The Smell of Telescopes (31 page)

Olaf obligingly drew him a tankard of mead.

“Time to think about preventative measures?” the engineer ventured, with a laboured wink. “When’s it to be? Don’t be coy, laddie. I’m ready to meet a challenge. How long have we got? Couple o’ years? Won’t catch me by surprise. I know how it’ll happen.”

“Really?” I was intrigued, despite my scepticism.

“Of course.” He inverted an ashtray and prodded the burnt matches and cigar stubs with his finger. “Pretend this is Lladloh,” he said, as he arranged the debris into a fair analogue of the village. “Here’s the solution!” With a splutter, as if his mouth was crammed with mushy peas, he emptied his glass over the counter. The liquid swept away the model, propelling it over the side into Olaf’s lap. “We’re all going to drown!” Slamming his fist into the diminishing lake, he lapsed into a peculiar dialect. His whiskers bristled fearsomely.

I moaned. The style of his arguments, his oratorical vehemence, was partly my fault. I once fried him a tasty cashew paella, containing some notes on the philosophy of two classical political figures, William Pitt and John Stuart Mill. By a process of osmosis, he absorbed and refined a technique of harangue which I liked to term ‘Pitt and Mill’. Since then, I only prepared Yorkshire Pudding for him.

“That’s it, laddies!” he bawled. “The sea-level hasn’t stopped its relentless rise. Pulling itself up by its bootstraps, it is! Lladloh has a watery grave awaiting! I saw it, you know. I watched the block o’ ice sail past. Like a lump o’ white coal!”

The Reverend and I exchanged glances. In addition to the old myths which plagued Lladloh like toads, new legends sometimes emerged to hold their hands. One such was the tale of the last iceberg: apparently, it floated past the previous summer, shining like a gargantuan granule of sugar—to use the description of Hywel the Baker, one of the witnesses. Rumour soon elaborated the sighting: when it melted, as it surely would, the additional fluid would be just enough to cover the whole of Lladloh, with the exception of the weather-peacock on the steeple of the mortuary chapel. I regarded this theory with suspicion, suggesting instead that the phenomenon was attributable to a tired cumulus cloud resting on the waves. Though a chef, I am a rational man.

“Not to worry,” added Kingdom Noisette. “I’ve been scheming. What we need are sea-defences—seal off the whole town! High walls ringing the valley, like women dancers round a handbag!”

Delves snorted. “You’ll never get planning permission.”

But the engineer was lost to reason; he snatched up his drawings, folded them in a pocket and scuttled away. He was careful not to crease his frock-coat in the wind of his rush—his alternative profession was that of tailor. Suave in an archaic fashion, he had managed to reconcile his two interests by designing a steam-powered sewing-machine. When the door slammed behind him, Delves confessed his worries. The engineer, he said, might be able to persuade the mayor, who was turning senile, to let him proceed with the enterprise.

“Let him indulge his risible fantasies,” I replied. “It is our duty to approach the problem logically.”

“I suppose you’re right. Tonight, after your restaurant shift, you must make the stellar observations. We’ll give the figures to Elizabeth Morgan and she can cast the horoscope.”

Before I left the Reverend, I handed him the rule book. He took it with a beatific expression. “Another relic? Ah, the gods smiled on you. What a miracle!” He passed the volume to Olaf, who placed it between the waistcoats of Harker Melmoth and the earrings of Rosemary Gibbet-Pardoe, most evil of Beer’or’s avatars. As I departed, worshippers came in for matins. At the end of the service, Delves would allow them to sip from O’Casey’s glass—Guinness was sure protection against the forces which sought to reclaim Lladloh for Beer’or, god of lager. I had never tasted either brew—I was an atheist.

I walked across the central square, skirting the massive statue of the primary Homunculus, abysmal poet and mediocre sorcerer, who presided over Lladloh’s most spectacular apocalypse. At his heel, a sculpture of Tourmaline, the triple-bodied, single-headed Cerberus of an alternative Hades, looked up in infernal loyalty. This figure was a recent addition, cleverly stitched together from drowned hounds by Medardo. It was going off; worms dripped from its tongue.

These, of course, provided my main source of bait. Apart from holy relics, I also fish for skate and bream for my tables. With seafood, I can achieve wonders, masking a whole disquisition on heraldry under the slipper-like flavours. But there was no need to collect worms today; my night exploits on the pier were to consist less of angling than angles. Reaching my kitchen, I started chopping herbs and vegetables, preparing a new variation on the lasagne theme. Herodotus, the cat who lives in my largest cauldron, emerged to study me.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked him, but he seemed disinclined for conversation and merely offered a yawn.

The subject of phantoms had obsessed me since the Reverend employed one in his carousel conceit. I began to wonder if all wraiths had to be organic in origin: was it conceivable that inanimate objects might have souls? I debated this matter with myself while I cruelly hung, drew and quartered onions and slit the wrists of tomatoes. As I filled the oven with charcoal, struggling to light it with a match, I felt the fibrous presence of all the produce I had brutally slaughtered in that room. It was almost enough to make me free the potatoes and liberate the spices from their jars, those hideous oubliettes.

When the sun set, I reluctantly opened my doors to the public. Only a dozen customers came to sit and eat away the evening. Beerbohm Soames, true to his name, made do with a yard of ale in which floated petals of a monstrous orchid—and an essay on ancient sociology. D.F. Lewis, with his neatly trimmed beard, ordered a curry spiked with maps of Napoleonic campaigns. Bigamy Bertha opted for the cucumber salad, containing sundry examples of antique musical instruments, all edible. When the last cup of coffee was drunk, I ushered out the lingerers and hurried down to the pier, the astrolabe attached to my thumb.

My calculations were completed just as dawn’s left hand snared the mortuary chapel’s steeple in a noose of light—actually it took several attempts before managing to lasso it; and the sun forgot to whoop as it pulled itself over the horizon. I neglected my bed in favour of wisdom, taking my results straight to Cobweb Cottage.

The Reverend was waiting for me. We gingerly knocked and Elizabeth Morgan let us in. Although she is my beloved, she does not know this; I keep my lust secret. I have been hurt too often in the past. Whenever I obtain a girlfriend, they bid me “Ciao!” and I am never sure if they are ending the relationship or calling my name. Accordingly, I did not look up as we entered the leaning structure. Delves and I were given cushions to sit on and Elizabeth Morgan cast the horoscope before us. Lladloh, of course, is Aries with Sagittarius rising.

The gorgeous auburn-haired witch completed the nativity chart and I cried impatiently: “How long left?” Both Reverend Delves and myself were totally unprepared for her answer.

“Six days,” she replied, indicating the relevant symbols. No amount of pleading could encourage her to amend this prophecy; there were no mistakes. We had less than a week.

As we left, the Reverend and I supported each other; our knees were filled not with cartilage but semolina. Elizabeth waved us farewell, but I was too weak to return the gesture. Unable to fully assimilate what we had been told, we staggered in the direction of my kitchen. My cupboards contained a supply of quinine and brandy.

Finishing the last bottle, we recovered our senses. We debated what action to take. “Evacuate now,” said Delves. “Set up a temporary camp on Yandro. Then we can descend and rebuild.”

I shook my head. “I have a smarter plan. It seems to me we can save ourselves the trouble of evacuation and resettlement. There is a subject I have been turning over in my mind recently: ghosts. Do you accept that Lladloh has a soul?”

I saw that the Reverend was willing to consider the heretical idea. “Though it is broken with depressing regularity, Lladloh persists through the centuries. The stones might not be the same but the essence of the village is unchanged. What does this suggest but that the spirit of Lladloh is indestructible?”

Delves adjusted his dog-collar. “An interesting thesis. I don’t see how it helps the town or its citizens.”

“But if we could materialise its spirit, we wouldn’t have to worry about future catastrophes. If we make Lladloh’s ghost solid, the village will be secure for eternity! All that is required is some holy ritual to bind the urban spectre to the earthly plane!”

“Such a ritual does not exist in the pagan Church.”

“What about exorcism, which is designed to banish phantoms? What if the chants of this service are reversed?”

Delves stroked his chin. “Yes, it’s possible. Why not? To catch the spirit of the community and solidify it means conducting the rite at its hub—the lounge of the nameless tavern. At this moment, it’s impossible to separate the essence and the corporality. Lladloh isn’t yet dead. The anti-exorcism must take place at the exact instant of dissolution, when the village’s ghost detaches itself from the houses and civic buildings! And there’s another major problem.”

“What is it?” My heart was pounding like a mortar, mashing anxiety into my bloodstream. My ears were pestles.

“The words of the backwards exorcism. They’ll have to be pronounced correctly first time. How in Beer’or’s name will I be able to do that? I don’t even know how they’ll sound!”

I snapped my fingers. “There’s no need for a live performance. Why not record the normal exorcism on a wax disc and then play it in reverse on a gramophone? Titian Grundy’s wife is a beekeeper; she can provide us with the wax. The mayor is in possession of a gramophone. I netted it a decade ago; he took a fancy to it.”

“Come, we’d better ask him if he’ll lend it to us. This is a risky operation, Giovanni. If anything goes wrong, I’ll hold you responsible. The survivors will need a scapegoat.”

I nodded numbly and we made our way to the mortuary chapel. The new Dennistoun Hommunculus, in accordance with tradition, lived in the same garret as the first. At the top of the chapel, under the leaking slates, he held gloomy court among spare tombstones and tambourines. The actual cemetery, of which the chapel itself is a grim memorial, is ringed by a wall shaped like a donkey’s tear. This is another example of mutation; I have forcefully proved, by dint of extensive research, that the original boundary resembled the sorrow of a pig.

As we approached the chapel’s entrance, we met Kingdom Noisette on his way out. The engineer was in a boisterous mood; he clapped his hairy palms and chortled. “Ee oop! I’ve just had an audience with ’is lowness. Planning permission ’as been granted for my scheme.”

I was aghast. “But we only have six days! How will you erect useful sea-defences in that time? I won’t help you.”

“Oh, no? But you’ll have to, laddie. The mayor’s issued orders. All citizens have to report to me for work tomorrow morning. Shall I say how I’m going to speed up my project? We’re not going to build a wall; every householder is going to extend his or her dwelling, on both sides, until it meets up with that o’ their neighbours! Filling in the gaps, I am! It will make a watertight spiral round Lladloh; then we’ll seal the opening and cheat the melting iceberg!”

Without waiting to hear the rest of his triumphant rhetoric, Delves and I rushed up the chapel steps to the garret. We made obeisance before the greasy-fringed demagogue who lay on his filthy bed, composing horrid verse. I felt sorry for the mayor: he was a talented poet and the effort involved in deliberately writing doggerel had taken its toll on his poor health. He was far more sprightly than he ought to be; indeed, the fever which he had to wear with the medallion and ermine robe seemed in danger of slipping off. Clutched between his bony knees through the thin sheets was a curious item: a miniature pyramid.

His lips moved awkwardly. “I’m working on an ode to this device. It appeared from nowhere above my bed; I reckon it’s a time machine. Wasn’t anything inside. Completely empty.”

I winced. His mind had obviously snapped; we knew that senility had been sucking on his desiccated lobes for some time. Stepping closer, I outlined my request. He gazed at me with blank eyes, scratching his nose with his harpy quill. “Gramophone? Oh that! Take it by all means.” With a casual wave, he returned to his travesty.

The instrument stood in a corner. With the Reverend’s help, and the aid of my belt, we strapped it to my back. Descending from the garret, I hobbled back to my restaurant, holding up my trousers with my thumbs. In the kitchen I placed down the gramophone and wound it tight while Delves sought out Titian Grundy, the local constable. His wife supplied us with enough beeswax to record the complete oeuvre of Cobalt Hugh, our busker. Using a meat-tenderiser, I hammered out a selection of golden discs. The Reverend took a book of services from a fold in his vestments and, under my cat’s sheltering sneer, recited the spell.

Eventually, we had an excellent recording of the ritual. I reversed the polarity of the gramophone’s spring and we listened to the ritual in reverse, the Reverend’s chants swooping backwards like bats unable to turn in a narrow tunnel. Gingerly, I touched the walls of my restaurant, smarting as Delves loosed a mocking guffaw.

“Nothing will happen until the point of Lladloh’s death. Its spirit is still firmly locked away in its bricks!”

“Then there is nothing more we can do. We must wait for the correct hour. But I can hardly bear the suspense!”

“I’m sure Kingdom Noisette’s project will help to take our thoughts off things. I just can’t believe that water will destroy Lladloh. In the previous calamities not a single citizen has drowned!” He squinted. “How on earth do I know that? Most odd!”

I cleared my throat. The Reverend’s erudition on the topic had much to do with last week’s macaroni cheese...

Needless to say, his words about the diverting effects of the grand project were proved correct. I do not intend to make a fuss about what occurred over the next five days. The scheme blistered my mind as well as my hands; the Reverend and I spared no pains in sharing our knowledge of the hour of Lladloh’s doom. It was to no avail. The engineer didn’t doubt our forecast, but believed he could finish the undertaking before the week was out. His poor judgment was backed by the mayor, who never descended from his garret to view our plight.