And so he began. He wasn’t a well man, he told the police officers. He’d never been the same since he’d done that three-month acid trip with Syd Barrett back in the Sixties. The chemicals were still in his bloodstream and only large libations of alcohol neutralized them and kept him on an even keel. And it was all his wife’s idea anyway. And she wasn’t a well woman. She beat him up a lot. Not that she could help herself. She’d never been the same since she was bopped on the head by a police truncheon during a peaceful protest about the war in Vietnam. And business had been so bad lately, what with the recession. And there was the unpaid paper bill and the road tax for the van and the hole in the ozone layer and everything.
Sergeant Sturdy offered a sympathetic ear to Mickey’s tale of woe. But when he felt that this ear had been bent quite enough, he raised a hard and horny hand.
‘Put the cuffs away,’ he told Constable Ken, who now had Mickey up against the wall with his legs spread and was giving the shopkeeper an intimate body search. ‘And wait in the car.’
‘Aw, but, Sarge—’
‘Just do it.’
Constable Ken slouched from the shop, muttering in a mid-Atlantic manner. Sergeant Sturdy shook his head sadly. ‘This is a sorry state of affairs,’ said he. ‘Get up off the floor and stop crying, Minns,’ he continued.
Mickey had not been dragged away to the station. But he had been given a very stern talking to. Crime, Sergeant Sturdy told him, was best left to the professionals. The Robert Maxwells and the Carlos the Jackals of this world. Not to balding ex-musos with beer bellies and bad breath.
Society would be a better place if folk simply stuck to what they did best. Every man and every woman is a star, the policeman explained, shining in the firmament of their own individuality. Know thyself and to thyself be true.
Mickey nodded thoughtfully and wondered whether the sergeant had ever spent any time round at Syd’s place in the Sixties.
The stern talking-to concluded with the instruction that Minns should never again stray from the path of righteousness and, that as a penance for his transgression, he should personally offer a month’s free guitar tuition to Sergeant Ron’s son Colin.
‘He needs a really decent guitar to thrash about on, he’s a clumsy boy, but means well. Give him a go of your Les Paul Sunburst.’
Mickey’s wife was on the phone, booking a suntan session and a bikini wax, when her hubby returned home with the bad news that all the guitars had to go back to the shop. She’d beaten him up.
Mickey had limped off in search of a beer. He’d found one at The Flying Swan and located and disposed of a good many more before Neville, the part-time barman, called for the towels up and brought his knobkerrie into play.
Mickey then limped next door to Archie Karachi’s Star of Bombay Curry Garden for the traditional post-pub after-burner. It is an interesting fact, that, just as the Queen believes that all the world out-side Buckingham Palace smells of fresh paint and new carpet, so, all Indian waiters believe that every Englishman is a foul-mouthed drunken fascist. It’s a weird and wonderful world we live in, and as Hugo Rune once wrote, ‘It has never ceased to fascinate me, that no matter where I travel, nor in what far-flung reach of civilization I unroll my sleeping-bag, no matter how educated or primitive the people, how rich or how poor, how spiritually enlightened or how entrenched in fundamentalist dogma, one thing remains forever the same. And that is the smell in the gents’ toilet.’
When Mickey had finally worn out his welcome at Archie’s (which was three pints of Cobra downed and still unable to decide upon a starter), he was politely ejected into the street. Which left him with the very real problem of where to go next. Home for another thrashing? Mickey wasn’t keen. Round to some friend’s place, for a big spliff and an all-night chin-wag? Seemed sound. But for the fact that he had exhausted all such hospitality many years back. No, there was no choice involved. At two in the morning, Jack Lane’s Four Horsemen was the only place in town.
Of all the pubs in Brentford, The Four Horsemen held the distinction of being the only one that did not recognize any licensing hours. As Jack Lane had now passed his one hundredth year, the local constabulary turned a blind eye to the fact that he rarely opened his doors until all the other pubs closed theirs. It was a tradition, or an old charwoman, or something. And it was the only place the officers of the force could grab a decent pint when they came off late shift.
Two of them were doing so even as Mickey walked in. And one of these looked up to greet him. ‘Evening, Mickey,’ said reliable Ron Sturdy. ‘Your round I think.’
* * *
It was precisely three minutes past two, when Anna Gotting, Cornelius Murphy and Tuppe entered The Four Horsemen.
‘Oh no,’ Anna caught her breath. ‘It’s Mickey.’
‘And the two policemen.’ Cornelius stepped across the silent bar. Various patrons were posed in pubbers’ positions. One making a throw at the darts board. Another in the act of ordering a drink. More, conversing about tables. A single fellow heading for the gents, which smelt, no doubt, identical to any other in the world. Old Jack held a glass beneath the whiskey optic. Ron Sturdy had his mouth open and his right hand on Mickey’s shoulder. All shared one thing in common, however. A certain quietude. All were utterly still. None appeared to be breathing.
‘We shouldn’t hang around here too long,’ said Tuppe. ‘There is the fathering of the new order to be got under way. This I consider to be a matter of high priority, praise the Lord. Mine’s a Jim Beam, if you’re in the chair, Cornelius.’
‘And mine’s a very large vodka,’ sighed Anna. ‘Poor Mickey. I really quite fancied him.’
‘Now that is sad.’ Tuppe scaled a barstool.
Cornelius made his way behind the bar and took down a bottle of Tsar Nick, The Emperor of Vodkas, from the shelf.
‘I can’t hold with any of this,’ he said as he rummaged for a glass. ‘There is no way the entire world can come to an end the moment we turn our backs for a few minutes. It just can’t be.’
‘Looks very much as though it is,’ said Tuppe.
‘But it just can’t. I’ll bet they’re still all warm. Give them a feel.’
‘I certainly will not.’ Tuppe shook his little head. ‘I have not ruled out the possibility of contagion. You touched the fellow in the car, didn’t you?’
‘I touched the bloke at the bus stop.’ Anna began to wipe her hand nervously on her T-shirt.
‘That doesn’t matter.’ Tuppe tipped her the wink. ‘As the mother of the new order, you will have a natural immunity. Shame about Cornelius. How does he look to you?’
‘I look fine and I feel fine, thank you, Tuppe.’ Cornelius popped the cork from the vodka bottle and made an attempt to pour out a large measure. But with no success.
‘Something’s wrong here,’ he said, shaking the bottle about and peering into its neck. ‘The drink won’t pour. It’s solid.’
‘Whoa!’ went Tuppe.
‘What whoa?’ Cornelius made with the vigorous bottle shakings.
‘New order.’ Tuppe folded his arms. ‘No alcohol in the new order. God won’t allow it. My case is proven I so believe.’
‘Nonsense. It’s just gone off, or something.’
‘Or something. Try another then, oh doubting Thomas.’
‘I will.’ Cornelius took down a bottle of Lagavulin.
It wouldn’t pour. Nor would the Dalwhinnie. Nor the Johnnie Walker Black Label. Nor even the Bell’s Extra Special.
‘Don’t forget the Jim Beam,’ called Tuppe. Cornelius tried the Jim Beam. Pour it would not. ‘Want to try your hand at the pumps?’
‘No. No I...’ Cornelius hesitated. His eye had become drawn to a most extraordinary phenomenon. And it centred about the right hand of Mickey Minns. This hand hovered, immobile, a few inches above an ashtray on the bar counter. It was arrested in the very act of flicking ash from a cigarette. And it was this ash that caught the attention of the tall boy. The ash and the way it hun
g motionless in the air, halfway between cigarette and ashbowl. Cornelius stared at it in awe. And as he did so, a great and terrible truth came to him. An Ultimate Truth, as his daddy might have described it.
‘Oh no,’ said Cornelius. ‘Oh no, no, no.’
‘What is all this oh-noing?’ Tuppe asked. ‘Are you auditioning for the part of serpent in this new Eden, or what?’
‘No.’ The eyes of Cornelius Murphy took it all in. All of it. He pointed with a quivery finger. ‘Behold the dart,’ said he.
Anna and Tuppe turned to behold. The dart hovered in the air, a mere six inches from the double top.
‘Cor,’ whistled Tuppe. ‘That’s clever. How does it do that?’
‘It doesn’t. It just seems to.’
‘Very erudite, Cornelius. It doesn’t, it just seems to. Would you care to enlarge on that at all?’
‘It’s us.’ Cornelius chewed upon his knuckle. ‘It’s not them. There’s nothing wrong with these people. It’s us that’s all wrong.’
‘Still not following you, I’m afraid.’
‘I am,’ Anna smoothed back her hair. ‘Think about Rune’s car. Sixty-odd years old, but it smells brand new and it starts first time. It’s the Zones. Time must be different in there. We went in and we came out and now we’re—’
‘What?’ Tuppe shook his head to and fro. ‘We’re what?’
‘We’re different. We’re moving much too fast. The car is still new because sixty years in there equals about one minute out here. These people aren’t really standing still, nor is the dart. We’re moving so fast that we can’t perceive their movement. We’re in a different time frame. That’s why the phones wouldn’t work, the bottles won’t pour. Why we can’t feel any heartbeats.’
‘This is deep,’ said Tuppe. ‘Very deep.’
‘This is bad,’ said Cornelius. ‘Very, very bad.’
‘Bad for me,’ said Tuppe mournfully. ‘But not so bad for you, I’m thinking.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Oh come on, Cornelius. This is perfect for you surely. Use your loaf. If we’re really moving thousands of times faster than everyone else on earth, think what you can do. Before one second of real time has passed, you could open up every Forbidden Zone in London, pull out all the booty, liberate your real daddy, print out the truth on broadsheets and stick one through the letter-box of every influential bod for miles around. And all before anyone can blink an eyelid. You win. You’ve solved it.’
‘And if all that were so, how is it bad for you?’
‘I don’t get to be the father of the new order any more.
‘You never were,’ said Anna. ‘But you’re right on this, isn’t he, Cornelius?’
‘No,’ Cornelius held down his cap and shook his bandaged head. ‘Sadly not. Because for one thing we won’t be able to get back into the Zones.’
‘Why not? You still have the reinvented ocarina. And we know that it works.’
‘It works when you play it at a normal speed. But at the speed we’re moving? Forget it. We may be invisible to the naked eye, but we are also inaudible to any ear you like. It won’t work. We’re done for. Before that dart hits the dartboard, we will probably have died of old age.’
‘Depressing thought, isn’t it?’ said a voice from the door. It was the voice of Arthur Kobold.
9
‘Well look who it is,’ said Cornelius Murphy. ‘It’s Mr Kobold. Say hello to Mr Kobold, Tuppe.’
‘No thanks.’ Tuppe had no wish to speak to Mr Kobold.
And nor did Anna. She kept very still indeed, hoping not to be noticed. This was not the right place to be, and it was certainly not the right time. All she now wanted was out.
Arthur beamed at the tall boy and took a pace forward. He was dressed, as ever, in his Victorian morning suit. High starched ‘throttler’ with silk cravat. Diamond stud. Gold watch fob gleaming. Hair combed up above his round flat face. Bigger side whiskers than ever. He was prim and portly. Round and romantic. He was not a nice fellow to know.
‘I’ll take the ocarina,’ said he. ‘Very enterprising of you, that. I will also take the route map and Rune’s A-Z.’
‘I think not,’ Cornelius replied.
‘And the keys to the water car. We wouldn’t want that thing falling into the wrong hands. Can’t have mankind getting above itself, can we?’
‘Can’t we?’ Cornelius held the bottle of Jim Beam behind his back. His fingers tightened about its neck.
‘I wouldn’t throw that if I were you,’ said Arthur. ‘Just hand over all the goodies and go home to bed. When you wake up in the morning, all this will be a bad dream. Not that you’ll remember much of it. We’ll see to that.’
‘You see to everything, don’t you?’
‘Everything important. We let mankind deal with the trivialities. But we control the higher issues.’
‘Why?’ Cornelius asked. ‘Tell me why.’
‘All right.’ Arthur stepped up to the bar and placed his bottom on the stool next to Anna. ‘Bottle,’ said he.
Cornelius passed him the bottle.
Arthur poured a measure of its contents, without difficulty, into the empty glass. ‘It’s an us and them situation,’ he explained. ‘Or a me and you. You represent mankind, and I, let us say, another people. The good folk, you might call us.
‘We are known in the highlands as the Daoine Sidhe. The Welsh call us the Tylwyth Teg. The Irish, Tuatha De Danann, or Sleagh Maith. But it all means the same.’
‘What does it mean?’ Cornelius asked.
‘It means fairy,’ said Tuppe, in a leaden tone. ‘He’s a frigging fairy.’
‘Please, please.’ Arthur sipped from his glass and raised his drinkless hand. ‘The ‘F’ word. That is a term we prefer not to use nowadays. Too many unsavoury connotations. But it does get the job done nicely. Say you believe in an invisible god who built the world from scratch in six days and most people will think you quite normal. Suggest that this god might have built more than one world, and that some of the denizens of another planet he made might be visiting here in a UFO, and most people will think you moderately normal, but a bit eccentric. But mention a belief in fairies and they’ll have you carted off to the funny farm.’
‘But that’s what you are, a fairy?’
‘I’m a Kobold,’ said Arthur Kobold, finishing his drink and pouring a refill. ‘A fairy, if you like. Or don’t like, going by the look on your face. It’s all down to evolution, I suppose. Separate races evolving separately. But at the same time. You in your way and we in ours. Your lot somewhat overran us. We had to take shelter. But just because there’s more of you, it doesn’t follow that you know what’s best. There are more ants in the world than men, but they don’t run the show.’
‘But you do?’
‘We do our best. And we do it in good heart. We aren’t vindictive. We have a sense of humour. Noted for it. The situation you now find yourself in is not without a certain measure of high farce, you must agree. If you could adopt a detached attitude, you would no doubt see the joke.’
‘You tricked us. And you owe me money.’
‘I’ll pay you what you earned. And a good deal more. But you must promise not to bother us any further. We mean you no harm. We are firm but we are fair. We just maintain the status quo. Try and prevent your lot from buggering up the planet completely.’
‘Then you’re not making much of a job of it,’ said Tuppe.
Arthur ceased to smile. ‘We’re doing a lot better than you know. If it wasn’t for us, your lot would have blown each other to oblivion long ago. Not that that would have been much of a loss to the universe. Self-destructive parasitic vermin so you all are.’
‘I say!’ Cornelius took a righteous step forward.
Arthur Kobold took a righteous step back. ‘Violent by nature,’ he declared. ‘That’s why you have to be managed. Kept under control.’
‘And put down if we get out of hand?’
‘When we deem it ne
cessary, yes. A little plague here, a little war there, a famine round the corner. A bit of seasonal culling never does the livestock any harm.’
‘Livestock?’ Cornelius was appalled. ‘Is that all we are to you, livestock?’
‘And vermin,’ said Tuppe. ‘Don’t forget vermin.’
‘We endure you.’ Arthur sipped at his drink. ‘If I had my way I’d stamp the lot of you out. And I could do it too. Make a proper job of it. But I don’t run the show. I am but a humble minion.’
‘Who does run the show?’ Tuppe asked.
‘The guvnor of course.’
‘And who’s that? Oberon, king of the fairies?’
Arthur Kobold laughed. It was not the sound of fairy bells. ‘Not him. But you really wouldn’t want to know who.’
‘I would.’ Cornelius ground his teeth.
‘No, no, no. That would spoil the joke. And such a good joke it is too. Now come along, I’ve wasted too much breath on you already.’
‘Where is Hugo Rune?’ Cornelius asked.
‘Not him again.’
‘Him again.
‘That man is a thorn in our flesh.’
‘Is?’ Cornelius managed a small smile. ‘Not was?’
‘Is, was, it’s neither here nor there. Now hurry up. We have spoken enough. The ocarina, if you please, the route map and the A-Z. I will put you back into your own time and you can wake up in the morning with a nice fat bank balance. What more could you ask for?’
‘Much more than that.’ Anna turned on her bar stool and struck Arthur Kobold a devastating blow to the chin.
It was a masterstroke. And the fairy fella fell.
10
It was still three minutes past two. And it looked like being that way for some time yet to come. Cornelius, Tuppe, Anna and Arthur Kobold were now in Jack Murphy’s garden shed. Cornelius was in a state of near to absolute fury.
‘Bastard!’ he cried, as he paced where he could in the crowded outhouse. ‘Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.’