orangyness relieved at intervals by wall lights of the semicircular persuasion, which cast a soft ambient light in an ever upwards direction.
There was a rug, which was circular, and a chair, which was a sphere with a cut-out section for you to plonk almost all of yourself into.
And there was a door that was not circular. And there were no windows at all to speak of. Or even to whisper about.
And it was the lack of windows that upset me. The room I was happy enough with – the room was, in itself, quite splendid. Because it was plush and comfortable and elegant.
But the lack of windows was worrying. That lack of windows signalled that there was a certain untowardness about this room. That this was an outre and anomalous room.
And one that I probably should not be in.
And so I sought to escape.
And as there were no windows to climb out of, I made a stab at leaving by the doorway, but sadly to no avail as the door, it transpired, was locked.
I would have given that door a kicking if it hadn’t been for the fact that my feet were bare. As, in fact, was all of the rest of me. Bare-naked-lady, I was, apart from the bit about being a lady. So I retreated to the circular bed, wrapped a circular sheet about my nakedness, stuck a thumb into my mouth and gave that thumb a good old sulky suck.
And I had a fair old grump going and quite a bit of rising fear also when the door opened to admit a beefy- looking fellow bearing a cloth-covered tray.
And at the sight of this tray I panicked.
Because it looked to be one of those trays that they have in psychiatric hospitals. The ones that always have a hypodermic upon them, covered by a cloth.
And when they stick you with that hypo, you’re in trouble.
And so I panicked. And I did a little bit of rueing-the-day also. I rued the day that I had sent off my money to America in the hope of receiving the course in Dimac, the deadliest martial art known to man. And had not received it by return of post. It was quite a complex piece of rueing-the-day, but it served me well enough at the time.
The beefy-looking fellow placed the tray upon a cylindrical bedside table that had somehow escaped my notice, whipped away the cloth and said, ‘Your breakfast, sir.’
‘Phew,’ I said, ‘breakfast.’
‘Breakfast indeed, sir,’ said he. ‘Were you expecting something else?’
I shook my head and said, ‘No, nothing else.’
‘Well, that’s just sweet, isn’t it?’ said the beefy-looking fellow. ‘So eat up your breakfast like a nice gentleman, or I will be forced to stick you with my hypodermic.’
And with that said, he left the room.
And I tucked into my breakfast.
It was a ‘Full Welsh’, which was new to me but didn’t make it any the less delicious. And by the time I was done with it and was wiping my mouth on the cloth provided, the door opened once more and this time in walked Elvis.
Elvis?
I looked up with surprise at Elvis.
And Elvis smiled down at me.
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Elvis. It’s you.’
‘It is not me,’ said Elvis. ‘It’s me.’
‘Can I go home, please?’ I said and got all upset.
Elvis sat down upon the circular bed and he smiled some more at me. And it really was Elvis. That was a stone-cold certain, the quiff and the sideburns, the killer cheekbones, the lip curl and that something. That something Elvis had.
‘I am not Elvis,’ said Elvis, kindly. ‘My name is Doctor Darren McMahon. I’m Irish/Liverpudlian.’
‘Scouse Elvis?’ said I.
And the doctor nodded. ‘If you like.’
‘But you are Elvis,’ I said. ‘No one looks like Elvis. Elvis is a one-off. There is only one King of rock ’n’ roll.’
‘I hate to disillusion you,’ said Scouse Elvis. Because it did have to be said that he did have a Liverpool accent. ‘But Elvis is not a one-off. Elvis was, in fact, part of a six-off. But only the two of us survived.’
‘You are the twin brother of Elvis?’ I asked. ‘But I thought he died at birth.’
‘You are not listening quite as carefully as you should be,’ said Scouse Elvis. ‘But we will speak of such matters at length. How are you feeling? How is your head?’
And then I recalled how I had been bonked on the head.
‘My head’s fine, as it happens,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t ache at all.’
‘Excellent,’ said the Scouse One. ‘I had the beefy-looking fellow give you a shot of painkiller with his hypo before you woke up.’
‘Urgh!’ said I. And I felt all violated. As I probably should have done anyway, waking up in a strange bed, naked and everything.
‘We’re all professionals here,’ said Dr McMahon (?). ‘You have nothing to worry about.’
‘I suspect I have a great deal to worry about,’ I said. And then another thought struck me. One that really should have struck me earlier. ‘Andy?’ I said. ‘What happened to my brother, Andy?’
‘There was only you,’ said Dr Elvis (I felt happier with this). ‘When we purged the area, you were the only resident.’
‘Purged?’ I said. ‘Resident?’ I said. ‘And where is here?’ I also said. Also.
‘One thing at a time,’ said Dr Elvis (yes, I was very happy with this description because, looking him up and down, although he was Elvis, he was dressed as a doctor – white coat, stethoscope in top pocket, that sort of thing).
‘As to where you are, you are in the Ministry of Serendipity, which is a secret underground research establishment beneath Mornington Crescent Underground Station.’
‘Right,’ I said. Very slowly, I said it.
‘There was an incident last night – an outbreak of the Taint. We isolated it, purged the area and uplifted the only original resident amongst the reoccupied within the violated zone.’
‘Right,’ I said once more. Adding, ‘Really?’ this time.
‘You’d best have a little sleep now,’ said Dr Elvis.
‘I’m not tired,’ I told him.
‘You will be,’ he said, and he took out a pocket watch and perused its face. ‘When you awake you will remember nothing of this.’
‘What?’ I said. Adding, ‘How?’ this time.
‘Hypnogenic narcotiser, in the Welsh breakfast.’ And he counted down upon his watch, starting from ten.
And I have no idea how many were the seconds.
That tick-ticked and tick-tocked away.
But-
‘And that’s how I solved it,’ said Andy. ‘Although Tyler will probably try to take all the credit for himself.’
‘What?’ I said, awakening as if from a dream – a daydream, it must have been – to find myself at the lunching table.
And my mother was dishing out the parsnips and my brother was boasting about something.
‘Are you all right there?’ my brother said to me, breaking off with the boasting for a moment. ‘You look a tad queer. You seemed to be off somewhere else then. Away with the fairies, perhaps.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I was-’ But I couldn’t recall where I’d been. I was at my lunching table, with my brother and my mother, but before that-
‘Well, do try and pay attention,’ said my brother. ‘I am expecting to get an award.’
‘For what, exactly?’ I asked.
