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  ‘I didn’t know that Brentford had a cinema.’

  ‘It doesn’t, it never caught on.’

  ‘Hang about,’ said Periwig. ‘What about the flat blocks?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Big Bob.

  ‘And the Arts Centre?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Big Bob once again.

  ‘I find these “ahs” of yours perturbing,’ said Periwig Tombs. ‘You have not done quite as much research as you should have on these matters.’

  Big Bob said, ‘Hm,’ he was down a bit there, but far from out. ‘All right,’ said he, ‘I agree. I grew up with the flat blocks and the Arts Centre. But nothing new has been built here in the last thirty years. Listen Periwig, I love this town and you love this town. We’ve lived here all our lives so far. Do you remember the times we had together at school? Joy, joy happy joyful times. Apart from the occasional sad time.’ Big Bob sighed his final sigh of the day.

  Whenever he thought of his schooldays and the joy joy happy joy times that he’d had, he thought of Ann Green. She used to be in his class at the junior school. She hadn’t been the first love of his life, or anything. She had just been another little girl. But, at the age of ten she had died, in an accident in the playground of the memorial park. Big Bob, little Bob then, had seen it happen. She had been pushing a friend on one of those long metal swingboats, of the type that happily you don’t see in playgrounds any more. Someone had called out to her and she had turned her head. The swingboat swung back and hit her in the throat. And suddenly, the little girl, so full of life a moment before, was dead.

  ‘I don’t wish to hurry you along,’ said Periwig. ‘But we must take the bus out in ten minutes for its one and only tour of the day. If you do have anything to say, then I suggest you say it now.’

  ‘Only this.’ Big Bob gathered his thoughts and shrugged away their sadness. ‘The world beyond the boundaries of Brentford changes daily. Here the changes are imperceptible. Yea then, here fore to and here to fore, we are an historical anomaly. We are, without changing a single thing, a working historical theme park.’

  ‘Suburbia World,’ cried Periwig. ‘That should pull them in by the thousands.’

  ‘Dost thou really think so?’

  ‘No, I dost not. As ideas go, Big Bob, it’s no idea at all. I can see that it might have a certain charm. At least for you, anyway. That nothing would have to be changed or added to the borough. That it would just be a theme park. And if it was cleverly advertised along those lines in the right way, to the right people, that the potential should be there. But it wouldn’t work, people really do need thrills and spills nowadays. Even if they only get them through their Mute Corp terminals in their own front rooms. It was a brave attempt, but it would never work.’

  ‘You really think not?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Periwig.

  Big Bob set free a fourth sigh of the day. ‘Well if you say that it wouldn’t, then I suppose it wouldn’t,’ he said, lifting his mighty frame from the bus-seat deckchair and stretching limbs in the sunlight. ‘We’ve been friends since we were children. I trust you, Periwig. Thou art a good man too. But it seems a pity though, I really thought it was a good idea.’

  Periwig shrugged and struggled to his feet. Looking up at Big Bob, he said, ‘No harm done in mentioning it. But I wouldn’t go mentioning it to anyone else. You wouldn’t want them laughing at you behind your back, now would you?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t. Thankest thou, my friend.’

  ‘No worries,’ said Periwig Tombs. ‘No worries at all.’

  Big Bob donned his official tour-guide jacket.

  Periwig donned his official driver’s jacket.

  Big Bob climbed onto the lower deck of the bus and stood in the special place for the conductor to stand.

  Periwig climbed into the cab and sat in the driving seat.

  Big Bob made a wistful face and thought away his theme-park plans.

  Periwig smiled a broad smile with his little kissy mouth. His brain raced forward, scooping up potential here and potential there. And he could see it all, Suburbia World Plc with Periwig Tombs (OBE of course) sitting in the chairman’s seat of power. This was an idea just waiting to be sold. An idea with untold potential. An idea so simple, yet so grandiose, that he wondered how he hadn’t ever thought of it himself. But it was now an idea firmly planted in his head and he, Periwig Tombs, would see it to fruition. There were millions to be made if this was played out rightly. And he, Periwig Tombs, would have a large share of those millions. After all, it was his idea. He had thought it up.

  Big Bob Charker turned his back, and Periwig Tombs laughed silently behind it.

  2

  The wheels on the bus went round and round.

  Round and round and round.

  The guide on the bus was whistling sadly. The driver of the bus was smiling. The people at the bus stop saw the bus. The people at the bus stop waved.

  Periwig Tombs did changing down of gears, bringing professionally to a halt, applying of the handbrake, switching off the engine and climbing down from the cab.

  Big Bob Charker did saluting, then he stepped down from that special area where the conductor stands.

  Six jolly tourists stood at the bus stop. Well, at least five looked jolly. Four of these were Japanese students, you could tell by the cut of their clothes. The fifth was a lady in a straw hat and she looked jolly too. The sixth was a young man, a pasty-faced youth and he looked far from jolly.

  He was dour. Dour and downcast, glum and gloomy and grim. He glowered at his boots and scuffed them on the pavement. At intervals, of increasing frequency, the lady in the straw hat elbowed him in the ribs and told him to perk up.

  Big Bob smiled upon all and sundry. ‘Greetings all and sundry,’ smiled he.

  The Japanese students grinned and nodded. One said, ‘Hello, goodbye.’

  The lady in the straw hat smiled. The dour youth glowered grimly.

  ‘My name is Big Bob Charker,’ said Big Bob Charker. ‘And I shall be thy tour guide for today.’

  The dour youth mumbled grimly. The lady in the straw hat smote him on the head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Big Bob, addressing the lady, ‘but is there something wrong?’

  ‘It’s him,’ said the lady, elbowing the youth once more. ‘My son, Malkuth. He didn’t want to come, but I made him. It’s a lovely day, I told him, and I’ve already booked the tickets and if you think you’re going to spend today sitting over your Mute Corp PC like you do every other day, forget it, you’re coming on the tour whether you like it or not. That’s what I told him and that’s the way it’s going to be.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Big Bob. ‘Well, good day unto you, Malkuth.’

  ‘Poo!’ said the youth in a grumbly tone, lowering his head a tad lower.

  ‘You’ll enjoy it, I promise thou,’ said Big Bob.

  The youth looked up and offered him a bitter glance. ‘You’ve got pink stuff on your tie,’ he observed.

  The lady in the straw hat smote her son once more. ‘Don’t be so rude to the gentleman,’ she told him.

  ‘It’s quite all right,’ said Big Bob. ‘It was unprofessional of me to come on duty with a stained tie. I apologize.’

  The lady in the straw hat smiled at Big Bob, one of the Japanese students said, ‘Okey dokey.’

  ‘Get on with it,’ whispered Periwig. ‘Introduce me.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Big Bob continued. ‘This is our driver, Mr Periwig Tombs.’

  ‘Morning each,’ said Periwig. ‘Lovely day for it.’

  The youth looked up at Periwig. ‘You have a very large head’, said he. ‘Was that cap made specially?’

  Periwig smiled the smile of a professional. The professional who relies on his tips to make up the balance of his wages.

  ‘My wife,’ said Periwig Tombs, ‘put a gusset in the back. She’s very good with her hands. And a remarkably beautiful woman. Do you have a girlfriend?’

  The lady in the straw hat laughed rather lou
dly. The youth grew gloomier still.

  ‘Righty right,’ said Big Bob. ‘Well, it’s all aboard then. I suggest that you go upstairs onto the open deck to enjoy the views more fully. Mind how you go up the stairs.’ He stuck out his hand to welcome all aboard and the lady in the straw hat shook it. Periwig Tombs stuck out his hand and the lady shook that too. Then Big Bob and Periwig shook the hands of the Japanese students and then finally the hand of the dour-faced youth. The youth seemed disinclined towards handshaking, but Big Bob took his hand and gave it a friendly squeeze. The squeeze that Periwig Tombs applied was somewhat less than friendly. But as Periwig had puny hands the effect was much the same.

  The hand of the dour youth was a cold and clammy, limp, dead thing and both Periwig Tombs and Big Bob Charker found themselves a-wiping their own right hands onto their trousers after the shaking was done.

  When all and sundry were safely up the stairs and seated, Periwig returned to the cab and Big Bob rang the bell.

  The wheels on the bus went round and round and the tour of Brentford began.

  As the Brentford tour bus was a proper tour bus, it boasted a proper public address system. Proper speakers mounted on the decks, above and below and connected to a proper microphone, which hung in the proper area reserved for the conductor. Big Bob took up the proper microphone and did a right and proper one-two, one-two into it, before beginning his proper talk which accompanied the tour proper.

  ‘One-two,’ went Big Bob, then just ‘One,’ due to a momentary distraction. This momentary distraction came in the shapely shape of an attractive young woman who was walking down the High Street just as the bus was moving up it.

  The bus continued on its way and she continued on hers. Big Bob managed the second ‘Two,’ and the tour well and truly began.

  The attractive young woman stopped and turned and watched the bus shrink into the sunny distance. Then she glanced into the window of Mr Beefheart the butcher’s shop and took stock of her reflection. She looked all in all rather wonderful, a joyous sight to behold.

  Her hair was silver-white and cut in the pageboy style. With a fringe that brushed the long dark lashes of her deep green eyes. Beneath the sweetest nose imaginable was a mouth of that order which most men yearn to kiss. The lips, a perfect Cupid’s bow, turned up in a comely smile.

  The attractive young woman wore a short and silver figure-hugger of a dress, which hugged her trim svelte form. She had one of those honed athletic bodies that speak eloquently of long hours served in the gymnasium. A body composed of taut elegant curves, a lively concerto of form. Her bare and slender legs were just long enough and tanned enough to be noticed and rarely carried her anywhere without being so. Upon her feet were silver sandals, laced about the ankles.

  All in all she was something to see and upon a day such as this and in a setting so fine as the High Street of Brentford, it was hardly surprising that this silver lady had turned the head of Big Bob Charker so. Radiance on radiance beneath the smiley sun.

  Now one might have been forgiven for thinking that here was one of those fit young models. One of those fit young models who model their skin, rather than modelling clothes. But within the head of this fair maiden lurked a fearsome intellect, which had crushed the egos of many a man who had harboured thoughts such as this.

  The silver lady’s name was Ellie Anna Lovell and she was twenty-two years of age. She held three degrees and was studying for the fourth. She spoke four languages, including Runese. She was an expert in most fields of computer technology, a 12th Dan Master in the deadly art of Dimac and Europe’s top female steel pan soloist.

  She was a force to be reckoned with.

  And she was here in Brentford on business.

  Ellie ran the manicured fingers of her slender right hand through her silver locks, teased out strands of hair and twisted the ends back and forwards, back and forwards.

  It was a nervous habit that she was trying to break.

  But she was here on business and she was late, and being late didn’t suit her at all. And it didn’t seem to be her fault. The directions she’d been given were wrong.

  Ellie dug into her shoulder bag and brought out several sheets of paper. She examined these and then looked up and down the High Street. She checked the numbers on the shops and then peered up towards the offices above them. Then she shook her silver head and made a puzzled face.

  The shaking of her head was observed by a shadowy figure who peered from a high window in the building opposite.

  The shadowy figure lay all crouched down in hiding. He was a male shadowy figure and his name was Hildemar Shields. He was the editor of the Brentford Mercury and he was hiding from Ellie Anna Lovell.

  Hildemar Shields was sniggering. The sounds weren’t pretty at all.

  Behind Mr Shields stood a young man called Derek. Derek wasn’t sniggering. ‘This is all very childish,’ said Derek. ‘All very childish indeed.’

  Mr Shields turned his head. ‘No it’s not,’ he snarled fiercely. ‘It’s tactics.’

  ‘She’ll find the office. She’s not stupid. Anything but, in fact.’

  ‘I’ve taken down the sign and changed the number on the door. She won’t find us, she’s only a woman. She’ll get all confused and give up.’

  ‘You don’t know much about women, do you? And as to being only a woman, she’s better qualified to do your job than you are.’

  Mr Shields turned his head and made an extremely fierce face. It was a fierce face anyway, very red. Bucolic, the word for it was. It had fierce black eyebrows, that bristled out like the spears of two advancing miniature medieval regiments. The eyes beneath were all red-rimmed and the pupils were purple for certain.

  There was a great deal of fierce face to be had. Some covered by fierce black sideburns. A goodly portion taken up with a fierce and fiery nose. This was a seriously angry face and its owner was seriously angry.

  ‘Lock the damn door,’ said Mr Shields. ‘Just in case she does find the entrance.’

  Derek shook his head and tut-tut-tutted. ‘This is quite absurd,’ he said. ‘Head office has only sent her here for three weeks. Surely you can weather that out.’

  ‘No, no, no.’ Mr Shields dragged himself away from the window, rose to his full and most impressive height and shook his fierce and bristly head in a fierce and bristly fashion. ‘She’ll change things, Derek. She’ll report back to head office that we’re not doing things the way that things should be done. She’ll make us use that stuff.’

  Mr Shields made fierce gestures towards several large boxes that stood in the corner of the office. These boxes bore the distinctive logo of the Mute Corp computer company. These boxes had a rather dog-eared quality to them; they had all sorts of coffee-cup rings and cigarette burns on them. They were clearly boxes that had stood unopened in the editor’s office for a very very long time.

  ‘I think she’ll probably make us change that stuff,’ said Derek. ‘It’s five years out of date now and computer technology speeds right along.’

  ‘I should have thrown it all out,’ declared Mr Shields. ‘Car-booted the lot of it! Perhaps I could drop one on her if she comes in this direction. We could say it was an accident. You could back me up.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Derek and crossing to the window he peered out. ‘She’s a very attractive young woman,’ he said.

  ‘They’re the worst kind,’ said Mr Shields, sinking into his chair. ‘Attractive women with brains. Whatever was God thinking of when he came up with that idea? Women should be obscene and not heard, that’s my view on the matter.’

  ‘So you constantly let it be known.’

  ‘Is she still there?’ asked Mr Shields.

  ‘No, she’s moving off.’

  ‘Thank the Lord Most High for that. So what’s on the calendar for today?’

  ‘Not much,’ Derek shrugged. ‘It’s another bank holiday, as well you know. Another bank holiday that I could have had off.’

  ‘The news never sleeps,�
� said Mr Shields. ‘A story could break any moment.’

  ‘A story hasn’t broken here for nearly a quarter of a century. Not since Brentford got to officially celebrate the millennium two years before the rest of the world. And that was before I was born.’

  ‘Today might be the day then. Something really exciting might happen.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Derek.

  ‘Ah but it might,’ said Mr Shields. ‘Something unexpected. Something really big.’

  Knock, knock, knock came a knocking at the door and then it swung right open.

  Framed in the portal stood Ellie Anna Lovell. ‘Good day Mr Shields,’ she said.

  And it was a good day. Such a very good day. Such a very good and joyous and sunny kind of day. Good day.

  Five tourists on the top deck smiled and chitchatted, the tour guide went through his spiel.

  ‘If thou lookest to the right,’ came the voice of Big Bob through the proper public address system. ‘Thou wilt see the Waterman’s Arts Centre and beyond that in the middle of the River Thames, Griffin Island. Haunt, so legend has it, of the Brentford Griffin. Many claim to have seen the beast. Mostly after the pubs close, of course.’

  Periwig Tombs changed down a gear, but his brain was now in overdrive. Your week in Suburbia World Plc would not be complete without a boat trip to Brentford’s own Fantasy Island, went the thoughts of Periwig Tombs, translating themselves into the World Wide Web page that he was planning to set up to advertise his money-spinning venture. See the creature of myth (you could knock those up out of poly-syntha-fibre-glass) that once inhabited this enchanted realm in the dream world days of the magic distant past. (Brentford’s take on Jurassic Park. That was done and dusted!)

  Oho! went the thoughts of Periwig Tombs. And then Aha! And oh yes! You really could add some wonderful attractions to this historical theme park. It didn’t have to be all conservation and leaving things as they were. That had been the way Big Bob saw it. But he, Periwig Tombs OBE, could do it better than that. Much better. There was all that holographic technology about today. The stuff they used in all those Disney Worlds that dotted the continents. You could employ that. It might be getting away from the original spirit of the thing, but used in the right way…