Knees Up Mother Earth by Robert Rankin Page B

sure.”
    “Phew.”
    “They’ll probably just knock you about a bit. Break your legs or something.”
    “Stop!” howled Neville.
    Old Pete scratched at his grizzly chin. “Horrible business, broken legs,” he said. “The bones never knit together properly; I’ve been limping since I had my right kneecap blown away at Paschendale. I’ve a spare walking stick I could let you have cheap.”
    Neville buried his face in his hands and began to weep. “What am I going to do?” he blubbered between weepings.
    “Well.” Old Pete glanced towards Jim and John and it was almost as if telepathic thoughts moved between them. “There might be some way of keeping this from the public”
    “There must,” blubbered Neville. “But what could it be?”
    “Well,” said Old Pete thoughtfully, “John, Jim and I might be persuaded to keep our mouths shut.”
    Neville peeped through his fingers. “What did you say?” he asked.
    Old Pete wore a breezy grin upon his wrinkled face. “Neville,” said he, “you are a good man; everybody hereabouts knows that you are a good man. But you are also a foolish man. You don’t really think that any of your fellow councillors will be owning up to their dirty deeds, do you? They’ll be keeping their heads down behind the sandbags. But you, however, told
us
.”
    “But,” said Neville, “but you’re my friends. Surely I can trust my friends.”
    “Indeed you can,” said Jim. “We won’t give you away.”
    Old Pete cast Jim a disparaging glance.
    “Well
I
won’t,” said Jim. “Neville’s all right.
I
won’t give him away.”
    “Nor me,” said Omally.
    “That’s very fair of you both,” said Old Pete, “and I applaud such loyalty. But then the two of you have your youth and your entrepreneurial enterprises. I, however, must drag myself painfully through my twilight years upon the pittance of a pension that the state but grudgingly doles out to me.”
    “Ah,” said Neville. “Another large rum, would it be? On the house.”
    “Why thank you, Neville,” said Old Pete. “That is most unexpected.”
    “And you two?”
    “Well,” said Jim, “as you’re buying.”
    Neville went about his sorry business.
    “It’s such a shame, though,” said Jim, “to lose the football ground.”
    “I’ll bet you’ve never even been to a match,” said Old Pete.
    “No, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t support the team. In spirit, anyway.”
    “Do you fancy their chances this season?” Neville asked as he pulled the pints.
    Jim shook his head. “Why would
you
ask a question like that?” he enquired.
    Neville sighed another sigh. “It was just something,” he said, “something that came up at the meeting.”
    “Go on,” said Omally.
    “It was that swine Gavin Shufty,” said Neville. “He was so full of himself that when I made the suggestion I made, he had everyone write it into their contracts. To mock me.”
    “Go on,” said Omally once again.
    “It’s just this,” said Neville, “and I know it’s absurd, which is why he let it be written into the contracts. He agreed that if Brentford United won the FA Cup this season, then he’d write off the debt and tear up the contracts.”
    “Win the FA Cup?” Old Pete began to laugh. Immoderately.
    “Brentford?” said Omally.
    “
Our
Brentford?” said Jim.
    And then they, too, began to laugh.
    “That’s it,” said Neville, “rub salt into my wounds. Rub my face into the dirt. Rub me down with creosote and sell me on to the circus.”
    “I’m sorry,” said Jim, between guffawings, “but come on, Neville. Brentford United win the FA Cup?”
    “They do have until the end of the season. Shufty agreed that the Consortium would allow the team to play the entire season before the ground was torn down. I had him write that on, too.”
    “You were certainly on a roll.” Omally clutched at his stomach and did rollings about of his own.
    “Stop it,” cried Neville. “It isn’t funny.”
    “No.”