Titus Awakes

by Maeve Gilmore

  The signs of a human activity hung outside the hut. Animal skins stretched pathetically, their lives stripped from them. Small flowers clung to life as the winter advanced.

  He could not pass the hut without his curiosity being assuaged – he called out ‘Hello’ in every pitch of voice he could manage, from the deep bassoon to the shrill shriek of a cockatoo. From inside the hut he heard movements and he smelled the richness of some animal cooking. The door of the hut was suddenly opened.

  What Titus saw was not what he expected. He had thought to see a figure unkempt and old, a shadow, but he saw a youngish man, in clothes that were particularly clean with the well-washed, scrubbed paleness of sun and water. The man had shoulder-length hair, beard, moustache; he was hirsute but immaculate.

  At the door to his hut he bowed to Titus with the delicacy of one who had lived in another world. He bade him enter, and with added grace bowed to Titus’s companion, the titanic canine. Titus had expected confusion. He had expected distaste for a stranger, but what he saw was something of infinite charm. A room, whitewashed and rich in what it had to offer. Sitting cross-legged on a floor covered by reed matting was a girl. Then she stood as eminently as any hostess in a palace holding in her arms a baby, with the same flaxen hair that was hers. The baby cried at the sight of his dog. Titus felt ungainly and ugly, but he took the girl’s hand and kissed it with a courtesy that he had long since forsaken. There was no awkward silence. The warmth of fulfilled love permeated the hut.

  ‘I am Titus, 77th Earl of Gormenghast,’ he said, ‘and this is the companion of my wanderings.’

  ‘I am Elystan and this is my wife Meirag, and this is my son, John Donne.’

  The child was put down on the floor, and it crawled across the room to where the giant dog lay, with its tail hitting rhythmically the rush matting. It made no move as the infant came nearer, but looked on curiously. Titus was frightened as the little creature put its hand out to caress, but he need not have been, as the huge tongue emerged from its cream-furry mouth, and licked the baby’s hand, then its face, and the mutual delight cast all fear from the adults.

  11

  Titus Learns of Other Loves

  AS THE MIST descended on the hut, so did tranquillity on the home in which he found himself. Oil lamps were kindled and a log fire glowed, and a harmony he knew would never be his suffused Titus until he slept beside the sleeping child and his dog and his desire to be at one with nothingness.

  When he awoke it was to the sound of a flute, mellow, melancholy and sweet. Tears, which he had thought gone for ever, flooded his eyes. Elystan was playing what Titus was later to discover was a recorder, which he had made himself and which he held vertically in front of him as he played, both hands making games on the candlelit whitewashed walls. He played simple music, all that the instrument allowed, and he heard another voice, that of the girl who sang in harmony, almost as a second instrument.

  Mutual happiness and love are together so rare that Titus lay quietly savouring it at second hand, wishing it could last, and holding it in his mind, so that when the ugliness of life usurped this beauty he would see it ever after as a miniature, something to be carried with care into the unknown worlds that lay ahead of him.

  Both the man and the girl became aware that he was awake, and their music ended.

  ‘Well, Titus, did you sleep the sleep of the just, like your faithful hound?’

  ‘I slept, but I cannot say if justice is the word I would use. It was mercifully blank until I became aware of the music of the gods. Perhaps that was their justice. I awoke in heaven and it looks as though I am still there.’

  ‘We must fall short of heaven,’ said Meirag. ‘You must be hungry, Titus. We have been waiting for you to wake, before we do anything so mundane as eating.’

  Titus sprang up, eager to taste the delights with which the rough-hewn table was laden.

  Titus wished to make recompense – he wanted to thank his hostess and his host, and without warning he chanted:

  How fly the birds of heaven save by their wings?

  How tread the stags, those huge and hairy Kings

  Save by their feet? How do the fishes turn

  In the wet pinkness where the mermaids yearn

  Save by their tails? How does the plantain sprout

  Save by that root it cannot do without?

  ‘This is my contribution. A nonsense rhyme from one whom I knew long ago, in another world. The verses belong to a dead man, silent in his grave, but those are his words and I offer them to you, as a thanksgiving for the shelter, the warmth, the love that is generated here. One day, when I am alone again, I will talk of your kindness to people whom I have yet to meet.’

  The baby was put to bed in a cot made of clay and covered by the fleece of lambs. ‘Titus,’ said Elystan, ‘let’s eat now, and then tell us your story, a story as yet without an end.’

  Titus took his place at the table to eat the flesh of the animal whose stretched skin he had noticed outside the hut. ‘Oh, this is good food and cooked so well.’

  The wife, with an intuition sometimes common to women, placed her hand on Titus’s, at the same time looking at her husband. ‘Come now, Titus, tell us your story. We will believe it, and remember it, when you have gone. Let’s go by the fire.’

  Titus, with the cream dog at his knee, began his tale. He spoke for hours, until the fire no longer lit his face or those of his listeners. Names and memories emerged from the mist of time – Gertrude, Sepulchrave, Fuchsia, Juno, Cheetah. Was it fairy tale? Was it truth?

  ‘Titus, it is too much. I am overwhelmed. I know that you, truth or no truth, can never be a part of any world but your own,’ said Meirag.

  ‘I must not live in the past,’ he cried, ‘but how else can I live? I can never stand still again. This is your present and your future, and your past. I envy you.’

  The fire no longer sent shadows on to the walls. The quiet was broken by the tiny tap of branches on the window. Titus could see in the half-light the man and woman, arms and bodies so closely locked that they made but one shadow. His hand felt a warmth, not of human flesh, but of canine fur, beside him.

  ‘It is time for us to go, my friend.’

  So Titus lifted himself, as silently as he could so as not to disturb his new friends. The girl almost in her sleep pointed to a package on the table. Food, that only and most valuable possession of a wanderer, was there, with a note, which said, ‘Goodbye, Titus. We will always remember you.’

  ‘I will always be a traitor. Dog, dog, stay here, where you will be warm and fed.’ He stumbled, feeling like a blind man his way to the table. He could not do without food, but he could do without his dog. With the food were placed garments of such warmth that he knew only a woman would think of it. He made his way to the door of the hut and, opening it so that the cold should not enter, he closed it upon the sleeping figures and the dog.

  Titus heard the pitiful whines, the scratching at the door, the torment of being left behind, and before his conscience could decide what it should do he heard the latch open and close, and the panting of the creature who wished to share his exile. As Titus stumbled towards the sound of water, he turned and saw at the window a pair of eyes, and a hand raised in farewell.

  12

  Among the Rivers

  Linger now with me, my only

  On the far and distant shores,

  Lingering can be so lonely

  When one lingers on one’s own.

  ‘DOG, WE ARE destined to be lonely. We are destined for the far and distant shores. You had a small choice and you made it, and now you are here. We have only one way to go. Down, and down and down towards the water, through the snow, meeting whom? Howl for me, so that we know we are together alone. I am glad that you came with me, Dog, but I owe you nothing. I want to be responsible to no one, to no thing. It’s all over, living and loving; breathing is all that is left.

  As day broke Titus ran and Dog bounded, sometimes before, somet
imes behind – stopping to nuzzle deep into a lair, hidden to all eyes but those of the animal world. Excited by the scent of prey, Dog rushed here and there and everywhere, returning at all times to Titus. A fitful sun emerged, only to taunt and disappear, and a blinding storm of snow covered them until they were a snowman and a snow dog, running for their lives. Titus’s cheeks were red as holly berries, dripping with ice, and he was glad of the warm clothes given to him. They heard a gentle trickle of water and, like the water, they ran, ignorant of the direction that they were taking, only that they were plunging seawards.

  There were the last frugal remnants of food, stale crusts, dampened and made a little more palatable by the snow.

  ‘Dog, I can’t go through all this again. Last winter I was a clown of ice and it looks as though this winter will turn us both into pillars of ice. Would it be a good deed to wring your yellow-in-snow neck, Dog? Shall I end your torment before it begins?’ In answer, the dog howled with dreadful understanding. The rugs and blankets that had been so generously given were still a comfort, but food was another thing. Titus had known hunger, and was to know hunger again, but he felt he could not inflict it on another being, albeit canine. But his hands were powerless to stop the breathing, the panting, and even amid his despair he delighted in the presence of his dog.

  ‘Let’s sing, Dog.’

  The sunlight falls upon the grass

  It falls upon the tower

  Upon my spectacles of brass

  It falls with all its power

  It falls on everything it can

  For that is how it’s made;

  And it would fall on me, except,

  that I am in the shade.

  ‘Oh, Dog, we are surely in the shade. Is there such a thing as not being in the shade? But what beauty is there being in the shade?’

  As Titus feverishly spoke, so did nature. A ray of lightness, of pink chill, warmed the sky and gave impetus to the running, slippery, icy foot- and padsteps.

  And so the sound of water, which can be beautiful – can be petrifying, can drown, or embalm – came closer and closer to them.

  Titus remembered another sound of water, and another, in his own home, when the water flooded the castle, and again, when he awoke on unknown shores and he thought his life was over. A terrible pain seared him, as he knew there was no longer home and he felt he could only abandon life, and yet his feet, sore and swollen, hedged him down and down, until he could go no further; and as a dreadful repeat of last year, he fell and lay with the yellow-in-snow dog beside him, both nearly frozen to death.

  A boat picked him up. Titus was used to not understanding languages. Eyes spoke, hands spoke, bodies spoke, but lips only opened and closed, and tongues made sounds. Communication was made by the prowess of the particular individual in miming his desires, his jokes were the jokes of silent clowns and his love unspoken, save through eyes and hands.

  There were three men with stubbled chins – each could have played the villain in some age-old ritual of the theatre. Everything about them was vile, villainous, and they were interchangeable, with their small mean eyes and their coarse insensitive faces. When they pulled Titus into their boat it was not through pity or love, but greed; they saw the dog and the warm rugs that covered them. Their presence evoked a dreadful fear. Titus knew that he was not being carried to safety, but to a different kind of battle, and he knew now that he would have to defend his dog against the hunger so rampant in the six eyes that were fixed on skinning his beast, and tearing it, to feast upon its flesh. He could see these dreadful vultures and he hoped that his wiles would be cunning enough to circumvent them when the time came.

  Titus and his companion dog, whom he was coming to love, lay in the boat as it made its perilous way downstream. There was still no shelter and the snow, so beautiful, yet so merciless, strayed into their eyes, and little icicles hung on all the protuberances that man is heir to.

  The small coracle-like boat drifted mostly, as it was swept helplessly by the torrents and the icy winds. Did those men, who had grasped them out of the edge of despair, know where they were going? Sly people do nothing without a motive and as the moments drifted and the snowflakes descended, he realised more and more that their purpose in salvaging him was his dog, and he wondered why they had not just taken the dog and left him to die. But his dog had strength and would not without a fight, bitter and vicious, have left his master.

  ‘Now,’ thought Titus, ‘I am bound by love and gratitude, once more, but to an animal whose only motive is unquestioning love. Do human beings ever have that exquisite selflessness?’

  Titus caught a glimpse of a small reed hut – a palace in no-man’s-land. The terrible trinity were making for it and, as he glanced at the hut and then at the men, he saw that he was a captive, as the worst of the three made an obscene gesture at Titus, as of cutting his throat, and at the pale melon-coloured dog of disembowelling it and scooping out the entrails and eating them. Then the first human sound rent the air, as the frail boat shook to the disgusting laughter these gestures had engendered in their maker.

  Speed was now uppermost in Titus’s mind as he laid his plans in the quickly descending dusk. If his captors had had more intelligence they would have separated him from his companion, but they clung closer and closer together – man and beast both aware of their danger.

  The boat pulled slowly sideways towards the hut. Who were these men? What was left of their tattered clothing indicated that they must be deserters from some unknown military or totalitarian regime. Despite their coarse exterior and their seeming bravado, there was a sense of unease, of fear in their behaviour, which communicated itself to Titus. He knew they would be rash, harsh and inhuman, and this made his own plans craftier, his thoughts more secretive and his responses to them more obsequious. Dusk would be his advantage.

  The coracle drew slowly towards the bank, and towards the hut, and towards a stake where countless travellers had moored their boats. Not for any of these travellers was the wonder at the end of a voyage where people gathered to welcome, only darkness and bitter cold greeted them.

  A sudden bump and there was a stillness, except for the movement made by the splashing water, and the three embryonic human beings jumped with hideous shouts on to the frozen land by the stake. The third one slipped as he landed, and the unholiness of his expletives was such that it could be understood in any language.

  Now, now, quickly, his heart beating inside him like a drumbeat to prayer, Titus also jumped, and landed upright, nearly on top of the swearing villain who, judging from the cries of pain mingled with the swearing, must have broken his leg on landing. One thing Titus knew was that the creature would certainly receive no words of comfort from his two luckier companions.

  He called out loud and clear, ‘Dog!’ The man lying on the ground stretched out his freezing hands and, as strong as an animal even in his own pain, he hit Titus with the side of his hand.

  ‘Dog! – Dog! Kill him! Break his neck!’

  The dog, which had been so gentle with the tiny child, was now ready to tear limb from limb the enemy of Titus.

  The evil creature lying on the ground with all its venom hooked his arm round Titus’s leg as he jumped to the icy surface. Titus fell as helplessly as a storm-tossed tree. He knew that he was done for. His strength was failing him, he had no reserves as the weakness laid him low, and the two companions followed, as night and day, their brutal companion in aiming blows at Titus. He was theirs to kill, but they reckoned without his canine companion, who had meant nothing but a stew and a warm coat to them.

  ‘Dog!’ cried Titus.

  Growling, Dog jumped dextrously in the twilight, and a screech of pain followed; the villain’s wrist had been bitten, his neck had been broken. In the end it becomes a matter for each being to survive and, as the darkness became more dense, so did the knowledge of defeat in the two remaining villains rend the air. Titus and his saviour drew away in stumbling steps, limbs jellified, panting and
eager for life.

  13

  They Reach the Archipelagos and Forests

  TITUS AND HIS dog ran away from the viciousness that nearly overcame them and lay hidden. An awareness of a more dulcet air grew. The ice was no longer present. A faint murmuration instilled itself; what were the voices they heard, what were the sounds? The shapes? Monkeys . . . parrots . . . birds of paradise . . . squirrels. Was it a dream? Was it paradise with hunger gnawing at their bellies? Was it freedom? Where were they? How had they reached this balm?

  Titus felt the soft muzzle tickling his cheeks. Dawn, in all its ridiculous glory, began to show man to dog – and man to his surroundings. In their descent from the mountain and the icy cold they had reached a more comforting world. They were no longer frozen, and the great pale vermilion sun peered secretively (almost as though it would disappear if it disliked what it saw) over and into a world that Titus had forgotten existed. He saw the green of life, there was water, there was beauty in the strings of islands, which seemed to stretch to infinity. Each island was shaped differently; some like porpoises or dolphins as they surface, only to disappear again. Some islands were so elongated that you could not see where they ended; some squat and ugly; such mysterious dark shapes in the dawn, the sky sometimes aflame, sometimes so pale that the sea and itself were united.

  To eat seemed imperative and as the light became more brilliant, Titus looked about him. He was reminded of his visit to Flay – poor banished Flay – so long ago. Flay had made a life for himself in his solitary existence. He had learned to hunt, to build fires, to feed himself, to clothe himself. ‘Dog, if Flay could learn, so can I, so can you. There are many arguments against killing, but now is not the time for debate. We need to eat if we want to live. What do you see, Dog, where is our prey? Alive now, and unaware of our presence. With your paws I thee follow. With my eyes and with my hands I thee feed, with my brain I will discover the dreadful means by which we will live. Such cruelty, Dog, is in us when survival is the key. An orchestra plays in our empty stomachs – rumble, rumble, drums, rumble on. How long and how far can we listen to the rumbling? As long as it takes our initiative to find a way of assuaging that rumbling and the drumming in our stomachs becomes muted. There must be fish in this water and we must fish for them. Some happy fish, swimming about, is going to die for us. Perhaps some bird, with all its plumage – its glorious feathers plucked for us, and its naked skin pocked from where the feathers made it into a bird – will feed us, tough or tender as may be. How close to primitive man are we when we desire to live?’