Link Arms with Toads! (4 page)

Baring-Gould and Purnell both managed to conquer their fear and caught the
Mezzotint
back to Cornwall, when next it docked at Hugh Town. It was most fortunate for them that another storm, on the return journey, knocked them back into their original dimension; but the sight they had witnessed in that scrapbook never left them. It affected them both so strongly that they could not concentrate on their work; they were dismissed from Moseley College of Further Education and became tramps, working their way across Europe picking grapes.

The picture had been a photograph of the famous
Last Supper
by Leonardo da Vinci. In our own world, 13 is deemed unlucky because it represents the number of guests present at that meal. In that other dimension, 13½ was deemed unlucky for the same reason… (Dots are believed by many writers of our day to be a good substitute for effective writing. Let us have a few more…)

In Italy, in the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, both Baring-Gould and Purnell were arrested for scratching with dishevelled nails at the priceless original. They were, it seems, trying to strip away the layers of paint to determine that the figure they so feared was not really there. We will say nothing more of what transpired; each of the two men described it separately as half-spider, half-monkey (though not resembling in any way a spider monkey) with a body of fearful thinness, covered in a mass of coarse, matted black hair, with the muscles standing out like wires.

They are comfortable in the madhouse at last, and indeed of all my patients I favour them most highly. I am quite convinced they are not lunatics in the normal sense. If their sight or brains were giving way I would have plenty of opportunities for ascertaining the fact. They do not rant and rave like monomaniacs. It was only this same afternoon they told me what you have just read; but I refuse to draw any inferences from it, or to assent to any that you will draw for me.

(1995)

The Taste of the Moon

Mondrian, the existential spiceman, carries his angst like a basket of fruit balanced on his head. When he trips on the cracked paving slabs, the plums of despair roll out into the gutter. He has been destroying computers for the benefit of sullen consumers. Ancient Electronics Ltd has made him a director. His fingers flutter over the keyboards, one of the few sets of fingers that knows how. A special interrupt is wired to a small charge in the monitor. The word that shatters glass and plastic is stretched like a sucked nipple: “Why?”

Nostalgia is the thing. Every ten years, manners revert to those of the previous decade. Fashions parody themselves to oblivion, like novae in the sky, colours spinning into static spaces. Did computers really explode when asked to process metaphysical data? Even the head of the company is not sure. It was all so long ago. Mondrian does not enquire too closely, he takes the money and saunters.

Nascent Nosegay, his chief rival, scowls at him as he leaves the demonstration tent. “Prostituting yourself again?” Nascent is a purist, refusing to take any job that does not involve spice travel. This is all very well, but Mondrian has a pretension and six aspirations to keep. It is not possible on his wages. And Ancient Electronics Ltd do not make great demands on his time. Next week he must exhibit a stereo, a machine for recycling brief passages of sound whenever someone slams a door. He is up on the jargon already. “Turntable, magnetic tape, double album.” Words like popping caraway seeds.

His day job is more difficult. He resents wearing the cumbersome suit. Yet he has a reputation to maintain. He is the best Khormanaut in the whole of North London. Nascent specialises in Biryani, south of the river. So no one at the Greenwich Spice Centre can say for certain who is the real hero. Remarkably, Mondrian is still nervous before missions. It is always a new experience, fresh as uprooted coriander. He does not mix well with the other spicemen. They consider him an example of aloof sociability, baleful serenity.

Weiner, his immediate superior, briefs him on his latest. “Large establishment discovered in Finsbury Park. Tandoori at aphelion, by the smell of it. Plush seating, sitar music. Pickles mostly mango and lime. Rumours of onion ring system. No known poppadums.” Always they seem to simmer into existence, appearing where least expected, between honest buildings immobile for years. Because of an allergy to chilled lager, Weiner has never completed a mission himself. Yet he feels for his men, he really does, he is in there with them.

“
The name?” Mondrian flexes his tongue. It twitches like a feline ear, but this is a painful analogy. He recalls Schultz, fed cat dhansak in Earls Court. He has seen many colleagues fall by the tableside. It pays to be cautious, though not in hard currency. Nascent scoffs at his obsession with names. There is a spiceman saying: What the fork cannot balance is no affair of the palate.

Weiner is more tolerant. “
The Taste of Asia
. Could be a variable. Some evidence of inconsistent pricing. Big enough to be unstable. Might go nouvelle at any time.” He reaches out to touch Mondrian’s arm. “There hasn’t been a restaurant this large for years. I hate to think what will happen if it collapses. Pizzeria, greasy spoon, Tapas bar.” Weiner is a pessimist. He still has nightmares about the Leicester Square Nebula, a sprinkling of white dwarf cafés.

In the common room, the men are polishing their footwear. They do not look up when Mondrian enters. His portrait hangs on the far wall, a lugubrious figure. When they must answer his questions, they address the picture. It makes things easier. There is tension otherwise. Sitting on the espresso machine, dangling his narrow legs, Nascent sneers. “Why not open a restaurant yourself? Explore both sides of the kitchen.” Mondrian inclines his great head. He is stuck with his mercenary reputation. He wants to shout at them, tell them about his insecurities, but spicemen are supposed to enjoy anxiety, wear it as part of the uniform. How else will women know they are attractive?

Outside, in the Greenwich evening, Mondrian is at peace. The Spice Centre, on the banks of the river, ignites in the sunset. The gigantic nose rotates high above, mapping the city on the culinary wavelength. A solitary bargee gives his impossibly romantic cry: “Southwark for a fiver.” At this point, where the Thames makes a smiling bend, effluent from a thousand unlicensed establishments falters on its journey to the sea. More bargees hove into sight, poles snapping the cooling crust of the curry sauce. Lentils lap at Mondrian’s feet.

Making his way to the pedestrian tunnel, he passes the ruins of the pier. Even here, last bastion of authority, freelancers are rife. Among the stubs of protruding timbers, balanced like stylites on the reliable posts, men and women dangle nets, catching the larger pieces of carrot and potato for their own pots. One hag, panning for sweetcorn, nuggets as black as her teeth, gestures with her colander. “Hey, spicer, you’ve dropped an apple of abandonment.” Feeling in his metaphysical basket, Mondrian finds this is true. He is running out of existentialism at an alarming rate. A trip to Camden market is called for.

The tunnel is crowded with ruffians boiling rice. Under every curry there is some Basmati. Mondrian knows how to ignore touts. His stride is purposeful, he shuts his mind to their jeers, the clash of spoon on pan, the turmeric dust storms. On the far side of the river, home territory, he emerges into the Island Gardens. The last industries are milked on this udder of land, tents grouped in concentric circles. In the centre of the commercial Karakoram, the striped marquee of Ancient Electronics Ltd ripples majestically. Dragonflies skim the fabric. The flag, design showing an azure flip-flop rampant, is stiff with pollution, the smoke of charred Naan breads innumerable.

Old Speckled Henrietta, head of the company, is waiting for him at her desk. They have a thing between them. It is not a growing concern, but it is acceptable to both. Like Mondrian, her nostrils are plugged with glums. Her former husband, a hopeless workaholic, used to binge on unpaid overtime, return home in a senseless temper and take her out for meals. Once, he even bought her a bunch of roses. “I have a big mission on Friday night,” Mondrian informs her. “If I fail we’ll be sucked in.” For some reason, she finds this killingly funny.

They hold hands and wander out into the starlight. The moon has embarked on another slow crawl up the sky. “That’s persistence for you,” he jokes, but she can tell something is bothering him. It is not just pre-mission blues. She bends down and kisses the top of his head, spiky tuft of hair tickling her tongue. He shivers in the warm air. “They say that spicemen weren’t always like us. They used to go up there, out of the city. They walked on that crescent.”

She nods soberly. “I bet there’s something in it. All myths have a seed of truth. I’ll look into it. Maybe my company can reproduce some appropriate technology? The past is such fun.” Away from the lamps hung outside the tents, her grin is undercooked, too bright. Mondrian squints in her direction, fearful she will drift away on the tether of his arm, taking the limb with her. Her strength and duskiness are what initially attracted him. The muscularity is real, the dark skin an illusion. She is so freckled she is one big freckle.

“
I sometimes wonder if there isn’t a pattern to it all. I can’t accept that each new restaurant operates independently of the others. There must be connections, possibly with non-ethnic retail outlets. No eatery is an island.” Embarrassed by his outburst, Mondrian folds away his emotions. He has already thought long and hard about the problem. The Spice Centre are adopting too literal an approach. They calculate total opening hours, estimate takings, analyse atmospheres. Mondrian wants to look sideways, to venture beyond inductive reasoning and the epicycles of Cardamom Calculus.

“
You mean jewellers, lingerie specialists, taxidermists?” She has decided to cheer him up by improvising on his mood. He clears his throat and changes the subject by saying nothing, but she has peppered a bland inspiration. Half-empty restaurants are only one kind of institution with no visible means. Others exist on different frequencies. Suddenly it seems the whole metropolis is about to implode, the furthest suburbs collapsing into this huge area of unvisited space, unpressurised life. He picks his teeth for emphasis.

“
Maybe. I don’t know. Nobody has dared to investigate. The Spice Centre would consider it heresy. Ever since our founder wandered into his first takeaway in Notting Hill, the approach has been rigid. Curry houses or nothing.” As he delivers this rebuke of his organisation, he feels a measure of disgust, both with his superiors for ignorance and himself for disloyalty. Old Speckled Henrietta grins at the complexity of his expression. Sweat reclines on his cheeks. He looks to neutral facts for relief. “It’s called Spicentricism.”

They complete their tour of the Gardens in silence. When it is time to say farewell, Mondrian plucks up courage to touch her breasts. They are soft as hot towels. Wiping his fingers in her cleavage, shaking her sweat from the tips, he shoulders his way back to the Spice Centre, chewing his lower lip bitterly amid the upper lip biters of the tunnel. Things have got darker: pilau rice and other perversions dominate the length. Gobi Aloo has made an appearance.

Walking, he cannot shake away a feeling of doom. Few Khormanauts die in their beds, most retire to hospices with malfunctioning colons. His time will come, he must face facts. This mission might be the final one, the mortal dessert of his buffet life. Would his colleagues applaud when Weiner brought the news? Nascent would attend the funeral, he was sure of that, but only to jeer. He could picture them around the open grave, the empty speeches, the handfuls of powdered cumin cast onto the unleavened coffin.
Requisat in Spice
.

He gains his room without meeting the others in the passages. They spend their spare time in the common room, laughing at Nascent’s jokes. Weiner has his own pursuits, though he will never state what they are. Mondrian suspects him of having a second job, like himself. As he waits impatiently to fall asleep, he hears a door close softly and footsteps outside his window. A receding superior makes a distinctive sound. One evening, Mondrian decides, he will follow.

The dawn bastes his forehead in a cayenne glow. He tumbles down to breakfast early, eager to avoid the traditional baiting that precedes a mission. In his case, his colleagues share his reluctance. Lighthearted insults are not the sort they wish to crack his shell with. Belligerent taunts or nothing. They will sleep on.

He takes coffee and checks the time. The morning is his only until elevenses, when he will be required to present himself before Weiner and suit up. Weiner usually has something to say, a reminder of his duties or a potted history of the founder’s own exploits. There are just enough hours to take the communal moped for a spin. The antique vehicle, kept as a privilege for pre-mission spicemen, is a symbol of resistance. The one dogmatic herald of the technology backlash.

Mondrian learnt to ride with the aid of diagrams and exercises in balance and embarrassment. The key is waiting for him under his cereal dish, in a brown envelope. In the garage he runs his fingers over the canvas tarpaulin, exposes the rusty machine and settles into the seat. There is supposedly a connection between such devices and the stereo he is due to demonstrate. He cannot imagine what.

He heads north, his favourite direction. Pedestrians part before him like the waters of a Sunday-schooled sea. Waiters move tables and chairs out of his way, panic on their sardonic faces, amazement in the eyes of their alfresco customers. Porters loaded with chillies, fresh and desiccated, stevedores rolling barrels of humus, minstrels juggling falafel, gape at his smoky progress.