The Abominable Showman

  I got rather wet when the sprinklers went off, which did peeve me somewhat, but not enough to ruin the evening.

  Order was speedily restored. Bodies shifted, silly boys brought to order. Damaged seats removed and replaced, warm air rushed through fan-assisted flues to dry the sprinklers’ shower. The audience, slightly fewer in number but hardly dampened either physically or in spirit, returned, clinking their glasses and laughing merrily. The security screen on the Royal Box rose to expose Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, ‘taking tea with the archbishop’ and rapidly descended again.

  And in no time at all the show continued, with everything hunky dory.

  ‘Nuts,’ I said to Barry. ‘All completely nuts.’

  ‘Time ticks on,’ said Barry to me. ‘The end is drawing nigh.’

  The bad ship Umma Gumma too was drawing rather nigh. Aboard the pirates sang a song of pillage and of plunder.

  ‘Ship mates, chaps,’ said Captain F-Stop Bell-Franchise. ‘I would like to introduce you to this.’ He produced a cylinder of metal approximately eight inches in length with a row of buttons running down its length.

  ‘Oooooh,’ went a pirate whose sexual tastes involved intrusive items. ‘A tad blunt, but any porch in a storm as they say.’

  The captain chastened this pirate with a fist. ‘This,’ said he, is a weapon of The Fierce. It is a light sa-(careful – ed). A light, er cutlass. Yes, a light cutlass.’

  ‘As opposed to a heavy cutlass, Captain?’ someone asked.

  ‘Step forward that man,’ said the captain.

  Smirking and chuckling the pirate stepped forward.

  ‘Good,’ the captain said. ‘A light cutlass and it functions in this fashion.’ He thumbed a button and beam of lazery light extended from the metal cylinder. The captain swished it about and it made a pleasing yet somehow menacing humming sound.

  ‘It’s a night-light cutlass,’ observed the smirking chuckler.

  Captain F-Stop Bell-Franchise swung the light cutlass and cleaved the head from he who had chuckled and smirked.

  ‘I see where you’re going with that,’ said the pirate with the specialised sexual tastes. ‘Wouldn’t want to pull that one out of the bedroom drawer by mistake after a night out on the razzle.’

  ‘Where are those scones I was looking for?’ asked another pirate.

  ‘My pocket watch says nine o’clock,’ said the captain of the ship.

  ‘I do,’ agreed his pocket watch. ‘And I chime my little chime.’ The pocket watch chimed six o’clock, for it too was a surrealist.

  ‘My point,’ said the captain. ‘Is that we draw near to our target, gentlemen. Great bounty, ours for the taking. We will storm The Leviathan –’

  A pirate raised his hook.

  ‘– after the defence systems have been shut down –’

  The pirate lowered his hook.

  ‘We will storm the mighty vessel, slaughter all aboard who stand against us, capture Queen Victoria, plunder the ship then sink it –’

  The hook went up again.

  ‘after we have left it and are safely back in space.’

  The hook went down again.

  ‘Any questions, gentlemen?’

  ‘I have one, sir,’ a young and handsome pirate raised his hand.

  ‘And what is your question, my bonny lad?’

  ‘My first is in yellow, but never in red.

  My second’s in black, but not block in its stead.

  I’m one after M and one after J

  One after D and an R too, I’d say.

  What am I?’

  ‘You are a w*nker,’ said the captain. ‘Any serious questions?’

  ‘Regarding overtime, Captain,’ said the union representative. ‘It will be double time after midnight. Will you be instigating a bonus system for liberated booty?’

  ‘The pay scale and bonus system is all covered in your Terms of Employment. What’s the time now?’

  ‘A quarter past eight,’ said his pocket watch, chiming two.

  ‘Time moves on,’ said the captain.

  And time moved steadily on.

  Sir Jonathan Crawford had not returned to his theatre seat. Neither had Lady Agnes Rutherford. The two tasted cocktails in the theatre bar and found them pleasing.

  ‘The bomb dissolved,’ Sir Jonathan said.

  ‘I saw that,’ said her ladyship. ‘The count is certainly possessed of magical protection. Are you sure that Mr Jolson can deal with the situation? His performance tonight left much to be desired, magically speaking.’

  ‘The other chap was spot on about the smell in the gents, though,’ said Sir Jonathan. ‘Just used the one here, ripe and rank, disgusting.’

  ‘The count must die,’ her ladyship said. ‘Smell in the gents or not.’

  ‘Think I’ll slip away back stage,’ Sir Jonathan said. ‘Have words with Jolson. Hear precisely what he has in mind.’

  ‘You still have those feelings?’ asked Lady Agnes. ‘Regarding your possible death tonight?’

  ‘More strongly than ever, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Then take care, my dear,’ and Lady Agnes kissed him on the cheek.

  Al Jolson brought order to a line of cocaine upon his glass-topped dressing room table, kissed his fingers and then with the aid of an ivory nose-trumpet, inhaled the twinkling powder into an eager nostril.

  ‘I hope I get the credit for this,’ he said to his appointed dresser, Charles. Charles wore backstage livery. Gold lamé dinner jacket, kilt in the Rostov tartan, high-heeled brogues.

  ‘Excuse me, sir?’ said Charles, in fawning obsequiousness.

  ‘This,’ said Mr Jolson, pointing to the dusty table top where the line of cocaine had just been, sniffing hard and wiping a tear from his eye. ‘Music hall performers are notable drunkards. They guzzle gin mostly and moan about the bad breaks they got and how all successful artistes did a turn of their own upon some casting couch or another.’

  ‘As sir says,’ said the high-heeled dresser.

  ‘But I will be remembered not only for my unique talent as an entertainer, but also for popularising this drug over the supping of gin or the inhaling of horse-hoof glue.’

  ‘Sir is certainly an innovator.’

  ‘Certainly so, yes I am. And I will tell you what. I will name the habit after you.’

  ‘You will say, sir, that you ingest Mr Charles Wentworth-Gimberly-Martin through your nasal orifici?’

  ‘No,’ said Al. ‘I will say that I snort Charlie.’

  ‘Is it worth it?’ Mr Wentworth-Gimberly-Martin asked, rhetorically. ‘Three years at RADA for this.’

  The door of the dressing room opened.

  Without knocking.

  The muzzle of a ray gun entered.

  Without charm.

  There was a flash of electrical power.

  And poor Al Jolson fell dead.

  42

  The Leviathan’s in-house journal The Gentleman Adventurer generally set aside two pages daily for obituaries. There was always someone killing someone on board the space liner. Scores being settled beyond the reach of the law.

  The obituary columnist, who had a seat in the balcony, was scribbling madly into his notebook, as Count Rostov, upon stage, announced the next turn:

  ROBYN HITCHCOCK

  THE MAN WITH THE

  LIGHT BULB HEAD

  It is quite remarkable just how entertaining a single man could be, when all he had going for him as a performer was that he had a light bulb instead of a head.

  Many considered that some kind of trick, but it wasn’t.

  He didn’t have much of an act when it came right down to it. Mostly it was capering blindly about the stage switching his light bulb head on and off with increasing rapidity. But it was certainly a crowd-pleaser. A classic is a classic, and somehow one instinctively knows it’s a classic. Whether it is a Burberry baseball cap or a Cheeky Girls hit single. A classic is a classic, is a classic.

  Whether by luck, or by judgement, the man with
the light bulb head climaxed his Royal Command Performance by pitching light bulb-headlong into the orchestra pit.

  To receive a standing ovation.

  Sir Jonathan Crawford was standing also, in the dressing room of the late Al Jolson.

  ‘Now this,’ said Sir Jonathan, ‘is a dashed inconvenience.’

  He nudged al Jolson’s body with a polished patent toecap.

  ‘Ow,’ went the man with the boot-blacked face. ‘Watch who you’re nudging there.’

  ‘Oh my word,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford.

  Al Jolson put a finger to his lips and gestured towards himself with his other hand. (Which was not nearly so complicated as it might seem). Sir Jonathan leaned low. Al Jolson whispered.

  ‘It’s only a fatal wound to the heart,’ he said. ‘So nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Nothing to worry about?’ his lordship queried.

  ‘I’ve been technically dead for years,’ the fallen figure whispered. ‘Shot in the heart by a cuckolded husband. He wasn’t too keen on having his wife carry on with a gentleman of ethnic origin –’ Sir Jonathan rolled his eyes. ‘But white girls like a black chap because of their big w–’

  ‘Have to stop you there,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford. ‘Offensive on so many levels, doncha know. But shot dead and risen again, how is that? Thought only Christ went in for that kind of caper.’

  ‘Had already sold my soul to Papa Shango in return for eternal youth and good fortune.’

  ‘Hope you got at least half your money back then.’

  ‘He reanimated me,’ said the defunct Mr Jolson. ‘I am what you might call a zombie. Although I an’ I prefer the term “vitally-challenged”.’

  ‘You are, un-dead,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford.

  ‘Which gives me an unnatural edge as a magical assassin. Help me up, if you will.’

  Sir Jonathan helped the deceased to his feet.

  The deceased said, ‘Thank you and I an’ I are rather miffed, as it happens. Who would wish to assassinate me an’ me?’

  ‘Perhaps word has reached the count regarding your intentions toward him.’

  ‘Bloodclot!’ Al Jolson fished a paper hankie from the ormolu dispenser on his dressing table and dabbed at his besmirched shirt front. ‘Look at all de nasty green gunk down me silks,’ said he.

  Sir Jonathan raised his fingers to his nose. ‘So you will still go ahead with the assassination attempt?’ he asked.

  ‘Attempt?’ said Mr Jolson with contempt. ‘Won’t be no attempt, Babylon. It be assassination, pure and simple. At midnight, on de dot. Not like dis nonsense just now, wid the dynamite and ting. I smash de count wid de magical force.’

  ‘Jolly good show,’ said Sir Jonathan Crawford. ‘And you will have the element of surprise on your side if the count now believes you to be dead.’

  ‘What I an’ I thought. So me disguise me self now and take me self off. And ting.’

  ‘Splendid,’ said his lordship. ‘Then I will wish you luck and take my leave.’

  He put his hand out for a shake and the vitally-challenged and boot-blacked assassin shook it as well as he could.

  I was trying as hard as I could to finish all of the chocolates.

  ‘You’ll make yourself sick, chief,’ Barry said.

  ‘Which would no doubt make you laugh.’ I stuffed more into my face and munched on them. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said between munchings. ‘I have hardly been properly fed at all since I came to the nineteen-twenties, so I intend to eat as much posh food as I possibly possibly can.’

  ‘You’ll spoil yourself for your dinner.’

  ‘Hah,’ I said to Barry, ‘then you are thinking what I have been thinking.’

  ‘If you have been thinking, and I know that you have, that with those toffs below being killed and everything, there will be a few spare seats at the banqueting tables and so you could just inveigle yourself into one, then yes.’

  ‘Precisely,’ I said. ‘Should we head for the ballroom now?’

  ‘No need for haste,’ said Barry. ‘Best wait until the show is over. And, see here comes the top of the bill.’

  Royalty at times have very odd taste. The Royal Variety Show dates back to nineteen eighteen and it was inflicted upon us on television from the nineteen-fifties onwards. Mostly with David Nixon topping the bill, I recall.

  But here the top of the bill was –

  BAIGNE ABBOT

  AND HIS REMARKABLE

  PIGANINO

  For those of you who are not au fait with the Piganino, otherwise called the Hog Harmonium, the Pigano and indeed the Swineway (my favourite), I will briefly describe it.

  Picture if you will a grand piano; a pianist sits at this. Where the interior gubbins of this piano previously lurked there is now a row of pigs. Pigs of diminishing size, twelve in all. It is a broad grand piano. The pigs are stationed in little separate boxes; they face the audience. The piganist sits to their rear. At each touch of a keyboard key a spiked arm extends to prick a pig’s behind.

  You get the picture.

  The pigs have been arranged according to the pitch of their squeals. Quite complicated tunes can be achieved.

  Such innocent entertainment is frowned upon nowadays along with so many other such musical joys; the cat orchestra, the mouse organ, the baby grand.

  Political correctness has taken so very much from us.

  But in all truth I did not enjoy the Swineway one little bit. Baigne Abbot at his keyboard drew from his porcine choristers lamentable squealings which were not in the least harmonious.

  Barry found it most amusing though.

  ‘It’s a sprout-thing,’ he explained.

  Mr Baigne Abbot ran through his repertoire. Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1 in B Flat Minor and concluded with Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Flight of the Bumble Bee. And I have to say that he really came unstuck with that one.

  The audience loved it, Queen Victoria, up in her Royal Box, called ‘Bravo’ and ‘Encore’. And an encore cannot be denied a royal lady.

  The piganist bowed and blew kisses, sat himself back down and played Handel’s Largo. Which actually brought a tear to my eye.

  ‘And one to the piggies too, chief.’

  I have no idea quite what he might have played next, as some fellow in the audience, shouting something about the performance being an act of blasphemy upon a divine composition, arose from his seat and shot Baigne Abbot dead.

  The audience drew in a great collective breath. This was surely the social gaffe of the season. To shoot one of Queen Victoria’s favourite musicians dead right before the old lady’s eyes.

  But Queen Victoria took it in good part. She grinned like that pussy from Cheshire and waved her silk handkerchief towards the shootist. So all was well and good.

  ‘And that concludes our entertainment here,’ announced Count Ilya Rostov, once more upon the stage. ‘I trust that in my small and humble way I have pleased Your Majesty,’ he bowed to the Royal Box, the audience rose and cheered, ‘and all of you that I am honoured to call my esteemed chumrades.’

  The audience rose a little higher and clapped a little louder.

  ‘If we all might repair now to the Grand Ballroom where the tables are laid for the Jubilee banquet, where there will be dancing to the music of Mr Louis Armstrong, and later, at midnight, a Magnificat performed by the enchanting Sophia Poppette to celebrate Her Royal Majesty upon this most special of occasions. And with this I will present to you something beyond any of your wildest dreams. So mote it be.’

  ‘That is the bit we won’t want to miss,’ said Barry.

  I watched Queen Victoria and her semi-automaton husband leave the Royal Box to further applause from the up-standing audience. I popped a final chocolate into my mouth and washed it down with a gob-full of champagne, a drink that I was determined to get the hang of. And I had a think about things. Not a big one, but one I feel, significant.

  I had just been present throughout
a Royal Command Performance, in honour of Queen Victoria’s ninetieth year on the throne. On board a space-going liner with a full-sized facsimile of the Crystal Palace atop it. I had seen performers that most could surely only know as legend. And prior to this I had walked upon the planet Venus and shaken the hand of God.

  I hadn’t really done all that badly for a Brentford schoolboy. My experiences, I felt, had been unique.

  ‘And have you finished now, chief?’ Barry asked.

  ‘Pretty much so, I think, yes.’

  ‘Then why not hasten to the Grand Ballroom and see if we can get a seat at a table near to the band.’

  ‘I hear you, Barry,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and do it.’

  And so I left that private box, a little sick in the stomach with no small degree of chocolate smeared about my mouth and set off for the Grand Ballroom.

  My adventure, I knew was nearing its end.

  But I had no idea at this time that it would do so in such a spectacular fashion.

  ‘You might have guessed something of the sort though, chief.’

  ‘Shut your face, Barry,’ I said.

  43

  I had never actually seen an ice sculpture before. Not in the flesh as it were. I had seen pictures in a book about America that the daddy lent to me. It seemed that on board American cruise liners, the ice sculpture was very popular. It consisted of a large block of ice that was hacked into some shape that gained approval from the passengers. A leaping dolphin, an American eagle, an American eagle swooping down upon a dolphin, and things of that nature, specifically.

  And if I knew but little of ice sculpture, I knew nothing whatsoever about the Kama Sutra (the ancient Hindu text concerning erotic pleasure and other topics). Thus the nature of the crafting of these ice sculptures was entirely lost upon me.

  I will not dwell upon this, but there was an imaginative ice sculpture upon every table and there were three hundred tables.

  Three hundred tables, each seating ten. That is a lot of tables and a lot of diners too. But the Grand Ballroom was a lot of room. It was the biggest single room that I had ever seen and I will endeavour, briefly, here to offer some description.