Waiting for Godalming (2 page)

Stravino took up his electric clippers, held them close by his ear, thumbed the power and savoured the purr.

Icarus snaked his hand around behind his seat and sought out the brown envelope. There are many traditions and old charters and somethings attached to the barbering trade. The brown envelope is one of these, but one which few men know.

In the days before the Internet and the invention of the video, the days in fact in which this tale is set, there was little to be found in the way of real pornography. There was
Tit Bits
and
Parade
and the first incarnation of
Playboy
magazine, which was far too expensive to buy and always kept on the top shelf of the newsagent’s. But there was only one place where you could view real pornography. Real genuine down-to-business smut. And that was in the barber’s shop.

And that was in the brown envelope.

Today things are different, of course. Today the discerning buyer can purchase a specialist magazine dedicated to his (or her) particular whimsy in almost any supermarket.

But way back when, in the then which is the now of our telling (so to speak), there was only the brown envelope.

Icarus peeled back the flap and emptied the contents of the brown envelope onto his lap. There were four new photographs this week. The first was of two Egyptian women and a Shetland pony. The second was of two blokes from Tottenham (who can tie a knot’n’em). The third showed a midget with a tattooed dong and the fourth a loving couple “taking tea with the parson”.

A musician by the name of Cox would one day write a song about the first three. He would sadly die in a freak accident whilst trying to engage in the fourth.

Icarus perused the photographs, but found little in them to interest him. Cormerant glimpsed the photographs and turned his face away. Icarus became aware of Cormerant’s most distinctive watch fob.

“Babies,” said Stravino, his clippers purring towards the crown of the captain’s head. “What do you think about babies, then?”

“I don’t,” said the captain. “Why should I?”

“You can’t trust them,” said Stravino. “They pee in your eye when you’re changing their nappies. And do you know why that is?”

“I don’t,” the captain said.

“Ancestral voices,” said Stravino. “All that gurgling they do. That’s not gurgling. That’s an ancestral tongue. You have to keep babies apart, you can’t let them chat, there’s no telling what they might plot amongst themselves.”

“Twins plot,” said the captain.

“Exactly,” said Stravino. “Because they were together as babies. Twins are all weirdies, deny that if you can.”

“I can’t,” said the captain. “I have a twin sister.”

“And she’s a weirdie?”

“No, she’s a unisex hair stylist.”

“I spit on those, whatever they are,” said Stravino. “And also I spit upon architects. They will be the death of us all.”

“Because they design blocks of flats? Ouch!”

“Sorry,” said Stravino. “I just took a little off your ear then. But not enough to affect the hearing. But blocks of flats, did you say? Well, that’s right, but it’s not for why you think.”

“How do you know what I think?” the captain asked.

“I interpret,” said the Greek. “But answer me this. Why do you think the world has all gone potty mad today? Why are people all stony bonker and devil take their hindparts? Answer this.”

“A lack of discipline,” the soldier in the captain said. “Or a lack of hope,” the man inside the soldier added.

“No no no.” Stravino hung his electric clippers on their hook, took up a cut-throat and gave it a strop. “It’s the houses,” said he. “And I am a Greek, so I know what I say. The Greeks were famous throughout the old world for their classical architecture. Am I right or am I barking up a gum tree?”

“The Greeks were famous for many things,” said the captain, peering ruefully at the reflection of his ruined right ear.

“I put the styptic pencil on that,” said the Greek. “But many things, you’re right as tenpence there.”

“Notable shirtlifters,” said the captain. “Their armies had platoons of them. No offence meant, of course.”

“And none taken, I assure you. But when they weren’t lifting each other’s shirts, they were building great temples and amphitheatres and harbours and hippodromes,”

“Hippodromes?” said the captain. “The Greeks built music halls?”

“Race courses,” said Stravino, now taking up a shaving brush and lathering the captain’s head. “
Hippos
means horse in Greek.
Dromos
means race. Did they teach you nothing at Sandringham?”

“Sandhurst,” said the captain. “But where is all this leading?”

“Architecture, like I say. It is all in the proportions of the buildings. The size and shape of the rooms. You go in some houses, you feel good. Others and you feel bad. Why is that? Don’t tell me why, because
I
tell
you
. The proportions of the rooms. The rooms are wrong, the people in them go wrong. People need the right sized spaces around them where they live.”

“There might be something in what you say,” said the captain.

“More than you know,” said Stravino, now applying his cutthroat. “And babies are little, so to them all rooms are big. Deny that if you please.”

Cormerant opened his mouth and spoke. “I have an urgent appointment,” said he. “Will I be kept much longer?”

“Do you eat out?” the barber enquired.

Cormerant made the face that says, “Eh?”

“Do you insult the chef before your soup is served? The chef he spit in your soup, I’ll wager. I not care to dine with you.”

“Eh?” said Cormerant. “What?”

“Look at this poor soul,” said Stravino, pointing to the captain in the chair. “This man is my friend, but by the caprice of fate, he has all but lost an ear. Think what might befall the man who hurries up his barber.”

“I think perhaps I’ll come back another day.”

“No no,” said the Greek. “I’m all done now.” And he wiped away the shaving foam and dusted down the Velocette and hummed a tune and smacked his lips and then said, “What do you think?”

Captain Drayton stared at his reflection. His stare became a gawp and his gawp became a slack-jawed horror-struck stare. Of his hair little remained but for an unruly topknot.

“But,” went the captain, “but …”

“But?” asked Stravino.

“But,” the captain went once more, “you said a Ramón Navarro. Ramón Navarro doesn’t have his hair cut like that.”

“He does if he comes in here,” said Stravino. “Two and sixpence please.”

Cormerant declined the offer to become the next in the barber’s chair. He left the establishment in a fluster and a hurry. He dropped his bowler hat and he tripped upon the outstretched feet of Icarus Smith and fell down on the floor amongst the clippings and the fluff. Icarus helped him up and dusted him off and opened the door and all. Cormerant hailed a passing cab and Cormerant was gone.

Icarus Smith did not have a Tony Curtis that day. He left Stravino’s only moments after the departure of Cormerant. Some might say, when the coast was clear. But then some might say anything.

Some might for instance say that it was yet another caprice of fate that Mr Cormerant tripped. And some might say that his watch and his wallet fell into the hands of Icarus Smith by accident. And some might say that Icarus took up the black briefcase that Mr Cormerant had inadvertently left behind in the confusion in order to run after him and return it. Along with the wallet and the watch of course. And the most distinctive watch fob.

Some might say any or all of these things.

But then some might say anything.

Icarus Smith took an early lunch at the Station Hotel. It is popularly agreed that there is no such thing as a free lunch. But Icarus did not pay for his. The barman, who now wore a most distinctive watch fob, gave Icarus a double helping of mashed potatoes and told him that everything was “on the house”.

An understanding existed between Icarus and the barman. The bar and grill of the Station Hotel was a study in scarlet. The rooms were high-ceilinged and broadly proportioned and would have found favour with Stravino. Long, net-curtained windows looked to the station, where the great steam engines came and went, the mighty King’s Class locomotives with their burnished bits and bobs. Icarus sat down at a window table, recently vacated by a stockbroker’s clerk, and stared wistfully out through the net curtaining to view a passing train.

There were few men alive who were not stirred by steam and Icarus had long harboured a secret ambition to relocate an engine. Exactly to where, and for why, he did not as yet know. And though the thought of it thrilled him, it terrorized him too. His grandfather had been an engineer on the Great Northern Railway and had lost a thumb beneath the wheels of
The City of Truro
. Icarus prized his digits, but a man must dream his dreams. And if this man be the chosen one, these dreams are no small matter.

Having concluded his early repast and washed it down with a pint of Large and a brandy on the house, Icarus placed the black briefcase upon the table before him and applied his thumbs to the locks. The locks were locked.

Having assured himself that he was unobserved, Icarus removed from his pocket a small roll of tools and from this the appropriate item. It was but the work of a moment or two. Which is one moment more than one less.

The locks snapped open and Icarus returned the item to the roll, and the roll to his pocket.

He was just on the point of opening the briefcase when a hand slammed down upon it.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” said the owner of the hand.

Icarus looked up and made the face that horror brings.

“Chief Inspector Charlie Milverton,” said he, in a wavery quavery voice. “My old Nemesis.”

“I have you bang to rights this time, laddo.”

Icarus held up his hands in surrender. “It’s a fair cop, guv’nor,” he said. “Slap the bracelets on and bung me in the Black Maria.”

“One day it will come to that, you know.” The chief inspector grinned and winked and sat himself down at the table next to Icarus. For he was in truth no policeman at all, but the bestest friend Icarus had.

Friend Bob.

Friend Bob was a tall and angular fellow, all cheekbones and pointy knees and elbows. In fact, he looked exactly the way a bestest friend should look. Even down to that curious thing that fits through the lobe of the left ear and that business with the teeth. So no further description is necessary here.

“Watchamate, Icky-boy,” said Friend Bob.

“All right, Bob-m’-son,” said Icarus Smith.

“You’re losing your touch, you know. Opening up a stolen briefcase in a bar.”

“The briefcase is mine,” said Icarus Smith.

“With the corner up,
[2]
it is.”

“Temporarily mine, then.”

“That’s a bit more like it.”

Icarus smiled upon Friend Bob, and Friend Bob smiled back at him, doing that business with the teeth. Although they had known each other since their schooldays at the Abbey Grange and were as close as best friends could be, it had to be said that Friend Bob did not wholly approve of Icarus Smith. He knew well enough that Icarus did not consider himself to be a thief. But he also knew that Icarus was alone in this particular consideration and that it was only a matter of time before the law’s long arm reached out and took him in its horny hand. Friend Bob hoped that by subtle means he might one day persuade Icarus as to the error of his ways.

Icarus Smith, in his turn, hoped that one day he might convert Friend Bob to the holy crusade of relocation. And, after all, if you wish to relocate a steam engine, it takes two. One to drive the blighter and the other to shovel the coal. And Friend Bob, felt Icarus, was a natural shoveller.

“What are you doing here?” asked Icarus Smith.

“Working,” said Friend Bob. “I am the new washroom attendant.”

“Well, you are a natural shoveller.”

“It’s an
honest
living.”

“And the pay?”

“There’s room for some improvement there.” Friend Bob fingered his left earlobe.

“You could always work with me.”

“I think not.” Friend Bob smiled. “So how are things with you?” he asked. “How’s the family? How’s your brother?”

“Still barking mad. He thinks he’s a detective.”

“You’d better watch out that he doesn’t arrest you, then.”

Icarus drummed his fingers on the briefcase. “Tell me, Friend Bob,” said he. “If you could be anything you wanted to be in this world, what would that thing be?”

“You know perfectly well what it would be. I would become a successful artist. Famous throughout the land.”

Icarus nodded. “But you don’t feel that your total lack of artistic skill might prove a handicap in this?”

“A considerable handicap,” agreed Friend Bob. “But a man must dream his dreams.”

“Indeed.” There was a moment of intimate silence, each man alone with his thoughts and his dreams.

“So,” said Friend Bob, when he had done with silence. “What do you have in
your
briefcase?”

“Let’s have a look, shall we?” Icarus lifted the lid of the case.

“Urgh,” went Friend Bob, peering in. “Leather underpants, you pervert.”

“You are, as ever, the wag. Have you eaten your lunch yet? There are some sandwiches in here.”

“I have no wish to munch upon sandwiches that have been hobnobbing with a pervert’s knickers, thank you very much.”

“Hello, what’s this?”

“What’s what?”

“This.” Icarus lifted from the briefcase a small dark electronic doo-dad. “Transistor radio, I think.”

“It’s a Dictaphone,” said Friend Bob, who had a love for all things electrical. “You can record your voice on that. Here, I’ll show you how.”

Friend Bob took the Dictaphone, held it up to his mouth and pressed a little button.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!” went the Dictaphone.

“Aaaaaaaaagh!” went Friend Bob, flinging it back into the briefcase.

“Surely that’s the wrong way round,” said Icarus. “I thought
you
were supposed to record on to
it
.”

“I pressed the playback button by mistake, you twat.”

Icarus now took up the Dictaphone, tinkered with the volume control and then pressed the playback button.

“No,” screamed a voice of a lesser volume. “No more pain. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

“Oh shirt!” said Friend Bob, whose mother had told him not to swear. “It’s someone being tortured.”

“Leather pants in the case,” said Icarus. “Probably just some recreational activity. Shall we hear a bit more?”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”

“Come on now, what harm can it do?”

Icarus fingered the button once more. A new voice said, “Tell me all about the drug.”

“It’s drugs.” Friend Bob flapped his elongated hands about. “It’s gangsters. I’m off.”

“It’s probably just a TV programme, or a radio play, or something.”

“Or something. Whatever it is, I’ve heard enough. I don’t want to get involved. Return the case to its owner, Icarus, please.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“It will end in tears.”

“Let’s hear a little more.”

“Fug that.” Friend Bob lifted his angular frame from the seat next to Icarus Smith. “I have tiles to polish. I will bid you farewell.”

“Are you coming to the Three Gables tonight? Johnny G’s playing.”

“I’ll be there. But listen, just dump the briefcase, eh? Leather pants and tortured souls are not a healthy combination.”

Friend Bob turned upon his heel and had it away on his toes.

Icarus sat and considered the Dictaphone. He turned the volume down a bit more and held the thing to his ear.

“What drug?” came the voice of the tortured soul.

“Red Head,” said the other voice.

“Red Head?” whispered Icarus Smith. “What kind of drug is that?”

There came a crackling sound from the Dictaphone, followed by another “Aaaaaagh!” and a “Stop, please stop, I’ll tell you everything.”

And Icarus listened while the tortured soul told everything. And as Icarus listened, his face became pale and his hands began to tremble.

For what Icarus heard was this and it bothered him more than a little.

“Tell me all about Red Head,” said the other voice. “How did you come up with the formula?”

“From the flowers. It was the flowers that showed me the way.”

“Are you trying to be funny?” said the other voice.

“No. I’m telling you all the truth. And I have to tell someone. I’ll go mad if I don’t.”

“Just tell it all from the beginning then.”

“All right. As you know I worked for the Ministry of Serendipity. On the A.I. project. Artificial intelligence. The thinking computer. Rubbish, all of it. But we didn’t know it then.”

“Why is it rubbish?”

“Just listen to what I’m telling you. From the beginning, OK?”

“OK.”

“I worked on the project with Professor John Garrideb. He was one of three brothers, all of them something in mathematics. John was always convinced that we’d make the big breakthrough. But when we did, when
I
did, it wasn’t the way we expected and it’s my fault, what happened to him, which is why I’m telling you this.

“We worked on the project for twenty-two months, but like I say we were getting nowhere and we kept getting all these directives from above, saying that our work was in the National Interest and we should hurry ourselves up and that other governments were ahead of ours and all the rest of it. And we were working really long hours and I took to drinking a bit in the evenings. And then a bit more and then a bit too much.

“And one night I left the Ministry and went home on the special train from Mornington Crescent and got off at the wrong stop. And I found myself in Brentford and I fell down on the floral clock in the Memorial Park and that was when it came to me.

“I had a sort of revelation. It was all to do with the flowers on the floral clock. It was well after midnight and as I lay there I noticed that all the flowers were still awake. They had their petals open. And I thought that’s a bit odd and then I saw the floodlights. They’re on all night, you see, to illuminate the clock and because they’re on all night the flowers stay open. The flowers never sleep. The flowers cannot dream.”

There was a pause and Icarus heard sobbing.

“Stop blubbing there,” said the other voice. “What are you crying about?”

“Because I understood it then. I understood why we could never build a computer with artificial intelligence. Because a computer cannot dream. It’s a man’s dreams that give him his ideas. A man is what he dreams.”

“Sounds like rubbish,” said the other voice. “But go on.”

“When we sleep,” said the tortured soul, “it’s only our bodies that sleep. Our brains don’t sleep. Our brains go on thinking. If we have problems, our brains go on thinking about them, trying to sort them out, trying to solve them. But the solutions our brains come up with are in the form of dreams that our waking minds cannot understand. People have tried to interpret dreams, but they can’t, dreams are too subtle for that. But the way we behave and the solutions we eventually arrive at are guided by our dreams, even though we’re not aware of it.

“I suddenly understood all this, you see. Probably because it was ultimately the solution to the problem I had. The problem with artificial intelligence. The answer was right there. In our heads, you see. The brain is the ultimate computer, you just have to know how to use it properly.”

“Which is why you came up with Red Head?”

“To enhance the intellect. To speed up the thinking processes. To create the human computer. Why bother to build machines, if the answers to the problems you would set them to solve were all inside your head anyway? Just needing a little chemical help to bring them out. But
I
didn’t come up with Red Head.”

“I don’t understand,” said the other voice. “Explain yourself.”

“I was lying there amongst the flowers,” said the tortured soul. “And it all became clear, like I say. And I realized that if such a drug could be formulated, it could change everything, solve all human problems. A group of human computers dedicating themselves to the good of humanity. Just think what might be achieved. I saw the big picture. The overview. But then I thought, how could I ever formulate this drug? It might take years and years. The rest of my life. What I really needed was a drug to speed up my own thinking processes, in order that I could create a drug that could speed up thinking processes. Bit of a Catch 22 situation there. But the crooked man showed me how to read the flowers and that’s how I came by the formula.”

“Crooked man?” asked the other voice. “Who is the crooked man?”

“He found me lying there on the floral clock. He helped me up and he showed me how to read the flowers. He told me that the flowers would help me, if I helped them. All they wanted was to sleep. It seemed a pretty fair deal to me.”

“You’ll have to explain this,” said the other voice.

“The crooked man helped me up. He said he’d been listening to what I’d been saying. I thought I’d only been thinking but apparently I’d been talking out loud. Or according to him I had. He said the answer was staring me right in the face, all I had to do was look at the flowers. Well, I looked at the flowers, but all I could see was the flowers. Lots of different coloured flowers in the shape of a floral clock. But he said, look at the colours. Think of the rainbow. Well, I remembered the poem we’d been taught at school, about how you remember the order of the colours in the rainbow. It’s a poem about fairies. It goes,
Some came in violet, some in indigo, In blue, green, yellow, orange, red, They made a pretty row
.”