Robert Rankin

East of Ealing

The third book in the Brentford series, 1984

1

Norman gave his ivory-handled screwdriver a final twist and secured the last screw into the side panel of the slim brass cylinder. Unclamping it from his vice, he lifted it lovingly by its shining axle, and held it towards the dust-smeared glass of the kitchenette window. It was a work of wonder and that was for certain. A mere ten inches in diameter and another one in thickness, the dim light painted a rainbow corona about its varnished circumference.

Norman carried it carefully across to his cluttered kitchen table and, elbowing aside a confusion of soiled crockery, placed it upon the twin bracket mountings which had been bolted through both tablecloth and table. The axle dropped into its mounts with a satisfying click and Norman, hardly daring to breathe, sought out his can of Three-in-One and applied a glistening bead of oil to either end.

If all his calculations, allied to those of a certain Johann Bessler, later known as Orffyreus, who had first demonstrated the prototype as long ago as 1712 in Zittau, East Germany, proved ultimately to be correct, he was even now standing upon the very threshold of yet another earth-shattering scientific breakthrough.

And all it needed was a breath. Norman leaned low over the brazen wheel and blew upon its edge. There was a faint click, followed by another and yet another, and with a beauty, which like all of its strange kind lay firmly within the eye of its beholder, the polished brass wheel began to rotate slowly. Around and around it went, gathering momentum, until at last it reached a steady rate. Norman drew out his pocket-watch and rattled it against his ear. The second hand took to once more sweeping the pitted face of the grandaddy’s retirement present. The polished wheel continued to turn; Norman counted beneath his breath and double-checked with his watch. Twenty-six revolutions per minute, exactly as old mad Bessler had predicted. Around and around and around for ever and ever and ever.

A broad, if lopsided, smile travelled where it could over Norman’s face. Returning his already failing watch to its fluff-filled waistcoat pocket, he clapped his hands together and did a silly sort of dance right there and then upon the worn lino of the grimy kitchenette.

The wheel spun, its former clicking now a dull purr, and Norman thrust a knuckle to his mouth and chuckled noiselessly. His free hand hovered for a moment above the spinning wheel. If the calculations were indeed correct then virtually nothing, short of out and out destruction, should actually be able to halt the wheel’s motion. Tentatively, he tapped a forefinger on to the polished surface. The wheel continued to spin. Gently, he plucked at it with finger and thumb. The wheel showed no signs of easing up. Norman laid firm hold with both hands upon the slim cylinder, his grasp skidded away, and the wheel rolled on and on and on.

This time he had cracked it! This time he had most definitely cracked it! The ultimate source of power. Weighing no more than a couple of pounds, its potential knew no bounds. It could charge up literally anything and, but for the occasional squirt of Three-in-One, needed next to no maintenance. Without the kitchenette, the shop door-bell suddenly rang in a customer and Norman dragged himself away from his spinning masterwork to answer the call of business. As he reached the door he paused a moment and looked back. Twenty-six revolutions per minute, round and around and around, for ever and ever and ever. With a final silent chuckle and a theatrical backways kick, Norman passed through the doorway, leaving his world of magic to emerge into the gloomy reality of his musty corner-shop.

Before the counter stood one James Pooley, betting man, free-thinker, and bachelor of the parish. His hand, which had even then been snaking across towards the peppermint packets, returned itself to the tweedy depths of a bottomless trouser pocket. With a cheery, “Good morning to you, Norman,” Pooley bade the shopkeeper that very thing.

“Same to yourself, Jim,” said Norman. “The daily, would it be?”

“The very same, five Woodys and a Sporting Life. I think that today I am a little more than usually liable to pull off ‘The Big One’.”

“Of course.” Norman deftly drew out a packet of cigarettes and the aforementioned racing paper without for a moment removing his gaze from the approximate location of Pooley’s ever-wandering hands. It was not that Jim was by nature a dishonest man, but living daily upon his wits, he dared never let any opportunity, no matter how small, slip by.

“You wear the smile of a man who has already pulled off that ever elusive big fellow,” said Jim, noting well the twisted smirk still firmly plastered across Norman’s face.

The shopkeeper passed Jim his life-support apparatus and nodded wildly. “I have, I have,” said he, amidst a flurry of nose-tapping. “Although on this occasion, as upon others, I cannot take full credit for it all myself.”

“No matter that. Many a wealthy man owes his success in life to the labours of a deceased relative.” Jim slipped his cigarettes into his breast-pocket and rolled his newspaper. “So what is it then? Something of a scientific nature I have no doubt.”

“The very same.”

“Might I hazard a guess?”

“Be very pleased to.”

Jim stroked at the stubble of his chin, which he had been meaning to shave off for at least a day or so, and cocked his head upon one side. “Now, if I am not mistaken,” said he, “your recent obsession, and I use the word in the kindest possible way, has been with energy. The solar panels upon your roof do not go unnoticed hereabouts and the fact that you possess the only Morris Minor in the neighbourhood which runs upon coke has raised more than the occasional eyebrow. Am I right therefore in assuming that it is towards energy, power, and things of that nature that you have turned your enormous intellect?”

Norman’s head bobbed up and down after the fashion of a toy dog in a Cortina rear window.

“Aha, then if I am not mistaken I will hazard a guess that you have rediscovered the long lost secret of perpetual motion.”

Norman clapped his hands together. “You got it,” he crowed. “Got it in one. I am glad that I did not lay money upon it. You got it in one.”

“Naturally,” said Jim, blowing on his fingernails. “But I feel you knew that I would.”

Norman nodded again. “True,” he said. “I must admit that I had been somewhat puzzled by the ever-increasing number of little bright patches appearing upon the window of my kitchenette. However, noticing of late that each corresponds exactly in size and shape to the blot of dirt upon the end of your nose, all would seem to be revealed. But what do you think, Jim? The marvel of the age would you say? Feel free to offer criticism; my shoulders although physically bowed are metaphorically broad.”

Jim thrust his rolled-up paper into a jacket pocket. “If you will pardon me saying this, Norman, I have never myself had a lot of truck with the concept of perpetual motion. You will recall, no doubt, me saying that the chap in Chiswick who gave all those lectures at the Memorial Library propounding the theory of reincarnation has died yet again.”

Norman nodded yet again.

“And you will also recall my brilliant bon mot made upon the news of his passing, that the trouble with those fellows is that they are here today and here tomorrow?”

Norman winced.

“Well, such it is with perpetual motion. A fine thing it might be in itself, and a pleasure to the inventor thereof, but to the general public, in particular to the man of limited reason with no care for the higher truth, it presents but one thing only.”