The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy (186 page)

Even Cheeta’s enigmatic father, the wisp, with his dreadful skull the colour of lard, knew nothing except that on the fateful night it was for him to take his place in some charade.

It might be thought that with everyone seemingly working at cross purposes it was merely a matter of time before the whole intricate structure irrevocably collapsed. But Cheeta, moving from one end of the domain to the other, so synchronized the activities of the guests and workmen (carpenters, masons, electricians, steeple-jacks, and so on) that, unknown to themselves, they and their work began to coalesce.

What was it all about? Nothing of its kind had ever happened before. Speculation was outlandish. It knew no end. Fabrication grew out of fabrication. To every inquiry there was one reply from Cheeta.

‘If I should tell you, there’d be no surprise.’

To those prickly young men who saw no reason why so much expenditure and attention should be lavished upon Titus Groan, she winked in such a way as to suggest a conspiracy between her critics and herself.

Here, there and everywhere she flitted like a shadow; leaving behind her instructions, now in this room, now in that, now in the great timber-yard; now in the kitchen; now where the seamstresses were huddled like bats; or in the private homes of her friends.

But a great deal of her time was spent elsewhere.

From then on, Titus was shadowed unknowingly, wherever he went.

But those who shadowed him were in their turn shadowed, by Crabcalf, Slingshott and Crack-Bell.

Full of old crimes, they had learned the value of silence, and if a branch stirred or a twig snapped one can be sure that none of these gentlemen was responsible.

Cheeta, when she had first conceived her plan, had assumed that her party would take place in the great studio that covered the whole of the top floor of her father’s mansion. It was a studio indeed, lovely in its lighting, bland in its floorboards, vast in its perspectives (the easel no larger than a ninepin when seen from the door, reared up like a tall insect).

But it was wrong, fatally wrong, for it had an air about it … almost of that kind of innocence that nothing can eradicate. Innocence was no part of Cheeta’s plan.

Yet there was no other room in the building, large though it was, that suited her purpose. She had flirted with the idea of knocking down a long wall in the southern wing which would have opened up a long and ponderous hall; but there again, the ‘feel’ would have been wrong; as was the longest of the twelve high barns, those rotting structures on the northern boundaries.

As the days went by, the situation became more and more peculiar. It was not that there was any slackening of vitality among the friends and labourers; rather that the sight of scores upon scores of seemingly incongruous objects under construction inflamed the general speculation to an almost unbearable degree.

And then, one overcast morning as Cheeta was about to make a tour of the workshops, she stopped suddenly dead, as though she had been struck. Something she had seen or heard had wakened a memory. All in a flash came the answer.

It had been a long time ago, when Cheeta was a mere child, that an expedition had been mounted, the main purpose of which had been to establish the exact boundaries of that great tract of land, as yet but vaguely charted, that lay, a shadowy enigma, to the south-west.

This excursion proved to be abortive, for the area covered was treacherous marshland, along whose sluggish flanks great trees knelt down to drink.

Young as she had been, yet Cheeta, by a superb imitation of hysteria, eventually forced her parents to allow her to join the expedition. The extra responsibility involved in having to take a child on such a mission was maddening, to put it at its mildest, and there were those on the return journey who were openly against the intractable child, and fully believed their failure to be due to her presence.

But this was long ago, and had been all but forgotten: all save for one thing, and this itself had been smothered away in her unconscious mind until now. Like something long subdued, it had broken free and leapt out of the shadows of her mind in devastating clarity.

It was hard for Cheeta, all at once, to be sure whether it was a valid memory of something that was really there, a hundred miles from her home, or whether it was a startling dream, for she had no recollection of the finding of the place, nor of leaving it. But she was not long in doubt. Image after image returned to her as she stood, the pupils of her eyes dilated. There could be no doubt about it. She saw it with a mounting vividness.
The Black House
.

There in that setting of immemorial oaks, threaded by that broad, fast, knee-deep river … there, surely, where the masonry was crusty with age, was the setting above all settings for the Party.

It was now for Cheeta to discover someone who had been there on that faraway day. Someone who could find the place again.

Driving her fastest car, she was soon at the gates of the factory. At once she was surrounded by a dozen men in overalls. Their faces were all the same. One of them opened his mouth. The very act was obscene.

‘Miss Cheeta?’ he said in a curiously thin voice, like a reed.

‘That’s it,’ said Cheeta. ‘Put me through to my father.’

‘Of course … of course,’ said the face.

‘And hurry,’ said Cheeta.

They led her to a reception room. The ceiling was matted with crimson wires. There was a black glass table of unnatural length, and at the far end of the room the wall was monopolized by an opaque screen like a cod’s eye.

Eleven men stood in a row while their leader pressed a button.

‘What’s the peculiar smell?’ said Cheeta.

‘Top secret,’ said the eleven men.

‘Miss Cheeta,’ said the twelfth man. ‘I am putting you through.’

After a moment or two an enormous face appeared on the opaque screen. It filled the wall.

‘Miss Cheeta?’ it said.

‘Shrivel yourself,’ said Cheeta. ‘You’re too big.’

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ said the huge face. ‘I keep forgetting.’

The face contracted, and went on contracting. ‘Is that better?’ it said.

‘More or less,’ said Cheeta. ‘I must see Father.’

‘Your father is at a conference,’ said the image on the screen. It was still over life-size, and a small fly landing on his huge dome of a forehead appeared the size of a grape.

‘Do you know who I am?’ said Cheeta in her faraway voice.

‘But of course … of …’

‘Then stir yourself.’

The face disappeared, and Cheeta was left alone.

After a moment she wandered to the wall that faced the cod’s-eye screen, and played delicately across a long row of coloured levers that were as pretty as toys. So innocent they looked that she pressed one forward, and at once there was a scream.

‘No, no, no!’ came the voice. ‘I want to
live
.’

‘But you are very poor and very ill,’ said another voice, with the consistency of porridge. ‘You’re unhappy. You told me so.’

‘No, no, no! I want to
live
. I want to
live
. Give me a little longer.’

Cheeta switched the lever and sat down at the black table.

As she sat there, very upright, her eyes closed, she did not know that she was being watched. When at last she raised her head she was annoyed to see her mother.

‘You!’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘It’s absorbing, you know,’ said Cheeta’s mother. ‘Daddy lets me watch.’

‘I wondered where you got to every day,’ muttered her daughter. ‘What on earth do you do here?’

‘Fascinating,’ said the scientist’s wife, who never seemed to answer anything.

A big arm came across the screen and thrust her aside. It was followed by a shoulder and a head. The father’s face suddenly swam towards Cheeta. His eyes flickered to and fro to see if anything had been altered. Then they rested on his daughter.

‘What do you want, my dear?’

‘Tell me first,’ said Cheeta, ‘where are you? Are we near each other?’

‘O dear no,’ said the scientist. ‘We’re a long way apart.’

‘How long would it take me to …’

‘You can’t come here,’ said the scientist, with a note almost of alarm in his voice. ‘No one comes here.’

‘But I want to talk to you. It’s urgent.’

‘I will be home for dinner. Can’t you wait until then?’

‘No,’ said Cheeta, ‘I can’t. Now listen. Are you listening?’

‘Yes.’

‘Twenty years ago, when I was six, an expedition set out to plot out territory in the south-west. We found ourselves bogged down and had to give up. On our return journey we came unexpectedly upon a ruin. Do you remember?’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘I am questioning you in secrecy, father.’

‘Yes.’

‘I must go there today.’

‘No!’

‘Yes. But who will guide me?’

There was a long silence.

‘Do you mean to have the party
there
?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Oh no … no …’

‘Oh yes. But how to
find
him. Who was he? The man who led the expedition long ago? Is he alive?’

‘He is an old man now.’

‘Where does he live? There is no time to waste. The party is close upon us. Oh hurry father. Hurry!’

‘He lives,’ said the scientist, ‘where the Two Rivers join.’

Cheeta left him at once, and he was glad, for Cheeta was the only thing he feared.

Little did he know that someone more to be feared was making his way, all unknowing, in the direction of the factory. A figure with a wild light in his eyes, a five day growth on his chin, and a nose like a rudder.

It was not long before Cheeta ran the old man to ground, and a tough old bird he proved to be. She asked him at once whether he remembered the expedition, and in particular the unhealthy night that the party spent at the Black House.

‘Yes, yes. Of course I do. What about it eh?’

‘You must take me there. At once,’ said Cheeta, recoiling inwardly, for his age was palpable.

‘Why should I?’ he said.

‘You will be paid …
well
paid. We’ll go by helicopter.’

‘What’s
that
?’ said the septuagenarian.

‘We’ll fly,’ said Cheeta, ‘and find it from above.’

‘Ah,’ said the old man.

‘The Black House … you understand?’ said Cheeta.

‘Yes, I heard you. The Black House. South-sou’east. Follow the knee-deep river. Aha! Then west into the territory of the wild dogs. How much?’ he said, and he shook his dirty grey hair.

‘Come now,’ said Cheeta. ‘We’ll talk of that later.’

But it was not enough for the dirty old man, the one-time explorer. He asked a hundred questions; sometimes of the airborne flight, or of the machine, but for the most part of the financial side which seemed to be his chief interest.

Finally everything was settled and within two hours they were on their way, skimming the tree-tops.

Beneath them was little to be seen but great seas of foliage.

Titus, drowsy in the arms of a village girl, a rosy, golden thing, opened one eye as they lay together on the banks of a loquacious river, for he had heard through the ripples another sound. At first he could see nothing, but lifting his head he was surprised to see a yellow aircraft passing behind the leaves of the overhanging trees. Close as it was, Titus was yet unable to see who was piloting the machine, and as for the village maiden, she neither knew nor cared.

The weather was perfect, and the helicopter floated without the least hindrance over the tree-tops. For a long while there was silence aboard, but at last Cheeta, the pilot, turned to look at her companion. There was something foul in the way his dirtiness was being carried aloft, through the pure air. What made it worse was the way he stared at her.

‘If you keep looking at me,’ she said, ‘we may miss the landmarks. What should we be looking for now?’