East of Ealing

3

Jim Pooley sat upon his favourite bench before the Memorial Library, racing paper spread out across his knees, liberated Woodbine aglow between his lips, and Biro perched atop his right ear. Few were the passers-by who even troubled to notice the sitter upon the bench. Fewer still observed the chalk-drawn pentagram encircling that bench, the sprig of hemlock attached to the sitter’s lapel, or the bulge of the tarot pack in his waistcoat pocket. Such subtleties were lost to the casual observer, but to the trained eye they would be instantly significant. Jim Pooley was now having a crack at occultism in his never-ending quest to pull off the six-horse Super-Yankee.

Jim had tried them all and found each uniformly lacking. The I-Ching he had studied until his eyes crossed. The prophecies of Nostradamus, the dice, the long sticks, the flight paths of birds, and the changes of barometric pressure registered upon the charts of the library entrance hall – each had received his attention as a possible catalyst for the pulling off of the ever-elusive Big One. He had considered selling his soul to the devil but it was on the cards that the Prince of Darkness probably had his name down for conscription anyway.

Thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets, Jim peered down at his paper. Somewhere, he knew, upon this page were those six horses. Tomorrow, he knew, he would kick himself for not having seen the obvious cosmic connection. Jim concentrated every ounce of his psychic energies upon the page. Presently he was asleep. Blissful were his Morphean slumbers upon this warm spring morning and blissful they would no doubt have remained, at least until opening time at the Swan, had not a deft blow from a size-nine boot struck him upon the sole of the left foot and blasted him into consciousness. The man who could dream winners awoke with a painful start.

“Morning Jim,” said the grinning Omally. “Having forty winks were we?”

Pooley squinted up at his rude awakener with a bloodshot eye. “Yoga,” said he. “Lamaic meditation. I was almost on the brink of a breakthrough and you’ve spoilt it.”

Omally rested his bicycle upon the library fence and his bum upon the bench. “Sorry,” said he. “Please pardon my intrusion upon the contemplation of your navel. You looked to all the world the very picture of a sleeper.”

“Nothing of the sort,” Pooley replied in a wounded tone. “Do you think that I, like yourself, can afford to fritter away my time in dalliance and idleness? My life is spent in the never-ending search for higher truths.”

“Those which come in six or more figures?”

“None but the very same.”

“And how goes this search?”

“Fraught as ever with pitfalls for the unwary traveller.”

“As does our each,” said the Irish philosopher.

The two men sat awhile upon the library bench. Each would dearly have liked a smoke but out of politeness each waited upon his fellow to make that first selfless gesture of the day. “I’m dying for a fag,” sighed Jim, at length.

Omally patted his pockets in a professional manner, narrowly avoiding the destruction of five Woodbine he had secreted in his waistcoat pocket. “I’m out,” he said.

Jim shrugged. “Why do we always go through this performance?” he asked.

Omally shook his head, “I have no idea whatever, give us a fag, Jim?”

“Would that I could John, would that I could. But times are up against me at the present.”

Omally shook his head sadly, “These are troubled times for us all I fear. Take my knee here,” he raised the gored article towards Jim’s nose. “What does that say to you?”

Pooley put his ear to Omally’s knee, “It is not saying much,” he said. “Is it perhaps trying to tell me that it has a packet of cigarettes in its sock?”

“Not even warm.”

“Then you’ve got me.” Omally sighed. “Shall we simply smoke our own today, Jim?”

“Good idea.” Pooley reached into his waistcoat pocket and Omally did likewise. Both withdrew identical packets into the sunlight and both opened these in unison. John’s displayed five cigarettes.

Pooley’s was empty. “Now there’s a thing,” said Jim.

“Decoy!” screamed John Omally. Pooley accepted the cigarette in the manner with which it was offered. “My thanks,” said he. “I really do have the feeling that today I might just pull off the long-awaited Big One.”

“I have something of the same feeling myself,” his companion replied.