Infinite Rooms: a gripping psychological thriller that follows one man's descent into madness

by David John Griffin

  A senior citizen stood by an advertisement hoarding. Her eyes shone like beacons from their barren landscape. They fixed upon Clement as he passed.

  ‘Would you like to know of eternal love?’ she asked in a cracked voice. ‘The day of judgement is upon us.’ Her bare, sinewy arm described some esoteric symbol.

  Clement wished to inquire if she was cold. Her skirt covered past her knees, a blouse over her frail frame. Her coat had been taken off, covering a pile of leaflets to prevent them from blowing away. She pushed a leaflet into Clement’s hands.

  Of course, she was as he, disciplined obsession shining. And see those illuminated organs: what did she perceive through them?

  Then he nestled into the barely warm, living corpse and squinted out as if through oval windows.

  There you are, Donald. But why is the neck into your shoulders, chin scraping your ribs? Of course, I see: sacks hanging like sandbags about your midriff, stuffed into pockets. And ectoplasmic ropes about each ankle, pulling more sacks which transform into misshapen forms without warning.

  A car horn broke the spell. Just the stucco wall below the hoarding was before him, with a pile of leaflets fluttering at his feet and the old lady nowhere to be seen.

  A disembodied station announcement reverberated from behind him as he walked away from the station.

  Two women stood at the side of the main road waiting to cross, their loose dresses from beneath their coats flapping like flags in the light wind. Duplicates, Clement immediately considered.

  He took a turning along a side road. It was quieter there. He pulled up the collar of his overcoat and wished he had worn trousers instead of a skirt. He could change in an alley into clothes taken from his holdall but decided there was no time to spare.

  The road funnelled the air into a biting wind. A sheet of newspaper came running up and frolicked about him before plastering itself over his legs. He tried to kick it off but it seemed glued to his tights. He stopped to remove the sheet of paper by hand and flung it away. The wind caught it again and it flew down the street like a kite.

  This business with Mrs Froby, Clement muttered. It was her fault he didn’t have the energy to walk fast. The impetus had left him, consumed with those chocolate bars an hour ago.

  Dim reflections in shop windows, sometimes mimicking, down to the last foot flick, other times seeming in more of a hurry. At one point a reflection had ballooned out, his features distorting like a liquid plastic, all the while a ghost of a thing, with handbags and shoes showing behind.

  He stopped. A fair reflection this one yet making him appear dowdy and advanced in years, his back bent with an invisible load.

  A woman came out of a supermarket in a hurry as though being pursued and she threw hard glances behind, one of her arms lost in her shopping bag.

  ‘Good morning, madam,’ Clement felt he had to remark. She looked up with burning cheeks and a veil of concern before walking stiffly away. ‘Very supreme, very typical,’ he said.

  A market sprawled untidily along another side road. The canvas canopies over the stalls billowed up and ropes wavered. A lady with the petite features of a field vole peeked attentively at a pile of carrots. Other women, clutching handbags or pulling shopping bags on wheels behind them, and men – appearing dazed as if hypnotized – wandered from stall to stall.

  A lady turned to Clement, snickering. He was indignant but she looked past him to the stall opposite her. A cat stood on the produce, unaware of swipes from the stallholder’s hand, just out of reach.

  The animal moving now, fish-like.

  Its body pulsed in an oscillatory fashion, waves moving along its spine then the length of its tail; and before the next pulse, the tip of the tail pointing, like a finger would, to a pile of oranges. Clement was excited at the spectacle.

  ‘That cat’s something I can’t explain,’ he said out loud.

  How to invigorate the next plane of understanding so as to comprehend this extraordinary act. He turned away to register reactions of others, no doubt struck with awe. But no – the stallholder whose stall had been chosen for this rite had ignored the cat to serve another customer.

  A clatter of thoughts came to Clement in a surge.

  Don’t you understand what you’re missing? Before you, ancient symbolism described yet you’re not interested. We should commune, come together in ceremony. A small slice of wisdom here, another there, for the encompassing map once more to be seen. Will this archaic enlightenment be allowed to decay, each part wither with each owner? Will nobody see with me and try to dissect these rituals? That cat shows us a piece of the whole. As does the hot chestnut man holding his mittened hands over the brazier; and that signpost, and the guy standing by it spitting into the gutter. A masterful act performed with silent wit. Surely suggesting a cornerstone of the esoteric.

  While Clement mused, he weaved his way through the market aisles, his attention caught by an apron or a gesture, or a rotting tomato smearing the walkway, and each time he felt he might glean some meaning.

  He bought two apples before moving on. He knew it had been an important act to buy them. Quite why, he was unsure. For certain though, it was yet more significance, more synchronicity.

  By buying the apples a positive wave has been created. Do I ask for thanks or payment of any kind? No, this is how transparent I’ve become.

  Yet why do I still fumble in the branches of the darkest mindrooms like an ape unable to evolve? It has to be the infesting filmics. Some fierce, taken on a mountainous form, too big to cope with. No wonder my barriers need to be large, though many have been destroyed already. I’m surprised parts of me haven’t begun to dissolve. Or maybe they have, though being such a creeping process I’m unaware of it.

  Soon I’ll discover the force which binds us, stopping us from flying apart. But then what if I fail? Tyres would become rubber sap and run into gratings; cars collapsing as their metals resolve into slews of molten steel. Timber breaking down to cells. Bricks becoming sludge. Skin evaporating to leave pads of muscle, ropes of sinew. Bones crumbling to chalk, a soup of chemicals, liquids and gases. A return to the primordial broth.

  My ears can capture you again at last, doctor. Of course this is impossible, I’ll grant you.

  Though you never believe a word I say, whether truth or lies. Who are you to sift over my mind’s contents like someone at a jumble sale, accepting some but rejecting others? You haven’t the ability to discriminate. I would guess if you were to extract a slice of fiction along with a slice of fact, you would find they have very similar forms. Doctor, you surely wouldn’t be able to find any difference because I can’t and I own these thoughts.

  I mean, had she really spoken to me like that or was it a nasty drama constructed in weary confusion?

  Get up, lazy slob, I think she said.

  I’m struggling to open glued eyes; my body had found a position so sublime and comfortable; I’ve melted into the bedclothes with a delicious warmth. This fight to a higher state is like wading through treacle.

  Her words are slowly being understood.

  ‘Wake up, idiot.’

  19

  Am I hearing correctly? Perhaps I’ve inadvertently dragged dream state into waking life. ‘What did you say?’

  My tongue feels swollen to twice its size and layered with a bitter fungus.

  She sits in front of the dressing table at a side of the bedroom. Holding a lipstick to her lips, the reflection copying. Perhaps it was only for mirror life her words were meant. She’s showing surprise. ‘You’re awake. I said nothing.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Time you got up.’ Her expected reply. My muscles have been injected with powdered stone. ‘Shift yourself. You know if I leave before you get moving, you’ll be there for half the day.’

  A concentrated effort – I’ll move to a sitting position. Bernadette is thickening her eyelashes with mascara.

  ‘Putting on a lot of makeup. Never used to put that much on.’ A fro
nt door slamming from somewhere down the street and the background chatter of birds. ‘I don’t like you with so much. Would you wipe it off for me? One of your best dresses you’ve put on, isn’t it? Why do you have to work on a Saturday anyway? What if…’

  ‘Just belt up for a change.’

  ‘Nice. Just trying to make conversation.’

  She’s standing to adjust her dress. ‘That wasn’t conversation, that was a lecture.’

  I’ll give a chuckle in the hope of lessening the serious mood we’re falling into.

  ‘I’m a bit jealous; the slinky dress you’re wearing. Those men at the office staring. Surely you must like me being jealous?’

  She’s gone to the wardrobe and retrieved her coat. A man in a white tunic is walking past her, holding a ladder.

  ‘Listen, I don’t want to argue. You dare make me late. I’d lose my job. But then you’d like that.’

  She’s putting on the coat. Someone is loading up a barrow with produce from a store next to a market stall. Drone of traffic from the end of the road.

  I’ve picked up a watch from the bedside cabinet. ‘Yes I would, as it happens. It was underhand the way … hang on, it’s only seven. You’ve got at least another hour.’

  It’s her turn to laugh but the chimes have become a discordant jangle. ‘Starting earlier than I thought.’

  ‘Well, at least give me a kiss.’

  She tuts as though an effort for her. Walking over to the bedside, bending, pecking me on the cheek like an aunt might an invalid nephew.

  I’ll grab her wrists and pull her down on top of me. I have my mouth pressed to hers but my tongue is licking her lipstick. I run my hand down the line of buttons and despite her struggling, and shouts of the robot stockholders, can deftly unbutton the coat in a swift motion. This excited burning within is pressing me on. My hand is massaging one of her breasts. I’ve rolled her over and my other hand has found her suspender belt. I’ve paused at this. I always pause. The blunted electric jolt, the question: why should she wear such exotic lingerie to work? The more defined jolt below my waist, passion demanding I continue, a sweet savagery taking me over.

  She’s managed to wriggle out from under me, panting heavily and looking furious. Her tangled hair needs combing and one of the coat buttons is hanging from a thread. The screech: ‘You swine!’ The astonishing announcement: ‘How dare you. How dare you touch me.’

  Shocked, discharged from an unreal place. The words echoing back and forth like a hurtful tennis volley. I can never catch them, unable to replace them. ‘What do you mean? I’m your husband. Can’t I even kiss you?’

  She’s rebuttoning her coat. Traffic from the main road louder still, imaginary but constant. Stream of pseudonyms flowing by, walking the cardboard pavements, more within their grumbling vehicles jostling on the highway.

  She rummages in her handbag for her compact mirror. Retrieving it, she’ll open it to inspect her face and wipe smears of lipstick from about her mouth with a tissue. Any second.

  There. This girl here is not my wife. My wife was a gentle, loving person. Someone has stolen her and is inhabiting her body.

  ‘Leave me alone. Don’t you dare lay one finger on me again without asking permission.’

  ‘You must be joking.’ I’ll hold my hand up to her. ‘Let me caress you. Take the elastic band of recuperations.’

  ‘It’s my body. You’ve no right to touch me. I’ll decide who can and who can’t.’ She’s walking out of the bedroom onto the landing. Her footsteps are heavy on the stairs. She’s wearing her high heels, clopping across the lino in the hall. The door squeaking open. And the slamming of it comes at precisely the same time as the hooting of a car’s horn.

  Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily…

  I must rid myself of this solid clump of despair beginning to live within. Curling in my chest, sending out filaments, it’s found its way through spaghetti tangles of intestines. Infected my lungs and is surely squeezing my heart so tightly it’s bringing tears to my eyes.

  Bring her back, let the front door be the door of the cocoon. The wardrobe exit will be her entrance back to me. A shifting, change in appearance, a seething mass of intricate bands soothing with fragile tones, creating chords of deepest love which fade to infinity. Still, don’t touch me emanates from her throat, out from her maroon lips; clopping on lino becoming the chopping of adoration, a mutilating, mutating into worse than chopped liver; the front door slam, a thump in the foundations of my deepest barriers, splinters slashing, till she emerges again from the wardrobe, pouting as though ready to kiss except don’t touch me becoming scraping shards of smouldering coal, scorching the bands of tenderness…

  This mindroom is mere fiction.

  I daren’t look at the companion watches tightening about my wrist. The cold metal is melting into the flesh. Not my fault the train was delayed; this they must understand.

  Many replacements here today. They can’t all be late, except perhaps for that automated creature running past like a frightened bird.

  Increase my pace, eat up yards of road. I’m not far off.

  How many steps could I count before becoming number blind? Hammerings within my breast, the many breaths I’ve taken, millions of words spoken.

  Who’s there to remember me when I’ve ceased to be? Mrs Froby for one. She thinks I owe her the rent.

  Move the feet, drag miserable diluted shadow behind. See it run into other shadows cast by the shops like puddles of rain would. What sort of residue do these shadows leave? What imperceptible remnant?

  I don’t give a damn if you think my theories far-fetched. I suspect, in truth, you’re jealous.

  ‘Not so.’

  Welcome again. But still a quick and flippant reply. You’re giving one of those funny smirks.

  ‘Donald, you don’t need theories. Unclutter, rid yourself of them.’

  How I’m being buried by your impossible directions.

  Look at that woman wearing the bizarre spotted hat. Can you imagine her not whining like a dog over what life means? Or the man jauntily swinging the duck-head walking stick. Does he appear upset in the least, living with his barriers?

  An aeroplane droning overhead. Can you hear it?

  I wouldn’t get too comfortable snuggling here, offering your sickly sugar-hiccup advice. I wouldn’t turn your back on me either, otherwise, with an almighty push, you’d be out. I suppose whatever part of you is infiltrating might be ejected in wavering streams. Then it’ll be my turn to nod with sympathetic understanding while you’re trampled and kicked about by pedestrians.

  Or I might choose to be rid of you in one long drawn-out gas stream to peacefully disperse, your condescension becoming the merest whisper.

  My threats have no effect. Are you indestructible, like a barrier?

  ‘I am your liberator. Guard me well.’

  Hearing you, doctor, but still can’t see you. Show yourself. Enough skulking behind my frontal lobes. How many others have another, mounted over their forehead like a jockey on his horse? Why have you chosen me?

  ‘You have chosen yourself. Face the truth. Expunge your distress.’

  Easy for you to say. Looking at you shrugging, I expect your boulder head to topple off. I’ve such unexpected powers: with one prod of my metaphysical wand, and there, flames leap crimson from your neck. A brace of squirming snakes, Medusa-like. This is to represent your poisonous ideas.

  But you can too easily supersede my abilities. Already remoulding your head. A strong chin, that one. Thick bush of a moustache on your upper lip. Doctor, you don’t have a moustache. Those dark eyes, swarthy skin. Take off the striped jacket, I prefer the tweed. You’re trying to disturb me on purpose, and this wouldn’t be the first time.

  I can dredge up another filmic in a sealed mindroom, a shocking incident, is that what you want? I’m starting to think you’ve got a perversion, a kinky desire to listen to me stammering my way through embarrassing experiences, with the lame excuse it’s necess
ary to unpack the mindrooms. Won’t you allow me at least one barrier?

  Memories of my love-life are smutty piles of refuse. Echoes of them mock me. Halfway through the act of lovemaking I begin to cry for I know I’m losing her. She’s become an empty shell; then for her to start laughing before pushing me away? Why should you have made me remember that? If only feeling and commitment had been present, then it would have been relevant. And I wouldn’t have been reduced to a slobbering goblin.

  I need to erect barriers as massive walls, but still the hurt builds a lead block. And with terror of being smothered alive, it places the dense slab over me, plunging me into a dank, black box of self-contempt and despair.

  All I can tell you is, if I’d been given a sharp knife then, I would have gladly sliced off my private parts with one cut. And as the blood leaps out I’d run to her and bellow with a potency found from high martyrdom: see what you’ve made me do, I’ve de-sexed myself for you! No longer will I be encumbered with its tensions and demands. We can live a meaningful life without sex, and so without pain, a spiritual bonding other men will envy.

  My barriers I wish to keep but the lead slab pressing on me I’d gladly give to you, doctor.

  This tall concrete block: you’re reflected in all of those windows. ‘No barriers,’ you call out with multiple voices.

  You’ve obviously never understood a single syllable I’ve spoken.

  Let me tell you this much. If my barriers do completely decay, then you must know I hold you responsible for the consequences.

  20

  The windows of the office block reflected only a sombre premonition of the day. Each square of glass was a drab vacuum. As he looked upward, Clement had a dizzying sensation as the massive structure seemed to lean forward. A sign on the building named it as Falcon House. Clement entered via the revolving door into a foyer and called, ‘Klipper? Klipper?’ Without a response, he made the decision to become Donald again; this was no work for Donadette. He found the lavatory to change before coming out of the building in search of the security guard.