Hairy London

by Stephen Palmer

  The lad caught it and smiled. “It was no trouble, sir.”

  “Then put it in the charity box at once,” Velvene said as he turned to leave.

  After a short flight to Mayfair, Velvene secured his machinora upon the roof of the Embassy of Silverina, whereupon it changed to appear as a gaucho wielding a bolas. Satisfied, he clambered down the bearded walls of the building, then forged a path through street hair to Brook’s Mews, where he knocked on Jung’s front door.

  The man himself opened it. “Good morning,” he said.

  “I am Velvene Orchardtide of the house of Orchardtide,” said Velvene, bowing. “I wonder if I might trouble you on a matter of some importance?”

  Jung replied, “Of course,” and led him indoors. The house was clean, spacious and tidy, with a study at the back overlooking a camomile lawn.

  A maidservant brought tea and cake, whereupon Velvene described the wager and his journey so far. To conclude he said, “Mr Freud was less than useful in his analysis, so I decided to come to you.”

  “A wise decision,” Jung said.

  Velvene lay back on Jung’s couch and continued, “Marx hinted that I had to understand the true nature of man before becoming authentic myself, while Freud said I abhorred myself.”

  “I shall look at this case from the perspective of human archetypes,” Jung replied. “Tell me about your family.”

  Aware of what he had done wrong with Freud, Velvene presented an amended description of Orchardtide family life, concluding with his banishment. Then he said, “Surely love is a universal sensation, eh? I have spoken with the tribal elders of the Dogon Escarpoture, and they know of love. I have spoken with the fish-headed priests of Pacific Cookslandia, and they know of love. And I have spoken with the guardians of Vesta’s Lovely Ladies, and even they say that the ladies they protect know love.”

  “There are four universal archetypes,” Jung replied, closing the curtains so that the room became gloomy, “all of whom have some say in this question. Spirit, Trickster, Rebirth and Mother–”

  “I am the trickster,” Velvene said, “I am sure!”

  Jung turned off the candles, leaving only a Natrio-burner to provide illumination. “I shall be the judge of that,” he said. “These archetypes manifest a number of recurring images, which you see in your dreams. The shadow, the wise old man, the wise old woman, the maiden, the child, the mother. Are any of those familiar from your dreams?”

  At once Velvene remembered the terrible dreams he had on the night before his banishment. In a murmuring voice he said, “I am climbing up the steps of Orchardtide Manor, but my mother is not there, she has gone far, far away, and I will never know where she is… Now I am running terrified through valleys of fur, but I am lost, and I do not know where my bedroom is, my safe, cosy bedroom… Now I am playing shove-badminton with my mother in the pear garden, but she is hidden behind a dark, flapping sheet hanging from a washing line, and I cannot see through the gloom… And now I am shaving myself, shaving myself until my skin is as pink as a strawberry blancmange, if I do not shave myself I will become a terrible monster, out of control, a man who attacks women, and then I should have to go to jail… Now I am looping the loop in an implausibly avian Archimedean floating system… And now… ah! No, no, it is too shameful!”

  “Tell me what you see. Let the darkness of the room manifest your unconscious mind.”

  “Oh God, no! I am showing Lily-Bette Spoonworthy my chest hairs… I am unbuttoning my waistcoat, buttoning it again, unbuttoning, buttoning, unbutton, button, unbutton, Jesus there is blood on my fingers–”

  Velvene sprang up and let out a great scream that reverberated around the study. Then he collapsed back upon the couch, spent, as if the scream had taken away all his vital energies.

  Jung seemed unconcerned by the outburst. “I see various archetypes within you,” he said, “most strongly that of Rebirth. You are a changed man, I think. But there is something else, more important. In every woman there is an element of man, that I call the animus, while in every man there is an element of woman, the anima. You, Mr Orchardtide, have no anima.”

  “No anima? What is the meaning of this, eh?”

  “You manifest entirely animus. You see yourself as a male saviour, a man above the norm – yet a man with no mother, or, at least, with a mother hidden forever behind a shadow. Do you not see? To become a whole man you must integrate the opposing parts of yourself, but in you there are no opposing parts, save for conscious man who would be a hero, and unconscious boy who hates having to follow rules, but who does so for the sake of convenience. You betrayed yourself as you grew up, and all out of laziness.”

  “Is this all you have to tell me? What of love, eh?”

  “To know love you must at least acknowledge the anima within, but you cannot do even that, for there is none. You are a lost cause, and you will lose the wager. But it has been very interesting hearing you speak, so I make no charge for my time.”

  Velvene clamped down on his anger. Already he felt scornful of the Swiss charlatan. “Do you write books, eh?” he asked.

  “Why yes I do.”

  “I would burn them.”

  Jung stood up, took a card from his sideboard, scribbled a few words upon it, then handed it over. Velvene snatched it and stormed out of the house.

  For a while he was so furious all he could do was stamp on locks of hair and gnash his teeth, but after a while he calmed down and returned to the machinora. Then he read Jung’s note: Wilhelm Reich, 69 Duck Lane, Soho.

  “Very well,” he told himself, “I shall give these psychonaut chaps one last try, but if this Reich character fails me I shall go off and do some journeying of my own.”

  Thus comforted, he cast off and flew to Soho, where he landed in the garden of the House Of The Red Mill. The machinora camouflaged itself as an elephant.

  As Velvene forged a way up Duck Street a number of women wearing fur coats and fishnet stockings approached him, smiling and gesturing, but he ignored them. The street hair here was short and curly, difficult to walk through, but not impossible, and soon he stood before the door of number 69, where he knocked.

  “Fancy a good time?” a woman asked him.

  “No thank you, I cannot stand the stuff,” he replied.

  The door opened and Velvene saw a scruffy man with short dark hair and a half smoked cigarelle hanging from his mouth. “Ja?”

  The man’s Teutonic accent was strong. “Mr Reich?” Velvene said.

  “What d’you want?”

  “May I come in, sir? I wish to speak with you on various personal matters.”

  “Ach, come in then.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Reich’s house was the opposite of Jung’s: untidy, dusty, damp; a maze of small rooms linked by crooked corridors. He appeared to live alone. Settling at the kitchen table, Reich scratched his chin and said, “Well, what d’you want?”

  “I am Velvene Orchardtide of… well, it does not matter. I am an explorer of the human mind, and I was sent here by Carl Jung.”

  “Ach, what? That Zurich-tramping, stuck-up dummkopf?”

  “Yes, him. And I share your opinion of him.”

  “I will burn every one of his idiotic books!”

  Velvene nodded. “Now Mr Reich, I seek the true nature of love, and so if there is anything you could say to assist me, perhaps to direct me–”

  “You’ve seen Freud?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dummkopf also. You have come to the right man here though.”

  Velvene said, “You worked with Freud?”

  “For a while. The man is mad. He loves his mother, you know?”

  Velvene, disgusted, said nothing.

  Reich continued, “I will sort you out, ach, love you say? But is this the Marxist love?”

  “Marxist?” Velvene said, perplexed.

  “Ja, Karl Marx, you must’ve heard of him. Wrote Communist Manifesto. I’m a Communist, are you?”

  �
�I… am interested in Marxism-Leninism–”

  “Really? We will get on like a pair of socks!” Reich took two glass tumblers from a shelf behind him, then a glass bottle, and smacked them onto the kitchen table. “Schnapps,” he said. “Two fingers or three?”

  “Just the one for me,” Velvene replied.

  “Ach, ja! This could be a long night. Best to pace ourselves. Love, you say? Ha ha ha! I know all about grosse liebe…”

  “Do you?”

  “Sturm und drang. It’s all about the emotional tension inside, that has to be got out. Out, ja, out and expressed!”

  Velvene sat back, concerned, as any Britisher would be, by Reich’s flamboyant manner. In a cold voice he said, “The Kaiser must hate you.”

  “And I hate him. But Communism will cover the whole Teutonic world, just you wait and see. But love. We were talking about love.”

  Velvene nodded.

  “Ach, tell me. How many women have you had?”

  “Had?”

  “Ja, had. How many?”

  “I do not understand what you mean.”

  “Women, Orchardthing! How many have you growled?”

  “Growled?”

  Reich struck the table with his fist. “Have slept with!”

  Realisation dawned on Velvene; he had heard this term before, when he was at school. “Well, that is a very personal question, perhaps, as it were – and it really is of no interest to me – best not answered–”

  “Ach, okay, so it is many. Now, here is the key question. Do you like the colour blue?”

  “Yes, I do, it is my favourite colour.”

  Reich grinned. “I thought it would be. Listen, I can help you. Take your clothes off.”

  “What, sir?”

  “Take off your clothes. It’s how I work. Ja, it is essential.”

  “But–”

  “Take them off!”

  Frightened now, Velvene stood up and removed his jacket. “Will this do?” he enquired.

  “And the trousers. You may remain in your underwear, there’s no problem, ja?”

  Reluctantly, and as slowly as he dared, Velvene took off his shoes, then his trousers.

  “Leather underwear!” Reich gasped. “Mein Gott, but why am I surprised? You Britishers are the hypocrites of the world. Ach, leather…”

  With as much dignity as he could muster Velvene said, “I am a member of the Suicide Club and this is our standard undergarment.”

  Reich laughed. “Ach, I bet Freud had a field trip with you, ja?”

  Velvene scowled. “What now?”

  “Listen, mein freund,” Reich replied. “All across the world there’s an azure blue energy called hoarcone, the primordial cosmic energy. Hoarcone regulates the weather for instance, it busts the clouds, ja? But more important, inside you, inside everyone is a hoarconastic potency, which must be released when you’re with a woman.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Reich leaned over the table and struck him on the arm. “Feel how hard that is? It’s because you’re a Britisher with less emotions than a stone. Ach, it’s difficult to explain to you, you’re so armoured.”

  “Armoured?”

  “Ja! It’s the unreleased hoarcone energy that’s making an external armour, that in you Britishers is really really tough. And so no hoarcone energy is released through it, you see? And so you’re neurotic. You’re the most neurotic people in the whole world, why d’you think Freud, Jung, me and everyone else is here? We’re trying to comprehend this armour you plate yourselves with.”

  Velvene shook his head, entirely lost.

  “Ach, I will get you a woman and we’ll sort this out. For why d’you think I live in Soho? There’s lots of hoarcone in you, Orchardthing, but we’ll have it out. Then you’ll know what love is.”

  “A woman? Here?”

  “Ja! I know dozens. Some really good ones. I put myself in my experimental hoarcone box–”

  But Velvene had heard enough. He pulled on his trousers, laced up his shoes and flung on his jacket. “You are a Teutonic madman,” he declared. “There is nothing any woman could do for me to improve my lot. I should never have come here. Goodbye!”

  He ran to the front door, but Reich tried to stop him. “You don’t understand, it’s the huge amount of hoarcone energy compressed inside you. You’ll explode, Orchardthing. You’ll blow sky high.”

  “You are the neurotic,” Velvene returned, anger making him snarl. “You, sir, are the lunatic.” He opened the door and leaped onto the doorstep.

  “Ach, come back. We’ll have schnapps and chips fishes, ja? Stop being such a prig.”

  “Prig? Me?”

  Reich made a rude gesture with the fingers of one hand. “Ja, you, like all you dummkopf Britishers. Run away then, see if I care!”

  Velvene turned and fled. He had heard quite enough.

  ~

  “You, sir, are the mindometer?” Kornukope gasped.

  “We two together,” Yeggman replied. “Let’s walk into Egg&Ham, then up the hill to the chateau, and I’ll explain.” He beamed a bright smile to Eastachia, who, in embarrassed response, blushed and looked away.

  “Together is how we do the things, Yeggman and I,” Zarina added.

  At once Kornukope detected that she was a foreign lady, but he could not place her accent. “And you, ma’am, are from…?”

  “The easterly,” she replied, glancing away.

  Kornukope nodded. Zarina was sensitive about her upbringing no doubt, and that explained her embarrassment.

  Yeggman continued, “Mindometer is the description applied to those prepared to chart the uncharted depths of the human unconscious as a couple. You see, normally psychoanalysts are individual men. But there are other ways…”

  “Yes, yes,” Kornukope replied, pleased that his knowledge of philosophy could come into play. “And do you follow the Oedipal or the Homeric interpretation of dream states?”

  “Well, neither, exactly,” Yeggman replied, flashing Kornukope a glance. “We follow our own path.”

  Already they walked the road leading to Englefield Green Hill, and the talk turned to the weather, the locale, and to King Victorian, who as Yeggman pointed out lived just a few miles away in Windsor Castle.

  “He’s in residence right now, with Queen Alberta.”

  “Indeed,” Kornukope replied. “I met the King only a few months ago, at his Anti-Smoking Ball if I recall correctly, where we discussed the consistency of tar in the lungs. And you?”

  Yeggman seemed irritated. “I’ve never met the King… yet. But I hope to.”

  With that, the conversation died. They began climbing the hill leading to the chateau, whereupon Zarina walked beside Kornukope, allowing Yeggman and Eastachia to converse a few yards behind.

  “Do you know these area?” Zarina asked.

  He nodded. “I played gumball with Hoagy and Spiffer down the Ascot Way,” he replied. “We both rode, so Ascot was a must. Do you ride?”

  “Oh, yes, I am the riding of the horses. You are a man of mystery, however, you must tell me all of your life.”

  “There is little enough to tell,” Kornukope replied, disconcerted at her forward nature. “Went to school in Ascot, read Philosophy and Atheist Studies at FitzWilliam in Cambridge, then gallivanted off to Indoo. Then came back and joined the Suicide Club.”

  “The Suicide Club? Is it dangerous?”

  “Only if you succeed, ma’am.”

  Zarina tittered, a hand in front of her mouth. “But you are an atheist, you are saying? I also am an atheist. With me, it is the believing of the suffering that is the issue.”

  Kornukope nodded, and smiled. Despite her variable grasp of English she was a charming woman, with a dazzling smile. He said, “You have been to the chateau before?”

  “No. It is a place of unknown to me.”

  Ten minutes later they halted outside the imposing wrought iron gates of one of the most extraordinary buildings Kornukope had ever seen.
Made of orange and pink stone, with white and grey buttresses and fortifications, and a hundred diamond-pane sash windows, it was vast: a hundred yards wide, six storeys high, set in what were obviously extensive gardens.

  He read the brass plaque at the gates: Egg&Ham Mental Institute For The Dangerously Mental, No. 1. No admittance except with a note.

  From his secret dossier he took the note signed by Lord Blandhubble, showing it to Yeggman and Zarina with a smile. “Do not worry,” he explained, “everything has been arranged for us. Number two chateau is just down the road at Virginia Water.”

  “Excellency,” Zarina said.

  “Excellent,” Yeggman corrected.

  Beside the gate sat a tethered telegraphical Psittacidae, the tail feather of which (there was only one – it was in poor condition) Kornukope put in his ear. “Hello?” he said, speaking into the device.

  The chateau’s operator spoke. “Hello? Sir?”

  “Kornukope Wetherbee on government business,” he replied. “Be good enough to send a man out to let us in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Five minutes later an old man with a large black dog approached. “You Wetherbee?” he asked.

  “Mr Wetherbee to you,” Kornukope replied. “Here are our papers.”

  The old man coughed, put on a pair of spectacles, then read, mumbling the words as he did. “All right, all right,” he said. “S’pose you better come in.”

  He took a key and unlocked the gate, pulling them aside a yard.

  “Squeeze through,” he said. “’Urry up, I ain’t got all evening.”

  The old man directed them to a tunnel leading into the front quadrangle.

  “Viennese’ll see you in there,” he said. “G’night to you sirs, and to you, madamses.”

  Viennese Harmonia awaited them in the front quadrangle. He was a small, birdlike gentleman, with a shock of grey hair, bright blue eyes twinkling behind horn-rimmed spectacles, and a white coat. He laughed as they approached, and wrung his hands together.

  “At last! The mindometer. And the protection. Marvellous!”

  Kornukope made all the introductions then said, “Eastachia and I are to be present at all meetings between the mindometer and Hornelius Struckett. If Struckett does indeed know the source of the hairy plague, I must know as soon as possible.”