ‘I can’t help feeling that you may be right,’ he mused.

  ‘Be that as it may,’ I said, ‘there was a gentleman at the roulette table whom you couldn’t help noticing.’

  ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘it was a woman.’

  ‘Ah,’ I murmured. ‘The plot thickens. A woman of what people call a certain age? But still beautiful? And strangely fascinating? The femme fatale type? Playing with a kind of quiet desperation?’

  ‘Precisely so. Until at last all her money was gone …’

  ‘When, you will tell me, she shrugged with apparent indifference and turned away from the table. You had a feeling that her last desperate throw in life’s game had failed, and that she was going out into the night to end it all beneath the wheels of a passing train.’

  ‘You evidently know the type,’ he agreed.

  ‘I do,’ I confessed, on the basis of a long and sobering acquaintance with the habitués of casinos.

  ‘Whereupon I said to her …’

  ‘“Forgive me,” you said.’

  ‘“Forgive me,” I said, “but I can’t help feeling that before you end it all you have a story that you might care to tell.” Her fascinating dark eyes rested on me thoughtfully for a moment. Then she laughed. “I do,” she said. I signalled to the waiter to bring us a bottle of champagne, which in my experience fascinating women of a certain age tend to prefer to brandy and soda.

  ‘“Well, then,” she began. “I confess that I am what I believe people call an adventuress, and in the course of my life I have known many remarkable men. Most remarkable of all, perhaps, was one whom I shall call merely Raoul, though this was not his real name. He was of impeccably aristocratic stock, and was both handsome and fabulously wealthy – the sort of man who has spent his life in the company of bankers and princes. I’m sure you know the type.”

  ‘“I do,” I said, having knocked around quite a bit with men who were called things like Raoul, though it was not their real name.

  ‘“But, he said,” or so she said he had told her, “the most memorable meeting of his life had been in an obscure Indian village with a one-eyed holy man so poor that he owned little more than the loincloth that preserved his modesty.

  ‘“The holy man had told him a strange tale. He had once been begging his bread in the dusty gardens of a certain remote temple when he had come face to face with Death. He knew at once, of course, that his time on this earth was up. In order to postpone the inevitable, however, if only for an hour or two, he had said to Death, ‘Death, in the course of your life you must have had many interesting adventures, and you have, I am sure, many extraordinary and perhaps ironic tales to tell about them.’

  ‘“Death had laughed. ‘I can see your game!’ he had told the holy man. ‘But you are right. Life is a funny business, and death an even funnier one. There are indeed many tales I could tell. But for some reason the one that first comes to mind concerns something that happened many years ago aboard a ship somewhere in the southern seas. I am obliged to travel a great deal in my line of work, as you can imagine. I had been on a professional visit to Sumatra, my next port of call was Djibouti, and the only passage I could get was aboard a small and uncomfortable steamer that would take several weeks to reach its destination. You know the kind of vessel I mean.’

  ‘“‘I believe I do,’ the holy man had responded. ‘A smoke-blackened old tub where there was nothing to do all day but sit under an awning on the afterdeck, sipping rum and lime against the oppressive heat?’

  ‘“Death had nodded. ‘You are remarkably well informed, for a poor holy man, about ocean-going passenger transport,’ he had said. ‘Well, then, the only other passenger was a taciturn fellow who scarcely return
ed my nodded greeting, and who said nothing at all for the first eight days of the crossing. Then, for some reason, as we both sat watching the tropical sun slip below the horizon and sipping our rum and limes, he said, “Forgive me, but we have now seen the tropical sun slip below the horizon eight times, and I can’t help wondering if you feel, as I do, that its entertainment value has now been pretty much exhausted.”

  ‘“‘I laughed, and said, “I can’t help feeling that this is the prelude to a story that you are just about to tell me.”

  ‘“‘He laughed in his turn. “It is,” he confessed. “It concerns a woman I once met, who told me she had been told the story that follows by a man who said he had once been in an old-fashioned resort …”’”’

  ‘Just a moment!’ I cried. ‘I may have had one too many brandy and sodas, but I seem to have lost the thread. Is this the man on the steamer who is telling us the story now? Or is it the man that the man on the steamer had met? Or is it Death? Or is it the man who was called whatever it was only it wasn’t his real name? Or is it you? Or could it perhaps be me?’

  My interlocutor laughed. ‘Heaven knows!’ he said. ‘Does it matter? Anyway, to cut a long story short, someone or other is explaining how he had once been in an old-fashioned resort …’

  ‘You don’t by any chance mean,’ I interrupted, ‘the kind where time passes so slowly that it always seems to be somewhere around the year 1910?’

  ‘Of course. And where there is a writer of an older generation sitting in the lounge with nothing much to do but sip a brandy and soda, and keep an amused but watchful eye on his fellow guests.’

  ‘I can’t help feeling,’ I couldn’t help exclaiming, ‘that I know this fellow.’

  ‘You do,’ my interlocutor confirmed. ‘And you will no doubt be aware that he was reflecting to himself, as he so often did, what a rum business life is …’

  A new version of The Ten Terms and Conditions is available.

  Do you want to download it? Yes No

  This is a download from Heaven.

  Trust this source? Yes No

  Terms and Conditions

  1. Acceptance of these terms and conditions constitutes an exclusive contract with Me.

  2. Please note that My policy on graven images has changed. Emojis and selfies (with or without clothes) are now permitted, as are snapshots of the children and grandchildren unto the third and fourth generation.

  3. My name is copyright, and any unauthorised use will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law as made and administered by Me.

  4. Take a break this sabbath! Click here to see My amazing holiday and leisure offers!

  5. Also observe Mothers’ Day (22 March) and Fathers’ Day (15 June). Click here to have supercool chox or flowers delivered with your personal message to any postcode!

  6. All hunting and shooting rights are strictly reserved. Human beings may only be killed by Me and My authorised licensees.

  7. No adultery, except in Las Vegas, if you really think you can trust what it says in the advertisements about no one finding out.

  8. No stealing, except when done by individuals and companies who are too wealthy to have any need to, in accordance with local tax laws.

  9. No false witness, except when undertaken by employees of the agencies of law and order when they’re privately pretty sure that someone did something but they can’t find any actual evidence, or to support colleagues who are accused of doing things they probably did do only you can’t say so because they’re your mates.

  10. No coveting your neighbour’s house, even if it has a brand-new solarium and heated swimming pool; or his manservant or his maidservant, who are both probably illegal immigrants and would only land you in a heap of trouble for employing them; or his ox or his ass, unless you want to get tied up in all the government regulations that owning livestock involves.

  To continue, check the box:

  I have read and understood

  The Ten Terms and Conditions. Yes No

  You must check this box to continue …

  Oh, come on! And don’t tell me you can’t check it because you haven’t actually read and understood the Terms and Conditions. Of course you haven’t! No one reads them! And they wouldn’t understand them even if they did! They just click ‘Yes’! And, no, it’s not false witness, don’t be so wet, how can clicking some little box thing be false witness …?

  Right, thank you.

  I am not a robot.

  Oh, good. Not that anyone asked you. So now we can get on to the interactive bit, which I gather you have to have on any modern website to show you care what people think. So:

  Post a comment

  Gundlesnap2:

  I agree about no adultery adults are soooo boring.

  Choochoo:

  I dont agree with not killing people cos suppose they say something like really fascist your not gonna say hey please dont do that your gonna say I know your address and Im coming round to your house and Im gonna kill you.

  Fatso5:

  Yeah and also your kids and your old mother and your little puppydog and Im gonna just luv doin it.

  Fleabite:

  Plus second amendment right to bear arms cos whats the point of bearing arms if you cant shoot people.

  Mobstermummy:

  Bear arms are cool if you got nice-looking arms.

  Dumbodee:

  I never see a bear wid nice-looking arms.

  Dizzydog:

  And whats the big hassle about stealing. People covet by insurance so whats the problem.

  Strewth7:

  No, covets wrong. Way 2 much covet these days how would you like to find you was being covet surveyed.

  Masteroftheuniverse:

  Force witness is OK if someones gonna to blow you up and they wont say then you gotta force em.

  Thank you. Most helpful.

  Now please enter your password:

  No – nothing like it. Have another go:

  Even more ridiculous. That’s probably your password for some other religion entirely. One more try. Then you’re locked out of your account for all eternity …

  What do you feel about quantum entanglement?

  You what …? You think it’s an extraordinarily interesting phenomenon? You think it is? That’s not actually what I asked you. I don’t care what you think about it. I asked you what you feel about it. No one these days wants to know what anyone thinks about things. Thinking’s over!

  So, your feelings about quantum entanglement. Are you happy with the idea? Sad, then …? Outraged …? Disgusted …? Over the moon …? Gutted …? Conflicted …?

  Nauseous …? Light-headed …?

  No feelings? Well, do you at any rate feel comfortable with it …?

  You don’t know what to say … Well, do you think you might feel comfortable with it if I fetched you a stool to put your feet up on …?

  Nothing …? All right, then, I’ll try you on something else.

  What do you feel 3.89 times 17.54 ought to be equal to? Do you have an instinctive gut preference for something under 50, or something over?

  What do you feel about 3.89 as a number? Do you feel you’d like it to come after 3.88 in the series of real numbers? Or would you be happier to see it slipped in between, say, 97.1 and 98.6 …?

  Still blank? You must have feelings about something! What about sodium’s eagerness to combine with oxygen? Do you feel it’s a shade incautious? Would you feel more comfortable about it if they got to know each other a bit better first?

  No? All right – so what do you feel about this? About my asking you how you feel about things …? Come on! On a scale of one to ten …

  Zero? So you’re telling me that you can’t express your feelings? That you’re completely out of touch with them? And do you blame this on your parents? Is this why you feel so angry with them?

  What? You don’t even feel angry with your parents?

  My God! So what you’re telling me is that you f
eel totally affectless? A robot, a zombie …?

  Oh. You don’t even feel that …?

  All right, then, I’ll tell you how I feel. About anything you like. Death-watch beetles … Taiwan Sauvignon … Alexander the Great …

  I have a funny feeling you’re not very interested in my feelings. I feel I do want to tell you, though, whatever you feel about what I feel. And what I feel most strongly is … well …

  Like a spot of lunch, perhaps.

  So have you finished it, darling?

  – Finished what?

  The book!

  – What book?

  What book? Darling!

  – You mean this book?

  This book – yes! Have you finished it?

  – Hold on …

  You must remember if you’ve finished it!

  – I’m just checking … Yes, I have.

  So what was it about?

  – Oh, you know. This and that. Various things.

  You’ve forgotten what it was about?

  – Of course I haven’t forgotten! You’re always telling me I’ve forgotten things!

  Because you very often have.

  – I certainly haven’t forgotten your endlessly telling me I have!

  That’s something, at any rate. So, these various things …

  – What various things?

  In the book! The various things that the book’s about! What were they?

  – What is this? An exam?

  You can’t remember. Never mind. Just tell me what sort of book it was.

  – What sort of book?

  You must at least remember what sort of book it was! Was it a novel? A biography? A cookbook?

  – Not really.

  Not really what?

  – Not really the sort of book that’s a particular sort.

  So does it have a happy ending, at any rate?