The Condition of Muzak

by Michael Moorcock

  It was a beautiful Christmas, thought Jerry. The nicest he had had. Slowly, he mounted the stairs, pausing to look back at his happy guests, at the snow falling outside. It was getting quite late. He looked for Frank in the hall, but the Harlequin costume was nowhere to be seen. He shrugged and continued up the stairs, tripping once over his long satin trousers.

  He had reached the landing and was on his way to his own apartments when he heard a noise from behind Catherine’s door. He paused, made to enter, then changed his mind. Almost in panic he began to run along the landing to his own rooms, dashing through the door without bothering to put on the lights, dumped the little cat on his bed, and went to the trunk in his study, rummaging through it rapidly until he found what he wanted. “Wait here,” he told the cat. It was best to take no chances.

  Needle gun in hand he returned to Catherine’s room. “Who’s in there?” He kicked open the door and walked in.

  Frank stood at the end of Catherine’s bed. He had removed his mask. He had a loaded hypodermic in his hand. He was looking tired and ill, like a sick vulture. “I don’t feel very well,” he said. “Look. She’s woken up.”

  Catherine, in contrast, was in the peak of health. Her skin glowed, her eyes were bright, if a little dazed. She and Una Persson were propped on their pillows, in one another’s arms. Catherine was entirely naked, her Columbine costume scattered across the floor. Una was naked save for her Harlequin’s mask. She did not seem to realise that she was still wearing it.

  Frank fell to his knees. Una pulled a smoking S&W .45 from under the bedclothes. “I’m sorry, Jerry. I’ve shot your brother. He was going to…”

  “That’s all right.” Jerry put his needle gun in his baggy pocket. Joy mounted within him, slowly. “How long have you been awake, Catherine?”

  “Not long. Una woke me.”

  “I’m very grateful, Una,” he said, “for all you’ve done.”

  “Ugh!” groaned Frank from the floor. “She’s two-timing you, Jerry. Ugh! Both of us!”

  “I don’t think so,” said Jerry, smiling tenderly at both of them. “Are you?”

  “I must be going.” Una Persson’s smile was just a fraction late, but it was a good, brave one. “Leave you two alone.”

  “Oh, no,” said Jerry. He sat on the bed beside her, still looking at Catherine. “Please stay.”

  Una stroked her hair. “I was just saying goodbye.” She looked at her wrist. “What’s the time? My watch has stopped.”

  “About midnight, I think.”

  “Good. I can catch the last flight out.”

  “You’re welcome…” Jerry said.

  “Ugh.” Frank’s voice was fainter.

  “I’m still a working girl, you know.” Una climbed from the bed and, walking around her victim, began to pull on her own Harlequin costume. “I’m sorry about the mess.”

  Frank groaned. His chest was crimson.

  Una tucked her slapstick into her sash. “I didn’t mean to kill you. It was the shock. You shouldn’t have dressed yourself up like that. I thought you were me for a moment. What were you trying to achieve? Imitation isn’t art, you know, Frank.”

  Unclean blood fell down his chin. “Merry fucking Christmas,” he said, “you bitch. Both of you. All of you.” Clutching himself he began to sidle across the floor. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.”

  “He’ll be all right, I expect,” said Catherine to reassure Una. She reached out and took Jerry’s hand, squeezing it. Jerry sighed. “He’s always making a lot of the things that happen to him.”

  Frank reached the door and crawled through it into the light of the landing. “God help us, one and all.”

  Una went over and closed the door. “You’ll want to be alone. I’ve told her everything you’ve done for her, Jerry—and all that’s happened.” She bent to fluff at his ruff. “Pierrot wins Columbine, at last. It’s taken hundreds of years.”

  Jerry could see that Una was close to tears. He stood up and helped her on with her red-and-green cape. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  “Your work’s over,” Una said, “but mine’s not finished yet. Otherwise I’d give you a run for your money. Pierrot couldn’t wake her, you see. Only Harlequin has the power to do that. Pierrot has no power—only charm.” She kissed him briskly on the cheek. “Cheerio, you little bugger.” She paused by the bed and bent to kiss Catherine’s lips. “Merry Christmas, Columbine.”

  “Oh,” said Catherine. She looked from her brother to her friend.

  Una reached the window, opened it and stepped through. Cold air filled the room. A few flakes of snow settled on the sill. Then she had gone, Harlequin returned to the night, and the window was shut. There came a sound, like the crying of hounds, but it was either made by the guests below or came from the traffic in Ladbroke Grove.

  In the ballroom it seemed that the Christmas Party had taken on fresh life as wave upon wave of laughter rose up to them. “Merry Chrissmas! Merry Chrissmas!” they heard their mother shout. “Merry fuckin’ Chrissmas!”

  Then the music started up and the palace shook to their dancing feet.

  Jerry pulled off his huge trousers but kept his flowing blouse and his skull-cap on. He knew how much his sister liked it. He got into bed. He touched her vibrant skin. They embraced. They kissed.

  From outside, from below in the whiteness of the garden, a light voice was raised for a few seconds in song:

  For in you now all virtues do combine—

  Sad Pierrot, brave Harlequin and lovely Columbine…

  There sounded a bass drone, then silence.

  Jerry rolled into his sister’s soft arms and the two were joined together at last.

  “Catherine!”

  “Jerry! Jerry!”

  A crack of light appeared from the door as it was pushed open and a small black-and-white cat entered. It jumped to the foot of the bed and began to wash liquid from its paws. It looked up at them and purred.

  All in all, thought Jerry, it was going to be a very successful season.

  EARLY REPORTS

  What wonders now I have to pen, sir,

  Women turning into men, sir,

  For twenty-one long years, or more, sir,

  She wore the breeches we are told, sir,

  A smart and active handsome groom, sir,

  She then got married very soon, sir,

  A shipwright’s trade she after took, sir,

  And of his wife, he made a fool, sir.

  The Female Husband, c. 1865

  Old England, once upon a time,

  Was prosperous and gaily,

  Great changes you shall hear in rhyme,

  That taking place is daily.

  A poor man once could keep a pig,

  There was meat for every glutton,

  Folks now may eat a parson’s wig,

  For they’ll get no beef or mutton.

  What Shall We Do For Meat!, c. 1865

  Now the trial is o’er, and the Judge did say

  Mistress Starr, you have lost the day,

  And five hundred pounds you’ll have to pay

  For tricks that are play’d in the Convent.

  Funny Doings in the Convent, c. 1865

  All the world will mount velocipedes,

  Oh won’t there be a show

  Of swells out of Belgravia,

  In famous Rotten Row;

  Tattersall’s they will forsake,

  To go there they have no need,

  They will patronise the wheel wright’s now

  For a famed Velocipede.

  The dandy horse Velocipede,

  Like lightning flies, I vow, sir,

  It licks the railroad in its speed,

  By fifty miles an hour, sir.

  The Dandy Horse; or, The Wonderful Velocipede, c. 1865

  Three men they say on that fatal Friday,

  At four o’clock on that afternoon,

  Those villains caused that explosion,

  And hurried those
poor creatures to their doom.

  They from a truck took a barrel of powder,

  A female, Ann Justice, was there as well,

  And in one moment death and disorder

  Around the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell.

  Awful Explosion in Clerkenwell, c. 1865

  I am the famous dancer, Harlequin.

  I’ve shown my postures and my grace sublime

  In every epoch and in every clime.

  Wherever Youth and Beauty gaily meet

  I am the dancing pattern of their feet.

  Harlequinade, c. 1865

  The myth of the golden past gave way to the myth of the golden future but, for a short time in the 90s and then the 1960s we enjoyed the myth of the golden present.

  —M. Lescoq,

  Leavetaking, c. 1965

  TUNING UP (5)

  “Who are we today, then?” Miss Brunner leered at Jerry over her pint. “Che Guevara?”

  Jerry hesitated at the door of the Blenheim Arms. The pub had a special extension for the evening. It could stay open until midnight. It was very noisy. It smelled strongly of mild beer. It was packed with celebrants. It was warm. “Happy New Year,” he said. He closed the door of the local behind him.

  “That suit’s very lightweight for the weather, isn’t it?” His brother Frank took Miss Brunner’s lead. “On our way to Bermuda, are we?”

  “I don’t feel the cold,” said Jerry. He knew that he looked smart in the suit, even if it was rather thin, and he hadn’t bothered to wear an overcoat because he was only popping into the pub from across the road where he was staying with his mother. Gradually, however, he became self-conscious. He approached the bar. They were all in tonight. All facing him. Mr Smiles wiped froth from his moustache. “The trousers are a bit baggy, aren’t they?”

  “They’re meant to be baggy.” He felt in a pocket for some money. The pocket seemed the size of a sack.

  “Stop taking the piss out of him,” said Catherine. She wore blue denims and a dark green sweater with a picture of Dr Hook and the Medicine Show on the front. “I think it’s very sexy, Jerry.” She opened her shoulder bag, looking for her purse, but Mo Collier was ahead of her. He waved a fiver at the barman. “Usual?” he asked his friend.

  “Why not?” Jerry had forgotten what his usual was. He was attempting to regain lost ground by cultivating an air of insouciance. He looked Miss Brunner up and down: black strap-overs, fishnet stockings, skirt just above the knee, square-cut jacket with heavily padded shoulders. Perm. Earrings. “That’s a sweet costume. Are we going as historical figures? Where did you hire it?” He was lame.

  She shook her head in genuine disappointment. “This gear cost a fortune and you know it. You can do better than that.”

  But she tugged for a second or two at the back of her jacket and raised his spirits.

  Frank said anxiously, looking at his wristwatch: “We’ll have to drink up. The coach’ll be here any minute.” They were all going down to Brighton to celebrate New Year’s Eve at Mr Smiles’s new hotel. He had spent the last ten years in Rhodesia, where he had made a fortune, and was anxious to renew old acquaintanceships. Frank wore a red polo-neck sweater, purple bell-bottoms and a black velvet blazer-style jacket. He held a double gin in one pink hand.

  “Still teaching at St Victor’s, then, are we?” Jerry asked Miss Brunner. “Having our way with the tweenies?”

  “That’s defamation if ever I heard it.” She spoke without much conviction, almost amiably. Even though she had been prosecuted for her sexual activities at the school she had not only managed to get off all the charges but had somehow managed to become headmistress of St Victor’s Primary School. Her attempts to reintroduce corporal punishment, though, had not been all that successful. Increasingly the parents of the children were from the upper middle classes—people who had moved into the district as their incomes declined, who sustained their position in the world by selling their houses in Chelsea, South Kensington and Belgravia for large profits and buying cheaper houses in North Kensington, with the result that rents had risen all round, though the authorities tended to be warier of residents who might now be the sons and daughters of rich people, or literate radicals, rather than working-class youths. There were distinct, if superficial, improvements. Black men were hardly ever beaten up in public by the police any more (this distressed the new arrivals) and the police had increasingly come to see their new rôle as the protectors of Rate Payers from Non-Rate Payers (those whose rates were included in their rent and paid by the landlord). Street fighting in North Kensington had declined and street music and street theatre had increased, but the police did not discriminate between these activities: all were likely to cause annoyance to the Public (Rate Payers) and were dealt with with equal ferocity. According to the methods favoured by the individual officer, friendly banter would be employed, an attempt to ‘jolly’ the victims into giving up without a struggle, or outright threats and violence would occur from the start. Miss Brunner approved of the police’s new attitude but mourned the days before parents became sophisticated and could now recognise, pursue and pillory the poor paedophile. Not everyone gained from the New Liberalism. Ten years before, hardly anyone had heard of her particular passions, except her little charges and their hopeless parents who had been content to recognise her authority, as they recognised all authority, with a dumb and wholesome fear and, amongst the more spirited, like the Cornelius children, a little primitive and easily handled blackmail. As well, the older and more knowing they became, the less interest she took in them. The seventies were increasingly difficult years for Miss Brunner. In her opinion children were growing up far too early.

  “I still fink ’e shouldn’ta moved me wivvout arskin’,” Mrs Cornelius was complaining. She sat at a little corner table, behind two pints of stout, talking to Colonel Pyat who sipped his vodka and nodded intensely at almost every word. He was dressed in an old fur coat, part of the stock of second-hand clothes at his Elgin Crescent Glory of St Petersburg Vintage Fur Boutique which was doing such excellent business, these days; time had given him wealth, a seamed and baggy face, a decadent Dalmatian, which wheezed on a leash at his feet. Mrs Cornelius had recently been given accommodation in the basement of a house in Talbot Road and was shortly to be moved to an identical basement in the house in Blenheim Crescent whose second floor she had occupied for so many years. Frank had sold the family flat for a handsome sum to a young doctor and his wife and had told his mother that the council would be bound to find her a new home when they saw the condition of the basement, which was very damp. However, it had not taken her long to get comfy and now she didn’t really want to move. She wore a vast ragged coney coat, a present from the colonel. She saw Jerry at the bar and waved him over.

  “’Ullo, Jer—yore lookin’ very dapper—they put yore dole money up? Har, har, har!” She shook, looking to the others for confirmation of her drollery. “Her, her, her, ker-ker-ker-ker…” She had developed the local cough almost to perfection. Jerry picked up his whisky and swallowed it down. His mother felt in her handbag and produced a tenpenny piece. “Ker-ker-ker—shu—hu—shove some—ker-ker-ker—money in the jukebox, love. “’Ere yer are!”

  Reluctantly he came over to take the coin. “What d’you want to hear?”

  “Oh, you know best. One o’ yore fav’rites. Wot abart that ’Oo lot?”

  “Don’t like ’em any more.”

  “Rollin’ Stones, then.”

  “They haven’t done anything worth listening to in ages.”

  “Chuck Berry!”

  “Come on, Mum! He’s gone completely commercial. Years ago.”

  “There must be someone yer like, Jer. Ya used ter ’ave all these ’eroes.”

  “They’ve all gone off. Or died.” His smile was wistful. “I haven’t got any heroes any more, Mum—at least, nobody you can hear on the average jukebox. Not these days.”

  “Well, give us some Gary Glitter. I like ’im. Or Alvin Stardust.
Or the Bay City Rollers. They’re like The Beatles, ain’t they?”

  “Why not?” He pushed his way through the crowd to the glowing jukebox. He put the money in and pressed buttons at random. He returned to the bar and gave his mother a thumbs-up sign as Paul Simon began to sing something miserable and only barely revived.

  “Oh, I like this,” she said, “it’s one of the old ones, innit?”

  A plummy voice rose to challenge the music. The bishop was drunk again. “We gather today to celebrate the deaths of enemies and to mourn the deaths of friends…”

  “Go on, Dennis!” shouted Mrs Cornelius. She was always kind to the old has-been.

  “’E must be on ’is ninth crème de menthe,” said Mo Collier, grinning at Jerry. Ex-lay preacher and Boy Scout leader, Dennis Beesley had once run the local sweetshop but had sold it years before. Rumour had it, he had eaten all the profits. He had taken part in many neighbourhood activities, had organised the North Kensington chapter of the Monday Club, been chief representative for the Union Movement, the Empire Loyalists and, until lately, the National Front. He was still regarded by some residents as a political sage, in spite of the mysterious scandal which had led to his being expelled from both the Boy Scout movement and the National Front. His daughter Mitzi, who had looked after him since his wife had run off with a black Methodist preacher from Golborne Road, was also in the pub, being chatted up as usual by half a dozen or so of the lads, though she was showing more interest in the owner of the nearby all-night supermarket, Mr Hira, known as ‘The Professor’ because of his constant references to his university degree.

  Dennis Beesley continued his oration, cheered on by several regulars. “… to execrate those whom we hate and to praise those whom we love. From the highest and noblest of motives are brotherhoods such as ours formed so that we may comfort one another, huddling close, turning our backs on the terrifying darkness of Eternity, lifting our quavering voices in hymns of praise to the Great Idea, the Desperate Hope.” He raised green liquid to his full, sticky lips. The red blotches under his cheeks clashed badly with the crème de menthe. He drew a breath. “My dear friends, let us now kneel to stroke one another’s heads, to murmur reassurance, to pretend to divine commitment, to rage, for a short while, against the Unacceptable, to complain of our wrongs, to seek scapegoats for our own shortcomings, to protect the indigenous people of these isles against the encroaching hordes of the Children of Israel, against the Yellow Peril, the Black Invasion, the Asian Tidal Wave, the Red Menace, the Brown Betrayer, the Olive Exploiter and…” He frowned as he drained his glass.