‘Or “Taking Tea with the Parson” with someone’s mum.’
‘Why would he be doing that?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Constable Justice. ‘He did it with my mum. Shit! He might be doing it with my mum right now!’
It is very unlikely that the Queen Mum ever ‘Took Tea with the Parson’. She was far too sweet and cuddly and everything. And she was always Britain’s favourite granny and everything. Mind you, Queen Victoria used to take a lot of ‘tea’ with that Scotsman.
But not the Queen Mum.
Although there’s really no telling just what she might have got up to. According to the Illuminated One, David Icke, Her Madge, the Queen Mum and most of the royals generally are in fact reptilian shape-shifters who regularly engage in human sacrifice and the consumption of infants.
But probably not ‘Taking Tea with the Parson’.
And of course the Queen Mum is dead now* and it isn’t right to speak ill of the dead.
*
‘One is dead chuffed,’ said Her Majesty the Queen, speaking to her regal reflection, cast back at her from an IKEA wall mirror in her private billiards room. Where the Royal We keeps her extensive collection of Space Invaders machines, handbags and the mummified prepuce of Christ (which was a present from the Pope).
‘One is dead chuffed,’ the monarch said once more, reading from the card, which was printed with BIG LETTERS so she didn’t need to wear her glasses. Because, let’s face it, they do make her look old. ‘Dead chuffed to attend this secret conclave, as chairperson and casting vote and—’
And a knock came at her chamber door
‘Who troubles one?’ she enquired. (Real class!)
‘The car’s here, Ma’am,’ a menial (or lackey, or cat’s-paw) replied.
‘Is that Betty driving?’ asked the sovereign.
‘As ever,’ the other replied.
‘Bitchin’,’ said Her Majesty. ‘Just love that bad-ass, Betty.’
42
It was clear to those in the know, though those in the know numbered two, that a degree of easy intimacy existed between a certain Black Betty who drove a black limo and a certain Royal Betty, who ruled the British Isles.
That the monarch, gliding down the front steps from Buck House with a sprightliness surprising for one of her advanced years, customarily greeted the chauffeur with much use of the ‘N’ word, which had long worn out its welcome for either shock value or a cheap laugh; whilst he, patting the regal butt as it entered his auto, responded with such words as, ‘Yo, my sweet pussy,’ and, ‘You can kiss my OBE anytime.’
But as there were no witnesses to this, no definite proof can be found that it actually happened. And well it might be that this unlikely exchange was nothing more than wishful thinking. Although whether upon the part of Black Betty, Royal Betty or some third party, it is fruitless to speculate.*
The long, black limo slid away over the gravel and out through the main gates of Buck House, scattering Japanese tourists before it, much to the mirth of the monarch who made soul-fists with her waving hand.
Perhaps.
Mr Mull, of Kintyre Cars, was not one given to familiarity with his clients. The conveyance of the public was in his blood: five generations of Mulls had plied their trade in the great metropolis before him, His great-great-grandfather driving one of the original hansom cabs. His name was Morris Mull and he was the first cabby to coin the phrase, ‘I had that [fill in as applicable] in the back of my cab the other day’. But this only to a fellow cabbie and never to a client. He was a professional, and such was his great-great-grandson.
And so when Mr Mull, of Kintyre Cars, reached the secret rendezvous point where he was to make contact with and pick up a certain Ahab the A-rab (the sheik of the desert sands), he arrived early and waited patiently, reading a Sunday paper whose headline spoke fearfully of escalating trouble in the Middle East and the strong probability of an ensuing nuclear holocaust. And, whilst doing this, he chewed on a Google’s gob gum (of a type one rarely sees nowadays) and gently tapped a highly polished boot heel in the dust.
The dust was that of the dockland persuasion, of that area of London dockland that is always threatened with redevelopment but somehow always manages to remain undeveloped. And disgusting, and desolate, and depressing. And other things that begin with the letter ‘D’.
The limo was parked on a dock that was to be found upon a bit of bay. And it would have been of interest to fans of soul music to note that this was the very dock of the bay that Otis Redding had sat upon nearly five decades before.
And watched the ships coming in.
And the ships going out.
And things of a maritime nature generally.
The sound of a bosun’s whistle alerted Mr Mull, who folded away his newspaper, spat out his gob gum, buffed his toecaps on the rear of opposing trouser legs, straightened his cap and saluted as a Thames lighter, piloted by a Thames lighterman, drew up alongside Otis’s sitting area, and a bosun, all spiffed up in formal but outmoded livery, piped ashore a swarthy gentleman in the full Arabic attire: flowing robes, dishcloth hat and fan-belt wraparound.
Ahab the A-rab drew London breath up his nostrils and spoke with timbre through his beard. ‘You are Mister Mall?’ he enquired.
‘Mull,’ said Mr Mull. ‘Mister Mull.’
‘Mull,’ said Ahab the A-rab. ‘That is satisfactory. I was unreliably informed that I was to be collected and driven by a Jedi.’
‘I am a Jedi,’ said Mr Mull. ‘At the last national census, it was discovered that more than twenty per cent of the nation listed their religion as Jedi.’
‘The English,’ went the A-rab, and he laughed. ‘No wonder you never win the cricket.’
Mr Mull smiled professionally and nodded politely. Had such a remark been made to him in a pub, however, by some bloody camel-jockey that he wasn’t being employed to drive, Mr Mull would have employed his Dimac and struck the blighter mighty blows to the skull.
As naturally one would.
But, smiling and nodding, he now swung open the rear door of the limo and did a little bowing of the head also as he aided his client into the car.
A similar, in fact all but identical limo, stood double-parked in Neasden, in a tiny cul-de-sac that it was going to be difficult to reverse out of. This limo was surrounded by small boys with sticky, inquisitive fingers and orange-juice mouth-masks (whatever they might be).
The driver of this car, a Mr Jones, of We’ll Keep a Welcome in the Hillside Motors’ was no lover of small boys. Of small girls, yes, and of sheep, of course, for he was Welsh.* Mr Jones owned a stick for such occasions as this (and a tube of lubricant for other situations).
In the manner, indeed, of a Jedi (for curiously enough this was the faith of Mr Jones) he flourished this stick Jedi-fashion, swirling it in great Lightsabre arcs to a lack of alarm and distress of the sticky-fingered lads.
Whilst he awaited his client.
His client, Mr Bagshaw, was saying goodbye to his mum. Although aged thirty-seven and with good prospects in the field of accountancy, Mr Bagshaw (Billy, it would have been to his mates, but mates Mr Bagshaw had none) still occupied the bedroom that had been forever his, in the family house that he had grown up in. As well as having no friends, Billy, as he would have been called if he had, had also never owned to a girlfriend. Had never kissed a woman.
This might have been due in part to the slightly odd looks of Mr Bagshaw. There was something about his head. The size of it. The dimensions. That head was much too big. It was a bit of a Gerry Anderson head. It made Mr Bagshaw look very much like Brains from Thunderbirds.
Not that all women are necessarily put off by a huge head.
Many women have no objection to any part of a man’s body being huge. As long as it’s clean.
And Mr Bagshaw was very clean. His mum had scrubbed his neck that very morning. And behind his ears. And made him clean his teeth twice, as he’d missed some hard-to-reach plaque the first time, whic
h his mum had espied with the aid of a dentist’s mirror that she’d won at a WI whist drive in Crawley.
Mr Bagshaw’s clothes were clean. His tweed going-out jacket, with the leather patches on the elbows, was very clean. As was his checked shirt and knitted tie. And his light-brown corduroy trousers and his polished Oxford brogues.
Mr Bagshaw’s mother did unnecessary straightenings of her son’s tie, then licked a corner of her gingham housecoat and worried at his chin with it. Then lightly kissed him on the cheek, warned him against associating with liquor and loose women (as so many mums will do, because they care) and sent him on his way.
Mr Bagshaw stepped lightly down the garden path, for his mother had cautioned him many times against dragging his feet – ‘It looks slovenly and it plays havoc with your Stick-a-Soles’. He swung open the nineteen-thirties sun-ray-style gate and made his way towards the waiting limo.
Mr Jones waved frantically with his stick.
Mrs Bagshaw closed the front door without slamming it.
Mr Bagshaw gazed at the sticky lads.
The sticky lads caught Mr Bagshaw’s gaze.
Some of these lads immediately pissed their pants.
Others, with stronger constitutions, did not.
But all before the gaze of Mr Bagshaw fled immediately and as fast as they could.
‘Shall we away?’ asked Mr Bagshaw of Mr Jones.
And Mr Jones, holding on to himself, nodded and said, ‘Yes, sir.’
Mogador Firesword, of Dragonslayer Car Hire (he had recently changed the name to avoid confusion with the breakfast cereal), never called any man ‘sir’, but for Lord Gort Phnargos of the Bloody Axe, who slew Rimor Gartharion on the Plain of the Guckmo Plit, neath the Mountains of Mahagadoom, where might be found, but never entered, the Cave of the Hideous Cagoules.
And so on and so forth and suchlike.
He called no man ‘sir’.
And he wore chain mail beneath his chauffeur’s uniform.
And now he was here! On a Sunday morning!
Come to pick up—
A dog!
‘A dog?’ said Mogador Firesword to the very pleasant-looking lady who womanned the reception desk at Battersea Dogs’ Home. ‘I am apparently here to pick up a dog.’
‘Then you’ve come to the right place,’ said the not-altogether-ungorgeous young woman. ‘For this is a dogs’ home.’
‘I understand that,’ said Mogador Firesword. ‘I’ll bet you have hundreds of dogs here, don’t you?’
‘Hundreds,’ said the beautiful lady. ‘Sometimes thousands.’
‘And I’ll bet you don’t find homes for all of them.’
‘Sadly not.’
‘So you have to snuff them out, I suppose.’
‘We put them to sleep. That is the term we prefer.’
‘But it amounts to the same thing.’
The stunning creature nodded.
‘Do you chop their heads off?’ asked Mogador Firesword.
‘No, we certainly do not.’
‘Would you like me to do it for you, then? I do have my own sword. I call it Soul Freer the Second’
‘Soul Freer the Second?’
‘Soul Freer the First got nicked at a gamers con in Hinkley.’
‘Would you please leave the premises before I am forced to call the police?’ asked the veritable goddess of a bird.
‘I have a chitty,’ said Mogador, flourishing same, ‘for the dog. And you’ll have to fill in another chitty, taking responsibility and to cover any cleaning bills if it craps in my limo.’
The Battersea Venus examined the chitty. ‘Ah,’ she said knowingly. ‘You want Bob. I understand.’
‘More than I do, my pretty,’ said Mogador, leaning over the desk a little to cop a glimpse of cleavage.
‘Bob,’ said the wondrous one. ‘Bob the Comical Pup.’
‘That’s what it says on the chitty.’
The breasts before him withdrew. ‘Wait here and I will fetch him for you. But before I do, you have to fill in one of our chitties.’
‘Why?’ asked Mogador Firesword.
‘Because Bob the Comical Pup is not just any young comical pup. He is a pup of outré abilities.’
‘Outré, what?’
A chitty on a clipboard was thrust before him and Mogador Firesword gave it a cursory once-over.
‘What’s this?’ he asked. ‘Promise Three: I vow that I will take to my grave any confidences confided in me by Bob the Comical Pup? And I have to sign the Official Secrets Act?’
‘I told you he’s not just any young comical pup.’
Mr Esau Good of Smack My Bitch Up Motors was not at Brize Norton Airport to pick up just any old King of rock ’n’ roll.
He was there, in the company of many, many official chitties, and high-security passes, and special military intervention, to pick up the King of rock ’n’ roll.
Being flown in on a chartered Hercules via a complex route that evaded the defensive radar systems of twelve separate countries. Point of departure, unregistered. Point of arrival, Brize Norton.
Mr Esau Good had also had to sign the Official Secrets Act and he had been given an implant at the base of his skull. He had been assured by the masked surgeons who had performed this procedure against the will of Mr Good that should Mr Good mention the name of the gentleman that he would be conveying to Gunnersbury Park, even in passing, the voicing of this name would trigger the implant and blow his head clean off his shoulders.
Mr Good was somewhat upset by this circumstance, especially as he was something of a fan of the Big E and not averse to purchasing the occasional compilation disc or latest exploitation hit single.*
Christmas shopping was going to be tricky this year.
*
The Hercules Transport loomed in the heavens. Drew nigh unto Brize Norton and descended. Taxiing was done, steps were wheeled out to it, a door swung open.
And he stood framed by the opening.
And he wasn’t that fat anymore. He was, if anything, slender and trim. His hair, the jettest of blacks, his sideburns superb and his cheekbones as killer as ever. He did wear the jumpsuit, though – the white rhinestoned number with the black diamanté belt. But then he would wear that, wouldn’t he? Because he was Elvis Presley.
Mr Esau Good lifted his bum from the bonnet of his limo and made his way towards the grounded aeroplane.
There were many of those Men in Black types present, with the black suits and the sunspecs. And many high-ranking military personnel. And what surprised Mr Good, if anything could now surprise him, was the fact that all those present were so unsurprised.
That Elvis was alive and well and looking good surprised them not.
But then, come on now, none of us really believes that he’s dead. Do we?
Mr Good had never believed it. He knew that something fishy had gone on that day, in that bathroom, at Graceland.
Rumours abounded and no more so than within the hire-car profession, where chauffeurs are apt to ‘accidentally overhear’ all manner of sensitive information and a certain underground grapevine spreads this info up and down the land. The word was out that Elvis’ death had been faked because the King of rock ’n’ roll was engaged in work of national importance and that the President himself had sanctioned the deception.
The word was out on the underground grapevine that Elvis was capable of travelling through time, aided by an alien vegetable that had taken up residence in the back of his head. Barry the Time Sprout, this vegetable was called.
And who would be inclined to doubt this?
Elvis descended from the plane, pressed palms with assembled personages and was led to the limo.
‘Good day, sir,’ said Elvis to Mr Good.
‘Good day, Mr—’ and he almost said it.
Elvis Presley entered the limo and was driven away.
43
Driven.
As in a driven soul.
When, in the early eighteen hundreds, John Has
lam, the doctor in overall control of St Mary of Bethlehem Asylum, interviewed the inmate James Tilly Matthews regarding his extraordinary claims that his mind was under almost constant assault by magnetic emanations delivered to him via the medium of an Air Loom, Mr Matthews was able to supply Mr Haslam with a wealth of specific information.
He explained to Haslam that ‘the apparatus, called by the assassins that manipulate it an Air Loom machine or pneumatic machine, might be said, in part, to resemble a kneehole or partners’ desk, although magnified in size. In bigness it would appear some nine feet in length, six in height and another seven in depth. Large drawers to either side of it and between something like piano-forte keys, which open tube valves within the Air Loom to spread or feed the warp of magnetic fluid. To either side of these keys, levers by which the assailed is wrenched, stagnated, and the sudden-death efforts made upon him.
‘Above, are a cluster of upright open glass tubes, which the assassins term their musical glasses. These are of extreme importance, for within these the magnetic fluxes condense and are dispelled. I am given to understand that these glasses are of a fragility and a volatility wherein explosive forces are pent. I could never ascertain what the bulky upper parts were, although I discerned paddle – or windmill-like attachments, but the barrels I saw distinctly, witnessing the famous gooseneck retorts, which supply the Air Loom with the distilled gasses, as well as the poisoned magnetics.
‘The preparations within these barrels are of the most dreadful content. Sexual fluid, both male and female, effluvia of copper, ditto of sulphur, vapours of vitriol and aqua fortis, belladonna and hellebore, effluvia of dogs, stinking human breath, putrid effluvia of mortification and the plague, stench of the cesspool, gaz from the anus of a horse, human gaz, gaz from a horse’s greasy heels, Egyptian snuff (this is a dusty vapour, extremely nauseous), poison of toad, otto of roses.’
He also furnished Haslam with a catalogue of terrible torments that the manipulators of this hellish contrivance were able to visit upon their sorry and magnetized victims, via the medium of a flux projected through the ether from machine to unfortunate target.