by Mervyn Peake
‘I like the way you talk, young man,’ said Grass, ‘but I don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘What are you mumbling about?’ said the lofty Spill, bending one of his arms like the branch of a tree and cupping his ear with a bunch of twigs.
‘You are somewhat divine,’ whispered Kestrel, addressing Mrs Grass.
‘I think I spoke to you, dear,’ said Mrs Grass over her shoulder to Mr Acreblade.
‘Your wife is talking to me again,’ said Acreblade to Mr Grass. ‘Let’s hear what she has to say.’
‘You talk about my wife in a very peculiar way,’ said Grass. ‘Does she annoy you?’
‘She would if I lived with her,’ said Acreblade. ‘What about you?’
‘O, but my dear chap, how naïve you are! Being married to her I seldom see her. What is the point of getting married if one is always bumping into one’s wife? One might as well not be married. Oh no dear fellow, she does what she wants. It is quite a coincidence that we found each other here tonight. You see? And we enjoy it – it’s like first love all over again without the heartache – without the heart in fact. Cold love’s the loveliest love of all. So clear, so crisp, so empty. In short, so civilized.’
‘You are out of a legend,’ said Kestrel, in a voice that was so muffled with passion that Mrs Grass was quite unaware that she had been addressed.
‘I’m as hot as a boiled turnip,’ said Mr Spill.
‘But tell me, you horrid man, how do I feel?’ cried Mrs Grass as she saw a newcomer, lacerating her beauty with the edge of her voice. ‘I’m looking so well these days, even my husband said so, and you know what husbands are.’
‘I have no idea what they are,’ said the fox-like man newly arrived at her elbow, ‘but you must tell me. What are they? I only know what they become … and perhaps … what drove them to it.’
‘Oh, but you are clever. Wickedly clever. But you must tell me all. How am I, darling?’
The fox-like man (a narrow-chested creature with reddish hair above his ears, a very sharp nose and a brain far too large for him to manage with comfort) replied:
‘You are feeling, my dear Mrs Grass, in need of something sweet. Sugar, bad music, or something of that kind might do for a start.’
The black-eyed creature, her lips half open, her teeth shining like pearls, her eyes fixed with excited animation on the foxy face before her, clasped her delicate hands together at her conical breasts.
‘You’re quite right! O, but quite!’ she said breathlessly. ‘So absolutely and miraculously right, you brilliant, brilliant little man; something sweet is what I need!’
Meanwhile Mr Acreblade was making room for a long-faced character dressed in a lion’s pelt. Over his head and shoulders was a black mane.
‘Isn’t it a bit hot in there?’ said young Kestrel.
‘I am in agony,’ said the man in the tawny skin.
‘Then why?’ said Mrs Grass.
‘I thought it was Fancy Dress,’ said the skin, ‘but I mustn’t complain. Everyone has been most kind.’
‘That doesn’t help the heat you’re generating in there,’ said Mr Acreblade. ‘Why don’t you just whip it off?’
‘It is all I have on,’ said the lion’s pelt.
‘How delicious,’ cried Mrs Grass, ‘you thrill me utterly. Who are you?’
‘But my dear,’ said the lion, looking at Mrs Grass, ‘surely you …’
‘What is it, O King of Beasts?’
‘Can’t you remember me?’
‘Your nose seems to ring a bell,’ said Mrs Grass.
Mr Spill lowered his head out of the clouds of smoke. Then he swivelled it until it lay alongside Mr Kestrel. ‘What did she say?’ he asked.
‘She’s worth a million,’ said Kestrel. ‘Lively, luscious, what a plaything!’
‘Plaything?’ said Mr Spill. ‘How do you mean?’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Kestrel.
The lion scratched himself with a certain charm. Then he addressed Mrs Grass.
‘So my nose rings a bell – is that all? Have you forgotten me? Me! Your onetime Harry?’
‘Harry? What … my …?’
‘Yes, your Second. Way back in time. We were married, you remember, in Tyson Street.’
‘Lovebird!’ cried Mrs Grass. ‘So we were. But take that foul mane off and let me see you. Where have you been all these years?’
‘In the wilderness,’ said the lion, tossing back his mane and twitching it over his shoulder.
‘What sort of wilderness, darling? Moral? Spiritual? O but tell us about it!’ Mrs Grass reached forward with her breasts and clenched her little fists at her sides, which attitude she imagined would have appeal. She was not far wrong, and young Kestrel took a step to the left which put him close beside her.
‘I believe you said “wilderness”,’ said Kestrel. ‘Tell me, how wild is it? Or isn’t it? One is so at the mercy of words. And would you say, sir, that what is wilderness for one might be a field of corn to another with little streams and bushes?’
‘What sort of bushes?’ said the elongated Mr Spill.
‘What does that matter?’ said Kestrel.
‘Everything matters,’ said Mr Spill. ‘Everything. That is part of the pattern. The world is bedevilled by people thinking that some things matter and some things don’t. Everything is of equal importance. The wheel must be complete. And the stars. They look small. But are they? No. They are large. Some are very large. Why, I remember –’
‘Mr Kestrel,’ said Mrs Grass.
‘Yes, my dear lady?’
‘You have a vile habit, dear.’
‘What is it, for heaven’s sake? Tell me about it that I may crush it.’
‘You are too close, my pet. But too close. We have our little areas you know. Like the home waters, dear, or fishing rights. Don’t trespass, dear. Withdraw a little. You know what I mean, don’t you? Privacy is so important.’
Young Kestrel turned the colour of a boiled lobster and retreated from Mrs Grass who, turning her head to him, by way of forgiveness switched on a light in her face, or so it seemed to Kestrel, a light that inflamed the air about them with a smile like an eruption. This had the effect of drawing the dazzled Kestrel back to her side, where he stayed, bathing himself in her beauty.
‘Cosy again,’ she whispered.
Kestrel nodded his head and trembled with excitement until Mr Grass, forcing his way through a wall of guests, brought his foot down sharply upon Kestrel’s instep. With a gasp of pain, young Kestrel turned for sympathy to the peerless lady at his side, only to find that her radiant smile was now directed at her own husband where it remained for a few moments before she turned her back on them both and, switching off the current, she gazed across the room with an aspect quite drained of animation.
‘On the other hand,’ said the tall Spill, addressing the man in the lion’s pelt, ‘there is something in the young man’s question. This wilderness of yours. Will you tell us more about it?’
‘But oh! But do!’ rang out the voice of Mrs Grass, as she gripped the lion’s pelt cruelly.
‘When I say “wilderness”,’ said the lion, ‘I only speak of the heart. It is Mr Acreblade that you should ask. His wasteland is the very earth itself.’
‘Ah me, that Wasteland,’ said Acreblade, jutting out his chin, ‘knuckled with ferrous mountains. Peopled with termites, jackals, and to the north-west – hermits.’
‘And what were you doing out there?’ said Mr Spill.
‘I shadowed a suspect. A youth not known in these parts. He stumbled ahead of me in the sandstorm, a vague shape. Sometimes I lost him altogether. Sometimes I all but found myself beside him, and was forced to retreat a little way. Sometimes I heard his singing, mad, wild, inconsequential songs. Sometimes he shouted out as though he were delirious – words that sounded like “Fuchsia”, “Flay” and other names. Sometimes he cried out “Mother!” and once he fell on his knees and cried, “Gormenghast, Gormenghast, com
e back to me again!”’
‘It was not for me to arrest him – but to follow him, for my superiors informed me his papers were not in order, or even in existence.
‘But on the second evening the dust rose up more terribly than ever, and as it rose it blinded me so that I lost him in a red and gritty cloud. I could not find him, and I never found him again.’
‘Darling.’
‘What is it?’
‘Look at Gumshaw.’
‘Why?’
‘His polished pate reflects a brace of candles.’
‘Not from where I am.’
‘No?’
‘No. But look – to the left of centre I see a tiny image, one might almost say of a boy’s face, were it not that faces are unlikely things to grow on ceilings.’
‘Dreams. One always comes back to dreams.’
‘But the silver whip RK 2053722220 – the moon circles, first of the new –’
‘Yes, I know all about that.’
‘But love was nowhere near.’
‘The sky was smothered with planes. Some of them, though pilotless, were bleeding.’
‘Ah, Mr Flax, how is your son?’
‘He died last Wednesday.’
‘Forgive me, I am so sorry.’
‘Are you? I’m not. I never liked him. But mark you – an excellent swimmer. He was captain of his school.’
‘This heat is horrible.’
‘Ah, Lady Crowgather, let me present the Duke of Crowgather; but perhaps you have met already?’
‘Many times. Where are the cucumber sandwiches?’
‘Allow me –’
‘Oh I beg your pardon. I mistook your foot for a tortoise. What is happening?’
‘No, indeed, I do not like it.’
‘Art should be artless, not heartless.’
‘I am a great one for beauty.’
‘Beauty, that obsolete word.’
‘You beg the question, Professor Savage.’
‘I beg nothing. Not even your pardon. I do not even beg to differ. I differ without begging, and would rather beg from an ancient, rib-staring, sightless groveller at the foot of a column than beg from you, sir. The truth is not in you, and your feet smell.’
‘Take that … and that,’ muttered the insultee, tearing off one button after another from his opponent’s jacket.
‘What fun we do have,’ said the button-loser, standing on tip-toe and kissing his friend’s chin: ‘Parties would be unbearable without abuse, so don’t go away Harold. You sicken me. What is that?’
‘It is only Marblecrust making his bird noises.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Always, somehow …’
‘O no … no … and yet I like it.’
‘And so the young man escaped me without knowing,’ said Acreblade, ‘and judging by the hardship he must have undergone he must surely be somewhere in the City … where else could he be? Has he stolen a plane? Has he fled down the …?’
TWENTY-FIVE
Then came the stroke of midnight, and for a few moments gooseflesh ran up every leg in Lady Cusp-Canine’s party, swarmed up the thighs and mustered its hideous forces at the base of every backbone, sending forth grisly outriders throughout the lumbar landscape. Then up the spine itself, coiling like lethal ivy, fanning out, eventually, from the cervicals, draping like icy muslin across the breasts and belly. Midnight. As the last cold crash resounds, Titus, alone on the rooftop, easing the cramp in his arm, shifting the weight of his elbow, smashes suddenly the skylight and with no time to recover, falls through the glass roof in a shower of splinters.
TWENTY-SIX
It was very lucky for all concerned that no one was seriously hurt. Titus himself was cut in a few places but the wounds were superficial and as far as the actual fall was concerned, he was particularly fortunate in that a dome-shouldered, snowball-breasted lady was immediately below him as he fell.
They capsized together, and lay for a moment alongside one another on the thickly carpeted floor. All about them glittered fragments of broken glass, but for Juno, lying at Titus’ side, and for the others who had been affected by his sudden appearance in mid-air and later on the floor, the overriding sensation was not pain but shock.
For there was something that was shocking in more than one sense in the almost biblical visitation of a youth in rags.
Titus withdrew his face, which had been crushed against a naked shoulder, and got dizzily to his feet, and as he did so he saw that the lady’s eyes were fixed upon him. Even in her horizontal position she was superb. Her dignity was unimpaired. When Titus reached down to her with his hand to help her she touched his fingertips and rose at once and with no apparent effort to her feet, which were small and very beautiful. Between these little feet of hers and her noble, Roman head, lay, as though between the poles, a golden world of spices.
Someone bent over the boy. It was the Fox.
‘Who the devil are you?’ he said.
‘What does that matter?’ said Juno. ‘Keep your distance. He is bleeding … Isn’t that enough?’ and with quite indescribable élan she tore a strip from her dress and began to bind up Titus’ hand, which was bleeding steadily.
‘You are very kind,’ said Titus.
Juno softly shook her head from side to side, and a little smile evolved out of the corner of her generous lips.
‘I must have startled you,’ said Titus.
‘It was a rapid introduction,’ said Juno. She arched one of her eyebrows. It rose like a raven’s wing.
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘Did you hear what he said?’ snarled a vile voice. ‘“I must have startled you.” Why, you mongrel-pup, you might have killed the lady!’
An angry buzz of voices suddenly began and scores of faces raised themselves to the shattered skylight. At the same time a nearby section of the crowd, which until a few moments ago had appeared to be full of friendly flippancy, was now wearing a very different aspect.
‘Which one of you,’ said Titus, whose face had gone white, ‘which one of you called me a mongrel-pup?’ In the pocket of his ragged trousers his hand clutched the knuckle of flint from the high towers of Gormenghast.
‘Who was it?’ he yelled, for all at once rage boiled up in him, and jumping forward he caught the nearest figure by the throat. But no sooner had he done so than he was himself hauled back to his position at Juno’s side. Then Titus saw before him the back of a great angular man, on whose shoulder sat a small ape. This figure whose proportions were unmistakably those of Muzzlehatch now moved very slowly along the half-circle of angry faces and as he did so he smiled with a smile that had no love in it. It was a wide smile. It was a lipless smile. It was made up of nothing but anatomy.
Muzzlehatch stretched out his big arm: his hand hovered and then took hold of the man who had insulted Titus, picked him up, and raised him through the hot and coiling air to the level of his shoulder, where he was received by the ape who kissed him upon the back of his neck in such a way that the poor man collapsed in a dead faint, and then, since the ape had already lost interest in him, he slid to the carpeted floor.
Muzzlehatch turned to the gaping circle of faces and whispered ‘Little children. Listen to Oracle. Because Oracle loves you,’ and Muzzlehatch drew a wicked-looking penknife from his pocket, flicked it open and began to strop it upon the ball of his thumb.
‘He is not pleased with you. Not so much because you have done anything wicked but because your Soul smells – your collective Soul – your little dried-up turd of a Soul. Is it not so? Little Ones?’
The ape began to scratch itself with slow relish and its eyelids trembled.
‘So you would menace him, would you?’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘Menace him with your dirty little brains, and horrid little noises. And you, ladies, with your false bosoms and ignorant mouths. You also have menaced him?’
There was a good deal of shuffling and coughing; and those who were able to do so without being seen began to retreat into the c
rowded body of the room.
‘Little children,’ he went on, the blade of his knife moving to and fro across his thumb, ‘pick up your colleague from the floor and learn from him to keep your hands off this pip-squeak of a boy.’
‘He is no pip-squeak,’ said Acreblade. ‘That is the youth I have been trailing. He escaped me. He crossed the wilderness. He has no passport. He is wanted. Come here, young man.’
There was a hush that spread all over the room.
‘What nonsense,’ said a deep voice at last. It was Juno. ‘He is my friend. As for the wilderness – good Heavens – you misconstrue the rags. He is in fancy dress.’
‘Move aside, madam. I have a warrant for his arrest as a vagrant; an alien; an undesirable.’
Then he moved forward, did this Acreblade, out of the crowd of guests, forward towards where Titus, Juno, Muzzlehatch and the ape waited silently.
‘Beautiful policeman,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘You are exceeding your duty. This is a party – or it was – but you are making something vile out of it.’
Muzzlehatch worked his shoulders to and fro and shut his eyes.
‘Don’t you ever have a holiday from crime? Do you never pick up the world as a child picks up a crystal globe – a thing of many colours? Do you never love this ridiculous world of ours? The wicked and the good of it? The thieves and angels of it? The all of it? Throbbing, dear policeman, in your hand? And knowing how all this is inevitably so, and that without the dark of life you would be out on your ear? Yet see how you take it. Passports, visas, identification papers – does all this mean so much to your official mind that you must needs bring the filthy stink of it to a party? Open up the gates of your brain then, policeman dear, and let a small sprat through.’
‘He is my friend,’ said Juno again, in a voice as ripe and deep as some underwater grotto, some foliage of the sea-bed. ‘He is in fancy dress. He is as nothing to you. What was it you said? “Across the wilderness?” Oh ha ha ha ha ha,’ and Juno, having received a cue from Muzzlehatch, moved forward and in a moment had blocked Mr Acreblade’s vision, and as she did this she saw away to her left, their heads a little above the heads of the crowd, two men in helmets who appeared to slide rather than walk. To Juno they were merely two of the guests and meant nothing more, but when Muzzlehatch saw them he gripped Titus by the arm just above the elbow and made for the door, leaving behind him a channel among the guests like the channel left on a field of ripe corn where a file of children has followed its leader.