Rainbow Bridge (23 page)

‘Could be true,’ said Fiorinda, remembering the plans in the registry file. ‘There
is
a village buried under here. What’s happening upstairs?’

‘Sorting out accommodation. You three have a suite, the nun and monks have a suite; the soldiers have detention. So, it was worth bringing them, after all. They’ve distracted the bad guys, while our
real
muscle floated by on a cloud of incense… I’m happy, because I get a single. You three won’t be able to force me to bunk with Norman and Toby whenever you, er, have something private to discuss.’

‘Hahaha.’ Sage frowned, remembering his exchange with Toby under the alder trees. ‘How
was
that, Joe? Did anything strange happen?’

Joe burrowed his hands into his pockets and shuddered. ‘If you mean did either of them make a pass, no. Sleeping with Norman and Toby, okay, the breakdown. Toby lies staring at the wall. Toby mutters, and stares at the wall. Sometimes he cries, more like whimpers, like a sick baby, and that’s
grim
.’ Joe reflected. ‘Grimmer for Toby, of course, poor bastard.’

Fiorinda tried her tea again: still disgusting. ‘What does Norman do?’

‘He snores like a pig: well, you knew that… Stares at me, for no reason, for ages. Takes off his dress nails and uses them to poke wax out of his ears. Bites his real nails. Fiddles with his rushes: meaning he stares into space watching eye-socket tv, and talks to himself. Asks me Rock and Roll Reich pub quiz questions, hard ones that prove Chinese superiority. Who was the Chosen Few’s little-known first drummer?’

‘That’s a trick question, there’s only ever been Milly.’

Milly Kettle, long ago Ax’s girlfriend, now married to Ax’s brother Jordan, had been a founder member of the Chosen Few.

‘Wrong! There was a lad called Rafayel Sticking. According to Norman.’

‘False,’ said Sage. ‘Ray was the drummer with Mulan, when Ax was their guitarist, before the Chosen Few existed.’

‘Okay, next time
you
can sleep with Norman.’

If truth be known, Joe had found sharing with the Triumvirate intensely reassuring. Just being near Sage and Fiorinda now, talking bullshit, made him feel he might get out of this alive. Pride barely kept him from clinging to their coats.

‘Oh, shit, I forgot. You’re wanted, I was sent to fetch you. We have to drink ’shroom tea in the Executive Bar. It’s a symbol of good faith.’

The Executive Bar was on the sixth floor. Lights were low, acres of murky purple carpet disappeared into the beery shadows; oil film colours squirmed on the white backdrop of a disused stage. The lunatics who had taken over the asylum slouched in booths, or relaxed at their ease on bean bags around knee-high tables. Young women in homemade Playmate outfits carried trays: one of them welcomed the new arrivals and led the way, her cottontail jaunty in the gloom.

No attempt at concealment. The Executive Committee and their cronies wore traditional dress and displayed their weapons, guns and knives and exotics, like body décor. The ambient music was Aoxomoxoa and the Heads’ proscribed early immix album,
Bleeding Heart
. Presumably they’d have been running the immix itself, if their sound and vision system hadn’t been so crap. It was like walking into a room full of dead men, the slaughtered corpses of Reading campground, up on their legs and haunting a dirty old drinking hole; oblivious, defiant.

Lieutenant Colonel Soong, splendidly robed, sat beside Mr Preston in the midst of this den of iniquity. He was holding it together, but barely. His fright mask aureole seemed to be standing on end of its own accord.

‘Ah!’ he cried, waving vivid wings. ‘The hero and the diva! And our mediaman! Isn’t this a
wonderful
place? So bold, so wild. Aren’t you glad I brought you here? I’m
humbled
by the ideas these crazy people have—’

The hippy war chiefs thumped their glasses, grinning like mad dogs.

‘Time warp,’ muttered Sage to Ax, as he folded down.

‘Yeah,’ murmured Ax. ‘Still don’t know what the fuck’s going on—’

They’d walked into scenes like this in Yorkshire, long ago, and survived. But they’d had novelty value then. Rockstar maña wasn’t going to help them here.

‘Let me introduce Gola, Sage,’ said Ax, dryly: indicating a big man, slaphead, many piercings, lardy and pale as if he rarely saw sunlight. ‘The Anglian chief exec.’

Gola nodded across the table, stone faced through the wreaths of smoke.

‘Harvey of course you know.’

‘Hi,’ said Sage. He was looking at one of Richard Kent’s chiefs of staff, baby-faced, dread locked; mixed record in action, immensely high opinion of himself. The would be other familiar faces: he didn’t look, he didn’t want to know.

‘How’s it going, Harve?’

‘Its goin’ great,’ Harve reported, expressionless. ‘Fuckin’
perfect
.’

‘The two of them are sharing power,’ said Ax.

A Playmate knelt by Sage’s side, brave bunny ears a little worn, fishnets with a run in one knee. ‘What’s your poi’on, Fage?’ lisped Gola. ‘Or are yu off the boothe, your holineth?’ He bared a ragged gap where he’d lost his front teeth.

‘I’ll take vodka,’ said Sage.

The girl smiled shyly. ‘I’m Eve, I’m your bunny. I’m so incredibly honoured to meet you guys. May I bring you something, Fiorinda?’

‘Thanks, a Manhattan. And a glass of water.’

Fiorinda had left her coat in the suite. She shone like a Byzantine icon between her bodyguards, and Norman was
staring
at her. What are you looking at?, thought Sage. Yer big overdressed luvvie, we’re doin’ our best. Norman caught his eye, and quickly wiped an expression of dawning consternation—

The Playmate took herself off, Gola and Harvey stood. ‘Okay, Colonel Soong,’ said Harvey. ‘We’ll take this from here, got things to discuss with our performers. Thanx for bringing these great artists along, on yer noble mission of intercultural understanding. The drinks’ll come to the meeting table, superstars.’

Gola surged over the table and secured Norman’s hand, before the Colonel could stop him: a condescending whale, in an embroidered caftan and ammo belts. ‘The girls will look after you and your boyfriends. Whatever you want, juth athk.’

Joe seemed to be waiting with resignation for the wrecks to fall on him and start chomping. Toby watched the oil film colours; very small without his rug.

‘I suppose I’m to make the Manhattan vanish?’ murmured Sage as they followed the new leaders of the resistance; henchpersons closing up behind.

‘Please. Ax is in a Muslim mood, I can tell.’

‘Damn right I am. I need all the gravitas I can get.’

‘Gagh, fucking disgusting drink. This is a hazard they don’t tell you about—’

‘Sorry. First thing that came into my head.’

They wondered if Ax could do a miracle, if the strange vibe they were getting could be some insane version of repentance; if Corny and Richard were still alive… In the depths of the bar, deep in the shadows, blood red and bright blue candles had been lit, along a table set with rows of chairs. The party animals stood up.

This persuasion hadn’t been seen since that bizarre reception. The armed hippies had taken over, the revellers had disappeared, somewhere in that confusion.

‘We
knew
you’d come,’ announced a middle-aged woman with a river of tangled dark hair; a raddled, handsome face. She wore a short gown that left her ample breasts bare, Grecian sandals and dog-collar of iron thorns; she glowed with exaltation.

‘There’s just one condition,’ said an imposing drag artiste; nervously. ‘The Chinese Colonel does not sit at the negotiating table with us, he doesn’t have to be in our face. Can it work like that?’

‘It can,’ said Ax. ‘That’s just how Colonel Soong wants to play it.’

So the Triumvirate sat down with the two factions, hawks and doves, as if in their glory days, and heard the peace plan Rainbow Bridge had devised for Anglia; while the might of China waited across the room, in the person of fright-wigged Cousin Caterpillar. The hawks were not happy, but the party animals had come up with an offer that the Counterculture could not refuse—

‘I have no idea what’s going on,’ announced Norman, when his rockstars returned, drained but smiling. ‘I create situations, I created
this
situation, then I relinquish all control. There’s a fascinating
edge
to Rainbow Bridge, isn’t there?’

Sage grinned. ‘You could say so.’

The mad dogs looked as if they’d been having fun. Cousin Caterpillar flapped his hands. ‘We’ve heard all about the show! We’ve been talking it up over here, it’s profound. Superb! You’ll be headlining, of course, and we’ll need to see the set-up, the stage, the lighting, later, when I’ve digested—’He tapped the side of his head significantly, ‘digested the raw material in here, silkworm that I—’

Ax reached over and tapped the other side of Norman’s head, none too gently. The hippies roared with laughter, the caterpillar reared up indignant: met a wry warning in Mr Preston’s pretty eyes and controlled himself.

‘I said I
digest
,’ he muttered to Toby. ‘The raw material. Why not?’

But Toby was staring at Fiorinda; between horror and utmost reverence.

The party animals had left after the conference, to them this bar was hostile territory. Fiorinda stayed a while; then made her excuses. The tea tray arrived, and a trolley laden with bottles that said Stoly on the labels: the serious hospitality commenced. Eve the Playmate handed fragrant china cups, and (sizing up the opportunities) went to sit beside Joe Muldur. Conversation became antic, ebullient; spiced with the threat of violence; increasing difficult to follow…

Some unmeasured time later Norman, Toby, Ax and Sage were alone. Joe had gone off with the bunny, the Counterculturals had vanished into the undergrowth of this snake pit wonderland. The teapot was empty, the level in the vodka bottles was low; one of Norman’s dynamite smokes lay forgotten in an ashtray.

‘I really don’t
understand
recalcitrance,’ confided Norman. ‘What have they to lose? The nasty dreadlocks? Surgical removal of decayed Nirvana teeshirts? I really
don’t
understand recalcitrance. We will have to stiffen each other’s hair, Toby, as my orderly is in detention. I’m sure nobody here knows how to do the lion dog style. It will take years to train them. Shall we call them the Weird Stripes?’

‘The Wavy Gravys?’ suggested Ax. ‘I find the colours have mulched down.’

Toby laughed until he cried. ‘I didn’t do it! I did not paste the paste. No Dead Seas were injured, in planting the worms around my head.’

‘We think you’ve made yourselves into
taotie
devils,’ Ax rolled his eyes, puffed his cheeks and stuck out his tongue.

‘Yeah,’ Sage confirmed, cackling. ‘Devil-masks to ward the demons off.’

‘Plenty of demons about.’

Toby wriggled on his cushion. ‘Sage, I’ve been taking snapshot. What do you think of that, Sage? What do you think of that?’

‘You mean Aoxomoxoa. I think we should put you in the teapot.’

‘Don’t you want to know where I got it?’

Sage laughed, and flashed Norman a jolt of wide-eyed menace. The reformed Aoxomoxoa had seemed such a gentle giant, it was a shock.

‘In the teapot, dormouse. Head first, if you don’t shut up.’

‘DON’T YOU WANT TO KNOW?’ shouted Toby.

‘Who the fuck cares how you got ripped off, talc-snorting fan-boy?’

Snapshot was the nickname of the neurosteroid cocktail used in the Zen Self experiment, vilely implicated in the most pernicious of delusions. Anyone suspected of using, supplying or manufacturing the drug was liable to death by dismemberment, and the Chinese were not kidding.

‘Oh yes,’ Toby’s amber eyes blinked rapidly, he ground his teeth and rubbed his hands along his thighs. ‘Call me a fake.
They
gave me the snapshot, fuck you. I have filleted the wounds and bones of infinity, they want to know where my genius comes from so they sent me to hell. I’ve been to hell.’

Ax lifted the blunt from the ashtray, lit it, and tucked it into Toby’s mouth. ‘Now stop talking and breathe deep. Suck it down. That’s right, and again.’

Toby took a long sick pull, but he couldn’t let go. ‘You can’t bear to think I can take it and you can’t anymore, that’s your problem, oh bodhisattva. I had so much I’m an addict. I’m addicted, I’m gonna get some more and I know where.’

‘Toby,’ said Sage, ‘you’ve been taking acid, you arsehole. Or ketamine.’

‘Hell is ordinary,’ said Toby, staring at him. ‘This is hell, where I am now.’

The cigar took effect and he fell off his beanbag. They coaxed him to his feet—whereupon he vomited copiously, nothing this carpet hadn’t seen before—and half-carried, half walked him to the VIP accommodation. Joe was not at home; Fiorinda had gone to bed. Three of the teenagers were up, watching ancient videos. Nel seemed like a competent drug-related first-aider: they left Toby in his care. Outside the rooms Norman stared, pop-eyed, at the tiger and the wolf

‘I must to speak to Fiorinda! It is imperative I speak to her
now
.’

‘You can’t,’ said Sage. ‘Not possible. Sorry.’

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ suggested Ax. ‘Clear our heads.’

They found an emergency exit, hit the bar and walked out onto a flat roof dusted with new snow. A storm of clucking greeted them: bursting from a tarred chicken shed in a wire run. The sky was clear, the tattered scarf of the Milky Way flung across the zenith. Sage and Norman walked around with their heads tipped back, staring at the fire folk. Ax went to the edge to survey Rainbow Bridge by starlight: lesser buildings joined to this by walkways, frosted market garden tunnels. He wondered about swimming the moat. At last the stargazers came to join him: Norman brushed the snow aside and sat down. The tiger and the wolf just folded.

‘Fiorinda is pregnant,’ said Norman, in a tone of apocalyptic doom.

Ax chuckled. Sage drew up his long legs, giant grasshopper, and grinned at Norman sidelong. ‘Maybe she just doesn’t care for mushroom tea.’

‘She’s
pregnant
. My God, I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.’

They sighed, gazed into space, and offered no further prevarication.