Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales (13 page)

‘I thought angels had wings and stuff like that?’

‘It’s got wings,’ protested Harry. ‘Lots of them.’

‘Not little sparrow jobs—two big ones in the proper place on its back.’

‘Not this kind.
This is a cherub—I know you thought cherubs were sweet little babes...’

‘Not a bit of it, pal. The wife calls her nephews “cherubs” and they’re nasty little bastards. They’d destroy a Churchill tank if you took your eyes off ’em for a second.’

John-the-Butcher moved cautiously forward, peering hard at the cherub.

‘Be careful,’ said Harry.

‘I ain’t goin’ to do you, I’m just getting a closer look at this thing. Where did you get
it from?
What did you say it was? A cherub?’

‘That’s right,’ replied Harry.

The Butcher said, ‘Do they all look like him?’

Harry thought about the books he had seen earlier.

‘Well, the next biggest size up is a seraph. They’ve only got six wings but they’re quite a lot meatier. They don’t have flaming swords, but they do have these terrible feet...’

‘A seraph sounds more my mark,’ said John-the-Butcher, moving even closer to peer at the cherub’s muscles. ‘I’m not stuck on the flaming sword stuff. It’s a bit conspicuous and what’s more bloody unnecessary with a bloke this size,
ain’t
it? I mean, all that ruddy twirlin’...’

‘Don’t get too close!’ warned Harry. ‘That’s
holy
fire. You’re an evil bugger, John. You’ll go up in
..
.’

But it was too late. The sword touched John-the-Butcher’s hair and he immediately exploded in a ball of flame with a loud
whumph
. The heat from the burning Butcher singed Harry’s eyebrows. In two seconds flat there was nothing but ashes on the ground. The ashes blew away on the wind. Harry wondered whether the police would arrest him, as an accomplice to murder, but he subsequently realised no one had seen, and there was nothing left of the three crooks to prove they had been there at all. Certainly they would not be missed.

A short time later Cynthia came to the park with a flask of coffee and some roast chicken sandwiches.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘It’s still with you then?’

The cherub was doing a deft underarm pass with its sword at that moment.

‘Yes,’ replied Harry, a little gloomily.

Cynthia said, ‘Why so glum? At least it’s protecting you from John-the-Butcher.’

‘Erm, I don’t think I need a guardian angel any more—the Butcher’s gone away.’

‘Oh,’ said Cynthia surprised. ‘Where?’

‘Somewhere warm—look, how am I going to get rid of this thing, Cynth? I’ve tried praying. That doesn’t work.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that. The trouble is, you’re basically a
good
person, Harry. Guardian angels look after good people. You’ve got to become wicked if you want it to go.’

‘What sort of wicked?’

‘Well let’s take the Ten Commandments—you need to break some of the rules.’

‘Thou shalt not kill?
That sort of thing?
Well I’m not killing anyone, so that’s out. I’m not married and I don’t know any married women, so adultery’s out too. I certainly don’t wish to dishonour my father and my mother, so what else is there? I don’t want to steal anything either, that’s not just one of the Ten
Commandments,
it’s also a crime. No point in getting rid of the cherub if I’m just going to end up in jail.’

‘Um, Graven images?
No, bit old fashioned. Thou shalt not bear false witness?’

‘I
dunno
what that means, really. Sounds a bit like fixing a gee-gee and then telling everyone else to bet on it, to make the odds on the second favourite go up. I can’t do that. It’s against my professional ethics.’

‘What about coveting?’

Harry shrugged. ‘I thought that had to do with wanting
next door
’s wife. She’s 75, and frankly Cynth, even the thought turns my stomach. I couldn’t even fake it.’

The whirling flaming sword was distracting him, flaring through the evening air above his head. The cherub was a liability and with all those eyes it didn’t miss a trick. Harry couldn’t even touch Cynthia, without it blinked and stared with at least a few hundred of them. It was most disconcerting and certainly not conducive to a good sex life.

‘Well, there’s also menservants, oxen,
asses
, anything that’s your neighbour’s.’

‘Don’t really want any of those either,’ said Harry, feeling depressed. ‘I wouldn’t mind his red Porsche, but that’s not the same thing, is it?’

‘Do you really, really,
really
, envy him his car?’

‘Of course I do—who wouldn’t? I sometime imagine it’s mine and
..
.
and
...’

‘And what, Harry?’ asked Cynthia, huskily.

‘And—you know, I told you—you and me, on the back seat—it’s leather upholstery you know.’

Harry went all hot as he thought about it, and when he looked up, the cherub had gone.

‘Blimey,’ he said, surprised. ‘Is it that easy?’

‘It is for
you
,’ smiled Cynthia. ‘You’re such a nice man, Harry. It doesn’t take much for you to be wicked. Here, I’ve brought you the racing times. There ’s a horse running in the two o’clock tomorrow at Haymarket called Guardian Angel.’

‘Really?’ Harry took the paper eagerly.

‘But Harry...’

He looked up. ‘Yes?’

‘Don’t bet more than you can afford and stick to the tote.’

Harry sighed and nodded. ‘Right, Cynth.’

Later, as they boarded the tube train, a man got in after them with a seven-foot demon at his heels. He was a small, mild-looking man, with round glasses and a little wispy moustache. He looked very miserable. They all travelled in silence for a while, the demon seemingly happy to study a group of skinheads who had suddenly gone very quiet.

Harry glanced at the ferocious-looking demon, then at the mild little man, and said, ‘Boy, are you in trouble.’

‘I know,’ sighed the little man.

‘It’s much harder to
keep
the Ten Commandments, than
break
them.’

‘I know, I know,’ sighed the little man.

The demon just grinned and held his peace.

The Cornelis Saftleven painting, mentioned in the story, is where this idea came from. It is one of those paintings which, when first glance at it, looks rather humorous. Then on subsequent inspections grows darker and more chilling with every study
.

The dog gestured to me from across the tavern and finally I got up and went to his table. Dressed in a tweed suit, a plain shirt and tasteful tie, he was some kind of terrier. He opened his jaws in the semblance of a human grin, but rather than put me at my ease it chilled me to the marrow. I had never seen anything so terrifying. I tried to smile back.

‘Pull up a stool,’ he said. What made it worse was, he didn’t growl. He spoke with clear diction. ‘Sit down. You look as if you need a friend.’

I didn’t ask the dog its name. I’d already made that mistake once and been beaten for it. They told me that in this city the animals had no given names. It was humans who gave creatures personal names and to the animals here having a name was a symbol of slavery.

It was three weeks since I had arrived in the City of the Beasts. I was weary with walking, ragged of mind. Naked and filthy, I’d slept in cobbled alleys, eaten rubbish from the gutter, tried to beg from passing sedan chairs containing arrogant creatures of all kinds: beasts wearing silk coats and dresses. Goats, cats, dogs and foxes mostly.

The larger animals, like horses, could not of course be carried. They tended to live on the pale of the city in hovels with stable doors. I once saw a donkey sitting on the town hall steps smoking a pipe, but that was an unusual sight.

‘Can you help me?’ I croaked. ‘No one will help me. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know how I came to be here. Please, can you help me?’

‘Calm down, calm down,’ he said, glancing around him. ‘You’re attracting attention. Sit.’

I did as he bid now, taking the stool. He signalled to the cat in the faded dress, the serving feline, and she brought two jugs of ale to the table. As always I was fascinated by the way she carried the tray and lifted the jugs. She was dexterous where she should not be. One of the reasons humans evolved into
tool-makers
and ruled the world was because of their prehensile hands.
The opposing thumb.
The secret was supposed to be in the thumb. Yet she managed to carry the tray, lift the
jugs,
place them on the oak table.

‘I think I can help you,’ said the dog in undertones. ‘Have you spoken to anyone else?’

The tavern was becoming riotous now, with drunken beasts slopping ale on the floor, some talking so loudly they were shouting, others displaying obnoxious behaviour. Two dogs in shirtsleeves were fighting in the corner, using their paws like fists, punching each other, kicking, but not using their teeth. A badger was encouraging them in their violence, hissing first at one to go in,
then
the other, delighted when blood was drawn.

‘I’ve attempted to talk to other—other beasts,’ I replied in despair, ‘but no one seems to want to answer my questions. When I first arrived I tried to walk out of the city, but I kept finding myself back in the streets again.’

The dog put a paw on the back of my hands and I felt the rough
cloth
of his jacket against my bare skin.

‘Don’t do that,’ he whispered. ‘Never do that. It’s dangerous. You’re in your own mind. If you try to go out of your mind, you’ll end up insane. That’s what it is, isn’t it, insanity? Being out of your mind?’

‘Yes,’ I replied bleakly, ‘but I don’t understand.’

‘Don’t worry. Look, I can get you in to see the Council of Beasts. They’re the only ones who can really help you. What do you say? Would you like me to do that?’

The dog’s brown eyes glittered in the lamplight. He stared into my face, his hot musty breath overpowering me. There was sweat dripping from his tongue onto my left leg, soiling my skin. I wanted to scream at him, hit him over the head with my ale jug, smash that look off his features, but I couldn’t. He would have had me beaten into insensibility by those around us. They did that, when you angered them. They were basically savage creatures,
who
reacted instinctively.

When I had earlier seen a goat put on his hat, I knew I should have laughed—it was so absurd—but I gagged with horror, causing the goat to say, ‘What are you looking at?’ in vicious accents, before shouldering past me.

I said to the dog, ‘Why? Why are you doing this?’

He drew back from me a little, looked somewhat hurt, and then replied, ‘I want to be your best friend.’

If only there were other humans here, I should have someone with whom to talk this over. Just one other would have been enough. Perhaps between the two of us we could have worked out some reason for it all? But so far as I knew, I was the only member of
homo
sapiens
in the city.