The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [582]
‘Can you hear me … O can you hear me … Can you …?’
‘Is that my son …? Where are you … child?’
‘Where are you, mother …?’
‘Where I always am …’
‘At your high window, mother, a-swarm with birds?’
‘Where else?’
‘Can no one tell me …?’
‘Tell you what …?’
‘Where in the world I am …’
‘Not easily … not easily.’
‘You were never easy with your sums, young man. Never.’
‘O fold me in the foul folds of your gown, O Mr Bellgrove, sir.’
‘Why did you do it, boy? Why did you run away?
‘Why did you …?
‘Why … why …?
‘Why …?
‘Listen … listen …’
‘Why are your shoulders turned away from me?’
‘The birds are perched upon her head like leaves.’
‘And the cats like a white tide?’
‘The cats are loyal in a traitors’ world.’
‘Steerpike …?’
‘O no!’
‘Barquentine …?’
‘O no!’
‘I cannot stand it … O my doctor dear.’
‘I have missed you Titus … O very much so … by all that abdicates you take the cake.’
‘But where have you gone to … love?’
‘Why did you do it … why?’
‘Why did you?’
‘Why … why …?
‘Why …
‘Your father … and your sister and now … you …’
‘Fuchsia … Fuchsia …’
‘What was that?’
‘I heard nothing.’
‘O Dr Prune … I love you, Dr Prune …’
‘I heard a footfall.’
‘I heard a cry.’
‘Ahoy there Urchin! Titus the flyblown …’
‘Hell how you’ve wandered! Who were you talking to?’
‘Who was it Titus?’
‘You wouldn’t understand. He is different.’
‘He drinks the red sky for his evening wine. He loved her.’
‘Juno?’
‘Juno.’
‘He saved my life. He saved it many times.’
‘Enough. Cut out the woman in you with a jack-knife.’
‘God save the sweetness of your iron heart.’
‘So they all died … all … fish, flesh and fowl.’
‘Ha ha ha ha ha! They were only caged-up creatures after all. Look at that lion. That’s all it is. Four legs … two ears … one nose … one belly.’
‘But they killed the zoo! Muzzlehatch’s zoo! Plumes; horns; and beaks compounded all together. A slice of living over. The lion’s mane, clotted with blood, creaking as it crumbles.’
‘I love you, child. Where are you? Am I worrying you?’
‘He’s been away so long.’
‘So long … What were you doing in that part of the world that you could get so wet with the rain?’
‘I was lost. I have always been lost; Fuchsia and I were always lost. Lost in our great house where the lizards crawled and the weeds made their way up the stairs and blossomed on the landings. Who is that? Why don’t you open the door? Why do you keep fidgeting? Have you not the courage to open the door? Are you afraid of wood? Don’t worry, I can see you through the door. Don’t worry. Your name is Acreblade. King of the police. I hate your face. It is made of tin-tacks. Your arms are fixed with nails … but Juno is with me. The castle is afloat. Steerpike my enemy swims under water, a dagger between his teeth. Yet I killed him. I killed him dead.
‘Come here and we will dance together on the battlements. The turrets are white with bird-lime. It is like phosphorus. Join hands with me, Muzzlehatch, and Juno, loveliest of all, and step out into space. We will not fall alone for as we pass window after window, a score of heads will bob along beside us, grinning like ten-to-three. Veil and the Black Rose: Cusp-Canine and the Grasses … and close to me, all the way as we fell, was the head of Fuchsia; her black hair in my eyes, but I could not wait for there was the Thing to seek. The Thing. She lived in the bole of a tree. The walls were honeycombs and the bole droned, but never a bee would sting us. She leapt from branch to branch until the schoolmasters came, Bellgrove, Cutflower, and the rest; their mortar-boards slanting through the shadows. Dig a great pit for them: sing to them. Make flower fairies out of hollyhocks. Throw down the bean-pods like dove-green canoes. That ought to keep them happy through the winter. Happy? Happy? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. The owls are on their way from Gormenghast. Ha, ha, ha! The ravenous owls … the owls … the little owls.’
SEVENTY-TWO
When Titus