‘Farewell!’ he called softly. ‘Farewell!’
‘Good luck!’ I shouted back at him.
And then, as the engine began grinding forward, I realised there was something wrong. There was something missing from his luggage. The typewriter! Yes! How could we have forgotten it? He’d abandoned his ancient mischief-maker.
‘Wait!’ I bellowed, chasing along the platform as the clanking train curved away from the station. ‘Your typewriter!’
He smiled, shook his head and gave a little wave of his hand. ‘No matter!’ he shouted from the window. ‘I trust you’ll learn to master it. A small token. A modest gift. You’ll find it waiting beneath my bed. Goodbye! Goodbye!’
I stood there and watched him shrinking from view, rushing forward into the daylight. I never saw him again.
42
I still have his typewriter. It hasn’t been easy to find replacements for those old-fashioned spools of ribbon and the roller is worn and the clattering keys are prone to stick, but I wouldn’t trade it for a king’s ransom of computer hardware. The machine stands on a little table beneath my window where I like to sit through the long afternoons, gazing down at the yard.
The house was bleak without Marvel. We went into China with polish and dusters, stripped the bed and bullied the carpet. We wiped away his fingerprints and picked stray hairs from the armchair cushions. We left no evidence in the room to suggest that he’d ever existed.
For two or three days we waited for the promised procession of angry restaurateurs. But nothing happened. No one called at the house. The most sinister object that came through the post was a miniature free-sample box of Kellogg’s Frosties. We soon began to suspect that Marvel’s fears had been nothing more than the rambling thoughts of a lonely man.
We were wrong.
It happened late in the afternoon. It was raining. Father had left the house in search of a haircut. Mother was working in the kitchen, turning chicken scraps into supper.
I was in the front parlour with Senior Franklin, who had stretched himself out in the sofa to shout and swear at the daily papers. He peered at the arts sections with particular contempt. There were rumours that the Dwarf had been nominated once again for the Stanley Butler Prize for Fiction. The rumours had goaded Franklin to new extremes of indignation. Whenever he found an offending snippet, he would tear it from the page, screw it into a soft, grey ball and stuff it into his pencil pot.
‘Laurels for the alexic!’ he barked. ‘His arrogance astonishes. His gulosity astounds!’
The Dwarf’s name had also started appearing on Lists. And this marked a new phase in his long and relentless campaign for universal recognition. His latest book had appeared on Big Bertha Mapplethorpe’s Fifty Most Important Novels of the Century list compiled for the Sunday Superior. He was mentioned in the list of Sexiest Scowlers in the Wonder Woman magazine popular readers’ poll. He was listed as Man About Town by the Trumpet Society Supplement for most appearances at literary cocktail parties in any single calendar month. He was listed in Scribbler Quarterly as having produced The Longest Sentence, written in English, in any Modern Work of Fiction. He’d been appointed to the list of the World’s Most Dazzling Dentalwork in a vote by the Hollywood Dental School. He’d even been given his own special entry in The Modern Dictionary of Expletives as the author of sixteen novel terms of abuse.
These fresh accolades, no matter how trivial, wounded Franklin and served to sharpen his misery. ‘I cannot breathe!’ he complained. ‘I cannot breathe for the stench of him!’
I was sitting in my own armchair, flicking through Grappler as rain crackled on the windows. There was a special feature on the Great Kabuki, the lion-faced brawler from Singapore. But it was difficult to concentrate. I kept thinking of Marvel, delivered into Dorothy’s arms, and the pair of them walking together along the cliff paths surrounding the cottage. Dorothy taking a sketch book on their rambles through mouldering village churches. Marvel the amateur naturalist, keeping wild flowers in an album. Blackberries in the garden. Cats asleep on the hearth. A romance for Katie Pphart. In my jealous heart I hoped that it might be different. Marvel trapped in his room, defiant and sulking, while Dorothy vainly prayed for him and pushed bible stories under the door. She might be levitating! Floating helpless under the ceiling while Marvel sat on the floor and played with her mooring ropes. It was a crime! She shouldn’t be left alone with him. I knew how he felt about Dorothy. I knew that he couldn’t be trusted.
My speculations were interrupted by a violent banging on the front door.
Franklin looked startled, gathered up his papers and tried to bury them under the cushions. ‘Who is it?’ he shouted, as if he expected a sensible answer.
We were constantly under siege from roaming gangs of gaunt strangers selling combs and safety matches, dusters, pens and cleaning fluids. But even they would shrink away from working the streets in such bad weather. So I clambered from my chair and hurried into the hall.
He was large and pale and furious. A pot-bellied brute of a man with incandescent eyes and a bristling ginger moustache. He was wearing a ruined black suit with a satin collar and a drooping bow tie. The rain sprayed from his head and shoulders, splashed from his ears and the tip of his nose. His jacket pockets were flooded and his shoes were waterlogged. He was clutching a frying pan in his fist.
‘Bring me Belcher!’ he bellowed. ‘Bring me Belcher’s head on a plate!’ He raised his fist and shook the frying pan in my face.
‘He doesn’t live here!’ I shouted, trying to force the door closed again.
‘Liar! Pig! Stand aside for justice!’
‘Are you the Stuffed Owl?’
‘Guilty!’ he roared. He swung back his arm and smacked me full in the chest with the edge of the cast-iron pan.
I snapped forward, blinded with pain, and fell to the floor on my knees. I tried to crawl as far as the umbrella stand in some feeble attempt to find a weapon, but the Owl had splashed into the house and now stood over me, wheezing, triumphant, swinging the pan like a pendulum. His shoes puddled the carpet. His glossy black jacket began to steam.
‘Where is he hiding? Show me his carcass!’
‘He’s gone!’ I croaked. ‘It’s the truth!’ I was choking so much that I couldn’t breathe. My chest was on fire. There were cinders and sparks in my eyes.
‘You miserable bowl of tripe! I’ll find him for myself!’ the Owl said in disgust and made directly for the front parlour.
He found Franklin standing beneath a stained-glass window with his head wrapped up in the curtains.
‘Belcher!’ he roared. ‘Is it Belcher the Scribbler?’
‘No!’ Franklin shrieked. ‘You’re mistaken! A moment’s weakness. No more than a little foolishness. Forgive a wretched writer’s malaise. I meant no harm. I meant no serious injury.’
‘You bastard!’ the Stuffed Owl bellowed. ‘You miserable bullshit bastard!’
Franklin whinnied in terror, broke loose from the curtains and ran to shelter behind an armchair. ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me?’ he demanded, staring wildeyed at his assailant. He dashed from one armchair to another. ‘Nay, ’tis but a frying pan!’ He looked perplexed, frowning at the weapon, as if he’d expected his murderer to carry a sharpened fountain pen.
The Owl stood square in the centre of the room and watched his victim rushing around the walls in search of a nook or cranny, a bolt hole in the chimney, an escape hatch in the floor. ‘We’ve had enough of you and your cheesy comments!’ he shouted as Franklin came within range of him. He raised the skull-splitting frying pan and twirled the handle between his fists.
‘Don’t hit me! I’m dyslexic! I have a suspected heart condition!’ Franklin cried, as the Owl took a sudden lunge at him. For a brief moment he made a gallant effort at combat, flapping his hands in a queer sort of paddling movement that only served to annoy his opponent.
‘I’ll have your blasted head on a plate!’ the Owl shouted, whisking the air with th
e pan. He lashed out and caught the back of Franklin’s head, sending him sprawling over the carpet.
Franklin went down and came up again, staggered in circles, clutching his scalp. ‘Come, my friable friend, set down your weapon,’ he babbled. ‘We’ll say no more about it. No damage done that can’t be mended. Anger is a noble infirmity.’
‘Death is too good for you! They should skin you alive and make you suffer! They should pickle your eyes in vinegar! They should push your tongue through a bacon slicer! They should boil down your bollocks for glue!’
‘Go, poor devil; get thee gone!’ Franklin ranted as he ran about the room. ‘Why should I hurt thee?’
The Stuffed Owl grew so enraged by his victim’s conceit that he swung the frying pan again and this time chopped with such force that he nearly hacked Franklin’s head from his shoulders.
Franklin gasped and dropped to his hands and knees, head hanging loose, exposing his neck for the executioner’s blade. He tried to speak but his voice was reduced to a whistle.
‘You fancy ball of shit! You disgust me! You turn my stomach! You curdle my guts! You make me heave! You make me want to vomit!’
Franklin’s face was scuffed and swollen, an eyebrow had burst and one of his ears looked badly torn. Despite these injuries he managed to drag himself away and propped his shoulders against the wall.
‘Wounded, Horatio?’ he muttered, dabbing at the blood on his face. ‘Ay, past all surgery…’ he declared, wiping his fingers against his shirt. ‘Thou hast dealt me a mortal blow!’ he shouted. ‘Enough! Death pays all debts…!’
For some reason these words infuriated his fat tormentor, who began to batter him with increased vigour. ‘You dung ball! You badger bait! You boil-in-the-bag! You big girl’s blouse!’
Franklin came back to life, shrieking, scrambled away, leapt across tables and chairs and vaulted into the sofa. But his feet broke through the threadbare covers so that he became entangled about the ankles with exploding springs and found himself trapped, buried to the knees in horsehair and rusty wire, and remained there struggling like some tragic monster, half man and half sofa, a doomed creature trapped in a treacherous briar patch.
‘Don’t hit me!’ he bleated, holding his face in his hands. ‘I’m an artist! I’m not responsible for my actions. I’m a registered sirnpleton. A poor buffoon. I’m tuppence short of a tanner!’
The Owl wiped his moustache with a thumb as if the sweet taste of revenge were clinging to its bristles. The sight of so much blood didn’t trouble him. His kitchen must have been washed with blood. He had spent half his life gutting and draining animals. He raised the pan for another attack.
‘Stop it!’ I shouted. ‘Leave him alone!’ I threw myself at the fat assassin and tried to wrench the pan from his hands.
But he was large and he was terrible. He threw down his buckled weapon, slapped me aside and sent me spinning against a chair. The moment I’d picked myself up he came charging at me, seized me from behind, wrapped a huge arm around my neck and started to throttle me. I twisted. I choked. My throat snapped shut and the blood began to boil in my brain.
And here the tide of battle was turned. He had made a mistake. He was choking a serious wrestling student. I dropped forward, grabbed at his wrist with both hands and by kicking my heel against his ankle, upset his balance to such an extent that his own weight carried him forward over my shoulder and sent him crashing into the floor. It was crude but effective. He hit the ground with such force that he left a dark, damp shadow of himself stamped into the carpet.
He sat up and snorted in surprise. His bow tie sprang from his collar. ‘You snivelling snot-shit-shat-ball!’ he ranted. ‘You snit-snat-shit-shot! You snat-snivel! You shit-shovel! You shittering-snit-snotter!’ He seemed more insulted than injured. He sneezed, shook his head, climbed to his feet and flung himself forward.
This time I was prepared for him. I waited until I felt his full weight against my shoulder and then snatched his arm and part of his jacket to bring him around in a perfect cross-buttock counterattack. He turned a somersault and hit a chair, making it jump back in surprise, overturn and throw its legs in the air. He landed with a great shout of rage, thrashed out and rolled beneath the table.
But nothing could stop him. He appeared to be indestructible. ‘You snaffling shit-snogger!’ he wheezed as he hauled himself upright again. ‘You slit-slickering slot slubber!’ His shirt had been torn from his ruined pants, revealing a monstrous, dimpled belly.
He staggered to his feet and came towards me for a third time when mother, who had been watching the action from the safety of the door, came squelching into the room, picked up the bloodied frying pan and whacked him smartly over the head. It was simple. She smacked his head and he toppled face-down into the carpet. His legs collapsed. His belly capsized. He let out a small, sad sigh of surrender.
There was silence.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ I managed to gasp. ‘Nothing broken that can’t be mended.’
‘What happened?’
‘He was trying to kill me!’
She looked at me and frowned. ‘You let him have the advantage. You should have taken him out with a belly-to-back suplex and followed him down with a hammerlock,’ she complained as she wiped the frying pan with her apron. ‘You’re hopeless. I’ve never seen such a clumsy throw!’
‘I’m not the Great Muta,’ I said.
‘And he’s not Abdullah the Turk,’ she said scornfully, prodding him with her foot.
It was then we remembered Franklin, still sitting kneedeep in sofa, with his eyes closed and bubbles of blood on his chin. His face was a bitter shade of green. His tattered ear was blistered and black.
‘He doesn’t look quite right,’ mother said anxiously.
‘It’s a miracle he’s alive.’
‘Do you think it’s safe to move him? He’s made a nasty mess in these cushions.’
While we stood there gawping, transfixed, father came home, soaked to the bone, stepped into the parlour, stared around him in amazement, groaned, turned about and went back to walk in the rain. We didn’t see him again until midnight and by that time we’d restored law and order and scrubbed the blood from the curtains and carpet.
The Owl, once persuaded of his mistake, was a man driven mad by remorse. He wept and gnashed his teeth, he fell on the floor and howled. Despite his own cuts and bruises, he insisted on helping me pull Franklin free from his torture and take him down to the hospital.
43
Franklin was unconscious for three days. He lay in an iron bed with his broken head wrapped in bandages. Who can imagine his wonderful dreams? Did he stroll arm in arm with Laurence Sterne or stray farther afield to seek the advice of Tristram Shandy? Did he share a carriage with Daniel Defoe or walk in the sand with Robinson Crusoe? His brain must have bulged with the booming of voices, complaints of Johnson and chatter of Goldsmith. For three days he was lost in the golden city of his own enormous imagination; roaming through another, happier world where George Bernard Shaw had never been born, where John Bunyan wrote bawdy ballads and Smollet was free to send Peregrine Pickle to interfere with Jane Austen, leaving Darcy time to escape and run to the arms of Moll Flanders.
For three long days Franklin slept without stirring. The Owl sent ridiculous hampers of food that were carried away and shared by the nurses. Fresh salmon and smoked oysters. Onion tarts and venison pies. Janet went to visit each evening, forgetting Yoga and Pottery, sitting by Franklin’s bed, holding his hand and whispering prayers, begging God to spare his life. She thought he was going to die. She thought she had lost him. When he finally came to his senses he looked at Janet and smiled. He squeezed her hand. Tears of happiness filled his eyes. But it took several days to learn the full extent of the damage.
He was changed. He had been transformed. The bellowing literary giant was slain and Franklin came back to the land of the living in the form of a friendly, half-witted child. Here was a full-blo
wn miracle! His rage had leaked away with his blood and the poison had drained from his system. Nothing remained of his old obsessions. He was now the lonely and frightened creature that he’d always tried so hard to disguise. He was born again and everything was new to him. He appeared astonished by the world, delighted with the universe. He was fascinated by drinking straws, amazed by screwcap bottles and hoarded the plastic knives and forks that came each day with his supper tray.
He stayed in hospital for a month. The surgeons had managed to save his ears and stitch his eyebrows back into place. He didn’t look too bad. Towards the end of his treatment I went to visit him with Janet. It was a big city hospital with all the charm of an old Victorian factory. An entrance that would have graced a cathedral plunged the innocent visitor into a maze of gloomy chambers, tunnels and narrow corridors. A world of noise and heat and sorrow, yellow light and stale air. We found the patient sitting in bed with a copy of Chit-Chat in his hand. He was wearing a shawl and his father’s pyjamas.
‘Don’t let him know that you’re frightened of him,’ Janet whispered. ‘It seems to upset him…’
‘Hello!’ I shouted, grinning, as we approached his bed. The room was small and painted green with a cracked handbasin in one corner. The air was charged with the smells of urine and boiled food. The top of his bedside cabinet was littered with plastic bottles, old magazines and half-chewed polystyrene cups.
‘Booga!’ he burbled at me. ‘Booglie bob-jobbah!’ And he waved his magazine in greeting. His eyebrows looked enormous, painted with antiseptic and darned with a thick, black thread.
I smiled and nodded encouragement.
‘He’s happy to see you,’ Janet explained, as we settled ourselves into small metal chairs.
‘How are you getting along?’ I shouted at him. It was a bad habit. I was always shouting at invalids, as if their disabilities had driven them deeper into their bodies. ‘Is there anything you need?’
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