The Abominable Showman

by Robert Rankin

  Time settled down to its regular pace and I glanced about for a clock. Obligingly the one above the door to the stalls, for I stood now in the elaborately decorated foyer of The Leviathan’s music hall, struck an evening eight.

  ‘Nice timing, Barry,’ I said to the sprout.

  ‘It wasn’t me, chief,’ said Barry.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I replied, for I was never unhappy about taking the credit when things went right every once in a while. ‘Oh and I have the appropriate headwear too. Tickets please, young sir.’

  I confronted a youth of approximately my own age who wore what can only be described as a dear little sailor suit. I shuddered momentarily recalling how I had been inveigled into wearing such a preposterous costume.

  ‘Tickets?’ said the toffy boy. ‘I haven’t got a ticket.’

  ‘Then you can’t go in,’ I said. Raising my palm to signify that this was not a matter open to negotiation. ‘No ticket, no entry. Sorry, I don’t make the rules, but it would be more than my job’s worth not to enforce them.’

  The toffy sailor boy began to blubber.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry to upset you. Are you here with your mummy and daddy?’

  ‘I am,’ he sniffled, dismally.

  ‘And are they here in the foyer?’

  ‘Over there,’ he gestured with a quivering hand towards two particularly bloated-looking folk. The fellow in tails and a topper. The lady in diamonds and pearls.

  ‘Why don’t you just pop over to them and get your ticket?’ was my kindly suggestion.

  The sniveller sniffed and did as I suggested.

  Presently he returned in the company of not one, but three tickets. Box tickets also, not for the stalls at all.

  I perused these tickets, smiled encouragingly then took them from his little twitchy fingers.

  ‘You just wait here for a moment,’ I said and took my leave of the foyer.’

  The private box was very nice. I took the liberty of removing my cap and turning my jacket inside out before putting it on again, before I went up the stairs and showed one of my tickets to the somewhat heavy-duty security man who guarded the entry to the private boxes.

  ‘There is some kind of hubbub going on downstairs in the foyer,’ I told the big, broad and heavily-armed security man. ‘Folk trying to get into the theatre without tickets. My uncle, Count Rostov has issued orders that security operatives are to use “all reasonable force” to eject anyone trying to gain entry without a legitimate ticket.’ I waved mine about and wished this fellow the very best for the evening.

  So, as I say, the private box was very nice.

  There was champagne on ice and there was a selection of sandwiches with the crusts cut off, a tiny roast chicken that Barry assured me was a quail, a box of expensive chocolates and another of biscuits.

  I settled down in the plush velvet seat and got stuck into the chocolates.

  My enjoyment of these was momentarily curtailed by the sounds of a fracas coming from beyond the door to the private box. Protestations that someone concerned ‘did have tickets’ and ‘this is our private box’. The amply-shouldered security man however was an expert in his field of endeavour and the sound of blows followed the sounds of shouting and the sound of silence followed that of blows.

  ‘You little stinker,’ said Barry.

  ‘Aw, come on,’ I said. ‘We now have a really terrific seat to see the show.’

  ‘I can’t fault you in that,’ said Barry. ‘Try a portion of the Beluga caviar, you’ll really love it.’

  I scooped up a great big spoonful and thrust it into my mouth.

  When I had finished retching, I told Barry just how very much I hated him.

  ‘Well, you might have liked it,’ he said, when he could find his voice amongst his laughter.

  Then suddenly the band struck up and then the houselights dimmed and so began for me an evening which I can truly say was unlike any other in my experience.

  A truly unbelievable evening.

  40

  A single spotlight brought the stage from darkness. And into its illumination stepped Count Rostov himself. Applause rumbled eagerly, gentlemen shouted, ‘Bravo.’

  Count Rostov looked rather splendid. He wore a far taller bearskin than usual, one all a-glitter with diamonds. His Russian robe sparkled also, aflame with rubies and sapphires, woven into elaborate patterns depicting (according to the programme that I found upon my seat and had a skim through):

  Pastoral scenes of the Mongolian steppes.

  Depictions of the Siberian peasantry at play.

  A balalaika concert given before the

  Czar of all the Russias.

  Two unclad females engaged in a

  wrestling tournament.

  etc.

  Diamond snow-drifts clung about his boots. His mustachios were tinted blue. His little goatee/imperial beard was sewn with pearls. His smiley face was all aglow as he cast wide his arms and announced:

  ‘My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, chumrades all. Please be upstanding for Her Majesty Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, Albert.’

  The audience rose up, the Great Queen entered.

  She entered a box directly opposite to my own. Hers, however, was of the royal persuasion, which meant that the seating was more comfy and the selection of chocolates and biscuits of greater variety. The Royal Box was flanked by quilted curtains, which could be drawn should the royal couple tire of the onstage entertainment and choose instead to engage in private hanky panky. Or as the Queen might have it, ‘one’s fun’.

  I observed to Barry that I had often considered myself to be of royal stock. Wondering perhaps whether there had been some mix-up at the maternity hospital and I had been allocated to a working class couple by mistake.

  I assume Barry must have given this remark considerable thought and positive approval, for he did not comment upon it.

  ‘Schmuck,’ said Barry, somewhat later.

  ‘I heard that,’ I told him.

  The royal couple certainly did know how to make an entrance. Queen Victoria looked how a Great Queen should. She wore the now legendary mini-crown (one’s crownette), that sash adorned with all those badges of noble office, that famous look upon her famous face and a lovely flowery frock.

  For of course in this particular reality Albert had not died and so Her Madge had no call for black.

  She fluttered a fan towards the crowd and settled into her chair. Albert adjusted the fittings on his legs and as the creaking sounds of the metal ball and socket joints on his artificial knees brought seeming joy to all assembled, sat himself down with a wallop (an Australian mammal, now sadly extinct).

  The audience re-seated, clapping as it did so. Count Rostov respectfully put in the last few claps himself from the stage.

  ‘Fair lady, regal personage, beauteous adornment of our Empire,’ he addressed the ancient monarch, which had the ancient monarch blushing somewhat. ‘We your loyal subjects are present to celebrate your ninety glorious years upon the throne of England –’ more applause, and many a ‘Huzzah!’ ‘Your long and noble reign has seen an advancement in the realms of scientific achievement that few could ever have imagined. Your royal patronage of Mr Babbage’s Difference Engine at the Great Exhibition of eighteen fifty-one brought about the birth of the modern computer, which meant that by eighteen eighty-five, one household in every five had their own personal computer. Mr Tesla, working with Mr Babbage, perfected the wireless transmission of electricity and –’

  And the count droned on and on and on as folk have a tendency to do when given a speaking role in some grand state occasion. I munched upon chocolate and sipped champagne, which to my young buds did not taste all together wholesome, but I would persevere. I gazed out over the audience. As the house lights had been brought up for the royal entrance I could have a good old look at those seated below me.

  I didn’t really recognise many of them. I saw Sir Jonathan Crawford fiddling about with a lady who sa
t next to him and I recognised his foolish friends, savouring champagne and nudging each other’s elbows. The rest were much of a muchness to me, the gentry, toffs, the titled types, I really wasn’t too keen.

  I glanced towards the Royal Box. The curtains were starting to close. But then they stopped and reopened again as Count Rostov ceased his dreary monologue and introduced the very first turn.

  As this was a Royal Command Performance, each of the turns was a favourite of the monarch. Opening the show was none other than –

  BILLY ‘BOG BRUSH’ BENNETT

  THE OUT-HOUSE BALLADEER

  I warmed at once to Billy, as he sang his famous song ‘The Smell In The Gents Is Still The Same’:

  I’ve been to Shanghai,

  Pagodas hang high

  Upon the Shaolin Plain.

  But no matter where I roam

  Over land or sea or foam,

  The smell in the gents is still the same.

  It’s quite a mystery,

  How come can this be?

  I’ve smelled it time and again.

  In Trinidad and Tobago

  And Tierra del Fuego,

  The smell in the gents is still the same.

  [Middle six]

  If you get caught short in Rio,

  Or some liner on the sea-oh.

  Or have to use the kharzi,

  In Rangoon or Old Benghazi.

  You will suffer this atrocity,

  This nasal curiosity.

  I beg the question,

  Take all suggestion,

  To fill this void in my brain.

  How can it be, from Irish Sea

  To some Tibetan monastery,

  This stinky stench, this putrid pong,

  It lingers loud and lewd and long,

  This woeful whiff pollutes the air,

  It’s here, it’s there, it’s everywhere,

  The smell in the gents is still the same.

  Oh Mumma.

  The smell in the gents is still the same.

  I clapped heartily, I can tell you. They don’t write songs like that anymore, so I was joyous to find myself in that time when they did.

  Queen Victoria clapped like a mad thing, she even gave Albert a playful slap upon the back. Which had his glass eye spiralling into the orchestra pit.

  The curtain fell and Count Rostov appeared once more upon the stage before it, clapping away and grinning all over his face. I noticed that even his eyebrows grinned, which I found most impressive.

  ‘Your Royal Wonderfulness, Lords, Ladies, chumrades all,’ he beamed about the crowded auditorium. ‘Please give it up one more time for Billy “Bog-Brush” Bennett.’

  ‘Give it up?’ I said to Barry.

  ‘It’s a dreadful twenty-first century expression,’ said the time sprout. ‘Which ranks alongside, “At the end of the day” and “Would you care to super-size that, guys?’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of the twenty-first century,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a whole lot better than the twenty-second century,’ Barry replied. ‘Which sees the world becoming a chemical wasteland peopled by brain-eating zombies.’

  ‘Now that sounds like fun,’ I said.

  ‘Twat!’

  ‘What was that?’ I asked Barry.

  ‘I said “That”, chief. That on stage.’

  That on the stage was the very next turn.

  And the very next turn was Al Jolson.

  Now, I grew up in the nineteen-fifties, when Englishmen used the dreaded ‘N’ word freely and referred to Africans as ‘savages’. It was a world where the Black and White Minstrels had their own TV shows and there really was a popular series of children’s books entitled The Adventures of Little Black Sambo. So, the fifties generation had not come too far from the generation that considered Al Jolson, (a white man, make no mistake about that, all blacked up with boot polish, waggling a boater about and singing in a painful travesty of an ‘ethnic’ accent, about his ‘mammy’), entertaining!

  But tonight, thankfully, Al Jolson wasn’t singing.

  Instead he was performing a ‘Magical Extravaganza’.

  Now, I was no stranger to stage magic. The daddy was an enormous fan and took me several times to see David Nixon perform at the Brentford Empire. He had some connection to Mr Nixon, did the daddy and I found myself backstage, being introduced to the famous magician, his wife and his son Archie, who earned pocket money performing as a ventriloquist’s dummy with Mr Peter Brough.

  David Nixon’s magical shows were of a rather modest nature. He was very much the perfect English gentleman and so eschewed showy flamboyance in favour of a dignified show that all the family could enjoy. This show consisted mostly of Mr Nixon pulling an unconvincing bunny rabbit from a top hat and identifying a playing card selected by a member of the audience who looked remarkably like his wife.

  Al Jolson’s Magical Extravaganza was something else entirely. I had heard of the ‘Sawing a Lady in Half’ act, but had never before actually seen a real lady being really sawn in half. She didn’t half squeak, I can tell you. And the putting back together bit did not go quite as well as perhaps Mr Jolson had hoped. What with him slipping over in the blood quite so many times. The audience adored it though and I was only sick once, and then only into my bowl of caviar.

  The ‘Escape from the Firebox’ could perhaps have gone better. The volunteer from the audience who allowed himself to be pushed into the raging inferno, should perhaps have known better.

  The ‘Shooting an Apple from a Lordship’s Head, Whilst Blindfolded’ went exactly as I had expected it to go. And the ‘Chinese Water Box’ claimed its victims, were they willing or not.

  All in all I enjoyed the magic of Al Jolson. I understood it to be a study in irony. That the things going wrong were a greater part of its charm. Some claim it inspired Tommy Cooper. I could not say for sure.

  The curtain fell, the audience cheered, the bodies were carted away.

  Count Rostov returned to the stage, called out for us to ‘give it up for Mr Jolson’ and grinned his winning grin.

  And then occurred something which set the tone for the rest of the evening to come, and assured me personally that this really was going to be a night to remember.

  A really first rate attempt on Count Rostov’s life.

  41

  I had always assumed that those homicidally-inclined anarchists, who dressed all in black and wielded spherical fizzing-fused explosive devices with the word BOMB printed upon them, were very much the fashion of the late Victorian period alone.

  But then this was the late Victorian period!

  He arose from his seat at the rear of the stalls, the fizzy-fused bomb in his hands. He certainly drew the attention of the audience when he shouted, ‘Cravens of Piccadilly, tailors to the gentry,’ then, ‘Death to the man with the overdue account!’

  I ducked speedily down in my box and peeped out over the guard rail. ‘Seems a bit excessive for an unpaid tailor’s bill,’ I said to Barry.

  The audience were in that state called turmoil. Folk were shouting. Few were running though and most were drawing out pistols.

  ‘Those bearskin hats are pretty pricey, chief,’ said Barry. ‘You only get about four from a bear. Assuming the bear to be willing.’

  I would have said, ‘What?’ or even just, ‘Eh?’ but the chap with the bomb shouted more.

  ‘The Tailors’ Guild,’ he shouted and then, with his non-bomb-holding hand he tore open his dinner jacket to expose a most impressive collection of dynamite sticks strapped about his belly.

  ‘I wonder how he smuggled all that lot on board,’ I said to Barry. ‘You might find somewhere to hide the sticks, but the big black bomb is the size of a bowling ball.’

  ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way, chief.’

  ‘Ah look, Barry,’ I said.

  They sprung from here, they sprung from there, not unlike that notorious smell in the gents. The silly boys in their smart uniforms, each one packing
heat, as Mr Lazlo Woodbine might say. They drew down fire on the man with the bomb but the man with the bomb didn’t care.

  I ducked down considerably now and into the foetal position. ‘Never,’ I whispered to Barry, as I clamped my hands tightly about my ear holes. ‘Never draw down fire upon a man with dynamite strapped to his guts.’

  But it was all too late.

  The Tailors’ Guild assassin exploded, but not before he’d thrown his bomb.

  Had I been able to view the drama played out in the auditorium beneath and in the boxes around and about, and upon the stage and beyond, I might well have seen:

  The fizzy-fused bomb describing an arc through the air towards the stage.

  The bomb-proof security screen plunge down before the Royal Box to protect its occupants (nice touch that, I would have thought).

  The crowd fleeing, with several on fire, a few lying dead, plenty more firing their weapons.

  Silly boys crouching and firing at will.

  Count Rostov on the stage, grinning.

  For he had been expecting it, of course. And he stood and he grinned and, had I been able to observe his face, I would have observed that upon this occasion even his nose was grinning. And I would have seen that bomb, the fizz of the fuse nearing its lethal payload as it curled through the air on course for the count and then simply vanished away.

  Vanished into the air by magic and was gone into nothing.

  Not entirely to nothing, of course, because nothing can go into nothing. Everything has to go to somewhere or other and this bomb was no exception.

  This bomb vanished through an inter-dimensional portal, opened by the power of magic. The bomb passed from this reality into another where it landed in a baby’s cot and exploded. Doing the folk of that particular reality a very big favour, this baby’s cot being that of the infant Adolf Hitler.

  Some realities, it seems, get all the luck.

  But I saw none of this and frankly if I had I am sure I would not have believed the last bit.