Oh, I’m goin’ down the road feelin’ bad, Lord, Lord,
And I ain’t gonna be treated this a-way.
Traditional
Prologue
Dusk is gathering, but the grey canopy overhead is breaking up, and I hope to be able to continue my labours into the night by the light of the new-risen, full moon. I am sitting on the deck of the rusting hulk I have made my home: a cargo freighter that, wrecked long ago, now moulders, listing, keel buried in silt, at the edge of a broad estuary, the mouth of a river known in earlier times as the Thames.
I turn to look west. In the past few years the skies have been tinted myriad baleful hues; tonight the sunset is ochre and bile. Silhouetted against it are the remnants of a vast city; my febrile mind imagines them the scattered bones of a race of giants.
The light of civilisation has long since departed this place.1
The city whose picked carcass the last of the waning light is throwing into stark relief, was once known as London. It is a name whose origins are lost to the roiled past; a name not merely said, but incanted, a word from a black rite; a name that must still haunt the dreams of the degenerate local tribes, perhaps the one thing tethering them to the proud race of men who, in former times, made their home there.2 Before rootlessness was forced upon me, I was one of those mettlesome denizens of bygone days.3
In the midst of those ruins that jut from the western horizon like crooked, rotting teeth, I found preserved in a glass case, in what appeared to be a museum of antique curiosities, the typewriter and paper on which I am producing this account. When I recognized the
orthographical characters on the keys I was overjoyed; my mother tongue has not been spoken for millennia.
Pondering the preceding sentence, I realise I am not sure for whom I compose this – perhaps only for myself, or possibly for the devil who has been hunting me tirelessly. It is
4
highly doubtful that there is another soul living who will be able to understand this manuscript, still, I will write as if there were; to admit to myself that, aside from my
tormentor and myself, none shall see the fruits of my exertions, would make it an unendurable task. Since I feel compelled to undertake it, I will pretend. I will address you often and
cordially, my reader, less to ingratiate my pitiful efforts, than to conjure you into existence by invocation.
My harried and woeful existence began millennia ago, when I was but twenty-nine years old. Since then I have travelled the world over. But as the earth, which has completed
countless circuits of the sun since many of the things I will describe occurred, always returns to the place from which it set out, my errant peregrinations, despite the imponderable
distances travelled, have brought me back again to the scene of the events I wish to recount. Though I know it will be a tiresome and enervating task, I have decided to embark on the composition of this memoir now because I have become convinced, in recent years, that history is drawing to a close. The tainted aether is just one of a number of harbingers of the world‘s demise. Though I know I have placed myself in danger, it felt only meet to return here to London to set down my tale. And besides, it is my birthplace, and it has been crying out to me, calling me home.
For many thousands of years, I hid among the remnants of the Tibetan civilisation, the impregnable Himalayas my ramparts. While other peoples I have encountered, suspicious of my ceaseless youth, have driven me away, the natives of that region treated me with kindness. I became adept at their language – a sometimes harsh, though frequently poetic tongue, punctuated by sibilance and guttural clicking – often traded goods, and twice spent – attempts to stave off a loneliness that had become unendurable – many years living with them.
Those mountain dwellers practice beliefs recognisable as a decayed form of Buddhism, and still hold with a doctrine of eternal return, which, given the many auguries of the
the fact they are, in that part of the globe, sheltered from some of the more horrific omens: the seething seas turgid with dead fish, the howling dust storms, and the caustic rains which defoliate forests and ulcerate the skin. However, although the Himalayas are sequestered, there are still portents to be seen: the mountain climate has not proved impervious to change – I can recall a number of occasions when thaws in the depths of winter caused devastating avalanches; and the shades in the skies are perhaps stranger and more garish there than elsewhere. Thus it would seem mere obduracy, even in that haven, to deny history is at a close, and to claim the principle that governs existence is cyclical. Their creed, though, is less foolish, I have to own, than that of the age I was born in, which held sacred the notion of the ineluctability of advancement, both of organisms and human knowledge. I can testify history does not move towards one great goal; from time to time the deck is shuffled, that is all. Indeed, given all that I have observed in my long, long life, I must conclude the notion that perpetual return governs existence is not perhaps wholly implausible. Maybe the Himalayan tribes‘ cosmology is the true one after all; these harbingers of the end of days could, after all, be signs of the imminent, catastrophic rebirth of the universe.5 Even so, I cannot credit the idea of recurrence; if the cycle of time is to begin again it will surely take an entirely different path.
The main reason the Himalayan religion has proved tenacious, where others have faltered, however, is doubtless that it does not require a belief in a benevolent Omnipotence, Omniscience; the world is too cruel for such a faith. I, myself, after briefly considering the existence of God and the validity of conviction in my youth, dismissed these issues from my mind, deeming them to be matters not worth squandering intellectual resources upon. Now, though, the world has waxed so desolate and so quiet these questions loom large in my thoughts once more: it seems to me, were there a God, it would now be possible to hear his breathing in the void. It is not, so I assume either there never was a Deity, or that the earth has been abandoned by its creator.
6
The sun has set in the west. I look out over the river; its waters seem to have enticed and drowned the straggling rays of daylight, and glow like tarnished gold for a moment longer than seems natural. The corpses of rats, feral cats, and dogs float past.
It is time to begin. I prevaricate only because I have no desire to relive the events about which I feel bound to write. But I cannot put off any longer sending the beaters into the brakes of my brain to flush out cowering memories. These fragments I will shore against my ruins.6 It is time to begin.7
I
I have had an eternity to brood over the composition of this memoir, to order my impressions, to consider by what alchemy it would be best to turn incident into prose; yet now, when I come to set down the first words, I feel myself falter. I do not even know at what point to start my story. It is too convoluted, too tortuous.1
Perhaps the proper way to begin would be to introduce myself, give my name. But, as my memory is no better than that allotted any common man and therefore entirely unsuited to immortality, though those events of which I wish to tell were so traumatic that they have been seared upon my brain, I have forgotten much. My retention of names is especially poor: mine was lost to me long ago, along with those of all the others of whom I will write. Hence, those used in the following account have to be fabricated.
After staring up at the wheeling constellations overhead and ruminating for a while, I have hit upon an opening. It is not the beginning, but it will serve. I must write swiftly, without circling, and allow myself to be swept along by the currents of my tale. I must cast my mind back to the night so long ago when I learnt of my cruel fate.
8
II
Roused by the chimes of a nearby church striking six o‘ clock, I looked about me, bleary eyed, momentarily unsure where I was. I had been napping in an armchair in the living-room of my flat while listening to a radio show about the Delta blues. It had been an interesting programme, but as, for nearly two years, I had been plagued off and on by night terrors and was frequently exhausted, I often found myself falling asleep at odd moments. Getting to my feet, and stretching out my knotted limbs, I went through to the bathroom to splash my face at the sink.
From the window I had a good view of central London. I looked out. It was early in the year, and though the hour was not late, it was already dark. Below I could see the strewn lights of the metropolis, while above the sky was clear, and in the east I could see the first glimmering stars of the evening. The mansion house I lived in was in Highgate, partway up the hill, and therefore lifted slightly above the miasma of light pollution that pooled in the city basin. I hoped to be home in time to observe the celestial event that was to occur later that night, a total eclipse of the moon – the conditions looked set to be ideal for viewing it.
I still had nearly two hours before I needed to leave, but I already felt anxious, full of anticipation, unable to continue the work I was then engaged in, a critical essay on Arthur Conan Doyle‘s The Lost World, so pouring myself a whisky, I settled down in the armchair to read from my collected works of Edgar Allan Poe.1 I find his prose, with its bizarre mixture of the punctilious, the arid, the droll and the macabre, a calming influence. His idiosyncratic genius lies not only in the narratives themselves, but in the way they crystallise some abstract notion. I began with ‗The Angel of the Odd‘, superficially the most frivolous story he ever
penned, though a more engaged reading reveals it to be a poignant account of the havoc alcohol can wreak on the mind.2
It had been a pleasant, sunny day, and I had taken a walk across to Parliament Hill in the afternoon. It was blustery and a number of people were flying kites. I spent some time looking out over the city, seeking out landmarks, my eyes returning again and again to St Paul‘s Cathedral, which resembled the severed head of some bald colossus, buried to its eyes in the rich mud of the floodplain.
The evening‘s gathering was to take place in a quaint and homely pub in Borough, the Nightingale.3 An old Victorian drinking establishment, it had retained many period features: it had a public bar at the front and a lounge at the rear of the premises, the space divided by a wooden partition, inset with panes of etched glass; a mahogany counter; a dado of lapis tiles; pie and mash on the menu; and sawdust on the floor. I had chosen this place partly thinking it an apt venue, and partly because I knew that at closing time, though the doors would be locked, the bar would stay open, allowing ample time for the unfolding of the tales we had gathered to tell and hear.
My plan had been conceived a few months earlier. Wishing to ascertain whether there were others who had accidentally strayed into the same ghastly realms as I, I placed
classifieds in a number of national newspapers. Sifting through the replies was a frustrating task; many of the writers were clearly deranged, several were mocking. Eventually, however, I whittled the respondents down to six, who I believed had replied in good faith and sound mind. I then contacted them and set up the meeting.
I had seen the veil of the quotidian rent and been left forlorn – a scarecrow, a hollow effigy. My mind had baulked at what I had witnessed, yet I knew it was no mere delusion. My loneliness at that time was unendurable; I alienated the friends and family I had not
abandoned with an impassivity that was my bulwark against the quailing of my mind.
10
joyful agitation to me; I found I could barely concentrate upon the eerie narrative of the tale that followed ‗The Angel of the Odd‘ in my anthology, and which I had naturally found myself reading: ‗MS. Found in a Bottle‘.4 Finally I turned to ‗The Sphinx‘, a story I had, in the preceding two years, found absolutely invaluable as a means of staving off madness. 5 Under its influence all that seems grotesque admits of a rational interpretation; it helped calm even the happy agitation, born of anticipation and impatience, affecting me.
When it was time, I dressed warmly to spite the cold, in coat, scarf, and gloves, then left my flat, locking the door behind me. Little did I realise I should never return. I strolled down Highgate Hill, at the foot of which I could catch a bus that would take me all the way to London Bridge. From there it was a short walk to the Nightingale. It would have been quicker to travel on the underground, but I had conceived, for reasons that will become clear, an acute loathing of all subterranean spaces.6 When the bus came, I boarded, showed my pass to the driver and went upstairs. I always preferred to travel on the top deck for the view it afforded. The bus drove down Holloway Road, almost deserted at that time, to Highbury Corner, at which point I was distracted by an altercation between the driver and a youth who had got on without paying. The engine, at idle, shuddered. The youth was finally intimidated into getting off by other passengers who were annoyed at being held up, and we were on our way once more. When I looked out the window again the vehicle was on Balls Pond Road. The shabby Georgian terraces filled me with dread. I stared resolutely down at my feet until the bus was on Bishopsgate.
Then, raising my head to look out, I saw office buildings, constructed, according to some strange panoptic rationale, almost entirely of glass. The road was congested and progress was slow. A few minutes later I saw Thirty St Mary Axe looming above me, its tessellating windows reminiscent of the compound eyes of flies.
Finally we crossed London Bridge. The lights of the waterfront buildings were reflected in the river‘s pitchy surface, like diamonds strewn on a jeweller‘s blackcloth.
When the double-decker pulled into the terminus, I alighted and struck out for the
Nightingale. On the way I passed a vagrant slumbering huddled in a doorway – knees drawn up to his chest, back to the pavement – swaddled in a frayed blanket, a paper cup full of change by his head. On his nape there was a crude tattoo in blue ink. The pigment had bled, and it was hard to make out the image, so I leant in for a closer look. It appeared to be of a sword, with straight crossguards, inverted so the blade hung down. Just then, while I was still bent over him, the man grunted and shifted his position, and, afraid I had been mistaken and he was awake, to cover my gawking I scrabbled in my pocket, drew out a pound, and dropped it into his makeshift alms box. But it seemed he had been asleep after all, for, when the coin landed with a loud chink on the others in the cup, he stirred and opened his eyes. Turning towards me, he pulled out, from beneath his bedding, a pair of glasses, their black plastic frames held together with gaffer tape, and put them on. He was a young man with short, brown hair and a full, matted, reddish beard.
‗Sorry,‘ I said. ‗I didn‘t mean to wake you.‘
He grunted, rubbed his eyes under the thick lenses. ‗I‘d just got to sleep.‘
‗Sorry,‘ I repeated, backing away, anxious to avoid a confrontation. ‗Arsehole.‘
I turned and continued at a brisk pace.
When I reached the Nightingale I saw, through the window, erratic shadows on the walls; a fire was burning in its stone hearth. A board, on which was painted a picture of the dulcet songbird the pub was named for, creaked as it swung back and forth in fitful gusts of wind. I
12
had suggested to the others that we carry a copy of The Sphinx of the Ice-Fields, as if we were a book group meeting to discuss it; when I went inside, I recognized, by this token, my party sitting by a fireplace in the saloon at the rear.7 I had been delayed by the traffic in the City, and it was already a quarter past the hour; it appeared I was the last but one to arrive. I joined the group.
We began by all, in turn, giving our names and occupations. As I had stipulated replies to my advertisement should be anonymous, give no identifying personal details, it was the first time I learnt anything about those I had invited to attend. A young man wearing jeans, a T- shirt, and a suit jacket introduced himself first. His name was William Adams, he was a graphic designer. An attractive woman in her late twenties, with striking red hair and a pale complexion spoke up next – she was Claire Stewart, a legal secretary hailing from Edinburgh. Then came Elliot Wainwright, a well-spoken courteous pensioner from Norwich, with a heavily-creased good-humoured countenance, and a shock of white hair which stood up in disarray. The stylish middle-aged woman sat next to him seemed familiar to me. Her name was Jane Ellis. She described herself as a single mother of two from Blackheath, but as she was speaking, I noticed a characteristic mole on her upper lip and realised why I recognized her – she was the author of a number of popular historical romances who had been much in the public eye until about five years before, when it had been announced she was retiring from writing. Duncan Wolfe followed her; he was a butcher from Glasgow, a sullen-looking man whom I judged to be in his mid-twenties, though his mien suggested much greater age. He looked to have been ravaged by History, had a wearied air, sallow skin, drained blue eyes, and