SCENE ONE
Interior: Norman’s kitchen workshop.
Camera pans slowly across small and shabby room. We see bundles of newspapers and magazines. Cigarette boxes, cartons of soft drinks, all the usual stock of a modest corner shop. We see also a sink piled high with unwashed dishes and a work table. Here we find evidence of scientific endeavour, test tubes, retorts, a scientific journal open at a page about cloning, a box of Meccano.
Camera pans towards a filthy stove (1950s grey enamel), where we see an old saucepan. Its contents are boiling over, a thick green liquid is bubbling out. We follow the course of this liquid as it drips slowly down to the floor (ancient lino). Here there is movement, as of things forming and moving.
Camera pulls back rapidly, rising to view the room from above.
And we see them. Dozens of them. Racing round and round the kitchen floor. Leaping over discarded cans and flotsam. Tiny horses, no bigger than mice. Galloping around and around and around.
Music over: the Osmonds, “Crazy Horses”.
Of course if it was a little B-movie it would need a title. It would have to be one of those The Thing from Planet Z or The Beast from the Bottomless Hole, or even The Scotsman Who Lives on the Moon sort of jobbies.
Norman could no doubt have thought of one. Invasion of the Tiny Horses, perhaps, or Night of the Stunted Stallions. That sounded better.
But as Norman wasn’t in his kitchen, he wasn’t going to get the chance.
So knowing not the wonder of it all, Norman sat in the steel chair in the interrogation room in the Brentford nick and fretted and fretted and fretted.
And in his kitchen workshop, the tiny horses galloped around and around and around and around.
And around.
(Or, How Elvis Presley failed to heed the voice of Interplanetary Parliament and so condemned Planet Earth to destruction.)
To be sung in the voice of Early Elvis.
The alien say that the truth will make me free.
The alien say that he knows the inner me.
But I don’t care what the alien say.
All I wanna do is rock ’n’ roll all day.
Wop bop a loo bop wham bam hip hooray.
The alien say it’s a karmic symbiosis.
Divinely inspired cerebral metamorphosis.
But I don’t care what the alien think.
All I wanna do is take drugs and drink.
A wop bop a loo bop wham bam kitchen sink.
(middle eight)
The alien reckons that the future beckons
And the end is drawing near.
Throw away our bombs before the holocaust comes.
His message was loud and clear.
The alien say we’re destroying the eco-system.
The alien say we should call upon cosmic wisdom.
But I don’t care who the alien calls.
All I wanna do is screw young girls.
A wop bop a loo bop wham bam string of pearls.
(another middle eight)
The alien thinks that humanity stinks
And we’ve blown it all to hell.
The message is grave, but he can still save us
And he chose me to tell.
The alien say the galactic federation
Has condemned this world to a swift annihilation.
The alien said I should pass it on.
But I forgot his message when I went to the John.
Wop bop a loo bop – Where’s the planet gone?
Thank you, ma’am.
7
Elvis should have called it quits way back in ’77 when he had his first heart attack. He was never quite the same man after that. He wandered around Gracelands, clutching at his head and talking to himself and telling those who would listen that he was having revelations. Clearly the King was two strings short of a Strat.
His latest offering, a stream of semi-consciousness rambling over beefy drum and bass, pumped now out of Sandy’s behind-the-bar sound system, making any form of conversation in the Shrunken Head just that little bit more stressful.
It was now almost nine of the night-time clock and Jim Pooley took another elbow to the ear.
“Ouch,” went Jim and, “Mind out there.”
“Stop making such a fuss,” Omally told him.
“It’s all right for you.” Jim shifted in his chair as another music-lover squeezed by him. “You have the seat against the wall.”
“I have to keep watch on the door for the band. The place is filling up nicely, though, isn’t it?”
Jim ducked another elbow. “I hate it!” he shouted. “It’s horrid and stinks. Don’t any of these blighters ever wash under their arms?”
“Men who wear black T-shirts rarely wash under their arms. It’s a tradition, or an old charter or something.”
“I want to go home,” wailed Jim.
“Hold on,” said John. “Big-hair alert.”
“What?”
“Men with big hair. It must be the band.”
Jim turned and caught an elbow in the gob. “Ouch,” he went again and, “Where?”
“There.” Omally pointed and there indeed they were. Above the motley mob and moving through the fog of fag smoke, big-haired boys were entering the bar.
“Big hair,” muttered Jim. “What an old cliché that is.”
Omally was now on his feet and waving. “Chaps,” he called. “I say, chaps, over here.”
“I say, chaps?”
Omally hushed at him. “It’s an image thing,” he told Jim. “Think class. Think Brian Epstein.”
“Ye gods,” Jim raised his beer can to his lips, thought better of it and set it down again.
“Chaps, I say.” Omally coo-eed and waved a bit more. “I say, chaps. Hold on, come back.”
But the big-haired chaps were paying no heed, they were humping their gear towards the entrance to the Cellar.
“I’ll give them a hand with their guitars,” said Omally. “You hang onto this table.” He leaned low and spoke firm words into the ear of Pooley. “And don’t even think about slipping away,” he said.
“I might have to go to the toilet.”
“Hold it in.”
“But it might be number twos.”
Omally made fists. He showed one to Pooley. “I am not by nature a violent man,” he said, “but if you let me down on this—”
“All right.” Pooley raised the palms of peace. “I’ll hold the table for you. But I’m not going downstairs to hear them play. Absolutely no way. No siree, by golly.”
“All right, all right.” John struggled out of his chair and into the crowd. “Just don’t let me down, Jim. This really matters.”
Pooley shrugged and Pooley sighed and Pooley wanted out.
“Is anyone sitting there?” asked a voice at his ear.
“Yes,” grumbled Jim and, looking up, “No. My friend’s gone home. You can sit in his chair if you want to.”
“Thank you, I will,” she said and she did.
Jim watched her as she settled onto Omally’s chair.
She was beautiful. Simply beautiful.
In fact it would be true to say that she was the most beautiful woman Jim had ever seen in his life. And considering that Brentford is noted for the beauty of its womenfolk, that is really going some.
And then some more.
She was the size known as petite. Which isn’t the size known as little or small. And there was a symmetry about her features and a delicacy about her entire being that made Jim do a double double-take. To Pooley she seemed perfect, and perfect can be just a little fearsome.
With his jaw now hanging slack and his eyes glazing over, Jim took in the poetic wonder of her face.
Her eyes were large and green and fringed with long dark lashes.
Her nose was small and tilted at the tip.
Her mouth was wide, and there, inside, her teeth were lightning flashes.