Nowhere Near Milkwood

by Rhys Hughes

  The floor of this remarkable establishment, however, is constructed of a truly unusual substance. In old Norse legends, it is told of a ship called Naglfar that will sail at the end of the world and is made entirely out of toenails. You may imagine anxious relatives of some recently mangled Viking taking due care to remove his toenails before he breathes his last – in an effort to delay the building of the ship and thus the end of the world. This is absolutely true.

  The floor of the TALL STORY is not made out of toenails, but something far more offensive. It is made out of unnecessary words. All the words that are spoken for no good reason end up on this floor. That is why the floor keeps expanding toward the roof and why more and more drinkers keep striking their heads on those cedar wood beams – one day the floor will touch the ceiling.

  This partly explains why Hywel winces whenever someone says something which contains more words than it should. If Harold the Barrel or Billy Belay ever cry over their jackstraws “Look here, see,” or “I’ll be there now in a minute,” Hywel cringes and hides his face. Both the “see” and the “now” spin out of their ungainly mouths, like shooting stars, and add their bulk to their brothers and sisters that lie trampled before them. It really is appalling.

  To discourage customers such as Harold and Billy, tyrannical Hywel keeps a rather heavy reminder behind the counter. This reminder is made of oak and is tipped with iron. It is about four feet long.

  When Harold the Barrel and Billy Belay are not playing jackstraws in some dark corner, they are usually arguing with each other about which of them has had the more incredible life. They are both committed eccentrics. Harold is convinced that he can fly; sometimes he will stand on his chair and leap off, flapping his arms furiously. Billy is no less modest. He claims that he is a ghost and will often attempt to prove his point by walking into the pub without opening the door. Failure in both cases does not seem to deter them.

  Other regulars are equally weird and wonderful. There is Madame Ligeia, the half-Gypsy mystic who lives in a tie-dyed caravan and who can only foretell the past – never the future. She is passionately jealous of rivals and once threw a fellow psychic bodily out of the tavern. She explains her brooding hatred of her magical colleagues simply by saying: “Too many sayers spoil the sooth.”

  Even more menacing is Dr Karl Mondaugen, the mad scientist of Munich. He is a cryptozoologist by profession but his hobbies include inventing bizarre and terrible devices the purpose of which eludes everybody, including himself. With his wild hair and little round glasses he certainly looks the part. He sometimes sits at the far end of the lounge, right in front of the low stage which is used every Tuesday night for lengthy jazz sessions.

  “He has more than five hundred inventions to his credit,” Hywel tells me with a wink, “and most of them are utterly useless. They include such inspired works of genius as:

  The Solar Powered Torch,

  The Wind Powered Fan,

  The Wave Powered Whisk.

  And that is just a sample of the most successful ones! I ask you, what can be done with someone like that?” Hywel blinks and offers me an exasperated grimace. I can only shake my head in reply.

  While we mull over the sheer strangeness of life, the doors swing open and three weary climbers make their way painfully over to the bar. They are a ragged trio, rucksacks hanging like deflated lungs from their shoulders, ropes trailing in the dust behind them. They order double whiskeys each and then retire to a long table near the blazing hearth. I note that two of them maintain a slight distance from their companion.

  “Those are the Three Friends,” Hywel informs me. “I could tell a tale or two about them for sure. But I’d rather tell you about the time that Karl Mondaugen built a fridge so powerful it could freeze things instantly. Unfortunately, he put the components in the wrong way round and froze the whole world solid. Luckily it made no difference at all to anything and no-one noticed. It froze things so quickly that they all remained warm.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I say. I have even less faith in Hywel’s stories than he has in mine. Occasionally we each like to humour the other; more frequently we attempt to uplift a hogshead of gentle scorn over his head.

  “Well let me tell you about his latest project then,” Hywel replies. “He’s building a machine for me that will be able to recycle all those unnecessary words that clutter up the floor. The idea is that whole new sentences can be put together from all the leavings of the old ones.”

  I make a wry face and gaze beyond Hywel at the rows of jars and bottles that stand beneath the tall impossible mirror (why it is an impossible mirror is another story!) Among the vermouth and rum crowd a few dubious looking green glass affairs within whose murky depths flicker strange shapes.

  Inside the mirror, which often shows false scenes out of sequence, two figures seem to be arguing about fruit. These men are Byron and Julian, but I don’t know that yet. Nor that the girl who has just entered, panting with exhaustion, is called Laura and has been chased through a forest. Further along, on the very edge of the reflection, a man by the name of Charlton Radish is proposing a new type of police force with powers over the laws of nature as well as society. It’s a ridiculous idea, and so will probably come true.

  “If I talk about any of those people...” Hywel begins, but he is cut short by a sudden crash. We turn around to find that Harold the Barrel and Billy Belay are wrestling with each other on the floor. Harold has attempted to fly again and has landed on the head of Billy who, confident that solid objects can pass right through him, has made no attempt to move out of the way.

  “I’d rather know more about those two,” I answer with a smile. “Why do they believe what they do? Why does Harold think he can fly? And why is Billy convinced that he is a ghost?”

  Hywel nods his head in agreement. “Now there’s a ripe pair of tales for you! Pull your stool in a little closer and let me pour you another drink and I’ll explain everything. It really is a startling sequence of events.”

  I take out my notebook and pen and wait for Hywel to commence. It is difficult writing and drinking at the same time, but I am willing to learn. Despite what people say, it is not all play in the TALL STORY; sometimes we work as well.

  4: Learning to Fly

  When Harold saw the advert in the paper, he grew very excited. His breath came in short gasps and little muscles in his neck twitched. The advert said: LEARN THE SECRET OF FLIGHT. Harold sighed with pleasure. This was the chance he had been waiting for.

  He had always wanted to be able to fly. Even as a boy he had dreamed of being an owl. Flapping his huge tawny wings, he would swoop down from the trees and soar over the river. At night, he was convinced that his spirit left his body and danced with the clouds.

  And now, at last, it seemed that his dream would come true. At the bottom of the advert there was a name and address. Dr Lithiums, World Levitation Expert, 66 Park Road. Harold memorised the address, pulled on his coat and set off to find it.

  As he made his way down the streets of the old town, he extended his arms and glided around the pedestrians who stared at him in amazement. Once, a woman in a large fruity hat attacked him with her handbag, but Harold did not care. He felt completely at ease.

  Before long, he found the address and knocked on the door. It was answered by a pale woman with hard features and cold grey eyes who gazed at him with a sneer. “I’ve come about the flying lessons,” he said shyly. “Is Dr Lithiums here?”

  The woman’s expression brightened. She led him into a filthy room stuffed full with broken furniture. A small seedy man sat hunched over a flickering television, a bottle of whisky clutched in his fingerless gloves. Harold guessed that he had not washed for a long time.

  “This is Dr Lithiums,” the woman announced.

  “How do you do?” Harold offered him his hand. The man ignored it and rolled a cigarette. He began to chuckle and mumble to himself. His chuckle turned to a cough and he wiped spittle from his lips with his r
agged sleeve.

  Harold recoiled and stepped into a plate of curry that had been left on the floor. As he hopped on one foot, trying to clean his shoe with a handkerchief, the woman glowered defensively. “We could spend most of our time flying through the air,” she said. “We don’t need to keep our floors clean.”

  At this mention of his favourite subject, Harold forgot the squalor and closed his eyes. He imagined himself floating above the smokestacks of the city, high over the gardens, bobbing along on currents of air like a helium balloon. He opened his eyes and began to laugh. “I also want to fly,” he said. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “It’s expensive. Twenty thousand pounds for the secret.”

  Harold’s jaw dropped open. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. It was empty.

  “You can pay in instalments,” the woman suggested.

  Harold groaned. The bubble of his dream had burst, leaving nothing but a little soapy water on the wallpaper of his life. He stumbled over old milk cartons and cereal boxes towards the door. His soul dragged in the grime behind him.

  “Wait!” The woman raced in front of him and barred his exit. “There is another way. You can earn it.”

  With bowed head, Harold listened to her proposal. The next morning, he returned with a dustpan and brush. He cleaned the floor and the grate, painted the doors and polished every surface. He mended the broken furniture and washed a pile of dishes so tall it touched the ceiling.

  Throughout all this activity, Dr Lithiums remained silent, staring at the battered television. When he had drained his bottle of whisky, the woman would prise it out of his hands and replace it with a full one. This seemed to represent the only contact between them.

  Harold attempted to talk to the man, but the man merely muttered obscenities in return. Harold wondered if this was all part of the necessary preparation. He returned to his task with renewed vigour and disturbed the thick dust on the man’s bald head.

  As the days passed, Harold grew weary, but his enthusiasm did not wane. However, when the days turned to weeks and the weeks became months, he finally began to suspect that he was the victim of a deception. One cold morning, he arrived at the house and the woman said: “You’re five minutes late. Go into the kitchen and make my breakfast.”

  Harold threw his duster down in disgust. “I’ve had enough of this. I demand that you tell me the secret.”

  The woman frowned. “You haven’t earned it yet. There is still much work to be done.”

  Harold raised himself up to his full height. “Either you tell me the secret now, or I’ll break your television.” He clenched his fists while the man in the chair whimpered.

  The woman sighed. She whispered a few words into his ear and Harold managed a sarcastic laugh. “Utter nonsense! I should have known this was all a trick. It’s obvious now. Why have I never seen either of you fly?”

  “You don’t understand.” The woman watched him depart and shook her head sadly. She regarded her clean shiny home. She could not afford to lose such an excellent pupil. “Perhaps I should have explained,” she said to herself. “Perhaps I should have told him the rest.”

  But as he walked down the street, and she noticed the gap between his feet and the ground, she knew how to get him back.

  Moving to the writing desk and selecting a piece of paper, she planned another advert. She wrote: LEARN TO GET DOWN AGAIN.

  5: Learning to Fall

  Southerndown is a village maybe fifteen miles west of Cardiff; a windswept, dramatic place with towering sea cliffs and a rocky shore that is like the surface of the moon. There are few coastal areas in the whole country that can compare with it for natural beauty. The tides are enormous and the breakers pound the sloping beach like monstrous tongues, refilling rock pools with wide-eyed crabs and starfish and breaking open new caves in the limestone walls.

  Billy Belay had set off from Southerndown toward Nash Point with a bag that contained an anvil and a rope. He passed Dunraven – with its mouldering castle and picnickers – and carried on for another mile or so. The weather was warm and perspiration dripped the length of his nose. When he had found an isolated spot along the cliff-top path, he took the anvil out of his bag, secured it to his neck with the rope and hurled himself over the edge.

  What he was really trying to achieve is anyone’s guess, although the obvious should not be overlooked. At any rate, destiny had different plans for him; the tide was in, but somehow he was washed up onto a patch of dry sand, anvil and all, suffering no more injury than a bruised nethermost. At the same instant, he fell into a kind of swoon and it was some long minutes before he regained his senses.

  When he did, he was bewildered. There seemed to be no explanation as to why he was still conscious. “But I’m dead!” he cried. As far as he was concerned, the fall had killed him outright. “I must be a ghost,” he finally decided. As he thought about the prospect more carefully, it began to delight him. As a ghost he was released from all earthly ties and constraints. He would be able to do as he pleased. There were no rules anymore. He was free.

  “I’m a ghost!” he repeated. He picked himself up and removed the anvil from his neck. It did not suit him anyway. He brushed the sand from his clothes and gazed around warily. Nobody had witnessed his demise, and yet his body had disappeared. If he was a ghost surely he would be floating above his mangled frame at this very instant?

  Dismissing the question from his mind, he made his way painfully along the beach back toward Dunraven. He supposed that he was not the first ghost to haunt this particular stretch of coastline. Indeed, he remembered a legend about a wrecker who used to lure ships to their doom with false beacons and whose spectre was still said to fret and howl on stormy nights.

  Billy wondered if he would meet this wrecker, whose name he had forgotten. He did not know if ghosts were confined to the area in which they had died, but he assumed that they were. A professor had once come to Cardiff to give a lecture on this subject; Cherlomsky was his name, but Billy had slept all the way through his talk. He pressed on regardless and before long had reached Dunraven. Here he paused and scratched his insubstantial chin.

  Throughout his life, he had never played a single practical joke on anyone. This was not because he held such pranks in contempt but simply because of cowardice. He had been frightened of reprisals. Certain of his acquaintances, such as Alan Griffiths and Gareth Thomas, were forever tormenting each other with elaborate tricks and he had always viewed their antics with a measure of jealousy.

  Now, however, he was safe from reprisals. As a ghost, he could cause as much mischief as he liked to anyone and everyone. Ghosts were allowed to do things like this and nobody criticised them for it. Indeed, it was acceptable behaviour on their part and sometimes even encouraged.

  As he pondered on this, he happened to espy a lone fisherman sitting on a rock and gazing out to sea. He resolved to flex his ghostly muscles at once and crept up behind him. Placing his mouth to the man’s ear, he yelled: “Boo!”

  Instantly, the fisherman leapt up, dropped his rod and line and began running down the beach – his face as white as a summer cloud. Billy felt very pleased with himself. It works! he thought. I’m a real ghost! I’m a real phantom!

  His second victim was a boy who was busy eating an ice-cream. Billy snatched the ice-cream away and thrust it into the boy’s face. The boy burst into tears and the tears mixed with the ice-cream smeared on his cheeks. He too fled, arms waving.

  I’m a ghost! Billy thought again. He was truly elated now. He opened his mouth and cried: “I’m a GHOST!” It was as if he wanted the seagulls to take up his cry and spread it far abroad, so as to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that here was a phantom not to be trifled with, unless of course the trifle was a strawberry one. (Billy wondered if ghosts needed to eat; he hoped they did.)

  While he congratulated himself on his quick thinking in hurling himself over the edge of the cliff, becoming a ghost and adapting to his role with suc
h alacrity, he came across a bizarre sight. On his hands and knees a strange figure was engaged with a peculiar contraption. As he moved closer, Billy saw that it was made of two glass bottles joined neck to neck. The figure was muttering to himself: “Common hourglasses have sand on the inside and the world all around – my hourglass will have the world on the inside and sand all around!”

  Billy knew the man as Karl Mondaugen, the mad scientist of Munich, who now lived in Ogmore by Sea. Billy peered closer at the glass device and frowned as he seemed to see moving figures within it. Shrugging, he reached out his ghostly hands and gave the eccentric academic a spooky tickle with his icy phantasmagorical fingers. The scientist shrieked and fell onto the contraption, smashing both bottles beneath his body and wailing in terror and dismay.

  Billy rubbed his hands together and walked on. By the time he had reached the village of Southerndown, he had committed another eleven acts of ghostliness, including disrupting a group of geology students by dancing around them with great whoops and hideous chuckles. As he headed inland towards the village, he had already acquired a considerable taste for mischief and saw no earthly reason why he should not gorge himself sick on yet more courses.

  Ruining a funeral was next and snatching a postman’s sack, casting letters all over the road, came after that. The main feast, however, was the incident with the poodle. Out of the Church Hall, haunt of the local Amateur Dramatics Society, came ungainly Mrs Featherstonehaugh, carrying her poodle under her arm. She had been rehearsing Blithe Spirit with her colleagues – a delicious irony, although Billy was unaware of this. He simply crept up behind her and...