Clovenhoof 05 Beelzebelle Page 3

  “Taxidermy’s a fine art.”

  “At least when you were painting tiny soldiers, none of them looked like they were tripping on acid.”

  “I’m just learning, Jeremy. Each one better than the last. Look at this.”

  Ben pulled out a white rabbit skin and placed it on the counter. He smoothed it out so it looked like it had been caught unawares by a steam roller.

  “I think he’s overdone the five-two diet,” said Clovenhoof.

  “It’s a lovely pelt,” said Ben. “So soft.”

  “It’d make a lovely pair of gloves. Or a muff.”

  Ben gave him an irritable look.

  “I think this rabbit is going to have a very noble bearing. He’ll be the Alexander the Great of stuffed animals.”

  “You’ve always pictured Alexander the Great as a white rabbit?”

  “I think if I find the right pose and the right mounting materials, it could be something truly special.”

  “Special is the word that definitely springs to mind.”

  “I’m popping out to see what I can salvage from that skip on Beechmount Drive. Um.” Ben pointed at the pram. “I couldn’t help but notice…”

  “Ah,” said Clovenhoof. “Now, you’re a man of the world, aren’t you?”

  Even Ben would be the first to admit that this was not true. Not unless the ‘world’ was limited to the confines of the city of Birmingham and that world was defined in terms of taxidermy, small scale table-top warfare, old books, and takeaway menus.

  “Your wife, Jayne,” said Clovenhoof, “is currently bumming her way around the world. Where is she now?”

  “Tuvalu, I think,” said Ben.

  “But one day she’ll come back for you and she’ll want to settle down with you and have kids.”

  “Right…”

  “Well, why not get ahead of the game?” said Clovenhoof, gesturing dramatically to the pram. “What a lovely surprise it will be for her. Yours for a pittance. Four thousand quid, from one friend to another.”

  Ben put on his stern face.

  “Did you steal that, Jeremy?”

  “It was given to me. I swear.”

  Ben shook his head.

  “Then take it back,” said Ben. “Do the right thing.”

  In their flat on Cofield Road, the Archangel Michael bent down, kissed the forehead of his sleeping love, and silently slipped out of the front door. The noonday sun brought a light to the world that matched the contentment in his soul, and he offered up a brief prayer of thanks to the Almighty before setting off down towards the busy Chester Road and work.

  The last year and a bit had brought some monumental changes to his life. Yes, there had been the wholly traumatic transition from life in the Celestial City of Heaven to life in urban England. That had been deeply unpleasant, not least because he had been forced to take a flat in the same house as the Adversary, Satan himself. The following months of adapting to life as a mortal – oh, the gross anatomical processes of the human body, it had way too many orifices – had proved a true challenge to his resolve and his spirituality. But he had come through them all a stronger individual, with faith, purpose, and a totally kick-ass wardrobe.

  These had now all been put into a deeper perspective by more recent changes. Three months previously, Michael had taken up a full-time job with ARC. A month after that, he had sold the rights to his self-coded G-Sez phone app to a Korean company and used the funds to put down a deposit on a flat for himself and Andy. He had moved from the House of the Devil into a world of gentle calm in the Kingsleigh flats on Cofield Road. It was still startling to not be disturbed by the drunken antics, the yapping of Nerys’ rat-terrier, or the bamboozlingly frequent explosions in Clovenhoof’s flat. Normality had come as a surprise, and a sweet one at that.

  On Beechmount Drive, a pair of legs stuck out from a skip beside the new Consecr8 Church. There had been a lot of changes in the area recently. In an area previously dominated by old and tired-looking tower blocks, a new housing estate had sprung up with the Consecr8 Church at its heart. The pre-fab units of the ARC laboratory where Michael worked had been constructed even more recently. The hairy little legs in the skip were just the latest addition.

  Michael crossed over to inspect them. They looked too thin to be real legs. Michael wondered if someone had dumped a shop mannequin, but the demand for mannequins with hairy legs was probably very niche. Up close, Michael not only saw that the legs were quite human, but also recognised the cheap trainers.

  “Ben?”

  “A little help, please,” came the muffled reply.

  Michael stood on an upturned paint pot. He took great care to ensure that his clean shirt and trousers did not touch the filthy skip, and angled Ben’s legs round to the side so that he could sit up in the skip.

  “Let me guess,” said Michael. “You got drunk and this looked like the ideal place to sleep for the night.”

  “No,” said Ben, pulling a piece of electrical cabling from his hair. “I was scavenging for some materials to help turn a rabbit into Alexander the Great and I over-reached.”

  Michael nodded.

  “I would never have guessed that. Not in a thousand years.”

  Ben gasped uncomfortably and removed a piece of metal tubing from under himself.

  “Exactly what I need. Not seen you in a while, Michael.”

  Michael shrugged charmingly.

  “Keeping myself busy. Got the new job.” He nodded down the road. “ARC Research Company.”

  “An IT job?”

  “Genetics actually. Working with animal DNA.”

  “I didn’t know you were a scientist.”

  Ben cast about himself, evidently trying to determine how best to climb out of the skip.

  “I try to be all things to all men,” said Michael.

  Ben put his foot on the lip of the skip, put his weight on it, slipped, rolled off, and landed on the pavement like a very clumsy crab. Michael helped him up.

  “So, Alexander the Great?”

  “What? Oh. Yes, taxidermy. My new hobby.”

  Michael treated him to a condescending look.

  “Not happy to make a mockery of God’s creation of man with your little soldiers, you’ve moved onto making a mockery of his animal creations.”

  Ben brushed himself.

  “Seriously, Michael?”

  “You shall not make any graven images.”

  “And what does the Bible have to say about homosexuality, Michael?” Ben waggled his eyebrows.

  “I see what you’re doing,” said Michael haughtily. “The Bible has nothing but praise for love expressed between one man and another.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not so keen on the physical expression though, eh?”

  Michael spluttered.

  “I think it’s quite, yes, quite naïve of you to think that love and … certain acts are synony… Look. It’s not like that. In this day and age … Well, frankly, if lesbians get off scot free, I don’t see why I, that is we, that is, you know … men …”

  Ben slapped him affectionately on the upper arm.

  “Just messing with you, Michael. So what do you reckon to this place?”

  Ben jerked a thumb at the Consecr8 church behind them. The building had gone up rapidly over the past year and, although there were safety fences around parts of the site and several vehicles from C. Malarkey Construction Ltd still about the place, the church building was now complete.

  “It’s certainly an interesting building,” said Michael diplomatically. “All this wood panelling construction makes it look quite… foresty.”

  “Like a log cabin,” said Ben.

  “Yes,” said Michael. “I suppose. That’s if log cabins were shaped like bowls. Badly made bowls.” He gave up on being nice. “What is it with modern buildings these days? I’m sure buildings are meant to be bigger at the bottom than they are at the top. And what’s with all those curved walls? It must have been a devil to carpet inside.”

>   “I think it’s funky,” said Ben.

  Michael made a disapproving noise.

  “Funky is one thing but, if it’s a church, where’s the steeple? Where are the carvings of the saints? Where’s the huge image of St Michael throwing down the Great Dragon, Satan? Um, for example.”

  Ben grinned.

  “Your loyalty to St Michael’s church would do Reverend Zack proud.”

  Michael smiled back awkwardly.

  “Well, yes. Anyway, duty calls.”

  Michael headed off down the road towards the ARC module buildings and, once Ben was gone from sight, dusted down his sleeve where the grubby little man had touched him.

  Clovenhoof was not a personal fan of manual exertion. Of course, he approved of it in others, particularly if it looked arduous and pointless. He went to watch the Birmingham half marathon each year, to point and to laugh and, if no one was looking, to throw things. But he did not enjoy having to do manual work himself.

  The house on Chester Road in which he lived had three storeys. It would have been a generous family house a hundred years earlier, but was now divided into flats. Clovenhoof’s was on the first floor. The pram carrying little Beelzebelle had many exciting levers and functions but, annoyingly, none of them enabled it to carry itself up stairs. Beelzebelle giggled while he rocked, huffed, and grunted his way up and backed into flat 2a.

  “Welcome to chez Clovenhoof,” he said to the baby, between wheezes. “Bathroom’s there. Kitchen’s there. Don’t touch the Lambrini. That’s mine.” He lifted her out to give her the full tour. “Sofa. Computer in case you want some porn. Skull collection, TV. Got a selection of DVDs. All of them about me. Angel Heart. Devil’s Advocate. Constantine. Bedazzled, both versions.”

  The baby seemed unexcited, barely able to focus her attention beyond the end of her nose. Clovenhoof positioned her on his hip and steered her chin so she was facing him.

  “Listen, chuckles. I’m not exactly happy about this either. No one wants to buy you. Charity shops won’t take you. That’s your fault for not bringing your A game. Now, I’m not interested in wee babyfolk myself. I’m a lone wolf and my life is all about me, myself, and I, and I don’t need you cramping my style. Way I see it, I’m stuck with you until I can get an eBay listing up. In the meantime, you’re going to behave yourself and earn your keep by helping me score dates with broody milfs.”

  Beelzebelle patted him on the nose and dribbled.

  “Deal,” said Clovenhoof. He propped her in the corner of the sofa and turned the TV on.

  Beelzebelle immediately started to cry, an utterly unprovoked wail.

  “What?” said Clovenhoof. “But it’s Bargain Hunt!”

  He passed her the remote control. She didn’t even bother picking it up and just continued crying.

  Beautifully discordant though it was, the crying was entertaining for approximately one minute. After that, Clovenhoof was by turns bored, irritated, and annoyed.

  “Okay. Enough now,” he said.

  She didn’t stop.

  “No one’s impressed.”

  Still she continued.

  “I think this is just attention-seeking behaviour, Little Miss Beelzebelle, and you need to stop right now.”

  Clovenhoof re-evaluated his approach, went to his computer and googled ‘why won’t the bloody baby stop crying?’

  “Ah-ha. Seven reasons why your baby might be crying,” he read. “Just a process of elimination. Number one, hunger.”

  Clovenhoof went to the kitchen and came back with a bowl containing half a Findus Crispy Pancake, a packet of cheesy Wotsits and a jar of Marmite. He arranged them in front of Beelzebelle but she only paused in her crying long enough to inspect and reject each of them before setting up again.

  “Here,” said Clovenhoof and tried to push a Wotsit into her mouth. Beelzebelle recoiled and screamed.

  Clovenhoof could see what the problem was.

  “You’ve only got one tooth. Hell, girl, you’ve to cut down on the sugars or get yourself some dentures.” He thought for a minute. “I could probably steal some gnashers for you from somewhere. But for now…”

  Clovenhoof squished the Wotsits and crispy pancake with the palm of his hand until there was nothing but crumbs and mush.

  “There.”

  And still the ungrateful little creature cried on. Clovenhoof went back to the computer.

  “Oh. Milk. Breast milk.” He smacked his own forehead. “You need a wet nurse.”

  He did a quick search for ‘wet nurse’ and, when the results were unhelpful, added ‘tits for hire’. The resulting pages, though interesting, weren’t what he was after right now. He bookmarked them for later viewing and searched on. All the while, Beelzebelle wailed.

  “All right, all right,” he hissed peevishly. “I’m doing my best. It’s not like I can produce it myself.”

  He found the website and number of something called the Sutton Coldfield Union of Mums. The airy-fairy language on the webpage, all about ‘bonding’ and ‘support networks’, only confused Clovenhoof, but there was a picture of a smiling woman with a baby clasped leech-like to her breast, and that was good enough for him.

  While the phone rang, Beelzebelle’s crying got louder and louder.

  “Sandra Millet-Walker,” said the woman who answered.

  “No, I’m Jeremy Clovenhoof. I need breast milk. Do you have any?”

  “Pardon?” said the woman.

  “Breast milk. Need now. Are you lactating?”

  “Who is this?”

  Clovenhoof put his finger in his free ear to block out the baby cries.

  “I told you. I’m Jeremy Clovenhoof. I don’t know who you are. Can you help me or not? I’ve got a baby crying so hard I think it might explode. This is a five boob emergency, woman.”

  “Mr Michaels,” said a voice in Michael’s ear.

  Michael methodically and unhurriedly placed the pipettor onto the laboratory counter and tapped his earpiece.

  “What is it, Freddy?”

  “There is a lady here to see you,” said Freddy in reception.

  Michael looked at the clock. He then stripped off his latex gloves, took the phone from his lab coat pocket.

  “Little A,” he said aloud.

  “Yes Michael,” came the beautifully modulated tones of his beloved Andy from wall-mounted speakers.

  It had, he had to say, been a stroke of genius to sample Andy’s voice for the computer’s speech synthesiser. His previous voice-activated AI, Little G, had been included in the deal when he sold his app, so he had built a second generation, which had the added bonus of bringing Andy’s voice into the workplace. Michael found computer development ridiculously easy, given that it was simply a way of encoding his will upon a given environment. Such a well-defined and structured way to run things! Michael wished that humans could be more like computers.

  “Do I have any appointments today?” asked Michael.

  “No, Michael,” said Little A.

  Michael tapped his earpiece.

  “I don’t have any appointments, Freddy.”

  “She says she doesn’t have an appointment.”

  There was a faint and tinny bark in Michael’s ear.

  “Does she have a stupidly tiny and rat-like dog?” he asked.

  “She has an absolutely adorable Yorkshire Terrier called Twinkle,” said Freddy.

  “Didn’t know you were a dog-lover, Freddy.”

  “There are many facets to Freddy.”

  Michael inspected the computer next to the sequencer. The latest batch would be running for nine hours at least.

  “Tell her I’ll be there in a minute,” sighed Michael.

  The sliding doors zushed open and Michael stepped into reception.

  “Michael,” Nerys said and, standing on tiptoes, put a kiss on his handsome cheek. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Three weeks.”

  Twinkle growled at Michael’s turn-ups.

  “Are you keepin
g well?” asked Michael.

  “Work’s a bitch. My boss even more so. My life’s a rollercoaster. More of a water ride really. You?”

  “Life is beautiful and every day a gift.”

  He smiled but Nerys knew Michael’s smiles – the fake ones, the smug ones, the impatient ones. They were all masks. He did have genuine smiles but hid them as soon as he saw anyone looking.

  “So…” she said.

  “So,” he said.

  Nerys tried a smile of her own

  “Twinkle’s happy to see you.”

  “What’s he done now?” said Michael flatly.

  “Twinkle?”

  “Jeremy.”

  “Who says I was here to talk about Jeremy?” she said.

  Michael turned to Freddy.

  “I’m going out for a bit. Text me if there’s an emergency. Fire. Flood. Some of the DNA samples spontaneously turn into dinosaurs and start eating people.”

  “Could that really happen?” said Nerys.

  Michael took her by the elbow and steered her out.

  “I think it’s important you have a word with him,” said Nerys, as they pootled along in Nerys’s little car.

  “I’m sorry, this is because you saw him with a pram?” said Michael.

  “A pram today, a child tomorrow,” said Nerys. “It’s a slippery slope.”

  “Why would Jeremy want to steal a child?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nerys. “Harvest their organs. Sell them to running shoe factories in the Far East. The man is the devil incarnate. I mean, literally. You know that. I know that.”

  “I think I preferred it when you didn’t know that,” said Michael.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Nerys. “I just used to think he was a disgusting and self-centred git, but now he’s got a label. Anyway, you need to do something.”

  Nerys emphasised her point by revving the engine in frustration at the traffic lights.

  “Why me?” said Michael. “He doesn’t like me. He doesn’t listen to me.”

  “You were once the Archangel Michael,” said Nerys.

  “I still am, dear woman,” said Michael, a little wounded.