“What?”
“Did you get her autograph?” It was Geraldo, the big fat fellow in the black T-shirt and shorts. His tiny voice squeaked very loud, in order to make himself heard.
“What?” said Jim.
“That’s my line,” said John.
“Litany’s autograph. That was her talking to you, wasn’t it? I didn’t recognize her until she got up.”
“What?” went John.
“He was talking to Litany,” squeaked Geraldo.
“Who is Litany?” John bawled back.
“Just a friend,” said Jim.
“What?”
“She’s the Gandhis’ lead singer. Your mate was chatting her up.”
“I never was.”
“You were what?”
“Oh, all right. I was talking to her. She does this really clever thing when she speaks, she—”
“Bastard!” shouted John. “I turn my back and you’re diving in to steal my job.”
“It wasn’t like that. She came up to me. I didn’t know who she was. I think she fancies me and—”
“Blue moustache tonight.” The big fat fellow pointed to his face. “Always a blue moustache on Tuesdays.”
“What is he going on about?”
“She was wearing a blue moustache.”
“A woman with a moustache?”
“Blue one,” Jim shouted. “A Clark Gable, I think.”
The big fat fellow shook his big fat head. “A Ramon Navarro.”
“Did he wear a moustache?”
“On Tuesdays he did. A blue one.”
“You’re mad!” shouted John. “The pair of you. Stone bonkers.”
“I think I’ll just slip down to the Cellar.” Jim made down-a-ways pointings. “I’d like to get up close to the stage.”
“I’ll come with you,” Geraldo squeaked as loudly as he could. “I don’t want to miss the incident.”
“What incident?” Jim asked.
“The famous incident, of course. That’s what we’ve come to see.”
And on that mysterious note, the fat fellow did his bit of melting into the crowd.
“Oi, wait for me,” cried Jim, attempting to melt but failing dismally. “How do they do that?” he asked John.
“It’s all in the elbows. Here, I’ll show you.”
“Wait for me, then, oh damn.”
Jim did not get up close to the stage, although, given the dimensions of the Cellar, nowhere was particularly far from the stage. But Jim was about as far away as it was possible to be. He was last man in, which also meant he would be first man out and first man to the bar come the intermission, but that afforded little or indeed any pleasure at all to the aspiring fanboy. He squeezed himself against the wall and held his nose against the pong of unwashed armpits.
He bobbed up and down for a bit, hoping for a glimpse of Omally, but gave that up when a chap in front threatened to punch his lights out.
“I hate it here,” said Jim to himself. “I hate it, hate it, hate it.”
And then all the lights went out and then the voice of Sandy one-twoed through the mic and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, they’re here, your own, your very own, Gandhi’s Hairdryer.”
And there was a scream of feedback, a great dark howl from the crowd, the lights burst on and the band burst into action.
Jim could manage a bit of a “Whoa” as the sight and the sound hit him bang in the face.
On stage stood Litany, surely taller, surely even lovelier, and flanked by fellows in black. She wore white and they wore black and they had great big hair. And they had really fab guitars and they did all the right movements and the drummer at the back beat seven bells of shit out of the old skins and the speakers pumped out mighty decibels and the music and the song and the heat and the smell.
And Jim came all over funny.
He could see them moving up there on the tiny stage and he could feel the rhythm as the big bass notes jumbled up his stomach and rumbled in his skull, but he seemed to hear and taste and sense and smell much more.
And it was all so much and all at once. It didn’t build up slowly. It didn’t rise to a crescendo. It was just right there. Instantly. In your face. In your bowels. In, right in.
At once.
All together.
Altogether.
Jim shook his head and pinched at his nose and sucked in very small breaths. Whatever this was, and it certainly was something, it was all too much for him. He tried to ease himself away from the wall but found to his horror that he couldn’t. The seat of his trousers appeared to be welded to the brickwork. His feet were glued to the floor.
And it couldn’t have been thirty seconds into the first number before the lead guitarist went into a solo. And yes, it was the most blinding guitar solo Jim had ever heard in all of his life and somehow Litany sang with it. Not words but sounds, musical notes, utterly pure, utterly precise. Rising and rising until the band cut short and there was nothing, nothing but the sound of her voice, a note, a single note, that seemed to enter into Pooley through the very pores of his skin and—
What?
“Cleanse,” whispered Jim. “I am being cleansed.”
“Thank you, Brentford, and goodnight.”
And all the lights went out.
And when they came back on again, the Gandhis were nowhere to be seen.
But what there was to be seen was something quite extreme. Blokes were clutching at themselves and weeping. Weeping men, and manly men too. Some were fingering at their heads and going “My barnet, it’s back” and others were feeling at their faces, saying “All my spots are gone.” And others still were patting private places and mumbling things like “Me piles have vanished” and “Ye pox is no more.”
Jim blinked and boggled and sighed and took deep breaths. Men in black T-shirts were sniffing at their armpits and each other’s. “Nice,” was their opinion. “Very fragrant.”
Jim found that he was sniffing too and nodding as he sniffed. And he felt so well. So healthy. He felt as if he had just spent a week at one of those places the toffs go to, where they cover you in mud and feed you lettuce and suchlike. Whatever that felt like. Good, is what that felt like. Incredibly good.
“What about that, then, eh?” A tiny voice spoke in his earhole.
Jim turned to see the fat bloke in the black T-shirt and shorts.
But.
The fat bloke wasn’t such a fat bloke any more.
“Four bloody inches,” the fattish bloke said. “Four bloody inches off my waistline.”
“How?” whispered Jim. “I mean, what happened, how?”
“It’s her voice. I knew it was true. The others didn’t believe me. They said it was just a rock legend. But I talked them into coming. I knew it was true, you see. I’d read all about the Gandhis and their Apocalypso Music”
“Slow down,” said Jim. “I don’t understand.”
“This was the incident. The one that started it all. And now I can say I was there. And if no one believes me” – the fattish bloke plucked at his trousers – “they’ll believe this, won’t they? My mum will be dead pleased. She’s always going on about me losing weight.”
“You knew this was going to happen.” Jim fought to make sense of it all. “You knew. How did you know?”
“Looked it up on Porkie.”
“What’s Porkie?”
“Its real name is SWINE. Single World Interfaced Network Engine. It pretty much runs the whole planet. Or did.”
“I’m losing this,” said Jim.
“Of course you are. But even if I told you all about it, you’d never believe me.”
“I’d give it a go.”
The fattish bloke turned to his friends, who were blissfully sniffing their armpits. “What do you think?” he asked them. “Should I tell him?”
The armpit-sniffers shrugged. One of them said, “What does it matter? We’ll all be off tomorrow.”