Waiting for Godalming Read online

  ‘What foul and evil den is this?’ I cried. ‘What fetid wretched chamber of despair? Oh, what has it come to, that I should find myself in such a dismal place? What vile crimes have I committed, that I should be cast into this dungeon of hopelessness? This sordid, filthy—’

  ‘Get a grip, chief. You’re back in your office.’

  ‘Aaagh!’ cried I. ‘The evil one himself speaks inside my head. The father of lies. The spawn of the pit. I am possessed. I am possessed.’

  ‘Turn it in, you prat, it’s me, Barry.’

  ‘Barry?’

  ‘Barry, chief. Your Holy Guardian Sprout. The cute little green guy who sits in your head and keeps you on the straight and narrow. The little voice that speaks to you and only you can hear. Your bestest friend, who helps you solve your cases. Your little gift from God’s garden.’

  ‘Ah,’ said I. ‘That Barry.’

  ‘That would be the kiddy, chief.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, I knew it was you all the time. And I knew it was my office. I just thought I’d add a bit of atmosphere and excitement. And demonstrate my skills with the old Gothic prose.’

  ‘Best stick to what you do best, eh, chief?’

  ‘Being the best private eye in the business?’

  ‘That would be the kiddy, chief. You wish.’

  ‘I didn’t catch that last bit, Barry.’

  ‘I said that would be the kiddy, chief, you’re bliss.’

  ‘Thanks, Barry.’

  I lifted myself into the vertical plane with more dignity than a belted earl at a defecophiliacs’ disco. Made my way across my office with more style and suavity than a dandy in the underground and sat myself down on my chair with more polished aplomb than a plump pink plumber from Plympton (probably Lobsang Rampa). And with a certain amount of care in comfying up the cushion, as my piles were playing me havoc at the time.

  Before me, on my desk, I spied my snap-brimmed fedora and my trusty Smith and Wes Craven.

  ‘My hat, my gun,’ said I with some degree of amazement.

  ‘Say “Thank you Barry”,’ said Barry.

  ‘What what what?’

  ‘Say “Thank you Barry for putting thoughts in a couple of heads and getting my hat and gun back so I can set out once more on a case without looking like a hatless, gunless, gormless git.” ’

  ‘There’s no bullets in this gun,’ said I, examining same with my eagle eye. ‘I had at least two bullets left, I’m sure. I remember shooting that smelly guy in the alley who asked if I wanted to buy the Big Issue. And I put two in the head of that huge woman, because she was taking up too much space in Fangio’s. And one in the kid with the lollipop, because I can’t be having with dogs and children either. And…’

  ‘ “Thank you, Barry” not a happening thing at the moment, then, chief? You big humanitarian, you.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, Barry, thank you. But like I was saying, I’m certain I should have had at least two bullets left. And bullets don’t grow on trees, Barry. Bullets cost bucks.’

  ‘You ungrateful schmuck.’

  ‘What did you say, Barry?’

  ‘I said you’re a wonderful buck, chief.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess that I am.’ And guessed that I was. That’s one of the things that I liked about Barry. He recognized greatness. ‘So, little green buddy,’ I said. ‘What have you been up to? You weren’t with me in Fangio’s when I got bopped on the head.’

  ‘I always like to miss that part, chief. Rattles me all about inside your empty skull.’

  ‘So where have you been?’

  ‘Been up in Heaven, chief. We Holy Guardians have to check in every week. Put in our expense chitties. Write out our reports. Get a bit of fertilizer rubbed into our leaves by a bra-less Charlie Dimmock lookalike with five-star bottom cleavage. But it’s mostly paperwork. You know how it is.’

  ‘I do,’ said I and I did. ‘So how are things, topside, amongst the choirs celestial? God keeping well, is He?’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing, chief. Actually things aren’t exactly hunky-dory in Heaven at the moment. God’s gone missing again and His wife’s getting pretty upset.’

  ‘God’s wife? I didn’t know that God had a wife.’ And I didn’t. I knew that every dog had its day and that a trouble shared was a trouble halved and I even knew that if you take two mobile phones, call one of them with the other, then place the two of them ten inches apart on a table with a raw egg between them, the egg will be cooked in less than twenty minutes. (An expensive way to cook eggs, but it does actually work.) But I never knew that God had a wife.

  ‘Does He?’ I asked Barry.

  ‘Does He what? Own a mobile phone?’

  ‘No. Does God really have a wife?’

  ‘Of course He does, chief. A wife and three kids.’

  ‘Three kids?’

  ‘Only one by marriage. The other two, well, you know the story.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said I, because in truth, I didn’t.

  ‘Wake up, chief, you do know the story. Little baby, born in a manger, three wise camel jockeys coming over the desert, nice Christmas presents but a really rotten Easter.’

  ‘Okay, yeah.’ I dug into my desk drawer and brought out a bottle of Old Bedwetter Bluegrass Bourbon. The taste of the South that makes any day a Mardi Gras. I always like to take a slug of Old Bedwetter at times like these. It adds that certain something that you just don’t get from other sippin’ liquors. No siree. By golly.

  ‘Don’t start that!’ said Barry.

  ‘Start what?’ said I.

  ‘Endorsing products.’

  ‘Sssh,’ said I. ‘I never was.’

  ‘You lying git.’

  ‘Barry,’ I whispered. ‘There’s a fortune to be made by endorsing products. It’s a market that’s never been exploited by private eyes. I’m sitting on a gold mine here.’

  ‘I thought you were sitting on your piles. So where was I?’

  ‘You were telling me about God’s wife and His three kids.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Well, you know about Jesus. He’s pretty famous. But what you didn’t know was that he had a twin sister called Christeen. But she got edited out of the New Testament because God gave Jesus overall artistic control and the full translation rights. Favourite son and all that, you know how it goes.’

  ‘Yeah, okay, Barry, I get the picture.’

  ‘But not the Big Picture, chief. Everyone knows that Mary was the mother of Jesus. Although they don’t know about Christeen. But there’s not many who know that God already had a wife and just how peeved she was when she discovered that God was having a bit on the side and had got His girlfriend up the duff.’

  ‘Hoots a crimbo!’ I clapped my hands right over my lug-holes. ‘Put a sock in it, Barry, that’s big time blasphemy.’

  ‘It’s no secret in Heaven, chief. But God eventually managed to smooth things over with His missus. He can be a real charmer when He wants to be. And one thing led to another and the other thing led to the bedroom and Colin was born.’

  ‘Colin?’

  ‘The third child of God. Born within wedlock this time. But he’s a bad lot, that Colin, chief. I hate to speak ill of the governor’s son, but that Colin. Phtah!’

  ‘Phtah?’

  ‘That was the sound of me spitting, chief.’

  ‘What? Inside my head? You…’

  ‘Don’t get yourself in a lather. It’s only a bit of vegetable phlegm. But anyhow, God’s gone missing and His wife is in a right state. She reckons He’s down on Earth again, getting up to hanky-panky. He has this thing about Jewish virgins, you see, and—’

  ‘Enough!’ I gave my head a clout.

  ‘Ouch!’ went Barry.

  And ‘Ouch!’ I went too. ‘But turn it in, will ya? You’ll bring down the wrath of God on the both of us.’

  ‘I didn’t have you down as being pious, chief. I thought you always said you were an atheist.’

  ‘What? With you in my head?’

  ‘I thought your psych
iatrist told you that I was a delusion and that you were suffering from multiple-personality disorder and that the voice you heard in your head had been caused by some tragedy that had happened in your youth, which, allied to your drink problem and your broken marriage and your need to reach out to your feminine side and—’

  ‘All right! All right! All right! I do believe in you. Okay, I’ve said it now. Are you satisfied?’

  ‘Always a pleasure, ever a joy.’

  I took another slug of Old Bedwetter and lit up a Camel. I always smoke a Camel on occasions like this. The rich mellow taste of the fine Virginia tobacco gives me that special satisfaction which you just don’t find with other smokes.

  ‘I can hardly wait till you put on your pile ointment, chief.’

  ‘Yeah, right. But I can’t chitchat with you all day, Barry. I have a thousand big ones up front and a case that needs solving.’

  ‘Forget that, chief. This is really big. God’s gone missing. Don’t you hear what I’m saying?’

  ‘Sure I do, Barry. But if God’s got the hots for some piece of kosher tail, that’s hardly my business. God knows His own business best.’

  ‘No, chief, you’re missing the point. If God doesn’t get back on the job, there’s no telling what might happen to the world.’

  ‘But I thought you were implying that God was on the job, which is why His wife’s so upset. Haw haw haw.’

  ‘Chief, pay attention. If God isn’t up in Heaven, managing things down here, then things down here are going to get hairier than a prize-winning pooch in a hirsute hound competition.’

  ‘Ease up there. But I don’t get you, Barry. What do you mean about God managing things down here? Everybody knows that God doesn’t exactly have a hands-on approach to running the planet. God gave man free will. He doesn’t intervene. He doesn’t take sides. God’s neutral. Like Switzerland.’

  ‘That’s what God would have you believe. But it isn’t so. God has always taken an active part throughout the course of human history.’

  ‘You mean by inspiring people? Like poets and painters? Like prophets and priests?’

  ‘No, chief. They’re all just nutcases. God never actually speaks to anybody, but He has shaped human history. And would you like to know how?’

  ‘I would,’ I said, and I would and I did.

  ‘The weather, chief. God controls the weather.’

  ‘Oh,’ said I, and ‘does He?’

  ‘Yes He does. Think about it. The entire colonization of the world depended on which way the wind blew and there are heaps of battles that were won or lost according to the weather. The Spanish Armada blasted away in a storm. Hitler expecting a mild winter in Russia. Rain stopping play each time England get near to winning back the Ashes. Everything in human history has ultimately been governed by the weather.’

  ‘Well, I never knew that.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t. But think about this. The only things you can’t insure against are acts of God. And that’s floods, lightning and earthquakes and all that palaver. And that’s God sticking His oar in.’

  ‘You live and learn,’ said I.

  ‘Well, some of us do.’

  ‘What’s that, Barry?’

  ‘Nothing, chief. But what I’m saying is that God manages the weather and the weather manages human affairs and human history.’

  ‘So what exactly does God have against the Ethiopians?’

  ‘I think they stole the Ark of the Covenant. God does have a very long memory. You never heard of a Jewish saint, did you?’

  ‘No,’ said I, ‘I did not. But what has all this got to do with me?’

  ‘Wakey-wakey, chief. God’s gone missing. His wife wants Him found.’

  ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

  ‘That very much depends on what it is you think I’m saying.’

  ‘Me?’ I said. ‘You want me to find God?’

  ‘God’s wife wants you to find God. Someone told her that you were the best in the business.’

  ‘Someone? Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

  ‘If you think I’m saying that it was me—’

  ‘Barry, I love you.’

  ‘—then you’re wrong, chief.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Nothing, chief. Not a thing.’

  ‘Me!’ I upped right out of my chair, skipped the light fandango and turned cartwheels ’cross the floor.

  ‘Whoa! Don’t do that, chief! Agh! Eeek! Ooh!’

  ‘Sorry, Barry.’ I fell into a perfect splits position before back-flipping over my desk to land once more upon my chair. There to turn a whiter shade of pale.

  ‘The piles, chief?’

  ‘Urgh!’

  I sat upon an ice pack and pondered my position. I was being called in to find God. This was the Big One. This was The Case. Every great detective dreams of The Case. And this had to be it.

  ‘Barry,’ said I, with more seriousness than a Sudanese soothsayer, ‘this is the Big One, but I have a problem here.’

  ‘You could strap the ice pack into your underpants.’

  ‘Not that kind of problem. I’m already engaged on a case. I’ve taken the thousand big ones up front. And although these are now only small ones, compared to the Big One, I can’t just quit the case.’

  ‘Chief. A word to the wise here. God’s wife is not the kind of creature that you want to keep waiting. If you think that God’s been a little harsh with the Ethiopians, believe me, p**s God’s wife off and you’re in a world of hurt.’

  I glanced down at my wristlet watch. ‘Listen, Barry,’ I said. ‘It’s just turned four. I can have this other case tied up today, easy. Then I could go out this evening, have a few beers, talk some toot, get an early night and find God first thing in the morning. How does that sound?’

  ‘About as likely as Blue Peter sponsoring a Gary Glitter comeback concert, chief.’

  ‘That likely, eh?’

  ‘That, or just a bit less.’

  I pondered my position once more. I felt the need to cogitate. To conceptualize. To lucubrate. To cerebrate. To ruminate. To…

  ‘Gimme a break, chief. Dump your case and let’s go looking for God.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Chief, would you like me to tell you a little story about God’s wife?’

  ‘Does it have a happy ending?’

  ‘No, chief, it doesn’t. But I’m going to tell it to you anyway. It’s all about how the world really began and it’s not the version you’ve read in the Old Testament. I’ll tell it as it happened and I’ll do all the voices and everything. I’ll even throw in a title for good luck.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘OK.’

  GENESIS

  At Last the Truth

  God’s wife wasn’t impressed.

  ‘And what is that supposed to be?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a present,’ said God. ‘I made it for you.’

  ‘A present.’ God’s wife did that thing with her mouth. That thing that God didn’t like.

  ‘It’s for your birthday,’ said God. ‘You see I didn’t forget.’

  ‘I see,’ said the wife of God.

  ‘And I’ve named it after you. It’s called the Earth.’

  God’s wife did that thing once again. ‘My name is not Earth!’ she said. ‘It’s Eartha. You know I don’t like you calling me Earth. It sounds dirty, somehow.’

  ‘You used to like it when I called you Earth.’ God made a sad and sorry face.

  ‘Well that was then and this is now and what is that supposed to be?’

  ‘Which that is that?’

  ‘That little that down there on the Earth.’

  ‘Ah,’ said God, with pride in His voice. ‘That little that is Man.’

  ‘Man?’ asked Eartha, wife of God.

  ‘Man,’ said God. ‘I created him in my own image.’

  ‘Ha ha ha,’ went the wife of God. ‘You never looked as good as that.’

&n
bsp; ‘It’s what you call an idealized representation.’

  ‘Yeah, right, sure it is.’

  ‘Look,’ God sighed. ‘Do you want it or not? It took me days to make.’

  ‘How many days?’

  God sighed again. ‘What does it matter, how many days? Look at the detail. Look at all the pretty colours.’

  God’s wife looked. ‘And what are those?’ she asked.

  ‘Those are trees,’ said God. ‘And those are flowers. And those are rabbits. And those are birdies. And that’s a Ford Fiesta.’

  ‘I don’t like that,’ said Eartha.

  ‘Why don’t you like it? What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘The design of the inner sill on the wheel arches. You’ll get rust there.’

  ‘Ah,’ said God.

  ‘And why is Man grinning like that?’

  ‘Because he’s happy.’ God shook His old head. ‘So do you want it, or not?’

  God’s wife shrugged. ‘Suppose so,’ she said. ‘But what’s it for? Can I wear it?’

  ‘No!’ God threw up His hands in despair. ‘It’s not for wearing. It’s not even for touching. It’s just for looking at. You look at it and it makes you happy.’

  God’s wife looked. ‘Oh no it doesn’t,’ she said. ‘But if you made me another one, I could wear the pair as earrings.’

  ‘I give up,’ said God. ‘I give up.’ And God put on His over-robe. ‘I give up and I’m going fishing.’

  ‘Fishing?’

  ‘Never mind!’

  God left, slamming the door behind Him. God’s wife looked down on the Earth. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose it’s an improvement on that stupid black hole thing He made for me last year. But it needs a bit of tidying up. It needs a woman’s touch. The Ford Fiesta can go for a start. And as for you…’

  God’s wife peered down at the grinning Man.

  ‘What you need is a wife.’

  The grinning Man ceased grinning. ‘I’d rather keep the Ford,’ he said.

  ‘And you probably know the rest, chief. Adam gets a wife. The wife gets tempted. Original sin. Adam gets kicked out of paradise and it’s another ten thousand years before the Ford Fiesta is invented. And they never sort out the problem with the inner sill on the wheel arches.’