“You’re outvoted,” said Mr Shufty. “It doesn’t really matter whether you sign or not.”
“It’s wrong.” Neville turned towards his fellow councillors. Scanned their faces. Saw the greed.
“You don’t care, do you?” he said. “You were voted on to the council to care, but you don’t. You just think of yourselves.”
“That’s not entirely true.” Gavin Shufty had a smug face on. “They just know a lost cause when they see one. Brentford football club is finished. It’s history.”
“Glorious history,” said Neville.
“But history none the less for it. History that will not repeat itself.”
“It might,” said Neville. “There’s no telling.”
Gavin Shufty laughed. “Brentford might win the FA Cup again, is that what you’re saying?”
“It might,” said Neville once more.
“Don’t be absurd.”
“But what if it did?”
“If it did?” Gavin Shufty laughed. “If that bunch of losers were to win the FA Cup, then I’d tear up these contracts.”
“Would you?” Neville asked.
“Absolutely.” Gavin Shufty had a very smug face on now. It was beyond smug. There was indeed no word to describe such a face.
“And what about the money?” Neville asked.
Gain Shufty burst into a fit of laughter. “Tell you what,” he said, between guffawings, “the Consortium will write off the debt, how about that?” And then he laughed some more.
Neville was definitely not laughing.
“Write it on, then,” said he.
“Do what?” Shufty asked.
“Write it on to the contracts. What you just said – that if Brentford were to win the FA Cup, you’ll write off the debt.”
“That’s absurd,” said Gavin Shufty.
Neville nodded sombrely. “I know,” said he. “It’s totally absurd. So what harm can it do?”
Gavin Shufty wiped tears of laughter from his eyes and slowly shook his head. “Are you serious?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Neville, “I am. As you say, I can do nothing to stop this. I’m outvoted. I could abstain and not put my signature to this contract, but I am only a human being and I would dearly love to own my own pub. But I am not only a human being, I am a Brentonian. And Brentonians will rise to the challenge when called upon to protect what they care about.”
Gavin Shufty laughed once more. “I’m afraid that this is one challenge that Brentonians will not be able to rise to,” said he.
“Then humour me,” said Neville. “What do you have to lose?”
Gavin Shufty gave a shrug. “Absolutely nothing,” he replied.
4
John Vincent Omally, bestest friend of James Arbuthnot Pooley, crested the canal bridge from the Isleworth side and soared down into Brentford. Omally soared upon Marchant, his elderly sit-up-and-beg bike. There were times when John and his bike did not see eye to eye. As it were. Times when John cursed Marchant and Marchant returned John’s curses with what is known in military circles as “dumb insolence”. Troubled times were these for the both of them.
But not on this particular morn.
Upon this particular morn, boy and bike were as one, in cosmic synthesis, in a harmony that bordered on the divine. Marchant declined to snag John’s turn-up in his chain wheel and John felt not the need to chastise Marchant for his bad behaviour. The sun shone down and God was in his Heaven and to Omally all seemed more than just all right with the world.
That John, a curly-haired son of Eire, Dublin born and Brentford bred, should be approaching the borough at this time of the morning rather than stirring from his cosy bed in Mafeking Avenue, just to the rear of Peg’s Paper Shop, would have surprised none who knew John well. John was a bit of a ladies’ man. And as the now-legendary Spike once put it, “One bit in particular.” And upon this particular morn, John was returning from a night of passion with an Isleworth lass whose husband worked the night shift at the windscreen-wiper factory.
John did whistlings as he rode along, and singings, too, and sometimes reckless chucklings. That one day he would be made to pay for his transgressions, brought to book and no doubt soundly thrashed by some cuckolded hubby, perhaps played a part in these whistlings and singings and reckless chucklings as well. For it was the risk that did it for John – the risk, the thrill and of course the joy he brought to the women that he pleasured.
Not that John was a bad man.
No. Like unto Pooley, his bestest friend, and unto Neville and unto Norman, John Omally was a good man. John was as Jim, which is to say basically honest. Indeed, he was the partner of Jim, a fellow entrepreneur. Together they toiled hard evading what is so laughingly described as “honest work”. Together they lived by their wits. Together they drifted through life.
And happily.
Down the High Street came John, sometimes on the road and sometimes on the pavement, oblivious to hooting horns and startled shoppers. Onward, ever onward. ’Til he stopped. Before The Plume Café.
Omally dismounted, leaned Marchant against the café window to enjoy the late-season sunshine and entered The Plume Café.
The Plume Café had seen better days, and had probably even enjoyed them. These better days had been during the post-war years, those years known as the nineteen-fifties. Rock’n’rollin’ years these had been, of Teddy Boys with Brylcreemed heads and long drape coats and fat-soled brothel-creepers. When Elvis was King and fags were three pence a packet. And you could buy a dog for a shilling that was big enough for all the family to ride on. And whose name was Jack.
The Plume retained features of this glorious decade, including an espresso coffee machine that still made impressive noises. Whilst concealed behind its bulk, Lil, The Plume’s proprietress, would furtively ladle a spoonful of Maxwell House into a stranger’s mug and shake it about a bit. It also boasted a jukebox of the Rockola persuasion, now sadly scarified with the rust but still with its original selections: “Wild Gas On Saturn” by The Rock Gods; “Standing in the Slipstream of the Jets” by The Flying Starfish From Uranus; the “Two-By-One Song” by Little Tich and The Big Foot Band; “God’s Only Daughter” by The Sally Girls; and selections from Armageddon: The Musical sung by the original cast. There were “contemporary” chairs and Formica-topped tables and even those plastic tomatoes that dispense ketchup when squeezed. And those chrome-topped glass sugar dispensers, which rarely dispense anything, even when shaken with surpassing fierceness. The Plume remained as those who had always known it knew it, and those who knew it, knew it well. And loved it also.
And so also loved they Lil.
The sign above the door proclaimed in faded italics that The Plume was the property of one Mrs Veronica Smith, but whether this was Lil, none asked, nor even thought to.
Lil was Lil, or Lily Marlene to a stranger, a Junoesque beauty now in the middle fullness of her years. A suicide blonde[4], all pouting lips of rubeous hue and mammaries to set a young lad’s loins a leaping, with skirt that little bit too short, heels a tad too high and those parts that were clothed pressed into garments of a size that didn’t “fit all”.
It was popularly believed by the good men of Brentford that they did not make women like Lil any more, and so she was adored by them. Yet they feared her in equal measure, for Lil was fierce.
Omally, who had known many women of the borough and indeed the surrounding territories, did not number Lil amongst his conquests. Although he flirted with her mirthfully, and she with him, such a liaison – interesting though it might have been for the both of them – would have been, in Omally’s opinion, and no doubt Lil’s, inappropriate. A friendship existed between them, a deep friendship that would not have been strengthened by sexual congress; rather it would have been severed.
Omally entered The Plume Café and breathed in of its ambience: the fragrance of frying, the bouquet of bacon, the heady scent of the sausage. Of customers there were but several: a tall youth na
med Cornelius Murphy munched upon bacon sandwiches in a window seat and discoursed with his dwarflike comrade Tuppe; a salesman, travelling in tobaccos and ready-rolled cigarettes, downed cornflakes alone in a corner; and a native of the Andaman Islands took tea with an elderly sea captain.
Omally nodded good mornings to each and to all and for the most part these were returned to him. The Irishman approached the counter; the eyes of Lil, framed by their painted lashes, fell upon him.
“Well,” said Lil, a-pushing out her bosoms, “if it isn’t my own dear John.”
“Indeed if it isn’t,” said himself. “Hail, Lily, full of grace. Blessed art thou amongst women.”
“The usual?” said Lily.
“The usual would be sublime.”
Lil set to the frying of John’s usual. And John watched her at it and smiled as he did so.
“That idiot grin becomes you,” said Lil, cracking three eggs simultaneously into the cacky pan. “It is surely the grin of one who has recently enjoyed the illicit favours of another’s wife.”
“Perish the thought,” said Omally. “My heart belongs to you.”
“Your heart, then, should perhaps inform your penis of this truth.”
“Perhaps so.”
Lil heaped several pre-cooked-and-ready-for-a-warm-up bangers into the cacky pan and shook the pan around upon the gas hob.
“Do you never think about settling down, John?” she asked through the smoke.
“All the time,” said himself, “which is why I always keep on the move.”
“You could do little better than to find yourself a good woman.”
“There are many to be found.” John turned towards himself a copy of the Brentford Mercury (numbered by Norman for a house in a nearby street and wrongly delivered by Zorro the paperboy who cared nought for Norman’s numberings) which lay upon the counter and viewed its front page. “Many, many, many,” he continued in a wistful tone.
“You are a scoundrel.” Lil popped two doorsteps into the toaster and rammed down the starter with a thumbnail painted Rose du Barry.
“Poo,” said Omally. “This sits most uneasily.”
“You have some complaint to make about my seating?” A fierceness arose in the voice of Lil.
“Not a bit of it, fair lady. I allude to the headline news upon the day’s broadsheet. Inasmuch that the council are, as we engage in pleasant social intercourse, sealing the fate of the football ground.”
“I didn’t have you down as a supporter, John. A small bird whispered into my ear that when a match is on, you are generally to be found in the arms of the goalkeeper’s wife.”
“A damnable lie,” quoth Omally, for indeed it was, it being the centre-forward’s wife that John was prone to visit. “But this is an outrage. I shall write to my MP.”
“Your MP?” Lil laughed. “You’ve never even voted in your life.”
“Voting for the lesser of two evils holds no appeal for me.”
“Let’s face it, John.” Two charred doorsteps leapt suddenly from the toaster to be deftly caught by Lil. “The club is finished. Everyone knows that it’s finished. It was just a matter of time before some big business concern bought up the land and built housing on it.”
“Outrage,” declared John. “Iconoclasm.”
“I’ll bet you’ve never even been to a match.” Lil scooped up the contents of the cacky pan, which now included mushrooms, bacon, black pudding and a beetle named Derek, and delivered this eclectic cuisine to a dinner plate that had once boasted a willow pattern. This, in turn, in the company of the burned toast (now buttered) she delivered unto John Omally.
“And a mug of tea,” said himself. “In my usual mug.”
“I’ll bring it over,” said Lil. “Enjoy.”
Omally bore his breakfast to the nearest table, which although not his favourite was not entirely without favour and set to tucking in. Pull down the football club, he thought as he ate. Appalling, diabolical – why, that would mean pulling down The Stripes Bar beneath the south stand, where ale at below-average price could be enjoyed at hours that were outside those of normal licensing. And, of course, it might well leave the Bees’ centre forward with nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon. And of course there was the matter of Brentford’s glorious heritage. And such like.
Omally pressed on with his repast. They’d sell the ground, he knew that they would. Those town councillors, they were all up to some kind of no-good, everyone knew that. All up to no good, with the exception of Neville.
Omally, as a regular in the saloon bar of The Flying Swan, held Neville in high esteem. In fact, it had been Omally’s idea to put the part-time barman up as a candidate for one of the vacant seats on the town council – out of public spiritedness, of course. That and the fact that Omally had been told that council meetings often ran late into the night, which meant that Neville would have to leave the bar in the hands of Croughton the pot-bellied pot man, an inebriate buffoon who could always be inveigled into serving after hours.
A practice that Neville frowned deeply upon.
But you couldn’t just pull down the football club, plough up the ground. You couldn’t. You just couldn’t.
Sadly, John knew all too well that you could. You just could. It happened all too regularly nowadays. In fact, it was something of a current fashion.
Lil brought over Omally’s tea and stared down between her bosoms at the thoughtful Irishman.
“There’s no stopping what can’t be stopped,” she said, which rang a bell somewhere. “Don’t let it play on your mind, John.”
Omally sipped his tea and burned his mouth. “It just doesn’t seem right,” said he.
At length, John finished his breakfast and patted his belly. The morning sun shone in upon him and the Irishman’s spirits, so recently lowered, were lifted again. Today was, after all, another day and a day that it was his duty to enjoy to the full, being the sort of fellow that he was – to whit, one who truly revelled in life. There were pennies that must be earned and then spent, things to do and people to see.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Omally looked up.
A fellow looked down at him, a fellow in a drab grey suit, with a painfully thin face and matching hair. A drab and pale grey fellow, all at odds with the day.
“How might I help you?” Omally enquired with politeness.
“It’s how I might help you,” said the fellow. Which set certain alarm bells ringing.
“Oh yes?” said Omally, in the voice of undisguised suspicion.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. Might I sit?” The fellow did so without waiting for a reply. “It’s just that I’m in a bit of a dilemma and I think we might be able to help each other out.”
“I suspect that at least half of that statement might hold some degree of truth,” said Omally.
“Do you smoke?” asked the fellow.
“Ah,” said John. “Duty-frees, is it?”
“Not as such. Allow me to explain. I’m a salesman, travelling in tobaccos and ready-rolled cigarettes.”
“I know,” said Omally. “I saw you when I came in.”
The fellow shook his head. “I sell these.” He hoisted a bulging suitcase on to the table, all but upsetting Omally’s mug, tugged it open and withdrew a packet of Dadarillos. “I’m covering this area. I’ve got a caseful, but the local shops don’t seem very keen to purchase.”
“They wouldn’t be,” said John. “This is a very conservative neighbourhood.”
“But they’re half the price of normal cigarettes and nearly twice the length.”
“Half the price?” said Omally.
“And twice the length. And with the deal I’m giving to the shops, they’ll still make more profit per packet than on normally priced cigarettes.”
Omally nodded sagely. “Which prompts the question that will not be answered,” said he.
“Which is?” asked the fellow.
“What’s the catch?” asked Omally.
“There is no catch – it’s a promotional offer. The company are literally giving these cigarettes away. They are convinced that once smokers try them, they will like them so much that they will switch from their regular brands.”
“And then the price will go up.”
“Naturally. Such is the way with business.”
Omally cogitated. And then he smiled. Although it was true that the local tobacconists would not care to take on new products, what with their clientele being so set in their ways and all, there were few folk who, when offered a good deal – under-the-counter, as it were, or off-the-back-of-a-lorry – would turn up their noses. And so where the shopkeepers of Brentford might fail to find custom, Omally, with his winning ways and the gift of the gab, which God had personally granted to Irish manhood to make up for the fact that their staple diet would be the potato, would, with the wind behind him and all things being equal and those that weren’t falling in his favour due to his own exertions, SUCCEED.
“Two questions,” said Omally.
“Go on,” said the fellow.
“Firstly, how many packets of these cigarettes do you have?”
“Five hundred,” said the fellow. “Yours for twenty-five quid.”
Omally nodded once again.
“And secondly?” the fellow asked.
“Secondly, why did you approach me, a perfect stranger, with this offer?”
“Ah,” said the fellow. “Your name is John Omally, is it not?”
Further alarm bells rang in the head of John Omally. “It might be,” he said with caution.
“Lily Marlene there recommended you. She said you’d be popping in.”
“Right,” said John, and he grinned his grin and put out his hand for a shake.
And John left The Plume Café somewhat heavier than he had entered it. Heavy of belly was John Omally and heavy of suitcase, too.
And John strapped this suitcase to the rear rack of Marchant. Mounted up and pleased with his good fortune and business acumen, for he had beaten the salesman down to twenty quid, he cycled away with a smile on his lips and a whistle between them.
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