The Demi-Monde: Winter (19 page)

‘Is yous trying to bribe me?’ asked the Sergeant disdainfully. ‘

Yes,’ confirmed Vanka as he added a second five-guinea note to the first.

‘Then look here, I am a member of the Checkya and we’s …’

In desperation Ella reached out and grabbed the Sergeant’s hand. ‘Please … Sergeant Stone … I implore you …’

‘‘Ere, ‘ow do you know my name?’

Fuck!

Thank you, PINC!

That was the problem with knowing everything about everybody: she had to remember what she shouldn’t know about somebody.

Or something like that.

Swallowing hard, Ella tried desperately to think of a way out. There was only one thing for it. ‘I know your name because I’m a clairvoyant, Sergeant. My abilities allow me to commune with any man or woman I meet and to know their innermost secrets.’

The Sergeant eyed her suspiciously. ‘That right?’

‘Yes, Sergeant, perfectly right. If you really want to know what fate holds in store for you, why don’t you take up the Colonel’s kind offer of those tickets and come along to see us at the Prancing Pig?’

‘Very kind ov you, I am sure, Miss. But that does not alter the fact that yous a Shade and your identity papers state yours racial type to be Grade One: Anglo-Slavic and this being the case I ‘ave no alternative but to …’

‘I’ll make sure there are two tickets waiting for you; you will, after all, be accompanied by Arthur.’

The Sergeant eyed Ella carefully. ‘‘Ere … wot do you know about Arthur?’

‘Everything,’ said Ella, the single word replete with ominous meaning.

The Sergeant’s face blanched. ‘But … you won’t be saying nuffink to nobody about Arthur, now will you?’

‘My lips are sealed, Sergeant. If you forget all about having met me, then your wife and your superiors will never hear about Arthur.’ Ella touched the sleeve of Sergeant Stone’s black uniform. ‘And we both know how severe Vice-Leader Beria is regarding members of the Checkya engaging in zadnik-like activities, don’t we, Sergeant?’

‘How …?’ began Vanka as he watched the bemused Checkya Sergeant shuffle, with a couple of worried backward glances and ten guineas of Vanka’s money in his pocket, out of the coffee house.

‘You first, Vanka. How did you pull that stunt with the papers?’

Vanka shrugged dismissively. ‘Nothing to it. I knew there was a chance that the Checkya would start checking papers so I found the girl in the crowd that was the closest match to you in terms of age and hair colour and lifted her papers. Of course she was a Blank, but in the circumstances it was the best I could do. There aren’t that many Shades in the ForthRight.’

Ella bridled at the use of the word ‘Shade’ but decided to let it roll. After all, the man had just saved her life.

‘I substituted them for yours while we were walking into this place,’ explained Vanka as he drained his coffee and then grimaced. ‘Foul,’ he mumbled, dabbing his lips with his napkin.

‘Amazing: you must be a very accomplished pickpocket, Vanka.’

He chuckled. ‘All stage magicians – close-up magicians, that is – are good with their hands. If you can’t palm things then you’ve no right calling yourself a magician.’ His gaze settled on Ella and his face took on a more serious cast. ‘Now it’s your turn, and make it good.’

‘I have special powers, Vanka. I know about people.’

‘What? You’re telling me that you’re a real clairvoyant?’

‘Exactly. Please don’t ask me how, but I have an instinctive knowledge about everybody I meet in the Demi-Monde. It seems that the closer I am to them the more powerful my reading becomes and if I touch them …’

‘Oh, fiddlesticks. Don’t try and gull me, young lady. Come on, admit it, you already knew this Sergeant Stone, didn’t you? Maybe he’s interviewed you before, maybe you saw his name somewhere on his uniform.’

‘Then how did I know about Arthur?’

‘A lucky guess. Arthur is a pretty common name. Maybe he had it engraved on his watch-chain or something.’

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Vanka, but there was no lucky guessing and no engraved watch-chain, just insight.’

‘Twaddle. Look, Miss Thomas, I’ve been around the DemiMonde too long to believe in this sort of nonsense. Maybe Crowley and his sorcerers are the real magicians they claim to be, but for my part I’ve never seen anything magical about the Demi-Monde.’

‘But aren’t you a Licensed Psychic and Occultist? So you must have powers.’

Vanka looked around the coffee shop to make sure no one was eavesdropping on their conversation, then leant closer to Ella. ‘As you so rightly observed, Miss Thomas, Spiritualism is just flimflam. It’s Party-inspired sleight of hand to have people believe that there is some point in enduring the sorry excuse of a life they have here in the ForthRight. All Spiritualism does is give the poor and gullible the belief that their horrible, mundane, painful lives are not meaningless and random, that there is some purpose to human existence, that there is a better life after death. So don’t tell me you’re a medium or a clairvoyant or a bloody
sensitive, Miss Thomas, because I can’t – I won’t – believe you.’

‘What you will or won’t believe, Vanka, is immaterial. The fact remains that I have such powers.’

‘Very well, tell me about me. Give me some insight about myself that only I could know.’

Ella shook her head. ‘I can’t. I don’t know why but I can’t read you. You’re a mystery to me.’

‘Hah! Typical.’

‘Ask me something else. Ask me something about Burlesque Bandstand. When I shook his hand I learnt everything there was to learn about him, and some of it, I freely admit, was bloody disgusting. The man is a walking bag of corruption.’

‘All right, Burlesque had a fling with someone, just before Winter set in. He kept it very hush-hush. So who was it?’

‘Oh, that’s easy. Burlesque Bandstand and Julie the Jug Juggler were an item for nearly two weeks. Burlesque got quite spoony over her. He really liked her jugs.’

Vanka’s face took on an expression a little like the one on the face of a cat who had been presented with a very large bowl of cream. ‘Now that is amazing. I thought I was the only one who knew about Julie.’ He fell silent, lighting one of the pungent French cigarettes he favoured. She was about to object when she noticed that virtually all the other men in the café were smoking. Puffing contentedly on his cigarette, Vanka studied Ella carefully. ‘Maybe, Miss Thomas, I might be able to do a bit better than three guineas a séance.’

The two-year Civil War which beset Rodina and the Rookeries between 1000 and 1002 (‘the Troubles’) saw the revolutionary forces of UnFunDaMentalism – led by that visionary genius Reinhard Heydrich – triumph over the Royalist faction fighting in support of Henry Tudor and Ivan Grozny. With the establishment of the ForthRight on the 40th day of Winter 1002, all religions other than UnFunDaMentalism were banned and those religious dissidents and counter-revolutionaries who failed to secure refuge in neighbouring Sectors were executed. All UnderMentionables were declared nonNix and relocated to Warsaw, where they are held pending a ‘Final Solution’ being found to the problems they pose. The victory of the Party over the reactionary, atheistic forces of RaTionalism during the Troubles is a vindication of the belief that ABBA is on the side of UnFunDaMentalism.

– With ABBA on Our Side: The Final Victory of the Revolution in the ForthRight: Lavrentii Beria, Party Rules Publications

Trixie gazed in a disinterested way over the Manor’s ruined garden that stretched so forlornly beyond her bedroom window. Fortunately for her – and the sensibilities of the Dashwoods’
head gardener – the garden wasn’t at its worst: it had snowed heavily during the night and the white covering conspired to make the earthworks and the gun positions look almost attractive. But she knew it was a transient beauty that would be destroyed just as soon as the Checkya detachment roused themselves, shook off the indolence caused by a cold night spent under canvas and began patrolling and marching in earnest. Then the pure white snow would be churned to a disgusting khaki colour.

She glanced at the grandfather clock ticking away in the corner of the room: it was still not yet seven o’clock.

For Trixie this was the perfect time of the day. It was the only time when she could be alone and untroubled, the only time when she was free of the obligation to ‘do something’ about or with the Daemon, when she could stop worrying.

A movement at the side of the house caught her attention. She scrubbed the window free of the ice that had formed on the inside of the glass overnight. What she saw irritated her: Captain Dabrowski and the Daemon were taking their early morning constitutional. Every morning since it had been a guest in the Dashwoods’ house the Daemon had insisted on being allowed to walk around the gardens for half an hour, and as it was unthinkable that the creature would be allowed to do this unguarded, the Polish Captain had been given the task of accompanying it. To Trixie’s mind there should also have been an older gentlewoman accompanying the pair to act as chaperone, but, as they walked in full view of the house and as this Norma Williams creature wasn’t a real girl, etiquette had been abandoned.

As she watched, the Daemon stumbled – it was using a walking stick: apparently it had injured its leg when attempting to escape the SS – and held out a hand to grab the Captain’s
arm. It was an obvious piece of coquettish dalliance and Trixie was aghast that the Captain would be so naïve as to fall for it. The Daemon, it seemed, was not above using its faux-feminine wiles to have the Captain forget she – it – was an Enemy of the ForthRight. Trixie gave a disdainful sniff, picked up the journal she had been keeping regarding the Daemon and made a note in her large, precise handwriting.

Daemon enjoys early morning constitutional with Captain Dabrowski, commencing 06.27 and ending …

She checked back through the journal: the pair’s walks were becoming longer and they were certainly talking more during them. During the first few days of the Daemon’s stay the couple had hardly exchanged two sentences when they made their promenades, but now they seemed to converse non-stop.

It had been a real puzzle for Trixie to understand what they could find to talk about. Her own attempts to chat with the Daemon had been rebuffed in a most impolite manner. It had said that it would under no circumstances answer questions regarding where it had come from and what it was like there. It would not, the Daemon had said sternly, act as a quisling. Trixie had no idea what a quisling was but it sounded quite revolting.

As a consequence their time together – and they were obliged to endure ten hours a day in each other’s company – was spent with Trixie sewing and the Daemon reading. Daemons, it appeared, were avaricious readers. That was another thing to note in her journal.

In the end, taking her pride in both hands, Trixie had sought Captain Dabrowski’s advice regarding possible subjects of conversation. He had smiled that aggravatingly condescending
smile of his and said that he simply let the Daemon ask him questions. The Daemon, it seemed, had an unquenchable thirst for information about the Demi-Monde.

‘But how does that help our understanding of it?’ Trixie had asked.

‘Quite a lot, in an indirect sort of way,’ the Captain had replied. ‘The questions it asks me give an indication of what the Daemon is interested in and the extent of its knowledge of the Demi-Monde. When it interrogates me its main topics of enquiry relate to the functioning of the Demi-Monde …’

Maybe all Daemons are RaTionalists? Trixie had wondered, but as RaTionalists denied the existence of a Spirit World from which the Daemons like this one supposedly came, this was a contradiction in terms.

‘… and the role of women in the running of the ForthRight.’

That, Trixie decided, must make for a short conversation. The role of women in the running of the ForthRight was precisely nil.

‘And what have you gleaned from these question-and-answer sessions, Captain?’

‘That the Daemon is perplexed that we in the ForthRight are content to live in what it calls a “totalitarian regime” and that it is disgusted that women here are so “disenfranchised”.’

Although it would never do to admit it openly, Trixie knew what the word ‘disenfranchised’ meant: overcoming women’s disenfranchisement was the watchword – the rather too long watchword in Trixie’s view – of the Suffer-O-Gettes. Neverthe-less she thanked the Captain when he defined the word for her; in the company of ‘outsiders’ she had, after all, to play the dutiful and politically correct young woman of breeding. RaTionalism was a dangerous belief for a ForthRight woman.

According to the Captain the Daemon thought that everybody,
both men and women, should have a say in the running of the ForthRight, that the Leader should be elected by the adult population of the two Sectors. The Daemon called this ‘democracy’.

To Trixie’s mind this was a ridiculous idea. Nowhere in the Demi-Monde (except, perhaps, in the nuJu Districts, and everybody knew nuJus were naturally perverse creatures) had there been a challenge to the concept that the Sectors should be ruled by a Leader, who by dint of his – and more often than not it was a ‘his’ – genius and energy rose through political osmosis above the rest of the population. Certainly in the ForthRight and NoirVille they embraced a more primitive notion that their leaders were, somehow, ABBA-ordained, but the concept was the same, as was their belief that the success and the well-being of a Sector’s citizens rested on the shoulders of the man who led them.

Trixie had shaken her head. ‘But surely under this democracy of the Daemon’s anyone could be Leader … even men who are unsuited to lead. All that democracy would result in is a Sector being led by someone who is not up to the job. As Comrade Leader Heydrich says, great men are the rarest thing that can be found in the Demi-Monde, and they certainly are not a thing to be discovered by the haphazard voting of the hoi polloi.’

‘Oh, I agree with you, Lady Trixiebell, the idea is outrageous,’ the Captain replied, ‘but the very fact that the Daemon asks about it gives us an indication of how the Spirit World functions.’