Hairy London

by Stephen Palmer

  “But I never have!”

  Maryjane took a brown paper bag from her pocket and dropped it on the table. In a voice as dry and soft as a desert breeze she said, “We found this in your study.”

  “My study? You’ve been in my house? I damn well hope McTevish didn’t assist you–”

  “Quiet!” Murchison said. “You’ve already strayed from the point.”

  “I deny everything – that’s the point, officer. I have rights. A solicitor–”

  “Nonsense. London is hairy. This is an emergency. The police have special powers by order of the Government.”

  “What special powers?”

  “They haven’t been decided yet,” Murchison explained, “but when I know, ooh, I’m quite certain I’ll be telling you. Or perhaps I’ll just put an advertisement in the Times.”

  Sheremy thought Murchison to be quite possibly the most sarcastic police officer he had ever met. He said, “I’ve been set up. I’ll find out who by–”

  “By whom,” Murchison interrupted. “Dear dear, you do need some help with all this. But enough. Answer me this, Mr Pantomile. Who is your underworld contact – the person who delivers the opium?”

  “I haven’t got an underworld contact.”

  “What if I was to say, oh, I don’t know, a name to you. Would your brain have enough gumption to recognise it?”

  “A name?”

  “Personby Sing.”

  “Who?”

  Murchison Volume sighed and sat back. “Maryjane, go and fetch tea. Three cups. The prisoner needs lubricating.”

  Maryjane walked out of the cell then locked the door. From his pocket Murchison took a sachet of white powder, some of which he spread onto the slab of wood on which Sheremy sat. “Cocaine, Mr Pantomile?”

  Sheremy shook his head, made a delicate gesture with one hand. “Thank you, I don’t.”

  Murchison shrugged, then sniffed a mote of cocaine off the back of his hand.

  “I could murder a cigarombe though,” Sheremy remarked.

  “Then that’s precisely what you won’t get. I am bad, aren’t I?”

  “This tea had better be good.”

  “It’ll be dishwater, like all our tea.”

  Sheremy fidgeted, annoyance rising like vomit in his gullet. “You’ll regret arresting me… I have friends.”

  “Are you threatening me? Ooh, my, gosh, that’s a criminal offence. I think. I mean, I’m only a police officer, how would I know what’s right and what’s wrong?”

  Maryjane returned with the tea. Sheremy took a cup and drank it. “How long will you keep me here?” he asked.

  “Until we get the answers we want.”

  Sheremy said nothing. That reply could mean they had created the case against him already and were hoping to force a confession. He said, “I’m saying nothing more until my solicitor arrives. You must fetch him. Now.”

  “You’re keeping shtum?”

  “I’m keeping shtum.”

  The pair stood up. “We’ll be back,” Murchison said.

  Sheremy lay back on the slab of wood, appalled, anxious, hungry. Who could have set him up in this manner?

  Time passed. Evening slid into night. Sheremy dozed, waking up every few hours. Night slipped into morning. A new day.

  He stood on the slab of wood and peered out of the window. Hairy walls all around him; the cell faced a back alley. He heard nothing of people below, no clip-clop of horses, nor wheeze of horseless carriages. He was alone.

  And then he did hear something. A sound outside his cell window… a rustling, an occasional thud, perhaps the hint of a muttered cry of exertion…

  Then a face at the window.

  “Valantina!”

  “Sheremy, keep quiet. The sun is up – there may be people about.” She glanced down, then over her shoulder at the building behind her. “Probably not though, London is hairier than ever.”

  “Have you come to rescue me?”

  Valantina stared. “You do ask some stupid questions. Of course I’m rescuing you! Now help me with these bars, we need to saw them off.”

  Through the window she passed a hacksaw, then, with a second hacksaw, began severing the bars.

  “They’re ancient and rusty,” she said. “This won’t take long.”

  “Where am I?” Sheremy asked as he sawed.

  “The station on Cornhill–”

  “I knew it! Murchison Volume is one of the Inscrutable Squad.”

  Valantina’s expression indicated she did not know what Sheremy was talking about.

  “A covert unit set up by the Government,” he explained. “War and all that. Damned tricky business, especially when the police have so much power.”

  “Less gob and more saw,” Valantina responded.

  “Indeed, indeed…”

  After five minutes the gap in the window was wide enough for Sheremy to squeeze through, so that he sat on the sill, Valantina below him. He saw now that she had plaited her way up the wall, creating a strong rope that they could climb down; she clung to it now. But then he saw something that brought terror to his heart.

  “Lice!”

  They were enormous and heading in their direction, scuttling through the hair on the vertical wall as if on a horizontal surface; in their element.

  “Swiftly down,” Valantina hissed.

  Sheremy began following her down the plait, but it was a difficult task with sweaty hands and the lice horde just yards away. As he dropped into the blonde locks at street level a louse jumped at him, and he was forced to raise his hands and attack it with his fists.

  Then Valantina threw him something that glittered in the morning sun. “Use this!”

  It was a swordington made of steel, its hilt a cotton pad laced with gum. He grabbed it and struck out, killing two lice in one stroke. At his side Valantina made swordington play like a hussar, and seeing this the other lice retreated.

  A light breeze ruffled the yellow hair in which they stood. Sheremy made to return the swordington, but Valantina shook her head. “You used it well,” she said, an enigmatic smile upon her lips. Sheremy could have sworn she was eyeing him up. “And, you know, we may have need of weapons. London Town is changing.”

  “For ill?”

  “For acutely ill.”

  Sheremy looked around. “I don’t like the situation I find myself in,” he said. “London writhing beneath a hirsute plague, the police out of control, people trapped in their houses. Soon they’ll run out of food and water, and then there will be horror in this city.”

  “Then it is up to us to aid the Institute in their work.”

  “Indeed… I’m not a member of the Suicide Club for nothing.”

  Valantina looked him up and down, then tapped him on the shoulder with the tip of her swordington. “You do not allow women to join your club, do you?”

  “Er, no. The constitution forbids it.”

  Valantina shot him a mocking glance. “What a shame. Half the population of London ignored.” She shook her head. “For shame, for shame, not least for the house of Moondusst.”

  Extraordinary… quite extraordinary. He agreed with her! She had planned and undertaken an operation just like a man. Damn it though, she was pretty, with the sun on her glossy hair and her chest heaving from the exertion.

  “D’you know, Valantina,” he said, “I don’t care about those stupid rules any more. It is ludicrous. You’ve proved that by rescuing me.”

  She smiled. “There is hope for you, perhaps.”

  He glanced up and down the street, but saw nobody. “Where to next? I am effectively an outlaw now, though I use the term outlaw relatively.”

  “We must leave Cornhill and hide up somewhere. I have a place by Fishmonger’s Hall, just along from London Bridge.”

  “A safehouse?”

  “My own house. But, yes, it is safe.”

  Sheremy did not like the idea of entering a lady’s residence without formal invitation, but circumstances were against him.
“Very well,” he said.

  She led the way down Gracechurch Street, Arthur Street, then into Swan Lane. Opposite Fishmonger’s Hall he saw a small three-up-three-down house adjoined to the local branch of the Belfast & Goonhilly Bank, which was covered in ginger hair; in the light of the rising sun it shone like red gold. Valantina unlocked the front door of this house and gestured him inside.

  The place was decorated in sophisticated style: couches from Parisi, a Quincerian doobrie, paintings by Schnauzer of Berlinzeug, and even a stuffed sprog from Varsaw. “I confess I’m surprised by this opulence,” he said. “You are… independently…?”

  She glaced at him, amusement on her face. “You surprise me, Sheremy, never having heard of the house of Moondusst.”

  “I believe I may have heard your name, but I can’t quite bring the instance to mind.”

  “We are a family of foreign nobles.”

  Ah! Foreigners. That explained the feisty attitude. He chuckled and said, “And you are from…?”

  “Why, the moon. Where else?”

  ~

  Velvene found himself on Dartmouth Park Hill, and it was exceptionally hairy; and this hair, to make matters worse, was curly, which meant every strand tried to wrap itself around his legs as he tried to force a path though.

  Even worse was the state of the trolley wheels, almost immobile because of hair wrapped around their axles. This hair he had to cut off with his penknife every ten minutes. It took him two hours to progress half a mile down the hill, by which time the sun was setting and he seethed with frustration. But not one person did he see outdoors. Plenty of people leaning out of open windows, one or two on their rooves, but none in the streets. Hairy London had shut down.

  He was a long way from Bedwards House, alone and fatigued. He did not know what to do. But then he saw a boy sitting on a wall up ahead where Brecknock Road began, and beyond the boy the red and white lamps of Tufnell Park Underground station.

  “Lad,” he called out. “Is the Underground running?”

  “Not this one sir,” the boy replied. “I heard Hampstead station is open.”

  “Well, that is too far away,” Velvene said. He looked at the boy. “What are you doing here?”

  “Ain’t got nowhere to go.”

  “Whatever do you mean? Go to your house, I expect your parents are worried about you.”

  The boy shrugged. “Ain’t got no parents.”

  “No parents? But how were you born?”

  The boy frowned. “I mean sir, they’re dead. I come from the charnel house.”

  “The what what?”

  “The johnny cab. The black fit-up on Pentonville Road.”

  Velvene still had no idea what the boy meant. “What is your name? Why are you so far away from Islington?”

  “Tyko Matchmaker, sir. I was running away. Then it went all hairy and I got stuck.”

  Velvene found himself more confused now than annoyed. “Where do you sleep and take your meals, Tyko?”

  “The johnny cab. But I don’t want to go back. They beat me.”

  “Beat you? At games and the like, eh?”

  “With sticks. If I don’t work hard enough.”

  “You mean,” Velvene said, “they strike you?”

  “Yes, sir. It hurts. I thought Mr Gladstone was going to help us kids?”

  Despite himself, Velvene smiled. He knew nothing about children, but he did know that this one grasped enough about the world to bring Gladstone into the conversation. “I suspect he was too busy dealing with the Irish,” he replied. “Well, Tyko, there is nothing I can do for you, but I am heading south so I will protect you as far as I can along the way.”

  “But I don’t want to go back, sir. There’s five hundred boys in my dorm, and we all hate the masters, every one of us.”

  “Five hundred? How is that possible in one house?”

  “They work us day and night. It’s the law.” Tyko shrugged. “They say it’s worse in Indoo. I heard they made a tiny room in Calcutty and stuffed–”

  “Yes, that is quite enough talk of Indoo,” Velvene said. “I am afraid Tyko that I find your story impossible to believe, and so I am going to accompany you to this…”

  “Johnny cab.”

  “… of yours and take a look. And if conditions are half as bad as you claim I shall take action. Stiff action. Do we have a deal?”

  “S’pose so,” Tyko muttered. “Got any food, sir? I ain’t eaten for two days.”

  “Two…?”

  “They feed us every other evening. What’s that statue you got, sir?”

  Velvene glanced back at the clay figure. “Well, I don’t really…” He paused. Now that he looked again he noticed that the figure had changed, its legs less lumpy, its arms more slender, and longer. He took a step back and squinted, but the light was too poor to be certain.

  They began forging a path down Brecknock Road. Tyko said, “Why don’t you sell it sir, then we could buy us some grub.”

  “Grub?”

  “Nosh.”

  “Nosh?”

  “You’re not from ’round here, are you sir?”

  Velvene replied, “No, I live in Belgravia.”

  “Is that on the Continent?”

  Velvene sighed. He could hardly believe that children were quite so inquisitive, quite so forward, and quite so hungry. But though he disbelieved Tyko about the conditions of his house, there was something in the boy’s direct honesty that tugged at the back of his mind. Belgravia, it had to be said, was a district of distinction, and it could be argued that none of the Orchardtides had experienced all the regions of London. And one did hear stories of deprivation on occasion, when they were reported in the back pages of the Times…

  “Tyko, do you read at all?”

  “Yes sir, I steal as many newspapers as I can. The Filth Gazette mostly. If I lived abroad like you, I’d steal the Times.”

  “I do not live abroad,” Velvene said, with no little exasperation. “But you believe in God, eh?”

  “No sir. Only fools believe in God.”

  Appalled, Velvene stopped, grabbed the boy by the ear and said, “What did you say?”

  Tyko seemed unaffected by the rough treatment. “Only fools, sir. I’m an agnostician. I don’t think you can prove anything beyond doubt.”

  “You are parroting!” Velvene cried. “You heard somebody say that, and you are repeating it to me!”

  “That’s right, sir. But I understand what it means.”

  Velvene flung Tyko to the ground. But then he looked at the lad and found himself shocked at the violent treatment he had meted out, which must be no better than that of the masters who beat boys with sticks. He took a step back. He shook his head. He did not know what was happening to him.

  “Tyko,” he muttered, “I must apologise. I am truly sorry. You rather caught me off guard, eh? Stand up lad, and we shall walk on to Islington. At the very least I shall get you to safety tonight.”

  “It’s safer on the streets than in the johnny cab, sir.”

  Velvene found himself silenced. There was no arguing with the boy. His honesty was like a shield against which blandishments had no effect. “Follow me anyway,” he said, “and we shall see what we shall see.”

  “Are you sure you haven’t got any food? I feel sick now.”

  An unfamiliar sensation settled upon Velvene. It was, he realised, guilt.

  A few hundred yards down the road Velvene saw a Chips & Fishes bar, but it was shut because of the hairy situation. With the holster of his knife he rapped on the door, until a window opened above the bar and a man leaned out.

  “What yer want? Can’t yer see we’s closed?”

  “My good man,” Velvene replied, “I will give you six silver spongs for two portions of your finest.”

  “Be right dahn, sir.”

  Ten minutes later they were eating out of yesterday’s newspapers. Tyko said, “Do we have to go to the johnny cab? Why don’t you believe me?”

&nb
sp; “Your story sounds too incredible to be true,” Velvene replied. “I have never been to this district of London before, let alone to Islington, so this is something of a new experience for me. I am hoping you were lying.”

  Tyko shrugged. “It’s all true,” he said. “Wish it weren’t.”

  They carried on through light blonde hair down York Way, arriving half way through the night at Pentonville Road. Exhausted, they found a doorway choked with soft brown hair, in which they slept, like dormice in a nest.

  Dawn. Velvene woke up, alerted by a noise. A small hand rummaged inside his rucksack. He reached out and grabbed it. “You do not want to be a thief,” he said. “Believe me, it causes problems.”

  “Sorry, sir. I wasn’t going to mick anything.”

  “Is that so, eh?”

  Tyko shrugged. “I’m going to lick the fish grease off my fingers for breakfast,” he said.

  Velvene stood up, then pulled Tyko to his feet. “Come along. This morning we shall see what this house of yours is really like.”

  They made their way as best they could along Pentonville Road, until Tyko stopped by a postbox and with a trembling arm pointed. “There it is sir. Please don’t let’s get any nearer.”

  “I cannot see it well enough from here.”

  Velvene walked on. The building was tall and black, with high walls in which small windows twinkled. Rotting brown doors pierced the lower sections, and by one a sallow faced, burly man stood. He wore the dirtiest clothes Velvene had ever seen.

  “Good morning to you,” Velvene said. The man stared at him, silent, brooding. “Is the name Tyko Matchmaker known to you?”

  At once the man stood alert. “Yes it bleedin’ is. Where is the runt?”

  “Well–”

  The man grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall. Taken by surprise, Velvene felt the breath expelled from his chest.

  “Where is ’e?” the man demanded.

  Velvene glanced back at the postbox, hardly able to breathe. The man dropped him and charged through street hair to the postbox, grabbing Tyko from his hiding place. Tyko shouted and struggled, but he was caught.

  Velvene, still shocked, found himself frozen, unable to act. This was all too strange, too alien. He felt lost. But when the man closed he stepped in front of him and said, “Is there really any need to be quite so harsh–”