The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis

by Michael de Larrabeiti

  The streets went on: Frederick, Acton, Swinton and Wicklow. Finally the Adventurers came out on the Euston Road, just where it meets Pentonville, and they sped towards the awesome pinnacles of St Pancras and those pinnacles towered over the tiny figures like the turrets of an evil castle, a castle inhabited by giants whose only work it is to lie in wait for vagabond children in order to crack their bones and grind them into bread.

  One by one the Borribles crossed the main road, heading into the quiet between the two great railway stations, into Pancras Road, aiming at the dead land that lay beyond. Knocker rounded a corner and leant against the wall. The railway arches began here. The road was cobbled, and further on there would be gasworks and rubbish dumps; their smell was heavy on the air.

  Knocker could not resist a smile as he pressed his body back against the bricks. They’d done it. How good it was to be alive and to know you were; to feel your own existence as a separate thing, iridescent and jubilant. Yes, they’d done it. The trip from Brixton, across the river and then from Blackfriars to King’s Cross, had been accomplished without loss and without disclosing their whereabouts to the SBG. Things were looking up.

  It was daylight. Knocker could see clearly the lines between the cobblestones at his feet. He could see too the sooty red colour of the bricks used to build the high arches that kept the railway lines aloft. One by one his companions joined him. One by one they leant against the wall, resting after the long night’s exertions.

  ‘We’ll follow this, line of arches,’ said Knocker. ‘We might find an empty one; failing that we’ll get into the goods yard.’

  They set off again in single file, only this time at a walk. At the entrance to each archway, and there were scores of them, Knocker stopped and tried the huge semicircular gates that kept them locked and private.

  ‘Shut,’ he said again and again. ‘Garages and workshops most of ’em.’

  After a hundred yards or so the road bore to the right, near some traffic lights. The arches continued into the distance, some with well painted and heavily barred doors, others with splintered shutters that lay awry and awkward on their hinges. A few cars passed and commuter trains rumbled overhead, more frequently now as the rush hour began to get into its stride. Quickly the Adventurers moved on, Napoleon bringing up the rear, his eyes everywhere. The Borribles had to get off the streets.

  As if to add urgency to this thought there came the howl of a police siren from far away on the Euston Road. Then came the sound of another, immediately, almost like an echo, from over on the Caledonian Road.

  Knocker bore right again. More arches. He stepped down to one, stumbling on a cobble. He raised an arm to save himself and pushed against the central plank of a door. The plank gave, swivelling on a central pivot as if it were meant to. Behind it was complete darkness. Knocker pushed with more force at the swivel plank and put his head inside the door. He could see nothing. He listened intently but the noise of the trains overhead made it impossible to hear anything else but them.

  He pulled his head into the open.

  ‘It’s so dark I can’t see a thing,’ he said. ‘Smells like dead rats in there. I’ll go in and scout it out.’

  At that moment the sound of the police siren came again, closer. Tyres squealed on cobbles. A patrol car had turned into the bottom of Pancras Road.

  Napoleon peeped round the edge of the archway. ‘It’s coming this way,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to get out of sight until it’s gone, whatever we do.’

  Again Knocker pushed the plank aside and wriggled through the gap while the others followed as quickly as they could. Napoleon went last and shoved the plank back into position. Inside it was as dark as Knocker had said and the racket of the trains, when they passed, was deafening. The only thing the Adventurers could distinguish clearly was the smell. That was too strong to be ignored; a combination of foul breath, dried urine and the gunge that ferments between human toes.

  ‘Blimey,’ said Sydney, ‘what an Aunt Nell.’

  No sooner had the girl spoken than things began to happen. Strong bodies moved behind the Borribles, passing between them and the wooden doors. Shapes pressed against them in the dark and the fearful smell came closer, thick and tangible, suffocating.

  The Borribles reached for their catapults but there was no chance of defending themselves. Horny hands held their arms, so tightly that it hurt. A harsh voice cackled and then shouted, ‘All right,’ and on came a light, a simple bulb on a long flex, high in the arch, swaying as the trains went by.

  ‘Bloody Nora,’ said Napoleon, and he stopped struggling. Never had the Adventurers, in all their days, witnessed anything so terrifying.

  They were in a huge cave of a place. High above their heads the railway arch rose and fell in a grand sweep; its bricks were dark and damp. Water dripped everywhere; long streaks and stains of musty fungus and mildew ran down the walls. All this was bad enough but it was what the cavern contained that struck a hopeless chill into the hearts of the Borribles.

  Close by them were a dozen men, but such men as hardly deserved the name. They looked scarcely human. Their faces were bloated, crimson and purple and blue, a criss-cross of broken veins on the surface of a dead skin, and that skin had black cracks and holes in it, cracks full of a soft grime and holes gouged deep by the action of poisonous alcohol and fiery spirits. Their teeth were isolated black stumps set loosely in spongy gums and their eyes wept in red-rimmed sockets; eyelids corroded, turned inside out, hanging halfway down the cheek, the muscles eaten away. For clothes they wore the bits and pieces they had salvaged from the dustbins and rubbish tips where prouder tramps threw their clothes away. The hands that held the Borribles were ingrained with the dirt of years and the breath of the men’s lungs was warm and fetid.

  ‘They’re meffos,’ said Knocker, stunned.

  The Borribles gasped. Knocker was right. They had fallen among some of the most dangerous men and women in London, the drinkers of methylated spirits. These were people who would stop at nothing, whose minds had decayed, whose brains had been eaten alive by booze and drugs. Meffos had no sense of good or bad. They would die without a thought to obtain a bottle of gin, and they would murder anyone just as readily if that would bring them the money to buy a can of beer.

  Napoleon swore again. The horror was not over. In front of the Borribles were more meffos, both men and women, dozens of them. Some were resting on the floor under newspapers, crammed together for warmth so closely that there was hardly room to step between them; others sat on beer crates, their hands joined, their heads bowed; and there were yet more who gazed into the distance, their eyes unblinking as the light came on.

  The Borribles stared at the rear of the arch, and further, to what seemed to be the entrance of more arches. There were meffos as far as they could see; lying, standing, drinking, eating, peeing against the wall. Most seemed alive, some were perhaps dead. They looked like zombies only half revived. This was the great smell the Borribles had smelt.

  All at once there came a great clamour from a doorway to the left of the cavern and a broad-shouldered man appeared with a bottle in his fist. ‘Aha!’ he bellowed. He waved the bottle above his head and laughed, throwing his head backwards to show a wide wound of a mouth with two or three large teeth in it. He came towards the captives, staggering this way and that, kicking men and women from his path, kicking them hard.

  The Borribles huddled closer together. A meffo swivelled an iron bar into position and so locked the cavern doors. Hands fumbled and pawed at the Adventurers. Their knives and catapults were taken away and their rucksacks were ripped from their shoulders.

  The shouting man shouted louder and redoubled his kicking. ‘Leave the rucksacks,’ he yelled, and his face went dark with an instant anger. ‘Throw them rucksacks on the floor in a pile; I’ll slit the man’s throat as dinna. Fair shares for all, you hear. There’ll be things in there as is worth money and money is booze and booze is life. Right, pal?’

  Still kic
king and shouting the man continued his advance until at last he stood before the group of Borribles and the men who held them prisoner. Reluctantly the meffos threw the rucksacks to the floor.

  ‘That’s better,’ said the man, and he took a swig from his bottle. ‘Any one of youse Saxons care to take me on, eh? Any one of youse Saxons wanna take on Hughie MacMungall face to face, eh? Answer me. Face to face, man to man, eh?’

  The men shuffled their feet and looked down at the heads of their captives.

  ‘I thought not,’ shouted MacMungall. He staggered again. ‘He who mocks the kilt must feel the dirk!’ With this MacMungall drew a bread knife from his belt and pointed it at the nearest meffo. ‘And don’t you forget it, pal,’ he roared, making the word ‘pal’ sound like the vilest insult. ‘I’ll slit yer throat as soon as spit in yer eye, by God I will.’ He staggered once more and stared unsteadily in front of him, trying to focus on the Borribles.

  ‘Aye, lads,’ he went on, lowering his voice a little, ‘you’ve done well here. Seems to me these bairns might have a few bob on ’em. Things of value in these rucksacks. Share and share alike, pal. Half for you and half for me, that’s the way of the clans.’ MacMungall took another swig on his bottle. ‘Ah,’ he said when the liquid hit his stomach. ‘Right, lads, go through their pockets, tip out their bags, but remember, anyone trying to slip the goods into their own pockets will have me to deal with.’

  At the end of this speech MacMungall swayed backwards and collapsed on to a beer crate that, luckily for him, was waiting in exactly the right position to receive his buttocks as he sat. He shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it, drank again from his bottle and slid his knife out of sight under his coat.

  Knocker studied MacMungall with care. He was certainly nowhere near as tough as he pretended but he was still big and brawny, having massive shoulders and long strong arms with hands as big as earth movers at the end of them. He was probably the strongest meffo in the cavern and that was why the others obeyed him so readily, but like them MacMungall was in poor physical shape. His eyes, like theirs, looked like tattered bullet holes shot fresh through his head that morning. His lips were loose, his skin had the texture of a mouldy steak, and for all his brave speech his hands trembled when he raised his bottle so that half of every mouthful he took ran down his chin and neck and disappeared under a filthy old football scarf of green and white.

  Knocker also observed that as far as the rest of MacMungall’s clothes were concerned they were not one bit better than those of his cronies. He wore a blue anorak stained with oil and ripped at the pockets, and several pairs of trousers to keep out the cold. He had no socks on but sported two odd shoes with the welts gaping away from what was left of the soles, giving a good view of dirty feet, and on his head was jammed a Scottish football fan’s tartan trilby. Altogether, thought Knocker, he was a fearsome sight, a coward with no conscience.

  But Knocker’s time for reflection was over. Without warning, the Borribles were thrust forward. There was a flurry of excitement as the prisoners were searched and their rucksacks upended on the floor. Most of the recumbent meffos got to their feet now and began to press nearer, moaning and shoving at each other with their elbows. All were ragged and dirty, women and men, their clothes torn and tied together. Their eyes were dull with a blank madness relieved only by a glint of greed. Perhaps these children had money, money for drink.

  The meffos fought to get near the Borribles, jostling them, tearing at their arms and legs, feeling their bodies and ripping at their clothes to find if money was secreted there. The rucksacks were inspected again, the contents picked up and thrown down, and gradually the meffos grew more and more angry as their disappointment rose. There was no money.

  ‘Hand it over,’ they shouted, and those next to the Borribles began to beat them about the head as hard as they could. ‘Hand it over, you brats, or we’ll rip yer skin off and eat yer alive.’

  Sheer weight of numbers separated the Borribles from each other and one by one they were borne to the floor and the meffos came down with them and punched and scratched and spat and bit, and although each Adventurer fought as well as he or she could it made no difference. It seemed likely that they would all perish there, dismembered in that dismal archway behind King’s Cross. There was no controlling the meffos any more. MacMungall was drunk and like the Borribles had been pushed to the ground and submerged under a ton or two of mindless flesh.

  Suddenly there came a scream which climbed above the tumult of the meffos and even pierced the noise of the trains. The clutching hands dropped away and the offensive smell retreated. The Borribles scrambled to their feet, closed ranks and backhanded the blood from their eyes.

  The scream came again and the scream was words. ‘Get off,’ it cried. ‘Get off.’ The meffos retreated further, the passion leaving their faces just as quickly as it had come. They stumbled away in haste; some to squat against a wall, most to throw themselves flat upon the ground, all of them surrendering to a deep and habitual despair.

  In the middle of the sea of bodies stood a woman, a meffo like the others, but taller and grander though just as dirty and just as savage. She was clothed in a strange and ancient finery, the booty from some suitcase found or stolen in one of the nearby railway stations. It was a long dress she wore, layered pink and silver in taffeta, a dress that had once been the Saturday night adornment of a bronze medallist in ballroom dancing. Now it was stained and torn, ripped at the bosom. Under its tattered skirt were khaki trousers and on the woman’s feet was a pair of scuffed, once high-heeled shoes from both of which the heels had been broken. The shoes were blue.

  Around her shoulders the woman had slung two or three knitted shawls of black wool, and she held these in place with broad, strong hands. Her face was flat and vulgar, but it was not weak; the nose was a button with open nostrils, the cheeks were pudgy, the chin was round and the mouth a deep slit. Her straw-coloured hair was streaked with black and grey and stood up around her skull like a starched halo. She looked like a witch who had wanted to change herself into a pig and then hesitated halfway. It was immediately obvious to the Borribles that everyone in the cavern went in dread of her.

  ‘Bring them kids over here,’ said the woman with a jerk of her head. ‘You fools. There might be a reward out for this lot, a big reward, and all you can do is kill ’em. Bring ’em ’ere.’

  As soon as he could Hughie MacMungall heaved himself upright, rearranged the trilby on his head and shoved the Borribles across the cavern, eager to claim the glory of capturing such important prisoners. ‘Bet their parents would pay a fortune to ’ave ’em back home, eh Madge?’ he said, and he looked out craftily from under his eyebrows like a water rat from under a river bank, to make sure he was saying the right thing.

  The Borribles could now see that by the doorway from which MacMungall had appeared earlier there stood a rickety table and a couple of plastic-covered armchairs. Madge leant against the table and ran a hand through her stiff hair. She studied the Borribles’ faces one by one and as she did so she took MacMungall’s bottle from him and poured some of its contents into her slit of a mouth.

  Ninch stepped towards her; he was shaking with fright and temper.

  ‘You can’t keep me here,’ he shouted. ‘There’s a law against abduction. I’ll call the police. I warn you, I’m a—’

  Madge’s head jerked forward on an arched neck like a snake striking. ‘You’re nothing here, sonny,’ she said, ‘but I’m life and death. If I ‘adn’t woken up just now them animals would have ripped yer to pieces and then eaten yer. They get so drunk they don’t know the difference between fish and chips and human flesh. Times is hard, sonny, and cannibals ain’t unknown round the back of King’s Cross, I can tell yer … So now, what are you doing here? The truth I want, or I’ll beat it out of yer.’

  ‘We ran away from a home,’ said Bingo, who had always been good at lying to adults, ‘a foster home.’

  ‘Bloody lot of yer for one ho
me,’ said Madge, not convinced.

  ‘It was a big place,’ said Bingo, whining and wheedling. ‘We decided to run away, together, that’s why we ain’t got any money. We never had any to start with, otherwise we’d give it yer, honest.’

  ‘Honest,’ cried Madge, and she spat at the Borribles’ feet. ‘Honest ain’t invented.’

  ‘Throw ’em out,’ came a voice from the gloom. ‘Let’s get some sleep.’ A bottle smashed against the wall.

  ‘Shuddup,’ roared MacMungall, swaying on his feet, ‘or you’ll feel my fist, pal. I’m the boss here.’

  ‘You’re the what, where?’ Madge slowly turned her attention from the Borribles, placed her hands on her hips and glowered at her consort. ‘You couldn’t scratch yer arse without a book of instructions. Who found this place, eh? Answer me that, you bleeding’ haggis. Who keeps the coppers sweet so they turns a blind eye, eh? Answer me that.’

  MacMungall evaded the woman’s gaze and sank into one of the armchairs. ‘Aw, Madge,’ he said, ‘go easy.’

  As MacMungall and Madge began to quarrel the meffos who stood near the Borribles began to lose interest in the captives and shambled away to stretch themselves out on the floor with their mates. This gave the Adventurers a chance to look about them.

  For his part Knocker turned his attention to the huge double doors that blocked the exit. A heavy iron bar held them firmly closed. That was not all; between the way out and the place where the Borribles now stood lay row after row of meffos. If the Borribles attempted to make a run for it they would be grabbed by leg or arm before they got anywhere. It would be best to do nothing for the time being; maybe Madge could be persuaded into setting them free.

  ‘Couldn’t we go home, please, missus?’ said Bingo. ‘We didn’t mean to come in here but the law was chasing us. Didn’t you hear the sirens? We didn’t mean no harm.’

  ‘The best thing we can do,’ said MacMungall, ‘is get shot of ’em. If the cops are looking for ’em they might trace ’em ’ere. We can do without trouble. That little Paki, though, he’d be lovely toasted.’