East of Ealing Read Online Free PDF Page B

now,” said John, “be reasonable, what is all this about? You cannot go attacking people over a packet of baccy. Have you gone mad?” Whilst the robot was considering an answer to this question, Omally struck out with a devastating blow to the shopkeeper’s groin. There was a sharp metallic clang and a sickening bone-splintering report. “My God,” groaned John, falling back and gripping at his knee. “What are you wearing, a bloody cast-iron codpiece?”
    The robot was on him in a flash and, whilst Norman cowered in the darkness saying the rosary and praying desperately for the little brass wheel he had so recently set in motion to irrevocably break down, the martial duplicate lifted his struggling prize high above his head and cast him once more across the shop. This time, however, there was little to cushion Omally’s fall. He struck the shop’s aged front door, carrying it from its hinges, and flew out into the Ealing Road to land across the bonnet of a parked Morris Minor. It is certain that a lesser man would not possibly have survived such an assault, but Omally, momentarily numbed, merely slid down the driver’s side of the car bonnet and prepared once more to come up fighting. “Nuts and noses” his Da always told him, and it was obvious that nuts were at present out of the question.

6
    Jim Pooley slouched across the St Mary’s Allotments dragging Omally’s pickaxe and spade. At intervals he stopped and cursed, he was sure that he had got the worst part of this deal. Omally was probably even now sitting in Norman’s kitchenette sipping celery hock and discussing contracts. Somehow John always came out on top and he was left holding the smelly end of the proverbial drain rod. The fates had never favoured the Pooleys. In Jim’s considered opinion the fault lay with some Neolithic ancestor who had fallen out with God. It had probably been over some quite trivial matter, but as was well known, the Almighty does have an exceedingly long memory and can be wantonly vindictive once you’ve got his back up. Pooley cursed all his ancestors en masse and threw in a few of Omally’s just to be on the safe side. He was making more than a three-course meal out of the prospect of a bit of spade work and he knew it. Hopefully, a few digs at the thing and it would simply crumble to dust. At worst, a blow or two from the pickaxe would hasten the action. With all the millions to be made from Norman’s wheel a few meagre pennies for a buried bedframe seemed hardly worth the candle.
    Pooley slouched through the allotment gates and off up Albany Road, the spade raising a fine shower of sparks along the pavement behind him. He turned into Abaddon Street and confronted the high fence of planking shielding the empty bombsite. With a heartfelt sigh Jim slid aside the hanging board which camouflaged the secret entrance, and climbed through the gap, backwards.
    An ill-considered move upon his part. With a sudden strangled cry of horror Pooley vanished away through the gap. Omally’s spade spun away from his fingers and tumbled downwards towards oblivion. By the happiest of chances Jim maintained his grip upon the pickaxe, whose head now jammed itself firmly across the gap. Where once there had been well-trodden ground, now there was complete and utter nothing. The bomb-site had simply ceased to exist. Jim was swinging precariously by a pickaxe handle over the sheer edge of a very very large pit indeed. It was the big daddy of them all, and as Jim turned terrified eyes down to squint between his dangling feet, he had the distinct impression that he was staring into the black void of space.
    “Help!” wailed Jim Pooley, who was never slow on the uptake when he discovered his life to be in jeopardy. “Fallen man here, not waving, but drowning… HELP!” Jim swung desperate feet towards the wall of the chasm, his hobnails scratched and scrabbled at the sheer cliff face but failed to find a purchase. “Oh woe,” said Jim.