And it wasn’t just the matter of the purchasing of all those pints. It was that in the shock of it all, Neville had committed a cardinal sin. He had forgotten about the Swan’s dress code, which forbade the wearing of shorts in the saloon bar. He would never live that down at future Lodge meetings. The brothers of the Sacred Order of the Golden Sprout would make him the butt of many a bitter joke.
But it had happened.
It really truly had.
“Cheers, Neville,” said Pooley, accepting his change and, to the part-time barman’s further horror, thrusting the coins straight into his pocket without even bothering to count them.
Neville slipped off for that quiet sit-down. Pooley led Geraldo to a table.
“It’s a nice pub, this,” said the fattish bloke, seating himself upon a comfy cushion. “Very quiet, very sedate.”
“And the finest beer in Brentford.” Jim raised his glass and sipped from it. “Which is to say, probably the best beer in the world.”
“It’s not at all bad.” Geraldo took a mighty swig. “Although last week I had a beer in a New Orleans bar with Robert Johnson—”
“The Robert Johnson?”
“The Robert Johnson.”
“Who died in nineteen thirty-seven.”
“You know your bluesmen, Jim.”
“And so, apparently, do you. But listen, Geraldo. I’ve bought you the beer and so I’d like to hear the story. On the understanding, of course, that it is now beyond the ten o’clock watershed.”
“What is the ten o’clock watershed?” Geraldo asked.
“It is that time of the night when men in bars who have sufficient alcohol inside them begin the telling of tall tales, which generally conclude with the words ‘and that’s the God’s honest truth, I’m telling you’. This is considered acceptable social behaviour in bars. It’s a tradition, or an old charter—”
“Or something,” said Geraldo. “I get the picture.”
“And,” Jim continued. “Those who listen to such tall tales never ever respond by saying, ‘You are a lying git.’”
“Even if they are?” Geraldo asked.
“Even if they are.”
“Very civilized,” Geraldo said. “But what I’m going to say is the God’s honest truth, I’m telling you.”
“You’re supposed to say that at the end. But never mind, just please tell me your story.”
“Right.” Geraldo took another pull upon his pint and finished it. “I’d like another one of these,” he said.
“After you’ve told your tale.”
“Right.” Geraldo set down his empty glass and rubbed his podgy hands together. “Where to start. OK, I’ll start at the end, because that’s where it all began.”
Jim sighed inwardly. So far not so good, he thought.
“The end,” said Geraldo, “came about at precisely ten seconds after the ninth minute of the eighth hour of the seventh day of the sixth week of the fifth month of the year four thousand, three hundred and twenty-one. The scientists at the Institute confirmed this and that made it OFFICIAL.
“Ten – nine – eight – seven – six – five – four – three – two – one. That was zero hour, you see.”
“I don’t,” said Jim. “But I do see a flaw in the calculations.”
“Then well spotted, Jim. The scientists didn’t spot it, however. But whether that has any bearing on how things worked out I’m not sure. Now, I’m going to tell you what happened in the form of a story. I’ll do all the voices and when I describe each character I’ll do it in verse.”
“Why?” Jim asked.
“Because I’m a bit of a poet.”
Jim sighed outwardly this time.
“And I wasn’t actually there when it all happened. But I watched and heard it all, because I’d hacked into the closed-circuit surveillance video at Institute Tower. I was hooked into Porkie, you see.”
“The Single World Interfaced Network Engine?”
“The very same. So just sit back and drink your beer and I will tell the tale.”
And so saying, Geraldo told Jim the tale. Doing all the voices and describing the characters in verse.
The tale had chapters and titles and everything.
And this is how it went.
It was a conclave and a cabal. A council and a conference.
They were a synod of scientists. A bothering of boffins.
Top of the tree, these fellows were, in the fields of their endeavour. The back-room boys with the front-room minds and the lofty aspirations.
The year was 4321. It was early on a Sunday morning. It was rather later than it should have been in May.
The conclave and the cabal was held in the big posh high-domed solar lounge at the top of Institute Tower.
The tower itself was a monumental cylinder of pale pink plasti-glass, which thrust from the Earth like a raging stonker and buried its big knob end in the clouds. It was a testament to technology, a standing stone to science.
It was an architect’s vision.
The architect was a man.
The scientists were all men, of course. There had never been a lot of room for girlies in science. And so, on this very special day, there were four of them present and these were the last men who worked in the tower. These were the final four.
A thousand years before, when it was first constructed, the tower had housed hundreds of the buggers. Buzzing around like albino bees, with their white coats and their clipboards in their hands. They scratched at their unkempt barnets with the butt-ends of Biros. Chalked calculations on bloody big blackboards. Drank lots of coffee from styrofoam cups and wore those atrocious ties with little cartoons of Einstein, which folk always give to scientists for Christmas and scientists always wear to show what jolly chaps they are.
Those had been the days, my friends.
But those days were all gone.
Now there were only four of them left and soon these four would be gone, like the days had been gone. So to speak.
It was all down to knowledge, you see. For it was knowledge that had brought about THE END.
The director of the Institute was Dr Vincent Trillby. He was a man of considerable knowledge and, as it was he who had called the conclave into being, he was the first man to speak.
Though not as tall as bigger men
He didn’t lack for height.
His chest was trim
And his hips were slim
And there wasn’t a pimple in sight.
His eyes were grey
As a cloudy day,
And he carried himself in a confident way.
He was dapper and sleek
And when he rose to speak
He was rarely obscure. He was never oblique.
“Gentlemen,” said Dr Vincent Trillby, rising from his antique chromium chair and casting a grey’n over his three colleagues, who sat about the black obsidian-topped table. “Gentlemen, we all know why we’re here. It’s a regrettable business, but we all knew it had to happen eventually. The final papers are in. The calculations cross-check. The big clock on the wall is counting down and when the long hand reaches the tenth second past the ninth minute that will be it. THE END.
“And that’s OFFICIAL.”
The three men mumbled and grumbled and shifted in their chairs and drummed their fingers on the tabletop. They didn’t like this at all. But they all knew that it had to happen one of these days and they all knew that the calculations had to be correct.
After all, the calculations were Porkie’s and Porkie’s calculations were always correct.
“Gentlemen, the clock.”
The three men turned their eyes towards the clock and watched the final seconds tick away, tick tick tick, the way those seconds do. The long hand crept around the face, reached the tenth second past the ninth minute.
And then stopped.
“So that’s it,” said Dr Vincent Trillby. “THE END. Not with a bang, nor even a whimper, just with a big full stop. And not even a big one. But that’s it, gentlemen, our job here is done and I’m away to the golf course. Don’t forget to clear your desks before you go and the last man out please switch off the lights.”