Nostradamus Ate My Hamster (2 page)

“Pints over here, please,” called Old Pete, proffering a bundle of newly acquired money notes.

The second hand on the Guinness clock completed another circuit and the hour was struck. Although no-one actually heard it, the signal echoed mystically about the saloon bar, halting the singers and drinkers and talkers and revellers in mid-swing and silencing them to a man. Or a woman. Or Will Shepherd.

“Merry Christmas to you all,” called Neville the part-time barman. And the folk of The Swan, with their drinks in their hands took to flocking about him at the bar.

Omally excused himself from his near-naked and frostbitten unofficial bride-to-be and stumbled in through the rear door, gathering up Jim Pooley, whose women had deserted him and whose keyhole eye had snow blindness.

“Three cheers for Neville,” quoth Omally, and the cry went up.

Neville cleared his throat, made a brief speech of thanks, blissfully devoid of time-wasting and sentiment, rubbed his hands together and to much applause applied himself to the nearest parcel. It contained an elegant set of cufflinks with matching tie clip, wrought from discarded beer bottle tops. It was a present from Wally Woods, Brentford’s foremost purveyor of wet fish.

“Nice one,” roared the crowd. “Very tasteful.”

Wally accepted these ovations modestly. “It was nothing,” he said.

“Correct,” agreed the crowd. “We were being sarcastic”

The second gift was something of an enigma, being an item which appeared to be neither animal not vegetable nor mineral. There was much of the mythical beast to it, but even more to suggest that its antecedents lay with the sprout family. Neville held it at arm’s length and ogled it with his good eye. He rattled it against his ear and cocked his head on one side.

The crowd took to murmuring.

The bearer of this gift stepped hurriedly up to the bar and whispered words into Neville’s ear. Neville’s good eye widened. “Does it, be damned?” said he, rapidly removing the thing to below counter level. “Most unexpected,” adding, “just what I always wanted.”

Pooley’s present proved to be of extraordinary interest. Once naked of its newspaper wrappings it displayed itself as a square black metal box, approximately six inches to a side, with a slot at the top and bottom.

Neville shook it suspiciously.

“It’s a thing patented by my grandaddy,” said Jim, “called
Pooley’s Improver
. It converts base metal into gold.”

“Well now,” said Neville, making what is known as an “old-fashioned face”. “That’s useful.”

“And fully practical.” Jim popped a copper coin into the top slot. Grinding sounds, suggestive of gears meshing, issued from the box and within but a moment or two, something which had every appearance of a golden sovereign dropped into Neville’s outstretched palm.

Neville held it between thumb and forefinger and then took a little bite at it. “Tis genuine,” said he. “My thanks, Jim. Here, hang about, what is that funky smell?”

The beer-steeped air of The Flying Swan had suddenly become permeated by a ghastly odour, suggestive of rotting eggs or the-morning-after-the-big-Vindaloo bathroom.

“My goddess!” Neville drew back in alarm. “It’s this coin!”

The Swan’s patrons dragged themselves into a broad crescent, amid much nose-holding, drink-covering, coughing and gagging. “Get that thing out of here, mister,” shouted someone. A kindly soul, eager to help, swung wide The Swan’s door, only to vanish beneath an avalanche of snow. Neville hurled the stinking object into the street and a rescue team of helpers dug out their companion and rammed home the door.

Neville gave Pooley the coldest of all fish eyes.

“There are certain flaws in the process,” Jim explained. “The grandaddy never did get around to ironing them all out.”

Neville folded his brow, fanned his nose with a beer mat and pushed the offensive black box aside.

The crowd moved in once more.

Neville unwrapped a Santa’s grotto composed of used pipe cleaners. “Mine,” said Old Pete, patting his Fair Isled chest. A
Miss Magic Mouth
inflatable love doll, that no-one would own up to, a flagon of sprout gin, which many did, and all bar John Omally wished to sample. A hand-painted facsimile of The Flying Swan. Beaten “pewter” tankards, bearing incongruous words such as
Heinz
upon their planished brims. Boxes of cabbage leaf cigars and several objects of evident antiquity which would have had the late and legendary Arthur Negus reaching for his reference books.

Someone had even created an extraordinary likeness of Neville from the thermostat and components of a 1963 Morris Minor.

Neville opened each parcel in turn and beamed hugely at every disclosure. He was, as the alchemists of old would have it, in his element.

“Next round on the house and supper is served,” he called, as The Swan’s Christmas catering staff appeared from the kitchen bearing the traditional groaning trays.
[4]

These were loaded to the gunwales with rugged mountains of baked potatoes, chorus lines of turkey legs and passing-out parades of mince pies.

Old Pete availed himself of the barman’s hospitality and returned to the clapped-out piano, striking up a rousing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”.

Those capable of joining him between chewings and swallowings did so as and when.

In the midst of all this feasting and merrification, the saloon bar door suddenly flew open to reveal a stunning figure in black. Black hat. Black coat. Black strides. Black boots. Black sunspecs also. He bore an enormous parcel (black wrapped), and stood in the doorway, dramatically silhouetted against the all-white back drop.

Many of the uninformed instantly recognized this apparition to be none other than the angel of death himself. A miserly fellow, who knew the ghost of Christmas past when he saw it, hastily took a dive for the Gents.

“Merry Christmas,” called Norman Hartnell. For it was he.

The crowd cleaved apart as the shopkeeper stepped forward, struggling manfully beneath the weight of his burden. Pooley and Omally offered assistance and the parcel was conveyed with difficulty to the countertop.

“For me?” Neville asked.

Norman nodded. “Compliments of the season,” said he.

The part-time barman plucked at the swarthy wrappings, which fell away to reveal a gilded casket of such magnificence that all present were cowed into awe-struck silence.

The thing was wondrous and that was a fact, wrought with cunning arabesques of gemstones and inlaid with many precious metals. A corona of golden light surrounded it and this bathed the faces of the assembled multitude to a nicety. By gosh.

Neville ran a hand gently over the fantastic object. “Incredible,” he whispered. “Incredible, Norman. Whatever
is
it?”

Norman flicked a snowflake from a Bible-black lapel. “I believe it to be nothing less than the now legendary lost ark of the covenant. I dug it up on my allotment. I thought it might amuse you.”

“
Amuse me?”
Neville nodded numbly. “I don’t know what to say, Norman. I mean it’s … it’s well … it’s …”

“Nifty,” said Norman. “And not at all Christmassy.”

“No indeed.” Neville viewed the casket. “How does it open? Does it open? Have you opened it?”

“Handles. Don’t know, and no,” said Norman, answering each question in turn. “Two little handles, on the side there. On the little doors. You could give them a pull, Neville. Just to see what might happen.”

“Yes,” said Neville, taking hold of the handles. “Just to see what might happen.”

Away in the distance and high upon the Chiswick flyover, three wise men on camels, who had been following a star, took sudden account of a blinding beam of golden light that rose from the Brentford area.

“Now, whatever do you take that to be?” asked one.

“Looks like a pub,” said another. “Sort of atomizing and being sucked into the sky.”

The third wise man blew into his frozen mittens. “Christmas,” he said, “who can odds it, eh?”

And who could?

“And?” said Russell. “And what?” said Morgan.

“And what happened next?”

“Nothing happened next. That’s the end of the story.”

“Neville opened the ark of the covenant, which Norman had dug up on his allotment and The Flying Swan atomized and got sucked into the sky?”

“That’s it.”

“And you were actually there when this happened?”

“Of course I wasn’t actually there. If I’d been actually there, I wouldn’t be here now to tell you about it, would I?”

“I suppose not. But if you weren’t actually there, how can you be sure it really happened?”

“You don’t have to actually be somewhere to know something happened, Russell. I wasn’t actually there when they built Stonehenge. But I know it happened, because Stonehenge is there to prove it.”

“But surely The Flying Swan is
not
there to prove it.”

“Well, that proves it then, doesn’t it?”

Russell let this percolate a moment or two. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Of course I’m sure. I can’t see what more conclusive proof you could need. If The Flying Swan
was
still there, then it couldn’t have happened. It isn’t, so it must have. QED.”

“QED?”

“It’s Latin, it means ‘so there, you bastard’.”

“Incredible,” said Russell. “And when exactly did this happen?”

“A couple of years back.”

“A couple of years back? Then you must have seen The Flying Swan. Did you ever meet Pooley or Omally?”

“Longer ago then. They used old money. Perhaps it was twenty years ago. I’m not sure.”

“I thought you
were
sure. You said a moment ago you
were
sure.”

“Sure it
happened
. I’m not altogether sure of the exact date. But then I’m not altogether sure of the exact date they built Stonehenge. But it’s there and The Flying Swan isn’t and that proves it.”

Russell shrugged. “I suppose it does,” he said. “Although –”

“Although,
what
?”

“Although, well, I mean I’m not certain I believe
all
of it. I could believe
some
of it. Like Neville and Pooley and Omally. But, well, the ark of the covenant, surely that’s just ripped off from the Indiana Jones movie.”

“I think you’ll find it’s ripped off from the Old Testament.”

“Yes, well, I know that, of course.”

“But if you are prepared to believe in Pooley and Omally, you must be prepared to believe in all those adventures they had.”

“Well,” said Russell. “They
could
just be tall stories, you know. Like urban myths.”

“
Urban myths?”

“As in ‘almost true’. Anyone could make the mistake of believing them.”

Morgan took to much head-shaking. “Pooley and Omally are
not
urban myths. The Flying Swan was
not
an urban myth. An author called Rankin wrote all about them.”

“Perhaps he was just making it up,” Russell suggested. “To entertain people.”

“
Making it up
? What, make up a story about The Flying Swan and all its patrons being atomized and sucked into the sky?”

“It’s just possible,” said Russell. “Don’t you think it just possible that this Mr Rankin might have made
some
of it up? He could have based his characters on real people and set his stories in a real place. But then invented The Flying Swan and all the fantastic stuff. Let’s face it Morgan, no offence meant, but nothing ever happens in Brentford. Nothing ever
has
happened and nothing ever
will
happen.”

Morgan rolled his eyes. “Of course things happen, Russell. They happen all the time. It’s just that they never happen to you.”

“You’re right there,” said Russell.

“And do you know why?” Morgan did not wait for a reply. “It’s because you’re too nice, Russell. You’re too polite to the customers. You work too hard. You’re too damn honest and you never go out and get pissed. You never take any risks. How could anything ever happen to someone like you?”

“I could get run over,” said Russell. “Anyone can get run over.”

“Not you, you always look both ways.”

“Well, I don’t want to get run over.”

“Trust me,” said Morgan. “Perhaps things don’t happen the way they used to happen. But all the things I told you happened, happened. They just did. That’s all.”

Russell sighed. “Incredible,” he said. And rather nicely he said it.

The voice of Frank, the manager, entered the tea room through the Tannoy speaker. It said, “Get back to work, Morgan, and stop winding Russell up.”

Morgan put the cups in the sink. He didn’t wash them up, because it wasn’t his turn. It was Bobby Boy’s turn. But Bobby Boy was off sick. Bobby Boy had a stomach bug caused by drinking from a cup that hadn’t been washed up properly. It had been Morgan’s turn on that occasion, but Morgan had been off sick. Since then things had got a little complicated and now there were an awful lot of cups in that sink. Russell had to bring a fresh one from home every morning. His mother was beginning to pine for the lack of cups. But it wasn’t Russell’s turn to wash up, so there wasn’t much he could do about it. Although he really wanted to.

Morgan and Russell emerged from the darkness of the tea room into the light of description. Russell was undoubtedly the taller of the two, due to Morgan’s lack of height. But for what Russell gained in the vertical plane he lost in the horizontal. Morgan was by far the fatter. And the balder. Where Russell had hair to great abundance, dark hair, and thick (and curly), Morgan had his baldness. And his spectacles. And his moustache.

Russell didn’t have a moustache. Russell was cleanly shaven. Although he had cut himself a few times that morning. On his spots. Morgan didn’t have any spots.

Morgan had perspiration stains beneath his armpits. But no spots. He had once owned a dog called Spot though. It had been a spaniel. But it wasn’t a spaniel any more, because it hadn’t looked both ways and a bus had run over it. Perhaps in dog heaven it was still a spaniel, but not here. Here it wasn’t anything. Except a memory, of course. A happy memory.

Russell had no memories of Spot the dog. He had never met Spot the dog. Spot the dog had met his tragic demise years before Russell had ever met Morgan. In fact, Russell was not altogether sure that there had ever been a Spot the dog. It was just possible that Morgan had made up Spot the dog in order to sound interesting. But, of course, Russell was far too polite to suggest such a thing.

So here they were. The two of them. Russell the taller, the hairier and the nicer. But Morgan without the spots. Both were roughly the same age, early twenties, both unmarried, both working as they did, where they did.

And where was that? Exactly?

Where that was, was Fudgepacker’s Emporium, a prop house in Brentford. On the Kew Road it was, in the deconsecrated church that had once housed the piano museum.

And what is a prop house?

Well.

A prop house is a place you hire props from. Theatrical props. Theatrical
properties
. For the film and television industries mostly. Things. All sorts of things.

You see, when you make a movie you have to hire everything. You begin with nothing. Nothing but money. Then you hire. You hire a scriptwriter and a director and actors and technicians and sound men. And a best boy, naturally. Where would you be without a best boy? But you also have to hire everything that will be put on the film sets.

Everything.

The carpets, the furniture, the cups and saucers, the fixtures and the fittings. And so all over London there are prop houses. They tend to specialize. Some do guns, some do cars. Costumiers do costumes, of course, because you have to hire all those. And some do antiques. Some do pictures. Some do modern furnishings. Fudgepacker’s?

Well.

Fudgepacker’s does the weird stuff. The really weird stuff. The stuff you couldn’t hire anywhere else.

If you need a pickled homunculus, an eight-legged lamb, a hand of glory, a scrying stone, a travelling font, a thundersheet, a shrunken head, the skull of the Marquis de Sade, Napoleon’s mummified willy, a tableau of foetal skeletons re-enacting the battle of Rorke’s Drift …

Then Fudgepacker’s is, as Flann would have it,
your man
.

The company was founded and still run by Ernest Fudgepacker. And that is
the
Ernest Fudgepacker, seminal Arthouse B Movie maker of the late Fifties and early Nineteen Sixties. Director of
I Bleed in Your Breakfast, Sherlock Holmes Meets the Princess of Pain, Bound to Please, Love Me in Leather, Surf Nazis Must Die
[5]
and
Blonde in a Body Bag
.
[6]

Hollywood hadn’t been ready for Ernest.

Shepperton hadn’t been ready for Ernest.

The censor had been ready for him though.

Ernest retired from directing. It was Hollywood’s loss. And Shepperton’s. Though the censor didn’t seem too fazed.

Fudgepacker opened his emporium in nineteen sixty-three, to coincide with the assassination of President Kennedy. He reasoned that, should his guests ever be asked at some future time whether they could remember where they were when Kennedy was shot, they would say, “Why yes, we were at Fudgepacker’s opening party.”

Where he got all his mysterious stock from no-one knows, because he’s not telling. But he was right on target back then. Ken Russell was making the good stuff and Hammer films were knocking out the classics. But that was then and times are not so clever now.

Movies change with the times. Movies reflect the times.

And the best of times are always in the past.

Morgan returned to the packing bench and Russell to the office. Once Fudgepacker’s had owned to a staff of twenty, now there was just the four. Morgan and Russell, Frank the manager and Bobby Boy. Although Bobby Boy wasn’t there very often. Stomach trouble, or he was looking for another job. Probably the latter, as Bobby Boy wanted to be an actor.

Morgan was certainly looking for another job. He wanted to be a spy or an explorer. Russell, however, was
not
looking for another job.

Russell liked working at Fudgepacker’s. Russell liked old Ernie. Ernie was a character. Russell even liked Frank the manager and no-one ever likes a manager.

Russell returned to his desk, but he couldn’t bring himself to sit at it, he paced up and down before the window. Outside the day was dull, the sky gasometer-grey. The waters of the Thames were grey. Grey cars drifted along the grey Kew Road, going nowhere.

Russell put a bit more spring into his pacing.

“Don’t do that,” said Frank. “It reminds me of my first wife.”

Russell sat down. “Frank,” he said, “did you ever drink in The Flying Swan?”

“Don’t think I know the place. I once lit Sophia Loren’s cigarette, though. Did I ever tell you about that?”

“You mentioned it in passing, yes.”

“Beautiful woman,” said Frank. “They don’t make women like her any more. I was prop man at Pinewood then. Happy times.”

“Are we expecting any customers today?”

“Trevor Jung phoned, said he’d be in later. He’s working on a pilot for a new TV sitcom.”

“There’s always room for another sitcom,” said Russell.

“They don’t make sitcoms like they used to. That Wendy Craig was a beautiful woman. I never lit her cigarette though, I think I helped her into her coat once, or perhaps that was Thora Hird.”

Russell clapped his hands together. “I think I’ll rearrange the office,” said he.

“No,” said Frank.

“Then I’ll go and dust the grimoires.”

“No.”

“All right. I’ll polish the funerary urns. They could do with a buff.”

“No.”

“I could wash up the teacups.”

“
No!”

“
But I want to
do
something.”

“You are doing something, Russell. You are sitting at your desk awaiting a customer. They also serve who only stand and wait, you know. Or in your case, sit.”

Russell made a sorry face. Things had been much better before Frank became manager. Frank with his love of rosters and paperwork. Russell hated inactivity, he liked to be up and doing, he couldn’t bear to waste time. It was Frank who had instigated tea breaks. He dictated exactly who did what, and when. It was a very inefficient system. But Frank
was
the manager and there was nothing Russell could do about it.

“So, I’ll just sit here?” Russell said.

“Just sit there, yes.”

And so Russell just sat there, drumming his fingers on the desk.

And absolutely nothing happened.

Nothing whatsoever.

Which was strange really, considering the immutable laws which seem to govern these things. According to these immutable laws, something should definitely have happened right about now. And something
big
. Big enough to cover all the foregoing dullness and chit chat, or if not actually
happened
, then at least offered a strong hint of humungous happenings to come.

Possibly something along the lines of … Unknown to Russell, great forces were even now at work. Great forces that would change his world for ever, in fact change everybody’s world for ever. For Russell was about to take the first step on a journey that would lead him into realms where no man had ever set foot before. Or such like.

But nothing did.

So Russell just sat there drumming his fingers. It did occur to him, however, that it might be interesting to find out whether there was any truth to the tale Morgan had told him. He could spend his lunchtimes and evenings asking around Brentford, to see if there really had been a Neville and a Pooley and an Omally and a Flying Swan. And if there had, then whether any of the fabulous tales told of them were actually true. It was something to do. It would be interesting. Yes.

“Can I give the floor a mop?” asked Russell.

“No,” said Frank.