At the sight of it all Jim’s heart sank.
For this pub knew no shame.
“Sheer poetry,” said John. “Although of a difficult metre.”
Pale-faced in the gloom, Pooley shook his head and made the sign of the cross, Spectacles-testicles-wallet-and-watch. “This is truly the Pub from Hell,” he whispered. “When we die and go to the bad place this is where we will drink out eternity.”
“Enough of that, Jim,” said John. “You’re making me all of a shiver. Now you go up to the bar and get us in a couple of pints while I choose us the table.”
“Me?” went Jim. “But I—”
“Cut along now. Before the place fills up.”
“But,” Jim glanced all about the evil den, “it’s half full already.”
“Yes indeed, you’re right.”
There were at least a dozen young men in the bar. Young men wearing black T-shirts and shorts. They had been rabbiting away as the two friends entered, but now they had grown silent and were nudging one another and pointing somewhat too.
“They’re looking at us,” whispered Jim. “Why are they looking at us?”
“Ignore them,” said John. “They’re fanboys. A good sign, that. Means the band has already got a cult following.”
“Cult?” said Jim. “I don’t like that word at all.”
“Go to the bar,” John ordered. “Go to the bar at once.”
Jim went up to the bar, doing the old “Excuse me, please” as he passed between the fanboys. But the fanboys weren’t giving Jim a second glance. They were all watching Omally.
Jim reached the bar counter and almost leaned his elbows upon it.
Almost.
He surveyed the unpolished surface. The butt ends and the beer pools. A slight shiver ran through him. This was not his kind of place at all.
Sandy the sandy-haired barlord looked up from a nudie book and grinned a grin at him.
“If it isn’t my old friend Pooley,” he said.
“You’re quite right there,” said Jim.
“Your Irish mate winkled you out of the Swan, then, has he?”
“Something like that, yes. Two pints of whatever you have that passes for beer, please.”
Sandy lined up a couple of grubby-looking plastic tumblers and drew from beneath the bar a brace of those multi-pack cans of supermarket lager that’re not supposed to be sold separately. “Five quid,” he said.
Jim clutched at his heart.
“Wish I could do it cheaper,” said Sandy. “But, as the music’s free, I have to make a little on the beer.”
“Yes, I quite understand.” Jim’s hand had found his wallet but seemed unable to drag it from his pocket.
“Come on, Pooley, tug a little harder. There’s thirty-five quid in there.”
“Thirty-five …” and Jim’s jaw fell.
“You just missed Bob the Bookie. He told me he’d given you a loan.”
“It’s not a loan. I won it this afternoon on the horses.”
“Bob looks upon it as a loan. After all, he knows he’ll get it back tomorrow.”
“He bloody won’t,” said Jim.
“Quite right,” said Sandy. “You spend it here. That’ll show him.”
“I will.”
Having parted company with a five-pound note, Jim sought out Omally, who now sat at the table of his choosing.
John was not alone. Sitting across from him in the seat that should surely have been Jim’s, was a fat man in a black T-shirt and shorts. He and John were chatting like buddies of old.
Jim placed a can and a tumbler on the table and sat down next to the fat man.
“Cheers, Jim,” said John, “this is Geraldo.”
“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” said Jim, raising his cup of warm cheer.
“Geraldo is a big fan of the Gandhis.”
“The biggest,” said Geraldo.
“Nice,” said Jim, sipping his drink and making a face.
“Geraldo thinks that the Gandhis will be the biggest band of all time.”
“That I doubt,” said Jim.
“Oh, they will,” said Geraldo, in a voice that made Jim turn his head. For such a big fat man he had a very tiny voice. It seemed to come from way down deep inside him, as if he was calling up through a drainpipe. Or something. “They’ll be the biggest ever, you just wait and see.”
“They won’t be bigger than the Beatles,” said Jim. “No band could ever be bigger than the Beatles.”
“The Beatles have had their day,” said John.
“Oh, excuse me,” said Jim. “And how many number-one hits have the Beatles had?”
“A couple of dozen, I suppose.”
“Fifty-seven,” said Jim. “And the last one only a few months ago. To celebrate John Lennon’s sixtieth birthday.”
“Exactly.” Omally pushed his tumbler aside and drank straight out of his can. “And look at Lennon. Bald and fat. He should have turned it in years ago.”
“Stop a moment there,” squeaked Geraldo. “John Lennon was sixty, did you say?”
“I bought the single,” said Jim. “It had a holographic picture sleeve.”
Geraldo’s jowls were all awobble. “But John Lennon was shot in nineteen eighty,” he said faintly.
“Yes,” said Jim. “But he was only wounded and if it hadn’t been for the shooting, the Beatles would never have re-formed.”
“He should have died,” said John. “He’d have become a rock icon if he’d died.”
“What a wicked thing to say.” Jim made tut-tut-tuttings. “And if he had died and the Beatles hadn’t re-formed, England would not have won the Eurovision Song Contest four years running. Nineteen eighty-two, nineteen eighty-three, nineteen—”
“Yes, I know all that.” Omally viewed his drink can with distaste. “But what a sell-out that was. Eurovision Song Contest. That ain’t rock ’n’ roll.”
“Just stop! Just stop!” Geraldo waved his chubby paws about. His voice was faint but frantic. “You’re saying that John Lennon did not die in nineteen eighty?”
“Of course he didn’t die.” Jim shook his head and rolled his eyes. “That young bloke saved bis life. What was his name, now?”
“They never knew his name,” said John. “He just appeared out of nowhere and patched Lennon up. And then he vanished when the paramedics arrived. Lennon wanted to give him a million bucks but he never came forward to claim it.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t a bloke at all,” said Jim. “Perhaps it was an angel. Perhaps it was the Spirit of rock ’n’ roll. Are you all right, Geraldo?”
But Geraldo wasn’t all right. Geraldo was coughing and spluttering. “It’s not right,” he kept saying between convulsions. “He should have died. It isn’t right.”
“You’re not right,” said Jim. “Have you been drinking?”
“I’ve gotta go.” Geraldo rose shakily to his feet and stumbled off to join his fanboy cronies at the bar.
“What a very strange man,” said Jim.
“Perhaps he’s a chum of Soap’s.”
“Come again?”
“Well, Soap’s got a bee up his bum that the Queen wasn’t assassinated and Geraldo thinks that John Lennon was.”
“Nineteen eighty,” said Jim.
“What about it?”
“Nineteen eighty was when Lennon got shot and survived and the Queen was assassinated. Same year.”
“People get shot every year,” said John. “It’s a tradition, or an old charter or something.”
“Or something. But this is a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? Who is this Geraldo anyway, John? Where do you know him from?”
“I don’t know him at all. He just came up and asked for my autograph.”
“Why would he want your autograph?”
“I think he thought I was someone famous. He was terribly polite and sort of—”
“Sort of what?”
“Reverential,” said Omally. “That’s the only word I can think of.”
“This is all very weird.”
“There is nothing weird about it.” John gulped down the contents of his can and tried to look happy for doing so. “This is a music pub, Jim,” he said. “And the folk who go to music pubs are not your everyday folk. Don’t go getting yourself all upset.”