9

I awoke naked and covered in Biscuit.

Now, you know that panicky feeling you get when you wake up after a really heavy night of drink and drugs and know, just know, that you’ve done something that you shouldn’t have?

Well, I felt like that.

I did a lot of blinking and gagging and groping about and I wondered how come my bedroom ceiling was suddenly all tiled over.

Now, you know that panicky feeling you get when you wake up after a really heavy night of drink and drugs and find yourself naked in a police cell?

No?

Well, it really sucks, I can tell you.

I screamed. Screamed really loud. And I wiped at myself with my fingers and I gaped at the guts and the dark clotted blood.

‘Biscuit,’ I screamed. ‘Biscuit.’

A little metal hatch in the large metal door snapped open. ‘You won’t get a biscuit here, you bastard,’ called a voice.

‘Help,’ I called back. ‘Let me out. Let me out.’

But they didn’t let me out. They kept me locked away in there all day, with only a plate of cornflakes and a cup of tea to keep me going. And at about three o’clock in the afternoon the door swung open and Brother Michael from St Argent’s sauntered in.

Now, as you don’t know the panicky feeling you get from waking up naked in a police cell, you probably won’t know the really panicky feeling you get when you find yourself naked in a police cell and locked in with a pederastic monk.

It’s a real bummer and I kid you not.

Brother Michael shook his tonsured head and then sat down beside me on the nasty little cot. I shifted up a bit and crossed my legs. Brother Michael placed a hand upon my knee. ‘This is a very bad business,’ he said.

I began to snivel. ‘Somebody blew up my Biscuit,’ I blubbered.

‘Blew up your biscuit, eh?’ The monk smiled warmly. ‘That’s not so bad. I remember the first time someone blew up my biscuit. I was just a choirboy at St Damien of Hirst’s and—’

‘Stop right there,’ I told him. ‘I am talking about my dog, Biscuit.’

‘Somebody blew up your dog biscuit?’

I turned a bitter eye upon the monk. ‘My dog’s name was Biscuit. Someone blew her up.’

‘I am becoming confused,’ said Brother Michael, giving my knee a little squeeze. ‘But I think we should turn our attention to the matter of your defence. Due to the large quantity of Class A drugs seized on your premises, you will have to put your hands up to the dealing charges. But I feel we can get you off with manslaughter if—’

‘What?’ I went. ‘What what what?’

‘Was the chap you pushed to his death another drug-dealer? Is this a Mafia thing? I wouldn’t want to get directly involved without the permission of the mob. I mean I am a Roman Catholic monk, so obviously I am in the Mafia, but I know which side my communion wafer is buttered. If you know what I mean and I’m sure that you do.’

‘What?’ I went. ‘WHAT?’

‘The other charges are no big deal. Soliciting minors, running an unruly house. Don’t you just love that phrase?’

‘WHAT?’ I went once again.

‘You’re looking at ten years,’ said Brother Michael, squeezing a bit more at my knee. ‘But you’ll only end up serving eight with good behaviour. You’ll still be a young man when you come out, with your whole life ahead of you. Of course, with the stigma of a prison sentence attached to you, you’ll probably end up swabbing toilets for a living. But that’s not so bad. You meet all kinds of interesting people in toilets.’

‘Wah,’ I wept. ‘Wah and boo hoo hoo.’

‘It’s such a pity that you’re not a monk.’

‘Wah,’ I went and, ‘What?’

‘Well, if you were a monk, you wouldn’t have to worry. We monks have theological immunity, we do not have to answer to Common Law.’

‘You don’t?’

‘Of course we don’t. We answer only to a higher power.

‘God?’

‘God. And the Pope. And the Mafia, of course. If you were a monk, you could walk right out of here.’

‘How could I do that?’

‘Because if you were a monk, you could hardly be guilty of a crime, could you? Whoever heard of a bad monk?’

‘There was Rasputin,’ I said.

‘Precisely.’

‘Eh?’

‘Well, anyway. If you were a monk, you’d get off scot-free.’

‘Is that Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811 to 1878), the English architect so prominent in the Gothic revival, who restored many churches and cathedrals and designed the Albert Memorial?’

‘No,’ said Brother Michael. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, no reason.’ I sighed deeply. ‘I wish I was a monk,’ I said.

Brother Michael made a thoughtfull face. ‘There is a way,’ he said. ‘But, no.’

‘No what? What do you mean?’

‘Well, I could make you a monk and then you would walk free of all the charges and not have to go to prison.’

‘Then do it,’ I said. ‘Do it.’

‘It’s not strictly orthodox. It should really be done in a vestry.’

‘Do it,’ I begged. ‘Do it now. Do it here.’

‘Oh all right. You’ve talked me into it. The actual initiation won’t take too long, but you might find it a bit uncomfortable. You’d better drink this.’ He produced a bottle of colourless liquid. ‘Drink it down and find yourself something to bite on.

And it was that close.

If the cell door hadn’t opened at that very minute and a policeman come in to tell me that I could go straight home, because no-one was pressing any charges, what with me still being a minor and everything and nobody being badly hurt.

It was that close.

I almost became a monk.

My parents were waiting outside with a change of clothes for me. I went meekly, accepting that I was in big big trouble.

But the trouble never came. Instead my mother hugged and kissed me and my father told me that I was very brave.

It turned out that the Doveston had spoken with them and explained everything.

He had told them how he and I had been at my house giving the place a good spring clean to surprise my parents when they got back from the show. And how the evil big boys had broken into the house and wreaked terrible havoc.

And how they had blown up my Biscuit.

When pressed for descriptions, the Doveston could only say that they all wore disguise, but ‘had much of the gypsy about them’.

10

Personally, I had a great deal of time for the 1960s. I know that a lot of old bunkum has been talked about them. All that ‘if you can remember the Sixties, you weren’t there’ rubbish. But there was a lot more to those years than simply sex and drugs and rock’n’roll (as if this mighty trio was not in itself sufficient).

Yes, there was free love, for the Secret Government of the World had yet to invent AIDS. Yes, there were drugs, and many a young mind was blown and expanded. And yes, indeed to goodness yes, there was good old rock’n’roll. Or rather good new rock’n’roll.

But there was more, so much more.

For one thing, there were yo-yos.

You might remember yo-yos, they enjoyed a brief renaissance back in the late 1990s, and possibly you have one, gathering radioactive dust in a corner of your fallout shelter. But I bet you can’t remember how to work it, and I’ll also bet that you don’t know that the yo-yo was invented in Brentford.

Oh yes it was.

Norman Hartnell[5] invented the yo-yo. It was his very first invention. It is true to say that he did not invent it with the intention of it becoming a toy. He invented the yo-yo as a means to power his Vespa motor scooter.