Chapter Twelve

Bobby Macula opened his eyes and blinked, wondering momentarily where he was. It was a moment which grew longer as he realised he had no idea. The soft mattress beneath him led him to believe that he might be in bed, a fact he confirmed with a quick glance down and a squeeze of the pillow under his head, but it was not a bedroom he recognised. It was a simple room, sparsely furnished, with just a bedside cabinet, a small chest of drawers, and a narrow door which may have been a wardrobe. The bed in which he lay was only a single, and the room would not have accommodated anything larger. The curtains were brown, the bedspread candlewick, and there were noticeable stains on the carpet. He was, he decided, in a cheap B & B.

As Bobby considered how he had come to be in such a place, and who might be paying for it, there was a knock at the door. Not the wardrobe door, but the wider one in the opposite wall. Unsure of who to expect, and less sure that he could be bothered to get up and find out, Bobby chose to stay where he was.

“Come in,” he called, snuggling further under the covers.

The door opened, and a man walked in holding a breakfast tray. It was Ivor Snellen. Bobby felt mildly disappointed. He’d been pinning his hopes on a French maid.

“Good morning, Mr Macula,” said Snellen. “I trust you slept well.”

“I don’t really remember,” replied Bobby. “I’m not even sure where I am.”

Snellen put the breakfast tray on the bedside cabinet, walked over to the brown curtains, and with something of a flourish, he pulled them apart. Behind them was a concrete wall.

“You’re three floors underground in the OOOH bridal suite,” he said.

“Bridal suite?” questioned Bobby. “There’s only a single bed.”

“That’s the reality of modern marriage,” replied Snellen. “You’re in the spare room.”

“How did I get here?” asked Bobby, sitting up. He looked down and saw that he was still wearing yesterday’s clothes.

“Would you believe me,” asked Snellen, “if I said you’d walked here yourself?”

Bobby swung himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Wincing, he wondered why his ankles hurt, before noticing a faint ring of bruising on both, and what appeared to be a carpet burn on his stomach.

“No,” he said, “I wouldn’t.”

“The truth is, you fainted,” said Snellen. “The existence of the D Generation was too much for your brain to handle, and you passed out.”

“I think it’s far more likely that I fell asleep through boredom,” replied Bobby.

“Well, either way,” said Snellen, “we decided to adjourn until the morning. Most of which has now passed you by. It’s eleven-thirty, and we have work to do. You’re to come with me at once to Sir Roger’s office. He has a great deal to discuss with you.”

Bobby didn’t feel that the deal on offer was likely to be that great, but having come this far, he decided to keep going. Grabbing two stale croissants from the breakfast tray, he stood up, downed a glass of orange juice, and followed Snellen out of the door, whilst considering how much time he could save in the mornings if he always slept in his clothes.

The corridor into which they emerged was typical of the Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health. Decorated in varying shades of green and red to test for colour blindness, it was long, straight, and accurately conveyed the experience of tunnel vision to all who walked down it. On the walls hung screen-printed posters of Sir Roger Logmar in various smiling poses, interspersed with sight charts and anatomical diagrams of the eye.

Up ahead, the metal handle on a door marked ‘Cleaning Supplies’ appeared to be moving, as if being turned with some force from the other side. As the two men approached, Bobby could hear knocking, and a voice, perhaps female, emanating from within.

“I take it Mavis is awake then?” he asked, in a mildly sarcastic tone.

“This is no time to be judgemental,” replied Snellen. “Miss Clutter is being well cared for. She has an important role to play in the work which lies ahead, and no one in this organisation undervalues her for one moment. We just can’t bear to talk to her. The woman could drive a deaf man insane.”

“How?”

“Lip-reading,” replied Snellen. “But that’s beside the point. Miss Clutter will be released in due course. And in the meantime, she has plenty to keep her occupied. There’s enough Ajax in that cupboard to keep a pensioner busy for weeks.”

Bobby continued to follow Ivor down the corridor. It eventually ended in a lift, which the two men took to ground level. A short walk along a similar, if more naturally lit, corridor and the pair arrived at a door. The impressive plaque mounted at head height bore the words ‘Sir Roger Logmar OBE’. Below, a slightly less impressive sticker read ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here – but it helps!’.

Snellen knocked on the door and, without waiting, opened it. Sir Roger was sitting behind a large oak desk, embossed with leather (the desk, not Sir Roger), and was on the telephone. He beckoned the two men inside, and waved them towards a couple of chairs. They did as he requested, and sat down. Bobby began eating his croissants.

“Drusen, Drusen, Drusen...” said Sir Roger, on the phone, “it’s nothing to worry about. Very common. An age thing, generally.” He paused, listening to the caller on the line. “Drusen... yes, it may very well lead Macula to D Generation, but it’s too early to tell. Call me back in an hour. Ok. Bye.”

He put the phone down.

“Your mother?” asked Snellen.

“No,” said Sir Roger, “it was Irma again.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s currently outside a church in Essex.”

“Has she found God?” asked Snellen.

“She has,” said Sir Roger. “And he’s living on a council estate in Basildon.”

“Well,” replied Snellen, “I suppose Jesus visited a leper colony.”

“Really?” said Sir Roger. “I’ve never been a fan of big cats.”

“No, lepers.”

“Snow leopards? Even worse. They’ll rip out your throat as soon as look as you, and you can’t see them coming in a blizzard.”

Ivor Snellen decided to abandon this conversation.

“So what’s the latest from the field?” he asked.

Sir Roger Logmar sat back and swung himself around a full three hundred and sixty degrees in his luxury swivel chair, before answering in a roundabout way.

“It’s not looking good,” he said. “The sooner we get ‘Operation Dead Meat’ under way, the better.”

He peered across his desk at the young retinal screener in front of him.

“And that,” he continued, “is where you come in.”

It was perhaps fortunate for the future of this vitally important mission, that Bobby Macula had been focused so entirely on the consumption of his croissants that he hadn’t paid a blind bit of notice to the words Sir Roger had spoken. Had he heard the name of the operation he was about to be asked to lead, he may not have remained quite so calm and composed. He looked up now, with a blank expression.

“Are you talking to me?” he said, unintentionally performing the finest Robert De Niro impression ever seen outside of New York.

“I am,” replied Sir Roger. “Bobby, I realise that last night’s news left you dazed and confused...”

“I didn’t faint,” he countered quickly, “I fell asleep. I saw twenty-nine patients yesterday, five of them transport, six over eighty, and one with a mental age of three. I was knackered, not flustered.”

“Whatever,” said Sir Roger. “But there’s more to this situation than we’ve so far managed to tell you.”

“I think I’ve got the gist,” replied Bobby. “SpecSavers have a creature that’s going to put me out of a job, and... what? You expect me to stop them?”

Sir Roger didn’t reply.

“Well I’m not sure I’m that bothered,” Bobby continued. “I can always retrain. You think eyes are the only thing I know? Try turtles. Crabs. Morbid obesity. I may not be an educated man, Mr Logmar, but I’ve spent a few years at the University of Life. I’ve been chucked out of the School of Hard Knocks. And I’ve learnt a thing or two. There could be any number of alternative careers open to someone like me. I’m not wed to this job. I’m wed to a bariatric monstrosity that still hasn’t divorced me. And the world, like my wife’s favourite aphrodisiac, is my oyster.”

Sir Roger looked taken aback by such an impassioned speech so early on a Friday morning, before realising it was almost lunchtime, and they’d all had a lie-in. He watched as a large flake of croissant fell from Bobby’s chin and tumbled past the carpet burn on his stomach, clearly visible through his unbuttoned, badly ironed shirt.

“With respect, Mr Macula,” he said, “you’re a mess. And not just because you slept underground in your clothes. Your career, like your shirt, is in tatters, but it’s salvageable. Your life, however, may not be. You see, the D Generation doesn’t just threaten your job, it endangers your very existence. If you decide not to act now, you may not be alive to see that new career in crabs. You’ll be as dead as a drowned tortoise.”

Bobby tensed. A wave of deeply buried, and medically unconfirmed, post-traumatic stress disorder washed over him like a river of unresolved conflict. He opened his mouth to reply, but he found it so hard to talk about. Sir Roger Logmar sensed the young man’s distress and stepped in with some words of comfort.

“Bobby,” he said, “you’re a good-for-nothing waste of space. But I can change all that. I can offer you a lifeline, relaunch your career, and above all, save your life. But you need to do something for me.”

Bobby didn’t reply. He was replaying the death scene of the Droitwich One over and over in his head.

“You see,” continued Sir Roger, “it’s not about saving careers, protecting a few jobs or propping up the NHS. Things have moved way, way beyond that. It’s now about saving the world. Or, at least, ten per cent of its population. Let me explain...”