The Alembic Valise

by John Luxton

  Vern was big and strong and could probably have carried Joel’s limp body for at least a couple of hundred yards in any direction. But as the garden gate was open he carried the sticky corpse through it, along the curved path to the shed. Vern’s father had spent twenty five years building it from scrounged and found timber and had only stopped when it was more of a three room bungalow, but they continued to call it the shed.

  He laid Joel on a divan, the same spot that three weeks ago Marina had knelt and they had kissed. He shook his head as if to clear the image. There was lighting, run from batteries that were kept charged by a petrol generator that he fired up once a week, and running water. Vern washed his hands then crossed the room to check out his silent visitor. Esme was harumphing in the pen outside, expecting supper. Vern phoned his mother. She did not answer so he texted Marina then went to feed the pig.

  “Burundanga,” said Marina after she had gently examined Joel. She was a nurse so Vern had expected her to say something more medical sounding.

  “And that is?” he queried.

  “In Colombia they call it the CIA drug. It is used by criminals to drug tourists, small amounts make the victim becomes compliant; they go to cash machines and empty their accounts. Girls get raped. Passports are taken. Larger doses knock the victims completely out and they remember nothing afterwards. It’s odourless and colourless and is usually put into drinks but it can also be absorbed through the skin. At the hospital I worked in Bogota we always had several cases a week; had to inform the police and everything. Not something they put in the travel brochures. Rarely proves fatal though.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Vern looking worried.

  “Either that or something similar, look at his pupils, it’s not an opiate induced coma.”

  Vern remembered that she had been a doctor back in Colombia, although she could only get a job as a nurse in London. He trusted her judgment.

  “So he’s not dead, it’s zombie voodoo shit?”

  “I prefer to call it an ingestion of an organic psychotropic originating from L’America.”

  “How long?”

  “How long what?”

  “How long have we got to keep him here?” asked Vern patiently.

  Could be days, he has been drugged, beaten and robbed, oh yes, and bitten; I’d better dress that. We don’t really know how bad his injuries are.” They both stood over Joel. Marina had already put him into the recovery position.

  Chapter 32

  People thought he was the boss but he was only the messenger. Baba Zum crossed the room and laid the field glasses on the table; a monstrous piece of furniture fashioned from an old aeroplane wing; all rivet and aileron.

  The Ice Tower, although only sixteen stories, was easily the tallest structure in Mortlake. The panoramic view from the penthouse where he currently resided and held dominion was to die for.

  Death and dominion: Dominion and death. Joel had certainly looked dead, when observed by Baba through the powerful military field glasses, as he was carried along the sodium-lit alley, to the soft darkness of the allotment by the ‘big lunk’. Those prismatic multi-coated lenses were certainly a wonder. Baba sat down heavily in an Eames recliner. He wanted some iced water but first he must make the call, then he could yell out to Jada to bring him the drink.

  “He’s here,” he said into the phone.

  He listened to an instruction and then confirmed. “Bring him to you and let the woman go. Yes, I mean send her back. That’s what I meant.”

  He put the phone down and sighed. All knowing and all seeing was obviously a tough gig; the boss sounded peeved, even though everything was going to plan.

  “Jada,” he shouted.

  She came out of the bedroom wearing only shorts and a sports bra, dancing on the balls of her feet, jabbing the air with her fists, rolling her shoulders, moving her head from side to side, then spinning around to deliver a roundhouse kick to the thin air millimetres from Baba’s immobile face. He held up his empty glass and rattled the ice shards.

  “The Big Lunk found him and took him to his shanty shack, then called that slut from 42.”

  He was still holding up the glass and ignoring the emanations from the sweat soaked pudenda directly in his sight line. Jada had the most mellifluous and enchanting voice he had ever heard, and using it she finished the narrative that he had begun.

  “Where together, against all odds, they will nurse Mr Joel Barlow back to life.” They both began to laugh. When their mirth subsided he lowered his gaze to her crux and placing the glass on the wing tip indicated that she should straddle him.

  “Ah, granddad wants to get jiggy. I hope you have taken your blue pill.” She pulled the sports bra over her head and threw it behind her. As it sailed through the air it clipped the empty glass, sending it rolling down the wing’s incline, to shatter on the marble floor.

  * * *

  Baba always slept with one eye open. Not literally of course but he was always attuned to the congruency of the activity within his domain. He called it scanning the A-Field, and had woken at dawn feeling the definite thin end of a potential wedge encroaching upon the periphery of his A-Field. He sat up in bed: Rise and fucking shine.

  He felt a quadricep in Jada’s thigh twitching as he brushed against her still sleeping body. Over-training again, he thought. She was now one of the top Grid Girls on the network having graduated through low grade shows like Mojo Hoes and Cage Cluster; her career going ballistic since moving up from the 115lb to the 135lb weight division. And just last year Baba’s production company had scooped the prime fight slots that carried global syndication. In his office at Hammerfall Productions he had a steady stream of strike-girls desperate to join his roster.

  He walked naked from the bedroom into the living area, careful to avoid the splinter of glass from the night before, and stood in the centre of the vast apartment scratching his arse vigorously. He crossed to the window and looking down could see a clear channel etched into the grey shroud below. It arced towards the jetty below the church. Frowning, he reached for his field glasses and stood in the bowl of the atrium, his eyes trying to decipher the emerging patterns. Behind Baba’s left shoulder the sun was rising; soon it would burn off the morning mist.

  Chapter 33

  The tiny boat moved through the dawn mist. Buster was at the front his paws braced against the prow. Agim was in the centre rowing. Lorna was at the stern; there was no rudder but she was whispering the directions required to ease them beneath the overhang of a large willow that canopied the jetty. Everything was still along the Mortlake riverfront and now she could see stone steps across the towpath and beyond the high walls of Tinderbox Alley leading inland.

  The previous night Vale had advised against this enterprise but they came anyway. He had told them about the old jetty on the bend in the river; the place where Queen Elizabeth the First had come to seek advice from John Dee, the magus of the north, who communed with spirits, lived outside time, and released an illuminated melange of science and magic into the psyche of Elizabethan England. Vale had also told them about the arch in the churchyard and explained that it would be their route back, with the rescued Joel, if they were successful.

  Lorna, Agim and Buster had at midnight then driven to Joel’s boat, by Hammersmith Bridge, their intention being to rest up for the night, then just before dawn to row up the river to Mortlake in Joel’s skiff. Here, according to Vale, the barrier between the two worlds was weak enough to allow them to cross over and begin searching, with Buster’s help, for Joel.

  Alembic Valise had in fact held a surprise. Sophie was there, remembering nothing apart from getting off a train at Waterloo Station and then taking a cab to Joel’s boat; tired but seemingly none the worse for wear, arriving only minutes before them. She had insisted that she did not want to go back to the Gate and the inevitable police questioning; tomorrow she would face all that, she said, but for now she just wanted to sleep.

  Buster was ashore first and st
ood on the jetty sniffing the air as Lorna and Agim secured the boat. Only he saw the flash of reflected light from the glass tower, it’s upper stories floating above the mist. He growled quietly to himself.

  The three of them moved slowly along the alley, taking care on the uneven slippery cobbles. There was no vestige of odour from Joel’s trail for Buster to follow, but he could smell the glorious golden peppery pong of Esme the pig; sweet tendrils of excitement that drifted down to the foreshore and insinuated themselves into Buster’s damp leathery nose. He took the lead and speeded up; he just could not help himself.

  Chapter34

  11 Months Later

  The architects had grandly called the structure the Titanium Halo. The newspapers however had unkindly dubbed it the Led Donut. The multiplex stadium was built on the site of an old greyhound-racing track that had closed in the late seventies and lay derelict until Russian spiv oligarch money had flooded into the country. The yelps of the dogs and the shouts of the punters from that gentle era had long departed. Here everybody seemed to be possessed by a cranked intensity; and it was only a midweek program, newcomers mainly. But Baba and Hammerfall Productions knew how to put on a high-energy show anytime. The lights around the arena were being dimmed, the thunderous music was replaced with a subsonic drone and three girls wearing only torn flesh-coloured body stockings were disappearing up ropes into the shadows.

  Banks of spotlights pulsed from purple to green in time to the music. The hydroponics system that fed the hanging foliage imparted a weird rubbery smell but down in the cage this odour was overlaid with Lysol and sweat: The smell of fear thought Lorna - and pain. But wait, there would be no pain, the adrenalin would cloak that

  “Let’s go,” said the referee.

  Lorna Z ran over the events leading to this moment. First was the discovery of Joel in the allotment shed. Buster had led them to the gate, Agim had picked the lock somehow and there was Joel eating bacon and eggs with a huge guy who turned out to be Vern.

  She remembered the startled expression on Vern’s face as moments later the gate to the allotment was smashed off its rusty hinges and a group of burly men burst through. She recalled her own bewilderment quickly followed by understanding as she saw one of the intruders embrace Agim. No one had noticed as Buster slunk quietly into the weeds.

  “I said let’s GO,” roared the referee, glaring at her angrily. “Touch gloves and keep it clean.”

  Lorna obeyed but her opponent delivered a double-handed punch to her sternum. That, you will pay for, she thought as she returned to her corner.

  Over the months that had passed on the other side many things has become apparent. They were not to be constrained or incarcerated in any way: The reason being that on that morning of their arrival she had watched in horror as two men with sledgehammers had reduced the limestone arch in the churchyard to dust.

  Their previous lives and connections were also metaphorically reduced to a handful of dust too. At the pier by Hammersmith Bridge Joel’s beloved Alembic Valise had been replaced by a seagull-shit covered refuse barge, and the site where her mansion flat once stood was now occupied by a steel and glass gymnasium. None of the people they knew seemed to exist and their mobile phones could not connect to any network.

  Lorna’s coach was shouting last minute instructions through the cage. She scanned the ringside for a familiar face, but saw none. The bell rang: Round one. A flying scissor kick followed by an attempted takedown was Lorna’s preferred opening strategy but the girl spun around and danced across the ring staying out of range. The energy of Lorna’s kick dissipated into empty air.

  Lorna also remembered the moment she had wanted to become a Grid Girl. They had had nothing, her and Joel, and little Buster, who had come out of the undergrowth, when the men with sledgehammers had gone. No money, no home, no friends. They had stayed in Vern’s shed at first and made forays out into the world trying to locate vestiges of their old lives: Each time returning disappointed. Her father seemed not to exist. No Dave or Sophie, no Deacon or Jim and worst of all for Joel no Mai; he had hitchhiked down to Dover and then somehow taken the ferry, all this with no passport. When he returned he was a broken man; sleeping amongst the trees by the pond during the day and at night going to the night shelter. He had become a vagrant.

  Marina took pity on Lorna and gave her a room and got her a cleaning job at the clinic where she was a nurse. Then one day they had gone together after work to the gym, ironically the one built on the spot where her flat had been, and seen a group of women athletes training. Lorna had heard the boy on the cross-trainer next to hers whisper excitedly to his friend and jerk his head in the direction of a tall beautiful woman crossing the gym with a lime green towel over her shoulder. Jada was the name he had mouthed. Lorna’s double take must have caught her eye and she gave Lorna a long appraising look before leaving the room.

  Now her opponent was charging her, but coming in high, a high-risk move. Attempting to grab her head and knee her in the face. You’ll be sorry thought Lorna, suddenly dropping and grabbing her opponent’s left leg and pulling it from under her, sending the surprised girl sprawling onto the canvas. Lorna followed her down and snaked her legs around her victim’s throat.

  The crowd began to release wave after wave of screams up into the dark recesses of the Donut. She tightened her grip, the referee moved in closer. It would soon be over.

  After her victory Lorna had warmed down and was now in the dressing room with her hands in a bucket of iced water. Hers had been the first fight and several other girls who had been coolly indifferent to her earlier that evening had enthusiastically congratulated her on the result.

  “Where did you learn that?” one asked.

  “What, the Double Anaconda? I saw it in the Gaines, Martinez fight.” Lorna already had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the sport and all the other disciplines that fed into it.

  “Way to go! That was a killer strike,” said the other girl.

  They then returned to serious business of warming up for their own fights. She felt supremely elated and not in the least tired, so picking up her towel she headed to the shower. When she returned she found Marina waiting for her, looking uncomfortable in her nurses uniform.

  “I watched on the monitors in the foyer. It was completely terrifying.”

  She reached out and touched Lorna’s on the forehead where there was a swelling. Lorna saw the other girls looking. They must think we are lesbians thought Lorna. She knew that quite a few of the Grid Girls were; she had no problem with it in fact. Probably the smart option she thought recalling her infatuation with Agim. The thought of her foolishness made her wince and Marina withdrew her hand quickly thinking her touch had caused it.

  “Thanks for coming,” said Lorna Z, suddenly giving her only friend a spontaneous hug.

  * * *

  A week later after an hour of speed weight circuits Lorna was swigging water from a two-litre bottle and staring out of the gym window at an empty bay in the car park below where she had calculated her bedroom had been, when one of trainers handed her a blue vellum envelope. It was addressed to her; there was no stamp. She put it into her gym bag noting as she did so the logo embossed on the reverse side, a stylised axe with a flattened blade.

  The letter was written by one of Baba’s flunkeys and instructed her to present herself at the Hammerfall Productions HQ the following Tuesday morning at 9.30 am in order to learn something that may be judged as being to her advantage.

  The tyres of the 209 bus taking Lorna back to Mortlake began to make a hollow roaring sound as it crossed Hammersmith bridge. She put the letter back in her bag and looked through the glass. Another window, another past, she thought. At first it had been wearing to be constantly confronted by everything that was missing from her present life, but she had in part adapted. Missed her dad of course; but most other things she viewed as part of a childhood that was now gone. The bus trundled to a halt; more people got off than got on. Will I soon be a Grid
Girl? She wondered. Pretty much the only way to get to that level in the sport was to have professional management, and Hammerfall was the only game in town. But she could not do it. She may have adapted to this new world but any complicity with the activities of the Blake Organisation was out of the question.

  Marina’s flat was in darkness, she was either working a night shift or had gone Ceroc dancing with Vern. Lorna began to sort out her sports kit. The doorbell rang. The light in the passage outside the front door had blown weeks ago and the caretaker still had not replaced it therefore she could not see who was on threshold.

  She opened the door anyway, then closed it quickly.

  “Go away,” she said.

  “Just give me five minutes. I can explain, but you must let me in, it’s not safe for me to be seen here.” It was Agim.

  Chapter 35

  Joel had travelled downwards; the narrowing road, the tightening curve, the twisting within his heart: It all came to the same thing; lead to the same place, emptiness, and not just any emptiness but one of dislocation and despair. Lorna had tried to explain, and he had filed that information away. Kept it in readiness for a time when he could process and understand what had happened to him. Before, he had never been able to quite believe his good luck. And now it was gone. I am fucking doomed, he thought.

  Lorna’s explanation did make some kind of sense; his ability to see what animated the world of shadows, to intuit the conspiracy beneath the surface of the system and see the structure of the worlds within worlds that underpinned his storytelling. But when he had seen the empty berth by Hammersmith Bridge he knew that Alembic Valise would never return. That ship had sailed. And now like an old sailor stranded in an unfamiliar port he would forever wander the seafront dreaming of a distant and lost homeland, too scared to venture down the dusty avenues leading inland. Too fearful to seek a hearth or a home or a heart, lest they should eclipse his remembered self. And yet, and yet these wanderings had brought him here today, to this grassy knoll enclosed by a circle of silver birch saplings on the Common, where he now sat with Buster at his side to enjoy the sunshine. And on this occasion the ceaseless to and fro within his mind seemed to be less intense. Buster was almost invisible, laid in the long grass.