Chapter 21 The Dome of Discovery
The Dome of Discovery
“You could just have bought me a ticket,” Veronica said. “You didn’t have to smuggle me in.”
They had slipped through a gap in the fence on York Road, even though there was a big notice warning everyone to keep out. Militaristic diktats that no one cared to obey any more.
“The public can’t get into the Festival until half past two, after the King declares it open,” Flynn said. “I thought that you of all people would appreciate a bit of cloak and dagger. And besides, I don’t want anyone to see you. You’re not safe. Not after what happened to Gammage.”
“You’re not safe either,” Veronica said.
“I don’t count.”
“You do to me. You’re all I’ve got at the moment.”
“Follow me,” he said to her. “And if anyone asks you what you’re doing here, just make something up. Say you’re a drum majorette or something.”
“A what?”
“Never mind. We’re here—Homes and Gardens.”
In Homes and Gardens, but more particularly in Homes, everyone was rushing around as though Armageddon was imminent.
Flynn found Hetty scrubbing viciously at a sink.
“The workmen have been stubbing their fags in it, can you believe? Hello, who’s this?
What a little sweetheart!” She was addressing Mrs. Betty, not Veronica.
“Veronica, this is Hetty. Hetty—this is my daughter, Veronica. I know, I don’t seem like the type to have one,” he said, forestalling any comment.
“I’m horribly behind,” Hetty said. “And they’ve asked that I help out with Princess Margaret. She’s surprisingly short, have you noticed?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Knock-knock,” Margot said, knocking on an imaginary door. “The lighting’s gone in the interior lighting display. There’s irony for you. They’re running around like headless chickens looking for a spare electrician. Hello, Harry. Who’s this, then?”
“Veronica,” Veronica said. “He’s my dad.”
“Really?”
“Have the two of you been here all night?” Flynn asked.
“God, yes, been living off tea and cigs, although Margot and I got a couple of hours’ kip in the early hours in the ‘Bed-Sit for Two Boys.’ And then much excitement just after dawn when the workmen in the Dome decided it was about time they dismantled the sheds they’ve had in there and disturbed hundreds of rats.
They scattered everywhere. It was mayhem, like Hamelin but without the pied piper.
Or the children, for that matter. We helped chase them all down, every last one.
Bashed their brains out with anything to hand,” she added cheerfully.
“I see I haven’t been invited to trail around after a Royal.
Us humble workers aren’t even allowed at the opening.
We’re to be corralled and we’ll have to peer through the wire like animals in the zoo.
We were hoping you were going to give us a hand last night, Harry, but then Hetty heard you spent the night in jail. ”
“I thought Veronica could be an extra pair of hands for you this morning.”
“All help welcome. The floor needs mopping again.”
“I’m not mopping anything,” Veronica said mutinously. “I make a good cup of tea though. Everyone says so.”
“No working kettle, I’m afraid,” Hetty said. “We’ve got biscuits though.”
“Suits me,” Veronica said.
All Flynn had seen of the Royals were the feathers decorating a hat and the top of a balding head.
Not that he had much interest in seeing more.
At half past two the royal party were allowed to go home and put their feet up and were replaced by a swarm of hoi polloi.
It was drizzling, but the weather failed to dampen the carnival spirit of the crowd.
Flynn found Hetty and Margot sitting on a bench in the herb garden that was outside one of the Kitchens.
The rain had released a heady scent of mint.
There was no sign of Veronica. Flynn was alarmed to be told that she had gone to look for an ice-cream kiosk.
“You don’t need to worry, she’s quite capable,” Hetty said.
That was the problem, Flynn thought. She was capable of anything.
Margot jumped up from the bench and hooked her arm in his. “Come on, Harry, let’s go and have a wander round.”
Hetty took his other arm, and they hauled him along as if they were reeling in a country dance before he managed to break free of them and said, “I’ll catch up with you once I’ve seen what Veronica’s up to.”
He was thwarted by a harried-looking Denholm appearing ectoplasmically in front of him and begging that he “do something” about Mitzi, who was currently causing chaos in the Farmhouse Kitchen. “She’s baking the cake,” he said gloomily.
“That was what you wanted,” Flynn reminded him.
“Not me—Dangerfield.”
“What’s she baking it with?” Flynn puzzled. “Hot air? Dragon’s breath?”
—
As Flynn had predicted when the idea was first mooted, there was already a bottleneck in the Rooms, with a horde of women clamouring outside the Farmhouse Kitchen.
They were standing on tiptoe and jostling and elbowing each other in order to get a view of Mitzi.
The queue for the other Rooms was growing restless.
There was an occasional surge in the crush outside the Farmhouse Kitchen that a couple of ineffectual security guards were trying to hold back. “Mr. Flynn.” One of them tipped his cap in recognition and helped him through.
Mitzi was dressed in the red flamenco-style dress that Flynn recognized from the night he had dined chez Blinkhorn.
She had apparently managed to light an oven (Sidney Flavel & Co.
Ltd, Leamington, Warwicks) that had been jerry-rigged to a Calor gas cylinder.
It looked like an accident waiting to happen.
Mitzi was hissing instructions at Cynthia, who was largely ignoring her.
Spotting Flynn, she gave a little wave with one hand, while with the other she idly picked glacé cherries out of a bowl and popped them in her mouth.
She looked to be more of a hindrance than a help.
He beckoned her over—not daring to breach the rope that separated the public from the Rooms for fear of causing a revolt amongst the women.
They would follow like maenads. “Cream the margarine and sugar, beating it with a wooden spoon.” Someone at the front of the crowd objected when her foot was trodden on.
There was an unidentified squeal from another part of the mêlée.
It wouldn’t be long before they were trampling each other.
Mitzi was blithely unconcerned. “The tin should be wrapped in several layers of brown paper…”
“This isn’t working,” Flynn said to Cynthia. “There’s going to be a riot.”
“Do you want a cherry?” She tried to post one in his mouth. Her fingers brushed his lips and she turned as red as the cherry.
“No thanks,” he said, waving her away.
“Your oven should be set to Gas Mark 4…”
“Can you stop her?” Flynn asked.
“Mummy? Stop her?” They both looked doubtfully at Mitzi. No, they both concluded silently. She was unstoppable.
“You are coming back, aren’t you?” Cynthia asked.
“Yes. But I’ve got a couple of things to do first.”
Flynn fought his way back through the mob and instructed the security guards to find reinforcements so they could clear the area before there was a disaster of some kind, then set off in pursuit of his outlaw daughter.
He strode purposefully past the Rooms, harrowing his way through the crowds and waving away the customary complaints and queries he was assailed with whenever he was on the South Bank.
Before he could get anywhere, though, he encountered another obstacle in the joint shape of Ivor and Hortense Fowler, who had taken up a fighting stance in front of one of the Parlours.
The Rooms Committee, they told him, had made the decision to close the Parlours before they had even opened.
They were to be hastily refurbished in a way that was more suitable for the masses.
The Fowlers were only allowed to keep two out of the seven, and even those had to have their extravagant features “toned down” to fall within the budget of “ordinary people.” There was a carpenter at work already, hastily boarding up the first Parlour so that the populist transformation could take place out of view.
“The Parlours are being martyred,” Hortense Fowler said, standing over Flynn like a large flightless bird.
“It’s a sacrilege,” Ivor Fowler agreed.
Ignoring their hyperbole, Flynn said, “Sorry, it’s out of my hands.”
Next to waylay him were the Boy and Evans, coming from the direction of the Dome of Discovery.
The Boy was beaming. “Mr. Flynn, isn’t the Festival…
” He strived for a word. He came up with “wonderful.” It was a word that was new to him.
He nodded in approval and said it again.
“Wonderful. I didn’t realize it would be like this—all colourful and crowded and…
wonderful. We had an ice-cold drink of milk in the Dairy Bar.
I’ve never had a cold drink, except when the milk freezes on the doorstep—not that we get our milk delivered, but sometimes Ma sends me to take one from someone else’s doorstep.
” Evans tutted quietly and the Boy said, “Only from someone she doesn’t get on with, Mr. Evans.
Fair’s fair. And there’s soft toilet rolls in the lavvies, Mr. Flynn!
See, I knew I was ahead of the game when I was selling the ones Mr. Badger brought in.
And we’ve been all round the Dome of Discovery.
Space, Mr. Flynn!” The Boy’s face was a picture of joy. “Rockets!”
“The future,” Evans said, slightly less joyful at the idea of what was to come. “Do you fancy going to a pageant this evening, Harry? Hitchin have invited me. I feel obliged to go.”
“Yes, all right—must go just now though, Hywel.”
Somewhere in the distance he could hear the unusual sound of the steel-pan band. “I know them,” the Boy said proudly. “Shall we go and listen, Mr. Evans? Goodbye, Mr. Flynn.”
“Catch up with you later, Harry.”
“Hitchin, you say?”
“Half an hour on the train.”