Bobby Macula wasn’t entirely sure that the methods employed by the Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health were always what one might call ‘proper’. Witnessing the way Ivor Snellen dragged 76-year-old Mavis Clutter out of the boardroom by her ankles, he wondered to what lengths the organisation might be prepared to go if faced with a genuine foe, rather than just a little old lady who wouldn’t shut up. He supposed that a special operations unit, whether it be linked to the British Army, the US Navy or the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, would be expected to bend the rules on occasion, and he had to admit that if he was going to be pulled along the floor on his stomach for a distance of twenty metres, then there were far worse places for it to happen than the deep shag pile carpet of the OOOH boardroom, but despite that, he felt slightly uncomfortable. Mentally at least. Physically, he was loving the vibrating massage function of the reclining leather chair.
Sounds of a slight scuffle came from the corridor outside the boardroom. Evidently, Mavis was putting up a bit of a fight. Her earlier declaration that she wasn’t one of the sheeple people appeared to ring truer than Bobby could ever have imagined. She clearly wouldn’t be led like a lamb to the slaughter. Not that Bobby hoped slaughter would be on the agenda. He found the old lady irritating at times, but they’d only met a few hours ago, and it would, he felt, be a shame if she died so early in their relationship. Particularly as he hadn’t yet obtained an accurate VA.
The noise from outside died down, and Ivor Snellen re-entered the room, his hair slightly tousled, and his neck-tie skew-whiff. A damp patch on his trousers suggested that Mavis Clutter’s Lucozade may have been spilt in the commotion, but given the ‘urgent business’ Snellen had recently attended to, Bobby couldn’t be sure. Pausing to check his reflection in a glass-framed eye chart on the wall, Snellen straightened his appearance and sat down.
By now, Sir Roger Logmar had taken a position behind a small, yet grandiose podium at the front of the room. He tapped the microphone which protruded from a shelf in front of him, and, satisfied by the resulting boom that it was indeed switched on, he spoke.
“Ok,” he said. “Let’s get on with this.”
Bobby turned up the vibration control on his chair, and settled down.
“Mr Macula,” said Sir Roger, “what you are about to hear is top secret. The details of what follows are known only to me, Ivor Snellen, the entire board of the Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health, their wives, three or four mistresses, a couple of golfing buddies and the five hundred or so people we’ve already asked for help. Mr Macula, or may I call you Bobby..?”
Bobby looked doubtful.
“Bobby,” he continued, “those people all said no. Reasons varied, and now is not the time to go into the whys, the wherefores and the witch-hunts, but mostly they were just too damn busy working on their City & Guilds Diploma in Diabetic Retinopathy Screening to give two figs about our little problem.” Logmar looked rueful. “Bobby, there are a lot of damaged people out there. Good people, hard-working people, all driven to the edge of sanity by a relentless system which forces them to see patient after difficult patient, day after endless day, living their lives in permanent solitude and perpetual darkness, until they’re finally let out into the daylight for five precious minutes, only to be asked to explain why they still haven’t completed Unit 6. And just when they think the nightmare’s over, the work is done, and there’s a glint of light at the end of the long, dark tunnel, they realise it’s the 29th of the month, and they still haven’t done their online EQA grading.”
Bobby looked at his watch. “Is it Wednesday today?” he said.
“Thursday,” replied Roger.
“Dammit,” said Bobby.
“Exactly,” said Rog. “Mr Macula, you’re already failing in every possible department. The turtles of Droitwich may not have had a voice to complain, but the diabetics of East Anglia do. And the word on the street is that you’re letting down the world of retinal screening in a very big way.”
“Hang on just one moment,” Bobby retorted, “I’m not the one who’s just dragged a patient out of the room by her ankles. How dare you accuse me of letting the side down?! I spend all day, every day with pensioners, and I’ve only resorted to physical violence three, maybe four, times. Five if you include assault with a copy of the Dodson book on Diabetic Retinopathy. And frankly that’s too small to do any damage. Snellen here spends a couple of hours with one old lady, and he’s already getting out the knuckle-dusters.”
“I didn’t, Sir,” remarked Snellen, jumping in. “They remained in my pocket at all times. And you can check the cupboard next door – the snooker ball in a sock is still behind the emergency glass.”
“It’s ok, Ivor,” replied Roger, “nobody’s pointing the finger at either of you. We all know that sometimes the rules need to be bent a little. Who amongst us can honestly say that they’ve never skipped the VA of a patient with leg ulcers, just to get them out of the room, and then put on the notes that they didn’t speak English?”
Bobby and Snellen looked blank. “Just me then?” said Sir Roger. “Well, I’m making no apologies. That woman stank.”
“I think, Sir,” interrupted Snellen, “that if I may be so bold, we are straying slightly from the matter in hand. Mr Macula still has no idea why he’s here.”
“Is this some kind of disciplinary hearing?” asked Bobby.
“No,” replied Sir Roger. “Quite the opposite. This is a chance to redeem yourself, Bobby. To wipe the slate clean. To perform a full infection-control wipe-down on your career. Your indiscretions are many, but they’re not the end of the world. Our problem, however, might be. We don’t care that you don’t clean the chin rest after each patient, that you write down every visual acuity score as 6/9 just to save time, that you’ve been working on Unit 7 of the City & Guilds Diploma for eighteen months now and you still haven’t taken the online exam. All we care is that you’re a Retinal Screener, and you’ve got time on your hands.”
“Time on my hands?” questioned Bobby. “I’ve got a full book of patients tomorrow. I’m working all day in a remote clinic. Well ok, not all day. I’ve phoned the last six patients of the afternoon, told them the camera’s broken, and rebooked them into my colleague’s clinic, but that’s standard procedure for a Friday. I like to go bowling.”
“It’s ok, Mr Macula,” replied Sir Roger. “We’ve dealt with that.”
“You mean you’ve spoken to my boss?”
“In a roundabout way.”
“Meaning..?”
“We phoned the local paper and told them you’d stolen some Semtex and joined a jihad in the Middle East. Your boss will be reading the news in the morning. Trust me, he won’t be expecting you in work tomorrow. As far as he’s concerned, you’re halfway to Kabul with a suitcase full of explosives.”
“Oh,” said Bobby. “And that’s a good thing?”
“It is,” replied Roger. “And in a manner of speaking, it’s true. We do want you to wage war in the Middle East. The middle east of Essex. Basildon, to be exact.”
Bobby looked doubtful. “And what’s in it for me?” he enquired.
“The respect of Retinal Screeners past, present and future,” replied Sir Roger. “Plus all the tropicamide you can carry.”
“And,” Snellen chipped in, “a chap like you could carry quite a lot.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Bobby.
Snellen looked sheepish. “I don’t know,” he replied.
Bobby sighed. The room was silent, save for the gentle hum of a vibrating massage function. “Ok,” he said, after a few seconds. “Tell me all about it.”
Sunday, 7 November 2010
Chapter Five
As Bobby Macula was fond of telling people, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Unless the person you're trying to impress has amnesia, in which case you might get a second go. This time, however, the rule held true. As Bobby stepped out of the limousine into the cold white light of the underground parking area, he couldn't help feeling let down by the sight which met his eyes.
He'd never heard of the Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health and, in the darkness, he'd missed the fearsome etching of a stoat on the door, but despite that, he had certain expectations. Expectations which remained unmet. He'd anticipated a modern and spacious car park. What he found was a cramped garage with a chest freezer and a DIY workbench. Bottles of white spirit and antifreeze sat on a shelf which ran along the opposite wall at an angle that could scarcely be described as parallel to the floor. Although the floor itself didn't appear horizontal.
As Bobby stood surveying the scene with a sense of disappointment, Snellen was busy tapping numbers into a keypad by a metal door to the right. A bleep signalled that the code had been accepted, and a click that the door had unlocked.
"Come on," he said, looking over at Bobby.
A voice came from the back seat of the car, its owner hidden by the tinted windows.
"Can someone help me with my seatbelt?" said the voice. "I can't find the button."
Bobby opened the back door of the limo. Mavis Clutter was fiddling with the cigarette lighter in a vain attempt to release herself.
"Here," said Bobby, reaching over and depressing the red button at the base of the belt. "And don't forget your bag."
Mavis gathered her belongings and clambered out of the car, taking the hand that Bobby reluctantly chose to offer. She looked at her surroundings.
"Well this is very nice," she said, taking off her coat. "Where can I hang this?"
Bobby tensed. Three hours in the back of a heated limo, and not a word. Five seconds in a cool garage and she was stripping off already. He felt like punching her in the face, throwing her into the chest freezer and jumping on the lid until she agreed to put her coat on. But he'd already been impulsive once that day, and he had to draw the line somewhere.
"Here," he said, a momentary wave of pity, if not guilt, washing over him. "I'll carry it."
Bobby took the old lady's coat, stepped over a bag of charcoal briquettes, and walked across to the open door. Mavis Clutter followed him, her walking stick hooked over one arm, handbag over the opposite shoulder, reading glasses dangling from a chain around her neck. She paused momentarily to sip Lucozade from an artificial hip flask hidden in the pocket of her bay cardigan, then continued on past the freezer.
Ivor Snellen checked his watch impatiently, then turned the handle of the metal door, which swung open on well-oiled hinges. Checking that his companions were following, he stepped through the doorway, and was instantly enveloped in darkness.
* * *
As people were fond of telling Bobby Macula, first impressions could be deceptive. The Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health may have had the parking facilities of a pensioner, but it had the boardroom of an international conglomerate and the computing power of NASA. From his leather-clad chair at one end of the large glass-topped table that dominated the boardroom, Bobby felt certain that, should it be required, he would be fully capable of hiring, firing, ordering coffee and launching a manned mission to Mars, all without leaving his seat. Time would tell which, if any, of those actions he would be asked to perform, but Bobby was a realist, so if pushed, he'd have put money on the coffee.
Numerous touch-sensitive computer displays were embedded in the glass table-top, one for each person the table could seat, and, Bobby estimated, it could seat at least thirty. It would, he concluded, make the perfect location for a class of school children out on a day trip to learn about the heady world of business and undercover ophthalmology. Although he kept this opinion to himself on the grounds that it may not be strictly relevant.
Two large plasma screens were mounted on the wall at one side of the room, from where they beamed out a surprisingly jolly animated screensaver of a singing squirrel. Speakers were mounted at either side, but to Bobby's disappointment, they appeared not to be switched on. From the expression on the squirrel's face, however, he felt confident that the song in question was either ‘She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain’, or something by Coldplay.
A sound interrupted Bobby’s thoughts. It was the sound of Mavis Clutter dropping Polo mints onto the glass table-top. The two of them had been seated at that table, facing the plasma screens, for what felt like an eternity, but was in reality only five minutes. Time dragged when your only entertainment was musical vermin.
The room in which they sat was four floors below ground level, and they were alone. Ivor Snellen had escorted them down in the lift, accompanied them to the door, pointed them to their seats, and told them he would return shortly after seeing to some urgent business. The sound of flushing from the next room suggested that this business had been attended to, and sure enough, a few seconds later, Snellen returned.
“Mr Macula, Miss Clutter, sorry to have kept you,” he said, walking over to the boardroom table. “I expect you’d both like to know what you’re doing here. I realise it’s been a day of unexpected occurrences, and you both deserve an explanation.”
Mavis turned to Bobby. “Is he talking to us, love?” she asked.
Bobby nodded. Snellen continued.
“As I intimated earlier,” he said, “we have a problem. Not just us at the Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health - ”
“The what?” queried Mavis.
“This place,” Bobby clarified.
“- but this entire nation,” Snellen continued, “and perhaps the world.”
He paused, possibly waiting for a sharp intake of breath, a horrified gasp, or even a round of applause. He received none. Mavis yawned.
“To explain further, I would like to introduce you to a very important person. The head of this organisation. The CEO. The President. The Big Cheese himself. Yes, you’ve heard about him in ophthalmology clinics up and down the country, you’ve seen his picture hanging in high street opticians, you’ve heard his monthly glaucoma phone-ins on the BBC World Service, and now you’re about to meet him in person. Mr Macula, Miss Clutter, please put your hands together for the one, the only, the Mr Big of undercover eyecare, Sir Roger Logmar.”
Bobby and Mavis both put their hands together. Mavis to stifle another yawn, Bobby to pray that he hadn’t made a terrible mistake by agreeing to leave his retinopathy screening clinic and drive halfway across the country to meet a man he’d never heard of.
The door opened in silence. Bobby expected to see tumbleweed enter and roll across the room. Instead, a man walked in. A surprisingly short man in glasses. Ivor Snellen bowed in front of him, and then offered a hand, which the man shook in a manner which suggested he might be a Freemason.
“Good evening,” said the man, nodding towards Bobby and Mavis. “My name is Sir Roger Logmar. I’m the head of this organisation. The CEO. The Pres-”
“We know,” interrupted Bobby.
“Good,” said the knight.
“Who did you say you are?” added Mavis.
“I’m the man who might just change your life,” replied Roger.
“Are you feet?” asked Mavis. “Because these arthritic spurs are playing merry hell with my heels, and just between you and me, I’m not sure these fit-flops are helping.”
Roger sensed that he might be losing his audience early on. He decided to leave questions for later, and press on with the matter in hand.
“My friends,” he said, “I need to address you both on a most serious matter.”
“Is it waterworks?” added Mavis.
“No -”
“Wigs?”
“If you’ll just -”
“You’ll not get me near a flu jab again, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Mavis firmly. “All that nonsense about it not giving you flu – you must think I came down in the last shower. One needle and I was chesty for weeks. And as for that swine flu – put me off bacon for a fortnight. No, I’m putting my foot down here. And that’s not as easy as it used to be. Don’t get me started on my corns, they’ll be the death of me, and I’ve told them that till I’m blue in the face. But will they listen? Will they buggery. No, this time it’s not up for discussion. I’ll take my chances with the germs, thank you very much. You save your concoctions for the simple folk. Try it out on this young doctor chap here -”
She motioned towards Bobby. He looked back, confused.
“- he’s a bit light on his feet, probably used to a few diseases, he’ll not mind a few sniffles, but me – I’m fine as I am, don’t you worry, and that’s the long and the short of it, subject closed. You can chit-chat to me about colds until the cows come home, but believe you me, I’m not one of your wet-behind-the-ears do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do, sheeple people.”
Sir Roger Logmar looked across at Ivor Snellen.
“Just get her out of here,” he said.
He'd never heard of the Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health and, in the darkness, he'd missed the fearsome etching of a stoat on the door, but despite that, he had certain expectations. Expectations which remained unmet. He'd anticipated a modern and spacious car park. What he found was a cramped garage with a chest freezer and a DIY workbench. Bottles of white spirit and antifreeze sat on a shelf which ran along the opposite wall at an angle that could scarcely be described as parallel to the floor. Although the floor itself didn't appear horizontal.
As Bobby stood surveying the scene with a sense of disappointment, Snellen was busy tapping numbers into a keypad by a metal door to the right. A bleep signalled that the code had been accepted, and a click that the door had unlocked.
"Come on," he said, looking over at Bobby.
A voice came from the back seat of the car, its owner hidden by the tinted windows.
"Can someone help me with my seatbelt?" said the voice. "I can't find the button."
Bobby opened the back door of the limo. Mavis Clutter was fiddling with the cigarette lighter in a vain attempt to release herself.
"Here," said Bobby, reaching over and depressing the red button at the base of the belt. "And don't forget your bag."
Mavis gathered her belongings and clambered out of the car, taking the hand that Bobby reluctantly chose to offer. She looked at her surroundings.
"Well this is very nice," she said, taking off her coat. "Where can I hang this?"
Bobby tensed. Three hours in the back of a heated limo, and not a word. Five seconds in a cool garage and she was stripping off already. He felt like punching her in the face, throwing her into the chest freezer and jumping on the lid until she agreed to put her coat on. But he'd already been impulsive once that day, and he had to draw the line somewhere.
"Here," he said, a momentary wave of pity, if not guilt, washing over him. "I'll carry it."
Bobby took the old lady's coat, stepped over a bag of charcoal briquettes, and walked across to the open door. Mavis Clutter followed him, her walking stick hooked over one arm, handbag over the opposite shoulder, reading glasses dangling from a chain around her neck. She paused momentarily to sip Lucozade from an artificial hip flask hidden in the pocket of her bay cardigan, then continued on past the freezer.
Ivor Snellen checked his watch impatiently, then turned the handle of the metal door, which swung open on well-oiled hinges. Checking that his companions were following, he stepped through the doorway, and was instantly enveloped in darkness.
As people were fond of telling Bobby Macula, first impressions could be deceptive. The Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health may have had the parking facilities of a pensioner, but it had the boardroom of an international conglomerate and the computing power of NASA. From his leather-clad chair at one end of the large glass-topped table that dominated the boardroom, Bobby felt certain that, should it be required, he would be fully capable of hiring, firing, ordering coffee and launching a manned mission to Mars, all without leaving his seat. Time would tell which, if any, of those actions he would be asked to perform, but Bobby was a realist, so if pushed, he'd have put money on the coffee.
Numerous touch-sensitive computer displays were embedded in the glass table-top, one for each person the table could seat, and, Bobby estimated, it could seat at least thirty. It would, he concluded, make the perfect location for a class of school children out on a day trip to learn about the heady world of business and undercover ophthalmology. Although he kept this opinion to himself on the grounds that it may not be strictly relevant.
Two large plasma screens were mounted on the wall at one side of the room, from where they beamed out a surprisingly jolly animated screensaver of a singing squirrel. Speakers were mounted at either side, but to Bobby's disappointment, they appeared not to be switched on. From the expression on the squirrel's face, however, he felt confident that the song in question was either ‘She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain’, or something by Coldplay.
A sound interrupted Bobby’s thoughts. It was the sound of Mavis Clutter dropping Polo mints onto the glass table-top. The two of them had been seated at that table, facing the plasma screens, for what felt like an eternity, but was in reality only five minutes. Time dragged when your only entertainment was musical vermin.
The room in which they sat was four floors below ground level, and they were alone. Ivor Snellen had escorted them down in the lift, accompanied them to the door, pointed them to their seats, and told them he would return shortly after seeing to some urgent business. The sound of flushing from the next room suggested that this business had been attended to, and sure enough, a few seconds later, Snellen returned.
“Mr Macula, Miss Clutter, sorry to have kept you,” he said, walking over to the boardroom table. “I expect you’d both like to know what you’re doing here. I realise it’s been a day of unexpected occurrences, and you both deserve an explanation.”
Mavis turned to Bobby. “Is he talking to us, love?” she asked.
Bobby nodded. Snellen continued.
“As I intimated earlier,” he said, “we have a problem. Not just us at the Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health - ”
“The what?” queried Mavis.
“This place,” Bobby clarified.
“- but this entire nation,” Snellen continued, “and perhaps the world.”
He paused, possibly waiting for a sharp intake of breath, a horrified gasp, or even a round of applause. He received none. Mavis yawned.
“To explain further, I would like to introduce you to a very important person. The head of this organisation. The CEO. The President. The Big Cheese himself. Yes, you’ve heard about him in ophthalmology clinics up and down the country, you’ve seen his picture hanging in high street opticians, you’ve heard his monthly glaucoma phone-ins on the BBC World Service, and now you’re about to meet him in person. Mr Macula, Miss Clutter, please put your hands together for the one, the only, the Mr Big of undercover eyecare, Sir Roger Logmar.”
Bobby and Mavis both put their hands together. Mavis to stifle another yawn, Bobby to pray that he hadn’t made a terrible mistake by agreeing to leave his retinopathy screening clinic and drive halfway across the country to meet a man he’d never heard of.
The door opened in silence. Bobby expected to see tumbleweed enter and roll across the room. Instead, a man walked in. A surprisingly short man in glasses. Ivor Snellen bowed in front of him, and then offered a hand, which the man shook in a manner which suggested he might be a Freemason.
“Good evening,” said the man, nodding towards Bobby and Mavis. “My name is Sir Roger Logmar. I’m the head of this organisation. The CEO. The Pres-”
“We know,” interrupted Bobby.
“Good,” said the knight.
“Who did you say you are?” added Mavis.
“I’m the man who might just change your life,” replied Roger.
“Are you feet?” asked Mavis. “Because these arthritic spurs are playing merry hell with my heels, and just between you and me, I’m not sure these fit-flops are helping.”
Roger sensed that he might be losing his audience early on. He decided to leave questions for later, and press on with the matter in hand.
“My friends,” he said, “I need to address you both on a most serious matter.”
“Is it waterworks?” added Mavis.
“No -”
“Wigs?”
“If you’ll just -”
“You’ll not get me near a flu jab again, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Mavis firmly. “All that nonsense about it not giving you flu – you must think I came down in the last shower. One needle and I was chesty for weeks. And as for that swine flu – put me off bacon for a fortnight. No, I’m putting my foot down here. And that’s not as easy as it used to be. Don’t get me started on my corns, they’ll be the death of me, and I’ve told them that till I’m blue in the face. But will they listen? Will they buggery. No, this time it’s not up for discussion. I’ll take my chances with the germs, thank you very much. You save your concoctions for the simple folk. Try it out on this young doctor chap here -”
She motioned towards Bobby. He looked back, confused.
“- he’s a bit light on his feet, probably used to a few diseases, he’ll not mind a few sniffles, but me – I’m fine as I am, don’t you worry, and that’s the long and the short of it, subject closed. You can chit-chat to me about colds until the cows come home, but believe you me, I’m not one of your wet-behind-the-ears do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do, sheeple people.”
Sir Roger Logmar looked across at Ivor Snellen.
“Just get her out of here,” he said.
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Chapter Four
The creature closed all three of its mouths, and chewed. Blood trickled slowly from the corner of its central maw, like Ribena leaking through the decayed teeth of a spoilt toddler. The sound of gently cracking bones accompanied the stretching and tearing of sinew, gristle and, most notably, lycra, as the creature feasted. A flash of white appeared briefly between leathery lips – lips which smacked with satisfaction after every bite. Was it a tooth? A shard of bone? No. It was a size five stiletto.
A radio played nearby. The voice of Ken Bruce could be heard reacting with both surprise and delight as the current Secretary of State for Health chose the tracks of her years, and expressed a lifelong, and hitherto undeclared, desire to play PopMaster. The creature exhaled in a dismissive manner, and looked at the clock on the wall. It wouldn’t be long now until Jeremy Vine.
Heaving its weighty body onto all five of its legs, the creature stood up and plodded across the room, inadvertently kicking a roughly spherical object which lay on the floor nearby. The object rolled across the room, its matted hair leaving a trail of liquid red behind it. The object came to rest against the step of a low stage, nose in the air, eyes wide with vacant terror, black roots belying the owner’s true hair colour. The brain inside that severed head may have been used infrequently during life, but would be put to good use now.
Reaching down, the creature picked up the lifeless noggin and cracked it against the corner of a nearby bar, like a bleached blonde egg on the edge of a mixing bowl. Probing the resulting fissure with one tentacled digit, it extracted the contents and stuffed them into the third of its mouths. A mere snack, but a fine delicacy nonetheless.
Grasping the head by its hair and dangling the object like a well worn supermarket bag-for-life, the creature paused to survey the scene. It was morning, but the room was dimly-lit. Windows were set in the wall opposite, but blacked out with three layers of dark paint, light entering only through thinly scratched out letters bearing the initials of their author, and his love for an equally unidentified woman. ‘P.G 4 L.K.’ read one. Another testified that its author had a large private part and was not afraid to use it.
The bar which had served as a convenient nutcracker was cluttered with empty glasses and bottles which sat amongst small puddles of foul-smelling liquid and cigarette ash. Across from the bar stood a sound system and mixing desk. Between them a dance floor. Above, the ceiling was lined with coloured spotlights and silver mirrorballs. An electrically illuminated glass sign, now sadly in darkness, was mounted on the wall to one side. In a faux handwriting style designed to convey both casual elegance and simple class (neither of which it achieved), it read quite simply “Raquel’s”.
The creature took a step towards the blackened windows, possibly to examine the phone number of the prodigiously endowed visitor who had made his mark earlier. As it did so, a bent sheet of metal fell from its largest mouth, as though involuntarily spat out by a digestive system which had chosen to reject it as inedible. The creature looked down as the heavy metal hit the dance floor. It remembered devouring the object, but not why, or how. On some primitive level, however, its reappearance seemed to be a sign. An indication of the journey the creature had undertaken. How far it had come. And, perhaps, where it was going. The sheet of metal bore three words: ‘Welcome to Essex’.
Pausing no longer, the creature raised its leftmost hand and held the disembodied head aloft, its owner’s ashen face bleached of colour like the peroxide highlights with which it was grasped. Facing the lifeless expression of horror that visage bore, the creature looked directly into the head’s vacant eyes, and a smile spread slowly across its leathery lips. The lips parted, and with a tone that lay somewhere between condescension, pity and sheer unadulterated pleasure, the creature spoke:
“IRMA...”
A radio played nearby. The voice of Ken Bruce could be heard reacting with both surprise and delight as the current Secretary of State for Health chose the tracks of her years, and expressed a lifelong, and hitherto undeclared, desire to play PopMaster. The creature exhaled in a dismissive manner, and looked at the clock on the wall. It wouldn’t be long now until Jeremy Vine.
Heaving its weighty body onto all five of its legs, the creature stood up and plodded across the room, inadvertently kicking a roughly spherical object which lay on the floor nearby. The object rolled across the room, its matted hair leaving a trail of liquid red behind it. The object came to rest against the step of a low stage, nose in the air, eyes wide with vacant terror, black roots belying the owner’s true hair colour. The brain inside that severed head may have been used infrequently during life, but would be put to good use now.
Reaching down, the creature picked up the lifeless noggin and cracked it against the corner of a nearby bar, like a bleached blonde egg on the edge of a mixing bowl. Probing the resulting fissure with one tentacled digit, it extracted the contents and stuffed them into the third of its mouths. A mere snack, but a fine delicacy nonetheless.
Grasping the head by its hair and dangling the object like a well worn supermarket bag-for-life, the creature paused to survey the scene. It was morning, but the room was dimly-lit. Windows were set in the wall opposite, but blacked out with three layers of dark paint, light entering only through thinly scratched out letters bearing the initials of their author, and his love for an equally unidentified woman. ‘P.G 4 L.K.’ read one. Another testified that its author had a large private part and was not afraid to use it.
The bar which had served as a convenient nutcracker was cluttered with empty glasses and bottles which sat amongst small puddles of foul-smelling liquid and cigarette ash. Across from the bar stood a sound system and mixing desk. Between them a dance floor. Above, the ceiling was lined with coloured spotlights and silver mirrorballs. An electrically illuminated glass sign, now sadly in darkness, was mounted on the wall to one side. In a faux handwriting style designed to convey both casual elegance and simple class (neither of which it achieved), it read quite simply “Raquel’s”.
The creature took a step towards the blackened windows, possibly to examine the phone number of the prodigiously endowed visitor who had made his mark earlier. As it did so, a bent sheet of metal fell from its largest mouth, as though involuntarily spat out by a digestive system which had chosen to reject it as inedible. The creature looked down as the heavy metal hit the dance floor. It remembered devouring the object, but not why, or how. On some primitive level, however, its reappearance seemed to be a sign. An indication of the journey the creature had undertaken. How far it had come. And, perhaps, where it was going. The sheet of metal bore three words: ‘Welcome to Essex’.
Pausing no longer, the creature raised its leftmost hand and held the disembodied head aloft, its owner’s ashen face bleached of colour like the peroxide highlights with which it was grasped. Facing the lifeless expression of horror that visage bore, the creature looked directly into the head’s vacant eyes, and a smile spread slowly across its leathery lips. The lips parted, and with a tone that lay somewhere between condescension, pity and sheer unadulterated pleasure, the creature spoke:
“IRMA...”
Friday, 5 November 2010
Chapter Three
The Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health was a well hidden institution. Even for people with good eyesight. Many had walked past its unassuming entrance, but few had given the place a second glance, and fewer still had ever dared to venture inside. Those who were tempted, were ultimately discouraged by a faded, yet strangely intimidating sign on the old oak door which read, quite simply, ‘Beware of the Stoat’. The menacing creature depicted below was, in fact, a weasel, but few knew the difference. Especially without glasses.
The building’s unwelcoming design was deliberate. The Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health was not a public institution, not a clinic, not even a professional body for those involved in the various branches of eye care. It was a special operations unit. A shadowy, undercover team of troubleshooters, operating under the radar of the National Health Service, and beyond the jurisdiction of any medical association. Its work was veiled in secrecy, as was its membership. Few even knew of its existence, although myths and legends abounded. The name of the Office was whispered in hushed tones amongst the higher echelons of ophthalmology, and to this day, eye surgeons, registrars and retinal consultants could occasionally be found huddled together in the corners of dimly lit rooms, quietly whispering that one forbidden word: “OOOH...”
For those who knew where to look (and there were few who did), the headquarters of OOOH could be found in a quiet backstreet, not far from the main Oxford branch of Lidl. It was a seven storey building, two of which were above ground, the others being constructed below the surface, partly in an effort to maintain secrecy, but mainly to keep the rooms dark enough for eye tests. There were no external signs declaring the nature of the building, or of those who worked inside. Grey men in black suits with brown shoes and read newspapers could occasionally be seen entering through side doors at odd hours, but nothing and no one ever aroused suspicion. The colourful clientele of the neighbouring Lidl provided a useful distraction from the nondescript men and women frequenting the office block nearby.
A large and reassuringly expensive black car with tinted windows was now speeding through the streets of Oxford, making for that building. At the wheel was Ivor Snellen. In the passenger seat, Bobby Macula.
Snellen turned to Bobby momentarily, and spoke. “Do you know Oxford at all?” he said. “Did you go to college here, by any chance?”
“I didn’t attend university,” Bobby said. “I was out there in the real world. Working hard. Earning a living. Feeding turtles.”
“I thought a degree was a requirement for most screening programmes?” said Snellen.
Bobby answered matter-of-factly. “A degree,” he said, “much like the notion of honesty in a job interview, is merely ‘desirable’.”
“I see,” came the curt response.
Silence followed the brief exchange. Bobby still felt somewhat shell-shocked to find himself in that car. Three hours earlier, he’d been quietly conducting a retinopathy screening clinic in the heart of East Anglia. How he’d come to agree to abandon both that clinic and his patients, and climb into the car of a man he’d met just minutes earlier, he had no idea. He suspected that the mysterious Ivor Snellen may have used some form of powerful and instant hypnosis on him, although, if he was honest, he’d always been easily led. As a child, he’d entered the homes of many strangers, and rarely found the puppies and kittens they’d promised to show him.
He should, perhaps, have learnt his lesson by now, but there was a part of Bobby which had always felt there was more to life. Something out there which he’d never quite discovered, and never fully seen, which was always just out of reach. He wasn’t quite sure how to find that special something, but he had a feeling that if it was ever going to be attainable, it would require some degree of risk-taking, of spontaneity, of impulsion. It would require him to stand up and be counted. To throw caution and convention to the wind. To say ‘Yes! To hell with common sense, I WILL come in to see your puppies!’. Although, with hindsight, he regretted saying that to Ivor Snellen in a hospital waiting room.
Nevertheless, it was that impulsive decision which had brought him to Oxford. That, and the black limo of Ivor Snellen. Bobby looked up. An illuminated sign appeared on the horizon, like the glorious light at the end of a long, dark tunnel, growing ominously larger as the vehicle sped towards it. The sign read ‘Lidl’.
“Almost there now,” said Snellen.
Bobby breathed deeply, a slight flutter of nervous excitement growing in his stomach. He didn’t know what lay ahead (apart from the Oxford branch of Lidl), but he had a feeling it might just change his life. If nothing else, he was going to be in trouble for walking out of a clinic without wiping down the surfaces and signing the infection control record. He wasn’t even sure he’d shut down the computer. There was, he decided, a very real chance that he might never be able to return.
Bobby resolved to live in the moment. The future was as uncertain as it could ever be, and the past was unchangeable. He’d made that impulsive decision, and he had to live with it. For now, he told himself, he would simply have to take things as they come. He took another deep breath and examined the interior of the car, attempting to ground himself by focusing on the minutiae of his surroundings. The leather trim, the walnut dash, the green Christmas tree air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror. His eyes moved slowly from one to the next. The ivory gearstick knob, the leopard-print steering wheel cover, the grey-haired old lady eating barley sugars in the back seat.
Bobby shook his head despairingly and turned to Ivor Snellen. “I still can’t believe you brought her along.”
“You talking about me, love?” said Mavis Clutter from the back seat.
Bobby ignored her. “I thought I was the only one who could help with this matter of grave importance?”
“You are,” replied Snellen. “But I felt she might come in useful. She has...” He paused for a moment before continuing. “... abilities that you and I don’t.”
Bobby found that hard to believe, but he said nothing. The car swung left into a narrow backstreet, and Snellen brought the vehicle to a halt. Pressing a button on the dashboard, a light began to flash, and a grey garage door in the side of the building next to them slowly rolled upwards. Snellen waited for it to open to its fullest extent, then drove the car inside and turned off the engine.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The building’s unwelcoming design was deliberate. The Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health was not a public institution, not a clinic, not even a professional body for those involved in the various branches of eye care. It was a special operations unit. A shadowy, undercover team of troubleshooters, operating under the radar of the National Health Service, and beyond the jurisdiction of any medical association. Its work was veiled in secrecy, as was its membership. Few even knew of its existence, although myths and legends abounded. The name of the Office was whispered in hushed tones amongst the higher echelons of ophthalmology, and to this day, eye surgeons, registrars and retinal consultants could occasionally be found huddled together in the corners of dimly lit rooms, quietly whispering that one forbidden word: “OOOH...”
For those who knew where to look (and there were few who did), the headquarters of OOOH could be found in a quiet backstreet, not far from the main Oxford branch of Lidl. It was a seven storey building, two of which were above ground, the others being constructed below the surface, partly in an effort to maintain secrecy, but mainly to keep the rooms dark enough for eye tests. There were no external signs declaring the nature of the building, or of those who worked inside. Grey men in black suits with brown shoes and read newspapers could occasionally be seen entering through side doors at odd hours, but nothing and no one ever aroused suspicion. The colourful clientele of the neighbouring Lidl provided a useful distraction from the nondescript men and women frequenting the office block nearby.
A large and reassuringly expensive black car with tinted windows was now speeding through the streets of Oxford, making for that building. At the wheel was Ivor Snellen. In the passenger seat, Bobby Macula.
Snellen turned to Bobby momentarily, and spoke. “Do you know Oxford at all?” he said. “Did you go to college here, by any chance?”
“I didn’t attend university,” Bobby said. “I was out there in the real world. Working hard. Earning a living. Feeding turtles.”
“I thought a degree was a requirement for most screening programmes?” said Snellen.
Bobby answered matter-of-factly. “A degree,” he said, “much like the notion of honesty in a job interview, is merely ‘desirable’.”
“I see,” came the curt response.
Silence followed the brief exchange. Bobby still felt somewhat shell-shocked to find himself in that car. Three hours earlier, he’d been quietly conducting a retinopathy screening clinic in the heart of East Anglia. How he’d come to agree to abandon both that clinic and his patients, and climb into the car of a man he’d met just minutes earlier, he had no idea. He suspected that the mysterious Ivor Snellen may have used some form of powerful and instant hypnosis on him, although, if he was honest, he’d always been easily led. As a child, he’d entered the homes of many strangers, and rarely found the puppies and kittens they’d promised to show him.
He should, perhaps, have learnt his lesson by now, but there was a part of Bobby which had always felt there was more to life. Something out there which he’d never quite discovered, and never fully seen, which was always just out of reach. He wasn’t quite sure how to find that special something, but he had a feeling that if it was ever going to be attainable, it would require some degree of risk-taking, of spontaneity, of impulsion. It would require him to stand up and be counted. To throw caution and convention to the wind. To say ‘Yes! To hell with common sense, I WILL come in to see your puppies!’. Although, with hindsight, he regretted saying that to Ivor Snellen in a hospital waiting room.
Nevertheless, it was that impulsive decision which had brought him to Oxford. That, and the black limo of Ivor Snellen. Bobby looked up. An illuminated sign appeared on the horizon, like the glorious light at the end of a long, dark tunnel, growing ominously larger as the vehicle sped towards it. The sign read ‘Lidl’.
“Almost there now,” said Snellen.
Bobby breathed deeply, a slight flutter of nervous excitement growing in his stomach. He didn’t know what lay ahead (apart from the Oxford branch of Lidl), but he had a feeling it might just change his life. If nothing else, he was going to be in trouble for walking out of a clinic without wiping down the surfaces and signing the infection control record. He wasn’t even sure he’d shut down the computer. There was, he decided, a very real chance that he might never be able to return.
Bobby resolved to live in the moment. The future was as uncertain as it could ever be, and the past was unchangeable. He’d made that impulsive decision, and he had to live with it. For now, he told himself, he would simply have to take things as they come. He took another deep breath and examined the interior of the car, attempting to ground himself by focusing on the minutiae of his surroundings. The leather trim, the walnut dash, the green Christmas tree air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror. His eyes moved slowly from one to the next. The ivory gearstick knob, the leopard-print steering wheel cover, the grey-haired old lady eating barley sugars in the back seat.
Bobby shook his head despairingly and turned to Ivor Snellen. “I still can’t believe you brought her along.”
“You talking about me, love?” said Mavis Clutter from the back seat.
Bobby ignored her. “I thought I was the only one who could help with this matter of grave importance?”
“You are,” replied Snellen. “But I felt she might come in useful. She has...” He paused for a moment before continuing. “... abilities that you and I don’t.”
Bobby found that hard to believe, but he said nothing. The car swung left into a narrow backstreet, and Snellen brought the vehicle to a halt. Pressing a button on the dashboard, a light began to flash, and a grey garage door in the side of the building next to them slowly rolled upwards. Snellen waited for it to open to its fullest extent, then drove the car inside and turned off the engine.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Chapter Two
Bobby Macula had been a retinal screener for three of his thirty-four years. Although it felt much longer. He'd previously fed turtles in a professional capacity at the Droitwich Sea Centre, before a tragic accident involving a drowned tortoise forced his premature retirement. Having scratched out a living for six months as a travelling sailsman on a yacht in the North Sea, he'd come across an advert in the ship's recycling bin for a 'Retinal Screener', and decided to apply.
That life-changing decision was based largely on a mis-reading of the word 'Retinal'. He'd long had a secret (and, he felt, entirely healthy) love of ladies' bottoms, and felt that the ideal job for him would be some kind of backside work, possibly involving lingerie or spanking. He was willing to start at the bottom and stay there. Unfortunately, having consulted careers advisors and spoken to staff at numerous branches of Jobcentre Plus, he’d come to realise that opportunities in such a field were strictly limited, if not non-existent. He’d put this down largely to the inherent sexism of the job market, and the longstanding prejudices faced by men working in women’s underwear. He’d eventually learnt to accept the situation and move on. Until, that is, he had his Road to Damascus experience.
The ‘Road to Damascus’ was a fishing trawler operating out of the small Norfolk town of Cromer. As a young man, Bobby had caught crabs there, but he’d quickly learnt his lesson, and now avoided the nightclubs, choosing instead to stick strictly to the quayside. Following his drowned tortoise experience, which he still found it hard to talk about, he had retreated to the coast with a self-diagnosed case of post traumatic stress disorder.
At the time, Bobby had been happily married to a young lady named Fatima. They’d met on an internet dating site, where Fatima had described herself as both “bubbly” and “curvy”. Ordinarily, Bobby would have taken that description as a strong indicator of morbid obesity, but having received an e-mail from his future bride, he decided that no one who topped the scales at more than thirty stone would dare to use the name Fatima. They’d be more likely to adopt a moniker that implied ‘thin’, and call themselves Lizzy. So he took a chance and replied.
By the time they met in person, and Bobby had seen her being lifted off the back of a pick-up truck in a hoist, it was too late. Love had blossomed, and whilst his head told him it could never work, his heart insisted that if he put a lock on the fridge, and kept Pizza Hut’s number off the speed dial, then everything would be ok.
And so it proved. For a while at least. Bobby left for the Droitwich Sea Centre every morning at seven, and returned home nine hours later, his pockets stuffed with sardines, to find Fatima propped up on the reinforced sofa, surrounded by empty crisp packets and microwave meals for four. The microwave oven sat on the coffee table in a permanent state of over-heating, as Fatima spent her days making convenience foods as convenient as possible. The fridge in the TV unit had been her master-stroke. She’d welcome Bobby home with an excited round of applause, as he lovingly tossed dead fish into her gaping mouth.
They’d married six months later after Bobby had got down on one knee to retrieve some Hula Hoops from under the sofa, and Fatima had misunderstood the situation. The wedding took place at a service station just off the M5, with convenient access to both the south-west of England, and a branch of McDonalds that was willing to cater for thirty guests.
Cracks soon started to appear, however, most notably in Fatima’s resolve to lose weight. Bobby was a tolerant man, but as a connoisseur of ladies’ bottoms, he found it difficult being married to a woman who couldn’t roll over without an electric hoist and a large plank of wood for leverage. Spontaneity in their sex life was as lacking as celery on their shopping list.
Ironically, it wasn’t Bobby who ended the marriage, it was Fatima. The day of the tortoise drowning was a turning point in their relationship. Fatima never fully appreciated the extent of her husband’s mental suffering (perhaps because he found it so hard to talk about), preferring to concentrate instead on the decrease in the number of fish he started bringing home. When Bobby expressed his belief that he might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Fatima’s response that “It was only a tortoise – get over it” was enough to send Bobby into a downward spiral. His subsequent decision to take voluntary redundancy from the world of turtle husbandry was greeted with horror by his wife, who’d run up substantial debts with numerous pizza delivery firms and could see no way out. Mainly because she struggled to fit through the door.
The final straw had come three weeks later when, in a desperate cry for help, Bobby had told his wife that he felt like an empty, lifeless shell. Fatima’s response of “Now you know how the tortoise feels” failed to raise his spirits in quite the way she expected, and when her husband had finished weeping tears of sorrow into a tin of pilchards for eight hours straight, she decided that enough was enough, and asked him to leave.
Bobby did so the next day, having done the decent thing and paid off the fast food bailiffs in full. He left Fatima with a takeaway menu, a cordless phone and a hundred pounds in cash. The money, he figured, wouldn’t last more than a day, but the fat reserves would keep her going for months. He walked out of Droitwich, and never returned.
A few weeks later, he found himself in Cromer. He didn’t know how, or indeed why he’d come to be there. A feeling he shared with most residents of Cromer. He suspected it was a deep-seated longing to recapture the carefree days of his youth, and to be close to the sea creatures he’d spent so much of his life caring for. In reality it just happened to be the end of the line for the National Express coach he’d fallen asleep on.
Fatefully, he now felt, he’d landed a job on the ‘Road to Damascus’, primarily because he’d been the only person to apply, and took up a life on the high seas. Unlike most trawlers in the North Sea, the ‘Road to Damascus’ rejected the notion of fast engines and powerful motors, and chose instead to rely on a single PVC sail. As a result, it was the most spectacularly unsuccessful member of the Cromer fishing fleet, and rarely caught more than a keep-net of sprats. Had Bobby expected to be paid, he would have found that the job fell short of his expectations.
As it was, the post-traumatic stress disorder, whilst unconfirmed by any doctor, meant that the only thing of importance to Bobby was to feel the wind in his hair, and smell the fragrance of fish under his nose. Nothing else mattered. He spent his days floating aimlessly across Cromer harbour, wondering how the rigging worked, whilst nibbling crabsticks and drinking rainwater.
Until, that is, the day he emptied the ship’s recycling bin. Bobby was as green as the next man, so he only did it once every six months, but when he did, it changed his life. A copy of the East Anglian Daily Times lay at the bottom, partially soaked in salt water, vinegar, and tomato ketchup. It was open at a double page spread of job vacancies, and there, at the top, in an unoriginal yet functional typeface, were the words ‘Retinal Screener’. A small piece of batter obscured the middle three letters of the first word, and thus, the die was cast.
Glossing over the rest of the advert, Bobby’s brain, fired by an unbridled bottom obsession, read the word as ‘Rectal’, saw an opportunity, and within hours, his application was in the post. If he was honest with himself, he did wonder why, three weeks later at the resulting interview, the man behind the National Health Service desk kept mentioning eyes, but he took it to be a slight speech impediment and assumed the chap meant ‘arse’. He’d heard the NHS was less formal these days.
His sheer enthusiasm had landed him the job, and by the time he learnt the truth, it didn’t matter: it had given him a reason for living, helped him move on, and finally banished the tortoise-related (and medically unconfirmed) post traumatic stress disorder he’d found so hard to talk about.
Three years later, there he was: in a small room in a large hospital, facing a short man with a long face. The man spoke:
“My name’s Ivor Snellen,” he said. “Mr Macula, I need to speak to you on a matter of grave importance.”
Bobby looked back at him, unflinching. “I’ve told you people before,” he said. “I don’t want to buy a headstone. I’m going to be cremated, and have my ashes scattered off the north Norfolk coast to nourish the plankton and support future generations of sea turtles. You’re wasting your time, mate. Now take this, and start reading at the top of the chart.”
Bobby tried to hand him the pinhole occluder. Ivor Snellen declined. “I mean a very serious matter,” he said. “And I’ve told you, I’m not one of your patients. I pulled strings at the highest level of the National Screening Programme in order to get this appointment, and a chance to speak to you in private, Mr Macula.”
“You should have just turned up,” replied Bobby. “I’ve had six DNAs since 9:30. I could have fitted you in any time. Especially if you don’t need drops.”
“Mr Macula, I’m not diabetic,” said Snellen sternly.
“That’s what they all say,” came the reply.
Snellen reached inside his jacket and withdrew a folded sheet of A4 paper from a concealed pocket. “I foresaw such an eventuality,” he said, offering the piece of paper to Bobby. “Here, take it. That document details the results of more than twenty blood tests covering the past five years. You’ll see that my HbA1c has never been above five.”
“You could be on tablets.”
“Mr Macula,” said Snellen with a tone of irritability, “I’ve been sitting in that waiting room for the past hour without once running to the toilet. I’m clearly not on Metformin. If you want me to take my clothes off so that you can check for needle marks, or lock me in a cupboard for twenty-four hours to see if I hypo, I’m sure that could be arranged. But I think we’d both be a lot better off if you simply took my word for it.”
Bobby shrugged. “Whatever you say,” he muttered. “So what’s this important thing you need to talk to me about? Have you seen a floater or something?”
“Mr Macula,” replied Snellen in a sombre, yet urgent tone of voice, “the diabetics of this country are about to face the most diabolical foe they have ever encountered.”
“McDonalds?” said Bobby.
Snellen ignored him. “It is an enemy so powerful, so heinous, and so potentially devastating to all concerned, that it threatens lives, careers, and the very future of retinopathy screening as we know it. For the sake of this great nation, and indeed all the nations of the world, it must be stopped, right now, before it is too late. And you, Bobby Macula, are the only man who can help us.”
Bobby looked taken aback. “Why me?” he asked.
Ivor Snellen fixed him with an intense stare, and then paused momentarily, as if a few seconds silence was required to fully comprehend the gravity of his message. His face like granite, his eyes unblinking, he swallowed once before answering:
“Because we’ve asked everyone else, and they all said no.”
That life-changing decision was based largely on a mis-reading of the word 'Retinal'. He'd long had a secret (and, he felt, entirely healthy) love of ladies' bottoms, and felt that the ideal job for him would be some kind of backside work, possibly involving lingerie or spanking. He was willing to start at the bottom and stay there. Unfortunately, having consulted careers advisors and spoken to staff at numerous branches of Jobcentre Plus, he’d come to realise that opportunities in such a field were strictly limited, if not non-existent. He’d put this down largely to the inherent sexism of the job market, and the longstanding prejudices faced by men working in women’s underwear. He’d eventually learnt to accept the situation and move on. Until, that is, he had his Road to Damascus experience.
The ‘Road to Damascus’ was a fishing trawler operating out of the small Norfolk town of Cromer. As a young man, Bobby had caught crabs there, but he’d quickly learnt his lesson, and now avoided the nightclubs, choosing instead to stick strictly to the quayside. Following his drowned tortoise experience, which he still found it hard to talk about, he had retreated to the coast with a self-diagnosed case of post traumatic stress disorder.
At the time, Bobby had been happily married to a young lady named Fatima. They’d met on an internet dating site, where Fatima had described herself as both “bubbly” and “curvy”. Ordinarily, Bobby would have taken that description as a strong indicator of morbid obesity, but having received an e-mail from his future bride, he decided that no one who topped the scales at more than thirty stone would dare to use the name Fatima. They’d be more likely to adopt a moniker that implied ‘thin’, and call themselves Lizzy. So he took a chance and replied.
By the time they met in person, and Bobby had seen her being lifted off the back of a pick-up truck in a hoist, it was too late. Love had blossomed, and whilst his head told him it could never work, his heart insisted that if he put a lock on the fridge, and kept Pizza Hut’s number off the speed dial, then everything would be ok.
And so it proved. For a while at least. Bobby left for the Droitwich Sea Centre every morning at seven, and returned home nine hours later, his pockets stuffed with sardines, to find Fatima propped up on the reinforced sofa, surrounded by empty crisp packets and microwave meals for four. The microwave oven sat on the coffee table in a permanent state of over-heating, as Fatima spent her days making convenience foods as convenient as possible. The fridge in the TV unit had been her master-stroke. She’d welcome Bobby home with an excited round of applause, as he lovingly tossed dead fish into her gaping mouth.
They’d married six months later after Bobby had got down on one knee to retrieve some Hula Hoops from under the sofa, and Fatima had misunderstood the situation. The wedding took place at a service station just off the M5, with convenient access to both the south-west of England, and a branch of McDonalds that was willing to cater for thirty guests.
Cracks soon started to appear, however, most notably in Fatima’s resolve to lose weight. Bobby was a tolerant man, but as a connoisseur of ladies’ bottoms, he found it difficult being married to a woman who couldn’t roll over without an electric hoist and a large plank of wood for leverage. Spontaneity in their sex life was as lacking as celery on their shopping list.
Ironically, it wasn’t Bobby who ended the marriage, it was Fatima. The day of the tortoise drowning was a turning point in their relationship. Fatima never fully appreciated the extent of her husband’s mental suffering (perhaps because he found it so hard to talk about), preferring to concentrate instead on the decrease in the number of fish he started bringing home. When Bobby expressed his belief that he might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Fatima’s response that “It was only a tortoise – get over it” was enough to send Bobby into a downward spiral. His subsequent decision to take voluntary redundancy from the world of turtle husbandry was greeted with horror by his wife, who’d run up substantial debts with numerous pizza delivery firms and could see no way out. Mainly because she struggled to fit through the door.
The final straw had come three weeks later when, in a desperate cry for help, Bobby had told his wife that he felt like an empty, lifeless shell. Fatima’s response of “Now you know how the tortoise feels” failed to raise his spirits in quite the way she expected, and when her husband had finished weeping tears of sorrow into a tin of pilchards for eight hours straight, she decided that enough was enough, and asked him to leave.
Bobby did so the next day, having done the decent thing and paid off the fast food bailiffs in full. He left Fatima with a takeaway menu, a cordless phone and a hundred pounds in cash. The money, he figured, wouldn’t last more than a day, but the fat reserves would keep her going for months. He walked out of Droitwich, and never returned.
A few weeks later, he found himself in Cromer. He didn’t know how, or indeed why he’d come to be there. A feeling he shared with most residents of Cromer. He suspected it was a deep-seated longing to recapture the carefree days of his youth, and to be close to the sea creatures he’d spent so much of his life caring for. In reality it just happened to be the end of the line for the National Express coach he’d fallen asleep on.
Fatefully, he now felt, he’d landed a job on the ‘Road to Damascus’, primarily because he’d been the only person to apply, and took up a life on the high seas. Unlike most trawlers in the North Sea, the ‘Road to Damascus’ rejected the notion of fast engines and powerful motors, and chose instead to rely on a single PVC sail. As a result, it was the most spectacularly unsuccessful member of the Cromer fishing fleet, and rarely caught more than a keep-net of sprats. Had Bobby expected to be paid, he would have found that the job fell short of his expectations.
As it was, the post-traumatic stress disorder, whilst unconfirmed by any doctor, meant that the only thing of importance to Bobby was to feel the wind in his hair, and smell the fragrance of fish under his nose. Nothing else mattered. He spent his days floating aimlessly across Cromer harbour, wondering how the rigging worked, whilst nibbling crabsticks and drinking rainwater.
Until, that is, the day he emptied the ship’s recycling bin. Bobby was as green as the next man, so he only did it once every six months, but when he did, it changed his life. A copy of the East Anglian Daily Times lay at the bottom, partially soaked in salt water, vinegar, and tomato ketchup. It was open at a double page spread of job vacancies, and there, at the top, in an unoriginal yet functional typeface, were the words ‘Retinal Screener’. A small piece of batter obscured the middle three letters of the first word, and thus, the die was cast.
Glossing over the rest of the advert, Bobby’s brain, fired by an unbridled bottom obsession, read the word as ‘Rectal’, saw an opportunity, and within hours, his application was in the post. If he was honest with himself, he did wonder why, three weeks later at the resulting interview, the man behind the National Health Service desk kept mentioning eyes, but he took it to be a slight speech impediment and assumed the chap meant ‘arse’. He’d heard the NHS was less formal these days.
His sheer enthusiasm had landed him the job, and by the time he learnt the truth, it didn’t matter: it had given him a reason for living, helped him move on, and finally banished the tortoise-related (and medically unconfirmed) post traumatic stress disorder he’d found so hard to talk about.
Three years later, there he was: in a small room in a large hospital, facing a short man with a long face. The man spoke:
“My name’s Ivor Snellen,” he said. “Mr Macula, I need to speak to you on a matter of grave importance.”
Bobby looked back at him, unflinching. “I’ve told you people before,” he said. “I don’t want to buy a headstone. I’m going to be cremated, and have my ashes scattered off the north Norfolk coast to nourish the plankton and support future generations of sea turtles. You’re wasting your time, mate. Now take this, and start reading at the top of the chart.”
Bobby tried to hand him the pinhole occluder. Ivor Snellen declined. “I mean a very serious matter,” he said. “And I’ve told you, I’m not one of your patients. I pulled strings at the highest level of the National Screening Programme in order to get this appointment, and a chance to speak to you in private, Mr Macula.”
“You should have just turned up,” replied Bobby. “I’ve had six DNAs since 9:30. I could have fitted you in any time. Especially if you don’t need drops.”
“Mr Macula, I’m not diabetic,” said Snellen sternly.
“That’s what they all say,” came the reply.
Snellen reached inside his jacket and withdrew a folded sheet of A4 paper from a concealed pocket. “I foresaw such an eventuality,” he said, offering the piece of paper to Bobby. “Here, take it. That document details the results of more than twenty blood tests covering the past five years. You’ll see that my HbA1c has never been above five.”
“You could be on tablets.”
“Mr Macula,” said Snellen with a tone of irritability, “I’ve been sitting in that waiting room for the past hour without once running to the toilet. I’m clearly not on Metformin. If you want me to take my clothes off so that you can check for needle marks, or lock me in a cupboard for twenty-four hours to see if I hypo, I’m sure that could be arranged. But I think we’d both be a lot better off if you simply took my word for it.”
Bobby shrugged. “Whatever you say,” he muttered. “So what’s this important thing you need to talk to me about? Have you seen a floater or something?”
“Mr Macula,” replied Snellen in a sombre, yet urgent tone of voice, “the diabetics of this country are about to face the most diabolical foe they have ever encountered.”
“McDonalds?” said Bobby.
Snellen ignored him. “It is an enemy so powerful, so heinous, and so potentially devastating to all concerned, that it threatens lives, careers, and the very future of retinopathy screening as we know it. For the sake of this great nation, and indeed all the nations of the world, it must be stopped, right now, before it is too late. And you, Bobby Macula, are the only man who can help us.”
Bobby looked taken aback. “Why me?” he asked.
Ivor Snellen fixed him with an intense stare, and then paused momentarily, as if a few seconds silence was required to fully comprehend the gravity of his message. His face like granite, his eyes unblinking, he swallowed once before answering:
“Because we’ve asked everyone else, and they all said no.”
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Chapter One
Bobby Macula picked up his pinhole occluder and walked slowly to the door of his dimly-lit room. Glancing at his clipboard, he looked up at the waiting room full of people and called out in a loud, yet tired voice.
“Gladys Smith?”
Fourteen people stared back at him in a manner which suggested he was speaking in a foreign language.
“Gladys Smith?” he repeated. Still nothing. He tried a different tack. “Is there anyone here for retinopathy screening?”
A middle-aged woman stood up. “Is that feet?” she said.
“No,” replied Bobby. The woman sat down. He looked at the sea of blank faces. “Diabetic retinopathy screening. Any takers?”
Fourteen people shook their heads. Bobby looked down at the next name on his list.
“Mavis Clutter?”
A lady in her seventies stopped shaking her head and stood up. “Do come in, Mrs Clutter,” said Bobby, gesturing towards the open door.
“It’s Miss Clutter, young man,” said the lady. “Are you married yourself?”
“Yes, I am,” he replied.
“Really?” she said.
“Yes,” he insisted.
“Well, it just goes to show,” she said, taking her coat off, “there’s someone for everyone”.
“Can I ask your date of birth?” enquired Bobby, hoping he’d got the wrong patient.
“One, two, three, four,” she said, like a toddler with a handful of sweets.
Bobby looked at his list. First of February, 1934. “That’s easy to remember,” he said.
“Just because I’m 75, doesn’t mean I’ve lost my marbles.”
“You’re 76.”
“And I’ve still got it up here,” she said, tapping her temple. “Now, where can I hang my coat?”
Bobby bristled. “You’ve been sitting quite happily in that waiting room for twenty minutes with your coat on. You don’t need to take it off now.”
“I like to be comfortable.”
“You’ll be two minutes. Put up with it”.
“I’ll put it up here then,” she said, pushing past the desk, and reaching for a hook on the wall. “Is this the x-ray machine?”
She prodded the fundus camera with her finger, leaving a large smudge on the lens. Bobby mentally shot her through the heart with a crossbow.
“Just take a seat over there, Miss Clutter,” he said.
The woman did as she was told, before deciding that to be truly comfortable, she’d need to remove her cardigan too. And hang it up. On the other side of the room. Before taking a different seat. By the time Bobby had wrestled her into the correct chair, and forced the occluder into her hand, she’d begun her maiden speech.
“I do get watery eyes a lot,” she said. “I presume that’s the cataracts, is it? And I’ve noticed that when I wear my reading glasses, I can’t see the TV so well. I expect that’s age. Do you think I should go for that laser eye surgery? The girl I saw last year – where’s she gone? She told me I had some kind of leak at the back of the eye. The right one I think. Could have been the left. I see that sometimes when I look at the sun. It’s like a fly darting across my vision. My husband sees it too.”
“I thought you weren’t married?” Bobby interjected. The woman ignored him.
“I’ll tell you one thing, though,” she continued. “Lucozade. Does you the power of good. Got to keep your blood sugars up when you have diabetes, otherwise it’s coma time. And you know what that means?” She drew a finger across her throat and made a sound like the Elephant Man slurping tea from a saucer. “Curtains,” she finished.
“Let’s hope so,” replied Bobby. “Now hold this, and start reading at the top of the chart.”
“Which chart?”
“The chart over there. The side that’s lit up.”
“I can’t see any chart.”
Bobby looked at her. “Keep both eyes open,” he said, helpfully.
“Do you know,” said Mavis, lowering the occluder from her nose, “I think I can see better without this thing.”
“I know,” replied Bobby, “that’s the point. Keep it there. And read out the letters.”
She peered through the hole. “I can see all of those, love,” she said.
“Just read them out for me.”
“I can read right to the bottom.”
“Just start at the top.”
“T.”
“Keep going...”
“It’s a bit misty after that.”
Bobby sighed. “Do you wear glasses?”
“Only for driving.”
“And have you got them with you?”
“They’re outside in the car,” she said.
“You didn’t drive to this appointment, did you?” asked Bobby. “The letter does state that you shouldn’t drive. The eye drops will make your vision blurry for a few hours.”
“It’s ok, dear,” she replied, “those drops don’t affect me. I find I can see better afterwards. I expect that’s the glaucoma, is it?”
Bobby ignored her and flipped down the pinhole attachment. “Try it through the little holes,” he said. “Is the chart any clearer?”
“No,” came the response.
“Try it first before you say that.”
“I’ve told you,” she replied, “it’s clearer without your plastic spectacles”.
Bobby took back the occluder and wrote 6/9 on his clipboard. There were advantages to working alone. “Ok,” he continued, “I’ll give you a couple of eye drops now...”
“I know, dear, I know. I’ve been doing this since 1975. First time I’ve seen a man though. Not that I’m prejudiced. Homosexuals have to work too. Of course, in my day, you were all locked up. But I’m willing to move with the times. You give me your eye drops and we’ll get on with the x-rays.”
Bobby wasn’t listening. He was mentally kicking her corpse with steel-capped boots and going through her pockets for money. Outwardly he smiled.
“You might feel this sting a bit,” he said. Here’s hoping, he thought.
* * *
Two minutes later, Mavis Clutter was back in the waiting room with onion eyes, garlic breath and the hood of her coat over her face. Bobby had told her it would help her pupils dilate.
Standing by his computer desk, Bobby cleaned the lens of the camera with a cloth which was at least 60% grease, before picking up his clipboard and making his way back to the door of his room. Eighteen faces looked up at him.
“Ivor Snellen?” he called.
A middle-aged man in dark glasses rose to his feet. “Hmmm...” thought Bobby. “Blind, uncool, or just trying to avoid the eye drops?”
He smiled politely. “Do step this way, Mr Snellen.”
Bobby retreated into his room. The man followed, and closed the door. He turned to look at the screener in front of him, then lowered both his glasses and his voice, and spoke in a darkly menacing tone.
“Bobby Macula,” he said. “I’m not one of your patients”.
Bobby met his cold, steely gaze with eyes that could have penetrated a dense fruitcake, and responded in the only way he knew. “Podiatry’s the next door along,” he said.
The man ignored him. “I’m from the Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health,” he continued.
“Oooh,” said Bobby.
“That’s us,” said the man. “Mr Macula, we need your help.”
“Gladys Smith?”
Fourteen people stared back at him in a manner which suggested he was speaking in a foreign language.
“Gladys Smith?” he repeated. Still nothing. He tried a different tack. “Is there anyone here for retinopathy screening?”
A middle-aged woman stood up. “Is that feet?” she said.
“No,” replied Bobby. The woman sat down. He looked at the sea of blank faces. “Diabetic retinopathy screening. Any takers?”
Fourteen people shook their heads. Bobby looked down at the next name on his list.
“Mavis Clutter?”
A lady in her seventies stopped shaking her head and stood up. “Do come in, Mrs Clutter,” said Bobby, gesturing towards the open door.
“It’s Miss Clutter, young man,” said the lady. “Are you married yourself?”
“Yes, I am,” he replied.
“Really?” she said.
“Yes,” he insisted.
“Well, it just goes to show,” she said, taking her coat off, “there’s someone for everyone”.
“Can I ask your date of birth?” enquired Bobby, hoping he’d got the wrong patient.
“One, two, three, four,” she said, like a toddler with a handful of sweets.
Bobby looked at his list. First of February, 1934. “That’s easy to remember,” he said.
“Just because I’m 75, doesn’t mean I’ve lost my marbles.”
“You’re 76.”
“And I’ve still got it up here,” she said, tapping her temple. “Now, where can I hang my coat?”
Bobby bristled. “You’ve been sitting quite happily in that waiting room for twenty minutes with your coat on. You don’t need to take it off now.”
“I like to be comfortable.”
“You’ll be two minutes. Put up with it”.
“I’ll put it up here then,” she said, pushing past the desk, and reaching for a hook on the wall. “Is this the x-ray machine?”
She prodded the fundus camera with her finger, leaving a large smudge on the lens. Bobby mentally shot her through the heart with a crossbow.
“Just take a seat over there, Miss Clutter,” he said.
The woman did as she was told, before deciding that to be truly comfortable, she’d need to remove her cardigan too. And hang it up. On the other side of the room. Before taking a different seat. By the time Bobby had wrestled her into the correct chair, and forced the occluder into her hand, she’d begun her maiden speech.
“I do get watery eyes a lot,” she said. “I presume that’s the cataracts, is it? And I’ve noticed that when I wear my reading glasses, I can’t see the TV so well. I expect that’s age. Do you think I should go for that laser eye surgery? The girl I saw last year – where’s she gone? She told me I had some kind of leak at the back of the eye. The right one I think. Could have been the left. I see that sometimes when I look at the sun. It’s like a fly darting across my vision. My husband sees it too.”
“I thought you weren’t married?” Bobby interjected. The woman ignored him.
“I’ll tell you one thing, though,” she continued. “Lucozade. Does you the power of good. Got to keep your blood sugars up when you have diabetes, otherwise it’s coma time. And you know what that means?” She drew a finger across her throat and made a sound like the Elephant Man slurping tea from a saucer. “Curtains,” she finished.
“Let’s hope so,” replied Bobby. “Now hold this, and start reading at the top of the chart.”
“Which chart?”
“The chart over there. The side that’s lit up.”
“I can’t see any chart.”
Bobby looked at her. “Keep both eyes open,” he said, helpfully.
“Do you know,” said Mavis, lowering the occluder from her nose, “I think I can see better without this thing.”
“I know,” replied Bobby, “that’s the point. Keep it there. And read out the letters.”
She peered through the hole. “I can see all of those, love,” she said.
“Just read them out for me.”
“I can read right to the bottom.”
“Just start at the top.”
“T.”
“Keep going...”
“It’s a bit misty after that.”
Bobby sighed. “Do you wear glasses?”
“Only for driving.”
“And have you got them with you?”
“They’re outside in the car,” she said.
“You didn’t drive to this appointment, did you?” asked Bobby. “The letter does state that you shouldn’t drive. The eye drops will make your vision blurry for a few hours.”
“It’s ok, dear,” she replied, “those drops don’t affect me. I find I can see better afterwards. I expect that’s the glaucoma, is it?”
Bobby ignored her and flipped down the pinhole attachment. “Try it through the little holes,” he said. “Is the chart any clearer?”
“No,” came the response.
“Try it first before you say that.”
“I’ve told you,” she replied, “it’s clearer without your plastic spectacles”.
Bobby took back the occluder and wrote 6/9 on his clipboard. There were advantages to working alone. “Ok,” he continued, “I’ll give you a couple of eye drops now...”
“I know, dear, I know. I’ve been doing this since 1975. First time I’ve seen a man though. Not that I’m prejudiced. Homosexuals have to work too. Of course, in my day, you were all locked up. But I’m willing to move with the times. You give me your eye drops and we’ll get on with the x-rays.”
Bobby wasn’t listening. He was mentally kicking her corpse with steel-capped boots and going through her pockets for money. Outwardly he smiled.
“You might feel this sting a bit,” he said. Here’s hoping, he thought.
Two minutes later, Mavis Clutter was back in the waiting room with onion eyes, garlic breath and the hood of her coat over her face. Bobby had told her it would help her pupils dilate.
Standing by his computer desk, Bobby cleaned the lens of the camera with a cloth which was at least 60% grease, before picking up his clipboard and making his way back to the door of his room. Eighteen faces looked up at him.
“Ivor Snellen?” he called.
A middle-aged man in dark glasses rose to his feet. “Hmmm...” thought Bobby. “Blind, uncool, or just trying to avoid the eye drops?”
He smiled politely. “Do step this way, Mr Snellen.”
Bobby retreated into his room. The man followed, and closed the door. He turned to look at the screener in front of him, then lowered both his glasses and his voice, and spoke in a darkly menacing tone.
“Bobby Macula,” he said. “I’m not one of your patients”.
Bobby met his cold, steely gaze with eyes that could have penetrated a dense fruitcake, and responded in the only way he knew. “Podiatry’s the next door along,” he said.
The man ignored him. “I’m from the Oxford Office of Ophthalmic Health,” he continued.
“Oooh,” said Bobby.
“That’s us,” said the man. “Mr Macula, we need your help.”
Monday, 1 November 2010
Prologue
The creature opened its eyes. All twenty-seven of them. They blinked simultaneously, the long lashes wafting the musty air of the basement like the delicate fan of a middle-aged divorcee with hot flushes. Turning its head, the creature surveyed its surroundings. A small, windowless room lit only by the blue fluorescent flicker of an electric insect killer and the yellow glow of a candle. Together the lights made green. It was time to go.
Raising itself to a standing position, the creature looked for an exit in twenty-seven different directions. One was enough. A door stood in the concrete wall opposite. It was marked freedom. Possibly by a teenage graffiti artist on Ritalin. Powerful muscles rippling under leathery skin like a kitten trapped under a duvet, the creature moved towards the door. With a flick of its tail, the candle was knocked to the floor, where it gently ignited the corpses of numerous flies, and lit the creature’s way to the exit.
Grasping the door handle with all six suckered fingers of its middle hand, the creature pulled, and the door swung open with a creaking moan of protest. Stone steps led upwards. Slowly but purposefully, it climbed, the smell of smoke permeating the air as the basement room below became engulfed in flames, instantly solving the chronic damp problem which had blighted the building for generations.
The road outside was empty, quiet, and in darkness, save for some faulty street lighting and the permanent orange glow from a small branch of Carphone Warehouse opposite. Had anyone been passing, they would have seen the first wafts of smoke billowing out from the vents of an unassuming building on a nondescript street. They might have caught sight of a side door opening, and seen a creature emerge. They might even have felt a chilled breeze as that creature blinked all twenty-seven of its eyes, and looked up at the single-worded sign above the door.
The sign read ‘Optician’. And the creature was gone.
Raising itself to a standing position, the creature looked for an exit in twenty-seven different directions. One was enough. A door stood in the concrete wall opposite. It was marked freedom. Possibly by a teenage graffiti artist on Ritalin. Powerful muscles rippling under leathery skin like a kitten trapped under a duvet, the creature moved towards the door. With a flick of its tail, the candle was knocked to the floor, where it gently ignited the corpses of numerous flies, and lit the creature’s way to the exit.
Grasping the door handle with all six suckered fingers of its middle hand, the creature pulled, and the door swung open with a creaking moan of protest. Stone steps led upwards. Slowly but purposefully, it climbed, the smell of smoke permeating the air as the basement room below became engulfed in flames, instantly solving the chronic damp problem which had blighted the building for generations.
The road outside was empty, quiet, and in darkness, save for some faulty street lighting and the permanent orange glow from a small branch of Carphone Warehouse opposite. Had anyone been passing, they would have seen the first wafts of smoke billowing out from the vents of an unassuming building on a nondescript street. They might have caught sight of a side door opening, and seen a creature emerge. They might even have felt a chilled breeze as that creature blinked all twenty-seven of its eyes, and looked up at the single-worded sign above the door.
The sign read ‘Optician’. And the creature was gone.