But I wasn’t going to argue with them. I had had a very special experience. A life-changing experience. And if there was one thing that I particularly wanted to do, then that one thing was to talk to Mr Ishmael about all that I had remembered.
And all that I had seen in Hyde Park.
The dead people, and everything.
But, I was told, Mr Ishmael was not with us on the ship. He might or might not be coming over to America to join us on our tour.
Mr Ishmael was rather busy at the moment.
So I held my tongue and beheld New York. And I really took to the place.
New York was seedy in a manner of exceeding seediness. London could be seedy, as could any other city in England, but never on the scale of New York. New York had really worked hard on perfecting its seediness and no other city could touch it.
I am told that Shanghai and Singapore tried. But failed.
And Penge put in a bid. Came close, but lost upon population numbers.
The New York club scene was just coming into its own. Club 27, the now infamous den of sin and iniquity, had just opened and it was where the famous went to indulge themselves on all levels. For such is the reward for being famous.
We breezed in on a Thursday night, having first checked in to the Pentecost Hotel. Which was the place to check in to. Thursday nights at Club 27 were Shadow Nights. And so we fell straight into that.
‘What, exactly, are Shadow Nights?’ Andy asked of Neil.
‘Ah,’ said Neil. ‘I’m glad you asked me that question because I know all about Shadow Nights.’
I grinned a bit at Neil and nodded. He did know so much stuff. I wondered whether it would be a good idea to introduce Neil to a Banbury Bloater, so he could know some more.
But Toby had told me that he had no more such Bloaters and suspected that he might not be able to lay his hands on any more Bloaters ever. But then, of course, we were only in New York. We had yet to reach California.
‘So,’ I said to Neil, ‘speak to us of Shadow Nights.’
‘It’s an extra thing,’ said Neil. ‘Like the shrinking buildings.’
‘Not quite following you there,’ I said, ordering, as I did so, a bowl of strawberries from the waitress and a quarter pound of cocaine to sprinkle over them.
‘The woman from Croydon,’ said Neil. ‘You must have heard about the woman from Croydon.’
But strangely no.
And so Neil told us all about the woman from Croydon. And her connection with Shadow Nights at Club 27 in New York. And frankly, I have to admit that I was astounded.
Because I had never heard of her before. But her experiences fitted right in with my experience in Hyde Park and all that went before it.
And indeed was to come afterwards. Although, of course, I wasn’t to know that then. But it put things into place. And exposed a bigger picture and all that kind of business.
And so, I give you another aside, but again a relevant one.
I give you, indeed, the revelations.
Of the woman from Croydon.
35
There was a young lady named Clara
Who crashed in her new Ford Sierra.
The results of collision
Caused hoots of derision
And stays in a home, with a carer.
When Hugo Rune wrote of the soul-space, he also wrote of what he called the mental-mesh. The mental-mesh was a physical thing, in Rune’s opinion, and could be espied under a microscope within a dissected human brain. If you knew just where to look.
The purpose of the mental-mesh is to screen out the bad stuff that would otherwise interfere with the everyday running of human life. A filter, if you will, that prevents the admission of the stuff that would be too much to bear – the interference, cosmic and otherwise. The thickness of the mesh determines the range of the spectrum that our eyes have access to. Also the limitations of sound, both high-pitched and low. That which might be smelled and touched and sensed in all manner of ways. It is an evolutionary development without which humanity could never have raised itself above the animal kingdom. It is well known that birds can see better than Man, and dogs can smell much more and certain creatures sense much more than this. But Man, you will note, is the master of them all. Because by limiting the input, Man can concentrate upon other things, rather than being constantly under a massive sensory assault.
The question arose in Rune’s mighty mind as to what might happen to a man if the mental-mesh was removed from his brain. Rune experimented upon several of his willing acolytes and although he could not claim a one hundred per cent success rate, he described the results as ‘interesting’. And ‘not without some humour’.
But as Rune was to discover, it was not necessary for him to slice away at his acolytes’ heads in order to observe what happens when the mental-mesh is either partially or totally removed. There are some amongst us who lack for mental meshes, either wholly or in part. Or whose mental-meshes have become damaged or ‘holed’ due to some trauma or accident.
And these folk are to be found inhabiting the in-patients’ wards of mental institutions. Here are those diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. Those who hear the voices. And as those who know of those who hear the voices know, those who hear the voices do not hear the voices inside their heads, they hear the voices coming from outside. And what they see is not internal, what they see is outside of themselves.
Because these unfortunates have holes in their mental-meshes that allow those things that it is better not to hear, to be heard. And those things that it is better not to see, to be seen.
It is not all bad, however, because there are those who hear and see the good stuff rather than the bad. And we call these people blessed, and holy, and prophets, and saints.
And thus it was that a change came unto the lady from Croydon called Clara, when she crashed her new Ford Sierra.
For those who have an interest in such matters – and let’s face it, who amongst us does not? – it is to be noticed that the street plan of Croydon mirrors precisely that of the lost city of Begrem.
Coincidence? Perhaps. But then-
As those who have an interest in such things will also know, Croydon was originally founded as a fundamentalist Christian community by that famous son of a preacher-man Courage Croydon, Hellfire pulpit- thunderer. His South of England crusades in the eighteenth century were intended to instil the Word of God into the pagan peoples of Sussex. Especially Brighton, although even he was forced to give up on Brighton. Courage Croydon travelled with his entourage, the Ladies of the Lord, and was finally bequeathed ‘the lands to all compass points to a distance of twelve leagues from the church founded upon common land by the Reverand Courage Croydon’ by the reigning monarch.
History records that the reigning monarch did this in the hope of keeping Courage Croydon away from the gates of Hampton Court by giving him a goodly parcel of land on which to build what Courage described as ‘the Earthly Kingdom of God’. [17]
He chose to model this Earthly Kingdom upon the lost city of Begrem because he believed that the plans for Begrem had been drawn up by God and given to the first King in a vision. When a later King fell from favour with God by creating the Homunculus, the city, all turned to gold, sank beneath the Sumerian sands.
Where it remains to this day.
Courage Croydon saw all this in a vision of his own. And the voice of God spoke at his ear and so he took up
