The Prime Minister's Wife (and Mr President's dog)

By Alma Geddon

Has David extraordinary powers? Or have his wife Dana and her brother Cass suffered needlessly and made a fool of the Prime Minister's wife? But Mr President's dog has no complaints. David says They will appear at the World Peace Concert, the biggest televised event ever. They promise miraculous life force: Paradise on Earth. Just forsake all men of God. No deal? Then let the life force run amok.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Martin
• Release date: Feb 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301465422

Alma Geddon

Alma Geddon wakes at dusk and sleeps at dawn. She is insectivorous, but also likes well fermented fruit.

Book preview

The Prime Minister’s Wife

(and Mr President’s dog)

Alma Geddon

Copyright © Alma Geddon 2013

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover copyright ©Robin Matto

www.robinmatto.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

Marinesque ebooks

(a digital offshoot of Cinnabar Press)

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of contents

Chapter 01 The alleyway

Chapter 02 The airfield

Chapter 03 The beach

Chapter 04 Macchu Picchu

Chapter 05 The mountain cave

Chapter 06 The orchard

Chapter 07 The cabin

Chapter 08 Mr President’s dog

Chapter 09 Cass’s caravan

Chapter 10 Ghosts?

Chapter 11 The hitch

Chapter 12 David’s notes

Chapter 13 Jack Zander

Chapter 14 The Life Principal

Chapter 15 The women.

Chapter 1

The alleyway

The overhead sun scorches down on the narrow alleyway behind the backs of crumbling buildings. Unwashed hungry faces peer out from the open windows. Ancient stucco flakes from outwardly bulging walls. Cracked and asymmetrical stone arches hang precariously above the unpainted fissured wood of window frames. Weeds droop, pale and dry, from split masonry and thin mongrel dogs bark and fight amongst the piles of rotting detritus in the alleyway. Now and then more rubbish is hurled out from upstairs windows along with sounds of laughter, pain, music and anger all blending together on the hot, still air.

Halfway down the alleyway two men sit on chipped stone steps beneath the hot sun, talking to each other. A woman is seated on a higher step and watches their lips. One side of her once beautiful face is paralysed; she keeps it covered by her long hair. Their clothes are affectedly shabby; the men’s hair is long and untidy; the woman’s long straight black hair is shiny from a recent vigorous brushing. Despite their surroundings, they are clean because they have only just arrived.

They do not blend in with their surroundings but they feel safe, protected, because the shorter of the two men, David, the one with the bluest of blue eyes and mesmerising smile, has said he knows when each of them will die, and how they will die. Their deaths will be natural, peaceful, and not for many years. They believe in him.

The man with the blue eyes has said they will save many lives and no-one can harm them. He says he will outlive his brother in law, Cass, by two years and that his wife, Dana, will outlive him by six months. He says he knows what happens after death but he has not told anyone exactly what that is, not even his wife, because he says he cannot put it into words; the information came to him as a vision, a gift for the chosen to be shown. He claims he is one of the chosen, perhaps the only one, but sometimes he does wonder: chosen by who, or what? They do not realise that sometimes he is plagued by doubts; sometimes he wonders if he may be mad.

The woman looks up just as a large, florid, well dressed man in his sixties appears at one end of the alley. He is hot and out of breath: angry. He mops his brow and sets off down the alley towards the only three people who stay visible; all the other heads that peer from the windows disappear back inside when he glares up at them. Only fools would sit out in the sun; these are the fools he seeks. He has a number of reasons to believe them to be fools.

‘One of you Cass Holloway?’ He calls to them. He is Italian but he speaks good English with an American accent. Cass is holding their only mobile phone. As they travelled, he has been giving the old man instructions for two days on how to find them, the old man has, in effect been shadowing them.

‘You’ve found us Doctor Bruelli.’

‘Why set me running round in circles for days?’

‘Have to keep on the move: security, only settled on this place to meet an hour ago.’

‘Marked men: I wonder why? You’ve put me at risk, bad enough alone in a car round here, let alone on foot.’

The man with the blue eyes says:

‘No risk, Doctor.’ He saves his smile for later.

‘And you’re the one?’

‘The one? Yes. I’m the one. Believe me I hope there is more than one.’

‘And your name?’

‘David.’

‘David who?’

‘David.’

‘Why here then David? Why not on a campus or in some religious community?’

‘This is a decent community, Doctor. Poverty equals clarity; when I feel anything obscuring my mind we move. These people are poor but they are as happy as any people I know.’

‘Then they are as miserable. You’ve brought me here to see their misery?’

‘What did you expect Doctor?’

‘Clean, comfortable, private surroundings, shower and change after leaving the plane: not two days travel from slum to slum. Why inflict your privations on me? But enough: I am here; I am dirty and I am tired. I’m told you have valuable information: convince me.’

Cass replies:

‘Doctor, we know you won’t believe us but you must realise that the problem lies with words.’

The Doctor smiles unpleasantly.

‘Yes, I find the problem with lies and deceit is always with the words.’

‘David sees everything, but the translation into words . . . if only you could see what sees.’

‘Well as I cannot, words will have to do. But I’ve heard you never set words down on paper anyway, nothing to hold against you as evidence.’

‘There is no evidence against us.’

‘But your case files grow. And the case is against you.’

‘Why?’

‘David here knows everything: surely he knows why? Troublesome, time wasting, look at the amount of my time you fools are wasting, expensive time that costs our government money. Enough: your message found its way through, and here I am. Tell me what you know.’

‘You know there are terrorists in your country?’

‘That is true. We know something is imminent.’

‘Surely you can just arrest them? Why don’t you?’

‘If we arrest them, they cannot commit their outrages.’

‘Quite . . . ’

‘But it would help if we knew what outrages they intended. Who knows? It might suit us if they achieved their ends.’

The Doctor stands in front of them, gasping for breath and soaked in perspiration. The heat and the steepness of the back streets have concentrated his mind wonderfully on the human plight beyond the confines of government buildings and official residences. The smell of poverty fills his nostrils and disgusts him. He grew up in similar surroundings; he found an early escape in unsophisticated crime, later the more sophisticated criminal aspects of politics were a means to distance himself even further from the smell of other peoples’ bodily functions.

‘Come inside and sit down, Doctor, excuse our informality.’

Doctor Bruelli’s small, cruel eyes dart around. He sees the sort of drab interior he once shared with five brothers and four sisters. He sits down on an uncomfortable wooden bench and waits for the sound of his blood to stop pounding in his ears.

‘You understand it was not my wish to come here.’

David directs his gaze upon him:

‘We selected you. I am given tiny glimpses of the future, and also insights in the past. When I saw a photograph of you, I saw your past, your methods.’

Doctor Bruelli stares back at him unflinching and contemptuous.

‘Do you think evil can be restrained by turning your cheek to your enemy? No. This is as true of the survival of an individual as well as the survival of society. When you have identified your enemy then you must not sleep until you have confronted him and torn his head from his body with your own bare hands if need be, that is how evil is contained. You grasp it and tear it out by the roots every time you see the faintest sprout.’

‘Or send others to do the task.’

‘I am not above doing the task myself when duty calls. Of course, I prefer to be the facilitator, to give orders, like you. Your friend here scampers round after you. Maybe one can use evil to maintain the good, set one evil to destroy another.’

‘Is that how your government think of you?’

‘If you think I represent evil then you know nothing. I don’t claim to be good. But evil? No.’

‘So you keep your hands clean now?’

‘Let me see your hands?’

Doctor Bruelli examines David’s proffered hands and snorts contemptuously.

‘The hands of a maiden. How can that be, in this foul stinking place? Because these two scrabble in the filth for you?’

He turns and roughly grips one of the woman’s hands and turns it over: the fingers are cracked and bleeding. He looks at her face:

‘Been scrubbing this place out for your Lord and Master?’

She out stares him, he looks back at David.

‘I don’t care what your methods are: deep level, intrusive state of the art surveillance, masked by some improbable facade of clairvoyance, whatever, I don’t care how you come by your intelligence, just tell me you have some.’

‘This evil you speak of, Doctor, how do you distinguish it from good?’

‘Maybe you can tell me that?’

‘Good today may prove to be evil in a year, ten years, when the duration of its effects have been evaluated; and vice versa.’

‘It is a privilege open to so few to see so far ahead.’

‘And never to a man in politics.’

‘But we can take advice.’

‘And then ignore it. Tell me what you think you know about these terrorists, Doctor.’

‘Strange bedfellows, in close proximity, religious fanatics, extremists: twenty disparate groups at least, but they have not been seen to meet or communicate. It would be a mistake to dub any of them Al Qaeda, a lazy mistake. We have no intelligence to suggest they intend to meet. Have they been assembled individually by some leader without knowing of the others’ presence? Their common goals in the past have been against the West in general, particularly the perceived enemies of Islam, they themselves are the enemies of world order and stability, but why so many disparate potential terrorists in close proximity? Some are sworn enemies of the others. They might blow each other up, hah, we wish. What do I think: is the Pope a symbol of Crusading Christendom? One thing they have all done is to visit the Vatican. I think maybe they want a Papal shot, just as that other Muslim shot Pope John Paul. Why the his death might serve their causes, I don’t know. Do you?’

‘All I know is that what is to come will eclipse all human conflicts forever.’

‘Hah. Portentous words, but then you’re a very important man, David, thanks to your important friends: you have the ear of a very influential lady, don’t you, or I wouldn’t be sent here to listen to you. Perhaps you are her lover, do you mesmerise her?’

‘There is nothing impure in any of this.’

‘But she does your bidding, and her cuckold husband does her bidding. Imagine that: I am only here because your Prime Minister does your bidding, but in a weak way, suggestions, hints, winks and nudges to his friends - your Prime Minister to our Prime Minister - to the President of the United States, so many other influential friends who smile as he whispers in their ears: just simpering hints and smirks and nuances, and people like me have to jump. Strange times indeed: so much influence, David, and all from what? A few lucky predictions.’

‘I have been given a few rare glimpses of the future. I have helped a few people, but only if there are powerful responses to the risks I foresee.’

‘Your greatest triumph: a handful of worthless natives spared drowning by a storm surge, some island just above sea level I’d never heard of, thanks to what? A vague inkling of disaster? But tell me if I am wrong, David, haven’t most of your other predictions failed?’

‘It is enough for lives to be saved, not for news to be made.’

‘If you want to convince me of what you have to say there are things I need to know. For instance, tell me about your wife. Excuse me, we have not been introduced, Dana, isn’t it? But I understand you cannot speak or hear since the operation, most unfortunate. But is it true David that your wife Dana once advised your Prime Minister’s wife in her business of purveying, ha, essential lifestyle accessories and now and then would pass on your little predictions to her, in particular a prediction about a family member? Wasn’t it that which won her faith in you? And is it true you predicted your wife’s illness? Seems to me, prediction is all very well, but prevention is what matters.’

‘Dana would have died otherwise. I knew she would soon be ill but not when or why. At least I was ready: it was a brain tumour. It grew so fast it could not have been diagnosed in advance. the operation saved her life but she lost her hearing and she hasn’t spoken since. Her speech may return in time.’

‘Strange, now what I heard was that they never found a tumour at all in the operation. I heard that you were present, David, and insisted on the further intrusive investigative procedures on your wife’s brain which almost killed her.’

Dana and Cass turn to David with scarcely concealed looks of horror. He shakes his head at them and says:

‘I don’t know who told you such lies Doctor Bruelli.’

‘You were not scrubbed up and present at the operation then, the ultimate gifted expert?’

‘I . . . of course I wanted to be near Dana at such a time.’

‘But no British hospital was prepared to tolerate your presence in the operating theatre or your insistence on dictating procedures?’

‘We . . . sought the best.’

‘The Mandrake Medical Centre in Illinois: hardly the best. You see, David, I know more about you than even our comrades here do.’

‘You know nothing.’

‘Either way, no more work for the illustrious client, but I suppose, Dana, that you told your client in advance what David predicted for you, just in case you collapsed in the work place?’

Dana has followed his lips, she nods.

‘So if nothing was found, especially after scans revealed nothing, and only the back street abortionists . . . ’

‘Enough.’ David says.

‘Only the less rigid private professionals are prepared to undertake a risky procedure on your say so, what does it do for your credence if nothing is found? What does it say about your wife’s judgement?’

‘Forget the tabloid rubbish: she advised and counselled clients, many clients, she still does, and one just happens to be, as you say, the Prime Minister’s wife.’

‘Happens to be, hah. Didn’t you target her from the start?’

‘No. Nothing to do with me.’

‘And through her you get straight to the Prime Minister and through him: the world. Quite astonishing, that a third rate charlatan and his raggle taggle band of fruits and freaks can make the likes of me jiggle on the end of a string. What do you do? Write silly suggestions on scraps of paper, choose one at random and call up your client: predictions so vague that some are bound to strike a chord.’

‘It is never like that.’

‘Her husband gets on the hot line, in no time at all the world’s leaders can hear what you vaguely predict, just slipped in conversion, informal; bypassing billions of dollars worth of security vetting; not to mention, intelligence in all senses, maybe requiring millions of dollars worth of response, and invariably all for nothing. You must realise by now the consensus concerning you is that you are a very powerful weak link and that is very dangerous. You may be a fool my friend but you are a very dangerous fool. Your Prime Minister’s wife has a will of her own: who monitors what you tell her?’

‘She is perfectly capable of making her own judgements.’

‘Clearly not. People think you should be monitored, David, at the very least: people with her best interests in mind. So you have to keep one step ahead of them. But your time is almost up. Who else can you pass one of your predictions to directly now, but the Prime Minister’s wife? Who else would still listen to you? Who else would you trust?’

‘Clearly we trust you.’

‘But is that wise? Ah, now I don’t believe wisdom is your strong suit. Let’s get this clear before you tell me whatever it is you told her: I have wasted two days, I am here with you now in this sewer because your wife once advised the wife of your Prime Minister on some overpriced leather product, and passed on some little prediction especially for her, a vague message from the dead, wasn’t it: some aunt or second cousin of hers?’

Dr. Bruelli stares at David for a full minute but David won’t answer.

‘I hear no denial. So you establish your hold and later, saving some South Sea islanders from the usual seasonal storm, tightened your hold.’

‘I also warned them to ground a specific Sikhorsky, they ignored me: it dropped from the sky with the son of a colleague of the Prime Minister’s wife on board.’

‘Like they’ve never been known to drop from the sky before? Then she blamed her husband for not seeing that every whim of yours was taken seriously. Can he afford to ever ignore you again, I wonder, and still be speaking terms with his superstitious wife?’

‘You know nothing about them and their beliefs or the dynamics of their relationship.’

‘Ah: beliefs. Spare us from men with beliefs: easy for them to believe that God or some higher power will help them save the world, and every terrible mistake they make must be for the best, because they did it for the best possible of reasons: because they believe. But you know all there is to know about their beliefs and you put it to good use.’

‘No.’

‘She believes you’ve seen something will happen here, in my country, you told her but it was so improbable even she refused to pass it on, or maybe for once he acted like a man and stopped her? Instead. to brush you away for good, you’ve been told you must pass it on in person, not so easy this time, they wash their hands of you. Am I right?’

‘They suggested an informal meeting so we could discuss it, so I could answer your inevitable questions on something so complex.’

‘Oh this is certainly informal. Tell me, was I your first choice?’

Doctor Bruelli stares at David again, he says nothing.

‘No. You pick me because everyone knows I am a cynic, convince me and you convince everyone. But you live in the clouds, how could you ever convince me that you see things? So you once made a few lucky guesses but nothing more. I make lucky guesses myself, does that make me the world’s saviour? Maybe I’m I wrong though? Are you a man in a billion with genuine powers? Any messages from my dead father, my first wife, my brother? There’s a whole cantankerous hell of them out there, all dead, all bursting to do me down, accuse me, some nights I can almost hear them myself. Hear anything David, see them right now jabbing their bony fingers at me?’

‘I don’t work that way.’

‘Don’t you now. Well, you’ve certainly made me work, sending me round and round all the back streets only to end up in this filthy place. We could have done this in minutes by phone or in my office. But remember, when I go back I can tell them anything I want, because you never write a word down or record a word of your predictions. Very clever: if things go wrong blame the messenger, they must have misheard you, misinterpreted. But I won’t be blamed for this. Understand that? I am not greedy for an afterlife, or any spiritual life, I don’t want sainthood or a medal for saving a boatload of worthless peasants so they can breed another day. I’m not like your friends in higher places: I have enough power, wealth, comfort to satisfy any man born into poverty. Well I’ve had my say. Now I’m parched. I would ask for a drink, but I prefer to dehydrate than die here from dysentery.’

Cass leaves the room and returns with a bottle of cool beer. Doctor Bruelli takes it and laughs. David paces the room for a few minutes as the Doctor swigs the beer noisily from the bottle. When the Doctor has finished he looks at David:

‘You need this to work don’t you? Last hope. Is it true you once wormed your way into a secret contract with NASA? Mind experiments?’

‘I am proud to have made a contribution there.’

‘But they terminated your contract early. Made fools of