Adam went back into his spaceship, and if he’d had a revolver to hand he would have shot his brains out. But he didn’t. Although he might well have done. But he was a very nice man and none of this was really his fault, so he left his spaceship and went down to the crowd and was carried shoulder-high by the crowd, for being such a pioneer and everything, and finally he had a meal out at a nice restaurant that had about three thousand tables in it, so that a few of his descendants could dine with him too.
And it was over the meal that his son put a proposition to him.
“Dad,” said his son. “As the universe is all full up now, mankind is looking for new places to live in and your great (to the power of 23,000,000)-grandson has come up with this new spaceship drive system that will take a pilot into an alternative universe in another dimension. And we’re looking for someone to pilot the ship.”
And Adam, who was frankly pretty much off his rocker by now, said, “I’ll do it. Can I do it now, or at least as soon as I’ve finished my dinner?”
And his son said, “Sure thing, Dad. First thing in the morning. The ship’s all fuelled up and waiting. We knew you’d want to volunteer.”
So the very next morning there was this big procession and a broadcast on wrist televisions that went out to planets all over the universe and Adam got into the special new interdimensional spaceship and got frozen up in the very modern cryogenic capsule. And his son pressed the launch button and the spaceship vanished into an alternative universe.
And you’ll never guess what happened when the spaceship landed on the first habitable planet it came to in the alternative universe in another dimension.
“What did happen?” I asked Dave, after he had said, “THE END.”
Dave rolled his eyes. “Same thing,” he said. “Except that now it was far more complicated, with more millions of descendants involved. And one of them had invented another spaceship that could travel into an alternative alternative universe. I had to end the parable somewhere, so I ended it there. I did toy with the idea that on his final voyage in an infinitely alternative universe Adam took a woman with him for company. And, as it turned out, when he reached the next habitable planet in a universe so many times alternative from the first one that it didn’t have a number to cover it, he finally found himself on a planet that no descendant of his had got to before him. Because the spaceships they’d designed had finally reached the point where they could no longer be improved upon. So there was only him and his woman all alone on this new planet that was just like Earth but no one had ever been to before. The woman’s name was Eve, by the way.”
“That’s a far better ending,” I said.
“Nah,” said Dave. “That’s a stupid ending. Too far-fetched.”
I removed my finger from my nose and scratched at my head with it. “I always thought that parables were supposed to have a moral to them,” I said.
“They are,” said Dave.
“So what’s the moral to yours?”
“It’s obvious,” said Dave. “Think about it.”
I thought about it. “Oh yes,” I said. “I get the moral. I understand it.”
Dave nodded thoughtfully. “I knew you would,” he said. “I only wish that I did.”
7
I lay behind the hedge with Dave and thought about his parable. It was a pretty good parable, as parables go, because it did have spaceships in it. But the more I thought about the substance of that parable, the more I realized that it really didn’t work at all.
The space pioneer Adam could never have met his own son on that far-away world. He’d have died there thousands of years before. And how could there be all those generations of descendants all still alive? Had they discovered the secret of immortality? But all the same it was a good parable and I thought that if the time ever came to tell it I’d tidy it up somewhat and put my interesting ending at the end.
But the time never came for me to tell it, so I didn’t.
“I’m growing impatient with all this lying around in wait,” I said to Dave. “We should do something to precipitate some action.”
“Do speak English,” said my bestest friend.
“Go and knock on the door, or something.”
“Just be patient,” said Dave to me. “Pretend you’re an adult: wait.”
And so we waited a little while more and finally our patience was rewarded.
“A police car,” said Dave. “I’ve been expecting that.”
“You have?”
“I have. When I left the wake house before you, I telephoned the police.”
“Why?” I asked, which seemed a reasonable question.
“So we could have time alone with Mr Penrose.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, and I didn’t.
“Just watch,” said Dave. “Just watch and learn.”
And so I watched and I learned.
The police car, all glossy black, an Armstrong Smedley, one-point-five-litre, with running boards and the big bell on the top, slewed to a halt outside the wake house. Four coppers, as we knew them then, before they were known as “the Filth”, jumped out of the car and took to beating upon the front door. And shouting very loudly.
“I’m impressed,” I said to Dave. “But surely they’re beating upon the wrong front door? That’s the one next door to the wake house.”
“Just watch,” said Dave, “and be ready to run inside the wake house, as soon as I give the signal.”
“What will the signal be?” I asked.
“I’ll hoot like an owl.”
“It’s the wrong time of day for that, surely? Why not moo like a cow?”
“A cow? In Brentford?”
“Bark like a dog, then.”
“I don’t do dogs,” said Dave. “Doing dogs is common.”
“You could whinny, like a horse.”
“That’s too posh,” said Dave. “Only girls who go to posh private schools can do that properly.”
“Is that true?” I asked.
Dave nodded knowingly. “When the day comes, and it will, that you find yourself in the company of a posh woman who once went to a posh private school, you just ask her whether she and her friends used to whinny like ponies.”
“And?”
“And I bet you she’ll say she did.”
“All right, then,” I said to Dave. “I’ll bear that in mind for the future. It is my intention to marry a very posh woman one day. I’ll ask her on our wedding night.”
“Ask her earlier,” said Dave. “Then you’ll know for sure whether she’s really posh or not. You ask her the first time you take her out. Before you’ve queued up for the pictures or bought her a portion of chips, or anything. No, on second thoughts, wait until after you’ve had a bunk-up with her. Until you’ve had that, it doesn’t really matter whether she’s posh or not.”
“I’ll bear all that in mind,” I said. “So what will the signal be, then?”
“It will be an owl,” said Dave. “Let’s speak no more about it.”
I shrugged beneath the hedge and viewed the doings across the road. The front door of the house next to the wake was now open and a man in pyjamas was remonstrating with the policemen. He was shouting things at them. Things like: “I’m not a homo!”
I glanced at Dave. Dave was grinning wickedly.
“I know that man in the pyjamas,” I whispered.
“Of course you do,” said Dave. “It’s Mr Purslow, the maths teacher. Didn’t you know he lived there?”
I shook my head.
“I did,” said Dave. “He’s off sick with diphtheria.”
“He looks very angry.”
“He’s always angry. I hate Mr Purslow.”
“Oh, look,” I said. “He’s punched that copper.”