“Liar and hypocrite!”
“No, I mean it.”
“Oh yes?” Neville’s voice rose by an octave. “Oh yes? Don’t think I haven’t heard about your evil schemes to ruin me further. The John Omally Millennial Brewery and the Jim Pooley.”
“Ah,” said John.
“I think we should be off,” said Jim. “Before the, you know, flagellating and the nailing up.”
“And the burning at the stake,” said Old Pete.
“Why are you dressed as a Buddhist monk?” Omally asked. “And wearing a mitre?”
“Just trying to fit in.”
“By Baal!” cried Neville. “By Belial and…”
“I suppose it must make it worse, him being a pagan and everything,” Jim whispered. But nobody heard him.
“Ye Great Old Ones. Ye Deathless Sleepers.”
Omally pushed his way through the congregation and squared up beneath the ranting Neville.
“Stop it!” he shouted. “I will fix it for you. I promise. Cross my heart and… no, forget that. I give you my word.”
“Oaths are but words, and words but wind,” said the lady in the straw hat. “Claude Butler said that.”
“Samuel Butler,” said Paul. “He was an English satirist, 1612 to 1680, born in…”
“Stop that!” John Omally raised his fist.
“John,” called Jim from the door. “John, I’m leaving now. I may not be able to foresee the future, but I know just what’s coming next and I have no wish to endure another thrashing.”
“No one is going to get thrashed, Jim.”
“Shame,” said the lady in the straw hat.
Neville opened his mouth to issue curses.
“Stop!” John put up his hands. “Stop all this now. Neville, I promise to sort it out. I promise to have the Swan restored to its former glory. I will swear upon anything you wish. I promise, Neville. I promise.”
“Did you hear that?” asked Neville, gazing around.
“We did. We did.” The patrons’ heads bobbed up and down. Old Pete’s mitre fell onto the floor and his dog did a whoopsy on it.
“Right,” said Neville. “I give you until the end of the week, Omally.”
“The end of the week? That’s impossible.”
“Bring in the wicker man!”
“No, all right. The end of the week. Whatever you say.”
“Swear it, Omally. Shout it loud for all to hear.”
“I’ll get it all sorted by the end of the week,” shouted John. “I swear upon all that is holy.”
“Fine,” said Neville, climbing down. “Pint of the usual, is it?”
“You’ve got a bloody nose,” said Suzy. “Did someone hit you again?”
“No.” Jim managed half a sniff. “I was just going up to the bar for a drink when I slipped on this bishop’s mitre that was covered in poo.”
Suzy put a finger to his lips. “You do take a terrible hammering,” she said.
Pooley kissed her fingers. “I’d like to feel that there’s some purpose behind all my suffering, but I’m quite sure there’s not.”
They sat in Archie Karachi’s Star of Bombay Curry Garden (and Tasty-chip Patio), sipping Kingfisher lager and taking tastes from bowls of Kashmiri rogan josh, Rasedar shaljum, Kutchi bhindi, and French-fried potatoes.
“So, are you going into the brewery trade?” Suzy asked.
“No I am not. I’m going to help Omally sort out the Swan for Neville. Do my community service. Then I’m going to seek proper employment, and then I hope to ask you something.”
“What kind of something?”
“Something I can’t ask you now. Not until I’ve got myself sorted out.”
“Don’t sort yourself out for me, Jim. I like you just the way you are.”
“But I’m a loser and I’m fed up with it.”
“You are an individual.”
“That word is beginning to grate on my nerves.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, I didn’t mean you. Here, have another chip.” Jim fumbled with the bowl. “I can’t even eat properly when I’m with you.”
“Nor me. It’s good, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s very good.”
“Bad,” said Dr Steven Malone. “Very bad boys.”
The two boys looked up at him. One golden, one dark, but otherwise so very much alike. They stood in a downstairs room of that house in Moby Dick Terrace. The house where the old couple had died of natural causes.
“You mustn’t keep wandering off,” the bad doctor told them. “You might get yourselves lost.”
“We cannot get lost, father,” said the golden child, gazing up with his glittering eyes. “We remember everything, every moment, everything.”
Dr Steven smiled a twisted smile. “Digital memory,” he said, “total recall with absolute accuracy. And what about you?” he asked the dark one.
“I forget nothing,” the dark one replied.
“That’s good.”
“Father,” said the golden child. “You said you would choose names for us today.”
“And when did I say that?”
“Precisely one hundred and twenty-three minutes ago.”
“Very good. And so I have. You,” he pointed to the golden child, “will henceforth be known as Cain. And you,” he pointed to the other, “Abel.”
“As in the Bible,” said Cain. “Genesis chapter four, verse one.”
“Bible?” Dr Steven’s face, already ashen, grew more ashen still. “What do you know about the Bible?”
“All,” said Abel. “We go to the library and read the books.”
“We are hungry to learn, father. Everything there is to be learned.”
“I will teach you all you need to know. Stay away from the library. Do not go there again, or…”
“You will punish us,” said Cain. “Lock us away once more in the dark place.”
“I like the dark place,” said Abel.
“Do not defy me.” Dr Steven rocked upon his heels. “You are too precious to my purpose.”
“And what is your purpose?”
“My purpose, Cain, is my own affair. But by the end of this year all will be made known.”
“Given our unnaturally accelerated growth-rate,” said Abel, “by the end of this year we will be the equivalent of thirty-three normal years of age.”
“Precisely correct. And then I will do what has to be done. And then I shall know all.”
“No man can know all,” said Cain. “Only God knows all.”
“Go to your room.” Dr Steven turned in profile, something he hadn’t done for a while, and pointed off the page. “No, wait. You, Abel, go to your room and switch on all the lights. You, Cain, go once more to the dark place.” Bastard!
24
“Two gentlemen to see you sir,” said Young Master Robert’s secretary. “A Mr Pooley and a Mr Omally.”
Young Master Robert fell back in his highly cushioned chair. “Not those bastards. Don’t let them in here.”
“Morning, Bobby boy,” said John Omally, breezing in.
“Wotcha, mate,” said Jim. “Nice office.”
John Omally gazed about the place. “A regular fine art gallery,” he observed.
“Or a shrine,” said Jim. “It all being dedicated to a single young woman.”
“Get out of my office or I’ll call for security.”
“This one’s signed,” said Jim, pointing to a poster. “To my greatest fan, love Pammy.”
“And look at this bookcase,” said John. “He’s got the complete collection of Bay Watch on video.”
“What are all these boxes of Kleenex for?” Jim asked.
“Get out!”
“Relax.” John made the gesture that means relax. It’s not quite the same as the calming gesture, but there’s not much in it. “Relax and take it easy. We’ve come here to make you rich.”
“I’m already rich.”
“Richer, then.”
“What’s that sticking out from under your desk?” asked Jim. “It looks like a plastic foot.”
John took a peep over. “It’s an inflatable Pammy,” he said.
“Call security!” cried Young Master Robert. “Call that new bloke Joe-Bob, tell him to bring the electric truncheon.”
“Calm down,” said John, and he made the calming gesture this time. “We really have come to make you richer.”
“As if you have.”