Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls (21 page)

“Blimey,” mumbled Soap. “It’s Eppy. Brian Epstein.”

“Old shirt-lifter,” said Pigarse.

Brian Epstein hobbled along the lined-up Gandhis, saying things like, “So you’re a Gandhi, are you?” and “So you’re a Gandhi too?”

“I’ll nut him if he touches me,” said Pigarse.

The Beatles now made their appearance. Out of their wheelchairs but shaky on their ancient pins. They wibbly-wobbled along the line, saying the same sort of thing.

All except for Lennon, of course. Lennon hadn’t lost it.

“I really love your music,” he said to Litany. “You’re a very talented lady.”

“Thank you,” said Litany. “I’d love to sing to you before you go on stage. It would make a great difference, I promise.”

“That would be nice,” said Lennon. “I’d like that very much.”

Soap got to shake hands with them all. He was, frankly, entranced. Overwhelmed. He knew it was all wrong. That it just shouldn’t be. But here it was happening anyway. Here was he, Soap Distant, actually shaking hands with the Fab Four. It was a moment he would treasure for ever. A magical moment. A moment that nothing could spoil.

“I can see right through your nose,” said Ringo. “Horrible, it is.”

Quack quack go the feathered folk.

Their mating habits are a joke.

They never wear the old Dutch cap

Nor trouble with a condom.

Quack quack go the feathered fowl,

They have no truck with goose or owl.

Or Siamese strings and Ben Wa balls

Or plug-in rubber dildos.

Quack quack go the feathered clowns,

Getting off on watered downs.

Caring not for Roman Showers

Or ritual bondage rimming.

Quack quack go the feathered lads.

Knowing not their mums and dads.

They are a flock of bastards.

So who do they think they are, waddling about with their beaks in the air, scorning harmless forms of deviant sexual recreation when it’s quite clear they don’t have enough morals to scribble down in big writing on a sheet of Brentford Borough Council toilet paper?

A good question!

Quack indeed!

There were plenty of ducks on Gunnersbury Lake. But soon many of these would be taking to their wings. Driven from their dabblings by misbehaving fanboys tossing beer cans.

At just gone ten of the morning clock the park gates were opened and the “ticket-holders only” flooded through.

Soap Distant stood on the concert stage beneath the great aluminium half-dome, hoping to get a glimpse of Geraldo. But as the green grass sank beneath the tidal wave of black-T-shirted youth, Soap’s heart sank with it and a lump rose in his throat.

“Thousands of the ugly-looking buggers,” said Soap. And his voice carried through the speaker system and echoed all over the park.

It was a poor start to the proceedings. But in view of what was yet to come, it could well have been considered a high point.

In various bedrooms in Gunnersbury House various Gandhis were togging up in their stage clothes. They were very expensive stage clothes. Very exclusive stage clothes.

Pigarse struggled into a pair of leather drainpipe trousers.

On his bed sat an old gent with a tattooed face and a good line in scar tissue. “Ram a codpiece down your crotch for art,” was his advice. “It gets the girlies going and if they’re disappointed later then it serves them right for being so cock-happy.”

“Cheers, Dad,” said Pigarse. “I’ll use your motorbike helmet.”

Litany sat at a dressing table in another of John’s guest bedrooms. There seemed to be at least twelve such bedrooms, although John had never counted. All the bedrooms but his remained empty, but for the Gandhis’ visits. John could have lived the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, had he so wished. He could have partied every night. But he didn’t. He lived alone with his memories. Drunk for much of the time, but always there to do the Gandhis’ business.

John sat upon Litany’s bed, idly toying with one of her shoes.

Litany glanced at his reflection. “Cheer up, John,” she said. “This is going to be a big day. The day that we change history.”

“I know,” said John. “I just wish Jim could have been here to see it.”

“You’ve got to let Jim go. It’s been five years. If I can get over it so can you.”

“He was my bestest friend. I loved that man. In a manly mannish sort of a way.”

Litany adjusted her false moustache. It was green, as it was Saturday.

“Do you know what?” said John. “I’ve never seen you without a false moustache on.”

“Nor have you ever seen me naked.”

“No, you’re right about that.”

“I know you’ve wanted to,” said Litany, teasing about at her hair.

“It doesn’t seem right. I thought that, perhaps, you and Jim …”

“Oh no,” said Litany. “I never would have.”

“But he meant a lot to you.”

“But not in that way. He was someone I wanted to meet. Have always wanted to meet.”

“Who? Jim?”

“I can’t explain it to you now. But one day I will, I promise.”

John rose from the bed and stretched a bit. “I’d better get downstairs,” he said. “And see how things are going.”

There were things going on all over the place on this particular day. At the Brentford nick, for instance. There were things going on in there.

“Right,” said Inspectre Sherringford Hovis. “Right, now listen up here.”

He had a little row of constables lined up before him. They were an anonymous-looking bunch. But then constables always are. It’s only when they rise up through the ranks and become detectives and suchlike that they take on all those lovable eccentricities that turn them into characters.

It’s a tradition. Or an old cliché or something.

Inspectre Hovis took a pinch of snuff and paced over to the big notice board behind his desk. “These young fellow-me-lads,” he said, pointing to a row of twelve grainy photographs. “These young fellow-me-lads here.”

“Excuse me, sir,” said an anonymous constable who had a good memory, “but aren’t they the young fellow-me-lads who were caught on the speed-trap cameras five years ago?”

“Correct,” said Hovis. “An unsolved case. And one that hangs over me like some sword of Androcles.”

“Excuse me, sir,” said an anonymous constable who had been classically trained (probably the one in the Greek Tragedy poem), “but surely that should be Damocles. Androcles was the chap with the lion, you know.”

Inspectre Hovis nodded thoughtfully, paced over to the constable and stamped upon his foot. The classically trained constable hopped about for a bit and then returned to anonymity.

“One of these young fellow-me-lads,” said Hovis, returning to the photographs, “is a murderer. I know this as surely as I know the back of my own head.”

“Excuse me, sir,” said an anonymous constable who had studied anatomy as well as turns of phrase. “But surely that should be hand.”

Hovis paced over and stamped on
his
foot.

“To continue,” said the Inspectre. “I know for a fact that these young fellow-me-lads are big fans of the Beatles. And if they do not turn up at the concert in Gunnersbury Park today then I’m a Welshman.”

Hovis paused.

The anonymous constable with the geography ‘O’ level kept his counsel.

“Just testing,” said Hovis. “Now, I want all you lot in plain clothes.”

“Oooooooooooo,” went the anonymous constables. “Plain clothes, how exciting.”

“Yes, and none of you are to wear your helmets this time. It gives the game away. I want these young fellow-me-lads and I want them today. Do I make myself clear?”

The constables nodded anonymously.

“Right, then draw copies of these photos from the front desk, get into your civvies and bugger off to the park. Do you understand me? Bugger off!”

Buggery has always been a popular prison pastime.

It ranks higher than scratching your initials on cell walls, fashioning guns and keys from soap, lying about what crimes you’ve committed and protesting that you were fitted up by the filth.

Oh, and tunnelling out. Tunnelling out has always been a
very
popular prison pastime.

But not so popular as buggery.

Buggery wins hands down.

And bottom-cheeks apart.

Small Dave hadn’t been buggered once. His reputation had entered the prison before him and any aspiring buggerers kept a respectful distance from the vindictive grudge-bearing wee bastard who had cut Parkie short on prime-time TV.

Not that Small Dave had been given a lot of opportunity to get himself buggered. He hadn’t. They had banged Dave up in the high-security wing of the new Virgin Serving the Community Secure Accommodation Unit, which stood upon what had recently been an area of outstanding natural beauty, right next door to the Brentford nick.

Small Dave was a Rule 42 merchant. Solitary confinement and a close mesh on the window.

So Dave kept himself pretty much to himself. And busied himself with a pastime of his own.

Small Dave was tunnelling out.

Now, the major problem with tunnelling out is this: What
do
you do with all the earth?

Small Dave asked Norman about this during one of their little afternoon get-togethers, Norman inhabiting as he did the cell next door to Dave, and having already removed several of the bricks from the dividing wall by means of a chisel he’d fashioned from soap.

“The secret,” said Norman, “is to dig not one hole but two. And put all the earth you’ve dug from the first hole into the second one.”

Small Dave made the face of thought. “But what about all the earth you’ve dug from the second hole?” he asked.

“That’s where the science comes in,” explained Norman. “If you dig your second hole twice the size of your first hole, there’ll be enough room in it for all the earth.”

Small Dave made with the approving nods. “And is that how you’re meaning to escape?” he asked.

“Actually, no. I thought I’d just blow my way out with the help of this stick of dynamite that Zorro the paper boy smuggled in.”

Small Dave whistled. “That’s a really big stick of dynamite,” he said. “How exactly did Zorro manage to smuggle that in?”

Norman leaned over and downwards and whispered.

“Bugger that!” said Dave.

“Bugger me!” said Soap to himself. “I’m never going to find Geraldo amongst all this mob.”

And quite a fair old mob it was by now. They were still plodding in through the park gates and bottle-necking up amongst the concession stalls and T-shirt stands and beer wagons and overpriced Portaloos and all the rest that had been flown in beneath a fleet of helicopters. But the Brentford sun was shining bravely and it did have all the makings of a beautiful day.

The world’s media were there in force. Camera teams and up-front girlie presenters in boob tubes and belly button piercings. Eager to grab the old soundbites from the kids for the evening news.

Because the Beatles could still make the news. They were British Institutions, each of them. And they were safe and cosy establishment figures. Part of society’s furniture.

They’d been bought off with their medals from the Queen (John had apologized for giving his back and Prince Charles had bunged him a replacement in the Royal Mail). And they gave the public what the public thought it wanted. Which is slightly different from giving the public what it actually needs. Which is a boot up the arse sometimes.

Yes, the Beatles were dead fab and the devil take the man who says they’re not.

A girlie presenter in a boob tube with belly button piercing stuck out her mic towards a not-so-fattish chap in a black T-shirt and shorts. “And do you dig the Beatles?” was her question.

“Not really,” said the chap in a squeaky voice. “I think they’re pretty crass. Although we’ve just come here straight from their last gig at Wembley Stadium.”

“But their last gig at Wembley Stadium was twenty-five years ago. You wouldn’t even have been born.”

“Ah, no, of course not,” said the chap. “What I meant to say was that we’ve just come here after watching it on video. But it’s really the Gandhis we’ve come to see.”

“You dig the Gandhis, then?”

“And then some. And this concert’s going to be special.”

“Special? In what way special?”

“Just make sure your cameras are pointing at the stage after the Beatles finish their set,” said Geraldo (for who else could it be but he?). “You’ll see something you’ll never forget. Trust me. I know what I’m saying.”

“Trust me, I know what I’m saying,”
said The Voice.

“Well, you should,” said Wingarde. “You’re God.”

“Precisely,”
said The Voice.
“So perhaps you’d like to hurry up with what you’re doing. God does not like conducting conversations with people who are sitting on the toilet.”

“I’m almost done,” said Wingarde, making the face of strain. “So what is it you want me to do this time?”

“Something important that must be done today.”

“But I’m meeting the Beatles today and I’m making history again. This concert could never have happened if it hadn’t been for me.”

“Are you forgetting me?”
asked The Voice.

“No, sir.” Wingarde finished his bottom business, rose from the bog seat, turned around and peered down at his doings.

“Why do men always do that?”
asked The Voice.
“It’s disgusting.”

Wingarde shrugged and wiped his bum. Doing that horrible thing some people do, of folding and refolding the paper.

“Word has reached me,”
said The Voice,
“that something is going to occur today. Something that could jeopardize my plans. And we wouldn’t want that to happen, would we, Wingarde?”

“Certainly not, sir,” said Wingarde, flushing the toilet and pulling up his pants.

“So you’re going to deal with it for me.”

“Oh, must I?” Wingarde complained. “I have to meet the Beatles. Do you think Lennon will remember me?”

“I shouldn’t think so, no. But I want you to go to the allotments and dig up—”

“Allotments?” went Wingarde. “Dig up?” went Wingarde.

“Your AK47,”
said The Voice.

“My what? My what?”

“Wingarde. You and I have been reshaping history. Reshaping history so that we can reshape the future. This time the future will go the way that
I
want it to go and nothing and no one will stand in my way. Do I make myself clear, Wingarde?
Do I
?”

“Yes, sir, yes.” Wingarde clutched at his head. “But couldn’t you get someone else to do whatever it is? Get True Father to do it. He wouldn’t mind if
you
told him.”

“I do not wish Dr Tril … er … I mean, True Father … I do not wish True Father to hear my voice. You will do it, Wingarde. You will do it because I’m telling you to do it. You will do it, or else!”

Wingarde mumbled and grumbled and fretted.

“And I’ll tell you what else you’ll do.”

“What’s that?” mumble-grumbled and fretted the lad.

“Wash your hands before you leave this bathroom. Ghastly little bugger.”

(The song of Christeen, twin sister of Jesus Christ, written out of the New Testament because her brother was given editorial control.)

My mother Mary’s pretty big with the Catholics,

And my brother’s still pulling them in.

He’s been at the top

Two thousand years non-stop

I think it’s a sin.

I’ve been cheated of my place in history,

Robbed of my moment of fame.

Thrown on the dole

Cos the starring role

Went to my brother and I think it’s a shame.

But God still thinks he’s number one,

He smiles upon his only son.

And I get nothing thrilling

No, not even second billing.

Chorus

Though I’m

God’s only daughter

I never got a walk on the water.

I never got a word in the Bible, no, nothing at all.