Robert Rankin - East of Ealing

The young man shrugged. “Since the takeover everything seems to have changed.”

“Takeover, what takeover?”

“Hadn’t you heard? Lateinos and Romiith bought the brewery out. An offer too good to refuse I suppose.”

Jim began to flap his hands wildly and spin about in small circles. Omally, who had followed him in, knew this to be a bad sign. Pooley sought men to kill. Two of such were now tinkering at the counter’s end. “Who are they?” Jim ceased his foolish gyrations. “What are they up to?”

The pale young man smiled wanly. “Installing a terminal, of course. Under the new system every establishment must have its own terminal, you know.”

“John,” said Jim, “John, hold me back.” Omally did as he was bidden. “What, if one might make so bold, is a terminal?” he asked.

“My goodness me,” the pale young man tittered to himself, “we do live in the dark ages around here, don’t we?” He grinned towards the two henchmen, who exchanged knowing glances and sniggered. “This terminal,” he explained, “is modular in concept, with a networking capability that is virtually plug-in. It has a one hundred and twenty-eight bit multitasking operation, super-advanced WP forms and spread sheet planner; wide area network configuration, multi-key ISAM on shared data bases, L and R six-six-six Asynch emulations, soft font and bitmapped graphics.”

“Bit-mapped graphics, eh?”

The young man cleared his throat with a curiously mechanical coughing sound. “Bit-mapped,” he said slowly. Above his left eyebrow the short row of eighteen vertical lines gave his face a permanently quizzical expression. “Now, perhaps, sir, you would care to order?”

“Two pints of Large,” said Omally.

“As you wish, sir. Will your irate companion be thinking to order two for himself also, do you think? Once he recovers his senses?”

“We are only just outnumbered,” quoth Pooley. “Shall we make a fight of it?”

“All in good time, Jim. Now please calm yourself and lend me a couple of quid.” The pale barman raised a tattooed eyebrow. “Usury is strictly forbidden upon the premises, by order of the brewery.”

“A pox on the brewery,” said John. “Jim is minding some money for me. Can I have it back please, Jim?”

“Certainly.” Pooley thrust a couple of hundred smackers into Omally’s outstretched palm and outstretched his own towards the nearest pint.

The new barman deftly reached across the counter-top and caught up Jim’s wrist in a vice-like grip.

Turning Jim’s palm towards the ceiling he drew out a light-wand and ran it across. “Your credit rating is triple A,” he said. “Two pints for yourself is it?”

“Make it three,” said Jim bitterly. “I feel a bit of a thirst coming on.”

“As you please, sir.” The pale young barman replaced his headphones and, nodding to himself, drew off the business.

Bearing their pints away, John and Jim stalked off to a side-table where they dropped into a brace of chairs and sat staring into one another’s eyes.

After a somewhat pregnant pause, Jim said, “I’ve had enough of all this, John.”

Omally nodded thoughtfully. “It is not very much to my own liking,” said he, gulping away the nearest pint. “If you want my considered opinion I feel that we should both do very well to have it away from this district post haste.”

“Look at those bastards.” Jim gestured towards the brewery henchmen who were even now tearing up the Swan’s antique carpeting to run a power-line across the floor.

“Rio would be your man,” said John. “Dusky maidens rolling green cigars upon their bronzed thighs. A train-robber chum of mine has lodgings thereabouts. The climate so they say is ideal for the professional drinking man or the unemployed war criminal.”

Pooley considered his printed palm. “I can’t be having with all this stuff. Things are no longer healthy hereabouts.”

“So let us away.”

Jim chewed upon a thumbnail. “I think you’re right,” said he. “But what about all this Revelations business? Do you think that the Professor is correct in his theories? If it is the end of the world then it might catch up with us even in Rio.”

Omally downed another pint. “I have my doubts about the whole thing. Listen, with the old currant bun beaming down and a bottle or two of duty-free on the patio table we can give the matter serious thought. What do you say?”

“I say it’s time we had a holiday.”

“Good man. Now the travel agent’s in the Ealing Road closes at six, I can be up there in five minutes on the bike and back in another five, I’ll book us aboard an aeroplane for first thing tomorrow.”

“Do it then.” Jim dragged out another bundle of banknotes and thrust them at John. “Go at once. I’ll get some bottles to take out, this place is beginning to depress me.”

“Right then, I will be back directly.” Omally left the Swan and mounted up Marchant, who had set himself in for an evening kip. He bumped down the kerb and pedalled furiously up the Ealing Road. Cresting the railway bridge he swept down the other side, legs outspread, past the Mowlem’s building. Without warning he suddenly came into contact with a great body of halted traffic. The road was a shambles of stalled automobiles and shouting drivers. Cars were parked at crazy angles across the road, and those at the vanguard lay, their bonnets stove in and steam issuing from their shattered radiators. A blank wall of dark light rose from the street at the junction with the Great West Road. It soared into the sky, an impenetrable barrier blocking all further progress. Omally dragged on his brakes but his iron stallion appeared to have developed ideas of its own. It rocketed him headlong into the boot of a stalled Morris Minor. John sailed forward in a blizzard of whirling banknotes, to tumble down on to the bonnet of the defunct automobile and roll on to the roadway. Cursing and spitting he slowly dragged himself to his feet and stared up at the grim barrier ahead, struck dumb with amazement and disbelief. The curtains, which the Professor had observed for so many weeks through his rooftop viewer, had finally closed upon the borders of the Brentford triangle.

And the parish was now completely sealed off from the outside world.

As word spread from house to house that the veil was drawn down, the people of the parish flocked into the streets. They flowed hurriedly towards the borders to stand, their noses pressed against the walls of hard air, staring out into the beyond. The vista, normally so mundane as to be invisible, now assumed a quality of remoteness and unreality. That none might any longer pass into that world made it fairyland and the figures that moved there became exaggerated and larger than life. And though they shouted and coo-eed and smote the barrier with sticks and staves, the world beyond did not see them, nor hear their cries for help. The world beyond simply went on doing that which it had always done – which wasn’t very much, although it seemed so now. Although the trapped people watched desperately for some sign which might signal the recognition of their plight by the free folk, who now passed within inches, none came. Their faces never turned and they went about their business as ever they had. To the world outside it seemed that Brentford had simply ceased to exist.

What attempts were made to stir up a bit of healthy rioting were stifled almost as soon as they were begun by the arrival of police snatch squads. Strange pale young men in protective uniforms, sporting minuscule headphones, and carrying small black boxes attached to their belts, moved swiftly into the crowds to bear away the outspoken to waiting meat-wagons. Those who had voiced complaint reappeared hours later passive and uncomplaining, clearing their throats before speech with curiously mechanical coughing sounds. Brentford’s ghost people drifted back to haunt their houses and closed their doors behind them.