Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

Which brings us, rather neatly, back to the lady named Clara.

And the crash that she had on one of Croydon’s roundabouts.

And the consequences of this crash. Which led to the creation of Shadow Nights at Club 27 in New York.

Matters came to pass in this fashion.

With swerve and with crash and with bang.

The morning was bright enough in its way, as Croydon mornings have the habit of being. Folk rose from their beds, stretched, flung wide their bedroom curtains and rejoiced. Beheld the glory that is Croydon, and rejoiced. Tea was brewed and toast was buttered, daily papers taken from the mat. Rosy-cheeked the children were as they were dressed for school. And the stockbrokers’ clerks and the City professionals sang when they strolled to their trains. For Croydon, the good and the Godly, brought as ever joy to those who live there.

And Clara woke from dreams of whalers, hunting for a whale. Whether this whale was white and Moby-Dickish, none can say, for Clara awoke before they’d found it. She awoke beside her husband Keith, a stockbroker’s clerk in the City. Today was their third wedding anniversary. [18]And although Keith had planned a major dinner for two at the local Wimpy Bar, this was a well-kept secret and Clara knew nothing of it.

She had, of course, prepared a present for her spouse and this she gave to him before his breakfast. Which had his knees go somewhat numb and he fairly stumbled downstairs for his breakfast.

‘Love is everywhere,’ the singer sang. And who was to doubt him in Croydon?

The breakfast was the Full Welsh, with nothing spared. And, when brought to the perfect conclusion with a buttered bap and a handy shandy, Clara’s husband Keith went off to work with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. And love in his heart for Jesus.

For good and Godly are the folk of Croydon.

And Clara peeled off all of her rubber-wear and took herself off for a shower. And here, as she bathed, she sang a hymn to the Lord. For she sang soprano in Croydon Ladies’ Choir and a fine soprano she had.

And once she had done with the singing and shower, she dried and dressed and left the house to go shopping.

Those who know Croydon will know of its internationally famed shopping center, a World Trades Fair of fancy goods and eco-kind comestibles. Where there is always ample parking and every shopper wears a sunny smile.

And Clara steered her Ford Sierra around Croydon’s most southerly road circle and was, of a sudden, the victim of a freak accident involving a kitty hawk, a carrier pigeon called Dennis, a gunman on a grassy knoll, a garden gnome without a home and an off-side-rear-tyre puncture.

Such freak accidents are not unknown Up North, but in Croydon it was an incident distinctly beyond the norm.

And matters came to a terrible pass.

With a swerve and a crash and a bang.

And Clara awoke, some weeks later, in a room that she did not recognise, looking up at a doctor that she did.

Clara blinked her eyes and said, ‘Surely you are Elvis?’

The doctor smiled and stroked her brow. ‘I’m Doctor McMahon,’ he told her.

‘Where?’

‘Where are you, my dear? You are in the special recovery unit of the Ministry of Serendipity, beneath Mornington Crescent Underground Station.’

‘W-’

‘Why? Because you have been in an accident and your cranial X-rays show that there is extensive damage to your mental-mesh.’

‘M-’

Mental-mesh? A technical term that at the present you need not concern yourself about. We are here to help with your rehabilitation. And to prepare you for what lies ahead.’

‘W-’

‘What lies ahead?’

‘No,’ said Clara. ‘Where’s the toilet? I am in need of a pee.’

There were no bones broken, and Clara, but for the occasional bit of stiffness, seemed otherwise to be in fine fettle. She was somewhat surprised and disturbed too that her husband Keith hadn’t paid her a visit, and as one day passed into the next, she grew rather anxious withal.

She saw no one but Dr McMahon, who, although constantly assuring her that she was on the mend and would soon be returned to the bosom of her family, kept finding causes for more tests that resulted in an ever-prolonged stay in what was explained to her as being a subterranean Government facility.

And Clara did not take to Dr McMahon, who described his resemblance to Elvis as being ‘passing and not noticed by many’.

And Clara began to fret and soon was fretting continually. And it is not good for someone in recovery to fret. It can have negative consequences and no doctor in the rightness of his mind would prescribe it as a pick-me-up.

Dr McMahon did, however, prescribe a good many drugs for Clara. Many that she had never heard of and some that she had heard of, but didn’t really believe in the existence of. And time passed very slowly and Clara now plotted escape.

And although Dr McMahon stood over her and supervised the taking of her medication, she secretly regurgitated same upon his departure from the circular, windowless room in which she now considered herself to be held a prisoner. And plotted her escape.

And the means of her escape presented itself in an unexpected manner. This being the arrival of a visitor, ushered into her room by the Elvis-like Dr McMahon.

‘This,’ said the doctor, ‘is Vincent Trillby, Professor of Advanced Psychiatry at Harvard. He is most interested to study your case, in the hope that it will facilitate the early return of yourself to the bosom of your family. In particular to your husband Keith, who loves and misses you greatly.’

Clara from Croydon ground her teeth, but disguised this as a sniffly sneeze, said that she hoped she wasn’t coming down with a cold, then put out a slender hand for a shake (for she was indeed a slender lady, as are most in Croydon) and smiled into the face of Vincent Trillby.

And then withdrew her hand at considerable speed and screamed very loudly indeed. And she screamed in that high soprano voice of hers that had brought great joy to numerous Croydon congregations, but which within the limited confines of her circular cell caused considerable distress to Dr McMahon and to Vincent Trillby, both of whom collapsed to their knees, a-covering of their ears.

And when they both appeared to be in a state of incapacitation, Clara screamed some more, and repeatedly doing so made for the door and from there, by diverse routes, to the surface. Where she stood, shivering somewhat even though it was another sunny day. There in the great booming heart of the metropolis, in her foolish do-up-at-the-back patient’s smock. And had it not been for a passing stockbroker’s clerk who took pity on her plight, escorted her, via taxi, to Selfridges and had her fitted out from head to toe in all the latest groovy gear, bought her a handbag and popped a five-pound note into it, there is no telling what might have happened.

And the stockbroker’s clerk tipped his bowler to Clara, wished her all the bestest for the balance of the day and returned to his office with a story to tell. (But not of the shag he’d been hoping for.)

And so it came to pass that Clara, all spiffed-up and trendy-looking, found herself in Trafalgar Square.

And it was there that she looked all around and saw that things were not right. That something was in fact very wrong indeed, but that, it appeared, she was the only person who could see it.

Which is where those shadows come in.

So let us speak of them now.

Clara saw the shadows and she was afeared.

At first she thought it was some kind of optical illusion, or delusion, brought on by her sudden transition (via Selfridges) from subterranean prison to sunlit Trafalgar Square. But her head soon cleared itself of this thinking because a revelation was granted to her, through the medium of a voice, which whispered rather closely at her ear that she now had the gift to see them.