Imbroglio

by Andrew McEwan

There was no sleep in Hell, only waking; a landscape of unexpected dangers. Sleep was an impossible dream. The sun circled, but neither rose nor set, and the clouds held a malice all their own.

  Ramch, his blood on the steps, descended trancelike, only half conscious as the walls faded around. The steps grew broader, longer, until eventually they were as mountaintops flattened by the weight of worlds.

  The shallowest valleys stretched before him, green and lush. It was always noon, the air pungent and warm, the meadow thick with flowers. Insects hovered separately and in their hundreds, prey to birds…

  No days passed, yet Ramch walked with an increasing purpose. At first he was given to believe this was some ordinary land, a place of men and women and honest labour. But he had not seen any people, and few animals. All life, if truly life it was, kept a wary distance.

  Hell was strange, unmeasured by time. In startled moments of introspection, a luxury he disdained, Ramch thought he no longer breathed. It was as if he had to concentrate on the act to make it real.

  He sipped water from his flask, barely wetting his lips to conserve his supply. But truly he had no thirst.

  Distracted, he had wandered onto stony ground, all trace of greenery faded, slipped behind like a sheet pulled from a table without disturbing the crockery. The sun languished to his left, seemingly to move when he took his eyes from it, its heat burgeoning yet its strength decreased, for it was possible to stare direct. And Ramch did, catching the bloated orb in motion. He smiled and the sun appeared to sulk. The ground was flat, dusty, littered with rocks the colour of dried mud. He opened and emptied his flask. The liquid ran into a pool where it spilt, outlining the shape of a hoof.

  He felt empty. Emptied of courage, of belief. This was a loveless place beneath his feet.

  He did not belong.

  From the horizon, improbably near, a figure approached, countenance distorted by a heat haze, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and cape.

  The figure held out a hand to Michael, only to be knocked sideways, buffeted by some invisible force.

  And in turning, disappeared.

  ‘The thing to remember, son,’ his father had instructed one summer’s day, waist deep in quicksand, ‘is not to panic.’

  How old was he then? Seven or eight, junior school balsa-wood submarines and plastic soldiers his concerns, battles pitched and submerged, on paper and in colour, hand painted and flatly drawn, the perspective of depth not yet matured in the young Tomatoes’ imagination. But not a distant thing…

  How might he have handled his creation then? A character heroic, here beginning a journey as yet unknown.

  Michael had run for help, flapping his arms wildly, gesticulating excitedly at passers-by, most of whom ignored him and his gyrating ways – until finally he happened upon a group of youths, boys leaning and joking and smoking, spitting and leaning and joking, smoking and leaning against a park bench and a post-box, his animated state inviting dog-ends and hawking, and ultimately help. Father to his chin, still calm, was a sight to behold. The youths pulled him out. He emptied his shoes, patted Michael on the head, and joked and smoked with the boys, the youngest of which now felt excluded. Hadn’t he been the hero? Nobody believed so; he had just played his part; a short part in a tall tale, a future beer yarn scenario.

  ‘Don’t say anything to your mother!’

  He, Ramch, would have told…

  Of impossible continents and fabulous inhabitants, flying cities and glass oceans. The loss of innocence…

  Wet and roomy, he recalled, her lying there not making a sound.

  He would have placed him in a wood with an axe and directed him to fell trees and build ships, sail seas, conquer lands, right wrongs and rescue maidens. Ramch would have fought and slain, untroubled by any morality more complicated than the etiquette of gold. And he would have left that behind, weighing the pockets of lesser mortals as he took to the hills, his bounty lying in the unknown, the territory as yet unfound. The world was his, and beyond.

  It stretched flat, naked, inviting his toes, his boots, his sword. Earth. Hard packed dirt he scuffed, carried with him from one adventure to the next, sometimes accompanied, more often alone, both a mercenary and a friend, the avenger, the salvager, the rescuer of souls…

  What next for such a man?

  Oblivion?

  ‘Only two things to remember about girls,’ said dad. ‘Upstairs and down.’

  Oblivion…

  Of flesh touched to flesh, the torture of the incomplete, the mismatched union of body parts, a juncture of the stiff and the relaxed, opposites united in a frenzy from which pleasure was derived…oblivious of the consequences.

  But he’d learn that later, about age seventeen.

  And a half.

  An altogether different quagmire.

  Ramch paused, unsure of the dark. A shape moved in it, large yet smooth, black on black, the horse he had trailed to this beach of tar. Born of a coal sea, the stallion kicked and shook as a new-born, flicking tail and mane. The wave from which it sprang lay broken, the stench of gas its birth, the promise of heat and light to come. He reached out to it, touched its warmth. The horse reared and stamped and broke the annealed strand, bringing a flame to the world…

  Inviting experiments with tobacco and cannabis, acid and magic mushrooms.

  The man turned and was visible again, his arms folded in two dimensions, a stern look on his face; either anger or impatience. He seemed to imply that Michael was wasting time. He had the mathematics to prove it. He had the numbers. The love apple hummed internally, current passing through old valves. Silently, he apologized, and continued on his way. The man tipped his hat and was gone.

  ‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ muttered a technician. ‘Just watch and see.’

  Abdomen…

  The belly, the gut, swollen through indigestion, too much Chicken Kiev and cheap red wine. No sympathy from Vanessa, whose vegetarian meal and Pinot Noir sipping left her with a smile.

  ‘Serves yourself right,’ she opined.

  It was self-inflicted. All his ills. He had only himself to blame. Take that business with his agent and her hairdresser. What the man had done was criminal, but hardly worthy of immortalization, Medusa recreated in welding wire on the roof of his car. Even if it was good publicity; she failed to see the funny side.

  He was a pig, he confessed, given to indulgence, rolling in the mud of his desires.

  The life of art possessed him.

  Vanessa rolled her eyes.

  ‘Were you like this before I met you?’

  He nodded. Her relief was obvious: it wasn’t her fault.

  ‘When did it all start?’

  She was serious, he saw.

  ‘O-level metalwork – the forge, the heat and flames, the intense colours reflecting the high temperatures; a spectrum of malleability, the transmogrification of steel…’ He paused. ‘Or perhaps it was those clay ashtrays we made in infant school.’

  She shook her head.

  He grimaced, trying not to fart; at least not out loud, squeezing one out on the sly and hoping she wouldn’t notice.

  She did, grimacing in turn. ‘Either light the things or go to the toilet,’ she said without humour.

  He obliged.

 

  Buttocks…

  Red raw from spanking, blue knickers half way down her thighs, the girl admired her arse in a full length mirror. Her silver dress was clasped about her waist and her yellow hair bound in a green ribbon.

  ‘More,’ she demanded, not satisfied. ‘Then take a Polaroid.’ For her boyfriend, he was given to understand.

  Such were the contrary ways of women.

  Condoms…

  She liked the flavoured ones.

  ‘No good for fucking,’ he said.

  ‘Tough.’

  She had a mean streak…

  ‘Cavity wall insulation,’ he offered.

  ‘Big girls
’ bubble-gum.’

  He hurt her and she asked for more, or begged for mercy, whatever, whichever, whoever she was, this accomplice. She dug her nails in his thighs and chewed his foreskin. There was blood in their mouths, his and hers, red streams diluted by red wine, body fluids drawn into symbols across bellies marked, reddened, sensitized, redly taut.

  They dripped together and filled the prophylactics.

  He drove her home.

  The sword was buried to the hilt in an animal the size of a Transit van, half rhinoceros, half kangaroo. How it had got there was unknown. Ramch took hold and drew it out like a needle from a peach, the wound closing to invisibility and the rhinoroo hopping off, nodding its nose horn and rolling its armoured shoulders in thanks.

  It looked like a giant surgical instrument, Michael thought, a kind of multi-tool for the amputation of limbs and delicate slicing of flesh.

  It could part lovers and divide the spirit.

  He would wield it with care…

  Hope abandoned, kicking in a door, this the eighth floor and the culmination of the broad stairs, he searched frantically for a way up. There must be a penthouse, he reasoned, smashing windows and breaking furniture. A private entrance, a service elevator, anything, some means of continuing his climb. He trashed each suite, hurled televisions to their deaths on patios and in swimming pools, upturned beds and used a fire extinguisher to demolish bathrooms, shattering tiles and rupturing plaster to find, he hoped, that secret gateway, the route to the stars long promised, hidden from him now beneath or behind…cupboards, ceilings, carpets…his to expose.

  But there was nothing. Not even the lift shaft went higher. Everything just ended here on floor eight. There was only the roof beyond.

  Maybe that was it, Columbine sunning herself among ventilation ducts and pigeon shit. There had to be a fire escape. Outside, extending from balconies; of course, bare metal rungs to the top.

  And two deckchairs, in one of which he sat.

  ‘It’s a fine view, is it not?’

  He agreed it was.

  ‘You could set your easel here and paint each degree, each day a different aspect, working your way east to west as the year progressed and the seasons rolled, warm and cold, through light and shade, dry and wet.’

  Michael nodded. She had inspired him before, to landscapes, picturesque scenes of grass and sheep.

  ‘If, that is, you had any real talent.’

  What was she saying? She was being deliberately cruel, coldly manipulative.

  ‘What did you do with the box?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The box, with Mr Unger-Farmer’s name on it. What became of it?’

  ‘I don’t know…’

  Her eyes were suddenly huge. Then she laughed.

  ‘I can see you’re blue around the edges, Michael. An interloper, no less. But who sent you, hmm? What game is afoot?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t. No talent, like I say; for art, espionage, or sex.’ She counted his shortcomings on her fingers, adding, ‘Cooking,’ and, using her thumb, ‘Rolling cigarettes.’

  He was flabbergasted.

  ‘In fact you’re quite pathetic,’ she continued, warming to her tirade. ‘You’re selfish, facetious, conceited and…yes, a bore. Whoever programmed you must be completely anal and frustrated. Who did program you, by the way? Do you know? Not Herschel Byrd, that’s for sure; he imagines you’re some kind of avenging angel, albeit one sadly unconscious of his role. Like Herschel, really.’ She laughed, jiggling in her trademark pink lingerie, flesh pimpled and in folds. ‘And you’re gullible,’ she went on. ‘An utter fool. Any woman could control you. You’re so believing. All it takes is a smile.’

  The flabbergasting slowed his cognitive processes.

  ‘But that said, you’re somewhat appealing. You’ve got a nice bum.’

  It was reassuring…

  ‘Now, Mr Tomatoes - or whoever you are - get you about your task!’

  Save the world, you imbecile.

  Only a matter of days.

  Twenty Four: The Fascists

  The grey men collected on the frozen lake, breaths issuing steam, fingers intertwined and feet stamping. They formed a circle round a patch of cleared snow, the water’s frozen superficies glimmering steely in the early morning drizzle, the thin light picking out buttons and teeth. They stamped their feet like birds raising worms, and at the first central cracks they opened their coats to reveal a panoply of luminous shirts.

  Twenty Five: The Fridge