2023: a trilogy (Justified Ancients of Mu Mu)

by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu

And as the door behind you closes

  The only thing I have to say

  It’s been a good year for the roses

  4: SHIBBOLETH NOW

  12:03 Monday 24 April 2023

  You may have been thinking, ‘How come John Lennon’s body has not floated to the top yet? Surely that is what dead bodies do?’ And you would be right. What I failed to mention in an earlier chapter was that Yoko wrapped up John’s training weights in the duvet cover along with his body before rolling it from their door into the canal below.

  Yoko never allowed herself to be judgemental about John’s obsessive lifting of weights every morning and his checking of his biceps and seven-pack in the bathroom mirror. Who wouldn’t want a man with a fit body?

  But as soon as she sunk the kitchen knife in and knew he was dead, the weights and his weight training were the most obvious example of his shallow vanities. Another reason, if she needed one, why he had to go.

  Almost thirty-six hours since he landed at the bottom of the Lee Navigation, the gentle movement of the water has been working the duvet cover loose. His body is beginning to unravel itself. The weights have rolled to the side and are sinking into the mud.

  At the same time this is happening, a small shoal of perch are beginning to bother John; they are from some online fan site dedicated to the work of Tangerine NiteMare. They just love everything he has done, and the band have to be their all-time favourite. They had heard from various sources on the net where John Lennon was now residing (and just to remind you: they were not getting confused, it is this John Lennon they were interested in and not the Beatle one). I guess the fact that one of their own kind, as in Dead Perch, had been doing the social media promotion on all things Tangerine NiteMare helped, but even so they could hardly believe he was really here in their stretch of water. Just hanging out like any other dead body that has been dumped in the canal.

  John’s body was also beginning to decompose, which this shoal of perch did not mind as it meant they could nibble at him at the same time as bombarding him with questions about future recordings and possible performances.

  John is not that bothered. It is good to have other life forms interested in his art. They are also asking him what he thought about K-SEC winning the Hockney Award. You would think he would be totally pissed off and filled with jealousy that his ex-girlfriend, who murdered him less than forty hours ago, had gone on and won the world’s most prestigious contemporary art prize with work he was substantially involved with and probably the main driving force behind. But that is the funny thing with death: you just ain’t as bothered about these things any more.

  ‘But surely you must be twisted with envy?’ asked one particularly pushy Little Perch.

  ‘No, not really. I’m pleased for her. And, anyway, I have the band now. And there is something I can reveal to you. And you will be the first to know. I have just heard from Killer Queen that we will be doing a performance at the Maelstrom at midnight tonight.’

  The Little Perch are beside themselves with this, even though they know they will not be able to be there themselves, as they are freshwater fish and the Maelstrom is in saltwater, but it will all be streamed live so they will be able to hear it anyway.

  ‘But, Mr Lennon, how will you be able to get there, seeing as you are lying dead at the bottom of the Lee Navigation?’ asked what seemed like the pushiest of the Little Perch.

  ‘As yet, I don’t know. There is so much more I have to learn about being dead. But I am learning fast. And Killer Queen assures me it won’t be a problem. If you can make it, I will be sure to put you on the guest-list.’

  With this, the Little Perch flurry away and John Lennon’s body starts to make the short journey floating to the surface of the canal.

  You may have noticed I used the word ‘ain’t’ in the above section. This is one of those words that may mark someone out as not belonging to a certain class. This is called a shibboleth, as in a word or gesture or custom that indicates, unwittingly or not, whether you are in or out, if you are kosher or not kosher. There was a small town near where I lived where they didn’t say ‘ain’t’, they said ‘in’t’.

  Those in that town who aspired to the society of those that lived in surrounding towns had to learn to say ‘ain’t’ instead of ‘in’t’. But there was a strange reversal of pronunciations when it came to those that lived there. Their town was (and still is) called Rothwell. Everyone pronounced it as it was spelt. But if you came from Rothwell, you would laugh at the rest of the world for pronouncing the name of your small town so obviously wrong. You knew, and no one else did, that your small and perfectly formed town was pronounced ‘Ro’well’.

  There is a reason for having this sidetrack at this juncture in the novel you are reading. It is to bring the word ‘shibboleth’ to our attention, which you may have correctly guessed is a Hebrew word.

  The word literally means the chaff that contains the seed of wheat or corn. About three thousand years ago a couple of the Semite tribes were having disagreements about land on either side of the Jordan – the usual thing. It was the Gileadites versus the Ephraimites. Now, there was very little to distinguish between these tribes except the way they pronounced the word for chaff, as in ‘shibboleth’. The Ephraimites didn’t use the ‘sh’ sound, so they pronounced the word ‘s’ibboleth’, whereas the Gileadites pronounced it with the ‘sh’ as in ‘shibboleth’.

  When the Gileadites captured a bunch of unknown tribespeople, they asked them to pronounce the word they used for chaff, and they said ‘s’ibboleth’. The Gileadites immediately slaughtered their prisoners as they had given themselves away as being the thieving and land-grabbing Ephraimites.

  Now, things might be pretty sorted out in the world, but if you take a stroll up to Stamford Hill, all the Hasidic Jews up there will look pretty much the same to us goys. But for them, their little enclosed society is riven with more sectarian differences than the whole of Christendom.

  And they have many, many little ‘shibboleths’ to tell themselves apart that leave the difference between ‘ain’t’ and ‘in’t’ standing.

  12:07

  Barney Muldoon and Saul Goodman are at the local Starbucks getting a takeaway flat white and an Americano. They are chatting about the case. Now a missing-person report has come in from a mother in Liverpool who is all in a flap because she has not heard from her missing son in over thirty-six hours. And the son’s name is the same as the name they have for the pet-shop DNA – Paul Harrison.

  Just for the sake of clarity, Barney Muldoon is Irish Catholic via Liverpool, and Saul Goodman is Jewish via some pogroms in Russia, but they ended up workmates pounding the same beat in the London Borough of Hackney. Both of them are barely practising – Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve and Synagogue on the Passover, and that is about it.

  As they are leaving Starbucks with their coffee and croissants, a young man pushes violently between them heading South down Kingsland towards Dalston. Their coffees go flying. But this young man does not fit any of the stereotypes you might be imagining.

  ‘Hey, mate, you better watch where you’re going with that attitude,’ calls Muldoon after the young man. Then, turning to Goodman, he says, ‘He’s one of your sort. You go and give him a chat. And get him to pay for another round of coffees for us.’

  The young man in question is in full Hasidic drag: the white socks, the uncut and curled locks, broad-brimmed black fedora, white bits of string hanging down the outside of his breeches, the lot. Under his arm he is carrying a book. A yellow book. We have met the young man before. The trainee Rabbi. His name is Moses Tabick.

  ‘Where do you think you are going with that attitude?’

  ‘To Jerusalem. The Promised Land. I am going to reclaim it …’

  ‘Hang on a minute, lad. I might not look it but I am as Jewish as you. So just slow down, and I think you should be apologising for knocking over our coffees and not offering to get us replacements. We are cops, by the way.’


  Now, I don’t want to bog down the narrative of this book in the minutiae of what goes on within Orthodox Jewish communities. And although I implied in an earlier chapter that all the troubles had been sorted out between the State of Israel and the surrounding Arab States, that was a slight over-simplification on my part.

  There was one small sect in Judaism called Neturei Karta. They were totally against the whole Zionist movement. They believed the land of Israel would only be theirs once God gave it to them. You would always see members of the Neturei Karta at the front of any Free Palestine marches up the Kingsland Road back in the ’90s and zeros. As far as Neturei Karta were concerned it was not down to man and his greedy mitts, guilt trips and loaded pistols as to when the walls of Jerusalem were to be rebuilt. They had to wait until God said so and the Messiah arrived.

  After the Great Intifada of March 2017, the influence of Neturei Karta became like a flood. By 2019 this small sect had grown to the point it was finally able to persuade all of the Jewish people in Israel and across the Diaspora that they should relinquish their hold on the ‘occupied zone’.

  Deals were done, hands were shaken. The Jordan did not run with blood. Swords were turned into plough shears. Spears into pruning hooks.

  But nothing stays settled for long. Especially on the banks of the Jordan.

  Well, remember earlier this morning, when Moses Tabick was on the 491 heading up Kingsland Road to Stamford Hill and his mum’s home cooking, and then he opened this yellow book and discovered he was the Moses to lead his people? What was not mentioned earlier was that a couple of stops further up the Kingsland Road, he turned over the next page to read:

  You are the Messiah

  It is for you to reclaim The Promised Land

  For the Children of God

  Now, most of us reading something like that would not give it a second thought. But our minds are not attuned in the same way as Moses Tabick’s mind is attuned on this very day. For Moses Tabick this was an even more direct message from God. His God. Our God. The God of the People of The Book.

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude, sir, and here, have these shekels and get yourself another coffee or whatever it is, but I have far more important things to be doing than—’

  And just as Saul Goodman is about to arrest the young man, he gets an emergency bleep on his iPhone23.

  A body seen floating in the Lee Navigation

  Fits the description of the missing Paul Harrison

  Paul Harrison wanted for throwing brick through pet-shop window

  Report immediately

  Young Moses Tabick makes his break.

  Barney Muldoon and Saul Goodman forget about their coffees.

  12:17

  On the island of Fernando Pó, King Francisco Malabo Beosá XXIII picks up the third of his straw dolls and pushes his sharpened needle through it. And before the needle comes out the other side of the doll, Jessie Bezos drops dead on her family’s tennis court in Seattle, just as she was about to make her serve.

  In this chapter, and the previous two, there has been no mention of the death of Celine Hagbard. Yes, it is the largest news story in the world. And yes, she was the major mover and shaker in Book One of this trilogy of random facts and uncorroborated ideas, but we have many other issues to be dealing with between now and when that satellite with FUUK-UP on board burns up on re-entry in less than eighteen hours from now.

  Of course, the death of Celine Hagbard is all that people are talking about in Starbucks around the globe. Her life story is what iJaz is pumping out on its rolling news channel. It seems that everyone who has been anyone in the past fifty years was her best friend and confidante at some point.

  But, hey, get over it. Because you will not be able to get over what is going to be happening before your second latte tomorrow morning.

  As for Jessie Bezos, the founding mother of all things AmaZaba, her family want to keep things hidden. There is so much they don’t want to come out about her life and how the business is structured. It is in all of the Bezos family’s interests to keep this under wraps.

  12:47

  Barney Muldoon and Saul Goodman are on the far bank of the Lee Navigation. They are interviewing a young woman in jogging gear who was the first to spot the body. An inflatable police dinghy is on the opposite bank taking photos of the floating body before they begin to lift it out.

  Siobhán Harrison, John Lennon’s mother in Liverpool, has been contacted. Her worst fears are confirmed. Death is always a shock to those still alive, but Paul Harrison – or John Lennon, as we have got to know him – is more than well adjusted to it already. His only concern is what the sound will be like at tonight’s gig at the Maelstrom, off the northern tip of Jura.

  If Paul Harrison could talk directly to his mother now, this is what he would say:

  ‘Hey, Mum, forget about it. Put the kettle on and make a nice pot of tea. The thing is, Mum, it is a lot better being dead than it was being alive. Not because life was miserable, it is just that being dead is better. I am no longer bothered if what I am doing makes any sense or anybody takes any notice of it. I just get on with it. And as it happens – with what is happening with Tangerine NiteMare – I am now a lot more successful than I ever was when I was alive and trying my hardest to make things happen.

  ‘As for Yoko – I mean Elisabeth – she is a lot better off without me. She has already won the Hockney Award with that new partner of hers. Did you hear about it on the news? Will Gompertz thinks it is one of the greatest works of art of the century so far.

  ‘So, Mum, go out tonight and celebrate by getting a fish supper with extra chips for me and Dad. And when you get home put the Best of Jim Reeves on, and when he is singing “Distant Drums” think about all us lads that followed the sound of the bugle to wherever it called us.

  ‘Being dead, Mum, means I never have to worry about sex or drugs again, and I can just concentrate on the rock ’n’ roll and the art and the writing and all that stuff. Love you, Mum.’

  So that is what Paul Harrison – I mean John Lennon – has to say; but right now Barney Muldoon and Saul Goodman have a homicide on their hands.

  They love homicides. We all love homicides.

  In memory of this unsung John Lennon, we will take a note from his words to his mother and we will pause the story here, and if you have a record player to hand and a copy of the Best of Jim Reeves, play the track ‘Distant Drums’ now.

  Dear Diary,

  Part One

  I am going to have to stop this chapter here.

  There is no point in trying to carry on.

  I have been hit by a wall of melancholia that means whatever I write ends up being lost in the maudlin lyrics of Country & Western songs. These are songs I grew up with and thought I had outgrown decades ago.

  Of course, this Siobhán Harrison would be way too young to have ever been into ‘Gentleman’ Jim Reeves. This is all far more about me than the characters that it is my job to sculpt and frame for the reader and the story I should be telling.

  Instead I will take a break. Get on my Brough and head for the southern tip of Jura and then drive back. The round trip is just over sixty miles. By the time I’m back, the cobwebs should be well and truly blown away and I will get on with finishing this chapter before the day is out.

  Part Two

  I’m back. I did the whole journey there and back in less than an hour. And now I am ready to write. Ready to let the words flow and with no backsliding into Jim Reeves or George Jones or any of that other nonsense. If there is any sort of soundtrack I should be listening to, it is ‘Born to Be Wild’ by Steppenwolf.

  Here goes.

  Yours,

  Roberta

  12:49

  In the past three or four hours there have been some fundamental and major changes going on in Moses Tabick’s mind, or inner core, or whatever it is that is inside and defines who we are and how we approach life.

  A few hours ago Moses Tabick was a ‘mild-manner
ed’ trainee Rabbi with a liberal outlook, looking forward to completing his studies so he could then take up a position to serve his congregation as best he could. But something flipped a switch. First the switch flipped to him seeing himself as a Moses figure sent by God to lead his people. But something then turned the switch up to full, and now he is no longer just a prophet, even of the magnitude of Moses. He is the Messiah his people have been waiting for, for thousands of years.

  If you were to have passed Moses Tabick on the street, you would have seen a below-average-height young Jewish man, with no outward and obvious signs of athleticism or charisma. If you had heard him speak, you would have heard that slight lisp that seems to be part of the North London Jewish accent.

  The thing is with young men – and it has always been the case, and I guess will always be so – they have a need for their lives to have meaning and purpose. There are plenty of things that can sate that need they have for meaning and purpose. For some, the odd joint, a kick-about with some mates, their team having a lucky streak, a job with prospects, a few pints on a Friday night or a couple of E’s and a bit of a rave on a Saturday night are enough. But others have more of an appetite for it. And if society is not on hand to give that young man meaning and purpose in his life, he will find it where he can. The more radical and confrontational, the better.

  For the past couple of decades those young men have had X-Box; it kept them in check, stopped them hanging about on street corners. But even X-Box and Friday Prayers were not enough to keep some of them searching for it.

  Religion was always the last resort and greatest prize for those who really had a ‘manly’ appetite for meaning and purpose. To you and me, Moses Tabick might not look like the sort of young man with that sort of appetite, but as he made his way down Kingsland heading for wherever that Promised Land was, he had more than enough.

  It should also be noted that when his grandmother was liberated from Auschwitz as a young girl in 1945, she took a loaded Luger pistol from the holster of a dying camp guard. She kept it all her life in whatever drawer she kept her undergarments in. She kept it for the day it might be needed. She died last year. Moses Tabick knew where she kept it. And now Moses Tabick had this Luger hidden in the bag carrying his tallit (that’s a prayer shawl, in case you don’t know).