‘Good, was it?’ I asked Norman.
‘Bloody brilliant. You should have been there. Mind you, it fair put the wind up the Doveston. He’s expecting the end of the world as we know it. He seemed quite certain that the eclipse was a sign. A portent in the heavens. He wee-wee’d himself. In front of the Prime Minister.’
‘I’ll bet that made you laugh.’
‘Of course it didn’t. Well, it did, a bit. Well, quite a lot really. I nearly wee-wee’d myself, trying not to.’
‘So, he’s still as Richard as ever?’
‘Much more so. How long is it since you’ve seen him?’
‘Four years. Ever since that business with the videos and the vice squad. He pays me a retainer, but I’m no longer welcome at Castle Doveston. I receive press packages, so that I can continue to work on the biography.’
‘And how is that coming along?’
I made the face that says ‘bollocks’. ‘I’ll get us another round in, shall I?’
As Norman went off to the bar, I looked around and about me. I was in the Flying Swan, that drinking house of legend. No-one here had any plans to celebrate the millennium. They’d already done it. Last year. It had all been down to a tradition, or an old charter, or something. I’d missed it, but I’d heard tell that it had been quite an occasion. Second coming of Christ and everything. Norman had put on the firework display. I wondered if he would be doing the same for the Doveston’s bash.
‘Tell me all about this ball, then,’ I said when he returned with the drinks.
‘Oh yes, I was telling you about my costume, wasn’t I?’
‘Something about a peacock, you said.’
‘Yes, that’s it, the peacock suit. It’s not a peacock costume, that would be just plain silly. It’s a peacock suit, as in peacock mating display. You see, the male peacock’s tail feathers serve no purpose whatsoever, other than for attracting a mate. Female peacocks get off on males with big tail feathers. They always have. So those are the ones they mate with and, in consequence, natural selection has meant that the males have evolved bigger and bigger tail feathers. So big now that the blighters can’t even get off the ground. Not that they’re bothered; they’re too busy having sex.’
‘I’m sure there’s some point to this,’ I said. ‘But so far it’s lost on me.
‘Well,’ said Norman. ‘Imagine a human equivalent. A suit that a man could wear that would attract females.’
‘There already is one. It’s called a Paul Smith suit.’
‘I seem to recall that yours didn’t work very well.’
I took a wet from my glass. ‘Whatever happened to Jackie,’ I wondered.
‘Died in a freak accident, I think. Tragic business. But I’m not talking about a very expensive suit that turns some women on just because it is very expensive. I’m talking about a suit that turns all women on. I have designed such a suit and when I wear it to the ball, I shall be able to have the pick of any women I choose.’
‘That’s bollocks,’ I said. ‘That can’t be true.’
‘I seem to recall that you said the same thing about my invisible paint. And where did that leave you?’
‘In hospital,’ I said. ‘With fractured ribs.’
‘Well, it served you right. The next time someone comes driving straight at you in an invisible car, hooting the horn and shouting out of the window, “Get out of the way, the brakes have bloody failed,” you’ll know better than to stand your ground, shouting back, “You don’t fool me, it’s a sound effects record,” won’t you?’
‘Whatever happened to that car?’
‘Dunno,’ said Norman. ‘I can’t remember where I parked it.’
‘So this peacock suit of yours will really pull the women, will it?’
‘Listen,’ said Norman, drawing me close and speaking in a confidential tone. ‘I gave the prototype a road test in Sainsbury’s. I was lucky to get out alive. I’ve adjusted the controls on the new one.’
‘Controls? This suit has controls?’
‘It works on a similar principle to the Hartnell Home Happyfier. But I’ve decided to hang on to the patent this time. I intend to prove to the world that a man with mutton-chop side-whiskers and an Arthur Scargill comb-over job can actually get to have sex with a supermodel.’
‘Only by cheating.’
‘Everybody cheats at something. The problem is that I’m going to have to keep my suit on while I’m having sex.
‘How about a pair of split-crotch peacock underpants?’
‘Brilliant idea,’ said Norman. ‘And to think that everybody says you’re stupid.’
‘Eh?’
Our conversation here was interrupted by a shout of: ‘It’s that bastard on the telly again.’
Knowing full well that the Swan did not have a television, or a jukebox, or a digital telephone, I was somewhat surprised by this shout. But sure enough, it was some out-borough wally with a tiny TV attached to his mobile phone.
Norman and I helped Neville the part-time barman heave this malcontent into the street. But while we were so doing, I chanced to glimpse the tiny screen and on it the face of the bastard in question.
It was the Doveston.
The photograph was only a still and one taken some years before. A publicity photo, of the type he liked to sign and give out to people. The voice of a mid-day newscaster tinkled from the tiny TV. The voice was saying something about a freak accident. The voice was saying that the Doveston was dead.
19
Da de da de da de da de candle in the wind.
Elton John (lyric rights refused)
‘He’s Leonardo,’ said Norman.
I didn’t ask. I knew what he meant. Dead, is what he meant.
Mind you, I should have asked. Because this particular piece of Brentford rhyming slang was an ingenious twelfth-generation affair, leading from the now legendary fifteenth-century artist and innovator to several varieties of cheese, a number of well-known household products, two kinds of fish and three makes of motor-cycle, before finally arriving at the word ‘dead’.
Norman was nothing if not inventive.
I sat now in the shopkeeper’s kitchen on one of a pair of Morris Minor front seats that Norman had converted into a sofa. If coincidence means anything, Norman’s kitchen, which was also his workshop, looked very much the way I imagine Leonardo’s work-shop must have looked.
Without the Meccano, of course.
‘He can’t be dead,’ I said. ‘He can’t be. He just can’t.’
Norman twiddled with the dials on his TV.
‘Get a bloody move on,’ I told him.
‘Yes, yes, I’m trying.’ The scientific shopkeeper bashed the top of the set with his fist. ‘I’ve made a few modifications to this,’ he said. ‘I’ve always felt that TVs waste a lot of power. All those cathode rays and light and stuff coming out of the screen. So I invented this.’ He adjusted a complicated apparatus that hung in front of the television. It was constructed from the inevitable Meccano. ‘This is like a solar panel, but more efficient. It picks up the rays coming out of the screen, then converts them into electrical energy and feeds it back into the TV to power the set. Clever, eh?’
I nodded. ‘Very clever.’
‘Mind you, there does seem to be one major obstacle that so far I’ve been unable to overcome.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Just how you get the set to start without any initial power.’
‘Plug it into the wall socket, you silly sod.’
‘Brilliant.’ Norman shook his head, dislodging ghastly strands of hair. ‘And to think people say you’re—’
‘Just plug it in!’
Norman plugged it in.
The Doveston’s face appeared once more on the screen. This time it was an even younger model, bearded and framed by long straight hair. This was the Doveston circa ‘sixty-seven.
A newscaster’s voice spoke over. This is what it said.
‘The tragedy occurred today at a
little after noon in the grounds of Castle Doveston. The Laird of Branifield was entertaining a number of house guests, among them the Sultan of Brunei, the President of the United States and Mr Saddam Hussein. The party was engaged in one of the Laird’s favourite sporting pursuits: sheep-blasting. According to eye-witness accounts, given by several visiting heads of state, the Doveston had just drawn back on his catapult, preparatory to letting fly, when the elastic broke and the dynamite went off in his hand.’
‘Freak accident,’ said Norman. ‘It’s just how he would have wanted to go.’
I shook my head.
‘But what a gent,’ Norman said. ‘What a gent.’
‘What a gent?’
‘Well, think about it. He died at noon on a Wednesday. Wednesday’s my half-day closing. If he’d died on any other day, I’d have had to close the shop as a mark of respect. I’d have lost half a day’s trade.’
Norman sat down beside me and tugged the cork from a bottle of home-made sprout brandy. This he handed to me by the neck.
I took a big swig. ‘He can’t be dead,’ I said once more. ‘This isn’t how it happens.’
‘You what?’ Norman watched me carefully.
‘I saw the future. I’ve told you about it. Back in ‘sixty-seven, when I smoked those Brentstock cigarettes. I’m sure this isn’t how he dies.’
Norman watched me some more. ‘Perhaps you got it wrong. I don’t think the future’s fixed. And if he blew himself up, right in front of all those heads of state-’
‘Yes, I suppose so. Oh Jesus!’ I clutched at my throat. ‘I’m on fire here. Jesus!’
Norman took the bottle from me. ‘Serves you right for taking such a big greedy swig,’ he said with a grin. ‘I may not be able to predict the future (yet), but I could see that one coming.’
‘It has to be a hoax,’ I said, when I had regained my composure. ‘That’s what it is. He’s faked his own death. Like Howard Hughes.’
‘Don’t be so obscene. ‘Obscene?’
‘Howard Hughes. That’s fourth generation Brentford rhyming slang. That means—’
‘I don’t care what it means. But I’ll bet you that’s what he’s done.’
Norman took a small swig from the bottle. ‘And why?’ he asked. ‘Why would he want to do that?’
‘I don’t know. To go into hiding, I suppose.’
‘Oh yeah, right. The man who adores being in the public eye. The man who gets off mixing with the rich and famous. The man who was to host the greatest social occasion of the twentieth century. The man—’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘You’ve made your point. But I still can’t believe it.’
‘He’s Leonardo,’ Norman said.
And Leonardo he was.
I was really keen to view the body. Not out of morbid curiosity, I just had to know. Could he truly be dead? It didn’t seem possible. Not the Doveston. Not dead. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that it couldn’t be true. He had to have faked it. And if he had, what better way would there be than blowing himself up in public view? Leaving no recognizable pieces?
Norman said that he could think of at least six better ways. But I ignored Norman.
We both attended the funeral. We received invitations. We could pay our last respects to his body as it lay in state at Castle Doveston and even help carry the coffin to its resting place on a small island in the one remaining lake on the estate. He had apparently left instructions in his will that this was where he was to be interred.
A long black shiny armoured limo came to pick us up. Rapscallion was driving.
‘That bastard Doveston’s gone to Hell,’ was all he had to say.
As we approached the grounds of Castle Doveston, what I saw amazed me. There were thousands of people there. Thousands and thousands. Many held candles and most were weeping. The perimeter fence was covered with bunches of flowers. With photographs of the Doveston. With really awful poems, scrawled on bits of paper. With football scarves (he owned several clubs). With Gaia logos made from sticky-backed plastic and Fairy Liquid bottles with their names blacked out. (There’d been a tribute on Blue Peter.)
And the news teams were there. News teams from all over the world. With cameras mounted on top of their vans. All trained upon the house.
They swung in our direction as we approached. The crowd parted and the gates opened wide. Rapscallion steered the limo up the long and winding drive.
Inside, the house was just as I remembered it. No further decorating had been done. The open coffin rested upon the dining table in the great hall and as I stood there memories came flooding back of all the amazing times that I’d had here. Of the drunkenness and drug-taking and debauchery. Of things so gross that I should, perhaps, have included them in this book, to spice up some of the duller chapters.
‘Shall we have a look at him?’ said Norman.
I took a very deep breath.
‘Best to do that now,’ said Norman. ‘He probably pongs a bit.’
He didn’t pong.
Except for the expensive aftershave, his own brand, Snuff for Men.
He lay there in his open coffin, all dressed up but nowhere nice to go. His face wore that peaceful, resigned expression so often favoured by the dead. One hand rested on his chest. Between the fingers somebody had placed a small cigar.
I could feel the emotions welling up inside me, like huge waves breaking on a stony beach. Like the wind, rushing into the mouth of a cave. Like thunder, crashing over an open plain. Like an orange turnip dancing on a cow’s nest in a handbag factory.
‘He doesn’t look bad for a dead bloke,’ said Norman.
‘Eh? No, he doesn’t. Especially for a man who was blown into little pieces.’
‘It’s mostly padding, you know. They only managed to salvage his head and his right hand. Here look, I’ll open his collar. You can see where his severed neck is stitched on to the-’
‘Don’t you dare.’ I pulled Norman’s hand away. ‘But he is dead, isn’t he? I thought that it might be a dummy or something.’
‘They fingerprinted the hand,’ said Norman. ‘And even if he was prepared to lose a hand in order to fake his own death, I think that losing his head might be going over the top a bit.’
I sighed. ‘Then that’s it. The Doveston is dead. The end of an era. The end of a long, if troubled, friendship.’ I reached into my jacket and brought out a packet of cigarettes. This I slipped into the Doveston’s breast pocket.
‘Nice sentiment,’ said Norman. ‘Something for his spirit to smoke on the other side.’
I nodded solemnly.
‘Pity they’re not his own brand, though,’ said Norman with a grin. ‘That will really piss him off.’
The funeral was grim. They always are. At the service, numerous celebrities came forward to offer eulogies or recite really awful poems. Elton John had sent his apologies (he was having his hair done), but they had managed to employ the services of an ex-member of the Dave Clark Five, who sang their great hit ‘Bits and Pieces’.
The actual laying to rest was not without its moments. Especially when, as we were trying to get the coffin into the rowing boat, the vicar fell in the water.
‘You bloody pushed him,’ I whispered to Norman. ‘I saw you. Don’t deny it.’
And then it was all back to the big house for drinks and fags and snuff and cakes and a lot of polite conversation about what an all-round good egg the Doveston had been.
Oh yes, and the reading of the will.
‘I’m off home,’ I whispered to Norman. ‘There won’t be anything in it for me.’
‘You might be surprised. I witnessed his will, after all.’
‘If it turns out to be a signed photograph, I will punch your lights out.’
I’d seen the Doveston’s solicitor before. We weren’t on speaking terms, but I had some amazing footage of him on video tape. So I knew what he was wearing under his jolly smart suit.
There were at least fifty of us th
ere, seated in the great hall, facing the table that had so recently supported the coffin. Most of those present were strangers to me, but I imagined that they must be the Doveston’s relatives. It’s only weddings and funerals that bring these blighters out.
‘So,’ said the solicitor, seating himself behind the great table, secretly adjusting his corset as he did so. ‘This is a very sad time for us all. Indeed for the entire nation. England has lost one of her most notable and best-loved sons. I do not think that his like will ever be seen here again.’
‘He nicked that line,’ said Norman.
‘Yes, but not from you.’
‘There are a number of bequests to charities and trusts,’ the solicitor continued. ‘But these need not concern us here. You’ll no doubt read all about them in the newspapers, as soon as the details have been officially leaked. What concerns us here is the major part of the estate, the house and grounds, the business interests, the capital.’
‘Now, first things first. The Great Millennial Ball. The Doveston has left specific instructions that the ball must go ahead. It will be held in his honour and hosted by his inheritor. I say inheritor, rather than —tors, because there is only one. This one person must host the Great Millennial Ball in the exact manner the Doveston planned it, or forfeit the inheritance. Is this understood?’
People nodded. I didn’t bother.
‘Your lights are about to be punched,’ I told Norman.
‘The sole inheritor of the Doveston’s fortune is . . .’ The solicitor paused for effect. Necks craned forward, breaths were held.
‘Is . . .’ He produced a small golden envelope from his top pocket and opened it carefully.
Norman nudged me in the ribs. ‘Exciting, isn’t it? This was written into the will.’
I rolled my eyes.
‘Is . . .’ The solicitor glanced at the card. ‘My bestest friend—’
Norman jumped up. ‘Well what a surprise. I wasn’t expecting this.’
‘Edwin,’ said the solicitor.
Norman sat down. ‘Only kidding,’ he said. ‘I told you you might be surprised.’
They brought me round with the contents of a soda siphon.