“Fee fells fea-fells on the fea-fore…”
No! Not good enough. Come on St. John. This is the way you get better!
“F-she f-sells f-sea-shells on the sea shore.”
You can do this.
You CAN do this.
__________
My act played the most exclusive supper clubs of the Far East. I was a barnstorming success, feted everywhere from Siam to Singapore. But I had not become the edgiest ventriloquist act the world had ever seen for mere money or stardom. Sure, being called “the Peter Ustinov of ventriloquism” was great for my ego, and likewise the reviews lauding “the stage presence Sinatra wishes he had”, and proclaiming me a “gottle of genius” were pleasing to read, but I was doing this for ME. I had to banish my private demons.
I was doing it to prove that a chap who had lips that used to be another chap’s anus could be anything that he wanted to be.
“D-D-D-D.”
“B-B-B-B.”
“D-D-D-D.”
“H-H-H-H.”
“F-FF-FFF-FFFF!”
“Ken Dodd’s Dad’s Dog’s Dead…”
I was ready. But was my partner? I looked over at him, with his rouged lips, painted eyebrows and his black and white Neapolitan clown outfit.
“Two minutes ‘til curtain, Major Sin-Jon.”
“Take him out onto stage for me would you please, Lao-Ping.”
“Immediately, sir.” Lao-Ping hauled the dead weight of Major Cornwall onto his shoulder, as if he were a sack of low-grade potatoes. He turned around in the tight squeeze of the dressing room, smashing the side of Cornwall’s paralysed head against the mahogany piano near the door.
“Ooohh! Sorry, Major! Very sorry!”
“Don’t worry about it. The Major doesn’t feel a thing.”
“What are you going to give them tonight, sir? The new songs? Heee-heeee! Maybe more of the political stuff? Or maybe the slappy-stick? Ha! I love the slappy-stick, Major Sin-Jon, when you hit the dummy with the cane. Ha ha!”
“Well, let us just see what the Major comes out with.”
As Lao-Ping manoeuvred him from the room, I saw something that made my heart leap with joy. Cornwall blinked once, twice. Then, almost imperceptibly, he turned his great bullet head to look at me.
Beneath his No.7 white foundation, his eyes had narrowed into an expression I knew. It was gratefulness. It had been a tough few months for him. Trapped inside that locked-in body of his, he was itching to get better, just as I was. He knew I was his nurse, his helpmeet and his champion. I had a premonition of the day he would throw his arms around my neck, squeezing me tighter and tighter. With tears in his eyes, he’d cry, “Thank you, St. John. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
Tokyo, Four Months Earlier.
The sushi restaurant was so exclusive it did not have a name, only an immaculate white door, surrounded by a semi-circle of toughs in black coats. Each of the toughs had their left little finger missing. I bared my teeth slightly and they stepped back respectfully, eyes to the floor.
A geisha of extreme beauty was waiting for us. She put her hands together and bowed demurely. Victor ogled her silken buttocks as she turned. She moved as if she were floating. We lumbered after her like a couple of hungry oxen. The geisha showed us to a low table, across a lacquered wooden floor that squeaked loudly.
“You know, Major,” said Cornwall airily, “this is a nightingale floor. It squeaks by design. The lightest pressure sounds a high pitch that warns diners of even the most light-footed assassin’s approach.”
“How typical of you, Major,” I replied, “to have remembered this trivia about uguisubari flooring. Always looking over your shoulder, worried about your imagined enemy’s next move. You should relax. Let the sun shine on your face. Really, you are so risk-averse.”
Victor bristled a little at this, and I could see I’d struck a nerve. Either that, or Tikki Takka had. His hideous masseuse must have really given him a working over at his hotel this afternoon, and he looked bent out of shape. Tikki Takka was a real mistress of her craft with a face like a warthog coming to orgasm and a grip that could crack the balls off a marble statue. She adored the Major because of his recent kindness to her in the Seoul restaurant where she waitressed. The Major had seen a dog tied to a post outside, and ordered it as a main course, not yet understanding how precious Foo-Foo was to her.
The head chef had been about to make merry with his dog-mallet when, seeing Tikki Takka in floods of tears, Cornwall marched into the kitchen and stayed the man’s hand. In saving the mutt’s life, Cornwall caused her to swear a thousand-year allegiance to him. But this evening he had persuaded her to stay back at the hotel.
“Utter tosh,” he said in response. “My life is one huge risk, and I’ve been beating the odds from day one.” Thankfully, at that moment, our immaculate geisha floated back to our table with two menu scrolls, which I could see had been created by a master calligrapher, perhaps even the great Goshin Yasui himself. The style and balance were perfect, and it must have cost more to have these made than to buy most restaurants.
I took the proffered menu with both hands and nodded appreciatively at its quality. I scanned the contents and affirmed that there were many excellent things that would satisfy my hunger this evening, and how pleased I was to be in this estimable establishment. The geisha bowed and stepped back, to repeat the ritual with Cornwall.
Cornwall refused the menu. “I don’t need it,” he said. “I’ll have the pufferfish.” The geisha faltered for a moment, and nodded. Her cheeks had gone the deep scarlet reserved for the most appalling breaches of etiquette.
“Interesting choice.”
“Like I said, my life is one huge risk.”
Fugu is well known today as the dish for those with something to prove, and for my sins I could never let Cornwall prove something without me. “Watashi no tame ni fugu kudasai,” I said, and bowed to dismiss our geisha, who backed away to the kitchen to report our order. We would both have the pufferfish.
I picked up my urushi sakazuki cup, with two hands, and drank a deep draught of the shizuku titan sake, savouring the vintage. I stood and bowed an appreciation to the industrialist who had been kind enough to present it to our table. He stood and bowed back. I waited for him to sit down, before returning to my low seat to find that Victor had already drained his glass, and was topping himself up. “Did you see our waitress blush? I think I might be in there,” he said.
It was going to be a long evening.
__________
When the food arrived, I put a small sliver of the sashimi fugu to my lips, and immediately felt the warning tingle of tetrodotoxin, the second most powerful nerve agent in the world, which kills as effectively as a shark biting one’s head off. Of course, fugu is ordered for exactly this titillating effect, but my sensitive new lips told me that this dish had been prepared poorly by an inattentive chef. There was far too much liver taste in this mouthful, indicating fatal imprecision in the preparatory knifework. Good lord! I should warn my dining companion.
“Delicious,” Cornwall declared, having hoovered up all five pieces of fugu in one slobbery mouthful.
I motioned to the geisha to come forward. “Could we have an ambulance please?” I murmured to her in Japanese.
She whispered that one was already on its way.
Thirty minutes later
For the second time in less than a year the Major and I were in a hospital ward. As they pumped adrenalin into my unlucky friend, I mused that if it hadn’t been for his kind gift I’d be in the same shocking state as him.
He fluttered in and out of consciousness, as if he couldn’t decide whether to die or not. I spent a couple of tense hours pacing the corridors, staring out of windows and blaming myself for my friend’s terrible mishap. I also arranged t
o meet a couple of the nurses the following evening.
Victor’s doctor appeared, and explained that Dame Fortune had smiled on him. The astonishingly strong full-body massage he’d received that afternoon from Tikki Takka had purged his muscles, purifying them. The tetrodotoxin had raced to this tender flesh, paralysing every muscle, instead of attacking its usual victim, the heart. Victor had had a lucky escape, although the doctor thought it might take months for him to regain control of his body.
“Can he hear me?”
“Absolutely,” the doctor said. “Your friend has developed a rare condition called butsuri-teki hikikomori. I think you say ‘locked-in syndrome’. Major Cornwall will experience everything going on around him, but be completely unable to react to it, as his body is comatose.”
“Go on,” I said, gravely.
“He will only be able to breathe and swallow, and perhaps make tiny movements as time goes on. His life is in your hands.” With that the doctor gave me a bag of adult nappies and bowed goodbye.
Although he could not move, I could see Victor’s tiny eyes widening. I patted him on the forehead reassuringly. I was determined that my companion would not miss his dream tour of the Far East, just because of a little thing like total body paralysis. I resolved to show him the whole region: from Bangkok to Beijing, from Kamalay to Kumshin. And at the same time as doing him this enormous service, I would heal myself too. I’d come to the Orient for a reason: to bury the ghost of my own lips, rudely ripped from me by the blistering sun and Victor’s inaccurate navigation a year ago.
I was going to make my new lips the most skillful in the world.
I was going to become a ventriloquist.
And now I had my dummy.
Beijing, July, 1951.
My show was brilliantly conceived. It had everything: upbeat numbers with showgirls done up as sexy British nurses; a crooning number which would have put Bing Crosby to shame and an exhilarating knife-throwing act in which Victor was spun round and round a circular target. But what really brought the show alive was the ventriloquist act Big Black-White Bear. It was masterful. I’d sit on stage in a leather armchair and deliver coruscating political barbs that made the well-heeled audience of officials and tastemakers alternately howl with laughter and blush with shame. On cue, Victor, my dummy, the eponymous big black-white bear, would shout out his catchphrase, “Wannnkers!” in a nasal Cockney accent it had taken me weeks to get right. Sure, it was avant-garde but they couldn’t get enough of it.
To the audience, it looked like the Major was perched jauntily on my knee. In actual fact this knee was a reinforced steel frame with a cattle prod hidden inside, covered all over in mustard corduroy. Whenever I made a joke I wanted the Major to laugh at, or I wanted him to do his catchphrase, I’d simply press the secret button on the back of the chair to animate him. A couple of hundred volts got him jiggling merrily. For more of a reaction I simply dialled the voltage upwards. It was an ingenious system, and I liked to think that perhaps the electric shocks were doing him some good.
I know the Major loved the performances with all his heart, although there was no way he could thank me because he was still trapped in the prison of his own body. I longed for him to shake off the terrible fugu affliction and get back to being the Victor Cornwall I knew. In the meantime, I was sure he’d want to carry on our act with no artistic changes whatsoever.
This particular night, I’d come back on stage for three standing ovations. Three! Big Black-White Bear had brought the house down yet again, and the stage was strewn with fresh roses and fan letters, which I would have Lao-Ping sweep straight into the bin later.
Then an unexpected thing happened.
A heavy black bag thumped down onto the stage. The applause and calls of encore ceased instantly. Members of the audience would dine out for the rest of their lives telling of this night. I stared at the velvet bag soaking up the limelight of the stage. I walked towards it, crouched and opened the bag. Inside was a circular tablet of dark metal stencilled with dragons and flags. It was Emperor Pu-Yi’s great seal.
This was indeed an honour.
The Emperor had, literally, given his seal of approval to our act. This had only happened in the whole of Chinese history twice before. The great philosopher Confucius had been given the seal in the year 499BC, by Duke Ding of the house of Lu, for a recital of some of his early teachings. Imperial Prince Chun had given the seal to the feted jingxi performer Mei Lanfong in 1672 for being able to fit three summer peaches into his mouth at the same time. We were in elite company.
Several colossal Imperial guardsmen, their razor-sharp pikes glinting in the spotlights, marched on stage. Several more covered the exits. They glowered menacingly at the audience. Luckily I remembered something I’d once read, and dropped to my knees, assuming a position of total abasement. I lay face down with my nose touching the boards, hands out to the sides. The Major had toppled over anyway as I was taking my bows, getting another huge laugh, so he was in no danger.
After an age, the Emperor padded softly onto stage. “Rise, master of the arts,” he said in a quiet voice.
I rose, but my head remained bowed. One slip of protocol here, and I would be disemboweled. Nobody wanted that for a final curtain. Poor Lao-Ping, worried that Big Black-White Bear couldn’t rouse himself, dashed on stage to help him up. Sadly, the guards misconstrued this as an attack on Pu-Yi, and impaled him efficiently with a pike. He bled to death, stage left.
Ignoring this ghastly scene, Pu-Yi spoke: “These actors are ennobled by my Imperial seal. I proclaim that St. John Trevelyan becomes a Baron of the First Rank, and his entertaining bear dummy, Cornwall, an official court jester.”
On the surface I remained calm but inside my heart was bursting with pride. This was the validation that I’d been seeking. Cornwall, of course, did nothing, his empty eyes stared directly into a glaring footlight. The Emperor walked off stage, and I walked into history.
Aoyama Palace, China, 1951
“You say this man is stiff as a board, all the time?” Pu-Yi, the Last Emperor, quizzed, as he took another Smooth Bastard, a blend of tobacco, blackberry leaf and a mild sativa that I’d had the Scoundrels tobacconist whip up for my trip East. “These are exceptional cigarettes, Major Trevelyan.”
“I will have the Scoundrels Club send you a consignment immediately, your Excellency,” I bowed. “To answer your question, yes, the Major is as unyielding as your own Guardsmen. He is unable to bend or stretch, or even move a muscle. But every day I see improvements. Flashes of eye contact, finger wiggles, movements down below.”
“Perhaps what Major Cornwall needs,” said Pu-Yi exhaling, “is some real excitement to shake him out of his terrible coma. Look at this.”
From a sideboard, Pu-Yi picked up a splendidly ornate firearm, with a very short stock, and a two-foot barrel that widened at the end like a blunderbuss. It was made of zitan wood, and emblazoned with exquisite bronze lettering. Pu-Yi checked the barrel, snapped it shut, and tossed it to me. I caught it with one hand.
“For water buffalo?”
Pu-Yi shook his head. “You must come panda hunting with me tomorrow!”
I was rather taken aback by this suggestion. “Certainly,” I said. “But aren’t your magnificent forest beasts fairly rare?”
“They are a pestilence,” said the Emperor, thumping his fist on the table. “We have hundreds of them shuffling about eating my spectacular forests. If I have my way there will be no more pandas in China! They ruin my fledgling bamboo furniture industry. Extermination by hunting on horseback is the best solution. Please join me and bring the hilarious Cornwall-dummy too.”
“It is difficult to say no to a panda shoot, Emperor,” I said, wondering how I could say no to a panda shoot. I’ve never really enjoyed shooting anything other than Nazi officers.
But then a thought struck me.
I knew pandas were one of the only creatures Cornwall had not yet had the chance to kill. He was fond of boasting that by twelve years old he’d bagged all of the big five: African lion, African elephant, Cape Buffalo, African leopard and rhinoceros, even though his leopard didn’t count as it was in an enclosure at London Zoo. He also claimed to have chalked up a komodo dragon, a Nigerian alligator and a couple of those wild horses from the Camargue.
Looking at his expressionless features I knew it would mean the world to him to watch me blast a panda to death on his behalf. And I must admit that I felt a creeping excitement at the thrill of outsmarting such a vicious beast in its natural habitat. I walked to the window and pretended to check what the weather was doing.
“It would be a real challenge, Emperor, with Major Cornwall as rigid as a maypole. In his present state he cannot react to danger. Or anything. Just look at him.”
I’d leant the Major against a doorframe a couple of hours before, and he was still there, balancing on his forehead, staring at the Emperor and me as we relaxed on his Chesterfield sofas. I picked up a delicate porcelain vase from a side table. “May I?”
“Please.”
I threw it hard at the Major. It smashed on the doorframe inches above his head, showering him with fragments. Cornwall slowly blinked.
“I long for the day, your Excellency, when my friend can slaughter magnificent creatures himself, but for now I will just have to do it for him. I have one condition, if you will indulge me. ”
“Go on,” said Pu-Yi.
“Rather than steeds, we’ll hunt on foot. That way I can strap Major Cornwall to my own back, so he is close to the action.”
“That would be foolhardy,” said the Emperor gravely. “Panda hunting is the most dangerous hunting in China. It is difficult enough on horseback, but on foot it is close to suicide.”
He thought for a moment and then smiled indulgently.
“But I would never refuse an honoured guest, especially one so brave. I see I was wise to make you a Baron of the First Rank. On foot it is! Panda hunting at first light tomorrow.”
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