Robert Rankin - The Brentford Chainstore Massacre

“No, you say, ‘Neville, please mind my wallet.’”

“Do I?”

“You do.”

“Oh yes. And the next morning I wake up and I can’t find my wallet and I get all depressed and I’m really hung over, so I gather up some pennies and halfpennies for a hair of the dog and I come into the Swan and Neville says, ‘You left your wallet here last night,’ and I get really cheered up.”

“Exactly. So if you were a monk and you’d just come back from this pilgrimage to Rome and you were really proud of yourself because you’d pulled off this great deal with the Pope and you wanted to get a skinful for celebration, where would you go?”

Jim pointed to the map. “I would go to Ye Flying Swanne.”

“And so would I. So let’s check here first.” John finished his ale, took up the two empty glasses and went over to the bar.

“… the Irish Uri Geller,” said Old Pete, “rubbed a spoon and his finger fell off”

“You old bastard,” said Omally.

“Who are you calling old? That’s an ageist remark. There should be a law about people making comments like that!”

John held the glasses out to Neville. “Two of similar, please.” And the part-time barman did the business.

“Neville,” said John. “Do you have a lost property cupboard?”

“Certainly do. It’s a priest hole, been there since the pub was built.”

“Really?” said John, in a casual tone.

“It’s got stuff in it going back years.”

“Really?” said John once again.

“Oh, yes. Umbrellas, packs of cards, a couple of top hats, some flintlock pistols, even a monk’s satchel.”

Omally tried to say “Really?” but the word wouldn’t come.

“I should have a clear-out, I suppose,” said Neville. “But I never seem to find the time.”

“I wouldn’t mind doing it for you,” said John, in a curious strangled kind of whisper.

“Something wrong with your voice, John?”

“No.” John cleared his throat. “Lead me to it. I’ll clear it out right now.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t put you to the trouble.”

“It’s no trouble, I assure you. Consider it my good deed for the day.”

“Well, if you really want to.”

John rubbed his hands together.

“No, it doesn’t matter,” said Neville.

“Oh, it does, it really does.”

“Well, please yourself,” said Neville. “But there’s nothing of value down there.”

“I never thought there was.”

“Oh, good,” said Neville, “then you won’t be disappointed when you don’t find the Brentford Scrolls.”

John returned to Jim’s table with the drinks. “Why is everyone up at the bar laughing?” Jim asked. “And why have you got a face like a smacked bottom?”

“Never mind,” said John, in a bitter tone.

“Am I to assume that we will be continuing our search elsewhere?”

“You are. Let’s have another look at those maps.”

“I don’t think it will help. Look here, I photocopied a present-day map of the borough. The whole place has been built over. See what stands on the site of the old monastery?”

John saw. “The police station,” he said.

“We’re not going to find it from maps.” Jim sipped some ale. “How many people must have tried before us?”

“At least two dozen in here, apparently,” said John through gritted teeth.

“What was that?”

“Never mind. All right, throw away the maps. Let us apply our wits.”

“You’re not hoping for an early result then?”

“If the scrolls exist, we will find them. Trust me on this.”

“Oh, I do. But we’ll have to come up with something pretty radical.”

“Necromancy!” said John.

“Yes, that’s pretty radical. What are you talking about?”

“Calling up the spirits of the dead.”

“Get real, John, please.”

“Spiritualists do it all the time.”

“I got thrown out of a spiritualist church once,” said Jim.

“Did you? Why was that?”

“Well, I went along because they had this guest medium, Mrs Batty Moonshine or someone, and she kept saying, ‘There are spirits here, I can see them all around, they’re trying to communicate,’ and then she said, ‘I’m getting a message for someone called John.’”

“Yes,” said John, “curiously enough they always say that.”

“And she did and there’s Johns all over the church putting up their hands. So I called out ‘Ask the spirit for John’s surname,’ and they threw me out.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“I was only trying to be helpful. But I don’t think it works really, do you?”

“Probably not. But if it did and we could speak to the monk directly…”

“The only way you could do that is if you had a time machine.”

Omally laughed.

But Pooley didn’t. “That’s it,” he said.

“That’s what?”

“A time machine.”

“Did you suck a lot of lead soldiers when you were a child, Jim?”

“No, I mean it. That’s how we do it. Travel back in time.”

“Travel back to the bar and get some more drinks in.”

“No, John, I’m not kidding. I’ve been doing these mental exercises for months. Trying to travel forwards in time through the power of the mind.”

“In your search for the winning lottery numbers. I’ve tried hard not to laugh.”

“But I can only travel backwards. I relive my childhood over and over again.”

“That’s not time travel, Jim. You recall your childhood memories because they are memories. Just memories.”

“I could do it. I know I could.”

“Away into the night with you.”

“I could do it.” Jim made a most determined face.

“You’re not kidding, are you?”

“No, I’m not.”

“I’ll get these in,” said John, taking up the glasses. “And we’ll speak some more of this.”

At a little after lunchtime closing, John and Jim were to be found once more strolling the thoroughfares of Brentford.

“All right,” said John. “We’ll give it a go. Where do you want to do it?”

“I’ve always done it on the bench outside the Memorial Library.”

“It’s a bit public there. Do it in the park.”

“Okey-dokey.”

John and Jim strolled down to the park. There were few people about, a dog-walker or two, a pram-pushing mum.

Jim sat down with his back against a tree.

“What exactly do you do next?” John asked.

“I just sort of go to sleep.”

“Oh dear, oh dear.”

“But it’s not a real sleep. It’s an altered state.”

“Are you usually sober when you do this?”

“Sometimes.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You could make a noise like a road drill.”

“Why?”

“Well, they’ve been digging up the road near the library and I find the noise seems to help.”

“Brrrrrrrt!” went John Omally, trying to keep a straight face.

“Curiously that sounds just like a Vespa.”

“Raaaaaaaa!” went John.

“Not bad, but can you do it in A minor?”

“A minor,” said John. “That takes me back.”

“It takes me back also, but why does it take you back?”

“A minor. Blues harmonica. I had a Hohner. It was in A minor. The blues are always in A minor.”

“Perhaps that’s significant. Go on then, do it in A minor.”

Omally did it in A minor.

A lady in a straw hat walked by. “Shouldn’t be allowed,” she said.

John continued in A minor as Pooley settled back against the tree and readied for the off. He took deep breaths and closed his eyes. And soon the dreaming mind of Jim went once more on its walkabout.

Lottery balls went pop, pop, pop and the Blue Peter bloke-who-wasn’t poured out the same old spiel. Jim saw himself in the audience again with his left foot bandaged up. Then there it was again, the breakfast-then-the-bookies-the-bookies-then-the-pub-the-pub-then-home-for-tea