The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

at home. Far from it. The swaying motion was prodigiously feminine. Her long neck was similar to her brother’s, tactlessly so, as would have been her face had not a fair portion of it been mercifully obscured by her black glasses: but their major dissimilarity was manifest in their pelvic zone. The Doctor (for it was Prunesquallor) showed about as much sign of having a pair of hips as an eel set upon its end, while Irma, in white silk, had gone out of her way, it appeared, to exhibit to their worst advantage (her waist being ridiculously tight) a pair of hips capable of balancing upon their osseous shelves enough bric-a-brac to clutter up a kleptomaniac’s cupboard.

‘The top of the morning to you, my dears,’ trilled the Doctor; ‘and when I say “top” I mean the last cubic inch of it that sits, all limpid-like on a crest of ether, ha, ha, ha.’

Fuchsia was glad to see the Doctor. She liked him, for all his windy verbiage.

Irma, who had hardly been out of doors since that dreadful day when she disgraced herself at the Burning, was making every effort to re-establish herself as a lady – a lady, it is true, who had lapsed, but a lady nevertheless, and this effort at re-establishment was pathetically ostentatious. Her dresses were cut still lower across her bosom; her peerless, milky skin appearing to cover a couple of perches at least. She made even more play with her hips which swayed when she talked as though, like a great bell, they were regulated and motivated by a desire to sound, for they did all but chime as her sharp, unpleasant voice (so contrasted to the knell her pelvis might have uttered) dictated their figure-of-eight (bird’s-eye view, cross section) patternations.

Her long, sharp nose was directed at Fuchsia.

‘Dear child,’ said Irma, ‘are you enjoying the delicious breeze, then, dear child? I said are you enjoying the delicious breeze? Of course. Irrefutably and more so, I have no doubt whatever.’ She smiled, but there was no mirth in her smile, the muscles of her face complying only so far as to move in the directions dictated, but refusing to enter into the spirit of the thing – not that there was any.

‘Tut tut!’ said her brother in a tone which implied that it was unnecessary to answer his sister’s conventional openings; and he sat down at Fuchsia’s side and flashed her a crocodile smile with gold stoppings.

‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ said Fuchsia.

He patted her on the knee in a friendly staccato way, and then turned to Nannie.

‘Mrs Slagg,’ he said, laying great emphasis upon the ‘Mrs’ as though it was some unique prefix, ‘and how are you? How’s the blood-stream, my dear, invaluable little woman? How’s the blood-stream? Come, come, let your doctor know.’

Nannie edged a little closer to Fuchsia, who sat between them, and peered at the Doctor around her shoulder.

‘It’s quite comfortable, sir … I think, sir, thank you,’ she said.

‘Aha!’ said Prunesquallor, stroking his smooth chin, ‘a comfortable stream, is it? Aha! v-e-r-y good. V-e-r-y good. Dawdling lazily ’twixt hill and hill, no doubt. Meandering through groves of bone, threading the tissues and giving what sustenance it can to your dear old body, Mrs Slagg. I am so glad. But in yourself – right deep down in yourself – how do you feel? Carnally speaking, are you at peace – from the dear grey hairs of your head to the patter of your little feet – are you at peace?’

‘What does he mean, dear?’ said poor Mrs Slagg, clutching Fuchsia’s arm.

‘Oh, my poor heart, what does the Doctor mean?’

‘He wants to know if you feel well or not,’ said Fuchsia.

Nannie turned her red-rimmed eyes to the shock-headed, smooth-skinned man, whose eyes behind their magnifying spectacles swam and bulged.

‘Come, come, my dear Mrs Slagg I’m not going to eat you. Oh, dear no. Not even with some toast to pop you on, and a little pepper and salt. Not a bit of it. You have been unwell, oh dear, yes – since the conflagration. My dear woman, you have been unwell – most unwell, and most naturally. But are you better – that’s what your doctor wants to know – are you better?’

Nannie opened her puckered little mouth. ‘I ebbs and I flows, sir,’ she said, ‘and I falls away like.’ Then she turned her head to Fuchsia very quickly as though to make sure she was still there, the glass grapes tinkling on her hat.

Doctor Prunesquallor brought forth a large silk handkerchief and began to dab his forehead. Irma, after a good deal of difficulty, presumably with whalebones and such like, had managed to sit down on the rug amid a good deal of creaking as of pulleys, cranks, hawsers and fish-hooks. She did not approve of sitting on the ground, but she was tired of looking down on their heads and decided to risk a brief interlude of unladyness. She was staring at Titus and saying to herself: ‘If that were my child I should cut his hair, especially with his position to keep up.’

‘And what does your “ebbing” consist of?’ said the Doctor, returning his silk handkerchief to his pocket. ‘Is it your heart that’s tidal – or your nerves – or your liver, bless you – or a general weariness of the flesh?’

‘I get tired,’ said Mrs Slagg. ‘I get so tired, sir. I have everything to do.’ The poor old lady began to tremble.

‘Fuchsia,’ said the Doctor, ‘come along this evening and I’ll give you a tonic which you must make her take every day. By all that’s amaranthine you really must. Balsam and swansdown, Fuchsia dear, cygnets and the eider bird, she must take it every day – syrup on the nerves, dear, and fingers cool as tombs for her old, old brow.’

‘Nonsense,’ said his sister. ‘I said nonsense, Bernard.’

‘And here,’ continued Doctor Prunesquallor, taking no notice of his sister’s interjection, ‘is Titus. Apparisoned in a rag torn from the sun itself, ha, ha, ha! How vast he is getting! But how solemn.’ He made clucking noises in his cheek. ‘The great day draws near, doesn’t it?’

‘Do you mean the “Earling”?’ said Fuchsia.

‘No less,’ said Prunesquallor, his head on one side.

‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘it is in four days’ time. They are making the raft.’ Then suddenly, as though she could hold back the burden of her thoughts no longer: ‘Oh, Doctor Prune, I must talk to you! May I see you soon? Soon? Don’t use long words with me when we’re alone, dear Doctor, like you sometimes do, because I’m so … well … because I’ve got – I’ve got worries. Doctor Prune.’