Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

‘And take the lead.’ And he nodded at the lead, because he couldn’t lift it up between his paws. ‘And keep a very tight hold on that lead. There’s no telling what might happen if I got loose.’

‘Right,’ I said, hopefully for the last time that day. But probably, I suspected, not.

And then we were off!

Andy dropped to all fours and sprang through the open doorway. He sniffed about at all the oil. And there was a lot visible as the snow, it appeared, didn’t stay upon such oil. And then he was away, with me clinging on to the lead. Away at the hurry-up on four paws went our Andy.

And he was good, for a sniffer-dog.

We reached the allotment gates and Andy leaped into the road. And off we went at considerable speed with Andy now barking enthusiastically.

‘Barking,’ I said to myself. How apt.

At short length we arrived at the derelict building that had posed as The Green Carnation Club.

Andy straightened up and growled at me.

‘What?’ I asked him.

‘You could have told me I was following your van,’ he said.

‘My van?’

‘I picked up your scent at The Divine Trinity. You might have mentioned that this was your band.’

I did chewings on my bottom lip. ‘You really picked up my scent?’ I asked him.

‘Well, I am a dog, aren’t I?’

‘Oh yes, you certainly are.’

‘So let’s get on with this tracking.’ And he growled loudly once more, took to some further barking and set off again at a goodly pace.

We headed towards West Ealing. Then through West Ealing and out to Hanwell. And then, in Hanwell High Street, Andy stopped and scratched at the ground and howled very loudly indeed.

‘Are we there?’ I asked. And then noting where we were, I groaned. We were right outside Jim Marshall’s shop. The shop from which all the equipment had originally come.

‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

‘Oh what?’ said Andy, straightening up.

‘We’re outside Jim Marshall’s. He must have paid those lady-men to retrieve his equipment.’

‘No,’ said Andy. ‘That’s not it at all.’

‘It’s not?’

‘It’s not. I just stopped because I need to take a poo.’

‘Oh no, Andy!’ I said, and I threw up my hands in alarm.

‘In the gents’ toilet over there,’ said Andy, pointing with his paw. ‘You really can be so silly at times.’

I apologised to Andy and he went off to have a poo.

I stood and waited, doing little marchings on the spot to keep the circulation going in my toes whilst admiring my reflection in Jim Marshall’s window. I was clearly born to this profession (as an adjunct to being a world famous rock ’n’ roll star with a sports car and a speedboat, of course).

I looked really good.

At little length Andy returned and I swear he was wagging his tail.

‘That’s a very posh bog,’ he said. ‘They even have a resident bog troll.’

‘You mean a toilet attendant,’ I corrected him.

‘Same thing. He had the nerve to suggest that dogs should do their business in the street-’

And I could feel another ‘oh dear’ coming on.

‘He won’t be doing that again,’ said Andy. ‘And now I think we’d best press on.’

And he was down on all fours once more.

And off and away at a run.

‘Andy,’ I cried as I stumbled after him, hanging on for the dearness of life to the lead. ‘Andy, why are you doing this?’

Andy barked and ran on.

‘I know you must be angry,’ I puffed, ‘about being locked-up in the lunatic asylum and blamed for stealing this equipment. Are you intending to hand it all over to the authorities when you find it and clear your name? Is that it, Andy, is it?’

Andy stopped and turned and sat down in the snow. ‘No,’ said he. ‘It isn’t. I’m not angry and I don’t want to hand the equipment over to any authorities. I want you to have it back.’

‘You do?’ I said. And Andy nodded. And then he scratched at the back of his head. With his foot, as a dog might do, which I found most impressive. If just a tad creepy.

‘On one condition,’ said Andy.

‘Just name it, my brother.’

‘I want to be in your band.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘Oh what?’

‘Oh, dear brother,’ I said. ‘It would be an honour and a pleasure.’

‘You see, I have certain musical ideas of my own that I would like to realise. They’re very meaningful and I think that the pop medium might-’

But he didn’t say any more just then as we both had to leap out of the road to avoid being run down by a 207 bus.

‘I think we’d better press on,’ said Andy, rising from the pavement and shaking the snow from his back in a dog-like fashion. ‘Before the trail grows cold. Well, colder anyway.’

And we were off once more. And thankfully now for the very last time.

I didn’t know Hanwell particularly well. It had a High Street with Jim Marshall’s shop in it. And St Bernard’s Loony Bin, which was opposite the bus station. And there were the three bridges – a train bridge, a road bridge and a bridge with the Grand Union Canal in it, all crossing each other in the same place.

Although perhaps I just dreamed the last bit about the bridges. It does seem rather unlikely.

Andy stopped and sniffed at oil. ‘I’m getting the scent really strongly now,’ he said. ‘From up ahead there, just past the three bridges.’

‘Is there anything beyond Hanwell?’ I asked of Andy. ‘I sort of thought that the world probably ended somewhere about here.’

Andy straightened up and brushed the snow from his paws. ‘Is that true?’ he asked of me.

And I sort of nodded that it was.

‘Silly, silly sod,’ said Andy. ‘Come on, let’s get this finished.’

And he was off once more, but this time at a more sedate pace. A lady in a straw hat watched us mooching by and I could just imagine what she was thinking:

Look at that stylish-looking private eye, taking his pedigree dog for a walk, would be what she was thinking.

So I have no idea why she screamed and ran off the way she did.

Andy stopped and, like a pointer, pointed with a paw. And did a bit of doggy-panting, which more than captured the mood.

‘In there?’ I asked Andy.

And Andy barked in the affirmative.

‘In there? Are you sure?’

Andy’s head bobbed up and down.

‘But that’s a cemetery,’ I said. ‘Dead people live in there.’

Andy’s head went bob-bob-bob some more. And I peeped through the cemetery gates. They were big gates, of iron, all gothic traceries and curlicues with much in the way of funerary embellishment. Skulls and crossed bones, angels in flight. And things of that nature, generally. And beyond these a most picturesque-looking graveyard. The snow took the edge off its grimness and painted it up to a nicety.

‘In there and you’re absolutely sure?’

But Andy was off once more. Not through one of the big iron gates – those were for the hearses to drive through – but through the pedestrians’ entrance to the left-hand side (looking from the road, of course). And we were soon into the snow-covered land of the dead.

And Andy padded along, moving this way and that, following the avenues that led between the tombstones before finally stopping at an impressive-looking marble mausoleum. It was one of those grand Victorian affairs, all fluted columns and angelic ornamentation.

‘Here?’ I said.

And Andy barked that we were.

I looked up at the marvellous structure, then stepped forward and dusted snow from the engraved brass plaque upon it.

I read from this, aloud to my brother.

Here Lies Count Otto Black

Bavarian Nobleman and Philanthropist

Moved On From this Plane of Existence