The Whispering Swarm

  Before I left for work, I lied to my mum. I said we had a heavy press day, putting together a special issue. I planned to revisit Alsacia. I had promised to meet the abbot for tea but more importantly I hoped for another glimpse of that beautiful, spirited girl who’d ridden into an innyard calling for an ostler! Now my best guess was that she worked for Bertram Mills’ Circus. They stabled a lot of their animals across the river in Battersea.

  I was still reading when I headed down New Fetter Lane which led into Fleet Lane which joined Fleet Street. I took Claude Duval. Courtly, graceful, handsome and daring, he was a virtuoso on the flageolet. He once played a duet with a lady whose coach he was robbing. He then offered not to take a penny from the coach if she would only grant him a dance. Which she did while her coachman played. Frith had done a famous painting of the scene, much copied by story-paper artists.

  I was hardly aware of my real surroundings as I read Claude’s adventures, keeping half an eye open so I didn’t bump into anyone. Before I knew it I had reached Carmelite Inn Chambers and stood looking up at the great iron-bound door in the far corner. With a sense of anticipation I stepped forward and pushed hard on the left side. It didn’t budge. I tried the right. Nothing. Stuffing the magazine into my jacket pocket I tried hammering on the doors but only succeeded in hurting my hands. I looked around for someone to ask if the gates opened at a certain time. But Carmelite Inn Chambers was almost deserted. A delivery boy was leaving on his bike. I called ‘excuse me’ without any luck. Lights began to burn in offices. I hadn’t noticed a morning fog drifting in from the river. If I didn’t get back up to Fleet Street there was every chance I’d have to waste time waiting it out in a pub. I started to hurry.

  Of course, I was soon lost in that maze of little streets snaking around one another, more or less paralleling the Thames. It took me half an hour to find the Temple and by the time I reached the Strand, heading for Trafalgar Square, the sun blazed in a clear, pale winter sky. I knew what had happened. Somehow I had chosen the wrong square. It wasn’t Carmelite Inn Chambers at all!

  So I got my hair cut in St Martin’s Lane and went back to look for another square like Carmelite Inn Chambers. An old Inn of Court where lawyers worked and often lived. That part of London is still full of them. Some sensible monarch set them up when he was reforming the law. The lawyers, of course, soon departed from the spirit of the institution. Rumour had it that most of the apartments were now occupied by mistresses of barristers or the barristers’ mothers.

  Remembering that I was due to have tea with the abbot I did everything I could to find the place. Now I felt guilty as well as frustrated. I went back to the Old Bailey, to the typesetter, but they were closed. For hours I tried to find a square that resembled Carmelite Inn Chambers, but I discovered nothing nearby. The more I returned to it, the more I was sure I had been right the first time. I tried pushing on the gates. I asked passersby what they thought was behind them. Most said they had been sealed up since before the war. Others thought there was a boatyard back there, or some kind of junk business. Some of the chambers appeared to look onto the Sanctuary, but, when I asked to see, I was told those windows had been bricked up since before the war. What sort of delusion could I have suffered? I returned to Fleet Street and had a glass of claret at El Vino while I sat and refused to believe what was happening. When people I knew came in I was cheerful. I didn’t say anything about my obsession. There is nothing like an obsession to keep food off the table. I decided to wait until Pete Taylor and Barry Bayley could come with me.

  I also decided to keep trying periodically but not to spend my life on it. If I continued to insist on searching for the mysterious gate, I’d really go crazy. However, I was suspicious of comparisons to those stories about vanishing shops or houses, so popular with readers around the end of the nineteenth century. In my world, if a house suddenly vanished it was because Hitler had dropped a bomb on it. Those gates had to be somewhere! Could I be experiencing a trick of the fog?

  Although I felt awkward about missing that teatime appointment, I was still mainly intrigued by the young woman I had glimpsed riding into the innyard. She was around my age. Wonderful in her tricorne hat and thigh-high boots, she was quite literally my dream girl. Every time I was in the Fleet Street area I looked out for her.

  Three days later Bayley came round to return a Science Fantasy he’d borrowed. We went to the Globe, then back to his place. I kept him up all night, going through my little trauma over and over again, showing him the copy of Claude Duval. He listened mainly, he admitted, because I was buying. Early next morning I dragged him back to Carmelite Inn Square to look for the gate. Barry’s hangover had been growing worse. When we reached the gate he pushed it open easily, much to my surprise, and immediately stepped back, holding his nose. ‘What a bloody stench!’ Then he turned around and began to throw up in the gutter.

  It didn’t smell that bad to me. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go in.’

  ‘Bugger that. It stinks too much. I’ll get off home, I think.’ He began to stagger back towards the entrance to the court. ‘Good luck!’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  There was nothing else to do. I told Barry I’d see him later. I pushed the gate a little wider and walked in.

  4

  THE ABBOT’S ‘COSMOLABE’

  And then I was in the cobbled street where that wonderful swaying signboard announced in cold daylight The Swan With Two Necks. Remembering to close the gate behind me, I only now realised that those who’d caroused last night had doubtless not yet looked day in the eye. A man in shirt and long underwear glared at me as he stumbled past. Cautiously I pushed open a door of the inn. The smell of sour beer had not yet cleared. On the floor was the previous night’s swept-up rubbish, scrubbed boards, broken clay pipes, bundles of sweet straw about to be scattered by two little potboys who were of course unaware I had no right to be there. They tipped their caps and called me ‘sir’. I took the nearby stairs with pretended authority and walked along a landing giving on to several battered oak doors.

  I had no idea what I was looking for or why I was here except, I told myself, that there might be a news story in it. The girl had been very attractive. I was pretty sure she was an actress. If I could find out what her connection with the pub was I might be able to get our regular photographer to take her picture. Together we could make a few guineas. We were always paid in guineas in those days. It separated the trades, who received pounds, from the professions. Working people and the trades were paid in pounds and fractions of pounds, shillings and pence. But, like lawyers and doctors, writers and artists were paid one pound, one shilling. Just as every draper’s price always ended in three farthings. The flannel was not ten pounds, but £9.19.11 ¾ d.

  This idea of making money, however, was rank self-deception. Pure rationalisation. I had no professional interest in the girl. I had yet to admit my compulsion to get a second look at someone I had previously seen only in my dreams.

  Evidently the rest of the place was asleep. Feeling guilty about my intrusion I turned and went back downstairs. I took a side door out into the stable yard and stood gazing directly across at the horses. Horses! Two blacks, a grey and a chestnut. Good riding horses by the look of them. This place was some sort of mews now, I guessed. Maybe municipally owned? People still rode in places like Hyde Park. These horses were probably rented by the hour. If so, they were in beautiful condition, especially the two black stallions. This part of the inn being more or less public, I felt all anyone could do was tell me the place was closed and ask me to leave. The smell of horses was strong as I walked over the washed cobbles. I was still utterly amazed by the sight of them. The gypsies had taught me a bit about horses. I realised that all eight stalls offered a reasonably airy space where riding horses could be tethered. Three stalls were empty. One at the back held an old sorrel mare who did not look ready to ride, but her coat and eyes were bright. She was in great condition for her age.

  A
tall, pink-skinned, lanky youth of about my age, whose long stringy blond hair was tied back with a simple bit of dark blue ribbon, looked up from where he was raking out a stall. He had a handsome, sardonic, friendly face, with startling black eyes, his thin mouth turned up in a look I took for habitual amusement. He wore a long, old-fashioned coat and breeches, a big cotton shirt, black and white. Almost some sort of uniform, with a big leather apron over it. His voice was straight warm cockney of the old, refined kind. There were still pockets of that accent all over the City, hangovers from the fashionable upper class accent of the eighteenth century. ‘Joey Cornwall at your service, young sir.’ He made a deep, comic bow. ‘You look like the devil about to be baptised. Are you lost?’

  ‘I am a bit.’ For no good reason I trusted Joey Cornwall. ‘I came here a few days ago with Brother Isidore from the abbey. I liked the look of the place. Thought I’d try a drink today.’ Unlike my talented ma, my own blushes probably told him I was offering a half-truth. I was always a poor liar. I found it easier to lie on paper. You got paid for that.

  He was laughing now. ‘Or maybe you’re looking for a job? Or for someone you know or maybe a long-lost relative or a doxy you saw last night?’

  I joined him in his laughter. ‘Honestly, it’s true. I went by with Brother Isidore and thought I’d come back to have another look at the place. He didn’t seem the type to join me at the bar. It looks like the sort of pub where you can get a decent pint.’

  ‘That you can.’ His grin widened. ‘In about three hours.’

  At that time the pubs were licensed usually from 11 AM to 3 PM around Fleet Street. They opened again at 6 PM and closed at 10 PM. ‘I’ll drop by at lunchtime,’ I told him.

  ‘You won’t regret it.’ He offered me a broad wink. ‘Come in early for eels and mash and a fresh pie. Steak and kidney, pork, beef and liver, tongue, they’re lovely.’ Pushing his extraordinarily long pale hair from his eyes, he spoke as if he’d never heard of rationing. This was still austerity Britain. Some things were only available through your ration book. At that time you were still lucky to get a decently filled meat pie of any kind.

  That was an outstanding pub! Why, in a fraternity of drinking men, had I never been told of The Swan With Two Necks? Just the name would have sparked the imagination of romantic hacks like us.

  Thanking Mr Cornwall I made to leave, turned and found myself almost knocking over the young woman I had seen before. Her eyes were cloudy with sleep. She smelled warm and sweet. She wore a loose smock on top of what were probably her nightclothes and she apologised huskily at the moment I was doing the same. She brightened in an instant however. ‘By Gad, boy,’ she said—barefoot, she barely reached my shoulder and looked younger than me—‘why up at this hour? Is that the paper?’ She snatched my copy of Claude Duval from my pocket, glanced at it and, disappointed, gave it back to me. Those violet eyes frowned. ‘What are you after? Help? Or are you perhaps an aspiring Runner out for our Claude’s reward?’

  ‘I’m on my way to work,’ I said, feeling like a fool. ‘I’m a journalist.’

  She smiled, offering me a mock salute. ‘I beg your pardon, then, sir. I’ll not keep you.’ And she stepped aside for me to pass.

  She knew how she had embarrassed me and gave me a friendly wink as I blushed by. For all my early experience with girls, I was still a teenage boy. I could only mumble something, stare at the floor, try not to step on her pretty feet, grope for a nonexistent handrail and get away from the source of my embarrassment as soon as possible. ‘Will you be here for lunch?’ I stammered.

  ‘Oh, if I’m up, no doubt,’ she said.

  Before I knew it I was running out of Alsacia and was halfway up Fetter Lane, almost at the Tarzan Adventures office.

  My mind wasn’t on my work that day. My hangover didn’t get much better. I felt vaguely let down by Barry, who had failed to confirm what I had seen in the Alsacia. Mostly, however, my head was full of the young woman I had seen again. She was everything I had ever dreamed of since I was a boy. Her red hair! Her violet eyes! With final page proofs gone to press, Thursday was always a bit slow. Our boss at Tarzan, Donald Peters, usually went home to the country that day. After he left, we, too, tended to take things a bit easy. That was also payday, when I treated myself to a large Dover sole at the Globe, whose lunches I had enjoyed long before I knew about the SF meetings. They used light matzo batter and served thick, crisp chips, fresh green peas or cauliflower, depending on the season. A bit of salad on the side. A pint of best bitter. But this time I put the proofs to press and got down to Carmelite Inn Chambers as fast as I could, back across Fleet Street, through the same Inns of Court and into Alsacia. Over gleaming flint cobbles I entered The Swan With Two Necks, crowded with what I determined was a noisy group of actors, probably from the theatres of Aldgate or the Strand. I understood the costume the young woman had worn. And why she was such a beauty. She was a film star! Being fairly secluded, this pub was taken over by people who might be recognised by the public. They certainly couldn’t enter an ordinary pub dressed as they were.

  I had hard work pushing myself through men in long leather-and-silk coats, lacy shirts, brightly coloured velvet trousers. The three-cornered hats perched on their wigs made me think of actors in a TV production of The Beggar’s Opera. The names on the beer casks were unfamiliar, so I asked for a pint of ‘best’ and was about to pay for it when the grinning girl, now barefoot in skirts and blouse, spotted me and made a sign to the barman. My beer was free. She gestured for me to follow her through a door into a small private bar where she greeted me with her own glass against mine. By their finery the people here were the stars of the production. She remembered me. Her name was Molly, she said. Oh, those eyes and ringlets!

  She asked my name and then, jumping onto a chair, called out for silence. ‘Now boys, I’d like to introduce you to our guest. This here’s Master Michael Moorcock, a scrivener by trade.’ Did I hear Irish in her voice? ‘Yonder’s Captain King and next to him old Captain Turpin and next to him young Captain Turpin. Captain Langley, Captain Jack Sheppard. Colonel Billy Pike. Colonel Carson. Colonel Bowie and Colonel Cody.’

  I gasped, barely able to speak. These actors were got up like my boyhood heroes! I was still writing about some of them! I could see them, hear them, certainly smell them and what they were drinking. As I turned to look around, my arm grazed one’s unshaven chin. I could practically feel the weight of their greatcoats, noted a grease spot here, a frayed cuff, a tear, a burn mark there. Tom King looked a little redder in the cheeks than I knew from his pictures, Turpin a little too old or a little too young, depending which one was the legendary highway robber. Both looked tired. Overworked, I thought. Jack Sheppard, the same age as me, wore his doom and his youth in equal measure. Jack Rann: ‘Sixteen String’ Jack. So many Jacks and Dicks! And there was no denying Captain Sheppard to be the only man whose cologne succeeded in disguising any body odour, or that ‘Galloping Dick’ Langley was shorter than me by at least two inches. What Jim Bowie, Buffalo Bill and Kit Carson had to do in this medley (unless they were in a curtain raiser) I hadn’t a notion. But there they stood, glasses raised, enjoying lively conversation with Messrs King and Turpin.

  ‘And,’ the violet-eyed beauty murmured over loud greetings, ‘I’m known here as Captain Moll Midnight.’ She looked at me as if she expected me to recognise who she was but I had only the faintest recollection of her name. Maybe a 1920s heroine in one of my dad’s Boys Friend or Nelson Lee Library serials which, with Tarzan, John Carter, Wrykyn, and The Magnet and Gem had been, by that point in my life, relegated to passing enthusiasms? Currently I was reading Aldous Huxley and Camus, but earlier I would have given a great deal for a good highwayman story by the likes of Stephen Agnew or Morton Pike.

  ‘And this here’s Jemmy Cornwall, our best potboy, or certainly the longest.’ Moll slapped the tall stable lad on a back she was scarcely able to reach. He was the same I had met earlier. Just as amiable, intelligent and kno
wing, with those sharp black crow’s eyes that noticed everything. He winked at me as he carried empties back to the bar. He’d had my measure all along.

  For some reason only the most famous highwayman, the elder Turpin, showed me any ill will. He scowled a little and turned his back on me. Was he jealous of the attention Moll gave me? He made a coarse joke under his breath. A few smirked unenthusiastically at it. He stank of ladies’ perfume, blood and fresh-skinned furs. He also broadcast raw physical power. He had that charisma all the crowd’s favourites give off. They are scarcely aware of it and take it all for granted. I was disappointed. Even if he was merely an actor, I felt uncomfortable at his apparent snub.

  As Moll made her introductions I knew I had stepped into some wonderful dress rehearsal, a pageant of London’s rogues. Too elaborate for TV back then! A film? A Beggar’s Opera. A Rogue’s Romance. Even Joey seemed to be ‘in character’—playing a part. He gave no sign that he saw anything odd about what was going on. Either these were consummate actors in a perfect set (maybe the Whitefriars Theatre, long since demolished) or they really did believe they were a bunch of infamous highwaymen and frontiersmen, whose main exploits were now mostly reprinted from weeklies and put into pocket-size monthlies. They were actually recast from weekly 1900s text magazines.