Creatures of the Pool (43 page)

That’s my mother, and Lucinda echoes her. “Watch out for yourself, Gav,” says my father.

“Just let me check,” I say and clamber up the incline. The rocks embedded in the earth stay firm beneath my weight. Above the jagged gap is sandstone at least two feet thick.
I grasp a rung of the ladder and heave myself through. The ladder sinks into the ground, but not much. I take hold of the next rung, and the next, and then my head is in the open.

A swelling chorus of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” seems to greet my appearance. Ordinarily I would stay clear until the streets are clear of incorrigible revellers and broken glass, but not when I need to bring my parents and Lucinda to the surface. The crowd can’t see me, I gather once my slitted eyes begin to adjust to the direct glare, any more than I can see them. I’m in a hole like the grave of a giant. It’s alive with dark shapes—shadows of the crowd marching past the barrier around the roadworks. I’m several yards beneath the edge of the street, to which the ladder extends. I venture up two rungs, and then I’m able to see a street sign. It’s Richmond Street, which leads to Williamson Square. I’m beneath Frog’s Lane—beneath Whitechapel.

It seems more appropriate than I can grasp that my haphazard tour should end here. Perhaps at last the chattering of history will let me rest, though I feel pregnant with undefined dreams. More of the crowd tramps past, recommencing the song. It’s beginning to resemble a ritual—the march and the red banners some of the singers are waving. How surprised are they going to be at the sight of my companions and me? I haven’t time to imagine how they will react. Emerging from underground feels like a dream come true, and perhaps soon I’ll remember which one. “All right,” I call into the passage and wait until Lucinda and the others move into view. My eyes are still growing used to the unaccustomed light, so that I can scarcely distinguish the cluster of shapes in the passage. “Hop up,” I say hoarsely. “It’s safe.”

As ever, Jenny was the only other reader of the first draft, which is considerably unlike this one. John Reppion and Niki Flynn sent me along branches of the labyrinth I would otherwise not have explored, and in a talk at the World Horror Convention in Toronto, David Morrell gave me a solution to a problem of depiction. Sections of the book were written at Tammy’s and Sam’s house in Brockley, in Saratoga Springs (during the World Fantasy Convention), York (a British Fantasy Society open night), Manchester (the Festival of Fantastic Films), Nottingham (the British Fantasy Convention), and at the Mercure Napoli Angioino hotel in Naples and the Deep Blue Sea apartments in Georgioupolis, Crete. At about 7.30 on the morning of 11 August 2008, an unseasonable shower of rain in Georgioupolis set about corrupting the topmost page of the text. No frogs were spotted.

The helpful staff of the Local History Library (where I’m especially grateful to David Stoker for all his support) and of the Williamson Tunnels and Merseyside Constabulary have been replaced by characters quite unlike them for the purposes of the tale. The affidavit cited in chapter two is reprinted in
Jack the Ripper: the 21st Century Investigation
by Trevor Marriott (John Blake, 2005), and can also be found online.

Since I’ve had fun once again with inventing local restaurants, let me list a few real ones we recommend. In Liverpool our favourites include the Valparaiso (Chilean), the Maharajah (South Indian), the Sultan’s Palace and the Mayur (Indian), the Akshaya (Sri Lankan), the Yuet Ben (Beijing Chinese), the Mei Mei, Jumbo City and City Rendevous (Cantonese) and La Viña (Spanish). On the Wirral peninsula, we’re fond of the Sawasdee and the Siam (Thai), the Capitol (Chinese), the Kerala Kitchen (South Indian), the Saffron Delight and the Jalali (Indian), Lazaros (Greek) and the Mezze (Turkish). Bon appetit (and my curse on the spellchecker that insists I meant to type appetite)!

The lines from
Europa 51 / Liverpool
—
London
85 are quoted from
The Gates of Even
(Ekstasis Editions, 2002) by permission of the author, John O. Thompson.