The London Pride

by Charlie Fletcher

  ‘That’s not a loo,’ she said. ‘That one’s a bidet.’

  ‘A bee-what?’ he said.

  ‘Bidet,’ she said.

  ‘What’s it for?’ he asked.

  Filax pushed in between them and nosed his way to the lavatory.

  ‘No!’ said Jo sharply.

  ‘What?’ said Will.

  ‘He’s thirsty,’ she said, and stepped into the room. ‘He was going to drink out of the lav.’

  She pulled a lever and turned a tap, and the bidet began filling up. Filax looked at her, and then licked her hand. Strangely, the pale marble tongue felt soft and warm – and wet. He then began lapping at the rising water in the bidet.

  ‘It’s not really a dog bowl, is it?’ said Will.

  ‘Not really,’ she agreed, ruffling her hand in the dog’s mane, which was, again uncannily, both marble and as soft as real fur. ‘But it works well as one, doesn’t it? I’m thirsty too.’

  ‘Minibar!’ said Will. ‘There’ll definitely be a minibar in a posh hotel like this.’

  They left the dog happily lapping up water as if he hadn’t had a good drink for centuries, and went back into the room. The small fridge was hidden under the desk behind a door. It swung open revealing cans of sparking water, mineral water and a lot of tiny bottles of whisky, vodka and gin. There were also chocolate bars and jars of nuts.

  ‘Jackpot!’ said Will, grabbing a Coke and a chocolate bar and sitting on the end of the bed. Glancing at the widescreen TV fixed to the wall, he picked up the remote and clicked through endless channels of glitch: every programme was freeze-framed at the moment the rest of London had stopped. It was a tantalising series of images, teasing fragments sent to taunt them by showing what normal used to look like. He hadn’t realised how used he was to screens giving him information or distracting him until it had stopped. In a similar way to his dead phone, it felt like he’d lost a sense, not a major one like sight or hearing, but one you don’t immediately notice has gone, like smell or taste.

  ‘Shame the TV doesn’t work,’ he said. ‘That’s a monster screen.’

  Jo was sitting back on her bed, having taken some nuts and a chocolate bar for herself. She unpopped a can of Coke and took a long drink. She realised she felt as thirsty as Filax had been.

  ‘You wouldn’t be able to watch anything,’ she said. ‘What do you think would be on? You wouldn’t be able to concentrate anyway.’

  ‘It’d take my mind off things,’ he said.

  ‘You’re obsessed with screens,’ she said. ‘Mum’s right.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he said, chomping on a mouthful of chocolate.

  ‘You are,’ she said. ‘I mean, this could be the end of the world and you want to watch TV? How responsible is that?’

  ‘I’m not being irresponsible,’ he said. ‘I’m just saying! It’d be nice to not think about all this. Just for a bit. It’s making my head buzz and fizz like it’s going to overheat and explode. TV would be boring and normal. Just five minutes of boring and normal would probably be as much good as …’

  And here he yawned hugely, immediately and treacherously, giving the lie to what he was about to say.

  ‘… probably as much good as a sleep.’

  She looked at him.

  ‘Stop getting at me about screens,’ he said. ‘Right now that’s as stupid as me – OK, I admit it – that’s as stupid as me wanting to watch some crap TV show.’

  Silence hung between them for a while. He found he was unconsciously rotating the scarab on the string round his wrist, and stopped again.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’re going to stick to the plan about Mum and her scarab. We’ll go there when it’s light. Without an armed escort. Maybe get Selene to fly us there.’

  Another thought hit him. ‘Maybe if we put it on a frozen statue, like the Fusilier, the spell would break like it did with you and me? Maybe we could do that? Maybe that would make him move and talk again?’

  One of Jo’s eyebrows twitched up in a way he normally found annoying because it was usually a sign she was about to say something snarky at his expense.

  ‘Or we could go now,’ he said a bit uncertainly. ‘It’s worth a try. A third scarab would definitely be cool, yeah?’

  ‘That’s a totally brilliant idea. Seriously. But you look as exhausted as I feel,’ she said, wrong-footing him, which was almost as annoying as snark. ‘Sleep would be better.’

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’ll do it in the daylight. But one of us should stay awake and keep guard.’

  He yawned again. A real jaw-cracker. ‘I’ll do the first bit, then I’ll wake you. Say an hour?’

  She looked at him. ‘Will,’ she said. ‘You’re kidding, right? How are you going to stay awake?’

  He pointed at the mini kettle and the tray next to the small fridge. ‘I’ll make a coffee.’

  ‘You hate coffee and you don’t need to anyway,’ she said. ‘Selene said she would guard us. And we have Filax.’

  There was a bump and a lurch on her bed as the large dog climbed up on it. He padded round in a tight circle, as if settling the covers to his own particular satisfaction, and then dropped into a curled position at the end of mattress. He looked at them both and then rested his great head on his shaggy paws, staring right at the door.

  ‘See?’ she said, leaning forwards to stroke him. ‘Dog’s got our backs.’

  ‘I’m still going to stay awake,’ said Will. ‘You sleep first.’

  ‘You’re so stubborn, Will,’ she said sleepily. ‘But please yourself.’

  And she closed her eyes. She heard him crinkle the paper of his chocolate bar and throw it into the bin. Then she heard him rattling the cups and sachets and turning on the mini kettle.

  ‘I can mix hot chocolate with the coffee,’ he said, sounding pleased. Realising his mother had a scarab that might help had really cheered him. They weren’t thrashing any more. ‘Won’t taste so foul.’

  ‘That’s a mocha,’ she said. ‘Or maybe a mochaccino.’

  ‘A mochaccino it is,’ he said.

  She felt the comforting weight of the dog at the end of the bed, and stared at the inside of her eyelids, waiting for the slumber that was very insistently tugging at the hem of her consciousness to pull her down into what she very much hoped – but secretly doubted – would be a deep and dreamless sleep.

  She heard the kettle begin to rumble and chunter, and then, after a bit, click and ping itself off. She lay there, anticipating the pouring noise and the clink of spoon on china as Will stirred his improvised coffee and chocolate cocktail, but he must have been under the impression she was asleep and had decided not to wake her by making the noise.

  He was OK, Will. He was one hundred per cent boy, and that had its inbuilt limitations, of course. But though she would never let herself be caught telling him this, he was, in her book, as good as it gets. Deciding not to wake her was kind. He was brave and he was kind, and that combination of qualities was one she and her girlfriends valued. Boys loved being brave, of course. Every day, every boy seemed to be told they should be brave and tough and all that. But none of them seemed to think being kind was particularly important. Not that all the girls she knew were kind, far from it. Girls could be worse than boys. They could leave wounds with their tongues that would last much longer and do more harm than the thumping boys occasionally gave each other. Kindness was seen as a sort of wussiness, when Jo knew it was in fact an even more valuable virtue than bravery. She decided to tell Will this, and let him know she hadn’t gone to sleep yet so he could make his drink.

  She opened her eyes.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I’m still awake.’

  He said nothing. She turned on her side to look at him.

  He was fast asleep, head awkwardly cricked against the headboard, an open packet of hot chocolate in his hand, on the very point of spilling into his lap.

  ‘Idiot,’ she smiled, feeling a warm flush of affection for him as she leaned across the gap be
tween the beds and slid it out of his grip, laying it on the bedside table.

  He murmured and scrunched down the bed, straightening his neck as his head found the seductive squishiness of the pillows.

  So the plan reversed itself, but not on purpose.

  Will slept, and Jo did not.

  10

  The London Pride

  The dragon from whom Will had taken the shield, the one that had been impaled on the railings at Coram’s Fields, was now back on his rightful plinth. His brother or sister dragons (and deciding which sex a dragon actually is is quite a tricky subject, and one upon which your average dragon is more than usually sensitive) had replaced him just before midnight. The flame damage had cured itself, the humiliating line of holes where the iron spikes had pierced him had disappeared, and everything – almost everything – was right with his world.

  He felt a bit dopey, as if he had woken from a long but not very restful sleep. He scratched his head and looked around. He saw the wide sweep of the Embankment and the river beyond. He saw the frozen cars, buses and people, which he remembered from before he had been melted by that unpleasant human child, the one who had oddly NOT been frozen like the rest of them. He snarled at the memory and his talons flexed and his fangs gnashed together with an unpleasant SKREEE of metal on metal. He turned round, then back again, padding and scraping his feet on the plinth, like a dog trying to make its bed comfortable.

  Something was wrong. But he was still too fumbled up in his mind to work out what it was.

  ‘Where’s your shield?’ said a very calm, very deep woman’s voice.

  He knew the owner of the voice. It was one of the two Sphinxes from the other side of the road, close to the river by Cleopatra’s Needle. They had huge bodies, lion-shaped and the size and heft of bull elephants. But their heads were wholly human, smooth, beautiful and wearing Egyptian headdresses, like pharaohs. Their faces were so beautiful and calm that their sex was as hard to pin down as the dragons’, but for entirely different reasons.

  The dragon didn’t much like the Sphinxes. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, they were both terrible know-it-alls who never did anything as simple as responding to a question with an answer. Instead they either replied with another question (which was frustrating) or a riddle (which made the dragon feel stupid).

  Secondly, the Sphinxes confused the dragon, because on the one hand statues based on people were Spits, and on the other hand sculptures and carvings based on non-human things (like dragons or gargoyles or animals) were Taints, and there was a clear line of mutual suspicion and occasional outright conflict between the two groups. Sphinxes, half human half lion, blurred the clean line between the two camps and that was what baffled the dragon.

  ‘Your shield?’ repeated the Sphinx. It had stepped off its plinth and was crossing the road towards the dragon. It came to a parked car, and it was so large that instead of going around it, it was able to step right over it, the taut bronze curve of its chest and belly clearing the roof easily. ‘I’m sure you had a shield. Big metal one; silver, with a rather large red cross painted across it?’

  ‘You did,’ said the other, following its sister (or brother). ‘You were very proud of it. You held it up in front of you. Protecting the city.’

  The two Sphinxes weren’t quite the same. There was a nice one and a not-so-nice one. The not-so-nice one had been damaged a long time ago in an explosion, and the dragons had decided among themselves that this is what had made it tetchy, and a bit dangerous. It was, however, the one that was felt to be more on their side than the calmer, undamaged one that was (though they’d never say it to its face) a little bit more human.

  ‘You look odd without it,’ said the other. It had an unusual blue light in its eyes, as blue as the glowing frost covering the frozen people in the street around them. ‘Lopsided.’

  ‘And confused,’ added the first one. The dragon looked closely at it and saw it was the nicer one. Its eyes, interestingly, were not blazing with blue light like the other’s.

  The dragon looked down at his front talons and saw they were right. What was missing was so big, so much a part of himself that he hadn’t noticed, because it didn’t seem possible that it wasn’t there, clenched between his claws. The shield. The wretched boy had stolen his shield and used it against him.

  The dragon felt stupid and felt naked. He snarled in frustration. He felt something else too, not just unprotected and missing something in his talons: he felt strange in his head, tugged at, compelled, and …

  He didn’t know the words. He looked at the Sphinxes. The closest one looked straight back, as if it could read the dragon’s mind. Maybe it could. The dragon decided he wasn’t going to give it the satisfaction of asking what it saw.

  ‘You heard the call,’ said the not-so-nice one. ‘Even if you are still too fuggled from being healed at midnight to know you heard it. We are bidden to the Museum.’

  ‘I will not go,’ said the first Sphinx. ‘I do not feel the compulsion.’

  ‘I do,’ said the other. ‘It speaks to the part of me that does not think. It speaks in an old, strangely familiar voice. I shall follow that. I shall see what I shall see.’

  ‘And I shall stay,’ said the first Sphinx.

  They both looked at the dragon. Now they had mentioned it, he realised that there was a magnetic tug drawing him towards the distant museum.

  ‘You hear it. It calls you,’ said the not-so-nice Sphinx. ‘I can see it in your eyes.’

  And just for a moment the dragon could see his own reflection in the shiny bronze of the Sphinx’s headdress, and he could see it in his own eyes too: a cold blue light, as chilly and eerie as the frost-fire in the Sphinx’s own eyes.

  ‘Walk with me,’ said the Sphinx. ‘Maybe we will find you a shield on the way.’

  Even when saying something encouraging it managed to sound like a sneer.

  They headed north together, through the dark and cavernous streets. The unmoving people they passed were glimmering blue as ever, like luminous stalagmites leading the way along the bottom of deep city canyons from whose sides rows of mostly unlit widows looked down blindly on them.

  As they made their way out into Trafalgar Square the dragon saw more movement, and realised they were joining a silent procession of all the animal statues in the city, who were being pulled in the same direction. The four huge lions from around the base of Nelson’s Column were already gone, but there was no shortage of other lions, in stone, marble and metal, streaming northwards. There were many horses, and there were unicorns. There were lionesses and sheep and goats, and there were bulls and cows and cats. By the time the procession coming up from the river had wound north to the junction with Oxford Street and mingled with the flow of statues from the west, there were also elephants and buffalo and camels and several species of gazelle.

  On the corner of Tottenham Court Road the Sphinx stopped and looked pointedly at a man holding a large stout sign above his head. On the plus side it was, the dragon had to admit, sort of shield-shaped. On the other hand it announced ‘GOLF SALE LAST CHANCE!!!’ in huge neon-green letters. Happily, the dragon could not read, so was able to hop across the stream of animals and snap the handle of the sign clamped in the frozen man’s grasp, tucking the shield comfortably in his front talons. It was not the same as a real shield, but it helped, in much the same way as a stick can help when you’re limping. It’s better than being stuck, but not as good as real walking.

  By the time he got back into the flow of the eerily silent cavalcade, the dragon was able to see clearly that there was also no shortage of dragons. In fact, as they turned into Bloomsbury proper and began to get close to the museum itself the dragon realised all the dragons in the city must be there. And as it looked out over the great herd of beasts beginning to filter into the open space in front of the museum, he realised what the other strange feeling was in his head: not only was he unable to see the Temple Bar dragon – his leader – he could not feel
him either. Normally the dragons communicated silently, throwing thoughts back and forth to each other across the city, like an ongoing conversation on an open radio channel that they could all hear or chip into if they had news to share. The Temple Bar dragon, as the chieftain of their fire-breathing tribe, always rode in the back of their minds like a familiar, almost parental, warmth, the one voice in the conversation that was always there. And now it wasn’t.

  That feeling was gone. What was there instead was not quite emptiness, because the cold blue compulsion had taken its place, but it was a new and uncomfortable thing. When you have belonged, suddenly not belonging is a horrible feeling, like you are falling but don’t know why.

  The dragon felt just like that.

  The assembly of animals was one of the strangest sights London had ever seen in its long history: the various species found each other without seeming to be told to do so. The more popular subjects for statues grouped into the largest phalanxes, so that meant the lions – and this included the Sphinxes – were the biggest block, then the horses, then the dragons and the unicorns, although since the unicorns were part of the heraldic shields carved all over the city they tended to be much less than full size, and so didn’t take up as much room.

  The horses were quite often saddled but riderless, and the dragon realised with a little smirk that there must be a lot of unhorsed Spits lying on their plinths and looking very undignified all over the city. At the other end of the size-scale there were snakes and rats and insects, and in one corner the twinkling glow of fireflies. In a big enough city with enough history and creativity, there’s a good chance that someone will make a really surprising sculpture, and, sure enough, these fireflies had come all the way from the memorial to animals lost in war on Park Lane, accompanying a pair of overloaded mules and a proud-looking horse. The dog from the same sculpture was notably absent. In fact, no dogs were to be seen, a fact probably explained by Bast’s feline dislike of anything remotely canine, or perhaps by the dogs’ natural good sense in avoiding trouble.