The Best British Fantasy 2013

by Steve Haynes

  ‘I really did use up the odds and sods at the bottom of the drawer when I created you, Slightly.’

  The Lost Boy seemed pleased with the fact. His boiler bubbled softly as he led the way into the dinner den.

  ‘Peter! So glad you can join us.’ Tootles tapped the space on the bench next to him. ‘Have a seat, there’s a good chap.’

  Peter eased in besides Tootles even thought the crueller part of him wanted to say, ‘No, I won’t. I shall sit opposite between the twin tinies just to show who is boss around here.’ By way of compromise, he vowed to ignore Tootles for the evening.

  ‘So what’s the plan, Peter? How do we make those Rogues pay?’ Nibs banged his fist against his stomach plate, a reminder of the torn internals he had suffered at their hands.

  Peter spoke through a mouthful of turtle and sweet potato stew. ‘We lure them in from their hidey hole and then we garrotte them.’

  ‘Sounds marvellous,’ said Curly.

  ‘Masterful,’ added Tootles.

  ‘How’d we do it?’ The twin tinies asked in unison.

  Peter put his elbows on the table and lent in. The Lost Boys mimicked him.

  ‘I am going back below and I’m going to raise the Ticktock.’

  His animatronic companions ooh’ed then fell silent, the cicada song of the night punctuated by the whir and knocks from their steaming bellies.

  It was Slightly who spoke up. ‘What’s the Ticktock?’

  ‘What’s the Ticktock?’ Peter leapt onto his seat. ‘What’s the Ticktock?’ He stepped onto the table, narrowly missing his bowl of fruit mush and the Lost Boys’ flagons of oil and platefuls of grease. ‘Only the bringer of destruction. It is the hand of God, the great leveller.’ He knocked a fist off his breastbone. ‘It was my mother, Wendy Darling, who told me of its power. ‘Be careful, son, the Ticktock is not a toy. It likes to buck and spit.’’

  ‘But you’ll tame it, won’t you, Peter?’ Tootles showed his metal tooth pegs.

  ‘Naturally. First though, I’ve got to commander the thing from the deep.’ Peter danced up and down the table, upsetting a jug of rainwater and splashing through it as if he was jumping in puddles at the park. ‘I do so love to go a-hunting!’ he cried.

  ‘Can we come too?’ piped up the twin tinies.

  ‘Only I.’ Peter puffed out his chest. ‘This quest requires cunning and lashings of cleverness. Besides. . .’ He dropped to his haunches and ladled a mouthful of stew into his mouth. ‘I’m the only one who knows how to swim with the Mermaid,’ he said thickly.

  Later, when the Lost Boys had completed their chores and joined in Peter’s rousing rendition of Jolly Rain Tar; after which he had instructed them to stoke their boilers, wind innards and sup enough water to tide them over until the morning – then companions and master had gone their separate ways. The Lost Boys took up patrol duty on the tree house’s vined balcony while Peter climbed onto his parents’ reed-stuffed mattress, beneath a canopy of mosquito netting. Besides the bed was the gramacorda which his father had used to archive his discoveries. A few times, his mother had thought it amusing to speak into the horn and record the bedtime stories she told Peter onto one of the foil scrolls. While the heat had warped the greater part of his father’s recordings, three of his mother’s tales still played. That night, Peter selected her rendition of The Tin Soldier. Lying back on the bed, he had let his mother’s spirited narration lull him to sleep.

  He was woken once during the night by the sound of footfall on the ground below. Peter imagined he heard a chilling, all too familiar grunting, but sleep overtook him again.

  The sun was high in the sky when Peter awoke. While the Lost Boys breakfasted on their oil and grease, their creator tucked into spiced fish baked in banana leaves. Soon the conversation turned to the night watch. The Lost Boys denied any sign of intruders. Peter remained haunted by the conviction they were wrong.

  ‘Rogues have curdled my dreams long enough.’ Peter fastened his utility belt at his waist and slammed his hat down on his head. ‘Time to fetch up the Ticktock.’ He knocked a hand off his brow in salute. ‘See you later, alligators.’

  Half an hour later, and having battled his way through the mosquito infested reeds, Peter arrived on the north shore. The sand was toasty between his toes. Waves foamed at the shoreline. The clear blue ocean stretched away to tiny islands known as the Four Friers. Two large rocks ‘kissed’ a little way out to his left. His mother’s workshop burrowed into the cliff to his right.

  At the entrance, Peter cocked his head and leant in, drinking from the fresh water, which streamed down the rock. He stepped inside the workshop, blinded by the sudden transition from brilliant daylight to shadow. It was dry inside – precisely the reason his mother had selected the cave – and battened with wooden shelving. Peter lit oil-filled dips in the rock. The makeshift sconces flickered whenever he walked by, causing his shadow to dance over the walls seemingly of its own accord.

  Numerous engineering supplies had gone down with his parents’ ship, but the workshop was still well stocked. Several shelves were dedicated to trays of nuts, bolts, screws and nails. Giant bobbins were wound with rubber pipe while tinier versions held various gauges of copper wire. Two workbenches stood on stilts on the uneven surface; one was stained with oil, the other with blood. Tools hung off nails between the shelves – hammers, bow saws, hand drills, chisels, scalpels, vices and tourniquets. One basket held clean bandaging, the other soiled.

  Standing in his workshop surrounded by the tools of his labour, Peter was glad he had come alone. As much as he enjoyed his elated status among the Lost Boys, there was a tendency for their restricted audio to grate. More than anything he longed for the stimuli of sentient conversation. But his efforts to create companions had birthed all manner of dark breed among the Rogues, he reminded himself, gaze lingering on the bloodstained bench. One of them worse than all the rest; Hookie, the ape-man. Had Wendy Darling known that, in introducing new animal species to the island, she would provide her son with the raw materials to investigate and reinterpret life, she might just have tipped her caged specimens overboard on route and drowned the lot. Instead she was the enabler for Peter’s experiments, having left behind science books, engineering diagrams, pencilled notes and a veritable operating theatre.

  ‘Much good it does me!’ Peter protested out loud.

  Not that he had any intention of moping around and feeling sorry for himself, Oh no, Hookie and crew had played their final trick on him. It was time to deal with the Rogues like any other group of wayward children.

  A long tarpaulin-covered object occupied the far end of the cave. Peter pulled off the cover. The Mermaid’s polished wood shone in the greasy lamplight.

  Pitched between the perfection of motherhood and the gutsiness of a Rogue, Wendy Darling had always demonstrated a soft spot for the underdog. In engineering terms, her pet favourite was an untutored Catalonian inventor called Narois Monturiol I Estarrol. To the young Peter, his mother’s daytime stories were as engaging as her bedtime stories were soporific.

  ‘Imagine it, Peter,’ she would say, a glint of passion in her eye. ‘While his competitors were busy developing submarines for military purposes, Monturiol was a communist, a revolutionary, a utopian. He saw his machine as a way of improving the lives of poor coral divers. Here, Peter.’ She would lay the open book before him and stab a finger grubby with oil at the illustrations. ‘Such a beautiful design. A wooden submarine supported by olive wood batons and lined with copper. Why copper?’ She would shoot the question at him like a bullet.

  ‘For structural support?’

  ‘No, Peter, no. To stop shipworms from eating the hull.’

  Even as an intensely intelligent child, Peter had been haunted by images of giant worms chomping down on the wooden submarine. And while he was nonchalant about Monturiol’s morality, he did appreciate the inventor’s design
ethic and had proceeded to apply it to a solo submersible he nicknamed the Mermaid.

  A pair of polished wooden sleds allowed him to push the Mermaid out of the cave and through the sand to the water’s edge. He paused for breath and mopped his forehead with a forearm. Seeing it in the sunlight, he was reminded just how perfect a machine the Mermaid really was. The ‘head’ was a wood-staved cabin with a broad strip of glass tied around its middle like a ribbon. This cabin housed the controls and a driver’s seat, which revolved to allow for a 360-degree view through the glass. The boiler was built into the torpedo-shaped ‘body’ and heated via a chemical furnace; the compounds potassium chlorate, zinc and magnesium dioxide were from his mother’s dry store, and while their combination produced enough power to heat the boiler, it had the added bonus of generating oxygen to supplement the supply in the cabin. The true magic, though, was in the Mermaid’s tail – five feet long, covered in wooden scales, and tapering to a brass-plated rudder.

  Pushing the Mermaid offshore, Peter held his breath and ducked under the water. He swam beneath the submersible and emerged in a small moon pool to the rear of the cabin. Securing himself in the driver seat, he twisted a stopcock to flood the boiler and began to work his way through the operative checklist.

  It was the 28th of February 1893 when the storm hit. Peter’s family had been living on the island for eight months, and while numerable supplies had been brought ashore, some larger items were stored in the traditional ‘dhow’ boat moored offshore. As Peter had learnt since, December to March saw violent cyclones bombard the island and its neighbours, the usual tropical serenity giving way to torrential rain and clockwise circling winds. The dhow was well made, used to carrying heavy loads up and down the East African coast. But even with its lateen sail lowered, the dhow could never have weathered that assault. Sometime between dusk and dawn, the ship tore loose of its anchor, drifted and sank near the second Freir. His parents had called it the devil’s work. Peter had come to view the shipwreck as a treasure trove.

  The water was fantastically clear as the Mermaid dipped below the surface. Peter moved the weight along the line by his right shoulder, adjusting the angle of the Mermaid’s descent. The smooth action of the tail drove the submersible forward at a steady rate of four knots. All around him, shoals of fish danced, their brilliant colours transforming the ocean into a fairyland. Corals burgeoned below like giant fleshy roses. A solitary turtle drifted by, buoyed on an invisible current. Once the creature stirred the water with its front flippers then drifted once more – the nonchalant old man of the sea.

  Lying besides a great crease of volcanic rock, the dhow’s sharply curved keel reminded Peter of one half of an eel’s open jaw and he felt the jolt of discomfort he always did at the sight. The feeling gave way to excitement; Peter wanted to fly out among the wreck and peel strips off it for no other reason than it might please him. The rational side of him argued that the wreck was best preserved for future foraging.

  One thing he did intend to secure that day was the Ticktock. His mother’s ledger listed it under ‘Weaponry/24 pounds of copper.’ He knew the Ticktock had been stored in a large chest with a skull and crossbones etched on top – his mother’s idea of a joke, given the Ticktock’s practical application. That box now lay at the bottom of the ocean, wedged between the crease of rock and the ribs of the dhow. Up until that moment, he’d had no need for such an item, but Hookie and the rest of the Rogues had become a damnable pest. They needed swatting like sand flies.

  The boiler to the rear of the cabin mumbled soothingly. It was hot inside the Mermaid but Peter didn’t mind. Yes, he risked drowning or being baked alive in his handmade submersible, but he’d always entertained the idea that to die would be an awfully big adventure! He pulled on a leather strap above his head to regulate the heat off the boiler and stabilise the craft. A small adjustment to the sliding counterweight and the submersible hovered alongside the large chest.

  ‘Peter Pandora. You possess the cunning of a crow and you are as wise as the stars,’ his father used to say.

  Peter sucked his bottom lip. ‘Indeed I am, father,’ he whispered. Scooting his seat forward on a greased wooden rail, he took hold of a pair of iron handgrips. His fingers pressed down on ten sprung-levered valves. ‘Arms’ unlocked on the front of the cabin; each metal limb was tipped with a grabber. Peter manipulated the handgrip valves to open and close the grabbers and secured a hold on the handle of the chest nearest the curl of rock; the other handle was trapped beneath the boat’s mast. And while the arms siphoned off power from the boiler, magnifying his strength three fold, he still got slick with sweat as he tried and failed to pull the chest free.

  ‘Move, you bloody thing!’ he cried, irritated at the situation but pleased with his use of the swear word. The chest stayed wedged beneath the mast and he had to break off trying to move it and catch his breath. Water pressed all around, muffling the sounds of the boiler and the churn of the engine.

  Peter stretched out his fingers and was about to work the handgrips again when something large crashed into the cabin’s exterior wall. He spun around in his chair, staring out the window strip. Legs disappeared from his eye line, the soles of the feet like black leather. Peter whipped his head the other way and caught a glimpse of horns, thighs like fat hams, and a snout. When the Mermaid began to rock, water lapping at the moon pool and threatening to flood the cabin, Peter knew he had attracted company – and not that of a whale shark or a mantra ray. The hands rocking his craft were strong and animaltronic, with claws that scraped the hull.

  ‘Rogues.’ Peter bared his teeth gleefully. ‘You’re no match for Peter Pandora!’ he cried, kicking at the sides of the cabin to add his beat to theirs. He concentrated on the handgrips and tried again for the trapped handle. Bodies hurled themselves against the submersible. Peter was grateful to have a grip on one trunk handle since it helped anchor the Mermaid.

  ‘Wild things!’ he called out to the creatures pestering him. ‘To catch a fellow unaware. But that’s the nature of Rogues, isn’t it?’

  Faces appeared at the glass. Part mechanical, part animal, the Rogues stared in with colourful glass eyes, which reminded Peter of Christmas baubles. One Rogue had goat horns grafted onto his iron-plate skull. He butted the glass and blew bubbles out his ear canals.

  ‘All bluster and no backbone’ Peter stuck out his tongue. By way of reply, one of the Rogue crew tried to come up through the moon pool; Peter stamped on the creature’s skullcap. It sank down and swam away, air escaping from steam-release vents at its knee joints.

  He’d scared one off. The rest appeared perfectly happy to continue rocking the submersible. Meanwhile, a dark shape was materialising through the dust cloud kicked up by the Rogues. The figure swam with broad, confident strokes, the scythes that served for hands sweeping out in glittering arcs.

  Peter slammed one hand forward, driving the corresponding grabber hard at the mast, splintering the rotten wood. Hookie drew closer at speed, the sweep of those long, muscular arms matched by the frog-like pump of his huge legs. Underwater, Hookie’s fur was dark and sleek. His silver teeth shone.

  At last, Peter got a lock on the other handle and lent back in his chair, pulling the handgrips towards him. Secured in the Mermaid’s arms, the chest lifted off the ocean floor. Peter pressed a foot pedal to lock the arms in place then released the handgrips. Adjusting the weight counterpoint to allow for the burden, he raked a hand across the bank of switches to release the sand ballast in the storage cylinders and unleash a fresh head of steam to drive the engine. He engaged the throttle and powered up, Rogues tumbling aside in the submersible’s slipstream. All but one. Hookie maintained his hold on the craft. Buffered by the pull of the water, he brought his great muzzle to the glass and stared in before letting go, seemingly of his own accord. The last thing Peter saw as the Mermaid ascended was Hookie dropping away into the darkness.

  ‘You must stay w
ith us now. My wife will care for you well. We are a good family and, together with the rest of the village, we will feed and clothe you.’ The islanders’ representative had appeared kindly and concerned. He’d smiled and clapped a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

  Seven years old, Peter had surveyed the horseshoe of islanders. Bella’s hand had gripped his – not because she was scared of the Malagasy with their open faces and choppy way of talking but because, even at three and a half years old, she’d known he wouldn’t stay.

  Over the years, Peter hiked to the south side of the island on occasion. Hidden at the forest’s edge, he spied on the villagers and his sister. The malady Bella had been born with was as much a gift as a trial and one that suggested she was only capable of registering one emotion at a time. On occasion, she would kick and wail in blinding rage. But there were also calmer moments when she would concoct detailed puzzles from the rows of shells she painstakingly arranged. Sometimes her laughter was high and tinkling. Sometimes she sat and stared out at the sea for hours, as if her mind had flown far away. Then Peter would see one of Bella’s Malagasy brothers come and take her hand and sit with her awhile. Perhaps her new family thought her enchanted. Peter was pleased that Bella was happy. He was also sick at heart and resentful.

  For the most part, Peter had been left to his own devices on the north side of the island. He didn’t interfere with the fishing trips or beach BBQs or Famadihanna ceremonies where the Malagasy would exhume the remains of their ancestors, wrap them in silk and entomb the bones once more. In return, the Malagasy left him to play puppet-master with his band of loyal Lost Boys and itinerant Rogues – the later steering clear of the islanders ever since one inquisitive specimen had been speared in the chest like a giant turtle.

  There was one exception to the rule though. Two days after his underwater expedition, Peter was holed up in his workshop with the Ticktock when he caught a glimpse of movement at the mouth of the cave.