plugs designed to operate on systems that were never, ever as easy as it claimed in the manual. Old batteries rolling around on the bottom of a drawer, dead biros, scrap paper, a half-used box of tissues, an unopened box of “Her Pleasure” condoms, a pack of Blu-Tack, a broken keyboard, the front panel ripped off and the number keys mostly gone. Not what I needed. I kept on looking.
The solution was inside a black organiser bound with a thing that wasn’t quite leather, but dreamed of one day making the leap. I flicked through it, tried “D” for doctor, “G” for “GP” and eventually found what I was after under “Q” for “quack”. The entry in the address book said:Howard Umbars,
158 Fryer Walk,
London W11 58P
(Emergencies call: 0208 719 9272)
I took the contact book, just in case I was wrong. The shadows dragged behind me, empty nothingness turning to watch as we walked out. In a few years, there would be ghosts in that basement, if nothing was done soon, and they’d dance to an invisible beat for the rest of time. It didn’t take much to make these things real.
To double-check my guess, I walked through the rainy streets of Willesden until I found a bus shelter. I climbed up on a ticket machine until I could lean over the top, stretched across the gap and pulled down from the stagnant pool of dirty water on the roof a sodden and sticky copy of the Yellow Pages. Quite how the Yellow Pages found its way on top of most bus shelters in London was a mystery beyond our knowing, and we put the whole thing down to higher powers and tried not to think about it. I sat in the bus shelter, shook the worst of the water out of the soggy book, and peeled my way through the glued-together pages.
What the Yellow Pages was doing on top of the bus shelters was one mystery we didn’t explore; why the Yellow Pages that we found up there happened to contain a directory for “wizards” was a mystery we actively walked the other way from. I was in there, somewhere. Matthew Swift (sorcerer), just waiting for some clumsy oaf to grab a copy of the book from on top of the shelter and read our name.
We tried “H” for healers, “M” for mystics and, with growing frustration, went back to “Q” for “quacks”.
Howard Umbars was there, in the Yellow Pages on top of the bus stop.
Higher powers had a sense of humour after all.
I tossed the book back into the puddle on top of the shelter, and went to see him.
Acton.
Acton is a borough that prides itself on not being Acton. Wherever you live in Acton, it is your noble and firm intention to make it clear that you don’t really live in Acton. You live in Ealing, or maybe, if you’re low on luck, in Ealing Borders. Or you live in Park Royal, or maybe you’re Almost Chiswick, or borderline Harlesden - wherever you are, however deep you may be inside the boundaries of the borough, if you live in Acton, then you don’t.
Howard Umbars lived in Acton. He wouldn’t admit it, but anyone who is five minutes’ walk from North Acton station lives in Acton.
Low, semi-detached houses. Fake timbering in their perfect triangular sloped roofs, set in white, gravelly stuff too smug to admit to being painted concrete. Driveways containing a mixture of slightly foxed and extremely battered cars, pubs with big gardens and expensive beer, local twenty-four-hour stores selling suspicious cakes, French cigarettes and chocolate fingers.
158 Fryer Walk could have been anywhere, and was most certainly Acton.
There was a six-pointed star on the roof above the front door. Once upon a time, this was where the Polish emigrants had come to stay, back in the days when Acton was considered practically countryside. The door itself was painted blue. There were chain curtains drawn across the windows and no doorbell, no lights on upstairs, a dim yellow glow from downstairs. I knocked on the door.
No one answered.
I knocked harder and waited.
After a while, the door was drawn back on its chain. A voice from inside said, “Yes?”
“I’m looking for Mr Howard Umbars. Actually - that’s a total lie. I’m looking for the turd with the heart condition who uses Mr Umbars as his mystical quack. He here?”
There was a moment’s pause. Then the voice said, “Please wait a moment.”