The World House (3 page)

  And promptly vanished.

 

Miles gritted his teeth, waiting to feel the gentle curl of the rattlesnake against the soles of his feet. The floor vibrated with the pounding of the ostrich, and he heard a whistle of air and a rattle from the snake that suddenly went distant as it was snatched in the bird's mouth. Miles bent double with relief, his stomach churning. Above his head, the clawed creature began hopping up and down and yapping. This made Miles feel doubly relieved. He was damned if he was going to cower in fear of what sounded like an asthmatic terrier. Emboldened, he spun the lighter's flintwheel and screamed at the sight of a tiger's wide-open mouth a foot or so from him. The big cat growled and again Miles had a moment to wonder what was wrong with the animal that it could sound so ruptured. With a reflex action he shoved the lighter towards it and was startled to see that it froze as the light of the flame drew close. Its wide-open jaw, its sharp fangs… utterly still, like a paused piece of film footage. Suddenly aware how close his fist was to the animal's mouth, Miles moved it away a few inches. As he did so the tiger came back to life, freezing again as he returned the lighter to where it had been. So… as long as he held the flame right to its eyes the animal wouldn't move. Right… of course… not a safety tip he had ever picked up from wildlife documentaries but he couldn't argue with the evidence. He held the lighter as close as he dared, his thumb beginning to burn.

  He could hear the ostrich running towards the table but didn't dare shift his attention away from the tiger and its shiny yet dead eyes. The flame of the lighter danced secondhand in its pupils. His thumb grew hotter but he reasoned that the pain of a burned thumb was nothing compared to having the whole hand bitten off. There was a flicker of movement from his right that he hoped wasn't the ostrich wanting to pick another fight. Surely nothing was likely to advance while the tiger stood so close? His thumb continued to singe. There was movement again and the… Wait – how could he see anything anyway? He turned his head slightly, enough to see the room taking shape around him as gas lamps in the walls glowed brighter while he watched. His thumb slipped off the lighter and the flame died. The tiger, with a fresh growl, hurled itself at him only to slump almost instantly, its fangs fixed around the arm he had raised to defend himself. It was a rug, which explained why it had sounded so lame in the darkness, though not how it could have come to life with hunger on its mind. He threw it to one side and crawled out from under the table, getting shakily to his feet.

  Gripping the edge of the table to steady himself, he looked around what appeared to be a Victorianstyle billiard room. The space was filled with stuffed creatures. The ostrich frozen mid-step, stiff rattlesnake held in its beak. A deer rearing up on withered back legs. The creature he had heard above him was nothing more intimidating than a raccoon, its tail threadbare, a hole where one of its eyes had tumbled from its dry socket. There were deep scratches in the table surface, and cobwebs that had hung between a set of crystal decanters had been torn apart, caught in the raccoon's ears and raised paws.

  Miles walked over to a case fixed on the wall. The glass was cracked from the pounding of the fat, flightless bird within. Its beak still poked from the white-ice of broken glass.

  He moved around the room and saw tarantulas that had been marching in formation across the baize of the billiard table; distorted heads of horned game that had been howling noiselessly, their voice-boxes lost to the taxidermist's trash bin; a small iguana, half-peeled with age and damp, mouth clamped on the cold and empty egg of a pheasant; a peacock, with tail furled and head cocked to one side, appearing almost as curious as Miles about its surroundings. Saddest of all, a large black bear, no longer forced into a majestic or threatening stance, curled in the corner of the room, a single heavy paw covering its eyes.

  He ran over to the far side of the room, grabbed the heavy glass knocker and turned it in both hands, desperate to get out. The door swung open, bringing him face to face with a short woman wearing an oldfashioned bobbed hairstyle and nothing else. There was a pause as each took in the presence of the other and then the woman screamed. Miles found his adrenalin spent. It's not that a man can't panic in front of a naked woman – he can and frequently does – more that he mustn't let it show.

  "It's all right!" he insisted, "I won't hurt you."

  To his credit, he sounded perfectly genuine but she kicked him square in the balls anyway, just to be sure.

 

 

 

Was there anything more sensual in life than "Sultry Sunset" pushed through the sweat and cigarette smoke of the Cotton Club from the bell of Johnny Hodges' saxophone? If there was, Penelope Simons (of the Boston Simonses, naturally) had yet to experience it. Though that might change in a few hours if everything went according to plan and Chester was willing. And God knows, Chester
was
willing. He broke out in sweats and a stutter just from being in the same room. He would never admit it, of course, his family background was as puritanical as Penelope's. One only had to look at his mother, a brittle, cold creature, wool-wrapped and masked in permanent disapproval, to wonder how he had ever been conceived in the first place. Back in his parents' youth they would at least have been allowed a drink stiff enough to encourage the condition elsewhere.

  "I've never slept with a coloured," Dolores purred. She washed this deliberately contentious comment down with a mouthful of orange juice cut with a dash of home-brewed liquor. Dolores didn't believe in prohibition – of anything – and always carried a small bottle of "liquid pep" in her purse. Penelope, though not opposed to the principle of drinking, was far too nervous to share. She doubted she'd ever be thirsty enough to risk blindness.

  "Give you time, darling," Penelope replied, taking a mouthful of her own drink and pulling a cigarette from her purse.

  "My constant worry," Dolores replied, passing Penelope a book of matches but never taking her eyes off the saxophonist. "So little time, so many to do."

  Penelope cackled, the cigarette quivering between her lips before the sight of a proffered flame stilled it. "Thank you," she told the waiter, but he was already gone, pushing his way through the tables towards the bar. "Good service," she muttered.

  "Absolutely," Dolores replied. "That's what we need!"

  The pair of them burst into hysterics, Duke Ellington's band covering their laughter as it sprang to life
en masse
.

  Dolores was scandalous, but that was why Penelope enjoyed her company. If one didn't have the nerve to be scandalous oneself then seeking it out secondhand was the next best thing. A modicum of the fun with none of the risk.

  "Good evening, ladies." Chester had arrived and was shifting from one foot to the other, at a loss how to present himself. Eventually he settled for putting his hands behind his back and inclining himself towards the table in a slight bow. Penelope thought it made him look like a waiter but would never tell him so. She jumped to her feet to put him out of his misery, kissed him on the cheek and guided him towards a chair. The nervous sweat had appeared and he mopped at his forehead with his handkerchief. "Hellish hot, don't you think?" he muttered before remembering himself and addressing Penelope directly. "May I say you're looking stunning this evening, Penelope?"

  "Of course you may!" She laughed, giving a little shimmy in her seat. "Sequins and lamé, darling, I wouldn't be seen in anything else!"

 

The need to vomit had passed but Miles decided it was safer to stay on the floor. They were in a long corridor, its décor as dated as the room he had just left, with deep-red paintwork and cornicing. The naked woman was bent over in an attempt to conceal herself. She dripped water as she inched towards a pair of heavy curtains that framed a Roman bust at the end of the corridor. Had she just stepped out of the shower? Her left eye sported a bruise and her lower lip was fatter than it should be; someone had picked a fight with her recently, that was for sure. But then, having had his reproductive organs shunted to just below his lungs, he remained openminded as to whether he might sympathise.

  "I'm not looking," he said, holding up his head to show his eyes were closed. He heard the tearing of velvet and the rattle of argumentative hooks. "Wouldn't it be easier just to go to your room and grab a gown?" he asked. "Seems a shame to take it out on the furnishings."

  "I don't have a room," she replied. "Where's Chester?"

  "Chester? I don't really know… somewhere up north."

  "What are you talking about? Isn't this his house?"

  "Oh." Miles didn't really know how to reply to that. "Maybe… thought you meant the town. Look…" He risked a peek. She was wrapped in the curtain now but keeping her distance. "I know this is going to sound ridiculous but I don't actually know how I got here, had some sort of blackout I suppose, woke up in that room, completely out of it." He shifted awkwardly on his knees. "Delusional, I guess, I thought the stuffed animals were…" He looked at her and decided not to admit what he had been about to say; the last thing he wanted to do was sound even madder. "Well, doesn't matter, I was disorientated, could hardly move. Anyway, the lights came on and I made to leave, which is when I bumped into you. I'm obviously trespassing and I'm only too happy to go."

  "That makes two of us then," she replied.

 

"He's so sweet," said Penelope, watching Chester negotiate his way back from the cloakroom. He caught his foot on a chair leg and nearly fell into a table of laughing women. This made them laugh all the more and his pale face turned crimson. He tried to keep hold of the coats in one arm and straighten his oiled hair with the other. "Excuse me," he muttered, moving away as quickly as he could.

  "The car's outside," he announced, once back at the safety of their table. He draped the coats on his empty chair so he could lift them off individually and help the ladies don them.

  "Why, thank you, kind sir," said Dolores, fluttering her eyelashes at him as he draped her fox stole around her neck.

  "Not at all," Chester replied, giving a slight bow of his head, formal as ever.

  Penelope turned to receive her own shawl and stroked the back of his hand while it was within reach at her shoulder. "Thank you, Chester." He squeezed her fingers by way of response.

  Stepping on to the Harlem street there was a crispness to the air that even the jazz filtering faintly out of the club was unable to thaw.

  "Over there." Chester gestured towards a black DeSoto and extended his arm for Penelope to hold.

  His driver climbed out and held the back door open. He was a giant of a man who looked ready to pop the silver buttons off his chauffeur's jacket at the very next breath. Dolores clambered to the far side, the leather seat giving a sigh of surprised air as she dropped on to it roughly. She was drunk, Penelope realised, glancing at Chester to see if he had noticed. If he had, he made no sign of it. He was so polite he would likely not comment even if she were vomiting over the upholstery. She sat down next to her friend, lowering herself so gently she could only be overcompensating. Chester followed, sitting down a little awkwardly, Penelope thought, probably wary of the close physical contact. The driver closed the door behind them with a gentle click. He grinned at Penelope through the window, which she thought somewhat strange; certainly she wouldn't encourage the help to be so expressive. It was disconcerting.

  "Nice car," Dolores said. 'I've known smaller apartments."

  Penelope was pleased to see Chester smile. "It is roomy, isn't it?"

 

"This is just stupid." The fear Miles had felt when first waking up had been stifled for a while. The human mind can't tolerate relentless panic – it's tiring and unconstructive – and is only too happy to fart justificatory nonsense as long as doing so gets things moving. That said, there is only so much impossibility a human being can stomach. "The corridor just never ends."

  Penelope was becoming more withdrawn. The bruise around her eye had darkened noticeably, proof of its freshness. She refused to tell him how she'd come by it and he'd given up asking. In fact he had given up conversation altogether but there was only so long they could ignore the obvious: no matter how far they walked, the end of the corridor drew no closer. The illusion only seemed to work ahead of them; when he glanced over his shoulder, the alcove where Penelope had torn the curtain free of its rail was so distant it was impossible to see it clearly. It made his stomach churn, horizontal vertigo.

  "It's just not possible," he muttered.

  "Obviously it is," Penelope whispered, pulling her curtain around her. "We're looking at it."

  Miles did his best to bite down on his irritation. "You know what I mean." The corridor had no shortage of rooms. Every fifteen feet or so they passed a heavy wooden door. Miles moved to the closest. "We need to start checking the rooms," he said, turning the handle. "Maybe there'll be a window or something, somebody we can ask."

  "Ask about the impossible corridor, yes, let's do that." Penelope's voice was quiet and flat. Miles was worried that she was going into shock.

  He reached for the door handle.

 

Penelope freely admitted her lack of knowledge of the city's geography. She experienced New York internally: from club to fashion store to gallery to restaurant, shuttled between them by a succession of taxicabs. When you loved designer shoes as much as she did, you understood they were not for walking in. It therefore took her a few minutes to suspect that Chester's driver was following a strange route to Dolores' house. The dark brownstones of Harlem were long behind them, replaced by an industrial landscape, chimneys and pipes, soot-covered brick and high fencing.