Calabash

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Here, is he old enough?’ asked the barmaid.

  ‘Of course he is, Doris, give over, he’s left school. You have, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve only been able to find short-term work, though.’

  ‘That’s the bloody trouble with seaside towns, everything’s built around the season. Have you seen Dudley today?’

  ‘He’s gone up to London to buy a new lip for Barnacle Bill.’

  ‘Not before time. You can’t understand a bloody word that dummy says. I’ll get to the point. It pains me to see a lad hanging around in all sorts, doing nothing. You know I own the Las Vegas arcade on the front?’

  To be honest, it had never crossed my mind that such places were privately owned. I had assumed they all belonged to Cole Bay council, which was legendarily corrupt.

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘You probably think I’m loaded. Well, I’m not. The rates are an arm and a bloody leg, the place is empty for half the year and my last manager buggered off with a month’s takings in his suitcase. They’d like to close me down, the council, they say it lowers the tone of the esplanade, but it could make money, Kay, given a bit of effort from someone with half a brain. I’m too busy, fingers in too many pies. Do you think you have half a brain?’

  ‘I’m not very good at maths,’ I admitted, trying to be honest.

  ‘I’m not looking for a mathematician. The bank tots up the pounds, shillings and pence—or should I say the new pee. It’s more a matter of making sure the machines work and getting the punters in. It’s not rocket science, lad, just common sense. If I can get this one turning a decent profit, I’ll open another. It’s worth doing just to watch our lady mayoress’s face drop a foot. She wants to tear down the Kursaal and put in a bowling green, so she can have coachloads of sour-faced old biddies filling their thermos flasks at her brother-in-law’s tearooms. Now, I suppose you want to know about money. The wages aren’t fantastic, but they’re commensurate.’ He liked the sound of the word, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. ‘Yes, commensurate.’

  Commensurate with watching bored teenagers trying to tilt the Penny Falls machine so that it paid up, I thought. And before I knew it, I’d somehow agreed to take the job, and Cottesloe was ordering two more pints from Doris.

  The previous manager of the Las Vegas had rented rooms above the arcade. The windows were grey from the salt sea air, their frames rotting with damp, but the place was still available and very cheap. This, I later discovered, was because the landlady’s husband had died in the lounge two years earlier, and she was uncomfortable with the idea of turning a profit on rooms that had hosted a wake for a loved one.

  ‘I suppose you’ll be bringing me your washing,’ was all Pauline said when I left, but her tone implied that she wanted me to. Bob guiltily stuffed some notes into my top pocket, ‘in case of emergency’ as he put it. I would have thought that in an emergency he’d have wanted me to come back. The dog saw me with my coat on and thought it was about to be taken for a walk. It was the only thing in the house that showed any uninhibited emotion.

  Pauline hovered awkwardly while I packed my stuff. She was only ever comfortable when she was busy. She looked like she wanted to be somewhere else, scrubbing something clean. We were never a very demonstrative family, and I left without making any physical contact in order to spare their embarrassment.

  I stepped out onto the street with my boxes and filled my lungs with cold sea air. As the front door shut behind me, part of my life was left back inside. Closing the gate, I looked over my shoulder. Pauline was standing as still as a statue in the bay window of the front room, the room we weren’t allowed to use in case we had visitors. She looked as if she might break into pieces if she moved. I suddenly felt very sad for her. When I was small, she saved up for a dining set of bone china and carefully installed it in the glass-panelled sideboard in the front room, ready for smart guests to come and eat sherry trifle with forks. But the years passed and the guests never arrived, and the bone china sat in the sideboard unused. Instead she got Sean pulling his motorbike apart in the hall, me boiling flour-and-water paste in the kitchen to glue together cardboard cities that no-one was allowed to touch, and Bob sitting in the kitchen taking the clock to bits. She had every right to be disappointed.

  Two days before my birthday, I pushed open the brown painted door to the side of the Las Vegas arcade and lugged my cartons to the top of the stairs. The place smelled as if someone had been boiling cabbage on the landing for about forty years. I tried to open the lounge windows, but they were stuck fast with layers of paint, and besides, the wind from the sea would probably have blown everything out of the room. The carpets were the kind you found in bad Indian restaurants. There was a dead mouse in the kitchen. An ancient immersion heater made gastric noises that rumbled through pipes above my head, and when that stopped I could hear the endless bonk-squeak-bonk-squeak of the electric slot machines on the floor below. It certainly wasn’t much, but at least it was mine.

  A pair of threadbare wingbacked old-lady armchairs stood in the lounge. It looked as though the landlady’s husband had died in one of them. Something had certainly wet itself on the cushion. I pulled the other one over to the window and sat looking out, thinking, This is where I start to gain control over my life. This is where the real Kevin Goodwin begins. But I wasn’t sure I believed it. My disinterest in reality was damaging me, and my fantasies had to be sealed beyond reach before I could live normally. I thought of my ruined father, lost within the recesses of his imagination, and became frightened by the idea that the same thing might happen to me. I would take my leave of Calabash, and never look back. Start behaving like an adult. Pay bills. Get married. Have children. Buy a house, learn to drive, put up shelves and mend a fuse. I had already taken the first step. It was time for the next.

  I resolved to pay one final visit to my kingdom. Obviously, I couldn’t just leave them all without taking care of unfinished business.

  Chapter 30

  The Time for Confrontation

  I went back as soon as I had the whole thing worked out. How to trick the General, how to help the doctor solve his mystery, how to take my leave of Calabash with honour, dignity and respect.

  I was waiting on the tide-rocked platform making final adjustments to The Plan when a horrible doubt assailed me—but by then it was too late to stop the process and I was on my way, spiralling out of sordid reality and off into the horizons of my mind.

  The sun was high in the cyanic sky, gulls and cormorants plunging into the water, a mist of yellow butterflies drifting over the dock, the boats rocking, the city still and heat-becalmed in the distance. I moored my little fishing boat to the dock capstan and set off for my villa, sweat already dripping between my shoulder blades.

  Well, of course, I knew that no-one in Calabash would want me to leave. Parizade proved to be inconsolable. She sat on the verandah and wept when I told her, mopping her tears with the end of a cream silk shawl. It was a glorious day to be alive, a terrible day to say goodbye. Sharp noon sunlight dappled the garden, piercing the trees with spears of fire.

  ‘How could you even think of going?’ she asked. ‘You know how I have grown to love you. Have I done something wrong? Have I offended you in some way? I only intended to please you.’

  ‘It’s nothing you’ve done,’ I mumbled guiltily. How could I explain that the entire kingdom was a figment of my mind, that she did not even exist? To say such a thing would be unnecessarily cruel, not to mention bizarre.

  ‘I don’t understand. You have everything you could wish for here. Why would you want to leave it all behind?’ Her amber eyes welled once more as I slipped my arms around her waist. ‘What is there in your land that you cannot be without?’

  I sighed. Coming back had made my choice even more painful, but I was determined not to waver. ‘I have to go,’ I said, rising. ‘The blame is entirely mine. I don’t mean to hurt you, but I must stand by my decision.’


  Parizade pulled away from me and turned to the sea. I rose and quietly left the garden, ashamed. I could still hear her crying when I reached the street. I thought of the glorious Rosamunde, encamped in a tent in some great desert with her husband’s troops. I wondered if she would sense my leaving, and if she, too, would mourn.

  Next I went to see Trebunculus. I found him in his laboratory, mixing noxious yellow gases in a pipette.

  ‘Ah, good, there you are,’ he said absently. ‘We’re experimenting with the melting point of ambergris, and hoped to enlist your help. It’s not going well. We’ve already scalded the cat to death and given the parrot mange. Its feathers have fallen out and it’s not at all happy.’

  ‘Doctor, there are some things we need to talk about,’ I began firmly. ‘You must request an audience for me with General Bassa.’

  ‘Oh, he’s been asking for you, by the way. His men came here yesterday. I told them I didn’t know where you were.’

  ‘Can you arrange a meeting between us?’

  ‘That’s easy enough. All I have to do is flash a mirror from the roof and he will send a man to fetch you.’ The doctor’s sharp grey eyes appeared over the top of his spectacles. He had replaced the thick, uneven lenses with new smooth-ground glass, based on his examination of the microscope pieces I had brought him. ‘So, what have you got for the General? Nothing too dangerous, I hope. He has no patience for learning. He nearly blew his army to bits experimenting with cannon-powders. His “self-reflexive musket” blinded a kadi from Constantinople, took the ears off his horse and caused a diplomatic incident.’

  I could appreciate that the doctor and the Lord Chancellor were both keen to advance the kingdom scientifically for its own good, but I could see only further harm coming from providing the General with the practical means to vanquish his enemies.

  ‘That’s the thing,’ I explained. ‘I knew if I failed to bring something truly scientific, he would see through my ruse. Instead, I’ve decided to give him something so technically advanced that he cannot hope to duplicate it.’

  Trebunculus released a high bird-like laugh and gleefully laced his bony fingers together. ‘Too much science—oh, very good!’

  A horseman in a regimental turban arrived at the gate within minutes of the doctor’s signal. At the garrison, the General was waiting in the weapon-house in his corset-tunic, paired with his valet, a white eunuch armed with an arquebus and a small hatchet, who squatted on the floor at his feet and never moved a muscle. Bassa could barely conceal his excitement.

  ‘What do you have for me?’ he asked, rubbing the heels of his palms together.

  ‘Something very special, General. A military advancement so great that even the warlords of my nation are still learning to employ its might.’ I pulled the light plastic object from my pocket and carefully removed the handkerchief in which I had wrapped it. I set the grey plastic Airfix model down on the bench in front of me.

  The General moved forwards and bent down, puzzled. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s called a jet engine,’ I told him. I opened the accompanying assembly diagram and pointed out the various parts. ‘This is the turbine compressor shaft, here, and these are the turbine blades. The fuel spray manifold is above the annular combustion chamber, here, these are the centre bearings, there and there, the axial-flow compressor houses the rotor blades, the inlet guide vanes are here beside the nose cone and at the back you have the exhaust nozzle and pipe. Simple, really.’

  ‘Hmm, I see,’ he said, clearly not seeing at all. ‘But what does it do?’

  ‘You fix it to the wing of an aircraft and it flies. Just think, the power of flight will be yours. A flying army, General, imagine the look of terror on the faces of your enemies when you rain bombs on them from above.’

  The General paced around the little kit, keeping his head directly above it. ‘It’s very small.’

  ‘This is only a fraction of its real size, a scale model. Obviously I am not able to bring a full-sized jet engine back with me, so I brought you a model and instructions for its assembly, so that you could copy it.’

  ‘A flying army, you say.’ I could tell the idea appealed to him. ‘A ghet.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What powers it?’

  ‘Oil.’

  ‘Ah—like the lamps.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘The flying craft goes underneath?’

  ‘No, General, between. You must make two engines.’

  ‘For balance. I see.’

  He rose and puffed out his cheeks, thinking. Finally he clapped his hands to his sides, raising puffs of dust from his tunic. ‘Well, this is brilliant. Just what we needed.’ He waved towards the assembly instructions. ‘And this tells us all we need to know about construction, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied.

  ‘I will set my finest men on to it at once. Well, I think you have repaid your debt to the Sultan.’ He clicked his heels together in acknowledgement of my gift. ‘This calls for a celebration. You must be bathed.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘It is customary at such times, when a promise has been fulfilled.’ He clapped his hands together and a pair of slim brown handmaidens entered the room. ‘They will take you,’ he said with a wink. ‘Just leave your body in their dextrous hands. I promise you will feel most refreshed.’

  I had just been led to the door when he called out.

  ‘One other thing, Kay.’

  I turned, half expecting to be felled in my tracks. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Until this “ghet” is built, don’t wander too far. We may need your advice.’

  ‘Of course, General. I understand.’

  The handmaidens took me to a grotto shaded by willows behind the garrison, where they stripped me and lowered me into a warm, clear pool of running water. Discreetly disrobing and slipping into the water by my side, they poured fragrant oils across my stomach and chest, and massaged me into a perfumed, languorous stupor.

  An hour later I rose and dressed, buoyed by my triumph with the General, and moved on to the second part of my plan. Returning to Dr Trebunculus, I found him beneath the overhanging cliff at the rear of his laboratory, where he stood with a cloth across his face, igniting vials of a disgusting sulphurous substance.

  ‘My scarf!’ I cried in surprise. ‘You have it wrapped about you.’

  ‘I only meant to borrow it,’ said Trebunculus in some embarrassment, ‘to prove to the Sultan that we were fetching you. You smell nice.’

  ‘So you did fetch me.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ he flustered, setting the choking experiment aside. ‘We merely ensured that the conditions were—conducive—to your crossing. But tell me what the General thought of your scientific invention.’

  I grinned. ‘He admired it, but it’ll do him no good. He hasn’t the means to manufacture such a device, or power it. The metal must be tempered in a manner beyond his disposal, and the oil must be refined and purified. It’s impossible to make it fly with the instructions I’ve given him. I have no doubt that he’ll spend a good deal of time trying, though.’

  The doctor clapped me on the back and released a squeal of laughter.

  ‘But now I must speak of something graver,’ I said. ‘The death of the Sultan’s wife.’

  ‘Dear fellow. I’ll have Menavino draw some tamarind tea.’

  We sat in the garden and drank as the afternoon shadows lengthened, and as the evening flowers opened their scented petals, I carefully laid out my proposal.

  ‘I first had my suspicions when you told me that it had been impossible to introduce the poison into Eliya’s sedative glass in the brief time that your back was turned, because of the exact measurement that was required. The door to the jade chamber was closed, and there were no windows. I first thought of Scammer, who seems to be able to secrete himself in the smallest corners, then dismissed the notion. No-one could have dashed in and up to the glass, measured the poison to the grain then rushed back out wit
hout others seeing, no matter how small or agile they could make themselves.’

  The doctor inched forwards, his hands planted on his thin, cracked knees. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I looked at those present at the death: the Valide Sultan, representing the royal family; yourself, acting as court physician; Septimus Peason, representing the interests of the state; two handmaidens; and a eunuch at the door. None of these six had a known grievance with the victim, I’m sure of that, but one person knew that her death could further his own purposes—the Lord Chancellor.’

  ‘How do you reason so?’

  The air around us had grown cooler, and the bench on which we sat was now steeped in shadow. ‘If the mother is dead and her only child is a girl, there is no heir to the throne. The Sultan is the last of his bloodline.’

  ‘But that is against everyone’s interests. I have no great love for the Lord Chancellor, Kay, but I can assure you that he has the kingdom’s welfare at heart. Look at the marriage he arranged between his own son and Rosamunde.’

  ‘That’s just it. With the Princess’s marriage, the power balance has now been shifted to the militia. Rosamunde is headstrong, but she’ll have no say in her husband’s affairs. Major Maximus reports to his General…’

  ‘Do you really think it could have been the Lord Chancellor? But how? I can assure you he knows very little about the administration of poisons.’

  ‘Well, that’s where this comes in.’ I dug my hand into my pocket and removed the red jewel that Rosamunde had given me. ‘It only began to make sense when I saw the onyx table that was buried with Eliya. You told me that onyx created bad luck, and had to be tempered with carnelians. This gem, presented to me by the Princess, belonged to her mother and is identical in every facet to the ones set in the tabletop. But if it was taken from the table, there should only have been four stones remaining in the onyx, and you specifically told me that there were five. Let us suppose, then, that one of them was false. An answer to the puzzle presented itself when you told me of the scarlet octopus. The poison and the gem are the same colour. Couldn’t the poison be most precisely measured by grinding it up, setting it into a lozenge, and putting it on the table in the space the missing stone once occupied? All the poisoner would have had to do then was scoop it up and drop it into the drink in a single motion. The lozenge dissolved, leaving the residue you found.’