by Hughes, Rhys
The men standing over him did not look like doctors. They wore heavy cloaks and very tall black hats that almost scraped the ceiling. One held his wallet, another was clutching two electrodes in gloved hands, electrodes connected to a machine that hummed and spat in the corner. Boz felt there was an association between this machine and the burning sensation in his chest. The man holding the wallet nodded down at him and said:
“Pleased to meet you, we are your undertakers. You have just enough money to pay for a funeral, we’ve counted it, a single note and a few coins, it comes to 333 and a third crowns altogether, which is exactly our fee. But there’s a slight problem, a minor hitch, and we couldn’t just get on with the burial. So we brought you back to life to discuss something with you, to make a proposal. We all think it’s a neat solution to our difficulty.”
“Tell me,” gasped Boz. His words emerged thin and dry and his efforts to sit up came to nothing. He knew he would never feel more alert than this ever again, but it did not seem to matter. The reply to his question was a murmur but he heard it and managed to roll his eyes in exasperation.
“There are no spare coffins left. But there’s an old tea chest in the attic…”
(2004)
The Candid Slyness of Scurrility Forepaws
Hello there! I’m sure you don’t really want to hear about my childhood, so I’ll just briefly mention one incident that was crucial to the development of my career. On the eve of my seventh birthday, my father summoned me to his study for a lecture. I entered the enormous room with a certain amount of trepidation, for my father was a remote and gloomy figure, frequently absent on long sailing voyages. His study was crammed with souvenirs of his travels and I was particularly impressed with the grinning masks hanging on the walls. He sat at a large mahogany desk and I took the chair opposite him and waited patiently.
“The world is a chaotic and unhappy place,” he began, “and it is best to prepare at a young age for the problems it will cause you. Justice is a lie and fair play simply doesn’t exist. Women are beautiful but cruel and ask too many awkward questions. Friends are treacherous and laugh at you behind your back. Dogs and cats are even worse.”
He continued in this manner for a long time, listing things I was certain to encounter and dismissing them with contempt. Although his cold fury was fascinating, the list seemed endless and I found it impossible not to yawn. He frowned darkly at this.
“You’re not an adult yet and doubtless harbour traces of hope and optimism in your heart. That’s understandable. But let me tell you something — I’ve travelled the globe and visited every country and culture in existence and not once have I discovered anything other than greed and disappointment. That has been true without exception. Shattered dreams are the rule.”
He resumed his list and I hastened to interrupt him. “With respect,” I said, “you’ve made your point and I accept it.”
He nodded, torn between anger at my audacity and relief that his words had not been wasted. Pouring himself a tumbler of brandy he sipped the liquid slowly. “Very well, I’ll skip the remainder of the list, even though it contains such important items as Finance and Toothache. But there is one thing worse than all the others.”
I leaned forward and met his gaze. “Pray tell.”
His voice became sad. “It is being accused of something you haven’t done. Getting the blame when you are innocent. That’s the bitterest pill of all! And it will happen to you, as it happens to everyone, unless you work hard to preclude the possibility. Make sure you are always guilty, that you really are to blame. Get into all sorts of mischief, cause all kinds of trouble. Be ambitious and imaginative but don’t neglect the details. If you live according to these principles, you’ll never be condemned unfairly. I want you to promise me you’ll be an unrepentant rogue until the day you die. It’s the only way of avoiding miscarriages of justice.”
I solemnly made that promise and he added, “It’s customary at this stage to beat you to ensure you remember this lecture, as Cellini’s father beat him when they saw a salamander in the fire, but I’m much cleverer than that. From the moment of your birth I anticipated a need to arm you against the world. That is why I named you Scurrility. This name will always serve as a reminder of your vocation as a villain and mischief-maker. True, you will be exposed to ridicule from your peers, but this would have happened anyway considering the surname I bequeathed to you. Now leave me to brood alone and close the door behind you. We owe it to ourselves to be bad.”
The following day he embarked on another voyage and never came back.
*
The mischief I indulged in for the next decade was fairly minor but I was simply awaiting the greater opportunities of adulthood. One of the first consequences of my father’s speech was that I stopped trusting my mother. She had informed me that the word ‘scurrility’ meant handsome and smart in appearance. With the aid of a dictionary I discovered that my father’s definition was more accurate. At school I became the bane of my teachers and fellow pupils. A flair for chemistry resulted in many small explosions and much petty damage to property. Nothing could ever be proved against me, for I was as lucky as I was careful, but the teachers avenged themselves by awarding me low grades in examinations.
I left school with few qualifications but I refused to let this fact hinder me. I took a job in a jam factory and saved my wages with dedication, for I had a scheme in mind that required considerable capital. While I worked, I amused myself by adding flies to the jam. I collected large numbers of the insects by visiting the kitchens of restaurants and hotels in the guise of an Inspector of Hygiene and asking for the contents of all the flytraps to be given to me. They never refused. Walking to work with pockets full of flies seems less funny now than it did then. I added a single fly to every pot, using my thumb to push it deep into the jam before screwing down the lid.
I was constantly occupied with inventing new annoyances and torments for the people around me. I dialled telephone numbers at random during the night. When using an elevator I always pressed all the buttons just before getting out. In the supermarket I became an expert at striking the ankles of other shoppers with the wheel of my trolley. I always used the slowest and most complicated method of payment in any queue. Naturally there was only so much I could do alone, but I didn’t allow an appreciation of my limitations to deter me from making at least one attempt every day to lower the quality of life for my fellow citizens. I was a dependable scoundrel.
It is true that none of my tricks and acts of sabotage were original. But I had made plans for a truly unique piece of mischief that could only be implemented when funds permitted. I bided my time and continued to save and I wasn’t dissatisfied with what I did achieve. I became an expert at making the neighbourhood dogs bark after midnight. Every time I passed a laundry I entered and added fistfuls of tissues to the pockets of trousers waiting to be washed. In pubs and nightclubs I enjoyed dropping cigarette butts into drinks, especially cans and opaque bottles. I was never caught and I guess I began to consider myself invulnerable or invisible.
One morning I was rudely awakened by a persistent hammering on the door of my apartment. I dressed to answer the call and found myself facing two men in dark suits with insincere smiles. They pushed their way inside and closed the door behind them.
“You are Scurrility Forepaws,” one of them said flatly.
“That is correct,” I replied with a forced sneer, “and I’m already late for work.”
“You are employed at Gulliver’s Jam Factory,” the second man declared. “We know what you’ve been up to.”
I suspect a part of me had always assumed I would be caught one day. There was no point denying my guilt. So I answered coolly, “Flies are very nutritious.”
They shook their heads together. Both men had expressionless blue eyes and I considered loaning them two pairs of dark glasses. “Not just that. We know everything.”
I was alarmed by that statement, for it implied I ha
d been followed and spied on for a long time without my suspicions being aroused. Knowing how corrupt the secret police were rumoured to be, I wondered if I should try to bribe my way out of this predicament, but at the same time I reasoned I couldn’t afford to pay an unofficial ‘fine’ without setting back my favoured scheme, the one I was saving for. I had no intention of being deterred from a life of mischief because of this failure. It was simply a lesson for me to be more subtle in future. With a short but wholly authentic laugh I extended my arms and waited for the closing of the handcuffs on my wrists.
“It is your duty to arrest me. I’ll come quietly.”
The first man announced, “We aren’t policemen. We want to offer you a job.”
The second man said, “We’ve been impressed with what we’ve seen of your mischief so far. We represent an obscure organisation dedicated to the spreading of chaos throughout society. We need people like you. Will you work for us? The wages you will receive are ten times the amount you are currently paid. All you are required to do is to continue being a nuisance. Indeed as this is a full time post, you’ll have many more hours each day to cause trouble than you presently have. What do you say?”
I was stunned. The chance to earn a living from what I intended to do anyway was almost too much for my mind to absorb. I needed to sit and breathe deeply for several minutes before I was calm enough to respond to the proposal. They watched me indulgently.
At last I gasped, “I accept! You won’t regret taking me on. I’ll be a punctual and conscientious rotter! I’ll always be sly and deceitful too — trust me!”
*
I resigned from my job at Gulliver’s Jam Factory the following morning and commenced working for my new employers on the afternoon of the same day. I never learned much about the organisation I was now a member of. My wages were delivered regularly in an envelope pushed under my door and I had little direct contact with any of my colleagues. An occasional visit from one or other of the blue-eyed men took place, but these were no more than routine checks on my progress. They rarely answered questions about the nature of their secret society. I thought I detected one of them referring to the organisation as ‘The Scamps of Disorder’ but I was probably mistaken. The mystery of the whole business appealed to me.
My acts of chaos remained modest for another few months. I offered sweets with tiny fragments of silver foil clinging to them to people with lots of fillings in their teeth. I smeared vaseline on doorknobs and taps. I hung enormous untuned wind chimes around the city during the stormy season. But soon I had raised enough capital to turn my carefully nurtured dream into a reality. I founded a magazine. This was my unique piece of mischief, my apotheosis. It doesn’t sound like much but it was the character of the magazine that made it so unhelpful to my fellow citizens. It was called The Suicide Review and it did exactly what the title promised — it reviewed suicides.
Imagine the malice of that, if you will! It is bad enough for the family and friends of a person who has just taken their own life to cope with the shattering reality of the loss, but when that loss is treated as an example of popular art, analysed and criticised in a public forum, the anguish is amplified with the addition of horrified incredulity and frustrated rage. My publication was a supreme monument to tastelessness and exploitation. The Suicide Review was not only profoundly morbid but perversely enthralled by the most facile and shallow aesthetic values. Glibness was deified. I employed writers who were clever but insecure and addicted to withholding sympathy from their subjects.
I’d expected to make a loss, for I cared only about causing strife and hadn’t taken profitability into account, but to my amazement the magazine prospered. It paid for itself many times over. It became a sort of fashion accessory for self-conscious artistic types. Publication was increased from monthly to weekly and I became a wealthy man. Writers of renown began asking to join my staff. I remember the day the famous journalist Wormhole Kidd simpered into my office and begged for employment. He had worked for The Bohemian Examiner for the past ten years, cementing his reputation with a prose style that disparaged everything. The entire contemporary arts scene was said to be balanced on his sneer.
“I love your magazine,” he babbled. “It’s just so conceptual!”
I welcomed him into the fold and our sales increased dramatically. I never instructed my writers in how to handle the latest suicide because the main rule was instinctively known by all — always give a bad review. Because they were ‘cool’ they never dared to show tenderness, humanity or generosity. Wormhole Kidd pushed them even deeper into postmodern cynicism. They did everything ironically and therefore could never be accused of making a mistake. Wormhole’s first review was a small masterpiece. A girl jilted by her lover had thrown herself out of a window and impaled herself on the railings below. Wormhole condemned her death throes as a set of clichés and ridiculed the derivative angles made by her twitching legs.
During this time I felt a warm glow in the pit of my stomach that had two different sources of heat, in other words I felt a powerful double satisfaction that merged into one sensation. I was proud of myself for exceeding the probable expectations of my secret employers and also I was delighted not to have let my father down, wherever he was. I had truly lived up to my name, my first name I mean, not the family name, for I have no clear idea how to behave in a manner consistent with the word ‘Forepaws’. I was extremely pleased with myself and it was at this point, perhaps inevitably, that my first setback occurred, though I didn’t perceive it as such at the time.
My magazine received an envelope addressed to the editor. I opened it and saw it was a suicide note from a man who wanted it published — the moment it appeared in print he would kill himself. The Suicide Review had published the farewell notes of unsuccessful suicides, usually with a commentary attacking the poor literary style of the note, and these reviews had sometimes encouraged the survivor to make a second and more successful attempt. But we had never published a note prior to the deed. I wrote back explaining it was not our policy to give publicity to pseudo-suicides. As well as implying he was a coward and a charlatan I also mocked the wording of the note itself, declaring it the work of an idiotic hack.
A few days later I received a second letter, or rather a second draft of the first. The man had reworded his suicide note as if my criticisms had been serious and well intentioned. I saw an opportunity for a game. I handled this duty myself instead of passing it over to Wormhole Kidd or one of the other reviewers. I wrote back with even greater contempt. As expected I soon received a third draft of the suicide note. This foolish amusement continued for many weeks. It was the delight of the office. Once when I entered the café where most of my staff members took their lunch, the place burst into applause. Wormhole was eating a thick ham sandwich and greeted me with a wink.
“I’m practising vegetarianism — ironically!” he cried.
We laughed together but with a superior sort of laugh to show we were above straightforward humour. After all, the joke might eventually turn out not to be funny and we needed to protect ourselves. I think it was at this time I first noticed the girl in red sitting at a table in the corner. She didn’t work for me and was obviously just a normal customer. She was with a man, her fiancé as it happened, but I could tell from her eyes she was planning to give herself to me. Constant mischief-making had left me with little time for relaxation. Physical activities of the horizontal kind had never figured largely in the agenda of my life. I decided it was high time they did.
*
Her name was Belinda Bourbon and even her underwear was red. It was her favourite colour. She liked to have her ears nibbled and her own teeth were charmingly crooked. She broke off with her fiancé the moment he discovered our affair, to prevent him taking the initiative. She thought she knew a lot about me but it was mostly society gossip and conjecture. I excited her because I was a rogue, no other reason. She always generalised her own beliefs and urges. She told me that all women were b
iologically programmed to find villains attractive. She craved a wild life and seemed to think this consisted of ingesting illegal drugs and performing standard acts of exhibitionism.
There was no danger I would allow romance to divert me from my career. We walked hand in hand, watched the stars together, drove above the speed limit on country roads. I agreed with her that our behaviour was risky and cutting edge. I even nurtured her illusion that cycling topless through the city streets was an act guaranteed to shock and distress pedestrians and motorists. I sometimes found it difficult to stifle a yawn in her company but she suspected nothing. When I judged she was genuinely in love with me, I told her that we needed to talk. I had something to confess. We sat on a bench in the park and I lowered my eyes as I spoke.
“Belinda, you know I love you, and it’s for this reason I must come clean. I can’t deceive you a moment longer. I’m not really a rogue at all. I’m a sweet, kind man, a gentle soul full of tenderness with a yearning for world peace. I have a social conscience! Please forgive me. Please find it in your heart to continue loving me. I don’t think I could live without you.”
She broke off our relationship the following day. She could no longer trust me. I had betrayed her, tricked her into thinking I was a complete bounder whereas in fact I was a mature and reasonable individual. Not only was the relationship ruined but all her memories of our outrageous antics had been soiled. She wished me the very worst luck for the future. This result was delicious. Some men fake their own deaths, others fake their own lives, but I had gone much further. I had pretended to fake my own fakery! In some ways I consider this to be my finest piece of mischief.
*
I was so satisfied by the outcome of this affair that I neglected my correspondence with the writer of the suicide note. Indeed I paid only infrequent visits to the offices of The Suicide Review. My other mischief-making activities also dwindled in number and intensity. I had been suffering headaches and muscle cramps prior to my relationship with Belinda and these were gradually growing worse. I finally arranged to see a doctor. He examined me carefully, studied the tips of my fingers with a magnifying glass and clicked his tongue thoughtfully. Then he consulted a large textbook on one of his shelves. The word ‘Poisons’ was embossed on the spine of this volume and I shivered.
