"I don't think the Professor would be very happy about that."

"It's outrageous." John made fists and shook them in the air. "After all we've been through, we come out of it with absolutely nothing."

"So no change there, then."

"We're not beaten yet."

"I think I am."

"Oh no you're not."

"Oh yes I am."

"You're not," said John. "And neither am I. There must be some way for us to get our hands on all that money. If it wasn't for Fred ..."

"We could kill Fred," said Jim.

"Kill Fred?" Omally shook his head.

"Well, it's not as if we wouldn't be doing the world a favour. He is in league with the Devil, after all."

"So we should kill him?"

Jim shook his head, then lowered it dismally. "No, of course not. But if he wasn't in charge of all the Millennium money, maybe then we could get a share of it."

"There's wisdom in your words, Jim Pooley. Perhaps there might be some way to oust Fred and get someone favourable to our cause into his position. Me, for instance."

"Or perhaps we should just forget the whole damn thing. Put it down to experience, go off about our business."

"And what business would that be?"

Jim made grumbling sounds. "I shall continue with my time travelling. I'll get forward eventually. And when I do ..."

Omally now sighed, something he rarely did. "There's a fortune to be made in this millennial celebrating and we are the ones who should be making it."

"No." Jim shook his head once more. "I've had enough, John. We nearly got killed yesterday. And we nearly got killed the day before. And we nearly got killed the day before that. Today no one has tried to kill us. Tomorrow, I hope, will be even better. I'm quitting, John. I've had it. Honestly."

"Come on, man."

"No, John, I quit. No more mad schemes. No more risks to life and limb and sanity. I'm going home to bed. I may well remain there for a number of days. If not for ever."

"Jim, this is a temporary setback, nothing more."

"I'm sorry, John." Jim climbed wearily to his feet. "Enough is enough. Goodbye."

"No, Jim. You can't go like this, you can't."

"Look, John, if I call it quits now, at least I can survive this day unscathed. I mean, what else could possibly happen?"

And so saying, Jim turned dismally away, slipped upon the loose soil and fell heavily into the hole.

21.

Summer was coming to an end, and with it Jim's stay in the Cottage Hospital. He was out of traction now and the plaster casts were off. There was still considerable stiffness, but he could walk all right with the aid of a stick.

Jim had not spent his time in idleness though. He had written a book. The Brentford Scrolls: My Part in Their Discovery.

Well, it had started out with that title anyway. But Jim had favoured later excesses, Raiders of the Lost Scrolls, Scrollrunner, and finally, for no apparent reason, other than it sounded good, The Brentford Chainstore Massacre.

Although purporting to be a strictly factual autobiographical account, few who knew Jim personally would have recognized the lantern-jawed, hardbitten, Dimac-fighting sex machine hero with the devastating wit and the taste for fine wines and pussy-magnet Porsches.

Jim had sent off copies to several major publishers, but was still awaiting replies. He had not sent a copy to Transglobe. He had quite given up on the time travelling, even though he'd had plenty of time to perfect it. He could only go back. And back didn't seem to be a joyful place to go.

During Jim's months of hospital incarceration, John had made many visits, and Jim had been forced to listen to the Irishman's vivid accounts of great fund-raising ventures. Of whist drives and raffles and pub quiz competitions, of wet T-shirt contests (there seemed to have been many of these) and of guided tours and sponsorship deals. But the millions were as far away as ever, as were too the thousands and the hundreds.

"I have so many expenses," John told him.

Jim plodded homeward on his stick. The trees in the Memorial Park were taking on their autumn hues, and Autumn Hughes the gardener was sweeping up some leaves. The sun was sinking low now and the air had a bit of a nip to it. Thoughts of a nip turned Jim's thoughts to the Swan. And the optimist in him put what spring it could into his plod.

When Jim reached the Swan, however, the optimist went back to sleep.

A large neon cross blinked on and off and the sign of the Flying Swan no longer swung. The Road to Calvary, spelled out in coloured lights, flashed red, then amber, green, then red again.

Jim offered up a prayer, hung down his head and plodded on.

He settled himself onto the new bench before the Memorial Library. But the new bench, being built entirely from concrete, was uncomfortable. Jim offered up another prayer, hung his head lower still and plodded home.

He turned the familiar key in the familiar lock and sought sanctuary. There were no letters of acceptance from publishers to greet him on the mat; the house smelled damp and dead. Jim sighed. The optimist in him was now in coma.

Jim closed the door and put on the safety chain. A lesser man than he might well have plugged up the gaps and turned on the gas at a time like this, but not Jim. Jim had no change for the meter.

He was just about to turn from the door when he heard the first click. It wasn't loud but, as all else was silent, it was loud enough.

The second click was louder. It was a very distinctive click, the sort of click which, had it been able to speak instead of just click, would have said, "I am the click made by a gun being cocked."

And then there was the third click, very loud indeed.

And then the bright, bright light.

Jim pressed back against the door. "My dear God, no," he cried.

And then came the noise.

A screaming, shouting, yelling noise.

"Surprise!" screamed Celia Penn.

"Welcome home!" shouted John Omally.

"Happy homecoming!" yelled Norman Hartnell.

Jim stood and stared as the hall about him filled. Professor Slocombe was there, and Old Pete and Small Dave and three young women from the windscreen wiper works (one of whom Jim had always fancied) and Sandra the shot-putting lesbian uniped. And there was the lady in the straw hat and her friend Doris and the medical student named Paul who knew all about the blues. And there was someone else and someone else and even someone else. But these folk were still in the kitchen as you really couldn't get that many people into Jim's hall. Mind you, you could never have got nearly fifty people into Professor Slocombe's study, but as that seemed to have slipped by unnoticed we'll say no more about it.

"Hip hip hoorah!" went those in the hall. And those in the kitchen. And others still in the front room. The couple making love in Jim's bed would probably say it later.

"Welcome home, old friend," said John Omally, wringing Jim's hand between his own.

Jim tried to speak, but he just couldn't. There was a big lump in his throat and a tear in each of his eyes.

"For he's a jolly good fellow," sang the assembled multitude, as John led Jim towards the kitchen and a drink.

Now, as we all know, there are parties, and then there are PARTIES!

At parties, you stand around sipping sherry and making polite conversation with doctors and dentists and architects and women with severe haircuts and halitosis. But at PARTIES! - at PARTIES! you do things differently.

At PARTIES! there is a fight in the front garden, someone being sick in the wardrobe, a couple making love in the host's bed (you see, Jim's had already got off to a good start). There's a bloke who climbs onto the roof and moons at the moon, there's another so well and truly out of it that he tries to tunnel under the garden fence, convinced he's escaping from a prison camp. There are discussions about seemingly ordinary matters that turn into great Zen mind-boggling mystical all-encompassing trips into cosmic infinity, which sadly will never be remembered in the morning. There are ugly women who become tantalizingly beautiful as the night wears on. And ugly men who do not. There is laughter, there is gaiety. There are several visits from the police about turning down the noise. And if you're really lucky there's a woman who takes off all her clothes and dances on the kitchen table. And if you're really, really, really lucky you might just get to meet a blonde choreographer with amber eyes and a fascinating mouth and "Nice PARTY, Jim," said a blonde choreographer with amber eyes and a fascinating mouth.

"Who is that?" whispered Jim, as the beauty vanished into the crowd.

"Oh, forget her," said John. "She's with her uncle Rob."

"This is some PARTY though, John. Thank you very much."

"Well, I couldn't let you come home to an empty house. Cheers."

"Cheers."

The lady with the straw hat said "Cheers" also, and then she said, "That Old Pete bloke is up on your roof mooning at the moon."

"Magic," said John. "Having offended almost everyone on Earth he is now turning his attention to the cosmos."

"Cheers," said Jim.

"There's some policemen outside," said Small Dave. "They've come about the music."

"There isn't any music," said Jim.

"That's what they said, so they've lent us this ghetto-blaster."

"Magic," said John, hoisting it onto the unspeakable kitchen worktop and plugging it into the socket.

Howl, shriek and scream.

"It's the Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death," shouted Jim above the cacophony. "They're beginning to grow on me."

Professor Slocombe stuck his head round the kitchen door. "There's some policemen outside," he shouted. "They say to turn the noise down."

"Magic," said John Omally, turning it down by the merest fraction.

In Jim's back garden, a chap who was well and truly out of it tried to tunnel under the fence. Upstairs someone was being sick into Jim's wardrobe.

"Couldn't you do that somewhere else?" asked the couple who were making love in Jim's bed. It was a different couple.

"You know, John," said Jim, as John topped up his glass from the dangerous blue vodka bottle, "you're a good friend to me."

John consulted his naked wrist. "It's a bit early in the evening for that kind of talk, isn't it?"

"Yes, you're right. Dare I ask how the fund-raising is going?"

"So-so," said John, making the so-so gesture.

"Hm," said Jim. "Well, cheers anyway."

And John topped up his glass. "I think I'll go and see if I can find that blonde choreographer," he said, turning up the ghetto-blaster.

"Go with God, my friend," called Jim. And Jim lounged back against his unspeakable worktop, a glass of dangerous blue vodka in his hand, and the Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death playing havoc with his inner ears. In the front garden two men fought goodnaturedly and all seemed once more right to Jim with Brentford and the world.

"So God and St Peter are playing golf," said Old Pete, now down from the roof and in the front room, "and St Peter's winning. And God takes a swing at the ball and slices it into the rough and this rabbit picks it up in its mouth and races across the fairway, and then out of the sky plunges this eagle and it picks the rabbit up in its talons and soars away into the blue and the next thing this hunter shoots the eagle and the eagle plummets dropping the rabbit and the ball rolls out of the rabbit's mouth and straight into the hole. And St Peter looks at God and says 'Do you want to play golf or just fuck about?'" Two West London Wandering Bishops who had happened by laughed uproariously at this. A woman with a severe haircut and halitosis, who was at the wrong party, said, "Surely that joke is in very bad taste."

"Shall I goose her, or will you?" Old Pete asked the bishops.

"Now crop circles," said Paul the medical student, toking on a joint of Cheech and Chong proportions. "Crop circles are the stigmata of the Corn God. A visual expression of the agonies of the landscape's Passion, brought on through modern day man's rape of the natural world. Agrichemicals, intensive farming, the land cries out in sorrow and pain. But will anyone listen? Will they?"

"Don't Bogart that joint," said the lady in the straw hat, snatching it away.

"Anybody here got an acoustic guitar?" asked Paul.

"No!" shouted all within earshot, and those out of earshot also. And Paul was hustled from the party and flung into the street. Acoustic guitar indeed!

"Huh," said Paul, "and I can do 'Blowing in the Wind' without even looking at my fingers."

"And stay out!"

A well and truly out of it chap ran by shrieking, "Free, I'm free!"

"Would you like to dance, Jim?" asked the blonde choreographer with the amber eyes and the fascinating mouth.

"Yes I would," said Jim. "It's Suzy, isn't it?"

"That's right, but how did you know my name?" Jim took her most politely in his arms and, as the Hollow Chocolate Bunnies (right on cue) went into a slow and smoochy number, began that slow and dreamy turning round in circles dance that people such as Jim who can't otherwise dance at all always seem to be able to do when holding on to someone really wonderful.

"What were you saying?" asked Jim, who even through the haze of cigarette smoke could smell the beauty's hair.