Excerpt 2

I clearly didn’t really think this out when I posted the last random excerpt. Just to say this excerpt is from some way before the last one.

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“But you do?” Israel asked, smiling slightly and sipping from his glass, even though he did in fact agree with much that Calvin had said.

“Yes, Israel, in point of fact yes I do.”

“And are you going to enlighten us?”

“I very much doubt that you’d thank me for it.”

“Then why the slightly insane diatribe, Calvin?” Paul asked not without good humour, “I mean we’d normally just be talking about which is better, pork or chicken at this point.”

“Which is pork by the way.” Israel added.

  “An old bone of contention.” Adam dismissed, “But my point being, what on earth are you talking about man?”

“I believe it was in reference to my comment about how beautiful it is outside.” Verity spoke up.

“In point of fact, dear.” Daphne put in mildly, “I believe that you actually commented on how magical it is outside tonight.”

“True.” Verity allowed.

“And it was that assertion to which I was addressing myself.” Calvin said.

“With the whole magic and angels bit?” Israel asked.

“It’s far from being a bit, Israel.” Calvin smiled with just the slightest hint of irritation, “Very far indeed.”

“Then what, Calvin, is it” Israel, who had heard just about every kind of alcohol induced nonsense at one time or another, asked with a brittle smile.

“It was an observation of fact.”

“Of fact?”

“Yes, Israel” Calvin nodded, sipping from his glass, his dark calm eyes fixed on Israel, “of objective and unadulterated fact.”

“That we’re seeking wonders and magic?”

“Aren’t you?” He asked.

“Well sometimes when I’m on acid.” Darren, who’d had no interest in the conversation to lose in the first place, remarked. And instead was draining the last of the champagne straight from the bottle.

 Israel laughed, but didn’t take his eyes from Calvin who was watching him intently.

“Aren’t you, Israel?”

Israel thought about it for a second and then replied, “Well yes, in a sense, I suppose so. But only in so far as I’d also quite like to win the lottery. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a genetic imperative.”

“Then why is it you do what you do?”

“And what is it we’re doing?” Israel asked, a brittle smile on his face that didn’t reach his eyes, “Because I’m fairly sure that there’s not that much wonder to be found here.”

“No, but it’s the lack therein which is why you’re here.”

“Look mate,” Paul said from his stool, “all due respect to you for the drinks and all, but our reasons for being here are pretty different and varied, but what all of them do have in common is the fact that they’re none of your fucking business.”

Calvin merely nodded, entirely unperturbed by the sudden dark change in atmosphere, and then asked, “But what if I already know exactly why each and everyone of you is here? What, indeed, if it’s neither profound or even faintly interesting?”

“Mate, wind your fucking neck in.” Paul stood up from his stool.

 “Perhaps if you proved it to them, dear?” Daphne ghosted between them with heartbreaking grace and ease and rested her hand on Calvin’s arm.

And Israel’s heart froze with the sudden realisation that he had never wanted anything less in his whole life than to have it proven to him.

“Perhaps if you were to tell them all why they were here….or better yet, show them.”

“Show them?” Calvin asked.

“Yes, dear, show them.” Daphne replied, nodding her eyes at the wall behind him.

“As always, how clever you are my love.” Calvin leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek, “Let me show you – or rather, let me ask you a question.”

“Oh, do.” Verity, who had been inexplicably drawn to impending spectacular doom since she was a teenager, drawled.

“Let’s say shall we,” Calvin began, smiling faintly to himself at some secret shared only with himself and maybe the entire rest of the universe, “Let’s say that in around about…oh...1086ish, Enfield, or Enefelde as it was then, was the site of some rather interesting structures – in particular some connected with what is now and was also then St. Andrews Church.”

“Structures?” Israel asked quietly.

“Tunnels.” Calvin nodded, his eyes gleaming darkly, “Quite a lot of them as it happens. Now I know that most of you are aware that parts of St. Andrews Church have been around since well before 1086.”

“It’s mentioned in the Doomsday Book.” Mark and Israel, who’d both, though in different years, gone to the Grammar School attached to St. Andrews, nodded.

“Indeed.” Calvin smiled at them, “But do you know when St. Andrews Church was actually built?”

“Around the turn of the first millennium or so.” Israel looked at Mark for confirmation, who shrugged in return.

“Very good.” Calvin nodded, “So these tunnels of which I speak belonged to said thousand year old church, but had been built over by 1086.”

“So what happened to them?”

Calvin considered for a moment, “Well that’s the interesting part isn’t it – let’s just say that it was something bad. Something very, very bad, in point of fact.”

“Ok. Something very bad.” Israel rolled his eyes – though only half meant it.

Calvin ignored his tone and said, “Now then, let’s also say that given the importance of those structures certain groups have taken it upon themselves, for various reasons of their own, to preserve those tunnels.”

“Beneath Enfield Town?” Isbaella asked mockingly.

“Just so.” He nodded, “And that further, they built around Enfield certain hidden entrances to those tunnels.”

“Secret passageways?” Isabella laughed aloud, growing bored of the night now. Of the drink and the company. Not in love with alcohol as the rest of them were. That kind of love that was all encompassing and ultimately self destructive. The kind of love that would never stop and would only ever take and take until there was nothing left to give.

“Exactly that. Secret passageways.” Looking at them all now. All of them who - apart from Isabella - were silent. Deathly silent. Hanging on his every word, “One of which,” He walked slowly over to the wall behind them and after a moments careful examination rested his palm deliberately on it, “Happens to be exactly here.”

They starred at him.

“So my question, guys, is that this being the case, if I were to open it, would you go down?”

“If you were to open up a secret passageway in the wall of the pub that leads to thousand year old tunnels which were destroyed for very, very bad reasons would we go into it?” Isabella asked.

“That’s it exactly.”

“You’re telling us that behind that wall panel there’s a secret passageway?”

“Not at all, I’m just asking a question.” Calvin shrugged dismissively.

“Well then hypothetically, yes, why not?” Isabella replied.

“And if it weren’t a hypothetical?” He asked coolly.

“If there really was a secret passageway behind that wall; the wall which, by the way, backs on to Gregg’s The Bakers, you mean?” Isabella asked, “Leading perhaps to the lost treasure of the Three Cheese and Onion pasty?”

“Yes, ‘Bella. That’s what I’m asking you.”

“Not meaning any disrespect to you at all but frankly this is just stupid. Even their Bruce Lee and Mohammed Ali in a Cage-fight conversation makes more sense than this.”

“And you, Israel.” Calvin fixed his eyes on him, “Do you think it’s stupid?”

“I think that I also play the lottery, which is also stupid.” Israel replied non-committally.

“But you hope to win?”

“Of course.”

“And you also hope for wonders, no?”

Israel glanced over Calvin’s shoulder at Verity who merely shrugged back.

“I suppose that’s true.”

“And that, indeed, is why you’re all here.” He said, “Although not Isabella of course.” He nodded to her in acknowledgement.

Isabella mystified by the significance of all this because she already knew why they were here. They were here because they were drunks and losers. Though not actually in that order.