Out of the corner of his eye, Conrad saw Dammit sneaking toward the pile of feathers. With a “shoo, you rascal,” he chased the cat away and sat down next to the angel. “Give me those tweezers, you won’t be able to reach your back.”
Plucking out the feathers and shooing away Dammit, who was as stubborn as a mule, preoccupied them completely. They were just stuffing the last shreds of feathers into a trash bag when Old Harry pulled up in front of the house.
“How was your first night?” he shouted, clambering out of the old banger.
“Not too bad, in actual fact,” said Conrad. “Although not without a few…surprises. Close encounters, shall we say.”
Old Harry stopped on the steps.
“Well, shoot, I can see Dammit’s been fondlin’ you.” He pointed to the scratches on Conrad’s cheek. “Sharp claws, that little vixen. You had breakfast?”
“Not yet, no.”
“So what you waitin’ on? Here.” He thrust the shopping bags at Bugaboo. “You and Crackers get breakfast ready, we’ll finish cleanin’ up your feathers. So, what do you think of Bugaboo Hole?”
“I haven’t seen everything yet. But I guess it’ll need a thorough renovation. Extermination of insects and rats for a start. The leaking windows, the floors, and the walls need doing, the stairs too…When was the wiring last replaced?”
“Never.”
“Never?” Conrad’s hair stood on end. “Jesus, one short circuit and the house would go up in smoke! It’d be dust by the time the firefighters got here!”
“It ain’t been replaced because there never was no wiring,” explained Old Harry calmly. He tied up the bag of feathers, which now resembled a giant beach ball, then started folding up the mirrors. “No electrics, no plumbing neither. There’s a few chimney flues, but I clean them myself.”
“Are you screwing with me?” Conrad was starting to lose patience. He pulled the cell phone out of his pants pocket. “If there’s no wiring, how come I charged my phone?”
“Electricity, I guess. Ain’t no other way, right? But there ain’t no chance you’ll be able to make a call with that little thing. Bugaboo! Get out here, catch a signal for the gentleman.”
Bugaboo, holding a butter knife, trotted out onto the veranda. He took Conrad’s phone, sneezed, and gave it straight back. Conrad looked at the screen. Four bars. One missed call and three text messages.
“Our angel don’t need no wirings, Mr. Romanchuk. He don’t even understand how they work. All he needs to know is what’s supposed to happen when you turn a tap, plug somethin’ into a socket, light the gas stove or flush the toilet. That’s what I call a real blessin’, ’cos you don’t get no power cuts, and you don’t have to pay no bills. He learnt to catch phone signals last year, when I got myself a cell phone and I had the same problem as you. Right!” He patted Conrad on the back. “Time for breakfast.”
* * *
—
Bugaboo was on cloud nine. Singing “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window” under his breath, he was running around the house hunting for net curtains. They were practically begging to be nicely washed and starched—for a few days now, they’d been hanging too dolefully, too loosely, rather than standing to attention, and their whiteness definitely needed to be whiter. Dazzling, at the very least.
The angel had been given his first washing machine over twenty years ago, and he used it with a near-manic degree of pleasure. The old PS 663S BIO Supermachine, still in good working order, with a large, creaking handwheel, had pride of place in the turret, surrounded by an entourage of powders, liquids, and pastes, but it had seen little use in the last few months. A house occupied only by tenants had seemed to Bugaboo to be an incomplete house, so he’d been cleaning it half-heartedly. In practice, this meant cleaning all the windows just once a quarter. But now…Now, since a new owner had come to stay at Bugaboo Hole, the angel had fallen into a tidying euphoria, and the wretched net curtains were first into the fray.
Lying on the dresser in the hall, Dammit had set to work meticulously cleaning her fur. She wasn’t at all surprised by Bugaboo’s frenzy. She had already accepted Conrad as her favorite nighttime cushion. Regrettably, the tenants had managed to scare him a few times; now they had to show themselves in their best light so he wouldn’t run away from them. He may have been easily dumbstruck, but he was also quick to recover, which had always been considered an extremely useful attribute for owners of Bugaboo Hole. He wasn’t terribly physically fit, but that was totally understandable. Few have been known to bulk up their muscles by browsing through books and tapping a keyboard all day long. He was just a tall, somewhat undernourished intellectual with the physiognomy of a worried musketeer. He was unlikely to be found chopping wood for the fire—in fact, he’d be more likely to do himself an injury with an ax—but without a doubt, he fit Bugaboo Hole like a glove. And he knew what position to sleep in so the cat would be comfortable. Yes, Conrad had to stay.
Sitting on the washing machine, which was whirring enthusiastically, completely absorbed in mending socks, Bugaboo didn’t hear the dilapidated old banger pulling up in front of the house. The footsteps in the hall also somehow escaped him. The tinkle of broken glass and the shrill scream, however, did reach him.
* * *
—
Their “dealings” in town had taken them less time than the drive there and back. The sun hadn’t eased up, so Conrad said good-bye to Old Harry with relief and escaped from the old banger, which was as hot as a furnace. For a good few hours, he’d been dreaming of the milk that was cooling in the icy refuge of the refrigerator, and he was finally going to get his reward.
The bottle was heavy, wet, and very slippery, so it was really no surprise that he dropped it. But shards of glass in a puddle of milk are no reason to scream. The large, dark purple tentacles of a giant octopus emerging out of nowhere—now that’s another story.
“What’s all this screaming, hallelujah?” Bugaboo, who had hastened to the man’s aid, set down the broom that he’d temporarily adapted for combat purposes. His cellophane hair twinkled as he shook his head reprovingly. “You startled him, that’s all.”
Deathly pale, Conrad had lost his voice. He hadn’t even noticed he was sitting on the floor, and his incredibly expensive designer jeans were soaked with milk. The angel knelt in front of the heavily nailed pantry door, opened the cat flap and, without making any unnecessary fuss, stuck his head inside. Something gurgled menacingly.
“Come on, Crackers, don’t be scared, give me your tentacle,” chirped the angel soothingly. He was answered with a blood-chilling growl. “There, there, Bugaboo is here. Shall I sing you a little song?”
One tentacle crawled shyly out of the pantry and wrapped itself around the angel. He hugged it, patting it affectionately. The gurgling subsided slightly.
“Craaackers haaad a liiittle laaamb…”
Bugaboo sang in falsetto, swaying to the beat, as the tentacled creature emitted a foreboding rumble.
“…that laaamb was suuure to gooo. There.” He sneezed. “Is that better, Crackers? The man didn’t mean to startle you, he won’t scream like that anymore, will you?” The angel smiled encouragingly at Conrad.
“What…is…” He couldn’t get the words out, but Bugaboo guessed what he meant.
“This is Crackers. An ancient creature from the depths of eternal evil, who was summoned in 1836 by Mr. Vincent’s nephew, hallelujah,” he recited. “Sigmund used to dabble in various…strange…sacrifices, dark rituals, Witches’ Sabbaths, that sort of thing…One night, the locals burned him under a tree. It happened so quickly, achoo, he had no chance to come up with a decent curse to put on them. But Crackers stayed here in the pantry and took care of the cooking. He’s much better at that than he is at annihilation.”
The ancient creature nodded his tentacle in affirmation.
“Right, shake limbs to make
up. Go on!”
Crackers stretched a second tentacle around Conrad’s arm and shook him up and down. His suckers squelched quietly. Despite appearances, the creature was not at all slimy. He smelled of vanilla and cloves.
“Bugaboo…” said Conrad weakly.
“Yes, hallelujah?”
“Tell me, before I have a heart attack, who else lives here? Dwarves? A cockatrice? Fairies that you have to believe in so they won’t die?”
“Well…achoo, there’s the young master, but he’s anthropoidal, even though he’s a poet.”
“Ah right, the young master…The one who does the cushions and the jam?” Conrad asked.
“Yep, the one who shot himself. In the cabbage patch. I believe it was in 1807, but I’d have to check. I get a bit lost…”
The pile of unhappiness that was Conrad Romanchuk sighed.
“Me too, dear Bugaboo. Me too.”
* * *
—
The end of August was stormy. The road through the forest went all soggy and turned into a mud trap, so Old Harry had no way of reaching Bugaboo Hole. Fortunately, for the time being, he wasn’t needed.
So as not to waste time, and with the aim of at least partially emptying the house before the renovation, Conrad ordered a major inventory. Paintings, clocks, cushions, and various knick-knacks from all over the house were moved to the living room on the ground floor, where they were photographed and wrapped in thick gray paper in anticipation of some antique lover’s bid in an online auction. The carpets, ravaged by time and moths, lay on the veranda rolled up like big pancakes. In the kitchen, Crackers sorted through provisions and household appliances, throwing out anything that was no longer usable. Bugaboo, tearful and distraught, was reluctant to part with his old washing machine. Eventually, the impatient Conrad downloaded a catalog of household appliances from the Internet and printed it out so the angel could choose a new washing machine, and an iron as well to make up for it. Instead of sleeping, Bugaboo sat up at night like an excited child on Christmas Eve, pondering which model had the most crucial features and the best extras.
The weather finally cleared, the road dried up, and Conrad and Old Harry were able to take away the garbage before the renovation crew arrived. The auctioned items sold like hotcakes, saving Conrad’s bank balance from going into the red. The courier was collecting parcels almost every morning and the house slowly ceased to resemble a cluttered antique store.
As it turned out, Crackers really did make delicious pastries, and he was practically world-champion level at preparing fettucine all’Alfredo. The better things went, the quicker Conrad lost his city-boy limpness and pallor. Considering he was practicing intense organizational gymnastics day after day, he didn’t need to worry too much about his body for a while. His Life’s Work, which had gone untouched for almost a month, was faring rather worse. To drown out the voice of his conscience, and that of his impatient and very pushy agent, Conrad decided he’d get down to writing as soon as he’d sorted out the last room at Bugaboo Hole—the library.
Until now, the room had been sealed off, and the key was lost somewhere, so they decided to break down the door.
“Son of a…” groaned Old Harry, pushing down on the crowbar with all his strength. The lock grated, but still refused to cooperate. “Damned stubborn thing. Old and solid…ain’t no use. You just hold onto it here, Mr. Romanchuk. One, two…”
There was a crack, a thump, and the crowbar fell to the floor, bent at a right angle, followed by the two courageous looters. The armored doors didn’t budge an inch.
“Enough!” shouted Conrad, bruised and battered. “I won’t have doors putting up passive resistance in my own home. Old Harry, could you get off me please? Crackers!”
A ladle-wielding tentacle emerged from the kitchen.
“Take her down!”
Crackers didn’t need asking twice. The tentacle willingly curled up into a big ball and delivered an almighty blow. Splinters rained down. The path to reader’s paradise stood open.
“I must be dreaming…” whispered Conrad. He felt an unearthly bliss wash over him, and a daft smile appeared on his face. His eyes filled with tears. “It…It…”
“…stinks?”
There were books literally everywhere. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of volumes smelling of old dust and even older paper. Tightly packed on the shelves, in the long-unused fireplace, on the massive oak table, under it and around it, arranged on the windowsill beneath the locked and bolted windows. On the floor were various pages, some meticulously filled with writing, others empty, some crumpled or torn up into confetti. Balls of dust, colorful embroidery trimmings, and the remains of broken quill pens lay in the corners. The whole scene gave the impression of the last fortress of a mad reader who would rather die of stuffiness than venture outside, and who wrapped himself in a cape with a dramatic gesture at the sight of a ray of sun and rushed off in search of the nearest tomb.
Old Harry gave a long, slow whistle.
“Looks like we got ourselves a fair bit of work ahead. Good thing Bugaboo can’t see this, reckon he’d burst into tears. What a dump…”
The words had barely left his lips when they heard a clatter, and a very agitated young man wearing a blue tailcoat and an intensely yellow vest jumped out from between the bookshelves.
“I beg your pardon!” he cried, waving a pen that was dripping with ink. “What does ordinary mess matter compared to the enormity of poetic vision? How can I be preoccupied with thoughts of cleaning when my soul is soaring over a dead world into a paradise of delusion? Oh, such a terrible plight! Alas, without heart or spirit, verily I…”
“Shut your damn hole, Fortunato, or I’ll shoot you, I swear to God,” Old Harry interrupted, apparently used to such outbursts. “And give me back the key, ’cos I won’t be breakin’ in a second time. Oh, right. Mr. Romanchuk, this is the last of the tenants, the hapless young master Fortunato. My condolences,” he added sardonically. “In the daytime he’s stuck in this hovel, but unfortunately, he creeps out after dark. After dark, you understand?” he repeated with a frown. “Apparently, that’s when it’s romantic, atmospheric. But that there’s just some poetic drivel. And he ain’t got no mercy, don’t no one escape him.”
The young master shook his blond curls.
“Unlearned wretch, what vulgar words,” he snorted. “You oaf! Would you mock the pain of my very soul?”
“I’ll make that pain of yours a damn sight worse if you say one more word…”
Repressing a chuckle, Conrad listened as the young master, an expert in year-round depression and cross-stitch embroidery, and the oaf in the cotton T-shirt argued heatedly and with evident skill.
And he came to the surprising conclusion that, of all the places in the world, Bugaboo Hole was probably where he most wanted to be.
* * *
—
Autumn set in, warm and belching.
The frogs living in the pond held a deep respect both for the season and for the laws of Mother Nature. Perhaps they were orphans; besides, normal behavior never applied at Bugaboo Hole. Every night, the frogs scrambled onto a fallen tree trunk at the side of the pond—an effort that was also part of the show, adding a comedic element—and performed a concert. The audience was composed of the water sprites, Bugaboo and Dammit, who was a staunch admirer not so much of the croaking, but of the croaking creatures themselves, which she happened to consider quite a delicacy. Luckily for them, Dammit was not such a fan of the water.
Toward the end of September, the builders settled into the annex. They renovated everything they could under Old Harry’s watchful eye and belched much more often and even louder than the frogs, although no one was applauding them. On the contrary. Since the builders had arrived, the water sprites had barely stuck their noses out of the water, and Crackers, frightened by the noise, had crawled into the da
rkest corner of the pantry and was catching up on his sleep. At least, he was trying. Meanwhile, the angel sat locked away in his turret, studying the instruction manual for his new washing machine, and only late at night, long after the builders had gone to sleep, would he clamber out quietly, on tiptoe, with a feather duster and a dustpan to clean up a bit.
Despite the conditions not exactly favoring creative work, every morning Conrad took a deckchair, his laptop and a bulky folder full of notes and sat down by the pond, with an exquisite view of drywall panels, a heap of rubble and a wide-open Porta John. His Life’s Work could wait no longer, although in truth he wouldn’t have minded. But his agent had other ideas and was attacking with them from every angle. She usually started with a few text messages of fairly monotonous, though annoying, content. “WRITE. WRITE. WRITE. WRITE. WRITE,” and so on, until the message was full. Then she sent email after email, and finally—if she was having a particularly bad day—she called. And she asked the same question incessantly, like a broken record:
“Conrad, are you writing?”
“Yes, I’m writing,” Conrad would mutter, even though he’d been staring vacantly at an open file or playing Mahjong for several hours. “Of course I’m writing. Why wouldn’t I be writing?” After all, the constant knocking, tapping, banging, droning, and humming wasn’t bothering him at all. Nor were the shouts and curses that lasted from dawn till dusk. It was a pity they weren’t less derivative, or he’d happily have taken notes. You never know what might come in handy.
“Good, then. Write, don’t dawdle. I want the whole thing in a week.”
And so on. Write. Are you writing? Why aren’t you writing when you should be writing? Write. You have to write. You’re writing too little. Too slowly. For pity’s sake, how long can one text take?
In Conrad’s opinion, a very, very long time indeed.
His Life’s Work required a great deal of deep thought and care, contemplation of the smallest details, because it was about love, and you can’t write about love just any old way, in a slapdash manner. Especially if it’s meant to be revelatory prose, testifying to the great erudition of the author; prose that is contrary, sometimes even iconoclastic, but always ambitious and classy, and above all, steering clear of the treacherous swamp of stereotypes. None of that “love conquers all”; just sex, lies, and DVDs.
The Big Book of Modern Fantasy Page 161
