Michael Moorcock: Breakfast in the Ruins

WHEN in doubt, Karl Glogauer would always return to Derry and Toms. He would walk down Kensington Church Street in the summer sunshine, ignoring the boutiques and coffee shops, until he reached the High Street. He would pass the first of the three great department stores which stood side by side to each other, stern and eternal and bountiful, blotting out the sky, and would go through the tall glass doors of the second store, Derry's. The strongest of the citadels.

Weaving his way between the bright counters, piled with hats and silks and paper flowers, he would reach the lifts with their late art nouveau brass work and he would take one of them up to the third floor—a little journey through time, for here it was all art deco and Cunard style pastel plastics which he could admire for their own sake as he waited for the special lift which would come and bear him up into the paradise of the roof garden.

The gate would open to reveal something like a small conservatory in which two pleasant middle-aged ladies stood to greet the new arrivals and sell them, if required, tea-towels, postcards and guide books. To one of these ladies Karl would hand his shilling and stroll through into the Spanish Garden where fountains splashed and well-tended exotic plants and flowers grew. Karl had a bench near the central fountain. If it was occupied when he arrived, he would stroll around for a while until it was free, then he would sit down, open his book and pretend to read. The wall behind him was lined with deep, airy cages. Sometimes these cages were completely deserted but at other times they would contain a few parrots, parakeets, canaries, cockatoos, or a mynah bird. Occasionally pink flamingos were present, parading awkwardly about the garden, wading through the tiny artificial streams. All these birds were, on the whole, decently silent, almost gloomy, offering hardly any reaction to the middle-aged ladies who liked to approach them and coo at them in pathetic, sometimes desperate, tones.

If the sunshine were warm and the number of visitors small Karl would sit in his seat for the best part of a morning or an afternoon before taking his lunch or tea in the roof garden restaurant. All the waitresses knew him well enough to offer a tight smile of recognition while continuing to wonder what a slightly seedy looking young man in an old tweed jacket and rumpled flannels found to attract him in the roof garden. Karl recognized their puzzlement and took pleasure in it.

Karl knew why he liked to come here. In the whole of London this was the only place where he could find the peace he identified with the peace of his early childhood, the peace of ignorance (or "innocence" as he preferred to call it). He had been born at the outbreak of the war, but he thought of his childhood as having existed a few years earlier, in the mid-thirties. Only lately had he come to understand that this peace was not really peace, but rather a sense of coziness, the unique creation of a dying middle-class. Vulgarity given a gloss of "good taste". Outside London there were a few other spots like it. He had found the right atmosphere in the tea-gardens of Surrey and Sussex, the parks in the richer suburbs of Dorking, Hove and Hay-wards Heath, all created during the twenties and thirties when, to that same middle-class, confines had been a synonym for beauty. For all he knew too well that the urge which took him so frequently to the roof garden was both infantile and escapist, he tolerated it in himself. He would console himself sardonically that, of all his other infantile and escapist pursuits—his collection of children's books, his model soldiers—this was the cheapest. He no longer made any serious attempts to rid himself of these unmanly habits. He was their slave, just as much as he was the slave of his mother's childhood terrors; of the rich variety of horrors she had managed to introduce into his own childhood.

Thinking about his childhood as he sat in his usual place on a soft summer's day in June 1971, Karl wondered if his somewhat small creative gift was not, as most people would nowadays think, the result of his unstable upbringing at all. Perhaps, by virtue of his sensitivity, he had been unduly prone to his mother's influence. Such an influence could actually stunt talent, maybe. He did not like the drift of his thoughts. To follow their implications would be to offset the effects of the garden. He smiled to himself and leaned back, breathing in the heavy scent of snapdragons and tulips, believing, as he always did, that it was enough to admit a self-deception. It was what he called self-knowledge. He peered up at the blue, uncluttered afternoon sky. The hum of the traffic in the street far below could almost be the sound of summer insects in a country garden. A country garden, long ago...

He leaned back on the bench a fraction more. He did not want to think about his mother, his childhood as it actually was, the failure of his ambitions. He became a handsome young aristocrat. He was a Regency buck relaxing from the wild London round of politics, gambling, dueling and women. He had just come down to his Somerset estate and had been greeted by his delightful young wife. He had married a sweet girl from these parts, the daughter of an old-fashioned squire, and she was ecstatic that he had returned home, for she doted on him. It did not occur to her to criticize the way he chose to live. As far as she was concerned, she existed entirely for his pleasure. What was her name? Emma? Sophy? Or something a little more Greek, perhaps?

The reverie was just beginning to develop into a full-scale fantasy when it was interrupted.

"Good afternoon." The voice was deep, slightly hesitant, husky. It shocked him and he opened his eyes.

The face was quite close to his. Its owner was leaning down and its expression was amused. The face was as dark and shining as ancient mahogany; almost black.

"Do you mind if I join you on this bench?" The tall black man sat down firmly.

Frustrated by the interruption Karl pretended an interest in a paving stone at his feet. He hated people who tried to talk to him here, particularly when they broke into his daydreams.

"Not at all," he said. "I was just leaving." It was his usual reply. He adjusted the frayed cuff of his jacket.

"I'm visiting London," said the black man. His own light suit was elegantly cut, a subtle silvery grey. Silk, Karl supposed. All the mans clothes and jewelry were evidently expensive. A rich American tourist, thought Karl (who had no ear for accents). "I hadn't expected to find a place like this in the middle of your city," the man continued. "I saw a sign and followed it. Do you like it here?"

Karl shrugged.

The man laughed, removing the cover from his Rolleiflex. "Can I take a picture of you here?"

And now Karl was flattered. Nobody had ever volunteered to take his picture before. His anger began to dissipate.

"It gives life to a photograph. It shows that I took it myself. Otherwise I might just as well buy the postcards, eh?"

Karl rose to go. But it seemed that the black man had misinterpreted the movement. "You are a Londoner, aren't you?" He smiled, his deep-set eyes looking searchingly into Karl's face. Karl wondered for a moment if the question had some additional meaning he hadn't divined.

"Yes, I am." He frowned.

Only now did the elegant negro seem to realize Karl's displeasure. "I'm sorry if I'm imposing..." he said.