The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath: From the Peculiar Adventures of John Lovehart, Esq., Volume 1 (Notebooks of John Loveheart, E) (11 page)

N
umber thirteen is supposed
to be unlucky. Some people dispute this theory, saying it’s superstitious nonsense. Well let me put everybody straight. Avoid number thirteen. It’s the nastiest number there is.

Princes 1-12 were all alike. Daddy had made them himself with dark matter and his own juices. Sticky little identical creations. Voodoo doll eyes.

Prince Number Thirteen was different. He was like me.

Like me, he had a name. It was Tumbletee. Like me, he also had a hobby. He liked to collect teeth in little bags. Like me, Daddy had kidnapped him from the Earth to raise him in the Underworld. My brothers told me, “We are not allowed to play with him,” and so I asked Daddy why not and he said:

“Because he is the game.”

He slept in the black tower, near Daddy’s chamber. Number Thirteen. One day I climbed the tower to visit him. I wanted to know the thirteenth prince. His bedroom overlooked the river of the dead, a ripple of black fleshy waters, a vinegar stink. Whereas my bedroom was covered in star maps, his room was dripping in blood, pooling like bright bursting flower heads around his feet. I noticed his skin was pitted and scarred and moony white. He was older than me and his eyes, knife-like, would slice through flesh. He had white hair, it was moonlight white. White as fairy dust.

“My name is Loveheart. I am your brother,” I said.

He watched me intently, as through examining a bug. “Tumbletee. I like teeth. Let me see yours,” and he moved closer to me and touched my incisors with his bloodied finger. “We are not like the others,” he said. “You and I are different.” His finger moved over my teeth, lover-like. I think he wanted to pull them out. I stared down at my feet. I was standing in red.

“Why is there so much blood?”

“Daddy says I am a supernova of cruelty. We are all monsters, little brother, but I am the worst of them,” and he removed his finger from my mouth and shook my hand. I gripped his palm. It was icy, alien. Something deep inside me was screaming.

k
ill him
.

          push

                              him

                                                  from the tower.

H
e smelt of spermy things
. He knows what I am thinking, he knows. “Little brother,” he said, “Little brother, I want so much for you to try and kill me.”

I backed away from him, blood trailing on my feet. Marking my exit.

L
emon hot
. We boiled under the Cairo sun. Goliath brought me to the tomb of the princess, his father’s excavation. The tomb entrance had been uncovered; I stepped closer, touched the walls with my fingers.

It fizzled cool magic.

Hieroglyphics. That is what Goliath calls them. To me they are a magic language. My finger outlined a feather shape, a wriggly snail, a bird. Each one has meaning, each one a word that forms a spell.

Above the entrance to the tomb in colours of black and gold there was a dazzling painting of a man with the head of a black dog. A jackal prince. I stroked his head. Imagined him on a lead in Hyde Park.

He looked part wicked to me, part of an underworld. I wondered what that would be like; would there be a black river stuffed with souls? Would there be a sphinx asking a riddle I had no answer to? Would they cut out my tongue, write symbols on the walls with it. Make a marking of me; squeeze me into their alphabet?

Goliath lifted me up so I could see the patterns on the ceiling, “Can you see, little one, can you see the magic bugs?”

I could, I could see them crawling over the entrance to her death chamber. Red splodges. Tiny things. A hundred of them; they nibbled the sandstone, eating the structure. They formed spirals, turning in on themselves. Making circles of everything.

He carried me out of the magic space and I sat on his lap and ate honeycakes; licked my fingers and pointed to the top of the pyramids. What are they aiming at? Pinpointing a star?

So much yellow sand – under our feet and miles away. Spread like butter. The heat melts everything, turns me into goo.

The workmen had already found pieces of pottery near the entrance; shards painted green with white vampire fang shapes. The teeth of a crocodile maybe? I played with them in the sand; tried to make a jigsaw puzzle of them. Moved the pieces around. The picture remained unclear.

Men with shovels and carts moved across the sand; under shaded tents they played cards and drank coffee. Their hands were lined deep; cracks in paper. I waved at them; one of them waved back, his mouth a red hole with two wonky teeth.

“One day,” Goliath said, “You will see inside the princess’s tomb. See her sarcophagus. My father says she was a sorceress.”

I squeezed his nose with my hand and laughed. “Did she have a big nose like you?” and I cuddled him. Squeezed him with love.

Together we walked across the sands hand in hand. The land was marked out, divided with excavation digs. The Pyramids of the Kings surrounded us as though we were pieces on a board game. We moved through the squares. Watched our footing.

A
nd so I
grew up in the Underworld. There was no sense of time down there. The Underworld clocks
tick tocked
and Daddy gobbled the seconds up. Tumbletee told me Daddy had sent him many times to the Earth to do things for him. He had been to Egypt and seen the tombs of the Pharaohs, and he had walked the streets of Paris and been to gentlemen’s clubs and danced with girls dressed in peacock feathers. Daddy said I was not ready to go to the Upperworld yet, but I was starting to change. My eyes, which were blue – the colour of my mother’s – had become ink squid black. My big brother, Tumbletee, said I was unnaturally beautiful. He liked unnatural things.

Daddy said, “You have the face of an angel, Loveheart. You have a face that will break hearts.”

I don’t understand beauty. I looked at Tumbletee’s face, it had pox scars. Its texture looked like porridge. If I ran my finger over his face and felt its lumps, would I feel ugliness? His face was a weird painting, a landscape of the moon. Craters and pits. I saw the galactic in him, the alien, the deep unknown.

Growing up in the underworld was like sinking into a deep well, black waters. I was losing myself, forgetting my name.

L
oveheart
 
                              Loveheart

          Loveheart

Loveheart 
          Loveheart

          Loveheart
                     Loveheart

Loveheart

                    Loveheart

                              Loveheart
                     Loveheart

Loveheart

              Loveheart

                              Loveheart

L
ove
     
 love
     
love
     
 love
     
 love

     
     
h
eart

           
           
  
h
eart

                      
             
  
  h
eart

A
t meal times
we sat round the dinner table with our Daddy. All fourteen princes. Row upon row of wicked black eyes. We were eating a giant blood pie. Daddy cut the slices, oozing so much red.

“Eat up, my sons,” he said. “My wonderful boys.”

I ate the blood pie, chewed on it. Gobbled it down. I was growing into a big, strong boy. I was eating something I shouldn’t. It was poisoning me. I looked round the table at my brothers and I thought, I am the odd one out. The blood trickled down my throat, deep into my stomach. The more I ate Daddy’s food, the more I was changing, my insides turning to black ooze.

I could hear the tick tock of Daddy’s clocks – their constant noise. It filled my ears, drowned out other sounds. It was making me mad. He was making me mad. My mouth was full of blood, my head full of demented clocks. Year upon year. Year upon year. Layers of a trifle. I was the red jelly at the bottom, see me wobble.

Wobble on the plate

I
remember
my seventeenth birthday in the Underworld. Daddy was so proud of me. I was his favourite. Head full of fairies. Demented.

They called me Loveheart.

My big brother Tumbletee was taking me to the Upperworld. We were going to play a game. Wasn’t that nice. I was very fond of games. Tumbletee told me I had an ancestral home and vast estate. Apparently I am the richest man in England, isn’t that marvellous! If I played the game well, Daddy said I could go back to my castle and live in the Upperworld. I was wearing a lovely coat with red lovehearts over it. Daddy gave it to me as a present. I do like hearts, such a curious thing, the heart, and very tasty.

“What game are we going to play, brother?” I asked him.

Tumbletee put on his black top hat with a red sash, his white hair sticking out like silver threads, his voice a lizard hiss. “Follow me and you will find out, little brother.”

I
returned
the same day I was taken. Snow rested on the ground. Mad weather for August. Everything was topsy turvy. Dangling on all the trees around my ancestral home were severed heads hanging from the branches, dripping blood onto the snow.

“Do you like my gift?” Tumbletee licked his lips.

There must have been a hundred heads or more. Mad fruit.

“Yes, yes. We are in the thick of it. Deep like custard,” and my big brother put his arm around me. “Before I leave you, you must do something for Daddy,” and he guided me towards the front door of my white home. A head hung from the doorknocker, its eyeballs wobbling about like jelly. He opened the door with a great silver key. Sitting at the hall table was my mother.

“I dug her up for you,” he joked.

The table was laid with a white lace teacloth and on it a pile of jam sandwiches and a steaming pot of tea. “Isn’t this a warming reunion? Tea with Mother.” And he guided me to a seat next to her. Her skin was green, her eyes clouded over. Mother. I remember you. I am a cracked teapot. The fault lines run deep. I could smell the rottenness of her. Tumbletee poured the tea and passed me the sandwiches. “Tuck in.”

Isn’t this a strange world? I am having tea with the dead. I am made of marmalade. I am smiling and smiling and cracking and breaking within your hands.

Dearie me, I dropped my teacup.

And he left me there. In my ancestral home with my dead mother and my vast gardens of chopped heads.

Madness is only a word.

Loveheart.

I
t was lying
on my desk when I returned from Doctor Cherrytree’s practice: a little white envelope with a loveheart ink splodge. A dangerous little thing.

D
ear Detective Sergeant White
,

You have been invited – Yes, you! – to an art exhibition of Elijah Whistle. All your favourite monsters will be attending.

Bring Walnut if you wish.

Mr Loveheart ♥

“
C
onstable Walnut
!” I shouted, and he appeared, poking his head round the door.

“Yes sir?”

“It appears Mr Loveheart has decided to give us a helping hand.”

The Moonstone Opera house, nestled near the Thames, was the venue for the evening art exhibition. It was raining heavily and the streets were oozing with liquid. Purple banners hung, heavy with rain, outside the doors and a soft velvet rope sealed the doorway. It was guarded by an attendant with white gloves, holding a large black umbrella.

“Very posh,” sighed Constable Walnut. “I’ve often considered trying my hand at painting. Bit of an artistic gift running in my family,” and he held up his hands. “Creative hands.”

“I’d keep that to yourself, Walnut, if I were you.”

We approached the attendant.

“Evening gentlemen, may I see your invitations?” He glanced a somewhat suspicious eye over our invite and then reluctantly held the velvet rope aside. The building inside was circular, with a large selection of paintings adorning the walls.

We deposited our coats and stepped into the main exhibition area, in which twenty or so people were gathered. Above the main room was a high balcony overlooking the main exhibition, where an enormous painting of Lady Clarence was hung. She was lying, lizard-like, on a sofa in a vibrant maroon dress. Her expression was odd: it was a mixture of conceit and a strange slyness. And then I realized why, for her hand was resting on a clock. A secret message for all those involved, I thought. Suggesting she has some sort of power over death.

“It’s quite a statement,” a voice like little bells said next to me, and I turned and looked directly at Mr Loveheart. He was dressed in otherworldly green with red hearts bursting like stab wounds all over him. “Of course,” he continued, “these people are all rather stupid. We must not be too hard on them. Their little magic clocks have made them a bit mad.”

“Why exactly did you invite me here tonight, Mr Loveheart?”

“My life is a little dull at the moment, and I do like interesting scenarios. Spice things up a bit. Put you in the lion’s den. See if anyone bites.”

“How thoughtful of you,” I said dryly.

“My pleasure. The art is dreadful and the guests are all dead. Look at them all, detective. Take a good look. You are in the underworld sipping champagne with corpses.” And his eyes were bright with electricity.

I followed his gaze to the centre of the room, where Elijah Whistle was standing next to Lady Clarence, both with a glass of champagne in their hands. He looked like a pussycat, as though she had been feeding him cream.

“Dead as doornails, the whole lot of them.”

We moved softly round the edges of the exhibition and stood by a small series of oil paintings of human hands. Constable Walnut examined them, glancing down at his own. Comparing.

“Of course, you can’t arrest anyone,” sighed Loveheart.

“I could arrest you for killing Albert Chimes.”

“I’ve done you a service, detective. I have avenged the death of Daphne Withers. And where will they get their pretty watches from now? I’ve put some pressure on them. Shaken them up a bit.”

“I wanted Albert Chimes arrested. I nearly had enough evidence.”

“They would have got him out.” Loveheart looked out into the crowd. “They would have stopped you. I have saved your life.”

“Do they know you killed him?”

“They think I’m a half-wit.”

“And what are you really, Mr Loveheart?” I looked directly at him. He was surprised by the question and, I thought, rather saddened by it.

“I am,” he said very softly, “rather dangerous…”He turned and walked off towards the balcony.

Constable Walnut and I moved down a side corridor, where a row of miniatures of Elijah’s early works were hung. They were botanical illustrations in black ink, dotted about like formula. I found them far more interesting than his portraiture. This was his work before he died. Before he met Lady Clarence. Before he was given his first demonic watch. This was who he had been. The illustrations were precise and methodical with sharp edges and a scientific line to them: they were curious dark little things. Ferns, mushrooms and weed-like creatures coiled over the wall, each with its scientific name, each with its own darkness.

“I don’t like them. They give me the creeps,” said Walnut, scratching his chin.

I could hear a splattering of applause and laughter behind us. Lady Clarence was giving a toast, her champagne glass lifted into the air, the crowd responding appropriately. The dead toasted the dead. All very civil. And then I saw Mr Loveheart walking towards the centre of the room, clapping in a long, slow motion. The crowd turned to watch him and parted for him like waves, lapping round his feet, circling him.

“Marvellous speech,” cried Loveheart, “really splendid!”

“Walnut, follow me, something is about to happen.” The constable and I edged closer to the main room.

Lady Clarence looked at Mr Loveheart rather pitifully. “Oh, John. It’s lovely for us to finally meet. It’s a shame your father can’t be here. He was a wonderful man.”

She was mocking him. A smile like a pair of scissors, I thought. She really does believe he is a fool. His outfit looked quite ridiculous. All that shocking green, all those hearts, pantomime almost. And his hair as yellow as butter, sticking up as though he had been hit by lightning. He looked as though he had stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, but I wasn’t sure what character he was.

The crowd tittered playfully, an obedient audience to Lady Clarence. I could see Doctor Cherrytree behind her, watching carefully. And he wasn’t laughing. Lady Clarence handed her champagne glass to Elijah to hold, another act of humiliation. This evening was really all about her. She was quite a lot taller than Loveheart, her gown heavy and wide. She was filling space and she was the only female in the room. Queen bee and her boys. And there was Mr Loveheart, the defective worker bee, floating, alien like. Hovering like an assassin.

“Your father, Lord Loveheart,” she continued, as smug as a bug, “was a sensible, reliable and wise man.” Her eyes lowered playfully, every compliment a reversed insult to Loveheart. “He was a patron of the arts and was always elegantly dressed.” Gentle laughter crept out of the audience. And yet Mr Loveheart remained quite still. “He will always have a place in our hearts.”

The audience applauded her.

Mr Loveheart bowed very low. “I am afraid, madam, that none of us have our hearts anymore.”

“What a curious remark,” she replied.

“Do you think it’s going to kick off?” said Walnut quietly from beside me. I really had no idea. I couldn’t predict anything Mr Loveheart would do. He could walk away laughing. He could have killed everyone in the room. I almost felt concern for him and I’m not sure why. My own world felt suddenly very small and very ordinary. I am a detective. I look for clues, I arrest criminals, I uphold the law of England. This was outside of my world and my own understanding. I was essentially useless in this situation. My own power limited. I was only an observer; he wanted me to observe.

A hand patted me on the shoulder. It was Doctor Cherrytree. “Detective, I wonder if I could have a private word with you upstairs.”

I told Constable Walnut to wait downstairs for me, and I followed the doctor up the stairs, past more of Elijah’s portraits of lords and ladies, some with little dogs, others with hunting rifles posed like kings and queens. Captured in time. Captured within the canvas. On to the balcony we stood under the gigantic portrait of Lady Clarence, heavy and imposing. I could almost feel her weight upon me, suffocating. It was as though she was floating, like a deity, and we were within a chapel, her acolytes below, rubbing their hands, dizzy with religious fervor.

Doctor Cherrytree tapped the rail of the balcony with his long, pale fingers. “I’m not sure how you managed to get into this private exhibition but–”

I interrupted him, “I was sent an invitation.”

“By whom?”

“It was anonymous.”

“I find that extremely hard to believe. In any case, it’s most inappropriate for you to be here. You have accused and insulted our members with the most ludicrous theories. I can’t have Lady Clarence upset.”

“You really all believe you can outwit Death?”

Doctor Cherrytree looked a little taken aback by this remark, and then smirked, “I want you to leave, detective. And take that stupid constable with you.”

“I’m not leaving and my constable is certainly not stupid. He has an appreciation of the arts. Although I am beginning to wonder if this really is an art exhibition.”

Then he pushed me. I was surprised at how strong he was and I felt myself falling over the balcony. I grabbed at the rail but he shoved me over. I caught sight of his expression: he was manic, his teeth gritted. I grabbed hold of his neck and pulled him with me.

It was a long drop. As I was falling I could see the painting of Lady Clarence, the smug goddess waiting to hear my neck break. I could see Mr Loveheart in the crowd, he was behind Elijah.

We fell to the floor with a thud. We had landed on top of Elijah with a horrible crunching sound. There was a scream from Lady Clarence. I was in pain. Constable Walnut was helping me up. Doctor Cherrytree was crawling off towards the other side of the room. Elijah lay still, his neck twisted, his eyes blank. He looked like a squashed blackbird.

“Constable Walnut,” I shouted. “Arrest Doctor Cherrytree for attempted murder!”

“Yes, sir,” said Walnut, and leapt on the doctor who was hobbling off into the side room. Walnut had hold off him and dragged him to his feet. “Come here you slippery bugger!”

I could see Mr Loveheart helping himself to the trifle, an especially large portion, and looking very pleased with himself.