Hairy London

by Stephen Palmer

  “She was an Indoo princess she was,” Missus replied, somewhat annoyed if her expression was anything to go by.

  Sheremy sighed. “What’s this cloth business for?”

  “Stop the smokes sendin’ you to sleep.”

  He grunted again, already bored of the conversation. “As if we’ve got anything to talk about,” he muttered.

  “I might be mulatto,” she replied, “but I am a person.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  Missus took a pace back, scowling. “There’s no helpin’ some peoples.”

  “There’s nothing mere help can do,” Sheremy retorted. “I’m stuck here for life, and all for something I didn’t do. How would you feel?”

  “Oh, you are a one,” Missus replied. “You got no thoughts as to why I’m here, eh?”

  “Well why are you here?” Sheremy replied, with bad grace.

  “If you must know, my mother was raped. By a nob. One of your lot, quite possibly. So they got me a few months back and threw me in here, just because I don’t knows me daddie. Eighteen years growin’ up in East Acton, mindin’ me own businesses, then this. Nice, I calls it.”

  Sheremy sighed once more. “I’m not a proper noble,” he said. “Just one of the superior classes. Sheremy Pantomile…” He almost added at your service, but stopped himself as he realised what that offer might entail.

  She reached out, took his right hand, and shook it. He pulled away, embarrassed. “I’m not diseased,” she said. “Not even from being half Indoo.”

  He shrugged. “I’m sorry about what happened to your mother.” A brief mental picture of Valantina came to his mind’s eye. “Women have worth, to my way of thinking, and deserve decent Britisher treatment.”

  “Yes, well,” Missus said, “that’s that sorted then. So… what you in for, eh?”

  “A rogue police officer took offence at me escaping from his jail – which I did because I was set up.”

  “Set up?”

  “Opium smuggling,” Sheremy said. “But I’ve never even seen opium, still less dealt in it.”

  “I’m sorry to hears that, truly I am.”

  “Yes, well… we’re both here for eternity it would seem. Doubtless we’ll be going mad in the years to come…”

  Missus grinned. “Not if we escapes.”

  “Escape? You’re still here. If you know how to escape, why haven’t you?”

  She squeezed the bicep of his right arm. “Never had the man strong enough for helps.”

  “Strong enough? There’s half a dozen men here stronger than me.”

  “They’re all mad. Remember? You aren’t. I know ’cos I been Bedlamised a while now. I know loon-faced from sad-faced.”

  Sheremy began to wonder if Missus had gone moon-addled during her incarceration. Delusions of escapology…

  “Oh, I sees it in your eyes already,” she muttered. “Missus is a looper. A nut–”

  “Escape is impossible,” Sheremy interrupted. “You’re imagining it.” He shrugged, then added, “I understand, however. Anybody would get drunk on dreams of escaping this place.”

  “But it’s truth! Let me show you. Look yonders.”

  She pointed at the blank wall. He said in a matter of fact voice, “I see brick. Lots of brick. And mad people sleeping, leaning against the brick.”

  “We’re lucky they’s placed the brazier to the side of the wall tonight,” Missus said, “throwin’ shadows of bricks and mortars.”

  “Shadows?”

  “Don’t you sees a shape in the wall?”

  The light was fire-red and dim. Sheremy took a few paces forward, stepping over sleeping bodies, until he stood a few yards away from the wall. “I see nothing except brick,” he repeated.

  Missus stepped forward and traced an arc with her hand. “Theres,” she said. “An arch, all done up. The bricks is different colours, you sees?”

  Hot damn, she was right! An arch-shaped hole had at some point been bricked up. “A fireplace!” he whispered, realising what structure must have been present. “Which means…”

  “A chimerney.”

  Sheremy nodded. “And a way up, out of this cell. But to what?”

  “Not here, whatevers it might be,” Missus said.

  “So my task tonight is to unblock this chimney.”

  Missus nodded.

  Sheremy rolled up his sleeves then glanced over his shoulder. In the ruddy light of the brazier he saw a single goon, asleep with his chin on his chest and a line of drool emerging from his mouth. “The time is now,” he declared.

  He studied the bricked up fireplace, seeking the weakest mortar. Some of the bricks at floor level – stinking of rat wee – were so blown they were crumbling, and these he scraped, using just his fingers, for he had no tools.

  “It’s no good Missus,” he said. “My nails won’t stand this work, and soon my fingers will be bloodied.”

  She thought for a second, then pulled a clip from her hair. “Use this to makes a hole large enough to get a coupla fingers in,” she said. “Then use brutes force to pull the mortar away, eh? We’ll never gets out just scrapin’, see.”

  “You’re correct,” he said. “I’ll try your clip.”

  He scraped for a while, until he made a hole in the damp mortar deep enough for him to push three fingers in and feel the back side of the brick. Lying on his side, he tried to get a purchase on the ground.

  “Hold my legs,” he said. “Anchor me. Then I can try to pull out the brick.”

  “Rightsio!”

  He pulled. The brick moved. He pulled as hard as he could, until, with a thunk and a fall of dust, it came out. At once a cold breeze wafted over his face. “Soot!” he whispered. He pulled Missus towards him and let her smell the air.

  “Soots,” she agreed. “A chimerney.”

  Encouraged, he pulled out more bricks, until the point came when he suspected a section of the wall might collapse. “That hole’s not big enough for us to squeeze through,” he said. “We’ll have to risk a collapse, alerting the guards.”

  Missus glanced at the still sleeping goon. “He’s in byebye lands. Pull on, Sheremy, we gotta gets out soon.”

  He nodded. He had made a hole a foot by a foot, which would be noticed even from outside the cell. Pulling more bricks he enlarged the hole, until with a crack and a rumble a section of the wall three feet wide collapsed. Dust plumed into the air. Inmates groaned in their sleep, but the goon dozed on.

  “Now we climb,” said Sheremy.

  The chimney was as black as Africa, a thin flue stinking of soot that fell upon him the moment he entered the fireplace. He coughed, then tried to stop himself coughing. Missus handed him her cloth, but it was almost dry and he had to reject it. “No more waters,” she whispered. “Get climbin’, slowcoach! We’s in danger.”

  He reached up, found brick ends and pulled himself upward, scrabbling with his feet to get purchase. In this terrible fashion, half choked with soot and with no idea of how high he was, he ascended the chimney, until he thought he would suffocate and fall to his demise.

  And then a breath of fresh air. He knew not where from, just that it was cold and clear. He stopped moving; tried to listen. Nothing, except Missus scrambling up behind him. Invigorated, he made one last effort, feeling a wooden ridge some moments later, which he used to pull himself up. Then he slumped upon a floor, choking, exhausted, filthy; in pitch darkness, but alive and out of the cell. Missus followed.

  ~

  Mr Freud the psychonaut lived at 20 Maresfield Gardens, Hampstead, having been expelled from his place of birth by the Kaiser. There also lived his wife and his daughter Anna, who, rumour had it, was almost as fearless a psychonaut as he.

  Velvene piloted the machinora to Maresfield Road, landing in a great tuft of brown hair. The machinora changed colour so as to blend in with its surroundings as Velvene disembarked. He carried his rucksack on his back, but left the clay figure and the trolley inside the machinora’s wicker capacity. Then
he forged a way through the thick street hair to Mr Freud’s front door.

  A bell tinkled. Velvene, a veteran of the Egyptian Baboon Expedition, recognised it as one from Cairo. The door opened and he saw a young woman.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Is Mr Freud in?” asked Velvene. “I am Velvene Orchardtide of the house of Orchardtide.”

  “Yes,” the young woman replied. “I’m Anna Freud. Come in, do. Father’s at a loose end – he’s lost a lot of clients recently because of all this hair we’ve been having.”

  “Indeed!” Velvene chuckled. “And does he have an explanation for it?”

  Anna considered this question. “You think it might have its origin in a person’s mind?”

  Velvene shrugged. “Anything is possible in the modern world.”

  Anna laughed and said, “I’ll go and tell father you’re here.”

  Velvene waited, pulling his rucksack off to appear more like a gentleman. He had brushed and cleaned his clothes as best he could, but was aware that he still appeared dishevelled, not least because he had not shaved for days – an event unknown in his life so far. He glanced into a mirror, wiped beads of sweat off his forehead, straightened his cravat.

  On a side table lay a copy of that morning’s Times. He glanced at the headline.

  ROYAL INSTITUTE SCIENTISTS FOCUS ON CHELSEA COSMETICISTS

  Rumour of rogue hairdressers confirmed by PM

  “My father will see you in his study,” Anna said.

  Velvene walked into the study to see Freud, dapper in a pinstripe suit and straw boater, standing beside an Egyptian potato. He glanced around the room to see a painting of Oedipus and the Sphinx, a green tub chair, and a luxurious couch on which lay a rug patterned in red, yellow and brown.

  “A rug from Iran, I note,” he remarked.

  “You have been to Iran?” Freud asked, sitting in the tub chair.

  Velvene sat back on the couch, arranging the chenille cushions so that he was more comfortable. “I was a member of the Suicide Club’s Tehran Expeditionary Force,” he said. “Last year we went to rescue the Shah from the Red-Faced Devil Boys of Esfahan.”

  “They hate their fathers, you know,” Freud observed.

  Velvene took a deep breath and said, “Sir, I have come here on a vital mission. Will you aid me, eh?”

  “Certainly,” Freud replied. “Why not lie back on the couch and make yourself as comfy as possible?”

  Velvene did as he was instructed, then continued, “Rather foolishly, some might say, though mostly because I found myself short of funds, I signed up to a wager that involves uncovering the true nature of love. Now Mr Freud, I am a man who delights in the company of women and marvels at their many accomplishments, but I have never known love, nor even been married. Nor even… well, you know.”

  “Excellent,” Freud said. “What I want you to do is talk to me about your mother. Do not consciously constrain what you say. Do not, to use the journalistic term, edit yourself. Just tell me what comes into your head when you think about your mother.”

  “I like her… no no, I hate her. I want to kill her.”

  “Why do you want to kill her?”

  “Because she is a dragon, and dragons must be killed. Like St George, eh? She flies and flaps around the place, putting everything in order, telling me that God will punish me, praying for me, while all the time my wretched brothers with their simpering faces and stupid cassocks prance around Ely and Lincoln telling their flocks how bad they have been! It is an outrage!”

  “You hate your brothers, then?” asked Freud.

  “No, not hate them… despise them.”

  “Are they older than you?”

  “Yes, Chompton is the eldest, with Sphagnume the middle one.”

  “What comes into your mind,” said Freud, “when you think of your mother and your two brothers together in some familial setting?”

  “I am being mocked, excluded, laughed at when I look the other way. I remember a picnic we had, they all ate duck and partridge sandwiches while I had mere ham. Mere ham! It makes me fume to this day that she only gave me ham. And me losing all my hair.”

  “Are you losing all your hair?”

  “Well, yes, yes,” Velvene muttered, embarrassed that he had said such a thing. “Going a bit thin on top. But what has that to do with it, eh?”

  “You said it, not me.”

  Velvene frowned, gazed at the ceiling, then shut his eyes. “I suppose, being the youngest of the family, I was ignored somewhat. I am guessing, Mr Freud – I have no evidence, you understand. But it seems to me that the dragon was more interested in the Church than me. And my two brothers part of the Church. So convenient! No bloody wonder I joined the bloody Suicide Club!”

  “Why did you join the Suicide Club?”

  “The virility, I suppose. You see, I am a God-fearing Christian, but there are aspects of the Church that annoy me. Oh, I should never complain, the Church does marvellous work, but, well, it has always annoyed me that they are so impotent in the world today.”

  “Do you realise,” said Freud, “you have not mentioned one word about your father?”

  “But you have not asked me about my cat.”

  “Your cat?”

  “Yes,” Velvene said, “you remarked that I had not mentioned him. That is because you have not asked me about him, eh?”

  “That is not my point. You have not mentioned him.”

  “Well, there is little enough to say about him. He is ill, with poor blood circulation and all the rest of it. Though he used to be healthy enough when he was younger… perhaps the dragon is poisoning him.”

  “Is that the sort of thing she would do?”

  “Most certainly,” Velvene replied. “It is well known that dragons have poisonous breath. I suppose I should find myself a horse and a lance, and have at her. It is the humane thing to do… the judge and jury will understand.”

  “How would you feel if you killed your mother?”

  “Free.”

  Freud said, “But would she watch you from heaven?”

  “Undoubtedly, but she would not walk on this earth, and so could not touch me.”

  “Could not touch you, you say.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you like to be touched?” asked Freud.

  Velvene laughed, appalled and delighted at the same time. “My my,” he replied, wiping a tear from one eye, “that is the most ridiculous question I have ever been asked. Why Mr Freud, I do declare you are the very Punch of Hampstead. The very Punch!”

  Freud said nothing for a while. At length he said, “Do you like yourself?”

  “The Suicide Club is proud of me. My colleagues respect me.”

  “But do you like yourself?” Freud insisted.

  “Well, my suicidal colleagues speak well of me, and the vicar thanked me for bringing damsons to the harvest festival last year.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Is that everything, Mr Freud?”

  “Yes, Mr Orchardtide.”

  Velvene sat up and turned to face Freud. “Then what can you tell me, eh?”

  “You abhor yourself. You know less about love than a gnat. You will lose the wager.”

  “What? You impugn me, sir!”

  Freud shrugged. “I tell the truth, which I dredge from the human mind.”

  Velvene sprang to his feet, anger animating him. “Well, I wish now that I had never come here,” he cried. “Good day to you… you charlatan! I shall not be paying you a single brass brockett for your time. And I shall show myself out of your house.”

  Freud stood up, surprise on his face, but he said nothing and made no attempt to halt Velvene’s departure.

  Outside in the sun, Velvene slammed the front door shut behind him. “Insolent bastard!” he said.

  He hurried back to the machinora, which lay where he had left it. Inside the wicker capacity he paused for a while, drank a sip of water from the rain collector, then sighed.


  Stroking the clay figure he said, “Well, Lily-Bette, I am no nearer the truth of love than I was before meeting that clown Freud. What shall I do next, eh?”

  He pondered the question he had asked himself for some time before a thought entered his mind.

  “Of course!” he said. “Mr Jung.”

  ~

  Kornukope’s gunshot injury was nasty, but not life threatening; the bullet passed through the side of his chest, damaging muscle and bone but missing organs and arteries. In a week he was on his feet at home in Hampstead.

  Then one day he received a letter by bat post, delivered to his rooftop cave by a pipistrelle. He read it aloud to Eastachia.

  “Lord Blandhubble requests the presence of Kornukope and Eastachia Wetherbee at the Foreign Office, today at three pm sharp.”

  Eastachia’s face lit up. “Perhaps they have news of the hairy plague.”

  Kornukope nodded. “Or perhaps it is another mission for us – more likely, since Blandhubble wants to speak to us in person. I fret here at home dearest one, with little to do and the dread rumour of Cockneigh disturbances.”

  “Me too.”

  He smiled, then hugged her. “What a team we make!”

  The Underground got them as far as Holborn Station before the carriages were halted by choking hair, causing everyone to disembark. From Holborn they walked down Kingsway and the Strand, forging a path through dense clumps of greasy hair, often slipping in glutinous pools of sebum, before entering Whitehall, with its clipped paths and ribboned locks. At the Foreign Office they were ushered into Lord Blandhubble’s rooms, where, as before, they partook of tea and honey biscuits.

  “Good of you to come,” said Lord Blandhubble. “Travel is becoming more difficult as the hair grows longer.”

  “What do you want of us?” Kornukope asked.

  “With you being a chap of the Suicide Club, I thought this might be one for you. Do you know Egg&Ham?”

  “Small town near Windsor Great Park? Only by reputation.”

  “That far out of London the hair generally recedes, though, as it happens, to the south west, even as far as Virginia Water, it’s tough and clumpy. But there is a place down there, a chateau, and in that chateau there is a man.”

  Kornukope frowned. “A man?”

  “Hornelius Struckett by name. A madman. Or so we thought, until I received this from the director of the chateau.”