David Beresford
ANOTHER COUNTRY
It was at 6.30am that Barney awoke, to the cock-o-doodle-doo of a hahdedah playing silly-buggers in the garden. He stifled the impulse to hurl the Tea’sMade out the window. To cure him of the habit Leonora the maid had attached a rubber band. The last time he had done himself a serious injury.
Barney winced at the memory of the pain. Sinking back into the comfort of his pillow, he winced again as the memory collided with the immediacy of the pain and inwardly groaned as his mind hastily began rifling through his memories of the night before.
They had worked into the early hours of the morning as usual, first agonising judiciously over the weighty complaints from the Pink Lawyer’s Association and the Association of Pink Accountants. Then they had turned to the press.
It was Moodley’s brain-wave that had started the rot. It seemed to be inspired at the time; an idea whose time had finally come. “We’ll shut the whole bang-shoot up by subpoenaing the lot of them,” his legal adviser had declared, excitedly leaping from one foot to the other. “We’ll sub- judice them all, rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat,” he shouted as he sprayed the imaginary editors, newspaper proprietors and other forms of thieving, murdering, stinking, racist, garbage, journalistic low-life with his imaginary AK-47.
When they had dealt with all the South African editors with the help of sealing wax, quill pen and Barney’s priceless 1964 edition of the Guide to the Gothic in Calligraphy, the question was what to do with the foreigners? “No problem,” Moodley declared with the sang-froid of a man who had peered at a thousand menacing hordes from behind the ramparts of Butterfield’s DIY Guide to Delict, Summonses and Subpoenas. He then rushed off in search of the International Guide to the Media.
The pile of subpoenas to melanin-deprived editors around the globe had nearly reached the ceiling when someone raised the question of the Great Editor in the Sky.
“If they have nothing to hide …” suggested Claudia, hesitatingly.
“Nobody can be beyond the reach …” offered Moodley.
“We owe it to the past …” added Barney.
They all nodded solemnly. The historic decision taken, Moodley explained that it would count as due service if they made reasonable efforts to bring the subpoena to His attention. “Or Hers,” he added hurriedly as the beam in Claudia’s hand began swinging ominously in his direction.
Quoting various authorities regarding the presumptions of omniscience on the part of the Almighty, he assured them it would satisfy the courts to affix it to the nearest steeple, dome, bell tower or other such protuberance.
Glumly Barney shook his head. Still fresh in his mind was the sight of a local evangelist, Ray “Mr Universe” McCauley’s already over-inflated chest further inflated by a flak jacket after the national cricket team had taken it upon themselves to vote him chaplain-in-chief. “Religious war,” he muttered dismissively. The mayhem which would ensue if he hazarded a guess as to up whose chimney God was to be found!
He sat up bolt-right. “Got it,” he cried! “The Constitution. It’s non-sectarian … where’s the ladder?” he shouted over his shoulder as he led them racing down the stairs.
“The garden shed!’ shouted back Moodley as they burst into the night air and hurried across the moon-lit lawn.
“Oww!” shouted Claudia hopping painfully, if gracefully, behind the excited pack after she had collided with an unseen concrete object.
“Les nains du jardin ont aussi des droits [Garden gnomes have rights too]!” shouted one such of French manufacture, indignantly fishing around in the shrubbery for his concrete beret.
“Allez-vous faire foutre,”* rejoined the indignant girl after a brief pause to consider the constitutional position.
Barney tottered out of the dark under the weight of a ladder, Moodley close behind clutching a box of nails and a hammer. Together they made their way to the flagpole standing proudly in front of their offices. Clambering to the top, Barney pulled a sheet of paper out of his breast pocket and hammered it into the top off the pole.
“Three cheers for the chief!” shouted Moodley below. “Hip, hip …”
He got no further. Out of a seemingly cloudless sky came an almighty clap of thunder accompanying a bolt of lightning which whizzed between Barney’s legs, driving a 1,8m-deep crater into the ground.
On top of the pole Barney froze, gazing upwards at a brilliant burning and spinning ball of light which had materialised about 6m above his head.
“What’s this?” bellowed a Voice from the said ball. A sudden gust of wind ripped the subpoena off the flag-pole and zipped it into the flames. “Rights! Human rights! I’m the only one with rights around here,” the Voice raged. There was a rummaging sound followed by the irritated mutter: “Now where have I put those sodding things, oh for Christ …”
“It’s only an invitation!” hurriedly explained Barney. “Followed by some entirely hypothetical stuff about imprisonment …”
“Not another religion, is it?” peevishly interrupted the Voice, having apparently abandoned the eternal search for his glasses.
“No no, no … “
“So?”
“Ehhh. Are you a subliminal?” inquired Barney automatically.
“I don’t know,” the brilliant burning ball replied, a defensive edge of uncertainty entering his voice.
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you, stupid!” snapped Barney.
A second bolt of lightning flashed between his legs. His aides, forgotten down below, dived for cover behind an all-white rubbish bin.
“Ahem … well are you previously disadvantaged?” asked Barney, hastily re- assuming an obsequious posture.
“Not really,” replied the burning ball, sounding puzzled.
“Have you ever undergone the pencil test?” Barney inquired, trying another tack.
“Pencil test?” echoed the Voice, the burning, spinning ball roiling in a threateningly muscular sort of a way.
“Can I see you?” bleated Barney, the tension proving too much. His stomach lurched and he closed his eyes, bracing himself for the third lightning blast, remembering too late that looking at Him (or Her) was a strict no-no.
“Oh sure. Funny, no one else ever asked that before,” said the Voice gaily.
Cautiously Barney opened his eyes. To his astonishment a figure was sharing the top rung of the ladder with him. He gaped as he took in the outline, the colour …
“Hello ducky,” said the apparition, coyly cocking a wrist.
Yes God was …
At this precise moment Barney awoke to the cock-o-doodle-doo of a distant cockerel whose bedside digital clock needed a new battery. “The tea will be cold,” he thought in dismay, glancing at his watch.
* “Fuck off.”