Knees Up Mother Earth (8 page)

Norman pressed home the bolts on the shop door and turned the “open” sign to “closed”. Norman always loved his Wednesday afternoons, when at one he could shut up shop and engage in his own activities. With Peg, his oversized other half, off at her weekly meeting with the Chiswick Townswomen’s Guild, Norman’s time was his own. Certainly he was supposed to remove himself to the wholesalers to stock up on Pontefract cakes and liquorice sticks and jujubes and sherbet lemons. But as folk never bought those sweeties any more, and the jars that lined the dusty shelves always remained full, it didn’t really matter anyway.

Norman divested himself of his brown shopkeeper’s coat and hung it behind the door of the kitchenette, taking unto himself the patched jacket of green Boleskine tweed that had been his father’s before him and slipping it on as if it were a loving glove. Norman let himself out through the back door, locking it behind him, and sauntered off to his lock-up in Abaddon Street.

Now, a lock-up garage is a wonderful thing, almost as wonderful in its way as an allotment shed. It is a “man’s” place, full of a man’s accoutrements: tools and spare parts and things that no longer work because they need a few spare parts to set them going, and boxes of old magazines that must not be thrown away because there are interesting articles in them that might one day be interesting to read. And as with an allotment shed, or indeed a garden shed, there is always a half-bag of gone-solid cement that you always fall over when you come in. Which is there, as we all know, because it is a tradition, or an old charter, or something.

Norman unlocked and swung up-and-over the up-and-over garage door, stood in the entranceway and breathed in the ambience of his lock-up. It smelt good. It smelt of a man’s accoutrements, of tools and spare parts and things that no longer worked because … and so on and so forth and such like.

Norman smiled the smile of inward satisfaction, stepped forward into his garage and fell over a half-bag of gone-solid cement. Righting himself, Norman smiled some more and sought out his car keys. Because Norman owned a car. Well, not a car as such – it was more of a van. In fact, it
was
a van. An Austin A40 van that Norman was restoring. And not only restoring, but improving, enginewise.

Norman had certain theories regarding the internal combustion engine, mostly of the nature that it was a most inefficient means of powering an automobile. Norman was working on an alternative drive system for the A40 van, a revolutionary new method of automotive propulsion. It was near to completion and only needed a few spare parts to keep it going as smoothly as he would have liked.

It was not your everyday revolutionary new method of automotive propulsion. This was something quite different.

Norman had modestly named it the Hartnel Grumpiness Hyper-Drive. It would, in Norman’s humble opinion, bring joy to millions and millions of drivers who drove old and unreliable automobiles. Folk such as himself, for instance.

The genesis of this particular invention had come about when Norman had purchased a book called
The Power of Positive Thought
, written by some American woman with big hair and a lot of letters after her name that didn’t seem to spell out anything sensible. Norman had read this book from cover to cover and then tossed it into the fire, where it burned most warmly, which was about the most positive thing it had done since Norman had purchased it.

The book was a load of old New Age toot, but it had set Norman to thinking. What if you could harness the power of
negative
thought? There was surely a great deal
of that
in the world just going begging. If you could tune into
that
you’d surely have a source of almost infinite power. Because everyone, it seemed to Norman, was almost always in a bad mood about something.

Norman had been mulling this concept over in his mind whilst he drove along in his old Austin A40 van. In fact, he’d been mulling it over when the van did as it so often did – stuttered from life and rattled to a halt in the middle of busy traffic. Norman swore wildly at his van, bashing at its steering wheel with his fists. He got into a very bad temper. There was a lot of negative energy buzzing about in that van.

And so was born the Hartnel Grumpiness Hyper-Drive. Fuelled, if you like, upon road rage.

Norman had pushed the van back to the lock-up and broken out the Meccano set.

So far things had not been going quite as the scientific shopkeeper might have hoped with the Hartnel Grumpiness Hyper-Drive. But then, thought Norman, that was the problem. He shouldn’t be
hopeful
about this project. Hope was positive. He should be gloomy, taciturn, without hope, he should begrudge every moment that he spent on the project. He should hate every moment, build up so much negative energy that the van would run for fifty years without requiring further shouting at.

Norman climbed into the driving seat and placed upon his head a helmet constructed from Meccano and Christmas-tree lights. Many wires ran out of the helmet and away to vanish beneath the dashboard where many complicated (and, many cynics might claim, ludicrous) electronic doodads of Norman’s design and construction were linked to the mechanical gubbins that were the Austin’s engine parts.

Norman keyed the ignition.

Nothing whatever happened.

Norman keyed the ignition again.

The result was identical.

“Start, you swine!” cried Norman. “You useless, stupid van! Start, will you!”

The engine caught and
brmm brmm brmmed
.

“Brilliant,” said Norman. “Good boy.”

The engine died.

“No,” shouted Norman. “I didn’t mean brilliant. I meant start, you pathetic …”

“
Brmm brmm brmm
,” went the engine. Norman swore and scowled and backed the van out of the lock-up garage.

In the past, if Norman had been going anywhere by van he would have taken great pains to plot his course in advance upon a London A-Z. Not so now. Now, if Norman had a destination in mind, he purposely drove in the wrong direction with the intention of losing himself. Losing himself made Norman angry, and the van ran so much better when he was angry.

As Norman drove up the Ealing Road he was quite surprised to see an ambulance parked before The Flying Swan and a bit of a crowd gathered about it. Norman took a right into the area where the blocks of flats stood because it was a really tricky place to drive through. You could get quite upset by all the speed ramps and one-way systems.

Norman’s van
brmmed
away.

Norman growled at the speed ramps and the Christmas-tree lights on his Meccano helmet glowed brightly.

Norman was late for his appointment.

“Bloody van!” he explained upon his arrival.

The fellow with whom Norman had this appointment did rollings of the eyes, which Norman found most alarming.

“Do you want these computer parts, or what?” the fellow asked.

“I certainly do,” said Norman. “Where are they?”

Norman and the fellow stood beneath the shadow of railway arches. These railway arches were on the border of Chiswick, which Norman also found most alarming as they were relatively near to where his wide-loaded wife would be having her weekly meeting.

“They’re in here.” The fellow, a small, squat fellow with an overlarge head and curious smell, fumbled a key into an antique padlock. “I’ve just inherited these premises and all this old gear is stored inside. I just want it all cleared out. You can take as much as you want – all of it, if you want, I won’t charge you.”

“That’s most generous,” said Norman.

“It’s not,” said the fellow, “because it’s all junk.”

“One man’s junk is another man’s treasure,” said Norman.

“Not in this case.” The fellow forced open the door, which creaked and groaned upon its hinges.

Norman peered into the all-but-darkness. “Who did this place belong to?” he asked.

“My granddad,” said the fellow. “The stuff belonged to him, I suppose.”

“Computer parts?”

“They’re
very old
computer parts.”

Norman’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark. He peered into the gloom. Inside there were many crates, many Victorian-looking crates. Many of these Victorian-looking crates had been prised open. They all appeared to contain—

“Computer parts?” said Norman once more. “These look more like old wireless parts. They’re all valves and—” Norman took a couple of steps into the gloom of the archway and lifted up bits and bobs for perusal. “Mostly valves.”

“It says ‘computer parts’ on the crates,” said the fellow. “See.” He pointed through the gloom. There, on the side:
Computer Components. Babbage Nineteen-Hundred Series
.

“Babbage,” said Norman, thoughtfully. “The only Babbage I’ve ever heard of who has a connection with computers is Charles Babbage. He invented the Difference Engine in 1832. It was considered to be the world’s first computer.”

“There you go, then,” said the fellow. “They’re all museum pieces, aren’t they?”

“I don’t think they’re exactly what I was looking for,” said Norman. “I was hoping for something a little more ‘state of the art’.”

“For free?”

“Well, there’s no harm in hoping. Hope springs eternal and the language of truth is simplicity.”

“And my dog’s arse smells of margarine,” said the fellow. “Do you want this gear or not? Because if you don’t, I’ll get a skip down here tomorrow and bin the lot.”

“No,” said Norman. “I’ll take it. I’ll take it all.” He peered all around and about. There were
a lot
of crates. “It will take a few journeys, though. I will get very angry if my van doesn’t work properly.”

It was seven o’clock in the evening before Norman had the last of the crates installed in his lock-up. There was now no room for his van.

“Damn it!” swore Norman.

His van
brmmed
its engine.

“Not now,” Norman told it. “Nice van, be quiet now.”

The van switched off its engine.

Norman locked up the garage, locked up the van and took himself off for a pint of Large at The Flying Swan.

He entered the saloon bar to find Neville engaged in conversation with two young policemen from the local constabulary. Norman recognised these two to be none other than Constables Russell Meek and Arthur Mild, regular botherers of Norman.

“It’s not what you think,” Neville was heard to say. “And I won’t be pressing charges.”

“Pressing charges?” Constables Meek and Mild did
ho-ho-ho-ings
in the manner of the now legendary Laughing Policeman.

“It’s hardly a matter of
you
pressing charges, now is it, sir?” said Constable Meek.

“I’m the injured party,” Neville protested.

“Not quite so injured as your two victims, who even now lie recovering from concussion in the Cottage Hospital.”

“They’re not badly hurt, are they?” Neville was heard to ask.

“They’ll survive. Thick skulls, the both of them. And the both of them
known faces
, as it were.”

“I’ve been under a lot of strain,” said Neville. “They drove me to it.”

“You’ll be pleading diminished responsibility, then,” said Constable Mild, “at your trial.”

“Trial?” Neville’s good eye rolled.

Norman found this most alarming. What
was
with all this eye-rolling today? “Evening, Neville,” said Norman. “Pint of Large, please.”

“Ah,” said Constable Meek, “it’s Brentford’s Porn King.”

Norman ground his dentures. “I’m
not
Brentford’s Porn King,” he protested. “Those magazines arrived by mistake. They weren’t what I ordered.”

“You had them in your rack,” said Constable Meek. “What were they, now?
Cissies On Parade
, the ‘periodical for businessmen who like to dress as babies’. And
Banged Up and Gun-Totin’
, ‘naked pregnant women with Uzis’.”

“It came as just as much of a shock to me,” said Norman. “I’d ordered
Airfix Monthly
and
Meccano World
.”

“A likely story.” Constable Meek did titterings.

Neville drew Norman a pint of the very best.

“But let us not be distracted from the business at hand.” Constable Meek fingered his brand-new extendible truncheon. “Should your victims choose to press charges, you’ll be looking at a five-stretch, minimum.”

“
Five years
? Cheese!” Neville’s face became the mask of fear.

“I love it when their faces do that,” said Constable Mild. “Makes the job worthwhile, in my opinion.”

“You’ll be out in two and a half with good behaviour,” said Old Pete, who had not left his bar stool all day but for the occasional visit to the gents.

“Who did you assault, Neville?” Norman asked as he took control of his pint and paid for same with the exact amount of pennies and halfpennies.

“I didn’t assault anyone,” said Neville.

“He did,” said Old Pete. “Pooley and Omally. Laid the two of them out, stone cold.”

“You were a witness to this, then, were you, sir?” Constable Meek asked Old Pete.

“Excuse me?” said the ancient.

“You saw the assault occur?”

“You’ll have to speak up, my hearing aid is faulty.”

“You witnessed the occurrence!” shouted Constable Meek.

“Did what?” asked Old Pete. “Pit test the old currants, did you say?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Forget it,” said Constable Mild. “He’s a loon.”

“Up yours, pointy head,” muttered Old Pete.

“What did you say?”

“Excuse me?” said the ancient. “You’ll have to speak up a bit.”

“You’re warned,” said Constable Meek to Neville. “And if your victims do choose to press charges, you’re in real trouble. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this place. Any more bother and you’ll kiss goodbye to your license and say hello to incarceration.”

And then they left. The two of them. The boys in blue.

“Bastards,” said Old Pete. “Cossacks.”

Norman tasted ale.

“What?” said Neville. “What are you looking at?”