The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived (4 page)

‘What
do you mean,
where?’

‘I
mean,’ Norman made shaky finger-pointings, first toward the direction of where
Heaven is generally supposed to be situated, then downwards to where…

‘Not
down
there.’
The Post Life Counsellor fell about in further hilarity.
‘There’s no
down there
any more. I’ll explain everything to you. Well,
as much as I know anyway. We’ll take the lift.’

‘The
lift?’ Norman viewed once more the clear blue sky. ‘We take the lift
up?’

‘How
else?’

‘Well,’
Norman tried to scratch his head, but couldn’t, ‘there’s no chance of any
feathered wings, I suppose?’

‘Feathered
wings?’ The lad in white creased double. ‘None at all, no mate. You really
cocked up in that department.’

Norman
glared bitterly towards his blubbering dad. But his blubbering dad was no
longer in his wheelchair. For he too had somehow managed to fall into Norman’s
grave.

‘Stuff
it then. The lift it is.’

And the lift it was.

And a
fine-looking lift it was too.

Just
like those ones you used to see in big stores and underground stations. All
twiddly-widdly Victorian ironwork and a big brass up-and-down-control-knob-jobbie
It looked a little out of place in the corner of the graveyard though. But then
no-one could see it there, except for Norman and his PLC.

‘All
aboard,’ said this fellow. ‘Going up. Top floor: eternal life, endless bliss,
harps, gowns and halos.’

‘Leave
it out,’ said Norman.

‘Please
yourself.’

Norman
wandered into the lift and the lad in white swung the gates shut. ‘You know,’
said Norman, ‘you look sort of familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?’

‘Took
you long enough. I used to go to infants’ school with you.’

‘Yes,
that’s it. You’re—’

‘Jack,’
said Jack. ‘Jack Bradshaw.’

‘Norman,’
said Norman.

‘Yes, I
know who
you
are.’

‘Oh
yes. So, well, Jack, what have you been doing with yourself then?’

‘I’ve
been being dead, haven’t I? Snuffed it when I was five.’

‘I
thought you moved away. That’s what my mum said.’

‘Fell
off the pier and drowned,
that’s
what I did.’

‘What a
bummer. But what a coincidence. You being my PLC.’

‘Not
really.’ Jack cranked the big brass up-and-down-control-knob-jobbie and the
lift began to rise. ‘I saw your name come up in the ledger so I volunteered for
the job. You’re the first person that I used to know to snuff it since me, so I
thought it would be nice to meet up with you again. Do you still pooh yourself
when you get frightened?’

‘No I
do
not.
I was only five then. Do you still pick your nose and eat the
bogies?’

‘All
the time. Doesn’t everyone?’

‘I
suppose they do.’

The
lift rose at an alarming rate of knots. And had Norman still been five, there
is no doubt that he would have disgraced himself. Up and away went the lift.
Through a little cloud or two, then up and up and up.

‘But
hold on,’ said Norman. ‘You’re not five any more.’

‘Well,
nor are you.’ Jack leaned close to the lift gates and spat through them. ‘Look
at that sucker go down. Bombs away.’

‘I
mean’, said Norman, ‘that if you died when you were five, how come you’re not
still five? You don’t grow older in Heaven, do you?’

‘I
wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to Heaven.’

‘But
you said—’

‘I said
you weren’t going
down there.
Because there’s no
down there
any
more. I never said anything about you going to Heaven.’

‘So
where else is there to go? Not Purgatory? I don’t want to go there. I’m not a
Roman Catholic, I’m a Presbyterian.’

‘What’s
a Presbyterian?’

‘I
wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to church.’

‘I
reckon you’re dead lucky that there’s no
down there
any more.
Dead
lucky,
did you get that?’

‘Most
amusing,’ said Norman. ‘Will we be there soon, wherever it is that we’re going
to?’

‘Soon
enough,’ said Jack. ‘Do you want to take a couple of gobs through the lift
gates before we arrive?’

‘Not
half.’

Now, as Norman had no
preconceived ideas about what he might find when he arrived at wherever it was
he was bound for, what he saw when he arrived neither surprised nor
disappointed him. So to speak.

Whatever
it was and wherever it was, there was a lot of it about. All over the place.
And it hung there, whatever it was, evidently attached to the side of something
far bigger.

Whatever
that
was.

To be a
little more specific, the lot of it that Norman now found himself gawping up at
looked something like the outside of one of those great imposing Victorian
Ministry-of-something-or-other buildings that stand around, taking up lots of
space, in the Whitehall area. The ones that you never see anyone go in or out
of.

In his
masterwork
The Book of Ultimate Truths,
Hugo Rune explains that these
buildings are, in fact, nothing more than brick façades which were knocked up
at the end of the Second World War to fool visiting Germans into believing that
all their bombs had missed London during the Blitz. Rune apparently learned
this from his good friend Winston Churchill, who confided that they had all
been erected by set builders from Pinewood Studios and were completely fall of
rubble.

Well,
this building looked something like one of those. But there was much more of
it. It went on and on and on. Tier upon tier. Row upon row of featureless
windows. A great swathe of steps led towards a most imposing British Museum
sort of portico.

‘It’s
not
Heaven, is it?’ Norman scratched at his head. ‘I can scratch my head
again,’ said he.

‘Of
course you can. You’re all solid up here.’

‘But up
here is
not
Heaven.’

Jack
strode off towards the steps. ‘It’s where you’ll be working,’ he called back
over his shoulder.

‘Working?’
Norman chewed upon the word and then spat it back out.
‘Working?
Hang about.’

‘Look
at it this way,’ said Jack, once Norman had caught up. ‘The bad news is that
you’re dead. But the good news is: you’re in fall-time, regular employment.
You’ve me to thank for that.’

‘You
what?’ Norman spluttered. ‘But I don’t want any fall-time, regular employment.
I’m only fourteen. I’ve got years left to doss about at school. Then I intend
to go on and doss about at college. Get myself a degree and then doss about on
the dole. You’re out of touch, Jack, young people don’t work any more.

‘They
do here,’ said Jack. ‘And you don’t have years to doss about at anything.
You’re dead, mate. Dead as a—’

‘Dead
boy. Yes, you told me.

‘Come
on then.’ They had reached the top of the big swathe of steps and now stood
before a big revolve of revolving doors. Jack pushed, the revolving doors
revolved, and he with them. Like you would.

Norman
remained upon the threshold, making the face of great doubt. He did not like
the look of this place one little bit. It wasn’t Heaven and Jack might well be
lying about it not being ‘The Bad Place’. Perhaps he should make a run for it,
take his chances elsewhere, take the lift down to earth again and escape. Haunt
Druid’s Tor or something. Anything would surely be better than an eternity of
regular employment. No matter what form that employment would actually take.

‘I’m
off,’ said Norman, turning to flee.

But
flee he did not. At the bottom of the steps, where the lift had brought him up,
there was now nothing.

And it
was a serious nothing, very void-like and specked with stars. It was the kind
of nothing that said, ‘No way, matey.’

Norman’s
face of great doubt became a face of a terrible glumness. ‘I don’t know what
I’ve done to deserve this,’ he mumbled. But then, just for a moment, he had
this crystal flash of memory. And he could see himself, in his Y-fronts,
sitting in a pentagram calling out the barbarous names of unholy deities. And
with this crystal flash, Norman felt that perhaps he did know
just
what
he’d done to deserve this after all.

And so,
very meekly, he followed Jack inside.

4

Now many miles north of
Skelington Bay, but just three south of Transglobe’s West London offices, there
lies a little borough known as Brentford. And on this day the sun shone there,
as very well it might. With tenderness it touched upon the fine slate rooftops
of the elegant Victorian terraces, bringing forth the architectural splendours
of the Memorial Library and the historic Butts Estate; the rich floral glories
of the magnificent parks and gardens.

Ah,
Brentford.

The sun
entered many windows here. Those of The Flying Swan, for instance.
‘That
drinking man’s Valhalla, where noble men take sup and speak of noble deeds.’
Here
the sunlight played upon the Brylcremed head of Neville. Full-time part-time
barman and now lord of his domain. What tales this man might tell, and soon
perchance we’ll listen when he does.

And
here, The Wife’s Legs Café. The sun peeps in to spy upon the fair wife here, as
she, with fingers slender and nails most gorgeously manicured, adds just a
touch of elder flower to an omelette in the pan. And sighs. For what? Who
knows.

And
down the road a piece, through double-glazed lounge window and the patio
sliding door, who’s this the old sun shines upon? Why, Norman’s mum so it is,
before the TV screen. And on the sofa. With the milkman, Mr Marsuple. Tut, tut.
The old sun makes no comment and shines on.

And
shines most gloriously indeed through tall arched windows of the Gothic ilk.
Those of Brentford’s County Court. And here, in angled shafts, alive with
floating motes of gold, helps set the scene for drama and excitement and
intrigue to come.

The way
it should.

The
court is packed this day. The balcony, where sits the public, not a spare seat
to be found. All tickets
sold
the night before, within The Flying Swan.
By one John Vincent Omally, Dublin born and Brentford bred, whose family, so it
is claimed, hold this privilege, handed down though generations, by tradition,
or an old charter, or a something. And at five bob a head, who churlishly would
think to argue, for a chance to view a show, the likes of which this promised
so to be?

For in
this town of Brentford, a town which continued to defy all national statistics
and remain virtually crime—free, the occasion of a local boy coming up before
the magistrate had caused a certain stir. And that this local boy should be an
eighteen-year-old self-made millionaire, who had generously bestowed a great
deal of largess upon the community and was now being dragged before the court
upon some trifling matter, seemed nothing short of scandalous.

Especially
to those who had received a share of this largess, purchased their tickets and
now thronged the public gallery with their Thermos flasks, packed lunches and comfy
cushions.

The
courtroom was a proud affair, both dignified and venerable. With panelling of
polished oak, pews of musty velvet, balustrades of burnished brass and carpets
rich and red.

Beneath
the town crest, with its griffins rampant above a yard of ale and the Latin
motto
Non est disputandum Brentfordium Large
(there is no disputing the
beer of Brentford), stood the judge’s throne. And occupying this, the judge.

A short
man, red of face and black of outlook. Brigadier Algenon ‘Chunky’ Wilberforce
DSM, OTO, KY, and so forth, famed in a shaft of sunlight and rued the day that
hanging had been stricken from the statute books.

A
stranger to the borough was this man, brought in at the very last minute to
replace Brentford’s resident magistrate, Mr Justice Glastonbury, philosopher,
libertine and author of the bestselling book
Don’t Let the Legal Bastards
Stitch You Up: A New Age Traveller’s Guide to the British Judicial System.

Some
said that Mr Justice Glastonbury had been taken sick at the eleventh hour, but
others, who probably know more than most, suggested that the Brigadier had been
brought in to provide that essential cheap-one-dimensional-stereotypical-easy-target-comic-cliché
element which would otherwise have been so sadly lacking.

Flanking
this ogre was a clerk of the court named Wallace and a lady in a straw hat who
was knitting a grey sock.

Around
and about the courtroom sat all those people that you find around and about
courtrooms: earnest young men in little wigs and legal attire, who move bundles
of documents from one place to another; an efficient woman who types up all
that is said onto a small device that doesn’t seem to have enough keys; people
with beards and jumpers, who make out ‘social reports’; secretaries and minor
officials; and this body and that.