The Lord of the Ring Roads

  ‘There aren’t any space aliens in Brentford,’ said the bicycle messenger, whose high-viz jacket afforded him a considerable degree of augmented discernibility in weather such as this. ‘And no-one here has had their wheelbarrows nicked.’

  ‘So he kept his promise then,’ said the lady. ‘But this won’t do at all.’ Adding a visual element to her argument through the employment of her handbag she smote the cash machine.

  Jim whispered to a chap at the rear of the queue. ‘What is going on here?’ he whispered.

  ‘The cash point won’t function,’ said the chap. ‘All the computers and mobile phones are down. The lady thinks it’s a worldwide phenomenon, but my brother Archie in Ealing says it’s just here.’

  ‘So you can’t get money out of the cashpoint?’ said Jim.

  The chap shook his head.

  ‘So why are you queueing here in the rain?’

  ‘Good point, well made,’ the chap turned away and paced off over the cobbles.

  Jim Pooley pondered on his lot. There had to be someone somewhere who would stand him the price of a pint.

  ‘Hello Jim,’ said Norman, as shaking rain from his shoulders, Pooley entered his shop.

  ‘Norman,’ said Jim. ‘I couldn’t ask you a favour?’ and then Jim said ‘Oh my goodness!’

  ‘Yes,’ Norman’s head went up and down. ‘It’s very much, oh my goodness.’

  ‘They are—’

  ‘Brand new packets of cigarettes, but all of a time gone by.’

  ‘But you have—’

  ‘Strand,’ said Norman, ‘which you are never alone with. Player’s Navy Cut “medium”, Player’s Weights, Player’s No. 6, Guards, Park Drive, Sweet Afton, Bristol, Batchelor, Embassy and, wait for it—’

  Jim waited for it.

  ‘Kensitas,’ said Norman. ‘Remember, made through a secret process and with Jenkins the butler on the packet?’

  ‘How well I remember,’ said Jim. ‘But do you remember the rude song about it we used to sing at school?’

  ‘I do,’ said Norman. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘We shall.’

  And they did.

  ‘Kensitas my heart’s delight,

  Made from straw and camel shite

  Secret process all a farce

  Stick your fags up Jenkins’ arse.’

  The two men shared a moment.

  ‘Things really were better in the good old days,’ said Norman.

  Jim agreed, but with some reservations. Because, after all, he had listened to Professor Slocombe’s theory that the clock was being turned back upon Brentford and that when a certain date in the past was reached dire consequences would result. And Jim had already experienced a degree of that direness.

  But—

  ‘Kensitas,’ said Jim. ‘Give us a packet, Norman.’

  ‘You’ll have to pay,’ said the shopkeeper.

  ‘I’m broke,’ Jim dug into his pockets, produced a single ten-penny piece.

  ‘Ah,’ said Norman. ‘Two bob, you have the right money and everything.’

  The two men shared another moment.

  Perhaps things will work out all right, thought Jim.

  Professor Slocombe viewed the rain that fell upon his garden. Closing and locking his French windows he took himself off to his desk.

  Gammon appeared with a late morning snifter, borne on a silver tray.

  ‘I have made enquiries as you suggested, sir,’ said he, passing his ancient master the glass of sherry. ‘And it is as you feared, the rain only falls within the confines of the ring road. Beyond, West London still enjoys the sunshine.’

  The professor sipped. ‘Power,’ said he. ‘All about power. And the power to control the weather. Even with all my knowledge, I do not possess such power.’

  ‘Are we all doomed then, sir?’ asked Gammon.

  ‘Not while I live and breathe.’

  ‘Another sherry, sir?’

  ‘Another and one for yourself my old friend. I think that a time is approaching when a very large decision must be made.’

  Gammon shifted uneasily in his antique morning suit. ‘I fear sir intends to take the fight to them, rather than have them bring the fight to us,’ he said.

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes. It is my fear that if something is not done and done soon, the weather will worsen to an extent that all vestiges of modern Brentford will be literally washed away.’

  ‘That would certainly suit the enemy’s intentions.’

  ‘But, if, while they are expending their power here and preoccupying themselves in this fashion, we were to enter their world and wreak havoc of our own there.’

  ‘We sir?’ asked Gammon, a worried look upon his ancient features.

  ‘You would naturally remain here and attend to the house.’

  ‘Naturally, sir,’ Gammon managed a toothless grin.

  ‘Naturally, Gammon. I would secretly enter their domain, armed with a head full of spells and a man of courage.’

  ‘You would take Julian, sir?’

  ‘If he would agree to come and perhaps two more. Brave fellows, loyal to the borough.’

  ‘Volunteers for such a perilous quest might be hard to come by, sir.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Professor Slocombe. ‘Yes indeed.’

  John Omally was still at his kitchen table, contemplating the open briefcase and its mouldy contents. If the entire business with the Brentford Lottery had not been sufficiently dreadful and given so many honest Brentford folk good cause to track down Omally and break precious parts of his person, the disclosure (and John was not slow in putting two and two together and making it equal fairy glamour) that all the money he had so indulgently disposed of on this, that, and indeed the other, would be coming back to haunt him in the shape of mouldering leaves.

  John wondered whether he held a current passport, but concluded that of course he never had.

  ‘Done up like the kipper of proverb,’ he said to his sad and sorrowful self. ‘And no-one at all to blame but sweet yours truly.’

  Omally stirred the leaves in the briefcase. Whichever way he looked at this it wasn’t looking good. The best solution that ever there was, was to have it away on his toes.

  ‘I genuinely thought,’ said Norman to Jim, ‘that I might have to have it away on my toes, as it were. After this lottery business.’

  Norman raised a glass to Jim, who raised one in return. The two men sat in the saloon bar of the Rusty Trombone, for they were still both barred from the Swan and glamorous lady morris dancers frequented the Rusty Trombone.

  ‘I have no hesitation,’ said Jim. ‘In telling you that it is all Omally’s fault.’

  ‘Well it makes a change,’ said Norman. ‘Because to my experience it is generally all your fault. If you recall that business of the Dragons’ Den and suchlike.’

  ‘My intentions were of the best,’ said Jim, draining ale from his glass and sighing plaintively.

  Outside the rain descended in the manner of stair rods, cats and dogs, but not in the manner of men (hallelujah, amen). Water gushed in gutters, rushed along kerbsides, battered at the cobblestones and hissed on the window panes.

  ‘And I don’t even have a raincoat,’ said Jim.

  ‘I could perhaps make you one,’ said Norman. ‘I have always felt that great improvements might be made to rainwear generally.’

  ‘Whatever happened to Old Pete’s hearing aid?’ Jim asked.

  ‘I showed him how to work it properly and he kept it,’ said Norman, draining ale from his glass and sighing plaintively. ‘The old sod never even thanked me.’

  ‘People don’t,’ said Jim. ‘It’s the modern way of things and if you try to be polite people even take it as an insult. The other day I held the door open for a woman and she said I was an agent of the patriarchal hegemony.’

  ‘Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?’ asked Norman.

  ‘That’s what I asked her,’ said Jim. ‘It’s a bad thing apparently.’

  Norman s
ighed and Jim sighed. Sigh, sigh, sigh.

  ‘Modern life, eh?’ said Norman.

  ‘Modern life indeed,’ said Jim and he took out his packet of Kensitas. ‘Shall we give these a go?’ he asked.

  ‘Let’s do,’ said Norman.

  Jim removed the cellophane and carefully opened the packet. ‘Oh oh oh oh oh,’ went Jim.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Norman.

  ‘Cigarette card,’ said Jim, with some excitement. ‘I’d forgotten all about fag cards, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Cor,’ said Norman, ‘let’s have a look.’

  Jim pulled a colourful card from the cigarette packet. ‘Oh no,’ said Jim. ‘Oh no, no. no, no, no.’

  ‘I had no idea there was so much drama attached to cigarette cards,’ said Norman. ‘What’s the picture of then?’

  ‘It’s him,’ said Jim. ‘It’s Stephen Pocklington.’

  Norman viewed the picture. A curious figure was represented, clad in a leafy costume and wearing a wicked grin. Jim turned the card over and read from its rear.

  FAIRY FOLK OF THE

  BRITISH ISLES

  No 7

  Dundledots

  Known as ‘the glamorous

  stranger’, this little

  rascal serves Our Lady

  Gloriana, Queen of the

  fairies. A noted trickster,

  woe be unto they that

  cross his path.

  ‘Well there’s a thing,’ said Pooley.

  ‘And here’s two others,’ came a rumbling voice.

  The fag card enthusiasts looked up to see two large and dripping men a-looming over them.

  ‘Hello Johns,’ said Pooley, with a smile.

  22

  ‘I thought one of you Johns was a Dave,’ said Norman. ‘And why aren’t you wearing any shirts?’

  The John who had never been Dave glared down at the shopkeeper and spoke in a sarcastic tone.

  ‘John and I,’ said he, ‘were hoping that you might want to run us up a couple of shirts on your sewing machine. You being the Queen’s dress designer, and everything.’

  There was a sudden silence

  that seemed to spread all

  over the world. For this

  was surely the only time

  in anyone’s recollection that

  someone had actually confused

  the shopkeeper with—

  —the other Norman Hartnell.

  The moment passed and life carried on in Brentford.

  ‘I’d buy you chaps a drink,’ said Jim. ‘But I do not have a penny to my name.’

  Unaware that his words were so poorly chosen, Jim was surprised to see that the John who’d been Dave, although stripped to the waist, was trying to roll up his sleeves.

  ‘We want our money,’ growled the other John. ‘And we want it now.’

  ‘But I paid you,’ said Jim. ‘We’re all straight.’

  Both Johns pulled manky leaves from their pockets and cast them all over Jim.

  ‘Someone getting married?’ Norman asked.

  ‘It’s the money he gave us!’ Both Johns pointed at Pooley. ‘It was all a dirty trick, the money wasn’t real.’

  The gravity of the situation was now made plain to Jim. But he had no understanding of the why.

  ‘I just need to pop to the gents,’ said Jim.

  ‘Oh no you bloody don’t.’

  ‘But fellas.’

  ‘Stand and deliver,’ said a John.

  ‘Your money or your life,’ said his brother.

  ‘Adam Ant came into my shop once,’ said Norman. ‘He bought a bag of—’

  But sadly whatever the dandy one bought would remain at present a mystery, for—

  An angry John swung a mighty fist and Norman’s lights went out.

  Jim viewed the unconscious shopkeeper with horror. That hadn’t really happened, surely not.

  ‘Money,’ said the martial John, raising his fist now to Jim. ‘Or your life!’ Steam was rising now from naked shoulders.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ said Jim.

  Now it does have to be said that the Rusty Trombone was not some spit and gob saloon where ladies of easy virtue disported themselves and big-bellied brawlers warred with one another. It was more one of your designer boutique drinkeries, with an exorbitantly-priced house red and a gluten-free vegan menu. But it was a pub frequented by female morris dancers, one of whom had recently referred to Jim as an agent of the patriarchal hegemony.

  Female eyes turned on the men of violence.

  ‘Take your testosterone-fuelled barbarity elsewhere, you hapless Neanderthals,’ cried the Lady Gardeners’ lead thereminist.

  ‘Just keep out of this, darling,’ said a John.

  There was a kind of a hush in the Rusty Trombone. A most significant kind of a hush.

  ‘Did somebody just use the D-word?’ asked a morris woman who had recently clocked up a record time in the London marathon and held a black belt in Dimac.

  ‘Pipe down, sweetheart.’

  ‘And the S-word too!’

  Jim Pooley fought to keep his hands from flapping, a John reached down and took him by the throat.

  Outside the rain smote Brentford with violent intent and inside the Rusty Trombone—

  The catalyst for the fight proper was probably the remark made by one of the Johns which suggested, in essence, that women should distance themselves from the affairs of their male superiors and restrict their activities to kitchen work and the rearing of children.

  The woman who knocked down John number one was the woman skilled in Dimac. John number two struck out at all and sundry. But as he held Jim fast by the throat he could only strike with one hand.

  A morris dancer kicked him in those oh-so tender parts.

  With his throat set free Jim gasped for air and attempted to make his escape. But guilty it seemed once more by association, Pooley found himself on the receiving end of female fists and right in the midst of the fray.

  Striking women was not Jim’s thing, nor indeed was striking anyone. A man of peace, Jim Pooley was, though now a man most sorely put upon.

  The first John was back on his feet and although he did have some qualms about punching a woman in the head, he hadn’t started this fight and he was, in his own opinion, only defending himself. The picking up and hurling over the bar counter of the nearest morris woman would not be helping his case if this came to court though.

  Warlike women fell upon this John.

  As with many a good pub fight, this started small then spread like a social disease. Folk quite unconnected to the original contretemps now felt the need to air some personal grievance through the medium of combat.

  Croughton, the pot-bellied pot man, long ago sacked from the Flying Swan and now serving his time in the Trombone’s kitchen as vegan chef, had never liked Wally the wistful waiter. For Wally once dated Croughton’s sister.

  Jimmy Summerville the landlord (not to be confused with the other Jimmy Summerville) did like Wally, but didn’t like Malkuth McGregor, the new barman, whose conversation mostly centred upon the wonders of a vitamin supplement that he marketed on behalf of the Mormons.

  And as for Louis Bewley, the cross-dressing cagefighter, who had been barred from every other pub in Brentford for inciting riotous assembly—

  Well—

  Whoever threw the first chair threw it well. It travelled over the bar counter and brought down half of the optics. These showered glass and a fearsome cocktail of spirits onto the morris dancer flung there by a John. She rose, now armed with the barlord’s stout stick and sought a man to punish.

  It was the sofa that nearly did for John Omally. It took two strong women to throw it, but throw it they did, right through the Trombone’s front window.

  John had been making his way towards the station, tightly-packed suitcase over his head to protect himself from the rain. He didn’t see the sofa coming, and its coming brought surprise to John as it crashed down right before him onto
the cobbles.

  John peered in through the sofa-shaped hole to view the mayhem within. And being the acknowledged admirer of the female form that he was, the sight of quite so many fit young women going at it with quite so much vigour brought a certain joy to John Omally. This joy was lessened somewhat however when John spied Jim in the thick of it.

  And then John too had a moment. He had been about to flee the borough taking with him his few worldly possessions. And leaving behind him, what? The threat of violence to his person, certainly. Just desserts, without a doubt.

  But leaving too, his closest friend to face the music as it were. John now felt very low indeed. Lower, one might say than a belly button boil on a bow-legged dachshund, or an ankle bracelet on a flat-footed fairy feller. Which, of course brought back memories of—

  ‘Hold on Jim,’ cried John. ‘I’m coming to the rescue.’

  As a viable weapon the suitcase has yet to prove its worth. The handbag has seen much employment in this field over the years, as has the slipper bag with a brick in it, much favoured in the young offender’s facilities. But the suitcase, especially filled, can be wieldy at best, clumsy at worst and then when the handle comes off—

  Omally punched one bearded John in the stomach and managed to kick the other in the shin. He was just helping Jim to his feet when several members of the morris espied him. These were members who had known John in the biblical sense and now seemed as good a time as ever to direct some of their present vehemence towards him.

  Rain lashed in through the broken window; folk lashed out at other folk within.

  John came up, but John was brought down again as now there were three Johns in the melee confusion reigned supreme.

  In Platonic philosophy, the supreme being and creator of the universe is named as the demiurge. As supreme commander of the Brentford constabulary, Inspectre Hovis considered himself to be something of a demiurge. His was the power to command. And those who ranked beneath him conceded to this power. He told them what to wear and how to stand. He told them what to do and how to do it.

  And he constantly impressed upon them that they were what they ate and that a healthy diet brought them countless benefits. Inspectre Hovis was a vegan and the only place in Brentford that served a decent lunch was—