11 A brief history of Tim

Tim remained commendably level-headed as we approached the new millennium, refusing to succumb to idle ‘end of the world’ speculation. His was one household where the dawning of the year 2000 came and went almost unnoticed. He stayed in on New Year’s Eve with a bottle of cream sherry and a giant jigsaw - of which about half the pieces were sky.

Tim knows that every new year is special, and that the year 2000 is no exception. Like so many other events, it deserved a joyous whoop or two. But by the time the millennium had finally rolled around, the meaning had faded like the figures in a dusty old ledger. Tim’s an accountant; double-entry book-keeping is what he knows best. As a man for whom every day is a day of reckoning, it takes more than just a round number to quicken the pulse. And that’s all the year 2000 is, essentially, with no more significance than, say, the mileometer on his elderly Austin Princess ticking over from 99,999 miles - as it did recently - to 100,000.

Tim prides himself on being a careful driver. He’s owned the car from new, and - as he taps the polished walnut-style fascia, for luck - he swears that in all those years it’s never had so much as a scratch. That’s probably because he cruises myopically along at a stately 30mph, like minor royalty, with a queue of impatient motorists building up behind. Lost in a flatulent fug, humming along to a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, he remains blissfully unaware of the strong feelings he inspires in other road-users. Apoplectic rage, mostly. He is only jolted out of his reverie when a red-faced driver overtakes - often on a blind bend, with no thought for personal safety - with knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel too tightly.

Tim had been keeping a watchful eye on the mileometer throughout the 99,990s; after all, it’s not every day that a car reaches the milestone of six figures. But when the moment finally arrived, he was busy working out the compound interest on some capital gains. When he glanced back at the dashboard, he’d missed the moment entirely. The dial read 100,003. His first thought was to put the car into reverse, and try to ‘lose’ a few miles. But what would have been the point? Once these moments have gone, there’s no way to bring them back. They have to be seized, not choreographed.

This probably explains why the millennium celebrations failed to engage too many hearts and minds in Milltown. Millennium fever? Millennium torpor, more like. After months of frenetic anticipation and media-fuelled hype, what else could “the best night of our lives” be but a huge disappointment? They celebrated with rather more panache down in London, of course. But then they know more than we do about making big, empty gestures. When we have occasion for rejoicing here in Milltown, we don’t spend the whole year thinking “Wow, what a night that’s going to be”. We don’t talk about it... we just do it.

A micro-second of meaning, that’s all the dawning of the millennium turned out to be: an infinitesimally tiny shard of time. It was the whoosh of a rocket, an involuntary “oooh!”; a cascade of stars, an unrehearsed “aaah!”. The tail-lights of the twentieth century disappeared into the distance, and we were cocooned in darkness once again.

As the great day approached, Tim could feel on his cheek the uncomfortably hot breath of religious fundamentalism. Anything seemed possible: the Second Coming, a plague of locusts, curious lights in the sky. And, no doubt about it, odd things were beginning to happen. Old biddies, panicked by irresponsible forecasts of food shortages in The Peoples Friend, were fighting over the last few boxes of shortbread biscuits on the supermarket shelves. It was pandemonium, like the last plane out of Saigon. The window of the Milltown Bookshop was filling up with survivalist titles such as Hoarding Food for Fun and Profit and Buy a Rifle and Head For the Hills. Chelsea football club did the unthinkable and signed an English player. Strange days indeed...

Who invented the millennium bug, anyway? What a brilliant wheeze that turned out to be. First those computer Johnnies failed to spot that the world might not come to an end after 1999, and that it would be followed closely by the year 2000. Then they charged billions to put right the mistakes that they had made in the first place. Tim nods in grudging admiration; he knows a profitable scam when he sees one.

Much the same thing happened at the last millennium, when a handful of irresponsible charlatans roamed the country, whipping up panic amongst the peasantry. First they spread the rumour that sundials would all stop working at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Then they retraced their steps and made a fortune by selling pills that would cure the problem. Sugar-coated sheep-shit was all they were, but they seemed to do the trick. Everyone who took a pill - and most other folk too, if truth be told - found that their sundials were in good working order once again as soon as the sun came up again. It was almost like they’d never gone wrong at all.

With Milltown as his turf, Tim has to deal with a lot of unconventional clients. Having swapped his business suit, years ago, for rainbow-coloured knitwear, he acknowledges that there is, indeed, no accounting for taste. For the last few weeks he’s been doing the books for the Milltown Millennarians, one of our foremost doomsday death cults. Even by Milltown standards, these people are seriously weird. It’s never easy to deal in a professional manner with people who are convinced that the world will end on Wednesday week. Should Tim have treated the assignment as a short-term contract, or - more realistically - as a job for life? What happens if Armageddon doesn’t coincide with the end of the cult's financial year? Was it sound business practice, or just impertinence, to post his invoice straight away, just in case they’re right?

He feels rather sorry for the cult members. What do they do the day after the world hasn’t ended? They've sold their houses, packed in their jobs and made a rather fragile peace with family, friends and other infidels. They spend what they imagine to be their last night on earth on a rocky outcrop - looking down over Milltown in the valley, watching the lights go out one by one. They wait patiently for a host of angels to pluck them from the hillside - in the nick of time, before the cataclysm comes - and carry them off to a life of everlasting smugness. They can't just carry on as if nothing has happened... even though nothing has happened.

Tim’s interest in the cult is purely professional. He’s seen what can happen to people who are stopped on the street by some fanatical fruitcake. They listen too long, maybe read a pamphlet. Then, before they know it, their eyes are opened to the truth. They too will have to spend their leisure hours in some shopping mall - harassing busy shoppers, being mocked by kids, getting moved on by burly security guards ("But my pamphlet tells the truth about the Second Coming". "Yes, I'm sure it does; now move along, or I'll have to take you out the back and beat you to death with a stick"). They’ll have to give what little money they make from their pathetic panhandling directly to the cause, so that some fat phoney guru can meet the running costs on yet another Rolls Royce ("So what car should the Godhead have? A Reliant Robin?").

Millennium madness is receding, rapidly, like a winter chill. Already we’re beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. Having recovered from their initial disappointment that the world didn’t end, after all, the Milltown Millennarians are revising their apocalyptic predictions. By reinterpreting those ambiguous passages from Revelations - and, with Tim’s help, taking advantage of some favourable tax breaks - our local loonies are still confident of a good result.

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