Nemonymous Night (15 page)

Arthur reminded her of someone she once knew as a child, but she couldn’t now place him as a grown-up. She dreamed of him—much thinner—mixing some foreign substance into her bath of loess treatment. Amy was a similar portrait, except Amy was with another girl called Sudra, and they both fought over a pair of yellow shoes (crazy stuff, dreams!) and Beth couldn’t really differentiate one portrait from another.

Ogdon, the pub-keeper, was always a good friend to Beth. He was still this friend even from within his carefully constructed portrait. Like all the other portraits, it was described at great length with elegant words in a carefully crafted syntax of prose. The semantics were fluid, however. Delightfully so.

Beth woke from the Ogdon portrait with a start. The Drill had just jolted so violently all the light had been sucked from the cabin.

*

All those children who had earlier left the city along with Amy and Arthur—or along with the foreshortened versions of Amy and Arthur as they subsequently turned out to be—were evidently seeking apertures in the earth but carrying out this search without any known conscious reason for so doing.

They had, however, in hindsight, been ‘lie-fixed’ to seek apes for breeding—and these apes were said to live in caves. But that begs the question, how deep can a cave become before it loses its identity as a cave? Even Plato’s Cave was above sea-level. Surely, the deeper a cave becomes the more it approximates a pot-hole. In its turn, the deeper a pot-hole becomes the more it approximates a terrestrial oubliette or unhawlable cache—especially as there is no access from the surface to reach such an oubliette or cache.

On the other hand, the children themselves were, perhaps, apes in the making, having been force-fed some mutant form of
Angevin
to reverse the evolutionary process. History apparently was full of Angevin Apes and they played a large part at the Battle of Agincourt, but exegesis of primary sources (such as excision of any knowledge of the infections brought back to England by Henry The Fifth and his cohorts) has ensured that vital components of the
need
for apes today and what part they played throughout Toynbeean history are now largely forgotten.

Some children, as already hinted, did, however, remain in the city, either variably untouched by the ‘lie-fixer’ or simply too lame to travel far—and these children now ran wild, because many of their previous external authorisers as well as their own self-discipline were so badly dissipated by every attempt to corrupt all levels of society in age, wealth, creed and sanity.

These children often made visits to the now semi-derelict zoo, believing that its reputation remained as a rare area of surface land where dream-clarification and dream-justification were easiest to accomplish, as well as being a reputed seat for zoological learning, with or without implications to any history (alternate or not)... although the latter was not important to the children, even if they had understood it.

John Ogdon, now increasingly at a loose end as a result of his pub lacking customers for ordinary alcohol, also spent some time in the zoo for its dream qualities, but also masquerading, as an excuse for his presence, in the shape of the zoo-keeper, i.e. the Authorities’ last redoubt against civil unrest amid their pretence it was still a proper zoo where law-abiding citizens could spend a relaxing afternoon as well as learn about Natural History or Zoological Biodiversity.

Ogdon had now ‘come out’ (to the surprise of every onlooker) as a cross-dresser, strutting as he now did amongst the cages and enclosures in high-heels and a beige frock. The children called him ‘Hilda’.

Crazy Lope was now rarely seen, except, in Ogdon’s absence, when it suited him to turn up in his cape and scare the children with his antics. It was believed that a few dark myths such as those depicted in old Nursery Rhymes were a vital factor in a child’s upbringing, and Crazy Lope was pleased to fulfil such a role. All light and brightness make Jack a dull soul, as the saying goes.

One day, a clutch of these residual children (now much thinner because of various imposed dietary factors combined with the ill-sustenance that general scavenging in the city enforced) turned up at the zoo for a desultory kickaround. The first enclosure was, as ever, empty. The cages and enclosures further into the real meat of the zoo were still no doubt at least partially inhabited by exhibits because they were fed by certain nightly manoeuvres of metabolism and airfly—but very few grown-ups went to check and any such remaining exhibits had inevitably become hearsay, as the children said they didn’t know or deliberately didn’t say anything at all. It was rumoured that the zoo’s many birds had died, claws-up on the cage floors... except for one giant creamy-white poultry-thing that gradually bloated as if its claw-ends had rooted themselves into the ground (via the riven cage-floor) like a massive feathered plant-thing feeding off some unfathomable nourishment. It deeply chirped, but eventually it was mostly silent, still pulsing with some form of dubious existence.

The children—for whatever reason—usually played football around the outside of the ‘empty’ enclosure which had once been assumed (at least in one of the interpretations) to exhibit barely visible insect-life. On the day in question, one child took his eye momentarily off the ball and pointed excitedly at the scrubby soil in the enclosure.

“What are those?”

The others peered over the enclosure’s barrier and gasped. Scattered all over the ground, within the enclosure, were what seemed to be hundreds of discarded toys. Clockwork ones, some budging slightly as if they had been insufficiently wound up. At a closer scrutiny, some were actually trying to burrow into the ground, making a very bad job of covering themselves for dignity’s sake—showing, perhaps, that they thought themselves to be little better than catmuck.

As Ogdon later determined (on his tour of duty as zoo-keeper), the contraptions had indeed been a multitude of mini-Drills complete with gossamer vanes on their backs, each attempting—with some difficulty—to penetrate the hardened zoo floor. Meanwhile, in real time, the children were about to climb over the barrier to double-check the nature of what they still thought to be toys, toys with what one of them described as ‘cockpits’, but another child interrupted with a shout:

“It’s Lope! Scram!”

Crazy himself turned into the zoo, intent upon becoming the children’s routine nightmare of the day.

They scattered and vanished into all corners of the zoo, before gathering together instinctively like a flock of migratory birds, only to escape screaming with fright (or joy) by means of the now untenanted exit turnstile.

*

Later, Ogdon, still in full female regalia, was tripping the light fantastic down one of the city streets. Even at these darkest times, people like him shaped up larger-than-life and became a bigger-hearted version of themselves simply to face out the creeping dangers that the world supplied in the form of night plagues, dream terrorists or simple lunatics.

He spotted an evidently off-duty double-decker bus trying to park neatly outside a block of flats and he admired the preservation of such civilised standards even in these outlandish times. The vehicle was having some difficulty because a mini-tipster dumper overlapped the bus’s usual allotted white-lined space alongside the pavement. Suddenly diverted, Ogdon stooped toward the sidewalk where he had spotted some feathery fur sprouting like white mould through the cracks between the paving-slabs, threatening to ooze further up and carpet the world with warm tessellated under-precipitation. He stooped lower to stroke it as if he felt he was in touch with something of which he was fond but would never begin to understand.
Never eat yellow snow
, was an army expression. It meant more now than ever, as he saw the mould grow mouldier.

Meanwhile, the bus had managed to budge the mini-tipster from its clamped spiky plinth into the kerbside gutter like a clumsily sizeable unwound toy. But, at that moment, a large explosion sounded from the Moorish quarter of the city and Ogdon found himself running with several others to see if he could aid the maimed and the dead.

*

The real ‘Beth’s husband’ was now late-labelled Dognahnyi: perhaps one denemonisation too far, but he was still interviewing the new recruit (following the revelation) in his pent-house, the log fire glistening off the Rubens like neutered indoor-fireworks.

Dognahnyi
(an early worm in any conversation): Have you managed to fix your dreams yet?

Recruit
(still veiled, speaking Welsh-prettily, if semi-nasally): Fixed them, yes—or so I thought—but last night someone told me or I dreamed that someone told me that they had a dream recently of a foreign body torpedoing itself into their tower office-block. You know the one—the block round the corner from here with a roof garden and a complicated lift system that books on architecture often write about.

D
: Yes, I know the one you mean. Where our man once worked when he was still a ‘sleeping’ hawler. I presume the torpedo thing came from the dream terrorists.

R
: I suppose so—but it wasn’t the classic jet-liner attack—it was a replica of the tower-block itself coming in at an abrupt angle and sticking itself like a pig about two-thirds of the way up.

D
: Hmmm…that’s interesting. I think if you have dreams or dreams of dreams like that, we can certainly use your skills for furthering the hawling process everywhere.

R
(smiling beneath the veil): Thank you.

D
(walking over to the curtains on silent runners making as if to open them): Out there are many situations that need fixing.

R
: I know.

D
: Such as that tower block—as you’ve just suggested—being attacked from the sky by itself! A very good example, that one is.

R
: I believe you.

At that point, she slowly removed her veil.

*

Mike sat upon a ledge in the downward tunnel—just beyond the point where the hedge petered out together with a tapering into horizontality of a new tunnel—or a
perceived
horizontality from the perspective of the in-built sextant in this underground world and its effect on the brain’s balance.

The hedge itself had tended to prevent dangerous free-fall but, equally, had not hindered their nude scaling-down to this point in the earth’s interior.

Mike was pleased that it was now slightly more ‘civilised’ at this juncture of his party’s journey. The stick-like ‘hares’ or decoys were indeed now fully absorbed into the Amyness and Arthurness of two among them. The group had grown somewhat, but the main constituents were still the main constituents.

Furthermore, there was now a service tunnel parallel with their own tunnel of concourse—and this service tunnel was complete with pulleys and ropes, passing clanking buckets to the surface from the Core itself. He readily assumed all was part and parcel of some quite complicated hawling-process which he was due to oversee, once his training was complete. And, surprisingly (but, in hindsight, not surprisingly), there were warm clothes waiting for them at this crossover point in the tunnel systems. Indeed, this must be an official root-exchange, whereby Mike now realised that all other approaches or ‘attacks’ towards the centre (such as the many Drill companies he had heard about) were quite
unofficial
or simply subterfuges.

He had heard earlier rumours that the immediate surrounding area of the Core was populated by a set of creatures known as Carpet Apes who tended to the necessary ablutions of the Megazanthus (one of the names which Mike was aware had been given to the Corekeeper)—and that the marginal ‘land’ around the Core itself was the legendary Agra Aska... but the facts were still uncertain even if the non-facts were now clearer.

However, the Carpet Apes (so-called) were probably a false assumption or, at best, an unfixed dream. He looked down at the coat with which he (and the others) had been supplied: a stiffish, ankle-length carpetty thing with simple arm apertures. At first it was uncomfortable to walk about in but one soon grew accustomed to its combination of warmth and bodily support. He had not yet questioned the fact that the nearer the Core they travelled, the colder it was becoming, despite history saying such a process should mean that you were approaching a molten heat centre.

He looked at the others—Susan, Sudra, Amy, Arthur etc.—in their carpet coats and he somehow knew whence the legend of the Carpet Apes must have derived—and he laughed at the antics of the others. One of them was doing a puppet-like jig in his or her stiffened coat and it was terribly funny. Apeish. Mike felt cheered.

Yet Mike questioned himself. He realised he was a hawler—always realised this perhaps—but now he knew it wasn’t because he had previously been a hawler, but because he was about to become one. Self-identification by an as yet unproved anticipation was a dream-fixing he needed to address. It all seemed a very unsteady grounding for a vocation or a raison-d’etre. Mike shrugged and peered at his step-daughter Sudra as she now began to practise walking in her carpet coat. She took delight to tease him with her imputed beautiful body hidden beneath the dumpy beige covering and the ungainly yellow clod-hoppers on her feet—clogs, in fact, that were on all their feet. The thin effulgence of the previous hedge tunnel had given Mike few glimpses of her nudity…

He shook his head to himself. He should not be having such thoughts about a step-daughter, should he? He was a hawler, he knew. Yet a flawed hawler. He suddenly stopped laughing.
Later: Stub of pencil writes: Amy complains that readers have lost sight of who she is!

*

In the days before the sudden jolt had stolen the light from Beth’s cabin in the Drill, Greg and a few other nebulous businessmen were entertained by Captain Nemo in the corporate lounge, a select area on board that boasted viewing-windows close to the leading-edge of the bit-tip. The proceedings were a combination of a scientific lecture upon what they were seeing and pure holiday entertainment, all laced with cocktails.