Grimus (4 page)

VI

He was the leopard who changed his spots, he was the worm that turned. He was the shifting sands and the ebbing tide. He was moody as the sky, circular as the seasons, nameless as glass. He was Chameleon, changeling, all things to all men and nothing to any man. He had become his enemies and eaten his friends. He was all of them and none of them
.

He was the eagle, prince of birds; and he was also the albatross. She clung round his neck and died, and the mariner became the albatross
.

Having little option, he survived, wheeling his craft from shore to unsung shore, earning his keep, filling the empty hours of the hollow days of the vacant years. Contentment without contents, achievement without goal, these were the paradoxes that swallowed him
.

He saw things most men miss in a mere lifetime. He saw:

A beach on which a maiden had been staked out, naked, as giant ants moved up her thighs towards their goal; he heard her screams and sailed on by
.

A man rehearsing voices on a cliff top: high whining voices, low gravelly voices, subtle insinuating voices, raucous strident voices, voices honeyed with pain, voices glinting with laughter, the voices of the birds and of the fishes. He asked the man what he was doing (as he sailed by)
.
The man called back
—
and each word was the word of a different being:
—
I am looking for a suitable voice to speak in. As he called, he leaned forward, lost his balance and fell. The cry was in a single voice; but the rocks on the shore cut it and shredded it for him again
.

A beggar shaking with starvation on a raft, and the fish that leapt from the ocean into his begging bowl and died for him
.

Whales making love
.

And many other things; but nowhere in the seas, for all the solace of the waters, for all the wonders beyond the curved liquid horizon, could he see or sniff or feel his own death
.

Death: a blue fluid, blue like the sea, vanished down a monster’s throat. All that remained was to survive. Stripped of his past, forsaking the language of his ancestors for the languages of the archipelagoes of the world, forsaking the ways of his ancestors for those of the places he drifted to, forsaking any hope of ideals in the face of the changing and contradicting ideals he encountered, he lived, doing what he was given to do, thinking what he was instructed to think, being what it was most desirable to be, hoping only for what was permitted, and doing it so skilfully, with such natural aptitude, that the men he encountered thought he was thus of his own free will and liked him for it. He loved many women
—
being so easily able to adapt to the needs and pleasures of any woman
.

Several times he changed the name he gave to people. His face was such, his skin was such, that in many places he could pass for local; and pass he did, using what had once been his curse to his advantage. The change of name was necessary, if his immortality was not to be noticed. This immortality kept him moving, too: always seeking out places where he was unknown or forgotten
.

For a tyrant, he slew rebels; in a free state, he denounced tyranny
.

Among carnivores, he praised the strength-giving virtues

of animal flesh; among vegetarians he spoke of the spiritual purity that abstinence from such flesh brought; among cannibals, he devoured a companion
.

Though he was kind by nature, he worked for a time as an executioner, perfecting the arts of axe and knife. Though he believed himself to be good, he betrayed many women. Few left him: he always moved on first
.

And after a while, he realized he had learnt nothing at all. The many, many experiences, the multitude of people and the myriad crimes had left him empty; a grin without a face. He was no more now than a nod of agreement, a bow of acquiescence
.

His body continued to keep itself perfectly; his mind never grew dimmer. He lived the same physiological day over and over again. His body: an empire on which there was no sun to set
.

One day, afloat and nowhere, he said aloud:

—
I want to grow old. Not to die: to grow old
.

A gull screeched its ridicule
.

Flapping Eagle began his search for Sispy and Bird-Dog as methodically as he could. He sailed back to Amerindia and made his way inland to Axona and Phoenix, where the whole cold trail began. But that led him nowhere. Sispy and Bird-Dog didn’t seem to have travelled anywhere at all. They had simply vanished.

—Sispy? said people in Phoenix. That some kind of a pree-vert foreign name?

After that, Flapping Eagle gave up any pretence of method. He sailed on through seas, channels, rivers, lakes, oceans, wherever his craft took him, asking, wherever he stopped, if anyone knew of the pedlar, or his sister.

He knew it was almost certainly hopeless; they might be anywhere on the globe; they might use different names; they might have drowned, or died some other violent death; they might no longer be together.

Only two things kept him going: the first was the knowledge that only Sispy would know if there was a way, not of dying, but of restoring his body to the normal, vulnerable state of human bodies: to allow him to grow old.

The second was the message Sispy had sent him through Bird-Dog on his first appearance:

Tell your brother Born-From-Dead that all eagles come at last to eyrie and all sailors come at last to shore
.

Sispy had said that before Joe-Sue had even become Flapping Eagle; and years before he had any notion of going to sea. Perhaps, thought Flapping Eagle, sailor, Sispy divined something of my future.

It wasn’t much grounds for optimism, but it was something.

He remembered another sentence of Sispy’s:
For those who will not use the blue there is only one place I know of
.

Flapping Eagle told himself firmly, over and over again: there is such a place; it’s only a matter of time before you find it; and You’ll know when you do, because its inhabitants will be like you. Young or old, they cannot disguise their eyes from me. Eyes like mine, which have seen everything and know nothing. The eyes of the survivor.

But the years passed. And more years. And more years.

Flapping Eagle was beginning to wonder if he was sane. Perhaps there never was a Sispy, never a Bird-Dog or Sham-Man or Phoenix: perhaps not even a Livia Cramm or a Deggle. Yes. Madness explained everything. He was mad.

So when his boat sailed into its home port, the port of X on the Moorish coast of Morispain, his eyes were glazed and distant.

He was contemplating killing himself.

VII

N
ICHOLAS
D
EGGLE SAT
on a bollard on the jetty, long and black, with an inordinately wicked smile playing about his lips.

—I trust you had a nice sail, pretty-face, he said. Wind all right? Not too high? Not too low? I’m afraid I’m not an expert in these matters.

Flapping Eagle raised his head slowly. Now he knew he was mad.

—Deggle, he said.

—The same. None other. Accept no substitute, said Deggle. But a word in your shell-like orifice: I’m not called by that name any more. Time flies, you know, and names with it.

—Yes, said Flapping Eagle, bemused.

—I’m called Lokki, actually. The Great Lokki at your service. Phenomenal Pheats of Prestidigitation Phantastically Performed. Dear me, how one does fall upon hard times. Straitened circumstances. I’ve become my own descendant, as a matter of fact, or my own ancestor, depending on your historical perspective. The legal problems were enormous. Anyway, I’ve been careful to keep leaving myself my own boat, so thank you for returning it.

—Not at all, mouthed Flapping Eagle.

—Lokki, said Deggle, rolling the L. It’s a good name, don’t you think? Echoes of the old Norse and so forth. Gives one’s act a kind of artistic respectability. Shame about Livia, wasn’t it? I’m sure you did the right thing, going off like that. It must have been a great shock for you, all that money at once. You’re quite better now, I hope?

The eyes.

Deggle’s eyes: the eyes of the survivor, filled with an ageless twinkle.

—Deggle, if you …

Deggle was still a master of interruption. He waved a ringed hand.

—Please, my dear. I did tell you. Do call me Lokki. People might
hear
.

—Lokki. If you’re still here after all this time,
you must know about Sispy
.

Deggle cocked his head and looked puzzled.

—Sispy, he mused, Siss-pee. What is it, old eagle? Soup? It sounds awfully familiar.

—You know very well. Sispy. Sispy the pedlar. With the bottles, Lokki. The blue bottle. You remember Livia.

Flapping Eagle tried to make it sound like a threat, but Deggle laughed happily.

—Mmm, he said. Of course, Livia—by which I take it you mean Mrs Livia Cramm, widow of Oscar Cramm, the tin-tack king—has been dead for such a very long time. Long before my time, of course. Now if only my illustrious ancestor Nicholas Deggle were still alive, I’m sure he’d know exactly what you mean.

He smiled beautifully. Like the Deggle himself, Flapping Eagle remembered.

—Now, he said, may I offer you a drink?

The Great Lokki lived in a caravan just outside X. There was a horse between the shafts and an extremely beautiful and very stupid conjurer’s assistant between the sheets.

—Lotti, explained Deggle, looking embarrassed. Lokki and Lotti, you see.

Frustration was building within Flapping Eagle, the frustration of centuries.

—Deggle, he said, ignoring the Great Lokki’s anguished protest, I think it’s time you stopped trying to make a fool of me.

—But my dear, said Deggle and his eyes were not twinkling, that’s so easy.

Flapping Eagle was on the verge of committing an act of physical violence when, abruptly, Deggle said: —Piss off, Lotti. His language seemed to have acquired occasional lapses, its quality reduced to suit his reduced way of life. There couldn’t have been a Livia Cramm for a very long time. At any rate, Lotti pissed off outside to chat to the horse, which was therefore able to feel intellectually superior to at least one human being.

Deggle said: —I think you’re just about ready for Calf Island.

Flapping Eagle didn’t entirely understand or believe what Deggle told him, about “making a gate” to the island. It had apparently taken centuries of trying, and even now might be dangerous. But despite his bewilderment, he didn’t care. This was undoubtedly the haven of which Sispy had spoken, so it was undoubtedly the place for which he was destined.

Mrs Cramm had said it was his lot to be led; and he was filled with something approaching hate for Sispy, who had distorted his entire life in one casual stroke so very long ago. He found himself wanting not only his freedom from the chains of immortality, but some kind of satisfaction as well.

He went for a walk alone the next morning, in the hills above X. He was saying goodbye to the world, since, if half of what Deggle had said was true, there was a good chance he would never see it again.

In the afternoon he went down to the jetty and prepared the boat for departure. Deggle still disclaimed any need for it.

In the evening, Deggle and Lotti came to see him off. —The evening is the best time to try and get through, Deggle had said. They waved.

—Deggle, Flapping Eagle said as he pushed off, I’d love to know what motivates you.

—Oh, well, shrugged the wickedly-smiling conjurer, perhaps I don’t like your friend Sispy very much either. But then, perhaps I do.

—Byeee, squeaked Lotti.

—Ethiopia, said Deggle.

Flapping Eagle no longer knew whether he was mad, whether he had accepted Deggle’s story so unquestioningly, been so willing to follow his instructions despite the warnings of physical danger, just as an excuse for doing away with himself. He was, he told himself, doing the only thing he could do.

—They go there, Deggle had said, from choice, because they chose immortality. Whereas you are after something quite different: old age. Physical decay. And, presumably, death. You should set the cat among the pigeons, pretty-face. Not to mention old Livia’s prophecy.

The Deggle giggle lasted for a long while after that.

The Mediterranean was calm, dark and calm. No wind. A clear sky. Stars. Flapping Eagle dozed for a moment. When he awoke, it was to feel a gale rushing at his face, a cloud rushing over his head, a crackle of electricity in the air. He was standing erect now, fighting to keep his craft from breaking under the force of the holocaust, when quite unaccountably dizziness swept over him and he fell from his yacht, Deggle’s yacht, into the angry sea. The last thing he heard was a loud drumming noise … like the beating of mighty wings.

A few seconds later he fell through the hole in the Mediterranean into that other sea, that not-quite-Mediterranean, and was carried towards the misty beach in the first light of dawn as Mr Virgil Jones rocked in his chair.

When Flapping Eagle arrived at Calf Island his body was thirty-four years, three months and four days old. He had lived for a total of seven hundred and seventy-seven years, seven months and seven days. By a swift calculation, we see that he had stopped ageing seven hundred and forty-three years, four months and three days ago.

He was a tired man.

VIII

—I
NTRODUCTIONS WOULD BE
proper, said Virgil Jones, at a time like the present. Would you care for a nice steaming bowl of Mrs O’Toole’s very own root-tea, as it is the hour? Never let it be said the decencies were not observed in the Maison O’Toole.

—I’m wearing a frock, said Flapping Eagle in astonishment.

—Certainly you are, certainly, said Virgil Jones. Allow me to explain. Always a rational explanation, as they say, or, that is to say, as they said.

—Please do, said Flapping Eagle, feeling his throbbing head.

—Ah yes, said Virgil Jones, the head. I expect it hurts, not entirely unexpectedly, if I might be momentarily tautologous. Half-drowned heads have a way of protesting, you might even say bellyaching, although obviously we are not speaking of your belly. You have, sir, my unrestrained sympathy and the offer of root-tea. Mrs O’Toole swears by the arrowroot for such malaises. It flies straight and true to the heart of the affliction and thunk! one is cured.

—About the frock, said Flapping Eagle, raising himself from the prone position until he was jack-knifed, legs lying along the rush mat, torso and head leaning upwards into the room inquiringly, supported on a rubbery arm.

—Now, now, said Mr Jones, if I were you I wouldn’t attempt the vertical just yet. The horizontal is a far more suitable position for recuperation. I have often wondered if those tragic cases of people buried alive did not spring from this: the horizontal helping them to recover, you understand. Possibly one should be buried standing up, if You’ll excuse the brief foray into necrology. Merely a small pleasantry, no morbidity intended, nor I hope taken.

—The frock, said Flapping Eagle.

—O, my sincere apologies, said Virgil Jones, if it seems I was ducking your inquiry. Far from it, sir, far from it. Nothing could give me greater pleasure than to elucidate the matter of the frock. The fact of the matter is one’s conversational partners have been rather limited of late and the opportunity is well-nigh irresistible. The affair of the frock is a trifle. Merely that when we fished you from the sea your garments were a little moist, not to say damp, not to say positively sodden. And the fact of the matter is my own wardrobe is somewhat limited; so on the whole we thought it best, if you take my meaning, to employ one of Mrs O’Toole’s garments. You have our unreserved apologies if it brings you any embarrassment, but I assure you all proper decencies were observed, Mrs O’Toole leaving the room during the process of disinvestiture.

—I’m sure they were, said Flapping Eagle, trying to put the voluble, excited man at his ease; and, remembering his manners, went on: I owe you my thanks, sir, for saving my life. My name is Flapping Eagle.

—Virgil Beauvoir Chanakya Jones at your service, said Mr Jones, approximating a bow from the waist, which he did with some difficulty, there being so much of his own flesh to impede him. —Mrs O’Toole will be here presently, he confided. She is at the beach retrieving my rocking-chair, which she was unable to carry back with us, owing to having yourself strapped across her shoulders.

Flapping Eagle must have failed to conceal his puzzlement, for Mr Jones added hastily: —As you will observe, I am sitting down. Were I to stand, you would see why I am unable to carry the chair myself. My belt, you follow. It serves as a strap; but tragically, when doing so, the efficiency of my trousers is somewhat impaired.

It didn’t sound like a very good explanation, but then it was none of Flapping Eagle’s business. —Quite so, he said, and noticed in himself, not for the first time, a tendency to adopt the speaking style and speech patterns of others.

His head reminded him of its existence; he lay back on the mat. —I think I would like that root-tea, he said.

Mr Jones stood up laboriously, clutching at his trousers. He moved across the room, blinking in the direction of the fireplace, where a small pot hung above the winking embers. —Keeps it warm, he said; then added: Damnation. He had just knocked over a low, rickety table. The pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle dispersed themselves informally around the accident.

—Fornication, Mr Jones swore further. It was a black day for mankind when my glasses broke. Your pardon for my foulmouthed speech, Mr Eagle; one’s bodily inadequacies are a constant affliction, are they not?

—You do jigsaw puzzles, then.

—Do them? Mr Eagle, I construct them. In these solitary years they have provided my one stimulation. One day, I expect, I shall be some good at the things. At the moment my skill in construction far surpasses my talents at reconstruction. And myopia does nothing to assist. O for a qualified grinder of lenses.

He poured out a bowl of root-tea and carried it back, nearly slipping on the scattered jigsaw, and sat down by Flapping Eagle once more.

How unlikely, thought Flapping Eagle, that surroundings as meagre as these should exude so comfortable, so friendly an atmosphere. The room in which he lay was little more than the interior of a hovel; two rush mats some distance apart, one of which currently bore his weakened frame, lying on a dirt floor—although it was a meticulously swept floor. The broom, a bundle of twigs, rested indolently against a wall. The walls were logs covered in caked mud, the roof as well. A fireplace and the upturned rickety low table. A few pots. In a far corner, an old trunk. Nothing on the walls; no decoration anywhere. It was as distant from the sumptuous residence of, say, Livia Cramm as was China. And yet it was friendly.

Noises off: the twitterings of birds. A rustle of thick shrubbery. The occasional distant howl of a wild dog. No footsteps, no concourse of humanity. One window, with a piece of sacking drawn across it, flapping in the breeze; one door, covered in the same manner. It was the dwelling of a savage, or a castaway. Virgil Jones fitted into it about as easily as an elephant in a pepperpot.

He sat solicitously on the floor, wearing a dark and aged suit. There was a bowler hat upon his head and a gold chain traversed his waistcoat. (There was no gold watch at the end of it.) Somehow, thought Flapping Eagle, in these unsavoury surroundings, he preserves an air of dignity. Short-sighted, clumsy, loquacious, large-tongued, slobbering dignity, the injured hauteur of the impoverished. He reminded Flapping Eagle of an old railway engine he had once seen, a giant of steam in its day, rusting in a siding. The form of power denied its content. A stranded hulk. Puffing Billy. Flapping Eagle finished his root-tea, put the bowl down and fell fast asleep.

—That’s right, murmured Virgil Jones. Build your strength.

The birds sang their agreement from the trees.

When he awoke it was to find a different face staring down at him: the crinkled monkey folds of Dolores O’Toole’s physiognomy. At first he leapt in alarm, but then as wakefulness came subsided again, realizing that what he had taken for a snarl of hate was in fact a smile. Dolores O’Toole was the ugliest woman he had ever seen.

He gathered himself. —May I ask an obvious question, he said. Where am I?

—That’s a good question, approved Virgil Jones.

—Among friends, soothed Dolores O’Toole, snarling her sympathy.

Flapping Eagle felt highly confused.