‘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.’
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2 comments:
Obviously this turns everything on its head marvellously, and I really don't know who to trust, though I guess the people we've thought were the goody guys thus far have been a little too nice, and I'm not sure I trust Sir Conn.
But oh! Oh no! Not Harrison Ford! Do anything you want to the Beckhams, the Depps, the Borises! But Harrison Ford is sacrosanct!
I don't think this is the real Victoria Beckham. Surely she goes by "Tor".
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