The Revolutions (32 page)

Podmore looked down at the waiter. “Oh dear,” he said. “Poor fellow.”

Arthur took a deep breath. He felt as if he’d been beaten, but Podmore was sweating too. Podmore looked surprised—not afraid, by any means, but at least annoyed.

Podmore leaned forward, and whispered, “Is Atwood here? Sun? The women? Any of your colleagues?”

Arthur shook his head.

“No,” Podmore said. “No. I would know … But you’re not alone, are you, Shaw?”

“Oh God,” George said. “Oh God, Arthur. You should go home—you’re not well.”

“Go away, George, please—it’s better if you hear none of this.”

“Arthur believes me to be a magician,” Podmore said. “Of notorious reputation. He thinks I stole his fiancée. And he blames me for the burning of his friend Atwood’s house—certainly an unfortunate incident. I hear that one Sergeant Jessop, a policeman, died in the fire.”

George went pale.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Arthur said. “I liked Jessop. He was a good man.”

“Well,” Podmore snapped, “he shouldn’t have worked for Atwood, then.”

George sputtered. “Burning? Dead policemen?” He threw down his napkin and stood, with an expression on his face that suggested he was going to try to summon the authorities, if only he could think of the proper authority to call. Podmore barked
no
and he sat back down.

Podmore picked up his fork and stood it on its end. Snaith stood, stepped over to the shelf behind Arthur’s head, and picked up a sharp knife. Moving by instinct, Arthur reached out and knocked over Snaith’s wine-glass. Snaith slipped on spilled borscht. He lay on his back looking confused, as if he had no idea what had just happened or why he’d stood up in the first place.

They had by now attracted the attention of every other table in the restaurant. People were turning to stare.

A waiter approached, bearing another tray of soup. He trembled as he served them, then fled—rejoining a long row of waiters who stood by the wall, watching anxiously.

Arthur said, “George—I’m sorry.”

He snapped the stem of his wine-glass, causing the leg of George’s chair to snap so that he fell on the floor and hit his head on the chair behind him. The dowager dame who’d been sitting in that chair gave a little shriek, then got to her feet and left, taking her party with her. A couple of waiters quickly came and led George off, bleeding from the head, in search of first aid.

Podmore pushed his soup to one side. “Very well. Frisch—go. Snaith—go.”

Both men stood at once, with the quick obedience of well-drilled soldiers, and left without a word. Frisch wore an expression of mild confusion; Snaith, relief.

“Well, Shaw. I see Atwood has taught you a trick or two.”

“Give me Josephine, Your Lordship; Josephine and Gracewell.”

“Did you come here to threaten me? I am
tremendously
insulted—not to mention inconvenienced—by this display. I doubt Mr Frisch will do business with me in future. People will talk—”

He looked around the restaurant, observed that he had an audience, and sighed. “I’ll return your woman to you. I don’t need her any more.”

“And Gracewell?”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Shaw. Every act of violence is a stain on the soul. It weakens; it corrupts. I do not want to go to war. I do not want to conduct myself in this unpleasant way. You may find this hard to believe, but I did not become a magician out of greed, or anger, or to play stupid tricks, but to purify my soul; and I still hold out hope of Heaven when I die. I will ascend then among the spheres in the usual orderly fashion.” He sipped his wine.

“I’ve seen your thugs,” Arthur said. “I know what they are.”

“Do you? A necessity, that’s what they are. A regrettable necessity. Because of people like Atwood.”

“A regrettable necessity,” Arthur said. “Quite.” He glanced at the entrance to the restaurant, and shook his head. “I didn’t come alone, Your Lordship.”

Podmore slowly put his glass down, and turned his head. “Oh, good God.”

He stood, resting his hands on the table.

Mrs Archer entered the restaurant, hanging off her great mute son’s arm, breezing past anxious waiters, snatching a peach off a stranger’s table.

Arthur glanced at his watch. She’d promised him half an hour to get George out of the way and attempt to negotiate. She was a little early. Eager, no doubt. Keen to see who was stronger, her or Podmore. She bit cheerfully into the peach.

*   *   *

They stared at each other across the restaurant. Podmore swayed a little, his knuckles whitening on the table-top. Mrs Archer stepped forward, leaning, as if into a high wind. In the straight line across the Savoy restaurant between the two of them, people flinched, choked on their wine, or suddenly found reason to wipe their mouths, check their watches, and head for the exits. Waiters bearing trays declined to cross that line, turning back towards the kitchen.

Podmore muttered under his breath, invoking names that Arthur had never heard before, even in Atwood’s books. A phalanx of white-aproned waiters formed and marched across the restaurant towards Archer, with the apparent intention of forcibly removing her. Her son stepped forward, scowling, to block their path.

Archer narrowed her eyes. A grand-looking silver-haired lady got up from her chair and confronted Podmore, telling him that his newspapers were disgracefully unpatriotic. An actor stood and told Podmore that his newspapers’ reviews of
Lady Windermere’s Fan
had been damnably unfair and frankly philistine. A third and a fourth and a fifth person started clamouring at Podmore about something or other—Arthur could no longer make out what any of them were saying.

Podmore invited them all to sod off. Then he rapped his fork three times on the table, and said some words in Latin.

A beautiful and fashionably dressed young lady stood and pointed at Archer, laughed, and whispered
What on earth is she wearing?
The whisper was loud enough for everyone to hear, and it was joined by others, a choir of unkind whispering and laughing:
How in the world did someone like that get in here? Is she a beggar? What do you suppose she wants?—
all of it directed squarely, from every corner of the room, at Archer.

Arthur winced. It didn’t seem to trouble Archer at all, or shake her confidence; as if she were the one who belonged there, baggy filthy old dress and all, and it was the Savoy’s guests who were absurd; as if she belonged to an older and grander aristocracy than any of them. She bit the peach again, messily, contemptuously, laughing.

The whispering of the crowd continued, but new notes entered into it—confusion, followed by alarm, followed by outrage. It took Arthur a few moments to understand what Archer had done, and by that time it was far advanced.

What an aboluble dress that woman’s wearing!

Borrible. Simply borribile. Borbulous! Halla dorl she?

Somebody should call for the integuments. Somebody should chamomile the grobes at once.

Worrabile? My dear, if the tidal—that is, the tumnal—the dolmen or ah dunce-cap, Adonai, I, ah, ah, ah …

Nonsense wafted from every table. The condition appeared to be rapidly worsening. Some guests, panicking, shouted and shouted; others clapped their hands to their mouths, afraid of what might come out. Husbands and wives looked at each other in alarm and disgust. They tried to swear and managed only to say
Albumarle!
or
Belladonna!

Podmore banged his hand on the table and cleared his throat. Ladies and Gentiles, I urge you to remain camel. Calm. I urge you to remain calm. I think that most of you know who I argue—who I am—and that I abominate, ah, that I ballaton, that—a mere momentary hysteria. I expect that lorrabiles and goblins of your stamen, stature, gondolas, that is—I mean gentlematins, men,
men
, I—God darbat you, old woman—enough!”

All eyes were on him. He was beginning to sweat.

The lights burned out, and two behind Archer’s head caught fire. The dark and the fire gave her and her son a devilish appearance. Arthur couldn’t guess who was responsible for putting out the lights, Podmore or Archer or both of them. Someone screamed.

That was the signal for Bedlam to break loose. The dowager dame who had been complaining to Podmore about his lack of patriotism clawed at his face, drawing blood. He swore and shoved her aside. The actor started shouting. People were running to and fro. Arthur got up from his seat just in time to duck out of the way as a waiter swung a wine-bottle at him. Plates, bottles, cutlery, went flying, hurled in Podmore’s direction, or Mrs Archer’s, or Arthur’s own, or at no one in particular. Arthur sheltered behind the pillar and listened to screams of rage and the sound of shattering glass and china and table-legs. It was as if a legion of devils had been admitted into the Savoy Hotel and placed within the diners at the restaurant, the way Christ put those devils in the country of whatchamacallit into a herd of swine. As a matter of fact, that might be exactly what had happened. Arthur didn’t know. For a moment, he had an awful notion that the chaos might not stop in the dining-room of the Savoy—why should it? What if Podmore and Archer’s struggle spilled out into the streets, and drove all of London mad? What if—

Someone jabbed at Arthur’s face with a fork. He snatched a large silver tureen from the shelf and used it to defend himself, swinging it to and fro with both hands, laying low a peer of the realm with one blow, a French ambassador with the next.

Battle-lines formed, Archer’s army against Podmore’s, armed with knives and forks and spoons. A dozen aristocratic young men on either side of the battle formed a sort of non-regulation scrimmage, heads down, slipping and sliding in spilt food. Archer had climbed upon a table now and hiked up her skirts, and was directing her army with a silver ladle. Most of the waiters were on Podmore’s side. Most of the women were on Archer’s. Others were jerked this way and that as the two combatants struggled with each other.

A prominent surgeon nailed a waiter’s hand to a table with a fork. A German Grand Admiral stabbed a Bishop in the eye with a spoon. China crunched underfoot. An Indian Prince hurled a tureen of hot soup at Podmore—a stockbroker intercepted it. The Duchess of Bolton attempted to strangle the young actress Miss Lily Otway with her own pearls. Some Italians fought bare-knuckle with some Americans. Archer’s son pressed forward across the room, making slow headway against a tide of enraged waiters, in peril of sinking beneath them.

Podmore stood on the table, chanting something. Arthur bowled the silver tureen overhand across two overturned tables and hit Podmore on the back of his head. Podmore grunted and fell over.

*   *   *

The fighting continued for a little while, but without the same enthusiasm. Eventually people started slipping away, nursing their wounds, jabbering nonsense to themselves, embarrassed to look one another in the eye. Mrs Archer’s son picked Podmore up, head-locked him, and dragged him red-faced and gasping out of the restaurant. Archer followed, laughing, stealing food as she went.

The lobby outside was largely deserted. Plants had been uprooted from their pots, paintings slashed and thrown in the fireplace, china smashed across the floor. Two white-jacketed members of the hotel’s staff knelt on the floor, restraining a howling and kicking man. A woman in black sobbed on a sofa.

Policemen rushed from the courtyard.

“Don’t mind us,” Archer said. “Don’t mind us.”

The policemen continued into the restaurant, hardly glancing their way.

Arthur’s uncle George lay face down on the floor by the fireplace. He was bruised and his jacket was torn. His head was bloody, and he appeared to have been trampled by fleeing patrons.

“He’ll live,” Archer said. “You didn’t think we would go to war and no one would get hurt, did you? Now, hurry along, hurry along, before worse happens.”

*   *   *

Once Lord Podmore had been brought around by smelling-salts, and sufficiently menaced by Mrs Archer’s son, he proposed that, while surrender was obviously impossible—his associates would not permit it—they might perhaps be able to hammer out some rules for the conduct of the war. Indeed, he was willing to go so far as to say that kidnapping probably was, when looked at in the clear light of hindsight, somewhat beyond the pale.

“I can’t speak for the Germans, though. I can’t speak for the Chinese, or the Americans. By God, Mr Shaw, won’t you speak to Atwood, and beg him to see sense, before it’s too late. By God. Isn’t it bad enough already? Look at this creature, Mr Shaw!”

Podmore pointed to Archer’s son. “Look at this creature! Look at her, and that thing she calls her son—look what you’ve allied yourself with. Is it Christian, I ask you?”

Archer laughed and poked him in the ribs with her stolen ladle. “Get on with it, Your Lordship. Make your telephone call, or release your pigeons, or what-have-you.”

Podmore summoned up what was left of his pride and led them down to the river. By this time the sun had begun to set, and there was a chilly damp fog by the river. He led them south to an expanse of muddy riverbank, where an abandoned landing, ruined by the storm, stuck out into the black water. He asked if he might be permitted to borrow a match from someone; and then he took a grimy old lantern from a rusty hook on a moss-green post beneath the landing. He lit the lantern and stood out on the edge of the water with its red flame held high. Archer’s son stood behind him with a hand on his shoulder.

Out on the water there was a boat. Through the fog it loomed as big as an inter-continental steamer or a prison hulk. The setting sun made a road of fire across the water, and here and there red sun reflected from the boat’s wet black mass, as if the whole thing were aflame.

Lord Podmore moved the lantern from side to side and up and down.

After a while something moved across the water: a black speck approaching on the flaming road. It slowly became clear that it was a rowboat.