Grimus Page 6

  His eyes flickered momentarily to a hollow in the ground nearby and then dragged themselves away again.

  —Let me put it another way, he said. When you look at me, you perceive that I am solid. By contrast, when you look at the well-shaft, you perceive that it is empty. Now would you agree that the reason for those two descriptions has a great deal less to do with the nature, either of the well or myself, than it has to do with the way you see us both?

  Flapping Eagle frowned.

  —Forgive me, said Mr Jones. I see you are confused, and why not? But observe: I myself am composed of matter, which, in its turn, is composed of tinier particles and so on into the ultra-microcosm. The fact is that the spaces between the particles of matter which compose me are just as great as the spaces between the particles of matter composing the air in that well-shaft. So that, with a different set of tools of perception—I mean other than eyes—one could conclude say, either that I am as “empty” as the air in the shaft, or that it is as “full” or “solid” as I.

  —I suppose so … said Flapping Eagle doubtfully.

  —What I am driving at, said Virgil Jones, in my rather indirect fashion, is that the limitations we place upon the world are imposed by ourselves rather than the world. And, should we meet things which do not conform to our structure of reality, we place them outside it. Ghosts. Unidentified flying objects. Visions. We suspect the sanity of those who claim to see or sense them. An interesting point: a man is sane only to the extent that he subscribes to a previously-agreed construction of reality.

  —Mm, said Flapping Eagle.

  —”Go, go, go, said the bird,” intoned Virgil Jones.

  —What?

  —A literary reference, said Virgil Jones. A whim. A piece of self-indulgence. Let us continue, and accept my apologies for the digression.

  Perhaps I might make a highly inexact analogy to demonstrate my thesis. Here we all are, a world of living beings and inanimate objects and gusts of breeze, all of us composed of infinitely more empty space than solid matter. Is it not a conceptual possibility that here, in our midst, permeating all of us and all that surrounds us, is a completely other world, composed of different kinds of solids, different kinds of empty spaces, with different perceptual tools which make us as non-existent to its inhabitants as they are to ours? In a word, another dimension.

  —I don’t know, said Flapping Eagle. What if there were?

  —If you concede that conceptual possibility, said Mr Jones, you must also concede that there may well be more than one. In fact, that an infinity of dimensions might exist, as palimpsests, upon and within and around our own, without our being in any wise able to perceive them.

  And further: there is no reason why those dimensions should operate solely on our scale. The infinity could range from the tiniest micro-particle, the smallest sub-atom, to the universe. Is it not fascinating to speculate that we might all exist within the spaces of a few subatomic particles in some other, unknowably vast universe?

  Flapping Eagle felt irritated. —It might well be interesting, he said brusquely, but I don’t see its relevance to the whereabouts of my sister.

  —My dear Eagle, said Mr Jones, I have simply been striving, as it were, to widen your eyes. There is no other manner in which I can explain to you the location of Calf Island.

  Flapping Eagle’s thoughts fell into a dizzy spin. He could not speak.

  —Perhaps you have come across the theory of potential existences, continued Virgil Jones affably. So suppose there were, say, merely four potential pasts and futures for the Mediterranean Sea. In one of them, there never was nor will be an island such as this. In another the island existed but no longer does. In a third the island does not exist but will at some time in the future. And in the fourth … he gestured around him … it has existed; and continues to do so.

  He allowed a brief dramatic pause.

  —The dimensions come in several varieties, you see, he said. There are a million possible Earths with a million possible histories, all of which actually exist simultaneously. In the course of one’s daily life, one weaves a course between them, if you like, but that does not destroy the existence of pasts or futures we choose not to enter. What has happened to you is that you have fallen into a different historical continuum, in which Calf Island, and all of us, have our being. The place you came from knows nothing of us.

  —So you are all ghosts, said Flapping Eagle, and I am mad. Is that what you are saying? I’m seeing things, places, that do not exist.

  —That is really too depressing a notion, said Virgil Jones. Because it has this obverse: perhaps it is you who is the ghost. And your sister Bird-Dog.

  —Where is she? asked Flapping Eagle viciously, as though seeing her would resolve all his confusions.

  —I’m not sure, said Virgil. Up there somewhere. I assure you that the chances of finding her are remote; even if your arrival here proves you to be highly sensitive to the existence of the Dimensions.

  —It’s not that big an island, cried Flapping Eagle.

  Virgil Jones said nothing for a moment, and then: —Please think about it, Mr Eagle. You see why we wished to wait until you were well.

  —I’ll find her, said Flapping Eagle.

  —Touch wood, said Virgil Jones. He walked to a tree and did so.

  —In a structure of reality where anything is possible, he said shamefacedly, I find it better to be safe than sorry. Hence my somewhat ridiculous predilection for superstition. There might be an evil spirit in that tree, after all. There might be an avenging god. It might be possible to conjure demons. The lines on one’s palm might speak the truth. Symbols might be as real as people. One theory has it that in this dimension, as indeed in yours, we overlay our symbolic natures with this vast, obscurantist weight of personality. Thus making it very difficult for us to know the true forces that move us. Given this never-ending stream of possibilities, I find my little foibles a comfort.

  Flapping Eagle was sitting very still, his knuckles white, his fists locked shut, his mouth a thin, tight line.

  —Come, come, Mr Eagle, said Virgil Jones. I had thought you were a more flexible soul than this.

  —I’m going up the mountain today, said Flapping Eagle. I want to find Bird-Dog and Sispy and get myself out of this whole vile mess.

  —O, but you mustn’t, said Virgil Jones.

  —Why not? shouted Flapping Eagle.

  —It’s the Grimus Effect, said Virgil Jones. It gets more powerful all the time. To tell the truth, it’s just a question of waiting until its power reaches down here. I really wouldn’t advise you to climb.

  Flapping Eagle felt ill again.

  —What Effect? he asked, wearily.

  —Grimus. The Grimus Effect.

  —What the hell is that?

  —Ah, said Virgil, I think you’ve had enough for one day. Suffice to say this: the slopes of Calf Mountain are full of monsters, Mr Eagle. You’d never survive without a guide. Possibly not even then.

  Flapping Eagle shook his head, an utterly bewildered man, and buried his face in his hands. Virgil Jones came over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

  —I’m very sorry, he said. I’m very, very sorry.

  —No. It’s my turn to apologize, said Flapping Eagle. I’m behaving like a bad-tempered child.

  —Entirely understandable, my dear fellow, said Virgil Jones, good-naturedly,

  —Perhaps you could explain about the monsters?

  Virgil Jones nodded sadly.

  —You are quite resolved, are you not? he said.

  —Yes, said Flapping Eagle. For better or worse.

  —What I have been describing are the Outer Dimensions, said Mr Jones. There are Inner Dimensions as well. One never knows what universes may lie locked within one’s mind. The Effect can work upon the mind with devastating effects.

  He fell silent. Flapping Eagle pressed him for more, but he would only say:

  —There are some things about Calf Mountain whi
ch cannot be explained, only experienced. I hope you never experience them, Mr Eagle. I have grown fond of you. There is a great deal of spirit in that questing frame, is there not?

  Flapping Eagle smiled uncertainly.

  —Consider this well, gestured Virgil quickly to cover his embarrassment. It is physical proof that not all superstitions are effective. It was, as a matter-of-fact, the use of a divining-rod that settled me on this spot; and as you see it is bone-dry. But one does not have the heart to fill it up; one hopes against hope that water will begin to seep through those parched walls.

  —But you didn’t need a well, said Flapping Eagle. There’s the stream. He pointed at the freshwater rivulet that ran through the trees.

  Virgil Jones snorted. —It was something to do, he said, even if it was a bad idea.

  —It’s a sad ambition you have, Mr Eagle, said Virgil Jones. To grow old, to die; how is it that someone like you, so young in mind and body, can have such an ambition?

  Flapping Eagle replied, with a bitter tone in his voice which surprised him: —I want to return to the human race.

  A dark look flashed across Mr Jones’ face: shock first, then something more like … apology? He seemed to apologize a lot, thought Flapping Eagle.

  —Interesting, said Virgil, that you should think of death as such a humanizing force.

  Flapping Eagle’s confusions had settled into a slough of unwanted depression; Virgil Jones appeared to be no merrier. He stood up, shook himself, straightened his hat, dusted his trousers, and attempted to lighten the atmosphere.

  —Calf Mountain, I’ve always thought, is rather like a giant lingam weltering in the yoni that is the Sea, he offered, and was forced to explain to the uncomprehending Flapping Eagle: A Sanskrit circumlocution, my dear Eagle. Small pleasantry. I fear I have a rather obscure sense of humour.

  Then the gloom descended on him again, and he went on: —Though why I should see this wretched place as so overtly phallic, I cannot think. After all the one thing we have in common on the island is … He broke off.

  —What? asked Flapping Eagle.

  —But you must know, sir, said Virgil Jones, retreating behind a shell of formality. Sterility. Sterility. That is what I left unsaid. A tragic side-effect of the Drink of life. You will find no children on this rock, godforsaken as it is. Sterile, every manjack of us.

  Including you.

  Bitterness had now entered the voice of Virgil Jones.

  Flapping Eagle walked away towards the hut. He left Virgil Jones deep in thought, absentmindedly snapping twigs in half.

  XIV

  IN NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES, Flapping Eagle would have felt an instinctive sympathy for Mrs O’Toole, physically distorted as she was. He himself had suffered the social darts that fly at the freak; they should have had much in common. He now knew why they did not. If Virgil Jones was right in saying that Calf Mountain could not, should not be climbed without an experienced guide, it was obvious who that guide had to be. Flapping Eagle realized that he was impatient to set off, catching himself in the act of wondering how to persuade Mr Jones to accompany him. No wonder Dolores was distraught; no wonder she had turned against him after that polite, friendly beginning.

  Could she be persuaded to come as well? That would be the neatest solution, he thought. If she would not come, then it had to be admitted that she and Flapping Eagle must now be enemies. The admission did nothing to lessen his depression.

  XV

  O, IT WAS a certain thing, the trunk, so ponderous, so cobwebbed, so comforting, the trunk with its long-broken locks, never opened, captor of her life. O, it was a wondrous thing to be so sure, to hold her memories so fast. Open it now and let them flood her, washing her in certainties of days and griefs that could not change a jot. The moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Nor all your tears wash out a word of it. Nor tears nor the ghost of an eagle. Sure, sure, sure, as fixed in the fluid of the years as her immortal body, immortal now as souls, replenished daily, neither growing old nor young, static. The present is tomorrow’s past, as fixed, as sure, the trunk would tell her so. There, the creak, the weight of the lid lifted, the open gape of time. There, the candles, devoted servants of god, immortal invisible godonlywise, in light inaccessible hidfromoureyes. O thou who changest not abide with me. No, no, they can’t take this away from me. O, the candles, how did I lapse, how misuse them so, stark white pure candles? Look, the photographs, yellow as dust and half as crumbling, ashes to ashes, into the grave the great queen dashes. Grave Virgil, named for a poet, photograph him if only there were a camera and fix him there, yellow and crumbling, for evermore. Her eyes, better than any camera, conjure him now before them, hold him there, not yellow, not crumbling, warm flesh as she felt it in the night, folds enfolding her to make her safe and send the time away, nothing can change beneath the folds. There, the photographs. The little girl, poor dear thing said Auntie to have the hump. The hump, the hump, the cameeelious hump. She, La Belle Dame Aux Camelious. Or sans mercy. Merciful heavens that do not alter, there, see the uniform, the little nunkit, conventpure little girl, say seven ave marias and he won’t go away. There, the past. Put him in the trunk, dear gravedigger poet, put him there to stay unaltered, put him in the trunk and keep him, folded, enfolded, the same for ever and ever, world without end, our men. Fix me jesus, fix him in a song, the fat greekname, virgil virgil give me your answer do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you. And how could he leave, how return to all that pain? The wounds are closed here, the hurt half-healed, here he is safe and I to make him so, safe in the unchanging daytoday. No eagle can snatch him away, no eagle take him back to his past, the past is sure, it cannot be re-entered, fixed and yellow and crumbling, the past. The moving finger having writ. Close the trunk, put away childish things, it is done and he stays and nothing will change nothing nothing nothing there is nothing to change it and we shall stay virgil and dolores fixed and unchanging in the glue of love. Poor dear grave-digger jones, so much to remain forgotten in him, the weight of the past and its doings ensures the present will not change. Virgil, virgil, give me your answer do. There, the trunk, shut, sure, certain, fixed. Pat it so and be grateful. Now might I do it, pat. Pat, it is done.

  She swept the room and tidied the table, rolled the rushmats and dusted the rocking-chair, stoked the embers and filled the pot with water and roots, and began to prepare food for two. There were only the two of them, solid as a rock, immutable as the room, Dolores O’Toole and Virgil Jones, Virgil O’Toole and Dolores Jones, Virgil Dolores and Jones O’Toole, Virgil O’Dolores and Dolores O’Virgil. Like the two queers: William Fitzhenry and Henry Fitzwilliam. She cackled as she worked.

  She did not see the ghost at first. It stood, tallish and fairish in the doorway looking worried, trying to decide how to express its problems to her. Eventually, since she continued to ignore it, it coughed.

  She turned to the doorway, the word Virgil! forming on her lips, and froze. Her mouth opened and worked noiselessly, a scream without a sound. She backed slowly away from it until she stumbled against the trunk.

  —Mrs O’Toole, it said. Are you ill? You look like death.

  Terror entered her. She hauled open the lid of the trunk and jumped in. Rummaging feverishly, she found what she was looking for. She held it up: a small crucifix, carved in wood, crumbling with the work of maggots.

  She said: —Apage me, Satanas.

  —Dolores, said the ghost. It’s all right. Dolores.

  —Go away, said Dolores O’Toole. You aren’t there. We live alone. Virgil Jones and Dolores O’Toole. There is no-one else. Look: there are only two mats. I am cooking for two. There are only two of us. That doesn’t change.

  —Do you recognize me? said the ghost, slowly. Do you know who I am?

  —Go away, said Mrs O’Toole, cowering behind the edge of the trunk. Don’t come closer. Go back where you came from. Go back where you belong. Go back to Grimus. Spectre of the Stone Rose, begone! I don’t believe in you.

/>   —The Stone Rose, repeated the ghost. Grimus. What…

  —Apage me! shrieked Dolores O’Toole and pulled the lid of the trunk shut over her head.

  The ghost stood in the centre of the room, wondering what to do. Finally, since he wished to speak to Dolores in private, he decided against summoning Virgil Jones just yet. He approached the trunk.

  —God protect me, came from within as he lifted the lid.

  —Mrs O’Toole… Dolores… said the ghost, I’ve a proposition for you.

  —No, no, said Dolores. You’re not here.

  —I know you’d rather I left, said the ghost; I know you’re worried I’ll try and persuade Virgil to come with me. But what I’m suggesting is this: would you come, too? Would you?

  —You cannot tempt me up the mountain, said Dolores, her eyes gleaming. Up there is the past. We left it behind. The past cannot be re-entered. Nothing changes. The past is fixed. Go away.

  The ghost sighed.

  —Then I must be your enemy, it said. Dear Mrs O’Toole, I am sorry, believe me; especially since I see you are ill. I’ll go and get Virgil… Mr Jones.

  —Leave him alone! cried Dolores. Go away and leave him alone!

  The ghost left her.

  Flapping Eagle, running to find Virgil Jones, remembered overhearing, when he was still young, two women of the Axona talking.

  One of them had said: —We must be careful with Born-From-Dead.

  And the second woman, the older of the two, had replied, —Yes. To be born thus is to have death sitting always behind the eyes.

  And Livia Cramm had said the same.

  And Virgil Jones had named him Destroyer.

  And yet he had wanted none of it.