by Clive Barker
But the Fugue had been different. It had seemed, for a short, sweet time, a place he might truly belong. He’d been too optimistic. The land might want him, but its people didn’t. As far as they were concerned he was contemptibly human.
He loitered on the streets for an hour or so, watching another Liverpool Monday morning get started.
Were they so bad, these Cuckoos whose tribe he shared? They smiled as they welcomed their cats in from a night of philandering; they hugged their children as they departed for the day; their radios played love-songs at the breakfast table. As he watched them he became fiercely defensive. Damn it, he’d go back and tell the Seerkind what bigots they were.
As he approached the house he saw that the front door was wide open, and that a young woman he recognized as a local. but didn’t know by name, was standing at the top of the path staring into the house. It was only as he came within a couple of paces of the front gate that he set eyes on Nimrod. He was standing on the welcome mat, wearing a pair of sunglasses that he’d filched from beside Cal’s bed, and a toga made from one of Cal’s shirts.
‘Is that your kid?’ the woman asked Cal, as he opened the gate.
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘He started banging on the window when I went past. Isn’t there anyone to look after him?’
‘There is now,’ said Cal.
He looked down at the child, remembering what Freddy had said about Nimrod only seeming to be a babe in arms. Having slid the sunglasses up onto his forehead, Nimrod was giving his visitor a look that fully confirmed Cammell’s description. Cal had little option, however, but to play the part of father. He picked Nimrod up.
‘What are you doing?’ he whispered to the child.
‘Bussteds!’ Nimrod replied. He was having some difficulty mastering the infantile palate. ‘El killum.’
‘Who?’
But as Nimrod went to answer, the woman, who’d come down the path and was standing half a yard from the door, spoke:
‘He’s adorable,’ she cooed.
Before Cal could make his excuses and close the door, the child raised his arms and reached towards her, a stage-managed gurgle in his throat.
‘Oh –’ said the woman, ‘– sweet thing –’
and she’d claimed Nimrod from Cal before he could prevent her.
Cal caught a gleam in Nimrod’s eyes as he was pressed to the woman’s ample bosom.
‘Where’s his mother?’ she asked.
‘She’ll be back in a while,’ said Cal, making an attempt to claim Nimrod from his luxury. He didn’t want to go. He was beaming as he was rocked, his pudgy fingers grappling with the woman’s breasts. As soon as Cal laid hands on him he began to bawl.
The woman hushed him, pressing him closer to her, at which Nimrod began to toy with her nipples through the thin fabric of her blouse.
‘Will you excuse us?’ said Cal, braving Nimrod’s fists and taking the babe from his pillows before he began to suckle.
‘Shouldn’t leave him alone,’ the woman said, absent-mindedly touching her breast where Nimrod had fondled her.
Cal thanked her for her concern.
‘Bye bye, beautiful,’ she said to the child.
Nimrod blew a kiss at her. A flash of confusion crossed her face, then she backed away towards the gate, the smile she’d offered the child sliding from her lips.
2
‘What a damn fool thing to do.’
Nimrod was unrepentant. He stood in the hallway where he’d been set down and stared up at Cal defiantly.
‘Where are the others?’ Cal wanted to know.
‘Out,’ said Nimrod. ‘We’ll go too.’
He was gaining control of his tongue by the syllable. And of his limbs too. He tottered to the front door and reached up towards the handle. ‘Em sick of here,’ he said. Too much bad news.’
His fingers fell inches short of the handle however, and after several failed attempts to snatch at it he beat his fists against the wood.
‘I want to see,’ he said.
‘All right,’ Cal agreed. ‘Just keep your voice down.’
‘Take me out.’
The cry was genuinely forlorn. There was little harm in giving the child a brief tour of the neighbourhood, Cal decided. There was something perversely satisfying about the thought of carrying this miraculous creature out into the open air, for all to see; and more satisfying still, the knowledge that the child, whom he’d left laughing at him, would be dependent upon him.
Any lingering anger towards Nimrod evaporated very quickly, however, as his powers of speech became more sophisticated. They were soon involved in a fluent and animated exchange, careless of the glances they were garnering.
‘They left me there!’ he protested. ‘Told me to fend for myself.’ He held up his miniscule hand. ‘How. I ask you? How?’
‘Why are you shaped like this in the first place?’ Cal asked.
‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ Nimrod replied, ‘I had an irate husband in pursuit of me; so I hid in the most unlikely form I could think of. I thought I’d keep my head down for a few hours, then loose myself again. Stupid, really. A rapture like this takes power. And of course once the final weave began, there was none to be had. I was obliged to go into the carpet like this.’
‘So how do you get back to normality?’
‘I can’t. Not until I’m back on Fugue soil. I’m helpless.’
He pushed the sunglasses up to take a look at a passing beauty.
‘Did you see the hips on her?’ he said.
‘Don’t slaver.’
‘Babies are supposed to slaver.’
‘Not the way you’re doing it.’
Nimrod ground his gums. ‘It’s noisy, this world of yours,’ he said. ‘And dirty.’
‘Dirtier than 1896?’
‘Much. I like it though. You must tell me about it.’
‘Oh Jesus,’ said Cal. ‘Where do I begin?’
‘Anywhere you like,’ Nimrod replied. ‘You’ll find me a fast learner.’
What he said was true. On their half-hour walk around the vicinity of Chariot Street he questioned Cal on a wild selection of topics, some stimulated by something they saw in the street, others more abstract. First they talked of Liverpool, then of cities in general, then of New York and Hollywood. Talk of America took them on to East-West relations, at which point Cal listed all the wars and assassinations he could remember since 1900. They touched briefly on the Irish Question, and the state of English politics, then on to Mexico, which they both had a yearning to visit, and thence to Mickey Mouse, the basic principle of aerodynamics, and back, via Nuclear War and the Immaculate Conception, to Nimrod’s favourite subject: women. Or rather, to two in particular, who’d caught his eye.
In return for this short introduction to the late twentieth century Nimrod gave Cal a beginner’s guide to the Fugue, telling him first of Capra’s House, which was the building in which the Council of the Families met to debate; then of the Mantle, the cloud that hid the Gyre, and the Narrow Bright, the passage that led into its folds; and from there to the Firmament, and the Requiem Steps. The very names filled Cal with yearning.
Much was learned on both sides, not least the fact that they might with time become friends.
‘No more talk,’ said Cal as they came full circle to the gate of the Mooney house. ‘You’re a baby, remember?’
‘How could I forget?’ said Nimrod with a pained look.
Cal let himself in and called out to his father. The house, however, was silent from attic to foundations.
‘He’s not here,’ said Nimrod. ‘For God’s sake put me down.’
Cal deposited the baby on the hallway floor. He immediately began towards the kitchen.
‘I need a drink,’ he said. ‘And I don’t mean milk.’
Cal laughed. ‘I’ll see what I can find,’ he said, and went through to the back room.
Cal’s first impression, seeing his father sitt
ing in the armchair with his back to the garden, was that Brendan had died. His stomach turned over; he almost cried out. Then Brendan’s eyes flickered, and he looked up at his son.
‘Dad?’ said Cal. ‘What’s wrong?’
Tears were spilling down Brendan’s cheeks. He made no attempt to brush them away, nor to stifle the sobs that shook him.
‘Oh Dad …’
Cal crossed to his father and went down on his haunches beside the chair.
‘It’s all right …’ he said, putting his hand on his father’s arm. ‘Been thinking about Mum?’
Brendan shook his head. The tears tumbled. Words would not come. Cal didn’t ask any further questions, but held onto his father’s arm. He’d thought Brendan’s melancholy had been lifting; that the grief was blunted now. Apparently not.
At last Brendan said:
‘I … I had a letter.’
‘A letter?’
‘From your mother,’ Brendan’s liquid gaze fell on his son. ‘Am I mad, Cal?’ he said.
‘Of course not, Dad. Of course not.’
‘Well, I swear …’ he put his hand down the side of the chair and plucked out a sodden handkerchief. He wiped his nose, it’s over there,’ he said nodding towards the table. ‘Look for yourself.’
Cal went to the table.
‘It was in her handwriting,’ Brendan said.
There was indeed a piece of paper lying on the table. It had been much folded and unfolded. And, more recently, wept upon.
‘It was a lovely letter,’ he said, ‘telling me she was happy, and I wasn’t to go on grieving. She said …’
He stopped as a new bout of sobs overtook him. Cal picked the sheet up. It was thinner than any paper he’d ever set eyes on, and it was blank on both sides.
‘She said she was waiting for me, but that I shouldn’t fret about that, because waiting was a joy up there, and … and I should just get on with enjoying life for a while, ‘til I was called.’
It wasn’t just that the paper was thin, Cal now realized; it seemed to be growing more insubstantial as he watched. He put it back on the table, the small hairs at the nape of his neck prickling.
‘I was so happy, Cal,’ Brendan was saying. ‘It was all I wanted, knowing that she was happy, and I’d be with her again one day.’
‘There’s nothing on the paper. Dad,’ Cal said softly. ‘It’s blank.’
‘There was. Cal. I swear it. There was. It was in her handwriting. I’d know it anywhere. Then – God in Heaven – it just faded away.’
Cal turned from the table to see his father practically folded up double in the chair, sobbing as though his grief was beyond bearing. He put his hand on his father’s hand, which was gripping the thread-bare arm of the chair.
‘Hold on. Dad,’ he murmured.
‘It’s a nightmare, son,’ Brendan said. ‘It’s like I lost her twice.’
‘You haven’t lost her. Dad.’
‘Why did her writing disappear like that?’
‘I don’t know. Dad.’ He glanced back at the letter. The sheet of paper had practically faded altogether.
‘Where did the letter come from?’
The old man frowned.
‘Do you remember?’
‘No … no, not really. It’s hazy. I remember … somebody came to the door. Yes. That was it. Somebody came to the door. He told me he had something for me … it was in his coat.’
Tell me what you see and it’s yours.
Shadwell’s words echoed in Cal’s skull.
Have what you like. Free, gratis and without charge.
That was a lie of course. One of many. There was always a charge.
‘What did he want. Dad? In exchange? Can you remember?’
Brendan shook his head, then, frowning as he tried to recollect:
‘Something … about you. He said … I think he said … he knew you.’
He looked up at Cal.
‘Yes he did. I remember now. He said he knew you.’
‘It was a trick, Dad. A disgusting trick.’
Brendan narrowed his eyes, as if trying to comprehend this. And then, suddenly, the solution seemed to come dear.
‘I want to die, Cal.’
‘No. Dad.’
‘Yes I do. Really I do. I don’t want to bother any longer.’
‘You’re just sad,’ Cal said softly. ‘It’ll pass.’
‘I don’t want it to,’ Brendan replied. ‘Not now. I just want to fall asleep and forget I ever lived.’
Cal reached and put his arms around his father’s neck. At first Brendan resisted the embrace; he’d never been a demonstrative man. But then the sobs mounted again, and Cal felt his father’s thin arms stretch around him, and they hugged each other tight.
‘Forgive me, Cal,’ Brendan said through his tears. ‘Can you do that?’
‘Shush, Dad. Don’t be daft.’
‘I let you down. I never said the things … all the things I felt. Not to her either. Never told her… how much … never could tell her how much I loved her.’
‘She knew. Dad.’ said Cal, his own tears blinding him now. ‘Believe me, she knew.’
They held each other a little while longer. It was small comfort, but there was a heat of anger in Cal that he knew would dry his tears soon enough. Shadwell had been here; Shadwell and his suit of deceptions. In its folds, Brendan had imagined the letter from Heaven, and the illusion had lasted for as long as the Salesman had needed him. Now Brendan was redundant; the carpet had been found. So the magic no longer held. The words had faded, and finally the paper too, returned to that no-man’s land between desire and consummation.
‘I’ll make some tea, Dad,’ Cal said.
It was what his mother would have done in the circumstances. Boiled some fresh water, warmed the pot and counted out the spoonfuls of tea. Setting domestic order against the chaos, in the hope of winning some temporary reprieve from the vale of tears.
VI
EVENTS IN A HIGH WIND
1
s he stepped back into the hall, Cal remembered Nimrod.
The back door was ajar, and the child had tottered out into the wilderness of the garden, dwarfed by the bushes. Cal went to the door and called after him, but Nimrod was busy pissing into a bed of rampant Sweet William. Cal left him to it. In his present condition the most gratification Nimrod could hope for was a good piss.
As he set the kettle on the stove, the Bournemouth train (via Runcorn, Oxford, Reading and Southampton) thundered past. A moment later Nimrod was at the door.
‘Good God,’ he said. ‘How did you ever sleep here?’
‘You get used to it,’ said Cal. ‘And keep your voice down. My Dad’ll hear you.’
‘What happened to my drink?’
‘It’ll have to wait.’
‘I’ll bawl,’ Nimrod warned.
‘So bawl.’
His bluff called, Nimrod shrugged and turned back to survey the garden.
‘I could get to love this world,’ he announced, and stepped out again into the sunlight.
Cal picked up a soiled cup from the sink, and rinsed it clean for his father. Then he crossed to the refrigerator in search of milk. As he did so he heard Nimrod make a small sound. He turned, and went to the window. Nimrod was staring up at the sky, his face wide with wonder. He was watching a plane go over, no doubt. Cal retraced his steps. As he took the milk, which was practically the sole occupant of the refrigerator, off the shelf, there was a rapping on the front door. He looked up again, and two or three impressions hit him at the same time.
One, that a breeze had suddenly got up from somewhere. Two, that Nimrod was stepping back into the thicket of raspberry bushes, in search of a hiding place. And three, that it was not wonder on his face, but fear –
Then the rapping became a beating. Fists on the door.
As he made his way through the hall he heard his father say:
‘Cal? There’s a child in the garden.’
And from
the garden, a shout.
‘Cal? A child –’
From the corner of his eye he saw Brendan walk through the kitchen, heading for the garden.
‘Wait, Dad –’ he said, as he opened the front door.
Freddy was on the step. But it was Lilia – standing a little way behind him – who said:
‘Where’s my brother?’
‘Out in the –’
Garden, he was going to say, but the street scene outside left him mute.
The wind had picked up every item not nailed down – litter, dustbin lids, pieces of garden furniture – and flung them into an aerial tarantella. It had uprooted flower beds, and was picking up the soil from the borders, staining the sun with a veil of earth.
A few pedestrians, caught in this hurricane, were clinging to lamp-posts and fences; some were flat on the ground, hands over their heads.
Lilia and Freddy stepped into the house; the wind followed, eager for fresh conquest, roaring through the house and out again into the back garden, its sudden gusts so strong Cal was almost flung off his feet.
‘Shut the door!’ Freddy yelled.
Cal pushed the door closed, and bolted it. It rattled as the wind beat on the other side.
‘Jesus,’ said Cal. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Something’s come after us,’ said Freddy.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know.’
Lilia was already half way to the kitchen. Through the open door at the back it was almost night, the air was so full of dirt, and Cal saw his father stepping over the threshold, shouting something against the banshee howl of the wind. Beyond him, only visible because of his toga, Nimrod was clinging to a bush as the wind tried to pick him up.
Cal followed Lilia at a run and overtook her at the kitchen door. There was a commotion on the roof, as a pack of slates were ripped away.
Brendan was in the garden now, all but eclipsed by the wind.
‘Wait, Dad!’ Cal yelled.
As he crossed the kitchen his eyes grazed the tea-pot and the cup beside it, and the utter absurdity of all this hit him like a hammer blow.