REVIEW FROM ROCK SPOILED, JUNE 1994
* * *
Meuf / Ann K. Sassari
EP / PRODUCED BY ANN K. SASSARI & IRIS LERROUX / BISOU RECORDS / PARIS 1994
If you’re a sick enough raver to have risked treading in a Spanish airport, and crazy enough to spend £8 on four sodding tracks, it better be the new EP by the resident bitch at Vis à Vis Ibiza, who, beside her local fame as an easy fuck, is generally regarded above other turntable zombies for having renewed trance music. For the first time in years, her permanent XTC hangover allowed her to sneak into a recording studio on the continent (something destiny is not planning to let happen again), so you might as well seize the chance. “Bluenips” is even tolerable; “Flow” sounds like Kate Bush on the didgeridoo. Hell, if anyone wants our copy, we’re giving it away half price.
REVIEW FROM CUTTING EDGE, JULY 1994
* * *
Ann K. Sassari: Meuf
EP / BISOU RECORDS / £7.99
Let’s face it: At 25 you’ve outdrunk both your parents; you take antidepressants Monday thru Thursday and acid on Fridays; your days as a marathon raver running on mineral water are over. If you must think about the future, put your money on Meuf, the very rare four-track CD by resident DJ at Vis à Vis Ann K. Sassari. We guarantee that “Bluenips” will make you drop both the feeding bottle and the feedee baby and move your body like married sex hasn’t in years. Once this investment is settled, you may return to your usual house club and dance Jiminy Cricket to death.
A.’S DIARY
* * *
It wasn’t an alarm this time. It was music for the sake of music. That I realized when I stampeded into the living-room-turned-into-dance-floor to find Niamh bouncing on the sofa, blue and violet extensions whipping the air. But something wasn’t right. I know Niamh’s music; she listens to trashy punk and garage rock, the kind she head-bangs to along with a crowd of skinheads in a basement, all drinking beer from Dixie cups. This was different. It had synths droning and sending saltwater waves under my feet. It had drumbeats bursting like fireworks, rumbling the furniture out of place, and then a crazy, irregular, disharmonious, spiral crescendo of pure electric noise, like a typhoon dragging our bodies into it. It featured brass orchestras and choirs of mermaids and a piano in Iceland, all of them right there, visible, touchable, in Axton House. It shook us, fucked us, suspended us far above the reach of Help bouncing on his hind legs. It spoke of magenta sunsets and plastic patio chairs growing moss under summer storms rolling on caterpillar tracks. It sprinkled a bokeh of car lights rushing through night highways and slapped our faces like the wind at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. It pictured Niamh playing guitar, washed up naked on a beach in Fiji.
I can’t explain it. All I know is I felt like lying three feet over the floor while the last chords of the dream sailed away, and from beyond the dream came the doorbell.
We ran to the door, soaked in sweat. I saw Niamh’s eyes glistening. I felt my wounded eyes glistening. Even Help’s. Music had just touched every living thing in this very old house.
Even the thick man at the door noticed.
“Hi. I’m Sam. I heard you have a problem with the power.”
“Yeah,” I panted. “Too much of it.”
Later I learned where the CD had come from. Niamh found it in a folder labeled “4” in Ambrose’s hand, stacked in a Babel tower of paper on the library desk. Enclosed together with the album are some cutout articles from magazines and a telegram.
THE TELEGRAM
* * *
From: Edward Cutler
Ibiza, Spain
FOUND! STOP THANK YOU STOP I FEDEX YOU A COPY OF THE BEST ALBUM OF 1994 STOP LOOKING FORWARD TO SEE YOU IN DECEMBER
AUDIO RECORDING
* * *
[Sound of steps, and a dim crackling noise like that of a Geiger counter.]
A.: Nothing really happened here, just the bathroom incident.
SAM: I’m just measuring the voltage drop—see if there’s any significant loss of power.
A.: Uh-huh.
SAM: Yeah, you see that a lot in old farms. Too much power gets lost on the way from the intake to the plugs because of bad wiring. But not here, apparently. Wells had all this changed in the eighties. Not the plumbing, though. You might want to look into that. Say, what’s that machine, li’l lady?
A.: Don’t mind her; she just records stuff.
SAM: That’s a recorder?
A.: Digital. She bought it at your store.
SAM: Did you? Well, that’s some nice toy you got there. Here, check this one. This baby here is a voltmeter. It measures the current running inside the wires. […] Cat ate your tongue, miss? […] Oh, you can’t speak? Sorry! But you can hear me, right?
A.: Should we go on to the third floor?
SAM: Yeah, sure, sure.
[Steps climbing upstairs, creaking wood.]
Very nice house, yes, sir.
A.: This way. This one’s the bathroom of doom.
SAM: It’s okay; I can read it from here.
[Thick crackle, sounding like static.]
Interesting. It reads one twenty-six.
A.: I thought the voltage in this country was one twenty.
SAM: It is. […] Very interesting. Wanna see, miss? Here, check yourself.
A.: So, instead of a voltage drop, I get extra power?
[Question lingers, unanswered. Then Sam sighs.]
SAM: Not too strange for this house.
A.: What do you mean?
SAM: Oh, I’m—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that as … Uh, the high voltage could cause the lightbulb to explode, I guess. That’s known to happen.
[One character’s footsteps start walking away on the moaning wooden floor.]
A.: Are you frightened of my toilet, Sam?
SAM: What? No, no. It’s just … You know. There’s not really much I can do.
A.: I see. A house with supernatural enhancements, right?
SAM: Hey, I’m not the kind of folk who listens to Tales from the Crypt, but …
[The party resumes its way, now at promenade speed.]
The house has its background, you know.
A.: What kind of background?
SAM: Well, you know.
A.: No, I don’t.
SAM: But you heard the stories.
A.: What? The lights, the noises, the bleeding walls … ?
SAM: The what?
A.: That’s from a movie. Seriously, what is there for a fact about the house that’s so creepy? I mean, apart from two members of my family jumping out a window.
SAM: Look, I don’t mean to be rude. Your family were the best thing about the house, okay? Nice, charming people.
A.: Actually, I heard they were hermits.
SAM: Charming hermits, then. Lovely, when compared to the previous owners.
A.: Previous owners?
SAM: Yeah, well, you’d call it “Wells House” if they’d been here first, right?
A.: I know Ambrose’s grandfather was the first to arrive. He found the house deserted.
SAM: Before that, the last to live here was Charles Axton, surviving his wife and son, in the eighteen seventies. He’s the one who gave the house …
A.: Its bad reputation?
SAM: I was going to say “the supernatural enhancement.” The Ngara girl.
A.: The who?
[The creaking floorboards shut up.]
SAM: You know. The ghost of Axton House.
[A big door unlocks. Gentle rain and sparrows can be heard in the background.]
That’s the Tales from the Crypt part.
A.: Okay. How much do I owe you, Sam?
SAM: Nothing, sir. Nothing’s done; nothing’s owed. It’s been great to visit the house, though. If something else turns up …
A.: I’ll tell you, sure. Good-bye.
SAM: Good-bye. Miss.
[Hurried footsteps on the gravel marching away from the microphone. Seconds later, a car door slams. Eng
ine starts. A van skids on the gravel and rolls away. Rain remains.]
[Crackling noise.]
A.: He’ll come back for his toy; you know that.
—No, he won’t—he just shat his pants.
AUDIO RECORDING
* * *
[After an hours-long meaningless blank.]
[Light switch. Bare feet on tiles. Faucet squeaks on, tap water running. Somebody rinsing their face. Then they stop.]
[Water keeps running.]
A.: Niamh?
[Faucet is turned off.]
Niamh?
[A.’s breathing reverberates inside the tiled, vaulted bathroom. Nothing else, except for flat audio noise stretching through a whole minute.]
[Then, a single tap on the sink, as if trying to mark a beat.]
[Nothing.]
[A. produces a slow sequence of four taps, always at the same beat.]
La-lah … Da-dah …
[In the background, off beat, approaches the clickety sound of paws on wood, stopping near the microphone.]
Help. Do you hear it? […]
Come on, dogs are supposed to be sensitive; tell me you hear it.
[Blank.]
[Bare feet and paws exit; light switch.]
* * *
4 The sender’s initials on the envelope of this letter were “S.W.L.”
NOVEMBER 9
DREAM JOURNAL
* * *
Wandering through lifeless woods. There’s a little girl in a turquoise dress, spinning, blindfolded, red hair orbiting around her, playing hide-and-seek in the stone-barked grove. Winter fog clings to the trees like amber around prehistoric insects. One shivering sparrow sings.
An identical little girl in an identical turquoise dress is watching, blindfoldless, at a scream distance. Same red hair, blue eyes, a coarse hand across her mouth, her throat exposed. A hideous man is holding her captive. They both gaze at the seeking twin, in her clumsy post-rotation stagger, inquiring arms in satin reaching out. Her seven-winter-old fingers grasp the fog; footfalls on the crunchy soil make her only guidance. Her head turns slowly, ears scanning her whereabouts. A milk-teeth grin has just flashed past. The sparrow’s fallen silent.
At the Renaissance men’s table, the skeleton’s empty sockets look down. Its machinal phalanxes clutch some playing cards.
Saltpeter-crying gargoyles watch the near-naked tomboy skedaddling along the roof spine under the low yellow night, reaching the farthest dormer and slipping through the window left ajar.
Inside the cryptish bedroom lie two rows of iron beds, and one’s blanket’s held open for me, a red-haired girl inviting me in. I scuttle inside and she pulls the blanket over our heads. In the giggling dark the cold vanishes; I feel my toes again, at the first caress of prison wool. I can’t see her face, but I smell her freckles and feel her gossamer lips.
Lesbians melt in a mushroom-cloud kiss in the liquid crowd of MDMA-eyed dancers swirling to the music (the same tune we danced to yesterday), and the priestess raises her arms to the shafts of light from the surface of the ocean above, where a giant, catastrophic wave is rolling on, curling like a snake a second before biting the sun.
And the gas tank explodes, fireball engulfing the guerrillas attacking me. Through my only eye left I see their internal organs wrinkle and crumble to dust. I have a gun.
I’m defenseless. I’m still stumbling through the corridors of that nightmare house that smells of mildew and putrefaction, retching at the view of the sitting-up corpse against the wall, trying to outrun the monster behind me. But the windows are boarded up, and I’m yelling, not for help, just to wake me up, just to invoke the light of day. And then I see it, an empty room and dust particles playing in the sunlight, but I trip on something soft and fall, air slammed out of my lungs, and he just sinks the pitchfork through my torso, and my rib cage collapses in an explosion of blood.
A.’S DIARY
* * *
The guy in the mirror looks like hell. No wonder half the café is staring at him.
People in Point Bless must be guessing our routine by now. We drive to town every morning, park on Market Street; then we split up. One drops the daily report to Aunt Liza at the post office; the other goes to the shops; then we meet at Gordon’s for breakfast. The regulars know us as the Wells heirs. You can feel the calm before the gossip storm when we leave a crowded store. I’m afraid some of them believe us to be siblings, but all in all, it’s not the worst wrong assumption they could make. Nor does it bother me that waitresses and storekeepers address me as Mr. Wells. I would tell them it’s not my name, but there is such respect in the way they say it, even a hint of care or pity, as if the family were some sort of run-down attraction of Point Bless, I don’t have the heart to tell them otherwise; I go along with the charade.
Besides, I could use the extra deference. Because right now, scribbling these words in a corner of the café, shielded by sunglasses, I must look to every good Christian in Point Bless like I’m squandering the family fortune in coke and prostitutes of assorted genders.
NIAMH’S NOTEPAD
* * *
(In the car, after breakfast.)
—What are you doing today?
—Library searching. You?
—Phone calls, I guess.
(Takes glasses off. Eyes are scarlet rimmed.)
—Do you dream, Niamh? What do you dream?
—I sing.
—You dream that you sing? That’s so sweet.
(He strokes my cheek.)
—Do you feel like driving?
(I shrug.)
—Like … 200 kilometers?
—FUCK YEAH.
—Let’s get Help and get out of here.
A.’S DIARY
* * *
I won’t pretend it felt better just by driving away from the house. That would be like crediting the house with some sort of unnatural power, as if it were a dark spot on the surface of Earth. It is not. I checked as we sped between the crop fields, a crest of yellow dust on our tail: There is no dark aura around Axton House, no permanent storm brewing in its general direction. There was a storm lingering about, but that was probably yesterday’s rain on its way off. Axton House is just a house. A beautiful cliché at best. It cannot pretend to be the source of all evil.
Neither can it focus all of our attention. There’s stuff to be done, clues to be followed, people to talk to. I guess I could just phone them, but I’m bored anyway.
So here we are, all windows down, arms leaning out, punk music blaring, crossing the state of Virginia, due in Alexandria for lunchtime and with a new mission to excel in. Niamh manning the billion-horsepower-engined Audi, me in care of the stock of Fanta and Twinkies, Help leaning out of a window, a foot-long tongue slapping in the wind: the very image of happiness.
AUDIO RECORDING
* * *
[Muzak in the background.]
A.: Do you have to carry that around? It’s supposed to stay in the house recording while we aren’t home. How do you expect to catch any e-el-vee or whatever? Besides, you never listen to the recordings anyway.
[Sound of scribbling.]
Oh, yeah? So do you. Help. Help, that carpet’s not your territory; don’t you dare claim it.
NIAMH: [A two-syllable, imperative whistle.]
[Dog steps approach; playful panting.]
A.: We got ourselves the Hernán Cortés of dogs.
[Door opens.]
WOMAN: Good afternoon. Please come in, Mr.…
A.: Wells.
WOMAN: Esther Hutchinson. Pleased to meet you.
A.: How do you do. This is my … associate, Niamh Connell.
WOMAN: Pleased to meet you.
[The whole company migrates; Muzak is shut behind a door. Heels, rubber soles, and paws settling in; chairs scraping the floor.]
So, Mr. Wells, I understand you’re in the market.
A.: I’m … what?
WOMAN: You’re hiring staff for a house you just inherited
—is that right?
A.: Oh, yeah, but not staff, just a butler.
WOMAN: [Keying in computer.] All right, looking for a new butler …
A.: Not a new one, actually. Our old butler. See, I know he left after my predecessor died, but I’d like him to resume his position.
WOMAN: [Skeptical.] I see. But, truth be said, Mr. Wells, we can only offer you the personnel who choose us to find a workplace for them—most experienced people, by the way …
A.: Yeah, well, I know he came to you.
WOMAN: A butler.
A.: Mark Strückner.
WOMAN: Mm-hm.
A.: He must have come by three, four weeks ago.
WOMAN: Uh-huh. Well, I am not the one interviewing the staff; I talk to employers …
A.: Yeah, I could have guessed that. I mean, that lamp over there is not meant to impress a maid.
WOMAN: Well, anyway, you know, you can’t just hire a domestic servant because of his ties with your family in the past. If this man resigned his position in the first place, he is unlikely to be interested in taking it back. And we can’t force him to.
The Supernatural Enhancements Page 5