Necrophenia by Robert Rankin Page B

does.’
    ‘Then we’ll store it in there.’
    ‘We certainly won’t.’
    ‘Oh, come on,’ I said to Toby. ‘I know that your daddy does not have a car.’
    ‘No one ever keeps a car in a lock-up garage,’ said Toby, and he rolled his eyes. ‘You say the silliest things sometimes.’
    ‘And I do them, too,’ I said. ‘But it’s part of my charm, don’t you think?’
    But Toby shook his head, which led me to believe that he wasn’t always as wise as he thought himself to be.
    ‘I’m wiser than you,’ Toby said. Thoughtfully.
    ‘Well, if there’s no car in the garage, why can’t we store all his equipment in there?’
    And Toby rolled his eyes again. ‘Because,’ he explained, ‘no one keeps a car in a lock-up garage – a lock-up garage is only used for storing stolen goods.’
    Mr Ishmael nodded. ‘It’s true,’ he agreed. ‘It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something.’
    I had a think about this. And I was inclined to think that this equipment probably now constituted stolen goods. And it would be a good idea to get it both out of the coming rain and out of the way of the postman, who must surely return quite soon with a posse of armed policemen and a lion-tamer.
    ‘My dad’s lock-up,’ said Toby, ‘is packed to the rafters with the lost treasure of the Incas. My dad’s minding it for the Pope.’
    ‘So we can’t use your dad’s lock up?’ I said.
    And Toby shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘And that’s that.’
    ‘Then it will have to be my dad’s allotment shed. We can’t bring it all into my house. My mum would go spare.’
    And so it all went down to my daddy’s allotment shed, a bit at a time, in Mr Ishmael’s limo. With one of us standing guard over the pile while the other unloaded at the other end. I, I recall, did all the unloading. But it proved to be a good idea, as it happened, the right place for it. My daddy rarely visited that shed, which was in fact three sheds knocked together. My father had had the work done because he intended to set up these three sheds as a West London venue. Once the damp had been taken care of, and a green baize carpet laid, my father had opened this venue – The Divine Trinity, as he rather grandly named it – and awaited the arrival of posh people who wanted to hire it out. It never proved particularly popular, though he hosted a couple of World Line Dance Championships there and a Congress of Wandering Bishops, but that was about it.
    My father, being at times philosophical, put this down to competition. Competition that came in the form of The Magnificent Four, a venue also on the allotment constructed of four sheds knocked together and owned by a young gentleman named Doveston, who later bought out all the other allotment holders and turned the allotments into a tobacco plantation. He also put on a rock festival there in nineteen sixty-seven. Brentstock, it was called, and we almost played at that.
    So, The Divine Trinity was currently vacant but for one or two folk singers who were living rough there. Toby and I ousted these and moved in the equipment.
    And it did prove to be a good idea. Once all was inside there was just enough room for The Sumerian Kynges to squeeze in also. And so we could use the place as a rehearsal room.
    Thinking back, as I must do if I am to set the record straight about all that went before and then came to pass, which would lead in turn to what was to come and how things would ultimately turn out, I can say, with hand on heart and one foot in the wardrobe, that I had some of the happiest times of my life rehearsing in The Divine Trinity. I pretty much took up residence at The Divine Trinity.
    We were just starting out then. Young and eager and carefree. Life was ours for the taking.
    And that tick-tock-ticking of history’s clock could not be heard for our laughter.
    Oh yes, we were happy then. Though not so happy after we had played our first gig.
    Let me tell you all about that.
    Because it