by Miles Gibson
Figg said nothing.
“And, of course, there would be an increase in your wages,” I added casually, as I caught her engagement ring winking at me.
“Well, I don’t know – I should have to ask my mother,” she said doubtfully and I knew she was counting the cost of her wedding dress.
“No, forget it,” I said briskly. “I know it’s impossible. I shouldn’t try to burden you with my problems. I’m sorry.” I stepped back from the mirror and turned towards the door.
Figg dropped her duster in alarm. “Oh, no … I would be glad to help you, Mr Burton,” she stammered and clutched at my arm.
“Thank you,” I whispered and smiled mournfully.
Figg was mine for the rest of the summer! It had been easier to entice her into the attic than I had expected and the arrangement worked perfectly. She worked beside me from dawn until dusk and then spent her evenings with Percy. He must have been excited by her flight from the nest but she never allowed him to take advantage of it. She always came home at night and never invited him to step inside the front door. It must have driven him wild to know that when they parted she trotted back to me for her hot milk and biscuits.
I was determined to give Figg my attic room because I wanted her to sleep in my bed. Of course, it meant that I would be forced to sleep on a broken sofa in some dusty store room at the back of the house. But it was worth the discomfort. Each night I lay down among the cobwebs and the broken springs and fired my dreams with the thought of the enormous Figg rolling naked in my sheets. I hoped that her weight would leave an impression in my mattress so that, when I returned to the bed again, I would be able to sleep in the hollow. I hoped that her perfume would stain the pillows so that when I pressed my face against them again I should be able to capture something of her body. I hoped that she would bewitch my room.
One evening, after Figg had gone to keep her appointment with Percy Pig, I stole into the attic to see if the magic had worked. She had arrived the previous week with nothing more than a large suitcase but her effect upon my room was astonishing. The carpet was covered in spilled shoes. On a chair beside the bed a bunch of abandoned underwear. Huge and heavy blossoms of cotton and lace. Upon the pillows of the bed a chocolate satin nightgown. A picture of a kingfisher, cut from a magazine and pasted on cardboard, had been pinned to the wall beside the window. Beneath the window my table was smothered in make-up and combs and ribbons. And everywhere the smell of her perfume teased me with its peppery sweetness.
The bed was unmade and, to my delight, the sheets contained a ditch the size and shape of the nocturnal Figg. I studied the ditch carefully, tracing the crumpled sheets with my fingers, as if I might uncover the most subtle contours of her body in the linen. And I knew that I was not merely running my hand through an empty bed but stroking the most lovely naked phantom and violating the object of Percy’s ugliest dreams. It was enough to force an entry into Figg’s private room but it was exquisite to know that, in the same moment, I was also robbing Percy’s dreams of their treasure. I was walking where Percy was forbidden to tread. I was rummaging through the secrets Percy was forbidden to discover.
Those ten minutes spent poking around the attic room gave me a more intimate knowledge of the young Wendy Figg than Percy could acquire in ten years of struggling to force his hand up her skirt on some deserted patch of wet sand. While Figg lived in the hotel she belonged to me.
My mother, for her part, accepted Figg in the family without protest. She stayed in her room, took her meals from a tray and generally allowed me to take charge of the hotel. I think she was grateful for the opportunity to rest and read her books. She certainly did nothing to upset the routine and, apart from the brief tantrums she liked to perform for the benefit of the doctor when he made a visit, she remained docile and mute.
She did not recover from her madness until November when the hotel was empty and Figg had gone home to her mother. Then her head seemed to clear as the first winter frost began to bite. It was a remarkable recovery. But, as I expected, when the storms died down in the Atlantic they grew again in my mother’s head and at Easter she was confined once more to her bed. Figg came back to live in the attic and Percy Pig stalked the street outside, muttering darkly to himself.
This arrangement continued for three or four years and might have lasted forever but for the nasty nature of Percy Pig. I had prevented him from mauling the apple of his eye for too long and one night he told Figg their engagement was finished. There was a brief but violent battle in which she threw the cauliflower ring at him and he stamped on it, she slapped his ears and he kicked her ankles, she pulled him to the ground and he screamed beneath her weight. Poor Figg staggered home with her dress torn and blood beneath her fingernails.
I tried to comfort her with hot milk and brandy while she blubbered out her story.
“Don’t cry, dear Figg. He isn’t worth so many tears,” I said gently as I helped her into a chair.
“Oh, Mr Burton, I was so frightened. He shouted at me and used bad language.”
“What did he say to you?” I asked, wondering if I should risk wrapping her sympathetically into my arms and deciding that it was too early in the game.
“I don’t know,” she wailed. “But it was something filthy. And then … he hit me.”
“Why, that’s terrible!” I exploded. “A man should never hit a woman.” Unless she throws the first punch, I thought. “It’s unforgivable. He should be locked away. He’s worse than a wild animal.”
“An animal – that’s exactly how he behaved,” whimpered Figg, her eyes glittering. “He was like an animal. My mother would kill me if she knew what happened … she told me he was only interested in the beast between his legs. He always pestered me. I should have known he was violent.”
“You’re safe now – blow your nose and drink your milk.”
“Oh, Mr Burton, you’re so kind to me. You’re such a gentle person.”
“You mustn’t think that all men are monsters,” I said. Her dress had burst along one seam and her thigh bulged softly through the torn stitches.
“I can’t understand it. I never denied him anything. He was so impatient If only he had waited just a little bit longer. I wanted to marry him. And now … and now …” She wrapped herself in her arms and rocked back and forth in the chair. The stitches in her dress began to creak and unravel towards her knee.
“Are you hurt? Perhaps I should take a look at you?” I said hopefully.
“No,” blubbered Figg. “It’s nothing. I just want to go to bed.”
I gave her a handful of aspirins and helped her to the attic. But she did not sleep and long after midnight I heard her weeping in the rafters. I sat in my pyjamas and cursed Percy for the heartache he had caused. It was the height of the season and I could not run the hotel alone.
Finally I crept up to her room and pressed my face against the door, listening to the pathetic wails and snorts beyond. I wanted to soothe her pains and help her forget it. I could not leave her to her misery. So I opened the door and stepped inside. The room was in darkness but I knew the tread of every floorboard and easily tiptoed to the bed. The victim of Percy’s abuse was buried beneath a blanket with a pillow pulled over her head. There was enough moonlight from the window to distinguish her bulk from the shape of the surrounding furniture. I stood there in my bare feet and peered at the heaving blanket. She was snorting so loudly she had not heard me enter the room. Perhaps I should have introduced myself with a short cough or a tap on the door. Instead I prised open an edge of the blanket and crawled inside. I found Figg’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.
Figg’s shoulder quivered as if she had been electrocuted, her head jumped out from under the pillow and she screamed. I cupped my hand across her mouth, trying to calm her and stop the scream before it reached the guests. But in my haste I speared a nostril with my thumb and she started to struggle.
It was the appropriate moment to identify myself, find Figg’s e
ar and whisper something suitably apologetic into it. But in the excitement she had twisted her head back into the pillow and her ears were stuffed with feathers. She stopped screaming. But I could not surrender my grip for fear she might cripple me. She stopped struggling. But beneath the satin nightdress she felt so loose and hot that I could not pull my hands away. Her skin clung to my fingers like dough.
We lay together moaning gently when she suddenly began to paddle with her feet, banging her heels into my ribs. Her foot caught in the cord of my pyjamas and tore them apart. I tried to catch her by the toes but she was too strong for me and kicked me onto the floor. Frantic that she might escape from the attic and raise the alarm, I snatched at her ankle and dragged her with me as I fell from the bed.
“I love you,” I wheezed as we rolled together. It sounded a trifle foolish but I was a desperate man.
Figg spluttered, sat on my chest and held my head between her knees. The nightdress was dragged up round her waist Her belly rumbled in fury. I was afraid that she might open her thighs and swallow me for, as I stared, I fancied I saw the whiskery chin of some old man she had already swallowed wedged between them. Gradually she squeezed her knees together until I choked. And then, as if the life were flickering out of me, I saw Dorothy drift past my eyes. Little Dorothy wriggling and shrieking in the corner of my aunt’s wardrobe as I had tried to wash her legs with my tongue. It was an inspiration! My tongue flopped out. But when I managed to smack it wetly against Figg’s knees she picked me up by the ears and cracked my head against the floor. My teeth were sharp. My mouth was full of blood.
“I love you,” I moaned as she dragged me up to kiss the old man’s chin and threw me down to hit the floor.
Figg bellowed and continued to bang my head.
“I love you,” I gurgled and tried to escape in a faint.
Through the banging and the blood I heard the clatter of a bell and my mother shouting for help.
At the sound of the bell Figg stopped battering my brains and let my head drop from her hands. We had woken my mother from the sparkling madness of her dreams and now she was trying to wake up the town. Figg stood up and tottered silently to the bed where she fell in an attitude of rigid surrender. Her eyes were screwed shut, her legs were open and the old man’s chin tilted at the ceiling. I think she was waiting for the police.
I scrambled from the floor, kicked the shredded pyjamas from my ankles, caught them in my hand and ran from the attic. When I reached my room I snapped on the lights, locked the door and inspected my wounds in the mirror. My tongue had stopped bleeding and my ears were not torn. It wasn’t too bad. I dressed carefully, combed my hair and went to calm my mother.
As I hurried along the corridor I heard the muffled roar of the guests as they crowded outside in the street, squinting up at the hotel, waiting for flames to spit from the windows. The building had been evacuated, doors were open and lights blazed. When I reached my mother I found her standing on her dressing-table, swinging the fire bell in her fist. It took some time to tempt her back into bed and it was dawn before I managed to do the same for our guests. Some of them refused to stay, packed immediately and stormed off in search of other hotels. The rest cautiously returned to their rooms and locked their doors. No one asked for breakfast.
Figg vanished. Later that day, when I finally found the courage to return to the attic it was empty. Nothing of Figg remained. There were fresh sheets on the bed and the kingfisher had been torn from the wall. The window was open. The spell she had cast on my attic had been broken.
My mother, true to her nature, waited until absolute calm had been restored before she broke out again. She had failed to set the hotel alight by sounding the alarm so next she built a bonfire in the bathroom and set fire to it. The smoke whispered its way through the keyhole, down the long stairs and into the kitchen before it found me. When I broke down the door I found a mattress burning in the bath and my mother trying to feed it with scraps of paper. She screamed when she saw me. Her fingers were black with soot and her cardigan stank of paraffin. I dragged her out of the bathroom and tied her safely into a chair. Then I smothered the blaze and called the doctor.
Rudolph Ripley had been our doctor for a long time and was keenly interested in my mother’s condition so that, once I had telephoned, he was on the doorstep within minutes. He was a tall, unhealthy specimen who traded in tonics and tranquillisers. I don’t believe he was a very good doctor but he was always popular because he sat and listened to your complaints and never failed to give you a prescription. You could tell him you had maggots in your ears and he’d give you something for them. He was that kind of doctor.
When he looked at my mother he promptly stuck a needle in her arm and picked the ashes from her hair. I knew what he was going to tell me but I waited in silence, watching him grope for the words. People love to announce bad news and I could see that he was enjoying himself. He sighed and shook his head. He stood up and sat down. He coughed a few times, as if he were trying to tune his voice.
“It would be best for everyone if your mother were admitted to hospital,” he said finally. “Believe me, she needs proper treatment. I appreciate that you’ve tried to do your best for her these last few years – and it can’t have been easy – but it wasn’t fair to expect a young man of your age to play nurse.”
I did not argue with him. We were sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the toasted bundle of dressing-gown and old cardigans that we liked to call my mother. She was still tied by the wrists to the chair. Her head was resting on one shoulder and her mouth was open. She was snoring peacefully. The noise of it reminded me of Figg blubbering as I had tried to comfort her with my warmth. The knowledge that I might never again follow the rustle of her nylon coat from room to room or peep between the cracks of her straining buttons made me burst into tears.
Rudolph Ripley seemed pleased with my performance. He fished in the pockets of his coat and produced a tobacco tin full of fat, white pills. He offered me one and I placed it forlornly on the tip of my tongue. It was a peppermint.
“It’s a wonderful hospital, believe me. The doctors are good, the gardens are beautiful and the food is excellent. In. fact, you shouldn’t think of it as a hospital – think of it as a very quiet hotel.” He started to laugh at his little joke and then, remembering his surroundings, stopped and pretended to choke.
“How long do you think she’ll be away?” I asked him, wiping my nose in my hand.
He shook his head. “Don’t expect any improvements overnight, William,” he whispered. I smiled bravely and cracked the peppermint with my teeth.
*
It was a long and bitter winter. I lived alone in the hotel, sleeping in a different room each night, hoping to keep the building alive. I imagined that without a little human heat percolating through its damp walls the hotel would die of neglect. I left the lights burning. I carried a radio wherever I went and played music so loudly it created draughts and shocked the dust from the furniture. I slammed doors and stamped on carpets. But despite my furious efforts I could feel the hotel sinking around me. When I sat in the attic I thought I could hear the basement moaning and when I went to comfort the basement I could only hear rain on the attic window. Gradually the hotel was sinking into a cold sleep and I knew I was sinking with it.
I was not lonely. I began making plans for the future and dreaming of adventures in the outside world. I could not guess that I was destined to become a monster, a loathsome creature of the night. I thought I might be a ventriloquist. In the evenings I sat and gave my voice wings so that it flew from room to room, calling my name and answering to the echo. My talents were enough to prompt me to look for a doll to sit on my knee and engage in conversation.
There is magic in a ventriloquist’s doll. They are not crude puppets to be jiggled on your fingers and thrown into boxes. A doll is given the breath of life and must be treated with some respect. There are not many such dolls made orphan in a seaside town during winter
, but I owned a complete harem of stunted scarecrows.
I remembered all of them. There was Brenda Thistle, a midget made from a tea towel and a pair of cotton gloves; Monica Potts, a friendly trollop with a slippery body sewn from a pink silk petticoat; Pansy Stone, a nasty piece of work with hideous hearth rug hair; and my childhood sweetheart Nectarine Summers with her sly button eyes and the biggest buttocks in toyland.
These faithful rag dolls were still buried in a trunk in the attic. Brenda fell apart in my hands and something had eaten Pansy’s hair but Nectarine Summers was safely plucked from the grave. She was larger than her companions, a limp yet heavy bundle with a crumpled face and huge thighs stuffed with feathers. Her nose had been cut from a wooden peg and her mouth was a line of crooked red stitches. She was certainly no great beauty but when she sat on my knee we talked for hours.
When conversation failed we found other ways to keep ourselves amused. She was constantly amazed by my conjuring tricks. She watched, breathless, while I pulled eggs from my ears, ribbons from my nose, blew sparks and spat razor blades. Only for a moment did I consider that should anyone visit me without warning and see me sharing jokes with my doll they would think me as mad as my mother. The very next day I had visitors.
*
The doorbell rang in the afternoon. There were storms in the Atlantic, the sky was the colour of mustard and the street was black. I ran to hide Nectarine Summers under the stairs. When I drew back the bolts and opened the door two thin shadows confronted me.
“Hello, Mackerel. It’s Dorothy,” said one of the shadows. I stepped back in surprise, the two shadows trotted into the hall and stood beneath the electric light, waiting for my inspection.
The one called Dorothy was a lean woman in her late twenties. She wore a camelhair coat and grey leather shoes. There was still a trace of greyhound in her face but she had learnt to conceal it with powder and paint. She introduced the second shadow as her husband and he thrust out his hand. I shook it briefly and he placed it carefully in his pocket. He was gaunt and losing his hair. He wore a crinkled suit beneath a brand new Burberry.
