Knees Up Mother Earth (9 page)

“Sorry.” Norman busied himself with further ale-tasting.

“Bop,” went Old Pete, miming mighty boppings with his crinkly paws. “Just like the Wolf of Kabul swinging Clicki Ba.”

Neville made growling sounds under his breath.

“My glass is unaccountably empty,” said Old Pete, staring into said glass and making a quizzical face. Neville snatched the glass away from the elder and returned it once more to the dark-rum optic.

“Bop?” Norman whispered “bop” and mimed a muted bopping of his own while Neville’s back was turned. “He really bopped both Jim and John on the head?”

“A real treat, it was.” Old Pete sniggered. “It’s not the sort of mindless violence you see every day, especially not in here. The last time I saw someone get a walloping like that was in one of those dodgy videos you hired me.”

“I didn’t know what was on them.” Norman did
sssh-ings
with his fingers. “They arrived as a job lot. I’d never even heard of a snuff movie. I thought it was, well, about snuff, I suppose.”

Old Pete shook his old and wrinkly head. “You are a caution, Norman, you well and truly are.”

“If that’s a compliment, I’ll take it.” The shopkeeper raised his glass. “Honey catches more flies than vinegar, you know.”

Neville thrust Old Pete’s tipple before him and stalked away along the bar to serve a wandering bishop who’d stopped in for a swift one before heading down to the annual congress in the deconsecrated Anabaptist Chapel on the corner of Moby Dick Terrace.

“So,” said Old Pete, “apart from dodgy videos and girly magazines, how goes the world with you, young Norman?”

“Fraught as ever.” Norman made the face of one who knew the meaning of ‘fraught’. “But I had a bit of luck this afternoon. Answered an ad. A chap giving away crates of computer parts.”

“Giving away?” Old Pete mused upon this concept, but concluded that it meant nothing to him.

“Took me ten journeys in the van.” Norman dragged the last bit of liquid pleasure from his pint glass. “Couldn’t even get the van into my lock-up afterwards.”

“Someone will nick that old van of yours.”

“I can assure you that they won’t.” Norman grinned as evilly as his amiable visage would allow. “It has certain security features built into it. I built them in myself.”

“It will be gone already, then. I have an old handcart I can let you have at a price that might at first appear reasonable.”

“I’m fine,” said Norman. “One hand washes the other, you know, and a washed pot never boils.”

“So what are these computer parts? A lot of superannuated old toot, I’ll wager.”

“Well, they’re certainly not new. There’s nearly forty crates of them, labelled on the side as parts from something called a Babbage Nineteen-Hundred Series.”

Old Pete coughed suddenly into his rum, sending a jet of it up his right nostril to cause him further distress. He coughed and wheezed and Norman took to smiting him between his crook-backed shoulder blades.

“Lay off me, you hoodlum!” Old Pete raised up his stick and Chips bared his teeth towards the Samaritan shopkeeper’s ankles.

“I’m only trying to help.”

“Then leave me alone.”

“You seemed to be having some kind of fit.”

“I’m all right.” Old Pete pushed Norman away, took up what was left of his rum and tossed it down his throat.

“Same again for the both of us,” called Norman to Neville.

Neville, who appeared to be having some kind of dispute with the wandering bishop, did not hear him.

“You did say Babbage, didn’t you?” Old Pete was almost his old self once more. “Babbage Nineteen-Hundred Series?”

“That’s what it says on the crates.” Norman waved his hands towards Neville. “Same again over here, Neville, please.”

Neville, however, was still engaged in words with the wandering bishop. Heated words, these seemed to be, although Norman could not quite hear what they were.

“Burn them,” said Old Pete. “Burn the lot of them now, Norman.”

“That’s a bit harsh.” Norman regarded the old scoundrel. “Every man has the right to worship in the church of his choice. I’ve nothing against wandering bishops. In fact, I really like their hats.”

“The crates, Norman, you buffoon. The computer parts. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll burn them all.”

“Burn them?” Norman’s face was one of considerable surprise. “Why would I want to burn the crates?”

“Let’s just say that what’s in ’em is dangerous. Very dangerous. I know what I’m talking about and I’m giving you sound advice. Trust me, I’m a pensioner.”

“You’re drunk,” said Norman. “Alcohol has addled your brain.”

“Norman.” Old Pete leaned forward on his bar stool and grasped Norman’s tweedy lapels. “You don’t know what you’ve got there. You really don’t. I thought all that stuff was done with years and years ago. It mustn’t start again. Do you understand me?” And Old Pete shook feebly at the lapels of Norman.

“I don’t understand. Calm yourself down.”

Old Pete’s fingers trailed away. “Burn them all. Or by the God of gardeners,
I’ll
do it for you.”

And with that said, Old Pete left The Flying Swan, his loyal Chips hard upon his down-at-heels.

The door swung shut upon the decrepit departer and Norman’s eyes turned away from it and returned once more to the bar.

Just in time to see Neville striking down the wandering bishop with his knobkerrie.

“I think I’ll head off home now,” said Norman to himself. “Under a ragged coat lies wisdom and there’s no peace for the wicked.”

Jim Pooley felt decidedly strange. He sat in his bed at the Cottage Hospital and viewed tiny stars and sailing ships and sausages and sprouts.

“I can’t imagine why I’m seeing sprouts,” said Jim. “I’m sure it’s the wrong time of year for sprouts.” Jim gingerly fingered his aching head. Jim’s aching head was swathed in bandages. To the casual observer it would have appeared that Jim had taken up Sikhism.

“What would I know?” asked the casual observer in the bed next to Jim. “I only came in here to deliver a parcel and they’ve taken out my appendix.”

“My head hurts,” said Jim Pooley.

“You’re always complaining.” This voice belonged to John Omally, who lay in the bed to Jim’s right, the casual observer being in the bed to Jim’s left (looking in from the door, of course).

“I am unfailingly cheerful,” said Jim. “And I never complain,” he complained.

“Then I’ll complain for you,” said Omally. “Even though neither of us is little more than bruised, I’ll have that Neville for this. He will pay for the unwarranted violence that he visited upon us.”

“It wasn’t his fault, John,” said Jim, who, even on his bed of pain, was still a caring fellow. “He’d had a rough day. The professor’s choice of me as team manager came as just as much of a shock to him as it did to me. I think I’ll quit the job now before anything else happens. Will I get redundancy money, do you think?”

“I think you’ll get a smack from me if you don’t shut up.”

“It’s all your fault,” said Jim, sulkily. “You got me into this mess.”

“I had a dog once,” said the casual observer. “Used to chase cars.”

“Fascinating,” said Jim.

“Used to catch them, too,” said the casual observer. “Big dog, it was, the size of a small barn. Or Switzerland.”

“Which ward are we in?” Jim asked John.

“Which one do you think?” John made circular finger motions against the side of his bandaged head.

“Ah,” said Jim. “
That
ward.”

“So, are you a Sikh, too?” the casual observer asked John. “I see you’re wearing the same turban as this bloke.”

“No,” said John. “I’m a berserker. I suffer from a rare syndrome that manifests itself in bursts of uncontrollable violence when I’m questioned about anything.”

“How did you catch that?” asked the casual observer. “No, let me put that another way. Very nice to meet you. Good night.” And he turned upon his right-hand side (when looking from the door, of course) and feigned snorings.

“We have to get out of here,” said Jim. “I dearly need a drink. And a fag, actually.”

“I don’t think we’ll be drinking in The Flying Swan tonight.”

Jim shook his aching head. “This is a terrible business, John,” he said. “To be barred from The Flying Swan – that is as bad as it is possible for things to be.”

“There are many other bars in Brentford, Jim.”

“Take that back,” said Jim. “There is no other bar like The Flying Swan.”

“You are, of course, right.” John Omally leaned back upon his comfy pillows. “I think we’d do best to rest up here for the night. Gather our senses. Regain our vitality.” John reached out and pressed the little button on the wall beside his bed.

“What are you doing?” Pooley enquired.

“Summonsing the nurse,” said John. “Did you get a look at her through your stars and sprouts? She’s a rare beauty. I thought I’d ask her to give me a bed bath.”

“I think I’ll get some sleep, then.”

“Good idea, my friend. I’ll have the nurse put the screens around my bed. And I’ll try to keep the noise down.”

“Good night, then, John,” said Jim.

“Good night, Jim,” said John.

“Goodnight, Ma, goodnight, Pa, goodnight, John Boy,” said the casual observer, who was a fan of
The Waltons
.

Norman should have called it a night and simply gone back home, but somehow he couldn’t. He had no idea exactly what had come over Old Pete, nor why the haggard horticulturalist should have got himself into such a state at the mention of the Babbage Nineteen-Hundred Series computer parts. But Norman did feel somewhat excited about all those computer parts, particularly because all those computer parts were the sort of computer parts that Norman could really come to terms with. He’d never really got on with microchip technology. It was all too small. You couldn’t tinker at it with a big screwdriver. Valves and diodes and valves and more valves – that was what technology was supposed to be about. That was what it was all about when Norman had been a lad, when he’d read
Popular Mechanics
and
Popular Science
. Not to mention
Modern Mechanix and Inventions
and
Mechanics and Handicrafts
and
Science and Mechanics
. That Hugo Gernsback knew exactly what the future was supposed to look like. It was supposed to look BIG. Huge flying-wing aircraft powered by dozens of propellers, with folk supping cocktails on glass sundecks. And vast cars that seated a dozen well-dressed future folk, who also supped cocktails as they cruised along twelve-lane superhighways. Such cars had big fins on the back and a great deal of chrome. And domes on the top, of course.
Everything
had a dome on top. Your house had a dome on top. And your dog, of course, and you, too, if you were taking your dog for a walk on the moon. Near to the moon base. Which was inside a great big dome.

Norman sighed for this future that hadn’t come to pass. Hugo’s vision of tomorrow had been thwarted by the coming of the microchip. The future really should have been worked by valves. The future should have been BIG.

And so Norman returned to his lock-up garage.

He upped the up-and-over, switched on the light as it was getting dusky out, then downed the up-and-over and viewed the stacks of crates. It was a nearby viewing. Norman edged around the stacks, avoiding the half-sack of gone-solid cement.

“The thing to do,” said Norman to himself, “would be to dig into the crates, sort out enough bits and bobs to assemble a complete computer. Then whip them back to the shop in the van and piece them all together. But—”

Norman lifted a suitable tool from a rack upon the garage wall and took to prising the lid from an uppermost crate. “An instruction manual or book of assembly diagrams would be helpful.”

Norman peered into the crate he had opened: lots of waxed paper and lots of valves. Splendid.

Norman opened further crates and upon his opening of the fifth was heard to cry out (at least by himself) the magic word – Eureka.

“Eureka,” Norman cried out. And he drew into the light afforded by the naked flyspecked dangling bulb a clothbound booklet which had inscribed in gold upon its cover the words
Babbage 1900 Series Computer Assembly Manual
.

Norman leafed through the pages,
oohing
and
ahhing
to equal degree. And then he began to open other crates, marvelling at their contents and setting this, and indeed lots of the other, aside.

And when several hours had passed, Norman was done with all of his settings aside. He loaded all he had set aside into a number of emptied crates and loaded these into the back of his Austin A40 van.

And having turned off the light and secured the lock on his lock-up, Norman climbed into his van, donned his Meccano and Christmas-light helmet, keyed the ignition, swore loudly at his van and returned home in time to receive a good telling off for missing his dinner.

Night fell upon Brentford.

Neville evicted the last of his patrons, drew the bolts upon The Swan’s saloon bar door, switched off the bar lights and took himself off to bed. Where he spent a fitful night, his dreams beset with images of high-security prisons, where he was banged up at Her Majesty’s pleasure in a small and dismal cell, in the company of a tattooed Neanderthal lifer who referred to himself as “The Daddy” and Neville as his “bitch”.

Jim Pooley also spent a troubled night. His dreams were of football, with Jim being called on to the pitch to substitute for the Brentford striker who had been shot by a sniper during a penalty shootout with Real Madrid. And Jim was trying really hard to kick the ball, but his feet kept sticking to the turf and the ball wasn’t a ball at all, but a sprout. And the Real Madrid goalie certainly wasn’t a goalie, he was some sort of dragon.

And Jim kept getting woken up by all this noise coming from the bed to the right of him (when looking from the door). All this grunting and erotic moaning and—

Jim fell back asleep and dreamed some more about football.

Professor Slocombe rarely slept. He sat long into the night poring over ancient and not-so-ancient tomes. He pored over the
Roy of the Rovers
annual and Rommel’s
How to Win Tank Battles Bedside Companion
and the autobiography of Alexander the Great and
The Necronomicon
(naturally) and
Death Wears A Tottenham Strip
(a Lazlo Woodbine thriller) and a copy of
Banged Up and Gun Totin’
that had been delivered with his morning paper by mistake. And at four in the morning he slept for an hour in his chair and dreamed an alternative and far cleverer ending to the last episode of
The Prisoner
.

Mahatma Campbell slept and dreamed, but what he dreamed of when
he
slept, only the Campbell knew.

Others slept and dreamed of Brentford. Old Pete, for instance – he slept and dreamed and his dreams were troubled, troubled by memories he had long suppressed. Memories of things which he knew to be true, but had spent a lifetime convincing himself were otherwise.

And Gwynplaine Dhark slept, but didn’t dream.

And John Omally eventually slept and did. And his dreams were of a pretty nurse and John enjoyed these dreams.

And so the folk of Brentford slept and mostly dreamed.

And the moon was in its seventh house and Jupiter was in alignment with Mars.

And eventually something
cock-a-doodle-do’d
and a new day came to Brentford.