Knees Up Mother Earth (2 page)

And all of Norman moved in the direction of this bawling.

Mahatma Campbell’s limping, which had carried him past Bob the Bookie’s and Peg’s Paper Shop, carried him further up the Ealing Road, past The Star of Bengal curry house and The Flying Swan.

Neville, ever an early riser since that morning when he’d once risen late and felt certain that he’d missed
something
, viewed the passing Campbell as a shadowy form through the etched glass of The Swan’s saloon bar window panes.

Neville, a practising pagan, demurred the crossing of himself, but said
blessed be
and ventured to the whisky optic for a measure of golden breakfast.

Of the looks of Neville, what might be said? In the favour of him, much. He was tall and lean and scholar-stooped, with a slim and noble head, the hair of him a-brillianteened and the good eye all a-glitter. Dapperly decked was he in the habit of the professional barlord: white shirt, black trews, black weskit and clip-on dicky bow, plus a very dashing pair of cufflinks whose enamelled entablatures spoke of a Masonic connection. Classic “Oxford” footwear was well buffed, though through personal fastidiousness rather than naval training. A certain spring was normally to be found in his step.

And Neville was the part-time barman of The Flying Swan.

True, there were none who had ever known him to miss a session, or take a holiday, or even a day off. And Neville lived in, above the bar, in the humble but adequate accommodation. But
part-time barman
was his job description; it was the job he had applied for and the job he had been given. And it was the job he did, and the job he did well.

And the job he loved.

Yes, loved. For Neville loved Brentford. The borough, and its people, and this pub.
His
pub. Not that it really was
his
pub, it wasn’t; it was the brewery’s pub, and every so often the brewery let Neville know it, in manners that lacked for subtlety and finesse. They organised things for Neville to do. Theme nights. Promotions. Pub quizzes. Neville weathered these storms. He pressed on, and persevered. He knew how things should be, and how things should be done. Things
should be
as ever they had been, and things
should be done
to keep things that way.

Neville tended the beers: eight hand-drawn ales upon draught, the finest in Brentford. And the finest of the finest being Large.

Neville tended the bar, an elegant Victorian bar with a knackered dartboard and disabled jukebox, a row of Britannia pub tables, a mismatched variety of comfy seating and stools at the polished counter for regular stalwarts. There were Spanish souvenirs behind the bar. Ancient pictures of indeterminate things upon walls of faded paperings. A carpet that had known better days, but appreciated those of the present, which weren’t too bad at all.

And the whole and the all and the everything that made a real pub a real pub caused a pause in the step of those who entered The Flying Swan for the very first time, who breathed in its air, soaked up its ambience and said, as many before had said and many yet to come would do:

“
This
is a pub.”

Neville tossed back his golden breakfast and shrugged away the shudder that the Campbell’s daily passing always brought him. Today was a new day, another day; hopefully, it would be much as the old day that it had replaced had been, a pleasant and samey prelude to the one that lay beyond.

And so on and so forth, so to speak.

Although it did have to be said that today
was
going to be slightly different for Neville the part-time barman.

Hence the shoes.

Hence the shoes? one might ask. What meanith this?

What meanith this is this: the shoes were an anomaly. Bright and shiny, yes, as was the norm for these shoes, but not at this time of the day. At this time of the day, Neville was normally a carpet-slipper man. Monogrammed were Neville’s carpet slippers, his own initials woven in cloth-of-gold upon a brown felt surround, with soft India rubber soles. The pair a present from the mother who loved him. But he was not wearing these today. Today Neville wore the classic Oxfords, those brogues that, in their unassuming, understated way, had helped to forge the British Empire. The creation of Lord Oxford, who is now remembered solely for his shoes.
[2]

Not that Neville was wearing the
actual
pair that had helped to forge the British Empire. But his
were
of a similar design.

And they
were
upon his feet at this time of the morning.

So, why?

Because Neville had an appointment this morning. One that he did not wish to keep, but one he knew that he must keep. It was an
official
appointment. Not one of brewery business, but of
other
business. It was a matter of duty that Neville keep this appointment. And Neville was a man of duty.

The classic brogues pinched Neville’s toes; the certain spring that was normally to be found in his step had today deserted him. Neville limped from the saloon bar of The Flying Swan and returned to his humble yet adequate accommodation above.

Mahatma Campbell limped on. And on he limped until he reached the football ground, Griffin Park. And here he ceased to limp, for here he stopped and, bending low, removed his seven-league boot and shook from it a stone. And then he replaced the boot upon his best-foot-forward.

And then he reached into his ample sporran and withdrew a ring of keys. Selecting one of these, he presented it to the padlock that secured the gates of the football ground, unlocked same and swung open these gates.

And then, a-singing and a-whistling the portions of the song that he could not remember, Mahatma Campbell entered Brentford Football Ground.

And the sun rose higher in the heavens. And the birdies sang and the folk of Brentford slowly stirred from their beds and, as is very often the way, things began to happen.

James Arbuthnot Pooley, Jim to his friends and all else besides, awoke from his bed to a day where things were already beginning to happen.

Jim’s awakenings, for indeed these were in the plural, had about them a deliberate quality, a certain restraint, a cautiousness, a subtlety. These were not the sudden springings into consciousness of those dragged into the world of work by the clarion call of the alarm clock. Jim had long ago discarded his. These were more the gentle easings into wakefulness associated chiefly with the idle rich. Although it must be said that the idle rich are generally introduced to the new day by the butler drawing the curtains, or by a young woman skilled in those arts which amuse men doing pleasant things to them beneath the silken sheets.

Jim was
not
one of the idle rich.

Jim was one of the idle poor.

Although to Jim’s credit, he was rarely ever idle. Jim was of that order known collectively and depreciatingly as “the ranks of the unemployed”, which is to say that he did not hold any regular employment. Jim was not, however, a “dole-queue scrounger”. Queueing for anything was not in Jim’s nature and the local labour exchange had long ago given up on Jim and withdrawn his dole cheque accordingly.

Jim would, if asked, have described himself as an entrepreneur. Which was a good word and covered, as many other good words do, a multitude of sins. Not that Jim would ever have considered himself a sinner. For he had so very few vices.

He was basically honest, loyal to his friends and lies sprang but rarely to his lips. He was a “chancer” and a “bit of a lad” and a “rough diamond” and many other things besides, but he was
not
a bad man. Jim was a
good
man.

A good unemployed man and one with a stinking hangover.

Jim did plaintive mewings and some groanings, too, for good measure. Sunlight of the day where things were already beginning to happen elbowed its way with difficulty into Jim’s bedroom, negotiating the unwashed windows, the unwashed nets and the whoever-washes-them-anyway bedroom curtains. The light that triumphed over these difficult negotiations fell in a wan pool upon the face of Jim Pooley.

A good face, a basically honest face, a young and, some might say, a handsome face. A face with clear blue eyes, an aquiline nose, a merry mouth loaded with fine white teeth, a decent pair of cheekbones and a chin that, if it lacked for a certain determination, amply made up for it with an abundance of pre-shave stubble. The hair of Jim was dark and brown, and his limbs were long and lean.

The eyes of Jim did squintings and focusings and takings in of the new day and then the mouth of Jim did smilings. Another day, another challenge, another chance to succeed. The hangover would soon depart with the coming of breakfast and Pooley, unfailingly cheerful, would get stuck into the day.

Of Jim’s rooms, what might be said? Well, mostly they were dry. They were sparsely furnished in a manner not to Jim’s taste, but as these were rented rooms of the furnished persuasion, there was little he could do about it. These rooms were not so clean as they might have been, which is to say as clean as they might have been, if Jim had chosen to clean them. These were unkempt rooms, small and unkempt rooms: a bedroom, a kitchenette and something that loosely resembled a bathroom, if you didn’t look too closely at it.

They were certainly not the rooms of the idle rich, although rumour did hold in the borough that the eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes had once occupied them. But then local rumour also held that Pocahontas had once roomed at The Flying Swan and that Karl Marx had regularly taken tea at The Plume Café around the corner.

And as rumour is generally based upon fact, and facts are undeniably true, there seems no reason to doubt these rumours.

Jim did not enjoy living the way he did. His unfailing cheerfulness belied this fact, but fact indeed it was. However, Jim held to the philosophy that there can be no beauty without ugliness, no enjoyment of pleasure without the experience of pain and no appreciation of the joys that wealth can bring without having first suffered the miseries of poverty.

And as it was Jim’s intention – indeed, the very key that wound the very clockwork motor that powered his very being (verily) – that he should shortly become rich, the squalor of his rooms afforded him a certain cerebral satisfaction.

And how would it be that Jim might achieve his ambition? Why, through the science of betting, of course. For James Arbuthnot Pooley was a dedicated Man of the Turf. What pennies Jim managed to acquire, he invested, day upon day upon day, in his quest for wealth through the medium of the Six-Horse Super-Yankee Accumulator Bet.

The Punter’s Dream.

This particular dream had only once, as betting history records, been brought to waking reality. And to a Brentford man it had been, one Steven Montague Dean, son of Cyrus Garstang Dean, supplier of winged heels to the classically inspired gentry. The year was 1928, coincidentally the year that Brentford United had won the FA Cup for the second time. And whilst Jack Lane was being carried shoulder high through the flower-bedecked streets of the borough, Steven Montague Dean had stolen silently away with his winnings, leaving the family firm to flounder. And was never seen again.

Local rumour held that Mr Dean had spent his winnings purchasing a kingdom somewhere in Afghanistan, where he installed himself in a palace of ivory and spent the rest of his life in the company of concubines.

Jim Pooley had a similar future all mapped out for himself.

Upon Jim’s bedroom mantelpiece there stood a lone, framed photograph. It was of Steven Montague Dean, clipped from a 1920s copy of the
Brentford Mercury
that Jim had come across in the Memorial Library.

A single candle oft-times burned before this photograph.

Pooley had by now arisen from his bed. He had shaved and bathed, abulted, suited and booted, and now he set off for the day in search of his fortune. His rooms were in Moby Dick Terrace and, following the course taken by Mahatma Campbell two hours previously, Jim marched purposefully up the terrace, turning left at the Ealing Road and passing Bob the Bookie’s.

Jim would presently return to Bob the Bookie’s.

Jim now entered Peg’s Paper Shop.

“Watchamate, Norman,” said Jim, a-greeting the shopkeeper.

“Watchamate, Jim,” Norman replied.

“Spring cleaning?” Jim asked.

Norman sighed. Deeply. “Tell me, what do you see?” he asked.

“A gingham pinafore about your shoulders and a feather duster in your hand.”

“Yes,” said Norman and he sighed once again. “Your eyes do not deceive you. Where there’s muck, there’s brass, they say, and a penny saved is a penny earned.”

“Right,” said Jim, giving the shop a visual once-over. It was as ever it had been (and in the Brentford shape of things, as it ever should be) wretched. The sweetie jars lining its sagging shelves were the same jars that Jim had gazed longingly at as a child. Several actually contained the selfsame sweets. The faded adverts for tobaccos and snuffs – products that were now little more than memory – still patched over the Edwardian wallpaper. The cracked glass-fronted counter presented a fearsome, if dusty, display of out-of-date fireworks. The video section was velvet with dust. The lino was yellow and so was the ceiling. Colour co-ordinated. Just so.

“It’s all just so,” said Jim. “Why would you wish to dust it?” And here a tremulous tone entered Pooley’s voice. “You haven’t won the Pools, have you?”

“The Pools?” Norman scratched at his brow with the non-feathered end of his duster. “Have you become bereft of your senses?”

“It’s a personal philosophy thing,” Jim explained, inadequately. “So you’re just having a little dust?”

“Peg,” said Norman, which explained things more than adequately.

“A
Sporting Life
and five Woodbines please,” said Jim. “And I have the right money and everything.”

Norman placed his feather duster upon the counter and sought out the Woodbines. They were to be found where they were always to be found. Except today they were not to be found, because Norman had run out of Woodbines and forgotten to order any more.

“I’m out,” said Norman.

“That is a statement easily proved erroneous,” said Jim, turning a copy of the
Brentford Mercury
in his direction and perusing the front page, but failing to take in the dire headline regarding the terrible fate that most probably lay in store for Brentford’s football ground. “You are not out, but clearly here. Body and soul. Mind and spirit. Duster and pinnie and all.”

“Out of Woodbines,” said the shopkeeper.

“Out of Woodbines?” It was Jim’s turn to scratch at his head and in deference to Norman, he, too, did so with the feather duster. “You’re never out of Woodbines.”

“Am today.” Norman plucked the feather duster from Jim’s hand, a hand which now grasped it rather too firmly. Brightly coloured feathers fluttered towards the linoleum. “Look what you’ve done to my duster.”

“Out of Woodbines?” Jim now shook his hungover head and attempted to digest this unthinkable intelligence. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You could say, ‘I’d like a packet of Senior Service instead and here’s an extra two and sixpence for a new duster.’”

“I could,” said Jim, “but I think it most unlikely that I would.”

“How about five Capstan Full Strength and two bob for the duster, then?”

“I think I’ll just take the
Sporting Life
. There might be a packet of Woodbines left in Neville’s machine at The Swan.”

“Ah, no.” Norman dithered. He was a businessman, was Norman. He also considered himself an entrepreneur. It was more than his soul could stand to lose a sale. “Just hold on,” said the entrepreneurial shopkeeper, “I have something here that I think might interest you.”

“Is it one of the Hydra’s teeth?” asked Jim. “I’ve always been interested in seeing what those lads look like.”

“New fags,” said Norman. “A salesman brought them in yesterday – they’re on a promotional offer. They are most inexpensive. In fact, you’ll get ten for the price of five Woodbines.”

“Ten for the price of five?” Jim considered the unlikelihood of such an offer. It was surely the stuff of fantasy. “Let me have a look at these fags,” he said.

Norman hastened to oblige his potential customer. He delved amongst boxes behind the counter and presently brought to light a garish-looking package.

Jim cast a doubtful eye over it. “It’s rather bright,” he observed.

“Bright and breezy,” said Norman. “A little like your good self, if you’ll pardon me saying so.”

Jim now made a doubtful face. Norman broke open the garish-looking package to expose a dozen similarly garish-looking packets of cigarettes. He held one up before Pooley’s face.

“Dadarillos,” said Norman, and then read aloud from the packet, “‘Dadarillo Super-Dooper Kings are an all-new smoking taste sensation, a blend of the finest long-grain tobaccos and an extra-special secret ingredient that —’”

“I don’t like the sound of them,” said Jim.

“But look at the length of the blighters.”

Jim took the packet from the shopkeeper’s hand and weighed it in one of his own. “Ten for the price of five,” he said, digging coinage from his pocket. “I do believe that this is going to be my lucky day.”

And so Jim left Peg’s Paper Shop, a packet of Dadarillos in his top pocket and a
Sporting Life
tucked beneath his right arm, and pressed on about his daily business. His next port of call was The Plume Café, once patronised by Karl Marx, who had by chance penned his later-to-be-discarded script for
Manifesto: The Musical
at the very window table at which Jim now chose to take his breakfast.

The Plume Café is worthy of description and will receive it in due course.
[3]

Jim downed eggs, bacon rashers, Brentford bangers and the inevitable fried slice and, having concluded his repast, dabbed a paper napkin of the gorgeous gingham persuasion about his lips, bade his farewells to The Plume and his hangover and took himself to his very special place.

The bench before the Memorial Library.

It was here, when the weather held to fair, that Jim sat daily to peruse the pages of
The Sporting Life
and compose the ever-elusive winning Six-Horse Super-Yankee.

Jim took from his pocket the pack of Dadarillo Super-Dooper Kings. For one composing the Super Yankee, one who would be King, the synchronicity was not lost upon Jim.

“I feel certain,” said Jim to himself, “that this really
is
going to be my lucky day.”

Jim opened the pack, took from it a cigarette of considerable length and placed it in his mouth. He pulled his ancient Zippo lighter from the pocket of his ancient waistcoat and brought forth fire from it. And puffed upon his cigarette.

“A mellow smoke,” said the connoisseur. “Perhaps lacking the coquettish charm of the Wild Woodbine or the aromatic allure of the Capstan Full Strength, but nevertheless …”

He took a deeper draw and collapsed into a fit of coughing. “First of the day,” he managed between convulsions. “Always a goodie, but a killer.”

And then Jim applied himself to the task at hand.

They were here, he knew it. And they were: those six horses that, if correctly deduced to be the winners, could transport the deducer of same from poverty to riches in a few short hours. It all seemed oh-so-simple.

But would that it were so.

Jim puffed some more upon his fag and cast a professional eye down the columns of horses. There were many here that he knew, many that had let him down and thwarted his plans, many others that had sprung from nowhere to aid in the thwarting. But the winners
were
here. And he should be able to find them – a man of his calibre, a man of his dedication. Jim focused his eyes upon the page and did deep concentratings. Fiercely deep these concentratings were, fiercely deep and intent.

“Vagabond.”

Jim blinked his eyes. Vagabond? Was this the voice of divine inspiration? Which race was Vagabond in?