Band of Gypsys

by Gwyneth Jones

  ‘Sage, Volvic doesn’t exist. Not for years. You won’t even get a good fake: she’s winding you up. Get the princess some Buxton.’

  ‘I don’t take that kind of risk.’ He stood, unfolding to his full, improbable height. ‘I learned my lesson in Dissolution Summer. The one time in my life I wasn’t there to drive the princess home, thought I had better things to do, and what happens? She goes to Lambeth, fucks Ax Preston, an’ the rest, as they say, is history. God knows what she might bring home next.’

  He’s such a bloke, thought Allie. Ax is incredible and unique, and Fiorinda would be different from anyone else in the world, whoever her father was. But once you get past how weirdly clever he is, and what he looks like, and the Zen Self, Sage is such an ordinary, helpless bloke.

  He’d hoped Allie would take pity on him. He had often been told he didn’t know how to shop, he only knew how to impulse-buy like a five-year-old. He secured liquorice and wine gums, no problem, hunted inefficiently for Volvic water around Belgravia: and decided he might have better luck on familiar territory. The August sun was white in a hot dull sky above the King’s Road, making him wish he’d been taking sunscreen. Yeah, there’s a gym, Allie. It’s a box, no natural light. Guards walk you there, lock you in, let you out, walk you back. No, I don’t believe we’re in immediate danger, not even if Rick’s Place is cancelled. But if I thought this was going to go on for years, my Ax going crazy with remorse, and Fiorinda withering into bitterness: I don’t know, I might welcome a swift way out.

  He was institutionalised. London was unreal, all he could think of was the red room. All he wanted was to be back there. There was a tune going through his head, very familiar, what’s that?

  Never a frown, with golden brown…

  Hm. Maybe not.

  He’d forgotten to ask about Doug. Allie would have told him if there was news, but he must remember to ask.

  At Battersea Reach he found Cack, skull-masked, waiting in the hall.

  ‘I thought you’d be at the Park.’

  ‘Didn’t fancy it, George and Bill said they’d be okay without me.’

  Other Park-refusnik members of the Heads resident circus gathered. Sage gave them what he could, the reassurance of seeing their sacred idol alive and well. When that became too much he dismissed the crowd and retired with Cack to the glade-room, with the singing, ringing trees; a favourite haunt of theirs.

  ‘There was some barmies here earlier. Wanting to talk to you.’

  ‘What, in uniform? The fuckers. They know they’re not supposed.’

  ‘No, but they said they were ISB Crew. I took this off one of them.’

  ‘This’ was a Yap Moss campaign button. An enamelled circlet of moorland rushes on a cream ground, a beautiful thing: marking the ugly final battle of the Islamic Campaign. Sage turned it over. Every genuine Yap Moss button was engraved on the reverse with a number, and the soldier’s tag: the makers, Lacey and Wear of Gloucester, numbered all their works. This had no mark at all. Quite right: none of the “Insane Stupid Behaviour” Crew had been at the bloodiest battle, far as Sage knew.

  He shook his head. ‘Sad and pitiful.’

  ‘You couldn’t call it a fake, hardly, could you?’

  Sage agreed, and they fell into a discussion, which seemed to both of them perfectly natural, of the deficiencies in the greens. The cracked creams were equally poor. They moved to a more general discussion of enamel work, how the chemical changes of heat-firing affected different colours: how this related to shifts in firing and partial firing of individual neurons, in the visual cortex. But light is God, if you want to create synthetic percepts; not colour. Soon they were talking about edge and line, an endlessly absorbing topic. Perfect pitch for luminance is far rarer than perfect pitch for tones of sound: Sage and Cack Stannen were equally matched, equally obssessive—

  All the while, Sage knew that Cack was full of something, but you couldn’t rush Aoxomoxoa’s collaborator. He’d get confused, he’d lose the plot. At last they returned, calmly and casually, to the barmies themselves.

  ‘They were scared of our spooks,’ said Cack. ‘Stupid buggers: spooks never hurt anyone. They’ll be upstairs at that pub on Battersea High Street all afternoon. They know something. It’s about Ax, and some security guards.’

  Sage found himself a pack of Anandas. He lit up.

  ‘Which pub was it?’

  ‘The one that’s been shut a long time.’

  If you hurry Cack all is lost. They established, meditatively, that this pub was not the Castle, nor the Woodsman, nor that strange fancy one, from which Aoxomoxoa got banned. Nor the ill-fated one that used to keep trying to be a gastropub. It was Dwyers, the defunct Irish bar with the chocolate-maroon glazed tiles (a digression to nail the hue code for various angles).

  ‘Are you going to go?’ asked Cack, hopefully.

  It was a long time since they’d taken a walk out together, just seeing the world and discussing how to code it.

  ‘I might. Want to come along?’

  They left by the water frontage. The government spooks occupied a flat just across the road, in the housing blocks that lined the river to the east: but there was no sign of them today, not a wink of a lens. Spooks never do any harm, do they?, repeated Cack. Never, said Sage. It was the Heads’ policy to tell Cack this, so he didn’t get anxious.

  Riverside Walk, despite inundations and stinks, and much-disputed flood proofing, had kept its ancient charm. Everyone was living a floor higher up, that’s all. Sage and Cack talked as they walked, remembered fondly the evacuees who had come to stay for a year. The lively Borough of Wandsworth Council meetings, when George and Bill were Councillors. The flood-sink year, when inner London gained some new, pretty wetland, and all the dictatorship prefabs went up.

  Today the river was docile in its bed, slipping by, glassy smooth. There’s a fishing cormorant, making great ripples, there’s an interesting post. Here’s the modest beauty of St John’s on its patch of green, sandbag bunkers and the ancient school with its emblazoned shield. No kids around, they must be off harvesting something.

  Better Death Than False Of Faith…

  Sage noticed at last how sweet it was to be outdoors, and what a great place Battersea was, how infinitely superior to Brixton. The toytown yellow-brick houses, his funky, endearing psychological landscape that had barely changed, just a few variant details, in a decade of violent upheaval. It was an oft-noted phenomenon. The inner cities thrived on green revolution, fed themselves from allottments, milled and ground the wheat they grew on handkerchief fields; while the rural hinterland fell into the abyss. Ironic, but there were factors that made it inevitable.

  It takes one idiot savant to ignore another. Eventually he noticed that Cack was still wearing his skull. Head etiquette said Sage should therefore also be skulled-up, but he didn’t have his button in place. Belatedly, he wondered why Cack was masked at all. They didn’t do that any more.

  ‘Hey, Cack, why the mask?’

  Cack’s Hallow’een head grinned, without expression.

  ‘I thought I should.’

  Sage kept walking. Asperger’s is a catch-all. Sufferers with the exact same deficits have their own quirks. Not to dwell on the past, but Peter ‘Cack’ Stannen could have his pants on fire, and he wouldn’t say a word (this has been proved) until you asked him the right direct question. On topic he’s unbeatable. Off topic he thinks you know things when you don’t. He thinks he’s told you things when he hasn’t. He wears the mask when he’s upset.

  ‘Cack, why did you take the button off those barmies?’

  ‘I thought I should. They didn’t know I took it.’

  ‘Okay. Was there anything else?’

  ‘I don’t think they were really barmies. I didn’t like them.’

  The defunct Irish bar was coming up. Sage had a momentary glimpse of a figure moving, in one of the grey windows on the upper floor.

  Cack looked at the once-bright lettering above the door. �
��That’s a nasty lime green,’ he said, severely. ‘I don’t know what gets into people.’

  ‘Nor me. Peter, my dear, we should take an elementary precaution. You’re to walk on. When you get in range of the public callpoint at Clapham Junction, you call George, and you tell him where I am and why. Don’t call him before, use the public callpoint. Lose yourself in traffic. You got that?’

  ‘Elementary precaution,’ said the death’s head. ‘I got you.’

  The door on the corner was open, the dark inside stank of defeated years. Sage went in, very relieved that he’d realised he shouldn’t bring Cack with him. In the old days he wouldn’t have thought twice: Cack was little, but he was useful. But none of them’d had any respect for Peter’s strangeness, back then. Although they’d loved him dearly. It was the fifteenth of August, full moon tomorrow night, was it a coincidence that he’d been let out at full moon time? They’d wondered about this, but it wasn’t worth turning down what might be Sage’s only chance to meet negotiators. Whatever was waiting he was forewarned, and George would know where he was. He was also in very good shape, if not the Aoxomoxoa of old, and this had a visceral effect, although he had no intention of using violence. Not if he could help it. All his thoughts were on the red room, back in Wallingham.

  Let’s see what these fake barmies have to sell—

  He went up the stairs, he opened a door, and grasped immediately that he’d better retreat. But if you sup with the devil you should take a long spoon, every pitcher goes once too often to the well, and if he keeps on trying, sooner or later the king of the lads is going to put his fist through the wrong window.

  Cack reached the junction of Falcon Road and St John’s Hill. Here there were streams of people, after the friendly quiet of Battersea Village. Crowds in a familiar street didn’t usually bother him, but the “boss in jail” idea had hit him very hard, and having Sage home “for two days” wasn’t easier. How glad is two days’ worth? When do you reach the cut-off point on the curve, the downhill slide to “boss in jail again”? It sounds simple but it isn’t. The crowd didn’t get to him, but the gum stains did. There were gum stains all over the dirty pavement. Bane of my life, muttered Cack, and started counting.

  It was many hours before the search parties found him.

  Hungry Ghosts

  Sage remembered that before the fatal debate his son had been taken from a police station, with the knowledge and consent of the Metropolitan Police, for a vicious illegal interrogation. And he had been powerless to pursue the culprits… He had ignored this warning. They had ignored all the many warnings that it was time to quit. They’d come back to England to reprise the dictatorship the way Ax had originally intended. Charm offensive, softly softly: but you can’t do that. You can’t return to the same fucking poor situation you held in check with an army at your back, and say let’s play nicely. They don’t know how to be nice, they’re institutionalised.

  He understood the depth of Ax’s distress now, that staring-into-nothing mood. We took on the bad guys, and we did not SEE their priorities, we only saw our own. That’s our unforgiveable worst crime.

  England’s nameless, unaccountable secret police chief entered the room, in a motor chair. A rigid plastic collar, swathed in white silk, held Lord Vries’s chin at a haughty angle. He was a nineteenth century dandy, ineffably sleek, blond and pink, a true blond, not a shade of vulgar yellow in it.

  Sage grinned. ‘Is the collar permanent?’

  The chair glided over to a desk: Jack flicked a switch. ‘We are now recording. You have consented to this procedure, Mr Pender?’

  ‘I’ve consented.’

  Jack rose and came to him, using the cane that had been balanced on his knees. Walking didn’t come easily. Got a brace under his clothes to keep that neck in alignment, Sage guessed. ‘Two realtime cognitive scanners were stored in the building on Battersea Reach. We searched the premises some weeks ago, including the rooms under the basement, and found nothing. The residents, including Mr Merrick, Mr Trevor and Mr Stannen, denied all knowledge of the whereabouts of the controlled neurological equipment.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘It is illegal to possess, or have in your possession, the precursors of weaponised magic… I don’t want to bring the Heads in for questioning, Sage. Or any of your employees. They aren’t criminals. That’s why it’s best if you tell me where the scanners are.’

  ‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know. But you’re welcome to try.’

  He wanted to ask what was being done to Ax and Fiorinda. What had happened to his lovers, if he was here… But he shouldn’t show anxiety. Keep things simple. Humiliate someone, he will humiliate you back if he can, and they had humiliated Jack Vries, in public, in the House of Commons. It’s a fundamental law: bastards have feelings too, forget that at your peril. So I take my licks, Jack will feel better, and maybe I’ll survive.

  The white tiled walls of the room gleamed. What happened to Peter?

  ‘Do you know what day it is?’ said Jack, leaning on his cane.

  ‘Er, Thursday? Evening?’

  Dad is at the restaurant, thinking how fucking unreliable I am.

  ‘It is the night of the full moon, of the seventh month of the Chinese year. The Chinese call this the moon of the hungry ghosts. We call it Lúnasa. It adds up to a time of great power. If you can’t help us to locate of the scanners, then this interrogation may precipitate a transformation, which would be another answer to our inquiries.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

  ‘As long as you understand that you may involuntarily incriminate both yourself and the President; and you still consent to the procedure.’

  ‘Jack, be serious for a moment and listen to me. I’m not superman, and I’m not a werewolf. The rules have not changed. I took part in a very high tech neurological experiment, the ‘A’ team took part in another, and outside of those conditions “magic”is as futile as it was a thousand years ago. Your time of great power is a crock too, you can’t make the Chinese and the so-called ‘Celtic’ calendars add up, because they don’t. None of it adds up.’

  Oh, fuck. I ought to be humouring him.

  The dandy moved his poised head carefully from side to side. ‘You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Sage. In all my studies I never had one single unequivocal proof that I could move the world: yet I believed. I am a believer, I am a practitioner of sacred truth, and you have proved my faith, and the faith of millions like me.’

  Fiorinda had told Sage that if the Second Chamber did try to build an n ‘A’ team, Jack Vries would be the most dangerous candidate in England. He stared up at the dandy, pitiless secret policeman, this deadly knowledge running through him.

  ‘You don’t want Olwen’s scanners. They’re useless to you.’

  Jack took a deep breath, and set out on the difficult journey back to the desk. Sage watched, with a terrible shrinking in his throat and belly, a tremor in all his limbs that he could feel through the chemical paralysis.

  Flick of a switch

  ‘The interview was halted for a call of nature.’

  ‘Let me speak frankly, off the record. You’d better understand that nobody is going to stop this, and I am not afraid to touch Joss Pender’s son, don’t make that mistake. The Lord and the Lady are sacrosanct, you are not. If you’re bluffing, I suggest you stop bluffing now.’

  ‘I don’t know where the scanners are. I consent to the procedure.’

  The equipment was Pacrim, Indonesian: about fifteen years’ old. This pointless torture machine is how the British government was spending my taxes, when I was a filthy rich bad boy, back before Dissolution. So remember, this is not new bad news… A mask came down, a stiff gag pressed between his teeth, his eyelids were delicately drawn back. Was Lord Vries still in the room? He didn’t know. Fine, flexible needles slid around his eyeballs, and probed deep. He had been told the nerves would suffer no damage, unless this went on for a long time. He was afraid it could not
be true.

  He was back at the Insanitude, in Allie’s new office. He said to her, ‘You never did get your eyes lasered, did you?’ Allie said, ‘I’m fine with contact lenses, thanks.’ He was afraid for her: she’d be helpless when there were no more contact lenses in the shops. ‘You should do it, stop pissing around. Eyes are important. Go to Cardiff. Take DK with you. Once you’re there, don’t come back.’ If he made it plausible enough she would leave.

  He returned to other scenes, and told other people. Get out. It’s over. Go! But Sage must not get out from the house of pain. Don’t start meditating, or you will die. Die, hear that? So DON’T.

  The Stranglers alternated with Schubert, first movement of the B flat piano sonata D960. Both good, neither of them touching the pain.

  He visualised the muscles of his face, the cascade of tiny spasms that added up to the word agony: which would not be written, because the anaesthetist who was standing by had upped the dose and he was completely paralysed. He could hear them murmuring about what they saw on their screen, the voices neutral, unintelligible…The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin, a very useful work, ancient photographs pored over by the teenage Aoxomoxoa. Images that had fascinated him, when he was thinking out how to build the avatar mask. How to map the muscle-fibre contractions, by mental reverse engineering. Are all artists part-butcher? Yes.

  We cut open the world. I am a vivisectionist, no wonder I have bad dreams. Surprisingly, he could still think. Why couldn’t he black out? The immense vitality that was his birthright, that had carried him to the Zen, was not his friend now.

  The sessions ran together, the spaces between were pauses of calm clarity, and he was not aware that he was losing track of time, of place. He saw the world the way the bad guys had seen it, with COGNITIVE SCANNERS all huge, and everything else dwindled, two dimensional. A couple of times he thought of saying why don’t you ask my dad? But he was in uncharted territory. Ax’s failsafe arrangements had assumed Joss Pender was safe from reprisals: can’t assume that now. For once in my life I would have screamed for you, please help me daddy. But I daren’t.