The Mechanical Messiah (3 page)

Cameron Bell was a most private man, and although history would remember him, it would do so under two quite separate names. And neither of these his own. Amongst Cameron’s many friends was a pair of literary types and each chose to immortalise him in print. Charles Dickens based the look of Mr Pickwick
[3]
upon Cameron Bell. And Arthur Conan Doyle based the skills of Sherlock Holmes upon those of this real—life detective.

Cameron Bell was greatly tickled by his friends’ depictions of him. The only drawback being that folk did tend to stop him in the street to enquire whether they could join The Pickwick Club, and how was Sam Weller
[4]
doing these days?

Upon this particular evening, this early summer’s evening in July of eighteen ninety-seven, Cameron Bell had chosen to fork out the full half-crown for a box seat near to the Electric Alhambra’s stage. There were others in that box upon this evening and Mr Bell doffed his silk top hat towards them as he entered and settled into his numbered seat.

These others were Venusians. A male and a female so it seemed, although a debate still raged amongst those who were not in the know, yet wished to be, as to exactly how many sexes Venusians had. Some said three: male, female and ‘of the spirit’. Others contested that Venusians were trimaphrodite, embodying all three sexes in a single being.

Cameron Bell knew the truth, but this truth he kept to himself From the corner of his eye he viewed his fellow patrons of this most expensive box. They were certainly magnificent creatures. Tall and stately, with skin of an ivory paleness. High snowy plumes of hair, teased into intricate spires and intriguing curlicues. Eyes of gold and angled cheekbones. Fingers delicate and fine. They exuded a subtle perfume. Artificial? Or bodily odour? Cameron Bell did not know
that.

The Venusians spoke one to another in hushed tones, and in their native tongue. The meaning of their words was lost to Cameron Bell. For although he had made numerous attempts to learn Venusian — no simple matter, as Venusians were not at all forthcoming — he had concluded that without the aid of a willing tutor, the task was nigh impossible.

Why, it would be easier to teach a monkey to speak the Queen’s English. And such an idea as that was clearly ludicrous!

The most private of private detectives placed his silk top hat between his feet and divested himself of his white kid gloves. Perching his pince-nez upon his nose, he gazed out across the brightly lit auditorium. And certain words which he had recently read in
The Times
Society column returned to him. He tended to share the columnist’s opinion: the interior of the Electric Alhambra was really much too much.

The ceiling, so very high above, beyond the six tiers of balcony seats, was frescoed in the style of Michelangelo. With Queen Victoria, the Royal Sovereign, pictured as Empress of the Solar System, throned in glory and presiding benignly over her realm. Her subjects, of every colour, race and hue, including some that looked suspiciously Venusian in origin, knelt before her, gazing up in adoration. Cherubim and seraphim fussed and fluttered around and about, smiling with love upon Her Majesty.

The walls that climbed to meet this travesty of Renaissance genius were of the rococo persuasion. Fussed and made fancy with a frenzy of gilded ornamentation. Fairies and phantoms, satyrs and sprites, fabulous figures and mythical heroes, scrambling over one another. As if seeking to reach, and no doubt offer praise, to the Queen Empress Goddess on high.

But at least those who were made giddy from the gazing upwards did so in a cool and healthy climate. For the temperature and quality of the air was managed by intricate electrical systems, pneumatic, hydrostatic, magnetical and hydraulic in nature. Driven through the patent ice grotto and all linked to a self-governing nexus designed by Sir Charles Babbage.

No matter one’s feelings for this Music Hall’s aesthetic, it truly was a marvel of the modern age.

Mr Cameron Bell leaned back in his plush red-velvet-covered chair, delighting momentarily at simply being here and taking in the din of the restless crowd.

Raucous cries and cockney oaths and all over general hubbub.

Then— The dimming of the house lights, the crowd noise gone to murmurs, now to silence.

Then— The striking up of the band. Tonight the world-famous Titurel de Schentefleur would conduct Mazael’s Mechanical Musicians. A single tap of the baton and the overture began.

This overture consisted of several popular Music Hall songs of the day and the crowd enthusiastically sang along with these.

The first to have the patrons in full voice was Tommy ‘the Teapot’ Tompkinson’s famous audience-pleaser, ‘A Nice Cup of Tea for the Baby Girl’.

Which went after this fashion:

A nice cup of tea for the baby girl

It don’t get better than that.

You can keep all those gents

With their sweet-smelling scents,

Those toffs in their toppers

And fine opera hats

Because my wife’s a regular diamond

She’s pure as an emerald or pearl.

If I’m down on my uppers

I’m still brewing cuppas

For my sweet baby girl.

A time would come in the future when folk would look back upon lyrics such as these and say, ‘They don’t write songs like
that
any more.’ And they would clearly be right.

Cameron Bell sang what words he knew and hummed along with the rest. He had a good view of the mechanical musicians. Scarcely manlike, more a number of mahogany cases filled with complicated gubbins that squeezed bellows to power the woodwind section, or drew complex bows across curious violins. It was said that a professor from Brentford in Middlesex was working on a more compact system, which might be installed in drinking houses for their patrons to sing along with. But whether anything would come of Professor Karaoke’s musical machine was anybody’s guess.

The first song came to an end and the second began. A sad one, this, as could tease a tear from the eye of a potato. The plaintive ballad that was ‘Me Mammy’s Wooden Foot’. A song of maternal love and accidental amputation.

And so it went on, but not for
too
long. The secret has always been knowing when to stop, and when faced with a crowd armed with rotten fruit and veg, it is better to err upon the side of caution.

Titurel de Schentefleur turned and bowed to the audience and then he and Mazael’s Mechanical Musicians descended at speed beneath the floor of the auditorium via a system of hidden hydraulics. Doors closed over the orchestra pit. A spotlight stabbed at the stage. Struck the great curtain to form an illuminated disc.

And into this swaggered the master of ceremonies and interlocutor for the evening, ‘Lord’ Anthony Spaloney (the King of the old Baloney). In turquoise tailcoat and topper, he cut a considerable dash. The crowd cheered as he bowed extravagantly towards them, before, as he put it, ‘enunciating the gamut of delicious delectations that would gloriously grace the stage upon this eventime’.

And as no one as yet had thrown anything, he went on to speak of tonight’s star ‘turns’. He showered syllables of sophistry upon the skills of the Scandinavian Saxophonists. Poured paeans of praise over Peter Pinkerton, the Piebald Prestidigitator. Eloquently extolled the exceeding excellence of Elmer Ellington’s Electric Eels. Affected an amorous appassionato whilst addressing amatory attention to Actom’s Aphrodite Alice Lovell. She of the Acrobatic Kiwis. And then, for here was a man who, through long experience in his line of work, had certainly learned that the secret was in knowing when to stop, hastily introduced the first star turn and exited the stage without a single missile being thrown.

He inclined his head towards Colonel Katterfelto, waiting stage left, made the sign of the cross and then made away to the bar.

The chords of a hidden harmonium heralded the arrival of Colonel Katterfelto. The great curtain rose to reveal the ample stage, bare of theatrical properties, but made gay by a colourful backdrop in the form of one vast Union Jack.

This backdrop had been hung at the instigation of Colonel Katterfelto. The old soldier reasoning, quite rightly, that this might prove a deterrent against the flinging of foul fruit and veg. For no Englishman or woman, in the rightness of their minds, would ever think of besmirching the Union Jack.

The hidden harmonium struck up a military march and Colonel Katterfelto strutted onto the stage. Polished boots and swagger stick and goggled helmet perched upon his head.

The crowd, recognising at once the distinctive blue and silverly braided uniform of the Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers, applauded the colonel and viewed the stage with quizzical expressions. Katterfelto’s Clockwork Minstrels were still an unknown quantity.

The old soldier gazed towards his audience. But naught could be seen of them beyond the glare of the footlights. A tactical error, the colonel considered. One should always see one’s enemy before one’s enemy sees one.

The colonel raised his hands slowly and lowered his goggles over his eyes. This brought some mirth to the crowd, who now, entertaining the idea that this might be a mime act, readied their soft-skinned weaponry, Union Jack or no Union Jack.

Colonel Katterfelto switched on his goggles. Night-vision mode, Martian technology back-engineered by British boffins for soldiers in service of the Crown. The crowd became visible.

Ugly, thought the colonel, affecting a gap-toothed smile.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, ‘it is my pleasure to present for you this evening an entertainment that embodies the very spirit of our age. An age of enlightenment and progress. An age—’ The colonel saw the movement, gauged the arc, watched as the turnip reached its apogee, stepped smartly aside as it swung down onto the stage.

This evasive manoeuvre most impressed and somewhat baffled a crowd that was used to having the element of surprise on its side. A cabbage was launched towards the stage; the colonel nimbly sidestepped this. Fruit followed on and the colonel dodged this, too.

In his box, Cameron Bell opened his umbrella. When fruit and veg were being thrown, there was a tendency for some of it to ‘accidentally’ strike home amongst the sitters in the expensive boxes. It was better to be safe than to be sorry.

Then there came a temporary lull in the bombardment. For without warning something short and shiny-looking tottered onto the stage. It was a tinplate manikin, some three feet in height. Its face wore smiling painted features, its body a painted red suit and a painted bow tie. A large key revolved slowly in its back as it made its precarious way towards the colonel, wobbling uneasily with every metal footfall.

The crowd applauded the tin man’s entrance and Colonel Katterfelto, with hope in his heart, twirled his swagger stick, bowed low towards the automaton, then made a number of expansive gestures that none could fathom the meaning of. Then bit upon his upper lip as the clockwork walker toppled.

The bombardment that followed was given equal distribution between Colonel Katterfelto and the fallen tinplate figure. Two heavy swedes struck home against the latter, causing a turn towards the unexpected. Seams split and a monkey, now suddenly revealed to be the hidden operator of the clockwork minstrel, leapt out, baring his teeth.

The crowd jeered and bellowed and flung everything it had.

Darwin, now gibbering in the tongue of his ancestors, did as his simian forebears would have done: produced dung and heaved it in joyful retaliation at the audience.

The curtain fell.

olonel Katterfelto returned to the communal dressing room.

To receive a standing ovation. Somewhat taken aback and drop-jawed by this unexpected applause, the old campaigner gratefully received the penny cigar that Peter Pinkerton, the Piebald Prestidigitator, pushed into his mouth. And sucked greedily upon it, once lit. Surely these artistes had made some mistake. The colonel was rightfully bewildered.

‘It is this way, sir,’ said Alice Lovell, made lovelier by the white ringmaster’s uniform that hugged her where a lady should be hugged. ‘No bill-bottomer has ever before stepped from that stage utterly free of besmirchment.’