Robert Rankin - Retromancer

Which caused me to choke on my soup. ‘Hit by a bomb?’ I said when I could. ‘We were in that cab only minutes ago. We could have been blown up.’

‘Such is the way with wars, young Rizla. But come now, calm yourself. Getting all hot under the collar plays havoc with the digestion.’

‘I quite liked that cab,’ I said, making a grumpy face.

‘I’ll let you choose another. There’s a row of them outside.’

Liam Proven’s Lords-a-Leaping Jazz Cats struck up the lively refrain ‘My Love for You Is as Inappropriate as a Grocer’s Apostrophe, Yet Sweeter than a Butcher’s Turn-Up’.

Which was so damned catchy that I knew I would be whistling it for months.

Hugo Rune perused his pocket watch. ‘I suggest we do keep this luncheon light, as I previously suggested. We will have time for no more than four courses, so choose with care. My appointment with Winnie must be kept, to the minute and the second of the hour.’

I was back to feeling all uncomfortable once more. The thought of Hugo Rune actually arriving on time for something, other than a restaurant opening, was, to me, unheard of.

‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man, young Rizla.’

I shrugged and said that I agreed. Although I did wonder why we had not ordered all our other courses at the same time as we had ordered our soup. But fathoming the hows and whys of Hugo Rune had never proved a satisfying pastime. ‘I will have the steak,’ I said to the well-dressed waiter.

‘And for sir’s other three courses?’

‘Three more steaks.’

Which tickled Hugo Rune.

And so we dined upon wondrous food and consumed wondrous wines. Smoked wondrous Wild Woodbines (for these were apparently quite the rage amongst the bright young things who thronged the Savoy Grill). And downed most wondrous brandies.

And although I did not know it then, this would be the very last five-star belly-buster that I would take with Hugo Rune in England. Which is why now, thinking back upon it, I treasure the memory.

Even that of our rapid and somewhat undignified departure.

It had seemed such a trifling matter, really. Hugo Rune had scribbled a request onto one of his calling cards and had it passed to Mr Proven. The tune in question that he wished to hear being that ever-popular standard ‘It’s Always Raining Dumplings When You’re on the Gravy Train’. Mr Proven bowed to this request, announced it through the microphone and then turned with his baton to the band. But then a question of tempo arose which somewhat spoiled the mood.

‘It’s Always Raining Dumplings’ is always played as ‘swing’. And as everyone knows, swing is basically a four-four shuffle. As opposed to rock ’n’ roll, which is all straight eights with a back beat, or waltz, which is three-four with an anticipated second beat. Swing is rarely, if ever, in fact never never, presented in five-four. An unnatural rhythm, which although finding favour in the nineteen sixties with such luminaries as Don Van Vliet, brought gratings to the nerves of the bright young things who thronged to the Savoy Grill.

It was the drummer who started the trouble, but is that not always the way?

Liam Proven had prefaced the requested tune with a most amusing jape which ran in this fashion:

Liam: I say, I say, I say, what do you call a fellow who hangs around with musicians?

Guitarist: A drummer.

Somewhat ancient that gag is now, but bright and new back then. The drummer failed to respond with the drum-roll and cymbal-crash and when the song began took to a five-four time signature that threw all his jovial comrades out of tempo. I thought this most amusing and clapped my hands to the beat as best I could. Mr Proven, however, drew his baton across his throat and demanded that the band begin again with the drummer called to order. The band began again, but this time the drummer put down his sticks and took to reading a book.

At this point Mr Rune rose unexpectedly from his chair, took himself over to the bandstand, mounted same, struck the drummer from his stool with a single swing of his stout stick, took up the tools of the drummer’s trade and hammered out a solo that would have done credit to Keith Moon. The crowd stared, boggle-eyed and droopy-jawed, and when Mr Rune had completed his solo there was that certain silence which is generally known as the calm before the storm.

I remain to this day uncertain as to who threw the first punch. I think that it might have been me. The musicians certainly attacked Mr Rune, wielding their instruments as weapons in a manner that would one day find favour with Keith Richards. But Mr Rune was trained in the arts of Dim Mak. So it was probably his bringing down most of the band, including Mr Proven, that began the riot proper. And as some bright young thing was trying to climb onto the bandstand and have a go at Mr Rune, I felt it quite right to punch him.

I think it was an ARP man who fired the first shot. They were apparently allowed (in fact encouraged) to carry firearms and discharge them at whoever they pleased if they felt that it was necessary. He possibly shot the American serviceman by accident, as I think he was aiming at Mr Rune. But the American serviceman’s companions-at-arms, who were all fairly armed to the teeth, returned fire.

But who threw the Molotov cocktail?

And why, I had to ask myself, had anyone brought a Molotov cocktail into the Savoy Grill in the first place?

I felt now that I probably would not be revisiting the Savoy Grill in the nineteen sixties, but it had made for a most memorable luncheon.

We felt it prudent to make a most rapid (if somewhat undignified) departure at this time and I snatched up the briefcase and we took our leave at speed.

We discovered outside, parked beside a hole in the ground where our conveyance had been, a number of unoccupied taxicabs. Their drivers, being cockneys, who only love jellied eels more than a good punch-up, had hastened inside, drawn by the sounds of gunfire and mayhem and were presently warring with waiters and bellboys and others of their kind.

‘We’ll take this one,’ said Hugo Rune, a-dusting of his tweeds. ‘The key is in the ignition. Broadcasting House if you will, please, Rizla.’

Now I really took to Broadcasting House, oh what a wonderful place. I parked the cab and stepped from it to view that famous façade.

Designed by the renowned architect Sir Thomas Dalberty, in the zucker näse style, as a lasting and poignant tribute to his wife Doris, opera singer and nasal pianist.

The flanged nostril atrium with its double-bow fronting and great use made of natural light conveys no hint of what is to come when one enters the perhaps infamous network of corridors. Constructed, it is to be believed, to resemble the pattern of neural pathways within the cerebellum of a snail.

Not for nothing did Captain Beefheart pen the words: ‘This is recorded through a fly’s ear and you have to have a fly’s eye to see it.’ And although the connection might seem at first superficial, if not downright tenuous, as Mr Rune so aptly put it, ‘not on a wing and a prayer flies the wasp, but all on the toss of a coin’.

‘Do you think it will be all right just to leave the cab here?’ I asked Hugo Rune, who appeared to be applying make-up. ‘And what are you doing to yourself?’

‘Lock the cab and bring the key and I am applying make-up.’

‘Why?’

‘Because this is Broadcasting House.’

‘Are you hoping to be taken for Vera Lynn? I think Fange has that covered.’

‘I must look my best for the studio, Rizla. The lights do age one terribly.’

‘I thought Mr Churchill’s speech was going out on the wireless,’ I said.

‘It is,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Lock the cab and follow me.’