The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and Other Unnatural Attractions Read online

  Professor Coffin doffed his topper, then skipped off in search of a pitch.

  George sat down on the wagon’s rear steps and gazed off into the night. Beyond the spaceport and the Empress of Mars rose Sydenham Hill and at the crest, the Crystal Palace, ablaze with light and wondrous to behold.

  George set free another sigh. This was indeed an age of miracles. An age, it seemed, when almost anything was possible. Each week brought some new marvel. Each daily news-sheet spoke of the latest adventure. There had never been a time such as this. And George was here and this was his time and he knew that he must do something.

  Make somehow a name for himself.

  Succeed.

  George took to further great sighings and hunched his head down low.

  ‘Good sir.’

  And George remained hunched.

  ‘Good sir, if you please.’

  And George raised his head. Then raised his body too and stood politely. ‘Madam,’ said George. ‘How might I be of assistance?’

  A young woman looked up at George. She was a beautiful young woman. This was evident even though her face was modestly shaded by a riding veil, which depended from the tiny top hat nestling midst a tumbling of bright-red curls.

  By the clothes that she wore, she was clearly a gal of the gentry. The flounced shoulders of her nip-wasted jacket, cut in the continental style of the inimitable Pierre Antoine Berquin de Rambouillet, glistened with pearls. Her brass corset showed traces of turquoise. Naphtha light reflected in her ivory-framed evening goggles.

  ‘Your servant, ma’am,’ declared George Fox, bowing almost to the ground.

  The young woman tittered and raised her modesty fan. As the plumes unfurled, George was made conscious of a delicate perfume that breathed from this gorgeous item.

  ‘I fear that I have become lost,’ said this lady, a damsel in distress. ‘I somehow became separated from my party. It is my own fault, I confess. I became entranced by a showman’s exhibit – an “Holistical Mirror” in which could be viewed the reflection of all of the world and all of its people thereto.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said George. ‘Indeed?’

  ‘And now I have become a-feared. There are so many rough types here and myself unchaperoned and oh so vulnerable.’

  George sought to detect the hint of a certain eroticism in these words. Surely just his wishful thinking.

  ‘Allow me to offer my protection,’ said he, with all the gallantry of Don Quixote, or indeed the Chevalier Tannhäuser. ‘And if you know the destination of your party, then please do not think me forward in offering to accompany you to this very destination.’

  ‘You are charm personified.’ And the young lady curtseyed a little. ‘I have lately arrived upon the Empress of Mars to attend the concert at the Crystal Palace. But I am somewhat short of sight and know not even how this concert hall might look. If you would be so kind as to escort me there, I would be more than willing to reward you for your trouble.’

  ‘To have assisted such a lady as yourself would be sufficient reward in itself,’ said George, who could feel himself rising to certain heights of gallantry.

  ‘As you wish,’ the young lady replied. ‘But I do have a spare ticket and it would be such a shame if it went all to waste.’

  ‘A spare ticket?’ said George. ‘To the concert?’ said George. ‘To the royal celebratory concert?’ said George.

  ‘Indeed,’ said the lady. ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Then, madam, I would be grateful beyond words to accept this most generous offer.’

  ‘I am not interrupting you? From your work, perhaps?’

  ‘My work, perhaps?’ George glanced all around and about. There was much coming and going of many people, but no sign whatsoever of Professor Coffin. ‘I hold to no work,’ said George, of a sudden. ‘I am a gentleman of independent means.’ And he extended his arm to the lady and smiled.

  The lady returned a shaded smile to George. ‘Only one small thing,’ said she.

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘Perhaps you might care to take a small dip in yonder horse trough. You reek rather poorly at present.’

  4

  Words were penned by George in a hasty missive to his employer, to the effect that he had been called away upon an important matter, would return soon and was regretful of any inconvenience that his absence might cause.

  Solicitous and to the point, George considered as he folded the note and wedged it into the door crack of the showman’s wagon. A brisk sojourn at the horse trough, a don of his bowler and George was on his way.

  There was, in truth, no great difficulty in finding the way to the Crystal Palace. It stood out upon the hill in the manner that a performing porker pig will stand out at a dowager’s petit déjeuner. Strikingly.

  As George made his solemn and dignified approach, revelling in every moment that he had the beautiful woman on his arm, it occurred to him just how much he would love to own such a structure, and perhaps convert it into an indoor country park, where carriage rides might be taken and rare fowl cultivated. George’s face took on a wistful expression that did not go unnoticed.

  ‘You appear troubled,’ said the beautiful woman on his arm. ‘What is it that troubles you?’

  George glanced down at the lovely creature and realised for the first time that he did not know her name.

  ‘I know that we have not been formally introduced,’ he said, ‘as one might be in high society, but allow me to introduce myself to you. I am George Geoffrey Arthur Fox and I am proud to escort you.’

  The lovely creature giggled girlishly. ‘You are a gentleman, Mr Fox,’ she said. ‘My name is Ada Lovelace.’

  ‘Your servant, ma’am.’ And George did doffings of his bowler.

  It was a pleasant moment, strolling towards the mighty palace of glass, lit to a dazzling brilliance from within. On every side the folk of fashion, gorgeous in their finery, folk of this world and beyond. The crème de la crème of this belle époque.

  George gave guarded looks to all and sundry: to the provosts and paladins and papal nuncios, the plutocrats and panjandrums and princely potentates. He viewed the hospodars and shahanshahs, commissioners and commissars, the oligarchs and grand viziers, the emperors and subadars, the ecclesiasts of Venus, with their vestments and perfumers, the merry trolls of Jupiter, in pantalettes and bloomers . . .

  ‘This would be the life,’ said George unto himself.

  Ada beckoned George and whispered, ‘Do you like Venusians?’

  ‘I do not really know,’ George replied. ‘I have never met one.’

  ‘I’ve met several.’ Ada’s voice was soft, but George was listening intently. ‘And I don’t like them at all. You cannot tell what they are thinking.’

  George did shruggings and said that he rarely knew what anyone was thinking.

  ‘And they have three sexes,’ Ada said.

  George, though tall, stopped short in his tracks. ‘What did you say?’ he asked.

  ‘They have three sexes,’ said Ada once more. ‘Male, female and “of the spirit”. And their spaceships do not have motors in them. They are powered by faith. They call them “Holier-than-Air craft”.’

  ‘That sounds most unlikely,’ said George, expressing doubts.

  ‘But it is true,’ said Ada. ‘Aether ships they also call them. And I have heard that their intention is to convert all the people of Earth to their religion. They have their own bible called The Book of Sayito and speak of a “Goddess of the Stars” who will manifest herself to all in a time not far from this, when the “Great Revelation” will occur.’

  ‘Ah,’ said George. ‘Please do not consider me impious, but I hold to be prudent those men who do not offer to explain the Book of Revelation.’

  ‘Well, I find Venusians fearful,’ whispered Ada. ‘Sleek and beautiful perhaps, but so too is a fencing foil.’

  A tall Venusian passed them by, then paused and turned them a glance. George could see the beauty, but he could not sense a
threat. The being of Venus, man, or woman, or be what else it was, stood tall and slender to behold, with hair as white as alabaster and teased to dizzying plumes. The face was gaunt, the cheekbones angled, the eyes pure gold and radiant. The high-shouldered vestments were pinched at the waist and reached all the way to the ground. The perfumer, without which no Venusian was ever to be seen, swung censer-like from the being’s pale left hand. Small whispers of luminous green smoke issued from the perfumer. Human yet inhuman was the creature. George wondered how such beings as this had managed to move incognito amongst the peoples of Earth for quite so long. Masters, mistresses or otherwises of disguise, George supposed, although their innate ‘otherness’ would surely be hard to conceal.

  But no further words were said upon the matter of Venusians, as George and Ada had now reached the entrance of the Crystal Palace. George looked up at the dizzying walls of glass, the great distant swirl of the high façade. The golden glow of light within, provided tonight, George overheard a fellow remark, by Mr Nikola Tesla, who had positioned ten thousand neon tubes around and about the vast glazed building, brought to fluorescence by an induction loop of cable that did not actually touch the tubes themselves.

  ‘One day all domestic lighting will be as this,’ George heard the fellow say.

  And then they were within. Within that vastness, with its tall statuary, hewn from silica mined from Earth’s moon. Her Majesty’s moon, where the first flag planted was the Union Jack. The humming of the neon tubes, the static crackle of a thousand educated voices. The glamour and the beauty.

  George was entranced.

  This was the company he belonged with.

  This was the place for him.

  They stood upon a red carpet now, bounded by velvet ropes on brassy stands. The queue for admittance to the concert hall. George was most excited.

  ‘I need to go somewhere,’ Ada whispered to him.

  ‘Where else would be a better place for us than here?’ George asked.

  ‘A ladies’ somewhere,’ hissed Ada. ‘It has been a long walk and I have a frail constitution.’

  ‘Oh,’ said George. ‘Most sorry,’ said George. ‘Perhaps, ’ said George, ‘that fellow?’

  And George pointed towards a tall and swarthy fellow, in turban, coronation dress, buskins and puttees. He wore a very fierce beard, with tightly curled moustaches.

  ‘You ask him,’ said Ada. ‘I would faint from embarrassment. ’

  ‘Ah,’ said George, ‘indeed.’

  And so George pressed forwards through the queue, much to the disgust of margraves, viceroys and the occasional rajah. He spoke urgent words into the tall and swarthy fellow’s ear and this fellow beckoned to Ada.

  She hurried through the grumbling throng, ducked under the velvet rope that barred the way ahead and slipped away to a certain ladies’ somewhere.

  George returned to his place in the queue.

  ‘She needed a wee-wee,’ he explained to a crusty cardinal, who stood a-tut-tut-tutting.

  And slowly the queue moved forwards as tickets were checked and directions given by the tall and swarthy fellow, now joined by several others of his ilk.

  As George reached the head of the queue he began to fret. ‘She had better return soon,’ he fretted to himself. ‘She has both tickets and by the way these folk are a-sniffing at my person, it is certain that I shall not gain entrance without one.’

  It was only after the unpleasantness occurred that it fully dawned upon George that he had not actually seen the actual tickets. He had not been given the opportunity to vouch for their authenticity.

  Or indeed their very existence.

  He made loud his protests, of course. Explaining that the lady had the tickets. That the lady would shortly return. That all would be well when she did so.

  But the lady did not return.

  The lady was not for returning.

  And who was there, amongst gentlemen, who was prepared to believe that a gentleman would possibly trust a mere woman to mind the tickets? George bristled somewhat at that. But then, it was explained to George, George was clearly not a gentleman. George was a common fairground hobbledehoy, seeking to slip into an affair many levels above his lowly station in life, to dare to mingle with his betters.

  George not only bristled at this.

  George swore somewhat too.

  Which led to much of the aforementioned unpleasantness. With George being frogmarched from the Crystal Palace between two swarthy turbaned types. Both of whom, George noted in passing, owned too many medals. No doubt from the soon-to-be-concluded campaign in Afghanistan.

  In the shadow of some beech trees George received a thorough trouncing and was left there unconscious to dwell upon his folly.

  5

  George awoke in darkness. In darkness, but to movement. A rumbling rattling movement it was, and as George awoke to it he also became aware of a most maleficent smell.

  ‘Oh no.’ George did groanings and worried at his head.

  Delved into his waistcoat, recovered his match case, removed and struck fire to a Lucifer.

  The pickled Martian fixed him with a pickled baleful eye. George did groanings once again, then took to a fitful sleep.

  He awoke this time to the wagon’s rear doors being flung open and a great deal of bright white sunshine flooding in all over the place.

  ‘Up, my sorry fellow,’ called the voice of Professor Coffin. ‘Another fine day awaits your late arrival.’

  George did the regulation blinkings of the eyes and, upon finding his voice, asked, ‘What happened?’

  ‘I worried for your safety, as well I might,’ replied the professor, all in silhouette before the beastly morning light. ‘And not without good cause, as I found you in the grounds of the Crystal Palace, all bleeding, broken and banjoed.’

  ‘Banjoed?’

  ‘Done for. Patched your bruises, so I did, then brought you back to your home.’

  Even in his loosely semi-conscious state, George could sense a certain duplicity in these words. It was not, as it might be put, the whole story.

  ‘But another day has dawned.’ Professor Coffin leaned into the wagon and tousled George’s hair. ‘You are fit and well once more, or certainly will be once you have some vittles housed ’neath your belt, and together we must make up for our loss of earnings last night.’

  ‘And where are we now?’ asked George, squinting into the light and discerning a humble cottage or two.

  ‘A tiny rural hamlet by the name of Brentford.’ Professor Coffin straightened up and twirled his cane a little. ‘Upon the northern bank of the Thames, opposite Her Majesty’s Royal Gardens of Kew.’

  George did strugglings from the wagon and took in pleasant surroundings.

  ‘Yonder inn.’ Professor Coffin pointed with his cane. ‘The Flying Swan. We shall take our breakfast there.’

  The Flying Swan served a goodly breakfast. Specialising as it did in the popular dishes of the day, George enjoyed amongst other such popular dishes a helping of chibberlings, two portions of Melbury chubs, three wifters (finely sliced) and a quick-fired crad that would have done credit to Her Majesty’s breakfasting table at Windsor. And all washed down with porter. Splendid stuff.

  George drew a jacket cuff across his mouth and nodded his approval. ‘Would you like to tell me what really happened last night?’ he asked.

  Professor Coffin swallowed a slice of Corby snaffler. ‘Would you?’ was his reply.

  ‘I made a mistake,’ said George. ‘And I abandoned you, my employer. I apologise for this. I paid a price for my thoughtless behaviour.’

  ‘We will speak no more of the matter.’ Professor Coffin gulped porter. ‘Tit for tat, black for white, the balance of equipoise is maintained.’

  ‘Professor.’ George Fox looked up from his breakfast. ‘Have you ever met a Venusian?’

  ‘Many, my boy. Most many. And not a single one of them would I trust.’

  ‘But for why? They have such rare beauty a
nd seem so benign in their manners.’

  ‘They have three sexes, you know?’ Professor Coffin forked up a rumpling and popped it into his mouth.

  ‘Male, female and “of the spirit”,’ said George, knowledgeably.

  ‘No,’ said the professor. ‘All in a single being. They are what are called “tri-maphrodites”. They can self-reproduce. They do not require sexual partners.’

  ‘They have sex with themselves?’ George spat out breakfast.