Jim once more took up the computer print-out and perused its dismal details. Back they went, an unbroken chain of Pooleys, marching through time. Well, hardly marching, slouching was more like it, with their heads down, probably to mask their evil breath. Peons and peasants, sanitary engineers and shovellers of sh…
“Ah, here’s the tea,” said Mr Compton-Cummings.
The secretary held Jim’s towards him at arm’s length. Her face was turned away.
“Thanks very much,” said Jim.
“Look on the bright side,” smiled the genealogist, sipping at his Earl Grey. “My book will be a very expensive affair, pandering to an elite minority. The scholastic fraternity, Fellows of the Royal Society, the intelligentsia. Hardly the class of folk to be found flinging darts in the saloon bar of the Flying Swan. The chances are that your rowdy drinking chums will never even see a copy, let alone purchase and read it. The secret of your malodorous predecessor will most likely remain just that.”
Jim sipped at his own tea. The cup smelled strongly of Dettol. Mr Compton-Cummings was probably right. John Omally rarely read anything heavier than the Morris Minor Handbook. Archroy was a Zane Grey man and Neville the part-time barman subscribed to SFX Magazine; Old Pete stuck to the People’s Friend and Norman of the corner shop to the Meccano Modeller. Though wise words were often spoken within the Flying Swan, those words derived not from books but rather from personal insight gained through the observation and intuitive understanding of natural lore. He was safe. Of course he was.
“Well, thus and so,” said Jim. “You are no doubt right, I’m sure.”
The genealogist offered Pooley one fat smile for luck, the two shook hands and Jim took his leave.
As he trudged up Moby Dick Terrace towards the Ealing Road and the Flying Swan, Jim sighed a great deal inwardly, but put his best foot forward. So what if he hadn’t sprung from noble stock? So what if he came from a long line of nobodies? So what if the only Pooley who had merited more than a statutory birth, occupation and death mention in the parish records had been some kind of brimstone-breathing ogre? So what indeed! Jim, though often daunted and done down, was an optimist ever. He rarely opened his eyes upon a new day without a sense of wonder and excitement. Certainly, on more than a few occasions, those eyes were somewhat bleary and bloodshot and the brain behind them still blurred from drink, but life was life and life was now. And Jim lived his life to the fullest he could manage.
Jim breathed in the healthy Brentford air, scented with honeysuckle, jasmine blossom and sweet pea. The sky was blue as a blue could do and the sun beamed down its blessings. Alive was a wonderful thing to be on such a day as this. Jim pulled back his shoulders, thrust out his chest, put a pace into his stride and found a tune to whistle. God was in his heaven and all was right with the world of Brentford.
Pooley had a fair old skip on by the time he reached the Flying Swan. He put his hand to the saloon bar door and pushed it open, to find himself confronted by a most bizarre spectacle.
Old Pete’s half-terrier, Chips, lay upon its back in the centre of the floor, a paw drawn across its canine snout. It appeared to be shaking with mirth. At the bar counter, several customers had handkerchiefs tied cowboy-bandit fashion about their faces. Two old fellas from the estate sat at their domino table holding their noses and fanning their beer, while John Omally stood with his arms folded and a Vick inhaler stuffed up each of his nostrils.
Neville the part-time barman stuck his head up from beneath the counter. He was wearing a gas mask. “Wotcha, stinker,” he said in a muffled tone. “Just breezed in from the East?”
And then the Swan’s patrons collapsed in helpless laughter.
Pooley stood, slack-jawed and shaking, slowly clenching and unclenching his fists. “Compton- Cummings,” he said in a cold and deadly voice.
“Got him in one,” declared Neville, removing his gas mask and mopping tears of laughter from his eyes. “He phoned here five minutes ago, plugging his latest book. Thought we’d all be keen to buy a copy.”
Jim Pooley left the Flying Swan and went home to find his old school cricket bat.
3
The judge, in his final summing up of the case, described the attack as vicious and cold- blooded. He said that for all his long years at the bar, he could not recall an incident of similar barbarity. He drew the jury’s attention once more to the horrific photographs taken by the police scene-of-crime photographer, which showed in gory detail the full extent of the victim’s injuries. He displayed the broken blood-stained cricket bat and spoke of the long drop from the second-floor window to the pavement below.
He spoke of escalating violence, the influence of television, the need to be firm (but fair), the need to see justice well and truly done and the need to clear the streets of inhuman monsters and make them safe for dear little white-haired old ladies to walk upon.
And then he added that in his personal opinion the attack was totally justified and dismissed the case out of hand. He also dismissed Mr Pooley’s claim for one million pounds’ compensation. Mr Pooley, he said, had got the hiding he deserved.
“As a practitioner of Dimac myself,” the judge said, “and a fellow Freemason in the same lodge as Mr Compton-Cummings, I would have dealt with you far more severely.”
Bang went the gavel onto the block, the court cleared and Jim was left alone in his wheelchair.
At a little after lunchtime closing John Omally arrived to push him home. “Look on the bright side, Jim,” he said. “At least you were on legal aid.”
Months passed, bruises healed and bones knitted themselves back together. Out of respect for the punishment Jim had taken, the patrons of the Flying Swan made no further reference to winds from the East. And after the brief excitement of the court case, the borough of Brentford settled itself down to do what it did best. Nothing. With style.
It was almost a year to the day of Jim’s beating that a large brown envelope tumbled through his letter box and came to rest upon a welcome mat that had long worn out its welcome. Jim plucked the item up and perused it with interest. He hadn’t ordered anything and it wasn’t his birthday. A present from a well-wisher? An admirer? Ever the optimist, Jim took his treasure into the kitchenette, placed it upon the stained Formica worktop and worried it with the carving knife. Away came the wrappings and out came the book.
The book!
Brentford: A Study of its People and History.
Jim stared at it in disbelief. Compton-Cummings had actually had the bare-faced brutality to send him a copy. It beggared all belief.
“You bastard” Jim snatched up the book and stared it in the glossy cover. “I just don’t believe this.” He put a foot to the pedal-bin pedal and raised the lid. A noxious stench rose from within, possibly even as noxious as the infamous, and now publicly chronicled, “breath of Pooley”. Jim released the pedal and fanned his nose with the book. “I’ve been meaning to empty you,” he told the bin. He carried the book over to the cooker. “But you’re gonna burn!”
It had been a slow month financially for Jim. The gas had been disconnected.
Jim carried the book to the sink. “Drown, then,” he said, then shook his head. Drown a book? He sat down at the kitchen table and thumbed the pages. They fell one upon another with the silky flow of an old school Bible. Jim sighed once more and with weary resignation flicked through the index for P.
His finger travelled down the page.
Plague Origin of Black Death traced to Brentford.
Planetary Alignments Astrology invented here.
Plasma Vortex Engine Invented here.
Plastic Ditto.
Platform Tickets World’s largest collection housed in museum.
Pooley’s finger travelled further down.
Plot Guy Fawkes’s confession fingers Brentonian.
