Retromancer

by Robert Rankin

  Which, I suppose, sort of put history straight.

  But I was having my doubts as to where, if anywhere, things were leading. We had solved five cases so far, which meant that the next would be our sixth and we would be halfway through our mission. But as to what we were actually doing to stop the Germans developing the atomic bomb, destroying America and winning the war, I was not quite sure at all.

  On the third day Hugo Rune rose again. He appeared at the breakfasting table, the opened parcel in his arms, deposited it into my lap and availed himself of my breakfast.

  ‘I want you to read all the way through this, Rizla,’ he told me. ‘Take notes if you wish, but make yourself thoroughly conversant with the contents. I feel that this is the catalyst I have been awaiting.’

  ‘I will just finish my breakfast,’ I said, reaching out.

  But he waved me away and that was that for my breakfast.

  I took the parcel into Mr Rune’s study, sat down in the fireside chair that had been designated as mine, tipped out the contents and gave them a thorough perusal.

  A biffed-about box file with the words

  PROJECT RAINBOW

  ABOVE TOP SECRET

  printed on it reached my gaze and I opened this up and dug in.

  There were a great many Above-Top-Secret American Navy papers in that box file and I leafed through them all, reading as I did so.

  All concerned something called THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT, which appeared to be a project based upon Albert Einstein’s unified field theory, employing the use of electromagnetic radiation in order to make an American warship radar-invisible.

  Apparently an experiment had been conducted on 28 October 1943, at sea upon a vessel called the USS Eldridge. But things had not gone as intended. The electromagnetic radiation had rendered the entire ship absolutely invisible, leaving nothing to signal its presence but for a hull-shaped indentation in the sea.

  Then things became a little confused. There were reports that the Eldridge had teleported accidentally to a naval yard in Norfolk, Virginia.

  Rumours also abounded that dire things had befallen the crew of the invisibilised ship and that the entire project had later been abandoned as being far too dangerous to continue with.

  There were photographs of ‘portable field generators’ and there were pages and pages of mathematical calculations and equations included in the collection of papers. Also there was much in the way of memos and telegrams, which proved that the knowledge and approval of this experiment went all the way up to the President of the United States himself. And it crossed my mind that I was probably holding in my hands a ‘box of fireworks’ as it were. Or maybe that should be a ‘smoking pistol’. But certainly it was sensitive information. But could any of it actually be true?

  Hugo Rune entered his study, wiping his chops with a napkin and belching mightily.

  ‘Pardon myself,’ he said to me. ‘Have you perused the papers?’

  ‘I have indeed,’ I said to him. ‘But as to whether I actually believe any of that - well, it is pretty far-fetched, is it not?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘But not in the way you think. I certainly find it surprising. But only in the fact that anything that unprincipled scoundrel Einstein conceived of has actually worked.’

  ‘You are not a fan of Mr Einstein, then?’ I asked.

  ‘I taught the man everything he knows. And then he cribs my notes and wins himself the Nobel Prize.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘I see how that could tick you off.’

  ‘Indeed.’ And Hugo Rune made a very grumpy face. ‘But friend Einstein is not truly behind this project. The real genius behind it all was Nikola Tesla, who sadly died last year. Giving friend Einstein the opportunity to once more claim the credit!’ Mr Rune’s voice rose to a rant that I found most uncomfortable.

  ‘But you think it did work?’ I said. ‘A warship was actually turned invisible and possibly even teleported?’

  ‘I have studied the equations and calculations; the maths seem sound enough.’

  ‘So why, do you suppose, did your other self post it all to you?’

  ‘Interesting question, Rizla. But the question should perhaps be, how did my other self come into the possession of this sensitive information in the first place?’

  ‘It is all rather exciting, is it not?’ I said. ‘Do you suppose that it has the makings of our next case?’

  ‘Why not tug out those now-knackered tarot cards that inhabit your pocket with all the fluff and toffees, fling the entire wad up into the air and we’ll see which one comes down face up.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said and I did just that. And out of the seven remaining cards only one came down facing up.

  And this card was THE SUN.

  ‘Does that mean anything to you?’ I asked.

  ‘Absolutely nothing, Rizla. All this is most puzzling indeed.’

  ‘Should we take an ale at Fangio’s,’ I asked, ‘and mull the matter over?’

  ‘It is a weekday,’ Hugo Rune informed me, ‘and we generally only visit The Purple Princess on Sunday lunchtimes.’

  ‘Radical solutions require radical actions?’ I suggested.

  Hugo Rune pulled back the curtains and viewed a beautiful day. ‘Tell you what, young Rizla,’ he said, ‘as it is such a beautiful day and we are still at present in our jim-jams and dressing gowns, as befits such gentlemen as we, what say we doll up in our summer togs?’

  ‘The pale linen suits and the panama hats?’ I asked. ‘I signed for the delivery of these the other day. Ignoring the request for payment, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Hugo Rune, and with that patted my shoulder. ‘Linen suits and panama hats, I baggsy first the bathroom.’

  And what a fuss that fellow made with bathing. I have never known anyone so fastidious about dress and personal hygiene as Mr Rune. As well as always being immaculately dressed he was always scrupulously clean. Clinically clean. Perfectly clean. There was probably some deep down psychological screw-up in his personality to account for all this constant cleaning and preening and grooming. But whatever it was, it was none of my business. And I was more than happy to be the constant companion of a man who dressed well and smelled of civet, ambergris and musk.

  But at last he was done and I had my turn and just a little later than that, the two of us, looking all spruced up and chipper and most debonair in our panama hats and white cotton shirts and pale linen suits with matching gas-mask cases swinging from our shoulders, stepped out onto the streets of Brentford.

  And set off to Fangio’s bar.

  34

  The saloon bar was empty of customers and we approached the counter, behind which stood no barlord to bid us a hearty hello.

  ‘A deserted bar,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Shinny over the counter, Rizla, and fetch us a bottle of whisky. Better make it that twelve-year-old triple malt that Fangio thinks to conceal from me behind those Spanish knick-knacks.’

  And I might well have done what he asked had Fangio not suddenly jumped out from behind the bar counter and given me a fright.

  I went, ‘Waah!’ and took a step back.

  Hugo Rune did not.

  ‘How about that?’ said Fangio. ‘Is that good jumping-out or what? I’ve been taking lessons from Norman at the corner shop and I think we’re in with a chance, come tomorrow night.’

  ‘I have no doubt that there is sense to be found in your words,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘but, as with a rotten tooth, the extraction of it might be painful.’

  ‘Behold the poster,’ I said and I pointed to this poster.

  This poster read:

  BRENTFORD INTER-PUB

  JUMPING-OUT

  COMPETITION

  Prizes Prizes Prizes

  And the date below this was tomorrow’s date.

  ‘All becomes clear,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Two pints of your latest guest ale, Bell Centennial, please.’

  ‘Good choice,’ said Fange and went about his busin
ess. ‘And so, Mr Rune, will you be entering the competition this year?’

  ‘You have previously entered a jumping-out competition?’ I asked the Perfect Master.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Fangio. ‘It’s a different sort of competition every year. Last year it was a “Distaining the Vulgar Classes” competition. Mr Rune won. He was most impressive. No one else came near.’

  ‘I will leave it this year to those who have been in training!’ said Hugo Rune and took to the tasting of the ale. ‘With Norman on your team you will probably succeed.’

  ‘I’m not too sure,’ said Fangio, drawing himself a double Scotch. ‘They have a new guv’nor at The Four Horsemen, and they say he’s a regular jack-in-the-box of a chap. He can appear as if from nowhere. Some say he’s an ex-stage magician. But I prefer to believe that he is in league with the Devil.’

  ‘It is not unheard of amongst the licensed profession,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Rizla and I will attend the competition to see that there is no jiggery-pokery, as it were.’

  ‘Most kind. Consider those beers on the house.’

  I rolled my eyes and we left the bar counter and took to our favourite seats.

  ‘So,’ I said to Hugo Rune, ‘the Philadelphia Experiment. Have you had any more thoughts on the subject?’

  ‘If my other self sent those papers to me, he must have done so for a purpose.’

  ‘Perhaps you are supposed to hand them over to the Ministry of Serendipity. I wonder how Mr McMurdo is getting on.’

  ‘He is no longer two-dimensional,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I prepared a potion for him. To fill him out, as it were.’

  ‘So he is back to normal?’ I said.

  Hugo Rune made a so-so gesture and sipped once more at his ale.

  ‘Go on then,’ I said. ‘Tell me what you have done to him this time.’

  ‘It was his own fault,’ said Himself. ‘I told him, only a drop or two, but he gulped down the bottle. And now he weighs in at fifty-one stone and has to be moved about by forklift truck.’

  I tried very hard not to laugh, but I did not succeed in the attempt.

  ‘But tell me this,’ I said to Hugo Rune. ‘How did they make an American warship invisible?’

  ‘With the aid of two field generators mounted on the decks of two separate ships projecting a stream of ionized protons, which cause a cross-polarisation of beta particles, resulting in the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter and invisibility.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That lad again. But surely I see a flaw here. The two ships doing the projecting would be clearly visible, would they not? It would only be the ship between that turned invisible. So what would actually be the point?’

  ‘I suspect the idea was to project the proton streams across a considerable distance. A distance of many miles, perhaps.’

  ‘Ye Gods!’ I said, for a bit of a change. ‘Then if the Germans got hold of the data, they might be able to invisibilise an invading army and send it across the Channel on invisible boats. To land. Invisibly.’

  ‘The prospect holds little charm,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘But, and I hate to admit this, I am at a loss to know what to do. Or what I am supposed to do. About what.’

  ‘We could have lunch,’ I suggested. ‘It is more than an hour since we had breakfast.’

  ‘No wonder my belly is starting to grumble. How can I cut through Gordian knots and unravel inextricable conundra upon an empty stomach?’

  ‘Dish of the day?’ I asked.

  ‘With a double helping of pudding.’

  Old Pete had now entered the saloon bar, and also Norman from the corner shop. But happily he was sitting still and not doing jumping-out. The two sat side by side upon stools at the bar counter and Norman was complaining, bitterly.

  ‘It’s just not fair,’ he complained. ‘A man tries to make a living, yet there is always some blighter prepared to skim off the cream which is my bread and butter.’

  Old Pete mumbled in assent. ‘And he’s flogging rhubarb,’ he added. ‘And that’s out of season.’

  Fangio took my order for two dishes of the day and then put in his three-pennyworth. ‘And have you seen the beers he has on draught?’ he said. ‘Haettenschweiler and Trebuchet and Akzidenz Grotesk.’

  ‘Foreign muck.’ And Old Pete spat. And pinged a nearby spittoon.

  ‘He’s a penny a pint cheaper than me,’ said Fangio.

  ‘Really?’ said Old Pete, finishing his beer and making to make good his leave.

  ‘Don’t you even think about it,’ said Fangio. ‘But I say it’s a diabolical liberty and something should be done about it.’

  ‘I agree,’ I said to Fange. ‘I think it is a dirty rotten swizz. But tell me, what are you talking about?’

  ‘The new guv’nor at The Four Horsemen.’

  ‘The one that is good at jumping-out?’

  ‘What?’ went Norman. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘He’s apparently rather good,’ said Fangio. ‘A rumour going around is that he was trained by a Zen master in Tibet.’

  ‘Apart from his skills at jumping-out,’ I said, ‘just what else has he done?’

  ‘He’s selling stuff,’ said Fangio. ‘Black-marketeering. Outrageous!’

  ‘Something about a pot calling a kettle black?’ I suggested.

  ‘But at least I’m honest about what I do. Everything that I sell fell off the back of something. Or perhaps was pushed off, or quietly unloaded. But, after all, there is a war on.’ And Fangio made a surly face.

  ‘And so this new guv’nor is not playing by the unwritten rules?’ I said.

  ‘He’s selling fresh produce,’ said Old Pete. ‘But out-of-season stuff and stuff that I’ve never even heard of. What in the name of Demeter, Goddess of allotmenteers, is a Sierra Leone bologi?’

  I shrugged and Norman shrugged and Fangio shrugged too.

  ‘And he’s selling stuff that even I can’t get hold of,’ said Fangio. ‘Television sets and transistor radios and something called a Game BoyTM.’

  ‘Well, that cannot be right,’ I said.

  ‘And imported cask beer!’ Fangio fumed. ‘How can anyone get hold of that?’

  ‘Perhaps he really is in league with the Devil.’ And I did crossings of myself and so did Norman, Fangio and Old Pete too.

  And I returned to my table.

  The dish of the day was baby clams in a young parsnip jelly. Spring chicken, with a touch of the tar-brush. Boyish aubergines served in a youthful Spam-jam ragout. And spotted dick for pudding.

  It took bravery and determination in equal parts to pack it under our belts. Mr Rune dabbed at his chin with an oversized red gingham napkin and remarked that it was ‘adequate’.

  As I wore no waistcoat to slacken, I undid two lower shirt buttons and loosened the strap on my gas-mask case. Hugo Rune now yawned somewhat loudly and settled down for a nap.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ I said to him. ‘There is something urgent that needs doing. And just because you do not know what it is, that does not mean you should just settle down for a nap.’

  ‘How beautifully put, young Rizla. But I’ll tell you what. You have ached so long to take a little wander about the borough, haven’t you?’

  ‘I have,’ I said. ‘And I have been a good boy and not slipped off for a wander when you were not looking.’

  ‘This of course I know. So why not now go take a little wander? You never know what might occur.’

  ‘You are sure it will be safe?’ I said. ‘And that I will not cause some cosmic catastrophe by eating the wrong gobstopper or letting slip about The Beatles, or something?’

  ‘The time is right. The time is now,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Awaken me when it is time for tea. Depart now, Rizla, do.’

  Well, I was very pleased at this and I waited patiently until Fangio had slipped away from the bar counter to use the toilet before I quietly did slippings away of my own.

  Because I had no intention of getting caught for the cost of our lunches.
r />   And so I stepped out all alone onto the streets of Brentford. And I took in all that surrounded me, just me, alone with my thoughts.

  The criss-cross tape upon the windows and the tram cables running overhead. The creaking of a trade bike passing by.

  The smell of horse dung from the coalman’s cart. And there a sailor home on leave, a soldier on his furlough. And I felt suddenly frightened and almost returned to the bar. Without Mr Rune I was truly alone in this time. I did not belong here and although much was familiar, so much more was alien. Overhead, in the sky above Ealing, barrage balloons bobbed amongst veils of smoke that drifted from the half-dowsed fires of last night’s bombings. A pigeon circled in the sky. A dull grey London pigeon.

  Yet there was something good and solid and safe about that pigeon. Amidst all the horror and burning and ruination and death, a London pigeon flew. Perhaps the many-times great-grandaddy of some pigeon that I might see fly by on such a day as this in nineteen sixty-seven. It was comforting. It was safe.

  And would not you know it, or would not you not, that pigeon pooed on me. And then having pooed it fluttered a bit and then simply vanished away above Uncle Ted’s Greengrocer’s Shop.6

  ‘Good grief,’ I said, taking off my panama hat and wiping its sorry brim on a privet hedge. ‘Pooped on by a pigeon. And a stealth-pigeon at that. Nothing is right in this horrible time. I really really hate it.’

  And with that said, in a very grumpy voice, I slouched off down the road. I passed by the row of very pretty cottages that had always caught my fancy each time Mr Rune and I had passed them. And realised now quite why they had taken my fancy. They were not there in nineteen sixty-seven. I recalled my Aunt Edna saying that there had once been a row of lovely cottages there, but that they had all been flattened in the war with many dead.

  And so now I viewed these cottages with sadness and put more slouch in my stride.

  And presently I reached the door of The Four Horsemen, and wondered whether I might pop in and sample some of the new guv’nor’s exotic beer. It could not hurt and nobody need know.