by Heide Goody
“Not bloody likely,” said Rod, also standing. “You know some things – some things – because you live in the sewers and are willing to get your hands dirty. Don’t pretend you hold some high and mighty position or that we need you.”
Nina took a hold of Rod’s arm. “We do need him.”
“Not that much.”
Omar had a roguish glint in his eye. “Too proud. Too proud. I understand. Then I offer another avenue.”
“What?” said Nina.
“A challenge.”
“Like a duel?”
“A game,” said Omar. “A game of skill and knowledge. Let’s see who the expert is.”
“We don’t have time for games.” Rod headed for the door.
“Time is for games,” said Omar. “Everything else is filler. We play, Rodney. If you win, I will answer all of your questions. And, yes, I do have the answers you seek.”
“And if you win?” said Nina.
“Rodney apologises, acknowledges me as his superior, accepts that he owes me a favour and I will still answer your questions.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” said Rod.
“He accepts,” said Nina.
“I do?” Rod shook his head and then shook Omar’s proffered hand.
“So glad,” said Omar, opened a desk drawer and removed a long flat cardboard box that was so old and battered its corners were held together with several layers of sticking tape.
“Scrabble?” Rod looked in disbelief.
“Oh, dear boy,” said Omar, “not any old game of Scrabble.”
Vivian owned a car. It was exactly the sort of car Morag would have expected her to own. It was not small but it was modestly sized, built for economy and efficiency over style and comfort. It was pristine, inside and out, and as well-organised as a fascist rally. When Vivian asked Morag if she had clean shoes before she got in, Morag was already checking.
Vivian obeyed the speed limit all the way to Bournville. Morag flicked through Greg’s notebook. There were doodles aplenty, and personal and often incomprehensible notes.
“In any other job, if you showed this kind of thing to your doctor you’d be signed off sick for a year,” said Morag.
“I do not know of a single person in our line of work who does not suffer from stress, anxiety or depression in one form or another,” said Vivian.
“You seem to be holding it together well.”
“I was talking about other people,” said the older woman.
Morag found herself once again looking at Greg’s drawing of the Nadirian. It had been executed in biro, in more than one colour as though he had come back to it time and again to refine it. It looked like the man had poured all his doubts, guilt and self-loathing onto the page and given it flesh.
“What kind of a man was Greg?” said Morag.
“Mr Robinson laughed a lot.”
“That’s nice.”
“Misdirection,” said Vivian. “He was like Vaughn Sitterson in that one sense.”
“Hmmm?”
“Vaughn Sitterson does not like the world to pay close attention to him and foolishly attempts to achieve that by ignoring the world. Greg Robinson achieved the same by making the rest of the world seem more interesting.”
“Do you know why he died?”
“Most people seem to think it was suicide.”
“He was depressed?”
Vivian gave her a dismissive look. “Happy people tend not to kill themselves.”
“No. Suppose not.” Morag flicked onward to the page they had discovered together earlier, the one that had nothing on it, apart from Morag’s address.
Vivian parked on Franklin Road, a short distance from Morag’s home. The afternoon skies were grey and unfriendly.
“You believe that your neighbour is the Nadirian?” said Vivian.
“I believe Vaughn believes my neighbour is the Nadirian,” said Morag. “If I might speculate, Greg knew that Mrs Atraxas was the Nadirian and, for whatever reason, chose suicide-by-Venislarn as his preferred way out. Vaughn either knows this or suspects this.”
“So you suspect.”
“I do suspect.”
Vivian locked the car. “Have you ever seen this woman?” she asked.
“No,” said Morag. “I’ve seen her cats. I’ve heard strange noises coming from her flat. Thumps, bumps and something that’s trying to sound like music but really isn’t.”
“So, you’ve no idea what this thing looks like?”
Morag came round the car and joined Vivian on the pavement to walk up to the house. “It will look like whatever we think it will look like. It’s the whole Stay-Puft-Marshmallow-Man thing.”
“Stay Puft?”
“From Ghostbusters. The movie. You know, when they’re on top of the building and…”
Vivian shook her head. “I stopped going to the cinema after they stopped having intermissions.”
“Because?”
“In the intermission, Mr Grey and I used to have a little debate about how the film would end.”
“You always won, I bet,” said Morag.
“Naturally,” said Vivian. “If we are to tackle the Nadirian, one of us must go in with a clear mind, refuse to view your Mrs Atraxas as anything other than an old woman.”
“That’s impossible. That’s like telling someone to not think of pink elephants. If I try to avoid thinking of a monstrous horror with suckers and claws and orifices in the wrong places, I’m going to think of nothing but that.”
“It is a matter of will power.”
Morag sighed. “I’m not happy asking a colleague to face danger but if you’re confident about this…”
“I am. I will enter her flat, engage her in conversation and, at the appropriate time, employ the Uriye Inai’e prayer,” said Vivian. “Meanwhile, you will ensure the building is empty and secure. And, if I give the signal to indicate that I have failed, then you will call for reinforcements.”
“Would the signal involve a lot of screaming?”
“It will be a loud shout at most,” said Vivian. “I shall be professional to the end.”
They stopped at the gate to 27 Franklin Road.
“She may just be an old woman,” said Vivian.
“Here’s hoping.”
Professor Sheikh Omar unpacked the Scrabble box with slow reverence.
“It was a rainy night in dreary Halifax. Nova Scotia, not Yorkshire. We were hoping to unearth some of Maurice’s distant relatives but it had proved to be a dismal endeavour. Our hotel had an unimaginatively stocked bar and this solitary board game. One of the E’s was missing. And so, over a bottle of inferior Pinot Grigio, Venislarn Scrabble was born. Later on, we combined it with a Polish and a Danish edition to get a better frequency of letters to represent those pharyngeal fricatives and glottal consonants that make Venislarn such a workout for the mouth.”
“Pharyngeal fricatives, sure,” said Rod.
Nina patted Rod’s knee supportively. “Don’t worry, mate. We’ll trounce him.”
Omar adjusted his glasses. “This is a game between Rodney and myself, Nina. You’re not playing. It’s his apology I seek to extract.”
“But I’m rubbish at Venislarn,” said Rod.
“Oh, I am sure your rudimentary abilities will stand up to those of a man who is so patently ‘full of shite’.”
Rod gave Nina a panicked look.
“Team talk!” Nina declared, and pulled Rod by his lapels out into the corridor.
“How did we get ourselves into this position?” he said. “And why did we agree to this stupid game?”
“Do we need his help or not?”
“Probably.”
“Then shut up and listen:
Scyad fyada crikh’hu,
Drat cribbe’u nhup mudu,
Posna-bhapa shuta,
Pabbe scama shis’kha,
Faiska-shaska taset glun''u.”
Rod blinked. “A Venislarn limerick.”
“Yup.
”
“There were lots of rude words in that.”
“Yes, there were. Now, repeat it back to me.”
Rod blinked some more. “Our strategy is that I memorise a dirty limerick and hope that I can play some of those words?”
“It is.”
Rod gave her a long look.
“Okay. Give it to me one more time.”
Morag knocked on the door to flat one. Richard answered almost immediately.
“Oh, you are in,” said Morag, surprised.
“I am,” said Richard and then, “By knocking, you are usually indicating that you hope to see the person inside.”
“I suppose.”
“I don’t think I would ever knock on a door and hope the person was out. Hello,” he said to Vivian, who was standing behind Morag in the hallway.
“This is my Aunt Vivian,” said Morag.
“I am her aunt,” Vivian confirmed flatly.
“She’s agreed to come round and do some tidying at my place while we’re out tonight,” said Morag, “which is very nice of her.”
“It is,” Richard agreed. He looked at his watch. “The open mic event isn’t on for a couple of hours yet.”
“I thought we could go early. Get a bite to eat. Sound good?”
“That does sound good,” said Richard. “I’ll got get my bagpipes.”
“It wouldn’t be a proper night out without them.”
Richard disappeared.
“Does he deliberately dress as a lumberjack?” asked Vivian.
“I think it might be a hipster thing.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
Richard appeared with the tartan windbag under his arm. “I’m ready.”
Morag looked at Vivian. “Be careful up there.”
“I will,” said Vivian.
“Is your flat dangerously untidy?” asked Richard.
“This niece of mine has the most atrocious habits,” said Vivian and made her way upstairs.
Morag tried to give her a ‘call me’ gesture but she didn’t look back.
“Lead on,” Morag prompted Richard. She followed him out and locked the door securely behind her.
As she climbed to the top floor, Vivian opened her purse and removed a pendant on a silver chain. She did not generally approve of jewellery on either men or women but she kept this particular item close. It had been a Christmas present from someone who understood her fondness for practical gifts. She stopped at the bottom of the final flight of stairs. A fat black cat sat before the door to flat three. Vivian dangled the pendant and watched the arrow-head twitch. It moved only millimetres but it definitely twitched, as though it was feebly trying to escape earth’s gravity.
There was a Venislarn presence in the local area. The hope that it was just a little old lady in flat three was diminishing quickly.
She went up the stairs. The black cat stretched and hissed at her. Vivian ignored it and the cat had to move fast to avoid being trodden on. It part rolled, part scurried its way down the stairs and out of her way.
Vivian composed herself at the door and fixed the idea of a sweet old lady in her mind before knocking.
There was a scraping shuffle from within – the sound of furniture being dragged across the floor? – and a series of scratchy muttering sounds. Something stroked the door and eventually found the door handle. It turned slowly, creaking.
Rod looked at his seven tiles. He had six consonants and one vowel. Four of the consonants were H’s. He made quiet strangling noises as he tried to wrap his mouth around possible Venislarn words.
The day was darkening quickly and Maurice had put the lights on and made a fresh pot of tea. Omar had insisted the Nina sit at the long edge of the desk where she couldn’t see Rod’s tiles or whisper any suggestions. Omar had presented her with a clothbound book.
“The world’s most extensive and accurate English-Venislarn dictionary,” he told her.
She looked at its blank cover and spine. “Written by you, I guess,” said Nina.
“But typed up by Maurice. I’m all thumbs whereas Maurice has such nimble fingers. Tiny hands, like a capuchin, don’t you, Maurice? Come show the lady.”
Maurice waved his suggestion away and blushed.
Rod rearranged his tiles and almost dislocated his epiglottis trying to pronounce the resulting word.
“One birthday, Maurice gave me a set of Scrabble tiles engraved with Venislarn ideograms,” said Omar. “We managed one game, didn’t we?”
“What happened?” asked Nina.
“Do you recall the Birmingham tornado of 2005?”
“That was the Winds of Kaxeos,” said Nina.
“And I’m glad that’s what everyone thinks,” said Omar. “We never saw the tiles again, did we? The power of words.”
It was an old woman who opened the door, but she did not particularly resemble the image that Vivian had conjured in her mind. Vivian had gone for a Miss Marple-style dignified old dear, perhaps with a blue rinse and lavender perfume, but the woman who opened the door bore more resemblance to one of Macbeth’s witches.
Mrs Atraxas – the Nadirian — was short and bent. Her hair was a thick thatch of light grey, like a teetering mass of day-old mashed potato. Her face, so round as to appear wider than it was tall, was deeply lined and the colour of toffee. Patches of bristly hair sprouted from her chin. Her dark green cardigan had been buttoned up wrong and her brown skirts were marked with old stains. A pea clung to her cuff, in a thick clot of what appeared to be gravy.
The woman repositioned her wooden walking stick and tilted her head to look up at Vivian.
“Yes?” she said.
Vivian felt a sudden and rare thrill of nervousness as she prepared to speak, as though the act of speaking would force strange images into her own mind and thus unleash the Nadirian’s protean abilities.
“Mrs Atraxas,” said Vivian. “My niece, Morag, has just moved in downstairs. I thought I would just come up to say hello.”
“Who?” said the Nadirian.
“Morag, my niece. She’s moved in downstairs. My name is Vivian.”
The Nadirian squinted at Vivian like she was a snake oil salesman. “You’ll be wanting to come in for a drink then?” she said eventually.
“That’s very kind of you.”
“I haven’t forgotten my manners, not like some,” said the Nadirian. She turned away and toddled lopsidedly into the flat proper. Vivian followed.
The flat stank of cats. It felt like the air itself was fifty percent cat hair. Cats littered the place, as though there had been an explosion in a cat factory. They lounged on the back of the time-soiled sofa. They curled under the occasional tables, sometimes only a paw or a tail poking out from under the brown lace tablecloths. A series of small bric-a-brac shelves were fastened to the wall in a staggered arrangement that reminded Morag of steps. When she saw a cat run up them and trot around the picture rail to peer down at her, she realised that they were, in fact, steps — positioned for the cats’ convenience. Two tawny long-haired cats sat like a lion and lioness atop a Welsh dresser. Another was stretched out flat in front of a closed door, as though it had drawn the short straw and had been given the job of draught excluder.
There was also the cat that sat on the arm of a chair wearing a knitted baby bonnet and a bib.
“I do coffee,” shouted the Nadirian from the kitchen. “I do not do tea. I do not understand it.”
The Venislarn-in-an-old-woman-suit had a curious accent. It had a definite Mediterranean air to it. At one moment it sounded Italian. At another it had a Greek quality. It could have been Albanian or Croatian or maybe the Venislarn hadn’t settled on a single accent yet. If Vivian understood the Nadirian’s powers correctly, she should simply be able to imagine hearing the woman in a specific accent and it would be so.
With the old woman in the kitchen, Vivian slipped her phone from her pocket and sent a quick text.
“This is a… very interesting hat your
cat is wearing,” she said conversationally.
“I knitted it for him,” the Nadirian shouted back. “From a pattern I have.”
“Does he like wearing it?” Vivian asked.
“He is a cat,” said the Nadirian. “He wears it because I make him wear it.”
The British Oak was an impressively large pub with a stone façade that made it look like a beer baron’s castle. Unfortunately, it was pressed up against a busy stretch of high street — which kind of took the grand and majestic wind out of the building’s sails. Still, it was pleasant inside and the menu looked better than the kind of pub fare Morag was used to.
The barmaid eyed the bagpipes under Richard’s arm suspiciously.
“Are you here for the talent night?”
“That’s right,” said Richard.
“And can you play them?”
“I’ve been practising.”
She looked at Morag.
“I’ve never heard a bum note out of them,” Morag said truthfully.
“It’s not on until seven,” said the barmaid. “I’m putting you on first, before it gets busy.”
“Thank you,” said Richard.
They took their drinks to a corner seat by leaded windows that overlooked the car park. Morag glanced over the menu. She wasn’t really hungry and her thoughts were more on the colleague she had left in the lair of the Nadirian.
“Well, here’s to the neighbour thing,” said Richard and held up his pint.
“To the neighbour thing.”
Richard took a sip of beer that left a thick white froth on his moustache.
“Classy,” said Morag.
“I aim to be,” said Richard.
Morag looked at the funny, gentle teddy bear of a man. “I only know Richard Smith the pizza delivery guy and devil-may-care bagpiper slash stand-up comedian,” she said. “Tell me a bit about yourself.”
“Oh, you know more than that,” he said.
She wiggled her nose in thought. “I know you like Terry’s Chocolate Oranges. I know that if a strange drunk woman breaks into your house, you’re too nice to kick her out.”