“Oi! You!” the chap called out once more.
“Eh?” went Soap, and, “What?”
“Clear off! Get behind the wire!”
Soap said, “Now just you see here!”
And then Soap said, “Shit!” because Soap had spied the logo on the chap’s helmet. It was the Virgin logo and it quite upset poor Soap.
The chap rushed up, waving his hands about, and Soap gathered him by his lapels and bore him off his feet.
“What is going on?” shouted Soap. “Speak at once, or by the worlds beloooow I’ll ram that helmet up your ars—”
“This is a restricted area. Part of the Virgin Mega City development. You can be shot on sight for trespassing. Put me down, you madman.”
Soap let the chap fall flat on his back.
“How?” Soap managed to say.
The chap on the deck was now crying into a walkie-talkie set. “Security!” he was crying. “Intruder on site. Dangerous lunatic. Bring the big guns.”
In his state of near delirium, Soap almost put the boot in. But sensing that it was better to run, he took once more to his heels.
The top end of the High Street was all fenced across with a steel-meshed barrier topped with razorwire. There was a single entrance gate manned by an armed guard. The entrance gate was open. The armed guard was chatting to a lady in a straw hat. Soap slipped through unnoticed.
But not, however, into a Brentford he recognized.
The fine Victorian streets had disappeared and in their place were new homes. Built in that style which architects know as Postmodern and the rest of us know as shite!
“I’m in Legoland,” whispered Soap. “What am I doing here?”
Behind him arose the wailing of alarms and Soap was away on his toes. He was several streets further before he once more began to recognize his surroundings. He passed by Bob the Bookie’s and Norman’s cornershop. Neither of these had sported the “well kept” look before, but now they looked decidedly wretched.
Soap stumbled by. Ahead he saw the Flying Swan. He stumbled up to it and in. He stood there, framed by the famous portal, puffing and blowing and effing and blinding and sagging somewhat at the knees.
A barman, wearing a sports top and shorts, looked up from an automatic glass-polisher. Soap lurched to the counter and leaned upon it for support.
“Been at the gym, mate?” said the barman.
“No,” mumbled Soap. “Where’s Neville?”
“Neville?” asked the barman. “Who’s Neville?”
“Don’t come that with me.” And Soap raised a wobbly fist.
“I wouldn’t get lairey if I were you, mate. You’re on camera, remember.” The barman thumbed over his shoulder towards a surveillance camera that angled down from the ceiling.
“But …” went Soap. “But …”
“You’re drunk,” said the barman. “And you’re wearing make-up! Out of my pub. Go on now.”
“No.” Soap’s fist became a palm of peace. “No, wait. I’m confused. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“You look familiar to me,” said the barman, studying Soap. “I’ve seen your face somewhere before.”
“I don’t know you. Please tell me where Neville is.”
“I really don’t know any Neville.”
“But he’s the part-time barman here. The full-time part-time barman.”
“Oh, that Neville. He retired.”
“Retired?” Soap steadied himself against the counter. “Why would Neville retire?”
“There was a shooting incident. Bloke gunned down right outside the door.”
“Gunned down?” Soap did further steadyings. “Gunned down? Here? How? When? Why?”
“This was five years ago,” said the barman, staring hard at Soap. “It made all the papers at the time. Local bloke, shot down by a contract killer, they reckon. Sniper rifle off the flat blocks opposite. The ones they’re pulling down.”
Soap’s chest heaved. His breath went in and out.
“Yeah, big news,” the barman continued. “They never caught the killer. Some witnesses said that they saw a kid in a black T-shirt and shorts legging it away afterwards, but the investigations came to nothing. I’ve got all the news clippings. First shooting here, that was. Been a lot more since then, of course, during the riots and stuff.”
“Riots?” Soap managed to say.
“When Virgin bought up the borough under a compulsory purchase order. Lots of riots. The locals put up quite a struggle.”
Soap felt giddy and sick. “I’m in the future,” he mumbled. “That’s what it is. Somehow I’m in the future.”
“You not from around these parts, then?” said the barman, squinting fixedly at Soap. “Only you do look familiar.”
“This is all wrong.” Soap shook his head. “It was all wrong before but it’s much more all wrong now.” Soap looked up at the barman. “Do you know a man called Omally?”
“John Omally?”
“John Omally, yes.”
“You just missed him,” said the barman. “He always comes in on this day.”
“He always comes in every day,” said Soap. “Some things will never change.”
“Once a year is all that he comes in,” said the barman. “Famous man like that.”
“Famous? John Omally? Famous?”
“Where have you been, mate? Underground or something? John Omally is the big record producer. He comes in here on this day every year. Because this was the day it happened.”
“The day?”
“The day of the shooting. The bloke who was shot was John Omally’s bestest friend.”
“Jim …” whispered Soap. “Jim Pooley.”
“That was his name. John Omally comes in here and drinks one pint of Large. We have to get it brewed specially for him. He drinks one pint of Large and he cries. Can you imagine that? A manly man like him crying? Fair turns my guts, that does.”
“I have to go. I have to go.” Soap lurched up and made for the door.
“Hold on there,” called the barman. “I do know you. I do.”
Soap ran back down the Ealing Road.
Within the Swan the barman was leafing through a pile of wanted posters. “I bloody do know you,” he said, and, “Yes.”
He withdrew from the pile a single sheet of paper. On the top were printed the words “Have You Seen This Man?” Below this was a photograph of Soap, blown up from a frame of surveillance footage. “Wanted for assault and the theft of a valuable wristwatch. Five thousand pounds reward!” The barman whistled. “They’ve been reprinting this poster every month for the last five years. No wonder he looked so familiar.”
The barman pulled out his mobile phone and dialled the Virgin Police Service.
Soap turned a corner, then another and ran into Mafeking Avenue. John Omally lived at number seven.
John Omally had lived at number seven.
The man who now did drove Soap away with a stick.
Soap limped on, bound for heaven knows where.
Back in the Swan the barman was babbling into his mobile. “It was definitely him. He was wearing one of those old-fashioned library clerk uniforms. And he’s well out of it. Drugged up or something. He can’t have gone far. You’ll catch him on camera and don’t forget who called it in. I want my five thousand quid.”
The Memorial Library was still standing. The bench outside was broken, but Soap sat down upon it. He buried his face in his hands and trembled terribly. He was in the future. Five years into a horrible future. A future where Brentford was being pulled down. A future where John Omally was a famous man, but Jim, poor Jim, was dead.
Soap struggled like the drowning man, for some small straw to clutch at. There had to be some sense to this. Some logic. Some reason. Someone to blame.
“It’s them.” Soap raised his head from his hands. “It has to be them. The men in the black T-shirts. The one running away after Jim’s murder. The ones on the speed cameras. The same ones at the Beatles’ concert in nineteen eighty. Exactly the same. The same age, the same clothes. My God.” Soap took a deep breath and nodded his head. “It is them. It’s time. That’s what it is. That’s what all this is. They travel through time. And they change things and no one knows they’ve been changed. No one but me. Me. I’m the only one who knows. I’m not affected by their changes. Because …” Soap paused. Because, was a tricky one. Why hadn’t he been unaware that the past had been changed? “Because,” Soap continued, “because I was beloooooow. I was deep beneath the Earth. That has to be it. Something to do with the magnetic field or something. Yes, that has to be it. So …” Soap drew in a very deep breath.