Robert Rankin - The Brentford Chainstore Massacre

Knock, knock, KNOCK.

Pooley tossed the toast from hand to hand, blowing onto each in turn and performing a rather foolish dance as he did so.

Knock, knock, KNOCK!

“Oh, stuff it.” Pooley flung the toast over his shoulder and stalked along the passage to the front door. Dragging it open he shouted, “What do you want?”

“I know what you want,” purred Mrs Bryant, blowing into John Omally’s ear.

And of course she did. But John paused for a moment, taking stock. Certainly he wanted a shag. But then he always wanted a shag. Most men want a shag most of the time. Most men would drop whatever they happened to be doing at a moment’s notice in the cause of a shag. But did he, John Omally, really want this? Sneaking into a married woman’s house for a cheap thrill? It was pretty tacky stuff when you came right down to it. Not that he felt any guilt about old Jack Bryant. Jack was an amiable buffoon. But then, what did this make him’? A lout?

“I am not a lout,” said John Omally.

“I never said you were. Shall I get out the ice cubes?”

“Oh yes please,” said John. “And…”

WHACK! went Pooley’s front door as it burst open and whacked against the passage wall.

“Hey, hang about,” went Jim, as hands were laid upon him. “Stop this,” he continued, as the hands thrust him back along the passage.

And WHACK! went the front door one more time as other hands slammed it shut.

Mrs Bryant left the fridge door open.

Although this may sound incredible to the reader, there are still some folk left in the world who do not recognize the fridge for the sexual treasure house it is. You may scoff, but it’s true. These tragic, unenlightened beings open up their fridges and see food. Food and drink and nothing more.

Certainly they may have a comprehensive range of marital aids stored away in the bedside cupboard, for after all, who doesn’t? But when it comes to the fridge, they just see food and drink.

The connoisseur of kitchen copulation, however, sees the contents of the fridge in all its naked splendour.

The erotic possibilities of the fruit and vegetable section are of course well known. Who in their right mind could fail to be moved to arousal by sight of all those corn cobs and parsnips, bananas and cucumbers? But the connoisseur disdains the obvious and passes on to savour the exquisite pleasures of the half-squeezed lemon and the fiendish red-hot chilli pepper, here a pinch and there a dab. Moving upwards, he views the shelf of lubricants and creams and lotions: the butter and the margarine, the tub of lard, the mayonnaise, the extra virgin olive oil, the salad dressings and the HP Sauce.

And then to the preserves. Did you know that if you take ten small pickled onions and thread them onto a string, you can gently push them…

“Don’t push me about,” cried Jim. “What’s going on here? Let me go.”

“Mr Pooley? Mr James Arbuthnot Pooley?” A large hand held Jim firmly by the throat and pushed his head against the passage wall.

Pooley glared into the face of his tormentor. It was an impressive face. A face that had seen a bit of service. A face with a flattened nose and a beetling brow, its mouth bound by tightly corded muscle, its chin unshaven. It was a face that said, “Don’t mess about with me,” without actually having to speak.

“Who are you?” Pooley asked. “And what do you want?”

“Police,” said the mouth on the impressive face.

Jim viewed the head and body that went with it. Equally impressive. Big and burly. Two more such big and burly men lurked in Jim’s passage.

“Police?” said Jim in a timorous tone. “But I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“We have come to search the premises.”

“Ah,” said Jim. “Ah. I don’t suppose you have a warrant.”

“I don’t suppose we do.”

“No problem,” said Jim. “Only might I just ask one favour?”

“You might ask it, yes.”

“Well, you see, mistakes can happen. No one wants them to, but sometimes they just do. Sometimes, by mistake, a policeman will have in his pocket some piece of incriminating evidence. A cache of illegal drugs, say, or even a weapon of some kind. And whilst searching the premises of an innocent party, who has been mistakenly earmarked as a suspect, this piece of incriminating evidence might fall out of the policeman’s pocket and land, say, under a mattress, or behind a water pipe, and the policeman, in all innocence, picks it up and exclaims, ‘Well, well, well, so what do we have here?’ and the next thing you know, the innocent party is being charged with…”

WHACK! went that sound again.

But this time it was not the front door slamming.

WHACK! went the celery. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

“Would you like some chocolate powder sprinkled over it?” asked Mrs Bryant.

“Yes please,” said John.

Mrs Bryant brought over John’s cappuccino and sat down beside him at the reproduction olde worlde kitchen table.

WHACK! went the celery one more time into the bowl of salt.

“It’s always a pleasure to see you, John,” said Mrs Bryant. “Are you enjoying your salad?”

“Very much indeed, thank you.”

“Need any more ice cubes in your Perrier water?”

“No thanks, it’s perfect. Very kind of you to make me a meal.”

“You need a woman in your life. To look after you, John.”

“What a man needs and what a man wants rarely coincide,” said the Irish philosopher.

“Does that explain the bulge in your trousers?”

“Oh, this.” Omally fished out Pooley’s book. “Nothing of consequence, only a history book.”

“Just hand over the book,” said the policeman with the face, hauling Pooley to his feet and hitting him again. “We can break the place up if you want and we can break you up too. Why not spare yourself the pain? Where is it?”

“I don’t have it.” Pooley flinched as another fist went in. “I don’t, honest I don’t.”

“We found this, sarge,” said the second policeman.

“It’s not mine,” wailed Jim, “whatever it is.”

“It’s got your name and address on it,” said the face. “It looks to be the packaging of a book.”

“I haven’t got it, honestly I haven’t.”

“You had it earlier when you turned up at the office of the late Mr Compton-Cummings.”

“How do you know that?”

“Never mind how. Are you going to tell us where it is, or do we have to”

“Where’s your teapot?” asked the third policeman.

“Aaaaaaagh!” went Pooley.

“Mmmm,” went Omally, releasing the lower buttons of his waistcoat. “That was a splendid repast.”

Mrs Bryant was leafing through the pages of Pooley’s book. “What is auto-pederasty?” she asked.

“You really wouldn’t want to know.”

“I really would.”

John whispered.

“That’s not possible, is it?”

“I understand that it has its own special page on the Internet. Although I don’t exactly understand what an Internet is.”

“I think it’s a type of stocking worn by female employees on British Railways.”

“Well, you live and learn,” said John. “So, what shall we do next?”

Mrs Bryant thought for a moment. “Why don’t we have a shag?” she suggested.

“Why don’t we all just relax?” said the face. “Mr Pooley is going to tell us exactly what we want to know, aren’t you, Mr Pooley?”

“I don’t have a teapot,” moaned Jim from the kitchen floor.

“This looks like one,” said the third policeman, holding up a chipped enamel job that had served the Pooley dynasty for several generations.

“I think that’s a watering can.” Jim gagged for breath as a boot went in.

“A pathological fear of teapots by the sound of it,” said the second policeman. “Inspired by what, I wonder.”