The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [143]
By the time they had come to the edge of the wood Steerpike was talking airily of any subject that came into his head, mainly for the purpose of building up in her mind a picture of himself as someone profoundly brilliant, but also for the enjoyment of talking for its own sake, for he was in a sprightly mood.
She limped beside him as they passed through the outermost trees and into the light of the sinking sun. Steerpike paused to remove a stag-beetle from where it clung to the soft bark of a pine.
Fuchsia went on slowly, wishing she were alone.
‘There should be no rich, no poor, no strong, no weak,’ said Steerpike, methodically pulling the legs off the stag-beetle, one by one, as he spoke. ‘Equality is the great thing, equality is everything.’ He flung the mutilated insect away. ‘Do you agree, Lady Fuchsia?’ he said.
‘I don’t know anything about it, and I don’t care much,’ said Fuchsia.
‘But don’t you think it’s wrong if some people have nothing to eat and others have so much they throw most of it away? Don’t you think it’s wrong if some people have to work all their lives for a little money to exist on while others never do any work and live in luxury? Don’t you think brave men should be recognized and rewarded, and not just treated the same as cowards? The men who climb mountains, or dive under the sea, or explore jungles full of fever, or save people from fires?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Fuchsia again. ‘Things ought to be fair,’ I suppose. But I don’t know anything about it.’
‘Yes, you do,’ said Steerpike. ‘When you say “Things ought to be fair” it is exactly what I mean. Things ought to be fair, why aren’t they fair? Because of greed and cruelty and lust for power. All that sort of thing must be stopped.
‘Well, why don’t you stop it, then?’ said Fuchsia in a distant voice. She was watching the sun’s blood on the Tower of Flints, and a cloud like a drenched swab, descending, inch by inch, behind the blackening tower.
‘I am going to,’ said Steerpike with such an air of simple confidence that Fuchsia turned her eyes to him.
‘You’re going to stop cruelty?’ she asked. ‘And greediness, and all those things? I don’t think you could. You’re very clever, but, oh no, you couldn’t do anything like that.’
Steerpike was taken aback for a moment by this reply. He had meant his remark to stand on its own – a limpid statement of fact – something that he imagined Fuchsia might often turn over in her mind and cogitate upon.
‘It’s nearly gone,’ said Fuchsia as Steerpike was wondering how to reassert himself. ‘Nearly gone.’
‘What’s nearly gone?’ He followed her eyes to where the circle of the sun was notched with turrets. ‘Oh, you mean the old treacle bun,’ he said. ‘Yes, it will get cold very quickly now.’
‘Treacle bun?’ said Fuchsia. ‘Is that what you call it?’ She stopped walking. ‘I don’t think you ought to call it that. It’s not respectful.’ She gazed. As the death-throes weakened in the sky, she watched with big, perplexed eyes. Then she smiled for the first time. ‘Do you give names to other things like that?’
‘Sometimes,’ said Steerpike. ‘I have a disrespectful nature.’
‘Do you give people names?’
‘I have done.’
‘Have you got one for me?’
Steerpike sucked the end of his swordstick and raised his straw-coloured eyebrows. ‘I don’t think I have,’ he said. ‘I usually think of you as Lady Fuchsia.’
‘Do you call my mother anything?’
‘Your mother? Yes.’
‘What do you call my mother?’
‘I call her the old Bunch of Rags,’ said Steerpike.
Fuchsia’s eyes opened wide and she stood still again. ‘Go away,’ she said.
‘That’s not very fair,’ said Steerpike. ‘After all, you asked me.’
‘What do you call my father, then? But I don’t want to know. I think you’re cruel,’ said Fuchsia breathlessly, ‘you who said you’d stop cruelty altogether. Tell me some more names. Are they all unkind – and funny?’
‘Some other time,’ said Steerpike, who had begun to feel chilly. ‘The cold won’t do your injuries