The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

‘Good night, Alfred.’

‘Good night, O thicker-than-water.’

Irma disappeared into the upper darkness.

‘And now,’ said the Doctor, placing his immaculate hands on his brittle and elegant knees, and rising at the same time on his toes, so that Fuchsia had the strongest impression that he was about to fall forwards on his speculative and smiling face … ‘and now, my Fuchsia, I think we’ve had enough of the hall, don’t you?’ and he led the girl into his study.

‘Now if you’ll draw the blinds and if I pull up that green arm-chair, we will be comfortable, affable, incredible and almost insufferable in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, won’t we?’ he said. ‘By all that’s unanswerable, we will!’

Fuchsia, pulling at the curtain, felt something give way and a loose sail of velvet hung across the glass.

‘O Doctor Prune I’m sorry – I’m sorry,’ she said, almost in tears.

‘Sorry! Sorry!’ cried the Doctor. ‘How dare you pity me! How dare you humiliate me! You know very well that I can do that sort of thing better than you. I’m an old man; I admit it. Nearly fifty summers have seeped through me. But there’s life in me yet. But you don’t think so. No! By all that’s cruel, you don’t. But I’ll show you. Catch me.’ And the Doctor striding like a heron to a further window ripped the long curtain from its runner, and whirling it round himself stood swathed before her like a long green chrysalis, with the pale sharp eager features of his bright face emerging at the top like something from another life.

‘There!’ he said.

A year ago Fuchsia would have laughed until her sides were sore. Even at the moment it was wonderfully funny. But she couldn’t laugh. She knew that he loved doing such a thing. She knew he loved to put her at her ease – and she had been put at her ease, for she no longer felt embarrassed, but she also knew that she should be laughing, and she couldn’t feel the humour, she could only know it. For within the last year she had developed, not naturally, but on a zig-zag course. The emotions and the tags of half-knowledge which came to her, fought and jostled, upsetting one another, so that what was natural to her appeared un-natural, and she lived from minute to minute, grappling with each like a lost explorer in a dream who is now in the arctic, now on the equator, now upon rapids, and now alone on endless tracts of sand.

‘O Doctor,’ she said, ‘thank you. That is very, very kind and funny.’

She had turned her head away, but now she looked up and found he had already disengaged himself of the curtain and was pushing a chair towards her.

‘What is worrying you, Fuchsia?’ he said. They were both sitting down. The dark night stared in at them through the curtainless windows.

She leant forwards and as she did so she suddenly looked older. It was as though she had taken a grip of her mind – to have, in a way, grown up to the span of her nineteen years.

‘Several important things, Doctor Prune,’ she said. ‘I want to ask you about them … if I may.’

Prunesquallor looked up sharply. This was a new Fuchsia. Her tone had been perfectly level. Perfectly adult.

‘Of course you may, Fuchsia. What are they?’

‘The first thing is, what happened to my father, Dr Prune?’

The Doctor leaned back in his chair, as she stared at him he put his hand to his forehead.

‘Fuchsia,’ he said. ‘Whatever you ask I will try to answer. I won’t evade your questions. And you must believe me. What happened to your father, I do not know. I only know that he was very ill – and you remember that as well as I do – just as you remember his disappearance. If anyone alive knows what happened to him, I do not know who that man might be unless it is either Flay, or Swelter who also disappeared at the same time.’

‘Mr Flay is alive, Dr Prune.’

‘No!’ said the Doctor. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Titus has seen him, Doctor. More than once.’

‘Titus!’

‘Yes, Doctor, in the woods. But it’s a secret. You won’t …’

‘Is he well? Is he able to keep well? What did Titus say about him?’

‘He lives in a cave and hunts for his food. He asked after me. He is very loyal.’

‘Poor old Flay!’ said the Doctor. ‘Poor old faithful Flay. But you mustn’t see him, Fuchsia. It would do nothing but harm. I cannot have you getting into trouble.’

‘But my father,’ cried Fuchsia. ‘You said he might know about my father! He may be alive, Dr Prune. He may be alive!’

‘No. No. I don’t believe he is,’ said the Doctor. ‘I don’t believe so, Fuchsia.’

‘But Doctor. Doctor! I must see Flay. He loved me. I want to take him something.’

‘No Fuchsia. You mustn’t go. Perhaps you will see him again – but you will become distressed – more distressed than you are now, if you start escaping from the castle. And Titus also. This is all very wrong. He is not old enough to be so wild and secret. God bless me – what else does he say?’

‘This is all in secret. Doctor.’

‘Yes – yes, Fuchsia. Of course it is.’

‘He has seen something.’