The Witches of Chiswick

10

The bottom of Tim’s now empty glass struck the polished surface of the Britannia pub table. The Britannia pub table was in the saloon bar of the Flying Swan, as were Tim and Will. It was Thursday night in the saloon bar of the Flying Swan, and in all the rest of Brentford.

“But that’s terrible,” quoth Tim.

“I know,” said Will. “I barely escaped in one piece. And the time machine was mangled. And I was trapped in 1898, which actually, I didn’t mind at all. I mean, I’ve always been fascinated, you might say obsessed, with the Victorian era.”

“I would say obsessed,” said Tim. “And I do, but—”

“But I didn’t really care about the machine getting smashed, it didn’t seem to matter. I mean, I was actually there, Tim. In the past. Can you imagine?”

“No I can’t, but—”

Will finished his pint of Large. “The same again would be nice,” he said.

“But this is terrible!”

“No, it’s not. It’s wonderful beer. The most wonderful beer in this day and age.”

“Terrible,” said Tim once again.

“It’s not, it’s wonderful.”

“I don’t mean the beer,” Tim’s glass struck the table for a second time, causing Neville to raise an eyebrow.

“I mean me,” said Tim in the whisper known as hoarse.[6] “I mean, me getting killed. That’s terrible.”

“That was your own fault,” said Will. “I warned you, in so many words. I told you to go home.”

“Killed,” said Tim. “I’m going to die.”

“We’re all going to die. That’s an inevitability, it’s quite impersonal reality.”

“But I’m going to die next Friday. Me! That makes it quite personal.”

“You’re not going to die next Friday. Which is why I returned from the past today. I had to get you to this pub and tell you everything.”

“So I’m not going to die next Friday?”

“No,” said Will, “you’re not.”

“Oh good,” said Tim and he breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s fine then. So I’m loving this again. Go on, tell me more.”

“Go and get more drinks first.”

“Oh yes, right.” Tim went and got more drinks.

“So what happens next?” he asked, upon his return.

“Lots,” said Will, supping away at his latest pint. “Lots and lots and lots.” And he continued with the telling of his tale.

Will’s head was full of memories that were not his own. They were his to a degree, because he had inherited them. They had been bequeathed to him, but they were not the thoughts of Will; and they were not born through the experiences of Will, which made the fact that he was now actually in the nineteenth century something of a sensory shock.

If having nearly been ground into the cobbles by the enormous hooves of onrushing dray horses was not, in itself, an assault upon the senses, then his sudden awareness of his situation and surroundings, when the danger had passed and he sat, bruised to some extent, but otherwise unharmed, became momentarily overpowering – mostly because of the smell.

Will’s hands clamped about his nose. His head swam and tears rose to his eyes. The nineteenth century didn’t smell at all good.

The twenty-second century was all but odour-free. Personal bodily pongs had long since ceased to be problematic. There were just so many super-efficient proprietary-brand deodorants, several of which had their own church franchises. Preservatives kept foodstuffs fresh and as foodstuffs were generally consumed with swiftness, there was little left for the waste disposal and recycling systems. And although toxic rains were frequent, citizens wore protective garments when braving them, or simply stayed indoors, so it was anyone’s guess what the rains smelt like.

Things were not so in the nineteenth century.

Will sat in a pile of horse manure. Will jumped up from the pile of horse manure, right hand fixed across his face, left hand flapping wildly. It took him quite some little time to truly get his bearings. But when he did. But when he did.

“Oh,” went Will. And, “Oh.”

He was in a Victorian street. The Whitechapel Road. And if the smell of horse manure was not sufficient to have him from his feet, then the thousand other unknown and unwholesome smells and the noise and the clamour and the colours and the all over everything should have. Done. So to speak.

Will blinked his eyes and stared. There was just so much. So much stench and so much noise and so much busyness. There was hurly-burly here. And speed too. A speed that was hitherto unknown to Will. People rushed about in their busyness. Pedestrians fairly jogged and high-wheeled vehicles drawn by horses clattered by at a most alarming rate. Folk walked slowly in Will’s day and age, the public tram moved slowly, everything moved slowly. But not here.

Will flattened himself against a wall of brick, made gay by many colourful posters. Here, one advertised the Electric Alhambra Music Hall in the Strand, where Little Tich peformed his ever-popular Big Boot Dance, “to the great appreciation of all classes”. And here was another for Count Otto Black’s Circus Fantastique, “A Carnival of Curiosities, An Odyssey of Oddities, A Burlesque of the Bizarre”. And there were posters which extolled the virtues of tobaccos and toothpowders, spats and spyglasses, patent medicines and public foot spas. And also for automata, “the perfect gentleman’s gentleman”.

Will took small and careful breaths to steady himself, and viewed the busy folk coming and going. They were slim folk, these. Slim as Will himself, and some far more so. These were achingly thin, their faces pinched, their cheekbones sharp, their bright eyes peeping from dark cadaverous sockets. They were wretchedly clad in rags of the Victorian persuasion and yet they were trading folk, who all had something to sell.

Will watched them and listened, and heard for the first time the now legendary Cries of Old London.

“Two-by-one, two-by-one, that’s the stuff for you, old son.”

“Soleless shoes and toeless socks, by the bag and by the box.”

“Cardboard offcuts, take your pick. Rusty nails and bits of stick.”

“Mud for sale, penny a pail.”

“Bags of air, bags of air. Get ’em while there’s some to spare.”

Will shook his shaky head in some surprise at these now legendary Cries of Old London. And although there was a great deal of busyness, a great deal of hurly-burly, and a great deal of shouting, no one seemed to be doing a great deal of trade. Except for the peddler who sold used earwax. He was going great guns. But then this was a Tuesday, although Will was not to know that yet.

Will viewed the street sellers and the comers and goers and shook his head some more and smiled unto himself. He was here in the past. He was really truly here.

“Guv’nor?”

Will looked down. A small and ragged lad looked up at him.

“Guv’nor?” said this lad once more.

Will’s fingers still attended to his nose. “Wad is dis?” he asked in a nasal tone. And then he said, “Magic”

“Magic?” said the lad.

“Magic,” said Will. “I’m talking to a Victorian.”

The lad offered Will a quizzical glance, which set itself into a quizzical stare. His face was disgustingly filthy. A crust of bogies lodged between his nose and upper lip.[7] He wore a ragged blue cloth coat and a pair of ragged corduroy trousers, secured about the waist by knotted string. Around his scrawny neck he sported a colourful ’kerchief.

“Magic?” said the lad once more. “I seen you come, guv’nor. Gawd pickle my plonker if I ain’t. You fell right out of the sky. Are you with the aerial cavalry?”

The lad’s accent fascinated Will. This would be Cockney. Will had heard the accent before, in movies on the Movie Classics Channel. Spoken by the greatest exponent of the urban dialect that had ever lived, the now and ever legendary Dick Van Dyke.

“I …” Will paused. The enormity of all this was now pressing in upon him from all sides. He would do well to keep his calm, although he felt like leaping up and down and shouting at the top of his voice. He was here! Really truly here! In the past he loved so dearly! Trapped perhaps, for the time machine was splintered wreckage. But alive, perhaps truly alive for the first time ever. And upon an adventure beyond any he could ever have dreamed of.

It was very difficult not to shout.

But Will, with effort, maintained his calm.

“Not the aerial cavalry,” said Will. “I’m, er, just a traveller.”

“I seen you,” said the lad once more. “Seen you come down from the sky.”

“I was crossing the street,” said Will. “Carrying a chair.”

“You is a flyer. I seen you, guv’nor. Take us on. I’s a willing apprentice. Good wiv me Alices.[8] Gawd tan my todger if I ain’t. I’ll polish yer rhythms[9] and buff up yer patent[10] and—”

“Please go away,” said Will. “Go away and have a wash, or something.” He shooed at the ragged lad with his non-nose-holding hand. “I’m a traveller, nothing more.”

“Where you from, guv’nor? India is it, or Americey? You got a weirdy whistle[11] on you, and no mistake.” The lad fingered the fabric of Will’s trousers.

“Whistle and flute,” said Will. “Pair of trousers. That’s Cockney rhyming slang. I know that one.”

“G’us a penny, guv’nor,” the lad tugged at Will’s trousers. “You talk like a toff, so you must be a toff, Gawd jump on my John Thomas if you ain’t. G’us a penny for a bun. I ain’t eaten today and me belly thinks me throat’s been cut.”[12]

“I have no money.” Will detached himself from the ragged rascal’s grip. “We don’t have money where I come from.”

“If it’s foreign currency you hold, I can work out the exchange rate on me Babbage.”

“Your Babbage?” Will spoke the words slowly and with care.

“In me Davy.”[13] The lad delved into his pocket and whisked out a small brass contrivance; a pocket calculator.

“Whoa!” went Will. “Let me see that.”

He reached down but the lad removed himself a pace.

“I only want to look at it,” said Will.

“As if you ain’t seen one before.”

“I’ve never seen one,” said Will.

The lad whistled. “You must be from distant parts,” said he. “Is it pink on the map where you come from?”

“Pink on the map? The British Empire, I see.”

“Ah, stuff you,” said the lad. “If you won’t make free with some bangers,[14] would you mind if I just picked your Davys? I’ve a living to earn, Gawd scramble my scrotes if I ain’t. A silk handkerchief will do me, or a gold fob watch if you have one about yourself.”

“Enough now,” said Will. “Kindly go away.”

“You can touch me willy for sixpence,” said the lad.

“Now that is enough,” said Will. “Go away at once.”

“Hm,” went the lad, cupping his filthy chin between an equally filthy finger and thumb. “You’re a rum ’n, guv’nor. I can’t make you out. I think I’ll just whistle for me gang and have ’em bludgeon you to death. Then we can split whatever spoils you carry.”

Will looked down at the lad and sighed deeply. “What is your name?” he asked.

“Winston,” said the lad, saluting Will.

“Well, Winston, have you quite finished?”

The lad grinned up at Will. “I’ve a thought or two left in me as it ’appens,” he said. “Gawd knacker me ’nads if I ain’t. And there’s always the chance that you might marvel at the audacity of at least one of me thoughts and compensate me ’andsomely. For instance, I don’t feel that I pleaded ’unger with sufficient conviction, this perhaps being because I’ve just eaten. I might—”

“Stop, please stop!” Will held up his nose-holding hand (a mistake). “Your sudden loquacity surprises me.”

“It’s another ploy,” said the lad. “A psychological tactic designed to win favour through empathy. On first impression you observe a ragged street urchin. But now you perceive an intelligent youth, fallen upon tragic circumstance. ’Ence you respond with a generous donation of alms, in the thought that there, but for the grace of Gawd, goes you. As it were. Gawd coddle me cods if you don’t.”

“I don’t,” said Will. “Which isn’t to say that I’m not impressed. But I must be going. Farewell. It was a pleasure to meet you, Winston.” Will turned to march away. And then did so.

“No, ’ang about, guv’nor.” The lad made to follow. “Oh me leg,” wailed he, breaking into a limp. “Me poor ulcerated leg.”

Will stopped and turned. “Your poor ulcerated leg?” he asked.

“And me ’ip,” said the lad. “Chronic arthritis brought on through cruel treatment in the workhouse.”

“I see,” said Will.

“Not to mention canker of the groin.”

“Canker of the groin?”

“I told you not to mention that.”

“The old ones really are the best,” said Will. “But listen, I am impressed. I’m really impressed, but I have no money to offer you. I’m sorry.”

“Fair enough,” said the lad. “Ey look up there, it’s ’Er Majesty’s Dreadnaught.” And he pointed heavenward with a grubby mitt. “Gawd nobble me knob if it ain’t.”

Will glanced in the direction of the urchin’s pointings.

The sky above was clear and blue and Will could view no Dreadnaught there. Will smiled and mused a moment, upon the implausibility that somewhere high above that clear sky of blue, lurked an almighty Gawd who harboured an obsession with Winston’s privy parts.

Will’s momentary musings were, however, brought to premature and inconclusive conclusion by the sounds of a sudden smack and an equally sudden squeal.

Will looked down to see the lad, with one hand deep in Will’s trouser pocket and the other clutching a reddening ear. And Will looked up once more, but this time not towards the sky. This time he looked towards the large gentleman who had just struck the erstwhile picker of Will’s trouser pocket.

“Away upon your toes, small boy,” said the gentleman.

The lad withdrew his hand from Will’s trouser pocket and made to take his leave at speed. The gentleman, however, grabbed him by the collar of his ragged coat and hauled him into the air.

“Steady on,” said Will. “Don’t hurt him.”

“Return it,” said the gentleman.

The lad opened his pocket-picking hand to reveal a small plastic disc, the computer disc onto which Will had copied The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke.

“It’s of no value here,” said Will. “Let him keep it.”

“Absolutely not,” said the gentleman. “The repercussions could be enormous. Take back your possession, Mr Starling.”

“Mr Starling?” Will held out his hand and the dangling lad returned the disc. “You know my name?”

“And you know mine,” said the gentleman.

Will took in the figure that stood before him.

It was a mighty figure, impressive, a full and girthsome figure. A figure which, but for its apparel, would not have looked at all out of place in the twenty-third century.

The mighty figure’s apparel was of the most striking and elaborate confection. A six-piece suit of lime green Boleskine tweed, with matching shirt and trousers, jacket and waistcoat and topcoat and top hat too. Affixed to the band of the tweedy topper was a large golden brooch in the shape of a five-pointed star and inlaid with many precious stones. Upon the waistcoat hung numerous watch-chains, similarly of gold, from which depended fobs of the Masonic persuasion. Upon the third finger of the great right hand, which presently held young Winston aloft, was a ring of power, set with a star sapphire and engraved all about with enigmatic symbols. In the left hand was a swordstick topped by a silver skull.

The gentleman set free the lad, who fell to his feet and fled away.

“Farewell, Winston,” said Will.

“Speak my name,” said the gentleman.

“Your name is Hugo Rune,” said Will.

Hugo Rune removed his top hat and bowed. Will was amazed by the great shaven head and the pentagram tattooed upon its crown.

The gentleman straightened, replaced his top hat and patted Will upon the shoulder. “I must offer my apologies to you,” he said. “It would appear that my calculations were incorrect to a nine hundredth of a degree. An unforgivable and costly mistake.” Rune stooped, plucked up a broken fragment of the time machine, tut-tutted to himself, shook his head in grave sadness and let the fragment fall from his hand.

“I am confused,” said Will, who was.

“All will be made clear. If you would be so inclined as to accompany me to my lodgings.”

“Well,” said Will. “I …” and he stared up into the great broad face of Hugo Rune. It was an impressive face. The hooded eyes, the noble nose, the fleshy mouth, the heavy jowls.

“I don’t know,” said Will. “I don’t feel altogether right.”

“You have just travelled through time,” said Hugo Rune. “That you should feel altogether right is unlikely. Follow me please.”

“It isn’t that, I think.” A feeling of foreboding now entered Will. It was a feeling new to him and one that he didn’t care for. It wasn’t fear as such, it was something more. But Will didn’t know just what. Which somehow made it worse. Rune knew his name. And Will knew Rune’s. But Will could not now remember how he knew it. In fact Will could not now remember a whole lot of things that he felt certain he could have remembered a moment before. Or was it a moment before, or a lifetime before? And were the memories Will’s?

“All will be explained,” said Rune. “Follow me.”

The mighty figure turned upon a mighty heel and plunged into the market crowd, which parted before him, much in the manner of the Red Sea before the touch of Moses’ staff. If, of course, you believed in such things, which Will, of course, did not.

Will dithered for a moment, but having no better plan in mind, in fact having no plan whatsoever in mind, followed Hugo Rune at the hurry up.