Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

The priest viewed me, blankly.

‘Well, he is something of an acquired taste. But I wrote this song for him to sing. And it is sung to the tune of George Formby’s “When I’m Cleaning Windows”.’

‘It’s called-’

WRITING FAR-FETCHED FICTION

‘And it goes something like this.’ And I played and I sang. And it sounded something like this. To the tune of ‘When I’m Cleaning Windows’.

And then, oh how we laughed.

Because, can you believe this, he was winding me up, that priest. Having a laugh. And he clapped his hands together and told me that it was a beautiful song, so beautiful, in fact, that the George himself might have written it. And he commented upon the quality of the lyrics and enquired what the phrase golden showers meant.

And I told him.

And he nodded and said that he was rather keen on that kind of thing himself. But then as everything was golden hereabouts, what was I to expect? And then he begged me to play some more. And so I did.

I did straight, classic George this time. ‘Leaning on a Lamp Post’, ‘Grandad’s Flannelette Nightshirt’, ‘Riding in the T. T. Races’, and of course ‘Little Stick of Blackpool Rock’. To which the priest waved one of my sticks of dynamite about and I had to stop playing and ask him to put it down.

But my performance drew much applause, especially from the golden girlies, who were still kneeling down all around me. And I figured that I was definitely going to get some hot group-groupie action later on.

Or as soon as possible, if the chance arose.

And the priest wanted more, but I told him that enough was enough for now and that I was actually a bit hungry, because it had been a trying day and I wouldn’t say no to a good sit down and some tucker. And the priest said that yes, there should be a celebrational banquet to greet the arrival of the Special One, and he clapped his hands together and got some of his underlings straight onto the job.

And I gazed upon these golden people and considered that perhaps now my luck was in and that if things worked out, they could very well soon be my golden people.

And I recalled, well enough, that the name George Formby became, by anagram, Orgy of Begrem, so things were looking up. And they might work out.

But what, I did have to ask myself, was all this Formby nonsense all about? They literally seemed to worship the Duke of the Uke.

And then thoughts came to me of a conversation I had engaged in as a child with Captain Lynch. Who it seemed had taught me oh so much. It had been about the Melanesian cargo cult of Jon Frum. During the Second World War, the Americans set up an airstrip at Tanna, an island in Vanuatu, Melanesia. Planes flew in delivering all manner of cargo and the natives, who had never seen anything like this before, sat down and gave the matter a jolly good thinking about. And then drew some logical conclusions.

It was clear to them that these Americans were in touch with Flying Gods who brought them cargo, and that they had built the airstrip to lure down the aeroplanes of the Gods.

And so the natives built their own airstrip next door to the real one. And they dressed up in pretend American uniforms and imitated all the things the Americans did. And waited for their planes with their cargo to land. And they got it into their heads that the pilot, the Godly sky pilot who brought the cargo, was called Jon Frum. And they set up shrines to him and lit candles.

Of course, no aeroplane ever did land on their pretend airship and after the war the Americans went home and no more planes at all landed. But the natives never gave up hope. They maintained their airstrip and went through the magical motions.

I recall seeing a TV documentary about Tanna and the Jon Frum cargo cult, and this smart-arsed Christian reporter was interviewing an old cargo-cult priest. And he said to this priest-

‘How long have you been waiting for Jon Frum’s return?’

And the priest said, ‘Twenty years now.’

And the Christian reporter said, ‘Then don’t you think that perhaps you should give up? Because he’s clearly not coming back.’

And the old priest said, ‘But you have been awaiting the return of your Jon Frum for nearly two thousand years.’

And the interview went no further.

And I remember that it really tickled me at the time.

And so I assumed that this George Formby business must be something like that. But exactly how had it come to pass?

Now that was a question.

And it was one that I put to the priest – the high priest, he was – over dinner.

And dinner was served in the big royal dining room, on the big royal dining table, from all the very best royal plates. The gold ones. And there were thirty or so of Begrem’s top bods seated about that table and I was issued with three scantily-clad golden girlies to attend to my every need. But, not wishing to take any risks regarding protocol, I didn’t get any of them to administer to certain manly needs in an oral fashion from underneath the table.

The food was, happily, not of gold. It wasn’t too heavy on meat, but it was pretty big on mushrooms. And there were things in bowls that looked startlingly like cockroaches with their legs pulled off, which failed to tickle my taste buds. The wine was good, though, as was the bread. And there’s always bread, isn’t there? No matter where you go in the world, there’s always bread in one form or another.

And I’ve always wondered about this. How did Man discover how to make bread, eh? It’s quite a complicated process and you could never just stumble upon it by accident. But every culture appears to have invented bread. It’s one of life’s mysteries.

‘What do you think of the bread?’ asked the high priest, who sat on my right hand (well, not actually on my hand), for I had the big best seat in the house, right at the top of the table. On a big throne chair.

‘It’s splendid bread,’ I told him. And I told him also how I’d always wondered about how Man came to invent bread. And he told me that in his opinion there was very little mystery.

‘Just grind up your cockroach legs, mix with water and bake,’ he said. And I moved on to the soup.

But I did broach the subject of George Formby. In as subtle a manner as I could. Because he was under the impression that I was a follower of the cult, a missionary or something, I supposed. So I had to tread with care.