The Midnight Mayor (19 page)

Theatre-goers in London’s West End are unique unto themselves. Opera-goers are a step beyond. Women in big throat-clutcher necklaces, fat silver brooches pinned above their silk-clad breasts; jackets that looked like shawls, coats that wished they were cloaks left over from some forgotten era when the top hat was still sexy, handbags on gold chains, fine-rimmed spectacles balanced on the end of ski-slope noses. For the men, suit and tie was still the norm, but even here they’d raised the bar. Walking penguins complete with silk handkerchief from a waistcoat pocket bustled against 100 per cent tartan sleeves, who in turn shuffled round with murmurs of “excuse me, excuse me, yes, thank you, excuse me” in suits of sweetcorn yellow and navy blue, to suggest that while they were dressed up for the evening, it was a casual thing that had cost great time and expense in becoming so.

Very few people stood out from this silken medley; I feared I was one of them. There were also an American couple, all big bum bags and open necks; a cluster of Japanese tourists who nodded and bobbed at everything they saw; and a pair of students whose big hair and carefully slashed jeans cried out “arty type”. Whoever had said in the guidebooks that the bum bag was a sensible device against theft had lied; no single item of dressware ever invented cried out “mug me” more than a pouch of zip-up plastic suspended by your groin.

I huddled deeper into the shadows of my corner. There was magic here, expectation, secrets, trickery, illusion, they were the business of the place and that I could use. People were more willing to sink into a spell, more willing not to notice, and both these things could keep me safe. I wrapped myself in the stuff, dragged thick blankets of shadow over me, spun distraction and expectation into the air and let every eye that glanced across my corner see nothing more than a shape in a shadow and then forget and move on to more important things. I drank my orange juice and ate my peanuts: opera house special, coated in spices and roasted in a Mediterranean sun.

Dudley Sinclair arrived three minutes before the curtain went up. He wore full evening dress complete with semi-cloak draped off his great round shoulders; his paunch was warping within the straitjacket waistcoat he’d somehow welded around himself. He wasn’t alone. I recognised Charlie, his usual companion, PA, secretary, assistant, whatever. I smelt Charlie, even in the bustle of the room: the rolling treacle smell of shapeshifters who’d spent too much time as a rat.

They didn’t bother to look for me, and I didn’t bother to introduce myself. I sat and watched and waited, looking to see if they’d brought anyone else. If they had, “anyone” was doing a good job of blending in. The bell rang as a final warning, the crowds sloshed through the open doors to the auditorium. Sinclair went with them, Charlie remained by the door. I waited until he was the last person there; then since he was, and since I was, he saw me.

He gestured impatiently. I finished my drink and walked towards him; he handed me a ticket. “Paranoid,” he snapped.

“Stabbed and burnt,” I explained, gesturing vaguely at my battered skin.

Charlie merely grunted.

Sinclair had got a box. We felt instantly uncomfortable, locked away in a little upholstered cabin with this great fat man and his friend. I had always imagined that when the revolution began and the guillotine went up, people who had their own private boxes at the opera would be the first for the chop.

I sat uneasily in my chair, shuffling it closer to the wall, wanting to get my back against something more solid. Sinclair said, “Matthew! So glad you could make it! Do you like opera?”

“Not sure,” I mumbled. “Never seen any.”

“Well then, this
will
be an experience. A chance to enlighten the uninitiated. Champagne?”

There was a picnic hamper set on a small folding table in front of us. We began to understand the point of boxes after all. I said, “I’d better not drink,” as we took a sandwich. We
never
say no to food. I’m always a little surprised to see our reflection looking so thin.

“You look tense.”

I shot him a sour look. “Lincoln was assassinated in a theatre.”

“But at least the assassin was caught, no? Matthew! You are in a dreadful way, aren’t you? You should relax a little. I’m sure all this business with the city being damned and you being responsible will be sorted out without too much fuss, and when it’s all over, you’ll look back and laugh and say, ‘thank goodness that’s over, what an anecdote for the pub’. Now sit back . . . and enjoy one of man’s greatest art forms.”

We tried our best.

 

Man’s greatest art form, if that’s what it was, involved a cast and chorus of approximately forty people dressed in anything from tight tights and a clinging top to Viennese ballgowns of the kind that required you to turn sideways to get through any door. We regretted that we understood so much of it. The music of itself seemed beautiful, even moving, but we couldn’t reconcile ourself to the lyrics, which much of the time seemed to revolve around bickering over who sent who what letter.

I did my best, letting the spell roll over me, trying to wash out all the thoughts of fear and confusion. We had always loved a good story, and I wanted, just for a moment, or a lot of very long moments, as the show turned out to be, to feel safe, and forget to think with words.

Sounds and music helped take the trembling away, helped hold us still, if only for a while. We let it. Sinclair had probably planned it that way. He was smart, when it came to things like that.

At the interval, gins and tonics were brought to the door by a soft-footed man to whom Sinclair tipped a fiver. Charlie gave me a glass. I said, “I’m on painkillers, I’d better not.”

“Never mind,” replied Sinclair merrily, and before we could object he had taken the glass back from us and handed it without a glance to Charlie. Charlie downed it in one, like it was vodka.

The second half didn’t do much to resolve the crises of the first, but seemed to forget about them and carry on in its own strange way with a new story, involving a fool and a priest. All things were eventually sorted, courtesy of two stabbings and a bout of consumption that, for all it killed the woman who sang about it, didn’t seem to get in the way of her vocal control. At the end of each good bit, the audience stood and went as wild as an operatic audience could. We leant on the edge of the box, chin rested on our hands, and watched, fascinated. We had never before encountered the full bizarre, hypnotising strangeness of opera, never imagined it would be so bright and big and loud, and just so much
so
.

When it was done, the audience cheered and the cast bowed for a brief eternity.

Sinclair clapped nicely and didn’t cheer.

“Rather crude,” he muttered. “Not the finest work.”

Charlie just smiled. It was the smile of a man who’d sat through more opera than the eardrums could take, losing the ability to hear all frequencies in the soprano range, but not missing them one bit.

We drifted out into the departing crowd. It was lateish, that odd hour of the night when it’s justifiable to go to bed, but somehow it’s not honourable. Covent Garden was yellow washes of light and buzzing arcades, open doors and clattering chairs, tinkling music and strumming buskers; still alive, still heaving, despite the biting cold and settling fog, visible as a haze over the streetlamps.

“You won’t say no to a little supper, will you?” said Sinclair, as Charlie carefully wrapped another layer of coat around his boss.

“Supper would be good.”

“Excellent! I know a little place . . .”

The little place was a restaurant tucked into the tight dark streets between Covent Garden and the Strand, where long ago Dickens had feared every shadow, and thieves had lurked in alleyways now filled with hissing vents and rotting chips. It was the kind of restaurant that you could only go to if you knew about it. There was no menu on the door, no sign above, no indication in the brown-stained windows that, within this plain black door that could have been any stagehands’ exit, here was a place to eat. The sense of unease, which the music had largely suppressed, returned to us.

Inside the door, taking Sinclair’s coat and hanging it up behind great red curtains, was a man in a top hat and white gloves. We stared at him in amazement. He looked at us with barely hidden distaste and said, “May I take your coat, sir?”

I shook my head numbly. “I’d rather keep it.”

“Of course, sir.”

There were a pair of escalators, clad in bronze. One started as we approached, then carried us up a narrow stairwell lined with mirrors, also in bronze, that projected our warped faces at us to infinity. At the top of the stair was more red curtain, swished back by more white gloves, and an interior of dim lighting, copper and bronze, everywhere everything glimmering with twisted faded reflection. I was relieved to see other diners at the tables, and hear the low burble of good-mannered, wine-fed gossip. We were led to a circular table in the middle of the room, with three chairs already in place. We weren’t given a menu; I guessed it was bad manners to ask.

“It’s a very modern style,” offered Sinclair to my look of bewilderment. “The chef here likes to experiment with some interesting ideas . . . not really my thing, of course, but interesting, nonetheless. An experience.”

He knew us well.

I smiled, nudging a piece of cutlery in front of me that looked like it had escaped from an eye surgeon’s trolley.

“So,” said Sinclair calmly, “you’re the Midnight Mayor.”

“Yup.”

“And how is that working out for you, Matthew?”

“Not too well.”

“No, no, of course, no. It is of course none of my business and I wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression, naturally, naturally, but as a friend I can’t help but notice that you look a little pale.”

“Yes.”

“May I, in fact, make a great leap of judgement, and forgive me if I go astray here, but were you not, indeed, not planning on becoming the Midnight Mayor? It doesn’t seem like the kind of career path you would choose.”

“I didn’t,” I snapped. “The phone rang and I answered and next thing I know, whack. Some arsehole has gone transferring titles down the telephone line and I’ve got a hand like a boiled beetroot and four angry spectres after me.”

“Spectres?”

“Four of them.”

“How unfortunate. I take it the encounter didn’t end too badly?”

“I got one in a beer bottle,” I replied. “The others scarpered. At the time I thought they were sent by the same person who attacked me down the telephone. But now I think about it . . . they weren’t sent to attack
me
, they were out looking for the Midnight Mayor. Drawn to it. You can’t have that kind of transference of power without some sort of hitch.”

“Spectres . . .” murmured Sinclair, “are unusual in this city.”

“Yes.”

Drink arrived - some kind of deep purple goo in a cocktail glass. Sinclair sniffed it and winced. “Yes,” he murmured. “Well, experimental cookery. I believe that it’s supposed somehow to complement the dishes, react with tannins or proteins or some such scientific curiosity. I won’t be offended if you don’t drink it, Matthew. Had you met Nair?”

He knew who the last Midnight Mayor was. Concerned citizens make it their business to know these things.

“No.”

“Interesting.”

I said nothing.

“You know, traditionally, the Midnight Mayor is . . . shall we call it a role? A duty, perhaps, a responsibility, something a bit more than a title. Passed on by the
will
of the previous incumbent to a chosen, well-trained and appointed successor. Usually an Alderman. Nair was an Alderman, before he was Midnight Mayor. It has been the way for generations. So why, dear boy,
why
do you suppose you have ended up with this . . . remarkable predicament?”

“I don’t know.”

“There must be a
reason
. Mystic powers, metaphysical forces, fate, destiny, choice, and so on and so forth. No such thing as coincidence, not in your particular, special line of work.”

A plate of . . . something was brought before us. It looked like mashed intestine garnished with thistles. I poked it nervously with the end of a thing that might have been a fork. I had a feeling the dim light was meant to disguise the full horror of the food. I closed my eyes, we speared a mouthful, and ate it.

Could have been worse.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Charlie sniffing it uneasily. Sinclair tucked in, napkin folded over his collar.

“I assume you’ve done your research, that the city really is damned - not that I doubt it for a minute. I mean, we’ve all heard the rumours, naturally, all seen a few signs and generally agreed that when the Midnight Mayor - I mean Nair - is brutally murdered then things are inclining towards the dubious, if you follow me. You must have seen a few things, asked a few questions - one does not reach these conclusions lightly!”

I said, “‘Give me back my hat.’”

“I beg your pardon?”

“‘Give me back my hat.’”

“Did you have a hat, or is this a metaphor the elaborate nature of which currently evades my higher faculties?”

“It’s everywhere. The words, the phrase. I didn’t notice before, didn’t look. But now I’ve started looking, and it’s everywhere. On the pillars below Waterloo Bridge, on the walls in Willesden, above the dead ravens in the Tower, on the shutters of the shop where the London Stone should have stood, on the Wall of London. Give me back my hat.”

“You are suggesting that this quaint request is somehow linked to your predicament?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. But wherever bad things happen, there it is. The ravens in the Tower are dead, the London Stone is broken, the writing is on the Wall. These things have always been protectors. Keeping out the bad things in the night.”