Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

Which might have had this bright light down as a celestial light, a Holy Light, a light sent by God and delivered by favourite angels. And this, I suppose, was the effect it was intended to create here.

Big bright light and stonking great chords.

Andy and I took to shielding our eyes and our ears as well as we could.

I sank down to my knees and assumed the foetal position. Andy, I think, just rocked backwards and forwards on the bed, but as I was now in no shape to either hear or see things clearly, I couldn’t say for sure.

And then the light went super-flash and died away and the stonking chords crashed to an end in the Key of La.

And I did blinkings and peered up from beneath the shelter of my fedora’s brim. And there was a beautiful lady.

She wore a long twinkly robe that reached right down to her naked feet. Pre-Raphaelite hair tumbled over her shoulders and a silver headband encircled this hair, and this had a crescent moon on the front that glittered prettily. As for her features, they were soft and delicate, her eyes large, nose small and mouth very wide indeed. And she held in her right hand a great big flower. And nothing at all in her left.

I peeped up at this beautiful vision, for vision indeed was she. She had materialised, it appeared, right out of the empty air and there she stood, her feet touching the floor, but touching only, not supporting her, for she was hovering just a little. Wafting gently.

Captain Lynch had told me all about angels and how they used to come and visit a lot, back in the good old biblical days, but how eventually they lost patience with Man and so didn’t come to visit any more. Which was one of the reasons why the New Testament just suddenly ends and there were no further New Testaments, such as New Testament Two: The Sequel.

I climbed slowly to my feet, dusted myself down, took off my fedora and bowed my head. My brother, I noticed, was sitting and staring, which I thought rather rude.

‘Why are you here?’ asked the vision, her voice as sweet as a cuddly kitten peering out of a handbag. ‘Why have you violated the sanctum?’

‘Ah,’ I said. And, ‘Um.’

‘ “Ah” and “um”,’ said the vision. ‘Most articulate.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how to address you. What is the correct form? Should I call you madam, or holy one, or Angel of the Lord, or should I just shut up?’

‘Just shut up,’ counselled the vision, and she waved her flower about and little flecks of fairy-dust shimmered in the air.

So I stood with my hat in my hands and said nothing.

The vision drifted towards the bed and then sat down upon it next to my brother. Who shifted along rather rapidly.

‘Don’t fuss yourself, dear,’ said the vision. And then to me she said, ‘You have an oily about yourself, do you?’

‘An oily?’ I queried. ‘A what?’

‘An oily-rag – a fag.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t. I never really got around to smoking. I had a cigar once, but I wasn’t very impressed.’

‘So,’ said the vision. And she plucked a petal or two from her flower and let them flutter to the floor. ‘This is a ripe old kettle of fish, this, ain’t it? A right how-d’ya-do and no mistake.’

‘Are you a cockney?’ I asked the vision. ‘Only I’ve read about cockneys, but I’ve never actually met one. I thought they were extinct.’

‘They are, luvvy. They’ve all rolled out the barrel and gorn up the apples to the big Pearly Kingdom in the sky, where every boy’s a barrow boy and joins in a knees-up at the drop of a second-hand top hat, as worn by the Artful Dodger. Gawd stripe me pink if I’m telling you a porkie, guv’nor.’

And I came so close to saying, ‘Right.’

‘You have a very posh voice for a cockney,’ I did say. ‘I thought cockneys dropped their H’s and slurred their vowels.’

‘Well, did you now, did you? And you never having met a cockney in your life.’

‘I’ve seen Mary Poppins,’ I said, ‘so I’ve seen and heard Dick Van Dyke.’

‘The King of all the cockneys.’ And the vision made a respectful genuflective wiggle about with her flower. ‘But this won’t get the baby bathed. How do you want to go?’

‘Go where?’ I asked. Which was a reasonable question.

‘To wherever you’re bound – Heaven, or Hell, or nowhere at all if you’re an atheist. Which wouldn’t be too much fun, in my opinion. Although it might be better than Hell. Which I’m told is a really bad place, although I’ve never been there myself.’

‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘What are you saying to me?’

‘I’m offering you the choice of how you want to die. I’d go for a quick and certain one, if I was you. Explosions are always very final. And if you are an atheist, well, at least you’ve got out and about.’ And the vision laughed. In cockney, I supposed.

But I didn’t laugh. Not at all. ‘You are going to kill me?’ I said. ‘Why would you want to do that?’

‘Because you have violated the sanctuary. I offered you an opportunity to make a case for yourself, but the best you could come up with was “Ah” and “Um”. Which, unless they are part of some advanced form of Esperanto, fail to convince on so many levels. Knees up, Mother Brown, me old cock-sparra.’

I did a nervous foot-to-foot dance.

‘Do you need the bog?’ asked the vision.

‘Very shortly, I think. But please don’t kill us, please.’

‘Us?’ said the vision. ‘It’s only you I’m intending to kill. Get off me barrow and things of that nature generally.’

‘But…’ and I pointed to my brother.

‘One thing at a time,’ said the vision. ‘So how do you want to go? Explosion, or grand piano falling from an impossible height? I really love that one.’

‘No, please no,’ I wailed and I fell to my knees as I did so.

‘What a wuss,’ roared the vision, laughing near to burst.

‘Just tell me why,’ I wailed some more. ‘Tell me why, I beg you.’

‘Tell you why?’ The vision drifted up from the bed and hovered in the air. There was a corona of light about her head and I wondered perhaps whether this was in fact none other than the Virgin Mary herself. There were always reports in the papers of her manifesting here and there about the world, usually to not particularly bright people, to whom she would pass on not particularly bright messages. And I had always wondered about that. But then it occurred to me that although she might have been the Mother of Christ, that didn’t necessarily mean that she was the brightest candle in the Communion candle box.

You don’t have to be clever to be a mum, you just have to be loving and kind.

‘Your son won’t like this,’ I said, suddenly emboldened, although not altogether certain from where this sudden emboldenment had sprung. ‘He’s the big cheese in Heaven now, and he won’t take kindly to you killing off one of his flock. My mum’s an Evangelical – she talks to Jesus all the time. She’ll tell him what you’ve done, if you do anything to me.’

‘Jesus,’ said the vision. ‘You think I’m Jesus’s mum?’

‘Well, you are, aren’t you?’

‘No,’ said the vision. ‘I’m not. I am something entirely different. In fact quite unrelated to Christianity. Three-bob-a-pound-tomatoes, get ’em while they’re ’ot.’

‘Then please tell me,’ I begged. ‘It’s only fair. If you’re going to kill me and everything.’

‘Oh, all right. Sit down on the floor there and I will tell you a little story. It is a true story and it has a moral, and if you listen very carefully you will understand. Do I make myself understood?’

I sat down on the floor before her and nodded that she did.

‘Right then. I will drop the cockney patois, as frankly it does not enhance the telling of the tale. The tale goes this-aways. There once and still is a family called Perbright. Every generation gave birth to a noble Perbright who fought for King and country or Queen and country, and always for God and country.’