Patient Blue

The large dining room has panoramic views across the grounds to the wooded hillside beyond. Two large crystal chandeliers hang above the oval dining table that has been laid with a white linen table cloth and silver cutlery. Sprays of early blooming Spring flowers stand in two silver fluted vases, and although still daylight, candles flicker in ornate candlesticks.

‘We seldom get electricity these days but we do have a generator, though I limit the time I run it due to an ever dwindling supply of fuel.Still I have an ample stock of candles, lots of logs for the fire which I don’t use at the moment anyway and the Aga, which not only cooks but heats the water. We’re pretty self sufficient here what with the ducks, chickens, vegetables and blow. We even have a well.’

‘The well’s good, said Rosslynne, very pure spring water and it’s filtered through Fullers earth, there’s large deposits in these hills.’

‘Gentlemen,you’ve landed on your feet here, all the food booze and dope you could ever want, plus two wild sex starved women to share it with.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ says Rosslynne.

‘OK one sex starved woman and one who might need a bit of persuasion, but based on past trends and history, not that much persuasion. Cheers, here’s to your new lives at Treetops. The world may be ending but I can guarantee that if you play your cards right you’ll certainly be going out with a bang and not a whimper.’

Although we are all terrified and in denial about the strangeness and terror engulfing the world, a kind of fuck it we’ve all got to die one day anyway bonhomie grips us. The booze flows and the special spices in the curry make the Barbi party swing. George who has imbibed heavily of both the top quality Champagne and three helpings of the curry-plus, wants to tell us about his theories concerning the universe and everything in it. And as the outside light fades and the candles flicker, casting twinkles in the redundant chandeliers overhead and spectral shadows in all the rooms far corners, he holds forth.

‘The Sun has got his hat on and is coming out to play.’ Do you want to know what that’s all about?

‘Yes do tell,’ says Barbi, but first tell me more about you.′

’OK,what do you want to know?

‘Before you became Guru George, who were you?’

‘George Cross. My Father was a military man, served in Korea, took a bullet in the head and got a discharge on medical grounds and a small disability pension. He Had to have a titanium plate in his cranium, the army medico said he would be fine, though they had to give him a special travel letter so that if he ever flew abroad and set off all the security alarms he could prove it was not a bomb but the plate in his cranium, the poor old sod.’

At this revelation there is silence with nobody knowing whether to laugh or commiserate. George says, ’hey it’s funny,when he and mum took a trip to Spain, must have been there fiftieth anniversary, he set off a full scale security alert and closed down Alicante airport for a whole afternoon, made the press and everything, The Sun newspaper had a small headline about it, “Head Banger- not a bomb.”

We laugh, at first gently and then uproariously, with tears running down our cheeks, though this is as much to do with the combination of copious amounts of alcohol and too much of the house green, rather than the anecdote itself.

‘So anyway the old man was this military type Corporal Cross, basically a grunt who had served so long as a Private they felt they ought to promote him, especially as he served with gallantry in Korea.’

‘And got a fucking metal plate in his head’

‘Yes that too’, George says without mirth.

‘Sorry, I say, didn’t mean to insult your old dad.’

‘So anyway, when I was born he named me George Cross.My Mum, who incidentally is called Christine-’

’Chris Cross, you’re joking? Barbi says.

‘No God’s honest, but it gets worse. My younger sister is called Victoria.’

‘Victoria Cross, oh dear’ says Rosslynne.

’As a family we were something of a local laughingstock. I was a bit of a rebel, wayward, had long hair became an uncommitted hippy, mainly for the women it attracted. My long wavy dark hair and rebel demeanor proved to be something of an attraction for them. I was definitely never into all the peace and love crap that was doing the rounds. Dad was disappointed and wanted me to go into the army. I basically told him to fuck off and said I’d need not only a titanium plate in my cranium, but also a full frontal lobotomy before I’d ever join the fucking army.

So I left home and ended up in a squat with some hippies, or as I would call them now, a bunch of parasitical wankers. At this time I also discovered acid and I somehow found myself at the 1970 Isle of Wight concert and never really came back, my physical body did but not really me.

‘I was at that concert,’ said Barbi. I was only about sixteen and was so out of it I can’t remember any of the acts I think Hendrix might have played, but he may already have been dead by then, in fact if it wasn’t for this Wang Pulse thing, I’d look it up on the internet right now.′

George continues. ‘He was there. At the Isle of Wight festival I met Jesus’

’Oh you found religion.

‘No not exactly Lynne, this Jesus was some sort of deranged Acid head with a dodgy haircut who used to go to all the major gigs and dance around waving a Tambourine. He actually became quite famous among the concert going fraternity. He gave me this really strong acid which he called BAM. I think I must have put it in my pocket and forgot about it.’

‘I met Jesus too,’ said Barbi I’ve even got this vague recollection that I may have given him a blow job at some gig or other, it might have been at the Stones free concert in HydePark.′

‘Aunt Barbi, that’s just too much information, you’re embarrassing me, sorry Michael, George, she’s not usually this bad ,but it’s her birthday-’

‘Nonsense the boys are lapping it up, pardon the pun, Michael, Guru, are either of you shocked?’

We both say no but actually I am a bit, much to my surprise..

’What do you reckon ever became of Jesus, then Guru?

’Don’t know but I did hear a rumor that he was working in a call centre somewhere in the West Midlands. After my physical return from the Isle of Wight I moved to Wales and lived for many years in a hidden teepee village in Pembrokeshire. I’d still be there now but the local council finally served us with an eviction notice after a particularly noisy party pissed off the neighbours. But whilst I was there and just after I had taken the BAM, which I found nestling in the pocket of my old jeans maturing nicely with age, I got into a conversation with the Sun.

‘The son, whose son, one of the other teepee people?’

‘No Michael, the big burning ball of hydrogen gas and radiation Sun, the Sun you can’t look at unless you want to go blind Sun.’

’Oh what did it say? asked Rosslynne.

’It said, or rather communicated, not actually a voice, that it was the ruler of the solar system and the destiny of the Earth, which is also a sentient being-

’Like the Gaia theory thing? I ask.

’No Gaia theory says the Earth is a victim and we’ve fucked it up with overpopulation and pollution and inevitably through natural processes it will react predictably though slowly in a way that neutralizes the damage. The Earth and certainly the Sun are far more than that, far more aware of us and the damage we cause. We are but microbes upon their mighty backs.

At first of course I just thought it was the acid. I mean I used to talk to trees and flowers and once a stag beetle and they all spoke back, but now, the last broadcast I heard said that the radiation and heat being generated by the sun has increased by a massive five per cent in just two months and they have no idea why or how to stop it and how long it will last. Also, if it were to suddenly reverse and decrease by the same amount there would be a new ice age. You can forget all this man made climate change bollocks, build as many wind farms as you like but if the Earth or the Sun want us gone,and I believe that they do, then man we are gone.′

‘After Wales there is a bit of a blank period but I know I was admitted to a psychiatric assessment unit in Windsor for some reason. I lived in that area for ages, near the castle, saw the Queen twice and a corgi. I got ill again and was referred to Sapphire House, you know the rest.’

‘Quite a theory you’ve got there George, the Earth aware of us and the Sun alive sentient and malevolent.’

‘I know what I know.’

’Fascinating Guru, tell us more about your other ideas, but before you do pass the joint, or are you trying to smoke the glow worm?

‘Eh, explain yourself woman.’

‘I’m not really proud of it, but when I was younger,about seventeen, a group of us girls and boys used to go up to the local woods, drink, screw, smoke dope. Anyway, one night we were there and there were these glow worms, glowing green, really beautiful, rare. Then Ian, one of the lads caught one and he rolled it into a joint. He put a large lump of resin, Moroccan I think, right behind the glow worm so that whoever smoked the worm also smoked the large lump of dope. Well we each passed that joint from one to the other all focused on that dim green light in the middle of the joint and the poor creature grew dimmer and dimmer as the burning hash and tobacco got closer. Then it was passed to me and it had burned down right to the edge of that faint green glow and you know what I did?’

’Let it go I hope, said Rosslynne.

’No, smoked it, tasted a bit harsh but the dope behind it was great. At the time I consoled myself that at least it was stoned when it died but die it did and badly. So now if anyone is hogging the joint I call it trying to smoke the glow worm.

’Rosslynne asked, ‘if you had the choice today to let it live or smoke it, what would you do?’

’Let it go. I wish I had, but that’s the trouble with regrets, the thing you regret doing has already happened and can’t be changed, the only thing that can be changed is your perception and attitude towards it, and my advice is to always move on and don’t let the past cripple you.

‘Guru, you were going to further enlighten us. But first tell us why you decided on the name Guru George, something to do with an affinity with India, Buddhism or alternative spirituality?’

No, it has fuck all to do with India or in fact any type of spirituality. I used to be a big fan of T. Rex, before they sold out to pop music and tried to make money. My favourite song used to be Metal Guru.′

‘So basically you’re named after a T Rex song, not a band I particularly liked. I have to say that does remove some of your veneer of mysterious glamour.’