“Get real, John, please.”
“Spiritualists do it all the time.”
“I got thrown out of a spiritualist church once,” said Jim.
“Did you? Why was that?”
“Well, I went along because they had this guest medium, Mrs Batty Moonshine or someone, and she kept saying, ‘There are spirits here, I can see them all around, they’re trying to communicate,’ and then she said, ‘I’m getting a message for someone called John.’”
“Yes,” said John, “curiously enough they always say that.”
“And she did and there’s Johns all over the church putting up their hands. So I called out ‘Ask the spirit for John’s surname,’ and they threw me out.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“I was only trying to be helpful. But I don’t think it works really, do you?”
“Probably not. But if it did and we could speak to the monk directly…”
“The only way you could do that is if you had a time machine.”
Omally laughed.
But Pooley didn’t. “That’s it,” he said.
“That’s what?”
“A time machine.”
“Did you suck a lot of lead soldiers when you were a child, Jim?”
“No, I mean it. That’s how we do it. Travel back in time.”
“Travel back to the bar and get some more drinks in.”
“No, John, I’m not kidding. I’ve been doing these mental exercises for months. Trying to travel forwards in time through the power of the mind.”
“In your search for the winning lottery numbers. I’ve tried hard not to laugh.”
“But I can only travel backwards. I relive my childhood over and over again.”
“That’s not time travel, Jim. You recall your childhood memories because they are memories. Just memories.”
“I could do it. I know I could.”
“Away into the night with you.”
“I could do it.” Jim made a most determined face.
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
“No, I’m not.”
“I’ll get these in,” said John, taking up the glasses. “And we’ll speak some more of this.”
At a little after lunchtime closing, John and Jim were to be found once more strolling the thoroughfares of Brentford.
“All right,” said John. “We’ll give it a go. Where do you want to do it?”
“I’ve always done it on the bench outside the Memorial Library.”
“It’s a bit public there. Do it in the park.”
“Okey-dokey.”
John and Jim strolled down to the park. There were few people about, a dog-walker or two, a pram-pushing mum.
Jim sat down with his back against a tree.
“What exactly do you do next?” John asked.
“I just sort of go to sleep.”
“Oh dear, oh dear.”
“But it’s not a real sleep. It’s an altered state.”
“Are you usually sober when you do this?”
“Sometimes.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“You could make a noise like a road drill.”
“Why?”
“Well, they’ve been digging up the road near the library and I find the noise seems to help.”
“Brrrrrrrt!” went John Omally, trying to keep a straight face.
“Curiously that sounds just like a Vespa.”
“Raaaaaaaa!” went John.
“Not bad, but can you do it in A minor?”
“A minor,” said John. “That takes me back.”
“It takes me back also, but why does it take you back?”
“A minor. Blues harmonica. I had a Hohner. It was in A minor. The blues are always in A minor.”
“Perhaps that’s significant. Go on then, do it in A minor.”
Omally did it in A minor.
A lady in a straw hat walked by. “Shouldn’t be allowed,” she said.
John continued in A minor as Pooley settled back against the tree and readied for the off. He took deep breaths and closed his eyes. And soon the dreaming mind of Jim went once more on its walkabout.
Lottery balls went pop, pop, pop and the Blue Peter bloke-who-wasn’t poured out the same old spiel. Jim saw himself in the audience again with his left foot bandaged up. Then there it was again, the breakfast- then-the-bookies-the-bookies-then-the-pub-the-pub-then-home-for-tea
“Back,” commanded Jim. “Go back.”
“Mmmmmm,” went John Omally.
Back went Jim. To his teenage years, the Blue Triangle Club and Sandra of the rhyming slang. Then back to the childhood holidays and school and the headmaster’s room.
“Go back.”
To nursery school, the cradle, the maternity ward, then
WHACK!
And it wasn’t the sound of a door on a wall. It was a WHACK of a different persuasion.
“I’m going,” whispered Jim. “I’m off and going now.”
“Then go with God, my friend,” said John, for this seemed the right thing to say.
And so Jim drifted back.
Streets of houses rose up before him and fell away behind, women in mop caps with babies on their hips, gentlemen with high wing collars, splendid in their sideburns. Hansom cabs and broughams, horses and pony traps, then dandies in coloured waistcoats, fops and dollymops, ladies with pompadours, hoop skirts and silken drawers. Back.
Jim felt heat upon his face. Where was he now? It was hot here. In the distance rude dwellings. Jim thought himself closer. Phew! What a stink! So that’s why they were called rude. But who’s this?
Jim saw him marching over a hill, his robes blowing about him. Brown robes, knotted at the waist, bare legs and sandals. He was clutching something to his chest, something wrapped in a velvet cloth.
The monk marched ever closer.
Jim could see his face now. It was the face of an Old Testament prophet. Noble-browed, wild of eye, with a great beak of a nose, a chin thrust forward.
And on he marched. Right past.
“Hold on,” cried Jim. “I want a word with you.”
But the monk didn’t turn.
He didn’t see Jim.
But who was this?
A hooded rider was coming out of the East, as though borne on the wind. He rode towards the monk, reigned in his horse and dismounted.
