Dream London

by Tony Ballantyne

  “Not me! I just keep things ticking along on my own little patch. I look after my girls. Keep them in candy.”

  “All on your own?”

  “Well, Second Eddie helps out.”

  “But it’s mainly you.”

  “I should say so.”

  “They trust you, then?”

  “That they do.”

  “The Daddio is expanding. You see all this?” The Quantifier waved his knife around the surrounding buildings. “Someone may own all the property, but there’s still money to be made farming the people. That’s what the Daddio is good at.”

  “Farming people?”

  “S’right. And I’ll tell you what. That’s just the beginning. There’s whole new worlds going to come crowding in here soon, and the Daddio aims to take control of what he can. He’s got plans, and he wants you to be part of them.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  The Quantifier frowned.

  “You did feel my knife, didn’t you?” He held up the blade for inspection. It looked as if it had been shattered from a ceramic drum: it was black and shiny and wickedly serrated. I know the move: plunge the blade into a stomach, twist it, and watch as the victim’s own stomach acid eats into their body.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”

  Again the Quantifier looked puzzled.

  “I don’t understand. You have to answer me. Are you working for the Daddio, or do I have to kill you?”

  I looked up at the Quantifier’s vast bulk and wondered about fighting him. I had a pistol, after all.

  I doubted it would be much use against this creature.

  “Very well,” I said.

  The Quantifier’s frown deepened.

  “Very well what? Do you mean you’ll work for him?”

  “Tell the Daddio that Captain Wedderburn has received his message and is delighted to be held in such regard!”

  “Okay...” said the Quantifier, nodding slowly. He seemed satisfied, but his tongue leant forward to take a closer look at me.

  “Right, can I go home now?” I asked.

  “No! There’s one more thing. I have to give you a message. The Daddio says you are to have nothing to do with the Cartel.”

  I paused. Did he know about my meeting with Alan? Or was the timing of this meeting just a coincidence?

  “Really? Why not?”

  The Quantifier scratched his big pumpkin head with the tip of the knife.

  “I don’t think it’s up to you to ask questions of the Daddio, do you? But, like I told you: the Daddio has big plans for Dream London. He likes the way things are going, and he doesn’t want the Cartel hindering this new world.”

  “What’s the Cartel?” I asked, innocently.

  There was a moment’s pause.

  “I think you’re pretending.”

  I changed the subject.

  “So what does the Daddio want me to do?”

  “The Daddio wants you to do nothing for the moment. Go home, go to bed. The Daddio will be in touch when he is ready. It may be in a few days, maybe a few weeks. Don’t you worry about it.”

  “And if I don’t do what the Daddio wants?”

  “Why shouldn’t you? You’re working for him now.”

  “I forgot. So you said.”

  Again, the two eyes in that tongue stared at me.

  “Okay. Can I go now?”

  “Yes.”

  The Quantifier stood to one side.

  Slowly I walked from the square, heading from Mandolin Vale, back towards Belltower End and my flat. Down the long road, framed by the buildings and the purple sky, I could see the tall bulging shape of the belltower from which the area got its name. The moon was hiding at the moment, keeping secret the time of night.

  Down the streets, stepping between the pools of light, listening to the call of the blue monkeys, the chitter of the insects, the sound of singing from the half-open pubs.

  One of the whores standing outside a shop doorway recognised me.

  “On the house, Captain Wedderburn!”

  “Not tonight, Suky Sue.”

  “Come on. We’ve got the time.”

  The time. What was the time, anyway? Alan had warned me about checking the time. What if I were to do that now?

  Suky Sue fumbled for my hand. “Have you got any candy at least?”

  I fumbled in my pocket, passed her a striped piece wrapped in cellophane. She took it and walked off, leaving me lost in thought.

  What was I doing?

  Going home, obviously.

  But by doing so I was obeying the wishes of the Daddio. Or was I? I had planned to go home anyway.

  What were my plans? Captain Jim Wedderburn gave the orders, he didn’t follow them. Yet whichever choice I made tonight I would be going along with someone, be it the Daddio or the Cartel.

  Standing there in the streets of Dream London, I suddenly remembered Christine and her gift from earlier that evening. Caught in indecision, I pulled the fortune scroll from my pocket.

  What was going on tonight?

  My arrival back in London had coincided with the beginning of the changes. Buildings growing, people changing. It had been almost imperceptible at first, but events had accelerated as time had gone on. It seemed as if tonight things had stepped up a gear.

  I didn’t believe in fate, in fortunes, in predictions. But there was something about this evening: the air seemed to hang heavy with the promise of... something. The streets were darker; the air had a spicier scent than ever. There was a sense of the world holding its breath waiting... waiting for what? For me to choose?

  Curiously, I unrolled the scroll, and began to read the predictions.

  You will meet a Stranger

  You will be offered a job

  You will be offered a second job

  I paused at that, unsettled. Hadn’t that happened to me tonight? I frowned, thinking. In Dream London, everyone was on the make. People were always trying their hand at things. Would it be so unusual to be offered a new job? I read on.

  Go to the inn to meet a friend, one who will betray you

  Go to the docks and meet your greatest friend, the one you will betray...

  I stopped reading at that point. That was the trouble with fortune tellers. The things they told you were only useful after the event. The parchment had told me I had been offered two jobs, and I had – after a fashion – but it gave no advice on which one to take. What was the point of that?

  I rolled the parchment up and tapped it on my lips, thinking.

  What was I to do? Before it had been so simple, simply return home to bed. But if I were to do that now, I would be following Daddio Clarke’s instructions. I had to make Alan’s house by sunrise, that was what he had told me. If I simply stood here, then I was, albeit unwillingly, doing what the Daddio had asked me.

  Either way, I was being manipulated, and I hated that. What to do?

  In the end, I did what I always did when unsure. I followed the money.

  HALF AN HOUR later, I found myself standing outside the door of the Poison Yews, card in my hand.

  Alan opened the front door, the look of relief on his face obvious. He stood back and I entered into a wide hallway. A grandfather clock stood at the far end, ticking its way slowly through time.

  “Don’t look at it!” warned Alan. “This is part of the protection, keeping us unfocused.”

  I heard footsteps and another man entered the hallway. An incredibly pretty young man, dark and lithe and with eyes like a flowerboy.

  “He came, then,” he said, a bored note to his voice.

  “Of course he did,” said Alan. “Come on. Let’s get Jim to sleep before dawn breaks.”

  They took me up stairs to a room with a large brass bedstead. They were holding hands in the doorway as they wished me goodnight.

  “We’ll talk in the morning,” said Alan.

  BLUE

  THE POISON YEWS

  I WOKE TO sunlight and the smel
l of coffee.

  I followed the trail of the aroma downstairs to its end where I found a woman sitting at the table in a large dining room. She smiled at me and lifted the silver coffee pot.

  “Black please,” I said, and then, “I’m sorry, who are you?”

  “I’m Margaret, Alan’s wife.”

  I guessed she was in her late forties. A full-figured, good looking woman with big brown eyes and brown hair neatly cut to just above her shoulders. She was wearing a flowered dress, though she looked as if she would be more at home in a dark suit, on the board of some City firm.

  “His wife?” I said, thinking of the Molly house we had visited last night.

  “We have an agreement,” she said, rising to her feet. “Would you like the full English?”

  “Yes, please.” My stomach rumbled in agreement, and I realised just how hungry I was. Hungrier than a man who only a few hours ago was eating steak and oysters should be. Last night’s meal seemed as ghostly and insubstantial as the other events I had experienced.

  “Help yourself to more coffee if you want it.”

  I looked around at my surroundings, getting a feel for the house.

  Alan was obviously well off. This house was large and well furnished, and even if Dream London was altering its topology night by night, the quality of the surroundings spoke for themselves. Polished floors that had gained a deeper shine than was possible by mere beeswax, polished mirrors reflecting worlds glowing in deeper colours than ours, velvet curtains slicked with richness, thickly upholstered furniture festering with paisley and infested with lace. The ornaments that had once decorated this house had transmuted into porcelain jars and vases. And yet the house retained an airiness and sense of light. I paused a moment to breathe in the scent of honey wax and pollen. Perhaps if all went well with the Cartel, I, too, would live in a house like this.

  In the kitchen, Margaret was frying bacon at the Raeburn.

  “Soon be ready,” she said. “I’m making more coffee.”

  There was a large wooden table in the middle of the room and I sat down at it. Three cookbooks lay on the table, the middle one open at a recipe for a boiled pudding of some description. The photograph of the dish was fading to a woodcut.

  “This is all natural food, before you ask,” said Margaret above the sound of frying. There was evidence of natural food everywhere stored around the kitchen, from the two hams that hung from the ceiling to the polished green apples laid out on trays on a side counter, ready to be stored away.

  “Don’t worry about me,” I grunted. “I can’t afford to be fussy.”

  “You should be. The Cartel is convinced that street food is speeding on the changes.”

  She scooped the bacon onto a warming plate, and then cracked two blue eggs into the pan.

  “Duck eggs,” she said, looking at me over her shoulder with her big brown eyes. “You always get a nice breakfast living near the Egg Market.”

  The sizzle of eggs, the smell of bacon and coffee, it all conspired to make me feel quite homesick. Homesick for the old days, before the changes.

  “Can I have some fried bread?” I asked hopefully.

  “Of course you may,” she said.

  I watched her working, thinking about what she had said.

  “Are you part of the Cartel?” I asked.

  “Of course not. No women allowed. The changes, don’t you see?”

  I looked around the kitchen and noticed a brace of pheasants hanging by the hams: the red-gold cock and the brown hen bound together by their necks.

  “What does Alan do to afford this place?” I asked.

  “When we bought it, it wasn’t just Alan,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Now, of course, he struggles to pay the mortgage.”

  “Things are tough all over,” I said, without sympathy. Rents were rising all over the city, families were being forced into the workhouse. It was every man for himself in Dream London, and the women had to hope that some man would look after them.

  The eggs joined the bacon on the warming plate. She swiftly cut two slices of white bread and dropped them in the pan.

  “It was easier with two salaries,” she said, reflectively. “Of course, when the changes began, I saw the way things were going. I took voluntary redundancy before I was pushed out.”

  She dropped the bread onto the plate and brought it to me. I began to eat. Margaret fetched the coffee pot and two fresh cups then sat down opposite me. Her ample bosom spilled over the top of her dress as she leant forward. She smiled at me, clearly a woman of huge appetites.

  “You’re a good looking man,” she said. “I can see why Alan is attracted to you.”

  “What does Alan do in the City?” I asked, not wanting to go down that road. She held my gaze for a moment or two. Then her eyes slid away.

  “Used to be finance. Still is, I suppose. Now they underwrite the ships that set off sailing to the other places. They place bets on what might be brought back down the river.”

  “What ships? What other places?”

  She sipped her coffee once more.

  “Where do you think all the new stuff comes from? You know, it’s just the ships at the moment, sailing down the River Roding. It’s going to get a lot worse soon. Once they open up other paths here.”

  “Mmm.” I concentrated on eating. The duck eggs tasted unusual in a breakfast.

  “You know the changes began in the City?” said Margaret. “The banks sold a stake in the City to someone they shouldn’t. They let something gain a toehold...”

  “I’d heard that,” I said.

  “The City keeps it quiet. That shouldn’t surprise you. They were never exactly forthcoming about holding up their hands to mistakes in the past, were they?”

  I finished my breakfast, mopped up egg yolk with the last piece of bread. My favourite part of the meal.

  Margaret was gazing into the distance now.

  “It started in East London. I remember seeing how the buildings there were growing taller as I went to work. Back then I thought it was just my imagination, but no...” She gulped down some more coffee and topped up her mug from the pot. “The houses in Whitechapel began to subside into slums...”

  I leant back in my chair and took a deep sigh.

  “The first time I became aware was when my flat began to shrink,” I said. “No, that wasn’t it. I went to buy screws to put up shelves, and the shop wasn’t there anymore. I couldn’t even find the street. I walked up and down all afternoon looking for it...”

  I drained my cup. Margaret refilled it.

  “Have you got a cigarette?” I asked.

  She brightened up at that.“I thought you’d never ask.”

  She produced a purple pack and a box of yellow matches. She pulled us out an oval turkish cigarette each and lit them, mine first, and then hers.

  She brightened even more as she inhaled.

  “That’s better,” she said, exhaling blue smoke. “One of the benefits of the changes. Cigarettes coming back into fashion.”

  We smoked in companionable silence for a while, sipping at our coffee.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” asked Margaret, suddenly.

  I shook my head.

  “She bought one of those lists of men,” I said, pausing to take another drag. “She’s searching for her ideal partner.”

  “Your name wasn’t on the list, I take it.”

  I shrugged.

  “I often think about buying one of those lists myself,” said Margaret. “But then I tell myself things could be a lot worse. The way things are going in Dream London being a housewife is about be the best choice for women, don’t you think?”

  I didn’t answer. I knew what the career choice was for many of the women of Dream London. Captain Jim Wedderburn earned his twenty per cent looking after them.

  Somewhere in the hall a clock chimed the hour.

  “Midday!” I said. “I didn’t realise I’d slept in so late!”r />
  “It’ll do you good. You’ll not be getting much sleep in the near future.”

  That brought me up short.

  “Why not? What exactly do the Cartel want with me?”

  She stood up suddenly.

  “I think it’s time we had a drink.”

  IT WAS A gloriously sunny day. The may blossom was burning white on the trees in the garden. The smell of warmth filled the air.

  “Anyone who cannot see any good in the changes should be shown the hawthorn trees,” said Margaret. “The may blossom was never so white in the past; the leaves were never so green.”

  She was right, too. The blossom seemed to shine with its own light, and it made the ragged leaves glow greener.

  We left the drive of Alan’s house and made our way down the sun-dappled street, shaded by the horse chestnuts. Their candlestick blossoms were dying back now, but their leaves seemed freshly minted in green. I saw the golden shapes of tamarind monkeys, making hand signals to each other in the branches.

  I felt quite jaunty, wearing a red and white candy striped blazer and a pair of linen trousers that Margaret had supplied. Even accounting for seasonal variation, Dream London gets warmer every month; I felt pleasantly cool in the midday sun. I felt as if I should have on a straw boater; certainly Margaret was wearing a wide-brimmed hat.

  “Is it far?” I asked.

  “No. We’re going to meet Bill Dickenson.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “I’ll leave it to Bill to explain that.”

  LONDON HAD ALWAYS mixed its rich and poor close together. In Dream London the effect was exaggerated. Stepping from the moneyed calm of Hayling Street into Egg Market reminded me of how it used to be, stepping off an aeroplane into another country. One moment there is air conditioning, the voices of the other passengers, their familiar clothes and accents; the next there is the heat, the noise, the strange smells, the realisation that you are somewhere else.