by Hughes, Rhys
The evening I caught the astrolabe was no more remarkable than any other. I dismissed my final customer with subtle hints and a brandished ladle, rushed to the pier and dipped my weave. The air was warm; I soon netted a dachshund and then, to my considerable surprise, a small book. Gratified, I studied it more closely. It turned out to be a summary of the rules of a forgotten game, played by the ancients; though sodden, I slipped it into my jacket pocket and resumed fishing. I did not think I would be lucky enough to trump this find. But I persevered, sweeping my net into the reflected moon and gasping when a rusty fragment of the orb detached itself from the greater mass.
After vigorous polishing with my cuff, this shard began to glitter. A brassy ring seduced my thumb; I dangled the object before white stars, its intended lovers. I was unfamiliar with the workings of astronomical devices; no texts on the topic had survived the deluge. But I recognised it for what it was: the numerals embossed on both sides proclaimed its purpose—the calculation of the precise position of the planets among the constellations. At once I realised its immense worth to the village. A method of casting truly accurate horoscopes had been offered to us. I spent the remainder of the night determining angles of incidence between the visible members of the solar system.
When morning came, my experiments ceased and I rose stiffly from my vantage, shouldering my net and walking up the cobbled lanes to my home. I passed Lladloh’s outermost structure, Cobweb Cottage, the abode of my beloved, which, in a permanent state of topple, mulishly defied gravity. The houses of Lladloh stand all alone; we are provincial snobs. Before I reached my own aloof dwelling, I was buttonholed by Padgett Weggs, the postman. “Aren’t you the cheerful one?”
“Quite so,” I replied. “I have discovered something of great import to the community. A pre-flood artefact.”
“You and your past! Won’t do you any good, mun. Give it over before it turns you daft. Seen it before. Neurotic obsession is what I call it. Bad for the brain. Gwallgofrwydd!”
I smiled indulgently. Weggs, though uneducated, had aspirations to become our first qualified therapist. As such, he sorted the problems of the inhabitants like mail—some were lost in the system. His speciality was post-natal depression, second-class.
“This is something special,” I cried. “It might prevent our village being destroyed again. Or at least give us some warning of any impending disasters. It is a defensive tool.”
“Ffolineb! Can’t avoid the judgment of destiny. When our time’s up, we ought to go quietly. Mustn’t fight fate, boyo. Delusions of grandeur, that is. Like what they had in Cardiff.”
I sighed. Popular legend still traced the source of the deluge back to that mythical metropolis, whose scheme to build a barrage all the way to the horizon had reputedly angered the sea-god. Rather than argue over a superstition, I bade Weggs farewell, took the key from a chain around my neck and opened my restaurant. Right at the back, in the kitchen, my bed awaited. The nameless tavern, final destination of my catch, did not admit patrons until noon; despite my excitement, I was too exhausted to remain upright that long. I slept in my clothes, the waterlogged book in my hand, the astrolabe under my pillow.
My dreams were ungainly affairs. I was preparing meals from stars, grating planets into stews and garnishing them with comets’ tails. When I woke, in response to the village clock’s dozen groans, I made a quick breakfast of bara lawr and hurried to Lladloh’s central square. Already the new Reverend Delves was blessing the tavern, censer swinging before him. As the repository of sacred relics, as well as of divine beer, the tavern exerts more of a hold on him than the chapel.
I entered in his wake and we converged at the bar. Olaf, armed with the traditional grimy cloth, was dirtying clean glasses. Delves squinted at me and clutched his stomach. “I think the meal you gave me last night was off. I’ve got these terrible cramps.”
I blushed. The Reverend had been an early customer and I had tried out a prototype dish on him: a bean salad, lightly draped with a garlic and mint dressing, incorporating a meaty dissertation on the history of community taxes during the rule of Silas Surcharge, the Grasping Mayor. Obviously, I had undercooked the conclusion.
“How else do you feel?” I ventured.
“Adept in the setting of tithes,” Delves groaned. He shook his head and ordered a glass of porter. Olaf gestured expansively with his giant hands and adjusted his horned helmet.
“Porter? Wouldn’t ye rather mead?”
“No thank you,” said the Reverend. Emboldened by his determination to choose his own drink, I followed his example. Olaf chewed his russet moustache and glowered at me. Both his lips trembled, but at different frequencies and for different reasons—the upper in berserker joy, the lower in Nordic dismay. This display encouraged me to retreat a pace. The porter seemed to hold its breath.
Later, I tried to persuade Delves that a single rotten pimento was responsible for his condition.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a bit disillusioning. The original Giovanni Ciao wouldn’t have poisoned his guests. Not in an obvious way. He basted his toxins with style.”
We sipped our mead in silence. Before we finish our glasses, I’ll explain the references to my namesake.
In its dense history, Lladloh has been annihilated many times. To be pedantic, when this story begins, these cataclysms number 665. After each destruction, survivors—of which there are always some—rebuild and repopulate the village. I won’t detail events individually, save to reveal that, on one occasion, only Reverend Delves escaped death. Climbing Mount Yandro at the time, the highest peak in the area, he turned for an inspiring vista, just as Lladloh and its burghers were dismissed from a world which had never worn them comfortably.
Alone, he was constrained to invite immigrants to reseed the homes; he advertised far and wide for settlers. One of those who responded was my paradigm, the first Giovanni Ciao, fresh from Sardinia. In the next levelling of the village, he played a courageous role, risking his own life to assist the wounded. This was the problem: with so many disasters and so much opportunity for brave deeds, our folklore became saturated with heroes. So that none might be dishonoured, due to limitations of memory and time, a system evolved whereby each new child was given the name of a predecessor. If they were called upon to perform beyond the bounds of duty, they wouldn’t add to the lengthy roster of champions. Thus was Remembrance Day trimmed.
To ease administration between generations, each child also had to follow the profession of its original model. For myself, this meant the saucepan and oven; for our Delves, the cant of the Church. This rule is especially hard on my beloved, Elizabeth Morgan, who despite a terror of brooms has to adopt the persona of a witch. Others suffer: Iolo Machen, fated to be a shepherd in disregard of his preference for nylon; Caradoc Weasel, compelled to be an explorer in an overmapped region; D.F. Lewis, by inclination a barber, obliged to compose short stories by the gross. This explains our lusting after alternative careers.
Recovering my composure, I met the Reverend’s gaze and took out my prize. It spun in the pale light of the tavern’s interior like a button from Odin’s favourite shirt. “Forget your ailments for a moment. Look at this and tell me what you think.”
He fingered the astrolabe. “A relic to rival Catrin Mucus’ cucumber flute! A fine addition to our hoard.” He made a pyramid with his fingers and held it over one eye—the holiest sign.
“Consider its applications!” I said. “We can draw a nativity chart for Lladloh itself! With the details this will provide, we’ll be able to reckon the date of the next catastrophe.”
“To cast a village’s horoscope, planetary positions are not enough. The destiny of urban conglomerations is also determined by the orbits of those planets’ moons. These are too faint to be discerned with the naked eye; and Lladloh is devoid of telescopes.”
I grinned. “You forget my culinary genius. One of my triumphs is a concentrated carrot sauce, reduced slowly over a firefly. Overindulgence of thi
s delicacy has endowed me with superlunary eyesight. I am capable of making the necessary observations.”
“To what end? Predicting the apocalypse won’t prevent it. The cycle of demolition and rebuilding is endless; we might as well be phantoms trying to stall a carousel. That’s the chance we stand of breaking the loop—ghost of a one.”
This odd metaphor lodged in my brain; I frowned and angled my jaw at the smoky windows. “Do you really want to erect new nonsense? Better to keep the old. For one thing, I’m not handy with a pick or shovel. My trousers hug my buttocks.”
Delves nodded. Like myself, he did not relish the prospect of hard manual labour: the setting up of scaffolding, the endless cups of sweet tea, the tobacco and innuendo breaks. Through the tavern window, it was difficult to see anything, but I kept my gaze symbolically fixed on the filthy glass. Beyond, Lladloh festered in its own juices; the buildings spiralled from the tavern as if they were spiritually draining into it, like coffee down a plug-hole. This vortex pattern was not an indigenous layout; our ancestors would not recognise the village. Each time it was created, it was assembled slightly differently. Only the tavern, hub of our cosmos, remained unchanged, enjoying exactly the same location and dimensions over the turbulent centuries.
We continued to discuss the immutability of this singular boozer. I was so engrossed in my erudition, I hardly noticed when the doors swung open to admit another drinker.
“What’s this?” The newcomer removed his tall hat and I recognised the whiskers of Kingdom Noisette, resident engineer and the bushy genius behind our most absurd civil projects. These included the underground railway between the tavern and the pharmacy. Before you think me harsh, let me make a statement: Lladloh has no trains.
The Reverend and I fell silent, knowing the hazards of passing the germ of a pristine engineering scheme to this fellow. He would incubate it into another expensive folly. But our prudence was undermined by the innkeeper, who bellowed: “Preparing for the next Ragnarok they are! Got a gadget to tell ’em when it’s due.”
Kingdom Noisette rubbed his hands. “O aye.” As a bleak norther- ner, he has much in common with Olaf. He removed a pen from a bandolier around his chest and started scribbling on a peeled beer-mat. Already bridges and tunnels were emerging from his fevered doodling, like a length of spaghetti which forms a momentary meaningful phrase as it rises out of the deeps of a bubbling pot. When he finished, he studied the beer-mat critically and ordered a pint of brown ale.
Olaf obligingly drew him a tankard of mead.
“Time to think about preventative measures?” the engineer ventured, with a laboured wink. “When’s it to be? Don’t be coy, laddie. I’m ready to meet a challenge. How long have we got? Couple o’ years? Won’t catch me by surprise. I know how it’ll happen.”
“Really?” I was intrigued, despite my scepticism.
“Of course.” He inverted an ashtray and prodded the burnt matches and cigar stubs with his finger. “Pretend this is Lladloh,” he said, as he arranged the debris into a fair analogue of the village. “Here’s the solution!” With a splutter, as if his mouth was crammed with mushy peas, he emptied his glass over the counter. The liquid swept away the model, propelling it over the side into Olaf’s lap. “We’re all going to drown!” Slamming his fist into the diminishing lake, he lapsed into a peculiar dialect. His whiskers bristled fearsomely.
I moaned. The style of his arguments, his oratorical vehemence, was partly my fault. I once fried him a tasty cashew paella, containing some notes on the philosophy of two classical political figures, William Pitt and John Stuart Mill. By a process of osmosis, he absorbed and refined a technique of harangue which I liked to term ‘Pitt and Mill’. Since then, I only prepared Yorkshire Pudding for him.
“That’s it, laddies!” he bawled. “The sea-level hasn’t stopped its relentless rise. Pulling itself up by its bootstraps, it is! Lladloh has a watery grave awaiting! I saw it, you know. I watched the block o’ ice sail past. Like a lump o’ white coal!”
The Reverend and I exchanged glances. In addition to the old myths which plagued Lladloh like toads, new legends sometimes emerged to hold their hands. One such was the tale of the last iceberg: apparently, it floated past the previous summer, shining like a gargantuan granule of sugar—to use the description of Hywel the Baker, one of the witnesses. Rumour soon elaborated the sighting: when it melted, as it surely would, the additional fluid would be just enough to cover the whole of Lladloh, with the exception of the weather-peacock on the steeple of the mortuary chapel. I regarded this theory with suspicion, suggesting instead that the phenomenon was attributable to a tired cumulus cloud resting on the waves. Though a chef, I am a rational man.
“Not to worry,” added Kingdom Noisette. “I’ve been scheming. What we need are sea-defences—seal off the whole town! High walls ringing the valley, like women dancers round a handbag!”
Delves snorted. “You’ll never get planning permission.”
But the engineer was lost to reason; he snatched up his drawings, folded them in a pocket and scuttled away. He was careful not to crease his frock-coat in the wind of his rush—his alternative profession was that of tailor. Suave in an archaic fashion, he had managed to reconcile his two interests by designing a steam-powered sewing-machine. When the door slammed behind him, Delves confessed his worries. The engineer, he said, might be able to persuade the mayor, who was turning senile, to let him proceed with the enterprise.
“Let him indulge his risible fantasies,” I replied. “It is our duty to approach the problem logically.”
“I suppose you’re right. Tonight, after your restaurant shift, you must make the stellar observations. We’ll give the figures to Elizabeth Morgan and she can cast the horoscope.”
Before I left the Reverend, I handed him the rule book. He took it with a beatific expression. “Another relic? Ah, the gods smiled on you. What a miracle!” He passed the volume to Olaf, who placed it between the waistcoats of Harker Melmoth and the earrings of Rosemary Gibbet-Pardoe, most evil of Beer’or’s avatars. As I departed, worshippers came in for matins. At the end of the service, Delves would allow them to sip from O’Casey’s glass—Guinness was sure protection against the forces which sought to reclaim Lladloh for Beer’or, god of lager. I had never tasted either brew—I was an atheist.
I walked across the central square, skirting the massive statue of the primary Homunculus, abysmal poet and mediocre sorcerer, who presided over Lladloh’s most spectacular apocalypse. At his heel, a sculpture of Tourmaline, the triple-bodied, single-headed Cerberus of an alternative Hades, looked up in infernal loyalty. This figure was a recent addition, cleverly stitched together from drowned hounds by Medardo. It was going off; worms dripped from its tongue.
These, of course, provided my main source of bait. Apart from holy relics, I also fish for skate and bream for my tables. With seafood, I can achieve wonders, masking a whole disquisition on heraldry under the slipper-like flavours. But there was no need to collect worms today; my night exploits on the pier were to consist less of angling than angles. Reaching my kitchen, I started chopping herbs and vegetables, preparing a new variation on the lasagne theme. Herodotus, the cat who lives in my largest cauldron, emerged to study me.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked him, but he seemed disinclined for conversation and merely offered a yawn.
The subject of phantoms had obsessed me since the Reverend employed one in his carousel conceit. I began to wonder if all wraiths had to be organic in origin: was it conceivable that inanimate objects might have souls? I debated this matter with myself while I cruelly hung, drew and quartered onions and slit the wrists of tomatoes. As I filled the oven with charcoal, struggling to light it with a match, I felt the fibrous presence of all the produce I had brutally slaughtered in that room. It was almost enough to make me free the potatoes and liberate the spices from their jars, those hideous oubliettes.
When the sun set, I reluctantly opened my doors to the public.
Only a dozen customers came to sit and eat away the evening. Beerbohm Soames, true to his name, made do with a yard of ale in which floated petals of a monstrous orchid—and an essay on ancient sociology. D.F. Lewis, with his neatly trimmed beard, ordered a curry spiked with maps of Napoleonic campaigns. Bigamy Bertha opted for the cucumber salad, containing sundry examples of antique musical instruments, all edible. When the last cup of coffee was drunk, I ushered out the lingerers and hurried down to the pier, the astrolabe attached to my thumb.
My calculations were completed just as dawn’s left hand snared the mortuary chapel’s steeple in a noose of light—actually it took several attempts before managing to lasso it; and the sun forgot to whoop as it pulled itself over the horizon. I neglected my bed in favour of wisdom, taking my results straight to Cobweb Cottage.
The Reverend was waiting for me. We gingerly knocked and Elizabeth Morgan let us in. Although she is my beloved, she does not know this; I keep my lust secret. I have been hurt too often in the past. Whenever I obtain a girlfriend, they bid me “Ciao!” and I am never sure if they are ending the relationship or calling my name. Accordingly, I did not look up as we entered the leaning structure. Delves and I were given cushions to sit on and Elizabeth Morgan cast the horoscope before us. Lladloh, of course, is Aries with Sagittarius rising.
The gorgeous auburn-haired witch completed the nativity chart and I cried impatiently: “How long left?” Both Reverend Delves and myself were totally unprepared for her answer.
“Six days,” she replied, indicating the relevant symbols. No amount of pleading could encourage her to amend this prophecy; there were no mistakes. We had less than a week.
As we left, the Reverend and I supported each other; our knees were filled not with cartilage but semolina. Elizabeth waved us farewell, but I was too weak to return the gesture. Unable to fully assimilate what we had been told, we staggered in the direction of my kitchen. My cupboards contained a supply of quinine and brandy.
