by Jeff Noon
Nyquist saw something in her face, a fleeting expression of pain. He said, “What is it, Madelyn? Do you know something about his death?”
“I do. And it puzzles me.”
“Tell me.”
She breathed in. “There was someone with him, some other person.”
“Someone was with him, when he died? You mean his wife, Hilda?”
“No, no. Someone else. They are keeping their face hidden from me. And I don’t know why they are doing that.”
“Ian Bainbridge was murdered? Is this what you’re saying? The berries were forced into his mouth?”
“I don’t know. But it happened because of…”
“Yes? Come on. Madelyn! Tell me what you know.”
“I am trying to speak. I am trying to find out for you. But the shadows won’t let me.”
“Please, if you can…”
It took a great physical effort, and her body seemed to fold in upon itself, but then she said in a rush, “Mr Bainbridge died because of your father.”
Nyquist froze. A shock ran through him. Despite all his doubts about Madelyn’s mental state, he felt he was nearing the truth.
“Why? What does it have to do with my father?”
“I first noticed him, his voice, George Nyquist’s voice, and his presence in the village… on Saint Algreave’s Day this year.”
“The day of the Tolly Man? That’s when he came here?”
She spoke in a rush. “Yes, and that’s when all the trouble started, with your father’s arrival. Strand by strand the story begins on that day, and months later Mr Bainbridge is caught up in those strands, and they tighten, oh, Miss Creeping Jenny has hold of him, and he’s scared, oh, so scared, how he cried out, how he screamed!”
Madelyn’s face twisted up with sudden pain and she started to shudder. She looked to be a person of fifty years or so. Nyquist took a step towards her.
“No! No, you mustn’t! Not too close!”
He stopped and looked at her, his whole being held at the point of knowing and not knowing. And he said, “Show me.” Cold and clear.
“I can’t control it that easily–”
“Show me!”
There was a moment’s hesitation and then Madelyn’s face flickered and her features shifted as though pushed to one side a fraction, allowing Nyquist to catch a glimpse of another face within hers, a woman’s face, older, far older, one of the elderly ladies of Hoxley, he had seen her once or twice on the streets, tottering along with her walking cane and with her gray hair bound in a net. And then the face was gone, and another took its place, a man this time, a man of distinctive features, one of the young men of the village, the man’s arrogance playing on Madelyn’s face for a second, no more, and then gone. And another took its place, and then one more, face after face, and Nyquist saw them all as he looked upon her, one person after another, all the villagers. He saw Doctor Higgs stricken with illness, and he saw Maude Bryars with her serious demeanor. He saw the woman who ran the corner shop, and the postman, and the vicar and the part-time police constable, and he saw strangers also, the residents of Hoxley he had not yet seen or talked to on his travels, he saw the young and the old, man and woman and child, one and all, he saw a flash of blue and yellow feathers as a budgerigar flew within Madelyn’s features, and he saw the yellow eyes of cats and the wet nose and long fangs of a dog and its slavering pink tongue, he saw the goldfish swimming as though in the bowl of the face, he saw Becca Fairclough and her friend Val and Nigel the landlord and his daughter Mavis and so many others, one by one by one or superimposed upon each other: all the residents of the village of Hoxley, Upper and Lower. He saw them all in the face of the woman called Madelyn Arkwright, builder of the ark, contained within he saw them all, hiding there, living there, some of them ashamed to be seen, others proud, some of the laughing madly, others frowning, or grinning or crying in pain, and he heard their voices, a chaos of words without meaning, chopped and changed. Nyquist could not draw himself away and he felt weak in their sight, and dizzy, privileged, scared half to death, staring into a whirlpool, into a deep mirror that held all its reflections prisoner, until such a day as the glass might break. Nyquist teetered on the edge of falling. And still they came on, the faces, repeating now, Higgs again, then Val, now Len Sadler, now Hilda, the aging Morris men still arguing, but never in the same sequence, each time a different face in a different order, over and over, ever-changing without end, a parade of eyes and mouths and noses and brows and cheekbones and blemishes and wrinkles, flesh upon flesh, skin tone fading one onto the other, from dark to light and all shades between, and all the time he was only waiting for one face among them all, his father’s face, yes, despite the fact that Madelyn had said he was hidden away, still he waited in hope, his eyes fixed, set tight, focused, willing the face to be shown, his father’s face, George Oliver Nyquist, whether old or young he did not care, only to be proved right, this is all he desired, only to know that a chance still existed, yes, and that this story might come to an end in the light rather than the dark, in sunlight rather than night, and that he might yet reach forward and…
He touched her.
His hand brushed at the shoulder of Madelyn.
The merest contact, that was all it took.
Her eyes expressed one moment of shock.
And then Nyquist was gone, gone, falling at last. Over the rim.
Darkness at first, with the many voices calling to him, and then light and a clear sweet silence. And he was still falling. Falling on and on into the mirror’s pool until the glass parted like a warm slow moon-heavy motionless dream-silver liquid and he was gathered together, taken up in a crowd, a flood of people.
One among many.
Many among one.
Held in place, bound in the flesh.
A villager at last, lost in the push and pull.
Doctor Higgs was suddenly at his side, her hands extended, her face filled with worry. He called out to her, or tried to, Doctor, help me! What’s happening? But her face was drawn away, back into the crowd.
Nyquist tried to work out where he was.
An enclosed area. Somewhere indoors. Everybody was here, all the known residents of Hoxley, far too many people for the size of the space. Bodies pushed at him from all sides: arms, legs, elbows jabbing. Faces loomed close and then away, moving on. So many people squeezed together, swaying as one at times, acting as one multifarious creature, one body of flesh, and then breaking apart into separate entities, and struggling with each other for space, for air, for one good breath of air, one stray beam of light.
But there was only darkness, and flesh.
Even his thoughts started to merge with theirs, to become blurred.
His name slipped away.
His sense of time slipped away.
His self, his mind, all the stories that woven together made him what he was, or what he used to be, all were now jumbled together with theirs, and he felt the rage of the people, the rage, the love, and the hatred and the pettiness, the need, the boredom, impatience, kindness, the broken hearts and the scattered hopes, collected from years and years of longing, all as one, as one person, one villager.
My name is John Henry Belinda Thomas Claybourne Johanna Edward Keepsake Fitten Potten Postlethwaite Maude Jack Sutton Lumbe Lumley Lambert Becca Cholmondeley Edwina Higgs Gladys Fairclough Underwood Gough Dunne Dunnock Jud Lillian Hoxton Geoffrey Myrethorpe Nigel Joan Patricia Clegg Featherstonehaugh Prudholme Lillian Emma Jim Dorothy Sadler Iris Ollerenshaw Deidre Hilda Alice Patrick George Oliver Bainbridge Nyquist George Jack Oliver Nyquist Oliver George Nyquist Oliver George George Oliver George Oliver Nyquist…
And out of the darkness came the face of his father, formed before him in a haze, and then clear, yes, clearly seen.
Time was suspended.
The crowd stood in silence all around.
Father and son staring at each other. One reaching out for the other, son for father, fingers almost touching in the vast cl
ose-up distance.
One moment in the darkness of time of slowness of dreaming…
Almost, almost. And then lost, one face among many, too many faces, hundreds of faces. Nyquist pushed through the crowd, searching, searching. But it was no good. He was suddenly in pain, stumbling, almost falling. Only the crowd kept him upright. Listen to me, you need to leave the village. One voice. A whisper, up close. Go home, why don’t you? Go on, piss off! At first, he couldn’t tell whose voice it was, male or female, old or young, but it was said with vehemence, with spite in every word. And then he saw the face, and the voice formed itself properly: Jane Sutton. She spat at him. She raised her hands and he saw the knife that she held. Nyquist staggered back a few steps and felt the moment letting him go, the crowd letting him go, falling, falling away into the depths of skin and bone and blood once more, and he opened his eyes.
He was standing in the studio, before the mask of the Tolly Man on its plinth.
In a daze he saw Madelyn Arkwright close by. They were alone, just the two of them.
“What happened?” he asked. “I was in a crowd…” He lifted a hand to his head. He felt weak, dizzy.
“Yes, I’m sorry, John. I think I’ve…”
He saw that she held one the woodworking tools in her hand, a knife of some kind. The blade was red.
“I believe I’ve hurt you.” She was talking rapidly. “It wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t! It was Mrs Sutton, I think. She took me over, she forced my hand.”
Nyquist looked down and saw the blood on his shirt, over his midriff.
The room tilted sideways a little, and he followed in the same direction, called to the edge by a faraway sound he couldn’t place, that he could never quite hear.
JOLLY GOOD SHOW
At first he thought he was standing near the weir pool on the River Hale, but then he saw the wings and fuselage of the airplane embedded in the soil. Birdbeck tarn lay before him. It was night. A pale half-moon gave its glow to the scene. The mist hung over the water, and the banks of the tarn were softened by it, hardly seen. Only the water existed, its surface shining black, unreadable. The long blade of the propeller rose from the center of the pool, its metal polished, seemingly new. It drew him closer to the bank.
Not a sound could be heard.
The water lapped gently at his feet.
Nyquist bent down and looked into the black mirror. He saw himself, but not as he was now, but older, the years taking their toll, lining his face and thinning his hair. It was his father’s face looking back at him from the depths. He put a hand into the water, to gather an object into his grasp, but his fingers merely caused the face to drift away, and now the surface was perfectly blank once more, with no reflection seen, none at all.
He stood up and looked out across the tarn. Something was disturbing the water out there, causing tiny ripples to appear. It took a while for the creature to emerge from the mist, moving along at a stately pace.
It was a swan, a mute swan. Cygnus olor.
Its white plumage and folded wings glistened under the moonlight. Moving gracefully, it swam around the propeller blade and then came to a halt. Nyquist gazed with wonder at the two necks that grew from the bird’s breast; with wonder, and with complete acceptance, for it seemed not so much a creature of fantasy, more a natural offspring of the village and its various rules. Each of the necks ended not with a bird’s head, not in feathers: but with a hand, a human hand, the left and the right. One of these hands mimed itself into a beak-like shape, fingers and thumb joined in a point. The bird ducked this temporary head into the water as though to feed, and then brought it back up again, into the air, shaking droplets off its fingers. It swam closer to the bank where Nyquist stood. The bird held both palms up for inspection, and he saw the lines of life, heart and mind written there, he saw old scars and abrasions. It was showing off, its long life, the battles won and lost.
And then the swan brought the two hands together in a slow clapping motion, over and over again. It was a cruel and mocking sound.
Well done, sir. Absolutely spiffing. Jolly good show and all that, old bean. Splendid effort. Hip hip.
The sound of the applause echoed away over the moors, into the lands of mist.
THE WELL-KNOWN STRANGER
He imagined he had brought a little of the mist with him, from the shallows of his dream, for upon waking fully he could see only a short distance ahead of him, a couple of feet or so – beyond that limit the world faded into a thick gray haze. Slowly and awkwardly he raised his arm from the bed cover and watched in a kind of stupor as his hand vanished into the haze, first the fingertips, then the fingers whole, and the palm, the wrist. The haze tingled around his skin and gave off a not unpleasant warmth. He stopped the forward motion and pulled his hand from the mist, bringing it back into view.
How strange.
Nyquist witnessed the event as a child might, watching a magic show.
He made the same movement again, again a witness to his own hand disappearing and then reappearing. He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes tightly and imagined that all was well, and that when he opened them again the world would be as it was, fully in sight.
Now take a look. Dare yourself to…
The mist hung above the bed and on all sides, a gray cocoon.
Or a shroud.
The thought disturbed him. He had to act, and so he sat up in the sheets and felt a dull ache in his side. He was bandaged there, and a tiny spot of red blossomed.
A pattern.
He couldn’t quite work it out. And where the hell was he? This wasn’t his usual bed at the public house with its over-washed linen and the scratchy eiderdown. The sheets were softer, whiter, and they smelled of flowers.
How had he got here?
So many questions, piling up one by one in his head.
Now he tried to get up from the bed, one hand on the bedstead for balance, the other pressed firmly to the mattress. He pushed up and saw to his dismay that the gray haze moved with him, wherever he went, always around him, always a couple of feet or a yard away, always hiding the faraway reaches of the room from his sight.
And he sat back down.
And waited. And hoped for clarity, for his eyes to be clear.
Nyquist felt no pain. But he was aware of it as a possibility, somewhere close by. A drug held his body softly in its grasp. He thought of Higgs. Yes, of course, the good doctor must’ve taken charge of him. That was it. And from this one fact his memory took over, and he recalled piece by piece his meeting with Madelyn and all or most of what had happened afterwards, in her studio.
The stabbing.
His hand felt at the bandages around his waist, at the wet spot of blood. Somehow in his sleep, in the movements of his dream, he had pulled a stitch loose. He thought of calling out for help, for the doctor to attend to him, but the blind haze made him fearful of what might lie beyond it, good or evil. He had to make sure. And so he got to his feet once more and this time took a step or two, always surrounded by the mist no matter where he moved. Objects came and went from his sight as his point of view moved, and from this limited vantage he made out the walls and floor of the bedroom, one section at a time. Yes, he recognized it as a back bedroom at Higgs’s house; he had searched here yesterday, seeking a friendly face in the empty village. But there was still nobody here, not as far as he could see. He turned in a slow circle and then moved forward, his hands outstretched before him like a blind person, and in this manner he found his clothes neatly folded over a chair. He got dressed as quickly as he could, and set off once more on his journey around the room. This is what it felt like, that he was exploring a land he had never visited before, somewhere faraway and strange. Groping at the limits of his eyesight he made it to the dressing table, where a new icon sat waiting for him. A male figure this time, made of rough clay, naked but for a loincloth. The saint’s hands were held behind his back, and his face was entirely covered in white gauze, several inches of it wrapped ar
ound his head and tied off in a tiny knot. There was no label, no name given. But he knew now that a day had passed. He had slept the night here. But what day was it? He tried to work it out.
Thursday, arrival. No one allowed outside.
Friday. No talking.
Saturday. Masks, masks, masks.
Sunday. All doors open. Village deserted. Crazy Madelyn with the knife.
So it was Monday.
Nyquist turned again and felt a little unsteady in doing so. A step at a time, that was the rule. One step. Let the mist move with you, settle. Another step. Keep moving, keep looking, allow the world around you to be become clear in your eyes. Then memorize what you see. And move on. By this method he found a door, but it opened before he could get there and someone entered the room.
Nyquist stepped back, he couldn’t help himself. His vision blurred at the edges and the door and the intruder vanished from his sight, But this was worse! Much worse. There was another person in the room, it could be anyone. He lurched forward again, almost falling, hoping to catch sight of the intruder, to know for sure if he was in danger.
The voice called to him. “Nyquist? Are you there?”
It was the doctor. He felt a sudden rush of joy and turned in her direction, following the voice as it moved around him, and they met in the circle of the haze like two wanderers in the night. He wanted to embrace her, but resisted the impulse. He couldn’t trust what he was seeing.
“What are you doing out of bed?” she said in exasperation. “Look at you. I will need to redress your wound. Come on, back to bed. Come on.”
He pushed her away in panic, and watched in dismay as she vanished from sight. He could feel his heart pounding, and sweat broke out on his skin, all over. He was expecting an attack at any moment. Higgs was calling for him, unseen, asking him to calm down, to find his way to the bed. But he’d turned around so many times that all sense of direction had been lost. He rushed forward, knocking over a table. A lamp crashed to the floor. He kept on, moving this way and that until he banged into the wall. He paced along it, his arms clinging to the surface like a man climbing a sheer cliff face. By chance he reached the open doorway and he hurried through it in relief, and then almost fell down the stairs. His fingers gripped at the banister, and he tried to stay calm, to settle his breath. I am going blind. I’m going blind! He crept downstairs, one step at a time, towards the haze that always moved with him, all the time, always keeping itself at the same distance all around. Doctor Higgs called from the landing above but he was already at the front door of the house. He yanked it open and staggered outside, hoping to see the street stretching away on each side, how blissful that would be!