Then he came, a pink man with red ambition, crushing underfoot the small things so as to accommodate the large, ambitious boots containing grubby toes.
He boasted of raising an army, of conquering worlds.
He enlisted Michael Tomatoes.
‘We should start immediately, this very hour. There is no time to waste.’
But there was all the time in the world. In Purgatory.
‘I shall re-shape the land with corpses, carpet each mountainside and dam each river until there is only one life left.’
So it was possible to die twice?
‘And you, my friend, shall record this. Your canvas shall reflect mine, and specify my glory.’
Happily ensconced in the whore’s keep, it was a commission the love apple could have done without.
Saturday.
Still no sign of Mr Unger-Farmer.
Sitting on the windowsill watching a learner driver, Michael trembled externally and shivered internally from a breakfast of tobacco and ice-cream. A puzzling mixture, he failed to recall how and when, exactly, it had seemed like a good idea.
‘S just the excitement, he thought.
The wedding reception was that afternoon.
Vanessa, in a dawn phone call, had spoken of hors d’oeuvre and appropriate dress, given the hotel rendezvous and added in a whisper, ‘Just behave yourself.’ Which he took to mean, ‘Don’t drink too much, dance with bridesmaids or spread rumours about the groom, feign a vegetative state or start any arguments.’ That she thought of him thus was disturbing. For his part he was in love with her; but then he was in love with the entire female gender. Vanessa had simply decided she liked him, which for Michael was reason enough.
A taxi pulled up. It wasn’t his. Too early. He didn’t like the look of the taxi anyway: NO FOOD OR DRINK, DO NOT SLAM DOORS, NO SMOKING, USE BOTH DOORS…the driver, cigarette in hand, had his arm out the window. Another taxi pulled up behind. After some debate a man got in the latter and three fat girls, variously made up, bounced the first.
He had an hour to kill.
‘This is my best side,’ said Ramch. ‘Don’t forget the fact.’
His horse was enormous, nostrils steaming despite the heat. Its hooves were stained red with blood. The pink man, naked atop it, held a sword that scratched the earth, its blade varying in width about a central channel, dark runes etched into the steel, one edge razor sharp, the other toothed.
Michael sketched him using a charcoal of bones and pulverised rock.