The Japanese Devil Fish Girl (25 page)

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Authors: Robert Rankin

BOOK: The Japanese Devil Fish Girl
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And that was that for George’s conversation.
 
‘Help!’ screamed George at the top of his voice. ‘Somebody help me, ple—’
 
And a native with a bone through his nose, and a catapult in his hut, for he was too young for a blowpipe, stuck an apple, or indeed the tropical equivalent thereof, right into George’s mouth, staunching further screams from the coming dinner.
 
George thrashed about as best he could, which was not much at all. It was all hurting far too greatly now to permit any lucid thought of further colloquy with the Almighty.
 
It is strange indeed what fills your head when you think that your end is near. The possibilities are almost infinite. Repentance for past transgressions. Regret for not having done the things that one should have done. Thoughts of loved ones and of hated ones. Thoughts of the unfairness of life in general. Thoughts of God in particular.
 
Though rarely enough, it might be supposed, a muse upon ‘irony’.
 
‘How damned ironic,’ went words in George’s head, for they no longer left his mouth. ‘I am hungrier now than I ever have been and I end my days as food.’
 
And there might, of course, have been a moral there, but if so it was lost upon poor George.
 
The natives continued their dinner dance, the sun shone down from on high, the jungle in its beauty rose around.
 
George did inward screamings that his misery would cease.
 
But George knew that his life was almost done.
 
 
So he missed it when the first of the natives screamed and fell to the ground. He also missed the second, third and fourth. He became aware quite shortly thereafter, though, that something odd was afoot when, howling madly, all the natives ran.
 
And he would have a vague recollection of hairy figures bounding into the village hurling coconuts. And one, who wore a salt-stained fez, hauling him from the pot.
 
 
George Fox opened wide his eyes and then beheld an angel.
 
‘Well,’ said George. ‘At least I have gone to Heaven.’
 
Or indeed he might well have said something very much like this had he been able to speak, but as there was an apple jammed into his mouth, he did not.
 
But then the apple was wrenched from his mouth and George beheld a demon. He had not reached Heaven at all, but gone to the other place.
 
The demon sniffed at the apple, then took to munching upon it. The angel, once more in George’s vision, asked, ‘George, are you all right?’
 
George did blinkings of the eyes, as anyone would do in such circumstances, then said, ‘Ada . . .’
 
Then he said no more.
 
 
When George awoke this time he found Ada’s face anxiously looking down upon his own. He became aware that he was lying on a bed of straw, within a rude mud hut. A blowpipe hung on an earthen wall, beside a shrunken head.
 
‘Ada,’ said George. ‘Ada, you are alive.’
 
‘And you also,’ said Ada. ‘Although it was touch and go.’
 
‘But how?’ asked George, and Ada told him how.
 
‘It was all too mad,’ said Ada Lovelace. ‘All too terribly mad. The horrors of the great dining hall with people being bowled about as if they were nothing at all. And you up in the air in your magic bubble – how ever was that done?’
 
But George just shook his head.
 
‘Then there was all the mad fighting over the lifeboats. People were overcrowding them and they didn’t know how to get them loose from the wreck. Now, as you know, I was well acquainted with one particular lifeboat and I made my way to it as best I could. I had it all to myself, then Darwin arrived, carrying the professor, who had been knocked unconscious. And obviously I could not leave him behind, because he is such a good man and knows what is for the best.’
 
George let this one pass without comment and Ada continued with her tale.
 
‘I released the lifeboat and rowed very hard,’ said Ada.
 
‘You rowed?’ said George.
 
‘The professor felt that it was for the best.’
 
And George Fox ground his teeth.
 
‘The lifeboat was not too crowded. There was just me, Darwin, the professor and young Master Hitler, the wine waiter.’
 
‘Ah,’ said George. ‘Well, I am so happy that he came to no harm.’
 
Ada gave George a certain look, then carried on with her tale.
 
‘It was simply awful, George,’ she said. ‘I saw you sail away into the sky and there was nothing I could do. I could only hope that you would be safe. Not a lot of people survived the crash, I don’t think. Half a dozen lifeboats full at most. I saw a lifeboat with the Venusians in and another with those fat Jovians. Laughing away like mad they were, enjoying every minute. But then the Empress sank and the storm went on for hours. When dawn came we saw the island and came ashore. Only three other lifeboats survived, I think, or perhaps the others made land on another island. We all made camp on the beach, then the professor told me that it would be for the best if I went into the jungle to forage for food. Darwin came with me and we met with a tribe of monkeys. They led us here and here we found you in the pot. Which is all of my story really – what did you think of it?’
 
‘I think I am impressed,’ said George, now sitting up and feeling at his parts. ‘I think most of it is true.’
 
‘
All
of it is true,’ said Ada, making a wounded face.
 
‘Which is why I am impressed,’ said George. ‘In the recent past you would have probably made up some far-fetched fiction.’
 
‘Well, I don’t do that any more,’ said Ada. ‘Not with you.’
 
‘And I am glad,’ said George in reply. ‘And very grateful to you for saving my life.’ And Ada gave George a bit of a hug and that really hurt poor George.
 
He was not too badly burned, though, as it happened, and this was probably due to the protective attributes of his quality suit, although it had shrunk somewhat in the cooking pot’s water and now had a music-hall look.
 
Ada served George food and drink and George was grateful for it.
 
‘Does anyone have any idea where we are?’ asked George, as he munched upon a marshmallow. ‘I do not suppose one of the sky-pilots survived with a map or a compass?’
 
‘There has been some very funny talk,’ said Ada, ‘especially amongst the Jupiterian tourists. They have maps of Earth woven into the linings of their jackets apparently, and I overhead them saying that this island is not on their maps.’
 
‘Then we are truly marooned,’ said George, drinking from half a coconut. ‘If it is not on the map then it is not near a shipping lane.’
 
‘I think that goes without saying,’ said Ada. ‘Cannibal natives do not find favour in tourist resorts. And this is very much a paradise island. Mr Thomas Cook would probably be more than happy to add it to his brochure.’
 
‘Well,’ said George, ‘looking on the bright side – and as I have been saved from a horrible death and you are with me once again, I feel I can look on the bright side – we will not starve upon this island. The natives have been able to sustain themselves and once we have dealt with them, so shall we.’
 
‘ “Dealt with them” – as in exterminate them?’ Ada queried.
 
‘You know me to be a charitable fellow,’ said George, ‘in no way racially bigoted and meaning harm to no man. But those evil fellows tried to cook me. I do not think I will mourn for their loss.’
 
‘So we should just wipe them out and take over their island?’ asked Ada.
 
‘Well.’ George paused. ‘When you put it like that—’
 
‘Oh, do not get me wrong,’ said Ada. ‘I have no problems with that at all. We might even think of salting some of them down and storing them away to be consumed at a later date.’
 
George was somewhat speechless at this and felt he was done with his dinner.
 
But there was no getting away from the fact that the prospect of life upon a paradise island with Ada Lovelace held to enormous charm. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, near as near could be. He would just have to grin and bear it while the natives were put down. It was for the common good, there was no help but to do it.
 
All will be well,
thought George to himself. And he thanked the Lord for salvation. Everything had been so brutal lately. But everything had led to him being here. Upon this beautiful island with Ada. It was clearly God’s will. What God had in mind for him. And any previous doubts he might have had throughout his short life thus far as to the existence of God had now all blown away.
 
George had become a believer.
 
George, indeed, had found God.
 
And so George had a bit of a pray and thanked his God for all. For having spared Ada from drowning and him from the cooking pot. Clearly, George concluded, it had been God’s plan all along to send George here, that he and Ada might live in the new Garden of Eden as the new Adam and Eve.
 
‘I thank you very much,’ said George to God, ‘for everything you have done for us and for providing us with this new Eden. One,’ George added, ‘superior to the first, as it lacks for the terrible serpent.’
 
‘Do I hear you praying, George?’ asked the voice of Professor Coffin.
 
27
 
‘H
ow positively wonderful to see you.’ Professor Coffin danced his little dance. ‘I feared that I had lost you for ever, but once more we are reunited. What a happy happenstance.’
 
‘Indeed,’ said George. And, ‘Yes,’ also and, ‘Indeed,’ once more.
 
‘No injuries, I trust? No permanent disfigurings?’
 
‘I am somewhat scalded but I will survive.’
 
‘Most splendid,’ cried the professor. ‘And so you must gather some sleep to your person, for tomorrow the big march begins.’
 
‘Big march?’ George asked. ‘And what big march is this?’
 
‘To the temple, young fellow. To
Her
temple.’
 
‘I am missing something,’ said George. ‘And a most substantial something, so it seems.’
 
‘Fiddle de dum diddle, thus and so.’ Professor Coffin bowed. ‘Of course, dear boy,’ he said to George, ‘you were not perhaps made privy to the topological and indeed archaeological anomalies when you were transported to this dismal village.’
 
‘They bonked me on the head,’ said George.
 
‘Quite so. You see, at the very heart of this island rises a great volcano and upon its rim rises something more – a temple, my boy – the temple of Sayito.’
 
‘That is an impossible assumption to make,’ said George. ‘It might be any old temple.’
 
‘Yes, you would think so, would you not? However, the native we captured somewhat earlier spoke the name without too much in the way of prompting.’
 
George let that one slip by. The professor clearly had quite extraordinary powers of persuasion.
 
‘So,’ said Professor Coffin, ‘we will set out with the cracking of the dawn. The burghers of Jupiter will accompany us. They apparently came to Earth to hunt tigers, and I suggested that tigers might be found in the jungles of this island.’
 
George sighed softly and shook his head.
 
‘No sadness now, my sweet fellow. Those Jupiterians will provide a sturdy guard for us, against natives and who knows whatever else.’
 
‘There is worse than natives on this island?’
 
‘The captured native seemed at first most fearful of something lurking on the slopes. But he will lead the way for us as a guide. I explained to him as best I could that I knew what was for the best.’
 
Professor Coffin wished George a good night’s sleep. He patted George kindly upon the shoulder and assured him that all would be well. ‘Tomorrow should prove to be a most exciting day,’ he said.
 
And George felt no reason to doubt this.
 
Professor Coffin departed and this time, to the accompaniment of a background din provided by many jungle beasties, George said his prayers as a good boy should and then dropped off to sleep.

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