Robert Rankin - The Brightonomicon

Tobes looked around. 'And who are all these people?' he asked.

'Well…'By this time there were quite a lot of people gathered around our table. A lot of male people, all in black T-shirts. 'Well, that is Dave, and that is Marcus, and that one is Neil-' 'Chris,' said Chris. 'Sorry, that one is Chris. That one is Neil.' 'You have a lot of friends,' said Tobes.

'Ah,' I said. And I looked all around at my newfound friends. There were lots of them. The only ones who had not bought me drinks were the ones who were presently on their way to do so and "had just popped by our table to enquire what my preference was.

'And this nutter here,' said Matty, nudging at Mario with the champagne bottle, 'seems to think that Yola here,' and he gestured at me with the bottle, 'is his fiancee.' 'And I am not?' I said. 'Well, of course you're not,' said Tobes. 'You're not any bloke's fiancee.' 'Thank you,' I said. 'Because how could you be, seeing as you are a bloke.'

Now, it must have been at this precise moment that the stand-in DJ chose to change records, because there was a sudden silence. And I do not know whether you have ever heard the term 'the silence was deafening', but this was one of those moments. The silence was also a pregnant silence.

Pregnant with the promise of the premature birth of something very violent indeed.

Now, I do not know who hit whom first. I think Mario hit Matty. And I will bet that Matty would have hit him back if he had not been coming at me with the champagne bottle. Mario must have brought Matty down, because Marcus, who was also coming at me with a bottle of his own, this one being full of Guinness, fell over Matty and crashed down hard on our table, spilling drinks. A fact that did not please Tobes.

Tobes, I think, hit Neil, or it might have been Chris. But it was certainly Dave who hit Solo and Solo was a very big chap and he just started hitting everybody.

Funny how these things spread: what begins as a localised brawl soon becomes widespread mayhem.

And as to who had the petrol bomb, or why they had it with them, I cannot say. But at that moment Mr Rune rose, taking Tobes by the arm, and I followed on in their wake. The Sussex constabulary had a busy night. The mayhem spilled from the burning town hall and many shop windows were broken.

At a little after three of the new morning clock, Inspector Hector read the Riot Act through a loud-hailer atop the Sherman tank*. And the first of the tear-gas grenades were launched. We watched a lot of it on TV at Tobes's house in With-dean, which we journeyed to in a cab that Mr Rune hailed. *The one the Sussex constabulary use for making patrols around Whitehawk. I will not go into details here regarding the fate of the taxi driver, but there was a stout stick involved. The ongoing riot was broadcast live from a news helicopter that circled over the war-torn streets of Hove. It all looked very exciting. 'What are we drinking now?' I shouted to Lord Tobes. 'Calvados,' Tobes shouted back. 'And don't call me Lord.' 'I did not.' 'You were thinking it.'

'Oh, look,' hollered Mr Rune, 'the rioters have set The Albion ablaze.'

'That is a shame,' I bawled. 'I hope Fangio is okay. Oh, look, there he is. What is he doing with that axe?'

'Looting the dry cleaners across the road,' thundered Mr Rune. 'They do have exceedingly good cameras on those newsreel helicopters, don't they?'

'Almost unbelievably good,' I screamed. 'As is this Calvados.'

'Enjoyable as all this is,' boomed Mr Rune, 'I think we should get down to business.'

'Lord Tobes has fallen asleep,' I yelled. 'Perhaps we should do it in the morning.'

Mr Rune agreed that perhaps we should. So we finished the Calvados. And the brandy and the cans of beer in Tobes's fridge. And a bottle of banana liqueur I eventually located beneath the kitchen sink, because there is always one somewhere if you are desperate enough to search for it and prepared to search long enough.

Then Mr Rune and I fell fast asleep in Lord Tobes's sitting room. Which I must explain about, because the reader might be wondering why all the shouting and hollering and bawling and booming and yelling had been going on. Tobes's sitting room was approximately the size of a football pitch and the chairs and the TV were positioned on opposite sides of it. When asked to explain how he had such an impossibly huge room within what was indeed a very small house, Tobes adequately explained that the estate agent had told him that the living room was 'deceptively spacious'. So, that explains that. Morning sunlight came in through the distant windows, but we did not heed its arrival. We slept in late. But to be fair, it had been a stressful night.

I got to yawning and opening my eyes somewhere around three p.m. Lord Tobes still snored, but of Mr Rune there was no sign to be seen.

However, there was a certain smell, and that was of frying bacon. I dragged myself from the sitting-room floor and shambled the considerable distance to the kitchen.

A naked man was cooking food. I knew him at once to be Barry, the chef from Eat Your Food Nude who had served his time at Grand Parade before leaving over some trifling matter, which involved his wages. 'Hello, Barry,' I said. 'What are you doing here?'

'Mister Rune called me earlier,' said Barry, 'said it was an emergency. He had me call in at a secret place and bring him a Bakelite television. And call in at Lidl for supplies.' 'But I thought you-'

'An emergency is an emergency,' said Barry. 'And I am a professional.'

Mr Rune breezed into the kitchen, tapping the morning's Argus against his leg.

'Sunny-side up, those eggs,' he said to Barry, 'and French toast all around. Did you get those da-bigga-da-sausages?' 'All is under control, Mister Rune,' said Barry.

I shook my head and sat myself down at the kitchen table. 'You will need to eat a hearty breakfast,' said Mr Rune, seating himself also, 'for today is the day.' 'The day for what?' I asked.

'The final day,' said Mr Rune. 'The last that you and I will spend together.' 'Oh,' I said, then, 'No, I do not want that to happen.' 'But nevertheless it will be so. One final conundrum, and for you, I feel, in the great tradition of your fictional hero Lazlo Woodbine, a final rooftop confrontation.'

'Not with this hangover,' I said. 'And certainly not in these clothes.'

'The hangover will shortly pass, but I agree that it would be better that you end our adventures in a manly fashion. Barry here will give you a haircut and there are clothes for you hanging on the door there.'

I glanced towards the door. And there clothes hung: a three-piece suit of tweed, in a dry cleaner's plastic sheath.

'Fangio picked carefully during his looting,' said Mr Rune. 'If you recall, I whispered certain words into his ear before we left his bar to go to Hove Town Hall. These words were to the effect that should the unlikely occur – to whit, a bit of a riot – he should slip across the road and loot the dry cleaners and pick you out a suit.'

'But how…' But I did not bother to go any further with that. Instead, I took the suit and myself to Tobes's bathroom, showered, washed the make-up from my face, dried all nice and put on the three-piece suit. A shirt and some shoes would have been lovely, but beggars cannot be choosers.

Mr Rune rapped on the bathroom door. 'I have a shirt and a pair of shoes here. Hurry now or I will have to eat your breakfast.'

Dressed in this spiffing attire, I returned to the kitchen and sat down once again. 'Thanks for this,' I said to Mr Rune.

'Well,' said the All-Knowing One, 'I think we've had sufficient mileage out of you being dressed as a woman. Best to have you well turned out now that the end is near.' 'And it will end today?' I asked.

'The fourteenth of February. One year to the day since we first met.' 'February?' I asked. 'I thought it was still January.'