Hairy London
Authors: Stephen Palmer
HAIRY LONDON
Stephen Palmer
What is love?
One evening at the Suicide Club three gentlemen discuss this age-old problem, and thus a wager is made. Dissolute fop Sheremy Pantomile, veteran philosopher Kornukope Wetherbee and down-on-his-luck Velvene Orchardtide all bet their fortunes on finding the answer amidst the dark alleys of a phantasmagorical Edwardian London.
But then, overnight, London Town is covered in hair. How the trio of adventurers cope with this unusual plague, and what conclusions they come to regarding love is the subject of this surreal and fast-paced novel.
And always the East End threatens revolution...
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© Stephen Palmer 2014
Cover © Stephen Palmer
No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.
The moral right of Stephen Palmer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
Electronic Version by Baen Books
Books by Stephen Palmer
Memory Seed
Glass
Flowercrash
Muezzinland
Hallucinating
Urbis Morpheos
The Rat and The Serpent
Hairy London
To Allen Ashley,
whose short story request started the ball rolling for this novel
Thanks also to Jane Brett,
for help with the German translation
PROLOGUE
Fine blonde hair growing on Waterloo Bridge makes it impassable. The young man, trapped by a rampant beard on the southern banks of the river, looks to the stanchions on the northern side that once were grey stone, but which now are hirsute. He cannot see how he will cross, but he must, because the hair beneath his feet is so luxuriant he is in danger of sinking into it, drowning,
smothering
in that yellow tide.
In his pocket he finds a rope with a grapnel on the end, and this he uses to haul himself up to the thinly haired bridge parapet. Like a monkey on a branch he moves along the parapet, slipping on clumps of hair, ducking when the wind gusts, almost losing his balance – but not quite. In ten minutes he is on the northern side. He leaps down into the mass of blonde hair that waves in the breeze coming up Victoria Embankment. The locks cover him to waist level.
With no other alternative he begins forging his way towards High Holborn, where he has an engagement...
CHAPTER ONE
There were so many horseless carriages outside the Suicide Club that Sheremy Pantomile found himself pushing between lampblack-stained running boards, so that to his horror his trousers became blemished below the knee. He clicked his fingers at the doorman and shouted, “Gentleman! Find me a passage between these smoking wrecks, or I’ll have you cashiered.”
Gentleman Smyth adjusted his turban, glanced this way and that, then descended to street level. “My apologies, sir. There is talk of one of our explorers returning from furthest Oriental reaches. It seems news has spr––”
“Just find me away
in,
fellow. Then find me new trousers. I take a thirty four inch waist.”
Gentleman used his rear to nudge aside one of the horseless carriages, allowing Sheremy to squeeze through, then led him up the steps and inside the great marble edifice that was the hall of Bedwards House, Chancery Lane. Sheremy hurried into an ante-chamber, not wanting any of his peers to see his embarrassment. Gentleman followed. “I will go at once to the Trousery,” the doorman said, “then return with a fresh garment. What colour, sir?”
“Same as these. And don’t go,
run.
”
Gentleman bowed. Sheremy waited, his annoyance fading as the sounds and smells of the Suicide Club calmed his mind. This was home. Here, he could be at peace, be free of the noise and stink of London; and here he could exercise his talents in the service of his fellow men. Damn, that Sikhish fellow was taking his time...
At last, as the Belladonna Clock struck nine, and then a few seconds later the great Tibetan dinner gong, Gentleman returned. Sheremy whipped off his trousers, adjusted his leather undergarment, then pulled on the clean trousers. “Excellent,” he said, “though they smell of lavender.”
“We use it to drive away moon moths,” Gentleman explained.
“What’s on the menu tonight?”
“A deviled tartar of yak, sir.”
Sheremy departed, hurrying up the stairs that led to the dining room. Before entering it he checked his appearance in the mirror held upright by the statue of Turkman Hi retrieved from the ruins of Constantinople by Pharaday Lemmington. Aha... tall, dark eyed, black hair slicked down, a subtle moustache on his upper lip. No wonder the girls loved him.
He walked into the dining room and at once saw several of his associates seated at a pentagonal table; one chair free. He strode forward.
“Friends!” he said, allowing a servant to pull back the vacant seat.
“You are a minute late,” said Velvene Orchardtide, examining a gold chronospiel that hung from his waistcoat spigot.
“An unpleasantness outside the building,” Sheremy explained, “caused by news of some import – or so I believe.”
Kornukope Wetherbee sat to his left. “Pharaday Lemmington by all accounts,” the old man said.
Sheremy did not feel inclined to forgive the explorer Lemmington his fame. “Damn well spoiled my trousers,” he said. “I’ll be billing the fellow regardless of how much he’s lionised when he returns.”
“
If
he returns,” Velvene remarked. “There is no definite word.”
Sheremy glanced at the other two diners: Sir Hoseley Fain, white-bearded Treasurer of the Suicide Club, and Lord Blackanore of Highgate, the Secretary. He enjoyed exalted company tonight. “Frankly,” he said, lighting a cigaroon, “I’m getting rather tired of dear Lemmington’s comings and goings. Can’t we find a higher calling than shooting exotic animals and returning them to London?”
A few embarrassed titters rose from the table. Sir Hoseley sniffed, then said, “What did you have in mind, mon ami?”
“Oh... just something better, I suppose.”
“Then
you
must think of something,” said Velvene, glancing again at his chronospiel. “Where is that soup, eh? It is Arctic onion, and if they do not bring it in soon it will go warm.”
“This place goes to hell if Pharaday’s around,” Sheremy muttered. “It’s just not good enough.”
Sir Hoseley shrugged, the ghost of a smirk on his face. “Complain to Juinefere,” he said.
Sheremy scowled. All here knew of his feelings for Lady Bedwards, though he had done his utmost over the years to conceal them. Sir Hoseley was an impudent weasel. “Very good,” he said. “Meanwhile, perhaps you should comb your beard before the birds start nesting in it.”
“Now, now,” said Lord Blackanore. “The soup arrives.”
As he cracked the surface of the soup and began cutting it up, Sheremy’s mind turned to the situation he found himself in, which some might call unfortunate, though he termed it unjust. “You see,” he explained, “I didn’t know she was married. I swear I didn’t know. How could I? She was just a freed slave, little more than a maid. Who’d have thought her husband would be so... well connected?”
“It seems you protest too much,” Sir Hoseley observed.
Yes, they all knew the tales here. He hated that. When people discovered his failings, he hated it. He loathed being
talked about.
Pushing aside his empty bowl he said, “You all think you know me, don’t you? You don’t. Only a lover truly knows their lover.”
There came laughs from the other four. “Well, we certainly all know you, Pantomile,” said Velvene.
“Alas rather too well,” Sir Hoseley added. “Tu me décois.”
Sheremy felt his face flush. He had gone too far; spoken out of turn. “You are buffoons,” he said.
“Rather a buffoon than a lovestruck bumpkin,” said Sir Hoseley.
Sheremy felt his embarrassment turn to anger. “You’ve never married, have you?” he said, staring across the table. “Perhaps that is because you prefer the monocled post–”
“Enough!” Lord Blackanore cried. “Enough, please, all of you. We diminish ourselves with this horse banter.”
Sheremy nodded at his associate. “Thank you,” he said. “But you will admit it’s true. Nobody here knows love. Mankind does not know love, it doesn’t even have an explanation yet. We live in pandemonium because of that lack.”
“Then you have your higher calling,” Velvene said.
“What do you mean?”
“Explaining the inexplicable.”
“My dear fellow,” Sheremy said, “those long mornings you spend bathing have
done
something to your mind.”
Velvene shrugged. “Explain it for us and you will both solve the inequities of your life and do mankind a service.”
Sheremy felt he was being mocked by the urbane Orchardtide, whose family were well known eccentrics. “I won’t humour you,” he said.
“I mean it.”
Sheremy sat back. The deviled yak supper was approaching. “Then we’ll have a wager,” he declared, “all of us sitting here at this table. If, one season from today, one of us returns to the Suicide Club with an explanation of human love that mankind – from East to West – can accept, they will take the pot.”
“The pot?” said Sir Hoseley.
Sheremy took a notelet from his pocket, then an inker from the slate hedgehog in the centre of the table. “I wager ninety nine hundredths of my fortune,” he said. He cast the notelet onto the tablecloth. “There, I have signed it. If you men have courage, if you have vision, if you take me seriously, then you’ll be part of this wager.”
Sir Hoseley snorted. “I will not.”
“That’s because you are an oaf, sir.”
“I also will not,” said Lord Blackanore.
Sheremy said nothing.
“I shall take part,” Velvene said. “You intrigue me, Pantomile, but also, I must confess, I find myself short of funds–”
“As usual.”
“–and so am tempted by this wager.”
Kornukope cleared his throat. “I also am tempted to wager, but there is an obvious problem. We are all men.”
“Women are not allowed in the Suicide Club,” Sir Hoseley said. “Indeed, they are allowed in this building
only
because it is owned by a woman.”
Kornukope said, “Then I will join the wager on one condition, that my wife Eastachia stands at my side.”
“You’ll work as a pair?” Sheremy said.
“Yes.”
Sheremy considered. The wager had already outstripped its humble beginnings. Kornukope was a philosopher, and likely knew methods, if not actual answers, to the conundrum of love. As for Velvene, he was half madman. Too late! He had thrown his fortune into the ring. “Very well,” he said. “But we’d need to fetch your wife to sign the papers.”
At this Lord Blackanore said, “There is a codicil in the rules of our club allowing a woman to appear if she has a cloth bag over her head. I believe Gentleman Smyth has skill with the needle, perhaps he will run up a bag for us.”
“Then we’re agreed,” Sheremy said. He took a deep breath. “Tonight, when Eastachia Wetherbee arrives, we’ll have our third and final wager signatories.”
Lord Blackanore shook his head. “This conversation cannot now be revoked. As the Secretary of the Suicide Club, I must accept the terms.”
“Well of course you must,” said Velvene. “Insane scheming was the reason the club was set up.”
“And, voila, I shall keep these three wager papers,” said Sir Hoseley, “which I remind you all are legally binding. I shall enjoy disseminating the terms to every member of our club.” He stared at Sheremy, his face set firm and cold. “I am the Treasurer after all.”
Damn! Sheremy had for the moment forgotten that. But Lord Blackanore, despite being a darkie, was reliable. Sheremy felt safe.
Kornukope sent for a runner to fetch his wife. Two hours later, as they smoked their cigaroons and drank hot porter, Sheremy heard the lugubrious bellow of the Nepalese temple trumpet that signalled the presence of a woman. Some of the gentlemen departed the dining room, dark expressions on their faces; and then Eastachia appeared, led by an Indoo runner, her head covered in a blue bag embroidered with Chinese silk birds and pearls.
“Dearest one!” Kornukope exclaimed. Outlining the terms of the wager, then explaining the significance of the men at the table, he concluded, “This is surely a test of our marriage that we cannot ignore. Sign, if you will.”
And Eastachia Wetherbee signed. She said nothing. Sheremy, who had only met her at masked balls, shrugged and tried to out-stare Sir Hoseley. He failed.
CHAPTER TWO
Sheremy Pantomile lived in rented accommodation on Gough Square, just north of Fleet Street. Peering out of his front window on the morning after the wager was agreed, he shouted to his valet, “McTevish, come here. What’s going on?”
The street outside was choked with brown hair.
McMithom McTevish approached, looked out of the window, then shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. Seems to be a wee bit of...”
“Hair. It’s
hair.
D’you think Pharaday Lemmington has brought some tropical condition back from undiscovered parts?”
“Wouldna be the first time,” McMithom replied.
“Find me my hacking garments. The walk to my club won’t be easy.”
“Aye, sir.”
Satisfactorily attired, Sheremy allowed McMithom to open the front door, whereupon he strode out and surveyed the scene before him. Gough Square lay hidden beneath hair, so much hair that he could smell it on the breeze; and there was dandruff too, great white clumps of it, like congealed porridge.
“I don’t like the look of this,” he told McMithom.
“Shall I fetch your penknife, sir?”
“Bring that Amazonian machete old Wetherbee gave me for Christmas. And a flask of Dutch courage.”
“Aye, sir. The ’eighty two perhaps.”
Out in the street Sheremy found himself pushing through thick hair that rose to his chest. Other residents struggled too, notably Benry Hallowee-Tong, the doctor who lived a couple of houses along.
“What’s going on, dear fellow?” Sheremy called out.
Benry halted, raised one hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun, then replied, “I’m sure I don’t know, Mr Pantomile. Some kind of infestation. The ladies are having a terrible time of it, what with their skirts and everything.”
“They may have to wear something else.”
“Inadvisable! Their inappropriate regions overheat if they wear anything other than a skirt. I should know, what?”
“Common knowledge,” Sheremy agreed.
Fetter Lane was worse. Sheremy gazed out over a sea of hair that choked the thoroughfare, undulating like seaweed in an ocean tide. From the vertical walls of the buildings on either side of the street great locks of blonde hair fell, going dark at the roots, he noticed, as if uncared for. But the street was almost empty of people. A few brave men struggled through the hirsute growth, chopping it aside with knives or swords, but never leaving so much as the narrowest of paths, as if the hair regrew without delay. Every hard edge was softened by hair, every roof shaggy, every window bushy.
Nearby, an old gentleman stood at his front gate, trying to cut a way through. Sheremy, struck by an idea, called out, “Sir, have you tried setting it alight?”
“Good idea,” the old man replied, turning to enter his house. A few moments later he returned with a small shovel, on which burned several red hot coals. “This should do the trick.”
Casting the coals into his hairy front path, he hurried back to his front door. Sheremy watched. After a few seconds tendrils of smoke began rising from the path, and then clouds, but soon there was a terrible stink of singed hair on the breeze, and Sheremy was forced to plunge into the street and struggle on through. After only half a minute he was exhausted and sweaty, and the clouds of smoke were worse. He coughed. He hated that stink. He heard the muffled slamming of windows being shut.
The other men in the street raised kerchiefs to their faces in an effort to reduce the stench, but it was a hopeless task. One man reached out to strike him on the back with the flat of his sword. “You young fool,” the man said. “This hair regrows at speed. Fire is useless!”
“I didn’t know,” Sheremy protested.
“You do now.”
Sheremy turned and pushed on, annoyed that his brilliant plan had not worked. The men here would know him by reputation, if not personally, and soon local gossip would focus on him. Rather irritating, but what could be do about it?
In Fleet Street the situation was worse – hair at head height – but it seemed a solution had been found, for coming down the street he saw an Archimedean floating system beneath which a wicker amplitude hung.
Scruffy lads shouted from their eyrie. “Read all abaht it! London gripped by hairy plague! Riverboats to be commandeered by Government! Read all abaht it!”
As the floating machinora approached, Sheremy tossed up a silver scriven and called out, “Throw me down two copies, lad!”
The lad obliged, though one copy unwrapped itself and descended as a cloud of paper sheets; Sheremy caught the other.
LONDON BENEATH HAIR – OFFICIAL
Government to launch enquiry, will report next year
Sheremy tutted to himself, then read on.
From our Home Affairs correspondent
. As our capital city writhes under the great mat of hair that grew overnight, scientists, government officials, engineers and hairdressers have been assessing the situation. So far, nothing is clear. The hair grows from everything, be it stone, wood or earth. Very few can leave their homes, and those that do are in peril. This organ already has fifteen reports of smotherings, suffocations and other losses, as the courageous men of London Town try to keep their city moving. But travel, it seems, will be upon the river and through the air for the foreseeable future. All residents are asked to remain indoors. Do not set fire to the hair! It grows back most speedily. If you cut it you may for a while make safe passage, but by the time you return the hair will be back. And
never
shave it, for all that you will do is make the hair regrow thicker and stronger!
Sheremy shook his head, folded the newspaper and tucked it under his right arm. Time to move along.
After a while he discovered a way of walking as if through water, whereby he moved his legs slowly and rhythmically, allowing the hair to move naturally, as if well conditioned. It was exhausting, but not so exhausting as his earlier, frenetic attempts at motion. Where he needed to – thick clumps of old white hair, tight curls not unlike those of Lord Blackanore – he used the machete to clear a way. Half an hour later he was forging his way through brunette thickets up Chancery Lane, with Bedwards House in sight. At last!
Gentleman Smyth waved to him. “Sir! This way, sir!”
Sheremy clambered out of the hairy street and struggled up the steps; at the top he sat down, fatigued beyond endurance. “My word,” he said between hoarse breaths, “I’m quite exhausted. It’s taken me well over an hour to walk here from Gough Square.”
“I have heard similar tales, sir.”
“Are there many at the club?”
“Very few this morning, sir. Most of your associates have not been able to escape their homes.”
“It’s the very devil of a pickle,” Sheremy said. “Fetch me a double brandy, then find out if Sir Hoseley is available.”
“Very good, sir.”
Sheremy regained his breath then, when Gentleman did not reappear, entered the marble hall, spotting the doorman high up on a balcony. “Gentleman! My query?”
“Sir Hoseley is in the Chinese breakfast room, sir. My apologies for not returning sooner, I was detained by a phantasmagorical Mongol.”
Sheremy ascended to the breakfast room, where he found Sir Hoseley and Lord Blackanore busy with plates of Saharan baboon. Lord Blackanore gestured him over. “Quite melts in the mouth! Tuck in.”
Sheremy glanced at Sir Hoseley, then took a seat, allowing a servant to deliver a plate of steaming bushmeat. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Nobody knows,” Lord Blackanore replied. “I’ve been on the tele-combustion machine, but not even my man in Whitehall knows the score. I can’t understand it.”
“Damn papers are saying the entire city is beneath hair. Can that be true?”
“Until more reports come in, we can’t be certain. I fear insurrection if truth be told. The Cockneighs will be up in arms and tearing down the East End before you know it – you simply can’t trust them, you know.”
“You just can’t trust them,” Sir Hoseley mournfully echoed.
“What will the club do?” Sheremy asked Lord Blackanore.
“For the moment, continue as if nothing has happened. I find that is usually the best way to proceed. Alas Pharaday has not yet appeared, and I fear he is entangled in this wretched wig somewhere.”
“With luck,” Sheremy mumbled under his breath.
“What was that?” Sir Hoseley asked.
“He’s stuck,” Sheremy said. “Decent bit of baboon, this. Any stewed leeches for dessert?”
Sir Hoseley frowned. “So, Pantomile, know any good barbers?”
“I have my man see to that kind of thing,” Sheremy replied. “I find barbers to be vulgar more often than not. Don’t you agree?”
“Quite,” Sir Hoseley replied, with an acid smile. “But Pantomile... the wager is unaffected by this hirsute development.”
“I
had
realised that, dear fellow.” Sheremy stood up, dabbed a napkin to his lips, then said, “I’m too full for leeches. If I can, I’ll be here for supper. Farewell gentlemen.”
Returning to the front of the building Sheremy stood for a moment on the top step, Gentleman Smyth at his side. The doorman said, “Are you planning to return home, sir?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. Try to see if aught can be done about this cursed hair. There must be some explanation.”
“No doubt the illusionists at the Institute will be dreaming up scientific experiments right now. That Rutherford chap seems sound.”
Sheremy nodded. “Why yes... the Institute! Good notion, that. Those chemical-stained boffins will have some answers. I believe I may go there at once.”
“But how, sir?”
“Aboard an Archimedean floater, if I can locate one.”
With that Sheremy jumped down the steps and entered the hairy thoroughfare, heading south for Fleet Street, but before he reached it he heard a scream and saw a white parasolette waving above Chancery Lane’s brunette locks. At once he forced his way across the street, to grab the parasolette and pull it free. Nothing. What on Earth was going on? But then he heard a muffled cry, and without thought for his own safety he reached down, to encounter a hand. The hand grasped his. He pulled until the rest of the person appeared.
It was a lady. Or at least, a woman. She appeared to be wearing trousers.
~
Velvene Orchardtide departed Bedwards House and hurried to the nearest empty Handsome Cab. Climbing aboard he said, “To Ebury Mews Belgravia as quick as you can. And don’t spare the whip.”
“Very good, sir,” said the cabbie.
Velvene sat back. He had taken something of a risk accepting Pantomile’s ludicrous wager, but, with nothing better to do, and little by way of funds...
“Hurry up, man!” he called out.
“A lot of traffic tonight, sir,” the cabbie replied. “The Strand is packed with horseless carriages doing the Chinatown To Whitechapel Race. I think they should ban it, sir.”
“Well, just go as fast as you can, eh?”
“Or, they could hold it on a Sunday when everybody’s at church.”
Velvene chuckled. “Good idea! You a religious man, are you?”
“No, sir. I like what that Mr Marx has to say. Religion–”
“Well that’s
quite
enough of that. Shut up and drive on, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
Before disembarking, Velvene checked his appearance in the glass window before him: of middle age, thinning hair, clean shaven, with watery blue eyes and a hook nose. Black jackette and pantaloons. He glanced down to see shiny black shoes and white socks.
Out on the street he glanced up at his parents’ apartment, which sprawled over a number of floors and house-numbers. Luckily for him the Orchardtide family were exceedingly wealthy.
“Funds, Velvene,” he muttered to himself. “It is all about funds.”
He unlocked the front door and entered, but at once sensed an atmosphere in the house. Normally there would be a rivulet of chatter falling down the stairs, the sound of music from a string orchestra, or perhaps the latest 78 record playing on the monogram. But tonight, nothing.
He decided to creep up to his own rooms, which lay at the top of the building, below the flat roof. But he did not get so far.
“Velvene!”
That was his mother, the dragon. “Yes?” he replied.
“Come to the evening parlour at
once.
”
Velvene swore under his breath. Surely they had not discovered his rearrangement of the Lyon candlesticks?
His mother awaited him, standing by the fireplace, tapping her fingers against the mantelpiece; his father sitting in a bath chair, a tartan rug over his legs, half asleep in the glow of the coal.
“Have you moved my candlesticks?” she asked.
“No, mother.”
“You know how valuable they are. Two are missing. Have you sold them?”
“Sold them?” Velvene said. She
had
discovered his rearrangement.
“Yes,
sold
them Velvene, something you’ve done before. But you know how precious those candlesticks are to me.”
“Well, I did not touch–”
“You did! And, God help me, I have proof.” From the mantelpiece she took a twist of paper, which she opened to reveal a small amount of cigarist ash. And he had been smoking when he rearranged the candlesticks...
“Mother,” he said, wondering how to explain the indefensible.
She raised her right hand, her face white with fury, lips compressed, eyes narrowed. “Velvene Orchardtide, you are banished from this family! From this very
house.
You are banished from Orchardtide Manor also. You are banished from Orchardtide Fairings, from the Church and from the entire Scottish estate. You are banished from the chateau in Lyon. You are
banished,
forever, do you hear!”
His father woke up, glanced across the parlour, then waved with one hand and said, “Don’t come back, there’s a good lad. We prefer not to see you again, don’t you know.”
His mother made the final pronouncement. “You have one night to collect your personal belongings, which I shall be checking before you leave. You are a common thief, Velvene, though God told you thou shalt not steal. You are a wastrel and a fool. I hope
never
to see you again. Now get out of here and go to your room!”