The Abominable Showman

by Robert Rankin

  ‘I’ll call off the others then.’

  ‘Others?’ Sir Jonathan asked.

  ‘Other assassins. I know of at least six. There’s one from the Farmers’ Union. Two from Allied Bakeries. One from the Sussex Wine Growers’ Association and one from that Mayfair company that manufacture those rubber doodads that certain gentlemen like to –’

  ‘Quite so,’ said his lordship. ‘Yes indeed, well, you call those fellows off and get the job jobbed. And if you are successful I will donate one hundred pounds and I’ll have a whip round with the other assassins. Because I expect they will all be returning to their respective associations claiming the kill for themselves.’

  ‘An absolute shower,’ said Al Jolson. ‘The rotters.’

  ‘Quite so. Now if I might ask one favour. Would you be so kind as to delay the actual execution of Rostov until after the celebrations? The Poppette will be singing a song written by a friend of mine and I have acquired a seat near to the Queen’s table and I am hoping to lead the waltz with Lady Agnes Rutherford and –’

  ‘You leave it to me,’ said the man from the MU. ‘And when you do the whip-round, make the other assassins dig deep.’

  ‘Dig deep, chief. Dig deep.’

  I shook my head as violently as a little boy could do.

  ‘I have had quite enough,’ I said to Barry. ‘Everything I have been through. All the punishment I have taken,’ I pointed towards my two black eyes, which due to poor continuity weren’t actually black any more. ‘And I pilot a spaceship and what do I get but thrown back in here once again.’

  The here where I resided once again was that little boxed-in corridor space that I had occupied somewhat earlier in my adventures, when I’d sought to have a peep around and then got involved in all that business with the three fire extinguishers.

  ‘Take me home, Barry,’ I said to the sprout. ‘It’s all been a big waste of time.’

  ‘Come off it, chief,’ said the little green blighter. ‘We’re only one day away from the big conclusion.’

  ‘And I am locked up in here,’ I said. ‘And Count Rostov has clearly gone completely stone bonkers. Our Lady of Space indeed, what absolute tosh.’

  ‘So you didn’t see her, chief,’ said Barry.

  ‘I didn’t see her, because she wasn’t there.’

  ‘You are entitled to your opinion, chief, of course.’

  ‘Oh, so you saw her, did you, Barry?’

  ‘Chief, I am a theophany. I can see all manner of things that you cannot.’

  ‘Such as Our Lady of Space.’

  ‘People in the crowd saw Our Lady,’ said Barry.

  ‘Oh no they didn’t,’ I said. ‘It’s called mass hysteria, I have read about such things. And I didn’t get to make my speech. And as for my medal!’

  ‘Tragic business, chief, but look on the bright side.’

  ‘Look on the bright side?’ I said slowly. ‘Tell me then, this should be good.’

  There was a pause, then Barry said, ‘I wonder what the count is doing now.’

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ was my answer to that. ‘I’m stuck here, I’m starving and oh no I need the toilet again.’

  ‘So pretty dull stuff all in all,’ said Barry. ‘While meanwhile back on the grand landing deck –’

  The grand landing deck was all but deserted. Bunting dangled and upon the rostrum the microphone lay on its side. The Pilgrim had been hauled away to a storage dock. A chap who could-have-been-a-contender was sweeping up and singing a song of his troubled times. A cigarette end smouldered in an ashtray, a horse with no name galloped out on a distant desert.

  Count Rostov was up in the great glass house and so was Sophia Poppette.

  ‘She came,’ said Count Rostov, his eyes all aglow. ‘She came from the spaceship. I saw Her, my dearest, I saw Her.’

  Sophia Poppette looked up at the count. ‘I did not feel worthy to attend Her arrival,’ she said.

  ‘Oh you should have. You should have.’ The count wrung his hands together.

  ‘Might I ask,’ said the Poppette, ‘where is Our Lady now?’

  ‘She’s…um…she’s,’ the count made a rather despairing face and raised his shoulders high. ‘She was sort of there and then She wasn’t.’

  ‘I see,’ said Sophia Poppette. ‘And what of the special boy?’

  ‘The special boy returned safely. They all returned but for the professor.’

  Sophia Poppette smiled a wonderful smile. ‘I do not think that I am worthy, uncle,’ she said. ‘For I cannot feel the presence of Our Lady. And surely if She were so near.’

  ‘All will be well,’ said count Rostov. ‘Everything is falling into place. Even now the Royal Space Yacht Britannia will be leaving the Earth, with the Great Queen on board. Tomorrow evening all of my plans will come together and I will change the world beneath us and all other worlds too, forever.’

  Sophia Poppette nodded her beautiful head. ‘You can do the laugh now, if you wish,’ she said.

  ‘I am rather keen to, as it happens,’ said the count. ‘Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha.’

  The count ceased his laughter and said, ‘Where is Atters?’

  ‘I’m here,’ said the Minion in Residence.

  ‘Splendid,’ said Count Rostov and he clouted Atters in the ear. ‘Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!’

  35

  Her Majesty was indeed aboard the Royal Space Yacht Britannia and being Empress of India, Mars and the Moon, she could sit up in the cockpit next to the pilot if she wished it. Although she rarely did, preferring her special commode chair in the above-first class section, which was next to both a porthole and a radiator.

  And Albert.

  ‘One?’ said the ancient prince, a-tapping at Her Madge with a wooden forefinger. ‘Will there be steins of beer at all on this space yacht?’

  ‘One only drinks champagne,’ said the monarch. ‘But one had the Master of the Royal Barrels bring two crates of your favourite German lager aboard.’

  ‘One is an angel,’ said Prince Albert. ‘And I was wondering –’

  ‘Wondering what, my prince?’

  ‘Well, one. I have brought the clockwork doodah, the big one with the ring in the end and was wondering –’

  ‘Whether one might wish to join the Ten Mile High Club?’

  ‘Precisely, one,’ said Albert.

  ‘One certainly would,’ said Queen Victoria, calling for champagne.

  ‘Champagne, my dear?’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford, waggling the bottle about.

  ‘Just a sip,’ said Lady Agnes Rutherford.

  The lord and the lady, in their finest formals, sat in the Royal Lounge. He wore the dress uniform of a colonel in the Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers. She a frock of purple stuff, with glass-heeled shoes and diamond snowdrops gathered in her hair.

  There were many others gathered in the Royal Lounge, a room of surpassing grandeur, its floor smothered by richly-coloured Jovian rugs, its walls brought to a state of heightened beauty by numerous painted portraits of the monarch. Chairs and tables most moderne, in chrome and copper, tinted glass and ebonised plastique.

  ‘Have you previously had the honour of meeting the Queen, Sir Jonathan?’ asked her ladyship.

  Sir Jonathan diddled with a cigarette. ‘Only once when I was young,’ said he. ‘The pater had done something frightfully brave and we all went along to Buck House to watch him receive his gong.’

  ‘And did the royal lady speak to you?’

  ‘She patted my head,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford. ‘I recall that she smelled rather odd. Never did find out of what though.’ He glanced at his Cartier wristlet watch. ‘She will be here in an hour,’ said he. ‘I am glad that we are both in the official welcoming party.’

  ‘Speaking of welcomings,’ said Lady Agnes. ‘You slipped away from that of Our Lady of Space.’

  ‘In a good cause,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford. ‘Did her Ladyship of the Stars arrive safely from Heaven, or wherever?’

 
Lady Agnes sipped champagne. ‘That is a very interesting question,’ she said.

  ‘And I will hazard a guess that the answer is no.’

  ‘I did not actually see her myself,’ Lady Agnes put forth her glass for refilling. ‘Though I have been assured that many did.’

  His lordship refreshed her ladyship’s glass. ‘I had a most enlightening chat with Mr Al Jolson,’ said he. ‘It would appear that the fellow is a hired assassin sent by the Musicians’ Union to put an end to Rostov. And not only that, he told me that there are at least six other such privately-funded killers also on board.’

  ‘Does that include the Suffragettes?’ Lady Agnes asked.

  ‘Heavens no,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford. ‘What of the Suffragettes?’

  ‘Mrs Pankhurst has taken it into her head that Count Rostov is the very embodiment of male chauvinism. It is my understanding that she has employed the services of the self-styled Angel of Death, Lady Raygun, to cut Rostov down in a suitably gory fashion.’

  ‘Do you think that there is anyone aboard this ship that is not an assassin?’ asked Sir Jonathan Crawford.

  ‘There is that poet, Betjeman,’ Lady Agnes said.

  ‘Michel-angelo

  The Sistine Chapel and “Still Life with Mango-go”.

  Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?

  Michel-angelo.’

  A shot rang out in the Royal Lounge, the poet fell dead on the floor.

  The honourable Crichton holstered his pistol.

  ‘Rather harsh,’ said Binky Hartington.

  ‘Beg to differ on that one,’ said Carrington Hanky-Panky-Poo. ‘The secret is knowing when to stop. And as a running gag, Betjeman’s poetry had surely run itself into a cul-de-sac. Bottoms up.’ And he raised his glass.

  ‘Bottoms up,’ chorused the other toffs.

  A liveried body-boy called, ‘Mind your backs, please,’ and loaded the poet onto the trolley provided.

  And ‘Mind your backs, please,’ cried porters and postilions, flunkeys and factotums, as they hauled and pushed and pulled and struggled in the growing chaos of the spaceport.

  For here were the folk of all nations and if John Betjeman had still been extant, he might well have penned a ditty such as this:

  Here are the folk of all nations.

  The good and the great and the grand

  Fine fellows of fine federations

  The dauphin of delicate hand

  The princes and pashas and paladins

  Shoguns and sultans and sires

  Moguls, mikados and mandarins

  Hobbits from out in the Shires

  Here are autocrats, plutocrats

  Most in their Sunday hats

  Some with their handbags

  And some with their cricket bats

  Bath-chairs and bassinets

  Pussies and pampered pets

  Sausages, suffragettes

  Spaniards with castanets

  Amulets, epaulets

  Magnates and martinets

  Baronets, coronets

  Gauntlets and corselets

  Sumptuous and plumpous

  Opulent, flatulent

  So on and so forth and suchlike

  Which meant, at least, that Boy Betjeman was with them in spirit. And there were hundreds of them, all with first class tickets and demanding first class treatment and they milled and fussed and grumped and grumbled and one by one and two by two were shuttled into waiting craft and freighted into space.

  Ah space.

  Where even now Prince Albert was deeply dipping his finger biscuit into the royal tea cup.

  ‘The British Empire was built upon tea,’ said Barry, the sprout in my head.

  ‘And what has that to do with anything?’ I asked.

  ‘No idea, chief,’ Barry started humming.

  ‘I shall die,’ I told him, ‘of starvation and a bursted bladder, and it will all be your fault.’

  Barry began to count backwards from thirty-seven.

  ‘And God, whom I know personally, will not laugh this time. He’ll dig you into his golden compost heap.’

  ‘I spy with my little eye,’ said Barry.

  ‘You are a useless stupid sprout,’ I said.

  ‘I’m just bored,’ said Barry. ‘Locked up here with you, it’s really boring.’

  ‘Then get us out.’ I drummed my fists on the nearest wall.

  ‘Wish I could, chief, but you know how it is.’

  ‘Do you know what, Barry, I don’t know how it is. I know I’m trapped in a shrunken corridor, on the point of weeing myself, but that is all I know.’

  Barry yawned.

  ‘Right then,’ I said. ‘I’m done. I will wee myself and starve to death and when I’m dead then God can sort it out.’ And with that said I sat myself down and folded my arms.

  But then I stood up again and said, ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ said Barry.

  ‘No, I’m not going to wee myself,’ I said. ‘Starve to death possibly, but not do a wee in my trousers.’ And with that said, I unbuttoned my fly and relieved myself against the nearest wall. And it felt soooo very good, I can tell you.

  ‘That is disgusting, chief,’ said Barry. ‘And now it’s all over the floor and you can’t sit down again.’

  ‘Help!’ I shouted at the top of my voice. ‘Help, trapped child here. Someone help me. Help!’

  ‘Blimey, chief,’ said Barry. ‘Keep it down.’

  ‘I will not keep it down,’ and I shouted ‘Help,’ once again. Then I shouted ‘Fire!’ and then ‘Murder!’

  Then I composed these shouted words into various combinations. Adding random phrases such as ‘free pies,’ and ‘huge reward for return of pet hamster,’ and even ‘Zulus, thousands of them,’ because I had always wanted to say that. Then out of the blue I cried ‘Open Sesame,’ and wouldn’t you know it, or wouldn’t you not, the walls of my wee wee’d prison fell away.

  ‘Well now,’ I said to Barry. ‘That’s what I’d call a result.’

  ‘And a most unlikely one,’ the sprout replied. ‘Not too sure how you actually did that, chief.’

  ‘That is because he did not,’ came a voice from somewhere.

  It was indeed a most beautiful voice, a Heavenly voice, I’d say. It came, as such voices most likely do, from everywhere at once and yet nowhere. It gathered about me and entered me and it made me feel very strange.

  ‘Thank you, whoever you are,’ I managed to say.

  I heard a sigh and then there was silence.

  Then came a great deal of noise.

  Cheering and the clapping of hands and many great hip-hip-hoorahs.

  And I found that I was no longer standing in a corridor, but I was back upon the grand landing deck, amongst an even larger crowd than last time looking on towards a really beautiful spaceship, all coloured enamels and gold-leafed fiddly bits. And the ramp was lowering down from it and trumpeters were playing ‘God Save The Queen’.

  And as I looked on, bewildered and surprised, I beheld a regal personage descending from the glorious spacecraft. And as a boy who had studied history books I recognised this regal being to be none other than England’s queen, Victoria.

  36

  I was quite impressed with Queen Victoria. In fact I was far more impressed with her than I had been with God. God, I felt, had been something of a disappointment, but Queen Victoria, she looked just the way I would have imagined her to look, and when she spoke, she spoke as a queen should speak.

  When I say that she looked just the way I had imagined her to look, I am not being entirely accurate. She had bearing, she had nobility, she had gravitas and greatness, but to me I felt that she did look a little bedraggled. Somewhat tousled, as if, perhaps, she had recently engaged in some overly-physical exertions.

  But I put this down to the travelling and the fact that she was indeed a very old lady.

  When she spoke, however, she did speak like a queen.

  ‘We are most touched,’ she an
nounced from Count Rostov’s rostrum. ‘By the love of our subjects and may one say, their enthusiasm upon this special occasion.’

  Behind her stood a rather curious figure that was later identified to me as Prince Albert. He was similarly tousled, but had strange ways about his person, which I did not at first comprehend. There was a woodenness to his being. A certain unnatural stiffness. I might liken it to a man in a suit of armour. And his eyes didn’t match and his chin had a rubbery look.

  But the Queen spoke as a queen will do and in that manner she soon became rather dull. Although I did not mind, I was just pleased to be watching Queen Victoria. But my attention did wander and it wandered over to Count Rostov. He stood all a-grinning on the rostrum in the company a liveried servant that I recognised to be one of the noisome toffs which I had observed at the spaceport in the company of Sir Jonathan Crawford. This servant looked somewhat bedraggled also, somewhat knocked all about, one might say.

  But it was to the count that I addressed my attention. For I noticed for the first time ever that there was something rather strange about him. Perhaps I had simply not observed it before, or maybe it had not existed before and I was seeing it for the first time because it was the first time, but –

  ‘Do get on with it, chief,’ said Barry.

  ‘He looks rather odd to me,’ I whispered. ‘How does he look to you?’

  Barry peering through my eyes said. ‘And you can see that?’

  ‘Yes I can,’ I whispered back. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well chief, and I confess some surprise that you are apparently exerting an extra-sensory perception. But what you are seeing there is a cloak of psychic protection.’

  ‘Oh,’ said I and I peered as hard as I could.

  He was there, the count, standing and grinning and occasionally wringing his hands together in joy. But the queer thing was that he seemed to be enclosed within a sort of transparent shell. As might be some expensive toy that I would be unlikely to get for Christmas.