Neville laughed feebly at his unintended funny, but really this was no laughter matter. Taking out the tape measure, which now never left his person, he stretched it about his waist. All seemed the same. Possibly it was simply a figment of his imagination. Possibly he was going mad. The thought was never far from his mind nowadays. Neville shuddered. He would just have to pull himself together.
Sighing deeply, he shuffled away to the bedroom to dress. Flinging off his silken dressing-gown he took up the rogue trousers from where they hung in their creases over the chair and yanked them up his legs. With difficulty he buttoned himself into respectability. They were definitely too tight for comfort, there was no point in denying it. Neville stooped for his socks but stopped in horror. The blood drained from his face and his good eye started from its socket; a nasty blue tinge crept about the barman’s lips. It was worse than he feared, far worse. His trouser bottoms were swinging about his ankles like flags at half-mast. He wasn’t only getting fatter, he was growing taller! Neville slumped back on to his bed, his face a grey mask of despair. It was impossible. Certainly folk could put on weight pretty rapidly, but to suddenly spring up by a good inch and a half overnight? That was downright impossible, wasn’t it?
Pooley and Omally strolled over the St Mary’s Allotments en route to John’s hut and the cup that cheers. Jim tapped his racing paper upon his leg and sought inspiration from the old enamel advertising signs along the way which served here and there as plot dividers. None was immediately forthcoming. The two threaded their way between the ranks of bean poles and waxed netting, the corrugated shanties, and zinc watertanks. They walked in single file along a narrow track through a farrowed field of broccoli and one of early flowering sprouts, finally arriving at the wicket fence and pleasant ivy-hung trelliswork that stood before Omally’s private plot. John parked his bicycle in its favourite place, took up his daily pinta, turned several keys in as many weighty locks, and within a few short minutes the two men lazed upon a pair of commandeered railway carriage seats, watching the kettle taking up the bubble on the Primus.
“There is a king’s ransom, I do hear, to be had out of the antique trade at present,” said John matter-of-factly.
“Oh yes?” Pooley replied without enthusiasm.
“Certainly, the junk of yesterday is proving to be the ob-ja-dart of today and the nestegg of tomorrow.” Omally rose to dump two tea bags into as many enamel mugs and top the fellows up with boiling water. “A veritable king’s ransom, ready for the taking. A man could not go it alone in such a trade, he would need a partner, of course.”
“Of course.”
“A man he could trust.” John put much emphasis upon the word as he wrung out the tea bags and added the cream of the milk to his own mug and a splash of the rest to Jim’s. “Yes, he would definitely want a man he could rely on.”
“I am convinced of that,” said Jim, accepting his mug. “A bit strong, isn’t it?”
“Antique bedding is currently the vogue amongst the trendies of Kensington, I understand,” John continued.
“Oh those bodies.”
“Yes, the fashionable set do be weeping, wailing, and gnashing its expensively-capped teeth for the lack of it.”
Pooley blew on to his tea. “Strange days,” said he.
John felt that he was obviously not getting his point across in quite the right way. A more direct approach was necessary. “Jim,” he said in a highly confidential tone. “What would you say if I was to offer you a chance of a partnership in an enterprise which would involve you in absolutely no financial risk whatever?”
“I would say that there is always a first time for everything, I suppose.”
“What if I was to tell you that at this very moment I know of where there is an extremely valuable antique lying discarded and unwanted which is ours for the taking, what would you say then?”
Jim sipped at his tea. “I would say to you then, Omally,” he said, without daring to look up, “dig the bugger out yourself.”
Omally’s eyebrows soared towards his flat cap.
Pooley simply pointed to an L-shaped tear in his own left trouser knee. “I passed along your path not half an hour before you,” he said simply.
“Your lack of enterprise is a thing to inspire disgust.”
“He that diggeth a pit will fall into it. Ecclesiasticus Chapter twenty-seven, verse twenty-six,” said Jim Pooley. “I am not a religious man as you well know, but I feel that the Scriptures definitely have it sussed on this point. A commendable try though.” Jim took out his cigarette packet from his top pocket and handed the Irishman a tailor-made.
“Thank you,” said Omally.
“Now, if you really have a wish to make a killing today -” John nodded enthusiastically, it was early yet and his brain was only just warming up to the daily challenge, “- I have seen something which has the potential to earn a man more pennies than a thousand buried bedframes. Something which a man can only be expected to witness once in a lifetime. And something of such vast financial potential that if a man was to see it and not take advantage of the experience, he should consider himself a soul lost for ever and beyond all hope.”
“Your words are pure music,” said John Omally. “Play on, sweet friend, play on.”
As Neville the part-time barman drew the polished brass bolts on the saloon-bar door and stood in the opening, sniffing the air, the clatter of two pairs of hobnail boots and the grating of rear mudguard upon back wheel announced the approach of a brace of regulars. One of these was a gentleman of Celtic extraction who had recently become convinced that the future lay in perpetual motion and its application to the fifth gear of the common bicycle. Neville installed himself behind the bar counter and closed the hinged counter top.
“God save all here,” said John Omally, pushing open the door.
“Count that double,” said Pooley, following up the rear.
Neville pushed a polished glass beneath the spout of the beer engine and drew upon the enamel pump handle. Before the patrons had hoisted themselves on to their accustomed barstools, two pints of Large stood brimming before them, golden brown and crystal clear. “Welcome,” said Neville.
“Hello once more,” said Omally, “Jim is in the chair.” Pooley smiled and pushed the exact amount of pennies and halfpennies across the polished counter top. Neville rang up “No Sale” and once more all was as it ever had been and hopefully ever would be in Brentford.
“How goes the game then, gentlemen?” Neville asked the patrons, already a third of the way through their pints.
“As ever, cruel to the working man,” said John. “And how is yourself?”
“To tell you the truth, a little iffy. In your personal opinion, John, how do I look to you?”