The Abominable Showman

by Robert Rankin

  And yet my granddad claimed to remember.

  But was he then telling the truth? Perhaps all he said and all that Lady Agnes Rutherford had told me when she was an ancient lady in the Brentford of my childhood were just stories.

  But then.

  But then.

  She did have the vegetable lamb.

  And there was one of them on board this space liner, I knew that. The lamb, perhaps was a link between this weird world and my own. Who knew?

  I paused so Barry might put in some sly little comment there, but he didn’t.

  ‘I am going to have a dance,’ I said to Barry. ‘And do you know what, I’m going to ask Queen Victoria whether she’d like to dance with me.’

  ‘In the name of Terrance, no,’ said Barry.

  But I ignored the sprout.

  There was no sign of Count Rostov and the silly boys were otherwise engaged, so I boldly approached the monarch’s table. She was nibbling something that possibly had a mildly amusing and inappropriate French name and looked up from it as I approached her. And smiled.

  Queen Victoria smiled at me.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ I said, bowing low. ‘Your Majesty, I am a true and loyal servant of the crown. Would you do me the honour of joining me for a dance?’ And I put out my hand, as a hero might do, to take that of his lady fair.’

  ‘Good sir,’ said the Queen, grinning broadly. ‘It would be an honour.’

  ‘Oh yesss!’ I said inwardly.

  ‘Dear God, no,’ said Barry.

  But I did. The old lady rose with creaking dignity, put out her hand, took mine and I led her to the dance floor.

  And folk ceased to eat and folk ceased to speak, as me and Queen Victoria had a dance.

  I couldn’t really dance, so I just wiggled my bum about and kicked my legs in the air. Her Majesty seemed very much amused by this and imitated my dancing. And out of politeness of course and due respect for the royal person, soon everyone on the dance floor was doing likewise and others were rising from their tables to join in.

  It was such fun.

  Around and around that dance floor we went. And suddenly, somehow I was leading a conga line, with the Queen behind me and others linking on. Around and around to the music of Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra. Below me the blue arc of planet Earth filling half of the Heavens.

  I laughed with joy, the old Queen laughed and other dancers laughed. The music ended and everybody clapped and cheered and I led the monarch back to her table, kissed her gloved hand, thanked her profusely and backed away to my chair. And sat down.

  ‘What do you think of that?’ I said to Barry.

  And perhaps for this one and only time, Barry was utterly speechless.

  45

  I did have to go to the toilet several times during the evening. Once even for a sit down job, as I had eaten far too much food. It was during this that I chanced to overhear a certain conversation.

  Two fellows had entered the gentlemen’s and thinking themselves to be the only occupants, spoke frankly of their conspiratorial doings.

  ‘All are prepared,’ said one.

  ‘For the revolution?’ said the other.

  ‘We will strike at midnight,’ said the first.

  ‘Death to the oppressor,’ said the second.

  It was perhaps only a brief conversation, but I gathered the general gist of it.

  ‘Midnight,’ I whispered to Barry. ‘Just as I thought.’

  ‘Just as you thought, chief? This is new.’

  ‘I have powers,’ I said to the sprout. ‘Well, if not exactly powers, then feelings, intuitions, flashes of future events. I told you.’

  ‘And I listened patiently, chief.’

  ‘You did not, but I don’t care. The big something will occur at midnight. Big and significant somethings always occur at midnight anyway. Everybody knows that.’

  ‘I suppose they do,’ said Barry. ‘Do you think that the count knows that?’

  ‘He is planning something very big for midnight,’ I said. ‘After all, he did announce it on the stage of the Music Hall show.’

  ‘Do you think he will know then that folk plan to assassinate him at that moment?’

  ‘Why are you asking me?’ I asked.

  ‘Because you are so full of cosmic wisdom, chief.’

  There was a certain tone to Barry’s voice, but being the polite little boy that I am, I ignored it. ‘He won’t know about the assassination attempt,’ I said. ‘Because that’s not the way it works. You know when you are going out for an evening and you leave your lights on so any potential burglar thinks that you’re in?’

  ‘I have heard such toot,’ said Barry.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘You would think that burglars might become wise to this cunning ploy, but they don’t, Barry, they don’t.’

  ‘Don’t they, chief, really?’

  ‘No, Barry, they wait until you have gone on your holidays, and turned off the lights to save electricity and put a note out for the milkman to leave no milk, and there’s newspapers sticking out of the letterbox because you forgot to cancel them and –’

  ‘And your point is, chief?’

  I shrugged, rose from the toilet, attended to my personal parts, left the little booth and washed my hands. A clock upon the tiled wall struck eleven forty-five.

  ‘Have you noticed,’ I asked Barry, ‘that the smell in the gents is always the same?’

  There was nothing samey about the singers who performed with Louis Armstrong’s Orchestra. The lady in the straw hat had long since taken her bows and a slim boyish youthish youngish fellowish fellow named Frank Sinatra was doing it his way. He sang a song about leaving his heart in San Francisco and various other body organs in American towns and cities. It was all a bit lost on me.

  ‘It’s a serial killer song,’ Barry explained. ‘Like “Mac the Knife” or that much loved music hall standard, “I Love to Slice the Ladies Up with my Big Twelve Inch Chopper”.’

  ‘Don’t lower the tone,’ I told the sprout.

  ‘Lower the tone, chief? You just did a scene sitting on the toilet. They’ll cut that out of the film version, believe you me.’

  ‘Frank’s finished his encore,’ I said. ‘Ah look, he’s shaking Al Capone’s hand. Subtext there, I think.’

  ‘They’ll cut that too,’ said Barry.

  The audience cheered as Frank left the stage. The orchestra played, the gilded lords and ladies took the dance floor.

  There was a dear little watch in the dear little pocket of my dear little sailor suit. I tugged it out and looked at the time, five to midnight,’ I said.

  ‘Five to midnight! Five to midnight! Five to midnight! Five…..’ Count Rostov, who had been shouting this out, ceased his shouting and said, ‘Where is my Minion in Residence?’

  The uniformed boys who were fussing about the count, spraying him with sweet-smelling fragrances, brushing the nap on his bearskin, adjusting the folds on his Russian robe and dusting at the diamonds on his boots, only shrugged.

  Although one said that he didn’t know.

  This one was the bigger boy. The count patted him on the head. ‘I shall treat that Atters harshly,’ he said, ‘for abandoning his post at a time of such importance. All you boys, my little chumrades, know precisely what you are to do, do you not?’

  The silly boys nodded in their silly way.

  The bigger boy said, ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Good boys, good boys. I am surrounded upon all sides by treachery, incompetence, devious-weaselry and conspiratorial near-do-wellery. But you, my good and loyal boys, I can always rely upon you.’

  The silly boys nodded and smiled, some saluted. The bigger boy said, ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Right then,’ said the count. ‘Bring the mirror.’

  The good and loyal, though certainly silly, boys wheeled across a full length looking glass. The count stood and preened himself in it. ‘Superb,’ he said to one and all. ‘Let us go and make history.’

  The or
chestra had ceased to play, the curtains now had closed upon the stage.

  ‘Counting down,’ I whispered as I peered at the watch in my hand. ‘Whatever is going to happen, is going to happen very soon indeed.’

  ‘And you will be ready, won’t you chief?’

  ‘I’ll see how I feel,’ I said to Barry. Just to make him uneasy.

  ‘I am so glad I can read your mind, chief. Or that might have made me uneasy.’

  Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-dah, went the orchestra behind the curtains and a cymbal went ‘tish’ at the end.

  ‘Your Royal Highness, Prince Consort, ladies and gentlemen of the court, Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, great folk of the Venusian and Jovian houses, all gathered here. Heeeeeeeere’s Rostov.’

  A drum toll and cymbal crash, the curtains parted and there on the stage stood the count. And he did look rather imposing in all his Russian get-up. His little goatee/imperial beard was beard-jazzled by an enormous diamond. He threw his hands wide and bowed and bowed again.

  The thousands at their tables cheered the count. They clapped and ‘Bravo’d’, some even ‘Huzzah’d’, some sang ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.’ The count grinned from all parts and rode upon the applause. For it was the very stuff of life to him and he ate it with relish. So to speak and suchlike.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ said the count. ‘I trust that you have enjoyed our entertainments for this evening. Mr Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra.’

  Mr Louis Armstrong arose from his piano stool and took a bow. He gestured to his orchestra and each and every one made similar bowings.

  The audience was loud in its appreciation. The singers took the stage, were cheered. Frank Sinatra returned, was cheered again, left the stage, returned once more and was not cheered quite so much, left the stage and was forcibly restrained by stage hands.

  ‘Jolly good show,’ said the count, when the cheering had ceased. ‘And did you enjoy your meal?’

  More applause came from the many folk seated. But not perhaps so much applause as the original applause. An audience will experience applause-fatigue if asked to applaud too often.

  ‘Marvin Marvin, the Jovian Master Chef.’ The applause did rise to quite a peak at this, for Marvin Marvin was accepted to be the greatest master chef of the inhabited worlds. And many if not all had recognised his delicate hand at work in the evening’s splendid repast. Numerous folk rose to their feet to applaud as Marvin Marvin came upon stage pushing a mighty trolley.

  It was curtained, somewhat in the manner of a shower stall and Marvin Marvin, accompanied by a bevy of silly boys, manoeuvred it across the stage.

  ‘A surprise,’ said Count Rostov, putting his finger to his lips and bobbing his head about. ‘Something so special, something unique. Something that had to be saved until now.’

  The toffs at their tables quietened. What was this, they wondered.

  ‘We have come,’ said Count Rostov, ‘to the very end of our royal Jubilee celebrations here. Although, beneath us, as our day ends, the Empire’s day begins – or the other way round at least –’

  ‘He might have expressed that a little better,’ I whispered to Barry.

  ‘Do put a sock in it, chief,’ the sprout replied.

  I watched the count as he spoke to us all and tried very hard to appreciate his words. I think what impressed me most was not what he said, but how he said it. Or rather how he managed to say it and all of us present managed to hear it. Because this was a very big room and the count was not speaking into a microphone. I know that I was down at the front, but I could actually hear his voice echoing from the back of the room. Good trick.

  ‘Some of you will be aware,’ said Count Rostov. ‘That this day, this day that begins now –’

  The clocks about the liner all struck the midnight hour.

  ‘– this day is not only that of the Summer solstice, but also the very first day in a new era. That of the Satya Yuga. That of the Age of Aquarius. The planets move into an alignment that only occurs once every twenty-three thousand years. An alignment which brings with it the opportunity for divine enlightenment. For a great change to occur. My life, indeed the lives of all of you present have moved towards this sacred moment. You are not aboard this vessel by chance. Each of you was hand-picked –’

  Queen Victoria nudged Prince Albert in a Bakelite rib. ‘One is confused,’ she said. ‘What precisely is the count wittering on about, Albert?’

  ‘Not all together sure, my love. I suspect he’s just leading up to something really flattering about you.’

  ‘Oh, one does hope so.’

  ‘And that’s sure to be a special Jubilee cake on the curtained trolley.’

  Queen Victoria nodded. ‘Do you have a napkin, Albert?’ she asked. ‘The smutty ice sculpture is melting all over the table cloth.’

  ‘– an old world ends,’ continued the count. ‘An old world ends, an old era comes to its conclusion. From here you will see the old world end and a new one be given birth.’

  ‘I would be right,’ I whispered to Barry, ‘not to like what I am hearing.’

  ‘It does have a certain doom-like quality, chief.’

  ‘God’s plans,’ the count went on. ‘The plans of Terrance, were for the Garden. That the Garden eternal be. That Man should tend the Garden. Protect the Garden. Cherish the Garden. But below you rolls a world made evil by the hand of Man. A world of plundered resources. A world of vegetative beauty despoiled by the greed of that ravenous beast called Mankind –’

  ‘Oh Barry,’ I said. ‘I do believe that he intends to destroy the world. He’s probably got some kind of doomsday weapon on board that he’s going to launch.’

  ‘Could be,’ said Barry.

  ‘I say, Count,’ called Queen Victoria. ‘You are not intending to do something horrid to one’s Empire, are you?’

  ‘Well,’ the count made so-so gestures, it depends what you mean by, horrid.’

  ‘One knows precisely what one means,’ said Queen Victoria.

  ‘Then,’ Count Rostov delved into his robe and drew out a brassy contrivance with a big red button attached to it. ‘The answer would be, watch and see,’ he said.

  And he pressed upon the button.

  46

  ‘That’s not how it’s done,’ I said to Barry. ‘The count can’t just press the dreaded blood red button and get away with it. The hero is supposed to stop him. Where are the assassins when you need them?’

  ‘Good points all,’ said Barry. But that was all he said.

  For then the count cried. ‘Behold.’

  And an enormous section of The Leviathan beneath us fell away. But this was not some deadly missile bound for Earth. Instead it was an outer shell beneath the Grand Ballroom and as it fell away it revealed that all the floor of the entire room was of glass. Not just the central dancing area but all. Suddenly the toffs at their tables were looking down between their knees to the rolling planet beneath them.

  And then the first explosion occurred. It ripped into the west coast of Africa, then was followed by another and another.

  This raised what might be said as ‘mixed feelings’ with the sitters at the tables. Some were clearly of the ‘well it’s only Africa’ persuasion. Others were more, ‘it’s the beginning of the end.’

  ‘Do not be alarmed!’ cried the count. ‘But behold.’

  And all beheld the goings on below.

  Explosion followed explosion, rolling balls of fire, another and another and another. Across the continent and back, across the lands of Africa again.

  And then the posh folk cooed and pointed, some indeed started to cheer. For now it was clear to see what had happened. It was below us written on the Earth

  Happy Double Sapphire

  Jubilee Your Majesty

  The letters carved into the planet’s skin must have been hundreds of miles in height, the message two thousand miles long.

  ‘Oh the humanity,’ said Barry.

  In what I considered an unc
onvincing tone.

  ‘No loss of life,’ cried Count Rostov. ‘On the contrary. The explosions have cut mighty rivers and canals across the Sahara and the heart of the Dark Continent. Bringing the life blood of water to that dry and arid land.’

  The applause this time was deafening.

  ‘So he’s not a villain?’ I said to Barry. ‘I am rather confused.’

  ‘Keep watching, chief. We’re far from finished yet.’

  ‘My gift, Your Majesty, to you,’ said Count Rostov. ‘Africa, the cradle of civilisation. The birthplace of Man in the Garden of Eden shall once more flourish. To become a green and pleasant land alike to our own.’

  ‘Bravo!’ chaps shouted. ‘For he is a jolly good fellow.’

  ‘But this,’ said Count Rostov, ‘is only the beginning. A new Garden, that is to be as the old. But who to tend this Garden? Who would be worthy to care for it? To nurture it –’

  ‘Trouble coming?’ I asked of the sprout.

  ‘Very likely, chief.’

  ‘To sing for you,’ said Count Rostov, of a sudden. ‘To bring you joy. Here is Sophia Poppette.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t expecting that.’

  ‘Sssh, chief.’

  I don’t know where she came from. She possibly popped up through some trapdoor in the stage, or it was done with mirrors, or something. But for a moment she wasn’t there, then suddenly she was.

  And she was beautiful.

  There is a beauty that can simply take your breath away. That stops you dead in your tracks and that kind of thing. It can be a glimpse of some woodland from a speeding train. A sunset over a place you know so well, that suddenly makes it different, special and filled with magic. And the beauty of the human face, the face of someone we love. Be it for a man, his mother, or his wife, there are moments when that beauty flashes and the very wonder of being alive touches you.