Maddigan's Fantasia (17 page)

‘Worms?’ Garland said. ‘Don’t be mad. It’s delicious.’ And she took another little pie. ‘Just because they took your drum.’ she said. ‘Never mind. They’ll give it back to you tomorrow.’

‘You’re eating
maggots
!’ cried Boomer, and then, looking incredulously at Garland, had the strange feeling that he was looking at someone who was wrapped around in a deep dream. But who was doing the dreaming? Was he in Garland’s dream or was Garland in his?

Garland yawned. Timon yawned, too.

‘I think it’s the best meal I’ve ever eaten,’ he said, ‘and those drinks – they’re just – just delicious. So let’s party on and just have a good time while we can.’

And as the harps began their tinkling flow once more he and Garland hooked arms and danced off together. Boomer looked after them, feeling his face crumpling up with amazement.

For now, looking around, it seemed to Boomer that everyone in the room was entranced … that he was the only person there with any ordinary feelings … the only person who was able to recognize a maggot when they saw one.

‘Why would anyone want to leave this place?’ Yves was saying to Maddie and he put his arm around her. She did not shrug it away. Garland danced by and saw this, but she did not seem to notice it, or, if she did, she was not angry about it. Boomer would have expected her to be furious. Running up to Timon, Boomer grabbed his arm, pulling him out of the dance.

‘Hey! Wake up! Can’t you see what’s going on?’ he cried. ‘Everyone’s – everyone’s sort of entranced.’

‘Forget it! Enjoy yourself,’ said Timon, and at that moment Boomer felt hands close around his upper arms. Brewer had come up behind him and had listened to his cries of warning. He gestured to one of the other servants and they seized him. Kicking between them he was bundled backwards out of the middle of the dancing circle. Boomer stiffened his legs so that his heels dragged on the ground then screamed desperately, so that some of the Fantasia people looked over at him. Yet not one of them made any move to help him. They simply laughed and talked and danced on.

Shouting and kicking out, Boomer was pulled away from that enchanted dancing circle, dragged and tumbled sideways down one passage, then along another, and then, abruptly and bruisingly, pulled downstairs into a huge kitchen. And in a way it was not too different from being in the upstairs room, for here in the kitchen everyone was laughing and whirling around as if cooking and filling trays was an entertainment in itself.

‘What have you brought me here for?’ he yelled. ‘Are you going to turn me into a slave?’ A sudden more alarming thought flew through his head. ‘Are you going to
cook
me?’

Brewer laughed.

‘A slave? Of course not. It’s just that you seemed to be one of us. You weren’t touched by the mind-weed were you, and most people are. Perhaps you’re one of the chosen. Here! Try this!’

And then the man on his left side twisted his arm up behind his back with one hand while slipping the other under his chin.

‘No!’ shouted Boomer, but Brewer was already advancing on him with a cup of green fluid.

‘No!’ shouted Boomer again and then coughed and spluttered as the man who was holding him tilted his head and Brewer tried to force the green fluid into him. Boomer was
determined not to swallow a drop of it. He could not escape but he could spit, and he spat the whole mouthful into Brewer’s face. A kindly woman who had been busy at one of the tables whirled around and handed Brewer a towel. Brewer began to mop his face carefully.

‘You know what, Missy,’ Brewer said to the woman. ‘I reckon this one here is one of us. He seems to resist the mind-weed. Look after him. I’d better get back to the big hall again.

Mind-weed? Still held fast, Boomer stared as far as he could around the kitchen and at the pots simmering over the
wood-stove
. Turning his head sideways, stretching a very little, he found he was able to peer into the pot closest to him and to see that it contained a sort of greenish soup. And now the strange sharp scent of it edged in at his nostrils. The green-soup smell filled the room and almost against his will Boomer felt a peculiar lifting of his spirits … it came out of nowhere and he found himself breathing it in … breathing it quite eagerly. Missy saw him staring at the soup and smiled at him.

‘Breakfast tomorrow,’ she said. ‘It’s wonderful stuff, that mind-weed isn’t it, pigeon? Changes the world for us.’

‘I’ve never tasted it,’ Boomer said uncertainly. And Missy laughed.

‘I should think not, little eagle. We don’t eat it ourselves, do we? But them that
does
eat it, they thinks they’re getting exactly what they most fancy. They thinks they’re breakfasting off eggs, say … pancakes … porridge … That lot up there – they think they run things, but really it’s us down here that has the power. They can play their games, but in the end they do what they’re told – which you’d better do too, if you’ve got any sense, robin. I mean if you join in with us you’ll be one of the powerful ones. You’ll run the whole world. And your friends – the ones out there – they’ll patter along after you and do everything you tell them to.’

‘What if they don’t want to?’ Boomer asked.

‘Oh, they’ll want to,’ said Missy. ‘Once they drink a bit of the mind-weed dew they’ll gambol around us like lambs. Do this, do that, we’ll say. And they’ll do it. Do it to the end.’

‘The end,’ said Boomer apprehensively.

‘It’s very quick,’ Missy said. ‘No one feels anything. We wouldn’t want anyone to suffer.’

As she spoke she was opening a big oven door and pulling out a roasting dish filled with a huge joint of meat. Boomer clapped his hands over his mouth feeling that the mere sight of Missy basting that flesh was going to make him sick.

‘I felt a bit queasy in the beginning, mind you,’ Missy was saying. ‘But the world’s that crowded with people isn’t it, chook? Might as well use up a few of them.’

Fortunately at that moment something happened which took all of Boomer’s attention. A door opened and two men came into the room, escorted by about half a dozen Greentown men. Maska and Ozul.

Missy looked over
at the newcomers. The man who had held Boomer released him, distracted by Maska and Ozul. Boomer immediately seized the chance to slide into an alcove on one side of the biggest stove. Heat came off the bricks but, temporarily forgotten, he
half-hid
himself among the cloths and dusters that hung from wooden hooks set into the gaps between the bricks, watching and listening, while Ozul and Maska asked to be taken to some place where they could see the circus people spinning and dancing … watching and listening as the men who had brought him down answered them in soothing voices, speaking with authority. It suddenly occurred to Boomer that these men were more than servants. Even though he was down here in the kitchen, surrounded by people who fetched and carried, he was suddenly certain he was listening to the true masters of Greentown, to people trying to put Ozul and Maska at their ease. Plenty of time, the chief cook was saying. No one, not even the travelling Fantasia, was going anywhere at this time of night.

And suddenly Brewer was there once more, dancing around them, rubbing his hands together. Would they like a meal? Maska seemed indifferent to this suggestion – but Ozul suddenly looked extremely hungry. Boomer watched as they sat him down, quickly setting out a meal in front of him. Ozul
began to eat greedily, and as he did so, every eye in the room swivelled to watch him, and behind him or over his head secret smiles were exchanged, shooting from one person to another, picked up and passed on.

Attention was so focused on Maska and Ozul that Boomer saw an opportunity. He pulled one of the cloths hanging on the hooks over his head, and tried to arrange it so that it looked roughly like one of those odd caps the kitchen people were all wearing. Then he stepped out … stepped right … stepped left … paused as if he had no intention of going anywhere, and then slipped towards a door on the other side of the room. People looked past him – over him – all of them concentrating now on the two men at the table, so Boomer reached the door unchallenged. It was slightly open. He pushed it a little wider and stepped out of the kitchen.

Boomer found himself in a long corridor with other passages branching off from it. Just for a moment he paused, utterly uncertain of just which direction to take, but then, hearing footsteps coming up behind him, he marched ahead, slid into the first of these passages, and then dived into the first room he came to. Footsteps! People were hurrying past, though whether or not they were looking for him he could not tell. The footsteps retreated; others advanced and then retreated too. Boomer listened, and at last, believing he was hidden and partly safe, he turned and looked around him.

He thought at first he was in a pantry and that there was some dark stranger with a pale face standing at his elbow and checking his every movement. He clenched his teeth violently but, though he was trying to be brave, a curious high squeak of terror forced its way out between them. A moment later he realized that the dark stranger was nothing more that a tall clock, standing rigidly against the wall and looking out over his shoulder.

He had hidden himself in a sort of museum room. Shelves and shelves of objects, none of which seemed to have anything to do with one another, rose around him. A line of hats stretched out at shoulder level. On the shelf below lay a sword in a gilded sheath, a silver birdcage, and an old brown photograph of a forgotten family celebrating a birthday back in the days before the Chaos. On the shelf opposite him, Boomer made out a red bust, hung with necklaces, sitting firmly under its glittering ornaments, and watching him closely – or so it seemed, though its smiling oval face was quite eyeless – was the carving of a cat turned a little away from him. On the shelf below that cat, he made out half a dozen frames with ragged threads of canvas winding like brown worms from between them … pictures piled on top of each other. The mere suggestion of worms however made Boomer shudder and look rapidly at the next things. There in a slot beside the door a fur coat hung next to a series of dresses, rich with golden braid, and on the far side of the door those crowded shelves began again, seeming to stretch out for ever. The marble statue of a unicorn … a polished bell … on and on, on and on. But there – there – in a space between the wall and the shelves was his drum. It could only have been there for a few minutes, must have been pushed in carelessly … and yet it seemed already to belong there simply because it fitted in with nothing else, partly because it fitted in with nothing else, and nothing else there fitted in with anything.

Boomer struggled with the strange contradiction of
everything
around him. The sound of a voice came towards him, a faint distant chatter to begin with, growing
louder
and louder, echoing in that main corridor just beyond the door. Boomer did not like to close the door in case the sound of it clicking shut caught someone’s attention. Instead he hurriedly stepped back into the shadow of the great carved clock. But
the voice whisked past and its chattering faded into the distance.

Wrapped in shadows Boomer relaxed then, taking a breath, tightened himself up again. He was about to reclaim his drum – he hated seeing something that seemed so much a part of him at home in this alien setting, but something else caught his eye. Opposite him at the front of the shelf below the shelf that held the unicorn he made out two brooches side by side … brooches set in delicate frames … brooches that did not glitter so much as smoulder in the shadows, looking like jewels from a fairy tale. Boomer studied them, suddenly feeling, in a defiant way, that Greentown owed him something … that they had stolen his drum and that, even though he had found his drum again, it wasn’t because Greentown had given it back. He hesitated, then stepping past the door quickly snatched up both brooches, sliding them into his pocket before slipping himself into his drum harness. And, suddenly, feeling the weight of his drum … the friendly tug of the harness over his shoulders … he was himself again … not quite a Maddigan, perhaps, but a true member of the Fantasia for all that.

As he stood there he heard, off in the distance, the sound of doors opening and, once again, an echoing voice. And then – not just one but many voices advancing towards him.

‘You’ll sleep well tonight,’ he heard someone say. ‘We’ve some comfortable rooms for you.’

And then – no doubt about it – he heard Yves’s voice, though not sounding as sharp and determined as it usually did – sounding a little blurred and indistinct as if Yves was talking into a pillow.

‘I won’t deny we’re tired,’ Yves was saying, ‘but we do have our own beds out in our vans.’

‘Give yourself a change,’ said the first voice. ‘We make things luxurious for visitors.’

‘We’d love a bit of luxury,’ said another blurred voice … Maddie.

‘I’m so tired,’ agreed a third voice … Garland, pushing in as usual, but sounding sleepy.

Once again the voices and the footsteps died away.

Boomer squatted there in the semi-darkness, testing the silence. At last he stood up, thinking he must somehow get out of this cupboard … find his way back among his own people … back where he belonged. But then, for the third time, he heard voices in the main corridor, though coming in the opposite direction this time.

‘Good numbers there,’ someone was saying. ‘It’s good to collect a few more workers. It takes more and more people to do everything there is to do around this place.’

‘And this lot – they’re clever in their own way,’ said another. ‘They’ll be able to entertain the two great ladies and …’ The words were lost. Somewhere a door opened and shut. Silence rushed in on Boomer for a third time, and he squatted down, cuddling in behind his drum, trying make sense of all the
different
things he’d heard.

‘And this is where you will be able to sleep,’ said the servant to Garland. ‘It will be a change for you.’

Garland found herself in the most luxurious bedroom she had ever seen. Fantasia people sighed in wonder. The beds were piled with furs and pillows, and the one which was pointed out to her invited her to flop and fall in it and dream sumptuous dreams. She looked left and right – saw Maddie collapse among the cushions two beds away … saw Yves fall opposite her, and Lilith cuddle down beside him … saw Timon and others sink down, while Eden on the other side of the room seemed to be already asleep … asleep within about ten seconds.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much.’ Then she hesitated. ‘Where’s Boomer?’

‘Boomer? Oh, he’ll be here somewhere,’ said the servant. ‘He’ll be safe.’ Something about this did not seem to match with Garland’s own memory of the last few minutes, and she stood there blinking uncertainly. But she was tired, so very tired and the bed was so amazingly inviting. All she had to do was collapse forward and be engulfed in comfort. Which she did! Which she was! The servant smiled a smile Garland did not see and backed out of the room. And within the next few moments Garland was asleep. She did not even hear the key turn in the lock behind her.

But Boomer – who had at last slipped out into the silence of the main corridor, who had run on tiptoe, his drum shivering in front of him – Boomer, who had hidden in the dark arch of yet another branching passage – watched around a corner,
half-hidden
by shadows. He saw the servants who were really
masters
come out into the main corridor, saw one of them turn and saw the key twitch in the lock.

‘Done!’ he heard the servant say. ‘Sleep well,’ he added, though anyone hearing him say this would also have heard the mockery in his voice. Footsteps came towards them from further down the long corridor.

‘Are they shut in for the night?’ someone asked, and a grandly dressed figure appeared … a tall man dressed with scarlet trimmed with gold lace. He loomed over the two servants standing by the locked door, and they all stood there, hesitating for a moment, but at ease with the world.

‘Let’s hope they sleep well,’ the scarlet man remarked at last. ‘It might be a while before they get the chance to sleep quite so well again. There is a lot of work that needs to be done around here.’ Then he took the key from the lock and hung it on a brass hook to the left of the door.

‘I was just saying that it’s not often that we get the chance to get such good numbers,’ said the second servant, and they
moved off, side by side. If any of them had glanced to the right as they passed the arched entrance to the little passage in which Boomer was hiding they would certainly have seen him, but they looked neither left nor right, not so much walking as marching. He listened as their footsteps grew fainter and fainter. Silence.

As soon as he was quite sure that the main corridor was empty Boomer slipped out, drum and all, stood on tiptoe to flick the key from its brass hook and (looking nervously left and right) and put it in the lock. The lock was stiff; he had to use two hands to turn that key. All the same he did turn it at last, then carefully sliding the key into his pocket he opened the door and stepped into the room beyond.

Boomer found himself bathed in an eerie half-light. Several old lanterns shone faintly from the walls allowing him to make out a room full of vague lumpy shapes and filled with the sound of heavy breathing. He reached up and, taking one of the lanterns from the wall, swung it right, swung it left in a
semicircle
. There they were … all of them. There were his friends, his Fantasia which was mother and father to him, lying around on piles of straw, and all apparently asleep. There was Garland, smiling as she slept; there was Maddie, her mouth partly open as if she was about to eat the straw she was lying on; there was Lillith, lying off to one side like a deserted doll flung away by an impatient child.

‘Hey!’ cried Boomer, softly at first. ‘Hey! Wake up!’ Something about their sleep was intimidating and he dared not speak very loudly. Then, with relief, he saw movement. Timon! Timon was sitting up … sitting up and blinking … rubbing his hands down over his face … standing up … staring around … then moving across the room towards Eden.

‘Timon!’ Boomer exclaimed, grateful that he was no longer alone.

But Timon did not turn. It seemed he had not heard him. Boomer slipped around Garland’s feet and ran towards Timon, planning to grab his arm and show him (triumphantly) the stolen key. But Timon walked past one of the lamps, and the lamplight, though soft and dim, briefly lit up his face. Boomer stopped abruptly, for Timon’s expression frightened him. The eyes, open but narrowed, flickered with a greenish light. Timon’s mouth had thinned into a rigid line and its corners were not so much turned down as
dragged
down as if by some strange muscular spasm. There in the shadows of that cold, straw-filled room Timon had become an evil alien, reaching out towards his brother’s throat as if he might strangle him.

‘Don’t,’ said Boomer, reaching out too … reaching out, though he was terrified again, to drag at those taut, crooked fingers. Timon half-turned, swinging out his right arm as he did so, striking Boomer’s side just below his waist. It was as if he had been hit with a plank of wood. Boomer toppled
sideways
as Timon struck again but this time he thumped not Boomer but Boomer’s drum which sounded a single beat … a curious signal … an announcement of some kind. At the sound of that single beat, the dreadful set expression on Timon’s face seemed to melt away. For a second Boomer, now writhing on the floor with his drum on top of him and the lantern flung out to one side, saw the softer Timon, the one he was used to
seeing
, push its way into the world again. This altered Timon stood there looking around in bewilderment. Then his
expression
tightened again, and hardened once more as if strings had been pulled somewhere inside Timon’s head establishing a different order. His eyes narrowed. The corners of his mouth were tugged down as before and Timon bent over Eden again, reaching for the silver medallion that lay,
reflecting
the lamplight, on his brother’s thin chest.