by Mervyn Peake
Inspector Acreblade was trying very hard to follow them but every time he turned or made a few steps his passage was blocked by the generous Juno, a lady with such a superb carriage and such noble proportions, that to push past her was out of the question.
‘Please allow me –’ he said. ‘I must follow them at once.’
‘But your tie, you cannot go about like that. Let me adjust it for you. No … no … don’t move. Th-ere we are … There … we … are …’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Meanwhile Titus and Muzzlehatch were turning to left and right at will, for the place was honeycombed with rooms and corridors.
Muzzlehatch, as he ran, a few feet ahead of Titus, looked like some kind of war-horse, with his great rough head thrown back, and his chest forward.
He did not look round to see whether Titus could keep up with his trampling pace. With his dark-red rudder of a nose pointing to the ceiling he galloped on with the small ape, now wide awake, clinging to his shoulder, its topaz-coloured eyes fixed upon Titus, a few feet behind. Every now and again it cried out only to cling the tighter to its master’s neck as though frightened of its own voice.
Covering the ground at speed Muzzlehatch retained a monumental self-assurance – almost a dignity. It was not mere flight. It was a thing in itself, as a dance must be, a dance of ritual.
‘Are you there?’ he suddenly muttered over his shoulder. ‘Eh? Are you there? Young Rag’n’bone! Fetch up alongside.’
‘I’m here,’ panted Titus. ‘But how much longer?’
Muzzlehatch took no notice but pranced around a corner to the left and then left again, and right, and left again, and then gradually slackening pace they ambled at last into a dimly lit hall surrounded by seven doors. Opening one at random the fugitives found themselves in an empty room.
TWENTY-NINE
Muzzlehatch and Titus stood still for a few moments until their eyes became adjusted to the darkness.
Then they saw, at the far end of the apartment, a dull grey rectangle that stood on end in the darkness. It was the night.
There were no stars and the moon was on the other side of the building. Somewhere far below they could hear the whisper of a plane as it took off. All at once it came into view, a slim, wingless thing, sliding through the night, seemingly unhurried, save that suddenly, where was it?
Titus and Muzzlehatch stood at the window and for a long while neither of them spoke. At last Titus turned to the dimly outlined shape of his companion.
‘What are you doing here?’ he said. ‘You seem out of place.’
‘God’s geese! You startled me,’ said Muzzlehatch, raising his hand as though to guard himself from attack. ‘I’d forgotten you were here. I was brooding, boy. Than which there is no richer pastime. It muffles one with rotting plumes. It gives forth sullen music. It is the smell of home.’
‘Home?’ said Titus.
‘Home,’ said Muzzlehatch. He took out a pipe from his pocket, and filled it with a great fistful of tobacco; lit it, drew at it; filled his lungs with acrid fumes, and exhaled them, while the bowl burned in the darkness like a wound.
‘You ask me why I am here – here among an alien people. It is a good question. Almost as good as for me to ask you the same thing. But don’t tell me, dear boy, not yet. I would rather guess.’
‘I know nothing about you,’ said Titus. ‘You are someone to me who appears, and disappears. A rough man: a shadow-man: a creature who plucks me out of danger. Who are you? Tell me … You do not seem to be part of this – this glassy region.’
‘It is not glassy where I come from, boy. Have you forgotten the slums that crawl up to my courtyard? Have you forgotten the crowds by the river? Have you forgotten the stink?’
‘I remember the stink of your car,’ said Titus, – sharp as acid; thick as gruel.’
‘She’s a bitch,’ said Muzzlehatch, ‘– and smells like one.’
‘I am ignorant of you,’ said Titus. ‘You with your acres of great cages, your savage cats; your wolves and your birds of prey. I have seen them, but they tell me little. What are you thinking of? Why do you flaunt this monkey on your shoulder as though it were a foreign flag – some emblem of defiance? I have no more access to your brain than I have to this little skull,’ and Titus fumbling in the dark stroked the small ape with his forefinger. Then he stared at the darkness, part of which was Muzzlehatch. The night seemed thicker than ever.
‘Are you still there?’ said Titus.
It was twelve long seconds before Muzzlehatch replied.
‘I am. I am still here, or some of me is. The rest of me is leaning on the rails of a ship. The air is full of spices and the deep salt water shines with phosphorus. I am alone on deck and there is no one else to see the moon float out of a cloud so that a string of palms is lit like a procession. I can see the dark-white surf as it beats upon the shore; and I see, and I remember, how a figure ran along the strip of moonlit sand, with his arms raised high above his head, and his shadow ran beside him and jerked as it sped, for the beach was uneven; and then the moon slid into the clouds again and the world went black.’
‘Who was he?’ said Titus.
‘How should I know?’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘It might have been anyone. It might have been me.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’ said Titus.
‘I am not telling you anything. I am telling myself. My voice, strident to others, is music to me.’
‘You have a rough manner,’ said Titus. ‘But you have saved me twice. Why are you helping me?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘There must be something wrong with my brain.’
THIRTY
Although there was no sound, yet the opening of the door produced a change in the room behind them; a change sufficient to awake in Titus and his companion an awareness of which their conscious minds knew nothing.
No, not the breath of a sound; not a flicker of light. Yet the black room at their backs was alive.
Muzzlehatch and Titus had turned at the same time and as far as they knew they turned for no more reason than to ease a muscle.
In fact they hardly knew that they had turned. They could see very little of the night-filled room, but when a moment later a lady stepped forward, she brought with her a little light from the hall beyond. It was not much of an illumination but it was strong enough to show Titus and his companion that immediately to their left was a striped couch and on the other side of the room, down-stage as it were, supposing the night to be the auditorium, was a tall screen.
At the sight of the door opening Muzzlehatch plucked the small ape from Titus’ shoulder and muzzling it with his right hand and holding its four feet together in his left, he moved silently through the shadows until he was hidden behind the tall screen. Titus, with no ape to deal with, was beside him in a moment.
Then came the click and the room was immediately filled with coral-coloured light. The lady who had opened the door stepped forward without a sound. Daintily, for all her weight, she moved to the centre of the room, where she cocked her head on one side as though waiting for something peculiar to happen. Then she sat down on the striped couch, crossing her splendid legs with a hiss of silk.
‘He must be hungry,’ she whispered, ‘the roof-swarmer, the skylight-burster … the ragged boy from nowhere. He must be very hungry and very lost. Where would he be, I wonder? Behind that screen for instance, with his friend, the wicked Muzzlehatch?’ There was a rather silly silence.
THIRTY-ONE
While sitting there Juno had opened a hamper which she had filled at the party before following the boy and Muzzlehatch.
‘Are you hungry?’ said Juno, as they emerged.
‘Very hungry,’ said Titus.
‘Then eat,’ said Juno.
‘O my sweet flame! My mulcted one. What are you thinking of?’ asked Muzzlehatch, but in a voice so bored that it was almost an insult. ‘Can you imagine how I found him, love-pot?’
‘Who?’
said Juno.
‘This boy,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘This ravenous boy.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Washed up, he was,’ said Muzzlehatch, ‘– at dawn. Ain’t that poetic? There he lay, stranded on the water-steps – sprawled out like a dead fish. So I drove him home. Why? Because I had never seen anything so unlikely. Next day I shoo’d him off. He was no part of me. No part of my absurd life, and away he went, a creature out of nowhere, redundant as a candle in the sun. Quite laughable – a thing to be forgotten – but what happens?’
‘I’m listening,’ said Juno.
‘I’ll tell you,’ continued Muzzlehatch. ‘He takes it upon himself to fall through a skylight and bears to the ground one of the few women who ever interested me. O yes. I saw it all. His head lay sidelong on your splendid bosom and for a little while he was Lord of that tropical ravine between your midnight breasts: that home of moss and verdure: that sumptuous cleft. But enough of this. I am too old for gulches. How did you find us? What with our twistings and turnings and doubling back – we should by rights have shaken off the devil himself – but then you wander in as though you’d been a-riding on my tail. How did you find me?’
‘I will tell you, Muzzle-dove, how I found you. There was nothing miraculous about it. My intuition is as non-existent as the smell of marble. It was the boy who gave you both away. His feet were wet and still are. They left a glister down the corridors.’
‘A glister, what’s a glister?’ said Muzzlehatch.
‘It’s what his wet feet left behind them – the merest film. I had only to follow it. Where are your shoes, pilgrim-child?’
‘My shoes?’ said Titus, with a chicken bone in his hand. ‘Why, somewhere in the river, I suppose.’
‘Well then; now that you’ve found us, Juno, my love-trap – what do you want of us? Alone or separately? I, after all, though unpopular, am no fugitive. So there’s no need for me to hide. But young Titus here (Lord of somewhere or other – with an altogether most unlikely name) – he, we must admit, is on the run. Why, I’m not quite sure. As for myself, there is nothing I want more than to wash my two hands of both of you. One reason is the way you haven’t my marrow. I yell for nothing but solitude, Juno, and the beasts I brood on. Another is this young man – the Earl of Gorgon-paste or whatever he calls himself – I must wash my hands of him also, for I have no desire to be involved with yet another human being – especially one in the shape of an enigma. Life is too brief for such diversions and I cannot bring myself to scrape up any interest in the problems of his breast.’
The small ape on Muzzlehatch’s shoulder nodded its head and then began to fish about in the depth of its master’s hair; its wrinkled, yet delicate, fingers probing here and there were as tender yet as inquisitive as any lover’s.
‘You’re almost as rude as I was hungry,’ said Titus. ‘As for the workings of my heart, and my lineage, you are as ignorant as that monkey on your shoulder. As far as I am concerned you will remain so. But get me out of here. It is a swine of a building and smells like a hospital. You have been good to me, Mr Marrow-patch, but I long to see the last of you. Where can I go, where can I hide?’
‘You must come with me,’ said Juno. ‘You must have clean clothes, food, and shelter.’ She turned her splendid head to Muzzlehatch. ‘How are we going to leave without being seen?’
‘One move at a time,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘Our first is to find the nearest lift-shaft. The whole place ought to be asleep by now.’ He strode to the door and, opening it quietly, discovered a young man bent double. He had been given no time to rise from the keyhole, let alone escape.
‘But my dearest essence of stoat’ – said Muzzlehatch, gradually drawing the man forward into the room by his lemon-yellow lapels (for he was a flunkey of the household) – ‘you are most welcome. Now, Juno dear, take Gorgon-paste with you and lean with him over the balustrade and stare down into the darkness. It will not be for long.’
Titus and Juno, obeying his curiously authoritative voice, for it had power however ridiculous its burden, heard a peculiar shuffling sound, and then a moment later – ‘Now then, Gorgon-blast, leave the lovely lady in charge of the night and come here.’
Titus turned and saw that the flunkey was practically naked. Muzzlehatch had stripped him as an autumn tree is stripped of its gold leaves.
‘Off with your rags and into the livery,’ said Muzzlehatch to Titus. He turned to the flunkey, ‘I do hope you’re not too chilly. I have nothing against you, friend, but I have no option. This young gentleman must escape, you see.’
‘Hurry, now, “Gorgon”,’ he shouted. ‘I have the car waiting and she is restless.’
He did not know that as he spoke the first strands of dawn were threading their way through the low clouds and lighting not only the few aeroplanes that shone like spectres, but also that monstrous creature, Muzzlehatch’s car. Naked as the flunkey, naked in the early sunbeams, it was like an oath, or a jeer, its nose directed at the elegant planes; its shape, its colour, its skeleton, its tendons, its skull, its muscles of leather – its low and rakish belly, and its general air of blood and mutiny on the high seas. There she waited far below the room where her captain stood.
‘Change clothes,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘We can’t wait all night for you.’
Something began to burn in Titus’ stomach. He could feel the blood draining from his face.
‘So you can’t wait all night for me,’ he said in a voice he hardly recognized as his own. ‘Muzzlehatch, the zoo-man, is in a hurry. But does he know who he is talking to? Do you?’
‘What is it, Titus?’ said Juno, who had turned from the window at the sound of his voice.
‘What is it?’ cried Titus. ‘I will tell you, madam. It is this bully’s ignorance. Does he know who I am?’
‘How can we know about you, dear, if you won’t tell us? There, there, stop shaking.’
‘He wants to run away,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘But you don’t want to be jailed, do you now? Eh? You want to get free of this building, surely.’
‘Not with your help,’ shouted Titus, though he knew as he shouted that he was being mean. He looked up at the big cross-hatched face with its proud rudder of a nose and the living light in its eye and a flicker of recognition seemed to pass between them. But it was too late.
‘Then to hell with you, child,’ said Muzzlehatch.
‘I will take him,’ said Juno.
‘No,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘Let him go. He must learn.’
‘Learn, be damned!’ said Titus, all the pent-up emotion breaking through. ‘What do you know of life, of violence and guile? Of madmen and subterfuge and treachery? My treachery. My hands have been sticky with blood. I have loved and I have killed in my kingdom.’
‘Kingdom?’ said Juno. ‘Your kingdom?’
A kind of fearful love brimmed in her eyes. ‘I will take care of you,’ she said.
‘No,’ said Muzzlehatch, ‘let him find his way. He will never forgive you if you take him now. Let him be a man, Juno dear – or what he thinks to be a man. Don’t suck his blood, dear. Don’t pounce too soon. Remember how you killed our love with spices – eh? My pretty vampire.’
Titus, white with indecision, for to him Juno and Muzzlehatch seemed to talk a private language, took a step nearer to the smiling man who had turned his head across his shoulder so that the little ape was able to rest its furry cheek along its master’s.
‘Did you call this lady a vampire?’ he whispered.
Muzzlehatch nodded his smiling head slowly.
‘That is so,’ he said.
‘He meant nothing,’ said Juno. ‘Titus! O, darling … O …’
For Titus had whipped out his fist with such speed that it was a wonder it did not find its mark. This it failed to do, for Muzzlehatch, catching Titus’ fist as though it were a flung stone, held it in a vice and then, with no apparent effort, propelled Titus slowly to the doorway, through which he pushed the boy before closing the door and turning
the key.
For a few minutes Titus, shocked at his own impotence, beat upon the door, yelling ‘Let me in, you coward! Let me in! Let me in!’ until the noise he made brought servants from all quarters of the great mansion of olive-green glass.
While they took Titus away struggling and shouting, Muzzlehatch held Juno firmly by her elbow, for she longed to be with the sudden young man dressed half in rags and half in livery, but she said nothing as she strained against the grip of her one-time lover.
THIRTY-TWO
The day broke wild and shaggy. What light there was seeped into the great glass buildings as though ashamed. All but a fraction of the guests who had attended the Cusp-Canines’ party lay like fossils in their separate beds, or, for various sunken causes, tossed and turned in seas of dream.
Of those who were awake and on their feet, at least half were servants of the House. It was from among these few that a posse of retainers (on hearing the shindy) converged upon the room, switching on lights as they ran, until they found Titus striking upon the outside of the door.
It was no good for him to struggle. Their clumsy hands caught hold of him and hustled him away and down seven flights into the servants’ quarters. There he was kept prisoner for the best part of the day, the time being punctuated by visits from the Law and the Police and towards evening by some kind of a brain-specialist who gazed at Titus for minutes on end from under his eyebrows and asked peculiar questions which Titus took no trouble to answer, for he was very tired.