Creeping Jenny

by Jeff Noon

  His mood was broken by cries of derision aimed his way. He turned to see a group of children across the way pointing at his face in fear or mock fear. Their cries grew louder. So he pressed his Edmund Grey mask back in place and felt the flesh taking it up, drawing it in. But he was still himself: some bond had been severed by the ritual of the bowl and the beetles, and he could now live safely behind the mask and yet know his true name clearly.

  John Nyquist. John Henry Nyquist.

  A black wreath had been placed on the door of Yew Tree Cottage. It was unlocked. He walked into the hallway and stood in a square of cold sunlight, listening. He looked into the living room and saw a number of people staring back at him, a dozen or so of them, all wearing the masks of Alice and Edmund. One of them slowly raised a glass of wine to her lips: this Alice Grey sipped her drink, her eyes peering over the rim of the glass, through the holes in her mask. Nyquist entered the room, squeezing in to find a space. He was pressed up against the woman with the glass of wine, who said to him, “Edmund, I’m so glad you’ve joined us. Poor Alice needs all our help at the moment.”

  Nyquist nodded. “Yes. I agree. We all have to show support.”

  Slowly, he made his way over to the birdcage in the corner of the room. The budgerigar was perched there happily, eating seeds from a tray. The bottom of the cage was empty, with no sign of the torn-up pieces of the naming card.

  A voice at his back said, “How’s little Bertram doing?”

  Nyquist turned to face yet another Edmund Grey, one of the visitors.

  “Bertram?”

  “Bertie the budgie. By rights, I’d call him Edmund, but he never responds. Anyway, how’s the fellow doing? Bearing up I hope, in the face of such grief. You know he was found at the window, yesterday, tap, tap, tapping. Desperate to get back inside, he was, the poor little thing.”

  “Right. Look, is Hilda here? I mean Alice.”

  “Alice? Yes, she’s around, upstairs, I think. But I don’t know anyone called Hilda, I’m afraid.”

  Nyquist found her in the front bedroom of the house. The widow Alice. She was sitting at a dressing table, staring at her face in the mirror. In tiny circles she moved a powder puff against the cheeks of her mask.

  He called her name gently, “Alice, can we speak?”

  She didn’t move her eyes from her task.

  “Alice?”

  He came closer and now she looked at him in the mirror. For a moment they stared at each other in reflection, before she turned towards him fully and he saw that she had already applied lipstick to the lips of the mask, and blue eyeshadow around the eyeholes.

  Nyquist pulled up a chair and sat in front of her. He said, “Alice, I know you don’t want to speak, or that you can’t speak… but I need your help.”

  She didn’t say a word. Grief had given the widow another layer of silence, on top of her muteness. And her face was half hidden behind the mask, adding even further to her self-imposed exile.

  “Can you write words down?”

  No response, not even a shake of her head, or a nod. Her eyes looked directly at him through the twin apertures. He could see they were red from crying.

  “Hilda?”

  The sound of her real name spoken aloud caused her to shift back in her seat. In fear. Her whole being trembled from some untold effort.

  “Alice. Alice, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I know you’re not Hilda. I know Hilda is away from home for the day. Please, look at me. Will you?”

  She did, slowly turning back in her seat.

  Her held her attention as best he could. “Alice, I have a few questions for you, that’s all. One or two questions.” She stared at him without moving. “First of all, I’m interested in your tea set.” It sounded absurd, as soon as he’d said it, but he pressed on. “The coronation service. Do you know the one I mean?”

  There was no response.

  “There’s a teacup missing. Alice, do you know where that cup is?”

  He searched the mask for any sign at all of a reaction beneath, in the flesh. But there was none. He tried another tack: “What happened to the raven in the cage?”

  She continued to stare at him.

  “What about the cage itself? The budgie’s cage. Was it cleaned out? Alice? Did you clean it out, or did the policeman do it?”

  Her eyes returned to the mirror, to her mask reflected there.

  “Alice, don’t look away.” He drew her gently round in her seat, and he held her by the hand. “There were some pieces of card in the cage, in the bottom of the cage, torn pieces. I’m trying to find them. You see…” He paused, not knowing what to say. It seemed hopeless. “You see, they belonged to me, the pieces. I need to read what’s on them. It was my naming card.”

  Her hand tightened in his grip.

  He moved closer. “Sylvia Keepsake gave it to me, in the woods. She gave me a new name. And I think it contained a clue, or a message of some kind. Because someone told me that the name Sylvia gives you, whatever it might be, that’s what you become. Do you think that’s true?”

  Was there a movement, the tiniest nod of her head?

  He couldn’t tell for sure.

  “You see… Alice… I’m trying to find my father. I haven’t seen him in a long time, since I was a child.” He paused again, and then added, “Do you understand? A very long time.”

  But Alice Grey had settled back into her enclosed world.

  The door of the mask had fully closed.

  “It’s all tied together, I’m sure it is. The name, my father, this village, the saints. I just can’t work out the connections.”

  Her eyes closed.

  Nyquist took a breath.

  Was there any point in going on?

  He let go of her hand, and immediately Hilda turned again to stare continually at her own reflection. Once again Alice was addicted to the looking glass. He watched her for a moment and then shifted in his seat. He looked at his own face in the mirror, or rather his own face beneath the face of Edmund Grey. There were four people at the dressing table, and they all sat in silence, thinking their own thoughts.

  A voice disturbed them, although it was directed at Nyquist alone.

  “How dare you vex the poor widow so!”

  He turned to the door, where a woman stood, her face masked. She said nothing more, so Nyquist stood and went to her. Her Alice Grey mask was different from the others he had seen that day, more elegant and refined, and ever so slightly more transparent, as though the wearer desired her real face to be seen, and her status to be acknowledged.

  It was Mrs Jane Sutton.

  She glared at him. Her eyes were plainly seen. And she said, “Can’t you see that Alice is grieving? She wishes to be alone.”

  “Is that her own choice?”

  “Yes, it is! The saints damn you, sir, for coming here to our lovely village.”

  “Are you saying that I’m to blame?”

  “Of course you are. Do you really think her husband would have killed himself, without your influence?”

  “That’s hardly–”

  “You visited him on your first night here. And the very next day he was dead. You must’ve have said something to him, something untoward, and unwelcome.”

  Nyquist didn’t know how to answer, because in his heart he suspected her words to be true, or at least partially true. But he didn’t know the real trigger for the suicide, whether a word or a gesture on his part, or something else entirely. Certainly, Mrs Sutton had made it plain from the first night that she didn’t want him here.

  She said now, “I will ask you again to leave my friend alone.”

  “Why? Are you scared, Mrs Sutton–”

  “That is not my name! Kindly–”

  “Are you scared that Hilda knows the truth about this village?”

  “There is no truth here. Only the many different truths of all the villagers.”

  “I’m starting to think you might be involved.”

  She drew her
self up to her full height, only a bare inch under Nyquist’s, and she spoke with every polished vowel that she could muster: “I am Mrs Alice Grey, headmistress. I will not be spoken to in this way.”

  Nyquist held her stare. For a moment he really thought that she was going to grab hold of him and attempt to drag him away. He could see anger in her mask, and in the face beneath it. His presence disturbed her greatly.

  “I will have my driver dispel you, if needed.”

  “Sure. He might end up in hospital.”

  Now she was exasperated. “What on earth do you want from us?”

  He was all set to tell her the story, the simple story of the search for his father, when the sound of breaking glass caused him to stutter.

  Jane Sutton gasped.

  Nyquist turned.

  Hilda Bainbridge had picked up a heavy bottle of perfume and used it to smash the mirror on her dressing table. The fragments of glass lay around her, and on the carpet at her feet. The bottle was still clenched in her hand.

  Mrs Sutton made a move towards her but received only a rebuke in return, as Hilda spun on her seat and raised the bottle as though to throw it at the other woman. Jane stopped where she was. Her mask trembled as she realised the truth, that she was the unwanted one. And without another word she made her way to the door, pushed past Nyquist, and left.

  He waited until the sound of her footsteps had faded down the stairs. Then he went over to the dressing table and he sat down, as he had before. With a kind hand, he urged Hilda to put down the perfume bottle. She did so. And then he spoke the words he should’ve said at the very beginning.

  “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry that Edmund passed away.”

  Her mask nodded.

  “I’m sorry that your husband, that Ian…”

  Her husband’s real name caused her to shudder.

  “I’m sorry that he did that terrible thing.”

  Now she controlled herself and kept her body still, and not a word issued from her lips.

  Nyquist leaned back in the chair, and felt the muscles in his back tighten. His head ached, and his body was tired. Everything was very quiet in the room. The mourners below could not be heard, and Hilda gathered the silence around her like a shroud, and he rested within the silence, and he felt himself sinking into it. He was lost, it was that simple. His eyes closed of their own accord.

  Hssssss

  He felt only a breath of air moving, a draft on the skin of his forearm, that was all. It was enough to make him open his eyes.

  Hilda was moving her hands. She had locked her hands together using her thumbs, and her outstretched fingers moved up and down on both sides. She lifted her hands to shoulder height, her arms bending and then stretching outwards and upwards, as her fingers repeated their flapping motion.

  The wings of a bird.

  A game, a children’s mime. The movement continued. Hilda’s head tilted as her eyes followed the conjured bird in its flight back and forth, back and forth.

  Nyquist sat up in his chair.

  “A bird? You’re making a bird?”

  Her only reply was the continued movement of the imagined wings.

  “The raven. You mean the raven flew away? Is that what you’re saying?”

  The hands dipped in response and then soared higher.

  “It flew away, through the window? Or the door?”

  Yes. The bird flew away through the imagined door. Her movements told him the story. And then she stood and followed the story across the room, her hands outstretched before her, still moving, still a pair of wings. Nyquist came after her, onto the landing and down the stairs, and round into the hallway. The crowd of masks gazed on them from the living room, but Hilda kept on her way, her own flight, on towards the kitchen. Here, the bird was trapped inside, and fluttered madly against the paneling of the back door. Nyquist opened it for her, and Hilda stepped outside and lifted her hands and separated them, allowing the bird to vanish from her fingertips into the clean cold air of winter.

  Her hands were now empty.

  Nyquist thought she might come back inside, out of the chill, but she remained where she was, looking out at the frosted grass, the hard ground, and the bare trees. He stood with her. The sky was slated over from top to bottom, gray and pitiless. Hilda walked a little way into the garden and stopped, pointing at a patch of earth that had recently been dug over. Nyquist bent down. There was a trowel nearby. He used this to dig into the soil. A little way down he uncovered a bundle of newspaper. The package was damp, smelly, stained with dirt and grease, but he unwrapped it there and then, carefully unfolding the sheets of The Bligh, Lockhampton & Hoxley Reporter. The missing coronation tea cup was nestled within, with a tiny crack down one side, and a small piece chipped from the rim. It had fallen to the floor at some point, or been thrown away in disgust or anger. He peered inside and saw the green tendril curled in place at the bottom of the cup, and scattered around it several pieces of torn paper – the remains of his naming card.

  He thanked Mrs Bainbridge loudly and keenly and went on his way, taking cup and contents with him. Through lanes narrow and weed-strewn and unpaved and deserted, through well-maintained streets packed with people going about their Saturday business. He walked across the green where the tent belonging to Madame Grey (née Fontaine) was now open, a line of customers queueing up outside to have their fortunes read. He headed towards to The Swan With Two Necks, hardly aware of all the masks around him, Alice and Edmund, Edmund and Alice, Alice with Alice and Edmund alone and then with Alice and another Edmund, each person a blur, of no importance. For only one thing mattered now. He went up to his little room above the pub and emptied the contents of the tea cup onto the eiderdown of his bed. The tendril had stirred awake at his presence, but for now Nyquist put the cup aside and turned all the pieces of card the right way up. There were fourteen of them altogether. He spent a few minutes putting them in order, completing the jigsaw. And now the card lay before him, the torn sections in place and the three words revealed, the name given to him on his very first day here in the village: Written in Blood. He remembered Sylvia Keepsake’s instructions, that he should stare at the card for ten minutes or more. He did so now. Quite simply, he couldn’t look away.

  STRANDED IN LIFE

  They drove north from Hoxley on a narrow road set between dry-stone walls. Nyquist kept glancing at the doctor’s face, at the new mask she was wearing. “It’s significant in its effects, don’t you think?” Higgs said. “Half the day as a woman, and half as a man. Can there be a sweeter prospect?”

  “Don’t you get confused?”

  “I do. Which is the whole point. And by the way, you have to call me Edmund from now on.”

  “I’ve just got used to calling you Alice.”

  “Times change.”

  As they left the last house of the village behind, Higgs pointed out the mocking gate. He glimpsed it in passing, a farm gate with four holes cut in it, two at the top and two at the bottom. “That’s where we locked up miscreants, in the old days. People liked to throw things at them, attack them even.”

  Nyquist imagined Len Sadler waiting by the gate for hours, hoping that his love, Agnes Dunne, would show up.

  “I say old days. The last person was locked up there in 1943.”

  Higgs steered the car across a ford. Water splashed away from the sides of the vehicle. Now the road stretched away over the moors. A light mist covered the land, so there wasn’t much to see. A damaged fence, the dirty puffball of a sheep, and a crow or two for company. No people, not this far out, not on a day like this. The doctor’s Morris Minor trundled on.

  “There’s one thing I need to know,” Nyquist said.

  “What’s that?”

  “How did you remove the Alice mask?”

  “Oh, it’s quite simple.”

  “So you put your face in a bowl of water, and let those beetles eat at you?”

  “No, I did not. I took a tablet.”

  �
�You took a tablet?”

  “You sound surprised, Edmund. Oh, don’t tell me you visited the professor?” Higgs started to laugh. The little car filled with the sound of her tobacco-assisted throat rattle. It sounded like a magpie claiming its territory.

  “I did.”

  “And she told you all that guff about the beetles?”

  He chose not to reply. So Higgs explained, “I used a simple muscle relaxant. It loosens the mask enough for it to be peeled off. I need it for my patients, in case of emergencies, facial injuries, difficulties in breathing and so on.”

  “So the bowl of water doesn’t work then?”

  “Oh, it works. It’s the traditional method, but only old sticklers like the prof still abide by it. Tell me, did she do it herself?”

  “She did.”

  “And did you see her do it, with your own two eyes?”

  “No, my face was covered with a towel.”

  This set the doctor off again, laughing madly. It quickly turned into a racking cough, which she apologised for.

  “This bloody cold, I can’t get rid of it, sorry.”

  She pressed on the car’s horn to make a rook take off from the road ahead. Then she said, “The professor took a tablet, I’ll bet she did. So typical!”

  “Alright, doc. You win. I’m the village idiot.”

  “Oh, you’re more than that, much more. But you do have plenty to learn.”

  “I’ve learned some things today, actually. About my family, for one.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “There used to be Nyquists in the village, way back when.”

  “Is that so? How interesting.”

  “We played the Tolly Man twice. But for some reason the family left the area, and moved down south.” He turned to Higgs. “This was back at the turn of the century, according to the prof.”

  “New era, new prospects. Perhaps they were seeking their fortunes elsewhere?”

  “Yes, perhaps.”