The clerk explained all about it.
Now it doesn’t take long to explain about the Web, and the average person can grasp all the essentials and gain a good working knowledge in less than a lifespan. Soap listened patiently for at least five minutes.
‘So I just touch any key,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said the clerk and departed.
And so Soap Distant, voyager to the realms belooooow, became a surfer of the Web. The Web, the Web, the wonderful Web, from which all knowledge flows.
It’s all there on the Web, you know. The whole wide world and then some.
Of course, you do have to know where to look.
Soap had no idea, but he got straight down to the action.
He typed in QUEEN ELIZABETH II and was quite amazed by what flashed up before him. And then he typed in ASSASSINATION OF.
And then he sat right back and stared.
According to the Web, Queen Elizabeth had been shot dead while on stage during a Beatles concert at Wembley Stadium in nineteen eighty.
‘A Beatles concert in nineteen eighty?’ Soap called up THE BEATLES.
And according to the Web it was true. The Beatles had played Wembley in nineteen eighty. The show had been organized by John Lennon, who had apparently become something of a royalist after receiving a visit from Prince Charles while he lay in hospital recovering from the shooting incident.
‘Shooting incident?’ said Soap. ‘But Lennon should be dead.’
Soap called up JOHN LENNON: SHOOTING and learned to his amazement how the great one’s life had been saved by a mystery man who never came forward to claim the fortune Lennon offered him. All that was known of the mystery man was that he wore a black T-shirt and shorts.
‘Oh ho,’ said Soap. ‘Oh ho.’
But as ‘oh ho’ didn’t help a lot, Soap continued his search.
He backtracked to the Wembley gig and boggled at the list of support bands. Not only had The Doors played there. But also the Jimi Hendrix Experience. And Janis Joplin.
‘Methinks I see a pattern here,’ said Soap.
‘Would you please keep the noise down,’ said the clerk, poking a clerkish head around the door.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Soap. ‘But could you help me here?’
The clerk sighed and plodded over. ‘What is the trouble now? I do have things to be doing.’
‘All the bands listed here,’ said Soap. ‘They all really played at Wembley in nineteen eighty, did they?’
The clerk perused the list. ‘Yes. It was a legendary gig. The video of that gig has outsold any other.’
‘Really?’ said Soap. ‘And this would be a Virgin video, would it?’
‘What other make of video is there?’ asked the clerk.
‘Just checking,’ said Soap. ‘Now go away, please.’
‘Well, really!’ said the clerk and went away.
Soap surfed the Web until lunchtime. It was all action stuff. Well, at least it was sometimes. Well, perhaps it wasn’t really, to be honest. No, in fact, actually, it wasn’t all action at all. It was just sitting at a TV screen and typing at a keyboard, and although there are ways of putting a spin on that kind of thing and making it sound really interesting—
By lunchtime Soap had had his fill of the Web. He had learned from it all he could learn from it. This hadn’t been all that he’d wanted to learn, but he had learned the Web’s evil secret.
And the evil secret of the Web is this, my friends:
That all you can ever learn from The Web is what the people who put the stuff onto it want you to learn.
‘Right,’ said Soap. ‘Well, that’s quite enough of that. Time for a bit of action, I think.’
And right on cue (for there is no other way) came that good old police loudhailer voice.
‘John Omally,’ it called. ‘John Omally, this is the Virgin Police Service. We know you’re in there. Come out with your hands held high.’
‘Oh,’ said Soap, to no one but himself. ‘John Omally, what?’
‘You have been positively identified from a frame of surveillance footage as the man aiding Soap Distant to assist a wanted criminal in his escape from justice. To whit, one David Carson, also known as the Cannibal Chef and Brentford’s Most Wanted Man.’
‘Oh,’ said Soap once again to himself. ‘But how?’
‘In case you’re wondering how we know you’re in there, our police crime computer is linked into every other national computer and it has just registered your library ticket being fed into the Memorial Library system for renewal.’
‘Some of a gun,’ mumbled Soap. ‘That’s clever.’
‘Well, actually,’ the loudhailer voice continued, ‘in case you were thinking how clever that was, I have to own up that it’s not how we tracked you down. You see, the clerk at the library desk just telephoned us to say that you have a library book outstanding on your card. How to Play the Stratocaster. And you should have returned it fifteen years ago. There’s a two-thousand-pound fine to pay.’
‘It never rains but it pours,’ said Soap in a philosophical tone.
‘So come on out now, or we’ll come in and get you.’
‘Very tricky,’ said Soap.
‘And get a move on,’ called the voice. ‘We want to have our lunch.’
‘Righty-right.’ The man from belooow considered his options. He could try and bluff his way out. Say that he wasn’t John Omally but had just popped into the library to renew John’s ticket for him. Soap shook his head at that. It lacked the action he sorely craved. Some other way out, then.
Soap looked up and all round and about. There was only the one door into the reference section and this led from the vestibule and the front entrance. Outside which, the police were no doubt waiting.
But there was also the window. And he was on the ground floor this time. Soap considered the window. It was a most splendid window. A stained-glass window, bequeathed to the borough by its most famous son, the author P.P. Penrose. It featured scenes from the adventures of Lazlo Woodbine, the most popular fictional detective of the twentieth century, the creation of P.P. Penrose.
Soap considered the window some more. How would Lazlo have got out of this? He would have pulled off some ingenious stunt. But a stunt that had plenty of action.
Soap squared up before the window. ‘Time for action,’ he said.
The police gave Soap five minutes and then they rushed the building. They burst into the vestibule with big guns drawn, visors down and tear gas at the ready.
The clerk at the desk looked up at them. ‘He’s in the reference section,’ said the clerk. ‘Lying face down on the floor, unconscious.’
‘Unconscious?’ said a constable, a-cocking his big gun.
‘He tried to jump through the window. But it’s made of vandal-proof Plexiglas. He knocked himself unconscious.’
The constables chuckled as constables do and went in to pick up the body.
‘Not that door,’ said the clerk. ‘It’s the other one.’
The police went in through the other one and the clerk went off for lunch.
The clerk was several streets away before he stopped walking and started to laugh.
‘I’m sorry I had to do that,’ said Soap Distant, for the clerk was he. ‘But if I hadn’t bopped the clerk on the head and changed clothes, I might really have had to jump through that stained-glass window.’
And Soap Distant went off on his way, secure at least in the knowledge that P.P. Penrose was not turning in his grave for the loss of his window. The great writer would surely also have admired Soap’s cunning escape. For although it lacked for action, it certainly was ingenious.
13
‘Wake up, Jim. Wake up there.’
Smack.
‘Wake up, Jim. Wake up.’
Shake, shake.
‘Loosen his collar,’ said Neville.
‘I’ll loosen his wallet instead,’ said John. ‘I think the weight has pulled him over.’
Smack
, smack, shake and loosen.
‘Oh Marilyn……oh oh. Oh.’ And Jim returned to consciousness.
Omally helped him onto a stool. ‘Whatever happened?’ he asked.
Jim took his pint in a shaky hand and sucked upon his ale. ‘Don’t ever mention that again, John,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever mention The Pooley.’
‘The Pooley?’ asked Neville. ‘What is The Pooley?’
‘It’s nothing.’ Pooley flapped with his pintless paw. ‘It’s nothing and it isn’t what I’ve done and it isn’t what I’m going to do ever.’
‘Well, I’m glad we’ve cleared that up,’ said Neville. ‘Now kindly get out of my pub. You’re barred.’
‘Excuse me, please?’ Jim spluttered into his pint.
‘Coming into my bar last night, buying a round of drinks for twelve young louts in shorts—’
‘A round for twelve?’ and John did splutterings too.
‘He did,’ said Neville. ‘And now “Have a pint yourself, Neville.” What are you trying to do, Pooley? Push me over the edge?’
‘But—’ said Jim.
‘But me no buts. I’ve heard about bars where the patrons offer to buy the barman a drink. ‘Have one yourself, barlord,’ they say. But twenty long years I’ve run this establishment and not once, not once, mind, have any one of you tight-fisted sods ever offered to buy me a drink.’
‘Not once?’ said Jim. ‘I’m sure I—’
‘Not once. And now you’ve ruined it. I was hoping to get into the Guinness Book of Records.’
‘Were you?’ John asked.
‘No, of course I wasn’t! But I’m warning you, Jim. One more. One more of anything and you are out of this pub for good.’
Omally raised his ever-calming palms towards the barman. ‘I’ll see that he behaves,’ he said, steering Jim away from the bar and off to a quiet corner table.
John sat down and Jim sat down and John stared hard at Jim. ‘You bought a round for twelve?’ he whispered. ‘You, a round for twelve?’
‘I don’t wish to talk about it, John.’ Jim took another pull on his pint. ‘It was a very trying evening. I’d rather just forget all about it, if you don’t mind. But you must promise me this. Never, ever, speak of The Pooley again. Do you promise?’
‘I promise,’ said John. ‘If it means so much to you.’
‘It does and I thank you. And so.’
‘And so?’ asked John.
‘And so down to business. I have arranged for the band to meet us here at seven o’clock. To celebrate the founding of Brentford Records. Which gives us a bit of time before they arrive, to work out our business plan.’
‘Business plan.’ Omally gave approving nods. ‘Very professional, Jim.’
‘Thank you, John. Now the first thing we’re going to need is a recording studio. There are some vacant units on the old industrial estate down by Cider Island. There’s one called Hangar Eighteen that I like the look of. We’ll rent that and fit it out and—’
‘Have to stop you there,’ said John.
‘Oh yes, and why?’
‘Why? Do you know how much it costs to fit out a recording studio? All the equipment you need?’
‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Jim. ‘Which is why I’ll leave that side of it to you. Ducking and diving and wheeling and dealing is what you’re all about.’
‘Yes I know, but—’
‘Come on now, John. Pull your weight.’
‘It’s not a matter of pulling my weight. It could cost at least half a million quid to fit out a recording studio. Probably much more than that.’
‘Fortune favours the brave,’ said Jim. ‘Now, regarding the look of Hangar Eighteen. I think we should go for something really distinctive. Something eye-catching. I have a vision of a huge hairdryer up on the roof. Or, even better, a dirigible shaped like a hairdryer, moored to the roof and floating in the sky and—’
‘Stop!’ said Omally. ‘Stop stop stop.’
‘You’re not keen on the dirigible?’
‘I’m not keen on any of it. We don’t need a recording studio, Jim. It isn’t necessary.’
‘It isn’t?’ said Jim. ‘But how can we make records if we don’t have a recording studio?’
‘We’ll record the band when they play live. On a portable mixing desk.’
Pooley gave this a moment’s thought. ‘That’s brilliant,’ he said.
‘And we’ll get Norman to turn out as many copies of the tapes as we want. We’ll pay him a retainer, or two bob a tape, or something.’
‘That is also brilliant,’ Pooley said.
‘And then we’ll distribute them to the record shops.’
‘That is not so brilliant,’ Pooley said.
‘Not so brilliant? Why is that?’
‘Because the record shops won’t take them. I’ve discussed all this with Ricky. The shops are all owned by the big record corporations. They won’t sell tapes that are independently produced.’
‘They’re rotters,’ said Omally.
‘I agree, and that’s why we’ll beat them. Brentford Records are going to have their own retail outlets. A chain of independent record shops.’
‘What?’ went John. ‘What?’
‘A chain of small shops up and down the country.’
John Omally shook his head in a weary kind of a way. ‘Jim, Jim, Jim,’ he said to Jim. ‘And where will the money come from?’
Pooley smiled a broad and cheery smile. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I was wondering about that myself. But as you’ve just saved us half a million quid on the recording studio, we can use that money.’
Omally buried his head in his hands and Jim got another round in.
The arrival of the Gandhis at precisely seven o’clock came as a bit of a surprise. And if their punctuality glared into the face of rock ’n’ roll, their appearance positively gobbed in its eye.
The Gandhis looked—
Respectable.
The four male members wore matching dark grey business suits. Their big hair had been slicked back and tucked down the collars of their white shirts. White shirts! And these white shirts were buttoned at the neck. And these white shirts had ties!
Litany, grey moustached but make-up free, favoured a demure beige two-piece number over a white cotton blouse. She wore sensible shoes on her feet and she looked like a lady librarian. She even had a briefcase!
‘Jesus Jones!’ said John Omally.
‘By the prophet’s beard!’ said Jim.
‘Good evening, madam, good evening, gents,’ said Neville the part-time barman.
Litany smiled upon Neville and Neville pinked up at the cheeks.
‘I’ve heard you draw the finest pints of Large in Brentford,’ she said.
Neville’s pigeon chest came swelling up his shirt front.
‘Then five pints, please,’ said Litany. ‘The gentleman there will be paying.’
Neville glanced at the gentleman there. The gentleman there was Jim.
‘Hmm,’ went Neville, his pigeon chest falling. ‘That gentleman there. I see.’
That gentleman there had his mouth hanging open. The gentleman with him had too.
‘Is that really them?’ whispered John.
‘It is,’ Jim whispered. ‘It is.’
‘But why are they—’
‘Dressed like that? Because I asked them to, John. I didn’t want Neville getting all upset, so I asked them to dress down a bit.’
Omally shook his head. ‘Well, we can’t just sit here staring. Let’s give them the big hello.’
Pooley made the introductions. John shook hands all round, lingering somewhat longer than was perhaps necessary on the shaking of Litany’s.
Litany smiled up at John.
And John smiled down at Litany.
And whatever thoughts were now going through John’s head, he kept very much to himself. But had these thoughts been set to music and brought out on a CD, it is a certainty that the CD would have needed one of those labels that says PA
RENTAL GUIDANCE: EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT.
‘Can I have my hand back, please?’ asked Litany.
‘Oh yes,’ said John. ‘Won’t you all come over and join us at our table? Jim will take care of the drinks. Won’t you, Jim?’
‘I will,’ said Pooley. ‘I will.’
Neville brought a tray out and loaded up the pints. ‘Now that’s more like it, Jim,’ he said. ‘A bit of class in the bar. Estate agents, are they? Or accountants?’
‘Something like that,’ said Jim, fishing out his wad and peeling off a ten-spot.
Neville held it up to the light. ‘This better be kosher,’ he said.
‘But it’s the change you gave me from the last round.’
‘Exactly,’ said Neville. ‘So watch it.’
Pooley struggled across with the tray and set it down on the table. ‘Don’t I get a seat?’ he asked.
‘Bring one over, Jim,’ said John, who was sitting next to Litany. ‘I’d give you my seat, but I’m sitting here.’
Pooley dragged a chair across and squeezed himself in between Gandhis.
A description of the Gandhi men might be useful here. But sadly there is little to be said. In their suits and with their hair dragged back, they all looked much of a muchness. Tall and lean, with sticky-out cheekbones, big on sunken eyes. Very much like brothers, they looked. But not at all like the Osmonds.
There was Ricky Zed, on lead guitar. Dead Boy Doveston on bass. Matchbox Finial on rhythm guitar and occasional keyboards, and Pigarse Peter Westlake on drums. There would no doubt have also been Adolf Hitler on vibes and Val Doonican as himself had this been the Bonzos’ Intro and the Outro. But it wasn’t, so there wasn’t.
So to speak.
Jim pushed pints around the table, smiling all round and about.
‘Now, before we begin,’ said Litany, ‘there is something that Pigarse wants to say. Isn’t there, Pigarse?’
‘I have a morbid fear of identical twins,’ said Pigarse.
‘No, not that,’ said Litany.
‘My father once pushed a Barbie doll up his bottom for art,’ said Pigarse.
‘No, not that either.’
‘I’m very sorry for punching you last night in the Shrunken Head, Mr Omally,’ said Pigarse. ‘It was rock ’n’ roll madness and it won’t happen again.’