A sneak peek inside ...

Chapter One

First Date with Bikers & Gas

 

Ned shifted on the rickety wooden stool in the Gold Panner pub and felt apprehensive about his night ahead. He was a skinny young man, wearing desert boots, jeans, a faded khaki T-shirt featuring a Route 66 road sign, and a denim jacket. He’d shaved nervously, nicked his chin, then slapped on a liberal dose of pungent aftershave, which was still stinging. Looking across the bar at his friend Ivan, who was standing behind the counter cleaning glasses, he gave him a wan smile.

    “It’s been well over an hour,” he said. “I was mad to think she’d show up.”

Ivan gave him a puzzled look. “You look like you lost your dearest mother and a thousand pounds today,” he said in a thick Eastern European accent. Ivan was pale-skinned and lean-muscled with a black bushy moustache. He stood proud and erect in his dirty white vest and cheap-looking medallion. He reminded Ned of a 1970s porn star. “Why so sad, my friend? It’s Saturday night, so cheer yourself bloody well up!”

    “I’m supposed to be meeting someone.”

    An image of Julia appeared in his mind. Her wide-eyed face was illuminated by an inquisitive, thoughtful intelligence, with features so perfect she was blessed, in his fevered imagination at least, with the stunning beauty of a film star. He had seen her only in jeans and a pullover, but he could tell that her body was slim and firm yet bulged in all the right places. She had sex appeal in spades. Here was a girl who could have any man grovelling at her feet, yet for some unfathomable reason, she wanted him. It was the greatest mystery he’d ever encountered. He’d been thinking about it since the moment she’d asked him out, and he still didn’t understand why. He adjusted his thick, black-rimmed glasses and placed them back on his freckled, bulbous nose, patted down his wiry ginger hair and tried to understand why a girl who looked as pretty as Julia would want to go out with him. He wasn’t exactly Casanova. In fact, he was more like Casanova’s dog. He wasn’t particularly ugly, obnoxious, or smelly, but he’d never had much luck in attracting the attentions of the opposite sex – the few women he had dated had been disastrous. His job in the bird sanctuary meant he met more ducks than women. He’d considered online dating, but he looked very gerbil-like in his profile picture.

    Ivan cleaned a glass with a dirty rag. “You lonely, eh? Do not worry your head, my friend. I have something to make you bloody good and happy man. With superstrong beer, you are never lonely. Hang on one second.” He turned and disappeared through the cellar door.

    As Ned waited for him to come back, he drummed his fingers on the beer-stained bar and had a look around the pub. The old chandelier, hanging precariously from the cracked ceiling, was so dirty that it bathed the whole place in a gloomy light. The damp and grotty walls were lined with crooked pictures of dogs playing poker or bucolic scenes of toiling plough horses. The ancient carpet had its own miniature swamp and ecosystem, as years of yeasty beer lay unattended. In the corner sat the only other patrons: two old men playing dominoes. Ned watched with fascinated disgust as one of them made his false teeth slide up and down in his mouth as he ruminated with his jaws.

    This was his local, situated only a short walk from the rows of shambolic Victorian terrace houses that made up Pickering Street and the surrounding neighbourhood. Ned sighed and cursed under his breath. Why had he arranged to meet Julia at this carbuncle of a pub? What the hell was he thinking? A morgue would have been a more viable option as a venue for a first date with a sexy young girl. Especially a girl who looked like Julia. She was probably used to being swept off her feet by handsome men in trendy bars and expensive restaurants. He guessed that she was very popular and went to all the right parties, had fantastic and interesting friends, and a life that didn’t need invading by a skinny, nerdy-looking man with a bulbous nose and thick black glasses. He conjured up a mental image of Julia standing in the Gold Panner pub with a look of abject disgust on her pretty face.

    Ivan reappeared carrying a pump clip, which he attached to a beer pump.

    “Hello again, Neddy boy. You should try my Mad Ferret.”

    Ned tried to put Julia out of his mind and forced a smile. “What are you rambling on about, you crazy man?”

    “I ramble about nectar of the gods! Ivan’s new concoction is now ready. I come to this stupid bloody country to make my fortune. And look what happens. It all goes wrong, and I end up owning a wreck of a pub in a wreck of a town. But Ivan is strong and will fight back. I have good plan. I brew super strong stuff to bring in alcoholic punters. I make my own bloody good beer down in the cellar, but only with the super strength to kill a lion.”

    Ned glanced dubiously at the child-like drawing of a ferret Ivan had scrawled on the pump clip. “No thanks, mate. I can guess what that stuff does to the brain, and I’ve got to stay reasonably lucid tonight. I’m supposed to be meeting the most amazing girl.”

    “A date! You bring a real, live woman into my pub?” Ivan beamed and did a little jig of happiness. “I could kiss you, you beautiful Englishman. This first woman in pub for many years. Is glorious day for Ivan. Business will surely pick up. Tell her to bring many, many friends. We have private party.”

    “Maybe not tonight, it being a first date and everything.”

    “But I will throw crazy party,” said Ivan with a look of wild-eyed desperation and a dramatic sweep of his hands. “Who is this girl? Is she sexy with the big bosoms?”

    “I met her a few days ago. She’s called Julia, and yes, they are quite big.”

    “So how did you get a date with this big-chested lady?”

    “Well, you know how I work at the bird sanctuary? I was taking a small group on one of the tours, and she was right there at the front. One of the keen ones. Asking questions and hanging on my every word. She seemed to be really impressed with me, or my work, or something. She told me that she was interested in the preservation of endangered species and mentioned the shockingly accelerated rate of extinction due to global warming. For some reason, she believes that the sanctuary’s geese and ducks are under threat. They’re not. They’re like a plague of bloomin’ locusts.”

Ivan was confused. “How does having many ducks make you attractive to the women?”

    “She told me I was a hero for the many rare species I’d no doubt saved. Then she got all flirty with me. I got carried away and told her I’d personally saved the Greylag Goose from extinction, told her I was like a young David Attenborough, which I guess I am. When the tour was over, she took me aside and said something shocking. She said she wanted to meet with me and discuss things further.”

    “Neddy the hero, eh? For looking after ducks and geese. This is a strange tale you tell Ivan.”

    “Exactly. I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t understand how my crummy job could get a girl like that so passionate and worked up. Did I tell you she’s very beautiful?”

    “So what did you do?”

    “What do you think? I gratefully accepted what fate had thrown my way. To be perfectly honest, I was stunned at my good fortune. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before, so I quickly arranged a date before she changed her mind, blurted out a meeting in this place in a blind panic.”

Ivan polished a glass thoughtfully. “Impressed with your bird watching work, eh? I think that you English are a strange lot with your tea and crumpets and cricket. Tell me, my friend, do English women like bird watchers? Should Ivan become bird watcher?”

    “Well … Julia seems to like bird watchers. I’ll ask her if she ever shows up.”

Ivan stacked a few glasses and thought a bit more. “I am sorry, Neddy, to tell you this … but no woman who is a normal woman is impressed by a man because he can tell the lapwing from the blue tit. Be careful, my friend. She may not be normal. I know about these things. In Poland, I go out with lots of women who are not normal.”

    “She’s perfectly normal,” Ned said, wondering if Ivan was right.

*

A few miles away from the pub, a gang of Hell’s Angels rode in formation along a quiet country lane that cut through open farmland. Raucous shouting, enthusiastic cursing, and the deep, rhythmic throb of powerful Harley-Davidson motorcycle engines shattered the rural silence. Then the farmland to their right gave way to a large expanse of still, grey water at the mouth of a wide estuary that glistened in the low, setting sun. The bikers continued down the lane, following the shoreline closely. The beach was rocky, with grey sand and filled with plastic rubbish, smelly sewage remains and other unidentifiable yet gross-looking objects.

    At the head of the formation was their leader, chosen because he was the fattest, loudest, and hairiest man the others had ever met. His name was Mad Eric, and he was fifty-eight years old. He was once a civil servant with a large, mortgaged house, two aggressively demanding teenagers, and a wife who constantly craved more furniture, more ornaments, more polite dinner parties, more of everything he despised. When he found out that she was sleeping with her jujitsu instructor, he decided to jack the whole domestic thing in and follow his secret teenage dream of riding motorcycles to pubs, camping out, and getting horribly drunk.

    He guided Black Bessie, his huge bike, around a sharp bend and felt the early evening sun shining down on his ruddy bearded face. He grinned broadly, revealing a missing tooth, and thought about the plan for the evening. They were headed to Single Point, to the Gold Panner pub for a night of drunken mayhem. And God help anyone who gets in their way.

Mad Eric’s beaming smile faded. “What the bloody hell’s that?” he shouted in a coarse voice.

    He coughed and twitched his nose. There was something in the air that was the foulest thing he’d ever smelt. He sniffed again. It was so extraordinarily bad that he felt almost violated.

    “What the … Bloody hell!” he barked again.

*

Ned took a sip of his Mad Ferret, found it completely unpalatable, and wondered if he should forget Julia and head off home. But then the door creaked open, and she walked in. Even in the dusty, grimy surroundings of the Gold Panner pub, she looked like a supermodel making an entrance on the catwalk. She was wearing a short red skirt and a white blouse, which Ned noticed had the top buttons undone. Her long blonde hair was gently curled, and she had large blue eyes. Ned gazed with appreciation at her pretty, delicate face and pert body and watched as she glanced with some alarm at the two old men playing dominoes, who were ogling her with almost cartoon-like eagerness.

    This was it. His dream date had arrived, and his nervousness had just got much worse. He squirmed on his chair and racked his brain for an opening witty gambit – his tactic for getting the attention of the opposite sex had always been to bombard them with a lot of hilarious banter. This would hopefully send them into spasms of laughter and make them forget that he looked like a ginger-topped, freckled potato wearing glasses. Then he remembered that despite his best efforts, he’d been told on numerous occasions that he was more like a brother than anything else. He only hoped Julia wasn’t going to think of him like that. On the other hand, thought Ned, looking at Julia, this was promising. Against all expectations, she’d actually turned up, so he wasn’t about to start worrying just yet.

    He walked over to a battered old table in the corner of the room with a couple of creaky chairs beside it – the spot he’d selected as most romantic in the pub because there were a few fewer stains. He puffed out his chest, tried to act un-brother-like and gave her a friendly wave. She smiled sweetly when she saw him and came over.

    “Hi, Ned,” she said, sitting down so they faced each other at the table. “Sorry, I’m late. Something came up that I couldn’t get out of. I tried to ring, but this town doesn’t seem to have any signal.”

    Ned got a whiff of delicate perfume. She smelled gorgeous. Her clothes were expensive and looked new. Her voice was soft and melodic with perfect enunciation. She had the confident sheen of someone who had very wealthy parents who’d lavished her every whim, not like most people he knew in Shingle Point, a town of charity shops, benefit cheats, and grinding poverty.      What was a girl like this doing here, wanting to go out with him?

    “Well, at least you turned up … eventually,” he said, thinking it was a bit of a joke, but then regretted what he’d said. It wasn’t very tactful. He decided to try another witty line. “Isn’t this spot romantic?” he added with a wry and hopefully ironic smile. “In a post-apocalyptic, Orwellian nightmare sort of way.”

    “Romantic?”

    “Never mind,” Ned said, thinking it might be better if he shut up.

    “Did you notice that absolutely terrible smell outside?” she said with a look of disgust, wrinkling her pert nose and flashing her eyes angrily. “It’s like … like a million rotten eggs. Really disgusting. Don’t you think that industry has a moral duty to also be environmentalists? I’ve not lived around here very long, only a few weeks. Does it happen a lot?”

    Ned knew exactly what it was. He smiled breezily. “Don’t worry about the smell. I don’t. Everyone’s used to it around here. It’s the chemical plant. It leaks every so often. It’s been doing it for the past ten years or more. On and off. You get used to it after a while. Mostly, it isn’t harmful. If they think it’s really dangerous, they’ll start up the claxons.”

    Julia looked shocked. “Yes, I heard there were claxons. This little town is quite infamous on certain eco-websites. You’re all in great danger.”

    “What? They’re only warning claxons. They were fitted around the town after the first few really bad leaks. Well, really, after Katie Jones didn’t wake up for seventy-two hours, and when she did, she thought she was a horse. Nasty business. When they go off, we have to evacuate.”

    Julia looked at Ned’s breezy smile and returned it with an exasperated expression that seemed to ask how he couldn’t fail to be furious. “But that’s just awful. It must be some sort of violation of your basic human rights. I’m surprised you locals aren't angry about it. Write to your M.P. and stage a protest march. This place is the best case for why we need renewables I’ve ever seen. Are you not angry?”

    Ned stopped smiling when he saw Julia’s serious face and hoped that he hadn’t got off on the wrong foot. Was industrial pollution a good thing to discuss on a first date?

    “Well … I suppose I am,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster.

    “Good. You’d be a fool not to be. Let me tell you something,” Julia said with sudden and surprising vigour. “Did you know that over the last ten years, maintenance contracts have been cut by over sixty-seven per cent at plants like yours all over the country? It’s no wonder the machinery has become so dangerously unstable. It’s not right. Don’t you agree?”

    “Really? Interesting fact you have there. I guess you’re right.” He hadn’t really given it much thought before now. He knew about wildlife, especially birds, but not politics. He tried to think of how to change the subject.

Ivan suddenly appeared from nowhere. He claimed that he was there to take the drinks order, but Ned knew that it was just to get a closer look at Julia. He smiled at her and licked his lips like a cat eyeing up cream. She told him that she would like a sparkling water with a twist of lemon and gave him the same look she’d given the two old men.

    “I am Ivan at your service. Good friend of your boyfriend, Ned. We were talking about you before you arrived. Ned said you had the big bosoms, and he is right. He said you will bring many of your most beautiful girlfriends back to my pub. I am sure you have many beautiful girlfriends. As you can see, it’s very girl-friendly.” He waved his arm to encompass the two old men and some ripped wallpaper. When she didn’t answer, he added, “You must bring many sexy girls with big bosoms to Ivan’s place. Please bring girls. We have private party. Ivan will look after you all with free Mad Ferret.”

Julia gave him an odd look. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

    “You think about it, okay?” Ivan sounded desperate but managed to smile gallantly and puff out his chest. Then he turned away and went back to the bar.

    Ned looked at Julia’s puzzled face and felt he had to say something by way of explanation, hoping that Ivan hadn’t ruined his date. “Don’t mind him. He’s Polish.”

    To Ned’s surprise, she frowned and nodded earnestly like she thought he was saying something significant. “Don’t you think that immigrants are getting a raw deal in Britain today? We should be a cultural melting pot, not a xenophobic lynch mob. Don’t you agree? Don’t get me on to Brexit.”

    Ned replied that it wasn’t something he’d really given much thought to and told her that his main interest was in wildlife. This prompted her to launch into a long and intense ramble about the evils of whaling, the banning of battery farming (as she was vegan), and a long and very educational monologue about how the red squirrel will soon become extinct.

    Ned shifted in his seat and thought about Ivan’s earlier comment about normal girls. As she talked, he wondered how to get her off the subject of right-on politics, but was beginning to realise that it was futile. He’d tried to ask her about other things, but this didn’t work. She was clearly obsessed. He’d never given any of the things she was talking about any thought at all, but clearly, she had. Lots of thought.

    He was just about to tell her that he wasn’t interested in politics when he noticed that the more he nodded and smiled, the more she seemed to warm to him. He decided to say nothing. He consoled himself with the thought that the date could have been much worse. At least she’d turned up, and at least there weren’t a lot of uncomfortable silences, quite the opposite. She was also the sexiest girl who’d ever lectured him about endangered squirrels he’d ever met. He just sat and listened, smiling, nodding, looking at her glowing skin, her golden hair, her wonderful eyes, and the cute way she frowned when being earnest. He was dazzled by the perfection of her straight, white teeth, which were exposed when she gave him a smile after mentioning a political injustice that had been righted. She railed against Donald Trump, the war in Syria, and plastic bottles. Ned tried his best to look very sympathetic. He reached out and managed to hold her hand when she became tearful at the plight of Mexican immigrants.

    Ivan reappeared with a supply of drinks, including a complimentary sample of Mad Ferret in a cocktail glass for Julia, and told her proudly that he had made it himself. She thanked him and said that it was very important to keep pre-industrial crafts like small-scale brewing alive.

    As she talked to Ivan, Ned found himself gawping at Julia’s ample chest, her slim waistline, and her perfectly proportioned legs and realised he felt an uncontrollable stirring in his trousers. He forced himself to turn away as he thought it best to make his staring less obvious. But he couldn’t help turning back and gazing as she lifted her arms and flicked back her mane of glorious, shiny blonde hair. Ned wanted to sit and stare at her forever. He wanted to smell her hair. He wanted to do all sorts of things to her. She was so sexy he could hardly stand it. Who cares if she was obsessed with politics? She could be obsessed with elephant dung, and yet she’d still be wonderful. She was an angel, here in a dung-heap. As passionately and earnestly as he could, he agreed with her opinion about craft brewing in the vain hope that she’d sleep with him.

*

The bikers stopped shouting and cursing, and even their natural inclination to rev their motorbikes deserted them. The foul smell that hung in the air had become much more intense. It was now so bad that it felt like it was creeping into their pores and burning the inside of their nostrils. The party spirit was sagging, and Mad Eric didn’t like it one bit. He was so angry that he let out a bellow of defiance, which he immediately regretted, as he had to gulp in a large quantity of foetid air. Sometimes it was such hard work being rebellious.

    The bikers followed the lane as it turned inland. Then, directly ahead of them, they saw the source of the putrid smell. Built on the shore of the estuary, and looking completely incongruous in the surrounding countryside, was a sprawling cityscape of bare metal chimneys, warehouses, huge domes, and cooling towers. The vast edifice was threaded through with miles of pipes and electricity pylons. This was the plant owned by Grimes Chemicals, the largest of its kind in Europe. It was so vast that it was practically a town in itself. When this marvel of engineering was first opened, sixty years ago, it operated at full capacity. However, now, whole sections of it are barely operational, and it is poorly maintained.

    The bikers noticed that their wooded and picturesque lane had now become a tarmac road, and a tall wire fence sprang up to their left. Beyond this sat bare metal towers laced with rusting rivets, which leaked evil-looking gloop. They could hear muffled blasts and were engulfed in a hot, luminous green mist.

    The smell had reached such intensity that it felt like physical blows. Mad Eric’s eyes burned and streamed with tears, and he wondered why his gang hadn’t sped up. He shouted at the bikers behind him and waved his arm frantically forward. When they saw this, they whooped rebelliously and with some relief, revved up their cycles and sped off.

    After riding hard for a few minutes, they eventually reached the other side of the plant. Fences, towers, chimneys, and the strange mist disappeared, and the bikers found themselves once again surrounded by fields and hedgerows. But they noticed that the trees were grey with shrivelled leaves, and the fields had large patches of bare ground or blackened grass. They hit a crossroads and turned right toward the estuary. Then the road dipped, and after a few minutes riding, they went past a small huddle of old houses that marked the outskirts of Shingle Point.

    They rode on to the centre of the town and up the High Street. Most cars moved aside for them, turning off into side streets or stopping to let them pass. People out shopping watched the formation of menacing black machines and their fat, hairy riders and wondered what was happening to their quiet and peaceful town. Most imagined themselves being mugged, raped or murdered in their beds. Mad Eric watched the procession of worried faces as he cruised along and couldn’t help but grin. His wife could keep her wimpy martial-arts instructor as far as he was concerned. This was the life for him.

The bikers got to the town square, skirted around a crumbling monument to Queen Victoria, then headed towards their destination – the campsite they’d found on the ‘Real Ale Camping Trail’ website, described in Trip-score reviews as a ‘hard-core boozers paradise’. After riding for a minute to the end of a narrow scrub-lined lane, they parked up in a neat row in the car park of the Gold Panner pub. The bikers wheezed and coughed for a couple of minutes until their eyes, nostrils, and lungs felt normal again. Then Mad Eric climbed off his bike and grinned at the others with a wild glint in his still streaming eyes. Another fat yet burly biker called Skullsplitter – who had a pentagram tattooed on his forehead and a helmet with horns sticking out – pulled out a cheap bottle of whisky from his pannier and took a long, deep drink.

He turned to Mad Eric and exclaimed in a gruff yet excited voice, “It’s party time!”

*

Ned had smiled and agreed with Julia for quite a while, and despite her looks, was now beginning to doubt if he was enjoying his date. For the past half-hour, he’d been embroiled in a deep political discussion about wiping out Third World debt and banning private medicine. He’d learnt a lot about things he’d never really considered before. But couldn’t help wondering if Julia realised that she was supposedly on a date and not teaching a class of first-year political science students.

Despite the obvious pleasures of talking with such a beautiful girl, it was starting to get a little boring just nodding and agreeing with her all the time. But he knew that all the political talk wasn’t the worst experience he’d had on a date. Listening to Julia tell him about the evil that is genetically modified maize, his mind drifted off, and he remembered his other, less conventional encounters. One had consisted of a tearful confession of how she still loved her last three ex-boyfriends and wanted to sleep with them all at once. Another was with a woman who told him she had eight young children at home that she wanted to bring along with her. On reflection, Ned knew that Julia was by far his most intelligent and best-looking date ever and was certainly interested in the world.

    What was starting to concern him was the fact that she obviously wanted a considered and intelligent response to her various subjects. He was becoming all too aware of the fact that she seemed to be growing tired of his lack of opinion, but there was nothing he could add, besides agreement, to her assertion that the slave trade is still happening throughout the world, and a campaign should be started to raise its profile. He knew it was only a matter of time before she would grow fed up and find an excuse to leave, thinking she’d spent the evening with a cardboard cut-out. Ned realised that he didn’t want that to happen. Despite the political droning, he was starting to like Julia. She hadn’t given the pub the expected look of disgust and didn’t seem to be obsessed with her appearance. But best of all, it was becoming obvious that she was not invited to all the right parties, because it was clear that she would spend most of the time telling everyone about how global warming had caused fish stocks to move north, or some such thing. For some inexplicable reason, this comforted Ned.

    But just as he was starting to relax and think about trying to get to know Julia, something scary happened. There was a loud crash as the pub doors were thrown open and Mad Eric walked in, with Skullsplitter and the other bikers following closely behind. They looked around the pub with narrowed eyes and suspicious glances, like cowboys entering a saloon for a gunfight.

Julia stopped talking for the first time and gazed at the bikers fearfully. Ned squeezed her hand to reassure her. He tried to project a reassuringly protective image but guessed that he was more afraid than she was. He felt beads of sweat break out on his forehead, and his heart began to pound in his chest. What were these bikers going to do? Smash up the pub? Smash him up? Take Julia off on their bikes and do unspeakable things to her?

    “What’re you looking at?” Mad Eric shouted ferociously at Ned.

    “Just enjoying a nice, peaceful night out,” Ned replied, trying to keep his voice from trembling.

    Mad Eric glared at Ned but was satisfied that he’d induced enough terror, so he turned away and strolled to the bar and nodded nonchalantly at Ivan. “Hello, my mate,” he said gruffly. “We’ve been riding for hours, and we’re thirsty as hell. Campsite free? What’s on?”

    Ivan twitched his moustache and grinned nervously. “The field is all yours for tonight, my good fat friend; nobody else is camping. There’s some of my Dragonsmoke left. It’s black and bloody good. And this Mad Ferret is new on, will knock your bleedin’ heads off. I have pies and pickled eggs for your delectation.”

    Mad Eric laughed and slapped Ivan on the back. “Pour twelve Dragon, and when you’ve finished, start on twelve Ferret.”

    Ivan grinned as broadly as he could and saluted Mad Eric. The bikers walked past the bar and started filing through a narrow door that led to the snug. Ivan turned on the jukebox, and the pub filled with the intensely loud thrashing of heavy metal guitar.

    Ned tried to speak to Julia about what little he knew about the ban on whaling, but an Ozzy Osbourne song drowned him out. Julia said something in reply that he didn’t quite catch. This was a total disaster for his date. Something had to be done.        When Ned was sure that all the bikers were in the snug, he went over to the bar to speak to Ivan.

    “Did you have to let those lunatics in today? I’m with a girl. Remember?”

    Ivan was happily pulling two pints at once, glad to be finally selling something. “They come for my campsite business every few weeks, good for beer sales. How can I stop them? Besides, they make Ivan a very happy man.” He thumped his chest with pride. “They have a strong thirst for my special beer. They have drunk many gallons and make me some money. They keep the place open.”

    “Aren’t you worried there’ll be trouble?”

    “Be nice to them, and there will be no trouble. They like the pool, darts, and this loud music. I let them camp out in the field out the back, my campsite business, they drink a bloody lot if they don’t have to drive, you see my good business head working?”

    “Well, I don’t like it. Julia’s worried,” Ned said, feeling worried himself.

    Ivan turned the jukebox down a little so he could speak normally.

    “You are right to be concerned, my friend,” he said, looking over at Julia sitting alone at the table. He twitched his bushy moustache and added gravely. “I warn you not to leave a beautiful and sexy girl like that alone for long. The Angels are in town, and there are other geezers you must watch closely.” He indicated the two decrepit old men sitting in the corner playing dominoes. “Ivan confesses that he is also very jealous.”

    Ned grinned to himself and felt a warm glow inside. This was the first time that other men had been jealous of a girl he was with. “Well, she fancies me a lot.”

    “What’s she like?”

    Ned smiled awkwardly. He thought of Julia’s long blonde hair and low-buttoned blouse, then he remembered with dismay how much he’d just learnt about Aboriginal land rights. Did she do small talk at all? “She’s great.”

    He got a couple of drinks, went back to the table, and sat down. He began to reassure Julia that everything was okay, and the bikers weren’t here to cause trouble, but he soon realised that she wasn’t afraid and had already forgotten about the biker threat. When his reassurances tailed off, she looked at him with an affectionate smile.

    “Ned, you’re quite sweet, really. I’m sorry for jabbering on so much. I just get carried away. We’ve got this far, and I don’t know anything about you. How do you like your job in the bird sanctuary?”

    Ned was so surprised at her sudden change in attitude that he didn’t know what to say for a second. She was interested in him after all. He took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself to be witty. He was going to tell her a hilarious anecdote about a flock of geese that flew over the sanctuary, defecated at the same time and how it all landed on his boss.

    But he was interrupted before he’d even begun. A loud claxon wailed outside. It was so loud it almost drowned out the din of the particularly intense Black Sabbath guitar solo playing at the time.

    “What’s that? It’s not what you were talking about before, is it?” Julia said.

    Ned’s smile disappeared. He couldn’t believe his bad luck. This was the worst possible intrusion into his rapidly improving date.

    “Yes,” he said with a heavy sigh, “that’s the chemical plant. Remember what I said? The claxons go off all over town when there’s a serious leak. A really poisonous leak. We usually get them going off a couple of times a year. It means we’ve got to go to the muster point at the centre of the town, and coaches will take us away to a safe place.”

    Julia looked furious. “We’ve got to do something to stop this! It’s a horrible way to live.”

    Ivan appeared at the table with a broad smile for Julia. He kissed her hand.

    “Hello, beautiful lady. There has been a gas leak. Poison is in the air, and we must go. Come with me, and I will save you.” He turned to Ned and added, “I will escort the lady to safety for you.”

    “No thanks,” Julia said as she stood up and backed away from Ivan.

    The two old men packed up their dominoes and walked past, muttering something about it being the end of the world.

    “We’re leaving now. Just the two of us,” Ned said to Ivan. “Shouldn’t you go and warn your biker friends?”

Ivan stood up straight and puffed out his chest with pride. “You are right, my friend,” he said with conviction. “I must go and look after my customers. I am like captain of sinking ship.” He turned and went through the door to the snug.

    Ned and Julia left the pub and walked down the lane towards the centre of the town. Claxons wailed all around them, there was a horrendously foul smell in the air, and it did indeed feel like the end of the world. As they walked, Ned became increasingly angry with the chemical plant for ruining his date at the exact moment when he and Julia were starting to get along really well.

    “I’ve had enough of that stupid bloody chemical plant!” he blurted. “All my life, it’s been there up the road, stinking the air out. I’m so bloody angry.”

    He gazed into Julia’s eyes with a livid look and noticed with surprise that she was returning his gaze with reverential respect. No woman had ever looked at him like that before, and it appeared that she was impressed with what he was saying and his assertive anger. He thought it best to continue his rant.

    “Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I get woken up by bright lights or crashing sounds or rumbling. It sounds like a flying saucer’s landing in the back garden. It’s really annoying when you want a bit of peace and quiet to sleep. I have to get up for work.”

    “I see. Must be bad.”

    “I’ve had to buy earplugs.”

    Julia beamed. “I just knew you have passion in there somewhere,” she said, then added something that almost shocked him, “I really like you.”

    Ned was amazed at Julia’s last comment. The date was now going fantastically well. He gazed at her and could see that she was waiting for him to say something else, something angry. He realised that the more vitriolic he was, the more she fancied him. This was a revelation. All he had to do was be very angry, and she was all over him. It was a strange way to conduct a date, but he decided to just go with the flow and see what happened.

    “Yes … and another bloody thing,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster, but he realised with dismay that he’d now forgotten his point, so he just blurted out, “I don’t care what it takes, but we’ve got to stop this. Now! I am so very angry about it. Livid in fact!”

    Julia laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “Ned, I think we’re going to be great friends. I wasn’t sure in the pub, but now I can see that you’re just like me. You’re desperately concerned about evil corporate practices. You’re prepared to do absolutely anything to stop them.”

    “Well … I wouldn’t say -”

    “Absolutely anything! That’s wonderful. I’ve got plans for you,” she said with a significant look.

    “Plans?” He felt a stirring in his chest as he imagined all sorts of exciting things.

    “Oh yes. Big plans. I’m going to talk to my friends and sort it all out. Just you wait and see.”

    “What sort of plans?”

    “You’ll see. Can we meet up again in a few days? I’ve had a fantastic time, you’re wonderful.”

    Ned couldn’t believe his luck. He was so pleased he could have whooped for joy; a girl as beautiful, intelligent, and sexy as Julia actually thought he was wonderful and wanted to go on another date. He was just about to notch the moment up as one of the greatest in his life when he spotted Ivan running up the lane. In a moment, he’d caught them up and ruined the intimate moment.

    “I’ve tried everything, but those fools will not listen,” Ivan said, catching his breath and shaking his head. “The bikermen say they are tough and don’t worry about poison gas. They are staying in the pub and will pull their own pints. I told them that they are crazy, and they agreed. I hope they leave money. I am businessman, not charity.”

    They both agreed with Ivan that the bikers were crazy. Then Ned said that the gas was probably on its way over to them by now, and so they had better get a move on. The three of them quickened their pace and made their way up the lane and towards the town square to catch a coach.

*

A short while later, the toxic gas had spread over Shingle Point. Luckily, all the inhabitants had been evacuated, and the place lay as deserted as a ghost town. The claxons were turned off, and the only sound drifting through the putrid air was a long and elaborate guitar solo coming from the jukebox of the Gold Panner pub. The bikers were lying on the floor or slumped over tables with their hairy heads dipped in the beer slops. They were all unconscious and would stay that way for at least a day. This was not just because of the brain-frying properties of the highly toxic gas, but also the effects of Ivan’s potent real ale.