“Another brandy Peter? Any more questions?” Rachel asked. I was dumbfounded at the time, but now I wish I'd asked her more.
I did follow this up some years later when with time I started to disbelieve the story. Perhaps it had been Rachel's fantasy because she'd never seen Maximilian again. I knew the night because of Princess Elizabeth becoming queen. I found it in several papers. A Swiss businessman had been brutally murdered in his flat. It came out later that the murder weapon was believed to have been a German SS ceremonial dagger. This had been discovered during the autopsy from the shape of the wound, a fact later included in the coroner's report. The chief suspects were escaped Germans on the run from the authorities. It was believed that this man was possibly German, part of a network helping former SS get to South America or to assume new European identities. The press suggested some suspicion against stronger factions of the Jewish community in London. The case was never solved, but nobody cared in those days about the death of a Nazi sympathiser. He hadn't cared, and now they didn't!
That was the end of my conversations with Rachel. It was a bit of a showstopper. What more could you say?
We talked on for some time about everything we'd discussed, reliving particularly poignant moments. Later we recalled happy memories of me playing with Bob as a child. More memories were relived of happier days when we all went to the seaside in the family car. All these things were covered and we knew the conversation was over.
I was putting on my coat ready to leave, ready to walk out into the cold damp afternoon, a whole day and a night after arriving. Rachel kissed me on both cheeks, and as I stepped back she was smiling. Rachel moved her right arm holding it out as if thrusting with a dagger. We were on the doorstep and it looked to the world as if this woman were giving me a Nazi salute, a strange irony. As I turned at the gate to make my final farewells Rachel pulled her arm back and down by her side. I was shocked!
As she did this she sucked in through her teeth making a squelching noise like pulling a rubber boot out of soft mud. Then she laughed, smiled at me and waved farewell. Her eyes were as bright as diamonds and her smile was electrifying. She had told the world of her victory.
The sucking sound was in my head for the remainder that day. All through my journey back to where I lived I could hear that suction. I laughed too!
These new trainers were supposed to make you light on your feet. Mine were heavy with foreboding. The last sixty hours had been a whirlpool of half thoughts, broken ideas, and I was being sucked down into the maelstrom of the unknown. Now I faced the final black hole at the bottom of that rotating tunnel. With all my senses stunned during my new awakening, I was incapable of understanding what I'd done in my life to get me into this terrible position.
As I re-entered the pub from the rear yard the horribleness of my position became clear. Mushbies were enjoying more of Dawn, not knocking three times, but now with Tony Orlando tying yellow ribbons. I didn't know anything about the current pop charts but didn't believe everything could be this turgid. I strolled over to the not so mighty Wurlitzer. The first five listed records included some people called Peters and Lee, The Sweet and the Simon Park Orchestra. I noticed that Gary Glitter featured several times. I put my money on David Bowie and “Life on Mars”. This was how I felt, like I was living on a different planet.
“Nuvva pint, Pete?” Billy the landlord asked me.
“No, Billy, I fancy one of those new bottles of Heineken you've got in the fridge,” I replied, and was duly served by Billy who'd broken off serving some mushbies to get my drink. The embryonic nerd's were getting into the evening and starting to swill down the pints now with a little added something to liven up the proceedings. I was hoping for a big enough diversion to allow me some breathing space. I'd put a small amount of the liquid LSD into the tanks of beer and lager, not too much at first, and then on second thoughts a little bit more. With the vast quantity of beer I didn't know if my mass medication would work in the slightest, or I might have overdone it! The tainted crazy beer had not yet arrived at the pumps, and my tainted murderous friends, if that's what you could call them, hadn't arrived either.
The mushbies were now singing along in chorus to something called “Part of the Union” by The Strawbs. I'm not sure if any of them worked or had anything to do with a union. Most of them were unemployable until the onset of the computer when, like butterflies, they spread their wings and became nerds.
“Why has your face turned blue? And why has your face gone yellow?” I could hear this from over in the corner. The beer couldn't have been at full strength, but already a big man with wild hair was delicately touching the faces of the people opposite, incredulous because the colour didn't come off on his fingers. He couldn't believe they'd suddenly changed colour. He thought they were taking the piss by putting make-up on. He started to rub with a rough vigour at the face of the maroon one, who happened to be a girl, a mushbiette.
“Don't touch me with your tentacle. I didn't know they allowed octopi in the pub!” she screamed in his face. “Life on Mars” started to play on the jukebox, and against my better judgement I laughed to myself. This wasn't funny but I was hysterical with fear. Unable to run for fear of reprisal against my sister Jane, I was trapped into this meeting.
I was by this time well down my fourth drink, my senses softened by the alcohol. Fighting against my urge to laugh was difficult. I couldn't stop myself when one of the pool players climbed onto the table. He was a big man wearing a Liverpool team shirt. This was ripped without ceremony from his torso by his own massive hands in order to display a huge tattoo that shouted Liverpool down the length of his chest. My hysteria increased when I discovered the tattoo didn't end in the letter L. This statement about his favourite team ended in the letter O by design. The L was for the bedroom and made his team triumphant by desire.
“Gary! What the hell is Liverpoo?” one of his friends was shouting.
“I'll show you wankers!” the big man said, at which he started to pull his trousers down and all became clear as he starting to exercise himself to produce the letter L.
The landlord Billy didn't know which way to look. In the last quarter of an hour the whole pub had turned into a madhouse. Billy himself was starting to see everybody in a glowing light with all his favourite customers looking like angels. Billy ignored the mayhem and made his way along to where I was sitting.
The bar curved around into the corner producing a little alcove. I was sitting at the end of the bar watching the staff work. The staff, if that's what you could call them, consisted of just two people, Billy, and Mabel who offered lots of forty plus cleavage with endless innuendo. He insisted I was an angel and deserved one of his best foaming pints. I took it with many thanks and as soon as his eyes left me I pushed it along the bar into the corner well out of my way. My drink was bottled lager, straight unadulterated bottled lager. One beer that didn't reach places other beers do.
“Saving this pint for me, arsehole?” Dave Hartley Sparrow enquired. He leaned heavily against my back, whispering the words into my ear. He was so close to my neck I could feel the moisture on his breath. There was sinister intimacy in the way he was leaning against me. His lips so close he was almost kissing my ear like an ardent lover. His arm pushed against my back with a harsh pressure. I had a feeling he was going to crush me, consume me on that spot, and make me disappear. He reached around me and stretched to lift the pint from the bar. Dave downed half of it in a single refreshing drink. My internalised laughter increased.
Liverpool man had been dragged down off the pool table and was lying on his back between the table and the domino players. He clutched the black ball in one hand and was intent despite his drunkenness on spelling the last letter of his favourite football team.
“Nobody is having the black ball until you've seen Liverpool in all its glory!” he was shouting for everyone to hear. Many of the mushbies had gone over to study the phenomenon. One of the mushbiettes had changed her spectacles in order to see more. The whole pub was stamping its feet along with Suzi Quatro Canning the Can, urging our drunken hero to fulfilment.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Double-Barrelled Dave asked. I shrugged my shoulders in the worldwide gesture of I have no idea. Dave downed the remaining dregs of his pint and shouted down the bar for Mabel to get him another. She was serving nobody because the whole rugby scrum of a pub was down at the pool table end, the octopus and the coloured people included.
Dave placed his elbow on the bar and propped his head against one hand. His malevolent smile was only inches from my face. He said nothing, he didn't move, we were locked eight inches apart in a game of who will speak first. He was trying to panic me into a confession or something. Then I realised he wanted me to take him on, he wanted me to make the first move. I did. I reached for my lager and took another small drink. This gave me an opportunity to look away from his continuous unblinking stare. He broke off this intimidation as his second beer arrived on the bar. Dave didn't move away physically, but gazed towards the beer. His zone was firmly overlapping my space.
Dave's arm was slowly reaching out for the second pint, but it never got there. John Smith pounded his fist hard down into the spread right hand of Dave Hartley Sparrow. I could swear to this day that I heard an audible crunch as he did so.
“I could have you any time, and I'm having your pint⦠now!” John Smith said. His smile was radiant, happy to have inflicted pain.
Double-Barrelled Dave muttered something heavy under his breath. I thought I heard the words “kill” and “tonight”. He moved away to the other end of the bar near mushbie corner. The Liverpool display had come to a sticky end and the mushbies were returning to their enclave, stopping at the jukebox to load it up with even more nonsense. “Paper Roses” by Marie Osmond had started to play. If I hadn't been so distracted I think I would've cried tears of despair, except inside I already was.
John Smith finished his pint of John Smith's in seconds, and was in the process of ordering another from Mabel. She thought he was the best thing since sliced bread, and always served him before anyone else regardless. No words passed between us, but he had replaced Dave Hartley Sparrow. John wasn't invading my space. He was standing three feet away looking in amusement at this crazy pub on a Monday night. Before ever a word was spoken between us he drank half of his next pint. I'd seen the effects on the mushbies after just one pint!
“Lenny's got what he wants from life. He's got all the local business and Baby Doll,” John said.
“You mean?” I said.
“Yes. She was teasing you in the kitchen to wind up Lenny. The soft git could see into the utility room from the library.” John said.
“So she didn't want to shag me?”
“No, not any more, she tired of us,” John said. Tired of us! I was horrified, but in no place to be worried. Baby doll was working on Lenny, something I would have known about under normal circumstances.
“How did Lenny manage that?” I asked. I was pretending I didn't know Harry the Pocket was dead.
“Harry the Pocket's dead, killed by that big fat arsehole Walt Nice. Harry went down fighting, and he managed to shoot Walt before he died. Tidy,” John said. His usual pearly grin was much wider than normal. I had nothing to say, I really didn't know what to say other than make allusions to us working together.
“So, where do I fit in to the team?” I asked. I think my voice had gone up to a higher pitch. It was hard to tell with all the mayhem inside the pub. John never had the opportunity to answer as a lanky greasy mushbie began stroking his hair.
“It's so golden. Is it real gold? It must be real gold,” the mushbie said, entranced by the beauty. He caressed the locks as if they were the most precious thing in the world until John knocked him cold with a single blow. The greasy youth slumped to the floor. In the growing madness nobody noticed. John, however, glanced across the bar and seeing Hartley Sparrow he went rigid, he almost looked afraid. My Nazi twin screamed out something about Dave's red eyes destroying his brain, he raged for a few seconds about the injustice of such an arsehole possessing so powerful a weapon. John wasted no time, he attacked, weaved at great speed through the throng at the bar, pushing no one as he passed through with the magical grace of a hunting cougar.
My best hope now was that they would kill each other, or Dave would manage to maim John to the extent he needed my help. I didn't expect Dave to survive. In the Monday night lunacy nobody would have witnessed anything that could have stood in court. I left my position at the end of the bar and walked towards the rear courtyard. My welfare depended on the outcome of the battle. What I hadn't calculated on was the effect of the LSD.
John had hunted down Hartley Sparrow as he was going I suspected to where he'd secreted the not so lovely Millicent. Dave only made it halfway across the yard before a brutal blow from John's cosh brought him down. I didn't witness the first blow. What I saw was John with the cosh high above his head ready to swing down for the second killer blow. This second blow would be well aimed to shatter Hartley Sparrow's skull.
It didn't come. John Smith was standing almost like the
Statue of Liberty
, the cosh held high and symbolic of his violence. His other hand was rooting around in his pocket for something. Then he pulled it out of his left-hand pocket to fumble fruitlessly in his right-hand pocket. He was looking for something. A knife? A gun? I had no idea.
What happened next shocked me. John took a huge swing down with his cosh making contact with Hartley Sparrow's right arm. The harsh cracking sound as his radius and ulna shattered under the weight of the hard driven weapon is a horror that sticks in my mind. I was looking out from the shadows inside the doorway. John raised his cosh once more and I wondered if this would be a killer blow to the head, or the other arm. It was neither.
John Smith slowly brought his arm down and touched Dave on the cheek with his cosh. Was Dave aware of it? I'm not too sure he registered it in his semi-conscious state.
“You're not going to burn me with those red eyes! I'm going to put them out!” John said very slowly.
I heard it with shocking clarity. Was I going to run out there and prevent John from cutting Dave's eyes out? This was more awful than his brutal slaying of Smiggy. He was looking for a knife to cut out those burning red eyes. The cosh had disappeared inside his beautifully tailored jacket. He was fumbling with his trousers again and at that point I made my decision. I was going to intervene and stop this abomination from carrying out his brutal butchery upon Dave Hartley Sparrow's eyes.
My Nazi twin attempted to put out Dave's eyes, but he didn't have a knife and had no intention of using one. Before I could move John Smith had got his weapon out and was using it. I laughed out loud without thinking, and the man putting out the eyes looked over his shoulder and laughed along with me. He was pissing in Dave Hartley Sparrow's face, his LSD driven hallucination was being quenched by water. I thought he was fumbling for a knife, but he'd been fumbling with his zipper. He seemed to possess an enormous bladder because he pissed on a semi-conscious Hartley Sparrow's face for what seemed an age.
Before he'd finished I slipped back into the mayhem of the pub. The whole place had now moved into the bizarre. There was an elderly couple possibly in their fifties wearing very little and sitting cross legged on a table, they were gently stroking each other's faces. Stranger and more disturbing was one of the mushbiettes seemed to be experimenting with lovemaking in a corner, a horrible mixture of spots, greasy hair, groping and sweaty expectation with another mushbie.
All the worshippers of the arcane in that band of mushbies were in deep discussion about fire eating. Without asking they'd gone behind the bar and collected all the spirits they thought could be used to blow fire from their mouths. The discussion had become more like a science debate with a dozen ashtrays already in play as test tubes to examine the burning properties of the different liquors. The madness in that corner was compounded by one guy claiming he could see ancient figures dancing in the flames. Others then joined in a discussion about pagan religions and the influence of fire on worship.