Gavin Corbett - Green Glowing Skull

‘I mean — Cha Bum Kun! What kind of name is that anyway? Did anyone ever pause to think about that? Bum Kun! Bum Kun! Bum! Bum! Bum! Big bouncy wobbly veined Cha Bum Kun!’

He held a tumbler of brandy, and would at intervals splash some of it against his face, letting it dribble down and off his chin to even greater hysterics. Two policemen’s hats sat on the counter; Rory and Marky were still in tears, but tears of laughter now. Rickard had caught the eye of Marky, who tugged at the sleeve of Paulus, the two of them finding in Rickard’s appearance something funnier than even Denny had said.

‘Rickard Velililily — the devil himself,’ Denny suddenly called out — and at an instant, the high spirits of his drinking companions seemed to level off.

Paulus cleared his throat. ‘Rickard, have you started looking for work? Your residency is set to come to a close, you know.’

Denny answered, ‘Oh, he’ll have no problem, no problem at all finding work. Of a good many talents, is Rickard.’

He pushed through to him, and slid his arm around Rickard’s shoulders. Rickard thought he seemed taller, more correct of posture, than when he was alive, when he had had his own head.

‘Young man, I’m glad you’ve turned up. I’ll need the youngest, most physically able man in the building to assist me in something. I’ve been saying to the boys, there’s a crate of 1928 Chateau du Superior Vena Cava in the cellars somewhere, I know there is. Would you accompany me, please?’

They left the room — and down the corridor, safely around a corner, amidst cooling shadows and creaking wood, Denny nuzzled his warm plastic face against Rickard’s ear; Rickard felt the plastic vibrate.

‘O the blather! O the guff! And it’s not as if I’m able to intoxicate myself through it. Get me away from here now.’

In the stair hall, he took the keys to the cellar from behind the porter’s desk. Under the first flight of the grand staircase, he pushed open the low iron door that led to the steps underground, put one foot over the threshold, and beckoned Rickard to his side again. Down the worn sandstone steps they went, into the vaulted catacombs. He pressed his fingers against the nobble between Rickard’s shoulder blades, encouraging him forward, saying ‘this way, this way’ as they moved among the racks and the dimly glinting bottle ends. Somewhere along the route he had detached a fire axe from a wall.

‘Any ideas where we might find this crate we’re looking for?’ said Rickard, his mouth dry and tasting the charnel air.

‘Over there,’ said Denny. He was holding the axe by the blade and pointing the handle towards an area of the floor.

‘Is it gone?’

‘No, no. Over there.’

Rickard moved to the spot that Denny was indicating, finding a flagstone apparently brushed clean of its covering of dust and with the grouting around its edges scraped out.

‘Lift it out for me, there’s a good lad,’ said Denny. ‘I chiselled at this all morning.’

With the thin end of the axe blade Rickard worked one side of the flagstone off the ground, then placed a bottle beneath the axe handle and levered it up some more. It was easy to lift out, being made of thin, rough-hewn slate. It was about a metre squared in area, and left a large tamped bed of sandy soil, with a hole in the centre, like the entrance to a fox’s den. Denny poked around with the axe, causing soil at the edges of the hole to fall away, making it wider. They stood opposite each other on the flagstones either side, looking down into the hole. Rickard blinked at the darkness, hoping for better resolution, searching for … he didn’t know. There was further movement of the soil. Two grey fluffy paws appeared, scrambling for purchase. A platypus — no, a dirty-faced shih-tzu — squirmed out of the ground. Another one, orangey-bearded, followed. The animals sniffed and snorted at the air, and beetled away, flattening their bodies to squeeze under a wine rack.

Rickard looked back at Denny, intending to express disbelief. The old man was holding out both his hands.

‘Help me in,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Help me down. Into the hole.’

‘Where does it lead?’

‘To Ireland. Eventually.’

‘Ireland?’

‘It leads to a fault in the schist, a crack, before that crack finally tapers to a close, into which emerges an undersea cable. The cable goes some fifty miles south, wraps three or four times around a spindle outside New York harbour, and then runs north-east until it reaches the south-west of Ireland. It’s composed of more or less the same material that human nerves are made of. I’ll find my way to that line, and feel my way home, along its length.’

‘You’ll drown!’

‘I won’t drown. I don’t have a mouth to drink with, let alone drown with.’

Denny’s hands felt very frail and cold in Rickard’s own, and his body light. He slipped into the ground diagonally, to his elbows, and stopped.

‘The axe,’ he said. ‘Pass it to me. I want to give this cable a few belts along the way, rightly mess it up.’

He took the weapon from Rickard, and slithered further into the hole, to his head.

‘Wait!’ said Rickard, to the white shining lump.

‘Yes?’ said Denny.

Rickard opened his mouth, but found he could not say anything. He was not sure what he wanted to say.

Denny remained motionless, waiting.

‘Rickard,’ he said. ‘Stay here in New York. You’ll have an important job to do. That voice. Your vibrato. Wonderful control in the upper to middle register. Look after it. There’s a truth in your voice such as is rarely found anywhere. You’ll change the hearts of men and women and make them human beings again.’

And with that, the head shot beneath the ground, as if the body had let go.