The Underground Man (13 page)

Just now I attempted to draw a map on which the journey of some item of interest might be laid out. Using my illness as an example, I began by writing the name of Miss Whittle on one side and the Reverend Mellor's on the other. I estimated that between these two people it might have taken perhaps two or three others to unwittingly act as the stepping stones for the news. But, just when I was feeling very pleased with my little diagram and thinking how easy it was proving
to be, it occurred to me that those two or three nameless individuals between dear Miss Whittle and Mellor would hardly be likely to tell a story just the once. No, if a tale is remotely worth telling then one might tell it a dozen times. So suddenly every line on my simple map is multiplied by twelve and they go shooting off all over the place. And, of course, each of the twelve who are told the story may pass it on to a dozen more. This process continues and in no time one winds up with nothing but a ball of twine.

I quickly saw how I was about to give myself a headache so I thought about something else for a while (a flowering bud, a pot of jam). Then I wondered if perhaps a better way of setting it out might be in the form of a family tree. At the top of the page would be the name of the pair who first exchanged the story (or
conceived
it, as it were) while below, in an ever-expanding fan, would be the many generations which followed on. As in any family, one might expect the features of the later generations of the story to have some, but by no means all, the characteristics of the first. Yes, very good.

Encouraged by this, I tried to dream-up other unusual journey-maps and recalled one I have often thought I would like to commission, which is the route taken by an ordinary postal letter. How many pairs of hands must the envelope pass through between the moment it is first dropped in the post box and the moment it lands on the mat? No doubt along the way the letter must spend many tedious hours waiting in various bags and piles. Perhaps not so interesting, after all. But how wonderful to at last be sorted and carried down the lane in the postman's sack. How wonderful to be plucked open and read!

It is well known round here how the Duke was deformed very bad as a result of the syphilis. His old body was riddled with it, right from top to toe. This is what led him to have all those miles of tunnels made, so he could hide his terrible face from view and pop up out of the ground at will.

My husband knows a man who saw the old Duke face to face, just as close as I stand here next to you. He says his left eye was a good two inches higher than the right one and that he dribbled from the corner of his mouth the whole time. A terrible sight to behold, he was. The children would run a mile from him or be struck dumb on the spot. And there's plenty others round here that'll back me up on that score. You knock on any door. Shocking, that's the old Duke for you. A shocking sight all round.

Annoyed with myself all day today. Could not get anything done.

By all accounts my aura is in tatters and I have not the first idea how to put it right. I feel as if I have sprung a leak somewhere. Look for signs of me listing to port.

The pain which has been travelling up my body has emerged between my shoulder blades, which now clench together like pincers to try to squeeze the life out of it (an action over which I have not the slightest control). Last night I took a couple of the Reverend Mellor's rheumatism pills. They looked and smelt like rabbit pellets and I imagine they did me about as much good.

What with the concern for the state of my aura and the twisting dagger in my back, I have felt highly agitated right through the day and just about ready to snap. Hardly the best condition for introspection, but that was just what Fate had in store. There are few enough days when one's resilience is up to taking a cold hard look at oneself, to ask ‘What have I made of my life?', but it seems the days we undertake such assessments are often the days we are least likely to be satisfied.

I have never composed a work of art. I have invented nothing, discovered nothing. The land and wealth which were
left to me, though hardly squandered, were not employed as fruitfully as they might. And while I may have built the odd row of almshouses and a cottage hospital out near Belph, there will be no statues unveiled in homage to my benefaction, no great weeping when I go. I did not even manage to marry the woman I loved – a feat most men manage to carry off. No, all I've done with my life is take countless melancholy constitutionals and grow apples by the ton. Even the credit for the apple-growing belongs elsewhere. As things stand I will be remembered as the Duke who built the tunnels and kept himself to himself. Otherwise I am eminently forgettable – but half a man.

If Fanny had married me instead of Nicolson she would not have been poisoned by a bad piece of fish. She would still be alive today. I would have fed her on the finest titbits, would have tested every spoonful myself. She would have come up to live with me in the country and brought this sad old house to life. Her bright dresses and her songs and laughter would have chased misery from every last corner. I can see her now in her great sweeping dresses going from one darkened room to another, pulling back the shutters and letting the sunlight in. She throws the dustcovers off the divans and armchairs, orders windows to be opened wide. The fresh air rushes in and every room in the house is brightened by her good cheer.

By now we would have grown-up children. Grandchildren most likely, too. I would teach them how to whistle and let them climb all over me as if I were a tree. If I had been loved by her I would be a stronger man and my flame would not now be going out. But there are no children, there are no grandchildren. There are covers on the divans. I live in three or four rooms in total and leave the others empty and unused and when a maid comes in to open a window I scuttle away like a crab.

No doubt I should count myself lucky to have such a fine staff waiting on me. Indeed I should. When the sun shines I can have a horse saddled up in a minute and spend the whole day trotting round my estate. If I wished, I could waste my worthless time in one of a thousand different ways. But every happy moment has the brake put on it, for I know it will be recalled alone.

There are men who in years to come will explore the world's furthest corners, who will think up great philosophies. But when it comes to real creation men are of little use. We are not gifted in that way, have not the machinery. All we can do is stand by and wonder – and perhaps offer to lend a hand. For, in reality, there is but one set of true makers and the men are not among them. At best, men are the midwives of this world.

All day I have been in this stupor, like a dog which has forgotten where it buried its bone. So agitated and uneasy with myself that I simply had to get up and move around.

When I am restless, I find I have a proclivity for going in search of the past. A territory which is, I suppose, more familiar – more solid and safe. Which is probably how I came to find myself on the tiny flight of steps leading up to the attic. The door was firmly locked up and I had to blow down for some help. It was only when Clement finally came puffing up the stairs with his big bunch of keys that I was able to make my way in.

As a boy I imagined that heaven would be something like an attic – for no other reason, I suspect, than it was right at the top of the house and full of discarded things. I assumed that when a man died and became redundant he would be taken up to the attic of the world.

But if memory served me right my previous trips had been
to a warm, even humid place, whereas today it was frightfully cold. My breath was visible before me and a lamp was required to illuminate the rooms. Clement was anxious to stay with me in case I set the place afire but my spirits were so low that even his benign company was too much for me to bear and I shooed him down the stairs.

Spent over an hour rifling through the chests and trunks – mostly rubbish, of course. The debris of five generations washed up on the bare floor, each forming its own musty little isle. Folded clothes – ancient and reeking of mothballs. Once-fashionable furniture. Trinkets, hatstands, framed paintings and broken bits and pieces whose purpose I could not ascertain. Then box upon box of decaying papers – many of them rotted right through, my fingers gradually growing so utterly numb that I was unable to continue picking through them and gladly returned to the civilized world.

If I had been unknowingly searching for some lost treasure I am sure I did not turn it up. The only trophy I came away with was a wind-up monkey which now perches on my bureau (originally purchased, I believe, from Hamley's toy-shop in Regent Street, back in God-knows-when). Not so much a toy as a conversation-piece but I'm sure a child would like it just the same. There is a key in its back to wind it up. The monkey nods its head and lifts its little top hat. Most dignified. But it is tatty now from sitting in the attic and its wheels and cogs are all clogged with dust. In the middle of lifting its hat for me just now it paused, as if distracted. That is all I have to show for the day … a wind-up monkey whose thoughts, like mine, are elsewhere.

Woke with a shout of ‘Information!' which quite shook poor Clement up. He was standing right by my bed at the time and very nearly dropped his tray.

The stiffness in my neck was incredible. I had never known the like. It was as if six-inch nails had been driven between my skull and my collarbone. Clement had to carry me to the bathroom and lower me into one of his specially-prepareds. The night had been bitter-cold, which might have contributed to my freezing up, but I now had not the slightest doubt that some evil little fist was at work in me. It had dug its fingernails right in.

The heat of the bathwater gradually found its way through to me and began to thaw me out. I tried to nod my head up and down a little, then slowly side to side until, in time, it was just about moving independently of my shoulders. Even so, the merest twist beyond these axes brought about a blinding pain, which was accompanied by a most disconcerting noise and put me in mind of the rubbing-together of many small stones. ‘My body is at war with itself!' I announced from my bathtub. ‘Civil war is what it is!'

I have tried to be calm, tried to be steadfast, have even tried to befriend that craven pain. I have run the whole mad gamut of emotion while it took a merry jaunt around my shaky frame. But this morning I was just plain angry. I had had enough and resolved to take it on. As I lay hunched and twisted in my steaming tub I swore I would locate it and put a stick right through it. I would crack its miserable skull.

Took breakfast in my bedroom. Tomatoes and mushrooms sprinkled with ground peppercorn. The accompanying rasher of bacon looked not the least bit appetizing as it lounged in
its shallow lake of grease, but I am nothing if not resourceful, so I unbuttoned my shirt and placed it flat against my neck. The fat was still warm and I found that rubbing it against the affected area afforded me some small relief.

When I had done with breakfast I searched for some paper – where is the paper in this house! – and having at last tracked down a notepad wrote myself out a plan, while my spare hand held the cooling bacon in place.

Blew down to Mrs Pledger, Clement and Mr Grimshaw, announcing, ‘Information required.'

‘What information, Your Grace?' said Mrs Pledger.

‘Body information,' I told her. ‘Information on neck-bones.'

By lunchtime no information had surfaced and I found myself dozing off before the fire.

When I woke the fist had its grip on me again. My upper body was completely seized, so that I could not turn my head without the rest of me coming along. I felt like an automaton.

‘Damn you!' I yelled at my body.

Called down to Mrs Pledger, asking for more bacon – as hot and greasy as it would come.

When Clement arrived with the bacon I grabbed the plate and slid the rashers straight under my shirt. Buttoned it back up to keep the fellows in place. Told Clement to round up reinforcements as I intended to carry out a daylight attack on the library, and in no time I was joined by a clutch of housemaids and a couple of lads from the plumbery. Once briefed, we all set off down the corridor: Clement silent and cautious, the boys and girls falling in behind while I marched at the front, proud and barefoot, my bacon-epaulettes now showing through my shirt.

We made the library in no time. The door was open. If it had been locked I would have broken it down. ‘Books on bodies is what we want,' I announced to my company, and ran through the list again.

We spread out, taking a dozen or so shelves apiece. Only one ladder between us so I ordered the rest to pair up and help one another to climb the shelves. The room was much bigger than I remembered. A chap could get lost in there. Many of the books brought down a thick layer of dust with them and we were soon enveloped in great clouds of the stuff. We had to cover our mouths and noses with handkerchiefs to stop us choking. Could barely see my hand before my face.

By the time we pulled back we each had our own small booty – medical books, atlases, sketches, daguerreotype collections and so on, which included …

Had the whole lot dropped off in my bedroom beneath Mr Sanderson's map. Thanked my comrades and shooed them away. Searched out my medical dictionary and added it
to the heap. Sat my wind-up monkey on top. Remembered Mr Peak's short quotation. Located it in a jacket pocket and pinned it to the wall.

In a book called
Ancient Chinese Healing
I found a peculiar diagram. A man whose body was fairly coursing with a complex system of interconnecting streams. They ran up and down his arms and legs and filled his torso, as if he had consumed a great deal of string. I ripped the map right out of the book and pinned that to the wall as well.

I have created in a corner of my bedroom a kind of shrine. I am quite sure that somewhere within it is the key to my current distress.

I became tired. Sat by the fire, dozing and stirring, right through the afternoon.

At some point I wrote on my notepad …

When I woke again it was dark. Clement brought me some soup, but I could do nothing with it. Woke again to find him stoking up the fire.

The next time I came around the house was perfectly still and the fire was almost out.

Clement helped me change into my nightshirt and put me to bed. I slept but there was no rest in it. It was an exhausting sleep. Had a dream …