Robert Rankin - The Brentford Chainstore Massacre

“You round the back too, mate,” called out the groundsman. “Park in the bay marked Terrorists.”

The big parade kept on parading by and a carnival atmosphere was beginning to grow. Jim and John had splashed out on vast quantities of bunting and balloons to decorate the streets and the town looked a treat. And what with there being a free rock concert in the evening, and the free beer festival all day and night, and the free fireworks sometime later on, the numbers were swelling, as out-borough types arrived to lend their heartfelt support. There was even a hippie convoy on the way, with a chap called Bollocks driving the lead bus.

It certainly looked like being a night to remember.

At the Hartnell Millennial Brewery (two lock-up garages knocked into one, near the clapped-out trading estate down by the old docks), Norman tinkered happily away at his mobile de-entropizer.

It was constructed mainly from Meccano and mounted upon pram wheels. There was a conveyor belt running through it and the general principle was that you put the item you wanted de-entropized in at one end and it came out of the other – well, de-entropized.

Of course there was no end to the complications of gubbinry crammed inside. Lots of old valve-radio parts, whirring cogs and clicking mechanisms, all beavering away at the ionization of beta particles, thus creating a positronic catalyst, which bombarded an isotope with gamma radiation, giving rise to galvanic variations and the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter.

The way these things do.

Norman twiddled with his screwdriver and whistled an old Cannibal Corpse number. He set the dial to repeat, placed a long-defunct penny banger onto the conveyor belt, watched it pass into the de-entropizer and smiled hugely as, one after another, bright new reconstituted clones of the former firework poured out of the other end.

“I must get around to patenting this,” said Norman Hartnell.

By eight o’clock the Road to Calvary was – filling nicely. The beer festival proper was in a big marquee in the Memorial Park. On the very spot, in fact, where the John Omally Millennial Bowling Green had been planned. And beneath the very tree where Jim had done his travelling in time. But what the marquee didn’t have, but the Swan did, was Hartnell’s Millennial Ale.

“Another bottle, Neville, please,” said Old Pete, as he stood at the bar chatting with an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman.

“You were saying,” said the Scotsman, “about your family.”

“Oh yes,” said Old Pete. “I come from a very musical family. Even the dog hummed in the warm weather.”

“How interesting,” said the Englishman.

“Oh yes, very musical. When I was only three I played on the linoleum. We had a flood and my mum floated out on the table. I accompanied her on the piano. Talking of pianos, the cat sat down at ours once and played a tune, and my mum said, ‘We must get that orchestrated,’ and the cat ran out and we never saw it again. Now my father, my father died from music on the brain. A piano fell on his head.”

“Was that the same piano?” asked the Irishman.

“Same one,” said Old Pete. “I never played it myself. I was going to learn the harp, but I didn’t have the pluck.”

“Might I just stop you there?” asked the Scotsman.

“And I was thinking of becoming a homosexual,” said Old Pete. “But I was only half in earnest.”

“I really must stop you there,” said the Scotsman.

“Oh yes, and why?”

“Because you’re telling such shite jokes.”

“Here, look at that,” said Old Pete, pointing to a nun riding by on a jester’s back. “Is that vergin’ on the ridiculous, or what?”

Omally pushed his way up to the bar. “Has Jim been in, Neville?” he asked.

The part-time barman flipped an amber cap from a bottle of Hartnell’s finest and shook his Brylcreemed head. “Haven’t seen him since the night before last,” he said. “But shouldn’t he be at the football ground organizing the free rock concert?”

“I’ll go and see.”

Like the Road to Calvary, the football ground was filling nicely. All traffic in the Ealing Road had come to a standstill as crowds milled pavement to pavement. Omally pushed his way into these crowds and into the floodlit stadium.

At the far end, flanked by mammoth speakers, Sonic Energy Authority were already on stage. The lead singer, the now legendary Cardinal Cox himself, was giving a spirited solo yodelling rendition of the Blue Peter theme.

“Far out,” said a lady in a straw hat. “And in C.”

“A minor,” said Paul.

“Have you seen my friend Jim?” John asked the lady.

“My name isn’t Jim,” the lady said.

“No, I meant have you seen my friend whose name is Jim?”

“The one whose kitchen you blew up?”

“Yes,” said Omally in a dismal tone. “That’s the one.”

“Actually, yes,” said the lady. “I saw him down at the Butts Estate about half an hour ago.”

“What was he doing?”

“He was being thrown out of a long black limousine.”

“Ah,” said John Omally.

Jim Pooley sat all alone in a corner of the Shrunken Head. But for Sandy the sandy-haired barman, Jim was the only person in the place. (Well, the Memorial Park was only a beer can’s throw away, and the beer there was free.)

Jim stared into his second double vodka. He was trembling from head to toe. Unshaven, pale of face, bruised and bloody about the nose regions, Jim looked the very picture of despair, which indeed he was. After giving Jim a warning kick or two in the ribs, Derek had driven the limousine back to Penge, supposedly to collect Suzy, who would be delivered safely to Jim as soon as he had delivered the unsafe contents of the nasty little bag to Professor Slocombe.

But what was Jim to do?

Could he really bring himself to destroy the Professor’s ceremony and probably even the Professor himself, knowing as he did, or at least felt reasonably certain he did, that the ceremony, once successfully performed, would elevate mankind to some almost god-like state?

If it worked.

But then what if it wasn’t going to work anyway? Then it really wouldn’t matter if he destroyed it.

And ultimately what did matter, other than Suzy? Not much, in Jim’s opinion. Not anything at all, in fact. When you love somebody as much as Jim loved Suzy, the rest of the world can go to hell.

Jim downed his second double. His fingers strayed to the little lump on his right temple. Fred’s blokes knew exactly where he was at any given moment; he couldn’t trick them. He could dump the horrible wriggling bag into the canal, but perhaps that had a transmitter stuck inside it too. He was in really big trouble here, and he was all on his own this time.

Jim looked down at his wrist, to the place where, had he worn a wristwatch, he would have worn it. The one he wasn’t wearing now had belonged to John Omally. John had given it to Jim as a present.

“Nine o’clock,” said Jim. “What am I going to do?”

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” said Derek.

“What are we going to do?” asked Clive.

Clive was driving, Derek was in the back. Fred was in the back too, and Suzy was sitting between Derek and Fred. They were out of Penge now and heading for Brentford.

“We’re going to party big time,” said Derek. “Roll into Brentford, let some blood and party big time.”

“Shut your mouth,” said Fred.

“Aw, come on, Fred.” Derek waved his Uzi in the air. “We’re mean sons of bitches, ain’t we? We’re the God-damn horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

Fred made low growling sounds. “You can let as much blood as you like, once that Pooley has put paid to the Professor.”