The Sprouts of Wrath (7 page)

The town hall’s hospitality suite was no stranger to events and receptions. The West London Wandering Bishops, the Chiswick Decorative Egg Society and the Association of Invisible Aryans each held their annual meetings there. It had not, however, seen a spread like this since the Brentford Blow-Out Club had dined themselves to collective oblivion there five years previously with a marathon eat-in. Today’s spread was of that rare and almost unknown variety that combined quality with quantity.

“You know,” said Jim Pooley as he pushed an exquisite sweetmeat into his face and held out his glass for a top up, “this is the life.”

“I was thinking something of the sort myself,” Omally replied, as he decanted another measure of chilled French wine into his own glass.

“Do you think it’s always like this for politicians, John?” Omally perused the congregation. Those present looked very much at ease and pretty much at home. “Can one still buy one’s way into Parliament?” Jim asked. “Seems like a decent enough job for a married man.”

“Definitely not!” The image of Pooley giving forth across the floor of “The House” whilst Jennifer Naylor laced herself into the French maid’s outfit and plumped up the pillows of the marital bed, had Omally cringing.

As if at a psychic summons the future Mrs Pooley approached them through the crowd. “I shall turn a blind eye to your presence if you remain sober. But any trouble and out you go.”

Omally raised his glass and smiled his winning smile. “This is all very impressive,” he said. “You have a flair for organization, to have arranged all this so quickly. Remarkable. The Olympic games in Brentford — who would have thought it?”

Jennifer Naylor glanced from John to Jim and back again. “The odds against it must be something in the nature of a million to one, wouldn’t you say?”

“I am not a betting man,” said Omally, in all truth.

Jennifer Naylor smiled. “You have so few vices, Mr Omally.”

John offered the beautiful woman a canapé. “This is a glorious spread,” said he. “A nouvelle cuisine belly-buster, no less.” He turned the bottle of wine in his hand and marvelled at the vintage. “And I thought that the council was down to its last few bob.”

“It is,” said Jennifer, dabbing her lips with a napkin. “This function has been privately funded.”

“Indeed, and might I ask by whom?”

“I really wish I knew.” The wistful tone in Jennifer’s voice and the faraway look in her eyes were not lost upon John, who felt a sudden pang of jealousy.

“Miss Naylor,” interrupted Mavis Peake, “sorry to tear you away from your friends, but the Minister for Trade and Industry would like a word.”

Jennifer Naylor smiled down between her cleavage to her frustrated associate. “Why, thank you, dear,” she said, steering her breasts close by Mavis’s nose. “If you will excuse me, gentlemen.”

“Your servant, ma’am,” said Jim Pooley. “It is all a bit lavish though, isn’t it?” he said, thrusting something of an exotic nature into his mouth. “Who do you think is paying for it all?”

Omally shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea, but it’s big money, big out-borough money. I suggest we mingle, Jim. Keep our eyes and ears open.”

“And our mouths,” said Jim. “What do you suppose that is?”

“An asparagus tip, you buffoon,” said John Omally. “Somewhat al dente for my palate, but nevertheless quite passable.”

Neville thrust a sullen salmon sandwich into his mouth and munched. The bar was all but empty. In a corner Bob the Bookie engaged in heated conspiratorial chit-chat with a shabby-looking man with a bandaged head and bare feet. Other regulars had, upon discovering the bar to be so crowded, taken themselves elsewhere for their lunchtime repasts. Neville had lost out all the way round.

Old Pete entered the bar. “You’re quiet today, Neville, a dark rum if you please.” The ancient surveyed the loaves and fishes. “Jesus been in then?” he asked.

Neville was not amused. “Members of Parliament as it happens,” he said. It sounded equally far-fetched. “Heads of State. Have a sandwich.”

“Thank you.” Old Pete took two. “Heads of State, eh?”

“Truly,” said Neville, handing Old Pete his rum and accepting the exact price in pennies and halfpennies.

“So I suppose that would be the pundit Nehru himself over there, chatting with Bob.” Old Pete applied himself to the salmon sandwich. “Any ketchup?” he asked.

Neville thrust the official itinerary towards Old Pete. “Doubting Thomas,” he murmured. The elder statesman cocked a wise’n over the schedule. “It reads like a piss artist’s day out in paradise. How much are the tickets?”

“Free,” said Neville, turning away to replenish the bottle on the rum optic. “If you have the itinerary you get in free. Privileged bastards, unto those that have it shall be given and unto those that have not …” He turned back just in time to see Old Pete hobbling at speed out through the door and off down the street. “… Even that which they have shall be taken away from them.”

The exhibition hall had undergone a dramatic facelift. Gone were the nicotine paintwork and fusty curtains, gone too the clapped-out benches and several hundred excruciating water-colours, the work of budding local artists, which had graced the walls for a twelve-month. What had previously been a grim foreboding edifice was now bright, vital, a visual symphony of Post-Modernist primaries and soft pastels. The Victorian marble floor, previously capable of turning a whisper into a public broadcast and a footstep into a thunderclap, was lost beneath tiles of new audio-soluble polysilicate which effectively swallowed up the sounds of foot-falls, harmonized the acoustics and offered cushioned comfort to the visitor’s feet.

In the centre of the floor stood the model town of Brentford, with its great five-pointed companion hovering above. It looked very much the way Bethlehem must have looked upon that first Christmas, although slightly less up-market. Lines of VDUs, literally overflowing with “user-friendliness”, displayed the minutiae of detail, specifications, stress factors, variables, coefficients of linear expansion, quantum mechanics.

On the far wall, the borough’s roll of honour was lost behind an enormous video screen upon which, portrayed in advanced computer graphics of a three-dimensional kind, the projected stadium assembled and disassembled itself again and again and again. Below this, and flanked by two ex-sumo wrestlers ladled into security guards’ uniforms, stood a tall transparent cylinder, and within this floated the slim disc of
Gravitite
. In front of this a large red sign put the security-conscious visitor’s mind at rest. For, should a would-be felon succeed in overpowering the guards, dynamiting his way through the two-inch plexiglass, setting off the numerous alarms and bringing down the steel portcullises, he would still have the laser beams and the poison gas to deal with.

The double doors from the hospitality suite swung open and the Whitehall chappies, now in various stages of inebriation, entered in a rowdy concourse. In their wake strolled Pooley and Omally.

“Holy mackerel,” said Jim. “This is all a bit sudden. I was down here a week ago and there was no talk then of redecoration.”

Omally just whistled and shook his head.

The Whitehall types, several clinging amorously to their female assistants and all with equal passion to their glasses — swarmed amongst the exhibits, cooing and ooh-ahing. Finally, at a command from Jennifer Naylor, they assembled about the model town.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “I will hand you over to Messrs Membrane and Mucus who will explain to you all aspects of the proposed stadium and answer whatever questions you might care to ask. Sirs.”

Lucas and Julian entered somewhat sheepishly, in the close company of two plain-clothed minders. Lucas sported a selection of cuts and abrasions and Julian had apparently taken up Sikhism. In the bruised face of yesterday’s Indian uprising, they were taking no chances. The minders flexed and made menacing gestures. The Geronimo twins were nowhere to be seen.

Once more, Mucus and Membrane ran through their polished double act. If anything it had become even more polished, and by the time they had concluded and were preparing themselves to meet the bombardment of questions from the excited ministers, Omally for one was convinced that the battle had been won. Julian and Lucas knew this to be a fact. They had spent the morning at the Ministry of Defence demonstrating the wonders of Gravitite. Contracts had already been signed to the effect that in exchange for the formula, the government would give the games the go-ahead and defray all costs that the transfer from Birmingham to Brentford would involve. This meeting was nothing more than a formality.

“How long will construction take?”

“Something less than a month.”

“Who is going to pay for the actual stadium?”

“Our client.”

“When might we meet him?”

“Regretfully, never. Our client is a millionaire recluse and seeks no publicity.”

“The sites where the legs are to be erected, has planning permission been granted?”

Lucas and Julian looked painfully at one another. “It has now.”

“Do you think you could run through the locations of the sites just once more for the record?”

“Certainly. Now as I have said, these were unwanted parcels of land sold off by the council to our client. When the games finish they will be returned to the borough. Such is the nature of our client’s philanthropy.”

“And the sites are …?”

Julian outlined the proposed sites: “West Point: Area of wasteland beside car park in Butts Estate. North-West Point: Disused works car park in Brook Lane North. North-East Point: Area of wasteland in corner of park, Clayponds Lane. East Point: Foreshore area to east of Griffin Island. South Point: Abandoned boatyard next to undeveloped area known as Cider Island.”

Abandoned boatyard next to undeveloped area known as Cider Island
. The words took a moment or two to sink in before Pooley and Omally started in simultaneous horror. Thrusting their way through the crowd they gaped at the model town. There, sure as sure, the southern leg of the great stadium reached down and pierced a half-sunken barge in the abandoned boatyard. The half sunken barge which was the headquarters of the “P & O Line”.

“Excavations will begin on Monday,” said Lucas Mucus. “The legs will be up by the following weekend.”

If there is one thing that can be said in favour of council buildings, it is that they inevitably possess a wealth of corridors which seem to have been expressly designed so that the distraught and despairing might pace back and forwards along them swearing and muttering, yet secure in the knowledge that no-one will ever pay them the slightest attention.

Within moments of Lucas’s terrible disclosure, John and Jim had found one of these aforementioned corridors that was ideal for their present needs. John did the pacing whilst Jim leant upon a wall smoking a cigarette. But the more John paced and worried, the more did Pooley become calmly philosophical about the whole thing. Presently, he said, “John, we may be losing a headquarters, but we will be gaining ten million pounds.”

Omally gazed at him, the boy was clearly a fool. “Jim,” said he, “Jim, we will not simply be losing a headquarters, we will be gaining a prolonged period of incarceration at the pleasure of her Majesty the Queen. God bless her.”

Jim raised his glass, “You what?”

“Prison, Jim. When the local garda get aboard that barge, as they are certain to do once the site foreman or somesuch gets a look inside, then we are marked men. It may just be a video recorder here and a bit of potheen there to us, but to the boys in blue it will be a chance to clean up every outstanding case they’ve got on their books.”

“We shall deny it all of course,” said Jim defiantly.

“Jim, the barge is full of stolen property, it is covered in our fingerprints, personal possessions, articles of clothing, why, you’ve even got your holiday snaps up on the salon wall.”

“I thought they made the place more homely.”

“We’ll get five years at the very least.”

Jim’s hands began to quiver. At times of great stress it had always been his habit to flap his hands wildly and spin about in small circles. Exactly where this had its genesis is hard to say, though no doubt Neville might have offered a suggestion or two. “Hang on,” said Jim in mid-flap. “We could always do a runner.”

“Do a runner?”

“Certainly, off to Rio de Janeiro! We could get Bob to post our winnings when the games start.”

“And perhaps he’ll advance us the air fare if we ask him nicely.” Omally’s voice had what they call an “edge” to it.

“Do you think so?”

“No, Jim, I do
not
think so. Nor do I think that doing a runner would be of the slightest use. Unless you happen to have the necessary fake passports, know the underworld safe houses, and hold sway with bribable officials. And as to the matter of Bob bunging ten million pounds in an airmail envelope and posting it on, Jim, you are a double buffoon!”

Pooley flapped his hands wildly and spun about in small circles. “All is lost,” he wailed, “o doom and gloom!”

“Get a grip of yourself, man.”

“The ball and chains,” moaned Pooley, “the manacles, that tent of blue the prisoner calls the sky.”

“Very prosaic, Jim, now do hush, will you?”

“I’ll go stir crazy, a Pooley in the pokey, the shame, the terrible shame.”

“Pooley, cease this foolishness or I will give you a smack!”

“We’ll have to clear it all out,” said Jim, “all the evidence, get it away, round into your house for instance.”

“Oh no,” said John, “not
my
house, absolutely not!”

“Then think of something else then.”

“I am trying.”

“Slammed up in the slammer,” mumbled Jim, “bunged in chokey, banged up in the nick.”

“That’s it!” said Omally, plunging his right fist into his left palm.

“What, give ourselves up?”

“No, banged up. That’s it, Jim. Bang. Up.”

“Strangely,” said Jim, “I fail to understand.”

“Bang,” said Omally, “as in bombs go bang. We shall blow up the barge.”

“Blow up the barge.” Jim took in this intelligence and mulled it over in his mind. “Be seeing you,” said Jim Pooley in a manner not altogether unknown to
The Prisoner
of the now legendary television series.

The unmarked coach bearing the well-breeched, well-fed, well-pissed and well-and-truly-out-of-it workers of Whitehall on the next leg of the Brentford day-trip, left discreetly from the rear car-park at two o’clock as the front doors of the town hall opened to admit the hoi polloi.

The crowd flooded the exhibition hall with murmurs of dissension and disapproval turning slowly to gasps of wonder and disbelief at the miracles upon display. For miracles are fearsome and fear provokes a grudging respect. It was therefore a somewhat hushed and attentive audience that watched and listened as Membrane and Mucus went through yet another polished presentation.

But this one differed, containing many subtle nuances designed to provoke thought alone. Adolf Hitler, of evil memory, believed that a crowd was only capable of grasping a single idea at any one time and this had to be drummed into it again and again. Here Membrane and Mucus amalgamated two simple concepts, honour for the borough and prosperity for its denizens, into a winning combination. This simple device afforded the avaricious an opportunity to disguise their deadly sin beneath a display of fealty to their town.

Great emphasis was placed upon the safety aspects of Gravitite and the temporary nature of the stadium. But the final line of Membrane’s speech sold it completely. “Of course,” said he, “every Brentonian will receive a free pass valid for the entire games.”

An ever so tiny silence preceded the tumultuous applause that even the audio-soluble polysilicate floor-tiles were hard pressed to swallow. Choruses of “For Whoever-he-is Is a Jolly Good Fellow” were chorused and hats cast willy-nilly towards the newly painted ceiling. Messrs Membrane and Mucus wrung each other’s hands and flashed expensive smiles. Their minders grinned lop-sidedly and feigned comprehension.

As the crowds conga-lined away to celebrate their good fortune in the nearby taverns and spread the word to those who might have missed it, the great hall returned once more to stillness and silence. The VDUs hummed softly and the giant images upon the wall video continued their endless rote. No-one noticed the elderly gentleman whose slim frail hands rested upon the ivory handle of his black Malacca cane, as he peered down at the model town and its glittering star-shaped companion. His ice-blue eyes glowed with a fierce vitality beneath their snow-lashed lids and his mane of pure white hair flowed over the astrakhan collar of the long black coat he wore, despite the clemency of the season. The tip of his cane traced the outlines of the stadium before tapping out a brisk yet muffled tattoo upon the tiled floor.

Shaking his head in doubt. Professor Slocombe turned upon his heel and strode from the hall.