Retromancer

by Robert Rankin

  ‘I do have to say,’ I said, between polite spoonings, ‘that I do not really think that delivering a speech to Winston Churchill qualifies as a case.’

  ‘It’s a brief case,’ said Hugo Rune, tapping at the very one that rested in his lap. ‘And there is a war on, you know.’

  ‘I remain unconvinced,’ I said. ‘Although perhaps a real case has yet to present itself in some subtle furtive fashion.’

  And then there came an explosion that drowned out everything else.

  And then there came that commissionaire, who hurried to Hugo Rune. Urgent words entered Himself’s ear; Himself nodded to these. The commissionaire departed and Hugo Rune pressed on with his soup.

  ‘Well go on, then,’ I said to him. ‘Tell me what he whispered.’

  ‘Oh, it was nothing, Rizla,’ said the Magus. ‘Our taxi was hit by a bomb, nothing more.’

  Which caused me to choke on my soup. ‘Hit by a bomb?’ I said when I could. ‘We were in that cab only minutes ago. We could have been blown up.’

  ‘Such is the way with wars, young Rizla. But come now, calm yourself. Getting all hot under the collar plays havoc with the digestion.’

  ‘I quite liked that cab,’ I said, making a grumpy face.

  ‘I’ll let you choose another. There’s a row of them outside.’

  Liam Proven’s Lords-a-Leaping Jazz Cats struck up the lively refrain ‘My Love for You Is as Inappropriate as a Grocer’s Apostrophe, Yet Sweeter than a Butcher’s Turn-Up’.

  Which was so damned catchy that I knew I would be whistling it for months.

  Hugo Rune perused his pocket watch. ‘I suggest we do keep this luncheon light, as I previously suggested. We will have time for no more than four courses, so choose with care. My appointment with Winnie must be kept, to the minute and the second of the hour.’

  I was back to feeling all uncomfortable once more. The thought of Hugo Rune actually arriving on time for something, other than a restaurant opening, was, to me, unheard of.

  ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man, young Rizla.’

  I shrugged and said that I agreed. Although I did wonder why we had not ordered all our other courses at the same time as we had ordered our soup. But fathoming the hows and whys of Hugo Rune had never proved a satisfying pastime. ‘I will have the steak,’ I said to the well-dressed waiter.

  ‘And for sir’s other three courses?’

  ‘Three more steaks.’

  Which tickled Hugo Rune.

  And so we dined upon wondrous food and consumed wondrous wines. Smoked wondrous Wild Woodbines (for these were apparently quite the rage amongst the bright young things who thronged the Savoy Grill). And downed most wondrous brandies.

  And although I did not know it then, this would be the very last five-star belly-buster that I would take with Hugo Rune in England. Which is why now, thinking back upon it, I treasure the memory.

  Even that of our rapid and somewhat undignified departure.

  It had seemed such a trifling matter, really. Hugo Rune had scribbled a request onto one of his calling cards and had it passed to Mr Proven. The tune in question that he wished to hear being that ever-popular standard ‘It’s Always Raining Dumplings When You’re on the Gravy Train’. Mr Proven bowed to this request, announced it through the microphone and then turned with his baton to the band. But then a question of tempo arose which somewhat spoiled the mood.

  ‘It’s Always Raining Dumplings’ is always played as ‘swing’. And as everyone knows, swing is basically a four-four shuffle. As opposed to rock ’n’ roll, which is all straight eights with a back beat, or waltz, which is three-four with an anticipated second beat. Swing is rarely, if ever, in fact never never, presented in five-four. An unnatural rhythm, which although finding favour in the nineteen sixties with such luminaries as Don Van Vliet, brought gratings to the nerves of the bright young things who thronged to the Savoy Grill.

  It was the drummer who started the trouble, but is that not always the way?

  Liam Proven had prefaced the requested tune with a most amusing jape which ran in this fashion:

  Liam: I say, I say, I say, what do you call a fellow who hangs around with musicians?

  Guitarist: A drummer.

  Somewhat ancient that gag is now, but bright and new back then. The drummer failed to respond with the drum-roll and cymbal-crash and when the song began took to a five-four time signature that threw all his jovial comrades out of tempo. I thought this most amusing and clapped my hands to the beat as best I could. Mr Proven, however, drew his baton across his throat and demanded that the band begin again with the drummer called to order. The band began again, but this time the drummer put down his sticks and took to reading a book.

  At this point Mr Rune rose unexpectedly from his chair, took himself over to the bandstand, mounted same, struck the drummer from his stool with a single swing of his stout stick, took up the tools of the drummer’s trade and hammered out a solo that would have done credit to Keith Moon. The crowd stared, boggle-eyed and droopy-jawed, and when Mr Rune had completed his solo there was that certain silence which is generally known as the calm before the storm.

  I remain to this day uncertain as to who threw the first punch. I think that it might have been me. The musicians certainly attacked Mr Rune, wielding their instruments as weapons in a manner that would one day find favour with Keith Richards. But Mr Rune was trained in the arts of Dim Mak. So it was probably his bringing down most of the band, including Mr Proven, that began the riot proper. And as some bright young thing was trying to climb onto the bandstand and have a go at Mr Rune, I felt it quite right to punch him.

  I think it was an ARP man who fired the first shot. They were apparently allowed (in fact encouraged) to carry firearms and discharge them at whoever they pleased if they felt that it was necessary. He possibly shot the American serviceman by accident, as I think he was aiming at Mr Rune. But the American serviceman’s companions-at-arms, who were all fairly armed to the teeth, returned fire.

  But who threw the Molotov cocktail?

  And why, I had to ask myself, had anyone brought a Molotov cocktail into the Savoy Grill in the first place?

  I felt now that I probably would not be revisiting the Savoy Grill in the nineteen sixties, but it had made for a most memorable luncheon.

  We felt it prudent to make a most rapid (if somewhat undignified) departure at this time and I snatched up the briefcase and we took our leave at speed.

  We discovered outside, parked beside a hole in the ground where our conveyance had been, a number of unoccupied taxicabs. Their drivers, being cockneys, who only love jellied eels more than a good punch-up, had hastened inside, drawn by the sounds of gunfire and mayhem and were presently warring with waiters and bellboys and others of their kind.

  ‘We’ll take this one,’ said Hugo Rune, a-dusting of his tweeds. ‘The key is in the ignition. Broadcasting House if you will, please, Rizla.’

  48

  Now I really took to Broadcasting House, oh what a wonderful place. I parked the cab and stepped from it to view that famous façade.

  Designed by the renowned architect Sir Thomas Dalberty, in the zucker näse style, as a lasting and poignant tribute to his wife Doris, opera singer and nasal pianist.

  The flanged nostril atrium with its double-bow fronting and great use made of natural light conveys no hint of what is to come when one enters the perhaps infamous network of corridors. Constructed, it is to be believed, to resemble the pattern of neural pathways within the cerebellum of a snail.

  Not for nothing did Captain Beefheart pen the words: ‘This is recorded through a fly’s ear and you have to have a fly’s eye to see it.’ And although the connection might seem at first superficial, if not downright tenuous, as Mr Rune so aptly put it, ‘not on a wing and a prayer flies the wasp, but all on the toss of a coin’.

  ‘Do you think it will be all right just to leave the cab here?’ I asked Hugo Rune, who appeared to be applying make-up. ‘And what
are you doing to yourself?’

  ‘Lock the cab and bring the key and I am applying make-up.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because this is Broadcasting House.’

  ‘Are you hoping to be taken for Vera Lynn? I think Fange has that covered.’

  ‘I must look my best for the studio, Rizla. The lights do age one terribly.’

  ‘I thought Mr Churchill’s speech was going out on the wireless,’ I said.

  ‘It is,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Lock the cab and follow me.’

  And that is what I did.

  There is something almost magical about the atrium of Broadcasting House. Perhaps because so many famous people have moved through it, loitered around and about it, swanned within and posed throughout it, been there and sat there and stood.

  ‘I hope we see someone famous,’ I said as we entered.

  ‘We are bound to, Rizla,’ replied Mr Rune. ‘But please remember who you are with and try to remain dignified.’

  ‘Oh look,’ I said, pointing. ‘Is that not Valentine Dyle?’

  ‘Where? Where?’ went Hugo Rune. ‘Let me get his autograph.’

  I looked at Mr Rune.

  He looked at me.

  Oh how we laughed together.

  ‘I will have to ask you gentlemen to keep the laughter down,’ said an official-looking body with a BBC-issue gas-mask case and a hint of the Lochs and Glens. ‘I am the groundskeeper here and this is the BBC.’

  ‘I have an appointment,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘at fifteen-hundred hours with the PM. You will find my name in the book if you look. That name is Hugo Rune.’

  ‘Hoots mon,’ said the official-looking body. ‘Can ye hear that wee scratchin’ sound? I ken that there’s a moose loose aboot this Broadcasting Hoose.’

  And I looked once more at Hugo Rune.

  But he was looking elsewhere.

  Elsewhere, as it happened, happened to be towards Miss Elsa Lancaster. I recognised her immediately, as The Bride of Frankenstein was one of my favourite movies. But who was that with her, I wondered. It was not Boris Karloff.

  ‘That is Winston Churchill,’ said Hugo Rune. And he waved to this fellow, who waved back at him. ‘Just in case you were wondering.’

  ‘That is never Winnie,’ I said to Hugo Rune. ‘Winnie was short and fat and looked like a bulldog with a big cigar in its chops.’

  ‘I told you you wouldn’t like him.’

  ‘But that is not him. That is a tall skinny man with an eye-pencil moustache. That looks more like George Cole than Winston Churchill.’

  ‘That,’ said Hugo Rune, in a whisper and behind his hand, ‘is because it is George Cole. He plays the part of Winston Churchill. And very well he does it too, when he’s all done up in prosthetics.’

  ‘No no no,’ I said and shook my head to my no-ings. ‘Winston Churchill is Winston Churchill, no one ever played him.’

  ‘Lots of actors have played him over the years, young Rizla.’

  ‘Yes, but that was in films and on TV—’

  ‘And on the wireless?’

  ‘Yes, on the wireless too.’

  ‘I rest my case,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Point made QED.’

  ‘No. No. No,’ I said once more. ‘That is not what I mean and you know it.’

  ‘Rizla.’ And Hugo Rune now drew me to a quiet corner and whispered into my ear. ‘George Cole does the voice. Other actors, stunt-doubles if you will, do the morale-boosting walkabouts of the East End, or go off to peace talks and war talks and whatnots. But there is no specific Winston Churchill. He is a construct. An idea. An ideal. Cometh the hour, cometh the man, and things of that nature generally.

  ‘And—’ And Mr Rune raised his finger to staunch the flow of my protests. ‘Even if there were a real Winston Churchill, he would not be running the English side of this war. The speech within this briefcase originated at the Ministry of Serendipity. And, as you know full well, the tactics employed in the military campaign against the Reich are put together by the computer Colossus at Bletchley Park.’

  ‘So there is no real Winston Churchill? I find this most disappointing. ’

  ‘We’d be lost without George Cole,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘No one can do the voice as good as George.’ And Mr Rune perused his watch. ‘Ten minutes to go,’ he said.

  The official-looking body who had vanished from our sight now reappeared with a clipboard held tightly between official-looking fingers. ‘Och braw the noo,’ he intoned. ‘If ye’ll sign this piece of paper, I’ll have—’

  But he did not finish.

  An explosion roared outside in the street and our latest cab went skywards.

  Having done the instinctive duckings, Mr Rune and I returned to our feet and viewed the devastation without.

  ‘Do I see some kind of pattern emerging here?’ I asked. ‘Has God got it in for taxis, or is some basic engine design fault bringing itself to the fore?’

  Hugo Rune once more perused his watch. ‘That one was a little too close for comfort,’ he said. ‘You will pardon me, Rizla, whilst I take myself off to the Gents.’

  And with that he did so, leaving me to stand around and wait. But I really did not mind too much about the waiting, as it did give me an opportunity to see if I could spy out any more stars of the wireless set.

  And would not you know it, or would not you not, I spied out the great Harry ‘put on your plimsolls, Mother, I’ve got a dose of the runs’ MacKentyre. Charlie ‘if it looks like a ferret and smells like a ferret, it shouldn’t be stirring my tea’ MacAlistair. And Jimmy ‘boil up the orange sauce, Uncle, I’ve just been bowled out for a duck’ MacMackMack. And—

  ‘Cease, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune, returning. ‘It is neither big, nor clever. But, say, isn’t that Leslie “if God is dog spelled backwards, then what the kcuf is taht?” Tomlinson?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Though it does look like him. Are you all better now?’

  ‘Better now?’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Ah, I see what you mean. The taking myself off to the Gents. Just needed to highlight my cheekbones - what do you think?’

  ‘I think we have become caseless and plotless and lost,’ I said. ‘And now I know that Winnie is not Winnie, I think I would just like to go home and have a good sulk.’

  ‘And miss all the excitement?’

  I did head-bobbings to signify ‘weighing-up’. ‘We nearly got beaten to pulp at the Savoy Grill and the two cabs we requisitioned have exploded. Let us say that I have had sufficient excitement for today and perhaps a case will present itself tomorrow.’

  ‘It has already presented itself,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘You have failed to put two and two together. I, however, have done that very thing. Come, Rizla, destiny awaits.’

  At precisely three of the afternoon clock, myself and Mr Rune, George Cole, a radio producer called Neil and a number of probably nameless secret service fellows in morning suits and bowler hats gathered in a green room on the second floor of Broadcasting House. With a gravity that was little less than ludicrous, Hugo Rune clicked open the briefcase and passed a sheet of paper to the pretend prime minister.

  George Cole examined this, turned the sheet over and looked at the back and then turned it front-wise again. ‘And is this all there is?’ he asked, in the voice of Winston Churchill. ‘Nothing about fighting them on the beaches and in the fields and over the cricket greens and up the back passages or whatnot?’

  Hugo Rune shook his head. ‘Only what you see, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I could perhaps put in something about “some chicken, some neck”, or how this was “their finest hour”. What exactly is my motivation? Should I pad it out with a bit of King Lear?’

  ‘Best to stick to what it says on the paper,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘But there is one thing you could do.’

  After we had left Broadcasting House, I thanked Hugo Rune.

  ‘That was very decent of you,’ I said, ‘asking him to sign his autograph for me.’

  ‘For you?’ said the Perfect Master. ‘For me,
if you please.’

  But he was only joking.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘should we listen to a wireless set and hear what this highly important message to the nation might be?’

  But Hugo Rune shook his head. ‘We should be getting on with the exciting stuff,’ he said. ‘And to do this we must return to the Ministry of Serendipity.’

  ‘I really have lost the plot,’ I said. ‘Would you care to explain?’

  ‘All in good time, young Rizla. But see - an unattended cab. I think you will find that your key fits the lock. Mornington Crescent, please. And as fast as you can.’

  I halted the cab outside the Lyons Corner House, wherein lay the lift to the underground Ministry. I made to leave the cab, but Mr Rune said no.

  ‘Stay here, Rizla, and keep the engine running. And be prepared to drive at speed the moment I return.’

  And with that said Hugo Rune left the cab and vanished into the Lyons Corner House. I sat idly brumming the engine and tinkering about with things that did not belong to me. This tinkering led to me opening the glove compartment and finding to my joy not only gloves, but a service revolver as well. I twirled this dangerously on my finger and did aimings and the mouthings of phrases such as, ‘Take a roadside rest, Fritz,’ and, ‘Cop this, Adolf, kapow kapow kapow.’

  And then suddenly Hugo Rune returned, jumped into the rear seat and shouted, ‘The cab up ahead, the one just leaving the corner, after it!’

  ‘You would not care to explain?’ I asked.

  ‘After it, Rizla!’ cried Mr Hugo Rune.

  And so I gave chase. And clearly I was giving chase, because the cab across the street took off at speed and, with ne’er a care for a passing cleric on a bike, did swervings and acceleratings too.

  ‘Faster, Rizla, faster. We can’t let this blighter escape.’