Hairy London

by Stephen Palmer

“Oh… her.”

  “Yes, her. But Juinefere, I think I’ve got the answer to our dilemma!”

  “The answer?”

  He stood up and clasped her shoulders, so that she peered up into his eyes. He said, “The key to all of this is Lily-Bette Spoonworthy. We’ve got to get Velvene and Lily-Bette together as soon as possible. All this hair is a response to Velvene’s mental stresses and strains – to his entire life. I’m sure he’s responsible.”

  “But what do we do?”

  “We find Lily-Bette and kidnap her, then take her to the Pearlies.”

  “And then?”

  Sheremy grinned. “Juinefere, right now what I need is your most striking diamond ring. I’m going to put it inside Velvene’s pocket.”

  ~

  Kornukope sat alongside Lord Gorge, Lord Blandhubble and the rest of the Cabinet in the Primrose Office, along with others of the Government, each of them seated at the long table that had for so many decades been at the heart of government discussion. But today, Kornukope knew, the discussion was of a most delicate nature, for also in the Primrose Office was Mizanthrop Mahavishnu, who had just arrived.

  Lord Gorge frowned at the Indoo doctor, clearly annoyed at his presence. “You say you have vital news, what?” he asked. “Is it so vital it disturbs our war cabinet? We do have an uprising–”

  “Prime Minister,” Mizanthrop interrupted, “I am working for you, and if I have vital news, then my news is vital.”

  “Tell us all, if you bally well must. Just hurry up and tell us, what?”

  Mizanthrop said nothing. He looked around for a chair, saw one, then carried it to the table, seating himself next to Kornukope.

  Kornukope grunted and moved his chair away a few inches.

  Mizanthrop smiled and said, “Lord Gorge, I have the Shiva Emitter in my power, including the carrier of the activation word that Lord Shiva himself has divulged. My news is of a bargain that you should make with me.”

  “A bargain? I’m Prime Minister of the whole damned country, you curry-coloured idiot!”

  Kornukope winced, but Mizanthrop was so confident he ignored this insult. He replied, “You will guarantee Home Rule in Indoo and I will hand over the activation word. With the Shiva Emitter you can destroy the Cockneigh Uprising in its entirety, saving your precious London Town, losing not one man of your marvellous red-coated Britisher Army, and, I have little doubt, guaranteeing your own re-election for years to come. Not to mention quelling the working classes of the East End for generations. Isn’t that the kind of bargain you’d like?”

  “You are a fiend and a cad, what?” Lord Gorge replied.

  Kornukope glanced at Lord Blandhubble, then back at Lord Gorge. It was clear that the offer was tempting. And, he reflected, so it should be.

  But then came a commotion at the door and a burly gentleman in a pinstripe suit entered. “Sir,” he said, addressing Lord Gorge, “there’s been another intruder.” He beckoned to somebody standing in the corridor outside, and Kornukope was astonished to see Eastachia enter.

  He leaped to his feet. “What are you doing here?” he asked her.

  Eastachia did not look pleased. “And you?” she replied. “Hobnobbing with your cronies, Kornukope?”

  Kornukope blinked. Sometimes, her manner allowed him no leeway. Slowly he replied, “Dearest one, we should not differ over policy–”

  Lord Gorge interrupted, “If you don’t mind, old chap, we have a war to discuss, what? Your personal life can wait.”

  “No, no,” Mizanthrop said, “this is important. Mr Wetherbee here is the spouse of this lady, and this lady carries your activation word.” He smiled at the Prime Minister. “That is, if you want it.”

  “Of course I want it! But you want your damnable–”

  “Home Rule. It is not much to ask.”

  “Not much to ask? It’s a chunk of the King’s Empire.”

  Mizanthrop scowled. In a cold voice he replied, “It is our country. And you had better give it back.”

  Lord Gorge said nothing. He looked at Eastachia and said, “What is this activation word?”

  “It has been transmitted in its entirety from the Shiva Emitter,” Mizanthrop replied, “which is now useless without it. It exists upon Mrs Wetherbee. I can see it now. My bargain is this. I write down the word for you – you give Indoo its Home Rule.”

  “Write it down? Then what?”

  “You force Mrs Wetherbee to speak it when you want the Shiva Emitter to do its work. I shall let you decide the method.”

  Kornukope shuddered. “No!” he said. “You will not torture my wife.”

  “And I won’t say the word,” said Eastachia.

  “Oh, you will,” Mizanthrop told her. “You would be amazed to learn what the Britisher Government will do in pursuit of its goals. Or, perhaps, you would not be amazed, for you are after all an Indoo lady.” He glanced at Kornukope. “Normally they work on the spouse–”

  Lord Gorge spluttered.

  “Perhaps,” Mizanthrop continued, “the Foreign Secretary would hand you and your husband over to the army. I believe they specialise in torture–”

  “That is enough,” Lord Blandhubble warned.

  “What then is your reply to my offer?” said Mizanthrop.

  Nobody spoke for a while. Lord Gorge stared at the table before him, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. Lord Blandhubble puffed at his pipe.

  Kornukope said nothing. Every decision he could imagine would be the worse for him and Eastachia. He sat motionless, silent and powerless.

  And then Eastachia leaped forward, bent down to the table and grabbed the letter opener laid next to Lord Blandhubble’s writing pad. She raised it to her head.

  Mizanthrop stood up, sending his chair flying into the wall. “No!” he cried, raising both his hands and shaking them. “Don’t do it!”

  But before anybody could move, Eastachia raised the letter opener and cut open her forehead to the bone, from the left temple to the right.

  Blood gushed out over the table. Calmly, she took a headscarf from her handbag and pressed it to her forehead.

  Mizanthrop fell to the floor, his hands trembling, his face blanched, murmuring, “No… no… no…”

  “What have you done, woman?” Lord Gorge said.

  “The only thing I could do,” Eastachia replied, “once I heard the device was useless without the word. Cut that word in two.” She sighed, and seemed to sag, as if a great emotional burden had been removed from her shoulders. At once Kornukope ran to assist her, and she, he was relieved to see, smiled at him and accepted his help.

  “The word, what?” Lord Gorge said. “It is no longer here?”

  “No longer available,” Eastachia said.

  “But–”

  The door to the Primrose Office opened and a runner sprang in. “Prime Minister!” he cried. “The Cockneigh Uprising have called a parley in Trafalgar Square! They say they have the means to cure the plague and free London Town of all the hair.”

  ~

  Velvene woke up.

  He lay in a warm room, red coals in the grate, a smell of stewed vegetables in the air. He glanced out of the window to see that it was morning.

  “Sheremy?” he said.

  He heard the sound of tapping feet, then the door opening as Sheremy walked in. “How are you feeling, dear fellow?”

  Velvene sat up, pulling away the blanket that covered him. “Well, not too bad. Not bad at all.”

  “We’ll have some breakfast,” Sheremy said, “then go back to the Cockneigh Uprising.”

  “The uprising? Yes, we must support it. Where are they now, eh?”

  “This morning’s Times says it all, dear fellow!”

  Velvene read the headlines of the proffered newspaper.

  COCKNEIGH UPRISING REACHES TRAFALGAR SQUARE

  Battle Looms As Britisher Army Squares Up To Cockneigh Hordes

  Enormous Loss Of Life Feared On Charing Cross Road

  “Great Oat
es,” Velvene said. “Hurry up with that tea, eh?”

  They finished the remains of the stew, drank their tea, then pulled on stout clothes and tough boots. Sheremy led Velvene out, locking his front door with a grin.

  “You are in a good mood this morning, eh?” Velvene remarked.

  “Capital, dear fellow!”

  With no floating machinora to hand they were forced once again to walk down Fleet Street and the Strand, but the sheer number of Cockneighs who had passed that way, not to mention the vehicles and engines of war, and the West African hair methods, meant that the journey was easy. Soon they approached the west end of the Strand, and glimpsed one corner of Trafalgar Square.

  Velvene halted. It did not look much like a scene of war.

  “Anything wrong?” Sheremy asked him.

  Velvene tried to peer beyond the mass of people crowded into the western end of the Strand. “Well, Trafalgar Square looks rather empty,” he replied. “There is something afoot, Sheremy.”

  “We’ll walk on,” Sheremy replied. “With you at my side, and I at yours, we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Velvene considered this. “True,” he murmured, half convinced.

  They barged their way through the crowds, then entered Trafalgar Square. At once Velvene saw something unexpected: a great white marquee sited beneath Nelson’s Column, from which both the Union Flag and the Cockneigh Standard fluttered. Again he halted.

  “I do not like the look of this,” he said.

  Sheremy took him by the arm. “My dear fellow,” he said, “we aren’t being shot at, so let’s go and see what’s going on. It looks to me rather like some sort of parley.”

  “Parley, eh? No… the revolution must not be stopped by parley.”

  Sheremy laughed at this and led him on, but Velvene, his suspicions aroused, decided to leave the square once he had seen what was afoot.

  Now he stood at the flapping canvas door of the marquee – and he stopped and gasped, for inside he saw the most unexpected group of people he could ever have imagined.

  They sat at an oaken round table, Lord Gorge and three high ranking members of his Cabinet, opposite them the Pearly King and Pearly Queen. Near the table stood a large wooden box, which shuddered from time to time, and from which a faint, feminine voice sounded. Also present was Lady Bedwards, standing next to the box.

  The Pearly King turned, then smiled. “Sheremy, mon! Come in, yeah?”

  Sheremy led Velvene into the marquee, until they stood behind the Pearlies. “This is my very dear friend Velvene Orchardtide,” he explained.

  Lord Gorge scowled and banged his walking cane against the table. “Will you people explain the meaning of all this? Have we been brought here to meet wastrels of the minor aristocracy? War looms!”

  The Pearly King sat up, leaning forward, his arms resting on the table. “I no likin’ your attitude, mon. You gotta give us bit more friendly.”

  “Just state your case, what?”

  “Sure, mon. ’Ere it is, den. We wantin’ an independent East End for us selves, yeah? We got documents what we like to be presentin’ to you.”

  “The independence of the East End?” Lord Gorge said. “I’ll die before that ever happens.”

  “Listen, mon. ’Ere’s da best of it. We know ’ow to make all da ’air go away, so dat London returnin’ like it use to be.”

  But Lord Gorge laughed. “You know how to remove the hair? Preposterous, what? I am wasting my time here with you fools.”

  The Pearly King frowned. “I tellin’ you da truth. We know ’ow to do it. You really wanna refuse dat? What your people gonna say when dey find out? Most of dem starvin’, mon, askin’ you for answers.”

  Lord Gorge, incoherent, spluttered and said nothing, but Lord Blandhubble, shaking his head, said, “Let them have their fun, Dafydd. They are both deluded. Let them have their fun, and then we shall set the army upon them, and all this will be over.”

  Lord Gorge also shook his head. “My goodness me, that my rule should come to this, what? Parleying with oafs and loons. So you think you know how to make the hair go away do you, darkie boy?” He began chuckling, tears falling down his cheeks. “I say Blandhubble, they will put this on my gravestone, what?”

  “Your gravestone?”

  “It will be my blasted epitaph, what? He played games with damned darkie Cockneighs!”

  Hesitantly, and with a certain reserve, the Pearly King said, “Den you will agree to independent East End if we is removin’ da ’airy plague, yeah?”

  “Oh, have your little game,” Lord Gorge shouted. “Yes, we agree, what? We agree in the name of the King! We even agree to Juinefere Bedwards’ wretched document if you damned well insist!”

  Red-faced with emotion he stood up, but then his laughter turned to anger.

  “Go on then,” he yelled, “work your darkie magic! Are you a Witch Doctor, what? Going to snap some bones, kill a chicken and pray to the cursed god of voodoo?”

  The Pearly King retained his composure. Velvene watched him turn, glance at Juinefere, then nod once.

  Juinefere unclasped the catch on the box and pulled open its front. And from it staggered Lily-Bette.

  Velvene wailed. He stared. Lily-Bette stared back at him.

  Velvene did not know what to do, what to say. This was surely some kind of dream-world.

  Then Sheremy took his right hand and moved it to his coat pocket. He felt something there, a small, cool object, quite heavy for its size.

  In a low voice Sheremy said, “Why not tell Lily-Bette what you feel inside, dear fellow?”

  Velvene looked down to see a large diamond ring in his hand.

  Lord Gorge said, “What the devil is going on here?”

  Juinefere shushed him, one forefinger to her lips.

  Sheremy guided Velvene forwards, so that a few moments later he stood before Lily-Bette.

  “Go on, dear fellow,” Sheremy said. “Tell her.”

  Lily-Bette said, “Tell me what? Why did you force me to come here?”

  Velvene said, “Lily-Bette! I believe I do have something to tell you… yes, I do! I can feel it inside me, like… like…”

  “What are you saying, Velvene?” she replied.

  “Lily-Bette… I love you.”

  “What?”

  “I love you! And I shall take you away from all this, I swear.”

  Lily-Bette looked to her right, where Lord Gorge and his Cabinet members sat. Then she looked at the Pearlies and at Sheremy.

  Red in the face, she raised her arm to point at him. “You’re on their side!”

  Velvene glanced at the Pearlies. “Well, of course I am.”

  “You’re on their side! And you dare to tell me you love me? I will never walk down the aisle with you, Velvene Orchardtide! Look at you! A grubby, greasy man on the wrong side!”

  “But–”

  “Never, never, never, do you hear! Now somebody, take me away from this horrible tent!”

  Velvene cried, “But Lily-Bette!”

  She ran to Lord Gorge, but before anybody could move, a Cockneigh sprang into the tent and yelled, “The bleedin’ ’air is comin’ dahn!”

  Everybody scrambled outside to see. And it was true.

  Trafalgar Square was filled from top to bottom with floating hair, falling off the National Gallery, from the walls of the Portrait Gallery, from Nelson’s Column; from the sides of every building and from every pavement; whipped up by the wind into blonde clouds that floated into the sky.

  Velvene looked down at his feet. The blonde locks of the square lay flat, limp, fallen free of the stone into which they had been locked.

  He heard cheering coming from the Cockneighs lining the Strand. Hair choked the pavements, filled the sky, fell in clumps from the walls of tall buildings all along that great street. He glanced up. The blue sky had turned blonde.

  Sheremy hugged him, shook him, tears falling down his face. “You did it, dear fellow!” he cried. “You saved Londo
n Town!”

  Velvene found himself unable to comprehend. “But Lily-Bette…”

  “You said what you had to say, dear chap, that’s what matters! It’s not the end. I expect she’ll come round to your way of thinking!”

  And Velvene considered this, then replied, “I don’t think she will.”

  Then the Pearlies walked up to Lord Gorge, and in full sight of all the uprising leaders both shook him by the hand. The sound of church bells in distant steeples began to echo around the square.

  The Pearly Queen said, “Thank you for agreein’. Thank you also for avertin’ da war. We lookin’ forward to workin’ with you, yeah?”

  Lord Gorge stared, stunned into silence.

  The Pearly King said, “Yeah mon, thank you! We likin’ your style.” Then he turned to the approaching Cockneigh horde and shouted at the top of his voice, “We won! We gettin’ da independent East End! Send out da runners! Tell dem to be spreadin’ da word! We comin’ into us home, da King and da Queen!”

  A huge cheer erupted from the crowd, many of whom threw hats, gloves and other items of clothing into the air. Church bells could be heard ringing across London now, in random, reverberant harmony.

  Lord Gorge, perplexed beyond his capacity to understand, said, “But… but… but…”

  The Pearly King turned and grinned. “Too late for dat, mister!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Every member of the Suicide Club known to be alive was called to Bedwards House for a meeting to determine the result of the wager. It was a damp, dismal evening, the weather turning to chill and rain. Sheremy dressed in plaid galoshes and artful coat, unfurling his umbrella before stepping out into the downpour. Without a valet and uncertain of the security of his wealth, not to mention his status, he had devised a plan that he felt suited his new circumstances. But would it work? He dared not guess, for this plan could be characterised as foolhardy…

  Outside his house stood a large covered cart, at the front of which sat a sodden driver; a single horse the method of traction. Sheremy waved to the man. “Ready, are you?”

  “Yessir,” the man replied.

  “It’ll stop raining soon, I expect. Don’t forget, one hour from now you leave here.”

  “One hour, sir.”