Robert Rankin - Retromancer

‘Well, ludicrous or not, it takes my fancy. Pluck a card from the deck and we’ll be on our way.’

‘But my breakfast has not gone down yet,’ I complained.

‘A card from the deck, young Rizla.’

And I plucked a card from the deck.

The card I plucked was JUSTICE. But I confess that I did not simply pluck it at random. I plucked it out of sheer wilfulness, as I could see absolutely no connection whatsoever between JUSTICE and the Crown jewels. So, in my own small way, I was simply trying to be unhelpful.

‘Can I come along with you?’ asked Lord Jason Lark-Rising, the bounce once more returning to him. ‘I have all manner of skills that you might wish to put to good use.’

‘I think not,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Rizla and I work as a team. Although I appreciate your offer, I must decline it.’

And I appreciated that. Yes, we were indeed a team and it was a real joy to hear Mr Rune confirming this.

‘I could drive you in the Rolls,’ said the young aristo.

And so we two became three and I got a right old sulk on.

‘Perk up, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune as he lolled in the back seat, window half-down, languidly waving to folk we passed by.

‘I am perked up,’ I said, but I was not.

Lord Jason lolled beside Hugo Rune.

I was doing the driving.

All right, I was driving a Rolls-Royce 1938 Phantom Fandango XR6, which is not something that you do every day and is really rather quite special. But it should not have been me doing the driving. I should have been sharing in the back-seat lolls. And Mr Rune made me wear a chauffeur’s cap!

‘I would have been quite happy to drive,’ I heard Lord Jason say to Hugo Rune. ‘I’m really becoming quite good at it. I hardly run over anyone much any more. Anyone important anyway.’

‘Rizla needs the practice,’ Mr Rune replied. ‘One day soon he might be driving a tank, so he needs to get his bearings.’

Driving a tank? I shook my head. But later I did not drive a tank!

‘I see you have a cocktail cabinet,’ Hugo Rune observed. ‘What say you knock us up a couple of Dive Bombers?’ [4]

‘Pip pip,’ went His Lordship. And I drove on in silence.

We certainly got some looks from the London populace. But not many of these encompassed admiration or respect. These wartime years saw the class system starting to erode. Those who had once bowed their heads and tugged at their forelocks were straightening up. Change as well as smoke was in the air.

I called back over my shoulder to my passengers, who now were growing somewhat rowdy in the back. ‘Will you please stop that raucous singing?’ I called. ‘And tell me, Mr Rune – should I be driving to the Tower of London, or are the Crown jewels kept somewhere safer from the bombs? The vaults of the Bank of England, or suchlike?’

‘They are still in the Tower,’ came the somewhat drunken reply. ‘As the Royal Family remain at Buck House, so the Crown jewels remain at the Tower. It’s a PR exercise really, something to lift the spirits of the masses. “We’re all in this together” and all that kind of guff.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ I was heard to say. But no one heard it but me.

It is a fair old journey from Brentford to the Tower of London and by the time I had reached my destination my passengers were in a state of advanced inebriation, giggling like girlies and falling about in laughter at the slightest no-good-reason-whatsoever. It was quite disgraceful behaviour and I was rightly appalled.

‘We are here,’ I said, as I drew the Roller to a very sudden halt outside the Tower, which dispatched Hugo Rune and Lord Jason into a giggling heap on the floor. ‘We have arrived.’ No yellow lines in the nineteen forties. You could park where you wished. ‘What exactly are we going to do now?’ I asked. ‘Neither of you is in any fit state to conduct any kind of investigation.’

‘You go by yourself, Rizla,’ called Hugo Rune, attempting without success to light a cigar whilst still on the floor and setting fire to Lord Jason instead. ‘Investigate away and return later to report your findings.’

‘While you get your head down for a little nap, I suppose.’

‘What a fine idea. Go on, now.’

And so I left the Rolls-Royce and its drunken cargo and traipsed over the drawbridge and into the Tower’s environs. I had never been to the Tower of London before and I was quite impressed by it. Impressed but not well favoured. As I had not taken to Lord Jason, I did not take to the Tower of London. It was leaden. Heavy. Grim. Foreboding. Its atmosphere weighed upon me. Many evil deeds had been committed there and you could almost feel them.

I did a little shiver and plodded into the central courtyard. To find my passage blocked by a beefeater.

And a great big beefeater too, he was. And one with a certain attitude.

He wore the traditional duds of the beefeater. Those of a meaty persuasion. The mutton-chop sideburns, the leg-of-lamb shoulder epaulettes, the ham-hock trouserettes, with their distinctive T-bone stripes. The porterhouse shoes and pig-knuckle anklets. Jugged-hare shirt and club-sandwich tie.

And not everyone can pull off a look like that. He regarded me as if I were a stain on his pork-sword cravat and asked just what I wanted.

‘I have come to see the Crown jewels,’ I replied, bringing my smile into play.

‘Well, you can’t,’ said he. Ignoring my smile and offering me a glare.

‘But surely the treasure house is open to the public.’

‘Not today it’s not.’

And I asked why this was.

And received in reply words to the effect that I should take myself away to a place far distant and engage in sexual intercourse.

‘I do not think you quite understand,’ I said. And I stood my ground. ‘I have reason to believe that an attempt will be made today to steal the Crown jewels. I have been sent to reconnoitre and report back to my superior.’

And would not you know it, or would not you not, the beefeater then told me that I was not a male person, as I had been given to believe throughout my life, but rather, indeed, the personification of female genitalia.

And this I found offensive.

‘Your social skills are somewhat lacking, my fine fellow,’ I said to him. ‘I demand to speak at once to your supervisor.’

Now this demand I knew usually puts the fear of God into any truculent minion of the service industry. And I folded my arms to show that I meant business. And would not be budged until I had found satisfaction.

And would not you know it, or would not you not, he now bawled that I was to ‘get out and ******* well stay out’, and he dragged me from the courtyard and he flung me out on my ear. And I bounced across the drawbridge and came to rest in a kind of twisted mess upon hard gravel, which really brought on a serious sulk.

I lurched to my feet and dusted down my tweeds. And pondered over just what I should do next. Return to the Rolls and bewail my lot to the probably-now-snoozing Hugo Rune? No, I would have none of that. I was not going to stand for being treated so shabbily. I would speak to that fellow’s supervisor. And I would-

And then I was all but run over by a horse-drawn brewer’s dray. ‘Out of the way!’ cried its driver, as big-hooved horses marched by.

They were magnificent beasts and exuded the smell of ‘horse’ to a degree that reached beyond ‘pungent’ into nasal realms that were best left unexplored.

I jumped back and covered my nose as the brewer’s dray rattled by.

They clearly drank a lot of beer at the Tower of London. One of those traditions or old charters or somethings that you read about, I supposed. Like boiling sparrows as a palliative against bicycle saddle sores only when the moon is in its final quarter and there are more blue tulips in the park than you can reasonably shake a stick at. Or was I thinking of something else entirely? Or had I perhaps suffered concussion and was not thinking clearly at all?