Imbroglio

by Andrew McEwan

Tom re-affixed the hand, teasing an adjuster screw until finally satisfied of that appendage’s working condition. All he required now was food. The outside temperature was two degrees, a thick slush in the street, kerbside where the traffic had swept it. He checked his operations manual one last time. His lungs worked. He waited the few minutes it took for the hand to warm up; a spare, the original having malfunctioned, returned to the suitcase along with the tool pack and various tubes of adhesive. He was alive, he told himself. For a purpose.

  What purpose would become clear. He left the crumbling toilet block and headed toward light and sound, a restaurant or café. Italian. Tom emptied several plates of sauce-coated pasta of various design and recipe along with two bottles of house red, left a large tip from the fat wallet with which he’d been provided, before walking happily the short distance to a Travel Lodge recommended by his waiter, Antonio who winked and smiled. ‘Please come back soon, sir…’ His room had a view of the river.

  In the morning he would deposit the suitcase in a locker at the station and buy himself new clothes. Tonight though was for dreaming…

  A knuckle rapped a dial, its fluctuation no immediate cause for concern

  ‘Problem?’

  The knuckle’s owner, a hellish technician, shrugged.

  ‘How many cards?’

  He put the pencil aside having not marked the sheet.

  Tom’s eyelids shuttered open. Above him on the ceiling scrolled numbers, sevens and eights predominant, rolling like the numerals of a petrol pump. His head filled with something intangible as he lay paralysed, semiconscious, its full measure taking several hours to assimilate. Eyes drying out, he lay unmoving till dawn, then jerked fully awake, threw himself to the floor and, teeth clamped round a chair leg, waited for the shaking to stop and the pain to go away.

  He tasted fear for days.

  Part of him enjoyed it…sensation still new to him, unresolved, the threat of violence and the promise of joy both equally palatable, touch and smell, sight and sound that in the living world abounded.

  The possibilities were endless.

  And he explored them, a lifetime’s education in love, sex and death crammed into the space of three months, by which point he’d established a career, a reputation, a history and a pattern of erratic behaviour that unbeknownst to Tom had his programmers in a flap, desperately trying to both catch and cover their arses, lying to one committee after another. The mission was on track, they stated in their reports, filed whenever a committee convened. All was well. The missing humour had been identified as melancholy and would be recovered forthwith.

  April, however, saw delusions and the onset of paranoia.

  He forgot who he was and why. He walked the streets reading car number plates and counting lamp-posts.

  He called himself Michael and imagined a childhood, the past becoming something he’d experienced, not acquired.

  So where did that leave him? Other than Hell, by whatever name, in the company now of Herschel Byrd, who (like Michael?) sought the truth.

  Only Byrd told him he was somewhere else. Earth, in fact, and this body was just a representation of his true, mechanical self.

  The adjudicator had clothed him at least, in suit and tie.

  He looked like an accountant.

  Byrd picked his teeth.

  ‘How do I get back?’

  ‘You can’t; someone has to find you. A nuisance, I agree – more interesting is why you’re here in the first place.’

  ‘The package…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The Devil.’ He gazed around at barstools stacked on tables and fruit machines flashing lights. ‘It was addressed to him. Mr Unger-Farmer up the street.’

  ‘I’m not familiar with the name,’ said Byrd, fiddling with the umbrella in his drink.

  ‘An alias, I’d assume.’

  ‘Yes…’

  He was failing to make a good impression, Michael saw. He felt as he had once at a job interview.

  ‘What do you suppose was in this package? Didn’t you open it?’

  ‘No; it seemed empty. Just a square box. It was important though. I could tell that. It had a quality. A weight without mass.’

  Curiouser and curiouser, Herschel thought. Just what was that bitch up to? Obviously the manifestation was involved. He was her painter, after all.

  Something occurred to the love apple. ‘I’m not dead then?’

  ‘It wouldn’t seem so. Why do you ask?’

  He remembered the blue presence in the whore’s keep. Had that entity been rescued?

  By whom?

  ‘No reason. I mean, if I’m not here, as you say…’ He couldn’t trust the adjudicator; or anyone, in fact. His own faculties were suspect. The man wished to pick his brain, to scrape it out. Like emptying half a grapefruit.

  ‘Why don’t you start at the beginning. That way we can piece together your movements and perhaps uncover something of your mission.’

  But there were gaps. Smaller gaps than he’d have Byrd believe, but gaps none the less.

  ‘Another drink?’

  ‘Eh - thanks.’

  His glass filled, as did the bar with well-heeled professionals in skirts and slacks, smoking and drinking and munching crisps. Not how he’d imagined Hell, that vision played out in the spaces between the bricks in the wall Ramch had crossed, or thought to cross, his memory of it sketchy, the blood on his hands not having stained. And his hair, grown again. Odd.

 

  ‘Melancholy,’ the fat whore said. ‘Such a tiresome thing. We’re well rid of it.’

  ‘But for how long, angel? It’s sure to return.’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to lose it again,’ she stated. ‘Three humours are quite enough.’

  The brown man demurred.

  ‘Blood, phlegm, choler; these are humours to indulge, Victor. Melancholy is for wallowing in.’

  ‘Yes. Only…’

  She stroked his cheeks. ‘Why don’t you see how that snoop Herschel Byrd is getting on?’

  His anus tightened. ‘Me?’

  ‘Of course. You’re not scared of him, are you?’

  ‘No,’ said Victor Formica.

  ‘Then do the spying job; I’ve clients to see.’

  May.

  Stood in the road he had the sudden desire to walk in front of a bus. Easy, he could simply pause, or run, whatever it took to be simultaneous with a double-decker, and afterward in several pieces, bloodied and ruined, a smile on his face – no doubt – the passengers concerned with destinations delayed, not corpses under-tyres, peering at their tickets as if to make a point. Shoppers would gather and gesticulate, picking out individual organs, teeth and excrement. Policemen would push their hats back on their heads and be glad the weren’t with the ambulance crew. Those guys would have to use spades and pick remains out of the asphalt. Or maybe they’d leave those bits. He wasn’t familiar with the workings of the emergency services. High pressure hoses perhaps…

  Or not. Ignoring the impulse he reached the kerb and other streaming folk. But something in his head kept yelling “jump”.

  He fought it, blistered and bruised, waking up in thorn bushes, sleeping in strange beds, the girl, the boy, the traffic cone unidentified, simply that which he fled from come morning, afternoon fuelled by alcohol, sure of the man following, the woman ahead. An unusual feeling. His face pressed against the windscreen of a family unknown, father, mother, two kids, so familiar, yet alien, entirely separate lives. But there, this close to him, real and actual human beings, men and women whose experiences were entirely outside of his, the other side of glass dirtied with insects and smeared by artificial illumination.

  He did not understand. He cried nights. He carved. He painted. He made tracings of gravestones and felt close to the dead, the occupants of soil under granite who probably couldn’t give a shit, laughing at his weaknesses, the story of his distemper keeping them in worms for weeks.
Hey, they’d made it, they’d left, successful in that departure and contemptible of his fear and guilt…

  Don’t bring that with you, they suggested.

  We don’t want to know.

  Adapt.

  That was their message, what he read from newspapers and advertisement hoarding, what he slept under and wiped his bottom with.

  Survive.

  There was no easy way out.

  How about a way in then?

  That he could paint, or sculpt, or live.

  Or, as of now, imbibe.

  He needed to fall in love…

  And did, at a checkout, the love apple flushed, all thoughts of Columbine packed away in an attic and all thoughts of a robotic heritage displaced, forgotten along with missing humours and the proximity of the Devil, Mr Unger-Farmer or whoever at his door a revelation he failed to comprehend. In all save panic. He knew, on a cellular level, whatever his cells might be composed of, the evil he confronted; he understood it. What confused him was the predilection the evil had for wearing different hats.

  If only it would dress the same twice.

 

  June.

  Redbear! Well met. But what’s this? A dissolving of consciousness, the colours bleeding and the textures nondescript, lost under numb fingers, digits criss-crossed with cuts, desensitised, impressed on the windowsills of victims the untraceable imprints of the man charged with electricity, his earth as his live, blessedly neutral.

  Questions were asked…

  By law enforcement officers.

  Someone had downloaded pornographic images from the Internet, blown them up to advertisement size and pasted them to hoarding along with by-lines along the lines of: Losing Interest? Or: How Close Is The Next Vehicle?

  They seemed to think Michael had the right printing industry connections. But he denied everything.

  ‘Big flies,’ Redbear suggested.

  Insect anarchists.

  The policemen pulled at their collars, peculiarly nervous.

 

  Sylvester came to with his head in a toilet. He felt perfectly fine. Peering in a bathroom mirror in a bathroom he didn’t recognize he pulled his lips back over his teeth and shuddered. The mirror fronted a cabinet stocked with toothpaste and brush, which he used, wondering to whom they belonged. There was soap in a dish. And razors. Realizing the possibilities he stripped naked and took a shower, shaved next and combed his hair. He couldn’t bear to dress in his old clothes however, so left the bathroom in a towel.

  The phone rang downstairs. He waited to see if anyone answered.

  No. Nobody home. He walked into a bedroom and looked in cupboards and drawers, finding ordinary trousers and shirts, a man’s things, with the exception of several items of lingerie among socks paired and arranged across a spectrum of colours. The obvious neatness worried him. Looking again at the shirts on the wardrobe rail he found a similar pattern, left to right, pale to dark, all on identical hangars and facing the same direction. But if the socks and shirts were panchromatic the suits, trousers and jackets were monochrome, silvers and blacks, as were the shoes. He dressed quickly, choosing dark grey wool over peach cotton with yellow cotton beneath charcoal leather. And a tie?

  The phone rang again. There were no ties he could see. He ran downstairs and picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Ah, Mr Unger-Farmer, you’re home.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mr Unger-Farmer?’

  ‘No – he’s not here…’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said the voice, a man’s. ‘It’s just you sounded a lot like him. Do you know when he’ll be home, or where I might contact him? It’s a matter of some urgency.’

  ‘No. I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay. I expect he’s still abroad.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sylvester. ‘I got a postcard from him, from Laos.’

  ‘Laos? Goodness. Well, if you see him, when he gets back, ask him to give Mr Twopenny a call.’

  ‘Right. I’ll do that.’

  ‘Excellent. Goodbye. Mr…?’

  ‘Jones.’

  ‘Mr Jones.’

  He hung up, strangely amused. So that was the householder’s name. But what was he doing here? Did he know the man?

  Sylvester began an exploration. The kitchen first, high-tech and spotless, all gleaming stainless steel and burnished aluminium, excepting the fridge which was red. Beyond lay an unremarkable utility room, the contrast lying in its ancient wash-tub and mangle, antiques from an age before electricity when to launder was a chore requiring the efforts of muscle and soap. He pictured heavy-set washerwomen pounding the stains from underwear, dewlaps swinging above massive breasts, forearms to make Popeye jealous and fingers that were no more than stumps. It was a wonder the clothes survived. On a shelf were ranked (he counted them) thirteen bottles of bleach, nine unopened boxes of Brillo pads, four cast irons of different size and weight, a framed picture of Mussolini and two empty brass candle holders. The portrait was signed, he noticed. The dining-room next.

  More portraits, black and white and colour. Some of the faces looked vaguely familiar, but Sylvester couldn’t put a name to any. The room boasted a large mahogany table with eight chairs, routinely carved and upholstered, a centuries old sideboard, cracked and oak, wood panelled walls and ceiling in what proved to be ply, and a carpet worn through to the underlay. Folding doors separated it from a living-room whose view was taken up by an impenetrable-looking hedge, containing a TV whose enormous screen was concave and housed in a bright pink cabinet. Newspapers and video tapes littered the floor, none in boxes or with titles. Nowhere could he see a VCR. Two huge leather armchairs occupied the room, much worn, a standard lamp being the only other furniture besides a gas fire.

  He sat in one, feeling at home. It was comfortable. Under the newspapers were bare boards. And in one corner a cat litter tray.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Sylvester froze, feeling suddenly vulnerable. The living-room was invisible from the road but there was nothing to stop a caller nosing in through the bay window. He scuttled to the door and peeked round into the hallway. The front door was robust, with an oval window in stained glass beyond which lurked a shadow. Masculine. Tall. The knock again, resounding in a passage of peeling wallpaper and dusty picture frames. The letterbox hinged and an envelope dropped through, falling among a small mound of unopened correspondence, junk mail and papers.

  Bizarrely, he wondered if Mr Unger-Farmer had remembered to cancel his milk.

  The envelope was unsealed. The figure gone, he tip-toed over, finding it contained a thick wad of used notes secured by a crumbling elastic band.

  Pocketing the windfall Sylvester rummaged through the pile, discarding letters and pizza menus in a search for something more interesting. He paused once to silently question his motives. Theft? Clues? Rabid curiosity? Into this last category fell a delivery card from TNT.

  A package, it stated, left at an address he surmised was nearby.

  Returning to the armchair he pondered his fate, how it was he came to be here, and why he ought to linger.

  At least till Mr Unger-Farmer got back…

  He counted the money. Twelve thousand pounds.

  But he couldn’t remember yesterday.

  Twenty One: The Picture