“Yes, I think you’re right. So would now be a good time to raise the matter of our salaries?”
“Now would be a good time to raise our salaries.”
“Jolly good.”
Fred’s voice rose. It rose and rose. It rattled the crystals of the new chandelier, it made the window panes vibrate, it caused the nose to drop off a toby jug on the mantelpiece, and if chaos theory is to be believed it buggered up the sprout crop in Upper Sumatra.
“Bring me their heads!” screamed Fred. “Bring me their frigging heads.”
Clive had his hands firmly clasped over his ears. But his nose was beginning to bleed. “I really don’t think that heads are the solution,” he shouted.
“I do,” shouted Derek. “I think we should cull the entire population of Brentford.”
Fred’s hands were all of a quiver. They clutched in their fingers one of Omally’s pamphlets. They ripped this pamphlet into tiny little pieces and flung these pieces into the air. “I want this sabotaged!” screamed Fred in an even higher register. “And I want my money back.”
But he didn’t get it.
Early the next morning John and Jim sat in the Brentford Sorting Office viewing the twenty- three sacks of application forms which had all arrived by return of post.
“I think we can chalk this up as a one hundred per cent positive response,” said John. “Shall we dig in?”
“Is this what we’re being paid for?” Jim asked.
“Of course. Whatever did you think?”
“Well, it was always my opinion that company directors spent their days swanning about in limousines, eating at expensive restaurants, smoking large cigars and taking the afternoons off with their secretaries.”
“Ah.” John made thoughtful noddings. “I take your point. You feel that a task such as this should be left to underlings.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m getting above myself. But I do have pressing business of my own that I should be attending to.”
“Millennial business?”
“Precisely.”
“And what business would this be?”
“The building of the Jim Pooley.”
“Ah. But don’t I recall you saying that there isn’t enough time left for anything like that?”
“Aha.” Jim tapped his nose.
“You tapped your nose, Jim,” said John. “This is a new development.”
Jim tapped it again. “I have decided to enlist the services of our two local builders, Hairy Dave and Jungle John. They are going to construct the Jim Pooley in the traditional style of a rude hut. A couple of weeks and it will be up.”
“One light breeze and it will be down again.”
“I shall oversee the building work myself.”
“Neville isn’t going to like it.”
“I don’t think I’ll mention it to Neville.”
Omally shrugged. “Well, please yourself, Jim. If you think this bit of self-indulgence is more important than helping the Professor.”
“I didn’t say that. It’s my personal contribution to the celebrations.”
“You are, as ever, altruism personified. But regrettably, as I am the managing director of the Brentford Millennium Committee, and so one up the chain of command from your good self, I hereby inform you that you can’t have the time off.”
“What?”
“And you’d be wasting it anyway. Hairy Dave and Jungle John are already at work on Omally’s. Arse-ends and everything.”
AND EVERYTHING
Now there is much that might have been written of what occurred during the months that led up to December. Of the many and various projects which were put into operation and the many and various plain folk of Brentford who absconded with large quantities of cash and now live on an island in the Caribbean. Of Fred’s doomed attempts to recover his money, of more hair-raising life and death struggles, of how the Flying Swan was restored to its former glory, and then converted once more to the Road to Calvary and then restored yet again, converted yet again, restored yet again and so on and so forth.
And some tender passages might have been included regarding Jim’s relationship with Suzy and how the old business was finally conducted. And how the old business was not the old business at all when it came to Jim and Suzy. But how it was making love.
And of just how special making love can be.
But time does not allow. And so let us move forward to Monday, December the twenty-ninth 1997. To early evening, a new moon rising in the sky, a considerable nip in the air and words being spoken in the Flying Swan.
No, excuse me, the Road to Calvary.
28
“And I’m telling you,” said Neville, “if it wasn’t for this,” he held up a bottle of Hartnell’s Millennial Ale: the beer that tastes the way beer used to taste, “you would be roasting in that grate instead of my yule log.”
Omally gave a sickly grin. “I will get it sorted, I promise. You are serving the ale strictly in rotation, as I told you?”
“Yes, yes, yes. Numbered crates, red bottle top last week, amber bottle top this week, green bottle top next week. I know all that. The beer has to be served fresh, it doesn’t keep. You’ve told me again and again, and so has Norman. I’m a professional, you know.”
“I know, I know. It’s just very very important that you use each batch within a week. It will go off otherwise.”
Jim, who had been drinking at the bar, coughed into his ale, sending much of it up his nose. “Go off. Oh my God.”
John steered him away to a side table.
“Do try to control yourself, Jim,” he said.
“Control myself? John, what if he overlooks a crate, or something? The whole pub will go up. People will die, John. Supplying him with that beer is such a bad bad idea.”
“I only supply him with just enough. It’s the most popular beer in the borough – there’s never any left over the following week. And it’s the only reason we’re allowed to drink here.”
“It’s no fun to drink here any more, with it done up like this.” Jim cast an eye over the religious trappings. They were getting pretty knackered from all the constant moving in and out and in again, but actually they didn’t look all that bad, what with the Christmas decorations and everything.
“I’ll get it sorted.”
“Of course you won’t. You won’t get it sorted, the same way Norman will never get the beer sorted.”
“And is the free rock concert in the football ground sorted, Jim?”
“Well.” Jim made the now legendary so-so gesture. The one that means, “No, actually.”
“No,” said John, “I thought not.”
