For all around me were empty chairs and dirty pudding dishes.
‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘They’ve all gone off to bed without me. What a bummer. I wonder where the golden girlies went?’
‘Up the cord,’ I heard someone think. And then I heard them say it. And it was the high priest’s mum, the lady in the golden straw hat. And she sat where she had been sitting, spooning spoons of pudding into her gob.
‘Up the cord?’ I asked her. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘Up your cord, to the Tunnel of the George, as it is foretold in The Great Book of All Knowledge (and Selected Lyrics).’
‘What?’ I shouted. Loudly.
‘There’s no need to shout,’ said the lady. ‘Although it says that you do, in the Book. When you have awoken after drinking the wine with the sleeping draft in it.’
‘What?’ I went, even louder.
‘You have to hand it to those ancients, don’t you?’ said the lady. ‘When it comes to prophecy they were pretty hot stuff. You wouldn’t get that kind of accuracy nowadays. If we had days to nowa, as it were. But as we don’t understand the concept, we don’t, so to speak.’
‘They’ve gone up the cord?’ And I rose from the table. And staggered a bit and my head really hurt. ‘I was drugged and the whole population of Begrem has absconded up my braided cord?’
‘That sounds mildly obscene,’ said the lady, ‘but in essence you are correct. Only I remain behind, to attend to your every desire for ever and ever. Well, at least for as long as I last, which won’t be too long with my health, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘I appreciate the sentiment,’ I said. Because politeness never costs. ‘But I will have to pass on your kind offer. I have to get up the cord myself. It’s not safe for them to go wandering around up there, all by themselves. And drugged wine! I’ll have stern words to say about that!’
‘Oh no you won’t,’ said the lady.
‘Oh yes I will.’
‘Oh no you won’t.’
‘And why will I not?’
‘Because they pulled the cord up after them. Would you care for a bit of hanky-panky to take your mind off things?’
‘What? ’
And she told me what she had in mind.
‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Not that. I have to get out of here. Is there another way out?’
And that was a very silly question, wasn’t it? Because of course there was not another way out. And so I sat in my big throne chair and had a good sulk and almost drank some more wine by mistake. And I glowered occasionally at the lady in the golden straw hat and knotted my fists and was grumpy. And the lady fluttered her eyelashes and carried on with her pudding.
‘I’m trapped,’ I said. And I threw up my hands. ‘I could end up spending the rest of my life down here.’
‘So you’d better get that hanky-panky while you can.’
‘I have to escape. My whole life, so it seems, has been moving – or has been moved for me – towards a single goal. I have a purpose. I cannot deny my purpose. I have to escape.’
‘Amazing accuracy,’ thought the lady.
‘What did you say?’ I asked her.
‘I didn’t say anything, dear.’
‘But you thought it.’
Can he be reading my thoughts?
‘Yes, I can,’ I told her. ‘And you thought “amazing accuracy”. And I know why you thought it.’
The Book. He’ll want to see the Book.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I do. I want to take a look at this book of prophecy.’
It’s hidden under your chair. ‘My son took it with him,’ said the lady.
But I delved under my chair. ‘Aha,’ I said. ‘What is this?’
But the lady just spooned up pudding.
And I swept bowls and plates and drugged wine from the table and laid out the book (a golden book) before me. And leafed it open.
And there were illustrations and everything. And the illustrations of the Deliverer looked just like me.
‘Uncanny,’ I said and did some further leafing. And then I went, ‘Well,’ because I had come across an interesting page. I read from this, aloud.
‘ “And so did the Deliverer rail against his forced confinement and seek a way of escape. And it came to him, as if by the influence of the George Himself, that there was a simple solution that-” ’ And I gazed across at the other page.
‘ “Knew he had been thwarted,” ’ I read. ‘What?’ And then I examined the Book with care. ‘Someone has torn out the page,’ I observed with bitterness in my voice.
‘My son,’ said the lady, looking up from her pudding bowl. ‘For such was it written in the Book that he would.’
I made growling sounds, above and below my breath. ‘And did it say also that the Deliverer would be prepared to torture the necessary information out of the high priest’s mother, should she fail to divulge it willingly?’
‘I believe it must have,’ said the high priest’s mum. ‘Which is why I was never allowed to read the page in question.’
I slammed shut the Book. ‘All very clever,’ I said. ‘But I will succeed. The question is, just how.’ And I asked the lady whether she would be kind enough to direct me to an undrugged golden carafe of wine and she kindly did so. And I let her try some first, just to make sure.
And I drank wine and had a good think. And I do have to say that my thinking was very focused thinking. I feel that my situation and future prospects down there truly focused my thinking. Which was all geared towards the matter of escape.
And presently, and although I didn’t see it myself, a certain look appeared upon my face. And it was the look of one beatified, enlightened. And I said, ‘Eureka,’ and brought my right fist down into the palm of my left hand. Which sadly had a cake in it. But I had had my Eureka moment.
‘Where is my sacred pouch?’ I asked the lady.
Under my chair. ‘My son took it with him,’ she said.
And I fetched my rucksack from under her chair.
And I sorted through its contents until I found those two things I really couldn’t see the point of when I purchased all the other stuff: the telescope and the 26.5 mm Very flare pistol with the telescopic sight. ‘Yes!’ I went. And I punched the air. As one will do, when enlightened.
And I said my farewells to the lady in the golden straw hat. And she said that she was sad to see me go, but had rather been expecting it. And that I was to give her love to her son when I saw him and say that the pudding was nice.
And I returned to the central plaza, the Hindoo Howdoo Hoodoo Yoodoo Man Plaza, and I squinted up towards the hole I had blown oh so far up above. And it was a goodly hopeless distance above. But I did not despair. I took up my telescope and I focused upon the hole. It was still a hole. They hadn’t blocked it up, by the look of it. So it was possible that-
And I took up the 26.5 mm Very flare pistol with the telescopic sight and I peered through the telescopic sight and did focusings with that also. And I went, ‘Hmm. This might just work. Well, it had better.’ And I took from my rucksack my coil of micro-slim emergency cord and also one of the three flares I had.
And I secured the cord to the end of the flare and I aimed at the hole through the telescopic sight and I fired.
And the flare shot up towards the hole, bringing a most wonderful illumination to the golden city. But fell short by several yards and nearly hit me on the head when it came down.
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘A higher elevation would be favourite.’
And I entered the nearest tall building and went right up to its roof. Which made a great deal more sense.
And then I took another shot at the hole.
