by M T McGuire
Gladys and Ada would donate their services to the organisation they belonged to – the Underground – and anyone the old ladies considered worthy, who needed to be somewhere else; because they were allowed a little discretion. People like that nice lad with the hat, The Pan of Hamgee. He was a dear boy – so well brought up and polite, so considerate of his peers, so kind to domestic pets, and so clearly blacklisted by the state. How he was still alive, neither could imagine.
In the face of substantial failure, Gladys and Ada were on the brink of giving up on their plan and informing their colleagues in the Underground that they had failed; that the organisation must make do with only very occasionally transporting its people or qualifying others (nice young men, with hats, who were kind to parrots, for example) to safety, by using a far more dangerous means, one of the few – and therefore, eminently traceable – pieces of equipment designed for the purpose. It could be done without discovery, but the fugitives could only be transported in small numbers, by people with enough special training. No, not people, a person – Sir Robin Get, the last of the great Nimmists, the last hope of the nation – special training aside, nobody else seemed to be able to do it, nobody who was alive any more, anyway.
Sir Robin was, as Trev would put it, ‘knocking on a bit’ and Gladys and Ada were keen to get their disposable transport system up and running before he, or they ‘pegged out’ (Trev again). It had taken some hours to get the machine going, and several apparently successful attempts to set up the chutney jar had turned out to be failures, when, for all the hopeful signs, the chutney remained stubbornly in position. This latest attempt was no exception.
“That were the note.” Gladys scratched her head. “We isn’t doin’ this wrong. I is sure.”
The two regarded the jar thoughtfully. Always a chutney jar and always full, because that was the only thing in the Parrot and Screwdriver that gave a suitable reading for conversion – on Gladys and Ada’s somewhat hit-and-miss machine, at any rate. Ada shook her head sadly.
“Oh dear. I don’t understand it. Why won’t it go?”
Gladys shrugged.
“’S gotta be an expla—expla—reason.”
Ada picked up the jar and turned it over. Nope. Nothing. The chutney remained stolidly where it was, except the jar was different. She held it in front of the candle.
“Has it changed shape a little?” In the dim light it was difficult to be sure but, it seemed to have acquired a waist. No. Surely not. She handed it to Gladys who tried to take the lid off. It wouldn’t turn.
“’S stuck.” Gladys banged it on the side of the freezer and removed it without further trouble. She stuck her finger in the contents and licked it.
“’S not done the chutney no harm,” she said, proffering the jar to her friend with a definite here’s-the-bright-side ring to her tone. Ada stuck her finger in and tasted some. A fine kick there – a little more than usual, perhaps – or was that simply down to age?
“I think it might be a tad richer than before,” she said.
Gladys put the jar down and they both looked at it for a moment.
“I is not surprised. We has been working on this jar a long time an’ given it time for ageing. It’s good for ageing, my pickle.”
“So what are we doing wrong?”
Gladys sucked a breath in through her teeth. “I dunno. It’s something blindin’ obvious I reckons. Or we is missing a step.”
There was a noise, small but growing louder and louder. Like the sound the water used to make running out of the bathtub upstairs in Ada and Gladys’ flat, before Trev and his mate Stan the Plumber had ripped out the old stuff and replaced it with something better – a noise like soapy water gurgling and screeching through ancient, decrepit pipes. And a pop.
“Ooo!” said Ada.
“Yer,” said Gladys.
The chutney had disappeared.
Something in Ada’s mind floated to the surface, something from a science lesson at school all those years ago, about vacuums. Of course it had disappeared. It would probably have disappeared a long time before now, she thought, if only they had taken off the lid.
“Should we try another?” she asked her friend.
Gladys looked grudgingly at the jars of chutney stacked behind them. Ada could sympathise. One jar was bad, but two ...
“Hmph. ’S a criminal waste of chutney.” There was a long pause while Ada waited in understanding silence. “Yer, OK.”
They repeated the process and breathlessly Ada watched as Gladys unscrewed the lid of the jar. Once again, the chutney disappeared. Gladys chuckled.
“Lorks! I reckons we is back in business!”
“You know, dear, I do believe we are!”
They looked across the dimly lit table at one another, a whole world opening up before them. This was no longer the end; it was the beginning: a new K’Barth; in waiting; in exile. The whole national ethos; religion, moral viewpoint, lifestyle, outlook and way of thinking – all of it could be preserved. And no-one had to die any more, or at least, not everyone.
Gladys folded her arms and gave a brief, satisfied nod.
“Good,” she said.
Chapter 3
Twenty-four hours had passed since the fire, and to his great surprise The Pan was still at large. Perhaps his lack of status helped. Blacklisted, or otherwise, he could hardly be classed as a rebel, and was only a very small cog in the city’s criminal machinery. Perhaps Big Merv had better things to be doing with his time.
No. Unlikely. Big Merv was a Swamp Thing. Swamp Things were the only creatures that could punch as hard as Grongles, but since they had led an uprising a few years before The Pan was born, there weren’t many of them left. They were slow to anger, but once riled they were passionate and uncompromising, and even slower to forgive.
Nobody in their right mind would mess with a Swamp Thing, not even a mild-mannered one, and Big Merv wasn’t the least mild-mannered. He didn’t like people upsetting him, and torching his flat would make him about as upset as it was possible to be. Flat-sitting for The Big Thing, as they called him, was a weighty responsibility – almost as weighty as the lead they’d tie to The Pan’s feet when they caught up with him, before they chucked him in the river.
He stood in the familiar surroundings of Turnadot Street, surveying the ramshackle – but spotlessly clean – facade of the Parrot and Screwdriver. In so far as The Pan had a home any more, it was here, and if he had any family these days it was the pub’s proprietors, Ada, Gladys and Gladys’ son, Trev.
It was an emotional moment and The Pan was there for several minutes, trying to remember every nuance of the stonework, every crooked window, so that he would always be able to picture it in his mind’s eye, even if he never set eyes on it again.
What to do now?
He shrugged. There was nowhere to run. Big Merv had contacts everywhere. Sure, he could stay ahead of his pursuers for a while, but where would he go? Even if he escaped the confines of the city, they’d be bound to track him down sooner or later, if the Grongles didn’t beat them to it. He had been blacklisted for four years and he was tired of running away. It was time to say farewell.
“Mmm,” said The Pan to no-one in particular, “one last beer.”
As he opened the door of the smoky saloon bar, he smiled. Ada was there, as usual, dressed in her standard attire: a maroon satin tent-like dress, seemingly constructed from several large parachutes, with similarly extensive swathes of maroon chiffon over the top. The Pan supposed there were legs under there somewhere but if there were, he’d never seen them. She glided, as if on air-ride suspension, with only the square toes of her buff Queen Mum-style court shoes ever visible. Ada was the Parrot’s PR front. She appeared to be mistress of all she surveyed, but it was her sidekick, Gladys, who brewed the Parrot’s famous own-brand beer and was the one in charge.
Gladys was about five foot two with fluffy white hair. She habitually dressed in woolly tights and something made out of green and
beige textured Terylene that could once, before many hard winters and boil washes, have been a dress. It went down to her knees and her spindly bow legs started at its edges, even though her ankles met in the middle. Her shoes were ‘comfortable’ – that is, lace-ups with a little circle of leather at the end of each lace. There was speculation as to whether the toecaps were steel, but nobody dared provoke her enough to find out. The tights contained numerous wrinkles in each ankle and naturally, neither article was quite the right colour green to go with the other. This tout ensemble was topped with a very moth-eaten red cardigan, spattered liberally with a selection of authentic-looking brown stains. Even for a woman of her advanced years, her face was wrinkled. When she saw The Pan she grinned, revealing a set of teeth which, like Ada’s, were all her own.
Together with Gladys’ Trev, the two old ladies lived in a flat over the pub. Occasionally, when their mood or their finances required it, they would take in a lodger. There was no-one staying there right now and The Pan had been receiving clear signals that if he could scrape the cash together for the smallest peppercorn rent, the guest room was his for the duration.
Too late for that now. All the more reason to bid his friends a polite goodbye.
He was doing the right thing. It’d be a good double bluff too. Big Merv would expect him to take off, so the smartest course of action, for the next few days, at least, was to stay put and use the time to formulate a decent escape plan. Prospects of that were bleak but he had to try.
His stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten anything since the sole he was cooking when he started the fire. Yes, that was a point. As a regular, Gladys and Ada occasionally gave him a round of sandwiches on the house.
Well, it was worth a go.
Chapter 4
Neither of the Parrot’s septuagenarian landladies flinched when The Pan took his usual seat at the bar and – having taken off his cloak and hat and put them carefully on the seat beside him – produced one of those plastic squeezy lemons from his pocket and set it on a beer mat in front of him. Most of their customers were, at best, eccentric, but keeping the tone of the establishment low kept the Grongles and therefore the Resistance out, and that made for a quiet life. Ada and Gladys didn’t like violence. If they had been forced to choose between either of the two warring parties they’d have plumped for the Grongles rather than the Resistance. At least you knew where you were with them, and while you had to give both sides drinks on the house, the Grongles, unlike the Resistance, were teetotal – much cheaper to entertain.
Both the Grongles and the Resistance had a habit of ‘asking’ for help, usually with information. You couldn’t say no to either and live, but you could passively resist the Grongles until they got bored and went away, or you could deliberately misinform them, sure in the knowledge that they’d never double-check, and that justice was on your side.
The Resistance were harder to deal with. They behaved almost as badly as the Grongles, and expected Gladys and Ada to betray their customers in the exact same way. They were the kind of zealots who checked up on people though, so Gladys and Ada had to research each set of circumstances thoroughly before they could misinform the Resistance in a realistic and credible way. This made the old ladies uncomfortable. Misleading the Grongles was a thoroughly laudable and commendable thing to do while, technically, misleading the Resistance was betraying their country – even if it was to save some poor innocent’s neck.
Gladys and Ada didn’t like betraying their country but they didn’t like getting people killed either, so they contented themselves with entertaining the dregs of society. You knew where you were with the dregs of society, and they didn’t go murdering each other in public and bleeding all over the Parrot’s nice clean floors at the drop of a hat. They kept their affairs private and they didn’t ask any awkward questions about Gladys and Ada’s business either.
Ada served The Pan that evening.
“What will it be, dear?”
“I’ll have a beer, please.”
“Anything else, dear?”
While Ada pulled a pint, he consulted the contents of his wallet. Hmm, could he run to a packet of crisps? Yes, if he made the second pint a half.
“I’ll have a packet of crisps as well.”
“Would you like any particular flavour?”
Ah, the joy of simple decisions.
“Salt and vinegar.”
Surrounded by the relative normality of the pub he began to feel better. It was easy to pretend the accident in Big Merv’s flat hadn’t happened and delude himself that there was safety in a crowd. Big Merv’s henchmen could hardly barge in and kidnap him in front of everyone. Gladys and Ada wouldn’t stand for that.
There was a sudden light pressure on his shoulder.
“Bum!” said a harsh, parroty voice in his ear.
Ah yes. Humbert. The eponymous Parrot that went with the Screwdriver. The Pan had forgotten about him when he ordered his packet of crisps.
“Hello, parrot.”
Humbert belonged to Ada and was almost bald but – by some inexplicable victory of willpower over the laws of aviation – still able to fly. The Pan, like all Ada’s regulars, was wary of him and with good reason. If he had one feather left on each wing he would still have managed to get airborne somehow, The Pan reflected dourly, in order to relieve himself on people’s heads. Though a parrot, he was every inch a gannet and zoned in on the plastic rustling sound as The Pan opened his bag of crisps. Humbert wouldn’t leave The Pan alone now: not until he’d had his share.
The Pan fished out the biggest crisp and put it on a beer mat where Humbert slubbered and pecked at it voraciously.
“That’s your lot, parrot, so make it last,” he warned him. After a whole day and night without eating The Pan wasn’t in the mood for sharing. However, going hungry was one thing; being hungry and covered in the kind of guano Humbert produced was a different, far more unpleasant, proposition. The parrot operated a peculiar brand of psychology and The Pan had long since learned the first rule of the pub – be kind to Ada’s infernal pet and it wouldn’t poo on your head. If he was very kind, it might even leave him alone completely.
“Wipe my conkers!” shouted Humbert.
“Mmm,” said The Pan, raising one eyebrow at it. The parrot put its head on one side and stared back at him. Would it make a lunge for the other crisps? Gladys put some sandwiches in front of another customer. It squawked delightedly and started to sidle down the bar towards him, taking the mangled crisp with it.
Good.
Right. What next? Now that he was no longer working for Big Merv, The Pan had no way of earning money and therefore, no means to pay for food – or anything else for that matter. He was desperate, but not to the extent that he’d volunteer for the Resistance. He wondered if it was worth asking Gladys and Ada if they’d give him a job and let him work for food.
No. It would put them in danger because it would annoy Big Merv. He glanced over at Ada who was busy serving a hulking great bloke with a beard.
****
Unaware as she was of the rules of psychology, The Pan’s touching display of affection towards her pet warmed what Ada called the ‘cockles of her heart’.
What a nice young man, she thought. So thoughtful and considerate. Ada liked people who were kind to parrots, even if they were shady criminal people who’d nick anything that wasn’t nailed down. Come to think of it, most of the Parrot and Screwdriver’s regular clientele behaved like that. But the others were always aggressive and defensive when she challenged them, The Pan would merely tell her he wasn’t a talented thief before apologising and handing back whatever he’d stolen.
Ada watched him from the other end of the bar as he ate his crisps. She had always assumed he wasn’t entirely human. Hamgee was a rum place – she wouldn’t have been surprised if there wasn’t a touch of goblin in him somewhere. But he was so nice, polite, attractive even – in his own ordinary way – he had smiley eyes, a sense of humour, and a kindly dis
position. He was smart. It was such a shame. He’d have made some lass a lovely husband.
Pity he was blacklisted, or at least, she suspected he was. It might be just a rumour or even an attempt on his part to hype himself up as an iron man who was best not trifled with. If he was a GBI – a Government Blacklisted Individual – he’d been alive an extraordinarily long time, because the state classed them as vermin. Those on the blacklist seldom made it past a couple of months, and he’d been a regular customer at the Parrot for at least a year.
She watched him patting his pockets one by one and wondered whether he was going to pull his usual stunt of pretending he had mislaid his non-existent cash.
He continued the ritual until it was clear he’d patted every available pocket and found them wanting. It turned out he was looking for the squeezy lemon which he finally noticed on the bar in front of him and placed back in his pocket.
She smiled when he caught her eye and held up his empty glass.
Chapter 5
As far as The Pan was concerned, formulating a viable escape plan was proving difficult, as in his heart of hearts he knew there wasn’t one. Even so, he wasn’t ready to give up yet and decided to try stimulating his brain with more alcohol. He ordered another drink, but this time a half, given his meagre funds. He smiled as Ada selected a glass and filled it from the special undiluted pump reserved for the Parrot’s regular customers.
“Here you are, dear,” she said, “will there be anything else?”
He shook his head and poured the beer into his empty pint glass.
“Some more crisps?” she asked. He would have given anything for another packet of crisps, but unfortunately, the one thing he didn’t have was money.
