Robert Rankin - The Brightonomicon

'I do,' I said, as I helped myself to the very last pouring of coffee, 'and I made quite a few observations, as it happens. For one thing, those two were not married.'

'Very good,' said Mr Rune. 'And how did you reach this conclusion?'

' "Mrs Orion" was not wearing a wedding ring, and she was a very fastidious woman, very clean, her nails beautifully manicured. And he was a right scruff, all over shabby with nasty black fingernails. I do not think a woman like that would ever marry a man like that. And he called her Janet, not Aimee, as was written in the letter you received.' 'Excellent,' said Mr Rune. 'Anything else?' 'I do not think there were any other dogs there,' I said.

'Then how do you explain the continued howling that came from the rear of the house?'

'It was a tape recording, a loop tape – you could hear the pattern of the howling as it repeated itself.'

'I am very impressed,' said Mr Rune. 'However, I would have been more impressed if you'd mentioned these details to me at the time.'

'I drove back here in a stolen cab and then you gave me all that toot about Chronovisions and zodiacs.'

'Well, nevertheless I am impressed. You are wrong on almost every count, but nevertheless.'

I topped my coffee up with the last of the milk and sugar. 'So how am I wrong?' I asked.

'The couple are indeed married. They were married in Saint Petersburg in nineteen ten.'

'Saint Petersburg?' I said. 'Nineteen ten?' I said. 'What are you saying?' I said. 'That Mister Orion really is Rasputin?' I said.

'No,' said Mr Rune. 'Mister Orion is in fact none other than my arch enemy, The Most Evil Man Who Ever Lived. Mister Orion is Count Otto Black.' 'Then him shooting at us was no accident.'

'He is a crack shot – he trained with the Eton Rifles. (Eton Rifles)*. Had he wished to shoot us dead, then he would have done so.' 'But if he is your arch enemy-'

'He was testing me out. He is unaware that I am aware of his true identity. It was a pleasure to take his money – a share of which I passed on to you at the time.' 'An insubstantial amount,' I said. 'But I still do not * As in The Jam classic, obviously. understand about all these spaniels being inside one another.'

'All will be explained in good time. Oh, and by the way, Rizla, the name "Orion" was something of a giveaway. It's a stellar constellation that includes Sirius, the Dog Star. But anyhow, that isn't the piece in the Argus that I wanted you to read. Read what is written beneath the Hangleton article.'

I took up the newspaper once more and studied the front page. 'There is nothing else,' I said, 'apart from an advertisement.' 'Read the advertisement aloud.' And so I did. THE CENTAUR OF THE UNIVERSE A talk upon the Elliptical Navigations of the Aethyrs of Avatism by World-Famous Paranormal Questor and Psychic Youth

Tonight 7.30 p.m. The Rampant Squire, Ditchling Road, Brighton 'Nutcase,' I remarked. 'New-Age nutcase.'

'What?' Mr Rune feigned outrage. 'Danbury Collins, renowned psychic youth and masturbator?' 'What?' I feigned a little outrage of my own.

'He is most entertaining. He, Sir John Rimmer and Doctor Harney have conducted numerous investigations into the paranormal – with little success, I hasten to add – but his talks are always a riot. I have crossed intellectual swords with this fellow on numerous occasions. My sword, however, has a rapier's edge. His, alas, would not pass through butter.' 'Speaking of butter,' I said, 'we have no more.' 'Then it is time for you to do the Tesco run.'

'Oh no.' I shook my head fiercely. 'Tesco does not give credit and I am not running out of there again without paying whilst you remonstrate with the checkout girl. Why do you not simply pay for something once in a while?'

Mr Rune now shook his head. 'I am Rune,' said he. 'I offer the world my genius. All I expect in return is that the world cover my expenses.'

'So would you care for me to see if I can somehow scrounge some free tickets for Mister Collins's lecture?'

'Unnecessary,' said Mr Rune. 'I doubt very much that he will be playing to a packed house. We'll inveigle our way in when we get there. But for now-' Mr Rune dabbed his napkin to his lips, '-let us take a stroll to Sainsbury's.' We did not stroll back from Sainsbury's. Well, I believe that Mr Rune might well have done, but I was forced to run and this was not easy, considering the number of carrier bags making red rings upon my fingers. We lunched well, though, and suppered, too, and then at six of the evening clock took to the street and waved a taxi down.

The taxi driver's name was Dave, a truculent fellow who supported the Brighton Seagulls 'come rain or shine, through thick and thin and all the way to Hell and back'. And he enlivened our journey with talk of his theories that the planet Earth was in fact a great big head, swinging through space and gaining increased sentience due to human beings, which were in fact its brain cells, exchanging information.

'When the Earth was young, it knew nothing,' the taxi driver explained, 'because there were only a few people/brain cells. But as the millennia passed, more and more people/brain cells appeared upon the planet. Quite soon now, when the world knows everything it needs to know, it will quit this solar system and take off on a voyage of discovery. Somewhere, out there-' the cabbie gestured to 'out there' generally, taking his hands off the steering wheel and nearly having a passing cleric off his pushbike '-the wandering world will meet up with other wandering worlds that have similarly gained sentience due to all their people/ brain cells. And it will amalgamate with them into a super-organism, which will be God, a new God who will then create a new universe. That's what happened before, you see – that's how this universe began. And it will happen again and again.'

Mr Rune had no comment to make during the cabbie's metaphysical discourse; he sat passively with his eyelids drooping, playing the occasional wistful air upon his reinvented ocarina.

When we reached our destination, I made hurriedly to The Rampant Squire and so did not witness the rise and fall of Mr Rune's stout stick. I rather liked The Rampant Squire. It was a rough old dive filled with rowdy students from the university. I observed them as they laughed and chatted and wondered whether I was a university type myself. Probably not, I concluded, because I was too young.. Too young for drinking in pubs also, of course, but then that only made the drinking more enjoyable.

The walls of The Rampant Squire were decorated with dreadful contemporary paintings, the work of a local artist by the name of Matthew Humphrey. They were all squiggles and daubings and splatterings-on, and looked much the way that restaurant tablecloths looked by the time Mr Rune had reached the cheese-and-biscuits course.

I elbowed my way to the bar and found Fangio standing behind it.

'Hello, Fange,' said I. 'I did not know that you worked here.'

'A man's got to have a hobby,' said Fange. 'I saw you admiring the artwork.' 'The paintings are horrible,' I said. 'I know,' said Fangio. 'I chose them.' 'Why?'

'The pub is called The Rampant Squire, so the brewery asked me to order in some erotic paintings.' 'I see,' I said. But I did not.

'You don't,' said Fangio. 'I blame these new teeth of mine. I telephoned this Matthew Humphrey and asked him to knock up some erode paintings. He misheard me and-'

'Let me guess,' I said. 'He supplied you with a series of erratic paintings instead.'

'Oh,' said Fangio. 'That would be it, then. I thought he was just a really terrible artist.'

'A pint of Esso, please. And as I have a thirst upon me, we will scrub around all the toot about what you do or do not have on the pumps, if that is all right with you.'