“What do you mean, Mr Wells?” Will asked.

“Forget whatever he means,” said Barry. “Let’s get out of here, chief. Things to do, places to go. Chiswick, for instance.”

“Be quiet, Barry.”

“Inside your head,” said Mr Wells. “Your poor fool.”

“Hold on there,” said Will.

“Let’s be off,” said Barry.

“No, I want to hear what Mr Wells has to say.”

“I don’t.”

“Then go back to sleep.”

“That thing,” said Mr Wells, “that thing in your head was the power behind my time machine. I was working on the project but getting nowhere. Rune came round for dinner. He needed money, but I was disinclined to lend him any, as I had done so before on several previous occasions and failed to receive repayment. Rune told me that he could make my time machine work if I advanced him one hundred pounds. He was a very persuasive speaker. I gave him the money.”

“And Barry made the time machine work?”

“It was nothing, chief, I can’t take all the credit.”

“Credit? Mr Wells’ time machine brought that terminator robot thing into the future to kill me. And that’s why I’m here, now.” Will had a very fierce face on; thankfully for Barry he couldn’t see it.

“You’re getting it wrong, chief,” the sprout protested. “It’s not how you think, it wasn’t my fault.”

“So whose fault was it?”

“Search me, chief.”

“I’m going to release you now, Mr Wells,” said Will. “Don’t get me wrong; I don’t trust you. You seem like a very bitter individual to me.”

“You’d be bitter too if you were in my position.”

“Well, be that as it may, I am going to release you. It’s time Barry and I had a long talk.”

“You won’t get much truth out of him.”

“I think I might. Do you possess a pair of tweezers? A long pair?”

“I do,” said Mr Wells.

“All right, chief, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

Will thought about this. “I’m not even certain that I know what it is I want to know.”

“Fair enough then, chief, so let’s get on our way.”

“Ask him about his twin brother,” said Mr Wells.

“Damn,” said Barry.

“Cough it up,” said Will.

“Family business,” said Barry. “You wouldn’t be interested.”

Will reached down and untied Mr Wells. “I’ll help you up,” said he. “Let’s find your longest tweezers.”

“All right, chief, I’ll tell you everything.”

“Everything?” Will asked.

“Everything,” said Barry.

20

Mr Wells now sat in a comfy fireside chair, cushions all about him, his invisible broken ankle swathed in bandages and resting on a Persian pouffe. Will stoked up the fire and settled into a chair of similar comfort opposite the partially visible man.

“So, Barry,” said Will. “Would you like to tell me all about it?”

“Not really, chief.”

“Well, that is neither here nor there, nor anywhere else for that matter. Just tell me the truth and all of the truth.”

“And we’ll keep it between the two of us, yes, chief?”

“I don’t think so. Mr Wells seems to know something about this. I’d like him to hear it too.”

Mr Wells toasted Will with a glass of vintage port.

“All right then, chief. Tell you what, close your eyes and let your jaw go slack and I’ll work your vocal cords.”

Will shook his head and sighed. “If it will save time, then I will.” And so Will closed his eyes and slackened his jaw.

And Barry manipulated Will’s vocal cords.

“We must be off,” said the voice of Will. “Goodbye now, Mr Wells.”

“No!” Will’s eyes became widely open. “Just tell the truth and let’s be done with it.” And he closed his eyes and slackened his jaw once again.

And in that cosy room, with the comfy chairs and the dancing firelight and the light of the morning entering the windows, Barry told his tale through the mouth of Will Starling.

“Firstly,” he said. “You have to understand that none of this is my fault. Well, possibly some of it is, but most of it isn’t. You can look upon me as not just a Holy Guardian sprout assigned to bring comfort to a single individual, but as more of a Holy Guardian of the World sprout, a sprouty soldier of fortune on constant assignment to the forces of goodness and purity.”

Mr Wells made groaning sounds.

“Your ankle paining you?” Barry asked.

“Your banal conversation,” said Mr Wells.

“But it’s true,” said Barry. “It really is. As a scholar you must surely know that since the time of Christ, and possibly even before, mankind has been under the constant belief that it is living in the End Times; that the Apocalypse and Armageddon, and things of that nature generally, are about to occur.”

“This is indeed so,” said Mr Wells. “End Time cults have existed throughout history. There have been countless false messiahs, preaching that, ‘the end is at hand’. All have been wrong, however.”

“On the contrary,” said Barry. “Most have been correct. Mankind stands teetering on the edge of destruction. It always stands teetering on the edge of destruction. Always has, probably always will.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” said Mr Wells. “Amply proven by history. We are still here, are we not?”

“Only because of the likes of me.” Barry now moved Will’s hand towards his mouth and poured port into it.

“Oi!” said Will, regaining control of himself. “Cut that out. Just do the talking.”

“There is always some terrible conspiracy,” Barry continued. “Always some fiendish plot on the part of the forces of evil to destroy mankind and unleash chaos upon the world. Always. The likes of me are forever engaging in titanic struggle against the likes of them. We thwart their sinister plots and save mankind from extinction. Why only last month—”

“Only last month you were in Rune’s steamer trunk,” said Will, before relaxing once again.

“Chief, I can travel through time. I could pop off this moment, do things for years and years in another time and then be right back here a split second later, before you even realised that I was gone. There; I did it, then.”

“Tell us about your brother,” said Mr Wells. “I am sure Mr Starling would like to hear all about him.”

“I would,” Will agreed.

“Then just slacken that jaw and listen, chief.”

Barry continued with the telling of his tale. “I can’t do anything Without human help,” he said. “I need a ‘host’ to work with, as it were. Someone enlightened, who can actually hear the voice of their Holy Guardian. Most folk cannot. Choosing the right host isn’t easy, which is why some of my kind come to grief. They fall in with the wrong crowd, like my brother has a habit of doing, and then the trouble starts.”

“I spy a flaw in your line of debate,” said Mr Wells. “Surely everyone, according to reasoning, has a Holy Guardian Angel, be it angel or vegetable, assigned to them at birth.”

“That’s the way God does business,” said Barry. “Well, not God exactly, because He doesn’t get around to doing much of anything nowadays, but one of His operatives, in a department, in heaven, somewhere.”

“But everyone has one.”

“Yes,” said Barry. “I told you that.”

“So where is Mr Starling’s? When you moved in, did you evict the previous tenant?”

“Ah,” said Barry.

“Ah,” said Mr Wells.

“Allow me to explain,” said Barry. “Evicting the previous tenant, as you put it, is not something to be entered into lightly. It can have a dire effect on the ‘host’. Conflicting voices in the head, that kind of thing. It will be called schizophrenia in a few decades from now. It’s a tricky business. I am here at this present time because of the big trouble that is here. Mr Rune, for all his unconventional behaviour, was one of the good guys. He was dedicated to the fight against evil. I sought him out to help. But his Holy Guardian, Gavin the gooseberry—”