The Unusual Possession of Alastair Stubb

by David John Griffin

  THE SILENCE OF the night. The powdered stars winked at the snow wrapped over Muchmarsh. It had become bitterly cold: Mrs. Battlespoke’s washing – put outside for some reason known only to herself – hung like cardboard from her line. Mr. Fishcake scraped ice from the windscreen of his new motor car and Badger braved the cold again and stepped from his cottage by the farm yard to sweep the path to his shed clear of snow. The moon was full. She peered shyly from behind a bank of cloud, occasionally gaining the courage to scamper from behind her covering, sending a mellow light to stain the ivory landscape.

  A beetle scurried across the floorboards from a hole in the skirting and disappeared under the bed. Alastair heard the clock on the green strike eleven. He lay down. He always wondered at the voices in his head and the strange images that had become part of his waking life. He stood and kicking balls of newspaper at his feet, walked to the blotched mirror which hung on the wall beside the door of his bedroom. He studied the face: holding his breath, he started to trace his features with an index finger. It began on his forehead, nestled within his forelock. The digit slid to the tip of his nose which was too much of a scoop, he decided. He pondered on this anatomical deficiency until the finger reached his lips. ‘Fat lips,’ he yelled suddenly to his reflection. He bit the end of his finger with such force that his teeth made a mark as clear as a white elastic band. He saw a dazzling flash of light and an image of Queenie, fingerless, licking the stubs on her palm like a dog contentedly licking bones.

  The image faded. He pulled faces; he twisted his mouth and closed an eye and swivelled his eyeballs in their sockets. His reflection seemed larger than himself. But all at once it was not his reflection at all: it was an elderly man with twinkling eyes and a bristly greying moustache, who laughed silently at him. Alastair’s hands were on his hips and he craned his head forward. His own reflection appeared again and he gazed at his visage in outraged fascination.

  You’re so ugly,’ he shouted with glee, ‘ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly.’ The repeated word began to sound strange and then to lose all meaning. ‘What does it mean?’ he demanded and he expected an answer. He grew impatient. The reflection changed again to the man with a moustache. ‘Who are you anyway? Why are you always in my room?’ His voice rose to a fevered pitch. ‘Out, out!’ His own reflection returned once more and mocked him, mouthing the same words. His tight fists were pushed to the wall and his nose was numbed as he flattened it against the cold glass of the mirror. His mouth twitched spasmodically.

  ‘They will all pay. Pump has paid the price; the rest will pay for destroying me. Who are you?’ Alastair laughed. His throat was dry and he looked around the bedroom. He felt confused and ill; all about him began to spin. He staggered to his bed and collapsed onto it but it was as though he fell with a slow motion, seeming to take an age for his head to reach the pillow. The left side of his face jumped with the spasms of his mouth and his legs began to shake. He crawled underneath dirty sheets and lay there huddled, holding his knees to his chest.

  Like a flare, the absence of light was dispelled by another brightness exploding before him. There was Abergail calling and Queenie crying out, both as mournfully as ships’ horns sounding in a night fog. They were searching; they were near. Mustering a mental pressure he willed Abergail to find him.

  He dared not sleep with the fright of his dreams nor did he wish to stay awake for fear of a dread question quivering upon his lips. The strain of the day had taken its toll and he lost both battles. As he drifted into fearful unconsciousness, a question dribbled from his tongue. ‘Who am I?’

  Abergail had come out of the shop and was running away, occasionally sliding on ice patches as she made her way across the green to Stutter Lane. The uncharted village had become an addiction, with every visit making her the more determined to go again. Unsure as to whether she ought to have gone at night, she had slipped out all the same – opportunities were rare, and too valuable to waste.

  She wanted to find Alastair for she believed that he could protect her and help her understand this new life. He would surely accompany her to find new wonders. Though despite these wishes, the further she ran from the shop, the more worried she became. Where would she look for him?

  If only she had borrowed her mother’s overcoat instead of the woollen jumper which covered her blouse and part of her long skirt.

  She stopped for a while. There had been somebody walking across the yard of a farm – and for a moment only, the poor light from the street lamps had convinced her that it was Alastair.

  Realizing it was a man holding a broom she began to run again. Badger’s obsession to sweep the yard every evening had been interrupted by the sound of running feet and he had looked back to her as she stood illuminated by a lamp on the corner of School Lane.

  When Abergail reached the oak tree which stood at the top of Pepper Lane she slumped to the ground, out of breath and frightened. She was cradled by the large, twisted roots of the tree and felt chilled to the bone in the freezing night. Everything looked so different without the light of the sun. If only she had not left the warmth and security of her home. She was about to stand when she became immobile: she was certain there had been a voice. The weight of darkness leant heavily upon her. The wind played with her hair and flapped her skirt. As though trying to draw heat from the frozen bark, she huddled closer to the grasping roots of the tree.

  The voice again. The wind quietened to a whisper.

  Abergail stood quickly and tried to pierce the darkness. Without warning, Queenie leapt from a bifurcation of the tree and landing with her slippered feet in a snow drift. The woman pointed a bony finger, her head almost resting on a shoulder. ‘Child,’ she crooned. As though to dispel dust from her eyes she blinked rapidly. ‘Come child, castles in the lair, castles don’t care. Rabbits and feathers.’ She tottered towards Abergail and with her long dirt-rimmed fingernails digging into the girl’s flesh, grasped her waist in a firm embrace. Abergail struggled and whimpered and tried to push Queenie away but she clung on. The stench of her breath and the smell of her body filled Abergail’s nostrils and she felt nauseous.

  ‘Leave me alone, let go,’ she demanded.

  Queenie cackled. ‘Tree be damned,’ she barked.

  ‘I want to go home. Please let me go,’ Abergail begged. Queenie sprang away with the agility of a cat but no sooner had she landed on the icy ground she jumped forward and pushed her. The girl lost her balance and fell heavily onto the base of the tree. Her mother’s warnings sounded in her head.

  ‘Mummy,’ she said.

  Queenie had been scratching herself and staring without expression but then with outstretched arms she pointed both index fingers at Abergail. ‘Mummy, baby mine,’ she growled. She came closer, her panting breath becoming more rapid as she advanced.

  Abergail cowered and blinked at the accusing fingers held a few inches from her face. Instinctively, she clamped her teeth around one of the digits and bit. Queenie let out a piercing howl, her eyes revolving in their sockets before turning to white. She grinned and held out both hands – streaked with candle wax – as though for inspection. Blood dripped from a severed scab on the finger and fell onto Abergail’s skirt. ‘Bitching soles,’ she hissed and stuffing the digit into her mouth she ran rapidly along Stutter Lane and disappeared into the night. Her howl of surprise and pain began again and it could be heard crawling across the snow-covered fields, her maddened soul crying out in desolation, until all was silent.

  Abergail stood again, shakily and startled, crushing the crimson spots which had stained the snow with her shoes. She must get home to warmth and safety: she began to run back along Stutter Lane but because Queenie had gone this same way before her, she would stop now and then to listen.

  Although the attempt to find Alastair had been unsuccessful, still she held his image within her mind as she ran. It gave her a hope and comfort. She gasped and slowed to a trot, for a bat had swooped past and brushed her hair. She shuddered and lengthened
her stride once more.

  Tiredness began to eat the strength from the muscles in her legs. Panic had taken hold; the distance between the gas lamps along the lane seemed longer than before so that, while plunged into darkness in between, trees and bushes loomed threateningly, blocking light from the moon and preventing escape to the left or right. It was a nightmare tunnel leading to nowhere, seemingly without end. This thought, that she would travel for ever under a network of dark branches, encouraged a deep trepidation. The extremities of her body had been rendered lifeless with the cold and from delayed shock at her previous encounter and she began to cry.

  Still she trotted on, miserable and frightened and tired. If only she had listened to her mother. The outside seemed worse even than had been described. She would promise that never again would she leave the shop. She ran into a soft mass.

  ‘Portside; my lost beauty … squeeerk.’

  As she struggled to release herself from the grip of a man’s arms she let out a scream. It was a long, terrified scream which was cut in flight by a greasy hand over her mouth.

  ‘Quieten, loved one, the other sailors will hear.’

  The moon dipped behind a cloud. Abergail’s terror-stricken eyes tried to identify the black shape before her. The man clasped her hand in his and dragged her across the lane and moved her gently against the wall.

  ‘Give us more – quarrrk – kisses, my pretty girl, come on…’ Badger’s elbows padded at his sides, and his neck slid and writhed as he preened invisible feathers, ‘then I’ll sing you a sailor’s song.’ Abergail lashed out and her hand caught him. His spectacles flew from his curly-haired head and landed by the verge of the lane. He squeaked and went to pick them up and Abergail fled from him.

  She saw the bridge, and further on the clock tower on the green lit by a gas lamp but, as she ran towards them, Badger had followed and reached her, holding Abergail from going further by grasping both wrists and planting slobbering kisses across her cheek and onto her throat.

  Abergail shuddered as she felt his hot breath. On impulse, she brought her knee sharply upwards and it hit him hard in the groin. The man backed away with a groan and Abergail ran shouting and howling like Queenie had done before her.

  Badger cursed, limping back to his cottage at the side of the farm yard.

  He awoke as if from a vivid hallucination and took his broom, pushing and pulling it over the concrete, curses and illogical sentences flowing, created like bubbles from under water. And as like a bubble would pop, so he forgot his previous insult, replaced with the next, and another after that. To lull his mind into some form of calmness, he began to mumble, ‘Left, right, left, right, squawk, left, right…’; and for a time he was able to concentrate his full attention on the act of sweeping with his horse hair yard broom.

  CHAPTER 41

  An Arrest

  LIKE SOME ARCHAIC pageant, a carnival which had lost all meaning, several members of the village walked one behind the other across the green. Their shoes made new indentations in the fresh snow of the morning. Police Constable Flute strutted as their leader with his helmeted head held high and his firm jaw set firmer.

  Florence Dripping clutched a cotton handkerchief to her mouth and wailed and along with Stalk, was left behind the main procession. She tried to cull sympathy from the butcher who did not understand what she was talking about and indeed was unaware of the reason for the exodus, but all the same had gone to the end of the line. Seeing the villagers by the clock tower in an apparent state of excitement had been enough to cause him to leave tying pork crowns to join the group; though as it became obvious that their destination was the tea shop, Stalk realized he could have tamed his inquisitiveness and waited in his butcher’s shop for their arrival next door.

  It was Constable Flute who pushed his forehead to the smudged window of Nuckle’s small establishment. All eight members of the entourage then filed into the dingy, albeit flower-perfumed place and most of them sat at tables more as though for an informal chat than the formal arrest of Mr. Nuckle for the attempted assault of Abergail.

  Stalk whispered, ‘Why are you all here, then? Old Nuckle is going to like this,’ and he smiled, surprisingly almost pleasantly, although it was lost when he received a mixture of blank expressions and aggressive looks. Only Constable Flute had remained standing and he placed the bottom of his arms on the counter beside the glass display case, as though expecting to be served. ‘Are you somewhere there, Mr. Nuckle?’ he called out harshly.

  No time was wasted. The condemned man seemed only too eager to appear. ‘Customers!’ he shouted with glee, his eyes brimming with tears of happiness behind his round spectacles. A particularly grubby cloth was produced from his equally grubby apron and he darted from table to table, wiping the dirty and scratched surfaces. ‘Tea? Coffee? Cakes? Yes, anything you wish. Strips of fried pork back between two chunks of wholemeal? And best butter. My own invention. Who’s first?’

  He looked to those assembled with his wide eyes. They all turned away and began to speak in confidential whispers except the constable who remained silent. He narrowed his eyes and looked hard at Nuckle and was surprised at the man’s calmness given the situation (save for his excitement at so many customers).

  Perhaps after all he was losing his mind, for in the silence of his bedroom Alastair began to hallucinate. He was not dreaming nor asleep; neither was he really awake but suspended in some vague mental state. The village was spread before him and some great calamity had befallen it. The remains lay smouldering and blackened, homes and shops charred or burned beyond recognition. Leafless trees stood contorted or lay unceremoniously in mud, uprooted and tossed aside as if by a monstrous hand.

  Cries of suffering and torment: a herd of gesturing people ran amok across the village green which had been turned to black, and they tore at each other’s clothing or clawed at faces, shouting blasphemies to the conceited heavens for the destruction which had consumed their houses and gardens. The clock tower toppled to the ground and its mainspring coiled up from an untidy heap of rubble. It stood quivering like some giant spiral flatworm.

  Mother.

  Angry screams of trauma; howls of pain and guttural wails, shouts of anger and confusion. Mrs. Battlespoke ran from the main pack with an idiotic grin upon her tired face. She sat on a clump of house bricks and then, like the top of a moneybag with the drawstring pulled tight, her lips puckered and she blew kisses about her. Alastair’s stomach heaved with a sudden nausea.

  Is this real?

  Her hand rested on her cheek and she stroked it as though to brush aside stray hairs. Quickly, without effort, Mrs. Battlespoke took hold of her eyeball between finger and thumb – her monocle having dropped to the ground – and she extracted it, accompanied by the sound of a suction pad being lifted from a pane of glass. The diminutive globe dangled from the end of the clock mainspring by its optic nerve. The old lady wept while hunting on all fours with desperation for the organ. The crowds laughed, rocking backwards and forwards, some jumping up and down, slapping their thighs, others rubbing their bellies or pointing to Dr. Snippet’s manor house, the only property which had remained intact.

  As though these visions had, in some peculiar way, been encapsulated within a watery film covering Alastair’s sight, upon simply rubbing his eyes, he dismissed all to leave his bedroom before him.

  He was left shaken by what he had seen and he found it difficult to shift thoughts which insisted upon morbidity. They were as fine as cobwebs and to brush them aside meant another nauseous heave to his stomach. He lay in bed for a while and after mulling over echoes of the vision which had passed, he finally got up and dressed.

  Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs he passed the entrance of the front room. There was Stubb – usual pose and position – slumped in the armchair. The boy’s lip twitched; a tooth hooked: the voice had convinced him that William Stubb must see the emptiness, hear the quietness, feel the deadness. Alastair was reminded of the extraordinary awakened d
ream of the burning attic; his father must visit there.

  Alastair walked past the oak tree towards the village green, talking quietly to himself as he went. ‘He has to learn, doesn’t he? He has to know pain and anger, smell death; it’s only right.’ When he heard himself speak he laughed aloud for all he had to do was move his mouth and the words were placed there without any effort on his part. He felt a different person but how and why? The question which had tormented him for the past few days came to mind again. ‘Who am I?’ There was no pause in his jumbled thoughts, no time or inclination to consider the answer. It was simple. ‘I am Theodore,’ he said proudly and he skipped along the lane.

  Upon reaching the clock tower, he sat on the bench under the bare trees and ice crackled about his feet. From between the broken shards of ice crawled a host of cockroaches and they quickly scattered, scuttling away under the bench and into holes in the trees. He looked up to see a group of villagers standing on the snow-covered green. One of them was a policeman who was holding onto somebody as though to prevent him from falling. Alastair found the activity interesting and it became more so when all in the group began to walk towards him.

  He smacked his lips. He was thirsty. Perhaps water then a distinct voice suggested port – as though the suggestion had been whispered from within the inner ear.

  The villagers had stopped, congregating a couple of yards in front of Alastair, and were so busy arguing that none of them seemed to notice he was there.

  ‘Look here, this is a terrible mistake. You have got the wrong person,’ moaned Nuckle. ‘Will anyone tell me what I am supposed to have done? I’ve done nothing – I am innocent. The opposite of guilty.’

  Stalk spoke. ‘Constable Flute, what is Nuckle’s crime? Look you, is it anything to do with what I said this morning?’ He pulled the belt of his overcoat tighter about him and lifted the lapels to his neck.

  ‘What did you tell him, Stalk? If you told him anything about anything, then you’ve seen your last cup of tea,’ shouted Nuckle angrily.