The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

by Gerald Malcolm Durrell

  I found that I was sweating. I glanced once more at the real door to assure myself that it was closed because I did not fancy having that caterpillar or whatever it was crawling about the room with me. The door was still shut. I took a draught of wine to steady my nerves, and was annoyed to see that my hand was shaking. I, who had never believed in ghosts, or hauntings, or magic spells or any of that clap—trap, here I was imagining things in a mirror and convincing myself to such an extent they were real, that I was actually afraid.

  It was ridiculous, I told myself as I drank the wine. There was some perfectly rational explanation for the whole thing. I sat forward in my chair and gazed at the reflection in the mirror with great intentness. For a long time nothing happened and then the door in the mirror swung open a fraction and the caterpillar appeared again. This time it was joined by another and then, after a pause, yet another.

  Suddenly my blood ran cold for I realized what it was. They were not caterpillars but attenuated yellow fingers with long twisted black nails tipping each one like gigantic misshapen rose thorns. The moment I realized this the whole hand came into view, feeling its way feebly along the carpet. The hand was a mere skeleton covered with the pale yellow, parchment-like skin through which the knuckles and joints showed like walnuts. It felt around on the carpet in a blind, groping sort of way, the hand moving from a bony wrist, like the tentacles of some strange sea anemone from the deep sea, one that has become pallid through living in perpetual dark. Then slowly it was withdrawn behind the door. I shuddered for I wondered what sort of body was attached to that horrible hand. I waited for perhaps quarter of an hour, dreading what might suddenly appear from behind the mirror door, but nothing happened.

  After a while I became restive. I was still attempting to convince myself that the whole thing was an hallucination brought on by the wine and the heat of the fire without success. For there was the door of the blue salon carefully closed against the draught and the door in the mirror still ajar with apparently something lurking behind it. I wanted to walk over to the mirror and examine it, but did not have the courage. Instead I thought of a plan which, I felt, would show me whether I was imagining things or not. I woke Agrippa the dog and, crumpling up a sheet of the newspaper I had been reading into a ball, threw it down the room so that it landed just by the closed door. In the mirror it lay near the door that was ajar.

  Agrippa, more to please me than anything else, for he was very sleepy, bounded after it. Gripping the arms of my chair I watched his reflection in the mirror as he ran towards the door. He reached the ball of newspaper and paused to pick it up. Then something so hideous happened that I could scarcely believe my eyes. The mirror door was pushed open still further and the hand and a long white bony arm shot out. It grabbed the dog in the mirror by the scruff of its neck and pulled it speedily, kicking and struggling, behind the door.

  Agrippa had now come back to me, having retrieved the newspaper, but I took no notice of him for my gaze was fixed on the reflection in the mirror. After a few minutes the hand suddenly reappeared. Was it my imagination or did it now seem stronger? At any event, it curved itself round the woodwork of the door and drew it completely shut, leaving on the white paint a series of bloody fingerprints that made me feel sick. The real Agrippa was nosing my leg, the newspaper in his mouth, seeking my approval, while behind the mirror door, God knows what fate had overtaken his reflection.

  To say that I was shaken means nothing. I could scarcely believe the evidence of my senses. I sat staring at the mirror for a long time, but nothing further happened. Eventually, and with my skin prickling with fear, I got up and examined the mirror and the door into the salon. Both bore a perfectly ordinary appearance. I wanted very much to open the door to the salon and see if the reflection in the mirror opened as well but, if I must tell the truth, I was too frightened of disturbing whatever it was that lurked behind the mirror door.

  I glanced up at the top of the mirror and saw for the first time that it bore the same inscription as the one I had found in the attic: I am your servant. Feed and liberate me. I am you. Did this mean the creature behind the door, I wondered? Feed and liberate me, was that what I had done by letting the dog go near the door? Was the creature now feasting upon the dog it had caught in the mirror? I shuddered at the thought. I determined that the only thing to do was to get a good night’s rest, for I was tired and overwrought. In the morning, I assured myself, I would hit upon a ready explanation for all this mumbo-jumbo.

  Picking up the cat and calling the dog (for, if the truth be known, I needed the company of the animals) I left the blue salon. As I was closing the door I was frozen into immobility as I heard a cracked, harsh voice bid me “Bonne nuit ” in wheedling tones. It was a moment or so before I realized it was Octavius the parrot, and went limp with relief.

  Clair the cat drowsed peacefully in my arms, but Agrippa needed some encouraging to accompany me upstairs, for it was obvious that he had never been allowed above the ground floor before. At length, with reluctance that soon turned to excitement at the novelty, he followed me upstairs. The fire in the bedroom had died down; but the atmosphere was still warm. I made my toilet and, without further ado, climbed into bed, with Agrippa lying one side of me and Clair the other. I received much comfort from the feel of their warm bodies but, in addition; I am not ashamed to say that I left the candles burning and the door to the room securely locked.

  The following morning when I awoke I was immediately conscious of the silence. Throwing open the shutters I gazed out at a world muffled in snow. It must have been snowing steadily all night, and great drifts had piled up on the rock faces, on the bare trees, along the river bank and piled in a great cushion some seven feet deep along the crest of the bridge that joined the house to the mainland. Every window-sill and every projection of the eaves was a fearsome armoury of icicles, and the window-sills were varnished with a thin layer of ice. The sky was dark grey and lowering so that I could see we were in for yet more snow.

  Even if I had wanted to leave the house the roads were already impassable; with another snow fall I would be completely cut off from the outside world. I must say that, thinking back on my experiences of the previous night, this fact made me feel somewhat uneasy. But I chided myself and by the time I had finished dressing I had managed to convince myself that my experience in the blue salon was due to a surfeit of good wine and an over-excited imagination.

  Thus comforting myself I went downstairs, picked up Clair in my arms, called Agrippa to heel and, steeling myself, threw open the door of the blue salon and entered. It was as I had left it, the dirty plates and wine bottle near my chair, the chestnut roots in the fire burnt to a delicate grey ash that stirred slightly at the sudden draught from the open door. But it was the only thing in the room that stirred. Everything was in order. Everything was normal. I heaved a sigh of relief. It was not until I was halfway down the room that I glanced at the mirror. I stopped as suddenly as if I had walked into a brick wall and my blood froze, for I could not believe what I was seeing.

  Reflected in the minor was myself, with the cat in my arms, but there was no dog at my heels; although Agrippa was nosing at my ankles.

  For several seconds I stood there thunderstruck unable to believe the evidence of my own senses, gazing first at the dog at my feet and then at the mirror with no reflection of the animal. I, the cat and the rest of the room were reflected with perfect clarity, but there was no reflection of Agrippa. I dropped the cat on the floor (and she remained reflected by the mirror) and picked up Agrippa in my arms. In the minor I appeared to be carrying an imaginary object in my arms. Hastily I picked up the cat and so, with Clair under one arm and an invisible dog under the other, I left the blue salon and securely locked the door behind me.

  Down in the kitchen I was ashamed to find that my hands were shaking. I gave the animals some milk (and the way Agrippa dealt with his left no doubt he was a flesh and blood animal) and made myself some breakfast. As I fried eggs a
nd some heavily smoked ham, my mind was busy with what I had seen in the blue salon. Unless I was mad — and I had never felt saner in my life — I was forced to admit that I had really experienced what I had seen, incredible though it seemed and indeed still seems to me. Although I was terrified at whatever it was that lurked behind the door in the minor, I was also filled with an overwhelming curiosity, a desire to see whatever creature it was that possessed that gaunt and tallow hand, yellow and emaciated arm.

  I determined that that very evening I would attempt to lure the creature out so that I could examine it. I was filled with horror at what I intended to do, but my curiosity was stronger than my fear. I spent the day cataloguing the books in the study and, when darkness fell, once again lit the fire in the salon, cooked myself some supper, carried it and a bottle of wine upstairs, and settled myself by the hearth. This time, however, I had taken the precaution of arming myself with a stout ebony cane. This gave me a certain confidence though what use a cane was going to be against a looking-glass adversary, heaven only knew. As it turned out, arming myself with the stick was the worst thing I could have done and nearly cost me my life.

  I ate my food, my eyes fixed on the mirror, the two animals lying asleep at my feet as they had done the night before. I finished my meal and still there was no change to the mirror image of the door. I sat back sipping my wine and watching. After an hour or so the fire was burning low. I got up to put some logs on it, and had just settled myself back in my chair when I saw the handle of the mirror door start to turn very slowly. Millimetre by millimetre, the door was pushed open a foot or so. It was incredible that the opening of a door should be charged with such menace, but the slow furtive way it swung across the carpet was indescribably evil.

  Then the hand appeared, again moving very slowly, humping its way across the carpet until the wrist and part of the yellowish forearm was in view. It paused for a moment, lying flaccid on the carpet, then, in a sickening sort of way, started to grope around, as if the creature in control of the hand was blind.

  Now it seemed to me was the moment to put my carefully thought-out plan into operation. I had deliberately starved Clair so that she would be hungry; now I woke her up and waved under her nose a piece of meat which I had brought up from the kitchen for this purpose. Her eyes widened and she let out a loud mew of excitement. I waved the meat under her nose until she was frantic to get the morsel and then I threw it down the room so that it landed on the carpet near the firmly closed door of the salon. In the mirror I could see that it had landed near, but not too near the reflection of the hand which was still groping about blindly.

  Uttering a loud wail of hunger, Clair sped down the room after it. I had hoped that the cat would be so far away from the door that it would tempt the creature out into the open, but I soon realized that I had thrown the meat too close to the door. As Clair’s reflection stopped and the cat bent down to take the meat in her mouth, the hand ceased its blind groping. Shooting out with incredible speed, it seized Clair by the tail and dragged the cat, struggling and twisting, behind the door. As before, after a moment the hand reappeared, curved round the door and slowly drew it shut, leaving bloody fingerprints on the woodwork.

  I think what made the whole thing doubly horrible was the contrast between the speed and ferocity with which the hand grabbed its prey, and the slow, furtive way it opened and closed the door. Clair now returned with the meat in her mouth to eat it in comfort by the fire and, like Agrippa, seemed none the worse for now having no reflection. Although I waited up until after midnight the hand did not appear again. I took the animals and went to bed, determined that on the morrow I would work out a plan that would force the thing behind the door to show itself.

  By evening on the following day I had finished my preliminary sorting and listing of the books on the ground floor of the house. The next step was to move upstairs to where the bulk of the library was housed in the Long Gallery. I felt somewhat tired that day and so, towards five o’clock, decided to take a turn outside to get some fresh air into my lungs. Alas for my hopes! It had been snowing steadily since my arrival and now the glistening drifts were so high I could not walk through them. The only way out of the central courtyard and across the bridge would have been to dig a path, and this would have been through snow lying in a great crusty blanket some six feet deep. Some of the icicles hanging from the guttering, the window ledges and the gargoyles were four or five feet long and as thick as my arm.

  The animals would not accompany me, but I tried walking a few steps into this spacious white world, as silent and as cold as the bottom of a well. The snow squeaked protestingly, like mice, beneath my shoes and I sank in over my knees and soon had to struggle back to the house. The snow was still falling in flakes as big as dandelion clocks, thickening the white piecrusts on the roof ridges and gables. There was that complete silence that snow brings, no sound, no bird song, no whine of wind, just an almost tangible silence, as though the living world had been gagged with a crisp white scarf.

  Rubbing my frozen hands I hastened inside, closed the front door and hastened down to the kitchen to prepare my evening meal. While this was cooking I lit the fire in the blue salon once more, and when the food was ready carried it up there as had become my habit, the animals accompanying me. Once again I armed myself with my stout stick and this gave me a small measure of comfort. I ate my food and drank my wine, watching the mirror, but the hand did not put in an appearance. Where was it, I wondered. Did it stalk about and explore a reflection of the house that lay behind the door, a reflection I could not see? Or did it only exist when it became a reflection in the mirror that I looked at? Musing on this I dozed, warmed by the fire, and presently slept deeply, which I had not meant to do. I must have slept for about an hour when I was suddenly shocked awake by the sound of a voice, a thin cracked voice, singing shrilly.

  “Auprès de ma blonde, auprès de ma blonde,

  Qu’il fait bon dormir . . .”

  This was followed by a grating peal of hysterical laughter.

  Half asleep as I was, it was a moment before I realized that the singing and laughter came from Octavius. The shock of suddenly hearing a human voice like that was considerable, and my heart was racing. I glanced down the room and saw that the cages containing the canaries and Octavius were still as I had placed them. Then I glanced in the mirror and sat transfixed in my chair. I suffered a revulsion and terror that surpassed anything that I had felt up until then. My wish had been granted and the thing from behind the door had appeared. As I watched it, how fervently I wished to God that I had left well alone, that I had locked the blue salon after the first night and never revisited it.

  The creature — I must call it that, for it seemed scarcely human — was small and hump-backed and clad in what I could only believe was a shroud, a yellowish linen garment spotted with gobbets of dirt and mould, torn in places where the fabric had worn thin, pulled over the thing’s head and twisted round, like a scarf. At that moment, all that was visible of its face was a tattered fringe of faded orange hair on a heavily lined forehead and two large, pale-yellow eyes that glared with the fierce, impersonal arrogance of a goat. Below them the shroud was twisted round and held in place by one of the thing’s pale, black-nailed hands.

  It was standing behind the big cage that had contained the canaries. The cage was now twisted and wrenched and disembowelled like a horse in a bull ring, and covered with a cloud of yellow feathers that stuck to the bloodstains on the bars. I noticed that there were a few yellow feathers between the fingers of the creature’s hand. As I watched, it moved from the remains of the canary cage to the next table where the parrot cage had been placed. It moved slowly and limped heavily, appearing more to drag one foot after the other than anything else. It reached the cage, in which the reflection of Octavius was weaving from side to side on his perch.

  The real bird in the room with me was still singing and cackling with laughter periodically. In the mirror the creature stud
ied the parrot in its cage with its ferocious yellow eyes. Then, suddenly, the thing’s hand shot out and the fingers entwined themselves in the bars of the cage and wrenched and twisted them apart.

  While both hands were thus occupied the piece of shroud that had been covering the face fell away and revealed the most disgusting face I have ever seen. Most of the features below the eyes appeared to have been eaten away, either by decay or some disease akin to leprosy. Where the nose should have been there were just two black holes with tattered rims. The whole of one cheek was missing and so the upper and lower jaw, with mildewed gums and decaying teeth, were displayed. Trickles of saliva flooded out from the mouth and dripped down into the folds of the shroud. What was left of the lips were serrated with fine wrinkles, so that they looked as though they had been stitched together and the cotton pulled tight.

  What made the whole thing even worse, as a macabre spectacle, was that on one of the creature’s disgusting fingers it wore a large gold ring in which an opal flashed like flame as its hands moved, twisting the metal of the cage. This refinement on such a corpse-like apparition only served to enhance its repulsive appearance.

  Presently it had twisted the wires enough so that there was room for it to put its hands inside the cage. The parrot was still bobbing and weaving on his perch, and the real Octavius was still singing and laughing. The creature grabbed the parrot in the reflection and it flapped and struggled in its hands, while Octavius continued to sing. It dragged the bird from the broken cage, lifted it to its obscene mouth and cracked the parrot’s skull as it would a nut. Then, with enjoyment, it started to suck the brains from the shattered skull, feathers and fragments of brain and skull mixing with the saliva that fell from the thing’s mouth on to the shroud.