At last, tyres screeching, we turned into a much wider street, a smoothly curving terrace of stone buildings with tall half-columned frontages. These were no business buildings; they must once have been the town mansions of merchants, within easy reach of their wharves and counting-houses. They must have been really imposing then, with their tall windows and carved door lintels towering at the head of broad steps, all faced in fine-chiselled sandstone. Now the steps were dished with wear, the lintels cracked and chipped and bird-fouled, the windows mostly boarded and eyeless; torn posters and spray-paint slogans spattered the blackened stone. Only two or three of the street-lamps were working, but there was no sign of life to need them. I pulled in by a crumbling kerb, and almost before I could lift the handbrake Jyp bounced out. Something clattered against the door-frame. ‘C’mon!’
I blinked. Somehow I hadn’t noticed that particular something before. ‘Jyp – hadn’t you better be careful? That, uh, sword you’re wearing – do you want to leave it in the car?’
He chuckled. ‘Round here? Like hell I do. Bundlers, Resurrection Men – never know what you might run into. But don’t worry! Nobody’ll notice it, like as not. Folk only see what they want to see, most times; if it doesn’t fit in, they just ignore it.’ His teeth flashed in the gloom. ‘How many strange things’ve you seen out of the corner of your eye? C’mon!’
I hastily locked the car and scuttled after him. He wasn’t easy to keep up with, and I didn’t want to get left behind in this mirk. I wondered what a Bundler was, but I hadn’t the breath to ask; and it occurred to me, as the car faded from sight, that I wasn’t really that crazy to know.
Jyp didn’t head for any of the steps, but instead turned into a narrow and uninviting gap around the middle of the terrace, a lane that led us past what might once have been stables and carriage-houses, but were now half-crumbled hulks. At the end the old mews bent sharply to the right, and as we turned it felt as if a warmer, darker air flowed about us. There were lights ahead, though, and as we drew closer I saw they were old-fashioned street-lamps mounted on wall brackets, illuminating the frontages of a row of small shops. The light was warm and yellow, and as we passed by the first of them I heard hissing and looked up; it was a genuine gas lamp. I wondered how many of those were still in use. On the wall beneath it a Victorian nameplate, much cracked and defaced, read Danborough Way; I spoke it to myself as I read it, and the sound made me stop and think for a moment.
The shops themselves seemed just as peculiar; they all looked old, and one or two even had bottle-glass window-panes, though mended here and there with clear glass or painted slats of wood. Many of the windows above them were lit; odd scents hung in the still air, a murmur of soft voices, and occasionally the thud and stutter of rock music, never loud. One shop, at the far corner, had a modern illuminated newsagent’s sign, cracked in one corner, and another, further along, had what looked like the original Victorian sign to proclaim it was a ‘Provision Merchants to Family and Gentry’, and a heap of faded cans in its window. Another, better kept, seemed to be a second-hand shop, piled high with furniture. But the others were harder to guess; they had no signs, or hand-lettered cards that read ‘His Grace the Sovereign Joseph!’ or ‘The Mighty Gunzwah’s Emporium’, interspersed with advertisements for ginseng, hair restorer, Tarot readings, Goon Yum tea and vitality tonics for men. One immense luminous orange effort read ‘Have You Got The Runs???’, as if trying to persuade me I was missing something.
Fortunately it was towards another door that Jyp turned, the shop next to the furniture store, and the best kept by any standards; its woodwork was well varnished, its brasswork gleaming, its windows an orderly riot of everything from gaudily-covered books to bunches of feathers, incense burners and what looked like very good ethnic jewellery. What really caught my eye was a painting a crazy piece of naïve imagery, gaudy as a parrot and childlike in its directness – but with anything but a childish effect. A black man in a fantastic white military uniform complete with scarlet sash, gilt buttons and plumed sun-helmet, sitting tall and proud in the saddle of a winged horse, rampant against forked lightnings crossing in a stormy sky. In his hand a curved sabre – and round his head a coruscating halo of gold leaf. A real ikon, in fact – only the style looked African, Ethiopian maybe, because it was obviously Christian. Or was it? Along the bottom I read, in neat copperplate script, Saint-Jaques Majeur. But that look didn’t square with any saint I’d ever heard about – least of all the shower of scarlet droplets that flew from the sabre’s edge. I turned to ask Jyp, but he pushed impatiently past me. A mellow bell bounced on its spring as he flung open the door.
Out of the door behind the counter, as if he had been pushed, popped a black man, middle-aged or older, with elegant white mutton-chop whiskers. He wore a neat green baize apron, like a butler cleaning the silver, over a brown corduroy waistcoat. ‘Frightfully sorry, gentlemen,’ he began in resonant tones, ‘but we are closed for business today –’ Then he saw Jyp, and beamed. ‘But not to you, of course, captain! What can I –’
He was choked off as Jyp shot his long arms across the counter, caught the waistcoat and drew the man over the counter with such inexorable strength that his feet left the ground. Jyp glared at him narrow-eyed, almost nose to nose. ‘That shipment of root, Frederick! The one that’s gathering dust down at the warehouse right now? It’s your order, isn’t it, all of it? Then how come you’ve not been down to pick it up, huh?’
The man’s eyes widened and he flapped his hands and cawed in helpless surprise. I felt suddenly ashamed, and caught Jyp’s wrist; it felt like steel cable. ‘Let him down, Jyp! He can’t answer you if he chokes!’
Jyp said nothing, but he released the man, who almost collapsed behind the counter. ‘But captain,’ he wheezed, ‘I haven’t the slightest – I really do not understand – if I have somehow given offence, I – I am really not as young as I was, you understand, it is not as easy for me to arrange matters as – I do not presume –’ Even stammering, he remained beautifully spoken.
‘You couldn’t get down there yourself, then?’ I prompted him. He drew a deep breath, and smoothed down his ruffled whiskers.
‘No indeed, sir! For smaller loads I can fit in my car, certainly – but the roots are a large vanload, and I no longer maintain one.’
Jyp tapped the marble-topped counter thoughtfully, and looked around the little shop. ‘That so? Why’d you order so much, then? You mean to leave it with us, and just pick it up piecemeal as you need it?’
Frederick permitted himself a pitying smirk. ‘At such rates of tonnage and floorage, sir? Hardly. No, I have a most obliging neighbour who maintains a suitable van, and has promised to go down and collect the roots when next he has a few hours free; but he has not managed it yet, and naturally in these matters one does not wish to press …’
Jyp’s lined face had gone very cold. ‘Maybe it’s about time one did. C’mon, Fred, you’re going to introduce us. This instant.’
‘Whatever you wish, captain, whatever …’ babbled the old man as Jyp drew him irresistibly out from behind the counter. ‘But I assure you … Mr Cuffee … most pleasant and helpful fellow-tradesman …’ Jyp propelled him gently out into the street. ‘So large a purchase … the advantages of buying in, ah, bulk, if I may venture upon the vulgar phrase … His initiative entirely –’