Nerd Do Well (28 page)

One of the key attractions for me of the zombie myth, particularly Romero’s interpretation, is the zombies’ fascinating ambiguity. They are without any moral imperative or visible emotion and as such cannot realistically be defined as evil. They are simply ‘us’, driven by our most basic impulses. They cannot be blamed for the atrocities they commit because there is no agenda or culpability, only the same ingrained instincts that motivate the living ungoverned by morality. They are the evolutionary or perhaps devolutionary extension of that old maxim of the philosopher Descartes,
I think therefore I am
– in the case of the zombie,
they eat therefore they are.

Crucially, their tragedy and moral ambiguity is demonstrated by their being ultimately weak and ineffectual. Crippled by the tragic disability of death, their approach is slow, pathetic, even temporarily avoidable. I have written about this on several occasions, particular in light of a new wave of ‘fast zombies’, which, I feel, forgo the winning subtleties of the genre in favour of less cerebral scares. Suffice to say, Romero’s films turned me into a very particular type of nerd, for whom such details become of massive importance. If you can’t relate to that obsessive fascination with something ultimately so silly, you’re probably shaking your head right now and thinking ‘What a prick’. Well, I say this: ‘Who is the bigger prick? The prick who writes the book or the prick who reads it?’ (Well, it’s the prick who writes it, obviously.)

Now in my fifth year at Brockworth Comp, and despite a lifelong interest in the performing arts, it hadn’t really occurred to me to actually try and make a living from it. People from Gloucester just didn’t go into professional acting. Such destinies only befell people who lived in London and could walk to the
BBC
from their house, rather than drive there on very special occasions.

I had considered a number of potential career paths, including veterinary practice and physiotherapy. I have no idea what possessed me to consider the latter. I think I took a leaflet away from one of those vague careers meetings, in which a tired, disillusioned teacher casually raises the question of what you are going to do with your life and you shrug and leave with the first leaflet you see.

As a subject at Brockworth, although masterfully represented by Mrs Brooking, drama was somewhat underestimated in terms of importance, by students and school governors alike. Pupils were given the option of studying drama at A level, but only as a third option, having elected to pursue two other more academic modules. The first two brackets offered subjects such as English, maths and sciences, whereas the inauspiciously numbered ‘third bracket’ in the three-part group contained subjects like media studies, art and baking. Supposedly bereft of any real application, drama was relegated to this Vauxhall Conference League of educational advancement and as such didn’t feel entirely credible.

Barbara Luck, leader of the Gloucester Youth Theatre, had enlisted my help in fleshing out the cast of an outdoor production of Shakespeare’s
Taming of the Shrew
at Hidcote Manor just outside Gloucester. As the still sole male member of our drama club, I was a valuable vein of testosterone, a unique thing in similar short supply at Barbara’s own society, the Gloucester Drama Association. Also, I’d like to think she thought me worthy of the production, having enjoyed my robotics and swearing during the evening workshops I had now been attending for over a year.

Barbara, who was playing the female lead, Kate, would pick me up in her Austin Maestro and drive me out to Hidcote, where we performed the famous comedy for three consecutive nights. During our conversations to and from the manor, Barbara must have gleaned that I harboured a desire to follow acting professionally. She had certainly always been very encouraging during sessions at the youth theatre, apart from an occasion where I pretended to be Vyvyan from
The Young Ones
(taking a break from my usual Rick impersonations) and headbutted a stack of chairs over, making a lot of mess and noise, and making her tut and raise her eyebrows.

On one evening, she brought along a leaflet for South Warwickshire College of Further Education, and asked me to share it with my mum, of whom she was an old friend. One of the major attractions for me was that the college had been attended by none other than Ben Elton, co-creator of
The Young Ones
, and as such promised a tried and tested educational path to success in the arts. Not just success but snot-soaked, bottom-purping, alternative-comedy success, something that had until that moment appeared to be nothing more than a dream.

The theatre studies course wasn’t free, however, and Mum agonised at being unable to afford it on her own meagre wage, after we found ourselves outside the catchment area for a grant from Gloucester County Council. Fortunately, and with almost creepy serendipity, our house, although technically outside Upton St Leonards, still fell within the parish and as such made us eligible for an educational fund called the Lady Downe Trust which had been specifically set up to assist young people living in the area to pursue a career in the arts. As far as we knew this was the only fund of its kind in Gloucestershire, and, by a series of events triggered by me failing my eleven-plus exam, we had found ourselves living within the bounds of its influence.

Assuming I would pass the eleven-plus in 1981 with flying colours, the Peggs had upped sticks even before the results were in and moved from Brockworth to Barnwood, so as to be nearer Tommy Rich’s Grammar School. However, when I flunked out, I found myself having to commute all the way back to Brockworth on the bus. After a few years living in Barnwood, the house proved a little too costly and the family decided to move. A new development on the outskirts of Upton St Leonards offered reasonably priced housing within the catchment area for my school, even offering free bus travel there and back for the kids in the village. So four years later and by a somewhat circuitous route, we found ourselves in reach of this independent fund that would enable me to attend the South Warwickshire College of Ben Elton.

Mum insists that it was all meant to be and puts it down to something she calls cosmic ordering. I tend to regard it more as a coincidence but an undeniably fortunate one nevertheless. Mum and Barbara both wrote to the trust, explaining why they thought I deserved its assistance, and a few weeks later we received a lovely handwritten letter, agreeing to part fund my education in Stratford. It wasn’t a huge amount, but it was certainly enough to prevent my mum from having to eat cardboard or become a high-class hooker, which I’m sure she would have done, such was her unfailing and heartening support of my decision to enter the precarious world of acting. Actually, it’s preposterous to imagine her going to such lengths; there is no way my mum would ever eat cardboard.

The hover-bikes sped across Queen’s Park at an alarming rate, silently skimming the recently cut grass as they hurtled on towards their destination. For the riders, it was more than just a destination, it was a destiny, although destiny is technically less than destination because it’s a smaller word, but its figurative implication is massive, particularly in comparison to Lord Black’s town house, which was tiny. He conducted most of his nefarious ill-doings from a secret hideout in the North Sea, a disused oil rig which had been renovated and made to look a bit like a spider. It was an awesome and impressive spectacle, but in constructing his dastardly headquarters he had gone slightly over his budget and had to downsize his plans for a second house in the capital. It was big but it wasn’t huge.

‘Ow much furzer?’ whispered Murielle Frenchly into Pegg’s ear. The jet had been equipped with only two hover-bikes, one for Canterbury and one for Pegg. Thus the handsome adventurer and crime fighter had to give his sometime adversary a backie.

‘Not long,’ said Pegg, trying to ignore the warmth of her embrace around his midriff and the whisper of her warm breath against his cheek (he was too cool to wear a helmet). ‘Canterbury, status report.’

Canterbury knew that his master was still mad at him for having a spaz attack with his weapons systems in the boudoir. He had no explanation for the malfunction; presumably something deep within his neural network had kicked in and overridden his safety protocols. He would have to run a diagnostic on himself when all this was over, that is, if they made it back at all. Something bothered Canterbury, something gnawed at the very base of his synthetic neurocortex. His programming was impeccable and subject to constant updates transmitted from the hub; bugs and malfunctions were telegraphed by bursts of predictive code that enabled him to anticipate and remedy glitches before they occurred. It was almost as if his apparent error had been nothing of the sort and instead had been the product of a perfectly constructed artificial brain, operating at full capacity.

‘Canterbury,’ said Pegg impatiently, ‘what the fuck?’

Canterbury cursed himself for ballsing up yet again and pushed his ruminations to the back of his processor.

‘Five hundred and sixty-seven metres sir,’ said the likeable robot with efficient accuracy. ‘Five hundred and forty-seven, five hundred and twenty-seven . . .’

‘We’ll stop two hundred metres before the target and proceed on foot,’ decided Pegg out loud.

‘Can’t you make eet fifty? I’m wearing eels,’ protested Murielle with a hint of Gallic bluster.

‘Don’t you have a pair of flats in your handbag?’ enquired Pegg, ‘I know I have.’

‘What?’ shouted Murielle above the rush of air.

‘Nothing,’ replied Pegg. ‘Fifty sounds good to me. The park’s dark enough and there’s no way the perimeter sensors can extend further than thirty metres, not on his budget.’

‘Very well, sir,’ said Canterbury, ‘powering down in five, four, three, two, one . . .’

The bikes hummed to a stop and the silence of the night closed around them as they dismounted and prepared to make their approach. Pegg zipped up his combat suit and checked his various knives and guns, which made him look like a complete badass.

‘Canterbury, I want you to run interference, OK?’ ordered Pegg. ‘Strictly hand to hand. I’ll deal with the bulk of it. You just make sure the fight stays even.’

‘But, sir . . .’ protested Canterbury.

‘I can’t risk a friendly-fire incident, Canterbury,’ insisted Pegg. ‘I saw your eyes back there, it was as though you were possessed by robot satan aka, B.L.Z. Bub.’

‘Yes, sir, I will initiate an artillery escalation only if I hear the activation word. I have triple-checked my subroutines and installed a fail-safe.’ Canterbury projected his intended efficiency with an eagerness to please that seemed almost human. Pegg had to make a real effort to maintain his moodiness, but maintain it he did, giving his robot sidekick a cursory nod in reply. He looked over to Murielle who was staring at him, an odd expression on her face.

‘What is it?’ Pegg enquired, with a note of concern.

Murielle seemed conflicted for a moment, an inner struggle pulling her beautiful brows into the slight frown he himself had worn the night Canterbury caught him reading
The Twilight Saga
.

‘Nothing,’ she said eventually. ‘Let’s do this.’

Pegg approached her and stroked her cheek (upper right) with a tenderness his rugged exterior suggested he was incapable of.

‘Listen,’ he said quietly, ‘if anything happens, I just want to say –’

‘Don’t.’ Murielle once again flattened her finger against Pegg’s lips, squashing them into an unflattering pout.

Before Pegg could respond, a blinding beam of light illuminated the area, flooding the park with a stark glare.

‘Shit, he bought new sensors!’ exclaimed Pegg as he struggled with the Velcro on his leg holster. ‘Murielle, run!’

A sharp pain shot through his neck as if something had bitten him. His hand flew to his carotid artery with a slap and he felt something foreign beneath his fingers, embedded deep in his skin. He plucked the invasive object out and looked at it; even as his head clouded and his vision began to blur he could see the familiar fluffy head of a tranquilliser dart.

‘The word, sir!’ Canterbury chirped frantically, clanking over to his faltering master. ‘Say the activation word! I can’t say it myself, sir, it’s restricted.’

‘Hmmm?’ said Pegg absent-mindedly.

‘It’s something you have for breakfast,’ urged Canterbury.

Pegg’s mind dulled and folded in on itself as he struggled to remember the word that would transform Canterbury into a lethal weapon, resembling Iron Man if he’d been on the Atkins for a few months.

‘Murielle knows what the word is,’ mumbled Pegg, barely coherent, ‘but I told her to run away.’

‘She didn’t run, sir,’ said Canterbury.

Through the haze of his intoxication, Pegg noticed an odd resigned sobriety in Canterbury’s voice but ignored it. He threw his head sideways on his limp neck and saw Murielle standing nearby.

‘The word, Murielle, say the word.’

But something was wrong. Murielle seemed relaxed, almost distracted. A flicker of guilt registered across her face, and as the last vestiges of consciousness ebbed out of Pegg’s body, he realised the awful truth. This was a trap. She had betrayed him. He wanted to punch a window until it smashed, which it would have done after the first punch, but he was succumbing to the tranqs and by now could barely lift his own arms. As his heavy lids drew closed, the figure of Lord Black striding across the grass towards him blurred and expanded into darkness.

‘Oh bollocks,’ he thought.

I left Brockworth Comprehensive in the summer of 1986 and the following term began a two-year course at
SWCFE
, living five days a week with Anne and John Mallins, a wonderfully nurturing couple who along with their Weimaraner Misty and moggy Bailey became my de facto family for two whole years.

My time at Stratford was incredibly important to my growth as a person. I was living away from home for the first time in my life and getting to participate in almost constant dramatic endeavour; performing in various shows and plays and loving every second of it. I became something of a theatrical type and my obsessions drifted away from the science-fiction staples of my youth, drawing closer to Shakespeare and Marlowe.