‘No, I really am.’

‘Not you talking rubbish, although you so often do. I mean all the rubbish of Mankind, all the detritus and junk, the toxic waste, the contaminated muck. The whole damn kit and caboodle.’

And Norman mimed tumbling down and down.

‘All flushed down the Bottomless Pit,’ he said. ‘Naturally I will make a small charge for each dumping. I feel that the pecuniary benefits might be substantial. And-’ and he buffed his fingernails upon his lapel ‘-I would not be at all surprised if I was awarded a Nobel Prize for my services to Humankind.’ And Norman grinned some more.

And I said, ‘No. No. No. No, no, no upon so many levels. That is not a good idea, Norman. Not a good idea at all. I fear that the beasties will take umbrage and also the good people of Brentford, who might not take too kindly to you turning the borough into the waste disposal capital of the world.’

Norman made a thoughtful face. ‘You might have a point,’ he conceded. ‘What if they brought the waste around to the back? And at night?’

‘And the beasties?’

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’

‘Carefully,’ said I and tapped at my nose. ‘Most carefully indeed.’

And Norman grinned and then he said, ‘So how might I help you, sir?’

‘I would like five Wild Woodbines, please, my good man,’ I said.

And Norman, still grinning, shook his head. ‘You’re underage,’ he said to me. ‘Now please get out of the shop.’

He parted with those Wild Woodbines, did Norman. And with a box of Swan Vestas. And he did not charge me for either. Because, as I told him, if he did not hand over same I would find myself forced to mention to his daddy that the shop now smelled of brimstone, which quite spoiled its period ambience.

I tucked both cigarettes and matches into my pockets and prepared to take my leave, warning Norman just the once more that he should give the Bottomless Pit business a severe good thinking about. And that although I could see the sound foundations for financial opportunity, the probability of cataclysmic repercussions, of an apocalyptic or Armageddon End Times nature, tainted these considerably. And then I asked, ‘What are those?’

And Norman said, ‘What do you mean?’

And I pointed at what I meant and asked once more as to what it was that I was pointing at.

‘Why, Champagne truffles, of course,’ said Norman. ‘Whatever did you think they were?’

‘I did not think anything. Which was why I asked.’

‘They’re everyone’s favourite,’ said Norman. ‘We can’t get enough of them to satisfy demand.’

‘That is evidentially untrue.’

‘It’s a figure of speech, or term of endearment or suchlike. But they are very popular and have been for as long as I can remember.’

‘Then how come I have never heard of them?’

Norman shrugged his shopkeeper’s shoulders. ‘I’ve no idea. You’ll be telling me next that you’ve never heard of Kirschwasser truffles.’ And Norman did lip-smackings and rubbed at his belly. ‘Or Mandel Splitters. Or Mandel Krokant Karos. Or Alex Vierecks. Or-’

‘No,’ I said, shaking my head with vigour. ‘You are making up all these names.’

‘I’m not,’ said Norman. ‘They’re up on the shelves. In the old sweetie jars. The ones with the nostalgic-looking labels.’

And I looked on and I beheld. And it was as Norman had said. There amongst the sweeties that I knew and loved were others that I knew not of.

‘For such is printed on the nostalgic-looking labels,’ said Norman. ‘So such must they be QED.’

‘I like not this conversation,’ I said, ‘and I know not of these confections. Surely this is some kind of elaborate hoax.’

‘It is no such thing,’ said Norman, a-shaking of his head. ‘But isn’t it interesting how hoaxes are always “elaborate”? I’d have thought that a quite simple hoax would be sufficient to fool most people. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Indeed,’ I agreed. And I viewed once more the anomalous sweetie jars. ‘Well, I am away now,’ I said. ‘Off for breakfast and then possibly to search for regular employment.’

‘What?’ And Norman made gagging, choking sounds. ‘Regular employment? You? Oh, wait, I see. Your Aunt Edna is prodding you in that direction, isn’t she? I’ll bet she’s threatening to inform upon you if you don’t take a job and soon.’

‘Well-’ I said.

‘Then best take yourself and your ill-won spoils off to the Hall of Labour at the hurry-up. The bounties that the Party offers to informers nowadays make the prospect of informing, even upon one’s own, a tempting proposition.’

‘What?’ I now said to Norman. ‘What are you talking about? Your words are strange to me and if there is meaning hidden within them, then this meaning surpasseth my understanding.’

‘Sometimes you have a lovely way with words.’ Norman pointed towards the door. ‘Why not take yourself off somewhere and hide and have a nice smoke, or something.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘And I will pay you for the fags and the matches. I am not quite feeling myself today, it must be something I ate last night. Or something.’

‘Something you drank,’ said Norman. ‘Something you drank last night. I was with you, don’t you recall? You got in that big argument with the landlord about the beer.’

‘I did?’ And then I recalled that I had. And how Norman had been with John and me the previous night. ‘I had forgotten that business about the beer,’ I said to Norman.

‘Well, I haven’t. How embarrassing was that? “I want English beer,” you went, “I want a pint of Large.” They haven’t served beer like that since the Second World War, you nutter.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said and I felt somewhat giddy.

And I paid Norman for both ciggies and matches, because I felt bad about blackmailing him out of them, and I wished him well for the balance of the day. And then I took my leave.

I had now reached a state of no small confusion. I did recall, although blurrily, that I had argued with the landlord about English ale. I had wanted it and the landlord had told me not to be absurd and that fine Rhineland lagers were good enough for any Party Member and that I should keep my dissenting opinions to myself because walls had ears.

And there had been some unpleasantness and I had been ejected from the establishment. John and Norman hard upon my tumbling heels.

‘Oh dear,’ I said once more, although this time only to myself. ‘I do not think that I am altogether the full shilling. Perhaps with a hearty breakfast inside me all will fall into place.’

And so I took myself off to the Wife’s Legs Café.

The Wife’s Legs Café lacked not for its share of nostalgia. It had been fitted out in the middle years of the rockin’ fifties, with much chrome work and a frothy-coffee machine and had since remained untouched.

I entered with a stepping that was not quite so breezy as it had formerly been, but still had a smidgen of spring left in it. Behind the counter stood the wife, as lovely as a bonnet that lacked for a bee (as the poet will have it) and a-stirring at something in a great big pot.

Chairs and tables spoke eloquently of a decade past and supported, respectively, the bottoms and breakfasts of the Wife’s Legs’ patrons. Well-knit working men were these, with mighty bottom cleavage (or artisan’s cleft, as they preferred to call it), a-tucking into their tucker. There were ladies of the night-time also, dining before heading home. A dwarf or two, as the circus was in town. And one or two fellows in sharp black uniforms of a type that I could not readily identify. These gazed morosely around and about and conversed in muted Neanderthal tones. I shrugged a shrug, rubbed palm upon palm and took me up to the counter.

‘Good morning to you, the wife,’ said I to the proprietress.

‘Good morning to you, Jim,’ replied this lady. ‘John not with you this morning?’