A Madness of Angels: Or the Resurrection of Matthew Swift (6 page)

 

I checked out the army surplus store, full of hunky boots, camouflage netting and men who loved to own both, the discount fashion store, the cobbler’s, the baker’s, the art shop and finally the costumiers, guarded by a fat black-and-white cat that sat on a wicker chair outside its door, the ceiling heavy with clothes drooping down from the roof so you had to duck to get through the doorway and heave your path clear between the shelves; walls lined with socks and shoes and antlers and old board games and prints of 1930s sporting events and wizard’s hats and all the wonders of the world, in miniature, discount form, hiding somewhere in the dust.

 

At the army surplus store I bought two pairs of socks, a warm-looking navy-blue jumper with only a few holes in it, a Swiss Army knife replete with more gadgets than there could be use for, including such classics as the fish descaler, impossible-to-use tin-opener, and a strange spike with a hole through the top whose use I had never been able to fathom. At the fashion discount store I bought a plain satchel, which I suspected would earn me the scorn of the shrieking schoolgirls outside the chippy but had the feel of a thing that would never die. At the cobbler’s, with a lot of persuading, I bought a set of ten blank keys for the most common locks in the city and a keyring to hang them on, as well as a small digital watch that could also dangle from the ring; in the art shop, I bought three cans of overpriced spray paint. At the costumiers, I bought my coat.

 

It was an excellent coat. It was long, grey, suspiciously blotched, smelt faintly of dust and old curries, went all the way down to my knees and overhung my wrists even when I stretched out my arms. It had big, smelly pockets, crunchy with crumbs, it boasted the remnants of a waterproof sheen, was missing a few buttons, and had once been beige. It was the coat that detectives down the ages had worn while trailing a beautiful, dangerous, presumably blond suspect in the rain, the coat that no one noticed, shapeless, bland and grey – it suited my purpose perfectly.

 

I paid, and tried it out. Back on Chapel Market, I turned up the collar, slung my satchel laden with its goodies over my shoulder, and walked through the crowds. No one paid me the slightest attention. I walked up to the cannabis stall, where I picked up a large plastic pipe with a picture on it of the Pope and three pot leaves against the flag of Jamaica. Slowly and deliberately, I opened my satchel and put it inside. As I walked away, no one even looked. Feeling on the edge of elation, I went over to the discount shampoo store, and put the pipe down on the counter. I leant across towards the tired-looking Chinese man who ran the store and said very loudly, “Boo!”

 

He jumped, hands flying up instinctively. “Uh?” he squeaked, staring at me with frightened eyes.

 

I nearly danced on the spot. We wanted to play with electricity, we wanted to throw fire and whoop with joy, delighted to find that the power still worked, that the instinctive use of that magic was still there, binding itself into my clothes, my skin, completing me just as it had in the old days, making me, if not invisible, then utterly anonymous at will: simply not worth noticing. I pointed at the pot pipe on his table and said, “Present.”

 

Before he had time to ask embarrassing questions, I turned, and sauntered away. We could have whistled.

 

 

Eleven a.m. brought us to the Cally Road swimming baths.

 

What Islington Council had thought would come of putting a swimming pool inside a corrugated-iron shed halfway between a railway terminal and a prison, I could not fathom. What mattered was that within these dark brown iron walls, besides the swimming pool inhabited by complaining children being forced through their weekly lesson by the bald, hook-nosed swimming master, there was a hot shower to be had for no more than Ł4.99 a throw.

 

We had thought heaven was some superficial construct of an ignorant humanity.

 

Standing in the shower, the stench of the litterbug being washed out of our skin, our hair, our bones, we realised this was not so. Heaven was on the Caledonian Road, smelt faintly of chlorine and was blasted out of a slightly grimy tap at 44 degrees Celsius under high pressure. We could have stayed there all day and all night, head turned into the water, but as always the driving fear of staying in one place too long, the memory of what might await me if I was found before I was ready, kept me moving.

 

 

By lunchtime, hair clinging damply to our face and new clothes pressed like the cloth of gold to our skin, I was ready. I went in search of some old friends.

*

 

 

My old friends could not be found.

 

I tried calling from phone boxes, picking numbers out of the haze of memory. I tried Awan first, a good, solid old man who’d always been kind to me in his dryly tolerant way. The number was disconnected. I moved on to Akute, with whom I had once shared a not very serious and rather drunken kiss on Waterloo Bridge, before discovering that she preferred blonds. An old lady answered the phone and informed me, no, sorry, never heard of her. A man shouted abuse at me from the number that should have been Patel’s; and because Pensley’s office was only a few minutes’ walk from the Caledonian Road, set back behind York Way, I went to find him in person, and found the place had been converted into a bathroom warehouse.

 

Uncertain, and getting desperate, I tried dialling Dana Mikeda’s house.

 

A man answered; not a good start.

 

“Yes?”

 

“I’m looking for Dana Mikeda.”

 

“Who’s calling?”

 

“I’m… an old friend.”

 

“What’s your name, please?”

 

“I need to speak to Dana Mikeda.”

 

“Who shall I tell her is calling?”

 

“I’m…” I bit back on the edge of saying my name, not safe, not yet, not until we knew for certain. “Please. It’s really important.”

 

“Where are you?” asked the man firmly, a posh, determined voice used to barrelling its way through all objection by shock and stubbornness. “Who is this?”

 

I slammed the phone down. My hand was shaking. The fear was back again, the terrible, biting certainty of eyes in the street, barely diminished by the bright merriness of the sun. There was one other number I could try, but the thought of it made my stomach turn and twist, threaded terror like a doctor’s wire through every vein and blocked the flow of hot blood.

 

There was only one place left to go.

 

 

In the heart of London, in the area defined by Wigmore Street to the north and Oxford Street to the south, there is a network of little weaving, half-hearted roads and tiny, crabbed alleyways, the remnants of a time when almost every street in the city snuggled up to its neighbours like fleas to skin, compressing the people between its walls into ever tighter and darker corners. Some of these streets had become gentrified over the years, offering a posher flavour of tea or a higher-cut boot than the discount bargain shops and the giant department chains that squatted on Oxford Street itself, like sullen hulking mounds looming over a river of wealth. Others had retained that darker edge of cut-price squalor that defined much of Oxford Street’s commercial goods – strange recycled computers, odd-tasting pizza with the fur left on, unusual lingerie shops for the woman who understands both work and play; suspicious acupuncture clinics and uncredited “Schools of English”, clustered in the shadows between the streets.

 

Amongst them, and I was pleased to see it hadn’t gone, was the “Cave of Wonders, Mysteries and Miracles”, advertised by a small wooden sign swinging above an open door through which the overwhelming smell of cheap incense and musty carpets hit the nose like it wanted a pillow fight. It lurked between a small bookshop and a pub with frosted windows and dark paintwork, looking embarrassed to be there. I felt embarrassed going into it. But I told myself it was for the best, took a deep breath of fresh air before entering, and began my descent.

 

What began as a bright stairwell with white walls was suddenly transformed. Beyond a hanging covered with mystic-esque symbols it became a dull stairwell of dark maroon walls and polished wooden floors, tormented by an eerie, nasal background droning from tiny speakers high up on the walls. The feel of the place changed too. The buzz of magic was stiller, quieter, an elusive black-silk touch across the senses rather than the shock of sensation I always used to associate with the Cave. Immediately, that made me suspicious.

 

The reception area had always been a makeshift affair, with plastic benches and tatty editions of last year’s
Magic and Miracles
– “THE GUIDE TO TRUTH!!!! – Featuring an exclusive interview with ***
Endless Might
*** on the rewards of proper summoning technique!!!”

 

These quaintly unpleasant items had been replaced with black leather sofas and a silver cigarette tray containing stress balls. I walked up to the receptionist, a sour-faced man wearing tight leather trousers and not much besides, and said, “I’m here to see Khan.”

 

“Uh?” His attention was fixed on a magazine which seemed to be all about What Brad Did Next, and breasts.

 

I tried again. “I’m here to see Khan – what are the stress balls for?”

 

He had a tattoo across his bare, bronzed back of a Pegasus spreading its wings. Down one arm someone had inscribed in black and red ink: “
WIZARD
”.

 

“Excuse me?” I repeated patiently. “Why do you have stress balls?”

 

His eyes didn’t leave an article dedicated to “How I Pulled Cheryl!!” as he replied, “Clear your aura for the reading.”

 

“Clear my what?”

 

“Your aura. You got an appointment?”

 

“No.”

 

“You’ll need to make an appointment.”

 

“I just want to see Khan – what do you mean ‘clear my aura’?”

 

“You gotta be in the zen to do a reading. Gotta have a clear head for the truth that’ll unfold, see?” he mumbled through his disdain.

 

I thought about it, and reached the only conclusion to be had from a lifetime of magical experience and several years of extracurricular mystic activity. “But… that’s bollocks,” I said, hoping he might be inclined to agree.

 

“Not my problem. Wanna make an appointment?”

 

“No, I want to see Khan.”

 

“No one here called Khan.”

 

“He owns this place.”

 

“Uh-uh. Sorry, mate, you’ll be wanting somewhere else. No Khan here.”

 

He still wasn’t paying us attention. We were not prepared to tolerate disrespect. We leant across the counter, grabbed him by the throat with one hand, pulled his face an inch from ours and hissed, “We want to see whoever is in charge
now
!”

 

He made a wheezing noise and pawed at my wrist. We wanted to see his eyes bulge a little further from his face, but I relaxed my grip and pushed him back. I smiled, in a manner that I hoped was apologetic but firm. “Perhaps I should just go through,” I offered.

 

He pawed at his neck and made gagging sounds. I nodded politely, and swept past reception and through the curtains leading to the gloom beyond.

 

 

The irritating nasal droning was even louder in the shadows beyond the curtains, and the smell of cheap incense almost giddying; its thick smoke spilled out of every corner and tickled the eyeballs. There was only one source of light: on a table in the centre of the room a crystal ball was glowing white. It didn’t really emit light, so much as hug the shadows, defining a tight area of space against which the darkness pressed. I didn’t bother with it, since its colour and texture felt entirely mains-powered, rather than anything worth the name of magical. From beyond the next curtain, of a thick black velvet, a voice like snow swishing across a mountainside said, “Since you’ve come so far, you are welcome.”

 

I pushed the curtain back.

 

Half lost in a cloud of incense, the woman sat at the back of the room on a chair upholstered in red silk. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap, and a deck of cards lay on the table in front of her. She was wearing more gold medallions and fake gold chain than I had ever seen on a single living creature. The jewellery hung from a headpiece resting precariously on her dyed-black hair, dangled over her heavily made-up face, swept across her shoulders and down her arms, tinkled along her fingertips, drooped down her front and spread out in waves around her ankles and across her bare feet and polished toenails. When she moved, each motion a delicate twitch, she jingled, she glinted, she glowed.

 

She said, not raising her eyes from the cards, “Will you not sit, since you are so eager to hear your fortune told?”

 

I said, spreading my arms wide in disbelief, “What the bloody hell is this?!”

 

“The mystical often takes us by surprise…”

 

“No, but seriously, what the bloody hell is going on? Where’s Khan? What’s all the shiny stuff for, why do you have a glow-in-the-dark crystal ball, who’s the man in the tight trousers, what’s up with all the incense, I mean really and right now? What kind of establishment is this meant to be?”

 

For a moment, just a moment, she looked surprised. Then her expression reset itself into one of semi-divine entrancement, her hands drifting up around her face in the swirling patterns of the smoke she disturbed, a beatific smile settling over her bright scarlet lips. “I am the seer of the future,” she intoned, “I am here to grant to you…”

 

“Where’s Khan?”

 

“I am here to grant you a vision into…”

 

“Bugger a vision into the unknown mists of fucking whatever, I want to see Khan, and I want to see him right bloody now!”

 

She hesitated, a flicker of something real passing over her serene features for a moment, and in a slightly more sensible voice, tinged with a hint of Peckham, she enquired, “Why would you seek this man?”

 

“Do you know who Khan is?”

 

“A king, an emperor, a lord…”

 

“
We are not here to play games!
”

 

She froze, and this time made no effort to recover, the surprise clear on her face. I glared at her, daring her to mumble a single line more of inane waffle, itching to throw something. Finally, with a little breath, half a laugh, half a start of surprise, she said in a much clearer, sharper voice, “Why are you here? What do you know about Khan?”