The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [532]
‘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.’
THIRTY
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.
THIRTY-ONE
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