Amiga Format CD 25/amigaformatcd25.iso/websites/5dsoftware/hidden.txt

Text File | 1998-02-04 | 48KB | 785 lines

Andy J Campbell: THE HIDDEN AGENDA

I

The small green booklet was offered to me for just fifty pence by a
rough-looking homeless man standing on a savaged cardboard box. I was
in the heart of Huddersfield at the time; it was Monday, I had the day
off work, and Sod's Law had decided to darken the sky to the colour of
a nasty bruise and squeeze it until it produced random spittles of snow.
The New Year had been alive for barely more than eight days; shop
windows were plastered with old stock, diagonal SALE stickers, squadrons
of enthusiastic pensioners rooting through reduction baskets and
children tugging relentlessly at their parents' coats. My own shopping
spree had, so far, been remarkably fruitless, and so, not wanting to go
home empty handed, I decided yes, alright, I would purchase a copy of
the ominous green booklet, just this once, but with no promises that I
would actually read it, you understand.
  The shivering homeless salesman listened attentively to my muttery
complaints as I dug into my pockets and felt through an embarrassingly
large amount of change. He nodded and said "oh thanks mate, thanks,
brilliant mate, nice one" despite the fact that I was nudging closer to
evacuation with every passing freezing-cold second.
  When my fifty pence piece did at last materialise, the man, who had
dashes of white like polystyrene balls stuck in his dishevelled hair,
accepted the coin with all the grace and politeness of an archaeologist
handling a fragment of a dinosaur egg. In return, I relieved him of the
booklet (which was called `The Hidden Agenda' and was now damp with
patches of wet) and slid it clumsily into my coat pocket. "Cheers
mate, happy new year, cheers," called the man, waving me on up the
street with a maroon-gloved hand. I put on speed and didn't wave back;
the snow was spilling down over the town centre like a frothy waterfall
and sticking to the flags already. People were struggling to put up
hoods and unfasten umbrellas and climb into cars - as if there had been
some mass telepathic announcement that Huddersfield was about to be
invaded by the Martians.
  Alarmed by all this sudden chaos (which to my mind seemed to have
been triggered by my reluctant purchase of the booklet), I ploughed
into the door of the nearest up-market cafe and bustled my way inside.
  Before long I was enjoying a strong cup of tea and a cigarette and
amusedly watching from my snug window-seat the progress of the public
panic that had been initiated by the snow. Whilst a car parked directly
adjacent to the cafe died a spluttery death and the young female
passenger scrambled out to commence the strenuous pushing, I began to
lethargically peel the wrapper off my three-pack of jam rings and then
to nibble away the biscuit from around the sugary, strawberry-flavoured
centre.
  When the woman and the car had gone and the cafe was swimming with
kids and coughs and wet rain coats, I produced the booklet, tossed it
onto the table and examined the front cover. `The Hidden Agenda by
'Randalph Leeson' it said at the top and, some distance below: `No
tickets required to get into this zoo. You're one of the animals.'
There was also a barely distinguishable illustration of a monkey laid on
top of a derelict wall and wearing dark glasses behind all this puzzling
text, as though it were there to offer some form of cryptic clue.
  Like a drunken man contemplating the punch-line of a subtle joke, I
eventually lost patience and decided I would simply pretend to get it; I
snorted and nodded to myself and casually glanced around the busy cafe
to see if anyone had been watching. Two tables away, I noticed a woman
switch her eyes back to her oppositely-seated companion. Three tables
to the left of her, an elderly man wearing a brown hat and matching
scarf engaged me in a long visual battle... Before returning his gaze
to his empty plate. Nobody, I observed, was reading, holding, or even
in possession of one of the small, green, fifty pence booklets. There
was only I.
  Feeling immensely uncomfortable, I turned the first page over and
ran my finger down the crease of the spine. The paper onto which the
text had been printed bordered on the quality of that which we use to
wipe our bottoms, though for fifty pence I suppose it would be
delusional to expect Premium Bond. Materialistic gripes aside, there
were a good twenty or thirty pages and the binding, although flimsy
and amateurish, was sufficient enough to keep the publication held
quite neatly together. Any form of contents list appeared to be absent;
instead, there was a lengthy preface, entitled `Unlearning the Already
Learned' and from then on the booklet was divided into brief sections,
each one classified as a `lesson' (followed by a number) and appointed
with a different - I assumed fictional - story.
  In effect, I had been sold a cheap and badly produced collection of
what after a few moments browsing appeared to be short contemporary
tales. I closed the booklet, docked my cigarette, got up and went to
the toilet. I was no fiction fan, let me assure you now - the very idea
of bulldozing through a bunch of fashionable, depressing stories of
child, alcohol and drug abuse turned me off like a powercut.
  I emerged from the toilet wondering why on Earth I had failed to take
`The Hidden Agenda' with me for resource saving purposes, only to
discover that, to my alarm, approximately half of the inhabitants of
the cafe had, out of seemingly nowhere, produced small, green, fifty
pence booklets and were quietly, compulsively reading them.

II

Had I not been distracted by one small but significant spelling mistake
I am quite sure that I would have remained in the suddenly subdued cafe
avidly reading `The Hidden Agenda' until I reached the final full-stop.
It was absolutely mesmerising. The fact that I had purchased such a
compelling series of stories for the price of fifty pence from, of all
people, a man who's bedding included a large grocery storage box
disturbed me almost as greatly as the spelling mistake.
  It was shortly after discovering the error that I happened to glance
out of the window to update myself on the weather. The snow had calmed
to a light, fluttery sprinkle, not unlike small bird feathers, and
there were bargain-hunters milling around again and cars hovering
through a canal of coffee-coloured slush.
  "Just a shower I think sir," came the voice of one of the waiters
from somewhere close beside me.
  "Pardon?" I said, absently tidying my jumper. "Oh, yes. Yes,
probably."
  The waiter, a tall, dark and crystal-eyed boy of about seventeen,
nodded to my acknowledgement before pointing with his rubber-ended
pencil to the booklet that lay open beside my ashtray.
  "You want to finish that, sir. Brilliant book. Ought to be on the
best-seller shelves at Dillons."
  "Really?" I was intrigued to hear another's opinion. I glanced at the
work in question and scratched my stubble. "But it was merely fifty
pence. I purchased it from, ah," I nodded towards the window. "A-a man
just down the street there..."
  "Huddersfield sir," the boy grinned, somewhat proudly. "Literary
capital of England. Or there abouts. Simon Armitage comes from here you
know. And Steve Sneyd."
  "Steve who?" I chuckled.
  "Sneyd. Science fiction poet. Never heard of him?"
  "I'm afraid not."
  "It's been on the news, sir."
  "I'm sorry?" I couldn't quite see the connection. "What's been on
the news?"
  "The Hidden Agenda, sir. The book you're reading. Nobody knows who
the real author is. Apparently it's springing up everywhere. London.
Birmingham. Manchester. The homeless are selling it. You know, like
they sell The Big Issue."
  He paused as if for response.
  "Yes, yes, I know about The Big Issue," I impatiently prompted. "Tell
me more about this booklet, please, I'm absolutely intrigued."
  "Well, sir, I read-"
  "Simon!" a plump cook dressed in a striped red apron hollered from
across the room. "You got an order for table six!"
  The young waiter jerked and excused himself and scuttled away through
the tables like mouse enclosed in a maze. "Er, excuse... Me..." I
tried, but to no avail. The boy dropped his pencil, picked it up, then
disappeared through a silver swing-door marked `STAFF ONLY'.
  I was, however, in a sense, quite relieved to be left alone again
with the perplexing booklet and its oddly familiar spelling mistake,
for it was during the following solitary ten minutes or so that my mind
happened to land upon an intriguing hypothesis: I might have been, not
five years ago, a very good friend of the author.
  There were of course one or two minor set-backs prior to my arrival
at this unlikely proposition: firstly, `Randalph Leeson' would be a
pseudonym, for my old friend's name was the common and somewhat less
inspiring `Craig Andrews'; secondly, his writing would have matured to
the incredible standard of `The Hidden Agenda' within the suspiciously
narrow time-span of half a decade; thirdly, and perhaps most
ridiculously, he would still, despite my repeated tutorings, be unable
to spell the word `scenario' without misplacing the `e' with an `i'.
"Sc-en," I remember impatiently emphasising to the man. "It's spelt S C
E as in `scene'... Scene, you know? `What a beautiful scene that is.'
Come on Craig, it can't be that hard to remember." Of course, I hadn't
known about his dyslexia when I'd said that.
  For a while the idea that Andrews - a talented but mentally
restricted English student - had penned `The Hidden Agenda' seemed both
romantic and hysterical. Andrews and I had first met in a large ware-
house in the summer of 1993, where we had been paired off to work
together transferring stock from the back of heavy goods vehicles onto
pallets for fork-lift truck manipulation. The job had involved keeping
an accurate count of the number of boxes marked with a certain design;
this is where I had initially become aware of Craig's difficulties, for
he had been unable to properly carry out even this simple mathematical
task.
  Indeed I was on the verge of an explosion of private sleeve-stifled
laughter when I began to read the third stunning story in the booklet.
This particular tale, however, soon made me choke (almost physically)
on my own unnecessary amusement, for it contained a central character
I knew, for definite, to be absolutely unique to Craig Andrews.

III

Using the Day Rover I had purchased at ten o'clock that morning, I
ventured first to Bradford to pay a visit to my brother (who had
recently been bedridden with a severe dose of gastric flu) and then to
Pellon Lane, Halifax in the hope of dropping in for a chat with an old,
perhaps marvellously talented, friend. I knew that approaching Andrews'
home was a dramatic and risky move, not least because I had longsince
forgotten his telephone number and had no idea whether he still resided
there, but somehow... It felt like the right thing to do. It felt, I
have to confess, quite /exciting/.
  By the time the bus slithered into the outskirts of Halifax I had
read all but one of the stories contained within the pages of `The
Hidden Agenda' and indeed a wiser man I felt because of it. It was a
strange, almost indefinable quality which oozed from the stories; they
managed to peel open my emotions with their subtle delicacy and yet
brutally taunt and interrogate my every fundamental belief. I could not
help but wonder how far its distribution (in this wonderfully economical
form) had managed to stretch and to what extent it was affecting the
mind of the population as a whole. It was as though the writer, dyslexic
shelf-stacker or not, had somehow tapped into an entirely separate mode
of consciousness - one that we, as a society, somehow /know/ exist but
simply cannot accept or understand. (Higher Consciousness, I think the
mystics call it.) The collection was, to put it bluntly, pointing an
enormous finger in the face of humanity and accusing it of gratuitous
slumber.
  As the bus jounced over speedramps and traversed roundabouts I found
myself reading the prose with increased anger, frustration, excitement;
outside, the world, almost as if it were reflecting my thoughts, was
slinking away into sea of thick fog, the lights becoming soft chalky
smudges, the buildings developing scale and power. Soon so much of the
night had been lost it was as though the near-empty vehicle had taken
flight and was soaring through the clouds or passing turbulently across
some psychic sleeper's dreamworld. Traffic lights were thin soldiers
with gleaming heads; parked cars were crashed escape pods, their dazed
inhabitants emerging only to be consumed by the hungry mist; evening
shoppers were dark blurs beneath gothic towers; and torn green booklets
blew like big false money into the gutters. Perhaps, I thought, the
Martians have landed after all.
  Or perhaps the world had taken a noticable step towards anarchy; a
bold, frightening step triggered by the production and mass-distribution
of the subversive booklet which lay open on my lap. This idea, no
matter how preposterous it may seem to you, gentle listener, launched a
sharp chill down the back of my neck. I seriously considered abandoning
my visit to drop in on Andrews - contemplated demanding the driver to
stop, in fact, before the fog transcended atmospheric and became
abnormal, dangerous. However, before I could allow any one of my panic-
stricken thoughts to manifest, the bus began its sluggish descent into
the Halifax station.
  I stood behind the two other well-dressed travellers as the brakes
squealed and the folding double-doors clattered open. Snow-flakes
blustered around our feet as the three of us disembarked, the awaiting
passengers nudging our shoulders and banging our knees with briefcases
in the hurry to get on board.
  Admittedly I hadn't walked the streets of Halifax for several months,
having had no real reason to do so, but even still I found that hardly
a road, building or lamppost felt familiar. It was as if somebody had
inversed the entire town or flipped it over and randomly plucked away
some of its features.
  The snow had fallen more heavily in this region, it seemed; the sky
was a hazy replica of the ground, almost giving off the impression that
one could look up and see one's own reflection standing there on the
pavement, and the roads were dark rivers of shattered amber light. There
were no casual shoppers or strolling business men, no clusters of
misbehaving schoolkids or parents pushing prams, only barren streets
sprinkled with occasional runners and hiders and one or two 'keepers
hurriedly locking doors. There was also an eerie silence, as though not
only the streets were empty, but the buildings too - gutted of human
content and ready for demolition.
  I have to confess at this point that I am a weak, easily-influenced
man who will rarely go against the flow in any situation, albeit
physical, social or political. The reason I have a box of Low Tar in my
pocket, for instance, stems from the fact that I did not have the guts
to say no back in high school, and to a certain extent my dying marriage
is a result of that very same fear. I considered turning back and
heading home that night, for the atmosphere as I walked through the
town centre was one of such intense emptiness it began to frighten me.
However, I did not turn back.
  I did not.
  It is perhaps ironic that it was - and I can only say this now, some
time after the incident - the psychological effects of 'The Hidden
Agenda' which drove me into continuing my spur-of-the-moment journey.
This, and of course the surreal sight of hundreds of copies of the
revolutionary booklet ignorantly splashed across roads and battered
against doorways.

IV

The number of Andrews' house had disappeared from my memory, as had the
name of the grubby backstreet down which it was located. I did however
have vivid recollections of an unusually tall iron gate and a cyan door
containing three narrow glass panels. I circled several dark blocks of
untidy semi-detached houses before coming to a halt outside a gate which
roughly matched my previous description. Despite the fact that the door
of the accompanying house was - from what I could tell under the rich
amber of the streetlights - a dull shade of green and completely window-
less, I unfastened the latch, pushed the gate open and made my way up
the snow-coated lawn.
  I knocked four times, glanced at my watch (it was half past seven)
and then stood around the way people generally do after they've knocked
on somebody's door. I considered extracting the booklet from my coat
pocket in case recognition turned out to be difficult but dismissed the
idea on non other the increasingly familiar basis that it "felt right"
to do without it.
  Within twenty seconds, I heard the rattle of a chain followed by the
metallic click of a security lock; the door eased wide open, as if by
automatic, revealing a warm yellow hallway. I was so taken aback, I
almost failed to notice a man's head protruding from behind the frame.
  "Do come in," announced the head.
  Such an immediate invitation did not register and I could not tell at
first glance whether the head belonged to Andrews; it had barely a hair
on its scalp and dark semi-circles under its eyes, like some ghastly
butler from a low-budget horror movie.
  "Ex... Excuse me," I said. "I'm... I'm looking for an old friend, he
used to live around here."
  "Look, just come in Philip," the head insisted. I jolted upon its
reciting my name and took a step back.
  "Phil," The head closed its eyes briefly. "I've just got out of the
bath and I'm wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, now will you get your
bottom off my doorstep and into my house?"
  I would not have wished genital frostbite even on my worst enemy; I
stepped into the warm golden light and took off my hat.
  "I'm sorry," I said. "But... This is such a shock. Were you actually
/expecting/ me?"
  "Yes," came the reply from behind. The door closed and the sequence
of metallic noises was repeated. "Please, go through into the living-
room, I'll be with you in a minute. I'll just pop upstairs and get
dressed. Nice to see you again by the way, Phil. It's been four years,
hasn't it?"
  "Andrews?" I quizzed, turning around in time to see a fairly stocky
man ascending the adjacent staircase. "Ah, five, actually," I called.
  "Five, wow, incredible... Make yourself at home."
  Although I had not yet had the opportunity to search for full facial
recognition, it was starkly obvious that I had come to the right house.
This revelation, coupled with the delightful relief to be - at last -
out of the cold, injected into me a powerful boost of self-confidence. I
took off my coat and hung it, together with my hat, over the end of the
bannister, as if the house were mine and I had just come in from work.
Then, whistling, I pushed open the livingroom door and walked inside.

V

I emerged not only from the door which led back into the hallway but
also from a slightly duller replica that lay straight ahead. Initially
this confused me; I offered a shy "hello" to the gentleman who had
seemingly entered the room at the same time as I... Before realising
that he was in fact my own reflection.
  Deeply embarrassed, I shuffled entirely out of the doorway and into
the room proper. From here, I engaged visual contact with a further
three life-size clones of myself, each at slightly different angles; I
also saw the lower half of my face boxed into a green frame on top of
the windowsill, like an accidental shot taken by an already appalling
photographer. It took me some time to realise that I was the victim of
a series of strategically-placed mirrors, some small and dainty, others
enormous, overwhelming.
  The walls (where not consumed by mirrors) were hiding behind oak-
effect panels, treacle toffee in colour and littered with golden clocks
and colourful, surrealist paintings. The room itself was small (indeed
it felt like the back of a cave or the furthest chamber in some deep
and complex attic) and illuminated only by the moon-like glow of a
circular lamp and a soft, almost unnoticable, flicker emanating from an
extravagant fireplace. The mirrors, however, rendered the impression
that there were a further four identically furnished chambers, no less.
(If one were to remain out of reflective reach, I supposed, the illusion
would be astonishingly convincing and not unlike some bizarre drawing
by M C Escher.)
  There were three chairs and a two-cushion settee, all coppery-brown
and positioned so that the seats were facing the fire, and various other
dark wooden furnishings - a China cabinet, a large corner bookshelf, a
four-door sideboard and a desk with a computer and monitor. Everything,
even the new technology, looked antique.
  I must also mention here that the room had its own unique odour which
smelt not unlike an expensive talc I had received as a Christmas
present. I was thus reminded - if perhaps inattentively - of my wife and
the current relationship I shared with her; our vague smiles and hope-
less conversations, our cul-de-sac careers and faded love. `I could be
boxed into my own heart,' I contemplated as I studied myself in the
refractive gloom. `Everywhere I look, yearning to see what lies beyond
the prison walls, I stare only into a matrix of images of my dreary
self.'
  I was aroused from my grievous thoughts by the arrival of an alien
reflection; that of Andrews standing in the doorway. He was dressed in
a plain, navy blue sweater, black trousers and tartan slippers, and
holding what I assumed to be a bottle of wine.
  "Drink?" he offered.
  "I think perhaps I ought to," I replied, turning away from the mirrors
in unison with my various other selves. "I must say your livingroom is
quite remarkable. Congratulations."
  "Thankyou," said Andrews, strolling over to the fireplace. He crouched
down and began to sort through the silvery contents of an African vase.
"Unfortunately, this is the only room of its kind in the house. The
kitchen's just your average kitchen, the bedrooms are just plain old
bedrooms, and the toilet..." He looked up at me, grinning, a corkscrew
held between finger and thumb. "Well, it's bog-standard." He began to
dig into the top of the bottle. "Yes... Imperial Leather, Slazenger
Sport, Toilet Duck, faulty shower system, you name it... Ah," There was
a gentle pop and a soft hiss. "Fifteen quid from Sainsbury's, would you
like a drop?"
  "Please," I nodded. "May I sit down?"
  "Of course, don't be silly," said Andrews, producing two small glasses
from around the edge of the cluttered hearth. "The majority of my guests
tend to be disillusioned by this room's sort of, ah, `glassy look', as
if they're afraid everything will fall to pieces if they attempt to sit
down," He laughed to himself, quietly. "Please, make yourself at home."
  "I'll try my best," I said, gently easing myself into the nearest arm-
chair. It appeared to sink a little too much beneath my weight, like a
gigantic beanbag, but after some shuffling I began to feel luxuriously
comfortable. "How did you know I was coming?"
  Andrews smiled. "Didn't, really. I assumed only one thing: that if
anyone were to spot the deliberate spelling mistake it would be you."
  "Deliberate?" I came close to shouting. "You mean...?"
  "Let's ah... Let's talk about the mirrors," said Andrews evasively,
now carefully pouring the wine. "Wonderful, aren't they? They're here
for a practical reason more than any other. My intention was not to
create a sort of, ah, domestic circus attraction, but rather an environ-
ment in which I could comfortably work."
  "Work?" I quizzed.
  "Yes," confirmed Andrews, topping off the drinks. "I assume you
haven't forgotten, Phil, that I have, ah... A slight brain disorder?"
He handed me my wine. I thanked him and shook my head as inoffensively
as possible. "Good. Then what I'm about to tell you shouldn't be too
difficult for your... Ah, `conventional' mind to grasp." He chuckled
wheezily. "No offence, of course."
  "Not at all." I smiled, offended.
  "It does tie in with your original question of how I... Sort of knew
you would be coming - indeed there is far more to it that the spelling
mistake alone - but, ah, it may take a while for me to actually get to
that part. You don't have any other appointments, do you Phil?"
  I briefly scanned my mental chalkboard and found that it was blank,
as usual. "Ah, no. No, not really."
  "Good, then I'll begin."

VI

Like a crab, Andrews managed to scamper backwards along the carpet and
climb up and into the other armchair without spilling a drop of his
wine - a performance almost as bizarre as the room itself. I was glad
that he had chosen the chair and not the settee for it meant that he
would be sitting directly opposite, and I could initiate a secret facial
analysis.
  I could not believe how tired and bedraggled my friend looked. When I
had known him he'd been a tall and muscular man with thick bushy hair
and a healthy, peachy complexion. His eyes had been bright and sharp and
full of zest and had expanded so wide sometimes I used to think they
were on the brink of popping out.
  Now, I saw only a podgy, balding, sick-looking creature with a white,
sunken face that looked as if it were made out of dough. It was quite
obvious to me that life had grabbed this unsuspecting man by the neck
and choked him with all its filthy, unromantic might. And by God had
Andrews been unprepared. Like me, he was a dying kid in an adult shell,
the shock of life's responsibilities frozen on his face like a birth-
mark. Yes, I thought, this mock-grown-up is more of a reflection of me
than the entire room.
  "Do you remember Phil, when I used to have to ask for your assistance
when filling in those... Daft little pink trading forms back in the old
warehouse days?"
  I nodded and took a sip of wine. "I do indeed."
  "Good. Then you'll also remember that, given enough time, I /was/
actually capable of filling in those forms for myself, yes? Admittedly,
I was very slow, had to think hard, write carefully... But I /was/ able
to complete them, was I not?"
  "That's right, yes, I remember," I said, although to be honest with
you, gentle listener, I didn't remember at all. To my mind Andrews -
minus some startlingly impressive ideas for fiction - had been as thick
as a Yorkie bar. He could have been making this `I was actually capable'
rubbish up according to his own warped fantasies and I would not have
known any different.
  "Well, had I been able to write in my, ah, `natural way' I would have
had those pink forms completed as quickly as you or any other member of
staff. You see Phil, I have what is sometimes referred to as `Leonardo's
Syndrome', a label which originates, of course, from Leonardo da Vinci,
whose journals and manuscripts - you may or may not know - were almost
entirely written in mirror-writing. To me, writing from left to right
takes as much effort as it would take somebody like you to write in
reverse."
  I wasn't at all sure whether I was taking any of this in, but I nodded
anyway, just to make it appear as though I was.
  "When I first exploded into mirror-writing," Andrews resumed. "I
thought I had finally cracked how to write: there it was on the page,
line after line of it, and I could read it! Perfectly! I was twelve
years old... I decided to show my English teacher, who had more or less
given up on me, and ah... She... She laughed. She actually /laughed/ at
what I'd written and humiliated me in front of the entire class. This,
I can assure you, was enough to convince me that I had several screws
loose, up here, you know?
  "So, I kept the mirror-writing strictly in the closet. I filled
notebooks with it. Hundreds of private notebooks. And in my spare time
I practised translating my words into what you would regard as normal
text - but by God it was so difficult! It felt strenuous, wrong and
unnatural. The stories I used to show you, Phil, the hand-written ones,
remember? Why do you think they were so appallingly disjointed? They
were the results of my translations - poorly assembled versions of
stories I had initially written in reverse."
  At that point in the man's intriguing speech, I have to admit that
something was indeed beginning to click. At the very least, Andrews had
managed to gain my complete attention.
  "I began to realise," he went on. "That it is the conventional
education system which eliminates the idea that a dyslexic person can
have any... Ah, `intelligent' effect on society. Schoolhood is often a
traumatic time for those in my situation; what the majority of children
find "easy", dyslexics often find terribly difficult - and vice-versa.
Angered, I began to privately challenge this `weeding out' process by
writing hypothetical articles and stories. What I eventually came to
discover, however, was that it is not only dyslexics who suffer horrific
prejudice, but simply those who dare to oppose what is conventionally
acceptable - whether their ideas and morals are superior or not."
  I glanced at the computer and monitor in the corner of the room and
commented suddenly, thoughtfully: "Technology helped you," Andrews began
to nod in a rapid, energetic manner. "Yes, I've heard that software
can be of great assistance to the... The ah..."
  "Mentally disabled?" suggested Andrews, smiling a little. "You are on
the right track Phil. Computers have helped me a great deal. I have a
program, for instance, which `flips over' my reversed sentences and
spell-checks them simultaneously. As for my writing itself... You do
have to take into consideration, do you not, that I was probably already
 at a far higher level than that which might have been suggested by my
badly translated texts? The first story in the booklet for instance, I
wrote - in reverse, naturally - when I was just eighteen."
  "Eighteen, gosh," I scratched my head, feeling grossly incompetent.
"Indeed that, ah... That is quite an astounding achievement."
  The revelation that my dyslexic friend was in fact some sort of `freak
genius' was getting harder for me to take by the second; I promptly
realised that if I didn't divert the subject away from `unconventional
talent' I would be in danger of sounding obsequious with all of my
unavoidably stunned remarks.
  "I, I wonder if I might ask why you chose to distribute the booklet
via the streets?" I said. "I mean, why not approach a, a publish-
ing house? They'd be foolish to turn down material of such... Well, for
want of a better word, such /lucid/ quality."
  "There has never been a better time to self-publish, Phil," Andrews
declared, picking bits of fluff off his trousers. "The master template
and the first batch of eight hundred copies of `The Hidden Agenda' were
printed here, believe it or not, upstairs in a fully-featured miniature
press office. Two grand, Phil. No more. Sure, I had to find myself a few
friendly deals and a second hand laser printer but hey, no problem. Add
a couple of anonymous contacts dotted around the country, an Internet
connection for email access," He shrugged. "Publication at my
fingertips."
  I was really getting into the discussion now and had begun to nudge
towards the edge of the chair. "But surely we're missing the point here,
aren't we? The point being... Well, why? /Why/ did you do this? Just to
spite convention? I mean... What...?"
  Craig Andrews downed the last of his wine and studied the bottom of
his glass. "Because we're not ready for the age of Aquarius." he said.

VII

He relaxed into his chair as if he'd said all he wanted to say for the
evening and now it was my turn to intelligently respond. Unfortunately
I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Aquarius, to me,
was the name of one of those daft symbols associated with astrology,
which in turn was linked with cliched `Mystic Meg' columns found in
tabloid newspapers. I was on the brink of turning the conversation into
a slagging session when - albeit in a long-winded fashion - Andrews
began to elaborate:
  "`The Hidden Agenda' has been carefully designed to have a specific
effect on the general public - the results of ah, `tests', if you will,
carried out by myself and a handful of my associates. Believe me that
effect is now working: the booklet is on the radio, TV, the World Wide
Web, Teletext, plastered across the streets... `The Hidden Agenda' has
become gossip, Phil, and therefore it cannot lose."
  I uttered a confused laugh. "Wait a second, just hang on... You seem
to be under the impression that your unorthodox trek into the realms of
vanity publishing has, has... Been a success," I threw my arms up
in the air dramatically - wineglass included - only partially oblivious
to the fact that I was getting slightly drunk, not to mention galloping
into the unsociable realms of jealousy and bitterness. "Now, now
from the enormous amount of green booklet-shaped litter strewn about the
region, I would ascertain that your magnificent accomplishment has been
...Well," I struggled for a while before sighing and settling for: "Not
very much of an accomplishment."
  Whilst I swayed around, deeply considering this savage insult, Andrews
got up, obtaining his bottle of wine in the process, and gestured
refilling my glass.
  "Please darling, wouldn't mind another dose," I sniggered stupidly.
"By the way, what's the volume of this stuff? I don't want to get drunk
you know."
  "The first enticement," Andrews smiled, gracefully pouring the bloody
liquid. "Is the price. What the hell's fifty pence in today's market,
Phil?" He paused, my glass half-full, and looked at me questioningly.
  "What do you mean `what's fifty pence'? It's a coin isn't it!" I
barked laughter.
  "It holds the same value that a five pence held a decade ago," Andrews
explained, ignoring my rather feeble sarcasm. He did not resume pouring
the wine but instead gripped me in a sharp, almost hostile, stare. "The
sales go one hundred percent to the homeless; I get nothing."
  "Nothing!" I burped and patted my chest. "Ooh, excuse me... Nothing
my mother's bra! What's the catch?"
  "I get nothing," he repeated firmly, standing there like a statue with
the bottle tilted. "But because modern times have programmed it into us
that we `just don't get any sort of material goods for free' we react
the way you have done. By God, you wouldn't believe the trouble I had
convincing the homeless - of all people! - to take batches of booklets
from me. Like you, they just kept talking about `small print' and
`catches' and `what the deal was'. In the end I had to let them buy the
books and throw their money back to them! What kind of society do we
live in, Phil, where profit has to be involved with even the most basic
forms of creativity?"
  At last, he topped off my drink. I thanked him and took a sip almost
immediately. "Ah, I don't know," I coughed. The room was getting a bit
blurry. Andrews began to pace around my chair, making me feel like a
murder suspect in some futuristic interrogation chamber. (Indeed I had
forgotten what the world was like outside of this room; I felt to have
been sandwiched between its lavishly decorated walls for hours.)
  "As I was saying," Andrews continued loudly. "`It's only fifty pence,
what the hell,' thinks your average person, digging into his or her
pockets, unable to confess even to themselves that their main interest
stems not from the price, but from the title of the booklet - the word
`hidden', Phil, activates the greedy aromas currently lingering beneath
the Nations' nose. They can't help themselves. They purchase a copy of
the booklet and stuff it into their shopping bag. Then, when they reach
a cafe, or settle down on the bus, or pop into the local for a pint of
Tetley, they rummage around and find it and rip open the first page."
  Andrews stopped in front of me and turned. "That, Phil, is when I have
them. The stories challenge, insult, slap around the head, and yet the
readers of `The Hidden Agenda' continue because they can't help it, they
simply /have/ to know what happens, and this desire overrides /any/ gut
reaction until, at last, down comes the sword in the form of the final
`lesson'... Wounded by this great insulting blow, they get angry and
throw the book aside. It's trash! it's stupid! it's bullshit! Away with
it... But," Andrews lowered his voice to a whisper. "It's too late,
Phil. It's far too late. Like a bee sting the book must now die, but
the poison, my friend, has already found its way into the bloodstream."

VIII

Floating around like some muddy twig in a vast pond was the revelation
that I had not yet read `The Hidden Agenda's final showdown and had thus
managed to avoid, at least for the moment, being `poisoned' by its
apparently deadly `sting'. I contemplated revealing this knowledge to
Andrews, who I'm quite sure was convinced that I had read the entire
works, but in the end declined, for several reasons - the most obvious
of which being the fact that I no longer had any positive feelings
about the man.
  Andrews had, as far as I was concerned, cunningly lured me here to
gloat about his marvellously original but ludicrously paranoid master-
plan (not to mention to drug me upto the eyeballs with a tampered-with
wine and to dazzle me senseless with his glamorous, many-mirrored room).
In an odd way, however, I was quite enjoying it all; I hadn't permitted
myself to slip away into a state of hysteric drunkenness (nor, come to
think of it, had I conversed with an individual whom I could regard as
an `old friend') for several years. I think perhaps one small, alcohol-
soaked section of my brain actually believed that the whole situation
was a hoax; that Jeremy Beadle was going to pop out from behind one of
the cabinets, tear off a false beard, plant a microphone under my chin
and shout, "How do you feel, Phil, come on, how do you feel?". Another,
more sober, part was taking everything so seriously it was on the brink
of coming to the same foreboding apex. Either way, I was beginning to
truly appreciate my drunken giddiness.
  Andrews, on the other hand, most definitely wasn't.
  "I am the writer, you are the reader," he said divinely, now resting
his elbows on my knees. "I am the booklet, you are the helplessly
intrigued."
  I snorted and hiccupped simultaneously. "Oh darling, how poetic."
  Andrews flung himself up and kicked my chair, hard; I produced a yelp
and spilt wine over my trousers.
  "Oh... Damn! Blast!" I made as if to get up.
  "Remain seated!" barked Andrews, pointing at me.
  "But, my drink..." I flopped back into the chair. "I've spilt my
drink-"
  "Tough! You don't move a muscle until I have concluded my speech, is
that understood?"
  "But... You made me jump out of my skin! I need a paper towel or a,
a cloth or something-"
  "SHUT UP!" He brought his hand down on the sideboard with one massive
thump which made every mirror in the room vibrate. "Shut the hell up
for God's sake! Do you not understand? Is your brain /incapable/ of
conceiving the fact that this is real, that this is actually happening?"
  I shook my head, distressed by the man's violent hostility. "I'm
sorry... I-I don't follow."
  "Ignorance comes from the book's demand for basic change," snarled
Andrews, now assuming a stance not unlike that of a boxer awaiting his
opponents attack. "We are born into a society which then programs us to
believe in certain values and principles, and an enormous chunk of that
programming is devoted to convincing us that we simply cannot, under
any circumstances, break the program. `The Hidden Agenda', Phil, is a
`Hacker's Handbook' which allows one to see the core program for what
it is: a bundle of weak, greedy, self-obsessive, misguided `rules'."
  Andrews dug into his trouser pockets and produced a handkerchief. He
offered it to me.
  "I'm sorry," he confessed, wiping his mouth with his free hand. (He
had a large, purple-lipped mouth which reminded me of a tulip.) "I, ah,
I got a little carried away. Forgive me. Here, take this. Clean
yourself up."
  "Thankyou... Oh... are you sure? This is quality material, it might
stain."
  "Use it," Andrews discarded my argument with a brief flick of his
hand. I decided it would be best not to pursue the matter any further
despite the fact that my trousers were undoubtedly ruined. Andrews sat
down again opposite me and folded his arms, as though he were about to
practice the art of levitation.
  "Did you know, Phil, that we have been in the Age of Pisces since the
birth of Christ?"
  I winced at the sound of more astrological jargon. "Ah... Pisces, yes,
ah... That, that's my star sign... I mean, I don't know much about
astrology, but... Well, I know I'm a Pisces."
  "Why am I not surprised?" Andrews grinned, as though battling to
suppress the hilarity of some personal or astrological joke. "The Age of
Pisces represents compassion, sensitivity, self-sacrifice - this was
supposed to begin two thousand years ago, Phil, with the birth of the
son of God. You see, Christ was the messenger; he gave us the ultimate
gift - that of his life for our disgraceful sins. He was the teacher
and we were his pupils. But because we're a pathetic and destructive
race we have abused everything that the Piscean Age has taught us. The
power of the Holy Ghost has been used by the Church as an excuse to
butcher and brainwash innocent millions. Everything has been taken the
wrong way, exploited. I don't know whether you are familiar with the
visual appearance of the sign of Pisces, Phil-"
  "It's... Two fishes, isn't it?" I tried.
  "Yes, correct. Swimming, you'll notice, in opposing directions. In
Ancient Lore, Phil, the fish indicate the material body and the ever-
lasting soul... Ah, a tug-of-war, if you will, between materialism and
the desire for inner, spiritual peace. But, as any decent astrologer
will tell you,  is no Libra - it is rarely able to maintain an
adequate balance; one of the two fishes must swim away and become lost
in the oceans forever. There is no room in the Pisces fishtank for both.
  "It is my belief, Phil," said Andrews quietly. "That, during the Age
of Pisces, the human race has permitted the wrong fish to swim away."

IX

Andrews began to pour the wine again. His own discussion was becoming
so bleak and saddening it seemed that even he was incapable of properly
dealing with it. Repeatedly, he apologised for his unacceptably angry
behaviour, and as many times, I told him it was perfectly alright.
  Following the revelation of the mess human beings had apparently made
of the Piscean Age, we sat in virtual silence for the first time that
evening. Golden clocks ticked hypnotically against the gentle whir of
cars on the main road. Somewhere, a door slammed, somebody yelled bad
language and a dog began to howl. The rumble of an aircraft came and
went like a slow groan of thunder. A gang of teenagers shuffled past
the window, one of them throwing a small stone which bounced off the
glass... And then the soothing tick of the clocks returned with the
hum of the traffic.
  "People are changing," murmured Andrews, staring at the carpet.
  "Yes," I whispered back, though I hadn't a clue whether I agreed with
such a broad and unfocused comment. Were people changing? Or was all
this excitement and tension simply the result of Andrews' wildly over-
blown and hugely contagious imagination?
  "We have ruined an age which could have been so much more," he said,
shaking his head with pity - not for himself, I supposed, but for the
whole of mankind. "Commercialism has destroyed everything; we don't even
nudge our little fingers without being paid for it. Our government is
ridden with cheats, liars, adulterers and back-stabbers, their cost-
cutting schemes exploding not in their faces but in ours. We're like
laboratory mice. Children die from leukaemia and other cancers which
could have been prevented; doctors subscribe medicines which do more
harm than good. The food industry sells chemical-swamped garbage which
kills more people than Hitler... And, and, and people /know/ all this,
Phil. People know, but they don't care... What a waste of an age that
had so much to teach... So much to offer. My God Phil, I dread to think
how we might ruin the next."
  We drank, then, like quietly depressed pensioners in some deserted
moorland pub, gazing absent-mindedly at the complex patterns on the
cushion-covers. The sounds of the ageing evening began to drift back,
pulled by the tide of our mutual silence, until we were concentrating
on nothing other than distant sirens, shouts and barks.
  "So," I said, with the sigh of a man who has longsince discovered the
meaning of life and is now bored of everything. "How did you /really/
know I was coming?"
  "You're a Piscean," Andrews replied mechanically.
  "Ah," I pondered this response for a while before taking a large
mouthful of wine and deciding, like I often did, that I would simply
pretend to get it.

X

All I remember is that we drank ourselves nearly to death that night
before Andrews gave me my hat and coat, led me to the door and told me
to go home and get a good night's sleep. Unfortunately, like me, he
seemed to have lost all track of time (I estimate that it was approx-
imately half past three in the morning) and therefore it didn't even
flicker cross his consciousness that I might require a taxi.
  I have hazy recollections of standing - alone in the early-morning
silence - at a vandalised bus stop, cursing the incompetence of York-
shire Rider, before giving up and sneaking off behind a derelict build-
ing to dizzily relieve myself... After that, I'm not sure what I did.
Possibly tried to walk home (which would have been difficult considering
I lived way over in Rastrick) or wander back towards town in the hope of
finding a taxi... I honestly don't know.
  The next clear memory I have, gentle listener, is of sitting, cross-
legged, on the pavement beneath the clean sandstone wall of a public
house near the bottom of Pellon Lane.
  For an embarrassingly long time I don't think I even questioned /why/
I was sitting there like some diseased tramp - but merely accepted it,
as if inhaling the fumes of rush-hour traffic and gazing at the baggy
backsides of greasy-haired housewives was an important aspect of my
existence. Perhaps I was unconsciously reassuring myself that nothing
had changed... Nothing immediately intelligible anyway. Yes, maybe
Andrews /had/ caused a momentary blip in our steady progress toward the
Aquarian Age with his unique, self-sacrificing venture, but surely that
was all he had done - caused a blip.
  Although it took me almost half an hour to notice, I was in fact
sharing the shelter of the cream-coloured wall with a dozen or so soggy
copies of `The Hidden Agenda' - or, I mused, dead bumble bees. I tried
to ignore the booklets and concentrate on dragging my body back from the
realms of arctic numbness... But I couldn't. Trying to get up was too
much effort, too much strain. Besides, why even bother? What was my wife
going to say when I walked in? God's wispy beard, did I honestly /care/?
All I had to do was reach out and take one of the booklets...
  That was when everything began to flood back to me like a windblown
jigsaw puzzle: the scrumptious wine, the boggling mirrors, the smell of
expensive talc, the Age of Pisces... The final `sting'.
  Oh God that final, enticing sting. Was it really in the blood like
some lethal poison? Was /that/ why nobody appeared to have changed? Was
there an incubation period? And how... How did one simple story manage
to perform such a deep psychological alteration?
  Peel open the last few pages and find out, I thought, staring greedily
at all those attractive, muddy booklets. Discover, Phil... Come on...