Broken Meats: A Harry Stubbs Adventure

by Hambling, David

  I focused my willpower, my determination, my whole strength into trying to reverse my fall. My descent may have slowed a little, but the world continued to grow ever more distant. My breath was all gone, and now I heard the rush of blood in my ears and the thud-thud-thud of my heartbeat slowing down, slowing down.

  It was infuriating that this pudgy little man was standing a few feet away, just out of my reach, and I could do nothing. I could see him exerting his will, and the strain was starting to show on him.

  The pressure on me eased. I felt myself drifting back upwards towards the world, and I took half a breath before D’Onston redoubled his effort again, and I was resubmerged in the void, drowning slowly. I was proving hard to kill, no doubt a much tougher specimen than Powell but still no match for D'Onston.

  Even the toughest chicken gets its neck wrung if you twist hard enough, and D’Onston could twist very hard indeed. My heart went thud… thud… thud… then missed a beat.

  I must have blacked out because when I came to, I was panting heavily, gasping in great lungfuls of air. Someone was standing between me and D’Onston, blocking his line of sight, cutting off the lethal beam of his gorgon stare. I was looking at the back of an immaculately tailored, oyster-grey, raw-silk suit. Mr Yang was facing D’Onston.

  “The Si Fan cannot be flouted with impunity,” Yang said. “You can never escape.”

  “If the Divine King in Yellow’s cohorts can’t kill you, I certainly can,” said D’Onston, unperturbed. “Call yourself a Taoist adept, eh?”

  D’Onston raised a hand. I am certain the words he spoke next would have paralysed Yang or done some other mischief—had not Yang coolly shot him in the chest three times before he could get the words out. Chun Hua flinched as the bullets passed inches over her head.

  “Taoist magic,” Yang murmured as the echo of the shots died away.

  D’Onston looked shocked. Then his face gradually twisted. It was an expression of pain but also in a transfiguration, as when an actor steps out of one role and takes up another, adjusting his features to the character he is playing. The new actor looked about in confusion and dismay, not understanding what had happened to him, before taking half a step and toppling to the ground.

  Yang had fired at D’Onston; but when the body died, it was occupied by Howard. Yang confirmed that the man was dead. Chun Hua was shaking and clung on to my hand for dear life but was unscathed.

  Mocking laughter sounded from the pit beneath us.

  “The situation is not necessarily to our advantage.” Yang gestured me over to the deal table, where a book lay open beside an oil lamp, and pointed to the place. “We must be quick. Can you read this?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Read me the words here, by the dragon-tail symbol.”

  I leaned close, trying to make out the writing. At first it looked as if it was in a foreign alphabet, but I gradually made out an old-fashioned script where the letters flowed together.

  “It’s not proper words, “I said. “This one looks like—‘thro-dog’?”

  A low tone, deep as an organ pipe, sounded in the chamber, echoing and re-echoing as though through many caverns farther below us. Then it arose again on a slightly different note. Chun Hua let out a shriek as the face of the thing from the pit appeared over the edge. Yang shot at him, and I believe he hit several times, but the bullets had no more effect than a peashooter.

  As the monster pulled himself fully up to our level, I disengaged from Chun Hua’s hold. The knuckle-duster was still on my left hand, and as he rose, I punched the monster square in the face, sending him tumbling back into darkness.

  I peered down, trying to see through the gloom, and saw him rising up on the other side. I could not fathom how he was climbing that sheer surface. I went round to tackle him, but the monster had already achieved the stone floor and adopted a fighting stance. When I closed, he threw a straight right at me, which I dodged.

  The thing looked quite different now that D’Onston occupied the body. His face was a grisly mask of cunning and malice. Howard had never boxed in his life, but D’Onston held his guard like a decent amateur and knew how to use his reach. His blows were inexpert but dangerous.

  My right hand was less useful without the weight and power of a knuckle-duster, making me a one-armed fighter. He was one armed too, but his left elbow was not as badly damaged as I'd expected—as though it was healing even as we fought. His attacks were not frenzied but deliberate. After being confined to the short, dumpy frame of Howard, D’Onston was revelling in the power and strength of his regenerated body.

  I was aware of the booming from the pit, rumbling and rolling. Some corner of my mind registered the fact that the sounds were resolving themselves into words. And the rhythm of it… was the same as in the séance. But a thousand times stronger.

  Movement was my only means of survival, and I used the space as best I could to avoid his blows while trying to maneuver him around. He followed me, pressing closely. I tried a left hook, angling to knock him back into the pit. My blow staggered him, but his counterpunch knocked me down.

  D’Onston ignored me and loped towards Yang—who, unable to read himself, held the book up for Chun Hua. She was reading haltingly, following the words with a finger. As D’Onston closed on them, Yang shouted out a string of words she had deciphered.

  Like a sandcastle kicked over by a bully, or a snowball struck by a cricket bat, the monster disintegrated into fine particles. There was nothing left but a cloud of grey dust settling to the ground. Those words had somehow unbound the atoms that had been bound together by Palingenesis.

  Dust to dust: the mortal remains of Robert D’Onston Stephenson, falling like featherdown from a burst pillow.

  “Was he just a bad dream?” Chun Hua asked me, looking wonderingly.

  “A dead man who dreamed he was alive,” said Yang. “Until we woke him.”

  The booming from the pit had faded into a single mournful note. Then, the drumming started up again, quickly becoming louder. Whatever D’Onston had called on had passed through some veil, and it was still rising from the deep.

  “Come now,” said Yang as I goggled at the cloud. He took the oil lamp in one hand and Chun Hua by the other and hurried back to the corridor. I followed, the stone flags cold under my one bare foot.

  As soon as we reached the surface, Yang instructed me to replace the manhole cover. I saw that there was another light, flickering in many colours, which was blotted out when I closed the lid. Even with the cover down, I could hear the bass voice rumbling and feel the vibration through the ground. While I was staring at it, Yang tugged my sleeve and ushered me outside with Chun Hua.

  “What is it?” I asked. “How can we stop it?”

  Yang shook his head. I recalled how the formless ectoplasm had reached for him, and for some reason I thought of an earthquake of boiling mud.

  As soon as we were outside he placed his hands against the wall. “Heaven and Earth are without limit.” Yang looked as though he was trying to push the wall over.

  “Can I help?”

  “Please stand back.”

  It was a physical impossibility to push a wall over. But that wasn't quite what he was trying to do. It was more as if he was shaping the vibration that was coming up from below, channelling it with tiny movements of his hands. There was no sign of strain on his face; Yang was as serene as if he always leaned against walls that way.

  The sound grew louder, a thrumming note that I felt all the way through my chest, like a locomotive passing inches away.

  They say a singer can shatter a wine glass with a high-pitched note, though I’ve never seen it done. Perhaps a similar effect occurred when, just for a moment, the solid wall wobbled like cardboard under Yang’s hands, and the next second, the vibration rippled through it, and the whole building tumbled like a house of cards, collapsing in on itself with an oddly muted rumble. It was not an explosion but an implosion. The building just seemed to decide n
ot to want to stand anymore and slumped into a compact heap with hardly any dust.

  Then it was quiet again. There was no sound from under the ground. Yang turned to see Chun Hua and me gaping at him. He replaced his hat and flicked dust off his lapels. A tabby cat rubbed round his ankles. Yang petted it distractedly, saying something in Chinese.

  I was forced to consider my own appearance: torn jacket, buttons gone from my shirt where I had scrambled out of the pit, face bloodied and bruised, one shoe missing. I removed the knuckle-duster from my left hand and wiped my face with a handkerchief.

  “It is inconvenient for the Si Fan for you, who know so much, still to be alive,” Yang told me.

  I was looking down the barrel of his pistol. But I could tell now that this was merely a formality, like the cups of tea poured by the Wu brothers.

  “I will report your death to my superiors,” he said, putting the weapon away. “Just as you reported my death to the authorities.”

  “That was Reg Brown who identified the body for the police,” I said. “Wrongly. Who was the it—the man I rescued you from?”

  “He pierced me with two chuan; I returned them to him. The Si Fan are not attacked with impunity.”

  “And you gave him your suit and your papers so D’Onston would think you were dead. Then you used me to lure out D’Onston so you could get a shot at him.”

  “Indeed,” he said.

  “But you did save my life.”

  “No doubt you would have survived without my assistance,” he said smoothly. “I apologise for interfering. However—if we do meet again, I warn you that it may be necessary to kill you.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Now, as you have been of such assistance, I will answer one of your questions.”

  I did not know what question to ask; there were so many. But Yang had already decided.

  “Make your fist like this.”

  I followed his direction, holding my fist at waist level, thumb outwards.

  “Strike like this.” Yang extended his arm, exhaling and rotating his fist as he did so. I copied the action, repeating it several times under his direction. “Focus your energy. Concentrate on the fist.”

  It was an unfamiliar move, quite unlike the Western style but not altogether strange. There was something natural about it, as if my muscles were already tuned to it. It was like going back to a movement that I had known as a child but had forgotten.

  “You must never share this knowledge with anyone,” said Yang. “But if you practice one thousand times a day, one day you may break stones. Yes. Now, do it three times more, exactly like that.”

  I repeated the move as directed, wondering at now easy it felt. When I looked up again, Yang had disappeared.

  “Can I go home now?” asked Chun Hua.

  I walked half a mile with her, discarding my one shoe at an early stage. Walking on the pavement in stockinged feet is not a pleasant experience. She was exhausted. I had to carry her the next mile until we reached Brixton Hill, where I was able to flag down a cab. I had not formulated an explanation as to why I was accompanying a small Chinese girl, and the driver looked doubtful about taking us at first, but then his face lit up.

  “Here—ain’t you Harry Stubbs, the boxer?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  “Well, I never! Hop in, Harry. I saw you fight Davy Berg at the Winter Gardens three years back.”

  The cabbie was a keen follower of the sport. He was less interested in why I was escorting Chun Hua than in reliving my contest against Davy Berg and why I let him get up in the third round, and soliciting my views on the current state of the fight game with particular reference to Frank Goddard’s prospects for holding on to the title. Another man might have thought of contacting the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children; the cabbie was more interested in what I thought of the colour bar and whether rumours of my return to the game were well founded.

  The cabbie was well-informed, firing off questions and opinions at a rapid pace. I worked hard to keep up while Chun Hua dozed next to me.

  There was light at the windows of the Wu house, and the door opened as soon as the cab drew up. Most of the family spilled out onto the street to greet us. Yang must have apprised them of their daughter’s rescue. I remained just long enough to see Chun Hua reunited with her tearful mother. Her father wanted to get on his knees in front of me, but I was having none of it. I stepped back into the cab and ordered the driver back to Norwood. The return of their daughter was more important to the Wu family than anything else. And it had been a long day.

  When I finally reached home and escaped the friendly interrogation of my driver, a little ditty was going round my head. It was the final verse of Kipling’s famous poem about East and West not meeting—the lines that Reg never got to:

  “But there’s neither East nor West

  Nor border, breed nor birth

  When two strong men meet face to face

  Though they come from the ends of the Earth.”

  Epilogue: Breakfast at the Electric Cafe

  Not long after these events, I was having breakfast at the Electric Café with Arthur at his special invitation. I had already given him a brief summary of the foregoing events, but now he was between consignments and wanted to hear the whole thing from start to finish.

  He listened to my account without demur, methodically working his way through a Full English, cutting up his bacon, sausage, egg, tomato and mushroom into small pieces, hardly stopping me to ask a question. Listening to myself telling it, I was more incredulous than he was. It sounded in my ears like a mishmash of Frankenstein’s monster, Count Dracula, and Jekyll and Hyde. Arthur took it all in with no appearance of concern.

  “And that explains your casual appearance, Stubbsy,” he said at the end, as though that was the mystery he wanted solving. He was referring to my old jacket, and the cap I was wearing in place of my missing bowler.

  “My wardrobe is undergoing renewal.” I had refused payment from Chun Hua’s family, but a round little Chinese tailor had turned up at my lodgings a day later. He insisted on measuring me up for a list of missing or damaged items, namely “one gentleman’s suit, one pair shoes, one bowler hat.” The tailor was a cheerful, busy man who laughed at his difficulty in reaching around my chest and assured me that he would make me a suit in the latest style, soliciting my views on whether double-breasted would be best for my build.

  “I will return for fitting next week,” he beamed as he finished. “Also, I will include three first-class gentlemen’s shirts and three ties to go with suit. Necessary to have with a good suit.”

  “Thank you. Pass my thanks on to the Wu brothers.”

  “No, no, no!” he said, still smiling. “Not from any of the Mr Wu. This suit is complimentary on the special orders of Mr Henry Yang.” He spoke the name reverently.

  I had only ever worn ready-made suits, which were never quite a satisfactory fit on my physique. I would have been doubtful of a Chinese tailor before, but as this man had Yang’s seal of approval, I looked forward to being the best-dressed man in Norwood.

  Henry Yang, the tailor had called him. I never knew his name was the same as mine. I don’t know why he never mentioned it.

  “What you need to do now is to write the whole thing down from beginning to end,” Arthur was saying. “Just as you’ve told me, minus a few incriminating details. Once you’ve got it all straight, make a fair copy in your best office handwriting.”

  “But I’ve already told you everything.”

  “I know you have. And a few others have told me a few things. Like who dug up Bill McCann’s grave and what other grave they dug up a week later. Also, I can tell you that there’s nothing under that workshop that collapsed—I had a couple of lads try it with pickaxes. Solid all the way down, and no sign of a manhole anywhere.”

  “I was there,” I protested.

  Arthur shrugged, and hinted that I might have been hypnotised by Yang
or D’Onston or both of them, and that the power of the human mind to deceive was a wonder. Well, my bruises and torn suit were real enough.

  “Nevertheless, you need to write your version down just as you remember it. It’s for a gentleman who’s very interested in this case. I’m telling you, Stubbsy, it will be to your advantage.”

  “Who is he? How does he know about it?”

  “I can’t give you a name,” Arthur chided. “As to how he knows… it’s ripples. Every action makes ripples on the pond, as our honourable friend from the mysterious East would say. Like in the fight game. Once a bloke wins a couple, word gets out and the fancy takes notice. Trust me, write it down.”

  Of course, I trust Arthur. Now, I have finished writing it all down, but the results are hardly satisfactory. I have tried to keep fact and fiction separate, though Yang might laugh at me for the attempt. I doubt how well I have succeeded; some passages leap out as dreams or hallucinations. Though perhaps hypnosis is easier to contemplate than the alternative—that such things are really possible, and the dead walk, people like D’Onston wield genuine powers, and ungodly things inhabit spaces beyond our reach.

  If I knew I was going to write fiction, I could at least have written myself wiser. And wittier. I could have made myself less of a blundering oaf and more of a sharp thinker who had figured it all out from the start. I could have written myself handsome. I could have at least chopped the truth a little less close to the bone and not have my bacon being saved by a six-year-old girl who reads better than me.

  I do at least understand a little more how fact and fiction work together. It’s like a steak and kidney pudding: without steak, there’s no substance; without kidney, there’s no savour. You need the proper mixture. Pure fact is too indigestible without the imaginative part that fills in the spaces between. That’s the only way to make a satisfying pudding.

  But I have also begun to apprehend the dangerous power of writing. Howard died because he read Roslyn D’Onston’s work and was sucked into it. Powell, too, was probably a normal enough man until he started reading detective stories and was overcome with a mania for solving the Ripper case. If Victor had taken to horticulture instead of reading Theosophy books, he would never have been harmed.