Raiders of the Lost Carpark

by Robert Rankin

  Charles smiled his charming smile.

  ‘I will agree to do my birthday wave during this pop concert thing, but on one condition.’

  Charles made the face that asked, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I want you to present this Polly person to me tomorrow. If she is as wonderful as you say she is, you shall have our blessing. I am having The Archbishop of Canterbury over for tea. Bring her along then.’

  ‘To tea?’ Charles asked.

  ‘To tea.’

  ‘With the…er… parson?’

  ‘What are you grinning about?’ asked the Queen. ‘And where’s my birthday present?’

  24

  Everything begins with a word. Everything. The scriptures are quite clear about this.

  In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

  This, of course, is the principle of High Magick. The word and the power of the word. The intonation. The resonance. The vibration. Things of that nature.

  The word came to the travellers on the one o’clock news. It came from the BBC.

  The word was that twenty-three thousand travellers, disappointed at being turned away from their festival at Gunnersbury Park, were now heading for Star Hill.

  And, in approximately the time it takes to turn a key in an ignition, or at least get a bump-start going, they were.

  Magic.

  ‘Hang about,’ called John Omally. ‘What’s all the rush? Come back.’

  ‘One two. One two,’ went Anna Gotting through one million watts of power.

  ‘Shiva’s sheep!’ Mickey Minns covered his ears. ‘I think we can give that the thumbs up. Would you look at all those buses.’

  They rose up the hill from the place where the other buses (the ones with the numbers on the fronts and the regular places to go) turn around. The first was a technicolor dream of a thing. Bollocks sat at the wheel.

  ‘This is some nice hill,’ he said to Tuppe.

  ‘We like it.’

  ‘What’s up with Cornelius? He hasn’t said a word since the two of you got back from breakfast.’

  ‘He had a spot of bad news,’ Tuppe whispered. ‘I think there may well be a great deal of unpleasantness when he meets up again with Arthur Kobold.’

  Men in official Gandhi’s Hairdryer World Tour T-shirts waved the happy bus to a halt and put up their thumbs. Bollocks switched off the engine, opened the roof hatch and put up a ladder. ‘You’ll see the show a whole lot better from up here, Tuppe,’ he said.

  ‘Brilliant.’ Tuppe scaled the ladder, climbed out on to the roof and took it all in. And there was a lot to be took.

  Upon the crest of the hill, upon the very spot where the concrete memorial plinth of the Reverend Kemp had until so recently stood, was a massive erection. And what a massive erection it was.

  A mighty stage rose above the tree line. Flanked by two Herculean hairdryers, fifty feet in height and housing speaker systems of sufficient power to stagger the senses of that legendary stable-swabber himself.

  Moored between these titanic structures and bobbing gently in the breeze (which came as ever from the east), was a shining dirigible, cunningly fashioned to resemble the head of a not-altogether-unknown Mahatma. Glasses, big grin, the lot.

  And, lest some confusion still remained in the minds of the less mentally alert regarding the name of the band scheduled to. play, huge letters of the HOLLYWOOD sign variety lined the back of the stage. They spelled out the words G AND HIS HAIRDRYER.

  No doubt the road crew would sort that out later.

  Tuppe was very much impressed.

  Cornelius wasn’t. His hair appeared through the roof hatch, followed by his head. He took one look up the hill, went, ‘Bleugh,’ and vanished back into the bus, taking his hair with him.

  Tuppe remained impressed. A massive erection never left a bad taste in his mouth.

  And Tuppe continued with his looking. He spied out the big generator trucks, the lighting gantries with their laser flares and Super Troupers, the control box, where all the technical hocus-pocus went on, the small housing estate of luxuriously appointed artistes’ caravans. And he wondered whether the Gandhis were already inside these, gargling champagne, munching steak sandwiches, and doing rude things with groupies. And in the latter part of this wondering, Tuppe spied out a golden window of sexual opportunity. And so he shinned back down the ladder to see if he could spy out Mr Bone.

  Mickey Minns sat on the edge of the great pink stage, sharing a joint with Anna Gotting. Mickey was dreaming about Woodstock.

  He sighed in a lungful of Ganja smoke and said, ‘Did I ever tell you about the time I...’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Anna, recognizing that far-away look. ‘But you can tell me again, if you want to.’

  The sun shone on down and the trucks and buses kept on coming. The greensward became black with them. They paved it over.

  And when the common ground was all full up, the men in the official Gandhi’s Hairdryer World Tour T-shirts began waving them on to the golf course.

  It was now three in the afternoon. No, stuff that. It was now six in the evening. No, stuff that also. It was now nine o’clock at night.

  And The Sonic Energy Authority came on stage. Lasers criss-crossed the sky. Super Troupers did their thing and the band launched into their first number.

  Now, if you’ve never seen SEA, and nobody really has, getting the measure of their music can be a tricky business.

  The lead singer, Cardinal Cox, when asked by the presenter of a TV arts programme to describe it, said, ‘Basically, like, the music is diatonic. Based upon any scale of five tones and two semitones produced by playing the white keys of a keyboard instrument, especially the natural major and minor scales, as these form the basis of the key system in most of Western music, like. But, naturally, this can be seen as a metaphor. Whilst the five tones represent man’s five senses, the two semitones represent the dualistic proposition that reality consists of just the two basic principles, mind and matter. Like.’

  ‘Pretentious prat,’ muttered the presenter. ‘Well, Let’s take a break there, and coming up in part two...’

  The Sonic Energy Authority did play pretty loud though. Because as we all know, ‘If it’s too loud, you’re too old.’

  Their first power chord, a diminished A7th with a flattened ninth on the F string, which was largely symbolic of the euhemerist theory that the gods arose out of the deification of historical heroes, was an absolute stonker.

  It blew Tuppe straight off the bus roof.

  ‘Look out below,’ he called as he tumbled through the hatch. Bone caught him.

  ‘Mr Bone,’ said Tuppe. ‘I gave up searching for you. What say we look up your friend the drummer and see if he might introduce us to his friends the groupies?’

  ‘Good idea.’ Bone hefted Tuppe on to his shoulders and struck out for the good-time girls. ‘Let’s rock ‘n’ roll,’ he said.

  ‘Hello,’ called the Cardinal, between philosophical key-shifts. ‘Is there anybody out there, or what?’

  ‘Cheer’, ‘Hoorah’ and ‘Yeaaahhhhhhr’ went the crowd.

  ‘Then let us Rock ‘n’ Roll!’ The Cardinal, a striking figure in latex drainpipes and a chain-mail tank top, and with slightly less hair than Cornelius Murphy (but not much), gave his guitar a piece of his mind. ‘This one’s called “Hi Ho Silver Lining”,’ he bawled.

  ‘Let’s go, Tuppe,’ said Cornelius. ‘Tuppe? Where are you?’

  ‘What is all that bloody racket?’ cried the king.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Arthur Kobold crossed his heart. ‘It’s not my doing.’

  ‘Well it’s going on right over my head.’ The king pointed towards the high fan vaulting of the great hall. ‘And it shouldn’t be doing that, should it?’

  ‘No, sire, it shouldn’t.’

  ‘Then kindly go up and see what it is, Arthur. And stop it, right away. I run this planet and I will not have a lot of human rubbish making a racket over my regal
head. Put a stop to it. Right now.’

  ‘As if I didn’t have anything else to do.’

  ‘What did you say, Kobold?’

  ‘Nothing, sire.’

  ‘Now just let me get this straight.’ Chief Inspector Brian Lytton was speaking into a police-car microphone. ‘The festival is not going to be held in Gunnersbury Park? It is actually on the go a mile away at Star Hill, at this very moment?’

  ‘Well,’ said a fellow officer of lower rank, ‘we’re in the mess room here at The Yard, watching it live on TV. So I suppose it must be.’

  ‘Well,’ said Brian. ‘What a turn up for the book. Whoever would have thought it? Thank you very much for mentioning it, officer. Over and out.’ He replaced the police-car microphone. ‘Bastards!’ he screamed. He picked up the microphone again and said, ‘All cars in the Gunnersbury Park vicinity now proceed at once to Star Hill. Illegal rock concert in progress. Arrest everyone.’

  ‘Let’s burn rubber.’ Constable Ken, now fully recovered from the events of the day before (crime is a disease and I am the cure) and looking forward to his promotion, brrrmed the engine. ‘Let’s go kick some ass,’ he said. ‘Which way is Star Hill, Sarge?’

  ‘Possibly that way.’ Reliable Ron Sturdy pointed towards the great display of lasers lighting up the sky. ‘Just follow the noise.’

  ‘Are you all having a good time?’ called the Cardinal, because rock stars always call out things like that. A need for reassurance, probably.

  ‘Yeah!’ the crowd replied.

  ‘Then this one’s for you. It’s off our last album. It’s called “Weren’t the Sixties Fab?”. Thank you.’

  ‘I like this one,’ said Mickey Minns to Anna.

  ‘What exactly were The Sixties?’ Tuppe called down to Bone.

  ‘Search me,’ said Bone.

  ‘Knock on the door then.’

  Bone squared up before the door to the Gandhis’ luxury artistes’ caravan. ‘How did we manage to slip unseen past the teams of hired heavies, whose job it is to prevent people like us doing things like this at rock concerts?’ he asked Tuppe.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Not to me.’

  ‘Knock then.’

  Knock knock knock, went Bone.

  At a Holiday Inn which might have been anywhere, because they all look the same and Status Quo have stayed in them all, the Gandhis were preparing themselves.

  Colin, the lead singer, zipped himself into a contoured black leather jump-suit of Caped Crusader credibility, strapped on a steel codpiece which might have seen the Elephant Man all right as a crash helmet, and became Vain Glory.

  ‘Are we ready to rock?’ he enquired of his fellow musicians. Fearsome personages with hair and studs and straps and boots and pierced nipples with their room keys dangling down.

  ‘We’re ready,’ said they all.

  Atop the Holiday Inn, a helicopter stood with its blades gently twirling. The pilot’s name was Colin. He was dreaming about planes.

  ‘Tuppe,’ called Cornelius into the crowd.

  ‘Prince Charles,’ said Prince Charles, smiling through the open window of his limo. ‘I’m with the band.’

  ‘Stage pass,’ demanded the fellow in the official Gandhi’s Hairdryer World Tour T-shirt.

  ‘Ah,’ said the prince. ‘I did have one of those, but I gave it away.’

  ‘Piss off then,’ said the fellow.

  ‘Oh,’ said the prince.

  ‘Well?’ said the king. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a rock concert,’ replied Arthur Kobold.

  ‘Right above my head? My royal, regal head?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, sire.’

  ‘Well put a stop to it, Kobold. Pull out its plug.’

  ‘Yes, sire.’

  Copter blades picked up speed. Colin the pilot dreamed about Concorde. The Gandhis had lift-off.

  ‘This will be a gig to remember,’ said Vain Glory. ‘Trust me on this. I’m telling the truth.’

  But the rest of the band weren’t listening. They were real Rock ‘n’ Rollers. They were taking drugs, gang-banging the groupies and eating steak sandwiches.

  Why do they always eat steak sandwiches?

  ‘Tuppe.’ Cornelius wandered on. ‘Tuppe, where are you?’

  ‘Oi!’ shouted a traveller from a bus top. ‘Shift your hair. We can’t see the band.’

  And the band played on. The Sonic Energy Authority launched into ‘Johnny B Goode’.

  Why ‘Johnny B Goode’? Because it’s such a blinder of a song, that’s why. And the crowd loved it.

  Twenty-three thousand pairs of feet stomped out their appreciation. Right over the head of the king.

  Fancy that! His great hall just happening to be inside Star Hill.

  ‘Left at the bottom here,’ Chief Inspector Lytton told his driver, as they reached the place at the bottom of the hill where the buses turn around.

  ‘Bloody Hell,’ he continued. ‘Would you look at all that lot?’

  A hired heavy in an official Gandhi’s Hairdryer World Tour T-shirt, which bulged somewhat about the shoulder regions, finally answered the door to the artistes’ luxury caravan.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked, without charm or interest.

  ‘We’re friends of Andy the drummer,’ said Bone.

  ‘We?’ asked the heavy.

  ‘I’m down here,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘Piss off,’ said the heavy.

  ‘But we’re friends of Andy.’

  ‘Well he is,’ said Tuppe. ‘I haven’t been introduced yet. Would it be OK if we came inside and had some group sex?’

  The heavy scratched his head. ‘If you promise you’ll take me to dinner afterwards. Or maybe to a show.’

  ‘What? Just for letting us in?’

  ‘No, for the group sex. There’s only me here. But I’m quite versatile. Who wants to be the parson?’

  ‘Cor look,’ said Tuppe. ‘Here comes a helicopter.’

  And here it did come. Caught to perfection in the searchlights. It dropped down on to the hill.

  That Holiday Inn can’t have been very far away then!

  If you’re going to be a famous superstar — and let’s face it, which of us who’ve ever played the tennis racket and stood in front of a bedroom mirror, isn’t going to be? — you have to do it right. Your helicopter has to land at exactly the correct moment.

  The Hairdryer’s did. Just as the Cardinal and his band were leaving the stage to Olympic Stadium applause. Guitars held high. Fists up. Victory signs.

  It’s all like that when you’re rich and famous. You can’t go wrong.

  ‘I am Prince Charles,’ said Prince Charles. ‘I’m supposed to host the concert. I would have been here earlier but...’ He grinned foolishly back at Polly. ‘Should I explain why we’re late?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Back up and piss off,’ said the fellow. He was still wearing the same T-shirt.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ asked Polly’s mum. Who just happened to be passing.

  ‘Chap in the T-shirt won’t let me up to the stage,’ said the prince.

  ‘Leave it to me, dear.’ Polly’s mum took the T-shirt wearer away to one side and spoke urgently into his ear. The T-shirt wearer came back over to the prince’s car and gave the prince a big long stare.

  ‘Blimey,’ said he. ‘It’s really him. Sorry, mate. Go right on up.’

  ‘Many thanks.’ The prince drove on.

  ‘Never recognized him,’ said the wearer of the T-shirt, as the limo departed. ‘Fancy that!’

  ‘He’s lost a lot of hair,’ said Polly’s mum, ‘but I knew him by his ears.’

  ‘Jeff Beck,’ quoth he-that-did-the-T-shirt-wear. ‘And I never got his autograph.’

  ‘I could get it for you, if you’ll give me that T-shirt.’

  ‘More than my job’s worth. Piss off.’

  Gandhi’s Hairdryer, the band, the legend, and the official World Tour T-shirt, hit the stage. The crowd eru
pted as they strapped on their guitars, gestured rudely at their audience, grinned at one another, went ‘one two’ into the microphones and pansied about generally.

  Arthur Kobold had a good view from the side of the stage. He had lately emerged from one of those secret passageways, like the ones they always have in Rupert Bear that come up in the middle of gorse bushes. Arthur was very impressed by the sheer scale of the entire enterprise.

  ‘It must have a very big plug,’ said Arthur.

  ‘One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four,’ went Vain Glory. They were going to start off with a fast one. ‘Let me hear you say—’

  But that was as far as he got. There was a brief moment of feedback and then all sound died on the stage. Vain Glory lashed out at his guitar and cried unheard into his microphone. The drummer went bump bump bump. Band members stared lamely at one another. The crowd began to boo.

  Arthur Kobold looked on. He hadn’t done anything.

  ‘We will have to take a short break there,’ came a voice nobody knew. It was the voice of a media bigwig. It came full blast through the sound system. It came from the control box where the bigwig sat.

  ‘A word from Her Majesty the Queen,’ it continued, as a big screen rose above the HOLLYWOOD letters. ‘Live from the balcony of Buckingham Palace.’

  ‘Booooooooo!’ went the crowd. ‘Boo. Boo. Boo.’

  ‘That’s not very nice,’ said Prince Charles to Polly, as they mounted the steps to the stage. An enraged Vain Glory was just coming down them.

  ‘Char-lee,’ said the lead singer, wringing the prince’s hand. ‘You got here in the nick of time, Big Boy. Sort this shit out, will you?’

  ‘The peasants are booing mummy,’said Prince Charles.

  ‘Bloody helicopter pilot’s fault,’ moaned Vain. ‘We weren’t supposed to arrive until the speech was over. I told my manager, If we don’t headline above the Queen, we do not appear.’