Corporal Love’s cadaverous pale head was split by a great, yawning grin. His own basket-hilted cutlass was in his right hand, the point almost under my nose. His black broadcloth coat, like his linen, was stained with food and drink. He put out a strong, musty odour, like sweaty feet. Could this be a dead man raised from his coffin? Next hot, alcoholic breath bathed my face. I drew back in disgust, recognising Colonel Clitch, the other Cromwellian irregular, a leering grin on his gaunt features, his head surrounded by a halo of dirty red hair.
‘Good evening, officers,’ I said rather feebly. ‘A cold night to be abroad…’ Attempting to push the unyielding steel from my chest, I backed against the other sword. I think I gulped.
‘Oh, indeed it is, master,’ said Colonel Clitch, his Welsh brogue soft and sharp at the same time. The steel caressed my spine. ‘Been out for a jaunt in the City, have we?’
‘Stealing from honest folks, are we?’ came Love’s unwelcome lilt.
‘I just got off the bus,’ I said, ‘and am on my way home. As you can see, I am unarmed and have no goods on me, stolen or otherwise. I am going about my honest business. So if you will excuse me, gentlemen—’
‘Where did you hide the tools of your trade, you cunning rogue?’ demanded Corporal Love.
‘And your ill-gotten gains?’ added Colonel Clitch.
‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ I made to push past them. I was genuinely angry. My heart was thumping. The residents of the Alsacia might be mysteriously invulnerable to sword blades and pistol shots, but I knew I wasn’t. Love’s sword point was almost touching my upper lip and Clitch had slowly turned his own blade so that its edge now pressed into my back. I wondered if I could throw up on them before they stabbed me.
‘Off to keep an appointment with others of his devilish coven I’ve no doubt,’ declared the Welsh Puritan with a sniff.
Then I risked being sliced by Clitch’s sword and stepped back into it, making him move, as I’d hoped, rather than wound me. I was again at the opening of the big gate and took another step towards it. I almost stumbled and fell but in another second I stood on the far side in what I hoped was safety. But when I looked around all I could see was thicker fog and not a single light cutting through it. I was almost overcome by a sickening stench. I took two or three more backward steps. Suddenly flickering orange light cut through the fog. Clitch and Love, the latter holding a lantern, moved towards me.
I felt as if I were in Limbo, neither in my familiar world nor another. The cold cut into me. I saw silvery streaks shimmer and vanish in the fog. Roads? I remembered the two Cosmolabes. My pewter breath blended with the grey fog and made it thicker. I couldn’t believe my bad luck. I had a sense of leaving solid earth behind me.
‘How now, my young Moabite,’ gloated Clitch. ‘Do you fear justice? Could it be that you are guilty of all we suspect?’
‘I’m guilty of nothing save giving you two carrion eaters too much of my time!’ I had nowhere to go yet somehow my circumstances made me more aggressive. I reflected that I had little to lose. I wondered what my chances were of getting free and again hiding myself in the fog. I was pretty sure I was in Whitefriars Yard and might just be able to get back to the bus stop.
‘Methinks we’ll put you and your statements before a magistrate,’ declared Clitch, laughing unpleasantly. The sound was echoed by Love’s disgusting snigger. The two closed in. Love’s bony fingers grasped my arm but I shook him off. He seized me again, intending to bind me, I think, but I resisted, careless of their weapons, and in struggling found my hand against the grip of a big pistol. Without thinking I tugged the firearm out of Love’s belt and shoved the barrel into his ribs. He let me go in an instant, shouting a warning to his master.
I turned slowly to face him, cocking the pistol and holding it as steady as I could. The thing was huge, cumbersome and untrustworthy. They had both heard me pull back the hammer as I continued to retreat. ‘Stand where you are, both of you!’ My only plan was to put plenty of darkness between us as quickly as possible. Then I tripped on an unexpected kerb and almost fell. The gun went off with a terrific noise. I had no idea where I was going but I still hoped I was somewhere I would eventually recognise. The mist had a strange heaviness to it. Breathing the icy stuff was difficult. Surely it wasn’t hallucinogenic gas? The stench of gunpowder filled the air. I turned the weapon in my hand so that I could use it as a club if I got the opportunity.
Then I was distracted by a strong, sweet scent. I recognised it but could not place it. I glimpsed a cloaked outline slipping past me. Someone I also should have known. Not one of my attackers but someone shorter—a woman, maybe? Then she was gone. She had distracted me. I had not escaped my attackers.
I heard a sound behind me, lost my footing, tripped again and fell off balance. I hit my leg on what was probably an iron bollard and went down. Even as I scrambled back up, having lost the gun, and limped off on my bruised leg I heard another curse. Had my inadvertent shot hit one of them? It would be my bad luck if I had compounded my alleged crimes.
Then I heard a voice on my right. ‘Here, lad, to me.’
I recognised the speaker. Holding my arms outstretched, I walked very carefully towards the sound of his voice. He suddenly took shape on my left, a stocky, solid figure in a camelard and a wide-leaf hat with a fine burst of pheasant feathers in it. ‘Good evening to you, Master Moorcock.’ I felt him press a heavy sword into my hand. ‘And how fareth thou this evening?’
From out of the fog, Captain St Claire offered me a thin, sardonic smile. ‘Take care, sir. A serpent creeps towards thee!’
As I whirled, the captain in turn accepted an attack from the left. Clitch, a heavy-breathing lummox of an oaf, thrust at him again, and meanwhile I engaged Love, marked out for me in the gloom by the excessive pallor of his skin.
I heard him gasp as my first lunge appeared to take him in the hat. When I withdrew my sword, I was off balance again. I cursed myself for my clumsiness. I had indeed spiked his headgear. As I shook my blade to free it, he appeared, crouching as if to spring, outlined against the fog. He jumped high, like a toad, his sword hissing past my face. My advantage and disadvantage when fighting these people was that everyone was so much shorter than I. I must have seemed a Porthos to their D’Artagnans! But Clitch was my first hopping opponent.
I think they mistook a tyro’s unearned confidence for skill, for they engaged me cautiously—first Clitch, whom St Claire took over, and then I faced Love, whose second pistol was caught up in that red sash, as he bellowed his loyalty to Parliament. Failing to drag his barker free, the Welshman spat an insult. Still cursing, he turned and sloped off into the fog. Meanwhile, through the silver-streaked fog, I heard the sound of blades meeting and occasionally saw the outlines of St Claire and Clitch, both evidently seasoned and economical swordsmen, continuing their fight until Clitch appeared to flee. St Claire put his back towards me and discharged his pistol over the head of his escaping opponent.
Replacing the barker in his sash, he reached towards me and accepted his sword back, sheathing it on his right while his own sword was scabbarded on the left. Next, he removed his hat, inspected the lie of its feathers, brushed it a little and placed it back on his dark, shoulder-length hair.
He grinned suddenly. ‘Well, ’tis an happy coincident, young sir. ’Tis lucky for us your swordsmanship is good, if a little unseasoned.’
I could think of nothing to say to him. Again, the brown-eyed Northumbrian had saved my liberty, perhaps even my life. I reached out my hand and he shook it, still a little amused. ‘Well, sir, I guess ye’ll want to be continuing on your way so I’ll bid thee goodnight.’
‘I’m obliged to you, sir,’ I said. Jackdaw that I am I heard myself imitating his speech patterns. I had a habit of doing that. My daughter Kitty was also able to pick up accents and speech rhythms. ‘I’m a little turned about. Could you give me an idea where the gates to Alsacia can be found?’
Laughing, St Claire, whose forehead was on a
level with my shoulder, took my arm and stepped confidently into the fog.
‘Where are we now, Captain St Claire?’ I asked. His answer surprised me.
‘What year is it? Why, it’s the year of our Lord 1648, young sir, and Parliament is victorious.’
I was surprised by his answer, not so much by the date as the form of his reply. He had thought I meant which year, rather than which place! Hardly the mindset of a late Renaissance man.
‘What year might it be in the Alsacia?’ I asked him.
He hesitated as if he were chewing over a riddle. ‘The same. Oh, I know that you and your familiars travel the moonbeam roads. I hardly know how that’s done. Be assured of this certainty—everywhere in Earth, Heaven and Hell, it is yet the twelfth day in the month of October in the year of our Lord 1648. Cromwell rules England. Parliament and justice have prevailed!’
‘You sound like a Parliament’s man,’ I said
‘I am indeed, though a thoughtful one since the king is so ill used. Fool that he is, like all Stuarts, possessing more arrogance than sense, he persists in betraying his word and making war on his own subjects. He honestly believes he’s God’s chosen. And I choose not to question God. Yet there’s still some hope of his finding nobility and sanity within that sea of hard-headedness, self-doubt and boyish need he calls a mind, but I fear it will not be. A hardhead he’ll remain until the conversion of the Jews!’
‘A great speech for a Parliamenter,’ I said. ‘You did say you were for Cromwell?’
‘To my bootstraps. I respect the right of sanctuary, however, and let God alone judge those who seek it. But I’m not for imprisoning nor murdering the king. Or commoners. I fear the wretched anarchy such deeds will bring.’ Using a scabbarded sword he felt ahead of us, leading me with one hand until he struck wood with an encouraging thump. ‘Alsacia,’ he said. He opened the gate and brought us into the Sanctuary. Captain St Claire was a godly soldier. Could I ever learn from him what kind of illusion the Alsacia was and how it was created? Could I learn whether God existed? And could I get someone from this world to take pity on me, explain what was happening? Prince Rupert had spoken a little of the logic by which the many worlds of his universe made their way through the heavens, but not enough to help me understand it and follow, somehow, the logic of its existence. Today I intended to find out more, even if what I learned killed me or turned me mad! I looked to Captain St Claire. I owed him a favour. I could not do him the discourtesy of not offering him a drink.
‘Let me buy you a shant,’ I insisted, ‘since you saved my life.’
‘Your life is worth a shant of ale, eh?’ He was amused. ‘Well, I’ve known several who value their souls at less! But,’ he somehow intuited, ‘your business is with the abbey, no?’ His dark, intelligent eyes looked firmly into mine as if he reminded me of my purpose. ‘Perhaps we’ll meet for a drink another time.’
I smiled and thanked him. As before, he strolled with me up to the abbey doors and then turned to leave. ‘I’ll wish you good evening, Master Moorcock, and trust we’ll meet again soon.’
We shook hands. After he had disappeared back into the fog I turned to knock on the heavy oak door of the abbey. All I heard was echoing silence.
I knocked again but there was still no answer. I looked back towards the Swan but saw little activity there, either. Was the entire place deserted? Again, I resisted an impulse to get a drink at the tavern. I knew it would be a mistake. There was a peculiar sinister, sentient quality to the fog. It curled like a snake, thicker mist against lighter. Sparks of silver fire flickered within it. I found it impossible to distinguish the nature of the shapes or the sparks. Unarmed as I was, I thought it was time I got out of the Sanctuary.
Disappointed and nervous, I headed for the gate again and eventually found it. I was frightened. The whole place was dead and seemed filled with the dead. By the time I eventually found Carmelite Inn Square and almost fell through the gate into it, stumbling and running up towards Fleet Street, I had just managed to recover myself, but I didn’t look back.
I boarded a late bus to Ladbroke Grove. Nobody was on the top deck until we got to Charing Cross. After that I shared the ride with two Irish drunks singing a chaotic medley of sentimental music hall ditties about Killarney or hard Republican songs about Kevin Barry. I knew many of them. I had learned them when busking in Irish pubs from Notting Hill to Kilburn. I didn’t mind the distraction a bit. I joined in where I could.
When I stumbled into the flat at about ten thirty that evening, I found it fuller than I had expected.
Helena had been worried sick, she said, fearing that I’d been in a fight or worse. No real harm done. Except all the harm in the world. The beginning of the end. Mrs Melody was there. She had come, she said, to apologise.
35
ANOTHER FINE CHRISTMAS
For a couple of weeks after I had moved out of the family flat, I recorded a few new tracks with the band. It helped distract me, but my heart wasn’t really in it. I tried to talk to Pete about what had happened with Moll but since he had just split up with a girlfriend of some years, he had other problems. So I kept it all to myself and talked instead about whether miracles could happen without the existence of God. Was there a school of philosophy which proposed such a thing? Everyone apart from Pete was either totally sceptical or so far gone into Sufism that I couldn’t understand them. If it hadn’t been for the Swarm constantly reminding me of its presence, I might have put Alsacia out of my head altogether.
I had sublet a room across the road in a big flat rented by New Worlds’ advertising manager, Lizzy Mitchum, and her husband, Mick, who did light shows. Lizzy was fond of the girls and didn’t mind them visiting or even staying occasionally. Every day I got up, went across the road, encountered a monosyllabic Helena, and walked Sally and Kitty to school. Every day, whenever I could, I picked them up from school and took them home.
Helena had hardly spoken to me since Mrs Melody had visited to ‘apologise’ for taking the girls out to see her daughter. She hadn’t realised, she insisted, that I had yet to tell Helena about Molly. Her daughter understood I was getting a divorce. I had been totally pissed off by Mrs Melody’s aggression. How did she think she was helping her daughter? By forcing my hand? I really meant it. I was never going to see Molly again. Pretending to be placatory, she talked about her poor daughter being in tears with a broken heart. Not the Moll Midnight I knew!
She was clearly acting. I now knew Mrs Melody had left the Alsacia shortly after I arrived and while I was distracted by Clitch and Love. I even suspected her of paying the pair to keep me busy while she went to Ladbroke Grove. I had recognised her perfume as she slipped past me. I, of course, was impotently furious. She had deliberately destroyed the equilibrium of my life. Somehow, she had known I was visiting the Alsacia, and while I was busy had taken her chance to blow the whistle! Though I had warned her to stay away from my family, she had deliberately thrown a spanner in the emotional works. Presumably she had intended to force me back together with Molly. I was having none of it. In front of Helena I had told Mrs Melody unequivocally that I was never returning to the Alsacia. I had no intention of seeing her or her daughter again.
It was off my chest, in the open, and at least I didn’t have to lie anymore. Not, of course, that this had stopped Helena from telling me to pack my bags. We hadn’t talked much since and she was pretty grim. At least she wasn’t keeping the children away from me, even if she shut me up every time I tried to explain everything to her. In the end there wasn’t an awful lot to say. I didn’t have a moral leg to stand on. She said I only made myself sound more feeble.
I stopped after a while. There was no point in beginning with a story she refused to believe. On the other hand, if the Alsacia didn’t exist, how had I managed to have an affair there? Helena wouldn’t talk about that, either.
The children needed a lot of my attention just then. They were slightly puzzled by my moving across the street but, since their own
lives weren’t changed, accepted it as one of those inexplicable things adults did. They had developed distinct personalities and preferences. Sally was a natural vegetarian. Kitty loved meat. Sally was a confronter. Kitty did her best to negotiate. There was no serious rivalry between them and they bonded on almost every occasion. I loved seeing their complex personalities growing. I was very proud of them. They were a pleasure to be with because they were so curious. I got a lot of consolation out of their general joy in living, their excitement of discovery. Sometimes they wouldn’t be all that enthusiastic about going to a museum or an exhibition, but usually when we got there they would be drawn in, whether by a new painter or an old bit of natural history. And they loved visiting working artists.
My sculptor friend Eduardo Paolozzi was always welcoming when we visited his studio. Some of his big metal pieces were exhibited at his Mayfair gallery where he encouraged the girls to drop by and climb all over them. Even when one was installed at the Tate he told the guards to let the kids alone. He was a sweet man in those days. They particularly liked visiting his screen printer where all that pure, vivid colour was splashed everywhere, the prints coming to life under the rollers. As little girls Sally and Kitty saw a lot of the pop artists as well as those Beat writers, like Bill Burroughs, whom I still knew and, of course, the New Worlds contributors. They met Angus Wilson, Doris Lessing, Arthur C. Clarke. They went to a lot of exhibitions, openings, launches. They were extremely well socialised. People said they were like Victorian children. True, they did a few things Victorian children were allowed to do, such as drink small amounts of beer and wine with meals, and a few things that were unheard of by Victorians. You really could take them anywhere. We did pretty much everything together when they were small. They were never what my mum would condemn as ‘precocious’. They were used to going to theatres and restaurants and always behaved well. They knew backstage etiquette. They had pets, went out with their friends from school, most of whom had interesting parents, enjoyed sleepovers and other fun and quarrelled about what TV to watch, though all agreed on Doctor Who. We played elaborate games for which we prepared costumes, made pictures or wrote proclamations. We also played games out of the big Victorian toy box I had picked up in Portobello Road. A lot of our projects were developed from what we discovered there. Like me they had grown up enjoying the pleasures of several generations.