Sprout Mask Replica (Completely Barking Mad Trilogy Book 1)

by Robert Rankin

  Neville was looking horribly pale. ‘Suppose he doesn’t win,’ he murmured to Pooley.

  ‘Who? Omally? He never wins.

  ‘Small Dave,’ said Neville and those with a mind to crossed themselves. And Jim gave a squeeze to his amulet.

  At seven-thirty, ‘Laughing’ Jack Vermont, the self-styled Eric Morley of the small pub talent competition circuit, stuck his toothy grin through the saloon bar door and doffed his sou’wester and cycling cape. Within no time at all, or an interminable duration if you’re nervous, he had set up his crumbling PA system, seated himself at The Swan’s elderly piano, blown into his microphone, said ‘one-two, one-two’, and distributed a sheath of entry forms.

  ‘Just fill them in and pop them into the magic box,’ he called, indicating the tin-foil-covered biscuit tin on the piano lid.

  Pooley watched the hopefuls as they took to their form-filling. There were not quite so many as usual. And those that there were, were strangers.

  ‘I’ve a very very bad feeling about this,’ Jim told Omally.

  ‘How do you spell, recitation,’ the other replied.

  ‘If I were you I wouldn’t even try,’ Jim drew John’s attention to his still bruised kneecap.

  Omally bit his lip. ‘Yes, you’re right. No point in handing in a badly spelt form.’ He crumpled up the paper and tossed it aside.

  The minute hand on the Guinness clock moved towards eight-thirty. Laughing Jack sprung up from the piano, blew once more into the mic’ and said, ‘Well, well, well, it’s Howdy Doody Time. And tonight it gives me enormous pleasure–’ He paused and peered about the crowded bar wearing what he considered to be a wickedly mischievous grin. ‘But then it always does.’

  Jack considered himself to be a master of comic timing. Most of his audience considered him to be a prize prat, but a possible means by which to gain a free bottle of Scotch.

  ‘All joking aside,’ Jack continued, ‘tonight we have a big line-up. And a mystery guest star. That’s right. Oh yes.’ He tapped his nose and winked a knowing eye.

  ‘That man is a prize prat,’ said Omally. ‘And would you look at that jacket of his.’

  That jacket was Laughing Jack’s pride and joy.

  He had explained it once to Omally.

  ‘Some people,’ Jack named Liberace, ‘have teeth.’

  ‘Others,’ he let slip Maurice Chevalier, ‘straw boaters.’

  ‘But I,’ he made an expansive gesture, ‘have my Laughing Jack Jacket.’

  Omally had drawn the laughing one’s attention to the fact that Liberace was not a man known for his conservatism when it came to the matter of jackets.

  ‘A mere sham,’ said Laughing Jack, turning to reveal the sequinned wonder of it all and the words LARFING JOCK VERMOUTH embroidered in rhinestones by his inebriated mother.

  ‘A mystery guest star,’ said Jim. ‘I’ll bet we can all guess who that’s going to be.’

  Omally cast his eye over the night’s contestants who were now milling around Jack, few in number as they were and looking nervous with it.

  ‘I wonder where the big boy who sings ‘Danny Boy’ has got to tonight,’ wondered Pooley.

  ‘And what of Old Pete and his performing dog?’ asked Omally. ‘And the rabbi ventriloquist who won twice last month.’

  First up on the tiny stage was a grey-bearded Scot in antique highland dress who juggled sprouts whilst regaling the audience with humorous anecdotes concerning Custer’s Last Stand.

  The only one I can remember went as follows.

  It seems that a sculptor was commissioned to create a suitable monument to the general’s final encounter with the red Indians. And when this was unveiled before the crowds of attending dignitaries, casual onlookers and members of the press it was revealed to be a monolith of the 2001 persuasion.

  On the top half of this were carved a number of fish with haloes above their heads, on the lower portion, red Indians enthusiastically making love.

  The fellow who had commissioned the sculpture took its creator to one side and demanded an explanation.

  ‘It represents the last words Custer ever spoke,’ explained the sculptor. ‘These were, Holy Mackerel, look at all those f*cking Indians!’

  Well, it made me laugh at the time. But then I hadn’t heard it before.

  Few in the audience clapped and the two members of the local council, who claimed to be the twin reincarnation of Geronimo, walked out in disgust.

  Next up was a poet called Johnny. I have never had a lot of truck with poetry myself, but on this occasion I must say that I was truly moved.

  I trust that you will also be. For I include his poem here.

  UNCLE FUGGER CLAUDE ROE (AT HOME)

  Taking a suck at his old cherry wood

  (His Briars numbered three in the rack),

  The crackling fire as it danced in the grate,

  The frost-bitten dane at his back.

  Old Uncle Claude Roe, please tell us a tale,

  Asked Arthur and Willy and Moon.

  Tell us conundrums and rose carberundems,

  And shanties to sing out of tune.

  Tell us of airmen who ride in the clouds

  And pirates who see through one eye.

  But Uncle Claude Roe did not want to know,

  He sat there and played with his tie.

  Tell us of Liszt and Marcova

  And how Einstein learned counting off you.

  But old Uncle Claude looked thoroughly bored,

  He had fallen asleep in his shoe.

  And while Fugger slept like a baby

  The children went outside to play.

  And his cherry wood Briar set the whole house on fire

  And nobody cares to this day.

  I wept real tears at the end of that one, I can tell you. But disguised them as a touch of hay fever for fear of looking like a big Jessie.

  A very large woman called Jessie was next up on the stage. She stripped down to her Liberty bodice and cami-knickers to display an ample selection of Magic Eye 3D tattoos. Again, I was favourably impressed, but not so the rest of the audience, who hadn’t clapped once as yet.

  I will pass on the one-legged seafarer who sang about a recent whaling voyage.

  ‘Sounds a little too much like “Orange Claw Hammer”,’ Pooley observed.

  I must also pass on Norman the sword swallower, who did not receive a standing ovation.

  ‘Any more?’ asked Laughing Jack, but the biscuit tin was empty and the crowd wore vacant stares.

  And then it happened. And it happened in a big way and one not easily forgotten. The saloon bar door burst open.

  There was a mighty drum roll and then in marched the world famous Brentford Secondary School drum majorettes.

  They didn’t march far due to the density of the crowd, but they forced their way in bravely. Tassels twirling, baton whirling, young knees high and painted smiles.

  In came the drummers, thrashing away upon snares and tom-toms, halting to march upon the spot.

  Then part.

  Then in He came.

  A diminutive figure in a gold lamé mask and matching jump-suit. He cart-wheeled into the bar, did an impossible triple flip over cowering heads and landed on his feet upon the stage.

  Mouths fell open, breath became a thing to hold.

  The tiny figure bowed and then began.

  He knelt, threw wide his arms, sang Jolson.

  And he was Jolson.

  He impersonated Laughton.

  And he was Laughton.

  He lifted a leg and Robert Newton was reborn to play his finest role.

  The superstitious crossed themselves.

  Omally whispered, ‘Witchcraft.’

  It was a spectacle unlike any other that The Swan had witnessed during its long and colourful history. Strong men wept into their beer and mothers covered the eyes of their teenage daughters.

  To gasps and then wild applause, the tiny gold-clad figure concluded with a fire-eating, un
i-cycling, beer-bottle-juggling, reworking of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ that would have had Sam Goldwyn reaching for his cheque-book.

  Laughing Jack came forward with the bottle of Scotch.

  ‘Sir,’ was all he could manage to say.

  As suddenly as he had appeared the tiny man was gone, cartwheeling, somersaulting, spinning through the saloon bar door. The drummers and majorettes followed, along with the Scotsman who told the General Custer yarns, who had taken up his pipes to play ‘Amazing Grace’.

  And then The Swan fell into silence.

  And might well still be doing it to this day if Neville hadn’t managed to speak.

  ‘Never in my long years as a barman,’ he said in a quavery voice, ‘have I seen anything to rival that.’

  ‘It is truly the wonder of the age,’ said Jim Pooley.

  ‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth and so on,’ agreed John Omally.

  ‘It leaves my ‘Green, Green, Grass of Home’ with egg on its face,’ said Hector, who hadn’t had a mention for quite some time.

  ‘I must say that I rather enjoyed that myself,’ said Small Dave, who had been standing unnoticed by the ladies’ toilet.

  All heads present turned in his direction, all mouths that were not already open now opened. Wide.

  ‘My appearance in this book has been nothing more than a cameo,’ said Neville the part-time barman, ‘but given the evidence of the previous chapters, that is the kind of cop-out ending I would have expected.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Small Dave. ‘But my bottle went and I just couldn’t go through with it. Damn fine show though. Who was that masked man?’

  SONG WITH NO WORDS

  He’d been out on a busy Friday,

  Singing that song with no words.

  But the going had been as tough as could be,

  He’d fallen twice and ricked his knee

  And he was glad to get home at all,

  Singing that song with no words.

  He’d fallen in love with a check-out girl,

  Singing that song with no words.

  Though she had spots of a generous size

  And something strange about one of her eyes,

  He’d offered his heart and she’d punched out his lights,

  Singing that song with no words.

  He’d got in a fight with a hot dog man,

  Singing that song with no words.

  He’d only said to the fellow in fun

  That he thought his hot dogs smelt like dun(g)

  And just for that he’d been soundly thrashed,

  Singing that song with no words.

  He’d been for a boat trip round the bay,

  Singing that song with no words.

  He’d exposed himself to a party of Czechs

  Who were making charts of sunken wrecks

  So they’d tossed him off and he’d gone down,

  Singing that song with no words.

  He’d finally fallen foul of the law,

  Singing that song with no words.

  He’d shouted abuse at a copper on point

  Said he was a fairy and smoking a joint

  So he’d been dragged away to the Nick and given a right good truncheoning by several irate constables who’d had a proper day of it chasing up reports of some limping loon who’d been bothering check-out girls, getting into fights with hot dog men and flashing his willy at foreigners.

  And enough was enough!

  Singing that song with no words.

  Amen.

  7

  UNCLE BRIAN EXPLAINS EVERYTHING (ALMOST)

  I arrived at Uncle Brian’s house a little after ten.

  The walk took longer than usual as it looked like rain. I had to write the word ‘sun’ on the palm of my left hand to balance that out, then walk part of the way backwards for peace in our time. When Uncle Brian didn’t answer the doorbell I had to arrange five pieces of chalk on his window-sill.

  It’s better to be safe than sorry.

  He arrived home at sixteen minutes to eleven, which was also 10.44, which was all right by me as my shirt cuffs were unbuttoned. Uncle Brian looked somewhat the worse for wear. A police car dropped him off, well, flung him out. It didn’t stop. Uncle Brian limped up the garden path singing that song with no words. It didn’t look to me as if he wanted anything mentioned. So I didn’t mention anything.

  ‘What’s red and stands in the corner?’ I asked Uncle Brian.

  He shrugged.

  ‘A naughty bus,’ I told him, as humour sometimes helps to break the ice at parties.

  ‘You’d better come inside,’ said Uncle Brian. ‘You clearly need a cup of hot sweet tea.’

  I couldn’t have argued with that if I’d wanted to.

  ‘Not your mates, though,’ said Uncle Brian, half turning as he turned the key. ‘They’ll have to stay in the garden.’

  ‘Sorry, lads,’ I said, dismissing the Kalahari bushmen who so often accompanied me upon my ventures to the interior. ‘Go and play in the park, I’ll see you later!’ But I never did.

  Uncle Brian made tea and served it. Then he settled himself onto the box ottoman in the front room and sucked life into his briar. ‘So, son,’ he said, through pale-blue plumes of smoke, ‘what is it you would like to know?’

  ‘Speak to me of chaos theory,’ I suggested.

  ‘What, all that stuff about a butterfly flapping its wings in the Indus Valley causing a sweet shop in Huddersfield to catch fire?’

  ‘That’s the kiddie,’ I told him.

  ‘Don’t believe a word of it. It’s a sophism.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘An argument that is deliberately invalid, specious or misleading. As opposed to a paralogism, which is an argument that is unintentionally invalid, specious or misleading.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Conspiracy,’ he said in a hushed whisper.

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘One of those lads, eh?’

  ‘Would you care for me to explain?’

  ‘Very much indeed.’

  ‘You’re all right for tea?’

  ‘Fine, thank you.’

  ‘And biscuits?’

  ‘You didn’t offer me any biscuits.’

  ‘Because I have no biscuits.’

  ‘Please explain,’ I said. ‘About the conspiracy.’

  ‘All right,’ said he. ‘In a nutshell, nothing measurable can ever be proven absolutely.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because, well, let me think of a simple example. Something obvious. Ah yes. Suppose you wanted to know the precise temperature of this room, what would you do?’

  ‘Look at a thermometer?’ I suggested.

  ‘On the face of it that would seem to be the solution.’

  ‘But it’s not?’

  ‘No,’ said Uncle Brian. ‘Because you could not be certain how accurate your thermometer was. In order to find this out you would require a more subtle and sensitive instrument to test the thermometer’s accuracy.’

  ‘Then you’d know for certain,’ I said.

  ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you would require an even more sensitive piece of apparatus to test the accuracy of the instrument that tested the accuracy of the thermometer.’

  ‘You’d be certain then,’ I said.

  Uncle Brian shook his head. ‘Not until you’d tested the accuracy of that instrument with another, and that one with yet another and so on and so forth until infinity. And you really can’t measure infinity, can you?’

  I shook my head. ‘So what is the temperature of this room?’

  ‘Ultimately nobody knows for certain.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said I.

  ‘Ultimately,’ said Uncle Brian, ‘nobody knows anything.’

  ‘Some people must know some things,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Well, people at the top. The Prime Minister, for example.’

  Uncle Brian la
ughed. ‘Not a bit of it,’ he said. ‘The man at the top of the chain of command is constantly being misled by his subordinates. They lie to him all the time, to flatter him, to avoid punishment for their misdeeds, to further their own ends, to curry favour with him. The man at the top has the most distorted view of the world imaginable.’

  ‘That sounds somewhat cynical,’ I suggested.

  ‘Never confuse cynicism with scepticism. The two are mutually incompatible. Let us return to the principle of the thermometer. Let us say that the Prime Minister is not being lied to, he is simply being advised by advisors.’

  I shrugged. ‘Let’s say that.’

  ‘So who advises the advisors and who advises the advisors of the advisors and who advises—’

  ‘I get the picture.’

  ‘It’s like the police force. Someone has to police the police force and so someone has to police the police that police the police force.’

  ‘But they don’t, there’s no such someones.’

  ‘No, my point exactly. Therefore the Prime Minister receives incorrect advice from his advisors, because there is no ultimate advisor to pass the advice down the infinite chain of advisors to him.’

  ‘So we all ultimately know nothing.’

  ‘I would like to say, precisely. But ultimately I don’t know.’

  ‘But when I originally asked about chaos theory, you said that it was a sophism rather than a paralogism, that we were being deliberately mislead. If ultimately nothing is ultimately knowable, then how can you know that?’

  ‘You’re catching on,’ said Uncle Brian. ‘I know that because I’m the man who invented chaos theory in the first place.’

  My thoughts turned to my non-uncle Felix, the Alpha Man theory and the Ministry of Serendipity. ‘You thought up chaos theory?’ I said.

  ‘It was a joke, I thought it up for a laugh and sent it off as a thesis under an assumed name to an American scientific journal. I didn’t expect them to take it seriously. Although thinking about it, I should have. After all the art world took Picasso seriously and he was only pulling their legs.’