On a small road in Central London there is a restaurant where the frequenters of Covent Garden and Leicester Square convene to drink Moet at £20 a glass and indulge in scallops, girolles and pomme purée. Here, however, is not the focus of this telling. Instead, look past the pristine napkins to a place altogether darker. Next to the restaurant is a hunched building, the windows made of small panes and black lattices. It is a place impossible to see when you are looking at it, especially impossible if you are looking for it, but if you happen to pass it and look out of the corner of your eye you will see, in spidery gold lettering, neatly engraved above the building, a sign that reads:
Messrs Scoffe and Banter's Services for the Recently Deceased
It is into this world – this Victorian funeral parlour sitting quite inconspicuously in the second decade of the 21st Century - that you must place half your attention, else you will lose it all together. If you half-listen very carefully, you will half-notice that someone is shouting...
'...and furthermore, he's always the first to wash his dainty hands of any and all responsibility. Only this morning I had to promise him a week's worth of cooking before he'd even contemplate doing the shopping for this evening. And even then he still left me to rearrange the furniture, polish, cook, clean - organise the whole bloody thing! And what's more...'
'Enough, Cornelius. You've had your hour.'
Cornelius Banter paused for breath, upset that his hour had been used up already. The grandfather clock struck three o'clock with twelve slow chimes. Today's recipient of Cornelius's tirade was the shop's raven, a formidable-looking thing with sharp black eyes that stared exasperated at Cornelius who huffed,
'You really are no use at all. It's as if no one cares...'
'Enough!' the raven rasped, his voice like Velcro. 'Scoffe will walk through that door any moment and you can tell him about your petty problems.'
Cornelius harrumphed, sank into his armchair, tucked his chin into his thick orange beard and grumbled quietly to himself.
Fortunately for the raven, who prided himself on being one of the few living beings in the shop, no sooner had he mentioned his name than the creak-tinkle of the shop door announced Sebastian Scoffe. Scoffe was a tall man, thin, with a set of pince nez delicately balanced on his sharp nose. A slick of iron hair lay neatly coiffed beneath the top hat which he had placed on the wrought iron hat stand. It was exceedingly satisfying for Cornelius, who was, by nature, everything that Scoffe was not, to see Scoffe bedecked in bright orange shopping bags, a most unflattering set of accessories.
'Good day, Mr Scoffe,' muttered Cornelius, digging his fingernails into the armrest.
'Good day, Mr Banter. I trust you have made the appropriate preparations for this evening?'
Cornelius snorted. Of course nothing was ready.
'My dear Banter, you do know I hate it when you mumble like that,' Scoffe began, unloading the shopping onto the embalming table. 'Am I to take from your moaning that you have not readied anything? Honestly, it's as if you don't take the Society seriously. I, on the other hand, traversed the length and breadth of town to locate a Waitrose, only to find it closed and with no alternative but to face the indignity of Sainsbury's. Really, Mr Banter, Sainsbury's! I felt so awfully out of place, I'm convinced I've contracted some sort of hideous disease, and the people ...'
Were it possible for a man to become feral in the amount of time it took for Scoffe to unload the shopping, Cornelius would have been foaming at the mouth by the time he launched himself at his colleague. As it was, Scoffe was knocked to the floor not by a feral creature, but a screeching auburn fuzz in undertaker's clothing. The pair tussled on the ground for a few minutes but, since neither was as young as he once was, inflicted little more than slaps and hair pulling before they got tired, called it a draw and put the kettle on.
Scoffe poured the tea into mugs. The handle of one had been fashioned into a penguin and said 'Let's break the ice with a cuppa', the other was black and sported the Iron Maiden logo. Both Scoffe and Cornelius admitted the mugs jarred violently with the Victorian macabre of the teapot but the original cups had long since been broken or used to store formaldehyde and they knew better than to go to Ikea again.
'You needn't worry, old chap,' said Scoffe, taking a tentative sip. 'Three hours is plenty of time for you to get everything in order. They arrive in dribs and drabs anyhow, lord knows if the Earl will even show.'
The Black Cat, of which Scoffe and Banter are proud members, is an elite dining society established by the fourth Duchess of Piccadilly in 1840. Known for its exclusivity, the Black Cat only accepts into its membership Victorian ladies and gentlemen who exist in a blissfully anachronistic state amongst the Kit Kat wrappers of Kentish Town and the smartphones of South Ken. Above all, the Cats pride themselves not only on their lust for fine dining but the lengths they go to in order to make every meal a gastronomical, theatrical, quite sensational experience. Each month, it is the turn of a member to host the Society in their place of residence. The evening must then be themed to that residency in whatever manner the host chooses. Messrs Scoffe and Banter, therefore, were going to hold a séance.
After half an hour's rummaging through chest upon chest of brushes, pins and all such paraphernalia needed to stop a corpse from looking and acting like a corpse, Cornelius appeared in the parlour, as red and manic as his beard.
'Whatever is the matter, my dear fellow?' said Scoffe, half-glancing up from his fashion pull-out.
Cornelius huffed, his clenched fists shaking. 'I cannot find a single item for this evening; that is the matter. Why is it that whenever I organise something that might actually help us rebuild our frankly laughable reputation, you always spoil it with one of your impractical jokes? I will not stand for it, Scoffe.'
Scoffe sipped his fourth cup of tea and dispassionately continued reading the article entitled 'Colour by Jumpers: what block colour can do for your figure'. Cornelius seethed quietly by the back of the armchair, letting out the occasional barb such as 'I should have left when you murdered Houdini' (Cornelius's beloved pet rabbit who, through entirely unknown circumstances, became Scoffe's beloved pet rabbit pie, the name was a painful irony), before Scoffe said finally,
'I believe you'll find you laid your inventory on the chest of drawers yesterday morning to save you the trouble of looking for it today.'
At six o'clock the grandfather clock let out another twelve chimes, signalling the arrival of four hungry Cats, the first of whom arrived before the twelfth chime had ended. Baron von Hagerweiss was another tall thin man with a rattish face that always looked uncomfortable, disapproving, or both.
'Good evening,' was all he said.
The Baron hung his hat next to Scoffe's, taking care not to let the two touch; he would not have his effects contaminated by the lower orders.
At half past six, the door burst open to reveal what any sane pair of eyes would describe as a walking armchair. Madame Bonneheure, who embraced her name as fully as one can by completely ignoring it, was, and she herself would admit this, a woman who loved her food to the point of becoming it. She was very large and very beautiful and was adored for her 'bubbly personality'; the only person who did not love Bonneheure was the Baron, which only made Mme. Bonneheure's delight in tormenting him with her affections all the greater.
Seven o'clock came and went. Still the table was not full.
Mme. Bonneheure piped up, eyeing the kitchen, 'The rules do state that after an hour, food should be served even if not all members are present.'
'An excellent idea, Madame,' said Scoffe with a smirk, 'or at least it would be if we had any food to serve. My esteemed colleague stretched this evening's theme to its limit and carbonised the plum-cake.'
Mme. Bonneheure gasped. 'You mean I have trekked all the way here, in my tightest corset,' she slipped a hand onto the Baron's upper-inner thigh, 'for nothing more than to sit in a dingy funeral parlour? This will not do. I shall take my leave this instant.'
Everyone was too concerned with corsets, upper-inner thighs and plum-cakes to notice the dark figure standing quietly in the doorway.
'Not so fast, ma cherie,' he said, waltzing into the half-light. 'The night is still young, no? And besides, 'er Ladyship 'as been dying to see you.'
There is little to say about the Earl of Brixton, not because he is uninteresting, but because anything said about him will probably be wrong. Some know him as 'the old black guy who busks outside M&S', to others he is the stray cat you think is yours but is being fed by the whole street. He is a law unto himself and that is how he shall stay. That evening, he was Papa Legba, all top hat and dreadlocks, as menacing as any who can control the spirits of the dead, and in the crook of his arm he carried a sleek black cat.
'From both 'er Ladyship and my 'umble self, I bid you good evening.'
'Oh Earl it is so wonderful to see you,' cried Mme. Bonneheure. 'We were so afraid you would be unable to attend, weren't we Baron?'
The Baron winced as he was kicked under the table. 'Yes.'
Such a commotion had been caused by the arrival of the Earl and her Ladyship - the tenth Duchess of Piccadilly - that the guests had quite forgotten the issue of the plum-cake and, it seemed, the existence of their hosts.
Cornelius cleared his throat. 'Ehem, excuse me everyone. Please, I'd just like...'
'My dear friends,' Scoffe interrupted, 'I believe my colleague intends to begin this evening's entertainment. Your cooperation would be deeply appreciated, if only to save us all the trouble of being attacked by my associate. Now, Mr Banter, would you care to lead the evening...'
The séance had not even begun when the problems started. Cornelius returned from the kitchen not with tall white candles appropriate for such an occasion, but an assortment of festive candles because Scoffe had forgotten to buy any and the corner shop was shut. The Baron's face as he watched the foot- tall Father Christmas with first degree burns placed in front of him was enough to make Mme. Bonneheure's evening.
Anyone passing by the parlour at such a time probably would not have half-noticed a short, rotund man of unmistakably orange appearance trying to settle an altercation between a very angry Earl and the spirit of a recently deceased bailiff who had evicted the Earl from a squat in Islington last year. They might have half-missed the self-same Earl questioning the spirit of a beloved pet rabbit into the identity of its killer; though they might have half-heard the distinctive chink of crockery smashing against a wall, followed by the cry of: 'Rabbit murderer!'
To this very day, if you found Cornelius Banter in a coffee shop around Seven Dials and asked him about what became of the evening on which The Black Cat came to tea, he would not answer you. He would rather take Scoffe back to Ikea and have him redesign the shop than discuss The-Evening-Of-Which-We-Do-Not-Speak. As it happens, another trip to Ikea is in order for Messrs Scoffe and Banter, something about a new teapot.