Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

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.

‘My dad’s lock-up,’ said Toby, ‘is packed to the rafters with the lost treasure of the Incas. My dad’s minding it for the Pope.’

‘So we can’t use your dad’s lock up?’ I said.

And Toby shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘And that’s that.’

‘Then it will have to be my dad’s allotment shed. We can’t bring it all into my house. My mum would go spare.’

And so it all went down to my daddy’s allotment shed, a bit at a time, in Mr Ishmael’s limo. With one of us standing guard over the pile while the other unloaded at the other end. I, I recall, did all the unloading. But it proved to be a good idea, as it happened, the right place for it. My daddy rarely visited that shed, which was in fact three sheds knocked together. My father had had the work done because he intended to set up these three sheds as a West London venue. Once the damp had been taken care of, and a green baize carpet laid, my father had opened this venue – The Divine Trinity, as he rather grandly named it – and awaited the arrival of posh people who wanted to hire it out. It never proved particularly popular, though he hosted a couple of World Line Dance Championships there and a Congress of Wandering Bishops, but that was about it.

My father, being at times philosophical, put this down to competition. Competition that came in the form of The Magnificent Four, a venue also on the allotment constructed of four sheds knocked together and owned by a young gentleman named Doveston, who later bought out all the other allotment holders and turned the allotments into a tobacco plantation. He also put on a rock festival there in nineteen sixty-seven. Brentstock, it was called, and we almost played at that.

So, The Divine Trinity was currently vacant but for one or two folk singers who were living rough there. Toby and I ousted these and moved in the equipment.

And it did prove to be a good idea. Once all was inside there was just enough room for The Sumerian Kynges to squeeze in also. And so we could use the place as a rehearsal room.

Thinking back, as I must do if I am to set the record straight about all that went before and then came to pass, which would lead in turn to what was to come and how things would ultimately turn out, I can say, with hand on heart and one foot in the wardrobe, that I had some of the happiest times of my life rehearsing in The Divine Trinity. I pretty much took up residence at The Divine Trinity.

We were just starting out then. Young and eager and carefree. Life was ours for the taking.

And that tick-tock-ticking of history’s clock could not be heard for our laughter.

Oh yes, we were happy then. Though not so happy after we had played our first gig.

Let me tell you all about that.

Because it was quite an experience.

It was nearing Christmas, in the year of sixty-three.

The nights had all drawn in and it was chilly.

The snow lay deep and all around,

And tramping o’er the frozen ground

There came a postman by the name of Billy.

I liked Billy the postman. He was a great improvement on the previous postman, who had yet to recuperate from the dose of rabies from which he was suffering.

There had been some unpleasantness. My brother had been arrested and questions had been asked regarding the whereabouts of several thousands of pounds’ worth of brand-new musical equipment. These questions had not been satisfactorily answered, and when the finger of accusation came to point with an unrelenting pointyness towards my brother, who was presently receiving medication, board and lodging at St Bernard’s Lunatic Asylum, I felt that I did not want to confuse things by owning up myself. And my brother was himself beyond caring at this time, for he growled at me through the bars of the special padded room where he spent much of his time, ‘I’m a tiger – what would I want with a Marshall stack? Tell them, Tyler, I beg you.’

He was clearly beyond my help.

And I had rehearsing to do.

I had not been invited to reattend school classes after the summer holidays. I had apparently outstayed my welcome at Southcross Road Secondary School. The headmaster had invited me into his office on the first day of the new term to put his and the school’s position to me in a manner that I could understand.

‘ Taylor,’ he said to me as he ushered me into the visitors’ chair, which stood, with three inches cut from its legs, before his desk.

‘ Tyler,’ I corrected him.

‘ Tyler,’ said the headmaster. ‘Yes, that’s as good an occupation as any for a lad such as yourself.’

‘My name is Tyler, sir,’ said I.

‘Then how apt,’ said he. ‘And good luck with it, too.’

And then he asked me to sign a special form. Which was for my own good and merely a formality. ‘Just a sort of release form,’ he said, ‘to release you from the shackles of education and let you loose on the world, as it were. And how is your brother getting along?’

‘They had to give him some sleeping tablets,’ I said, ‘because he woke up again.’

‘The world we live in today,’ said the headmaster. And he passed me his pen. ‘Just sign it at the bottom there,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to read it. You can read, I suppose? We did manage to instil that into you, I hope.’

I nodded and that pen hovered.

‘Sign it, boy,’ the head now shouted, ‘or I’ll give you six of the best.’

And so I signed his form and was discharged instantly from school. And I had to hand him my satchel and my cap. Even though they were mine and my mother had paid for them herself. And then I was escorted to the school gate and sent away with a flea in my ear.

And the school nurse put that flea there.

And I never did know why she did. Nor did I ever know why I’d been expelled from school. And probably I will never know.

Nor probably ever care.

And I did walk free from that school upon that day, I can tell you that. It was always a strange feeling to walk the streets during term time – if, say, you had to go to the dentist, or help your mum shopping, or some other important reason that stopped you going into school. But to walk out of the school and know that you were never going back, that was really odd.

And as for that flea-

Well, I shook it out before it could lay any eggs and I stamped it into the pavement. And I walked tall, because I was no longer a schoolboy.

I was a man.

And so I went down to the local public house for a beer.

But the landlord threw me straight out again because I was underage. So I went down to Cider Island, that little area beside the weir where all the winos spent their days, and I shared cider with them until I was dizzy and sick.

And then I stumbled home, to receive a really epic hammering from my father.

Those were the days, eh?

But now it was nearly Christmas. The snow lay on the ground deep and crisp and even and The Sumerian Kynges had their first professional gig. Professional in that our audience would be paying to get in to see us, even if we weren’t actually to be paid for performing. And as the representative from the new nightclub that was employing us told us, we were ‘showcasing’ ourselves. Great things were expected. And so we were all young and eager and carefree.

And life was ours for the taking.