Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls

  This was indeed the case with Sandy.

  Sandy dispossessed himself of wealth in truly Biblical fashion. He dallied in the fleshpots of Ealing, that modern-day Babylon, where, in his gilded youth, he drank deep of iniquity’s wine and dined upon fruits forbidden.

  And thusly did he squander his birthright upon many a libertine pleasure. Carousing with harlots and hedonists, sybarites and sodomites, debauchees, degenerates, wallowers and wastrels.

  Very nice work if you can get it, but sadly few of us can.

  And having squandered all, and somewhat more besides, Sandy was forced to flee the fleshpots and take unto his toes. And sorely did his creditors mourn for his departure. And greatly did they weep and wail and gnash their teeth and rend their raiments. Yea, verily! And many amongst them did swear mighty oaths and promise him the torments of the damned.

  Sandy wandered wearily, footsore and sick at heart, a vagabond with all hope gone, a sad and sorry fellow. He walked alone for many days and covered many miles and, as you do on the road, had all kinds of exciting adventures involving pirates and highwaymen and knights in armour and wizards and witches and giants and goblins and beautiful princesses with long golden hair.

  Because there’s a lot more to life on the road than sleeping in shop doorways and drinking aftershave. As anyone who’s been on the road will tell you.

  Sandy tramped the highways and the byways for almost twenty years. Scouting for wagon trains, sailing on the seven seas and getting into all kinds of sticky situations involving the princesses with the long golden hair. But eventually he tired of it, cashed in some gold doubloons that he’d dug up on a coral island and bought the Shrunken Head.

  The Shrunken Head had always been a bit of a dump. It lay at the bottom of Horseferry Lane, beside the River Thames. You couldn’t actually see the river from the Shrunken Head, but you got a feel of it during the high spring tides when the cellar filled up with water.

  When Sandy purchased the place it was a ‘folk pub’, where men with big bellies and beards, manly men who drank only real ale, howled out those horrible unaccompanied songs that always begin with ‘As I walked out one morning’ and end with graphic descriptions of genitalia being pierced by fish hooks.

  Sandy, who had enjoyed the company of a good many long-legged women during his days in the fleshpots of Ealing, ousted the big-bellied beardies and turned the Shrunken Head into a proper music venue. One that would attract the right kind of punter. He stripped the barrels and beer engines from the cellar and opened it up as Brentford’s answer to the Cavern.

  Sandy catered to all tastes, bar ‘folk’, because all tastes bar ‘folk’ attract women. Good-looking women, that is.

  The Shrunken Head became the place to go in Brentford, if you were looking to rock ’n’ roll. Because Sandy did the job the way it should be done.

  The Cellar, as the music venue was imaginatively called, was small and damp and airless. The beer was served in plastic tumblers, warm and flat and overpriced. The bouncers were brutal, the bands played much too loud, junkies chased the dragon in the toilets and as for the smell…

  John Omally loved the place.

  Jim Pooley, however, did not.

  ‘I would rather have my genitalia pierced by fishhooks than spend an evening there,’ he said, when he learned that this was to be their destination.

  ‘Come on, Jim,’ said John, nudging his friend’s elbow. ‘If this band is as good as they say it will be a night to remember.’

  ‘But the place is a hellhole and as for the guvnor—’

  ‘Sandy the sandy-haired barlord?’

  ‘The man is an idiot,’ said Jim.

  ‘He’s been about a bit, though, and tells an interesting tale.’

  ‘I tell an interesting tale and I’ve never been anywhere.’

  ‘But do you have a duelling scar?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or a bullet wound, or a scald on your arm where a dragon breathed on you?’

  ‘No,’ said Jim. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘And do you know of any other barlord in Brentford who bears the marks of the stigmata?’

  Pooley thought about this. ‘Not off-hand,’ he said.

  ‘Or any other bar that attracts so many long-legged women?’

  Jim thought about this also. ‘There’s the Brown Hatter in Fudgepacker Street,’ he said.

  ‘Those aren’t women, Jim.’

  They walked a while in silence.

  ‘Look,’ said John as they crossed the Kew Road. ‘Just come in with me and listen to the band for a couple of numbers. If they’re rubbish we’ll both head off to the Swan.’

  ‘I like the Swan,’ said Jim. ‘It’s peaceful in the Swan.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be, except for me.’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘Well, who do you think sees to it that the brewery’s jukebox remains forever out of service?’

  ‘True enough,’ said Jim. ‘But if you love music so much, why do you do it?’

  ‘Because the Swan is not the place for music. The Swan is a dignified establishment run by a dignified barlord. You go there to relax and enjoy the sparkling repartee and well-versed conversation of its patrons. Not listen to music. If you want music you want live music. And if you want live music you want it in a sleazy overcrowded stinking sweat-hole of a place. Hellhole of a place. Getting it right is everything, Jim. A place for everything and everything in its place.’

  ‘Let’s go to the Swan.’

  ‘No,’ said Omally.

  Jim made a sulky face.

  ‘Don’t be a baby,’ said John.

  They arrived at the Shrunken Head at a little before six. The band was scheduled to play at nine, which in rock ’n’ roll time meant ten.

  ‘So why are we here so early?’ asked Jim.

  ‘Because we need to be. We need to grab a table near the door and hang on to it. I intend to make myself known to the band when they arrive and buy them a couple of drinks.’

  Pooley whistled. ‘Now that is something I would like to see. You buying drinks for complete strangers.’

  ‘It’s an image thing. And bands play better when they think there’s a talent scout in the audience.’

  ‘And if they turn out to be a load of old pants?’

  ‘Then you will enjoy much laughter at my expense, telling the tale in the Swan.’

  Pooley shrugged. ‘It has that going for it, I suppose. You go on in, then, and I’ll come back at around half past nine.’

  ‘No, Jim. This job requires two. One to hang on to the table and the other to be up at the bar. Now, let’s get inside before anyone else does.’

  John pushed open the door to the bar and pushed Jim through the opening.

  It was dim and grim in the Shrunken Head.

  And it smelt like a wino’s armpit.

  The floor was of fag-scarred lino in a colour that has no name.

  The evening sunlight drew up short

  At the windows where the grime held court.

  The furnishings were dark and dank.

  The curtains rotten and ragged and rank.

  At the sight of it all Jim’s heart sank.

  For this pub knew no shame.

  ‘Sheer poetry,’ said John. ‘Although of a difficult metre.’

  Pale-faced in the gloom, Pooley shook his head and made the sign of the cross, Spectacles-testicles-wallet-and-watch. ‘This is truly the Pub from Hell,’ he whispered. ‘When we die and go to the bad place this is where we will drink out eternity.’

  ‘Enough of that, Jim,’ said John. ‘You’re making me all of a shiver. Now you go up to the bar and get us in a couple of pints while I choose us the table.’

  ‘Me?’ went Jim. ‘But I—’

  ‘Cut along now. Before the place fills up.’

  ‘But,’ Jim glanced all about the evil den, ‘it’s half full already.’

  ‘Yes indeed, you’re right.’

  There were at least a dozen young men
in the bar. Plump young men wearing black T-shirts and shorts. They had been rabbiting away as the two friends entered, but now they had grown silent and were nudging one another and pointing somewhat too.

  ‘They’re looking at us,’ whispered Jim. ‘Why are they looking at us?’

  ‘Ignore them,’ said John. ‘They’re fan-boys. A good sign, that. Means the band has already got a cult following.’

  ‘Cult?’ said Jim. ‘I don’t like that word at all.’

  ‘Go to the bar,’ John ordered. ‘Go to the bar at once.’

  Jim went up to the bar, doing the old ‘Excuse me, please’ as he passed between the fan-boys. But the fan-boys weren’t giving Jim a second glance. They were all watching Omally.

  Jim reached the bar counter and almost leaned his elbows upon it.

  Almost.

  He surveyed the unpolished surface. The butt ends and the beer pools. A slight shiver ran through him. This was not his kind of place at all.

  Sandy the sandy-haired barlord looked up from a nudie book and grinned a grin at him.

  ‘If it isn’t my old friend Pooley,’ he said.

  ‘You’re quite right there,’ said Jim.

  ‘Your Irish mate winkled you out of the Swan, then, has he?’

  ‘Something like that, yes. Two pints of whatever you have that passes for beer, please.’

  Sandy lined up a couple of grubby-looking plastic tumblers and drew from beneath the bar a brace of those multi-pack cans of supermarket lager that are not supposed to be sold separately. ‘Five quid,’ he said.

  Jim clutched at his heart.

  ‘Wish I could do it cheaper,’ said Sandy. ‘But, as the music’s free, I have to make a little on the beer.’

  ‘Yes, I quite understand.’ Jim’s hand had found his wallet but seemed unable to drag it from his pocket.

  ‘Come on, Pooley, tug a little harder. There’s thirty-five quid in there.’

  ‘Thirty-five…’ and Jim’s jaw fell.

  ‘You just missed Bob the Bookie. He told me he’d given you a loan.’

  ‘It’s not a loan. I won it this afternoon on the horses.’

  ‘Bob looks upon it as a loan. After all, he knows he’ll get most of it back tomorrow.’

  ‘He damn well won’t,’ said Jim.

  ‘Quite right,’ said Sandy. ‘You spend it here. That’ll show him.’

  ‘I will.’

  Having parted company with a five-pound note, Jim sought out Omally, who now sat at the table of his choosing.

  John was not alone. Sitting across from him in the seat that should surely have been Jim’s, was a plump young man in a black T-shirt and shorts. He and John were chatting like buddies of old.

  Jim placed a can and a tumbler on the table and sat down next to the plump young man.

  ‘Cheers, Jim,’ said John, ‘this is Geraldo.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,’ said Jim, raising his cup of warm cheer.

  ‘Geraldo is a big fan of the Gandhis.’

  ‘The biggest,’ said Geraldo.

  ‘Nice,’ said Jim, sipping his drink and making a face.

  ‘Geraldo thinks that the Gandhis will be the biggest band of all time.’

  ‘That I doubt,’ said Jim.

  ‘Oh, they will,’ said Geraldo, in a voice that made Jim turn his head. For such a big man he had a very small voice. It seemed to come from way down deep inside him, as if he was calling up through a drainpipe. Or something. ‘They’ll be the biggest ever, you just wait and see.’

  ‘They won’t be bigger than the Beatles,’ said Jim. ‘No band could ever be bigger than the Beatles.’

  ‘The Beatles have had their day,’ said John.

  ‘Oh, excuse me,’ said Jim. ‘And how many number-one hits have the Beatles had?’

  ‘A couple of dozen, I suppose.’

  ‘Fifty-seven,’ said Jim. ‘And the last one only a few months ago. To celebrate John Lennon’s sixtieth birthday.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Omally pushed his tumbler aside and drank straight out of his can. ‘And look at Lennon. Bald and fat. He should have turned it in years ago.’

  ‘Stop a moment there,’ squeaked Geraldo. ‘John Lennon was sixty, did you say?’

  ‘I bought the single,’ said Jim. ‘It had a holographic picture sleeve.’

  Geraldo’s jowls were all a-wobble. ‘But John Lennon was shot in nineteen eighty,’ he said faintly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jim. ‘But he was only wounded and if it hadn’t been for the shooting, the Beatles would never have re-formed.’

  ‘He should have died,’ said John. ‘He’d have become a rock icon if he’d died.’

  ‘What a wicked thing to say.’ Jim made tut-tut-tuttings. ‘And if he had died and the Beatles hadn’t re-formed, England would not have won the Eurovision Song Contest four years running. Nineteen eighty-two, nineteen eighty-three, nineteen—’

  ‘Yes, I know all that.’ Omally viewed his drink can with distaste. ‘But what a sell-out that was. Eurovision Song Contest. That ain’t rock ’n’ roll.’

  ‘Just stop! Just stop!’ Geraldo waved his chubby paws about. His voice was faint but frantic. ‘You’re saying that John Lennon did not die in nineteen eighty?’

  ‘Of course he didn’t die.’ Jim shook his head and rolled his eyes. ‘That young bloke saved his life. What was his name, now?’

  ‘They never knew his name,’ said John. ‘He just appeared out of nowhere and patched Lennon up. And then he vanished when the paramedics arrived. Lennon wanted to give him a million bucks but he never came forward to claim it.’

  ‘Perhaps it wasn’t a bloke at all,’ said Jim. ‘Perhaps it was an angel. Perhaps it was the Spirit of rock ’n’ roll. Are you all right, Geraldo?’

  But Geraldo wasn’t all right. Geraldo was coughing and spluttering. ‘It’s not right,’ he kept saying between convulsions. ‘He should have died. It isn’t right.’

  ‘You’re not right,’ said Jim. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘I’ve gotta go.’ Geraldo rose shakily to his feet and stumbled off to join his fan-boy cronies at the bar.

  ‘What a very strange young man,’ said Jim.

  ‘Perhaps he’s a chum of Soap’s.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Well, Soap’s got a bee up his bum that the Queen wasn’t assassinated and Geraldo thinks that John Lennon was.’

  ‘Nineteen eighty,’ said Jim.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Nineteen eighty was when Lennon got shot and survived and the Queen was assassinated. Same year.’

  ‘People get shot every year,’ said John. ‘It’s a tradition, or an old charter or something.’

  ‘Or something. But this is a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? Who is this Geraldo anyway, John? Where do you know him from?’

  ‘I don’t know him at all. He just came up and asked for my autograph.’

  ‘Why would he want your autograph?’

  ‘I think he thought I was someone famous. He was terribly polite and sort of—’

  ‘Sort of what?’

  ‘Reverential,’ said Omally. ‘That’s the only word I can think of.’

  ‘This is all very weird.’

  ‘There is nothing weird about it.’ John gulped down the contents of his can and tried to look happy for doing so. ‘This is a music pub, Jim,’ he said. ‘And the folk who go to music pubs are not your everyday folk. Don’t go getting yourself all upset.’

  ‘I wasn’t getting myself all upset,’ said Jim, who clearly was.

  ‘Well, don’t. Soap is confused. Geraldo is confused.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘Both of them. Lennon did survive, the Queen did not. That’s history and you can’t change history, can you?’

  ‘Well…’ said Jim. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘You definitely can’t. History cannot be changed.’

  6

  Norman Hartnell once said that life would be a whole lot easier if it could be lived
in little movies. The gist of this was that life nowadays is simply too complex for the average man to get his average head around. There’s too much going on all at the same time. Too many plot-lines, if you like, weaving in and out and all round about. If you could live your life in little movies, each with a beginning, a middle and an end, you could concentrate on one thing at a time. Enjoy each for whatever it was and give of your best to each in turn.

  And things of that nature.

  Generally.

  Norman considered that, ideally, each little movie would last for a week. You would begin whatever particular enterprise you chose to begin, on the Monday. Give it your absolute and undivided attention until Friday (by which time it would have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion), and then you’d have the weekend off to plan what you should do the following week.

  Norman was what is called ‘an Idealist’.

  He was also a corner-shopkeeper.

  And a single man.

  Norman’s shop was known to the good folk of Brentford as The Sweetie Shop that Time Forgot. Norman had inherited the shop from his father, Norman Hartnell Senior (whom many at the time had confused with the other Norman Hartnell), way back in the nineteen sixties and had done his best to keep it just the way it was.

  This was not for the sake of nostalgia, or as some posthumous tribute to his daddy. It was simply that Norman liked the shop the way it was and could think of no sound reason for changing it. The shop served as Norman’s base of operations, where he applied himself not only to living his life in little movies, but also to his hobby.

  For Norman, Idealist, corner-shopkeeper and single man, was also an inventor.

  England has proudly given birth to many a great inventor. It has also, almost without exception, failed to capitalize on this. Inventors have found themselves unable to raise finance to develop their ideas and have inevitably sold them abroad.

  The reason for this, in Norman’s opinion, was that those who sat in the seats of power, those big seats in Whitehall with red leather backs, tried to do too much at once and so did everything badly. They missed opportunities because they didn’t live their lives in little movies.

  Norman had written to them explaining this, but so far had received no reply.