‘An unlikely tale if ever there was,’ said the ape.
‘I do so agree,’ said the lad. ‘But that is the truth of it.’
‘There is some coffee left over from breakfast in my room,’ said the monkey. ‘You can have some to refresh you, before you return to his lordship.’
The sooty boy did shakings of his very sooty head and Darwin took a step or two away.
‘I ain't going back,’ declared the sooty boy. ‘I'm done with chimney-sweeping and lion-taming and underwater ex-plor-a-mor-ation.’
‘I raise my eyebrows regarding the last two,’ said the ape and did so.
‘His lordship maintains a small private zoo and has recently patented an air-filled suit what enables its wearer to walk on the ocean's floor.’
‘Your life with his lordship is little less than exciting.’
‘It is little less than hazardous and I will have no more of it.’
‘Then what will you do?’ asked the ape.
‘I will take my chances aloft.’
‘In a crow's nest, do you mean? Aboard a sailing ship?’
‘Aloft, as in up there.’ The lad pointed skywards with a blackened finger. ‘Up there. Up in the clouds.’
The ape scratched his head, as an ape often will when baffled. ‘Has his lordship invented a sky-going carriage?’ he asked.
‘Not to my knowledge,’ said Jack. ‘But he well might soon, which would be another good reason for me to quit his employ as of now.’
The ape looked up at the sky above, all blue with scudding clouds.
‘How do you mean to get up there?’ he asked. ‘And why?’
The boy sat up and eased at his elbows. ‘I spends a lot of time on rooftops,’ he said. ‘I hides upon rooftops, I make no excuse. I knows the rooftops of Syon House well enough and I've spent enough time lying on them a-gazing up at the Heavens to see a bit of what goes on up there.’
‘What does go on up there?’ asked Darwin, squinting towards the sky.
‘There's a whole world up there amongst the clouds. A world that is made of them clouds, and things what are made out of clouds. Surely you've noticed the likenesses? Surely everyone does.’
‘If you mean that clouds sometimes look like things, then yes,’ said Darwin. ‘That one up there, for instance, looks like something rather rude, as it happens.’
‘They often do that,’ agreed Jack. ‘But what about that one?’ And he pointed.
‘That one looks like a whale,’ said Darwin.
‘Because that's just what it is.’
‘Ah,’ said Darwin. ‘I regret I must disillusion you there. Which is a pity, but it must be done. You are using your childish imagination here, which is a wonderful thing, do not get me wrong. But you are imagining, as children do, that there is a land in the clouds. That there is a land made out of clouds. That clouds that look like whales are whales, cloud whales. It is not really true, I'm afraid.’
‘Have you quite finished?’ asked the boy, now standing on the rooftop.
‘It is a cloud and not a whale,’ said Darwin.
‘It is a cloud and a whale,’ said Jack. ‘It is a sky whale.’
‘No,’ said Darwin.
But, ‘Yes,’ said Jack, and he nodded his head very hard. ‘And,’ he went on to say, ‘I can prove it.’
The monkey shrugged and said, ‘Go on, then.’
‘You'd have to trust me,’ said Jack. ‘You would have to believe.’
‘Ah,’ said the monkey. ‘I see.’
‘Wouldn't you like to go up there?’ asked Jack. ‘Up amongst the clouds? To sail across the world and gaze down upon oceans and continents, forests and mountains and all?’
‘I think it would be a very wonderful thing to do,’ said the monkey. ‘But it is what one does in dreams, and not, I regret, when awake.’
‘Well, I'm going,’ said Jack. ‘And if you won't come with me, then at least you can watch me go.’
The monkey shrugged once more and said, ‘I will.’
‘Then you must climb with me to a high place and you'll see me board a low-runner.’
The monkey had one shrug left in him and so he offered it now.
‘Follow me,’ said Jack and took off at the trot.
He was very nimble on his toes, was Jack, and he fair bounded over the slate roofs, jumping from building to building. Darwin followed on with admiration.
‘Not much further now,’ called Jack and pointed up ahead, towards the spire of Saint Joan's Church that rose beyond the rooftops.
A swing, a jump, a swing and they had reached Saint Joan's.
Darwin gazed up at the spire that dwindled into the sky above. It was a very tall church spire and monkeys do really like high places. Darwin worried for Jack, however, and said so.
‘Fear not for me,’ said Jack most bravely, ‘for I have no fear of my own.’
And with that said, he began to scale the spire.
Up and up went Darwin and the boy, past grinning gargoyles and decorative slates, right up to the weathercock.
The views were utterly wonderful. The beautiful borough of Brentford spread all around and about. The Thames a mirrored snake reflecting the sky.
A gentle breeze rippled Darwin's coat and danced soot from Jack's head.
‘We're here,’ said he. ‘And now you'll see for yourself.’
Darwin was admiring the views. ‘What am I going to see?’
‘You'll see me go up, that's what.’
And Jack clung to the weathercock and waited.
Darwin waited, too. But being a monkey of mercurial disposition, he soon tired of waiting and asked, ‘What are we waiting for?’
‘A low-runner, I told you.’
‘But what is a low-runner?’
‘That's one there,’ said Jack, and he pointed. ‘If it comes near enough.’
Drifting towards them was a tiny little cloud. About the size of a bathtub, it was, or perhaps a rowing boat. In fact, it did rather resemble a rowing boat, truth be told. It was the right shape and it almost looked as it if had oars as well.
‘Perfect,’ said Jack. ‘That's just what I'm after.’
‘Jack?’ said Darwin. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Board that low-runner and go aloft,’ said Jack.
‘Do you mean climb onto that cloud?’
The cloud was almost upon them.
Jack simply nodded his head.
‘Oh no,’ said Darwin. ‘Jack, do not. Please, you must not do that.’
‘What have I to lose?’ asked Jack.
And with that said, he leapt from the spire towards the passing cloud.
* From Ki-Vi and the Sky Whales and other Far-Fetched Fictions by Robert Rankin. Reproduced by kind permission of Far-Fetched Books, ¥ 2014.
28
arwin screamed a terrible scream as Jack jumped from the spire. As Jack plunged down to meet his doom. A terrible scream indeed. And Darwin covered his eyes when he screamed, for he had no wish to see Jack strike the pavement.
Darwin ceased to scream and held his breath.
‘See,’ said the voice of Jack from below. ‘I told you it was perfect.’
Darwin uncovered his eyes and peeped and then dropped low his jaw. For there sat Jack in a tiny boat, a-waggling at the oars. A tiny boat that was a tiny cloud, or perhaps a tiny cloud that was a tiny boat.
‘Oh my goodness,’ said the adventurous ape.
‘Come on, then,’ cried Jack. ‘Come aboard.’
Darwin stared and Darwin dithered and did not know what to do. Was it a cloud, or was it a boat? A cloudy-boat or a boaty-cloud or something in between?
‘Oh!’ cried Jack as his boat-cloud became more cloud than boat. ‘Don't do that, Darwin. You are getting the cloud-boat all confused.’
Jack's feet began to sink through the cloud-boat's bottom.
‘You're a boat! You're a boat! You're a boat!’ shouted Darwin and bravely jumped from the spire and into the boat.
‘Thank yo
u for that,’ said Jack, a-pulling up his feet. ‘So what do we say to Jack now, if you please?’
Darwin bobbed his head from side to side.
‘We say, “Well done, Jack, for being so clever and sorry I ever doubted you,” ’ said Jack.
‘Or something similar,’ said Darwin, peering down and over the side of the cloud-boat and admiring the view beneath. ‘But how did you know, please tell me.’
‘As I said,’ said Jack, now applying himself to the oars, ‘I spent a lot of time hiding upon rooftops staring up at the sky, and the more I stared the more I began to see them – the sharks and the porpoises and great sky whales. And I said to myself, young Jack, one day you'll go up there and have a great adventure.’
Darwin now turned his gaze towards the sky. Then blinked his eyes a number of times and dropped his jaw once more.
‘You look a bit goofy with your mouth all open like that,’ said Jack.
‘But I can see them, too,’ said Darwin. ‘I can see them, too.’
For so he could.
Above clouds rolled, but were they clouds, or were they many strange things? Mighty fish that dipped and swooped as birds do. Tumbling landscapes of trees and cottages and sheep (for sheep are oft-times very much like clouds). Folk who waved from windows in high castles. Castles perched atop the great sky whales.
‘But how can it be?’ asked Darwin. ‘How do those below not know of this?’
Young Jack tugged upon the oars and grinned. ‘I think certain people know,’ he said. ‘There are always certain people who know a lot. But most people, as perhaps you have noticed, know very little indeed. And I suspect that were they to be told, they would not believe. And few will ever enter the skies to find out for themselves.’
A sudden thought struck Darwin and it made him rather sad. He had boarded the Empress of Mars, a mighty airship, in eighteen ninety-five. Forty-four years from this time. And he had gazed down upon the clouds from that wondrous pleasure craft and he had seen no trace of floating whales and magical castles. Nothing had he seen at all but clouds.
Which meant . . .
It must be gone by then, thought Darwin. All of this, all gone away as magic, when Man takes to the skies in great machines.
And this did make Darwin very sad indeed. For it seemed to him that Man, although capable of greatness of thought and deed, as evidenced by the great composers and great artists, appeared ever to be removing magic from the world. Ever ‘applying logic’ and ‘following the scientific thinking of the day’, but ever, though apparently gaining, losing so very much.
‘Why so thoughtful, young monkey?’ asked Jack. ‘Are you not as grandly excited as I?’
‘I truly am,’ said Darwin, ‘for this is all quite wonderful.’
‘We will need a harpoon,’ said Jack.
‘A harpoon?’ asked the ape.
‘For the whaling,’ said Jack.
‘Whaling?’ asked the ape.
‘It's in my blood,’ said Jack to the ape. ‘The Rankins are notable whalers, and I would be a whaler when I grow up. But see here, Darwin, look at those great white whales. How would it be to take a harpoon and bring down one of them?’
Darwin's jaw was once more on his chest. But soon again moving swiftly.
‘That is outrageous!’ he shouted at Jack. ‘A terrible thing to even think. You must not bring cruelty into this wonderful aerial kingdom.’
‘Oh, it's cruel enough,’ said Jack. ‘You've seen clouds on stormy days. Those are great sky battles.’
‘Really?’ said Darwin, and he looked on as Jack rowed them through the sky.
They had gained to a preposterous height and below the great expanse of London dwindled at its edges into green and pleasant lands. The cloud-boat drifted now upon a gentle breeze and Jack amused himself by spitting down upon highflying pigeons.
‘That is a very bad habit indeed,’ said Darwin.
Jack said, ‘Look, there's an island up ahead. Shall we go ashore?’
The ape espied a misty realm and thought to hear the jolly cries of monkeys.
‘Promise me,’ he said to Jack, ‘that you will not kill anything.’
‘But we are as hunters,’ said the boy.
‘We are as explorers,’ Darwin said. ‘Please do not do anything horrid.’
Jack hunched his shoulders over the oars. He was indeed a boy of bravery and imagination. But he was a boy nonetheless, and boys can often be more horrid than not.
Horrid or not, Jack steered the boat to the shore where fluffy pebbles formed a stony beach. The lad leapt ashore and dragged the boat after him. Darwin leapt from boat to land and tested this land with his toes.
‘All this,’ he said, and he shook his hairy head. ‘All this up here all the time, and I never knew it until now.’
The pebbly beach was fringed by waving palms. A tropical island this appeared to be and now the monkey heard the calls of parrots.
‘Let us explore,’ cried Jack, striking out for the palms.
Darwin paused and scratched at himself. There might be lions, he thought.
But then he shrugged and said to himself, ‘What care monkeys for lions? For monkeys can always take to the trees if alarmed.’
‘Are you talking to yourself?’ asked Jack. ‘That is the first sign of madness, you know.’
Darwin hurried after the lad. ‘Let us explore this jungle, then,’ said he.
Darwin had never entered a real jungle before. But as he did so and its sounds and smells closed in upon him, he felt a certain something that he could not at first identify. A certain sense of belonging, was it, perhaps? The rich and heavy scent of vegetation smelled so familiar, the sounds most natural to his simian ears. Reassuring. Safe.
‘It is as if I have come home,’ said Darwin.
‘If only I had brought my gun,’ said Jack.
‘Jack,’ said Darwin, and Darwin showed Jack his teeth. ‘If you are going to continue to be beastly, perhaps we should just part company now and have done.’
‘I'm sorry,’ said Jack. ‘But it's rather frightening here.’
‘Ah.’ The monkey understood the man.
Darwin took Jack by the hand. ‘Then let us walk together,’ he said.
They wandered here and wandered there, then Darwin spied bananas.
He swarmed up a tree and threw a big hand down to Jack below. Returning to the ground, the monkey said, ‘Let's share them out.’
‘You should not eat bananas,’ said Jack. ‘Bananas will give you the runs.’
‘Whatever are the runs?’ asked Darwin.
Jack explained what they were.
‘I think you have been misinformed,’ said Darwin. ‘Bananas, as with other fruits, are very good for boys.’
‘Good for titled folk,’ said Jack, ‘but not for common boys. As I was constantly told at the big house.’
Darwin frowned. ‘Bananas will not give you the runs,’ he said. ‘Try one and see what you think.’
And so they feasted on bananas. And found a little pool and drank from it. Darwin leaned against the trunk of some exotic tree and grinned as Jack rammed too much banana into his boyish mouth.
‘This is a wonderful place to be,’ said Darwin. ‘A most marvellous place.’ And now he thought that this marvellous island in the sky reminded him somewhat of that Garden of Eden sort-of place far back in the past where he had left his monkeys.
Darwin sighed. Then heard the sound of monkeys in the distance.
‘Let us go and find those monkeys,’ said Darwin. ‘I would like to ask them about this world, and how indeed there came to be monkeys up here.’
‘Monkeys don't know anything,’ said Jack.
‘Apes are very wise indeed,’ said Darwin. Which was not altogether true, but he was growing just a tad fed up with Jack.
‘You can hollow out a monkey,’ said Jack, ‘and make either a glove puppet or a hot-water-bottle cover with it.’
Darwin rose and bit Jack on the ankle.
Jac
k howled loud and took to hopping about.
The howls of Jack brought on a sudden silence.
The boy and the monkey looked at one another.
Darwin put his finger to his lips. ‘We had best move quietly,’ he said.
With a very grumpy face and a lot of unnecessary limping, Jack followed Darwin, and as sounds returned to the jungle he even did a little whistling.
They came to a sudden halt in a jungle glade. Sunlight bathed it in vibrant colours. A waterfall trickled somewhere near at hand.
In the middle of the glade there was a great big egg.
Perched upon that egg, a kiwi bird.
The kiwi bird appeared to be sleeping, but as Darwin and Jack drew closer, it opened a beady eye, swung its slender beak towards them and said in the voice of one well bred, ‘However do you do?’
‘A talking kiwi bird!’ said Darwin.
‘A talking ape!’ said the bird.
Jack was about to remark that so large an egg as the one that the kiwi bird sat upon would surely make a very fine omelette indeed. But considering his wounded ankle, he kept such untoward outspokenness in check.
‘It is well that you have arrived at last,’ said the kiwi bird. ‘My name is Ki Vi the kiwi, and you must be Darwin and this horrid boy must be Jack.’
‘I am not as horrid as you might think,’ said Jack. Which was not, as had been Darwin's remark regarding the wisdom of apes, altogether true.
‘You are as horrid as a boy should be,’ said Ki Vi the kiwi. ‘I should wish you no more horrid than less.’
‘How do you know our names?’ asked Darwin, as this seemed a logical question.
‘All naughty boys in this day and age are called Jack.’ Ki Vi waved her beak about, as if conducting an orchestra.
‘And all monkeys Darwin?’ asked Darwin.
‘No, only you. For you are the Ape of Thoth.’
Now, Darwin had heard this term before, spoken of to Mr Bell by Mr Aleister Crowley.
‘The Ape of Thoth?’ said Darwin.
‘Certainly,’ said Ki Vi, comfying her great big feet to either side of her egg. ‘Thoth is an Egyptian deity. An ancient Egyptian deity, from the time of the chickens.’