Joe got up. The bartender was washing glasses. Joe asked for a map of the London underground. Took it back to his seat. Studied it.

Wasn’t entirely surprised to discover there was no such station.

another better world

——

Half an hour later he was sitting at the Edwin Drood looking across the street at the unmarked door of Madam Seng’s. He had to overcome a physical sensation of revulsion as he pushed open the grimy doors of the pub. The Edwin Drood was badly-lit with oil lamps that spluttered and fumed in low dark alcoves. Where the Dog & Duck had been all Victorian splendour in mirrors and gilt, The Edwin Drood was Victorian in the sense of open sewers and resurrection men. The bartender was old, bald, with age spots the size and colour of two-pence coins on his head and small, narrow eyes and white bushy eyebrows, and the same stringy hair grew out of his ears like magic beanstalks. He glared at Joe, but served him a drink in silence, and as Joe carried the pint of warm beer to a table by the dirty windows he felt the bartender’s gaze fall on him, unwavering. The smell of opium was strong in The Edwin Drood, but it was an after-smell, a clinging, lingering odour that rose from the silent drinkers. Joe half-watched them as they sat there, rigidly holding on to their drinks, not looking at each other, not looking outside either: looking down, into the drinks or into themselves, into that dark secret place the mind goes when paradise is withdrawn from it.

They were wretched creatures. The smell of opium clung to their clothes but it was not in them. They were in turn in shivers and in sweat. Their eyes were haunted.

Opium, Joe thought. Just as it could take away all pain, its absence could hurt worse. Here were the unfortunates who could not cross into the promised land. It lay just beyond the windows, a wonderland of the mind, but they could not cross the desert that was Newport Place. Was it the momentary absence of money? An attempt to rebel against the pull of the drug? Or were they merely waiting, in mute agony, anticipating the rolled balls of sticky resin, the long graceful pipes, the hiss of a flame and the murmur of a girl as she heated the pipe, as the vapours began to roll towards their mouths and send them at last to another, better world?

He watched out the window and saw the shades of Madam Seng’s customers as they approached the unmarked doors. He watched them knock, the door half-open – watched the moment of judgement. Those who were chosen disappeared inside. Those rejected carried their rejection with them. Some came into The Edwin Drood and joined the brotherhood of the silent. At least, Joe thought, that explained the clientele.

He watched a solitary figure approach the door and decided to make his move then. He got up and went outside and the cool air was an awakening. He hurried his steps and reached the man in the long black coat just as he was knocking on the door. The man was carrying a round metal canister under his arm.

‘Let me help you with that,’ Joe said, just as the door opened. The man turned to him, blinked, said, ‘You’re the bloke was in the shop the other day –’

‘You bring movie?’ the man in the doorway, same one as the last time; speaking a moment before he registered Joe, then – ‘I told you not to –’

The round metal canister – the man in the coat saying ‘Hey, careful with that!’ – taking it from his arms and lifting, in one smooth motion – ‘come here!’ from the man in the doorway as the metal lifted, connected with his chin, the sound of the jawbone jarring, perhaps breaking, and Joe kneed him, hard – the man in the coat saying, ‘What the hell are you –’ the man in the doorway collapsing –

Joe pushed the door open and went inside.

London after midnight

——

‘Is that the film reel for tonight?’ a voice said. ‘Thank you, I’ll take that.’ The metal canister was taken from his hands, and Joe stared.

She wore a Japanese kimono but her face was a Mekong Delta mix, the eyes of a wild mountain creature, hauntingly beautiful, flecked with gold, looking coolly at Joe, studying him. She was not young but it was impossible to call her old. There was Vietnamese blood in there, and French, and Hmong, and there were laughter lines at the corners of her eyes and Joe thought of the graffiti he had seen that said, Madam Seng is a Snake Head. It did not refer to her face.

‘Can I help you?’ she said. Her English was tinged with Indochina traces. The eyes looking at him, not blinking, studying him, the fallen figure of the doorman behind him. The was no sign of the man from the bookshop. He must have run off, Joe thought. Sensible, in the circumstance. He felt half-inclined to do the same.

‘I’m looking for Madam Seng,’ he said.

‘Why?’ she said. And then, ‘This place is not for you.’

‘Is it the dress code?’ Joe said. ‘That’s it, right? You don’t like my shoes?’

‘No,’ the woman said. ‘Though your shoes could do with a polish, if you want to know the truth.’

‘Imagine an opium den with a door policy,’ Joe said. He felt the urge to bend down and wipe his shoes with his sleeve, but fought it. The eyes regarded him with a trace of amusement. ‘Imagine such an establishment without one.’

The doorman groaned behind them. The woman said, ‘Get up.’ She spoke quietly but her voice carried. The doorman groaned again, rolled on his side and pushed himself up.

‘Sorry about your doorman,’ Joe said.

‘Not as sorry as he’ll be.’

The doorman scowled at Joe, then clutched his jaw. ‘Go,’ the woman said. The doorman went.

‘You are Madam Seng?’

She ignored him. ‘This place is not for you,’ she said again. This time there was no amusement and the eyes were opaque jade.

Joe shrugged. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m here now.’

‘Opium is for people who have already lost something,’ the woman said. ‘Not for people who are already lost.’

‘That’s fascinating,’ Joe said. She was trying to rattle him. He wouldn’t let her. ‘Now if you could just answer a few questions…’

The woman smiled. ‘Follow me,’ she said. She turned her back on him, the canister of film still in her hands.

Joe followed.

The entrance to Madam Seng’s was a dark, low-ceilinged corridor. At the end of the corridor was a beaded curtain. Madam Seng did not push it open, but glided through it, the beads parting before her with a light tinkling sound. Beyond…

Beyond was a large room. Two openings, also lightly curtained, led off into other rooms. The air was thick with the smell of opium; the lights were low, paper lanterns the colour of blood glowing faintly, illuminating a scene of drugged languor. There were low sofas, cushioned with embroidered dragons and stars, on which reclined Madam Seng’s faithful customers. A three-legged metal brazier was burning charcoal in one corner. Madam Seng’s girls moved softly between the lying customers, both women and men, holding fresh pipes for those deep gone into the dream journey, heating the opium in its metal bowls, murmuring softly in languages the customers neither knew nor cared to. Joe felt light-headed, his arms heavy. The woman held his hand. He whispered, ‘Madam Seng,’ and she nodded. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she said, for the third time.

‘None of us should,’ he said, though he didn’t know what he meant by that.

In one corner of the room he saw a projector. The sound of the moving reel was a constant whisper in the room. Against the opposite wall a film was playing, without sound, in black and white. The beam of light travelled from the machine to the wall, catching motes of dust and curls of smoke in its path.

Title: Weird things have happened there in the last five years.

Scene: A maid stands at an open door, staring out in horror. She screams without sound.