The Condition of Muzak

by Michael Moorcock

  “What? Oh, yes. Fabulously. You look pretty psychedelic yourself.”

  “Thanks. I do my best.”

  “No, I mean it. As tasty as anything. Are you going in?” She peered towards the gloom of the hallway. “You live here?”

  “I’ve a friend who does. Well, he’s a friend of Catherine’s really.”

  “How is your sister? That job—or did she get—?”

  “She’s resting at the moment.”

  “Frank said something.”

  “He’s improving, then. Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

  “No!” She placed her white plastic fingers on his arm. “I was actually looking for you. I know we’ve had our differences.”

  “And our likenesses. There’s no need to rake up the past.”

  “Certainly not. I wouldn’t dream… Could we have a chat?”

  “You’re not trying to recruit me for anything, are you?”

  “Not really. I think we’ve more in common than we knew.” She looked distastefully down at her body. “As you can see, I’m quite ‘with-it’ now.”

  “What are you doing with yourself?”

  “Ha, ha! I’ve been trained. I’m a fully qualified computer programmer. Shall we have some coffee?”

  Jerry shook his head. “It makes me too wary, eating in Chelsea. At best I can only do it if my back’s well to the wall and my eye’s on the door. You know how it is.”

  “But there are some charming places.”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  He moved into the courtyard, a zone of relative silence, and sat down on the lip of the pool. Blue, green, yellow and red water came at intervals from the fountain in the centre. After a pause, she sat beside him. “I can’t remember where it was we last met,” she began.

  “Neither can I,” said Jerry. “Perhaps it hasn’t happened yet?”

  “Well, yes, possible, certainly.” She had lost her old confidence while Jerry had gained quite a lot. She was evidently distressed.

  “I know how interested you are in science,” she said.

  “Not any more.” Jerry tried to catch a striped fish which floated to the surface. “Sorry. Technological art now.”

  “Oh, well. Even better. Technological art. Yes! Yes! Good. That. Well, science is the answer, I’ve decided, at any rate. I thought you’d be pleased. And computers are very definitely where we are going. My backers have invested in some of the absolutely latest equipment. You’ll be familiar with it, of course.”

  “Don’t judge me too hastily. I might leave it alone. I don’t fancy…”

  “Ha, ha. Now…” She removed a pearlite case from her white bag. She offered him a cigarette. “Sobranie, I think. Are those all right?”

  Jerry shook his head.

  “Oh, well.” She closed the case without taking one of the cigarettes herself. She looked at her Zippo lighter for some time while she continued to talk. “Anyway, you know a lot about the less orthodox branches of science, don’t you? Your father—?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve lost faith in science as anything but a pastime,” Jerry said.

  “You were always flippant. You mustn’t say things like that, Mr Cornelius. It is technology which will pull us out of our current difficulties.”

  “I didn’t know we had any.”

  “Of course we have. All this glitter simply hides a deeper malaise. You must agree. You’re intelligent. This can’t last. We must think ahead.”

  “I’d rather not think at all.” He got up and looked into the water of the fountain at the multicoloured carp. “This is where I belong. I’m happy.”

  “Happy, Mr Cornelius? How can you be?”

  “I don’t know, but I am.”

  “There’s more to life than drugs and sex, Mr Cornelius.”

  “There’s more than life to drugs and sex. It’s better than nothing.”

  “You need a goal. You always have. This rejection of your potential is silly. You believe in science as much as I do.”

  “What about land?”

  “It’s abstracts now. It would be ludicrous to continue thinking in old terms about a new situation, don’t you agree?”

  Jerry became uncomfortable. “I was thinking of going into the assassination business. You know what a dreamer I am. Would it be too much of a hit and myth operation, do you think?”

  “Do you believe in aeroplanes, Mr Cornelius?”

  “It depends what you mean by ‘aeroplanes’.” He yearned for the cool gloom of The Pheasantry, to bask in Koutrouboussis’s envy.

  “A properly organised technology is the only hope for the world unless we are to plunge into total decadence and from decadence into death,” she said. “If we act now, we can save almost everything of value. Don’t you see?” Her circular shades were cocked at an earnest angle. “If we can somehow produce a programme, feed in all the facts, we can get a clear idea of what we must do to prepare for the future. Imagine—the whole future in a single chip.”

  For once Jerry refrained from the obvious response. “I’m only interested in the present.” He sat down close beside her. He put a hand on her knee. “Give us a kiss.”

  She sighed and gave him a quick one. He found that his hand could continue up her shorts unchecked. With a shock his fingers touched her cold cunt. “Sorry,” he said.

  “It doesn’t make any difference,” she told him.

  He glanced around the courtyard at the flowers. He picked at a tooth. From somewhere overhead there came a bass drone. He smiled without much interest into the sky. “Bombers,” he said. “I thought we were going to have a peaceful day.” They were in sight now. A large formation of F111As. “It’s a free country, I suppose.”

  “Eloi! Eloi!” Miss Brunner became agitated. She sprang to her feet. “Peaceful? This enclave of lotus-eaters? Don’t you realise the world’s rotting about your ears? Haven’t you got eyes? Can’t you smell the corruption? Can’t you feel the whole world going out of kilter? Where’s your sense? And all you can think of is feeling me up!”

  He glanced at her from beneath embarrassed eyebrows. He felt a twinge of self-pity. “I was only having a bit of fun.”

  Some distance to the south, probably over Barnes, the planes began to drop their loads.

  She made efficient arrangements to her clothing. She headed for the languid street, still crowded with the festive and the free. “Fun!”

  He was thoroughly demoralised, more by what he had found in her trousers than by what he had done. “I’m very sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “That’s all right.” She waved a polyvinyl chloride gauntlet. “For the present.”

  8. THE METAMORPHOSIS OF HARLEQUIN

  For the last three weeks Jerry Cornelius had remained in the roof garden of the empty department store. The roof garden was overgrown and lush; parts of it were almost impassable. Flamingoes, ducks, macaws, parakeets and cockatoos inhabited the tangles of rhododendrons, creepers, climbing roses and nasturtiums; yellow mimosa grew adequately close to the various dividing walls of the garden: and, through the ceiling below, several large roots had broken and begun to find the tubs of earth Jerry had removed from the botanical department and placed on the floor so that ultimately the plants would gain purchase here. It was his ambition to bring in increasing supplies of earth so that in time the entire store would become a jungle to which he could then, perhaps, begin to introduce predators and prey, possibly from the zoo of the store’s nearby rival.

  Jerry had his consolations: a battery-operated stereo record player on which he listened to traditional folk music and laid-back C&W, some light reading; he could feed himself from what was left of the Food Hall and from the canned supplies in the roof garden restaurant, where he had also set up his camp-bed. The restaurant was more like a conservatory now, for he had been pleased to admit as many plants as would enter. He was never disturbed. He enjoyed the novels of Jane Austen, avoided interpretation, and dreamed of safer days.

  Occasionally he would cre
ep from the upper storeys to the bowels of the building and attend to his generators, thus maintaining his freezer and, of greater importance, the central heating. He had turned this to maximum so that his plants would be encouraged to extend their roots towards the distant ground. It was his hope that eventually the remains of Derry & Toms would be preserved in a gigantic shrubbery, impenetrable save by those who, like him, understood the labyrinth. At the top of this mountain of foliage and masonry he would then possess remarkable security. Already a number of peonies were blooming in the soft-furnishing department and various vines and ivies, without training, had carpeted the floors and festooned the walls of Hardware and Electrical Goods. He remained armed, but he had lost much of his caution. Aerial warfare was almost a thing of the past, the fashion having changed primarily to tanks and infantry which, ultimately, provided greater satisfaction to those who still enjoyed such exercises. London was no longer regarded as a major objective.

  Jerry gathered that most of the battles were won in the world and that conferences were rapidly agreeing territorial boundaries. The Continent of Europe had apparently become a vast conglomeration of tiny city states, primarily based on an agricultural economy, with certain traditional crafts and trades (Bohemian glass, German clocks, French mustard) flourishing: forming the basis of barter between the different communities. Not that war was unknown, but it had become confined to the level of local disputes. Jerry had been unable to see this development as a wholesome one, but he supposed it suited the petite bourgeoisie who constituted, as always, the majority of the survivors. It seemed to him that in some obscure way Miss Brunner had, after all, triumphed, through no fault of her own.

  The image of a Britain become a nation of William Morris wood-carvers and Chestertonian beer-swillers drove him deeper into his jungle and caused him to abandon his books. He was only prepared to retreat so far. He was forced to admit, however, that the seventies were proving an intense disappointment to him. He felt bitter about missed opportunities, the caution of his own allies, the sheer funk of his enemies. In the fifties life had been so appalling that he had been forced to flee into the future, perhaps even help create that future, but by the sixties, when the future had arrived, he had been content at last to live in the present until, due in his view to a conspiracy amongst those who feared the threat of freedom, the present (and consequently the future) had been betrayed. As a result he had sought the past for consolation, for an adequate mythology to explain the world to him, and here he hid, lost in his art nouveau jungle, his art deco caverns, treading the dangerous quicksands of nostalgia and yearning for times that seemed simpler only because he did not belong to them and which, as they became familiar, seemed even more complex than the world he had loved for its very variety and potential. Thus he fled still further, into a world where vegetation alone flourished and only the most primitive of sentient life chose to exist. He was thinking of giving up time travel altogether.

  Apart from the infrequent fights which would break out amongst the birds, there were very few sounds to disturb him these days as he renounced his camp-bed and lay deep in his bushes, his back to moist earth, his earphones almost invariably on his head as he listened to the Pure Prairie League, The Chieftains and, believing that this kept him in touch with the world, Roy Harper. He was inclined not to notice when his batteries had run down and the records were playing sometimes at less than half speed. He was also inclined to fall asleep when the needle stuck in a groove and not wake for two or three days.

  He was dimly aware that these long periods of sleeping were increasing but, since he felt no physical effects, he preferred not to worry about them. It was likely that his activities through the past couple of decades had exhausted him more than he knew. For the moment, too, he had even forgotten about his sister, who lay in her padded silk coffin in the freezer, perhaps dreaming of an even more remote past than the one he sought to create for himself.

  The summer grew hotter; the jungle grew denser, and then one day, as Jerry slumbered in musty heat in a little tunnel he had made for himself in the foliage, an unread copy of Union Jack for 21 September, 1923 (‘X-ine or The Case of the Green Crystals’, A Zenith Story) lying foxed and damp-stained by his limp right hand, the comforting rumble of Centurion Thirteens, Vickers Vijayantas and Humber FV1611 armoured personnel carriers augmented the sultry tranquillity of the day, the hum of bees, the hiccuping of crickets.

  The little fleet of armour came to a stop at the signal of a round-shouldered old man in the dress uniform of a major in the Royal Hussars who emerged from the leading Humber, adjusting his busby. A captain, in conventional khaki, pushed up the hatch of the Centurion immediately behind the Humber and ran over the weedy tarmac to receive orders. The major spoke a few words, contemplated the outside of the store which was almost entirely covered by thick ivy, checked the dark green interior of the main hallway, then returned to his personnel carrier. A head wearing a green, gold and purple turban raised itself over the camouflaged metal. A chubby brown face showed a certain amount of astonishment as it caught sight of the department store, which somehow had come to resemble the forgotten ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Green and gold shoulders followed the face and eventually the whole figure, small and stocky and round, stood on the surface of the vehicle, hands on hips. He was dressed in the impressive uniform of the 30th Deccan Horse, a broad sash around his waist, his sabre and pistol supported on a Sam Browne belt which was oddly functional compared to the rest of the ensemble. The major saluted and lifted a hand to help the splendid Indian to the ground then, together, they entered the forest.

  The engines of the tanks and personnel carriers were switched off; silence returned. Slowly the crews began to climb from their machines and, stripped to the waist, smoke cigarettes and chat amongst themselves. They seemed to be a mixed force in a variety of uniforms—English, Scottish, Indian, Trinidadian, Jamaican and Cornish among them. Tinny Heavy Reggae began to sound from at least one turret.

  The two officers reached the roof garden three hours later. They were sweating and stained, the collars of their jackets opened, their headgear askew. They searched the restaurant and the restaurant kitchens. The first thing they found was the display freezer with its pale blue contents, the beautiful smiling madonna. The major shook his head. “About the only thing he ever thought worth preserving. Poor little chap.”

  “They were in love,” said the Indian. He tried to push his hand down the side of the coffin to get a tub of Honey and Acacia ice-cream below, but failed.

  “More than that.” The major sighed. “She represented everything he thought important. He believed that if he could revive her he could revive the world he had lost.”

  “She is dead, then?”

  “As good as, old boy.” The major closed the lid of the cabinet. “We’d better check the garden now. You take the Tudor and I’ll take the Spanish. If you don’t have any luck, meet me back here.”

  They went their ways.

  The major found it almost impossible to climb over the tangled branches and roots blocking the entrance to the mock Moorish splendours of the garden where the fountains were now choked with dark green vegetation, with magnolia, oversized tulips, peonies, poppies, sunflowers. The heavy scent from the place almost drove him back. He was about to press on when his ear detected a faint sound from his right and he looked towards the gigantic rhododendron mass immediately opposite the restaurant. Two or three flamingoes stalked from it, their pink necks wobbling, splashing on broad feet through what remained of the miniature river. But it was not the birds who had made the sound. The major moved towards the rhododendron, almost blinded by the intensity of the purple, scarlet and pink blossoms, the powerful odour of earth and decaying undergrowth. He pushed branches aside and found a low archway. He bent down and peered through the green semi-darkness. He went on his knees and began to crawl until the tunnel opened into a tiny cavern in which lay curled, foetuslike, the body of the man the major had sought over five c
ontinents.

  The body was dressed in a green-and-khaki camouflaged safari suit, there were black Koss earphones on his head and the lead of the earphones was attached to a record deck on which Al Bowlly was singing ‘What a Little Moonlight Can Do’ with painful slowness. On its side, near the player, was a clock, decorated in red, white and blue, and beside it a gesticulating figurine in a traditional white Pierrot costume with a black skull-cap, perhaps a contemporary likeness of Charles Debureau himself; near that a copy of a Fantômas novelette and a copy of Le Chat Noir magazine. The Union Jack was open at the beginning of the story. A box below the illustration, showing an open safe, a swirl of vapour and two men apparently confronting one another (one wearing full evening dress) read: This story very worthily upholds the UNION JACK tradition—the tradition for really well-told stories, full of character and action. It is a Zenith-Sexton Blake story, written as only the creator of the Albino knows how. If you want anything better than this you are indeed hard to please. The major carefully picked the fragile magazine from the earth, rolled it and tucked it into the top pocket of his dark blue tunic. Then he inspected the stiff figure of the man. It was thin. The face was quite long, the lips full, the eyes, though closed, apparently large. The hair was black, long and fine, but appeared to have been dyed white at some time. There was a very close resemblance to the blonde young woman the major had discovered in the freezer. He lifted his head: