ran the banner headline. And beneath this much purple prose regarding rumblings beneath the streets and nouses tumbling down.
'Count Otto Black,' said I, 'and his nuclear-powered subterranean Ark.' 'Correct,' said Mr Rune, 'but I meant the article beneath it.' So I read the article beneath it.
BRIGHTON ROCK At Hove Town Hall If heavy makes you happy, then Hove Town Hall is the new rock venue to be at. Tonight 10 p.m. – 2 a.m. Have hair? Be there. Rock on.
'Heavy?' I said to Mr Rune. 'What is this heavy that makes you happy?'
'Heavy metal-' said Hugo Rune, 'it's in its infancy. But when the bass line blasts from the Marshall stack and turns your guts to jelly, you just have to up and bang your head.' 'Bang your head?'
'It's a dance.' And Mr Rune demonstrated this dance, which appeared to consist of rhythmic duckings of the head accompanied by the playing of an imaginary guitar.
'Ah, yes,' I said. 'I recall now that I have read all about heavy metal in the Leader. Are you telling me that you actually like heavy metal?' 'Dear boy,' said Mr Rune, 'I invented heavy metal.'
I shook my head, but as breakfast arrived I smiled at Mario and fluttered my false eyelashes. Just for the Hell of it.
'I cooka yours justa da way you lika it,' said Mario, which is how Italians speak. 'I give you da-bigga-da-sausage. I give you da-bigga-da-sausage any a tima you please.'
I fluttered my lashes and rolled my eyes and Mario departed.
'You invented heavy metal?' I said once more to Mr Rune.
'Where do you really think that Robert Johnson got his chord sequences from? He didn't sell his soul to Satan, I told you that already.' 'You taught Robert Johnson how to play?' 'Forward planning,' said Mr Rune. 'For this evening.'
'I do not understand,' said I, tucking into the biggest sausage I had ever seen, 'but I do have to insist that you explain to me now and not later. It is always such a cop-out when you explain later.'
'We are nearly at the end of our quest,' said Mr Rune. 'Oh, look.' And he pointed beyond my shoulder with his fork. 'Zulus, thousands of them.' I turned not my head, nor even batted an eyelash.
'This is my da-bigga-da-sausage,' I said, 'and J am going to eat it.'
Mr Rune's hovering fork returned to his own breakfasting plate. 'Forward planning,' he said once more. 'Forward planning will always hold the advantage over a hastily conceived stratagem. Allow me to offer you an example of this.' And Mr Rune leaned back in his chair and grinned at me. I leaned back in mine and did likewise.
And the leg of my chair buckled and I fell heavily to the floor. And would you not know it, by the time I had managed to scramble up and find myself another chair, Mr Rune had eaten my da-bigga-da-sausage.
'Forward planning, you see,' said Mr Rune. 'I knew that chair had a dodgy leg, which is why I sat you there.'
'You thorough-going swine,' I said, but I did have to smile when I said it. 'So, all right, you won da-bigga-da-sausage, but please explain about this forward planning when it comes to the field of heavy metal.'
'I gave Robert Johnson the formula,' said Mr Rune, 'the chord sequences that later musicians would recognise to be the chord sequences. All rock music is based upon those chord sequences. This event-' And Mr Rune pointed to the Rock Night advert in the Leader '-could not have occurred had heavy-metal music not come to pass. It also required the invention of the Stratocaster and the Marshall stack. Naturally I had a hand in these also.' 'Naturally,' I said, shovelling egg down my throat.
'So that this event would come to pass, here in Hove tonight.' 'Why?' I asked. Which was a reasonable question.
'Because I have to meet and speak with Him. And He will be present at the event.' 'Why will this He be there?' I asked. 'Because He is a heavy-metal fan.' 'Oh, I see,* I said. 'But who is He?'
Mr Rune mopped up the grease from his plate with his toast and then downed the toast. 'He,' said Mr Rune, 'is the Wiseman of Withdean. The last in His line. He is a direct descendant – the last direct descendant – of the man you saw upon the Chronovision.' 'Little Tich?' I said. 'I did like his Big-Boot Dance.'
'Not Little Tich,' said Mr Rune, and his non-food-stuffing hand moved to the stout stick that lay across his lap. 'Only joking,' I said. 'Then whom?' 'He is the last direct descendant of Jesus Christ.'
I was very glad that I did not have da-bigga-da-sausage in my mouth at that moment, for surely I would have coughed it all over Hugo Rune.
'The last direct descendant of Jesus Christ?' I managed to say.
'Christ did not die upon the cross,' said Hugo Rune. 'Me and the other disciples could not bear for that to happen. Matthew bribed Pilate to have Christ taken down before he died, although he feigned death and word was put about that he was dead. He was tended to and returned to health and smuggled out of the Holy Lands by Joseph of Aromatherapy. He was brought to England, to Brighton, in fact, and from thence to a London borough known as Brentford.' 'Brentford?' I said. 'That rings a bell somewhere.'
'Brentford is the site where the biblical Garden of Eden was located.' 'That I do not believe,' was my reply to that.
'Flutter your eyelids some more,' said Mr Rune, 'and enquire of Mario regarding that third breakfast.'
I did as I was bid and then returned to our conversation. 'The Garden of Eden was in England?' I said.
'Many believe that all biblical events occurred in England,' said Mr Rune, 'but they didn't, only those of the Old Testament. Christ married a Brentford lass. He eventually died and was buried there in the borough. I own a house on The Butts Estate in Brentford. The body of Christ lies in a catacomb beneath it, uncorrupted by the ages.' 'And Christ fathered children?' I said. 'Only one,' said Mr Rune. 'A boy. Colin.'
'Colin?' And I took the opportunity to roll my eyes once again.
'Who married and had a single son and so on and so forth to the present day.'
'And you seek this present-day descendant? This last in the line of Christ?' 'I do,' said Mr Rune. 'And why?' 'Because I cannot defeat Count Otto Black alone.' 'You have me,' I said.
'Dear boy.' And Hugo Rune smiled upon me. 'You remain faithful and for that I am grateful. But Black is allied to a powerful force – that God which exists between the seconds. I alone, or even with your inestimable assistance, would be insufficient to deal with this opponent.'
'And this chap, this last descendant of Christ's bloodline, does he know who he is? What he is?'
'No,' said Mr Rune, 'he does not, which is why we will have to convince him. Show him. And we will need to do this through the agency of the Chronovision. Which is why I cannot as yet destroy it.'
'It will be a bit of a shock for him when you tell him,' I said.
'No doubt, but that is what I must do.' Mr Rune's second breakfast arrived and he tucked into it.
'Woulda da loverly lady care for another da-bigga-da-sausage?' said Mario to me. 'The biggaist-bigga-da-sausage you have, big boy,' I replied and did a bit more fluttering. Mario returned to the kitchen, limping curiously.
'What if he will not play?' I said to Mr Rune. 'Have you thought about that? What if he does not want to be what he is? And hang about here, if he is a heavy-metal fan, maybe he has already gone over to the dark side. I am sure I read that this heavy-metal lot eat their own young and sacrifice spaniels to Satan.'
'That's a popular myth put about by Christian Fundamentalists,' said Mr Rune, 'who are in fact in league with the Dark One themselves. Heavy metal is a force for good.'
I shrugged and snaffled away some bacon from Mr Rune's plate. 'Heavy metal is too loud for me,' I said. 'I prefer soul. Are you sure you have got this right? Would Christ's descendant not prefer soul music also? It is soul, after all, is it not?'
'No,' said Mr Rune. 'It is metal. I am Hugo Rune. I think, therefore I'm right.'
'And you know the identity of this chap? You can pick him out of a crowd? I think you will find that they all look the same. Long hair and black T-shirts. The girls look rather special, though. I've seen them.'
'I do not know his identity,' said Mr Rune. 'I have no way of gaining it from the Chronovision.'
'I tell you what,' I said. 'Being out together at the same time is not a good idea. One of us should always be at the flat, guarding the Chronovision, prepared to smash it to pieces should Count Otto appear through the floorboards in his bathyscaphe.'
'Which is why I never leave you alone there,' said Mr Rune, who, having finished his second breakfast, was now rising from his chair, 'in case a rat runs beneath the floorboards and you locate a hammer.'
'But he will find us eventually. I bet he has spies everywhere.'
'Have no doubt of that. But for now, follow me – we're going shopping.' 'For a new suit?' I said, as we left Georgio's Bistro once more without paying the bill. 'I do miss my tweeds. Do you know a good tailor around here?'
'Our finances do not run to a tailor,' said Mr Rune, making good progress up George Street. 'But you never pay,' I said, mincing after him.
'We will find you something in one of these charity shops. Something short and in leather. We can't have you looking out of place at Rock Night.' Now, I do have to say, I looked pretty damn good, and that I am saying myself. Mr Rune found me a remarkable ensemble, not leather but black PVC, bra, mini-skirt and matching stiletto thigh-high boots. And all for a fiver at the Sussex Beacon, a George Street charity shop. I wondered about those boots, though, very big for a girl. But Mr Rune actually paid for the outfit. Which somehow made it rather more special.
I posed in front of the crazed bathroom mirror, the only mirror in the flat. God, if I had not known that was me, I would have fancied me myself. Mr Rune had had me dye my hair black and whiten up my face somewhat and put on lots of eye make-up and lots and lots of lipstick. And we had stuffed the bra with scrunched-up Leader and I tottered up and down, getting the hang of my heels.
Now, do not get me wrong here, in case you were thinking that I was enjoying this, being tarted-up like a lady of the night. I was not getting some kind of vicarious thrill from this. I was being a professional. I was helping Mr Rune. And I was protecting myself from recognition. But I did look hot.
'I reckon I will pull tonight,' I said. And then I rethought what I had said and did not say anything else for a while. But I continued to practise upon my heels.
And then I went to wait in the front room, because Mr Rune wanted to use the bathroom.
I tottered about in the front room, where the Chronovision stood on its crate in the corner. I really, truly wondered how it worked. It did not have an aerial, for one thing, and it looked just like a down-to-earth 1950s Bakelite television set.
Television sets have always puzzled me. Well, at least the invention of them has. According to history, a Scotsman named John Yogi Bear invented the television set. All on his own. He pieced it together and plugged it in and turned it on. But think about this: there was nothing for him to watch on it, was there? He had invented the first television set but there were no television stations broadcasting programmes. So how did he know that it worked? And even if he did know, somehow, what was the point of it when there were no programmes?
It must have been like inventing the first telephone and then discovering that there was no one you could call up on the phone to boast about it to.
It made no sense to me. And in all the truth that there is, it still makes no sense! At length, Mr Rune appeared in the front room.
'Where did you get all that?' I asked, for he looked simply splendid.
He sported a broad-shouldered long black leather coat that reached almost to the ground, leather biker boots, leather trousers, a leather waistcoat and a leather hat.
'You do not need to know how I acquired these items,' said he. 'Just trust me: in the future, all heroes will dress like this.'
'I want to dress like that too,' I said. 'It looks, well, it looks… cool.'
'You look "cool" in your own special way,' said Mr Rune to me. 'Now let us away to Rock Night,' and he added, 'Bitch.'