Cobbles Together

 

Cobbles Together

 

A bar. Somewhere in Doha, Arabia. Fergus Boyle. Laird of some ill-defined Scottish Estate and one of those who, when speaking, gobbed spittle everywhere. Cruel, the overhead spots, set into ceilings above, cast columns of light which caught the showers perfectly if someone sat at just the right angle.

Like Brian Blessed being Prospero. Those at the front of the round were baptized. Frequently.

If someone didn’t, they became invisible but there anyway and tangible, like mist against the skin on a dank Autumn morning in the Highlands and Islands.

Uncomfortable.

There’s a rubbing of fingers on lips. Anxious glances at exposed food within range. Hands that ever so gradually moved plates further off. Untested meals, left over.

Not in the Highlands and Islands but declaiming anyway and doing a reasonable impersonation of aforementioned  Brian Blessed, Fergus’ cannon crack carried across the bar, above the heads of the mostly diminutive Filipina staff and interrupted the conversations of other drinkers in a loutish, unmannerly way.

Sitting at his table was rather like a crumpet being toasted by a hot tempest.

Fergus had a primary audience of two, whilst his secondary listeners bristled with indignation and tried to focus on the US Open. It seemed as though even those on Arthur Ashe were distracted; several unforced errors, shanked forehands and netted drop shots were being called by the umpire, to the fury of the two players.

“That’s a noun phrase,” piped the first in a thin and weedy voice. And scribbled with a thick 2B pencil, in a notebook. One of those with a curly thick wire at the top and thick paper clumps were pages had been ripped out, possibly crumpled and thrown, possibly not. More likely to have removed and placed folded.

Two a penny from John Menzies, back in the 70s.

But this not being the 70s, Fergus continued rattling loose jewelry that sat upon necks of the one or two ladies in the middle distance, jiggled briskly as though by ghosts from that Beatles performance; commanded by the Queen Mother herself at the Palladium.

A second person helped himself to a slice of pizza margarita, dunking the triangle into a small, white china finger bowl half full of a potent brown chili sauce. There were crumbs around the side, because this was not the first time limp bread had been burnt.

He chewed rapidly.

“But surely…no, wait a minute…can I just answer your question…I don’t think…”

Fergus continued, unabashed. “Let’s consider a cobbled street,” he roared, “cobbles together.”

“That’s a noun phrase...”

“Now, did some ancient artisan, in some far-off time, take…”

“…that’s alliteration…”

“…cobbles together? Or cobbled together?”

“…up his chisel, take up his chisel, mark you, his chisel, to carve…” Fergus stabbed the air with his enraged and quivering fat finger.

“…that’s repetition…”

“…no, it’s fucking anaphora, and in any case, can I just say…”

“…in order to carve that stone, that very stone, mark you, a marked stone, a perfect spheroid, that it might sit alongside similar cobbles, sitting out time itself.”

Fergus paused as a Filipina drifted as delicately as a hummingbird alongside his elbow. “Another drink, Sir Laird?”

Pretending to think about it, he grunted, “Aye, that’ll be fine.”

Taking advantage of the pause in the monologue, the third one bellowed: “Cobbles? Cobblers more like.”

“Aye, think that if you will, Andrew, but there’s a might too much coincidence for my liking.”

“That was a pun,” sniped Andrew, to the second, who had not licked his pencil or scribbled.

“I’ll not be recording your grammar today, Andrew,” he replied, thinly, “as I can only do the one of you at any one given time. I’ll not be eating my share of the pizza, either, as you’ve pushed the remaining slices into one shape. Triangles from triangles and three makes for 33.3 percent.”

“Suit yourself, Dougal,” grunted Andrew, curling his top left upper lip, snatching a slice and dunking without much forethought. As a result, hot sauce was flicked onto the notebook. A gasp of horror issued forth and Dougal seized a paper tissue, dabbing frantically at melting pencil. “You’re merely making it worse.”

As his drink had arrived by now, Fergus raised the tumbler thoughtfully. “Aye, worse. Much, much worse.”

“What you mean?”

“Why, man, that very cobble had been taken from non-other than one of the great stones of Pandemonium Plain, just a wee bit outside from Salisbury herself.”

“…personification…”

“…there’s no such place…”

“…that stone, seized from Scone by those marauding hordes of English bastards…”

“…assonance…”

“…now, just a minute, my friend…”

“…under the command of that butcher…” this plosive producing a particularly wet, thick glob… “Edward Longshanks. Who had that very stone broken into a million pieces to be laid upon roads along the ancient lay lines…”

“…intensifying adverbial…”

“…no, just hold that thought, you surely mean Edward the Confessor…”

With a toxic glare that might slay a cobra, Fergus paused momentarily. “Don’t you tell me what I mean,” he snarled, “I know what I mean, I know exactly what I mean, I…am in full possession of the facts, pal.”

The three became aware of a fourth, standing alongside Dougal’s elbows, smoking a Marlboro Light. “I say, mate, can you keep it down? It’s set point.”

“Fuck off. This is a matter of life and death. Life and death.” Fergus punctuated the air with a fat, fleshy forefinger, his jowls flushed red, then combusted spontaneously into volcanic ire. “Do you want that fucking tennis ball to transmutate into an ancient cobble and strike Nadal from some metres above? Do you? Such things have been known. Think well. Think of the injury you’d cause to the Spanish number one.”

“No.”

“Aye, when the ancient stones have fallen from space, the cosmos, no, bought here by Angels ascending…”

By now, the fourth was backing away, ever so slightly spattered with phlegm.

“Aye,” screamed Fergus, “back to your table unless you would tangle with the Anunnaki themselves.”

“…get to the point, Fergus… 

“…metaphorical…”

“Aye, well the point is that some cobbles…some cobbles are marked. They are the stones of destiny. Do you think that it’s mere happenstance that one cobble refuses to lay alongside a second cobble? No matter how hard the ancients tried to set THAT stone, it would not be set. It must seek its brothers. It must seek its sisters.”

“…not be set…” muttered Dougal, his pencil halted in mid air.

“Aye, Dougal, that was a permanent loose cobble on deck.”

“I see,” nodded Andrew, the scales not falling from his eyes which were glazing over like melted frosting on top of lardy cake.

“A loose cobble unset in time, more than prepared to trip up the unwary. And trip up the unwary it most certainly did.”

 

 

Consider the cobbled street. One cobbled street is very much unlike another cobbled street. You think that, don’t you? Only those who see but do not observe think that one is in any way similar to another. The Romans did not intend this, but it is so.

And workmen had sweated hard, over the years.

There, in Truro, just past the cathedral, the cobbles loosened, vibrated by the trams that no longer and never had traversed those very streets. For whom in their right mind would lay tram tracks upon cobbled streets?

Oh, many had tried.

Just ask the masterminds behind the ill-fated ‘Trams for Truro’ project, a project that had only resulted in the selling of City’s football fields to Aldi. Another development, another supermarket. And just as well, for you can never have enough supermarkets, even if the food is running out and the gas prices are going through the roof.

That’s inflation for you.

Those workmen had sweated long, had sweated hard, removing from upon their heads red and white striped bandanas, knotted in each corner for luck; to ward off evil and mopped dripping foreheads and stinging eyes. For the desert sun was known to migrate to Cornwall and scorch those cobbled streets below.

There was one. One particular cobble.

No matter how much time was foisted upon it, this stone refused to set straight and line up with the others. And after dark, it was known to shine and cast green ghost striations that illuminated those rats unwary enough to leave the gutters for the feeding grounds.

Once, in exasperation, Jethro Pendennis set his teeth against it and had, that very day, bought a whole truck of quick drying cement with which he fully intended to smother this stone.

His mates had gathered around in fascination, fully aware of his intentions.

The mixer ground and ground its fangs until a viscous mixture sloshed about its innards in triumph, awaiting the caress of hands upon the wheel.

“No, Jethro, no!” screams Old Mother Grampound, her black skirts flowing about her heels as she hurries thither in angst, waving her gnarled stick above her head, “you tamper with forces you scarce comprehend, my lover.”

But all’s for naught; already the liquid descends, intent upon its bloody course.

A gasp of horror from those assembled, rising like some Black Thunderchild. Why? Because the cement refused to set, forming into a foaming river instead and bearing the hapless Jethro away, never to be seen again.

And, some still wonder to this day where that statue adorning, but not dominating the plinth above those sheer craggy cliffs of Marazion Beach came from.

The cobble remained, fixed, yet unfixed, constantly moving, seeking its brothers, seeking its sisters.

On some days, the damage was tolerable. Why, man, ask Freddie Newlyn. His was a simple twisted angle, turned over by catching that stone just wrong, placing his heel on top and that rounded edge just shifted by a miniscule amount.

But it was enough. It did serve.

A week of hobbling, a week of grimace, a week of flaccid explanations.

Why, it is those explanations that pain one the most, is it not?

“My God, Freddie, you’re limping, man.”

“Yes, ‘tis true.”

“But how, man, how?”

“Well, there was this cobblestone, see, and I was just walking, when…”

Over and over again, whilst fate does laugh and thunderclaps. Applauded, that fateful stone exerts its pull, like gravity, seeking but never finding rest.

 

Now, one particular case commends itself for examination. It perplexes the mind, swimming there but never finds one edge of the pool nor the other in time to haul itself out; stand dripping onto tiles, waiting for a towel with which to flick flies.

It was outside W H Smiths. You know the one? Opposite the library, where you can find a reasonable cup of coffee for a reasonable price. And, if you did this, perhaps helping yourself to a cheesecake or muffin, there’s a shelf, hewn from oak, varnished and polished that gives you a fine viewpoint out of the window onto the cobbles below.

You are opposite W H Smiths. That fine institution is opposite you. And lying in between, in opposition, is our cobbled street.

At first, you think of nothing much. Perhaps you take a mighty bite and chew thoughtfully or a sip from the cup, marveling at the combination of tastes and textures. Those who shop pass you by, unaware they are not being observed by nobody in particular.

Then, crisis.

“Oh, my God! My buggy!”

In front of the shop, a young mother was screaming, distressed, beside herself with grief. Somehow, the wheel of her pushchair had become entangled in the stonework of the street and was toppling forwards, almost in slow motion, almost as though time itself was decelerating towards stillness.

But it couldn’t be.

A large rubber wheel had detached from the framework and was rolling forwards, gathering momentum and, its velocity increasing, hurtling towards oncoming traffic – buses, cars, motorcycles.

“No!” she screamed. And being a millennial, her phone, whipped out, was already in her hand, fingers punching frantically.

But not even a cell phone could stop it now. It spun on its axis, hit the tyre of a large coach and was crushed. But worse, the driver had spotted the hazard, had turned his wheel to avoid it and, failing to do so, had hit a makeshift market stall. The vendor, a young woman who looked Asiatic, tried in vain to save her pyramid of mutton filled croissants which tumbled onto the tarmac below, followed by the stall itself collapsing into a tangled heap of metal and canvas.

The buggy itself was overloaded, of course.

Inside, a young child, strapped to the seat, was trapped in a lopsided position. He skewed to the left and his arms flapped like sails in the wind.

A variety of shopping bags that had been hooked to the back, tumbled forwards, threatening to cover his face, hanging precariously in front of his nose and mouth.

“Help me! Somebody help me!” cried the young woman, stamping the screen of her mobile phone.

Now, of course, trapped inside the library, perched on a stool as I was, I could do little else but stare at the horror unfolding in front of me. But many other young men were on hand to help the distressed mother, the damsel in distress, if you will.

It was a call to arms that should never have been answered.

 

 

Ray Treddle had left his home perhaps thirty minutes earlier that day.

On this morning he had awoken at 7.30. Nothing unusual about that, it being Saturday and the weekend unfolding ahead. In fact, Friday evening, he had drunk a couple of morose beers at The City Inn, noting how the price had increased by tuppence, but too wrapped up in himself to comment.

His was the stool in the far corner of the bar.

Many others had been in a merry throng that night. Some even keep their own tankards on hooks behind the bar, embossed with coats of arms: ‘Kev’s Mug’ or ‘Paul’s Pewter’, that sort of thing.

Ray was content with the glass that Keren gave him. Well, not content as such, just resigned.

It was a glass sleever, therefore, that held the liquid. He had sipped and gripped it tightly, taking little or no pleasure in the cool, rough liquid that entered his mouth and wetted his tongue. His problem was women. Always had been and, it seemed to him, always would be. He sighed, unaware that nobody was listening to him or watching.

Sometimes an arm around the shoulder is all it takes. But beware the solitary sipper. Their gaze, starker than the rest, can shatter mirrors.

Especially those with broken hearts.

And so, as morning dawned, he had rolled up his grubby sleeping bag, fished underneath the mattress for used tissues, pulled grimy blue tarpaulins from where they covered the grimy square window, blinked as sunlight caught the streams of dust and walked over to the kitchenette beside the single bed in his off-white Y fronts.

The milk he kept in a square cool box had lumps floating near the top and, in any case, there was only cornflakes left in the cereal variety pack he’d bought from Spar last week. If he had mind to think, he would have remembered that one box only filled half a bowl.

He hated cornflakes.

“Why?” he might have cried, “why only Cornflakes? Where the Golden Grahams? Whither the Coco Pops?” But he was not one for that sort of florid, unrealistic language.

He hobbled down the hill towards the city centre with a fiver that had passed through many a filthy hand; torn at the top edge. In his misery, the thought that this would soon be rejected as legal tender did not pass through his mind.

It was raining. Of course it was raining. A cold, nippy sort of rain that penetrated the thin green T Shirt he had pulled over his head only thirty minutes ago. And, by now, Ray Treddle came across our cobbled street.

And then he witnessed the terrible atrocity I previously described.

 

 

 

Perhaps half a mile across town, within his incensed interior, Roger the Vicar was adjusting his dog collar in front of an antique mirror.

All was not well, however. The Fates – Roger believed in these, but not in predestiny, and this was a wee bit strange, thinking about it - were about to cast their runes and the tea leaves looked fair to doubtful.

Firstly, there was the strange case of the mirror.

It was one of those made from old oak which delimited it very strangely indeed.

Furthermore, the glass itself had edging. If you were want to squint at it from a certain angle, you were bound to see three of your reflections at once, overlapping but separate and therefore distinct. A wee bit disconcerting, I’m sure you will agree.

Secondly, there was the problem of the unwritten sermon.

“Oh, hang it all and dash it!” he cried, because, being a vicar, he was never just speaking to himself, “If only I had written tomorrow’s sermon yesterday. Then I wouldn’t have to write it today.”

Which is true.

He had intended to make toothpaste the theme of his treatment, something along the lines of toothbrushes sitting side by side in a glass by the mirror’s strange case and how it only takes the slightest squeeze for some paste to ejaculate onto bristles, in that all ponds ripple when cobbles are chucked unto them and you’re a green toothbrush, I’m a pink toothbrush and now hymn 147, ‘Those Who Would Valiant Be, Pot Black’ or something for it was Tommy Steele or Bernard Cribbins, but who can remember and does it matter while, ‘right’, said Fred, ‘that there door is gonna have to go and we was getting nowhere and so we ád a cuppa tea’…but his heart wasn’t in it.

Yet somewhere, anywhere, time had skewed off, triangles like Toblerone, and an entirely different path. Last night, Roger had indeed written that sermon or one like it. Maybe it was ‘Don’t Jump off the Roof, Dad’ because, well, ‘Junior Choice’, but the sermon was in the bag, the table had been cleared of colours and he was unscrewing the cue, zipping up the strange casing.

Yes, Roger was fully prepared for Sunday prayers and so he whistled gaily, pulled his lacey panties right up tight and headed out the door, greeting his flock now here, now there. “Good morning, Vicar!” they cried, “Glorious day!” For indeed it was, and the autumn sun was bright in the sky – not a raincloud in sight.

Stepping lightly to the edge of the pavement, Roger looked left and right, prepared to cross the road as Tufty would have it. No cars. Wonderful. But he pressed the button anyway with a snigger, in the secret, dark hope that it might stop some vehicles unnecessarily for a laugh. “Or,” he reasoned, aloud, “someone might be walking behind me, and they will be mighty pleased a vicar had the foresight to press the button in advance for them.”

Now he was making his way at a brisk pace past the fish and chip shop, closed at this hour, then to the right turn that led to the cathedral. As you will know, if you’ve visited Truro, you can walk right beside the whole length of that beautiful sand stonework.

And where the road widens out in front of the building, lies our cobbled path.

Some commotion? A shrill voice howling at the sky in horror? Its pitch suggesting an altercation with the Gods? Roger increased his velocity slightly until he was in front of the cathedral upon the cobbles which, at this point have expanded into a large patio, terraced by trees and there hang great baskets of gaudy blooms.

“Help me! Somebody help me! My baby! I can’t get a signal!”

The tragic scene that unfolded before him inspired both pity and horror in his beating breast. There – a buggy down to only three wheels, and bags of shopping – Primark, T K Maxx, New Look – slowly sinking towards the screaming mouth of that hapless child.

“That cobble,” snarls Roger, “there is…interference…”

 

 

We jump cut now to a third – yes a third – situation, dear colleagues, and perhaps the one that will shed some clarity upon the whole of this terrifying fiasco.

You’re getting this down, are you?

Well, here’s a shabby hotel room deep in the heart of Cornwall. Hotel is maybe too inaccurate a noun, the bathroom is shared and only boasts a shower. The showerhead’s diffuser is absent presumed dead and all that pisses out is lukewarm tap water.

Our rock star, the once and former Philbert Sullivan, glares in the direction of the drizzling pizzle and curses the state of the UK hotel business. ‘Radisson prices, Guest House amenities,’ thinks he, remembering just such a state of affairs in Lampeter, Wales. Peeling wallpaper and damp, hidden beneath the picture of the Devil’s Falls.

Wrapping a towel around his waist, he prepared to make the short dash across the corridor to his single room at the bottom of the corridor.

Inside that tiny box, an unwelcome sight. His manager.

“Philbert, my boy, my boy,” he greeted the former, who was dripping onto the threadbare, puce carpet.

“Harold,” growled Philbert, “you’re in my space. How am I supposed to get to the sink and brush my teeth?”

Harold threw back his head, laughing effusively, clutching his sides and stomach, doubling over. “Brushing your teeth? Don’t make me laugh, my boy! That’s neither rock, nor street. We don’t never brush our teeth in this business, how many times I tell you? My boy. Let ranky breath be enjoyed, come one, come all.”

“Will there be spaghetti for breakfast?”

“Of course, there will always be spaghetti for breakfast.”

“With extra garlic sauce?”

“Yes, my boy, Uncle Harold’s special recipe. I popped into Spar yesterday. They had a promotion, two pasta for the price of one. Buy one, get one.”

“Pass me the brush.”

There was a medium sized room downstairs in dusk; the curtains had not been opened and the place smelled of cooked bacon. It was not so damned early, but we were damned early anyway.

From the periphery – and isn’t it always – the callow waiter-cum-chef watched in suspicion as the two men, his only two residents, poked and prodded at two bowls with ‘sunshine breakfast cornflakes’ daubed on the side, that were actually full of flabby spaghetti of the second rank.

Harold had been busy with extra garlic and parmesan substitute from one of those wee shakers that still had glued paper covering the apertures.

For this is the place where stickers never peel.

The two men were in earnest conversation, in between gobfulls of pasta, that Harold twirled expertly around his fork and Philbert stabbed at inaccurately. It was almost as though he did not really care for the taste.

“I don’t really care for your taste, Harold,” he said, “and, if I may say, your ideas don’t seem to be working. I was canned off stage last night during ‘A Woman’s Place is in the Home’. I hardly dared come on for the second half.”

“My boy, my boy,” responded the other in a comforting tone, “believe me, comedy is the new rock n roll. It’s street. It’s hip. It’s yoof.”

“But ‘A Woman’s Place is in the Home’ is not a comedy song. The lyrics are serious; reaching towards a society that is more utopian. When I wrote it in 1975, it was cutting edge.”

“It still is these days,” assured Harold, belching slightly, “but just add a dash of irony. Oh, that was a corker of a mouthful. Eat up.”

“Why can’t we have bacon?”

“Nothing but the best for you, Philbert.”

“That’s another thing. Philbert. It’s not my name. And why do I have to drop the ‘O’ before Mulligan?”

“‘Philbert Mulligan’, comedy gold, my boy. Now, about tonight…are you not eating that, then?”

Philbert had pushed his untouched bowl of pasta aside and was looking for coffee. “No, you have it. I don’t see why we can’t have bacon.”

“It’s extra.” Heaping the spaghetti onto his plate and belching again, Harold pointed at Philbert with his fork. “Drop that song about women’s homes and go with ‘Oo Wakka Doo Wakka Day’. That’s a floor filler, that is. Great lyrics, too.”

“I never liked that one. Written during desperate times, Harold. My creativity had run dry. I hadn’t had a hit since ‘Get Down’. How prophetic that turned out to be.”

“Nonsense, my boy. I love it. That bit about the boy that got his nose caught in a gate? Dynamite. We’ve all done that at one time or another.”

“I’m not so sure,” muttered Philbert, “that anybody would get their nose caught in a gate. Especially not these days. Now about my name. I want to change it back.”

Harold choked on his water; his eyes bulged. “Change it back? Change it back to what? You’ve always been Philbert and a Philbert you will always remain.”

“Well, what about my flat cap?”

“Stick with the fez.”

It was a light, pleasant smattering of snow outside the hotel that greeted Philbert as he wound his way from the piazza, alongside Marks and Spencers towards the big wooden stand that sold bratwurst, fried onions and rolls. He still had a bit of cash to his name despite the passage of some thirty five years and those dogs smelled good – far better than the cut price pasta Harold had served up, 30 minutes earlier. What’s in a kiss?

Can you tell me just what it is? No? Well, then, Philbert bit into one, poised, as he was, outside the H F C where he was due to perform tonight – him and baby grand.

His brow was creased. His lips mouthing his thoughts silently. “Philbert, Philbert…no, no, Gilbert?” he seemed to be saying to that nearby lip reader, stood on the corner, selling papers.

In some sort of silent scream, he cried, “There was Gilbert!” but no noise came. No noise at all.

Now he looks at his half-chewed bratwurst in horror. “Get you from me!” he screams, with the emphasis on me, all trochee-like. And he flings it forth. It prescribes a half arc, but never will it touch the ground, my friends, never. For a seagull, seizing its chance, swoops down and grasps it with talons, that yellow eye glinting triumph.

“An albatross,” shrieks Philbert. “now I am doomed!” but, in fact it was a herring gull, so he was moderately still all right.

Nevertheless, eschewing all dignity, he begins to run towards our cobbled street.

Scarcely had he rounded the corner when he clocked the carnage. The stall selling Indian beads was collapsed into the small covering of snow; brightly coloured shards of glass scattered like rainbow drops against the white, whilst its owner, a Turkish pugilist, was dancing in anger around the debris. “We are a nation of shopkeepers,” he was screaming, incoherently, over and over – until he saw Philbert.

He stopped and shook a lanky forefinger. “You will show up like two frozen peas,” he screamed, “trust your soon to be old man, he knows what is best.”

Philbert ignored him, dodged left, then right and hared up the cobbled street, past a buggy wheel crushing lorry, and onwards – then he too skidded to a complete halt.

They had…triangulated.

 

 

“Help me,” the woman was screaming, and ineffectual stabs at her phone, “I can’t pull my finger out of Tik Tok.”

Unable to avoid agency any longer, even I was moved to jump from my wooden stool. Leaving half a mochaccino behind, I thrust open those library doors and scuttled quickly to be by her side. I was immediately in command of the situation and assumed centre stage, alongside the toppling buggy.

I glared at our three protagonists who were, even now, flapping up and down like crows in a field surrounding that piece of cheese dropped by the fox. No worse. They looked like The Beatles in an ill-advised promo for ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ from 1967.

“Well?” I asked, sternly, “what have you done?”

As you might imagine, I was soon to learn their names, so why go with tiresome prose? You know that I’ve no time for THAT, dear friends. Roger the Vicar spoke first, drawing himself up to a mighty height, and throwing forth his chest. “We’ve assessed the situation.”

“As I thought, absolutely nothing.” And I gazed at this distraught mother. “You’re a millennial, are you?”

“How did you know?” she wept, still locked into her phone.

“Not every answer lies there, my pretty,” I snapped, seizing the tech and tossing it across the street. It did not immediately shatter into a thousand striated shards. Why? That baleful seagull, having demolished Philbert’s bratwurst, had been circling hopeful gyres, ever closer, ever closer – now, his chance - then some sense of profound disappointment.

The phone splintered, the mirror cracked.

Idly, I wondered if the seagull had ingested any tech.

I spun upon my heel abruptly, summoning those powers I command; have mastered, “You,” I snapped at the one who looked most down at heel, “your name, if you please?”

He mumbled something; I could scarce hear.

“Treadmill? What kind of a stupid name is that? Stand forth, Treadmill.”

“But there’s only three of us.”

“Are you trying to be funny, young man?” I growled, hirsute, like a mountain lion, if I do say so myself. “And you? Who are you? Mr Crossfit? Mr Multigym?” My critical finger trembled with the passion.

I didn’t wait for the answer. “This, my friends, is an emergency. The ancient powers have joined forces against us in an attempt to disrupt the timeline. Suffocating this poor child with bags of shopping is only one part of their grander scheme. I have been…summoned.”

“And who are you, that you should know?” asked Philbert, in a loutish way that befits his status as fading, third-tier seventies singer songwriter.

“I am none other that Laird Fergus Boyle, of the ancient order of Knights Templar, Thane of Bonkle, Ayrshire.”

“Bonkle?” repeated Philbert. And I didn’t like his tone.

“Aye, Bonkle,” I snapped, “And what’s more, my brethren and I have fought these transfigurations over centuries. I am the only one who can extricate this poor wee damsel from her predicament.”

But now that she had stopped gazing at her phone, things were become clearer. She gazed – just as I had hoped she would – the shutters lifting from her eyes. She gazed at Treadmill. “Ray?” she asked, her lips trembling, “surely, it’s Ray?” And he nodded, moving towards the child, taking her hand.

“Stop that, stop that!” I yelled, “we must lift the curse from this place before there can be any hint of  hankus pankus.” And I squatted, beckoning my fellows over, pointing at that cursed cobblestone. “You see? This wee fellow? He’s our problem.”

Although I could see them forming, I had no time for questions. Philbert, entranced, was already moving his hands towards it. “Don’t touch him,” I ordered, “unless, that is, you want whatever remains of your benighted life cast into that infernal pit from whence he came.”

Impressed, he moved away.

“No, we must charm him first, before we dispose of him, convince it that he can be returned to his origin stane. The Great Stane of Destiny.”

“Stane of Destiny?” muttered Roger the Vicar, “what’s that? Some sort of dyed road map?”

“Aye, ye’d like to think that, would y’not, yer wee medieval meddling misfit,” says I, noticing my accent was thickening, and readjusting, “you would like that to be the case, Vicar, but it is very far from the case indeed.”

“How far from the case?” asks Treadmill.

“Oh, very far indeed,” I replied, “miles, many many miles. Countless.”

“Could we run there?”

“No, Treadmill, you could not run there. It’s like from here to Penzance. And back.”

“That’s not so far.”

“It is if you have to pull a fucking great stane, isn’t it?”

So Treadmill was silenced, as I had planned. We five did now gaze at the cobblestone, wondering if he was listening. I calculated that we had minutes left before the bulging bags of cut-price fashion items did their worst and hushed the screaming child for ever. “Turn out your pockets,” I commanded, “place what we have on the ground.

As they were bidden, so did I examine. It was a pitiful heap that I beheld, hardly enough to ward off the powers massing against us. Scarcely worth listing here, but, amongst the rubble, a slimy brush and comb combination, several pages of a sermon and, best of all, greaseproof lining paper, suitable for cooking with, perhaps useful to prevent cherry topped macaroons from sticking themselves to hot metal.

You can never be too careful when it comes to macaroons.

“My manager,” explained Philbert, “he uses it to prepare spaghetti with and advises me to have a pocketful in case I get…caught short.”

“A very resourceful man,” I replied, “one does not want to do a Gary Lineker, does one? Especially during a rousing encore of ‘Pinball Wizard’.

“I didn’t write that one.”

“No? What did you write, then?”

“I Don’t Love You, but I Think I Like You,” he answered, somewhat pointedly, I thought, because he stressed ‘think’ like he’s thinking too hard about it and as though he didn’t like me too much either. But time was pressing, so I let his stressing go.

I pointed at Roger. “You. Say your sermon. This act will expurgate all evil from his striated soul.”

“But it’s only a stone. How can it possibly hear me?”

I ignored him. “At the end of the sermon, you will sing one of your greatest hits, Philbert, one of the really good ones. This will have the effect of mollifying him, before I go in.”

“Go in?”

“Aye, go in,” I repeated, “You must think of it as defusing a bomb, my boy.”

Treadmill raised his head from the buggy, tearing his gaze from that petrified child. He looked at the greaseproof in my hand. “And you will wrap it in that? To insulate it? From doing its evil? Separate it from his brothers?”

Clever. Too clever. But a wrong supposition.

“No,” I snapped, “This paper is for you.”

“But there’s not enough of it. How will I fit inside?”

“Shut up. Your job will be to provide the music. With this.” And with a crafty wink, I passed it to him with the brush and comb combination. Heh, heh, heh.

“What about me?” squarked the millennial mother, sans phone, sans husband, sans everything.

Treadmill looked at her with something approaching reverence. In one hand he raised his paper and comb to his lips, with the other he stroked the hair of the child. “Is it mine?”

“Nah. Now, piss off else I’ll hashtag me too you and put some stuff on Tik Tok.”

“Bastard.”

“Up yours.”

Roger the Vicar cleared his throat, “Enough, children,” he muttered, mildly, “let us begin, this day has been tiresome enough already.” And he looked as though he might kick the cobble where it hurt.

I stayed him. “Treadmill? Begin.”

“It’s Treddle.”

“Begin.”

“Begin how?”

I sighed - a big, heaving one. “Use your instrument to give Roger the Vicar that rousing fanfare he deserves, Treadmill.”

I saw his hand stray to the zipper of his jeans, but clearly he thought the better of it and, after a little thought, raised the comb, the paper and began rasping out ‘Here Comes the Bride’.

But it was not loud enough. The stone barely moved to the scant sound.

“Scanties,” I remembered, “I like scanties.”

“Will they help?” asked our distraught mother.

“No, I just like them.” She blushed, pleasingly enough. I wondered if I could expect afters. “Louder, louder!”

Roger the Vicar coughed and began declaiming grandly, using the melody as a guide vocal. “Dearly departed, we are gathered here today, to meditate upon the cost of toothpaste. For is it not written, in Leviticus, that they laid him in the basket, amongst the reeds, and he did want for his teeth?”

Now, friends, you’ve probably noticed, in town and city centres throughout the country, that when a man of the cloth stands on his box, with a sign claiming that ‘the end of the world is nigh’ and screaming incoherent passages from made up scriptures, the crowds disperse pretty damn quick until a van arrives. But not so in this case. The sweet combination of paper and comb, the mellifluous tones of Roger the Vicar and the screaming child was enticing those very same deserters to gather.

“Praise be,” shouts one such, and then another, “Hallelujah,” and a third, “Right on, brother.”

But was the stone moved? “Continue, Vicar.”

“History is littered with other such moments. As Chas and Dave once noted – me and him and them and me, never got to put it on his ginger nut because the balls…” he paused momentously, “…the balls never went down.”

“That’s right.”  

“Now…consider the cobble.”

I kicked Philbert, for this was his cue. “Now, my boy, now!” But that fool Treadmill was still blowing off ‘Here Comes the Bride’, wasn’t he?”

I shoved him in the chest. “It must be Claire,” I snapped, “change it up.”

Glowering in my direction, Philbert snatched the grease proofed comb from Treadmill. “This had better work.” And with the voice of the Angel Gabriel himself, began to sing:

“Claire, the moment I met you, I swear…”

“Don’t swear, don’t swear,” I implored, “we will anger it and unleash all satanic hordes upon these innocent streets.” I crouched, maneuvering myself into position, feeling those beads of sweat gather. Anxious? Yes, you could say that. What I was about to do must never be attempted by all you at home. I cupped my hands, as near as I could to that cobble without arousing his suspicion, ready for the snatch, grab and bag.

A hush. I looked upwards.

The crowds had gathered as I previously mentioned, ranged into concentric circles. Good. And in the round, centre stage – Treadmill, Roger the Vicar, Philbert, the mother and, of course, her screaming, wretched, snot-nosed charge, beginning, as it was, to choke, smothered underneath that heavily bulging plastic. Victory depended on these next instants. Victory depended on me.

“Why don’t you just unhook the bags?” somebody called, from the crowd.

I leapt to my feet, incautiously. “Don’t you think I thought of that?” I screamed, “Do you really think that hadn’t crossed my mind? Oh, my foolish friend, we are way beyond simply unhooking the bags. Now, piss off.” And I crouched once again. “Now!”

“Wait, wait,” cried the mother, “My name’s Claire.”

Once again, I jumped up. “Claire, eh?” I mused, “that might change things. Philbert? Sing ‘Stone’”

“Sing ‘Stone?”’

“Yes, Philbert, extemporise. You know ‘Stone, the moment I met you, I swear…’”

“’Stone, the moment I met you, I swear?’”

"I told you, cut out that swearing. You know…go for ‘Stone, the moment I meet you I moan, you look so alone, let’s get you home.’ Or something like that.”

“But that’ll ruin my song.”

“Well, your original lyrics weren’t exactly Shakespeare, were they?”

“My name’s Stone as well. Claire Stone.”

And they say there’s no such thing as miracles, don’t they?

 

 

Back in the bar, somewhere in Doha, Arabia, Laird Fergus Boyle, of the ancient order of Knights Templar, Thane of Bonkle, Ayrshire, paused for breath.

“Bollocks,” grunted Andrew, looking at a newly arrived plate of chicken wings.

“My tick sheet is full,” grumbled Dougal, licking his pencil tip.

“Aye, well, didn’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“A very interesting construction, but nowhere to note it.”

“Yes, very interesting in that…”

“That woman was saved, her wee child protected, those three good people reunited.” nodded Fergus.

“…it was complete shite. Mashed together. From bits of tittle tattle and scraps of ideas you couldn’t work into something more substantial…”

“Scraps of tittle tattle?” yelled, Fergus, pushing the table forward, unhitching his paunch from the chair and standing up to his full height of five foot seven inches. “Mashed together? Then, how do you explain this?” He reached into his pocket, and with a flourish tossed a medium sized cobblestone onto the table, where it landed heavily with a clunk.

There was a dent in the table and several inches of beer slopped messily onto the floor. causing Filipina to scurry towards them with cloths. In tandem, the three noted with alarm that some of those tennis watching gentlemen were crowding the reception area, jabbering pointedly while a large iceberg of a manager was detaching himself from the desk and heading in their direction.

However, before Fergus could order his party to sup up and leg it, an astonishing thing.

The two saloon doors crashed open. Framed within them an elderly, curly-haired bloke, wearing an outlandish fez. He looked around the bar quickly and spotted our three friends. With a wave, he scuttled across, avoiding the wet patches.

“Fergus,” he gushed, “I found you. Found you at last. In all of space and time, I was drawn here.” And he seized his hand, pumping it rapidly.

“Philbert,” gasped Fergus, genuinely taken aback, “the stane. The stane bought you here.”

“It’s not Philbert,” replied the other, grinning winningly, “I found out on that fateful day. My memory…cleared. I got rid of that man. He had been lying to me. All those years. And it was you, Fergus, only you.”

“Not Philbert? Well, praise be.”

“No, not Philbert. My name turned out to be Dilbert. Dilbert O Pickle.”

“Well, stone me.”

“Yes, and what’s more, I’m booked to play this very bar for seven nights next week. Now, about my set list. What do you think? “A Woman’s Place is in the Home’ or ‘Stone’?”

“Stone?”

“Of course, I reworked it as you suggested and it went platinum over here.”  And Fergus looked in triumph at Douglas and Andrew.

Somewhat sarcastically, Andrew muttered, “well, I for one can’t wait. Did some unfeasibly fortunate thing happen to the others as well my dear?”

“Not really. The baby survived, Roger the Vicar married Claire Stone, and Treddle bought her a new iPhone. They say she receives strange messages from sea-going birdlife.”

“Astonishing,” mused Andrew, “I would’ve thought that he’d be angry about that, rather than generous.”

“Ah, no, you see, Roger married Claire…to Treddle. In the church.”

“Well, of course he did. Like everything else I’ve heard today, it’s all cobbled together.”