Necrophenia

  Just in case you were wondering.

  I took the Sixty-Five Bus from South Ealing to Ealing Broadway. My favourite clippie, the Jamaican lady with the very white teeth, wasn’t clippying on the bus upon this morning and so I had to pay the fare. The Jamaican lady with the very white teeth always took pity on the hang-dog expression that I wore and my tales of poverty and child abuse, and let me off without paying.

  The evil harridan of an Irish woman who patrolled today’s bus cared nothing for my tragic plight and demanded I fork out my penny-halfpenny without further ado.

  Which left me no option but to shout ‘stop that dog’ and leap from the bus at the next traffic lights.

  And travel the rest of the way on foot.

  So I had worked up a really healthy appetite by the time I got to the Wimpy Bar.

  I could spend time describing the interior of the Wimpy Bar, but what would be the point? You either know what it looks like, or you don’t. So to speak.

  Neil was already there. And so was Rob and they were sharing a chocolate-nut sundae, with extra nuts.

  I seated myself in my favourite seat, yawned a bit and stretched and gave my young belly a bit of a rub. ‘Give us a spoonful of that,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ both Neil and Rob agreed.

  And I had to order my own.

  ‘Why do we always have the dessert first?’ I asked as I tucked into it. ‘Surely one should have the main course first.’

  ‘I’m sure one should,’ said Rob. And he chuckled.

  ‘Are you chuckling at me?’ I asked him, pointing with my spoon.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rob. ‘I am. Do you want to make something of it?’

  ‘Do you want a fight?’ I asked him. ‘And if so, why?’

  ‘Why?’ said Rob. ‘Why? You know why.’

  ‘I don’t,’ I said. And I noticed Neil moving the chocolate-nut sundae that he had been sharing with Rob somewhat closer to himself.

  ‘What is this all about?’ I asked of Rob. ‘What have I done to you?’

  ‘You signed me up to something with a maniac,’ said Rob. ‘While I was out cold. And what was that about? What happened to me last night?’

  ‘You came over a little queer,’ I said, hoping to lighten the situation with a cheeky little double entendre.

  ‘Outside,’ said Rob, rising from his chair.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No. My dessert will melt. Or Neil will eat it.’

  ‘Are you having a go at me now?’ asked Neil, rising also.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No. I’m not having a go at anyone. And I’m not fighting anyone. We’re friends. Aren’t we?’

  ‘Something weird happened last night,’ said Rob, who was showing no signs of sitting down again. ‘It was before ten, then suddenly it was midnight.’

  ‘I noticed that,’ I said.

  ‘Shut up!’ said Rob.

  ‘But I—’

  ‘There was something weird,’ said Neil. ‘My watch stopped at midnight and my watch never stops. It’s an Ingersoll and I wind it religiously.’

  ‘What, in church?’ I asked.

  ‘I will hit you,’ Neil said in ready reply.

  ‘Oh, come on, lads,’ I said and I raised calming open hands to them. ‘We’re friends - we shouldn’t be behaving like this. And we’ll get thrown out of here. And that won’t be cool.’

  Rob made serious fists. And he shook them at me. And then he sat down.

  ‘That’s better,’ I said. And I sat down. ‘And you, Neil,’ I said. And Neil sat down and I felt better.

  Though they both now glared at me.

  ‘I don’t understand this,’ I said. ‘Why are you so angry? And why are you so angry at me? We all signed Mr Ishmael’s contract.’

  ‘You moved my hand,’ growled Rob.

  ‘We all moved it,’ I said. ‘Not just me.’

  Rob made a more than furious face. ‘And you didn’t know anything about this madman. He turns up unannounced, a total stranger, and you sign us all away, to what?’

  ‘To fame and fortune,’ I said. ‘It was the chance of a lifetime. We would have been stupid to have passed it up.’

  ‘And do you have a copy of this contract onto which you forged my signature?’

  ‘Not as such,’ I said. Carefully.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Neil.

  ‘And do you have this Mr Ishmael’s address?’

  ‘I think he said he’d contact us,’ I said. ‘That was what he said, wasn’t it, Neil?’

  Neil shrugged, and ate as he shrugged.

  ‘It will all be okay,’ I said to Rob. ‘We will all be famous. We will all be millionaires.’

  ‘We’ll never see him again,’ said Rob. ‘You have signed away our very souls. I just know it. I can feel it. In my water, like my mum says.’

  ‘Don’t be so melodramatic,’ I said. ‘Signed away our very souls. Don’t be so silly.’

  And then Toby entered the Wimpy Bar. And he looked most chipper, did Toby.

  ‘Morning, chaps,’ said Toby, seating himself next to me and drawing my chocolate-nut sundae in his direction. ‘All tickety-boo, as it were?’

  ‘No,’ said Rob. ‘Anything but.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Toby. ‘I’ve just been with Mr Ishmael. He dropped me here in his limo.’

  We all said, ‘What?’ As one.

  ‘We’ve been at Jim Marshall’s shop in Hanwell, checking out guitars and amps and speakers.’

  ‘There,’ I said to Rob. ‘I told you there was nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Well, there is for Rob,’ said Toby.

  ‘What?’ said Rob. On his own this time.

  ‘Mr Ishmael doesn’t want you in the band. He says that you are a disruptive influence. And as you clearly suffer from stage fright, what with you fainting last night and everything, you’d never be able to handle the strain of a forty-day transcontinental tour. So you’re sacked.’

  ‘I’m what?’

  ‘So all’s well that ends well, eh?’ I said to Rob, raising my sundae glass as if in toast.

  And Rob punched me hard.

  Right in the face.

  And we didn’t see too much of Rob for a while after that. He kept to himself at school and didn’t come to any band practices.

  But then he wouldn’t have done, would he, because he was not in the band any more.

  But then we didn’t attend any band practices either. Mr Jenner had gone missing and with him the school ukuleles.

  And Mr Ishmael seemed to have gone missing also, because we didn’t see anything of him, or our promised instruments.

  Which was a bit of a shame.

  And time passed by.

  And then one Monday morning, the first of the summer holidays, there was a tap-tap-tapping at our front door. And my mother went off to answer it. I was eating my breakfast like a good boy and ignoring Andy, my brother, who was under the table pretending to be a tiger (for reasons of his own that I have no wish to go into here). And as my father was off on tour with The Rolling Stones, it was my mum who had to answer the door.

  Which explains that.

  And she hadn’t been gone for more than a moment before she returned and said, ‘It’s for you, Tyler - the postman, and he has a parcel for you.’

  ‘A parcel for me?’ And my mind did somersaults. I had over the years, and unbeknown to my parents, or my brother, saved up my pocket money and then sent it off. A bit at a time. Many times, for many things.

  Things that I’d read about in American comics. Things that I coveted.

  Wonderful things. Such as huge collections of toy soldiers that came complete with a foot-locker. Whatever that was. And the bike that you got free (an American bike with a sort of humpbacked crossbar) when you sold ‘Grit’. And a course in Dimac, the deadliest martial art of them all, sent to you personally by Count Dante, the deadliest man on Earth. And there were X-ray spectacles, which enabled you to see beneath girls’ clothes. And latex-rubber masks of Famous Monsters of Filmland
. And a body-building course taught by a man named Charles Atlas.

  I’d sent off for each and every one of these.

  And had never received a single one.

  And to this day I do not know why.

  Perhaps it was because I never filled in my zip code on the order form that you cut from the comic-book page.

  But here was the postman.

  And he had a package for me!

  Beneath the table I crossed my fingers and I hope, hope, hoped that it was the Dimac course. Because I so wished to brutally mutilate and disfigure with little more than a fingertip’s application. I withdrew my crossing fingers rapidly as my brother snapped at them with his tigery teeth.

  ‘Well, hurry up,’ said my mother. ‘The postman won’t wait. He’ll get behind schedule. And postmen would rather die than do that.’8

  I hastened from the table, down the greenly carpeted hall and to the front doorway, where stood the postman.

  ‘You have a package,’ I told him. ‘For me.’

  ‘Do indeed, squire,’ said the postman. ‘Sign here, if you please.’

  And he proffered a paper upon a clipboard and I put his pen to this paper.

  ‘So where do you want it?’ the postman asked.

  ‘In my hand,’ I said in reply.

  ‘In his hand. He’s a caution, isn’t he, missus?’ These words were addressed to my mother, who was peering over my shoulder.

  And not to my brother, who was peering between my legs and growling.

  ‘I don’t think I can fit it all in your hand,’ said the postman. And now he read from the paper on his clipboard.

  ‘Two Fender Stratocasters, in flight cases.

  ‘One Gibson EB-Three bass in flight case.

  ‘One set of Premier drums, consisting of twenty-inch bass drum, three graduated toms, snare, hi-hat cymbal, a sixteen-inch crash and a twenty-inch ride.

  ‘In flight cases.

  ‘Three Marshall two-hundred-and-fifty-watt amps.

  ‘Twelve Marshall AUT150HX speakers.

  ‘Five Marshall AUT160HX mega speakers . . .’

  And the list went on.

  And on and on.

  And on and on some more.

  And I came to the conclusion what a very good thing it was that myself and my fellow members of The Sumerian Kynges had done when we signed that contract.

  In blood.

  Down at the Southcross Roads School.

  At midnight.

  10

  Prior to the perfection of the Tyler Technique, I made all kinds of silly mistakes. They were good-hearted mistakes, of course, made in service of the common good, not for self-gain or aggrandisement, oh no. But silly mistakes they were, nonetheless, and I suffered for them each and every time.

  I just shouldn’t have signed the postman’s form. It was one of those COD kind of jobbies that you just don’t see any more, which went the way of powdered beer and returnable toilet rolls. One of those sixties things.

  ‘I’ll take cash,’ said the postman, ‘as I suppose you do not have recourse to a major credit card?’

  ‘A what?’ I said, all wide-eyed and growing legless.

  ‘Nothing to worry yourself about,’ said my mother. ‘Another of my visions of times-future-to-be. I mentioned it to the postman the other day, when he popped in to offer me consolation.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, which was fair enough.

  ‘I see,’ I said, but I didn’t.

  ‘So I suppose it will have to be cash, then,’ the postman said. ‘It’s a very large amount of cash, so I hope you don’t have it all in copper pennies.’

  And then he laughed as if he had said something very funny, which in my opinion he had not.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked him when he had ceased with his laughter.

  ‘The money,’ he said. ‘The filthy lucre, the readies.’ And he rubbed the forefinger and thumb of his right hand together in a manner that I found faintly suggestive.

  Although of what, I was not altogether sure.

  ‘Cough up,’ said the postman. ‘It’s—’

  And it is my considered opinion that he was about to name a not inconsiderable sum of money. But he did not. Instead he screamed. And then he fought somewhat. And then he flung down his postbag and clipboard and took to his heels at the hurry-up.

  And his postbag toppled over and a light breeze sprinkled its contents all along our street.

  And I turned and looked at my mother.

  And she just smiled at me.

  But it was one of those sickly smiles that people sometimes do. One of those embarrassed smiles. And the reason for this was my brother.

  Who had sprung from between my legs in full tiger persona and affixed his teeth about the ankle of the postman. The postman had managed to shake him of, but not before he had drawn some blood, which now lightly freckled the pavement. Mum and I watched postie’s departure.

  And so too did my brother.

  ‘Splendid and well done to you,’ I said.

  But Andy bared his fangs.

  So my mother and I retreated inside and slammed the door upon him.

  ‘Whatever are we going to do?’ my mother asked of me. ‘Your father is out, your brother’s gone mad, the postman’s all bloodied and we have sufficient musical accoutrements stacked upon the pavement there for the London Philharmonic to perform an impromptu jam session. Something by Haydn would be nice, or Stockhausen at a push.’

  I shushed my mother into silence. For after all, my father was out, so I was the man of the house.

  ‘Don’t shush me,’ said my mother.

  So I gave her a shove and she tripped, banging her head on the mantelpiece and lapsing into unconsciousness.

  I felt rather bad about things then, with her lying prone on the green baize carpet of the living room. So I comfied her head by slipping the Persian pouffe under it and straightened her frock to make her look respectable.

  ‘What have I done?’ I wailed, to no one but myself. ‘Signed away my birthright. Signed away this house. Signed away everything one way or another.’

  And then I made myself a cup of tea and having drunk it felt a lot better about things generally. And so, having peeped out through the letter box to assure myself that my brother was not presently prowling about, I hastened outside to unpack one of the Fender Stratocasters.

  I mean—

  Well—

  A Strat!

  There was just a little bit of trouble. Several pirate chums of Captain Blood had ventured out of his house to help themselves to the musical paraphernalia, on the grounds that as it was unattended, it must therefore be considered salvage and fair game.

  I wasn’t having any of their old nonsense, though, and I sent them packing in no uncertain terms. The one called Ezekiel gestured at me with his hook and made motions with his single hand towards his cutlass. But I said, ‘I’ll set my brother on you,’ and he soon scuttled off.

  ‘Damn pirates,’ I said. ‘I do not have the gift of visions and prophecy that has been granted to my sleeping mother, but I foresee a day, not too far distant, when there will be no more pirates in this part of town.’

  And although that sounded absurd at the time, what with the new blocks of flats having just been erected and filled, literally to the gunwales, with pirates, nevertheless, it is now the case.

  I wonder where they all went.

  I flipped open one of the packing cases marked ‘STRATO-CASTER’ and viewed its contents. A real Strat. I took it out and held it close to my face. You could almost taste the sustain.

  ‘Oooh,’ went I. And, ‘Mmmm,’ also. And I stroked the Strat as one might stroke, say, a fresh kitten, or the neck of a much-loved wife, or something made of solid gold that you stood a fair chance of running off with unseen.

  Not that I’d ever do such a thing, you understand.

  But I stroked that Strat and it was a magical feeling.

  ‘You like that,’ said someone and I almost messed in
my trousers.

  I went, ‘Who?’ and, ‘What?’ and also, ‘How?’ But there stood Mr Ishmael, smiling sweetly.

  ‘Oh,’ I now went, and, ‘Sorry, you crept up on me. You gave me a shock.’

  ‘I am light on my feet,’ said the man in posh velvet, today’s colour being maroon. ‘And my limo runs on a special preparation of my own devising that makes the engine all but silent.’

  ‘Hello there,’ said Toby, as he was now here. And he was smiling also. And then Toby looked up at the mighty stacks of equipment and he whistled, loudly.

  ‘You had no trouble paying the postman, then,’ said Mr Ishmael. ‘I will reimburse you in time, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally,’ I said, and I took to whistling, too.

  ‘Then all is as it should be. Where do you intend to store this equipment? You’ll want to get it inside quite quickly, I would have thought - it looks a bit like rain.’

  And as he said this, the sky clouded over and thunder took to rumbling.

  ‘Quite quickly,’ Mr Ishmael said once more. ‘As quickly as you can.’

  ‘Your dad has a lock-up garage, doesn’t he?’ I asked Toby.

  And Toby nodded. ‘He certainly does.’

  ‘Then we’ll store it in there.’

  ‘We certainly won’t.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ I said to Toby. ‘I know that your daddy does not have a car.’

  ‘No one ever keeps a car in a lock-up garage,’ said Toby, and he rolled his eyes. ‘You say the silliest things sometimes.’

  ‘And I do them, too,’ I said. ‘But it’s part of my charm, don’t you think?’

  But Toby shook his head, which led me to believe that he wasn’t always as wise as he thought himself to be.

  ‘I’m wiser than you,’ Toby said. Thoughtfully.

  ‘Well, if there’s no car in the garage, why can’t we store all his equipment in there?’

  And Toby rolled his eyes again. ‘Because,’ he explained, ‘no one keeps a car in a lock-up garage - a lock-up garage is only used for storing stolen goods.’

  Mr Ishmael nodded. ‘It’s true,’ he agreed. ‘It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something.’

  I had a think about this. And I was inclined to think that this equipment probably now constituted stolen goods. And it would be a good idea to get it both out of the coming rain and out of the way of the postman, who must surely return quite soon with a posse of armed policemen and a lion-tamer.