To enter Mornington Crescent East (discontinued usage).
Descend from it to the entrance of the lost city beneath.
Enter the lost city and avail myself of whatever there was to avail myself of.
Return to the surface, bearing same.
Defeat and destroy the Homunculus.
Beer at Fangio’s.
Bed.
Done and dusted.
Piece of cake.
And all that kind of caper.
58
Orpheus descended into the Underworld. He went there to rescue Eurydice, I think, although I never paid as much attention to that particular Greek myth. I liked Odysseus shooting that big arrow into the eye of Polyphemus the Cyclops. And the Gorgon, with all those snakes on her head. And Hercules mucking out the stables. Anything, really, that involved Ray Harryhausen doing the animation. And I wondered, to myself, privately, as I prised open an entry into that long-deserted station, whether, just perhaps, if everything did go well and I did win and everything, I might attain the status of mythic hero and Ray Harryhausen might do the animation for any of the monsters I might encounter. When they made the movie.
Monsters? Now why had I thought that word? I squeezed between boards that I had parted and found myself within. Little light was there to greet me and so I switched on the brand new Astra Multi-Beam and revelled in its million candlepower.
There is something rather special about old deserted stations. Well, old deserted anythings, really. They are redolent with all kinds of things. They are the stuff of memory. There are faded posters and ephemera and ceased- to-be cigarette packets. And the dust has that certain smell and things have made nests. And what once was commonplace is now mysterious and intriguing.
I viewed a crumbling poster that advertised a wartime ersatz cheese, that was manufactured from hand- laundered pine cones. And the word ‘cheese’ made me nostalgic. I thought of Rob and those early days with The Sumerian Kynges. He’d always had this thing about cheese. And I wondered what had happened to him and whether he was even still alive. And I thought of Neil and of Toby and of Andy. And what they would think if they knew that I was here, right now, doing this.
And I shrugged off the sadness that had suddenly descended upon me and shone my torch about a bit more. I was in the concourse of what must once have been quite a substantial station, with marble flooring and etched- glassed ticket booths. And stairs leading down. And I took them.
The torchlight tunnelled ahead of me as I descended those stairs. And my footfalls echoed and I felt very alone. Perhaps, I thought, I should establish a base camp here, get a fire going and bed down for the night. I was very much looking forward to getting into my over-the-top-of-the-range sleeping bag. And that special chocolate that gave you energy sounded particularly tempting.
‘Perhaps a bit further down,’ I told myself. ‘At least as far as the platform. ’
And I continued down and down with the light going on before me.
And it didn’t smell so bad down here. Not nearly as bad as it smelled topside. But then there were no people down here.
No people!
That was it, wasn’t it? That smell. That rancid smell that cloaked New York above. It was the smell of death.
The smell of the dead. The walking dead. How horrid. And the living must have let it creep up on them, more so and more so, without even noticing it.
Very horrid.
The platform formed an elegant arc, tiled in glazed terracotta. There were lamps in the Tiffany style, hanging at intervals. There were more wartime posters, this time for violet wands, which had evidently been in great demand, along with electric enemas and patented pneumatic trusses. Thinking about it, there appeared to have been a very great deal of illness back in the war days, all of which required specific patented equipment of the electrical persuasion to effect all-but-miraculous cures. Most of which plugged in and vibrated. So no change there, then. Boom-boom.
And the sun may well have gone behind a cloud somewhere and a dog may well have howled somewhere else, in the distance, but I was deep down down below, so I was unaware. I also spied upon the wall something that I might not have expected to have seen. To whit, a number of posters advertising the movies of George Formby. It appeared that there had been showings of his movies right here on the platform during the war years. Perhaps to engender some kind of Blitz spirit amongst New Yorkers. To prepare them in case they got theirs, as it were. Which they didn’t, of course, but they might have.
What to do now, though? Wander down a tunnel?
I wasn’t keen on that idea. The friend I mentioned earlier, who had once been in the TA, had also once worked for London Transport, on lifts and escalators. And he told me that it was forbidden for any London Transport sub- ground operative to walk down a tunnel unaccompanied.
‘Because,’ he told me, ‘if you fell over or got knocked down or something, the rats would eat you up.’
So not, perhaps, down the tunnel.
And, ‘So,’ I said to myself, ‘if I was a lost city of gold hereabouts, where would I have my hidden entrance?’
And an answer returned to me in an instant. And hidden this answer was. Because it would be hidden, wouldn’t it? Because if it hadn’t been hidden, then wartime travellers would have stumbled upon it. Wouldn’t they? And I agreed, with myself, that they would.
‘I think that maybe I should establish base camp right here, right now, get a fire going, get into my sleeping bag and eat the special chocolate, was my considered opinion. Finding this city might just take a bit longer than I might have hoped. And it would be best to go about searching for it all bright and fresh.
But do you know what? I didn’t do that. Because many-togged as that sleeping bag might have been and inviting to equally many, I had just spent ten years on my back and had probably had all the sleep I needed for the foreseeable future.
So, press on. But to where?
And now I considered the other stuff. I previously mentioned the other stuff, but only briefly and in passing and was in no way specific or indeed even hinted as to what the other stuff might be. And this I did because I didn’t know whether I would need to use the other stuff or not. And if I wasn’t going to use it, then I didn’t want to get the reader’s hopes up that I might use it, only to dash them down when I didn’t.
But now I considered the other stuff. Because the other stuff might just be the solution to finding the hidden entrance.
And so now I will name the other stuff specifically.
It was manufactured by ACME.
And it was dynamite.
A dozen sticks of it, with fuses.
Well, I couldn’t let dynamite slip by, could I? I mean, how many times in your life have you ever had the chance to let off a stick of dynamite? Probably never, that’s how many.
Dynamite! I divested myself of my multi-denominational rucksack, un-Velcroed the windproof, rainproof coverall top flap and dug down deep into the contents therein and came up with a stick of dynamite. And examined it by torchlight.
Dynamite! A red sealed tube, like in the movies, with a fuse sticking out of one end.
Dynamite! I gave it a little loving stroke.
In all truth, I had been looking for the slightest opportunity to use it. I had even thought of letting off a stick
