Raiders of the Lost Carpark

by Robert Rankin

  Mickey Minns was in his shop, checking his equipment. He had just returned from The Flying Swan.

  The patrons of Brentford’s most famous watering hole were taking their pleasures outside on the pavement this particular evening. In deckchairs. They were viewing the borough’s newest arrivals: the travellers.

  Now, as anyone who has ever spent any time there will tell you, Brentford is not as other towns. Anything but. And the previously related concept, of the travellers as universal scapegoats, didn’t amount to much hereabouts. In Brentford camps which were divided, stayed divided. And camps which were together, remained together.

  The pubs, for instance, being the very linchpins of local culture, had long ago picked up sides regarding most things. The arrival of the travellers didn’t alter much.

  The Shrunken Head, whose takings had been down of late, due to a new landlord with a penchant for a pub quiz, put up the TRAVELLERS WELCOME sign immediately. Neville at The Flying Swan put it to the patrons. ‘Yes or no?’ he asked them.

  Norman the corner-shopkeeper said ‘no’. He had already put up the barricades and was preparing himself for the holocaust to come.

  Old Pete was of the yes persuasion. ‘They’re a free-love mob, aren’t they?’ was his argument.

  There were yes-folk and no-folk and don’t-know-folk and don’t-cares. And when Neville finally called for a show of hands, it was fifty-fifty.

  Which left Neville with the casting vote. Something Neville really did not want.

  And then, out of the blue, or, as many cynical fellows were later to remark, right on cue, in walked John Omally, resident drinker at The Swan for more years now than he cared to think about and a man always ready and willing to give his all for the common good.

  John thought for a moment and then came up with an inspired compromise. A vetting system, whereby he personally would undertake the responsibility of deciding who was worthy to enter the hallowed portal of The Swan and who was not.

  Neville was delighted with this, because if anything went wrong, he could put all the blame on John Omally.

  The patrons were delighted with this also, because if anything went wrong, they could put the blame on John Omally.

  And John Omally was delighted with it, because he intended that nothing would go wrong. Not with him outside, carefully vetting the potential customers. That is, selling the entry tickets.

  ‘It is called the spirit of free enterprise,’ he told his best friend Jim Pooley.

  ‘I thought that was a car ferry which sank,’ replied Jim. ‘But I’ve got all those rolls of raffle tickets you asked me to buy this morning. Red ones and green ones.’

  ‘Jolly good. Red ones are admission to The Swan, ten bob a head. Green ones are, sorry The Swan’s full up, but would you like-to buy a ticket for the festival, two pounds a head.’

  ‘I thought it was a free festival,’ said Jim.

  Omally offered him that ‘nothing is free in this world’ look. ‘You’d better start the ball rolling, Jim,’ said he. ‘Do you want a ticket to get into The Swan, or what?’

  The happy bus had reached Brentford. It was parked down by the Grand Union Canal. Opposite Leo Felix’s used-car emporium. The natty-dreader had left his business empire in the hands of his brother-in-law, him now working full time for his old public school mucker the prince and everything.

  Cornelius stretched out on a whole lot of cushions and viewed the stars. ‘It’s funny to be home, but not really to be home,’ he said.

  ‘I suppose it must be.’ Tuppe made himself comfy.

  Cornelius yawned. ‘It’s going to be a big day tomorrow.

  ‘And then some. If you can pull this off, you’ll change the whole world.’

  ‘And the whole world will never know about it. That’s the beauty of the thing, Tuppe. Kobold’s bunch will be forced to surrender, due to the sheer weight of numbers. And afterwards, who would believe anything the travellers said anyway?’

  ‘Inspired,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Cornelius.

  And they both settled down to sleep. Each secure in the knowledge that the other believed whole-heartedly in the plan.

  Which, naturally, they did not.

  It would have slipped past many people, probably because it has not been mentioned before, that the following day was The Queen’s Unofficial Birthday. She had her real birthday, of course. And her Official birthday. But this was something new. Her special People’s birthday.

  It was an innovation, conceived by certain advisers and publicity people at the palace. These folks studied a lot of history and recalled the time, chronicled in The Book of Ultimate Truths, of a pre-war period, when the King’s coronation was broadcast ‘live’, three times in a single year, as a morale booster. And morale boosters such as that, the world could always do with.

  And hence, these palace people had had big meetings with certain bigwigs in the TV industry. And a live nationwide broadcast had been given the big thumbs up.

  There wasn’t going to be much to it. All the Queen had to do was come out on the balcony, read a small prepared speech and wave at everybody.

  It had been scheduled for eleven in the morning. But now the bigwigs were having a bit of a rethink. There was this Gandhi’s Hairdryer gig, you see. The big free festival. It had been eating up a lot of headlines and was also going out live, as a worldcast. If the Queen’s balcony wave could be made to coincide with this, perhaps during a break between numbers, while the Gandhi’s were off-stage taking tea with the groupies, or something, it made sound financial sense. Two for the price of one. And word had reached the bigwigs’ ears, via a certain Rastafarian equerry, that Prince Charles had agreed to host the Gandhi’s gig.

  However, the question did arise as to how the change of schedule might be ‘sold’ to the Queen. Her Majesty not being a personage that is lightly messed around with.

  And so three bigwigs sat about a boardroom table in one of those Modernist carbuncles, thrashing the matter out.

  ‘Right,’ said the first. ‘Selling the proposition to HRH. Ideas anyone?’

  ‘Tell her the whole world will be watching,’ said the second. ‘After all, it will.’

  ‘Won’t impress her,’ said the third.

  ‘Tell her it’s for the good of her people,’ said the second.

  ‘Who do we know that could tell her that and keep a straight face?’ asked the first.

  ‘Not me,’ said the second.

  ‘Tell her it’s for her own good then,’ said the third. ‘Which it is.’

  ‘Perhaps if you took her a bunch of flowers when you told her,’ the first suggested.

  ‘And some chocolates,’ the second added.

  The third man shook his head and whistled the Harry Lime theme.

  ‘I say, guys,’ said a fourth man, who had entered without knocking, ‘I think I have the solution.’

  The three men turned to view this unannounced arrival. He was a dubious-looking cove, with a camera strung about his neck. A camera with a big long lens.

  ‘Phone up her son Charlie and get him to ask her,’ said this fellow. ‘Tell him that I have certain photographs of him in my possession. Photographs of him and a certain Polly Gotting, taken from a certain bedroom window across the street from her house. Mention the words ‘tea’ and ‘parson’, that should swing it.’

  23

  The Brentford sun rose from behind the water tower at the old pumping station and brought a golden dawn to the borough. Birdies gossiped on the rooftops. Roses yawned in the memorial park. Pussy-cats stretched themselves and annelid worms of the class Polychaeta manipulated the bristles on their paired parapodia.

  Norman at the corner-shop numbered up his newspapers and passed the bag through the hatchway of the security grille to Zorro the paper-boy. ‘Go with God,’ said Norman.

  A milk float jingled to a halt before one of the flat blocks and Mr Marsuple freighted a crate of Gold Top towards the lift. He was whistling. Moments l
ater he would return to find that all the remaining crates had been stolen.

  For, although this was a golden dawn that promised a day of likewise hue, it was a day that the folk of Brentford would long remember.

  It was the day the travellers came to town.

  Cornelius awoke to the smell of frying bacon. Three streets away, at The Wife’s Legs Cafe. He chivvied Tuppe into wakefulness.

  ‘Care for a serious fry-up?’ he asked.

  ‘We don’t have any money.’

  ‘Leave that to me. Let’s go.’

  They left the happy-busers to sleep on and wandered out into the day. Cornelius stretched his long legs and Tuppe stretched his short ones.

  ‘It’s good to be back.’ Cornelius made futile attempts to bat down his hair.

  They walked up from the canal, through the historic Butts Estate, along Albany Road and around the corner to The Wife’s Legs.

  It was a bit of a mess.

  The windows had been boarded over and curious man-shaped outlines had been chalked on the bullet pocked pavement outside.

  ‘What is all this?’ Tuppe asked.

  ‘Let’s go in and ask.’ Cornelius pushed open what was left of the door and they went inside. The wife was turning pink sausages in a frying pan. Big men sat around tables, reading their small newspapers, tugging upon mugs of tea and discussing the sort of things big men discuss when in the company of their own kind.

  ‘Morning, big men,’ called Cornelius.

  ‘Morning, Cornelius,’ the big men called back. ‘Morning, Tuppe.’

  ‘Morning, big men.’

  ‘I’ll order breakfast,’ Cornelius said. ‘You tune up the big men. Find out what happened here.’

  ‘Okedoke.’

  Cornelius ordered breakfast. The wife looked decidedly shaky, but quite pleased to see him. She gave him the cream of the milk. Cornelius told her he was expecting a postal order.

  ‘By the end of the week, or you’re barred,’ the wife told him.

  The tall boy smiled warmly and freighted the mugs of tea to his favourite table by the window. It was a bit short on view this morning. Tuppe soon joined him.

  ‘You would not believe what happened here,’ he said as he scaled a stool. ‘Someone opened fire on the place with a minigun.’

  ‘A minigun? You’re kidding.’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘You mean a 7.62 M134 General Electric Mini-gun?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘7.62 mm x 51 shells? 1.36 kg-recoil adaptors?’

  ‘And a six-muzzle velocity of 869 m/s. That’s the one.’

  ‘Capable of firing six thousand rounds per minute?’

  ‘Correct. Was all that supposed to be funny, by the way?’

  ‘Search me. So what exactly happened?’

  ‘Well,’ Tuppe sipped tea, ‘as I say, someone opened fire on the place yesterday afternoon and shot two men dead.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Cornelius.

  ‘Blimey is right. One was a policeman, well known in these parts. Inspectre Hovis.’

  ‘Never heard of him. What about the other?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘Ah? What is, Ah?’

  ‘Ah is, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why, what have you done?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Then why are you apologizing?’

  ‘I’m not apologizing. I’m saying I’m sorry.’

  ‘Is this supposed to be funny?’ The tall boy sipped his tea.

  ‘It’s not funny. Listen, Cornelius. The other man who got shot, no-one got his name, but he was a great big heavily built man. With a shaven head. And he was wearing a nineteen-thirties Boleskine Tweed plus-fours suit.’

  Cornelius spat his tea all over the table and all over Tuppe.

  Mickey Minns awoke in the wardrobe. There had been some more unpleasantness in the Minns household, but it was better left undwelt upon. The Minns bore an arm-load of clothing away to the bathroom. He really intended to enjoy the gig tonight and he wanted to look his very best.

  The trouble was, as he stood in front of the mirror and struggled to get his arm down the narrow sleeve of a cheesecloth shirt, a-shade-of-green-that-dare-not-speak-its-name, none of the fab old gear seemed to fit any more.

  It seems like one of those really wonderful ideas, keeping all of your old clothes. To still possess those faded purple moleskin South Sea Bubble hipster loon pants, with the patch pockets and the thirty-three-inch bottoms, the ones you wore to your first Happening. And the tie-dye five-button granddad vest that you threw up all over.

  Wonderful idea? I don’t think so.

  Mickey returned to his wardrobe and pulled out the Giorgio Armani suit that he had been saving for when he was invited to attend The Rock and Pop Awards.

  Outside the horn of his van went Beep! Beep! Honk! Mickey peered out of the window to see Anna waving up at him.

  Polly Gotting awoke in the bedroom of Prince Charles. The ringing of the telephone woke her.

  The prince reached over and picked it up. ‘One,’ said he.

  Certain words came to his ear and these he answered with polite ones of his own.

  More followed and the prince replied to these also. ‘Yes,’ he kept on saying. And then, ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Whatever’s happened?’ asked Polly. ‘You look terrible.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor, no relative of Barbara. ‘I think I’d better go and have a word with mummy.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’ Cornelius didn’t. ‘Except I’m sorry I spat my tea over you. But he’s dead. Rune is dead. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Of course it could just be another great heavily built man, with a shaven head and a penchant for nineteen-thirties Boleskine Tweed plus-fours suits.’

  ‘You really think so?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. I just cannot believe it. Did anyone see who did the shooting?’

  ‘One of the big men says a friend of a bloke his brother knocks around with’s mate heard someone say that the police did it.’

  Cornelius whistled. ‘You can’t argue with evidence like that.’

  ‘Can’t you?’

  ‘Of course you can. Why would the police shoot one of their own?’

  ‘I don’t think they did. You see there’s something else. When the ambulance arrived, the bodies had gone. They’d literally vanished.’

  Cornelius looked at Tuppe.

  And Tuppe looked at Cornelius.

  ‘Them!’ they both said.

  A very bitter expression appeared upon the face of Cornelius Murphy. ‘I think we can forget about the peace convoy plan,’ said he. ‘This time it’s war.’

  BRENTFORD: A TOWN UNDER SIEGE

  screamed the banner headline on the front page of the Brentford Mercury.

  ‘Keep the noise down, you’re giving me a headache,’ said young Zorro, pushing the rowdy news-sheet through the wrong letter-box.

  Actually Brentford was looking rather untidy. Which did not befit a borough that regularly swept the board with all the Best Kept awards. But untidy was definitely the word. There were all these shabby looking buses. They seemed to be parked on every corner and down every alleyway and on every vacant plot of land. There were at least a hundred of them on the waste ground behind Moby Dick Terrace.

  But there were none in Gunnersbury Park. The cordon was holding like a dream. There’d be promotions in this.

  The media were enjoying it. The SIEGE had even found its way on to breakfast television.

  ‘Mr Omally,’ said the bright-looking lady presenter, crossing her long legs before the sofa. ‘You represent The Brentford Residents’ Committee.’

  Since I formed it last night, thought John. ‘As long as there has been one,’ he said.

  ‘So, I suppose it must come as something of a shock to have thousands of travellers turning up on your doorstep.’

  ‘Blitz spirit,’ sai
d John, who’d heard old Pete use the expression. ‘And dig for victory.’

  ‘But it must be imposing a terrible strain on the community.’

  John nodded thoughtfully and kept his best side to the camera.

  ‘We live in troubled times,’ he said. ‘Unemployment. Homelessness. These are difficult days for us all.’

  ‘Please go on.’ The lady presenter recrossed her legs.

  ‘I will.’ John moved closer. ‘You have very beautiful legs, by the way.’

  ‘Why thank you.’

  John smiled. ‘Difficult days. Millions of young people on the dole. No jobs, no hope, so they take to the road. I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘I do,’ replied the lady presenter, somewhat breathlessly.

  ‘I knew that you would.’ John placed a hand on her knee. ‘It’s tragic. We in Brentford welcome these people. We say, send us your tired and huddled masses. Let us share your grief. Come share our bounty...’

  ‘Wonderful.’

  ‘Come share our bounty,’ John went on. ‘Be with us. Take a beer at The Flying Swan. Eight fine hand-drawn ales on pump. Convivial atmosphere. Sandwiches and light snacks available at the bar. Unrestricted parking in the Ealing Road. Would it be impolite of me to put my tongue in your ear?’ he asked the lady presenter.

  All around and about Brentford, the travellers were doing their best to make their presence felt. Fences became campfires. Ozone-friendly graffito was being sprayed. Defecation was all the rage.

  It was not their wish to be welcomed to Brentford as tired and huddled masses. These people had a vocation. And just because John Omally was selling the virtues of The Flying Swan and preparing to enjoy those of a prominent breakfast television presenter, that wasn’t going to change anything.

  Prince Charles went in to have a word with mummy. He spoke many words and all of them in a tone of deep regret and apology. And when he was done he made a hopeful face, studied his reflection in his polished toecaps and waited for the axe to fall.

  It didn’t. ‘You are a very naughty boy,’ said the Queen. ‘But no naughtier than your father or your grandfather I suppose. And let us face it, it’s the duty of a royal to go off the rails every once in a while.’