J.

  iiij (or iv)

  VEDA reeled outside, breathing deeply and wondering what the hell was happening. Suddenly the doors burst open again and Jools staggered onto the pavement. He was bleeding from a cut on his head. The ink-coloured hair was matted and stiff. Blood streaked his face and splashed his spectacles. Veda's heart lurched and she held out a hand to steady him.

  "What happened to you?"

  Jules grinned boyishly, half-ashamed, half a boast. "One o' they farmers smashed me over the skull wi' 'is glass."

  "For God's sake. Why?" Veda tried to shift the boy's bloodstained fingers so she could press a tissue against the cut.

  "I ducked under 'is arm, followin' you. Aghh. I was - oww - tryin' to look after you, make sure - sssss - you got out all right - ahhhh." Joules laughed shakily. "First time I've 'ad Bishop's Buttock on me head."

  The tissue, sodden and mushed in her fingers, was fast disintegrating. She reached for another, yanking it frantically from her breast pocket. Jiffi's Johnnies flopped flatly on to the floor. The humanised condom grinned up at her furious blush. Juuls tried to smile but succeeded only in gasping and holding his head. She had to get him to hospital. The wound needed stitching. Besides, there might be glass in his scalp.

  Jewels was fainting, fading, in and out, woozy, boozy, like a drunken man, reeling heavily against her so she staggered too as she half-led, half-carried him to her car. She propped him up whilst she dug around for the keys. Suddenly he retched, heaving and spewing a steel-spattering mixture of peanuts and real ale over the roof. Jefferys' Revenge. She yanked the door open and bundled him in. He reeked of sick and beer and smoke and blood. She thrust another tissue towards him and hammered the accelerator to Casualty.

  The waiting area was stiflingly warm and packed with the sick and the injured. One had a leg entombed in plaster. One had been burned in a chip pan fire. One had a jellyfish sting. A young girl had pierced her own tongue with a darning needle. An elderly man had caught his scrotum in his zipper. His testicles had swollen to the size and colour of navel oranges. Jules was lucky.

  Saint Jude's Hospital

  was an ancient pile from the previous century; paint is peeling, plaster crumbling, foundations failing, subsidence starting, staff flaking. For good reason is the Patron Saint of Lost Causes the Patron Saint of this vale of woe and suffering, the town's infirm infirmary.

  Jude, S. the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes. One of the twelve apostles, brother of James (and possibly of Jesus too). He is represented in art with a club or a staff and a carpenter's square in allusion to his former trade. His day is October 28 and he is author of the Epistle of Jude, the penultimate book of the Bible.

  Slowly, as she came out of shock, Veda became aware of the slippery plastic CD case in her bloodstained fingers. The case was decorated with a child's drawing of what might have passed as a bird in a cage after several more pints of Judge Jeffery's Revenge. The reverse bore a photograph of the four grizzled men who made up the Timmy Thomas Jazz Quartet, curiously two sets of identical twins:

  Timmy Thomas (vocals, piano)

  Jamie Joseph (drums, percussion)

  Joey Joseph (trombone)

  Tommy Thomas (sax, kazoo, harmonica)

  A contact address for the Timmy Thomas Jazz Quartet's Fan Club was given as-

  PO Box 42, Jarrow, Tyne-and-Wear.

  Another photograph showed a child of about eight with floppy fair hair and a broad white grin sat on a beanbag, crayon in hand ("Josh (as in Joshing with) Jukes, designing the cover") whilst a slightly older, taller, dark-haired boy grinned over his shoulder. Surely... Veda stared at the picture. The slightly older, taller, dark-haired boy was Iestyn Thomas.

  Timmy Thomas.

  Iestyn Thomas.

  Father and son? Uncle and nephew? A mighty coincidence?

  "Excuse me." A porter was standing at her side holding a polystyrene cup containing liquid, possibly brown, possibly yellow, possibly coffee, possibly not. "Are you the lady who brought in the young man with the cut 'ead?"

  She nodded. The porter, a shapeless sixty year old with rheumy eyes, silver hair and swollen veins standing blue on his nose, gave her the cup and sat beside her.

  "They're just finishing the stitches," he said. "Nasty wound. He had glass embedded in his head. And it was inflamed by the beer."

  Veda grunted noncommittally and sipped the scalding liquid. It tasted of nothing.

  "Oh," said the porter suddenly. "The Timmy Thomas Jazz Quartet. Great band."

  "Err..." said Veda.

  "Playing at the Jacquard, weren't they? That's where you met Jules?"

  "Well..." she said.

  "Jemadar Jannock."

  "I'm sorry to hear that. Is it curable?"

  "No. Jemadar Jannock. That's my name."

  Jemadar Jannock, porter at St Jude's Hospital,

  is a keen participant in psychological experiments and in that guise has been subjected to a number of curious tests including three days chained to a chair being fed only on dark chocolate before being required to list as many seventeenth and eighteenth century Poet Laureates (or Poets Laureate) in forty-two seconds as he could:

  (Jonson, Davenant, Shadwell, Nahum Tate, Nicholas Rowe, Laurence Eusden, Colly Cibber, Whitehead, Warton and Pye- (for some unaccountable reason he forgot John Dryden but as he is the most obscure, the psychologists did not punish him especially severely))

  He was also asked to speak for two minutes on the subject of botanical classification after Jussieu without hesitation, repetition or deviation (each being punishable by an increasingly powerful electrical current transmitted to Jemadar's body via his thumbs), and recite the story of Jack and Jill backwards whilst standing in a bucket of horse-piss. This last event so inspired Jemadar Jannock that he has taken the text to add to the collection of folk tales he has stashed in the chamber pot under his bed.

  Jemadar Jannock is a skilled banjolele player and occasionally sets some of these texts for that instrument. He has been known to render Jack and the Beanstalk for Japanese tourists outside underground stations near the Kilburn High Street accompanying himself on said stringed instrument until the bobbies move him along. The reaction of the tourists is not known, but it has been established by a reputable psychologist that Jemadar Jannock may no longer be suitable for experimentation. Indeed, some watcher believe him to be somewhat potty.

  Jemadar Jannock was once attacked by forty-two jackdaws. It is believed that he narrowly avoided losing his left eye by flinging the contents of his (then full) chamber pot (or jordan) at the offending birds. Jemadar Jannock collects chamber pots. At the last count, he had three hundred and two.

  Veda's eyes felt heavy. It was two in the morning and it had been a long, trying day. Her attention wandered to the purple and orange tattoo on Jemadar Jannock's forearm. She craned her neck and read:

  JASOn.

  She uttered an involuntary yelp. "That tattoo," she spluttered. "That tattoo..."

  Jemadar smiled. "Had it for years. Can't remember where. But a wandering gypsy once told me..."

  "What does it mean?"

  "Just a name, ain't it?"

  "But Jason..."

  "As in Argonauts." Jemadar Jannock got to his feet and shambled away.

  What the hell? The play, the map, the jazz track, the graffiti in the Jacquard and now a tattoo on a hospital porter's arm, all revolving round Jason. Who ever the hell he was. And the beer she had drunk at the Jacquard was called Golden Fleece. Her head span. She was losing her mind. She could feel it fragmenting.

  "Hey." The doctors had finished with Julep and he was leaning somewhat weakly against a drab green radiator under a sign reading

  ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY

  For life-threatening conditions, the current waiting period is

  42 minutes.

  She got up and moved towards him. "How do you feel?" she murmured.

  "Groggy," he answered, "But they got all the glass out." He took her ha
nd. "Thank you for helping me." He hesitated momentarily then pecked her cheek. His dark eyes glittered beneath their lenses, the ink-coloured hair fell over his face, the golden earring glinted and suddenly Veda didn't want to be by herself, at least not that night.

  "If you feel groggy," she heard herself saying, "You really shouldn't be alone. You can sleep at my place." She led him away by the hand.

  Jemadar Jannock watched them leave and then made a telephone call. At the same time, a hulk in sea-boots eased the enormous wheelchair-bound man away from reception and trundled out of St Jude's to a waiting car and its hatchet-faced driver.