The Wanderer
Page 32
‘Well,’ I said. ‘I’ve always fancied trying my hand at writing. I might give that a go. Your story would make a great yarn, you know.’
I was half-joking, but he suddenly looked very stern. And that is when he made me take the vow.
Afterwards, his expression lightened.
‘Otherwise, I wish you all the best with it,’ he said. ‘I hope you can understand?’
I nodded.
‘Of course. It was crass of me to suggest it at all.’
We finished the bottle, chatting easily, then went back to our lodgings. I slept poorly that night, apprehensive about the voyage I was to embark on the following morning, disquieted by Robert’s ghastly tale. Lying awake, on my bunk, I gazed up at the fly-specked ceiling, wondered how flies could breed in a country so grimly cold I could not picture a rotting carcass, even at the height of summer. Instead, I imagined them pouring forth, in a droning mass, from a crevice, high up in the mountains, a chasm that gave on to some vile alterior place.
The following morning was cold, blustery; ragged scraps of white cloud scudded overhead through an ashen sky. Robert accompanied me down to the docks. We said our farewells on the wharf, then I walked up the gangplank and boarded the steamer. As the vessel pulled out of the harbor I stood at the taffrail waving to my friend. His breath plumed in the cold air – it was as if his spirit had broken free of the hawsers mooring it to the flesh. I gazed at him until he was little more than a mote in my eye – a dark smut at the point where the yellowish daub of smoke belched from the ship’s funnels and the churned wake converged – then turned away from the shore, went to report to the boatswain. He assigned me first watch at the bow. I was to keep a lookout for ice floes. Crossing the deck, I took up my position, leaning far out over the gunwale, holding onto the bowsprit to steady myself. For several hours I watched the hatchet prow cleave the sea. At one point I am sure I glimpsed a narwhal’s tusk break the surface of the water.
I have never seen Robert again. But my encounter with him changed my life utterly. Unable to get his tale from my thoughts, barbed as it is by weird and sinister implications, I have spent a great deal of time, as this book is testament, seeking others like it. My motives are obscure, even to me. I think it is partly that I sought similar yarns in the hope that, discovering them all absurd lies or delusions, I would finally be able to dismiss Robert’s as falsehood or madness. Too often, however, I have found a shred of truth in the stories told me, and have, over the course of my life, sewed these scraps into a patchwork of uncanny horror.
Acknowledgements
Peterkin (or whoever) dedicated The Wanderer to a ‘hoped for, though doubtless chimeric, reader.’ I would like to dedicate this book to Fi Ment, much missed, without whom it’s likely the typescript would have never come to light.
Much of the work on this book was done as part of a PhD project. I’d like to thank my doctoral supervisors, Willy Maley and Andrew Radford, for their generous support and insightful critiques; the examiners of the resultant thesis, Rob Maslen and Adam Roberts, for astute and valuable feedback; and the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding. Much gratitude to those who read this work and gave encouragement, comments, and editorial suggestions: William Curnow, Al Duncan, Susan Jarvis, James Machin, and Neil Stewart. Many thanks to Phil Jourdan for patience, enthusiasm, and hard work. Thanks to my family for all their support. And thanks, Sophie Tolhurst, for endless tolerance and kindness.
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