Read Online Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls by Robert Rankin - Free Book Online Page B

diving in to steal my job.”
    “It wasn’t like that. She came up to me. I didn’t know who she was. I think she fancies me and—”
    “Blue moustache tonight.” The big fat fellow pointed to his face. “Always a blue moustache on Tuesdays.”
    “What is he going on about?”
    “She was wearing a blue moustache.”
    “A woman with a moustache?”
    “Blue one,” Jim shouted. “A Clark Gable, I think.”
    The big fat fellow shook his big fat head. “A Ramon Navarro.”
    “Did he wear a moustache?”
    “On Tuesdays he did. A blue one.”
    “You’re mad!” shouted John. “The pair of you. Stone bonkers.”
    “I think I’ll just slip down to the Cellar.” Jim made down-a-ways pointings. “I’d like to get up close to the stage.”
    “I’ll come with you,” Geraldo squeaked as loudly as he could. “I don’t want to miss the incident.”
    “What incident?” Jim asked.
    “The famous incident, of course. That’s what we’ve come to see.”
    And on
that
mysterious note, the fat fellow did his bit of melting into the crowd.
    “Oi, wait for me,” cried Jim, attempting to melt but failing dismally. “How do they do that?” he asked John.
    “It’s all in the elbows. Here, I’ll show you.”
    “Wait for me, then, oh damn.”
     
    Jim did not get up close to the stage, although, given the dimensions of the Cellar, nowhere was particularly far from the stage. But Jim was about as far away as it was possible to be. He was last man in, which also meant he would be first man out and first man to the bar come the intermission, but that afforded little or indeed any pleasure at all to the aspiring fanboy. He squeezed himself against the wall and held his nose against the pong of unwashed armpits.
    He bobbed up and down for a bit, hoping for a glimpse of Omally, but gave that up when a chap in front threatened to punch his lights out.
    “I hate it here,” said Jim to himself. “I hate it, hate it, hate it.”
    And then all the lights went out and then the voice of Sandy one-twoed through the mic and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, they’re here, your own, your very own, Gandhi’s Hairdryer.”
    And there was a scream of feedback, a great dark howl from the crowd, the lights burst on and the band burst into action.
    Jim could manage a bit of a “Whoa” as the sight and the sound hit him bang in the face.
    On stage stood Litany, surely taller, surely even lovelier, and flanked by fellows in black. She wore white and they wore black and they had great big hair. And they had really fab guitars and they did all the right movements and the drummer at the back beat seven bells of shit out of the old skins and the speakers pumped out mighty decibels and the music and the song and the heat and the smell.
    And Jim came all over funny.
    He could see them moving up there on the tiny stage and he could feel the rhythm as the big bass notes jumbled up his stomach and rumbled in his skull, but he seemed to hear and taste and sense and smell much more.
    And it was all so much and all at once. It didn’t build up slowly. It didn’t rise to a crescendo. It was just right there. Instantly. In your face. In your bowels. In, right in.
    At once.
    All together.
    Altogether.
    Jim shook his head and pinched at his nose and sucked in very small breaths. Whatever this was, and it certainly was something, it was all too much for him. He tried to ease himself away from the wall but found to his horror that he couldn’t. The seat of his trousers appeared to be welded to the brickwork. His feet were glued to the floor.
    And it couldn’t have been thirty seconds into the first number before the lead guitarist went into a solo. And yes, it was the most blinding guitar solo Jim had ever heard in all of his life and somehow Litany sang with it. Not words but sounds, musical notes, utterly pure, utterly precise. Rising and rising until the band cut short and there was nothing, nothing but the sound of her voice, a note, a single