Number 9 dream Page 0,92

another daytime TV programme about how to make pep bottles into traditional dolls she is going to buy a gun. Yes, if you are wondering, she knows what happened. But the good news is, it seems she is the only person in the whole wide world who does know.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing on the news. Nothing in the papers.’

‘Impossible.’

Buntaro shrugs. ‘Lad, it never happened.’

‘It happened.’

‘Not if it didn’t happen on the news.’

‘You do believe me?’

‘Hey! I drove around all night, remember, you idiot.’

‘So everything – the guns, the explosions?’

‘Censored. Or probably cleaned up before the police even heard about it. Yakuza clean up their own shit, if only to hide how much they eat. Be grateful, lad. It gives us one less thing to worry about.’

‘But what about the pachinko manager?’

‘Who knows? Fell through a window while changing a light bulb.’

We go outside and smoke on the step. Dusk fades away. A carp plishes, now and then. I switch off the lights to keep the insects away. The frogs croak and crike. ‘What’s the difference between frogs and toads, country boy?’ asks Buntaro.

‘Toads live for ever. Frogs get run over.’

‘My taxes went on your education.’

‘Buntaro, one other thing. You remember I told you about a cat—’

‘That animal? Yeah, her and my wife are already the best of friends. Her future is guaranteed. Time to feed the fish.’ He goes inside and emerges with a box of mealy stuff that smells the same as the Hokka-Hokka take-out. We take it in turns to chuck a pinchful into the pond. Carp thresh and slurp.

‘Buntaro, I really need to thank you.’

‘Fish feed? Dirt cheap.’

‘I’m not talking about the fish feed.’

‘Oh, the cigarettes. Pay me back later.’

I give up.

HUNGRY TOWN

Mrs Comb laid her final egg for the week. She nestled it in cotton wool, placed it with the others in her wicker basket, and covered them all with a tea towel. Then she ran through her shopping list a final time: size nine knitting needle, nit lotion, Indian indigo ink, Polish polish, Zanzibar marzipan, two cans Canadian toucan candles. A knock on her boudoir door was followed by Goatwriter’s ‘Ahem’.

‘Yes, sir?’

The door creaked open and Goatwriter squinted over his glasses. ‘I believe m-market day is with us again, Mrs Comb?’

‘Aye, sir. I’m off to sell my eggs.’

‘Splendid, splendid. I sense a shocking shortage of short stories hereabouts. I thought perhaps you could take one of my volumes to the m-market, and see if a storybroker comes along. You never know. Supply, demand, and all that . . .’

‘Right you are, sir.’ Mrs Comb was sceptical, but she didn’t want to hurt Goatwriter’s feelings, so she slipped the book into her apron pocket. The door banged open and the wind sprang in. Pithecanthropus stood on the threshold, and grunted a question to Mrs Comb. ‘Aye,’ she answered, ‘I’m leaving now. And no, you can’t come with me – I don’t want you scaring away all the customers like that time in Marrakesh-under-marsh.’ Pithecanthropus grunted a favour, and opened his cupped palms at Mrs Comb. She nearly dropped her basket. ‘Worms! In my boudoir! Respectable, well-fed folk live in these parts! Nobody eats Worms! How dare you even think of putting those slimy creatures in with my lovely fresh eggs! Get away with you this instant! Lout!’

Bless my weathered feathers! thought Mrs Comb as she made her way across the blasted heath. Whatever became of this place? The landscape had once been beautiful, but now crops were dead or dying, trees stripped or ripped, and craters pocked the scorched, torched ground. Virile red-hot pokers thrusted from rusted, busted tanks through uranium shell-holes. Thistles whistled. A pipe dribbled sewage into a mire of wire. The stench made Mrs Comb cover her nose with her headscarf. ‘By ’eck!’

Suddenly the sky screamed at the top of its lungs.

Mrs Comb barely had time to shelter her precious basket of eggs and cover her ears with her wings before the sonic boom hit, blowing her apron over her head and ballooning her knickerbockers. The shock waves ebbed away. Mrs Comb peered out and got to her feet. Looking up, she saw a peculiar sight – a hippie and his psychedelic surfboard, falling out of the sky, straight towards Mrs Comb! Acting on reflex, she scooped up her basket and fluttered behind a large barrel labelled ‘Agent Orange’. The hippie hit the dirt at terminal velocity. Stones and collision noises showered from the impact crater. Mrs Comb watched the dust settle, too buffeted to say