John viewed the trembling barman. He wasn’t enjoying doing this to Neville. Well, actually he was, because Neville had bopped both he and Jim upon their heads. “What do you say?” John asked, sticking his hand out for a shake. “Let bygones be bygones and all prosper from the glories that lie ahead for the team and the borough?”
Neville sighed. It was a deep and tragic sigh, but if all the truth was to be told, Neville was very pleased to have John and Jim once more in his bar.
“Bygones be bygones,” said Neville wearily and with that he shook Omally’s hand.
“And Jim’s, too,” said John. And Neville shook Pooley’s hand also.
“Splendid,” said John, a-rubbing of his palms together. “Then three pints of Large, please Neville.”
“All right,” said Neville and he set to pulling the pints. “But there is only one thing that I want to know.”
“Which is?” asked John with caution.
“Why is Jim dressed as Bertie Wooster?”
And so the celebrations proper began, much to the pleasure of Jim Pooley, who found his hand being endlessly shaken, his back being endlessly patted, pint after pint being placed before him and kisses being planted on his cheeks by numerous female football fans. John, who was not averse to bathing in a bit of reflected glory, engaged the kiss-planters in conversation and added several numbers to his telephone book.
At a little after nine, Norman Hartnel entered The Flying Swan. Norman was carrying two duffel bags and Norman had a big grin on.
“Evening, John, Jim, Neville,” said Norman when he had fought his way to the counter.
Heads nodded and glasses were raised. “You look very full of yourself, Norman,” said John. “Come to toast the team’s success and buy the men who brought it to fruition a pint or two?”
“Come to do a bit of celebrating myself,” said Norman, “on my own account, for I shall shortly be rich beyond the dreams of Avril.”
“It’s avarice,” said John.
“Then you haven’t met my cousin Avril,” said Norman. “But enough of that. I have, but yesterday, taken out five original patents. You had best shake my hand now, because it will be far too busy receiving awards in the future to be available for shaking then.”
“I am intrigued,” said John.
“Me, too,” said Jim.
“And what happened to you last night?” Norman asked Jim. “You missed all the mayhem and magic at The Stripes Bar.”
“I did?” said Jim, casting a suspicious glance towards Omally.
“Forget all that,” said John. “Tell us what you’ve been up to, Norman.”
“I heard your lock-up was blown up by Al Qaeda,” said Neville, sticking two olives into a pale ale and Pernod.
“Al who?” Jim asked. “What team does he play for?”
“We’re not on one of those right now,” said John. “Tell us what’s what, Norman.”
“About the lock-up?” asked the shopkeeper. “It doesn’t matter, it was insured.”
“About whatever you’ve invented that is going to bring you untold wealth,” said John.
“Ah, that.” Norman unshouldered his duffel bags and placed them upon the bar counter. “Wireless transmission of electricity,” he said. “Which is to say, electricity without cables beamed from one place to another upon a carrier wave. It will literally revolutionise everything.”
Neville the part-time barman scratched at his head with a cocktail stick and nearly put his good eye out. Wireless transmission of electricity? That rang a bell somewhere. Someone had mentioned something about that to him recently. Neville tried to recall just who it had been.
“Does this involve microwaves?” Jim asked fearfully. “Like in portable telephones?”
“No,” said Norman. “It’s all very simple. Would you care for me to demonstrate?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” said John, as yet another young woman came forward to offer Jim a kiss.
“I’ll be getting all that soon,” said Norman, unpacking his duffel bags. “A king’s chaff is worth other men’s corn. And I’m thinking of getting one of those special wheelchairs like Stephen Hawking has, with the voice box and everything.”
“Why?” John asked, as he watched Norman setting up strange contraptions upon the bar counter.
“Just trying to think of things to spend my money on.” The strange contraptions that Norman was now setting up were mostly constructed from Meccano. They resembled two little towers surmounted by silver Christmas-tree decoration balls. One of the little towers had a hand-crank attached to it and what looked like a tiny generator. The other was simply attached to a light bulb on a stand.
“Put that one at the other end of the bar,” Norman told Omally.
“Is this safe?” Neville asked. “There won’t be any explosions or loss of life or anything? I can’t be having with that in my bar.”
“It’s perfectly safe.” Norman took hold of the little tower with the hand-crank. “I will turn this handle and charge up this tower, and the electricity will be transmitted to the other tower and light up the light bulb.”
“No offence, Norman,” said John, “but that is most unlikely.”
“Nevertheless it will occur, as surely as a trained dog needs no whistling.”
The crowd in The Flying Swan, which had been conversing and hubbubbing and singing, too, and chanting Brent-Ford, Brent-Ford from time to time also, had been doing less of the conversing, hubbubbing and so on and so forthing also with the setting up of Norman’s little towers.
The crowd was growing interested. Heads were turning, elbows nudged elbows. A certain hush was descending upon the saloon bar of The Flying Swan.
“It seems you have an audience,” said John.
“Wonderful,” said Norman and he turned to address the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “what you are about to witness is something that you will never have seen before, something that will change the very face of civilisation: the wireless transmission of electricity. I will crank up this tower here. The crank powers this little generator, which in turn charges up the capacitor. When it’s completely charged up, I throw this switch.” Norman turned and pointed and turned back once more. “And the electricity will be transmitted through the air to that tower at the other end of the bar and will light up the light bulb.”
“For what it’s worth,” said a casual observer. “I—”
“Are we all ready?” Norman asked.
Heads nodded. The word in the bar was yes.
“Then I shall crank.” And Norman cranked. He cranked and he cranked and then he cranked some more. And then he said, “That should be enough. Would you like to count me down? It makes it so much more exciting.”
Shoulders shrugged and then the countdown began. Necks craned to see what would happen. Folk at the back leaned upon shoulders and stood upon tippy-toe.
There was a general air of expectation.
“Three … two … one …”
And Norman threw the switch.
And then there was ooohing and aaahing and then there was silence.
For nothing whatever happened.
“Cop-out,” called someone.
“Load of old toot,” called someone else.
“No, hold on, hold on,” Norman called back. “I’ll just make an adjustment or two. It must work. I obviously haven’t charged up the capacitor enough. It needs a lot of energy – after all, the electricity does have to travel through the air.”
Norman took to cranking some more. He cranked and he cranked and he cranked. He cranked as one possessed. Sweat appeared on the shopkeeper’s brow and his face became crimson. His breath came in short pants. His short pants came in a gingham design.
“There,” gasped Norman, when he could crank no more. “One more time, if you will. Three …”
The crowd, enlivened by drink and celebratory bonhomie, joined Norman in his second countdown.
“Three … two … one …”
And Norman flicked the switch.
There was a moment of absolute silence. But this moment was too short to be truly registered by those present, especially because what happened next caught them somewhat unawares and unprepared.
There was a flash, as of lightning, and a sort of a blue arc. It travelled through the base of the Meccano tower, which Norman had neglected to insulate with rubber feet, and it travelled to the brass rail that ran along the edge of the mahogany bar counter. The brass rail that Norman was holding on to. And it travelled to Jim Pooley who was leaning upon Norman’s shoulder and from there to John who was leaning upon Jim’s and from there it travelled every which way, with the exception, so it seemed, of the other tower, to which was connected the light bulb.
And electricity travels fast.
And it travels, also, with vigour.
There is a story, the authenticity of which has yet to be verified, that some years ago a group of Russian scientists drilled a five-mile-deep bore hole in Siberia during a study of plate tectonics. According to this story, their drill bit broke through the ceiling of some underground cavern and a microphone (upon a very long cable) was lowered into the void.
The scientists claim that what they heard, relayed to them from this microphone, was the sound of millions of souls screaming in torment.
The scientists had unwittingly drilled into Hell.
No recording of this hideous cacophony of the damned has ever been played to the general public.
But if it were, then it is odds-on that the sound would be all but identical (although somewhat louder, due to the greater numbers involved) to that which was now to be heard within the saloon bar of The Flying Swan.
It was one Hell of a collective scream.
Bodies shook and quivered, eyeballs rolled back into heads, teeth chattered and hair rose upon craniums to such effect that had another casual observer entered the bar at that very moment, he (or she) would have been convinced that he (or she) had entered the Don King lookalike convention.
And sparks flew.
Let us not forget the sparks.
They flew from fingertips and earlobes and privy members, too. And pints of ale bubbled on the bar top and optics shattered and …
Norman found himself barred from The Flying Swan.
20
Kevin Hurst, the ambulance driver from Brentford Cottage Hospital, offered Neville the bitterest of glares.
“Twice in one week,” he said. “What goes on in this bar? And what is this, anyway – a Don King lookalike convention?”
A thin haze of pale blue smoke still hung in the air of the saloon bar – a saloon bar whose patrons now sat slumped in attitudes of despondency, or lay upon the floor in attitudes of unconsciousness.
Neville, who had escaped electrocution by merit of being on the other side of the bar and consequently touching no one, was hardly able to speak.
Constables Russell Meek and Arthur Mild however, who had lately arrived on the scene, had plenty to say.
“Quietly patrolling, we were,” they told Scoop Molloy, who had his pencil and notebook out, “when we observed the premises illuminate with a fearsome fulguration. Unthinking of our personal safety, we pulled many from the jaws of death. There’ll be medals in this for us, I wouldn’t wonder.”
Scoop scribbled away in his notebook. “Fearsome fulguration. Jaws of death,” said he. “I like that.”
“My mobile phone,” croaked John Omally. “He blew up my mobile phone.”
“And singed my suit,” whinged Pooley.
“It’s what you call a glitch,” Norman explained.
“And how come your hair isn’t standing up?” a lady in a charred and elevated straw hat asked Norman.
John and Jim decided to call it a night. It had been an exciting day for the both of them, and enough was definitely enough.
“I will see you on the morrow,” said John, when they reached Jim’s lodgings.
Jim patted down his hair and cracked his knuckles and licked at his charred fingers. “I thought arresting Norman was somewhat over-zealous on the part of those policemen,” he said.
“They’ll probably let him out in the morning. You have a good sleep now, Jim. I’ll meet you tomorrow lunchtime in The Swan and we’ll discuss what is next to be done with the club.”
“And you can tell me everything that really went on last night,” said Jim. “And don’t think I’ll forget to ask you about it.”
“Goodnight to you, Jim,” said John, heading off for home.
“John,” Jim called after him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Is it further congratulations you’re looking for?” enquired John, turning back.
“No,” said Jim. “It’s him.”
“Him?” John asked.
“Him,” said Jim. “You, Mr Campbell. Goodnight to you, too. Go along with John.”
“I’m staying,” said the Campbell.
“You’re not staying with me.”
“I’ll be here, outside your door, maintaining the vigil.”
“I’d rather you just went home, thank you very much.”
The Campbell sat down upon the pavement. “Away to your bed, wee laddie,” said he. “I’ll see that no harm comes to you.”
“John,” said Jim, “I don’t like this, John.”
“Humour him,” said John. “He has your interests at heart.”
“But it’s not right. It’s indecent somehow.”
“Goodnight to you, Jim,” said John once more.
Jim Pooley shrugged. “Goodnight to you, John,” said he. “And goodnight to you, Campbell,” he said also.
The night passed without incident, and presently changed into coming day.
Lunchtime of this coming day found John and Jim and the Campbell, who had maintained his vigil outside Jim’s lodgings throughout the night, once more in the saloon bar of The Flying Swan.
Neville did not greet his now unbarred patrons with a smile and a merry quip. Neville was very down in the dumps.
“Why me?” he asked. “My only desire is to serve fine ale and maintain a happy bar. What have I done to bring all this down upon me? Have I offended the Gods in some way? Tell me, won’t somebody tell me?”
“You’ve done nothing,” said John, accepting the ale he had ordered and paying for same with the exact amount of pennies and halfpennies. “You’re a good man, Neville. I’m sure you find favour in the eyes of your Gods.”
“I’m seriously thinking about running away with the circus,” said Neville.
“Strike that thought from your mind,” said John. “You are the finest barman in Brentford – probably in the country.”
“You really think so?” Neville preened at his lapels.
“Certainly,” said John. “Do you think you could open a window? It’s still a bit whiffy in here.”
Neville sloped off to open a window.
“He sat outside my place all night long,” Jim whispered to John, turning his eyes towards the Campbell, who sat by the door polishing his claymore with his kilt. “He fair puts the wind up me, John. Couldn’t he be your minder for a while?”
“Take it like a man, Jim,” said John. “You are a man of responsibility now. And there’s a Wednesday-night game coming up. You should be applying your mind to this.”
“I don’t think I’ll survive the season, John. This is all too much for me.”
“You’ll be fine. Let’s take a seat yonder. There are matters to be discussed.”
“Such as what actually happened on Friday night.”
“Oh, that, of course, but first things first. On the strength of the team’s great victory, I think we can bring in some big outborough money. People like to associate themselves with winners. I have one or two ideas that should bring us in a good many pennies.”
“John,” said Jim, “there is something you’re not telling me, something that has to do with the real reason why that lunatic in the kilt is following me around. I
demand to be told, John. You’re my bestest friend. Please don’t lie to me.”
“Jim, just concentrate on the matters at hand.”
“Tell me now, John, all of the truth – or although we have been lifelong friends, I will walk out of this pub right now and I swear that I will not see you again.”
John Omally took in breath. “Now, Jim,” he said. “Don’t be hasty, now.”
“I mean it, John.”
Omally took a large swallow of ale. “All right,” said he. “I’ll tell you. You won’t like it and you’ll be very angry and feel that you have been betrayed – that’s the way I felt. But you deserve to be told and I’ve not been happy keeping it from you. You are my bestest friend.”
“I really don’t like the sound of this.”
“Then don’t make me tell you.”
“I have to know, John, and you know that I have to know.”
“All right,” said Omally. “Let us sit over in the corner. I’ll get us in more ale.”
“At your expense? Now I really am worried.”
“Go and sit in the corner.”
Jim went and sat in the corner. John joined him in the company of further ales.
And then John told to Jim everything that the professor had told to John. And John told to Jim everything that had really happened to Jim.
And John omitted nothing.
And Jim chain-smoked cigarettes until John had eventually done with his telling.
And Jim was not a happy man.
And then John stared into the face of Jim Pooley, a face that was bereft of colour, and John said unto Jim, “Are you all right?”
And Jim could not speak for a moment. And it was a long moment. But when Jim was able to speak, he simply said, “Yes.”
“Yes?” said John. “Is that all you have to say on the matter?”
“No,” said Jim, “I have much to say. I must say thank you to the Campbell for saving my life and I will have much to say to the professor. But for all that you have said, let me ask you this: do you actually believe it?”
“I believe what I saw with my own eyes and what I experienced. I have never been so afraid in all of my life, which is one of the reasons that I didn’t want to tell you. It is all so fearsome, Jim.”
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