The Condition of Muzak (26 page)

“Never. I suppose I was too direct. She obeyed me, but only up to a point. She disappointed me. She would not commit herself as much as I had hoped.”

“There you have it. She saw you as committed to your power and therefore thought she would be free, that she need not give too much of herself to you. It was you, Mr Koutrouboussis, who disappointed this young woman.”

The Greek tugged absent-mindedly at his false beard. Parts of it came away in his fingers. A peculiar knowing light burned and faded in his dark eyes. He fumbled in his robes and withdrew a cigarette case, offering it to Lobkowitz, who declined. “I wanted her very much.” He said again: “She evaded me.”

“My friend,” said Prinz Lobkowitz sympathetically, and chewed a pickled walnut.

A large crowd was now approaching the table. Prinz Lobkowitz and Mr Koutrouboussis wandered away.

Sebastian Auchinek arrived with Mitzi Beesley. Sebastian Auchinek was not quite right as the Demon King, though the costume itself was splendid, with a long pointed tail and real horns. He held his pitchfork gingerly, anxious not to hurt any of his fellow guests. Mitzi Beesley was a depraved Peter Pan. “The English have always needed queens,” he was saying. “They are useless without them. Queens created the Empire, after all.”

“Half the greatest explorers were—” began Mitzi.

“I’m not sure that’s quite what I meant.”

Mitzi giggled. “But Herr Cornelius isn’t a queen. He’s a king. Or is he a king
and
a queen?”

“His trouble is that he’s all things to all men—and women too. Perhaps he doesn’t know himself. It’s probably the secret of his success.”

“He doesn’t seem too pleased with that success.” She craned to catch a glimpse of a darting white costume.

“I agree he seems ill.”

“Hello, Father,” said Mitzi. “You make a lovely widow.”

“Thank you, child.” Bishop Beesley was a picture of dignity in his flounces and ribbons, his huge hat, his rouge. He had already been twice mistaken for Mrs Cornelius. He continued his conversation with Colonel Pyat, a Saracen King in golden armour. “My motives were questioned probably because I was always a trifle unorthodox. I hoped to show people the way—back to decent standards. I did my best to be up to date at all times. I did not reject technology, nor did I turn my back on drugs.”

Mo Collier, as Robin Goodfellow, had been standing at the bishop’s elbow. “I read one of your sermons. It was great.
Cocaine in the Treatment of Sinus Infections
. Remember?”

“Not too easily.”

Mitzi joined the conversation, glad to help her father. “It was just before
Salvation through Sugar
,” she said. “The Mars Bar Messiah, they called you.” She became sentimental, recalling former greatness. “The Orange Fudge Oracle. The Chocolate Cream Cleric. The Hershey Bar Bishop. The Man Who Brought the Tootsie Roll into the Pulpit. The Turkish Delight—”

“There was so much to do,” said the bishop. “Some of the details have become a trifle hazy now.”

“Sort of set into the blancmange of the past.” Mo was in a rare philosophic mood. “Stuck to the sides of the great jelly mould we call Life.”

“The Smartie Saint,” continued Mitzi. She began to pant. His eye had fallen on her.

Dazed, Mitzi dropped back. To escape the dreamy Robin Goodfellow beside him, Bishop Beesley gathered up his skirts and followed her.

Mo was tasting some cream. Dubiously he licked his lips. “Does it go off?” he asked a nearby Karen von Krupp, who said, without taking her attention from her companion, “That’ll be your epitaph, Mr Collier.”

“… but I can’t hope to survive for ever in this environment,” Miss Brunner was telling Karen von Krupp, who wore her Beowulf outfit rather well, in spite of her age and frailty. “All I wanted was to create a little peace and quiet for myself. People kept interfering.”

“
Ja
,” said Karen von Krupp. She was quite drunk. “
Ja, ja, ja
.”

“Simplification had always been my goal. Naturally, I had to synthesise a great deal of information. The world had to be broken down into the proper bits in order to produce a programme suitable for processing by a reasonably sophisticated computer…”

“
Ja, ja
,” said Karen von Krupp. “
Ja, ja, ja
.”

“You thought she embraced the world,” Professor Hira (as Polichinelle, with peculiar protruberances on chest and back) was no longer calling himself Hythloday. He was talking about Miss Brunner, unaware that she was behind him. Mr Smiles knew; he looked awkward as the Green Knight. They had made him leave his green-painted shire-horse with its blood-red bridle in the stables where, unbeknownst to him, it was fighting with the two lions which had drawn Miss Brunner’s chariot as far as the front door. “She did not! She crushed it, forced it into a little square box; packed it in a hurry, too. Some try to understand the world, while others seek to impose their understanding on it. Unfortunately, Mr Smiles, these latter folk are those least equipped to perform the operation. Like Frankenstein, my dear Mr Smiles, they produce a monster.”

“I’d considered coming as Frankenstein.” Mr Smiles brightened behind his black beard which he had, unsuccessfully, also tried to dye green, “but I gathered it wasn’t suitable. Too modern or something. Or too general? And yet Doctor Who is here. Is everyone supposed to be part of British folklore tonight? Frankenstein, I should have thought…”

“I think so.” The little Brahmin physicist was disappointed in his audience. “Although I’m Italian, aren’t I? Pulcinella? Punch?” He chuckled. “Or Vice, if we’re getting down to basics. We’re all part of the same zany Cavalcade, eh?”

“I’m not sure about that. They made me leave my horse outside.”

“Harlequinade, then. Where is Harlequin?” Professor Hira sought about him in the crowd. “Or what about Masquerade? Or is it a Morality Play? You’re the Englishman, Mr Smiles. You tell me what it is we’re in!”

Mr Smiles sipped his spiced rum. “God knows,” he said. “A bloody madhouse.”

Mrs Cornelius had somehow got hold of part of Old King Cole’s costume. She still wore her skirts of green and brown, but she had a crown askew on her head, a white beard hanging around her neck. She spotted Hira and was delighted. “Oo! There yer are! Where yer bin ’idin’, eh?”

Punch blushed.

“I jest bin talkin’ ter Robin ’Ood,” she confided to Mr Smiles, putting a hearty arm about her lover, who gasped. “I arsked ’im where ’is mate wos—you know, ther monk.” She screamed with laughter and her crown threatened to fall off her head altogether. “As usual I got me pees an’ kews mixed up. Where’s yer mate? sez me, Wot mate’s that, madam, sez Robin ’Ood, Oh, yer know ther one, I sez—Wot’s ’is name? Then I remembered, you know, didn’t I? Triar Fuck? sez me. Then Robin ’Ood straightens up like a telegraph pole. Forgive me, madam, ’e sez, but I don’t believe as ’ow I ’ave the where-wival!” She flung back her head and just saved her crown as she shook with mirth. “Get it? See? Robin ’Ood ain’t a bloke at all. It’s a bloody woman, innit! Ah, har, har, har! They always bloody are in fings like this, ain’t they?”

Professor Hira was baffled as usual but he managed to laugh with her through long practice. “He, he, he. Oh, very good!”

Robin Hood herself strode by, equally baffled, causing Mrs Cornelius another outburst. Lady Sue Sunday had lost Helen Sweet again.

“It’s traditional, see,” explained Mrs Cornelius to Professor Hira. The band had begun to play an Irish jig. “Oo, come on!” She seized her lover and dragged him back towards the tree where most of the guests were dancing again.

Lady Sue found Helen Sweet, as Little Red Riding Hood, talking to Simon Vaizey. The elegant playwright had almost not come, since he wanted to wear his own Pierrot costume, but he had compromised and come as the Fool. “… Through dreaming towns I go, The cock crows ere the Christmas morn. The streets are dumb with snow,” he was saying to a rapt Helen. “I’ve long since given up any hope of finding
my
Grail, dear. I haven’t the brains. Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents.”

“I’d suggest you try using them elsewhere, Mr Vaizey,” said Lady Sue jealously. “Nice to see you again. I’d heard you were dead.”

“I couldn’t miss the party, could I?” Simon Vaizey stole away.

Jerry Cornelius, moving gracefully amongst his guests, bowed his Pierrot bow, elaborate and strange, passed Simon Vaizey and winked, reached his seat of honour. In his black-and-white Pierrot costume, his makeup, he bore an aura of sadness with him which no amount of capering and smiling could dispel. He sat down with a sigh, long and limp in the marble chair at the farthest end of the hall, just below the musicians’ gallery, from which dripped bunting, laurel, holly and ivy, so that he was half-hidden by decoration. Above his head the band was playing traditional music—fife, tabor, pipes and the beat of the snare dominated everything while the guests whirled about the tree in a haze of green and gold, scarlet and silver. He was feeling that loneliness most painful when one is amongst friends; and there was more than a touch of his old self-pity. He pursed cherry lips and whistled, against the harmony above, a Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen song,
I’m down to seeds and stems again blues…

“Merry Christmas, Jerry!”

Flash Gordon found him, brushing aside the bunting, sympathetic and unwelcome as usual. His hot, doglike eyes were about the only recognisable thing behind his thick make-up, his long golden wig (he had come as Lady Godiva). “You’d have been much better as Harlequin, Jerry.” Evidently he believed that his friend was sulking. “Somehow the part doesn’t suit Frank.”

“I used to be,” Jerry crossed his billowing legs, “but Harlequin somehow metamorphosed into Pierrot. It happened in France, I think. Don’t ask how. I used to believe I was Captain of my own Fate. Instead I’m just a character in a bloody pantomime.”

“It’s not too bloody now, at any rate.” Flash always tried to look on the bright side. “Everyone’s cultivating their own gardens. I didn’t tell you about my new strain of peas, did I?”

“I was never much interested in gardening,” Jerry told him, doing his best to be friendly to Flash.

Flash laughed. “No! You liked blowing things up. You and Mo Collier. Blowing things up.”

“Of course,” Jerry continued, “I’m grateful for what everyone’s done.” He reached out to pat a slightly hurt Flash on the heavily sweating right hand. “But all I wanted was Catherine back. They could have had everything else. There’s no point without her. It’s all my fucking fault, Flash.”

“You shouldn’t feel guilty.” As someone whose main relish in life came from feeling guilty, Flash was unconvincing. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

“I’m just pissed off. I’ve ruined it, as usual. I can go anywhere I like in the city. Do anything I like. See anyone I like. Disguises are easy. Nobody bothers me. But all I want to do is stay home and make love to Catherine.”

“Well,” said Flash speculatively, “you could always…”

Jerry shook his head. “It’s not the same.”

“I’d agree with that!” Flash’s eyes grew rounder and hotter with reminiscences. He realised, suddenly, that he was being selfish and did his best to return to more general topics. “They say that’s the trouble with Utopia. You get bored. While there were big countries to fight, or big corporations, or just very powerful people, it was easier to be an individual.” He sighed artificially. “Now everyone’s an individual, eh, Mr C? It’s taken a lot of the fun from life, I’ll tell you.”

Jerry was surprised to find himself agreeing with Flash. He nodded. “It’s horrible, winning. With everyone on your side. It makes you edgy. And I’ve run out of things to do.”

“You’ve done a lot for everyone. I’m grateful. We’re all grateful.”

“It’s nice of you to say so, Flash,” Jerry looked down as a small black-and-white cat rubbed its thin body against his leg. He picked it up and stroked its head. It purred. He smiled.

“That’s what you need,” said Flash encouragingly. “A pet. You’ve cheered up already.”

“I love it.” Jerry spoke in some awe. “That’s what I need. Love.”

“Everybody loves you, Jerry. Well, almost everybody.”

“It’s not being loved, Flash, that’s difficult to come by. It’s loving.”

“You love everyone. Everything.”

“That’s my trouble. Oh, I wish I could find a way to wake Catherine up. She was my lodestone. Past, present and future. Reality, if you like—myth, too—of hope, of reconciliation, of peace and freedom.” He had to raise his voice for the music was growing louder and louder, the shouts of the guests noisier and noisier. “She’s my ideal, Flash. Nobody else will do. Have I said all this before?”

Flash came closer, to make himself heard. His breath was warm in Jerry’s painted ear. “Not in so many words. You’ve been a good brother to her, Jerry, in your own way. You’ve looked after her, even though she hasn’t been able to give you much in return.”

“I was willing to destroy the world for her.”

“That’s real love all right,” said Flash. “That’s the test, isn’t it? Still,” he smiled nervously, “I’m glad you didn’t.”

“I thought I had.”

“Oh, not you, Jerry. Never!”

Jerry put his chin on his fist. Pierrot defeated.

“I’ll go and get something to eat. Do you want anything?” Flash moved away, rubbing at the make-up on his face. “This stuff’s going to bring on my blackheads something rotten. See you later, Jerry.”

Gathering his blonde locks about him, Flash sidled for the buffet tables.

Jerry saw Harlequin break from the dancing crowd and run towards him. “You ought to get a spot of grub down you, Jerry,” said Frank. “You’re looking like the bloody phantom at the feast. Enjoy yourself, boy! What price entropy now, eh?”

“Oh, piss off,” said his brother, and stroked the cat.

Frank seemed unmoved by Jerry’s rudeness, perhaps because he was very drunk. His mask was higher at the left than at the right, his hat was too far back on his head. “You’re not sleeping enough, these days, are you?” He staggered and leaned against the back of Jerry’s marble chair. “You ought to try to get a bit more shut-eye. Mind you, you shouldn’t need that much, considering all you’ve had in the past… On the other hand, sleep isn’t cumulative, you know. That’s the irony, isn’t it? Tiredness, of course, is. You get worse and worse. That’s what’s wrong with speed. Less and less real, in a sense. You’ve been pushing yourself beyond the limit. All these new schemes… these potions you’ve been cooking up in your lab…”