Retromancer

by Robert Rankin

  The Krupps? I took in this intelligence. A Krupps cooker? Here in our house? ‘What is this?’ I now asked of my aunt. ‘A Krupps cooker? Surely this is new. What happened to the old grey enamel jobbie that you always assured me would see you out, if not the returned Messiah in?’

  Aunt Edna laughed some more, then said, ‘The young,’ in a manner that I considered a tad dismissive.

  ‘And coffee?’ I added. ‘Not tea?’

  ‘And there you go again.’ And Aunt Edna clutched at her chest. ‘You will be the death of me and there’s a sad fact for us all.’

  And would not you know it, or would not you not, I did not get breakfast at all. I pushed aside my Bratwurst in a pointed manner which I hoped she would see the point of and informed my aunt that I would take my breakfast elsewhere that morning.

  ‘Before seeking work?’

  ‘A long time before that, yes.’

  ‘And will you need money for the bus?’

  ‘For the bus and breakfast too.’

  My aunt took herself off to her purse and returned in the company of paper money, which she pushed into my outstretched hand. I smiled up upon my aunt and she smiled down at me.

  ‘You are a good boy, James,’ she said as she smiled. ‘I know that if your dear mother was here you would try to make her proud. But as she is not, do you think that you might try to make me proud instead?’

  ‘I will certainly try,’ I said.

  ‘So I can expect that you will return later on with the good news that you have secured employment?’

  ‘I can guarantee at least fifty per cent of that,’ I said. ‘I will certainly return later on.’

  ‘But you will go to the Hall of Labour, won’t you?’ asked my aunt.

  ‘The what?’ I asked in return.

  ‘Enough of your tomfoolery,’ said she, and she hoisted me from my chair and propelled me from the kitchen and into the hall.

  And from there through the open front doorway.

  ‘You will find yourself regular employment,’ she told me. ‘Today,’ she told me. ‘At all costs,’ she told me. ‘Or I will be forced to inform upon you.’

  This she told me too.

  ‘You will do what?’ I now asked of her.

  But she slammed the door upon me.

  2

  It is funny at times what sticks in your mind and what apparently does not. I had lived for all of my life thus far in this Brentford backstreet named Mafeking Avenue, but I had never noticed before that the street sign was bilingual - English below, and above that, in the distinctive Gothic font that says ‘German’, what I took to be the German equivalent.

  I viewed this with some surprise. How had a thing like that managed to slip by me for all these years? Or was it perhaps new? I stood and I viewed and considered that, no, it was not.

  I shrugged and considered my hangover. And as it did not seem to be worthy of consideration, I dismissed it from my mind. What I needed now was breakfast. A brisk walk, then a bellyful.

  Upon the rooftops and up in the trees, sparrows sang the songs their mothers had taught them. And as I breezed along in the unfailingly cheerful manner that is natural to me, I joined these jolly birdies in their choruses.

  And as I breezed along a-whistling, a thought came unto me regarding the smoking of cigarettes. I had for some time been thinking about taking up the smoking. The smoking was a manly thing; so much was clear from the shop window advertisements that extolled the virtues of the smoking. Men admired and ladies loved a smoker. A man without a smoke was not quite a man.

  The most famous brand known unto me was Wild Woodbine. Then at the very peak of its popularity, Sir Edmund Hillary had brought fame to the Wild Woodbine a decade before when he smoked them as he conquered Everest (some twenty years after Hugo Rune, it should be noted, and Mr Rune smoked his Woodbines in an ivory cigarette holder on the way up).

  Ah yes, the Wild Woodbine.

  I paused on the corner of Mafeking Avenue and considered the brief twenty paces to the Ealing Road and the corner confectioner’s, tobacconist’s and newsagent’s that was Old Mr Hartnel’s shop. Old Mr Hartnel always went angling down at the Grand Union Canal on Monday mornings with his best friend Far-Fetched Frank. And left the shop in the care of his son Norman. My friend Norman. My friend Norman who would surely sell me some cigarettes, even though I was underage.

  Hm.

  I did bobbings of the head. If I was to make an attempt at securing regular employment today, then surely my chances of securing it would be greatly enhanced if I turned up for the interview with a Wild Woodbine sticking out of my face. Of course it would.

  So, Wild Woodbine first and then the full English.

  Sorted.

  Old Mr Hartnel did not hold with modernity. His corner shop had hardly changed at all during the preceding thirty years. It was all indeed what the past had been, but right here in the present, and I loved it.

  I pushed upon the shop door and the shop bell rang. A clarion clanger announcing that one had entered from the outside world into this world where all time stood still and the past was ever-present.

  And you can smell the past, you really can. The past smells like the interiors of old wardrobes. And the lavender bags that perfume the drawers of your aunty’s dressing table. And mothballs and musty tweeds and cigarette smoke on net curtains, and wax furniture polish and Brasso and sometimes baking bread.

  And as the shop door closed behind me, I stood in the uncertain light that struggled to gain entry through rarely washed upper windowpanes and I breathed in that smell of the past and said—

  ‘What is that terrible pong?’

  And behind the ancient counter Norman grinned. He stood and he grinned before those shelves that held those jars with their nostalgic-looking labels and their humbugs and sherbet lemons and rhubarbs and custards and hundreds and thousands and Google’s Gob Gums.

  And all the other wonderful sweets within this wonderful shop.

  Norman wore an old-fashioned shopkeeper’s coat. This had been a present from his father for his sixteenth birthday. As Norman had outgrown the one his father had given him for his tenth birthday. And Norman wore this and grinned a bit more and then he said, ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello to yourself,’ I said to the grinner. ‘And once more, what is that terrible pong?’

  ‘It is sulphur,’ said Norman. ‘Or brimstone, if you prefer.’

  ‘I exhibit no preference,’ I replied. ‘I simply abhor its pestilential pehuverance. Could you not open a window? Or something?’

  ‘I tried something,’ said Norman. ‘I tried opening my mouth. But it hasn’t helped. And I’m not allowed to open the windows. My daddy says that the ambience might escape if I do.’

  ‘Your daddy will not take kindly to you poisoning his ambience with brimstone,’ I suggested.

  ‘You’re right,’ agreed Norman. ‘Which is why I shall not be mentioning it to him.’

  I opened my mouth to give voice to the obvious, but instead asked, ‘Wherefrom comes this pungent pong?’

  ‘From the Bottomless Pit,’ replied Norman. ‘I have discovered its entrance upon upping some tiles in the kitchenette. Just as predicted, I hasten to say.’

  ‘By whom?’ I enquired.

  ‘By me. Through a fastidious study of the Book of Revelation with the aid of a pocket calculator that I built from Meccano and more judgement than luck, in a nutshell.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. And I nodded my head. Not fast, but somewhat sagely.

  ‘Doubting Thomas,’ said Norman.

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ said I. ‘Conduct me to the kitchenette and I will cast a glance at this pit.’

  ‘Regrettably, no,’ said Norman. ‘I am not allowed to leave the shop unattended. Perhaps some other time.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘When I have completed my experiments, which are presently ongoing. I have tipped all manner of toot into that pit and as yet I have not heard one thing strike its bottom.’

&
nbsp; ‘Which does not necessarily mean that it does not have one,’ I said to Norman. ‘It might well have one a good way down that is soft and absorbs sound. Have you considered that?’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Norman, and he drummed his fingers upon the countertop to the tune of Hubert Parry and William Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’. ‘It is the real McClooty. The biblical Bottomless Pit, wherein lurk the demonic beasties that frequent those unholy and unfathomable regions.’

  ‘I frankly have misgivings regarding this,’ I now said. ‘I fear that catastrophe awaits you, should you not cover up this pit hole posthaste. Beasties and unfathomable regions notwithstanding, yourself, or your daddy, might step or trip unwarily and—’ And I mimed the tumbling down and down.

  ‘Nice miming,’ said Norman. ‘And point well taken. But considering the benefits to Mankind that my discovery will bring, I can hardly just cover it up again, can I?’

  I did shruggings of the shoulders and set free the hint of a sigh. ‘Do pardon me,’ I said, politely, ‘but what, precisely, might these benefits be?’

  ‘Oh, do wake up,’ Norman said. And he tapped at his left temple with the forefinger of his left hand. ‘It is the Bottomless Pit. Which means that anything you dump into it will keep falling for ever and ever and never hit the bottom.’

  I shrugged once more.

  ‘Which means,’ Norman continued, ‘that it could become the most valuable resource on the planet. How ironic, eh? That something deemed so evil can have the potential to do so much good.’

  ‘I am perplexed,’ said I.

  And, ‘Rubbish,’ said Norman.

  ‘No, I really am.’

  ‘Not you talking rubbish, although you so often do. I mean all the rubbish of Mankind, all the detritus and junk, the toxic waste, the contaminated muck. The whole damn kit and caboodle.’

  And Norman mimed tumbling down and down.

  ‘All flushed down the Bottomless Pit,’ he said. ‘Naturally I will make a small charge for each dumping. I feel that the pecuniary benefits might be substantial. And—’ and he buffed his fingernails upon his lapel ‘—I would not be at all surprised if I was awarded a Nobel Prize for my services to Humankind.’ And Norman grinned some more.

  And I said, ‘No. No. No. No, no, no upon so many levels. That is not a good idea, Norman. Not a good idea at all. I fear that the beasties will take umbrage and also the good people of Brentford, who might not take too kindly to you turning the borough into the waste disposal capital of the world.’

  Norman made a thoughtful face. ‘You might have a point,’ he conceded. ‘What if they brought the waste around to the back? And at night?’

  ‘And the beasties?’

  ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’

  ‘Carefully,’ said I and tapped at my nose. ‘Most carefully indeed.’

  And Norman grinned and then he said, ‘So how might I help you, sir?’

  ‘I would like five Wild Woodbines, please, my good man,’ I said.

  And Norman, still grinning, shook his head. ‘You’re underage,’ he said to me. ‘Now please get out of the shop.’

  3

  He parted with those Wild Woodbines, did Norman. And with a box of Swan Vestas. And he did not charge me for either. Because, as I told him, if he did not hand over same I would find myself forced to mention to his daddy that the shop now smelled of brimstone, which quite spoiled its period ambience.

  I tucked both cigarettes and matches into my pockets and prepared to take my leave, warning Norman just the once more that he should give the Bottomless Pit business a severe good thinking about. And that although I could see the sound foundations for financial opportunity, the probability of cataclysmic repercussions, of an apocalyptic or Armageddon End Times nature, tainted these considerably. And then I asked, ‘What are those?’

  And Norman said, ‘What do you mean?’

  And I pointed at what I meant and asked once more as to what it was that I was pointing at.

  ‘Why, Champagne truffles, of course,’ said Norman. ‘Whatever did you think they were?’

  ‘I did not think anything. Which was why I asked.’

  ‘They’re everyone’s favourite,’ said Norman. ‘We can’t get enough of them to satisfy demand.’

  ‘That is evidentially untrue.’

  ‘It’s a figure of speech, or term of endearment or suchlike. But they are very popular and have been for as long as I can remember.’

  ‘Then how come I have never heard of them?’

  Norman shrugged his shopkeeper’s shoulders. ‘I’ve no idea. You’ll be telling me next that you’ve never heard of Kirschwasser truffles.’ And Norman did lip-smackings and rubbed at his belly. ‘Or Mandel Splitters. Or Mandel Krokant Karos. Or Alex Vierecks. Or—’

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head with vigour. ‘You are making up all these names.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Norman. ‘They’re up on the shelves. In the old sweetie jars. The ones with the nostalgic-looking labels.’

  And I looked on and I beheld. And it was as Norman had said. There amongst the sweeties that I knew and loved were others that I knew not of.

  ‘For such is printed on the nostalgic-looking labels,’ said Norman. ‘So such must they be QED.’

  ‘I like not this conversation,’ I said, ‘and I know not of these confections. Surely this is some kind of elaborate hoax.’

  ‘It is no such thing,’ said Norman, a-shaking of his head. ‘But isn’t it interesting how hoaxes are always “elaborate”? I’d have thought that a quite simple hoax would be sufficient to fool most people. Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Indeed,’ I agreed. And I viewed once more the anomalous sweetie jars. ‘Well, I am away now,’ I said. ‘Off for breakfast and then possibly to search for regular employment.’

  ‘What?’ And Norman made gagging, choking sounds. ‘Regular employment? You? Oh, wait, I see. Your Aunt Edna is prodding you in that direction, isn’t she? I’ll bet she’s threatening to inform upon you if you don’t take a job and soon.’

  ‘Well—’ I said.

  ‘Then best take yourself and your ill-won spoils off to the Hall of Labour at the hurry-up. The bounties that the Party offers to informers nowadays make the prospect of informing, even upon one’s own, a tempting proposition.’

  ‘What?’ I now said to Norman. ‘What are you talking about? Your words are strange to me and if there is meaning hidden within them, then this meaning surpasseth my understanding.’

  ‘Sometimes you have a lovely way with words.’ Norman pointed towards the door. ‘Why not take yourself off somewhere and hide and have a nice smoke, or something.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘And I will pay you for the fags and the matches. I am not quite feeling myself today, it must be something I ate last night. Or something.’

  ‘Something you drank,’ said Norman. ‘Something you drank last night. I was with you, don’t you recall? You got in that big argument with the landlord about the beer.’

  ‘I did?’ And then I recalled that I had. And how Norman had been with John and me the previous night. ‘I had forgotten that business about the beer,’ I said to Norman.

  ‘Well, I haven’t. How embarrassing was that? “I want English beer,” you went, “I want a pint of Large.” They haven’t served beer like that since the Second World War, you nutter.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said and I felt somewhat giddy.

  And I paid Norman for both ciggies and matches, because I felt bad about blackmailing him out of them, and I wished him well for the balance of the day. And then I took my leave.

  I had now reached a state of no small confusion. I did recall, although blurrily, that I had argued with the landlord about English ale. I had wanted it and the landlord had told me not to be absurd and that fine Rhineland lagers were good enough for any Party Member and that I should keep my dissenting opinions to myself because walls had ears.

  And there had been some unpleasantness and I had been ejected fro
m the establishment. John and Norman hard upon my tumbling heels.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said once more, although this time only to myself. ‘I do not think that I am altogether the full shilling. Perhaps with a hearty breakfast inside me all will fall into place.’

  And so I took myself off to the Wife’s Legs Café.

  The Wife’s Legs Café lacked not for its share of nostalgia. It had been fitted out in the middle years of the rockin’ fifties, with much chrome work and a frothy-coffee machine and had since remained untouched.

  I entered with a stepping that was not quite so breezy as it had formerly been, but still had a smidgen of spring left in it. Behind the counter stood the wife, as lovely as a bonnet that lacked for a bee (as the poet will have it) and a-stirring at something in a great big pot.

  Chairs and tables spoke eloquently of a decade past and supported, respectively, the bottoms and breakfasts of the Wife’s Legs’ patrons. Well-knit working men were these, with mighty bottom cleavage (or artisan’s cleft, as they preferred to call it), a-tucking into their tucker. There were ladies of the night-time also, dining before heading home. A dwarf or two, as the circus was in town. And one or two fellows in sharp black uniforms of a type that I could not readily identify. These gazed morosely around and about and conversed in muted Neanderthal tones. I shrugged a shrug, rubbed palm upon palm and took me up to the counter.

  ‘Good morning to you, the wife,’ said I to the proprietress.

  ‘Good morning to you, Jim,’ replied this lady. ‘John not with you this morning?’

  ‘I suspect that he is probably having a lie-in. He imbibed somewhat freely last evening and lacks for my hardy disposition.’

  Certain sounds issued from the mouth of the wife. Tinkling fairy-like sounds, not unlike those of stifled laughter.

  ‘Quite so,’ she said, when she had done with this. ‘You certainly are a regular little storm trooper and no mistake.’

  ‘This term is strange to me, sweet lady,’ said I. ‘But if it is meant as the compliment that I take it to be, then so shall I take it as such.’