“That would be nice,” said Lennon. “I’d like that very much.”
Soap got to shake hands with them all. He was, frankly, entranced. Overwhelmed. He knew it was all wrong. That it just shouldn’t be. But here it was happening anyway. Here was he, Soap Distant, actually shaking hands with the Fab Four. It was a moment he would treasure for ever. A magical moment. A moment that nothing could spoil.
“I can see right through your nose,” said Ringo. “Horrible, it is.”
Quack quack go the feathered folk.
Their mating habits are a joke.
They never wear the old Dutch cap
Nor trouble with a condom.
Quack quack go the feathered fowl,
They have no truck with goose or owl.
Or Siamese strings and Ben Wa balls
Or plug-in rubber dildos.
Quack quack go the feathered clowns,
Getting off on watered downs.
Caring not for Roman Showers
Or ritual bondage rimming.
Quack quack go the feathered lads.
Knowing not their mums and dads.
They are a flock of bastards.
So who do they think they are, waddling about with their beaks in the air, scorning harmless forms of deviant sexual recreation when it’s quite clear they don’t have enough morals to scribble down in big writing on a sheet of Brentford Borough Council toilet paper?
A good question!
Quack indeed!
22
There were plenty of ducks on Gunnersbury Lake. But soon many of these would be taking to their wings. Driven from their dabblings by misbehaving fanboys tossing beer cans.
At just gone ten of the morning clock the park gates were opened and the “ticket-holders only” flooded through.
Soap Distant stood on the concert stage beneath the great aluminium half-dome, hoping to get a glimpse of Geraldo. But as the green grass sank beneath the tidal wave of black-T-shirted youth, Soap’s heart sank with it and a lump rose in his throat.
“Thousands of the ugly-looking buggers,” said Soap. And his voice carried through the speaker system and echoed all over the park.
It was a poor start to the proceedings. But in view of what was yet to come, it could well have been considered a high point.
In various bedrooms in Gunnersbury House various Gandhis were togging up in their stage clothes. They were very expensive stage clothes. Very exclusive stage clothes.
Pigarse struggled into a pair of leather drainpipe trousers.
On his bed sat an old gent with a tattooed face and a good line in scar tissue. “Ram a codpiece down your crotch for art,” was his advice. “It gets the girlies going and if they’re disappointed later then it serves them right for being so cock-happy.”
“Cheers, Dad,” said Pigarse. “I’ll use your motorbike helmet.”
Litany sat at a dressing table in another of John’s guest bedrooms. There seemed to be at least twelve such bedrooms, although John had never counted. All the bedrooms but his remained empty, but for the Gandhis’ visits. John could have lived the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, had he so wished. He could have partied every night. But he didn’t. He lived alone with his memories. Drunk for much of the time, but always there to do the Gandhis’ business.
John sat upon Litany’s bed, idly toying with one of her shoes.
Litany glanced at his reflection. “Cheer up, John,” she said. “This is going to be a big day. The day that we change history.”
“I know,” said John. “I just wish Jim could have been here to see it.”
“You’ve got to let Jim go. It’s been five years. If I can get over it so can you.”
“He was my bestest friend. I loved that man. In a manly mannish sort of a way.”
Litany adjusted her false moustache. It was green, as it was Saturday.
“Do you know what?” said John. “I’ve never seen you without a false moustache on.”
“Nor have you ever seen me naked.”
“No, you’re right about that.”
“I know you’ve wanted to,” said Litany, teasing about at her hair.
“It doesn’t seem right. I thought that, perhaps, you and Jim …”
“Oh no,” said Litany. “I never would have.”
“But he meant a lot to you.”
“But not in that way. He was someone I wanted to meet. Have always wanted to meet.”
“Who? Jim?”
“I can’t explain it to you now. But one day I will, I promise.”
John rose from the bed and stretched a bit. “I’d better get downstairs,” he said. “And see how things are going.”
There were things going on all over the place on this particular day. At the Brentford nick, for instance. There were things going on in there.
“Right,” said Inspectre Sherringford Hovis. “Right, now listen up here.”
He had a little row of constables lined up before him. They were an anonymous-looking bunch. But then constables always are. It’s only when they rise up through the ranks and become detectives and suchlike that they take on all those lovable eccentricities that turn them into characters.
It’s a tradition. Or an old cliché or something.
Inspectre Hovis took a pinch of snuff and paced over to the big notice board behind his desk. “These young fellow-me-lads,” he said, pointing to a row of twelve grainy photographs. “These young fellow-me-lads here.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said an anonymous constable who had a good memory, “but aren’t they the young fellow-me-lads who were caught on the speed-trap cameras five years ago?”
“Correct,” said Hovis. “An unsolved case. And one that hangs over me like some sword of Androcles.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said an anonymous constable who had been classically trained (probably the one in the Greek Tragedy poem), “but surely that should be Damocles. Androcles was the chap with the lion, you know.”
Inspectre Hovis nodded thoughtfully, paced over to the constable and stamped upon his foot. The classically trained constable hopped about for a bit and then returned to anonymity.
“One of these young fellow-me-lads,” said Hovis, returning to the photographs, “is a murderer. I know this as surely as I know the back of my own head.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said an anonymous constable who had studied anatomy as well as turns of phrase. “But surely that should be hand.”
Hovis paced over and stamped on his foot.
“To continue,” said the Inspectre. “I know for a fact that these young fellow-me-lads are big fans of the Beatles. And if they do not turn up at the concert in Gunnersbury Park today then I’m a Welshman.”
Hovis paused.
The anonymous constable with the geography ‘O’ level kept his counsel.
“Just testing,” said Hovis. “Now, I want all you lot in plain clothes.”
“Oooooooooooo,” went the anonymous constables. “Plain clothes, how exciting.”
“Yes, and none of you are to wear your helmets this time. It gives the game away. I want these young fellow-me-lads and I want them today. Do I make myself clear?”
The constables nodded anonymously.
“Right, then draw copies of these photos from the front desk, get into your civvies and bugger off to the park. Do you understand me? Bugger off!”
Buggery has always been a popular prison pastime.
It ranks higher than scratching your initials on cell walls, fashioning guns and keys from soap, lying about what crimes you’ve committed and protesting that you were fitted up by the filth.
Oh, and tunnelling out. Tunnelling out has always been a very popular prison pastime.
But not so popular as buggery.
Buggery wins hands down.
And bottom-cheeks apart.
Small Dave hadn’t been buggered once. His reputation had entered the prison before him and any aspiring buggerers kept a respectful distance from the vindictive grudge-bearing wee bastard who had cut Parkie short on prime-time TV.