The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag Read online

  To ban foxhunting was to do little less than herald in the End Times and welcome the arrival of the Anti-Christ.

  Blimey!

  This all came as a bit of a revelation to the townie. For one thing, the townie had always believed that the greatest threat to a farmer’s crops came not from the meat-eating fox but from the strictly vegetarian rabbit, which was, by a curious coincidence, the all-but-staple diet of the fox. And surely only one and a half per cent of the British populace actually lived in the country, and the countryside only contributed three per cent to the Gross National Product. And surely most farmers had guns? After all they were always pointing them at townies who inadvertently picnicked upon their land. Couldn’t they simply shoot the foxes?

  It was indeed a bit of a revelation, and one that served to pave over that aforementioned divide which had for so long, er, divided the rural community from its urban brother. Foxhunting provided full employment for the country folk, and spared the town-dweller from the rabid attentions of the demonic fox pack.

  Harmony.

  So where did the fox farms come into this? Well, as I thought I’d explained, there weren’t enough foxes to hunt.

  It was the town-dwellers’ fault. Their love of motor cars and motorways. You see, ten times as many foxes are killed by motor cars than are killed by foxhunts, which explains why country folk always protest so much about new motorways.

  It’s all so simple when it’s explained, isn’t it?

  So my Uncle Brian worked on a fox farm. It was one of the new ones. A fox factory farm. My uncle was employed as a genetic engineer. The aim was to breed the super-fox. A vegetarian fox that was a really slow runner, as so many foxhunters are old and fat, just like their hounds.

  My Uncle Brian enjoyed the work. Playing God and tampering with the laws of nature had always appealed to him. But he became unemployed in 1997 with the change of government, and this in turn led him to lose the thirty-five quid which in its turn came to bring down the British book publishing industry.

  Allow me to explain.

  What happened was this. The new Labour government was very keen to save money. Having the nation’s interests ever at heart they decided to cut back on government spending, and one way they found of achieving this was by amalgamating certain top secret departments and restructuring them so that they would run at a profit. Lumping them all together, as it were, sharing jobs. Fox farming, which was Very Top Secret, got amalgamated with UFO back-engineering, which was Above Top Secret.

  UFO back-engineering is when a government acquires a grounded flying saucer and then takes it apart in order to see what makes it run. This has not as yet been successfully achieved, which explains why we do not at present swish around in flying saucers and commute between the planets. But we’re trying.

  So UFO back-engineering got amalgamated with fox farm genetic engineering, and a chap called Hartly was put in charge with the remit to make the enterprise run at a profit.

  Hartly was a bright young spark and almost immediately he saw a financial opportunity. Fox pelts. As townies were now convinced of the good of foxhunting and the evil of foxes, surely they would be prepared to purchase fox fur coats just like the good old days? Hartly set about the genetic engineering of the angora fox. It was a brilliant idea, but where he slipped up was in using genetic material taken from a UFO.

  As all those who have access to Above Top Secret information will know, UFOs are mostly organic. Which explains why they don’t show up on radar. The UFO genetic material used for the creation of the angora fox did not result in the creation of the angora fox. It resulted in the creation of the stealth fox.

  Now, whereas the Stealth Bomber does not show up on radar, the stealth fox didn’t show up anywhere. It could blend in with its surroundings to a degree that made it virtually invisible. It was there all right, if you took the trouble to look hard enough for it (after all everything has to be somewhere and nothing can ever be anywhere other than where it is), but escaping notice was what the stealth fox did best.

  That and escaping from secret government research establishments. Naturally.

  Using the cunning for which it is famed, this new order of fox sought out its old adversary – the foxhound. It began to blend in with the packs, and in fact so convincingly did it do this that the pack took it for one of its own. In no time the stealth fox was cross-breeding with the foxhounds, producing a stealth fox/dog hybrid indistinguishable from the ordinary foxhound. Within a couple of years many packs of foxhounds consisted of nothing but stealth fox/dog hybrids.

  This cross-breeding produced a larger, more powerful strain of stealth fox, roughly the size of a Great Dane (or small horse). The next step was inevitable.

  The large stealth fox/dog hybrids began to blend in with the horses in the hunt, and soon the first stealth fox/dog/horse hybrid appeared.

  Now the next step up the evolutionary ladder taken by the stealth fox may well be considered by those of a prudish disposition to be too distasteful to chronicle. But in the noble quest for truth, it must be told.

  Those of you who have ever viewed the now legendary porno vid Down on the Farm will recall the episode of the lusty stable lass and the frisky stallion.

  Enough said.

  The stealth fox/dog/horse/human hybrid was born.

  And it was one of these very stealth fox/dog/horse/ human hybrids who, several years later in the guise of a bloke in a bar, did my uncle out of thirty-five quid, which in turn led my uncle to bring down the British book publishing industry.

  And how this came about, and what it all has to do with a voodoo handbag, a Holy Guardian Sprout and a threat to mankind from the denizens of cyberspace, will soon become blindingly obvious.

  Although not, perhaps, in the most obvious way.

  The Laird of Dunoon

  The Laird of Dunoon

  Leans back in his chair,

  Trousers rolled up to the knee.

  Easing his braces

  With courteous graces

  He sips at his Newcastle B.

  The Laird of Dunoon

  In the newspaper bonnet

  Smiles as he looks out to sea.

  Taking a drag

  From a finely rolled fag,

  He sips at his Newcastle B.

  The Laird of Dunoon

  In the Fair Isle pullover

  Whistles ‘The Rose of Tralee’.

  He swivels his hips

  As he purses his lips,

  And sips at his Newcastle B.

  The Laird of Dunoon

  Glances down at his Rolex

  And sees that it’s time for his tea.

  He slips on his socks,

  Puts his specs in a box

  And finishes his Newcastle B.

  Ah, if only all of life could be as this.

  But regretfully, it cannot!

  3

  Smart from books ain’t so smart.

  CAROL BAKER

  The ambition of every tall-story-teller is to create an urban myth. One of those ‘it happened to a friend of a friend of mine’ stories that enters the collective consciousness and takes on a life of its own.

  You hear them all the time: at work, in the pub, at a party. Told to you by folk who’ll swear they’re true. And the thing about a really good one is it can make you feel that even if it isn’t true somehow it ought to be.

  For instance, does anyone remember Johnny Quinn? Yes, no, maybe. Well, about a year ago I was in the Jolly Gardeners drinking Death by Cider and chatting with my good friend Sean O’Reilly. William Burroughs had just died and Sean was saying that Old Bill had been one of his favourites. I said that he had been one of my favourites too, and although I never really understood what he was on about most of the time, it didn’t seem to matter, because I just loved the way he was on about it.

  And then Sean asked me whether I’d ever read anything by Johnny Quinn, who had apparently been a mate of Burroughs and was somewhat easier to understand. I said I w
as sure that I had, but I couldn’t remember what. And then I said, yes I could, and wasn’t it Johnny Quinn who wrote The Million Dollar Dream? And Sean said he thought it was, and also Sailing to Babylon, and something about tears.

  ‘Tomorrow’s Tears,’ I said. ‘I’ve got that book somewhere.’ And we talked a bit about what we could remember of Johnny Quinn, which didn’t seem to be much, and his books, which seemed to be even less. And at the end of the evening Sean said that he’d really like to read Tomorrow’s Tears again and I said, ‘Let’s go back to my place and I’ll see if I can find it.’

  And we did. But I couldn’t.

  We searched through all my paperbacks, but Tomorrow’s Tears was nowhere to be found.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘I’m going into Brighton tomorrow, I’ll see if I can pick up a copy at Waterstone’s.’

  Sean said to get whatever Johnny Quinn books they had in stock and he’d pay me for them next time he saw me. And we both got quite excited about the prospect of reading some Johnny Quinn again.

  Which turned out to be a pity, really.

  The chap at Waterstone’s was very helpful. I asked him if he had any Johnny Quinn books in stock and he said the name rang a bell and he’d have a look. He had a look and said that no, sadly, they didn’t. So I asked him if I could order some and he said he didn’t see any reason why not and cranked up his computer. But he couldn’t find a mention of Johnny Quinn. ‘Are you sure it’s Johnny Quinn?’ he asked. And I said I was sure that it was, and he said he felt sure that it was too. But we couldn’t find him although there were several books with similar sounding titles to the ones I was looking for.

  ‘They must all be out of print,’ said the very helpful chap. ‘Perhaps you should try the library.’

  The lady at the library was also very helpful and she employed her computer. But she couldn’t find any Johnny Quinn books either. ‘That’s odd,’ she said, ‘because I’m sure I remember reading one of his books when I was at school.’ But she couldn’t find him and eventually she got tired of looking and suggested I try one of the specialist bookshops in the area.

  So I did. In fact I went to each and every one of them. The chaps who ran these shops were also very helpful and although they all felt certain they could remember old Johnny and had enjoyed reading his books, none of them had a single one in stock.

  I must confess that by mid afternoon I was beginning to feel a little stressed.

  At the very last shop I visited, the proprietor, a very helpful chap, grew quite lyrical over the recollection of Mr Quinn. He’d once had a girlfriend, he said, who had named her cat Toothbrush, after a character in one of his novels.

  Toothbrush? I didn’t remember any character called Toothbrush!

  ‘Are you still in touch with this old girlfriend?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ said the proprietor with a sigh. ‘She died.’ And his face became sad, and he said he was going to close up early and he hustled me out of his shop. And I too became sad and went home.

  But by now the search for a Johnny Quinn novel was becoming something of a crusade. I was determined that I would lay my hands upon one, come what may. By fair means or foul.

  I decided to try the fair means first.

  So that evening I went through my personal telephone book and called everyone that was listed in it. I called all my friends, and old friends too, some of whom I hadn’t spoken to for years. And I called business acquaintances and even the doctor and the dentist, as I had their numbers. Some of them felt sure that they had read Johnny Quinn, and I waited anxiously while they looked through their bookshelves before returning to the phone with the reply I was coming to dread.

  Gilly, an old friend from college days, rather put the wind up me when I spoke to her. She said that she’d had a Johnny Quinn book but she’d lent it to a friend and never got it back. Apparently this friend had lent Gilly’s book to another friend and never got it back from her.

  A friend-of-a-friend that would be then, wouldn’t it!

  By midnight I had run up a very large phone bill and worn out my friendship with quite a few people, but I was absolutely no nearer to finding what was now acquiring the status of a literary Holy Grail.

  I went off to bed in a very bad mood!

  But I was up bright and early the next morning.

  Because I’d had an idea.

  I’d remembered that there are companies in London that specialize in finding books for collectors. That’s what they do. You pay them a finder’s fee and they seek out the book. Mind you, I’d heard that this can take years, but I felt it was certainly worth a try.

  Directory Enquiries put me on to the most famous one. I’m not allowed to mention their name here, but you’ve probably heard of them, they do posh auctions, too.

  The chap I spoke to first was very helpful, and very posh. ‘Was it Jonathan Quinn?’ he asked. ‘The contemporary of Beau Brummel and the Prince Regent?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Just plain Johnny, mucker of Billy Burroughs back in the Swinging Sixties.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the chap, ‘then you will need to speak to our Mr Hiemes, who specializes in books from the 1960s. He’s our resident expert on the period.’

  ‘Splendid,’ I said.

  He put me through to their Mr Hiemes and I told their Mr Hiemes that I was looking for any book by Johnny Quinn.

  ‘Johnny who?’ asked their Mr Hiemes.

  ‘Quinn,’ I said, ‘surely you’ve heard of him?’

  Their Mr Hiemes said no, he hadn’t.

  I said to their Mr Hiemes that I’d been told he was the resident expert on the period.

  ‘I am,’ said their Mr Hiemes, ‘and I’ve never heard of Johnny Quinn.’

  ‘You have to be joking!’

  But he wasn’t.

  And nor were any of the other experts I spoke to that morning. None of them had ever heard of Johnny Quinn. None of them.

  ‘But that’s absurd,’ I told the last in a dismal line. ‘I spent yesterday afternoon going around Brighton and just about everyone I spoke to remembered Johnny Quinn. And you blokes are supposed to be experts on the literature of the Sixties, and none of you have ever heard of him. You’re all a bunch of tosspots.’

  And the chap put the phone down on me.

  Absurd!

  But then it got beyond absurd.

  I went through the Yellow Pages and started phoning bookshops. Any bookshop. All bookshops. High street chains, collector’s bookshops, independents, weirdos, every kind of bookshop. And though I spoke to some very helpful people, not a single one of them had ever heard of Johnny Quinn.

  I was truly rattled. How could it be that yesterday nearly everyone had heard of him, and today nobody had?

  I decided to retrace my footsteps. I went back to Waterstone’s. The chap behind the counter remembered me from the day before. But when I told him that I had drawn a complete blank on Johnny Quinn. He told me that he wasn’t in the least surprised.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  Well,’ he said, ‘after you’d gone I got to thinking, and the more I thought about Johnny Quinn the less I seemed to remember. And eventually I got to thinking that probably I didn’t remember Johnny Quinn at all, I only thought I did.’

  ‘Absurd!’ I said.

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘You see, it happens all the time in this business. Someone will come into the shop asking for a book that doesn’t exist, saying that a friend of a friend of theirs read it and thought it was wonderful. They know, or think they know, all kinds of details about the book and its author. But the book doesn’t exist. Even though it seems as if it should. It’s like an urban myth, someone starts it off in a bar or something and it takes on a life of its own. I’ve developed a mystical theory about it. I think that the book exists in some kind of parallel universe and it’s trying to exist in this one too. Like your Johnny Quinn, perhaps he’s trying to exist here. And if enough people believed in him, maybe he would. Maybe if enough people believe in
anything strongly enough, it will actually happen. And perhaps Johnny Quinn did exist here yesterday, sort of. But he won’t exist today. He had his moment, when your belief spread to others, but that moment’s passed. Not enough people believed hard enough. Johnny didn’t make it into this reality. Sorry.’

  ‘What a load of old toot!’ I said.

  But he might have been right. About some of it anyway. Because all the other chaps in all the other shops I went back to said pretty much the same thing. They’d all thought they’d remembered Johnny Quinn yesterday, but the more they thought about it...

  The chap who’d had the girlfriend with the cat called Toothbrush was not at all pleased to see me. He said I’d stirred up a lot of unhappy memories and he’d probably have to go back into therapy. And, for my information, his girlfriend’s cat had actually been called Steerpike and I should shove off.

  So I shoved off.

  I didn’t see Sean again for a couple of weeks, and when I did bump into him at the Jolly Gardeners I thought I’d wait until he asked me about the Johnny Quinn books before I told him about what had happened. But Sean never did ask me. Sean seemed to have forgotten all about Johnny Quinn. In fact Sean never mentioned the name of Johnny Quinn ever again.

  ‘Do you remember a painter called Karl Bok?’ Sean asked me.

  And that might well have been it for old Johnny Quinn, the author who never was, had it not been for something decidedly odd that happened to me the next month.

  It happened in the Jolly Gardeners on a Tuesday evening. Andy, the landlord, goes off somewhere on Tuesday evenings, and Paul the part-timer takes over. Tuesday evenings are always slow and Paul is good at slow. He generally spends the evening doing the Times crossword or reading a book. On this particular Tuesday evening he was reading a book.

  I went in, hung up my hat and cloak and placed my silver-topped cane upon the counter. ‘A pint of Death by Cider, please, Paul,’ I said.