by Rhys Hughes
Raymond swallowed the bile that had been building up in his throat and pulled off his tie with savage jerks. As he undressed, he wondered about Clarisse, alone in a big city for the first time. How would she be filling her own formless evenings? Perhaps she was betraying him at this very moment, glutting her own maw with forbidden delights. He shuddered. She had always accused him of being uncouth; this despicable thought proved the truth of her words.
Raymond’s impulsiveness had meant that he had not checked the condition of his underwear before leaving the house. Acutely embarrassed, he huddled in his stained underpants while Rhona offered him an amused glance. He looked up at the musicians in despair, but although they were grinning broadly they were intent on their instruments. The music was now a gentle lullabye, an ironic murmur of sound that washed over him but could not clean his shame.
‘I’ve seen worse, darling.’ Rhona licked her lips and Raymond cursed her mocking nonchalance. ‘Well big boy, let’s have a look at your tool. You have got one, haven’t you?’
Raymond exploded. He leapt forward, brandishing the potato peeler. ‘Here!’ he cried, throwing back his head. ‘Take it bitch!’ He thrust the point deep into her face and removed one of her eyes with a savage twist. Then he drew the blade down along her body, shedding the skin in a single flapping sheet. He was vaguely aware that the musicians had changed tempo, improvising a ragtime no less sardonic than their earlier number.
Rhona groaned with pleasure, but Raymond realised that this was merely an act for his sake. Senses dulled by numerous other such encounters, she could scarcely muster any genuine enthusiasm at all. Raymond felt his blood boil: he would be the lens of what little she could still feel, magnifying it beyond anything she could have anticipated. ‘Taste this, you jaded hors d’oeuvre!’ he screamed as he drew the blade back up, removing the flesh that lay under her skin. A single tear of surprise popped from her remaining eye.
Over and over again, he raised and lowered the blade, his vision a red mist, Rhona’s cries of pain and delight pounding in his ears. Never had he felt so lost to the world, so abandoned by reality, so originally and refreshingly alive. Specks of peel and warm flesh spattered his face. Pale juice trickled between his fingers, the odour of damp earth plugged his nostrils. He screamed aloud as he approached orgasm and gave himself wholly up to the nirvana of ultimate release.
Finally it was over. He dropped the blade and, trembling, reached for his clothes. They were lying in a pool of viscous ichor. The musicians had stopped playing. They stared sombrely at their feet. Raymond shook his head and the sliding panels shut away their gloomy countenances.
There was a knock on the door. Raymond opened it and regarded the bowing waiter who stood there. ‘Everything to your satisfaction sir?’ In the waiter’s smile was a subtle contempt whose depths Raymond could not fathom. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the mess that lay behind.
‘You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think!’ he joked. The waiter merely returned the slightest of smiles. Raymond pulled on his coat, reached inside his pocket for his wallet and paid the fellow. As he did so, another waiter with a wheelbarrow entered the room and carted away Rhona’s remains to a door at the rear of the establishment. As the door swung open, Raymond caught a glimpse of a huge vat of bubbling oil.
The waiter noted his surprise. ‘Crisp weather this time of year,’ he said. He showed Raymond to the front of the building and the doorman waved him out into the night. ‘Very good, sir. Call again soon, sir.’ But Raymond did not look back. He hid in the comforting darkness.
An ineffable bleakness enveloped his soul. He knew that he had made a fool of himself. No doubt the waiters were all laughing at him now, sharing the joke with each other as they sat around in that back room, frying the remnants of his inadequacy. Clarisse was right; he was too much of a boor to visit such places. They were for people of breeding and taste, not for riff-raff such as himself.
Suddenly he felt a great hatred for Clarisse and with this hatred came an overwhelming urge to betray her, to teach her a lesson. He altered his direction and made his way down to the docks, the red light district where he would find ample opportunity for revenge. As he walked, he kept an eye out for the police.
At last, he came across what he sought. They stood there in a line, wearing the seductive garments of their trade: the apron and tall white hat. As he peeped at them from the shadows, he felt a rumbling in his stomach. There were a dozen choices available. French, Italian, Indian and Turkish, they lounged on the corners, swinging their cleavers and ladles. A burly Swede with a bristling beard noticed him and gestured with his chin. ‘Smörgåsbord?’ he hissed.
As Raymond moved closer, his attention was distracted by a suave Chinese spinning a wok on the end of a chopstick. Raymond paused. He had always fancied a bit of Oriental. He drew in a deep breath and summoned up all the last reserves of his courage. If he was going to pay for it he might as well ask for something really dirty. ‘You do stir-fry?’ he whispered. The chef eyed him suspiciously for a moment and then nodded. Raymond followed him down an alley and into a dark doorway, where a small portable stove stood waiting. The chef cooked the meal with brisk efficiency and Raymond, startling himself with his own seediness, had it up against the wall.
The Man Who Mistook his Wife’s Hat for the Mad Hatter’s Wife
They live in a house shaped like a hat. Music is in their blood, but they have different groups. In the evenings, they play backgammon by the light of a single candle. It is difficult to determine, with any degree of accuracy, whether they are inspired romantics or simply trying to save money. The dice crack on the baize like knuckles. They play with chocolate-covered mints, plain and milk, and eat them as they bear off.
One day, the house blows away in a strong gale and lands on a hill. The view is terrific. The man, frilly shirt open at the collar, carries a saxophone out onto the veranda and takes revenge on the storm. The clouds pour hail down the mouth of his instrument and then part. He serenades the ideal stars.
A frosty rime glitters on his lips. His wife comes out to join him and they embrace. Her hair is a hundred shades of the darkest red.
The Mad Hatter is writing out invitations with a pen made from the leg of a spider. He is much happier now. He has bought a new suit and shaved his whiskers. Alice has finally consented to marry him. She is very young, but he is confident.
He pokes out his tongue as he forms the words. He wants only eccentrics to attend his wedding reception. He has heard about a couple who live in a house shaped like a hat. The notion tickles him. He is thoroughly tickled. When he has finished, he drops the invitation into the mouth of a winged cat that flaps up the chimney and soars away over the rooftops.
My invitation has already arrived. I am the last existentialist. This is eccentric enough for the Mad Hatter. As a writer with no imagination, I look forward to the party. I will meet many characters there whom I shall be able to use. I pack my notebook, a piece of cheese, an apple and set off on my way.
Desire is not difficult to maintain. The couple in the hat on the hill are kissing. They are making love in front of a fire piled high with green wood. The wood spits as they suck and smokes as they blow. Each freckle between her breasts needs to be kissed. A constellation of incomparable delight.
Afterwards, they help each other to the bed and fall asleep under the heavy duvet. The clouds have returned and it starts to snow. As the snow settles, the preternatural landscape grows brighter. The snow dusts my coat and I turn up the collar. I pass the hill and gaze up at the house. Something small and dark has just landed on the brim. It scratches at a window and forces entry. I am reconciled.
As I walk, the unknown creature disappears inside. When the sun comes up, I sit on a hedge and chew at my apple. The couple awake and find a cat curled up between them.
Alice is playing the harpsichord, to calm her nerves. Her fingers fly over the keys, building up a dress of notes which cling to her naked body.
These notes will shimmer and tinkle when she moves. These notes, semi-quavers and minims, glisten like ice. The piece she has chosen is old and cold and firm to the touch on the stave of her belly. As her arms are encrusted and grow heavy, her tempo decreases.
I have arrived at the designated spot. In a clearing in a wildwood stands the shell of a church. I am the first. I explore the crumbs of rock with a dispassionate eye. The spiral staircase to the belfry has collapsed.
Alice is ready and is on her way. The coda was the veil. Her bare feet make blue impressions on the mossy carpet of the forest floor.
The couple are also dressing for the occasion. The man has selected a frilly shirt of a different hue and a saxophone of black wood trimmed with silver. The woman has selected a hat in the shape of a young girl. The cat will guide them, like a kite on a string as long as a river.
Ribbons rustle, silk and crinoline folds and unfolds into a meaningless tangram. And you and I? We know how to cling to ourselves, but not yet to each other. It is not true that no man is an island. We are all islands, misty islands, connected only by an irregular ferry service.
While they prepare themselves, I am joined by the caterers, the Husher, Father Phigga, a few guests. Tables and chairs are laid out. Prebendary Garlic has written a speech as creamy and corpulent as his own aspirations.
The Mad Hatter arrives and fills his mouth with his fists.
The cat lands in the belfry and the couple emerge into the clearing. There is a great deal of aimless chatter. More guests appear. Hands are shaken; large knotty hands, thin reedy ones. Father Phigga takes his place at the ruined altar of the abandoned church. When Alice breaks through the dense foliage, the musicians strike up on their bone xylophones. The long and the short of it is that there is a wedding, the wrists of Alice and the Mad Hatter symbolically bound with a braided cord.
And then it is time for the guests to kiss the bride. The man who lives in a hat takes rather longer over this than his wife would like. While she watches her husband with a frown, I watch her with a pounding heart. Prebendary Garlic is watching me. Observing the observer of the observer.
Soon, very soon, the guests sit down to the banquet. The cat wanders off into the forest and falls asleep in the hollow of an oak-tree, snuggled up tight with a large owl. There are three tables arranged in parallel lines, each table with only one side in this dimension, and the guests are seated as follows:
Humpty Dumpty A White Rabbit Edgar Allan Poe
A Glass of Water Bram Stoker Dante Alighieri
Baruch Spinoza Tweedledee A Velocity Orange
The Hat Couple Boris Vian Achilles’ Tortoise
A Sea Horse Guy de Maupassant D.F. Lewis
Tweedledum The Holy Grail Grace Under Pressure
The 600th Orgasm A Volcano A Traitor’s Gate
Caliban Leopoldo Alas A Bloody Mary
A Wild Goose Chase Søren Kierkegaard The Narrator
The caterers mill and cough over the cutlery, wiping it clean with dirty handkerchiefs, while the Husher, Father Phigga and Prebendary Garlic stand at the head of each table declaiming avant-garde poetry. They are not guests and therefore not entitled to food.
We drink celery wine and toast the bride and groom. The caterers serve the meal. There are olives and mango slices for harlots d’oeuvre; toenail soup for starters; red onion bunions with pillow rice as the main course. For dessert we gorge ourselves on strawberry fool and raspberry idiot. The man who lives in a hat is staring at Alice.
Anticipating disaster, I take out my notebook.
There will never be a past as remote as the one which is now the present. Everything seems asleep and vague, outlines of events thrown onto a paper screen in a magic-lantern show. Even as they happen I feel nostalgia for such events. As the remnants of the meal are cleared away, I am already regretting a lost chance I have not yet had. Fires have been lit and dancing is in stately progress. I boost my courage with more celery wine and approach the woman who lives in a hat.
Suddenly, my nerve unravels and I merely nod at her and walk past. I continue through the fence of trees that rings the clearing. She is far too beautiful to make any attempt at contact. As I gaze up at the highest elms, I stumble over the supine bodies of Alice and the man who lives in a hat.
It is obvious that they have slipped away during the dance to consummate an illicit passion. They are entwined together, crumpled, oblivious of all else. I race back to the clearing, my teeth shining brightly. I fall at the feet of the wife and babble everything. In the same static moment I see that the real Alice is dancing with a White Rabbit. . . .
Relationships sometimes end for good reasons as well as bad. I should have been pleased that the hat was in the shape of a girl. I should have blessed the fate that directed the wife to leave her hat on the table and the man to mistakenly carry it off into the forest. But it avails me little. I have the story and nothing more.
The Mad Hatter and Alice fly off on a magic carpet, tins clinking on lengths of old string behind them. I am ignored. The couple who live in a hat become separated forever. She leaves him dumbfounded and when he returns to the hill he discovers that he is now homeless.
Hats, it appears, have gone out of fashion.
Cello I Love You
Opinions as old as green hams, that’s what she has. Not that her own hams are green; far from it. She scrapes her living with supple fingers, a furrowed brow; the wanton hussy, sitting there, teasing the notes up from between her spread legs! How I despise her; and yet I am forced to admire her restraint, her subtlety. She knows how to make you sing. But I would be kinder, I would be gentle. Yes, I will help you escape from this brutal regime, this exhausting circuit of concert-halls, hotel rooms and morbid rehearsals. Just you wait.
Cello, I love you. Won’t you tell me your name?
I have followed you around the country since I first saw you in her arms. It was a gala concert, the opening of some new public building. Fireworks sputtered in the air, the fountains played and the streets were full of people in cars, motorists with pedestrian tastes. You were one among many, clasped tight on the podium together with your cousins and sisters. But I guessed you were unlike them, that you were at once more sensitive and charming. I could not tear my gaze from your gracious curves, your lustre. I was enchanted.
With the magic came anger. I saw the way she treated you, the disdain with which she forced the sadness from your strings. There were no tears in her eyes that night, you can be sure of that. You were merely a tool to be exploited, a possession to be used in any way she saw fit. She knew how to play, but she did not know how to feel. I felt for you then; I resolved to find out more about you both. I listened to your profound songs and knew your despair, your tragedy.
She was an itinerant and therefore hard to track down. You were an unwilling slave, snatched from the trees of an Italian forest, sawn and shaped by the rough fingers of a moustachioed Signor in Cremona. She was upstart cynicism, fresh weariness. You were sighing strength, endurance through the centuries. After the concert I followed you both home. She was staying with friends. I waited outside the window and amused myself by imagining your name, your wondrous name.
When I knew it, I would be able to crystallise my fantasies, focus the lens of my desire. Until then, I would be grasping at a void. Names are all we can ever really have of a life, an object. Without them we are lost; we can expand few truths, generate few ideas. Lacking eyes, feet, hands, you were already more content than form; I could not allow this to be my sole impression of your existence. I required a name as smart as a green olive; a name that spoke of your seasoned expressions, your pickled ambitions. Where would I find such a name?
Possible names for cellos: Dolores, Celestine, Twinkle, Mervyn, Panjandrum, Thomas, Dionysus, Jemima, Sooty, Oswald, Remorse, Lucy, Paraquat, Edna, Gambol, Jonah, Garam Masala, Gillian, Sheridan, Gabriel, Harriet, Juliette, Erasmus, Mercy, Acheron.
I am not a thrifty man by nature, but I have saved enough in my long
life to make possible the indulgence of my whims. I took to the road in your wake, booking rooms in the same hotel as you, eating in the same restaurants as your owner, sitting in the audience night after night as she caressed your body. I was not blind to her skill, but neither was I deaf to her arrogance. I would weep over the former and punish the latter.
I sent you a bunch of red roses once; this was a mistake. She assumed they were for her. It was in a guest-house in Croydon. I had booked the room directly below you and I could hear her pacing the floor. Balancing on a stool and pressing my ear to the low ceiling I could even make out her words. ‘I have an admirer,’ she was muttering to herself. The blood boiled in my head and I wanted to strike on the ceiling with my fist and cry back: ‘Not for you, not for you!’
Had she known they came from me, her ardour would have cooled quickly enough. I have never been attractive to women, which is possibly why I mostly form relationships with inanimate objects. I have a single arm and a single leg and my stale green eyes are so close together that I am able to peep through a keyhole with both of them at once. Nor does my beauty lie beneath my skin; I have no skin.
Before you there were others; I will not try to hide this from you. There was a hat-stand in Reading; an antimacassar in Norwich. But these were youthful affectations. They fluttered away on the wind of my desire like the pages of some half-finished novel in the passing of a train. It is you that I love now, a feisty sort of cello that has spoken to me across the gulf of a crowd. I will not be satisfied with any other.
A plan hatched in my head over the months. I would have to kill your owner. She alone was keeping us apart. How I would effect the murder I knew not, but I would scheme until I found a way. For the nonce, I would content myself with keeping close to her heels. We travelled up and down the land. I kept discreetly to the shadows; continuing to attend every concert you played. With only one hand, I could not applaud you in the normal style; my efforts at clapping were more like the solution to a metaphysical enigma than a gesture of appreciation, but my cheeks burned with tears and my clockwork heart wedged in my inverted mouth.
