(2008) Mister Roberts by Alexei Sayle

relationship Stanley and
his mum have, I wonder how that can end? Sometimes I think Stanley might be
like the citizen of some repressive regime who’s managed to get round the
Internet censors and suddenly discovers the rest of the world sees their
beloved leader not as a super hero but as a big fat joke in a stupid uniform.
What happens to those countries?’
    ‘When
they realise the emperor is a fraud? Oh civil war, genocide, the collapse of society,
that sort of thing.’
     
    Stanley spent all of 28
December — the day after the vanquishing of Monty Crisp — with Mister Roberts.
He got up early, before his mother, and took Mister Roberts down the valley to
the next village. While they were away from her, he thought, at least his mum
couldn’t get him to beat anybody else up. Once there they had walked around for
a bit giving people the creeps, then when Stanley tired of this they turned and
headed up into the hills.
    Out of
sight of human habitation they climbed north and west across the mountains
towards Mulhacén, the highest mountain in mainland Spain. They were making for
the ski resort of Sierra Nevada, he’d had a great day out there one Christmas
holiday with Simon’s family The boys had spent the day snowboarding and they’d
all had a sing-song in the car on the way home.
    Mister
Roberts made easy work of the difficult ascent, travelling over the smooth,
shiny, slate-covered slopes at speed, his footfall shattering bits of rock into
razor-sharp needles as he ran. Higher up on the mountainside they passed across
the top of a bowl-like valley at the bottom of which there was a tarn of
startlingly turquoise water still unfrozen. To Stanley it looked like a single
blue eye staring back up at them.
    Eventually
they arrived at the resort. Begun in the sixties and built entirely out of
alpine concrete it had the appearance of a council estate that had been
provided with a ridiculous number of restaurants and bars. Mister Roberts
wandered amongst the skiers in their brightly coloured outfits. A lot of them
felt strangely uncomfortable at the sight of a man in a dark suit in their
midst: they wondered if he wasn’t an undertaker who had come to attend to one
of their number who’d skied into a tree. The creepy couple in the Victorian
outfits who’d been prowling around town in the days just after Christmas had
been hard enough to take, but this guy was somehow even more unsettling.
    Inside
the suit Stanley was finding it wasn’t as much fun as he thought it would be.
It was amazing to possess this incredible machine, to travel great distances
and smash down trees but it made him feel lonely and detached just watching the
effects of his actions on the screens inside Mister Roberts’ head.
    In a
square in front of the chairlift there were clusters of metal tables served by
various cafés and restaurants. At one of these Stanley saw his ex-best friend
Simon together with his family, eating the long doughnuts called churros,
dunking them in hot chocolate and laughing under a big red umbrella. Tipped up
on his forehead Simon wore an enormous pair of yellow-tinted designer
sunglasses as if he were a playboy member of the royal family of Monaco.
    Stanley
felt a desperate urge to go over and talk to Simon, to be part of his happy
gang. Slowly Mister Roberts approached the little group and stood next to them,
he even reached out his hand towards the other boy but of course he couldn’t
speak. Gradually becoming aware of the ominous, threatening presence standing
mute beside them Simon’s family fell into an uneasy silence.
    ‘Daddy’s
feeling frightened,’ whispered Simon’s dad.
    After a
few more seconds Mister Roberts turned and walked back out into the snow.
     
    Though it was only half
past four, cold night had suddenly fallen. Still Nige and Laurence remained on
the terrace of Noche Azul. Laurence felt a certain gratitude towards Nige for
sitting with him during most of the day while he poured out his