The Witches of Chiswick

41

It was a wonder.

Even in an age of wonders, it was a wonder.

Count Otto Black’s Circus Fantastique hung in the night sky above Whitechapel. The vast star-shaped blimp sparkled with thousands of light bulbs which flashed on and off, the way that some of them do, spelling out Count Otto’s name and tracing the outlines of galloping horses, gambolling clowns and dancing bears, high-wire walkers and jugglers, mimes and marmosets too.

It was the thirty-first of December, the year was eighteen ninety-nine, it was half past nine and it wasn’t raining.

Will and Tim emerged from the Naughty Pope public house into a thoroughfare that jostled with New Year merrymakers. Almost everyone waved a Union flag and most were already drunk.

Will looked up and whistled. The sheer scale of the flying circus was awesome in the absolute. “That is big,” was all he could manage for the moment.

Tim shook his head and patted down his wandering hair. “It’s beyond anything,” he said. “But I just don’t get it.”

“What is it that you just don’t get?” Will was jostled by revellers. A young ragamuffin called Winston, who had recently failed his interview for the job of curator at the Tate Gallery and decided instead to join the rest of his brothers and pursue a life of crime, deftly relieved Will of his wallet.

“It’s technology,” said Tim. “Astounding technology. Count Otto Black designed the flying circus himself, didn’t he?”

“It said so on the flyer we were reading in the pub.”

“So why go to all the trouble and expense, if at the stroke of midnight, his Doomsday Programme kicks in and the whole caboodle goes belly up, ceases to exist, in fact?”

Will shrugged. Winston’s brother Wycliff deftly relieved Will of his pocket watch.

“It’s a fiendish plot,” said Will. “And fiendish plots only really make sense to the fiends who plot them, I suppose.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” said Tim.

“Curious, that,” Will smiled, “considering that everything else so far has made such perfect sense.”

“That would be irony, right?”

Will nodded unthoughtfully. Winston’s other brother, Elvis, relieved Will of his circus tickets.

“Ah, no,” said Will, taking Elvis by the wrist and hauling him into the air. “I didn’t mind about the watch or the wallet, but I need those tickets.”

“Right you are, guv’nor,” said the dangling Elvis, as Will plucked the tickets from his grubby little mitt.

“Good boy,” said Will, and he set Elvis down.

Winston’s other brother, Kylie, deftly relieved Elvis of a digital wristwatch that Kylie had recently swiped from a toff named Burlington Bertie.

Tim reached down and deftly relieved Kylie of a packet of Spangles.

Will, in turn, deftly relieved Tim of his straw hat.

“I wasn’t wearing a straw hat,” said Tim.

“That’s mine!” said a lady, snatching it back.

“Sorry,” said Will. “I got carried away.”

The lady, once more in her straw hat, kicked Will in the ankle. Winston relieved her of her bundle of War Crys.

“Stop it now,” said Will. “It’s all getting out of hand.”

“Who’s nicked my boots?” said Wycliff.

“Let’s go, Tim,” said Will.

“Do we have to?” Tim asked. “I’ve acquired a packet of Spangles. Oh no I haven’t, they’re gone.”

“We have to go,” said Will. “It’s not clever and it’s not funny.”

“What swab’s scarpered with me wooden leg?” cried a pirate, collapsing into an ungathered heap of the pure.

Will and Tim buttoned up their coats, thrust their hands into their pockets and pressed forward into the noisy crowd.

Street sellers were out in force, hawking Union flags and roasted chestnuts, centennial souvenirs and pictures of Little Tich.

“Mud on a stick, squire?” asked a young rapscallion.

“Mud on a stick?” asked Tim in ready reply.

“Looks like a toffee apple from a distance, squire.”

“I’ll take two then, please,” said Tim.

“No, you won’t,” said Will.

“Poo on a stick,” cried another rapscallion. “Looks like mud from a distance.”

“Press on,” said Will. And Tim pressed on.

“Tell me, Will,” said Tim, as the two pressed on together. “What of the plan thus far?”

“Thus far,” said Will, “the plan stands at this. I have here two complimentary tickets dispatched to me by Master Scribbens, who is aloft, probably making himself up even now in preparation for his performance.”

“What exactly does he do for a performance?”

Will shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure. He hinted to me that there was a degree of sliding involved.”

“Hopefully we’ll be in time to miss his act, if you know what I mean. And what of Mr Wells?”

“He slipped aboard the flying circus with Master Scribbens this morning. He’s had a day to search for the computer programme. Let’s hope he’s been successful. An aerial hansom awaits us upon the corner of Hobs Lane; I ordered it earlier. It will take us up to the circus. Once there Mr Wells will take you to the computer room, where you will disable the system.”

“Right,” said Tim, somewhat dubiously.

“And I will take care of Count Otto.”

“Bring him to justice?” said Tim. “How?”

“Kill him,” said Will.

“What?”

“He was responsible for Rune’s death. I know I don’t have any definite proof, but I believe it all the same. And he is the King of the witches. All of this, everything that I and my other self have been through, is because of him. He has to die.”

“That’s savage,” said Tim. “It will make you a murderer. How can you live with that?”

“I won’t be living with that.”

“How so?”

“Because if I thwart Count Otto’s plans, our future will cease to exist, Tim. We will cease to exist.”

“I’m not at all keen on this plan. Isn’t there another we could try?”

“How many times has he tried to kill me?” Will asked. “And you too. He did kill you. One of his clockwork terminators shot you with a General Electric Minigun.”

Tim shivered. “You do what you have to do,” he said. “I’ll take care of the Doomsday Programme.”

They had reached the aerial taxi. Will turned and took Tim’s hand in his. “It all ends tonight,” he said. “In a few hours from now. However it ends, I just want to say that you are the best friend I’ve ever had. And the best half-brother also.”

“Stop it,” said Tim. “You’ll have me getting a crinkly mouth.”

“I’m sorry I got you involved in this.”

“I’m not,” said Tim. “I’ve loved every moment.”

“So, shall we go?”

The cabbie swung open a passenger door.

“Slide in, gents,” said he.

The Brentford Snail Boy slid a flabby hand across the table of the “Lower Rank Performers” dressing room, took up a powder puff and dabbed chalk dust around and about his face. He examined his reflection in the brightly lit mirror and considered it up to passing muster, although not to passing mustard, and certainly not salt.

The Lower Rank Performers dressing room was packed with Lower Rank Performers: conjoined twins, pig-faced ladies, dwarves and midgets, dog-faced boys and alligator girls.

Master Scribbens sighed. These were his people. He was a freak and so were they: outsiders, things to be gawped at and laughed at by “normal” folk.

“A regular dandy,” said a soft lisping voice to the rear of the Snail Boy. “A regular matinee idol.”

Master Makepiece Scribbens looked up from his own reflection to that of the man who stood behind him.

The man who was partly man.

Mr Joseph Merrick.

Tonight he was maskless and clad in an enormous top hat, white tie and tails. He wore a white kid glove (tanned through a process which demanded extensive use of the pure) upon his serviceable right hand; the other was hidden by a sealskin muff. He leaned upon an ebony cane and grinned in a lopsided fashion that was grotesque to behold.

“Joey,” said Makepiece. “I didn’t know you were on the bill tonight.”

“I’m not.” The Elephant Man took a seat next to the Snail Boy. “I’m a guest of Her Majesty, Gawd give her one for me. In the Royal Box. I’m sitting next to Princess Alexandra.”

“Lucky you,” said Master Scribbens.

“And she’s begging for it,” said Mr Merrick. “Keeps touching my good knee. I’m in there, I can tell you.”

Master Scribbens sighed. “I haven’t reached puberty yet,” said he. “But when I do, I hope that I’ll be as big a success with the ladies as you are.”

Joseph Merrick made elephantine trumpetings. “Sorry,” said he. “I shouldn’t laugh. But look at yourself. All you’ve got going for you is an abundance of natural lubricant. The ladies I pleasure get moist at the very sight of me.”

“You’re a very crude man,” said Master Scribbens.

“I’m sorry,” said Mr Merrick. “I don’t wish to offend you. You and I are two of a kind, which is to say that we are not as others. We are neither one thing, nor the other. So what are we truly, tell me that?”

“Alone,” said Master Scribbens and he said it in a most plaintive tone. “Always alone, no matter whose company we are in. Even among our own kind.”

“Precisely. But things will change. Believe me, they will change.”

“I can’t imagine how,” said Master Scribbens.

“Oh they will.” The Elephant Man tapped his pendulous hooter. “They will change tonight. They will change forever. Be assured of that. I know these things. Trust me, I’m a freak.”

A freak. Someone different; someone apart; someone cursed by their own difference. But let’s not get too heavy here. But then, again, let’s do.

Mr H.G. Wells was certainly different. You can’t get much more different than being invisible. Mr H.G. Wells moved invisibly along a corridor. He had spent the day aboard the flying circus, checking it inch by painstaking inch, and so far had found absolutely nothing. He had entered the great central arena, the big top itself, which occupied the gondola at the centre of the five-pointed dirigible. He had marvelled at its splendour and design: seating for two thousand people, Royal boxes, an orchestra stand, a domed glass ceiling, above which could be seen the star-strung sky; and a mass of gilded ornamentation all around and about, which created the effect of some Rajah’s palace.

He had branched out from there, into the numerous offices and sleeping accommodation, and stables, and catering areas and latrines and playrooms and storerooms.

And he had found absolutely nothing.

He had reached the cockpit and the engine rooms.

He had followed upon the polished ivory heels of Count Otto, as he strutted here and strutted there, attending to the minutiae of detail that ensured the Perfect Show.

He’d listened to all that the Count had said, even his whispered words.

And he had learned absolutely nothing, nothing to even suggest that this was anything more than a circus; an incredible circus, albeit, but a circus none the less.

“I am baffled,” said H.G. Wells to himself and he shook his invisible head.

The cabbie shook his head. “The traffic up here,” he said. “Chronic it is. Sorry, gents, but we’re in for a bit of a wait.”

The aerial cabs were nose to tail, queuing to dispatch their glamorous cargoes of lords, ladies and London glitterati at the circus entrance beneath the central big top.

“We’ll be a while,” said the cabbie.

“You’ll probably want to switch off your meter, then,” said Will.

“I probably won’t,” said the cabbie. “In fact, I definitely won’t.”

“Perhaps there’s another way in,” said Tim. “A back door or something. Perhaps we could slip in unseen.”

“Ain’t you got tickets, then?” asked the cabbie.

“Count Otto is a friend of ours,” said Will. “We’d like to surprise him. Perhaps you might leave the queue and fly around the circus. There might be somewhere else you could drop us off.”

“As you please,” said the cabbie, and he dropped his cab from the queue, then circled it up in a glorious arc and swung about over the dirigible.

“Look at the size of it,” said Tim. “It looks even bigger up close.”

Will rolled his eyes. “Fly very slowly around, cabbie,” he said. “Let’s see what we can see.”

“As you please,” said the cabbie once more.

“He’s very good,” said Tim. “A good pilot.”

“Thank you sir,” said the cabbie. “I got this cab from my brother. It was his you see, but he can’t fly it any more. He had a tragic accident.”

“In this cab?” Tim asked.

“Well, actually, yes. He was taking a Colonel William Starling to the launching of the moonship. But the Colonel threw him out of the cab into a pond at Crystal Palace. Broke both his legs. Then the Colonel crashed the cab. Cost me a packet to get it fixed up again. What a bastard that Colonel Starling, eh? I hope they catch him and string him up.”

“Right,” said Tim.

And “Right,” said Will.

“There,” said the cabbie. “Down there. See that gantry running the length of the southern star arm, I could drop you off on that, if you like. Then you can fend for yourselves.”

“Do that,” said Will and the cabbie steered the aerial hansom close in to the gantry.

“There you go, gents. That’s one and threepence on the clock.”

“Pay him, Tim,” said Will.

Tim patted his pockets. “I’m penniless,” he said. “I think someone deftly relieved me of all my money.”

“Me too,” said Will. “Winston the paperboy lifted my wallet.”

“This is most upsetting,” said the cabbie. “Generally in such situations, I close my hatch, engage the central locking, then fly the cab round to my other brother, Gentlemen Jim Corbett, barefist champion of Britain, and have him beat the non-payers to a bloody pulp.”

“We don’t really have time for that,” said Will. “But listen, as we’re sneaking in, we could let you have our tickets. Numbered seats in the front row. What do you say to that?”

“So where will you be sitting?”

“We’ll find somewhere. What do you say?”

“I say, thank you very much. Give me the tickets.”

Will took out the tickets and handed them through the little glass partition to the cabbie.

“Thanks very much to you,” said that man, examining the tickets. “Seats twelve and thirteen, row A. Careful how you go now.”

“Farewell,” said Will and he and Tim left the hovering cab and clambered onto the gantry.

A bit of a wind was blowing.

“It’s chilly up here,” said Tim. “Like being on a very high rooftop.”

“A rooftop,” said Will and he smiled.

“And why are you smiling about a rooftop?”

“Remember when we were in the cell at the Brentford court house and I told you about the Lazlo Woodbine thrillers I’d read?”

Tim nodded, but his nodding was all but invisible, hidden as it was by his hair, which was wildly blowing all around.

“And how I told you that every Lazlo Woodbine thriller ends with Laz having a final rooftop confrontation with the villain. Who then takes the big fall to oblivion at the end.”

“You did,” said Tim. “Although I didn’t see the relevance at the time. Everything gets explained eventually, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” said Will. “And I’m freezing my privy parts off here, so let’s get inside.”

Inside the big top, posh folk were taking their seats. And anyone who was anyone was there.

Wilde was there, sitting upon a swansdown cushion, due to the scalding of his behind which he had received when the moonship exploded. And Beardsley was there, chatting with Richard Dadd about how well his brother Peter was doing playing for Brentford football club and about how a talent scout from Liverpool had recently spotted him. And the Duke of Wellington was there, chatting with Lord Colostomy, who was trying to sell him a bag. And Dame Nellie Melba was there, admiring the boots of Little Tich.

Lord Babbage and Mr Tesla sat next to Her Majesty the Queen (GBH), who sat next to Princess Alexandra, who had her hand once more upon Joseph Merrick’s good knee.

And Mr Sherlock Holmes was there, back from Dartmoor with another successfully solved case under his belt. And Dr Watson, who had secretly been shagging the Queen for the last five years, sat with him, sharing a joke about bedpans with the Queen’s gynaecologist Sir Frederick Treves.

The Pre-Raphaelites were all there, of course, and these shared a joke with a group of proto-surrealists.

The joke was all about fish.

And there was Montague Summers and Madame Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley and the Pope of Rome.

But they weren’t sharing any jokes. They weren’t even speaking to each other.

There was an air of expectation breathing all around and about this salubrious crowd, an air of exaltation, of wonder and of hope. For a new century was dawning, and given the advances of the last fifty years, it was a new century that they were all very much looking forward to.

For what would happen next? What great steps would the British Empire be taking? To conquer all the world? And then the stars?

“Definitely the stars,” said The Man on the Clapham Omnibus, who was tonight A Face in the Crowd, albeit a most exclusive crowd.

Exclusive folk filed in and took their seats. Upon a high gantry Tim eased open a door.

“We’re in,” said he. “Follow me.”

“You know where we’re going then?” asked Will.

“Not as such,” said Tim.

A buzzer buzzed in the dressing room of the Lower Rank Performers. And a light flashed too. “Five minutes to curtain up,” came a voice through the public address system.

In the big top, the orchestra took their seats and took to tuning up their instruments. The smell of sawdust from the ring mingled with the perfumes of the wealthy.

“Down this way,” said Will.

“So you know where we’re going?”

“Not as such.”

The last of the aerial hansoms which had conveyed the rich and famous to the flying circus had now departed. One final cab drew up, this bearing the cabbie Will had passed his tickets to. The cabbie had brought his brother with him, the one with the broken legs. These legs were in plaster. The cabbie helped his injured brother from the cab. “This will be a real treat for you, bruv,” he said. “You deserve it.”

“Cheers,” said his brother, supporting himself on crutches.

“I’ll just switch off the engine,” said the cabbie, and he leaned inside the cab and did so.

“There,” he said, grinning back at his brother.

The aerial hansom plummeted down towards Whitechapel.

The cabbie’s plastered brother said, “You twat!”

“If we’d thought a little harder about this,” said Tim, as he and Will wandered aimlessly along a service tunnel beneath the dirigible proper, “we’d have got ourselves a plan of this craft. I’ll bet we could have got one from the Patent Office, or somewhere.”

“We’ll find our way,” said Will. “Have a little faith.”

“Oh I do. I have plenty of faith. Listen.”

Will listened.

“What is that, do you think?”

Will listened some more. “Applause,” said he. “It’s applause.”

“The show is beginning,” said Tim.

And Tim was right.

The show was indeed beginning.