The Brentford Chainstore Massacre (16 page)

“One hundred hours of community service!” Jim threw up his arms. “One hundred hours! And what is community service anyway?”

“Just what it says, serving the community.”

“And how come you only got fifty hours?”

“I plea-bargained.”

“What is that?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. But it seemed to work.”

“Work.” Jim made a gloomy face. “Work.”

“It’s not like real work.” John unfolded a piece of paper and spread it over his knees. They were sitting on the concrete bench before the library. It was no more comfortable than before. Autumn now, and cold it was, the nights were drawing in. “Here’s the roster,” said John. “Ah, there, you see. A little dig and dab.”

“Dig and dab?”

“Yes. You have to dig over Old Pete’s allotment then redecorate his house.”

“What?”

“A piece of cake. Good exercise for you, restore you to full vigour.”

“I’m supposed to be convalescing. And what’s on the roster for you?”

“Hard graft, I’m afraid.”

“Give me that piece of paper.” Jim snatched it away. “Dog walking!” he shouted. “You got dog walking?”

“It’s Old Pete’s dog. A regular hound of the Baskervilles.”

“It’s a half-terrier.”

“And half-wolf”

“It’s all too much. It’s all too very much.”

“I blame you,” said John. “You took your eye off the ball.”

“Oh yes, and what ball was this?”

“The ball that would have scored the winning goal. The Millennium Fund money, you remember.”

“That’s all history. Look around you, John. What do you see?”

“The noble town of Brentford.”

“A sleeping suburb. Do you see any banners and balloons? Any bunting? Any written proclamations announcing the forthcoming festivities nailed to the lamp posts? Does this look to you like a town bursting with excitement at the prospect of celebrating the millennium two years early?”

“No,” said John. “But then it wouldn’t. It was all as the Professor predicted. Fred made great congratulatory displays, then inundated the mayor with so much paperwork that he couldn’t get into his own office. The story was quietly gagged in the press, turning up only on the occasional quirky TV show as a comical aside that made us all look like a pack of twats.”

“That’s real life for you,” said Jim.

“Listen,” said John. “I have raised a small amount of capital. I’ve gone into partnership with Norman and we’ve rented a building down near the old docks. The Millennial Brewery is still a goer.”

“The John Omally Millennial Brewery.”

“Actually it’s the Norman Hartnell Millennial Brewery. But you can come in on that with us. There’s money to be made. There’s always big money in beer.”

Jim shrugged. “I suppose to be a director of a brewery would have a certain cachet.”

“Ah,” said John. “Well, we don’t actually have any vacancies for directors.”

“What then?”

“Porters we need. You could work your way up.”

“I’m going home.” Jim rose to do so. And then he sat down again.

“Are you OK?” John asked.

“I think so. I just got this odd shivery sensation.”

“You probably do need a bit more convalescence.”

“No, it’s them.” Jim pointed.

Across the road were two boys. They looked to be about ten years of age. One had a golden look to him, the other was all over dark. They stood together silently and stared at John and Jim.

“Oh, them,” said John. “Damien and the Midwich Cuckoo.”

“Who?”

“Nobody seems to know who they are. They wander about the borough staring at people. It fair puts the wind up you, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t they go to school?”

“Why don’t you go over and ask them?”

“OK.” Jim rose to do so. “Oh, they’ve gone. I never saw them go.”

“No one ever does.”

“Well, you can watch me go. Because that is exactly what I’m going to do.”

“How about coming for a beer instead?”

“What, at the Road to Calvary? I don’t think so.”

John gave his head a scratch. “That is something that I’ll have to deal with. Neville is not a happy man.”

“I’ll bet he’s not.”

“He has to wear a costume now, robes and a false beard.”

“That’s something I’d like to see.”

“Oh no you wouldn’t.”

“Tell you what,” said Jim. “Let’s go round there now. I’m meeting Suzy at eight, we’re going for an Indian. But in the meantime why don’t you and I apply ourselves to a really worthy cause? To restore the Swan to its former glory and re-establish ourselves on the drinking side of the bar.”

“Put it there,” said John, extending his hand.

And Jim put it there.

“So,” said Old Pete. “There are these two sperms swimming along and one says, ‘Are we at the fallopian tubes yet?’ and the other says, ‘No, we’re hardly past the tonsils.’” Old Pete raised his glass, but no one laughed.

“Fair enough,” said Old Pete. “So who’s going to say it, then?”

“Say what?” asked Celia Penn.

“Say surely that is a somewhat misogynist joke, or something.”

“Not me,” said Celia Penn. “It’s just that I’ve heard it before.”

“Oh,” said Old Pete.

“A one-legged Lesbian shot-putter told it to me last week.”

“Oh.”

“I heard it from an Irishman,” said Norman.

“An Eskimo told me it,” said a lady in a straw hat.

“A rabbi,” said Paul the medical student.

“I heard it through the grapevine,” said Marvin Gaye.

“God told me,” said David Icke.

John and Jim now entered the Road to Calvary.

“Aaaaaagh!” cried the assembled multitude, catching sight of them. “Out Demons out! Out Demons out!”

Neville rose from behind the bar counter. And yes, he was wearing the robes, and yes he did have the false beard. And, my oh my, didn’t he look like Moses, and, my oh my, didn’t he look mad.

“Judas!” cried Neville. “The Judas twins, no less. Slay the evildoers who have brought woe unto the house of Neville.”

“Hold it, hold it.” John put up his hands. “We are here to help. Jim and I have come to save the situation. To restore the Swan to…”

“And there shall be a weeping and a wailing and a gnashing of teeth.” Neville reached for his knobkerrie. “And fire shall rain down from the heavens and smite the tribes of Pooley and Omally and even their children and their children’s children. For they that fuck with the house of Neville, verily they shall all get the red-hot poker up the bum.”

“Now I know you’re upset,” said John.

“Spawn of the pit!” Neville raised his knobkerrie. “Foul issue of the Antichrist!”

“Very upset,” said Jim.

“Burn the heretics,” shouted Old Pete.

“Now you keep out of this,” John warned him.

Neville climbed onto the bar counter. With the robes and the beard and the knobkerrie and everything, he looked mightily impressive. “This day shall be known as the Day of Retribution,” he roared.

“Just calm down.” John made calming gestures. “Things are never as bad as they seem.”

“Never as bad?” Neville flung wide his arms. “Look at my pub. Just look at my pub.”

John cast a wary eye about the place. The Swan had been converted. Where once had stood the Britannia pub tables and the comfy chairs, now there was a row of pews. The dominoes table too was gone, replaced by a font with a little fountain rising from it. The walls, so long the haunt of mellowed sporting prints, were presently festooned with portraits of saints, garish plastic Virgin Marys that lit up from the inside, fake icons with holographic images, and neon crosses flashing on and off.

And from the ceiling hung plaster cherubim and seraphim, fat-bummed and grinning, holding little bows and arrows, fluttering their tiny wings.

And here and there and all around stood statues, garishly painted theatrical prop statues, of Tobias and the Angel, St Francis of Assisi, Matthew, Mark and Eric Cantona. Eric Cantona?

John Omally crossed himself.

“You piss-taking bastard.” Neville made to leap from the counter.

“No,” said John. “No really, this is dire. We’ll get it fixed, we really will.”

“Liar and hypocrite!”

“No, I mean it.”

“Oh yes?” Neville’s voice rose by an octave. “Oh yes? Don’t think I haven’t heard about your evil schemes to ruin me further. The John Omally Millennial Brewery and the Jim Pooley.”

“Ah,” said John.

“I think we should be off,” said Jim. “Before the, you know, flagellating and the nailing up.”

“And the burning at the stake,” said Old Pete.

“Why are you dressed as a Buddhist monk?” Omally asked. “And wearing a mitre?”

“Just trying to fit in.”

“By Baal!” cried Neville. “By Belial and…”

“I suppose it must make it worse, him being a pagan and everything,” Jim whispered. But nobody heard him.

“Ye Great Old Ones. Ye Deathless Sleepers.”

Omally pushed his way through the congregation and squared up beneath the ranting Neville.

“Stop it!” he shouted. “I will fix it for you. I promise. Cross my heart and… no, forget that. I give you my word.”

“Oaths are but words, and words but wind,” said the lady in the straw hat. “Claude Butler said that.”

“Samuel Butler,” said Paul. “He was an English satirist, 1612 to 1680, born in…”

“Stop that!” John Omally raised his fist.

“John,” called Jim from the door. “John, I’m leaving now. I may not be able to foresee the future, but I know just what’s coming next and I have no wish to endure another thrashing.”

“No one is going to get thrashed, Jim.”

“Shame,” said the lady in the straw hat.

Neville opened his mouth to issue curses.

“Stop!” John put up his hands. “Stop all this now. Neville, I promise to sort it out. I promise to have the Swan restored to its former glory. I will swear upon anything you wish. I promise, Neville. I promise.”

“Did you hear that?” asked Neville, gazing around.

“We did. We did.” The patrons’ heads bobbed up and down. Old Pete’s mitre fell onto the floor and his dog did a whoopsy on it.

“Right,” said Neville. “I give you until the end of the week, Omally.”

“The end of the week? That’s impossible.”

“Bring in the wicker man!”

“No, all right. The end of the week. Whatever you say.”

“Swear it, Omally. Shout it loud for all to hear.”

“I’ll get it all sorted by the end of the week,” shouted John. “I swear upon all that is holy.”

“Fine,” said Neville, climbing down. “Pint of the usual, is it?”

“You’ve got a bloody nose,” said Suzy. “Did someone hit you again?”

“No.” Jim managed half a sniff. “I was just going up to the bar for a drink when I slipped on this bishop’s mitre that was covered in poo.”

Suzy put a finger to his lips. “You do take a terrible hammering,” she said.

Pooley kissed her fingers. “I’d like to feel that there’s some purpose behind all my suffering, but I’m quite sure there’s not.”

They sat in Archie Karachi’s Star of Bombay Curry Garden (and Tasty-chip Patio), sipping Kingfisher lager and taking tastes from bowls of Kashmiri rogan josh, Rasedar shaljum, Kutchi bhindi, and French-fried potatoes.

“So, are you going into the brewery trade?” Suzy asked.

“No I am not. I’m going to help Omally sort out the Swan for Neville. Do my community service. Then I’m going to seek proper employment, and then I hope to ask you something.”

“What kind of something?”

“Something I can’t ask you now. Not until I’ve got myself sorted out.”

“Don’t sort yourself out for me, Jim. I like you just the way you are.”

“But I’m a loser and I’m fed up with it.”

“You are an individual.”

“That word is beginning to grate on my nerves.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No, I didn’t mean you. Here, have another chip.” Jim fumbled with the bowl. “I can’t even eat properly when I’m with you.”

“Nor me. It’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s very good.”

“Bad,” said Dr Steven Malone. “Very bad boys.”

The two boys looked up at him. One golden, one dark, but otherwise so very much alike. They stood in a downstairs room of that house in Moby Dick Terrace. The house where the old couple had died of natural causes.

“You mustn’t keep wandering off,” the bad doctor told them. “You might get yourselves lost.”

“We cannot get lost, father,” said the golden child, gazing up with his glittering eyes. “We remember everything, every moment, everything.”

Dr Steven smiled a twisted smile. “Digital memory,” he said, “total recall with absolute accuracy. And what about you?” he asked the dark one.

“I forget nothing,” the dark one replied.

“That’s good.”

“Father,” said the golden child. “You said you would choose names for us today.”

“And when did I say that?”

“Precisely one hundred and twenty-three minutes ago.”

“Very good. And so I have. You,” he pointed to the golden child, “will henceforth be known as Cain. And you,” he pointed to the other, “Abel.”

“As in the Bible,” said Cain. “Genesis chapter four, verse one.”

“Bible?” Dr Steven’s face, already ashen, grew more ashen still. “What do you know about the Bible?”

“All,” said Abel. “We go to the library and read the books.”

“We are hungry to learn, father. Everything there is to be learned.”

“I will teach you all you need to know. Stay away from the library. Do not go there again, or…”

“You will punish us,” said Cain. “Lock us away once more in the dark place.”

“I like the dark place,” said Abel.

“Do not defy me.” Dr Steven rocked upon his heels. “You are too precious to my purpose.”

“And what is your purpose?”

“My purpose, Cain, is my own affair. But by the end of this year all will be made known.”

“Given our unnaturally accelerated growth-rate,” said Abel, “by the end of this year we will be the equivalent of thirty-three normal years of age.”

“Precisely correct. And then I will do what has to be done. And then I shall know all.”

“No man can know all,” said Cain. “Only God knows all.”

“Go to your room.” Dr Steven turned in profile, something he hadn’t done for a while, and pointed off the page. “No, wait. You, Abel, go to your room and switch on all the lights. You, Cain, go once more to the dark place.” Bastard!