Chapter 24

Only a furlong from the Art Gallery, Beta and I were at last indisputably in the Suburbs. In the early evening sun it seemed so much the peaceful haven I remembered it, sheltered by the weight of its very presence from the disorder and chaos that had pursued us since the Election. The avenues and streets were lined by a comforting array of lamp-posts and mature trees; the neatly trimmed hedges and lawns guarded by plastic garden gnomes kept a decent distance from the pavement; and television aerials and satellite dishes decorated every roof.

"I can't believe the Truth is here!" Beta exclaimed. "I can't imagine anywhere less likely."

This was difficult to dispute. It was, after all, this very assumption which had originally persuaded me to leave the Suburbs and seek the Truth elsewhere. "It is where the Truth is supposed to be though!"

"Where do you suppose we ought to start looking?" Beta wondered, regarding a cat dozing idly on the doorstep of a semi-detached house. "Should we knock on people's doors and ask?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

Song birds tweeted in the tall trees above our heads and swallows glid through the air. Then we heard a rumbling thundering noise which gradually became louder and louder, heralding a centaur in a jacket, suit and tie, galloping along the road and right past us without pausing to glance. Beta watched him disappear down a road distinguished by a red post box at the corner.

"What was that?"

"A commuter returning home," I surmised.

"He seemed to be in an awful hurry!" Beta said, frowning. "You don't think he was running away from something?"

"Why would he be doing that? This is the Suburbs. Nothing ever happens here. If anything happens it's somewhere else. Not here. The most dramatic thing to happen here is when a bus is late or there's a power cut."

Beta nodded. "I'm sure you're right. It seems very quiet, I must admit."

We strolled along, occasionally attracting stares from elderly women twitching lace curtains who had probably never seen anyone dressed like Beta in their streets. A pig in a three piece suit wandered by, carrying a newspaper and umbrella in one trotter, and a briefcase in the other. He stared at Beta from the corner of his eye, trying hard to disguise his curiosity.

Every road seemed much the same as every other, and we were soon lost in a maze of identical streets, cars parked in the drives of semi-detached houses and numbers on the doors, just above the vertical slit of the letter box, for the postmen's benefit. It was in one street much the same as the others we first saw signs that the Suburbs might not be quite as peaceful as we imagined. A few cars had smashed windscreens and the entrails of radios strewn over the seats and onto the pavement where the doors had been wrenched open. Dustbins were lying on their sides, with cereal packets, empty detergent bottles and discarded newspapers spilling out onto the pavement. We stepped over the rubbish, and past the crystal fragments of a car window. A newspaper raised itself up from the ground in a sudden gust, and billowed against a hedge. The pages divided themselves and scattered their separate ways on the herbaceous borders and heathers of a front lawn.

"Help me! Help me!" cried a voice from an upstairs window in one of the houses. We glanced up to see a child in a school uniform waving at us. "Call the police! Get help!"

"What's wrong?" shouted Beta, standing by the gate.

"We've been attacked! Robbed! It's horrible! My hands have been tied! I don't where Mummy and Daddy are!"

"We'll help!" said Beta determinedly, pushing open the gate and running up the drive to the front door, which we could see now had been forced open on its hinges.

I followed her, and into the hallway where clothes were lying scattered about and a picture of a countryside scene had been violently thrown to the ground and broken across the back. An ugly red patch was smeared on the pale floral wallpaper and jagged fragments of a hall mirror lay splintered on the floor. I dashed up the stairs to where Beta was opening doors and looking inside. She disappeared into a bedroom marked by a tiny floral name-plate, and I followed. Inside was the child, her hands tied behind her back, a hanky tied loosely around her throat where it had presumably been used as a gag and a fresh red and blue bruise beginning to swell under her eye. Her face was a mess of tears and her legs were tied together at the ankles and knees by sheets that had been ripped off the bed and torn into strips. The bedroom had all the paraphernalia of childhood - toys, videos, cassettes, clothes and comics - thrown all around the place. The doors of her cupboards were open and boxes of more toys threatened to fall out. A large poster of four young men carrying guitars and signed by each was torn across the middle.

"It was horrid! Beastly!" sobbed the girl as we undid her bindings. "These horrid people burst into the house while I was watching telly..." She pointed at a screen which had been thrown onto the floor, its wires pulled out and the glass shattered. "They hit me. They threw things around. They destroyed my teddy. Then they tied me up."

"Who were they?" Beta asked.

"I don't know! They all wore black leather. One was a horrid black hog with horrible horrible big fangs and a black beret. I don't know where Mummy and Daddy are. Why didn't they help me? Why didn't they stop them?"

"I'll ring the police!" I announced, doing what I believed was the best thing.

I strode out of the bedroom into the hallway, wondering where the telephone might be. I pushed open a door on the opposite side of the landing and looked at another ruined bedroom. I saw a telephone sure enough, but smashed to pieces, the bare wire of its leads stretched across the room. This room was ruined just as much as the other. A wardrobe had been pulled over, framed photographs lay shattered about on the carpet and another television was destroyed. I heard a small moan from behind the bed. I strode round to find a middle-aged woman, half of her clothes ripped off, with bloodstains on her bared breast and a nasty gash across her face. Like her daughter, her hands and arms had been tied together, and her mouth was gagged by a silk scarf stuffed into it and trailing over her chin.

I pulled the scarf out. "Are you all right?" I asked pointlessly, as it was obvious she wasn't. "Is there anything I can do?"

The woman looked through me with a wild stare. "They raped me," she moaned. "They raped me!"

I bent over to pick her up, but with a sudden spasm of violent energy she angrily pushed herself off. She collapsed back onto the side of the bed, a trickle of blood dripping from a reddened mouth. "They raped me. Raped me. Why? Why?"

"Can I help in any way?"

"They raped me. Me! Raped..."

I backed out of the bedroom. The best course of action was clearly to get help. I ran down the stairs to look for another telephone: there must be more than one! And indeed there was. In the living room, but similarly destroyed and by the sprawled body of a man in a cardigan, slippers and polyester trousers, whose face lay in a puddle of blood studded with small white pebbles which I recognised with shock as being his own teeth. He hadn't been tied up like his wife and daughter, as presumably there hadn't been any need. I rushed out of the living room, too frightened to determine whether he was alive, and charged up the staircase to rejoin Beta who was comforting the school-girl.

"What's wrong?" Beta asked as I entered. "You look terribly pale."

I didn't know how to answer. The image of the blood on the pile carpet amidst the smashed ornaments and furniture and loose scraps of paper were too clear in my mind. "The phones have been smashed!" I at last said. "We'll have to use a public telephone!"

The child nodded her head. "There's one just round the corner."

"We'll go there," I said with some determination. "All of us. Together!"

"Why all of us?" queried Beta with a frown.

I swallowed the bolus of spittle that was rising in my throat. "It's better if we all go!" I said with conviction. "We'll get the police. And an ambulance. They can sort it out."

"An ambulance? Why? What's happened?" Beta asked.

"We'd better go!" I repeated with urgency. "Now!"

"I don't want to go!" said the child. "I want to stay here! With Mummy and Daddy!"

I felt hopeless in my dilemma, but thankfully Beta assessed the horror of the situation with more clarity than the child. "We'll come back straight away. Don't worry! You'll be alright."

Reluctantly, the child agreed, and so we walked out of the house through the scattered ruin of her family's possessions, past the wreckage of the car and along the road, where we could now see that other houses had been attacked. I felt extremely disorientated. This could not be happening! This was the Suburbs. This was not right.

Inevitably, we found that the telephone box had been vandalised. The telephone had been wrenched off the wall, the glass windows of the red kiosk were smashed and a pool of loose change was scattered along the edge of the pavement.

When the child saw the damage she burst into a fresh torrent of tears. "We'll never get the police! Why did they do it? What are they doing? And where's Mummy and Daddy?"

"We'll find another telephone box," said Beta soothingly.

"We won't! They'll all be smashed! It's not fair! I'm going back home! I want my Mummy and Daddy!"

She then dashed off, her thin white legs flicking back and forth as she ran.

Beta looked startled. "We ought to chase after her!" she said, staring at me. "She can't be just abandoned!"

I couldn't deny the moral urgency of Beta's assertion, but I wasn't at all sure I knew what we could do. I was frightened of returning into the girl's home where her parents were in such a bloody state. However, I left such thoughts behind me as I dashed after Beta back where we'd come. We ran round the corner of the avenue where her home was, to see her screaming and running off at a tangent down a cul de sac to one side. She was soon out of sight, her sandaled feet pacing along a path between houses, and we saw what had frightened her.

I had never seen such ugly gargoyles before in my life, and certainly not in the Suburbs. And there were so many of them. Cruel faces, with vicious fangs and horns, wings protruding from the backs of some of them, destroying cars, smashing windows and shouting at each other. Most of the gargoyles were no more than three or four feet high, but one particularly ugly specimen, with the face of an eagle and savage long claws towered high above the others, whooping with joy at the destruction meted about him. Beta and I similarly turned about and dashed down the pathway, marked by a sign featuring the silhouette of a walking man.

We ran and ran through a maze of paths running alongside and behind the gardens of deceptively peaceful streets, having lost all sight of the child, and now much more concerned about our own safety and survival. At last the paths emerged into another avenue, much the same as the ones we'd left but thankfully lacking in any evidence of vandalism or violence. We paused by a telephone pole, leaned against a garden wall, and panted in short urgent breaths.

"Who were they?" Beta asked.

I shook my head. "I don't know. They don't come from the Suburbs. They must have come here looking for the Truth."

"They don't look like they were particularly interested in the Truth. Whatever they're here for, it's not to find the Truth. The only thing they seemed interested in was destruction!"

We walked on, unsure which direction to go and in any case totally lost in the grid of streets. It seemed here at least there was nothing to worry about, although when we tried to use a public telephone box to alert the police we found the lines were uncharacteristically dead. I put down the receiver with disgust.

"Surely, they must know what's going on!" Beta remarked. "All that couldn't be going on without the police knowing!"

My Suburban faith in the police persuaded me to agree with her, although I was troubled that an institution that normally cleared away the evidence of car accidents and suicides in the Suburbs with commendable haste and efficiency should be so absent when most needed. I nodded, and walked along with Beta, squeezing her hand tight as much to comfort myself as her.

It was then that we saw the figure of the Artist approach us, unsteadily wandering from side to side along a road that was mysteriously free of traffic. As he came closer we could see a bloody gash disfiguring his chin, caked blood on his upper lip beneath his nostrils and his smock badly ripped and revealing much of his hairless chest. When he saw us, he ran his fingers through his blood-soaked hair, and smiled weakly.

"They set fire to the Art Gallery! They burnt it down! All those masterpieces! All the Biriyanis, Tortellinis and Salamis! Destroyed forever! Unforgivable! Absolutely unforgivable!"

"Are you alright?" asked Beta with some concern. "We were terribly afraid they might have killed you."

The Artist bent his head down and despairingly clasped his forehead in his paint-splattered fingers. "I'm alright. I think. But the Art Gallery is totally destroyed. Everything! Up in smoke! Never to be seen again. The treasures of the nation. A priceless national heritage! Gone forever. Forever!"

"How did you escape?" I wondered.

"I don't know. I don't know at all. They were distracted I suppose: the vandals. They found something else to do. Perhaps it was some other thing they wanted to destroy. I was just left. On the floor. By the foot of what was left of Pork's Monument to Eternity. I just lay there, with my tongue on what used to be a tooth." He opened his mouth to show a gap in the front of his mouth where an incisor should have been. "I was in such pain. There was blood in my mouth. And my eyes. Seeping through my hair. I don't know where my beret is. I just lay there. I could hear all the destruction. It was horrible! Humiliating! And then I smelt smoke. I didn't know what it was at first. My nose was so caked with blood I couldn't smell very well. Then I saw a cloud of smoke waft over the Art Gallery. Then I realised. They were burning down the Art Gallery. Not content with what they'd done to the contents, they were destroying the entire flipping edifice."

"But you're alright," said Beta soothingly. "You're alive. They didn't kill you."

"I wish they had. My life is nothing now. Much of my own work must have been destroyed in the fire. I got up. There were still globules of blood dripping on the floor in front of me. But I got up. Somehow. I couldn't stand very well. I had ... I have such a horrible headache. But I crawled through the gallery. I don't know how. Over all the ruins of great Art. The Culture. The essence of civilisation. And then out of the Art Gallery. I saw flames behind me. Yellow, red, black flames. And smoke. But I got out. And then I ran and ran."

"Were many Illicit Party people there?" I asked.

"I don't know. I didn't look. There might have been. If they were, they weren't interested in me any more. I just ran and ran. And then I just fell on the grass and lay there. I was sick. So sick. I just lay in blood and vomit, with the smell of smoke from the Art Gallery. It billowed out of the entrance. Consuming irreplaceable classics. My own Untitled No. 24. My own Esoterica Divined. Even my Omega Psi: Surrender. All destroyed! Consumed by fire, now only a memory and never to be seen again!

"As I lay there consumed by misery and despair, I felt someone's hands on my back. I drew back, thinking it was another Illicit bastard. Or worse. But it was a centauress. She had come from the Country and had galloped to the Art Gallery for shelter. She was very concerned about me, and wiped off some of the blood from my face with a handkerchief. She knelt down beside me and told me why she'd been running away from the Country. There had been a fire in the forest where she'd lived, and she'd fled from it. She was very worried that her home might have been burnt down in the flames, but it was too perilous for her to return."

"That must have been the fire we saw!" Beta exclaimed. "Did she know what had caused it?"

"She didn't say. All she knew was that there had been a fire. But she said that she had seen many many of these people, Illicit Party, Black Party, and others who were not in any political grouping. There were dragons, wyverns, gargoyles, minotaurs, all sorts rampaging through the Country. People she had never seen before. She had no idea where they came from, but she told me that it was certain that they were en route to the Suburbs on this damnable quest for the Truth. She was terribly worried for the health of her foals who had been at school during the fire. She had no idea where she might find them, as their school is a long way from her home. Schools are scattered about thinly in the Country, and they travel there each day by bus. She said she had seen hundreds of these monsters and political activists descending on the Suburbs from all directions. They're all converging here and causing havoc wherever they go."

"Did she actually see any evidence of this?" I wondered.

"Oh yes! Yes, she had. Although she said that what they had done to the Art Gallery was the worst she'd seen. I looked back at the building where flames were bursting through the windows and yet there was no fire service to extinguish it. Where were they? What's happened? Has totally lawlessness, anarchy and chaos descended on this land?"

I reflected on the destruction we had just seen and had to agree that that was exactly what had happened.

"Even here? In the Suburbs? How can this be?" the Artist bewailed. "The centauress said she had seen houses ransacked, farms attacked by gangs of grotesque monsters who were devouring all the livestock. She saw a pack of manticores attack a herd of sheep and tear them apart limb from limb. A smilodon was tearing at the throat of a young mastodon. And she even saw a tyrannosaurus swallow a pig whole in a few short gulps. She was understandably worried about her family and, of course, herself. Normally centaurs have no natural enemies except alcohol and mange, but even they can't cope with carnosaurs or dragons."

"Nor can anyone else!" Beta said, with a shiver.

"The centauress had galloped a long way before she came to the Art Gallery. She said she had no idea where she ought to go. Everywhere was full of gangs of these people. Not all of them were violent, she said. Some were like pilgrims looking for the Truth as if they were heading for Mecca. There were people of all sorts. Some from the City. Some from all over the Country. Many, of course, came by car or van, and there were dreadful traffic jams on the Country's roads which are really not designed for that kind of volume."

The Artist paused, and wiped his nose from which a fresh trickle of blood was emerging. He glanced quizzically at the red stain on the back of his hand. "The centauress was no doctor. She really couldn't do more than talk to me. And then she galloped off. Probably back to the Country. I decided to come to the Suburbs. This seemed the safest possible place to come. But before she left, she told me more about the foul things she had seen."

"What sort of things?" I wondered.

"Like this car she saw being attacked in a village. It was an enormous car. Totally unsuited for Country roads. How it had ever got there, she couldn't say. Perhaps with so much traffic on the roads and all the police diversions it had simply got lost. All these Black Party people ... At least I think they were Black Party from how she described them. All dressed in black leather, she said. They were all piling on top of the car. They were shaking the vehicle from side to side. And then the people inside got out. There was a hippopotamus, a rhinoceros and some others she said..."

"I think we know the car you mean!" Beta remarked. "Was there a dog as well and a fat man?"

The Artist frowned. "I don't know. I wasn't there. I can't remember whether she mentioned any other people. But it's not often you see such large pachyderms driving around in the Country. Most cars aren't big enough! But I remember she said there was a hippopotamus and a rhinoceros. And they were probably foreigners too, she said. They didn't seem at all sure what to do. Anyway, she didn't say very much. She simply said she had seen them come out of the car and try to fight off the vicious leopards and coyotes who were besieging it. Of course, that wasn't too difficult for big animals like them. At least not individually. And then she saw two allosauruses appear and the fight was a lot less even. The car was totally destroyed. I think she said that the people attacking it just pulled it completely to pieces."

"And what happened to Wilma and Wayne? The two people in the car?" Beta asked anxiously.

"I don't know. The centauress didn't say. Perhaps she didn't know. They may have got away for all I know. But without their car: that's for certain!"

We mused on the news for a few moments. Beta was clearly very upset by it, and squeezed my arm tightly to her side. "How can there be so many horrible things happening in one day? What's happening?"

The Artist sat down by the side of a wall, behind which could be seen the twitching curtain of a nervous occupant, distressed either by the sight of the Artist's wounds or the fear that he might inconveniently demand assistance. "I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. I've stood at a bus stop for ages waiting for a bus, but none arrived. I don't know how I can find my way home. And I am trepidatious regarding any encounter with these monsters that have been unleashed into our midst."

We sat by the Artist who had become uncharacteristically silent, while nursing the unpleasant gash on his forehead.

Beta squeezed my hand. "All these horrible horrible things!"

While we sat there, we saw another familiar figure approach us, carrying a baby in a kind of pouch around her chest. It was Una walking along the street, looking nervously from side to side as if expecting to see some more horrors emerge. Beta stood up and walked into the middle of the empty road waving her arms from side to side. Una saw us, waved back and without increasing her stride headed towards us.

"How are you? What are you doing here? Why aren't you still recuperating at the Embassy?"

Una looked sadly into Beta's eyes, clutching her baby close to her breast. "I thought the Suburbs might be the place to come. Everyone else is coming here. They might be coming to find the Truth, but I thought I might come here, find a job, find somewhere to live, start a new life for me and my baby." She was wearing a long dress that was really a little large for her and came almost down to her ankles.

"How did you get here?" I wondered.

"Oh, I hitch-hiked. I went to this motorway junction carrying my baby and stuck my thumb out into the road. I didn't really care where anyone was going, but since most people were going to the Suburbs I thought it was the place to go. I didn't wait long. Less than half an hour, anyway. A van stopped. It was spray-painted all sorts of colours with lots of slogans on the outside, including 'THE TRUTH'. There were plenty of young people inside. They weren't from any particular political party or religious group, though they were mostly sympathetic to the Red Party. They were very glad anyway that they had won the Election. There was a girl with very long hair wearing a colourful thin cotton dress. Another girl with her head shaved wearing only a pair of black leather shorts. A man with short spiky hair, covered in earrings and studs who kept smoking all the time. There was a pig driving who also had ear-rings and a woolly hat over his head. They had heard about the search for the Truth, and decided to join the flow of people heading to the Suburbs."

"Why were they doing that?" Beta asked. "I thought it was mostly just Illicit Party people coming here."

"Oh, everyone's coming. Not just Illicit Party. I suppose it's something that appeals to a lot of different people: the Truth, that is. They said that in different ways they'd each been searching for the Truth already in the City commune they lived in. They'd sought for it through religion, mysticism and meditation with the assistance of gurus and paperbacks. It seemed right to them that they should be in the midst of all the excitement."

"And where are they now?" I asked, looking down the empty street.

"I don't know. I lost them. It took a long time to get to the Suburbs. There were a lot of cars on the road. It was a very slow long journey. A number of different vehicles are heading here: carriages, vans, cars, coaches, anything with wheels. I've never seen anything like it. When we got here, it was not at all obvious where to go. The pig drove us all around the place. The streets were very full, and almost all of them were full of cars parking in all the available spaces, blocking people's drives and on the pavement. There were all sorts of people wandering about. Some like the people in the van I was in. Some dressed in Rupert suits. Some in the sort of clothes that people in the Suburbs wear: I suppose they must have been ordinary Suburbanites. And then we saw these horrid monsters loom up in the street ahead of us!"

"Monsters?" asked Beta.

"I don't know what else to call them. Dwarves with faces on their chests. Things a bit like vultures and a bit like rats. Things with long cruel fangs and vicious claws. I've never seen things like that before in my life. And neither had the others in the van. These monsters chased after the van, and there really wasn't space to turn round. The driver reversed the van backwards, but there were cars behind us and we couldn't go back further. As the monsters approached, they were smashing other cars and really looked very dangerous. I don't know when the decision was made or whether it was wise, but the doors of the van were thrown open and we all ran out. The pig jumped out as well, but he was suddenly descended on by all these winged monkeys. I didn't want to look back. All I was interested in was my baby. I didn't want him to get hurt! I just run and run. Past all the damage that's been done in the Suburbs and the fires that have been started, and then I got here. It seemed nice and quiet. No cars. No chaos. And I've been wandering around here ever since."

"But why are you here at all?" Beta asked. "Why aren't you still in the Embassy?"

"The Cat Embassy? No. Haven't you heard the news?"

"The News?" I asked. "No. Why? What's happened?"

"The Cat Kingdom's being invaded. It started last night. There were rocket attacks on the capital city, Felis, which razed the Royal Palace to the ground and may well have killed the King. The Canine Republics with the assistance of the Illiberal Socialist Republics have declared war on the Cat Kingdom. There are Dogs and others overrunning the country. Mice and Dogs who live in the Kingdom are assisting the invaders. Cats are being slaughtered indiscriminately. It sounds really appalling! When the news broke at the Embassy there was total chaos. All the Embassy staff were running about. They didn't know what to do. No one really knows what's happening in the Cat Kingdom. It's all a horrid mess! There are radio broadcasts from Mice declaring their own republic. And there are uncorroborated reports that the Illiberal Socialist Republics are behind most of the worst violence."

"So what did you do?" Beta wondered.

"I didn't know what to do when I was first told the news. I hoped that maybe my plight would have made it easier for me. But a Cat came into my room and told me that they were abandoning the building. They'd heard that there was a likelihood that the Embassy might be attacked. In some of the other Cat embassies round the world, especially those in countries who are uncertain in their support for the Cat Kingdom, the embassies had been attacked and burnt to the ground by Dogs and Mice and others who have grudges against Cats. She warned me that it was probably safer for me to leave. The Ambassador had already left and has gone into hiding. She was very worried about her own safety. As she told me, however imperfect the Cat Kingdom and its King might have been, it had at least represented an internationally recognised force sympathetic to the Feline cause. She was frightened that the Feline diaspora would begin again. She was at least grateful that she wasn't living in the Cat Kingdom.

"That's why I left the Embassy, while all the Cats and the staff were shredding papers and erasing computer disks. There was an awful amount of panic amongst the staff, many of whom had already abandoned the building, and those left were worried about their jobs and probably their very lives. I was given this dress to wear - it was the best fit they could find - and this pouch for my baby, and then I had to go into the street again. It wasn't easy. I had to make my way through a crowd of desperate-looking Cats who were pressed against the gates and clamouring for information and advice, and some Mice and Dogs who were shouting abuse and throwing beer cans and stones at the Embassy and at the Cats. I was terribly frightened for my baby. I clutched him so close to my breast I thought he might suffocate."