The Triple Goddess

by Ashly Graham

  The only indulgence Dark permitted himself, and he did not do it out of a growing sense of irony or fun, contrary to Violet’s advice and at considerable risk to his own welfare he occasionally teased her factotum by sending him cheeky notes and verses, and then amused himself by imagining the choler at the other end of the unusually jerky rope that brought up the next meal or consignment of miscellaneous items.

  The rewards of doing this had to be weighed against whatever retaliation the taking of such liberties might prompt from ffanshawe, should he take umbrage and skip a delivery, or put his charge on short commons, or fail to comply with a request to supply some item. The reverend’s laundry might not get done, or there would be no clean towels or new tube of toothpaste or bar of soap, or his supply of writing materials might run out.

  Normal service would not be resumed until ffanshawe deemed that the punishment had fit the crime. The reverend’s soup might arrive cold, or be omitted, or have something alien floating in it. He might get treacle tart or rice pudding every day—the canny ffanshawe, purveyor of goods and comestibles to the clergy, was quick to learn his charge’s dislikes from the dishes that got returned partially eaten or not at all. There might be no cutlery, or milk, or—horrors! no Thermos of tea, which Dark was now accustomed to drinking instead of coffee.

  On one occasion when breakfast was unusually late in arriving, Dark rashly ribbed ffanshawe—who was not an early riser—saying that, while he did not expect him to spot him running naked through the dewy fields at first light singing and gathering mushrooms, even a gentleman of leisure ought to have breakfasted by ten o’clock.

  When for the next week instead of getting any breakfast at all Dark was sent up Indian food for dinner every day, instead of apologizing he compounded his error by protesting in writing that,

  Vindaloo and tindaloo,

  Madras, Mughlai, roghan josh,

  Bhuna, naga, dupiaza,

  Dhansak, tikka, sambar, saag,

  Pathia…

  PHAAALL!!!!

  I know it sounds a little vulgar,

  But seven days of fibrous rice,

  The name of which I think is Bulgur,

  Is affecting me in ways not nice

  When accompanied by—see above.

  This spicy food is wreaking havoc

  On my digestion and my mood,

  And causing a continuous stream

  Of discomfort by dictating, hate to admit,

  The frequency with which I

  Need to go to the bathroom.

  Highly irregular as this is,

  I hope that you won’t think me rude

  Or just gratuitously crude but

  —Gotta run—here’s a suggestion:

  Do me a favour, change my diet!

  Then we’ll call it quits, no more josh-ing,

  And paper over the cracks

  (As soon as I ain’t got the squits L).

  When the next day brought more vindaloo and Dark was down to his last roll of toilet paper, the reverend ate crow, which for all he knew was what it was, and sent down a grovelling apology with his empty plate and a plea that ffanshawe might, if not be pleased to end his penance, at least not remain sufficiently displeased to continue it.

  Granted the favour, with this episode Dark’s mocking of ffanshawe ceased.

  What passed for Dark’s daily schedule began at sunrise, now that he was no longer a heavy sleeper; and in summer even earlier when the birds sang their Matins prayers as a false-dawn prelude to Mother Nature’s awakening an hour or so before the dawn chorus proper...which was all the louder for taking place immediately above him.

  Upon getting up he would go to the bathroom and perform his ablutions. After sieving the golden nuggets of day, at night when she was visible he watched the argent moon riding the sky and bathing the woods and fields with her soft light. Sensing a kindred spirit, Dark began telling her how his day had been—for his passive existence to him was never less than filled with events—and hearing what she had to say in return about what noteworthy business she had observed from her lofty station.

  As they got to know each other better, the moon and he became ever closer, and even when she was on the other side of the world he sensed that their unspoken thoughts were with each other. Through her renewing phases she was the slender maiden Astarte when she was crescent; full-breasted Roman Diana or Cynthia, “she who hunts the clouds”, when abroad in the open vault of heaven; Hecate after she set.

  Standing naked in the window, Dark exposed himself to arrow after arrow from the friendly bow of Artemis, chaste goddess of the moon and of the hunt, shivering as the quicksilver shafts entered his body, deliquesced, and instilled him with her essence; or she was his Selene, who as moonlight on the fields lay with him as her sleeping Endymion.

  Here in the dark tower, surrounded by the caul and amniotic fluid of Creation and possessed of a foetal genius, Dark felt himself existing in perfect peace without the pain of being born.

  *

  An ancient Sun labours up the hill

  Arm in arm with Winter and his cane.

  Earlier each evening, he comes down and puts

  On his slippers—his nightcap’s never off

  And he hasn’t shaved in weeks—feeds the cat,

  Checks the time on the windmill clocks, taps

  The ashes from his pipe, and Pouf!

  The light’s out and he’s snoring.

  Fashionably late, demure in a dress of pale,

  The virgin Moon arrives at the Arts Club Ball

  Alone in a carriage of stars pricked out

  Against the sky, pearl against a pillow

  Of black silk. She hangs her sickle smile

  Across the room and declines to dance.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Came the unheralded day when Dark heard the scrape of the key at the door for the first time in seven years, and ffanshawe, having applied his shoulder to the door to part it from the frame, entered and motioned curtly that he should follow him downstairs. Nothing in the man’s demeanour showed evidence of a change in their relationship, or interest in his ward’s health and condition; and Dark merely inclined his head in acknowledgment.

  He left his cell without a backward glance.

  Because his extended detention had removed the opportunity for offence and wrongdoing, it was impossible to say whether the reverend was a changed man, a lighter Dark; and if he was, whether the alteration would survive his restoration to the world, or render him again a hieratic highwayman, a preacher-pirate, a sneering buccaneer, a corsair of creed.

  Whether or not, in the event of his being restored to the world and regaining his degree of freedom, he would reassume his former character and identity...it had never occurred to ask himself the question, because he was not aware of any alteration in himself. He was just a Robinson Crusoe who had adapted to his circumstances.

  The cock-shut blackbirds were trickling their farewells to the day as the pair emerged from the base of the tower, and ffanshawe padded ahead into the main part of the house. In the drawing-room huge logs crackled in the massive fireplace as they had before, and Lady Violet, the diamond in her nose twinkling, rose and spread the diaphanous wings of her garments in greeting. She gave him Dark an appraising glance.

  ‘There you are, Fletcher,’ chirped the éminence violette, as if she had only seen him the night before and there had been no discordant note between them. ‘How nice. Tonight after dinner I thought we might go for a drive. It’s New Year’s Eve and we ought to do something to celebrate. We’ll take a bottle of champagne, see the lights, and kick up our heels.’

  At table Dark ordered consommé followed by an egg-white omelette accompanied by dry toast. He drank water instead of wine, and for dessert toyed with a banana. Afterwards, as they sat before the fire, Violet, exasperated by the reverend’s lack of conversational sparkle, pressed him for old times’ sake to have a brandy and a cigar; but he declined, saying that after such a long period of
abstinence such indulgences would be sure to make him ill.

  At eleven-forty his hostess, who had been keeping a close eye on the clock, got to her feet, and Dark seized the moment to ask permission to go home to the Annexe. It was already long past his bedtime, he said.

  ‘Absolutely not, ffanshawe has got the bubbly on ice and there’s not a moment to lose. Owing to a most gratifying recognition of my leading role in restoring order at Headquarters, I’ve got a seat on the Infernal Council and my presence is now required twenty-four seven. Yes, we now have twenty-four hour clocks and there are seven days in a week, just like here. The client always comes first and at last we have joined the real world.’

  Violet tapped her foot. ‘Now would be the time to congratulate me, Fletcher.’ When Dark said nothing, she sighed. ‘I suppose I should come clean. You’re a whiz at paperwork, so I’m taking you with me to act as my secretary. We’ll be able to spend all the time in the world together and I will always have my eye on you. Now then—are we ready, ffanshawe?’

  Her attendant danced about in a most un-ffanshawe-like manner, and Violet regarded him tolerantly. ‘You’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, haven’t you, my plug-ugly pet?’ ffanshawe panted like the Pekingeses who were scratching at the door to get out. ‘Of course you have. So let’s get this show on the road. But ffanshawe, please bear in mind that we’ve just had dinner, at least I have, and I will not, repeat not, appreciate an excess of gravitational pull on my stomach. I always say, put a man behind a wheel and he goes berserk. Is that understood?’

  Her servant nodded vigorously, ran to the door, pulled it open and turned to see if his mistress was following. As the dogs exited, barking, into the night Violet waved him on. ‘Go on, Fanny, fire her up, as well as the heat. It’s four hundred and fifty-one degrees Fahrenheit at home, and I don’t want to catch cold from the transition. I can’t afford to be unwell with my new responsibilities.’

  Outside the air was sparkling with frost and the stars seemed within reach. ffanshawe, his usual expression of inscrutability restored, held the car door open for Lady Enderby to get in and passed her the dogs to lay at her feet. Then he stood behind Dark, whose intestines were in knots, in case he had it in mind to do a runner while he got in on the other side.

  Once ffanshawe had installed himself in the driver’s seat and hunkered down behind the wheel, the Jaguar, for the first time in Dark’s experience, took off vertically like a Harrier Jump Jet, causing the gravel of the courtyard to seethe from the downward thrust of the engine.

  As soon as they were clear of the trees, the vehicle hovered and tilted until its nose was pointing straight up. Then, without any perceptible sound of acceleration, it arrowed into the sky at escape velocity. Although Dark expected to be forced back into his seat, he felt nothing, nor did anything in the cabin shift position or fall.

  He tightened his grip on the armrest and looked straight ahead, perspiring from fear and the ninety-five degree temperature.

  ‘You know, what really gets my goat,’ said Violet, as she took out a compact and powdered her nose, ‘is that I’ve inherited an administrative nightmare back home. You’d think after all these thousands of years that we, a supposedly cutting-edge institution with unlimited resources at our disposal, would’ve been able to put together a workable system. But oh no, technically speaking we’re still mired in the Dark Ages. People have always said that the devil is in the details, but it’s never been true.

  ‘At least, not until now. Willy-nilly it’s my job…and yours, Fletcher… to sort everything out.’

  His mind numb, out of the window Fletcher Abraham observed his friend the moon, larger than ever, and a planet that he recognized with a start as his own. Or rather, now that he was emigrating, it was his former planet.

  ‘For crying out loud, ffanshawe,’ said Violet, ’that’s far enough. I know you want to make a grand entrance, show off a little, but there’s such a thing as overdoing it.’

  ffanshawe cut the throttle. The spaceship’s speed slackened, slowed down, became slower and slower until they were at a standstill, hanging in a state of dynamic equilibrium at the apogee of their ascent. It seemed that it would have taken only a single joule of energy to set them moving in any direction. Though Dark had not been conscious of any sound before, now there was an audible quiet.

  ‘Time for refreshment,’ Violet said briskly, her voice cutting the air. ‘Do the honours with the bottle, Fletcher, would you? even if you’re not partaking yourself.’

  Lady Enderby pressed a button on the central console, and the burled walnut panel between the tip-up seats in front of them lowered with a faint whine. Inside was a frosted silver ice-bucket holding the champagne, two flute glasses and a napkin. While Dark removed the wire and foil, Violet delved into her handbag and produced her cigarette case. From it she extracted a long slim lilac-coloured cigarette, which glowed as she drew on it without the application of fire.

  ‘I always enjoy the last cigarette before re-entry,’ she said, inhaling deeply. ‘On this occasion more than most, since it’ll be the last moment I can call my own for a long time.’ She breathed out a stream of smoke and blew several rings, the second of which dropped like a noose over ffanshawe’s head where he sat scowling at the controls and constricted as if to strangle him. Violet giggled.

  Covering the cork with the cloth and easing it out until it popped in his hand, Dark resigned himself to what promised to be the most awful, but richly deserved, fate. He poured the champagne as steadily as he could, letting the froth settle before filling the glass to the rim. He handed it to her ladyship, tied the napkin round the neck of the bottle, and replaced it in the bucket.

  ‘Won’t you change your mind, Fletcher? It’s Dom Pérignon 1921.’ He shook his head. ‘Pity. Well, bottoms up.’ Violet raised her glass, and, taking this as his cue, ffanshawe made an adjustment in the cockpit. With nothing more than a creak of leather, the spaceship up-ended, and although as before nothing moved, Dark pressed his feet into his footrest.

  Asteroids rushed past them like a herd of startled deer.

  After the exact same number of moments had passed as in their climb, looking out of the window in fascination Dark saw below them the outline of that famous local landmark, the Devil’s Breach, brilliantly lit by the moon, and braced himself for impact as the smooth rounded bottom of the Breach fissured with a sound that one might expect to hear upon the Crack of Doom, and a crevasse opened to admit the vehicle through the Infernal gateway.

  Sucking in his breath in a noiseless inverse scream, Dark clutched at something that was tickling his nose, and, when he looked to see what it was, found in his hand a soft white primary feather, a very large one. Instantly was reminded of the dream that he had had, the first night of his incarceration in the tower at the Moated Grange, when he had climbed outside the window and been knocked off the roof by the wings of what had seemed like a giant white dove.

  In his confusion Dark thrust the feather at Lady Enderby, as if to ask her opinion in identifying it, and she leaned towards him to see what he was trying to show her.

  Her face transfigured by a look of extreme revulsion and terror, and making a great inhuman sound, Violet slid to the floor. There was an explosion, and Dark received what felt like a cosmic kick in the pants. This was followed by a rush of frigid wind, and the dazzle of a million flash bulbs.

  The impression or illusion that the reverend had was of being ejected from the spaceship, instead of being engulfed by the tohu-bohu of the awful environment that it was his destiny to be enclosed within for ever and a day. Dazed and befuddled, he saw the Jaguar vanish into the chthonic gloom of the abyss that the Devil’s Breach had ruptured to reveal.

  The chasm closed, and there was a short silence, as if the earth had lost its breath after swallowing a mouthful of one of ffanshawe’s wickedest curries. Then from underground came the sound of, not just a muffled explosion, but a mighty eructation that set the gentle crests and hollows of
the hills, now restored to their former smoothness, heaving like ocean swell.

  All hell having apparently been contained rather than breaking loose, Dark was aware of a pleasant sensation, as if he were seesawing downwards at a gentle rate of descent on a parachute. When his head cleared a little, he perceived that this was indeed the case. In the light of the moon he spotted the extensive gardens of the Old Rectory beneath him, with his own abode standing to the rear behind the row of poplars that screened the Annexe from view of the big house.

  This was all quite delightful, Dark thought in his concussed condition; but as he got closer to the ground, he remembered that this was his maiden parachute jump and that his relief might be premature. He recalled from somewhere that one was advised, when finding oneself in such a situation, to meet the ground with one’s knees bent; to avoid getting hung up in a tree; and, in the event that one was fortunate enough to land without sustaining serious injury, to pull in the chute as quickly as possible so as not to be dragged along the ground.

  As terra firma leaped up to meet him like a dog that was pleased to see one return home, the reverend surveyed the surrounding area for the hazards of trees, chimneys, hard tennis courts, statues, and lawnmowers that might be waiting to proclaim his hubris. When he saw all of the foregoing—the Church had sold the Old Rectory to a private individual who had put in the obligatory modern eyesores of tennis court and swimming pool, and there was a sit-upon lawnmower the size of a tractor outside the stable—he stopped hauling on the lines and hoped for the best.