Tuesday, January the 18th, 2005

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Pageantry

I am not averse to pageantry, so when a parade came past my door last Friday I went to my window to watch. Although the pane of glass in my window is besmirched by grease, I had a splendid view. I saw a yellow brougham, three green pantechnicons, a brown cabriolet, at least a dozen crimson charabancs, a pair of white phaetons, and a blue chariot, each with its flags and bunting and streamers and ribbons, some with hooters and klaxons making a terrible din, and they were followed by countless wagons and floats and cars, gigs, coaches, brakes, droshkys, jalopies and landaus, jeeps, bogies and coupés, drays, palanquins and flivvers, so many that before I knew it hours had passed, and it was dusk, and there seemed to be no end to the parade.

I was beginning to wonder how I would be able to cross the street. I wanted to go to the tobacconists' to pick up a twist of nap and a plug of slot, but the succession of carriages, decorative snowploughs, unicycles and troikas showed no sign of abating. The crowd that had gathered to cheer and throw hats in the air and dance impromptu polkas was thicker than it had been all day. One mountebank had set up his stall close to my front gate and was attracting custom with whoops and whistles.

I decided to risk crossing the road, thinking I could weave my way through the parade. I put on my hat and stepped out of the door, and was at once caught up in a surging mob of revellers and borne aloft like some sort of mascot. They ignored my tremulous whimpers of protest, but eventually dumped me on the kerb about a mile down the road from my house, and here the pageantry, and crowds, were if anything more boisterous, colourful and noisy than ever.

“What is this all in aid of?” I shouted at a black-clad widow-woman who was selling bundles of strange herbs from a barrow. She was reluctant to answer me until I had forked out a handful of cash for a sprig of irkbane.

“A potentate from a far distant land is visiting our town,” she told me, “and the council wanted to make him welcome. He is a terrible tyrant, and he has been known to kill a horse just by uttering its name. His palace is bigger than the tallest mountain, and is built from the bones of enemies he has slain in combat. But they say that in his bailiwick sheep may safely graze.”

The crone continued to speak, but she was drowned out by a band of pipers on the back of a passing flatbed truck. I stuffed cotton wool into my ears. An urchin pressed a pennant into my hand and I found myself waving it unthinkingly. Night had fallen now, but the town was bright with flares and gas and calcium night lights. I stood at the roadside, hemmed in by carousing crowds, and watched the passing parade.

Somewhere bells were clanging. A mile away, in the dark dark woods, owls swooped on field mice, badgers grubbed for worms, and insects glowed. A mile further on, the potentate's assassin tied a bandanna around his head, lit a cigarillo, shouldered his rifle and began his heavy deliberate trudge across the marshes towards the town.