The Sprouts of Wrath

15

The town hall’s hospitality suite was no stranger to events and receptions. The West London Wandering Bishops, the Chiswick Decorative Egg Society and the Association of Invisible Aryans each held their annual meetings there. It had not, however, seen a spread like this since the Brentford Blow-Out Club had dined themselves to collective oblivion there five years previously with a marathon eat-in. Today’s spread was of that rare and almost unknown variety that combined quality with quantity.

“You know,” said Jim Pooley as he pushed an exquisite sweetmeat into his face and held out his glass for a top up, “this is the life.”

“I was thinking something of the sort myself,” Omally replied, as he decanted another measure of chilled French wine into his own glass.

“Do you think it’s always like this for politicians, John?” Omally perused the congregation. Those present looked very much at ease and pretty much at home. “Can one still buy one’s way into Parliament?” Jim asked. “Seems like a decent enough job for a married man.”

“Definitely not!” The image of Pooley giving forth across the floor of “The House” whilst Jennifer Naylor laced herself into the French maid’s outfit and plumped up the pillows of the marital bed, had Omally cringing.

As if at a psychic summons the future Mrs Pooley approached them through the crowd. “I shall turn a blind eye to your presence if you remain sober. But any trouble and out you go.”

Omally raised his glass and smiled his winning smile. “This is all very impressive,” he said. “You have a flair for organization, to have arranged all this so quickly. Remarkable. The Olympic games in Brentford — who would have thought it?”

Jennifer Naylor glanced from John to Jim and back again. “The odds against it must be something in the nature of a million to one, wouldn’t you say?”

“I am not a betting man,” said Omally, in all truth.

Jennifer Naylor smiled. “You have so few vices, Mr Omally.”

John offered the beautiful woman a canapé. “This is a glorious spread,” said he. “A nouvelle cuisine belly-buster, no less.” He turned the bottle of wine in his hand and marvelled at the vintage. “And I thought that the council was down to its last few bob.”

“It is,” said Jennifer, dabbing her lips with a napkin. “This function has been privately funded.”

“Indeed, and might I ask by whom?”

“I really wish I knew.” The wistful tone in Jennifer’s voice and the faraway look in her eyes were not lost upon John, who felt a sudden pang of jealousy.

“Miss Naylor,” interrupted Mavis Peake, “sorry to tear you away from your friends, but the Minister for Trade and Industry would like a word.”

Jennifer Naylor smiled down between her cleavage to her frustrated associate. “Why, thank you, dear,” she said, steering her breasts close by Mavis’s nose. “If you will excuse me, gentlemen.”

“Your servant, ma’am,” said Jim Pooley. “It is all a bit lavish though, isn’t it?” he said, thrusting something of an exotic nature into his mouth. “Who do you think is paying for it all?”

Omally shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea, but it’s big money, big out-borough money. I suggest we mingle, Jim. Keep our eyes and ears open.”

“And our mouths,” said Jim. “What do you suppose that is?”

“An asparagus tip, you buffoon,” said John Omally. “Somewhat al dente for my palate, but nevertheless quite passable.”

Neville thrust a sullen salmon sandwich into his mouth and munched. The bar was all but empty. In a corner Bob the Bookie engaged in heated conspiratorial chit-chat with a shabby-looking man with a bandaged head and bare feet. Other regulars had, upon discovering the bar to be so crowded, taken themselves elsewhere for their lunchtime repasts. Neville had lost out all the way round.

Old Pete entered the bar. “You’re quiet today, Neville, a dark rum if you please.” The ancient surveyed the loaves and fishes. “Jesus been in then?” he asked.

Neville was not amused. “Members of Parliament as it happens,” he said. It sounded equally far-fetched. “Heads of State. Have a sandwich.”

“Thank you.” Old Pete took two. “Heads of State, eh?”

“Truly,” said Neville, handing Old Pete his rum and accepting the exact price in pennies and halfpennies.

“So I suppose that would be the pundit Nehru himself over there, chatting with Bob.” Old Pete applied himself to the salmon sandwich. “Any ketchup?” he asked.

Neville thrust the official itinerary towards Old Pete. “Doubting Thomas,” he murmured. The elder statesman cocked a wise’n over the schedule. “It reads like a piss artist’s day out in paradise. How much are the tickets?”

“Free,” said Neville, turning away to replenish the bottle on the rum optic. “If you have the itinerary you get in free. Privileged bastards, unto those that have it shall be given and unto those that have not …” He turned back just in time to see Old Pete hobbling at speed out through the door and off down the street. “… Even that which they have shall be taken away from them.”

The exhibition hall had undergone a dramatic facelift. Gone were the nicotine paintwork and fusty curtains, gone too the clapped-out benches and several hundred excruciating water-colours, the work of budding local artists, which had graced the walls for a twelve-month. What had previously been a grim foreboding edifice was now bright, vital, a visual symphony of Post-Modernist primaries and soft pastels. The Victorian marble floor, previously capable of turning a whisper into a public broadcast and a footstep into a thunderclap, was lost beneath tiles of new audio-soluble polysilicate which effectively swallowed up the sounds of foot-falls, harmonized the acoustics and offered cushioned comfort to the visitor’s feet.

In the centre of the floor stood the model town of Brentford, with its great five-pointed companion hovering above. It looked very much the way Bethlehem must have looked upon that first Christmas, although slightly less up-market. Lines of VDUs, literally overflowing with “user-friendliness”, displayed the minutiae of detail, specifications, stress factors, variables, coefficients of linear expansion, quantum mechanics.

On the far wall, the borough’s roll of honour was lost behind an enormous video screen upon which, portrayed in advanced computer graphics of a three-dimensional kind, the projected stadium assembled and disassembled itself again and again and again. Below this, and flanked by two ex-sumo wrestlers ladled into security guards’ uniforms, stood a tall transparent cylinder, and within this floated the slim disc of Gravitite. In front of this a large red sign put the security-conscious visitor’s mind at rest. For, should a would-be felon succeed in overpowering the guards, dynamiting his way through the two-inch plexiglass, setting off the numerous alarms and bringing down the steel portcullises, he would still have the laser beams and the poison gas to deal with.

The double doors from the hospitality suite swung open and the Whitehall chappies, now in various stages of inebriation, entered in a rowdy concourse. In their wake strolled Pooley and Omally.

“Holy mackerel,” said Jim. “This is all a bit sudden. I was down here a week ago and there was no talk then of redecoration.”

Omally just whistled and shook his head.

The Whitehall types, several clinging amorously to their female assistants and all with equal passion to their glasses — swarmed amongst the exhibits, cooing and ooh-ahing. Finally, at a command from Jennifer Naylor, they assembled about the model town.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “I will hand you over to Messrs Membrane and Mucus who will explain to you all aspects of the proposed stadium and answer whatever questions you might care to ask. Sirs.”

Lucas and Julian entered somewhat sheepishly, in the close company of two plain-clothed minders. Lucas sported a selection of cuts and abrasions and Julian had apparently taken up Sikhism. In the bruised face of yesterday’s Indian uprising, they were taking no chances. The minders flexed and made menacing gestures. The Geronimo twins were nowhere to be seen.

Once more, Mucus and Membrane ran through their polished double act. If anything it had become even more polished, and by the time they had concluded and were preparing themselves to meet the bombardment of questions from the excited ministers, Omally for one was convinced that the battle had been won. Julian and Lucas knew this to be a fact. They had spent the morning at the Ministry of Defence demonstrating the wonders of Gravitite. Contracts had already been signed to the effect that in exchange for the formula, the government would give the games the go-ahead and defray all costs that the transfer from Birmingham to Brentford would involve. This meeting was nothing more than a formality.

“How long will construction take?”

“Something less than a month.”

“Who is going to pay for the actual stadium?”

“Our client.”

“When might we meet him?”

“Regretfully, never. Our client is a millionaire recluse and seeks no publicity.”

“The sites where the legs are to be erected, has planning permission been granted?”

Lucas and Julian looked painfully at one another. “It has now.”

“Do you think you could run through the locations of the sites just once more for the record?”

“Certainly. Now as I have said, these were unwanted parcels of land sold off by the council to our client. When the games finish they will be returned to the borough. Such is the nature of our client’s philanthropy.”

“And the sites are …?”

Julian outlined the proposed sites: “West Point: Area of wasteland beside car park in Butts Estate. North-West Point: Disused works car park in Brook Lane North. North-East Point: Area of wasteland in corner of park, Clayponds Lane. East Point: Foreshore area to east of Griffin Island. South Point: Abandoned boatyard next to undeveloped area known as Cider Island.”

Abandoned boatyard next to undeveloped area known as Cider Island. The words took a moment or two to sink in before Pooley and Omally started in simultaneous horror. Thrusting their way through the crowd they gaped at the model town. There, sure as sure, the southern leg of the great stadium reached down and pierced a half-sunken barge in the abandoned boatyard. The half sunken barge which was the headquarters of the “P & O Line”.

“Excavations will begin on Monday,” said Lucas Mucus. “The legs will be up by the following weekend.”