The Japanese Devil Fish Girl (35 page)

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Authors: Robert Rankin

BOOK: The Japanese Devil Fish Girl
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‘Regarding your father,’ George asked, as the landau moved through the pretty village of Penge, passing, so it chanced, the new police station. ‘According to history books and indeed his memorial in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey, Lord Byron died in eighteen twenty-four.’
 
‘And precisely what point are you making?’ asked Ada.
 
‘That was seventy-one years ago,’ said George. ‘Yet you claim to be his daughter and have a newspaper cutting that apparently confirms this.’
 
‘And?’ said Ada.
 
‘You do look younger than seventy-one,’ said George.
 
‘Flatterer,’ said Ada.
 
In a perfect world, thought George Fox,
all
matters would be resolved. And resolved satisfactorily. The good would be rewarded for their goodness and the bad punished accordingly. Questions that demanded answers would receive them. Puppies would never grow up and Planet Earth would sail through space upon the wings of joy.
 
‘You have no intention of explaining it to me, have you?’ George asked Ada.
 
‘None at all, dear George,’ the girl replied.
 
 
Ada named a fashionable street in Mayfair and requested that the driver of the landau take them there. The matched black geldings trotted, the weather was pleasant, countryside passed to the outskirts of town and London loomed ahead.
 
‘It has all been such an adventure,’ said Ada. ‘Have you enjoyed it, George?’
 
‘In truth,’ said George, ‘now that we are back in London and safe, I suppose that I have.’
 
‘
Suppose
that you have?’
 
‘I definitely did.’ George gave Ada’s hand a squeeze. ‘It was fearful at times. But I met you. And I found my fate, as it were. Saw the statue of Sayito that is older than time and the most sacred object in the universe. Although I never actually saw the book, and it was prophesied that I would. But all is well that ends well. And it was quite an adventure.’
 
‘You will not be seeking employment from Professor Coffin again?’ Ada asked.
 
‘That scoundrel!’ George made a very sour face. ‘I feel certain that he will now have retired from the showman’s profession and will live most comfortably for the rest of his life when he sells those jewels that were yours.’
 
‘If there was justice in this world,’ said Ada, ‘then he would find no happiness from his evil. But I care not for him, nor the jewels. I care only for you.’
 
George Fox got a lump in his throat. He had never been so happy.
 
The landau moved on towards fashionable Mayfair and George held great hopes for the future.
 
36
 
V
ery impressed was George with the Byrons, a fine Bohemian crowd, who inhabited roomy apartments and seemed artful, arty and gay.
 
The house had somewhat gone to seed, but the rooms were brightly muralled in a style that was just then coming into vogue: Brit Art, otherwise known as Primitive. No great skills were employed, or required, just the necessary enthusiasm.
 
George viewed a mural in the hallway that most enthusiastically extolled the joys of onanism. George was a little taken aback, but after all, these were the nineties. The
fin de siècle
.
 
There were a great many Byrons, so it seemed to George. Some coming, a few going, but most just lolling about upon chaises longues, puffing at long-stemmed opium pipes and making the occasional languid gesture to imply that their absinthe glasses needed refilling.
 
As, to use one of Mr Oscar Wilde’s expressions, a ‘lifestyle’, George could find much to recommend it. Especially for himself, after all his recent vicissitudes.
 
As to exactly how each and every one of these Byrons was related to Ada, George could only guess. Most referred to her as ‘dear child’ and kissed her tenderly.
 
George found, much to his surprise and satisfaction, that his grimly shrunken suit received neither mockery nor contempt. He was in fact complimented upon the novel nature of his look – ‘such a biting social statement, my dear, a triumph of irony’ – or asked whether it was ‘the very latest thing’ and where such a suit could be purchased.
 
George felt rather at home with the Byrons, and they with him.
 
Ada wasted no time in outlining her present position. She gathered together those Byrons who were capable of perambulation and told them how things would be. She meant to get married to George, she said, as soon as this could be arranged. George was a writer himself (this intelligence came as something of a surprise to George), but until he had received his first advance from his publisher, he would have to live here. As this received no objection, Ada went on to say that George and herself were presently penniless having lost all that they possessed when the
Empress of Mars
went down.
 
This did have to be explained to the Byrons, who rarely paid any attention to the actual ‘news’ pages of newspapers.
 
So, continued Ada, she would require an advance on her bridal dowry to purchase necessary necessities. George needed more sober apparel to visit his publisher. And she, much as it would not have bothered her to do so, could
not
walk the streets of London clad only in vest and corset and bloomers.
 
A sharp intake of breath had been occasioned upon the part of the Byrons with the coming of the words ‘bridal dowry’. Ada added that naturally such a bridal dowry amounted to little more than a
very
short-term loan, as much of George’s
large
publishing advance would be lavished upon his new family.
 
A Byron named Lord Billy finally wrote out a cheque.
 
A Byron named Lady Elsie gave Ada the loan of a frock.
 
 
A day or so later, George and Ada took tea at the famous Ritz. An announcement of their forthcoming marriage had been posted within the society pages of
The Times
newspaper and George had borrowed money from Ada’s dowry to buy her an engagement ring. Nothing of outrageous price, but a pretty thing in itself.
 
George and Ada sat in the elegant tea pavilion of the Ritz, which was furnished in the Oriental style: black lacquer, white enamel, chinoiserie and dainty chintz.
 
George wore a dark and elegant morning suit that had been paid for in cash from a tailor that George had not previously visited. Ada wore the most delightful confection of rich dark-red velvet. Full skirt with bustle, dainty cape and quilted bodice, miniature top hat with tiny afternoon goggles.
 
Ada glanced at her engagement ring and smiled a smile upon George. ‘What time is your appointment, dear?’ she asked him.
 
George took out his gold watch and perused its face. ‘An hour from now,’ he said. ‘At half past four.’
 
‘And you do know what to say?’
 
‘Of course I do.’ George patted at a little sheaf of papers. ‘I have written out a brief synopsis of our adventures together. Leaving out, of course, anything that either of us might find embarrassing. Putting emphasis upon the exciting side of it all.’
 
‘And have you made any mention of the subterranean Martians?’
 
George made so-so gestures with his hands. ‘I am in two minds,’ he told Ada, ‘whether to sell, if sell indeed I can, this book as a fictional adventure, rather than a true-life tale. I do not know whether it would be appropriate to use the word “Martian” at all.’
 
‘Perhaps just Lemurian, then,’ said Ada Lovelace. ‘The wreck of the
Empress of Mars
, escape from cannibals and flying monkeys, the discovery of the most sacred object in the universe and a lost civilisation – this book has much to recommend it, I am thinking, without making mention of Martians. You must judge the publisher’s reaction when you outline it to him. Use your intuition.’
 
‘My
intuition
?’ said George. ‘Perhaps
you
should be visiting this publisher.’
 
‘George,’ said Ada, ‘I would certainly not be believed. I would appear a mere slip of a silly girl. Publishers are men and they like to publish other men. You will be fine. Everything will be fine.’
 
‘Not one of my favourite phrases,’ said George, ‘but everything
will
be fine.’
 
They enjoyed a delightful tea of cakes and crumpets washed down with Twinings Afternoon Blend and a glass of chocolate-flavoured port to give George a little perk in the right direction.
 
 
At precisely four-thirty, George Fox entered the offices of Leonard Smithers. A gentleman with a reputation for publishing a more racy brand of literature, Mr Smithers had published the work of Aubrey Beardsley, Oscar Wilde, Max Beerbohm and the sinister Aleister Crowley. George considered that this was the man to publish his fabulous tale.
 
The interview did not last long. Leonard Smithers was a man with a certain reputation. A man who took his luncheons in a mostly liquid form. A man who enforced a spoken opinion with a thrown object. A volatile fellow.
 
When George left the office of Leonard Smithers, a short half-hour after he had entered it, he did so with a certain faltering step. Things had not worked out exactly as he had hoped.
 
Certainly George
had
received an advance. And a very large advance too. The cheque that now fluttered in his fingers sported several zeroes. But George felt saddened too regarding this advance.
 
Mr Smithers had
not
been impressed by George’s tale, whether pitched as fact or very-far-fetched fiction. He knew a thing or two about the occult, he told George, and was well aware of the legends surrounding the Japanese Devil Fish Girl. One of his authors, a Mr Crowley, had written a piece regarding this singular deity. The mother Goddess to all mother Goddesses. The mother too of God himself, as some religions claimed. It was whispered by those in the know of the occult world and inner Government circles that the ecclesiastics of Venus had recently launched an expedition to seek the statue of this Goddess. That they actually knew the location of the island on which it was to be found. But that also too the Jupiterians sought Her. That it was becoming a political issue which might lead to an interplanetary incident, and that something called a ‘D notice’ had been posted, forbidding any mention in newspapers, magazines or books regarding this matter.
 
George had been most surprised to hear all this.
 
Mr Smithers then suggested that perhaps George had in fact been sent by a rival publisher, seeking to sell him something that when published would cause Mr Smithers to be put out of business by the arrival of certain Gentlemen in Black, who would close down his office and carry him off to Heaven only knew where.
 
Mr Smithers had asked George whether he knew of the term ‘conspiracy theory’. George had told Mr Smithers that he did.
 
And then George went on to say that if it was the case that nothing regarding the Japanese Devil Fish Girl could be published, that actually suited him very well and he would be happy to amend his manuscript to rename her the Cantonese Goldfish Girl, if needs be.
 
But it was at about this time that Mr Smithers, well in his cups and foaming somewhat at the mouth, openly accused George of being an agent for the Gentlemen in Black and hurled a clockwork ashtray at his head.
 
‘Get out of my office and stay out!’ he shouted at George.
 
 
So, as George strolled along Threadneedle Street, towards the Bank of England, where he intended to open an account with Mr Smithers’ cheque, he did so with a certain faltering step. And a certain degree of sadness.
 
It is not a pleasant thing to have a publisher hurl an ashtray at your head and rant and rave about getting and staying out. Why, if it had not been for the employment by George of a slim glass phial of colourless liquid topped by a screw-on cap, George might not have got nearly so large an advance.
 
So George did not exactly laugh all the way to the bank, but thinking of Ada and their wedding day, he did smile just a little.
 
 
‘The Cantonese Goldfish Girl?’ said Ada Lovelace. Over an intimate supper for two in the kitchen of the Byron household.
 
‘I had no choice,’ said George. ‘I do not wish Mr Smithers to get into any trouble. There seem to be some political issues involved.’

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