the money.” “But you’re the pilot,” she said, then added,
“Sir,” as if she’d walked into a Japanese house and
forgotten to take off her shoes. The pilot whispered,
“Listen, I need that money. I’m behind on my mortgage
payments because my wife’s a gambler. I’ve got two
sons at naval college—the hats alone cost a small fortune
—and I’m being blackmailed by a pimp in Stockport. Let
me take the two hundred, you’d be saving my life.”
I’d been sitting within earshot, next to the stand-up
ashtray. “Give him the money,” I said. “Who are you?”
asked Dorothy (she was wearing a plastic name-badge
with gold letters). “Dorothy, I’m George,” I said, “and
clearly this man’s in pain. I don’t want him going all
gooey midway over the English Channel. I once heard
sobbing coming from the cabin of a Jumbo Jet at thirty-
three thousand feet, and it sounded like the laughter of
Beelzebub.” “But who’ll fly the plane?” she wanted to
know. “Why me, of course.” I opened my mouth so she
could see how good my teeth were—like pilot’s teeth.
“Do you have a licence?” she asked. I said, “Details,
always details. Dorothy, it’s time to let go a little, to trust
in the unexplained. Time to open your mind to the
infinite.” By now my hand was resting on hers, and
a small crowd of passengers had gathered around,
nodding and patting me on the back. “Good for you,
George,” said a backpacker with a leather shoelace
knotted around his wrist. It was biblical, or like the end
of a family film during the time of innocence. I said,
“Dorothy, give me the keys to the cockpit, and let’s get
this baby in the air.”
15:30 by the Elephant House
“Let’s get married at the zoo!” exclaimed Scott. “Perfect,”
said Charlene. They found the name of a humanist minister
in the Yellow Pages and he arranged to meet them at 15:30
by the elephant house. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer
the glass wall of the penguin tank as a backdrop?” asked the
minister. “They’re so vivacious and life-affirming.” “No,
here’s fine,” said Scott. “Perfect,” agreed Charlene. “Then
let’s begin. Do you, Scott, believe that friendship and
decency underpin the essence of humanity?” “I do,” said
Scott, removing a stray hair clinging to Charlene’s lip.
“And do you, Charlene, agree to hand over the universe to
future generations in an improved and morally enhanced
condition?” “I do,” said Charlene, “I most truthfully do.”
But before the minister could pronounce them husband and
wife, a hulking brute of a man in dirty waders and a peaked
cap came galumphing towards them, bellowing, “What the
bloody hell fire is going on here?” The minister had sidled
away very smartly and was pretending to admire the
aardvark. “We’re getting married,” said Scott. “Not in my
zoo you’re not,” said the man. “Have you no respect for
these creatures, flaunting your humanness in front of them?
Can’t you see how defeated and ashamed they are? Have
you looked the orang-utan in the face?” Scott said, “But
we’re nature lovers.” The zookeeper guffawed. “You’re a
pair of hypocrites. Now fuck off.” Charlene’s heart sank to
the sea bed of her stomach. She hadn’t wanted to hear a
word like that on her wedding day. “Go on, leave this
place. The capybara needs its toenails cutting, and when I
come back I want to find you supremacists gone.”
It rained and there were no taxis. The silk dress Charlene
had ordered from a tailor in Wushi began to perish in front
of her eyes, and the scar on his back where Scott had once
been treated for shingles began to throb and burn. Back in
the house they argued like flamethrowers. But later, after
two bottles of chilled Veuve Clicquot and a tray of Dublin
Bay oysters in bison grass vodka, they pushed the coffee
table to one side and in front of a glowing fire dispensed
with restraint for the first time in their lives. For the heart
shall never relinquish its claim on the crown, and from
love’s furnace shall the golden infant be born. And I
test cricketer, peerless spinner of a red leather ball and their
beautiful bastard son.
An Obituary
Stealing from his mother’s house, Edward came
across a handwritten note tucked away in a scallop-
shell purse.
“As a child, Edward liked to climb trees in the
plantation and make dams in the stream at the foot
of the garden, and once carved a toy rifle out of a
table leg. But right from the very beginning there
was a craving emptiness in Edward’s life. Board
games and soft toys, space-hoppers and bikes—the
more it was given the deeper and wider it grew. All
sweetness was rancid on Edward’s tongue and all
teachers and doctors were assassins and spies. All
handshakes were tentacles, all compliments were
veiled threats, all statements and assessments were
worthless confessions obtained under torture, all
care plans were Byzantine conspiracies of evil
intent. Awake and asleep Edward stalked the
battlements alone, meeting the emissaries of peace
with the point of a bayonet, beading friendship in
the crosshairs of suspicion, scanning the open plane
from the watchtower so as to ride out and beat until
dead the first flames of tenderness or the sparks of
love. He is survived by his mother, Eleanor, from
whom he took everything, but who would give it all
again just to let him scream his agonies into her face
or pound his fury into her breast one final time. He
left no note.”
Edward opened the wardrobe, which was empty
except for the greatcoat, which slumped towards
him then engulfed him as he hauled it from the rail.
The huge, overburdening coat with its stiff, turf-like
cloth, and its triceratops collar, and its mineshaft
pockets, and the drunken punches of its flailing
sleeves. Through the neat bullet hole in the back,
daylight looked distant and pinched, like the world
through a dusty telescope held back-to-front to the
eye. And there Edward wept, crouched in the
foxhole, huddled in a ball under the greatcoat,
draped in the flag.
Knowing What We Know Now
The elf said to Kevin, “You’re probably wondering why
I’m sitting here at your breakfast table this morning,
helping myself to your condiments. Kevin, I’m here to
make you a very special offer—let’s call it a once-in-a-
lifetime opportunity. Today you’re forty-four years and
thirty-six days old, and that’s exactly how long you’ve got
left! Let me save you the mental arithmetic: you’re going
to live till you’re eighty-eight years and seventy-two days,
and you�
�ve just crossed the halfway line. It’s what we
elves like to call ‘the tipping point.’ So, Kevin, as of now,
you can either carry on regardless and pretend we never
met. Or say the word, and I can flip the hourglass on its
head. Do you see what I’m saying? So instead of getting
older you’ll be heading back in the other direction. I’ve got
all the forms—you just sign here, here and here and it’s
goodbye incontinence, hello Ibiza! What do you say,
Kevin?”
The arthritis in Kevin’s shoulder had been bothering him
of late, and the prospect of revitalising his tired and aching
joints was tantalising to say the least. Imagine crusading
once again through the unconquered landscapes of early
manhood, knowing what he knew now. But what about
Annie, the woman he loved, the only woman he’d loved in
his whole life? Could he really go swanning around with a
young man’s intentions and a fashionable T-shirt while she
slipped away towards undignified infirmity and toothless
old age? How cowardly, to let her walk death’s shadowy
footpath alone, thus betraying his every promise to her,
thus breaking every vow. And an image formed in his
mind—Annie with ghostly hair and faraway eyes, cradling
him in her limp, skinny arms, roses in a vase on the bedside
table next to the tissues and ventilator, his flawless cheek
against her grey cotton gown, his tiny mouth moving
hungrily towards her sunken breast. “I won’t do it.
Because of my Annie,” said Kevin, emphatically. The elf
said, “Kevin, you’re a gentleman, and God knows there
aren’t many of them around. And your Annie, she’s one in
a million.” He wiped a few crumbs of crispbread from the
corner of his mouth and added, “No two ways about it, had
the pleasure of breakfasting with her just a few months ago.
A stunning, captivating woman. And looking younger
every day.” Then with a shuffle of his silver slippers on the
hardwood floor, he was gone.
The Experience
I hadn’t meant to go grave robbing with Richard Dawkins
but he can be very persuasive. “Do you believe in God?”
he asked. “I don’t know,” I said. He said, “Right, so get
in the car.” We cruised around the cemetery with the
headlights off. “Here we go,” he said, pointing to a plot
edged with clean, almost luminous white stone. I said,
“Doesn’t it look sort of …” “Sort of what?” “Sort of
fresh?” I said. “Pass me the shovel,” he said. Then he
threw a square of canvas over the headstone, saying,
“Don’t read it. It makes it personal.” He did all the
digging, holding the torch in his mouth as he chopped and
sliced at the dirt around his feet. “What the hell are you
doing?” he shouted from somewhere down in the soil.
“Eating a sandwich,” I said. “Bacon and avocado. Want
one?” “For Christ sake, Terry, this is a serious business,
not the bloody church picnic,” he said, as a shower of dirt
came arcing over his shoulder.
After about half an hour of toil I heard the sound of metal
on wood. “Bingo,” he said. Then a moment or two later,
“Oh, you’re not going to like this, Terry.” “What?” I said,
peering over the edge. Richard Dawkins’s eyes were about
level with my toes. “It’s quite small,” he said. He
uncovered the outline of the coffin lid with his boot. It was
barely more than a yard long and a couple of feet wide. I
felt the bacon and avocado disagreeing with one another.
“Do you believe in God?” he said. I shrugged my
shoulders. “Pass me the jemmy,” he said. The lid
splintered around the nail heads; beneath the varnish the
coffin was nothing but cheap chipboard. The day I found
little Harry in the bath, one eye was closed and the other
definitely wasn’t. Flying fish can’t really fly. With both
feet on the crowbar Richard Dawkins bounced up and
down until the coffin popped open. But lying still and snug
in the blue satin of the upholstered interior was a goose. A
Canada Goose, I think, the ones with the white chinstrap,
though it was hard to be certain because its throat had been
cut and its rubber-looking feet were tied together with
gardening twine. Richard Dawkins leaned back against the
wall of the grave and shook his head. With a philosophical
note in my voice I said, “What did you come here for,
Richard Dawkins?” He said, “Watches, jewellery, cash. A
christening cup, maybe. What about you?” “I thought it
might give me something to write about,” I replied. “Well,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, we’ve got a murdered goose
in a child’s coffin in the middle of the night, and mud on
our boots. How would you finish this one?” he said. I
looked around, trying to think of a way out of this big ugly
mess. Then I said, “I’ve got it. What if we see the vicar
over there, under the yew tree, looking at us? He stares at
us and we stare back, but after a while we realise it isn’t
the vicar at all. It’s a fox. You know, with the white bib
of fur around its neck, which we thought was a collar. A
silent, man-size fox in a dark frockcoat and long black
gloves, standing up on his hind legs, watching.”
Collaborators
A small, heavy man stuck his perfectly bald head
through the open door of Bastian’s barber’s shop and
said, “Do I need an appointment or can you squeeze
me in?” Trade had been brisk that morning and
Bastian had only just put his feet up to read the paper.
“Er, take a seat,” said Bastian. The man threw his
jacket onto the hat stand and jumped in the chair.
“What can I do you for?” asked Bastian. His bald
head was as pink as a pig. It was also a mirrorball set
with a hundred glistening beads of sweat. “You can
get this fringe out of my eyes for a start,” said the
man. “It’s like trekking through Borneo!” Bastian
giggled nervously. “Something funny?” the man said.
“No, nothing, just a tickly cough,” said Bastian. He
produced his scissors from the pouch pocket of his
apron and made a few tentative snips at the fresh air
in front of the man’s eyes. “Better already,” said the
man. “And take some off the top and around the ears,
will you?” Bastian embarked on a slow orbit of the
man’s naked cranium, darting in and out with the
scissors, even dusting a few imaginary hairs off his
shoulders with the brush. “So good, so good,” the
man muttered, then, “Didn’t realise how out of hand it
had got till I caught sight of myself in the butcher’s
window this morning. Said to myself—now there’s
a head in need of a haircut.” Bastian was getting the
hang of it now, warming to the task. “What about
the ponytail?” he asked. “Yeah, fuck it, why not,”
said the man after hesitating a moment. With his
biggest, shiniest
scissors Bastian ceremonially lopped
off the nonexistent twist of hair from behind the
man’s head then held it up for inspection between his
finger and thumb. “Excuse me for being bold, sir, but
might I suggest a complete shave? Extreme, I know,
but very cleansing in this sultry autumn heat, and
increasingly popular with some of my younger
clientele.” The man, who was fifty if he was a day,
said, “Even with men as young as me?” “It seems to
be the fashionable choice, sir,” said Bastian. “Do it,”
said the man. He gripped the metal arms of the chair
as Bastian buzzed around him with the electric
clippers then finished the job with the cutthroat razor,
the stropped blade passing deliriously close to the
scalp. “It’s a revelation,” the customer proclaimed
upon opening his eyes, and for a minute or so he sat
there like a chimp with a mirror, dabbing his nude
skull with astonished fingers, genuine in his disbelief.
Then he paid Bastian with pretend money and set off
down the street whistling a happy song.
By the time he came to lock the door and put the
CLOSED sign in the window later that evening,
Bastian had forgotten the hairless customer. But after
sweeping the linoleum and shaking the curls and
locks of a day’s work into the dustbin in the
alleyway, he was dumbfounded to notice a long,
golden ponytail tied neatly with twine, then to find
nails and thorns, and also what looked like teeth,
and the suggestion of a small black moustache.
Ricky Wilson Couldn’t Sleep
He got up and went for a walk. It was 4 o’clock in the
morning. There was no one around except for a drunk
sleeping it off in the doorway of Vidal Sassoon. Then an
orange came rolling towards Ricky down Albion Street.
It trundled in his direction before clipping a kerbstone and
jumping straight into his hands. The orange was dusty and
slightly misshapen from its journey, but after a quick polish
with his cravat and a bit of moulding in his hands, the fruit
was restored. He stared at it under the glow of the