Chasing Schrödinger’s Cat - A Steampunk Novel Page 3

  “A highly-strung young woman,” said a voice from behind the shop counter. “A touch on the forgetful side as well. She’s left her newspapers behind.” The speaker, who I recognized as the owner of the calico cat, went on to say that nobody on the street could understand why the posh lady had chosen this location to champion the cause of women’s suffrage. “Women around here are more concerned with feeding their families than with airy-fairy talk about rights.”

  I paused for a moment to take in my surroundings. It was getting dark outside and the only artificial light came from two crackling gas lights mounted on wall sconces. I could just make out a cramped warren whose floors were cluttered with stage magic paraphernalia and whose walls sported lithographed posters depicting magicians in full evening dress.

  “An ill-favored thing sir, but mine own,” the proprietor said, when I had finished my inspection. “I have been hoping you would reappear.”

  “Why me?”

  “You have a device that was attached to my cat’s collar.”

  “Sorry, I left it at Mrs. Gridestone’s. I’ll bring it next time.”

  “Mrs. Gridestone’s? Is that somewhere in the Kineworld?”

  “What is the Kineworld?”

  Instead of answering directly, the man opened a rosewood case sitting on the counter next to him. Inside was an apparatus that looked like an antique movie camera topped with a small glass cylinder.

  “What on earth is that?” I asked.

  “This, my peripatetic young friend, is a dimensional translator. It allows us to observe the activities in the Kineworld, where you come from. It is also the reason you are here.”

  “Say again?”

  “The device opens a temporary pathway between your world and ours, a pathway your dream research has enabled you to follow.”

  “Why do you call it the Kineworld?”

  “A reference to its role as a source of popular entertainment,” he said, smiling ruefully. “You are quite famous here you know.”

  “Famous for what?”

  “Among other things, your research into what you call lucid dreaming has excited the interest of some very important persons.”

  I looked in a nearby mirror and saw a muscular version of myself with bushy sideburns dressed in brown corduroy trousers held up by elastic suspenders.

  “I knew this was a dream,” I said. “I look different.”

  “It is a representation of your inner spirit as it would like to be seen,” the man said. “The real you lies unconscious in your own world. In any event, you should be glad you do not look like yourself. Your own persona is too well known here.” Seeing my look of confusion, he took two pasteboard tickets from his vest pocket and gave them to me, saying “these may explain.”

  I was examining the tickets which were for something called the Old Brompton Road Kinescope when the suffragette lady reappeared. She rushed red-faced toward the stack of newspapers lying on the floor beside me. I tried to get out of her way and accidentally kicked them over. I was kneeling on the floor putting them back together when the door burst open to admit several helmeted policemen and a florid man in a brown bowler hat.

  “Where is Schrödinger?” the bowler hat man demanded

  “Sh who?” I asked.

  “The owner.”

  I looked toward the counter and saw that both the shop owner and the rosewood case had vanished.

  “Beats me,” I said, an explanation which did not seem to satisfy bowler hat man who advised both me and the suffragette we would be needed to assist police with their enquiries.

  Chapter IX:

  A Rumpolian Solicitor – The British League of Fascists – Newford House

  “I will remove my jacket with your permission, Lady Sarah,” said the florid man with the whisky nose during the court adjournment. He took her silence as an affirmative and settled himself behind a leather-topped pedestal desk where he proceeded to review the series of documents that had resulted from the first part of our court appearance. “You have a very strong case,” he said, after he had finished. “But you must understand that the crown attorney is under intense political pressure to hold you while the investigation proceeds.”

  “Don’t you have habeas corpus here… Mister?” I asked.

  “Cruikshank. As for habeas corpus, you do take me back. I haven’t heard that term in a dog’s age,” said the Rumpolian solicitor, fingering the watch chain stretched tightly over his copious abdomen. “We did away with that relic years ago, along with the right to remain silent.”

  “But is it really necessary to involve my father?” asked the suffragette, who the court clerk had identified as Sarah St. John.

  “If I may say so Lady Sarah, Lord Newford’s influence is all that stands between you and incarceration,” the attorney said. “After all, Her Majesty’s Intelligence Service believes the man Schrödinger to be an agent for the British League of Fascists.” He went on to say that Schrödinger was suspected in the theft of a top-secret government communication device from HMIS headquarters in Amesbury. I recognized the equipment in the rosewood box from his description but decided it was best to remain silent.

  “What will happen now?” Sarah St. John asked.

  “I believe the best we can hope for is that His Lordship will agree to house arrest for the two of you.”

  “House arrest where?”

  “At Newford House of course.”

  “Isn’t it bad enough this odious creature has got me into this predicament without my family having to feed and house him?” Sarah protested indignantly.

  “Lady Sarah, as far as His Lordship is concerned, you are Mister Liddel’s associate. It would hardly improve his disposition to be told that your colleague is a person of no fixed address.”

  And that’s how I came to be living in the servants’ quarters of

  96 Chester Square, a Georgian terraced home dating from the 1830’s. Sarah St. John had spurned my offer to apologize to her father, Lord Newford, telling me I had caused “quite enough trouble already” and that the best way of making amends would be for me to keep well out of sight. I tried to do what she wanted but my efforts to remain inconspicuous were doomed to failure.

  Chapter X:

  My life as a Dalit – Steam and Horse Manure – Graffiti

  I have never been known for my social skills (as you may already have noticed) but my descent into pariah status “below stairs” was rapid, even for me. Things started to go sideways as soon as I arrived at Newford House when Coates, the butler, took me aside and let me know that my presence at morning prayers would not be desirable owing to my ‘irregular’ status in the household.

  I’m no working class hero, but the guy’s snooty tone rubbed me the wrong way. I mean who was this cadaverous creep with his rimless glasses and black tailcoat to tell me, a free American, where I could and could not worship?

  “No problem there Jeeves” I told him. “The god I pray to doesn’t sober up until noon.”

  And so it was that I found myself eating my meals at a table in the kitchen with the scullery maid and the hall boy, both of who resented the intrusion into their already-cramped eating area. All the other servants ate a long table in the next room with Coates at one end and Mrs. Davies, the housekeeper, at the other.

  Personally, I didn’t mind being banished. Mealtime conversation in the main room seemed limited to requests for condiments and occasional remarks about the weather. At least Janet, the scullery maid, and Percy, the hall boy, talked to each other although many of their whispered conversations would have benefited from subtitles.

  Janet: “That old cow Davies was on at me somefink awful today. I’d give me notice if me ma wasn’t in the family way again.”

  Percy: “Never you mind that. That great berk Coates wouldn’t even let me go for a William. I’d like to see him old it in for two bleedin’ hours.”

  Janet (giggling): “‘Is arse is so tight ‘e cold prob’ly ‘old it for a week.”

&n
bsp; I know I said earlier that I’m lazy but even lazy people get bored doing absolutely nothing. I was in the servant’s hall one afternoon when I noticed Percy polishing a long row of shoes. He didn’t seem to have the first idea of how to go about it and the shoes looked worse after he had finished then when he had begun.

  “Hey Perce,” I said, in my best good ol’ boy voice. “Need a hand?”

  Percy looked at me suspiciously, torn between wanting help and avoiding contact with an outcast.

  “I might do,” he said finally. “Know anything about cleaning churches?”

  By now I had learned enough Cockney Rhyming Slang to know that ‘churches’ was short for “church pews” i.e. shoes. As it happens, I am an expert on shoe shining, having spent a month in ROTC. (OK, so I was kicked out for calling the Command Sergeant Major a redneck retard. Big whoop.) I taught Percy about using paraffin to keep the polish soft and letting your moistened shine rag ‘skate’ over the surface. We sat back to admire our handiwork when we had finished. We could see our faces on every surface of the gleaming footwear.

  It was at this point that Coates, the butler, made his entrance. He looked at me with distaste and then noticed the row of polished shoes.

  “Mister Cowan,” he said, his voice quivering with outrage. “What on earth have you done to these shoes?”

  “Cleaned them up,” Percy answered. “Shiny ain’t they?”

  “Mister Cowan, you were instructed to clean them, not make them look like patent leather.”

  “I thought they looked nice.”

  “Your thoughts on the matter are of no consequence. Lord Newford and his family are members of the aristocracy, not a troupe of Flamenco dancers.”

  “Coates,” I interjected. “Don’t blame Percy. I talked him into it.”

  Coates behaved as though nobody had spoken. “I give you fair warning Mister Cowan,” he said. “One more incident such as this and you will be dismissed. Clean these shoes properly and have them back to their rightful owners within the hour.”

  By now you are probably wondering why I didn’t just bail out and go back to my life at USW. Why stick around where I was not wanted? Well believe it or not, I hadn’t been lying when I told Ross Percival I had faith in my research and I wanted to see how my new life would play out. And even if I had wanted to go back, I no longer had my Lucidream goggles. I was stuck, unless I could convince someone to stand in for Professor Weill and fall on me from a high balcony. And even then, I would need the dimensional translator which was off somewhere with Schrödinger.

  But putting up with Coates was more than I could handle, so I gave up on trying to be part of household activities and began to take long walks through the surrounding streets. I would have kept notes on my first impressions of what I secretly called Sideways London, but I had no money to buy a journal. I offer the following random observations as I remember them.

  One of the first things I notice about my new world is its atmosphere, a heavy fug of feces, body odor, steam and smoke.

  Smoke and steam? No surprises there. Sideways London’s famously murky air has become even more opaque with the introduction of steam power. Everything from spoke-wheeled carriages to dirigibles is powered by puffing engines enveloped in clouds of white condensate. I even saw a huge vacuum cleaner called a ‘sucking billy’ parked in a narrow street fronting a Mayfair mansion. It took three people just to maneuver its six-inch diameter hose through the front door. But all this power comes at a price. Most of the steam-powered machines burn lignite coal and emit a gassy yellowy discharge that coats everything in the city with grease and turns the air into a noxious haze that makes Los Angeles smog look like medical grade oxygen.

  People here seem perfectly happy with steam power, despite its limitations. The only use they have found for petroleum is in a primitive form of dry cleaning. Cleaning establishments, by law, cannot be located in populated areas owing to their alarming tendency to catch fire and explode. Pickup and delivery costs are high as a result and only the very wealthy can afford "nettoyage à sec.”

  I saw the letters ‘BLF’ painted on many pillar boxes, walls and once, even a police van. Percy, the hall boy told me the letters stood for British League of Fascists, an organization that had recently been founded in response to the growing power of the labor movement. I asked which side he was on and got the opinion they were “all a bunch of bleedin’ nutters if you ask me.”

  Steam may be taking over, but horses are fighting a strong rearguard action. Literally. The cobblestone streets would be covered in manure were it not for the Herculean efforts of broom-wielding urchins who sweep the malodorous equine deposits into neat piles. These piles in turn are collected nightly in steam-powered carts and taken God knows where. Some questions are best left unanswered.

  And then there is the whole matter of body odor. There are no showers in Sideways London and preparing a bath is a project similar in magnitude to digging the Suez Canal. As a result, everyone reeks. I probably reeked too after the first week but by then, I had stopped caring.

  Carrying on with the theme of personal hygiene, most people have teeth ranging from bad to nonexistent. Men often wear bushy moustaches to hide their dental deficiencies, an affectation leaves them looking like beloved cartoon character Wally Walrus. Toothaches are cured either by removal, or by swallowing patent medicines containing either cocaine or opium, or both.

  And there’s another thing. They don’t have the D.A.R.E. program in Sideways London. You can buy stuff across the counter that would get you seven to life in The States.

  Money is huge here. A crown is the size of poker chip and you could wrap a grapefruit in a five pound note.

  Brass, the yellow metal. Designers here love it. No machine is complete without a few brass fittings, every piece of furniture has brass corners and no uniform is complete without a shining vertical column of yellow buttons.

  There are no telephones. The fastest way of sending a message is by way of a network of overhead pneumatic tubes running through the city on utility poles. These same utility poles also carry insulated pipes which distribute steam heat to both houses and businesses. I never did find out how steam usage was metered.

  There are no black people. Music sucks as a result. ‘Ta Rah Rah Boom Dee Ay’ is fun the first time you hear it but, trust me, it gets old really fast.

  Nice women wear no makeup. Fortunately for the cosmetics manufacturers the not-so-nice women more than make up for it by using layers of the stuff to hide the ravages of sexually transmitted diseases.

  And of course, there are no such things as radio or television. The only forms of mass communication are newspapers, sold on the streets by disrespectful cockneys, and silent films shown in many small theatres called ‘Kinescopes.’

  I was attempting to enter one of these establishments when I next ran into trouble with “the man.”

  Chapter XI:

  Town Planning? – Hard Seating – Mister Fox and Mister Flowers

  There is one other thing I should mention about Sideways London. The city would appear to have been laid out by the same town planner who designed the Cretan labyrinth. Streets bend and twist like Chinese gymnasts. North, South, East and West who needs ‘em? Even street names are subject to change without notice. Cale Street suddenly becomes

  Elystan Place which in turn morphs into Bray Place. Even if the GPS had been invented, I doubt it would work here. You might as well try to navigate your way through the Bermuda Triangle.

  I was on an early-morning walk to Victoria and Albert museum when I took a wrong turn and found myself heading down the Old Brompton Road. The name rang a bell. Wasn’t that the location of the theater on the tickets Schrödinger had given me? And if so, did I still have them?

  I checked my pockets and there they were, crumpled but intact. I looked down the street and saw the theater whose marquee advertised a double bill featuring The Great Train Robbery and Backward Bob To The Rescue. What the hell, I figured. They could
n’t be any worse than Freddie Got Fingered.

  I had almost reached the Kinescope when a windowless black van pulled up beside me. The bowler-hatted man who had busted me at Schrödinger’s Esoterica was sitting in the passenger seat.

  “Get in,’ he said, nodding toward the rear of the vehicle.

  I thought briefly about making a run for it, but where was I going to go? I was soon seated in the rear of the paddy wagon on a hard wooden bench sporting many carved initials and a drawing of a round head with a long nose poking over a wall accompanied by the plaintive slogan ‘Wot, No Char?’

  My butt was crying uncle by the time we got to our destination, thanks to the wagon’s rudimentary suspension. I’d tell you where we went, but the lack of windows made it impossible for me to know. All I can say is that I ended up sitting on yet another hard chair in a basement room of some kind of institutional building.