Robert Rankin - Retromancer

‘You are sure it will be safe?’ I said. ‘And that I will not cause some cosmic catastrophe by eating the wrong gobstopper or letting slip about The Beatles, or something?’

‘The time is right. The time is now,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Awaken me when it is time for tea. Depart now, Rizla, do.’

Well, I was very pleased at this and I waited patiently until Fangio had slipped away from the bar counter to use the toilet before I quietly did slippings away of my own.

Because I had no intention of getting caught for the cost of our lunches.

And so I stepped out all alone onto the streets of Brentford. And I took in all that surrounded me, just me, alone with my thoughts.

The criss-cross tape upon the windows and the tram cables running overhead. The creaking of a trade bike passing by.

The smell of horse dung from the coalman’s cart. And there a sailor home on leave, a soldier on his furlough. And I felt suddenly frightened and almost returned to the bar. Without Mr Rune I was truly alone in this time. I did not belong here and although much was familiar, so much more was alien. Overhead, in the sky above Ealing, barrage balloons bobbed amongst veils of smoke that drifted from the half-dowsed fires of last night’s bombings. A pigeon circled in the sky. A dull grey London pigeon.

Yet there was something good and solid and safe about that pigeon. Amidst all the horror and burning and ruination and death, a London pigeon flew. Perhaps the many-times great-grandaddy of some pigeon that I might see fly by on such a day as this in nineteen sixty-seven. It was comforting. It was safe.

And would not you know it, or would not you not, that pigeon pooed on me. And then having pooed it fluttered a bit and then simply vanished away above Uncle Ted’s Greengrocer’s Shop. [6]

‘Good grief,’ I said, taking off my panama hat and wiping its sorry brim on a privet hedge. ‘Pooped on by a pigeon. And a stealth-pigeon at that. Nothing is right in this horrible time. I really really hate it.’

And with that said, in a very grumpy voice, I slouched off down the road. I passed by the row of very pretty cottages that had always caught my fancy each time Mr Rune and I had passed them. And realised now quite why they had taken my fancy. They were not there in nineteen sixty-seven. I recalled my Aunt Edna saying that there had once been a row of lovely cottages there, but that they had all been flattened in the war with many dead.

And so now I viewed these cottages with sadness and put more slouch in my stride.

And presently I reached the door of The Four Horsemen, and wondered whether I might pop in and sample some of the new guv’nor’s exotic beer. It could not hurt and nobody need know.

And so, with all the misplaced confidence of the underage drinker, I pushed upon the saloon bar door of The Four Horsemen.

All upon a whim it was.

It is funny how things go.

Because if I had had the faintest idea of what I was about to get myself into, I might well have walked right past that door and slouched on down to the High Street.

But probably not.

And so I entered into that bar.

And changed my life for ever.

There was a regular fog in that pub, though the technical term is fug. A wholesome, healthsome, fragrant fug, as of the Wild Woodbine. I stepped into this nebulosity and felt my way to the counter, encountering as I did so a regular rabble of folk. An aged piano was cranking out a popular dance-hall medley and there was much laughter and general joviality.

As I proceeded upon my tortuous route through this jocular throng, I recognised many faces coming towards me out of the swirling tobacco-flavoured mist. And all that I recognised were regular drinkers from The Purple Princess. As I saw them and they saw me they turned their shamed faces away.

‘Traitorous bunch,’ I said to myself. ‘I of course am only here in the spirit of research.’

The polished mahogany bar top was before me as I squeezed between merrymakers and attempted to make myself heard above the all-encompassing hubbub. At last I caught the brand-new guv’nor’s eye.

It was a steely blue eye that I caught. One of a pair housed above finely chiselled cheekbones and lying to either side of an aquiline nose, beneath which grew a delicate blond moustache. The hair of the barlord’s head was blond and there was much of it. And there was a certain vitality about the carriage of this fellow. A certain athleticism about his physique that would surely have pegged him as a gymnast or sportsman rather than a publican.

‘What is it, boy?’ said he. Which I did not consider to be a good start. ‘Have you come to collect the case of Kahana?’

Now there is a thing that folk who went through the Second World War will tell you. It is a thing to do with rationing and how there was never enough of anything. And this thing is that if you saw a queue, you got onto the end of it. In the hope that there might be something you needed waiting for you at the other end. And also, that if you were offered anything at all, you took it without question, whether you actually needed it or not. And as this new guv’nor clearly had me down as a delivery boy, come to collect a case of Kahana – well, I was not going to disillusion him. I mean, a case of Kahana! There was no telling just how much I might really need that. Whatever it was.

I nodded to the new guv’nor that I had indeed come to collect that case of Kahana. And he said that I would have to wait until it was packed, but would I care for a drink while I was waiting, on the house, of course.

So, as this all seemed to be working out so terribly well, I ordered a pint of the Haettenschweiler that I saw flagged up on the nearest pump handle.

And the new guv’nor laughed and said no to this. And poured me a lemonade.

And so I stood amidst the noisy throng, drinking lemonade and passive smoking and listening in to others’ conversations.

A tall spare chap in a seaman’s cap, with a rugged sweater and a whiskered chin, held forth to a crowd of smoking folk, who shared a joke and listened to him. He was clearly a sailor home from the sea and I cocked an ear to his talk.

‘That there,’ he said. ‘Above the bar. Now that can tell a tale.’ Above the bar hung a swordfish saw of almost a yard in length. ‘I had signed aboard a merchant packet,’ said the tall spare chap, ‘in Tobago, hoping to make it back to Blighty before Christmas. We had a cargo of ivory, apes and peacocks, sandalwood, cedar wood and sweet white wine. But we got no further than the coast of Trinidad, when out of the blue an aeroplane fell from the sky. It struck the packet and for all I know I was the only survivor. I found myself in an open rowing boat, without oars to row with, or hope of rescue, drifting all alone and out at sea.’

The company ‘ooohed’ and ‘oh’d’ at this and so the seaman continued. ‘And that night a mighty storm blew up, with breakers as high as a house, and being, as you know, a pious man, I prayed to the Lord to offer me salvation. There was a flash of lightning and that swordfish saw you see above the bar there burst up through the bottom of the boat.

‘Using the skills I had acquired whilst once working as a circus strongman, I snapped off that saw, put my foot in the hole and used that saw to row the boat ashore.’

There was much cheering and I shook my head – that was quite a tale. And then the company took to the singing of that famous sea shanty ‘Orange Claw Hammer’ and I joined in wherever I could. Especially during the verse about ‘I’ll buy you a Cherry Phosphate’. And when that was done the tall spare seaman patted me roundly about the shoulder regions and ordered in a round of drinks for all the singers, including myself.