Hairy London Read Online Free

rack on the roof, the bovine Archimedean floating system that he had bought earlier in the year. The cud-chewing machinora, he was pleased to see, looked in perfect condition.
    Without delay he returned to his room, pulling his rucksack onto his back, grabbing a few final things – wallet, penknife, storm lanternette – then creeping into the corridor and into his father’s bedroom. There: a gold crucifix, a silver guillotine-tray from Parisi and a set of diamond encrusted spigots. All saleable.
     He crept out again, but the tray, being awkward, somehow fell from his grip and with multiple crashes bounced down the stair. The sound of voices from the breakfast parlour stopped.
    He ran: back to the roof. He threw everything into the machinora’s wicker capacity, then returned to his bedroom. He heard his mother call, heard her feet thunking on the stairs as she ascended.
    “Velvene! What are you doing?”
    He grabbed the clay figure and manhandled it along the corridor, climbing the stepladder and pulling it onto the roof just as his mother’s head appeared over the banister.
    “Velvene, you thief! ” she screeched, waving the dented tray. “Come back here!”
    He tried to kick the stepladder away, but missed. No time to lose! He carried the figure to the machinora, hauled it into the wicker capacity, then turned to see his mother emerge onto the roof, just ten yards away. He primed the bovine heatorix then cast off, cutting the two restraining ropes with his penknife. The machinora floated up.
    His mother launched herself at the machinora, grabbing the flailing end of a rope and pulling it. “Come back here, you thief! I’ll whip you myself! Stop, Velvene, stop this at once.”
    “Goodbye mother,” he shouted back. “I most cordially loathe you! You say you shall never see me again, well, that means I shall never see you. And that fills me with joy! Joy, do you hear?”
    “You useless man, you’re no son of mine! I’ll have you excommunicated.”
    “I do not care. Since you have banished me, I am free to go where I please.”
    “May God have mercy on your soul!” she shrieked as the rope slipped from her grasp.
    “Goodbye! And thank you for everything!”
    With that, the machinora rose with resonant lowing into the heavens, leaving a trail of part chewed grass that splattered in a line along the roof.
    ~
    Kornukope Wetherbee led his wife Eastachia to the Chancery Lane Underground station, where, one hundred feet down, they awaited the last equucade of the night going to Hampstead.
    Kornukope glanced down at her. She was more than two decades younger than him. Would she regret the lunatic wager he had made at the Suicide Club, or would she welcome it as a change from tedious home life?
    “Dearest one,” he said, “you are probably wondering why I did it.”
    She looked up at him, smiled, then turned away. “I will wonder later,” she replied. “At the moment I just want to get home. Your runner interrupted my sewing.”
    “Yes, yes... my apologies.”
    There seemed nothing more to say, so Kornukope said nothing.
    With a clatter of metal on metal the equucade drew up, its engine legs a blur of coal-fired motion. Steam hissed in billowing clouds from rubber-ringed nostrils, and from the rear ends of the engines came thunderous blasts of carbon dioxide.
    “Mind the crap! Mind the crap!” called the autovoice over the tannoy. There was a rustle and a click as the operator put the needle back to the beginning of the wax cylinder. “Mind the crap! Mind the crap!”
    Kornukope opened a carriage door and helped Eastachia inside. They sat down next to one another in a carriage empty apart from a bejewelled hussy reading a copy of Harlot Times . Kornukope tapped Eastachia’s thigh and smiled at her to reassure her that she was safe. She smiled back, but seemed to be thinking more about her sewing.
    Pistons screeched as the dual engines powered up, then the brake was released, the carriage jerked forward