Grotesquerie

by Richard Gavin

  “Something like that, yes.”

  Inside, the house was warm and stale. Heavy drapes kept out the light, kept the rooms obscured.

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” lied Ivan.

  “Come with me,” Peters said. “You’ll appreciate this. The scold’s bridle is not only beautiful, it works. Come. Wifey’s in the kitchen making breakfast.” The wave of his hand was childlike, playful.

  Dread retarded Ivan’s rounding of the corner. When he finally willed himself to advance, his fear became manifest in the shape of the woman at the stove. Ivan could no longer move. His breath leaked out in a low moan. It felt like his organs had been replaced with ice.

  She sheepishly sat down at the kitchen table whose single place-setting was for her husband, who casually sat, took up his fork.

  The scold’s bridle crowned the woman like some gruesome headdress. The metal ears jutted up as though she was a startled hare listening intently for some encroaching predator. Aside from the cage on her head, the woman’s attire was quite normal, almost banal. She wore a robe of lavender satin. She was looking at Ivan, looking into him. Ivan could see her brilliant blue eyes, shimmering with tears of agony, shining out from the shadows of the Lepus mask.

  “Dear, we have a guest,” said Peters. “Set another place at the table.” His tone was noticeably firmer now, more like a military commander than a spouse. “Have a seat, Ivan.”

  Ivan nodded. Thoughtlessly he pulled one of the high-backed chairs out from under the kitchen table and sat down. He was happy for the support, for his legs seemed to have lost all their strength.

  Peters’ wife retrieved a plate, coffee mug and juice glass from the cupboard.

  “Here, let me…” Ivan said as he attempted to stand.

  “No,” Peters said coldly. Ivan looked at him and Peters shook his head. “No,” he repeated.

  She was facing them now. The metal bands that Ivan himself had manipulated so cunningly were now revealed in all their hideousness. The morning sun shone through the window with ironic brightness, causing the torture tool to gleam.

  Ivan could only suppose that the woman was pretty, so smothered were her features. Through the slats Ivan could see her eyes, wide and wet with tears. They were the only human feature he could discern inside that orgy of cold metal.

  “She likes rabbits,” Peters explained. “A jackass mask would have been too harsh.”

  She stepped closer in order to set his place. As she leaned in Ivan was able to hear faint gagging sounds and the awful chink of teeth-on-metal. Her breathing was sharp but uneven, drawn and exhaled solely through her nostrils. A dark wet thread suddenly sprouted from the muzzle. It left a small red stain on the linen tablecloth.

  “My god,” Ivan gasped before pushing himself erect. He turned and began toward the front door.

  “I told you it was for teaching,” Peters called, but Ivan was already out the door. The rest of Peters’ spiel fell on deaf ears, for Ivan was too absorbed in shock and self-loathing to hear. The only words that managed to rise above the murmur were “You’re culpable, you know!”

  Ivan rushed out into the day and squinted from the accusatory sunlight. He staggered back to his home. Once inside he went straight to the garage where the cordless phone was perched near his workbench. He had it in his fist and was about to dial when Peters’ words bored into him. He had been desperate, yes, but even this and playing up the grieving widower routine would only get him so far with the authorities.

  Panic set in. The garage became stifling. Ivan flung the track door open. He breathed in greedily, his mind racing.

  Ivan was so lost in his panic he did not hear the approaching footsteps.

  “Are you Mr. Biskup?” a strange voice called. Ivan jumped at the sound of it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  The woman in his driveway was not wholly unfamiliar to him. He’d seen her before: the young mother from the basement apartment down the road.

  “Mr. Peters said I should talk to you,” she said.

  “Talk to me?” Ivan sputtered.

  Allison. Was that the name Peters had called her?

  “He said you’d understand,” she continued. She moved to him, revealing her fatigue-ravaged face, her teary, reddened eyes. “It’s my baby,” she said. “He won’t stop crying. Day and night. I’ve tried everything; singing to him, midnight feedings, taking him for long drives. Nothing works.”

  Ivan’s hand autonomously found his mouth and gripped it.

  The woman held out a tattered envelope. “It’s all I can afford. I don’t need anything as elaborate as what Mr. Peters ordered. Here, I drew a sketch.”

  She unfolded a colourful paper from inside the envelope. It was an ad from a magazine or catalogue. The infant in the photograph had been distorted, its wide and innocent grin gagged by a hectic thumbnail drawing of a chin strap and blinders and a spiked ball-gag forced between the tiny lips.

  “I love my son, you understand? I love him. I’m not doing this to punish him. I just need some peace and quiet. I’ll only need this for a while…just a little while…just until he learns.”

  Crawlspace Oracle

  A few moments under the strange red lamps of the restaurant was all that was required to cause Rhiannon to wonder if she was dreaming. The long bus ride through the rainy afternoon certainly hadn’t helped matters, nor did the reason behind her trip: a reunion with a woman she’d considered, at best, an acquaintance in the office where she’d worked before Iain and marriage and the birth of the twins. It had been a long time since she’d ventured out on her own. She now regretted that her first outing was to this anaemic town that was notorious for being a haven for dismal weather and washed up entertainers.

  For reasons Rhiannon could never unearth, these entertainers seemed to migrate to this colourless burg to collect their meagre pensions while waiting to die.

  Today, Rhiannon had seen plenty of bleak weather, but only one example of the latter feature; when she’d deboarded at the bus depot she’d witnessed a scarecrow-like man on crutches attempting to juggle a trio of shining spheres. He’d watched Rhiannon hopefully as fluid (rain, perspiration, or tears, she could not tell) streamed down his cheeks. He’d made a pitiful sound as she’d walked by, clinging firmly to her purse. His whimper had been like a baleful note blown on an old wooden flute.

  Rhiannon had no intention of ever coming to this town, or of seeking out Hyacinth again. The very thought of Hyacinth provided Rhiannon with pangs of guilt, pangs that worsened when her memory trawled up specific details, such as the lavish gift Hyacinth had given her for the baby shower. But seven years had passed since that time and there’d not been so much as a single call or Christmas card between them.

  But once Rhiannon had arrived at the curious eatery and was able to see Hyacinth in the flesh, she wondered if they’d both been living on different calendars. If she were to use Hyacinth’s face as a gauge, it looked as though decades had passed since their last encounter, for Hyacinth appeared old and drawn and brittle.

  Rhiannon wondered if this was partly due to the strange macrobiotic diet that Hyacinth had spent the first part of their evening explaining in detail. She’d ordered queer, tiny delicacies from the menu and had requested a small pot of boiling water and an empty mug, in which she steeped some pungent herbs that she’d bundled in a small piece of cheesecloth.

  “I can’t thank you enough for inviting me to dinner!” Hyacinth said. “But I can’t allow you to pay the tab.”

  “Please,” answered Rhiannon with a casual wave of her hand, “it’s my pleasure. I only wish we’d done this sooner.”

  “Time is a startled bird flitting away from us, as my father used to say. Well, since you insist on buying dinner, if there is ever anything I can do to repay you, you may consider it done.”

  Rhiannon grew cagey once she recognized this opportunity to state her true motivation for this reunion. The opportunity was too perfect, both in timing and tone. It thrill
ed and unnerved her at once.

  “Funny you should say that…” she began, anxiously. The words were swirling about her head, just out of reach.

  Hyacinth flared her sallow eyes with interest. “Oh?” she said.

  “Yes. I was hoping to pick your brain about money.” Rhiannon flinched at her poor choice of words. Hyacinth’s expression darkened.

  “No, no, not like that! I’m not asking for a loan or anything of that sort!” sputtered Rhiannon. “I’m just looking for some advice.”

  “Oh.”

  The cord of tension that Rhiannon had felt tightening between the two of them began to slacken, to her immense relief.

  “You see, Iain’s had quite a good year at the agency: four quarterly bonuses on top of his annual salary increase. We’re looking to invest this extra money, put it toward something sound. It’s not a huge amount, but Iain’s pretty convinced we can make a respectable profit if we play our cards right.”

  Hyacinth shaped her sapped expression into something vaguely happy. “First off, I am truly thrilled for you; all snug with a husband and those little darlings you made. I’m tickled to hear that you have money besides. But when it comes to investing, I’m afraid I wouldn’t know one market from another.”

  “But those stories in the Gazette…”

  “Those…” Hyacinth said dismissively, “…those articles were inflated.”

  “They referred to you as Queen Midas,” Rhiannon said. She felt a peculiar pride when her comment caused her guest to visibly blush. “But you never gave those reporters the secret of your success, did you?”

  “I’m only as good as my guide,” Hyacinth confessed.

  “Your guide? So, you do have some sort of an advisor?”

  “Some sort, yes.”

  A fine balance was required for Rhiannon to probe her guest further without seeming rude.

  “Do you have a card for this person?” she asked. “Some way I can reach them?”

  Hyacinth stared past her dinner companion, toward the restaurant’s front window and through it. Rhiannon wondered what, if anything, the gaunt woman might have been looking for on those miserable streets.

  Whatever she was scanning the soggy night for, Hyacinth suddenly appeared to have found. Her eyes brightened with fresh inspiration.

  “I like you, Rhiannon. I always have. More than that, I trust you. And so, yes, I will show you. I will let you in.”

  With that, Hyacinth rose and tugged her long coat from the pole by their booth.

  “You mean now?” Rhiannon asked, flustered by her own lack of preparation. The world suddenly seemed to be spinning too quickly.

  “Of course!” Hyacinth gushed. “Come along. My car is just around the corner.”

  “I…it’s just that…I mean, surely their business will be closed by now.”

  Hyacinth was already halfway to the door.

  The car Rhiannon was led to was far humbler than what she’d envisioned a woman of Hyacinth’s standing would drive. She squeezed into the littered cab and endured the deafening rumble of an unmuffled engine. Her head was aching by the time Hyacinth chauffeured them off the main roads and down a maze of bleak-looking side streets.

  When she noted the house before which Hyacinth stopped her car, Rhiannon was bewildered. Could the woman be playing some type of joke? She’d never known Hyacinth to have a sense of humour.

  This confusion cooled into apprehension once Rhiannon closed the car door and watched her guide scaling the cement steps that connected the ugly lawn to a residence that was not much larger than a storage locker, and every bit as tasteless. It was a frame house, stunted and misshapen. It was as if an unskilled carver had whittled this stingy dwelling from a greater house, then tucked their shameful creation on a poorly lit backstreet in hopes of concealing it. The roof bowed where it should not, and the walls stood in a manner they could not, and the patina was the grey of curdled mushroom soup.

  Hyacinth unlocked the narrow front door and held it open for her guest.

  With that, as if on cue, Rhiannon’s surroundings conspired against her. A pair of men rounded the corner and began shambling in her direction (their voices deep, their laughter at some imperceptible joke scary), the lone streetlamp on the block began to flicker, the rain resumed falling.

  She crossed the lawn and scaled the steep concrete steps as quickly as she could.

  The realization that this entire adventure had been a grave mistake, which had been nagging faintly at the corners of Rhiannon’s attention from the moment she boarded the bus to come here, fully erupted the instant she crossed the threshold of Hyacinth’s house. What she was feeling was not the threat of immediate danger, but something vague, something dizzying in its menace. The nearest Rhiannon had ever felt to this sensation was déjà vu. She wondered if she had perhaps dreamed this reunion with Hyacinth years ago and was just now discovering that her dream had been an omen, a warning to avoid this detour on her life path. But it was too late now to heed.

  “Just throw your coat anywhere,” Hyacinth said as she shut and bolted the door. “Would you like something? Water or tea?”

  “No, thank you.” She kept her coat on.

  Hyacinth moved down the little hallway and snapped on the kitchen light, revealing a countertop piled with unwashed dishes and rows of hanging cupboards with their doors open, flaunting their vacancy. Queen Midas was evidently nearer to Old Mother Hubbard.

  Glancing discreetly through the archway to her right, Rhiannon saw a living room that was empty except for a folding lawn chair whose seat held a stack of rumpled magazines. The kitchen was as lacking in furniture and appliances as it was in foodstuffs. Rhiannon noted a small hotplate and a barstool stationed before the warped countertop. And that was all.

  “I apologize for the state of the house. Don’t think I’m not aware of the fact that it has seen better days.”

  “Oh…I…” stammered Rhiannon. “Are you in the process of flipping it?” she asked, her voice soaked in hope.

  “No,” Hyacinth replied. “I’ve been living here for some time now.”

  “What about your money?” Rhiannon immediately regretted her choice of words and scrambled to reframe her panicked interrogation. “What I mean is, surely you can afford to live a bit more comfortably than this.”

  “I have before. I hope to again. But the money’s gone.”

  Rhiannon wished that the woman’s tone wasn’t so cheerful.

  “I’m confused. I thought you had this excellent advisor, that the advice he’d been giving you was sound.”

  “Oh, it is. It’s very sound indeed. The fault lies with me, not my advisor.”

  “How so? Did you not take their advice?”

  “For a long time, I did. As my father did before me and his father before him. But it’s all about correctly interpreting the message. That’s the key. I’ve not been interpreting the messages properly, obviously. Or maybe it’s that the nature of the messages has changed.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Hyacinth stood leaning against the cluttered counter, studying her guest, scrutinizing her.

  Rhiannon looked away and loudly cleared her throat. “Um…did you happen to have that advisor’s phone number?”

  Hyacinth shook her head. “No need.”

  She crossed the tiny kitchen and pulled down the gingham towels that hung from a mounted rack. The removal of the towels revealed a door of whitewashed wood.

  Hyacinth pulled this back from its jamb, unto a black void, or so it seemed to Rhiannon, whose legs were losing their strength. Fear had rendered her helpless. She stood mutely, watching as her host clawed at the debris on top of the stained refrigerator until she found a large black flashlight.

  Though she appeared to merely be testing the batteries, Hyacinth had the light upturned so that its beam shone against her chin, a sight that stirred in Rhiannon frightening memories of ghost stories around bonfires during those awful weeks when she’d been left to fend for herself
at summer camp. She recalled how immersive those tales had been for her, the horrible impact they’d had, tainting the strange world around her as something seething with hidden peril.

  Standing here now, in this dingy kitchen, Rhiannon came to appreciate how true those impressions had been.

  Without a word, Hyacinth turned the flashlight to the open door and began her noisy descent of the basement steps.

  Recognizing this opportunity, Rhiannon turned to charge for the front door, but a chanced view through the living room window crushed her plan of escape.

  The straggling figures she’d seen moving down the unfamiliar street when she’d arrived were now loitering by Hyacinth’s rusted car. Or were these the same figures? No, for where there had been but a pair, there was now a group. Forlorn-looking women now stood alongside the imposing men. They looked to be huddling under the sputtering streetlamp like moths.

  Rhiannon reached into her purse for her phone to call a cab, or perhaps call Iain. She stole another look. The figures were ordering themselves. They were lining up single-file along the sidewalk.

  “Everything is ready,” announced Hyacinth.

  The sound of her voice made Rhiannon squeal. She spun and looked into a flash-lit grin.

  “You look frightened.”

  “I am!”

  “But there’s no reason to be. I’m coming with you, it’s fine.”

  Hyacinth began down the basement stairs first, which made Rhiannon feel just secure enough to move to the doorway and look down at those ruddy steps; anything to keep her focus off the strange congregation outside.

  The basement was no longer a wall of blackness. In addition to the gleaming finger from Hyacinth’s torch, it now hosted an intriguing sheet of prismatic light; something festive, carnivalesque.

  It was to this cloistered aurora that Rhiannon moved, one hesitant stair at a time, until eventually she found herself standing amidst the cluttered cellar.

  The room was reminiscent of an army bunker, with its stifling confines and its drab cinderblock walls. It also looked as though it hadn’t been properly cleaned since the analogue age.