Dream London (33 page)

I slapped him, open-palmed on the face. He burst into tears.

I pounded up the stairwell that stank of sweat and semen. The first of the doors to the rooms was closed. I shoulder-charged it open. A man sat on the bed, crying, a young woman holding his hand.

“Sorry,” I said.

Bill wasn’t in the next room. Or the next.

She was in the fourth room, standing in front of the mirror, lost in thought.

A fat man stood by the bed, neatly folding his trousers.

“Bugger off,” he said. “She’s taken. You can have her next.”

I hit him on the bridge of the nose then stepped in and brought my knee up against his balls. As he doubled over I brought my elbow down on the back of his neck.

“Out,” I said.

He slunk out, one hand welling with blood, held to his nose. I kicked his filthy trousers through the door and then turned to Bill.

“James,” she said, half in a daze. I suddenly registered that she was topless. “I was...”

Her eyes hardened.

“It hasn’t got you yet,” I said. “Dream London hasn’t got you yet.”

“Not yet.”

She shook her head.

“Look away whilst I put on a top,” she said.

I sat down in the little room with the worn bed and fixed my attention on the pictures on the wall. They seemed more obscene than yesterday.

Bill sat down next to me. She was wearing a pale pink jumper.

“Listen, I got through to the Contract Floor,” I said. “That’s where everything is. But I don’t know what we’re going to do about it. Did you see what happened to your government’s big bomb attack?”

“I saw it.”

“Spectacular failure. All it’s succeeded in doing is bringing everything forward.” I sighed. “Do you know all of this is because of ants?”

Bill shook her head.

“The ants are just the point of entry.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me who I was fighting?”

“Would it have made any difference? Besides, what sort of hero would fight an ant heap?”

She was right, of course. She seemed so tired. Defeated, almost. I knew how she felt. Still, I pressed on.

“Listen, I saw Anna outside. She says that we should raise an army. Take it to Snakes and Ladders Square.”

Bill smiled, weakly.

“Raise an army? Everyone says that sooner or later. No one ever says how, or what they should do. Do you have any idea how to raise an army, Captain Wedderburn?”

Captain Wedderburn did, actually. But I wasn’t Captain Wedderburn any more. I thought of the mandrills in the zoo, of the thing in my mouth, of the contract that I signed in Angel Tower. Captain Wedderburn could have raised an army. He was a real Hero for Dream London. What was I, though?

“I have no currency in Dream London any more, Bill.”

“Then you’d better gain some quickly. At the moment the only thing that stands between Dream London and whatever is coming through from the parks is the pair of us. Hold it...”

I heard it too. A muffled thumping from downstairs. The edge of violence, quickly quelled.

“Trouble,” I said. “Is there another way out?”

Footsteps were hammering up the stairs, coming closer.

“There’s a trapdoor at the end of the corridor that leads up into the attic,” said Bill. “We might be able to run through the roof spaces.”

It was too late for that. The door swung open. A young woman stood out there, giggling.

“He’s up here!” she shouted. “Let’s pull his clothes off now and lick him.”

Big blue eyes and a dirty mop of blonde hair. One of the Moston girls. One breath of her perfume and my body leapt into action. One part of it did, anyway. Bill was unaffected, however. She slammed a fist hard into the Moston girl’s chin, and she collapsed onto the floor, held her face and began to cry big tears.

“Why did you do that?” she sobbed. “You big bully!”

“I’m sorry!” I cried, bending down to help her. “She didn’t mean it!”

“James!” called Bill. It was what I needed to cut me free of the honeyed web the Moston girl was casting about me. I straightened up, thoughts of easing her tears forgotten.

Bill grabbed my hand.

“Come on!” she said, pulling me into the corridor, but it was too late. The Moston girls filled the shabby space, blonde and alluring, dressed in nothing more than rags. They moved around me, I was caught in soft flesh and scent; it was like drowning in honey...

The Moston girls dragged me back into Bill’s room. They laid me down on the bed. They unbuttoned my jacket and my trousers...

“Don’t undress him yet... Stand back, now.”

The voice was unfamiliar, but the Moston girls responded to it. They withdrew, leaving me lying there on the bed looking up at their leader. I rebuttoned my flies as the stranger stared at me. She was a plump woman, wearing a long dress scooped low to reveal a deep décolletage. Her black hair was pulled back into a severe bun, her lips and fingernails painted the scarlet of sin.

“Hello, Captain Wedderburn. Honey Peppers is looking for you.”

“Who are you?” I asked. Where was Bill, I wondered? Had she gone for help? Had she chosen this moment to betray me? I didn’t have time to think about it.

“My name is Madame Virtue,” said the woman. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and it dipped beneath her weight. She placed a hand on my arm. “You look thirsty, Captain. Let me get you a drink.”

“No thank you.”

She clapped her hands.

“Someone get down to the bar. Fetch a gin and tonic. Four cubes of ice, three goes of gin and a lemon slice. And let a ten-ounce tonic void in foaming gulps until it smothers everything else up to the edge.”

“That sounded like a poem.”

“It was.”

“Who are you?”

“Someone in the same line of work as you, Captain Wedderburn. Someone who is holding herself together under the changes.” She laughed. “I was a bitch before Dream London came and I’m a bitch still today.”

“I like you,” I said.

“I like you, too,” she said. She lay down on the bed, stretched herself out by my side and touched my neck, ran her finger down to my chest.

“It’s over, Captain Wedderburn,” said Madame Virtue. “The towers tremble and everyone is moving in to take their slice of the pie. The Daddio’s got vice and crime.”

I looked into her mouth.

“You don’t have eyes in your tongue,” I observed.

She smiled.

“I joined the Daddio of my own accord. Anyone who has any sense would do the same. Now the entrance is almost open, every interested party in Dream London is making their move. The Daddio’s going to do well out of this, and if you have to join the Daddio you might as well do it on your own terms.”

“Too late for me,” I said.

“That’s just your bad luck. Ah! Here’s your drink.”

The Laughing Dog didn’t run to ice, or slices of lemon. It didn’t even run to clean glasses. What came was strong gin with a thin dribble of flat tonic.

Still, it made me thirsty just to look at it. My tongue was wriggling. I forced the thirst down.

“Who is the Daddio, anyway?” I said, buying time.

“Few know,” said Madame Virtue.

“But you do.”

She knelt down at my side, that large bosom pressed close to my cheek.

“I do,” she said. “Now, are you going to be a good boy and drink your gin?”

“I want to know first. Who is the Daddio?”

“Not a who,” said Madame Virtue. “A what. The Daddio is a great forest down the river. Down past the flower fields and before the swamps. The Daddio is a forest laden heavy with fruit and berries. Animals eat the berries, and the Daddio gains power over them.”

“The Daddio is a forest? I heard he was a pool of leeches.”

“A pool in a forest. The Daddio is a whole eco-system.”

I looked at the gin and tonic. What a cruel way to taunt a man. I forced it from my mind.

“Why all the crime, why all the vice?” I asked. “What interest would a forest have in money?”

“None whatsoever. The Daddio isn’t immoral, the Daddio is amoral. That’s why he doesn’t care what happens to flesh bodies.”

I slipped a finger over the top of her dress, pulling it down just a little, exposing a little more of her ample breast.

“Not too much, Captain,” she said. “That’s what the Moston girls are here for.” Her body made a liar of her words. I felt her tense as I touched her. “The Daddio likes it when humans spend their time copulating. It stops them thinking of other things.”

I slipped my other hand down her back and cupped the amplitude of her behind.

“Take a drink, Captain,” she whispered, red lips so close to mine I felt her breath in my own.

“No,” I said, and I flipped her over onto her front, pulling her arm up behind her back, hard. She yelled in pain.

“Tell your girls to back off, or I’ll break your arm.”

“They don’t listen to me,” she yelped.

“They’ll listen to me, though. Tell them to stay back.”

Another voice from the doorway. Another person come to join the fight. But on my side this time.

“Mr Monagan!” I called, and I felt like bursting into tears. To think I’d almost betrayed him... “Mister Monagan!” It was the second time he’d saved me in twenty-four hours. Never had anyone been so pleased to see an orange frog man standing in a doorway holding a large blunderbuss. Who knows where he had found that?

“You think you could kill them all with that gun?” said Madam Virtue. “All my lovely girls? My beautiful, seductive girls?”

“Seduction won’t work on Mister Monagan,” I said. “He doesn’t like human girls.”

“Not that way,” said Mister Monagan, virtuously. “Now come on, Mister James. It’s time to get out of here.”

I got to my feet, buttoning my jacket.

“Where will you go?” asked Madam Virtue. “You’ll have to drink soon.”

“I’ve got a day or so,” I said “Enough time to raise an army.”

“Good luck with that,” she said. “Even if you manage to get someone to follow you, they’ll never fight. Dream London has drained the life out of everyone here.”

I knew she was right. I didn’t let her see that, though.

“Where’s Bill?” I asked.

“Gone,” he said. “She said she’ll meet you later at Snakes and Ladders Square. If you get out of here in one piece that is.”

“At least she’s safe.” I looked to the doorway, the giggling Moston girls waiting just beyond it.

“Come on then, Mr Monagan,” I said. “Let’s go.”

THIRTEEN

THE STREETS OF DREAM LONDON

W
E MOVED DOWN
the corridor, the Moston girls writhing around us and dodging out of the way of the wide bell of Mr Monagan’s blunderbuss. They reached out and pinched our bottoms, they grabbed us from behind, they crushed flowers in the air, they did everything to slow us down. Eventually, though, we made it out into the market street where we could lose ourselves in the crowd.

“Come back! Come back to us!”

I held onto the back of Mr Monagan’s jacket as we pushed our way through the crowds. The smell of the produce – fruit and vegetables; sizzling spiced meats; coffee – all of it was torture to me.

“What are we going to do now, Mister James?” asked Mr Monagan.

“We’re going to raise an army.”

“An army!” Mister Monagan’s eyes were shining. “How will we do that?”

“By acting like Captain Wedderburn.”

“But you are Captain Wedderburn.”

“Not any more, I’m not. Listen, Mr Monagan, I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything, Mister James.”

I looked behind me. We had lost the Moston girls in the crowd. For the moment, at least. I slowed to a walking pace, regaining my breath.

“Mister Monagan,” I said. “I need you to sneak back to Belltower End. Find Gentle Annie, Miss Take and any other of the girls. Tell them to spread the word that Captain Wedderburn has a big job for them. He needs as many ladies as they can find.”

Mister Monagan’s eyes were shining.

“That sounds exciting!”

“Tell the girls that they are to be at Snakes and Ladders Square tonight before sundown.”

“Snakes and Ladders Square! I will.”

“Tell them we’re going to fight. Tell them I need an army, and I know they can recruit one. Tell them I’m counting on them.”

I looked at the orange man. I owed him my life. But then again, in a backwards sort of way, he owed me his. I reached out a hand. He looked at it, and then shook it.

“Thank you, Mister Monagan.”

“For what?”

“For saving me.”

“It was nothing, Mister James. Those girls...”

“I didn’t mean from the girls.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Never mind.”

“Mister James?” He hesitated.

“Yes?”

“Will you be okay?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“You can’t eat, you can’t drink, Daddio Clarke and the Macon Wailers are hunting you and the parks are opening up.”

I frowned.

“How do you know about the parks, Mr Monagan?”

“Oh, Mister James! I can read the signs!”

He had a point. Anyone could feel the change coming.

“I just need to make it to sundown,” I said. “After that, it doesn’t really matter.”