Fantastic Metropolis

Darktree firing his blunderbuss at a speeding train: by the time the flint has sparked and ignited the charge, the train has gone. The shot tumbles to the ground like dice. Darktree firing his blunderbuss at a swooping seagull: ditto. Darktree in the depths of winter, trudging through snow while the black silhouettes cross the horizon, a frosty rime on his cloak: cold.

During the festive season he retires to a cave in the Malvern Hills. Here, for what it is worth, he keeps many of those stolen items that have caught his fancy. A bronze candelabrum, green with age; a miniature portrait of a beautiful, sullen child; an ormolu clock without hands. On Christmas Eve, he dances with himself in the middle of the cave, utterly silent, candles throwing his long shadow over the irregular walls. But it is not home.

He decides to visit his mother after all. So he covers over the mouth of his cave with parts of broken trees and turns toward the north. He is wearing the scarf she knitted him all those years ago, as a passport back into her heart.

At last, an hour after sunset, he encounters a coach.

“Stand and deliver! Hands up and valuables down!”

“Really, my good man, this is most old-fashioned. You are an anachronism, are you not?”

“Anachronism, you say? And who might you be?”

“My name is Lewis and I am a surveyor.”

“A surveyor? And what, pray, do you survey? Parrots? Plums? Boats that ply the Bristol Channel? Puddings, lanterns, old ropes? Walnuts? Come now, you must be more specific.”

“Very well. I am a surveyor for the Great Western company and I am travelling to Llandrindod Wells to map the area for a new railway line.”

“In that case you must come with me. The other passengers may proceed on their way.”

“This is ridiculous. You are already little more than a folk memory. Ten years from now the question of your existence will be purely academic. The roads are dying; soon they will be gone forever. People will race back and forth, from one city to another, on rails alone. The future rides on wheels of iron!”

“No more! I can bear no more talk of the steam humbug!”

Darktree has never been a vicious highwayman, he has little taste for blood. But sometimes there is no avoiding it. Yes, he is a fisher who has overexploited the resources of the bay. Now it is his turn to be a fish; the lines of the net that will catch him are being woven all around. Will he splutter and flap? Will unfeeling nature reclaim his land?

Darktree’s favourite watering hole is a small whitewashed tavern near the town of Flint. Here he can, for an hour at least, wipe clean his rusty blade and pretend that nothing has changed. He is still a part of the world, after all, and his actions must still have some bearing on events in general. This thought cheers him a little; he is easily cheered.

Darktree’s favourite game, in the whitewashed tavern near Flint, is solitaire. He lays the cards out on the table before him and frowns at them with sober intensity. It is wise to maintain a sober intensity when playing solitaire. Often, when no-one is looking, he cheats against himself. At other times, to preclude a sense of false security, he deliberately loses. Either way, it is a game best played in the evenings, in a dark corner, with a single glass of sweet ale.

II. Percussion Cape

When Robin Darktree has played enough solitaire, he saddles his horse and heads south. He likes to ride astride county borders, left and right sides subject to rival laws. On his rapier he impales apples, red ones for himself, green ones for Hannah. With his blunderbuss, he dislodges pears for crows, chases off tax collectors with almonds, blasts cabbages through the windows of peasant houses. His unnatural philanthropy has injured more than one agricultural labourer.

He believes the fruits of the earth should be free for all. No more starvation or misery. He has glimpsed vast orchards in private estates. He talks to Hannah as they trot along: “There is food enough.” She does not answer and he grows resentful. He is fond of her, he appreciates her companionship, but he does not love her. Most of his colleagues prefer horses to women. The former they can ride out of trouble; the latter bounce them into it. Also horses are more tolerant of annoying defects: dirty fingernails, bad breath, unwashed socks.

This is no secret, but the average highwayman rarely discusses it. There is no-one to tell, apart from the horses themselves. And that is missing the point. They must stable their desires against tongues, scoop up aspersions as they fall, hot as fresh manure.

Darktree is an exception. He adores women, though they care little for him. Hannah is not tolerant of his socks. Roaming the land, fleeing his two biggest fears—trains and seagulls—he has rarely felt tempted to kiss her. He keeps his lips fresh for Lucy Reeves, who has made Epsom the hub of the world, but has never even heard of him.

When he learns that Lucy is to marry another man, a Justice of the Peace, he takes to drink. He washes his teeth in porter until his pearly smile is eroded. In a crumbling inn near Oxford, the landlord offers him advice: “Knowledge is power.” The maxim has escaped Darktree for nigh on forty years. Now he adopts it as his motto.

He obtains a book in which he keeps notes on all loathsome things. If knowledge is power, detailed notes are called for. The more detailed, the more powerful he will become.

Darktree in the shade of an oak, quill in hand: tongue poking out, creased brow, pressing firmly on the creamy paper. Darktree in a tavern, holding his book up to the hearth: reading the script as if he has never seen it before.

He fills the volume with long descriptions of trains, seagulls and magistrates. He makes accurate drawings. He considers filling a second with things he likes. But Lucy Reeves is not to be flattered with mere words. And mountains are too big to fit on the page. He still drinks. Knowledge may be power, but oblivion soothes.

As he passes through Wiltshire, he adds a chapter a day. He writes his name on the inside cover. Falling asleep on the banks of a stream, he dreams of black bears, claws scratching at trees. He wakes to find a rogue artist using that page as a canvas, sketching his portrait with a steel pen. Furious, he lunges at the fellow, knocking over inkpot and blotting one ear. As the artist takes to his heels, Darktree scowls at the book, rubs at the stain with his sleeve and manages to extend the ear into a fair likeness of a crab. Salty tears splash the crustacean.

Finally, the book is completed. He travels to the nearest big town, Bristol, to celebrate. His celebrations are sombre affairs. He does not dance in public, unless he wishes to perfect some difficult twirl. Then he will astonish the other drinkers with his sure grace and agility. It is more common for him to sit meekly at a table, studying a locket which contains a curl of red hair.

Between his fingers, into another glass of porter, his seventh that evening, the locket slips and drowns. Aghast, he raises glass to mouth and drains liquid at a single gulp. At the bottom, the locket glistens in an ocean of white foam, a golden island surrounded by surf. It is a sign. Darktree falls to his knees and intones a prayer.

It is time to leave his native country. He has been churning over this notion for many years. There is nothing to keep him; he will start a new life in a place where there are no trains, where albatrosses soar instead of gulls, where women have dark hair. Abandoning the locket, he takes himself and his sailor’s cloak down to the wharf. He can carry the book with him, but not Hannah. Not even here does he offer her a kiss, though she extends her tongue in anticipation.

As he steers among warehouses and spray-pitted offices of shipping companies, a man emerges from a grimier building: HOOK & NETTE, MARITIME SOLICITORS. Darktree’s hatred of lawyers is comprehensive. This example wears shoes, instead of honest boots, and walks as if he has cloven hooves inside them. He stops to light a briar pipe, his back to Darktree. The smoke appears to be issuing from the top of his tall hat: the funnel of a locomotive. At the same time, a seagull swoops and screams.

His three greatest terrors converging at one point, Darktree can do little but use his rapier to puncture the man’s heart. Body and blade go over the side, corpse still clutching pipestem between mild teeth. Darktree clicks his own black tiles in righteous fury. The devil falls away in slow circles, heading for the open Channel and the ocean beyond. This is the route Darktree must follow. He wraps his cloak tightly about his shoulders, climbs the gangplank of the nearest rotten vessel and drops among a deck of bearded sailors.