‘Boo boo’ and further ‘Hiss’ went the audience, who could not hear the conversation. Someone threw an apple and another threw a fish.
‘Must be a party in from Surrealing,’ said Rippington. ‘Better do the trick yourself, Mr Miraculous.’
Apocalypso took deep breaths and his smile returned. ‘All right,’ said he.
‘Hold on,’ said Porrig. ‘I mean, he might get killed doing this.’
‘Dharma,’ said Rippington. ‘We’ve entered a reality in the past, where Apocalypso has not yet got fully involved with the demon-ear-whispering. You chose it, Porrig. It was your idea. To save him from the thirty years of torture.’
‘Yes, but if he gets killed, what have I saved him from?’
‘He might not die. Might you not, Apocalypso?’
The magician’s smile had a forced look about it. ‘Certainly not,’ he said in a voice that was none too convincing.
Members of the audience were standing now and a large selection of fruit and veg, socks and shoes, teabags and handbags, chimney-pots and carrycots, concertinas full of semolina and pork pies fashioned into the shape of battleships and hedgehogs were being hurled at the stage.
‘We could just bring down the curtain,’ said Porrig. ‘Leave’m wanting more, eh?’
Rippington shook his little grey head.
Apocalypso shook his larger and tanned one.
‘I wonder where this is all going to end,’ said Porrig.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ cried Apocalypso, throwing wide his hands once more and beaming at the audience. A tube of Dr Doveston’s Patent Pile Ointment sailed through the air, missed Apocalypso and caught Porrig full in the face.
‘Ouch,’ went Porrig, falling to the stage.
‘Ladies and gentlemen.My apologies to you for the slight delay in the performance. I was simply dictating my will to my colleague here.’
Porrig climbed to his feet and curtsied.
‘You look a proper pansy in those fish-net tights,’ said Rippington.
Porrig’s mum shouted from the stalls: ‘Get on with it.’
‘The act I am about to perform,’ continued the magician, dodging falls of spanner sandwiches and cheesecake, ‘has never been successfully attempted before. No-one has ever survived going into the electronic wasp-filled torture box and being lowered into the pit of flames whilst being simultaneously scorned by an Anglican Bishop for impersonating an Egyptian.’
‘Don’t like the sound of that last bit,’ said Rippington. ‘Give us a kiss.’
‘I really am having my doubts about this,’ said Porrig.
‘If I might just ask my lovely assistant Myra to assist me in a lovely manner?’
Porrig’s mum returned to the stage. ‘I rather like this cross-dressed look,’ she said to Porrig. ‘I might suggest it to my friend Marlene Dietrich, she’s looking for a new gimmick to use in her next movie.’
‘Myra,’ said Apocalypso. Myra bowed, displaying much cleavage to the audience. All throwing ceased and much cheering began.
‘Oi!’ went Porrig. ‘That’s my mu—’
‘Best keep a few secrets for yourself,’ suggested Rippington.
The lovely Myra did some more open-palm work and Apocalypso clapped his hands. Down from somewhere or other on high came a large glass case of telephone-box proportions. It descended slowly towards the stage, lowered upon sturdy chains.
‘The terrible electronic torture box,’ cried Apocalypso.
‘Oooooooooooooooooh,’ went the audience.
‘As you can see,’ Apocalypso said, ‘the torture box is constructed of glass, but for the top and the bottom, which are formed from high conductivity steel. I will enter the box from the door in the front. Taking with me these.’ He gestured stage right, and from stage right a chap appeared. He was clad in the full bee-keeper’s get-up: mask, white suit, the whole bit. And he carried before him, held at arm’s length, a small glass cabinet. From within came a mad mad buzzing, for within were many wasps.
‘Amazonian killer wasps,’ said Apocalypso.
‘Oooooooooooooooooh,’ went the audience.
‘One sting will drive a man insane with pain, two stings and . . .’ Here he drew a gloved finger across his throat. ‘Two stings are fatal. And here, in this cabinet, are one thousand wasps. Would anyone care to count them? You, perhaps, madam?’ He pointed to a lady in a straw hat.
‘No thanks,’ called the lady. ‘I’ll trust your arithmetic.’
‘Just so. And should one thousand killer wasps not do the trick, then how about this?’
The lights suddenly dimmed and the world went black. And then with a pop and a crackle and a shock, great sparkings of electricity flashed about.
The lights went up to reveal another figure on the stage: chap in a white coat this time, holding two very large cables. He brought them within two feet of each other and sparks flew like special effects in a Frankenstein movie.
‘Oooooooooooooooooh,’ went the audience once more.
‘Fifty thousand volts,’ said Apocalypso. ‘One cable will be attached to the top of the box and one to the bottom. I shall be standing between the two when the switch is thrown to complete the circuit and receive the full force of the shock.’
‘Oooooooooooooooooh,’ went the audience.
‘Have I expressed my doubts regarding this?’ said Porrig.
‘Now,’ cried Apocalypso. ‘Should the wasps not sting me to death and the voltage not turn me to jelly, how about this?’
He clapped his hands and, beneath the still dangling torture box, a trapdoor opened in the stage. From this belched fire and smoke. A regular Moloch of a blaze.
‘Oooooooooooooooooh,’ went the audience one more time.
‘Down,’ cried Apocalypso. ‘Down the torture box will be lowered. Into the fiery furnace.’
‘Hold on there,’ shouted Porrig, shielding his face from the heat of the flames. ‘This is all too much. Call this off.’
‘Boo,’ went the audience. ‘Throw that trannie off the stage.’
‘How dare you!’
Someone threw another fish. A diamond-finned loonbelly, this time. Or possibly a splay-jawed grum-doodler. Porrig ducked it, whatever it was.
‘This must be done,’ said Apocalypso to Porrig.
‘No it mustn’t.’
‘Yes it must,’ said Rippington.
‘Box into furnace,’ cried Apocalypso. ‘That indeed should finish the job.’
Audience heads bobbed up and down.
That indeed should finish anybody’s job.
‘And one more thing.’ Apocalypso held high a hand as the trapdoor closed upon the flames. ‘If all this isn’t bad enough. I shall perform this feat in this fashion.’ He drew his cape about himself, turned around in a circle, then flung his cape aside to reveal that he now was dressed in the costume of an Egyptian.
‘Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh,’ went the audience, very impressed.
‘This Egyptian stuff is quite lost on me,’ said Porrig.
Apocalypso adjusted his fez. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the bishop.’
Wild applause from the audience.Bewildered looks from Porrig.
The bishop swept onto the stage, robes all flying, mitre cocked at a more than jaunty angle. He bowed to the audience, blew kisses, winked and grinned, performed a double somersault and came to rest upon one leg with his crook held high in the air.
‘Nice crook,’ said Rippington.
‘Lost on me,’ said Porrig.
‘All right,’ Apocalypso cried. ‘I shall be mocked by the bishop, shamed by the bishop and I will enter the torture box with the killer wasps. The box will be locked, the electric cables will be attached top and bottom. At my signal the power will be switched on. I will release the wasps, the box will be lowered into the fiery furnace. And if I survive all that, I would ask that you favour me with a small round of applause.’
The audience responded with a very l
arge round.
‘Thank you.’ Apocalypso bowed, produced a key from nowhere and handed it to Myra. Myra unlocked the door of the torture box and swung it open.
The bishop camped about the stage, hoisting up his vestments and baring his bottom. ‘What a no-mark!’ he called at the magician. ‘What a useless no-mark!’
Apocalypso took the cabinet of killer wasps from the bee-keeping man and entered the torture box. Myra closed and locked the door upon him.
‘On my word,’ cried Apocalypso, ‘hook up the cables. Hook.’
The chap in the white coat stepped forward. The power had been switched off and he attached the cables top and bottom to the torture box with giant jump-lead clamps: most impressive.
‘On my word, raise the torture box. Raise.’
Chains clanked and the torture box, now trailing its mighty cables and containing Apocalypso and the cabinet of killer wasps, rose to a height some ten feet above the stage.
As the audience hadn’t ooooooooooooooooohed in a while, it had another oooooooooooooooooh now.
‘Stop this!’ shouted Porrig and was felled by a well-aimed flounder.
‘On my word, open the furnace doors. Open.’
The trapdoor in the stage opened, belching fire and smoke.
‘Oooooooooooooooooh!’
‘On the count of three I will open the wasp cabinet, the power will be switched on and the torture box lowered into the flames. I will remain there for thirty seconds, you may count them with the lovely Myra. Then the box will be raised, and you, perhaps, will applaud.’
The audience now did not ooooooooooooooooh or applaud. This looked terribly serious, terribly dangerous. This looked like suicide, really.
Porrig floundered with the flounder. ‘Somebody stop him,’ he shouted as he floundered.
Myra did open palms and showed a bit more cleavage.
The bishop waggled his bottom about and called abuse in Latin.
Rippington shook his little grey head as the bee-keeping man and the white-coat chap retired to the sides of the stage.
‘On the count of three,’ shouted Apocalypso, taking a grip on the cabinet handle. ‘One . . .’
‘No,’ said Porrig.
‘Two . . .’
‘Don’t do it,’ begged Porrig.
‘Three!’ Apocalypso tore the lid from the wasp cabinet and the insects whirled up about him in a buzzing murderous storm. Off stage the switch was thrown and the electricity tore through the torture box from top to bottom, arcing from one pole to the other. Down and slowly down went the torture box, down into the fiery pit.
Porrig covered his eyes, the crowd held its collective breath and Myra began to count.
She hadn’t got to three before it happened. There was a creak and a terrible splintering sound. Somewhere above, the winch that lowered the chains was faltering.
The fifty thousand volts that crackled through the torture box were flying also up the chains, igniting the engine that held them.
The engine graunched and one chain snapped. The torture box swung crazily, sparks flying from it, all hell and mayhem within. And then the other chain gave and the box plunged down, snapping the cables too as it fell.
Down into the fiery pit beneath.
Down into the mouth of Moloch.
Down into hell fire and damnation.
Porrig tried to leap forward, but the heat drove him back. Myra screamed and her screams were taken up by the audience. Men with fire extinguishers rushed forward from the sides of the stage to fight the flames.
‘Bring down the curtains,’ shouted someone and the curtains fell.
The auditorium was in riot. Folk fought to flee the horror, tripping and tumbling over one another.
The bishop appeared from between the curtains. ‘Please,’ he shouted. ‘Calm yourselves, please. Return to your seats. Return to your seats.’
They really should have stoned him for that. Return to your seats indeed! But they didn’t, they stopped. Became calm. They trusted this bishop; they knew him, they loved him. Which was probably why he was there.
‘There has been a slight technical problem,’ said the bishop, making calming gestures with his crook, ‘but do not panic. All will be well. Return quietly to your seats. Please.’
Behind the curtains, the fire extinguishers worked at their extinguishing. The flames were dying down and then the trapdoor closed.
‘We have to get down there.’ Porrig flapped his hands foolishly. ‘Try to get him out. See if he can be revived.’
‘Porrig,’ said Rippington. ‘Porrig.’
‘Which way?’ dithered Porrig. Which way?’
‘There’s no way, Porrig, there’s no way at all.’
‘But we must do something.’
‘He’s dead, Porrig. He could never have survived.’
‘No . . . no . . .’
Rippington patted Porrig’s stockinged leg. ‘Let it go. Get the book and let us go too. We’ve been here much too long.’
‘I can’t just leave. He’s dead. My God, he’s dead.’
‘I think he’s paid his dues. I don’t think he’s gone to the bad place again.’
‘No,’ said Porrig. ‘No.’
And then a great cheer went up from the auditorium.
‘What the devil?’
‘I think it’s the bishop,’ said Rippington. ‘Telling jokes, probably.’
‘I’ll kill him!’ Porrig rushed to the curtains and pushed his way between them.
The audience went, ‘Oooooooooooooooooh’ at his appearance.
‘Hello, darling,’ said the bishop.
‘What?’ went Porrig.
‘Would you care to waltz with a man of the cloth?’
The audience laughed.
Porrig gaped.
The bishop waggled his bottom once more. ‘Give us a kiss,’ he said.
‘I’ll punch your lights out, you…..’
‘OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!’ went the audience.
‘Hold hard,’ said the bishop. ‘No need for bad language.’
‘No need for . . .’ Porrig coughed and sputtered. ‘No need for bad language? He’s dead, you idiot. He’s dead and you say—’
‘Who’s dead?’ asked the bishop.
‘Apocalypso. Apocalypso The—’
‘Miraculous!’ cried the bishop. And he tore off his mask and he threw off his robes and then, bishop no more, it was he.
He was…
Apocalypso The Miraculous!
‘Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh,’ went the audience.
‘Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh,’ went Porrig.
20
Porrig was all ooooooooooooooooohed out by the time Apocalypso The Miraculous had taken his twenty-third curtain call and retired at last to his dressing room.
Porrig and Rippington joined him there, accepted the glasses of champagne that were offered and, along with the bee-keeping man, the chap in the white coat, the lovely Myra and the unlovely bishop, they toasted the health and skill of the great magician.
‘A raging stonker of a show,’ said the bishop, his arm about the lovely Myra’s shoulder. ‘Your best performance ever.’
‘Thank you,’ said Apocalypso. ‘My best and also my last.’
‘Come, come,’ the bishop said, his arm now round the lovely Myra’s waist. ‘You’re on your way to the very top, my boy. You could make the impossible possible. All you have to do is take that little extra step.’
Apocalypso shook his fezless head. ‘That little extra step, as you call it, is one that I shall never take.’ He smiled in the direction of Porrig. ‘You and your little friend there know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you?’
‘We do,’ said Porrig. ‘And you’re making the right decision. So how exactly do you plan to spend your retirement?’
‘I shall open a little bookshop. In Brighton, I think I have always been a great admirer of comic-book art. I will specialize in that kind of thing.’
‘Top man.??
? Porrig raised his glass. ‘Well, we have to go now,’ he said. ‘But it has been amazing to meet you. Quite amazing.’
Rippington tugged at Porrig’s trouser leg. ‘Not without the book,’ he whispered.
Apocalypso viewed the imp. ‘What did that small fellow say?’
Porrig cleared his throat. ‘We need something. Something of yours. It’s very important in the time we come from.’
‘Time?’
‘It would take far too long to explain. But we’re in big trouble where we come from and Rippington here thinks that if I were to borrow your book . . .’
‘What book?’
‘Your book of magic.’
‘The ritual?’ Apocalypso stiffened.
‘No, not that.Destroy the ritual, throw it away. Your book of stage magic. How you do your tricks.’
‘That is a great deal to ask.’
‘I suppose it is. But please tell me this: how exactly did you escape from the torture box without the aid of the ritual?’
‘Trade secret,’ said Apocalypso.
‘You are retiring,’ said Rippington. ‘We’d keep it a secret.’
‘All right then. And as you’re the only ones in the room who don’t know how it was done. But you’ll be disappointed. It was only a trick.’
Rippington climbed onto Porrig’s lap, much to Porrig’s distaste. ‘I’m sitting comfortably,’ Rippington said.
‘Then I will begin.’ Apocalypso sipped champagne and spoke through the bubbles. ‘Firstly, the absurd outfit, the fez and the sandals. Heavily insulated with rubber to spare me from electrocution. The “killer wasps” were ordinary hover flies, sprayed with iron filings to conduct the electrical charge, which instantly killed them when they were released. Now, had I actually been lowered slowly into the flames I would surely have cooked. So an accident was contrived to add an extra thrill for the audience and ensure my safety. The chains snapped by remote control, as did the cables, cutting off the power. The box plunged down between the roaring gas jets and dropped onto cushioned pads beneath the stage. I stepped out, donned bishop’s garb and a mask and returned to the stage.’
‘Incredible,’ said Porrig.
‘Thank you,’ said Apocalypso.
‘No,’ said Porrig. ‘I meant incredible as in not credible at all. I was there, I saw it close up. I don’t believe a word of that.’