“Hello, Uncle.”
“Hi, Jerry.” Stevens’s expression didn’t change as he extended a large hand and let Jerry shake it. “What’s been happening?”
“This and that. Are you working?”
“Convincing that National Assistance is working. They’re getting tougher and tougher every day. They threatened to send me back last week. I said if the NA was more obliging in Birmingham, I’d go back.”
“So no scene.”
“Oh, there’s a good scene, but it’s not my scene. You playing here tonight?”
“I hope so.”
“I’ll be listening.”
Jerry walked through the door marked PRIVATE. Shades and the two girls were already in the back room. Shades was getting into his frilly uniform. The other members of the group he played with had theirs on. The guitarists were tuning up. Jerry borrowed the lead guitar, a beautifully made piece of solid polypropylene plastic studded with semi-precious gems with a silver tremolo arm and amplification controls of amethyst. He struck a swift, simple progression of A minor, F, D7 and C. “Nice,” he said, handing back the box. “Shades said I could sit in.”
“Suits me,” said the lead guitar, “so long as you don’t want paying.”
“I’ll wait a couple of numbers until I’ve heard the group.”
“Okay.”
“Symphony Sid” was just finishing. Shades and the group went out as the previous group came in. The sixteen-year-old left with Shades. The Swedish girl stayed behind with Jerry. The group who’d just come off were sweating and pleased.
“Let’s see if the bar is within arm’s reach,” Jerry said.
They were lucky. As Shades’s group took off on a Lennon/McCartney standard, “It Won’t Be Long”—not one of their best—Jerry and the Swede found space at the bar. She was drinking Beaujolais with crème de menthe chasers because she liked the colours. He had a Pernod for old times’ sake. He didn’t like Pernod, but he’d always drunk it at the Friendly Bum.
“Every day we’ll be happy I know, now that I know that you won’t leave me no more,” merrily sang the lead guitar, warming up for the take-off into improvisation. He had a high voice that never missed a quaver. It provided excellent counterpoint for the throbbing organ.
The mass seemed to bubble like a cauldron in time to the music as the clients danced.
Smoothly, the group went straight into “Make It”, an instrumental with the pianotron featured. Shades was playing better than Jerry remembered. He and the Swede got up and joined the dancers. The sense of being part of the mass was a delicious feeling. He and the girl and the others around them seemed fused together with a total absence of individual identity.
“Make It” made it, and Shades shouted into his mike, “Jerry!”
Jerry left the floor, crossed the spots, and stood on the stage. The lead guitarist handed him his instrument and went towards the bar with a grin. Jerry played a few chords to get the feel of the amplifier and led off with one of his favourites—another Lennon/McCartney number, “I’m a Loser”.
“I’m a loser and I’m not what I appear to be,” he sang.
As he sang, he saw Miss Brunner come down the steps into the Friendly Bum and look around. She probably couldn’t see him behind the lights. She took a step towards the bubbling crowd and then hesitated. Jerry Cornelius forgot her as he began the instrumental improvisation. Behind him Shades changed from 4/4 to 6/8, but Jerry kept on a 4/4 beat and liked it. The thing began to move now.
Jerry watched the time, careful not to let it go on too long, but close to every stopping point something new occurred to him, and the clients seemed to be enjoying themselves. The piece lasted a good half-hour and left Jerry tired.
“Great,” said Shades—praise indeed—as Jerry climbed through the spots and took the lead guitarist’s place at the bar. The Swedish girl had been absorbed into the crowd long since.
“Hello, Miss Brunner.” A Pernod would suit him now; long and cool, with lots of ice. He ordered one. She paid for it at the same time as she paid for her Scotch.
“What were you playing up there?”
“Instrument or number?”
“Instrument.”
“Guitar.”
“I haven’t got a very good ear. When did you leave Sunnydales?”
“This afternoon. Don’t pay them a day past it.”
“I won’t. I had a hard time getting you there, what with one thing and another. I should think I saved your life.”
“Very kind of you. Thanks. I am grateful. I think that does it, don’t you?”
“Strictly speaking, yes. Mind you, your thanks could take a more positive form.”
“It could.”
“Are you still worried about killing your sister?”
“Naturally. And that does that one. What have you been doing with yourself?”
“I advertised for a replacement for Dimitri. I’ve got a girl on trial. I’ve got to meet her later. I’ve been checking some data on the new Burroughs-Wellcome. I didn’t realise you were the Cornelius who’d published that unified-field theory.”
“You’ve been digging, Miss Brunner.”
“I have.”
Overhead the glass ball revolved, and the light struck Miss Brunner’s face until it became a flashing assortment of colours. It seemed to offer a clue to her real identity, the total identity that Cornelius had been worrying about since they had talked earlier in Mr Smiles’s house at Blackheath. He saw her now as a prism, and through the prism Miss Brunner ceased to be a woman at that moment. She was speaking.
“Weren’t you awarded a Nobel Prize for that?”
“A noble price? Ah, I’m just an amateur. It wasn’t fair to take it.”
“It was your chance of immortality—you may never have another.”
Around them mingled sound, light and flesh.
“There is a flaw, you know,” she said, “in quite an early equation.”
“You spotted it. Are you going to shop me?”
“It could mean immortality for me.”
“I think you already have that, Miss Brunner.”
“Kind of you to say so. What makes you think it?”
Jerry wondered if he were in any danger. Not at this stage, he decided. “Far better mathematicians than you have checked it and found nothing wrong. You couldn’t possibly know—not unless…”
Miss Brunner smiled and sipped her Scotch.
“Unless you had direct experience of what I suggest in my theory, Miss Brunner—unless you know better.”
“Ah—you are a clever one, Mr Cornelius.”
“Where’s all this leading to?”
“Nowhere. Shall we go somewhere quieter?”
“I like it here.”
“Is there somewhere quieter you like to go?”
“There’s the Chicken Fry in Tottenham Court Road.”
“Every item on the menu guaranteed vitamin-free. I know the place.”
“You are a clever one, Miss Brunner.”
As they left, the performers began to destroy their instruments.
* * *
“Miss Brunner,” he said, leaning over his chicken and fries, “if I hadn’t been through my theological phase, I’d be identifying you as first suspect for Mephistophelis.”
“I haven’t got a pointed beard. Not with me.”
“I can’t fit you in with Homo sapiens.”
“I don’t fit in easily anywhere.” She stabbed herself a forkful of chips.
Jerry leaned behind him and fed tokens into the jukebox. He pressed buttons at random.
“You’re sure you’re barking up the right tree?” She spoke with her mouth full.
“For a long time I haven’t been sure of anything. We’ll let the whole thing ride.”
“The House of Cornelius still stands,” she said. “We didn’t get a chance to set it on fire. Does that bother you?”
“Not much. Frank is currently the random factor.”
; “I have it on good authority that he’s in Lapland. To be more accurate, he is two days’ trek north-west of Kvikjokk—a small village well beyond Kiruna. Are you that interested?”
“No.” He sat back and listened to the music.
“Frank is living in a disused meteorological post in the wilds. We could get there by helicopter.”
“I’ve got a helicopter. And a plane.”
“You’ve got a lot of things like that.”
“Anticipation. I still want to get my hands on a private oil well and a small refinery. Then I’m set up.”
“You look ahead.”
“I look around. Ahead’s here already.”
“Frank, I suspect, not only has the microfilm your father left. He also has the Newman manuscript.”
“Telepathic powers?”
“No—an educated guess. A lot of people have heard that Newman wrote a book after he came down from that capsule last year and before he committed suicide. I’ve heard that a rep of Newman’s widow was looking for Frank. I found the rep, but all he’d tell me was where Frank would be.”
“Newman was rubbed out by Security, I thought. Indirect suicide, I suppose. Do you know what was in the book?”
“Some say the complete objective truth about the nature of humanity. Some say a lot of crackpot ideas. It must be one of those books.”
“I’d like to read it nonetheless.”
“I thought you might. Then we have something in common again?”
“Yes. Where did you say he was near?”
“Kvikjokk—close to Jokmokk.”
“Get away with you.” Jerry rose. “I’ll need some good maps.”
“I suppose so. Can we make it by helicopter?”
“That depends. I’ve got one of those new Vickers long-range copters and fuel caches all across Europe, but the last one’s near Uppsala. Lapland’s a long way from Uppsala. We could probably get there but not back.”
“We’ll float back, Mr Cornelius, if what I suspect is there.”
“What do you suspect?”
“Ah, well—I’m not sure. I’ve just got a feeling.”
“You and your feelings.”
“They’ve never done you any harm.”
“They’d better not, Miss Brunner.”
“It would be a good thing to start tomorrow morning,” she said. “How do you feel?”
“I’ve been in the hospital, remember. I’ve made up a lot of ground. I’ll last.”
“Got you,” she said. She picked up her handbag, and they walked out into Tottenham Court Road. “I’ve got to meet this new girl of mine,” she told him. “Her name’s Jenny Lumley. She was doing sociology at Bristol until they closed the university down last summer.”
“Where are you meeting her?”
“The Blackfriars Ring.”
“The wrestling stadium. What’s she doing there?”
“She likes wrestling.”
They walked to Shaftesbury Avenue, where he got his car out of the garage and drove her to the Blackfriars Ring. It was a big, modern building, specially built for wrestling bouts. Outside, and somewhat jerkily, two neon wrestlers played out a throw time and time again.
There was a big foyer lined with framed pictures of men and women wrestlers. Some of the women even looked nice, but Jerry didn’t fancy any of the men. There were three box offices—one on either side and one in the centre. From loudspeakers above them came the relayed roar of the crowd.
Miss Brunner went to the central desk and spoke to the cute little man there. “Miss Brunner—you should have two tickets reserved for me. Our friend’s already inside.”
He sorted through a small pile of buff envelopes printed with the name of the promoter-owners of the Blackfriars Ring.
“Here we are, dear. Good seats—C705 and 7. You’d better hurry up—the main bout’s beginning in a couple of minutes.”
“Have you ever seen one of these, Mr Cornelius?” she asked as they walked up the plush stairs.
“Not my speed. I’ve seen a little on TV.”
“Nothing like the real thing.”
They went up three flights and walked round the gallery until they came to a door marked 700. The doors must have been well soundproofed, because when they opened them the noise that hit them was loud, an ululating roar. The smell matched the sound. Sweat, perfume and aftershave.
The stadium was about the same size as the Albert Hall, with banks and banks of seats rising into semi-darkness. It was packed. Below, as they looked for their seats, they could see two women throwing each other around by their long hair. There were two referees—one in a chair suspended over the ring and one outside the ring, with his face close to the canvas.
The people in the seats were not all intent on the bout. Many had rid themselves of most of their clothes, and some were entertaining the surrounding fellow spectators better than the pair in the ring.
Looking up and behind him, Jerry noted that there were a lot of children in the cheaper seats. They were watching the wrestling. Amplifiers above the banks of seats picked up the groans and shouts of the two contestants as they twisted about in a way Jerry could admire but not understand.
Here and there people were masturbating. “Quite like the old Roman arena, isn’t it?” said Miss Brunner with a grin. “I sometimes think that masturbation is the only sincere form of sexual expression left to the unadventurous, poor souls.”
“Well, at least they don’t bother anyone.”
“I think I can see Jenny. You’ll like her. She’s from the West Country originally—Taunton. She’s got those lovely dark West Country looks. Don’t they? I’m not so sure. Yes, it is Jenny. And you can talk, Mr Cornelius.”
“What are you getting at?” They had to push past four or five people to reach their seats. The people didn’t get up.
“Oh, nothing. Hello, Jenny, my sweet. This is Mr Cornelius, an old associate of mine.”
Jenny looked up with a cocky smile. “Hello, Mr Cornelius.” She had long black hair, as fine as Jerry’s; a simple shift dress of dark pink; and a red-trimmed leather jacket. She had large dark eyes and was as Miss Brunner had described her. She was also, it seemed, pretty tall. “You got here just in time.”
“So we were told.” Jerry sat down next to her, and Miss Brunner sat on the other side. Jerry was a sucker for girls like Jenny. When it came down to it, he thought, enjoying her being so close to him, they were the only kind he could go for. There just weren’t enough to go round. He smiled to himself. It might be an idea to get her away from Miss Brunner.
It was intermission, and everybody was relaxing as the MC shouted something about the winner and the contestants in forthcoming bouts.
“Who was it said that sex was just two people trying to occupy the same body?” Jenny got a bag of butterscotch from her pocket and handed it round. Jerry liked butterscotch best. “I’m sure I read it—I don’t think anyone said it to me. I think it applies just as much to wrestling, don’t you, Miss Brunner?”
Miss Brunner’s right cheek bulged as she bit her butterscotch.
“I’ve never thought about it, dear.”
“I don’t just enjoy the social side of wrestling,” she said. “I like the violence and everything too.”
Jerry just sat and ogled her while her head was turned to Miss Brunner. Miss Brunner noticed him and raised her eyebrows. Jenny’s head shot round and she looked at Jerry, caught him half off guard, and gave him a cheerful wink. Jerry groaned silently. It was too much. It wasn’t as if he often met a girl like this. He wished he hadn’t come.
The rather garbled voice of the MC came through the amplifiers.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the main contest of the evening. In a specially prepared ring we bring you six of our biggest stars in an all-out tag match. Just to add excitement and extra thrills to the contest, we are filling the ring with thick whitewash, as you can see—” Having brought in a special tray that occupied the whole of the inside area of the
ring, attendants were now pumping in the thick whitewash.
“Only one of the best can win this match, ladies and gentlemen. And who is to be the best of the six best? Let me read out the names.”
The MC now flourished a large piece of paper.
“Doc Gorilla!”
Cheers from supporters.
“Lolita del Starr!”
Enthusiastic shouts.
“Tony Valentine!”
The volume rose…
“Cheetah Gerber!”
… and rose…
“The Masked Crusher!”
… and rose…
“Ella Speed!”
…and rose. There were screams and cheers and boos and a wild, raving sound that was a combination of all the voices.
Jerry looked up, hearing a strange shrilling noise above him. One of the cables leading from the ceiling to the ring held a ski chair, which was speeding downward. In it sat a heavily built woman in her late twenties. She wore a leopardskin bikini and had nice legs. As the chair reached the ring, she jumped from it lightly and sent up a spray of whitewash. She held her balance in the slippery stuff and grinned and waved at the audience. The chair returned, and Jerry could just see the gallery far up near the roof where another small figure was climbing into the chair. It swished down bearing a gross masked man in black long johns and bowling shoes. He too bounced from chair to ring and waved briefly to the audience before flexing at the ropes. Down came the next—a slim girl with long blonde hair in a white one-piece costume. Jerry wondered how she would get the whitewash out of her hair when the bout was over. While she blew kisses at the audience, the older woman suddenly leaped on her, knocking her flat into the whitewash. The crowd moaned and booed. One of the referees on the ground shouted something, and the older woman surlily helped the younger one up. A huge black-bearded, hairy-chested man—evidently Doc Gorilla—was the next arrival. Then a tall, slim, well-muscled woman arrived. She had a handsome, heavy-boned face and dark hair almost to her waist. Lastly came a broad-shouldered, slim-hipped youngster with very short blond hair and white shorts and boots. He smiled at the audience.