'Okay, okay, okay. Someone just said something important. But before we go into that, do you hear music? And no funny stuff about what 'you', 'hear' and 'music' mean, or so help me . . .' The Elder Thing clearly thought of giving a philosophical answer, but seeing the grimly determined look on Unity's face decided to let the fact that it didn't really believe she existed be put to one side for the moment, and so, for the first time in its life, it gave a straight answer to a simple question, i.e.
'No.'
'Strange. It seems every time you mention the unity I hear music in the air. Perhaps it's just because it's my name, and hearing it reminds me of my favourite person. I don't need to spell that out, do I?'
'Of course not,' said Nina, 'Everyone knows that you've already found your true love. Unlike me,' she added, in an attempt to generate some sympathy.
'Look, as soon as I've had an orgasm we'll go and look for your true love, all right? Now, before I lose the thread again, one of these Things said something about the stars coming right. You, er, Sir, Miss, oh I don't know. Oh Thing, can you please tell me what you mean by that?'
Now the Elder Thing in question was one of the older of the Elder Things and still cleaved to the rather unfashionable philosophy of the ancients in a time when neo-anti-post-deconstructionism was all the rage. So it seldom got the chance to explain its theories at length to anyone, or to have anyone pay attention to it. So getting someone to talk to at all was a pleasant surprise, and to have an extraordinarily beautiful woman as that someone was a bit of a plus. Later on, it promised itself, it would ponder the mystery of how an asexual being could be sexually aroused, especially by a creature of another species, but for now, it was lecture time.
'Ahem,' it began, 'All things are formed of accidents and essence. Your essence is beauty and desirability, you accidents cause the purity of that essence to be diminished by the fact that you appear to be schizophrenic.'
'What? Oh, you mean Nina. She's a bit dull, but she's not that bad really so long as she doesn't talk too much.'
'Why, my dear Unity, at this rate you'll be admitting to not actually hating me in a day or two.'
'Oh, I don't think I'd go that far,' said Unity reflectively, 'But you could be worse. You could be, well any of these alien weirdos we've met so far.'
'So kind.'
'I try my best. Anyway, let the thing speak.'
'And who was it who interrupted him?'
'Oh shut up. I'm sorry, venerable Thing, continue.' The Thing, who hadn't really understood much of that, picked up:
'So, the essence is the ideal, the form, which is one. The accidents make its realisations, its shadows, which are many. Everything is a realisation of one or more forms. You, as I have sad,'
'Yes, yes, yes, yes, I know. If you don't get on you'll learn about my essence of killing things that bore me. Feel free to consider the word thing as being capitalised if you wish.'
'In which case,' said the Thing nervously, 'Perhaps I should move on. Just as all things, not Elder Things, but, er beings, are one in being representatives of the forms that make up their essence, the forms are one in the unity. Not you, but the unity, the eternal all. And at the start of things the unity was manifest in the cosmos, and the relation between things was as it should be. All beings had their place in the order brought about by the unity, and all was it should be. Effect followed cause, each event had its natural climax and . . .'
'And people had orgasms!' shouted Unity, with great enthusiasm.
'Er, yes. Well, something went wrong, and what we call the stars going bad was actually the consequence of this cosmos losing contact with the unity, as a result of which all fell apart, and we elder races, like your father, my dear, have to labour constantly just to hold things together at all. And young whipper-snappers like this idiot here think they're clever denying the existence of the unity when I was alive before the catastrophe: I knew it.' There was a brief silence in which the Thing, too emotional to speak further, fought for control. And it might have been taken as a silence of reverence had not Unity been squinting at her chest, as if trying to measure something. And indeed she was, for she announced, with all the seriousness of one proclaiming the death of an emperor,
'You know I'm pretty certain that what's going on down below is not shivering but definite “you're on to something” jiggling. Which means I need to find this unity.' She stared intently at the Elder Thing. 'So, Thing, how do I find the unity and bring it back?' The Thing was impressed. He hadn't had a disciple who took him this seriously, well, ever. So he said,
'You must learn first to understand the unity. And for that you must be able to conceive of an entity so vast, so all-encompassing that it is one, indivisible and cannot be negated. In other words it is the negation of negation.' Unity stared.
'The what? The negation of negation? But that's everything. Easy.'
'But no, for everything can be negated. For in addition to everything there is nothing.'
'But nothing's just a idea, something we talk about, oh a concept, that's useful for thinking, but it's just an essence, not a . . . oh.'
'You see? The unity is everything. The unity is nothing. It is only when you can reconcile those statements that you will find it.'
Unity frankly boggled, though she did it very beautifully. This was way harder than anything she had ever tried before, apart from having an orgasm, and the difference was that at least she believed that having an orgasm was in principle possible, for if it turned out that it wasn't she intended to have some very serious words with her father, whereas she had severe doubts that this goal was achievable. But she wanted an orgasm very badly indeed, so she had a go, and said,
'So the unity is everything and nothing. Which means it's more than just all things, it's the oneness at the heart of everything that makes it a thing, but it's beyond that, which is why it's nothing, because to it reality is nothing, and I think I see where this is going and . . . what the hell's that?' which statement was occasioned by the fact that there was now most definitely music in the air. To be precise, children's voices singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star'. The old Elder Thing was ecstatic,
'It has happened! It is the music of the spheres, the projection into our realm and our senses of the grand beauty of the unity. That means that you are close to finding it.'
'Well,' said Unity, 'If that's what the unity sounds like, then I have to say I'm a bit disappointed. I've never really thought about what the grand totality of everything ought to sound like, but I'd have expected something a bit more, well, grand.'
'Ah, but it has a true grandeur that you can only appreciate when you truly apprehend . . .'
'Yeah, right. That's all very well, but what I want is an orgasm, not God. I know any number of Gods, and none of them have ever been able to give me an orgasm. So now I need to find how this unity thing can help me.' She turned to go back to the plane and said, 'Well thank you, both of you, for the enthralling conversation. I have to go, because I'm feeling a bit of an urge, if you catch my drift, which you won't, being asexual, that I don't think you could satisfy, and my quest must continue. And now,' she added to Nina, 'For my next challenge.'
'What's that?'
'Seeing if I can work out how to fly a plane.'
(v) The Hounds of Tindalos
Let us pass over the journey. The squabbling over where to point the big lever if you wanted to go up. Nina convincing herself, after about ten minutes of Unity's frankly tentative piloting, that she was about to die, or at least lose the body to which she was tenuously attached, and spending the remainder of the journey imploring someone she called 'Lord' if not to rescue her, then at least to save her in some metaphysical sense. The landing, which Unity arranged by the simple expedient of aiming at the ground, on the basis that it was probably hard enough to bring the plane to a halt. Ignore all that. Suffice it to say that they did eventually arrive and that, having dealt with the rather excitable police officers and medics who gathered around the cr
ash-site wishing to have a word with her, Unity made her way to the nearest church and banged the priest's head on the floor until he agreed to say the mass backwards while making love with her on a bed of consecrated hosts, at the climax of which she vanished, only to appear mere seconds later on the world of the Hounds of Tindalos, whose atmosphere resounded to the strange cry of,
'If you don't get on with it and stop crossing yourself, so help me, I'll make you eat your bloody crucifix and . . . oh, I'm here. Bastard.' She adjusted her dress and looked around to see where she was.
Compared to the frozen wastes and sea-beds she had been inhabiting recently, this was a pleasant change of scene. For one thing, it was warm and dry, which had the downside that her bosom reverted to being merely astonishing, but had the upside that her lipstick was not in immanent danger of freezing. For another thing, it was green and leafy, with a rolling landscape rather like something that Wordsworth might have imagined while fantasising about fucking his sister. And, not far away, there was a nice-looking garden shed. And then there were the dogs. Lots of dogs. Hundreds of the buggers. Of all kinds, from dachshunds to golden retrievers, spaniels to setters, pugs to St Bernard's. All doing doggy things like sniffing things, sniffing one another, barking at nothing in particular, rolling in smelly stuff and, of course, sleeping. These were the Hounds of Tindalos. And as she looked at one Hound of Tindalos (a Jack Russell) terrorising another Hound of Tindalos (a great dane) into surrendering its rubber bone with a bell in it, Unity said,
'You know, Nina, when old H P told me bedtime stories about this lot, he made them sound like some terrifying primal force that ran search and destroy missions for the Great Old Ones. The only way I can see this lot killing someone is licking them to death or crushing them under a pile of doggy love. What do you think, Nina? Nina?' For Nina was not answering. Instead she let out a horrified gasp. Unity, bemused, looked around in the hope of seeing what had provoked this dismay, until her eye settled on two dogs engaged in the business of making more dogs. Which seemed rather unnecessary, given just how many dogs were already here, but then, she reminded herself, dogs will be dogs. But still, she didn't quite see why Nina was now whimpering, so she said, 'Yes? They're having sex. It's not as if you haven't seen people having sex before. After all, I've had sex, well, er, loads of times.'
'Niney-seven thousand, three hundred and nineteen.'
'Gosh, really? I'd expected it to be more. I must be losing my touch. Obviously I need to pick up the pace. But anyway, you really should pity those poor mutts. I mean, I do it for pleasure. Or I would if I could have an orgasm. But that's by the by. They, poor things, only do it because they're programmed to.'
'And you're not?'
'I resent that. I have sex because I want to, not because my denims, or whatever it is the scientists call them, tell me to make lots of little Unitys as often as possible. I mean, have I ever tried to get pregnant?'
'No, and it is one of your worst crimes against decency that you are motivated only by carnal pleasure and not the worthy goal of . . .'
'Exactly. While that's all Fido and mrs Fido over there care about. Oh look, she's found another dog to do it with. Oh, Nina, you must look, this is so funny. The boy dog's one of those little ones that look like a rat with the name I can't pronounce, and the girl dog, well, I don't know what type she is, but she's big. And he's jumping up and down, trying to get in, and the stupid bitch is too dumb to lie down. Or find a man her own size.'
'Really, Unity, I know you are loose tongued, but using the 'b' words is just . . .'
'Ah, ah, ah. The correct term for a girl dog is 'bitch', I think you'll find. So I was just speaking proper.'
'I, I, I . . .'
'Ha ha, beat you.' With which Unity mentally disposed of Nina and turned her attention to the rather vexed question of what she could do to attract this lot's rather short attention span, and what she was going to do with it when she had got it. After all, they were dogs. What did they know about the unity? Or, well, anything more complicated than playing 'fetch'.
Which was a strange coincidence, for as that very thought passed through her mind, a dog came up to her and ceremoniously placed a large stick on the ground in front of her. This done, it stepped back a little, fixed her with a gaze of piercing intensity that said, sure as if the dog could speak, that anyone who didn't fulfil its rather obvious request was cruel and heartless. Which might have worked on Nina, but not Unity, who viewed its pathetic gaze, its dangling tongue and its waggy, waggy tail with lofty indifference. As far as she was concerned, the animal kingdom was divided into two classes: those she would have sex with and those she wouldn't, the latter being of no interest to her. And she was no dog fucker. She was a tolerant woman (except if the thing she was being asked to tolerate was Nina), and, as has been seen, she was quite happy to do it with a goat, but dogs, with their moronic cheerfulness and permanently hopeful disposition, reminded her of Nina and, as has already been observed, she could not tolerate Nina at all. So the dog looked at her, and she looked back at it, then they both looked at the stick, and the dog, obviously feeling that it was faced with a tough sell and needed more than just hints, bent down and pushed the stick towards her with its nose. Then it looked at the stick and Unity looked at the stick and then they looked at one another. Impasse. And this might have gone on forever, or at least until Unity's permanently febrile erotic urges got the better of her and she popped off for a quickie, had not Nina said,
'Oh, the doggy woggy wants to play 'fetch'. Well go on; throw the stick.' Unity grimaced, causing the dog to whimper slightly, and said,
'I can't believe that I'm connected, even tangentially, to a woman who would refer this mutt as a doggy woggy. I mean, what's the point? If I throw the stick it'll just bring it back, so I might as well not have bothered.'
'Oh but he'll enjoy it, won't you, yes you, it's you I'm talking to.' Unity raised an eyebrow, causing the dog to put its front paws over its eyes.
'Now that's why I don't like dogs. They're so damned stupid. I mean, fancy being so easily pleased that going and getting something and then bringing it back is your equivalent of having an orgasm. Hey, I hadn't thought of that – perhaps there's something I can learn from this after all.' She picked up the stick and the dog, all the dogs, immediately jumped to attention with as much ecstatic anticipation in their eyes as was normally felt by humans only when they saw Unity naked and politely requesting that they come and get it. Which is basically what she did with the dogs. She raised the stick. They panted and wagged. She threw the stick. They wagged so hard their tails might be in danger of falling off. She said, 'Right then you lot – er, Nina, what do I say now?'
'Fetch.'
'Oh right. Right, you miserable congeries of clods. Fetch!' And they were off. They got to the stick fairly soon. But then they had a massive dog-fight to determine who should have the privilege of carrying it back in triumph. This having been resolved, eventually, in favour of a Yorkshire terrier, the little dog proudly bore the stick back to the, to be honest, rather bored Unity, who had run out of things to bicker with Nina about some fifteen minutes back, and placed it at her feet. 'Oh look,' said Unity, with exaggerated enthusiasm, 'A stick. Who'd have thought it. Now can we please get on with . . . Nina, he's looking at me. What am I meant to do now?'
'You have to say “good dog”.'
'Why?'
'You just do. It's a dog thing.'
'Bloody morons. All right then. Good dog.' The dog wagged and then – wagged some more, and then started looking suggestively at the stick. Unity could scarcely believe it. 'Oh, gracious. Surely the daft bugger doesn't want me to do it again does he?' He wagged harder. 'Bloody hell, he does. Nina, are all dogs like this?'
'No,' said Nina thoughtfully, 'Yorkies are quite bright. If it was a retriever, you'd probably have to fight with it to get the stick back.'
'Fuck me. Not literally, that is. Oh well here goes.' With which she hefted the stick.
Several hou
rs later, after about the seventeenth 'fetch' Unity said, as a random dog brought – guess what, a stick, who'd have thought it – back to her then did the whole wagging, looking pathetic and making it clear that its entire happiness depended on being asked to 'fetch' just one more time, and maybe one more after that, thing,
'I wish you bastards could understand me. God the talking to I'd give you.'
'But we can.' Unity looked around, astonished. 'What? Who? Nina, was that you?'
'No, Unity, it was the dog.'
'But dogs can't talk.'
'I don't care. This one did. It said . . .'
'Of course we can talk,' said another dog. 'After all, how else can we carry the messages of the Great Old Ones?' Unity felt near to collapse.
'Oh bloody hell. Bloody, bloody hell. I have been standing here for hours throwing sticks, while you did your dumb mutt act, and you never thought of letting me know that we could have a conversation? I mean, I know you're dumb, but . . .'
The Daughter of the Night Page 7