by Brian Hughes
“As intriguing as this is,” interjected Miss Duvall, taking control of the meandering conversation with her usual haughtiness. “Could we please get back to what’s going on around Greyminster. I’m not sure if anybody’s noticed but there’s a regular war taking place in the streets.”
As though to confirm it a robin exploded outside. It blew Mr Thornton’s trilby over the hedge in a mushroom of smoke.
“As Mr Wetherby is obviously still shaken,” Miss Duvall went on. “Perhaps Mr Peterson would carry on reading aloud?”
“I like this,” said Madeline, holding the toaster up to the narrow window so that its stainless steel sides coruscated in the dim light. “We could use it to keep our correspondence in, Felix. It’s got a handle so that you can get stuff in and out of the slots and everything.”
“Eternal life, eh?” Felix wasn’t listening to his house-proud wife. Instead there was a twinkle in his eyes. The harsh, cutting glint of cruel edged diamonds. “How’s it work then?”
Thomas Hobson leaned conspiratorially towards his customer, positioning himself just that little too close for comfort.
He tapped the pulsating arachnid that he was holding beneath his chin.
“That’d be a bit hard to explain to a seventeenth century dullard like yourself, but basically it taps into the electrical impulses from your brain, or your self-awareness as perhaps you’d prefer to call it...”
Hobson watched for the illumination of understanding to wash across his client’s wrinkled brow before concluding, “...then it relocates it.”
“Relocates it?” Felix straightened anxiously. He might only have been a simple crofter but he wasn’t by any means stupid. The idea of having his soul transported to a different plain before he was ready was worrying to say the least. “Relocates it where exactly?”
“Not so much ‘Where’, as ‘When’.”
There was the scratch of bristles as the mysterious octogenarian pondered on how best to explain.
“Between each moment, between each pivot in time, there lies a no man’s land of temporal divisions. The points of inexperience betwixt one fixed node of reference and the next.”
There was a pause, mainly because Felix appeared to have gone into a trance.
“Like the emptiness between the frames of a movie?” Hobson went on, his yellow pegs poking themselves out from his pale blue lips as he ventured a questioning smile. “They don’t exist but it’s their none-existence that actually allows events to move forward.”
“What’s a movie?” asked Felix ignorantly.
Hobson appeared to deflate, if such a thing could be said of a human being who resembled a rugby ball with all the air sucked out of it in the first place.
He tossed the contraption to his patron flippantly, muttering, “’Ere...take it any’ow. And if you ever decide to use it, just strap it round your wrist and push that button.”
With a grunt he struggled out through the porch, dragging the dining chairs that he’d acquired behind him and dislodging several horse brasses in the process.
At his back, wrapped in their own respective reveries, the couple admired their new-found treasures innocently.
One of the gravestones at Druid’s End cemetery detonated. The ensuing cloud freckled the murky sky above the rooftops opposite with soil and maggots. Miss Duvall watched the unholy debris pepper the tiles, her hands clasped resolutely behind her back and her nose almost squeaking against the windowpane.
“There is a sense of urgency, I think,” she commented, just loud enough to halt Flinders in his tracks. “Would you care to skip a few pages, Mr Peterson? Preferably to the section relevant to current events.”
“On the other ’and!” Nesbit stepped forward, digging into his mackintosh pockets for the handcuffs. He pulled out a pair, noted with some embarrassment the fluffy pink fur that had been stitched around them, stuffed them back and tried again, more successfully this time. “We could just arrest Mr Featherlight ’ere an’ get Angus Evesham t’ force a confession. Brilliant psychological techniques that man. ’Ee bores ’is interogatees into submission.”
“I think you’ll find that Mr Wetherby is in no fit state to be moved, Inspector.”
This time Miss Duvall did turn to face him. What’s more she was wearing the sort of conscientious frown that hinted at ‘European Courts’ and ‘Police Brutality Charges’.
“Having a child-sized creature force its way into one’s skull is enough to render anybody unmoveable, I’d imagine.”
Somewhat feebly Felix nodded, the trickle of blood running down from his ear putting paid to any further disagreements on the subject.
“In fact, I’d go so far as to say, that poor old Millicent here...” Miss Duvall searched for her geriatric companion. “Has more energy than...than...where’s she gone?”
For a moment all eyes scoured the junk-filled lounge. The putrefying zombie was nowhere in sight.
A horrible shredding noise, accompanied by a shriek from the direction of Blackmore Crescent, brought them all back to their senses.
“No point in worrying about that for now, anyhow,” Miss Duvall added with resolve. “Flinders, have you found the most pertinent entry yet?”
June the fifth, 1665. Not much of a date as far as major historical events are concerned.
No power-soused politicians launched scathing attacks because their bunions were troubling them on this particular date to the best of my knowledge.
But, as far as the events of this book are concerned, it bears its own significance.
Madeline Wetherby, shrivelled and drained of all youthful vitality, lay dying noisily amongst the pleats of her woolsack bed.
The bed itself had been pushed into the recess by the stove to keep what blood remained in her body warm.
Beside her, hunched into his patchwork armchair, Felix Wetherby, now an old man himself, sat reading from his well-thumbed copy of Bray’s Anatomical Delights. Madeline’s terminal illness was having a profound effect upon him. Far more so than just the ordinary sentimentality that accompanies losing a partner to some degenerative disease. Since her consumption had been diagnosed Felix had been dwelling on his own increasingly short span.
“God be d--d!”
He slammed shut the tome in a cloud of dust and then stared at his slippers in silence for some time.
“Bollocks to religion, eh Maddy? Knackers to the bottles of urine we buried under the house to ward off our deaths! Stuff the so-called ‘Great Stories of Life’ as laughingly penned by the ‘Ultimate Creator’.”
Felix had studied the futility of his existence from every conceivable angle.
And he’d reached some profound truths.
Everybody’s tale, regardless of status, religion or fame, ended with the same miserable chapter. The supposed writer of people’s lives was, in essence, a penny-dreadful author. Especially when it came to rounding his stories off with anything other than fatality.
Felix toyed with the clockwork arachnid that he’d recently dug out from the kitchen cupboard.
Madeline coughed another slug of black phlegm onto her damp pillow.
Damn it and blast it! Life was too short! Just when you seemed to be getting the hang of things the whole lot came skidding to an unpleasant halt. And the idea of some great, long-bearded deity floating about on a cloud giving out presents of eternal joy held about as much truck with Felix right now as the Spirit of Christmas stuffing oranges into his socks.
He was the one who’d put in all the hard work to make his life liveable! The ever attention-seeking Lord just took all the praise and handed out misery in return.
Resolutely Felix slammed the machine on to his wrist.
Automatically eight telescopic legs shot out from its body, piercing his flesh and attaching themselves to the fibrous roots of his nervous system.
For several moments the cottage reverberated to the sounds of screaming.
Then, eventually, Felix regained control of the blistering pain a
nd, bleary eyed, stared at contraption now welded to his arm.
Giving his stiffening spouse one last peck on her cadaverous forehead, he flicked the switch.
“That’s all very well...’owever...”
Nesbit appeared to have caught Miss Duvall’s sense of urgency as though it was some sort of flu virus. Navigating the mounds of newspapers he crossed to the old gentleman falling asleep with the tumbler still against his lips.
Then he gave him a prod with the nib of his pipe.
“Infringement of ’uman rights or not, we’re not gettin’ anywhere, fast! And if this chaos outside isn’t brought under control, as much as I ’ate to say it, there’ll be no more rights, ’uman or otherwise, to bother defending.”
Miss Duvall made to object. But the sight of Peter Gubbins, Greyminster’s overworked postmaster, being harangued down the avenue by a gang of murderous jelly babies brought about a change of heart.
“Mr Wetherby? ’Ow the ’Ell does your fabricated life ’istory and all of its extensions actually apply to what’s going on?” Nesbit went on.
“The human brain, you see?” Felix replied groggily. “It’s only of limited size. Have you any idea, Inspector, how memories are formed?”
“No,” snapped Nesbit in frustration. “And frankly I couldn’t give a toss if they’re kept in little leather pouches! What ’as that got to do wi’ all this?!”
“I reckon I know, Sir...” interrupted Malcolm, now stepping up to the pensioner whilst chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully. “It’s similar to the way that data is stored on a computer disk. Only the electrical impulses in the brain leave a residue behind them every time they leap synapses. And eventually, especially when something is repeated over and over, it creates a sort of bridge. That’s the memory.”
He noticed the expression that was turning Nesbit’s features to chamois leather and coughed uncomfortably.
“I read it on the Internet somewhere, Sir,” he continued with some apprehension. “That was just before we got cut off, of course.”
His gaff passed the inspector unnoticed so he hurried on as quickly as possible.
“Apparently the average human being only uses one third of his actual brain.”
“Absolutely correct, Sergeant.” Felix managed a weak smile, mistakenly deducing Malcolm’s rank from his deference to Nesbit. “But can you imagine what happens to the brain when it’s been filled with experiences for over three hundred and fifty years?”
“I’d imagine it’d get pretty chock-a-block, Sir.”
“Not unlike my brain is gettin’ right now!” Nesbit snorted, despairingly. “I’ll ask you again, one final time, w’at the buggerin’ Nora ’as all that got to do with this!?”
“The centuries of information garnered from encyclopaedias, newspapers and gossip made my entire brain solid, Inspector,” Felix explained, turning back to the increasingly irate detective. “As ‘chock-a-block’, as the good sergeant here so eloquently described it, as one of those bits of Chinese sculpture that rich folks collect. Only much larger of course and far more dense.”
“Also not unlike Inspector Nesbit’s brain,” commented Miss Duvall without any misgivings, curtailing Nesbit’s next question. “And, presumably, Mr Wetherby, once your brain was filled, what passed as your soul had little room left to run around?”
“Sole?” Nesbit pounced on whatever passing chunk of verbal flotsam he could find in a desperate attempt to keep afloat. “What’s y’r pet fish got to do with anything?”
“The ‘eternal soul’, Inspector,” corrected Miss Duvall patiently. “The self-awareness that anchors itself into the mind. The absolute essence that makes the individual...well...individual.”
She stopped and contemplated the effects of having a brain that had become totally solid, unable to withstand the information being fed into its already packed memory banks.
“There are reasons why people must die,” she added ponderously. “And, religious nonsense aside, it seems such reasons are not very glamorous.”
It was probably sometime in the Victorian era when Felix first noticed the problem.
At least, he suspected it was the Victorian era.
The soot-coated walls of Caldwell Crescent and the inflated behinds of the women who passed his window tended to give the impression of nineteenth century life at any rate. Spending an eternity in the gaps between reality was an unsettling experience and historical settings tended to blur.
Time moved forwards as it had always done, albeit more belligerently. But it was rather like viewing the whole of existence through an opaque window that, frankly, needed a damned good wash.
Felix had hired out some of the rooms in his cottage to transient visitors. It was a comfortable living and one that, due to the ephemeral nature of tenants, didn’t require anyone to delve into his eternal damnation.
Nowadays his existence had been reduced to two cluttered rooms, a never ending round of books and crosswords, and endless hours spent contemplating his log fire.
That evening he had been reading Gulliver’s Travels for the umpteenth time. There was a chill breeze outside. It hurled a scattering of leaves round the blunt end of the close and made phantoms from his curtains.
For the first few times, the rattle from his bloated bookcase didn’t register with him at all.
Then the clinking sounds developed a cadence of their own. A precise, animated rhythm that went beyond simple draughts and hinted at deliberate calculation.
Felix looked up from his volume, surprised to see that one of his ornaments had goose-stepped its way to the edge of the Daido. With a lurch that defied rationality it tumbled towards the carpet in a high-pitched scream.
There was the noise of shattering pottery.
Uncertain as to what had just happened, Felix pushed himself painfully out of his armchair. Shifting the mound of papers that he’d collected over the centuries he peered inquisitively into his coal skuttle.
There, broken into pieces, was his Derbyshire dairymaid. The upper half of its torso was performing the backstroke through the black slag.
“Bits of my soul, you see?” Felix studied his memories morosely, his gaze boring straight through his slippers and into his dark past with lassitude. “Or more precisely, as Freud would have called it, bits of my subconscious. Those parts of my existence over which I have little, if no, control.”
“What of them, Mr Wetherby?” asked Miss Duvall, patting his blue veined hand comfortingly. “What exactly was happening to you?”
“With no brain left to be occupied, parts of my awareness were seeking refuge outside my head.”
He paused for a moment for the implications to sink in. Not that any of the other occupants to his claustrophobic world appeared to comprehend.
“Self-awareness is intangible, you understand? Unlike the brain or the motor-neurones, scientists have never discovered the physical essence of self-awareness. But that’s because the soul is simply anchored into the brain, in much the same way that an individual would control a robot by wires.”
“Only your self-awareness was leaking out because your brain was full?” Nesbit’s statement had obviously been directed as a question. “Is that what y’r trying t’ say, Sir?”
“That’s it exactly, Inspector.” Felix suddenly patted Miss Duvall’s hand back. “And the more solid my brain became the more of my self-awareness was forced to anchor elsewhere. Most often the escaped bits found shelter in paltry ornaments or stuffed animals or soft toys. But as time went by they began to generate their own particular, attribute-specific bodies.”
“’Ow exactly?” Nesbit’s bewildered expression was fast becoming one of complete disbelief. “You mean your escaping thoughts started to make their own solid forms?”
A fleeting light of dawning washed across his brows.
“Like that dragon?”
“Exactly like that dragon, Inspector. All matter in the universe...”
Felix noticed Nesbit’s latest frown and add
ed, for the sake of explanation, “I’ve read a lot of books in my expanded life, Inspector, and I’ve come to understand a great many things that most ordinary people would never get to hear of...”
That seemed to do the trick. Nesbit’s features remained locked solid but appeared to lighten slightly beneath the surface.
“Where was I? Oh yes...all matter in the universe is composed of energy. Energy that can be manipulated to form other matter or, more precisely, other forms.”
Now everybody was staring at Felix uncomprehendingly.
Greyminster wasn’t exactly renowned as the capital of scientific education. Although, all things considered, it probably should have been.
“For example, by rearranging the molecular structure of a leg of lamb you could create a snorkel and flippers.”
“Why would y’ want to?” asked Nesbit, increasingly losing track.
“It’s just an example,” Felix hurried on. “All I’m saying is that anything can be manufactured from anything else and when souls have nowhere else to go, like tramps with bivouacs, they generate their own shelters.”
“In a snorkel?”
“I think I understand.” Miss Duvall thrust her jaw through the tightening crescent of listeners, in the fashion of a jib through fog. “But short of emptying your brain so that the various bits of your soul can return, how are we going to sort this problem out?”
Millicent Broadhurst apparently knew.
At any rate she was busy preparing something in the certain knowledge that the situation was about to be resolved. That wasn’t exactly the same as knowing how the war being waged around Greyminster was going to end, perhaps. But at least she acknowledged that it would.
In the overgrown garden behind Miss Duvall’s cottage down Wainscot Lane her reeking corpse had been digging a large hole between the red-hot pokers.