Necrophenia (28 page)

And then he got up and just walked away.

Out of my life for ever.

I never saw him again.

The New York underground railway system.

Now why hadn’t I thought of that?

It was all so obvious, really, when you thought about it. Really.

Well, perhaps if you screwed up your mind just a little and thought about it. Because, as is well known to all Londoners, there is a lost race of troglodytes inhabiting the London Transport Underground railway system. Descendants, it is believed, of a Victorian train disaster down there, when a train all-filled-up with Victorian ladies and gents got all-walled-up in a tunnel collapse. The London Underground Railway Company covered up this terrible tragedy and denied all knowledge of it, because it was bad for public confidence in the Underground system. It appears that there were survivors, living on rats and mushrooms, who eventually burrowed into the present-day system, where, when the hunger is upon them, they will snatch some lone commuter from a late-night platform and descend with him or her into their secret subterranean lairs, to feed. And surely it can be no coincidence that that most secret of all secret Government departments, the mysterious Ministry of Serendipity, is housed beneath Mornington Crescent Underground Station in London.

No.

And so, what, a lost city beneath the present-day streets of New York? An unlikely proposition? No, I don’t think so.

I took the treasure map from my pocket and gave it a good peering at. It did look like a railway system, yes, it really did.

I hailed a waitress who was passing by, whistling that old Sumerian Kynges classic ‘The Land of the Western God’, and I enquired of this beauteous personage as to whether she might have a map of the New York underground railway system anywhere about her beauteous person.

And she replied in that feisty manner for which New York women are renowned and told me exactly what I could do with myself and precisely how I could do it.

‘That would be a no, then,’ I concluded. But I was not going to be thwarted quite so easily in my bid to enter the Lost City of Begrem and avail myself of whatever there was to be had once I was there. And so I asked a young black gentleman of the burly persuasion, whose attire sported a comprehensive selection of gang-affiliated patches. And he gave me his map and said that I could keep it.

And I thanked him very much for his generosity.

And he in turn said that it was a pleasure to be of assistance and that if I wouldn’t object to giving him one hundred dollars as a ‘handling fee’, he would kindly refrain from disembowelling me with his shiv.

And so I handed over one hundred dollars, on the understanding that ‘fair exchange is no robbery’ and ‘a trouble shared was indeed a trouble halved’.

And then it occurred to me that I had indeed been talking the toot with myself. Which was novel enough, and cheered me up slightly, though not very much.

And then I unfolded the map the young black gentleman had ‘given’ to me. And discovered it to be a flyer for some rap band appearing that night in a nearby club.

And I was about to hail the young gentleman, who was leaving the Donut Diner, and inform him of his regrettable error when the feisty waitress took me by the arm, advised me against it and then pulled out a map from her apron and handed it to me.

‘You’re not from around these parts, are you, stranger?’ she asked me.

‘Well, curiously,’ I said, ‘I’ve been living in New York for the last thirty years. But I haven’t been out and about much lately.’

‘Are you someone famous?’ she asked me. ‘Only I think I recognise your face from somewhere.’

‘I’m the public face of a very private grief,’ I told her. As some women find enigmatic men fascinating, and take them back to their homes for extended periods of sexual activity.

‘Yeah, right,’ she said and went straight back to her work.

And then I unfolded the map she had given me. And lo, it was a map of the New York underground railway system. And lo, when I held my map up against it and got it round the right way and everything, the two were an all but perfect match. And I carefully traced the railway lines with my finger, noting that my fingernails dearly needed cutting, and I concluded that the location of the entrance to the Lost City of Begrem had to be right there, beneath that particular station.

And I peered at the name of that particular station. And the words on the map read Mornington Crescent East (discontinued usage).

Mornington Crescent! I was amazed. Discontinued usage? That would mean closed, I supposed.

And I folded up my map and stuck it back into my pocket. And I folded up the waitress’s map and kept that, too. And I got a bit of a smile going then (even though I wasn’t that happy) because I did now have the location of the entrance to a lost city of gold. So I had pretty much cracked everything that needed to be cracked and so must be on the home straight and about to storm across the finishing line as an outright winner. So to speak and things of that nature generally.

I’d just have another cup of coffee, and another donut, because I couldn’t be sure when I’d be eating later. Then I’d saunter on over to Mornington Crescent East, gain access to its murky depths and hit the lost city of gold. Job done.

And you really would have thought that it would have been as simple as that, wouldn’t you?

So I ordered more coffee and a further donut. And then I ducked very low to avoid the coffee pot that was swung at the back of my head.

Which I did because I heard the thoughts of the waitress. And these went, ‘It’s that psycho-terrorist, and if I smash his brains in now, I can claim the reward and put the money towards a Butlins holiday at Bognor in England.’

Which made me feel rather glad that I had developed those extraordinary sensitivities whilst I’d lain in my God-awful coma. And I didn’t hit the waitress, because hitting women is wrong, but I did make my getaway from that Donut Diner, leaving my latest coffee undrunk and half a donut uneaten. Which was a waste, really, but what was I to do?

And I ran once more through the streets of New York, ducking and diving and dodging. And the late-afternoon sun shone down darkly, casting long shadows of the New Yorkers, some singles, some doubles, and I ducked, dived and dodged.

And presently after much asking and, I confess, some degree of misdirection and requests for alms upon the part of native New Yorkers, I found myself standing outside Mornington Crescent East (discontinued usage) Underground Station. It was ancient, run-down, fly-blown, plastered over with posters. And above it, soaring up into the sky, was a mighty office block of a building. And upon this a mighty sign of a sign that read ‘THE BIG APPLE CORPORATION’. Which rang a distant bell with me, as this was the corporation that Mr Ishmael was supposedly the managing director of.

‘It figures,’ I said to myself. ‘Right here, over this station.’

And a New York bum approached me and enquired whether I might be of a mind to transfer some of my own funds into his possession. He was a rather splendid bum, as it happened, smelling strongly of Thunderbird wine and bodily odours and sporting the wildest hair and beard and the shabbiest clothes I’ve ever seen. What a wretch. It made me feel most superior to encounter such a degraded specimen of humanity.

‘Come on, buddy,’ he said to me. ‘We bums have to look after each other, right?’

‘What?’

‘Knights of the Road, buddy,’ he said. ‘Hobo Chang Ba and all that kind of a carry on.’

‘Hit the road, buddy,’ I told him, ‘or fear the wrath that comes in the shape of a trusty Smith & Wesson.’

‘God damn company man,’ he said. And he spat, as they do, those bums.

‘Company man?’ I said. ‘What of this?’

‘I saw you looking up there at the BAC. I used to work there. I was big in advertising, would have made CEO but for the takeover.’

‘Go on,’ I said. ‘I’m listening.’

‘The company was bought up. A hostile takeover. And not by another advertising company, oh no. Do you know who took over the BAC?’

‘No,’ I said and I shook my head. To indicate that I didn’t.

‘The CIA,’ said the bum. ‘That Keith Crossbar had me sacked. Threw me personally out of my office on the very top floor. Said, “This will do me nicely,” and out I went. He had me thrown down the lift shaft. But luckily the lift was coming up from the floor below so I only broke my back and spent ten years in a coma.’

‘Right,’ I said. And who could say ‘right’ much better than me?

‘Fifty dollars will do me,’ said the bum.

‘Take a hundred,’ I said. And peeled one out of my pocket.

‘God bless you, buddy,’ said the bum. ‘And if there’s anything I can do in return, don’t hesitate to mention it and we can negotiate a price.’

‘There is one thing,’ I said. ‘This here station.’

‘The Subway?’ he said.

‘Oh, that’s what they’re called. The Subway, yes. As a Knight of the Road, I’ll just bet you’d know a way of getting in here. Right?’

And I watched as the colour drained from his dirt-besmirched face. And he threw up his hands and he waved them at me and he grew most animated.

‘You don’t want to go in there, mister,’ he said, dropping the less formal ‘buddy’. ‘Terrible things go on in there. Terrible things. They say a train got walled-up in there in Victorian times and that the descendants of the trapped victims of the walling-up have become cannibals and-’

‘Have to stop you there,’ I told him, ‘but thanks all the same. Farewell.’

And on the understanding that no further largesse was to be granted him, he shuffled away, mumbling words to the effect that he would kill again and that it was God who told him to do it.

And I realised exactly how much I had missed New York while I had been all banged-up in my hospital bed. And I realised that perhaps it wasn’t really that much at all.

And I viewed once more the abandoned Subway station and wondered exactly how I was to gain entry to it. And then what exactly I would do when I had. I really needed some kind of a plan. Or some kind of a something. And I stroked my chin and shuffled my feet and wondered just what it would be. And glancing, as if by chance, across the street, I noticed a shop with a great big sign above it. And this sign read ACME Subterranean Expedition Outfitters and Forcible-Entry Specialists.

‘I wonder if they have a phone?’ I wondered to myself. ‘Then I could phone someone for advice.’

Right.

It was a wonderful shop. Never in my life have I seen a more comprehensive selection of subterranean expedition outfittings. I was particularly impressed by the chrome carabiners, the belay devices, the braided cords, cap lamps, caving helmets, chest harnesses, dry sacs, elbow-patches, dynamic ropes, Maillon Rapide screw links and polyester webbing.

Not to mention the shock-absorbing lanyards and the semi-static ropes and the micro-slim emergency cord.

Which on this occasion I did, because I wanted to buy all of it.

I pointed to this and that and indeed the other and told the proprietor, Mr Ashbury Molesworth, that I would have them. And I purchased a really over-the-top-of-the-range sleeping bag, and some special chocolate that gives you energy. And I also purchased some other stuff!

‘Are you going in deep?’ he asked. In a suitably dark voice.

‘Very possibly so,’ I said. ‘Could you recommend a decent torch?’

And he did. The Astra Multi-Beam one-million-candlepower mega-torch. And also an ACME Ever-Lite Varie-Flame cigarette lighter, to light candles once the battery of the Astra Multi-Beam had given up the ghost.

And I took everything he recommended, including a ukulele, which he said was good for relieving boredom when trapped several hundred feet below the surface of the Earth, with little or no hope of rescue. And Mr Molesworth encouraged me to take a telescope and a 26.5 mm Very flare pistol with a telescopic sight. And although I said that I really couldn’t see the point of taking them on a subterranean journey, he assured me that they might prove to be invaluable. So I took them.

‘I’ll take a spare set of strings for the ukulele, too,’ I said, ‘in case once I’ve fired my flares it takes a really long time for me to starve to death.’

‘Well prepared is best prepared,’ said he. ‘Why, I’m really getting quite excited myself.’

‘Why?’ I asked him. Because I wanted to know.

‘Because,’ he said, ‘you’re English, aren’t you? I can tell by your voice.’

‘I am,’ I said. ‘And that makes you excited?’

‘Not as such. It’s just that you Brits never get the hang of American dollars, so you won’t notice just how much I grossly overcharge you for all this specialist equipment.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Well, you have probably made a fundamental error there, because I have no intention of paying for any of these items. I have a gun in my pocket and shortly will be pointing it at you.’

And oh how we laughed.

Until I produced the gun.

But eventually we came to an arrangement, which involved him selling me the items I required for a fair price, in exchange for me not holding him up at gunpoint and taking everything for nothing.

I remain to this day uncertain as to which of us came out best upon the deal.

But finally I was all togged-up. And all paid-up. And as night was falling, the proprietor all closed-up. And I found myself back in the street.

Although this time perfectly attired and equipped for the task that lay ahead.

To enter Mornington Crescent East (discontinued usage).

Descend from it to the entrance of the lost city beneath.

Enter the lost city and avail myself of whatever there was to avail myself of.

Return to the surface, bearing same.

Defeat and destroy the Homunculus.

Beer at Fangio’s.

Bed.

Done and dusted.

Piece of cake.

And all that kind of caper.

Orpheus descended into the Underworld. He went there to rescue Eurydice, I think, although I never paid as much attention to that particular Greek myth. I liked Odysseus shooting that big arrow into the eye of Polyphemus the Cyclops. And the Gorgon, with all those snakes on her head. And Hercules mucking out the stables. Anything, really, that involved Ray Harryhausen doing the animation. And I wondered, to myself, privately, as I prised open an entry into that long-deserted station, whether, just perhaps, if everything did go well and I did win and everything, I might attain the status of mythic hero and Ray Harryhausen might do the animation for any of the monsters I might encounter. When they made the movie.

Monsters? Now why had I thought that word? I squeezed between boards that I had parted and found myself within. Little light was there to greet me and so I switched on the brand new Astra Multi-Beam and revelled in its million candlepower.

There is something rather special about old deserted stations. Well, old deserted anythings, really. They are redolent with all kinds of things. They are the stuff of memory. There are faded posters and ephemera and ceased-to-be cigarette packets. And the dust has that certain smell and things have made nests. And what once was commonplace is now mysterious and intriguing.

I viewed a crumbling poster that advertised a wartime ersatz cheese, that was manufactured from hand-laundered pine cones. And the word ‘cheese’ made me nostalgic. I thought of Rob and those early days with The Sumerian Kynges. He’d always had this thing about cheese. And I wondered what had happened to him and whether he was even still alive. And I thought of Neil and of Toby and of Andy. And what they would think if they knew that I was here, right now, doing this.

And I shrugged off the sadness that had suddenly descended upon me and shone my torch about a bit more. I was in the concourse of what must once have been quite a substantial station, with marble flooring and etched-glassed ticket booths. And stairs leading down. And I took them.

The torchlight tunnelled ahead of me as I descended those stairs. And my footfalls echoed and I felt very alone. Perhaps, I thought, I should establish a base camp here, get a fire going and bed down for the night. I was very much looking forward to getting into my over-the-top-of-the-range sleeping bag. And that special chocolate that gave you energy sounded particularly tempting.

‘Perhaps a bit further down,’ I told myself. ‘At least as far as the platform. ’

And I continued down and down with the light going on before me.

And it didn’t smell so bad down here. Not nearly as bad as it smelled topside. But then there were no people down here.

No people!

That was it, wasn’t it? That smell. That rancid smell that cloaked New York above. It was the smell of death.

The smell of the dead. The walking dead. How horrid. And the living must have let it creep up on them, more so and more so, without even noticing it.

Very horrid.

The platform formed an elegant arc, tiled in glazed terracotta. There were lamps in the Tiffany style, hanging at intervals. There were more wartime posters, this time for violet wands, which had evidently been in great demand, along with electric enemas and patented pneumatic trusses. Thinking about it, there appeared to have been a very great deal of illness back in the war days, all of which required specific patented equipment of the electrical persuasion to effect all-but-miraculous cures. Most of which plugged in and vibrated. So no change there, then. Boom-boom.

And the sun may well have gone behind a cloud somewhere and a dog may well have howled somewhere else, in the distance, but I was deep down down below, so I was unaware. I also spied upon the wall something that I might not have expected to have seen. To whit, a number of posters advertising the movies of George Formby. It appeared that there had been showings of his movies right here on the platform during the war years. Perhaps to engender some kind of Blitz spirit amongst New Yorkers. To prepare them in case they got theirs, as it were. Which they didn’t, of course, but they might have.

What to do now, though? Wander down a tunnel?

I wasn’t keen on that idea. The friend I mentioned earlier, who had once been in the TA, had also once worked for London Transport, on lifts and escalators. And he told me that it was forbidden for any London Transport sub-ground operative to walk down a tunnel unaccompanied.

‘Because,’ he told me, ‘if you fell over or got knocked down or something, the rats would eat you up.’

So not, perhaps, down the tunnel.

And, ‘So,’ I said to myself, ‘if I was a lost city of gold hereabouts, where would I have my hidden entrance?’

And an answer returned to me in an instant. And hidden this answer was. Because it would be hidden, wouldn’t it? Because if it hadn’t been hidden, then wartime travellers would have stumbled upon it. Wouldn’t they? And I agreed, with myself, that they would.

‘I think that maybe I should establish base camp right here, right now, get a fire going, get into my sleeping bag and eat the special chocolate, was my considered opinion. Finding this city might just take a bit longer than I might have hoped. And it would be best to go about searching for it all bright and fresh.

But do you know what? I didn’t do that. Because many-togged as that sleeping bag might have been and inviting to equally many, I had just spent ten years on my back and had probably had all the sleep I needed for the foreseeable future.

So, press on. But to where?

And now I considered the other stuff. I previously mentioned the other stuff, but only briefly and in passing and was in no way specific or indeed even hinted as to what the other stuff might be. And this I did because I didn’t know whether I would need to use the other stuff or not. And if I wasn’t going to use it, then I didn’t want to get the reader’s hopes up that I might use it, only to dash them down when I didn’t.

But now I considered the other stuff. Because the other stuff might just be the solution to finding the hidden entrance.

And so now I will name the other stuff specifically.

It was manufactured by ACME.

And it was dynamite.

A dozen sticks of it, with fuses.

Well, I couldn’t let dynamite slip by, could I? I mean, how many times in your life have you ever had the chance to let off a stick of dynamite? Probably never, that’s how many.

Dynamite! I divested myself of my multi-denominational rucksack, un-Velcroed the windproof, rainproof coverall top flap and dug down deep into the contents therein and came up with a stick of dynamite. And examined it by torchlight.

Dynamite! A red sealed tube, like in the movies, with a fuse sticking out of one end.

Dynamite! I gave it a little loving stroke.

In all truth, I had been looking for the slightest opportunity to use it. I had even thought of letting off a stick upstairs by the ticket booths, just to see how much damage it would do. But I wisely considered that at ground level it might draw some unwanted attention from passers-by.

But down here…

Dynamite!

‘Calm yourself, Tyler,’ I told myself. ‘It’s only dynamite.’

Only!

But I did calm myself down. And I had a good think. Where should I place this dynamite? Lowest point in the station seemed favourite. But surely I was there now. On the track, then? Sounded good. Whereabouts?

So many questions!

‘Right in the middle,’ I said to myself, and my words echoed up and then down the ancient platform.

I took myself, my rucksack and my torch and my dynamite along that platform until I had reached roughly the middle. And satisfying myself that this was roughly the middle and that I was now having a very exciting time, I laid down my rucksack and shone my super-torch onto the track. A rat scuttled by and I didn’t like that. But I did have the dynamite. So how much to use? How powerful was dynamite? How many seconds would I have to make away to a place of safety once I’d lit the fuse? How far was a place of safety?

Too many questions.

‘In answer to the first question, how much to use,’ I said in a whispery tone, ‘I have twelve sticks, so let’s say, well…’ And I counted on my fingers and made that thinking-face. ‘Six?’ I said. Yes, six sounded like a nice round figure. If there was a lost city below, then six sticks of dynamite should be able to blast a way through to it.

Six it was, then.

I fished out another five. And by the megawatt light of my most excellent torch, bound them together with a length of ACME Patented Climbing Cord. Cut to length with my multi-blade Swiss Army knife.

I got my rucksack back onto my shoulders, then took from my pocket my brand-new ACME Ever-Lite Varie-Flame lighter and thumbed it into flame. I figured that to light just the one fuse would probably be enough. And this I now did. Noting the wonderful fizz as it lit and all the pretty sparks.

And then I tossed the bundle of dynamite sticks down onto the railway track and took to my heels at the hurry-up. And if it was interesting, from a detached point of view, just how fast you can run when pursued by policemen firing guns at you, it was equally, if not more so, interesting to note that you can run even faster when faced with the possibility of being blown to pieces by dynamite.

So to speak.

I legged it up that platform and up those steps and all the way back to the ticket booths above. And I flung myself down into one of those booths and assumed that foetal position Fangio had favoured earlier in the day and I switched off my torch and covered my ears and held my breath and waited.

And I won’t draw things out. I reckon it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds later when that dynamite went off. And it wasn’t deafening where I was, all huddled. But there was a terrific woomph! and a terrible shudder, as of an earthquake starting up. And then there was the dust. And I hadn’t really allowed for the dust. Or given the dust a moment’s thought. Even imagined that there would be any dust.

But that dust came rushing up the stairs and suddenly the darkness was a stifling darkness. A choking darkness. A fatally asphyxiating darkness.

And I coughed and croaked and spluttered in this lung-filling darkness and it was pretty horrible, I can tell you.

And I don’t know whether I passed out or not. But I do recall switching on my torch and finding myself looking like a grey snowman. And having to empty my nostrils and cough up clouds of dust. And then do a lot of manic pattings to restore myself to a measure of sartorial elegance.

‘I must remember in future about the dust,’ I said. In a hoarse and baritone voice. ‘But let’s go and look at the damage.’

And I descended once more to the platform of Mornington Crescent East (discontinued usage). And, shining my torch all around and about, declared that it was a mess.

It was now a most untidy platform, all smothered in great boulders and rocks and everything velvet with dust, and I steered my way between the boulders and rocks to view the epicentre of the concussion.

And shone my torch down into a very large hole indeed.

It was a real humdinger of a hole.

A veritable pit-shaft.

And as I flashed my flashlight down, I thought I discerned amongst gentle twirling risings of dusts a certain degree of twinkling.

And as I looked and as I saw, certain words came to me.

From my memory. Words I had once read in a book about the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. And of how Howard Carter had knocked a small hole through the wall of the tomb and shone his torch inside.

‘What do you see?’ Howard had been asked.

And he said, ‘Wonderful things.’