5
Nicholas Roger Raffles Rathbone, currently serving his time as local paperlad, stood before the Captain Laser Alien Attack Machine, his feet at three of the clock and his shoulders painfully hunched in his bid to defend planet Earth from its never-ending stream of cosmic cousins ever bent upon conquest, doom, and destruction.
Neville watched the performance with a face of despair. He too had made that gesture of defiance with an equal lack of success.
The boy Nick dug deeply into his denim pockets for more small change, but found only a pound note, whose serial number corresponded exactly with one which had lain not long before in Norman’s secret cashbox beneath his counter. He turned his back momentarily upon his humming adversary and bounced over to the bar counter. “Give us change of a quid then, Nev.”
Neville viewed the diminutive figure with the lime-green coiffure. “I cannot give out change,” he said maliciously. “You will have to buy a drink.”
“OK then, a half of shandy and plenty of two-bobs in the change, the Captain awaits.”
Neville drew off a mere trickle of ale into the glass and topped it up from the drips tray. “We’ve no lemonade,” he sneered.
“No sweat,” said Nick.
Neville noticed, as he passed the flat half-pint across the gleaming bar top, that the boy’s right forefinger drummed out a continual tattoo upon an imaginary neutron bomb release button. Accepting the pound note, he rang up “No Sale” and scooped out a fistful of pennies and halfpennies and a ten-bob piece. “Sorry I can’t let you have more than a couple of florins,” he told the bouncing boy, “we are a little down on silver this morning.”
The boy shrugged. “No sweat.” He was well acquainted with the old adage about a prophet being without honour in his own land, and he made a mental note that he would always in future take his perks in silver before settling in for a lunchtime’s cosmic warfare. Without further ado he pocketed his ten-bob piece, swept up his pennies, pushed his half-pint pointedly aside and jogged back to the humming machine.
Pooley and Omally entered the Flying Swan. “God save all here,” said the Irishman, as more bitowing rent the air, “and a pox upon the Nipponese and all their hellish works.”
Raffles Rathbone heard not a word of this; he was hunched low, aiding the Captain in his bid to defeat Earth’s attackers. His face was contorted into the kind of expression which made Joseph Carey Merrick such a big attraction in the Victorian side-shows. His right forefinger twitched in a localized St Vitus’ Dance and his body quivered as if charged with static electricity.
Neville ground his teeth, loosening yet another expensive filling, and tore his eyes away from the loathsome spectacle and towards his approaching patrons. “What is your pleasure, gentlemen?” he asked.
Pooley hoisted himself on to his favourite stool. “Two pints of your very best, barlord,” he said. “My companion is in the chair.”
Making much of his practised wrist action, Neville drew off two pints of the very very best. He eyed Omally with only the merest suspicion as the Irishman paid up without a fuss, guessing accurately that it was some debt of honour. His eyebrows were raised somewhat, however, to the shabby and mudbespattered appearance of the two drinkers. He thought to detect something slightly amiss. “I think to detect something slightly amiss,” he observed.
John drew deeply upon his pint. “You find me a puzzled man,” said he with some sincerity.
Pooley nodded, “I also am puzzled,” he said tapping his chest.
The part-time barman stood silently a moment, hoping for a little elaboration, but when it became apparent that none was to be forthcoming he picked up a pint glass and began to polish it.
“You have had no luck yet with the disablement of that horror?” said Omally, gesturing over his shoulder towards the video machine.
Neville accelerated his polishing. “None whatever,” he snarled. “I have tried the hot soup through the vent, the bent washer in the slot, assault with a deadly weapon. I have tried simply to cut the lead but the thing is welded into the wall.”
“Why not pull the fuse at the mains box?” Pooley asked.
Neville laughed hollowly. “My first thought. Our friends from the brewery have thought of that. I have pulled every fuse in the place, but it still runs. It works off some separate power supply which doesn’t even register on the electric meter. It cannot be switched off. Night and day it runs. I can hear it in my room, humming and humming. I swear that if something is not done soon I will tender my resignation, if only to save my sanity.”
“Steady on,” said Jim.
“Look at it!” Neville commanded. “It is an obscenity, an abomination, an insult!” He placed one hand over his heart and the other palm downward upon the bar-top. “Once,” said he, “once, if you will recall, one could sit in this pub enjoying the converse of good friends well met. Once, in a corner booth, meditate upon such matters as took your fancy. Little, you will remember, and correct me if I am wrong or sinking into melancholy, little broke the harmony of the place but for the whisper of the feathered flight. Once…”
“Enough, enough,” said Jim. “Hold hard now, you are bringing a lump to my throat which is causing some interference to my drinking.”
“I am not a man to panic,” said Neville, which all knew to be a blatant lie. “But this thing is wearing down my resistance. I cannot take much more, I can tell you.”
Omally noted well the desperation upon the barman’s face and felt sure that there was the definite possibility of financial advancement in it. “You need to play a shrewd game with those mechanical lads,” he said, when he thought the time was right. “A firm hand is all they understand.”
Neville’s eyes strayed towards the jukebox, which had not uttered a sound these ten years, since Omally had applied a firm hand to its workings. It seemed a thing of little menace now compared with the video machine, but Neville could vividly recall the agonies he had gone through at the time. “You feel that you might meet with such a challenge?” he asked in an even voice.
“Child’s play,” said Omally, which made Pooley choke upon his ale.
“Good show.” Neville smiled bravely and pulled two more pints. “These are on the house,” he said.
Old Pete, whose hearing was as acute as his right arm sound, overheard the last remark. “Good morning, John, Jim,” he said, rising upon his stick. “A fine day is it not?”
“It started poorly,” said Omally, “but it is beginning to perk up. Cheers.”
“Been to the allotment then?” the ancient enquired, placing his empty glass upon the counter and indicating the mud-bespattered condition of the two secret golfers.
“Weeding,” said John, making motions with an ethereal shovel. “Spring up overnight, those lads.”
Old Pete nodded sagely. “It is strange,” said he, “what things spring up upon an allotment patch overnight. Take my humble plot for instance. You’ll never guess what I found on it the other day.”
Pooley, who had a kind of intuition regarding these things, kept silent.
“Golf tee,” said Old Pete in a harsh stage whisper.
“Large rum over here,” said Omally, rattling Pete’s glass upon the bar.
“How unexpected,” said the wily old bastard. “Bless you boys, bless you.”
Omally drank a moment in silence. “Now tell me, Pete,” said he, when the ancient had taken several sips upon
