Retromancer

by Robert Rankin

  I had wandered about a half a mile along the portside deck when I spied the first of them. And with this spying I realised why Fangio had used the word odd to describe them. The first of the Eastern European nannas.

  She was a tiny wrinkled thing with a face like a pickled prune and she was all swaddled up in numerous furs and seated in an old-fashioned wicker bath chair. A gentleman of military appearance with spectacular mustachios steered this chair along. Several children fussed about the prunish nanna, offering her sweeties and dabbing at her mouth with dainty handkerchiefs. Their costumes put me in mind of a photograph I had seen of the Czar and his family, shortly before they came to their terrible end in that cellar at Yekaterinburg in nineteen eighteen.

  I offered that nanna a brim-tip and smile, but she returned this pleasantry with such a bitter-eyed look of pure loathing that it quite put the wind up me.

  I decided to cease my stroll and find myself some breakfast.

  There was seating in the First Class Diner for eighteen hundred people. The tablecloths were of Irish linen, the knives and forks of silver. The head waiter asked for my stateroom number and then led me to my table. Where, sitting squarely, his napkin tucked beneath his chin, Himself was already tucking in to kedgeree and pickled peacock eggs13 and lapsang souchong tea.

  ‘Good afternoon to you, Rizla,’ he called. ‘The same again for my young companion, if you will,’ he said to the head waiter, who departed after clickings of the heels.

  I sat myself in a comfy chair and accepted a cup of tea.

  ‘How goes it, Rizla?’ asked Hugo Rune. ‘No seasickness setting in? All shipshape and Bristol fashion?’

  ‘Never better,’ I said, sipping tea. ‘Although I saw one of those odd old women that Fangio mentioned. And I can confirm that they are very odd and really rather scary.’

  ‘I think Bavarian beldames are the least of our concerns. But there are certainly some notable personages about this vessel. From the vantage point of this dining chair alone, I can see six high-ranking SS officers, who hopefully will be gracing Mr Pierrepoint’s noose at Nuremberg come the war’s conclusion. Two spies, two of America’s Most Wanteds, three Mafia dons, a defrocked bishop and a shady lady with a crazy baby and a taste for tights and chicken bites and stalactites and troglodytes.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, nodding. ‘And you must point out the last one to me.’

  So Mr Rune pointed.

  And I said, ‘Oh yes.’

  And presently my breakfast arrived.

  Because one of the joys of being rich, and there are many, is that you can take your breakfast at any time of the day or night. And no one will call you a slob.

  I got involved with my pickled eggs and said nothing more for a while.

  ‘We will fall into a torpor on this voyage,’ said Mr Rune, with a sudden sadness. ‘We will need something to occupy our minds or we shall surely succumb to boredom and ennui.’

  ‘I think we can afford to give it a couple of days,’ I said, dipping a toast soldier into some kind of dip. ‘There are many more combinations of cocktails that need trying and I have yet to know the joys of dinnertime.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you have the remaining tarot cards?’

  ‘There’s only four left now,’ I said. And I named them: ‘THE MOON, THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE, THE TOWER and DEATH itself.’

  ‘Ah yes, DEATH,’ said the Magus. ‘That would be the card onto which you pasted a bit of sticking plaster, so as to distinguish it from the rest when I ask you to pick one out face down at random.’

  ‘Can you blame me?’ I said. ‘Who would want to pick that card?’

  ‘More tea?’ asked Hugo Rune, and he poured it. ‘Pick us another then, do.’

  And so I chose THE MOON. ‘It looks harmless,’ I explained. ‘And there was a lovely moon last night. THE MOON shall be our talisman, as it were.’

  ‘Have a care, Rizla,’ said the guru’s guru. ‘You are beginning to think in the manner of a magician. And little good ever came from that!’ And then he popped one of my pickled eggs into his mouth and challenged me to a game of leapfrog on the poop deck.

  When done with that, we dabbled in deck quoits, a chukka of cabin-boy polo, kept our hands in at korfball and waterskied a while behind the liner. And as the sun sank slowly in the west, we returned to our staterooms and dolled ourselves up for dinner.

  My suit was laid out on my bunk before me, neatly pressed and made fragrant with what I supposed to be an expensive cologne. My shirt too was laundered and luxuriated within a cellophane sleeve. I unfolded this shirt and gave it a sniff and it too smelled most sweetly.

  ‘I could really get used to this,’ I said, for such treatment merits such clichés. And so I bathed and dried and gave myself a good all-over spraying with the complimentary bottle that held a prominent position on my toiletry table.

  I then togged up in my finery and, growing just a tad dizzy from all the stuff I had sprayed on myself and others had sprayed on my clothes, I tottered out of my stateroom and went in search of dinner.

  As Hugo Rune had yet to arrive, I seated myself in my reserved and comfy dining chair, ordered something preposterous from the drinks menu and wondered how many master forgers or post-modernist mistresses I could spy out amongst the gorgeously attired and moneyed classes.

  They came and went before me, a cavalcade of opulence, the jeunesse dorée and the nouveau riche rubbing padded shoulders with nabobs and Plutocrats, patricians, princes and panjandrums. And would not you know it, or would not you not, they turned up their noses to me. In fact those that drew near to myself became decidedly sniffy. They dabbed at their upraised nostrils with initialled handkerchiefs and nosegays, made haughty disapproving sounds and hurried on their way.

  I took a tentative sniff at myself, which caused my eyes to smart. ‘Note to self,’ I noted to myself. ‘Do not go so heavy on the free smelly stuff in future.’

  My drink arrived and I sipped at it and wondered where Mr Rune was. The last thing he had said to me before we went our separate ways was, ‘Dinner promptly at eight, young Rizla.’

  So what had become of him? I glanced down at my wristlet watch, and it was eight twenty-five.

  At eight twenty-eight a bellboy appeared clasping a note in gloved fingers.

  I unfolded this note and read the words on it. And at these my blood ran cold.

  Please come at once

  to the Stateroom Suite of

  Lord Hugo Rune

  read this note,

  for he has been taken gravely ill

  and may not survive until morning.

  51

  I ran to the double-bunk side of the ailing Mr Rune, my hands a-flap and both my knees a-knocking.

  Doctors and various medics of that well-spoken order that attend to the needs of the rich, and will always sign them off with a sick note even if they do not really need one, stood about looking concerned and eager to apply all manner of brand-new medical equipment, much of it involving valves and wires and electrodes.

  I pushed in amongst them and stared at my sickly friend. He did not look that sickly, as it happened. It looked more as if he was just having a little nap before getting stuck into his dinner.

  ‘What is wrong with him?’ I asked. ‘The message said that he was on his last legs.’

  ‘Exhaustion,’ said a medic with one of those circular mirror-things strapped upon his forehead. ‘Brought on by too much waterskiing this afternoon, I suspect.’

  ‘Then why did the message imply that he was dying?’

  ‘I don’t know what message you mean,’ said the medical type. ‘I never sent any message - did any of you send any message?’

  His colleagues did shruggings of shoulders and shakings of heads. ‘Well, someone sent it,’ I said. ‘I have it here.’ But I did not have it there. ‘I must have dropped it on the way,’ I said.

  ‘And just who are you?’ asked a nurse, a shapely nurse with a pinched-in waist and large protruding bosoms.

&nb
sp; ‘I am Mr Rune’s closest friend. His aide and confidant. He is my mentor, my—’

  But I did not finish what I had to say, which might have taken so much time to say if I had, because suddenly I was being pushed from the room.

  ‘He is in capable hands,’ said another medically inclined fellow, this one with an electric stethoscope about his neck. ‘You go off and enjoy your dinner - it is grilled coelacanth tonight, I understand, prepared with Oyster Fall in Ponze dressing, topped carefully with grounded mouille and spring onions. Served with garden salad.’

  ‘Is it?’ I said. ‘That sounds tasty. But I had better stay here with my friend. I really do think it would be for the best.’

  But the medical personnel were having absolutely none of it whatsoever. Mr Rune was now under their professional care, he would be fussed over and looked after as befitted an exalted traveller in this floating palace and I was not to trouble myself, but rather go and enjoy my dinner.

  And it had not escaped my notice that during the course of this conversation the medical team had been slapping surgical masks over their noses and turning their faces away.

  It was that damned cologne that was doing for me once more.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I will leave. But I will be straight back here after dinner, so do not even think about locking the door and keeping me out.’

  ‘Enjoy your dinner,’ said one of these medics, although his voice was muffled by his mask.

  As it happened I did not enjoy my dinner. I know what it was that I ordered, but what I ordered did not turn up on my plate. I ordered the soup, but I got fat bread rolls, all buttered. The steak, but I got a great big pie instead. The posh cheese and biscuits I wanted for afters, but I was served huge rolly pud. And so by the time I had finished, I was well and truly bloated and I had to loosen my cummerbund a couple of notches and engage the emergency gusset to the rear of my fitted trews.

  And I do confess that I let out a terrible belch. Which did not increase my standing with the gentry. The waiter then brought me a milkshake and told me to drink it all up, because it was full of vitamins.

  So it was with considerable effort that I attempted to rise and steer my patent-leather shoes towards my friend’s sick-bunk. I would have made it, though, if it had not been for the unexpected arrival of a very pretty girl, who seated herself down in Mr Rune’s chair and smiled most sweetly at me.

  ‘You are not going just yet, are you?’ she asked, and her eyelashes fluttered and she did pursings of the lips.

  ‘I have to go and see my friend,’ I said. ‘He has been taken ill.’

  ‘I’m sure he will be in good hands. The world’s finest medical experts are aboard this ship. Doctors from all over the globe, the cream of the catheter crop, as it were.’

  ‘I have no doubt of that,’ I said, sipping my milkshake. ‘Everything here is top notch.’

  ‘Including yourself,’ said this beautiful girl. Though I could not believe that she had.

  ‘We have not been introduced,’ I said, putting out my hand in the hope of touching hers. ‘My name is Rizla. What is yours?’

  But the angel giggled prettily. ‘Rizla?’ she said. ‘What a wonderful name. I won’t tell you mine, it’s too dull.’

  ‘You have a most exotic accent,’ I said, for she did. ‘Is it Eastern European?’

  ‘Nowhere of consequence,’ she replied, daintily diddling digits in her lap. ‘I am the nursemaid of an old and distinguished lady. I was brought up in a small village, but later found work in the capital. My employer and I have been aboard this liner since the outbreak of the war.’

  ‘That is a long time,’ I said. ‘But there are certainly worse jobs to be had. And far worse places to have them.’

  ‘Few lives can be worse than mine,’ she said, in a whispered voice. But did not want to elaborate.

  ‘It would be lovely,’ she said, ‘if you and I were to take a little stroll upon the promenade deck. The full moon is out tonight and the sea looks so beautiful.’

  ‘I really should return to my friend,’ I said. ‘Although your offer is certainly tempting.’

  ‘There is no telling where a little stroll might lead to.’ The beautiful young woman smiled at me.

  Which left all sorts of potential erotic possibilities hanging in the air. As it were.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘As you said, I am sure he is in good hands. What possible harm could a short stroll do? Although I do have to say that it probably will have to be a very short one, as I have rather too freely indulged in my dinner.’

  ‘We can stroll slowly,’ said the marvellous being and she rose elegantly to her feet and put out her arm to me. And I rose and took it and, smiling quite smugly, escorted her off to the deck.

  The moon looked so achingly beautiful, the sea like a mirror reflecting its glory, the ship seemed to glide as on ice and the weather was warm. No more perfect night than this could I possibly imagine and I sought to add it to my store of remembered moments. In the hope that one day, many years from now, when I was old and wretched and done for, I would be able to look back with clarity and say, ‘That was a moment.’

  ‘You seem thoughtful,’ said the lovely girl. ‘Are you a poet, perhaps, or a concert pianist, or maybe an artist?’

  ‘I am none of those things,’ I replied. ‘I am like you, in employ to another. Although he is a great man.’

  And we strolled a little further and I pulled a little on her arm and sought to draw her closer to my side. Because she did seem to be keeping herself somewhat at arm’s length and I was now really keen to perhaps have a little snog with her and see where it led to.

  But this nameless beauty maintained her distance, which I had to put down not to my lack of grace and manly charm, but more to the cologne I had doused myself with. Which, rather than dissipating as one might naturally have expected it to do, seemed, if anything, even more pungent than ever.

  ‘Do you know what?’ I said. ‘I am thinking that I might repair to my accommodation, change my clothes and have a quick though extremely thorough shower. I would not be more than ten minutes at most - would you wait for me here?’

  ‘Please don’t leave me,’ said the exquisite young woman. And tears welled in her wonderful eyes and her wonderful mouth grew crinkly.

  ‘Oh sorry, sorry, sorry,’ I said. ‘I will do as you ask. It is just that I know how I smell.’

  ‘We could talk, couldn’t we?’ she said. ‘Sit here, perhaps?’ And she gestured to a pair of steamer chairs that faced out towards the moon and the magical sea.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I would like that very much.’

  So down we sat and gazed at the moon, though I gazed mostly at her.

  ‘Please tell me your name,’ I said. ‘I will bet that it is a romantic name, as might befit a faerie queen.’

  ‘My name is Esmerelle,’ said Esmerelle.

  ‘And that is a beautiful name.’ I reached out now to touch her hand, but this she pulled away.

  ‘Might I tell you a story?’ she asked. ‘Of my homeland.’

  ‘Might it lead to anything, how might I put this delicately, interesting? ’ I enquired.

  ‘Oh yes, I can most certainly promise you that.’

  ‘Does it involve pirates?’ I asked, for I still harboured a great affection for pirates.

  ‘No pirates,’ she said. ‘But there is a monster involved.’

  ‘That is fair enough then,’ I said. ‘A monster and pirates might be asking a lot.’

  ‘Would you like me to begin now?’ asked my fabulous companion with but a hint of annoyance in her voice.

  ‘Yes please,’ I said. ‘Carry on.’ And I settled back in the moonlight and listened to the tale.

  ‘More than a century ago in my village, there lived twin sisters. Young and gay and beautiful were they and as the village prospered, for the land was rich and lush, these sisters were carefree and joyous. But then one day a showman’s waggon was driven into the village. A curious hunchbacked fel
low in multicoloured garments drove this waggon and with him a dwarf of terrible aspect. Many of the villagers were afeared at the arrival of these unsavoury characters, but the twin sisters, who knew only happiness and frivolity, dallied near the waggon when it stopped for the watering of its horses and that its driver and diminutive companion might take a jug of mead at the alehouse. And while the horses and the travellers drank, the two sisters sneaked around to the rear of the waggon, which was as a gypsies’ waggon with bowed canvas all about and a tiny door to the back. And they peeped in at a tiny window in this tiny door and there saw something wonderful within.’

  ‘Was it a monkey?’ I asked. For in my way I did like monkeys almost as much as I liked pirates. I was, in fact, very taken with Fangio’s monkey Clarence. ‘A golden monkey, perhaps?’

  But Esmerelle shook her beautiful head, raven-haired tresses and all. ‘Are you a complete stone-bonker?’ she asked.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But I have always dreamed of seeing a golden monkey. Please carry on. I should not have butted in.’

  ‘It was a golden mermaid,’ said Esmerelle.

  ‘How close was that?’ I asked.

  And Esmerelle sighed, which made me feel very guilty about behaving in such a foolish manner.

  ‘I am so very sorry,’ I said. ‘Please carry on with your tale, I promise not to make any more stupid remarks.’

  Esmerelle’s eyes sparkled with reflected moonlight and she continued with her tale.

  ‘Golden, she was, and alive. This was no showman’s gaff. No stuffed chimera of ape and fish, but a living, breathing mermaid, who sat in a gilded cage. The two sisters were entranced by this mythical being made flesh. And they felt that they must free it from its prison and release it back into the sea. And so they entered the showman’s waggon and were never seen again.’ And Esmerelle sighed gently and diddled her fingers on the arms of her steamer chair.