The Brentford Chainstore Massacre

4

“She said that?” Omally spluttered into his pint of Large. “You’re jesting.”

“I am not.” Jim crossed his heart once more, careful to use the hand that was not holding the drink. “Of course, she then went on to explain that she meant the job of blowing into the spout of the tea dispenser to clear a blockage. I’d had enough by then, so I made my excuses and left.”

“And quite right too,” agreed Omally. “That’s not the way we do business in Brentford. A woman like that is quite out of place.”

Jim Pooley raised an eyebrow to this remark, coming as it did from John Omally, whose reputation as a womanizer was legend hereabouts. But he knew what his best friend meant. There was something very special about the little town of Brentford, something that singled it out from the surrounding territories, that could not be quantified and catalogued and tamed by definition. It was subtle and elusive; it was precious. It was magic. And the folk who lived there felt it and were glad.

Jim sighed and drained his glass and placed it on the counter.

The two stood in the saloon bar of the Flying Swan, that Victorian jewel in the battered crown of Brentford pubbery. Raking shores of sunlight venturing through the etched glass windows sparkled in the ashtrays and the optics, on the polished mahogany counter top and from the burnished brass. There was magic here all right.

“One of similar, Neville, please,” said Jim as he pushed his glass across the bar.

“And one for me,” said John.

Neville the part-time barman pulled the pints and smiled upon his patrons. “You know, Jim,” said he, when the pints were drawn and paid for, “that book you have there might prove to be worth a few bob.”

“This book?” asked Jim, turning the item which lay before him on the counter. “How so?”

Neville took up Mr Compton-Cummings’s posthumous publication and idly turned the pages. “Well, I was talking just yesterday with that chap Gary. You know the fellow, tall, good-looking, posh suit, always carries the…” Neville paused and made a face.

“Mobile phone,” said Omally, crossing himself.

“The very same, and those abominations remain as ever barred from this establishment. Well, Gary works for Transglobe, the outfit responsible for the publication of this book. It came up in conversation.”

“Oh, did it?” said Jim. “Just came up in conversation. You weren’t perhaps hoping to get a free copy?”

Neville made the innocent face of the guilty man. “As I was saying, it came up in conversation and Gary told me that it was scheduled for publication this very week, this very day in fact. But at the eleventh hour all copies were withdrawn and pulped.”

“Blow me!” said Jim.

“Language,” said Omally.

“All pulped,” said Neville. “Even the original manuscript had to be destroyed.”

“But why?”

“Gary wasn’t altogether sure. But he was mightily peeved. The book was destined for the world market. It was expected to sell millions.”

Jim glowered into his ale. “So much for the ‘elite minority’.”

“Gary was cursing because he hadn’t actually got round to reading a copy himself. But he said the talk was that the book contained certain ‘sensational disclosures’ and that the order to pulp it had come down ‘from above’.”

Jim’s eyes rolled towards the Swan’s nicotined ceiling and stared unfocused, as if viewing through it the infinity that lay beyond. “From God?” he whispered.

“From the board of directors,” said Neville.

Omally plucked the book from the part-time barman’s fingers. “You pair of buffoons,” said he. “That Gary was winding you up, Neville. It would all be a publicity stunt.”

“You really think so?”

“I do. And to prove I’m right I will take this lad home with me now and read it from cover to cover. If there’s anything in it worth talking about, I’ll let you know.”

“I think not.” Pooley availed himself of his book. It was a struggle, but he managed it in the end. “It was I who suffered at the fingertips of the martial genealogist, and if this book contains anything of a sensational nature, which might be turned to a financial profit, then I should be the one to benefit.”

“The thought of turning a financial profit never entered my head,” said Omally, in a tone which might well have convinced those who didn’t know him. “But as it seems to have entered yours, then please do so with my blessing.”

“Thank you, John. I shall.”

Omally raised his glass in toast. “There, Neville,” he said, “you see a man of steely nerve and fearless disposition. An example to us all. Let us salute Jim Pooley, ‘he who dares’.” Omally swallowed ale.

“He who what?” Jim asked.

“Dares,” said John. “As in takes risks. Big risks.”

“What big risks?”

“The modesty of the man,” said John. “As if he doesn’t know.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Only this. Supposing that the book really does contain ‘sensational disclosures’. They must be pretty damn sensational if they’ve caused a publishing house the size of Transglobe to call in and pulp millions of copies rather than risk the consequences of publication.”

“Hm,” said Jim. “Perhaps.”

“And call me a conspiracy theorist, but isn’t there something highly suspicious in the fact that on the very day the book was due to be published, its author drops down dead from a so-called heart attack?”

“Coincidence,” said Jim.

“Oh, right,” said John. “So if I find you lying dead in your kitchen, with your trousers round your ankles and the teapot stuck in your gob, I’ll put that down to coincidence too.”

“I… er…”

“Stop it, John,” said Neville. “You’re frightening him.”

“I’m not scared,” said Pooley.

“I would be,” said Neville.

“Me too,” said Old Pete, shuffling up to the bar. “What are we talking about?”

“Jim’s book,” said John.

“Jim’s written a book?”

“No, he’s been given one.”

“Well, let me have a look at it when he’s finished colouring it in.”

“Most amusing,” said Jim. “You are as ever the wit.”

“Large dark rum please, Neville,” said Old Pete. “And give Jim whatever he wants.”

“He wants a bodyguard,” said Omally, “or possibly a change of identity.”

“Stop it, John.” Pooley held out the book. “Go on, you take it then. I’ve quite lost interest in the thing.”

“Not me,” said Omally.

“You, Neville?” Jim asked.

“No thank you.” Neville shook his head.

“Cor blimey,” said Old Pete, “reminds me of that joke about the ten commandments.”

“What joke’s that?” Jim asked.

“Well, you see, this is back in biblical times, right, and God goes to the Arabs and he says, ‘Would you like a commandment?’ and the head Arab says, ‘What is it?’ and God says, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ and the head Arab says, ‘No thanks, we do that all the time, we enjoy it.’

“So God goes to the Egyptians and he says to the Pharaoh, ‘Would you like a commandment?’ and the Pharaoh says, ‘What is it?’ and God says, ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, or his ass or whatever,’ and the Pharaoh says, ‘No thanks, coveting’s what we do best, we thrive on it.’

“So finally God goes to the Jews and he says to Moses, ‘Would you like a commandment?’ and Moses says, ‘How much do they cost?’ and God says, ‘They’re free.’ So Moses says… ‘I’ll take ten.’” Old Pete collapsed in laughter.

“Surely that is anti-Semitic,” said Jim.

“Not when it’s told by a Jew. Especially one who’s just bought you a drink. But I’ll take that free book if it’s still going.”

“That’s all right,” said Omally. “I’ll take it.”

When Neville called time for the lunchtime session, Pooley and Omally parted company. John returned to his rooms in Mafeking Avenue and Jim took himself to his favourite bench before the Memorial Library. It was here, on this almost sacred spot, that, Jim did most of his really heavyweight thinking. Here where he dreamed his dreams and made his plans. Here too where he sat and smoked and soaked up sunshine.

Jim placed his bum upon the bench and stretched his legs before him. He’d been shafted again. Omally would root out whatever sensational disclosures the book held and profit therefrom and Jim would wind up empty-handed. But surely John wouldn’t grab the lot? He was Jim’s best friend, after all. There’d be something in it for Jim. But probably not a very substantial something.

Jim sighed and stretched and wriggled himself into comfort. Stuff the silly book. What did he care about that? He was destined for far higher things, financially speaking.

Jim rooted about in his jacket pockets and pulled out a crumpled pamphlet. This was his passport to fortune. He uncrumpled the pamphlet and smoothed out its edges.

Time Travel for Fun and Profit by Hugo Rune

This was the kiddie. Jim had come across it quite by chance – if there really was such a thing as chance, which Mr Rune seemed to doubt. Jim had purchased a large cod and chips and Archie Karachi of the Star of Bombay Curry Garden (and Tasty-chip Patio) had wrapped them up in this very pamphlet.

Jim had studied the pamphlet with interest. It wasn’t one of those build-your-own-time-machine science fiction jobbies, more one of your esoteric-new-age-power-of-the-mind sort of bodies. Astral bodies, probably.

Mr Rune explained, in words which the layman could understand, that time really didn’t exist at all. His premise was that the universe had always been here. It had never begun and would never end. So there was an infinite amount of “time” in the past and an equally infinite amount of “time” to come in the future. He drew the famous analogy of the infinitely long piece of string. If you had a piece of string that stretched endlessly from infinity to infinity, then any point you chose on that string must be its middle. You couldn’t have more infinity on one side of it than on the other. And so it was with time. Wherever you were in it, you were right at its centre. No more time behind you than in front. It made perfect sense. Time, said Mr Rune, was a purely human concept. There was no past and no future, just an infinite number of presents.

So how could a human being travel into either the past or the future? The answer was, of course, that he couldn’t. Not physically, anyway. For physical travel he’d have to travel faster than light and nothing can travel faster than light. Well, nothing except THOUGHT. It got capital letters in the pamphlet, which meant that it was important.

You can think about the sun instantly, but its light takes eight minutes to reach you. So, mentally, you can outrun light.

Rune argued (convincingly) that many people had already mastered the technique of mental time travel. These folk were, of course, the prophets. Those lucky few blessed with the powers of precognition. The Nostradamus types who could see into the future. And there had been loads of them.

Mother Shipton, Edgar Cayce. Rune offered a list. These folk had travelled into the future by the power of their minds. But the trouble was that the future, which consisted of an infinite number of presents yet to come, was simply too big for the average prophet to get his head round. There was too much of it. So he got overloaded and confused and made a lot of inaccurate predictions. Rune claimed to have formulated a set of mental exercises which concentrated the mind on one tiny little bit of the future – maybe the bit that was only half an hour away.

And this was the bit that had Jim hooked. Just half an hour away. What, if you knew it half an hour before it happened, would benefit you very much indeed?

It hadn’t taken Jim half an hour to figure it out.

The result of the National Lottery.

And so Jim sat in the sun, his eyes closed and his face contorted by the anguish of his concentration.

It was a pity that the last page of the pamphlet, the page with the actual instructions for the mental exercises, had been torn off. Somebody else had got that round their cod and chips, but Jim had been unable to find out who. Still, he gritted his teeth none the less and thought forward.

Had Jim been able to foresee the eventual outcome of these mental exercises, he would have abandoned them there and then. In fact, he would probably have abandoned gambling there and then, along with drinking and all other things that he held dear, and retired at once to a monastery.

Because Jim’s time travelling, added to John’s imminent discovery of a certain sensational disclosure and multiplied by the abominable doings of Dr Steven Malone, would equal an apocalyptic total.

And it would all begin with A Most Exciting Tale.