Sprout Mask Replica Read online

  Take plenty of water and plenty of beans,

  You can always scrounge milk by all manner of means.

  Elastoplast dressings, you’ll need quite a lot,

  And your trunks and a lilo in case it gets hot.

  Never leave litter all lying about

  And you’ll do the job proper when you’re camping out.

  I began to understand why Mum never cared for Uncle Brian.

  2

  THE LAWS OF POSSIBILITY

  THE LAWS OF SCIENCE

  AND THE LAWS OF NATURE

  And how the man who is foolish enough to tamper with any of these will inevitably come to grief.

  The word lunatic, or so my father told me, comes from the conjoining of two separate words: luna, meaning moon, and attic, meaning upper storey.

  Hence, lunatic means ‘having the moon in your upper storey’.

  My Uncle Brian certainly had the moon in his upper storey, but it hadn’t always been so. Sanity’s sun once shone brightly through Uncle Brian’s sky-light, but a dark cloud had crossed its face. A cloud in the shape of a motorbike.

  And I shall tell you how this came about and how this concerned one of

  The laws of possibility.

  According to one of the above mentioned laws, and to quote the great Jack Vance, ‘In a situation of infinity, every possibility, no matter how remote, must find physical expression.’ And given this, it follows that there must be one man who has eaten, is about to eat, or will eventually eat an entire motorbike.

  It stands to reason, if you think about it. Everything conceivable is bound to happen eventually, and not just once, but many times. It’s an old story, and one, if this particular law is to be believed, that has probably been told before.

  Perhaps on several occasions.

  Whether, on the dreadful day that the moon chose to enter Uncle’s attic, Uncle Brian knew anything about the laws of possibility, I am not qualified to say. But as far as can be ascertained, and to set the scene as it were, the uncle was standing in his garden at the time, the time being a little after ten of the morning clock, a packet of premier sprout seeds in one hand and a fretful frown on his face.

  You see, there was he and there were his seeds, yet there, over there, in the corner of the garden, in the very place where his new sprout bed was intended to be, it stood.

  Rusty old

  Crusty old

  Big, beefy, well dug in.

  Left by the folk

  Who moved out

  Before he moved in.

  Hideous eye-scar

  Complete with a side car.

  One Heck of a

  Wreck of a

  Motorbike.

  Uncle Brian glared at the abomination.

  ‘To paraphrase Oscar Wilde,’ he said, ‘that bike must go, or I must.’

  The bike didn’t look too keen. And why should it have? It was well dug in, entrenched, ensconced. Had been for some thirty-seven years. The folk who’d moved out had made a feature of the thing. They had painted it buttercup yellow.

  Uncle Brian telephoned the council.

  ‘Would you please send over some of your big strong boys with a lorry to collect an old motorbike that is standing untenanted on what is to be my sprout patch?’ he asked.

  The chap at the council who had taken the call thanked my uncle for making it. He was most polite and there was grief in his voice as he spoke of cut-backs and slashed subsidies and how things had never been like this in his father’s day and how the council owed a duty to rate-payers and how it made him sick to his very soul that hitherto-considered-essential services were being axed all around him.

  ‘Then you’ll send over some of your big strong boys?’ asked my uncle.

  ‘No,’ said the chap and rang off.

  My uncle telephoned the police.

  The constable who took the call thanked my uncle for making it.

  Regrettably, he said, the police had sworn off going near private back gardens, ‘things being what they were,’ and could only suggest calling the council.

  ‘Oh you have,’ the constable continued, ‘well, there’s not much we can do.’ As an afterthought he added, ‘Has this motorbike of yours got a current road fund licence?’

  Uncle hurriedly put down the phone.

  Two rag-and-bone men refused the motorbike, saying that a thing like that would lower the tone of their barrows. A scout troop canvassing for jumble said, thank you no. And a vicar with a collecting-tin declined it on religious grounds, stating that he feared to incur the wrath of God and the Church.

  ‘You could always just eat it, you know,’ said Norman, Uncle Brian’s best chum. ‘People do,’ he said, in a most convincing tone.

  ‘What people?’ asked my uncle. ‘And what parts could you eat? You couldn’t eat all of it, could you?’

  ‘Of course you could.’ And Norman went on to tell my uncle about how his family, the Suffolkshire Crombies, had been veritable gourmets of almost every conceivable type of wheeled conveyance.

  ‘In 1865,’ said Norman, ‘my great grandfather, Sir John Crombie (of India), ate an entire hansom cab, horses and all. His son, the late Earl Mortimer of Crombie, munched his way through an entire Pullman car in Paddington Station, the stunt taking nearly three years. Many of the aristocracy came to witness the spectacle, some bringing hampers from Fortnum and Mason and others shooting-sticks to sit on, while they watched the more dramatic moments. It was said that Queen Victoria herself stopped off on her way to Windsor and spent a pleasant hour watching Earl Mortimer devour a number of velvet cushions and a coupling.’

  My uncle had his doubts. ‘You can’t digest metal,’ he said.

  ‘Of course you can.’ Norman kicked about in the dirt, turned up a couple of nuts and bolts and thrust these into his mouth. ‘You can eat anything.’ He munched a moment, hesitated and then, with a somewhat pained expression on his face, spat the nuts and bolts onto the ground. ‘I’m not hungry right now,’ he said. ‘But you no doubt get my drift.’

  Uncle Brian nodded. ‘You mean you can really eat anything?’

  Norman nodded back, his eyes were beginning to roll.

  ‘And a motorbike isn’t poisonous?’

  Norman shook his head and clutched his jaw.

  ‘It’s very big. And it does have a side car.’

  ‘Smash it up with a sledgehammer...ooh...ouch.’ And with that suggestion made, Norman mumbled out a fond farewell and sped away to his dentist.

  ‘Smash it up and eat it,’ said my uncle. ‘Now why didn’t I think of that?’

  By three of the afternoon clock, on a day that was none but the same, Uncle Brian was to be found standing on the dusty plot that was to be his sprout patch, sledgehammer in hand and look of determination on his face. Three of his fingers now sported elastoplast dressings of the kind he had once recommended as an essential adjunct to camping out. The thumb of his left hand was sorely missing its nail.

  ‘Take that, you b%∞#^*d!’ His fine clear voice boomed towards the house, bounced off the kitchen wall and travelled back over his head to vanish in a neighbour’s garden. The sound of the sledgehammer smiting the motorbike followed it swiftly.

  Another swing. An inner wrench. And what is known in medical circles as an aneurysmic diverticulum. Or Hernia.

  Uncle Brian sank to the ground clutching those parts that a gentleman does not even allude to, let alone clutch.

  ‘Oh my God!’ screamed the uncle. ‘My God, oh my God.’ As bad as the smashing up of the bike was proving to be, it was a huge success when compared to the eating part. Uncle Brian, whose smile had once dazzled the ladies with its dental glare, now wore the blackened stumps of the social outcast. He was ragged and stained with oil. His toupee had slipped from his head and become buried in the dust. All seemed lost.

  All, in fact, was lost.

  Quite suddenly, very suddenly – well, just suddenly, because suddenly is enough – there came the sound of a siren going ‘Waaaah-oooo
h, waaaah-ooooh’ the way sirens used to do, a screeching of brakes and a regular pounding of police feet.

  All this hullabaloo caused Uncle Brian to unclutch his privy parts and take stock of the situation.

  Hands gripped him firmly by the shoulders and he was drawn to his feet. Then he was shaken all about.

  ‘Come quietly, my lad,’ advised a young constable, kneeing my uncle in his oh-so-tenders. ‘Did you see that, Sarge? He went for me.’

  ‘Employ your truncheon, Constable.’

  ‘Right, sir, yes.’

  The young constable took to striking Uncle Brian about the head.

  ‘Stop!’ wailed my uncle. ‘Stop. Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Don’t come the innocent with me,’ advised the police sergeant, bringing out his regulation notebook (which is always a bad sign). ‘It’s a fair cop and you know it. This garden is the property of a Mr Brian Rankin. One of Mr Rankin’s neighbours telephoned a few minutes ago to say that they had just arrived home to discover a tramp in Mr Rankin’s garden smashing up his motorbike. Oh my God!’

  ‘Oh my God?’ queried the young constable.

  The police sergeant stooped down and picked up a small enamelled badge that lay in the dirt. ‘Oh my God, say it’s not true.’

  ‘It’s not true,’ said the constable, stamping on my uncle’s foot.

  ‘Ouch,’ said my uncle, in ready response.

  ‘But it is.’ The police sergeant fell to his knees and began to beat his fists in the dirt and foam somewhat at the mouth.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ the constable told my uncle. ‘Take that, you villain.’

  ‘Ouch,’ went my uncle again.

  The police sergeant drew himself slowly to his feet and did what he could to recover his dignity. ‘You,’ he mumbled, waggling a shaky finger in my uncle’s face. ‘You iconoclast. Do you realize what you’ve done?’

  Uncle Brian shook his head feebly.

  ‘A 1935 Vincent Alostrael. You’ve smashed up a 1935 Vincent Alostrael.’

  ‘Is that bad?’ asked the constable.

  ‘Bad?’ The sergeant snatched the truncheon from the young man’s fist. ‘Bad? There were only six ever made. Even if this one had been rusted to oblivion and painted buttercup yellow it would still have been worth a fortune.’

  He raised the truncheon high and brought it down with considerable force.

  My uncle was dragged unconscious to the Black Maria and heaved there-into. The police sergeant rolled up his sleeves and joined him in the back.

  Now it has to be said that according to the laws of possibility, to which this little episode is dedicated, it is more than likely that this very same incident has occurred before.

  Possibly even as many as five times before.

  But given the growing rarity of the 1935 Vincent Alostrael, the likelihood of it ever occurring again is pretty remote, really. Fascinating, isn’t it?

  The laws of science.

  Uncle Brian spent quite some time in the hospital. The doctors marvelled at the X-rays of his stomach. These revealed a regular scrapyard of nuts and bolts and piston rings. Copious quantities of cod liver oil were administered in the hope of easing these through his system and their exit was made clearer by the surgical removal of a police truncheon.

  A specialist diagnosed my uncle’s condition as a rare psychopathic eating disorder known as Crombie’s Syndrome and recommended a long stay in a soft room, with plenty of experimental medication.

  It was all a bit much for my uncle.

  When the doctors finally lost interest in him, he was dispatched home for a bit of care in the community. He was never the same man again.

  My Uncle Brian had found science.

  Now there is nothing altogether strange about a Rankin finding religion. Religion is in the genes with us. And I have set about the writing of this work with the intention to explain, through a brief history of my lineage, how it was I came to the discovery that I am the long awaited Chosen One.

  But more, much more, of that later.

  For now, be it known that Uncle Brian had found science.

  He found also, upon returning home, that the remains of the motorbike had mysteriously vanished from his back garden. And it was no coincidence that a certain truncheon-happy police sergeant had taken early retirement and vanished with them.

  Uncle Brian sighed and nodded and took to the pacing up and down of his back garden, muttering to himself and occasionally stopping to strike the fist of one hand into the palm of the other and cry aloud such things as, ‘Yes, I have it now!’ and, ‘All becomes clear!’

  ‘What all is that?’ asked best friend Norman, leaning over the garden gate.

  Uncle Brian sucked upon his new false teeth. ‘Science,’ said he. ‘Now shove off, I’ve lots to do.’

  So Norman shoved off.

  Pressing family business kept Norman shoved off for almost a month. A television company researching a documentary about the sinking of the Titanic had turned up the name of Norman’s granddad, Sir Rupert Crombie, on the passenger list. The documentary makers were eager to interview Norman about an eye-witness report that Sir Rupert had been seen on the night of the disaster in the vicinity of one of the watertight bulkheads which later inexplicably collapsed, causing the ship to sink.

  This eye-witness report stated that Sir Rupert was ‘eyeing the rivets, hungrily’.

  When Norman next chanced by at my uncle’s back gate he was surprised to notice that certain changes of an environmental nature had taken place thereabouts.

  The little white wicket fence had gone, to be replaced by a huge stockade of ten-foot telephone poles closely bound with rope. A door of similar stuff took the place of the gate. On this door was a notice.

  Norman knocked on the door, then pushed and entered. Entered all-but darkness.

  ‘Back, back!’ A fearsome figure sprang up before him, a pointed stick clutched in a filthy mitt. ‘Read the notice, then come in again.’

  Norman beat a retreat and the door slammed upon him. He now perused the notice.

  D.M.Z.

  DE-METALIZED ZONE

  IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN TO ENTER

  THIS GARDEN WHILE IN POSSESSION OF

  ANY METAL ITEMS.

  To wit, watch, money, fountain or ball-point pens, rings, or other jewellery,

  hair slides, combs, belts (metal buckles), braces (likewise), shoes (metal eyelets & Blakeys) etc. REMOVE ALL and place in the box provided.

  Then shout ‘ALL CLEAR’.

  Norman pursed his lips and gave his head a scratch. Now what was all this about? Well, there was only one way to find out. Norman hastily divested himself of metal objects, belt and braces, shoes and all and popped them into the box provided.

  ‘All clear,’ shouted Norman.

  A weighty-looking length of wood eased out through a slot in the barricade and secured the lid of the box-provided. A voice called, ‘Enter, friend.’

  Norman entered, holding up his trousers.

  It was pretty dark in there, because the out-there which had lately been Uncle Brian’s back garden, was now definitely in-there. The fences had been raised to either side and even against the back of the house. Telegraph poles, in regimental rows, all bound one to the next. The whole was roofed over with lesser timbers and thatch. The effect was that of being inside an old log cabin, whilst also being inside the roof of a thatched cottage. It was probably a bit like one of those bronze-age long-houses that you used to make models of in the history lesson at school.

  It was a curious effect.

  It was also very dark and gloomy. There weren’t any windows.

  ‘Whatever have you done to the garden?’ Norman asked. ‘I mean that is you there, isn’t it, Brian? I mean where are you anyway?’

  ‘I’m here.’ Uncle Brian loomed from the gloom.

  ‘Cor,’ said Norman. ‘You really pong.’

  Uncle Brian sniffed at himself. ‘I can’t smell anything. But what do you
think, Norman? Is this something, or what?’

  ‘Or what?’ Norman strained his eyes. Light fell in narrow shafts between the raised timbers. Some of it fell upon Uncle Brian. ‘And what have you got on?’

  ‘It’s a sort of smock,’ Uncle Brian explained. ‘I knitted it myself with two sticks. It’s made out of dry grass.’

  ‘It looks very uncomfortable.’

  ‘Oh, it is. Very.’

  ‘Then why are you wearing it?’

  Uncle Brian tapped at his nose. The finger that did the tapping was a very dirty finger. It quite matched the nose. ‘I will tell you if you’ll stay awhile.’

  ‘Well, I can’t stay long. I have to see my solicitor, my family is being sued by The White Star Line. I’d rather not go into it, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Not in the least. Now take a seat.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere you like, there’s only the ground.’

  Norman took a seat on the ground. Uncle Brian took another.

  ‘Would you mind taking your seat just a little further away?’ Norman asked. ‘No offence meant.’

  ‘None taken.’ Uncle re-seated himself and crossed his legs.

  ‘Straw shoes,’ observed Norman.

  ‘I knitted them myself. Now are you sitting comfortably?’

  ‘Not really, no, but begin anyway.’

  ‘So I shall.’ And Uncle Brian began. ‘It was all to do with the motorbike.’

  Norman groaned. ‘I think I must be off,’ said he.

  ‘No, listen. I was in the hospital, in one of the soft rooms, and I was wearing a long-sleeved-shirt affair that did up at the back.’

  ‘A strait-jacket?’ Norman suggested.

  ‘Yes, all right, it was a strait-jacket. And I was lying on the soft floor and looking up at this single barred window, and all became suddenly clear – the science of things and where the world has gone wrong.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Norman, shifting uneasily.

  ‘Iron. The bars were iron and the bars put me in mind of the motorbike. Bars. Handle bars. And I thought how much ill luck that motorbike had brought me and all became suddenly clear.’