Omega

by Bradley Stoke

  Chapter 15

  On awakening, the alley in which we had been sleeping seemed if anything rather less inviting in the early morning light. I looked over to Beta who was still sleeping. Clearly she was rather less accustomed to the comfort of modern mattresses, duvets and electric blankets than me, and even without clothes to wrap around her had succeeded in slumbering through the chill night air and the now rather more insistent, if distant, roar of traffic. We were far from alone: a family of horse-shoe crabs was dozing fairly close to our elbows even though I had been totally unaware of their presence until then. A scrawny goat was wandering down the alleyway towards us, poking his muzzle into the waste bins and pulling out unappetising items of food and chewed them in his mouth with little discretion and less relish. I watched as the goat gradually approached us, and nudged Beta to wake up.

  She stared at me through a bleary film of sleep and smiled sadly. “The second night of sleeping rough!” She remarked. “We mustn’t make this too much of a habit.”

  “Indeed not,” I agreed, standing up and helping her to her feet. “What we need now is breakfast.”

  Beta yawned, blinking her sleep-swollen eyes. “That would be very welcome!” She glanced up and down the alley, where the goat was now joined by a ewe with a pronounced limp and a rolled cigarette dangling from her mouth. The two of them nuzzled through the dustbins and black plastic rubbish bags. “Where shall we go?”

  I didn’t know any better than Beta, but we followed the trail of narrow back-roads past others who were waking up from a night of uncomfortable rest. I had never before seen such a sorry collection of ragged sleeping bags and unravelling blankets, any one of which, nonetheless, would have been extremely welcome when I was trying to sleep. Eventually, we emerged into an area of much wider and busier roads. However, it was apparent that we were in a quite different part of the City than the one where we’d arrived the previous day.

  What had most impressed us when we had come off the train was the grandeur, scale and opulence of the City. Everything was so shining, bright and modern. Here, however, the atmosphere was noted more for its poverty and dereliction. Although the roads were busy, this was mainly of vehicles drawn by sheep or goats or ancient bicycles. The cacophony of bicycle bells and occasional klaxon swamped the roar of car engines which in any case belonged to vehicles that were very old, rusted and barely roadworthy. The uneven pavement was constructed of badly cracked flagstones and potholed by menacing holes where black water festered from past rain showers. Along the kerb were the occasional lamp-posts, some standing at peculiar angles to the horizontal and many with wires dangling loose from vandalised lamps.

  The buildings shared the same general air of dereliction. Many shops had boards covering the windows or were rimmed by sharp icicles of glass. Those windows that were still intact were protected from vandalism by panels. The places where people lived were equally as unwelcoming and decrepit. The buildings were not nearly as tall as most of those we’d seen the day before, but still much taller than any to be found in the Suburbs.

  All the walls were luridly decorated by aerosol graffiti which in imaginative graphic letters and interesting flourishes said nothing either comprehensible or pertinent. RamRods. Claw Killer. Pretty as Sugar. Some graffiti were more understandable and complemented the faded Election posters for the Red, Black and Illicit Parties. Reds Roger. Blacks Suck. Cats Out. Rivers of Black. Every inch of wall underneath and between the thickening and peeling coat of posters was splattered with aerosol paint, and most posters were obscenely defaced.

  “I don’t feel very welcome here,” shivered Beta, huddling up close to me. “I don’t like the way people are looking at me.”

  The goats balanced above our head on unsteady scaffolding, the small crabs in overalls scattering by my feet and the chimpanzee sitting idly on the stairs all appeared more intent on their own thoughts than on us, but now that Beta had put the thought into my mind it did seem to me that we were followed by suspicious eyes as we walked along. A gang of baboons in black leather outfits and motor-cycle helmets blocked the way as they strode slowly along. As we overtook them one scowled extremely menacingly at me, sending a bolt of static through my cheeks.

  We stopped for breakfast at a ramshackle van parked beside the remains of a demolished building enclosed by a ring of high electric wire and boards warning people not to enter the site. More ominously were the silhouetted illustrations of a figure being hit by lightening and the unsubtle warning Danger of Death. Two or three vultures ignored the signs and perched on top of what had once been the main entrance to a large building, where they were smoking some exceedingly long cigarettes and playing idly with flick knives.

  Breakfast was cheaper than we had become accustomed to. We each had coffee in paper cups which were difficult to hold without spilling some of the hot tasteless liquid and scalding our fingers. We shared a couple of white bread sandwiches stuffed with brown sauce, onions and a very fine sliver of cheese. The whole breakfast came to just over fifteen guineas.

  We surveyed the district from the corner of the demolition site, across a road junction controlled by a very busy octopus in a police uniform, to the distant sight of the taller and grander buildings of the City. Although they were clearly within sight, they seemed very distant and remote. Peeling Election posters were everywhere, some blown by the wind across the grimy unwashed streets against doorways and into the alleyways which led off the main streets at regular intervals. A collection of lambs and kids were gathered outside a school, wearing baseball caps put on back to front and words ornately shaved into their fleeces. A small square of grass was locked in behind railings in which a few sparrows had gathered around a statue of an eminent hadrosaur and idly played cards near a hamster in a threadbare overcoat slumped in a puddle of vomit and urine.

  Beta pointed at the tall buildings in the distance, while chewing at a mouthful of obdurate dough. “It’s incredible to think that the City has such great variety! There’s so much wealth over there while here everything is squalid and rundown.”

  “I hope you’re not putting down the flipping City?” abruptly interjected a large raven with a flat cap on his head. “You blinking yokels, you come from the blooming Country and all you can flipping well do is flipping complain. I’m City born and bred, me! And I’m proud of it. There’s nowhere in the world as good as what the City is!”

  “I wasn’t saying that I didn’t like the City...” protested Beta looking down at the match stick protruding from the corner of raven’s beak.

  “Yes, you was! I heard you! Blinking ingrates, you Country people. If it wasn’t for us in the City working hard and making money all you Country people would know it. You don’t bring sweet fanny adams into the realm. How can you? Everything in the Country is just so blinking cheap. Cheap in price and cheap in quality. It’s us what bring in the wealth with all our banks and business and things.”

  “I was just saying that it was strange how much wealthier that part of the City is compared to this part.”

  “Whyn’t you say? That’s different. A totally different bowl of lard, as they say. Yeah, over there is where the nobs live. They’re the ones with all the blinking money. And what do they leave us, the workers? Not fanny adams, that’s what! They’ve got all that money and all those blinking tall buildings and snooty shops and we’re left with all the slums. Well, now we’ve got the Reds in government at long last and those blinking nobs had better look out. We’ll get their hundred thousand guinea carpets, their million guinea clothes, their ten million guinea houses. It’s all for the blinking workers now, ain’t it!”

  “That ain’t quite what the Red Party said they’d do in their manifesto, John,” remarked a billy goat in an ill-fitting sports tracksuit and large soled running shoes. “That ain’t what they said they’d do. It might be what you want them to do, but it ain’t what they said they’d do. But God in Heaven, I wouldn’t mind it if it was, you know what I mean? I wouldn’t say no
to some of the other slice of the pie, me. I work hard all me life, you know what I mean, and I never ain’t got nothing for it. And there are those like Her blinking Maphrodite what do nothing and get loads of dosh. I’d like some of the action, I can tell you.”

  We left the goat and raven debating and walked along the road in the general direction of the tall buildings, looking forward to the return to the relative comfort of the more touristic City. We passed a pack of hyenas who were feasting on some rotting meat, left outside a butcher’s shop which had suffered from very severe vandalism. The more literate graffiti Meat Is Murder was sprayed around it, an opinion not shared by the hyenas. One raised his head from the antelope carcass he was feasting on, blood coursing down his jowls, and glared at us malevolently. Although it was unlikely that either Beta or I would consider challenging him for a taste of the red and pink raw flesh, he appeared to be warning us off just in case.

  We passed by the steps of a tall apartment block even more derelict than most but not boarded up or chicken-wired. Most windows had lost their glass but several people were idly leaning out, regarding the world going by. A babble of audio systems resonated from inside, broadcasting very aggressive songs in which no shortage of profane or obscene words were expressing a philosophy of hatred towards women and police officers, and a worship of drugs and guns. Several people lay in the sun on the steps staring blankly into space and making no effort to converse with each other.

  We walked on looking for somewhere to sit down and rest, preferably without spending any money. There were none of the benches or parks that had been around the previous day, although more people were sitting about; but they did so on the pavement or on the steps leading up to their homes.

  There suddenly erupted an outburst of noise that didn’t emanate from an audio system, although it echoed the same aggressive sentiments. I couldn’t see the source of the shouting until Beta prodded me and pointed several storeys up a metal fire-escape that wound perilously around the steep walls. A black ram with magnificent horns and RAIDERS shaved into his fleece was facing up to a group of coyotes in baseball jackets and sharp knives. There was no actual violence, but a great deal of shouting, much peppered with sexual allusion.

  We hastened on down the road, past women of all species languorously strolling along with no apparent purpose. They wore a thick coating of makeup, revealed much of their breasts, legs and genitals, and on occasion got into or emerged from the car doors of remarkably slow drivers. One car slowed down near us, and the man driving it stuck his head out of the window and yelled at Beta.

  “How much, lovie? What’s your rate?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Beta automatically, not slowing her stride.

  “What d’you do? ‘O’ do you? D’you do ‘A’? ‘F&S’ at all?”

  “I don’t know what you mean?”

  “Don’t come the old C.T. with me, lovie! I just want to know what you’re offering.”

  “Nothing! Nothing at all!” gasped Beta, suddenly understanding him and grabbing my hand in a gesture of attachment. “I’m not offering anything to anyone!”

  The driver sneered, and drove forward to another woman, dressed in nothing but black stockings and a woollen scarf. This woman immediately responded to his enquiries by leaning her arms on the window of the car door and negotiating with him.

  “We walk with a swagger. And we walk with a grin. If there’s any flipping trouble, we’re the first ones in!” chanted some young people marching towards us carrying banners. “We Are The Illicit Boot Boys!”

  The banners carried signs with such single word slogans as Rupert, Truth and Illicit. Some more elaborate signs depicted characters with blood streaming from recently demolished faces over such slogans as Smash The Reds! and Reds May Rule But They Haven’t Won! Their cries and shouting broke their doggerel rhythm into a chaos of shouts in which the words Truth and Rupert were most prominent. It briefly came together with the chant: “Tee. Ah. You. Tee. Aitch. We need the Truth and the Truth needs us!”

  “It’s those horrid Illicit Party people again!” Beta remarked fearfully. “But what is this about the Truth?”

  I told Beta about my visit to the town of Rupert and the President Chairman’s speech where he urged the Illicit Party to seek the Truth. While I was explaining, the procession came ever closer. We stood to one side and let the march go by - partly from fascination and partly because groups of individuals were detaching themselves from the main body and harangued anyone who appeared fair game for their attention. From windows above our heads, some individuals were chanting anti-Illicit Party slogans, though it was not possible to ascertain from which political bias. This criticism earned the culprits a hail of beer cans and stones which in some cases hit their targets and smashed the windows of the rooms where the cries had come from and more often quite different ones.

  Not all those observing the parade were opposed to it, however. Some cries were demonstrably in support.

  “This Rupert seems rather popular with some people,” Beta commented thoughtfully.

  “Illicit Worker!” shouted a large ram carrying a pile of newspapers with one held up to display the image of President Chairman Rupert underneath the banner headline: Election Tragedy. Illicit Party Cheated of Near Victory. “Read how the Red Party fiddled the Election. Find out how the Red Government will bring this nation to crisis.”

  “No thank you,” said Beta politely.

  “And why not?” challenged the ram, who had the face of the koala shaved into his fleece and a plethora of Illicit Party buttons pinned all over. “Don’t you want to find out the truth of the Election? Don’t you want to hear how the President Chairman will lead us all to the ultimate Truth?”

  “Well...,” hesitated Beta, perhaps considering the Truth. “No, not really!”

  “You don’t believe all the Red propaganda do you? Only the Illicit Party can save this country. Or save the world for that matter? Only the Illicit Party has a truly radical and workable solution to the problems of the City’s budget crisis. A policy tried and tested in the Illiberal Socialist Republics. A solution which by wresting control from the factionalism of Red, Black, Blue and White and centralising it in one single non-political authority under the ideological guidance of central government would solve at a stroke the indecisiveness and waste that characterise the City. A solution which would distribute the wealth from the richer parts of the City and spread it amongst the poorer districts. Do you think the Red Government with its policy of even greater decentralisation of local government decision-making could really solve the problems that exist?”

  “I don’t really know...”

  “It’s all in the Illicit Worker! How Rupert will wrest control of the financial market from the chaos, anarchy and greed of the City institutions and establish a single unitarian authority. How Rupert is encouraging all supporters to pursue the Truth and how that will resolve - at a stroke - all the world’s great problems. How education will become focused like a laser beam in an overall strategy involving the cooperation of the media and the libraries. How the Religious fundamentalists, and their liberal sympathisers and apologists, who threaten to drag this nation back to the dark ages will be proscribed for the greater harmony. How abuse of sexual rights and freedoms will be countered by a moral and ethical crusade to bring back order to the relationships between ram and ewe, billy and nanny, man and woman. How the nation will become unified into the greater glory of the Illiberal Socialist Republics, eventually to become part of the United Illiberal Socialist Empire under the President Chairman’s sole authority. Aren’t you interested in the Truth or Justice? Only ten guineas a copy.”

  “We can’t afford it,” I argued.

  “Five guineas, then. Two guineas? Here have it for nothing!”

  The ram handed us a copy and marched onto a group of crabs cowering timidly under the shadow of a large poster for hoof cleanser. Beta took the newspaper, which was printed on very thin paper and the ink
of which was already splodging her hands.

  She turned the pages of the Illicit Worker, while the parade finally passed by drawn up in the rear by a large mass of sheep bleating Rupert’s name insistently and monotonously, with single letters of his name shaved in sequence in their fleece. This would have been more impressive had the sheep stayed in more rigid order, but they were instead proclaiming RUPRTE, THRUT and ILILCIT. The newspaper featured many illustrations of the President Chairman and rather fewer of any one else. These others looked either nondescript or rather aggressive, and were all proclaimed as either heroes or martyrs of the Illiberal Socialist cause.

  Most of the articles were directed against the other political parties and had rather more to say about what was wrong with their opinions, views and manifestos than on what was right about the Illiberal Socialist Party’s. It was difficult to believe that the Red Government was really advocating universal castration as part of a policy of male emasculation. The Blue Party also seemed unlikely to be quite as enthusiastic in reintroducing slavery as the paper claimed. I particularly found bizarre the notion that the White Party was arming secret militias in the Suburbs for the planned overthrow of the state. Although there was a great deal about why the true Illicit Party supporter should join the crusade for the Truth, spearheaded in his historic speeches by the President Chairman himself, there was rather less about what it might be or where it may be found. It also seemed to gloss over what it was the Illicit Party intended to do with the Truth were it ever found.

  Beta looked at the black ink that had thoroughly stained her hands. “Uuurrgghh!” she gasped. “Can you look after the paper? Perhaps we can read it later somewhere.”

  I nodded, took the paper, folded it up and put in my pocket. The parade was now out of sight and the street had returned to its earlier calm, leaving a debris of stones, beer cans and broken glass amongst the other litter along the kerbside.

  It was at that moment I noticed the Gryphon whom I had met at the borough of Rupert hiding in the shadows of a doorway on the other side of the road. He saw me, raised his eagle eyebrows in surprise and strolled across the road towards us.

  “I take it you saw that dreadful rabble of Illicit Party followers, young man,” commented the Gryphon flapping his ears vigorously. He nodded at Beta. “Hello, m’dear. I hope you don’t mind my speaking to the both of you so unintroduced. I met your good friend at a bus station recently. I am really quite disturbed by the fanaticism and intolerance shown by these ill-bred youths. I thought behaviour like that had died out many years ago. What do you think?”

  “They seem horribly violent and aggressive,” Beta commented. “I didn’t like the way they threw stones at those who disagreed with them.”

  “And that’s apparently not all they do to people they take a dislike to. It may only be hearsay of course, but I gather that they practice torture in the Illiberal Socialist Republics to get people to confess to the most outrageous crimes, that they send enormous numbers of them to die in labour camps in horrific conditions and that no opinion is legal which contradicts the wisdom of their President. Can you believe that such barbarity still exists in this day and age! And what is even worse is that young people, like those we saw passing by, want to introduce Illiberal Socialism to this country. I imagine they rather look forward to being the ones who will carry out the torture and murder.”

  “The Illicit Party didn’t win the General Election, though,” I remarked.

  “No. That’s something to be grateful for. Although there was little danger that they would. And I’m glad they didn’t do any better than they did: coming fifth place in the leading six parties. Now we’ve got a Red Government. Not that I voted for them. But I suppose it was inevitable they would win. And I don’t think, taking everything into account, that it’s such a bad result. As you can see, the Red Party has a lot of natural support in inner city slum areas like this. The surprise I suppose is that the Red Party didn’t poll any better than they did. I imagine too many people are wary of being governed by the likes of the people hanging around here. Don’t they look a sorry shower!”

  He gestured, with his claw, at the citizenry leaning out of windows, slumping against walls or lamp-posts, or, at their most active, idly kicking the empty beer cans left behind by the Illicit Party march.

  “So, young man,” speculated the Gryphon, “you have travelled on to the City. Do you expect to find the Truth here?”

  “We’ll have a good look for it!” Beta said supportively.

  “You too!” gasped the Gryphon. “I still think you’re wasting your time. I’m visiting the City on a short exchange visit to Oxymoron High School, just around the corner from here. It’s an enormous school compared to what I’m used to. Over fifteen hundred pupils. And not a school uniform in sight!”

  “Are you a teacher?” enquired Beta, who had never needed to wear a school uniform in her native Village.

  “Yes, m’dear. But it’s quite a different matter teaching here. There really isn’t any discipline. The pupils answer back and have no respect for their elders and betters. Furthermore, my colleagues have no sense of purpose or mission in the noble art of pedagogy. To them it is just a job. The worst is that the pupils are given no sense of direction. There is no emphasis on spelling, multiplication tables or Classics. What sort of adults will these children become if they can’t spell? What sort of world do these modern educationalists want where the fundamentals of education are sacrificed for freedom of expression, creativity (whatever that is!) and universal tolerance? However desirable these objectives may be, surely that is not what education is for!”

  “Perhaps in parts of the City like this, there isn’t much need to spell correctly or to quote Aristophanes?” Beta suggested.

  “Nonsense! However impoverished the pupils - and some of them are appallingly poor - there is always a need for a good grasp of the basics of grammar and arithmetic.”

  The Gryphon brushed his beak with a claw and unruffled his wings. He gave them an impressive shake that threatened to lift him off the ground, and then let them fold again on his back.

  “Are you going this way?” he asked pointing along the road in the direction we were walking. I nodded. “Do you mind if I accompany you?”

  We had no reason to object, so the three of us strolled along a road which became steadily less salubrious as we progressed. Many buildings were now in such a state of dereliction that it was astonishing they hadn’t totally collapsed in on themselves. There was no shortage of people living there, behind hard plastic screens and wire fences. I was quite grateful for the Gryphon’s company who made me feel much safer by virtue of his size and his ability to fight off any attack. Youths stared at us darkly from beneath rusting fire escapes and by the graffiti-adorned pillars that once supported ornate porches. The traffic had become lighter, and much of it was pulled by very haggard ungulates dragging sheets behind them which collected their droppings.

  We came to a bridge by the bank of a dark brown canal which wound along the edge of the road and separated us from the backs of some forbidding red brick buildings where individuals of considerable ingenuity had succeeded in spray-painting a quite impressive density of obscure graffiti. One particular message in block letters dominated over the others, broadcasting the unpleasant message: GOATS GO HOME! BLACKS RULE O.K.!

  “Goodness only knows where the goats are supposed to go,” sniffed the Gryphon. “The City is as much their home as it is any other species. And look at the water! Have you ever seen - or smelt - anything so revolting?”

  In the brown water was a shopping trolley resting on one side, a pool of green algae intermixing with oily scum and a few disconsolate ducks bobbing unhappily about on the surface. The smell was truly unpleasant. It was difficult to identify just what made it so disgusting, and it wasn’t at all smothered by the floating sheets of newspaper, detergent bottles and cigarette packets on its surface. On the bank was a motley collection of ragged and ageing citizens slu
mped on the filthy ground around a brazier or crouched in the dark mud. There was a swan more grey with filth than white; a sheep who had lost all its fur and festered with very raw looking sores; a collection of crabs huddled together more for company than warmth; an eryops up to its chin in slimy canal water; and a few foxes scavenging in unpromising piles of rubbish decomposing in the early morning sun.

  In amongst all this squalor was a tall gentleman with a long beard, hair grown halfway down his back, wearing a long cloak and gown which despite the filth remained a sparklingly inappropriate golden tawny. He was carrying a large flask and a stack of plastic cups, which he doled out to the supplicants. He carefully poured some of the flask’s contents into a cup from which rose a thin column of white steam. He also handed out bread rolls which were greedily devoured.

  He saw the three of us standing, and with an apologetic comment to the sheep he had been serving, strode towards us on his sandaled feet. He smiled welcomingly at us in such an infectious manner that it was impossible not to smile in return.

  “I take it that you’re not poverty stricken?” he remarked amiably.

  “No,” smiled Beta good-humouredly, “but we certainly feel poor in the City. Everything is so very expensive.”

  “It certainly is. Especially to someone like you, who I surmise comes from the Country. But if you have nothing, then that nothing is the same if a cup of tea costs a farthing, a crown or a guinea.”

  “Do you belong to some kind of charitable trust?” the Gryphon wondered. “There certainly is a great need for such services in the City. It’s a wonder people manage to survive at all in this filth and squalor.”

  “No, I don’t,” smiled the gentleman. “What I do, I do because I wish to. There are many charitable organisations in the City, as there are elsewhere in the country, and I have the highest possible regard for them. However, one’s commitment to those in need does not end at giving to others to do the task. But I fear that whatever I do makes only an insignificant contribution to alleviating the great poverty that exists here in the midst of so much plenty.” He indicated the tall buildings in the distance.

  “Shouldn’t the government be doing what you’re doing?” I wondered.

  “I dare say they should. The rôle of government of whatever political colour is to ameliorate the conditions of those in its charge least able to look after themselves.”

  “Are you a Red, then?” asked the Gryphon. “If so, you must be pretty pleased at the results of the General Election.”

  “I have no real interest or involvement in the political process. There are good people of all political and religious persuasion, and to concentrate on the virtues of one party over another is not the best way to serve the plight of the needy.”

  “Surely, that’s rather naïve,” argued the Gryphon. “The Black Party and the Illicit Party don’t have very constructive attitudes towards the poor.”

  “I have no opinion. What matters is the goodness and virtue of the individual. True lasting and significant change is not made solely by political policy. There are many in both the parties you mention who have good intentions, however perversely the parties they advocate may represent them.”

  “I just don’t believe that political solutions have no value,” Beta objected. “Surely if the wealth of the very rich was better distributed, or if the government put more money into stimulating the economy of poor areas, or if things here weren’t so expensive ...”

  “I don’t deny that,” smiled the gentleman conciliatorily. “All that you say is no doubt true. But it takes time for such political changes to take place, and it were better that they were not too firmly associated with one political persuasion over another if they are so undoubtedly for the common weal, as otherwise they risk being reversed by any future complexion of government. In the meantime, the part to be played is not to talk but to act. And action is all I know or care about. Now, if you may excuse me, I have work to do!”

  With that, the gentleman returned to the mass of poor people to whom he was doling out tea and bread. We watched him for a few minutes. Beta remarked that we ought to join him, but the Gryphon vetoed the suggestion.

  “I just don’t believe that we as individuals can make any appreciable change at all,” he sniffed. “At least not in this capacity. The best way I can help people is in my rôle as a teacher, not by working as a volunteer canteen assistant.”

  Beta nodded reluctantly, so we left the canal and continued along the main road. The canal ran alongside it for several hundred yards, and offered the potential of quite a pleasant walk. However, the appalling potpourri of stenches did not make it one now. The canal was occasionally bridged by functional iron and redbrick bridges, sometimes coated with weeds and moss.

  “One would have thought that the City Council would do something about the atrocious state of the streets round here,” sniffed the Gryphon disparagingly. “They forever complain about the lack of central government funding. They say that it is set at national rates which take no account of the much greater costs in the City than elsewhere in the country. If that were true, surely the Country would be benefiting disproportionately well, considering their much lower costs.”

  “Won’t things improve as a result of the General Election?” wondered Beta. “Won’t the Red Party invest more money in areas like this?”

  “I daresay they will - but there’s an enormous amount of work to do. The City Council says that if life in the City was any more attractive than it is, it would simply encourage yet more people out of the Country and condemn them to homelessness and despair in a City unable to cope with the numbers already here.”

  “Quite a few people have left my Village for the City,” admitted Beta. “Like my friend Xenana. Off they go, leaving the Village short of farm workers and young people, and making it much more difficult for the rest who are left behind. They want all the things you can have in the City. And the City looks so glamorous on television. You just don’t imagine it could be as rundown as this.”

  The canal came to an end, and the road became impassable to all traffic as it crowded with market stalls selling fruit and vegetables, video tapes, counterfeit goods and clothes. The Gryphon mentioned that he was near his destination, which were the local education authority offices housed in a tall concrete building protruding rather incongruously from the midst of the old and dilapidated buildings that otherwise composed the district. He hurried off, his wings flapping behind him while we negotiated the gaps between the stalls.

  The air was full of the cry of market traders anxiously selling their wares. It was difficult to believe that anyone would want to buy some of the things on sell. There were worn out slippers, part used school exercise books, plastic trays and towels featuring crudely painted pictures of such City sights as Her Maphrodite’s palace and a very tall column crowned by a giant sheep. One stall sold badges, posters, magazines and books all associated with the Illicit Party. The store-holder was a young goat with a green beret and large boots strapped to his hooves. There were quite a few customers gathered around the stall to buy badges or tee-shirts adorned by Rupert’s ubiquitous face. Another stall was selling icons and religious crosses beside which was a large chimpanzee nun shouting rather insistently: “The End is Nigh! Read the Word of the Lord and Gain Salvation!”

  We dodged past a camel walking by with a sandwich board advertising Cut-Price Jeans on either side of his hump. A large crow was selling records from a small van the sounds of which easily drowned out the calls of the market traders and shuddered through my body from my toes up.

  “It’s filthy here!” commented Beta, looking down at her legs now spattered with oval splashes of grime and the soles of her feet now almost totally black. “I hope we can find somewhere I can wash. I feel like such a tramp.”

  When we reached the other side of the market, we could see that we were now not at all far from the taller and more grand buildings of the City.

  Beta sighed in relief. “
I’ll be so much happier to get away from all this poverty. It’s so depressing!”

  The roads were now more evenly paved and correspondingly more congested. The vehicles passing by were newer, more modern and much more powerful. We walked alongside buildings still occasionally decorated by graffiti, and Beta was pleased to see a small ornate fountain at the side of the road, where water was dripping from the minuscule penis of the statue of a small boy. We paused by the fountain for a drink of the metallic-tasting water and for Beta to wash the dirt off her filthy feet.

  While she stood on one leg, leaning against a post to keep her balance, I saw the tall and unmistakable shadow of an enormous lion ambling aimlessly along the pavement. He was far too large for the traffic and pedestrians to avoid, but both consciously tried to do so. Only a distant sense prevented him from causing severe local damage by treading on the parked cars and dislodging lamp-posts. His step seemed quite unsteady. His head was mostly bowed down. And his paws carelessly crunched up waste-paper bins and black plastic rubbish bags.

  “Lord Arthur!” gasped Beta, steadying herself on both her feet. “But no sign of Una!”

  Beta waved at the lion as he came closer. He didn’t appear to recognise us until he was barely yards away, and I was afraid he would tread on us and crumple us into the same twisted mess he had just left a child’s plastic tricycle. He halted in his tracks and his sad bleary eyes gazed down at us. He shook his enormous head, hitting his mane against a street lamp and shattering it into small fragments which tinkled down beside him.

  “Good morning,” he said wearily and somewhat vaguely. “Hello. We meet again!”

  “Hello,” greeted Beta, with some concern. “Where’s Una? Where’s the girl we saw you with yesterday?”

  “Lost! Totally lost! Like everything else: lost! Never to be found again! My fortune! My empire! My life! Lost! There is nothing more for me! Nothing left for me. I am no longer the great and magnificent Lord Arthur, king of all I survey. Even my holdings in this part of the City - such paltry worthless possessions too! All lost! Gone forever! And so humiliatingly!”

  “Do you know where Una’s gone?” insisted Beta.

  Lord Arthur ignored her question, appearing not to even hear it. “Since the Election, it has been as I said. In less than twenty four hours it has been disaster. Tax officials hounding me. Debts I owed from fifteen years ago return to be repaid. All my employees made redundant and on terms which leave me with nothing. Nothing! Which is what I am now! Nothing. To be sneered at by petty criminals, to be turned away from the doors of fair weather friends, to be mocked by the jackals in the media. Everywhere I turn: humiliation, defeat and insult. I am not the lion I was. I may tower high above the miserable ungulates and crustaceans of the City, but I am now no better than them. No longer wealthy. No longer powerful. A bankrupt with a legacy of debt greater than most nation’s Gross National Product which will haunt me for the rest of my days. My family disown me. My colleagues disown me. I am nothing more than a pauper.”

  “Do you know where Una is?” persisted Beta.

  “Una? The pregnant girl?” wondered Lord Arthur. “No. To be honest, I don’t. I have lost everything. She is just one more thing I have lost. I should never have changed my advisors. I should never have been tempted to make quick rapid gains at the expense of core businesses and allow my business’s credit to become so debased. I shouldn’t have gambled away so much of my wealth. I shouldn’t have frittered so much on the pursuit of worthless pleasure. My yachts, my fleet of Ferraris, my collections of priceless art, my several homes scattered all about the world. All gone!”

  He opened his mouth and gave vent to a truly terrifying roar which caused several citizens to run away in fear and a car to hit into the back of another that had applied its brakes in sudden alarm. He shook his mane ferociously, smashing the glass of several windows, snapping off a flag staff jutting out of a building and bending the lamp-post he had recently damaged. His tail swung from side to side, smashing a shop window and sending a cyclist flying sideways onto the bumper of a passing car.

  “It’s over. It’s all over!” he cried in despair. “The Arthurian empire is now just a legend. One that I trust will always be remembered. One that will not be judged to harshly by history, I hope. To join the procession of great businesses which have preceded it. Now to be plundered by the Red Party vultures, the gangsters of organised crime and the banks. Perhaps as people look upon my great works they will not feel that it has all been in vain. It has had its great moments. I may have been guilty of great crimes and malpractices in my years as a tycoon. I may have become famous as much for my vices and my readiness to sue for libel as for my fabulous wealth and the comfortable working conditions of my City employees. Time will tell. Only time will tell!”

  Then, without even the hint of a farewell, he continued on his lumbering confused way in the direction of the market we had left, muttering to himself and occasionally shouting an incoherent cry of rage and frustration.