The voice was saying that the Doveston was dead.
19
Da de da de da de da de candle in the wind.
‘He’s Leonardo,’ said Norman.
I didn’t ask. I knew what he meant.
Dead, is what he meant.
Mind you, I should have asked. Because this particular piece of Brentford rhyming slang was an ingenious twelfth-generation affair, leading from the now legendary fifteenth-century artist and innovator to several varieties of cheese, a number of well-known household products, two kinds of fish and three makes of motorcycle, before finally arriving at the word ‘dead’.
Norman was nothing if not inventive.
I sat now in the shopkeeper’s kitchen on one of a pair of Moms Minor front seats that Norman had converted into a sofa. If coincidence means anything, Norman’s kitchen, which was also his workshop, looked very much the way I imagine Leonardo’s workshop must have looked. Without the Meccano, of course.
‘He can’t be dead,’ I said. ‘He can’t be. He just can’t.’
Norman twiddled with the dials on his TV.
‘Get a bloody move on,’ I told him.
‘Yes, yes, I’m trying.’ The scientific shopkeeper bashed the top of the set with his fist. ‘I’ve made a few modifications to this,’ he said. ‘I’ve always felt that TVs waste a lot of power. All those cathode rays and light and stuff coming out of the screen. So I invented this.’ He adjusted a complicated apparatus that hung in front of the television. It was constructed from the inevitable Meccano. ‘This is like a solar panel, but more efficient. It picks up the rays coming out of the screen, then converts them into electrical energy and feeds it back into the TV to power the set. Clever, eh?’
I nodded. ‘Very clever.’
‘Mind you, there does seem to be one major obstacle that so far I’ve been unable to overcome.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Just how you get the set to start without any initial power.’
‘Plug it into the wall socket, you silly sod.’
‘Brilliant.’ Norman shook his head, dislodging ghastly strands of hair. ‘And to think people say you’re—’
‘Just plug it in!’
Norman plugged it in.
The Doveston’s face appeared once more on the screen. This time it was an even younger model, bearded and framed by long straight hair. This was the Doveston circa ‘sixty-seven.
A newscaster’s voice spoke over. This is what it said.
‘The tragedy occurred today at a little after noon in the grounds of Castle Doveston. The Laird of Branifield was entertaining a number of house guests, among them the Sultan of Brunei, the President of the United States and Mr Saddam Hussein. The party were engaged in one of the Laird’s favourite sporting pursuits: sheep-blasting. According to eye-witness accounts, given by several visiting heads of state, the Doveston had just drawn back on his catapult, preparatory to letting fly, when the elastic broke and the dynamite went off in his hand.’
‘Freak accident,’ said Norman. ‘It’s just how he would have wanted to go.
I shook my head.
‘But what a gent,’ Norman said. ‘What a gent.’
‘What a gent?’
‘Well, think about it. He died at noon on a Wednesday. Wednesday’s my half-day closing. If he’d died on any other day, I’d have had to close the shop as a mark of respect. I’d have lost half a day’s trade.’
Norman sat down beside me and tugged the cork from a bottle of home-made sprout brandy. This he handed to me by the neck.
I took a big swig. ‘He can’t be dead,’ I said once more. ‘This isn’t how it happens.’
‘You what?’ Norman watched me carefully.
‘I saw the future. I’ve told you about it. Back in ‘sixty—seven, when I smoked those Brentstock cigarettes. I’m sure this isn’t how he dies.’
Norman watched me some more. ‘Perhaps you got it wrong. I don’t think the future’s fixed. And if he blew himself up, right in front of all those heads of state-’
‘Yes, I suppose so. Oh Jesus!’ I clutched at my throat. ‘I’m on fire here. Jesus!’
Norman took the bottle from me. ‘Serves you right for taking such a big greedy swig,’ he said with a grin. ‘I may not be able to predict the future (yet), but I could see that one coming.’
‘It has to be a hoax,’ I said, when I had regained my composure. ‘That’s what it is. He’s faked his own death. Like Howard Hughes.’
‘Don’t be so obscene.
‘Obscene?’
‘Howard Hughes. That’s fourth generation Brentford rhyming slang. That means—’
‘I don’t care what it means. But I’ll bet you that’s what he’s done.’
Norman took a small swig from the bottle. ‘And why?’ he asked. ‘Why would he want to do that?’
‘I don’t know. To go into hiding, I suppose.’
‘Oh yeah, right. The man who adores being in the public eye. The man who gets off mixing with the rich and famous. The man who was to host the greatest social occasion of the twentieth century. The man—’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘You’ve made your point. But I still can’t believe it.’
‘He’s Leonardo,’ Norman said.
And Leonardo he was.
I was really keen to view the body. Not out of morbid curiosity — I just had to know. Could he truly be dead? It didn’t seem possible. Not the Doveston. Not dead. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that it couldn’t be true. He had to have faked it. And if he had, what better way would there be than blowing himself up in public view? Leaving no recognizable pieces?
Norman said that he could think of at least six better ways. But I ignored Norman.
We both attended the funeral. We received invitations. We could pay our last respects to his body as it lay in state at Castle Doveston and even help carry the coffin to its resting place on a small island in the one remaining lake on the estate. He had apparently left instructions in his will that this was where he was to be interred.
A long black shiny armoured limo came to pick us up. Rapscallion was driving. ‘Masser Doveston’s gone to de Lord,’ was all he had to say.
As we approached the grounds of Castle Doveston, what I saw amazed me. There were thousands of people there. Thousands and thousands. Many held candles and most were weeping. The perimeter fence was covered with bunches of flowers. With photographs of the Doveston. With really awful poems, scrawled on bits of paper. With football scarves (he owned several clubs). With Gaia logos made from sticky-backed plastic and Fairy Liquid bottles with their names blacked out. (There’d been a tribute on Blue Peter.)
And the news teams were there. News teams from all over the world. With cameras mounted on top of their vans. All trained upon the house.
They swung in our direction as we approached. The crowd parted and the gates opened wide. Rapscallion steered the limo up the long and winding drive.
Inside, the house was just as I remembered it. No further decorating had been done. The open coffin rested upon the dining table in the great hall and as I stood there memories came flooding back of all the amazing times that I’d had here. Of the drunkenness and drug-taking and debauchery. Of things so gross that I should, perhaps, have included them in this book, to spice up some of the duller chapters.
‘Shall we have a look at him?’ said Norman. I took a very deep breath.
‘Best to do that now,’ said Norman. ‘He probably pongs a bit.’ He didn’t pong.
Except for the expensive aftershave — his own brand, Snuff for Men. He lay there in his open coffin, all dressed up but nowhere nice to go. His face wore that peaceful, resigned expression so often favoured by the dead. One hand rested on his chest. Between the fingers somebody had placed a small cigar.