Well, because I am unbelievably glamorous, as you only have to look at me to know, this weekend I have been in the Hamptons, but I have had to come back early to Manhattan to see my show. I can totally see why people go on about the Hamptons. The place I was staying was right next to Shinnecock - a few hundred yards from the clubhouse - and this will not be very exciting to many of you, but to some, well, let's just say that it looked in pretty decent shape, and I would happily have played there if I'd started arranging it six months ago and been a lot richer. Now I am back in the Upper West Side, really near Central Park. There are brunch queues at the popular places (looked to me like Sarabeth's (I think famous) and Good Enough To Eat) that go on for most of a block. NY fetishised Sunday brunch is delicious but also hilarious.
As for how this is going: well, as I have indicated, I am increasingly aware of all the loose ends that I have no concrete plan for tying up, and the ending which I do not have, and the number of major characters whose true identities remain a matter of some flexibility. Not all the major characters, but one or two.
And now I must go and find some coffee, because I had too much iffy Gewurtztraminer with my thai duck last night.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
Chapter 34: Sympathy for the Devil
David Beckham stood at the end of my bed crying. ‘It’s impossible for you to conceive how much pain I’m in,’ he said. I didn’t react, because I was pretending to be drugged. He continued, ‘There’s no way you could possibly conceive what I have been through in the last half hour. You can’t begin to conceive of what it’s like to spend an eternity reincarnating, and every time being made to be life-partners with someone who is massively annoying who you hate who is totally obsessed with you. It is impossible that you can possibly begin to conceive how much worse it is even than that if the whole time you are in love with someone else, who you think will never love you, because you are not worthy of him. Yes, Mary Sue! HIM! You probably didn’t think that demons could be sensitive, did you? That we would be loving and tolerant of homosexuality. It’s just that I have never been allowed to be officially gay by the Master because Victoria Beckham is our best fighter, and she insists on me being always with her. It’s a nightmare for me, but finally today, because the last battle is coming, I finally admitted to the man I have always loved that I love him – you don’t have to know his name and you wouldn’t believe it if I told you – and the amazing thing was this: he admitted that he loved me too, or would at least have both kinds of sex with me, oral and normal. It’s… Oh. You cannot possibly conceive.’
Actually I knew precisely who he was talking about, because I had been in the closet when he had this conversation with Matt Damon. Then R Kelly emerged from another closet and shot Matt Damon, and then Victoria burst in and killed R Kelly. Of course, David Beckham couldn’t possibly conceive of my knowing this, so he continued, ‘Your brain could not begin to conceive what it’s like for that person then to be killed in front of you, and… I’m not going on. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. The only reason I can possibly conceive is that I’m really distraught and my guard is down. It would be impossible for you to conceive anything like what I’ve been through. NO ONE ELSE has EVER had the experience fancying someone for ages, but not telling them, and everything therefore being crap.’
‘Good grief,’ I thought. Once upon a time, my main experience of this particularly tedious archetype was Rollo Price, who I said nothing to at university. But my feelings about Rollo were very complicated, because he was now a policeman who didn’t trust me, and because I’d seen his photograph in the evil Master’s secret safe. The best version of the story for me now, probably, was the barrister in the office next to mine at chambers, who was pontificating and doom-mongering but in a cute way. When I arrived at 11A South Square six years ago, he’d been there for two years already. I immediately had a crush on him, and I was sure he felt something for me too. I was nervous, though, and in a moment of madness I told him I fancied someone else. He then became my confidante, and the boy with whom I discussed relationships, always assuming that at some point he would finally see through me and sweep me up in his arms. He never seemed to get anywhere with women, even though plenty fancied him. I had a few ropey boyfriends, and I made sure my neighbour knew they were going nowhere. I was sure our feelings for each other were getting stronger. And then one day, after four years of me growing certainer with every passing day that things were on the verge of culminating in some drunken moment of mutual admission, he started gong out with someone else, got engaged after a year, and that was that. He probably did fancy me, maybe for a couple of years, but we’ll never know now. The thing is… Wait. Wait a moment. What a boring, pointless story this is. I suppose my point, if I have one, is that David Beckham’s story, for all the stuff about it lasting millions of years, was unebelievably banal. Which you already knew.
David Beckham dried his eyes and said, ‘Well, it can’t be helped. It’s important that you see that we demons have feelings just like you, because you are one of us, whether you like it or not, and you will be on our side as soon as the Master arrives to persuade you, which will be first thing tomorrow morning.’ I admit that this did worry me, even though I knew that Miss Smallbone, who had infiltrated the demon headquarters and undrugged me, must have a plan for getting me out as soon as we knew the Master’s identity.
The door opened. ‘Here you are, babe,’ said Victoria Beckham. ‘You look upset.’ She went to hold David Beckham’s hand, but he shook her off angrily. ‘You can’t keep pushing me away, babe. Not forever.’ She looked as forlorn as he did. I almost felt sorry for them. Then Victoria said, ‘Come on babe, we have a job to do.’
‘Oh yes,’ said David Beckham to me. ‘I forgot to say. We captured a traitor an hour ago. One of the angels inconceivably managed to get a job here. It’s worrying that our security was compromised, but we have her now. We’re going to torture her until she tells us everything she knows, and then Victoria will kill her.’
‘The way I’ll kill her is this,’ said Victoria Beckham, baring her teeth. Then she described what she would do to Miss Smallbone, which is something I am not going to pass on, and you should be grateful.
‘So,’ I thought. ‘This is how it feels when all hope is gone.’
Actually I knew precisely who he was talking about, because I had been in the closet when he had this conversation with Matt Damon. Then R Kelly emerged from another closet and shot Matt Damon, and then Victoria burst in and killed R Kelly. Of course, David Beckham couldn’t possibly conceive of my knowing this, so he continued, ‘Your brain could not begin to conceive what it’s like for that person then to be killed in front of you, and… I’m not going on. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. The only reason I can possibly conceive is that I’m really distraught and my guard is down. It would be impossible for you to conceive anything like what I’ve been through. NO ONE ELSE has EVER had the experience fancying someone for ages, but not telling them, and everything therefore being crap.’
‘Good grief,’ I thought. Once upon a time, my main experience of this particularly tedious archetype was Rollo Price, who I said nothing to at university. But my feelings about Rollo were very complicated, because he was now a policeman who didn’t trust me, and because I’d seen his photograph in the evil Master’s secret safe. The best version of the story for me now, probably, was the barrister in the office next to mine at chambers, who was pontificating and doom-mongering but in a cute way. When I arrived at 11A South Square six years ago, he’d been there for two years already. I immediately had a crush on him, and I was sure he felt something for me too. I was nervous, though, and in a moment of madness I told him I fancied someone else. He then became my confidante, and the boy with whom I discussed relationships, always assuming that at some point he would finally see through me and sweep me up in his arms. He never seemed to get anywhere with women, even though plenty fancied him. I had a few ropey boyfriends, and I made sure my neighbour knew they were going nowhere. I was sure our feelings for each other were getting stronger. And then one day, after four years of me growing certainer with every passing day that things were on the verge of culminating in some drunken moment of mutual admission, he started gong out with someone else, got engaged after a year, and that was that. He probably did fancy me, maybe for a couple of years, but we’ll never know now. The thing is… Wait. Wait a moment. What a boring, pointless story this is. I suppose my point, if I have one, is that David Beckham’s story, for all the stuff about it lasting millions of years, was unebelievably banal. Which you already knew.
David Beckham dried his eyes and said, ‘Well, it can’t be helped. It’s important that you see that we demons have feelings just like you, because you are one of us, whether you like it or not, and you will be on our side as soon as the Master arrives to persuade you, which will be first thing tomorrow morning.’ I admit that this did worry me, even though I knew that Miss Smallbone, who had infiltrated the demon headquarters and undrugged me, must have a plan for getting me out as soon as we knew the Master’s identity.
The door opened. ‘Here you are, babe,’ said Victoria Beckham. ‘You look upset.’ She went to hold David Beckham’s hand, but he shook her off angrily. ‘You can’t keep pushing me away, babe. Not forever.’ She looked as forlorn as he did. I almost felt sorry for them. Then Victoria said, ‘Come on babe, we have a job to do.’
‘Oh yes,’ said David Beckham to me. ‘I forgot to say. We captured a traitor an hour ago. One of the angels inconceivably managed to get a job here. It’s worrying that our security was compromised, but we have her now. We’re going to torture her until she tells us everything she knows, and then Victoria will kill her.’
‘The way I’ll kill her is this,’ said Victoria Beckham, baring her teeth. Then she described what she would do to Miss Smallbone, which is something I am not going to pass on, and you should be grateful.
‘So,’ I thought. ‘This is how it feels when all hope is gone.’
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Chapter 33: Out of the Incinerator and into the Blast Furnace
I was standing in the office of the Master, who wanted me to help him and his demons destroy the world. He was arriving tomorrow, and he thought I was lying drugged on a bed next door, waiting for him to work his persuasive magic. I was not lying drugged on the bed because little, neat Miss Smallbone had managed to get a job as a maid in the Master’s American headquarters, and she had switched the drugs. She had sent me to the office to find out where the demons’ UK headquarters were, so… I didn’t know what exactly Miss Smallbone wanted to do about it, but she was the goodies, right? I was, through my panic, trying to be a brave soldier, rather than a terrified young barrister.
A terrified, nosy barrister. Because here I was, still riffling through the pages of the file. The demon headquarters, all along, had been in the chambers next door to my own in London’s South Square. We always wondered why 11B seemed to spend all its time having renovations done, and now I could see. The plans showed that the narrow staircase and twenty poky rooms were the tip of an underground iceberg, full of rooms called, ‘bunker,’ ‘shooting range,’ and ‘armoury.’ There was also a squash court. This shouldn’t have pleased me, but I hate squash and squash players for personal private reasons that I never reveal to anyone, which are that I once went out with a squash player for about a month, and he was really boring, and then, when I dumped him, I heard that he was telling other people that he’d dumped me because, ‘Things were never quite right in the bed department.’ Anyway, the plans were very interesting, even though the headquarters were ‘scheduled for demolition,' which I didn’t want to think about too hard. I memorised the address of the French headquarters also, in case it might prove useful, and the ones in New York and Madrid. The headquarters’ address was all Miss Smallbone had detailed me to find, but I was in the safe, so it seemed foolish not to find out what else I could.
Also, the second file was headed, MARY SUE PARK: CHOSEN ONE, and how could I possibly not read that? It was fat, and it was horrible. There were school reports, pictures of me at home as a child, pictures of me at uni, pictures of me in my current flat, pictures of me and Gavin, my murdered husband, and pictures of me lying drugged in my bed next door. There were constant banal little notes, of which the last was typical. ‘Target acquired,’ it read. ‘Target failed to succumb to reasoned argument. Master prohibited torture, for the time being. Master will subdue Target to his iron and icy will on Thursday evening. Master and Target to open Gates of Hell some time in next two days after that, presumably.’ It was not a reassuring document. I wanted to examine it more carefully, but there were others to get through, and it really wouldn’t do to be caught.
The next file was called ‘TARGETS.’ It listed and pictured the angels, as far as the demons knew who they were. Some, like Davina McCall and Ewan McGregor, had a large red stamp across their names saying, ‘DELETED.’ Some names had question marks indicating that the demons were unsure whether they were angels or not. Freddie Flintoff, who helped protect me in the firefight where Davina McCall was killed, had a question mark scrubbed out, and was now listed as ‘CONFIRMED.’ One thing which was sort-of-funny, in an awful way, was that there was a picture of David Mitchell the comedian next to a question mark. I had recently learnt that David Mitchell the comedian was a different person to David Mitchell the novelist, and it was David Mitchell the novelist who was an angel, and he really hated the fact that everyone confused him with David Mitchell the comedian. Still, this meant that maybe the demons would kill David Mitchell the comedian, who I’m sure is a nice person and everything, but he was not trying to save the world.
A special sub-section at the back of the file was devoted to David Tennant. It was sub-headed: OUR MOST DANGEROUS FOE! It was familiar stuff. I raced on to the next file, which was marked PLANS. A sheaf of paper fell out, entitled, PLAN FOR OPENING GATES OF HELL AND KILLING ALL THE ANGELS. But under the title was a red scribble saying, ‘Plans removed because of them being too secret. Order of the Master.’
I picked up the last two files, which had no titles, and just as I was about to open them, I heard footsteps outside in the corridor. Oh my God. What had I been doing? I immediately gathered all the files together, ready to stuff them back into the safe. But as I did so, from somewhere in the last two files, a photo slipped out and floated to the floor. It was such a surprising photo that I stared dumbly at it, stock still for a moment while the voices stopped at the door, and then some lifesaving instinct took over and I went into a zone of panicking efficiency. I rammed the files into the safe, sprinted through the window and along the balcony to my room, stuffed the plan of the building under my mattress and flung myself onto the bed at the very moment my door opened. As David Beckham entered, for whatever reason it was, I tried to control my heart and breathing, and wondered desperately why the Master’s safe might possibly contain a picture of Rollo Price, who I was once besotted with, who became a policeman, and who I didn’t think was in any way mixed up in this nightmare, except by the tangential accident of his being the first copper to have found me, David Tennant and my husband’s dead body. I still believed in coincidences? How stupid was I?
A terrified, nosy barrister. Because here I was, still riffling through the pages of the file. The demon headquarters, all along, had been in the chambers next door to my own in London’s South Square. We always wondered why 11B seemed to spend all its time having renovations done, and now I could see. The plans showed that the narrow staircase and twenty poky rooms were the tip of an underground iceberg, full of rooms called, ‘bunker,’ ‘shooting range,’ and ‘armoury.’ There was also a squash court. This shouldn’t have pleased me, but I hate squash and squash players for personal private reasons that I never reveal to anyone, which are that I once went out with a squash player for about a month, and he was really boring, and then, when I dumped him, I heard that he was telling other people that he’d dumped me because, ‘Things were never quite right in the bed department.’ Anyway, the plans were very interesting, even though the headquarters were ‘scheduled for demolition,' which I didn’t want to think about too hard. I memorised the address of the French headquarters also, in case it might prove useful, and the ones in New York and Madrid. The headquarters’ address was all Miss Smallbone had detailed me to find, but I was in the safe, so it seemed foolish not to find out what else I could.
Also, the second file was headed, MARY SUE PARK: CHOSEN ONE, and how could I possibly not read that? It was fat, and it was horrible. There were school reports, pictures of me at home as a child, pictures of me at uni, pictures of me in my current flat, pictures of me and Gavin, my murdered husband, and pictures of me lying drugged in my bed next door. There were constant banal little notes, of which the last was typical. ‘Target acquired,’ it read. ‘Target failed to succumb to reasoned argument. Master prohibited torture, for the time being. Master will subdue Target to his iron and icy will on Thursday evening. Master and Target to open Gates of Hell some time in next two days after that, presumably.’ It was not a reassuring document. I wanted to examine it more carefully, but there were others to get through, and it really wouldn’t do to be caught.
The next file was called ‘TARGETS.’ It listed and pictured the angels, as far as the demons knew who they were. Some, like Davina McCall and Ewan McGregor, had a large red stamp across their names saying, ‘DELETED.’ Some names had question marks indicating that the demons were unsure whether they were angels or not. Freddie Flintoff, who helped protect me in the firefight where Davina McCall was killed, had a question mark scrubbed out, and was now listed as ‘CONFIRMED.’ One thing which was sort-of-funny, in an awful way, was that there was a picture of David Mitchell the comedian next to a question mark. I had recently learnt that David Mitchell the comedian was a different person to David Mitchell the novelist, and it was David Mitchell the novelist who was an angel, and he really hated the fact that everyone confused him with David Mitchell the comedian. Still, this meant that maybe the demons would kill David Mitchell the comedian, who I’m sure is a nice person and everything, but he was not trying to save the world.
A special sub-section at the back of the file was devoted to David Tennant. It was sub-headed: OUR MOST DANGEROUS FOE! It was familiar stuff. I raced on to the next file, which was marked PLANS. A sheaf of paper fell out, entitled, PLAN FOR OPENING GATES OF HELL AND KILLING ALL THE ANGELS. But under the title was a red scribble saying, ‘Plans removed because of them being too secret. Order of the Master.’
I picked up the last two files, which had no titles, and just as I was about to open them, I heard footsteps outside in the corridor. Oh my God. What had I been doing? I immediately gathered all the files together, ready to stuff them back into the safe. But as I did so, from somewhere in the last two files, a photo slipped out and floated to the floor. It was such a surprising photo that I stared dumbly at it, stock still for a moment while the voices stopped at the door, and then some lifesaving instinct took over and I went into a zone of panicking efficiency. I rammed the files into the safe, sprinted through the window and along the balcony to my room, stuffed the plan of the building under my mattress and flung myself onto the bed at the very moment my door opened. As David Beckham entered, for whatever reason it was, I tried to control my heart and breathing, and wondered desperately why the Master’s safe might possibly contain a picture of Rollo Price, who I was once besotted with, who became a policeman, and who I didn’t think was in any way mixed up in this nightmare, except by the tangential accident of his being the first copper to have found me, David Tennant and my husband’s dead body. I still believed in coincidences? How stupid was I?
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Chapter 32: True Love Never Runs Smooth
David Beckham and Matt Damon, half-undressed in each other’s arms, lay nervously on the bed, at the foot of which the black American singer R Kelly was waving his gun as he raved at Matt Damon for betraying him with another man. I, ironically, was in the closet. R Kelly must have seen me when I came into the room, and I was therefore doomed, but he was raving about other things for the moment. ‘Ha, David Beckham!’ said R Kelly. ‘I bet yo sorry ass never expected THIS! Yo sorry English ass probably just thought I was this macho R&B guy and a superfly badass!’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said David Beckham. ‘I knew you were gay.’
‘No way! Yo sorry English ass is lying its sorry English butt-cheeks off!’
‘We all know you’re gay, R,’ said David. ‘Especially me, since I am the Master’s Head of Intelligence.’
‘This is bull, man,’ said R Kelly. ‘I keep it a secret by having sex with loads of chicks and sluts and hos, etc., which is really gross for me.’ He looked upset, paused, and then said, ‘Did you really know? How did yo sorry ass find out?’
‘I told him,’ said Matt Damon.
‘But you said you loved me!’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Matt Damon. ‘You said YOU loved ME. It’s different.’
‘How so? It’s still love, right?’
‘It’s this kind of attitude that has got you in trouble with the law all your life, R,’ said David. ‘Even with the chicks you were having sex with to pretend to your fanbase that you were a superfly badass. Matt Damon showed me all the letters you sent him saying how much you loved him and wanted to be his boyfriend. He showed them to me and said that when he told you he didn’t want to be your boyfriend, you wouldn’t accept it, and kept hanging around him at movie premieres.’
‘I thought he was playing hard to get.’
‘I never play hard to get,’ said Matt Damon. ‘I’m really easy to get.’ He turned to David Beckham.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s true. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t really like to have sex with you more than almost anyone else except Tom Cruise, and he’s not gay.’
‘This is…’ said R Kelly, and stopped himself. ‘I’m totally mad, and normally I’d cuss and swear under these circumstances, but something about Matt Damon makes it impossible for me. He makes me a better person just by being there, don’t you find that?’
‘I do,’ said David Beckham.
‘I really love him. That’s what all my hundreds of letters were about, beneath the surface.’
‘On the surface, also,’ said David Beckham.
‘Yeah. I said I loved him and whenever he didn’t reply, I cut a new line into my skin with a razor. I am criss-crossed with lines.’
‘That’s really crazy!’ said Matt Damon. ‘I presumed you were just saying it for effect.’
‘No way, man!’ said R Kelly, lifting up his shirt. He was, indeed, criss-crossed with scars. ‘I love Matt Damon with all my heart and soul, man. That’s how I know he must love me, whatever you are making him say.’
‘I don’t love you, though,’ said Matt Damon.
‘Is it because I am gay?’ said R Kelly.
‘No,’ said Matt Damon. ‘Because I am also gay. You being gay is not a problem. But apart from that, I don’t like you at all. It’s just one of those things.’
‘I can’t accept that, man. It’s David Beckham, isn’t it? His sorry ass has lied about me and told you I’m not really gay. I’m gonna pop a cap in his sorry ass.’ He raised his gun.
‘Don’t shoot him!’ said Matt Damon.
‘He’s drugged you, hasn’t he?’ said R Kelly. ‘His sorry ass has drugged you to keep you from me and to stop us being happy? I was right, wasn’t I? You do love me.’
‘No, I don’t. I hate you!’
‘Be careful, Matt Damon,’ said David Beckham.
‘No!’ said Matt Damon. ‘I’m finally gong to let out all my feelings so no one is unclear about the situation. I totally hate R Kelly and everything about him, but he won’t take a hint like me saying that to him, and he comes across as if he’s some kind of a creepy stalker or somethi…’ BANG.
Matt Damon’s eyes were round in shock. The centre of his chest was a red wound. R Kelly’s face was tortured, tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘I loved him, man,’ he said. ‘And we’d have been happy, if it wasn’t for yo sorry ass, David Beckham. Now I gonna kill you, too.’ Then he stopped.
This was the moment I had been dreading. He gestured his gun at my closet and said. ‘Oh, except there’s one thing. Before you came in, while I was waiting in the closet, I saw a girl…’ CRASH.
The door exploded in splinters, and Victoria Beckham leapt through. ‘Babe!’ she said. ‘I heard a shot! Are you safe? What are you doing R Kelly? Why are you pointing that gun at my David?’ And then, quicker than I could follow, she whirled across the room, kicked the gun from R Kelly’s hand and karate chopped him in the neck in such a way that when he collapsed, it seemed like his head was hanging from a string. ‘Don’t worry, babe,’ Victoria said to David Beckham, who was holding Matt Damon’s hand and weeping. ‘You’re safe now. We’ll always be together. We’d better clear up this mess.
David Beckham looked at Matt Damon, still in his arms, and he said, ‘At least the end is coming. There was never any pity in my heart, and now there’s not even that.’
‘That’s right, babe. Let’s kill lots of people.’
They dragged the bodies out of the room. I was shivering terrified in my closet, but I knew I had to fulfil my mission and get back to my bed as quickly as I could, before my absence was discovered. I raced out of the window, and along the balcony to the Master’s office. It was Habitat-style when I was expecting quilted leather, but I didn’t have long to think about decorating. The safe was part of the huge desk, and the combination was my own birthday, so I was into it in moments. I had to find the location of the demons’ London headquarters. The top file said, DEMON HEADQUARTERS ADMIN: VARIOUS. I opened it. The first subsection was about Harrison Ford’s mansion, which is where I was standing. The second was about a small palace in Paris. The third was a picture of 11B South Square – the Chambers next to mine in Gray’s Inn. Across the front of it were huge red capitals which read, ‘SCHEDULED FOR IMMINENT DEMOLITION.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said David Beckham. ‘I knew you were gay.’
‘No way! Yo sorry English ass is lying its sorry English butt-cheeks off!’
‘We all know you’re gay, R,’ said David. ‘Especially me, since I am the Master’s Head of Intelligence.’
‘This is bull, man,’ said R Kelly. ‘I keep it a secret by having sex with loads of chicks and sluts and hos, etc., which is really gross for me.’ He looked upset, paused, and then said, ‘Did you really know? How did yo sorry ass find out?’
‘I told him,’ said Matt Damon.
‘But you said you loved me!’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Matt Damon. ‘You said YOU loved ME. It’s different.’
‘How so? It’s still love, right?’
‘It’s this kind of attitude that has got you in trouble with the law all your life, R,’ said David. ‘Even with the chicks you were having sex with to pretend to your fanbase that you were a superfly badass. Matt Damon showed me all the letters you sent him saying how much you loved him and wanted to be his boyfriend. He showed them to me and said that when he told you he didn’t want to be your boyfriend, you wouldn’t accept it, and kept hanging around him at movie premieres.’
‘I thought he was playing hard to get.’
‘I never play hard to get,’ said Matt Damon. ‘I’m really easy to get.’ He turned to David Beckham.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s true. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t really like to have sex with you more than almost anyone else except Tom Cruise, and he’s not gay.’
‘This is…’ said R Kelly, and stopped himself. ‘I’m totally mad, and normally I’d cuss and swear under these circumstances, but something about Matt Damon makes it impossible for me. He makes me a better person just by being there, don’t you find that?’
‘I do,’ said David Beckham.
‘I really love him. That’s what all my hundreds of letters were about, beneath the surface.’
‘On the surface, also,’ said David Beckham.
‘Yeah. I said I loved him and whenever he didn’t reply, I cut a new line into my skin with a razor. I am criss-crossed with lines.’
‘That’s really crazy!’ said Matt Damon. ‘I presumed you were just saying it for effect.’
‘No way, man!’ said R Kelly, lifting up his shirt. He was, indeed, criss-crossed with scars. ‘I love Matt Damon with all my heart and soul, man. That’s how I know he must love me, whatever you are making him say.’
‘I don’t love you, though,’ said Matt Damon.
‘Is it because I am gay?’ said R Kelly.
‘No,’ said Matt Damon. ‘Because I am also gay. You being gay is not a problem. But apart from that, I don’t like you at all. It’s just one of those things.’
‘I can’t accept that, man. It’s David Beckham, isn’t it? His sorry ass has lied about me and told you I’m not really gay. I’m gonna pop a cap in his sorry ass.’ He raised his gun.
‘Don’t shoot him!’ said Matt Damon.
‘He’s drugged you, hasn’t he?’ said R Kelly. ‘His sorry ass has drugged you to keep you from me and to stop us being happy? I was right, wasn’t I? You do love me.’
‘No, I don’t. I hate you!’
‘Be careful, Matt Damon,’ said David Beckham.
‘No!’ said Matt Damon. ‘I’m finally gong to let out all my feelings so no one is unclear about the situation. I totally hate R Kelly and everything about him, but he won’t take a hint like me saying that to him, and he comes across as if he’s some kind of a creepy stalker or somethi…’ BANG.
Matt Damon’s eyes were round in shock. The centre of his chest was a red wound. R Kelly’s face was tortured, tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘I loved him, man,’ he said. ‘And we’d have been happy, if it wasn’t for yo sorry ass, David Beckham. Now I gonna kill you, too.’ Then he stopped.
This was the moment I had been dreading. He gestured his gun at my closet and said. ‘Oh, except there’s one thing. Before you came in, while I was waiting in the closet, I saw a girl…’ CRASH.
The door exploded in splinters, and Victoria Beckham leapt through. ‘Babe!’ she said. ‘I heard a shot! Are you safe? What are you doing R Kelly? Why are you pointing that gun at my David?’ And then, quicker than I could follow, she whirled across the room, kicked the gun from R Kelly’s hand and karate chopped him in the neck in such a way that when he collapsed, it seemed like his head was hanging from a string. ‘Don’t worry, babe,’ Victoria said to David Beckham, who was holding Matt Damon’s hand and weeping. ‘You’re safe now. We’ll always be together. We’d better clear up this mess.
David Beckham looked at Matt Damon, still in his arms, and he said, ‘At least the end is coming. There was never any pity in my heart, and now there’s not even that.’
‘That’s right, babe. Let’s kill lots of people.’
They dragged the bodies out of the room. I was shivering terrified in my closet, but I knew I had to fulfil my mission and get back to my bed as quickly as I could, before my absence was discovered. I raced out of the window, and along the balcony to the Master’s office. It was Habitat-style when I was expecting quilted leather, but I didn’t have long to think about decorating. The safe was part of the huge desk, and the combination was my own birthday, so I was into it in moments. I had to find the location of the demons’ London headquarters. The top file said, DEMON HEADQUARTERS ADMIN: VARIOUS. I opened it. The first subsection was about Harrison Ford’s mansion, which is where I was standing. The second was about a small palace in Paris. The third was a picture of 11B South Square – the Chambers next to mine in Gray’s Inn. Across the front of it were huge red capitals which read, ‘SCHEDULED FOR IMMINENT DEMOLITION.’
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Chapter 31: Can This Really Be True
‘You’re testing me,’ said Matt Damon to David Beckham. ‘I get it.’
‘No, Matt,’ said David Beckham. ‘This is for real.’
‘But that’s what you would say if you were testing me.’
‘What would I be testing, though?’ said David reasonably, taking Matt Damon’s hand in his as they sat on the edge of the bed. ‘We all know you are gay and even if we didn’t, it’s not as if any of us would care. We’re evil, by conventional standards, but not homophobic.’
‘I suppose that’s right,’ said Matt Damon. ‘But I can’t… I mean… It’s all too good to be true.’
‘Sometimes,’ said David Beckham, ‘Something too good to be true is true. Like you.’
‘But,’ said Matt Damon, eyes clouding again with worry, ‘I thought you were married! To Victoria Beckham.’
‘I am.’
‘That’s what I thought! In that case…’
‘I don’t love her, Matt Damon.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The Master makes me and Victoria be together because we are such an experienced and successful operational unit in the ongoing battle against our pathetic enemy, but that has never meant anything apart from us being together when are fighting. And I can no longer live a lie.’ He leaned across and kissed Matt Damon gently. ‘Victoria loves me, but I hate her.’
Matt Damon said, ‘Are you gay then?’ David Beckham kissed him again, and Matt Damon kissed him back. When they broke apart, Matt Damon said, ‘So, seriously, are you?’
I found this scene riveting. I enjoyed it less than I would have done a week earlier, because now David and Matt were enemies of mine who were bent on destroying the world, and I was in a closet in the room in which it was taking place. They kissed again. On the whole, on a technical level, although David Beckham was taking the lead, Matt Damon looked less nervous, but not as good a kisser. It’s hard to tell, though, and I shouldn’t have been thinking of that anyway, but it was better than thinking of what would happen if someone went into my room next door and discovered I was not lying drugged on my bed. After some more kissing, Matt Damon said, ‘The other thing I want to know, David, apart from whether you are gay…’
‘I am gay.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s so great. The other thing I want to know is this: you know how Jean-Marie le Pen is the new fascist leader of France after we helped him get elected?’ David Beckham nodded. ‘Well, I’m so slow sometimes, and I’m not sure precisely why we did that, or why everyone is talking at the moment about an invasion? What can that possibly be about? It seems like the vitally important background to the events we are participating in, and it would be really helpful for me if you were to explain the situation clearly.’
‘Ok,’ said David Beckham. ‘I will. You know how our thing is that we are extra-terrestrials who regenerate in new bodies?’
‘Yes, I know that. Are you always gay?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Great.’ They kissed again. Then Matt Damon said, ‘Sorry, you were telling me about France.’
‘Yes. So, Matt Damon, you know about how it’s the final battle coming up between us, the demons, and the other guys, the angels?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you know how we can only be killed – properly killed so we don’t regenerate – by having our heads cut off with the special magic sword that David Tennant has, or by being sucked into a black hole?’
‘But David Tennant, who has the magic sword, is on the other side. So we need a black hole!’
‘Well, the problem with that is that to get a black hole, one would have to reproduce the conditions of the Big Bang, which is hardly…’
‘I would like to have Big Bang.’
‘Yes, that would be great, but… Anyway, Matt Damon, in simple terms, it is very important that le Pen can extend military control in France, because we need to enhance tension so we can move to the next stage of our plan. That’s what we’ve been doing with inciting riots, and now the time is almost right.’
‘What is the next stage?’
‘That’s exactly what I was getting to, Matt Damon. In order to stop the French people from revolting completely, because we can’t shoot everyone in a whole country, we have to do something really dramatic that gets them confused and sort-of-backing the government, even if it’s only for a little bit.’
‘I think I see.’
Matt Damon was clearly lost but he pretended not to be because he wanted to impress David Beckham. Equally clearly, David Beckham realised and didn’t want to hurt Matt Damon’s feelings, so he carried on with his explanation. ‘At this very moment, the French army is overrunning Andorra, which is a country in France.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it will confuse his people, and create outrage, and allow him and our generals to take even greater military control. Then, le Pen is going to invade the Channel Islands very soon, probably the day after tomorrow. The Channel Islands, by the way, are some islands near…’
‘I know the Channel Islands very well,’ said Matt Damon, offended. ‘Everyone knows the Channel Islands. I’m a huge fan of Bergerac.’
‘Of course,’ said David Beckham. I forgot you had a thing with John Nettles.’
‘He had a HUGE…’
‘I don’t need to know that, Matt Damon. Where was I? Yes, the world will be horrified by the invasion, and the French people will have no idea how to take it, but they will find it hard not to support their military for the first few days, and we are so close to the final battle that a few days are all we need.’
‘Won’t the English invade right back?’
‘That’s what’s so clever about the whole plan. The angels are based in London, and because of this invasion, we have a brilliant way of dealing with the whole London situation.’
‘And then the world will be ours?’
‘Yes, Matt Damon. But for me, the world is not enough. I want you.’
‘You have me, if it really is true that you are gay.’
‘It is true.’
‘Would you like to have sex?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Oral sex or normal?’
‘Both.’
‘Great.’
CRASH. ‘I knew it!’ said R Kelly, the black American singer, bursting out of the closet right next door to the closet I was in. ‘I knowed it, Matt Damon! You knowed I love you, and now you gonna have both kinds of sex with David Beckham right in front of me. Well, that ain’t gonna happen, man. I’m gonna pop a cap in yo sorry ass, which means shoot you.’
‘No, Matt,’ said David Beckham. ‘This is for real.’
‘But that’s what you would say if you were testing me.’
‘What would I be testing, though?’ said David reasonably, taking Matt Damon’s hand in his as they sat on the edge of the bed. ‘We all know you are gay and even if we didn’t, it’s not as if any of us would care. We’re evil, by conventional standards, but not homophobic.’
‘I suppose that’s right,’ said Matt Damon. ‘But I can’t… I mean… It’s all too good to be true.’
‘Sometimes,’ said David Beckham, ‘Something too good to be true is true. Like you.’
‘But,’ said Matt Damon, eyes clouding again with worry, ‘I thought you were married! To Victoria Beckham.’
‘I am.’
‘That’s what I thought! In that case…’
‘I don’t love her, Matt Damon.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The Master makes me and Victoria be together because we are such an experienced and successful operational unit in the ongoing battle against our pathetic enemy, but that has never meant anything apart from us being together when are fighting. And I can no longer live a lie.’ He leaned across and kissed Matt Damon gently. ‘Victoria loves me, but I hate her.’
Matt Damon said, ‘Are you gay then?’ David Beckham kissed him again, and Matt Damon kissed him back. When they broke apart, Matt Damon said, ‘So, seriously, are you?’
I found this scene riveting. I enjoyed it less than I would have done a week earlier, because now David and Matt were enemies of mine who were bent on destroying the world, and I was in a closet in the room in which it was taking place. They kissed again. On the whole, on a technical level, although David Beckham was taking the lead, Matt Damon looked less nervous, but not as good a kisser. It’s hard to tell, though, and I shouldn’t have been thinking of that anyway, but it was better than thinking of what would happen if someone went into my room next door and discovered I was not lying drugged on my bed. After some more kissing, Matt Damon said, ‘The other thing I want to know, David, apart from whether you are gay…’
‘I am gay.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s so great. The other thing I want to know is this: you know how Jean-Marie le Pen is the new fascist leader of France after we helped him get elected?’ David Beckham nodded. ‘Well, I’m so slow sometimes, and I’m not sure precisely why we did that, or why everyone is talking at the moment about an invasion? What can that possibly be about? It seems like the vitally important background to the events we are participating in, and it would be really helpful for me if you were to explain the situation clearly.’
‘Ok,’ said David Beckham. ‘I will. You know how our thing is that we are extra-terrestrials who regenerate in new bodies?’
‘Yes, I know that. Are you always gay?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Great.’ They kissed again. Then Matt Damon said, ‘Sorry, you were telling me about France.’
‘Yes. So, Matt Damon, you know about how it’s the final battle coming up between us, the demons, and the other guys, the angels?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you know how we can only be killed – properly killed so we don’t regenerate – by having our heads cut off with the special magic sword that David Tennant has, or by being sucked into a black hole?’
‘But David Tennant, who has the magic sword, is on the other side. So we need a black hole!’
‘Well, the problem with that is that to get a black hole, one would have to reproduce the conditions of the Big Bang, which is hardly…’
‘I would like to have Big Bang.’
‘Yes, that would be great, but… Anyway, Matt Damon, in simple terms, it is very important that le Pen can extend military control in France, because we need to enhance tension so we can move to the next stage of our plan. That’s what we’ve been doing with inciting riots, and now the time is almost right.’
‘What is the next stage?’
‘That’s exactly what I was getting to, Matt Damon. In order to stop the French people from revolting completely, because we can’t shoot everyone in a whole country, we have to do something really dramatic that gets them confused and sort-of-backing the government, even if it’s only for a little bit.’
‘I think I see.’
Matt Damon was clearly lost but he pretended not to be because he wanted to impress David Beckham. Equally clearly, David Beckham realised and didn’t want to hurt Matt Damon’s feelings, so he carried on with his explanation. ‘At this very moment, the French army is overrunning Andorra, which is a country in France.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it will confuse his people, and create outrage, and allow him and our generals to take even greater military control. Then, le Pen is going to invade the Channel Islands very soon, probably the day after tomorrow. The Channel Islands, by the way, are some islands near…’
‘I know the Channel Islands very well,’ said Matt Damon, offended. ‘Everyone knows the Channel Islands. I’m a huge fan of Bergerac.’
‘Of course,’ said David Beckham. I forgot you had a thing with John Nettles.’
‘He had a HUGE…’
‘I don’t need to know that, Matt Damon. Where was I? Yes, the world will be horrified by the invasion, and the French people will have no idea how to take it, but they will find it hard not to support their military for the first few days, and we are so close to the final battle that a few days are all we need.’
‘Won’t the English invade right back?’
‘That’s what’s so clever about the whole plan. The angels are based in London, and because of this invasion, we have a brilliant way of dealing with the whole London situation.’
‘And then the world will be ours?’
‘Yes, Matt Damon. But for me, the world is not enough. I want you.’
‘You have me, if it really is true that you are gay.’
‘It is true.’
‘Would you like to have sex?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Oral sex or normal?’
‘Both.’
‘Great.’
CRASH. ‘I knew it!’ said R Kelly, the black American singer, bursting out of the closet right next door to the closet I was in. ‘I knowed it, Matt Damon! You knowed I love you, and now you gonna have both kinds of sex with David Beckham right in front of me. Well, that ain’t gonna happen, man. I’m gonna pop a cap in yo sorry ass, which means shoot you.’
Monday, September 24, 2007
Chapter 30: Out of the Fire and Into the Incinerator
I genuinely wanted to die. If you have ever had to pretend you are unable to move your body while an American actor who looks like a popular but mean High School Boy calmly removes your pants and chats about what’s going to happen next, you’ll know what I mean. It helped that I was still half-drugged, but it took every piece of my self-control not to scream when he lifted my legs apart, stood next to the bed and shuffled down his jeans, just out my sight. I could feel tears welling in my eyes. There was no way, none at all, that I would be able to lie inert while…
CRASH! The door burst open. I must have jerked in shock, but luckily no one was watching. After the crash, a silence. I could hear High School Boy breathing heavily, nervous for the first time. ‘Are you insane,’ said David Beckham, in his not-for-the-public, quiet, commanding voice.
‘Buddy said…’
‘No,’ said David Beckham. ‘Victoria told me she found the two of you in here. You might have been able to fool her, but that’s because she’s an idiot.’
‘David!’ said Victoria.
‘You’re a moron, Victoria. What did they tell you?’
‘They…’
‘I don’t care.’ He spoke again to High School Boy, who hadn’t moved. ‘Where’s Buddy? Is he in the toilet? Buddy?’ The toilet door was in my eyeline, and I saw Buddy, an older, skinny actor I’m sure I nearly recognised from all the minor parts he claimed to have played, shuffle into the room, clearly terrified. ‘What did he tell you?’
‘Oh gosh,’ said Buddy. ‘He said that the Chosen One was a sex maniac or something and she would be angry if she didn’t have sex because she was drugged, and so…’ there was a sharp pop, and a little black circle appeared in his temple. As Buddy slumped, the circle started to swell red. I didn’t scream or anything because the sight was so familiar. It was like watching the planes crash into the Twin Towers – beyond the sheer awfulness of what was happening, there was a deep surprise that the explosion looked so like the special effects in a movie.
‘What did you do that for?’ said David Beckham.
‘You heard him, about the sex,’ said Victoria. ‘That was gross.’
‘We’ve got a battle,’ said David. ‘A huge battle. We need every soldier we have. Some, for instance, we can send on suicide missions. Do you understand?’
‘Sure, babe. Please don’t be angry with me. It’s just, what he said, you know! It’s like you and me. That time I had sex with you, remember, when you were basically asleep and didn’t really know what was going on, and it was, like, the worst thing in the world for you that I did it. So when he said that, I just through, I mean, I thought you’d agree he had to die? Because you have to be READY to have sex? Like we will be one day? Babe?’
High School Boy said, ‘Is she serious? Does she seriously not realise that…’
David Beckham said, ‘Not now.’
High School Boy laughed. Then he said, ‘Victoria, if I’m going on a suicide mission, I’m not going without telling you that…’ There was another pop, and silence.
‘Babe!’ said Victoria Beckham. ‘Why did you shoot him? What was he going to say?’
‘I don’t know, said David Beckham briskly. ‘I was always going to shoot him, because he was the ringleader. But Buddy could have been useful. Put her knickers back on, and let’s get these bodies out of here. Mary Sue, I’m sorry for this, and I’ll see you in a few hours. The Master will be here tomorrow, and I’ll need to prepare you for what to expect.’
Two hours later, I had control of my body. Every time I moved, I was terrified the door would open. But eventually, I reached under the covers and snatched up the piece of paper Miss Smallbone left me. On one side of the paper was a hasty plan of the wing I was imprisoned in. On the other was a set of instructions. The gist was: next door to this room, in The Master’s office, was a cabinet containing the details of the demons’ British headquarters. I needed to get to the cabinet, open it, memorise the details, and get back to my bed. The last line of the note read, ‘I’m sorry you have to do this. I’ve only just found the PIN that opens the cabinet, and I won’t have time to get to the office. The PIN is MSP200577. I dare say you can remember that. Good luck.’ Of course I could remember it. The Master used my initials and birthday as the combination for his private safe. It was not as if I needed any more proof that these people took the crazy story of me being the Chosen One seriously.
I looked at the bloodstain on the floor. I thought, ‘Is there any point in waiting?’ I decided, ‘None at all. Your pathetic courage will fade away very soon anyway. Just do it. Come on Mary Sue!’ This overexcited attitude was my downfall. I snuck onto the balcony to edge along to the Master’s office, and I accidentally turned the wrong way. I went into the room. I thought I heard a noise, and a stared around me desperately, but I couldn’t see anything, and I put it down to the fact that this was the most nightmarish and awful day pretty much anyone could ever have had. Then I looked around dumbly for fully thirty seconds wondering why the Master would have made his office so boudoirish. Then I twigged, and I was just about to leave when I heard the door handle turn. Panicking, I leapt through the nearest door, which turned out to be one of those clothes closets with slatted doors. Heart racing, I watched as David Beckham entered the room with a confused and happy looking Matt Damon.
‘Are you serious?’ said Matt Damon. ‘I can’t believe you’re really serious about what you just said!’
‘Of course I am,’ said David Beckham. ‘The end of days is coming. This is the time we all have to reveal who we are. This is when we all have to be who we must be, Matt Damon. This is when we all have to be with who we must be with.’
CRASH! The door burst open. I must have jerked in shock, but luckily no one was watching. After the crash, a silence. I could hear High School Boy breathing heavily, nervous for the first time. ‘Are you insane,’ said David Beckham, in his not-for-the-public, quiet, commanding voice.
‘Buddy said…’
‘No,’ said David Beckham. ‘Victoria told me she found the two of you in here. You might have been able to fool her, but that’s because she’s an idiot.’
‘David!’ said Victoria.
‘You’re a moron, Victoria. What did they tell you?’
‘They…’
‘I don’t care.’ He spoke again to High School Boy, who hadn’t moved. ‘Where’s Buddy? Is he in the toilet? Buddy?’ The toilet door was in my eyeline, and I saw Buddy, an older, skinny actor I’m sure I nearly recognised from all the minor parts he claimed to have played, shuffle into the room, clearly terrified. ‘What did he tell you?’
‘Oh gosh,’ said Buddy. ‘He said that the Chosen One was a sex maniac or something and she would be angry if she didn’t have sex because she was drugged, and so…’ there was a sharp pop, and a little black circle appeared in his temple. As Buddy slumped, the circle started to swell red. I didn’t scream or anything because the sight was so familiar. It was like watching the planes crash into the Twin Towers – beyond the sheer awfulness of what was happening, there was a deep surprise that the explosion looked so like the special effects in a movie.
‘What did you do that for?’ said David Beckham.
‘You heard him, about the sex,’ said Victoria. ‘That was gross.’
‘We’ve got a battle,’ said David. ‘A huge battle. We need every soldier we have. Some, for instance, we can send on suicide missions. Do you understand?’
‘Sure, babe. Please don’t be angry with me. It’s just, what he said, you know! It’s like you and me. That time I had sex with you, remember, when you were basically asleep and didn’t really know what was going on, and it was, like, the worst thing in the world for you that I did it. So when he said that, I just through, I mean, I thought you’d agree he had to die? Because you have to be READY to have sex? Like we will be one day? Babe?’
High School Boy said, ‘Is she serious? Does she seriously not realise that…’
David Beckham said, ‘Not now.’
High School Boy laughed. Then he said, ‘Victoria, if I’m going on a suicide mission, I’m not going without telling you that…’ There was another pop, and silence.
‘Babe!’ said Victoria Beckham. ‘Why did you shoot him? What was he going to say?’
‘I don’t know, said David Beckham briskly. ‘I was always going to shoot him, because he was the ringleader. But Buddy could have been useful. Put her knickers back on, and let’s get these bodies out of here. Mary Sue, I’m sorry for this, and I’ll see you in a few hours. The Master will be here tomorrow, and I’ll need to prepare you for what to expect.’
Two hours later, I had control of my body. Every time I moved, I was terrified the door would open. But eventually, I reached under the covers and snatched up the piece of paper Miss Smallbone left me. On one side of the paper was a hasty plan of the wing I was imprisoned in. On the other was a set of instructions. The gist was: next door to this room, in The Master’s office, was a cabinet containing the details of the demons’ British headquarters. I needed to get to the cabinet, open it, memorise the details, and get back to my bed. The last line of the note read, ‘I’m sorry you have to do this. I’ve only just found the PIN that opens the cabinet, and I won’t have time to get to the office. The PIN is MSP200577. I dare say you can remember that. Good luck.’ Of course I could remember it. The Master used my initials and birthday as the combination for his private safe. It was not as if I needed any more proof that these people took the crazy story of me being the Chosen One seriously.
I looked at the bloodstain on the floor. I thought, ‘Is there any point in waiting?’ I decided, ‘None at all. Your pathetic courage will fade away very soon anyway. Just do it. Come on Mary Sue!’ This overexcited attitude was my downfall. I snuck onto the balcony to edge along to the Master’s office, and I accidentally turned the wrong way. I went into the room. I thought I heard a noise, and a stared around me desperately, but I couldn’t see anything, and I put it down to the fact that this was the most nightmarish and awful day pretty much anyone could ever have had. Then I looked around dumbly for fully thirty seconds wondering why the Master would have made his office so boudoirish. Then I twigged, and I was just about to leave when I heard the door handle turn. Panicking, I leapt through the nearest door, which turned out to be one of those clothes closets with slatted doors. Heart racing, I watched as David Beckham entered the room with a confused and happy looking Matt Damon.
‘Are you serious?’ said Matt Damon. ‘I can’t believe you’re really serious about what you just said!’
‘Of course I am,’ said David Beckham. ‘The end of days is coming. This is the time we all have to reveal who we are. This is when we all have to be who we must be, Matt Damon. This is when we all have to be with who we must be with.’
Sunday, September 23, 2007
WEEKEND SIX
Well, I'm totally in New York. It's hot as a badger's bum, but I've got glamorous aircon. Getting things dealt with before I travelled meant I lost two days of my cushion, so I really will have to get going tomorrow. The next day might be a write-off because of first night party. The show, apparently, is looking great - I will not go to final rehearsals because it's not as if I could influence anything at this stage and everyone agrees that it would be exciting for me to see it all, for the first time, on stage. I am one of the everyone who agrees this.
Inbetweentimes, I am reading about giant fish. I am mad for giant fish.
Inbetweentimes, I am reading about giant fish. I am mad for giant fish.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Chapter 29: Think of England
‘That’s true,’ said Buddy, looking at my inert body. ‘No one has EVER had sex with a Chosen One. We’ll be the first!’
‘She’s not a virgin, you dolt,’ said the one who looked like a High School heartthrob.
‘She’s not married!’
‘She married Gavin, you dolt.’
‘But Gavin’s a pussy. And she saw Gavin and Cathy doing it in the hotel after the wedding, so she never went on honeymoon. So she didn’t do it with Gavin, you can’t fool me.’
‘They had sex BEFORE they married, you dolt.’
Buddy’s lip curled with distaste. ‘Oh Jeez,’ he said. ‘ BEFORE she got married. She’s one of THOSE women!’
‘You are the biggest dolt I have ever met.’
‘Then why did you drag me here with you?’
‘This is why,’ said High School Boy, as the door opened and Victoria Beckham came in to inject me with the drug that stopped me controlling my body. As if he hadn’t noticed, High School Boy said,
‘No, Buddy! I’ve let you see her now. It’s time to get out of here. Oh, hi Victoria. Is everything going well?’
‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ said Victoria Beckham.
‘I know,’ said High School Boy. ‘But Buddy was mad to see her, and you know, he’s such a dolt, you never know what he’s going to do.’
‘What could he do to her?’ said Victoria. ‘Oh, I know, sex! Men are so gross. Well, you’d better go. I’m sure Buddy can have sex with her when it’s time to torture her, if it comes to that. Sex is torture anyway, in my experience, but I suppose it must be worse if you’re having sex with a dolt.’
‘It must be terrible,’ agreed High School Boy.
‘But that’s for then,’ said Victoria Beckham. ‘For now, we have to be nice to her, the Master says.’
Buddy looked at High School Boy. ‘But you said we were allowed to…’ he started.
‘I literally have no idea what the dolt is going to say next,’ laughed High School Boy, smoothly.
‘What is a dolt?’ said Buddy.
‘Let’s go, Buddy, I’ll explain outside.’
Victoria Beckham gave me the dose of Somnus B which, if Miss Smallbone had been able to do what she said she’d done, would not be Somnus B at all. After what had just happened, I almost wanted to be drugged. How could I possibly have stopped myself from reacting to all that if I’d not been drugged? And if I reacted, then I would be drugged properly again, and I wouldn’t be able to carry out my mission and escape, and maybe Miss Smallbone would be captured, and that would be literally the end of the world.
Victoria sat on the edge of the bed. ‘People get very hung up about sex,’ she said. ‘I’m one of them. I’m really hung up about it for no good reason, except for one.’ A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘In every reincarnation, I fall in love with David Beckham, but he ignores me. Except for it always seems like we have some big battle to prepare for, and I’m a good soldier,’ she wiped the tear away, ‘and he’s a good general, so the Master makes us be partners, and I feel like I’m going crazy with love, but he just thinks I’m stupid. I can never do anything to make it better. Every time I think that this time something will have changed and it will be better, but it never is. When we got married, and we went to live in so-called Beckingham Palace in Sawbridgeworth, near Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire, I made the house as amazing as I could, and still David thought it was vulgar. We never have sex.’ She stood up. ‘Well, not never. We did sleep in the same bed on our wedding night, and I woke him by… Well. In a special way. And then we had sex after that, but he wasn’t really awake, and I hoped this might break through his reserve, because I assume it must be shyness basically, or that he’s had a bad experience or something, but David got really angry and told me that if I ever did it again, he would cut out my heart, good soldier or not. I honestly don’t know what to do about him. I just need a friend. I hope you can be my friend, maybe, when you come round to being our side after we torture you, and then if you’re the Chosen One, you can order David to love me.’ She stood up, and smoothed her tiny skirt. ‘I’ll be back later. Thank you for listening to me.’
I felt sorry for her, on one level, but there were many other levels on which I didn’t feel sorry for her, and they were more important levels. For the next hour, I tried to move my fingers. Several times I wasn’t sure I was having any effect, but then I started to be sure, and I was soon able to move my head and my whole arms. Before I had complete control of my body, and before I was able to reach my arm under the mattress to read Miss Smallbone’s instructions, the door opened again, and in came Buddy and High School Boy.
‘But Victoria told us we shouldn’t be here!’ said Buddy, ‘And she’s really scary.’
‘I explained, you dolt…’
‘Does “dolt” really mean “dude”?’
‘Absolutely. I explained that sex is really good fun, didn’t I?’ Buddy nodded. ‘And obviously a nice girl wouldn’t have sex before marriage? But the Chosen One DID have sex before marriage, so she must really like sex, mustn’t she?’ Nodding again. ‘She’s the Chosen One, so she’s going to be really important, and she’s going to be really pissed off if she hasn’t been having sex.’ Buddy nodded more vigorously, like a child who doesn’t quite understand a maths problem. ‘So, if we have sex with her, she’ll be really grateful, and she’ll reward us.’
‘Yes,’ said Buddy. ‘I understand.’
‘I’d better go first,’ said High School Boy, taking off his trousers. ‘I don’t want you watching. Why don’t you sit in the toilet till I get you.’
‘Okay,’ said Buddy.
‘He really is a dolt,’ said High School Boy when Buddy was out of earshot. ‘I’m under no illusions about this. The Master will go crazy if he ever finds out, which I dare say he will, because I dare say you’ll tell him. But I’ll get reborn, and that’s not so bad. And I’ll have had sex with the Chosen One. How good’s that?’ He smiled, as he reached for my skirt. ‘Though the basic reason I’m doing this is that I’m a bad guy. It is what it is.’
‘She’s not a virgin, you dolt,’ said the one who looked like a High School heartthrob.
‘She’s not married!’
‘She married Gavin, you dolt.’
‘But Gavin’s a pussy. And she saw Gavin and Cathy doing it in the hotel after the wedding, so she never went on honeymoon. So she didn’t do it with Gavin, you can’t fool me.’
‘They had sex BEFORE they married, you dolt.’
Buddy’s lip curled with distaste. ‘Oh Jeez,’ he said. ‘ BEFORE she got married. She’s one of THOSE women!’
‘You are the biggest dolt I have ever met.’
‘Then why did you drag me here with you?’
‘This is why,’ said High School Boy, as the door opened and Victoria Beckham came in to inject me with the drug that stopped me controlling my body. As if he hadn’t noticed, High School Boy said,
‘No, Buddy! I’ve let you see her now. It’s time to get out of here. Oh, hi Victoria. Is everything going well?’
‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ said Victoria Beckham.
‘I know,’ said High School Boy. ‘But Buddy was mad to see her, and you know, he’s such a dolt, you never know what he’s going to do.’
‘What could he do to her?’ said Victoria. ‘Oh, I know, sex! Men are so gross. Well, you’d better go. I’m sure Buddy can have sex with her when it’s time to torture her, if it comes to that. Sex is torture anyway, in my experience, but I suppose it must be worse if you’re having sex with a dolt.’
‘It must be terrible,’ agreed High School Boy.
‘But that’s for then,’ said Victoria Beckham. ‘For now, we have to be nice to her, the Master says.’
Buddy looked at High School Boy. ‘But you said we were allowed to…’ he started.
‘I literally have no idea what the dolt is going to say next,’ laughed High School Boy, smoothly.
‘What is a dolt?’ said Buddy.
‘Let’s go, Buddy, I’ll explain outside.’
Victoria Beckham gave me the dose of Somnus B which, if Miss Smallbone had been able to do what she said she’d done, would not be Somnus B at all. After what had just happened, I almost wanted to be drugged. How could I possibly have stopped myself from reacting to all that if I’d not been drugged? And if I reacted, then I would be drugged properly again, and I wouldn’t be able to carry out my mission and escape, and maybe Miss Smallbone would be captured, and that would be literally the end of the world.
Victoria sat on the edge of the bed. ‘People get very hung up about sex,’ she said. ‘I’m one of them. I’m really hung up about it for no good reason, except for one.’ A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘In every reincarnation, I fall in love with David Beckham, but he ignores me. Except for it always seems like we have some big battle to prepare for, and I’m a good soldier,’ she wiped the tear away, ‘and he’s a good general, so the Master makes us be partners, and I feel like I’m going crazy with love, but he just thinks I’m stupid. I can never do anything to make it better. Every time I think that this time something will have changed and it will be better, but it never is. When we got married, and we went to live in so-called Beckingham Palace in Sawbridgeworth, near Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire, I made the house as amazing as I could, and still David thought it was vulgar. We never have sex.’ She stood up. ‘Well, not never. We did sleep in the same bed on our wedding night, and I woke him by… Well. In a special way. And then we had sex after that, but he wasn’t really awake, and I hoped this might break through his reserve, because I assume it must be shyness basically, or that he’s had a bad experience or something, but David got really angry and told me that if I ever did it again, he would cut out my heart, good soldier or not. I honestly don’t know what to do about him. I just need a friend. I hope you can be my friend, maybe, when you come round to being our side after we torture you, and then if you’re the Chosen One, you can order David to love me.’ She stood up, and smoothed her tiny skirt. ‘I’ll be back later. Thank you for listening to me.’
I felt sorry for her, on one level, but there were many other levels on which I didn’t feel sorry for her, and they were more important levels. For the next hour, I tried to move my fingers. Several times I wasn’t sure I was having any effect, but then I started to be sure, and I was soon able to move my head and my whole arms. Before I had complete control of my body, and before I was able to reach my arm under the mattress to read Miss Smallbone’s instructions, the door opened again, and in came Buddy and High School Boy.
‘But Victoria told us we shouldn’t be here!’ said Buddy, ‘And she’s really scary.’
‘I explained, you dolt…’
‘Does “dolt” really mean “dude”?’
‘Absolutely. I explained that sex is really good fun, didn’t I?’ Buddy nodded. ‘And obviously a nice girl wouldn’t have sex before marriage? But the Chosen One DID have sex before marriage, so she must really like sex, mustn’t she?’ Nodding again. ‘She’s the Chosen One, so she’s going to be really important, and she’s going to be really pissed off if she hasn’t been having sex.’ Buddy nodded more vigorously, like a child who doesn’t quite understand a maths problem. ‘So, if we have sex with her, she’ll be really grateful, and she’ll reward us.’
‘Yes,’ said Buddy. ‘I understand.’
‘I’d better go first,’ said High School Boy, taking off his trousers. ‘I don’t want you watching. Why don’t you sit in the toilet till I get you.’
‘Okay,’ said Buddy.
‘He really is a dolt,’ said High School Boy when Buddy was out of earshot. ‘I’m under no illusions about this. The Master will go crazy if he ever finds out, which I dare say he will, because I dare say you’ll tell him. But I’ll get reborn, and that’s not so bad. And I’ll have had sex with the Chosen One. How good’s that?’ He smiled, as he reached for my skirt. ‘Though the basic reason I’m doing this is that I’m a bad guy. It is what it is.’
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Chapter 28: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire
If there’s one thing worse than being drugged by demon enemies so that your mind is completely aware of everything that is happening but cannot control your body, it is having your leader turn up unexpectedly when all hope is lost, tell you that she could free you if she wants, but is not going to do so.
‘I know this sounds bad,’ said Miss Smallbone. ‘You must be furious in there, and frightened. But the fate of the world hangs in the balance. I spent three months getting a job on Harrison Ford’s household staff, which was almost ruined when I had to come to London to see you. I’ve told very few people that he’s high up in the demon hierarchy in case one of our rasher angels tried to challenge him, because this is the only place I have identified as a sometime base of The Master. It is vital that we identify the Master, we’ve been trying for years, and here you are, and he’s definitely coming to meet you in two days time. This is an unmissable opportunity, Mary Sue. I know you would stay here and pretend to be drugged, but it would be difficult for you to do that convincingly, wouldn’t it? So isn’t it better to leave you as you are, just for now, for your own safety, while we know that they almost certainly won’t do anything to harm you?’
I wanted to scream. I didn’t want to be used as bait. Miss Smallbone noticed the laptop, open at the BBC news webpage about me, David Tennant, Johnny Depp, Matt Damon, etc. She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you are the top story.’ She clicked twice and steered the screen into my view. The headline ran FRANCE ANNEXES ANDORRA, RENOUNCES UN, CLOSES BORDERS.
‘You see?’ said Miss Smallbone. ‘It’s started. There were riots, which Le Pen and his fascists deny, but the army opened fire indiscriminately. Thousands were killed. Everyone knows and the French are now terrified. They’re staying inside, telling each other that this guy they elected in a freak accident will realise he can’t carry on like this, and back down, and France will return to the world table, and the rest, but Le Pen doesn’t care what happens to France. He just wants martial law, and he’s got it. The top three generals, and the heads of the air force and navy, they’re all demons. They’ve been planning this for thirty years, and I only realised five years ago, and we haven’t been able to stop it. They’re winning, Mary Sue. We need a victory. We have to find out who The Master is. So you have to stay drugged, I’m sorry.’ Then she said, ‘I’ve told your parents you’re safe. It seemed better.’ And she left.
Nothing happened for the next few hours. Victoria Beckham ‘teased’ me by showing my pictures of torture techniques, but that was it.
The next morning, twenty minutes before my shot of the Somnus B drug, the door opened, ‘Mary Sue,’ said a hastily entering Miss Smallbone. ‘I’ve had to change my mind already, if you can imagine such a thing. They’ve heightened security again, and it’s very hard for me to get even to you, and this was my last chance to switch syringes. Also, there are some things you will have to find out. I’m slipping some under your mattress’ – footsteps approached the door, and then went past – ‘I’m very sorry, I must go. You cannot hint, EVER, that you’re not drugged. Good luck.’ And Miss Smallbone was gone.
What seemed like a second later the door opened again, and two men walked in. One was about twenty, good looking in that very obvious, US High School way (which I like in a show like Buffy, and dislike in something like American Pie). The other was a thin man in a leather jacket and tight jeans. He was about forty-five, but he was trying to look thirty-five. I very vaguely recognised them both. ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Leather Jacket, ‘As you’ve surely noticed, I’m Buddy Fletrock, from Crime Forensics Squad, which came just after CSI! And from Ghost Cop, which came out post-Dead Again! And I was also the blind assassin in the first six episodes of One Hell Of A Day, which was inspired by and in many people’s eyes surpassed 24. Also, and you might not know this, I was considered for the part of Spike in Buffy.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘You don’t believe me? I was seriously considered! My agent said I was THIS close. And in West Wing, I once played Colonel McManus – never named in the credits – who was in the Situation Room when a helicopter crashed and he had to look sad.’ Tiny flecks of spit gathered at the corner of his mouth. ‘I can’t believe you’re just lying there…’
‘Buddy, you idiot,’ said High School Boy. ‘She’s drugged. She can’t react. That’s why we’re here.’
‘Yeah,’ said Buddy, gathering himself. ‘I totally remembered that.’ He took a step towards me.
‘That’s why we’re here. Him and me – and we’re both demons, blah, blah, blah, so he’s totally as old as I am, which is seventy million years old, so don’t be deceived by the fact he has a younger body at the moment, or think that I’m paranoid about my age, even though it’s just as bad for male actors in Hollywood as female ones, because believe me, I’m not paranoid, like I say – have come to see you because you’re The Chosen One.’
‘I’ve never had sex with a Chosen One before,’ said High School Boy.
‘I know this sounds bad,’ said Miss Smallbone. ‘You must be furious in there, and frightened. But the fate of the world hangs in the balance. I spent three months getting a job on Harrison Ford’s household staff, which was almost ruined when I had to come to London to see you. I’ve told very few people that he’s high up in the demon hierarchy in case one of our rasher angels tried to challenge him, because this is the only place I have identified as a sometime base of The Master. It is vital that we identify the Master, we’ve been trying for years, and here you are, and he’s definitely coming to meet you in two days time. This is an unmissable opportunity, Mary Sue. I know you would stay here and pretend to be drugged, but it would be difficult for you to do that convincingly, wouldn’t it? So isn’t it better to leave you as you are, just for now, for your own safety, while we know that they almost certainly won’t do anything to harm you?’
I wanted to scream. I didn’t want to be used as bait. Miss Smallbone noticed the laptop, open at the BBC news webpage about me, David Tennant, Johnny Depp, Matt Damon, etc. She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you are the top story.’ She clicked twice and steered the screen into my view. The headline ran FRANCE ANNEXES ANDORRA, RENOUNCES UN, CLOSES BORDERS.
‘You see?’ said Miss Smallbone. ‘It’s started. There were riots, which Le Pen and his fascists deny, but the army opened fire indiscriminately. Thousands were killed. Everyone knows and the French are now terrified. They’re staying inside, telling each other that this guy they elected in a freak accident will realise he can’t carry on like this, and back down, and France will return to the world table, and the rest, but Le Pen doesn’t care what happens to France. He just wants martial law, and he’s got it. The top three generals, and the heads of the air force and navy, they’re all demons. They’ve been planning this for thirty years, and I only realised five years ago, and we haven’t been able to stop it. They’re winning, Mary Sue. We need a victory. We have to find out who The Master is. So you have to stay drugged, I’m sorry.’ Then she said, ‘I’ve told your parents you’re safe. It seemed better.’ And she left.
Nothing happened for the next few hours. Victoria Beckham ‘teased’ me by showing my pictures of torture techniques, but that was it.
The next morning, twenty minutes before my shot of the Somnus B drug, the door opened, ‘Mary Sue,’ said a hastily entering Miss Smallbone. ‘I’ve had to change my mind already, if you can imagine such a thing. They’ve heightened security again, and it’s very hard for me to get even to you, and this was my last chance to switch syringes. Also, there are some things you will have to find out. I’m slipping some under your mattress’ – footsteps approached the door, and then went past – ‘I’m very sorry, I must go. You cannot hint, EVER, that you’re not drugged. Good luck.’ And Miss Smallbone was gone.
What seemed like a second later the door opened again, and two men walked in. One was about twenty, good looking in that very obvious, US High School way (which I like in a show like Buffy, and dislike in something like American Pie). The other was a thin man in a leather jacket and tight jeans. He was about forty-five, but he was trying to look thirty-five. I very vaguely recognised them both. ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Leather Jacket, ‘As you’ve surely noticed, I’m Buddy Fletrock, from Crime Forensics Squad, which came just after CSI! And from Ghost Cop, which came out post-Dead Again! And I was also the blind assassin in the first six episodes of One Hell Of A Day, which was inspired by and in many people’s eyes surpassed 24. Also, and you might not know this, I was considered for the part of Spike in Buffy.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘You don’t believe me? I was seriously considered! My agent said I was THIS close. And in West Wing, I once played Colonel McManus – never named in the credits – who was in the Situation Room when a helicopter crashed and he had to look sad.’ Tiny flecks of spit gathered at the corner of his mouth. ‘I can’t believe you’re just lying there…’
‘Buddy, you idiot,’ said High School Boy. ‘She’s drugged. She can’t react. That’s why we’re here.’
‘Yeah,’ said Buddy, gathering himself. ‘I totally remembered that.’ He took a step towards me.
‘That’s why we’re here. Him and me – and we’re both demons, blah, blah, blah, so he’s totally as old as I am, which is seventy million years old, so don’t be deceived by the fact he has a younger body at the moment, or think that I’m paranoid about my age, even though it’s just as bad for male actors in Hollywood as female ones, because believe me, I’m not paranoid, like I say – have come to see you because you’re The Chosen One.’
‘I’ve never had sex with a Chosen One before,’ said High School Boy.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Chapter 27: Who's That Girl?
I was led to my room, mind racing behind my drugged and impassive face. Here I was, in what was obviously an enemy stronghold, and Miss Smallbone, the legendary Teacher, whose real identity was known only to me and David Tennant, and who the enemy were desperate to identify, was wandering around, cool as you please, dressed as a maid. For the first time I thought to myself that the enemy were sensible to be afraid of The Teacher, who they still thought was a man. On the other hand, it made me more nervous of their leader, the equally anonymous Master.
Also, I was exhilarated to know that I was about to be rescued. I had only spent one day being drugged, but I can tell you that there is nothing like being an alert mind trapped in a body you can’t control for making you feel helpless and hopeless. Suddenly, I was not alone, and the enemy were not all-powerful. But as I sat in my room, my body having been clearly instructed not to leave my bed except to go to the toilet when I needed, I started to have doubts. How could Miss Smallbone possibly be here already? I left her in London four days ago (was it really only four?). I’d flown to Los Angeles in Johnny Depp’s private jet, and then spent two days at his mansion before I’d been kidnapped, and poor Vanessa Paradis and Ewan McGregor had been killed. That was yesterday, and today I’d been paraded around LA by Victoria Beckham and Matt Damon. The enemy were convinced that the Beckhams and Damon, as well as Harrison Ford, whose mansion this was, had not been identified as demons until Victoria’s stupid actions. They thought that the good guys would only be learning today where I might be being held, and yet the Teacher was already here. How could that be? How could she already have a job here? Was she twins? Was one of them an evil twin? If so, was it a trick that she winked at me? Was she actually The Master? If you think this sounds paranoid, you try being told you’re the Chosen One in a War for the Fate of the World, and then having to watch your friends being killed, and then finding yourself stuck as a dumb mind in a disobedient body.
I wished Miss Smallbone would come and explain away my fears, but nothing. The hours passed, and darkness fell. I hadn’t had this evening’s dose of the drug that kept me imprisoned, and I was beginning to hope they would forget. I was almost more frightened by the thought of trying to escape on my own initiative than I was of being drugged again. Still, I started trying to control my fingers, just as something to do. I don’t know if I had begun to succeed when the door clicked open. My stupid body didn’t turn round to see who it was, but I was certain it must be Miss Smallbone at last. I was certain.
‘Turn round, dumbo,’ said Victoria Beckham. ‘I don’t mind calling you dumbo, because as soon as you understand you should be on our side, you’ll find all of this funny and forgive me. And if you never understand, we’ll be torturing you anyway, and being nice would have been a waste of time. I want to show you something cool.’ She was holding a very small laptop computer, and she sat next to me on the bed, and pulled up the BBC news website. ‘You’re the biggest story in the world,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d get SOME column inches, but this is GREAT!’
The headline ran, ‘Who’s That Girl?’ The story underneath it, with pictures, ran as follows: ‘Police around the world are looking for Mary Sue Park, 30, a barrister from West Hampstead in north London, who seems to be the key to a sensational round of slayings involving some of the world’s biggest celebrities.
‘On Monday, Miss Park was visited in her office in Gray’s Inn’s South Square by David Tennant, who, moments later, was seen to murder Miss Park’s estranged husband. Before Miss Park could be questioned by the police, she disappeared. In seemingly unconnected news yesterday, the Scottish actor Ewan McGregor and the French pop singer Vanessa Paradis were gunned down in the LA home of Paradis’s partner, Johnny Depp. Police were treating this as the work of intruders, but astonishing pictures received by the BBC today show a heavily disguised Miss Park arriving in Los Angeles with Depp, McGregor and Paradis three days ago.
‘As if this weren’t enough, further stories are emerging about the previously anonymous Miss Park. She was seen shopping with Victoria Beckham, and as these pictures show, the pair are clearly bosom pals. But Miss Park seems even closer to Matt Damon, this photograph shows teh couple in a passionate clinch in Damon's eco-jeep.
‘Miss Park’s friends claim to be astonished by these stories, and say that this behaviour is completely out of character. Her family decline to comment. David Tennant, incredibly, still insists that she is his lawyer, and will represent him when his case comes to trial next week.’
Victoria Beckham beamed at me proudly. ‘Isn’t this great!’ she said. Isn’t it totally hilarious! And you haven’t seen the best bit – the comments sent in by the public are…’ There was a discreet knock on the door. ‘Yes,’ said Victoria impatiently. ‘What is it?’
The door opened, and in came Miss Smallbone. ‘Excuse,’ she said, in a heavy accent. ‘Have this for you. Mr Ford say is time for you give this to guest, no?’ She handed over the leather wallet which held the syringes of Somnus B, the body-control drug. Victoria Beckham gave me my injection, and Miss Smallbone said, ‘Mr Ford say he want to see you, Miss Beckham.’ Victoria Beckham left. As soon as the door was shut, Miss Smallbone said, ‘Well, Miss Park, I don’t know what to do with you. I could have switched drugs, and given you back control of your body, but on the whole, at the moment, I think that would be a bad idea, don’t you? I don’t want you getting frightened and trying to escape.’
Also, I was exhilarated to know that I was about to be rescued. I had only spent one day being drugged, but I can tell you that there is nothing like being an alert mind trapped in a body you can’t control for making you feel helpless and hopeless. Suddenly, I was not alone, and the enemy were not all-powerful. But as I sat in my room, my body having been clearly instructed not to leave my bed except to go to the toilet when I needed, I started to have doubts. How could Miss Smallbone possibly be here already? I left her in London four days ago (was it really only four?). I’d flown to Los Angeles in Johnny Depp’s private jet, and then spent two days at his mansion before I’d been kidnapped, and poor Vanessa Paradis and Ewan McGregor had been killed. That was yesterday, and today I’d been paraded around LA by Victoria Beckham and Matt Damon. The enemy were convinced that the Beckhams and Damon, as well as Harrison Ford, whose mansion this was, had not been identified as demons until Victoria’s stupid actions. They thought that the good guys would only be learning today where I might be being held, and yet the Teacher was already here. How could that be? How could she already have a job here? Was she twins? Was one of them an evil twin? If so, was it a trick that she winked at me? Was she actually The Master? If you think this sounds paranoid, you try being told you’re the Chosen One in a War for the Fate of the World, and then having to watch your friends being killed, and then finding yourself stuck as a dumb mind in a disobedient body.
I wished Miss Smallbone would come and explain away my fears, but nothing. The hours passed, and darkness fell. I hadn’t had this evening’s dose of the drug that kept me imprisoned, and I was beginning to hope they would forget. I was almost more frightened by the thought of trying to escape on my own initiative than I was of being drugged again. Still, I started trying to control my fingers, just as something to do. I don’t know if I had begun to succeed when the door clicked open. My stupid body didn’t turn round to see who it was, but I was certain it must be Miss Smallbone at last. I was certain.
‘Turn round, dumbo,’ said Victoria Beckham. ‘I don’t mind calling you dumbo, because as soon as you understand you should be on our side, you’ll find all of this funny and forgive me. And if you never understand, we’ll be torturing you anyway, and being nice would have been a waste of time. I want to show you something cool.’ She was holding a very small laptop computer, and she sat next to me on the bed, and pulled up the BBC news website. ‘You’re the biggest story in the world,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d get SOME column inches, but this is GREAT!’
The headline ran, ‘Who’s That Girl?’ The story underneath it, with pictures, ran as follows: ‘Police around the world are looking for Mary Sue Park, 30, a barrister from West Hampstead in north London, who seems to be the key to a sensational round of slayings involving some of the world’s biggest celebrities.
‘On Monday, Miss Park was visited in her office in Gray’s Inn’s South Square by David Tennant, who, moments later, was seen to murder Miss Park’s estranged husband. Before Miss Park could be questioned by the police, she disappeared. In seemingly unconnected news yesterday, the Scottish actor Ewan McGregor and the French pop singer Vanessa Paradis were gunned down in the LA home of Paradis’s partner, Johnny Depp. Police were treating this as the work of intruders, but astonishing pictures received by the BBC today show a heavily disguised Miss Park arriving in Los Angeles with Depp, McGregor and Paradis three days ago.
‘As if this weren’t enough, further stories are emerging about the previously anonymous Miss Park. She was seen shopping with Victoria Beckham, and as these pictures show, the pair are clearly bosom pals. But Miss Park seems even closer to Matt Damon, this photograph shows teh couple in a passionate clinch in Damon's eco-jeep.
‘Miss Park’s friends claim to be astonished by these stories, and say that this behaviour is completely out of character. Her family decline to comment. David Tennant, incredibly, still insists that she is his lawyer, and will represent him when his case comes to trial next week.’
Victoria Beckham beamed at me proudly. ‘Isn’t this great!’ she said. Isn’t it totally hilarious! And you haven’t seen the best bit – the comments sent in by the public are…’ There was a discreet knock on the door. ‘Yes,’ said Victoria impatiently. ‘What is it?’
The door opened, and in came Miss Smallbone. ‘Excuse,’ she said, in a heavy accent. ‘Have this for you. Mr Ford say is time for you give this to guest, no?’ She handed over the leather wallet which held the syringes of Somnus B, the body-control drug. Victoria Beckham gave me my injection, and Miss Smallbone said, ‘Mr Ford say he want to see you, Miss Beckham.’ Victoria Beckham left. As soon as the door was shut, Miss Smallbone said, ‘Well, Miss Park, I don’t know what to do with you. I could have switched drugs, and given you back control of your body, but on the whole, at the moment, I think that would be a bad idea, don’t you? I don’t want you getting frightened and trying to escape.’
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Chapter 26: Stupid Victoria Beckham
‘Gross,’ said Matt Damon, pulling away from our snog. I say ‘our’, but I was drugged with something called Somnus B, and I couldn’t resist him. And I say ‘snog’, but really it was him putting his mouth over mine, lips pursing in reluctance. My drugged eyes had been open through the horrible few seconds, and as if through windows I’d watched him looking past me to where the paparazzi had their cameras trained on us.
When we got back to Harrison Ford’s mansion, where I was being imprisoned, we were greeted in the hall by Harrison and David Beckham. ‘What the hell have you been doing?’ said Harrison.
‘Stop, Harrison,’ said David, nodding at the back of a woman bent over and scrubbing the floor.
‘We do this in private.’ Then he turned his gaze on Matt Damon and added, ‘And let’s not be too hard on Matt until we’ve heard his side of the story.’
Matt Damon looked confused as we led into the lounge. ‘But David,’ he said, as soon as the door was closed, ‘I presumed this was your idea. That’s how Victoria made it seem.’
Harrison Ford turned angrily on David Beckham. ‘This isn’t the first time,’ he said. ‘She’s a liability. I’m tempted to put her on Somnus B. This is amateur hour. She’s as bad as Cathy Calloway with her ridiculous “proof” that Mary Sue shagged David Tennant. These things draw attention to us at just the time our anonymity is becoming vital.’
‘I know, Harrison,’ said David, doing his best not to grimace. ‘But there’s nothing we can do for now. It’s the Master’s decision: if it comes to a fight, we can’t do without Victoria, and she knows it.’ David Beckham, shorn of his silly mannerisms and fumbling speech, was genuinely commanding presence, and Harrison Ford deferred instantly. David cocked his head, and added,
‘That’s her now.’ The three men instinctively drew together and stood facing the door, behind which came a sharp stiletto clicking. The clicking stopped, the men tensed, there was a pause, and then Victoria Beckham threw open the door, her face shining with defiance. ‘You’re an idiot, Victoria,’ said David Beckham.
‘Just because you can’t control me?’ said Victoria. ‘Just because you’re intimidated by strong, sexual women?’
‘Not for those reasons,’ said David calmly. ‘Please do explain what you were hoping to achieve?’
‘Why do you have to talk like a dictionary?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ David’s face indicated that he was reviewing his last sentence, looking for words a five-year-old might find tricky.
‘You know what I mean, you twat.’
Matt Damon said, ‘I thought you…’
‘No, Matt,’ said David gently. ‘I want her to explain.’
‘I didn’t do any harm,’ pouted Victoria. ‘Either The Master gets her to join us, or we have to torture her. Either way, there’s nothing to stop me having some fun and making it difficult for the precious little angels. I’d like to see them get her out of this without her looking like a bitch in the newspapers! I’d like to see what David Tennant is saying now. Tell me how that harms us? Go on, tell me! You’re a coward. The time is coming when we can stop skulking around and hardly killing anyone.’
‘Well, Victoria…’
‘Go on, explain.’
‘The explanation is…’
‘I told you! There’s no explanation.’ Her face was sheened with sweat as she made her desperate interruption. She could see from the passivity on David Beckham’s face that he had a clinching argument. When an opposing barrister has that look in court, I always know it’s time to pack my bags. David waited until Victoria’s shoulders slumped, and she said, ‘Go on.’
‘The Master cannot get to LA for two days, because nothing can be allowed to compromise his cover and future freedom of movement. We have the Chosen One,’ he nodded at me, ‘And, since no one knew about you or me, or Harrison, we were under no danger of her being found. Now, you have paraded her for the world’s press – and you’ve used poor Matthew abominably, incidentally – and you have told the angels precisely who we are. Luckily, they do not yet know about Harrison, but once they arrive in LA, and do some investigation, they will find out where we have been spending our time, put two and two together, and attempt to rescue her. We are safe for a maximum of five hours.’
‘Five hours! There’s no way they could…’
‘We’ve underestimated The Teacher before. He’s very good, and we know there are more angels in LA.’
‘She knows what The Teacher looks like,’ said Victoria, looking at me. ‘Give me five minutes with her, and I’ll know too.’
‘I’d have thought you’d realise that you’ve done enough damage already. As soon as we leave this room, Harrison is going to have to take security to Level One, no one into the house, and no one out, and that includes us, now we’ve been compromised. Do you understand now?’
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Victoria.
‘I’m so sorry if I’ve done some thing wrong,’ said Matt Damon. ‘Which it looks like I have.’
‘It’s isn’t your fault, Matthew,’ said David Beckham. ‘Don’t worry.’ David came and stared at me through my eyes. ‘I know you’re in there, Mary Sue,’ he said. ‘Victoria is a fool, but it’s really just over-eagerness. You’ll understand when The Master comes to explain. You’ll realise that your precious Teacher doesn’t understand what our kind were meant to be, and that living too long with the humans has muddied his mind. Then, in the end, you’ll help us kill him, and the rest of them, and then we will feast on this world, and then we will move on. I know this sounds terrible to you now, but you’ll understand, I promise.’
Victoria was ordered to lead me to my room. On the stairs, we passed the maid, who stood primly to attention, head bowed. As soon as Victoria was passed her, the maid lifted her eyes to mine and winked. I’m glad my body couldn’t react, because it was The Teacher, Miss Smallbone.
When we got back to Harrison Ford’s mansion, where I was being imprisoned, we were greeted in the hall by Harrison and David Beckham. ‘What the hell have you been doing?’ said Harrison.
‘Stop, Harrison,’ said David, nodding at the back of a woman bent over and scrubbing the floor.
‘We do this in private.’ Then he turned his gaze on Matt Damon and added, ‘And let’s not be too hard on Matt until we’ve heard his side of the story.’
Matt Damon looked confused as we led into the lounge. ‘But David,’ he said, as soon as the door was closed, ‘I presumed this was your idea. That’s how Victoria made it seem.’
Harrison Ford turned angrily on David Beckham. ‘This isn’t the first time,’ he said. ‘She’s a liability. I’m tempted to put her on Somnus B. This is amateur hour. She’s as bad as Cathy Calloway with her ridiculous “proof” that Mary Sue shagged David Tennant. These things draw attention to us at just the time our anonymity is becoming vital.’
‘I know, Harrison,’ said David, doing his best not to grimace. ‘But there’s nothing we can do for now. It’s the Master’s decision: if it comes to a fight, we can’t do without Victoria, and she knows it.’ David Beckham, shorn of his silly mannerisms and fumbling speech, was genuinely commanding presence, and Harrison Ford deferred instantly. David cocked his head, and added,
‘That’s her now.’ The three men instinctively drew together and stood facing the door, behind which came a sharp stiletto clicking. The clicking stopped, the men tensed, there was a pause, and then Victoria Beckham threw open the door, her face shining with defiance. ‘You’re an idiot, Victoria,’ said David Beckham.
‘Just because you can’t control me?’ said Victoria. ‘Just because you’re intimidated by strong, sexual women?’
‘Not for those reasons,’ said David calmly. ‘Please do explain what you were hoping to achieve?’
‘Why do you have to talk like a dictionary?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ David’s face indicated that he was reviewing his last sentence, looking for words a five-year-old might find tricky.
‘You know what I mean, you twat.’
Matt Damon said, ‘I thought you…’
‘No, Matt,’ said David gently. ‘I want her to explain.’
‘I didn’t do any harm,’ pouted Victoria. ‘Either The Master gets her to join us, or we have to torture her. Either way, there’s nothing to stop me having some fun and making it difficult for the precious little angels. I’d like to see them get her out of this without her looking like a bitch in the newspapers! I’d like to see what David Tennant is saying now. Tell me how that harms us? Go on, tell me! You’re a coward. The time is coming when we can stop skulking around and hardly killing anyone.’
‘Well, Victoria…’
‘Go on, explain.’
‘The explanation is…’
‘I told you! There’s no explanation.’ Her face was sheened with sweat as she made her desperate interruption. She could see from the passivity on David Beckham’s face that he had a clinching argument. When an opposing barrister has that look in court, I always know it’s time to pack my bags. David waited until Victoria’s shoulders slumped, and she said, ‘Go on.’
‘The Master cannot get to LA for two days, because nothing can be allowed to compromise his cover and future freedom of movement. We have the Chosen One,’ he nodded at me, ‘And, since no one knew about you or me, or Harrison, we were under no danger of her being found. Now, you have paraded her for the world’s press – and you’ve used poor Matthew abominably, incidentally – and you have told the angels precisely who we are. Luckily, they do not yet know about Harrison, but once they arrive in LA, and do some investigation, they will find out where we have been spending our time, put two and two together, and attempt to rescue her. We are safe for a maximum of five hours.’
‘Five hours! There’s no way they could…’
‘We’ve underestimated The Teacher before. He’s very good, and we know there are more angels in LA.’
‘She knows what The Teacher looks like,’ said Victoria, looking at me. ‘Give me five minutes with her, and I’ll know too.’
‘I’d have thought you’d realise that you’ve done enough damage already. As soon as we leave this room, Harrison is going to have to take security to Level One, no one into the house, and no one out, and that includes us, now we’ve been compromised. Do you understand now?’
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Victoria.
‘I’m so sorry if I’ve done some thing wrong,’ said Matt Damon. ‘Which it looks like I have.’
‘It’s isn’t your fault, Matthew,’ said David Beckham. ‘Don’t worry.’ David came and stared at me through my eyes. ‘I know you’re in there, Mary Sue,’ he said. ‘Victoria is a fool, but it’s really just over-eagerness. You’ll understand when The Master comes to explain. You’ll realise that your precious Teacher doesn’t understand what our kind were meant to be, and that living too long with the humans has muddied his mind. Then, in the end, you’ll help us kill him, and the rest of them, and then we will feast on this world, and then we will move on. I know this sounds terrible to you now, but you’ll understand, I promise.’
Victoria was ordered to lead me to my room. On the stairs, we passed the maid, who stood primly to attention, head bowed. As soon as Victoria was passed her, the maid lifted her eyes to mine and winked. I’m glad my body couldn’t react, because it was The Teacher, Miss Smallbone.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Chapter 25: Things to Do in LA when You Haven't Got a Mind of Your Own
‘Humans are just meat,’ Harrison Ford continued. ‘They are things for us to play with.’
‘You aren’t stronger than them,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen.’
‘We aren’t stronger than them ANY MORE, but we will be as soon as you and the Master open the Gates of Hell.’
‘You’re not special!’
‘We do regenerate eternally,’ he reminded me. ‘That’s pretty special.’ I didn’t say anything. ‘You WILL join us, Mary Sue.’
‘Never.’
‘I’m sorry, but we have ways.’ He gave his lop-sided grin, but it now just seemed frightening. ‘Who is The Teacher, Mary Sue?’ he asked. They were obsessed with The Teacher, who was the leader of the good guys. They assumed it was a man, but The Teacher was a little, neat woman called Miss Smallbone, who was the person who told me who I really was. There was still so much I didn’t understand, but I knew that it was vital that The Teacher’s identity remained a secret. ‘We can make you tell us. It wouldn’t be pleasant.’
I’d always wondered, I dare say everyone has, what would happen if they were tortured. I’ve always assumed that I’d want to hold out, and then, the second someone started pulling off my fingernails, I would scream and tell everything. I said, ‘I’ll never tell you.’
‘Well,’ said Harrison Ford. ‘Then I am very sorry for what is about to happen.’ I did my best not to react, and he thought I didn't understand. He said, 'I mean the torturing.'
‘Wait, Harrison,’ said David Beckham, softly. He had entered behind me at some point.
‘We should check with The Master.’ David Beckham tapped briskly into his mobile phone, and was answered immediately. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘She’s right here. She won’t speak. Do you want us to… No? I thought not. Harrison was going to do it without asking you. I’ll tell him, sir. Okay.’ He listened again. ‘She’s stronger than she looks, yes.’ Another pause. ‘Yes. Yes, sir, I agree, it would be dangerous. Yes, sir, thank you.’ He flipped his phone closed. ‘We wait for him. He’ll be here in two days.’
‘Why?’
‘He says you’re a clumsy moron, Harrison. The end of days will go a lot more smoothly if she’s standing willingly alongside him when the time comes. If we torture her, how easy is that going to be? We can’t touch her mind.’
‘So what do we do till then?’ said Harrison Ford, cowed. Then, like a puppy that knows it shouldn’t have widdled on the carpet and is trying to make amends he said, ‘Somnus B?’
‘Of course,’ said David Beckham, and he nodded to the black woman, who reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a small leather wallet. In it was a set of loaded syringes. David took one, and sat next to me. ‘I know you don’t trust me yet, but that will change. This is simply so we can make sure you don’t do anything stupid to yourself while you’re our guest.’ Without any warning, he jabbed me with the syringe, held my arm while he discharged the fluid into me, and carried on talking. ‘Somnus B is perfectly harmless. All it does is disconnect certain volitional centres of the mind from the relevant body-motor functions. You’ll function normally, but you will have to do whatever we say. I’ve never taken the drug myself, but I imagine it must be rather relaxing.’ He held up his hand, palm to me, and said, ‘Kiss this.’ Instantly, I did so. Then he pinched me, and I recoiled. ‘Yes,’ he said, that’s worked. Volition gone, but protective reactions fine. I say we put her to bed.’
It’s very hard to describe the effects of Somnus B. you can still receive information from your senses, but you feel like you are watching the world, rather than in it, as if what you are seeing and feeling is all a huge television programme. You feel like a prisoner inside a gaol made of you. You can scream, but you can’t make your body scream. It is horrible, and I won’t tell you what the demons usually use the drug to make people do.
I was sent to bed, where my body slept, while I stayed awake, terrified, for half the night, stuck in the blackness. In the morning, I was woken by a sharp prick in my arm. My mind leapt in shock, but my body stayed still. A maid was giving me a top-up injection, and behind her, hands impatiently on hips, was Victoria Beckham. ‘You look awful,’ she said, ‘and I frankly do not think that anything can be done for you this side of major surgery, but I’ve been told to keep you busy, and I think we can have some fun. We’re going shopping.’ An hour later, we were in the sort of shops you only see in movies, with assistants scurrying all around us. I had been told I couldn’t speak. ‘Don’t mind her,’ said Victoria. ‘She’s an idiot mute, but I adore her completely, like I adore all disadvantaged people, so I’m taking her shopping for the day of her life!’
‘That’s so wunnerful, Victoria,’ said the acidic Italian woman next to us. ‘She an idiot why she eat so much? You not tie her hands nor nothing?’ Victoria gave a long-suffering shrug. By the time we left the arcade, I was painted and dressed like a pop singer in a video, by which I mean a rich prostitute.
I was made to carry my bags of new clothes from the car to the restaurant, which seemed inexplicable until a group of paparazzi started snapping at us, and Victoria said, ‘She’s a darling!’ and kissed me. She whispered, ‘Act like you love this,’ and my body did. She turned back to the reporters and said, ‘I thought I knew about clothes, but this girl has shopped me off my feet! Do you know her? She’s Mary Sue Park, an English celebrity lawyer! Mwah, mwah!’ I wished I could turn off my eyes, but my body posed and preened, and clung onto David Beckham when he joined us, and all I could do was watch reporters making notes.
Once inside, Victoria had plate after plate of delicious food put in front of me, and she told me to eat them. She watched, eating nothing, her face a combination of desperation and wonder. It was odd, but things got hideous when we were joined by Matt Damon. He grinned at Victoria and said, ‘Is she ready?’ Victoria said I was. Matt Damon ordered me to follow him out of the restaurant. He held my hand for the eager photographers, sat me next to him in his big red pick-up truck, checked to see that the press were still watching, said ‘Stay still,’ reached over, and snogged me.
‘You aren’t stronger than them,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen.’
‘We aren’t stronger than them ANY MORE, but we will be as soon as you and the Master open the Gates of Hell.’
‘You’re not special!’
‘We do regenerate eternally,’ he reminded me. ‘That’s pretty special.’ I didn’t say anything. ‘You WILL join us, Mary Sue.’
‘Never.’
‘I’m sorry, but we have ways.’ He gave his lop-sided grin, but it now just seemed frightening. ‘Who is The Teacher, Mary Sue?’ he asked. They were obsessed with The Teacher, who was the leader of the good guys. They assumed it was a man, but The Teacher was a little, neat woman called Miss Smallbone, who was the person who told me who I really was. There was still so much I didn’t understand, but I knew that it was vital that The Teacher’s identity remained a secret. ‘We can make you tell us. It wouldn’t be pleasant.’
I’d always wondered, I dare say everyone has, what would happen if they were tortured. I’ve always assumed that I’d want to hold out, and then, the second someone started pulling off my fingernails, I would scream and tell everything. I said, ‘I’ll never tell you.’
‘Well,’ said Harrison Ford. ‘Then I am very sorry for what is about to happen.’ I did my best not to react, and he thought I didn't understand. He said, 'I mean the torturing.'
‘Wait, Harrison,’ said David Beckham, softly. He had entered behind me at some point.
‘We should check with The Master.’ David Beckham tapped briskly into his mobile phone, and was answered immediately. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘She’s right here. She won’t speak. Do you want us to… No? I thought not. Harrison was going to do it without asking you. I’ll tell him, sir. Okay.’ He listened again. ‘She’s stronger than she looks, yes.’ Another pause. ‘Yes. Yes, sir, I agree, it would be dangerous. Yes, sir, thank you.’ He flipped his phone closed. ‘We wait for him. He’ll be here in two days.’
‘Why?’
‘He says you’re a clumsy moron, Harrison. The end of days will go a lot more smoothly if she’s standing willingly alongside him when the time comes. If we torture her, how easy is that going to be? We can’t touch her mind.’
‘So what do we do till then?’ said Harrison Ford, cowed. Then, like a puppy that knows it shouldn’t have widdled on the carpet and is trying to make amends he said, ‘Somnus B?’
‘Of course,’ said David Beckham, and he nodded to the black woman, who reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a small leather wallet. In it was a set of loaded syringes. David took one, and sat next to me. ‘I know you don’t trust me yet, but that will change. This is simply so we can make sure you don’t do anything stupid to yourself while you’re our guest.’ Without any warning, he jabbed me with the syringe, held my arm while he discharged the fluid into me, and carried on talking. ‘Somnus B is perfectly harmless. All it does is disconnect certain volitional centres of the mind from the relevant body-motor functions. You’ll function normally, but you will have to do whatever we say. I’ve never taken the drug myself, but I imagine it must be rather relaxing.’ He held up his hand, palm to me, and said, ‘Kiss this.’ Instantly, I did so. Then he pinched me, and I recoiled. ‘Yes,’ he said, that’s worked. Volition gone, but protective reactions fine. I say we put her to bed.’
It’s very hard to describe the effects of Somnus B. you can still receive information from your senses, but you feel like you are watching the world, rather than in it, as if what you are seeing and feeling is all a huge television programme. You feel like a prisoner inside a gaol made of you. You can scream, but you can’t make your body scream. It is horrible, and I won’t tell you what the demons usually use the drug to make people do.
I was sent to bed, where my body slept, while I stayed awake, terrified, for half the night, stuck in the blackness. In the morning, I was woken by a sharp prick in my arm. My mind leapt in shock, but my body stayed still. A maid was giving me a top-up injection, and behind her, hands impatiently on hips, was Victoria Beckham. ‘You look awful,’ she said, ‘and I frankly do not think that anything can be done for you this side of major surgery, but I’ve been told to keep you busy, and I think we can have some fun. We’re going shopping.’ An hour later, we were in the sort of shops you only see in movies, with assistants scurrying all around us. I had been told I couldn’t speak. ‘Don’t mind her,’ said Victoria. ‘She’s an idiot mute, but I adore her completely, like I adore all disadvantaged people, so I’m taking her shopping for the day of her life!’
‘That’s so wunnerful, Victoria,’ said the acidic Italian woman next to us. ‘She an idiot why she eat so much? You not tie her hands nor nothing?’ Victoria gave a long-suffering shrug. By the time we left the arcade, I was painted and dressed like a pop singer in a video, by which I mean a rich prostitute.
I was made to carry my bags of new clothes from the car to the restaurant, which seemed inexplicable until a group of paparazzi started snapping at us, and Victoria said, ‘She’s a darling!’ and kissed me. She whispered, ‘Act like you love this,’ and my body did. She turned back to the reporters and said, ‘I thought I knew about clothes, but this girl has shopped me off my feet! Do you know her? She’s Mary Sue Park, an English celebrity lawyer! Mwah, mwah!’ I wished I could turn off my eyes, but my body posed and preened, and clung onto David Beckham when he joined us, and all I could do was watch reporters making notes.
Once inside, Victoria had plate after plate of delicious food put in front of me, and she told me to eat them. She watched, eating nothing, her face a combination of desperation and wonder. It was odd, but things got hideous when we were joined by Matt Damon. He grinned at Victoria and said, ‘Is she ready?’ Victoria said I was. Matt Damon ordered me to follow him out of the restaurant. He held my hand for the eager photographers, sat me next to him in his big red pick-up truck, checked to see that the press were still watching, said ‘Stay still,’ reached over, and snogged me.
WEEKEND FIVE
Odd. Thought I posted something yesterday morning. Wasn't a very extensive round-up, since I don't have much news. I mainly went on about having bruised ribs and my ecstatic joy that I will be reviewing a book about giant salmon when I get back from NY next month.
Also, I said that I am planning to go next Friday or Saturday, not that I have bought my ticket yet, for various complex reasons, which means that I ought to be well settled in next Monday, and there should be little danger of interrupted service, but nothing is ever certain. Posting times will obviously change.
If you are in New York, obviously, you should be planning to come to THIS.
Also, I said that I am planning to go next Friday or Saturday, not that I have bought my ticket yet, for various complex reasons, which means that I ought to be well settled in next Monday, and there should be little danger of interrupted service, but nothing is ever certain. Posting times will obviously change.
If you are in New York, obviously, you should be planning to come to THIS.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Chapter 24: You Eat Meat Don't You, Mary Sue
‘I’m sorry you had to see that,’ said Harrison Ford. ‘It must have been awful.’ Before today, I really had almost managed to convince myself that that Angels and Demons were warring for the fate of the world, that I was the ‘Chosen One’ who would play a crucial role in their final battle and that I was under the protection of such ‘Angels’ as Johnny Depp and Ewan McGregor. But now Harrison Ford had shown me a video in which Depp and McGregor said I should be killed, and they’d happily do it themselves. ‘They’re not your friends, Mary Sue,’ said Harrison gently. ‘You mean nothing to them.’ I knew nothing any more. I mechanically raised my fork to my mouth, concentrating on the action.
Harrison Ford’s lovely assistant Demeter had dressed me in a beautiful blue and gold dress, but dinner had not been formal. It was just me, Harrison, a fat man in a brown wig, and a nondescript black woman of about my age. They all seemed extremely nice, and my steak was delicious. I hated every moment of it, because my whole self was stripping apart, tatters swirling around a black plughole, the other side of which was … I didn’t know. Maybe on the other side was nothing, so there wouldn’t be a me anymore at all, which would mean this was the plughole of madness. Or maybe waste-disposal-unit was a better image, since I was being shredded. Or maybe it was just a life transition, I would still be there on the other side, but a different, reconstituted me.
‘But they didn’t kill me,’ I protested, quietly.
‘They hadn’t killed you yet, but they would have.’
‘Why hadn’t they killed me if they were going to kill me?’ There was no answer. ‘Ewan McGregor and Vanessa Paradis died trying to protect me.’ At the thought of Vanessa, who had been so sweet, I started crying.
‘There, there, Mary Sue,’ said the black woman, putting her hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s good you can cry. But they weren’t trying to protect you. They were just trying to stop us getting hold of you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because…’
‘Why did they change their mind?’ I asked. ‘When was that video taken?’
‘It was last week, when…’
‘Stop!’ I gulped, trying to get my thoughts straight. ‘Wait. They said that if you and The Master got hold of me, we might be able to open the Gates of Hell.’
‘Yes,’ said the fat man. ‘It’s going to be brilliant!’ He looked at the others. ‘Oh,’ he said, abashed. ‘Darn, I shouldn’t have said that. I remember. Softly, softly.’
‘You’re an idiot, Norville,’ said the black woman. ‘He’s an idiot. Once we explain, you’ll understand why…’
‘No,’ I said, and all the bits of my self started coalescing again, on this side of the plughole, forming a shape that was still me, and which would never fit through to the other side. ‘No way. You ARE the Demons. You sent Gavin to marry me, and he shagged Cathy on our wedding day, and she’s another Demon. That’s not something the goodies would do. And the others were protecting me because it’s the right thing to do, even though it was dangerous. It must be because the Teacher told them to, because…’
‘No,’ said Harrison Ford. ‘I’m sorry. The Teacher would have kept you alive for a while, because the Angels have such bleeding hearts, but when it came to it, when he realised that it is your destiny to join us, he would have killed you himself.’
It was horribly plausible. The Teacher, Miss Smallbone, was a little plump woman who gave off a frightening air of capability. She would regret doing bad things, but she’d do them. But David Tennant told me trust her, so I said, more defiant than convinced, ‘That’s not true! I KNOW the Teacher.’
‘You’ve seen the Teacher!’ blurted Norville. ‘Who is he?’ He turned to the others. ‘She’s seen him. We can find out what he looks like. We can kill him, and this will all be over. Do you want me to torture her?’ His piggy eyes bore on me eagerly. The black woman sighed deeply, and he said, ‘What? She knows… Oh shoot. I’ve done it again! I’m such a doofus. Softly, softly. Er, Mary Sue, when I said “torture”, I was speaking metaphorically. It’s our word for … er … making you a cookie, which is American for biscuit!’ He looked at the others hopefully, and then he said, ‘Ok. I’ll go. Sorry guys.’ He went.
‘In one way,’ said Harrison Ford, ‘Norville’s right. This is all just words. The Master. The Teacher. Angels and Demons. You have a value system which means one side sounds more attractive, but that’s because the Angels, so called, are more devious than we are. They’re weaklings. They don’t want to become Gods, which we were always meant to be, which we were before we ended up on this pathetic little planet. You are one of us, Mary Sue. Once you recognise that, everything else is simple.’
‘The Gates of Hell,’ I said.
Harrison Ford said, ‘the Gates of Hell is more mere words. Hell is not a place. All it means is that we will finally have access to the world we lost seventy million years ago. It’s our destiny.’
‘What will happen to the world, to all the people in it?’
‘People?’ said Harrison Ford. ‘These aren’t really people. You are further above them than they are above the cow we’ve just been eating. Once you realise that, everything else is simple. You eat meat, don’t you, Mary Sue?’
Harrison Ford’s lovely assistant Demeter had dressed me in a beautiful blue and gold dress, but dinner had not been formal. It was just me, Harrison, a fat man in a brown wig, and a nondescript black woman of about my age. They all seemed extremely nice, and my steak was delicious. I hated every moment of it, because my whole self was stripping apart, tatters swirling around a black plughole, the other side of which was … I didn’t know. Maybe on the other side was nothing, so there wouldn’t be a me anymore at all, which would mean this was the plughole of madness. Or maybe waste-disposal-unit was a better image, since I was being shredded. Or maybe it was just a life transition, I would still be there on the other side, but a different, reconstituted me.
‘But they didn’t kill me,’ I protested, quietly.
‘They hadn’t killed you yet, but they would have.’
‘Why hadn’t they killed me if they were going to kill me?’ There was no answer. ‘Ewan McGregor and Vanessa Paradis died trying to protect me.’ At the thought of Vanessa, who had been so sweet, I started crying.
‘There, there, Mary Sue,’ said the black woman, putting her hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s good you can cry. But they weren’t trying to protect you. They were just trying to stop us getting hold of you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because…’
‘Why did they change their mind?’ I asked. ‘When was that video taken?’
‘It was last week, when…’
‘Stop!’ I gulped, trying to get my thoughts straight. ‘Wait. They said that if you and The Master got hold of me, we might be able to open the Gates of Hell.’
‘Yes,’ said the fat man. ‘It’s going to be brilliant!’ He looked at the others. ‘Oh,’ he said, abashed. ‘Darn, I shouldn’t have said that. I remember. Softly, softly.’
‘You’re an idiot, Norville,’ said the black woman. ‘He’s an idiot. Once we explain, you’ll understand why…’
‘No,’ I said, and all the bits of my self started coalescing again, on this side of the plughole, forming a shape that was still me, and which would never fit through to the other side. ‘No way. You ARE the Demons. You sent Gavin to marry me, and he shagged Cathy on our wedding day, and she’s another Demon. That’s not something the goodies would do. And the others were protecting me because it’s the right thing to do, even though it was dangerous. It must be because the Teacher told them to, because…’
‘No,’ said Harrison Ford. ‘I’m sorry. The Teacher would have kept you alive for a while, because the Angels have such bleeding hearts, but when it came to it, when he realised that it is your destiny to join us, he would have killed you himself.’
It was horribly plausible. The Teacher, Miss Smallbone, was a little plump woman who gave off a frightening air of capability. She would regret doing bad things, but she’d do them. But David Tennant told me trust her, so I said, more defiant than convinced, ‘That’s not true! I KNOW the Teacher.’
‘You’ve seen the Teacher!’ blurted Norville. ‘Who is he?’ He turned to the others. ‘She’s seen him. We can find out what he looks like. We can kill him, and this will all be over. Do you want me to torture her?’ His piggy eyes bore on me eagerly. The black woman sighed deeply, and he said, ‘What? She knows… Oh shoot. I’ve done it again! I’m such a doofus. Softly, softly. Er, Mary Sue, when I said “torture”, I was speaking metaphorically. It’s our word for … er … making you a cookie, which is American for biscuit!’ He looked at the others hopefully, and then he said, ‘Ok. I’ll go. Sorry guys.’ He went.
‘In one way,’ said Harrison Ford, ‘Norville’s right. This is all just words. The Master. The Teacher. Angels and Demons. You have a value system which means one side sounds more attractive, but that’s because the Angels, so called, are more devious than we are. They’re weaklings. They don’t want to become Gods, which we were always meant to be, which we were before we ended up on this pathetic little planet. You are one of us, Mary Sue. Once you recognise that, everything else is simple.’
‘The Gates of Hell,’ I said.
Harrison Ford said, ‘the Gates of Hell is more mere words. Hell is not a place. All it means is that we will finally have access to the world we lost seventy million years ago. It’s our destiny.’
‘What will happen to the world, to all the people in it?’
‘People?’ said Harrison Ford. ‘These aren’t really people. You are further above them than they are above the cow we’ve just been eating. Once you realise that, everything else is simple. You eat meat, don’t you, Mary Sue?’
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Chapter 23: Sometimes You Don't Want to Choose, But You Don't Have a Choice
When I was sixteen, the decision over which A-levels to do caused me a month of sleepless nights. I wanted to take English, History and French, but then I wouldn’t be in any of the same classes as Hetty Winglass, my best friend since the age of seven. Hetty wanted to be a vet, so she was taking Maths, Chemistry and Biology.
We made our selections with heavy hearts, and hugged each other about the end of an era. Over the summer, at birthday parties and sleepovers, I must have regaled a million people with my calculation that Hetty and I had never spent a lesson in a different classroom since we went to proper school, which added up to something approaching five thousand hours, and now it was over. Hetty wasn’t always with me when I did this speech – though she often was – because at the parties that summer she was in the process of getting her first and last long-term boyfriend, James Dust.
Because of James, I didn’t see Hetty as much as usual that summer, but we still met up at least a couple of times each week. I made most of the arrangements, but in every friendship there’s always one person who makes the running that way, and I barely noticed it, let alone minded. I didn’t notice it officially, anyway. My mother sometimes asked me pointedly whether Hetty ever called me, and I said, ‘Of course she does, sometimes.’
Whatever. When we met up, we talked about the coming year, and giggled about James and how much he was in Hetty’s thrall, and why I wasn’t snogging anyone at these parties, which was for reasons I didn’t know, because I quite wanted to snog people, it just never happened somehow. I said, probably quite often, probably in quite a serious voice, that I was really, really sad that we weren’t going to be in lessons together any more, and this would be a real change in the routine and lives we had each lead for more than half of the years we had been on earth. ‘Yeah, Mary Sue,’ laughed Hetty. ‘But it’s just lessons!’ and she would change the subject. I thought she couldn’t bear to talk about it, which I almost couldn’t, but I was forcing myself because it was the mature thing to do to face up to this situation.
By mid-August, I could stand it no longer. I told my mother that there was no real point in my doing French A-level. Everyone knew that the best way to learn a language was to live in the relevant country, which is why a year of a degree course was abroad. I could live in a France any time, and there was no point in my doing French literature when I was doing English literature already, so it would be more balanced if my A-levels included a science subject, and I hated Maths, and Chemistry was full of Maths, and so the logical thing was to do Biology. My mother asked me if this was because of Hetty, and I told her she was being stupid, and we had a fight. My mother asked why Hetty wasn’t changing one of her subjects, and I said that it was nothing to do with Hetty, though I wasn’t pretending it wasn’t gong to be great for us both, but there was no way Hetty could change her subjects, because she wanted to be a vet. When I told Hetty, she wasn’t as instantly thrilled as I expected, but I assumed it was the surprise, because after a tiny moment, she gave me a hug.
On the first day of our sixth form, we arrived in our new, more lax uniforms. We were now allowed a jumper in one of four colours other than the standard blue. Hetty and I had agreed on burgundy, but when she arrived, she was wearing green. She said she forgot. I said I didn’t mind.
Our first biology lesson was late that morning. I was the first in the room. We’d sat in the same seats for biology all through senior school, and we knew that once we had those seats on the first day, we would remain in them for the next two years. So I sat down, and craned my head around for Hetty to join me. While I was doing so, Claire Settles slipped in under my arm with a big grin. ‘Hi, MS!’ she beamed. ‘Partners?’ Claire had never been in our class before, she’d been promoted from the second stream because she was good at sciences, and she didn’t know that I was always partners with Hetty. I was slightly confused, and I was in the process of working out how to extricate myself when I saw Hetty look over, look surprised, shrug and sit down next to Lise Palmer. My stomach was in knots throughout the lesson, which I spent trying to figure out how to explain Claire’s mistake to her.
But that never happened. After the lesson, I went to the lavatory. I was in a cubicle when I heard two people enter, laughing. One of them was Claire Settles. ‘Ok, Hets, I did it, but you owe me.’
‘I know,’ said Hetty, ‘but I totally need a break from MS.’
‘I thought you and her…’
‘That’s what everyone thinks. I don’t mind her, but she’s, I mean, she cramps my style, doesn’t she?’
‘I would have to say yes,’ said Claire, judiciously.
‘Yeah. I’m not being cruel, am I?’
‘No,’ said Claire. ‘You’re way out of her league, really. You’re basically being kind to her, aren’t you?’
‘Basically.’
It is because of that day in the toilet when I was sixteen that the adult me – sitting on the end of a bed in Harrison Ford’s mansion, having just watched a video of some people who claimed to be her protectors talking about how it would be better for everyone if she were dead – recognised the black weight in her stomach, and knew for certain that while she might be able to crush it, contain it and move on, it would always be there, added to the list of unforgettable betrayals, testament to the fact that she never seems to learn. Stupid, stupid Mary Sue.
We made our selections with heavy hearts, and hugged each other about the end of an era. Over the summer, at birthday parties and sleepovers, I must have regaled a million people with my calculation that Hetty and I had never spent a lesson in a different classroom since we went to proper school, which added up to something approaching five thousand hours, and now it was over. Hetty wasn’t always with me when I did this speech – though she often was – because at the parties that summer she was in the process of getting her first and last long-term boyfriend, James Dust.
Because of James, I didn’t see Hetty as much as usual that summer, but we still met up at least a couple of times each week. I made most of the arrangements, but in every friendship there’s always one person who makes the running that way, and I barely noticed it, let alone minded. I didn’t notice it officially, anyway. My mother sometimes asked me pointedly whether Hetty ever called me, and I said, ‘Of course she does, sometimes.’
Whatever. When we met up, we talked about the coming year, and giggled about James and how much he was in Hetty’s thrall, and why I wasn’t snogging anyone at these parties, which was for reasons I didn’t know, because I quite wanted to snog people, it just never happened somehow. I said, probably quite often, probably in quite a serious voice, that I was really, really sad that we weren’t going to be in lessons together any more, and this would be a real change in the routine and lives we had each lead for more than half of the years we had been on earth. ‘Yeah, Mary Sue,’ laughed Hetty. ‘But it’s just lessons!’ and she would change the subject. I thought she couldn’t bear to talk about it, which I almost couldn’t, but I was forcing myself because it was the mature thing to do to face up to this situation.
By mid-August, I could stand it no longer. I told my mother that there was no real point in my doing French A-level. Everyone knew that the best way to learn a language was to live in the relevant country, which is why a year of a degree course was abroad. I could live in a France any time, and there was no point in my doing French literature when I was doing English literature already, so it would be more balanced if my A-levels included a science subject, and I hated Maths, and Chemistry was full of Maths, and so the logical thing was to do Biology. My mother asked me if this was because of Hetty, and I told her she was being stupid, and we had a fight. My mother asked why Hetty wasn’t changing one of her subjects, and I said that it was nothing to do with Hetty, though I wasn’t pretending it wasn’t gong to be great for us both, but there was no way Hetty could change her subjects, because she wanted to be a vet. When I told Hetty, she wasn’t as instantly thrilled as I expected, but I assumed it was the surprise, because after a tiny moment, she gave me a hug.
On the first day of our sixth form, we arrived in our new, more lax uniforms. We were now allowed a jumper in one of four colours other than the standard blue. Hetty and I had agreed on burgundy, but when she arrived, she was wearing green. She said she forgot. I said I didn’t mind.
Our first biology lesson was late that morning. I was the first in the room. We’d sat in the same seats for biology all through senior school, and we knew that once we had those seats on the first day, we would remain in them for the next two years. So I sat down, and craned my head around for Hetty to join me. While I was doing so, Claire Settles slipped in under my arm with a big grin. ‘Hi, MS!’ she beamed. ‘Partners?’ Claire had never been in our class before, she’d been promoted from the second stream because she was good at sciences, and she didn’t know that I was always partners with Hetty. I was slightly confused, and I was in the process of working out how to extricate myself when I saw Hetty look over, look surprised, shrug and sit down next to Lise Palmer. My stomach was in knots throughout the lesson, which I spent trying to figure out how to explain Claire’s mistake to her.
But that never happened. After the lesson, I went to the lavatory. I was in a cubicle when I heard two people enter, laughing. One of them was Claire Settles. ‘Ok, Hets, I did it, but you owe me.’
‘I know,’ said Hetty, ‘but I totally need a break from MS.’
‘I thought you and her…’
‘That’s what everyone thinks. I don’t mind her, but she’s, I mean, she cramps my style, doesn’t she?’
‘I would have to say yes,’ said Claire, judiciously.
‘Yeah. I’m not being cruel, am I?’
‘No,’ said Claire. ‘You’re way out of her league, really. You’re basically being kind to her, aren’t you?’
‘Basically.’
It is because of that day in the toilet when I was sixteen that the adult me – sitting on the end of a bed in Harrison Ford’s mansion, having just watched a video of some people who claimed to be her protectors talking about how it would be better for everyone if she were dead – recognised the black weight in her stomach, and knew for certain that while she might be able to crush it, contain it and move on, it would always be there, added to the list of unforgettable betrayals, testament to the fact that she never seems to learn. Stupid, stupid Mary Sue.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Chapter 22: Alone
Harrison Ford’s LA mansion was even more amazing than Johnny Depp’s. I was wobbly on my feet after being driven here in the boot of the Beckhams’ car, for which Harrison apologised profusely. The Beckhams had been dismissed, bickering. ‘Come inside,’ said Harrison, and took a few steps. I didn’t move. ‘I won’t bite,’ he added, his eyes twinkling. I couldn’t help smiling. Even though I knew these people were extra-terrestrial demons who wanted to destroy the world, it was hard to completely dissociate them from their public faces, and everyone a bit loves Harrison Ford. ‘Come on,’ he said again. Nodding at the well-guarded gate behind me, he added, ‘You really don’t have any choice.’
‘Are you going to kill me?’
‘We will never kill you, Mary Sue. You’ve been brainwashed by Depp and the others, so I don’t expect you to believe me straight away, but I’m here to help you come to terms with you are. Everything will be easier if you’re at least prepared to consider the possibility that I am on your side. Will you do that?’
‘No,’ I gulped. I had seen the Beckhams murder my friends.
‘You’re spunky,’ he smiled. ‘But believe me, you’re one of us, not one of them. Those people,’ his face wrinkled into a sneer of distaste, ‘they did not tell you the whole story. They didn’t show you what they’re really like. That’s why…’ he looked at me again, shivering in my bikini, in spite of the hot LA summer, and the mucky sweat from the boot of the car, and he stopped. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve forgotten my manners.’ He clicked his fingers, and a bland-faced woman in neat grey slacks emerged behind him, seemingly from thin air. ‘Demeter, look after Miss Park. I will see her for dinner in an hour.’ Harrison Ford winked at me, and said, ‘Think about what I’ve said, that’s all. I’m sorry we can’t let you go, but as soon as you realise what those people are like, you’ll understand why we rescued you.’
***
An hour later, I was looking better than I’ve ever looked in my life. The efficient Demeter had whisked me into a beautiful wooden shower room which sprayed water with dizzying pressure from every wall, and from there into a walk-through closet that made me feel like I was entering Narnia. She picked out a blue and gold dress which made me look like Versace had designed something just for me. She was efficient without being cold, and perfect in the real sense, which includes being impossible to dislike.
Does this mean I was starting to wonder if Harrison Ford might be telling the truth? No. I was just in a daze. There was nothing I could do, and I had to stay alive until my friends came to rescue me. Johnny Depp was going to be crazy that the Beckhams had killed Vanessa, and he’d be out for revenge, and Johnny Depp was definitely one of the good guys. I was sure of this, even if, when I tried to lay out the concrete evidence, I emerged with not a lot. After all, he’d been in league with David Tennant, who murdered my husband (albeit he said my husband was a demon), and he’d whisked me away from the police (albeit he said that I wasn’t safe if the demons knew where I was). I only had Johnny Depp’s word for it that his side in this battle was the angels, and that Harrison Ford’s side was the demons. What if there were no goodies and no baddies? What was I supposed to do then? How was I supposed to choose which side to be on, if I really was the Chosen One, whatever that meant? I got a grip of myself, determined not to be bamboozled. Johnny, Vanessa and Ewan McGregor were the goodies, I was almost absolutely sure.
There was a soft knock on the door. Demeter entered with a DVD, put it in the machine, and said, ‘Mr Ford wanted you to watch this before dinner. He felt it would be helpful.’ Then she flashed a sudden, brilliant smile at me, a smile of complete happiness and welcome, and she said, ‘I’m SO glad we’ve found you at last, Mary Sue. I’m SO glad you’re safe from those bastards.’ And then she added, ‘You look beautiful.’ I really liked Demeter, and I found myself hoping she was deluded, rather than evil. I was nervous of watching the DVD, but I had no choice. Harrison Ford could obviously make me watch it if he wanted, and it was surely better to do it alone, where I could govern my reaction. It was probably something horrible, like them torturing people, so I knew what to expect if I didn’t do what they wanted. I clicked play.
The screen was grainy, as if it had been filmed with a furtive surveillance camera of some kind. On screen Johnny Depp and Ewan McGregor were eating in an obviously posh restaurant with the small red-haired woman who had helped me evade police protection.
‘So,’ said Johnny, ‘We finally know who she is: Mary Sue Park. Who’s dealing with her?’
‘The Teacher forbade it,’ said Ewan. ‘The Teacher knew who she was all along.’
‘But not now, surely!’ said Johnny. ‘Not know we know she’s married one of them! She’s too dangerous. We have to kill her.’ He turned to the red-haired woman, and said, ‘It’ll be you, won’t it?’
‘I hope so.’
‘We should never have let it get this far,’ said Johnny Depp. ‘If Mary Sue Park was sitting at this table, I’d strangle her with my bare hands.’ The red-haired woman agreed emphatically. Ewan McGregor nodded reluctantly.
I sat on the end of the bed, shattered.
‘Are you going to kill me?’
‘We will never kill you, Mary Sue. You’ve been brainwashed by Depp and the others, so I don’t expect you to believe me straight away, but I’m here to help you come to terms with you are. Everything will be easier if you’re at least prepared to consider the possibility that I am on your side. Will you do that?’
‘No,’ I gulped. I had seen the Beckhams murder my friends.
‘You’re spunky,’ he smiled. ‘But believe me, you’re one of us, not one of them. Those people,’ his face wrinkled into a sneer of distaste, ‘they did not tell you the whole story. They didn’t show you what they’re really like. That’s why…’ he looked at me again, shivering in my bikini, in spite of the hot LA summer, and the mucky sweat from the boot of the car, and he stopped. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve forgotten my manners.’ He clicked his fingers, and a bland-faced woman in neat grey slacks emerged behind him, seemingly from thin air. ‘Demeter, look after Miss Park. I will see her for dinner in an hour.’ Harrison Ford winked at me, and said, ‘Think about what I’ve said, that’s all. I’m sorry we can’t let you go, but as soon as you realise what those people are like, you’ll understand why we rescued you.’
***
An hour later, I was looking better than I’ve ever looked in my life. The efficient Demeter had whisked me into a beautiful wooden shower room which sprayed water with dizzying pressure from every wall, and from there into a walk-through closet that made me feel like I was entering Narnia. She picked out a blue and gold dress which made me look like Versace had designed something just for me. She was efficient without being cold, and perfect in the real sense, which includes being impossible to dislike.
Does this mean I was starting to wonder if Harrison Ford might be telling the truth? No. I was just in a daze. There was nothing I could do, and I had to stay alive until my friends came to rescue me. Johnny Depp was going to be crazy that the Beckhams had killed Vanessa, and he’d be out for revenge, and Johnny Depp was definitely one of the good guys. I was sure of this, even if, when I tried to lay out the concrete evidence, I emerged with not a lot. After all, he’d been in league with David Tennant, who murdered my husband (albeit he said my husband was a demon), and he’d whisked me away from the police (albeit he said that I wasn’t safe if the demons knew where I was). I only had Johnny Depp’s word for it that his side in this battle was the angels, and that Harrison Ford’s side was the demons. What if there were no goodies and no baddies? What was I supposed to do then? How was I supposed to choose which side to be on, if I really was the Chosen One, whatever that meant? I got a grip of myself, determined not to be bamboozled. Johnny, Vanessa and Ewan McGregor were the goodies, I was almost absolutely sure.
There was a soft knock on the door. Demeter entered with a DVD, put it in the machine, and said, ‘Mr Ford wanted you to watch this before dinner. He felt it would be helpful.’ Then she flashed a sudden, brilliant smile at me, a smile of complete happiness and welcome, and she said, ‘I’m SO glad we’ve found you at last, Mary Sue. I’m SO glad you’re safe from those bastards.’ And then she added, ‘You look beautiful.’ I really liked Demeter, and I found myself hoping she was deluded, rather than evil. I was nervous of watching the DVD, but I had no choice. Harrison Ford could obviously make me watch it if he wanted, and it was surely better to do it alone, where I could govern my reaction. It was probably something horrible, like them torturing people, so I knew what to expect if I didn’t do what they wanted. I clicked play.
The screen was grainy, as if it had been filmed with a furtive surveillance camera of some kind. On screen Johnny Depp and Ewan McGregor were eating in an obviously posh restaurant with the small red-haired woman who had helped me evade police protection.
‘So,’ said Johnny, ‘We finally know who she is: Mary Sue Park. Who’s dealing with her?’
‘The Teacher forbade it,’ said Ewan. ‘The Teacher knew who she was all along.’
‘But not now, surely!’ said Johnny. ‘Not know we know she’s married one of them! She’s too dangerous. We have to kill her.’ He turned to the red-haired woman, and said, ‘It’ll be you, won’t it?’
‘I hope so.’
‘We should never have let it get this far,’ said Johnny Depp. ‘If Mary Sue Park was sitting at this table, I’d strangle her with my bare hands.’ The red-haired woman agreed emphatically. Ewan McGregor nodded reluctantly.
I sat on the end of the bed, shattered.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Chapter 21: Victoria Beckham Calls Me Fatso, but The Situation is Such that I Do Not Give Her a Piece of My Mind
‘Thank goodness you’re safe,’ said David Beckham. He was standing with a gun in his hand by Johnny Depp’s pool, and he loomed over the dead bodies of Vanessa Paradis and Ewan McGregor. ‘We’re here to rescue you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What did they tell you?’ said David Beckham, calmly. ‘They kidnapped you, didn’t they?’
‘They didn’t kidnap me. They were protecting me!’
‘Have you heard of Stockholm Syndrome? It’s where you become emotionally attached to the people who capture you? I think that…’
‘I have heard of Stockholm Syndrome, thank you very much,’ I shouted, edging away from him, but there was nowhere to run. Behind me was a sheer wall down into the valley. I opened my mouth to scream. David Beckham smiled. I screamed.
‘No one can hear you,’ he said. ‘You’re all alone now.’ He took a step towards me. ‘Don’t be frightened.’
‘I’ll jump!’
‘No you won’t, fatso,’ hissed a little voice in my ear, as Victoria’s wire hard fingers closed around my wrist. ‘I’ve got her David, let’s go.’
‘Calmer, please, Vicky,’ said David, in a tone that made it seem as if he didn’t like his wife very much. ‘We are not your enemies, Mary Sue. You have been brainwashed. Pretending to be your friend is a counter-intelligence technique that these people, Paradis in particular, have come to use in a disarmingly sophisticated fashion over the years. She can be very persuasive.’
Listening to him, one thing was obvious: ‘You’re not really David Beckham,’ I said.
He gave a half-smile, and with a flicker that didn’t change anything physical about him so far as I could see, he became a different person. His eyes took on the familiar Beckham bewilderment, and his head started nodding slightly as he said, ‘You, y’know, er, you like don’t think I’m David, y’know, because I was speaking in, y’know, English? Er, like, y’know, Mary Sue. It’s all an act, y’know. Right? Y’know?’ I knew. All of a sudden he was the urbane, articulate Beckham again. ‘All actors will tell you how enjoyable it is to play a character you can use to confound expectations. Now, I’m terribly sorry to hurry you, but we have to go.’
‘You can’t make me.’
‘We certainly don’t want to, but “make you” is something we can literally do. But there’s no need. We’re all on the same side.’
I wasn’t falling for this. Lovely Vanessa Paradis’s empty eyes looked up at me. I screamed again. ‘She’s hysterical, babe,’ drawled Victoria Beckham. ‘It seems your charm is getting us nowhere here, for about the millionth time. And we’ve got to get her out the front, so what say I just knock her out?’
‘No, Vicky. We must be ready to…’
‘Bored now,’ said Victoria, and the heel of her palm thudded into the side of my head.
***
I came to curled up on in a stifling, enclosed space, and I was being jolted furiously. My neck was sore, my head was throbbing and could feel a slippery-thin strand of saliva sliding from my mouth and down my cheek. I was obviously in the boot of the Beckhams’ car.
They hadn’t killed me yet, so they probably weren’t going to kill me until they were certain that I wouldn’t help them, or their precious Master. I knew David Beckham was lying about being on my side. Partly this is because I’d liked Ewan McGregor and Vanessa Paradis very much – my stomach lurched again at the thought of them, only slightly mollified by the thought that they would be regenerating somewhere – and partly because I wasn’t prepared to believe in a world where David Tennant was the baddy and David Beckham was a goody. Maybe this doesn’t seem very rational to you, but I can’t help that. When I was going out with the evil Gavin, the only thing we argued about regularly was stupid football. I tried to explain was that football was soap opera for boys: endless, repetitive storylines, and villains and heroes, ridiculous hyperbole, celebs and character-driven plots that last for years, into which otherwise sane people get totally sucked-in. I tried to explain that this wasn’t a criticism – it was just a way of explaining the fascination – but Gavin always got angry, and told me that football was more real than soap opera, because you didn’t know what was going to happen. As if that makes a difference, I would say. It’s not as if I know what’s going to happen in the next episode of Eastenders. Sport is totally soap opera for boys, whatever boys think, and David Beckham is the ultimate personification, because he’s crossover – so obviously soap opera that even sport-hating girls can get in on the story. Why was I thinking about this in the boot of the car? Well, maybe it’s because I was in the boot of a car, and I was trying to stop myself thinking what might happen when the boot opened, because all the possibilities filled me with terror.
The car stopped. I filled with terror. After the engine noise and crashing, the silence was deafening. Two sets of footfalls crunched on gravel from the doors and round to the boot. Several new feet came running towards the car. ‘Have you got her?’ came a familiar, American voice I couldn’t quite place. ‘Is she alright?’
‘Vicky knocked her out,’ said David Beckham.
‘Why?’ said the voice. There was a pause. ‘You’re an idiot, Victoria.’
‘Whatever.’
A key was inserted into the lock, and the boot tugged open. When my eyes adjusted, the first thing I saw was the concerned face of Harrison Ford. ‘I’m really so very sorry, Mary Sue. It wasn’t meant to be like this. I can only apologise. Please let me help you out of there and start trying to make amends for this ridiculous situation.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What did they tell you?’ said David Beckham, calmly. ‘They kidnapped you, didn’t they?’
‘They didn’t kidnap me. They were protecting me!’
‘Have you heard of Stockholm Syndrome? It’s where you become emotionally attached to the people who capture you? I think that…’
‘I have heard of Stockholm Syndrome, thank you very much,’ I shouted, edging away from him, but there was nowhere to run. Behind me was a sheer wall down into the valley. I opened my mouth to scream. David Beckham smiled. I screamed.
‘No one can hear you,’ he said. ‘You’re all alone now.’ He took a step towards me. ‘Don’t be frightened.’
‘I’ll jump!’
‘No you won’t, fatso,’ hissed a little voice in my ear, as Victoria’s wire hard fingers closed around my wrist. ‘I’ve got her David, let’s go.’
‘Calmer, please, Vicky,’ said David, in a tone that made it seem as if he didn’t like his wife very much. ‘We are not your enemies, Mary Sue. You have been brainwashed. Pretending to be your friend is a counter-intelligence technique that these people, Paradis in particular, have come to use in a disarmingly sophisticated fashion over the years. She can be very persuasive.’
Listening to him, one thing was obvious: ‘You’re not really David Beckham,’ I said.
He gave a half-smile, and with a flicker that didn’t change anything physical about him so far as I could see, he became a different person. His eyes took on the familiar Beckham bewilderment, and his head started nodding slightly as he said, ‘You, y’know, er, you like don’t think I’m David, y’know, because I was speaking in, y’know, English? Er, like, y’know, Mary Sue. It’s all an act, y’know. Right? Y’know?’ I knew. All of a sudden he was the urbane, articulate Beckham again. ‘All actors will tell you how enjoyable it is to play a character you can use to confound expectations. Now, I’m terribly sorry to hurry you, but we have to go.’
‘You can’t make me.’
‘We certainly don’t want to, but “make you” is something we can literally do. But there’s no need. We’re all on the same side.’
I wasn’t falling for this. Lovely Vanessa Paradis’s empty eyes looked up at me. I screamed again. ‘She’s hysterical, babe,’ drawled Victoria Beckham. ‘It seems your charm is getting us nowhere here, for about the millionth time. And we’ve got to get her out the front, so what say I just knock her out?’
‘No, Vicky. We must be ready to…’
‘Bored now,’ said Victoria, and the heel of her palm thudded into the side of my head.
***
I came to curled up on in a stifling, enclosed space, and I was being jolted furiously. My neck was sore, my head was throbbing and could feel a slippery-thin strand of saliva sliding from my mouth and down my cheek. I was obviously in the boot of the Beckhams’ car.
They hadn’t killed me yet, so they probably weren’t going to kill me until they were certain that I wouldn’t help them, or their precious Master. I knew David Beckham was lying about being on my side. Partly this is because I’d liked Ewan McGregor and Vanessa Paradis very much – my stomach lurched again at the thought of them, only slightly mollified by the thought that they would be regenerating somewhere – and partly because I wasn’t prepared to believe in a world where David Tennant was the baddy and David Beckham was a goody. Maybe this doesn’t seem very rational to you, but I can’t help that. When I was going out with the evil Gavin, the only thing we argued about regularly was stupid football. I tried to explain was that football was soap opera for boys: endless, repetitive storylines, and villains and heroes, ridiculous hyperbole, celebs and character-driven plots that last for years, into which otherwise sane people get totally sucked-in. I tried to explain that this wasn’t a criticism – it was just a way of explaining the fascination – but Gavin always got angry, and told me that football was more real than soap opera, because you didn’t know what was going to happen. As if that makes a difference, I would say. It’s not as if I know what’s going to happen in the next episode of Eastenders. Sport is totally soap opera for boys, whatever boys think, and David Beckham is the ultimate personification, because he’s crossover – so obviously soap opera that even sport-hating girls can get in on the story. Why was I thinking about this in the boot of the car? Well, maybe it’s because I was in the boot of a car, and I was trying to stop myself thinking what might happen when the boot opened, because all the possibilities filled me with terror.
The car stopped. I filled with terror. After the engine noise and crashing, the silence was deafening. Two sets of footfalls crunched on gravel from the doors and round to the boot. Several new feet came running towards the car. ‘Have you got her?’ came a familiar, American voice I couldn’t quite place. ‘Is she alright?’
‘Vicky knocked her out,’ said David Beckham.
‘Why?’ said the voice. There was a pause. ‘You’re an idiot, Victoria.’
‘Whatever.’
A key was inserted into the lock, and the boot tugged open. When my eyes adjusted, the first thing I saw was the concerned face of Harrison Ford. ‘I’m really so very sorry, Mary Sue. It wasn’t meant to be like this. I can only apologise. Please let me help you out of there and start trying to make amends for this ridiculous situation.’
Monday, September 10, 2007
Chapter 20: Fear and Loathing in La-la Land
I walked out through the huge glass door that separated Johnny Depp’s lounge from the sundeck that led into his infinity pool and looked over a perfect green valley in the hills north of LA. I reflected to myself that if this weren’t the end of the world, I would just have had the most amazing two days of my life.
Ewan McGregor emerged behind me in royal blue swimming shorts and a stupid Hawaii-print shirt that hung weirdly because of the gun in its pocket. I didn’t like the guns, but Ewan was my bodyguard and he insisted. I stretched in the baking late-afternoon sun, feeling a little breeze flutter across my outstretched arms. Vanessa Paradis waved from the sun-lounger, wearing bikini bottoms and a little white blouse, and called, ‘Hey, Ewan! Ze sun is at ze yard-arm, no? Mary Sue would like a gin and tonic?’ Ewan cocked his eye, and I grinned at him, shrugging as if to say, ‘Why not?’
‘Do you want one too?’ Ewan called back to Vanessa.
‘For sure, I thought you would never ask me. Also maybe one of ze steak sandwiches if zere are any left. I am ravishing.’
Ewan laughed.. He patted my shoulder and said, ‘I’ll see you in five.’
I dived into the pool, and swam a few lengths. From the moment I learned I was the Chosen One, etcetera, I’d started to become more physically confident. With every stroke, I felt myself connect with the water, and pull myself cleanly past my hand, like a knife slicing a line down the pool. When I told Vanessa about this physical change, she replied that it was all in my mind. Being an angel or demon – if I was one, which was moot, since my parents had been one of each which had never happened before – came with no superpowers, unless you counted automatic reincarnation. Whatever, I felt fresher and stronger than I’d ever felt in my life. As the tiles slid effortlessly past beneath my nose, I thought about this morning’s bemused stories on the BBC website. The reporters clearly didn’t know what to say about me. The police wanted to interview me about my husband Gavin’s murder, and to treat my disappearance as mysterious, but my parents (my human ones) insisted that they were in contact with me, and everything was fine. So did David Tennant (my demon-turned-angel father), who I was defending on the charge of murdering Gavin (which he had done, but only because Gavin, unbeknownst-to-me, was a demon). All the while, my head of Chambers, Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson, was oiling the troubled waters, saying that I had demonstrably done nothing wrong, as hundreds of witnesses could attest, and I should be allowed to do my job however I saw fit. Sir Conn was an angel. (Ha ha.)
I reached the end of the pool, and in one movement I pulled myself out and onto my feet. I’d never been able to do this before, surely? Vanessa threw me a towel, and I joined her under the sunshade. ‘You look super great!’ she said.
‘I feel it,’ I replied. Then I noticed her face had turned serious. ‘Oh oh,’ I said.
‘I am sorry,’ said Vanessa. ‘We ‘ave waited as long as we could, so you could recover from ze shock, but we ‘ave to make plans, no? You will ‘ave soon to go back. Zere is Tennant to look after.’ She pursed her lips when she said ‘Tennant.’
‘You don’t like him?’
‘We ‘ave fought ze demons for 70 million years,’ she replied. ‘Tennant, or ze demon Grebulon as we know ‘im, was ze worst. ‘E kill me many, many times. ‘E cruel beyond belief. ‘E is your father, I suppose, but I do not trust ‘im. It was ze Master’s idea for Grebulon to seduce Guinevere, and Guinevere is still broken by it, and only ze Teacher ‘as ever see ‘er again.’
‘He saved me from Gavin.’
‘Well,’ Vanessa admitted. ‘Yes.’
‘And the Teacher trusts him.’
‘Yes, also.’ All the angels were fascinated by the Teacher, their secretive leader, who none of them had ever met. Only David Tennant and I, so far as I was aware, knew that the Teacher was a small woman called Miss Smallbone. I had, however, been told which of the world’s prominent figures were angels and which were known to be demons. I was surprised that Jeremy Clarkson was a goodie (‘Ha ha,’ squealed Vanessa. ‘It is ze perfect disguise, no!), and there were a myriad others. Of the demons that had been definitively identified, I’d already learnt about the French fascist President le Pen, who was definitely up to something. Others included Matt Damon, Graham Norton and Liz Hurley, which explained the latter pair’s shock wedding earlier this year. Also, and I was really sad to learn this, the lovely Ian Hislop and Stephen Fry. I suppose they were the demon versions of Clarkson.
‘Where is Ewan?’ said Vanessa. ‘I am dying of ‘unger.’ At that moment, there was a huge crash, and Ewan McGregor flew backwards out through the plate glass door. As he tried to swing himself to his feet, blood painting crazy patterns in the Hawaiian print, a stilettoed foot connected with the side of his head, and he crumpled with sickening finality.
‘Oh my God!’ I shouted, trying to stand. ‘Ewan! Are you ok!’
Tiny hands on my shoulder pressed me to my seat. ‘You are not ready for zis,’ said Vanessa. ‘I should ‘ave realised. Victoria Beckham was always one of ‘zem. She will not survive zis day.’
It was only then that I managed to focus on the owner of the stiletto, who was now stalking the edge of the pool as Vanessa Paradis strode to meet her. They met in a flurry of kung-fu somersaults and jack-knifing kicks almost too fast for the mind to register. It can only have been thirty seconds when a soft, lisping voice interrupted them. ‘Always the theatrics, Victoria,’ said David Beckham, ‘We haven’t got time.’ He was holding a gun. He raised it and fired.
‘Oh la la,’ said Vanessa Paradis, a red carnation blooming through her blouse. ‘I am sorry, Mary Sue. You will save us all, I know it. Tell Johnny I love ‘im.’
Ewan McGregor emerged behind me in royal blue swimming shorts and a stupid Hawaii-print shirt that hung weirdly because of the gun in its pocket. I didn’t like the guns, but Ewan was my bodyguard and he insisted. I stretched in the baking late-afternoon sun, feeling a little breeze flutter across my outstretched arms. Vanessa Paradis waved from the sun-lounger, wearing bikini bottoms and a little white blouse, and called, ‘Hey, Ewan! Ze sun is at ze yard-arm, no? Mary Sue would like a gin and tonic?’ Ewan cocked his eye, and I grinned at him, shrugging as if to say, ‘Why not?’
‘Do you want one too?’ Ewan called back to Vanessa.
‘For sure, I thought you would never ask me. Also maybe one of ze steak sandwiches if zere are any left. I am ravishing.’
Ewan laughed.. He patted my shoulder and said, ‘I’ll see you in five.’
I dived into the pool, and swam a few lengths. From the moment I learned I was the Chosen One, etcetera, I’d started to become more physically confident. With every stroke, I felt myself connect with the water, and pull myself cleanly past my hand, like a knife slicing a line down the pool. When I told Vanessa about this physical change, she replied that it was all in my mind. Being an angel or demon – if I was one, which was moot, since my parents had been one of each which had never happened before – came with no superpowers, unless you counted automatic reincarnation. Whatever, I felt fresher and stronger than I’d ever felt in my life. As the tiles slid effortlessly past beneath my nose, I thought about this morning’s bemused stories on the BBC website. The reporters clearly didn’t know what to say about me. The police wanted to interview me about my husband Gavin’s murder, and to treat my disappearance as mysterious, but my parents (my human ones) insisted that they were in contact with me, and everything was fine. So did David Tennant (my demon-turned-angel father), who I was defending on the charge of murdering Gavin (which he had done, but only because Gavin, unbeknownst-to-me, was a demon). All the while, my head of Chambers, Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson, was oiling the troubled waters, saying that I had demonstrably done nothing wrong, as hundreds of witnesses could attest, and I should be allowed to do my job however I saw fit. Sir Conn was an angel. (Ha ha.)
I reached the end of the pool, and in one movement I pulled myself out and onto my feet. I’d never been able to do this before, surely? Vanessa threw me a towel, and I joined her under the sunshade. ‘You look super great!’ she said.
‘I feel it,’ I replied. Then I noticed her face had turned serious. ‘Oh oh,’ I said.
‘I am sorry,’ said Vanessa. ‘We ‘ave waited as long as we could, so you could recover from ze shock, but we ‘ave to make plans, no? You will ‘ave soon to go back. Zere is Tennant to look after.’ She pursed her lips when she said ‘Tennant.’
‘You don’t like him?’
‘We ‘ave fought ze demons for 70 million years,’ she replied. ‘Tennant, or ze demon Grebulon as we know ‘im, was ze worst. ‘E kill me many, many times. ‘E cruel beyond belief. ‘E is your father, I suppose, but I do not trust ‘im. It was ze Master’s idea for Grebulon to seduce Guinevere, and Guinevere is still broken by it, and only ze Teacher ‘as ever see ‘er again.’
‘He saved me from Gavin.’
‘Well,’ Vanessa admitted. ‘Yes.’
‘And the Teacher trusts him.’
‘Yes, also.’ All the angels were fascinated by the Teacher, their secretive leader, who none of them had ever met. Only David Tennant and I, so far as I was aware, knew that the Teacher was a small woman called Miss Smallbone. I had, however, been told which of the world’s prominent figures were angels and which were known to be demons. I was surprised that Jeremy Clarkson was a goodie (‘Ha ha,’ squealed Vanessa. ‘It is ze perfect disguise, no!), and there were a myriad others. Of the demons that had been definitively identified, I’d already learnt about the French fascist President le Pen, who was definitely up to something. Others included Matt Damon, Graham Norton and Liz Hurley, which explained the latter pair’s shock wedding earlier this year. Also, and I was really sad to learn this, the lovely Ian Hislop and Stephen Fry. I suppose they were the demon versions of Clarkson.
‘Where is Ewan?’ said Vanessa. ‘I am dying of ‘unger.’ At that moment, there was a huge crash, and Ewan McGregor flew backwards out through the plate glass door. As he tried to swing himself to his feet, blood painting crazy patterns in the Hawaiian print, a stilettoed foot connected with the side of his head, and he crumpled with sickening finality.
‘Oh my God!’ I shouted, trying to stand. ‘Ewan! Are you ok!’
Tiny hands on my shoulder pressed me to my seat. ‘You are not ready for zis,’ said Vanessa. ‘I should ‘ave realised. Victoria Beckham was always one of ‘zem. She will not survive zis day.’
It was only then that I managed to focus on the owner of the stiletto, who was now stalking the edge of the pool as Vanessa Paradis strode to meet her. They met in a flurry of kung-fu somersaults and jack-knifing kicks almost too fast for the mind to register. It can only have been thirty seconds when a soft, lisping voice interrupted them. ‘Always the theatrics, Victoria,’ said David Beckham, ‘We haven’t got time.’ He was holding a gun. He raised it and fired.
‘Oh la la,’ said Vanessa Paradis, a red carnation blooming through her blouse. ‘I am sorry, Mary Sue. You will save us all, I know it. Tell Johnny I love ‘im.’
Saturday, September 8, 2007
WEEKEND FOUR
Here is the news:
1. Some people (one person, really, but I dare say others are just being polite) have pointed out a temporal anomaly with respect to le Pen and Hitler. I should go back and fix this today, and I might, but there has been a washing machine crisis and the house smells of old fish tank. This is not a smell I am familiar with, but it was the description given by a friend. Might bale out the foetid water with my housemate's favourite mug. If that doesn't improve my mood, I don't know what will.
1.5. If I don't do it by lunchtime, I will not find time today, because I have guests this afternoon.
2. In news from Analytics: the UK is still the king of the swingers, as far as Mary Sue's readership is concerned. Second place is a battle royal between Japan, USA and plucky little Canada, who has maintained her lead due to a burst on Friday. France has stopped reading, for reasons passing comprehension, but Germany remains reliable. Belgium has indicated that there might be some small interest, and I'm pretty confident of her progress up the charts. I've always really like Belgium. Vietnam visits seldom, but stays a while. Finally, there was an Irish reader, but he or she took one look and left. The numbers involved in all these statistics are tiny.
3. In more news from Analytics: incomers from Google 'leapt' yesterday, so I did some more research. The most common search term getting readers to the site is "Milly Chen", predictably. For "Milly Chen", Mary Sue has a current google number of eleven. I would like to see her on the front page, but what can you do?
4. Gripped by google numbers, I typed in "Cathy Calloway". Mary Sue's google number this time was six, behind the North Carolinan interior decorator. "Rollo Price" sees Mary Sue at 20, after many things to do with a guy who wrote a book called "After Desert Storm." Surprisingly, "Miss Smallbone" threw up a google number of 3. Since Miss Smallbone is a Bond homage, and the web is full of Bond sites, I was both shocked and gratified. There is another Miss Smallbone also. She coaches netball at Sacred Heart College in Western Australia (Always Striving Upward To You Our God).
5. I love the fact of having readers. It is slightly a struggle not to spend too long thinking about Mary Sue, which I literally cannot afford to do.
1. Some people (one person, really, but I dare say others are just being polite) have pointed out a temporal anomaly with respect to le Pen and Hitler. I should go back and fix this today, and I might, but there has been a washing machine crisis and the house smells of old fish tank. This is not a smell I am familiar with, but it was the description given by a friend. Might bale out the foetid water with my housemate's favourite mug. If that doesn't improve my mood, I don't know what will.
1.5. If I don't do it by lunchtime, I will not find time today, because I have guests this afternoon.
2. In news from Analytics: the UK is still the king of the swingers, as far as Mary Sue's readership is concerned. Second place is a battle royal between Japan, USA and plucky little Canada, who has maintained her lead due to a burst on Friday. France has stopped reading, for reasons passing comprehension, but Germany remains reliable. Belgium has indicated that there might be some small interest, and I'm pretty confident of her progress up the charts. I've always really like Belgium. Vietnam visits seldom, but stays a while. Finally, there was an Irish reader, but he or she took one look and left. The numbers involved in all these statistics are tiny.
3. In more news from Analytics: incomers from Google 'leapt' yesterday, so I did some more research. The most common search term getting readers to the site is "Milly Chen", predictably. For "Milly Chen", Mary Sue has a current google number of eleven. I would like to see her on the front page, but what can you do?
4. Gripped by google numbers, I typed in "Cathy Calloway". Mary Sue's google number this time was six, behind the North Carolinan interior decorator. "Rollo Price" sees Mary Sue at 20, after many things to do with a guy who wrote a book called "After Desert Storm." Surprisingly, "Miss Smallbone" threw up a google number of 3. Since Miss Smallbone is a Bond homage, and the web is full of Bond sites, I was both shocked and gratified. There is another Miss Smallbone also. She coaches netball at Sacred Heart College in Western Australia (Always Striving Upward To You Our God).
5. I love the fact of having readers. It is slightly a struggle not to spend too long thinking about Mary Sue, which I literally cannot afford to do.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Chapter 19: The French are Crazy
‘Mary Sue! Mary Sue!’ I was many fathoms sunk in the deepest fluffy sleep of my adult life. The bed was amazing, but there was a loud background hum, which was weird. I started to drift away again. ‘Mary Sue!’ This time was being shaken, and I opened my crusty eyes, bewildered and disoriented. Opening my eyes didn’t make things any less confusing, because there next to me on the bed was Vanessa Paradis. I closed my eyes again. ‘No, Mary Sue, I am sorry,’ said Vanessa. ‘Zis is important you get up now, for ze jet lag.’ I nodded, as my consciousness finally began to batter at my sleeping-state and remind me of yesterday’s extraordinary events. I opened my eyes again, and forced myself to sit.
‘How long was I sleeping?’ I mumbled.
‘Just nearly four hours,’ said Vanessa. But we land in Los Angeles soon after midnight, so you must not be all bushy eyes and ready for ze new day, no?’
‘When is that?’
‘Three more hours. We ‘ave all had ze little doze. I ‘ave brought zis.’ She pressed a big mug of coffee into my hands. ‘Ze shower is a good one. You would like a snack? I ‘ave already ‘ad bacon sandwiches, but zere are many more. Or if you want company for Danish pastry? Zey are good ones also.’ I nodded, still woozy.
When I stumbled through into the main cabin of Vanessa and Johnny Depp’s private jet, I was feeling surprisingly normal, physically at least. Ewan McGregor was looking at a laptop screen, but when he saw me, he shut it and looked guilty. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Ewan,’ said Johnny. ‘Mary Sue has to know what’s going on.’ He looked at me. ‘It’s nothing you don’t already know, in terms of facts, but obviously the reporters have… Well. It’s probably best you read it yourself.’
I sat down, and opened up the screen. It was a BBC web page with the headline, DAVID TENNANT SWORD MURDER HORROR. The picture was a crazy-faced David Tennant talking to me in the middle of South Square. The BBC had decided not to print the horrifying pictures of his decapitated victim, but subtly assured readers that these were available widely online. The text referred to me as ‘Mr Tennant’s lawyer, who has mysteriously disappeared and who is urgently wanted for questioning by the police.’ I was almost immediately returned to the adrenal panic that had been my default state since David Tennant walked into my office yesterday afternoon and said I was key to the imminent final battle between reincarnating angels and demons that could destroy the world. My hand was over my mouth, probably to stop my heart from jumping out.
‘I’m so sorry, Mary Sue,’ said Ewan McGregor.
‘I have to phone my mum. Where’s my phone, I couldn’t find it?’ Johnny shook his head. ‘It’s not secure,’ he said.
‘But…’
‘The Teacher has spoken to your mom. We have a message from her and your father. They say, “We are sorry we never told you the truth about your birth, we love you.” Your mom also said, “Why did you cut off your beautiful hair, you look like a convict.”’
‘Can I send them an email?’
Johnny shook his head again. ‘They will be being watched, everything they do, all their email, phones, the lot. And your friends. We have secure lines ourselves, but if the demons know any friends are in contact with you, those friends will be in deadly danger.’
I looked back at the screen, and noticed a link on the side of the page to the day’s other stories. One in particular leapt out at me: FRENCH CEASE PAYMENT FOR NORTH SEA GAS. I clicked on the story. Ever since Le Pen’s shock Front National victory in the Presidential elections, France had been behaving erratically. Borders had been closed, and quarrels picked with all and sundry. Like most Britons, I said I found this horrifying, but there was a lot of schadenfreude. It was funny to watch self-satisfied French liberals go into paroxysms of embarrassment as the populist President played up to his people’s basest instincts. It was clearly going to come to a sticky end, which would teach the smug French a lesson. That’s what we all thought, back then. Vanessa noticed what I was reading, and in a tiny voice she said, ‘Oui, it has started.’
David Tennant, in our hurried chat at the police station, told me not to trust the French, and that le Pen was a demon. ‘What’s really going on?’ I asked. ‘What are the French trying to do?’
‘It is not ze French,’ said Vanessa Paradis, defensively. ‘It is ze demons.’
‘Sorry.’
Johnny Depp said, ‘We’re not sure. Have you read the article?’ I shook my head. ‘Well, two weeks ago France cut itself off from Russian gas because le Pen argued with Putin over whose pet dog would win a fight, even though le Pen has a poodle and Putin has, well, basically a wolf.’ I nodded. This had seemed very funny on Have I Got News For You. Johnny carried on, ‘Le Pen said it was insupportable that Asiatic nations held power over France, so Europe must go nuclear, blah, blah, blah. And now, when France actually NEEDS North Sea gas for the first time, le Pen suddenly says that Britain has been stealing from France for decades, via the EU subsidy, and he says France will take its reparations in free gas.’
‘That’s crazy!’ I said.
‘It’s absolutely crazy,’ agreed Johnny. ‘We think he must want an economic crisis, which he’s going to get. He’s already started to blame Russia and the UK for France’s problems. We’ve seen this before.’
‘When?’ Johnny Depp reached past me and clicked another link. This was headlined, MAYOR BORIS ACCUSES GOVERNMENT OF APPEASEMENT. I looked at Johnny, open-mouthed. ‘You’re not saying…?’ Johnny nodded. ‘But le Pen is nothing like Hitler! He’s a joke! France isn’t going to go to war!’ And then another thought struck me. ‘Boris! He’s not, I mean, he can’t be…’
‘Oui,’ said Vanessa. ‘Ze true names of ze man you know as “le Pen” is “Hubris,” one of ze most powerful demons. Ze true name of ze angel “Boris” is “Nemesis.” Always zey have fought, so much zat zere true names have become part of your human language.’
‘So Boris was…’ I couldn’t finish.
‘Yes,’ said Vanessa. ‘It is so obvious I am surprised no one notice already. Boris was Churchill.’
‘How long was I sleeping?’ I mumbled.
‘Just nearly four hours,’ said Vanessa. But we land in Los Angeles soon after midnight, so you must not be all bushy eyes and ready for ze new day, no?’
‘When is that?’
‘Three more hours. We ‘ave all had ze little doze. I ‘ave brought zis.’ She pressed a big mug of coffee into my hands. ‘Ze shower is a good one. You would like a snack? I ‘ave already ‘ad bacon sandwiches, but zere are many more. Or if you want company for Danish pastry? Zey are good ones also.’ I nodded, still woozy.
When I stumbled through into the main cabin of Vanessa and Johnny Depp’s private jet, I was feeling surprisingly normal, physically at least. Ewan McGregor was looking at a laptop screen, but when he saw me, he shut it and looked guilty. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Ewan,’ said Johnny. ‘Mary Sue has to know what’s going on.’ He looked at me. ‘It’s nothing you don’t already know, in terms of facts, but obviously the reporters have… Well. It’s probably best you read it yourself.’
I sat down, and opened up the screen. It was a BBC web page with the headline, DAVID TENNANT SWORD MURDER HORROR. The picture was a crazy-faced David Tennant talking to me in the middle of South Square. The BBC had decided not to print the horrifying pictures of his decapitated victim, but subtly assured readers that these were available widely online. The text referred to me as ‘Mr Tennant’s lawyer, who has mysteriously disappeared and who is urgently wanted for questioning by the police.’ I was almost immediately returned to the adrenal panic that had been my default state since David Tennant walked into my office yesterday afternoon and said I was key to the imminent final battle between reincarnating angels and demons that could destroy the world. My hand was over my mouth, probably to stop my heart from jumping out.
‘I’m so sorry, Mary Sue,’ said Ewan McGregor.
‘I have to phone my mum. Where’s my phone, I couldn’t find it?’ Johnny shook his head. ‘It’s not secure,’ he said.
‘But…’
‘The Teacher has spoken to your mom. We have a message from her and your father. They say, “We are sorry we never told you the truth about your birth, we love you.” Your mom also said, “Why did you cut off your beautiful hair, you look like a convict.”’
‘Can I send them an email?’
Johnny shook his head again. ‘They will be being watched, everything they do, all their email, phones, the lot. And your friends. We have secure lines ourselves, but if the demons know any friends are in contact with you, those friends will be in deadly danger.’
I looked back at the screen, and noticed a link on the side of the page to the day’s other stories. One in particular leapt out at me: FRENCH CEASE PAYMENT FOR NORTH SEA GAS. I clicked on the story. Ever since Le Pen’s shock Front National victory in the Presidential elections, France had been behaving erratically. Borders had been closed, and quarrels picked with all and sundry. Like most Britons, I said I found this horrifying, but there was a lot of schadenfreude. It was funny to watch self-satisfied French liberals go into paroxysms of embarrassment as the populist President played up to his people’s basest instincts. It was clearly going to come to a sticky end, which would teach the smug French a lesson. That’s what we all thought, back then. Vanessa noticed what I was reading, and in a tiny voice she said, ‘Oui, it has started.’
David Tennant, in our hurried chat at the police station, told me not to trust the French, and that le Pen was a demon. ‘What’s really going on?’ I asked. ‘What are the French trying to do?’
‘It is not ze French,’ said Vanessa Paradis, defensively. ‘It is ze demons.’
‘Sorry.’
Johnny Depp said, ‘We’re not sure. Have you read the article?’ I shook my head. ‘Well, two weeks ago France cut itself off from Russian gas because le Pen argued with Putin over whose pet dog would win a fight, even though le Pen has a poodle and Putin has, well, basically a wolf.’ I nodded. This had seemed very funny on Have I Got News For You. Johnny carried on, ‘Le Pen said it was insupportable that Asiatic nations held power over France, so Europe must go nuclear, blah, blah, blah. And now, when France actually NEEDS North Sea gas for the first time, le Pen suddenly says that Britain has been stealing from France for decades, via the EU subsidy, and he says France will take its reparations in free gas.’
‘That’s crazy!’ I said.
‘It’s absolutely crazy,’ agreed Johnny. ‘We think he must want an economic crisis, which he’s going to get. He’s already started to blame Russia and the UK for France’s problems. We’ve seen this before.’
‘When?’ Johnny Depp reached past me and clicked another link. This was headlined, MAYOR BORIS ACCUSES GOVERNMENT OF APPEASEMENT. I looked at Johnny, open-mouthed. ‘You’re not saying…?’ Johnny nodded. ‘But le Pen is nothing like Hitler! He’s a joke! France isn’t going to go to war!’ And then another thought struck me. ‘Boris! He’s not, I mean, he can’t be…’
‘Oui,’ said Vanessa. ‘Ze true names of ze man you know as “le Pen” is “Hubris,” one of ze most powerful demons. Ze true name of ze angel “Boris” is “Nemesis.” Always zey have fought, so much zat zere true names have become part of your human language.’
‘So Boris was…’ I couldn’t finish.
‘Yes,’ said Vanessa. ‘It is so obvious I am surprised no one notice already. Boris was Churchill.’
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Chaper 18: Mile High Club
I sat on little armchair in the toilet of Johnny Depp’s private jet trying to take stock of my life. This morning, I was a moderately successful barrister whose husband had left her on her wedding day, but who was determined to turn over a new leaf. At lunchtime, nothing much had changed. Ten hours later, I was the Chosen One, escaping demons who were chasing me so I would be ready for the Final Battle when I would either defeat the Master – whoever he was – or help him open the Gates of Hell – which everyone agreed sounded like a bad thing. Moreover, glancing at myself in the mirror, I had got through customs on a fake passport which said I was a pornstar, and the make-up-caked face that stared back at me wasn’t my own. I called through the door to ask if I might use the remover and moisturiser that I presumed must belong to Vanessa Paradis.
‘Oh la la,’ said Vanessa when I emerged. ‘That is so much better Mary Sue! You look wunnerful! More champagne?’ I took the glass. ‘It is ok we eat now?’ she said. ‘I am ravishing, and it is quite late, no?’ I nodded. She gestured loosely at a linened table hugged by fixed, leather, swivelling chairs. This was definitely better than EasyJet I had booked for an ill-advised surprise weekend in Copenhagen for me and my bastard demon ex-husband Gavin two months ago. I checked with his secretary that Gavin had no work commitments, but he still spent the whole time checking his watch grumpily. At the time I blamed myself for being a cliché and trying to turn my beloved into something he wasn’t. I was so stupid.
By the time I’d eaten smoked trout salad, and half an amazing steak, I was in a much calmer place. Food always does that. Also: two and a half glasses of champagne. The others had kindly done the talking, mostly about inconsequential things and mutual friends. Obviously I was agog, but I tried to play it cool. Early on, giggling about something surprising he’d said about Kiera Knightley, Ewan said, ‘Secrets, of course,’ he said. ‘You know that.’
I nodded emphatically as if to say, ‘Of course, totally, how can you even have thought my texting finger was itching?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he corrected himself, ‘I didn’t mean you couldn’t tell anyone. We’re not trying to replace your friends, it’s just that, until we’ve double-checked… We just don’t know who you can trust.’
‘We hate saying that,’ said Johnny Depp. ‘There’s nothing more important than friends.’ The others mumbled assent. ‘Your best friend’s Jen Duckling, yeah? Sorry, don’t be shocked, we have to know everything about you so we can protect you. We think Jen is what she says, I mean, we’re almost totally sure, but it’s hard. Look, we got it wrong with Gavin, even though we sent… Well. I’m not going to say what we did.’
‘You can’t say that to her!’ spluttered Vanessa Paradis, horrified, breaking away from eating for the first time since the food had arrived. ‘Mon dieu! Men!’ She looked at me, shaking her head. ‘I apologise for Johnny, he is moron almost all ze time.’
‘I didn’t say anything!’ protested Johnny Depp.
‘She is not fool! She can work out from what you say zat we checked out Gavin by sending him succession of beautiful and athletic women to tempt him.’
‘I hadn’t worked that out.’
‘Oh no!’ squealed Vanessa. ‘My apology.’
‘Gavin resisted a selection of beautiful and athletic women?’ I said. It was almost flattering.
‘No, no,’ said Vanessa. ‘He resisted nothing.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘We thought he was arsehole, not demon,’ Vanessa clarified. ‘We wanted to tell you, but ze Teacher said you must live ze life absolutely your own, mistakes also, until ze time came.’ She re-attacked her buttered potatoes.
‘Mary Sue,’ Johnny Depp began.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’ I wasn’t, obviously, but one more horror in the day only added a small amount to the overall awfulness of everything. The adrenalin that had kept me going since Gavin was killed swirled out of me like water plunging through a plughole, and the weight of the day hit me like a blanket made of soft lead. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Is there somewhere I can lie down?’
‘But zere is ice cream coming! Wiz pistachios!’ I shook my head. ‘But of course. Johnny and I have ze room wiz ze children tonight, and over zere, zat one is for you. Ewan can sleep on ze chair.’
‘Oh,’ I said, flustered. ‘That’s wrong. I’m used to travelling coach. One of these chairs will be fine.’
‘It’s a double bed,’ said Ewan McGregor, wolfishly.
‘Oh la la! Do not listen to him!’ said Vanessa. ‘He is incorrigible, and he does not know when he should not be making zese jokes.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Er, no, it’s fine. I’ll be asleep in three seconds anyway. We could top and tail?’
‘Really?’ said Ewan. ‘I think that’s one that even I have never done before. Is it where you…’
‘No!’ I said. ‘It just means that you sleep with your head at the other end to mine, that’s all.’ I looked at his twinkling eyes. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You’re joking.’
‘Of course I’ll sleep out here,’ said Ewan. ‘You don’t have to worry about us, Mary Sue. It’s our mission to protect you.’
‘Oh la la,’ said Vanessa when I emerged. ‘That is so much better Mary Sue! You look wunnerful! More champagne?’ I took the glass. ‘It is ok we eat now?’ she said. ‘I am ravishing, and it is quite late, no?’ I nodded. She gestured loosely at a linened table hugged by fixed, leather, swivelling chairs. This was definitely better than EasyJet I had booked for an ill-advised surprise weekend in Copenhagen for me and my bastard demon ex-husband Gavin two months ago. I checked with his secretary that Gavin had no work commitments, but he still spent the whole time checking his watch grumpily. At the time I blamed myself for being a cliché and trying to turn my beloved into something he wasn’t. I was so stupid.
By the time I’d eaten smoked trout salad, and half an amazing steak, I was in a much calmer place. Food always does that. Also: two and a half glasses of champagne. The others had kindly done the talking, mostly about inconsequential things and mutual friends. Obviously I was agog, but I tried to play it cool. Early on, giggling about something surprising he’d said about Kiera Knightley, Ewan said, ‘Secrets, of course,’ he said. ‘You know that.’
I nodded emphatically as if to say, ‘Of course, totally, how can you even have thought my texting finger was itching?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he corrected himself, ‘I didn’t mean you couldn’t tell anyone. We’re not trying to replace your friends, it’s just that, until we’ve double-checked… We just don’t know who you can trust.’
‘We hate saying that,’ said Johnny Depp. ‘There’s nothing more important than friends.’ The others mumbled assent. ‘Your best friend’s Jen Duckling, yeah? Sorry, don’t be shocked, we have to know everything about you so we can protect you. We think Jen is what she says, I mean, we’re almost totally sure, but it’s hard. Look, we got it wrong with Gavin, even though we sent… Well. I’m not going to say what we did.’
‘You can’t say that to her!’ spluttered Vanessa Paradis, horrified, breaking away from eating for the first time since the food had arrived. ‘Mon dieu! Men!’ She looked at me, shaking her head. ‘I apologise for Johnny, he is moron almost all ze time.’
‘I didn’t say anything!’ protested Johnny Depp.
‘She is not fool! She can work out from what you say zat we checked out Gavin by sending him succession of beautiful and athletic women to tempt him.’
‘I hadn’t worked that out.’
‘Oh no!’ squealed Vanessa. ‘My apology.’
‘Gavin resisted a selection of beautiful and athletic women?’ I said. It was almost flattering.
‘No, no,’ said Vanessa. ‘He resisted nothing.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘We thought he was arsehole, not demon,’ Vanessa clarified. ‘We wanted to tell you, but ze Teacher said you must live ze life absolutely your own, mistakes also, until ze time came.’ She re-attacked her buttered potatoes.
‘Mary Sue,’ Johnny Depp began.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’ I wasn’t, obviously, but one more horror in the day only added a small amount to the overall awfulness of everything. The adrenalin that had kept me going since Gavin was killed swirled out of me like water plunging through a plughole, and the weight of the day hit me like a blanket made of soft lead. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Is there somewhere I can lie down?’
‘But zere is ice cream coming! Wiz pistachios!’ I shook my head. ‘But of course. Johnny and I have ze room wiz ze children tonight, and over zere, zat one is for you. Ewan can sleep on ze chair.’
‘Oh,’ I said, flustered. ‘That’s wrong. I’m used to travelling coach. One of these chairs will be fine.’
‘It’s a double bed,’ said Ewan McGregor, wolfishly.
‘Oh la la! Do not listen to him!’ said Vanessa. ‘He is incorrigible, and he does not know when he should not be making zese jokes.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Er, no, it’s fine. I’ll be asleep in three seconds anyway. We could top and tail?’
‘Really?’ said Ewan. ‘I think that’s one that even I have never done before. Is it where you…’
‘No!’ I said. ‘It just means that you sleep with your head at the other end to mine, that’s all.’ I looked at his twinkling eyes. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You’re joking.’
‘Of course I’ll sleep out here,’ said Ewan. ‘You don’t have to worry about us, Mary Sue. It’s our mission to protect you.’
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