Age of Legends

by James Lovegrove

  Ajia saw Mr LeRoy and Fletcher standing against the back wall and edged through a press of drinkers towards them. Fletcher shuffled along and made room for her.

  On stage, a midget in a white suit bounded on to the stage, thumped the air before him like a shadow boxer, then made a comical show of jumping up to reach the mic left at the top of its stand by the MC. After three futile leaps he called out, “Sod it!”, kicked over the stand and retrieved the microphone from the stage to a round of cheering.

  He was in his forties and running to seed, with dark receding hair, a chubby white face, and stubby hands. A star-shaped medallion hung on a silver chain around his neck.

  He gripped the microphone and paced the stage.

  “So there I am, having a quiet pint in the New Bee Hive, when this bloke comes up to me and says, ‘Outside,’ he says, and I says, ‘Outside?’ and he says, ‘Outside,’ and I says, ‘What, you fancy a quickie?’”––loud laughter––“and he says, this huge bruiser built like a fucking brick shithouse, he says, ‘Don’t like your type in here. On yer bike.’ So I says, ‘Right, outside,’ I says. So we go outside, ladies and gents, and you know what? You know how fast I am? I may only have little legs but I can shift. So I shifted, ran like the fucking blazes, round the corner and dodged a couple of bobbies on the beat. Only smart arse ain’t so nimble, see, and he goes smack-bang into the coppers, knocking one flying, and gets his’sen arrested, didn’t he?”

  A round of applause, and Wee Paul strode back and forth, nodding and punching the air, the star-shaped medallion jouncing on his chest.

  “Now this is where it gets political, like. Not that what I was just saying was very funny anyway. You had all your dirty jokes in the first half, and now I’m getting to indulge myself for a mo. Any Drake supporters in here?”

  He peered out at his audience. Perhaps eighty per cent of the men and women in the room cheered and whooped.

  “Well, you can fuck right off, ’cause you all know what I think of Mr Derek chuffing Drake!”

  Heartened by this turn, Ajia exchanged a glance with Fletcher and Mr LeRoy. The latter looked uneasy.

  A small section of the audience applauded, but no one––no Drake supporters––made to leave.

  “Now what about his latest, eh? You all saw the news tonight? Mr Drake is waving his dick around, big style. Threatening that Russian, what’s his name? Summat like Vaseline? Vasilyev, that’s it. Now there’s a fascist bed-partner for Drake if I ever saw one. And the way Drake’s waving his plonker… Perhaps he does have a hard-on for the Russian leader? Russian subs in the North Sea, twenty Russkie diplomats sent home from the London embassy. And then Drake starts talking nuclear. Nuclear!” Wee Paul tapped his head. “Power? Power, it does for ’em all the time! You know what Pitt said, about too much power, et cetera.”

  He went on in this vein for another fifteen minutes, ridiculing Drake and his policies and earning cheers and jeers in almost equal measure.

  “Anyway, enough of the execrable Drake for now. How about a trick? Who’s for a trick, eh?”

  Whoops and cheers greeted the question, and a tall blonde woman clad in a sequinned leotard wheeled a long box––more than like a coffin––on to the stage.

  Ajia put her lips to Mr LeRoy’s ear and murmurer, “What’s all this about Drake and Vasilyev?”

  “I must admit that recent events have rather kept me from world news, Ajia.”

  On the stage, to a fanfare of blaring music, Wee Paul and his assistant were opening the lid of the box to show its empty contents.

  “Now I want six volunteers. Come on, you lucky ladies and gents, six of you lovely people. There we go!”

  Duly six members of the audience were coerced by drunken friends to take up the offer. One by one they joined Wee Paul.

  “Now I want you to stand around the Box of Death––that’s what I call it, ladies and gents, and you’ll soon see why––just to make sure that I don’t get out. ’Cause once I’m inside, see, the glamorous Pamela here is going to kill me. That’s right, ladies and gents! Pamela will set fire to the box and burn poor little me to cinders. This…” As the room erupted into ghoulish applause, he held up his arms for quiet. “This is a new act. Never done before. And I think it might very well be my last. A fond farewell.”

  He went around the six men and women, asking their names and positioning them equidistantly around the coffin-like box, which was propped up on two trestles.

  While his assistant fetched a canister of petrol from the wings, Wee Paul came to the edge of the stage. His tone was less strident and jokey now, more confiding. “You know how it is, folks? Comes a time when it all gets just too much. You’ve had it up to here, and you think, Why bother? Why go on?” A deathly hush settled over the audience. “And in my case… Well, would you like to be three foot five in today’s world where every evil fucker out there is just looking for an excuse to batter someone, anyone, because they’re different? That’s right, it ain’t funny, folks. I’ve had enough, I really have. So tonight, right here, the venue where I made my debut more than twenty years ago, I’m making my fond farewell. Pamela?”

  Wee Paul stepped towards the box. He handed Pamela the microphone. Around the box, the six onlookers fidgeted uneasily. A pre-recorded drumroll sounded. Ajia glanced at Mr LeRoy. She was alarmed to see that he was looking more than a little distressed.

  Using a trestle as an improvised ladder, Wee Paul climbed into the box. He sat up, gave a last wave, then lay down in the box, disappearing from sight. In a touch both droll and comical, his small hand appeared over the edge of the box, waving. A few members of the audience tittered.

  His assistant stepped forward and doused Wee Paul, and the coffin, with the contents of the canister. Then she closed the hinged lid, secured it with a padlock and stepped back.

  The drumroll continued.

  Pamela produced a lighter from the hem of her leotard, held it up for all to see, then flicked the wheel. A tall flame sprang into life.

  She approached the box, held out the lighter––then had second thoughts and offered the lighter to the first of the six, miming that they should do the honours.

  The woman demurred. Pamela passed on to the next, a cocky young man with a buzz-cut and bulging biceps. Someone from the audience egged him on drunkenly. He snatched the lighter from Pamela’s hand and stepped towards the petrol-soused box.

  All the while, Ajia had not allowed her gaze to leave the box. She examined the coffin-like oblong for any means of escape, but it seemed impossible that Wee Paul could exit the box without being seen. It was elevated from the stage on trestles, with fresh air visible all around. When the light was applied to the petrol, it seemed inevitable that Wee Paul would be granted his last wish and go up in flames.

  She found Fletcher’s hand and gripped.

  The buzz-cut youth held up the flame for all to see, then lowered it and held the lighter to the wooden box.

  The coffin exploded in flame and the young man stepped back precipitately.

  Cries, applause, catcalls and screams erupted from the audience and Ajia stared in horror as flames licked the length of the box.

  The six volunteers backed off, hands to mouths, while the youth who had initiated the immolation looked stricken, calling for someone to fetch an extinguisher.

  No such salvation was forthcoming for Wee Paul Klein.

  Amid a furore of distress from the crowd, the flames crackled and leapt––and with a touch of realism that might have been rehearsed, Pamela ran around the stage in distress, calling hidden stagehands in the wings for help.

  A silence fell around the chamber. The only sound was the crackle of flames as they burned themselves out, but not before the supporting trestles were burned away and the remains of the box––presumably with the incinerated remains of the midget within––collapsed with a crash to the thick, fire-retardant mat laid out across the stage.

  The six volunteers looked on abjectly.

  A
ghastly burnt stench filled the air.

  Pamela stepped forward, a hand pressed to her mouth, and stared down at the shattered box. If her distress was an act, then she was more than convincing.

  She cried out. A stagehand hurried onto the stage carrying a broom, which he reversed and used to prod at the blackened wood.

  “But how could he have survived!” Ajia hissed to Fletcher. “I was watching all the time. I’m sure he didn’t get out.”

  Fletcher just shook his head, looking on open-mouthed.

  The only sound that broke the silence of the room was Pamela’s hiccuping sobs as she watched the stagehand stir the mess of ash and blackened wood with the broom handle.

  It was impossible to tell if Wee Paul’s charred corpse lay amid the piled debris.

  By now, much of the audience had left the tables and were crowding up against the stage, ghoulishly eager to see for themselves what had happened to Wee Paul.

  Pamela cried out in distress. The stagehand poked the broom handle further into the now extinguished pyre, hooked it around something, and lifted it from the debris.

  Wee Paul Klein’s star-shaped medallion, tarnished now, hung high for all to see.

  As if this were proof positive that indeed the midget had perished, pandemonium broke loose.

  The subsequent mayhem would have kept a sociologist, studying the cause and effect of collective hysteria, busy for years.

  Men and women alike fainted; others whooped and hollered in almost orgasmic frenzy; some wept; some made for the exit, or vomited––or both at the same time––while others resorted to a reflex primal response and resorted to violence. Fights broke out around Ajia, Mr LeRoy and Fletcher. Within seconds the hall was a madhouse––not quite the response the club’s booking officer might have desired.

  Someone saw the colour of Ajia’s skin and swung a punch. Fletcher got in the way, blocking the upper cut with his forearm and jabbing the assailant in the gut.

  Mr LeRoy took Ajia’s arm. “I think you’d better make yourself scarce,” he called out above the din. “Make your way to Paul’s dressing room.”

  “You think he’s alive?”

  “I’m sure of it. Now go! I’ll see you there.”

  Ajia went.

  She sprinted towards the stage, vanishing instantly and drawing a startled cry of alarm from a youth who’d been preparing to punch her. Fletcher made the most of the lout’s surprise to push him to the floor and dodge after her, Mr LeRoy panting in pursuit.

  Everything seemed to be happening around Ajia in slow motion. What a second ago had been a chaotic mêlée of frantic movement, impossible to make out with any clarity, now became a series of retarded tableaux, each individual incident like a freeze-frame comic-book panel. As she flew past she caught glimpsed of stilled fists and punched faces wearing absurdly exaggerated expressions of pain and anger; faces frozen in tearful exhibits grief; men and women still in attitudes of running like sprinters caught in a photo-finish. She almost expected to see sound effects––Kapow! Ker-unch!––above the fracas.

  She leapt on to the stage and hurried into the wings, where Pamela had disappeared to a minute earlier.

  She slowed to walking pace. A shabby corridor led off into the nether regions of the club.

  She came to a door, opened it and peered in. Pamela sat on a stool before a mirror, lighting up a cigarette and looking supremely unconcerned at the bedlam unfolding in the auditorium.

  “Sorry!” Ajia said, and moved onto the next door, this one adorned with a star cut from silver Bacofoil.

  She tried the handle but it was locked. A terse response came from beyond. “Piss off!” in Wee Paul’s unmistakable Bradfordian brogue.

  She looked along the corridor at the sound of approaching footsteps. Fletcher appeared, followed by Mr LeRoy.

  “He’s in here,” Ajia said, “but he doesn’t want autograph hunters.”

  Mr LeRoy squeezed past her and tried the handle. “Paul?”

  “I’ve told you once, piss off! Go on, bugger off.”

  “Paul! It’s me, Bron. Bron LeRoy.”

  Silence from within, followed by the snick of a bolt being drawn.

  The door swung open. Wee Paul Klein, looking even smaller, and seedier, at close quarters, stood in his socks and a white dressing gown. He looked at Mr LeRoy with astonishment.

  Ajia stared at the little man, wondering how he’d managed to save himself from the conflagration of his own devising.

  She followed her friends into the room and watched as Paul Klein slumped on to a stool before the dressing table. He seemed at once incredulous at Mr LeRoy’s appearance out of the blue, and almost––Ajia studied the man’s expression––almost defiant.

  Mr LeRoy found a vacant stool and settled his considerable bulk, while Ajia and Fletcher leaned against the dressing room wall.

  Paul reached a shaking hand for a tumbler of what looked like whisky and took a mouthful.

  He said, gesturing to the stage, “One of these days, Bron. You mark my word. Maybe not today, or next week at some other godforsaken fleapit north of here, but it’ll happen.”

  “My boy, my boy,” Mr LeRoy sympathised, clearly moved.

  “Save yer crocodile tears, fatso. I didn’t see them when you threw me out, told me to sling my effing hook!”

  “I’m sure I never employed such vernacular!” Mr LeRoy protested.

  Paul almost allowed a smile. “Not in so many words,” he said. “But that’s what you meant.”

  “But you must admit, in all fairness, I had a point.”

  Paul knocked back another slug of Scotch, wincing. “I had my reasons for acting as I did. The way she treated me! You’ve no idea what it’s like, any of you.” Here his gaze took in Fletcher and Ajia, his eyes lingering on her chest. “No idea. I was treated like shit before Summer Land, and it was no better when I joined your carnival of freaks.”

  “You complain about how Maya treated you,” Mr LeRoy said, “but your own conduct was far from exemplary. You allowed your bitterness to blind your better instincts. But then I told you all this at the time. Maya… You should have seen that she was different, and treated her with respect. But no. You jumped into the relationship with the expectation of getting knocked back, as with all your other liaisons. And when she did reject you, because of your insistence, you took it to heart.”

  “I loved her!” Wee Paul wailed.

  Mr LeRoy shook his head sadly. “That might have been so, but you were unable to show it.”

  Paul said, “And she turned out to be like all the others, nothing but a slut.”

  Mr LeRoy shook his head. “Maya was a brownie,” he said. “She––they––were different. Are different. I told you that. She… Maya shared her love. She was guileless and loving, and if only you could have accepted her as she was, her free and open nature. But no, you wanted her all to yourself.”

  Wee Paul took another drink, not bothering to deny the charge. “Anyway, what’re you doing here? What do you want?”

  Mr LeRoy hesitated, then smiled at the midget. “I want you to come back, Paul, and join the people I’ve gathered around me.”

  The little man almost sneered. “And you don’t think I’ve had a bellyful of Summer Land? I wouldn’t come back for all the––”

  Mr LeRoy said, “Summer Land is no more, Paul.”

  “What?”

  “We were attacked. Drake’s Paladins. One morning a week ago, under cover of darkness. They ran amok, killing indiscriminately.”

  Paul lowered his glass with a shaking hand. “Maya?”

  Mr LeRoy shook his head, and looked at Ajia.

  She said, “I saw a Paladin shoot Maya at point blank range. She was a friend, a good friend.”

  “Maya… dead?”

  Ajia found it painful to watch the display of grief on Wee Paul’s face. His features seemed to crumple, collapse, as he hung his head and sobbed.

  “Maya? Poor, innocent, childlike Maya.” He looked up.
“And the others? Henri, Emanuel, Hector…?”

  Mr LeRoy said. “Dead, all of them. Drake’s Paladin’s killed them all. Even…” he swallowed, “even Perry.”

  “Perry? Christ, Bron. I’m so sorry.” He fell silent, staring into his drink, then looked up. “But you said ‘join you’? Join who?”

  “I’ve gathered together others, other eidolons like us. Fourteen of us. Fifteen if you join our merry band. Fifteen likeminded souls, against the world.”

  Wee Paul shook his head. “Join you why? It’d just be the same. The ridicule, the hatred.”

  “Paul, Paul… We have a mission. We are united against Drake and his forces of evil.”

  Paul stared at him. “United? What, all fourteen of you? Are you crazy? United against Drake’s Paladins?”

  Mr LeRoy looked across at Ajia, and nodded minimally.

  She said, “Two nights ago, a force of Paladins, armed with assault weapons and backed up with a helicopter, attacked Daisy Hawthorn’s nursery in Derbyshire. Reed and myself, ably assisted by boggarts and elves, we fought them off. Killed every one of them.”

  Paul looked from her to Mr LeRoy. “She can’t be serious.”

  “Deadly serious,” he said. “And Ajia, herself, accounted for most of the Paladins. Her small stature, like your own, conceals a wealth of… of ability.”

  “You have a plan?” Paul asked.

  “We have a plan, which I’ll tell you all about if you agree to join us.”

  Paul regarded his drink. “I don’t know…”

  Fletcher spoke for the first time since entering the dressing room. “You sounded bitter, earlier. Talked of topping yourself. Why not postpone that, and join us? Use your anger, your bitterness, to get back at the greatest ill in the land? Drake and his fascists.”

  “But… what you’re doing is impossible.”

  “I don’t think so,” Mr LeRoy said. “You don’t know us, our strengths. Join us. Add your ability own to ours. Avenge,” he said, playing his trump card, “avenge Maya’s senseless, barbaric murder.”

  Wee Paul drained his glass and set it down precisely on the dressing table. He looked from Ajia to Fletcher, and finally to Mr LeRoy. At last he said, “What have I got to lose, Bron? What indeed?”