The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy (164 page)

The ape began to scratch itself with slow relish and its eyelids trembled.

‘So you would
menace
him, would you?’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘Menace him with your dirty little brains, and horrid little noises. And you, ladies, with your false bosoms and ignorant mouths. You also have menaced him?’

There was a good deal of shuffling and coughing; and those who were able to do so without being seen began to retreat into the crowded body of the room.

‘Little children,’ he went on, the blade of his knife moving to and fro across his thumb, ‘pick up your colleague from the floor and learn from him to keep your hands off this pip-squeak of a boy.’

‘He is no pip-squeak,’ said Acreblade. ‘That is the youth I have been trailing. He escaped me. He crossed the wilderness. He has no passport. He is wanted. Come here, young man.’

There was a hush that spread all over the room.

‘What nonsense,’ said a deep voice at last. It was Juno. ‘He is my friend. As for the wilderness – good Heavens – you misconstrue the rags. He is in fancy dress.’

‘Move aside, madam. I have a warrant for his arrest as a vagrant; an alien; an undesirable.’

Then he moved forward, did this Acreblade, out of the crowd of guests, forward towards where Titus, Juno, Muzzlehatch and the ape waited silently.

‘Beautiful policeman,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘You are exceeding your duty. This is a party – or it was – but you are making something vile out of it.’

Muzzlehatch worked his shoulders to and fro and shut his eyes.

‘Don’t you ever have a holiday from crime? Do you never pick up the world as a child picks up a crystal globe – a thing of many colours? Do you never love this ridiculous world of ours? The wicked and the good of it? The thieves and angels of it? The all of it? Throbbing, dear policeman, in your hand? And knowing how all this is inevitably so, and that without the dark of life you would be out on your ear? Yet see how you take it. Passports, visas, identification papers – does all this mean so much to your official mind that you must needs bring the filthy stink of it to a party? Open up the gates of your brain then, policeman dear, and let a small sprat through.’

‘He is my friend,’ said Juno again, in a voice as ripe and deep as some underwater grotto, some foliage of the sea-bed. ‘He is in fancy dress. He is as nothing to you. What was it you said? “Across the wilderness?” Oh ha ha ha ha ha,’ and Juno, having received a cue from Muzzlehatch, moved forward and in a moment had blocked Mr Acreblade’s vision, and as she did this she saw away to her left, their heads a little above the heads of the crowd, two men in helmets who appeared to slide rather than walk. To Juno they were merely two of the guests and meant nothing more, but when Muzzlehatch saw them he gripped Titus by the arm just above the elbow and made for the door, leaving behind him a channel among the guests like the channel left on a field of ripe corn where a file of children has followed its leader.

Inspector Acreblade was trying very hard to follow them but every time he turned or made a few steps his passage was blocked by the generous Juno, a lady with such a superb carriage and such noble proportions, that to push past her was out of the question.

‘Please allow me –’ he said. ‘I must follow them at once.’

‘But your tie, you cannot go about like that. Let me adjust it for you. No … no … don’t move. Th-ere we are … There … we … are …’

Meanwhile Titus and Muzzlehatch were turning to left and right at will, for the place was honeycombed with rooms and corridors.

Muzzlehatch, as he ran, a few feet ahead of Titus, looked like some kind of war-horse, with his great rough head thrown back, and his chest forward.

He did not look round to see whether Titus could keep up with his trampling pace. With his dark-red rudder of a nose pointing to the ceiling he galloped on with the small ape, now wide awake, clinging to his shoulder, its topaz-coloured eyes fixed upon Titus, a few feet behind. Every now and again it cried out only to cling the tighter to its master’s neck as though frightened of its own voice.

Covering the ground at speed Muzzlehatch retained a monumental self-assurance – almost a dignity. It was not mere flight. It was a thing in itself, as a dance must be, a dance of ritual.

‘Are you there?’ he suddenly muttered over his shoulder. ‘Eh? Are you there? Young Rag’n’bone! Fetch up alongside.’

‘I’m here,’ panted Titus. ‘But how much longer?’

Muzzlehatch took no notice but pranced around a corner to the left and then left again, and right, and left again, and then gradually slackening pace they ambled at last into a dimly lit hall surrounded by seven doors. Opening one at random the fugitives found themselves in an empty room.

Muzzlehatch and Titus stood still for a few moments until their eyes became adjusted to the darkness.

Then they saw, at the far end of the apartment, a dull grey rectangle that stood on end in the darkness. It was the night.

There were no stars and the moon was on the other side of the building. Somewhere far below they could hear the whisper of a plane as it took off. All at once it came into view, a slim, wingless thing, sliding through the night, seemingly unhurried, save that suddenly, where was it?

Titus and Muzzlehatch stood at the window and for a long while neither of them spoke. At last Titus turned to the dimly outlined shape of his companion.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said. ‘You seem out of place.’

‘God’s geese! You startled me,’ said Muzzlehatch, raising his hand as though to guard himself from attack. ‘I’d forgotten you were here. I was brooding, boy. Than which there is no richer pastime. It muffles one with rotting plumes. It gives forth sullen music. It is the smell of home.’

‘Home?’ said Titus.

‘Home,’ said Muzzlehatch. He took out a pipe from his pocket, and filled it with a great fistful of tobacco; lit it, drew at it; filled his lungs with acrid fumes, and exhaled them, while the bowl burned in the darkness like a wound.

‘You ask me why I am here – here among an alien people. It is a good question. Almost as good as for me to ask you the same thing. But don’t tell me, dear boy, not yet. I would rather guess.’

‘I know nothing about you,’ said Titus. ‘You are someone to me who appears, and disappears. A rough man: a shadow-man: a creature who plucks me out of danger. Who are you? Tell me … You do not seem to be part of this – this glassy region.’

‘It is not glassy where I come from, boy. Have you forgotten the slums that crawl up to my courtyard? Have you forgotten the crowds by the river? Have you forgotten the stink?’

‘I remember the stink of your car,’ said Titus, – sharp as acid; thick as gruel.’

‘She’s a bitch,’ said Muzzlehatch, ‘– and smells like one.’

‘I am ignorant of you,’ said Titus. ‘You with your acres of great cages, your savage cats; your wolves and your birds of prey. I have seen them, but they tell me little. What are you thinking of? Why do you flaunt this monkey on your shoulder as though it were a foreign flag – some emblem of defiance? I have no more access to your brain than I have to this little skull,’ and Titus fumbling in the dark stroked the small ape with his forefinger. Then he stared at the darkness, part of which was Muzzlehatch. The night seemed thicker than ever.

‘Are you still there?’ said Titus.

It was twelve long seconds before Muzzlehatch replied.

‘I am. I am still here, or some of me is. The rest of me is leaning on the rails of a ship. The air is full of spices and the deep salt water shines with phosphorus. I am alone on deck and there is no one else to see the moon float out of a cloud so that a string of palms is lit like a procession. I can see the dark-white surf as it beats upon the shore; and I see, and I remember, how a figure ran along the strip of moonlit sand, with his arms raised high above his head, and his shadow ran beside him and jerked as it sped, for the beach was uneven; and then the moon slid into the clouds again and the world went black.’

‘Who was he?’ said Titus.

‘How should I know?’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘It might have been anyone. It might have been me.’

‘Why are you telling me all this?’ said Titus.

‘I am not telling
you
anything. I am telling myself. My voice, strident to others, is music to me.’

‘You have a rough manner,’ said Titus. ‘But you have saved me twice. Why are you helping me?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘There must be something wrong with my brain.’

Although there was no sound, yet the opening of the door produced a change in the room behind them; a change sufficient to awake in Titus and his companion an awareness of which their conscious minds knew nothing.

No, not the breath of a sound; not a flicker of light. Yet the black room at their backs was alive.

Muzzlehatch and Titus had turned at the same time and as far as they knew they turned for no more reason than to ease a muscle.

In fact they hardly knew that they
had
turned. They could see very little of the night-filled room, but when a moment later a lady stepped forward, she brought with her a little light from the hall beyond. It was not much of an illumination but it was strong enough to show Titus and his companion that immediately to their left was a striped couch and on the other side of the room, down-stage as it were, supposing the night to be the auditorium, was a tall screen.

At the sight of the door opening Muzzlehatch plucked the small ape from Titus’ shoulder and muzzling it with his right hand and holding its four feet together in his left, he moved silently through the shadows until he was hidden behind the tall screen. Titus, with no ape to deal with, was beside him in a moment.

Then came the click and the room was immediately filled with coral-coloured light. The lady who had opened the door stepped forward without a sound. Daintily, for all her weight, she moved to the centre of the room, where she cocked her head on one side as though waiting for something peculiar to happen. Then she sat down on the striped couch, crossing her splendid legs with a hiss of silk.

‘He must be hungry,’ she whispered, ‘the roof-swarmer, the skylight-burster … the ragged boy from nowhere. He must be very hungry and very lost. Where would he be, I wonder? Behind that screen for instance, with his friend, the wicked Muzzlehatch?’ There was a rather silly silence.

While sitting there Juno had opened a hamper which she had filled at the party before following the boy and Muzzlehatch.

‘Are you hungry?’ said Juno, as they emerged.

‘Very hungry,’ said Titus.

‘Then eat,’ said Juno.

‘O my sweet flame! My mulcted one. What are you thinking of?’ asked Muzzlehatch, but in a voice so bored that it was almost an insult. ‘Can you imagine how I found him, love-pot?’

‘Who?’ said Juno.

‘This boy,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘This ravenous boy.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Washed up, he was,’ said Muzzlehatch, ‘– at dawn. Ain’t that poetic? There he lay, stranded on the water-steps – sprawled out like a dead fish. So I drove him home. Why? Because I had never seen anything so unlikely. Next day I shoo’d him off. He was no part of me. No part of my absurd life, and away he went, a creature out of nowhere, redundant as a candle in the sun. Quite laughable – a thing to be forgotten – but what
happens
?’

‘I’m listening,’ said Juno.

‘I’ll tell you,’ continued Muzzlehatch. ‘He takes it upon himself to fall through a skylight and bears to the ground one of the few women who ever interested me. O yes. I saw it all. His head lay sidelong on your splendid bosom and for a little while he was Lord of that tropical ravine between your midnight breasts: that home of moss and verdure: that sumptuous cleft. But enough of this. I am too old for gulches. How did you find us? What with our twistings and turnings and doubling back – we should by rights have shaken off the devil himself – but then you wander in as though you’d been a-riding on my tail. How did you find me?’

‘I will tell you, Muzzle-dove, how I found you. There was nothing miraculous about it. My intuition is as non-existent as the smell of marble. It was the boy who gave you both away. His feet were wet and still are. They left a glister down the corridors.’

‘A glister, what’s a glister?’ said Muzzlehatch.

‘It’s what his wet feet left behind them – the merest film. I had only to follow it. Where are your shoes, pilgrim-child?’

‘My shoes?’ said Titus, with a chicken bone in his hand. ‘Why, somewhere in the river, I suppose.’

‘Well then; now that you’ve found us, Juno, my love-trap – what do you want of us? Alone or separately? I, after all, though unpopular, am no fugitive. So there’s no need for me to hide. But young Titus here (Lord of somewhere or other – with an altogether most unlikely name) – he, we must admit, is on the run. Why, I’m not quite sure. As for myself, there is nothing I want more than to wash my two hands of both of you. One reason is the way you haven’t my marrow. I yell for nothing but solitude, Juno, and the beasts I brood on. Another is this young man – the Earl of Gorgon-paste or whatever he calls himself – I must wash my hands of him also, for I have no desire to be involved with yet another human being – especially one in the shape of an enigma. Life is too brief for such diversions and I cannot bring myself to scrape up any interest in the problems of his breast.’