Knees Up Mother Earth

10

John Omally woke and yawned and wakened not the nurse who slept beside him. Divesting himself of his bandage turban, he slipped from his bed of not-too-much-pain-really and nudged the sleeping Pooley.

The sleeping Pooley woke to find the face of John Omally grinning down upon him.

“Wah?” went Jim. “What are you doing in my boudoir?”

“You’re in the hospital,” John told him. “Summon up your powers and let’s be on our way.”

“Oh yes,” mumbled Jim. “I remember.”

“Up and at ’em, Mr Manager,” said John. “The borough’s relying on you.”

Jim’s mumbling became a groan. “I really hoped I’d just dreamed yesterday,” said he.

“Well, you didn’t,” said John. “I’ll treat you to a breakfast at The Plume, then we’ll get down to business.”

“We?” queried Pooley.

“We,” said John. “We’re in this together, I told you, thick and thin. We’re the boys, aren’t we? The boys from Brentford.”

“There appears to be a penguin in your bed,” said the casual observer, “from where I’m lying, of course. Which must be on the left, if you’re looking from the door. Although I might be wrong.”

“First thing, then,” said John, as he and Pooley took to their breakfasts in The Plume Café, “is to go to the ground and get you settled into your manager’s office.”

“First thing,” said Jim, “is for me to go to Norman, purchase my copy of Sporting Life and make my selections for the day. And check on the results for yesterday. I might already be a multi-millionaire.”

“No,” said John, a-shaking of his slightly bruised but otherwise undamaged head.

“No?” said Jim, a-shaking of his head in a similar fashion.

“Those days are behind you. You are a man of responsibility now.”

“I don’t want this,” said Jim. “I really don’t.”

“You trust the professor, though.”

“He has a rare sense of humour. He might just be winding us up.”

“I don’t think so.” John tucked into his double eggs.

“Woe unto the house of Pooley,” quoth Jim, “for it is surely undone.”

“Another cup of tea?” asked John.

“A mug,” said Jim, taking out a Dadarillo and lighting it. “I need to keep my strength up.”

There was a degree of unpleasantness.

In fact, it was more than just a single degree.

In fact, there were sufficient degrees involved to construct an isosceles triangle.

Mahatma Campbell, groundskeeper of Griffin Park[8], refused the team’s new manager’s entrance.

“Open up these gates,” demanded Jim.

“I know you,” spat the Campbell. “I know you well, wee laddie.”

“Hear that,” said Jim to John. “The team may not know me, but he does. This is such a bad idea.”

“The Campbell knows everyone,” said John. “He knows Professor Slocombe, don’t you, Campbell?”

There was more unpleasantness, and much shouting from the Campbell, but eventually much limping off to the telephone and much grudging limping back and even greater grudging unlockings of the gate.

“I willna call ya sir,” the Campbell told Jim. “And I have this job fer life here. It’s in m’contract, so dinna think of sacking me.”

“It was the furthest thing from my mind,” said Pooley. “Would you kindly lead the way to my office?”

Now, there are offices. And there are offices.

Some offices are directors’ offices. These are well-appointed offices, they are spacious and luxurious, with a window that occupies the entirety of one wall through which can be viewed panoramic cityscape skylines.

Other offices are poky and wretched, like those of downbeat private eyes, for instance, such as Lazlo Woodbine, the fictional gumshoe created by the mercurial mind of P.P. Penrose (Brentford’s most famous and fêted writer of detective “genre” fiction). Such offices as these have a ceiling fan that revolves turgidly above fixtures and fittings of the direst persuasion: a filing cabinet with few files to call its own; a water cooler that steams gently throughout the summer months; a desk that one would not care to sit at, accompanied by a chair that no one would ever care to sit upon; and a carpet that, should it receive a description, certainly doesn’t deserve one.

Jim Pooley viewed the office that was now his own.

“Well appointed,” said Jim, approvingly.

“Poky and wretched,” said John Omally, “but nothing a lick of paint won’t cure.”

“And see, John,” said Jim, “a desk of my very own. Do you think it has anything in its drawers?”

“I think I’ll open the windows,” said John, “and let the bluebottles out.”

“Isn’t it interesting?” Jim sat down in the manager’s chair that was now his own and had a little swivel about on it. “It should be me complaining, but it’s not. It’s you. How would you explain this, John?”

“I’m only thinking of your interests,” said Omally, who certainly was not. “I want what’s best for you. Perhaps we could knock through a wall, put in a Jacuzzi and a sofa bed?”

“I can’t imagine why I’d need those.”

“I can,” said John. “But you certainly have a good view of the ground from here.” John viewed this view through a window that did not occupy the entirety of one wall, but a tiny portion thereof instead. “You can almost see the full length of the pitch.”

“There’d be a director’s box, wouldn’t there?” said Jim. “There’s always a director’s box. We’d sit in there during a match and drink champagne whilst cheering the team on to victory.”

“You’ll be sitting down by the pitch.” John pointed in that direction. “Encouraging the team to victory.”

“You know what, John?” said Jim, now leaning back in his chair. “There’s no real reason why I should do this job at all. You could do it. It’s only following the professor’s instructions, passing the tactics on to the team. And you have plenty of natural charisma. The team would listen to you. Especially the centre forward – I understand that you are not unacquainted with his wife.”

“Oh no,” said John, “the professor chose you and I agree with his choice. You deserve a chance, Jim. It’s your right. I will act as your PA, take away any weight that might bear down upon your noble shoulders.”

“What is a PA?” Jim asked.

“Personal assistant,” said John. “It’s what posh directors have. While they loaf about in their offices and consume liquid lunches, the PAs do all the real hard graft.”

“So what real hard graft would you be doing?”

“Oh, you know, running things generally, things unconnected with the training of the team. Such as the bar, for instance, making sure that it has enough beer beneath its pumps. And the club shop, of course. There are more things that it could be selling than reproduction team shirts. And there’s buying and selling of players and all kinds of similar tedious stuff. You don’t have to worry about any of that, Jim. I’ll take care of the lot of it.”

“You’re a saint,” said Jim. “And you’re hired.”

“I’ll draw up a contract,” said John. “You can sign it later. Or I’ll sign it for you, to save your precious time.”

“Excellent,” said Jim Pooley. “So what do you think we should do first?”

“How about a stroll around the grounds?”

It was a sad and sombre stroll, for although it had to be said that Mahatma Campbell certainly maintained a fine pitch (many football pundits agreeing that, but for Wembley, Brentford has always had the finest pitch in the country) the rest of the Griffin Park ground left very much to be desired. It was wretched, it was run down and it was going to pieces. And it was now all Jim’s responsibility. And the terrible weight of this responsibility pressed down upon the aforementioned noble shoulders of the lad.

“Those stands don’t look very safe,” observed Jim in a mournful tone.

“They just need a lick of paint,” said John, taking a notebook from his pocket and making notes in it with a pencil.

“The toilets really pong,” observed Jim in a nasal tone.

“They just need a scrub down with Harpic,” said John, making further notes.

“The shop is wretched,” observed Jim in a hopeless tone.

“Not for much longer.” John made further notes.

“The bar is really dank,” observed Jim in the tone of a soul that is forever lost.

“It’s opening time,” said John, tucking away his notebook.

The Stripes Bar was long and low and loathsome and seemed to lack for everything that made a pub a pub. Behind the jump stood Mr Rumpelstiltskin the barman, a grave and sad-looking fellow who did not ooze bonhomie.

“The beer’s not very good,” observed Jim a few scant minutes later. “It’s funny how it always tasted better when we’d slip in here for a late-nighter.” Jim’s shoulders sank. He was doomed. All doomed.

“I’ll sort it,” said John, making further notes. “You wait until tomorrow.”

“It seems,” said Jim, “that you will be working much harder than I will. But then, as I am contemplating suicide, you may well have to go it alone.”

“Perk up, my friend. We’re in this together. We’ll succeed.” John raised his glass to Jim and the two men drank in silence.

They drank in silence for some considerable time. This silence was not disturbed by further patrons entering The Stripes Bar.

“Doesn’t anyone ever come in here on weekdays?” Jim asked the barman.

“You’re the first I’ve seen in years,” the barman replied. “I only open up at lunchtimes out of a sense of tradition. Personally, I’d rather be golfing.”

“Doomed, doomed, doomed,” intoned Jim.

“Jim,” said John, and suddenly a very big grin appeared upon his face. “Jim, do you realise what this means?”

Jim Pooley shook his head. “That I am doomed?” said he. “I know.”

John steered Jim away from the dire bar counter to an equally dire yet out-of-ear-shot-of-the-barman corner. “Jim, you are the manager of Brentford United Football Club.”

“Please don’t rub it in,” said Jim. “I’m suffering enough.”

“But Jim, as the manager of Brentford Football Club, you are therefore also the manager of this bar.”

Jim glanced about it in all directions. And Jim did mighty shudderings. “Doom and gloom and more doom,” said he.

“No.” John shook his head. “You don’t realise it, but you’ve really fallen on your feet here. Jim, this is your pub. Neville might have barred us from The Swan, but it doesn’t matter now.”

“It doesn’t?” said Jim, who was certain that it did.

“It doesn’t because you now have a pub of your very own.”

It took Jim a moment or two to digest this intelligence. But when this moment or two had passed, he stared into the face of his bestest friend.

“A pub of my very own?” mouthed Jim at the enormity of this proposition.

“Perk of the job,” said John. “And we’ll have one over on Neville here.”

“A pub of my very own?”

“To manage as you see fit.”

“No,” said Jim. “No.”

“No?” said John.

“Oh no, John, this is not a pub of my very own. This is pub of our very own. This is our pub.”

John smiled upon his bestest friend. “I’ll get the drinks in, then,” said he.

“On me,” said Jim.

“No, on me.”

“I insist,” said Jim.

“No,” said John, “I do. Although …” John paused.

“What prompts this pausing?” Jim enquired.

“I’m just wondering why either of us should pay. After all, this is our pub.”

“Barman,” called Jim, “two more of same over here, and have one yourself, if you will.”

“Having another?” Neville asked Old Pete. The elder sat upon his usual stool before The Swan’s bar counter.

“No,” said Pete. “I’m all right for now.”

Neville cast a wary eye at Old Pete. “Not feeling yourself?” he enquired. “They’re still on the house, as if you’d forgotten.”

“I don’t want to take advantage.”

Chips looked up at his ancient master and cocked his furry head upon one side.

“Change of heart?” asked Neville. “I thought you had determined to bankrupt me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Old Pete. “About yesterday. About taking advantage like that.”

“You are ill.” Neville made a face of genuine concern. Certainly Old Pete was a rogue, but Neville would never have wished any harm to come to him. “Do you want me to call you a cab, or a medic or something?”

“Don’t be an arse, Neville. You’re a decent bloke. I wasn’t going to ponce free drinks off you for ever.”

“There’s something not right.” Neville drew off another rum for Old Pete and placed it before him. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“If I did, you’d think I was mad. And you’d never believe me anyway.”

“Try me,” said Neville. “I’m a publican, after all. I’ve heard pretty much everything there is to hear during my long years in the trade.”

“You’ve never heard anything like this, I assure you.”

Neville was intrigued. “Go on,” he said, “tell me.”

Old Pete glanced about the bar. It wasn’t busy. A salesman travelling in tobaccos and ready-rolled cigarettes chatted with a pimply youth who referred to himself as “Scoop” Molloy and worked for the Brentford Mercury. Office types drank halves of cider and munched on their Lighterman’s lunches.

“If I tell you,” said Old Pete, “you have to promise me that you will never tell another living soul. Can you promise me that, Neville?”

“I can.” Neville licked his finger. “See this wet,” he said, and then wiped it upon his jacket. “See this dry. Cut my throat if I tell a lie.”

Old Pete sighed. “You’re a Freemason, aren’t you, Neville?” he said.

Neville made a wary face. That was not a question that any Freemason cared to be asked. And it is a tricky one, because if you are, you’re not supposed to lie – simply to evade.

“How are your crops at present?” Neville asked. “How’s the Mandragora coming along?”

Old Pete put his hand across the bar counter for a shake. “Have you travelled far?” he asked.

Neville shook the elder’s hand. It was a significant handshake. Both men knew the significance of it. Words were exchanged and these words also were significant.

“I never knew,” said Neville, “in all these years, that you—”

“I keep my own business to myself, Neville, whereas your Masonic cufflinks are something of a giveaway. But I can trust you. Brothers upon the square, as it were.”

“And under the arch.”

“Quite so.”

“So what is it that you wish to tell me? In complete confidence, of course.”

“How old do you think I am, Neville?”

Neville shrugged.

“I was born in eighteen eighty-five, right here in Brentford.”

“Eighteen eighty-five?” Neville counted on his fingers. “Why, that makes you—”

“Old enough. Now, you might not believe what I’m going to tell you, but I swear to you it’s true. I’ve spent most of my life trying to convince myself otherwise, but I know what I know. I saw it all with my own two eyes.”

“Go on, then,” said Neville.

“Victorian society,” said Old Pete. “It wasn’t how it’s written up in the history books. It was nothing like it’s written up in the history books, it was completely different.”

“How?” Neville asked. “Smellier, more violent? What?”

“Technology,” said Old Pete. “There was technology back then that nobody knows about now, technology that simply ceased to exist and of which no record survives today.”

“What kind of technology?” Neville asked.

“Electric technology. Have you ever heard of Nikola Tesla?”

Neville shook his head.

“He invented alternating current,” said Old Pete. “It wasn’t Edison who invented that – that’s false history. Tesla worked with Charles Babbage, inventor of the computer.”

“I’ve heard of him,” said Neville. “He invented the computer but it was never taken up in Victorian society. He died in poverty. There was a programme about him on the television a while back.”

“He never died in poverty – he was knighted by Her Majesty Queen Victoria in eighteen sixty for his services to the British Empire. With the help of Babbage’s computer, Nikola Tesla created a system of towers across the country that broadcast electricity on a radio frequency, no wires. There were flying hansom cabs, electric airships, a space programme. A rocket was going to the moon, but it was sabotaged.”

“You’re making this up,” said Neville.

Old Pete glared at him. “It’s true, it’s all true. Most houses had electric lighting long before nineteen hundred. And computers. And there were robots, too, powered by broadcast electricity, working as doormen and cabbies, and soldiers as well. The British Empire had conquered almost all of the globe by the eighteen nineties. America had been won back and was a British colony again.”

“This can’t be true,” said Neville. “It would be in history books.”

“It isn’t,” said Old Pete, “because everything changed at the stroke of midnight with the coming of the year nineteen hundred, as far as I can make out. I owned a digital watch, Neville – my father gave it to me when I was ten.”

Neville the part-time barman shook his doubtful head. “But if this were true, then there’d be some trace of it, surely. What happened to all this amazing Victorian technology?”

“Vanished,” said Old Pete, “as if it had never existed, at the stroke of midnight with the coming of the year nineteen hundred.”

“But how?” Neville asked.

“Through witchcraft,” said Old Pete, “as far as I can figure it out. There were rumours that a cabal of witches sought to destroy all Victorian technology. I don’t know how, or why, but they wiped it all out.”

“Witches,” said Neville, who was not unacquainted with several local practitioners of the Craft. “Witches wouldn’t do that.”

“It’s what I heard, I can’t prove it. I can’t prove anything. But I’ll tell you this: all that stuff in Victorian science fiction books, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and so on – it’s all true, it was all real. All of it.”

“What?” said Neville. “Like the invisible man?”

“That was H.G. Wells himself. He was a scientist, not a fiction writer, and I know that for a fact.”

“But this stuff would have been in the newspapers. And newspaper offices have archives.”

“All records vanished with the technology, as if none of it had ever happened, at twelve midnight, coming of the year nineteen hundred. And Norman is in great danger.”

“Norman?” said Neville. “How does he fit into this?”

“He’s come into possession of Victorian computer parts. Babbage Nineteen-Hundred Series computer parts.”

“Then surely these computer parts prove your story. You should be pleased that he’s found them. Will you be writing a book? A rewrite of history?”

“Neville, you’re a fool. You don’t understand.”

“I can’t understand if you don’t tell me. What’s the problem with these computer parts?”

“The computers were part of it. The magic was in the computers, programmed into them. It’s evil stuff, Neville.”

“I really don’t understand,” said the part-time barman, “but this is a most extraordinary story. And it’s clearly troubling you.”

“It is,” said Old Pete. “To be frank, it’s scaring the very life out of me.”

Neville made a thoughtful face. “Just one thing,” he said. “How come only you know about this? If history changed on the stroke of midnight with the coming of the year nineteen hundred, how come no one else who was alive during that period has ever mentioned it?”

“Because all their memories of it were erased. History was changed and it was as if it never ever happened. All the electric technology, all of it, just disappeared and all memory of it, too.”

“So how come you remember it?”

“Because I wasn’t there when the change came, Neville. I came back afterwards, an hour later, a boy of fifteen, to find my entire world changed – as if everything that had happened had never happened.”

“So where were you?” Neville asked.

“I was right here,” said Old Pete. “Right here, but not right here right now. I was right here several months from now, in Mr H.G. Wells’ time machine. I—”

“Have to stop you there,” said Neville. “Kindly leave my pub, Old Pete, and consider yourself barred for a week.”

“What?” said Old Pete.

And Neville reached for his knobkerrie.