“You have yet to tell us of your ironic plan for friend Ripurpantzov, old fellow,” he said. “And possibly best for now were it to be shared only between the two of us, do you not think? For old times sake, before we pass it along to the troops. Give it a little scrutiny first.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Maurice laughed. “Lost none of the old wiliness, gardening or no gardening, eh, Prof?”
“One does one’s best as one ages, young man. Vital to keep the mind sharp, whatever the circumstances, I have found.”
Maurice nodded. “Tell me about it.”
“Soo… any beans you’d care to spill?”
Which was when Maurice recounted to Barry his dream-inspired memory of the TV programme in which the old man in St Petersburg with lank hair was building a shrine to John Lennon and peering out at the sea awaiting his return. Thinking even one of the seagulls might be John flying home to where so many people still worshipped him.
“Very popular he and The Beatles were over there,” he said. “There are even those who claim it was their influence on youth culture that led to Gorbachev’s new thinking and the end of the cold war.”
Barry blinked. “And this has what to do with your ironic plans for Ripurpantzov, old chap?”
Maurice watched on with suggestively raised eyebrows as his old mentor struggled to compute the admittedly abstruse logic behind his plan. He didn’t have to watch on for long however. As he had already noted, Barry had lost none of his old wiliness.
“Maurice, old fellow, you don’t seriously mean…?”
“Well actually, Professor, yes I do. Only a little idea in its embryonic stages so far, of course, but it is hard to deny the manner in which the current occupant of the Kremlin is leading us back to days even more dangerous than those of the last cold war.”
Barry nodded. “Indeed. A very nasty piece of work.”
“Quite. And neither can one deny the continuing popularity of The Beatles as evinced by the TV programme I mentioned. John Lennon is a particular favourite.”
“The one who said The Beatles were more popular than Jesus and upset the Yanks?”
“The same.”
“Who you’re now suggesting could become more popular than Ripurpantzov and upset some apple carts over there,” said Barry as the tumblers fell in quick succession.
“I think he’s got it! By George he’s got it,” trilled Maurice in a poor imitation of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady.
Barry laughed. “A fine idea. But, correct me if I’m past my sell-by date, only The Beatles split up, did they not? And poor old George and John are dead. Bit of a snag, eh?”
“Indeed. However, just as old Igor has tampered with the Internet to further his own nefarious interests, so too could we in order to undercut those interests.”
“Your irony.’
“My irony.”
“And you would achieve this by?”
“Creating through computer generated imagery a tribute Beatles band nobody could distinguish from the real thing.”
Barry’s eyes widened. “Despite two of them no longer being with us?”
“Trust me, Internet users will believe anything. Including revenants. And we start with the advantage of Jeremy Crawford looking more than a teensie bit like old John, would you not say? Same sort of nose. Similar eyes. Add a wig and a touch of makeup and…”
“Bob’s your uncle.”
“And Fanny’s your aunt. And, from his post-Beatles career, my new John will take to the Russian people the very messages Igor will least want them to hear. He will speak to them of making love not war, of giving peace a chance, of working-class heroism, of people coming together and sharing all the world… and so on. And woven into each clip will be subliminal cuts showing the manner in which Ripurpantzov ripped off the ex-Soviets’ oil, gas, and metal wealth before rigging elections and going for the record as the longest serving Russian leader since Stalin.”
“And all done on the naughty Internet?”
“Every last bit. I have all the kit I need. And call it serendipity but, as I said, Mister Crawford has some of the very characteristics we shall need for the Lennon role,” Maurice was saying as Shirley, Colin and Hans came bounding towards them.
“Shhhh, shhhhh, here he comes,” said Barry as they reached the end of their side path and were re-joined at the woodland gate by Jeremy, Julie and Dennis, all of whom had had a thoroughly good time but were starting to feel peckish again.
Eighteen
Since biffing PC Jason Humphreys on the nose, suffering a (mercifully treatable) cardiac arrest, and, after an unexpectedly rapid recovery from his triple bypass being hauled up before the magistrates and handed down a six-week Community Service order sluicing out public lavatories, Sir Magnus Montague had become a new man. Not as the result of any single one of these events, of course. It was more of an accretional process.
Very grumpy he had been after his heart op. So grumpy with his nurses that Professor Doctor Hugo Printemps had threatened to discharge him early if he continued with such ungrateful behaviour as refusing his meds and yanking at the wires attaching him to his life support machine.
“Zree more strikings and you’re out,” said Hugo in Franglais. “Alzough it may soon not be me tellin’ you zis. Maybe some uzzer professor doctor.”
“Uh?” said Sir Magnus, with difficulty.
“Already I am receiving letter from ze ’Ome Office zaying I gotta register or I go back in France. Brexshit, non? Okai, je m’en fous. I go back in France an’ fuck you Brits,” he said before stalking out of Sir Magnus’s private room, slamming the door behind him.
“Hugo… Hugo… come back here,” Sir Magnus managed to squeak.
But his squeaks were silenced once nurse Angeles Rodriguez, who was also contemplating leaving the UK, told him to shut up and zapped him with a megadose of intravenous bisoprolol/hydrochlorothiazide spiked with Valium.
It was only upon regaining consciousness that Sir Magnus took the first baby step towards becoming the new man he now was. This he achieved by thanking Angeles and Hugo for saving his life. You know how it is when you’ve been spared a visit to the Pearly Gates, how grateful you feel.
“Sorry if I was a bit bitchy before,” he said. “But I am very grateful, truly I am.”
“It was nozzink,” said Hugo, who had conducted the surgery. “Every day we do zese sings. Tomorrow you will be good to leave.”
He was about to turn on his heels when Sir Magnus called him back.
“Look, if there’s anything I can do to help with your Home Office problem, you only need ask. Let us just say I have connections.”
Hugo shrugged Gallically. “We shall see what we shall see. Only first you could help my friend Angeles. She too has had ze letter.”
“Good God,” said Sir Magnus, who had thus far been an ardent Brexiteer. “You mean…? There must have been some kind of a mistake.”
More Gallic shrugging, this time accompanied by Angeles’s Hispanic equivalent, during which Hugo explained that if Brexit meant repatriating any more European doctors and nurses, the UK wouldn’t have a health service any more, let alone a “free-at-the-point-of-entry” national one. Then they were both gone, leaving Sir Magnus aghast.
It was PC Jason Humphreys who, bearing no grudges despite his broken nose and having visited Sir Magnus every day since his hospital admission, took the place of Hugo and Angeles at his bedside.