The Smell of Telescopes

by Hughes, Rhys

  When they departed, ’Lin took a hat from a peg, pieces of a mirror stitched around the brim. The sailmaker had asked him for a reflection. He passed it to the cook, to send on to ’Phagia—who alone knew where all pirates lived. He did so, and when he reached Trostberg, the pot of ages was ready. A meeting with his doppelganger, a bite of fates, could be delayed no longer. There was only one meal startling enough to entice the bald ghoul into his premises. Peeling the onion on his shoulder, crying once without regret, he climbed into the pot. Hot oil lapped his ankles, his thighs, nipples and unrefined lashes.

  The coconut remained unopened, on the barber’s chair. But it never could have assisted ’Ceti anyway. Inside, it simply foretold that Morgan would journey to Trostberg and claim the cook’s cauldron for a ship. By which time the contents had evaporated and clouds of steam billowed over the landscape, momentarily forming the silhouette of a gigantic man, a trio of capes lifting like wings before dispersing in the wake of an aerial craft, a terrible barque in the Gemini bight, heading for the Dog Star, shedding tears. But Morgan was Welsh and had nothing to match this, not even an eye moist enough to reflect flavours.

  A Person Not In the Story

  It was the year the Eisteddfod came to Lladloh. Anyone who has ventured into the lost corners of West Wales knows the fungal people with which it is infected—the dank little inhabitants, usually in the unfriendly style, dressed in patchwork coats. For me they have always had a strong repulsion: with their ghastly haunts, the sunken houses and constipated streets, the nameless taverns. In this respect, Lladloh seems to fester more horribly than its fellows. The village is an eruption on the flesh of the land; it is pleasing that the sore was lanced by a man who bears the name of his achievement—Doctor Pin.

  “I suppose you’ll be getting away pretty soon, now you’ve been made redundant, Doctor?” said a personable Signor to the eccentric Professor of Engineering. Pin was something of an old woman—he baked puddings in his bedroom—but he was dauntless and sincere in his confections, and a maverick deserving of the highest respect.

  “Yes,” he said; “my friends have been making fun of me this term. I mean either to redeem my reputation or kill myself. My train departs for Lladloh (I dare say you don’t know it) in an hour.”

  “Oh, Pin,” said another neighbour at the farewell feast, “if you’re going to Wales, I wish you would look at the site of the Garden Festival and let me know if you think it would be good to have a dig there in the Winter.” This came, as you might suppose, from an Horticulture graduate. With his fork, he irrigated his curry.

  “Certainly not,” replied rude Dr Pin; “the show you allude to takes place in Builth Wells and Lladloh is ninety shepherds further on. All of you should know that this expedition of mine will be undertaken with the object of tracing something in connection with the antique steam turbine locked away in the basement of my Department.”

  At this point, Pin went carefully over ground with which we are not at all familiar. “Nobody knows quite how it ended up here, in St James’s College. I reason it was stolen by one of our roving antiquarians before the feelings of rightful owners were taken into account. It’s an amazing device; scarcely larger than a grapefruit, yet capable of doing the work of a thousand well-paid porters. Its exact workings remain the secret of its designer, the legendary Kingdom Noisette.”

  “There has always been much gossip about that fellow,” observed the Italian scholar who, like minestrone soup, appears only in the prologue. “Yet efforts to research his history have hitherto failed. Do you expect to succeed in Wales? Do you suppose the Chancellor will reinstate you if you manage to document Noisette’s origins?”

  “Well, it is rather hard to say exactly what I do suppose,” was the frank answer; “but I’m hoping for more than a biography from my pains. A fresh insight into a radical new form of mechanics is my ultimate aim. I want to make porters obsolete within a generation. I predict a time when our swan-cutlets will be served by automation!”

  The small group of friends digested this notion under the impassive gaze of a serving-boy. The refectory was old, cluttered and imprecise in layout: the furnishings were little better than what might be found in a Sadducee’s tent. Ugly brass coronae hung from the roof; the iron cutlery was as ill-matched as a divorced couple’s tongues.

  “Such talk was the cause of your downfall,” said the Gardener after a pause; “your proposed device to mark examination papers in the absence of the Chancellor proved a dismal failure on two counts. It was a source of annoyance to the worthy in question; secondly, it would have drenched his office in ink. Gravis ira regum est semper!”

  “You’ve been listening to Somerton again! How I mistrust Latinists! But remember: audentes fortuna juvat. When I solve the enigma of Kingdom Noisette’s engines, I shall return in triumph to overthrow the doddering fool who is currently head of St James’s.”

  “Steady on,” cried a certain Professor Axl Persson, a Nordic savant who was naturally of a taciturn disposition; “although I sympathise with your plight, I am still an employee of this institution. Criticism of Mr Parkins must be limited to mild insults.”

  “Oh, you are a reactionary!” blurted Dr Pin. In essence, this was a fair appraisal. Since his arrival from Jutland on an exchange programme, Professor Persson had joined the Conservative Party and was intending to stand for Parliament in a Nottingham seat. His Danish nationality had so far excited little comment among the electorate.

  “But why have you chosen Lladloh to begin your quest?” inquired the Italian; “from my knowledge of etymology, Kingdom Noisette does not seem a Welsh name. It has an Anglo-French lilt.”

  “That sounds logical,” cried Pin; “but I believe it to be a cunning pseudonym, a play on words. My skill with puddings has helped me here: a noisette is a nut-like sweet. A nut is a colloquial lunatic. Lladloh has a habit of declaring itself independent and crowning locals as monarchs. In other words, it’s a kingdom of nutters!”

  At this, there was a general murmuring of appreciation for Dr Pin’s powers of ratiocination. Few conundrums were tortuous enough to conquer his intellect. He was also a solver of newspaper crosswords; before some adventures which we shall shortly divulge instilled in him a mortal fear of any material which flaps or flutters.

  The Italian, a daring soul with a moustache, now asked why Parkins, the Chancellor, had always disliked Dr Pin. They were, in fact, the only two surviving staff members from the Golden Age of St James’s. With much of that naïvety often attributed to Mediterranean questions, he wondered whether a dark secret lurked in their past.

  Pin flushed, with wine as well as shame, and replied that once they had been passable friends. In those days, Parkins was merely a Professor of Ontography; a fussy chap, destitute of the sense of humour. But after a holiday in Burnstow (the details of which were never revealed) Parkins became aggressive and morbid in outlook. He seemed to blame the engineer for an unspecified crisis which he’d endured.

  “I honestly don’t know why he split with me,” Pin sighed; “but his other colleagues also found him intolerable. Rogers and Disney left the College, driven to ill-health by his bickering. Without rivals, he soon worked his way to the top of the academic ladder. I endured his insults and remained, for the sake of the facilities.”

  The Gardener nodded sombrely, wielding his spoon like a spade. “Odd business, I agree. But speak more of your intended triumphal return. You shall be mounted atop a modern equivalent of a white charger, I take it? A locomotive powered by one of Noisette’s engines?”

  “Capital idea, Bradley!” the Italian applauded; “though Dr Pin will undoubtedly find the current distractions of Lladloh a drain on his time and energy. I’m not talking about a golf-course but the Eisteddfod which has started there. I am considering whether it will constitute something in the nature of a hindrance to his work.”

  “Perhaps,” said Pin, rather hastily; “but I suppose I can manage to rough it for the time I anticipate being there. Not
that I call avoiding male-voice choirs roughing it. I booked a double-bedded room in the only open lodging-house. I must have a fairly large room for I am taking some cogs down as well as the ancient turbine.”

  And with this pronouncement, the company fell silent until the last course was eaten and cleared away. Cigars and sherry put in a lugubrious appearance: with a funereal finality, no speeches were volunteered, only small-talk, which adopted a circular pattern; the same queries were made by every member of the party in turn. “I suppose you’ll be getting away pretty soon...” started A. Persson, Nottingham Tory, and Pin, knowing it was time to leave, pushed back his chair and stood, shaking hands with a grim smile and an engineer’s blistered fingers.

  In relating the above dialogue, I have tried to give the impression which it made on me; that although something of an old woman, Pin was an exceedingly ambitious and capable one. He left the refectory and reached his rooms, where he collected his tools and cake-tins. Then he went down into the basement and picked up the miniature turbine. On the ascent, an evil impulse seized him—the urge to give the Chancellor a slice of his mind. He knocked on his door; no answer. So he turned the handle and was astonished when the study proved to be unlocked and deserted. The reason for this does not lack irony: Parkins was in his own cellar, ear pressed to a water-pipe. The plumbing of St James’s left much to be desired, and the Chancellor had discovered the acoustical properties of its conduits. Because of his suspicious and cruel mind, he was an habitual eavesdropper on the conversation of diners in the refectory.

  Realising the propriety of returning to his office when Dr Pin left the dining-room, Parkins groped his way through the gloomy basement; but his foot caught, partly in an electric cable and partly in a large stack of banned magazines, and over he went. When he got up, vital minutes had been wasted. Pin was already scheming his break-in and embracing quite a different sort of pipe—a briar. Let us return to the engineer and view his indiscreet doings with grudging admiration.

  Candle in hand and pipe in mouth, he moved around the room for some time, taking stock of the ornaments on display. The majority were of an ontographical nature; but on the mantelpiece lay something which bore a resemblance to a small sarcophagus of copper. The padlock which secured it was unfastened. Opening the lid, Pin lighted one match after another to help him see of what nature the box was, but the plot was too strong for them all. He introduced his hand and met with a cylindrical object resting on the floor of the moribund casket. He picked it up, naturally enough, and when he brought it into the light, he saw it was yet another kind of pipe—a metal tube four inches long.

  It was of bronze and shaped very much after the manner of a modern referee’s whistle. In fact it was—yes, certainly it was—actually no more nor less than a whistle, but quite full of crushed seashells, as if it had been cast into the sea by a very brawny arm and washed up again. Pin blew tentatively, but the note inside was stuck, and would not yield to knocking, but must be loosened with a knife. Pin deemed it something dear to the Chancellor’s hidden heart and, still in his wicked phase, he pocketed it. A vague memory came back to him: had Parkins not mentioned a whistle after his Burnstow vacation? It was so long ago that Pin could hardly remember; and so much the worse for him. The object felt heavy in his possession, as if it were not a rudimentary musical apparatus of the sort favoured by boys, but a fully-grown man with shoes full of sand. As this was an absurd notion, Pin expelled it.

  It has to be noted that the engineer felt little guilt at stealing. St James’s had a tradition of scholarly appropriation; a lack of concern in what a native’s views might be was considered essential. Changes have been wrought since then, I’m pleased to say: the institution compensates for its desecrations these days. But less of the moralising! It is more appropriate, at this juncture, to record Pin’s departure from St James’s and his arrival at the train station. As for Parkins: he gained his room in a poor condition, bruised the entire length of one knee, but saw in a moment what had occurred in his absence. He felt inside his box, and let loose an uneducated curse. Then he made a sudden decision, packed a few things into a carpet-bag and followed Pin.

  How unpleasant it can be, alone in a second-class railway carriage, on a first day of a redundancy that might be fairly long, to dawdle through a bit of Welsh country that is unhallowed, stalling at every haystack. The Lladloh express was late in leaving—Pin knew this was always the case, and that arriving at the station in time to catch it would simply ensure him a seat on an earlier one. But at last they pulled out; after rolling English fields, the train crossed the border into wilder terrain. With a map open on his knee, Pin picked out the villages that lay to the right and left by their church towers, and even spotted a few not designated. Soon he was in the depths of the country. I need not particularise, but if you divided the map of Wales into thirteen pieces, he would have been found in the one shaped like a harpy.

  When he had reached the edge of his map, and had nowhere to go, his mind attempted to divert him with memories and reflections. His life had been one of moderate success: he had taken a good degree, published work on fluid dynamics and magnetically-coupled circuits and even entertained his peers by seeking to combine branches of pure and applied mathematics in a single tutor. He was tolerated for his skill with Fourier Analysis and self-raising flour. Laplace Transforms were butter in his hands—or margarine on quasi-healthy days. In St James’s, he had been something of a misfit, never comfortable among those who lectured in Humanities. More than the others, Parkins had treated him kindly—and this fact made his later behaviour all the more incomprehensible.

  What exactly happened to him in Burnstow? After his return why did he snub his former friends? Was there any truth in the rumour that since then, the Chancellor refused to sleep under sheets, but preferred to lie naked on top of a bare mattress? And what was the significance, if any, of the whistle? Before the fateful vacation, one of Parkins’s principal characteristics was pluck. After it, pluck was demoted to the status of a fresher, while squinting and an acid tongue attained a position of some prominence on his troubled face. His views on certain points altered so dramatically that standard topics of conversation at dinner—surplices hanging on doors or scarecrows in winter fields—had to be forfeited to prevent him swooning into the gravy. Exactly what explanation was cooked up for visiting academics I must confess I do not recollect. Parkins was somehow cleared of the ready suspicion of hallucinogenic substances, and the college of the reputation of an opium den.

  Unlike Rogers and Disney, Pin was determined not to be bullied when the transformed Professor of Ontography started to harass him. Parkins threw himself into his work, acquiring power as he did so: after gaining the position of Dean, he was able to set homework for the Professors, as if avenging himself for some unspoken injury. Rogers and Disney left, to be replaced by Bradley and Collodi. The Gardener and Italian were honest chaps, but neither was young, neat or precise in speech. Pin missed such qualities, possessed by the original Parkins.

  While the engineer mused thus, he became aware of a clatter outside his compartment door. For some minutes he sat and pondered over possible reasons for this disturbance. There had been a movement, he was sure, in the empty connecting corridor. Might rats be playing about in it? It was quiet now. No! the commotion began again. But was it with rats? I should not ask, because in this case it was not. Besides, there was a rustling and shaking: surely more than any rat could cause.

  Pin was off his seat in one bound, and made a dash toward the door, with no better weapon than a template for gingerbread men. The rustling turned into a flurry of footsteps; the engineer poked his head into the passage just in time to catch a glimpse of a bobbing black object vanishing into an adjacent compartment. With its back to him, it was anonymous; yet Pin felt that its frictionless gait was familiar. With many misgivings as to incipient failure of eyesight, overworked brain, excessive smoking, and so on, he resigned himself to making a search of the carriage. He slowly
crept up to the compartment into which the figure had jumped, and peered through the glass at the interior. It was quite devoid of personages: as he’d assumed he was alone on the express, this revelation afforded Pin a crumb of comfort. But there was a blanket of some kind resting on one of the tastelessly upholstered seats—a previous passenger must have left it there—and this travelling adjunct bore a distinct human appearance, with a crumpled, and intensely horrible, face. Furthermore, it seemed to be quivering, as if panting after some exertion.

  For a moment, the engineer was at a loss to account for this. There were no open windows in the room; the wind was not disturbing the cloth. Then he remembered his notion of rats loose on the train; this proved to be the likely explanation. After all, ragged and mouldy bedclothes often heaved like seas, with the rats under them. Why not travelling rugs? Pin congratulated himself on his logical approach to mysteries, and returned briskly to his own compartment and fidgetings.

  The journey ended about midnight. Between the houses, Pin could see the tents of the Eisteddfod, with the monumental Grand Pavilion towering over the other structures. No cheerful country porter came to greet him. He was forced to carry his luggage onto the platform himself; as he took a rest on his suitcase, the aching engineer was almost knocked down by a trainspotter who collided with him at the very top of his speed. Instead of running away, the misfit remained hanging on to him, speechless with fright. It is dangerous to give a hobbyist such a scare as this one had had, and Pin, knowing this, sought the bottom of the matter.