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  ‘Beard,’ said Augustus.

  Sir John burst into a flood of tears.

  The doctor comforted him. ‘Have a sweetie from this bag here,’ he said, patting the tall man’s shoulder.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Augustus. ‘The state of you all . . . the . . .’

  ‘Monty the head man nicked his beard.’ Danbury grinned as he said it.

  ‘Shaved it off?’ Augustus dropped into his chair.

  ‘Pulled it off.’ Danbury made the motions. ‘It was a falsy. We never knew.’

  ‘Nuke the island,’ croaked Sir John between blubberings.

  ‘We have discussed that.’ Augustus waggled sticky digits. ‘Nuking the creature is not an option.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the creature. I’m talking about the swine who stole my beard.’

  Danbury clutched at his stomach and sniggered foolishly.

  ‘Stop sniggering!’ shouted Sir John.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Danbury, who wasn’t.

  ‘So, where is it?’ asked Augustus.

  ‘My beard?’

  ‘Not your beard. My spacecraft. My seven-pointed spacecraft, which you were to retrieve for me and bring back here. Outside on a lorry, is it?’

  Dr Harney shook his froth. ‘Not exactly,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We ran into a spot of trouble,’ said Danbury, offering an empty smile.

  ‘All right,’ said Augustus, ‘tell me all about it.’

  Danbury opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ said Dr Harney. ‘You can’t do it without laughing anyway.’

  Danbury turned his face away and sniggered at the wall.

  ‘We ran into a spot of trouble on the island,’ said the doctor. ‘The Americans had got there first and bribed the natives. We were captured and held prisoner while the Americans absconded in a tramp steamer with the spacecraft.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Augustus.

  ‘You see, Sir John had biffed the head man of the village and the head man tried to cut off Sir John’s beard and it sort of came off—’

  ‘And I shot the head man’s dog,’ said Danbury.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dr Harney, ‘and in the confusion we managed to escape in a canoe. We were later picked up by a rescue plane that was looking for the tramp steamer.’

  ‘But the plane crashed,’ said Danbury.

  ‘Yes, it crashed.’ Dr Harney made fists. ‘Will you please shut up. I’m telling this.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Danbury, smirking away.

  ‘The rescue plane flew off searching for the tramp steamer. We eventually reached it. It was moored to a liner.’

  ‘A liner?’ Augustus raised his eyebrows.

  ‘The pilot flew us in close. It was an American cruise ship called The Leviathan. The creature was aboard, on deck.’

  ‘It was horrible,’ said Danbury. ‘Twenty feet high, all green with a great fat sprout hat and—’

  ‘Hold it!’ Augustus rose from his seat. ‘You mean that the alien creature is alive? That it is out of its spacecraft?’

  ‘Afraid so,’ said the doctor. ‘And it was horrible. It was sitting there upon mounds of cushions and everyone on deck, thousands of people, were all on their knees, praying to it.’

  ‘Dear God!’

  ‘And it had a barbecue on the go,’ said Danbury.

  ‘Shut up!’ said the doctor. ‘We weren’t going to mention that.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Augustus.

  ‘There was a barbecue and there were bits of . . .’ Dr Harney hesitated.

  ‘Bits of people,’ said Danbury. ‘It was cooking people on the barbecue.’

  ‘This is terrible, terrible.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Dr Harney. ‘We were circling around, trying to take a few pictures, when the creature saw us—’

  ‘And the pilot started clutching at his head,’ Danbury now clutched at his, ‘and going “aaaaagh, the pain, the pain” and the plane went out of control and we crashed into the sea.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Augustus.

  ‘We were picked up by a fishing boat,’ continued Dr Harney. ‘But Sir John got into an argument with the captain because he wouldn’t change course for us and—’

  ‘I shot the captain’s parrot.’ said Danbury.

  ‘Shut up! We were thrown overboard just west of Haiti. We had to swim ashore. Then we caught the plane home.’

  ‘There was some further unpleasantness,’ said Danbury.

  ‘I doubt whether Mr Naseby wants to hear about that.’

  ‘I damn well do!’ said Augustus, who was slowly but surely reaching the boil.

  ‘At the airport in Haiti,’ the doctor continued. ‘They wouldn’t let Sir John through passport control. Without his beard he didn’t look like his photo and—’

  ‘I shot the passport chap’s goat.’

  ‘Goat!’

  ‘The airport mascot. We had to hijack the plane and—’

  ‘Enough!’ Augustus rose to his feet and brought his fists down hard once more, driving maggot smearings into the table top. ‘I don’t want to hear any more. You fouled it all up. I trusted you and you fouled it all up.’

  ‘He’s talking to you, doctor,’ said Danbury.

  ‘He’s talking to Sir John,’ said the doctor.

  ‘I’m talking to no-one,’ said Sir John. ‘I shall take a vow of silence and get me to a monastery.’

  ‘I see.’ Augustus sat down and lurked in his chair. ‘So no-one is going to take any responsibility for this.’

  ‘Sir John should take full responsibility,’ said Danbury.

  ‘I should do no such thing. The blame lies with the Americans.’

  ‘There is some truth in that,’ agreed the doctor. ‘And if there’s any responsibility left over, Danbury should take it.’

  ‘What a bare-faced cheek,’ said Danbury.

  There was a moment’s silence. Then all eyes turned to the bare-faced cheeks of Sir John Rimmer.

  ‘Oh,’ said Danbury. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’ His smirk began to grow again. ‘I mean . . . it just slipped out . . .’ He looked over at the doctor. ‘But it’s pretty good though, isn’t it? Bare-faced cheek.’ Then Danbury folded up. ‘Bare-faced cheek,’ he went as he collapsed in laughter. ‘What a good’n, what a good’n!’

  Dr Harney fought with a smirk of his own. ‘That’s not amusing,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘It is.’ Danbury sank to his knees, howling with laughter.

  Which, as we all know, can be infectious.

  Especially during times of stress.

  ‘Bare-faced cheek,’ said Augustus, pointing at Sir John.

  Danbury, on the floor now, kicked his legs in the air.

  Dr Harney began to titter. ‘It’s not funny,’ he giggled. ‘It isn’t.’

  Augustus Naseby broke into guffaws. ‘It is,’ he gasped. ‘It is.’

  ‘You’re right,’ and the doctor sank to the floor, clutching his stomach and laughing like the drain of yore. ‘But I’ll say one thing for Sir John,’ he managed between convulsions. ‘He takes it very well, considering all the hair-raising adventures he’s had.’

  ‘Oooh, that’s good.’ Danbury rolled about. ‘And the close shaves. Don’t forget the close shaves.’

  ‘He certainly gets around,’ gagged Augustus, now also on the floor. ‘You could say he’s hair today and gone tomorrow.’

  ‘To baldly go where no man has gone before,’ croaked the doctor.

  ‘That’s a quote, isn’t it?’ Danbury dabbed at the tears in his eyes. ‘It’s either Oscar Wilde, or… or . . .’

  ‘Or?’ gulped the doctor.

  ‘Hairy Belafonte.’

  ‘No, no.’ The doctor shook his laughing head. ‘It was Shakespeare. The Immortal Beard.’

  ‘Shut up, you rotters!’ Sir John leaped from his chair and stamped up and down on the floor. ‘Shut up! Do you hear me?’

  Danbury drummed his fists on the carpet. Dr Harne
y tried to struggle to his feet. Augustus Naseby said, ‘He’s right, enough is enough.’

  ‘I want to say something,’ shouted Sir John. ‘Something serious.’

  Augustus nodded. ‘All right,’ said he. ‘Pull yourselves together now, lads. Sir John wants to say something serious.’

  Danbury and Dr H. climbed to their respective feet and tried to look very serious.

  ‘Go on then, Sir John,’ said Augustus. ‘Get it off your chest.’

  Another moment’s silence.

  Then collapse.

  ‘You utter rotters!’ Sir John Rimmer stormed about, kicking at the bellowing buffoons. ‘You rotten rotting rotters, stop!’

  ‘All right. All right.’ Augustus staggered to the table. ‘Enough, and I really mean it this time. Come on now, lads, law of diminishing returns and everything. If Sir John has something to say, let’s listen to what it is.’

  The others nodded, pulled out chairs and placed their bottoms upon them.

  ‘Go on then, Sir John.’

  Sir John looked down at the three seated men. ‘All right,’ said he, ‘you have all enjoyed a good laugh at my expense and in all truth I deserve it. The false beard was a foolish vanity. The foolish vanity of a foolish man who led a failed expedition. Who has endangered the lives of thousands now and possibly millions in the very near future. I am a failure. I am a fake. Danbury, take out your father’s gun and put it to my head.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ said Danbury, reaching for his pistol.

  ‘Don’t be absurd.’ Dr Harney elbowed Danbury in the ribs. ‘You are not a failure, Sir John. You are a noble man. An English gentleman.’

  ‘Then I shall take the gentleman’s way out. Hand me your pistol, Danbury.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ said the lad.

  ‘No.’ The doctor elbowed him again.

  ‘That hurts,’ said Danbury.

  Sir John squared his narrow shoulders. ‘You are right, doctor,’ he said. ‘Suicide achieves nothing. It is the coward’s way out. I must make amends. I will confront the creature myself.’

  ‘Not such a good idea,’ said Danbury.

  ‘Are you seriously serious?’ Augustus Naseby asked.

  ‘Seriously seriously serious.’

  ‘That’s serious all right.’

  ‘There are at least three thousand people on that ship,’ said Sir John (seriously), ‘and I do not want their deaths on my conscience. The Americans have clearly hushed the whole affair up and may well be planning to nuke the ship themselves.’

  ‘I would,’ said Danbury.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Dr Harney.

  ‘I will go,’ said Sir John, ‘out to the ship. We are dealing with a creature that behaves as if it is a god. I will pose as an acolyte come to praise it and welcome it back. Once I have inveigled myself into its confidence, I will kill it.’

  Danbury whistled. ‘That’s very brave,’ he said.

  ‘Indeed it is,’ said Augustus, rising from his chair to shake Sir John’s hand. ‘No matter the outcome, you will have my undying respect.’

  ‘Mine also,’ said Dr Harney, shaking the noble hand too.

  ‘And mine,’ said Danbury, waving the hand that nobody wanted to shake. ‘But . . . I suppose . . .’

  ‘Suppose what?’ asked Sir John.

  ‘That you might . . .’

  ‘Might not come back?’

  ‘Well, that it could be said that you were . . .’

  ‘Dying for my country, what?’

  ‘No,’ said Danbury. ‘Going to beard the lion in his den.’

  13

  In his den of a coma and growing a beard, lay the son of Augustus Naseby.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Wok Boy, pouring soup into a tube that was sticking out of Porrig. ‘We’ll have to do something to wake you up. You can’t just lie here day after day with us waiting on you hand and foot.’

  Rippington sat on Porrig’s chest and nodded his little grey head.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Wok Boy asked.

  ‘He’s saying that you’re pouring soup down his air pipe.’

  ‘Whoops!’ Wok Boy tore out the funnel, spilling boiling hot soup all over Porrig’s crotch.

  ‘You’d have thought that would have stirred him.’ Rippington put on a pained expression.

  ‘He’s just not responding to treatment.’

  ‘I thought you had him going yesterday, when you put those red ants in his pyjama trousers.’

  ‘I thought I had him going when I stuck that electric cattle prod up his—’

  Rippington grinned down at Porrig. ‘I bet I could wake you up,’ he said

  Porrig’s thoughts moved into hideous territory.

  ‘No, nothing like that.’ Rippington turned up the corners of his mouth, exposing his nasty little teeth. ‘It’s something I read in a book. One of the Tales of Earth series, about this woman who goes to live in a house with these seven little men and she eats this apple and falls asleep and a handsome prince kisses her and she wakes up again. And then she goes off with the handsome prince, leaving the poor little men to fend for themselves again. I think it’s probably meant to be allegorical. Either that or it’s intended to show what a fickle and ungracious bunch Earth women are.’

  Rippington listened. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can understand that you don’t want Wok Boy kissing you. I thought perhaps we might find a princess and she could kiss you and you might wake up. Mind you, I don’t know where all the princesses live. Is there a palace nearby?’

  ‘No,’ said the vision in white. ‘I won’t do it.’

  Wok Boy stood in The Flying Pig, his hands in his greasy jeans’ pockets. ‘He’ll make it worth your while,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yeah? So he’s worth a bit, is he?’

  ‘He’s got nearly half a million quid’s worth of vintage comic books in his shop.’

  ‘And I can have them all?’

  ‘Well, not all.’

  ‘How many, then? How much?’

  ‘A thousand quid’s worth.’

  The vision in white considered this. Wok Boy considered her breasts. He’d plied her with drinks all the previous evening, but she hadn’t even let him have a feel yet.

  ‘It’s not enough,’ said the vision.

  ‘I might be able to push him up a bit. Mind you . . .’

  ‘Mind you what?’

  ‘You’d have to make it worth my while.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We could both do well out of this. I can’t touch any of his stock, I promised someone. But if I could persuade him to cough up a bit more, would you split the profits with me?’

  ‘Ten grand,’ said the vision. ‘Ten grand for me.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Wok Boy. ‘I’ll get someone else.’

  ‘All right. Nine grand and that’s my final offer.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Wok Boy. ‘Ten grand, if you throw in some oral sex.’

  ‘I’m not giving a bloke in a coma oral sex!’

  ‘Who said anything about him!’

  It would be painful and indeed tasteless to record in detail just what happened next. How Wok Boy got the experience of a lifetime and Porrig got a bit of half-hearted lip-pecking and how Porrig confided to Rippington that he thought the kissing might just work if he had a lot more of it and how Rippington passed this on to Wok Boy who struck another deal with the vision in white and how by the end of the day Wok Boy was hardly able to stand up at all and there was not a single comic book left on the shelves of Porrig’s shop.

  And how Porrig still lay in a coma.

  Although Wok Boy had shifted him over so he could lie down and have a rest too.

  Rippington shook his little grey head. ‘I think we should have another go with the electric cattle prod,’ he said.

  At exactly five-twenty-three and four-and-a-half-seconds-nearly the next morning, Porrig awoke with a start.

  It was not the start of a cattle prod, but a natural start. A new start. A new awakening.
/>   Porrig jumped to his feet (a jump-start?), rushed across the room, down the stairs and into his shop. Then Porrig screamed very loudly, rushed out of his shop, back up the stairs and into his bedroom and began to kick the life out of Wok Boy.

  Wok Boy awoke with a start of his own. And being of a disposition given to long lies-in, he took unkindly to this brutal treatment and dealt out some of his own.

  He did not beat Porrig into unconsciousness, because that would have been unfair, what with him just having woken up from his coma and everything. But he taught the lad the error of his ways and sent him off to the kitchenette to make tea.

  Porrig stirred some blue stuff in a cup. ‘All my comics,’ he growled and he scowled. ‘All my frigging comics. And all for the frigging. I heard them outside on the landing, humping away, and her making off with my stock. Damn woman. Rippington was right about Snow White. They’re all the same. A lot of parasites out for what they can grab. I’ll have to marry her now, if I ever want to see my stock again.’

  ‘Your thinking processes are a total mystery to me,’ said Rippington. ‘The logic you work on is nothing less than surreal.’

  Porrig turned to confront the little imp that stood grinning in the doorway. ‘Oh, you know all about the Surrealist Movement, do you?’

  ‘Nineteenth harmonic on the fish scale,’ said Rippington. ‘Never been there myself. But they say it’s a very nice place. A bit like Penge.’

  ‘Whatever are you going on about?’

  ‘Surrealing, where the Surrealists come from. As opposed to South Ealing, which is somewhere else altogether.’

  ‘Go away,’ said Porrig. ‘I hold you to blame also.’

  ‘Why, it woke you up, didn’t it?’

  ‘I woke up by myself.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Rippington. ‘You had your last half-hearted peck on the lips at seven-twenty-seven last night, which would mean that you should have woken up this morning at precisely five-twenty-three and four-and-a-half-seconds-nearly.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Porrig. ‘And aaaaaaaaaagh!’ He thrust his head into the sink and turned the tap on. ‘Uuuuuuuuuuurghbbbbbbrgh,’ he continued as he swirled water in and out of his mouth.

  ‘Surrealing,’ said Rippington. ‘That’s the place for you.’

  ‘Blast and damn her to hell,’ said Porrig, drying his face on a tea towel.