Jonny Hooker walked in the park.
It was a beautiful morning.
Jonny Hooker flexed his shoulders, clicked his joints and grinned. He wandered to the ornamental pond and sat down on a bench.
‘What a lovely morning,’ said Jonny.
Mr Giggles didn’t reply.
‘Nothing to say?’ Jonny said.
‘I suppose you think you’re very clever.’
‘Actually,’ said Jonny, ‘I do. I saved the Queen from assassination. And once beyond the range of the Air Loom she would have wakened from its spell and cancelled those orders. I expect the Parliament of Five will be having another meeting soon, one that will lead to a happy conclusion.’
‘Don’t be too sure of that.’
‘Actually,’ said Jonny once more, ‘I am sure. They’re gone. The Air Loom and the Air Loom Gang, gone, as if they never existed. As if they were nothing more than a figment of a madman’s imagination.’
Mr Giggles made growling sounds.
‘Keep them to yourself,’ said Jonny. ‘I know what you are and who the Master is that you serve. Satyr, Pan’s little helper and the last of your kind.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘And you may have thwarted my Master’s plans, but I am not done with you. Not a bit of it. You will atone, you will serve My master. You will build a new Air Loom. You will recruit a new gang. You will bring forth the mayhem that will return my Master to rule this miserable planet.’
‘No,’ said Jonny. ‘I think not.’
‘And I think so. A wanted serial-killer, so you are. And if you wish to remain at large, you will do what I tell you to do. I have been far too lenient with you. We will both learn from our mistakes.’
‘No,’ said Jonny. ‘I’m done. All finished.’
‘You’re far from done, buddy boy. You’re only just beginning. You will be a loyal servant. A good and faithful servant.’
‘No,’ said Jonny Hooker. ‘I won’t.’
‘You will,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘You will.’
Jonny Hooker rose from the bench and took himself over to the pond.
‘Fancy a paddle?’ asked Mr Giggles.
‘Something more than that, I think.’ And Jonny stepped into the pond.
‘What is this?’ asked Mr Giggles.
‘This is goodbye,’ said Jonny. ‘We won’t be seeing each other any more.’
‘Thinking to drown yourself? Forget that. You wouldn’t be able to do it.’
‘No, probably not.’ Jonny Hooker reached into the poacher’s pocket of his now very smelly jacket and brought out the late James Crawford’s laptop.
‘What are you going to do with that?’ asked Mr Giggles.
‘I think you know.’
‘Throw it in the pond?’
‘Not that.’ Jonny Hooker opened the laptop. Keyed in the password – ‘Da-da-de-da-da’. ‘Time for a little music,’ said he.
‘Oh no,’ cried Mr Giggles. And he was in the water too, now, clearly visible to Jonny, splashing about something wicked.
‘The last Robert Johnson recording,’ said Jonny. ‘That thirtieth recording. The one with your Master’s laughter on it. The laughter that is too much for any human brain to bear. That none may hear without dying. Robert Johnson never sold his soul to Satan, he sold it to Pan, the god of musicians. So now it’s time for me to listen to the laughter of your Master. But this time the joke will be on him, for you are the last of His little helpers, the last true believer, and as pretty much everyone knows, when the last true believer of a particular god dies, then that god dies with them.’
‘But why, why?’ crooned Mr Giggles. ‘You don’t want to die. You’re young.’
‘I’m twenty-seven,’ said Jonny. ‘Same age as those iconic rock stars were when they died. And I’ve done everything I needed to do. I’ve played the music. I’ve saved Mankind. I have lived my life. What more can any man ask?’
‘For a longer life. For more life.’
‘With you? I will never be free of you. And you might just win in the end. So better now, I think, than later.’
‘No,’ cried Mr Giggles. ‘This is absurd. Ridiculous, ludicrous.’
‘Unreal?’ said Jonny. ‘Impossible? Fantastic? Unbelievable?’
‘Yes, but—’
Jonny Hooker tapped at the keyboard.
Let the music play.
‘I’m happy now,’ said Jonny Hooker. ‘And at least I go out on a song.’
‘No no no, please, Jonny, please.’
‘Goodbye, Mister Giggles.’
Da-da-de-da-da-de—Album
It is now sixty years since the Roswell Incident and forty years since Sergeant Pepper and the Summer of Love. And so, to celebrate the anniversaries of these momentous events, those wonderful people at Orion have agreed to release a CD of music to accompany this book. And free of charge, too.
This CD acts as a soundtrack and companion piece to the novel. It features real musicians and I, Robert Rankin, will be forever in their debt. Their web addresses are listed below and I heartily recommend that you check them out.
Headless in Gunnersbury
Music: High Rankin
www.myspace.com/highrankin
Soundscape. Opening title sequence. The literary camera pans across Gunnersbury Park to reveal the headless body of twenty-seven-year-old musician Jonny Hooker floating in the ornamental pond.
Burning Rope
Lyrics/vocals: Robert Rankin
Music: High Rankin
Jonny’s father (now presumed dead) took Jonny, when he was a child, to many museums and told him many wondrous tales. Dads are gods to small boys. Mine was.
Still is.
Da-da-de-da-da
Music: High Rankin
Mr Giggles the Monkey Boy says, ‘Da-da-de-da-da’. It’s there, that riff, in all popular music. You can’t escape from it. There’s a lot of it about. And there’s a very great deal of it on this track.
Smart Hat Jonny
Lyrics/vocals: Robert Rankin
Music: High Rankin
Jonny Hooker disguises himself as a park ranger. It works like that, you see. Put someone that you know well into a uniform and a cap and you won’t be able to recognise them. Really. Truly. I mean it.
Dance of the Sugar-Plum Technofairy
Arrangement/all instruments: Lady Raygun
www.ladyraygun.com
The Devil’s Interval, or tritone, a halved octave, was banned by the church for centuries. It was considered to be the original Devil’s Music. For its length, there are more Devil’s Intervals in ‘The Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy’ than in any other piece of classical music. Why? Good question.
The first of two classical pieces recorded specially for this album. Played on steel pan by Europe’s top female soloist, Lady Raygun.
Pelted with Stones
Lyrics: Robert Rankin
Music/vocals/all instruments: Jon Hooker
[email protected]
Punk musician, living legend (and real person) Jonny Hooker took time out from his rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle to record this for the album. Give him gigs. Give him groupies. Give him a record deal.
And as for, ‘pelted with stones on the common because of my new-style hair-do–’ we’ve all been there.
We haven’t? Shame on you.
Some Call Me Laz
Lyrics/vocals: Robert Rankin
Music/all instruments: Phil ‘God made me do it’ Cowan
Backing vocals: The Woodbinettes
www.myspace.com/philcowanmusic
The only piece of music that was not specially recorded for this album. This little gem was produced in 1978 at a London studio owned by Gary Glitter’s drummer. It was rejected by every major record label, because they were ‘unable to find a niche for it’. It receives its first ever release here. Which proves that it was indeed nearly thirty years ahead of its time.
Note, if you will, the riff that runs all the way through the track. It
goes da-da-de-da-da.
Whatever happened to those lovely Woodbinettes?
Sides to a Story
Dry Rise
www.myspace.com/dryriseband
Top Brighton metal combo Dry Rise (Dry Rot) perform this mini-masterpiece, which says what it has to say and means it. And even makes mention of my kidney stone. Check out their website, catch their gigs and buy their CDs.
And note, if you will, Constable Paul’s bass beating out a mighty da-da-de-da-da at the end of the number.
Brilliant stuff.
Apocalypse Blues
Vocals/lyrics(some)/harmonica: Robert Rankin
Music: Lady Raygun
Lady Raygun put together a steel pan version of the blues which consists almost entirely of Devil’s Intervals. Which is why it sounds so freaky. This was put through a phaser, as were the vocals, which are for the most part lifted directly from the Book of Revelation. And there really is a line in Revelation that goes ‘I heard the sound of harpers, harping with their harps’.
Check it out if you don’t believe me.
Lobster Cracking (Air on a Loom)
Vocals: Robert Rankin
Music: High Rankin
The hideous pneumatic sounds of the dreaded Air Loom, as the evil Count Otto Black and his gang of assassins broadcast its sinister magnetic flux to assail their victims. The words belong to James Tilly Mathews, taken down in 1812 at St Mary of Bethlehem Hospital.
They fair put the wind up me!
Requiem for Jonny
Handel
Arrangement/all instruments: Lady Raygun
Ombra mai fu, largo from Xerxes by George Frederic Handel. The story goes that Moreschi, the very last castrato, sang this piece before the Pope in the Vatican in 1902, where it was recorded on a wax cylinder. It is said that his rendition was so beautiful that it touched the angels in Heaven and one of them descended to Earth to join him in the final chorus. The recording of this is, of course, hidden in the Vatican archives. A hauntingly beautiful piece, recorded exclusively for this album by Lady Raygun. Class act, eh?
Here endeth the album
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Robert Rankin 2007
All rights reserved.
The right of Robert Rankin to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2007 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2011 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 08710 1
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.thegoldensprout.com
www.orionbooks.co.uk
* Which is not to be confused with Buffy.
Who slays vampires, zombies and probably booger men, too.
* Poetic licence. Beetles and steeples, you’re allowed that sort of thing.
* It is to be suspected that Mr Giggles is using the dreaded racist ‘N’ word. But this of course is not the case. Because I, for one, have no wish to do what is now called a ‘Jade Goody’ (allegedly).
* No? It must just be me, then.
* Oh come on! It’s not just me, surely?
* Cheeky little anagram involved here, if you can be bothered to work it out.
* They do indeed. But sadly the gift shop is a bit disappointing.
* Not to be confused with the Vulcan Death Grip.
* If you would like to read all the details, type Illustrations of Madness by John Haslam (1810) into you search-engine jobbie.
*This month’s copy of Munters in the Mall being amongst them.
*Taking With Out Consent. As if you didn’t know!
*Why does that happen so often?
*As a running gag, you have probably peaked too early there. (Ed.)
† Hm! (Ed.)
* And I’m not lying. Type his name into your computer and order a copy.
* Opinions naturally vary on this.
* And it is!
* And he’s right, check it out.
* On the rare chance that the reader might be experiencing some confusion as to who O’Fagin presently believes Jonny to be: let’s just go with, Charlie Hawtrey’s “other” brother and hope that it works out.
* Brentford Nylons. Finest nylon in the world.
* You don’t see too many Paddy Wagons about nowadays. The Ealing Constabulary are the last to actually employ them. But then they do have a tradition to uphold. The entrance to Ealing Police Station was used as the exterior of Dock Green in the TV series.
* And it has!
* It’s always best to be precise about these matters, in order to avoid any confusion.
* It was only the empty glasses that shattered. In case you were wondering. You weren’t? Fair enough.
* That’s enough now. (Ed.)
* Very possibly Whoa-Black-Betty-Bam-a-Lam.
* Don’t even think about it! (Ed.)
* With a lead running from the previously mentioned hand-made pickup. In case there were any doubts.
* However, for those lucky few who receive one of the limited-edition giveaway CDs that accompany hardback editions of this book, a recording is to be found, sung by the author. One for eBay, that, eh?
* Very probably the same Apocalypse predicted from the Kleenex reading.
* Obviously not the same squirrel each time.
* Alas Spike Milligan, sadly missed.
* Finally!!!
* And as one who does not wish for one’s books to go the way of Jade’s perfume Ssssh!, in my personal opinion it never happened!
* According to Anne Robinson. Allegedly.
* Elvisploitation?
* Exactly why it was that Jonny hadn’t showed up on the advanced SatNav was anyone’s guess. Perhaps Count Otto’s gang showed up because there was more of them. Yes, that was probably it. (Phew!)
The Da-Da-De-Da-Da Code Page 33