Joints crackled, clothing tore. His flat cap rose as monstrous horns sprouted from his head. With sickening crunches and hideous bone-snapping reports Fred began to swell and distort.
All semblance of human form was gone. The Beast rose grinning. A medieval monster of depravity. The evil one made flesh.
The fighting came to a standstill on the stage. The bell seemingly called for the end of round one.
“Oh shit,” said Jim. “Are we in trouble now.”
Abaddon, the arch-fiend of the bottomless pit, fallen angel, dweller in Pandemonium, denizen of hell, stood upon the sacred turf of Brentford football ground. Cloven hooves dug into the eighteen-yard line, forked tail curling, brimstone-breathed and hung like a python with the mumps.
“Avert your eyes,” said Paul.
“No way!” said the lady.
“All of you.” The Beast’s voice echoed, rumbled thunder-like and awesome, quivering the scaffolding to which Suzy clung, rattling ten thousand teeth. “All of you will die. All of you.”
And fire belched from the belly of the Beast, and sulphur smoked and people cowered and screamed and made to flee.
And then.
And then.
A golden glow lit up the sky.
A false dawn?
What?
And a sound, far distant, yet close at hand. A sound that filled the air and the substance of the air and all the matter of the planet. The note. The Universal note.
Of Om.
That symbol given with love to be received with love.
An act of love.
And all the people stared. And the Beast turned and glared and breathed his fire and pawed the ground with cloven hooves.
And a man stepped out onto the turf. A golden man shining like the sun. And he walked forward, hands raised.
And the golden light surrounded him and the sound that was Om was everywhere.
“No,” cried the Beast. “Not you. Not you.”
“This is not your time,” said he that was All in Two and Two in One and One in Nothingness. “Return at once to whence you came. Get thee behind me, Satan.”
And the Beast screamed and clawed at the sky and squirmed and writhed and shook and moaned and trembled and was gone.
And the golden man held up his hands, and faded, and he too was gone.
And then there was a silence. And some silence it was.
And then the crowd looked up.
For the heavens seemed to part, the moonlight cleft the clouds and down swept beings, beautiful in white on wings of gossamer. Down and down, circling and swaying. Angels of light.
Derek looked up and Clive looked up.
And the beings swept down upon them.
And kicked them clean off the stage.
“Whoops, pardon,” said Mrs Elronhubbard. “I’m sorry we’re a bit late, but it’s a right old struggle to the top of the gasometer. I had to help my friend Doris here with her Zimmer frame.”
“Hi,” said Doris, waggling her fingers. “I hope we haven’t missed anything.”
And then the crowd really cheered. Cheered and cheered. Gave a standing ovation. Clapped their hands and cheered again.
Oh yes indeed.
And the lady in the straw hat began to sing.
“Amazing Grace,” I think it was.
33
“I’m sorry I missed all that,” said Neville, flipping the top from a bottle of Hartnell’s Millennial Ale. “It must have been a sight worth seeing.”
“Oh, it was.” Omally raised the bottle in salute.
It was early in the morning now, and but for a few stalwarts the crowds had all gone home to bed, well satisfied with the Brentford millennial celebrations.
In the Road to Calvary stood Professor Slocombe and Mr Compton-Cummings and Celia Penn and Old Pete and Small Dave and the lady in the straw hat and Paul and Suzy and Jim. Minor members of the cast stood about in the background going “rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb” whilst trying to remain on camera.
“Jim did it,” said John. “He saved the Professor’s ceremony, and rescued Suzy. Jim is the hero.”
“You’re the hero, John,” said Jim. “Shooting that rocket up the monster’s arse saved my life.”
“I think we have someone else to thank,” said Professor Slocombe, turning his eyes skyward.
“Oh yes,” said Jim. “Oh yes indeed.”
“Now surely,” said John, “that was what they call a Deus ex Machina ending?”
“How could you have had anything else?”
“Quite so, Professor. And all went well with your ceremony?”
“Oh yes. All went perfectly.”
“I can’t actually feel anything,” said Jim. “Well, I feel something, happy, content, something.”
“I don’t think that’s the Professor’s magic,” said John.
Jim put his arm about Suzy. “No,” he said. “I don’t think it is.”
“Well, cheers, everybody,” said John, raising his bottle once more.
Jim took Suzy aside. “I never did get that regular job and get myself all sorted out,” he said. “But I want to ask you that question anyway.”
“Go on then,” said Suzy. “Ask it.”
“Will you marry me, Suzy?”
Suzy stared into Jim’s eyes. Those beautiful eyes of hers, those wonderful, marvellous, amber eyes made Jim go all weak at the knees.
“No,” said Suzy. “I won’t.”
“You won’t?”
Suzy shook her head. “Marriage is all the things John told you it was, washing the car, mowing the lawn, having dinner parties with terribly nice respectable people. That stuff isn’t for me, Jim, and it isn’t for you.”
“Oh,” said Jim. “So what then?”
“Would you like to come and live at my flat?”
Jim chewed upon his lip. “Well,” said he.
Suzy shook her head once more. “No, you wouldn’t. I know you wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t want to live at your house either. But what we have is so special, so absolutely special, that one day, one day when everything is right, when everything is resolved, we will be together, won’t we?”
“Yes.” Jim smiled. “I know we will.”
“Good. Then you can kiss me if you want.” Jim took the beautiful woman in his arms and kissed her.
“All is perfect,” he said. “All will be perfect. After all this, all we’ve been through, how could it ever end up anything but perfect?”
“Neville?” John Omally stared at the part-time barman. “Neville, what colour was the cap you just flipped from my bottle?”
Neville picked the cap up from the counter. “Green,” he said.
“Green?”
“Yeah, well, I thought I’d run out. Luckily I found two bottles left in my fridge. You’ve got one and Jim there’s got the other. It doesn’t matter really that they’re a couple of weeks out of date, does it?”
Omally held his bottle in a quivering hand. “Nobody move,” he said.
But it really would be mean to leave it there like that, wouldn’t it? And so, of course, the beer did not explode. The sun rose over Brentford and a new dawn began. Though subtle at first, the spirit moved across the face of the Earth, across its people, touching them as gently, gently, the wheel began to turn, the holy mandala, returning mankind to THE BIG IDEA.
And Jim and Suzy stood upon the canal bridge watching the new sun rise above the windscreen wiper works and Jim took Suzy once more in his arms.
“I love you, Suzy,” said Jim.
“I love you too, Jim,” she replied.
Robert Rankin
Robert Fleming Rankin (born July 27, 1949) is a prolific British humorous novelist. Born in Parsons Green, London, he started writing in the late 1970s, and first entered the bestsellers lists with Snuff Fiction in 1999. His books are a unique mix of science fiction, fantasy, the occult, urban legends, running gags, metafiction, steampunk and outrageous characters. According to the (largely fictional) biography printed in some Corgi editions of his books, Rankin refers to his style as 'Far Fetched Fiction' in the hope that bookshops will let him have a section to himself. Many of Rankin's books are bestsellers.
