Empire of Fashion

[Pleater]

The wrought iron gate in the high wall which separated the gravel at the front of the House from the paving stones at the side of it swung open smoothly, it clanged gently against the stop.

I realised that the Captain and the man in the DPM kilt had both vanished into the shrubbery, and that three of the remaining four of us had drawn knives.

It seemed that the weather was conspiring in the drama, for it grew gloomier, and the wind blew raindrops into our faces.

A man looked around the pillar of the archway, and smiled, then stepped out onto the flagstones, his hands held out in greeting. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the wind.

'He said that he was going to try to get to the equipment and find someone who could perhaps help up. He seems to have suceeded beyond all expctations.' He beamed at us. 'Welcome to this continuum. I'm afraid it will not be at all like your usual situation, but we will do our very best to keep you safe from the fashion police.'

We were all staring, for we all knew of this man - at least in our own reality we did. Now we met him in person, but he was wearing such apparel as we never would have imagined.

He wore trousers. Cheap and nasty fabric, rather like poor quality curtain material, dark blue trousers and a jacket with fine stripes of three shades of blue. A white shirt and a dark blue tie the same shade as the trousers. His belt and shoes seemed to be made from black plastic.

The Captain and the man in the camo kilt came out from hiding and joined us as we chorused his name.

'Hamish?'

[Pleater]

We spent several hours in the depths of the House - it has seven stories if you include the belvedere - though in this reality it was no longer safe to ascend the western staircases. The ground is bone dry so there is no danger of damp, and the room we sat in was quite pleasant even though it was only normally accessible from the lowest celler level.
'In case of need,' Hamish had told us 'you can climb up onto the table, then onto that book case and in the corner there are rungs which enable you to climb up - it comes out in the sunken garden. It is checked every month, to ensure it is safe and clean.'

We were shown a heap of hand written journals - though some were simply pieces of paper sewn together - which dated from the last one hundred years. They gave information about the arrival of representatives of an organisation called Fashion Furs. They now ran the entire planet, and had distorted its economy and population beyond recognition, and perhaps recovery.

The journals gave the details of how economies had been undermined, governments brought down, officials had been bribed or intimidated to bring about the sad state of affairs which had prevailed for decades.

'Some of us were selected to visit the Home world, and to work there. We were told that it would benefit our families back here - and in a way I supose it did. I was one of those who went to the Fashion University, and I designed garments and selected the fabrics for one of the most powerful families in the Fashion business, until the Boss decided to put a grey fabric without any warmth with a rather red brown.'
He looked at us for understanding.

'But that would not look right at all,' said the Chorister, flapping the sleeves of her gown in agitation at the image created. 'Did he not realise that?'

Hamish sighed and shook his head, 'It was a woman, so I supose I should not have argued with the lady, but I persisted, as I was sure that she would see sense. That same day I was sent back here. They were not vindictive, I can wear the blue uniform and I have a small pension, but of course all the benefits to my family were stopped.
I could still make some money by hunting for furs here - but now - over the last twenty years or so, the light furs are no longer wanted. Our young men are now forced to venture into the far north to hunt a dreadful creature not native to this reality - there have been many deaths and maimings.
A resistance movement has developed, to try to combat the Fashion Furs operations here, and your arrival here is part of the plans of that movement. We want to drive these people from our reality and restore some kind of normalityl'

'But what can we do that you can't do yourselves with this evidence?' enquired the pin stripe clad civil servant.

Hamish gave us a spaniel look.
'You can tell us how we could live. You can give us hope for a better future.'

There was a silence.

'Tell us what needs to be done.' I said.

[Standard]

Good beginning Pleater, you definately have me hooked.

int:

[Pleater]

Hamish's expression was interesting.

It dawned on me that although in this reality there had been no Great War, nor any of the subsequent difficulties, there had also been none of the alterations in the position of women in society. The Captain, who was pretending to read one of the larger journals looked at me over the top of it and raised an eyebrow.

I was distracted for a moment - the hours I have spent trying to make my eyebrows work independently to achieve just that result.

The man in black - who was some sort of policeman - cleared his throat. 'I expect that the ladies will be of great help to us, we will have a great deal to organise, and there is nothing like the fair sex to see that everything gets done.' He had retained his black leather hat, and as he nodded in my direction and the wide brim partly eclipsed his face, he winked at me.

From this distance in time it is difficult to remember those first hours of being with multiple versions of myself. As an avid reader of science fiction in my youth I had, on a philosophical level, already considered all sorts of eventualities which had become real experiences.

I can only remember that it was not at all disconcerting, and perhaps it gave me some insight into what separated twins experience on being reunited.

I was rather surprised to see that all three of the men had silver hair, though the copper had a beard which still retained some darker hairs. It was logical, as my - our - father's hair had turned silver very early on. They were very alike - rather more alike than we three women. Apart from the beard the three men looked identical - had they exchanged clothing they would have been distinguishable only by their accents. The civil servant had good crystal vowels, the copper must have lived in the Midlands longer than I did, and the man in DPM was a part time soldier and full time chemistry teacher, with a northern accent.

We were saved from what might have been a petulant protest by myself as just them there was a tap at the door, and we were invited to go to take lunch.

The woman wore brown garments, a just above ankle length sack like dress with sleeves to the elbow. A plain white cap and apron indicated her position in the household was fairly low - I soon learned to read the hierarchy of caps and aprons. She came in and curtsied to Hamish, which we soon came to realise was entirely normal.

We went out through the lower cellar then up into the ground floor of the House. There was a room next to the kitchen where we could wash our hands before eating, and as I was the first to do this, I went into the kitchen - first of all to be nosy, and secondly to unpack my lunch, which I had forgotten about until them.

There were some twenty rather elderly women around, and they soon came to look at what I had placed on the long wooden kitchen table and exclaim over the different foods.
'Strawberries! I haven't seen strawberries in thirty years.'
'Do you not grow them here?' I inquired.
'Grow them? It is not allowed to grow anything.'
'There are no plants, anyway, so we could not even if we dare.'
'Well - if I scrape the seeds off these, then there could be plants - and if they were grown in the walled garden - who would know?'
They seemed unable to comprehend the concept of disobedience.
I quickly removed seeds from the berries, and gave the rather mangled remains to the women. There was about half a berry each, but they exclaimed over them, and a couple were moved to tears.

The housekeeper recollected the meal, and chivvied the staff back to the serving of it, and to the washing up from a meal already eaten - the staff ate earlier than the gentlemen, and I was encouraged to go into the dining room to join them and the others of myself so we could be served.

There were five men in the Committee to Overthrow Fashion Furs, as we came to call them. They were all related, for it suited Fashion Furs to deal with people who had obligations to eachother. With the loss of men in the hunting it was necessary for there to be a clan system, with older men and survivors as the heads of increasingly large groups of wives, widows and children.

We sat down to eat what was possibly the worst meal I'd eaten in my life up to that point.

[Pleater]

In the afternoon we returned to the underground room and the members of the committee told us of the various rebellions which had occurred, and of which they had some knowledge, over the last one hundred years.

We learned that in revenge for their uprisings entire nations and races had been removed to other realities, to places where Humans had died out. As far as they knew, on this version of the planet everyone had brown hair and brown eyes with a fairly light skin.

In the New World the native Americans hunted various types and colours of buffalo, deer and bear, Africa teemed with fur bearing creatures, as was probably the case in places further East - but they were a closed book to the Committee, places such as Australia and Japan were as remote as the far side of the moon.

[Pleater]

As the afternoon wore on, and we became more dispirited, I asked about the method used to transport the people away, and presumably bring us here.

They looked at the quiet one of the Committee.

'They do not talk about the equipment used to open the doorways between the worlds, not in front of Others.'
He put in the capital letter to give it significance.
'However, we have managed to gather some intelligence about it. We have even managed to gain access to it and so bring you here, though I am sorry that, in order to be certain of finding suitable men for our purpose, we also brought you ladies. It could not be helped and we do apologise for it.'

'I take it that we will not be able to return home unless we succeed in this venture.'
There was an awkward pause.
'Or is even that not at all certain?'

The civil servant smiled. 'You do have a knack of asking awkward questions.' he declared. 'I do suspect that we will be staying here for some time.'
'But you could return us to the time of our departure.'
'No. The ring will make a way into another reality, but it is at the present time, there is no way to move back in time.'
'Of course,' I agreed.
'But we do not intend to fail, we will be leaving after dinner to visit some people, that is the gentlemen will be going. We must leave you to your own devices, but we should be back by morning.'

I bit my tongue, endured another dreadful meal and wished them well as they set off into the night. They has some tiny carriages each pulled by four diminutive ponies. They were of the New Forest type, but rather smaller than the ones I normally see at home.

They were not back by morning. The women were very concerned and kept a constant watch for them. Eventually about noon three boys came with the vehicles and a note. They had gone to Wales. Nothing more could be discovered, and so we just had to wait for them to return.

[Pleater]

I gathered up a heap of dry dead plants and used my reading glasses to focus the sun onto some fine wisps of grass. It was soon burning merrily, spreading across the walled garden and removing years of neglect.

The women came running from the House in alarm, and tried to beat out the flames with brushes and mops.

'You'll bring the Fashion Police!' they shouted at me.
'Why? Surely they wouldn't be concerned by a garden fire.'
'They watch everything, you must not do anything to attract their attention.'
'How do they watch?'
My question was answered by the sound of an aircraft engine, and a small helicopter came into view over the high walls. It's pilot found a place to land and two of the passengers came to where we were all assembled. I had been pulled along by the household women, which was not wise.

The Fashion Police in their turquoise uniforms are arrogant, cocksure and they smirk - but the women were so meek and apologetic that I could have slapped them.

Fortunately there was a dirty old broken bottle lying on the burnt area, and the men concluded that it had caused the fire. They did not wish to get their boots dirty, I could see, so they took the first explanation which fitted the facts as they saw them.

Unfortunately the pilot kept the engine running downwind of the fire, and when it came to be time to take off, the revs would not increase. I assumed that the smoke had clogged the air filters, but the pilot seemed to have no clue about the possible causes of the problem.

They raised the alarm using a radio, I went to have a look inside whilst the Fashion Police were having a rather intense discussion on the other side of the aircraft. The company colours, turquoise and gold were used everywhere, and their rather artistic looking logo was on everything, even the material upholstering the seats.

The floor of the aircraft was littered with wrappers and dropped or discarded items. I picked up a pen and tried it on my hand, it did not work, so I swapped it for the identical, but working one on the clipboard in the pocket inthe pilot's door. I found a notebook under the seat, lots of sweets - someone did not like the yellow ones, a few coins, something sticky I did not want to know about. I put the pen and notebook in my skirt pocket, and retreated.

[Standard]

She came in and curtsied to Hamish, which we soon came to realise was entirely normal.

So things there are pretty much as here it seems.

[Pleater]

Just when I am about to get on to the explanation - I am going to be away from the computer for a week or so.

The story was supposed to be complete by now - as were all the preparations for my absence here - but that has not worked out either.

Ah well - the best laid plans of MHICE and me gang aft agley

I am sure that Panache and davedove will be able to keep you entertained whilst I am away, and I look forward to taking up the prequel to their tales.

Fear not, the Hamish persona is not left in a sad brown suit.

Anne the Pleater

[Livingston]

That is entirely fine with me, Anne. I have to leave for a week myself so I will end up being able to read the prequel before theirs.