Hairy London

by Stephen Palmer

  Eastachia described her experiences in the glasshouse with Gandy and his cohorts, then said, “Mizanthrop is not to be trusted.”

  “I will protect you,” Vandana replied. “I am high in the temple.”

  Reassured by this, Eastachia relaxed. For a few days she did nothing other than eat, drink and sleep, and on occasion read from the Vedas. The pace of her life slowed. She wondered what Kornukope was doing, and often pondered his mental state, for she knew he would be worried about her. But the injustice of his attitude to her in the presence of Bane Flumerushett niggled, and she knew she required at the very least an apology.

  Once, she and Vandana discussed love.

  “Love,” Vandana opined, “is acquiring access to the flow of divine aether, which comes from Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Love has a divine source, which we mortals, constantly reincarnated, must aspire to.”

  Despite her sympathies for this point of view, Eastachia found herself dissatisfied with it. The matter of the wager now occupied her thoughts, and she began jotting down notes, beginning with the declaration made by Kornukope under the influence of the anglocide, then moving on to more philosophical matters.

  And then, disaster.

  It began with a simple call from the temple elders. Vandana left Eastachia in her rooms, locking the door as always she did. But then a rope ladder appeared outside the main window and a man sprang from it into the room.

  Eastachia gasped and leaped to her feet. “Who are you?”

  The man gestured with the stick of turmeric that he held. “Don’t make any sudden moves. This turmeric is primed and ready to go off.”

  “What d’you want? Vandana will–”

  “Quiet. Climb the rope ladder. I will follow you.”

  With no option, Eastachia did as she was told. The vertiginous ascent was only a few yards, Vandana’s rooms sited at the top of the temple. And she knew who would be there, waiting for her.

  “Welcome to the roof of the Trimurti Temple,” Mizanthrop said.

  He also held a loaded turmeric. Eastachia said, “I knew you’d be at the bottom of this kidnap. What d’you want with me?”

  “First, take off that headscarf.”

  He approached as she followed his instructions.

  “As I thought,” he murmured. “The sign of the mind of Lord Shiva. He has passed the essence of the Shiva Emitter to you.”

  Alerted to the true name of the device, Eastachia decided to fake innocence. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  “Come along, Mrs Wetherbee! You managed to enter the chamber in the glasshouse, else how could the Shiva Emitter have marked you?”

  “I just said a few phrases, they were all guesswork. I don’t know what the marks mean – and I can’t see them, as surely you know.”

  Mizanthrop nodded. “You cannot see them, but you do know they are present.”

  “I certainly don’t know what their significance is.”

  Mizanthrop chuckled. “Destruction, pure and simple.”

  “Then you still aspire to Home Rule?”

  “Home Rule? Perhaps… in due course. I work for Lord Gorge now.”

  Eastachia kept all emotion off her face, grasping now her importance to the schemes that revolved around the Shiva Emitter and the government. “You amaze me,” she said.

  He shrugged. “I am the leader now that Gandy is gone. All Lord Gorge and his cronies care about is halting the Cockneigh Uprising. I will assist him, but I will drive a hard bargain. Home Rule…”

  “And what are you going to do with me?”

  Mizanthrop gestured to a small statue of Ganesh placed at the edge of the roof. “We are going to Whitehall,” he said.

  “On Ganesh?”

  “He is the son of Shiva and Parvati, you could not wish for a better ride than with him.”

  “He’s also the patrol of learning,” said Eastachia.

  Mizanthrop ignored her, walking to the statue and patting Ganesh on his pot belly, whereupon his trunk, which Eastachia had thought made of stone, moved, blowing out a single bubble that caught the light of the sun and threw it back as ten thousand rainbows. The bubble landed on the roof beside Mizanthrop, and Eastachia saw that inside it lay a couch and a control panel mounted on a bronze mouse; Ganesh’s vahana, or vehicle. Mizanthrop attached a second and a third bubble to the first, then broke the surface tension of one and through it entered the vehicle, indicating that Eastachia should do the same. Behind her, the remains of the auxiliary bubble merged with the main bubble as she sat beside Mizanthrop on the couch.

  “You travel in style,” she said, noting the brown velvet covering of the couch, the silk cushions, and the intricate decorations on the bronze mouse.

  Mizanthrop grinned at her, then moved levers on the control panel and pressed buttons. The bubble rose, steered by Mizanthrop using a joystick. “Of course,” he said. “I am a brahmin, used to style.”

  “You intend bargaining with Lord Gorge for Home Rule,” she said, “but you can’t force me to speak the command words of the Shiva Emitter.”

  “Oh, I can,” he replied. “There are ways and means. Many of them I learned from Gandy. You see, Kornukope decided to throw his hat in with the government. Presently he is with a Foreign Office team in Whitehall. I do not think you will put up much resistance, Mrs Wetherbee.”

  Eastachia shuddered. She knew to what he referred. But for a short while she had the upper hand, though she did not know how to use her knowledge. She sat back and enjoyed the ride as best she could.

  They landed on the roof of the Foreign Office. From the mouth of the bronze mouse Mizanthrop, muttering to himself, blew an auxiliary bubble, which he affixed to the side of the main bubble. “You cannot blow such a bubble,” he explained, “since this vehicle responds only to me. From the outside, you and everything inside are secure. But anyway, nobody will know you are here. I am now going to bargain with Lord Gorge. Soon, he will have the means to blow the Cockneighs to smithereens and Indoo will have the guarantee of Home Rule.”

  “How can you get back inside this bubble to force me to speak?” Eastachia asked at once. “Ganesh is in Southall.”

  “I do not need to. You will come out when I command the mouse to blow a bubble.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I shall blow the bubble to pieces with a bazookette, and you with it. It is not indestructible, Mrs Wetherbee.”

  Eastachia said nothing more; did not move. Mizanthrop had given her an escape clue. She put on a face of displeasure for his benefit, glowering at him.

  He departed, descending via an access stair, and at once she began testing possibilities. Surely there was a way out… not through the main bubble, it seemed made of rubber, bending beneath the pressure of her hands. Nor did a sharp hair-pin burst it, and neither did words sacred to Ganesh. She sat on the couch, and pondered.

  The key was the bronze mouse that supported the control panel. Mizanthrop had used the word command, which implied, since he could not re-enter the vehicle, that he would speak to create an auxiliary bubble. The mouse-mount was Ganesh’s vahana; most likely it would activate with a word related to it. She considered a few such words in the silence of her mind, then cleared her throat and spoke.

  “Musakavahana.”

  The mouse blew a bubble. She took it to the main bubble wall and passed through.

  “Mizanthrop Mahavishnu,” she muttered, as righteous anger roiled in her heart, “you underestimate women just as Gandy did – and that you do at your peril.”

  The access stair was a spiral of wrought iron leading to the upper level of the Foreign Office, and already she could hear voices, the noise of typewriters, and she could smell cigaresque smoke. She paused, wondering what to do. Capture by anybody in this building, Britisher or Indoo, could be fatal; and she had Kornukope to locate.

  She crept along corridors, listening, nervous. An exit, then…

  “Excuse me, who are you?”

  She span around. A
burly gentleman in a pinstripe suit stood staring at her. “I’m…”

  He frowned. “You’re somebody who shouldn’t be here.”

  She could think only of one reply that might reassure the man. “Oh, I’m the wife of Kornukope Wetherbee,” she said. “He’s in this building. I got bored, and he’s speaking with Lord Blandhubble you know.”

  The man folded his arms. “You mean, the Kornukope Wetherbee who’s currently being questioned in this building?”

  Eastachia pursed her lips, then said, “Ah.”

  “I think you should follow me. Please don’t resist.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The last thing the Pearly King had said to Sheremy was, “We gonna push on, capture Whitehall. Dem ministers are idiots. I want you on my side, help me, like… I trust you. But if you betray me, I hang you.”

  Sheremy pondered his situation for some time before deciding he had to return to the Pearlies. It was a risk, but he needed to convince them that his account of the soldier numbers was correct, so that the Pearlies would not attack Whitehall. He wanted the stalemate to continue, to give him and Juinefere more time. But he felt low. He knew his chances of success were slipping away.

  So he walked to the front line in the Strand. And then, in the crowd by the Pearly marquee, he saw Velvene Orchardtide.

  He stared at the man. Velvene’s clothes were torn and filthy, worn like old sacks, with no style. His hair was spiky with grime, his skin grubby. But most extraordinary of all, he was unshaven. Velvene was a stickler for shaving, never missing his morning appointment with the razor.

  “Velvene!” he cried out, running up to the man. “Velvene dear fellow, what in the name of all the Cashmiri shrines are you doing here?”

  Velvene’s mouth opened; did not shut. He stared, then said, “Pantomile? What in the name of Grandma’s Zoo are you doing here, eh?”

  Sheremy took Velvene by the arm and guided him to a quiet alley free of Cockneighs. He said, “I can’t believe it. You, dear fellow, after all this time… and here of all places. Are you hale?”

  “Well, I am surviving, surviving… and you?”

  “Managing.”

  They looked at one another, then grinned and hugged. Velvene said, “Surely you do not have connections with the uprising, Sheremy?”

  Sheremy hesitated before answering. “I’m in touch with the government, trying to stop the army and the uprising fighting it out down Charing Cross Road. There’ll be hell and slaughter, and London will be ruined.”

  “The government is run by idiots,” Velvene said, with a vehemence that surprised Sheremy.

  Pondering what Velvene might have been up to in recent months, he said, “You sound like you’ve been through the wars, Velvene dear fellow.”

  “Well, I have, down Feltham way. Terrible, terrible.”

  “Tell me all about it.”

  Velvene did so, relating a story almost too incredible to be true, and concluding with the tale of Orchardtide Manor. Sheremy listened to him with full attention, his mind whirling as he put together the hints and clues dropped – it seemed without guile – by Velvene; and as the story concluded he realised that Velvene Orchardtide, formerly a scion of one of the richest families in England, had gone through a transformation much like his own, except Velvene’s was more radical and more dangerous. The word Marxist had not yet been used, but Sheremy could feel which way the wind was blowing.

  And then, as Velvene related the tale of the dragonslaying, something clicked in Sheremy’s mind. “The hair inside the house fell out, you say?”

  Velvene nodded. “Yes, it did – and then I was away, Lily-Bette vanished, and I took the chocolate express to London.”

  Sheremy put his arm around Velvene’s shoulder and walked him into still quieter passages. He said, “Who is this Lily-Bette?”

  “Well, she was a lady… a lady fr… a…”

  “Spit it out, old chap!”

  Velvene shuddered, as if enduring some private mental torment. At last he said, “She was a friend of mine, of the lady type. Many, many years ago. Why she was at Orchardtide Manor, I do not know. Well, I never asked her.”

  “And dear fellow, in these earlier times, did Lily-Bette respond to your declarations of friendship?”

  Again he screwed up his face. “I cannot remember… I cannot remember. What is wrong with my memory, Sheremy, eh? Have I become so different a man?”

  “Steady on, you’re with a friend now,” Sheremy said.

  “Yes, I am. A good friend. Indeed, a good colleague also.”

  To give himself time to think, Sheremy took the packet of cucumber sandwiches that he was planning to have for lunch and handed them over, along with a silver bottle of gin. Velvene ate like a famished man.

  And Sheremy thought. The Orchardtides were a family of eccentricity, of bizarre behaviour, of occasional madness. Velvene’s mother was a notorious religious zealot, his father was as mild as a spring breeze, while his two brothers were remote, cold and unhelpful clergymen. Velvene, everybody at the Suicide Club said, had rather got the bitter end of the sweet-stick in that family: a loner, a man of intellect but a man of emptiness. Courageous, yes, but somehow lost in the world, like a child.

  Was it possible that Velvene himself had created hairy London? The evidence of Orchardtide Manor suggested so, as did the tales of Freud, Jung and all the rest. Sheremy found himself considering the possibility that he had discovered the bargaining chip he required. Of utmost importance therefore was Velvene’s safety and wellbeing.

  “My dear fellow,” he said, “I feel for you most strongly. Listen, I’ve got a suggestion to make. I don’t want the government to win this war, but neither do I want the Cockneighs to slay thousands of Britishers in civil strife.”

  “Well, nor do I.”

  “Why not stay awhile at my house in Gough Square? There you can rest and consider all you’ve been through. Sounds good, don’t you think?”

  “It sounds very good, eh?”

  Sheremy’s heart leaped. Damn, that was the correct answer! “Then allow me to help you there at once. Come along.”

  Hurrying east as fast as he could, Sheremy helped Velvene through the press of war, the hair, the debris and detritus, until he stood in a thicket of brown hair at the east end of Fleet Street. Not wanting Velvene to walk up Chancery Lane – too much risk of him thinking about the Suicide Club – he led the way into Shoe Lane, then through passages into Gough Square.

  His house was cold, dark and damp, but after half an hour he had a blaze going in the front room fireplace, had closed curtains and lit candles, had put the latest Cauliflower Johnson 78 record on the monogram and served Velvene whisky and soda.

  “It’s scotch,” he said. “My valet, now deceased alas, was from Glasgow.”

  Velvene nodded. “Decent of you to put me up here.”

  “What are friends for, dear fellow? Now, drop your feet right onto this stool and sit back while I rustle up some food.”

  Sheremy hurried into the kitchen. It was devoid of food. Desperate, he slipped out of the back door and clambered over fences until he stood in the rear garden of Benry Hallowee-Tong. Tapping on a window, he managed to attract the attention of Benry’s wife.

  “Semiotica dear lady,” he said, “I simply must ask you to help me. D’you have any small bits of food I could borrow? I’ve got a most important guest at my house, and he must be fed.”

  “We have little enough ourselves,” she replied.

  “But it’s crucial!” Sheremy insisted, allowing his anxiety to show through. “Semiotica, I swear I’ll go out scavenging for you and dear Benry as soon as possible, to replace every morsel you can spare. You must assist me.”

  “Oh, very well.”

  Semiotica disappeared into her kitchen, returning with potatoes, carrots and a turnip, which she placed into a bag. Sheremy said, “You have no meat?”

  “Meat?” she chuckled. “Meat, Sheremy, in hairy London? Where have you been these last
months?”

  Sheremy nodded. “You are correct, as ever dear lady. Thank you for this.”

  Back in his kitchen he prepared the vegetables as best he could (guessing for the most part what ought to be done) then dropped them into a pot of boiling water. All he could think of was to make a vegetable stew. From his own garden he took a lone onion, a leek and a handful of what he thought might be runner beans, which he also dropped into the pot.

  “Soon have some vegetable broth ready,” he told a half asleep Velvene.

  Velvene snorked and muttered, “Eh, what? Supper is it, eh?”

  The stew turned out well, though it was rather thin. But it was hot and nutritious. Sheremy encouraged Velvene to sip whisky, until the man, his stomach full of food and alcohol, and his mind soothed by Sheremy’s collection of danceband 78s, was on the verge of sleep. Then Sheremy took a blanket, constructed a makeshift bed from Velvene’s chair and three stools, and let him drift off into slumber.

  He ran as fast as he could through the hair of Chancery Lane to Bedwards House, where Gentleman Smyth stood atop the steps.

  “Sir,” Gentleman said, “the Lady Bedwards–”

  “I know, I know,” Sheremy panted. “I’m going to see her now.”

  Gasping for breath he ascended the stairs to the upper floors, where he found Juinefere attending to her own supper – bruised jellyfish on a bed of peanut rookery.

  “Juinefere!” he cried, as he panted for breath. “I have extraordinary news!”

  Shocked by his sudden appearance she stood up and hurried across the room, grasping him by the arm and guiding him to a chair. “What is it, Sheremy dear?” she asked.

  “Velvene Orchardtide. I think he made hairy London! And I have him asleep in my place down at Gough Square.”

  “Orchardtide? But how? And why?”

  Sheremy shook his head. “I don’t know exactly. But the man created a hairy version of his own mansion up at Tring, then unmade it when he killed the dragon.”

  “The dragon?”

  “His mother! You remember, that madwoman who thinks she’s the head of the Church.”