The Brentford Chainstore Massacre

6

The dreaming mind of Pooley went on its walkabout, wading through a stream of semi-consciousness.

A cracked mug of darkened foliage by swollen ashtrays on limp carpets of faded heraldry where smells of stale cinemas and locked cars and fridges and magnets and bottom drawers in old boarding houses giving up their dying breaths and period paper ads for tennis shoes and foundation garments and Cadbury’s twopenny bars of Bournville that give an athlete energy to run while underneath and undisturbed the rough drawer bottoms offer scents of camphor and sassafras and amber and Empire and then across the polished lino turning tiny rubber wheels The Speed of the Wind his favourite Dinky push and flip with the thumb to send it flying forwards past the potty deep into the dark beneath the bed where lying and looking up the silver shining spirals of springs ranked one beyond the next in crazy perspective out of focus from the fluff and fuzz of folk who pay by the day and the day you leave you must clear the room by ten and wipe the sink before you go downstairs to put your luggage in the sitting room we call the lounge and take a last walk along the promenade to watch the sea make fractious moves along the beach and suck the sand and lick the piles those cracked white piles beneath the pier all shuttered look there even the Palm Restaurant is closed and will not offer tea on trays to place upon its green glass table tops because the Lloyd Loom chairs are placed there now the arcades have their blinds pulled down by photo men and donkey men and those who bowl the penny maybe you can win the goldfish in the bag or simply watch and walk across the iron-trellised railway bridge as fast as you can to keep up with dad who has left it late to haul those cases up the asphalt stairs towards the empty platform where the train blows steam and shouts and sighs and streets of terraced houses with their grey slate roofs above the London stocks and strokes the orange cat upon the window sill that’s glad to see you home and homework rushed upon that last weekend it’s good to be back in the playground where the conkers rise and fall and fag cards flick and girls skip and show their knickers and the marbles and the whistle blows like a train

“Jim Pooley, headmaster’s room at the double.”

“But it wasn’t me. Omally did it, not me, sir.”

But John did not own up.

And Pooley got the cane.

Jim stirred in his altered state. “Move forward, you sod,” he told his brain. “We keep going back to school, and I’m fed up with getting the cane again and again and again.”

There was a bit of a mental lap dissolve and what’s this?

Fast music. Pete Townshend windmills. Marshall speakers. Mod dancing. Blue Triangle Club. Scooters. Parkas. Here’s Jim here. Nice whistle. Burton’s special. Fifteen pounds ten shillings over ten weeks. Slim Jim tie. Nice touch that. He’s waiting for someone. Foolish haircut, Jim. Great loafers though. Ivy Shop, Richmond? Cost a packet, those, lads. Who are you waiting for, Jim, all alone outside with the music coming through the bog window and the bouncer on the door smoking a reefer?

“Sandra,” whispered Jim in his cosmic sleep. “Oh, Sandra.”

Stand and wait and shuffle and look at your watch. Nice watch. Where d’you get that? Bought it off a bloke in a pub. You don’t go into pubs, do you, not at your age? Bloke outside a pub. Outside a club. Just now! The bouncer sold it to me. Where is Sandra? Where is Sandra?

But Sandra is not coming. Sandra has gone off with John Omally, on the back of his Vespa.

Jim mumbled and grumbled. “Bloody John. Forward, brain, forward. Into the future.”

Whir and click and fast forward.

And freeze frame.

And play.

What year is this? Get up, have breakfast. The bookies, then the pub. The pub and then the bench, then home for tea and then the pub again. Then ouch, get up and groan have breakfast, then the bookies, then the pub, the bench, then tea and then the pub. What’s this? The years becoming years, yet all the same? A small job here, a little fiddle there, a laugh, a sadness and another beer. Then sleep it off, then up, then breakfast, then the bookies and the pub, then…

“Forward,” moaned Pooley. “Fast forward, please.”

Fast forward. Freeze frame. And play.

… the bench, then home for tea, then to the pub, then…

“Forward! Forward!”

Bubbling, turning, little spheres of red and white.

“Stop here and play!”

Bouncing, tumbling over, little numbers too.

“This is it,” sighed Jim, “this is it. What week? What week?”

“It’s the National Lottery draw for tonight, the mmmph mmmph mmmph 1997.”

“I didn’t catch that date,” said Pooley.

“And the machine chosen for tonight…” The presenter’s that bloke who used to be on Blue Peter, isn’t it? “Chosen by our beautiful guest star, is… Leviathan.”

“Oooooooooh!” went the crowd. As if it really mattered at all.

“Oooooooooh!” went Jim. Because here he is, sitting in a front-row seat, a lottery ticket in his hand. But he looks a bit odd. Somewhat battered. His left foot is all bandaged up. Has he been in a fight, or a war, or what?

“And to press the magic button,” says the Blue Peter bloke, or is he off that children’s art programme where they do things with rubber bands and cling film and tubes of adhesive, or was that a video with German subtitles? “To press the magic button we have that American actress with the improbable breasts, who was in that film with Sylvester Stallone. You can’t put a name to her face but you’d recognize her if she got her kit off.”

Jim made odd sounds under his breath. “Just get on with it,” he muttered.

“Press that button, bimbo,” cried the Blue Peter bloke, or is he the fellow who does the chocolate bar commercial, where all that creamy stuff spurts everywhere? Or was that on the video with the German subtitles?

“That was on the video,” mumbled Jim. “Roll them old balls.”

The American actress with the Woolworths frontage pushed the button. Down and plunge and round and round went the balls.

Jim studied the ticket in his lap. “Come on,” he whispered.

And then the balls slide one after another into the tube, the tension mounting all the while. The Blue Peter bloke, who does mostly voice-overs nowadays, but is trying to rebuild his career with the help of Max Clifford, points to the first ball and shouts, “Seventeen.”

“Oooooooooooooh!” go the crowd. Do any of them actually have seventeen marked on their cards?

“I do,” whispers Jim.

“Twenty-five.”

Another “Oooooooh”. Not quite so loud this time and lacking several Os.

Jim gives his card the old thumbs up.

Then “Forty-two” and “Nineteen” and “Number five”. And fewer “Ooooohs” every time, except for Jim.

“Then thirty-one,” says Jim, all smiles.

“And thirty-one.”

“Oh yes! And then the bonus ball, which is…”

“One hundred and eighty.”

“What?”

“One hundred and eighty.”

“That’s not right. The balls only go up to forty-nine. Hang about, you’re not the Blue Peter bloke, you’re…”

“One hundred and eighty and the Flying Swan scoops the darts tournament for the nineteenth year running.” And John Omally went “Prrrrrrrt!” into Pooley’s earhole.

Jim leapt from his studio seat to find himself leaping from the bench before the Memorial Library. Omally’s grinning face filled all the world.

“Counting sheep?” grinned John. “Hey…”

Jim caught him with an uppercut that swung the Irishman over the bench and into the bushes behind.

Omally rose in a flustering of foliage, clutching at his jaw. “Mother Mary’s handbag, Jim. You hit me.”

“And there’s more to come, you robber of my millions.”

Jim took another mighty swing, but this time John ducked nimbly aside. Carried by the force of his own momentum, Jim too plunged over the bench. Omally helped him to his feet. “Calm yourself, Jim, be at peace there.”

“Be at peace? I was there, right there, I had the numbers, I… God, the numbers, what were the numbers?”

“One hundred and eighty was one of them.”

“You bloody fool, Omally.” Jim took yet another swing but this too missed its mark and Pooley went sprawling.

“Stop this nonsense, Jim. I’ve come to make you rich.”

“I was rich. I was. I had it. Help me up for God’s sake, I’m stuck in brambles here.”

Omally helped him up once more and dusted him down. “You didn’t have it, Jim,” he said softly. “And I heard the numbers you were mumbling. That was last week’s lottery draw.”

“It was? But I was there and I was all bandaged up and…”

“Leave it, Jim. I’ve come to make you rich. I really have.”

Jim shook his head, dragged himself back over the bench and sat down hard upon it. Omally joined him.

“Go on, then,” said Jim. “Let’s hear it.”

John yanked Jim’s book from his jacket pocket. It had about it now a somewhat dog-eared appearance.

“You’ve creased it all up,” said Jim sulkily.

“Never mind about that.” Omally leafed through the pages, then thrust the open book beneath Jim’s nose. “Cast your Sandra’s over this,” he said.

“My Sandra’s?”

“Sandra’s thighs, eyes. I’m working on a new generation of rhyming slang, based upon the most memorable features of ladies I’ve known in the past.”

A young man on a Vespa rode by and Jim made a low groaning sound deep in his throat.

“Go on,” said Omally. “Take a look.”

Jim took a look, although not with a great deal of interest. His eyes however had not travelled far down the page before an amazed expression appeared on his face and the words “Sandra’s crotch” came out of his mouth.

“Sandra’s what?”

“Sandra’s crotch. It’s all too much!”

“Well, that isn’t quite how it works, but it has a certain brutish charm.”

“This is barking mad,” said Jim.

“Yes, there is a small brown dog involved.”

“But it’s a member of the… I never knew they were born in Brentford.”

“I don’t think anyone did. And I don’t think they know about that either.”

“Chezolagnia? What does that mean?”

“You really don’t want to know, Jim. Have a look at the photo on the next page.”

“There’s photos too?” Jim turned the page. “Sylvia’s…”

Omally put his hand across Jim’s mouth. “Crotch was distasteful enough,” said he.

“Mother,” said Pooley. “John, this is dynamite. We’d end up in the Tower of London. Stuff like this could bring down the entire establishment.”

“Couldn’t it too,” said Omally.

“Imagine if this fell into the hands of someone who had it in for the English.”

“Imagine that,” said John Omally, son of Eire.

“Oh no, John, you wouldn’t? You couldn’t?”

“No,” said John. “I wouldn’t and I couldn’t. What a man gets up to in the privacy of his own love menagerie is his own business.”

Jim turned another page, then went “Waaah!” and thrust the book back at John. “Take it away. Burn it. I wish I’d never looked.”

John closed the book and tucked it back into his pocket.

“Then we’re not rich at all,” said Pooley with a long and heartfelt sigh.

“Oh yes we are.”

“But you said you wouldn’t and you couldn’t.”

“I was only warming you up. That isn’t the bit of the book that’s going to make us rich.”

“You mean there’s worse in there?”

“Not worse, Jim. And nothing like that at all. That was just a little footnote, but it set me thinking. What do you know about the Days of God and the Brentford Scrolls?”

“We did them at school. Something to do with Pope Gregory changing the calendar from the Julian to the Gregorian which meant cutting eleven days out of the year and this batty monk from Brentford going on a pilgrimage to Rome to demand God’s Days back.”

“And?”

“Well, didn’t the Pope get so fed up with him going on and on about it that he said the people of Brentford could have two extra days a year if they wanted them?”

“That was it, and gave him a special decree authorizing it.”

“The Brentford Scrolls.”

“Those very lads.”

“But the monk was murdered when he got back home so Brentford never got the extra days that it didn’t want anyway and everyone lived happily ever after.”

“Well done, Jim. In a few short sentences you have reduced the most significant event in Brentford’s history to a load of old cabbage.”

“I’m sorry, but I fail to see the significance of this significant event. Especially how it will make us rich.”

“Then allow me to explain. The Pope told the monk that Brentford could have two extra days a year, the Days of God, in perpetuity. But the option was never taken up. Now all this happened in 1582 and it’s now 1997, four hundred and fifteen years later, which means…?”

“I haven’t the foggiest,” said Jim. “What does it mean?”

“It means that by the end of this year Brentford has eight hundred and thirty days owing to it. That’s over two years, Jim.”

“Do pardon me for missing the point here, John. But so what?”

“Jim, what is going to happen on December the thirty-first 1999?”

“A very big party.”

“Correct. The millennial celebrations. The biggest, most expensive, most heavily funded bash in history.”

“So?”

Omally threw up his hands. “So the people of Brentford are actually entitled to celebrate the millennium two years earlier than the rest of the world, by special decree of Pope Gregory. He reorientated the calendar and what he decreed goes.”

Jim opened his mouth to say “So?” once more, but he said “Come again?” instead.

“You’re catching on, aren’t you, Jim? The Millennium Fund. Millions and millions of pounds, set aside for all kinds of projects and schemes. And the people of Brentford are actually entitled to grab it two years before anybody else.”

“You have got to be jesting.”

“All the details are in this book of yours. All we have to do is to quietly check whether the Pope’s decree was ever revoked, which I’m certain it never was. And then we put in our absolutely genuine and pukka claim for millions.”

“The Millennium Fund blokes will never swallow it.”

“They’ll have no choice, Jim.” Omally pulled a crumpled piece of foolscap from his pocket. “Now I’ve drawn up a bit of an itinerary here. Obviously as co-directors of the Brentford Millennium Committee we will require salaries suitable to our status. How does this figure seem to you?”

Pooley perused the figure. “Stingy,” said he. “Stick another nought on the end.”

“I’ll stick on two, to be on the safe side. So, we’ll want a big parade and a beauty contest…”

“Belles of Brentford,” said Jim.

“Belles of Brentford. I like that.” Omally made a note.

“And a beer festival,” said Jim.

“Let’s have two,” said John, “again to be on the safe side.”

“Let’s have two beauty contests. Three, in fact. We’d be on the panel of judges, naturally.”

“Naturally. And I thought we should build something. How about a new library?”

“What’s wrong with the old one?”

“The heating’s pretty poor in the winter.”

“Right. Tear down the library, build a new one.”

“OK,” said Omally, making a tick. “That’s the John Omally Millennial Library taken care of.”

“The what?”

“Well, it will have to have a new name, won’t it?”

“I suppose so, but if you’re having a library named after you I want something too.”

“Have whatever you like, my friend.”

Pooley thought. “I’ll have the Jim Pooley,” said he.

“The Jim Pooley what?”

“No, just the Jim Pooley. It’s a public house.”

“Nice one. I’ll join you there for a pint. Do you think we should tear all the flatblocks down and build some nice mock-Georgian terraces, or should we…”

“John?” asked Jim.

“Jim?” asked John.

“John, about these Brentford Scrolls. The papal decree that papally decrees all this. Where exactly are the scrolls now?”

“Ah,” said John.

“And what exactly does ‘Ah’ mean?”

“‘Ah’ means that when the monk got murdered, the scrolls disappeared. No one has actually seen them in over four hundred years.”

Jim Pooley swung his fist once more at John Omally.

And this time he didn’t miss.