Songs From Spider Street

by Mark Howard Jones

  The legal proceedings, such as they appeared to be, were conducted in the ancient form of the language that barely anyone now understands. My translator – appointed by the court on my behalf, of course – failed to follow the proceedings adequately. Things escaped her, and thus me. I still do not know what words the judicial arbiter used to sum up my situation. I have no idea exactly why I am here … or for how long.

  The sky has grown dark outside the thick ice ribs of the enormous body. More snow on the way. Frost to dress my incarceration in white.

  I have spent most of my life in one cage or another and now I am in the most elaborate one of all; one designed by a genius.

  Sleep comes in sharp slices, empty of any real rest. And the dreams it contains are windswept and bleak. But one held the faint forgotten scent of hope; an escape. I kneel and my hands and knees melt through the gonads of the horse. I exit through the raining ruins of its penis, falling but not falling towards the ice below. The air is sharp and cutting but at the same time it holds me, letting me safely down to the ground. At last I am there and I begin to stand. But the heat that was my saviour now holds me in a trap of ice that melts beneath me, only to freeze at once in the extreme cold. By the time I am up to my thighs in the frozen mantrap I am awake, shaking from cold and fear.

  The wind sighs and murmurs through the great device. Occasionally there are voices mixed in with the random aeolian tones. They may be human but their message is not.

  CeKaracal comes here each year, they say, to ‘revisit’ and ‘redefine’ the gargantuan piece; they do say that art is a process and not a thing. Are the bones embedded deep inside the ice a vital part of the work or just his idea of a joke? If so, perhaps great artists don’t have much of a sense of humour.

  My family are all I can think of. When will I be free of this place, to go to them again? Sometimes I see my youngest son’s face deep in the ice, frozen and dead, under a mask of blood. Sometimes I feel that this place is carved out of my own fear and guilt, not ice at all.

  My sketchy knowledge of equine anatomy has aided my progress. I assume that CeKaracal has created an anatomically accurate animal; it is certainly very intricate. Gods alone know how he did it.

  Progress up the horse’s throat has been agonising. Someone has cut some rudimentary steps, as smooth as glass. Another of the artist’s small sadisms? Purchase is nearly impossible and I have had to flail for handholds to steady myself; I fear that a fall will break my bones and I will be stuck in here for good.

  My wife screams at me through the swirling flakes. I cannot hear her accusations but I know it has something to do with pride; it always has. Suvi has always said the same thing about me. But without pride, what is there? Survival is not enough. Is it?

  The horse’s enormous teeth are clamped shut in a silent, frozen whinnying. No way out there. And, once outside, what then? A drop of some hundred feet to the white surface below; a dozen or more shattered bones and a long agony before the cold claims me finally. There is no escape. I must simply be patient.

  My sense of time has become a nonsense now. But my stomach tells me it must be at least three days. Despite the small amount of food I found, hunger has caught up with me. Only the cruellest of jailers would treat their prisoner like this.

  My fingers have begun to lose sensation. They are becoming a bruised blue beneath the skin.

  I have struggled up into the cranial cavity of the beast. The brain pan is empty. Of course. The great artist is making some sort of statement, no doubt. What was I expecting? A great artistic revelation; an undeserved epiphany; the key to my own freedom. No.

  As I sit here, my own brain burns as if it could sear its way free of its fleshly moorings and soar away of its own accord, leaving my body behind as the useless lump of meat it has always been. My mind has always been my betrayer, my body always suffering on its behalf.

  My heartbeat feels slower. Pictures form in my breath as it streams out in white clouds from my mouth, like small swirls of soul escaping from within. My oldest son condemning me and then pleading with me; my wife running from something unseen.

  Only now, as my body begins to fail, does my mind begin to work properly. I dig my fingers through the thick layer of frost inside the rim of the giant horse’s nostrils, filling both hands. I now fully appreciate CeKaracal’s genius; not as a sculptor, nor as a jailer, but as an executioner. I will become a part of his masterpiece; another small accretion in an endless work-in-progress.

  Now I understand that I will never be released. I will end my days as a single chill thought in the coldest mind in the universe.

  A HELL OF A PLACE

  He was awake again and there was a salty tang on his tongue. He couldn’t remember how long he’d been here. Four days, maybe five at most. But he’d be leaving today. Of that he was sure.

  He cranked down the driver’s window to get some fresh air. The sky was light grey, as usual, and he could see the spray off the tops of the even greyer waves rise above the sea wall, just five yards in front of where he was parked.

  Getting out of the car, he stretched painfully before pulling his jacket lapels close about his throat in a futile attempt to keep out the cold.

  He guessed he was somewhere up North. The gritty wind that never seemed to stop blowing had the breath of distant ice in it.

  The landscape was flat. The car park that he was in led to a corniche road, which in turn led to a short headland, obviously man-made, that jutted out into the sea. There was a windmill at the end of this artificial spit of land but he could see nothing nearby to which it could be providing power.

  To the rear of the car park, across another stretch of water, a road was visible. There was very little traffic. Most of the time it was empty, but a black car drove along it every so often; sometimes left to right, other times the opposite way. It was too far away for him to see the drivers’ faces, so waving would be futile.

  He’d tried and failed to find a way to get to the road. He’d even considered climbing down to the water’s edge and swimming across the canal that separated him from it. But he knew the cold would prevent him from reaching the far side.

  He drove fast along the corniche road, heading for somewhere. Anywhere. Not here. After 10 minutes he slowed and pulled up at the end of the road. Literally. There was just a pile of rocks, huge ones, tumbling down into the grey waters.

  Had he driven this way before? He didn’t think so. He switched off the engine and leaned forward on the steering wheel. Far out at sea a ship made its way across the horizon. He wished he was on board. It was just a container ship, by the looks of it. Nothing special. But at least if he was on board he wouldn’t be here.

  The rear view mirror showed him that he was badly in need of a shave. His face was starting to get caveman-shaggy around the edges. But he didn’t have a razor, or hot water, or anything else you needed to maintain a smooth and socially-acceptable complexion - if there was anyone to socialise with, of course.

  His clothes were beginning to stink and they felt uncomfortable and moist. He clicked open the glove compartment and grabbed the can of deodorant he kept there for emergencies. It was nearly empty. He risked a few quick squirts - one under each arm and a general one inside his shirt. Far from masking the smell, it merely mingled with it, giving it an artificial, chemical tang.

  He was starting to itch.

  He remembered clearly what he’d said to her. “You can’t stop me. It’s my money, too. At least half of it is mine.”

  She’d pushed her face towards him and, at that moment, it had seemed uglier than ever. When she spoke it was more of a throaty hiss than her normal voice. “I’m not letting you have it just so you can spend it on that tart!”

  That final word had enraged him and he’d lashed out, harder than he’d meant to. Or maybe he’d felt she deserved it.

  She fell against the kitchen table with a low grunt before hitting the floor with a loud slap. She lay on her back and didn’t move.

/>   He leaned over her and looked down into her eyes. “Hey, c’mon.” He slapped her face. She made a strange noise in the back of her throat. He stepped away, got a cloth and soaked it in cold water. He began to dab her brow with it but then stood up quickly when he saw the blood.

  Her face reminded him of something you see on a fishmonger’s slab, staring up at you even though it can no longer see you. One or two strands of hair, that had been tucked imperfectly behind her left ear, began to float in the pool of blood that grew under her head.

  An odd blend of fear and boredom twisted through his thoughts. “There’s nothing more to see here. She’s stopped moving,” said the sick spectator in his head. “On to the next shallow thrill, my boy!”

  He was sure he’d left the door unlocked as he left. He remembered worrying about it as his tyres screeched, complaining that he’d accelerated away too fast. But he knew he couldn’t go back to check.

  There were four roads leading out of the car park. One led to a short headland, two led to dead ends overlooking the sea, but he was sure he hadn’t driven down the fourth one, though he couldn’t think why. It seemed to be the most promising as it led away from the sea.

  He slipped into second gear and headed away as fast as he could. To the right was a steep earth bank covered with impenetrable, overgrown vegetation, to the other side lay the sea.

  The road began to rise and curve around. This was more like it. Now he was getting somewhere, he felt. Why he hadn’t tried this road on the previous days, he couldn’t think. Something in the back of his head nagged at him; maybe it hadn’t been there on any of the previous days.

  He swore at himself, telling his reflection in the rear view mirror that he must be losing his marbles. He laughed at himself, feeling reassured.

  This was great, he thought. The sense of movement lifted his spirits and he decided that, if push came to shove, he’d sooner drive forever than just sit in a car park. Cars were made to move and so was he.

  Now the road was descending again and curving the other way. He craned his head to try and see around the corner, expecting to see a roundabout or a junction.

  The sea peeped from behind the overgrowth at the roadside and the road began to flatten out. The vegetation came to an end and a depressingly familiar car park came into view.

  He drove the last few dozen yards and parked about 15 feet back from the sea wall. He got out and looked around at the four exit roads and the short headland with the windmill.

  He shook his head and laughed again

  At first he thought it was merely a near-identical car park to the one he’d just left, but then he spotted something in one corner. He walked over and examined the pile of debris – discarded cigarette ends, an empty Marlboro packet and a crumpled-up soft drink can – and realised with despair that he’d dumped it there only yesterday.

  The lorry. He remembered now, it had backed into him. Or he’d run into the back of it. It happened so fast, he couldn’t recall all the details properly.

  It was only a few minutes after he’d run out of the house, leaving her lying on the floor.

  He could still see an arc of diamonds fly towards him as the windscreen caved in, stinging his face as they cut into his flesh. And he’d felt the blinding pain as his legs were crushed by the front of the car as it crumpled under the force of the collision.

  He breathed deeply. Then he ran his hands over his face. No scars, no marks; the rear-view mirror hadn’t been lying.

  He opened the door and stepped out of the car, with no complaints from the legs he’d felt being crushed. He looked down at the pristine paintwork and the smooth bodywork of the car, its distinctive badge still firmly in place.

  But it wasn’t the sort of thing you imagine. You couldn’t possibly; there was too much pain, too many small details that you wouldn’t know about unless you’d been through it. The smell of the engine spraying hot gases into the passenger compartment as it was suddenly shattered, the desperate and sudden need to urinate.

  But if he hadn’t imagined it or dreamed it …?

  He looked around at the grey horizon stretching itself out and wondered where he was and how he’d got there. “Where the hell am I?” he asked himself.

  He was awake again and there was a salty tang on his tongue. He couldn’t remember how long he’d been here. Four days, maybe five at most. But he’d be leaving today. Of that he was sure ...

  HEART IS WHERE THE HOME IS

  In his old, tilting clockwork house at the edge of the town, Framehr lived with his daughter and four cats.

  His daughter was so graceful, yet so fickle, and his cats so attentive, with such kindly faces, that he often thought he had four daughters and one cat.

  But it was just an old man’s imagination getting very much the better of him.

  When Framehr’s house was new it made hardly any sound, just the murmur of swift-running water over pebbles. Now it was old and badly in need of repair, it made all the fuss and tumult of water streaming into a bowl after a long journey.

  The man who had built Framehr’s house – a Belgian engineer and architect of worldwide renown – had proclaimed it a marvel and went on to state that everyone would one day live in such well-oiled, self-winding machines.

  Sadly, the man was now long dead and no-one knew enough about the house to restore it to full working order.

  Many monographs and books about the architect spoke of the wonderful house in an historical context, lamenting that we hadn’t followed the path laid out by the Belgian visionary. These same publications always failed to mention the current poor state of the house or its present owner’s urgent need of a man talented enough to restore it to its original condition.

  Even if Framehr could find an individual with such talents, he would be unable to pay for the repairs that were needed.

  Not even Framehr’s daughter (or did he have four? … ah, well) knew exactly how old her father was, but she did know he’d lived a long and profligate life.

  She knew he had, in turn, been a thief, a television performer, a gambler, a doctor and a chef (he had, in fact, cooked greasy meals for greasy dock workers in a grey refinery port for just four months, but Framehr felt the title ‘chef’ conferred upon him an otherwise unobtainable air of creativity).

  She also knew he had made, or swindled people out of, a great deal of money but it had all been spent on buying and attempting to maintain the marvellous house.

  Anyone who knew about money and what to do with it would have airily dismissed the house as ‘a bad investment’. But Framehr felt it was the one time in his life that he had ever used money wisely, apart from the smaller sum spent wooing his late wife, Julia.

  A faded colour photograph showing three people wearing clothes some decades out of fashion hung in the house, forming the fourth side of a square completed by three clocks.

  The three people – Framehr, Julia and the brilliant Belgian – are standing in front of the miraculous house, which is purring softly away in the background, biding its time.

  The architect would have disapproved of what Framehr and Julia had done to ‘his’ house, stuffing its perfectly proportioned insides with dusty brown and green furnishings, cluttering its spaces and breaking up its lines. The built-in furniture ought to be enough for even the most demanding tenant, he would have declared, if asked.

  But he never re-visited the house and Julia considered it most demanding of its tenants.

  She strove to make it comfortable with Framehr’s help. Then their daughter came along and they were all very happy there … until Julia died.

  Paterson saw the house from some way off, standing up against the skyline. He sailed past the shingle spit that started almost at the door of the house and tied up at a dilapidated jetty some few hundred yards inland.

  After he’d stoked down the boiler and the boat was secure, he hefted his heavy leather bag up onto the jetty and climbed out.

  He stood looking towards the house for a fe
w moments before lifting his bag up onto his shoulder and setting off towards it. The sprawl of the town ended just a few fields shy of the house. Even from this distance the structure was impressive; four storey’s of elegance and engineering perfection, with just a hint of something out of kilter with the three upper floors. If his information was right, as he knew it was, things weren’t as perfect as they seemed at first. And that was what he was counting on.

  As he drew nearer to the house along the grassed-over path that ran along the shore, he could hear the structure groaning and wheezing to itself. It clearly wasn’t happy.

  Finding the door of the house open, Paterson went in.

  He crossed the living room, patting one of the metallic servants on the head as he passed. The servant made no response, staying where it was, clicking softly and feebly waving its arm at chest level. Once there had been many servants softly humming through the house on thin metal rails which were barely visible, cleaning every room at all hours. Now only a few were in evidence, stopped in their tracks. The others were trapped inside the walls, oblivious to their entombment.

  “Oooh,” said the young woman as she rounded a corner and nearly bumped into Paterson. Her gaze quickly took in his expensive-looking but crumpled grey clothes and tired manner. “Who are you?”

  If Paterson had been wearing a hat he would have taken it off. He smiled at her dark hair, pale cheeks and pretty green eyes. “I’m Paterson. The door was open so I just came in. And what is your name?”