Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [27]
‘Charming,’ Anji murmured.
They watched children on the carrousel and ventured on to a similar ride involving boats carved in the shape of swans and another that featured so-called Rolling Ships with full-size sails. In spite of Anji’s prodding, Fitz ignored the opportunity to wield a sledgehammer and send a marker up a pole to reveal his strength of arm.
They skipped the exhibit whose sign announced The New Marvel of Electricity That Will Illumine The Birth Of The Twentieth Century and managed to resist the temptations of the waxworks show despite promises of figures of The Most Revered Public Heroes and a tableau of Nelson Wounded At Trafalgar. Anji was curious about a theatrical production called The Fatal Choice Of Mary Hardwicke, but uncomplainingly slipped out with Fitz after five minutes in which, in front of a painted backdrop of a parlour, a stern father and his pale but resolute daughter emoted at each other while waving their arms about.
The most magnificent facade belonged to the Phantasmagorical Exhibition. Horned grinning demons and gilded angels framed panels depicting ghosts and goblins, while to the left of the elaborate entry doors a rococo organ seemingly played itself. After this build-up, the show itself was disappointing. The ghost was effective – a transparent, white-veiled figure that Anji suspected was somehow projected through a combination of mirrors and lenses hidden in the orchestra pit. But the skit played out by the actors who supposedly couldn’t see the apparition was all high jinks and broad comedy, the climax arriving when the hero, a young man with alarming side whiskers, slipped on a pie.
After this experience, Anji was inclined to pass on The Black Chamber Of Secrets, a little octagonal building with no facade, its only decoration being bright yellow letters painted on its black walls proclaiming an Optical Wonder and Astonishing Visions. The slovenly proprietor slumped on a chair beside the entrance, clearly the worse for drink, and eyed them unenthusiastically from red-rimmed eyes. As they made to move on, he roused himself enough to call hoarsely, ‘Wonders inside, lady and gentleman. Impossible visions of the unexpected. The laws of time themselves suspended.’
Fitz and Anji looked at each other. ‘You never know,’ he said, and handed the proprietor eightpence.
‘Thank’ee, sir.’ The man stood up. He was younger than he had seemed from a distance, with strong shoulders and no grey in his long, sloppily tied-back brown hair. His bloodshot eyes were a dismal muddy colour. He smiled obsequiously, showing crooked, tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Micah Scale, at your service. You won’t be disappointed. No sir, you will not.’ And he pushed open the door and shufflingly led them into the exhibit. The inside was plain, with a scuffed black-and‐white linoleum floor. The only light came from an oil lamp attached to one of the unpainted walls. ‘Over there, please. Left side.’
He pointed to a long, mirror-surfaced table, as big as a door, that almost filled the small room. Above this hung a knobbed brass cylinder extending up through the centre of the roof. A railing prevented observers from getting too dose and marring the experience with their own reflections.
‘Now when I dim the lamp,’ Scale continued, shutting the door, ‘it will be completely black. The lady mustn’t be frightened.’ He leered at Anji. ‘It’s only for a moment.’ Anji restricted herself to a sigh. Scale slowly turned down the lamp until it flickered out. ‘And now,’ he said in the darkness, ‘I will open the miraculous camera!’
A lit scene suddenly appeared in the mirror. For a moment Anji thought she was seeing a film projected from below, until she remembered that, even as a fair attraction, moving pictures were still a couple of years away. Though the effect was startling and mysterious,