Robert Rankin - The Antipope

Lunchtime trade at the Flying Swan was alarmingly slack. Two sullen professional drinkers sat doggedly at the bar, glowering into their pints and picking sawdust from their teeth. Old Pete entered the bar around twelve, took one look at the decorations and made a remark much favoured by gentlemen of his advanced years. Young Chips lifted his furry leg at the sawdust floor and the two departed grumbling to themselves.

When Neville cashed up at three, the till had taken less than two pounds. Neville counted the small change with nervous fingers; he was certain that the ominous smell he had detected that morning was beginning to penetrate the beer-soaked atmosphere of the saloon bar.

It all began in earnest when at three fifteen a van from the brewery catering division drew up outside the Swan in the charge of a young man with advanced acne and a cowboy hat. This diminutive figure strutted to and fro in a pair of boots which sported what the Americans humourously call “elevator heels”. He announced himself to be Young Master Robert and said that he would be taking over personal control of the event. Neville was horrorstruck, he’d been looking forward to it for weeks, he’d got the sheriffs star and everything and now at the eleventh hour, this upstart…

To add insult to injury, the young man stepped straight behind the bar and drew himself a large scotch. Neville watched open-jawed as a parade of supplies sufficient to cater for half the British Army passed before his eyes in a steady and constant stream. There were packets of sausages, beefburgers, baconburgers, beans and bacon-burgers, sausage beef and baconburgers and something round and dubious called a steakette. There were enormous catering cans of beans which the porters rolled in like beer casks. There were sacks of french rolls, jars of pickled onions, radishes, beetroots, cocktail cucumbers and gherkins. There were hundredweight sacks of charcoal.

“I have been light on the cooking oil,” Young Master Robert announced as the slack-jawed Neville watched two porters manoeuvring an enormous drum in through the saloon bar door.

Young Master Robert drew himself another scotch and explained the situation. “Now hear this,” he said, his voice a facetious parody of Aldo Ray in some incomprehensible submarine movie, “what we have here is an on-going situation.”

“A what?”

“We have product, that is to say Old Snakebelly.” He held up a bottle of the devil brew. “We have location” – he indicated the surroundings – “and we have motivation.” Here he pointed to the banner which hung above the bar, draped over the moth-eaten bison’s head. It read: GRAND COWBOY EXTRAVAGANZA PRIZES PRIZES PRIZES.

Neville nodded gravely.

“I have given this a lot of thought, brain-wise,” the youth continued. “I ran a few ideas up the flagpole and they got saluted and I mean S-A-L-U-luted!”

Neville flexed his nostrils, he didn’t like the smell of this. The young man was clearly a monomaniac of the first order. A porter in a soiled leather apron, hand-rolled cigarette dripping from his lower lip, appeared in the doorway. “Where do you want this mouthwash then guv?” he asked, gesturing over his right shoulder.

“Ah, yes, the Product,” said Young Master Robert, thrusting his way past Neville and following the porter into the street. There were 108 crates of Old Snakebelly, and when stacked they covered exactly half the available space of the newly built patio.

“There is nowhere else we can put it,” Neville explained. “There’s no space in the cellar, and at least if they’re here whoever is cooking at the barbeque can keep an eye on them.”

Young Master Robert was inspecting the barbeque. “Who constructed this?” he queried.

“Two local builders.”

The youth strutted about the red brick construction. “There is something not altogether A-O-K here design-wise.”

Neville shrugged his shoulders, he knew nothing about barbeques anyway and had never even troubled to look at the plans the brewery had sent. “It is identical to the plan and has the Council’s seal of approval, safety-wise!” Neville lied.

Young Master Robert, who also knew nothing of barbeques but was a master of gamesmanship, nodded thoughtfully and said, “We will see.”

“What time will the extra bar staff be getting here?” Neville asked.

“18.30,” said the Young Master, “a couple of right bits of crumpet.” He had obviously not yet totally mastered the subtler points of American terminology.

By half past six the Young Master had still failed to light the barbeque. The occasional fits of coughing and cries of anguish coming from the patio told the part-time barman that at least the young man was by no means a quitter.

At six forty-five by the Guinness clock there was still no sign of the extra bar staff. Neville sauntered across the bar and down the short passage to the patio door. Gingerly he edged it open. Nothing was visible of Young Master Robert; a thick black pall of smoke utterly engulfed the yard obscuring all vision. Neville held his nose and squinted into the murk, thinking to detect some movement amid the impenetrable fog. “Everything going all right?” he called gaily.

“Yes, fine, fine,” came a strangled voice. “Think I’ve got the measure of it technique-wise.”

“Good,” said Neville. Quietly closing the door, he collapsed into a convulsion of laughter. Wiping the tears from his eyes he returned to the saloon bar, where he found himself confronted by two young ladies of the Page Three variety, who stood looking disdainful and ill at ease. They were clad in only the scantiest of costumes and looked like escapees from some gay nineties Chicago brothel.

“You the guvnor?” said one of these lovelies, giving Neville the old fisheye. “Only we’ve been ’anging about ’ere, ain’t we?”

Neville pulled back his shoulders and thrust out his pigeon chest. “Good evening,” said he in his finest Ronald Coleman. “You are, I trust, the two young ladies sent by the brewery to assist in the proceedings?”

“You what?” said one.

“To help behind the bar?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“And may I ask your names?”

“I’m Sandra,” said Sandra.

“I’m Mandy,” said her companion.

“Neville,” said Neville, extending his hand.

Sandra tittered. Mandy said, “It’s a bit of a dump ’ere, ain’t it?”

Neville returned his unshaken hand to its pocket. “You didn’t come through the streets in those costumes did you?”

“Nah,” said Mandy, “we come in the car, didn’t we?”

“And you are, I trust, acquainted with the running of a bar?”

Sandra yawned and began to polish her nails. Mandy said, “We’ve worked in all the top clubs, we’re ’ostesses, ain’t we?”

Neville was fascinated to note that the two beauties seemed unable to form a single sentence which did not terminate in a question mark. “Well then, I’ll leave you in charge while I go up and get changed.”

“We can manage, can’t we?” said Mandy.

The cowboy suit hung behind the bedroom door in its plastic covering. With great care Neville lifted it down and laid it upon the bed. Carefully parting the plastic he pressed his nose to the fabric of the suit, savouring the bittersweet smell of the dry cleaner’s craft.

Gently he put his thumbs to the pearl buttons and removed the jacket from the hanger. He sighed deeply, and with the reverence a priest accords to his ornamentum he slipped into the jacket. The material was crisp and pure, the sleeves crackled slightly as he eased his arms into them and the starched cuffs clamped about his wrists like loving manacles. Without further hesitation the part-time barman climbed into the trousers, clipped on the gun belt and tilted the hat on to his head at a rakish angle. Pinning the glittering badge of office carefully to his breast he stepped to the pitted glass of the wardrobe mirror to view the total effect.