The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

small. But are they? No. They are large. Some are very large. Why, I remember –’

‘Mr Kestrel,’ said Mrs Grass.

‘Yes, my dear lady?’

‘You have a vile habit, dear.’

‘What is it, for heaven’s sake? Tell me about it that I may crush it.’

‘You are too close, my pet. But too close. We have our little areas you know. Like the home waters, dear, or fishing rights. Don’t trespass, dear. Withdraw a little. You know what I mean, don’t you? Privacy is so important.’

Young Kestrel turned the colour of a boiled lobster and retreated from Mrs Grass who, turning her head to him, by way of forgiveness switched on a light in her face, or so it seemed to Kestrel, a light that inflamed the air about them with a smile like an eruption. This had the effect of drawing the dazzled Kestrel back to her side, where he stayed, bathing himself in her beauty.

‘Cosy again,’ she whispered.

Kestrel nodded his head and trembled with excitement until Mr Grass, forcing his way through a wall of guests, brought his foot down sharply upon Kestrel’s instep. With a gasp of pain, young Kestrel turned for sympathy to the peerless lady at his side, only to find that her radiant smile was now directed at her own husband where it remained for a few moments before she turned her back on them both and, switching off the current, she gazed across the room with an aspect quite drained of animation.

‘On the other hand,’ said the tall Spill, addressing the man in the lion’s pelt, ‘there is something in the young man’s question. This wilderness of yours. Will you tell us more about it?’

‘But oh! But do!’ rang out the voice of Mrs Grass, as she gripped the lion’s pelt cruelly.

‘When I say “wilderness”,’ said the lion, ‘I only speak of the heart. It is Mr Acreblade that you should ask. His wasteland is the very earth itself.’

‘Ah me, that Wasteland,’ said Acreblade, jutting out his chin, ‘knuckled with ferrous mountains. Peopled with termites, jackals, and to the north-west – hermits.’

‘And what were you doing out there?’ said Mr Spill.

‘I shadowed a suspect. A youth not known in these parts. He stumbled ahead of me in the sandstorm, a vague shape. Sometimes I lost him altogether. Sometimes I all but found myself beside him, and was forced to retreat a little way. Sometimes I heard his singing, mad, wild, inconsequential songs. Sometimes he shouted out as though he were delirious – words that sounded like “Fuchsia”, “Flay” and other names. Sometimes he cried out “Mother!” and once he fell on his knees and cried, “Gormenghast, Gormenghast, come back to me again!”’

‘It was not for me to arrest him – but to follow him, for my superiors informed me his papers were not in order, or even in existence.

‘But on the second evening the dust rose up more terribly than ever, and as it rose it blinded me so that I lost him in a red and gritty cloud. I could not find him, and I never found him again.’

‘Darling.’

‘What is it?’

‘Look at Gumshaw.’

‘Why?’

‘His polished pate reflects a brace of candles.’

‘Not from where I am.’

‘No?’

‘No. But look – to the left of centre I see a tiny image, one might almost say of a boy’s face, were it not that faces are unlikely things to grow on ceilings.’

‘Dreams. One always comes back to dreams.’

‘But the silver whip RK 2053722220 – the moon circles, first of the new –’

‘Yes, I know all about that.’

‘But love was nowhere near.’

‘The sky was smothered with planes. Some of them, though pilotless, were bleeding.’

‘Ah, Mr Flax, how is your son?’

‘He died last Wednesday.’

‘Forgive me, I am so sorry.’

‘Are you? I’m not. I never liked him. But mark you – an excellent swimmer. He was captain of his school.’

‘This heat is horrible.’

‘Ah, Lady Crowgather, let me present the Duke of Crowgather; but perhaps you have met already?’

‘Many times. Where are the cucumber sandwiches?’

‘Allow me –’

‘Oh I beg your pardon. I mistook your foot for a tortoise. What is happening?’

‘No, indeed, I do not like it.’