The Murdstone Trilogy

by Mal Peet

  ‘Well, I’m amazed. You imagine the whole thing so vividly. You’re great, Pocket. I mean it.’

  If Philip had hoped that this compliment would soothe his guest, he was immediately disabused of the notion.

  ‘I don’t make things bleddy up, you arsecrack!’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘No! What d’you take me for, you hobble-brained lummox?’

  ‘But,’ Philip said, baffled, gesturing at the computer screen, ‘what about all this, then? What about …?’

  ‘There you go again! Fluking what and what and what! I’ll tell you fluking what, Marlstone. You’re writing things that haven’t happened yet! Yet. That a word you know? Yet?’

  The lexical part of Philip’s brain conceded that it was an oddly complex little word. And repetition seemed to remove its meaning. Made it a noise, like a reaction to pain. Stand on a drawing pin. Yet!

  But what he said was, ‘Is that a problem?’

  An innocent question that converted Pocket Wellfair into a small but monstrous hurricane full of blue-tipped hooks like fingers that sought throat.

  Philip wailed and fled stumbling down the stairs. He got to the front door but the Greme was already there.

  5

  Philip retreated to the fireplace and grabbed the poker. Wellfair pointed two fingers and the poker turned to soft liquorice and drooped in a loop. The phone rang. Wellfair turned it into pinkish meringue, then, snarling, aimed his hands at various parts of the room like a demented pistolero. For a few frightful seconds it seemed that he intended to transmute all of Philip’s domestic belongings into forms of confectionery. However, the storm in him abated as rapidly as it had brewed, and he slumped back against the door, hands falling to his sides. He looked exhausted.

  ‘Rein up, Pocket,’ he said quietly. ‘Leave yourself enough to get home with. If the Old Boy knew you’d been wasting like that he’d put an Ache right up your back passage.’ He lifted his old eyes. ‘Pardon begged, Marlstone. Not your fault. No. The fault sits right here with me. I should’ve told you. Should’ve warned you. But I didn’t. And now you’ve got yourself frolicking with Powers beyond your wottage. Beyond mine, come to that. Way beyond.’

  He moistened his lips with a pale indigo tongue.

  ‘You’re writing the future, Marlstone, and it can’t be allowed. Not by one of your lot, least of all. Not in dead inkage. Not when it’s lies. So just hand over the Amulet, there’s a good pony, and I’ll leave you in peace.’

  Philip didn’t move.

  ‘Come on,’ Pocket said wearily. ‘Come on. Don’t you get me naggled up again. You’ve seen what I’m like.’

  ‘What about the book?’

  ‘What book?’

  ‘The one I’m, we’re, writing.’ Philip raised a shaky finger in the general direction of his study.

  ‘Marlstone, there is no bleddy book. That what you’ve got hidden up there behind that pip-sucking doxy of yours is a winterborn misbegot. I don’t know how it got there, and I don’t want to. Just get rid of it. Bury it outside the parish and forget it. Top advice, that. You take it. Hear me? Now give me the Amulet. You don’t want to keep it, believe me.’

  ‘Please, Pocket. Listen. You don’t understand. I owe this book. I’ve got Gorgon on my back. Minerva. My fucking public. My credibility is at stake, Pocket. I’ve taken a million Jesus pounds for it. I’ve got to finish it! Can’t you see that?’

  ‘No. Nothing to do with me. Bugger, you do my head over. You need to do another book, make it up.’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t, I can’t! Not without you. Or the Amulet. Please …’

  The Greme tipped his head. ‘What d’you mean, you can’t? You do flaky ledgers, don’t you? That’s why we angled you in the first place. You haven’t led me on like a blind goat, have you?’

  ‘I …’ Philip said. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Did you say “flaky ledgers”? What are they?’

  ‘Bollix,’ Wellfair groaned. ‘Whatyoucallums. Hold fast.’ He hoisted up his coat and fumbled in the pockets of his breeches. ‘No, lost it. Had a list. Not a long one, mind. Something about a horse race. First Past the Post, or summat. Another one about a chicken. That was you, wasnit?’

  ‘Do you mean my novels? Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Nobbles, that’s the badger. Forgot the word for it.’ Pocket shook his head sadly. ‘Time was, I could catch words easy as shag-season trout. My old brain’s going threadbare. Hardly bleddy surprising, all things considered. Yes, nobbles. Give ’em one of those. Now …’

  Philip bent in a gesture of desperate supplication, his hands in front of him, cupped. ‘That’s not what they want. That’s no good. They want your next book. That’s the deal!’ He stopped short, aghast.

  ‘Aha,’ Wellfair cried. ‘Now there’s a word I do remember. Along with Oath, Four, Vital and Orbs. They clap your bell, Marlstone?’

  If Philip had anything left to say he was saved from saying it by a loud whirring noise. Something apparently alive wriggled visibly in Wellfair’s coat pocket. The clerk fished in there and produced a blueish egg. He twisted it, separating it into two halves which he peered at intently. He displayed them to Murdstone. Each had an internal surface of some dark substance inlaid with designs formed of what looked like brass.

  ‘That,’ the Greme said, ‘tells me I’m down to a fiftieth. That’s about ten minutes, in your money.’ He screwed the egg together again and returned it to his pocket. ‘So no more cackle. Last chance. Hand over the Amulet or I call in the Oath.’

  ‘No, wait. Look, maybe you haven’t thought this through. If you’re right, if what I’m writing, what I’m … receiving, is, like, the future, right, we should finish it. See? Then you’d know. You’d know what was going to happen. And you could use that against Morl. Somehow. Couldn’t you? See what I mean?’

  Philip was startled by the effect these words had upon the Greme. Pocket’s eyes closed. His mouth turned down at its corners and his chin trembled. He waved feebly with one hand as though trying to dispel some airborne contagion. For a second or two he resembled a child in an ecstasy of terror. Then, very quickly, he regathered himself and forced his face into an expression of amused impatience.

  ‘Craze my arse, Marlstone, you really have got toad-shite for brains. Real futures can’t be had. No one would do anything if they already knew what it was. A sprog at the tit could work that out.’ Wellfair rolled up his sleeves. ‘Right. I have to do this by the Book. So I have to demand Render three times. Don’t let me get to the third. Your eyes and bollix are hanging by a jimp. Have a little frot of them, Marlstone. Imagine them gone. Here we go …’

  The Greme extended both arms and cleared his throat.

  ‘By the Terms of the Oath,’ he intoned, ‘square made between me, Pocket Wellfair of the Realm, and one Marlstone, of Another Place, I demand Render of the Amulet of Eneydos.’

  He paused, his owl-gaze fixed on Philip’s face.

  ‘I herebys make demand of Render the first time.’

  He jiggled his fingers, waiting. Philip shrank against the wall, shaking his head. He sobbed, once.

  ‘Come on, come on, you cloutstreak,’ Wellfair whispered.

  Philip shook his head once more. Wellfair sighed.

  ‘I herebys make demand of Render the second time.’

  Philip made a sound like a lamb’s first bleat.

  ‘Don’t make me do this, Marlstone.’

  Wellfair waited.

  ‘Last flukin chance.’

  Philip screwed himself up into a defensive position. He bit his bottom lip. He closed his eyes tightly.

  ‘In a pig’s arse, then,’ Pocket cried. ‘I herebys make demand of Render the …’

  ‘All right, all right!’ Philip screamed, fumbling at the chain around his neck.

  Too late.

  ‘… third time.’

  Something fast and only just discernible occurred in the air. Fleeting and turquoise, like the glimpse of a kingfisher. Philip experience
d an icy tingling in his genitals, as though the fluids of his scrotum had turned to champagne. It lasted for no more than a second or two and was not entirely unpleasant, although he cried out just the same. Simultaneously, his eyes smarted as from the effects of smoke. He blinked tears away.

  And to his very great surprise discovered that he could still see.

  He could see Pocket.

  The Greme was rubbing his thin white hands together, warming them. Muttering and humming to himself in a dejected manner. Looking around the room, apparently assessing the difficulties it might present to a sightless eunuch.

  ‘Ho-hum. Well, well. Dumdee-doo. Bogger. Who’d have thought. Knew you was a bit of a dimmock, Marlstone, but never had you down for a complete spatch. But here you are, darkled and gelded by your own stubbornness. Ah well. Ho-dee-doo.’ He sighed, pulling himself up into the fullness of his small height, and tried to seem businesslike. ‘Spose I’d better sort out your tellingbone, so’s you can call the Blind Office. And that strumpet of yours. Tell her she might as well chew that cherry now, if it’s juice she’s after.’

  He gestured wearily at the phone, which reverted to its original substance. Then he turned and gazed sadly at motionless Murdstone for a lengthy moment. He raised his voice a notch.

  ‘Can you hear me, you poor poxdrip? The freeze I put on you will wear off afore too long. Then you’ll be able to bumble your way about. By then I’ll be long gone. I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure knowing you, but it’s been an arse-ache, truth told. But fair do’s, you did get the Amulet. So when you’re lying abed fingering your empty crotchwallet, you’ll have a spot of comfort knowing that you might, just might, have done your measure towards the saving of the Realm. Mind you, you better pray on whatever you’ve got left that Morl never finds out. Bogger, no. Shouldn’t even have said that.’ He made a hasty sign in the air, then took a step towards Philip, his hands reaching for the Amulet.

  Philip took an involuntary step back.

  Wellfair froze. ‘Marlstone?’

  ‘What?’

  Wellfair went into a crouch. Glanced swiftly around the room. Straightened. Thrust out a hand. ‘Marlstone? How many fingers’m I holding up?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Was that a guess?’

  ‘No.’

  Moments went by in slow motion. Then the Greme went into a demented spasm, like someone trying to dance pain to a standstill. His cries filled the room, writhing and wriggling and chasing each other, their sounds like harpooned whales seeking places deep enough to die in.

  When they ceased, when the fit was over, Pocket did not look at all like his former self. He hunched, apparently studying a damp patch on the carpet.

  ‘So you can see, Marlstone?’ A tragic whisper.

  ‘Yes,’ Philip said apologetically.

  ‘Both nadgers still warm and present?’

  ‘I think so. Yes.’ The air in the room was thick and stationary. ‘Er, it doesn’t seem to have worked,’ Philip said. ‘The Oath, I mean. I think it might be because—’

  He didn’t finish the sentence. The Greme was upon him suddenly. Up on his body, like a frenzied child. Biting. Scrabbling. Hard clammy fingers up inside the Harrods sweater, grasping at the Amulet. Seizing it.

  What happened then was like an explosion, except that it was cold rather than hot, and radiated violent silence rather than sound. It threw Wellfair clean across the room like a doll. Philip hadn’t felt a thing. He watched anxiously as Pocket rolled himself over and staggered to his feet.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Pocket mouthed words that didn’t come. He tried again. ‘Listen, Marlstone. I reckon we’re in deeper shite here than you could fathom. Don’t move. It’s worse than I thought. I think that bleddy thing is dark-charged.’ He braced himself, hands on his knees, and struggled to steady his breathing. ‘Right. Making this up as I go along, I am, like a pissed fiddler. But don’t panic. I reckon what you do is take the Amulet off, nice and easy, and put it down on the floor. Then I’ll have another go at it. Maybe you’re earthing it somehow, see what I mean?’

  ‘Well, no, actually.’

  ‘Square do’s. Nor do I. Worth a try, though.’

  The loud whirring again from Pocket’s pocket. He moaned terribly, slapping at it.

  ‘Come on, then. Take it off and put it on the floor. Hurry up, hurry up!’

  ‘No,’ Philip said. ‘I don’t think I will.’

  The Greme groaned liked something deeply subterranean. ‘Don’t give me any more of that. Please don’t start on that again, you mad flukin bumweevil. We’re right on the edge here, man. It could turn on you, don’t you see that? Take the bogger off!’

  ‘Shan’t.’

  Pocket didn’t hesitate. He took just one stride and sprang at Murdstone’s chest. He didn’t reach it. Before he’d even made contact with the Amulet, its force again flung him away. The Greme struck the back of the sofa, then disappeared arse-upwards over it.

  A short silence. A smell something like urine and roasted chestnuts in the room.

  ‘Pocket?’

  Christ. He’d better not be dead.

  The blue egg rolled into view. It remained stationary for a moment, then moved in wobbly ellipses around the floor, chirruping desperate high-pitched Morse. Pocket emerged from behind the sofa on his hands and knees. He looked dreadfully altered. Reduced and slack, like the victim of a hit-and-run liposuctionist. At a second attempt he grabbed the egg and stumbled to the stairs. Halfway up them, he managed, heroically, to turn his head and gasp last words.

  ‘Flukin nobblist!’

  Then he was gone.

  Philip heard the bathroom door slam and a dying wail. He waited for two whole minutes before setting off upstairs. He tapped on the bathroom door and said, ‘Pocket?’ just the once. When there was no reply he went cautiously in. One end of the towel rail had been ripped from the wall and had swivelled to the floor. The free end of the toilet roll trailed into the pan. Of Pocket Wellfair there was not the slightest sign. Philip looked fearfully up at the ceiling, but it was intact.

  Alone in the room he said, ‘I think it didn’t work because you got my name wrong. It’s Murdstone, not Marlstone. That might’ve made the difference.’

  He peered into the toilet bowl, just in case.

  ‘Murdstone,’ he said into it. ‘Murdstone.’

  6

  For much of the rest of the day, Philip’s relief at having evaded blindness and castration kept his other worries at bay.

  After Pocket Wellfair’s involuntary resyphoning into the Realm, he smoked a couple of cigarettes while waiting for his jumpy nerves to settle. Then he returned to his computer and tightened the belt around the Amulet. Nothing happened. No visuals, voice, or text. He was not dismayed; not even surprised. After what had happened there was bound to be a hiatus.

  He went downstairs and drank a large malt while microwaving a frozen Green Thai Chicken Curry. He was thinking that, on reflection, risking one’s eyes and testicles for a million pounds hadn’t really been sensible. He already had a million – more, in fact – in a Swiss bank and it wasn’t really that much money. It was far less than it used to be.

  He ate the curry, which was like a bath additive with lumps in it, then watched the early evening television news without taking it in. He took the whisky bottle to his study. After a while he decided to change his screensaver. Minerva and her cherry no longer seemed … appropriate.

  He clicked through the rest of My Pictures, but of the few that didn’t feature her there were none that took his fancy. There was a fairly good one of the neon riot that was Times Square, but you couldn’t make out the icons against it. In the end he chose a pre-installed Microsoft sample of the Taj Mahal because the Murdstone 2 folder looked nice in the blue Indian sky. Then he went to bed.

  He awoke to the early sounds of bird-chirp and tractorsnarl because something like a dream had startled him. But no, it was only memory. He blinked at the blank ceiling the
n turned his head and saw the usual. He checked the contents of his scrotum and found everything still present and more or less correct. He spent the morning doing housework, occasionally diddling himself through the lining of his trouser pockets, sometimes looking out at the world’s wintry things in a chuckly appreciative sort of a way.

  This smug interlude, this honeymoon with himself, didn’t last long, however. By the time the vague sun had leached into the dim of the Dartmoor afternoon the mantra I got away with it had lost its power.

  Because there was still the book.

  The unfinished book.

  And all the shit that went with that.

  He went to his study and tried to think in sentences.

  He had, what, a quarter of it?

  Well, nearly a quarter of what Dark Entropy had turned out as.

  Bloody good too. Dark, yes, but …

  Pocket would definitely try again to get hold of the Amulet. For sure. Had to. So he would be back.

  Get yourself ready for that, Murdstone. Stay away from the Wringers. Keep your eye on the lav.

  Or maybe he wouldn’t. Because the Amulet had, obviously, turned against him – Pocket – because, obviously, it wanted (could inanimate things want?) to be with him. Me.

  Yes.

  Because it had a story to tell him. Neither here nor there, all that bollocks of Pocket’s about it not having happened yet. Gorgon wouldn’t give a toss. Imagine saying to them, ‘Sorry, I can’t give you the new book because the things in it haven’t happened yet.’ They’d have him dragged off in a straitjacket to the agony dungeon of some corporate lawyer.

  Or—

  There wouldn’t be any more. It was over.

  No. Don’t Go There.

  There is the dark bourne.

  There is the windowless room where the spiders live.

  In which Minerva would rip him apart.

  He couldn’t take the Amulet off, of course. It might restart transmission at any time.

  Was it safe to go out of doors with it on, though, with livestock roaming about? Come to that, it wasn’t entirely unlikely that the Amulet might mistake the inhabitants of Flemworthy for Gremes. Indeed not. There would be very tricky repercussions if he popped into Kwik Mart for a bit of Stilton and inadvertently blasted a brace of locals through the freezer cabinets. Best not to risk it. He was fairly well stocked up. He could do without milk and the Daily Telegraph.