The Abominable Showman

by Robert Rankin

  ‘Upon this momentous occasion,’ I said, once again. ‘I would just like to say what an honour it is to be the very first man to pilot a spaceship from the very portal of Heaven to the realm of Man below.’

  ‘Not bad,’ said Barry.

  ‘And –’ I went on.

  ‘Chief,’ said Barry. ‘You and I both know that you are just padding it out to avoid leaving here and returning to The Leviathan. So why don’t we drop all this, how should I put this, bovine manure, and get your bottom in gear. Shall we not!’

  ‘Oh all right,’ I said to Barry. ‘You have no sense of occasion, but you’re only making it worse for yourself. I’ll be making a very big speech when I step from The Pilgrim to receive a standing ovation and probably a special medal too. Made out of gold.’

  I paused to let Barry say his piece. But for once it seemed he had nothing to say, so I turned the ignition key.

  Click…..click and whirr and stop went the engine.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘It’s broken.’

  Barry made sighing noises in my head.

  ‘All right! All right!’ I said. ‘We’re leaving.’ And I turned the ignition key in the right direction, waved at God and His golden angels through the windscreen, then did a really nifty vertical take-off. The Pilgrim shot into the sky of gold and out through the great big lens.

  From gold to black in the twinkling of an eye.

  ‘You can have a little sleep now, Barry,’ I told my holy guardian sprout. ‘I can steer the ship perfectly well by myself and you have earned a rest for all your hard work. I’ll wake you when we arrive back at The Leviathan.’

  ‘Well thank you very much indeed, chief,’ said the sprout. ‘Except for one small thing.’

  ‘And what might that be, my little green buddy?’

  ‘Well, chief, and no offence meant here. But if you really think that I am so dumb that I will just go off to sleep leaving you to “accidentally” crash land this spaceship on the planet Venus so you can turn into a vegetable lamb, you are

  SORELY MISTAKEN!’

  And that really hurt when he shouted it out in my head.

  ‘Back to The Leviathan?’ I asked.

  ‘Back to The Leviathan,’ said Barry.

  29

  So I became the pilot of a spaceship, with twelve silly boys at my command.

  I sat a-steering in the pilot’s seat and had a good think about this.

  ‘Barry,’ I said, to my cerebral companion. ‘Why does this spaceship need a crew of thirteen boys? What do they all do?’

  ‘Some cook,’ said Barry.

  ‘I did all the cooking on the way to Heaven.’

  ‘Some serve drinks.’

  ‘I served all the drinks.’

  ‘Some do mopping and cleaning.’

  ‘But I did – hey hang about,’ I said. ‘I did all the work on the voyage out. The other twelve just lazed about doing nothing.’

  ‘I’m sure they did something, chief. Things they did in the Games Room.’

  ‘Games Room?’ I said. ‘What Games Room?’

  ‘Where you play games, chief. Like Jenga and Monopoly and Kerplunk. And Buckaroo, of course.’

  ‘I love Buckaroo,’ I said.

  ‘Who doesn’t,’ said Barry, making a whinnying noise.

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ I said, for I wanted to get this straight. ‘I worked my nads off all the way here –’

  ‘When you weren’t hiding in the toilet,’ said Barry.

  ‘Never mind that.’ I worked my naughty-bits off while those twelve little sods were in the Games Room playing Buckaroo?’

  ‘And Operation, chief. That’s one of my favourites, Operation.’

  ‘Mine too,’ I said and we shared a wistful moment.

  ‘Well I’m not having it,’ I said. ‘I’m in charge now and they can all pull their weight. Where are they all now?’

  ‘I’ll give you three guesses, chief.’

  I got up from my chair and –

  ‘Sit down chief!’ cried Barry very loudly in my head.

  ‘I’m going to the Games Room,’ I said. ‘I wonder whether there is a stout stick on board. I’d like to wield one.’

  ‘You can’t get up from your seat, chief,’ shouted Barry.

  ‘Not so loud,’ I gave my head a bang. ‘And why can’t I get up from my seat?’

  ‘Because you have to steer the spaceship.’

  ‘I’ll switch off the engine then,’ I reached for the ignition key.

  ‘You can’t do that, chief. The ship will go off course. There’s no telling where we might end up.’

  ‘We’ll just have to tie the steering jobbie with a belt or something.’

  ‘You have a belt then, do you chief?’

  I made a rather frowning face. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Then one of the lazy boys will have to steer while I tell the rest of them off.’

  ‘But they’re all in the Games Room, chief.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to shout for one, won’t I Barry?’

  ‘You’ll have to shout very loudly then chief. I think all the doors are shut and the Games Room is at the other end of the ship.’

  ‘What?’ I went. ‘WHAT?’ then, ‘What about my dinner?’ I said. ‘What about when I need the toilet?’

  ‘I don’t recall you asking any of the silly boys to make you any dinner, chief. And you were the cook on the outward voyage.’

  ‘So I’m going to have to starve?’

  ‘We’ll be there by this time tomorrow, chief.’

  ‘And I’ll have to stay awake all that time to steer the ship? And what about the toilet?’

  ‘Stay awake, steer the ship and hold it in, chief. Those would be my words of advice.’

  ‘You…..you…..you…..you knew this!’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps I did, chief. But you were so insistent that you were in charge and everyone had to do what you said, that I did not feel it was really my job to mention it.’

  ‘Right! That’s it!’ I said. ‘First stop Venus.’

  ‘We’ve passed Venus, chief. And you do you know in your heart that you have to play your part aboard The Leviathan. God Himself did tell you how important whatever you have to do, is.’

  I did mumblings and grumblings.

  ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,’ said Barry.

  I mumbled and grumbled some more.

  ‘Second star on the right and straight on ‘til morning.’

  Grumble mumble and grumble.

  ‘Pecker up, chief,’ said Barry.

  ‘Shut your gob!’ I said.

  Sir Jonathan Crawford was filling his gob with breakfast. Although he, of course, was far too posh to use a word such as gob. Sir Jonathan sat in Fangio’s Bar, the American-themed ‘Diner’ and tucked into waffles with maple syrup and raspberry jam, to be washed down with black coffee.

  Waffles, Sir Jonathan considered, were hardly the breakfast of champions. Surely waffles were pudding at best and when it came to pudding, as every gentleman knew, the only real pudding that ever there was, had to be Treacle Sponge Bastard.

  Sir Jonathan sat alone upon this morning, far away from his foolish friends and also Lady Agnes. For Sir Jonathan Crawford had things on his mind, and one thing in particular.

  This one thing being the assassination of Count Ilya Rostov.

  And included within this one thing was the fact that although he and Lady Agnes had each made several attempts upon the life of The Leviathan’s master and commander, the count was still unscathed.

  Whilst only a day had passed for the boy known as Lazlo Woodbine, a week or more had passed aboard The Leviathan. A week that had found the two titled assassins giving their all with competitive zeal, to no result whatsoever.

  The count it seemed had a charmed life. Or the number a cat has, or more. He had slipped most opportunely upon a banana skin, and avoided the falling piano. He had stooped to dust at his diamond-snowed boots, when the improvised bladed-pendulum swung down to slice
off his head. He had sneezed away the cyanide snuff and chosen to change the route of his daily stroll around the ship thereby failing to be swallowed up into the artificially-created black hole and negatively-charged positronic space-warp that lay in wait for him on level thirty-eight.

  And Sir Jonathan Crawford had put a lot of work into that one.

  So his lordship sat and munched his waffle. And as he munched and thought about things, three familiar voices reached his ears. The voices of the three owls. Al Jolson, Al Capone and Aleister Crowley.

  Crowley’s fussy nasal voice was the one that reached him first.

  ‘It is all in the numerology,’ said the self-styled Great Beast of the Revelation. ‘We are lit by the golden dawn of the Aquarian age.’

  ‘I an’ I ‘ad an aquarium at me ‘ome,’ said Al Jolson. ‘‘Ad a goldfish named Hari. Named after Haile Selassie, de Lion of Juddah.’

  ‘Gimme a break,’ said Al Capone.

  ‘You dissin’ me faith, boy?’ asked Mr Jolson. ‘Is it because I an’ I is black?’

  ‘It’s because you an’ you is dumb,’ said Capone.

  ‘Beware, Babylon,’ said Mr Jolson, who today wore one black glove. ‘Or you be weepin’ and a wailin’.’

  ‘Best not,’ Crowley raised a calming hand to the man with the boot-blacked face. ‘As you may well be aware, Al Capone’s guns don’t argue.’

  ‘And why are we talking of aquariums, anyhow?’ asked Al Capone, lighting up a cigar of outlandish proportions. ‘We came on this ship because Crowley here said, and I quote, “there’ll be tons of posh crumpet aboard just gagging for it”, unquote.’

  ‘I don’t recall putting it quite like that.’

  ‘You were very drunk,’ said Capone.

  Aleister Crowley polished his shaven head with a white serviette. ‘I was speaking of the Aquarian age,’ said he. ‘We are at a time of change as we move from the Kali Yuga, the fourth age of the world and one characterised by total decadence, into the Satya Yuga, an age of enlightenment and spirituality. A golden age when Mankind will once again be governed by the Gods.’

  ‘Will that affect the posh crumpet situation?’ asked Mr Capone.

  ‘Not adversely,’ said Crowley.

  ‘And then Jah punish de white folks for all their transgressions,’ said Al Jolson. ‘And I an’ I be changin’ me name to Al Jah-son, when de day come.’

  ‘Something for us all to look forward to there,’ said Crowley.

  ‘Will it bring an end to prohibition?’ asked Capone.

  Crowley shook his polished head and said that he didn’t think so.

  ‘Thank Heaven for that then,’ said Al Capone. ‘That could have cost my bootlegging business dearly. And when will this great day dawn?’

  ‘Very soon indeed,’ said Aleister Crowley. ‘Which is why I am aboard The Leviathan. Count Rostov does himself the honour of employing me as his spiritual advisor.’

  ‘Poor misguided schmuck,’ said Capone.

  ‘You jest, sir,’ said the Great Beast.

  ‘I don’t,’ said the great bootlegger.

  ‘The Satya Yuga will manifest this very year upon the evening of the Summer solstice.’

  ‘What date is that?’ asked Capone. ‘I’ll put it in my diary.’

  ‘This year the Summer solstice falls upon the twentieth of June.’

  ‘Oooooh,’ went the man whose guns didn’t argue. ‘On the very day that we will be celebrating Queen Vicky’s ninetieth year on the throne. The date of her Double Sapphire Jubilee.’

  ‘It is all in the numerology,’ intoned Crowley. ‘And it will come to pass.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Al Capone.

  The man with the polished shaven head made certain enigmatic and magical finger movements beneath the table.

  Al Capone now found himself smoking a dog turd.

  There were no dogs allowed aboard The Leviathan. Count Rostov didn’t like dogs. He only really liked animals you could eat. True you could eat dogs, but they don’t taste very nice. Things that eat meat never taste very nice to humans. It’s mostly vegetarian animals that please Man’s palate the most.

  Count Rostov was once more in the great house of glass that rode atop The Leviathan. Birds called out and monkeys chattered. The count had his bearskin hat off and the sleeves of his robe rolled up.

  He stood all alone this time, for the Poppette had business elsewhere and Gurt now occupied two separate beds in the ship’s hospital, having come a serious cropper during the latest attempt upon the count’s life. An attempt of such a brutal nature that history would forever know it as ‘the failed assassination attempt that dare not speak its name’.

  But the count was not entirely alone, for there, in that garden-like Eden, he stood beside the vegetable lamb.

  ‘Dear little fellow,’ said Count Rostov, patting its dear little head.

  The lamb went ‘Baaa’ as lambs will do. Count Rostov gave it a stroke.

  ‘Soon now,’ he whispered. ‘My plump lamb. For soon now the Great Queen comes to visit. Victoria, Empress of India, the Moon and Mars, will arrive aboard my ship. She will enter my domain. And I will entertain her. I, the greatest showman of them all. She will hear the magical music, enjoy the finest theatrical performances. Dance to the greatest musicians of the day and dine upon the most exquisite cuisine that ever was served.

  ‘And that of course is where you come in. On a platter is how you come in.’ The count laughed and did a quick ‘Mwah-ha-ha-ha’. ‘For when everything is set for my plan to reach fruition, your moment will truly arrive.

  ‘Oh sacrificial lamb.

  ‘To be served on a bed of parsley.’

  30

  As all that happens during this chapter is that The Pilgrim flies on towards The Leviathan and the temporal differences between the two craft resolve themselves, there seems very little point in putting it in.

  So we won’t.

  Instead we will move to the morning of nineteenth of June, nineteen twenty-seven. One day before the Jubilee celebrations.

  It is six thirty in the morning, London time, and there comes a gentle knock upon Count Rostov’s bedroom door.

  Read on.

  31

  Count Rostov yawned and opened his eyes and then shouted ‘Where are my guards?’

  The bedroom door came open a crack and the face of Atters peeped in.

  ‘And who the deuce are you?’ asked the count, pulling his bedclothes up and about himself.

  ‘Atters,’ said Atters. ‘Or Michael Piddington Poodle-town Tinkerbell Attree, or some such nonsense.’

  ‘And what are you doing in my boudoir?’

  ‘I’m your new minion,’ said Atters.’ Both sections of the old one croaked in their hospital beds last night.’

  ‘Alas poor Gurt,’ said Rostov. ‘Oh the merry times we had together.’

  ‘He did say something similar,’ said Atters. ‘Just before he signed his new last will and testament, then quietly passed away.’

  ‘Name you by any chance in this new will?’ Count Rostov asked.

  ‘As chance would have it, yes,’ said Atters, preening his moustaches. ‘Then I came to see you and we drank some vodka together and –’

  ‘Yes, I vaguely recall,’ Count Rostov felt at his head. It ached.

  ‘And I said I’d gladly take over as minion. Be an honour and a pleasure and all that kind of guff.’

  ‘And you dismissed my guards?’ said the count.

  ‘Gave them the day off. You’ll not need them now with me on the job.’

  Count Ilya Rostov made small groaning sounds. ‘I’d care for an aspirin,’ he said.

  ‘Have one here,’ Atters produced a large red pill and a glass of smoking water.

  ‘Ah,’ said Count Rostov, ‘things are coming back to me now. Atters Attree. I knew your cousin Berty Pedalo Pussycat Mao Mao Atters back in my days at Eton. Wonder what he’s doing nowadays. Fancied a life in the navy, I recall. Probably rogering his way about the fleet at P
lymouth.’

  ‘He did for a while,’ said Atters. ‘But he is sadly departed. Dreadful business really. Tragic.’

  ‘Really?’ said Count Rostov, accepting the pill and sniffing at the water.

  ‘I’d invented a pair of self-adjusting britches, adjusted themselves to your contours. Clockwork mechanism, some teething problems, ghastly business.’

  Count Rostov sniffed at the bright red pill. ‘Is this really an aspirin?’ he asked.

  ‘Near enough,’ said Atters. ‘So Berty tested the britches, but they over-tightened somewhat and he got sort of shot into the air, as a cork might do from a bottle of champers. Long swift fall to the cobblestones. Messy business really.’

  ‘I think I’ll pass on this aspirin,’ said the count. ‘It seems to be burning its way through the palm of my hand.’

  ‘Probably some American brand,’ said Atters.

  Count Rostov stepped from his bed. He wore rather foolish pyjamas, baby blue with sailing boats and anchors. He noted well the arch of Atter’s eyebrows.

  ‘Present from the mater,’ he said. ‘But let’s get down to business,’ and he slotted his feet into equally foolish slippers. ‘Any news from The Pilgrim? She is scheduled to dock at ten this morning.’

  ‘I got the pilot on the old space-phone an hour ago,’ said Atters. He awaited words to praise his early actions. But none came. ‘Lot of crackling on the line. Rather garbled message.’

  ‘But Our Lady of Space is on board?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Atters made the ‘so-so’ gesture with his hands. ‘He might have been saying “lady”. It sounded rather like “need the lavvy” to me.’

  Count Rostov gave his head a shake and placed his smoking water onto one of three delightful occasional tables.

  Count Rostov’s bed chamber was naturally palatial. The largest such bed chamber on the vessel. His bed was an eight-poster of the Dalberty Dalbatto persuasion. Crafted originally for Louis the Sun King, it had been purchased by the count from the Palace of Versailles, along with nearly all the rest of the furniture. There had been some howls of protest from the prime minister of France. But Winston Churchill had put in a word for the count, saying that should these howling protestations not cease, then Her Majesty’s Space Fleet would have no option but to bomb Paris flat and be done with it.