“We just want you to sample something.”
“Sample?”
“Jim, the bottle and the glass.”
“Coming right up.” Jim produced a bottle and a glass from his pockets, placed the glass upon the Young Master’s desk, uncorked the bottle and poured.
“Sample,” said John.
“Yes I bet it is. Your wee-wee, probably.”
“It is ale. Just take a taste. Spit it out if you want. Over me if you want.”
“Over you?”
“That’s how confident I am.”
“No, it’s all a trick. Ms Anderson, call security.”
“Ms Anderson?”
“He made me change my name,” said the secretary. “And I have to wear this padded bra.”
“Suits you,” said Jim. “But I don’t know about the wig.”
“Just taste the ale,” said John. “Here, I’ll have a little taste first, to prove it’s not poison.” John took a taste. And then he took another taste and then another taste. “Magic,” said John.
“You’ve drunk it all,” said Young Master Robert.
“Jim, the other bottle.”
Jim took out the other bottle, uncorked it and refilled the glass.
“Trick,” said Young Master Robert. “The second bottle’s poisoned.”
“Oh dear me.” John took up the glass once more.
“No, all right, I believe you.” Young Master Robert took the glass, sniffed at it suspiciously, then took a taste. And then he took another taste, and then another taste.
“Yes?” said John.
“Well, it’s all right. It’s OK, I mean.”
John Omally shook his head. “It’s magic,” he said. “That’s what you mean. It’s the finest ale you’ve ever tasted in your life.”
“It’s fair to middling.”
John Omally shrugged. “Well, Jim,” he said. “I suppose I lose the bet.”
“What bet?” said Young Master Robert.
“Jim bet me that the master brewer in Chiswick was a better judge of beer than you were. Naturally I defended your honour. It looks like it’s cost me a fiver.”
“You took this beer to the rival brewery?”
“Chap called Doveston. He’s won several awards. Certainly knows his beverages.”
“The man’s a buffoon. Fizzy drinks merchant.” Young Master Robert tasted the last of the ale. “It’s pretty good,” he said.
“Pretty good?” John laughed. “Mr Doveston was quite ecstatic in his praise of it. Heaping eulogies upon every savoured gobful. What was that song he sang for us, Jim?”
“Wasn’t it ‘Money Makes the World Go Around’?”
“Yes, that was it.”
“It’s very good,” said Young Master Robert. “Do you have any more?”
“Crates,” said John.
“And you brewed it?”
“A colleague and I.”
“This bloke?”
“Another colleague,” said John.
“Well, I’ll have to get this analysed. Make sure there are no impure chemicals.”
John snatched back the glass and bottle. “Oh no you don’t. The only way you will get it analysed is by pumping it out of your stomach.”
“I wouldn’t mind doing that,” said Ms Anderson. “In an anal-ized fashion.”
“Do you have a sister called Celia?” Jim asked.
“Well, we must be off,” said John. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do business with you.”
“Not so fast,” said Young Master Robert.
“You certainly think fast, John,” said Jim, as they sat once more upon the concrete bench before the library. “A ten-thousand-pound advance. Incredible.”
“Not bad, is it?” John waved the cheque in the air. “I’ll have to open a bank account.”
“And on condition that he restore the Swan to its former glory by the end of the week. Genius.”
“We function best under pressure, Jim. I’ve always found that.”
“Making him cough up the fiver you supposedly lost to me in the bet was rubbing it in a bit.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t complain.”
“So hand it over, then.”
“What?”
“The fiver. I won it fair and square.”
“You never did. We never went to the rival brewer.”
“But he doesn’t know that.”
John handed over the fiver. “Petty,” said he.
Jim pocketed the fiver. “I hope Norman will be happy with the advance. Did you agree the figure with him?”
“Ah,” said John.
“I like not ‘Ah’,” said Jim. “What does ‘Ah’ mean?”
“It means I haven’t actually got round to talking to Norman about this yet.”
“What?”
“There wasn’t time. The idea came to me over breakfast. So I just went for it.”
“Same old story.” Jim shook his head. “Omally rushes in where angels fear to tread.”
“Just leave Norman to me,” said John. “Norman will be fine.”
Norman didn’t look fine. He had a worried expression on his face. As Omally breezed into his shop, he offered him a grunt.
“Thanks,” said Omally. “I’ll smoke it later.”
“Look at my sweeties,” said Norman.
Omally looked. The jars were bright with sweeties. All the Fifties favourites. Humbugs and jujubes. Liquorice pipes and sherbet lemons, Bright Devils and Waverley’s Assorteds. Space Rockets and Google’s Gob Gums.
Omally tapped the nearest jar. “They look a bit, well, guggy,” he said.
“Very guggy.” Norman took up the jar and turned it upside down. A kind of blobby mass oozed towards the lid. “Entropy,” he said.
“What’s this?”
“They don’t last,” said Norman. “It’s been like this for months. But I didn’t like to mention it to you. I thought I could iron out the problem.”
“The sweeties don’t last?”
“A couple of weeks,” said Norman. “Then I have to throw them away, clean out the jars and make another batch.”
“Rotten luck,” said John. “It’s a good job it isn’t like this with the ale.”
Norman glanced up from the sweetie jar. “It’s far worse with the ale,” said he.
“What?” Jim glanced up from his pint of Large. “He said what?”
“Highly volatile,” said John. “Like nitroglycerine, the slightest tap and it explodes.”
“What?” Jim huffed and puffed. “I had a bottle in each of my trouser pockets. I could have blown my…”
“It was a fresh batch; you weren’t in any danger. It has to be two weeks old before it…”
“Nitro-bloody-glycerine!”
“Not so loud.” Omally ssshed him into silence. “We don’t want Neville to hear.”
“No we don’t,” said Jim. “But I can’t believe it. Everything was sorted. And all so quickly too.”
“Yes, I’ve been thinking about that. And I’ve come to the conclusion that every time we sort something quickly, it ends up like Norman’s sweeties.”
“It’s probably some cosmic law,” said Jim. “But look on the bright side.”
“What bright side is this?”
“Well, at least you didn’t pop in here and tell Neville you’d sorted everything out before you popped into Norman’s and discovered that you hadn’t.”
A new blonde waitress appeared at the table with a tray. On it were two pints of Large. “Courtesy of the management,” she said.
John Omally looked at Jim.
And Jim looked back at John.
“You stupid twat,” said Jim.
“There has to be a solution.” John drummed his fingers on the pew end. “There just has to be.”
They were several pints in credit now and Neville kept on smiling and giving them the old thumbs-up.
“The solution is as plain as a parson’s nose,” said Jim. “You’ll have to return the cheque, tell Neville the truth and emigrate to Tierra del Fuego.”
“I don’t call that much of a solution.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
“Look,” said Omally. “I have a cheque for ten thousand pounds in my pocket. Ten thousand, Jim. We must be able to do something with that.”
“You got it under false pretences. Do you prefer prison to Tierra del Fuego?”
“You would hate Tierra del Fuego, Jim.”
“I’m not coming with you.”
“We’re in this together, we shook hands on it.”
“There has to be a solution,” said Jim, drumming his fingers on the other end of the pew.