The Abominable Showman

  I did whistlings at this, much to Barry’s displeasure.

  And I registered the equal displeasure of my working class fellow travellers. One used the word that is ‘bastards’. Another went farther than that.

  I just peeped from my porthole. It was none of my business.

  Long minutes passed, during which I was treated to snatches of conversation that I can only describe as seditious in nature. As I have said, I had a healthy dislike for toffs, but this bunch, had they been given the opportunity would have put every toff up against the wall. Having first done certain unspeakable things, that I would not care to mention.

  There was clearly something of a ‘class divide’ in this nineteen twenty-seven.

  And then I saw The Leviathan.

  Never in my wildest of dreams could I have imagined such a thing as The Leviathan. It had somewhat the looks of a great silver airship, but this was a space ship and over a mile in length. You might picture an airship as basically sausage-shaped with a cone at each end. The Leviathan was like ways formed, but its bottom was flat and upon its uppermost parts spread nothing less than a full-sized facsimile of the Crystal Palace. And all over the great spreading sides of this marvellous creation were to be seen glass-covered terraces and balconies. And as we drew slowly alongside to dock, I saw restaurants and art galleries and shops and a concert hall. All sheltered beneath glazed roofs through which those privileged who moved within might view the heavens beyond.

  I was simply lost for breath and certainly lost for words. I would see many wonders aboard The Leviathan but the memory of my first sight of that fantastic voyager would stay with me forever.

  As the HMSS Lovely Lovely Owl settled into its docking bay with a sigh of hydraulics and various clicks and clackings I unfastened my safety belt and stole quietly away from the working class cabin and its truculent occupants.

  And I did not float into the air at all. For, as it was later explained to me, The Leviathan was so large that it created its own state of gravity. And if this was unlikely then it was probably due to some super-technology that is now lost to the world. Most probably.

  I displayed my ticket to one of the cabin crew and when the entry port swung down and opened, I was nearly trampled to death by Sir Jonathan Crawford and his aristocratic companions. Who, by the sound of their now slurred conversations, had managed to consume several bottles of champagne during the short trip in the first class salon, where Sir Jonathan had clearly won them a place.

  ‘Bastards!’ I whispered to myself.

  Barry told me to shush.

  I followed the toffs along the corridor that lead to customs. While they awaited the arrival of their luggage, I passed through as I had no bags at all.

  A chap, who wore just the kind of uniform that I really wanted, perused my papers and looked me up and down.

  ‘Another youth for the count,’ said he, in a rather odd tone of voice.

  ‘Cabin boy for his space yacht,’ I said and I gave a smart salute.

  ‘Well,’ said the chap. ‘You’ll be kept busy. Just about every high-falooting swell on the four worlds will be attending the Jubilee ball. The celebrations here will be like nothing on Earth.’ The chap laughed loudly at what he considered to have been a rather witty remark. I laughed too, but out of politeness.

  ‘Ninety years is a very long time for a queen to be on the throne.’ I said.

  ‘Her bum would be rather sore,’ said the chap and he laughed once more, and louder.

  ‘How do you think she’s lived so long?’ I asked, when the chap stopped laughing.

  He mopped at his eyes with a handkerchief, then blew his nose upon it. ‘Magic,’ he said in a harsh stage whisper. ‘Everyone know it’s Venusian magic keeps the old dear going.’

  ‘Not a monarchist yourself then?’ I said.

  ‘Deptford boy, me,’ said the chap in the uniform. ‘Laboured for years in the crab works, before I got a chance at this job. I bows and scrapes like the rest of us here. But given the chance –’

  ‘You’d have the lot of them up against the wall?’ I suggested.

  ‘Damnably right,’ the chap winked at me.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said I, ‘And of course you do not need to heed my advice, as I am, after all only a child. But perhaps it might be wise of you to keep such subversive statements to yourself. I am a boy of noble birth and I might well inform on you to my elders, your betters.’

  At this the chap in the uniform literally exploded into laughter. His eyes did poppings from his face, a face that glowed bright red. When he had finally managed to fight his way back into a state of sobriety he begged that I should say no more ‘funny stuff’ or I might be the death of him.

  I shrugged my shoulders and asked him to explain.

  ‘Well,’ said he, ‘simply, it takes one to know one and you might be all dolled up in your dear little suit, but there’s no mistaking what you are. You are as common as pig’s muck, sailor boy.’

  My horror of this was not eased at all by the sound of Barry’s chucklings.

  The chap, now coughing as he laughed, applied rubber stamps to my papers and told me to report to quarterdeck twelve on level seventeen.

  ‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you,’ I said. ‘And I think ten shillings is fair.’

  ‘Fair for what?’ asked the chap as he dabbed with his handkerchief.

  ‘Fair as a bribe,’ I said. ‘A ten shilling note, or I’ll grass you up to the count.’

  This remark had a quite notable effect upon the jovial chap in the uniform. A certain stillness settled about him, a certain tint of greyness coloured his face.

  ‘We don’t grass up our own,’ said he. ‘That is an unwritten law of the working class.’

  ‘I so agree,’ I put out my hand for my money. ‘But we are beyond the atmosphere of Earth here. Beyond the reach of all laws down below.’

  The chap now looked aghast at me.

  ‘We’ll call it five bob,’ I said.

  As I took the lift to quarterdeck twelve I ignored the sounds in my head of Barry remonstrating with me.

  ‘What kind of behaviour was that?’ went Barry. ‘You can’t go blackmailing the first official you see!’ went Barry.

  ‘What on Earth were you thinking?’ he went too.

  But I answered that one.

  ‘What off Earth was I thinking,’ I said. ‘I was thinking that if the count is really a super criminal, then his minions are probably a bunch of criminals too. That chap back there certainly was. So I consider that it was probably prudent to make a bit of a name for myself from the very first get-go, as it were. As something of a bastard,’ I said. ‘It might earn me promotion.’

  As Barry now seemed bereft of speech, I walked on gently whistling.

  11

  I had seen photographs of the Queen Mary in all its Art Deco splendour and there were many similarities to be found in the architectural features of The Leviathan. A great deal of chrome and coloured glass, brown and cream enamelling and bas-reliefs of figures representing commerce and the arts.

  I have always been a fan of Victorian architecture myself. The daddy took me to the Natural History Museum when I was very young, pointed out the terracotta details and had me hooked.

  My love stretched to Art Nouveau, with its natural sweeps and curves, but frankly I have always found Art Deco rather too ‘industrial’ for me.

  ‘Because you are a snobby little schmuck,’ whispered Barry.

  ‘What was that Barry?’

  ‘Nothing, chief.’

  I arrived at level seventeen and knocked upon a door that took my fancy. It had raised motifs of koi carp, figured, it seemed, in mother of pearl and set against a vertical sea of lapis lazuli.

  I knocked briskly upon this door and receiving no reply, knocked once again. A voice within called out to me, ‘Come if you must,’ it called. I pushed open the door and entered a very swank office. The floor was tiled in a black and white chessboard fashion. Which brought back a sudden
memory to me of my uncle Brian, who was very good at chess and bad at spelling. This sometimes led to problems when he tried to play chess on the cheeseboard. Although I never understood how that worked. Or indeed how old that joke was.

  The walls were white, the ceiling too and beyond a mighty window lay the universe. Upon one wall hung a large framed photograph of a young gentleman in a furry Russian hat. He had a face that ticked every box marked A.

  An agreeable face, with an amiable nose and a pair of amenable ears. Below the nose was an amicable mouth and above this ample mustachios. His eyes were amber and his goatee beard had a certain ambiguity. Although I never understood how that worked either.

  All in all it was an avuncular, yet ambassadorial face.

  ‘The face of the very Devil himself,’ whispered Barry.

  ‘Come if you will,’ called a voice and I looked for its owner. There was a desk that resembled an upturned Rock-Ola jukebox and behind this sat a man who was not human.

  He did not have the looks of Amesha the Venusian. Rather he was your archetypal little green man. He looked very much like Marvin the Martian out of the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

  ‘Not another beastly boy,’ said this version of Marvin.

  I opened my mouth to utter protests, but Barry counselled caution. ‘He’s from Trubshaw, one of Jupiter’s moons,’ said Barry. ‘They are a right spiteful tribe and you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of them.’

  ‘I am the count’s new cabin boy, sir,’ I said and presented all my papers to the small green chap. He turned them before him with long lime-coloured fingers and when one of his eyes extended upon a stalk to examine me closer, I found the experience somewhat heartening. Because little green men with eyes upon stalks is just how space aliens should be.

  His eye retracted and then he said, ‘Have you been assigned sleeping quarters?’

  ‘Not yet sir,’ I politely replied. ‘A room with a view of the Earth would be rather nice.’

  ‘I’ll just bet it would,’ said the verdant one. ‘Do you have a change of clothes?’

  ‘No sir,’ I said, ‘but I will gladly be measured for a uniform with brass buttons. Perhaps with epaulets and certainly a braided cap to complete the dignified ensemble.’

  ‘I’ll just bet that you would,’ said the bilious being. ‘Your papers state that you are fluent in Russian.’

  ‘Roman Abramovich,’ I said.

  ‘Pardon me?’ said he of the viridescent visage.

  ‘It means “whenever I am required to be”,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll just bet that it does.’

  ‘So, if someone will be so kind as to guide me to my cabin, I shall wash my hands before hastening to the ship’s tailor in residence.’

  The emerald eminence opened his glaucous gob. ‘Dormitory four, sub-level ten,’ he said. ‘Farewell.’ He returned my papers and indicated the door.

  I now travelled down in the lift.

  Down and down and down.

  ‘I’m glad we’re out of there,’ said Barry.

  ‘Why?’ I asked the sprout.

  ‘Because we had exhausted the thesaurus for words relating to green.’

  ‘There was still olivaceous,’ I said. ‘Not to mention porraceous.’

  ‘Porraceous?’ said Barry.

  ‘I told you not to mention that.’

  ‘A big fan of Spike Milligan then, chief?’

  ‘Always will be,’ I said.

  I did not take at all to dormitory four, down on sub-level ten. It was dark and dank in there. And long and low and crowded with hammocks and there wasn’t a window.

  ‘There seems to have been some mistake,’ I explained to the surly ruffian who had introduced himself to me as the warden. ‘This accommodation is quite unsuitable. Who should I speak to regarding an upgrade?’

  Then I received a thunderous blow that knocked me from my feet.

  I sprawled on a floor that smelled somewhat of wee wee, nursing my ear and swearing beneath my breath.

  ‘I’ll ‘ave none of your lip,’ said the warden. ‘You’ll do as your ordered or you’ll ‘ave me to reckon with.’

  ‘How dare –’ I began.

  But Barry said, ‘best not, chief.’

  ‘I’m the daddy here,’ said the warden, which caused me to think of my daddy.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ I said and I climbed cautiously to my feet.

  ‘This will be your bunk,’ said the warden, indicating a nearby hammock, composed it seemed from a length of filthy canvas. ‘The ‘ouse rules are on the wall there. Read ‘em and know ‘em by ‘eart. Lunch is in the mess ‘all down the corridor in fifteen minutes. Don’t be late, it’s the only meal of the day.’ And giving my good ear a spiteful pinch he turned and left the dormitory.

  The door slammed and I sat alone.

  And had a jolly good cry.

  ‘I want to go home,’ I wailed to Barry. ‘I want my mum and my daddy. Take me home.’

  ‘Calm down, chief,’ said the sprout. ‘You can’t expect it all to be canapés and cockatoo feathers. You have to take the rough with the smooth and the bingo with the booga-boogaloo.’

  ‘The bingo with the what?’ I blubbered.

  ‘Sorry chief, a touch of concussion I think. That blow had me rattling about here in this empty head of yours.’

  ‘Empty head, how dare you!’ I said. ‘I’ll have you know I’m top of my class in woodwork.’

  ‘That should come in handy, chief, if the count needs a toast rack making.’

  I did huffing and puffing too. I was very upset.

  ‘What we need to do,’ said Barry, ‘is get an overview of the situation.’

  I sniffed and snivelled and humped and grumped. ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, chief,’ said Barry. ‘We need to see the big picture. Well, perhaps not us personally. But anyone who might be looking in.’

  ‘Looking in?’ I said to Barry. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about,’ said Barry.

  ‘I assure you I do not,’ I said.

  ‘The remmmmers,’ mumbled Barry.

  ‘The what?’ I asked of him.

  ‘The readers, chief. The readers. The readers who are reading this book.’

  ‘No!’ I cried out to Barry. ‘You can’t say that. That is called breaking down the fourth wall. You cannot do that.’

  ‘Chief,’ said Barry. ‘I am a time travelling holy guardian sprout currently taking up residence in a schoolboy’s head. The way I see it, I can do pretty much anything I care to.’

  ‘Then get me a cabin of my own with a view and an en-suite bathroom,’ I said.

  ‘Within reason,’ said Barry. ‘Now I know that this book is your narrative. All in the first person, as befits one who would bear the name of Lazlo Woodbine. But frankly, chief, it’s too limiting. If we just follow what you are doing all the time it’s going to be terribly dull.’

  ‘I resent that,’ I said. ‘I’m bound to do loads of exciting things soon. Have some really daring adventures.’

  Inside my head Barry shook his and I could feel him doing it.

  ‘I’m really interesting,’ I said. ‘I can hold the readers’ attention. There’s no need to resort to a lot of unnecessary scene shifting and following the plotlines of other characters.’

  ‘Chief,’ said Barry. ‘We are at least one fifth of the way through the story and we haven’t even had a glimpse yet of the central figure.’

  ‘I’m the central figure.’ I said.

  ‘The book is called The Abominable Showman, chief, Count Ilya Rostov is the central figure.’

  ‘We saw his photo on the wall. The face with all the “A”s.’

  ‘That wasn’t even that funny,’ said Barry.

  I crossed my legs and folded my arms and said, ‘I’m not happy with this.’

  ‘Chief, you very rarely are happy. You are always moaning about something.’

  ‘Only when I am the victim of outrageous circum
stance.’ I protested. ‘And that villain did just clip me round the ear.’

  ‘I’ll do a deal with you, chief,’ said Barry. ‘You can remain in the first person in all the scenes that you are in. And as you won’t know about what’s going on in the other scenes because you won’t be in them, it really won’t matter to you anyway. All right?’

  I had a good hard think about this. ‘I’m not sure I quite understand.’

  ‘You’ll pick it up as you go along and this way we get to flesh out the other characters. Give them more depth as it were. And advance the plot of course. Which is very important.’

  ‘This all sounds like some sort of pretentious literary stunt,’ I said. ‘Readers don’t like this kind of stuff. It makes them uncomfortable.’

  ‘They will love it,’ said Barry the sprout.

  ‘I don’t think I will,’ I said. ‘In fact I can see a lot of flaws and –’

  In the first class salon, Sir Jonathan Crawford lit a perfumed cigarette. He –

  ‘Has it started?’ I asked Barry.

  ‘Shut up,’ said the sprout.

  12

  Sir Jonathan Crawford was not in the first class salon. Being a fellow of mercurial disposition, given to unpredictability and no small degree of wantonness, he had not joined his fellows in the gorgeously appointed and exclusive salon, but had instead taken himself off to the on-board library.

  The library of The Leviathan was a bibliophiles’ Valhalla. The personal collection of Count Ilya Rostov, it contained countless rare editions gathered from the four inhabited worlds. Earth, Venus, Jupiter and Mars. The latter being a planet swept clean of its indigenous population and colonised by adventurers of the British Empire.

  Sir Jonathan sat at an elegant scholar’s desk, topped by luminescent Venusian marble. He wore ‘spaceman’s whites’, the cool linen suitings favoured by the wealthy men-about-space.

  A tall and striking chap, Sir Jonathan, even when sitting down. He had that good posture and noble bearing which is worn so naturally by the well-heeled and well-bred. Topping the magical six feet in height, which all men secretly aspire to, he wore a full ample moustache, of a style referred to by hoi-polloi as a ‘minge-worrier’. His chin was firm, his nose aquiline and he owned to a pair of quite remarkable golden eyes. These he had inherited from his mother, the Venusian, Leah who had married Lord Brentford in the year nineteen hundred. The very first such interracial marriage, though many more had followed.