So I told Helena I needed to go into retreat for a little while. And off I went!
I found it a huge relief to leave the Swarm outside those gates. I had scarcely realised how loud it was getting! Prince Rupert, ‘the Chevalier’, proved a great host and that first dinner was wonderful, even though I wished Helena could be enjoying it too. There was no denying it. I loved them both. But meanwhile Molly was hugely pleased to see me! Apparently she held no grudge for my leaving.
The prince seemed to travel everywhere across Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. He had even been to East Africa. What he called ‘Far Egypt’ or ‘Far India’. He had wonders to show from all these places. I didn’t think he was lying. How he covered so much distance baffled me. As on most other subjects, he never gave a satisfactory answer, always promising me a big revelation in the near future. He did it with every question. I had almost given up believing him. Debonair, tall and courtly as usual, he again seemed to have aged a little more than we had. He and Boye had grown older at about the same pace. And yet I had last seen him only a few weeks earlier. I murmured this to Moll as the prince led us downstairs to the public rooms, where our friends waited for us. She preferred not to hear me. I began to feel like some morbid bugger who was always going on about death.
All the prince’s dinner guests, Moll, Duval, Jemmy Hind, Nick Nevison, the other ‘giant’ in our company, the four musketeers, Prince Rupert and myself were soon sitting comfortably in the snug of The Swan With Two Necks, enjoying shants of the best porter in the world. Mrs Juniper Toom, the publican’s wife, brought us food. She was tickled, she said, at serving four of the tallest trenchermen in the civilised world. The cheerful, elegant prince rocked back on his chair, stroking the dog with one hand, running his fingers through his own curling, dark brown shoulder-length locks and fully at ease in our company. He travelled between Bavaria and France, between Venice, the ‘Near Indies’ or ‘Far Egypt’ and China. He had explored the American interior. He had met tribes of fully formed tiny men in ‘Far Egypt’, living above the source of the Nile. A similar tribe had been found beside the Niagara River in America.
‘The Africans are the oldest created race,’ he said, ‘yet wonderfully childlike and only three feet tall. The others, the Pukwudgie, did not come from America originally, but also from Africa. They had tribal memories of Adam and Eve. Some say they are our ancestors. Who would believe our antecedents were small and black!’ If he invented some adventures I didn’t care a bit. I might be listening to one of my favourite old fantasy writers telling a tall tale. He spoke of a thinking machine called the Grand Turk, which could play chess like a genius; of flying in a balloon to Mirenburg; of serving beyond the Mountains of the Moon in the army of Prester John, the great Christian emperor. Doing battle against the ten great pagan kings of the Congo.
I had the impression I was at table with Baron Munchausen himself!
‘Prester John lives even now?’ I was delighted, astonished, disbelieving.
Prince Rupert laughed, pulling on his Van Dyke beard as if to test his own reality. ‘It depends on what you mean by “now”,’ he said and told a story about encountering coiling monsters in a fog off the coast of Scotland, of tall sea caves and sleeping dragons. But long before Molly and I left to head back to our cosy little flat, he murmured to me, promising that he would talk to me again soon. ‘Moll tells us you’re a very curious gentleman!’ He winked. ‘Maybe now’s the time to ask me those questions you had and discover if I have the answers.’
‘I’ll take Your Grace up on that.’ It was the nearest thing to a promise I’d had from him. I was surprised by this sudden offer. Was he truly ready with answers?
‘I was beginning to assume, sir, that your secrets, like those of the abbot, were not for general consumption. That you were putting me off, as kindly as you could.’
He understood this to be the sarcastic challenge it was not. He smiled up into my eyes. ‘There are no “kept secrets” here, lad. Just revelations for which you’re not yet ready. What you call my “secrets” are our only currency, by which we and all we cherish survive. The means by which we maintain our pacts and treaties.’
‘You’ll explain to me how you and I can meet here yet come from centuries apart?’
‘To be sure. I remember my promises. That’s why I sent Sam to see you! An old friend has brought the remaining parts of my new astrological machine. Certain precise work had to be completed in the Amstelsdorp by the best Arab and Jewish craftsmen from Constantinople and Damascus. To specifications given them by myself and Dr Dee. The sage is over one hundred years of age, living in the Amsteli Palace, worshipping Bacchus as he once worshipped the great Gloriana.’ He gestured. ‘No friend, I’d agree, to the Stuart cause. Architect of his mighty mistress’s circle of intellectual paganism. No wonder the pope dubbed her The Great Sorceress.’
‘You knew Dr Dee, the alchemist?’
‘Nonbeliever though he be, we are good friends.’ Prince Rupert rocked with reminiscent laughter. ‘He still lives, over there in the Low Countries! A healthy old man. Still investigating the natural world and communing with the supernatural! He claims he cannot die, for his soul is not his own to give up, but I’d say that’s no more than a way he has of explaining his longevity.’
‘Well, I envy you his acquaintance, Your Grace.’
He grinned and sent his shant to Juniper for fresh ale. ‘Young as you are, I know you’re a man of the world like me, a philosopher who lusts after knowledge as do I, needing to satisfy a curiosity never understood by most of these happy louts! We need you for your size and skills. The monks, however, have a great hope that you are the youth they have been waiting for, who will represent their cause when the final moment comes. They fear for all their treasures. Indeed their great Treasure. So many seek it who are careless of its metaphysical significance and could easily damage it.’
‘You know what it is, this Treasure?’
‘I believe I do. That Treasure was entrusted into their care many centuries ago when terror and blood flowed through London’s streets like rain after a storm. I have heard the stories. Shameful days for Christian folk. I am not sure if our consciences have the strength to stand the burden. So our minds banish the memory. But the monks are creatures of great resilience of soul and physical courage. They’ll reveal the nature of their Treasure when they’re ready. Discretion is the mark of a true friend, not so Maur’s spawn?’ This was one of his nicknames for me. I had learned that St Maur was a lesser-known French saint whom it amused him to consider my father. Maurice was the name of his late brother. Moore-cocke was another Norman and Anglo-Saxon hybrid. ‘You’ll keep a secret? Already, I’m told, the rumours spread like ripples in a pond. We must make more ripples, confuse the Lord Protector further. Happily we deal with men who would simplify the world to suit their own imaginings rather than expand their own imagination to take in the world’s wonders! I intend to save the king, as our Moll has doubtless told you.’
‘She has not.’ I glanced at her. She looked down. He seemed pleased by her discretion. He continued, smiling.
‘And my discoveries will ensure his safety until the people call for him again. Twelve days hence, we know, he will be escorted from Whitehall and led to the block by the Four Tall Men of Kent where his head will be struck from his body in an unholy act of regicide. Save that it will not be Charles Stuart they slay! The king will be aboard a waiting brigantine on his way to Holland and from there to France, protected by Duval and the Musketeers!’
It sounded a wonderful adventure. Like something by Dumas! I was immediately excited. I could have written the script myself. I could see the chagrin of the ‘Four Tall Men of Kent’, whoever they were. I visualised the laughing triumph of the Cavaliers as they carried King Charles off up the river to the open sea while the thwarted redcoats gnashed their teeth and shook their fists. I told him what a tremendous escapade it sounded. He slapped his knee and roared his pleasure.
‘The instrumen
t I have waited for all these years, without which the rest of my plan can scarce succeed, is with us at last, here in the Alsacia. That instrument is the finest of its kind—rivalled only by the great devices of ancient China and Greece. Oh, you’ll marvel at my engines and my instruments, young sir! They are capable of the subtlest measurements and predictions. All made from honest observation and exploring of the Greater Heavens and beyond. My machine is the culmination of my own heavenly explorations!’
I said nothing to spoil the excitement of Prince Rupert, who rattled on with his usual enthusiasm. I did not expect too much. I had already seen the abbot’s fantastic machine! I knew how simple most instruments of his day were.
When I was ready to go back to Ladbroke Grove, Prince Rupert bowed very low to us. I believe I detected something in his manner towards Moll and wondered again if he might be her ‘cavalier’. With elaborate French elegance he kissed Moll’s hand, his brown eyes looking up from beneath pale lashes and causing her to blush. Duval turned to his friend, the gigantic Jemmy Hind, admonishing him to be at Moll’s service. I joked about it when I said goodbye to her but for some reason she lost her temper with me. I suspected then that Duval, after all, was her mysterious cavalier. I hinted at it but she wouldn’t say what was wrong. This was as bad as trying to deal with Helena in one of her moods.
The upper deck of the Number 15 bus was deserted when I boarded. For some reason, I realised, I was close to crying. What was in me which made women behave the same?
Helena was glad to see me when I got home. But she didn’t like the way I made love that night. In the following days, I must admit, I was short with her and irritated by her attempts to find out what was wrong. I was, of course, thinking of Molly. It was as if she imprisoned herself in her femininity and didn’t like it all that much.
But, of course, the obvious answer to my unease never once occurred to me. If asked I would have said I had never been happier or better balanced. Why shouldn’t I be happy? I had the ideal writer’s life. ‘Every writer needs two spouses,’ Allard always joked. ‘That way they can share the strain!’ I should be grateful. I had a wife, children and a mistress. For the most part everyone else seemed happy too. That was a relief.
25
THE CHINESE AGENT
I was still worried about the whispering. I went for tests to several neurologists and at last got a diagnosis: tinnitus, which can take many forms. But why did it clear up completely the moment I entered the Alsacia?
Superficially at any rate, Helena and I became good friends again. The girls were happy sharing jokes about me behind my back. They took a little pleasure in it. They wanted to share power. I honestly enjoyed their jokes. They bonded against me, especially when I was getting too big for my boots or when I went mad with some piece of work I was doing. I began to believe that it was possible for grown people to get along together without dislike or bitterness. This was the falling zenith of hippy Notting Hill. 1968. The bankers and lawyers and stockbrokers were already moving in. Soon we would be told that money didn’t grow on trees and we should maximise our assets, with our beautiful gardens and lovely old Victorian houses. Housing committees. Gardens committees. Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square; hello America; goodbye North Ken, and the traders in Portobello jacked up their prices and off we went on the gentrification waltz.
For a few short years, before we realised it was too late to defend our heritage and our homeland against bobos and toffs, yuppies, nimbys and colons, we had some very good times. Maybe ten or fifteen years. Sweet times. The girls and I did almost everything together. Rainy weekends were galleries and exhibitions or the Disney cinema in St Martin’s Lane.
It was their girlhood. I was happy for them. They began to grow up. There were also gigs to go to. The Move, The Allday Suckers, The Chargers were still performing locally, and I was writing for them all, even the Suckers. We taped some great recordings around that time, many of which are long lost. St Anselms Church Hall had been renamed The Golden Calf. The vicar didn’t seem to mind. He had most of the local Hell’s Angels as his congregation. Wonderful jam sessions, making up the words as we went along. Great instrumental solos. My girls became a bit blasé about backstage visits and famous players.
Apart from hassles from a determinedly anticounterculture bunch of rozzers, who were forever trying to cut off our power, we did some great sessions culminating with a famously disorganized concert featuring the Dead Legends (as they called us at the beginning) including Pete Pavli on bass and cello, Martin Stone and Paul Kossoff on guitars, me on banjo, Tubby Ollis on drums, Simon ‘the Power’ Powell on fiddle, Arthur Brown and Jon Trux, also on guitars. Helena was determined to stay at home and chat with her girlfriends, so I took the girls. We’d drawn quite a crowd but the wind was making it difficult for Arthur to light his hat. The first casualty was Kossoff, who went to sleep, snuggled up with his Strat behind the stacks before we ever began. The second was Trux, who lost his guitar and ambled off to find it. The third was Simon Powell, whose wife turned up unexpectedly and chased him and his girlfriend off the stage. They were last seen disappearing up Latimer Road. Arthur still couldn’t get his hat to light. I was laughing so hard I fell through the stage and busted my banjo and then I heard Trux shout out. He’d found his guitar. Then he slumped in on top of me. By that time all of those still awake and present began to laugh along with us and that was the end of The Portobello Mushroom Band, as they now called us. We got enthusiastic applause from a bunch of French students, who thought it was all part of the act, and asked where we were appearing next. We told them the Hackney Empire. Anything was possible. In those days.
My girls had a great time in general but were utterly contemptuous of the quality of the entertainment, catcalling from the audience, ‘Get off! Old hippy farts!’ And I refused to be overwhelmed by the half-heard words, the murmured tones of the Whispering Swarm, increasingly insistent, increasingly threatening. When Helena came home from the comforts and cunning of her Ladbroke Grove kitchen séance I was lying in bed with wax in my ears, moaning and begging for it to stop. She thought I had missed her and reassured me.
A couple of mornings later, when I was reading over the previous day’s work, I answered a knock and the front door was suddenly full of purple-and-white Ronno’noms, a Scientology breakaway cult that had the advantage of being known more for its flashy colours than its philosophy. They called it ‘Scientific Spiritualism’. I told them to kindly bugger off, and for a second I thought I heard the Swarm buzzing into the distance. But it wouldn’t go. Neither would the ronnies. The Swarm filled my head like angry bees. I was furious. I lost it, told the ronnies to fuck off. I wondered if these bouts came with depression. Helena and I had just read about the death of Baggy Tyler, for years the Fix’s head roadie. That same night Smiling Mike tried to climb the wall of the Frendz office building in Portobello Road because he needed somewhere to sleep off a long acid trip. He fell backwards halfway up and was impaled on the area railings. Dead when they found him. As if in sympathy the Swarm went away again and I prayed it would stay away.
I was almost thirty and I was ready to retire.
The books got hacked out and supported the magazine which was breaking even with reduced pages. Early in 1969, I passed the New Worlds reins to Charlie Ratz, Graham Sharp and Graham Blount. They had all been contributors and worked as professional journalists. I called them my triumvirate but wasn’t surprised when only Ratzo wound up as editor. I was never as smart as Ratzo but he had no idea how I ran the magazine or worked out how a story fitted or kept the finances going. He thought I was incompetent. Actually, he thought everyone else was incompetent.
I’d supported my ideas by writing a lot of honest adventure fiction as well as a few decent comedies. I had established a modest space for the kind of fiction I liked to write and read. I’d put a few new guns in the literary arsenal. I’d helped in the process of reuniting ‘literary’ and ‘popular’ fiction, which followed in the wake
of new vocabularies for music and painting.
We were an active part of the zeitgeist. When I was twenty-five it was literary suicide to mention an enthusiasm for Mervyn Peake, and most critics ignored him. Literary careerists avoided Peake, Firbank and others. Not many read the French absurdists and existentialists. Few were fond of Philip K. Dick or Allard. The same was true of a number of other writers, painters and composers. Now Peake and visionaries like him are known to every educated household. Culturally, we were a little ahead of the ’60s. Jack Allard and others were with me. But it was surprising how relatively few we were and we were not all artists and intellectuals. Scientists, painters, sculptors, philosophers, journalists and all sorts of people were fired up by what we were doing. During the few months I was in Sweden, through a mutual enthusiasm for Peake, I met my friend Dave Harvey, now a famous economist. He was the best man at my first marriage. He wrote one of our best editorials as well as fiction. Most of us were were doing something interesting in the arts, academies and sciences and had a taste for a certain kind of visionary fiction.
I had the good fortune to be part of a generation which knew intense early experience followed by material success. We got there as much through our enthusiasms as our ambitions. We did it to popular music by the Beatles and The Who, to movies by all the great survivors as well as brilliant newcomers. Bergman. Fellini. Truffaut. The Italian Americans. A growing availability of music by Schoenberg, Ives, Messiaen and others. Steve Reich. Philip Glass. Bacon. Hamilton. Warhol. Paolozzi. Rothko. All those painters and sculptors. Coming together with everyone else.