Mondo Desperado (16 page)

It was to be some weeks before I was to discover the sickening truth that ‘Dr’ Tom Considine was not, in fact, a doctor at all, and that the coat in which he had been parading so
confidently had been secretly removed from the local hospital some days before my arrival. When I confronted him with this, he merely laughed, slamming the door behind him and calling back –
or should I say snarling back – that I was ‘Daft! Like all the Parkeses!’ and that I would ‘get what was coming to me around Labashaca’ for what it was I had
supposedly done!

As I sat there in the deafening stillness of the late afternoon, staring at the pile of weathered brown folders and coloured pamphlets which arrived daily (the only colour evident in my rapidly
greying life at that time), try as I might, I could not still his words, each one tapping away at the base of my cranium as if a tiny metal hammer with a mind and a mechanism all of its own. What
did he mean by that? Why did I feel so strange since my arrival in Labashaca? Why had I not been visited by one single patient since setting up my practice? Did in fact a village named Labashaca
even exist? I asked myself. By the time I left the building that evening, I was on the point of collapse.

*

On many occasions I have wondered what might have become of me if I had not been fortunate enough that very evening to encounter a person who, to this day, remains a loyal and
trusted friend, and whose calm, reasoned and gentle ways proved to be the key which finally unlocked the ‘Mystery of Labashaca’. I found myself in a state of extreme anxiety,
particularly after my encounter with my jarvey, who appeared out of the dark as I stumbled hotelward, addressing me with the sinister words: ‘Do you think you’ll be needing me to drive
you home, sir?’ and disappearing once more into the dark as I cried out with all my might: ‘What is wrong with you? What are you trying to do? Are you trying to drive me mad? What have
I done on you, damn you! What have I done!’

*

Such was my despair as I sat at the counter of the hotel bar that night that when a clammy hand was laid upon my shoulder I instinctively whirled and, with my fists squared,
cried, ‘Damn you to hell! All of you!’ only to see before me the tweed-coated figure of a white-moustached man in his sixties, a walking cane elegantly suspended from his pocket, and
upon his head a pork-pie hat of expensive Donegal herringbone, its pointed beak momentarily obscuring his bushy eyebrows. I observed him as best I could through eyes that were the equivalent of
fogged-up windscreens in the wildest of blizzards. He extended his hand, removing his calf-leather glove before he did so. ‘Oxford Cathcart, at your service,’ he said. It is sad to
report that I greeted his extended hand by issuing forth a number of the foulest expletives, pushing him away as if he were some unacceptable person ravaged by contagious disease. ‘Go
away!’ I snapped. ‘I want nothing to do with you or anyone else from this godforsaken dump!’

At this, heads turned and I found myself facing any number of sets of malevolent eyes. But I was beyond regret. ‘Go on, then! Look!’ I cried, with all the acidic unpleasantness I
could muster. ‘That’s all you’re good for around here, isn’t it, you stupid fools! Look at you, all of you! More chance of finding brains in a jennet!’

As I uttered those words, a hysterical scream rent the air and the last thing I remember is a vase of flowers becoming airborne and sailing towards me through the air, smashing into a million
pieces against the wall behind me. As a vast creature (he can only be called a ‘labouring type’) flung himself in my direction, I heard the familiar voice of Oxford Cathcart cry:
‘Run, man! For the love of God, run!’ as he grabbed my arm and pulled me onward, both of us fleeing into the night.

*

I must have passed out at that point for the next thing I remember is waking up in the most sumptuous of surroundings, with Oxford by my bedside dabbing my forehead with a cool
cloth. I made to get up but he cautioned me, with all the tenderness and consideration that are the characteristics of the man. ‘What happened?’ I asked him, and his features clouded
over like a small rock pool whose implacable tranquillity is disturbed by a small stone or pebble cast into its depths. He sighed, and sinking his hands deep in the pockets of his dragon-festooned
dressing gown, faced the wall opposite and, without turning, said: ‘You made a big mistake in that hotel bar last night, John Joe.’

There ensued a long spell of silence.

‘But how, Oxford? Why?’ I replied.

‘Because,’ he continued, ‘of all the words you can utter in the town of Labashaca, there is none more feared or despised than that of “jennet”.’

I considered for a moment and then said: ‘Oh, come now, Cathcart. Surely you must be joking. What harm can there possibly be in including the name of a harmless dumb animal who is but a
cross between a mare donkey and a pony in an otherwise unspectacular sentence?’

‘I am not joking, John Joe!’ he replied, to my astonishment with one deft movement removing in its entirety all his facial hair, including his wig, crying: ‘Does the name
Fortescue Hastings-Parkes mean anything to you?’ as I felt the blood running from my face and gazed upon the man who now stood trembling before me – a man known only as Fortescue
Hastings-Parkes!

I gasped, trying to find the words to express my disbelief!

‘Yes, it is me, John Joe!’ he continued. ‘I wanted it to happen some other way – but after last night, I have no option!’

‘But . . . but, I don’t understand! What harm could there possibly be in saying . . . jennet?’

‘You didn’t just say jennet, John Joe! What you actually said was – you’d find more
brains
in a
jennet
!’

‘Yes, Oxford . . . but . . .!’

‘Get your things. We’re going for a ride!’ he declaimed authoritatively.

*

Within minutes, we were bounding through open countryside on ebony-black steeds, Fortescue Hastings-Parkes instinctively slicing through foliage and undergrowth like the noble,
determined horseman that he was. It was approaching nightfall when we reached our destination, a secluded valley to the north of Labashaca, a place so ineffably quiet it almost brought your heart
to a standstill. ‘Fortescue,’ I began, but was silenced by an expressionless hand. ‘Ssh,’ he whispered and then I heard it, for the first time that night. A time that was to
be followed by many others that night before dawn would break. ‘Do you hear it?’ he said. I nodded and cocked my ear to listen again. ‘
Nnnngyeeagh! Cheep! Nnngyeeagh!
Cheep!
’ as alien a sound as ever it has been my experience to hear, emanating from the vast blue table mountain framed against the light-flecked black velvet of the night sky. ‘Let
us make a fire,’ said Fortescue, ‘for we have to talk, you and I!’

I gave myself to the task of gathering some kindling and producing flame with the aid of two small twigs and, within the hour, Fortescue was ready to begin his tale. A tale which, initially, I
confess, prompted me on a number of occasions towards the words: ‘Surely you must be kidding, Fortescue!’, ‘Really, Fortescue!’, and ‘Oh, yes! I’m
sure!’

Little did I realize that what I was soon to witness would haunt me for the rest of my mortal days.

As he filled the pipe which he produced from the inside pocket of his tweed coat, my scholarly companion continued: ‘This may be very difficult to believe, and if at times you find my
story too much for you to bear, I implore you, please – do not hesitate to stop me. But, John Joe, rest assured that every word I speak here tonight is true. Do you understand me?’

I nodded as best I could, such was my emotional and physical fatigue after all I had been through. A sizeable lump of tobacco was once again packed into the bowl of his fluted briar as he began
anew in a barely audible voice, which seemed with every syllable to grow ever more tremulous and agitated. Nevertheless, the pattern of his most extraordinary narrative began to take shape, in that
lonely copse on all sides bounded by mountains, the flames of our little fire moving this way and that as though instinctively providing a lyrical counterpoint to the twists and turns of the
tale.

‘You may have seen pictures of my grandfather, also Fortescue Hastings-Parkes, who was a noted Victorian biologist, biochemist and physician. In his time, he was responsible for many of
the major developments in science and medicine. To this day, many of his learned tomes and papers are to be found in museums and libraries and universities all over the world. But, John
Joe—’

I paled as Fortescue leaned closer to me and I felt his hot breath on my cheek.

‘Very few,’ he went on, ‘very few of his admirers know or realize that for every one of his experiments and investigations, which seemed, admirably, to advance the cause of
science, there was invariably one that went most horribly wrong!’

I gasped, and was instinctively withdrawing from the disquieting information that was being offered to me when, quite unexpectedly, this erudite weaver of words proceeded to produce from his
pocket what initially I took to be a scroll but which, it transpired, was an oil painting, bearing some signs of wear and tear but in an otherwise perfectly acceptable state, and which, to my
complete and utter astonishment, depicted, in my companion’s words: ‘A Man With No Face!’

I was rendered completely and utterly speechless as I gazed upon the image and recognized instantly the figure from my dream of that first night in the hotel – the figure of what could
only be my relative Fortescue Hastings-Parkes –
without his face
! I longed for the tale to reach its conclusion. How I prayed that it would! But we Parkeses are not known for limp and
lacklustre narratives, thus onward he proceeded, my by now almost fevered storytelling relative. ‘Yes,’ he cried, ‘such as this one! An experiment which, in theory, was to
revolutionize medicine, a form of cosmetic surgery, if you like, known only to him, and which was to result in the complete realignment and astonishing improvement of his features – but
succeeded only in the complete and utter removal of his face!’

I gasped as he uttered the words.

‘But that, my dear relative,’ he went on, ‘is as nothing to the hideous transgression for which you and I, generations later, are still paying the penalty!’

‘Generations? Penalty?’ I stammered, as I felt his hand on my arm.

‘Come with me,’ he said softly.

So lightheaded and confused did I find myself, it was all I could do to follow him across that nocturnal plain and up the side of the mountain until we attained a plateau, whereupon we rested a
moment and gathered our strength before he said: ‘What you are about to see has not been witnessed by any of our family since those dark Labashaca days when the noble efforts of Fortescue
Hastings-Parkes on behalf of his community resulted in a disaster so unimaginably vast, so unutterably repellent that mere words, to this day, cannot begin to describe it.’

‘Words? Describe?’ I cried, hoarsely.

‘Yes!’ he snapped. ‘Yes, JJ! Yes! Come!’

I stumbled after him as he strode decisively towards the edge of the plateau. Within seconds, I found myself looking down into the valley, my eyes meeting a scene which to this day fills me with
such horror and revulsion that I can hardly bear to describe it. For there, shadowed against the blunt vastness of the table mountain (it seemed like some enormous cardboard cutout), were creatures
so pathetic in their aspect that no diabolic hand or claw could possibly, I reflected, have fashioned them. Not only that but, along with their vile physicality, they seemed to possess no natural
intelligence whatsoever, charging wildly in all directions, flying upside down and generally ululating sounds which were neither identifiably equine nor aviatory. One of the sad creations even flew
close to my face, crying, ‘
Nngyeaagh! Cheep!
’ in a manner that was, whilst infuriatingly irritating, in its own peculiar way, shot through with the oddest of melancholies. After
some minutes of their mindless, patternless and wholly illogical behaviour – one of them relentlessly pounded a whin bush with its back legs until nothing remained but a tattered, broken mess
and then flew off into the clouds – backways, of course – as though with a sense of incontestable triumph – I could take no more, stumbling awkwardly across the plateau with my
hand covering my eyes. ‘Yes,’ my companion said, resting his hand gently on my shoulder, ‘now you know the truth. That is why the people of Labashaca hate us and why for
successive generations nothing but bad fortune has befallen us. For those . . . creatures, if you can call them such, John Joe, my friend, were once as you and me. The ancestors of some
law-abiding, good-natured Labashaca folk who perhaps were too trusting in their dealings with my grandfather. Naive, credulous innocents whose good nature led them to – that! Whose hunger for
immortality, perhaps, induced them to risk everything. Everything, John Joe!’

I lowered my head in shame as he proceeded. ‘You see, John Joe, he assured them he could transform them into angels. That they would live for all eternity. In fairness, part of his promise
he did in fact fulfill – the wings you have just seen are proof of that! But he had not accounted for a local animal – a jennet, of course! – which had rambled up the north face
of the mountain at the very moment whilst the experiment was being conducted! In any case, to make a long story short – for I can see you are both physically and mentally exhausted, John Joe,
and I do not blame you! – as I am sure you are aware, all radiated energy has a dual nature. Not only does it emanate as waves, but also in short bursts it is measured in quanta. However, to
measure both speed and position simultaneously involves a large degree of possible error. This is known, after its discoverer, as Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, and has much bearing upon
the tragic error of our tale: the breakage of chromosomes, in effect, so that their characteristics are not passed on in reproduction – mutations, in a word – hastened by the
appearance, at a critical moment in the experiment, of the hapless creature which lumbered into view, my grandfather having already activated the ultraviolet radiation ionizer which was to effect
the transformation of human flesh into celestial epidermis – and having actually seen the foolish beast, but a fraction of a second too late! A cry of despair issued from his lips and,
instantaneously, the valley was filled with a blinding light and the screech of the most unintelligent animal ever visited upon this earth. With a poignant falling of feathers from the sky, all
within seconds was over, and what you have witnessed in the valley below is the heartbreaking, devastating result. Now do you understand, my dear, dear relative, how it is that the house of
Hastings-Parkes has been afflicted for all these years?’