Worming the Harpy and Other Bitter Pills

by Rhys Hughes

  The waves of heat from below now lapped over me like the hot steamy breath of a thousand women from Camden. Can you possibly imagine what it feels like to have your tears evaporated the instant they start their crawl down your cheeks? It is like the dry retch of a whole body; like having your tongue pinned to the roof of your mouth with a silver brooch; like sunstroke on the inside of your nose; like licking a cheese grater or attempting an oral assignation with a paper shredder. And yet, again, my thoughts returned to amour. How could they fail to do so? Women had been the very warp and woof of my existence. I had investigated recommended substitutes: watermelon, soft cheese, jars of worms. But nothing would ever be able to replace a real living female, preferably a redhead with nipples like Chianti wine-corks.

  So I commended myself to whatever ontological being really sat around on a cloud creating perfect islands and golden mountains and waited. As I waited, I discovered that my windmilling arms and legs were beginning to slow down. Had fear reduced my reactions to Saurian efficiency? By now, the groans from beneath were a form of physical pain in themselves, an unimaginable counterpoint of microtonal expressions of suffering. There was a certain mad grandeur in their sheer strident volume, but nothing that would ever pass as music beyond the first few nights of the Proms. The men were all singing soprano and the women all singing baritone. I knew that the courts of Hell were courts of misrule, where the natural order of all things was reversed, but I had never expected to encounter such an ear-numbing inversion outside Brighton.

  It then dawned upon my reluctant consciousness that the real reason I was slowing down was because the chimney was beginning to narrow. I was forced to contemplate all that I knew concerning the layout and mechanics of chimneys. This was a not inconsiderable collection of tubular facts and smoky figures, garnered from various textbooks and technical journals devoted to the topic. As a sad man, I am a great devotee of the public library, and a great consumer of obscure texts. In Fuming Vents, the quarterly of the Chimney Spotter’s Society, I had once picked up the following information, which I had committed to memory in case I ever needed to impress any female chimney engineers I might happen to meet in casual society:

  ‘The most aesthetically pleasing, and thus inherently desirable, chimneys are those whose proportions are a perfect match for the intent, purpose and appearances of the inglenooks that serve them. A typical chimney is an identity and its hearth is its heart; sickness in the one will be shown plainly enough in the character of the other. Shallow indeed are those who claim that a fireplace and its chimney do not have to be mutually compatible in a psychological way or that the relationship between grate and vent is not a spiritual one. For like any worthwhile predication it is a two way process, a question of give and take, of push and shovel. An holistic approach must needs be taken when considering which chimneys are worth spotting and which are mere cylinders jutting into the sky, above and beyond whether that aforementioned sky is beautifully grey or despicably clean.

  ‘Generally, the taller the chimney, the wider should be the fireplace, save in those chimneys whose tallness is more a question of utilitarianism than pride. As stated in the Chimney Spotter’s Manifesto, compiled by Grimes and Twist, the internal topography of the flue is even more crucial to the colouring scheme of any mantelpiece that might be used to enhance the portals of the domestic furnace proper. Murgatroyd’s own interpretation of the Tarnished Mean would suggest that any chimney of vast and unlikely dimensions, which nonetheless tried to hide itself by artful means, would be possessed of an inglenook more baroque than rococo, and that although said mantelpiece might conceivably be of an ultramarine hue, each assorted oddment and shell arranged on top would be both of a concentric tendency and yet also of a dimension no less or greater than 1/3 of the democratically elected volume of its fellows. . . .’

  To be perfectly candid, I did not find this information particularly helpful, although reviewing it in my mind did have the pleasant effect of blocking out thoughts of a more serious nature. I vowed to myself that, should I ever escape my predicament, I would join the Chimney Spotter’s Society myself and conduct lecture-tours based on my experiences. This would surely be a useful source of second income, even if not a radically promising way of meeting women.

  Before long, my motions were reduced to a crawl and then, finally, I found that I had completely stopped. Wedged tight, my position was a curious one. Knees thrust up behind my ears, nethermosts dangling free over the abyssal drop, head thrust between my legs, I was thus able to contemplate the entirety of what was occurring below. There was little of note to add: the bright light and the blast of hot air still dominated the general prospect. But now the very nature of the sounds had altered. The groans and moans petered off into an acutely troubling silence and then a concerned muttering. I had that peculiar sensation that I was being watched, as if faces were straining upwards from below, trying to gauge the reason for what must have been for them an inexplicable blockage.

  Long hours I hung there. At first I struggled to free myself; I strained and pushed against the baked stone and mortar. It soon became obvious that I was wasting my time, that my attempts at escape were even more futile than my attempts at finding a partner through the Lonely Heart’s column of my local paper. I could only resign myself to what seemed an exceptionally rigid fate and entertain myself with thoughts of a cold ocean and old Julie Andrews songs. This was scant comfort, but at least it provided an agreeable experiment in holding two separate images simultaneously in the mind without combining them. I had no wish to visualise the immersion of the world’s greatest interpreter of Mary Poppins. Metaphorical depth to a role was one thing . . .

  It was during my fourteenth rendition of ‘My Favourite Things’ that I caught the first hint of another presence in the near vicinity. On the line, ‘brown paper packages tied up with string’, I saw that the light from below was being blocked out by a vague silhouette. A tiny dot appeared in the centre of the light, and this then gradually expanded until a tenuous rim was all that was left of what had been hitherto a scouring and overbright illumination. And shortly afterwards, I caught the sound of the thing, the hideous rustling and scraping of what I suddenly realised were its legs.

  It was an enormous spider that was racing up to greet me! A spider as black as the juice squeezed from Bibles; Deuteronomy black. As black as the eyes of a shrunken head pickled in vinegar. And here are my own eyes: popping and rolling like pearls sprung from their oysters with a green rusty knife. Oh, for blades on my boots to kick away the rising horror! Oh, for a corrosive spit to dribble from between my trembling lips onto its chitinous hide! But I was helpless, as weak as a fly in a web; as utterly doomed as a snowflake in a female undergraduate’s first toaster. And my nethermosts would be the first to feel the bite of the fangs! Such an ignominious demise! At long last, it appeared, the riddle of the sphincters was about to be solved. . . .

  Riddled or not, a loosening of those dire regions was certainly in the offing, for I had reached the very threshold of my fear; that doorstep over which fear becomes fertiliser. I clenched my teeth, and sundry other extremities, and crossed my fingers. This was a gesture I had not resorted to for many years. Closer and yet closer rushed the hideous arachnid and then, in the those final few seconds, I closed my eyes and an ineffable sadness overcame me; the appalling truth dawned that I was about to die without ever nestling into the jasmine scented cleavage of any given female.

  Imagine my inordinate relief, and disbelief, when instead of fangs piercing my flesh, I felt nothing more savage than a firm push and the itch of wiry fibres. Suddenly I had popped free and was travelling upwards again, through no power of my own. I dared to open my eyes and discovered, with some feelings of bemusement, that what I had at first taken for a spider was in fact no more than a chimney-brush. All mysteries then became clear; to the devils and demons down below, I was no more than a blockage to be disposed of in the traditional manner. At the same time, the mumbling and chattering ceas
ed, and the screams and moans resumed apace.

  So I had interrupted, for a brief instant in eternity, the smooth workings of Hell! This thought was in the vanguard of all sorts of confusing and original emotions, which I stored in the back pocket of my mind for later reference. I contented myself with sitting—now that I was in the wider section of the chimney and free to move once more—in an adapted lotus position on top of my quaint mode of transport and studying the scenery. This scenery, though, was dreary in the extreme, and soon I was unable to repress a yawn and a sooty rub of bleary eyes. It was perfectly possible to make a clean sweep of all the sights in any one-minute period.

  As I rose, faster and faster, the Plutonian sounds from below grew fainter, until I began to feel decidedly more confident. My one remaining worry concerned the velocity at which I was now travelling. The chimney-brush, with myself atop, seemed to be accelerating steadily. The walls rushed past at frightful speed and I was reluctant to touch them lest they tear the flesh from my bones. I reached inside my jacket for my pipe, stuffed it with mouldy tobacco and thrust it between my overlong teeth. As I puffed defiantly and sullenly, I folded my arms across my chest. Slowly but surely, as we ascended, the temperature began to drop.

  I have already mentioned that I had resorted to the use of Julie Andrews songs to keep myself amused. By this time, I had so thoroughly exhausted my repertoire that I was forced to consider alternative pastimes. I gave myself over to nostalgia and the poppy-seeds of reminiscence. I recalled my early life, with its undefined memories; my confusing time in a rather unfriendly school, that later turned out to be not a school at all but a warehouse for shop window mannequins; my very first job, as a table in a Chinese restaurant, where I was required to spin on my bony knees and where curvature of the spine was a sacking offence; my very first pint of beer, on the salty Isle of Man, served to me in a limpet shell with a hole in it. Ah memories!

  I also recalled my very last confession. My priest had but lately converted to Buddhism and was forever trying out doctrines of his new faith on members of his woolly-headed flock. In the confessional, I blurted out that I no longer believed in Hell. The priest nodded and folded the edges of his cassock. He then proceeded to tell me this fable, which may or may not be of Japanese origin: a man who was neither good nor evil died and was allowed to make his own choice about whether he went to Heaven or Hell. He mulled this over and finally responded that he wanted to take a look at both before choosing. So he was shown first to Hell, where there was a large banqueting table, piled high with rich food. The only problem was that the chopsticks were all seven foot long. None of the guests seated at the table could eat anything. So the man asked to be shown Heaven instead. In Heaven the situation was identical, except that the guests, instead of trying to fill their own mouths, were feeding the faces of those who sat opposite.

  I suppose that this fable was meant to illustrate some cheesy point or other about how virtue is its own reward and how assisting your neighbour will eventually benefit yourself. But for me, the story had different connotations. It suggested to me that even fundamentally intractable oppositions were merely questions of interpretation. Heaven and Hell were really not that different. Supposing I had been mistaken all along? Supposing it had not been Hell I had just been delivered from? Supposing that the moans and groans and screams had not been the products of torture and pain but of ecstasy and abandonment? This was a thought that threatened to swamp my senses.

  What if I had just missed out on not the eternal terrors of Beelzebub’s buffet, but the delights of a divine debauch? It was more than possible. The high notes of the wailing souls might have been prompted not by tridents and pikes, as I had earlier suspected, but by the aids and adjuncts of some celestial bacchanalia; the wine, the song, the riding-crop studded with whole stars. I gnashed my molars in rage and frustration and tore out my last strand of oily hair. I fought against the brush that was sweeping me up and away from my desire and howled to be let down again. But the brush pushed harder than before and my speed merely increased until the force of my motion crushed me flat against the spiky bristles.

  Looking up in despair, I saw a rapidly expanding circle of pale blue light, and I knew that I was close to the surface of the world again. Many hours had obviously passed since my first sighting of the chimney and it was now morning. But I had no wish to see daylight. I bellowed at the top of my voice down the flue: ‘Please let me back!’ But I knew that this was a redundant gesture, as futile as all my actions. There was nothing more I could do but sob and dribble and feel profoundly sorry for myself, a poor bruised creature forever doomed to a pending tray in the office of fulfilments; the saddest man in a universe of sad men.

  Finally, the brush deposited me back into real life, propelling me out of the top of the chimney like a spring-heeled Jack from the mouth of a cannon. The top of that infinitely long brush lingered awhile, like the unkempt head of a curious sweep, before being drawn down. I soared in a graceful arc; so high that I had a pleasing view of all the other Channel Islands. When I began to fall, I thumbed my nose at them. But there are some happy endings after all: I landed in the arms of a woman who was out walking the beach with a book of poetry and a suitably knitted brow. ‘My very own soot fairy!’ she cried, planting a kiss on my smoky cheeks. Throwing me over her shoulder, she hurried back to her house and set me up in her garden next to a small pond. And that is where I am still registered and where, though my floppy hat itches terribly on Fridays, I sometimes catch fish.

  One Man's Meat

  For Raymond it had been one of those abstract evenings; formless desires, a quick splash of reckless paint on what had been a blank canvas, and then out into the city. He could hardly colour the town red; a blue-green fugue was clanking its counterpoint on his aching ribs. Too much tobacco, too little sleep, and Clarisse gone barely a week. So he hunched deeper into his overcoat while rain warm as curdled milk lashed his face and hands. A city, and a life, without straight lines.

  He found the brothel down a cobbled backstreet, a low building with heavy curtains. At the entrance, he was greeted by a doorman who politely inquired whether he had made a reservation. Raymond shook his head. Was he supposed to feel inferior to those patrons who had previously arranged to displace a volume of the establishment’s air? He was unsure. Nothing in the doorman’s demeanour provided a clue. He allowed himself to be ushered into a waiting area, where he took a comfortable seat and accepted a drink. Filthy muzak whispered from concealed speakers.

  ‘Sir?’ Almost immediately, a waiter came to take his order. Raymond relaxed. They were not going to punish him for his minor transgression of etiquette. He adjusted his tie and smoothed back his damp hair.

  ‘I’m a vegetarian,’ he said. He pulled down his lower lip to expose gums as healthy as the release of tension. The waiter nodded and led him past rows of rooms, the air bristling with soft moans and the strains of sweet melodies, or else harsh screams and atonal cacophony. His pulse began to race, his nostrils flared. He caught the mingled odour of myriad scents, exotic flavours on the tip of his tongue. A thousand combinations to sample, innumerable moods.

  ‘Rhona is a root vegetable,’ the waiter remarked casually, as he stopped in front of a narrow door. Raymond proffered a small tip, acknowledged the resulting wink with a curt nod and stepped into the room. His eyes adjusted slowly to the light, he blinked the sweat from tired lashes and regarded his new surroundings. She stood lovely and demure in an earthen pot in the centre of the room. Her tendrils beckoned to him, impossibly alluring in the steamy atmosphere.

  Yet he lingered awhile near the threshold. ‘Why don’t you take your coat off?’ she asked seductively and he obliged, hanging it up on a hook on the back of the door. ‘Now don’t be shy. Take your time. Real nice and slow. You look a little nervous. First time, eh? Well nothing to be worried about. Come a little closer. That’s it, darling, I don’t bite. Just talk to me, tell me what you like.’

  ‘My name is Raymond.’ Ra
ymond felt an absurd shame at being here, bedraggled, unsure of himself or his real intentions. He dripped over the short-pile carpet and wrung his hands. ‘I’m a vegetarian,’ he repeated. He managed a nervous grin.

  ‘I hope so! One man’s meat . . .’ Rhona winked and reached out to stroke his cheek. He winced but did not pull away. ‘Why don’t you choose some music? It may help you to relax.’

  Raymond nodded and moved over to the wall, his knuckles rapping quickly on the oak veneer. Instantly one of the panels slid back, exposing a beaming violinist who struck up a jaunty air. Raymond shook his head and the panel slid shut. He rapped at further points along the wall, exposing musicians of varying calibre. Eventually he settled for a combination of flute, guitar and cello.

  ‘That’s better!’ Rhona giggled coquettishly and reached out to touch him again. ‘Why don’t you loosen some of your clothing? You must be steaming under all those layers. Why don’t I help you?’

  Conscious of the grins on the faces of the musicians, Raymond scowled. ‘I’m not some pink cheeked virgin! I do have a wife, you know. She’s gone away for a while. That’s all. A man gets hungry, his tongue rolls around inside his mouth. I’m just not used to places like this!’

  ‘Of course not.’ Rhona’s eyes flashed with a secret mirth. ‘But I can be your wife tonight. I can be anything you want. I can love you heart and soil. I’ll be your slave, your mother, your mistress. A real turnip for the books!’