Kronk

CHAPTER THIRTY

It was the suicide kick again. Standard routine. He had gone through it all before. But this time, Gabriel was determined to make it for real.

He had said goodbye to all his favourite landmarks, and now he stood once more in front of that gorgeously hideous nadir of nineteenth century aesthetics, the Albert Memorial. Also present was the raven. Perhaps it was the self-appointed custodian of the monument to Albert the Good. Perhaps it was the reincarnation of Disraeli or Gladstone or even some obscure but faithful gent of the royal bedchamber or somesuch. Perhaps it was simply a figment of imagination. Whatever, if not a friend, it was at least a tolerable drinking companion.

Further, although it had not seen Gabriel for some considerable time, it clearly remembered former fond debaucheries; for it waddled towards him with thinly disguised enthusiasm.

Gabriel had remembered to bring two plastic cups. But no vodka, this time. It was an occasion for champagne — a magnum for himself and a magnum for the raven. No matter that the champagne was warm: it was the symbol that counted. He would briefly introduce the bird to gracious living before hopefully introducing himself to gracious dying. Waterloo Bridge and the Thames, definitely. And to hell with effluent!

“Greetings, feathery fantast,” said Gabriel, expertly driving a champagne cork at the stoic figure of Prince Albert. “I bring you tidings of some interest. Mankind has had it. The entire planet is a human time-bomb. Homo Sap is destined to go round the twist, up the spout, down the shoot. We are constructing a world fit for ravens to live in. Salud!” He placed a brimming, bubbling cup of champagne on the stone step. The raven dipped its beak in, gratefully.

“I must apologize for the champers,” went on Gabriel, himself taking a hearty draught.

“Veuve Clicquot non-vintage. Also warm. Still, not unpleasing, I trust… Where was I? Ah, yes. Featherbag, you should be grateful. We — that is I and a few thousand million other doomed members of my species — are preparing to sweep ourselves under the carpet. Quite possibly the last waltz will be a trifly noisy. But after the deluge — you. And all the other highly cunning, dimwitted creatures that have had neither the opportunity nor the inclination to meddle with the natural order of things. More champagne?”

Gabriel replenished both cups. “Still I discovered what it was like to love,” he mused. “And he who loves last loves loudest. Bird, I loved loud. Let us drink to that.”

The raven, also aware of a sense of occasion, dipped its beak once more.

“I may have lost out on book sculpture,” went on Gabriel, “but I have become something of an expert at delayed-action genocide. Of course, it was not exactly planned like that, but I will not weary you with details… Prost, Grüss Got, à votre santé and bottoms up!” He knocked back the cup of champagne in one. The raven stared in admiration.

“I give you Gabriel’s law,” said Gabriel, filling his own cup once more. “Whosoever would save manking shall fuck it up. Salud!”

Obediently the raven drank.

“And now,” announced Gabriel, “before I get pissed out of my tiny mind, and while I am riding the crest of a non-vintage stimulus, I go to make a transient hole in what one may jokingly call the waters of the Thames. To you, dear drinking friend, I bequeath the rest of the Veuve Clicquot. May you remember me with some affection, and may the shakes sit lightly upon you. Look after Albert. He never said much, but I feel he was with us spiritually… And now, that glorious line! For me, there is only one way out.”

“Krank,” said the raven emphatically. “Kronk, Kronk.” It flapped its wings a trifle unsteadily and regarded him with beady wisdom.

Gabriel met the raven’s gaze. “What nonsense is this? Another way out? You lie, frowzy fowl, tell me you lie!”

“Kronk,” said the raven, shaking its head. “Kronk… Kronk… Kronk!”

Gabriel gazed hard at the bird. Then he poured some more champagne, downed it, and gazed hard at the bird again. The raven met his gaze. It did not blink.

“Ha!” exclaimed Gabriel at length. “Eureka! I have it! And now I know how William Tell discovered gravity. All is not yet lost, is it, mon vieux? You have been trying to tell me, and you were right to try to tell me. And now I know. Supergitt, if humorous, is merciful. I had a reason for dying, and now I have a reason for living. And you have given it me, you generous, feathery fool. Salud!”

“Kronk,” said the raven. Man and bird both drank deep.

“So instead of making a hole in the Thames,” went on Gabriel, “I pop along to MicroWar and tell all. Then they tell America, Russia, etc. and pretty damn soon the world’s scientists are united in their efforts to find the knock-out for P 939. Eustace Greylaw was no genius.

What he can do, a million think tanks can undo. Eureka! Stay with the champers, matey. Have fun. I will return. Salud!”

“Kronk!” said the raven.

Gabriel staggered down the many steps of the Albert Memorial, oblivious of everything.

He was filled with a terrible urgency. Before he could fall into alcoholic stupor, drop dead of a heart attack, fall down and break his neck, walk inadvertently into the Thames, or get killed on the road, he must get to MicroWar and tell all. Then the U.S. cavalry would ride over the hill, the heroine would be released from the railway track, the secret agent would not drown in the cellar. And all would be well.

Unfortunately, Gabriel forgot that the odds were stacked against him. They had always been stacked against him. Unfortunately, he forgot that Supergitt — if, indeed, Supergitt exists -

must have a very odd sense of humour, beyond the imaginings of men. Unfortunately, he forgot that roads are designed to be used by traffic and that people with vital missions should not attempt to cross Knightsbridge in a state of heedless exaltation.

The hover sled was travelling at high speed. It hit Gabriel at high speed. It was driven — using the term loosely — by an intensely agitated Brother Peter, attempting to escape the hot pursuit of his campaign managers, public relations officers and accountants. With quite unworldly naïvety, he had committed the unforgivable indiscretion of publicly insisting that all the massive funds accumulated by the Perfect Universal Love movement be devoted to purchasing comforters, diapers, feeding bottles and processed milk for one hundred million starving Chinese babies.

The hover sled hit Gabriel a glancing blow that spun him round three times and dropped him in a mangled heap in the gutter. Obeying Newtonian laws of motion with rough precision, Brother Peter executed three aerial somersaults and fell flat on his face. Both men were mortally injured.

Gabriel was still conscious. The world was filled with thunder. Or was it laughter?

Laughter, most probably. Supergitt was having a ball.

He was aware of someone crawling towards him. A man he felt he ought to know but did not. Perhaps the joker was coming to help, though somehow Gabriel already knew that he was beyond help.

Nevertheless, human nature being incredibly stupid and sentimental, he stretched out a hand. Painfully, slowly, the other man pulled, crawled, willed himself forward. He, too, held out a hand. The hands touched.

“I bring you,” gurgled Brother Peter, choking on his own blood, “the message of Perfect Universal Love.”

Gabriel looked up. Suddenly he knew that the thunder really was laughter. And he knew where it came from.

With a tremendous effort, he managed to grip Brother Peter’s hand, and held it tightly.

There was a brief surge of kinship, a flicker of brotherhood.

Then Gabriel died…

Laughing!