Robert Renkin - The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag

THE DANCE OF THE VOODOO HAND BAG

by

Robert Rankin

For my good pals across the water

Jams, James and Michael

And to celebrate the opening of The Flying Pig Bookshop

Hip Hip Hoorah.

The doctor Said that I was a paranoid schizophrenic. Well, he didn't actually say it. But we knew he was thinking it.

'Tell me about the butterfly,' the doctor said. Which particular butterfly would that be?, I said.

The doctor consulted his case notes. 'The butterfly of chaos theory.'

'Ah, that lad.'

'That lad, yes. Would you care to tell me about it?'

I shrugged. 'It's just a theory. You know the kind of thing. A butterfly in Acapulco flaps its wings and England lose the European Cup.'

The doctor nodded thoughtfully. 'And you believe that, do you?'

I shrugged again. 'I can take it or leave it. I'm not bothered.'

'And yet' - more case note consulting - 'I understand that you claimed to have such powers yourself.'

'Me? Never!'

'Really?' The doctor raised an eyebrow and also a press cutting. 'But I have here a review of your stage act, 'Carlos the Chaos Cockroach'.'

'That was just a comedy routine.'

'Really? Yet in a taped interview with me earlier this month you claimed that by moving a biro in your top pocket, or putting paperclips on your ear, you could cause major events to occur' - more case note consulting - 'effect fluctuations on the stock market, topple governments, bring about world peace.'

'I might have.'

'You might have.' The doctor adjusted his spectacles. Expensive designer spectacles they were, I'd had a pair like them once. Plain glass in mine, though, an image thing, I don't want to dwell on it.

'But didn't you employ these powers in order to become the President of the United States for a week?'

'That was an error of judgement on my part. I apologized to everyone. I stood down, didn't I?'

'But you did have the powers.'

Yes, all right, I did. But I don't have them any more.'

'The tablets are helping, are they?'

'Tablets always help. That's what tablets are for, isn't it?'

The doctor nodded.

'Like God said.'

'God?'

'Like God said to Moses, 'Keep taking the tablets.''

Was that supposed to be a joke?'

'Very possibly. You'd have to ask God.'

'I'm sorry I missed that stage act of yours. It must have been most amusing.' The doctor's tone lacked sincerity.

'Hm,' I said.

The doctor consulted further case notes. He had an awful lot of case notes. A very great many case notes. A considerable wad of case notes. And they were all in a big fat folder with my name on the front. Well, one of my names, ruse so many.

Sighing just a little, he leaned back in his chair. 'Tell me all about the sprout,' he said.

'Sprout? What sprout?'

'Harry. wasn't it?'

'Harry?'

'No, Barry. The sprout who lived inside your head.'

'He didn't live there. He's not alive.'

'He was a dead sprout. ''He was a theophany.'

'And what is that, exactly?'

'A manifestation of the deity to man, in a form that, though visible, is not necessarily material.'

'So you could see him?'

'No, I could hear him. He was my Holy Guardian Sprout.'

'As in Holy Guardian Angel?'

'That's right. You see, there are more people in the world than there are angels in heaven, so God has to improvise. He shares out the produce of his garden. You've probably got a radish, or a turnip.'

'Inside my head?'

I nodded. 'It's like the voice of your conscience. Only you can hear it.'

'And so Barry spoke to you and only you could hear him?'

'That's how it worked. It got me into a lot of trouble.'

'And is Barry speaking to you now?'

'No, you're speaking to me now. ''Good. Very good. We are making progress. ''Does that mean that I can go home soon?' We'll see.'

'How about letting me out of this straitjacket?'

'All in good time.'

'Look,' I said, 'I've answered your questions. I've told you about Barry. Barry was a delusion, I understand that now. I'm much better now. I just want to get out of here and get back to work.'

'Ah yes, your work.' The doctor took once more to the consultation of his case notes. 'This would be in your capacity as a private detective, would it?'

'It would, yes.'

'And what exactly does a private detective do?'

'Oh, come off it. Everyone knows what a private detective does.'

'But what exactly did you do, when you were being one?'

Well'' I had to think about this. It was a tricky question. 'For the most part I just stood around in bars talking a load of old toot.'

'And that's what private detectives do?'

'No, that's what I did.'

'And you called yourself' - more bloody case note consultation - 'Lazlo Woodbine, Private Eye.'

'After the new legendary detective in the P. P. Penrose novels. Some called him Laz, you know.'

Would you like me to call you Laz?'

'I'd like you to call me a cab and let me get off about my business.'

'Standing around in bars talking a load of old toot?'

'No, solving my case.'

'And this would be-'

'The case of the voodoo handbag. Please leave your notes alone.'

'Does the consultation of my notes upset you?'

'It's designed to, isn't it?'

'Of course.'

'Then it's working a treat.'

'So, this case of yours, might we go through that again?'

'I'd rather not, if you don't mind.'

Why?'

'Because I've been through it with you dozens of times, and I'm fed up with telling you about it, and you must be fed up with listening to me telling you about it.'

'I never get fed up,' said the doctor. 'I'm a doctor. We have tablets for that kind of thing.'

'If I tell you about it again, will you take the straitjacket off?'

We'll see.'

Who's this we?'

'I'll see.'

I shrugged once more. A shrug was all I could manage.

'The case was to do with the Law of Obviosity. And before you have to consult your notes again, that's the Hugo Rune Law of Obviosity, which states, 'Everything has to be somewhere and nothing can ever be anywhere other than where it is.''

'That sounds logical.'

'It might sound logical, but that doesn't mean it's true.'

Would you care to explain?'

'OK. Now I'm sure you'll accept that there is a science to detective work. 'The science of deduction', as Holmes once put it. Private detective work is mostly to do with finding something that is missing. Something or somebody. So let's say that you have to find something that's supposedly gone missing. Where is the first place you would look?'

The doctor shook his head.

'You'd look in the most obvious place, wouldn't you? But if it's missing, then it won't be there, will it?'

'I would assume not.'

'So then you look in the next most obvious place, and then the next and then the next and so on, until you find it. Because everything has to be somewhere and nothing can ever be anywhere other than where it is.'