The Sprouts of Wrath

27

Further days did as one might expect them to and the weeks began to pass. The media were playing something of a waiting game. Regular reports were issued as to the progress of the stadium’s construction, and certainly the sheer scale of the operation and its unique nature made everything newsworthy. But the Birmingham débâcle and the sheer eccentricity of the Brentford project had the newsmen hedging their bets.

The work progressed nightly and more and more pre-constructed sections were pressed into place, but the greatest wonder of all was that none of the stadium was actually visible come morning. A thin and hazy line delineated its expanding borders but the solar cells and the ingenious system of sub-stadia optics projected daylight on to the borough and laid an all but perfect camouflage. But the eyes of the world were upon it, or at least upon what little they could see of it. Reporters prowled the borough seeking a twist or a turn that might be moulded into an exclusive. But they got little in return for their pains. Through motives entirely unconnected both Ms Jennifer Naylor and Inspectre Sherringford Hovis saw to that.

At a little before ten-thirty on a particular Thursday morning John Omally strolled into the Flying Swan. The terrors of the night on Griffin Island were pressed far to the back of his mercurial mind; his thoughts were now, as ever, fixed upon the main chance. As such he was singularly unprepared for the horror which now met his naked gaze.

At the end of the bar-counter Neville stood glowering, his teeth and hands painfully clenched and the cause of his consternation all too apparent. In the centre of the saloon bar perched upon a bar stool sat Young Master Robert, demon spawn of the master brewer. About him moved his evil catspaws, coldly and efficiently tearing the living heart from the grand old watering hole.

Omally caught at his breath, his head swam and his eyes bulged painfully from their sockets. He had known many shocks and traumas during the course of his eventful life, but this, this was torment to the very soul. Nightmare become reality.

“Away,” quoth the Young Master, gesturing to the line of Britannia pub tables, which, it had been previously assumed, nothing less than the long awaited nuclear holocaust event would have been capable of shifting. “Out with the old and in with the new.” A menial dragged away one of the antique tables exposing four bright discs of carpet which hadn’t seen daylight for one hundred years. “To the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump,” sang the boy wonder in a ghastly parody of the Lone Ranger’s famous theme.

Omally staggered over to Neville. The part-time barman stared through him, his good eye ticcing violently. “Neville,” gasped Omally, “Neville, do something!”

The part-time barman’s eye finally focused upon a friend. “John,” he whispered, “John, do something.”

“Bin the chairs,” cried Young Master Robert unfolding an enormous set of plans across his bony knees. “I want a line of chrome bar-stools over there. Where are the video machines?”

“Video machines?” Neville gripped the bar-counter for support. He was fast approaching “wipe-out”.

Omally glanced about in desperation, searching his brain for a solution. Kill them all, said his cerebellum, spare not even their children lest the evil persist. “Shotgun,” ordered Omally, “where is the shooter, Neville?”

“No guns,” stuttered the banjoed barman, “no killing in my pub, John, anything else, do something, anything.”

“Get the dartboard down,” crowed the young vandal, “Bin it.”

“Kill them all!” shouted Neville. “Spare not even their children lest the evil persist!”

There were five brewery menials, big fellows to a man. John considered that he could bring down at least two of them, possibly three if luck was on his side, but as a long-term solution to any problem, violence had only so much going for it and no more. There had to be another way and one that did not endanger life and limb. “Leave this to me,” said Omally, straightening his dicky bow.

“What are you going to do?”

Omally looked long and hard into the face of Neville. It was a face he had known for nearly twenty years, through long and short and thick and thin, but it had never looked like this before. The barman’s expression spelt defeat. His face said “beaten”. John patted the good man upon the shoulder. “Chin up,” he said, “Just leave it to me, I’ll sort it out.”

The barman’s mouth said “thank you” but no words came from it.

Omally straightened his shoulders and strode across the bar towards the Young Master. He owed Neville, every regular in the Swan owed Neville. In Brentford Neville was respected and in a manner which had no side to it he was loved also. No-one, no matter for the what, which or why, should be allowed to do this to him.

Omally strode across the bar this day a titan, an avenging angel, a Knight Templar. He didn’t have an idea in his head.

“What do you want?” asked the Young Master, when John was near enough to make his presence felt.

“I … er, whatchadoing?” asked Omally.

“I would have thought that was clear enough.”

John looked about, as if seeing the carnage for the first time. “Oh,” said he, “redecorating, is it?”

Young Master Robert ignored him and returned to his plan. Yokel, he thought.

“Perhaps I can be of some assistance,” said John Omally, holding up a corner of the plan. “You’ve got it upside down,” he added helpfully.

“I know what I’m doing, kindly clear off.”

John thrust his unwanted hands into his pockets. “It’s a brilliant concept, ideas-wise,” he said thoughtfully.

The Young Master eyed him over the plan. “You approve?” he said with suspicion.

“Oh yes,” lied Omally, peering at the plan with a knowing eye and convincing enthusiasm. “I see that the wall-bars are going to divide the saloon bar from the public; where do you propose to put the Nautilus machine?”

“Right here.” The Young Master pointed appropriately, watching for Omally’s response.

“Across the entrance to the gents, shrewd,” said John, “Very shrewd.”

“You think so?”

“Indeed yes, the punters will literally have to work out on the machine to get to the gents, work up a thirst, eh?”

“That’s what I thought,” said Young Master Robert, though he hadn’t until now.

“This kind of theme bar is definitely the bar of tomorrow,” John continued. “I was only chatting with Lucas about it the other day.”

“Lucas?” queried the Young Master.

“Lucas Mucus,” said John, “of Membrane, Mucus, Willoby, Turncoat and Gladbetook. Covent Garden,” he tapped his nose, “one of the big five, need I say more?”

“Oh, that Lucas…”

“Which other? Surely you know him?”

“Slightly,” said Young Master Robert. “You know him well then?”

“Like a brother. We did visual design, marketing management, advanced concept realization, audio and televisual of course “Oh, of course.” Robert’s head nodded foolishly.

“Consumer response-objectivity and mass-media inter-inductional transmogrification at the Slade.” Omally studied the Young Master’s face for signs that he had been rumbled.

“Go on?” said the buffoon, very much impressed.

John did so, with growing confidence. “Surely I see the hand of Lucas at work here?” he said, gesturing grandiloquently.

“No, no, this is all my own work.”

“Brilliant,” said John, “I am very impressed. So how did you get wind of it then, a bit of industrial espionage, eh?” He pulled at his lower eyelid in a lewd manner.

“Sorry?” said Young Master Robert. “I don’t think I follow you.”

Omally nudged the hoodlum confidentially in the rib area. “Come on,” said he, “you’re not telling me this is a coincidence?”

“Coincidence? What are you talking about?” John studied his toecaps. Without the Young Master’s prompting, work in the Swan had ceased and the menials were standing about like run-down clockwork automatons. So far so good, thought Omally. “Out with it,” demanded the Young Master. “What are you talking about?”

Omally beckoned conspiratorially and put his arm about the brat’s rounded shoulder. “All this,” said he, “you sly dog, you got wind, eh?” He tapped his nose with his free hand.

“Got wind?”

“Certainly, got wind that the brewery’s rivals were about to convert all their pubs into theme bars of a similar ilk.”

“They what?” Young Master Robert toppled backwards from his stool. Omally considered stopping him, but the thought passed on almost as soon as it had been born. He helped the boy up from the floor.

“Now don’t come the innocent,” he said. “Lucas told me that his company were engaged in converting the Four Horsemen, the North Star, the Jolly Alchemist, the Hands of Orloff, the Shrunken Head, the …”

“I… stop! Wait!” Young Master Robert flapped his hands at the menials who were doing nothing anyway. “All the other pubs?” he asked Omally. “All of them?”

“Every other local,” said that man, crossing his heart and hoping not to die in the process.

“Shit,” said Young Master Robert. “Oh shit, shit, shit!”

“Oh no,” said Omally, striking his forehead, “now I see it all.”

“You do? You do?”

“Of course, what a fool I am!”

“You are?”

“I am,” said Omally, who was anything but. “They’ve stolen the idea from you, of course, it all makes sense now. One of them was in here a few nights back. Neville must have let the cat out of the bag.”

“You bastard.” The boy turned upon the part-time barman, who stood alone in silent prayer.

“Pardon?” said Neville. “I what?”

“No, no,” said John, “it’s not his fault, he was only blowing the brewery’s trumpet. You never told him it was a secret. Professional pride got the better of him. That man worships you.”

Robert looked from Omally to the part-time barman and back again. For one terrible moment John thought the game was up. “He does what?”

“Not a man to show his feelings,” said John hurriedly. “There’s a way out of this though, I’m sure there is.”

“Think, man, think.”

Omally sought inspiration amongst the bumblies upon the Swan’s nicotined ceiling. “I have a plan,” said he, suddenly. “It is an old trick but it might just work.”

“Tell me… tell me.”

Half an hour later Neville stood alone in the Flying Swan, it was just as it had ever been, same threadbare carpet, same tables, same chairs, same dartboard, same everything.

Omally stood in the doorway waving goodbye. “Don’t mention it,” he called, “any time.” The door swung shut upon the sound of Young Master Robert’s departing BMW.

“How?” said the part-time barman. “How did you do it?”

Omally turned to his esteemed employer, the look upon Neville’s face was one John would forever cherish. “Psychology, ” said the great man of Eire, “and a small white lie or two.”

“Have a drink,” said Neville, making for the whisky optic, “have two, have three if you like.”

“Not when I’m working, sir,” said John in a voice of mock sincerity.

Neville drew off a couple of large stiff ones. “Sit down and tell me,” he said. “Every last little bit.”

“There’s not much to it,” said John sipping Scotch. “I simply told him that to my knowledge the rival brewery were converting all their pubs into Olympic theme bars and that to really clean up, with the big influx of Yanks, the best thing to do was to retain the Swan’s ‘Olde Worlde’ atmosphere. An island of unspoilt old England in a sea of pseudo-Americana was the phrase I used. Quite a nice one I thought. Seemed to do the trick rather well.”

“You are a genius,” said Neville. “But what when he finds out that it’s all lies, when the other pubs don’t do the conversions?”

“I took the liberty of telling him that the other pubs were not going to be converted until the day before the games begin, so when he does find out it will be too late anyway.”

Neville looked thoughtful. “But when he does find out…” His voiced trailed off.

“When he does find out then I will tell him that it is yet more industrial espionage. That the rival breweries have all followed his lead. But of course it will be too late for them because our sign will already be up.”

“Our sign, what sign?”

Omally put on a brave face. “The new pub sign,” he said in a whisper.

“What?” roared Neville. “Are we still to be the Pentathlon Bar?”

“No, no.” John shook his head. “In fact I got away with only a letter or twos’ change.”

“All right, let’s have it.”

“Well,” said Omally, flinching from the part-time barman, “the new sign will say: YE FLYING SWAN INN, OLDEST AND MOST AUTHENTIC PUB IN BRENTFORD, WELCOMES ITS AMERICAN COUSINS.”

“Ye Flying Swan Inn,” said Neville. “Ye Gods!”