Chapter Thirty-Seven
A man who touches the bottom of a soup plate with a ball of foofoo is no longer searching for soup.
(African proverb)
The sign reads: NOAH’S PARK – WHERE THE BIBLE COMES TO WILD-LIFE!
“This could be the mostest closest thing to what you looking for,” says the cabbie, a bit uncertainly, as he pulls up near the busy entrance. “You wan’ me to keep the meter runnin’, while you check it out?”
“No, thank you, sir,” says Noreen, clambering out. “I think this would appear to be just the ticket.” She notices with some gratification that the man is treating himself to a huge chunk of Kendal Mint Cake while he is parked. “Thank you very much, sir. How much do I owe you?”
The cabbie doesn’t answer. He suddenly slams open the door and dashes out of the cab, still holding the Mint Cake wrapper. “Fuggedaboudit!” he cries, looking suddenly untanned. “I gotta find me a bucket!”
Noreen shrugs and looks through the railings into the huge theme park.
She can hear children and families joyfully laughing and screaming and vomiting as biblical music of the Elmer Bernstein variety blares out through all the loudspeakers.
Heavenly choirs, harps, a lot of brass. You know the sort of thing.
(Well, you think you do. Know the one place you won’t find ‘heavenly’ choirs?
Got it in one!) Beyond the fast rides and the even faster food outlets, Noreen Millburn believes that she can spot several large enclosures, which might just contain whatever it is she is looking for.
Stopping at the pay desk to buy her all-inclusive entrance ticket, she notices a tall, white-bearded man on the other side of the railings.
He is wearing biblical robes, with a headdress and leather sandals, and carries a wooden staff.
The man appears to be directing people towards the attractions of their choice.
When it is her turn, Noreen gently but urgently enquires of the man if there might, by the remotest chance, be a very specific resource for the solace she so desperately craves in these tumultuous times.
The tall man strokes his distinguished beard and nods sagely as he listens and attempts to decipher the accent, one that he would have to admit he has never heard before and hopefully will never have cause to lay ears on again.
“Take thee a left by ye tribe of skunks,” he says sagely, pointing his knobbly staff down one of the many busy walkways. “A friggin’ wideth left.”
Fuelled with anticipation and an almost unbridled excitement, Noreen Millburn weaves her way at some speed through the happy families towards her destination.
She has just turned a corner and disappeared from view when Arnie and Cleo reach the first of what they both assume is a troupe of helpful Noahs.
“You seen a curious but in her own, go-figure way not wholly unappealing Englishwoman?”
“You seeneth an optician?”
Arnie can tell that this is not a man in love with his job nor, most probably, the fortunate beneficiary of a one-to-one relationship with his God. But he does smite the air with an outstretched hand in the direction of the Skunkery, so Arnie nods his thanks and drags a fascinated Cleo away.
At various points en route, children are discovering all sorts of small animals to pet and torment and larger ones at which to gaze in wide-eyed wonder.
As well as parents and grandparents, there are minders and leaders of groups of little ones, all hoping that they will return to their transport after a fulfilling day with near as dammit the contingent they had at the start.
A sonorous voice on the Tannoy announces, “List to me, all ye Noah’s Park visitors. Do not forget the Ararat Diner hath a special today on Ham Sandwiches, Shem Donuts and Japheth Pizzas. Just try not to flood in all at once, folks!”
Directed towards a totally different sector of the park, because by the time of this similar third enquiry the jaded ‘entry Noah’ was verily growing bored, an armed and lethal hitman has his heart set on human game.
He feels a curious tapping on his belly and turns to see a little girl stroking him like a pet.
Big Louie decides not to kill her but, as with so many things, telling her that he intends to do so has much the same effect.
The man has never rubbed out a mark in a family amusement park before, especially not in a venue of a quasi-biblical nature, but there’s always a first time, and it will be something to talk about at the annual conference.
***
“Think, Arnie!” urges Cleo, still not entirely certain why she feels quite so involved. It must be that, as a genuinely sensitive and almost spiritual being, despite her somewhat frowned-upon day job, she has imbibed Arnie’s panic and urgency by some form of osmosis. “Where would she go?”
“She’s Miss Looney Tunes,” says a mystified but not unaffectionate Arnie. “How the hell would I know?”
Cleo can sense eyes on her and not just those of the meerkats in the nearby enclosure. She turns to see a pleasantly nondescript man in his late thirties, standing with his chubby wife and two bouncy young children. The father is smiling at Cleo, in some excitement.
“Say, excuse me for interrupting,” he says, “but haven’t we met somewhere?”
Cleo is just about to respond, in a kindly and hopefully tactful manner, when the man suddenly shakes his head like he has just been attacked by a swarm of tsetse flies and drags his intrigued children away.
“No… no, you’re no one… I never saw you in anything. Er, met you anywhere. C’mon kids.”
“Happens all the time,” she tells Arnie. “It’s like when you see your gynaecologist squeezing melons in the 7/11.”
Arnie has stopped listening. He grabs Cleo by the arm. “I got a hunch. Come on!”
Whilst Cleo, who loves animals of all kinds, would really like to take her time and enjoy all that this only slightly tacky theme park has to offer, she can sense that Arnie has a particular destination in mind. He is frantically reading all the signs out loud.
“Beasts of the field… no. Locusts… no. Asses… who wants to see an animal’s ass…?”
They finally spy Noreen crouching in what has been billed as The Manger.
This all feels a bit New Testament to Arnie, but he would have to admit that he’s no expert.
He does have to congratulate himself, however, on a correct assumption that he’d find his quarry having a powwow with a sheep.
A sheep who curiously appears to be listening to every damn word she says.
Those visitors, young and old, hovering around the curiously over-cocooned and majorly bobbled woman (in apparently deep conversation with a ruminant mammal) seem slightly disconcerted. Yet they certainly won’t deny that they are also quite intrigued. As, indeed, are the other sheep.
Noreen, of course, is totally oblivious to the growing circle of people nearby, which now includes a riveted Arnie and Cleo.
“Now, I do know that you’re not one of my lovely, raggy-haired Cumbrian Herdwicks,” she confides, “but I think you’ll probably understand.
If you can follow my accent, that is. Which, surprisingly, not everybody here can.
You see, I’ve got these queer feelings like I’ve never ever felt before – right here, swirling around in my gut.
I don’t think it’s wind, because it’s not making me let off the way it usually does back home when I’ve splashed out and had one turnip too many; I’m sure you know the feeling…
Anyway, that’s all well and good, but whatever this new churning is that’s getting me all in a sweat and a muddle, I want to get rid of it!
Because if it is what I think – what I fear it might be – well, it’s all wrong, isn’t it?
Why? You ask me why? Okay, I’ll tell you why.
Because he’s a lying, married, dirty-minded, bad-mannered, foul-mouthed, married, woman-exploiting, ill-tempered, selfish, married sex-fiend. With a very nice mistress.”
Arnie edges closer towards her, through the fascinated crowd. He can sense that the bulk of their interest is not so much on the weirdo chewing the fat with a sheep but on the surprisingly attentive sheep chewing his cud with a sort-of-human.
“So, what should I do?” she continues. “Go back to him, or go home? Everything I love is at home, but for some reason – alright, I know the reason – the people at home don’t seem to love me.
Especially now that flipping Apex Holdings is stirring up the whole ruddy village against me.
But to remain even a moment longer in the presence of an irresponsible good-for-nothing like that! What do you…?”
She pauses, because to her surprise she hears a familiar voice beside her. Even less credibly, she is pretty certain that it is addressing another of Noah’s sheep.
“You got a minute?” says Arnie, which fortunately for him the sheep has, as they generally tend not to have an undue amount on their agenda other than munching grass, a task this one still appears well able to do.
“You see, there’s this screwy English broad.
Hey, between you and me, she ain’t gonna win no beauty contest…
but, you know, not so hideous, in a crazy, foreign way.
Nice hooters – six cardigans down. Great eyes.
Sweet sorta smile. Kindly soul. Decent person.
Doubly decent. And, for reasons I won’t bore you with, ’cos truly they don’t make me look so good, I been trying every which way to get into her panties.
Which, incidentally, are probably made from the same stuff you got on your back.
Aw, come on, don’t give me that look; you’re a sheep of the world.
But – well, it didn’t happen. Instead she – I hate to say this, but she kinda got into my…
into my head. Okay, more than my head. You hear what I’m saying? ”
Noreen has stopped her own chatter and is clearly listening to the adjacent man-to-ovine conversation.
“And, I gotta tell you,” continues Arnie, “that may not be nearly enough. How I’m just starting to feel, I mean. Not when the big day of reckoning comes. Which, by the way, is pretty damn soon – don’t ask me how I know.”
Noreen turns back to her woolly listener and talks just that bit louder. “If he could only turn himself into a straightforward, honest, morally upright, generous, respectful, thoroughly decent human being…”
“Hey, lady,” says Arnie, “you’re talking to a sheep!”
As their audience drifts away, the two would-be Dr Dolittles look at each other a bit helplessly. Even, what you and I might call, sheepishly.
“ARNIE!”
Arnie Garth registers Cleo’s sudden yelp and knows immediately that this is not the excited cry of an animal lover.
Turning away from the Manger, he recognises – well, how could he not?
– the compact hitman from the Bellagio, with the same small but lethal weapon partially but not fully concealed in his hand.
Noreen sees him too and gives him a little wave of recognition, although, recalling their past encounter, she is pretty sure that he isn’t here for the animals.
Despite it being at a professionally low volume, Arnie registers every sinister word.
“Time’s up, sheep-whisperer. Why don’t we go somewhere quiet? We don’t want to upset the kiddies. You too, lady.”
“No, it’s okay,” says Cleo. “I’m good.”
“If memory serves, you’re great. But that isn’t the issue here.”
“Hey, fella,” says Arnie, “whatever your name is…”
“Big Louie.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m guessing that has to be ’cos you’re— never mind. Can we keep the ladies out of it?”
“Absolutely,” endorses Cleo. She tries to take advantage of this conversational interlude by making a sudden play for the gun. Until she feels something hard digging sharply into her lower ribs and a pair of only slightly softer items pushing into her upper back.
“I take it you’re not just pleased to see me, Melisande,” says Cleo as the other three move on.