Hairy London

by Stephen Palmer

  At length the nurses managed to calm Kornukope. Mizanthrop administered a shot of valium and his victim was sedated.

  Gandy called for his guards. “Take these two into the resting chambers,” he said. “Feed them good food – tanduri roti, pulao, bhindi, matar and panir. Give them flasks of pure water, then khubani, nariyal and aru for dessert. I want them to be in the peak of condition when we head for Whitehall.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On the Underground station platform Sheremy and Valantina saw hundreds of people camped out, with all manner of tents and improvised structures surrounding them. Braziers sent out wisps of smoke, brats rolled in the dust and screamed, pale faced men and women looked mournfully at one another. Dogs barked and cats slunk about, thin, starving.

  With his boot Sheremy moved aside a number of barking dogs as he led Valantina up the platform slope. Between the mewling mass of humanity they walked, Sheremy wondering how to escape the press, uncertain of how to proceed. But then a blue-uniformed official raised a hand. “Halt, sir.”

  Sheremy breathed a sigh of relief. “Dear fellow,” he said, “we’ve walked along the tunnel yonder, hoping to find succor.” He passed over the chit. “Alas I have no way of paying it.”

  The official nodded. “You’re obviously a man of the refined classes.” He handed back the chit, adding, “I’ve no doubt you’ll return to pay what you owe.”

  Surprised, Sheremy nodded. “Of course. On my honour.”

  “Where now though, sir? This place is full of refugees from the hairy plague. Will you go outside?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Valantina stepped forward and said, “Tell me, is this Vauxhall Underground station?”

  “That it is, madam.”

  “Have any of you here heard tell of the Trichologist?”

  The expression on the face of the official darkened. “Has his abode in Tricholopolis, he does, or so they say. Great palace of shinin’ gold. Up Heffalump and Castle way. You don’t want to be goin’ there madam, not if you value your life.”

  “Why do you say that?” Sheremy asked.

  “Well… rumour says it’s a dangerous place, of spectral magic and vile doin’s. I’d steer well clear, sir. Where you from, anyhoo?”

  “Gough Square.”

  “Chancery Underground station’s the one for you. I could direct you there, along the tunnels, like.”

  Sheremy shook his head. “We’ve got to find the Trichologist because we’re working for the Royal Institute.”

  “Crikey, special missions, is it? Tell you what sir, I’ll direct you nor’east to the Heffalump and Castle Underground station. If you emerge there you might see the palace. Course, I can’t be certain.”

  “Directions would be most welcome advice,” said Sheremy.

  “But you should rest for a while I think,” the official concluded, “’cos it’s very late, like. We’ll breakfast you in a few hours, eh?”

  “Again, most welcome.”

  And so next morning Sheremy and Valantina, dressed in salvaged clothes like two street urchins from the East End, found themselves carrying methane lanterns and a map as they walked along the damp tunnels of the Underground, passing occasionally a ruined steam subterraneomotive with feather barkhouse covered in cobwebs and jardiniere nothing more than dry soil. They passed many rat-chewed bodies along the way, mostly cats and dogs, but also a few people, their mangled corpses dressed in the remains of their clothes. It was a depressing journey.

  After some hours they saw the platform of the Heffalump and Castle Underground station, filled with human detritus all sobbing and wailing. An official validated their chits, doffed his cap, then directed them up steps to the exit.

  Sheremy approached the glass turnstile with caution; already he could smell shampoo. Outside the station exit a vast thoroughfare of strawberry blonde hair ran, filling all of London Road from end to end, but when he looked north towards St George’s Circus he saw something extraordinary.

  “There!” he said, grasping Valantina’s hand and squeezing it. “Tricholopolis!”

  It was a great coiffured palace constructed entirely from blonde plaits, a hundred feet high or more, with seagulls and ravens flapping around its tiara-set summit. It shone like a pillar of gold in the morning sun, and the blue sky behind it was like pale lapis lazuli on a Phabergé original.

  “Remarkable,” Sheremy said.

  “Dangerous,” Valantina countered. “Supposedly.”

  “Alas that we’ve lost the selenograph. But maybe there’ll be other ways to communicate with Thitherto. Archimedean floating systems, for instance.”

  Valantina pointed into the sun. “I see some floating nearby. This district is occupied by many different types of people, it seems. Perhaps the Trichologist is not a man of evil.”

  Sheremy studied London Road, noticing that further north the hair had been pushed aside and retained with slides, so that a walkway existed leading up to Tricholopolis. He led the way, wishing he had his gear with him, and a weapon; but perhaps here they would have to survive on wits alone.

  As they approached Tricholopolis three guards dressed in fright wigs jumped out from behind a fancy hair clip. “Who goes there?”

  “I am Sheremy Pantomile of Gough Square, and this is my lady, Valantina Moondusst of the house of Moondusst. We seek the Trichologist.”

  “On what business?”

  “That is between us and the Trichologist.”

  The guards seemed bemused. After talking amongst themselves in low voices one said, “I’ll take you there. Hand over your weapons.”

  “We carry none.”

  “What about your fists?”

  “Give me soft gloves and you’ll be safe.”

  Gloved, the pair followed the guard towards Tricholopolis. Valantina gestured again at the Archimedean floating systems and asked the guard, “What manner of people fly them?”

  “All sorts, ma’am.”

  Valantina indicated to Sheremy one in particular, shaped like a Tudor building, which flashed light as if from a heliograph. “That one is heading towards us,” she said.

  Sheremy nodded. To the guard he said, “It seems the Trichologist is a tolerant man, happy to entertain the presence of various peoples in his vicinity. Would you say that was an accurate assessment?”

  “He’s different things to different men.”

  With that, they entered the palace. It was a most complex construction of intertwined, self-supporting plaits, blonde from top to bottom – including the roots. As they ascended a stairway created from tight curls, the light of the sun reflected like liquid gold from the walls and floors. Six flights up they were taken to an ante-chamber, where they were told to recline on cushions made of bunched hair nets. They waited. Sheremy, nervous, tapped the fingers of one hand upon his knee.

  A man entered the room. He was short, slim, dressed in a vertical tabard and tight toolings. For boots he wore a pair of fur nufflers. Sheremy estimated him to be middle aged, but his hair, short and dark, seemed to have been dyed, and his skin had the too-tight complexion of a vain marionette.

  “Do I have the honour of speaking with the Trichologist?” he said.

  “Indeed you do, Mr Pantomile.”

  “You know my name?”

  “My guards recognised you from the social announcements in the Times. As for you, madam, a scion of the house of Moondusst is always welcome.”

  Sheremy relaxed. The Trichologist seemed almost human. He said, “We’ve been sent here by the Royal Institute on an urgent mission. They hope to find the cause of the hairy plague, and then return London to its former state. Can you help?”

  “You accuse me of being the cause?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Your name would indicate so, but I make no assumptions.”

  The Trichologist clasped his hands behind his back and walked to the nearest open window, where he peered out into the gull-infested heavens. “I am not the cause of the excess hair, Mr Pantomile. Nor d
o I know the cure. I live here, an ordinary man – formerly the Heffalump and Castle’s most popular hairdresser, admittedly – trying to make sense of the emergency.”

  “Those are distressing tidings,” Valantina said. “What then is your best guess as to the cause of hairy London?”

  “There is a man…” the Trichologist replied. He paused, as if thinking, then continued, “There is a man who some say could be the cause. He has no name. Some say he is aristocratic. He is wealthy, certainly. But one thing I do know. This man is at war. I do not know if he is at war with the government, with the country, with the army. Maybe he is at war with himself, and all this hair is a result of his mind’s inner workings.” He laughed, then added, “No doubt the estimable Zigizmund Freud would have something to say on the matter, but whether he remains in London or flew out to Vienna on an austriahung, I do not know.”

  “Your news fills me with dread,” said Sheremy. “I had hoped–”

  There came shouts from the corridor outside, and then the soft thunking of the door being opened. Sheremy turned around and gasped. The police!

  “Nobody move! I am Murchison Volume of the Yard. Nobody move, I said. So, Mr Pantomile…”

  Sheremy found himself trembling with rage. “You clodhopper!” he shouted. “How dare you obstruct the work of the Royal Institute?”

  “The Institute?” Murchison replied. “My, I hadn’t realised you worked for so august a body. The Institute! Oh, pardon me for intruding, I mean, I’m only legally entitled to stop criminals from performing their crimes, that’s so unimportant compared to the work of the Institute.”

  “Compared with,” Sheremy replied.

  Murchison’s face turned red with fury. “As for you, Moondusst,” he said, “your offence of springing an offender from jail carries the stiffest of sentences.”

  “You do not frighten me,” Valantina replied.

  “Oh, don’t I? Don’t I? We’ll see about that.”

  “Officer,” the Trichologist said, “this is private property and you–”

  “Be quiet,” Murchison yelled, “or you will be arrested for something too!”

  The Trichologist withdrew. Valantina moved to the window and peered out. “Sir,” she said, gesturing at the view of London below her, “we are trying to find the cause of the plague that soon, as food and water supplies run out, may destroy London and all we love. Is it wise for the police to obstruct such work?”

  “London?” Murchison replied. “London? You don’t even come from London. You’re a bloody foreigner from the bloody moon. How dare you lecture me about London?”

  And then, before Sheremy could move a muscle, he jumped forward and pushed Valantina out of the open window. She fell with a scream.

  Then a distant thud.

  Sheremy shrieked and ran to the door, but Murchison, despite his girth, was nimble on his feet, and with a leap caught Sheremy’s ankles and brought him to the ground. Sheremy kicked out, released himself, jumped to his feet and began running down the staircase, with only the sound of that terrible scream in his mind. “Valantina!” he wailed as he ran out of the palace gates.

  There she was, motionless on the ground, her fall broken by a tress of hair. But surely she could not have survived such a fall? Then Murchison too sped out from the palace gates, and Sheremy ran on, until he was at her side, holding her in his arms, gasping, sobbing, calling her name. But she did not breathe. Her neck was broken. She was dead.

  “Oh god,” Sheremy cried, “oh sweet Mandragora, she is gone! My love, my new love, dead!”

  Murchison strode up, grabbed his collar and lifted him up.

  “You make me sick,” he said, “weeping like… like a woman. You’re worthless, Pantomile! An effete milksop crumb-tyke with not a shred of bone in his back. Suicide Club? With idiots like you as members it should be the Assisted Suicide Club! You haven’t even got the courage to kill a fly, you pointless prank!”

  “Murch–”

  “Oh, gosh, yes, I’ve got a good one for you, Pantomile. You halfwit girlie. Yes, I’ve got a good one for you! Nobody escapes from Murchison Volume of the Yard. Nobody fools with good old Murchison. And do you know where I’m going to put you?”

  Sheremy, through his pain and snotty-nose weeping, said, “Where?”

  “Bedlam! That’s where you’re going, my son. And you know what? People like you never get out alive.”

  “No! Mercy, I beg! I’m too young–”

  But Sheremy’s pleading only sent Murchison into an apoplectic fit. Handcuffing Sheremy, he brought their faces so close the pair touched noses, then screamed, “Bedlam’s too bloody good for you! I should be taking you to hell!”

  And with that Sheremy was dragged to the Tudor Archimedean floating system, and taken away.

  ~

  Velvene stared in horror at the stampede of miniature animals pouring over the dais. Sylfia ran through the open exit: gone. Fred also stared at the horde. But Pertrand seemed to grasp that the end of the raid was nigh, and he jumped upon the nearest workstation, then hopped across the factory floor along the front line as though the machines were stepping stones in a lake, avoiding the sharp little teeth of the horde as, with windmilling arms, he shouted, “Retreat!”

  But it was too late for Fred. Drowning beneath the menagerie, the last Velvene saw of him was two hands reaching for the sky; then nothing, amidst a roiling ball of teeth and fur.

  Pertrand jumped to the floor beside him. “Run!” he yelled.

  The animal horde raced towards them, scattering darkie workers as they did, while the monkeys screeched and chittered, and jumped up and down on the workstations with their arms in the air. Velvene fired three shots at the menagerie, watching them halt like seawater against a harbour wall. Four bullets left. Time to run.

  Following Pertrand, he leaped up the stairs two at a time, but there were many floors remaining, the menagerie followed, and the effort made him short of breath. For a few seconds half way up he paused to recover.

  “No time for that!” Pertrand shouted, pointing down the stairwell. Velvene looked, to see miniature tigers with green, reflective eyes leading the pursuit, behind them lions, rhinos and gnu.

  By the time they reached the staircase to the roof they were both exhausted, but they ascended anyway, panting and hoarse. Then their three colleagues stood beside them on the roof. As the tigers charged for the open door Pertrand grabbed it and slammed it shut, but because they had forced it to get in, all he could do to make it secure was lean a pile of tiles against it.

  “Into the chameleonic Archimedean floating system,” he gasped.

  But Velvene had seen something approaching through the air. “What is it?” he asked.

  Pertrand peered through the moonlit gloom. “It’s a flying something or other,” he said. Pulling a handful of oddments from his pocket he took a monocular, extended it, then looked through, to say, “It’s a man on a flying fox, heading this way at top speed.”

  Velvene said, “Give me the monocular.” He looked through it, then said, “It is Lord Blackanore! He has been warned about the raid.”

  “We’ll soon see about that,” Pertrand snarled. “Shoot him.”

  “What?”

  “Shoot him! He’ll land on the roof, right here. He’s in range.”

  Velvene raised the revolver but found that he could not shoot, though Lord Blackanore was but a hundred yards away and the eyes of the flying fox were like great moonstones; an easy target.

  “Shoot!” Pertrand insisted.

  “I cannot.”

  Pertrand rounded on him. “Is it because he’s a lord? Is that it?”

  “No!” Velvene retorted. “Of course it is not. It is because I will not shoot a man down in cold blood.”

  Pertrand grabbed the revolver, turned, then fired. The flying fox stalled in the air and Lord Blackanore leaned to one side as if riding a horse. Then the flying fox dived, wheeled and turned again, but Pertrand shot two more times, whereupon it flew awa
y, heading north west.

  “We can follow him,” said Velvene.

  “Yes, you’re right,” Pertrand said. “Into the machinora. The camouflage abilities of the thing’ll conceal us even better than night.”

  But with five in the machinora their flight was sluggish. Velvene said, “Pertrand, you stay with me – the rest of you I am going to drop off atop the roof of Euston Station.”

  “Return to the flat,” Pertrand instructed them, “and write an account of our raid for the Marxist-Leninist Times. Make sure we succeed. Now scram!”

  With only two in the machinora their flight was easier, but still the flying fox outpaced them. By extrapolating Lord Blackanore’s flight path however, Pertrand ascertained that he was heading in a straight line for Regent’s Park.

  “London Zoo,” Velvene said.

  “You might be right. He’ll have some scheme there. We’ll track him.”

  Velvene agreed. Lord Blackanore landed his flying fox in the elephant enclosure, and, just a few minutes behind, Velvene followed suit. As they leaped out of the machinora it transformed itself to the colour of moonlit mud.

  Lord Blackanore was lost in the maze of zoo buildings however, so they had little choice but to walk at random and listen; but between the squawking of birds and the groaning of zebras they heard nothing, and after ten minutes thought they must have lost their quarry. Then Velvene heard something.

  “A voice,” he said.

  “Nah, voices,” Pertrand replied, “coming from the Japanese House.”

  They crept up to the long, low building and peered through a front window. Inside, Velvene saw something extraordinary. In the centre of a room stood a single bonsai tree on a great table, around which stood a number of miniature animals.

  “So that is how he makes them,” Velvene breathed. “It is a bonsaiulator.”

  Pertrand pointed to the far corner of the room. “Told you it was voices,” he whispered.

  Velvene saw a group of shivering darkies huddled together in a corner, all of them staring at Lord Blackanore, who was investigating the bonsai tree with a magnifying glass.