by Mark Morris
An altercation this evening. Evelyn says I am spending far too much time in the shed with my typewriter, to which I replied that a working man is entitled to his small pleasures, and I would not be in the shed at all if the machine were permitted in the house. Voices were raised and the children wept. Evelyn dashed to the bedroom and locked the door. I could hear her crying into the pillows, the foolish woman, so removed to the shed where I lovingly polished the typebars F through to U.
Thursday 30th January 1964
On the way home I bought some carnations from Cheeky Dave’s stall and presented them to Evelyn. It softened the edges, somewhat. By the time we’d finished tea, she could look me in the eye again. She even managed a smile. We then gathered about the fire and listened to the wireless. Patricia showed me her new dance. An imperfect tap dance, of sorts, but then she is only eight. Christopher showed me the book he had borrowed from the library: an illustrated abridgment of Treasure Island. He turned to a picture of Long John Silver, and this made me think of Temple, which in turn made me think of the typewriter. Suddenly I yearned to be in the shed, cleaning ink from the typebars and listening to the comforting click of the ribbon spools. I even stood up, quite distracted from Christopher’s enthusiasm, and took two steps towards the door. Then I stopped. That I would rather be in a cold shed than spend time with my wonderful family filled me with shame. I dropped to one knee, pulled my children close, and whispered that I loved them.
As deep as my obsession with the typewriter runs, it will not come between me and my family. When convenient, I shall tinker. Until then, I shall not.
Saturday 1st February 1964
Ordered: 1 x carriage release lever, 1 x backspace lever, 1 x replacement rubber for platen, 1 x space bar, 1 x shift key, 1 x type guide, 2 x paper guides, 4 x typebars (G, O, T, M), 6 x face keys (B, E, H, O, R, W), 1 x ribbon, 1 x bell.
I spent all day looking around specialist shops in London. Evelyn was in a foul mood when I returned home.
Sunday 22nd March 1964
It is done. After more than two months of fastidious cleaning, fiddling, adjusting, and waiting for parts, the typewriter is now in working order. Not quite as polished as I had hoped, but a vast improvement on the eyesore I brought home from Temple’s Bric-à-Brac. Even Evelyn stated that I did a splendid job and has allowed me to bring it into the house (although a whiff of dead puppy remains; try as I have, I simply cannot eradicate it). I set it on a table in the back room, where we keep all manner of items too cumbersome to transfer to the loft: the children’s old cot, a wardrobe with a cracked mirror in the door, Auntie Mabel’s mangle, which we inherited after a rather unfortunate mishap. I must admit to a wonderful feeling of achievement, to have breathed new life into something so fractured… so pitiable. I wonder if heart surgeons feel the same way after a successful operation. Needless to say, I was as happy as a sandboy this evening, singing along to the BBC Light Programme, dancing with Patricia, and play-wrestling with Christopher on the living room floor.
“You’re in good spirits, Arthur,” Evelyn remarked. “Perhaps we should get you to fix some things around the house.”
To which I laughed, twirled her in my arms, and planted a kiss on her lips.
Later, with the children in bed and Evelyn listening to her favourite show, I retired to the back room with a sheaf of foolscap, thinking I would compose a brief poem on my restored machine, one pertinent to my good mood. I pulled a chair to the table and sat for a moment, admiring my handiwork, and then fed a sheet of paper into the carriage. Before beginning, I thought I should test the quality of each letter, but no sooner had I set my fingers upon the keys than a dire sensation gripped me. It was like nothing I’d felt before, and I lost all sense of myself. My fingers rattled upon the keys with a will of their own. I heard the typebars strike the page and the carriage judder to the left. With a gasp I pulled—yes, pulled: an act of force—my hands from the keytop and stood up quickly. The chair toppled over but I barely noticed; my attention was on the page. Whereas I had intended to type, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” what I had actually typed was, “Kill the cunt. Cut her in half.”
I took a quick, sharp breath, then pulled the page from the carriage and crumpled it in my hands. I was shocked beyond measure, and my heart raced in my chest. I cast a distrustful eye upon the typewriter and stepped away from it, but not before catching my reflection in the cracked mirror on the wardrobe door. I’m sure it was a device of the mirror’s imperfection, but I was certain I saw two reflections: my own, and that of a distorted figure looming not behind, but within me, like a blurred photograph.
I hurried from the back room, disposed of the offensive sheet of paper (I pushed it to the bottom of the dustbin, where Evelyn would not find it), then washed my hands and joined my wife in the living room.
She was too absorbed in her show to notice my strained smile.
Monday 23rd March 1964
Couldn’t concentrate at work today. Thinking about the typewriter, more particularly about the odd sensation that overcame me, and the words—those shocking words—that had jumped unbidden across the page.
I returned home subdued and confused. Evelyn asked what was wrong and I told her only half the truth—that I’d had a long and stressful day. The lamb chops and mint sauce cheered me up a little, although the mashed potatoes were cold and lumpy.
Avoided the back room, but felt the typewriter calling to me.
This is all very disturbing.
Tuesday 24th March 1964
Called in sick today after a night of terrible dreams. In the most vivid of them I stood in the living room with a human kidney in my hands. The wireless played, not the BBC Light Programme, but a melody of clicks, clacks and bells. I turned to the fire, then laid the kidney gently amongst the flames. It hissed and sizzled. I gave it a couple of prods with the poker, then turned around, my chest swelling with pride.
I awoke in a dishevelled state, dripping with perspiration, my heart pounding in my chest.
I think I’m coming down with something.
Friday 27th March 1964
Feverish for… I don’t know how long. Days? Yes, days. In bed writing this. The room is spinning and the sheets smell of sickness. I can barely read my own writing. Think I’ll sleep for a while.
Monday 30th March 1964
The fever continues and every sound hurts. I need a shave. I’m a whiskery chap. Like a sailor. No, like a pirate. Arrrrggh! Did you hear that the quick brown fox jumped over the dead puppy? What a terrible smell. Arrrrrrrggggghhh!
Tuesday 14th April 1964
It is illogical to fear an inanimate object (unless the object happens to be a NaziV-1 Doodlebug, as my dear grandmother discovered—God rest her soul). After three weeks of avoiding the typewriter, I decided to confront it, having attributed the previous aberration to the fledgling stages of my illness.
And so, after tea, I entered the back room and found the typewriter as I had left it, sitting on the table, its U-shaped typebars resembling the wings of an insect about to take flight. I pulled up a seat and wiped sweat from my brow, then grabbed a sheet of foolscap and rolled it into position.
I placed my fingers on the keytop and typed, “Cut their juglars very quiet with a razer and use an ax to lop off their fucken limbs.”
So, nothing to worry about, then. And all the letters in fine working order.
Jolly good.
Wednesday 22nd April 1964
Writing diary entry on typewriter for first time. Why not, eh? Will cut out her kidne and snip off her fingurs and staple it into the diary proper.
Rather a long day at work. Drummond still giving me flack for taking two weeks off sick, but I had a doctor’s note so I don’t know what his problem is I’ll kil him too cut his fucken throat the toad.
The family was in fine form tonight. Jollity all around. Nothing I lik more than to watch someon bleed.
Sausage, egg and chips for tea.
Thursday 23rd
April 1964
Wrote a poem tonight on my typewriter. A rather beautiful piece, reminiscent of Coleridge. I may try to get it published.
Friday 24th April 1964
My reflection in the cracked mirror is a peculiar thing. The defect runs directly down the middle of my face. On one side I appear quite normal. On the other I am distorted. My mouth is twisted, my eye dripping, and the air around me is dank with shadow. However, when I move away from the table upon which the typewriter sits, my reflection snaps back into something more familiar. It is simply me again, on both sides of the crack. A handsome devil, it has to be said.
Saturday 9th May 1964
Received a rather stern rejection from Ambit magazine, requesting I never sully their slush pile with my filth again. A perplexing response.
Sunday 10th May 1964
Another quarrel with Evelyn. Been happening a lot of late. She suggests that I haven’t been myself, and that our relationship is fractured. I of course told her that she was being downright silly, but I wonder…
She is sleeping now. I have spent the last twenty minutes or so standing by her bedside, staring at her. Moonlight spills through the window and her skin seems so pale, and so breakable. I think how vulnerable her eyes are, and how soft her lips. It amazes me how easily she would shatter.
We are such fragile creatures.
Wednesday 20th May 1964
Tried my hand at some traditional Japanese haiku. I have stapled one into the diary:
Slyce the bitch open
Krimson petals stane the floor
Her eyes close slowly.
Will submit to Ambit. Reject that, you buggers!
Tuesday 23rd June 1964
The last month or so has been extremely trying. Diary entries have been sporadic, at best, but I’ll try to cover the important things here.
I’ll begin by saying that Evelyn has threatened to take the children and leave. She has called my behaviour damnable and believes I need psychiatric help. She doesn’t like my beard either. She says it makes me look like a Russian. The beard (which I think looks rather dashing) is a problem that can be solved with a pair of scissors and a sharp razor. I am more concerned with other issues.
Namely, the typewriter.
I began to suspect a deviance about the little machine, something—dare I say it?—paranormal. Not simply because of the dead-puppy smell, or my deformed reflection when I’m typing. There is a disquieting presence about it… a dismalness to the clacking of the keys and the peal of the tiny bell, and I believe some small measure of it has leaked into me. And so I hastened to the one man who would know about such things: Watkins. I cornered him on his lunch break. He was eating marmalade sandwiches, like Paddington Bear, and reading a book on radiesthesia.
“Watkins,” I said. “I need your expertise.”
“The Purley contract?” he enquired worriedly.
“No,” I said. “Something even more inexplicable.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Is it possible,” I began, “for a non-living object to be spiritually possessed?”
“You mean like a house?”
“No,” I replied. “Something smaller.”
“A packet of fags?”
“Don’t be an imbecile.”
“Well, what do you mean, Arthur? Spit it out.”
I told him about the typewriter. I thought, prior to our conversation, that I would share only the relevant details, but found myself divulging everything, from the dead-puppy smell to the fact that my wife now sleeps in a separate bed. He listened, munching his marmalade sandwiches, nodding occasionally, and when I finished he took a pen from a pot on his desk and wrote down the name and telephone number of someone who could help.
“Kingsley Pringle?” I asked, eyeing the piece of paper suspiciously. “Is this a psychiatrist, Watkins? Do you think I’m bananas?”
“Not at all,” he said. “Pringle is the most renowned psychometrist in the UK, and luckily for you, he’s right here in Bermondsey.”
“Psychometrist?” I said.
Watkins nodded. “It is believed that all things—be they animal, vegetable, or mineral—have a unique vibratory signature. The psychometrist, through touch, is able to channel this energy and divine aspects of the subject’s history. For instance, he or she might touch an item of clothing and be able to tell you to whom it belonged. Pringle is particularly remarkable, and has several times been employed by Scotland Yard. He has touched murder victims, weapons, etcetera, and provided the police with vital information.”
“Fascinating,” I said.
“Quite,” Watkins agreed. A blob of marmalade dripped onto his tie. “Take your typewriter to Pringle, and he’ll be able to tell you more about it than you probably want to know.”
I thanked Watkins, went to my own desk, and called the number at once. Pringle answered. Our conversation was brisk. I told him about the typewriter and made an appointment for the following evening.
Pringle lives in a gloomy block of flats on The Grange. I took the bus to Tower Bridge Road (feeling somewhat odd with the typewriter perched on my lap) and walked from there. He lives on the top floor, of course, which meant I had to lug the beast up four flights of stairs. I was out of breath when I reached his door.
“Clayworth?”
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr Pringle.”
“Come in,” he said.
I had expected a bright, fox-faced man in wire-framed spectacles, but Pringle was a dour-looking oldster with a plumage of silver hair and dandruff on his shoulders. He asked for payment of one pound up front, then led me to a room furnished only with a table and chair. At his request, I set the typewriter on the table and stepped back.
“An Oliver number 6,” he said, looking at it carefully, but not touching.
“Yes,” I replied. “It was in terrible con—”
“Shh.” He waved one porky digit in the air. “Don’t tell me anything.”
I bit my lip and nodded mutely.
“Partially restored.”
I wasn’t sure if it was a question or not, so remained silent.
“1909, I believe.”
I shrugged.
“And an ugly mite, if ever there was one.”
“It has a certain charm,” I said, having become used to defending the typewriter. Evelyn calls it the cockroach, and has begged me to get rid of it. But I cannot bring myself to discard something I worked so hard to restore. With my hands I made it comely (to my eye, at least), working in a cold shed to bring it to life. It feels like a part of me.
“Charm,” Pringle repeated. He shook his head and took a seat at the table. “Now, I ask that you remain quiet, Clayworth. I require absolute silence when scrying.”
“Scrying?”
“Shh.” The porky digit again.
I have since learned that Pringle has “scried” over a thousand objects, many of them with huge degrees of success. Smaller objects he places against his forehead. Those too heavy to lift are touched with hand position aligned with certain celestial energies. His usual reaction is a light fluttering of the eyelids and perhaps a few mumbled phrases. Then he will break contact and reveal what he has learned.
On this occasion, he assumed the position, placed his hands on either side of the typewriter, and immediately started to tremble—and quite violently too, as if several thousand volts of electricity were passing through his body. I, of course, thought this a normal aspect of the scrying process, along with the frothing at the corners of his mouth, so simply stood and watched, silently, as requested. However, I suspected something was awry when I smelled his silver plumage burning and noticed blood trickling from his ears.
“I say… Pringle?”
Pringle shrieked. He pulled his hands from the machine and flew backwards in his chair, spilling to the floor in a most ungainly manner.
“My dear man,” I said. “Is this quite normal?”
“Evil,” he said, holding his head. Tears sparkled
in the corners of his eyes. “I’ve never known such evil. And it’s restless… looking for—”
“What are you talking about?” I took a step backward.
“Blood… screaming.”
I shook my head. The sight of Pringle so distressed, and the smell of his burning hair, was extremely unsettling.
“Go,” he pleaded, waving at the door. “And take that infernal machine with you.”
“Go?” I asked, gathering the typewriter to my chest. “But I gave you a pound.”
Pringle drew a long breath that sounded like the wind rattling my windows. Tendrils of smoke rippled from his scalp.
“What do you mean by evil?” I asked. “I shan’t leave without answers.”
The psychometrist regarded me with his small, wet eyes. “That typewriter belonged to Emory Grist. That’s all I can tell you. Now please… leave!”
That name, Emory Grist, was familiar to me. I pondered it on the bus ride home, but couldn’t place it—one of those annoying tip-of-the-tongue things. Evelyn would know, but she was sleeping by the time I arrived home, so I didn’t disturb her. I waited until the following day at work and asked Watkins.
“Leather Apron strikes again,” Watkins said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“That was the headline in the Evening Standard,” Watkins said. “April of 1910, I believe. Emory Grist killed six women in Whitechapel in the space of three weeks. Cut their throats in two places, from left to right, and disembowelled them too. The similarities to Leather Apron—also known as Jack the Ripper—were so remarkable that many people believed Grist and the Ripper were one and the same.”
My heart dropped in my chest. I shook my head and took a deep breath.
“Grist killed himself in a house fire as the police were closing in,” Watkins continued. “To this day nobody knows if he truly was the Ripper.”
“House fire,” I said vaguely, recalling the scorch marks on the typewriter’s body.
“Then there were the letters,” Watkins said.
“The letters?”
“From Hell.” Watkins grinned and rubbed his chin. “In 1888 someone purporting to be Jack the Ripper sent a letter to the head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. The communication was badly misspelled—deliberately, some scholars believe—and accompanied by a portion of human kidney. The address in the top corner read simply, ‘From Hell.’ Twenty-two years later, Emory Grist did something eerily similar. The only notable differences were that his letters were sent to Scotland Yard, and they weren’t handwritten… they were typed.”
