The Brightonomicon (Brentford Book 8) (37 page)

‘I am,’ I said.

‘I was hoping to hold out a little longer and tell you all about the Old Muff-Widener.’

‘You have none of that, either,’ I said, ‘have you?’

‘Or Grampa Reekie’s Wessex Butt-Fuc—’

‘Nor that one, nor any other,’ I said.

And Fange hung his head, though he grinned as he did it. ‘Has to be at least a page,’ he whispered to himself.

‘What did you say?’ I asked him.

‘Nothing, sir.’

I turned to Mr Rune. ‘Would you care to do the ordering?’ I asked him.

But Mr Rune was already drinking brandy.

‘Where did that come from?’ I asked.

‘Behind the bar,’ said Mr Rune. ‘I availed myself of it whilst you and Fangio were talking the toot.’

‘Pour me a glass, then,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Get your own.’

‘Anything,’ I said to Fange. ‘Anything at all.’

‘Anything?’ said Fange. ‘Would you care to be a little more specific?’

‘No, I certainly would not. Serve me something alcoholic now or I will have you killed.’

‘A pint of McGregor’s Brown Gusset coming right up.’

‘But you said—’

But it mattered not.

Because the ale was good.

‘Right,’ said Mr Rune when I had finished my pint, ‘you have talked the toot and drunk the ale and now we should go and watch the big parade.’

‘Has an hour gone by already?’ I asked. ‘Does time not travel fast when you are having a good time?’

‘Well,’ said Fangio, ‘I’ve been thinking about that, and it’s funny you should mention it again, because—’

‘See you later,’ I told him.

‘But …’ said Fangio.

Mr Rune and I returned to our suite, where he changed from his papal robes into something more sober and joined me on our balcony. The big parade was beginning. Beneath us marched members of the Cluedo Klux Klan Society in their distinctive livery of chiffon and mayonnaise. How magnificent they looked. And how harmoniously they sang. Their songs were all of four-wheel-drives and three-point turns and two-for-the-show and a partridge in a pear tree. They carried aloft their effigy for burning – Mad Mickey Wright of Brighton Town Council.

Close upon their polished heels marched the men of the Self-Preservation Society, all clad in horn-rimmed glasses and white trench coats. They proudly bore their flaming torches and sang their songs about ‘blowing the bloody doors off’ and there being Zulus, ‘thousands of them’.

Next came the Marching Band of the Queen’s Own Foot and Mouth Society, and you do not need me to tell you how simply spiffing they looked in their high-top shoes and pigtails, with matching handbags and handlebar mirrors. And of the songs they sang, who could ever forget—

‘Stop
now,’
said Mr Rune. ‘The secret
is
knowing when to stop. Or in this case whether to have bothered to start.’

‘But I
do
like their handbags,’ I said.

‘But
these
are the ones to watch.’ And he gestured with the brandy bottle he had brought up from the bar. ‘The ladies of the Chiswick Townswomen’s Guild.’

Now, I did not like
them.
They were all wrong, those ladies. Well dressed in what seemed to be Victorian garb, black and lacy and Cagney, too, but they were so thin and so pinch-faced and so terribly alike that they might have been sisters. Which somehow made me think about multiple sisters. And of Kelly Anna Sirjan, the beautiful young woman I had met at Hangleton Manor, who had refused my advances and returned with her multiplicity of sisters (no doubt) to Count Otto Black’s Circus Fantastique.

‘I do
not
like those ladies at all,’ I said. ‘And as for their effigy of you—’

‘It is somewhat portly,’ said Mr Rune.

‘It has much of the Michelin Man about it,’ I said. ‘You might be fat, but—’

‘Fat?’ said Mr Rune. ‘I am well knit.’

The ladies passed beneath us, chanting.

‘Death to Hugo Rune,’ they chanted.

‘And they do not have much of a song,’ I observed.

‘We must follow them,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Gird up your loins, young Rizla. The game, as you see, is afoot.’

‘I will wait here,’ I said. ‘They will probably get stuck in the one-way system and be passing by again in half an hour.’

‘You
will accompany
me,’
said Mr Rune. ‘Fetch your coat and hat and follow.’

The pavements were impossibly crowded, six deep in places and seven in others. The
Argus
reported that its reporter had counted up to nine in one place, but the location of this particular place was not specifically mentioned and the reporter in question was noted as one much given to hyperbole.

‘These pavements are impossibly crowded,’ said Hugo Rune, clearing a path before him with the aid of his stout stick. ‘Ten deep back there.’ I followed in his wake.

‘Are we nearly there yet?’ I asked him.

‘Follow on. Follow on.’

I followed on and Mr Rune followed on. He followed on behind the Chiswick Townswomen’s Guild.

At length we passed our hotel.

‘Don’t be discouraged,’ Mr Rune called back to me, as he struck to the left and right of himself and cleared a further path.

I was not discouraged, just a bit footsore. But it was exciting, what with the cheering crowds and the chanting women and the flaming torches and everything. And now the fireworks in the sky, great chrysanthemum bursts of white and gold and red and blue. Beautiful.

And suddenly I felt that we were on a different road, one that led up, and I knew where to because I had studied the map: towards the ruins of Lewes Castle that crowned the crest of the hill.

And as Mr Rune and I followed the ladies up a long and winding road that the Beatles would later sing about, I became aware of several things: of quite how cold it suddenly seemed to have become and how the pavements were no longer deep with any number at all of cheering onlookers.

Ahead of us marched the Chiswick Townswomen’s Guild, bearing their torches and Mr Rune’s effigy. Behind marched Mr Rune and myself. And none else marched but we.

‘Suggestive,’ whispered Mr Rune to me.

‘I hate it when you use that word,’ I said. ‘It inevitably means that there is going to be trouble.’

Mr Rune put more spark into his step. ‘Pacey-pacey, Rizla,’ said he. ‘A gnat’s nuts need no oiling, but a lady-boy won’t offer you a ride on a rusty bike.’

Which I could not have argued with, even if I had tried.

Up and up went the pinch-faced ladies. Although we could no longer see their pinch-faces. What with us following them and everything. Up and up and up.

‘I never knew that the castle ruins were
this
high,’ I panted at Mr Rune. ‘We will soon be needing oxygen masks. I swear we are breathing rarefied air.’

‘Suggestive,’ said Mr Rune once again, marching ever onward.

Above us, the ruined castle loomed, its silhouette blacker than the
sky. I turned and looked behind and I was amazed by what I saw: the town of Lewes was a great distance below us, and the torchlight parade was in miniature, snaking through, it seemed, a model village.

I pulled out my map of the area and held it low, for the chrysanthemum explosions of the airborne fireworks were now beneath us. My map was an Ordnance Survey jobbie, one of the many in Mr Rune’s collection. It had spot heights on it, as well as the locations of churches with spires, churches with towers and contour lines, for which I have always had a liking. And benchmarks, of course, but who does not have a liking for
them?
. I studied the spot heights on this map, and in the flare of an airborne firework, I could see where we were supposed to be. But we could not be there, because there
was
no
there.
It was all very wrong indeed.

‘Mister Rune …’ I said.

‘Keep up, Rizla. Keep up now.’

‘But,’ I said, ‘this is all wrong.’

And it was.

And then we lost sight of the ladies.

‘They have entered the ruins,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I would counsel stealth and the keeping of the now-legendary low profile.’

‘I am with you there,’ I said. ‘And I will stay behind you, if you have no objection. To use the popular parlance of the era, I am somewhat weirded-out here.’

‘Follow on,’ said Mr Rune.

And I followed on.

‘This way,’ he continued.

And that was the way I went.

We did some ‘duckings-down’, followed by some ‘skulking arounds’, followed then by some ‘forward-creepings’ and then a wee bit of ‘crawlings up to’. And then Mr Rune nudged me, and though it was dark I could see that he was pointing. And I did ‘strainings of the eyes’ to see what he was pointing at.

Which eventually I did.

Below us, for we were now up on some ruined wall, lay the castle courtyard and within things looked somewhat busy. A great fire had been lit, in the best traditions of Lewes, and about this, dancing with
a vigour and a vim, were the ladies of the Chiswick Townswomen’s Guild. And …

‘By Crimbo,’ I whispered. ‘They have all got their clothes off.’

‘Sky-clad,’ whispered Mr Rune. ‘When one dances for the devil, one does so in one’s bare skuddies.’

‘Even though I am half-gone with altitude sickness,’ I said, ‘I am still capable of enjoying the sight of a bunch of women dancing around in their bare skuddies. Thanks very much for bringing me here. It is a shame that I do not have a camera.’

‘Would that be one of those flippant remarks that you make in the hope of lightening the situation when you’re fearing for your life?’ asked Mr Rune.

‘It would,’ said I. ‘Can we go now?’

‘I think we will stay a little longer. It is imperative that I discover what these evil harpies are up to upon this night.’

‘I suspect that you probably have a good idea already. Why do I not just slip back to the Hotel California and get us in a round of drinks? Which, you will agree, will be no easy matter and might take quite some time.’

‘Hush,’ said Mr Rune. ‘I believe that matters are now about to take a certain turn.’

‘Would that be a turn for the worse?’ I asked.

Hugo Rune nodded. ‘I fear that it would.’

I continued with my looking on. Actually, I had not ceased with it, what with there being naked women down there dancing around their handbags by a big bonfire. And me being a teenage male with no immediate shortage of testosterone.

The naked dancers ceased their dance and formed a joined-hands circle around the fire. Above them on a grassy knoll stood a single bare-naked lady. And I do have to say that she was far better looking than the rest. She was not all pinch-faced and skinny withal, she was simply gorgeous, all curves and beauty and long golden hair. And …

‘It is Kelly,’ I whispered. Although somewhat harshly. ‘It is Kelly Anna Sirjan. Mister Rune, it is her.’

‘Suggestive,’ said the Lad Himself. Which I found somewhat annoying.

‘All hail!’ cried the voice of Kelly Anna Sirjan. ‘All hail unto him.’

‘All hail!’ cried the pinch-faced bare-naked ladies. ‘All hail unto him.’

‘Tonight,’ cried Kelly, ‘we offer up our sacrifice, the token of our allegiance.’ At this, a couple of bare-skudded ladies that I had not previously noticed, because they must have been skulking about beyond the light of the bonfire, stepped forward, holding aloft the Michelin Man effigy of Mr Rune. ‘We ask that He who knows all – the past, the present and the future – will accept our sacrifice and grant to us knowledge, show unto us the location of that which we seek. That which will serve His cause. That which will give Him all-encompassing power upon this Earth.’

‘Is she talking about what I
think
she is talking about?’ I whispered to Mr Rune.

‘If you think she is talking about the location of the Chronovision, then you are correct,’ the Logos of the Aeon replied.

‘God, she looks great with her clothes off,’ I said.

‘God
does not come into this,’ whispered Mr Rune.

‘I call upon His councillor to offer up this sacrifice,’ cried Kelly. ‘All prostrate yourselves before His councillor.’

‘His councillor?’ I asked.

‘Keep watching,’ said Mr Rune.

And I did so, and he appeared. Out of a puff of smoke. He was tall and gaunt and all in black, with an evil-looking black eye-patch as well.

‘Count Otto Black,’ I whispered, for it was he. ‘I was not expecting to see him again so soon.’

‘I told you,’ said Mr Rune. ‘We near the end of our quest.’

‘Why the eye-patch?’ I wondered.

‘I think because of the blow you dealt him with that wooden leg.’

‘Women of the Guild,’ shouted Count Otto Black, ‘thou of the Craft, I salute you.’ And he saluted them. ‘Tonight we will offer up the sacrifice to our Master and He will reward us. We will exact our revenge upon the hated one …’

‘That would be
you,
I suppose,’ I said to Mr Rune.