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P006 → The Panto Horse End
After an untimely death within the back end of a pantomime horse, Marion Peel arrives in what she assumes is the local hospital but is in fact, Perpetuania, where she faces certain complicated time-travel choices concerning her future existence. See below for a short extract from the novel...
Marion sat at the window and gazed out onto a clear day. In the distance she could make out a road swooping and curving upwards, seemingly suspended by nothing. At its end, the silver Arabesques of a vast gate pierced the towering cumulous. A solitary vehicle was making its way towards Pendingville: a pristine white Citroen DS.
“Is it there, the car?” called the dinner-lady.
Marion turned towards her: “White, Citroen . . .”
“That’s it. The Boss, right on time.”
Marion finished her coffee and took the cup back.
“So, this is it, really . . . God.”
The woman nodded. “Remember – be truthful, it’s all in the notes anyway.”
After taking the lift Marion walked down a red, swirly-carpeted hallway towards the hallowed office. She felt her life passing in front of her; a million disconnected frames from a jerky, bleached film: holidays, striped wind-breaks, fish and chips in the car, rain lashing the windscreen; dancing on the school stage, applause as loud as a storm; Finley’s hand closing over hers, Octavius’s first smile . . .
The dream pictures dissolved as Marion stopped in front of the rather dull door – no gold looping numbers, no painted angels holding a sign marked: the holy one’s office. She knocked and waited, expecting a deep, calm voice to invite her in.
Instead, a reedy voice shrilled: “Miss Peel, enter, please.”
She opened the door. A diminutive grey-haired woman dressed in a pink sari stood in the middle of the room.
Marion walked over and shook the proffered delicate hand.
“But, you’re – I mean . . .”
“God, yes that's me. For the time being anyway. We take turns you see – it’s only fair. Please sit down.”
Taking a seat in the gestured, leatherette armchair, Marion looked around at the dust covered Venetian blinds, dismembered computers and biscuit packets. If she were ever to have imagined a holy office, it certainly wouldn’t have been like this. God reached into a box on the desk, took out a slim cigar and sat down. She lit up and eyed Marion thoughtfully though a curl of smoke.
“Most of last evening I studied your case. You still have work to do, but most of it can be completed on Earth, should you wish to return. Pendingville is a busy place and the rooms are much in demand. If someone, like yourself, has made good progress, they can return – under surveillance of course.”
It was a little chilly in the room. Or maybe it was just the almighty’s presence. As Marion gathered her jacket closer her fingers felt a tiny raised triangle. She glanced down and saw the meticulously mended tear. Supposing she ended up back on that stage, the sword just missing her flesh.
“Heaven is out of the picture, I gather.”
Marion mentally returned to the room. “Sorry . . . I was just recalling how I came to be here. How likely would it be that I would end up at the point I left?”
God delicately tapped her cigar into a mug and looked back at Marion. “It is possible but unless it’s somewhere you really want to return to . . . well, we have to hope another time will present itself.”
“It’s that . . . vague?”
“Time is as unknown as Jupiter’s surface, Miss Peel. We do have records that show people joining a chosen point in their Earthly life, but also many revealling a completely different entry, and occasionally encased in another being.”
“What was the oddest?”
God considered for a moment. “. . . A certain Mr Waltham who had wished to enter life at the point he won a trophy at an Arizona bowling club. He showed up as a fifty-year old grey parrot in a Grimsby pub.”
“But why?”
“Possibly because he wasn’t honest about his life. You see we know everything anyway – the point is to be truthful to yourself. He insisted on going back even though we said he wasn’t ready. You are ready – if a return is what you would like.”
Marion thought back over all her recent encounters, the revelations and new memories. Perhaps she could escape Alec eventually but if she were to enter life at an earlier point all that heartache would have to be re-endured.
“Can I ask you about Perpetuania?”
“You can but it’s not something I have great knowledge about – or interest in.”
“You – and/or the other Gods didn’t invent or construct it?”
“It’s a fairly recent development. You see we have had to recognise over time that there are many people who do not necessarily wish to return to Earthly life, are not religious but do not warrant eternal damnation either, so, Perpetuania was mooted as an alternative. Do you like animals, Mrs Smith?”
Marion started at the slightly odd question. “Yes . . . I do.”
God rested the cigar on a Present from Cleethorpes ashtray and wrote something in the book before her. ‘Good. It’s just if you do choose it as an option there are an awful lot of them there.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. We’re not overly sure why. So. Do you feel ready to make a decision?”
“Now?”
“No pressure, but if not now . . .” God glanced down at the book again and flipped through a few pages, “my next free appointment would be in five weeks-time.”
As Marion considered her words, Alec’s florid face appeared in her mind. She realised with a massive jolt that rejoining him was the last thing she wanted, or the possibility of ending up as a feathered captive in a Grimsby pub - or near equivalent. The word left her mouth. God re-trapped an escaped lock of her greying hair back behind a jewelled hairpin, picked up a fountain pen, wrote out something that looked like a prescription and stamped it with an official air. She handed it to Marion.
“Take this to room three hundred and twenty-two. You have completed all the stages very well.” The small, almost stern oval face was suddenly warm and possibly loving. “I wish you luck and much happiness.”
Marion felt an urge to run round the desk and kiss God, but it was probably not what would be expected. “Thank you,” she said neatly and stood up to leave the room. As she slipped out, Marion glanced back once more into the cluttered room.
God had replaced her ledger on the desk and was now purveying the contents of a box of chocolates as she shook her head: “Perpetuania.”