The Da-Da-De-Da-Da Code

by Robert Rankin

Genres: Fantasy; Contemporary Fantasy; Humorous Fantasy

Synopsis

Jonny Hooker has been picked as a WINNER! and all he has to do to claim his prize is to solve the Da-da-de-da-da Code. Jonny knows that beat; it always turns up in popular music - like 'Waltzing Matilda', or the National Anthem. And it has something to do with the Devil's Chord. And with Robert Johnson (who sold his soul to the Devil), whose blues influenced a generation of musicians. And it definitely has something to do with Elvis, who is still alive and rocking (of course). And with the Secret Parliament of Five, who meet in Gunnersbury Park to dictate world affairs. And when he solves the Da-da-de-da-da Code, Jonny will also discover why all the most famous rock musicians die aged twenty-seven, the truth about raising an ancient god, and the destruction of the world. It's all right there in the music. All Jonny has to do is to crack that code. Before he dies on Monday.

Release date: June 2, 2011

Publisher: Gollancz

Print pages: 326

Sample

A headless corpse was floating on the ornamental pond.

It troubled the view and it troubled the ducks and it troubled the two park rangers.

The rangers stood, uncomfortably, upon the north shore, before the Doric temple. The elder of the two was smoking a cigarette;
the younger was trying very hard to keep his breakfast down.


‘Now, that,’ said the elder of the two, puffing smoke and speaking through it, ‘is the thin end of the wedge. Bikes and baby buggies,
crates and shopping trolleys – I don’t know how they sneak the stuff in through the park gates. Nor why they feel the need
to chuck it in the pond when they do. But that,’ and he pointed with his cigarette, ‘is too much. Much too much, that is. And,’ he continued, ‘it’s wearing a park ranger’s
uniform.’


The younger of the two men, who had lately returned from Tierra del Fuego for reasons known only to himself, was sick into
a mulberry bush. Which is more difficult than it might at first appear, because it is generally understood that mulberries
grow upon trees.


‘Yes, you get it up, lad,’ said his companion. ‘Better out than in, that is. Egg and bacon and beans. At least your mother loves you.’


From the middle to the near distance came the sounds of police-car sirens.

‘At long last,’ said the ranger who still retained his breakfast, stubbing out his cigarette.

The route that must be taken by vehicles from any of Gunnersbury Park’s gates to the shores of the pond is a complicated one,
and it was quite some time before a single police car appeared at the crime scene.


Siren shriek and blue light flash and car doors opening up.

And policemen, numbering two, looking somewhat tired and harassed.

These officers of the law approached the rangers; one had on a helmet, the other a cap.

‘Kenneth Connor?’ asked the wearer of the cap.

‘Ranger Connor,’ said the elder of the two rangers. ‘Not to be confused with the other Kenneth Connor.’ And he put out his hand for
a shake.


‘Other Kenneth Connor?’ The wearer of the cap declined the offer of the hand.

‘Star of the Carry On—’


‘So where’s this body, then?’ asked the officer who wore the helmet. Wore the helmet and carried a truncheon, too.

Kenneth Connor, not to be confused with the other Kenneth Connor, viewed this truncheon with suspicion. ‘It’s a dead body,’ he said. ‘It won’t need truncheoning down.’


‘One can never be too careful,’ said the bearer of the truncheon. ‘The dead don’t always stay dead. Sometimes they turn into
vampires, or zombies, or booger men.’


‘Put it away, you oaf,’ his capped superior told him.

‘Booger men?’ said Ranger Connor.

The constable sheathed his truncheon in the manner known as huffy.*

‘Inspector Westlake,’ this superior continued, addressing his words towards Ranger Connor. ‘Here on secondment from the Bramfield
Constabulary, having travelled far. This enthusiastic officer is Constable Justice.’


‘Justice by name and—’

‘Shut up, you oaf.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And your man here?’ said Westlake, indicating the younger ranger, who had now finished his business with the mulberry bush
and was making sheepish faces towards all concerned.


‘Ranger Charles Hawtrey,’ said Ranger Connor. ‘Not to be confused with—’

‘The Lone Ranger?’ Constable Justice sniggered.

‘Never,’ said his superior, with a voice of stern authority, ‘never ever snigger in my presence again.’


‘No, sir!’

‘So where is the body?’ Westlake asked.


‘I asked that,’ said Constable Justice, ‘and got no response. Should we run these villains in for concealing evidence, Guv?’


Inspector Westlake cuffed the constable lightly around the head. ‘Return to the motor,’ he told him, ‘get the other cars on
the blower and aid them in reaching our present location.’


‘But Guv, the body—’

‘Car,’ said Westlake. ‘Now!’ said Westlake. ‘Do it!’ said Westlake, too.

Grumble-grumble-grumble went the chastened constable. And grumbling so he slouched off to the car, muttering the words ‘booger
men’ underneath his breath.


‘Children,’ said Inspector Westlake, shaking his head in sadness. ‘They are sending us children nowadays.’

Ranger Hawtrey made a face. ‘Surely that is illegal,’ he said.

Inspector Westlake yawned and stretched. ‘And so,’ he said, ‘perhaps not the best way to begin a bright spring day, but where
is the body?’


‘Floating there.’ Ranger Connor lit another cigarette and pointed with it. ‘Headless and horrible and messing up the pond.’

Inspector Westlake peered. ‘Indeed so,’ he said, cocking his head from side to side. ‘You’ve a body there and no mistake.’

‘Your lads will have it out before the park opens, won’t they?’

Inspector Westlake shook his head. ‘The park won’t be opening today,’ said he.

‘But it must,’ said Ranger Connor. ‘Even Hitler’s Luftwaffe couldn’t close the park. The park closes on Christmas Days only.’

‘It was closed yesterday, as you know full well,’ said Inspector Westlake. ‘And it will be closed today also, and that is
that. The pond will have to be dragged in search of the head, and the entire park searched also, inch by inch, by trained
specialists in the field.’


‘Them at the Big House won’t like this,’ said Ranger Connor.

‘Them at the Big House will have to lump it, then.’ Inspector Westlake patted at his pockets. As was ever the way with police
inspectors, he was in the process of giving up smoking. ‘You couldn’t spare a fag, I suppose,’ he asked.


‘No,’ said Ranger Connor, ‘I could not.’

The headless body bobbed in the pond. An inquisitive duck peeped in at its neck hole.

At length three further police cars appeared and a white van with the words ‘Scientific Support’ emblazoned in red upon its
colourless sides. From this issued a number of men, clad in environmental suits.


‘Spacemen,’ said Ranger Hawtrey, who was standing with his back to the pond.

‘Scene of Crime Investigators. Specialists in their field,’ said the inspector. ‘Forget about Horatio Caine and all that CSI Miami toot. You don’t solve crimes by having ginger hair and standing about in a brown suit with your hands on your hips. Or putting
on sunglasses and then taking them off again.’


‘Or speaking very slowly,’ said Ranger Connor, who was a secret fan of CSI Miami.


‘Quite so. Scotland Yard has the very crème de la crème of Scene of Crime Forensic Investigators in the known world.’

‘What are they doing?’ asked Ranger Hawtrey. ‘What is that they’re pulling out of their van?’

‘I’ll have to ask you to move along now,’ said Inspector Westlake. ‘The public are not permitted to watch … at work.’

‘…?’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘What is …?’

‘It’s the name of the unit. They are so elite that even their acronym is top secret.’

‘It’s a barbecue,’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘They’ve got a barbecue out of their van. They’re not Crime Scene Investigators, they’re
a catering unit.’


‘Move along now, sir,’ said Inspector Westlake, ‘or I shall be forced to let my officer employ his truncheon.’

‘They’re getting out a garden umbrella and folding chairs now.’

‘Move along please, sir.’

‘And a crate of beer,’ said Ranger Connor. ‘And alcoholic beverages may not be consumed within the park’s environs without
express permission from the management.’


‘You too, sir,’ said Inspector Westlake. ‘Job for the professionals now, this. Thank you for your cooperation. Please go about your business.’


‘But this is my business.’ Ranger Connor stood his ground. His uniform was every bit as impressive as that worn by Inspector Westlake. His even had medal ribbons sewn into it. And his shoes were more highly polished. And this was his territory. He’d worked in this park for twenty-seven years. He wasn’t going to be bullied by some bumpkin bobby. Bramfield
was a village in Sussex – he’d once passed through it by mistake while on his way to the Bluebell Line (Ranger Connor had
a thing about steam trains). And he’d had a very trying week, one way and another. And there was the matter of the landmines that had been sown on the pitch-and-putt, but he wasn’t going to go into that at the moment.


‘I’m not leaving,’ said Ranger Connor. ‘It would be irresponsible of me to do so. I know every inch of this park and it’s
my job to see that not an inch is abused. I’m not having your mob trampling my flower beds.’


‘You tell him, Ken,’ said Ranger Hawtrey.

‘I will,’ said Ranger Connor, who hated being called Ken. ‘And furthermore—’

‘Constable,’ called Inspector Westlake to Constable Justice, who was sitting on the bonnet of their police car, smoking a
cigarette. ‘Come over here and arrest this gentleman, will you?’


‘Arrest?’ said Ranger Connor. ‘Arrest me? On what charge?’


‘For being a ruddy nuisance. There’s a dead man in that pond and I don’t have time to bandy words with you.’

‘Who wants hitting?’ asked Constable Justice, hurrying up and unsheathing his truncheon.

‘The big one,’ said the inspector. ‘If he still refuses to move.’

‘I do,’ said Ranger Connor. ‘And I am obliged to warn you, before any attempts are made to hit me in any fashion, that I am an
exponent of Dimac, the deadliest martial art in the world. That my hands and feet are deadly weapons and that I am master
of Poison Hand, a cruel, disfiguring and mutilating technique, which—’


‘Threatening an officer of the law,’ said Inspector Westlake. ‘That’s as good as smiting. Strike this malfeasant down, Constable.’

Constable Justice hesitated. ‘Dimac?’ he said in a doubtful, wary tone.

‘Dimac,’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘Schooled in Chicago by Count Danté himself. Deadliest man on Earth, Count Danté. I’ve seen
Ranger Connor’s certificate – he has it up on the wall in the rangers’ hut.’


‘You have your own special hut, then?’ asked Constable Justice. ‘How interesting.’

‘Constable!’ roared Inspector Westlake. ‘Take these two men into custody now. I’m charging them with impeding the course of justice.’


‘I’m sure they’ll move along if you ask them nicely, Guv,’ said Constable Justice.

‘Ask them nicely? I’m a police inspector. I don’t have to ask anyone nicely.’


‘Excuse me, sir,’ said a member of the Scientific Support unit, ambling up in his environmental suit (sans helmet). ‘Is there
a socket somewhere that we can run an extension cable to? We need to plug in the candyfloss machine.’


‘Not now!’ bawled Inspector Westlake, growing most red in the face. ‘Constable, arrest these men at once.’

Constable Justice raised his truncheon and dithered with it raised.

‘I really wouldn’t,’ said Ranger Hawtrey. ‘It’s not worth the months of hospitalisation. And learning to walk again can be
a very painful business.’


‘Right.’ Inspector Westlake snatched the truncheon from the constable’s hand, raised it swiftly over his own head …

And …

Accidentally struck the wearer of the environmental suit a really cracking blow to his helmetless head.

Which was witnessed by the environmental suit wearer’s similarly clad fellow workers, who were struggling to erect what looked
for all the world to be a tombola stall.


Constable Justice sniggered once again.

Inspector Westlake hit him with the truncheon. ‘I warned you not to snigger,’ he said.

And then the inspector swung at Ranger Connor, and things took a serious turn for the worse.

One Week Earlier

Most, if not all, of Mankind’s problems stem from Man’s natural inability to accurately predict future events. Think about
it, do, just for a moment. Imagine how things might be if we were gifted with the ability to accurately foretell future events.
And know, in advance, what would be the result of any particular course of action we were thinking to take. How simple things
would be, then. We would never make any mistakes and there would be love and laughter all around and nation would speak peace
unto nation and there would be no crime and we’d all live happily ever after.


Although …

What is certain is that a lot of thought would go into each particular action. So much so, in fact, that society would probably grind
to a halt.


Discuss.

It is absolutely certain, however, that in the case of Jonny Hooker, had he been granted the gift of precognition, he would
not have taken the course of actions that he did, a course that would lead inevitably to him floating headless and lifeless
in the ornamental pond at Gunnersbury Park, a short seven days into the future.


Jonny was not aware that this was what Fate had in store for him, and even if he had been, it is doubtful whether he would
have cared.


For Jonny wasn’t a happy man. Very far from it, in fact. Jonny was a tormented soul, tormented in so many ways.

We learn quite early on as children that life isn’t fair. That the world is composed of the haves and the have-nots and that
the have-nots greatly outnumber the haves.


But we are also taught that if we work hard and do our best, we will receive our fair share and be right up there with the haves. And most of us learn sooner or later that, sadly, this is
a lie.


Jonny had been taught many things, but had learned very few. He had learned that he was a have-not and that life wasn’t fair, so he had at least grasped the essentials of life. Above and beyond
these, he had been granted a basic knowledge of the English language, a natural ear for music and an extraordinary talent
as a guitarist (a talent that in keeping with the unfairness of life, would sadly go unrecognised until after his tragic early
death). Jonny had acquired a few friends and, to his mind, too many enemies.


So Jonny wasn’t a happy man.

And today being the day that it was, there was a farmers’ market.

Thirteen stalls, local produce, numerous varieties of cheese, free-range eggs, home-made yoghurts, beeswax candles, quiches
and flans, and pies made from prime porker pigs.


And as ever the market was being held upstairs, in the loft above Jonny’s bedroom.

Jonny lay upon his old rotten cot, his hands clamped over his earholes, his teeth gritted, his eyes tightly closed. He lay
in what is known as the foetal position.


The sounds of chatting farmer lads filtered down to him through the ceiling’s yellowed plaster. Bucolic ribaldry, hail-fellow-well-mets,
palms all spat upon and smacked together to signify fair transactions. A goat went bleat. The porker pies were silent.


Jonny shifted his position and took up a kind of ‘praying in the direction of Mecca’ sort of posture. Removed his hands from
his earholes, drummed them on his pillow.


Raised his head and shouted, ‘Do shut up!’

Arose from his bed and stamped his feet and shouted, ‘Go away!’

Chitchat went the farming lads. A lady in a straw hat bought some cheese.

Jonny yelled abuse at the ceiling, stalked to his bedroom door (a short stalk, as the room was not over-large), threw open
his bedroom door, stalked onto the landing, snatched up the rod with the hook on the end that opened the loft hatch, opened
the loft hatch with it, ducked aside as the loft ladder crashed down (as it always did), took a deep breath and shimmied up
the ladder.


Jonny stuck his head up through the loft hatch and shouted at …

Nothing.

There were no farmers in his loft, no stalls, no lady in a straw hat, no pies made from porker pigs. There were dusty boxes,
a bicycle frame, some kind of telescopic clothes-drying jobbie, some unlaid rolls of loft insulation.


Jonny took another deep breath, coughed from the dust, slunk back down the ladder and returned to his bedroom and his bed.

Of course there was no farmers’ market up in his loft. Of course there had never been a farmers’ market up in his loft. Would never be a farmers’ market up in his loft. He was having one of his ‘episodes’ again because, as his mother told her chums
at the bingo, Jonny, her one and only son, was not very well in the head.


‘No farmers’ market,’ said Jonny Hooker. ‘Never was, isn’t now, never will be!’

‘Somewhere over the rainbow,’ said Mr Giggles the Monkey Boy, ‘bluebells fly. Or so I have been unreliably informed.’

‘And there is no Mister Giggles the Monkey Boy,’ said Jonny, striking at his left temple with his left fist and covering his eyes with his
right one.


‘No need to go all One Flew Over the Cuckold’s Nest on me,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘It’s not my fault that you’re not very well in the head.’


‘You do not exist,’ said Jonny. ‘You are a fragment of my mash-up mind.’


‘And me your dearest friend. Perhaps you mean a “figment”.’ Mr Giggles reached out a hairy hand and patted Jonny’s head with
it.


‘And please do not do that.’ Jonny sat upon his bed wearing a very glum face.


‘Let’s go to the swimming baths,’ said Mr Giggles, ‘peep in the ladies’ changing rooms and spy their furry bottoms.’

‘I can’t swim,’ said Jonny. ‘And I’m not talking to you because you don’t exist. You are the product of my imagination. You
are an imaginary friend.’


‘You know I don’t like that term,’ said Mr Giggles, a-twiddling his furry thumbs. ‘You know that I prefer to be known as an
NCC – a non-corporeal companion.’


‘Whatever,’ said Jonny. ‘But you still don’t exist.’

‘If I don’t exist,’ said Mr Giggles, ‘how come I can do this?’

Jonny ignored Mr Giggles.

‘And this, too.’

Jonny ignored Mr Giggles again.

‘And what about this?’

Jonny was prepared to ignore Mr Giggles once more but was distracted from so doing by the sounds of his mother beyond his
bedroom door, tripping over the loft ladder and falling into the bathroom.


‘Well,’ said Jonny to Mr Giggles, ‘if you’re so real, you can prove it by taking the blame for that.’

Jonny looked up at Mr Giggles, but Mr Giggles had gone.

Jonny Hooker grumbled and mumbled and buried his face in his hands. He was truly sick of Mr Giggles. Mr Giggles had been Jonny’s
imaginary childhood friend. Jonny had been something of a loner as a child. The other children hadn’t taken to him because
he was a bit odd and not very well in the head. So Jonny had been grateful when Mr Giggles turned up in his bedroom one night.
Mr Giggles said that he had run away from the circus. Mr Giggles wore a fez and a brightly coloured waistcoat. He had a suitcase full of treasure and he knew one hundred
songs. Jonny got on very well with Mr Giggles.


The only problem was that when Jonny reached puberty, a time when imaginary friends say farewell and vanish away for ever
to make way for actual friends, generally of the opposite sex, Mr Giggles had refused to depart. He liked Jonny far too much,
he told Jonny, and as Jonny didn’t appear to be making many other friends, he’d stay around for a little longer to keep him
company.


And Jonny was now twenty-seven and Mr Giggles still hadn’t gone away. And the problem for Jonny was that Mr Giggles was just
so real.


But then so was the farmers’ market. Although Jonny could only hear the farmers’ market. He couldn’t actually see the farmers. He could only see Mr Giggles.


In the past, when a lad, Jonny could see and hear all manner of things that others could not: noisy ghosts and bad witches,
fairies and spacemen and dragons and pirates and all.


He could no longer see these things, but some of them he could still hear. And those he could hear tormented him.

He’d been through all the usual diagnostics. He’d been prescribed, and had taken, all the usual antidepressants and uppers
and downers and so forth.


Chlorpromazine, clozapine, haloperidol and risperidone. Pimozide, which had worked a treat on his Tourette syndrome.

Then there were all the old favourites: methylphenidate (Ritalin), lithium (priadel), anticonvulsant drugs, carbamazepine
(Tegretol), valproate semi-sodium (Depakote), gabapentin (Neurontin) and lamotrigine (Lamictal), antidepressants (such as
bupropion (Wellbutrin) or sertraline (Zoloft)), neuroleptics e.g. haloperidol (Haldol) and benzodiazepines e.g. lorazepam
(Ativan).


And aspirin, for when he had a headache.

And Jonny had learned, through bitter experience, what to say during counselling sessions in order to remain ‘at liberty’.

Jonny sighed and ground his teeth and listened to the sounds of his mother floundering around on the bathroom floor. She had
clearly fallen belly-up, and, tortoise-like, was quite incapable of righting herself.


‘Jonny,’ wailed his mother.

And Jonny went to help.

Having reconfigured his mother into the vertical plane, Jonny dusted her down, straightened the hem of her Paisley housecoat,
which had ridden up above her surgical stockings, and sought her upper set of false teeth, which had gone adrift in the tumbling.
He located these behind the toilet, took them to the sink, rinsed them under the tap and returned them to his mother. The
old one slotted the artificial railings over her sunken gums, thanked her son and asked, in as polite a manner as she considered
it merited, whether it had indeed, as she suspected, been his intention to have her murdered to death by leaving the loft
ladder in the down position when he was well aware that she could not see it due to a sight defect she had acquired (whilst
riding to hounds with the Berkshire Hunt) that had severed the optical nerve that allowed people to see ladders.


‘It wasn’t me,’ Jonny suggested.

‘Was it Mister Giggles?’ his mother enquired.

‘It was me,’ said Jonny. ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’


‘You’re a good boy, Jonny,’ said his mother. ‘Even if you do try to kill me dead upon every occasion that arises. I came up
here to bring you a cup of tea and a letter that has your name upon it. The tea went down the toilet; the letter, I think,
went out of the window.’


Jonny glanced into the toilet. There, half-submerged, was his favourite mug. The one with ‘THE WORLD’S GREATEST SON’ printed
upon it.


‘Out of the window?’ said Jonny, glancing now in that direction.

‘Flew like a bird from my hand.’

Jonny lowered the toilet lid and then lowered his mother onto it. ‘I’ll pop down to the garden and see if I can find the letter,’
he told her.


And that is what he did.

Jonny did not exactly bounce down the stairs. Although there was a very slight spring in his step. A letter addressed to him? This was something new, something different. Perhaps his luck was about to change. Perhaps some half-forgotten uncle had
died and left him a fortune or something.


Jonny reached the foot of the stairs and paused.

What was he thinking? Optimistic thoughts?


What had put these into his head?

Why would he be thinking that something good was about to occur? How weird was that?


But Jonny did feel optimistic. Suddenly optimistic. He didn’t know why and he didn’t know how, but he did.


It was a very strange feeling.

Almost as if there was something fateful about this letter.

Something life-changing.

In the back garden Jonny found the letter.

It was floating on the ornamental pond.

As Jonny fished the letter from the ornamental pond, he noticed something very strange about the garden.

It was very, very quiet.

It had never been a noisy garden, but there was always some noise to it, some ambient sounds, as it were.


Traffic rumblings, a neighbour’s radio.

Birds a-twitter, washing swinging to and fro.

Scurrying of beetles.

Bells in distant steeples.*

And pretty maids all in a row. Ho ho.

But not today. Not at this particular moment.

Jonny paused in the shakings of wet from his letter. There was absolutely no sound. It was as if all sound, the very sound of the world itself, had been suddenly switched off. The power plug pulled
from the socket, as it were. A great and terrible silence.


Jonny rooted a finger into his ear. It was a horrible silence. Jonny did not like this silence one bit. Jonny shook his head
about.


‘It’s quiet, ain’t it?’ said Mr Giggles. ‘Is that letter for me?’

‘It’s not for you, it’s—’ And ‘ouch’ went Jonny as all the sounds in the world came rushing back.

‘What was that? What was that?’


‘That, my friend, was a pregnant pause,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘Something significant is about to occur.’

‘In this garden?’

Mr Giggles shook his furry head. ‘I very much doubt that,’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine a dullard like yourself ever doing anything
significant, can you?’


Jonny ignored Mr Giggles once more and addressed himself to the address upon the envelope that he now held in his hand. It
was his address. And above it was his name – Jonathan Hooker, Esq.


‘Open it up, then,’ said Mr Giggles.

‘I’m ignoring you,’ said Jonny. ‘I’m not talking to you.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Mr Giggles, tilting his fez to the angle known and loved as ‘rakish’. ‘So open up the envelope and let’s
have a look at the letter.’


‘Whatever it is, it is none of your business.’

‘Well, obviously not, as I clearly do not exist.’

Jonathan Hooker opened the envelope. As the envelope was soggy, he made quite a mess of this and managed to tear the letter
within and generally spoil things. Generally. With difficulty he withdrew, unfolded and read the letter.


Dear Mr Hooker (he read)


Your name has been selected by

our Competition Supercomputer to be a

WINNER WINNER WINNER

If you wish to claim your prize,

Please present yourself to—

‘Blah blah blah blah,’ went Jonny.

‘Present yourself to where?’ said Mr Giggles.


‘Blah blah blah blah,’ said Jonny. ‘That’s what it says here. If I was going to tell you, which I’m not.’


‘Naturally,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘Give us a butcher’s at the letter.’

Jonny gave Mr Giggles a butcher’s.

Mr Giggles read from the letter. ‘It’s not “blah blah blah blah,”,’ he said, ‘it’s “da-da-de-da-da!”’

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’


‘It means what it is,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘It’s musical. You’re a musician – you know what it means.’

‘As in the way that most tunes go “da-da-de-da-da”?’

‘Exactly. Like “Walltzing Matilda” – the tune of each verse goes “Da-da-de-da-da. Da-da-de-da-da. Who’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda
with me?”’


‘So what does this letter mean?’

‘Why are you asking me? I don’t exist, remember?’

Jonny checked his wristlet watch. He had forgotten to wind it the night before, and it had stopped.

‘What time is it?’ he asked Mr Giggles.

The Monkey Boy consulted a rather decorative chronometer that he drew from the pocket of his colourful waistcoat. ‘Ten-thirty
of the morning clock,’ said he. ‘Sun over the yardarm, time for a pint of wallop.’


‘Ten-thirty,’ said Jonny. ‘Fair enough, I give up.’

‘You always do. I don’t know why you go to all the trouble. Every day you try to persuade yourself – and also myself – that I do not exist.’


‘And every day I give up at ten-thirty,’ said Jonny.

‘It’s best to.’ Mr Giggles smiled upon Jonny. ‘Why don’t we go down to the pub and try to fathom the meaning of your most
peculiar missive?’


‘Will you be getting the first round in?’


Mr Giggles raised a hirsute brow upon his hirsute forehead. ‘You say that every single day,’ said he. ‘Which curiously I find
strangely comforting.’


Mr Giggles followed Jonny through the garden gate.

Upstairs, in the bathroom, Jonny’s mother, who had slipped from the toilet lid, floundered once more upon her back making
sounds that oddly resembled those of a seagull.


The pub was called The Middle Man. It stood in Pope’s Lane, one hundred yards before the northern entrance to Gunnersbury
Park. It had been standing there for more than one hundred years and no one so far had told it to move.


Within the pub and standing. . .