The Educated Ape and Other Wonders of the Worlds

  And they would, they most certainly would. But not in any way that he could have imagined. For sometimes change comes in a shape that no one could possibly expect. And from a place most unexpected, too.

  For change was coming now in the shape of a woman. A shapely woman from the planet Mars.

  7

  lanet Earth, all change,’ called out the conductor. ‘Please have your passports and travel documents ready for inspection and do remember to take all your luggage with you. Unattended bags and baggage may be destroyed upon the landing strip.’

  The conductor called this loudly as he bustled down the central aisle of the second-class compartment. Thirty passengers occupied this cramped space, most of whom were employees of one big Martian mining conglomerate or another. These were the operators of steam-driven diggers and tunnelling equipment, the medics and mineralogists, surveyors and seismologists, navvies with a taste for travel, men with a thirst for gold.

  Upon this homeward journey the latter category, those men with a thirst for gold’, was represented by a single individual. A downcast fellow, this, whose thirst for gold had gone unquenched and who was now returning to his wife, although not expecting a particularly warm welcome.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said this unhappy traveller. ‘Why would unattended bags be destroyed upon the landing strip?’

  The conductor turned and rolled his eyes. ‘You’ve been down a Martian hole too long, mate,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you heard about the anarchists?’

  ‘I’ve heard about them, yes, but never actually seen any evidence of their activities.’

  ‘They’re everywhere,’ said the conductor, and he tapped at his nose in that manner known as conspiratorial. ‘They’d blow up the lot of us, given half a chance.’

  The conductor turned to take his leave, but the passenger called him back. ‘Have there been recent atrocities, then?’ he asked.

  The conductor sighed. ‘Not as such,’ he confessed. ‘Not as such. But that is because we remain vigilant. Where do you hail from, sir?’

  ‘Penge,’ said the passenger.

  ‘I have an uncle in Penge,’ continued the conductor, who was now proving to be a man more enamoured with conversation than the tasks of his trade, ‘and he’s a vigilant fellow.’

  The passenger nodded and wondered where exactly this was leading.

  ‘He’s a shaman,’ said the conductor, to the passenger’s considerable surprise. ‘He supplies protective charms. I have one here about me.’ And he fished this out from under his collar. It was a dull grey stone upon a silver chain. ‘If an anarchist’s bomb was to go off right here, this charm would turn red,’ said the conductor.

  The passenger’s mouth opened, but no words came from it.

  ‘The shaman sold my wife a charm that protects her from man-eating kiwi birds,’ the conductor continued.

  ‘There aren’t any man-eating kiwi birds in Penge,’ was the passenger’s reply to this.

  ‘Just shows how well it works, then, doesn’t it.’ And upon that excruciating note the conductor went off about his business.

  The passenger settled back in his seat and glanced towards the porthole. It was really just a glance in the general direction of the porthole because it mostly alighted upon the shapely form of the female seated next to him. The passenger had sought to engage this elegant lady in conversation ever since the spaceship had left the port on Mars, but to no avail. Even his most well-rehearsed bons mots had received little more than a polite nod of acknowledgement.

  The passenger had the opportunity to take one more furtive glance, so he took it. She was indeed a most striking woman, dressed utterly in black, her waist cinched by a silken corselet. Black gloves sheathed her delicate hands and a thick embroidered veil depended from a night-dark fascinator, girt about with the wings of tropical birds, wings in hues that were forever night. If black was to be the new black this season, the passenger considered, then this striking woman could claim to be at the very apex of fashion. She looked somewhat out of place in the second-class compartment.

  ‘Well, it has been a pleasure,’ said the passenger, but it had not. ‘Might I offer my services as chaperone? We might take a hansom together.’ As this offer received not even a polite nod of acknowledgement, the passenger folded his arms, closed his eyes and thought once more of how he might compose bons mots of sufficient suavity to temper his wife’s ill humour when she learned of his penury.

  The FASTEN SEAT BELTS PLEASE sign flashed on and off, the air brakes engaged and the spaceship named the Marie Lloyd dropped down towards the landing strip of the Royal London Spaceport. Where, with a crunch of Martian metals onto British cobblestones, it touched terra firma and came suddenly to rest.

  The third-class passengers cheered from their cupboard and a parrot named Peter swore in the cargo hold.

  Presently the outer ports were opened. The first-class passengers were assisted to a waiting covered landau that would carry them off in comfort to Customs and the arrivals lounge in Terminal One.

  The second-class passengers stood upon the sun-blasted cobbles and awaited the arrival of the horse and cart. The third—class passengers remained in their cupboard, hoping that someone might remember they were there.

  The lady in the veil sat primly postured next to the driver of the horse and cart, a black parasol shielding her from sunlight.

  ‘Lovely day, ain’t it?’ said the driver. ‘Is that all your baggage? You haven’t got much.’

  A Gladstone bag of atramentous aspect rested upon the driving seat between himself and the lady. The lady said nothing, so the driver stirred up his horse.

  High above, on Sydenham Hill, the Crystal Palace sparkled in the sun. The heat-haze rising from the cobbles of the landing strip made it seem as some mirage, some vision of Fairyland viewed through crystal waters.

  The driver of the horse and cart was about to remark upon the beauty of the building, but then considered this would probably be a waste of his breath. Here was a hoity-toity lass, thought he, and one with ideas far above her station.

  The arrivals building at the Royal London Spaceport was certainly not without interest, being as it was the brainchild of Alfred Waterhouse, architect of the Natural History Museum, and based upon Charles Barry’s neo-Gothic work of wonder, the Houses of Parliament. A tumble of tessellated towers crowned by complex cupolas, here was terracotta primped and teased into a plethora of foliate adornments that pleased the eye and touched the hearts of those who loved the Empire. To the Venusian or Jovian traveller new to the planet, the spaceport’s buildings and the Crystal Palace rising on high to their rear conveyed an air of gravitas and grandiosity.

  ‘This is England,’ these architectural marvels seemed to say, ‘and you must show her the respect she deserves.‘

  The horse and cart drew up before Terminal One and the sun-seared passengers stepped down from it. Two burly constables appeared from the terminal building and laid hands upon one of these sun-seared passengers.

  ‘What of this?’ cried the man who was now being held firmly in the grip of the two large constables. ‘I have committed no crime. This is an outrage. Let me go.

  ‘We have you bang to rights, chummy boy,’ said one of the constables, grasping the fellow by one hand whilst wiggling his truncheon with the other.[4]

  ‘The conductor from the Marie Lloyd has told us all about you — asking him suspicious questions regarding anarchists and querying the efficacy of an English shaman’s amulets. You would be one of those Bolsheviks, I am thinking.’

  ‘I’m a gold prospector!’ the passenger protested. ‘Honestly, I am.’

  ‘Then show us some of your gold.’

  The remaining second-class passengers passed by without comment or concern. It was none of their business, after all, although it did bring a certain degree of comfort to know that the British bobby could always be relied upon to protect them when the need arose.

  As now it clearly had.

  The interior of t
he Terminal One building was wondrous to behold. Tiled throughout in faux Islamic calligraphy, the walls were hung with mighty canvases depicting the victories of Albion. Marble statuary of military heroes stood hither and yon, along with busts of Queen Victoria in bronze and brass and gold. A kiosk offered tea to the weary traveller. A branch of W H Smith was manned by liveried servitors. The cash machine was sadly out of order.

  Those first-class passengers who had arrived upon the Marie Lloyd had long since passed through the terminal building without needing to have their passports stamped. They were, even now, being whisked away in luxurious conveyances, bound in air-cooled comfort for their homes or hotels.

  The second-class passengers formed a queue.

  And this being England, the lady in black was ushered to the front of it.

  A chap in a cap of officialdom sat in a glass-sided booth, a narrow desk before him, a rubber stamper upon this narrow desk. He appeared more interested in a penny dreadful magazine that was positioned upon his knees than he was in his duties and consequently did not look up as the lady in black placed her passport on his narrow desk.

  ‘Nationality?’ he asked, without so much as raising an eyebrow.

  ‘British,’ the lady in black replied, her voice sweet but muffled by her veil.

  ‘Present planet of occupancy?’ The chap in the cap could not really have cared much less. He was far too preoccupied with the exciting adventures of Jack Union, monster-hunter.

  ‘Mars, Sector Six,’ said the lady.

  ‘Visa then, please.’ And the chap in the cap stuck out his hand to receive one.

  ‘I was not told that I would need a visa. I hold a British passport.’

  The chap in the cap let his penny dreadful slide from his knees to the floor. He took up the lady’s passport and opened it before him.

  ‘Violet Wond,’ he read aloud. ‘That is your name, is it? Violet Wond?’

  ‘Miss Violet Wond,’ said the lady in black.

  ‘And your occupation? “Huntress”, it says here. What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that I hunt. Game. Big game.

  ‘You won’t find much of that here,’ said the chap in the cap. ‘Penge was once the place for man-eating kiwi birds but the shaman shooed them all away.

  ‘I hunt bigger game than that,’ replied the lady.

  ‘Do you, now?’ The chap in the cap looked up. ‘Ah,’ said he, a-sighting of the veil. ‘You will have to lift that, if you please, so I might check your face against your photographic representation.’ He flicked idly through the lady’s passport whilst he awaited revealment. ‘You do get about, do you not?’ said he as he squinted at past rubber-stampings. ‘Jupiter, Mars, even Venus. But you have not been here for some time, not since … eighteen eighty—nine! That is nine years ago. Here a-hunting then, were you?’

  ‘Big game, yes,’ said the lady as she slowly lifted her veil. ‘The biggest game,’ she whispered. ‘The biggest game of all.’

  ‘Africa, then, was it?’ The chap in the cap smiled up at her.

  ‘Whitechapel,’ said the lady, her veil now fully raised.

  ‘Oh my good God!’ croaked the chap in the cap, his eyeballs bulging from his head. ‘Why … you … are … But he said no more, for with that he fainted, slipping from his chair and sinking upon his penny dreadful.

  The lady in black lowered her veil. She reached forward, took up the rubber stamp from the narrow desk and applied it to her passport. Then she returned her passport to her atramentous Gladstone and, jauntily swinging her parasol, she tottered from Terminal One.

  Within their cupboard aboard the Marie Lloyd, the third—class passengers’ cries for release grew fainter as their air supply ran out.

  8

  ressed in a manner not unlike a pirate, the organ-grinder stood in Leicester Square. It was eight of the evening clock and evening clocks were busily striking eight around and about.

  The organ-grinder looked the way an organ-grinder should, with a battered tricorn and a long frock coat. His dummy wooden leg was nothing less than inspired and he was a credit to his calling. Upon his barrel organ a monkey sat, a monkey in a fez with an old tin cup.

  The organ-grinder stood before a fashionable gentlemen’s club named Leno’s and looked up at the modern flashing neon. He placed his timber toe upon the first step leading to this esteemed establishment but found his way barred by a most imposing fellow.

  He was a personage of considerable imposition, towering over six feet in height and regally attired in robes and turban, as would be some eastern potentate. A luxuriant beard, sewn with pearls and semi-precious stones, depended nearly to his waist where a gorgeous purple cummerbund encircled him. Through this was stuck one of those short Sikh swords that only Sikhs can remember the name of He fixed the organ-grinder with an eye both dark and fierce and raised a mighty hand before him.

  ‘You cannot come in here looking like that,’ he said in a commanding tone. ‘Away with you now before I summon a bobby.’

  ‘But I have an invitation,’ complained the organ-grinder.

  ‘You have to let me in.’

  The subcontinental commissionaire, for such he appeared to be, extended his mighty hand.

  The organ-grinder dug into a bedraggled pocket and produced a gilt-edged card, which he handed up to the giant looming above.

  The commissionaire read this aloud in a booming baritone.

  ‘Ah,’ said the organ-grinder, a-grinding of his teeth. ‘Dress code formal. I see.’

  ‘You should have read the small print,’ said the beturbanned enforcer of sartorial etiquette.

  ‘But I am not to be blamed, for I have only the one eye, pleaded the organ-grinder, and he pointed to an eyepatch which had received no previous mention.

  ‘Don’t come the old soldier with me, please, sir. And anyway, I can tell that you are not a real organ-grinder.’

  ‘What?’ The organ-grinder stepped back smartly and all but overbalanced on his dummy wooden leg. ‘I have no idea what you mean,’ he said.

  The monkey looked up at his partner, and the monkey shook his head.

  ‘You are William Stirling,’ said the enlightened commissionaire. Which came as something of a surprise to man and monkey alike.

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr William Stirling, for it was indeed he and not some other organ-grinder impersonator. How did you know it was me?’

  ‘Because I shared diggings with you for three years, while you were at the Royal Academy of Music studying to be a concert pianist and I was at RADA giving myself up to the muse.

  ‘Kevin Wilkinson?’ said Mr William Stirling, and the two shook hands. ‘Well, this is quite a surprise.’

  ‘Certainly fate has not been so kind to us as it clearly has to others,’ said Kevin. ‘I might even now be treading the boards at Stratford, and you, dear boy, playing Tchaikovsky before a rapt audience at the Albert Hall. But instead I must play the part of commissionaire in turban and false beard, whilst you pose as an organ-grinder.’

  ‘I prefer the term chevalier musique de la rue.’

  ‘And well you might, dear boy. But regrettably I see a correctly attired gentleman approaching and so must bid you adieu. Please take your leave or I will be forced to strike you down with my kirpan.‘[5]

  William Stirling slouched away, pushing his barrel organ.

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ said the commissionaire who might once have played Hamlet. ‘Might I see your invitation card?’

  The gentleman in top hat and tails, white tie and white silk gloves proffered said card and smiled as it bore scrutiny.

  His monkey was similarly attired and looked very dashing indeed. His trousers had a tail-snood made of silk.

  ‘Go through please, sir,’ said the commissionaire, returning the gentleman’s card. The man and the monkey ascended the steps and passed into the club.

  ‘You tricked me,’ whispered the monkey to the man. ‘You had me believe that I should wear the fez and shake the old tin cup this eveni
ng.’

  ‘Only a good-natured jape, Darwin,’ the gentleman whispered in return. ‘And you look wonderful tonight.’

  ‘And don’t call me Darwin,’ whispered the ape. ‘I am now Humphrey Banana. Darwin was my slave name.’

  ‘Darwin is a most dignified name,’ said Mr Cameron Bell, for it was indeed he and none other. ‘And you were never a slave, rather a respected servant of Lord Brentford. Who, if you will recall, left his lands and fortune to you in his will.’

  Darwin made grumbling sounds.

  ‘Which you then gambled away,’ continued Mr Bell, ‘but have lately been able to purchase once more with the wealth you have so far accrued from our partnership.’

  ‘I miss Lord Brentford.’ Darwin sighed a sigh.

  Cameron Bell glanced down.

  ‘I wish he wasn’t dead,’ said the ape. ‘Perhaps he isn’t. Perhaps he swam ashore somewhere after the Empress of Mars crashed into the sea and is now King of the savages upon a cannibal isle.’

  Cameron Bell shrugged his shoulders at this. ‘I suppose that is possible,’ said he. Then: ‘I wonder how exactly this works,’ and he worried at the Automated Cloakroom System, a series of lockable boxes into which a gentleman might place his hat and gloves, thereafter to watch his chosen lockable box whirl away upon a jointed conveyor system into some far-away place in the gentlemen’s club. ‘I think I will carry my hat with me, in case we have to take our leave in haste.’

  ‘Are you expecting some kind of trouble?’ Darwin asked.

  Cameron Bell shrugged his shoulders a second time. ‘This is an awards dinner,’ he said, ‘and things can become a tad unruly at such events.’

  Darwin was about to ask why, but Mr Bell shushed him to silence. A liveried servant was approaching to guide them to their table.

  ‘If sir and his pet would kindly follow me.

  Darwin bared his teeth at this. Mr Bell did rollings of the eyes.