His approach to the Boy is more subtle.

He invites the Boy into his palace. Lets him play a round of crazy golf for free. And gives the Boy presents and makes a big fuss of him and pats his head a lot.

The harem scene made the show for me. I thought I knew of every inconceivable permutation of man and beast and fowl and fish that there was to know. And, after all, I had seen all those video tapes of cabinet ministers doing what comes so naturally to them, within the walls of Castle Doveston.

I was impressed.

And just a little horny.

I won’t recount the details here, because they’re not really relevant to the plot of the play. But trust me on this, it was

INCREDIBLE

So, anyhow. The Boy, having given his all in the harem orgy, and got a fair bit in return, offers the special something (which he has somehow managed to hang on to even whilst doing that weird thing with the trout) to the Evil Prince. He gives it to him as a present for being so kind.

And, without a by-your-leave, or even a kiss-my-elbow, the Boy is seized by the palace guards, dragged beyond the walls, given a sound duffing up and left for dead.

We all boo a lot at this. Although we do agree that the Boy has been a trifle foolish in trusting that Evil Prince.

The Boy then falls into a bit of a coma and the fat angel comes back and puts the wellington boot in. But then the fat angel forgives the Boy and bungs him what seems to be a bag of magic dust.

In the final scene, the Boy returns to the palace. The Evil Prince is enjoying a right royal blow-out and laughing himself stupid, because he now owns the special something.

But the Boy springs up from under the table and flings the magic dust from his bag onto a candle flame. There is a bloody big bang, a good deal of smoke and when this finally clears, we see that everyone in the palace is dead. Except for the Boy, who has somehow miraculously survived.

He takes a big bow, receives a bunch of flowers and the show is over.

Apart, of course, from the rest of the bowing. We all boo the wicked uncle and the good-time Charlies and the Evil Prince and we cheer the fat angel and the flittering fairies and again the Boy.

And that’s that.

Well, almost that.

Professor Merlin appears to great applause. He climbs onto the stage and he bows. He makes a very brief speech of thanks and then he takes out his snuffbox. It’s the slim silver number, shaped like a coffin. He taps three times upon the lid, for Father, Son and Holy Ghost, then he takes up snuff and pinches it to his nostrils.

And then he lets fly with a very big aaah-choo! The cymbals clash a final time. There is a flash and a puff of smoke.

And there he is, gone.

Vanished.

24

T he riotous applause and cheering died away. The footlights dimmed, the hall’s lights glowed again. On cue came the waiters, bearing trays of sweetmeats. Cheesy things and chocolates. Cognac and cheroots. Strawberries in crack and schooners of absinthe and mescal.

The mariachi band struck up once more and folk jigged and wriggled, but few made the effort to climb to their feet and dance. They were all bloated and not a little stoned.

‘Well, that was a load of old toot,’ said Norman.

‘Come off it,’ I said. ‘It was brilliant.’

‘So what did it all mean, then?’

I made expansive gestures.

‘You haven’t the foggiest,’ said Norman. ‘I did like the donkey, though.’

‘Well, I’m going to say thanks a lot to Professor Merlin. I wonder where he went.’

‘Gone,’ said Norman. ‘Off’d it. A big aaah-choo and goodbye to everyone.’

‘What’s the time?’ I asked.

Norman tugged a fob watch from his pocket. It had more than the hint of Meccano about it. ‘A quarter to twelve,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t time just fly when you’re enjoying yourself?’

‘OK.’ I stood up and squared my shoulders and then I did that breathing in deeply through the nose and out again through the mouth thing that people do before they take on something big.

A bungee jump, perhaps. Or a leap through a ring of fire on a motorbike.

Or even a daring dive from the top of a waterfall. Or a sabre charge on horseback into the mouths of the Russian guns at Sebastopol.

Or— ‘What are you doing?’ asked Norman.

‘Preparing myself for the big one.’

‘I’ve no wish to hear about your bowel movements.’

I showed Norman my fist again and mimed repeated violent blows. ‘Biff biff biff,’ I said. ‘And Norman’s out for the count.’

Norman rolled his eyes and got to his feet. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I know what we have to do. Find the woman with the green lipstick. If she has any green lipstick left. She’s probably smeared it all off, pushing porcupine’s peckers down her gob.’

‘I never knew there were porcupine’s peckers.’

‘Yeah, well, there were only a few left. I had most of them at lunchtime.’

‘Come on,’ I said to Norman. ‘Crank up your peacock suit and let’s get this done. I’ll feel a lot better about ringing in the New Year once we’ve grabbed this woman, tied her up and bunged her in the cellar.’

‘Fair enough.’ Norman tinkered with his remote control. ‘This lad’s on the blink,’ he said, shaking it about. ‘I think some of the circuits have come unstuck.’ He gave the delicate piece of equipment several hearty thumps. ‘That’s got it,’ he said.

‘Right then.’ I explained to Norman the cunning strategy that I felt we should employ. It was simple, but it would prove effective. All we had to do, I told him, was to shuffle nonchalandy amongst the lolling guests in a manner that would arouse no hint of suspicion, and bid each of the womenfolk a casual how-d’you-do whilst having a furtive peer at their lipstick. Then whichever one of us found her would simply shout across to the other: ‘Here’s the murdering bitch,’ and together we’d make the citizen’s arrest.

Whatever could go wrong with a strategy like that?

Nothing.

Also, I felt that doing it this way would give me the opportunity to chat up some of the top notch totty and perhaps see myself all right for a bunk-up to bring in the New Year.

It was only fair. It was my party.

‘Go on,’ I said to Norman. ‘Off you go.’

Norman went off, going how-d’you-do, and I went off, doing likewise.

‘How-d’you-do,’ I went, ‘enjoying the party?

‘Hope everything’s OK.

‘Please don’t stub your cigar butts on the floor. Kindly use the human ashtrays provided.

‘A little more Charlie with your strawberries, your Royal Highness?’

And so on and so forth and suchlike.

I thought we were doing rather well, actually. We were quartering the hall, moving in almost orchestrated shufffing zig-zag parallels not altogether unlike a combination of Rommell’s now legendary pincer movement and the ever-popular ‘Hokey Cokey’.

I rather hoped we’d be doing that later. Along with ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ and the ‘Birdy Song’. They really make the party go with a whizz in my opinion.

I suppose I must have how-d’you-do’d my way through at least fifty women before I chanced to glance across to see how Norman was doing. He appeared to be doing rather well, by all accounts. For where all my how-d’you-dos had ended with me shuffling on alone, Norman’s hadn’t. It seemed that all the women Norman had howd’you-do’d to were now following him.

They trailed along behind in a giggling all-girl conga line.

I sighed and shook my head and did some more how-d’you-dos. I was getting rather fed up with how-d’you-dos, as it happened. So

I thought I’d switch to hi-hello-theres, just to liven things up.

Mind you, I don’t know why I even bothered with any pleasantries at all. None of the well-heeled, well-fed, well-sloshed, well-stoned women even showed the faintest interest in me.