Snuff Fiction

by Robert Rankin

  And tomorrow belongs to those who can see it coming.

  But what about Brentstock, I hear you ask.

  Well, what about Brentstock indeed.

  11

  If music be the food of love, then I don’t know what a cigar is.

  Nimrod Tombs

  ‘I’m thinking of giving something back.’

  So said the Doveston.

  We sat outside the Flying Swan. It was a warm late spring evening and I still felt utterly miserable. Mind you, with summer on the way, I was beginning to feel a bit more loving.

  The sun was just going down behind the gasometer, its final rays glinting upon our pints of Large, and glittering in our eyes of baby-blue.

  ‘Giving something back?’ I said.

  ‘Giving something back.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what you’ve taken, but I’ll have it back if you’re giving it.’

  ‘Not to you,’ the Doveston said. ‘To the borough, as a whole.’

  ‘I quite like the borough,’ I said. ‘I don’t think you should call it a hole.’

  The Doveston lightly cuffed me in the ear. ‘Whole,’ he said, ‘with a W.’

  I picked myself up from the ground. ‘I fear you have lost me on this one,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve had a good year so far.’ The Doveston finished his pint and gazed into its empty bottom. ‘My harvest is in early. Soon the tobacco will be ready for packing and soon after that, cigars and cigarettes and snuff, bearing the distinctive Doveston logo, will be rolling off the production lines. Also, I am worshipped as a God, which is no small thing in itself. And I’ve had a bit of luck in one or two other directions.’ He took his yo-yo from his pocket and buffed it on his sleeve.

  ‘So you’re thinking of giving something back?’

  ‘To the borough, yes.’

  ‘And what did you have in mind? Not something revolutionary, like paying your workers a living wage?’

  ‘Beware the fist that falleth on your ear. My workers have gone their way, to toil in the Crad fields of Chiswick. I was thinking that I’d like to organize some kind of celebration.’

  ‘A party?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well not in my house, mate!’

  ‘Something bigger than that.’

  ‘Well, you can’t hire the scout hut again. They know it was you who blew off the roof.’ ‘Aaah-choo!’ said the Doveston. ‘By the way, did you ever buy yourself another dog?’ ‘No, I didn’t and I’ll thank you not to mention it again.’

  ‘I said I was sorry.’

  ‘But you didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Meaning it is not the point. It’s saying it that matters.’

  I finished up my pint. ‘You can buy me another of these,’ I said. ‘And I’ve said that, so it matters.’

  ‘Do I look like I’m made of money?’

  ‘Actually you do. And if you really are intending to give something back to the borough, you might as well start right away.’

  The Doveston got us in two more pints. ‘Listen,’ he said, cupping a hand to his ear. ‘Tell me what you hear.’

  I listened. ‘Is it God already praising you for your generosity?’

  ‘No. It’s the jukebox.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ I said. ‘The jukebox that has only three records on it, these three being privately produced pressings made by the landlord’s son and his band.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  I sipped at my beer.

  ‘Aren’t you going to make some fatuous remark?’

  I shook my head, spilling beer down my front.

  ‘That will do for me,’ said the Doveston. ‘What would you say if I told you that I was going to put on a rock festival?’

  ‘Firstly I would ask you who was going to play at it. Then, once you’d told me, and if I was keen to see whoever it was, I would ask you how much the tickets were. And then, once you’d told me that, I would fall back in horror and say something like, “You must be frigging joking, mate!” That’s what I’d say.’

  ‘I was thinking of organizing a free festival.’

  ‘You must be frigging joking, mate!’

  ‘I’m serious. We could hold it on the plantation. We could get a thousand people on there easily, two thousand, at a push.’

  ‘Tramping all over your crops?’

  ‘The crops are up. The land is lying fallow. This would be a golden opportunity to earn a little extra from it.’

  ‘I thought I heard you say it was going to be a free festival.’

  ‘It would be free to get in. But people have to eat, don’t they? And buy their cigarettes and beer. We would set up stalls to cater to their every need.’

  ‘Exactly who is this we you keep talking about?’

  ‘Well, naturally you will want to get involved. After all, you are my biographer and amanuensis, are you not?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I keep a careful record of everything you get up to.’

  ‘Then there is nothing more to be said. I’ll leave all the booking of the bands with you. Get somebody big, the Beatles, or the Rolling Stones, or someone.’

  I looked at the Doveston. And the Doveston looked at me.

  ‘Shall I see if I can get the landlord’s son?’ I asked.

  Actually things went a great deal better regarding the booking of bands than I might reasonably have expected. As the summer came on, bands who would normally have charged a royal ransom for their services began to come over all lovey-dovey and start playing gigs for free.

  We now had a telephone in our house and one morning in July, I replaced the receiver after taking a long-distance call from foreign parts.

  ‘Captain Beefheart’s coming,’ I told my mum.

  ‘Captain who?’ she replied.

  ‘Beefheart,’ said my father. ‘Otherwise known as Don Van Vliet, an avant-garde musician with a four-octave vocal range, whose seminal album Trout Mask Replica is still hailed today as being one of the most original pieces of work ever produced in the rock canon.’

  I took my dad quietly aside. ‘Just one or two small details,’ I said. ‘Firstly Trout Mask is a double album. And secondly it doesn’t come out until 1969. I think these things probably matter.’

  My father nodded thoughtfully. ‘Captain who?’ he said.

  Actually the good captain was unable to make it, but the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Big Brother and the Holding Company were still up for the gig.

  ‘Mark well my words, my friend,’ said the Doveston, when I told him, ‘Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin will both be dead from drugs in a few years from now.’

  I shook my head. ‘You might have been right about the Mexican quarter,’ I said, ‘but that is quite absurd.’

  I must confess that I was rather miffed when, a month before the festival, both Jimi and Janis had to pull out for unspecified reasons. I would no doubt have sunk into a state of utter misery, had I not been feeling so full of love.

  ‘About your boy and his band,’ I said to the landlord of the Flying Swan.

  With just three weeks to go, the Doveston called a special meeting of the festival committee at his flat. I had been to the Doveston’s flat many times before. In fact I had helped him move in, being given responsibility for many of the heavier pieces of furniture. It was a pretty fab flat and I offer a description of it now to set the scene for what was to become one of those ‘moments in history’.

  The Doveston’s flat occupied the entire top floor of Hawtrey House, one of the six new flat-blocks that had been built on the site of the old ethnic quarters. Each of these flat-blocks had been named after some titan of the British silver screen. There was Hawtrey, James, Windsor, Williams, Sims and McMurdo. McMurdo was a bit of a mystery and I couldn’t think of any famous actor of that name. The only McMurdo I knew was Councillor McMurdo, head of the town-planning committee.

  So it obviously wasn’t him!

  When the old streets were demolished to make way for the new flat-blocks, their residents
had been rehoused elsewhere. It was intended that they would all get new flats as soon as the building work was completed. But I suppose there must have been some clerical error, or the council must have mislaid their new addresses, or something, because none of the original residents of that area ever came back to Brentford to live in the flat-blocks. Young, smart, out-borough types, who wore suits and had jobs in the City moved in.

  The Doveston moved in also.

  He was very lucky, as it happened. The top floor of Hawtrey House should have been divided into three separate flats. But it seemed that the council must have run out of money, or something, because the dividing walls were never put in and the Doveston got to rent the entire floor for the price of a single flat. He told Norman that an uncle of his had put him on to it. Norman told me that he couldn’t remember this uncle’s name, but he thought it had a Scottish ring to it.

  It certainly was a pretty fab flat.

  Its décor was all of the modern style. Lava lamps, bean bags and curtains of bead. Colourful rugs lay all scattered about. The floor was gloss-painted, the blinds were of reed.

  By now the Doveston had accumulated an extensive collection of books dedicated to the subject of tobacco. Many of these bore the distinctive stamp of the Memorial Library upon them, but I did not comment on this.

  There were, however, a number of items in the flat which I did comment on. There was a most exquisite jardinière, which I had first seen in the conservatory of Jon Peru Joans. A leather-bound and studded teapot, from which tea had once been poured for me in the House of Correction. And a beautiful box, wrought from skin, that I felt certain was the very one Professor Merlin had shown to us in his caravan, nearly a decade before.

  When I asked about the provenance of these objets d’art, the Doveston was vague in his replies.

  The sheer spaciousness of the flat gave it an air of grandeur. Its broad windows overlooked the borough, offering romantic vistas. The smell of joss sticks (the Doveston created his own) filled the air with heady fragrances and the sounds of sitar music, issuing from the Doveston’s new hi-fi, added that certain something.

  I would have been quite sick with jealousy, had my mother not taught me that ‘jealous boys all go to Hell, where they have to look at Heaven all day through the wrong end of a telescope’.

  The Free Festival Committee consisted of myself Norman and Chico. Chico had survived a recent shooting and now worked full time as the Doveston’s chauffeur. The Doveston’s first car was a battered Morris Minor that Chico had converted into a low-rider. Since then the Doveston has owned a great many cars, but he himself never learned to drive.

  We sat upon bean bags, smoking the cigars we were offered, and spoke about how things were going. The festival was to take place on the weekend of the twenty-seventh of July, which, by coincidence, was the Doveston’s birthday. ‘Speak to me of bands,’ said the Doveston.

  ‘Right,’ said I. ‘Bands, yes indeed.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Yes, right.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Right, yes, absolutely.’

  ‘You have actually booked some bands, haven’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes. Well, not actually booked, as such. Which is to say that there’s nothing down on paper. No contracts or anything. But I—’

  ‘But you what?’

  ‘Chico just punched me in the ear,’ I complained.

  ‘Bands,’ said the Doveston.

  ‘Yes.’ I rooted a crumpled list from my kaftan pocket. ‘Well, I couldn’t get any big names. They were all too busy, going on their holidays and stuff like that, and a lot of them seem to have shoved off to San Francisco or India.’

  ‘So who have you got?’

  I read from my list. ‘Astro Lazer and the Flying Starfish from Uranus. Rosebud Lovejuice. The Seven Smells of Susan. The Sumerian Kynges. The Chocolate T-Shirts and Bob Dylan.’

  ‘Bob Dylan?’ said the Doveston. ‘You got Bob Dylan?’

  ‘Yes, his dad said he could have the Saturday off.’

  ‘Bob Dylan’s dad?’

  ‘Johnny Dylan, owns the delicatessens in the High Street. Bob usually does the cheese round on Saturdays. But his dad said it would be OK for him to have the time off so he could do his juggling in front of a live audience.

  ‘Bob Dylan is a juggler.’

  ‘Of course he is, what did you think he was?’

  The Doveston shook his head. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Sonny and Cher,’ I said.

  ‘Sonny and Cher?’

  ‘Sonny Watson and Cher O’Riley. They manage a pub in Kew.’

  The Doveston raised his hand. ‘And they juggle too, I suppose.’

  ‘No, they tap dance.’

  ‘Perfect. And do you have a unicycling plumber from Chiswick who goes by the name of Elvis Presley?’

  I checked my list. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to put him on?’

  Chico smote my ear once more.

  ‘Stop doing that,’ I told him.

  ‘So,’ said the Doveston, taking out his yo-yo and ‘chasing the dragon’. ‘We have a bunch of completely unknown bands and three—’

  ‘Ringers,’ said Chico. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, boss?’

  ‘That we might just elevate Bob, Sonny and Cher to the top of the bill?’

  ‘It should bring in a lot of punters.’

  I scratched at my head. It was a far less scabby head now, though I still had plenty of dandruff ‘I don’t get this,’ I said. ‘Bob, Sonny and Cher aren’t all that good. I thought they might just fill in between the bands.’

  ‘Trust me,’ said the Doveston. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  And of course he did. But then, so did I. Because I was not completely stupid. I knew perfectly well who the real Bob Dylan and the real Sonny and Cher were. But I wasn’t going to let on. The way I saw it was this. If I’d just given the Doveston a list of complete unknowns, he would probably have had Chico throw me out of the window. This way it gave him the opportunity to do one of the things that he enjoyed doing most. Getting one over on people.

  And the way I also saw it was this. If the duped crowd turned ugly and ripped the festival’s organizer limb from limb, it was hardly my business. And it would serve him right for blowing up my Biscuit.

  ‘So that’s settled then,’ said the Doveston. ‘Will you see to the posters?’

  ‘Oh yes please,’ I said. ‘I’ll draw them myself. How do you spell Dylan? It’s D-I-L-L-O-N, isn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps you had better leave the posters to me.’

  ‘All right. If you think that’s best.’

  ‘Now, we need a good name for this festival.’

  ‘I’ve got one,’ I said. ‘It’s Brentford’s Ultimate Music Festival of Love and Peace. BUMFLAP for short.’

  ‘I like it,’ said Chico.

  ‘I don’t,’ said the Doveston.

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Chico. ‘I don’t like it at all.’

  ‘You’re becoming a right little yes-man, Chico,’ I told him.

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘Yes you are.

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘Yes you are.’

  ‘Chico,’ said the Doveston. ‘Get us all a beer.’

  ‘Yes, man,’ said Chico.

  Oh how we laughed.

  Once we had all got our beers and the laughter had died down, the Doveston said, ‘We are going to call this festival Brentstock.’

  ‘I like that,’ said Chico.

  ‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It means quality and taste at a price you can afford.’

  ‘I knew that,’ said Chico.

  ‘Oh no you didn’t.’

  ‘Oh yes I did.’

  ‘Oh no-’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Norman. ‘But Brentstock does mean quality and taste at a price you can afford. Because Brentstock is the name of Mr Doveston’s exclusive Brentford Reserve Stock Cigarettes, which will be on sale to the public for the very f
irst time ever during the festival.’

  ‘I knew that too,’ said Chico.

  ‘Oh no you didn’t.’

  ‘Oh yes I did.’

  ‘Oh no you-’

  Chico drew a gun on me and aimed it at my ribs.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘If you say you did, then you did.’

  ‘So,’ said the Doveston, ‘rimming the rooster’ with his yo-yo. ‘We have the bands, we have the name. So what about the drugs?’

  ‘The drugs?’ I ducked as the yo-yo whirled in my direction.

  ‘Drugs!’ The Doveston ‘rogered the rabbit’. ‘I do not want my festival ruined by a lot of out-borough drug-pushers selling bad dope to the crowd.’

  ‘Damn right,’ said Chico. ‘They can buy their bad dope from us.

  ‘That is not what I meant. I don’t want there to be any dope at all at this festival. Do you understand?’

  ‘Oh yeah, right, man.’ Chico winked.

  ‘No,’ said the Doveston. ‘I’m deadly serious. No dope at all.’

  ‘But this is the Sixties, man. You’re always saying this is the Sixties.’

  ‘No dope,’ said the Doveston. ‘I want everyone to enjoy themselves. Norman will be organizing all the stalls, won’t you, Norman?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ The shopkeeper nodded. ‘The cigarette stands, the T-shirt stalls and, of course, the beer tent.’

  ‘And the food?’

  ‘All taken care of Hot dogs, ices, macrobiotic brown rice and falafel. I’ve rented out the pitches and we take a percentage on sales.’ Norman patted the top pocket of his Paisley-patterned shopcoat. ‘I have all the figures written down.’

  ‘Then perfect. The punters can eat and drink and rock to the music.

  ‘And purchase Brentstock cigarettes with the money they would otherwise be wasting on dope?’ I suggested.

  ‘They might.’ The Doveston performed a trick with his yo-yo that left him all but breathless. “‘Straining the greens”,’ he explained. ‘But trust me on this. There will be secret policemen mingling amongst the crowd. I don’t want people getting busted. I want this festival to run like a well-oiled-’

  ‘Penis?’ said Chico.

  ‘Machine,’ said the Doveston.

  ‘Curse this dyslexia.’