Hairy London

by Stephen Palmer

  “Sheremy!” Valantina gasped, staring at him.

  Sheremy shrugged. He cared not who knew of his feelings now.

  “’Ere you go, mate,” said the old man. “Your chit. You’ll ’ave to work it out with the guv’nor as to payin’ it. Now clear orf, the both of you.”

  Sheremy grasped Valantina’s hand and led her away. In the half light of the tunnel they walked on, side by side, until he saw the ghostly hint of a station platform ahead. Turning to Valantina he said, “I believe I’m falling in love with you, Valantina. I just wanted you to know.”

  She leaned forwards and kissed him. “I think the feeling may be mutual,” she replied.

  ~

  Velvene could not sleep. On the bedbug-ridden mattress he turned this way and that, unable to rid his mind’s eye of the images of the last few days: Tyko happy eating chips & fishes; the sallow faced man throwing a distressed Tyko; the protestors and their placards; and worst of all Lord Blackanore’s grinning face.

  He sat up. Anger burned in his body. Lord Blackanore was so proud of the softness of the leather undergarments, so pleased with their distribution amongst the nobles of London, so keen to increase their uptake. No wonder! He was indeed a blackguard.

  Velvene knew he had been converted. He had a war now in which to fight.

  He got out of bed and walked across to the window of the box room in which he had been put. He was lucky: he slept alone. The three women shared a room, while Pertrand, showing off Velvene thought, slept on a sofa.

  In the pale light of dawn he glanced at the clay figure, to see it had changed once more. He approached it. The figure was better modelled, all the lumps gone, the limbs smooth, shapely, the posture better, the back showing a hint of vertebrae and ribs. Still no sign though if it was a man or a woman. But what on earth was the thing?

  He returned to his bed. There was just enough light now to read.

  He took up his copy of Engels, and read: I have never seen a class so deeply demoralized, so incurably debased by selfishness, so corroded within, so incapable of progress, as the English bourgeoisie; and I mean by this, especially the bourgeoisie proper, particularly the Liberal, Corn Law repealing bourgeoisie. For it nothing exists in this world, except for the sake of money, itself not excluded. It knows no bliss save that of rapid gain, no pain save that of losing gold.

  Velvene cursed and put the book aside. That was a description of him! A man for whom gold was all and men so little. He had been a lummox. Well, now he was a Marxist-Leninist. The sight of Lord Blackanore, who he knew so well, who he had admired for his suave insight, for his energy, for his devotion to his undergarments, that sight of the man grinning at his kinsmen slaving in their steamy hell… it would remain with him for life.

  Later that morning they made plans. Velvene said, “I want to destroy the darkie factory and release all the workers.”

  Pertrand nodded. “How?”

  “From above, eh? I am skilled in the flight of Archimedean floating systems, but alas we have none.”

  “We could steal one,” Pertrand said.

  Velvene nodded. “Our best chance would be from London Zoo – you, Pertrand, and I could undertake that theft. The rest of the group could set up the raid itself.”

  “Sounds good, guv.”

  And so the plans were set. But Velvene foresaw a difficulty, which he broached as he and Pertrand forged their way up Eversholt Street on their way to the zoo that evening. “I must wear a mask for the duration of the raid,” he said. “The darkie owner is known to me.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Lord Blackanore of Highgate.”

  Pertrand was at once suspicious. “You know a lord? I knew there was a reason for them posh clothes.”

  “I don’t know him,” Velvene lied, “but my father does. That is all.”

  “If you’re a spy in our group–”

  “Would a spy be stealing a machinora from London Zoo in order to raid the factory?”

  “I dunno… probably not. I’ll be watching you though.”

  Velvene knew he had returned to solid ground. “Watch me all you like, eh? I shall be loyal to the cause. I am going to do this – ruin Blackanore’s livelihood, strike a blow for Tyko, and all the rest. Indeed!”

  Pertrand seemed at best half convinced. But Velvene, converted, knew now what he wanted, and he knew what he would do when the moment came.

  London Zoo, situated at the northern edge of Regent’s Park, was less secure than a baby’s cot, and the two men made their way inside with no difficulty. In the reptile establishment they spotted a chameleonic Archimedean floating system, which recommended itself to Velvene because of its colour-changing facility; and once he had familiarised himself with the heatorix and the two independent rudders, they were away. Apart from a couple of stops for the machinora to catch pigeons with its sticky tongue the journey was simple enough, and they landed in safety on the roof of the Gordon Square flat.

  They began the raid next day. All seven of the team had specified parts of the mission to enact, with the women, Velvene was dismayed to learn, as active as the men. But he could not tell them of his own skills, honed across the Empire in acts of derring-do, so he held his tongue. Having witnessed his abilities however, Pertrand gave him a prominent role in the hit squad.

  Velvene piloted the chameleonic Archimedean floating system as the sun set, their plan to land on the factory roof as the last shift of the day ended. Once settled, the machinora changed colour, matching the dull ochre slabs of the flat roof with amazing precision. Velvene nodded to himself, then pulled his mask over his face.

  “Remember where we leave this machinora,” Pertrand said. “At night it could be difficult to spot.”

  The roof was accessed from below by a wrought iron spiral staircase, leading up to a small tower with a door in it. This door they forced using a jemmio, creeping down the staircase, leaving one of their number to guard their exit, then moving on. In this way they descended three floors, leaving two more guards and reducing their number to four, one of whom was Sylfia Fermicelli, the Neapolitan safe-cracking expert, the other Fred Gnutter, strongman.

  From a balcony they observed the scene below. Each of the darkie workers had a monkey on their back, while on a dais at the front of the factory floor sat an overseer, his megaphone, tipstaff and timeout bell at the ready. The atmosphere was humid and filled with leather dust, and every few seconds some exhausted darkie would cough and splutter, then return to his steaming machine beneath the contemptuous gaze of the overseer.

  “We’ll sneak down and detain the overseer,” Pertrand told Fred. “Sylfia, you unlock the front door and open it for the darkies. Velvene, cover us.”

  “What with?”

  Pertrand threw him his revolver. “This.”

  A series of slippery steps led them down to ground level, with Pertrand once having to switch his candle on because it was so dark. But five minutes later they huddled in silence at a side door, awaiting the signal to go.

  Pertrand gave them a countdown. “Five, four, three, two, one, on your Marx!”

  Velvene followed the others onto the factory floor, pointing his revolver at the overseer. The man stared, mouth open. The darkies yelled, while the monkeys on their backs screeched and ran amok. For a few moments it was pandemonium, until Velvene saw Pertrand and Fred jumping onto the dais.

  The overseer snatched his megaphone and spoke.

  “ALL EMPLOYEES REMAIN SEATED. THERE HAS BEEN AN INCURSION.”

  Velvene heard Pertrand’s voice rise over the subsiding hubbub. “Stand still! We’re letting these people go. You, we’ll capture. Fred, get his legs!”

  “YOU RAIDERS. DO NOT APPROACH. THIS BUILDING IS PATROLLED.”

  “Ignore him, Fred. Get his shanks!”

  Fred dived at the overseer and tackled him to the ground, but the man wriggled free and staggered to his feet. At that point Sylfia got the lock open, flinging the exit door’s two panels aside and letting in fresh
air, and a last, crimson gleam of sunlight.

  Pertrand yelled from the dais, “Workers, you are free! Run to freedom!”

  But the darkies seemed confused. One shouted back, “Where to? We live here.” Another called out, “This is a workhouse, ain’t it?”

  The overseer grabbed his megaphone. “DO NOT RUN. YOU’LL BE TRACKED DOWN. REMAIN AT YOUR WORK STATIONS UNTIL THE INCURSION IS HALTED.”

  Pertrand seemed annoyed more by the confusion amongst the workers than by the instructions of the overseer. He shouted, “We’re the Marxist-Leninist Workers’ Movement Of London and we’ve rescued you. Get out before it’s too late and the monkeys jump on your backs again! Move it!”

  A chorus of disapproval was his reply: “But it’s hairy out there,” and “We ain’t got nowhere to go,” and, most tellingly of all, “You’ve not thought this through.”

  Velvene stepped forward, raised his revolver and fired a single shot in the air. Everybody jumped: then silence.

  He leaped upon a chair and shouted, “This factory is owned by Lord Blackanore, who is a darkie like you. If you value your lives and your culture, escape, as Mr Urricane says. But if you want to be ruled by one of your own then remain here… yet you shall be little more than slaves!”

  “Well said!” Pertrand yelled, cupping his hands to his mouth.

  But the overseer had other plans. He shouted, “I’M WARNING YOU. IF YOU DON’T LEAVE THIS BUILDING RIGHT NOW I’M SETTING THE MENAGERIE ON YOU.”

  “We are not frightened!” Velvene retorted, as the excitement of the moment intoxicated him. “You do not have a leg to stand on, eh, eh?”

  “DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU.”

  The overseer ran to a wall and pulled a lever, whereupon, from a concealed door at the back of the dais, a horde of miniature animals emerged: tigers, zebras, lions, hippopotami, and much, much more.

  The overseer shouted, “CHARGE!”

  ~

  The Venus Fly Trap Chamber was a room of Hieronymous Boschian hell, and when she walked inside it Eastachia quailed. She and Kornukope were tied to wooden posts above which individual fly traps swung on vines. These devices of horror, she noticed, were fixed to moveable branches which could be lowered or raised by means of levers.

  Gandy approached Eastachia, the tentacles of his left arm writhing.

  “You don’t mean to hurt me, a kinswoman?” she said.

  He tapped his chin with his crab claw. “You intrigue me,” he said. “Where were you born?”

  “Calcutty.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Indeed… Calcutty, you say. And is this upstanding Britisher colonialist dear to you?”

  “He is my husband.”

  “Indeed! A fine state of affairs. And a convenient one for me.”

  “In what way?” Eastachia asked, dreading the answer.

  “Did you not notice the sign on the door through which you entered?”

  Eastachia shook her head.

  “What poor spies you make. That sign would have given you a clue as to my plans for this country.”

  “Leave my wife out of this, you fiend!” Kornukope shouted, struggling with his bonds. “I am a member of the Suicide Club and to all intents and purposes represent the British Government. Deal with me, not her, for she is innocent.”

  “How touching,” Gandy replied, approaching Eastachia. A slim, noxious pink tentacle reached out to caress her cheek. “You care for your wife, then?”

  “Leave her alone, sir!”

  Gandy took a few steps back. “This really is too convenient. A Britisher and an Indoo who have been together for some time. Perfect test subjects.”

  “Subjects?” Eastachia queried.

  Gandy began pacing up and down, avoiding the lowest hanging flytraps by ducking beneath them. “We have developed a most cunning substance,” he explained, “with which I mean to decimate the Anglo-Saxons of this land, so that your Empire – which I loathe above all other things – can finally be destroyed. This will leave Indoo, from Far North to Far South, free of malign influence. Home Rule, you see, must be brought to the sub-continent using all necessary means.”

  “Including violence?”

  Gandy shrugged. “Exclusively violence,” he replied. “I find it is the only efficacious method.” He smiled, then continued, “To this end I have developed an anglocide, which will harm only Anglo-Saxons.”

  “But… the widespread destruction!” Kornukope gasped. “The mayhem! The loss of Western civilisation!”

  “Western civilisation would indeed be a good thing,” Gandy replied, flashing Kornukope a black look. “Now, once the anglocide has done its work this country will contain only Celts and sundry immigrants. Meanwhile my fighting machines will have taken over London, and I will rule. And then, at long last, the country of my birth will be free.”

  “But the King!”

  “Will suffer the same fate as your Charles the first. Except I will cut off his hands first.”

  Eastachia took a deep breath and said, “You intend testing the anglocide on us, don’t you?”

  Gandy grinned and nodded.

  “How does it work?”

  “By relaxing the stiff upper lip. No Britisher can survive that. Your culture consequentially collapses, since it is dependent on rigid hierarchies and emotional constipation.”

  “You utter fiend!” Kornukope said. “You mean literally to un-man us.”

  Gandy laughed. “Doubtless you see the irony of that!”

  “But,” Eastachia said, “couldn’t women go into politics, even contest you?”

  Gandy laughed again. “Women? In politics? In London Town? The moon will fall down first!”

  Eastachia nodded. “You’re vile,” she said. But in the privacy of her mind she was thinking: there is a flaw in your plan. You man.

  “So,” Gandy said, “will you resist my tests, or will you submit?”

  “Do we have any choice?”

  “Yes. But refusing to submit will make it painful for you, though enjoyable for me.”

  “Then in effect,” Eastachia said, “we have no choice.”

  They were taken by hard-muscled thuggees into a chamber of medicalicity, where they were directed to comfortable chairs, in which they sat. Kornukope was told to roll up his shirt sleeve, while Eastachia had her shawl removed, revealing her upper arms.

  Gandy’s surgeon-in-chief, Mizanthrop Mahavishnu, approached with two glass syringes in his hands. “These,” the wizened old man explained, “contain the germs we have developed into the anglocide. I shall inject you with the formula and observe the results.” He grinned. “But I think I can predict what will happen. Such is the miracle of our modern science.”

  “Perverted science if you ask me,” Kornukope said.

  “Protest all you like,” Mizanthrop replied. “Nobody can save you now.”

  “What about Alexander Fleming?”

  “Who?”

  “The Anglo-Saxon scientist who discovered penicillin.”

  Mizanthrop took a notebook from his pocket and jotted the name down. “I shall enjoy investigating his work tomorrow,” he said with a smile. “Now prepare to feel a twinge of pain.”

  Eastachia held her breath and grimaced as the injection was administered. Terrified, she turned to watch Kornukope, knowing that she was already resistant to the disease, whereas he was not.

  “Be brave,” she whispered.

  “I shall be,” he replied.

  For a while nothing happened. They had not been tied to their chairs and were free to move, though Mizanthrop, Gandy and two white-uniformed Indoo nurses watched them from across the room. Then Kornukope began to sway and giggle, as often he did after too much coriander brandy.

  “What’s the matter?” Eastachia asked.

  He turned to her, grinning like an idiot. “You’re looking very nice today,” he said, his speech a little slurred.

  Eastachia glanced at Mizanthrop, who observed in silence, jotting more lines in his notebo
ok. Gandy smiled like a contented cat.

  Kornukope tried to stand up, but fell to the floor at Eastachia’s feet. “You’re looking very… nice today. Oh, I feel strange. Dearest one… darling, you’re looking very nice today. Is that a new dress?”

  Kornukope never commented upon her clothes. Eastachia watched, afraid but also curious.

  He laughed. “I feel free!”

  “Free?”

  Gandy looked at Mizanthrop. Mizanthrop shrugged.

  Kornukope lurched to his feet then embraced her. “Darling,” he said, “I feel a kind of… warm sensation in me. I rather can’t describe it. But you’re looking very nice, I hadn’t noticed… hadn’t noticed before… how nice you look. D’you remember that time in Moo–”

  “Kornukope, pull yourself together!” Eastachia said. At all costs he must not mention Moonbai, for if Gandy discovered she had been a member of the Rhododendron Mob her life would be imperilled.

  “But… I feel warm towards you, darling.”

  Suddenly Eastachia realised something. If the anglocide broke the cultural spell of the stiff upper lip it could help Kornukope reveal true feelings for her, that never before had emerged. She said, “Do you love me, Kornukope?”

  “Why yes! Of course I do. Oh, I feel rather strange…”

  He hiccuped and slid to the floor. One of the nurses made to move forward, but Mizanthrop put his arm out to stop her.

  “I do love you,” Kornukope continued, “that’s why I married you. Feeling… rather…”

  His eyes closed and he began snoring.

  Mizanthrop and Gandy walked forwards, and their manner was one of triumph. “Imagine what would happen,” Gandy said, “if the Cabinet became so sentimental. If every member of parliament in the Commons was so mushy. If every Anglo-Saxon in this country was a wibbling fool!”

  Eastachia nodded. “Your plan is foolproof,” she said.

  Mizanthrop gestured for the nurses to pull Kornukope to his feet, but as they did he awoke and became angry.

  “You vile, swinish swine!” he cried, pulling free and aiming a punch at Gandy. The punch missed, but then there was chaos as Gandy, Mizanthrop and the two nurses tried to capture Kornukope through flailing arms, legs and a storm of profanities. In the confusion Eastachia was left alone. Ducking and dodging, she made her way to the tray of anglocide, where she picked up and pocketed a stoppered test tube.