Bite The Wax Tadpole (18 page)

I’m hallucinating, he told himself, closing his eyes so firmly he expected them to clang like the flap slamming on a cell door. This bloody tumour’s poking into that bit of the brain where embarrassing fashion memories are stored. All he needed to do was concentrate and he’d be back in Newtown.

“You were quite a little mover in those days, weren’t you? I’m surprised Travolta even got a sniff of that role with you around.”

Malcolm opened his eyes to find Norman beside him, dancing in much the same way a corpse danced on the end of the hangman’s rope.

“What are you talking about?”

Norman pointed a bony finger. “Where did all that hair go?”

And there he was, dancing across the floor towards himself. Impossible, of course, but a brain tumour pushed back the boundaries somewhat. He caught sight of himself and his younger self together in the mirror behind the bar. How on earth had the one metamorphosed into the other? As Norman had alluded to, the jet black locks, including the ones that sprung manfully from the top of his unbuttoned shirt, had thinned into silvery grey wisps and he seemed to have lost a foot in height. His nose had grown, though. How was that? The young himself threw himself around the dance floor in a series of moves that had the old himself wincing at the thought of the irreparable damage it would do to his joints these days.

“I say”, said Norman. “Who is that gorgeous creature?”

Along with gravity waves, scientists are still searching for waves of nostalgia but a series of the latter now swept their melancholy way through Malcolm as he watched the dark haired girl with the dimple and the high cheekbones join the young himself on the dance floor. Peggy, his first wife. God, where was she now?

Actually, he half knew where she was now. Playing an old age pensioner with a murky past in “EastEnders.” But what was she doing with the other part of her life, the part away from the cameras? Was she happy? Was she still with Julian, the only choreographer in world ballet married to a woman? Children? Grandchildren? Great grandchildren? Questions, questions...

Oh, Jesus, they’re kissing. No, no, this isn’t right. It was too much. Memories should just not be this vivid. It made them unbearable.

Norman nudged his elbow. “Enjoying yourself?”

“No, I bloody well am not. I’m having a serious attack of nostalgia. Assuming you got me in here, get me out. Now!”

“Fair enough.”

Everything went black then faded-up into what looked like the start of a kitchen sink drama. Well, there was the kitchen sink for a start. Unlike Malcolm’s own kitchen sink it wasn’t loaded to the gunwales with food encrusted plates and dirty cups and the floor didn’t look like the bottom of a bird’s cage. Nevertheless it did have a familiar feel to it, an old man’s kitchen.

“Ah”, sighed Norman, again at his side, “home sweet home.”

The door opened and in shuffled another Norman, one not noticeably younger than the one that stood beside Malcolm although this one wore a faded towelling dressing gown rather than doublet and hose and his grey, waxy face showed several days’ sporadic white whiskers.

“Oh, dear, I don’t look well, do I?” remarked Norman as his Other Self shuffled to the pantry cupboard and took out a tin. He struggled to deal with the ring-pull but at last bent the lid back to reveal the chunks of Pedigree Chum inside

“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it”, advised Norman. “Bit of paprika and onion, delicious.”

His Other Self began to chew until a curious, bewildered look came over his face, a look which turned into a grimace, then a rictus of pain. He let go of the can and fork, clutched his chest, let rip with a mighty fart and pitched forward onto the work top before sliding to the floor.

“Good God, is that how you...?”

“Indeed it was, old boy”, said Norman, looking curiously at his dead body. “Cry woe, destruction, ruin and decay – The worst is death and death shall have his day. We’ll fast forward three months, shall we?”

A paranormal zip cut and they were in another apartment where a family were seated round the small dining table in the kitchen area. Mum, Dad and the two kids, a perfect TV ad family.

“Meet my erstwhile neighbours, the Robinsons”, said Norman. “From the floor below. Nice people, if a trifle on the religious side.”

The Robinsons bowed their heads over bowls of tomato soup.

“For what we are about to receive”, intoned Mr Robinson, “may the Lord make us truly Thankful.”

The family amened and reached for the soup spoons. Mrs Robinson’s spoon had just about reached her lips when a large drop of something dark and viscous landed with a disconcertingly loud plop in her soup dish. They all looked up at the ceiling, at the black, spreading, weeping stain.

“Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase dropping in for dinner, don’t you think?”

Malcolm put his hand to his mouth, revolted and nauseated, as the room began to fade and things began to swirl again.

“To the future, I think”, said Norman. “Your future, that is.”

When the spinning stopped they were clearly in an old folks’ home. The evidence lay in the rows of old folks in leatherette chairs gathered in front of a young woman playing “Mull of Kintyre” on a portable keyboard. They were singing along with rheumy-eyed enthusiasm, dentures clicking in time to the music.

“This, sadly, is where you’ll end up” said Norman. “Should your brain surgery prove successful, that is. Quite nice, don’t you think?”

“It’s vile. And I loathe and detest sing-songs.”

“Just as well you’re not singing then. That’s you over there.”

Malcolm followed Norman’s nod to a corner where a palsied, drooling, head lolling wretch slumped in a wheelchair. The nurse next to him left off her singing and sniffed.

“Oh, dear, Malcolm”, she said, “time for a nappy change. Stinky poos!”

If the sight of Norman dripping through the floorboards had been unsettling this glimpse of his future decrepitude was terrifying. As the nurse, nose high in the air, wheeled the gaga Malcolm off to the geriatric nappy changing room – such a place didn’t bear thinking of – the whirligig of time or whatever it was spun the still sentient Malcolm and the reconstituted Norman back to the bar at the Black Gum.

“Hmm”, said a thoughtful Norman, “that didn’t quite go the way I expected.”

Malcolm downed a mouthful of beer. “Maybe you were right before. When you said it was best to go out with a bang not a whimper.”

He looked up to see the Bar Manager, towel over one arm, carrying a fistful of empty glasses. “Is someone coming to take you back or what?”

Rob woke at three am precisely from a dream of escaping to New York as a trainee navigator in a Catalina flying boat and sat bolt upright. Anna Karenina he thought. Niobe had been trying to do an Anna Karenina. All that literature had unhinged her. And she was last seen heading towards Central Station. He lay back down again, wide awake and sweating. She wouldn’t, would she, not really? But it had been only luck that she hadn’t been flattened by the bus. He could see it all now. Hauled in front of the Coroner’s Court to testify as to the deceased’s state of mind prior to her throwing herself in front of the last train to Blacktown. He stared into the darkness of the ceiling, listening to the croaks and buzzes and trills of the tropical garden knowing he wouldn’t get back to sleep until five minutes before the alarm went off. What to do, what to do? He didn’t want to think. The Periodic Table, yes, he’d try and recall the Periodic Table as taught by “Stinky” Stevens in O Level chemistry. Now then, the elements are listed in order of atomic number which is the number of protons in the nucleus. Isn’t it? Number one is, of course, hydrogen. Atomic number: one. Number of protons in the nucleus: one... And he was asleep. Never failed in “Stinky” Steven’s chemistry class, didn’t fail now.

The sun was a golden ball in a sky that was cerulean. Rob wasn’t too good on shades but cerulean, if not accurate, did at least sound right. He was on a Greek Island sitting on the veranda of a white-washed cottage tapping away at an old fashioned typewriter, glass of deep red wine on the table beside him. He was even smoking a cigarette. Filthy habit, of course, but still part of his romantic image of the writer. A flock of sheep passed by on the dusty road herded, or should that be flocked, by a wizened old peasant with a grey, sandpaper beard and blackened teeth. Rob gave him a cheery wave to which the old man responded by spitting on the ground. Rob returned to his typewriter. “This morning the old shepherd only spat once on the ground” he typed. “Last night in the tavern, Nikos did not laugh and point at my private parts. I think I am becoming accepted by the islanders.”

A series of strangled phut-phuts rose from a powdery cloud behind the hill and were soon accompanied by the sight, not common in the Cyclades, of a Sydney postie on his little yellow motorcycle. He chugged to a halt and retrieved a parcel from the saddlebag. Striding, bow-legged up the path, he dumped it on the table. “Another bloody parcel from the Booker people for you. Will you please, please fill in a change of address form? Do you know how hard on the arse-bone it is riding all the way here from the West Ryde sorting office?”

Rob dutifully signed for his parcel and went inside. He ripped open the bubble-wrap and took out a gold trophy in the shape of a man sitting a desk, deep in thought, staring at a computer screen. He put it on a rough wooden shelf along with nineteen others.

“The new Booker prize has arrived”, he called out. Niobe, clad in a diaphanous peplos, stood framed in the bedroom door. “Come to me, my darling”, she purred. “Let your muse reward you.”

Rob started eagerly for the bedroom only to be stopped dead by a voice screaming: “Don’t you dare!” He spun around. Alison was sitting in a rocking chair breastfeeding twins, surrounded by a whole kindergarten of under fives.

“There are three bottoms and five noses need wiping here.”

Rob looked from Alison to Niobe to the door as it swung open and Hope staggered in with an armful of scripts. She dumped them next to the pile already on the table.

“Sorry, these need rewriting by five o’clock.”

No, no, Rob screamed inwardly, I’m a famous, Booker Prize winning novelist, these scripts can’t be anything to do with me.

“This man has a rare heart condition”, intoned a voice from behind him and he swivelled to see a man in a white coat with a stethoscope round his neck, “which could see him suffer a myocardial infarction at any moment. Will he survive until next week? Tune in to “Who Goes Next? to find out.”

“Mate, I need another script. Me house has burned down.” The familiar kangaroo costume stood silhouetted in the doorway.

“Come to bed.”

“Get the Pampers”.

“Five thirty at the latest.”

“And I’ve crashed the car.”

“Wait, it’s all too much for him, I don’t think he’ll survive the credits. He’s going, he’s going...”

Rob, writhing in bed, covered in a muck sweat, reached out for the alarm as Cat Stevens, Yusuf Islam, sang softly to him, informing him that morning had broken. He missed the alarm and fell out of bed.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

It was to be a day like no other in the history of the planet but as all previous days in the history of the planet had been different to all the other days in the history of the planet it was, in fact, to be a day just like any other. For millions of people across the globe it would be noteworthy because it was the day they were born, they day they got married, the day they died, the day of the earthquake or outbreak of plague or civil war, the day they got a nasty paper cut when doing the photocopying. For the cast and crew of “Rickety Street” it was the day of the live episode.

Terry, ex-peripheral member of the “Rickety Street” family, felt much more positive, much calmer now that he had made up his mind what to do about his situation. He got up early and started with the dusting and vacuuming before cleaning the windows, sweeping the yard and mowing the lawn. After a light lunch he wheeled the recycling bin down to the end of the drive before giving the Holden a loving wash and a rub down with some T-cut. He then sat down with a cup of Earl Grey and wrote a letter to the police which he propped up on the coffee table in front of a vase of freshly-cut petunias.

Phyllida had resolved to put all thoughts of stalkers out of her mind and concentrate on cementing her lines for the live ep. She wasn’t going to let herself be distracted by some mentally disturbed TV freak with a tenuous grasp on reality. She knew the Network relied on such people to make up their core viewing audience but that didn’t give them visiting rights to the homes and lives of the actors. Realistically, she also knew that the vast majority of stalkers were not in the least dangerous. They merely wanted to touch the hem of their idol’s garment or give them a poem they’d written expressing their undying devotion. Rarely did they turn up with a concealed Kalashnikov. Nevertheless, she did peek out of the window and do a quick scan of the street before settling down with a chai latte and her script.

The day for Malcolm started, as usual, with a groan as he heaved his loosely articulated bones out of bed. He opened the blinds to see what sort of a bastard of day it was going to be and there was Norman reclining on the windowsill.

“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”, he declaimed as Malcolm did an about turn and sloped towards the kitchen. It had been a late, late night and he needed caffeine in medically irresponsible doses.

“... creeps in this petty pace from day to day”, continued Norman, following him. “To the last syllable of recorded time.

On the kitchen table was a plastic shopping bag. Malcolm hesitated betwixt it and the kettle.

“And all out yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.”

“Yes, Thank you very much, I get the picture”, said Malcolm, checking inside the bag on the off-chance that what he thought he’d done the previous night was part of his current program of hallucinations. It wasn’t. The thing was still there, wrapped in an oily cloth.

Norman peered over his shoulder. “Are you sure it’s in full working order? I rather fear that buying goods for cash in a Kings Cross pub from a man called Spike invalidates your consumer protection.”