The View from Mount Dog Read online

  Carney Palafox was still uncertain as to whether Bob Struthers had divined his real purpose in coming, but blushed in any case. Did he have to come for an impromptu interview with a sort of fake-macho has-been to be told he was a middle-aged fantasist? He supposed he did. But searching resignedly to see what had become of the withered little conviction he had brought with him into the room he was considerably surprised to find it intact. There was only one way to settle the matter. Deeds.

  ‘Nearly,’ he said. ‘But I still think for the character I have in mind we’re going to have to rule out the slow traditional route and go for this big break thing.’

  ‘I see. OK, what is this guy of yours? A sprinter? Field-eventer? Swimmer?’

  ‘Oh, anything you like.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say? I had him fixed in my mind as some sort of sprinter.’

  ‘I sort of did, too. But he doesn’t have to be.’

  ‘Try this, then; no problem. Enter him for the London Marathon in November. Actually, it’s being run in a week’s time. But, anyway, have him carve a minute or two off that. Why do you think all those thousands tag along? It’s not just the challenge. How many people do you imagine would take part if there was guaranteed no TV coverage?’

  ‘Not so many?’

  ‘Not so many, Carney, is what I was attempting to suggest. It’s ideal. TV, a few international marathon names to set the pace for the young hopefuls all after – you’ve guessed – the Big Break.’

  *

  When Carney Palafox unofficially joined upwards of eighteen thousand competitors for the London Marathon a few days later he was still in the grip of his powerful conviction, so much so that he had taken some care with planning his running equipment: a pair of jeans, an old jersey with a hole in the back and a pair of comfortable but beat-up Hush Puppies. His only concession to the occasion was some new laces. Even mixed up at the back of the athletic throng waiting for the off he cut an eccentric figure. It was noble and right that more or less disadvantaged people were responding to this challenge as best they could in a variety of wheelchairs and with an array of prosthetic devices, but they all did so in athletic gear of one sort or another. Indeed, Carney could spot only one other person in street clothes and he was standing about wearing a sandwich board which complained in red capitals about sexual licence. Even the spectators were wearing track-suits, much as elderly men living on houseboats welded to the landing-stage on grimmer reaches of the Thames will affect yachting caps and reefer jackets.

  The pack set off, the professionals at the front conspicuous with their practised pace, the eager amateurs behind them yearning to overtake but dissuaded by the thought that if international marathon-runners went at that speed they did so for good reason. Somewhere in the mob Carney Palafox cleared his mind of all but running for an extremely distant bus. At the halfway stage he was lying sixth and had long since been picked up by the television cameras. Those who lined the streets merely took him for another merry-andrew who had tagged on a few hundred yards back to give his friends a laugh, something akin to those maverick riderless horses which always seemed to be waiting for the winner to catch them up in the Grand National; but the television cameras had him firmly on their monitors mile after mile. He was running in a manner so as to give maximum irritation to those taking the proceedings seriously, with a slight frown as if miles away thinking private thoughts which would then produce a brief smile. Once he took a pencil and a piece of folded paper from his pocket and, still running, appeared to make a note of the name of a shop which caught his eye, craning round the farther away he ran until for a few paces he was actually running backwards before turning and tucking the paper in his pocket.

  With five miles to go he took the lead, glanced at his watch with a puzzled expression, rapped its glass sharply, held it to his ear and with a show of amused resignation doubled his speed. The crowd were beside themselves. Indeed, it had been a privilege for them to see the face of the leading international marathon-runner – a scrawny Japanese with a demon’s visage – as this cumbersome figure in jeans and dog-walking shoes appeared at his elbow, gave a cheery nod, shot past and disappeared.

  When he reached the line he was nearly four minutes ahead of the Japanese. He stood for a moment surrounded by utter consternation and then, when the second runner still had not appeared, spoke for the first time.

  ‘Well, I think I’d better be off. Train to catch.’

  This was picked up by incredulous cameramen, several of whom were still convinced that it was all a stunt, some immense practical joke. But there were plenty who recognised his clothes from way back in the race, and his finishing position at least was beyond doubt.

  ‘You can’t go,’ said an official. ‘There’s got to be a proper enquiry about this. In any case there’s your prize.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t want any prize, thank you,’ said Carney. ‘I only did it to fill in a bit of time. No, you give it to that oriental gent with the stitch.’

  In the middle of the mêlée which greeted the arrival of the Japanese, Carney Palafox somehow disappeared, perfectly inconspicuous in his jeans and sweater. That night he was soaking his slightly blistered feet in the bath, watched by the cat, when the telephone rang.

  ‘God, they’ve tracked you down,’ said Kate. They had been giggling together over newsreel excerpts from the race on television all evening, Kate’s initial incredulity now a realisation that somewhere between lunchtime and suppertime a great change had come over her life, and she was in no way responsible. She now brought her middle-aged athlete husband the telephone in his bath.

  ‘Carney?’

  ‘Er, who’s that?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘This is Bob Struthers, Carney. Listen, you bastard, you’re up to something, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Carney told him.

  ‘Well, I want in on the story. I gave you time the other day and I think you owe me a bit in return. I was covering the International in Antwerp but I got back a couple of hours ago and heard all about it and, listen, I’ve seen the clips and I think I can work up a theory about how you did it. So we’ve got to meet.’

  ‘Of course, Bob. Delighted. I could come round tomorrow some time to your studio place. Sort of lunch-ish?’

  ‘Carney,’ the voice calmed itself, ‘I don’t think you quite understand. You’ve just got away with something which everybody knows is completely impossible. Now, they haven’t yet figured out how you managed it, but for sure there’re a lot of folks pretty pissed off out here. I mean, you just don’t walk away with a marathon dressed like a Chelsea poof in the sixties. Believe me, Carney, you just don’t. So when I say we’ve got to meet I mean right now. This very hour.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t manage that, I’m afraid. I’m slightly weary, if the truth be told, and my feet are a little sore. Besides, at this particular moment I’m in my bath.’

  ‘Carney! Listen, will you? God damn it, I can’t work out whether you’re really that innocent or just playing dumb.’

  ‘I’m just playing dumb, Bob.’

  ‘Nor do I yet know what hook or crook you used to pull today’s little stunt, but for the moment, at any rate, you’ve got your big bloody break. OK? You’re a celebrity. Believe me, nobody’s talking about anything else. I mean, you may be settling down for a quiet evening’s Scrabble but out here everybody’s busting their guts trying to get a line on you. You’ll be all over the front pages tomorrow, I promise you. Probably a good shot of you crossing the finishing line with, for God’s sake, your hands in your pockets, and headlines like “Mystery Outsider Makes Laughing-Stock of Marathon”. Shut up; just listen. Now, by nine tomorrow morning half the country will still be splitting their sides, half will be sharpening their knives and a third half will be trying to sign you up. Now tell me we still haven’t got something to discuss this evening.’

  ‘Well, I suppose if you insist.’

  ‘Yes, Carney, I am insisting. I think I’d better come right on over. Where i
s it again?’

  But at that moment the certitude welled up within him. There was a time to play dumb – because it infuriated people – and a time to remember that he had very recently become a man with a mission.

  ‘No, Bob, you’re not coming here. If you want to see me tonight, you’re going to have to do as I tell you; I’m sorry, but there it is. I’ll give you what you say you want – some of my time – but in exchange for what I want.’

  ‘Of course, Carney. I’ve got you. How much?’

  ‘Not money. No, I don’t want money. What I’m insisting on is a short interview with you, videotaped in the studio. That’s all. I’m not insisting that it’s ever broadcast, just that it’s made. I can promise you only that I’ll say something which will make you sit up. Between you and me, Bob,’ Carney said confidentially, ‘I’ll take a small bet that some of it at least will go out. Sooner or later.’

  The interview he taped that night at the studios did indeed go out – not once but many, many times over the next months. In fact it became famous as source material for a thousand broadcasts in a hundred languages, known simply as ‘The Palafox Challenge’. In its unedited entirety the brief interview ran:

  BS: Mr Palafox. The sporting world tonight – indeed, the whole world tonight – is still reeling from your extraordinary victory in the London Marathon earlier today. I must admit that in all my years in and around sport I have never seen anything quite like it before.

  (A short silence)

  Mr Palafox?

  CP: I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you had asked me a question.

  BS: Well, I think the question uppermost in all our minds here on Action Replay – as, I’m sure, in the minds of all viewers everywhere – is how did you do it?

  CP: Oh, I sort of just ran, I suppose. It’s awfully boring, you know, the marathon. It goes on and on. Actually I was quite thankful to stop.

  BS: I can’t…. You do realise, don’t you, that there were world-class runners in the field today? Noriyuki Kume holds the second-fastest time ever for a marathon and yet you beat him by almost four minutes.

  CP: Oh, did I?

  BS: You know you did. What we want to know is how?

  CP: Really?

  BS: Yes, really. Holy bananas.

  CP: If you really want to know, I’ll tell you. I just knew I could do it faster than anybody else, that’s all.

  BS: But that’s not all, Mr Palafox. You know as well as I do that all athletes tell themselves they can do it faster than anybody else, and they can’t all be right. It’s called psyching yourself up. That kind of self-confidence is indispensable to all good sports performance, but so are fitness and training. Self-confidence on its own is not enough. I presume you trained quite hard for your victory today?

  CP: No.

  BS: Put it this way, Mr Palafox: how many marathon distances have you run in the last year?

  CP: Only today’s. Good lord, that was quite bad enough.

  BS: I’m sorry, Mr Palafox, but I don’t really – and I’m sure the viewers will find it just as hard to believe. How many marathons have you run in your life, then?

  CP: Only today’s.

  BS: Shorter-distance training, then. You must have been running regular stints in practice sessions?

  CP: (After reflective pause) I ran for a bus recently.

  BS: Cut, cut, while we get this fucker sorted.

  STUDIO MANAGER: Running, Bob.

  BS: Let’s get back to your clothes, Mr Palafox. That’s surely one of the things which everybody noticed, your almost – if I may say so – deliberate avoidance of traditional sportswear.

  (A short silence)

  Mr Palafox?

  CP: I’m awfully sorry, Bob. Was that a question again?

  BS: Why did you run today’s Marathon in street clothes?

  CP: They’re comfortable. Anyway, I didn’t have any others with me. I imagine all those running shoes and track-suits are rather expensive, and it didn’t seem worth spending all that just for two hours’ running.

  BS: God. Oh, sod it. I’m sure many viewers will find your whole attitude very puzzling. It’s almost as if it’s a direct challenge of some kind.

  CP: It is.

  BS: I see. And just what is your challenge?

  CP: It’s very simple, Bob. I think the whole organised sports business takes itself too seriously by half. I think – I know – that people are far better at sports, at everything, than they are trained down to be. My challenge is this: In any event you care to name – swimming, track, field, I don’t care what it is but subject only to my refusing on grounds of boredom – I will undertake to set a new world record.

  BS: That’s all?

  CP: That’s all.

  BS: And just a small point, Mr Palafox: you are – what – forty?

  CP: Forty-one, actually.

  BS: OK, the man’s a nutter. You can cut now. Somebody go hire a rubber room.

  CP: I’m afraid you’re going to have to take this seriously, Bob. That was a demonstration today. Set something up. It doesn’t have to be public. Just set something up – a camera crew, timekeepers – and I’ll prove it to you.

  BS: It’s crazy. Get me a root beer, somebody.

  CP: I’m sure you know best, Bob. But isn’t that what your viewers want? Up-to-the-minute sports action? The Bob Struthers Experience?

  BS: Listen, Sunshine, I’m a long way from being convinced. There’s something phoney going on and I’m going to find out what. World record in anything you care to name, my arse.

  CP: Very well, Bob. Your arse is what it’ll be if I take this to the BBC.

  It took a day or two to arrange, of course, but the television company – two of whose employees were suddenly turning out to be the protagonists in a worldwide news-story – hired a well-appointed sports stadium on a gloomy strip of suburban water-meadow near Twickenham. The grounds belonged to a multinational chemical company whose own fertilisers and herbicides had produced an unnatural springy grass just the wrong shade of emerald. Inside the stadium, however, not a lot of grass had been allowed to intrude. A dull red oval track of international standard lay intimidatingly empty before Carney Palafox early one Thursday morning, its newly marked lanes meeting at infinity.

  In the meantime Bob Struthers had been busy. One of his first and shrewdest acts had been to establish that Carney really was a scriptwriter with the company. He had discovered that, far from being a mere writer, he was the deviser of several highly successful comedy series of which Up Yours! was only the latest. They all had in common a certain anarchic undertone which many people found unsettling without knowing why, and not a few found downright offensive. Thoughtfully the sportscaster arranged with the Legal Department to see a copy of Carney’s contract. Objections were initially raised, but the famous Bob Struthers presence allayed all fears and left a few choice grandstand tickets in its wake. The contract, he found, had an exclusivity clause which bound Carney body and soul to the television company. There was nothing – neither his talent nor even his physical image – which he could legally take to the BBC or anyone else. Bob Struthers’s arse was safe.

  He remembered this as he escorted Carney out on to the track. The man was obviously a charlatan of sorts, as the morning’s demonstrations would no doubt quickly reveal. He was glad it could all be fairly well kept from the public eye. ‘Famous Sportscaster Brilliantly Hoaxed’ was not a headline he had any intention of reading. Conversely, if by some stroke of the miraculous the man turned out to be what he said he was there was no end to the capital which could be made out of it if handled properly. Certainly enough to pay the hair transplant clinic’s bill.

  ‘Now, then, Carney,’ he said, ‘here we are. You’ve got what you asked for. See? Cameramen, official timekeepers down there, starter with gun, twenty sober witnesses from Action Replay and the old bloke over there who looks like Hitler and I think’s the groundsman. OK? I don’t mind telling you it’s cost the company a fair old sum laying this lot
on, so I do hope we’re going to get our money’s worth. Right, then; it’s all yours. Now, what’ll it be? Hundred metres for a start?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Carney. ‘That doesn’t seem too far. From about here down to where those fellows are standing?’

  ‘You’ve got it.’

  ‘Any old lane?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bob Struthers heavily, ‘any old lane. You’re really not going to change your clothes?’

  ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so. These’ll do.’ ‘These’ were the same jeans he had worn for the Marathon, a check shirt with long sleeves and button-down collar and a tweed sports jacket. Instead of Hush Puppies he now wore a battered pair of greyish tennis shoes. ‘Besides….’

  ‘… you haven’t anything else to change into, yes, I know. But I do like the gym shoes. A small step, Carney, but a significant one. OK, everybody. One hundred metres, the gentleman says.’ He produced a small radio and spoke into it. Far off down the track a hand waved. The starter loaded his gun. ‘Right, Carney, we’re ready when you are. Where do you want the blocks?’

  ‘Which blocks are those?’

  ‘These funny old things,’ said Bob Struthers kindly, indicating the pair he was holding. ‘You crouch down and put your feet against them. It helps you start.’