Then, ‘God bless my old brown dog,’ said Norman, as having delved in deep he brought to the uncertain light a most anomalous object. It was precisely yea-big and had about the look of an ancient thing-a-me-jig. The shopkeeper turned it this way and that and nodded his head in a manner which signified an absence of objection.
‘Industrial alchemy,’ said Norman. ‘Magical science. A thing so long forgotten as now to seem new.’ And he smiled a smile, did Norman, a broad and pleasant smile.
Neville the part-time barman smiled as he watered a window box. The flowers Old Pete had planted were coming on a treat. Babylon bloomed in the hanging baskets and toad-flax clung to crannies in the Swan’s front wall.
Topiarised privets in terracotta pots flanked the saloon bar door like glaucous sentinels. Neville did have some doubts about the shape of those privets but Old Pete, who personally attended to the trimming, assured him that each tree represented the Tower of Knowledge and the Twin Spheres of Learning.
The sound of whirrings wafted on the wind wound up Neville’s waterings. A brightly-coloured brewer’s dray, all eco-friendly and electrically driven, pulled up before the Flying Swan with a sigh of sophisticated brakes.
Neville looked on as a smartly-clad chap leapt down from the cab. He was slender of body, well-favoured of face and he carried a modern doo-dad.
He smiled upon Neville and tapped at his doo-dad. ‘The Flying Swan?’ he read aloud. ‘And you would be Neville the guv’nor.’
Neville liked the sound of that, so nodded.
‘Delivery,’ said the smart young man. ‘And something very special this time, so I’m told.’
‘The ale is always special,’ said Neville. ‘At the Swan we carry eight hand-drawn ales on pump. A selection which exceeds Jack Lane’s by four and the New Inn by three. The Swan is not to be out-rivalled in this respect, as I am sure you must know.’
The dray lad shrugged and tapped away at his doo-dad. ‘I’m new to this round,’ said he. ‘But yes, it says here that you take all eight. Seven standard and one guest ale.’
Neville nodded, for such was the way of things.
‘Well you are going to love this guest ale,’ said the lad with the doo-dad. ‘It’s called—’ and he paused for effect. ‘Quasimodo,’ and he paused for a second effect.
‘And what is the purpose of these pausings?’ asked Neville.
‘Well, it’s called Quasimodo,’ the dray lad paused again.
Neville shook his head.
The dray lad now shook his. ‘Oh come on,’ he said. ‘I say “it’s called Quasimodo”, so what do you say?’
‘Thank you?’ said Neville.
‘No,’ said the lad. ‘I say “it’s called Quasimodo”, and you say “that name rings a bell”.’
‘Why?’ asked Neville.
‘Well, it’s a joke, innit?’
‘Ah,’ said Neville. ‘Humour. Not as easy as it might at first appear.’
The young man made a grumpy face, but very soon was smiling.
‘Allow me to explain,’ said Neville. ‘If the brewery has chosen to name this week’s guest ale, Quasimodo, it is not in memory of the Notre Dame bell-ringer.’
‘Ain’t it?’ asked the dray lad.
Neville shook his head once more. ‘They will have named it after Brentford’s most famous brewer. The legendary Cardinal Quasimodo Cox, Abbott of St Martin’s Monastery, where the Little Brothers of the Pewter Pot brewed the finest ales of old Albion. Quasimodo, so local legend tells, being the finest ale of them all.’
‘Oh,’ said the boy in the well-tailored uniform.
‘The Brentford Brewery stands upon the ground formerly occupied by the monastery, which was burned to the ground in 1796, during the Time of the Terror.’
‘The time of the what?’ asked the lad.
‘Never mind,’ said Neville. ‘If only this guest ale could live up to its name.’
‘Oh it will,’ said the lad, fidgeting once more with his doo-dad. ‘Because apparently it’s brewed from the original recipe.’
Neville sadly shook his head. ‘No,’ said he. ‘The recipe was lost when the monastery was put to the torch.’
‘And now it’s been found again. In some old book that was fished out from behind a radiator in the master brewer’s office.’
The look that appeared now upon Neville’s face was the look of one beatified. It was a look that implied a state of celestial happiness. This look, however, did not last for long.
‘No,’ said Neville. ‘The past is a place more glorious than the present and although your words are wonderful to hear, they are far too good to be true.’
‘Well, you just wait until you get a gob full. The brewery has—’ another doo-dad diddle, ‘—six barrels for you today and a pump clip with some old geezer’s boat race on it. Probably your mate Quasimodo.’ He paused in the vain hope that Neville might just do the rather lame joke this time.
Neville, however, was staring into space.
‘Are you all right?’ asked the brewery boy.
Neville raised a hushing finger. ‘Can you hear that?’ he asked.
‘Hear what?’
‘Singing,’ said Neville. ‘Far away singing.’
‘Nope,’ went the bright young fellow-me-lad. ‘So why don’t you go down and get them old cellar doors open? I will engage the automated barrel de-loader. I’d stand well back from the ramp if I was you, things can get a tad lively.’
Neville shrugged and took himself inside.
The dray lad stood and diddled with his doo-dad.
Old Pete diddled with his dibber, whilst Young Chips snoozed in the sunlight.
Revered as Brentford’s leading horticulturist, Old Pete’s allotment patch (on which he was presently diddling) was quite unlike as to any other. Here grew weird and wonderful things. Here was a riot of exotic blooms. Here were floral fancies that claimed the highest honours in the yearly flower show. Here his kind hand nurtured hybridized orchids. Here was beauty indeed.
Old Pete supplied fruit and veg to Uncle Ted, Brentford’s most scandalous greengrocer. Rare lilies to Alison’s Floral Fripperies in the High Street. Mandrake to Professor Slocombe, for use in his thaumaturgical experiments.
It was a recent visit to the professor that had inspired Old Pete’s latest and most ambitious piece of horticultural wizardry.
The vegetable ape.
Old Pete had viewed the mummified remains of a Vegetable Lamb of Tartary which stood looking all forlorn in Professor Slocombe’s cabinet of curiosities. Recalling the famous phrase from his childhood, “if you want fun, go home and buy a monkey”, Old Pete had paused to ponder. Monkeys were hard to come by nowadays, there were all kinds of importation problems. Home grown monkeys raised upon a West London allotment seemed an obvious solution. And probably one that Norman would have come up with, given sufficient time. Old Pete had studied his various gardening manuals, several dating back centuries and concluded that it was all a matter of creating a plant/animal hybrid, what might be described as a planthropoid.
Old Pete lifted the glazed lid of his cold frame and viewed the growing fruits of his labours. There were a dozen in all and they really did look like little monkeys. Little rose red monkeys with curling stalk tails and dinky little fingers. All cute as kittens.
But—
Although a fine amalgam of sea monkey, gr-ape vine and monkey puzzle tree, the planthropoids were showing no inclination whatsoever towards animation. Even though they were growing bigger, they looked just like little dead monkeys, which was unappealing at best.
Old Pete gave them a gentle water then lowered the lid once more.
Then straightening up his ancient back he cocked his head on one side. What was that sound he was hearing? Gentle voices singing a pleasant song. Old Pete sought to adjust his hearing aid, but the battery he knew to be flat.
Yet—
Yet he could still hear the voices. Softly singing. Old Pete now scratched at his head. Most odd. He screw
ed up his eyes and peered all around and about. Sparrows gossiped, butterflies danced, but singers were not to be seen.
Old Pete shrugged and returned to his dibbing of soil.
Jim Pooley, lately signed up office manager of the Goodwill Landscaping Company, (salary under discussion) stood outside the Plume Café bidding his farewells to John Omally, C.E.O. of the Goodwill Landscaping Company (salary £50,000 per annum, full expense account and bicycle maintenance allowance).
John shook Jim most firmly by the hand, assured him for the umpteenth time that all would be well and then departed Jim’s company with talk of pressing business elsewhere.
Jim’s face now wore an expression that combined unease, doubt, suspicion and hopelessness into an unwholesome salmagundi.
John was his bestest friend and John would never knowingly do anything that would bring harm to Jim. But John, in Jim’s opinion, was a chancer. A duck and dive merchant. Jim considered himself shrewd when it came to business matters. A man of substance. Of integrity.
But John—
Jim sighed. It was all probably nonsense anyway. The unnecessary and frankly ridiculous ring road would be unlikely to receive planning permission. Its southern arc swept through Kew Gardens and that would never be allowed. No, it was all a lot of old toot. Still, John had forked out for the price of a cuppa, so Jim was ahead of the game, so to speak.
Jim Pooley’s face regained its normal calm and passive appearance and he set off once more on his mission to meet and greet the Goodwill Giant.
The place to wait, it seemed to Jim, would be the canal bridge, where the High Street met the Hounslow Road. Anyone following the course of the river from the direction of Richmond would surely enter Brentford via this bridge.
Jim recalled that there was a rather fine pub situated next to the canal bridge: the Amphibian’s Arms. A pub with forecourt seating, where a chap who was perhaps awaiting the arrival of another chap, might sit in shaded comfort with a pint pot at his elbow.
Jim ambled along Brentford High Street. A motor-car or two passed by, a bus went rumbling on its way to Chiswick.
‘Ring road,’ sniffed Jim. ‘Absurd. Ridiculous.’
Upon reaching the canal bridge he sat himself down on the parapet, took out his pack of five Woodbine, selected one and lit up. As this fag was the first of the day Jim then collapsed into fits of coughing. When this was done he continued his smoke, for the first of the day is the bestest.
Jim glanced down to the waters of the Grand Union Canal. Oily rainbow swirls and floating debris. Good grief, he and Omally used to swim in that canal when they were boys. A mouthful of such water now and you would be a goner.
Jim exhaled a sigh along with smoke. Although the locals considered that one of Brentford’s finest qualities was its unchangingness, Jim knew full well that the borough did evolve slowly from one thing to another. And for the most part, if the truth be told, those changes were rarely for the better.
The favourite haunts of Jim’s childhood had simply ceased to be. Those old deserted houses, the castles of his youth, had been pulled down. The bustling streets of terraced dwellings surrounding the pottery had been demolished, replaced by the gaunt and soul-less flat blocks. There was actually a McDonald’s where the Red Lion used to stand.
But the spirit of Brentford remained the same did it not? The folk were still decent folk. The beer was certainly good. And there was always hope.
Pooley took another pull on his fag. ‘Get a grip, Jim,’ he told himself. ‘What has brought this on?’
His words echoed gently from beneath the canal bridge and as they did so Jim heard something more. A melody, borne up to him upon a gentle breeze. A melody of girlish voices, singing clearly now, but in a language that he could not understand.
‘Hello,’ called Jim. ‘Who’s singing down there, then?’
The girlish voices ceased their song.
Jim Pooley turned his eyes towards the pub.
The eyes of John Omally did furtive sidelong glances as he approached the open window to the rear of Brentford Town Hall.
The meeting at which the ring road was to be discussed had been set for eleven o’clock that morning. It was a secret meeting, one that the general public knew absolutely nothing about. One that John Omally had been informed of by Mr Pocklington. The man who had left the window open for him.
John’s instructions had been straightforward enough. Climb into the deserted store room, then edge along the corridor, ascend the back stairs to the public gallery and once there, remaining unseen, observe the proceedings and make notes regarding anything that might further the interests of the Goodwill Landscaping Company.
For most, if not all of us, there are times when we look back at something we have done in the past and say to ourselves, “if I had known then what I know now, I would never have done that.”
If John Omally had known at this particular moment the disastrous consequences of the actions he was about to take, there is little doubt that he would have walked away from that window without a backwards glance.
But as this foreknowledge was denied him, Omally shinned in through the open window and sealed the fate of Brentford forever.
4
What is charisma?
And why?
The preserve of the few, to the joy of the many?
A blessing to some and to others a curse?
In a recent internet poll carried out by the United Church of Runeology, the philosopher, poet, mystic and world champion unicyclist Hugo Rune was voted Most Charismatic Man of the Twentieth Century.
And not without good cause, in his opinion.
Brentford’s town clerk Stephen Pocklington had charisma. Much charisma had he. Although the other six members of Brentford Town Council must have had some charisma, or how else had they come to be elected, Mr Pocklington’s charisma outshone all others.
If charisma was to be represented in the shape, say, of a pizza pie (with extra pepperoni and hot green peppers), three quarters of that pie would be found upon the plate of Stephen Pocklington. With the other quarter, roughly divided into six segments shared amongst the remaining councillors.
Now to some it might seem that a town council composed of just seven persons was a very small town council indeed. This same some would be further astonished to learn that these seven councillors were Brentford Town Hall’s only employees. They all mucked in with other duties, but other duties were few.
Certainly they would have liked to have done a great deal more for the borough, such as increasing council tax, imposing parking restrictions, raising the rates. All those practices that the councillors of other boroughs so delight in. But the councillors of Brentford were continually denied these joys.
Every time they came up with another levy, or price hike, or such like, an ancient gentleman by the name of Professor Slocombe would turn up at the reception desk clutching some antique volume to his pigeon chest and explain, in a manner which left no room for misunderstanding, that the council’s latest attempt to deprive Brentonians of their pennies and pounds was disallowed by some rule or regulation laid down with great legality several centuries before.
The plain folk of Brentford lauded the professor.
The councillors abhorred him.
Today, as the town hall clock (lately restored at Professor Slocombe’s expense) struck eleven, six councillors and one town clerk took their seats in the mahogany-panelled council chamber.
High in the shadows of the public gallery Omally looked on, a pencil in one hand, a notebook in the other.
The councillors seated themselves and the town clerk addressed them. ‘Ladies,’ said he. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, greetings.’
Councillors returned greetings and smiled towards the charismatic Mr P. There really was something about him. Something special. Something that elevated him from the rest. Made you want to hang on to his every word. To trust and respect what he said. And, with the exception of one single fellow, this is what the tow
n councillors did.
The lone dissenter was Councillor Uncle Ted McCready, Brentford’s notorious purveyor of fruit and veg. Scandal followed this man like a faithful spaniel. If there was ever anything really really sleazy on the go in the borough Uncle Ted would probably be behind it. No doubt wearing the appropriate headwear and wielding a cucumber.
Councillor Ted was short and stout and radish red of face. He would probably have made the perfect comedy sidekick for the tall and slender town clerk, had not his loathing for the handsome Mr Pocklington somewhat muddied the waters, so to speak.
Regarding the other sitters at the table, brief descriptions follow. Three ladies and three gents in all were to be seen.
The council table itself was a circular affair of the Arthurian persuasion, but somehow, no matter where he placed his slender bottom, Mr Pocklington always appeared to be sitting at its head.
To his left sat the aforementioned Councillor McCready and next to him Councillor Leo Felix, Rastafarian used-car salesman of the borough. Next to Leo lurked the diminutive Councillor Hieronymus Bob, local painter and decorator. It is to be noticed that these three held other occupations, as did all the councillors, their council duties and indeed wages, being so slight.
To the town clerk’s right sat the female contingent. Firstly Samantha Sterne, a blowsy blonde who might easily have found employment as an actress in any Carry On movie, had these still been on the go. But at present she fancied herself as an author. On her ever-present iPad she composed derivative vampire eBook novelettes, which were heavy on eroticism but somewhat light on literary style.
Next to her sat Councillor Jennifer Naylor, Brentford’s senior librarian and a woman so unlike to Ms Sterne as to be her very antithesis. Tall, spare, svelte and sophisticated, this lady mostly read the classics, but did, under an assumed name, occasionally find time to write scathing reviews of Ms Sterne’s latest outpourings.
The Lord of the Ring Roads (The Final Brentford Trilogy Book 1) Page 3
