Robert Rankin - Retromancer

‘Outrageous,’ said Himself, a-striding and a-swinging of his stick. I sought hard to keep up with this striding and already was growing quite weary.

‘Please slow down,’ I puffed and panted. ‘I am sure we can deal with the matter.’

‘Deal with the matter? Deal with the matter?’ Hugo Rune turned fiercely upon me. ‘How many times have I told you, Rizla? I offer the world my genius. All I expect in return is that the world cover my expenses.’

‘You have told me more than once,’ I said. ‘I, however, unlike Fangio, have not been keeping a record.’

‘I shall never again grace those premises with my august personage,’ quoth the Magus. And I for one had no reason to doubt the sincerity of his words.

‘Where to now then?’ I asked. ‘No telegrams. Nothing in the newspapers. No seemingly irrelevant something that later proves most pertinent to be found at The Purple Princess. It looks like we are stuffed for a case. As it were.’

‘There is always the Ministry,’ said Hugo Rune, gloomily.

‘But they always contact you.’

‘A change is as good as a rest. Let us hail up a cab.’

Recalling Hugo Rune’s wanton excesses in the field of violence towards cab drivers, I was not altogether keen. And I only agreed to accompany him by cab if he crossed his heart and saw-this-wet-and-saw-this-dry and swore upon a stack of imaginary Bibles that under no circumstances would I see him visiting physical hurt upon the driver of our cab.

Grudgingly he conceded to this and I hailed up a cab.

Cabs were so much better in wartime days. They were huge inside, with great high ceilings, so that a gentleman had no need to take off his topper, nor a lady her bird-bedecked bonnet. And each cab had a built-in cocktail cabinet, plush leather seats and, even though this cab was motorised, a bale of hay in the boot to feed the horse. [10]

‘’Op in, your lordships,’ said the cabby, his cockney tones at odds with his dapper livery. ‘I expect you swells will want taking to the h’opera, or the ’ouses of Parleyament.’

I watched the guru’s guru’s knuckles whiten around his stick. I grinned and whispered, ‘Do not forget what you promised.’

Hugo Rune contained himself and named our destination.

‘ Mornington Crescent, is it?’ said the cabby, smiling back at us over his shoulder. ‘Now there’s a place and no mistake. ’It by a bomb last night, it were. Blew a great terrible ’ole.’

I looked up at Hugo Rune.

And he looked down at me.

‘Drive at your swiftest and there is a silver sovereign in it for you,’ said Mr Rune, in a manner that, to a stranger or casual listener-in (because all walls had ears), would certainly have passed for convincing.

‘Drive then I will, your ’onour,’ said the cabby and off we jolly well went.

We jolly well went at a fearsome pace, much to the amusement of Mr Rune, who cheered loudly and clapped his hands together when our driver had a passing cleric off his bicycle near Tottenham Court Road.

‘You know what, your worshipfulness,’ called the cabby, ‘they do say as what there is a secret underground horganisation down below Mornington Crescent Tube. The Ministry of Dipperdy-do-dah, or some such. And ’ow there’s elves and goblins and bugaboos from the middle of the Earth does work with them. And ’ow a gigantic fat troll called Hugo R-’

‘Stop the cab here, please,’ said Hugo Rune.

‘Soon as you like then, your nobleness.’

The cabby slammed on the brakes and I shot forwards to land in an untidy heap upon the elegantly carpeted floor. Mr Rune, however, was made of sterner stuff and never even spilled the cocktail I had mixed for him.

He politely excused himself from my presence and left the cab. I climbed shakily to my feet and saw Mr Rune escorting our driver into a nearby alleyway.

The Magus returned most swiftly, wiping down the pommel of his stick. He opened the passenger door and I shook my head.

‘You promised,’ I said. ‘On a stack of imaginary Bibles and everything.’

‘You should have worded your directive a little more carefully, Rizla. I distinctly recall you saying that you did not want to see me visiting physical hurt upon the driver of the cab. Now kindly please take to the front seat and drive.’

I shook my head once more. Sadly. But did as Mr Rune bade me to do and I must say rather enjoyed it. Certainly I did do some basic graunchings of the gears and did shunt into a brewer’s dray, but essentially I soon had the knack and there were no fatalities.

And, in truth, Mr Rune knocking the cabby about gave me a warm feeling inside. A warm and cosy feeling. Because as nothing so far this day had gone the way it should have gone, falling back on a tried and tested, if slightly clichéd, old favourite such as Mr Rune walloping a cab driver was not without its share of comfort and joy.

Presently this joy died away when we beheld Mornington Crescent. The station had taken a direct hit from a V2 flying bomb. I had seen one of those missiles in the Science Museum when I was a child and had been amazed by its size. I now stood and viewed the full horror of its capabilities.

Hugo Rune leaned over the chasm that yawned where the station had been. He kicked a stone into it and listened for a distant report. A policeman then chivvied us away and I asked Mr Rune what he thought we should do now.

‘Regrettably, Rizla, we will be forced to use the tradesmen’s entrance. Kindly follow me.’

His leadings led to a nearby and unscathed Lyons Corner House. Which was a wonderful art deco masterpiece of a café, all polished chrome and black enamel panelling. Mr Rune had a word or two with the head waiter and we were escorted backstage, as it were, to another one of those glorious brass-cage lifts. Mr Rune gave the head waiter a certain handshake, applied his special key to the lift and down we went at a big hurry-up.

The Ministry of Serendipity was deep deep down and safe from even the V2’s excesses. We sauntered along the curious corridors and Mr Rune rapped with his cane onto the office door of Mr McMurdo.

I felt a certain dread attendant to that knocking. What, I wondered, would be the condition of Mr McMurdo this time? What horridness had Mr Rune ‘accidentally’ wrought upon him?

The knocking was answered by a bright and breezy, ‘Come,’ and we two entered the office.

Mr McMurdo was seated at this desk and all looked natural enough. He was not the size of a small country. Nor had his fingers grown in the manner of bamboo plants come summer. He smiled at us as we entered.

And then he rose to his feet.

And my eyes widened, as I beheld…

That he was perfectly normal.

‘How good to see you, Mr Rune,’ he said. ‘And you too, Rizla. Would you care for a humbug?’

‘Not for me, sir, thank you,’ I said, trying hard not to stare.

‘You would appear to be all present and correct,’ said Hugo Rune. And he said this with a degree of puzzlement in his voice.

‘New doctor,’ said Mr McMurdo. ‘ Harley Street chap. All the latest gizmos. You’d be surprised what they have in their surgeries today, extraordinary apparatus.’

‘And so you are now fully restored,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘And,’ and he sighed most slightly, ‘all through the aid of technology.’

‘As right as ninepence,’ said Mr McMurdo, ‘and bright as a new pin. And trim and chipper as a pony girl’s harness too, as it happens. I’ve never felt better than this.’

‘I am so very pleased for you.’ And Hugo Rune put out his hand, but the chipper chap did not shake it.

‘And I will let bygones be bygones, no hard feelings, old fellow,’ he said.