The Witches of Chiswick by Robert Rankin

“It’s a kind of, you-might-believe-me-if-you-fancy-the-sound-of-it, kind of jobbie, right?”
    “Something along those lines. A drink?”
    “A drink,” said Will. “And I’ll tell you a story that you really won’t believe is really real, but will really want to believe is really real, if you get my general gist.”
    “Not really,” said Tim. “But let’s go for it.”
    And so they went for it.
     
    The pub they went for it in was known as the Flying Swan. It was a pub that Tim had never been to before. They reached it after a long and tedious walk from Chiswick. A walk necessitated by the fact that the never-ending tramcar system ran only in a clockwise direction. Which meant that had they taken it, they would have to have travelled throughout the entirety of London Central before reaching Brentford. Which was only one stop
up
the line.
    Of the Flying Swan itself, what can be said?
    Well, much actually.
    The Flying Swan was a late Victorian public house which stood upon what had once been the Ealing road, but was now a paved walkway to the rear of the housing tower where Tim and Will both lived.
    The Flying Swan had survived not only the “sensitive” interior decorations that twentieth-century brewery owners had meted out to it, but the seemingly inevitable destruction that awaited it in the twenty-first century, when Brentford was all but levelled for redevelopment and the great housing towers erected. The Flying Swan had survived because of an old charter lodged with the Crown Estate and given the Royal seal of approval by Queen Victoria. This charter gave the Swan a thousand years of protection against demolition. Only one other building in Brentford had similarly survived and this was a late Georgian house on what had once been Brentford’s elegant Butts Estate which belonged to a gentleman by the name of Professor Slocombe, who dwelt in it during the twentieth century, with his elderly retainer, Gammon.
    As to the interior of the Swan, what can be said?
    Well, much, but perhaps a little at a time.
    It was now a most elderly pub, sedate, having age to its credit rather than its detriment. It retained the features that make a pub a pub, rather than a theme bar, which give it dignity: a mahogany saloon bar counter, eight hand-drawn ales upon tap, a row of Britannia pub tables, a darts board, a long-disabled jukebox.
    Its windows, of etched glass, were tinted by a million smoke-filled breaths. Its carpet, somewhat bare of thread, had known the footfalls of a thousand heroes. And its walls wore faded paper, patterned in the past.
    A yard of ale glass hung upon the wall behind the bar and below it, upon shelves, were Spanish souvenirs, bottles of rare vintage, and ancient postcards showing rooftop views of Brentford in a past now distant.
    And between these and the counter stood a barman of the part-time persuasion.
    And this part time barman’s name was Neville.
    “Good evening gents,” said this fellow as Tim and Will entered the saloon bar. “And how may I serve you?”
    Will looked at Tim.
    And Tim looked at Will.
    “Well,” said Will, perusing the row of antique beer engines.
    “I have eight hand-drawn ales on pump,” said Neville, with much pride in his voice. “A selection which now exceeds any other pub in the locality by …” Neville paused. “Eight,” he continued.
    Will smiled towards the lord of the bar. “And what would you recommend to a weary traveller?” he asked.
    “A pint of Large,” said Neville. “And for your companion?”
    “Same for me,” said Tim.
    Neville did the business, drawing with the practised hand of the true professional. At length, when he was satisfied that all was, as ever was, and ever should be, he presented his new patrons with their pints.
    Will viewed the pints upon the polished countertop.
    “Supreme,” was what he had to say.
    “Take a taste,” said Neville.
    And Will took a taste.
    “Beyond supreme,” he said, when he had tasted