A Cure for Cancer Read online

  Old age had made the presidents almost identical, with the same vacant eyes, drooling mouths, yellow, wrinkled skins and near-hairless heads. They were strapped firmly to horses almost as old as themselves. They were said to be very sentimentally attached to their horses.

  A little behind them laboured the band; each musician up to his waist in water. The bass drums were muffled and every time the drummers struck a beat they sent a fountain of water into their own faces. There was water in all the brass, but they marched resolutely against the current, playing a burbling ‘La Marseillaise’.

  “Touching,” said Karen von Krupp stroking his leg.

  Jerry leaned back in the moored Phantom VI, his arm comfortably around Dr von Krupp’s shoulders. She smiled and the car rocked gently in the wake of the presidential passing.

  “Shall we go to the Assembly and hear the speeches?” She glanced back at the blonde girl. Jerry shook his head.

  He cast off and began to turn the car into the current.

  There was a tabac on his right and Jerry looked at it nervously as he went past. Someone was peering at him from the first-floor window. He recognised the thin, intense nose.

  It was Pyat, chief of the organisation’s Moscow agency and a Chekist. What was he doing in Paris? Jerry pretended he hadn’t seen him and pulled the car’s throttle full out, boiling down the Champs-Elysées as fast as he could go.

  Behind him ploughed Bishop Beesley’s silver Cadillac, hood barely above the water.

  “Ubiquitous,” Jerry murmured and stopped outside the Hotel Aspiration. “Hurry, my dear, before he turns the corner. Leap,” he said, opening the door, “to the step there. I’ll bring our bags in later.”

  Dr von Krupp leapt. The blonde girl leapt after her. Jerry started the car up and thrummed away down the narrow street, his wash slapping against windows on both sides. But Beesley was in deep water and had given up the chase. Soon Cornelius was able to return, moor the car in the hotel’s garage, and join his love in the lobby.

  “It’s just a front,” he said, pressing a bell on the reception desk. The floor fell away with them, bearing them deep into the ground.

  “Underground,” he told her, indicating the musty darkness. “Safe and sound.”

  “A trap,” she said.

  “Not so.”

  As the section of the floor rose back to join the rest, he switched on lights and green brilliance filled the room. She studied the lust in his face.

  “I must be careful,” she said. “My husband…” Then she yelled with excitement as he fell upon her.

  “It has been too much for me,” he growled, “today.”

  And they rolled about all over the Dunlopillo flooring while the blonde girl sat in the corner looking on with boredom.

  3. TRANSVESTITE ORGY IN PARIS HOTEL

  “Husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, mothers and sons,” said Bishop Beesley, adjusting his mitre and grinning at Jerry who was spreadeagled against the wall. Karen von Krupp, wearing an ermine-trimmed cape of red velvet and an elaborate crown, crossed her legs and leaned back moodily in her throne. Bishop Beesley reached out with his crook and pushed up Jerry’s skirt, tickling the balls that bulged in the black lace knickers they had dressed him in while he was unconscious. “White pubic hair. I hadn’t expected that, Mr Aserinsky.”

  “And I hadn’t expected this, bishop.”

  “Well, well—you can’t just go around committing adultery like that and expect to get away with it, can you? There’s some decency left in the world, I hope.”

  “So, what’s your plan?”

  “A restoration. For your own good. Actually, I bear you no malice.”

  “My name isn’t—”

  “Aserinsky. So you say.”

  “It’s Jerry Cornelius.”

  “So you say.”

  Someone moved in the shadows and began to wade across the Dunlopillo. It was Pyat, his dark face concerned.

  “It’s Alan Powys, isn’t it?” said Pyat.

  “So you say,” said Jerry.

  “Mitzi!” Bishop Beesley snapped his fingers as best he could.

  “This is getting to be a drag. Use the machines for heaven’s sake,” murmured Karen von Krupp.

  “I hate artificial methods,” said Jerry. “Connie Nuttall.”

  “Colvin,” said Jerry.

  “Connie Colvin. Tragic, wasn’t it?”

  “What’s in a name?” The blonde girl appeared. She had hoisted up her dress and was strapping on a black dildo.

  “Fuck that,” said Bishop Beesley. “I do apologise.” The blonde girl began to bugger him.

  Jerry glanced at Karen von Krupp, but she looked away. He was dressed in the full set: curly red wig, makeup, white lace blouse, falsies, girdle, suspender belt, fishnet stockings, high heels, a tight, black skirt.

  Bishop Beesley’s head was close to the floor and his shout was muffled. “Don’t worry, sir. We’ll soon have everything back to normal. You’ll feel a new person once this is over!”

  “How did you get down here?” Jerry asked Karen von Krupp.

  “They followed you. Pyat pressed the button.”

  “Somebody has to,” said Pyat.

  “You got the dope while you slept.”

  “I thought you were on my side,” Jerry said to Pyat.

  “I am. You’ll realise that one day.”

  “I don’t fancy this. It’s like something out of the political age.”

  “Not all of us have your faith in the future, Comrade Cornelius.”

  “Well, there’s no time like the present.”

  Pyat pulled down his pants. “That’ll have to be dealt with.” He turned to Karen von Krupp. “You’re a surgeon, aren’t you? Could you do it?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve done it before.”

  The bishop rose from his hands and knees. “Now, let me see.”

  Jerry wondered if he were losing his patience. “Bishop—I don’t know whether you realise…”

  “I understand. I understand. This is your home and we were not invited. But these are troubled times, my dear. Needs must, as it were.”

  “Mitzi,” said Karen von Krupp.

  The blonde girl stepped forward.

  “Snap the staples off. Let our friend join us.”

  Mitzi freed Jerry.

  The bishop glanced curiously at Karen von Krupp. “You want to…? A party?”

  “Why not?”

  A strobe began to flash and the room filled with sound. It was Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Child’ distorted because of the volume, but they couldn’t be expected to know that, particularly since they were reeling about. Jerry strode through the strobe light and took Karen von Krupp by the arm. She was vomiting spasmodically. He saw his clothes in a corner with his gun on top. There was only time to get the gun and aim it at the wall.

  “Cheer up,” he told her. “It’s going to be worse before it’s better. This is a bit of an emergency.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Through the Shifter. I always keep one handy.”

  The wall fell away and Jerry hefted up his skirt and stuck the gun in his girdle.

  Somewhere a mammoth screamed.

  4. OUR NIGHT OF HORROR

  Around them the air was jewelled and faceted, glistening and alive with myriad colours, flashing, scintillating, swirling and beautiful. She clung to him. “What is it?”

  “The multiverse. All layers of existence seen at once. Get it?”

  “Philosophy isn’t my bent.”

  “This is physics, dear. Get in.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Ah, that’s the chance you have to take. Keep walking.”

  The air cleared. They stood on a green plain close to a clump of oaks. In the shade of the oaks stood a small man with a goatee and rimless glasses. He had a large black metal box under his arm.

  “Would you believe it?” Jerry said with some excitement. “The bugger’s got it.”

  “That looks
like…”

  “That’s right. Good old comrade… Hey!” Jerry began to run towards him, hampered by Karen von Krupp, who refused to let go of his arm, and by the tight skirt and high heels.

  A wave of jewels without substance washed over them. “My machine!” shouted Jerry and his voice echoed for a long time. “Oh, well. Some other time. I thought it was too good to be true.”

  “What machine?”

  “That’d be telling. Unless you already know. I suspect Bishop Beesley does know and that’s what he’s after—ultimately speaking, at any rate.”

  They were now walking through the streets of St Petersburg in the early morning. It was very romantic. Jerry pointed out the little cluster of figures staring at them from the top of an office block in Bronstein Prospekt. “Homo habilis by the look of them. Funny little sods, aren’t they?”

  Down the middle of the prospekt galloped a brontotherium herd. They dashed into a canal.

  “It’s very quiet,” she said.

  “Yes, it would be.”

  “What’s the time?”

  “Not sure. Post-political, I’d say. But you can never be sure. This could be a complete mix-up. I wish I had a fix.”

  Bishop Beesley confronted them, threatening them with some sort of insect spray.

  “We know all about you, my dear Mr Cornelius,” he said. “You and your women friends. Oh, God, it’s disgusting! This is 1970! You’re so primitive!”

  “You think I should feel guilty?” Jerry got a grip on his vibragun. You could never be sure.

  “I think someone should, dear.”

  “Where can we talk?”

  The bishop bent down and picked up his attaché case, tucking his equipment inside. Then he held the case to his chest with all the affection an old woman might give to her parrot.

  “I’ve got a marvellous little latty here,” he said. “Taste! You’ve never seen the like.”

  “Sounds sweet. But this’ll do.”

  The three of them sat down at the sidewalk table, under the big umbrella. A surly waiter took their order.

  “It’s time to make up, Mr Cornelius,” said the bishop. “I’ve such a horror of tension. I can’t bear it.”

  “Not yet, bishop.”

  “But this is Denmark. So neutral.”

  “I see I’ve caught you at a weak moment.” Jerry got up. “Come on, Karen. I’ll be seeing you, bishop.”

  “Cruelty! The world is full of cruelty!” The bishop tucked into their strudels.

  They strolled on through the multiverse. “Where did he come from?” she said. “What was the conversation about?”

  “What are conversations ever about? He seemed to know. Doubtless we’ll meet again, either before or after, or not at all. Keep walking.”

  “The sooner we get back to the sane world, the better,” she said waspishly.

  “You’re just sore because you didn’t get your coffee.”

  They were walking on concrete. Ahead of them was the huge silhouette of a Lockheed SR-72 Mach 3 two-seat interceptor and strategic reconnaissance aircraft framed against the dawn. “Would you believe it? Maybe it’s something you said.”

  “I feel funny.”

  “You probably do. It’s all magic, really. We’re out of the tunnel—or nearly. Run.”

  They tripped on their high heels until they reached the aircraft. “Hop in,” he said. “I think you must have a talent, Fräulein Doktor.”

  “Do you know how to fly these monsters?”

  “Oh, come off it.”

  5. FLY YOUR EGGS RIGHT DOWN THEIR STACKS!

  “I’ve had very little private life since all this started,” explained Jerry as they took off from Orly airport and were momentarily pursued by some Starfighters that fell to pieces behind them. He spoke through the intercom. “You look beautiful in that helmet.” He guided the plane towards the Channel.

  “Thank you.” She put her hand on the portion of his thigh that was bare between his stocking and suspender belt. He decelerated.

  “I don’t want to fly at maximum speed,” he explained, “because I’ve got eight AIM-174s to get rid of and they’re not really suitable for the job I’ve got in mind.”

  She accepted his apology with a polite little smile.

  The 95ft aircraft soon reached the Channel and flak began to appear as the pirates tried to hit it. Jerry angled the plane towards them, hoping for the best, and released all the air-to-air missiles in rapid succession. There were a few explosions, then they had passed the ships and were circling off the coast. “Stand by to eject,” he said and putting the plane into a steep dive yanked the ejector lever.

  They drifted down towards the cliffs. He leaned over and kissed her. Water gouted as the plane hit the sea.

  They landed gently and got out.

  “You don’t look too jolly, Herr C.,” she remarked.

  “Light or square, I suppose it’s all the same to me, Doktor von Krupp.” He smoothed his skirt. “Well, that wasn’t too bad, was it? Sure the velocity didn’t bother you?”

  “It’s something you get used to.”

  “Of course you do.” He squeezed her hand affectionately.

  RESULT

  In every war in history there must have been a considerable flow of genes one way or another. Whether the genes of the victors or of the vanquished have increased most is a debatable point.

  —Papazian,

  Modern Genetics

  1. AMERICA TAKES ‘NO NONSENSE’ LINE

  Curled in deep leather armchairs beside a comfortable fire in the sitting room of Jerry’s Ladbroke Grove HQ Jerry and Karen von Krupp listened to Groucho Marx singing ‘Father’s Day’ while they caught up with the newspapers.

  It seemed that Israel, having annexed Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria, was putting it about that Romania and Albania were threatening her security. US President Teddy ‘Angel Face’ Paolozzi had increased the number of military advisors sent to Europe to three million. They were under the command of General Ulysses Washington Cumberland whose mission was to keep order in Europe and seek out “certain fifth column elements”. The British parliament, both government and opposition, had been arrested as their jumbo Trident was about to take off for Gibraltar. President Paolozzi had sent a diplomatic note to Israel that read Stay off of our turf, Israel, or else. A riot in Prague had received universal censure from the European press. “Uncool” was the Daily Mirror verdict. Bubonic plague remained unchecked in Berlin and Lübeck.

  Jerry stopped reading. Evidently, there was little news of any relevance.

  “What now?” said Karen von Krupp as Jerry took her hand and pulled her down to the rug. He tore off her clothes, tore off his own knickers and made fierce love to her. Again and again she came and when he fell back, his wig askew, his skirt torn and his stockings laddered, she sighed, “Ach! At last—a man who is a man!”

  2. HIS CHOICE: DIE NOW OR ROT TOMORROW!

  Jerry looked past the bars and glass of the window at the houses in the street beyond the wall. Grey rain fell. Through the rain ran a pack of girls, few over five feet, with narrow, stooped shoulders and cheap see-through blouses and tight little skirts stretched over thick thighs. He sighed. Ukrainian Nationalist guerrillas.

  The Animals, The Who, Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, the Spencer Davis Group, the Moody Blues, Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band, Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds, the Steam Packet, Manfred Mann, Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Where were the groups of yesterday?

  Behind him, Karen von Krupp listened moodily to Ives’s Symphony No. 1 in D Minor. He wondered if that wasn’t the key to the whole thing.

  “Still here,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “There’s something on your mind,” she murmured.

  “Something indigestible. I’ve been too long in the wilderness, honey.”

  “Don’t say that, Jerry.”

  “I’ve got to face it.”

  “You can make i
t.”

  “Sure. I can make it.”

  “Are all your relatives dead now?”

  “I sometimes think they must be. My mother…”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll decide soon. The world is ruled by bad poets. I must do something about it.”

  “That’s your mission?”

  “More or less, honey. More or less.”

  “Are you asking or telling?”

  “Mothers can’t die, can they?”

  3. MY DEADLY MISSION

  “It’s a question of polarities,” he told her as they slid about in the bed. “A problem of equilibrium.”

  “I told you. I don’t understand philosophy.”

  “I told you. This is physics.”

  “What will become of you?”

  “I’ll probably die. I almost always do.”

  “Don’t die on me, liebchen.”

  “A lot depends on the next movement.”

  “Denn wovon lebt der Mensch?”

  “Maybe. It’s all a dreckhaufen really.”

  “Isn’t that the way you like it?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’ll never die.”

  “Not in that sense, of course. Still, it gets boring.”

  “Then why don’t you stop?”

  “Ich möchte auch mal was Schönes sehen…”

  4. SING HIGH, SWEETIE—FOR TONIGHT YOU FRY!

  His brain cleared. The process took a few minutes.

  From somewhere there came a faint hissing sound. “My programme,” he murmured, smiling back in the darkness. “Mo?”

  5. AMNESIA: WHY YOU GET IT

  An early postcard showing Loch Promenade, Douglas, Isle of Man, with a single-deck open-sided omnibus drawn by a horse. The people wear Edwardian clothes. The tower clock in the foreground says 11.22. The card is postmarked Liverpool, 31 May 1968. The message and address are partially obscured—“We may arrive Sunday anyway see you soon! Una pp JRC.” 79 Tavistock Road, London, W.11.