Nowhere Near Milkwood (13 page)

Peter and Claire Elliot were lost on the moors. A fine drizzle had swept in from the west, chilling them even through their waterproof clothing and obscuring their view of the horizon. As Peter stepped forward, he sank a good ten inches into the soft clay that had been churned almost to liquid by the rains of the previous night. Cold mud surged over the top of his boots and forced itself under his toes.

“I hate this country!” he wailed.

Claire placed a comforting arm on his shoulder, but he pulled away with a scowl, losing his balance in the process and falling backward into the mire. He flapped aimlessly for a minute before Claire, struggling to repress a laugh, helped him to his feet. Once again, he shrugged her off and gritted his teeth. “Yes, I hate this country. And I hate you as well!”

“The holiday was your idea,” Claire pointed out.

She turned her face into the oncoming sheets of drizzle. They washed over them with a regular pulse, as if dancing to the rhythm their feet had made earlier on the moors. It seemed as if someone was draping a succession of veils over the landscape, each veil a fraction of a millimetre thicker than its predecessor.

“I’m completely fed up!” Peter added, under his breath.

“Perhaps it will brighten up later?” Claire suggested. She knew it was useless now to remind him that he alone was responsible for leading them off the road into the wilderness. She attempted to smile and then began to whistle.

“Oh, shut up!” Peter growled. He raised a fist as if to strike her, thought better of it, and contented himself with spitting near to where she stood. “Let’s just find our way out of here, shall we? Pass me the map.”

“I gave it back to you,” Claire replied.

She frowned as the blood rushed to his face. He was little better than a child, she decided. He stamped his foot, spraying mud and damp clay over an area considerably smaller than he would have liked. He tried again, and managed to spatter Claire’s face.

“You liar!” he screamed. “Right, that does it! I’m off! You can find your own way back! Do you hear me? Find your own way back!”

Claire watched him stamp off, skidding on wet grass and lurching into low bushes. She sighed and shook her head. Doubtless, he expected her to race after him and apologise. But she had finally reached the end of her tether. He could drown in a bog now, as far as she was concerned. Enough was enough. Besides, there was always Michael at college, and he seemed a much nicer sort of man.

She waited until Peter was out of sight and then began moving in the same direction, slowly and carefully so as not to catch him up. She guessed that he would probably veer off at a tangent at some point and eventually end up walking in circles. His sense of direction was truly unique!

Before long, as the light began to fade and the rain increased in volume, she spied a lone figure making its way toward her. She assumed it was Peter and rolled her eyes in exasperation, but it was, in fact, an exceedingly thin stooped man with a strange, wild look about him. As he approached, he hailed Claire and began to chuckle. His hair was matted and he possessed but a single blackened tooth in his hideous wound of a mouth.

“Another visitor, to be sure!” he exclaimed. “And what would your name be?”

“Claire,” said Claire, intrigued rather than alarmed by the fellow’s appearance and strange high-pitched voice. It was a voice somewhere between the creaking of a coffin lid and the scream of a bluebottle caught in a spider’s web.

“Claire, eh?” The man screwed his face up and winked. “Not much I can do with a Claire,” he said. “There’s a County Clare though,” he added thoughtfully.

“I’m lost,” Claire replied, well aware that she should not really be divulging this fact, but feeling, for some reason, relatively safe in the company of this stranger.

“Come with me,” the stranger insisted, taking her by the arm. “I have a hut. A bowl of soup and a peat fire awaits you. Yes, potato soup and a real peat fire!”

Claire let herself be led across the moors. As they walked, the stranger began to talk in a breathless monotone, nodding and tapping his warty nose as he did so.

“I’m a namesmith. I’ve been a namesmith for a long time now. I do things with people’s names, you see. It’s hard work too, I’m blasted worn out with it, but I enjoy it all the same. Peculiar things, names.”

By the time he had finished, they had reached a hut, seemingly made out of turf, with a hole in the top to act as a chimney. Smoke issued forth and made a vain attempt to flee the rain. The man gestured at the open doorway. “Go inside. There’s a bowl of soup and a real peat fire. You’re my second visitor today, you know.”

Entering the darkened hut, Claire squinted at the oily fire that burned in the centre of the single room. It took her a full minute to appreciate what it was she was looking at. At first, she was appalled, but then she laughed. Divine retribution, perhaps?

Behind her, the little man chuckled again. His breath was chill on the nape of her neck. “Yes, I’m a namesmith. Well, what do you think?” He began to dance. “I’m still waiting for Old King Cole. Much easier to light!”

He danced in front of her and paused, attempting to gauge her reaction. “Well?” he repeated.

Claire smiled and shook her head.

“You can’t spell, can you?” she replied.

At least the fireplace of the TALL STORY is never short of acceptable fuel. It burns the unpublished manuscripts of the writers who frequent its unforgiving domains. Nathanael West was in here the other day, searching for his cool million, which he’d misplaced a whole week, or dreamlife, before. He didn’t reveal what the million was
of
. I don’t think it was money. Nor locusts.

Perhaps he was hoping to find a sweetheart, a girl in a million, and in that case I wish him luck. Maybe I could set him up with another writer, say Mary Shelley or Christina Rossetti, but that’s not really my job. I’m no Miss Lonelyhearts. Then again, it occurs to me that with a global population of ten billion, there must be 10,000 girls in a million running around at random. If they all decided to enter this pub at the same time, I would die of admiration and suffocation. Which reminds me: the ventilation is playing up.

There’s a big grille set into one of the walls and a fan which sucks out the fetid air and cigar smoke and musical notes of the regulars. This grille resembles an ancient knight’s helmet. Not that I’ve ever seen a visor. But it brings to my mind something Hywel told me a long time earlier.

I said: “What happened to that knight in the story about when Anna turned into a dragon? I mean, he barely came on the scene before you admitted the whole thing was a lie. I bet he was annoyed at being let down like that. I can’t believe he just went away after getting all dressed up for action. Why not tell me what he did next?”

Hywel smirked to himself and something of his former profession returned to him as he rolled up his sleeves and kneaded my cheeks for a full minute. Then he fell back and answered: “Listen, Old Bony, we’ve become good friends and I feel I can speak frankly. You can’t really leave this pub, though you’ve tried often enough. The street outside...”

I sighed. “No need to say more. But I wonder who built Raconteur Road? Laid the cobbles, I mean.”

He was shocked. “Wash your mouth out with soapy beer!”

I did so, and swilled that taste clean with whisky. I grimaced at my reflection in the mirror over the bar. It didn’t grimace back. It was fast asleep. I asked a safer question which had been bothering me for ages. “Why is that an impossible mirror?”

“You’ll have to ask Titian Grundy.”

“Who’s he?”

“A man who lives in the future, so you’ll have a long wait if you really want to speak with him...”

I decided to let the matter drop. “What about the knight?”

“That’s the point I was coming to. Remember that it’s
you
who’s doing all the telling, as agreed in our original contract. I know you’ve arranged it to look as if I’m guilty for most of these stories, even though I haven’t actually told a single one, but that’s just a literary trick. I’m weary of it, to be honest, and I think you ought to accept your responsibility this time and let me have a rest.”

I was disappointed by his reluctance to humour me, but I guessed it was only a temporary aberration on his part. However, I knew that two could play at this anti-game. “Well, I’ve decided to match your surliness. I don’t have any words to spare.”

“No problem.” He indicated the figure of Karl Mondaugen huddled in its secret corner. The mad scientist was darning the sleeves of his strait jacket with a toothpick and a guitar string. Faint notes of unholy jazz sounded as he worked. In the ashtray on his table, his latest invention waited to pass its first test.

I squinted at it uneasily. “So what useless thing has he created now? A Wake Up Call for an Alarm Clock?”

“Out of matchsticks? Don’t be silly! I think it’s:

 A Pair of Stilts for a Giant.”

I tutted. “Fine, I’m sure. But how can that help me tell a story?”

“No, not that. Look at the other thing he’s just invented.”

I scratched my head. “I can’t see anything...”

“Exactly! That means it’s already up and running.”

“But what
is
it?”

“Remember when I said that Dr Mondaugen was hoping to create a machine that could recycle all those unnecessary words which are scattered all over the floor, indeed which
are
the floor? Well, he’s done it. And if you operate it, you’ll be able to tell your new story without wasting any new words.”

“Operate the machine! But where is it?”

“Outside this story, of course! You don’t seriously expect to find the
implement
of composition within the prose it creates, do you? That would be totally absurd. No, it’s located above the page.”

“But I’m trapped down here, aren’t I?”

“That’s an illusion. If you are the author, you
must
be outside.”

I was forced to concede the point. I took a deep breath and concentrated and the pub melted away. I grasped Mondaugen’s machine, positioned it over the blank page and pressed the buttons to shuffle the reclaimed words. I dealt them like a true amateur:

“After the knight realised his services were no longer required in the rescue of a damsel, he galloped off in a huff. Fancy squeezing himself into this armour for nothing! It wouldn’t do to take it off before he’d had his money’s worth. He went looking for a substitute adventure. Across many lands he rode, through forests and over moors. Eventually he came to a very flat country on the edge of a stagnant sea.

“It was all marsh and swamp, with complicated routes winding between the lagoons and quicksands, and wills-o’-the-wisp at dusk to entice him off the path. In the day, wasps and will were lacking, but mosquitoes and dogged persistence urged him on. Catfish too, which leapt out of the pools to bite his lap. He was grateful to arrive at a settlement. It was a town in which every building was a windmill.

“Chief of this realm was Pungent Hugh, miller of millers, grinder of black bog-rush and pumper of bilge, who protected his people with dykes and towels. He welcomed the knight – Sir Jasper was his name – with a handshake and a meal. The bread was awful. Then when his guest had finished belching through his visor, he made a little speech. He said:

“‘How grateful I am to meet such a noble hero.’

“‘And why is that?’ asked Sir Jasper, with much interest and not a little suspicion. ‘Damsels?’

“‘No, our women take care of themselves, I’m afraid. But we do need protection from a ferocious talking bear which roams these parts and raids our town at night. He smashes the sails of our windmills with his dirty great paws or spins them backwards until they break.’

“‘A talking bear?’ blinked Sir Jasper. ‘In a swamp! Are you sure?’

“‘Absolutely certain. I’ve heard it with my own ears. Oh, I know what you’re thinking: bears normally live in the mountains, don’t they? Well, maybe this one does too. But he comes down to visit us after sunset.’

“‘I accept the quest! I shall sally forth to slay the creature!’

“And off he galloped again, glad to be fulfilling his chivalrous role at last. It dimly occurred to him that he might as well wait until the bear entered the town that evening, but there was something unheroic about not taking an active part in seeking danger. What true knight ever sits still and allows dastardly things to charge at him? The traditions must be followed scrupulously. Besides, he didn’t like the town. So he kept going, looking for a mountain and a liar – I mean lair!

“Although the sun was getting low in the west it was still hot and he sweated profusely inside his armour. He was grateful for all the holes in his visor which let the air in. The sky was cloudless, but swarms of biting insects cast a little shade. He knew where he was headed thanks to an eccentric line of reasoning he had decided to pursue. North! For when the evening came and the stars appeared, the constellation of Ursa Major would be directly ahead, frosty and bright.

“What other sign would a talking bear choose to dwell under? Ursa Major is the Great Bear, and a real one which can articulate meaningful sentences must surely be the greatest of its kind. Sir Jasper peered anxiously into the distance, but there were no mountains. The land remained flat. The sun set over a large lagoon and the foam on his horse’s mouth turned pink. Still there were no peaks visible. Twilight was followed by dusk, and the smell of decaying vegetation gave way to that of smoke. A volcano perhaps?

“No, it was a small camp fire, and the bear sat warming its paws in front of it. A pot of porridge bubbled on the coals. Sir Jasper found it impossible to urge his horse forward, so he dismounted and creaked stealthily toward his foe. Ursa Major did indeed twinkle, above him and also on his armour, but the mountain was absent. No matter! He grimaced inside his helmet as the bear slowly turned its head at his approach, but realising that his expressions of fear were hidden, he drew his sword from its scabbard with a confident flourish and ran forward.

“The bear stood up. It fixed the charging knight with its wild eyes and demanded: ‘Who the bloody hell are you?’

“Sir Jasper had known that this was going to be a talking bear, but actually hearing the words emanating from that mighty jaw was an experience he wasn’t really prepared for. He went numb. The sword slipped from his fist. This was precisely the reaction the bear was hoping for. The tactic rarely failed. It opened its huge arms to receive its visitor, which it intended to crush inside the iron shell, rather than wasting time trying to get him out first. The plan almost worked, but Sir Jasper had a secret.

“Before he had become a knight, he had wanted to be an actor. He wasn’t very good at it – critics said he was too wooden – but he’d gained some knowledge of the mechanical tricks used by theatre companies to increase the astonishment factor of a production. The most obvious and simple of these devices was the pantomime horse. Worked by levers and springs on the inside, a single man could operate it with amazing efficiency.

“Something in the bear’s tone made Sir Jasper wonder if a similar trick was being played here. Instead of trying to brake his headlong rush, he accelerated and jumped. The bear closed its paws around nothing. The knight came down on the bear, straddling its shoulders. Sure enough there was a row of buttons running all the way down the creature’s back. What’s more, they looked ready to pop. Sir Jasper reached over and undid the top one. It was just enough. The costume burst.

“Unfortunately for him, there wasn’t a man inside. Sir Jasper had assumed that bigger things hold smaller things, not the other way round. The object that stood among the tattered remains of artificial bear was – a hippopotamus! It rolled its huge eyes and lisped: ‘Thank goodness for that! It was such a tight fit in there!’ But Sir Jasper wasn’t deceived. He undid the top button of this costume too, and the hippo burst to reveal an elephant, which trumpeted: ‘A blessed relief to be out of that, what?’ Yet Sir Jasper still didn’t relax.

“Another undoing of a button, another fabric detonation and now the knight was confronted by a blue whale. Before it could utter a word, he fumbled for the next button. Now he was in the branches of a gigantic redwood tree, the tallest tree in the world. He felt dizzy.

“He screamed as he undid this final button, for what burst out of the tree was something he had suspected was the real villain all along, though he hadn’t acknowledged the fact to himself – it was an impossibly high mountain. Its lower slopes were covered in snow and lost climbers, one of them wedged in a
third
crevasse. Sir Jasper clung tightly to the summit, but as the peak rose into the sky and beyond the atmosphere, he came to regret the holes in his visor which let the air out...”

The machine to recycle words was empty, so I switched it off and stepped back into the page. Hywel blinked.

“That’s weird! You just seemed to vanish.”

“I moved into a dimension where I had godlike control over scenes and situations. Anyway, what did you think?”

“Of the tale about the knight? Very poor. I’m not blaming you for that, of course. You only had a limited selection of previously used words to work with. But I pity our readers.”

I nodded. “So do I. But if that’s truly what happened to Sir Jasper (and I’ve decided that it was) then I can’t be accused of dishonesty. I’m not culpable for the clumsy bits.”

Hywel shrugged. “Very wise.”

There was nothing more to say. We gazed around the pub in quiet despair. Nothing much had changed. There was no longer a floor to stand on, because the scattered words which had doubled as flagstones had gone, but the ineffable void which now occupied their place was no less solid, so it didn’t matter. I gestured at Mondaugen.