Knees Up Mother Earth

31

Jim Pooley awoke to another Saturday morning. Jim eased himself gently into wakefulness in that practised manner of his and lay, taking in the ceiling and gauging the potential measure of the day. Jim’s waking eyes strayed towards the chart that he had Sellotaped to the bedroom wall above the fireplace.

The FA Cup fixtures chart.

This chart had a lot of crossings out on it now, and a lot of arrows scrawled hither and thus. And a lot of circles about the name Brentford United. The team were going great guns now. As a result of the professor’s continuing missives and Jim’s instructions to the team, things were really rocking and rolling. Four FA Cup qualifying games they’d played now and had won every one of them. Decisively.

Jim viewed the other wall. The wall by the door. The door with all his press cuttings affixed to it, and the magazine front covers, too. The ones that had him on them. Him. Jim Pooley of Brentford. There he was on all those covers, in his Bertie Wooster suit, giving the big thumbs-up. FHM, Loaded, The World of Interiors, which had done a feature on his kitchenette. And House and Garden, which had struggled, although quite successfully in Jim’s humble opinion, to get a two-page spread out of his window box. He even featured on the cover of this month’s Cissies on Parade, although why that should be, Jim wasn’t precisely sure.

But he was quite the man about town now. He’d even been invited for a night out at Peter Stringfellow’s club, which Jim had found rather noisy and crowded – although Omally, who had gone along with him, had added many telephone numbers to his little black book.

Jim stared at all the glossy covers and the press cuttings. It wasn’t right, Jim knew that it wasn’t right. It wasn’t real. Although folk kept telling him that it was, it was all stuff and nonsense really. He had little to do with the team’s success. He was just a pawn in some terrible game being played out between Professor Slocombe and William Starling. He was right in the middle, in the firing line – although no one was actually firing at him at the moment. And for that fact he knew he should feel grateful and be enjoying himself.

But Jim was not enjoying himself. He didn’t want to be this person. He just wanted to be Jim Pooley, man of the turf, investor in the Six-Horse Super Yankee.

All he really wanted was just to be left alone to be Jim.

Jim Pooley sighed. Why did life have to be so complicated?

John Omally awoke in his own cosy bed, in which he was alone upon this Saturday morning. John had sworn off the women for more than a week now, which was quite a big thing for him. It had not exactly been a voluntary swearing off, though; it was more that he just didn’t have the time. There was simply too much club business to be dealt with.

John had always been of the opinion, as have many, that people tend to make simple matters difficult. He believed that things could be dealt with simply, that every problem had a simple solution. Certainly John had held to this opinion because he had rarely encountered any situations that were actually difficult, up until recent times. He had always sidestepped them.

Now, however, everything seemed to be difficult.

The town councillors who had received injuries when the floor of the executive box collapsed had decided to sue the club for damages. Their solicitor Mr Gray, an unwontedly vicious individual who Omally surmised must have received some slight or missed some business opportunity to have put him into such a vile frame of mind, was going all out for many thousands of pounds. John hadn’t mentioned this to Jim for fear of upsetting the lad. And then there was The Stripes Bar. It should have been raking in the money, what with the strippers and everything, but it wasn’t prospering. Neville had drawn the clientele back to The Flying Swan, which was infuriating.

The club shop was doing well, though, knocking out many, many team kaftans, but the money coming in was hardly covering all the expenses of keeping the club going.

Such as paying the players.

And there was a big problem with the players.

Before every FA Cup qualifying game, one of them had dropped out, vanished, had it away on their toes for financial or personal reasons. Horace Beaverbrooke had apparently run off with a lady tattooist. And Trevor Brooking, not to be confused with the other Trevor Brooking, had got so fed up with people confusing him with the other Trevor Brooking that he had given up football for life and opened a sports shop.

Or so they said. In Omally’s opinion, they had simply lost their nerve.

The substitutes – Don and Phil English, Barry Bustard and Loup-Gary Thompson – were doing their best, but soon the team would be coming up against the BIG OPPONENTS, the big-league fellows. A bunch of circus performers, no matter how well intentioned and aided by the professor’s magical tactics, could not survive against these.

Omally did sighings. Why did life have to be so complicated?

Norman awoke to find Peg snoring as noisily as ever beside him. Norman made a face of displeasure. He’d been dreaming about Yola Bennett, about doing certain things to Yola Bennett. But Norman hadn’t had any time recently to do these things to Yola Bennett in anything other than his dreams.

Norman’s waking hours had been rather busy.

And Norman’s waking hours had not been happy for the lad.

Norman was feeling bad. Norman was feeling guilty.

He should never have claimed that those inventions he’d discovered on the Victorian computer were his own. He should never have claimed the patents. And he should never have sold the rights on these purloined patents to William Starling.

Norman felt wretched. He was not by nature a dishonest man. He was a good man. But he was also a human man. He was a greedy man. He had clearly done a very bad thing. A truly bad thing, if the future of mankind had anything to do with it.

But had it really been his fault? Norman tried to convince himself that it had not. He had been seeking The Big Figure, hadn’t he? Which was why he’d answered the ad for the free computer parts and assembled the computer in the first place.

Norman did silent sighings. All that fitted, but rather too well. It was as if a hand greater than his own had had a hand in it. So to speak. It wasn’t his doing, it wasn’t just a coincidence – he’d been drawn into all this.

And what of Mr Wells and Winston? Norman was currently forking out his pennies and pounds to pay for their accommodation at Madame Loretta Rune’s. And Mr Wells, posing as Norman’s visiting Uncle Herbert, had become a regular patron at both The Flying Swan and The Stripes Bar, running up monthly accounts that Norman was also forced to cover.

And of course, Norman had been spending all of his free time at his allotment shed/lock-up garage trying to fix the Time Machine, which was one reason why he had had no time to see Yola Bennett. Christmas had come and gone now and so had the New Year and what did Norman have to show for all the work he’d been doing on the Time Machine?

Well, not very much, as it happened.

He’d had it all to pieces. In fact, it was now little more than pieces, but how it worked was still a mystery; and to add mystery to mystery, Mr Wells seemed to have no idea how it worked either. Which was rather strange, considering that he claimed to have built it.

As far as Norman had been able to make out, the Time Machine contained no internal mechanisms. There were some levers, but these seemed merely to enter a box which contained …

A sprout.

A sprout, yes!

Norman had examined this sprout. There was nothing immediately “special” about this sprout, although there was definitely something “odd”.

Norman had, upon first taking this sprout up in his fingers, felt an almost irresistible compunction to thrust it into his ear. He had imagined that the sprout was speaking to him. Norman had hastily thrust the mysterious sprout into the half-consumed jar of pickled onions that he had half-consumed and hastily screwed down the lid.

Norman was mystified.

Mystified, guilty, running out of cash and wondering about his wife, who seemed to be spending more and more time in the company of Scoop Molloy, cub reporter from the Brentford Mercury.

Norman did more silent sighings. Why did life have to be so complicated?

Neville the part-time barman awoke with a great big smile upon his face. It was a blinder of a smile and it really lit up the publican’s normally paler-shade-of-white visage. Neville stretched out his arms and brought his hands down gently.

On to shoulders.

Female shoulders.

To Neville’s right there lay a woman. A naked woman.

And to Neville’s left, another one.

Alike, were these, as two peas in the proverbial pod.[34] Naked ladies in Neville’s boudoir.

One naked lady called Loz.

And another one called Pippa.

Neville smiled some more and waggled his toes about. This was all right, this, this being a ladies’ man. He should have got into this kind of thing years ago. Why hadn’t he done that?

The smile faded slightly from Neville’s face. He knew full well why he hadn’t. But he was doing it now, making up for lost time. And in a big way, too. Two ladies. Two bare, naked ladies. And he hadn’t disappointed either of them. He was a Goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus.

Neville made a thoughtful face, although it still had a bit of a grin left on it. He knew full well that it wasn’t him, wasn’t really him. It was all down to Old Pete’s Mandragora. That stuff made Viagra look like spray starch.

And it was undoubtedly addictive. Neville was now downing a packet a day, and Old Pete was upping the price with every delivery. He was even talking about cutting Neville’s supply completely because he had “more important matters on his mind”.

More important matters than Neville’s sex life?

What could possibly be more important than that?

And then there was the other business.

The other business, which involved Young Master Robert, the brewery-owner’s beloved only son. He had further plans to liven up The Swan.

Neville’s smile all but left his face. All but.

Why did life have to be so complicated?

Pippa awoke and her hand brushed lightly against Neville’s todger.

“Stuff complications,” said Neville.

Arising, as one would, to the occasion.