Neville climbed onto the bar counter. With the robes and the beard and the knobkerrie and everything, he looked mightily impressive. “This day shall be known as the Day of Retribution,” he roared.
“Just calm down.” John made calming gestures. “Things are never as bad as they seem.”
“Never as bad?” Neville flung wide his arms. “Look at my pub. Just look at my pub.”
John cast a wary eye about the place. The Swan had been converted. Where once had stood the Britannia pub tables and the comfy chairs, now there was a row of pews. The dominoes table too was gone, replaced by a font with a little fountain rising from it. The walls, so long the haunt of mellowed sporting prints, were presently festooned with portraits of saints, garish plastic Virgin Marys that lit up from the inside, fake icons with holographic images, and neon crosses flashing on and off.
And from the ceiling hung plaster cherubim and seraphim, fat-bummed and grinning, holding little bows and arrows, fluttering their tiny wings.
And here and there and all around stood statues, garishly painted theatrical prop statues, of Tobias and the Angel, St Francis of Assisi, Matthew, Mark and Eric Cantona. Eric Cantona?
John Omally crossed himself.
“You piss-taking bastard.” Neville made to leap from the counter.
“No,” said John. “No really, this is dire. We’ll get it fixed, we really will.”
“Liar and hypocrite!”
“No, I mean it.”
“Oh yes?” Neville’s voice rose by an octave. “Oh yes? Don’t think I haven’t heard about your evil schemes to ruin me further. The John Omally Millennial Brewery and the Jim Pooley.”
“Ah,” said John.
“I think we should be off,” said Jim. “Before the, you know, flagellating and the nailing up.”
“And the burning at the stake,” said Old Pete.
“Why are you dressed as a Buddhist monk?” Omally asked. “And wearing a mitre?”
“Just trying to fit in.”
“By Baal!” cried Neville. “By Belial and…”
“I suppose it must make it worse, him being a pagan and everything,” Jim whispered. But nobody heard him.
“Ye Great Old Ones. Ye Deathless Sleepers.”
Omally pushed his way through the congregation and squared up beneath the ranting Neville.
“Stop it!” he shouted. “I will fix it for you. I promise. Cross my heart and… no, forget that. I give you my word.”
“Oaths are but words, and words but wind,” said the lady in the straw hat. “Claude Butler said that.”
“Samuel Butler,” said Paul. “He was an English satirist, 1612 to 1680, born in…”
“Stop that!” John Omally raised his fist.
“John,” called Jim from the door. “John, I’m leaving now. I may not be able to foresee the future, but I know just what’s coming next and I have no wish to endure another thrashing.”
“No one is going to get thrashed, Jim.”
“Shame,” said the lady in the straw hat.
Neville opened his mouth to issue curses.
“Stop!” John put up his hands. “Stop all this now. Neville, I promise to sort it out. I promise to have the Swan restored to its former glory. I will swear upon anything you wish. I promise, Neville. I promise.”
“Did you hear that?” asked Neville, gazing around.
“We did. We did.” The patrons’ heads bobbed up and down. Old Pete’s mitre fell onto the floor and his dog did a whoopsy on it.
“Right,” said Neville. “I give you until the end of the week, Omally.”
“The end of the week? That’s impossible.”
“Bring in the wicker man!”
“No, all right. The end of the week. Whatever you say.”
“Swear it, Omally. Shout it loud for all to hear.”
“I’ll get it all sorted by the end of the week,” shouted John. “I swear upon all that is holy.”
“Fine,” said Neville, climbing down. “Pint of the usual, is it?”
“You’ve got a bloody nose,” said Suzy. “Did someone hit you again?”
“No.” Jim managed half a sniff. “I was just going up to the bar for a drink when I slipped on this bishop’s mitre that was covered in poo.”
Suzy put a finger to his lips. “You do take a terrible hammering,” she said.
Pooley kissed her fingers. “I’d like to feel that there’s some purpose behind all my suffering, but I’m quite sure there’s not.”
They sat in Archie Karachi’s Star of Bombay Curry Garden (and Tasty-chip Patio), sipping Kingfisher lager and taking tastes from bowls of Kashmiri rogan josh, Rasedar shaljum, Kutchi bhindi, and French- fried potatoes.
“So, are you going into the brewery trade?” Suzy asked.
“No I am not. I’m going to help Omally sort out the Swan for Neville. Do my community service. Then I’m going to seek proper employment, and then I hope to ask you something.”
“What kind of something?”
“Something I can’t ask you now. Not until I’ve got myself sorted out.”
“Don’t sort yourself out for me, Jim. I like you just the way you are.”
“But I’m a loser and I’m fed up with it.”
“You are an individual.”
“That word is beginning to grate on my nerves.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, I didn’t mean you. Here, have another chip.” Jim fumbled with the bowl. “I can’t even eat properly when I’m with you.”
“Nor me. It’s good, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s very good.”
“Bad,” said Dr Steven Malone. “Very bad boys.”
The two boys looked up at him. One golden, one dark, but otherwise so very much alike. They stood in a downstairs room of that house in Moby Dick Terrace. The house where the old couple had died of natural causes.
“You mustn’t keep wandering off,” the bad doctor told them. “You might get yourselves lost.”
“We cannot get lost, father,” said the golden child, gazing up with his glittering eyes. “We remember everything, every moment, everything.”
Dr Steven smiled a twisted smile. “Digital memory,” he said, “total recall with absolute accuracy. And what about you?” he asked the dark one.
“I forget nothing,” the dark one replied.
“That’s good.”
“Father,” said the golden child. “You said you would choose names for us today.”
“And when did I say that?”
“Precisely one hundred and twenty-three minutes ago.”
“Very good. And so I have. You,” he pointed to the golden child, “will henceforth be known as Cain. And you,” he pointed to the other, “Abel.”
“As in the Bible,” said Cain. “Genesis chapter four, verse one.”
“Bible?” Dr Steven’s face, already ashen, grew more ashen still. “What do you know about the Bible?”
“All,” said Abel. “We go to the library and read the books.”
