The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (8 page)

The interior of
the Terminal One building was wondrous to behold. Tiled throughout in faux
Islamic calligraphy, the walls were hung with mighty canvases depicting the
victories of Albion. Marble statuary of military heroes stood hither and yon,
along with busts of Queen Victoria in bronze and brass and gold. A kiosk
offered tea to the weary traveller. A branch of W H Smith was manned by
liveried servitors. The cash machine was sadly out of order.

Those
first-class passengers who had arrived upon the
Marie Lloyd
had long
since passed through the terminal building without needing to have their
passports stamped. They were, even now, being whisked away in luxurious
conveyances, bound in air-cooled comfort for their homes or hotels.

The
second-class passengers formed a queue.

And
this being England, the lady in black was ushered to the front of it.

A
chap in a cap of officialdom sat in a glass-sided booth, a narrow desk before
him, a rubber stamper upon this narrow desk. He appeared more interested in a
penny dreadful magazine that was positioned upon his knees than he was in his
duties and consequently did not look up as the lady in black placed her
passport on his narrow desk.

‘Nationality?’
he asked, without so much as raising an eyebrow.

‘British,’
the lady in black replied, her voice sweet but muffled by her veil.

‘Present
planet of occupancy?’ The chap in the cap could not really have cared much
less. He was far too preoccupied with the exciting adventures of Jack Union,
monster-hunter.

‘Mars,
Sector Six,’ said the lady.

‘Visa
then, please.’ And the chap in the cap stuck out his hand to receive one.

‘I
was not told that I would need a visa. I hold a British passport.’

The
chap in the cap let his penny dreadful slide from his knees to the floor. He
took up the lady’s passport and opened it before him.

‘Violet
Wond,’ he read aloud. ‘That is your name, is it? Violet Wond?’

‘Miss
Violet
Wond,’ said the lady in black.

‘And
your occupation? “Huntress”, it says here. What does that mean?’

‘It
means that I hunt. Game. Big game.

‘You
won’t find much of that here,’ said the chap in the cap. ‘Penge was once the
place for man-eating kiwi birds but the shaman shooed them all away.

‘I
hunt bigger game than that,’ replied the lady.

‘Do
you, now?’ The chap in the cap looked up. ‘Ah,’ said he, a-sighting of the
veil. ‘You will have to lift that, if you please, so I might check your face
against your photographic representation.’ He flicked idly through the lady’s
passport whilst he awaited revealment. ‘You do get about, do you not?’ said he
as he squinted at past rubber-stampings. ‘Jupiter, Mars, even Venus. But you
have not been here for some time, not since … eighteen eighty—nine! That is
nine years ago. Here a-hunting then, were you?’

‘Big
game, yes,’ said the lady as she slowly lifted her veil. ‘The biggest game,’
she whispered. ‘The biggest game of all.’

‘Africa,
then, was it?’ The chap in the cap smiled up at her.

‘Whitechapel,’
said the lady, her veil now fully raised.

‘Oh
my good God!’ croaked the chap in the cap, his eyeballs bulging from his head.
‘Why … you … are … But he said no more, for with that he fainted,
slipping from his chair and sinking upon his penny dreadful.

The
lady in black lowered her veil. She reached forward, took up the rubber stamp
from the narrow desk and applied it to her passport. Then she returned her
passport to her atramentous Gladstone and, jauntily swinging her parasol, she
tottered from Terminal One.

Within their
cupboard aboard the
Marie Lloyd,
the third—class passengers’ cries for
release grew fainter as their air supply ran out.

8

ressed
in a manner not unlike a pirate, the organ-grinder stood in Leicester Square.
It was eight of the evening clock and evening clocks were busily striking eight
around and about.

The
organ-grinder looked the way an organ-grinder should, with a battered tricorn
and a long frock coat. His dummy wooden leg was nothing less than inspired and
he was a credit to his calling. Upon his barrel organ a monkey sat, a monkey in
a fez with an old tin cup.

The
organ-grinder stood before a fashionable gentlemen’s club named Leno’s and
looked up at the modern flashing neon. He placed his timber toe upon the first
step leading to this esteemed establishment but found his way barred by a most
imposing fellow.

He
was a personage of considerable imposition, towering over six feet in height
and regally attired in robes and turban, as would be some eastern potentate. A
luxuriant beard, sewn with pearls and semi-precious stones, depended nearly to
his waist where a gorgeous purple cummerbund encircled him. Through this was
stuck one of those short Sikh swords that only Sikhs can remember the name of
He fixed the organ-grinder with an eye both dark and fierce and raised a mighty
hand before him.

‘You
cannot come in here looking like
that,’
he said in a commanding tone.
‘Away with you now before I summon a bobby.’

‘But
I have an invitation,’ complained the organ-grinder.

‘You
have
to let me in.’

The
subcontinental commissionaire, for such he appeared to be, extended his mighty
hand.

The
organ-grinder dug into a bedraggled pocket and produced a gilt-edged card,
which he handed up to the giant looming above.

The
commissionaire read this aloud in a booming baritone.

‘Ah,’
said the organ-grinder, a-grinding of his teeth. ‘Dress code
formal.
I
see.’

‘You
should have read the small print,’ said the beturbanned enforcer of sartorial
etiquette.

‘But
I am not to be blamed, for I have only the one eye, pleaded the organ-grinder,
and he pointed to an eyepatch which had received no previous mention.

‘Don’t
come the old soldier with me, please, sir. And anyway, I can tell that you are
not a
real
organ-grinder.’

‘What?’
The organ-grinder stepped back smartly and all but overbalanced on his dummy
wooden leg. ‘I have no idea what you mean,’ he said.

The
monkey looked up at his partner, and the monkey shook his head.

‘You
are William Stirling,’ said the enlightened commissionaire. Which came as
something of a surprise to man and monkey alike.

‘Oh,’
said Mr William Stirling, for it was indeed he and not some other organ-grinder
impersonator. How did you know it was me?’

‘Because
I shared diggings with you for three years, while you were at the Royal Academy
of Music studying to be a concert pianist and I was at RADA giving myself up to
the muse.

‘Kevin
Wilkinson?’ said Mr William Stirling, and the two shook hands. ‘Well, this is
quite a surprise.’

‘Certainly
fate has not been so kind to us as it clearly has to others,’ said Kevin. ‘I
might even now be treading the boards at Stratford, and you, dear boy, playing
Tchaikovsky before a rapt audience at the Albert Hall. But instead I must play
the part of commissionaire in turban and false beard, whilst you pose as an
organ-grinder.’

‘I
prefer the term
chevalier musique de la rue.’

‘And
well you might, dear boy. But regrettably I see a correctly attired gentleman
approaching and so must bid you
adieu.
Please take your leave or I will
be forced to strike you down with my kirpan.‘
[5]

William
Stirling slouched away, pushing his barrel organ.

‘Good evening,
sir,’ said the commissionaire who might once have played Hamlet. ‘Might I see
your invitation card?’

The
gentleman in top hat and tails, white tie and white silk gloves proffered said
card and smiled as it bore scrutiny.

His
monkey was similarly attired and looked very dashing indeed. His trousers had a
tail-snood made of silk.

‘Go
through please, sir,’ said the commissionaire, returning the gentleman’s card.
The man and the monkey ascended the steps and passed into the club.

‘You
tricked me,’ whispered the monkey to the man. ‘You had me believe that I should
wear the fez and shake the old tin cup this evening.’

‘Only
a good-natured jape, Darwin,’ the gentleman whispered in return. ‘And you look
wonderful tonight.’

‘And
don’t call me Darwin,’ whispered the ape. ‘I am now Humphrey Banana. Darwin was
my slave name.’

‘Darwin
is a most dignified name,’ said Mr Cameron Bell, for it was indeed he and none
other. ‘And you were never a slave, rather a respected servant of Lord
Brentford. Who, if you will recall, left his lands and fortune to you in his
will.’

Darwin
made grumbling sounds.

‘Which
you then gambled away,’ continued Mr Bell, ‘but have lately been able to
purchase once more with the wealth you have so far accrued from our
partnership.’

‘I
miss Lord Brentford.’ Darwin sighed a sigh.

Cameron
Bell glanced down.

‘I
wish he wasn’t dead,’ said the ape. ‘Perhaps he isn’t. Perhaps he swam ashore
somewhere after the
Empress of Mars
crashed into the sea and is now King
of the savages upon a cannibal isle.’

Cameron
Bell shrugged his shoulders at this. ‘I suppose that is possible,’ said he.
Then: ‘I wonder how exactly
this
works,’ and he worried at the Automated
Cloakroom System, a series of lockable boxes into which a gentleman might
place his hat and gloves, thereafter to watch his chosen lockable box whirl
away upon a jointed conveyor system into some far-away place in the gentlemen’s
club. ‘I think I will carry my hat with me, in case we have to take our leave
in haste.’

‘Are
you expecting some kind of trouble?’ Darwin asked.

Cameron
Bell shrugged his shoulders a second time. ‘This is an awards dinner,’ he said,
‘and things can become a tad unruly at such events.’

Darwin
was about to ask why, but Mr Bell shushed him to silence. A liveried servant
was approaching to guide them to their table.

‘If
sir and his pet would kindly follow me.

Darwin
bared his teeth at this. Mr Bell did rollings of the eyes.

The
dining room was suitably grand, with many marble pillars and alcoves where the
bronze busts of eminent club members stood, to be respectfully admired. Once a
year, the British Showmen’s Fellowship hired this room for their special dinner
to honour the achievements of the organ-grinding fraternity. It was a most
exclusive event and although Mr Bell had. managed to forge an invitation card,
finding a seat at the numbered tables might prove problematic.

‘Name?’
asked the liveried servant.

‘William
Stirling,’ said Cameron Bell, who had. been close enough to catch the name of
the piratically inclined ex-student of the Royal Academy of Music, who had,
most conveniently, failed to gain entrance here.