A=Glitter and Twisted 1
By andrew_pack
- 865 reads
Will life ever be sane again ?
Not one of mine. Morrissey.
But it's something I can't help wondering while the guy with the
cherry-red eyes slaps me lightly around the face and tells me I only
have a flesh wound. The guy is named Grant, so far as I know. Maybe
everything is a lie.
Grant says to me, Get up. Do you want to save your coat or not ?
The morning wasn't so strange as this. This isn't the sort of story I
like. I like the stories that start off dull and mundane and gradually
get a bit weird. This one is weird from the off and? then what ? Gets
odder ? Goes back to normal ? Explains everything and ties it up into a
neat parcel ?
I'm reminded of what Grant said to me a few hours ago, after he told me
why the British Government spends five million a year subsidising
karaoke bars. He said, and he was eating a home-prepared tuna sandwich
at the time, "This isn't going to end well, my dearie duck. "
This isn't right. I'm a guy who knows how much toner there is in the
cupboard. That's the level of responsibility I sought and found in
life. I should just go home now, go to sleep for a few days, wake up
and go to the Co-op to get some watery bacon.
But I do want to save my coat.
* * *
This is how it starts. This, according to Grant, much later, is how it
always starts. I go out clubbing. I like to go out on a Tuesday night,
makes me feel less of a wage slave. I drink shorts on a Monday night
and on a Tuesday, I go clubbing with a few mates. The rest of the week
I go to bed early, maybe read a book, watch some E4. Nothing
special.
Wednesday morning, I'm getting dressed. I sleep as late as I can, cane
down some Lucozade Sport. I've found if I put it in the freezer when I
get back from the club, three hours later when I get up, it is just the
right consistency. I'm ironing a shirt and trying to put on my shoes
without undoing the laces when the doorbell goes.
This is the odd thing - I look at my watch and there are no hands on my
watch. Every clock in the house is just doing that blinking thing your
video does after a power-cut. It's as if, whatever time it is, can't
appear on a twenty-four hour clock.
This turns out to be, not a comedown freakish thought, but close to the
mark. For all the dreadful American R&;B nonsense about "Twenty-four
seven", the Beatles were closer and more dramatic with "Eight days a
week" - there is more time than most people know about.
When I get the door open, I've still got my right heel pressing against
the back of my shoe, working its way in but not quite there. The two
people at the door are policemen.
"Mr Kerry ? Inspector Harper, " says the taller, grimmer of the two,
"This is DC Vague. "
I think he says Vague. I need some nurofen. Or better yet, Migraleve. I
don't suffer from migraines, but these are the best hangover cures
around; kills headaches, nausea, the shakes. I recommend them
highly.
"Where were you last night sir ? " asks Vague, whose face has a sort of
plastic quality to it I don't like, pearlescent almost. Like I'm
looking at him through someone else's contact lenses.
"Clubbing, " I say and then attempt more conviction but instead seem
more shifty, "Clubbing, yes, that's where I was. "
"Don't like the stubble, " says Vague, "Very Faith-era George Michael.
"
The grimmer one places a hand on his arm, "Now, Vague. We're not here
to criticise. I'm sure the gentleman is going to shave before he goes
to work. Perhaps apply a little post-shave healer, then some Clinique
for men moisturiser ? "
These are odd cops.
"Wear a coat, did you sir ? " says Vague, in a sneering sort of way,
looking past me along the jackets I have hung on coathooks in the hall.
There are four empty hooks and three that are piled with coat after
coat.
"Perhaps a trendy coat, sir ? "
He has a sort of malevolent tailor-from-the-Fast-Show thing working for
him. I lose it a bit. The coat I wore out is one I particularly like -
it's a sort of tan leather coat thing, finishes just below the hip, and
when I wear it I feel like Tyler Durden from Fight Club. When I slip it
on, I always mouth, "How's that working out for you ? Being clever ?
"
Not mine - Tyler Durden.
I pick the coat from the hook. "This is it, " I say, "This is the one I
wore to the club. "
Harper moves a little step backwards, "No need to do anything foolish
sir, " he says.
"Brown shoes, " mutters Vague to himself, "He'll have worn some brown
shoes with that, surely. Maybe pelotas, maybe bowling shoes. "
"I'm going to close the door now, " I say to them.
"Wait, " says Harper, "It would have been warm in the club, wouldn't it
? And you would be, what? dancing ? "
"A bit, " I say.
"Wearing the coat? "
I tell them of course not, that I put my coat in the cloakroom,
collected it before I left. And that's when Vague sticks a knife in my
leg and grabs the coat from me.
* * *
What the hell ?
I ring the police, to report it. I ring nine times and all I get is an
answering machine.
I have a Liverpool football top pressed to the wound in my leg - it was
the only red thing I had. The hands on my watch are still missing and
when I'd dragged myself over to the freezer (maybe, it has to be said,
making a meal of it, it had been a very thin knife and quite a small
wound), the Lucozade hadn't chilled right and the freezer didn't seem
cold at all.
As I think about ringing again, the doorbell rings and Grant is there.
I don't know him, but this only lasts about three seconds, he is
pumping my hand up and down.
"Sorry I'm late Graeme, " he says, "I was wasting time with Kerry
Graham. Got the signals scrambled, you see ? "
He is plump and no older than me, but dressed head to toe in clothes he
could have bought from Wingads or? I dunno, Grace Brothers menswear
department. Beige and grey checked trousers, with a knife-crease in
them, some soft pasty-like shoes and a moss-green zip-up cardigan. But
those cherry-red eyes.
"Grant, " he says, "Weights and Measures"
Aren't those the guys who make sure that a pint of beer is like
definitely a pint, the full five hundred and whatever millilitres its
supposed to be ? I say this to him and he says :-
"Did you know that the official measure for the pound and the foot
burned down in the Houses of Parliament three hundred years ago ?
There's no way, absolutely no way to prove now what a foot should
actually be, definitely. "
"So that is what you do ? "
He looks at me as though I'm an idiot, "No - I just do a lot of pub
quizzes. You can learn a lot from pub quizzes. Not just general
knowledge. You wait a while and see how the fractal patterns come up -
some people think you can tell the future from pub quiz questions.
That's why I'm here. Four quizzes in a row 'Name four footballers who
were capped for England and have an X in their name'. It's taken ages
to track you down. "
"Of course, " he says, picking up my chubby bottle of Lucozade,
drinking from it and then wiping the cap on his sleeve, "Not all pub
games are predictive. Nobody ever got anything mystical out of a
bandit. Or Space Invaders. "
I'm starting to prefer the guy who stabbed me in the leg.
"You ever wonder where they kept the mile ? The kilogram, that's in
Paris. Kept at damn near absolute zero, a perfect standard kilogram
that any other can be compared to, calibrated with. Same with the
metre. But where did they keep the mile ? You'd need a big room.
"
"Ah, my leg ? " I say to him, "A policeman stabbed me. "
He has a bag with him and takes something out of it and puts it on my
leg. It stings like hell, but it seems to take some of the pain out of
it.
"What is that ? " I ask, "Some kind of magic balm ?"
"Dettol, " he says, once again giving me the look with those cherry
eyes. Then he says, "Magic balm, jesus. "
No need to take the piss, I tell him. Insane policemen criticised my
beard, took my coat and stabbed me in the leg.
"Your coat ? "
Yeah, I tell him. Nice tan leather coat, great fit. I was just wearing
it in as well, it takes a well to get leather feeling as supple as you
want it to.
"Was one of the cops called Vogue ?"
Vague, I thought, and say so.
"Vogue and Harper, " says Grant and lets out a low whistle through his
teeth, "Good job I wore this then. "
He takes a look at his watch, then grabs my wrist and looks at mine. He
hasn't gone more than five seconds without speaking since he came
in.
"Have you got Risk ? You know, the board game ? Nothing's going to
happen here. Time's having a bit of a hiccup. Risk is the best way to?
well, it's good to do while we're waiting for time to kick back in.
Could be a while. Not that a while means anything at the moment, or
that there is a moment at the moment. "
God, he can talk.
I limp about and find the game in a cupboard. I start reading the rules
to work out how many armies you start with, but he's already counted
them out before we begin.
"I'm yellow, " he says firmly, "I'm always yellow. "
He plays Risk as the name suggests, taking gambles, trying to beat my
five armies with his three, but the dice are with him. I'm a
conservative player, grabbing Australia and South America and just
consolidating.
"Weights and Measures, " he tells me as he shakes the dice (he does it
in cupped hands, far too vigorously, the red dice are warm and clammy
when I get them back), "I do all sorts of weird stuff. What we're doing
right now is? well, have you heard of Dark Matter ?"
As it goes, I have. The stuff that scientists have invented because if
the universe was made of what they thought, it wouldn't be dense enough
to stay together, so something out there weighs more than they
thought.
"Good, " he says, "Sharp boy. Well, I know the weight of the earth. The
mass, if we're being precise. I know the mass of the earth and every
single thing that's on it - cigars, people, post-it notes, umbrellas,
car batteries. Everything. Huge teams have calibrated how much mass
there is on the earth and guess what ?"
There's a huge discrepency, is what he tells me. The measured mass of
the earth is far more than we can account for. Really, far more.
"You must have missed something, " I say, "Insects maybe. They're
little, but there's billions of them. That adds up. Or chemists shops.
"
He stops shaking the dice and lays them carefully on the table,
positioning them so that they all have sixes face up. He speaks very
slowly and deliberately. "We. Didn't. Miss. Anything. There's something
else on this planet that nobody knows about. And whatever it is, it's
heavy and secretive. "
"What's this got to do with my coat ?" I ask him.
He picks up the dice and shrugs, "I dunno. Maybe nothing at all. I was
just giving you some background, is all. I think your coat is probably
a political activist of some kind. Working with my people. Against the
other sort of people. "
Very clear.
"I would imagine that your coat has been charged with murder. There
were some odd killings last night. Heard it on the radio before I got
here. "
He looks at his watch, "Good stuff. Hands are back. I'll be off then.
"
"Hang on, " I say, "You can't just come in, tell me all this weird
stuff and then go. And besides, we still haven't finished this game.
"
"Think you can take me, do you ?" He looks at the board and realises
that he is clinging onto Western Europe and a few territories in
America so insignificant nobody even remembers their name. All Risk
games either end in Quebec or with a huge assault on Thailand, before
mopping up ones and twos that are huddled in Australia awaiting the
end.
"Dangerous for me to be here, " he says, "This is looking worryingly
like a story. And at present, I'm the guy who knows everything. If I
stick around with you, I'm bound to be killed, thus leaving you to find
your way alone in a strange world. "
"Attacking Western Europe, from Iceland, " I say, "With three armies.
"
"Seriously, " he says, "It's safer for me if I leave now. I'll be in
touch. You need to find your coat. "
He digresses and tells me why it is that the British Government spend
so much taxpayers money subsidising karaoke nights in pubs.
"You ever hear of the Tetragrammaton ? The four letters, Yod, He, Vau,
He. The name of God. Hebrew tradition says if they are ever pronounced
exactly right, it will result in the death of God. Names are powerful,
Graeme Kerry. Well, some odd research in the Eighties suggested that
something very powerful indeed could be unlocked by just the right
singing of I will Survive. At first, they tried the old Shakespeare and
monkeys trick - get hundreds of session singers. But they were too
good. Turns out you need someone who can hit the wrong notes, but
exactly the right wrong notes. "
I've eaten nearly a pack of nurofen now, gulping those slippy pink
pills till I've no saliva left in my mouth.
"Did you go to school with a lad called Twitch? " he asks, taking a
tuna sandwich out of his pocket, "I suggest you get in touch with him.
"
"This isn't going to end well, my dearie duck," he says to me.
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