‘So, what do you think?’ the angel said, proudly displaying an art installation in which purple rain fell in a perfectly white room while Anna Pavlova danced. ‘Of course, it would have been better with Darcey Bussell.’
‘She’s not dead, is she?’ I asked anxiously. We’re having a Christmas craft party on Sunday and I’m so busy preparing for it that I haven’t checked the obituaries.
The angel sighed. ‘She’s fabulous,’ he said, ‘but God said no. He offered me Ed Balls.’
‘That’s a bit harsh.’
‘I know.’ The angel nodded. ‘The man can’t dance.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I meant it’s a bit harsh wanting Darcey Bussell up here just because you want her for your Prince tribute.’
The angel looked confused. ‘We get everyone up here eventually. And they stay for, like, ever.’
‘Everyone? Murderers? Rapists? Football coaches who abuse the children they’re teaching? Katie Hopkins?’
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I just work here. I do what I do and you do what you do, and whether you make it here or not, I just keep doing what I do anyway. I’m like Manchester, me. Brilliant place, quick spotlight at the turn of the century, carried on even when the spotlight moved back to London.’
‘Do you mean The Stone Roses?’ I said, suddenly concerned for Ian Brown.
‘No, not them. The other thing.’
‘The Happy Mondays?’
‘No. The Industrial Revolution, that’s it.’
‘The eighteenth century?’
‘I think so. It all becomes a bit of a blur as you get older. Same old, same old. Birth, death, all the stuff in between. And God’s done a fair bit of smiting himself, you know. It’s hard to get too riled. Anyway, you wanted to see God?’
‘Please.’
‘Be my guest.’
I looked around. An imposing man with an impressive beard was holding court in the distance. ‘Is that him?’
‘No, that’s Charles Darwin. He ate a lot of tortoises.’
‘Ate them? He saved them. On the Galapagos islands. The research centre there is named after him.’
‘Whatever,’ said the angel. ‘All I know is, he and his crew took a shedload of tortoises on board their ship and ate them on the voyage. They threw the empty shells overboard and later on his friend came up with the idea of natural selection, and Darwin was well miffed that they’d not kept the shells.’
‘His friend came up with the idea of adaptation?’
‘Chap called Wallace. Sent Darwin a load of birds he’d collected.’
I looked about again. There were quite a few bearded men waving massive airs of authority about, now that I came to look. ‘What about him?’
‘That’s Charles Dickens. And that’s Alfred, Lord Tennyson and that, before you ask, is Abraham Lincoln. Forget the beard.’
‘Him?’
‘Alexander Fleming.’
‘Well, at least I can see why he’s here.’
‘What, for noticing some mould?’
‘No, for inventing penicillin.’
‘Two chaps called Florey and Chain did that. They’re over there somewhere, but no-one’s mistaking them for God. Oh no. All the credit for the man at the top, none for the sidekick who actually does the work… The trouble with you, young woman, is that you don’t know what you’re looking for.‘
‘No,’ I said. ‘The trouble is that I know exactly what I’m looking for. I’ve got an illustrated Bible. I’ve been to the Sistine Chapel. And I’m done. I’m absolutely done with expecting answers from a white man with a beard.’
‘I thought you were looking for God?’
‘I am.’
‘Then I suggest,’ the angel said huffily, ‘that you get back to your dolly pegs and marzipan and all that bloody dried lavender and sort out your party. Oooh, look. someone’s coming. I hope it’s Darcey Bussell.’
I couldn’t bear to see who’d arrived; I knew I’d find out soon enough. I went back to the dolly pegs and marzipan and all that dried bloody lavender; no divine intervention is going to get this party started, after all.
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