The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy полностью

‘Dear lady,’ he said. ‘If I am a bore, who made me so?’

‘Well who did darling?’

‘It’s a long story –’

‘Then we’ll skip it, shall we?’

She turned herself slowly, swivelling on her pelvis until her small conical breasts, directed at Mr Kestrel, were for all the world like some kind of delicious threat. Her husband, Mr Grass, who had seen this manoeuvre at least a hundred times, yawned horribly.

‘Tell me,’ said Mrs Grass, as she let loose upon Mr Kestrel a fresh broadside of naked eroticism, ‘tell me, dear Mr Acreblade, all about yourself.’

Mr Acreblade, not really enjoying being addressed in this off-hand manner by Mrs Grass, turned to her husband.

‘Your wife is very special. Very rare. Conducive to speculation. She talks to me through the back of her head, staring at Kestrel the while.’

‘But that is as it should be!’ cried Kestrel, his eyes swimming over with excitement, ‘for life must be various, incongruous, vile and electric. Life must be ruthless and as full of love as may be found in a jaguar’s fang.’

‘I like the way you talk, young man,’ said Grass, ‘but I don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘What are you mumbling about?’ said the lofty Spill, bending one of his arms like the branch of a tree and cupping his ear with a bunch of twigs.

‘You are somewhat divine,’ whispered Kestrel, addressing Mrs Grass.

‘I think I spoke to you, dear,’ said Mrs Grass over her shoulder to Mr Acreblade.

‘Your wife is talking to me again,’ said Acreblade to Mr Grass. ‘Let’s hear what she has to say.’

‘You talk about my wife in a very peculiar way,’ said Grass. ‘Does she annoy you?’

‘She would if I lived with her,’ said Acreblade. ‘What about you?’

‘O, but my dear chap, how naïve you are! Being married to her I seldom see her. What is the point of getting married if one is always bumping into one’s wife? One might as well not be married. Oh no dear fellow, she does what she wants. It is quite a coincidence that we found each other here tonight. You see? And we enjoy it – it’s like first love all over again without the heartache – without the heart in fact. Cold love’s the loveliest love of all. So clear, so crisp, so empty. In short, so civilized.’

‘You are out of a legend,’ said Kestrel, in a voice that was so muffled with passion that Mrs Grass was quite unaware that she had been addressed.

‘I’m as hot as a boiled turnip,’ said Mr Spill.

‘But tell me, you horrid man, how do I feel?’ cried Mrs Grass as she saw a newcomer, lacerating her beauty with the edge of her voice. ‘I’m looking so well these days, even my husband said so, and you know what husbands are.’

‘I have no idea what they are,’ said the fox-like man newly arrived at her elbow, ‘but you must tell me. What are they? I only know what they become … and perhaps … what drove them to it.’

‘Oh, but you are clever. Wickedly clever. But you must tell me all. How am I, darling?’

The fox-like man (a narrow-chested creature with reddish hair above his ears, a very sharp nose and a brain far too large for him to manage with comfort) replied:

‘You are feeling, my dear Mrs Grass, in need of something sweet. Sugar, bad music, or something of that kind might do for a start.’

The black-eyed creature, her lips half open, her teeth shining like pearls, her eyes fixed with excited animation on the foxy face before her, clasped her delicate hands together at her conical breasts.

‘You’re quite right! O, but quite!’ she said breathlessly. ‘So absolutely and miraculously right, you brilliant, brilliant little man; something sweet is what I need!’

Meanwhile Mr Acreblade was making room for a long-faced character dressed in a lion’s pelt. Over his head and shoulders was a black mane.

‘Isn’t it a bit hot in there?’ said young Kestrel.

‘I am in agony,’ said the man in the tawny skin.

‘Then why?’ said Mrs Grass.

‘I thought it was Fancy Dress,’ said the skin, ‘but I mustn’t complain. Everyone has been most kind.’

‘That doesn’t help the heat you’re generating in there,’ said Mr Acreblade. ‘Why don’t you just whip it off?’

‘It is all I have on,’ said the lion’s pelt.

‘How delicious,’ cried Mrs Grass, ‘you thrill me utterly. Who are you?’

‘But my dear,’ said the lion, looking at Mrs Grass, ‘surely you …’

‘What is it, O King of Beasts?’

‘Can’t you remember me?’

‘Your nose seems to ring a bell,’ said Mrs Grass.

Mr Spill lowered his head out of the clouds of smoke. Then he swivelled it until it lay alongside Mr Kestrel. ‘What did she say?’ he asked.

‘She’s worth a million,’ said Kestrel. ‘Lively, luscious, what a plaything!’

‘Plaything?’ said Mr Spill. ‘How do you mean?’

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Kestrel.

The lion scratched himself with a certain charm. Then he addressed Mrs Grass.

‘So my nose rings a bell – is that all? Have you forgotten me? Me! Your onetime Harry?’

‘Harry? What … my …?’

‘Yes, your Second. Way back in time. We were married, you remember, in Tyson Street.’