Against the panes of grimy glass the first pebbles from the night’s street urchins
‘This is sick.’
‘… But no sign ho the lolly hennywhere … ’
‘How much?’
Whitelaw consults the oracle of the black book: ‘… One-point-seven-five-million squid.’
‘Ruddy Hell!’
‘Parked in the duck pond?’ ponders Whitelaw. ‘Ain’t that a bit, well … stupid?’
‘You blind twat!’ thunders the Governor. ‘He’s taking the piss. He wants to be caught. He can do the time and he can do the crime.’
‘In the end,’ chomps Whitelaw on a stray chubby nut, ‘your Big Boys go a-banging on Knees’s front door ...’
‘About time too.’
‘... Out staggers Knees ...’
‘Yes.’
‘... blinder drunk than the good Lard Himself ...’
‘Arrest that man!’
‘... Been a party on the bang for days. Your modern housy-housy music ...’
‘Filth!’
‘... Your friend Knees falls flat on his face in the duck pond with a shotgun — “Ya bastards! Come on! I’ll take yers all on!”’
‘Knees in the weeds,’ remarks the Governor drily.
‘Old son, hew not looking so well.’
‘Never felt better,’ growls the Governor, knuckles deathly white against the glass a deep-grained chagrin. Robbed. Cheated. Harbouring a sinking injustice that all is wrong with the world. Deep down. Deep down in a personal pool of pity. And he doesn’t care one jot. Not now. Not with men like Jason Knees out there cocking a snook at the system and getting away with it. ‘I blame you lot. Letting loonies loose Maggie-wild with blue murder.’
‘Why, Archie, they search every wing of the house.’
‘The Law’s a donkey.’
‘They even search the servants’ quarters,’ rambles Whitelaw seemingly without a drop of mercy, ‘in case hoffer mistake.’
‘Mistake? You have the brass fucking gall ...’
The long arm of Pym offputting eight pints of flat bitter, sixteen whisky chasers, a pack of cigars for the discerning gentleman (green and with a growth of moss), pack of pork scratchings, fake sausage and plate of pickled eggs.
‘But if you're wanting my professional assessment …’ Delighted Whitelaw worms a not underfed pinkie into the mouth of the kingsize bag of pork scratchings — ‘… Your friend Knees is no more genius …’
‘When sorrows come they come not single pies but in bakeries.’
‘— Now I’m not saying your friend Knees is not a genius,’ chuffs the cheruby champing chops of Whitelaw. ‘Your common criminal often likes to think of himself as the bee’s knees. Waaaaah! Bee’s Knees! Ayuk-yuk-yuk!’
‘A stitch in time gathers no moss,’ counsels Pym, and peeling from the plate a particularly green pickled egg.
Scorching, scampering, bubbling blood bombards the battlements of the stomach. ‘That frigging money is close to home. I can feel it in my water. Hiss taking the piss.’
‘We get in there before he flies the coop. Crack o’ a sparrows Monday afternoon.’ Whitelaw snaps shut the black book. ‘We cook his wings and put sauce in his sails.’
Hot torture under the collar the crowded beat of underhand voices conspiring. For ever conspiring. Vivian and Trevor. Teddy and Sally. ‘I want not a dickie-bird of this to a soul at Lodge.’
‘A private job, you mean?’
‘And I want a private showing of every security camera.’ The Governor thrums the tabletop the Last Post — ‘We act purely on behalf of Tommy taxpayer.’
‘You be back to these blue videos again.’
‘At the bank, you moron! At the bank! My God, doesn’t any sod listen?’ Flushed with a Captain’s effort of steering a straight ship.
‘Come round to our gaff,’ offers the fiery pork-chops of Whitelaw, ‘and I’ll get the goat curries in.’
‘Tsch-marra night.’
‘Sorry, old son. You be leading out your good lady wife.’
‘My what?’
‘Ladies’ Night. Remember? Every third Friday ladies have their monthlies.’ Whitelaw plucks from the puddle of beer a peanut and admires it with the eye of a satyr: ‘You be leading out your good lady wife in a Gay Gordons.’
‘I feel sick.’
A doomed demonic world dished with dirt and dumped by the grace of the gods.
‘After the banquet there’s an eight-piece band,’ enthuses Pym. ‘The Lodge ladies do enjoy dare paso-dobles.’
Pickled eggs on top of monthlies on top of Candida James and her paso-de-bleeding-doble raising a riot-wave of rancour to retch in the throat <—> He reaches for a fresh pint.
‘Nut, anyone?’
***
We pull to the bumper of Chapter Two and still no car chase. No Ferrari consummating with Lambo on the Ballard Flyover, or Black Lincoln with Chevy on the verge under the arclights.
Evensong under the Victorian dome mellow and the posse of dickies chirpingly chipper.
But of those two e’er-do-well hippies behind the steel door of Room 102 we find them committing various technical offences under el Presidenté Bliar’s new Prevention of Pleasures Act.
— A Giant Redwood of a trunk four skins long and spruced with Snow White, Barbara Bush and the maddest sprinkling of pollen — A masterpiece to behold. Thrilling. Lifting the spirit. And settling you for a serious long-distance session of lurking.
Sadly, we report the mind of scholar Benjamin runs to rack and ruin as he rails wild, fanciful notions of exploring the woods of English literature. Hung on happy Hamlet. Worse. He now is hooked on the Meaning of Life. Pray spare a dime for this poor young scholar soon to be squatting outside the sparse libraries of norf London tin cup in hand and desperate to raise the price of his next potboiler. Soon to be hardlining Joyce or juicing the veins with Sharpe.
Blood vessels pulsate. Hairs at the tip of the nose quiver. To the mind a wind-rush of change. Smoothing the passage of thought. Sit back. Relax. And pass your present tugboat of troubles.
Turn on the black box. Tune in Chicane’s Offshore. Drop out the window your tray of butts.
How blows faintly forgotten friend Horace?
It is good to let the mind bend on occasion
Wait.
Waiting for the early evening nap. Waiting for the crash-marking of students’ papers. Waiting for an academic round of Grand Theft Auto 23 on the PlayStation 11.
Waiting on a friend.
The witching hour.
Benjamin lets fly a wistful eye to the stormy tent of black where truth bumpers the brain of a Life lived sham-shod in every shade of grey.
To the beat-estate born.
Waiting for the puff-eyed Professor dribbling by the glow of the lamp, bed-ridden by the unreasonable demands of the student body for proper teaching, and submerges another poor student’s submission into the sea of papery mush below.
Benjamin scythes a lucky-dip black hand — fallow dreams of students festering and fermenting a swamp gas — and dredges a full-fruited shakedown — no, single page — smooths — straightens — and studies the hieroglyphics of long words for any sign of intelligent student wildlife.
A trippy trail of soft blue smoke down the garden path of the lungs.
For the Meaning of Life is not taboo, a beach-hut for the chosen few. And God will not abandon him alone in a bleak Beckett universe. Sans soul. The End. Star food for worms.
With no Meaning of Life.
A fate worse than Life.
We bark our own disbelief till we can’t part the truth from the trees.