The Brentford Triangle by Robert Rankin

often emerged from his plot vacant-eyed and staggering.
    Pooley stepped carefully across Omally’s bed of flowering mandrake and gestured towards a row of towering belladonna. “You have an unsavoury looking crop on at present,” he said, by way of making conversation.
    “Export orders mostly,” John told him. The shed itself had a good deal of the gingerbread cottage about it, with its trelliswork of climbing wolfsbane and its poppy-filled window boxes. Omally unpadlocked the door and picked up a couple of picture postcards from the welcome mat. One of these carried upon its face a rooftop view of Brentford. Omally read this one aloud: “Encountering difficulties dismantling Ark due to petrified condition, may be forced to bring it down in one piece. Regards to all, Archroy.”
    “Do you actually believe any of the stuff he writes?” Pooley asked.
    Omally shrugged his broad and padded shoulders. “Who is to say? He sends these cards to Neville and one or two other prominent Brentonians. I suspect there will shortly be a request for financial assistance with the Ark’s transportation. No doubt he will wish to have the money orders forwarded to some post-office box in West Ealing.”
    “You are a hard man, John.”
    “I am a realist,” said the realist.
    Omally’s bottles were unearthed and drinks were poured. The two lazed variously upon potato sacks, sharing a Woodbine and musing upon this and that. As the contents of the bottles dwindled, likewise did the musing upon this and that. More and more did this musing spiral inwards, its vagueness and generalities crystallizing with each inward sweep to become definites and absolutes. And thus did these definites and absolutes eventually centre upon the woes and anguishes of interrupted golf tournaments and, in particular, their own.
    “It is becoming intolerable,” said Pooley, draining his enamel mug and refilling it immediately.
    “Unbearable,” said Omally, doing likewise.
    “Something must be done.”
    “Absolutely.”
    “Something drastic.”
    “Quite so.”
    “My bottle is empty,” said Jim.
    Omally tossed him another.
    “Good health to you, John.”
    “And to yourself.”
    Three hours and as many bottles later the matter was coming very near to being resolved. A vote was being taken and by a show of hands it was carried unanimously. It was agreed that with the aid of two long-handled shovels, each fitted with rubber handgrips as a precautionary measure, the mysterious symbols would be dug from the ground. They would be transported by wheelbarrow, similarly insulated about the handle regions, to the river and therein unceremoniously dumped. With these obstacles to play satisfactorily removed, attention would be turned towards the matter of the council spies. It had not been fully resolved as to the exact course of action to be taken over this, but it was generally agreed that the employment of stout sticks would play a part in it.
    The moon had by now run a fair distance along its nightly course, and when the men emerged from Omally’s hut the allotment had about it the quality of a haunted place. There was a harsh, collars-up chill in the air and the low moon now cast long and sinister shadows across a deathly-tinted ground. The prospect of digging up a potential minefield held little if any appeal whatsoever.
    “Best make a fresh start in the morning,” said Pooley, rubbing his hands briskly together. “I’m for my cosy nest, bed ways is best ways and all that.”
    Omally grasped the retreating Jim firmly by his threadbare collar. “Not so fast, Pooley,” said he, “you are not going to bottle out on this now.” Jim thought to detect a lack of conviction in the Irishman’s tone. “I suggest a compromise.”
    Pooley hovered on his toes. “You mean do it in shifts, you dig tonight, I tomorrow, I applaud that.”
    “Hardly.” Omally tightened his grip. “I mean rather that we go round and set markers beside the symbols so we will be